The Sea, The Sea Part 8

'Well, it had better not be Lizzie.'

'It isn't! Hasn't even this convinced you? I love this woman.'

I love her, I thought, just as if I have been actually married to her all those years and have seen her gradually grow old and lose tier beauty.

'Oh, come, darling, that's got to be a lie. This sudden move to the sea has unhinged you, and this ghastly pointless house. I think it's the nastiest house I've ever been in. No wonder you're having delusions.'

'What delusions do you mean?'

'I remember your talking about a first love, but these things are imaginary, they are fables. You're just suffering from the shock of seeing her, give it a fortnight. And she's got a bourgeois marriage and a son, and, Charles, she's ordinary ordinary, you can't do it to an ordinary woman just because you fancied her at school, it's nonsense and she wouldn't understand! Besides, you wouldn't be able to, you're not allpowerful, not in real life you aren't. You'd simply get yourself into a very unpleasant mess, just the sort of mess which you of all people hate. You'd lose face lose face! Think of that! Have enough self-knowledge to see how you'd hate it, you haven't any role here, you haven't any lines. You even admit she doesn't want to talk to you!'

'That's because she's afraid, she loves me too much, and she doesn't yet know enough to trust my feelings. She will will trust them. And then her love will simply sweep her to me.' I thought: I must let her know, I must convince her, that I love her absolutely, I must write a long letter and get it to her secretly, and once she really understands... trust them. And then her love will simply sweep her to me.' I thought: I must let her know, I must convince her, that I love her absolutely, I must write a long letter and get it to her secretly, and once she really understands...

In my solemn but rather general and undetailed version of the story I had mentioned t.i.tus but had not, for some reason, said anything about his being adopted, or about his having run away. Perhaps I was still reluctant on my own account to reflect on the subject of t.i.tus, and on how he might affect my chances. Nor did I describe my thoroughly unnerving tete-a-tete tete-a-tete with Ben. Here the idea of losing face' with Ben. Here the idea of losing face'

could indeed find a foothold! I said that t.i.tus was not at home and that I had had inconclusive meetings with Hartley in the village and polite conversations with her and her husband. I had not conveyed the fear and danger in the situation. Fortunately Rosina was too amused to ask really detailed questions.

'Charles, be human. She's timid, she's shy, she must feel terribly inadequate and mousy and dull, after her her life, meeting you after life, meeting you after your your life. She probably feels ashamed of her dull husband, and feels protective about him, and resentful against you. Use your imagination! And she'd bore you, darling, she'd bore you into a frenzy, and she knows it, poor old dear. She's an old-age pensioner, she wants to rest now, she wants to put her feet up and watch television, not to have disturbances and adventures. And then supposing you did carry her off and then felt bored, whatever would you do, with yourself or with her? life. She probably feels ashamed of her dull husband, and feels protective about him, and resentful against you. Use your imagination! And she'd bore you, darling, she'd bore you into a frenzy, and she knows it, poor old dear. She's an old-age pensioner, she wants to rest now, she wants to put her feet up and watch television, not to have disturbances and adventures. And then supposing you did carry her off and then felt bored, whatever would you do, with yourself or with her?

You're used to witty unconventional women, and you're an old bachelor now anyway, you couldn't really stand living with anybody, unless it was a clever old friend like me. You couldn't start a new woman, and that's what she really is for all your touching memories of jaunts on bikes. I think you just want to break up her marriage, like you just wanted to break up mine. I'm pretty tough, but as it is you gave me a lot of misery over a long time, and I'm not going to let you off, you're going to have to pay for my tears, like people in the sagas pay. You've lived in a hedonistic dream all your life, and you've got away with behaving like a cad because you always picked on women who could look after themselves. And my G.o.d you told us the score, you never committed yourself, you never said you loved us even when you did! A cold fish with clean hands! But it was just luck really if the girls survived. You're like a man firing a machine gun into a supermarket who happens not to become a murderer. No, no, but it's different here, you must respect the poor old thing's choice, her life, her son, her dear dull old husband, her nice little new house. Leave her alone, Charles. No wonder she runs a mile when she sees you!'

