The Road from the Monument

by Storm Jameson

  New Year’s Day, he thought, smiling. And the time now is what? Eight.

  The sense of illimitable choices swelled in him to become an orgasm of joy. He had never felt such complete confidence in himself, his powers, his energy, his luck.

  The sky facing his table was dove-coloured, with a sagging mass of darker sullen clouds in the east: the sun, a large dark orange, rose behind the Park Lane roofs; it penetrated and stained the clouds but with only the faintest imaginable pink. The street-lamps, and the single light thrust into the sky by the great crane, struggled to impose themselves on the opaque watery greyness. As he watched, a scarcely noticeable shiver went through the tracery of bronze veins masking the greyish-green mass of the Park, although there was no wind.

  At this moment the lights, including the crane light, went off. It’s only just eight now, he thought; I’m a couple of minutes fast. He got up and went to the window. Inside the Park a negro was cycling to work, crouched forward over the handlebars, the violent blue of his sweater throwing into relief his very dark skin. A charwoman had stopped at the fence, to fumble in her bag for crusts and throw them over it to the pigeons.

  His body was aching for a warm bath. There was a bathroom on this floor which he kept for himself — it had been put in for Mrs. Bedford, the housekeeper, but she used the one downstairs behind the kitchen: he ran a deep bath and lay in it until all his muscles down to the muscles of his hand were relaxed. Then, in his dressing-gown, he rang and ordered his coffee to be brought to him here. On very cold days in winter, when the electric radiators in the room were not enough to warm it, he had a coal fire: without asking him whether he wanted it, the woman came back with coal and a bundle of sticks, and lit it. A quarter of an hour later she brought his coffee. On the tray, with the cup, the silver jugs, the toast, were letters.

  He knew the handwriting on two of the envelopes, and picked out another to open first only because he did not recognise it. Written in a neat small hand, on a sheet of the cheapest sort of paper, it was not a long letter, but he had to read it through twice before the sense of the words was more than a shocked numbness of his mind. Poor thumb-marked words, as though the writer had only a few wretchedly worn-out phrases lying about in her mind that she could use.

  … Excuse me writing, but you will remember me from Nice, like I remember you. I knew you wouldn’t want anyone to know about what happened and I haven’t told a soul, but now I’m forced to tell someone, owing to an upset I have had. I am in the family way, I didn’t know what was the matter with me going wrong, but the doctor says that’s what it is and no mistake. I’m downright sorry to give trouble, but I need help, I mean I shall need it, and I…

  The last sentence of all was confused, almost meaningless, and the word money had been crossed out. The signature — Ann Verity — was in a large bolder hand than the rest of the letter. For a second, because he had never known her surname, he thought: But I don’t know the woman.

  He put the letter down. A tremor starting in the pit of his stomach had reached his fingers. He had an instant of giddiness. Then a violent impulse, more an effort of his body than his mind, made him think coldly: No. No, I don’t believe a word of it. These things don’t happen, she’s lying. It’s a try-on, oh, quite clearly a try-on…. For less than a second the incident rose behind his eyes in a light so crude that involuntarily he shut his eyes — shutting them against the vision of himself discovered in a situation so humiliatingly vulgar, so inacceptable. Socially and morally inacceptable…. I know you wouldn’t want anyone to know what happened — a very obvious and very clumsy attempt at blackmail. The many reasons why it could only be a lie ran together in his mind, suffocating him. His work, and the people who believed in it, respected, trusted it, had been moved by it to live better. His friends. His position. Even the familiar charm and ease of this room. A thought jerked itself clear of the confusion, with a flash like a fish leaping. How did she get hold of my name…? And the answer — as obvious as the rest. She had known it all the time. At the time. She had seen photographs and she recognised me, he thought. In fact she played a common enough trick on me. Everything, her innocence, her naïveté, was part of the act, and I, like any dolt, fell for it.

  He felt an immense relief. It overwhelmed even his humiliation at having been tricked so easily. A liar. And — no two words for it — a blackmailer.

  He thought drily: She won’t try again.

  On an impulse half contempt, half rage, he tore the letter across and, carrying it to the fire, watched it shrivel to a flake of grey ash.

