and gloves. I rummaged hastily, pulled out both the bags
and opened them, but could not see the Veganin. Each,
however, had a side-pocket, and one of these was full of
small articles of one sort and another. I took the bag across
to the bed and emptied the pocket out on the eiderdown - a
comb, a nail-file, a powder-compact, two or three Danish
coins, a phial of scent. Still not finding the Veganin, I shook
the bag and ran my fingers round the inside of the pocket.
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They dislodged a crumpled piece of paper which fluttered
out and fell on the bed. It was a receipted bill from one of
the principal department stores in Copenhagen, dated the
previous 22nd of December and reading, in Danish, '1 Toy
Tortoise (Green) - 78 Kroner'.
I crumpled it in the grate, struck a match and set light to
it.
'And this, too,' I said aloud, watching it burn, 'I have always
known.'
The Veganin tube was in the pocket of the other bag, and
I took it back with me to the car.
25
I DROVE south, towards Andover, which we reached at
twenty past six. Kathe, beside me, scarcely spoke, and
showed no emotion - neither relief nor shock - from the
suffering of the night, sitting for the most part with closed
eyes, only her upright head and occasional movements showing
that she was not asleep. I made no attempt to talk. Apart
from my stupor of sleeplessness and fatigue I knew that she,
like myself, was teyond exchanging words. What could they
communicate; and what was there to say?
Numbed though I felt, nevertheless fear, still hanging
over me like a cat's paw above a live mouse, continually
descended to pummel and prick my cringing mind. I felt
weary beyond all further reaction: yet despite this weariness
- as it were, in a second layer of feeling hidden within the
first - I was dully but most miserably oppressed by hopelessness
and dread. We appeared free, Kathe and I, and therefore,
like the mouse, instinctively we must run. Perhaps just
conceivably - through some accident, some circumstance
beyond our understanding - we might escape. And
like the mouse, I knew with despair that we would not. Do
mice know what the cat is? In what way do they apprehend
it? They cannot be aware, in the way that we are, of a finite
creature. Yet they feel, more truly than we, what it means,
343
and after a little time in its power will sometimes die unwounded
and uninjured. So it was with me. Spent and without
understanding, I yet knew that disaster and ruin were
watching as we travelled.
From my other knowledge - the bill in the handbag - I
hid beneath my exhaustion; just as, in the night, I had tried
to keep my head under the blankets. Though I could not but
know what the bill had told more plainly than the weeping,
yet to myself I pretended otherwise. Anyway, it was no
longer of importance what I knew. The cat would take care
of everything. If the knowledge had made me think of leaving
Kathe it might have mattered, but that course did not
come to mind. My role was appointed. Yet this, no doubt, was
why I did not drive towards Bristol, or to Tony or some other
source of help. There could be no help. We were alone, enclosed
together in the day as we had been in the night, and
there was nothing for me to do but attend her and wait.
We had not spoken of our destination. Without asking, I
knew that Kathe, though she had no knowledge of the
country and could have formed no plan, would tell me this
when she was ready. Meanwhile we were no longer, for the
time being, in torment, and it made no particular difference
where we went. We were like fish in a landlocked pool.
There was hardly a soul about as we came into Andover,
but I slowed down to ten or fifteen miles an hour so that
Kathe might look about her and tell me, if she wished,
whether to stop or where to go next.
'Not here,' she said, turning towards me and showing
with a smile that she understood what I was asking. 'Not
here, Alan.'
I took the Salisbury road and drove out past Anna Valley
and Abbots Hill. At a little after quarter to seven we came in
sight of the cathedral spire.
'Shall I drive into the town?' I asked her, and she replied,
'Ja, bitte. Slowly again.'
A moment afterwards a great cock pheasant, haughty and
heedless as a peacock on a lawn, strutted across the road
from one bank to the other, not even turning its gaudy
head as I braked to avoid it.
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'He thinks he can't be hurt, doesn't he?' she said; and
laughed. For answer I leaned over and lightly kissed her
cheek before driving on.
