“I’m surprised because I didn’t think they thought about serious things,” I said.
“They don’t talk about them, thank God, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t worried. You only notice things on the surface, which is why you are so stupid. People never show anything on the surface.”
“I agree with that,” I said.
“And you aren’t worried because you haven’t noticed what is going on at all, not at all, or else you have done and are fool enough not to admit it.”
“But all this is on the surface . . . ” I began.
“Oh nonsense,” she said. “Absolute nonsense.”
I did not know quite what we were arguing about. She emerged from the kitchen and I watched her standing bleakly in front of the window. “But you,” I said, “you personally—are worried by it?”
“By what?” she said.
“Well, by the food and the strikes and the communists.”
“Yes,” she said. “Of course I am. It’s like always having someone behind you with a knife in your back.”
“Then why don’t you do something . . . ” I began.
“Oh,” she said, “you’d never understand. I can’t explain it to you if you don’t understand.”
I left her soon after this. We had nothing to say to each other. As I walked away down the street with the lights coming on like small explosions I thought that perhaps the loneliness that I felt was felt by everyone, that we were all cut off from each other by a failure of the expectation that once had been between us. For although I had been skeptical of Alice’s examples of fear, I had felt some truth in her perception; for in a way it was the unease of this age which, by denying any optimistic or even possible view of the future, had taken from the present its reality and meaning. And so we were all on the surface, on the thin ice surface, and time had become the fear of falling on our backs. Time was anxiety and space was a sliding sphere, and all we could expect was the unexpected. It was as if for the first time the universe had become real to us, as if we felt ourselves like fragments on the edge of relentless stars: and although I had said that this did not worry me, worry is a condition that can exist apart from care. For myself I did not care if there should be no future and no certainty, but others did, and I think it was their concern that had set the distances between us. For in every meeting and every relationship there must exist some ground upon which contact is established, and this ground had slipped into darkness with a turn of the sliding world. Those whom I met knew no means other than the old ones of custom, and I myself, at that time, knew no means at all. I only knew that those around me were on dangerous ground, alone, their eyes closed in a kind of panic, not daring to look too closely at what might lie beneath their feet; and that I, more lonely than most, could not even imagine where I was standing. But above all this I had in front of me the image of Marius and the girl, Marius and the girl who had shoved me on to the ice-rink and who were now the only people who could get me off. I was looking for them as one looks for the arm of some friendly professional, but I did not know where to find them and I did not even know who they were. I was afraid that they would forever have to remain as images, and that, in the way of images, they would grant me no more service than I could grant myself. And it did not seem, as a fragment under the starlight, that I could do very much for myself.
3
But I did meet Marius, and it was through Alice that I found him. A few days after our tea-party I received a postcard from her saying, “If you would like to come here this evening I am expecting a friend who might interest you.” Just that. So I went round early and found Alice alone.
“Who is the friend?” I said.
“What friend?” she said.
“You said something on your postcard about a friend.”
“Oh did I?”
“Yes.”
“Well he may turn up.”
I guessed from this that the friend was of some importance to her and that she hoped he would impress me. Since I hate arranged meetings where impressiveness is expected, I awaited the arrival of the stranger with some anxiety. When the doorbell rang and Alice went to answer it I propped myself defensively against the wall and prepared for the worst. And then Marius came in.
He looked younger than when I had seen him last. I think that each time I saw him throughout his life he appeared to be younger than I remembered him, as if time, in deference to his changing moods, had allowed him to reverse the process of age. He must have been very old I thought, and was now approaching youth with an energy that was apparent in the small movements of his hands and his laughing eyes. Alice introduced us, rather proudly, and I still did not hear his surname. He looked at me and put a hand to his mouth as if to hide his smile.
“Yes,” he said, “we’ve met.”
“Oh you’ve met, have you?” Alice said.
“Yes,” I said.
“Oh dear. Men always seem to have met.” She moved away from us and I could see how disappointed she was. She liked playing the game of the experimental hostess. Marius sat down abruptly and she offered him a cigarette. “Where did you meet?” she said.
“I was being lynched,” Marius said.
“I’m not surprised.”
“No. And then we went to a pub. It was rather strange.”
“Oh very strange,” Alice said.
“Men are always being lynched,” I said. Marius laughed loudly and Alice looked at me with patience.
“You’re right,” she said. “You’re right, but you’d never know it.”
Marius looked from her to me and back again. I knew that this was going to be a difficult evening, but it did not seem to matter. Marius said, “Are you being lynched, Alice?”
“No,” she said.
“But I’m sure you imagine you are.”
“This is really a very boring conversation,” she said. She opened the door of a cupboard and produced bottles and glasses.
“Alice thinks there’s someone behind her with a knife,” I said. I had a great desire to giggle, and I nearly overbalanced as I leaned against the wall.
“A knife?” Marius said. “A sharp knife?”
“Yes.”
“Good at cutting things?”
“Yes.”
“How useful,” Marius said.
