Cotter's England

by Christina Stead

  Nellie sulked. She thought he was teasing her. She humped over her tea and smoked, looking down into her lap and pretending to think about something. Tom said he was coming along a street in Belsize Park when he passed a well-lighted house he knew was a gambling place.

  "I was attracted. I used to gamble a lot."

  Eliza smiled, "How much did you gamble?"

  "A lot," he said evasively.

  "How much?"

  He said uneasily, "About six pounds at a time. I spent my money in all sorts of ways. Not on clothes. I should have bought a caravan instead. I could have taken it to some river bank in good game country and gone in for living on fish and game."

  He said with a gentle smile, "Only I don't care much for catching and killing things. I'd rather have bread and tea. I used to like blue cheese but I got sick of it."

  "What about winter, the floods and the ice?"

  "Yes. I could move to higher ground. But it isn't practical. I think the best thing for me is to go in for nursing."

  Eliza said, "Oh, no! I did it once. It was awful. You get involved with the patient and it's a nightmare. You'd have to join an association of male nurses, get a certificate. And supposing you had a big patient, a man, with delirium say. He might kill you."

  He said huffily, "I'm stronger than I look. I'm very strong."

  "Don't do it. If you're alone with someone, it goes wrong. It brings out queer things in people. You never know what will rise from the depths. There was that girl Nellie knew. She roomed with a friend. The mother went to bed and pretended to be ill, so that no one could leave the house. What was your friend's name, Nellie?" said Eliza.

  "I don't know, pet," said Nellie.

  "You told me about this girl, who had all the bad luck. She roomed with one after the other and each got her claws into her, you said. You remember the letter you read me from her?"

  Nellie said, "No, pet, you've got me wrong. I don't know."

  Eliza said, "You came over to see me, over in Hampstead. We were sitting on the hill and you told me about this girl you were worried about. She had such bad luck. You said there were a lot of you worried about her. You thought some gray fate was waiting for her."

  Nellie said nothing.

  "I asked you if she was a lesbian. Or they were."

  Nellie muttered, "No, no, pet, no, no."

  "I know who it is," said Tom.

  Nellie went into a flurry, "Ah, yes, a tragedy there, I'm afraid. No, pet, I don't know about the others, but she wasn't one, she didn't know the word. No, darling."

  "Where is she—Lucine?" asked Tom.

  "She died."

  Tom was upset, "When?"

  "I don't know, Tom. Last year. She was living with someone and she got fed up with it all."

  "Who was she living with?" asked Tom.

  "I don't know, love, don't know at all," muttered Nellie.

  Tom leaned back in his chair eyeing her deliberately and shaking the ashes from his cigarette. She seemed to feel it.

  She exclaimed, "There was a bloody man in it. She found out he was married and just leading her on; and she couldn't take it."

  Tom was upset.

  "Why didn't you tell me? I could have stopped it. She used to talk to me."

  Nellie turned to him in a fury, "What could you have done with your little smirks and fairy tales? She asked the great question; she got the great rejoinder and she accepted it—something you could never do. She was a woman and she accepted fate. She didn't try to run away from it with a hundred ducks and dives, running in and out—but it's a labyrinth, you can't escape. You'll end in a blind corner whether you like it or not. I won't stand it, Tom Cotter. I'll pay you out for poking fun at what is nearest to me heart."

  She got up, lounged out of the room and presently they heard a bottle being uncorked and the liquid running.

  Eliza exclaimed, "Nellie's a thrilling woman! She can make you see things her way, though you know it wasn't so. I used to think there was a lot of gimcrack and phony in her make-up, too much of the old man. She's always imitating him and he was a grand phony. But you cannot blame the old Kipling soldier for the character they put on him. And now he's gone, strike me pink, if she isn't more like him than before. Here I am sitting and tearing people to pieces like a Bridgehead back-kitchen wife. Aye, but he wasn't fair to you, Tom, the old soldier."

  "He wasn't fair to her either. She suffered because he told her she was a scarecrow. She never got over her love for him till she met—till George."

  But the next morning when Camilla and Tom started out, Nellie was in excellent humor. George was coming home at the end of the week to stay for a few weeks.

