remarked. 'Them and dahlias. That's why you always wants
t'ave plenty. Then when it rains you got some consolation,
see?')
From the lawn I could hear Kathe playing a Chopin
220
prelude, elegant, melancholy, capturing in the subtlest of
nets a bird whose beauty - whose very existence - none had
imagined until his genius found it out. I stood still in the
rain to listen; and then, laughing at my own rapt absurdity
in standing there getting wetter and wetter, went on up
the garden and in through the open French windows.
Kathe looked up from the piano, spreading her arms wide,
but I stood still, smiling and shaking my head.
'Don't stop playing.'
She finished the prelude, got up, came across the room
and took me in her arms.
'Nice day?'
'It is now. This is what you wanted, isn't it? Your real
life - a wet Tuesday evening, rain in the garden and a husband
coming home with a packet of fish?'
'M'm! Better than all your old eagles and trumpets. It
was eagles and trumpets you said, wasn't it?'
I laughed. 'Yes, but I wonder you remember. I thought
you were a bit preoccupied at the time.'
'Of course I remember. I remember everything - except
what I'm determined to forget.'
'Have you had a nice day?'
'Ja - just me and Mrs Spencer. We get along fine.' She
pressed herself closer, then suddenly gave me a sharp little
shake. 'Oh, but, Alan, I forgot - I'm cross, I'm so cross! I
made a chocolate mousse for supper, but I put one egg too
many, so it doesn't get stiff.'
'It does, darling, I assure you.'
'Put the fish down, then, you stupid. Nur ein Englander
kann Fisch mil Leidenschaft verwechseln! Now, then-'
After dinner, as we were lazily watching the news on television,
she said, 'Alan, do you know you have missing a
button from the sleeve of that coat?'
'Yes, I do, actually; and what's more, I've got it in my
pocket.'
'I'll put it on for you now, then. Ach, where's that nice
work-box of your mother's? It's supposed to live on the top
of that china cabinet. I'm sure I saw it there. Where's it
gone?'
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'Oh, I think I know. I seem to remember Flick had it last
night to mend something of Angela's. She'll have left it up
in her room. She always was a great leaver of things around,
you know. I'll pop up and get it for you. And I'll bet you
anything you like she'll have left something else of her own
or Angela's that we'll have to send on. She nearly always
does, whenever she comes.'
'I don't think so, darling. Not this time. Mrs Spencer did
the room this morning, and she didn't say she'd found anything.'
When I came back with the work-box I said, 'Told you,
didn't I? I could slay Flick, I really could. It'll be quite an
awkward parcel, too. How could even she have overlooked
such an obvious thing as that?'
'What is it?'
'A stuffed toy of Angela's. Lying in full view in the armchair,
if you please.'
'What, that blue teddy bear?'
'No, not Blue Teddy. It's a green tortoise, quite big. I
didn't notice it while they were here, but obviously it can
only be Angela's.'
I was fiddling with the television as I said this, and had
my back to Kathe. After a few moments, however, as she
did not reply, I looked round. She was staring at me wideeyed,
the fingers of one hand between her teeth. At length,
in a very low voice, she asked,
'What did you say?'
'I said "a green tortoise". Darling, whatever's the matter?'
Still staring, she made no answer. I went across to her.
'Kathe! What is it?'
'No! No!' she cried, rising to her feet. 'There isn't a green
tortoise, Alan, there isn't!' She put her hands on my shoulders
and shook me. 'I tell you, Angela hadn't anything like that
with her at all! There's no green tortoise!'
I was taken completely by surprise. 'Darling, what - what
on earth? -'
She stamped her foot and then, burying her face in her
hands, sobbed, 'I tell you there isn't a green tortoise! Go
and look, Alan! Go and look! Go and look!'
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'But darling, I've just seen it, for God's sake! Can't you
tell me -'
'Go and look again!' she shouted, banging her clenched
'Well, come upstairs with me, then, and I'll show it to
you!'