“Are you drunk?” Alice said; for in my efforts to maintain my balance I had toppled against some fire-tongs which fell heavily in the grate.
“Perhaps he thinks there’s someone underneath him with a poker,” Marius said.
Alice poured out the drinks. She looked tired. Marius continued tentatively “I should like very much to have someone behind me with a knife. I never know anyone who has a knife . . . ”
“Marius,” Alice said, “if you go on like this I shall scream.”
“Dear Alice,” he said, “I should not like you to scream.”
Alice went out of the room to get some ice. Marius moved as if he was going to follow her, and then he changed his mind and came back to me. “I am afraid that Alice is upset,” he said. “I think it was rather a disappointment to her that we had already met.”
“Yes,” I said. He was pacing up and down the room with his hand still up to his mouth.
“I think that now she will want us to hate each other,” he said.
“Hate each other? Will she?”
“She may do. I think she had been expecting something from this meeting. Something else she likes . . . Do you know her well?”
“Not very.”
“She is a kind person, very kind.”
“Then why . . . ?”—But Alice had returned, and I could say no more.
Alice gave us drinks and Marius was polite to her. And then, in a strangely subtle way, he tried to get her into a good humour. He said all the things that she must have wanted him to say—all the things that I could never remember; and gradually, as he talked, saying nothing but saying it pleasantly, she came round to him and appeared at ease again. I listened to
them, and I wondered how sincere Marius was being, and whether indeed Alice was accepting his efforts sincerely. I could not tell what was behind their formal interchange of jokes and gossip, but I sensed, as the evening progressed, that there was some battle between them that was being fought out on ground of which I had no knowledge with forces that were camouflaged from the uninitiated eye. They circled round each other like rival celebrities, but in spite of Marius’s efforts—or perhaps because of them—I felt that Alice’s geniality was a trifle forced. I did not bother to enquire into this too closely because sincerity did not seem to matter on an occasion like this, and besides, I was too bewildered by the surprise of meeting Marius again. I felt as I had felt the first time that I had met him—as if in some way I was separate from myself—and my only care was that this time I should be able to stay with him and learn about him, and if possible find the girl. His conversation with Alice was quite unreal to me. The battle between them touched me, however, whenever I was left alone with either one or the other of them—the first occasion having occurred when Alice left the room to get some ice. Later, when Marius had gone out to meet a friend of his, as he had said, and we had arranged to join him again in a few minutes, Alice turned to me and carried the battle for another short skirmish into the open.
“What do you think of Marius?” she said.
“I like him.”
“Do you admire him?”
“Yes, I think I do.” Admire was not a word that had occurred to me before.
“I can’t think why everyone admires him,” she said. “I think it’s ridiculous. It shows what children people are.”
“Does everyone admire him?”
“Oh yes. All your sort of people. I can’t understand it. If you only knew what my friends, my real friends, think of him, how they laugh at him!”
“Why?”
“Really laugh at him!”
“Then they must envy . . . ”
“Oh envy, that is all you can think of, as if anything were so obvious . . . ”
“But . . . ”
“You’re so serious, so silly, but I should have thought that even you would have seen through Marius!”
“Then why did you ask me to meet him?”
“I didn’t.”
“Oh.”
And then, when we had gone to meet Marius in the inevitable pub round the corner, I was able to leave Alice temporarily and join Marius and his friend as they stood at the bar in conversation. Marius glanced at Alice over his shoulder and then looked at me in a mocking, knowledgeable way, as if again there was in him a tendency to laugh which, owing to exigencies of the battle, he had to suppress; and when I rejoined Alice I felt that I had been drawn a little closer into the struggle although I still did not know what it was about.
Alice was restless. She made no pretence of geniality with me. She kept on glancing at Marius and his friend, and she was tossing her hair back from her face in a gesture that I knew was one of annoyance. “Look at them,” she said. “What on earth are they talking about?”
“I don’t know,” I said.
“Fancy coming here just to talk. About themselves, too, I expect. Creeping out like moths after dark to talk about themselves.”
“What is Marius’s history?” I said.
“History? I don’t think he has one. I wouldn’t dream of asking him, anyway. It’s only people like you, darling, who would ask people their history.”
She had never called me “darling” before. I went on hurriedly: “But what does he do? What did he do in the war, for instance?”
“I don’t know. I don’t suppose he does anything. I think he only came here after the war. What does it matter anyway? Why do you want to know about him? Do you think you can understand people just by finding out about their lives?”
“Yes,” I said.
“Well you can’t. And if you want to know about Marius look at that man who’s with him now. You can find out more about a person from small things like that than from the story of their lives.”
The man was rather sinister. A thick fair-haired man with an expressionless face and tiny intent eyes: a fair moustache and grey flannel trousers and the musty military look of a staff officer. He was talking to Marius and smoking delicately, like a woman. Marius was watching him.
“What on earth can they be doing?” Alice said; and then, drawn irresistibly to attack them, she called out “Marius, can you get us a drink?”
