Guilty: The Lost Classic Novel (3 page)

I was too young to understand what a great trial it must have been for the poor man, who was certainly still devoted to her, or to appreciate the rather touching humility with which he deferred to her in all things apart from his own views, as if trying to compensate for the one unforgivable deviation by waiving his right to assert himself in any other way whatsoever under his own roof. Naturally, I felt hurt because he didn’t concern himself with my upbringing, seeming to take no interest in the, to me, all-important question of my going to school. This had been arranged for the autumn, but was now indefinitely postponed – officially on the grounds that it would be good for me to run wild for a bit after my illness, though I gathered that in some mysterious way his pacifism was responsible for this, too.

Looking back, I think he must have given his word not
to influence me towards his beliefs and scrupulously interpreted this promise as meaning he must have no contact with me at all, since they were so important a part of him as to appear in every action and word. But, as nothing was explained to me at the time, I could hardly fail to resent the fact that he never asked me to be his companion at home or on his long solitary walks, but seemed, indeed, to avoid me altogether.

Inevitably, I blamed him for the changes that had come about since his return in my mother, to whom I no longer felt close as I’d always done before, and in my surroundings. In these few weeks the whole atmosphere of my home had changed and become sad, silent, secret. My father himself spent most of his time in the little room he used as a study, working for the various organizations which were trying to preserve the precarious peace of that time, whose representatives occasionally came to see him. I can’t imagine my gentle mother refusing to let these people in, so I suppose it was out of consideration for her that he always admitted them personally and later saw them off the premises, thus, in my eyes, investing their comings and goings with a conspiratorial quality that contributed to the general secretiveness.

It goes without saying that I didn’t actually
think
in this way. Only, at odd times, while I was in the garden, perhaps, lost in fantasy or playing one of my involved ritual games,
the feeling
would fall on me like a stone, temporarily crushing imagination and interest – the feeling of the closed box that was my home, to which, ultimately, I must return, in which my parents were shut away from each other and from the world, each in silence and separateness, alone.

The cottage even began to
look
secret to me, the half-drawn shades at the upper windows suggesting the oblique
glances of partially veiled eyes. And the rooms, now that they saw no more social life, developed a queer private life of their own. Often, when I opened a door, I would get the impression of wild activity just arrested, as though the different objects around me had only that moment dashed back to their usual places, where they were waiting impatiently for my departure, so that they could go on with their own affairs. I used to tell myself that one day I’d find out what they were up to by flinging open the door so suddenly that they’d be caught unawares. But I can’t really have been very curious – or, more probably, I was scared of intruding – as I never did try to take them by surprise. Perhaps it was simply that I didn’t have time, for it was summer, and I was always in a hurry to escape into the open air.

Before, my home had been a warm, happy place where I loved to be. But now I was always slightly uneasy indoors. It was a little frightening to think of my father being there all the time, so close, but invisible, unapproachable, like God. And my mother’s silence made me uncomfortable, too. She spoke very little to me these days, and when I chattered as usual seemed not to hear, going about her perpetual cleaning with a shadowy withdrawn face, as if dedicated to cleanliness and to nothing else in the world. Though she always cared meticulously for my bodily needs, and even made an occasional effort to play with me, I couldn’t help being aware that she had begun to live somewhere else and gave nothing of herself to anyone any more, not even to me. I soon got used to her endless washing and dusting and polishing, as I did to the tears that so often came into her eyes for no evident reason. I ceased to be affected by them, or so I thought, and would pretend not to notice that she was crying. All the same, I identified her continuous incomprehensible grief with all that confused and troubled me in my changed background,
and when I thought of home now, I thought of her gliding soundlessly about her work in the shadows, like a dim tearful ghost.

Whenever I could, I tried to escape this dismal atmosphere by rushing out of doors; but
the feeling
would still be there, inescapable, ready to drop on me at any moment, crushing out any natural impulse of playfulness I might have had, so that I didn’t know what to do with myself, didn’t know how to get through the long hours. Because in the autumn I was neither to go back to the village school I’d been attending nor to a new school, and because nothing else had been settled about me, I felt utterly lost, stranded in a sort of limbo between my future and past.

