Return to Night

by Mary Renault

  “Stop trying. You’re meant to forget, it’s part of the healing process. All that matters is that it’s turned out all right.”

  “Yes,” he said slowly, “it’s turned out all right.”

  A long way off in the village below, a church clock chimed seven. He stood listening, it seemed with a strained attention, to the sound, as if it had been a signal which, when it ceased, would have to be obeyed. The last of the bell strokes died, slowly, away. He turned round to her, with failure in his face. She read in his eyes a hopeless appeal to her to help him out, mixed with shame at having made it, and with a reproach for her refusal, of which he was also ashamed. She turned away, feeling a primitive contempt which her civilized conditioning partly hid from her and which her love and knowledge translated into pity, so that the humiliation she felt seemed centered only on herself. Revenging her unhappiness with a stubborn withdrawal, she set herself to admire the view.

  “I forget if I ever told you about this man Chris Tranter, the one I’m going to stay with in town, he’s rather an interesting type, I think you’d like him. He …” The voice ran on, quick and constrained, with a surface of pleasant naturalness which was not quite that of life. She listened, acutely and horribly conscious of every false intonation, without taking in a word of the matter it conveyed. In another minute or two, when he could think of nothing more to say, he would stop and she would have to reply. Somehow they would have to keep it up all the way home.

  “He has the most extraordinary system of working,” Julian was informing her. “He goes to bed quite early, about nine, and sets his alarm for two a.m. Then he …”

  The rest was lost in an interruption. Hilary had been vaguely aware, for some minutes, of footsteps on the path above them, and of loud cheerful voices which earlier had been raised in song. Now the evening peace, surrounding their small island of tension, was split by a burst of laughter, of the kind that accompanies a rude joke between men who are primed to appreciate it well. The tail of her eye told her that Julian had faced abruptly toward the sound. Turning herself, she saw its authors coming into sight between the leaves; an average pair, whom she placed at once as coming from the aircraft factory, some of the city importations of whom there were many in the skilled engineering grades. Their walking-out clothes had a touch of East End nattiness. They were not outrageously drunk, and were making their way down the uneven slope with a large-minded carelessness, rather than actual unsteadiness of gait. Their lapels were conspicuously decked with white satin rosettes, causing her to remember that the church they had passed on the way had had a good deal of confetti outside it. Evidently, these wedding guests had prolonged the feast on their own account. It was plain that, so far, their amusement was purely of their own provision. With the normal instinct of a woman anxious to let well alone, she turned away.

  The movement brought Julian within her view. He was staring past her, tense and rigid with anger. His face was drawn with it, and looked almost gray. She felt sorry for him, but her own stretched nerves mixed the feeling with impatience. People should not lose their sense of proportion so openly. She thought, with a tart humor, He could congratulate himself that it isn’t more inconvenient.

  It was at this point that the good companions perceived that they were not alone. To them the discovery brought neither embarrassment nor displeasure. The taller of the two, who had the kind of face one associates, for vague reasons, with a passionate support of League football, nudged his friend, who was rather undersized, waggishly in the ribs. The friend looked disapproving. He was evidently one of those people who develop, at a certain stage, a solemn anxiety about the proprieties. The fact that, unprepared for the nudge, he had almost tripped over, seemed to appeal to the large man as a joke good enough to share. He looked round in the hope of friendly acclamation, and, considering Hilary first, emitted one of those luscious, appreciative noises, something between a whistle and a tomcat passing the time of night.

  Hilary interested herself in the landscape. That would, no doubt, have been the end of it, if the large man had not in that moment caught sight of Julian’s face. It suggested, to his simple train of thought, interrupted spooning, the perfect essence of comedy. He giggled, winked, made a kissing-noise, nudged the small man again, and seemed about to wander on.

  “Just a minute,” said Julian.

  He had spoken in so suppressed a voice that even Hilary had not heard it clearly; she could only pray that it had not reached its object. She was furious. It seemed unthinkable that he could contemplate adding anything to what had happened already. She directed, full at him, the freezing stare she had had ready for the wedding guests in case of need. He did not see it; and would, she perceived, have ignored it if he had.

