Nicholas Mosley - A Garden of Trees

“You are talking about people, you are not talking about God.”

“I will kill Marius’s child because it has grown into all I have hated, and because Peter will then have reasons for scorning me. I will kill myself so that he will have reasons for pitying me. If I could save Peter I would kill God.”

“You do not know about God!”

She sat up on the bed and it was as if she were trying to prevent something from strangling her. “So they have got you too?” she said.

“Annabelle. . ”

“You do not love me, you are dead!” she shouted.

I stood up to go over to her and as I moved she shouted, “Get away from me, get away,” and she struggled from the bed and began to run to the door. I caught her round the shoulders and held her as she fought to get past me; she screamed and clawed at me with the nails of her fingers. I got in between her and the door and tried to push her back towards the bed but she screamed again with a dreadful choked cry in her throat and I hit her across the face with the back of my hand and then her head fell forwards and she began to cry. I took her to the bed and she lay down with her back to me, and as she cried I could see her nails tearing scratches in her face and hair coming out in her hands where she pulled it. The crying came and went in gasps and it seemed to possess her body terribly as if there were a devil in it. I waited until she was quiet.

I rang up Peter.

“Annabelle is ill,” I said. “She is staying here the night.”

“What’s wrong with her?”

“She is ill, it is to do with the child.”

“Isn’t that what she wants?”

“No.”

“She gets it either way, I suppose, according to Father Jack.”

“Is Father Jack there?”

“He’s away.”

“Do you know where I can find him?”

“He’s on a train.”

“Peter, do you know what he has said to Annabelle?”

“He said she wasn’t quite sorry enough, if you ask me.”

“Sorry for what?”

“For having a child with Marius and not marrying him.”

“Why should he say that?”

“Well she isn’t sorry, is she? Perhaps she went to tell him about it.”

“To confess?”

“That is what they do, isn’t it, when they want to be good little girls again?”

“And he said. . ”

“How the devil do I know what he said, I don’t even know if she went, but whatever he said she didn’t like it.”

“Peter. . ”

“Is she really ill?”

“No. Peter, have you ever confessed?”

“I? What have I got to confess?”

“Nothing,” I said.

I waited for Marius’s step on the stairs and when I heard it I went to warn him. In the darkness of the landing we whispered. “Has she seen a doctor?” he said.

“It is not necessary.”

“Of course I will go away. That is no trouble. Can I do anything for you in the morning?”

“Do you want to see her?”

“Should I?”

“Perhaps not. I should be glad if you would telephone.”

“Of course.”

We waited.

“Marius, what is the point of confession?”

“The point? So that one may receive absolution.”

“And if one does not?”

“What?”

“If it is refused?”

“It is only refused when there is no repentance.”

“I see.”

We waited again.

“Where will you sleep?” I said.

“Anywhere,” he said.

“Marius, does Father Jack approve of Peter?”

“Approve of him? I suppose not.”

“Someone should tell him.”

“Why?”

“I remember it being important.”

“Do you?” He looked at me. “All right,” he said.

“Good-night,” I said.

When I awoke it was still dark and I did not know where I was. I had the impression that my bed was placed in such a position as made the rest of the room impossible. I struggled to get my bearings, — the door on the left, the window, the table. . it was as if the surroundings of my life had become unrecognizable to me, even the furniture assuming a temporal disguise. I sat up. Then everything clicked into place. But I was left with the feeling that I was a foreigner in a country that was new to me.

I knew that Annabelle was awake. This was a realization that came strangely.

“Annabelle?”

“Yes?”

“Have you slept?”

“Yes.”

“Shall I put the light on?”

“No.”

It was extraordinary to be so close to her and not to know what she was thinking. She said: “Was Marius staying with you?”

“Yes.”

“And you have sent him away?”

“Yes.”

“It is dreadful how trivial all this is,” she said.

I tried to see her in the darkness. “I mean,” she went on, “that we are the most trivial people in the world, we do nothing, we achieve nothing, we work for nothing, we have no place in any society, we are useless, yet still we think that our trivialities are important. Isn’t that ridiculous?”

“I do not think that they are trivialities.”

“They seem to me to be. Did I talk a lot of nonsense?”

“Yes.”

“And contradict myself?”

“Yes.”

“Do you think it is true about the devil?”

“I don’t know,” I said.

“It must be when someone starts turning everything upside down. I hope Marius did not mind being sent away.”

“Of course not.”

“I really do feel ill, you know. I didn’t mean it about you and Marius. Perhaps one does have to have something given to stop the devil getting in. Otherwise one doesn’t know whether he’s in or out. He may be in now for all I know.”

“I don’t think he is.”

“He may be. They say you know where he is if you go on long enough. But then one only thinks one knows.”

“It’s better to think one knows than know one doesn’t.”

“It is? Only because not to know is unbearable.”

“Then that is a good reason to think one does, especially if it is true that for us there is only one way of thinking it.”

“And is it true?”

“It is beginning to look like it,” I said.

We lay in the darkness and I began to imagine I could see her. She said: “But look at our lives, that is what I mean by triviality, we live in a tiny circle on the edge of idleness, we have never come close to touching any of the passions that move those who have to struggle, we have nothing to do with war or peace or justice or enslavement, we are in a backwater drifting like leaves towards death.”

“I do not think so.”

“I should like to go into the real world and do something passionate.”

“There is only one real world.”

“It is not ours.”

“It is what we have a chance of.”

I spoke not knowing at all whether or not it was true. “Reality is a condition, it is not a matter of where you start from or what means you use to achieve it, we have as much chance as any one else of our generation, no less and no more. You think that we are useless because with us the issues are all on the surface, we live surrounded by questions and failures, and this makes us very unpleasant and perhaps very dull, but it doesn’t make us trivial. It will only do so if it continues.”

“Supposing it does?”

“It won’t.”

“Will the world then be real?”

“It might be. It either will or it won’t. We shall think it.”

“And what will be the difference?”

“If it is we shall be true to something outside of us, and if it is not we shall think we are being true to ourselves. In either case the world of events will be secondary. Most of the world lives in shadows, as we have done, and it does not matter much which way the shadows fall.”

“It matters to the plants that die beneath the shadows.”