Anna Kavan - The Parson

All the more reason, Rejane lightly answered, for her to see it while this was still possible. Her momentary chill forgotten, she stood in the firelight, smiling and adamant, not to be deflected from her purpose, which was no mere whim but a calculated design: by keeping him fully occupied throughout her last day, she would prevent any inconvenient display of emotion.

The young man was confused by the contrast between her outward serenity and good humour, and the emanation he felt of something ruthless opposing him from within her, demolishing each objection he raised, a radiation of implacable will, which crushed all his protests stone dead, finally crushing him too and forcing him to surrender.

As if she’d been waiting just for this, as soon as he’d given in she seemed to withdraw and become inaccessible, already gone from him in spirit. He was aware the whole time that they would have only one more evening together and, paralysed by the thought, it was hard for him to keep up an ordinary conversation. She did nothing to help him. The silences grew longer and longer. Remoteness seemed to gather about her like snow, as though, in the warm room, snow were falling and hiding her from him. The illusion even affected his vision, so that he couldn’t see her distinctly.

Unable to bear any more of the coldness and distance that was in the air, although it was still quite early, he got up to go, saying he had a headache, which was the truth. She seemed nowhere near him when he said good-night, her large lustrous eyes looking through him to something else, the smile on her lovely face not for him.

Now he felt he couldn’t leave without some sign of recognition. Lingering miserably, he asked her to be ready when he came the next day. They’d have to start early if they were to get back at a reasonable hour.

But she still seemed not there for him, somehow, with an inward, mysterious, smiling look on her face that froze him and sent him home sick at heart.

OSWALD felt better when he woke in the morning; most of his blurred impressions of the previous night seemed sheer imagination. Dressing quickly, he left the house before breakfast, and, munching an apple picked up on the way, went out to the car.

His main concern was to elude his mother and sister, who had lately begun to complain of his continual absence, and had already protested against the Bannenberg trip. Last night his headache had come in useful, enabling him to avoid argument by going to bed. Now he could but hope to slip away unobserved.

However, he had no chance to do so before his mother rushed out of the house in her dressing-gown — a distraught, dishevelled figure, pathetic and slightly absurd — imploring him not to go to Bannenberg. She’d had ‘a warning’ dining the night, a dream or a premonition. He could hardly understand what she was saying, as, incoherent with agitation, she came stumbling up to him, tripping over the long dressing-gown.

Oswald frowned disapprovingly. He always discouraged her psychic tendencies, both because he considered them undignified and because they reminded him of certain imaginative traits he’d inherited which were unsuited to a cavalryman. As a rule, she was easily crushed. Now, by ignoring his severity, as he steered her back into the house, she forced him to realize how strong her conviction of coming disaster must be. He couldn’t possibly leave her in this state. Common humanity required him to stay with her, at least for a few minutes, especially after the way he’d been neglecting her lately.

Feeling exasperated and victimized, he tried to calm her by saying he was far too experienced a driver to get into difficulties, whatever the road was like. But her fears were of a less concrete nature, she refused to be pacified, continuing to pour out a flood of confused pleading and protest; which he didn’t even attempt to understand now, merely uttering random reassurances at intervals.

In the course of these futile exchanges, time was slipping past. He saw that he would inevitably be late in getting to the hotel; and the idea of Rejane waiting for him, doubtless becoming indignant because he didn’t turn up, drove him nearly frantic. Unconsciously he fixed his eyes on the door; and his mother, noticing this, suddenly clutched his sleeve, as if afraid he might make a dash for it.

At her touch, his extreme impatience turned into anger: he almost hated her for delaying him with this absurd rigmarole. And where was Vera? Why didn’t she come to his rescue?

As if answering him, his sister hurried into the room, glanced nervously from one of them to the other, and stopped just inside the door.

I must go, Mother.’ Oswald shook off the hand clutching his arm, strode across to the door, and, as he passed Vera, muttered furiously, ‘Why can’t you look after her properly? It’s your job.’

A kind of hiatus ensued in his mind, he seemed to gape incredulously at the sound of his own angry voice. Never before in his life had he spoken to any woman in that enraged brutal tone. It was horrifying that his mother and sister should be the first to hear it. Appalled by his own behaviour, he thought, Nobody would be likely to call me The Parson now, wondering what had become of his former gentleness and consideration.

He raced all the way to the hotel, to find Rejane, as he’d expected, in a very bad temper because, after asking her specially to be ready, he’d kept her waiting so long. She wouldn’t listen to his apologies or explanations, forcing him to endure her reproaches, as he’d endured his mother’s, as they started off on the long trip, which seemed to him to have begun under the worst possible auspices.

*

Though he sat bolt upright behind the wheel, the athletic young man gave the impression of supporting with difficulty some tremendous weight. Vaguely, he supposed it was knowing he must sustain the effort of driving fast the whole way on this bad road which was oppressing him, like his headache of the previous evening, though less as a physical pain than an obscure sort of unease at the back of his thoughts.

Even when Rejane recovered her usual good humour, which she soon did, sulking not being one of her faults, Oswald couldn’t throw off this weight of uneasiness, which made it hard for him to respond. Her smiles were, in fact, rather painful to him. How could she be so gay when tomorrow they had to part? They stopped to eat their picnic lunch by the roadside; and he couldn’t help thinking that she looked heartless, basking there in the sun, her fur coat thrown back, calmly eating a devilled egg. Though she didn’t want to move, he refused to linger, and, as soon as they’d finished, insisted on setting off again, aware all the time of the miles still to be driven.

Helplessly, he felt her displeasure. He could do nothing about it. He knew he was a dull companion but found nothing to say, overwhelmed by an accumulation of pressures. He couldn’t get rid of the feeling of having too much to carry — the entire responsibility for the trip as well as his distress over their coming separation, his guilt feeling about his mother, and the unacknowledged effect of her superstitious fears.

Clouds appeared, quickly covering the sky. It became evident to him that, before the end of the day, there would be a storm. What infernal luck that the weather should change exactly now. He was seized by a violent sense of the injustice of life, the hostility of the whole world. He’d always tried all his life to do what was right and fair, yet even the weather now had to add to his difficulties. It was too much. All at once, war seemed to have been declared between him and the entire world, where everything was leagued against him.

The cliff road could be really dangerous in a storm — they ought to go back. But to say so would make Rejane only more determined to go on. It was no use arguing, she would always defeat him. Glancing at her face, he seemed to detect there signs of self-will not noticed before.