  Part 3

  The Run

  January–June 3, 1957

  Chapter One

  The first Thursday in the year was not one of Penny’s more important evenings. In her own words, ‘Let’s face it, so soon after Christmas people haven’t energy to throw away.’ She took little trouble with her dress for this evening, and her husband, when he came home, found her still playing games of draughts with Timothy, in bed with one of his too frequent colds. He stood for a minute in the doorway and watched them: Timothy’s face was flushed, and his eyes, large and filled with nervous mischief, were watching his mother’s hand hovering above the board with a piece she finally placed. He gave a yell of delight. ‘You should have taken me. Look. Now I’m going to take you — twice. And that finishes you.’

  ‘Oh, darling,’ his mother said. She looked up, smiling. ‘He wins five games out of six.’

  Timothy laughed. ‘You’re such a stupid.’

  Lambert came in and bent to kiss him. ‘How hot you are, my poor baby,’ he said gently.

  ‘Yes, he must lie down now,’ Penny said.

  ‘No, no, not yet.’

  ‘Yes. Mary will bring your bread-and-milk, and you can read for half an hour, then I shall come and put the light out.’

  Lying down, he made so little mark in the bed that Lambert’s heart contracted with fear. He glanced at his wife. With a tranquil face she was smoothing the sheet round the thin little body and placing the book within reach. He felt a depth of gratitude for her calm and — the word surprised him, springing in his mind from an old source — piety. There was a piety in her wordless confidence that this delicate child would grow stronger and live. He let it reassure him. My two, he thought softly. Another thought came obscurely on the heels of the first. God knows I don’t want success for myself. Not for myself, dear God, not for myself. Only for him.

  ‘You stay with me, daddy.’

  ‘I can’t, my darling. Not just now. I want to talk to your mother for a minute.’

  Penny gave him a quick glance. Apparently she realised that this was seriously meant: she came with him to their bedroom at once, shut the door, and said,

  ‘What is it? What has happened?’

  ‘Nothing you need take to heart,’ he said. ‘It’s a wretched business, but nothing for you to worry about…. Tom Elder has killed himself, the foolish fellow. Last night. It’s in the evening papers.’

  Her eyes dilated. ‘Tom? Oh, no. Oh, poor Tom.’

  ‘Now, my dear Penny, there’s no reason why you should be upset about it. Tom, poor fellow, has behaved without the slightest consideration for his family and his friends — a purely selfish act. In any case it has nothing to do with us; we couldn’t have done anything.’

  ‘We might have done something — if he had come to us.’

  Lambert felt a twinge of the exasperation always roused in him by the ‘poor fellow’s’ inability to look after himself. It’s really too bad, he thought, as well as very unfortunate. He felt vexed that it had happened now, upsetting Penny on the very evening in the week when she was happiest. He said again, firmly,

  ‘It has nothing to do with us, my dear. What’s more, it proves that he was no damn good. Thoroughly unbalanced. No use to anyone. We did our best for him. If he’d taken my advice when I gave it to him…. I told him very plainly what the sensible line for him was. He was hopelessly set in his own ways, utterly pig-headed. Y’kno
w, you can’t help people who simply refuse to be helped.’ He patted her shoulder. ‘Forget about it, my dear girl, it’s no use crying over spilled milk — never was, y’know.’

  ‘What happened? What did he do?’

  He had hoped she wouldn’t ask. ‘The silly fellow cut his throat.’

  She shuddered. ‘Oh, horrible.’

  ‘Yes, he might have thought about his family before he did it…. And now forget him. Aren’t you going to change?… Mustn’t mention it this evening.’

  ‘Someone will have seen it in the paper.’

  ‘Let’s hope not. It was only a few lines. I suppose The Times will give him a short obituary tomorrow. There isn’t a great deal for anyone to say.’

  ‘No, that’s true.’

  There were only three guests: Frank Beasley, Dinham, and a new recruit, a very young man called Spanton, not long down from Oxford, a friend of Arbor’s. Arbor had been expected, and came, early, bringing his protégé with him, to say that he himself couldn’t stay, he must go back home at once.

