The Invisible Cord Page 24

  This did not bring a smile to her face, her eyes were still averted, and again he went on, ‘I can still hear my father and mother quarrelling. At different times during my childhood I would look at my father and think, You’re James Partridge, because on that memorable Christmas I witnessed their first open row. There had been many before that, but discreetly covered, I understand, for my sake; but it was on that day I heard mother say, “You’re a swine, James Partridge. That’s what you are, a swine, a pushed-up, cheap swine.” I used to ponder on what a pushed-up cheap swine meant. Eventually I discovered, in my father’s case, that it meant that he came from a very ordinary family, so ordinary that after marrying mother he disclaimed any connection with it.

  ‘I didn’t hear anything of Uncle Arthur for some time following that Christmas. Then after Father died I went to stay with them; I only went the once. It wasn’t a happy time. Years later, during my first walking tour, I called on him and found him living alone, and from that time I felt for him, as Georgie must have felt, a liking and a compassion for his situation. I said to him once, “Do you ever see the woman who came to the house for Christmas, that time there was the big row?” and he looked at me in surprise, saying, “You remember that time all those years ago? You were only five.” And I said, “Of course I remember it. I particularly remember the woman, her name was Annie,” and he said, “Yes, her name was Annie and she was a nice girl. Georgie’s lucky.”’

  When she moved uneasily on the couch and went to draw her hands from his he held them firmly, saying quietly, ‘I’m not finished yet. Grandmother had a friend, who had a granddaughter called Jane, she was three years younger than me. “Wouldn’t it be nice”, said the grandmothers, “if our grandchildren married.” They got their heads together very early on and they arranged that I was pushed at Jane, and Jane was pushed at me, every holiday. I had other girls; in fact there was one at college on whom I was very keen. I wanted to live with her, not marry her, I decided I wasn’t going to marry for years, and this particular girl was quite willing to fall in with the suggestion, but at the last minute I withdrew. I had been home and there was Jane again; there were certain things expected of me, play up and play the game. Jane left school when she was eighteen. She didn’t go on to college, it was considered that she wasn’t very strong. Everyone protected Jane; I followed where the others led. Jane was sweet, she was good company and intelligent; she had nothing to speak of in the way of looks but she was attractive. Strangely, she was very like Tishy, I mean in that once you got to know her her looks didn’t matter, in fact you saw a certain beauty in them. Anyway, Jane and I became engaged. It had to happen, my grandmother had arranged it, and any seed Grandmother planted bore fruit. Perhaps you remember my grandmother. I think of her as the eternal mini-skirt.’

  Annie was looking at him now, waiting, and he leant his shoulder against the side of the couch for a full minute before he spoke again. ‘When I showed no inclination to rush into marriage Grandma became annoyed. Since Mother had married again and gone off to the ends of the world, as she put it, it was her responsibility to see that I acted correctly. I used to think it was this attitude that drove me to take the position in Newcastle, but now I know that Grandma was merely part of the plan that had been mapped out for me, for I wasn’t in Newcastle a day before I thought, I must look her up, that woman. Now why after all those years should I have thought that? In the ordinary way I shouldn’t even have remembered what she looked like, let alone the conversation we’d had, but I did remember, and very clearly, for your face, Annie, was etched on my mind.’

  She looked at him, her eyes unblinking; then she bit tightly on her lip and bowed her head.

  ‘Well, you know what happened the first night I saw you. And the following month appeared to me as long as a year. I couldn’t believe that I’d only been in your life four weeks, I felt I knew all about you, everything you thought; I anticipated your very actions, your very words. I would say to myself, Now she’s going to do so-and-so; Now she’s going to say so-and-so. I seemed to be living inside you. When I came and took Tishy out, it was merely to help you, to get her away from Rance. Also to give her the chance to expand, because she did expand in company, the right company. She was good to be with, and strangely I felt as if I were a psychiatrist effecting some kind of a cure on her, turning the introvert into an extrovert.’

  He now let go of her hand and, taking a handkerchief from his pocket, wiped his face with it; but before he had finished he was talking again. ‘Towards the end of that month there was a showdown. Jane’s father wanted to know what I was up to. Jane’s mother wanted to know what I was up to. Her grandmother was indignant, as was mine. Jane was twenty-two, I was twenty-six, what were we waiting for? Everything was ready. Well, what was I waiting for? I named the date, told them I was going to look for a house this end and came back here to tell you, to tell you and Tishy, for I knew then that it was time I told Tishy. But believe me I never imagined that she would be so hurt; she was young but she was a girl very modern in her outlook; I had done nothing to make her think that I was being other than friendly…Then you cried and I took you in my arms and I knew I had never known happiness before…but it froze when she came into the room and I saw her face.’

