by MARY HOCKING
‘I haven’t been unfaithful to you in the usual sense.’ The steel in her voice prevented him from taking any comfort from this. His eyes implored her to stop; but entreaties could not reach her now, she felt strong and uplifted, as though an evil were about to be exorcized. ‘But I have betrayed you in a deeper sense. You brought this young man to our house because—these were your own words—“he needed the blessing of home life”. But there was no blessing here, Ralph. No blessing; nothing but a store of dark things inside me to which he seemed to have the key.’
He stared at her incredulously; she seemed unreal, sitting there in the shadows, a still, ivory image inhabited by a profound darkness. His voice was hoarse.
‘Myra. Think carefully before you say any more. Don’t destroy more than you mean to.’
‘Is the truth destructive?’
‘The truth has to be understood. If you cannot make me understand . . .’
‘The understanding rests with you, Ralph. I can only tell you that I have tried to corrupt Keith—without success, but that is neither here nor there.’
‘Neither here nor there?’
‘I mean that the lack of success reflects no credit on me.’
‘But why? Why?’
His hands gripping the sides of the chair were like the hands of an old man the foundations of whose world are no longer secure. She pitied him more than ever, and yet pursued her own salvation, mercilessly analytical.
‘The usual reason. Neglect. And, I suppose, a flaw in my character that was waiting to be explored. You had withdrawn from me and I lacked the strength to be alone—I am too negative a person for that. So I began to look for some kind of substitute . . .’
‘But Sarah? Surely Sarah could have answered your need for human contact?’
‘Sarah! Sarah is no ordinary child; to make contact with her would be incredibly difficult, almost a vocation in itself.’ She lashed out suddenly with the brutality which had lately governed her speech: ‘Let’s say I wanted quick returns and Keith seemed the most likely person to offer them. I wanted to be reassured, to know that I existed and could make an impact. I wanted someone who would sense when I was near, who would quiver at the sound of my footsteps, become exquisitely taut when I entered a room. Most of all: I needed to hurt someone.’
He closed his eyes and she thought that he was trying to blot out a cruelty which, to his gentler nature, must seem inexplicable; but when he spoke there was no note of accusation in his voice, only a bewildered desolation.
‘But what harm had this young man done to you?’
‘None. He was there, that’s all.’
‘But I don’t see . . . I don’t understand why you had to hurt him.’
‘Since love had failed, it seemed the next best thing.’
He sat quite still while the words bit into his flesh and seemed to mingle with the stream of blood, carrying pain to the deep centre of his body. With great difficulty, he disciplined his mind, forcing himself to concentrate on her.
‘You have spoken recently, more than once, about not mattering to anyone. It is something that you feel very deeply?’
‘Yes.’
‘And this wound has been festering . . . for how long?’
‘You know the answer to that better than I, Ralph. Think back. How long ago was it that you began to grow away from me?’
As they talked, the veil which had separated them for so long seemed to her to be disintegrating, layer by layer the defensive tissues crumbled and the way to the heart lay open at last. His enthusiasm had made him vulnerable, there had never been time to learn the wisdom of acceptance; now, reality came swift and harsh, destroying in a few moments the eager youthfulness which had for so long been her joy and despair. She watched his face grow haggard, pinched about the mouth and jaw so that the bones stood out sharply, the lips became dry, the eyes dull. As she witnessed this transformation, peace came to her, as though his anguish had relieved her sickness. Gradually, the fever left her and her pulse quietened; sanity returned, crisp and cool as the first gleam of sunlight on a frosty morning. Her eyelids dropped and the lashes, damp with tears, brushed her cheeks. She was almost asleep when somewhere in the house a door slammed and footsteps crossed the hall. Ralph said:
‘Is that Keith?’
‘It must be. But I wasn’t expecting him yet.’
Her voice sounded quite normal, as though this evening were no different to all the other evenings of their life together; he saw that she looked very tired, but relaxed, as though she would sleep well. He could hear Wilson moving about below.
‘You had better get his supper.’
