The Innocent Moon

by Henry Williamson

  Then I looked at the map, and saw that Cambridge was due north of London, and that I could have reached home on what I had in my tank: so I tore up the letter. Just as well: for I had said in it, inter alia, that history would have a different view about de Valera to the one commonly held today by the majority of English people.

  I ought to say that before this, I saw Spica in London after she had returned from Cambridge, to stay awhile with her sister Kay at Carapel House Ladies’ Club, near Marble Arch, and paid back the six shillings she lent me to buy petrol. We went to Tristan und Isolde, and sat on the Doves’ Nest in the gods. Afterwards we stood on the Embankment below Waterloo Bridge, and I reminded her how Francis Thompson used to stand there, seeing the river-lights shaking in the tide, like ladders “pitched betwixt Heaven and Charing Cross”, and then slept on newspapers laid on the pavement under the road-arch, where two derelicts were trying to sleep now, one with a row of ribands on his tattered waistcoat, South African war, and 1914 Star.

  We looked at Mars, the hue of a hawthorn blossom petal as it is dying, between faint pink and brown, and Spica Virginis below that planet.

  “I often think of those two beautiful stars,” she said.

  “Spica is loved by Mars,” I whispered.

  “I know,” she whispered back, while the water rushed below on its way to the broad sea.

  June 22. The days are now shortening instead of lengthening. So much to be seen in the country, while I trudge the pavements; so little time in which to see so much.

  When I was in the cottage S. wrote to me that ‘friendship is reserved for few on the earth at a time, and is higher than that which the world calls love’. I did not understand what she meant. I thought that she wished to tell me that she only liked me as a friend. In my foolishness I replied that I had thought that she loved me, etc. To which she replied briefly that I would not see, and therefore it was futile to attempt to make me see.

  Now there is light at last, and I see. Spica believed, firstly, that I had a gift of writing, and she thought I was spoiling it by carelessness and allowing egoism to kill it. But I joke and play the fool to hide my real feelings, as a man instinctively wants to hide his physical wounds from others. One of her early letters said, ‘I would that I had the power to set you upon the width of the way upon which you will not look.’ And I refused to see this—I narrowed it down to love between us.

  So, I must, I suppose, accept the idea that in my twenty-sixth year I have failed to inspire love in the heart of a good woman … because I am not worthy. I am not worthy, because I did not tell her the truth about myself; when she read part of the early chapters of my novel about Donkin, I allowed her to think that the scenes were from my own early life, instead of partly coming from Willie’s.

  Chapter 3

  SPACE MAN

  On the last day of the month, as he was about to leave the front entrance of the office one morning, he recognised Lord Castleton coming up the steps—a broad figure with large red face, dressed in frock coat and silk hat. He returned to open the door for the Chief, as he was called, and received a smile and a courteous word of thanks, together with a keen look as though his Lordship had remembered the small boy on a summer-day trip to Brighton with whom he had spoken on the esplanade, while watching, with others, one of the balloons in a long-distance race passing up Channel.

  That afternoon, when he returned from the pavements of Brondesbury, Major Pemberthy strolled over and said, “What do you know about light cars?”

  “Not much, sir, but I’ve got a racing motor-cycle.”

  “But you have experience of light cars,” went on Major Pemberthy. “I’ve told the Chief you have. He wants a column on light cars in The Weekly Courier. You can do it. I know you can. Go and see the editor in Monks House, and say the Chief sent you. He remembered your eyes, from talking to you at Brighton when you were a boy. Do you remember talking to him?”

  “Yes, sir, I do! I wondered if he recognised me this morning, when we met on the steps!”

  “Good. He says he isn’t pleased with the present light-car notes. He says there’s a great future for small cars. Go and write about them. Tell Bloom that you come from the Chief.”

  Phillip found Monks House in a narrow lane between Fleet Street and the Embankment. There Castleton’s three papers, morning, evening, and Sunday were produced. But—Light Car Notes! Still, he knew a little about two of them! There was the Swift he had hired in 1915 at Oldmarket, and the Humberette from Wetherley on several later occasions. He fixed the image of the Swift in his mind and sent up his card to the Editor upon which he had written in pencil, From the Chief.

