Quiet in Randall's attention, Hugh crossed to the window and looked out. From the tower it was possible to see over the tops of the beech trees and over the nursery garden which looked from here like a set of embroidered squares with the roses showing against the bare earth, as it followed the plump arc of the sharply falling hillside. Near to the foot of the hill arose the short spiky spears of a sweet chestnut plantation, and beyond it a little patch of woodland, where the wild berry was but lately over, half veiled a group of conical oast houses in a blur of green. The village, hidden under the other spur of the hill, showed between luxuriant elms, golden-yellow now in the bright sun, only the slim upper part of the church spire. Beyond again was the far-receding level of the Marsh, its grassland, its willows, always a little paled and silvered. Hugh gazed at it, almost invisible to him in its familiarity, and heard up above his head Miranda bounding noisily about her room and singing in a tone that was meant to be heard 'Aprиs de ma blonde'. She had a pretty little voice.
'I've had a letter from Sarah, he said. 'Would you like to see it?
'No, thanks, said Randall. He added. 'Letters from Sarah give me a pain. She's treated me like a composite entity ever since I got married. She begins «Dearest Ann and Randall», and ends «With love to you both from us both, yours Sally». As if «love» could mean anything in a formula like that. And as if my dear brother-in-law had ever felt any emotions where I was concerned except amazement and contempt.
'Which you reciprocate.
'A meaningless man from a meaningless place. I suppose Sarah's all right?
'She's pregnant again, said Hugh.
'God, not again! said Randall. 'Anyone would think they were bloody Roman Catholics. There's Jimmie, and Sally, and Penny, and Jeanie, and Bobby, and Timmie, and now there'll be Baby too. Jesus Christ!
'Ah, there's Penn, said Hugh looking down. He saw the boy emerge from the beech trees and drift across the wide space of lawn, his hands in his pockets. He seemed aimless and lost. The poor child was naturally a bit overwhelmed by England. Hugh hoped that he was not in too much of a daze to recall the drying up.
'What a pity that boy's got that accent, said Randall.
'I wish they'd sent him to a proper school, as I suggested, said Hugh. 'That might at least have civilized his voice, Hugh had pressed Sarah to send Penn to a boarding school in Australia and had offered to pay the fees. The offer had been refused, with confused explanations from Sarah behind which Hugh could hear Jimmie's voice exclaiming that he was not going to have his son made a bloody snob of.
Randall, who disapproved of money spent on the Graham family, was silent for a moment, and then said, 'He wants to be a motor mechanic anyway, as if that removed the scandal of the accent.
Miranda, dressed for church, erupted into the room, shot a quick glance at Hugh and ran to her father. Randall's face was illuminated. He swung his chair round and Miranda precipitated herself on to his knee, locking her Anns tightly about his neck. 'My little bird, he murmured, and his hand descended her back. Hugh turned away.
Miranda, after hugging him in silence for another moment, drew herself off and bounded out of the door. Randall looked after her smiling.
Hugh contemplated his son. Randall was certainly good-looking.
He had a big imposing sensual face with a large nose and large brown eyes. His straight dry brown hair was copious and showed no traces of grey. His mouth pouted with sensitive humorous hesitation as if he were perpetually suspending judgement about a funny story that was being told. Only a slight moistness at eyes and mouth, a slight pale plumpness of cheek, aged him a little and touched his vitality with a faint shadow of indulgence and excess.
Hugh absently picked one of the roses out of the nearest bowl. Randall preferred the Moss roses and the old roses of Provence to the metallic pink of his own creations. Hugh looked at the rose. The petals, fading through shades of soft lilac, and bending back at the edges so that the rose was almost spherical, were closely packed in a series of spirals about a central green eye. He said to Randall, 'Are you drinking too much?
'Yes, said Randall. He got up and joined Hugh at the window.
They both looked out.
While Hugh was hesitating about whether and how to pursue the subject they saw, far below, Ann and Miranda emerge from the porch and set off along the wide band of gravel that lay in front of the house. The two, hatted and gloved, seemed to trot with a conscious demureness. 'The men watched them go. There was always for Hugh something a little weird in the sight of Miranda on her way to church.
Hugh could smell Randall's breath now. He twirled the rose and tried to think of the right words. 'I suppose you're worried — about Ann and so on?
Randall made a violent inarticulate exclamation. 'Worried? Christ!
'What's wrong, really?
'What's wrong? Everything's wrong. He was silent for a moment and then said thickly, She just ruins me. She — destroys my footholds.
Hugh became aware that his son was positively drunk. He said a little sarcastically, 'Footholds? So you're climbing up are you?
'Up or down it makes no difference, said Randall, 'so long as it's away from her. He still stared at the place where his wife and daughter had disappeared. 'Or rather, he said, and his stare became vaguer and his voice softer, 'it is, for me, up. Up to where I can move About, up into a world which has some sort of structure. Ann is awfully bad for me, you know.
'Bad for you —?
'Yes. I ought to have people around me who have wills, people who take what they want. Ann has no will. She saps my energy. She makes me soft.
'If you mean, said Hugh, 'that Ann is unselfish —’
'I don't mean that, said Randall, speaking faster. 'I'm not interested in that. For someone else she may be a bloody little angel. But for me she's the destroyer, and the destroyer is the devil. She's got a kind of openness which makes whatever I do meaningless. Ah, I can't explain.
'If you mean she discourages you from writing —
'She doesn't directly discourage me from anything. It's what she is that does it. And it isn't just writing either. Can't you see me fading away before your eyes, can't everyone see it? «Poor Randall,» they say, «he's hardly there any more.» I need a different world, a formal world. I need form. Christ, how I fade! He laughed suddenly, turning to face Hugh, and took the rose out of his hand.
'Form?
'Yes, yes, form, structure, will, something to encounter, something to make me be. Form, as this rose has it. That's what Ann hasn't got. She's as messy and flabby and open as a bloody dogrose. That's what gets me down. That's what destroys all my imagination, all the bloody footholds. Ah well, you wouldn't understand. You managed all right without fading away. What's it matter. Would you like a drink?
'No, thanks. What do you —?
'I'm suffocating here, said Randall, pouring some whisky with a shaking hand into one of the glasses. 'And I can't stand the mess.
'Well, why don't you —
'Ann's a hysterical woman.
'That's not true, as you perfectly well —
'Never mind, said Randall. 'Sorry, my nerves are all shot to pieces. Do have some whisky, for Christ's sake.
Hugh accepted some and sat down opposite Randall, who had sunk back into his chair looking blank and limp, the rose pendant from one hand. Hugh took a good gulp of the whisky. Some of Randall's momentary wildness had communicated itself to him, and as he gazed across he felt a thrill of pleasurable vitality which seemed to have little to do with the slumped figure of his son or the violence foreboded by those recent words. He looked round Randall's room where a powdery sunshine mingled the strewn books, the faded chintz, the cushions, the coloured prints, the china, of this rather feminine apartment into a pastel-shaded potpourri. He braced himself. 'Was that Emma Sands I saw at the funeral?