I opened a somewhat battered, label-plastered suitcase, then took out a big black portfolio—containing drawings of Fredrika and the Empty House.
I went back to the sitting-room with the portfolio under my arm, but some minutes passed before I opened it.
No one, living or dead, had seen these drawings. They were uniquely mine. All other possessions had been shared, handled, looked at, lent. These are inviolate. And this fact attains symbolic significance as the years increase and Time tarnishes everything—except the experience enshrined in these drawings.
Once only—for a period tragically brief—imagination is innocent. Once only can it lavish itself with spring-like prodigality. Sooner or later, imagination enters the arena of experience and, if it survive, its wings hide scars. So, for me, and for me only, these drawings are a pilgrimage. A pilgrimage to lost Eden.
I moved the reading-lamp nearer to the arm-chair, then sat down and opened the portfolio.
It is a fact that the drawings of a child, no matter haw gifted, nearly always depict only essentials, nevertheless these Fredrika sketches seem to possess a quality more important than that of technical maturity. But it is impossible for me to assess them objectively—their associations are too potent. They resurrect the emotions they represent.
To look at a drawing of the Empty House is to stand again by the rusty gates—to gaze at the nettle-covered drive—at the tangled ivy—at the tentacled creeper. It is to re-live every incident relating to the Empty House from the moment when I saw it for the first time on that marvellous May morning—till I knelt in the porch on that desolate dripping shrouded afternoon.
To look at a drawing of Fredrika is to become the boy who created her. Slender Fredrika, with her dark curly hair, lit brows, and elfin features! Fredrika—whom imagination conceived—who still seems more real than any one I have ever known.
Even now, at the age of forty-four—on this December evening in Major Black’s flat—it is difficult to believe that all my memories of her relate to an imaginary girl. It is difficult to believe that we never stood together in that wooded valley through which a lazy river runs. Never stood together, gazing at the island in mid-stream where the river divides, in order to double its beauty, and all around are lovely listening trees. Difficult to believe that Fredrika, immortal in memory, exists only in imagination. . . .
At last I put the drawings down and was about to replace the portfolio in the suitcase, when I decided to keep it in the sitting-room. I stowed it in an empty drawer, which I locked, then put the key in my pocket.
I must have spent hours looking at the drawings. It would soon be ten o’clock—and I was almost hungry enough to attack the sandwiches. But a glance at them convinced me that it would be wise to wait till I felt the gnaw of authentic starvation. I lit a cigarette and began to pace slowly up and down the room.
Suddenly I remember that to-day was Tuesday. Tuesday. A week ago, I had dreamed my “dream.” Yes, exactly a week ago! There had been a fog. I had come in at about eleven. Before undressing, I’d been haunted by the feeling that there was something I must do. Even alter I was in bed, this feeling had been so insistent that I got up, parted the curtains, and listened. Then, at about three o’clock, I slept—and dreamed the “dream.”
Gradually, the atmosphere of the room altered. I was no longer alone. This impression became so definite that I looked round, but, except the circle of light created by the reading-lamp, the room was in shadow.
I was certain she was near! Her death linked us—indissolubly. Henceforth, no escape.
Then two things happened simultaneously: the clock struck ten; and the front door bell rang.
A week ago—at ten o’clock—she had rung that bell! She had returned and I. . . .
The bell rang again.
Feeling as if I were emerging from a trance, I went into the hall, then opened the front door—to find Mervyn Maitland, blocking the entrance like a miniature mountain.
“I say, Max! I’m awfully sorry and so on, but could you possibly give me a shake-down for a few nights?”
“Yes, of course.”
“That’s marvellous. George Crosses have been given for less.”
He moved back a couple of paces, thereby revealing a laundry basket and a cylindrical object, consisting of a number of neatly-rolled blankets held together by straps.
“You are not facing a man, Max—you are confronted by the Housing Problem. Wait one minute, will you?”
A few moments later, he returned carrying two suitcases, accompanied by a taxi-driver, also carrying two suitcases. Evidently they had been on trek for some time, because the fare, including tip, was two pounds, which Mervyn borrowed from me.
Directly we were alone, he slid into a chair in the hall and closed his eyes. He was still wearing a heavy overcoat, a huge muffler, big fur-lined gloves—and looked like a benevolent giant.
“Since Saturday, I’ve had the devil’s own time trying to find somewhere to live. And, remember, I know a deuce of a lot of people. The first one I tried was Jimmy Lightly. You know him.”
“I don’t think so.”
“Oh, surely! Little ghost of a man. Voice never broke. No more initiative than a ventriloquist’s dummy. You must know Jimmy! Married Hester Huxtable, but was liberated just before she joined the Commandos.”
Pause.
“Anyhow, Jimmy couldn’t help. He’s living in one room with a Czech, a Pole, and a White Russian. They each have a corner—and call themselves the Four Freedoms. So that was no good. Then I hunted up Launcelot Primrose. I don’t suppose you know him.”
I said I did not know Launcelot Primrose.
“I thought not. He’s a leading light in the lunatic fringe. Sinister specimen! Looks like Judas on the dole. Anyway, he wasn’t any good either. He’s living in an Anderson shelter with an outsize Alsatian hound.”
He rose reluctantly, removed his outdoor clothes, then said briskly:
“Now, let’s see how we’ll manage. Really frightfully kind of you. Incidentally, it’s essential for me to be in Chelsea. Tell you why later.”
We went into the sitting-room and I was about to explain that the flat had only two decent rooms, when Mervyn became lyrical about an enormous sofa, which I disliked and never used.
After announcing that destiny had led him to this sofa—that they had met in former lives—I managed to tell him that my daily woman had walked out on me.
“Walked out on you! Ring up Ernie Bevin and tell him to direct her back. We are fighting for Freedom, are we not?”
I took the crumpled piece of paper from the mantelpiece and handed it to him. He glanced at it, then read aloud:
Gone to oblige a Polish gent.
Pause.
I say, Max! You can’t stand for that! You’ll have to find this Polish gent and tell him that this woman must give you half her time and give him the other half. She’ll have to go from one to the other. You must have a Polish Corridor. You can’t leave things as they are. You must draw the Curzon Line somewhere.”
I told him there were enough Polish problems, but he could start another if he wanted to.
“Good! Now, as we’ll have to do the housework, the first thing I want to know is this: Is there a draining-board?”
I said I hadn’t the slightest idea.
“You don’t know! My dear Max, our whole domestic destiny depends on whether there is a draining-board! You ask any woman. I’d better inspect the kitchen.”