Marius turned to her, and his companion looked sullen. Alice was smiling serenely like someone expecting to be photographed. Then Marius murmured something to the man and they came over to us. Marius introduced him as Mr. Jackson.
“How do you do,” Alice said. “I hope we didn’t interrupt your conversation.”
“Not at all,” the man said formally. He wore a thin striped tie, and his face had the rough scrubbed look of a rubber sponge. He reminded me of the men in raincoats at the political meeting. He did not sit down.
“Do go on talking if you want to,” Alice said. “I am sure you must have terribly important things to say to each other.”
The man stood stiffly, hating her. Marius said to him quietly, “I am sorry that there is nothing more I can do.”
“You will not be there?” the man said.
“No,” Marius said.
“How exciting!” Alice said. “It sounds like a robbery!”
The man went on hating her out of his small scrubbed eyes. “You will be expected,” he said to Marius.
“Yes,” Marius said.
“With the guns and the dynamite?” Alice mocked.
The man turned his back on her. He nodded abruptly to Marius. “I will leave you to this,” he said. Then he walked out of the room. Marius sat down.
Alice began, “God, what a man. I could smell him, literally smell him. I’ve never met such a sinister man in my life.”
Marius said nothing.
Alice turned to me and went on “Darling, now you see what it’s like when men get together, how dreadful they are, how creepy, really, I think that nowadays men would rather go out with each other than with a woman.”
She was speaking to me, but the battle was with Marius. He said nothing, and she went on:—
“Darling, how glamorous you look. I’m sure you wouldn’t rather go out with a man like that, would you darling. Look at Marius now, isn’t he dreadful, I think he must have caught some terrible disease.”
Marius was sitting thoughtfully, twirling his glass, and I wondered if in these silly moments I was going to lose the chance of knowing him for ever. I wanted Alice to go, I wanted to be alone with him, but Alice seemed to be carrying the battle on to indefensible territory so that Marius would have to retreat and I should lose him in the chaos. All these ‘darlings’, these sneers at Marius, were part of her tactics; and I remembered how Marius had said that she might want us to hate each other. I was powerless, and it seemed that Marius was powerless too: but then Alice, incensed by his silence, blundered. She spoke to him.
“Marius,” she said, “what on earth were you doing with a man like that?”
“What?” Marius said.
“That’s a man who would stick a knife into you quicker than a piece of meat.”
“A piece of meat?” Marius said.
“Oh don’t be so dull.”
“He’s a vegetarian,” Marius said.
Alice turned away. She shook her pale dangling hair from her forehead, and I wanted to cheer.
“He’s head of the greengrocer’s guild,” Marius said. “He’s called Munroe.”
“Oh dear,” Alice said.
“The last time he ate meat,” Marius said, “he was fined forty shillings by his union.”
“Marius,” Alice said, “if you go on like this I shall leave.”
“He was very upset about it,” Marius said. “He told me that it felt as if there was someone always behind him with a carrot.”
“I warn you,” Alice said. “I can’t stan
d it when you are so dull.”
“He said it was worse than being a donkey,” Marius said.
“I’m going,” Alice said.
“I’m sorry,” Marius said. “Thank you very much for asking me round.”
Alice waited a moment and then stood up. “Goodbye,” she said. Marius looked very sad. I was staring at the table not wanting to see her, for I could feel her expecting me to make some move. “Goodbye,” Marius said. Then she walked away from us, and I was sorry. We both stood up and she went to the door and was gone.
Marius sat down. He remained very still and then he sighed and said “It was a pity, that, but I’m afraid I couldn’t think of anything else.” He scratched his head with a gesture of dismissal and pushed his half empty glass of beer away from him. “I was rather put out by that man,” he said. Then he looked at me and said “Come and see Annabelle, she would love to see you,” and at once I forgot about Alice and the queerness of the battle and any sorrow at our victory, for I was thinking—Annabelle, I must remember Annabelle—and I followed him into the street.
I walked a little behind him, feeling like a puppet, a puppet worked by strings. Marius was the player and the lamp-lit street our stage, and as I walked I noticed the things around me as the setting for a play, objects slung together for the purpose of illusion, and beyond us, outside the perimeter of the arc-lights, an unseen audience whose presence was felt like rain. In the gutter a man selling matches raised his head and muttered across the pavement; and a woman, dragged by dogs, swept past him like a ship. Marius stood on the curb and held his hand up for a taxi, and one swung to his bidding as if he had pulled it with a rope. We climbed in and Marius murmured instructions, and we drove away. It would not be very far, I thought—Kensington or Sloane Street, the homes of Annabelles and Mariuses—but in Knightsbridge the taxi turned right and took us up into the park. We emerged opposite the big ship-like shapes of the hotels in Park Lane, and the taxi drove between them and stopped in Grosvenor Square. Marius paid it, and we walked through the hall of a large block of flats. The floor was thickly carpeted and there were flowers on the walls: real flowers, in carved vases, and the smell of scent. We got into the lift and went up to the fourth floor. The flat where Annabelle lived was large and hot and very expensive.
A Garden of Trees Page 4
