Nicholas Mosley - A Garden of Trees

The others did not hear what she said. I did. “Now you can begin,” she said.

She went past him, and waited, and again I had the impression of movement that was not visible. They both had their backs to us. Then Annabelle was coming towards us again and it seemed that Peter almost pushed in front of her. “You are right,” he said.

He sat on the arm of Marius’s chair, facing Alice. “You are right, we have nerves, we live on them.” His smile fluttered towards Alice’s jealousy like a bird. “Don’t mind when we rest them.” Alice did not look at him. “I, of course, not we,” he said. “I know nothing of suffering.” Alice flicked the ash from her cigarette into the fireplace. “But I know what you mean,” he said. “Perhaps you know what I mean too.”

Alice did not answer him. Peter put his head in his hands. The bird, wounded, trailed its wings across his face. “I wonder why one ever speaks,” he said. “Speaking gets things wrong, and it doesn’t get them right again.” He looked up at Alice. “What one says means nothing, and what does mean something when there is nothing to say?”

“Darling, it seems that you know the answer to that,” Alice said.

Annabelle was coming forwards carrying glasses and Marius stood up and they were both talking suddenly as if a spring had been released. We were on new ground and could breathe again. Annabelle was offering a drink to Alice who was reaching for it and chatting, I couldn’t hear what about, with her eyes bright, pleasantly, and Marius was nodding his head at her and grinning. Peter was sitting with his hands on his knees looking up at the ceiling and Annabelle came over so that she stood by my side. The scene, instead of a battlefield, was now a conversation piece: with each one of us appearing to be posed according to the balance of the grouping. The talk ran, all at once, nonsensically, like water; with Marius in the lead, charming, controlling it, saying—

“Alice, do you remember, when we first came to London, and I stayed with you, how funny it was, when you used to go out to the shops in your dressing-gown, and you were so annoyed, because no one thought it was a dressing-gown, but a coat.” “Quite untrue, darling,” Alice said. “And the woman next door sent you flowers.” “She sends me fish now, darling.” “And came to you for advice, why fish?” “They have holes in them, why do they?” “And you gave her such cruel advice, you are the sort of person people always come to with their troubles.” “She had a lover who was a bicyclist, do you remember?” “But really no reason to discourage him so.” “I am sure it would have been unhealthy,” Alice said.

And Annabelle: “Bicyclists can be extraordinary, you remember Nancy? Well, she was picked up by one on the Portsmouth Road.” “That can become a terrible habit,” Alice said. “She was going to Chobham, and the man refused to put her down, simply refused.” “Why was she going to Chobham on a bicycle?” “She wasn’t, you see, but she ran out of petrol, and the man took her for miles to his lodgings, and she had to ring up for her father.” “Oh, a motor-bicycle,” Marius said. “Yes, wasn’t yours?” “No, he couldn’t keep his legs still for a minute,” Alice said.

And Alice: “It is because they travel so fast that you can never get away from them.” “And what did her father do?” “In France they come past you even when you are traveling in a car.” “He got hold of the chief constable and the Fire Brigade.” “It wouldn’t be so bad if they didn’t appear to be pedaling upside down.” “Did they manage to put her out?” “They usually carry a small extinguisher with them, I believe.” “Yes, they did, after a time,” Annabelle said.

And Peter: “I believe they have holes in them because. . ” “Then why did she ring up her father?” “I don’t know what it can be if it isn’t that sort of fish.” “To tell him that she was in Bagshot instead of Chobham.”

And Alice, finally: “Marius, darling, give me one more cigarette, and then I must go.”

Peter tried to make her stay, but she wouldn’t. Then Annabelle asked if she could come to see her house, and they arranged some meeting. They were kind to each other, and rather effusive. As I accompanied her to the door I said, “Why won’t you stay?” and she said, “It’s all right for you, darling, but really not any more for me”: and on the landing she added, “You will see, later, what I mean.” We all said good-bye. I did not know whether to go with her, to follow her into the lift, to get her a taxi, to stay with her perhaps. “Thank you so much for my evening,” she said. “Thank you so much for coming,” they said. Marius went on past me and took her arm and they went along the landing together and stood by the lift. They were still talking. Then the door closed and we were shut off from them, and I regretted something for Alice, but Marius was with her and it was all right. Peter picked up a paper and went quietly along to the bathroom. We turned. The scene seemed to be littered with the fallen petals of flowers. For the first time I was alone with Annabelle.

She sat down by the fire.

“Has Marius got a wife?” I said.

“Yes,” she said.

“Who is his wife?”

“She is someone who is dying.”

It was strange how in a room so warm we kept ourselves close to the fire.

“Dying?” I said.

“Yes. She is in hospital. I have never seen her. She came after the war, with Marius, to London. She has been dying a long time.”

“Do you know what is wrong with her?”

“Yes,” she said, but she said nothing more.

We could hear Peter singing in the bathroom. He was singing a song in German at the top of his voice.

“I should like to see her,” I said.

“Marius may take you. But she doesn’t want to see people now.”

“I should not ask him.”

“No.”

“And he would not take you?”

“No,” she said. “Not me.”

I wondered what it was that gave Annabelle her calmness and assurance as if no wind ever came to disturb the fallen petals of her life.

“If Marius had no wife,” I said, “would he marry you?”

“I don’t know,” she said.

“And would you like to marry him?”

“I don’t know,” she said.

But the petals had fallen, because I could see the shadow of them beneath her eyes.

“Peter, shut up,” Annabelle shouted. The singing ceased.

“Has Peter ever seen her?” I said.

“No. I don’t think he ever asked about her.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t think it ever happened to concern him.” As she said this I felt that it was untrue. It was one of the few untrue things she ever said.

“So it does concern you,” I said.

“No,” she said. “Not now; not a bit any longer.”

Peter came back into the room. He was wrapped in a bath towel. “Why?” he said. “Why shut up?”

“We were talking about Marius’s wife,” Annabelle said.

“Oh yes,” Peter said. “Of course.” He looked towards the door, standing in his bath towel, steaming rather, looking like the hero of an amateur Shakespeare play. Then Marius came in, and stopped in the doorway, watching him, and for a while they gazed at each other craftily like actors who have forgotten their lines. On their faces were expressions of amusement, and yet uncertainty; as if they had much to say to each other, but had neither the knowledge of what it was nor the means to say it. And then Peter, as if the necessity of expression had become too much for him, suddenly snatched the towel from his body and began to dance, heavily, on the carpet. He thudded up and down, waving his towel round and round him like a cloak.

Marius watched him. Peter continued. Then Marius raised an arm and grimaced at him, wickedly, like a gargoyle. Peter retreated. Marius advanced, tentatively, like a lion-tamer, and Peter went dancing away round the piano and then he suddenly made a dash for the open door and was out on to the landing trailing the towel behind him and his feet thumping softly on the scented floor. He stopped in the middle of the silent heated square of carpet onto which opened the doors of the other flats and the lift, and he stood there, naked, holding his towel on the ground like a victorious matador.