«I wasn't excluding you, for Christ's sake. We, you too. When one's attacked through one's work it goes straight into the heart. I don't mean that one bothers about journalists, I mean people one knows. They sometimes imagine that you can despise a man's book and remain his friend. You can't. The offence is unforgivable.»
«So our friendship is at an end.»
«No. Because in rare cases one can overcome the offence by moving much closer to the other person. I think this is possible here. But there are one or two things I must say.»
«Go on.»
«You, and you aren't the only one, every critic tends to do this, speak as if you were addressing a person of invincible complacency, you speak as if the artist had never realized his faults at all. In fact most artists understand their own weaknesses far better than the critics do. Only naturally there is no place for the public parade of this knowledge. If one is prepared to publish a work one must let it speak for itself. It would be unthinkable to run along beside it whimpering, 'I know it's no good.' One keeps one's mouth shut.»
«Quite.»
«I know I'm a second-rater.»
«Uh-hu.»
«I believe that the stuff has some merits or I wouldn't publish it. But I live, I live, with an absolutely continuous sense of failure. I am always defeated, always. Every book is the wreck of a perfect idea. The years pass and one has only one life. If one has a thing at all one must do it and keep on and on and on trying to do it better. And an aspect of this is that any artist has to decide how fast to work. I do not believe that I would improve if I wrote less. The only result of that would be that there would be less of whatever there is. And less of me. I could be wrong, but I judge this and stand by the judgment. Do you understand?»
«Yes.»
«Also I enjoy it. For me writing is a natural product of joie de vivre. Why not? Why shouldn't I be happy if I can?»
«Why indeed.»
«An alternative would be to do what you do. Finish nothing, publish nothing, nourish a continual grudge against the world, and live with an unrealized idea of perfection which makes you feel superior to those who try and fail.»
«How clearly you put it.»
«Bradley, don't be cross, our friendship has suffered because I'm successful and you aren't, I mean in a worldly way. I'm afraid that's true, isn't it?»
«Yep.»
«Believe me, I'm not trying to make you angry, I'm in a quite instinctive way defending myself against you. Unless I do this reasonably effectively I shall feel deep resentment and I don't want to feel deep resentment. Isn't that sound psychology?»
«No doubt.»
«Bradley, we simply mustn't be enemies. I don't only mean it would be nice not to be, I also mean it would be fatal to be. We could destroy each other. Bradley, do say something, for God's sake.»
«You do like melodrama,» I said. «I couldn't destroy anybody. I feel old and stupid. All I care about is getting my book written. There is a book, I care about that absolutely. The rest is rubble. I'm sorry I upset Rachel. I think I'd better leave London for a while. I need a change.»
«Oh stop being so self-absorbed and quiet. Shout and wave your arms about! Curse me, question me. We must come closer to each other, otherwise we're lost. Most friendships are a sort of frozen and undeveloping semi-hostility. We've got to fight if we're going to love. Don't be cold with me.»
I said, «I don't believe you about you and Christian.»
«You're jealous.»
«You're wanting to make me shout and wave my arms, but I won't. Even if you aren't making love to Christian, your 'friendship,' as you call it, must hurt Rachel.»
«My marriage is a very strong organism. Any wife has moments of jealousy. But Rachel knows she's the only one. When you have slept beside a woman for years and years and years she becomes part of you, separation isn't possible. Wishful-thinking outsiders often tend to underestimate the strength of a marriage.»
«I dare say.»
«Bradley, let's meet again soon and talk properly, not about these nervy things, but about literature, like we used to. I'm going to write a critical reassessment of Meredith. I'd love to know what you think.»
«Meredith! Yes.»
«What Christian would call your motivation is dark to me.»
«Don't take refuge in irony. God, I seem to be wooing you all the time now! Wake up, you're going along in a trance. We've got to wrestle into some sort of decent directness with each other. It's worth it, isn't it?»
«Yes. Arnold, would you go now? Do you mind? Perhaps I'm getting old, but I can't stand emotional conversations the way I used to.»
«Write to me. We used to write to each other. Let's not stupidly mislay each other.»
«O. K. I'm sorry.»
«I'm sorry too.»
«Oh fuck off, for Christ's sake.»
«Dear old Bradley, that's better! Good-bye then. Till soon.»
I waited till I heard Arnold's footsteps well out of the court, then I rang the Baffins' number. Julian answered. I put the phone down at once.
I thought: What did they say to Julian?
Le knows you're with me?»
«He sent me to you.»
It was the next morning and Rachel and I were sitting on a bench in Soho Square. The sun was shining and there was a dusty defeated smell of midsummer London: oily, grimy, spicy, melancholy and old. A number of tousled and rather elderly-looking pigeons stood around us, staring at us with their hard insentient eyes. Despairing people sat on other benches. The sky above Oxford Street was a sizzling unforgiving blue. Though it was still quite early in the morning I was sweating.
I said thoughtlessly, «Poor Rachel, oh poor Rachel.»
She laughed with a kind of snarl, tugging at her hair. «Yes. Poor old Rachel!»
«Sorry, I-Oh hell-You mean he actually said to you, 'Go and see Bradley'?»
«Yes.»
«But what words exactly did he use? People who aren't writers never describe things exactly.»
«Oh I don't know. I can't remember.»
«Rachel, you must remember. It can't be more than two hours since-«Oh Bradley, don't torture me. I just feel I'm being cut and scratched and ridden over by everything, I feel I'm under the plough.»
«I know that feeling.»