‘I tell you what,’ said Tim Burke, ‘I’ll give you a sup of whiskey, it’ll stave off the shock from you.’ He came back with two glasses. Nan took hers automatically and began to sip the golden stuff. At first she coughed, but then she felt it warm and violent inside. She felt a little better.
Tim had swallowed his at a gulp. He sat down again. Someone was knocking at the door of the shop. He paid no attention. Through her grief Nan became aware that Tim was at a loss. He did not know what to do. Nan hated it when other people did not know how to conduct themselves. She was used to taking control of situations. She would have preferred not to have to control this one.
‘Did you know what was happening?’ said Nan, drying her eyes. The effort made her feel better. ‘Did you ever see them together?’
No,‘ said Tim, ’I didn’t. I’m sorry. But you know it’s likely not anything important at all. Whatever it is, it’ll soon be done. Don’t be too angry with Mor.‘
‘Oh, don’t!’ said Nan. Somehow to talk of being or not being angry with Bill had nothing to do with it. That was not what it was like.
‘What did you do?’ said Tim.
‘I ran straight out of the house,’ said Nan, ‘and came here.’ She drank some more whiskey and Tim filled up her glass. She reached out again to the tree.
‘You’d better go back again,’ said Tim. ‘Mor will be waiting, and he’ll be in an agony.’
Go back, yes, thought Nan. The real pain after all was not that the world had fallen into little pieces. That was a relief from pain. It was rather that the world remained, whole, ordinary, and relentlessly to be lived in.
‘Don’t be too hard on Mor,’ said Tim again. ‘He’ll have a bad time of it. And anyway you are the stronger one. Yes,’ he said, ‘you are the strong one, you know.’
Nan knew. She would have to hold this situation as she had held all other situations, controlling Bill, easing the effects of his clumsiness, guiding them both through. She would have to cope with this. The thought was melancholy but there was a little comfort in it.
‘I’ll go out in a minute,’ said Tim, ‘and order you a taxi. But just now relax yourself and don’t be thinking what you’ll say. Let him do the talking.’
Nan thought, he wants me to go, he wants to be rid of me, to move this awful thing away to another place. She felt no animosity against Tim. In the intense rainy sunlight of the yard she saw his face close to hers, pale, unhealthy, puckered up with distress and indecision. She reached out and found his hand. They sat so for a while, rather awkwardly side by side, as if posing for an old-fashioned photograph. Nan laid her glass down and with her other hand plucked some more leaves from the tree. The sun was beginning to warm them. It was a strange interval.
After a while Nan raised her eyes to Tim. He was looking at her intensely. She sustained his gaze.
‘Come inside,’ he said, rising suddenly, and reaching a strong arm to pull her to her feet. ‘Come inside now, and rest in the big armchair.’
Nan got up. The yard began to rotate quietly round her. The whiskey must have gone to her head. She sat down again. The nightmare feeling returned. The objects in the yard were present to her with an appalling precision. She made an effort and stood up on her own. The yard was looking very strange, as if it were growing brilliant and slightly larger. She saw that she had picked nearly all the leaves off the sycamore tree. It stood there rather wretchedly gaunt with a premature autumn, its shadow stretching up the bumpy wall which was steaming in the sun. A curious light was shining. Nan looked up and saw directly above her a rainbow displayed against a pewter-coloured sky. She shuddered, and went back through the door which Tim Burke was holding open for her.
In the little workroom it was very dark. Tim worked there usually by neon light. Nan stumbled against the thick leg of the work bench. The big armchair stood in the farthest darkest comer, a large decrepit thing, banished some time ago from Tim’s small sitting-room upstairs.
Awkwardly Tim led her towards the corner. Nan began to say something and turned to face him. A moment later, half pushed by Tim and half collapsing of her own accord she had fallen back into the grinding springs of the chair. She lay there spread-eagled, suddenly helpless, her legs outstretched, her shoes propped at the high heel. She saw through the small square window a section of the metallic sky and a slice of the rainbow. Tim was leaning over her now, his hands upon the two arms of the chair. He was leaning closer, and the window was blotted out. Then, placing one knee upon the edge, he lay upon her, his arms struggling to meet behind her back while his heavy body crushed her into the depths of the chair.
Nan lay there limply, her hands upon his back and upon the sleeve of his coat, not grasping, but dropped there like two exhausted birds. His shoulder was pressing her chin back and her head sank into the deep dusty upholstery, releasing a musty smell. For a moment or two Nan lay still, looking thoughtfully over his shoulder through the half-open door of the workroom and into the darkened shop. Then she wriggled slightly, trying to release her chin from the pressure. She became aware that the weight of Tim’s body upon her was comforting, was more than that. She began in a half-hearted way to struggle.