  The large man had heard, and expanded visibly. He viewed himself as the proud exponent of a sense of humor, boundlessly superior to people who couldn’t see a joke; and also (for he had reached the euphoric stage) as a man who could, if necessary, look after himself. He made the kissing-noise again.

  Julian took a step forward.

  “Be quiet,” said Hilary viciously, under her breath. “Don’t be ridiculous. Don’t you see they’re drunk?”

  “Yes,” replied Julian aloud. “Naturally I can see it. If you’ll walk on a little way, I’ll attend to this myself.”

  He had spoken with the crisp air of good breeding than which, when consciously applied, nothing is more offensive. She scarcely knew whether to be more exasperated by his tone, which though assumed with conviction she knew to be grossly histrionic, or by the request to walk on, which suggested something in a novelette. In almost incredulous embarrassment, she remained rooted to the spot.

  He had certainly achieved his effect. The large man was impressed, and resentful. He became, in his own sight, a responsible guardian of democracy. Striking an attitude, he remarked in a refined drawl, “Di-da-di-da.”

  Julian walked up to him leisurely. The little man, who had probably drunk rather less, looked from one to the other with growing concern, and pawed at his friend’s sleeve. “Come on, Ted,” he muttered. “Don’t want a row. Got to get back.”

  Ignoring him, Julian addressed himself to Ted, who was about his own height but considerably thicker.

  “Look here. This isn’t a parking-place for drunks. Would you kindly go out the way you came?” After reflecting briefly, he added, “And if you want to vomit; or anything, do it in the bushes somewhere, will you, not on the path.”

  A dark-red suffusion made visible progress across Ted’s square face, beginning at the neck. He thrust his chin forward. “’Ere, ’ere, that’ll do. Who are you calling a drunk? Chuckin’ your weight about. We’ve as much right to the path as what you ’ave. Corstruth. Get along home, that’s what you want to do, and get your ma to wipe your pretty nose. Chuckin’ your—”

  In narratives where this kind of thing happens, the heroine is as a rule scarcely aware, when the first swift blow is struck, of seeing the hero move, Hilary was aware of it all too clearly. The rather inexpert uppercut seemed to travel to its goal through an endless suspension of time. It arrived, however, a little too soon for Ted, whose reflexes were slightly under par. It was just as well, since Julian was giving him at least three stone.

  Hilary had little mind for such calculations. Through the thudding of blows, the tread of shifting feet, and the grunting breaths of the combatants, she was aware chiefly of violent nausea. She had never seen men fighting before. The spectacle was made no pleasanter by the fact that Ted was too drunk, and Julian too angry, for such long-term considerations as avoiding punishment. A cooler student of form might have inferred that Julian had at some time undergone a school routine of boxing-instruction which had lain fallow for years, while Ted (who looked about thirty-five but was probably younger) had been a passive patron of the heavyweight ring and, occasionally, of all-in wrestling. They slithered about in the uncertain light, on the muddy surface of the path, while the small man maneuvered round them, reproducing i
nvoluntarily the movements of a referee.

  It was not till Julian jerked his head sideways just in time to avoid a swinging right, that she remembered his injury of last year. The fear that mixed itself suddenly with what had been, till now, her unqualified disgust, added a final touch of wretchedness to everything.

  At this point, more by luck than judgment, Julian managed to plant a straight left on Ted’s nose. She watched, sickened, a dark trickle make its way down into his mouth. He lost what remained of his temper, along with his head. His face, what with its expression and the blood, acquired a menace which made her stomach feel packed with ice. She had thought, a moment before, of simply walking away. Now she observed that Julian’s left eye was puffing up. Ted had noticed too, and was doing his best to hit it again. Presently he succeeded, and the eyebrow above it began to bleed.

