‘Don’t worry,’ I told her, ‘we’ll be together in that rough old spring again. It’s a sidereal mantrap that gets us all, you as well as me.’
I was weeping in tune to her creaking heart when I got into my car, but I cheered up as I drove home in the moonless night. I made my tunnel through the black dark, fumigating my cluttered mind so that by the time I pulled up at the kerb it was obvious what I should do. It was necessary to act in haste, so that one never had cause to repent, because if you act in haste there can’t be anything to blame yourself for, and that is a state of mind I relished. I had been acting like the Caliph of Baghdad in the last few weeks, and now the time had come to stop all that, to reform and go my own ways. Perhaps I had a sense of sin after all, for I wanted now and again to be pure so as to boost my self-esteem for when the time came around to sin again.
It was one in the morning when I looked at my gold watch in the dim bedroom light. I took the suitcase from my wardrobe, and lay it open on my bed, which still had the perfume smell of Claudine on it. I buried my face there for a second or two. But there was no time to be lost. I put on a clean shirt and my best suit, and packed my other clothes neatly in. Looking around, there was nothing else but a line of books along the washstand, and they would have to stay. It surprised me that I owned so little, though at a time like this it was a pleasant discovery to make. After all, I did have a car and a watch, as well as a hundred pounds. What more could anybody want? There was also a small transistor radio and I saw myself speeding along the main road with it lying on the seat beside me, thumping, out some great symphony. It was small, but powerful, and Mam had liked the tone very much when I first showed it to her.
I was careful to make no noise in case I woke her up, but the door suddenly opened and there she was. ‘You’re off, are you?’
I put in two pairs of pyjamas, one clean and one dirty. ‘Yes.’
‘Where to?’
‘North, east, south, and west.’
‘That really does sound as if you know what you’re doing, I must say.’
‘I’ll let you know where I am,’ I said, botched at the throat, and all the way down into my bottom gut.
‘That’s something, anyway.’ I was going to give her half my money, but didn’t because it spared her the dignity and embarrassment of telling me to keep it. I was sure to need it more than she would, and in any case her wages were sufficient for all her wants. ‘All I ask from you,’ she said, ‘is that you take care of yourself. That’s all I’d like you to do for me.’
I tried to smile, but could only lie: ‘I’m not going for good.’
‘Don’t lie to me,’ she said.
‘I’m not lying — that’s all I can say.’
‘It doesn’t matter,’ she said. ‘Only don’t be cheeky, and get going if you’re going to. I’ll go back to bed. If you’re around in the morning I’ll make breakfast. If you’re not, I’ll get it on my own.’
I kissed her. ‘You’ll hear from me.’
‘Don’t be so bleddy sloppy,’ she said, breaking free and going to her own room.
I set the alarm for six and lay down in my clothes. It seemed only a second later that it jangled my ears, and then I remembered what I was up to, so jumped out of bed and went downstairs with my case. I left my transistor radio on the table with a note saying I wouldn’t need it while I was away. Then I made tea and lingered for an hour, until I heard her moving upstairs, getting dressed for work. I went out, quietly closing the door behind me.
The streets were empty, I noted, getting into my black all-enveloping travel-bug car. It wouldn’t start. The night had been wet, but now the clouds were shifting, and I lifted the bonnet and dried the contacts with my handkerchief. Not being mechanically minded, and lacking motorized experience, I knew nothing about cars, and I was swearing in case it should let me down at such a critical laughable time. It would be unjust, because I had no plans for it to waylay and spoil. I was acting without any plan whatsoever, and that was enough to make me innocent in the eyes of prankish worn-out motorcars. Still, I cranked it up, in case conciliation was necessary from a trickster like me, and when I sat in it once more and twitched on the ignition I felt the sweet shake of life under me, and after a few parting roars to the empty street and the benighted morning, I was off, slowly at first up the cobblestones, and then swiftly along Lenton Boulevard, skirting the city centre, by the valley of the Leen that took me under the heights of the Castle.
It was still dark, and only my own lights and the roadlights led me away. There was no heater in the car, and my greatcoat was wrapped around me, a scarf muffling my neck and chin. Because I was still so tired from the last few days, my brain was clear. I remember it well, a familiar feeling. At the same time I didn’t think ahead, or tell myself where I was going. I knew, but I didn’t tell myself. It didn’t even occur to me not to tell myself. I was in that balance of knowing, but not wanting to know, and maybe I was helped to maintain it by the disturbing physical action of driving the car.
I went slowly across Trent Bridge and glimpsed the sky to the left, eastwards. The dawn was mixing in, all fiery and noble, watery and red, so I stepped on it and took the first turning left, on my way to join the Great North Road to Grantham.
Part Two
It is a common belief, after being hurt by them, that simple people are not so much wise as cunning. This is wrong. They are neither. They have the knack of becoming united with their souls at certain inspired times, that’s all. Even then, they do not know what harm they have done. It is like a snake that has poison available when it is forced to strike. A simple person never strikes unless he has to, for he is basically lazy. Thus when he is driven to strike he uses far more venom than necessary because he was dragged unwillingly out of his simplicity and sloth which is, in effect, laziness. Something like this was in my mind when I remembered Miss Bolsover’s view of me as simple. Though it should have flattered me, and in some ways did, I could never forgive her for it. Thus I felt no blame, as I drove towards Grantham, at having left her for good. Claudine at least knew better than to think I was strong and simple, and for that reason it was rather more difficult to get her out of my mind.
But I was never a victim of too much thought, at least not to the extent that it did me any good, so I lit a cigar and got the pedal down at Radcliffe by-pass, until my speed was touching fifty, a fair lick as far as I was concerned. There was no reason for hurrying. A slight rain spat down, and my wipers tackled it sluggishly as if the batteries had been low and still weren’t charging properly. The engine was healthy, however, so I trundled on, beginning to make a road map of England under my wheels — though the winter didn’t seem too good a time for it, and now that I was on my way I didn’t love my freedom as I’d thought I would. In fact I began to feel a bit too much on my own, not only as if I didn’t know where I was going (which was true) but also as if I didn’t know where I had come from (which was false). But, I told myself, you can’t make a move like this without feeling as if a compass needle is struggling to find a way out of your guts. It would have been more natural if I had stolen the car and was making a getaway. There would have been some point in it then, but unfortunately I hadn’t been brought up to be a thief, so I couldn’t have the dubious benefit of that And if I’d make-believed it to be true, just to get a kick out of going away, it would have been telling lies, and I hadn’t been reared to be a liar either, at least not to myself. So nothing was on my side except bleak reality, and for the moment I had to make do with that.