  Bernard Bloom, the editor, was sitting in a glass-built cage inside The Weekly Courier office, a single room on the third floor of Monks House. He was alone, and in process of laying out some cigars, taken from a jacket pocket, on a blotter. He had a jackdaw look, with black hair and prominent nose; but there the resemblance ended, for he had loose cheeks and altogether a loose look on his face reminding Phillip of a clown whose melancholy reflections came with an innocent sense of fun when Bloom said, in a Lancashire accent, “D’yer smoke cigars?”

  “No,” replied Phillip, hoping to give an impression of keeping himself fit for driving in races at Brooklands.

  “Well, confidence for confidence, nor do I”—with a droll sideway glance as though to convey to Phillip that he had helped himself from the trade luncheon from which he had just returned. “Sit down, won’t yer?”

  Seating himself behind the desk, Bloom picked up a blue pencil. Many typed sheets of paper were scattered on the floor, over-flowing from a large wicker basket beside the editor’s boots.

  “So yer’r from the Chief, are yer?” he enquired, doubtfully.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Yer to write a column of Light Car Notes, are yer?”

  “Yes. But I can write about anything.”

  Mr. Bloom continued to look at him as though reluctantly. Phillip did not know until later how the Chief’s name had the power to affect many of those connected with his newspapers, most of all B.B. Bloom; and that anyone ‘from the Chief’ made Bloom feel that he was to be spied upon, or at least that reports would go back to the Chief. It was Bloom’s anxiety that provided these thoughts; for it was not Lord Castleton’s nature, or habit, to be underhand; he had been outspoken all his life, and came from a happy home. Meanwhile, Phillip was pulling a sheaf of manuscript papers from an inner or poacher pocket specially made to hold manuscripts.

  “What’ve yer got?” asked Bloom, absently, holding out a stubby hand.

  “This is an essay called ‘A Devon Night’, sir.”

  Bloom glanced at the first page, while the author sat still, resenting the swift and apparently careless way the human jackdaw ran his eye down the pages, lifting one after another in a few seconds before interest ceased and he handed back the loose sheets. “That’s not so bad,” he remarked. “I’ll give yer a try as a general reporter. But yer want to tell ’em something. Would you like to come on the staff at seven guineas a week, or go on space? The space rates are three guineas a column including tops, and four guineas a column on the article page.”

  “I think I’ll earn more on space.”

  “I hope yer do! Now what d’yer want for the Motor Notes?”

  “I’ll leave that to you.”

  “Will yer do them for two guineas a half column, as a minimum; and if they go over that, four guineas a column pro rata?”

  “That sounds all right to me. If they’re good, you can pay me more.”

  “I like you,” said Bloom simply, “I believe you’ll be all right. Only don’t put in too much about them airy ziffers. Tell ’em something. When do you want to start? We go after stories from Tuesday to Friday, then on Saturday we become a newspaper and take over the Trident’s news desk until the paper goes to bed with the last edition round about midnight. Sunday and Monday we have off.”

  “I’d like to start next Tuesday, if th
at will suit you, Mr. Bloom!”

  The Editor waved a hand at him.

  July 1. Four years ago I was crawling from Mash Valley with a hole in my left buttock as big as a cricket ball, leaving behind my platoon as still as the figures in Keats’ Ode to a Grecian Urn. I remember the feeling of shame and resentment when stared at by new troops going up to that scene of decimation before La Boisselle. Today, who remembers the war? It is as remote at Agincourt. But one day I shall re-create their mortality, for to me those figures are immortal.

  I sit here in the garden room; my work, my self-imposed isolation, my hopes all are vain. To what end, when death ends all things?

  Ah! Sunflower, weary of Time

  That countest the steps of the sun,

  Seeking after that sweet golden clime,

  Where the traveller’s journey is done.

  Where the youth pined away with desire

  And the pale virgin shrouded in snow,

  Arise from their graves and aspire

  Where my sunflower wishes to go.