  It was a fresh morning. They started off at seven-thirty to get to Norwich near which town Tom was to be interviewed by the managers of a plastics firm. Camilla sat still with the fresh-faced young man beside her telling her his anecdotes; she was glad to be away. Marion's death was mentioned several times but in an unexpected way.

  "My girl had great courage. She didn't want to lose me and we made an unfair agreement."

  "Do you think it was unfair?"

  "Because she had to and I hadn't. And when it was over, I felt the passion of a boy. I felt quite new as if I had never tasted life at all; it was all to come. I still feel it. It was her death that waked me up to real passion. I burned for it. I'm living for it now."

  He slowly raised the lids over his large eyes and stared unblinking in his unnatural way at her. He bent his mouth in a red bow and smiled, "Of course, I had three months' holiday from work and in the country, well fed, in an orchard, you see."

  "You must find a friend," said Camilla, about to laugh.

  Tom said placidly, "I have friends. I went out with one on Saturday. She does not get much out of life. They're poor and I took her out with her little boy, but the serpent raised its head and I thought she was too young and would suffer. Young women get caught and suffer. I am sure I will find a woman. I am like an adolescent—I can only think about the woman I am going to love and I'm excited about her, wondering."

  She was silent, smiling.

  "That young woman was awkward and cold and I became cold. I felt nothing for her, so I took her home and I came home."

  "I don't like to think of poor Nellie waiting for us until midnight tonight. She is so pale. She is so worried about you."

  He smiled ironically, "She is afraid I might make a run for paradise with a woman. Nellie would not like me to get from under her paws so fast. She wants to lick up every last drop. I don't take her seriously."

  "Don't you think England is spectral? I am from a warmer place. The light is more golden and red."

  "Yes, you can be sitting at tea, with the fire blazing away and the curtains drawn and no matter where you are, it comes over you: your hair begins to bristle."

  "You're not a Christian people at all. Like the Italians, you're a very old people. Christ stopped at Eboli. Christ didn't come here at all."

  Tom said, "I went to Stonehenge. I was there at sunset and it was just like the pictures. I was disappointed. The only interesting thing was a circle of trees on the hill, growing in the form of Stonehenge and I've seen that before too. I don't know what it means. I just sat down in the middle of the stones in the circle and was looking down the hill at the camp not far away. You could see the soldiers. The sun went down and suddenly I felt something awful. I felt some horror was coming in. I took to my heels. If you sit in a grassy hollow and can't see a house, you begin to think of the people who were there thousands of years ago; and you feel them there. You can't stand it."

  He continued with a faint sound, like a distant sound of laughing coming over a hill in puffs, "I had a horrifying experience. I was in Scotland. Gone on a trip to Carlyle's country. Go up to the moors, he said. It was a spring day, the sun shining and no wind. I was walking across country taking care because of marshy spots and I was heading for a little town on the map. I came into a little valley, a depression, without anyth
ing in it, a few grasses and stones and mostly moss and I could see nothing but the light blue sky. It was springy turf and easy going but I began to feel scared. With each step I took I knew there was something wrong. I looked round everywhere but saw nothing. I was glad to get out of it. In the town they told me that valley is full of asps; it is the only one anywhere around with asps. On the same trip I was crossing some fields with stone fences. There was a bush on the other side of a low stone fence and I was attracted by it. I went that way. I was just putting my leg over when I saw four or five stoats standing on the other side of the bush, as if they were talking something over. I knew they were dangerous, and attack people in lonely places. They saw me and they all turned towards me. I turned and ran for my life and when I looked back the stoats were all coming over the fence; one was over. I ran for my life. I am a good runner. I was a good footballer."

  He talked on and on about his wonderful adventures. Her thoughts began to play softly among these adventures as if playing in these upland breezes he was piping in.

  She smiled when he stopped, "Go on with your horrifying experiences."

  "What do you mean?"

  "You say that."

  "Someone—said that to me a little while ago."

  She knew who. They remained silent. After a few minutes it occurred to him that she was trying to make him forget his sorrow.