At once Tim moved, taking his weight off her and endeavouring to shift her to one side so that he could lie beside her in the chair. For a minute they jostled, Nan withdrawing her arms and awkwardly edging away, her heels braced and slipping on the floor, and Tim burrowing beside her, his big hands underneath her body. Then they lay still again, facing each other. Nan found that her heart was beating very fast. She felt a little fear and a little disgust at finding Tim’s white face so close to hers, his lips moist and parted. Then she threw her arms about his neck and drew him up against her, partly so as not to see any longer the staring look that was in his eyes.
‘Nan,’ said Tim, ‘I do love you, you know that, don’t you? I wish I could do something for you, some good thing.’
‘Yes,’ said Nan. She knew that the strange comfort that she felt would last only a few seconds longer.
‘Dear, I’ve so often wanted to tell you things,’ Tim went on, his voice burring in her ear.
‘What things?’ said Nan. Distantly she could hear the voices of people passing in the street.
Oh, foolish things,‘ said Tim. ’Things about Ireland, about when I was a child there, things I couldn’t tell to anybody else.‘
Nan thought, now Tim is going to tell me about his childhood. She had an instantaneous vision of herself spending the morning lying in the armchair and hearing about Tim’s childhood. I must be drunk, she thought. She began to struggle again.
This time Tim braced his hand against the back of the chair and pulled himself out until he was kneeling beside her. Nan dragged herself up to a sitting position. A light dust surrounded them and a smell of the past.
Now that she could see his face again Nan felt her despair returning. After all, it was nothing but a senseless pause. Another minute and they would both be feeling embarrassment. ‘Please call me a taxi, Tim,’ she said.
Bowing his head, Tim rose and went out into the shop, closing the door behind him. She heard him pass into the street. She sat up and began to search for her handbag. She examined herself in the pocket mirror. As she saw her dishevelled head in the half light she started quite quietly to cry again. But by the time Tim had returned she had combed her hair and applied some powder to her nose.
When she heard his steps she got up and they met at the door of the shop. He put his two hands at her waist.
‘Oh God!’ said Tim Burke. Words failed him.
‘Is the taxi coming?’ said Nan.
‘It’ll be here in half a minute.’
Nan looked into his face. Now that she was erect it no longer appalled her; and suddenly she wished desperately that she could stay with Tim Burke that morning and talk to him, talk to him about anything at all, about Ireland, about his past life of which she knew nothing, about his hopes and fears, about when he had begun to love her. For a
n instant she apprehended him there, pale, awkward, strong, with his two large palms seeming to enclose her body. In that instant she saw him close, mysterious, other than herself, full to the brim of his own particular history.
There was a loud knock at the door.
‘It’s the taxi,’ said Tim.
They looked at each other.
‘Shall we send it away?’ he said.
Nan was silent. She wanted, very much she wanted to know him now, this person that confronted her. She could not think how she had endured to have so little knowledge of him. In the privacy and difference of his past, in all that had brought him, by ways that he had never told, to the present moment, there lay for her a promise of consolation and a long long solace of discovery.
‘If you could only come to me,’ said Tim, ‘be with me somehow — ’
Nan turned from him. With coldness, with violence, the reality of her situation touched her, the irresponsible silliness of her present conduct. She shook her head. She saw the glass of whiskey standing near by upon the counter and she drank the rest of it in a single gulp. The knocking on the door was resumed.
‘Open the door,’ said Nan.
Tim fumbled at the latch, and then the pale sunlight was falling in a broad shaft into the shop, as far as where Nan was standing. The taxi-man was waiting in the road.
Nan came forward.
‘Don’t forget me,’ said Tim, as she passed him.
‘Yes,’ said Nan. She steadied herself out on to the pavement.
‘Don’t forget me,’ he repeated, standing behind her in the doorway of the shop.
Nan got into the taxi. A moment or two later it was speeding away. Her grief was restored to her.
As the taxi rolled along, Nan wondered what on earth she was going to say to Bill. She had never been in a situation remotely resembling this with Bill before. In ordinary life all her talk with Bill was planed down into simple familiar regularly recurring units. Any conversation which she might have with him was of so familiar a type that they might have talked it in their sleep. This was one of the things that made marriage so restful. But from now on all speech between them would have to be invented. The words spoken would be new things, composing a new world. Nan did not know what she would say - but in spite of Tim Burke’s warning she was determined that it was she who would talk and not Bill. She wondered if Bill would say he was sorry. What did people say at a time like this?
Nan stepped out of the taxi. Tim had already paid the fare. The taxi-man helped her out. He was wearing an odd expression on his face which made Nan realize that her breath must be smelling strongly of alcohol. When she thought this she staggered, and the gatepost came rushing to meet her at an unexpected angle. She was beginning to feel a slight nausea which was just distinguishable from the rest of her distress. As the taxi drove away she began to search through her handbag for her latchkey. It didn’t seem to be there. She must have left it in the door when she arrived in the early morning. She looked to see if it was still there. It had gone. She stood in the front garden wondering what to do.