'Not here,' she said in Salisbury, barely glancing at the
empty pavements and blank shop-fronts. 'Not here.'
So I drove out past Harnham, towards Cranborne Chase
and Blandford Forum. The road was becoming fuller, now,
with early traffic, and there were people standing at 'bus
stops and coming out of newsagents' with papers in their
hands.
'Not here,' she said at Blandford. 'Not here, Alan. Poor,
tired Alan! Drive on a little way yet.' Through my sleeplessness
and anxiety, the fancy came to me that her voice was
like a cascade among ferns.
'Your voice is like ferns,' I said. 'You're so beautiful - no
one could -'
'I've always loved driving with you, Alan, she answered.
'Tell me, are we anywhere near the White Horse?'
'No, we're a long way from the White Horse here.'
'How stupid of me.'
'Did you want to go to the White Horse?'
'No. No, I had my wish. I don't think you can have another.'
At eight o'clock the sky was still thickly overcast and very
dark. The roadside ash trees hung motionless and there was
no least glimpse of the sun. Half an hour later we reached
the outskirts of Dorchester and crossed the Frome.
'Alan,' she said; and then, as I, supposing that she would
go on to speak, made no reply, 'Alan?'
'Yes, darling?'
'Are we far from the sea?'
'Less than ten miles, I should think, though I don't know
these parts very well. Do you want to go to the sea?'
'M'm.' She paused as though deliberating; then said,
'Yes. That would be lovely - the sea.'
We reached the shore by by-roads a little after nine. No
matter where it was - a lonely place along the great sweep
of coast between Sidmouth and Portland Bill. It was as still
a sea as I have ever seen - all grey under the grey sky,
345
smooth for miles and smooth far out, the waves scarcely
breaking as they lapped the sand. We left the car on the
grass verge beside the road and walked to the beach through
sandy hillocks, above hollows overgrown with stinging nettles,
ragwort and brambles. We saw no one and I felt no surprise,
for the day promised ill as clearly as pos
sible and
rain could not be long.
We stood together at the top of the beach, looking down
across the empty sands.
'How far have we come?' she asked. 'You're very tired,
aren't you?'
'I suppose about a hundred miles. No more tired than you,
my darling. I'll do whatever you want: you've only to say.'
'Let's go down to the water.'
Now the trance descended upon me once more - the
sense of unreality, the sea become a vast, silent field, the
clouds a dark canopy pressed down over the sand, the quiet
unbroken even by gulls, so it seemed; the sun lost and the
wind lost and all volition lost as I followed her, my Kathe,
full of the same fear that I had felt that evening by the swing.
Now, as then, I knew only that there was something I was
required to do, but my mind was dimmed and in some way
drawn apart from me, languishing like a plant uprooted from
the ground.
'Ye shall hear and shall not understand,' I thought. 'Seeing
ye shall see, and shall not perceive. 0 God, have mercy!'
On the verge of the sea Kathe stopped and held out her
arms to me.
'Alan,' she said, looking up into my face as we embraced I
saw a tiny pulse throbbing under her left eye, each beat
minutely contorting the lower eyelid - 'you know, don't
you?'
'Yes,' I answered.
'And you love me, don't you? You can't help it?'
In dreams one has power to tell only the truth, and they
themselves tell you not what you ought to do, but what you
did not know you felt. Sickened, now, and terrified by my
knowledge, I knew also that in face of the delight of Kathe
and her beauty, the rejection of evil - callous, unnatural
346
evil - was of less weight in my inmost heart. She was
asking me not whether I chose, but whether I had the power
to renounce her. I had not.
For answer I began to fondle and caress her, undressing
her where she stood, kissing her lips, her shoulders, her
breasts and the softness of her arms. As I gazed back at her
she saw the reply which I had not uttered. Half-naked, she
stood back from me a pace or two, looking into my eyes
with a kind of mingled elation and despair beyond me to
describe.
'Wait,' she said. 'Wait, then.'