She picked up the note and looked at it again, wonderingly, as though she had forgotten about it.
‘He has already had one of these notes—about his job. They must be aimed at him.’
‘Don’t mention it to him. I will see him tomorrow. Now, go.’
He heard her go down to the half-landing. As she turned the corner, she said in a light, conversational tone in which there seemed to be no sign of strain:
‘I thought you were out for the evening.’
There was no answer. Although Ralph went to the door, he heard no words spoken by Wilson. He waited, longing to hear the young man relate some trivial incident which would place him with the rest of his fellow human beings, a creature perhaps not happy, but not desperate, dangerous, or betrayed. But they had gone into the kitchen, and whatever Wilson might be saying, for Ralph there was only the memory of Myra’s words: ‘You brought this young man to our house. . . . But there was no blessing here.’ The words struck at his heart. It was as though she had told him that he had betrayed his calling. Some men grew cynical and others became disillusioned about their priesthood; but to him it was still a thing of wonder that he had been chosen to be God’s instrument. And now, it seemed that he had proved himself unfit; for if grace had resided in him the atmosphere in his house could never have harmed this young man.
He turned back to the room which he had so often called his refuge. He looked at the book-lined shelves, at the cabinet where he kept his correspondence and articles, his lecture notes and schemes for poetry readings, at the maps and plans spread out on his desk, From what had he escaped when he shut the door of this room? When he first came to St. Gabriel’s his parishioners had come here to talk over their problems; but the numbers had dwindled as the years went by. Was it them that he had shut out? How many souls had he jeopardized by his neglect? ‘Are you going to preach to me about God in Shepherd’s Bush?’ Frank Godfrey had asked. And with what impatient pride he had replied; ‘Of course not.’ How many responsibilities had he shirked, how many small miracles had he failed to perform while he waited for the great call and the spiritual life around him choked and the seed of tenderness in his own wife withered away?
The questions chased one another endlessly through his mind until repetition dulled the response and he sat for a long time in a kind of stupor. When the noises about the house quietened and the street lamps in the road had gone out, Myra came to the door and called to him, but he did not answer and she went away.
There were a few books on the far end of his desk which she had put there weeks ago when she sought for guidance she failed to find. At some time in the very early morning he reached out his hand and picked up Four Quartets. It fell open, as it always did, at the fourth movement of ‘East Coker’:
The wounded surgeon plies the steel
That questions the distempered part;
Beneath the bleeding hands we feel
The sharp compassion of the healer’s art
Resolving the enigma of the fever chart.
‘The wounded surgeon.’ He put the book down angrily. This is not the Christ that I can follow; I cannot practise the healer’s art, I have no gift for surgery. But the words echoed in his mind and he was no longer so contemptuous of Eliot’s God. How would this God, who no longer seemed so small, resolve the enigma of the fever chart? He knew the answer w
ithout turning to the book again:
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
He got up and went to the window. A graveyard in which the weeds grew high; a red-brick church without architectural grace or dignity; a parish in the mean streets of Shepherd’s Bush. During all these years that he had listened, with oh how intense a longing, for the great call, had God been waiting for him here? Here, in the sleazy alley behind the market, among the slot-machines and bars in the arcade, in the soiled cottages under the railway arch, above the stained streets, stagnant with traffic, staled with diesel oil. Was it here that his work was needed, must he stand on the street corner, trying to intercept these scurrying, heedless shadows, force his way into the box-like rooms with the blank circle of faces turned to the television screen; was it this tired huddle of half¬humanity to whom he must dedicate himself? Tears scalded his eyes. Was this what God asked of him who had been prepared to sacrifice so much, suffer so much, who had dreamt of such splendour, such magnificence?
But as he thought about it, while the sky became ashen with the coming of day, the task grew in immensity. He began to understand what it would demand to tend this barren ground where growth would be reluctant, the plant sickly, needing endless care and patience and producing a flower so frail, so small a reward for effort that at times the heart would come near to breaking: it would demand everything. On the desk calendar in front of him he had drawn a ring round Easter Monday: he stared at the calendar for a long time before he knelt to pray.