'No! Do as I say! Go and look again!'
Blessedly, I gave way to anger, for otherwise I would have
given way to fear. I was afraid of her hysteria and of what
I did not understand.
'You silly cow, I'll bring the bloody tortoise down and
beat you over the head with it,' I said, and strode out of
the room.
Even before I'd got upstairs I felt sorry. Kathe and I had
never quarrelled, and I knew she was highly strung. I recalled
what Tony had said about the burden of great beauty - 'It's
a factor you have to remember to bear in mind all the time
and never take for granted.' Obviously toy tortoises - or some
tortoise or other, anyway - had unpleasant associations for
her, and if her reaction was excessive, I must be patient and
off-set it against the joy and delight with which she had
filled my life.
I went into Flick's bedroom. There was no tortoise. Against
the back of the armchair lay a green cushion which I now
remembered had always had its place there.
I stood looking at it. I felt disturbed - even a little
frightened. A perfectly understandable mistake, of course,
in the failing light. I'd been fully expecting to clobber Flick almost
hoping to, perhaps - so I'd seen something that my
nasty, vindictive unconscious had wanted to see. However,
there were two snags to that explanation, though neither
would weigh a straw with anybody else. First, why had I
entirely forgotten the existence of a familiar cushion which
had had its place in that room more or less since I could
remember? And the second snag was the answer to the first.
Whatever it might or might not be possible to convince anyone
else of, I myself knew - in the same way that a man
protesting after a traffic accident often knows perfectly well,
underneath, that most of the blame is really his - that when
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I had come upstairs the previous time, what I had seen had
been a stuffed toy tortoise. Obviously no tortoise had really
been there - that was another matter. I just knew for certain
what my brain had registered.
I thought about it for a minute or two. Clearly, my only
course was to accept that I had made a mistake; to go along
with what anyone else would be bound to say - Tony or
anybody I might think of telling. As far as telling went, indeed,
I might as well save my breath. 'I thought I saw' where
would that get me? Meanwhile, by some unlucky
&n
bsp; coincidence, I had upset poor Kathe.
I went downstairs again to the drawing-room. Kathe had
switched off the television and was standing on the hearthrug,
evidently waiting for me to come back. She had dried
her eyes and, though still looking apprehensive and upset,
seemed to have recovered herself.
'What kept you so long, Alan?'
'You were right and I was wrong. I'm terribly sorry.'
'You mean - there isn't a tortoise at all?'
'No, there isn't. It was just a cushion in the chair.'
'Then why did you think you saw one? Why?'
'Heaven knows. A silly mistake. Darling, I'm so sorry to
have spoken as I did. I'm really very sorry indeed. Please
forgive me.'
']a, bitte,' she replied absently.
Frowning and staring abstractedly down into the fireplace,
she seemed only partly relieved. At length she said,
'Well, it's strange - but never mind. I'm the one who ought
to ask to be forgiven. Shall I explain? You see -'
I kissed her. 'No, don't! Never complain, never explain.
It's all over.'
'It's nothing at all, really. I-'
'Well, then, it doesn't matter, does it? Look, it's stopped
raining. Let's have a walk round the garden before it gets
dark. I'm sure Mum's gum-boots will fit you. Did Jack come
in today?'
'Oh, yes, he did, and he said did you want him to get the
sticks for the runner beans or would you be getting them
yourself? And he wants you to look over the vegetables
224
and have a word with him tomorrow. He said it was early
closing day, would you be free in the afternoon? I didn't
know about early closing day. I felt so silly.'
'I'm sorry; I clean forgot to tell you. Wednesday is early
closing day in Newbury. Come on, then - clump, clump,
clump.'
It was only later, when we were in bed, that I remembered
I'd forgotten to telephone my mother.
