The sun was shining and, even in this cluttered and ramshackle part of London, there was the sense of a spring day. Windows which had long been closed were open and people, hatless and gloveless, had put on lighter and brighter clothes. In tiny front gardens bushes were budding and grass actually beginning to grow. There were, here and there, trees, slightly hazy with green, which shed an aura, even a fragrance of new life. A fresh cold sunny light announced the start of the long English spring. Of course Lily had given careful thought to what she was to wear. She had considered and rejected various smartish but simple dresses, even the black and white one with the velvet collar which was so subtly becoming. She decided on dark brown, very narrow, trousers, of unobtrusively expensive tweed, with a lighter brown leather jacket and a blue cotton shirt and a silk scarf with a blue and pink abstract design. In spite of attempts to put on weight, she was as thin as ever, her face that morning, as she put on discreet make-up, looking almost gaunt, the tendons of her long neck sturdily in
view, her collar bones protruding under the soft cotton of the shirt. Her melted-sugar eyes were clear and bright, but the wrinkles increasingly massed round them collected the face powder conspicuously onto their ridges. Her thin lips, without lipstick, were almost invisible, her mouth a slit. She had unwisely washed her scanty unconvincing hair the previous night, and it was now, however much she combed it down and tucked it in behind her ears, standing up on end in dry senseless wisps. She had given up the much-advertised hair oil. She had wrapped the silk scarf carefully round her neck and that at least stayed in place. Over this gear she had put on her long green coat, and her trousers were tucked into black boots.
At last Crimond’s house was near, then in view, and Lily hurried her pace so as to preclude any sickening last-minute hesitation. She mounted the stone steps. The big door, which looked like a modern painting, patchily coloured and scribbled over with cracks, was closed. Lily tried it. It was not locked and she entered into the familiar shabby hallway, dark and smelling of old dirt and neglect. She paused in the darkness, blinded after the hard clear sunlight, and inhaled the atmosphere of silence and anticipation and fear which she knew so well. She listened. She thought, he’s out, he’s moved. She stepped forward and tripped against the bicycle and stood still again after the sound. She opened the door leading to the basement and tiptoed down the stairs. Here she listened again. Silence. She turned the handle noiselessly and slowly opened the door a little and looked through the opening into the Playroom.
She saw, as in a familiar picture, the familiar scene, the murky room, the lighted lamp, the figure at the desk writing. It was like a dream, indeed she had often dreamt it. The window onto the area, untouched by the sun’s rays, gave near the door a little dead illumination, but the other end of the room was dark except for the lamp. Crimond, his head bowed, unaware of his visitor, continued to write, and Lily inserted herself quietly into the room and sat down on a chair near the door. She breathed deeply, hoping that she was recovering
and not becoming more unnerved. There was for a moment a trance-like peace as if she had been granted a timeless vision, a scene transfigured by a ray from beyond, falling upon it accidentally like the shadow of an aeroplane upon a landscape.
Suddenly Crimond lifted his head and stared down the room. He said in a sharp tone, ‘Who’s that?’
Lily thought, he thinks it’s Jean. She said, ‘It’s Lily.’
Crimond stared a moment, then lowered his head again and continued to write.
Lily came slowly forward carrying her chair. She set it down, not up against the desk, but a little way in front of it, as if she were a candidate about to be interviewed. She took off her coat and sat down. She noticed that the target, which had been on the wall behind Crimond, was gone. She waited.
After about two minutes Crimond looked up again. He was wearing rather thicker glasses of a different rounder shape with dark rims which altered his appearance. He took off the glasses and looked at Lily. ‘Well?’
‘Forgive me,’ said Lily. ‘I just wanted to see you.’
‘What about?’
Lily was ready for this question. ‘I just wondered if I could do any typing for you. Someone said you had nearly finished your book.’ In fact Lily knew quite well that the book was finished, as Gulliver had told her some time ago.
‘Thank you,’ said Crimond, ‘the book has been typed. I don’t need any assistance.’ However he did not seem to expect her to go, but continued to stare at her. He waited for her to speak again.
‘So it’s finished?’ said Lily.
‘Yes.’
‘So what are you writing now?’
‘Another book.’
‘Is it like the first one, a sequel?’
‘No. It’s quite different.’
‘What’s it about?’
