Уильям Николсон - Motherland

‘No,’ says Ed. ‘Right now I’m thinking you’re a bit of a genius.’

‘A genius? I don’t think I’m that, you know.’

‘Tell me, George. When you go back to the house, now. When you meet Louisa. Will you be thinking about what you’ve just been doing? Will you be afraid Louisa might guess?’

‘No,’ says George. ‘You see, I’ve not been doing anything. That was Georgy.’

‘Yes, of course. Silly of me.’

They part outside the big house. Ed’s opinion of George has undergone a reappraisal. He’s impressed by the radical simplicity of his solution. Faced with irreconcilable demands upon him, by the world in which he lives and by his own needs, he has split himself into two people. Who knows through what accident he discovered this other self, the Georgy who finds his erotic fulfilment in the nursery? But having encountered him he has embraced him, made room for him in his life, and not judged him. This seems to Ed to be an act of great maturity.

Georgy is happy.

What greater achievement is there in any man’s life?

Ed walks back across the park to the farmhouse, his thoughts occupied with this revelation. He too is pulled in opposite directions, by his love for Kitty and by his need to be alone. What if he were to split himself in two as George has done? One self could be the loving husband, while the other self remains untouched and untouchable.

He has never considered such a solution before, because he has assumed that there’s a fundamental dishonesty to it. According to his own sense of integrity, his duty to Kitty is to tell her the truth about himself. Only then, surely, can he know that she truly loves him. But it strikes him now that this is selfish. This need to know that it’s the real him who is loved: what is it but the child’s fierce grip on the mother?

Baby wants cuddles.

Look at it from Kitty’s point of view. What she wants is to know that he loves her. So why not construct, for Kitty’s benefit, out of all the real love he has for her, a part-self, an Ed who can give her all she needs? This wouldn’t be a falsehood, just an incomplete version. He imagines doing this, playing the part of an Ed who loves her and has no darker fears. To his amazement he finds at once he’s released. He can say the words she so longs to hear.

But she’ll see through his act, surely. She knows him too well. He considers what he’ll say if challenged. He’ll say, Yes, it’s an act, but this loving Ed is real too. What will she say then? Will she say, Only all of you is enough for me?

There’s Pammy too. And a new baby coming. This half-Ed can be a good father, in fact has been a good father for some time. The self he brings to his daughter is exactly that, a partial, edited self, suitable for children.

Think of it as a good Ed and a bad Ed. The bad Ed is weak or sick or mad. He drinks too much to numb all sensation, because the world to him is a dark and purposeless place. The bad Ed withdraws from contact with other people, most of all those he loves, because he knows his unhappiness is contagious. The good Ed is funny and brave and loving. The good Ed is the one Kitty fell in love with, the one who talks late into the night with Larry, the one who dances in the fields by moonlight. The good Ed has a shot at happiness.

He gets home, and pushing open the farmhouse door, calls out cheerfully, ‘I’m back.’

Good Ed is back.

The kitchen is empty. He hears the sloshing of water upstairs. Bath time. He climbs the stairs to the bathroom. There’s Kitty on her knees by the bath, and Pamela, pink and naked, squirming in the bath.

‘Here you are,’ he says. ‘My two lovely girls.’

Kitty looks round in surprise.

‘This is an honour,’ she says.

‘Do my story, Daddy,’ says Pamela.

‘I will,’ says Ed, ‘as soon as you’re washed and dressed. But first I want to kiss my wife, because I love her.’

‘Yuck!’ says Pamela, impressed.

Ed kisses Kitty.

‘What’s brought this on?’ says Kitty.

‘Oh, nothing,’ says Ed. ‘I’ve been doing a bit of thinking.’

Pamela splashes in the bath water, wanting attention.

‘Not about you ,’ says Ed. ‘I never think about you .’

‘You do! You do think about me!’ shrieks the little girl, eyes bright.

‘Well, whatever it is, it’s much appreciated,’ says Kitty, fetching a towel to lift Pamela out of the bath. ‘Nice to have a husband who comes home and wants to kiss his wife.’

The good Ed is a great success. It turns out Kitty has noticed nothing amiss after all.

The Maharaj Rana of Dholpur drinks his tea with modest sips, then puts down the cup and sighs.

‘I can’t tell you that I like what is happening, Captain Cornford. This new India is a very recent invention. Dholpur’s Paramountcy Treaty with Britain goes back to 1756.’

He’s a small scholarly man, who wears a pink turban. In ’21, during George V’s tour of India, he and Dickie Mountbatten were ADCs together. Now, prince and ruler of his own state, history is about to brush him aside.

‘Do me a favour,’ Mountbatten told Larry earlier. ‘Look after Dholpur while he’s in Delhi. He’s a decent man.’

‘I suppose these days,’ Larry says to the maharaj, ‘it’s harder to justify imperial rule by a far-off country.’

‘Ah, these days.’ Dholpur sighs again. ‘That is the modern mind in action. The assumption that fundamental truths must change with time. Are you a religious man, Captain Cornford?’

‘Yes,’ says Larry. ‘Catholic.’

‘Catholic?’ The maharaj brightens. ‘Like the Stuart kings of England. Then perhaps you will understand when I tell you that I believe most profoundly in the divine right of kings. The so-called Glorious Revolution of 1688, that drove James II into exile, was in my opinion both a disaster and an outrage. All the suffering that has followed springs from the false notion that the people can choose their own rulers. How are they to choose? What do the people know? Let God choose, and let the people be humbly thankful.’

‘I see you’re no believer in democracy,’ says Larry.

‘Democracy!’ The maharaj gives him a look that combines melancholy with contempt. ‘You think the people of India are choosing their rulers? You think when the British are gone the people of India will be free? Just wait a little, my friend. Wait, and watch, and weep.’

In these last days before the transfer of power the viceroy’s staff work ever longer hours. They’re planning the two days of ceremonial that will see the creation of two new sovereign nations. Sir Cyril Radcliffe, who has been shut away for weeks in a bungalow on the viceregal estate, has almost completed the award of the Boundary Commission. Everyone knows that once the details of the award are made public, the trouble will begin. Punjab and Bengal have now been partitioned; only Sylhet in Assam remains. Mountbatten makes it known that a late delivery on August 13th would be acceptable, fully aware that on that day he flies to Karachi for Pakistan’s independence ceremony on August 14th. The following day, August 15th, India’s Independence Day, is to be a national holiday, and the printing presses will be closed. In this way the precise details of the two new nations will not be made public until the celebrations are over.

The viceroy’s staff spend the day of August 14th clearing their desks and contemplating the historic moment they are about to witness. The general feeling is that the British are making a dignified job of winding up the Empire, thanks in no small part to the charm, energy, and informality of the Mountbattens.

‘He’s an amazing chap,’ Rupert Blundell says to Larry, as they break for a much-needed drink. ‘He loves dressing up and prancing about with his medals, but actually he’s the least stuffy man I’ve ever met. He’s a member of the royal family, his nephew’s marrying our future queen, but he’s all for the Labour government. You know, in some strange way I think he sees himself as an outsider.’