Everything that happened must be remembered in the light the
which shone like a dazzling sun over all else - work, money,
weather, other relationships, the flow of days and the course
of the summer. No one can ever have had more intense
pleasure of a woman than I of Kathe. I suppose a few people,
here and there, may have had as much, but it would not be
possible for anyone to have had more. Always, I was transported
by the sense of a blessing beyond belief, as though I
had been magically conveyed into a world without cold,
without pain, disease or anxiety. It was she who had conferred
upon me the power to perceive that these things were
mere figments, that they did not exist, had never existed at
all. As I held her in my arms, feeling her limbs about me, I
would look into her eyes, crying, 'Oh, it's here, it's now,
it's you!' as though this were some incredible revelation as
indeed it was. And then would gush the delirious, melting
pleasure, the fire that consumed itself and yet returned.
Kathe - and this I have never fathomed - understood my
body better than I myself. Sometimes, when I thought my
desire about to be renewed, she would hush me, turning me
to sleep; or rouse me up to leisure or work. At others she
would bring into raging excitement the loins which I had
thought spent for twenty-four hours. Nor in this was she
merely gratifying her own appetite. 'Come on, mein Lieber,'
she would say. 'I've done, but you haven't. Didn't you know?
I'll prove it to you, shall I?' In love she was not so much
unselfish as self-forgotten, a dancer moving through music
to rest and silence.
225
In my continual desire she had the strongest possible hold
over me; yet she never exploited it. I don't believe she ever
thought of the matter in that way - except for her own
amusement and pleasure, in the bed and there alone. 'I drive
you crazy, don't I?' she would say, tantalizing or frustrating
me as part of the game. Yet she never made use of this for
any other purpose. Rather, her power poured inexhaustibly,
fulfilling, like a high waterfall, no use whatever except the
flowing of the river to the sea: so that often the ordinary,
diurnal world seemed unreal to me, all day-to-day landmarks
having been submerged or swept away in this flood of
voluptuous largesse. An ocean, she called it; and I - I set out
on that water, passed long days upon it, learned its moods,
watched the sky, caught the tide. Like a mariner I was its
slave but also its master; for unless I sailed upon it, it had
no meaning and no use. Yet as with the sea, to seek to dominate
or command it would have been folly.
I never raised the subject of contraception, regarding it as
none of my business. I had no idea whether she was doing
anything or not. If she wished to speak of it, no doubt she
would.
The marriage of true minds - the notion of bodily love as a
kind of staircase to the spiritual - all this fell to pieces under
the waterfall. The purpose of coupling was neither to procreate
nor to refresh or gratify the participants. Rather, it
was the appointed destiny of lovers, the compulsive service
of a goddess, self-justified as fighting to a viking. Kathe's
love - Kathe herself - could have no expression and no
meaning beyond or apart from her body - and mine. Though
she was endlessly amusing, the best company imaginable, I
recall little or nothing of what we said to one another at such
times. Yet paradoxically, the pleasure she imparted was never
solely physical, like a square meal, a hot bath or carpet
slippers. Sometimes I could almost have found it in myself
to wish that it had been; for the truth was, though her
magnanimity never for a moment suggested it, that often
I felt out of my depth and altogether bowled over and fearful
of such abandon, such profundity of excitement. At these
226
moments I felt afraid of what I could not grasp, of the
mystery hanging always cloudy round her, the spirit whose
servant she seemed to be. Waking in the solitary night, I
would fancy to myself that it was not she but this spirit,
arbitrary as wind, rain or mist, which had directed her heart
upon me rather than another. I both trembled and exulted
at my fortune. Although I knew, now, that she loved me
sincerely (she could hardly have said or done more to prove
it), nevertheless she sometimes put me in mind of the bewitched
princess whose bridegroom dies at sunset. There
was only one sense in which I truly knew her. In the pit of
the waterfall I gasped and struggled in ecstasies of delicious
terror, drifting out inert at last to cry, like a child who has
been tossed and tumbled breathless, 'Do it again! Do it
again!' And thus the stallion Eternity mounted the mare of
Time.