With a kind of ceremonious deliberation, she herself took
off her remaining clothes, letting them fall one by one upon
the sand. Then, naked, she slid off her rings - the great pearl
cluster, and her wedding ring after it - and dropped them
into my pocket. She flung her arms round rriy neck and kissed
me again and again.
The tide must have been flowing, I suppose, for the sand
along the waterline was powdery, soft and dry. We sank
down upon it where we were, I half-clothed and she naked.
Sobbing with desire and relief, I mounted her, hearing the
gentle, rhythmic lapping of the sea at my very ear.
Through love-making I had known her express every
emotion and mood, her every response to the world. This
was an elegy. In obscured light, under louring, thick cloud,
alone in a place which should have been sunny and frequented,
she received me into herself like the sea receiving a
setting sun. Her body, moving beneath me, seemed striving
ever deeper into the myriad, rough grains of sand, fit covering
for shipwreck and tide-tumbled bones. Our very pleasure,
exquisite, intense as crimson glowing in the west, moved
inevitably on to the point where it must blaze out and
vanish like last light. I clasped her to me like a man drowning,
crying, '0 my love, my love!' until the ecstasy engulfed
me and swirled me down.
The level, still sea was moving, rippling unnaturally. Something
was disturbing it, something was approaching the
surface, though with difficulty, as it seemed; something
close at hand, not twenty feet from where we were lying. A
347
higher wave, softly turbulent, flowed forward and round us,
soaking my clothes and very cold upon my naked loins. The
shock brought me to myself and I knew once more that I
was lying on the beach, holding Kathe in my arms. She had
turned her head and was staring, wide-eyed and unbreathing,
at the water. Following her gaze, I saw the surface break and
saw what came out of the sea.
What came out of the sea, groping blindly with arms and
stumbling on legs to which grey, sodden flesh still clung, had
once been a little girl.
I was running, staggering, falling down, climbing from the
beach, pulling and wrenching at the clothes that tripped and
hindered me. My mouth and eyes were full of sand. I must
have lost my senses and gone on running nevertheless. I
cannot tell what I did. Suddenly I came to a steep edge and
pitched headlong. I felt fearful laceration and stinging pain
across my face and hands, flowing blood and then nothing
more.
When I came to myself I was lying among nettles and thick
brambles, bleeding from innumerable scratches on my face,
limbs and body. I crept deeper still into the thicket, clutching
at the nettles with my bare hands and sobbing with a terror
as much like normal fear as a leopard is like a cat. The edge
of a rusty tin cut my wrist almost to the bone and the blood
spurted out.
Sand and dirt, mingled with the blood, covered my torn
clothes from head to foot. I began to cry, calling for my
mother, imploring her to come. I was shuddering with cold
and in horrible pain, chiefly in my hands and stung, swollen
face. Little by little, like a man who has fainted under torture
and wakes to find himself still in the hands of the
torturers, I remembered where I was and what I believed I
had seen. Crawling out, at last, from among the brambles,
I stood up in the open, in heavy rain.
As I did so I became aware of someone walking purposefully
towards me from a little distance off. If I could have
run away I would have done so, but it was beyond me to
348
take a step. I covered my face with my hands and so remained
until I felt my arm firmly grasped. It was a policeman
- burly and deliberate as he turned me to face him. I fell
forward and clung to him, crying, 'Oh, take me away! Take
me away from here! Don't let it - don't let it-'
'Easy, now, sir; easy, please,' said the policeman. 'Just try
to take it easy. I'll give you a hand, now. What's your name,
sir, please?'
'Desland - Alan Desland.'
'Is that your car, sir, up by the road?'
'Yes.'
'And have you seen anything of a young lady, sir, on the
beach or somewhere thereabouts, within the last hour or
so?'
'Oh, where is she, officer? I must go to her!'
'Easy now, sir, I said. She's down at the hospital, that's
where she is. Can you tell me what happened? Some sort of
trouble, was there?'