'You don't understand.' How indeed could she? Much of what she said was sensible, more sensible even than she realized. But there was just one thing omitted: the absolute nature of the bond between myself and Hartley, and the certainty which, in spite of Hartley's behaviour, we both had about the continuity of that bond. Hartley was not a 'new woman', she was the oldest strongest longest thing in my life. Nor could I or would I ever try to explain to Rosina how tired I was of 'witty unconventional women', and how it was that that 'old bag' was for me the dearest of all beings and the most precious and unspoilt creature in the world and the most thrillingly attractive. I had given to Hartley my first and my only completely innocent love, before I became a 'hedonistic dreamer' and a 'cold fish'. Of course these insulting descriptions were the idle product of jealous spite; but in so far as I had been a 'cad', that in a way was Hartley's fault! I had given her my innocence to keep, which could now miraculously be reclaimed. And these ideas somehow composed themselves into a pa.s.sion of possessive yearning. I felt tenderness, pity, a deep desire to cherish cherish Hartley, to protect her from any more pain or any more harm, to indulge and spoil her, to give her everything that she wanted, and to make her eternally happy. I wanted, in the time that was left to us, to console her as a G.o.d consoles. But I also wanted increasingly, and with a violence which almost burnt the tenderness away, to own her, to possess her body and soul. Ever since the recognition scene, physical pa.s.sion, roused, disturbed, confused, had twisted and turned in me, my senses in dialogue with my thoughts, because, as I worked and worked to join together her youth and her age, I so much desired to desire her. To achieve this was a crucial test, a trial, a labour undergone for her. Now, I realized, it was done; and my desire was like a river which has forced its channel to the sea. She made me whole as I had never been since she left me. She summoned up my whole being, and I wanted to hold her and to overwhelm her and to lie with her forever, Hartley, to protect her from any more pain or any more harm, to indulge and spoil her, to give her everything that she wanted, and to make her eternally happy. I wanted, in the time that was left to us, to console her as a G.o.d consoles. But I also wanted increasingly, and with a violence which almost burnt the tenderness away, to own her, to possess her body and soul. Ever since the recognition scene, physical pa.s.sion, roused, disturbed, confused, had twisted and turned in me, my senses in dialogue with my thoughts, because, as I worked and worked to join together her youth and her age, I so much desired to desire her. To achieve this was a crucial test, a trial, a labour undergone for her. Now, I realized, it was done; and my desire was like a river which has forced its channel to the sea. She made me whole as I had never been since she left me. She summoned up my whole being, and I wanted to hold her and to overwhelm her and to lie with her forever, jusqu'a la fin du monde jusqu'a la fin du monde; and, yes, to amaze her humility with the forces of my love, but also to be humble myself and to let her, in the end, console me and give me back my own best self. For she held my virtue in her keeping, she had held it and kept it all these years, she was my alpha and my omega. It was not an illusion. Rosina, watching me, was now actually chuckling. I was sitting with my arms spread out on the table, still feeling cold in spite of the Irish jersey and the brandy (to which I too had now resorted) and although the calor gas stove was still burning, I had been about to light the fire in the little red room when Rosina interrupted me. She, perched on her chair, with one knee raised, was wearing wide blue cotton trousers, rolled up over blue canvas boots, and a casual blue and purple striped s.h.i.+rt pulled in at the waist by a narrow leather belt. She looked idle, practical, piratical, amazingly young. Her dark piercing crossed eyes regarded me with predatory amus.e.m.e.nt. Her thick wiry dark hair was now strained back and tied closely with a ribbon, giving her face a harsh animal intensity of expression. She had thrown off her coat, showing no sign of feeling the cold. And I thought, what's the matter with me, it can't be be cold, after all it's summer. But I s.h.i.+vered all the same. And was it not equally absurd to have candles burning at eleven o'clock in the morning? The candles seemed to be giving no light so I blew them out. Perhaps the mist was dispersing a little, though the window was still obscured. Rosina was just beginning to reply to me when the door of the kitchen quietly opened and someone came in. It was a woman, and for a crazy moment I thought it must be Hartley, embodied by my thoughts. But no: it was Lizzie Scherer. Both the women uttered a tiny cry, a sort of suppressed swallowed yelp of shock, when they saw each other. Rosina got up very fast and moved behind her chair. Lizzie stepped towards me, looking at Rosina, and threw her handbag onto the table as if it were a gage of war. I remained seated. Lizzie was wearing a light brown mackintosh and a very long yellow Indian scarf, which she now unwound and carefully folded up and placed on the table beside the bag. She was blus.h.i.+ng extremely. (So was I.) Her hair was covered with little drops of water. Perhaps it was now actually raining outside. Rosina lifted her chair and threw it sideways onto the. slate-flagged floor. She said to me, 'You liar and you traitor!' cold, after all it's summer. But I s.h.i.+vered all the same. And was it not equally absurd to have candles burning at eleven o'clock in the morning? The candles seemed to be giving no light so I blew them out. Perhaps the mist was dispersing a little, though the window was still obscured. Rosina was just beginning to reply to me when the door of the kitchen quietly opened and someone came in. It was a woman, and for a crazy moment I thought it must be Hartley, embodied by my thoughts. But no: it was Lizzie Scherer. Both the women uttered a tiny cry, a sort of suppressed swallowed yelp of shock, when they saw each other. Rosina got up very fast and moved behind her chair. Lizzie stepped towards me, looking at Rosina, and threw her handbag onto the table as if it were a gage of war. I remained seated. Lizzie was wearing a light brown mackintosh and a very long yellow Indian scarf, which she now unwound and carefully folded up and placed on the table beside the bag. She was blus.h.i.+ng extremely. (So was I.) Her hair was covered with little drops of water. Perhaps it was now actually raining outside. Rosina lifted her chair and threw it sideways onto the. slate-flagged floor. She said to me, 'You liar and you traitor!'

