Christopher Nicholson - Winter

Generally he would doze off with his arms around me and his head on my chest, and once he was sound asleep I would ease out and get into his bed with my body another one of these unanswered questions. The beds here are single beds, far too narrow for two people.

As before there is a certain comedy in all this, if one wants to hunt it out. Here and now, with the advantage of hindsight, I can see that. But how difficult it was at the time! How difficult and complicated! For all her wisdom Jane Austen is no help here, and so far as I know there are no books that begin to address these matters (if such books existed, I would be far too embarrassed to read them even in secret, even if I could be sure that no one knew that I was reading them). In other fields of human activity knowledge accumulates as it is passed from generation to generation, but when it comes to the subject of sexual relations women today are surely as ignorant as they must have been thousands of years ago. In some ways I am glad that he seems too old to bother with these nightly jousts (jousts? Jousts is not the word I want but it will have to do for the moment), very glad, in some ways, although less glad in other ways. I should not mind it if for old times’ sake he wanted to climb into my bed now, but probably he is already deep asleep. He always falls asleep in an instant. He sleeps like a baby.

Lying here I wonder what the first wife did. How active was she? Did she stay silent or utter sounds, either voluntary or involuntary? The vision of them rises before me in the darkness, she with her waxy uneven flesh, he with his scrawny legs, exchanging kisses and caresses on this very bed; they writhe (a horrible word) and her fat thighs widen as he pushes into her. A repulsive expression of greedy pleasure spreads over her face. What is this? I am not jealous, I refuse to be even slightly jealous of something that perhaps never happened, a lurid concoction of my imagination. Besides as I haste to remind myself it is perfectly possible that their physical relations were largely non-existent. I also haste to remind myself that love not sexual relations is the true foundation for a successful marriage and that they did not love each other, whereas my husband and I certainly do, do love each other, that there can be no doubt of, of that there can be no doubt.

As November progressed, fears about the forthcoming dramatic production began to trouble the old man more than a little. Had he been entirely wise to have agreed to its performance? For years, he had carefully fended off requests from theatrical managers near and far to stage the novel. That he had at last given way was to some degree a reflection of his age, for if he was ever to see the play performed, now was the time; but also instrumental in his decision had been his fervent desire to see Gertie as Tess. He had stipulated that the production was possible only if she were involved. ‘I do not think anyone else capable of playing the part,’ he had told Tilley.

On the night before the first performance he woke and fretted to himself in the darkness. Gertie would be perfect, of that he had not the least doubt, but the acting talents of the other men and women in the cast were greatly inferior. Considering them one by one, his misgivings increased. He was particularly concerned about the part of Alec, who in the absence of anyone more suitable was to be played by a gawky young man called Norman Atkins, who worked behind the counter in one of the town’s banks.

Of course – he reminded himself – it was merely an amateur production, one which could not be fairly judged by professional standards. Yet interest in the play had been enormous, and leading newspaper reviewers from London had promised to be at the Corn Exchange.

The old man was not nearly as indifferent to the play’s reception as he pretended to be. More than forty years had passed since his first novels, and while he had forgotten all the good reviews the bad ones stuck in his memory like thorns. Ignorant, insensitive, malicious, they still pricked and festered. The very idea that ‘Tess’, his dearest creation, might be subject to any criticism, even of the mildest kind, kept him awake for hours.

At breakfast, with rain driving against the windows of the dining room, he was in a gloomy frame of mind. ‘I am afraid it may be a mistake.’

‘Why?’

He gave a shrug.

‘I’m sure it’ll be a great success. Where is the mistake? I’m sure it will be a success.’

‘I have no great expectations.’

‘I’m sure it’ll go well,’ she insisted. ‘I just wish Cockerell was coming.’

‘Cockerell is coming tomorrow.’

‘Who else will be there? Will Lawrence be there?’

‘Tonight? He may not be able to get away. But Cockerell is coming tomorrow, to both performances.’ He frowned. ‘Maybe no one’ll come.’

‘Thomas, of course they will. All the tickets have been sold. You do say some ridiculous things sometimes.’

There was a silence in which he wondered whether he might sit back-stage. He liked the thought of being out of sight, watching the actors shuffle on and off. Perhaps he would get a chance to talk alone to Gertie, though she would be on stage for almost the entire time.

‘All I hope,’ said his wife, ‘is that it doesn’t go on too long afterwards. Poor little Wessie. I hate leaving him alone.’

‘The maids’ll look after him.’

‘They don’t even try to understand.’

‘He’ll be all right,’ the old man said dismissively, though he agreed with her.

He departed the breakfast table in an altogether better mood than had been the case when he sat down. Yet, as the morning went on, his disquiet returned.

Although the town was not quite the provincial backwater that it had been half a century earlier, it remained a place somewhat removed from the main currents of thought that flowed through the big cities. Conservative habits of mind prevailed, particularly in relation to moral behaviour. This was where the problem lay with ‘Tess’. Conventional morality asserts that, in the conclusion to any work of art, the author should reward the good and punish the bad, and the novel signally failed to adhere to this long-established practice. And rightly so, in the old man’s opinion; when one surveyed human affairs there seemed to be no automatic presumption in favour of the triumph of the good. Lives did not always end well, and it seemed dishonest to pretend otherwise. The fate of Tess was to be hanged, despite her essential innocence. In an attempt to soften the blow – and with more than half an eye to the difficulties of staging the scene satisfactorily – he had removed the hanging from the play and made it end at Stonehenge. Still, the story remained a tragic one, and whether it would be to the taste of the town he could not say.

Perhaps as difficult was the fact that the story implicitly criticised the hallowed institution of marriage, on which some authorities claim the stability of society to rest.

The dreariness of the meteorological conditions did nothing to raise his spirits. There are November days that begin with rain, but the wind hurries along the clouds and by noon the sun is shining from a blue sky; and then there are days when the rain sets in early and never lets up, much like a dog attached to a bone. This was one such. The wind stiffened and swung to the north, and the afternoon brought a succession of squally hailstorms, with white stones bombarding the house and bouncing on the green sward of the lawns. It was the first proper taste of winter, and altogether common sense might have said that it was a day to stay at home by the fire, not to venture abroad. Watching the barrage of hail the old man vaguely asked himself whether he might contrive to miss the performance at the Corn Exchange.