  I left my table, with its old copies of The Light Car, and went down to the High Street, hoping to speak to a girl. I saw many foolish youths and fewer silly girls, and saw myself like them a world of time ago. Then one girl came along, appealing to my empty self—a tigress-type, lissom, voluptuous with low blouse revealing outlines of full breasts. No good—a tall handsome fellow, whom I used to see on the Hill before the war, called Lack, joined her a moment after flying out, thin and loose of jacket, from the Roebuck. So I went in to get a pint of beer, but Julian Warbeck was there, arrogant with a couple of gallons or so inside him, so I soon left, and made my way through the crowd enjoying the fine evening, past the arc-lights and stall-flares, while an inner voice said, You fool, you’ll regret tomorrow. Remember, no self-destroying mood lasts. Yet this voice had no effect, it carried no conviction.

  Eventually I returned, ate some bread and cheese; now I’m writing in this journal, while the moon rides among the clouds.

  In boyhood, she was Diana, the huntress, a pure light. In youth, when we sang on the Hill in those summer evenings of 1913 and 1914, the moon was all innocence, with only a slight fearful-fascination of Pan. We sailed along in Moonlight Bay, and could hear those Darkies singing. In Flanders the hollow light mocked all life with its casting frosts. Will the innocent moon ever shine again, a thing of beauty and of all longing?

  For weeks I have felt no spiritual refreshment. Spica has refused my offer of a marriage, sent a week ago with the news that I am on the threshold of success.

  In the night sky, Spica Virginis and Mars have separated; star and planet are light-years apart, even when closest together …

  Later. I have read her letter again. Or rather, read it carefully for the first time. When it arrived I tore it open, saw it was hopeless, and hid it in a book. What she wrote was, ‘It is too soon yet: I am not awake…. O my dear, you stir my spirit as the branches of trees in the garden outside are tossed by the wind.’

  She goes on to say that her mother is back from Ireland. Then, ‘I am worried by your letters, they are so piteous. Do consider yourself seriously. I can’t be anything but just a friend, and if you won’t see that, it wouldn’t be fair for me to have much to do with you. I’m not your fate. If you won’t see that I can only be a friend, I shall have to flit for your sake. From the very beginning I tried to keep things steady….’

  It is clear how much of her mother’s point of view is in that letter. Her mother dislikes me, and has ever since the Whitsun visit. How much does she know about my affaire with Eveline Fairfax, her niece and Spica’s cousin, last summer? Then there was Willie, who was the next on the list of E’s amours. Also, I was somewhat rude to Mrs. T. when I told her that her remarks were like those of the Edinburgh Review on Keats’ poems.

  I shall not see Spica again.

  So much has happened recently.

  (1) I have a new job, starting July 6, in Fleet Street proper. It is only a rung in the ladder, to be passed quickly.

  (2) My literary agent, Anders Norse, whom I met at the Parnassus Club, tells me that my novel—the old one, the “wishy-washy” one I showed Mrs. Portal-Welch is, “although imperfect in parts, a great work.” And that I shall have a distinguished literary career.

  (3) Austin Harrison will publish my essay, A Devon Night, in November. “It has charm and quality.” Hurray!

  I have no one to write this to. Spica Virginis is gone, her wan fires no longer glimmer below Mars, seen low across London River swirling with filth and death as it flows to the sea.

  July 5. Tonight I have been writing some more of the first part of my new novel. It was not a success, for my thoughts strayed. The rain sighed in the elm-tree, and from the distant houses came Grieg’s To the Spring, calling at my heart, and reawakening the old longing. Only in the spring can I live in the present, and then only in a dreamy restlessness. I have had the best years of my life, and nothing has been done. The old weary cry—tomorrow, tomorrow! Nothing is tomorrow, it is all now, and yet the now is nothing. I look forward to the climax of my life; I want to LIVE, and at the same time realise that it is always now. I cannot work, I want to go into the country, I beat my wings if I am caged in a town, I do not like living here in the suburbs; when I am outside my dug-out room I am hesitant and afraid. I dread the period before I sleep at night, the eternal battle of the brain with weariness, I awake at 1 a.m. usually, light the candle, and try and write—in vain.