I said to Lizzie, 'Is it raining?'

Lizzie said, 'I don't think so.'

I said, 'Rosina is just leaving.' Then just in time I got to my feet and moved hastily round the table. Rosina's vermilion claws, making a slash at my face, just touched my neck as I got out of range. Lizzie retreated to the door. I faced Rosina's rage across the table. 'Look, I didn't lie to you. I haven't any sort of arrangement with Lizzie, she's just arrived out of the blue and she doesn't know know.'

'Does she live here?' said Lizzie.

'No! No one lives here except me! She just dropped in, people drop in, you have dropped in. Have some tea, some brandy, some cheese, an apricot.'

'She doesn't know?' said Rosina, glaring at me but mollified.

'Then hadn't you better tell her? Or shall I?'

'Are you going to marry Rosina?' said Lizzie, stiff, hands in pockets.

'No!'

'Charles, can I speak to you alone?' said Lizzie.

'No, you can't,' said Rosina. 'My G.o.d, if it was only Lizzie and me we could fight for you, with kitchen knives.'

I felt I had another s.h.i.+vering fit coming on and I sat down again at the table. 'I don't feel very well.'

'Can I speak to you alone?'

'No,' said Rosina. 'Charles, I want to hear you tell her what you have just told me, I want to hear hear you' you'

'Is Gilbert outside?' I asked Lizzie.

'No, I drove down by myself. All right then, if she won't go' Lizzie, ignoring Rosina, sat down opposite to me at the table. 'I wanted to say thank you for your sweet generous letter'

'Tell her, tell her!'

'Thank you for your sweet generous letter. You were being very kind to both of us.'

'I'm terribly sorry I didn't turn up for dinner that night, I'

'Very kind to both of us. But it isn't necessary for you to be generous like that. I was a perfect fool. Gilbert doesn't matter. Nothing matters except that I'm yours on any terms. There's nothing to argue about. I'm just yours, and you can do what you like, I don't care if it all goes wrong, I don't care what happens or how long it lasts, well of course I want it to last forever, but you will do exactly what you want. I've come here just to say that, to give myself to you, if you still want me, like you said you did.'

'How touching!' said Rosina. 'What did you say to her, Charles, let's have the truth about that at last.' She picked up Lizzie's handbag and threw it onto the floor and kicked it. Lizzie paid no attention, she was staring at me, her flushed ardent face blazing with emotion, her lips wet, her eyes bright with the truthfulness of her self-giving submission. I was very moved.

'Lizzie, deardear girl'

'You're too late, Lizzie,' said Rosina, 'Charles is going to marry a bearded lady, aren't you, Charles, aren't aren't you? And we were just discussing you, and Charles said he never really cared for you at all' you? And we were just discussing you, and Charles said he never really cared for you at all'

'I didn't say that! Look, I'm going to talk to Lizzie upstairs. You stay here. I'll come back.'

'You'd better come back. I'll give you five minutes. If you two set off for London I'll follow you and smash you into the ditch.'

'I promise I'll come back. And, yes, I'll tell her. Just please don't break anything. Come, Lizzie.'