She was very anxious that Bill should not know that she had been drinking whiskey. So in what was to come she must keep him at a distance from her. She decided not to ring the bell, but to go in through the drawing-room doors at the back of the house, which were normally unlatched, and interview Bill in the drawing-room with the doors open. These thoughts came rather slowly. In the picture as she now saw it there was only Bill; it was a matter of managing him. It was something between herself and Bill.
Nan began to walk round the side of the house, supporting herself against the wall. She felt mortally tired. But when she reached the drawing-room doors she found that they were closed and evidently bolted on the inside. This was unusual. She pulled at them helplessly for a while. Then she decided that she would get in instead by the low window which was beside the doors. It seemed to be undone. She stepped on to the flower-bed. The earth was soft and muddy after the rain. She pulled the window open and managed to put one foot through the opening.
‘Nan, what in heaven’s name are you doing?’ said Bill’s voice from behind her. He had just come into the garden by the side gate. Nan could see him out of the corner of her eye.
She said nothing, but made desperate efforts to get through the window. She had now got half-way, and was straddled across the sill, her skirt drawn tight, with one leg well into the drawing-room and the other one still outside. She could see the mud falling off her shoe on to the cushions of the sofa. Her other shoe had come off, embedded somewhere in the earth behind her.
‘Nan!’ said Bill’s voice again. He was coming towards her.
‘Keep away!’ said Nan. She was pulling furiously on the frame of the window. She could hear Bill stepping on to the flower-bed. He put one hand on her shoulder and one underneath her and propelled her forward into the drawing-room. Nan collapsed on to the sofa. She had to restrain a strong desire just to lie there and whimper at the idiocy of everything.
She sat up. Bill was still standing at the window looking in. He was holding her shoe in one hand and was feebly trying to brush the mud off it.
‘Bill,’ said Nan loudly and clearly, ‘how long has this business been going on?’
‘Wait a minute,’ said Bill. ‘I’ll come round the front way.’
As soon as he disappeared, Nan jumped up and opened the doors wide. Then she drew the sofa a little nearer to them and lay down upon it, propping herself up with cushions and facing into the room. She found a rug and drew it over her feet. Behind her lay the garden, drenched with rain and dazzling now with pearls of light as the strong sun shone upon it, and the plants gradually lifted themselves up, murmuring as they did so. The fresh air blew into the room, dissipating, so Nan hoped, the remaining smell of the whiskey. Bill entered by the drawing-room door.
‘Sit down, Bill,’ said Nan. She indicated a chair near the door.
Bill did not sit down, but stood by the wall kicking his feet. He looked very like Donald.
‘Let me explain,’ began Bill, ‘about last night. Miss Carter stayed here all night because of the storm, and because she’d made an excuse to Demoyte and couldn’t go back there. It was the first time she was in this house. I’d only seen her alone twice before that - or three times, if you count the first night. And I’ve never made love to her.’ He hated saying these things. He stood, pawing with his foot and looking down.
Nan believed him. ‘All right, Bill,’ she said. ‘You are obviously what they call a fast worker. How little I knew you! Anyhow, I’m not interested in this sentimental catalogue. You talk as if you were confessing the secrets of your heart to someone who wanted to hear them.’
At this moment Nan realized with dismay that she was developing hiccups. The only hope was to check them at once by holding her breath. She breathed in very deeply.
Bill waited for her to go on, and as she continued to be silent he said after a moment or two, ‘I should not like you to think that I regard this as anything trivial.’
Nan was still holding her breath.
After another moment of waiting Bill began to say, ‘I realize that I have acted -’
Nan gasped and drew in another breath. It felt as if she had defeated the hiccups. She interrupted him. ‘Listen, Bill,’ she said, ‘I’m not going to make a scene about this. I believe all you say. I’ve trusted you all my life, and I trust you now not to act in a way that will make us both ludicrous.’
‘You don’t quite understand -’ said Bill. He was leaning back against the wall and looking with a frown at a particular place in the carpet as if he were trying to decipher the pattern. He beat the wall lightly as he spoke with the heel of Nan’s shoe.
‘Don’t do that,’ said Nan. ‘You’re making marks on the wallpaper. I think I do understand. You’ve got yourself into a sentimental state about this girl. All right. There’s nothing very terrible about that. But whatever there is to it, now you must just stop. Your own good sense must
tell you what to do here and how to do it.’ Nan found to her surprise that the words were not new after all. The pattern of her former conversations with her husband was not lost. This thing could be dealt with as she had dealt with all crises in the past. She felt with a sense of relief her protective power over him. The nightmare was at an end.
I can’t stop,‘ said Bill in a dull voice, still looking at the carpet.
‘None of that, please,’ said Nan. ‘You made this mess and you must get out of it. Be rational, Bill! Wake up and see the real world again. Even if you have no consideration for me or for that wretched girl who’s scarcely older than Felicity, think a little about your reputation, your position as a schoolmaster. Think about the precious Labour Party. This flirtation is bound to end pretty soon. If you let it drag on you’ll merely do yourself a lot of harm.’
‘I love this girl, Nan,’ said Bill. He tried to look at her, but could not face her stare.