  He now turned from her and, bending his body forward, he placed his elbows on his knees, joined his hands tightly between them and moved the pads of his thumbs against each other as he said, ‘Two months later I married Jane and entered into a private hell. You know, there’s a great deal to be said for promiscuity. I would advocate a trial run to every couple no matter what their morals, in fact I’d make it compulsory.’ There was a deep bitterness in his voice now. ‘Jane didn’t like sex—it was nasty—our so-called honeymoon was a nightmare. At the end of it she wouldn’t let me near her except to wipe away her tears, hold her hand or to stroke her hair. Even this she just tolerated. Why hadn’t I become aware of this before we married? I soon understood she had put up with my surface lovemaking then because she wanted to marry me. What she wanted was a combination of father, brother and male nurse. I tried to get her to a doctor, but no. And so, after six months of it, I went to Grandma, and Grandma went to her grandma, and I was told to have patience. Her rejection of me, I was given to understand, was the result of a bad experience she’d had when she was twelve years old; a young uncle had raped her.’

  The pads of his thumbs were still rubbing, and she brought her eyes from them to his face as he went on, ‘I became very understanding, very gentle; I became her father, brother and male nurse. On the surface Alan and Jane were ever so happy. During the second year I realised that this could go on for ever, and I knew I couldn’t stand it. Now it was me who wanted a male nurse. I went to my doctor. He said he would see her, but she wouldn’t see him. I went to my solicitor. He said divorce would be quite easy. I went to Grandma, and her reactions were pure Victorian. No-one would have guessed that she had been sleeping around for years. “Divorce!” she said. “No, you can’t possibly. Jane’s a nice girl.” Yes, Jane was a nice girl; but I didn’t want a nice girl, I wanted a wife. Anyway, two years ago I got a divorce, but it was too late to save me having a breakdown.’

  ‘Oh, Alan.’ It was the first time she had spoken his name since she had seen him yesterday, and he turned his head slowly towards her, saying, ‘I once heard someone say that they wouldn’t wish the devil in hell to have a breakdown and I can endorse that.’

  ‘Oh, I’m sorry.’

  He smiled now, saying, ‘Well, since it’s brought the first kind responses from you, what I should say now is that I would go through it again just to get the same results, but I cannot be so gallant. What I can say though is that I know now it’s all part of the plan. You see if it hadn’t been for the breakdown and having to go away for treatment, I would have run from this country like a scalded cat; but during this bad period I seemed to lose all initiative, all I wanted was to get away from people, to be by myself. I took to walking again. This helped
me back to normality. Anyway, this post came up in America and after long debate I took it. And I made up my mind that as soon as term ended I’d get my ticket and fly away. Yet what did I do? I plumped for one last holiday on these hills. I’m not due in the university until early September, so I told myself I’d stay with Uncle for a month and still have plenty of time left to see something of the country in which I was going to live.’

  He hitched himself back onto the couch, turned towards her and took her hands again and, looking into her eyes, said, ‘Yesterday morning I set off early, saying to Uncle, “Expect me when you see me,” and I walked and I walked. Then rounding a butt I come across those two idiots sitting like lost lambs and I devised a way of getting the injured one down to the road, and in the process we are all very dry and hot and longing for a cup of tea, so we stop at a cottage.’ He pulled her hands towards him now. ‘Do you see what I mean about it all being mapped out? Coming across those fellows yesterday, I would say on reflection, brought me to about the middle of the map; there’s still the other half to be worked out. Do you get what I’m driving at, Annie?’

  ‘Oh, Alan, don’t, don’t.’ She went to withdraw from him again, but he held fast to her hands. ‘Do you like me?’

  She shook her head even as she said, ‘Yes, yes, of course, I like you; no…no-one could help liking you.’

  ‘You’re not answering my question: Do you like me?’

  ‘Yes.’ Her head was bowed deeply on her chest now.

  ‘I love you, Annie.’

  ‘No, Alan, no.’ The movement of her head was wider now. ‘You can’t; you know nothing about me, except for that one month.’

  ‘I’ve known you all my life; I was waiting for you when I was five. I recognised you. You know something? I follow no religion. I believe that religions are merely shelters for weak and frightened men, and God was created by man to assuage the inexplicable hunger in him. It is well known that all religions down the years have been but different forms of tyranny, the means of creating gods with which to provide men with power and, in turn, to subordinate nations. As for Christianity, it is but the modernisation of heathen rituals. This can all be proved. Yet last night, lying out there, looking up into the blackness, I believed in God, or at least in a mind that can plan, and I couldn’t discard yet again an idea that has been in my mind for a long time concerning you. When I first thought of reincarnation I laughed at it, yet last night I was forced to believe in it. How other did I recognise you at five years old?…We have met before, Annie.’

