Like her, I spoke with deliberate carefulness, as though determined either to take the bite out of my voice or not to overstate my case.
“I’m not sure that nowadays I should see him quite in the same way. But of one thing I am perfectly certain. Of all the men and women I’ve ever known, he was the most selfless. He’s the only one, and he suffered for it, who could really throw his own self away.”
Now we were quarrelling. We had learned, early in our marriage, that it was dangerous to quarrel. If I had been like her, there would have been no danger in it. Her temper was hot: the blood rushed: it was soon over. But with me, usually more controlled, temper, once I had lost it, smouldered on.
Margaret, watching me, knew this bitter streak in me and knew it more acceptantly than I did myself.
“If you say that,” she said, “then I’ve got to take it.”
I accused her of making a concession. I said that neither of us wanted the other to make concessions which were not genuine. Between us there couldn’t be that kind of compromise–
“Perhaps it was not quite genuine,” she said with a difficult smile. “But — what am I to do?”
Somewhere, filtering towards my tongue, were words that would make us both angrier. Suddenly, as though by some inexplicable feedback, I said in a mechanical tone: “Pat was sucking up for an invitation to our party. For both of them.”
Margaret gave a shout of laughter, full-throated, happy laughter.
“Oh God,” she cried. “What on earth did you say?”
“Oh, just that we hadn’t decided whether we were going to give one.”
“It must be wonderful to be tactful, mustn’t it?”
Margaret went on laughing. We were certainly going to give a party, she said. After all (her mood had changed, she was still flushed, but now with gaiety), we had a lot to be thankful for, this past year. My eye. Young Charles’ successes. Maurice’s survival. Her father better. Various storms come through. It would be faint-hearted not to give a party. But one thing was sure, she said. He was not going to bring that girl. Was that all right? Yes, I said, caught up by her spirits, that was completely all right. Without a pause between thought and action, she went to the study, brought back a sheet of paper, and, although it was late, began writing down a list, a long list, of names.
17: Evening Before the Party
FOR the next four days, Margaret enjoyed planning the party. It had become a token of thanksgiving. Every evening we sat in the drawing-room and added some more names. The list grew longer; we knew a good many people, most of them in professional London, but widerspread than that. We had changed the date to Christmas Eve. This was partly because there was another New Year’s party, to which we felt inclined to go: but also because we calculated that Pat would be back with his family in Cambridge, and so we could invite the Schiffs. That calculation, however, went wrong. Martin and Irene decided to come for the night, and, together with their children, to have Christmas dinner with us next day. Margaret swore: would anything get rid of that young man? But she was in high spirits, the party occupying her just as it might have done when she was a girl. There weren’t enough refusals, I complained. The senior Getliffes couldn’t come, but Leonard could. Others accepted from out of London. There’s nothing like an operation to make people anxious to see one, I said.
Still, it was agreeable, when Maurice had come down from Cambridge and Charles had returned from school, to have the four of us sitting before dinner, talking about this domestic ritual. Maurice had young men and girls he wanted to invite, some of them lame ducks. Charles had school friends who lived in the London area. Throw them all in, we agreed. The age range of the party would be about sixty years. As we sat there in the evening, the week before Christmas, I thought that in contrast to Maurice’s untouched good looks, Charles already appeared the older. He had just won a scholarship, very young: but sometimes, as on the morning he visited me in hospital, he seemed preoccupied. I noticed that, instead of staying in bed late, as he used to do in the holidays, he got up as early as I did, riffling through the letters. I had been older than that, I thought, when I was first menaced by the post. But he was controlled enough to live a kind of triple life: his emotions were his own, but, as the Christmas nights came nearer, curtains not yet drawn at tea-time, black sky over the park, he sat with us teasing Margaret, dark-eyed, ironic, enjoying the preparations as much as she did.
It was the afternoon of 23rd December, about five o’clock. Margaret had not got back from visiting her father, the boys were out. I was, except for our housekeeper, alone in the flat. I had been reading in the study, the light from the angle-lamp bright across my book. There were piles of papers by the chair, a tray of letters on the room-wide desk, all untidy but findable, at least by the eye of memory; all the grooves of habit there. The telephone rang. I crossed over to the far side of the desk. “This is George.” The strong voice, which had never lost its Suffolk undertone, came out at me. I exclaimed with pleasure: I had not seen him for months. “I’d rather like to have a word,” the voice went on robustly. “I suppose you’re not free, are you?”
I replied that I was quite free: when would he like—? “I can come straight round. I shan’t be many minutes.”
Waiting for him, I fetched the ice and brought in a tray of drinks. I was feeling comfortably pleased. This was a surprise, a good end to the year. I hadn’t seen him for months, I thought again, no, not since the April Court. That hadn’t been my fault, but it was good that he should invite himself. He might come to the party the following night, that would be better still; there was something, not precisely nostalgic but reassuring, in going back right through the years. My brother hadn’t really known me when I was in my teens: but George had, and he was the only one, when I was in the state young Charles was approaching now.
I let him in, and took him to the study. Would he have a drink? I hadn’t seen him in full light, I had my back towards him as I heard a sturdy yes. I splashed in the soda, saying that it was too long since we had had an evening together.
Then I sat down opposite him.
“I ought to explain. This isn’t exactly a social visit,” he said.
I began to smile at the formality, so like occasions long ago when he wished to discuss my career and behaved as if there were some mysterious etiquette that he, alone among humankind, had never been properly taught. I looked into his face as he lifted the glass, ice tinkling. He was staring past me; his eyes were unfocused, which was nothing new. His hair bushed out over his ears, in blond and whitening quiffs, uncut, unbrushed. The lines on his forehead, the lines under his eyes, made him appear not so much old as dilapidated: but no more old or dilapidated than when I had last seen him in our traditional pub.
Over the desk, on his right, the window was uncovered, and I caught a glimpse of his great head reflected against the darkness.
It was all familiar, and I went on smiling.
“Well, what’s the agenda?” I asked.
“Something rather unpleasant has happened,” said George.
“What is it?”
“Of course,” said George, “it must be some absurd mistake.”
“What is it?”
“You know who I mean by my niece and the Pateman girl?”
“Yes. “
“They’ve been asking them questions about that boy who disappeared. The one who was done away with.”
For an instant I was immobilised. I was as incapable of action as when I stood at the bedroom window, blinked my eye, and found the black edge still there. That edge: the noise I had just heard, the words: they were all confused.