I can still recall the queer, empty sensation of having run down like a clock that needs winding; a sensation with which I wandered about, listlessly, aimlessly, in the warm, humid, overcast weather, all the time vaguely expectant, always hoping for someone to take charge of me, wind me up and set me going again – though when this actually happened I was quite unprepared. How gladly I’d have welcomed my tall thin friend, who had clearly taken offence at being asked to go, for he never appeared, even though I made the round of our former meeting places each day.

In an attempt to anchor myself somewhere, I took to going to the paddock adjoining the school where we used to play in the afternoons. Now it was holiday time, but a few children lived there all the year round. Known to the rest of us as ‘the orphans’ – not contemptuously but in self-defence – these boarders formed a powerful union, secret society or exclusive club, from which others were for ever barred. By climbing the steep bank from the lane and crawling through the hedge I could lie in the tall weeds and grass on the other side without danger of being seen, enviously watching the
orphans’ noisy games, storing up the sound of their laughter and cheerful talk as a kind of insurance against the silence and solitude in which I passed my own days, dreaming that I was one of them, admitted to their lively, carefree companionship.

It would have been a very simple and natural thing, it seems now, for me to have revealed myself to my exschoolmates and turned the dream into reality. But it never occurred to me then. Nor was it because of the orphans’ exclusiveness that the thought of approaching them didn’t enter my head. At this impressionable age I’d already been so affected by the changed atmosphere in which I lived that the idea of playing with other children seemed quite unreal, something only possible in imagination – in fact, I half suspected the orphans of belonging to the same unmentionable category as the tall, thin man.

For this reason I concealed my trips to the paddock, preparing an alternative story as an alibi, in case my mother, in one of her unpredictable fits of noticing me, should ask, out of a sense of duty, what I’d been doing. I never dawdled in the vicinity either, though the chances of being seen and recognized were extremely slight – too slight to worry me, when, having crept through the hedge, I caught sight one day of the delicate, feathery fern-like leaves and pinkish stems of a certain plant the village people called the ‘headache plant’, which always fascinated me on account of its name and the odd medicinal smell of its crushed leaves.

There was just room for me to balance between the hedge and the six-foot drop to the lane. By leaning over precariously, I managed to grasp a handful of the faintly hairy leaves, crushing them in the process, so that I only had to take up a more secure position before I inhaled, closing my eyes as I did so the better to appreciate the mysterious bitter
scent. Perhaps I hadn’t recovered entirely from the aftereffects of my illness, for, as I remember that peculiar odour, it seemed to contain an indescribable heavy languor, some fever quality of these interminable sultry days, of summer drowsiness turned ominous by the unfulfilled threat of thunder.

To the observer, of whose approach I wasn’t as yet aware, I must have looked a queer little image, perched up on the bank with my hands full of headache plant and my eyes shut tight. A slight sound made me open them hurriedly, and there, to my surprise, was a great black car bearing down upon me, rolling downhill almost silently, filling almost the whole width of the lane.

I knew the car at once, for it was often to be seen outside our front door. But it didn’t occur to me to wave to the occupant or to make any sign of recognition – not because I was surly or shy, but simply because I’d got so accustomed to being alone and unnoticed that I felt rather as though I were invisible. I was quite unprepared for the great black beetle of a thing to stop just below me and for the driver to put his head out of the window and invite me to jump in. It was more a command than an invitation, I thought, having long ago classified him as one of the order-givers of the world, pre-destined to command the obedience of his fellow men.

