The Partnership

by Barry Unsworth

  Now as he stood in silence with his brow still resting on the panel of Foley’s door, some of that distress returned to him and it seemed almost that the vibrations of such a feeling must penetrate the room and reach Ronald’s mind and cause him to understand without need for more words. Not only to understand, but to put things right. Ronald could fuse the fragments of his life, burning out the waste. Lumley and the smell of sin, Frank’s purified regard from the shelf above the fire, the hand with the warm gold ring sliding up his nerveless arm; that announcer on the wireless whose voice he would have known among thousands; the terrible pauses before nude Apollos in museums. Ronald could make all this whole, if only it somehow could be brought before him. Moss did not feel he was being unreasonable, but what he was expecting from Foley was a miracle.

  11

  Moss said no more that night. After a short silence Foley heard his footsteps receding down the passage. He was too far gone to feel any relief at this now the damage was done, his obdurate understanding violated at last. The story of this drooling Syrian had finally, in spite of all his efforts, cleared things up. At about the time he had lowered his eyes from his reflection it had come to Foley with irresistible force that Moss was kinky, was in fact, not to put too fine a point on it, a pervert. But how could a person who wore a beret without even pulling one side down, and thick ginger socks in all weathers, how could such a person be a pervert? It was not conceivable. And where had he got that word from, anyway? He would never have applied it to someone like Max, who was quite open about the thing. It was a term of abuse. He had thought of it, he realised, because it resembled perfidious. Moss, the perfidious pervert.

  He undressed as quickly as possible and got into bed. His eyes wide open in the dark, he tried to cope with the problem of what to do with Moss. It was impossible that he should actually encourage him, even to keep the business together. But could he, on the other hand, at this late stage, try to divert desire from himself by such feeble palliatives as introducing Moss around? He already was introduced if it came to that.

  He cleared his throat, with a sound that was cautious and rather prim, after the pain and intensity there had been in Moss’s voice. He was lying on his back with his knees drawn up sharply. For an appalled moment or two he tried to think what it might be like actually to be Moss, and have such a sting and not know whether acid or alkali was needed and no one to tell you, but almost immediately he became confused between two images of Moss as yet quite unreconciled: the Moss of tradition, reliable, exploitable; and the Moss revealed latterly, a tortuous queer. He had known other homosexuals, that is he had detected this tendency in men from time to time, in the streets, in pubs. During his modelling days he had actually worked with them; but it had always been with the sort of indulgence that seems to absolve one from any need for deeper understanding. He had never considered more than their external vagaries. Usually these young men had been marked from the first by a sort of preening, excessive even in that milieu, and by a waspish and jeering camaraderie. They had been blatant, people you could spot a mile off. He had not liked working with them, because they were not respectable, they lowered the tone. But he had never at any time thought of their condition as involving complexities of emotion, practices that bodies and minds were deeply engaged in. And now here was Moss positively clamouring, albeit deviously, to be associated with these others, the Moss of monumental decencies and Harris tweed, whom he had thought he knew, whom he had seen almost daily for three years. In the abstract he felt no particular hostility – he lacked the quality, perhaps it was simply imaginative energy, which could have made such considerations very real to him. But when he thought of Moss actually taking part, adjusting his heaviness and solemnity to whatever postures such loves might demand, the whole idea became repugnant and comical too.

  Sleep came to him finally and he slept deeply and dreamlessly and woke unusually late the next morning. Moss was not to be seen or heard in the vicinity of the kitchen. This in itself was not unusual since they always made their own tea and toast separately, taking it together of course if they happened to coincide, but more often bearing it off to their respective working quarters. Moss always made tea for the mid-morning break and they were accustomed to take this together, usually talking over matters related to the business.

  So Foley merely assumed that Moss had taken his tea along to the casting-room and started work. He was relieved at this since he had an extreme reluctance to set eyes on Moss just then, and for some time to come. He was himself disinclined to begin work this morning, although there was much to be done. They were behind with the orders, and at a time when the peak period was beginning. They should both have been working full out. Even if they worked steadily through July and August they would probably still lose money now.

  This morning, however, the very urgency of the work seemed to intensify Foley’s reluctance to engage in it, and after a very short struggle he decided to take the morning off and walk down to the village by the cliff path. The decision which, once made, he did not think of changing, nevertheless filled him with gloom. Such irresponsibility on his part, such a neglect of duty, of self-interest, seemed like a further element in the disintegration which threatened from all sides.

  He walked slowly, in dejection at first, but brightening gradually as the cottage and with it all disagreeable calls to action receded behind him. It was a fine morning. The sky was a tender blue with a high tremulous haze of cloud, the kind of sky that in Cornwall promises hot, still weather. The sea was pale hyacinth and calm to the horizon, greening in the shallows. On the landward side the sloping fields were stiff with wheat or ploughed black. Foley’s passage along the cliffs was marked by puffs of gulls that he scared off the ledges; they did a couple of screaming turns before settling down again behind him. The turf under his feet was dense and springy, sown with the dark blue vetches that endure all summer. As Foley walked on an optimism that was entirely of the body grew in him, characteristically deep-centred in himself, in the mechanisms which propelled him along so smoothly, the steady carriage of his trunk, his marvellous, swivelling head. His delight in himself served as a substitute for purpose and destination.