  “Don’t you fret, miss,” a voice was muttering beside her. “Ted can’t keep that up, not long he can’t.” She was dimly aware that the small man had given it up as a bad job, and come to rest beside her. Ted had landed a vicious body blow. She saw Julian’s teeth shut spasmodically, wondered if a rib had gone, and wished she had never opened Grey’s Anatomy.

  “Fact is, miss, I told ’im, time and again. ‘You come on ’ome, Ted!’ I said. ‘We don’t want no trouble.’ I never see ’im the worse before, quite a quiet chap ’e is ordinary.”

  “Yes,” said Hilary abstractedly. She was watching Ted avoiding, by inches, backward collision with a tree, and imagining Julian being tried for manslaughter with herself as witness.

  “How it was, not being ’imself he took your friend up wrong. I mean, out with a lady, stands to reason your friend wouldn’t fancy Ted getting fresh. That’s natural. But Ted took him up wrong, see, took it like he was making out he owned the place.”

  “Well, he does,” said Hilary dimly. Julian had almost missed his footing with a sharp incline behind him. It was not till she recovered her breath that she noticed her companion’s horror and perturbation. “But it’s entirely his own fault for not saying so, and being so rude. … This is awful, can’t we do anything?”

  “Dunno, I’m sure, miss. They won’t listen to me. You’ll see, they’ll be fed up with it before long. Ted’s not been accustomed to it, no more than what your friend has.”

  If they had, Hilary thought, they might at least have taken their coats off before they began.

  Some latent instinct of self-preservation had advised Julian to keep out of a clinch. He had managed it more by agility and reach than skill, the chief benefit of training that remained with him being a capacity to keep steady under face blows, of which he had now had several. Hilary perceived very little of this. She saw that a cool fanaticism had settled on his bruised face, and received a general impression as of a borzoi involved with a bull terrier. Without noticing the change, she was becoming less conscious of her own outraged taste and feelings, more aware of the grace which was built into his bones and remained a part of him even in uncaring violence, the blood on his face, and his indifference to it like that of a young savage to whom the war-drum has lent an entranced tolerance of pain.

  Just then Ted, whose wind was shortening painfully, made a final effort to close in. But, his mind colored by recollections of the all-in booth, he wasted a little concentration on making the correct all-in face. It not only slowed him down, but betrayed his intention. Julian was just in time to sidestep him, much as a matador does a bull, and got in a rapid jab at his solar plexus. Ted doubled up, tripped, fell headlong, and was enormously, excruciatingly sick where he lay.

  As if cold water had been thrown on her, Hilary’s confused emotions subsided into a chill disgust. Julian stood panting with his exertions, looking astonished and slightly dazed.

  Breaking what could not, unfortunately, be called a silence, the little man observed to Hilary, “Best thing, that is. Be more ’imself after that, see.”

  “I hope he’s all right.” She was moved to this less by concern for Ted than by good will to his unwilling second, toward whom she had curiously warmed.

  “Cor!” he replied reassuringly. “I’ll see after ’im. Don’t you worry.” Tactfully lowering his voice, he murmured, “When you get your friend home, you want to put a nice bit of beefsteak on that eye. Draws it, see? Nah then, Ted.”

  Ted heaved himself up to his knees. He had lost his florid complexion, and looked so like one of Hilary’s patients that instinctively she advanced toward him. Ignoring her, he looked at Julian with a reproach that lacked the strength to be indignation. Responding instantly to this, Julian said, “Sorry. I didn’t set out to do that. Didn’t think.”

  Ted muttered, sourly, “Wasn’t low … Had one or two. Acting silly.”

  “Call it even,” said Julian. His naturally engaging smile appeared, with confused effect, on his damaged face; he evidently found it painful. Having assisted the little man in getting Ted standing, he inquired, “Can you get home all right?”

  “Ted’ll be okay,” said the little man, not without a certain odd dignity. He turned to his ministrations, and Julian, after a moment or so, to Hilary.

  “Well,” he remarked quite cheerfully, “may as well be getting along.”