  He began to talk again, "I was out taking a walk one day, the sky very clear and light, the sun broadshed, the birds were flying about and I was thinking of nothing. I was just wandering aimlessly. Clouds of ideas pass over you and leave you; and I was quite dizzy. It was spring. I was thinking I would like to be a hermit. I would like to live in the woods and be a voice to people, tell them things I know. I would talk to the animals and whistle. I can't sing because they made me sing alto too long. People would say, There's a man in the woods who can tell you things that will make it easier for you. If I did that, I could become a healer perhaps. I would have to develop it."

  "That is why your voice is like that, floating," she mused. After a while, she said, "Isn't that a pretty hotel!"

  It was an old long white building with a few well-placed windows.

  "Would you like to stay there?" he asked.

  "Oh, yes."

  "We could stay there tonight. Let's go in now and have lunch."

  She was amused, "How could we stay? They expect us home."

  "Oh, we'll send telegrams. I've done it before. Marion and I did it."

  They both began to laugh. They had lunch at the hotel. He went upstairs and when he came down said he had been to look at the rooms. They could have a room.

  "Goodness, you would get into trouble with Nellie."

  "I don't care what trouble they make. I'd do anything for you."

  She went out and got into the car. He followed her in his manner, bright and composed.

  After they had been driving a few minutes, and were out of the little country town, he said, "I know plenty of hotels along the road. I stopped at a few of them with Marion."

  "And yesterday Nellie told me not to mention Marion; but to talk to you about death!" She laughed.

  He said roughly, "She needn't worry. I'm glad I knew death in that way."

  He became silent.

  "How can you say that?"

  He remained silent.

  "It must have been misery."

  "I don't think about it. I'm free. As soon as the earth covered her, I felt alive, really alive, streaming with life, like a young hill covered with grass in the spring rains. The cemetery is on a hill and it overlooks nurseries and planted hills. There was no feeling of death at all. And do you know the only thing that worried me?"

  "No," she said timidly.

  "What I would do for a woman. She had been ill a very long time."

  Camilla looked round at him and then at the long grassy hill they were passing and she smiled, thought of a joke and burst out laughing. He laughed too.

  "Why does Nellie talk about death so much?"

  "She knows nothing about it. It's just good copy. I saw hundreds of dead men. I used to be the first to go into burnt-out planes: things like that. I could get in through small twisted apertures. I decided never to fight, only to help, to heal, or carry stretchers."

  "I'm glad to talk to you. I was lonely. I didn't know it."

  He said nothing about Edmund or the children. He went on talking, his voice carrying through the noises of the road, the engine, all through the day.

  "She was very ambitious: she would have written a play if she'd lived. Even when she was in pain, she would talk about her ideas.

  "A strange thing happened the morning she died. I was just sitting there, knowing I had to pack and get out. The housekeeper came to me and said, Mr. Green, here's the mallet you asked for. I said, Take it away, I don't want it. I didn't remember asking for a mallet. She said, You said, Find it, give it to me and I'll hide it. I don't know what it means.

  "It was cold and damp in the church and in the churchyard. I forgot my coat, but I didn't mind. I wanted to feel bad; but I didn't. The clergyman was in a hurry to get inside. We filed past him; I didn't even look at him. I was thinking, It will soon be spring."

  They got back to London late at night. He took a wrong turning, got into a maze of one-way streets and it was some time before they got to the newspaper office where Nellie was waiting. She introduced them both warmly and sweetly to her colleagues. She was worn out. She had had another struggle getting her article in, a whole day's work boiled down to a few lines in the midnight edition: and it would come out altogether by morning. But it seemed to her that her story was the most important of all, the real truth about humanity. She exclaimed, waved her cigarette, danced a lanky step or two, hovered in patch and color, like a harlequin among the desks and girls in plain blouses and men in shirt-sleeves. At last, regretfully, she left the office. It was nearly one in the morning. They drove home, Nellie still talking about her wrangles in the office and the pity of it that a real labor paper, the only real one, had no money, while giant presses labored night and day turning out tripe. George had arrived home suddenly, but she couldn't get off.

  When she got them home, sitting with her in the kitchen over a late light meal, she suddenly noticed them, it seemed.