He was supporting an
d guiding me as I hobbled beside
him towards the road. Two other policemen were standing
beside a police car parked near my own. There was no one
else in sight. They said nothing as we came up to them, but
one got into the car and started it, while another unwrapped
some sort of dressing and put it on my wrist.
I said, 'Please take me to my wife. She needs me.'
'Your wife?' replied one of the policemen. I said nothing
and after a few moments he added coldly, 'She's ill.'
'I'm sure she is,' I answered. 'I must see her at once,
please. Stay with me if you want to - do whatever you like only
take me to the hospital.'
'That's where you're going,' said the policeman brusquely,
'for a start, anyway. You need some treatment yourself, sir.
You're in a pretty bad way, you know.'
I can't remember all that followed. I was helped out of the
car and into the casualty ward. Two young nurses, saying
little and plainly afraid of me, helped me off with my ruined
clothes and brought pyjamas and a dressing-gown. There were
bowls of warm water, swabs of cotton-wool and stinging
antiseptic. They bandaged my wrist and someone gave me an
349
injection. I kept saying, 'I must see my wife. Please take me
to my wife,' and one of the nurses replied, 'Just relax now.
Just relax and let us finish.' I had difficulty in controlling
myself from imploring them, with tears, to do as I asked.
We were in some sort of little, private room. A doctor
came in; a young, big man, white-coated, a stethoscope
round his neck. He began harshly, 'Well, now, it seems I've
got to have a look at you -' but I cut him short, standing up
and saying, 'Please take me to my wife. It's for her sake I'm
asking you. At least tell me how she is.'
'The woman you were with? She's very ill,' he replied, as
shortly and coldly as the policeman. 'I dare say you can tell
me why, can you?'
Til tell you anything you like,' I said, 'if only you'll let me
see her.' Confused, and struggling for more persuasive words,
I added stupidly, 'I have to - to attend her.'
'Well, you can't now,' he answered, glancing at one of the
nurses with a look expressive of impatience and contempt.
'She's been sedated and she's asleep. I should think you've
done about enough for the time being. Better keep quiet
while I have a look at you. Come on!'
I was too weak and upset to return his anger. I said, 'Can
you - I beg you - tell me what's the matter with her?'
He stared at me coldly for a few moments and then replied,
'She was found by a motorist, wandering naked beside
the road and out of her mind. He brought her here and.-we
told the police, who went to search the area. You're not her
husband, are you? You raped her.'
'I am her husband!' I shouted at him. As I swayed on my
feet, he supported me back into the chair and stood over
me.
'If you're her husband, why did you have sexual intercourse
with her out there, in a public place, and then leave
her? And if she's your wife, where are her rings?'
There was a policeman sitting in one corner of the room.
He said, 'Excuse me, doctor, but perhaps it might be better
to leave questions like that for us. The gentleman hasn't been
cautioned yet.'
350
The young doctor shrugged his shoulders and turned
away. I said, 'I assure you I am her husband and that I did
not rape or ill-use her. In Christian mercy, please let me see
her.'
He paused a moment and then answered, 'Oh, well - you
can't do any more harm here. You'd better come too, I suppose,'
he said to the policeman; and led the way out into the
hospital-smelling corridor.
Kathe was in a room by herself, with a nurse beside the
bed. One arm was lying on the blanket, but her face was
partly covered by the sheet and I could not see it clearly.
She seemed asleep, though her breathing was swift and
irregular. I was about to go across to the bedside, but the
doctor pointed to two chairs by the door, saying, 'Sit there.
I'll come back in five minutes,' and went out of the room.
'I ought to tell you, sir,' whispered the policeman, seating
himself beside me, 'that if the lady comes round, I may have
to exercise my discretion to make a note of anything that's
said.'
I nodded and we sat in silence. The nurse kept glancing at
me sidelong, obviously nervous and glad of the presence of
the policeman. Ten minutes passed, but the young doctor did
not return and at length she whispered, 'I think you'll have
The Girl in a Swing Page 40
