I did not see either of them again for about a year. I went abroad, writing a book, traveling alone through France and Spain and trying to pretend that loneliness did not matter. Then I got on a boat and traveled further, and by the time I came home I had almost forgotten what it was like to live in company, to have contact with people. On the homeward voyage I shared a cabin with an Australian — a man who had something to do with fruit I think — and he did his best with me.
I liked him, but we had nothing to say to each other. I had really got out of the way of talking to anyone.
At Southampton there were a number of people on the quay to welcome us. The ship edged in sideways through the floating scum, and the people stood on their toes and waved their handkerchiefs. Above them the cranes were like skyscrapers. There was a small child holding a Union Jack and shouting, but they could none of them be heard. It was a slow business. The tugs were pulling in opposite directions, and men with ropes seemed to be fishing in the sea. After a time the people on the quay gave up trying to make themselves heard. It is difficult to keep up the appearances of a welcome for an hour and a half. They sank back quietly into the shelter of the cranes, and soon stopped smiling. It was a windy day, and they had to hold their hats.
I was leaning on the rail of the ship, and I could feel my cabin companion lurking behind me, wanting to talk.
He came up to me. “Well,” he said, “there’s nothing like home.” He was a thin wedge-faced man, with a small moustache.
“No,” I said.
“And you’ve been away a long time. A year’s a long time to be away from home.”
“Yes,” I said.
“But you needn’t worry. I’ve been away longer.”
“No,” I said.
He was rolling a cigarette, smoothing and flicking it with deft fingers and then dabbing at it with his tongue. He had two gold teeth, rather savage, and his close-cropped head was like fur.
“You’ll be going to your people then? Your people’s here?”
“Yes,” I said. “Well no, not exactly.”
He tapped the damp cigarette with his thumbnail, and then lit it. The paper burned fiercely in spite of the wet.
“You know,” he said, “you’re a funny bird.”
“Funny?”
“Yes,” he said. “You know something? I don’t like you English. I don’t like you because you’re so damn cold. And you’re about the coldest person I’ve ever met, but I don’t mind you. And that’s funny.”
“Yes,” I said. The ship was into the quay now, effortlessly, without a sound. There was an attempt at renewed enthusiasm from the welcomers, but it was carried away like paper in the wind.
“Look,” he said. “You come out and do the town with me to-night. You’re coming up to town?”
“Yes,” I said.
“Well you’ll come out with me. You’ll be better for it.”
“I’m afraid I can’t,” I said. “But thank you all the same.”
“You don’t mind my asking you?”
“No,” I said.
We leaned on the rail, side by side. I hated Southampton, and wished that I did not have to leave the boat. From where we stood we could see the factory chimneys, and the white steeples of the churches quite dwarfed, like toys. I wished that I could have said to this man: You come out and do the town with me, and I will introduce you to my friends; but I did not know what my friends were called.
“You got friends in town?” he said.
“One or two,” I said, “but I don’t know what’s become of them now.”
“You’re a funny bird,” he said.
A gangway was pushed into the side of the ship. A line of officials lingered on it like caterpillars.
“You ever get lonely?” he said.
“Sometimes,” I said.
“You got a girl, I mean? Anything like that?”
“Not much,” I said.
“Well I don’t know,” he said. “You’re a funny bird.”
I had often thought of Marius and the girl during the time that I had been away. I had hoped that one day I might know them again, in order that I might find out about them. For having met them once, I knew only the unreality of that meeting; and it was an unreality that seemed to have spread to every other situation that I approached. And yet I thought that it could only be through them that reality could be regained. For as I had traveled I had built up fantasies around them, and they had haunted me. It seemed at times that my conception of them lived a life of its own with me — a recurring dream that ran its course on unknown levels of my mind but which rose, every now and then, into consciousness through some fissure of emotion. And it was through these fissures that I thought I had to probe. I remember a time when I was among some Roman ruins in the South of France and I had gone to sleep in the sun, and when I woke up the place was empty, quite empty, but I was sure they were there, and I ran down the old white rocks looking for them, the girl and Marius, the dead white rocks in the dusty sun, and of course they were not there, there was nothing there, nothing but centuries, and the heat of the sun that was insistent like a noise.
“I like a bit of company myself,” my companion said.
“Yes,” I said.
Or there was a time during the carnival in Trinidad when the people were out dancing on the savannah, they were dancing in masks and wild dresses, banging the lids of dustbins for drums, hammering; and I was amongst them walking through them and the noise was in discords like something breaking, the surface breaking, like a drill on the road; and through the clamour of the crowd I was looking for Marius and the girl and feeling for them and the noise with the heat was beating against the ground seeming to lift me up and carry me and I was floating; and I did not find them and of course they were not there although several times I felt their presence like this and wondered.
“Don’t you ever let your hair down?” my companion said, grinning.
“It’s long enough already,” I said. He looked at me and began to laugh.
There was some coming and going on the gangways now. The deck was deserted. Below us the passengers were proceeding in jerks along the quay. They could move only a few yards before they dropped some of their luggage. I pointed to them.
“Like a sack race,” I said.
My companion was still laughing. I was surprised. “You know something?” he said. “You’re dry, you’re really dry. I didn’t think you were, but you’re dry.” He was bounding his head up and down and showing his two gold teeth, and from the tone of his voice I think he meant it as a compliment.
In London the crocuses were out in the parks and the spring was early. People were taking off their coats and lying on the grass, but they kept apart from each other, aloof, and their eyes were cautious as if they did not trust the sudden sun. In the streets they hurried past with their gaze on shop windows, on the advertisements, or on their clothes, like people who are intent on avoiding unwelcome friends. In the buses they were neat and inscrutable as if the avoidance had been detected, as if they were nursing some insult with the indifferent face of pretence. They were somehow on their dignity, as if the world had offended them; and this attitude was reflected in the popular headlines of the day. “Demand your rights,” they shouted; “Every decent man and woman deserves the best”; and when the best was not forthcoming—“It is an insult to every Briton in the land.” This was the attitude. The ordinary people had demanded a cult of ordinariness and now were indignant that it had not given them extraordinary things.