Muriel Spark - The Complete Short Stories

One night Daphne and Hugh were drinking in a pub in Soho with his friends, when suddenly there fell a hush. Daphne looked round to see why everyone’s eyes were on a slight very dark man in his early forties, who had just entered the bar. After a moment, everyone started talking again, some giggled, and continued to glance at the man who had come in.

‘That’s Ralph Mercer,’ one of Hugh’s friends whispered to Daphne.

‘Who?’

‘Ralph Mercer, the novelist. He was at school with Hugh, I believe. Rather a popular writer.’

‘Oh, I see,’ said Daphne, ‘he looks as if he might be popular.’

Hugh was collecting drinks at the bar. The novelist saw him, and they spoke together for a while. Presently Hugh brought him to be introduced. The novelist sat next to Daphne. ‘You remind me of someone I used to know from Africa,’ he said.

‘I come from Africa,’ said Daphne.

Hugh asked him, ‘Often come here?’

‘No, it was just, you know, I was passing….’

One of the girls chuckled, a deep masculine sound. ‘A whim,’ she said. When he had gone Hugh said, ‘He’s rather sweet, isn’t he, considering how famous …’

‘Did you hear him,’ said an oldish man, ‘when he said, “Speaking as an artist Rather funny, that, I thought.’

‘Well, he is an artist in the sense,’ said Hugh, ‘that—’ But his words were obliterated by the others’ derision.

A few days later Hugh said to Daphne, ‘I’ve heard from Ralph Mercer.’

‘Who?’

‘That novelist we met in the pub. He writes to know if I’ll give him your address.’

‘Why’s that, do you think?’

‘He likes you, I suppose.’

‘Is he married?’

‘No. He lives with his mother. Actually I’ve sent him your address. Do you mind?’

‘Yes, I do. I’m not a name and address to be passed round. I’m afraid I don’t wish to see you again.’

‘You know,’ said Hugh, ‘I’m glad it never came to an affair between us. You see, Daphne, I’m not entirely a woman’s man.’

‘I don’t know what to say,’ she said.

‘I hope you will like Ralph Mercer. He’s very well-off. Very interesting, too.’

‘I shall refuse to see him,’ said Daphne.

Her association with Ralph Mercer lasted two years. Her infatuation was as gluttonous as her status as his mistress was high among the few writers and numerous film people who kept him company. She had a grey-carpeted flat in Hampstead, with the best and latest Swedish furniture. Ralph’s male friends wooed her, telephoned all day, came with flowers and theatre tickets.

For the first three months Ralph was with her constantly. She told him of her childhood, of Chakata, the farm, the dorp, Donald Cloete, the affair of Old Tuys. He demanded more and more. ‘I need to know your entire background, every detail. Love is an expedition of discovery into unexplored territory.’ To Daphne this approach had such force of originality that it sharpened her memory. She remembered incidents which had been latent for fifteen years or more. She sensed the sort of thing that delighted him; the feud, for instance, between Old Tuys and Chakata; revenge and honour. One day after receiving a letter from Chakata she was able to tell him the last sentence of Donald Cloete’s story: he had died of drink. She offered him this humble contribution with pride, for it showed that she, too, though no novelist, possessed a sense of character and destiny. ‘Always,’ she said, ‘I would ask him was he drunk or sober, and he always told the truth.’ Later in the day, when the thought of Donald’s death came suddenly to her mind, she cried for a space.

News came that Mrs Chakata had followed Donald to the grave, and for the same cause. Daphne lad this information on the altar. The novelist was less impressed than on the former occasion. ‘Old Tuys has been done out of his revenge,’ Daphne added for good measure, although she was aware that Old Tuys had been silly and senile since his stroke. One of her friends in the Colony had written to say that Mrs Chakata had long since ceased to have the pistol by her side: ‘Old Tuys takes no notice of her. He’s forgotten what it was all about.’

‘Death has cheated Old Tuys,’ said Daphne.

‘Very melodramatic,’ he commented.

Ralph began to disappear for days and weeks without warning. In a panic, Daphne would telephone to his mother. ‘I don’t know where he is,’ Mrs Mercer would say. ‘Really, dear, he’s like that. It’s very trying.’

Much later, his mother was to tell Daphne, ‘I love my son, but quite honestly I don’t like him.’ Mrs Mercer was an intensely religious woman. Ralph loved his mother but did not like her. He was frequently seized by nervy compulsions and superstitions.

‘I must,’ said Ralph, ‘write. I need solitude to write. That is why I go away.

‘Oh, I see,’ said Daphne.

‘If you say that again I’ll hit you.’ And though she did not repeat the words, he did, just then, hit her.

Afterwards she said, ‘If only you would say goodbye before you leave I wouldn’t mind so much. It’s the suddenness that upsets me.

‘All right then. I’m going away tonight.’

‘Where are you going? Where?’

‘Why,’ he said, ‘don’t you go back to Africa?’

‘I don’t want to.’ Her obsession with Ralph had made Africa seem a remote completed thing.

His next book was more successful than any he had written. The film was in preparation. He told Daphne he adored her really, and he quite saw that he led her a hell of a life. That was what it meant to be tied up with an artist, he was afraid.

‘It’s worth it,’ Daphne said, ‘and I think I can help you in some ways.

He thought so too just at that moment, for it occurred to him that his latest book was all of it written during his association with Daphne. ‘I think we should get married,’ he said.

Next day he left the fiat and went abroad. Now, after two years her passion for him was not diminished, neither were her misery and dread.

Three weeks later he wrote from his mother’s address to suggest that she moved out of the flat. He would make a settlement.

She telephoned to his mother’s house. ‘He won’t speak to you,’ his mother said. ‘I’m ashamed of him, to tell the truth.’

Daphne took a taxi to the house.

‘He’s upstairs writing,’ his mother said. ‘He’s going away somewhere else tomorrow. I hope he stays away, to tell the truth.’

‘I must see him,’ said Daphne.

His mother said, ‘He makes me literally ill. I’m too old for this sort of thing, my dear. God bless you.

She went and called upstairs, ‘Ralph, come down a moment, please. She waited till she heard his footsteps on the stars, then she disappeared quickly.

‘Go away,’ said Ralph to Daphne. ‘Go away and leave me in peace.

3

Daphne arrived in the Colony during the rainy season. The rains made Chakata’s rheumatism bad. He talked a lot about his rheumatism, would question her about England without listening to her replies.

‘The West End is badly bombed,’ she said.

‘It gets me in the groin when I turn in bed,’ he answered. Various neighbours looked in to see Daphne. The young had married, and some who called were new to her.

‘There’s a chap out from England farming over at the south, says he knows you, said Chakata. ‘Name Cash, I think.’

‘Casse,’ said Daphne, ‘Michael Casse. Is that the name?’

‘This stuff the doctor gives me’s no good. In fact it makes me worse. Another tobacco manager was living in the house Old Tuys had occupied. Old Tuys was at the farmhouse with Chakata. He sat in his corner of the stoep, talking nonsense to himself, or ambled about the farm. Chakata was annoyed when Old Tuys walked about, for he himself could barely hobble. ‘A pathetic case,’ he would say as Old Tuys strolled by, ‘he’s got his limbs, but he hasn’t got his faculties. I at least have my faculties.’ He preferred to see Old Tuys in his chair on the stoep. Then Chakata would say, ‘You know, after all these years, I have a soft spot for Old Tuys.