The Flame of Life

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

She didn’t know why she married him, but then, who ever did? In fact it was hard to say why she’d done anything, even a few minutes after having done it. So far it hadn’t mattered, but now, the fact that she regretted the big as well as the little things was beginning to eat at her liver.

Ralph slept. His huge looming menace, which she knew about from his frequent paranoid moods, didn’t frighten her, because her trusting innocence sensed no physical danger. But now, pretending sleep on the bed, curled up and looking peaceful as long as his eyes were shut, he shot out a big homicidal fist when she went close and said it was time to get up. If she hadn’t dodged, she’d have been felled to the floor.

So she stood by the window: ‘Get up, you vicious slob. You can’t lie there all evening.’

A few seconds seemed forever. ‘Can’t you hear me?’ He didn’t move. ‘I’ve been married to you over a year and you haven’t said ten words. It was the worst thing I did, getting tangled with a dumb pig like you. If this is marriage you can throw it up. I’ve had enough. Why don’t you go back to Mummy and leave me in peace? I’m only twenty and you make me feel sixty. I wish Maricarmen had blown your head off when she was on the rampage. I’d divorce you if I weren’t having another rotten baby — though I expect it’ll drop out dead the same as the last one. You’re so twisted-upside-down you can’t make anything stick.’

He opened one eye, and gave it permission to look at her, a dim light of pettish resentment.

‘I know you’re awake,’ she said, before he could close it. ‘Let’s go downstairs. I want to hear what goes on at supper. Then we can come back and make love. We haven’t done it for a week. It ought to be marvellous.’

He opened both eyes. ‘Are you really pregnant?’

It had been her favourite ploy since she was sixteen, and such casually dropped news often helped her to get what she wanted. ‘I ain’t seen a doctor yet, but I know I am.’

‘Are you glad?’

‘As long as I’m blind drunk when I have it, and push the bastard out alive. It won’t make any difference to my life. I’ll just leave it with mam and take to the road if it gets on my nerves. Or I’ll send the sweet little bundle up to your mother in Lincolnshire, in revenge for palming you off on me. Better still, we can visit your parents for a grand reconciliation so’s it’ll shit and puke all over their chintzy parlour.’

‘Oh stop it,’ he said impatiently.

‘The only good thing they can do,’ she said, ‘is drop dead and leave us their money. Then I could get a decent car and go for a long drive. They’ve always hated my guts, so why should I wish them well?’

‘They’re all right,’ he said gently, knowing she had to have her fit now he’d had his — a pattern he’d frequently observed. ‘They’re just a bit misguided because they’re older.’

‘They hate me,’ she pouted. ‘They told me to my face, so I can’t forgive them. Not till they grovel. If people love me I love them but they hated me from the beginning.’

He put an arm over her shoulder. She was right. ‘I’ll write a letter in the morning, and tell them you’re pregnant. They’ll like that.’

Not even in the days before they married had she heard such a sane tone in his voice. When he kissed her lightly on the back of the wrist she began to worry, yet hoped it might last after all. The heady sensation was so intense she though she was going to faint, a lack of will that convinced her she must be pregnant even though she wasn’t absolutely sure.

She fought off the desire to inform him of this uncertainty, in case it had an adverse effect. She was beginning to feel a more complicated person, and wondered if she’d be able to live up to it, and whether he would be able to live up to her if she succeeded.

Handley sat by the vacant stove in his studio, indifferent to the huge half-done painting on the easel. After the happenings of the day he was quite sure Maricarmen would have to go. But there was much about her that he liked because she epitomised the spirit of female violence that could hold an artist in a state of enslaved youth till his dying day. He positively licked his chops over it, especially when thinking of petulant complaining Enid.

Maricarmen had stepped out of the recurring dreams of his life, but, as plain as any man could see, she was hooked by Cuthbert, his one and only freebooting fishy left-handed son with no lobes to his ears. Maybe your eldest son always held the final card of carrying off your own life’s dream. Or perhaps it was just a sign of Handley growing up and getting old at last, and a brute sort of revenge from Cuthbert for having brought him into the world. It was a form of continuity he felt like spitting his guts at. But to lose one dream would merely set him free to conjure up another.

He stood, and stretched himself, lit a cigar and poured brandy from a hip-flask, as if determined to lead the good life even in his bachelor studio. The sooner Maricarmen went the better, so that the community could settle down once more. And if Cuthbert left as well, it would be another troublemaker less. Handley sniffed victory if he could get rid of them both, though he would say nothing at supper, and wait for a quiet opportunity to have a word with them in the morning. It would cost him his dream to get shut of Cuthbert, but every victory had its price. He drank to the peaceful months ahead.

Enid took cutlery into the dining-room and laid out thirteen places. Her progress along the table was slow because confusing and impossible notions raced through her mind. However devastating to her peace of heart, she felt already far away from the house she lived in. The uprooting had taken place during the long years she had been most solidly where she was. She hadn’t noticed it. The roots had loosened when the roots were firmest, as it was obvious they would, considering the sort of life she had been forced to lead. Maybe she was thinking this so that Dean would not be blamed. There was a difference in their ages — though not in the intensity of their love — which would put all foul imputations on to her and not him. She must be ready for it.

Life with Handley had been a vivid dream that had suddenly lifted and revealed a state of painful chaos. Her hands trembled, yet the disarray brought fabulous compensations, and the confusion give her a base of euphoria not felt since the age of sixteen. It was as if seven children and Handley had never existed. Life in its changing cycles, its mysterious circles, was arbitrary in its miracles. She could have gone on getting older, taking the not unfruitful road to middle and old age, but she had changed because her ordinary heart was not so null as circumstances had continuously and relentlessly given out.

She pushed her hair back, and wiped a tear with one of the napkins. Love was the only thing that gave freedom. With love you didn’t care any more, and so felt ready for any kind of freedom that love might suggest. Dean came in and set loaves of bread along the table. He smiled at her, too considerate to speak what others might hear, but he laid the bread down and came to her where they couldn’t be seen. ‘I love you,’ he whispered, kissing her. ‘Don’t forget to think again about what I asked you.’

She gripped his hand. ‘Are you sure?’

His lips pursed, in pain and youthful anger. ‘It’s got to happen, you know it has. Don’t wait too long.’

Enid felt his strong young arms around her and, in spite of the rather hard grip, sensed infinite sweet tenderness in them. The sensation was strange for, instead of her seeming to embrace him like the youth he was, it felt as if she were a small girl being fondled by someone twice her size and age. This impression almost caused her to swoon, so that it was impossible to distrust it.