Although, now and then, I found her out - by chance and
not design - in some little duplicity, this merely h
eightened
when she had finished playing the first movement of an early
Beethoven sonata - a little stumblingly but with obvious
understanding and feeling -1 said, 'Kathe, I find it very hard
to believe what you told me in K0benhavn - that you don't
know anything about sonata form. Don't tell me you just
played that movement without any idea of how it's put together.'
'I told you? I never told you anything like that! I remember
that evening in K0benhavn perfectly well - how could I
ever forget it? I asked you whether you could follow a rose,
and I said that one day you should teach me how to listen
to music properly. And haven't you, m'm?'
'But surely you said -'
'Darling, you were talking about the first movement of
the Mozart concerto not being in regular sonata form. What
could I say? It was never intended to be; it's far more cornplex,
meant for entertaining, sort of operatic - oh, words,
f'ff! Where are the records?'
227
An hour later, a wiser and if possible even happier man, I
said, 'But Kathe, admit it, you did pretend that evening that
you didn't know all this, didn't you?'
'Do you think I was going to know better than the beautiful
Englishman I wanted to love me, and him so serious
and sincere? Oh! -oh, come here, stupid one!'
I began to have second thoughts, too, about the amount
of help she was going to be in the business. She finished
Geoffrey Godden and plunged straight on into Bernard Watney
on English Blue and White. This she kept at home, and
in spare moments in the shop read Arnold Mountford on
Staffordshire Salt-Glazed Stoneware. One afternoon, about a
week after Flick's departure, she came into the office, where
I was struggling to explain to Mrs Taswell the difference
between V.A.T. and import duty, and silently placed on the
desk a plain little Staffordshire teapot, about four inches
high.
I frowned at it, puzzled.
'That's not part of our stock, Kathe, surely?"
'It is now. What do you think of it?'
I picked it up and examined it. It was drabware salt-glaze,
with applied reliefs in white pipe clay and some ornaments
of blue-stained clay. It had a twig knop to the lid and a
handle and spout of crabstock form, also in white clay. Altogether
a very modest, unassuming and delightful little piece.
'What d'you mean, it is now?'
'Well, a man I didn't know came in while you were out.
He knew you and thought you'd probably be interested in
buying it. He said he was a dealer at Abingdon but thought
it was more in your line than his. When I said you weren't in,
he was just going to take it away to sell it in Hungerford,
but I stopped him.'
'You actually bought it off your own bat?'
'Whatever that means, darling. I asked him what he could
tell me about it and he said he thought it must have been
made in about 1790, but I think it looks more like 1740,
don't you? He was asking seventy pounds and in the end I
gave him fifty. I wrote him a cheque on the joint account.'
228
'Good Lord! It's worth a lot more than that at today's
prices.'
'Well, that's what I thought, too. To tell you the truth I
was rather nervous about spending your money, but it
seemed a shame to let it go. It looked so nice.'
A week later we sold it for �135.
Two or three times during that fortnight I came home
to find Tony either in the drawing-room or talking to Kathe
in the kitchen as she went about preparing dinner. They
always seemed happy and animated.
'It's quite true,' Kathe was saying one evening as I came
through the French windows - this time I was carrying a
bottle of Bual, which I proceeded to open, pour and hand
round without interrupting the conversation - 'It's perfectly
true, as far as I could ever make out, that the few things
Jesus had to say about sex were sensible, like everything else
He said. It's just that - well, by and large you get the feeling
of someone who wasn't really terribly interested in sex.'
'I think that's right enough,' answered Tony. 'The times
were different, of course. I personally believe He was addressing
Himself first and foremost to the people of His
own time and country.'
'Well, I mean, it's just that some other religions - I
don't know anything about it really, but I get the impression
that other religions have - oh, it's so difficult in English have
given more importance to the ideal of sexual love between