Crimond did not answer this question. He rubbed his long nose where the new spectacles had made a red line on the
bridge. Then, not looking at her, he busied himself cleaning the spectacles with a handkerchief, then refilling his fountain pen at an ink pot and wiping it on a piece of blotting paper. She thought, feeling a little calmer now, that he looked older, his pale face a little puffy, his faded red hair a little thinner.
Lily said, ‘What else are you doing?’
‘Learning Arabic.’
‘Why Arabic?’
‘Why not.’
‘So that’s what
that
is. I thought it was shorthand.’ Some handwriting at the edge of the desk had caught her eye. She moved her chair forward.
Crimond, who had given her his attention for a moment, was now looking down at the loose-leaf book in which he had been writing when she came in. The Arabic was in an open exercise book. Lily peered at it. ‘Did you write this?’
‘Yes.’
‘Is it difficult?’
‘Yes.’
There was a moment’s silence. Crimond then said, ‘As we have nothing more to discuss, and I am very busy, perhaps you could go away.’
Lily suddenly blushed. She could feel the blush running up her long neck and through her cheeks to her brow. She felt that she must now say something striking or be banished forever. It was like the moment in the fairy tale when one must answer the riddle or die. Unfortunately Lily could not think of anything striking. She said lamely, ‘I very much want to help you.’
‘I need no help, thank you.’
‘I could help you in your political work –’
‘No.’
‘I could type, I could run errands, I could fetch books, I could do anything.’
‘No.’
‘I know you’re a lion and I’m a mouse, but a mouse could help a lion. There’s a story of a lion who’s kind to a mouse, and the mouse says I’ll help you one day, and the lion laughs and
then the lion is caught in a trap and the mouse gnaws through all the ropes and sets him free.’
This little speech at last showed some sign of amusing Crimond and attracting his attention. He said, but unsmiling, ‘I don’t like mice.’
‘Then I’ll be anything you like,’ said Lily. ‘That’s what I came to tell you. I love you. I’ve always loved you. I know I’m a little worthless person, but I want to be in your life. For all I know you have hundreds of Lilies, little people who want to serve you, all right, but I’m me, and I exist for you and I know that I do. I told you about that dance last year. Whatever happened you know I meant well. I feel I’m a sort of messenger in your life. After all I’ve known you a long time. I’d do anything you wanted, I’d be your slave, I want to give myself to you as a total present, I don’t care what might happen, all I want is to know that you accept me as someone you could rely on for ever and use in any way you pleased. I feel this as a vocation, as if I’d been told by God, you are an absolute for me, I can’t do anything but give myself. If you can only accept me I’ll be silent, I’ll be invisible, I’ll be as quiet as a mouse – sorry, you don’t like mice – but I just want to be
there
, like something in the corner of the room, waiting for anything that you want me for –’
Crimond, who had been listening to this with a slight frown, holding his spectacles against his lips, said, ‘I don’t like this stuff about little people and your being a little worthless person. You are a person, not a little person. I don’t like that terminology.’
Crimond seemed to be making a general point, and nothing to do with her personally, but she said eagerly, ‘I’m glad you don’t think I’m worthless – I’d study, you could teach me –’
‘Oh Lily, just get back to reality, will you.’
‘You are my reality.’
‘You know you’re talking idle nonsense, just something that you want to get off your chest even if it makes no sense. Now you’ve said it perhaps you’ll kindly go away.
‘I can’t go away,’ said Lily. She had been talking fast and eagerly, but calmly. Now her voice sounded in her ears with
that dreadful hysterical edge to it. ‘I won’t go away. I’m sure you have some special feeling about me. You must be kind to me. Can’t you even be kind when I love you so much? How can there be so much love and it simply go to waste? I must have something from you, like a pact, a kind of status, anything, even a very very small thing, which is between us for always.’
Crimond, his gaze straying from her as if wearily, gave a sigh. ‘Lily, I can’t attach any sense to what you ask. You speak as if I could easily give you something very valuable –’
‘Yes, yes, easily, you could, you could!’
‘But I haven’t got this thing, this special feeling, I don’t want you as a slave –’
‘Then I wouldn’t be –’
‘Or an invisible object in the corner of the room, or a mouse, I don’t
like
things like that, I couldn’t have such a person near me, and I can’t give you any sort of “status” as you put it, I just don’t have any special feeling for you or any special role for you – I’m sorry.’