Lizzie picked up her scarf from the table and her handbag from the floor. She did hot look at Rosina. I led her out of the kitchen and up the stairs. When we got to the upper landing I hesitated. The bead curtain was immobile and I decided not to pa.s.s through it. I led Lizzie into the little middle room and shut the door. The room was dark, since not much light was coming through the long window which gave on to the drawing room, either because of the fog or because I had failed to raise the blinds. It was also empty, since I had removed the table which was still lying in the rocky creva.s.se where I had dropped it on my way to the tower. There was a square of threadbare carpet. There was also, now suddenly conspicuous and rather sinister, the curly cast - iron lamp bracket rather high up on the wall. The carpet emitted a damp smell when trodden on.

'I'm so frightened of that woman. Charles, you aren't tied up with her, are you?'

'No, no, no, she's just persecuting me. Lizzie'

'I don't know what she was saying, but it doesn't matter. Listen, Charles darling, I'm yours, and I must have been mad not to say so at once. I was stupidly frightened, I felt I just couldn't bear another broken heart, I thought I wanted peace, and I imagined I could check myself from running straight back into that old terrible madness, but it's no good, I've run back, I'm mad again. I felt sorry for Gilbert and I wanted time to think of a compromise but there isn't any compromise. I don't care what happens or what you do to me, I don't care if I die of it. I don't want you to be unselfish and scrupulous and generous, I want you to be the lord and the king as you've always been. I love you, Charles, and I belong to you and I'll do from this moment on forever whatever you ask of me.'

We stood staring at each other and trembling in that little dark cell-like room underneath the castiron lamp bracket. 'Lizzie, forgive me, it was a mistake mistake. Sweet Lizzie, it's no use, we cannot ever be together, I can't take you and keep you like I thought, I can't be the king any more. I'm sorry I wrote to you. I'm very fond of you, I love you, but not like that. It was just an empty idea, an abstract idea, like you said, you were quite right, it wouldn't have worked, it wouldn't have lasted. You see, I've met someone else, no, not Rosina, a woman I knew and loved long ago, you remember I told you, the first one. So I can't ever be yours, little Lizzie, and you can't be mine. You must go back to Gilbert, make him happy, let things be as they were. Oh please believe me and please forgive me. It was a mistake.'

'A mistake,' said Lizzie, looking down at her s.h.i.+ny black high-heeled shoes which were wet from the gra.s.s of the causeway. 'I see.' She lifted her head and looked at me, her face crimson, her lower lip trembling, her eyes vague and terrible.

'You do remember about that girl, I told you once, well I met her again, she's here and '

'I'll say goodbye then.'

'Lizzie, darling, don't go like that, we'll be friends, won't we, won't we, like you asked in your first letter, I'll come and see you and Gilbert '

'I don't think I'll be with Gilbert any more. Things can't be as they were. I'm sorry. Goodbye.'

'Lizzie, just hold my hand for a moment'

She gave me her limp hand. It felt damp and unresponsive and small and I could not continue the gesture into an embrace. She withdrew her hand and began to fiddle in her handbag. She brought out a fragment of the mirror which had been broken by Rosina's kick, then a small white handkerchief. As soon as she had the handkerchief in her hand she began very quietly to cry. I felt so touched and sad, and yet so oddly proudly detached and somehow sentimental, as I seemed to see in a second, all rolled up into a ball and all vanis.h.i.+ng, some life that I might have had with Lizzie, my Cherubino, my Ariel, my Puck, my son: some life we might have had together if I had been different, and she had been different. Now it was gone, whatever happened next, and the world was changed. I repeated with a kind of sad self-tormenting pleasure, 'No, Lizzie, dear heart, little brave Lizzie, it cannot be. I am so grateful to you for your for your'

'It's funny,' said Lizzie, speaking almost calmly through her quiet tears, 'it's funny. The drive from London, it's such a long way, I hired a car, I didn't drive Gilbert's, all the way I had a sort of marvellous love conversation with you, if only it hadn't been for that long drive, it all came to a climax, like a coronation, I was thinking how surprised and pleased you'd be to see me, and how perfectly happy we'd both be and we'd laugh and laugh like we used to, and I kept picturing it and I felt such love and such joyeven though I was saying to myself that I might end up with a broken heart and this time it would kill me but I thought I don't care how it ends or how much I suffer, so long as he wants me and takes me in his armsand now it's ended before it even began, and I never imagined it would all be spoilt and broken at the startand now I've got nothingexcept my love for youall wakened up again and rejectedall wakened up againforever and ever'

'Lizzie, it will be quiet, it will sleep, it did sleep.'

She shook her head, gripping her handkerchief in her teeth.