He was an old friend of my father’s, this Mr Spector – the only one, I heard later, to brave public opinion by openly declaring the fact at this time, in spite of his own dis-approval of pacifist ideals. He often said that what he called ‘the ‘ologies’ had nothing to do with friendship, politics and philosophy and the rest belonging to the intellect, whereas friendship came, or should come, from the heart – one’s heart always told one to stand by a friend, especially if he happened to be down on his luck, and that was all there was
to it. When I was a little older and heard how my father had begged him not to endanger his career by coming to see us, and how he had replied by coming rather more often, I was filled with admiration for such selfless nobility. But, at the time of this meeting, all I knew of him was that he seldom took any notice of me, from which I assumed that he disliked children, and I kept out of his way, slightly intimidated by his dignified, stern appearance and authoritative manner.

I wondered now what he could possibly want of me, as I scrambled down, obediently but rather reluctantly, and squeezed my skinny frame into the car, automatically taking care not to open the door beyond the very few inches it was possible to open it without touching the bank. I don’t know whether this consideration was the result of training or some inherited feeling for orderliness and respect for inanimate things. Anyhow, it was useful to me now, for I found out, years afterwards, that this door situation was the first of a long series of character tests devised by Mr Spector for gauging my tendencies and development, and that his real interest in me originated in my ability to pass it with flying colours at such a tender age.

However, if he looked at me approvingly, I didn’t notice it. I was far from comfortable sitting beside him, being secretly worried about what would happen if we met another car coming the opposite way, as well as uneasily conscious that I was untidy and dirty, and that the scraps of leaves and twigs I’d collected upon my person showed an embarrassing tendency to transfer themselves to the upholstery. My awkward attempts to remove them resulting only in more dust being deposited there, I glanced apprehensively at my companion, who said kindly, ‘Never mind that’, smiling in a much friendlier way than I’d ever expected.

From that moment all my worries were over, for he began
talking to me so easily and naturally that we might have been equals and old acquaintances. I asked the question that was bothering me, and it was settled at once, and my mind set at rest, by his answer that the other fellow would just have to back to the nearest crossroads, which I took as quite right and proper, never doubting for one instant that every vehicle on the road would unquestioningly give way to this assured and dominant personage.

I don’t remember what we talked about at first, only that he spoke to me without a trace of the condescension grown-ups so often displayed in their conversations or of the foolish facetiousness some appeared to consider suitable to my age. It seemed such a very long time since I’d had a friendly conversation with anyone, or that anyone had taken an interest in me and my affairs, that I was only too glad to go on talking about anything and everything under the sun. Mr Spector listened, always with the same grave attention, as if we were discussing important matters that concerned him personally, putting in an occasional question to lead me on, so that I revealed, I dare say, much more of my loneliness and bewilderment than I realized. He asked me what I’d been doing up on the bank, and I explained about the headache plant, a few wilted leaves of which I produced and held up for him to smell, so that he could get an idea of its mystic properties. From there it was an easy and natural step to the orphans and my imagined companionship with them and how much I wished it were real.

As I sat there, enjoying myself thoroughly now, my hair stirred by the breeze our speed evoked from the stagnant air, a warm feeling of gratitude spread through me towards the man at my side, who, simply by letting me talk, had afforded me the relief I most needed. His questions never embarrassed me, for he never pressed for an answer. Nor
did he burden me with comments or advice unless I asked him directly, in which case he would reply in a simple straightforward manner quite acceptable to me. I noticed that at certain moments our talk seemed to approach something dangerous or painful for which I could find no words, and I got the impression he understood these things that troubled me, but of which I couldn’t speak because it was impossible for me to explain them or fit them into the frame of the language I knew. He somehow contrived to convey to me, without actually mentioning it at all, that everything would be clear to me when I was older, and that there was nothing to worry about, which I found inexpressibly comforting. I was convinced that he understood me without the need for speech, for he always seemed aware of these obscure danger points, and before I’d had time to grow really uneasy he’d have steered the conversation to a safer topic. My confidence was won absolutely. I felt more contented than at any time since my father’s return, because this stranger, so sure of himself and of everything, so admirable, as I thought, in every respect, considered me worthy of his friendship and took an interest in my small doings, thus giving my ego a much-needed lift.