  As he drew nearer to the village the path became easier. A sharp turn brought him within sight of the pronged headland, its cleft containing the harbour like a puddle in a furrow. He had decided to miss out the harbour area and particularly The Smugglers’ Den. This he managed by taking a circuitous route through the narrow cobbled streets above the harbour. He emerged on the far side, quite close to Barbara Gould’s house. It was earlier in the day than he had ever visited her and as he stood on the doorstep he was assailed by the dismaying thought that she might still be in bed. But she called out to him immediately in her clear, harsh voice. She was sitting at the table with writing-paper before her. Foley noticed at once that she looked different, less elaborate in appearance. That would be because of the time of day. Her hair was parted in the middle and came low over the temples at each side, softening the cheekbones and making her whole face look gentler. She did not seem to be wearing very much make-up; there were faint lavender-coloured shadows beneath her eyes. The eyes themselves were as brilliant and reptilian as ever as she looked up smiling.

  ‘How nice of you to come just now,’ she said. ‘You have saved me from having to write letters.’

  For some reason Foley felt disconcerted by this remark and he remained silent for a moment or two. Barbara regarded him, still smiling.

  ‘I believe you are blushing, dear boy,’ she said at last, in exactly the same tone as before. This tone of hers, completely without warmth or sympathy, too dispassionate even for mockery, frightened Foley and helped him to recover. He smiled and wrinkled his nose slightly, one of his favourite charm expressions.

  ‘It’s supposed to be a sign of grace, isn’t it?’ he said, holding the expression for a moment before dissolving it in a broader, heartier smile.

  Barbara replied, ‘Yes, so they say,�
� and got up from the table. ‘Come and sit down,’ she said. ‘No, not there, this is more comfortable.’ She pointed to the black divan against the wall.

  It was the first time he had sat on the divan, as far as he could remember. On previous occasions he had used a straight-backed chair and the slight discomfort of this had marked the formal expository character of his visits. He could not help wondering whether his present posture, which he tried hard to make unsprawling, signified the beginning of a new phase.

  ‘I’ll go and make some coffee,’ Barbara said. ‘I expect you’d like some.’

  ‘Heavenly,’ Foley said, nervously, but with a definite sense of keeping his end up. He observed that Barbara had well-defined muscles in her calves. He was again visited, while she was in the kitchen, by a gloomy sense of impermanence. Everything seemed to be slipping out of his grasp. Suddenly it came to him that the rot had started with Bailey and the skulls. Since that irregular request there had been nothing but trouble for him. He experienced an upsurge of malice towards Bailey, recalling that moon face, that neurotically billowing, too Protean personality. However he was soothed by the recognition, which instantly followed, that Bailey would come to grief before long.

  ‘Well, what’s happening down on the farm,’ asked Barbara, returning with the coffee.

  ‘Well, Moss rather let himself go last night.’

  ‘Do you mean he made a pass at you?’ Barbara asked, and took a sip of her coffee. ‘I can’t say I blame him,’ she added.

  Foley looked at her in amazement. ‘Do you mean to say that you suspected something?’ he said.

  ‘Do you mean to say that you didn’t?’

  ‘Of course he didn’t make a pass at me; the idea!’ Foley said carefully. ‘But he did admit, or rather he talked himself into the position of not needing to admit in so many words, that is he told me things about himself which amount to an admission – although I don’t know if he knows it himself yet, knows that I know, I mean –’

  ‘That he’s a raving queer,’ she interrupted, on a rising note of triumph. ‘Anyone would have known that.’

  ‘Indeed, would they?’ Foley said, with extreme coldness. ‘At any rate he is certainly not raving, you are being melodramatic. Moss is quite calm about the whole thing.’

  ‘Well of course,’ she said, with a sort of overbearing gaiety, ‘but he must be quite batty with it underneath, so repressed and that. I wonder what he’s been doing all these years. My dear boy, you are a simpleton for all your airs. Did you think they all lisped and minced? I should have thought anyone would suspect Moss. Never any girl friends or anything. And have you never really noticed, there’s a sort of muffled quality about him. About men like that. Surely you must have noticed?’

  Barbara looked sideways at Foley, smiling. Her head was inclined a little and the dark hair had swung forward, partially concealing her face.

  ‘As a matter of fact –’ Foley began.

  ‘They seem muffled up, they don’t move freely. Moss is a big strong chap, isn’t he, but have you ever seen him do anything … sweeping? Have you ever seen him make a single expansive gesture? When he points at something does he stretch his arm right out or does he bend it at the elbow?’

  ‘I’ve really no idea,’ Foley said. He was disturbed by the quality of Barbara’s excitement, in which there was neither scorn nor pity for Moss but only a sort of relish at the accuracy of her judgement. Above all he was appalled by her perspicuity. She had detached Moss from his protective background, like taking a crustacean off a rock, with one twist. She had winkled him out and now here she was holding up to the light the poor little gobbet of transparent jelly. It was inhuman.