  She turned down the path beside him; it wound between the larches, and soon they were alone. She looked in front of her. sorting and arranging what she had to say. He said nothing at all, and presently began to whistle something from Carmen between his teeth. He began fumbling in his coat pocket.

  “Damn,” he remarked with firm annoyance. “I could have sworn I had a handkerchief somewhere.”

  He turned toward her, searching for the pocket on the other side. She had been walking on his right, too much absorbed in her anger to look at him. Now, in the light of a small clearing, she got a sudden close view. Fresh blood was still trickling from the smeared drying mess on his cut brow; the puffed and darkening eyelid was sticky with it, for a sickening moment she thought it was coming from the eye itself. The cheekbone under it was dull red-purple along the high straight line of its ridge; so was the angle of the jaw. By some peculiarity of Ted’s tactic or his own defense, most of the havoc was concentrated on one side; from the other he had looked almost normal. What had kept the boy on his feet through such a battering? As she knew from last year, he was neither physically insensitive nor naturally tough. She was, however, still too angry for her divided feelings not to make her more so.

  Julian had found his handkerchief. He produced it, with a grunt of satisfaction, and lifted it toward his eye. She saw that it was no more than reasonably clean. “Don’t put that filthy thing on an open cut. Do you want it to go septic?”

  “I’ve only used it once,” said Julian mildly. “And I can’t see out of my eye.”

  “Well, use this one then.” She took a clean one out of her bag. He took it, turned it over, and sniffed at it.

  “Oh, no, what a waste. It’s got scent on it.”

  “Keep it folded, and hold it there hard.” It was not till he was obediently following these instructions that she had time to reflect how outrageous (and how unexpected) his self-possession was. She paused no longer.

  “You appear pleased with yourself.” Because an undermining concern still lingered, she spoke even more acidly than she had meant to.

  “Oh, no, far from it.” he assured her, briefly inspecting the handkerchief and putting it back again. “On the contrary, I was just about to apologize.”

  He said it very nicely. It dawned on her, with amazement, that his equanimity was not shaken in the least.

  “Were you really? You astonish me. I thought you must have imagined that I was enjoying myself.” She edged her voice savagely, thinking, almost while she spoke, He ought to get that eye looked at immediately; it’s impossible to tell, with nil that mess—

  “No, of course not. I ought to have taken him off somewhere else. Sort of thing one thinks of when it’s too late. I’m afraid you’re annoyed about it; of course you are.”

&nb
sp; “Has it only just occurred to you”—she governed her voice with a considerable effort—“that I might be annoyed?”

  “Well, it should have; but there wasn’t much time.”

  “At first I thought you couldn’t be sober. But I doubt now whether you had even that excuse.”

  “I never take anything,” he assured her with more concern than he had so far shown, “when I’m going to drive. I take driving fairly seriously, as a matter of fact.”

  Hilary boiled over. “Then I should be glad if you’d also take seriously the fact that when I go out with anyone I expect some elementary standards of civilized behavior. It was completely inexcusable and disgusting.”

  “I know.” he assured her “I really am most hideously sorry. He spoke with feeling; with too much feeling. In fact, he spoke like someone making a sincere effort to feel what he knows to be required of him. In the gathering gloom she saw him turn and regard her hopefully out of his serviceable eye. During this moment of preoccupation, he collided sharply with a tree on his off side, and stood holding its trunk, dazed and unsteady. Forgetting the whole purport of the conversation, she found herself gripping him by the arm.

  “Julian, what is it? Are you all right?”

  “Yes, thanks,” he said, regaining his equilibrium. “I didn’t see the darn thing coming, that’s all.”

  “Well, look where you’re going.” She withdrew to the other side of the path, but could not keep herself from watching him and, eventually, from saying, “You don’t feel giddy, do you?”

  He stood still, dutifully giving the matter his attention. “No, I don’t think so. I mean, when one walks into something one usually does, for the moment.”

  “You don’t remember, I suppose, whether you got a blow on the right temple?” She tried to use her consulting-room voice.