The Flame of Life

CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

It wasn’t a good day for a walk, and called for macs in case it rained. Mist lay along the main street, but thin and ready to disperse when Frank and Myra went uphill, a mobile mist spewed about by a new-born breeze.

The route they took out of the village ascended from Cuckolds’ Cross to Thieving Grove, a narrow and winding road running a short distance over a plateau of open fields, till the land descended abruptly towards the next village. They passed the housing estate, where Myra remembered canvassing at the last election with her husband George, glad to find at least a few Labour voters in the neighbourhood.

In recalling him she also thought of the book Frank had written on Algeria, and some time ago spoke of it to the publisher who had brought out George’s book on the poetry of landscape. The publisher, it seemed, was waiting eagerly for Dawley’s manuscript, hinting that anything mentioned by Myra would be a fair gamble for his up and coming firm.

He also knew she was acquainted with Albert Handley, from whom he wanted a book of engravings. Unlucky in his approaches to Teddy Greensleaves, he was willing to try a roundabout way. Myra was aware of this and, knowing Dawley’s narrative to be worth any printing risk, was quite happy to hold out some promise of a book from Albert, who had in fact agreed to a combined deal of his material with Frank Dawley’s memoirs. She explained the scheme as they walked slowly uphill.

‘You mean I’ll be a writer?’ he said, inwardly pleased.

‘Why not?’

‘Maybe I’m too old. Most writers are dead by thirty,’ he joked. ‘Still, it’ll be good to earn some money. You’ve supported me long enough.’

‘Are you worried about that?’

‘Not in the way you mean. But I believe in the equality of the sexes, so I’d like to contribute my slice.’

‘Don’t be impatient.’

‘I’m not, as long as you marry me.’

She smiled: ‘Well, I’m having our second child.’

‘You mean you don’t have much option?’

‘I don’t, do I? But I’ll still marry you. As long as I don’t lose my equality!’

‘I love you. That’ll help.’

‘So what else matters?’

‘If I thought love was the only thing that counted,’ he said, ‘I’d hang myself, or take to the road. But it’s important enough for us to stay together, which of course means getting married.’

They stood by a gate at the top of the hill, the church of the next village coming out of the mist below. Opposite was the triangle of wood known as Thieving Grove, a few acres of heavy-smelling green thickets. ‘You don’t give me much to go on,’ she said, knowing that the less ponderous they were about the future the more secure it would be for them both. But she was unable to live like that. She wanted some statement, no matter how vague, a formula of commitment no matter how uncertain — to come from his own lips. For she also knew that what he said, he stuck to. And he knew it, too, which was why he’d say very little.

‘I’m here,’ he pointed out — unnecessarily, she thought ‘I won’t run away.’

‘I don’t care whether you do or not.’

‘So that’s it,’ he started. ‘A minute ago it was equality. I’m all in favour of that, but what sort do you mean?’

This touched her rawly. ‘Together we can seem strong, and even be strong. But apart, things aren’t so firm.’

He looked at her, a woman with a light in her eyes that would take a lifetime to penetrate, but what riches would pass from one to another in the process! Last night he had relished her small breasts and firm hips, and now when she turned a gaze on him he found it hard to meet.

‘Human beings are like that,’ he said. ‘I don’t expect anything else. I’m not too proud to lean on you if you’ll do me the honour of leaning on me! I not only love you, but I like you as well, and I can’t say more than that. I never was much good at lovers’ speeches, but our love’s gone beyond that by now. It’s going into the fire of life and God knows what it’ll find there. The best love goes into it, and if it’s worth anything it never comes out because the flame won’t relax its grip. In many ways it’s a savage flame, jealous on both sides, but it holds us together in bed at night so that we feel part of the earth and each other. Can I say it’ll go on longer than that? Whether the flame lasts till we die depends on what we’ve got in us. But who can say? Who can promise or prophesy? I feel it in you, but only you can tell me whether I’ve got it in me. I don’t even know whether it’s love or not, and that’s how I feel, and all I can say about it. After that it’s normal everyday humdrum life and work and care — while knowing for sure that the fire burns in us both for as long as we want it to. I’ve grown to dislike strength. I distrust it now, so I know it’s not strength. It’s something beyond. I’m not strong, and I’m not weak either, and maybe it’s the same with you, though I’ll let you say so if you like, and if you don’t I won’t mind! It’s just a rooted feeling I’ve got, because we’ve been through a lot together, and for each other, so it’s had time to get there, though I saw it first thing, when you left your husband that day and came to my room in Camden Town. If you remember it as long as I do we’re in that flame for good. The trouble with me is — and I know you’ve always felt this — that I don’t explain things. I don’t talk, I don’t say much. It’s not that I’m inarticulate, because my mind is continually talking and explaining and saying things to itself. I just don’t think many things are important, or worth bringing to my lips. It’s not even that I’m too lazy to talk, either, because I’ll often go out of my way to do things or work. Anyway, it always takes less energy to talk than it does to listen, or say nothing. While you talk you make energy to go on talking. I’m sure of that. You start to tell lies because you get carried away. You get too much energy, so you say things that don’t matter. I suppose that’s why I don’t or won’t say that I love you in so many words, because I believe that things should speak for themselves, though they hardly ever do, so I have to end up saying something. And anyway, if the comforting and tormenting flame is bright enough, there’s no need to point it out. It’s almost sacrilegious to show it for what it is, not because I’m afraid of it going away but because I feel embarrassed at stating the obvious. Maybe I’m wrong. In the beginning was the Word, and I should speak, but at the same time I know that one should not use the Word in vain, and who’s to say whether it’s vain or not till it’s finally over and we’re dead?’

She stood a few feet from him, her face turned away, listening to his measured words while a thin rain fell. He could have gone on talking. When he once began, it sounded even more natural than not talking. But he stopped, and stepped over to her, took her by the shoulders and kissed the back of her neck. ‘You weren’t listening?’

She turned, which he was glad of so that he could kiss her lips. ‘What have you left for me to say?’

She looked at him, a faint apprehension on realising from the set of his face that she was likely to be with him for a long time. Luckily, she was in love, and so was he, but how long could they make it last? She would never think it wrong to ask such a question of herself.

‘Tell me your side of it whenever you like,’ he said.

‘I will.’

He took her hand. ‘If ever it’s necessary.’

‘It will be,’ she said, ‘time and time again. I think I’m a normal sort of person, and I live my life trying not to be alarmed by it.’

They walked down the hill and, half-way to the village, had to stand in towards the hedge to let a car go by. It was the Morris Traveller from the house, and Myra waved when she saw Enid at the wheel. Dean was sitting beside her, and in the back were several suitcases, and Dean’s bulging rucksack.

Frank stared, but they did not look at him, or give any sign of having seen Myra — though the car passed within a foot of them. The windscreen wipers were going against the rain, but Enid’s beautiful and slender face was stony and set at the road, an expression of misery and determination from which her blonde hair was swept back neatly into a tail.

Dean beside her looked happy, though bemused, and rubbed a hand over his bunched features as if rain were falling directly on to them. The windows were partly open, and the radio was playing a song by that new group called The Beatles.