  Her head had stopped shaking, she was looking at him now in utter bewilderment. She wasn’t a very good Catholic but she was a Catholic. She believed in God. She had sometimes questioned the Virgin Birth but then, she had told herself, if God could do anything, then he could set a seed in a woman’s womb. Really when you came to think of it there was nothing to the Virgin Birth, He having in the first place created life. She had thought this out in her teens and she hadn’t veered from it since. The Church was in a bad way now; there was the question of the pill, and priests were leaving to get married, which she thought was shocking. And this knowledge had made her a bit uncomfortable when going to confession. What if Father Campbell were sitting on the other side of the grille thinking of a woman while she was telling him her sins? These things could become disturbing if you gave your mind to them. But she hadn’t given her mind to them, she had only kept praying to God to keep her family straight. And when her mind touched on the word straight, she thought of Rance. Now here was Alan wiping away the foundations of all religions and making reincarnation believable. Could they have met before? It sounded fantastic. Yet he didn’t look young, he looked nearer forty than thirty-one; and she wasn’t sorry for that, for it lessened the years between them.

  What was she thinking about? This was madness. Yet deep within her she knew it was a madness that was welcome. She knew, even more than he did at this moment, that it was the beginning of something, a new existence filled with wonder and love, the kind of love she had dreamed of before she had lain on the bed with Georgie.

  ‘Could you love me, Annie?’

  Her head was swinging again. In spite of how she felt she couldn’t say it. To put it into words would sound indecent somehow.

  ‘You do love me, you must; it would be impossible for me to have felt like this about you for years, to have been waiting for you for years, because that’s what I have been doing, and then you to say that you don’t love me.’

  With a movement that startled her he was holding her face between his hands. Then, his mouth dropping on hers, he pulled her still resisting body towards him and held her fiercely, until, as if a spring had snapped, she leant heavily against him.

  Minutes passed and they still clung together. His mouth left her lips and moved over her face, and when she said, ‘Oh, Alan! Alan,’ he answered, ‘Annie. Annie.’

  Of one accord they rose from the couch. Their arms about each other, they went towards the stairs.

  When she took off her dressing gown and got into bed she kept her face averted from him while he undressed.

  When he lay facing her he did not immediately take her into his arms but lay looking at her as if in wonder; then his hand going gently to her breast he said, ‘Oh, Annie. Annie, my love, this is the beginning of the other half.’

  PART SEVEN

  THE BREAKING OF THE CORD

  One

  Tishy came home to an empty house. Having obtained no answer to her ringing of the front doorbell, she went round the back and found the door locked. After searching through her bag she found her front door key and, after letting herself in and bringing her cases from the pathway, she went straight into the kitchen. It had a deserted look, an unlived-in look; there were dirty dishes in the sink. That was unusual; her mother never went out and left dirty dishes in the sink. The solution came to her that Rance was here on his own and that her mother was away, likely at the cottage; she had said that she might go there for a day or two. Anyway, Kathy would know.

  She took off her light coat, put the kettle on, because her first need was for a cup of tea, real tea, and she wanted something to steady her nerves. Not that tea would do much for her nerves, the state they were in at the present moment. But ten days of Stanley Stone had almost brought them to breaking point. How had she tolerated him all these years? Likely because she’d experienced him in small doses. But ten days of Stanley Stone putting over Stanley Stone had given her a terrifying insight into what it would be like to be Mrs Stanley Stone; not that she had ever really contemplated it.

  She sat down in the chair by the table and ran her hands through her hair as her mind shouted at her, ‘Oh, face up to it, you did contemplate it. It was either him or a dog, cat and budgerigar, remember?’ She put her head back now and gave a short laugh. There had been quite a scene at the airport, subdued but nevertheless intense. What was it her granda used to sing? ‘We parted on the shore, oh we parted on the shore; I said, Goodbye Love, I’m off to Baltimore.’

  ‘Where you off to?’ Stanley had said. ‘Where do you think?’ she had replied flippantly; ‘Hong Kong? I’m going home and I don’t want any more company.’ As he had walked beside her out of the airport he had been speechless for the only time during their ten days together. When she said, ‘I’m taking a taxi,’ he had said, ‘Why? There’s the bus.’

  ‘You take the bus, and I’ll take the taxi, and I don’t want company.’ He had stared at her for some seconds before saying, ‘I can’t quite make you out, Tishy; you’re a funny lass.’

  ‘Yes, I know, both funny ha-ha and funny peculiar. Goodbye, Stanley.’

  So that was the last of Stanley—until school started.

  As she got up and mashed the tea she said to herself, ‘What have I lost, anyway? I don’t believe he had any intention of ever asking me to marry him, he never even tried to make it with me. I must be the only girl in this decade who has been with a fellow for ten days and remained intact. What if he had tried
…would I?’ She stared across the kitchen wanting to hear herself give an answer. What she said was, ‘He doesn’t want a wife, he wants an audience. I must have been a godsend to him.’

  As she drank her tea she thought, I’ll go to the cottage next week. There’ll just be Mam, I’ll like that.

  Her tea finished, she was on the point of going into the hall to phone Kathy when she heard the key turning in the front door. A minute later Rance entered the kitchen. He stared at her blankly and she at him. They never spoke to each other unless it was absolutely necessary, but now, looking towards him, she said, ‘What’s happened?’

  ‘Oh.’ He looked down at his bandaged hand and his arm, which was in a sling, and said, ‘I tried to slice my thumb off.’

  ‘When did it happen?’

  ‘Around dinnertime.’