Alice waited a moment and then stood up. “Goodbye,” she said. Marius looked very sad. I was staring at the table not wanting to see her, for I could feel her expecting me to make some move. “Goodbye,” Marius said. Then she walked away from us, and I was sorry. We both stood up and she went to the door and was gone.
Marius sat down. He remained very still and then he sighed and said “It was a pity, that, but I’m afraid I couldn’t think of anything else.” He scratched his head with a gesture of dismissal and pushed his half empty glass of beer away from him. “I was rather put out by that man,” he said. Then he looked at me and said “Come and see Annabelle, she would love to see you,” and at once I forgot about Alice and the queerness of the battle and any sorrow at our victory, for I was thinking — Annabelle, I must remember Annabelle — and I followed him into the street.
I walked a little behind him, feeling like a puppet, a puppet worked by strings. Marius was the player and the lamp-lit street our stage, and as I walked I noticed the things around me as the setting for a play, objects slung together for the purpose of illusion, and beyond us, outside the perimeter of the arc-lights, an unseen audience whose presence was felt like rain. In the gutter a man selling matches raised his head and muttered across the pavement; and a woman, dragged by dogs, swept past him like a ship. Marius stood on the curb and held his hand up for a taxi, and one swung to his bidding as if he had pulled it with a rope. We climbed in and Marius murmured instructions, and we drove away. It would not be very far, I thought — Kensington or Sloane Street, the homes of Annabelles and Mariuses — but in Knightsbridge the taxi turned right and took us up into the park. We emerged opposite the big ship-like shapes of the hotels in Park Lane, and the taxi drove between them and stopped in Grosvenor Square. Marius paid it, and we walked through the hall of a large block of flats. The floor was thickly carpeted and there were flowers on the walls: real flowers, in carved vases, and the smell of scent. We got into the lift and went up to the fourth floor. The flat where Annabelle lived was large and hot and very expensive.
The door was unlocked and Marius pushed it and went in. In the drawing-room Annabelle and a man with golden hair were sitting at the piano playing chopsticks. The man was humming and not getting the playing right. As we came in he stopped and said “Ha!” at Marius, and Annabelle went on playing the bass. Marius said, “That’s Peter.” He nodded to me.
“Can you play chopsticks?” Annabelle said. “No one else can.” I remembered how the corners of her eyes were wrinkled.
“Yes,” I said. I sat down on the stool with her, and we played. She played very quickly to try me out, and I kept up with her. I could see her laughing to herself as she went faster and faster, and she put out her tongue between her teeth. The golden-haired man watched us and tried to join in at the top of the piano, but he couldn’t get it right, so he thumped on the keys with his fists. It was a huge piano, and it made a lot of noise. Marius was standing by the window holding a corner of the curtain back and looking out like a detective. Then Annabelle stopped playing suddenly and sat back with her hands in the lap of her bright red dress. “You play very well,” she said.
“It’s not very difficult,” I said.
“No.” She lifted her hand and pushed a curl from her cheek behind her ear. We were close to each other on the stool, and I was leaning away from her rather twisted. “Can you play properly?” she said.
“No,” I said.
“Play something,” she said, still sitting, with her hands back in her lap.
I played an old waltz, which was the only thing I knew. I played it badly, thumping it. I had learned it at school. I got some of the notes wrong.
“How impressive,” she said. “Can you play anything else?”
“No,” I said. “Can you?”
She played the same thing as I had done, but beautifully, as it should be played.
“How rude,” said the golden-haired man. “Don’t you think my sister is rude?”
“Is she your sister?” I said.
“Yes,” he said. “My beautiful sister.”
“I hope you are pleased,” Annabelle said, finishing off with a flourish.
Peter turned away from us, and Annabelle sat sideways so that I could see her throat. “Marius,” Peter said, “come away from that window. There is nothing to see.”
Marius smiled and came into the middle of the room and watched us.
“The great thing about Marius,” Peter said, “is that he never speaks. That’s a great thing to learn. It’s always so inspiring. The only time that I have ever inspired anyone was when I had an infected larynx and couldn’t speak. It was at a dinner party and I never said a word. They all thought I was marvelous.”
“We haven’t seen you for a long time,” Annabelle said to me.
“I’ve been away,” I said.
“I’m sure Napoleon never spoke,” Peter said. “I’m sure he never said a word. Do you think he did, Marius?”
“I’m sure he did,” Marius said.
“I don’t think so. Of course it’s foolish to speak. You can never say anything so wise as what people think you might say if you don’t.”
“It depends what you look like,” Marius said.
“I look like a lobster,” Peter said, staring at a mirror.
Annabelle said to me “I am so glad you’ve found us. I was wondering if we would ever see you again.”
“I was wondering if you would remember me.”
“Oh yes,” she said.
Peter was walking round the room. He was saying “Of course it’s all right for you. You’ve got the face for it. People think you are like a God when you don’t say anything. And Gods have got to be silent, or else they would make fools of themselves. What on earth could a God say that would make any sense?”
“I don’t know,” Marius said.
“Nothing. They can’t make sense so they don’t say anything. Very sensible. How terrible it would be to be a God!”
“Why?” Annabelle said.
“Because of their conscience. Think of God’s conscience! Man’s is bad enough, but think of God’s!”
“You can’t,” Annabelle said.
“I can. And it makes me sick.”
“That’s silly,” Annabelle said, and again I saw something frightening in her alarming eyes.
Marius sat down. “I have seen Mr. Jackson,” he said.
“And finished it?”
“Yes. Mr. Jackson was a communist,” Marius said to me.
“Oh,” I said.
“I was rude to him and then we were rude to someone who perhaps is his opposite. Mr. Jackson is quite right, it is difficult to find any other alternative.”
“It is easy to look,” Peter said.
“One is, sooner or later, rude to everyone. One is rude until there is no one left to be rude to. Then one is rude to oneself.”
“Why don’t you stop?” Annabelle said.
“But we are only just starting!” Peter said. “It is impossible to start anything until one has been rude to everything. Now you have been rude to this communist you are rid of him. When we are rid of everyone we will begin!”
“Begin what?” Annabelle said.
“Whatever happens. We have to be rid of things first. We have to stop worrying about things that don’t matter.”
The telephone rang. Annabelle went to answer it. I watched her as she walked across the room. She stood holding the receiver loosely to her ear, with her thigh propped against a table. She was looking at Marius who was sitting in a chair with his overcoat on. She spoke vaguely into the receiver—“Oh hullo, yes no. . no I can’t, not to-night. . if you like, yes, do. . oh just Peter and one or two other people. All right, we’ll expect you then.” The red of her dress was vivid against the paleness of the room, like a rose-leaf floating in a bowl of silver. She put down the receiver and unhitched herself from the table. “Freddie,” she said, “Freddie Naylor.” She walked over to Marius, pushing the curls to the back of her long white neck.