At the beginning of June we were asked to such a party. It meant travelling out to Muswell Hill, just as I used to when I was penniless and glad of a hearty meal in this same house. I mentioned it to Sheila, and as usual we said yes. The day came round; I arrived home in the evening, an hour before we were due to set out. She was sitting in the drawing-room, thrown against the side of an armchair, one hand dangling down. It was a windy evening, the sky dark over the river, so that I did not see her clearly until I went close to. Of late she had been neglecting her looks. That evening her hair was not combed, she was wearing no make-up; on the hand dangling beside her chair, the nails were dirty. Once she had been proud of her beauty. Once she had been the most fastidious of girls.
I knew what I should hear.
‘It’s no use,’ she said. ‘I can’t go tonight. You’d better cry off.’
I had long since ceased to persuade and force her. I said nothing, but went at once to the telephone. I was practised in excuses: how many lies had I told, to save her face and mine? This one, though, was not believed. I could hear the disappointment at the other end. It was an affront. We had outgrown them. They did not believe my story that she was ill. They were no more use or interest to us, and without manners we cancelled a date.
I went back to her. I looked out of the window, over the embankment. It was a grey, warm, summer evening, and the trees were swaying wavelike in the wind.
This was the time.
I drew up a chair beside her.
‘Sheila,’ I said, ‘this is becoming difficult for me.’
‘I know.’
There was a pause. The wind rustled.
I said slowly: ‘I think that we must part.’
She stared at me with her great eyes. Her arm was still hanging down, but inch by inch her fingers clenched.
She replied: ‘If you say so.’
I looked at her. A cherishing word broke out of me, and then I said: ‘We must.’
‘I thought you mightn’t stand it.’ Her voice was high, steady, uninflected. ‘I suppose you’re right.’
‘If I were making you happy, I could stand it,’ I said. ‘But — I’m not. And it’s ruining me. I can’t even work—’
‘I warned you what it would be like,’ she said, implacably and harshly.
‘That is not the same as living it.’ I was harsh in return, for the first time that night.
She said: ‘When do you want me to go?’
No, I said, she should stay in the house and I would find somewhere to live.
‘You’re turning me out,’ she replied. ‘It’s for me to leave.’ Then she asked: ‘Where shall I go?’
Then I knew for certain that she was utterly lost. She had taken it without a blench. She had made none of the appeals that even she, for all her pride, could make in lesser scenes. She had not so much as touched my hand. Her courage was cruel, but she was lost.
I said that she might visit her parents.
‘Do you think I could?’ she flared out with hate. ‘Do you think I could listen to them?’ She said: ‘No, I might as well travel.’ She made strange fantasies of places she would like to see. ‘I might go to Sardinia. I might go to Mentone. You went there when you were ill, didn’t you?’ she asked, as though it were infinitely remote. ‘I made you unhappy there.’ All of a sudden, she said clearly: ‘Is this your revenge?’
I was quiet while the seconds passed. I replied: ‘I think I took my revenge earlier, as you know.’ Curiously, she smiled.
‘You’ve worried about that, haven’t you?’
‘Yes, at times.’
‘You needn’t.’
She looked at me fixedly, with something like pity.
‘I’ve wondered whether that was why you’ve stood me for so long,’ she said. ‘If you hadn’t done that, you might have thrown me out long ago.’
Again I hesitated, and then tried to tell the truth.
‘I don’t think so,’ I said.
Then she said: ‘I shall go tonight.’
I said that it was ridiculous.
She repeated: ‘I shall go tonight.’
I said: ‘I shan’t permit it.’
She said: ‘Now it is not for you to permit.’
I was angry, just as I always had been when she was self-willed to her own hurt. I said that she could not leave the house with nowhere to go. She must stay until I had planned her movements. She said the one word, no. My temper was rising, and I went to take hold of her. She did not flinch away, but said: ‘You cannot do that, now.’
My hands dropped. It was the last stronghold of her will.
Without speaking, we looked at each other.
She got up from her chair.
‘Well, it’s over,’ she remarked. ‘You’d better help me pack.’
Her attention was caught by the wind, as mine had been, and she glanced out of the window. The trees swayed to and fro under the grey sky. They were in full June leaf, and the green was brilliant in the diffuse light. Through the window blew the scent of lime.
‘I liked this house,’ she said, and with her strong fingers stroked the window sill.
We went into her sitting-room. It was more dishevelled than I had noticed it; until that evening, I had not fully realized how her finicky tidiness had broken down; just as a husband might not observe her looks deteriorate, when it would leap to the eye of one who had not seen her for a year.
She walked round the room. Though her dress was uncared for, her step was still active, poised, and strong. She asked me to guard her coins. They were too heavy, and too precious, to take with her if she was moving from hotel to hotel. The first thing she packed was her gramophone.
‘I shall want that,’ she said. Into the trunk she began to pack her library of records. As I handed some to her, she gave a friendly smile, regretful but quite without rancour. ‘It’s a pity you weren’t musical,’ she said.
I wanted her to think of clothes.
‘I suppose I shall need some,’ she said indifferently. ‘Fetch me anything you like.’
I put a hand on her shoulder.
‘You must take care of yourself.’ Despite the parting, I was scolding her as in our occasional light-hearted days.
‘Why should I?’
‘You’re not even troubling about your face.’
‘I’m tired of it,’ she cried.
‘For all you can do, it is still beautiful.’ It was true. Her face was haggard, without powder, not washed since that morning or longer, but the structure of the bones showed through; there were dark stains, permanent now, under her eyes, but the eyes themselves were luminous.
‘I’m tired of it,’ she said again.
‘Men will love you more than ever,’ I said, ‘but you mustn’t put them off too much.’
‘I don’t want it.’
‘You know that you’ve always attracted men—’
‘I know. If I had attracted them less, it might have been better for me. And for you as well.’
She went on stacking books in the trunk, but I stopped her.
‘Listen to me once more. I hope you will find a man who will make you happy. It is possible, I tell you.’
She looked at me, her face still except for the faint grimace of a smile.
‘You must believe that,’ I said urgently. ‘We’ve failed. But this isn’t the end.’
She said: ‘I shan’t try again.’
She sat down and began, with the competence that had once surprised me, to discuss the matter-of-fact arrangements. She would finish packing within an hour, and would spend that night at an hotel. I did not argue any more. Her passport was in order, and she could travel tomorrow. I would transfer money to her in Paris. It was summer, too hot for her to go south immediately. I thought it strange that, even now, she should be governed by her dislike of the heat. She would probably spend the summer in Brittany, and wait till October before she made her way to Italy. After that, she had no plans. She assumed that sooner or later I should want to marry again. If so, I could divorce her whenever I wished.