  "Forgive me, chicks. Did you have a little chat? There's a little brandy in the cupboard. Eliza's sleeping with your children tonight, Camilla, as arranged. We'll have some coffee. Are you unhappy, Tom? Are you feeling all right, pet? What did you talk about, chicks? Ah, I'm glad of it, though; introspection is the wine of the soul: it divides us from the animals. If you don't introspect, the soul sleeps."

  Noticing Camilla's quiet and Tom's enigmatic air, she said sharply, "What is it, chicks? You didn't quarrel, did you? You've both had very tough experiences and I suppose your nerves were on edge. I shouldn't have let you go off together. I suppose you worried the sore tooth."

  "Where's George?" said Tom rudely.

  "Upstairs asleep. I have me orders not to wake him. He says he doesn't want to hear me post-mortems. He telephoned me, though, bless his heart. At the office, twice. Bless the lad. And you go, too, Tom lad. You look all in."

  Tom took his dismissal.

  "We had a lovely day. It's so long since I had a day off," said Camilla.

  He smiled, and went without a word.

  Nellie looked quickly at them both and when Tom had gone, began in an undertone, anxious, "Are you sure? Ah, I'm afraid I was wrong leaving you to turn over the blotted pages of life together."

  "Oh, it was glorious, Nellie."

  "You must excuse the poor lad, he's not himself. He's been twisted. The thoughts of the past are aching in his mind. It's moral neuralgia. I hope he didn't tread on your feelings, Camilla. He can be cruel and hurtful. You're such a sensitive plant."

  This was so unlike anything she had heard in her life before, for she was a stalwart woman, that Camilla smiled.

  Nellie took in the smile and
hurried on, "No woman can mean anything to him, poor lad. It's the empty corridor of time he faces; and only the footsteps of ghosts in it."

  She sighed, "Love is an empty shell to him. You pick up a shell on the beach and listen to its singing. But the shell is dead. To have nothing, Camilla! A life spent in sighing and longing. And what I taught him, to look inwards, the healthy introspection, the facing facts, she took away from him. She made him a buffoon dancing in a hall of mirrors. She tried to cut him off from reality to make him her lapdog. I can't take it!"

  She jumped up, twisting in her misery. She controlled herself and sat down, saying earnestly, "No wonder the thought of death attracts him. It's a comfort when life has betrayed you. There's an end to the shame and flapdoodle! But he's light-minded. He can't hold to a single truth. That's why I'm glad he has you. You're solid. You've put that foolishness of sex behind you. You're not interested in hoaxing romance. Aye, you're good for him, salutary, a good cold bath for a neurotic fool. But can ye understand it, Camilla, love, now you've seen the boy? He was a truthful, simple-hearted boy, so fair-minded, guileless. When I had him. Oh, he was mine, Camilla; his sister's. Ah, it's the bloody dames, Camilla, taking the meek, poor-spirited boys and using them. Aye, but why do I talk to you about it? You know. Aye, you know. He's been talking to you about it, has he?"

  "No."

  "No? No, it's a sealed-up life. No, it's rare for him to make friends. No, it isn't that that worries me. It's the harpy that'll be after him next. The lad's weak, he's a nonresister. It's almost a principle with him. Life happens to me, he says. But what did you talk about then, Camilla?"

  Camilla became animated; a delightful smile appeared as she told Nellie about the stoats and asps. She became self-forgetful. Nellie listened frowning and her glossy feathers lay down flat and dull. A deep silence settled in her; she became motionless. Camilla began to laugh in her deep southern voice, her splendid statuesque body became that of a living woman, a woman of maternal and sexual passions, the deep-throated woman who could, who would love insensately, "What strange things happen to him! He has only to look out of the window. He's a poet, a singer. I listened to him all day. I can still hear his voice, a thin penetrating voice you can't forget. I felt so much happier. I think it's this voice. I can hear it now. I can see why women fall in love with him: he's delightful. I love him myself. I see why you love him. I don't love him like you, Nellie. It is just a feeling, a simple sort of pleasure. Were you there when the two hundred starving people went down to the Soviet ship in the Tyne for a meal and they all thought themselves invited by Tom, because he knew the engineer and the engineer told him to come for a meal and bring a friend?"