“I borrowed this from Timothy Tansy during the Munich crisis. You remember him. He married Hildegarde Hardcastle—just after she had been drummed-out of the A.T.S. for some dark deed.”
After a silence, I asked:
“Is it really a fact that you’re never going back to your family?”
“Of course it’s a fact! Except Drina, who is a darling, I thoroughly dislike my family. I revel in the life I’m living now. I adore chance meetings—odd characters—random backgrounds—and eye-encounters in the streets. It’s exciting when an unknown woman smiles at you. For one moment, you share the world together. And I would certainly rather breakfast at the Corner House than opposite Ella, who invariably studies the Financial Times with the rapturous expression of one reading Holy Writ.”
Pause.
He picked up a tweed shooting-coat, then examined it with connoisseur detachment.
“Wonder what happened to the fellow who made this coat. I bought it in 1938—and he wrote to me regularly about it for the next three years. Then, suddenly, silence. Probably bombed out. Anyway, I was wise to get a few decent things. This is no climate for fig leaves—and that’s all we shall get soon.”
“And now, Mervyn, perhaps you’ll tell me why on earth you’re dressing up in thick clothes instead of going to bed.”
“Quite simple, my dear fellow, quite simple. Frieda telephoned at ten o’clock. Frieda has a crisis. She is certain that her Italian prisoner of war is unfaithful. She has a crisis every three months about that. Goes on like a demented being—shrieks, foams, and curses Churchill. I’m one of the few people who can pacify her. If you can make her laugh, the situation is saved. Frieda is living in a flat near Camden Town. I’m going there now.”
“You know that it’s black as a pit shaft—snow everywhere—icy—and no chance of a taxi?”
“I shall walk. The word has come to Mervyn Maitland, so M. M. girds up his loins and sets forth.”
Pause.
“You see, my dear Max, the Almighty employs a pigmy for a pigmy job. The Almighty knows it would be useless to send word to Mervyn Maitland, telling him to lead His people out of the house of bondage, because the Almighty is well aware that M. M. is an old resident in the house of bondage. But the Almighty also knows that even M. M.—even the battered, broken, and slightly mad M. M.—is capable of bringing comfort to a wretched romantic girl, who has the dreary delusion that she is desperately in love with an Italian prisoner of war, called Purgatorio.”
“You can talk what nonsense you like, but I think it’s very decent of you to go to Camden Town to-night.”
“Ah, but don’t forget, Frieda’s been pretty decent too. She once shared her butter ration with me. Such deeds shine star-like in memory.”
He lit a cigarette, then said:
“You know, Max, I think humanity are a pretty gallant lot, really. I’m not talking about spectacular physical bravery. I mean come-day, go-day courage. Unguessed battles of the spirit in mean rooms! Fearful affairs! All-in wrestles with terrible temptations—which pounce on you when you’re trying to open a tin of sardines with a penknife. I tell you, humanity are a pretty gallant lot. Too good, anyway, to be blinded, burned, vapourised by the angelic activities of misapplied science.”
He tied a thick scarf, put on a heavy overcoat and enormous overshoes, then picked up the fur-lined gloves.
“What a fuss Eustace Ironsides made about lending me these gloves in 1935! Well, I’d better go. I’ve got a torch. But what about my identity card? Better take that. If an enthusiastic policeman sees me muffled up like this, he’ll think I’m a Hero of the Soviet Union—straight from the Steppes.”
Pause.
“I must remember not to say one word against Fascism to Frieda. She’s mad-keen on the Axis. She wears the Swastika embroidered on her pants.”
He went to the door, then turned and said:
“Oh, by the way! I’ve just remembered! That decorative Mrs. Dalrymple took in various things that came for us to-day. She’s put ’em all in a string bag. I haven’t looked at it, but you’ll find it in the hall.”
A moment later, the front door banged.
I went into the hall, picked up the string bag, then took it into the sitting-room and began to examine its contents.
I found nothing of any interest and was about to leave everything till Mervyn came in, when I noticed a nearly-hidden parcel at the bottom of the bag.
It was a fair size and had the oddest appearance of any parcel ever received by me. Not only had an immense amount of string been used, but there were innumerable knots, each with a heavy blob of sealing-wax. Despite these elaborate precautions, the parcel had not been registered. The whole thing looked so peculiar that I decided it must be a practical joke, especially as it was addressed almost illegibly to “Mr. Max”—and there were about twenty ha’penny stamps dotted at random all over the package.
I cut a dozen knots—pulled off various supplementary wrappings—then extracted an album.
The album containing Carol’s photographs.
I looked for a letter, but found nothing. I studied the scrawled “Mr. Max”—then noticed that the address had evidently been added by someone else. The postmark was Hove.
Why had that madwoman sent me Carol’s photographs?
“I’d like to think of you looking at them. At night—when you can’t sleep.”
That’s what she’d said—and, presumably, that was why she had sent the album. Well, she’d wasted her time, and the postage, because I would not look at the photographs. I would never look at them! Even to think of them was to see a pageant of Carol’s life almost from the day of her birth to the night of her death.
I would hide them—forget them!
For some moments I stood irresolute, then locked the album in a drawer—the one containing the Fredrika drawings.
Chapter Three
HAIMES
Three days later I had a note from Haimes asking me to call, as there were certain matters he wanted to discuss. I immediately telephoned his office and made an appointment for the following day.
I had not looked at a newspaper for some time, but, according to Mervyn, the press still featured the “Chelsea Murder” and every one was discussing whether or not the student who had committed suicide were the murderer. So far as I could discover, the only evidence—one way or the other—were the facts that he had known Carol, and the inquest had not revealed any motive for his suicide which, therefore, remained a mystery.
However, I did not care tuppence what the press were printing, and cared less about my impending interview with Haimes—although I realised that some of my statements at our first meeting had been false. All such considerations seemed irrelevant because, now, more than ever, I was concerned only with Carol. The opinions of others—their suspicions—their power—had no reality. When one’s whole being is narrowed to a vital issue, onlookers are forgotten.
During the last three days I had seen little of Mervyn—owing to complications in his many amorous affairs—consequently I had spent much time alone and, as a result, had been compelled to recognise a number of remarkable facts.
The first, and the most ironical, was the extent to which Carol’s death had increased my servitude. On the physical level, I discovered that the idea of intimate relations with another woman was repellent, but, this apart, the extraordinary fact fully emerged that, when Carol was alive, I had known periods of freedom, whereas, since her death, every thought and every emotion was dominated by her. I had believed that my dependence was only sexual, but I found, to my increasing astonishment, that memories of those Sundays when she read to me at her flat were far more potent than physical ones. Although, at the time, I had not suspected it for a second, I knew now how much it had meant to be with her—not to talk, simply to be with her—while the gloom of a London Sunday deepened slowly till darkness came.