Dear God, release me. I am not the man for such a task. Give me a mountain to climb, not a slag heap. The flow of words was unceasing; he seemed to pour his soul into an immense emptiness while the stars paled and went out and the first smoke belched from the forest of chimney stacks. His body, that was so strong and had known very little pain, began to ache, bruised at last by, the weight of the cross.
Chapter Eleven
I
From the early morning it was apparent to Sarah that something was wrong. In the first place, she was late for breakfast and no one came to hurry her. When she finally grew tired of acting in front of the mirror, she went out of her room and found Uncle Ralph and Mr. Wilson standing on the landing. Uncle Ralph was speaking; although the words did not make sense, she knew that it must be something important because he was leaning towards Mr. Wilson and his voice had a strange, pleading quality which Sarah had never heard before, as though he wanted something from Mr. Wilson. Mr. Wilson, however, was looking straight past Uncle Ralph at the landing window. As Sarah came towards them, he said: ‘I am responsible for myself.’ And he looked at the catch on the window as though it were a living thing that he hated.
‘We are all responsible for one another,’ Uncle Ralph said. ‘And I, particularly . . .’ He stopped as he noticed Sarah. ‘Run along, my pet.’
She went slowly down the stairs, her hand trailing on the banister rail; when she reached the bottom, she lingered in the hall. She heard Uncle Ralph say:
‘This is something we must leave to Pym. You understand that, don’t you? We must leave it to Pym.’
Mr. Wilson did not answer. Sarah hated him. Uncle Ralph went on: ‘I do want you to promise that you won’t take the law . . .’ The imploring tone made Sarah’s skin prickle with embarrassment; she could not bear to hear him humble himself in this way. It made him seem less strong, less safe. She ran into the kitchen and slammed the door. Aunt Myra, who usually hated doors to be slammed, looked up from the stove but made no complaint. After breakfast, she said to Sarah:
‘Run along and play with Sukie.’
The day when her parents went off in the car, her mother had said: ‘Run along and play with Nancy, there’s a good girl.’
‘I don’t want to play!’ Sarah said vehemently to Aunt Myra. ‘I want to stay here.’
Although she was persuaded to go out, she kept the house in view all day, and several times she crept in to make sure that Uncle Ralph was still there. On these occasions odd bits and pieces of conversation came to her, like disconnected pieces of a jig-saw puzzle. After lunch, Uncle Ralph told Aunt Myra that he had decided that ‘Rutledge ought to be brought into the picture’; he went into the hall and returned a few minutes later to say that Mr. Rutledge would not be in until late because he was going to see Sid Price on his way home. ‘And Pym is out, too,’ he said.
‘Why do you want Mr. Pym?’ Sarah asked.
But he only answered: ‘Run along and play, dear.’
As if she could play when this dark, mysterious cloud cloaked the house! It was Mr. Wilson’s fault; she realized this much from what she overheard. He was in danger. She did not feel sorry for him; she just wished that if something nasty was going to happen to him he would go away and have it happen somewhere else so that Uncle Ralph would be safe. She suggested this to him when he passed her as she was digging her garden plot.
‘I expect you’d like to have a bit of a change now, wouldn’t you?’ she said. ‘You’ve been here a long time.’
His lips hardly moved and his voice sounded pinched as he answered: ‘It would be the same wherever I went, Sarah.’
She wondered whether to suggest that he should go and stay with Jill, but she suspected that this was not something which she should mention. And, in any case, he did not seem to be in the mood for suggestions.
In the evening Aunt Myra went to visit a sick old lady. She said to Sarah before she left the house:
‘You can go to the meeting with Uncle Ralph and Mr. Wilson. It’s just a discussion about the youth club and you’ll probably find it very dull, but at least you won’t be in the house alone.’ She added that, in the meantime, Sarah could run along and play.