Lily, controlling tears, got hold of her coat which had been lying on the floor and pulled it up onto her knees. ‘All right. I understand. I’m sorry. I
had
to see you and I
had
to say what I’ve said.’
‘Now do get back into real life. What are you doing now in the real world?’
‘I’m getting married. To Gulliver Ashe. Tomorrow.’
Crimond did then actually smile, in fact he laughed. ‘Oh Lily, Lily – so you were ready to run even from under the wedding crown?’
‘Yes.’
‘Or would I have had to put up with a married slave?’
‘No, no – if you’d wanted me none of that would have happened, none of that would have existed.’
‘Oh you silly – silly – girl.’
Lily smiled through tears then dashed the tears away and stood up and put on her coat. She said, ‘I can see you though, sometimes in the future, call in, you won’t say never?’
‘Not never, but I’ve got nothing for you.’
‘Then I’ll come for nothing.’
‘For Christ’s sake, Lily,’ said Crimond, ‘just clear off and be
happy
, can’t you, and make someone else happy, and forget all this dream stuff. Go on, go away, get out and be happy!’
‘Rose and Gerard have invited us to dinner, for after when they came back from Venice,’ said Lily.
‘At their new house?’ said Gulliver.
‘No, silly, they’ve only just bought it, at Rose’s place.’ Rose and Gerard had bought a house in Hammersmith near the river.
‘I thought Gerard would never stick it out in Jenkin’s foxhole,’ said Gull, ‘it’s definitely not his scene.’
‘What about our scene?’ said Lily. ‘I think we should buy a house soon, a nice small one in Putney or somewhere, with a garden. The children will like that.’
‘The
children
?!’
‘Now you’ve got a job and I’ve got a project we can afford it. I believe I’ve still got some of that old money left too, God knows what happened to most of it.’
‘Let’s not be in a hurry,’ said Gulliver. ‘I like it here. And we aren’t even married yet!’
‘We will be this time tomorrow!’ It was evening, late evening, of the day of Lily’s visit to Crimond, and Gull and Lily were still sitting at the table after a lengthy celebration dinner including numerous toasts in vodka, wine and later cherry brandy, wishing themselves happiness and success in the future. They were both drunk but feeling exceptionally alert, clear-headed, argumentative and witty.
‘We will be,’ said Gulliver, ‘unless one of us funks it – or both of us!’
‘Running away from under the wedding crown.’
‘That’s a phrase out of Dostoevsky,’ said Gull, ‘I thought you hadn’t read him.’
‘Oh. I thought it was just a general expression. I heard it somewhere.’
‘Well,
I
won’t run away!’ said Gulliver. ‘Look, here’s the ring!’ He showed Lily the golden ring nestling in its little furry velvet box. He also, in an instant, pictured the dreadful goings-on in that Dostoevsky novel. What a business it was to deal with women. One just had to take the risk.
‘You’ve told Leonard what to do?’ Leonard Fairfax was to be best man, and Angela Parke, Lily’s old art school friend, was to be bridesmaid.
‘At a registry office, there’s nothing to it!’ said Gull. ‘I’ll give Leonard the ring so he can give it me back at the crucial moment. I bet most people don’t bother even with that. Anyway, you’ve done it before!’
‘Yes but – there wasn’t a ring – I can’t remember –’ Lily had refused to wear a wedding ring. It seemed incredible now that she had once been married. Gulliver didn’t want to hear about her shadowy husband, and she could not now remember his face – poor James, oh poor James. ‘I do like a bit of ritual.’
‘It’ll all be over in four minutes.’
‘My God. Then we’ll be stuck for life!’
‘I certainly hope so. Maybe we can arrange a match between Leonard and Angela?’
‘I doubt it,’ said Lily. ‘Angela’s older than me and she’s got fat. Anyway Leonard seems to be getting off with Gillian Curtland. Now
she’s
an eligible girl.’
‘She’s awfully pretty,’ said Gulliver, quickly banishing the image of that eligible nineteen-year-old.
‘I still can’t decide what to wear.’
‘I’m going to wear my pale grey check suit with the pale pink over-check. You won’t wear trousers, will you, please?’