  The woman (I feel sure it is a woman) is now playing ragtime on the piano, and playing it well. It goes into my deepest nature. The answer to my cry is given—this feeling within me, growing every day, is killing my youth, and joy, and happiness. It preys on life and love—while “Dance with your flowing blood” cries the music. Loneliness, isolation, outcast answers my heart. Damn that blood-stirring music!

  Grieg and Debussy, Blake and Thompson, Wagner and Delius: or Nature and Youth, Life and Beauty—which? The light rain sighs in the leaves, blurring the light of the lamp-post seen across the Backfield like a cocoon, the piano notes haunt across the night, while I sit here alone—and why? Let Spica continue with her dancing, her social life at Cambridge, and her occasional and wistful letters telling me that friendship is greater than love, and thus barring me from either. Friendship is love.

  Away with these cries of the fainéant!

  And damn that music!

  After an hour’s thought I have only succeeded in putting down one sentence of my motoring notes. “The light car has a great future, if manufacturers will cease to make it, as a so-called cyclecar, of bits and pieces and start to design it as a thing on its own.”

  (A knock on the door; I start as though hit by a bullet, my heart races, I sweat. Then, “May I come in?” says the gentle voice of my mother. My pen-nib has jabbed into the paper.)

  “Oh, come in!” I call out, with concealed savageness.

  She brings in a plate of stewed cherries and blancmange.

  “So nice, dear,” she coos, timid to her son. “Do eat them.” (I am still her little boy.)

  “No thanks, Mother, I really don’t want them.”

  “Oh”—with disappointment—“I saved them on purpose for you.”

  “No thanks, really….”

  She goes out, timidly and quietly. I am a beast—but do not care.

  On Phillip’s first morning in Monks House the News editor, a young man with a half-amused, half-surprised expression on a face sometimes overspread by a mild grin, said to him, “My name’s Ownsworth.” They shook hands, Ownsworth saying, “Pleased to meet you. Nice day, isn’t it, for cricket. Brebner the Sports editor wants you to interview Parkin, the Lancashire bowler. You do play cricket, don’t you?”

  “Oh, yes, I’ve played,” he replied, thinking of house matches at school.

  “Right, that’s Brebner over there,” and he pointed with a pencil at a man writing at a small mahogany table in one corner of the room.

  The Sports Editor
said that Cecil Parkin had signed for Rochdale, the Central Lancashire League Club, the previous year. He was a friend of Jimmy White, the financier, and received, so it was rumoured, the largest salary ever paid to a cricketer in the League. He was one of the best bowlers ever known in the North, and Rochdale had released him often, to play for the County. There was a rumour that Parkin had been selected for the Test team, which was going to Australia in the winter. “Parkin’s refused to open his mouth to reporters so far, but go to Lord’s and see what you can get out of him, will you?”

  He took the underground to St. John’s Wood, and paid to go in. Parkin was pointed out to him, standing by a roller. It was early morning; a match was to start in ten minutes. He winced at the idea of pestering anyone, and while approaching the tall thin figure standing by the big roller knew that he had equal but opposite feelings about being accosted. Then he saw that Parkin was spinning a ball with nervous restlessness between the third finger and thumb of his right hand. Parkin continued to spin the ball as Phillip, straw hat on head, came up to him. A bleak look came on Parkin’s face. When the spinning stopped Phillip noticed a long yellow core of hard skin down the middle joint of the third finger; obviously he spun the ball from that core, or corn.

  “Good morning, Mr. Parkin. I wonder if you would give me some hints on how to bowl, for one of Lord Castleton’s papers. I don’t in the least want to pry into your personal or business affairs, which are private to yourself. What tremendous strength you’ve developed in those fingers! Practice, practice, practice, I can see!”

  Parkin, while spinning the ball, told him how his wife had helped him to learn to bowl by going with him twice a day to the nets on the Tunstall ground to bat to his spin bowling. Mrs. Parkin helped him for two seasons, facing a dozen cricket balls sent down at a time, one after the other. She was a heroine, and he owed his success to her. He practised leg-breaks and googlies—off-breaks with a leg-break action. Success was a matter of not turning the bowling arm too much, but to spin the ball with the fingers.