Sarah went and sat on the churchyard wall, from where she could see Uncle Ralph’s study and could catch occasional glimpses of him as he moved about the room. It was a nice evening. The air was mild and people had windows open; she could hear pop music blaring from a house near by. There was the sound of a lawn mower over in the direction of Apsley Crescent. She tried to think about the Easter pageant which excited her so much. But it did nothing to dispel her fear. It occurred to her that she might strike a bargain with God, and she said aloud: ‘I’ll give up my part, if I can keep Uncle Ralph.’ But the only result was that she felt rather silly and glanced over her shoulder to make sure that no one could have heard her.
It was then that she saw Spencer. She watched him shuffling along the road, his lame leg dragging badly the way it always did when he was particularly sorry for himself. It would be a relief to torment Spencer.
‘Good evening,’ she shrilled as he prepared to cross the road.
He hesitated on the kerb, and then continued along her side of the road.
‘Where have you been, Spencer?’ she asked as he came nearer. She wasn’t supposed to call him Spencer; she wondered whether he would have the courage to tell her about the mister. He didn’t.
‘I’ve been down to the shops, dear,’ he said softly, and he smiled the smile that wrinkled up his face and left the eyes untouched.
‘Did you go to post a letter?’
‘No, dear.’
‘Because you don’t have to go all that way. There’s a box right outside your house.’
He began to walk towards the gate to the churchyard which was a few yards away; he kept looking at her all the time. Of course, she had meant to annoy him, so really she should not have minded the way he was looking at her.
‘Now, what’s all this about a letter, dear?’ he said as he opened the gate.
She moved away from him; her legs felt boneless as though they were made of rubber and she had the nightmare feeling that if she turned to run it would be like wading through treacle.
‘I just thought you ought to know about the letterbox.’
‘But there’s something else that is worrying you, isn’t there, dear?’
They were ba
ck in the shadow of the yews now. There wasn’t anything worrying her at all; she just knew that for some reason he had been annoyed when she saw him going past the letter-box carrying a letter and she had thought it would be amusing to annoy him again. In the distance a door slammed, but it seemed a long way away and she could not take her eye from Spencer.
‘What else is it you’ve got on your mind, dear?’
‘Nothing.’ She stepped back and upset some primroses in a jam jar on one of the graves. ‘I don’t mind where you post your letters.’
He reached out his hand and caught at her arm. His face came down towards her. He was smiling again, but it was a strange sort of smile as though his mouth had got fixed that way with the lips stretched tight across the gums; the furrows on either side of his mouth were wet. Sarah hit hard at his face and pulled away from him at the same time. He did not let go, but his foot caught on the jam jar and he staggered to one side. Over his shoulder, Sarah saw Mr. Wilson coming through the churchyard gate.
‘Mr. Wilson!’
Spencer let go of her arm when she screamed and she found that she could run quite fast; as she ran she was bellowing: ‘I didn’t mean any harm about the letter-box.’ Mr. Wilson ran towards her and picked her up; she clung to him tighter than she had clung to anyone for a very long time.
‘I didn’t mean to tease him about where he posts his old letters,’ she said because it occurred to her that she must have done something particularly bad to have made Spencer behave in this way. She said over and over again that she didn’t mean to tease him. She could feel Mr. Wilson rubbing his hand up and down her back and she remembered that this was something that her mother used to do; it had a soothing effect and after a time she paused for breath and took some note of her surroundings. They were in the path just before the yew trees; the lawn mower had stopped and it was very still. Mr. Wilson was holding her and looking across at Spencer; a little smile twitched his lips. Spencer was walking round them, making a big half-circle, scrambling across the graves, stumbling over the roots of the big trees, backing down towards the gate. He didn’t look frightening any more, just a very stupid, undignified old man. Perhaps Mr. Wilson felt this, too, because although he watched him, he didn’t tell Spencer off or make any kind of a fuss. Indeed, he looked at Spencer with a kind of relish which shocked Sarah. When Spencer had reached the gate and was crossing the road to his cottage, very fast in spite of his lame leg, Mr. Wilson put Sarah down.