  ‘You saw it all right, my dear,’ went on Barbara, with a return to a sharper tone. ‘You see things as quickly as anyone. But you’re capable of suspending conclusions indefinitely if they’re not convenient, aren’t you? People are only real for you at the points where they impinge on your little life, otherwise they might as well be plankton for all you care. You simply ignored about four-fifths of Moss. Exploiting people doesn’t matter, but you didn’t care enough to try to understand the nature of the instrument. It comes from trying to form alliances with people all the time, instead of friendships. You have permitted yourself to become an object of admiration to Moss, basked in it, acted up to it. Now you are probably going to suffer for it, which you richly deserve. Lads like Moss have their sprouting time sooner or later and he has had the good sense to break out of the role you had cast him for.’

  ‘I hadn’t cast him for any role,’ Foley protested. ‘He just seemed to be like that. I took him as I found him.’

  Barbara made no reply to this. Her face slowly lost the expression of delighted percipience with which she had been speaking. She looked at Foley in silence for some moments. He himself was filled with a sort of furtive resentment against her. So great was her authority now that this could only have been expressed in some very primitive defiance, such as nose-thumbing. So he swallowed rather noisily and said nothing more. All the same, it irked him terribly to sit chidden on the black sofa. It was the grossness of perception imputed to him which hurt him most, much more than selfishness or any unkindness. He felt instinctively it was this quality that Barbara herself most despised.

  ‘Never mind, Ronald,’ she said at last in her customary, somewhat jeering tone. ‘You are a very decorative fellow.’ She was smiling again. The pale mouth curved upward, slightly tremulous at the corners; the steady black eyes regarded him unblinkingly, without tenderness or any detectable expression save zest. She would not have regarded much differently, he felt sure, a forkful of pâté. She obviously thought of him as neither ally or friend, simply appendage. Yes, Barbara was detestable …

  Her skin, he noticed, allowing his eyes to dwell on her face in an effort to escape the marked down feeling her eyes gave him, was faintly moist-looking. It was very pale and delicately pored and there were no spots or blemishes anywhere. It was a face inured to expensive preservatives. He could picture her applying, each night before she went to bed, a paste of cold cream, until her face was a stiff white mask and only the derisive eyes lived in it. How old was she? Forty? Forty-five? What was her life in London like? He had no means of knowing. He felt sure she had always taken the proper exercise, used the best type of corsetry. Unwanted hair had been razed tenderly from her body. He was beginning to feel excited by all these private things she did, and repelled too. He took refuge in a deliberately renewed rage against Moss.

  ‘It’s the deceit I can’t stand,’ he said. ‘His keeping quiet all this time about it. He should never have agreed to come in with me, not without telling me first. I suppose he was hoping I’d come round in the end.’

  ‘Yes, but don’t you see, my pet,’ Barbara said, ‘what a dim and pathetic hope that was, not even consciously a hope at all probably, but worth it for him, worth giving up years for? He might have gone on all his life like that. You don’t call it deceit unless there is some process of calculation. He liked being associated with you, that’s all. Only this year it became clearer to him, who can say why? Perhaps he felt his security threatened. Moss might have gone quietly dotty over the years if something hadn’t stuck in his throat. Much better for him that it did, whatever you may think. Much better than going on making pixies all his days and thinking all he wanted was companionship. I expect he knows what he wants now, doesn’t he?’

  Finding no adequate reply to this, Foley stood up and said he thought he’d better be getting along. The visit had not gone at all according to plan. Again she accompanied him to the door. It seemed to have become settled practice. It was at once more formal and more intimate and Foley found it vaguely intimidating, as though Barbara had reassessed him, revised his status in some way. At the moment of parting he experienced a strong desire to prolong his visit by some means, but he could think of no plausible pretext.

  ‘Whatever,’ he said, ‘shall I do with him now?’

  ‘Do with hi
m? There is nothing much for you to do, is there? You must put up with the way he will look at you, that’s all.’

  Foley pondered this remark as he proceeded through the village. He had decided to return by the road. How would Moss look now, sheepish, reproachful? He had a disagreeable conviction that fresh shocks were in store. Absorbed in these thoughts he took the shortest way back and this led him past Gwendoline’s cottage. He was walking very fast when she tapped on the window to attract his attention and a moment later she opened it and called softly across to him. He stopped, and after hesitating a moment crossed the street towards her, assuming as he did so a certain nonchalance.

  ‘I’ve been hoping to see you,’ she began, speaking it seemed to him rather hurriedly. ‘I feel that I owe you an explanation. You must think me very rude.’

  ‘Oh no,’ said Foley. Gwendoline obviously had not been long out of bed. She was wearing a dressing-gown of dark blue towelling and her hair, pinned up hastily, had strayed loose here and there around her face, which still carried the pallor of sleep. Foley sensed rather vividly, as she leaned towards him out of the window, the languidness, the compliant heaviness of her body, before the brisker juices of day had began circulating properly.