«Fruitless and bootless. Fruitless and bootless.»
«Oh I'm so frightened-«Priscilla, there's nothing to be frightened of. Oh God, you are getting me down!»
«Frightened.»
«Do please take your shoes off.»
The front doorbell rang. I opened the door to Rachel and was making her a rueful face when I saw that Julian was standing just behind her.
Rachel said meaningfully, «Julian arrived back and insisted on bringing the thing along herself.»
Julian said, «Of course I'm very glad to bring it back to Priscilla, of course it's hers and she must have it. I do so hope it will make her feel happier and better.»
I let them in and ushered them into the bedroom where Priscilla was still talking to Francis. «He had no idea of equality between us, I suppose no man has, they all despise women-«Men are terrible, terrible-«Visitors, Priscilla!»
Priscilla, her shoes humping the edge of the quilt, was propped up on several pillows. Her eyes were red and swollen with crying, and her mouth was rectangular with complaint, like the mouth of a letter box.
Julian went directly and sat on the bed. She laid the irises down reverently beside Priscilla and then pushed the water-buffalo lady along the coverlet, as if she was amusing a child, and thrust it up against Priscilla's blouse, in the hollow between her breasts. Priscilla, not knowing what the thing was, and looking terrified, gave a little cry of aversion. Julian then took it into her head to kiss her and made a dive at her cheek. Their two chins collided with a click.
I said soothingly, «There you are, Priscilla. There's your water– buffalo lady. She came back home to you after all.»
Julian had retreated to the bottom of the bed. She stared at Priscilla with a look of agonized and still rather self-conscious pity. She opened her lips and put her hands together as if praying. It looked as if she were begging Priscilla's pardon for being young and good– looking and innocent and unspoilt and having a future, while Priscilla was old and ugly and sinful and wrecked and had none. The contrast between them went through the room like a spasm of pain.
Priscilla murmured, «I'm not a child. You needn't all be so-sorry for me. You needn't all stare at me-and treat me as if I were a-She fumbled for the water buffalo and for a moment it looked as if she were going to fondle it. Then she threw it from her across the room where it crashed against the wainscot. Her tears began again and she buried her face in the pillow. The irises fell to the floor. Francis, who had picked up the bronze, hid it within his hands and smiled. I motioned Rachel and Julian out of the room.
In the sitting-room Julian said, «I'm terribly sorry.»
«It wasn't your fault,» I told her.
«It must be so awful to be like that.»
«You can't imagine,» I said, «what it is to be like that. So don't bother to try.»
«I'm so awfully sorry for her.»
Rachel said, «You run along now.»
Julian said, «Oh I do wish-Ah well-« She went to the door. Then she said to me, «Bradley, could I have just a word with you? Could you just walk with me to the corner. I won't keep you more than a moment.»
I gave a complicit wave to Rachel and followed the child out of the house. She walked confidently down the court and into Charlotte Street without looking round. The cold sun was shining brightly and I felt a great sense of relief at being suddenly out in the open among busy indifferent anonymous people under a blue clean sky.
We walked a few steps along the street and stopped beside a red telephone box. Julian now wore a rather jaunty boyish air. She was clearly feeling relieved too. Above her, behind her, I saw the Post Office Tower, and it was as if I myself were as high as the tower, so closely and so clearly could I see all its glittering silver details. I was tall and erect: so good was it for that moment to be outside the house, away from Priscilla's red eyes and dulled hair, to be for a moment with someone who was young and good-looking and innocent and unspoilt and who had a future.
Julian said with a responsible air, «Bradley, I'm very sorry I got that all wrong.»
«Nobody could have got it right. Real misery cuts off all paths to itself.»
«How well you put it! But a saintly person could have comforted her.»
«There aren't any, Julian. Anyway you're too young to be a saint.»
«I know I'm stupidly young. Oh dear, old age is so awful, poor Priscilla. Look, Bradley, what I wanted to say was just thank you so much for that letter. I think it's the most wonderful letter that anybody ever wrote to me.»
«What letter?»
«That letter about art, about art and truth.»
«Oh that. Yes.»
«I regard you as my teacher.»
«Kind of you, but-«I want you to give me a reading list, a larger one.»
«Thank you for bringing the water buffalo back. I'll give you something else instead.»
«Oh will you, please? Anything will do, any little thing. I'd so like to have something from you, I think it would inspire me, something that's been with you a long time, something that you've handled a lot.»
I was rather touched by this. «I'll look out something. And now I'd better-«Bradley, don't go. We hardly ever talk. Well, I know we can't now, but do let's meet again soon, I want to talk to you about Hamlet.»
«Hamlet! Oh all right, but-«
«I have to do it in my exam. And Bradley, I say, I did agree with that review you wrote about my father's work.»
«How did you see that review?»
«I saw my mother putting it away, and she looked so secretive-«That was very sly of you.»
«I know. I'll never become a saint, not even if I live to be as old as your sister. I do think my father should be told the truth for once, everyone has got into a sort of mindless habit of flattering him, he's an accepted writer and a literary figure and all that, and no one really looks at the stuff critically as they would if he were unknown, it's like a conspiracy-«I know. All the same I'm not going to publish it.»
«And another thing, about Christian, my father says he's working Christian on your behalf-«What?»
«I don't know what he thinks he's at, but I'm sure you should go and see him and ask him. And if I were you I'd get away like you told them you were going to. Perhaps I could come and see you in Italy, I'd love that. Francis Marloe can look after Priscilla, I rather like him. I say, do you think Priscilla will go back to her husband? I'd rather die than do that if I was her.»
So much hard clarity all at once was a bit hard to react to. The young are so direct. I said, «To answer your last question, I don't know. Thank you for the observations which preceded it.»
«I do love the way you talk, you're so precise, not like my father. He lives in a sort of rosy haze with Jesus and Mary and Buddha and Shiva and the Fisher King all chasing round and round dressed up as people in Chelsea.»
This was such a good description of Arnold's work that I laughed. «I'm grateful for your advice, Julian.»
«I regard you as my philosopher.»
«Thank you for treating me as an equal.»
She looked up at me, not sure if this was a joke. «Bradley, we will be friends, won't we, real friends?»
«What was the meaning of the air balloon?» I said.