'Lizzie, I'll write to you.'

Her tears had ceased. She put away the handkerchief and the broken mirror and unwound the yellow scarf. 'Don't write, Charles, it's kinder. It's funny, I thought it was the ending then, and it wasn't, it's the ending now. Please don't write to me if you want to be kind. I don't wantany more'

She crumpled up the scarf and stuffed it in her pocket. Then she turned and quickly swung open the door, nearly running into Rosina who was standing just outside. Rosina jumped back, and Lizzie ran away down the stairs, leaning hard on the banister, her high-heeled shoes clattering and slithering. I tried to follow her, but Rosina grasped my arm, exerting quite a lot of force and bracing one of her booted feet against my foot. We reeled against the wall. 'Let her go.' The front door banged. I stood for a moment staring at the bead curtain which was swaying and clicking. Then I walked slowly downstairs. Rosina followed me. We went into the kitchen and sat down again at the table.

'Don't worry, Charles, that l.u.s.ty little animal won't break its heart.'

I was silent.

'Now I suppose you want me to discuss poor Lizzie with you?'

'No.'

'Poor old Charles, you're demoted as G.o.d.'

'O.K. Please go.'

'If you ever set up with Lizzie Scherer I'll kill both of you.'

'Oh Rosina, don't be stupid, don't be vulgar. Just please go away. Well, I suppose you'd better let Lizzie get a start if you're going back to London.'

'I'm not, I'm going to the Raven Hotel to have a very good lunch alone. Then I'm going to Manchester to do some filming, I shall leave you to your thoughts and I hope they hurt. I won't interfere with your caper with the bearded lady on one condition.'

'What?'

'That you promise to tell me everything about it.'

'O.K.'

'You promise?'

'Yes.'

'Get up, Charles.'

I rose mechanically to my feet. Rosina came round the table and for a moment I thought she was going to hit me. She gave me one other wet kisses. 'Well, goodbye, I'll be back.'

The front door banged again, and a moment later I heard the departing scream of the little red car. For a moment only I hoped that Lizzie might return. Then I thought what luck it was that Lizzie had not come running to me after my first letter.

I went into the next room and tried to light the fire but failed. There was not enough kindling wood. I was feeling thoroughly disturbed by Lizzie's crying and Rosina's kiss. I was miserable about Lizzie but in rather a blank way and I was reluctant to think about her. I wanted her sympathy. I was already regretting my thoroughly vulgar conversation with Rosina. It had seemed a smart thing to do at the time, to tell her about Hartley, but now I was filled with forebodings. In effect, I had given Rosina another weapon. Then I began to wonder a little about cousin James and how he had come unstuck. h.o.m.os.e.xuality? Or had the army decided that a crazy Buddhist was a bad security risk? My neck was beginning to hurt where Rosina's red finger nails had reached it. I wanted to take my temperature but could not find the thermometer.

There was no fog now. Twilight had just been overtaken by darkness, and a bright fierce little moon was s.h.i.+ning, dimming the stars and pouring metallic brilliance onto the sea and animating the land with the ghostly intent presences of quiet rocks and trees. The sky was a clear blackish-blue, entertaining the abundant light of the moon but unillumined by it. The earth and its objects were a thick fuzzy brown. Shadows were strong, and the brooding ident.i.ty of everything I pa.s.sed so powerful that I kept nervously looking back. The silence was vast, different in quality from the foggy silence of the morning, punctured now and then by an owl's cry or the barking of a distant dog.

I did not go through the village. I walked along the coast road in the direction of the harbour, through the defile which I called 'the Khyber Pa.s.s', where the big yellow rocks had invaded the land, heaping themselves up against the side of the hill into a lumpy mound in which a narrow cleft had been cut to allow the pa.s.sage of the road. The rocks in the moonlight were dark brown, but covered with innumerable sparkling points of light where the moon caught the tiny facets of the quartz. I went through the dark cleft and on past the harbour to where, a little way further on, there was a footpath which led up the hill, skirting a wood, and joined the tarmac road where it petered out just beyond the bungalows. All this I had checked in a daylight reconnaissance, when I had also worked out how to get into the garden of Nibletts. This was not difficult, since the lower end of the garden was separated only by a line of posts, joined by slack wire, from the long sloping field, full of gorse bushes and outcrops of rock, which bordered the mounting footpath on the village side. The main drawback to my expedition, apart from the nightmarish possibility of being discovered, was that when it was late enough for me to get into the garden un.o.bserved, it might also be late enough for the married pair to be in bed. There was also of course the possibility that they might be watching television in silence.

