«I suggest that you and I settle down to construct a friendship, nothing clandestine, all cheerful and above board-«Cheerful?»

«Why not? Why should life be sad?»

«I often wonder.»

«Why shouldn't we love each other a bit and make each other happier?»

«I like your 'a bit.' You're such a weights-and-measures man.»

«Let's try. I need you.»

«That's the best thing you've said yet.»

«Arnold could hardly object-«He'd love it. That's the trouble. Sometimes, Bradley, I wonder whether you have it in you at all to be a writer. You have such nai've views about human nature.»

«When you will something a simple formulation is often the best. Besides, morals is simple.»

«And we must be moral, mustn't we?»

«In the end, yes.»

«In the end. That's rich. Are you going to leave Priscilla with Christian?»

This took me aback. I said, «For the present.» I could not decide what to do about Priscilla.

«Priscilla is a complete wreck. You've got her on your hands for life. I've had second thoughts about minding her, by the way. She'd drive me mad. Anyway, you'll leave her with Christian. And you'll go there to see her. And you'll start to talk with Christian and you'll start discussing how your marriage went wrong, just like Arnold said you ought to do. You don't realize how confident Arnold is that he's the centre of every complex. It's little people like you and me who are mean and envious and jealous. Arnold is so self-satisfied that he's really generous, it's real virtue. Yes, you'll come to Christian in the end. That's where the end is. Not morality but power. She's a very powerful woman. She's a great magnet. She's your fate. And the funny thing is that Arnold will regard it all as his doing. We are all his people. But you'll see. Christian is your fate.»

«Never!»

«A muddler hoping to be forgiven. That sounds humble and touching. It would possibly be very effective in one of your books. But I've got a kind of misery that makes me blind and deaf. You wouldn't understand. You live in the open with all of you spread out around you. I'm mangled in a machine. Even to say it's my own fault doesn't mean anything. However don't worry too much about me. I expect all married people are like this. It doesn't prevent me from enjoying cups of tea.»

«Rachel, we will be friends, you won't run away into remoteness? There's no need to be dignified with me.»

«You're so self-righteous, Bradley. You can't help it. You're a deeply censorious and self-righteous person. Still, you mean well, you're a nice chap. Maybe later I shall be glad you said these things.»

«Then it's a pact.»

«All right.» Then she said, «You know there's a lot of fire in me. I'm not a wreck like poor old Priscilla. A lot of fire and power yet. Yes.»

«Of course-«You don't understand. I don't mean anything to do with simplicity and love. I don't even mean a will to survive. I mean fire, fire. What tortures. What kills. Ah well-«Rachel, look up. The sun's shining.»

«Don't be soppy.»

She threw her head back and suddenly got up and started off across the square like a machine which had just been quietly set in motion. I hurried after her and took her hand. Her arm remained stiff, but she turned to me with a grimacing smile such as women sometimes use, smiling through weariness and a self-indulgent desire to weep. As we neared Oxford Street the Post Office Tower came into view, very hard and clear, glittering, dangerous, martial and urbane.

«Oh look, Rachel.»

«What?»

«The tower.»

«Oh that. Bradley, don't come any farther. I'm going to the station.»

«When shall I see you?»

«Never, I expect. No, no. Ring up. Not tomorrow.»

«Rachel, you're sure Julian doesn't know anything about-anything?»

«Quite sure. And no one's likely to tell her! Whatever possessed you to buy her those expensive boots?»

«I wanted time to think of a plausible way of askinS her to saY she hadn't met me.»

«You don't seem to have employed the time vel7 profitably.»

«No I-didn't.»

«Good-bye, Bradley. Thanks even.»

Rachel left me. I saw her disappear into the crowd, her battered blue handbag swinging, the plump pale flesh ex» her upper arm oscillating a little, her hair tangled, her face dazed and tired– with an automatic hand she had scooped up the hanging shoulder strap. Then I saw her again, and again and again. O^fшrd Street was ful1 of tired ageing women with dazed faces, push*ing blindly against each other like a herd of animals. I ran across the road and north –wards towards my flat.

I thought, I must get away, I must get away I must Set away. I thought, I'm glad Julian doesn't know about all that. I thought, Maybe Priscilla really is better off at Notting ^ilL: thought, Perhaps I will go and see Christian after all.

As I now approach the first climax of my bool^ let me pause, dear friend, and refresh myself once again with some direct converse with you.

Seen from the peace and seclusion of our present haven the events of these few days between the first appearanc^ of Francis Marloe and my Soho Square conversation with Rachel *»

With these observations I introduce an analysis of my recent (as it were) conduct which I now wish, my dear, to deploy before you. As far as Rachel was concerned, I acted out of a mixture of rather graceless motives. I think the turning point was her emotional letter. What dangerous machines letters are. Perhaps it is as well that they are going out of fashion. A letter can be endlessly reread and reinterpreted, it stirs imagination and fantasy, it persists, it is red– hot evidence. It was a long time since I had received anything resembling a love letter. And the very fact that it was a letter and not a viva voce statement gave it a sort of abstract power over me. We often make important moves in our life in a de-individualized condition. We feel suddenly that we are typifying something. This can be a source of inspiration and also a way of excusing ourselves. The intensity of Rachel's letter communicated self-importance, energy, the sense of a role.

Vanity and anxiety had involved me with Rachel, and envy (of Arnold) and pity and a sort of love and certainly an intermittent play of physical desire. As I have explained I was even then (and of course without any particular merit) generally indifferent to bodies. I experienced them involuntarily and without positively shuddering in crowded tube trains. But on the whole I did not now concern myself much with these integuments of the soul. Faces, of course, my friends had, but as far as I was concerned the rest could have been ectoplasm. I was not by nature a toucher or a starer. So it was that I was interested to find that I wanted to kiss Rachel, that I wanted, after a considerable interval, to kiss a particular woman. This was part of my excitement in the idea of playing a new role. In kissing her I had however no thought of proceeding further. What happened afterwards was just an unintentional muddle. Of course I did not disown it and I thought it might have serious consequences. And it did.

Christian's take-over of Priscilla, though utterly «obscene,» was already becoming more of a problem than an outrage. I was more inclined to let the situation ride. Christian would get no profit from her hostage. But I did not think that she would therefore abandon or «drop» Priscilla. Perhaps here again I had been influenced by Arnold. In some people sheer will is a substitute for morality. What Arnold called «grip.» When she was my wife Christian had employed this will in an attempt to invade and conquer me. A lesser man would have surrendered in exchange for a marriage which might even have been a happy one. One can see many men who live happily, possessed and run (indeed manned, the way a ship is manned) by women of tremendous will. What saved me from Christian was art. My artist's soul rejected this massive invasion. (It was like an invasion of viruses.) The hatred for Christian which I had nursed all these years was a natural product of my struggle for survival and its original spearhead. To overthrow a tyrant, whether in public or in private, one must learn to hate. Now however, no longer reallv threatened and with an incentive to be more objective, I could see how well, how intelligently, Christian had organized herself. Perhaps learning that she was Jewish had altered my vision. I felt almost ready for a new kind of contest in which I would defeat her casually. The final exorcism would be a display of cool amused indifference. But these were shadowy thoughts. The main point was that I now felt ready to trust Christian to be business-like and reliable about Priscilla, since I felt like being neither.