He said, ‘Let’s get the general picture. You said there was a river and someone swimming naked. How many people are there in the poem?’
Hattie replied, ‘Two. The speaker and the swimmer.’
‘Good. And who are they?’
‘Who are they? Oh, well, I suppose the poet and some friend — ’
Father Bernard’s imagination had, in taking charge of the poem, taken advantage of the fact that the sex of the swimmer was not specified. In the blessed free-for-all of fantasy he had pictured the charming companion, whose underwear slides off with the languid ease of a bird’s flight, as a boy. The final image was particularly precious to him of the young thing diving in and rising into the wave of his plunge, tossing back his wet hair and laughing. And all about, the green river bank, the sunshine, the warmth, the solitude … Do you think it’s a love poem?’ he asked her.
‘Well, it could be.’
‘How can it not be?’ he almost cried. He thought, she is unawakened. ‘The poet is with his — ’ he checked himself.
‘Girl friend, I suppose,’ said Hattie stiffly. She was feeling shocked at Father Bernard’s evident indifference to the pleasure of finding out main verbs and what agrees with what; and she had not failed to notice his dismay at her outburst of German.
‘Girl friend! What a phrase. He is with his mistress.’
‘Why not his wife?’ said Hattie. ‘Was he married?’
‘Yes, but that doesn’t matter. This is a poem. We don’t want wives in poems. He is with a lovely young woman — ’
‘How do you know she’s lovely?’
‘I know. Just see the picture.’
Hattie said more kindly, ‘Yes, I think I can - it’s like that picture by Renoir - La baigneuse au griffon - only there - well, there are two girls, not a man and a girl.’
This did not interest Father Bernard, at any rate he did not pursue it, but the evocation of the lush greenery and the Impressionist painter accorded with his racing mood. ‘Yes, yes, it’s sunny and green and the river is glittering and the sunshine is coming through the leaves and dappling, that was a good word you used, the naked form of the — ’
‘The sun doesn’t dapple the girl, it’s the gloriole, no it’s the sky or skies that dapple themselves with — ’
‘Never mind, you must get the sense of the whole - the linen, white like the bird, slips away — ’ The image which had now, with magisterial charm, risen up in the priest’s mind, lily-pale and glowing with youth, was that of Tom McCaffrey.
At about the same time that Father Bernard was taking liberties (and they went rather far) with the shade of Tom McCaffrey, the real Tom, standing in Greg and Ju’s sitting-room in the house in Travancore Avenue, was gazing with puzzlement and alarm at a letter which he had just found lying upon the door mat. It had been sent by post to Belmont, whence it had evidently been redelivered by hand. It read as follows:
16 Hare Lane
Burkestown
Ennistone
Dear Mr McCaffrey,
I wonder if you would be so good as to come round and see me, as soon as is convenient, at this address? There is something which I want to ask you. During the next few days, I shall be at home until midday.
Yours sincerely
J. R. Rozanov
P.S. I would be grateful if you would treat this request as a matter of confidence.
Tom’s first thought, when he saw the startling signature, was that, of course, the letter was intended for George. He inspected the envelope again, where John Robert had certainly and clearly written ‘Thomas McCaffrey’, to which he had ridiculously added ‘Esquire’.
Scarlett-Taylor came in. Tom handed him the letter. ‘What do you think of this?’
Emma read the letter, frowned, and returned it to Tom. ‘You’ve let him down already.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘He asked you to treat it as a matter of confidence. Now you’ve shown it to me.’
‘Oh well - yes - but — ’
‘Fortunately for you, I shall observe perfect discretion about your lapse.’
‘He asked me to treat it as a matter of confidence, but I didn’t say I would — ’
‘Any gentleman would respond — ’
‘Damn it, I only got it a minute ago.’
‘I fail to see what difference that makes.’
‘I didn’t have time to think!’
‘That shows that you are instinctively irresponsible, you cannot even be trusted for a minute.’
‘You’re romantic about him, you wish he wanted to see you.’
‘Don’t be a perfect fool.’
‘You’re jealous!’
‘You’re childish!’
‘You’re sulky.’
‘Do you want a punch?’
‘You wouldn’t punch anybody.’
‘Couldn’t I — ’
‘I said you wouldn’t, not couldn’t. Emma, don’t be cross with me - you aren’t cross, are you? We can’t quarrel, we can’t quarrel, we can’t — ’
Since the occasion of Tom’s momentous visit to Emma’s room, an uneasy odd relationship had existed between them. That, the visit, had been something noumenal, as if they had slipped out of time, out of ordinary individual being. They had not made love in any of the rather mechanical senses in which Tom had hitherto understood a making of love. It was rather that, instantly, they had become love. For Tom it was like being embraced by an angel, being inescapably held between the wings of an angel who was and was not Emma. This enfolding was perfect happiness, perfect bliss, perfect unproblematic, undramatic sexual joy. Tom could not remember having, after Emma took him in his arms, moved at all. As he recalled it, they had both lain, gripped together, absolutely motionless, in a spellbound ecstatic trance, perfectly relaxed yet also in extreme tension, in a holdingness of immense urgent power. In this entranced state Tom had fallen asleep. He had awakened near dawn and was at once aware of where he was and that Emma, still utterly close to him but no longer holding, was awake too. As soon as Emma felt Tom awakening he murmured to him, ‘Go, Tom, go.’
Tom instantly and obediently left Emma’s bed and returned to his own where he fell at once into a blissful deep happy sleep from which he did not emerge until after eight o’clock.
He dressed quickly and ran out to the kitchen where he could already hear breakfast sounds. Emma, frying sausages, gave him a glance and a curt good morning. Emma, dressed in his suit, complete with waistcoat and watch chain, with his narrow rimless spectacles, looked alien, almost forbidding.
Tom said hello and sat down at the kitchen table. Then he got up and laid the table and fetched fruit juice from the fridge. He was given two sausages, said thank you, and ate them. Emma drank some fruit juice but did not eat or say anything or look at Tom.
At last Tom had said, ‘Thank you very very much for last night. But you’re angry with me.’
Emma said, ‘Last night was unique.’ After this he got up and went away into his room.
When he had gone Tom felt a dark, dense anguish curiously shot with joy. Later Emma emerged from his room and made some quite ordinary remarks and generally signalled the resumption of ordinary life, which Tom, rather to his surprise, found himself able to join in resuming. Since then they had carried on as before and yet not as before. There were no strange looks or new and unusual touches or contacts. It was rather as if they both moved more gracefully in an enlarged space. There was a new consciousness in the air; but this remained vague, and Emma’s occasional ‘sulks’ did not seem different in quantity or quality. At bedtime on the next day it had been somehow clear that Tom was to occupy his own bed and not Emma’s. Tom was not upset. He lay in his bed and laughed quietly. And in the days that followed, during which ‘that night’ was not referred to, he was not unhappy. He felt a diffused excitement, a sort of secretive tenderness, which increased his bodily well-being and his natural cheerfulness. Today (the day of the arrival of John Robert Rozanov’s letter) Emma had been especially testy and touchy, but still without making any allusion to their ‘happening’. Would it now, Tom wondered, disappear undiscussed into the past, and become like a dream, gradually unhappening into oblivion?