  Penny frowned and pouted. ‘Oh, but why? You can’t throw us over at the last minute, my dear boy. It’s too bad.’

  Arbor looked fussed. ‘I assure you I don’t want to,’ he said. ‘The fact is I have a sore throat. I think I may be starting with ’flu.’

  ‘Oh, in that case…’ she cried. In her horror of infection, she almost pushed him towards the door. ‘Don’t hang about another minute. Go home and go to bed — at once.’

  ‘I’m going, I’m going,’ said Arbor. He turned to his friend, laying a hand delicately on his arm. ‘You’ll be quite happy here without me.’

  Spanton smiled and blushed, the colour spreading from a cockscomb of untidy hair through the skin of a too long neck. ‘Sure you wouldn’t like me to take you home?’

  ‘Oh, I should like you to, of course,’ said Arbor gaily. ‘But — two steps — I think I can totter that far without help.’ The movement of his hand on the young man’s arm had become a caress. ‘Drop in tomorrow.’

  ‘I will, I will.’

  ‘Goodbye,’ Penny said to Arbor. She held her hand out at arm’s length. ‘Don’t come out until you’re completely cured. Goodbye, goodbye.’ As the door closed, she turned to Spanton. ‘And if you take my advice you won’t go near him until you’re sure he’s not infectious. Infectious people, let’s face it, are not the pick of the basket. It’s a kindness to leave them to themselves. And now that Arbor’s not here to tell us about you, you must tell us everything yourself. No, no, not now — you didn’t come here only to answer questions, did you? We’ll have dinner, and then you shall tell me what your line is and what you’re hoping to do in London. You’re very young, aren’t you? How old are you?’

  ‘Twenty-one, nearly twenty-two,’ said Spanton. He had a trick of opening his eyes widely, which gave him a slightly mad look. But he was not, Lambert noticed, nervous. He gave the impression that he was acting somebody or other. Shelley, perhaps. It suddenly irritated Lambert. But since Penny had clearly taken to him, he told himself that Spanton was all right, a likeable young fellow, no doubt shrewder than he looked, at the worst a fresh face. Someone to distract Penny from thoughts of the wretched Tom.

  The dinner went very well until Beasley, tactless or deliberately malicious, asked,

  ‘Where’s Tony Young these days?’

  Lambert frowned at his wife to warn her not to let herself go on what was becoming, he knew, an obsession with her. She took no notice of his frown. In anger she always turned pale, her eyes and mouth narrowed, and she reminded him of her father who was a tobacconist, dyspeptic and miserly: the shadow of these vices, appearing in the face of a healthy generous woman, disconcerted him.

  ‘Master Young,’ she said coldly, ‘is dining this evening with the Gregory Motts.’

  ‘No! Really? I didn’t know they were friends of his.’

  ‘They weren’t — until I gave that party last October for his book, and Lambert said that I must invite the Motts. I did: she refused but he condescended to come. I introduced Tony to him, and that started it — before you could say snap he was being invited to their house. Not that I object to his going there — or anywhere else for a meal if he needs one as badly as that. I daresay the food is eatable, whatever the conversation is like. But I do find it faintly objectionable when, Thursday after Thursday, he cuts my humble little evenings to go to the Motts. It amuses Lambert, but I’m a loyal person myself, and foolishly I expect other people to be as loyal. Tony… well, it’s just one of those things. A nasty bit of work!’

  It vexed Lambert to watch her allowing them all to see how bitterly she resented Young’s defection. ‘My dear Penny, it’s not in the least important,’ he said lightly. ‘And you know perfectly well that you don’t care two hoots what Master Young does with his evenings.’

  ‘Of course I don’t care about him,’ she cried. ‘Not as a person. But when I think that he might have become a good writer… if he hadn’t thrown literature to the winds for the great great privilege of dining with rich dull upper-class nobodies like the arthritic Beatrice. That’s what I can’t bear.’

  ‘But do we know he’s thrown it to the winds?’ said Dinham.

  Penny’s lips barely widened in a narrow smile. ‘Oh, if you feel we don’t represent literature….’

  ‘I didn’t mean that,’ he protested.