I had earlier rejected the idea of spying on Hartley and Ben, not for moral reasons, but because it made me feel sick with emotion and terror. A marriage is so hideously private. Whoever illicitly draws back that curtain may well be stricken, and in some way that he can least foresee, by an avenging deity. Some horrible and quite unexpected revelation could persecute the miscreant henceforth forever with an almost obscene haunting. And I had to struggle here with my own superst.i.tious horror of the married state, that unimaginable condition of intimacy and mutual bondage. However, the logic of the situation now forced this dangerous and distasteful adventure upon me. It was the next step, the attempt to answer the next question. I had to discover, in so far as I could possibly do so, what this marriage was really like and what these two were for each other.

The moon, s.h.i.+ning from the sea, was casting the shadows of the wooden posts onto the sloping lawn of Nibletts. The gra.s.s looked as if it was covered with frost. I had already discerned, from below, that the curtained 'picture window' of the sitting room was glowing with light. I stepped over the slack wire and began to walk very quietly up the lawn in the direction of the house, listening to my practically noiseless footsteps in the already dewy gra.s.s, listening to my deep breathing and to the hurtful beating of my heart. In spite of a little rain earlier, the ground was hard after the sunny weather and I did not think I would leave noticeable footprints. At about fifteen yards from the house I stopped. Except for a small vent at the top, the window was closed. The curtains were unlined, and the light within illumined, like stained gla.s.s, a bright design of green parrots in a lemon tree. There was a narrow slit in the centre where the curtains failed to meet. I moved again, then listened. There was a sound of voices. Television? Avoiding the dangerous area of the slit, and feeling as if I were about to hurtle into s.p.a.ce, I now nerved myself to move steadily, silently, right up to the window and to kneel, touching the brick wall, and then to sit down with my head just below the level of the low sill.

Antic.i.p.ating encounters with rose bushes, though not foreseeing the dew, I was wearing a mackintosh. The moonlight had showed me the whereabouts of the various flower beds, but as I approached the house I must have been dazzled by the lighted window, or else become blind with fear, since I seemed to have sat down on on a rose bush. There was a faint awful crackling sound and a small sharp spear pierced the calf of my leg. I sat, awkward, frozen, leaning back against the wall, my eyes and my mouth wide open, suddenly staring at the vast moonlit sea below me and waiting with horror for some terrible 'Who's there?' a rose bush. There was a faint awful crackling sound and a small sharp spear pierced the calf of my leg. I sat, awkward, frozen, leaning back against the wall, my eyes and my mouth wide open, suddenly staring at the vast moonlit sea below me and waiting with horror for some terrible 'Who's there?'

But the voices continued and now I could hear them quite clearly. How easy it is to spy on unsuspecting people. The experience that followed was so weird, and so literally maddening to me, that I will not attempt to describe my feelings. I will simply, as in a play, give you the dialogue. It will be clear who is speaking.

'Why did he come here then?'

'I don't know.'

'You keep saying 'I don't know, I don't know', can't you say anything else, or are you mentally deficient? Of course you know, you must know. Do you think I'm a perfect fool? I'm not that thick.'

'You don't believe it'

'Don't believe what?'

'You don't believe what you say'

'What on earth do you mean, what do you mean, what did I say that you think I don't believe? Am I supposed to be a liar then?'

'You say you think I knew, but you can't think that, it's insane'

'So I'm either mad or a liar. Is that it? Is that it?'

'No, no-'

'I don't understand you, you're babbling. Why did he come here?'

'I don't know, it was an accident, it was a chance'

'Funny sort of chance. My G.o.d, you're clever, it's the one b.l.o.o.d.y thing that would torment me more than anything else. Sometimes I think you want to drive me out of my mind and make me mad enough to'

'Darling, dear heart, dear Binkie, please don'tI'm so sorry oh I'm so sorry'

'It's no use saying that you're sorry or that you don't know, that's all you say over and over again. I'd like to split open your head and find out what you do know. Why don't you explain at last? Why don't you admit at last? It's been going on long enough. It'd be a relief to me if you'd only tell me'

'There's nothing to tell!'

'You expect me to believe that?'

'You did believe it.'

'I never believed it, I just pretended to, Christ, I wanted to forget, I got tired of living with it all, I got tired of living with your dreams.'

'There weren't any dreams.'