  ‘I don’t know what you meant. What I do know is that even his last book — for which, heaven knows, and I call you all to witness, I did my level best — was nothing to write home about. Not a single character in it has either brains or style. Imagine my asking one of them to this house! You can’t.’ She gave a short angry laugh.

  Beasley pointed his fretfully spiteful little face at her. ‘My dear, you didn’t always think that. Have you forgotten that you compared him to Proust? I may say I thought at the time that you were overdoing the butter.’

  ‘What you thought at the time didn’t prevent you praising the book itself in two papers, did it?’

  He shrugged. ‘I wanted to please you.’

  ‘Yes, well, I admit I was an idiot,’ she said, with mock humility, ‘idiotically loyal. I’ve come to my senses, and I only hope we all have.’ She turned vivaciously on Dinham. ‘Jack, you must let one of us deal faithfully with Young in the London Letter. Soon. At once.’

  Swinging his big clumsy head from side to side like an animal in distress, Dinham murmured, ‘No, I don’t think I can do that.’

  ‘Why not? Surely you don’t still admire him?’

  ‘I’ll wait to read his next book,’ Dinham said evasively.

  Lambert leaned forward. At this moment he realised, very sharply, that even Dinham’s loyalty and submissiveness must not be strained too far. It surprised him that Penny did not realise it. He caught himself, with a disagreeable qualm, thinking that she lacked something — tact, or prudence, or a certain delicacy, was it? After all, even clever women resent slights, he thought, and she has certainly been slighted. No need to make a show of it, though.

  ‘If you want my opinion,’ he said, smiling, ‘Master Young is a bore. Let’s talk about something more amusing…. Spanton, how long have you known Arbor? He’s a splendid chap, isn’t he. I like him.’

  ‘Oh, ages,’ Spanton said, with arch eagerness. ‘Ages and ages. At least six months.’

  ‘Who else do you know in London?’ asked Penny.

  ‘Almost no one. But I do like meeting people. I did meet one awfully nice man — did you know him? — Elder. Tom Elder. And he’s committed suicide, you know. A frightful pity.’

  ‘Elder?’ said Dinham. ‘Suicide? Are you sure?’

  Spanton laughed nervously. ‘It’s in all the evening papers.’

  ‘Oh, my God, I’m sorry,’ Dinham said.

  With a twitching face, Beasley muttered, ‘Poor Tom, I’m horribly sorry about it…. I had no idea he was in that state…. It could happen to any of us.’

  Looking anxiously at his wife, Lambert
was relieved to see that she was less upset by this reminder of the wretched man’s death than vexed that it had been brought up now, to throw its shadow across her dinner-table. She said calmly,

  ‘Must we talk about it? It’s very sad, of course, but, let’s face it, he didn’t think of anyone but himself when he did it. The ones to be sorry for are his wife and family. If we’re going to weep, let’s weep for them.’

  Turning a sorrowful face to Lambert, Dinham asked, ‘What was it, d’you suppose? Money troubles?’

  No, don’t let’s start that, thought Lambert. He said easily,

  ‘Oh, no. He worried about money, of course — who doesn’t, in these days? — but thank God we don’t all kill ourselves, and there wasn’t any reason why he should.’ Simply for good measure, he added, ‘Money wasn’t the reason.’

  ‘Do you know what was?’

  At this very moment it came to Lambert that he did know — or had guessed. He thought swiftly: A man of Elder’s age doesn’t kill himself unless he’s unbalanced, and what would throw him off balance more crazily than sexual trouble of some sort? Most likely the sort you don’t admit openly…. His thoughts galloped. Someone was blackmailing him, and that was why, the last time he came here, he wanted money in a hurry…. He shrugged his shoulders.

  ‘No. But I can make a damned good guess. You never know when a — don’t let’s mince words — a homosexual is going to lose what’s left of his wits.’

  His wife looked at him with a stupefaction it took her a full five seconds to recover from. Her look became one of sincere admiration for his worldly astuteness. ‘You never told me that Tom was one of those.’

  ‘Why should I, my dear? I don’t spread gossip — as you well know.’

  ‘I find it hard to believe that Elder…’ Dinham said heavily.