When we suddenly stopped, I recognized the building with faint surprise. Though the entrance door was on my side, I didn’t move but remained in my seat, waiting for my companion to get out first, assuming that he would come in with me, so inconceivable was it to me that I should be parted from him. Some moments passed before began to realize from his immobility that he had no such intention — and even then I couldn’t quite believe in the obvious fact but made a protesting sound, before asking in so many words whether he wouldn’t come in for a bit, at the same time silently begging him with my eyes not to deprive me yet of the armour of his presence, without which I was at everyone’s mercy.
Replying to the words only, he said, quite kindly, that he was very tired and that I must excuse him. Then, as I didn’t do it myself, he leaned across me and opened the door; it swung back with a curious sort of finality I couldn’t resist, reluctantly getting out to stand on the pavement. I must have still been half dreaming, for I closed the door again and folded my arms on it, looking in at his faintly illuminated face, calm and detached as that of a statue. It was the sight of his indifferent expression that at last really woke me. And now, taking me by surprise, a totally unexpected resentment swept over me, because he was not involved but about to drive off and forget me till he next happened to have nothing better to do than to pay me a visit — and how long would that be?
He gave me now a slightly inquiring glance, wondering, doubtless, why I didn’t get out of the way. I was evidently more strung up than I realized, swept by a sudden emotion I couldn’t control. Before I could stop myself, I’d blurted out the first words to come into my head: ‘I don’t want to live in your flat any more.’ I remember they rather surprised me. I must actually have stamped my foot in impotent infantile rage, for I have an impression of the lifeless jarring hardness of the paving stones. Thus ludicrously expressed, my sudden anger as suddenly ended, leaving me thoroughly dismayed by my own behaviour, foolishly confronting Spector’s cool and astonished gaze.
‘You need not. I told you at the start you were to live as and where you chose. I merely tried to help you, not to interfere in your affairs.’
His cold voice horrified me. Stammering and incoherent,
I began to apologize, leaning into the car, showing my face, in which he could have read all I was unable to put into words: my penitence, my submission, my utter dependence on his goodwill. But he didn’t look at me, and his own face remained so cold and stern that I was quite demoralized and would have gone on indefinite with my apologies if he hadn’t cut them short.
‘The flat’s there — take it or leave it. No one else can live in it, anyhow.’ Still without turning his head in my direction he said good-night in the same chilly tone. My last glimpse was of his unchanging profile, which might have been hewn out of rock, as my lips shaped an automatic good-night, and I let my arms fall hopelessly at my sides.
I was not very far from tears just then. Whether by association or some other means, he always had the power to reduce me to the emotional status of childhood. And what I felt were a child’s sensations: the helplessness, loneliness, inarticulateness; the fear of being forgotten, of not being loved, of being misunderstood — the fear that nobody ever would care or would understand.
The great car shot forward abruptly, driving a sudden tremendous blast of air against me, so that I staggered back, the lights swimming dizzily in front of my eyes. And when my vision steadied again, the street was quite empty.
The next day I was deeply depressed, not only on account of this disastrous end to the evening but because I’d told Link so definitely I would leave the flat, and during the night I’d decided, for some obscure reason, that my only hope of reinstating myself with Spector was to stay on there.
Out of a muddled sense of obligation I was always first in the office, as if to start work before the others was the least I could do, since I enjoyed the inestimable privilege of living in the building. On this particular morning, Link happened to come in next, and at the sight of him my loneliness and misery overflowed in a sudden longing for human contact; without stopping to think how odd my confidences would sound to someone I scarcely knew, I impulsively started to tell him, while we had the room to ourselves, why I couldn’t give up the flat, though I’d really meant to do so yesterday. He listened patiently while I tried to explain the vital part Spector’s goodwill played in my life and how I was afraid of losing it if I left the home with which he’d provided me. It was all simple and self-evident in my mind; but I knew, without looking at my hearer’s bewildered face, that I wasn’t succeeding in making it clear. Indeed, it seemed quite impossible to convey the peculiar significance of my relations with Spector, of which I’d never spoken to anybody before and which I began to suspect nobody but myself would ever be able to understand. I was relieved when the others came in, interrupting my involved, unintelligible speech.
‘I told you he might not like you to leave’ was Link’s only comment, made with no hint of disapproval or of reproach, while the rest of the staff settled down to the day’s work. I looked at him gratefully, pleasantly surprised by his tolerance, and he acknowledged my glance with an understanding smile, which suddenly warmed me, so that some of my depression evaporated and I felt better. My long-winded explanation had achieved something valuable, after alclass="underline" for the first time since leaving school I seemed to have made a contact with someone.
Later, when Link again proposed lunching together, I gladly accepted, my pleasure only dimmed by the fear of having to give, in greater detail, my reasons for not leaving the flat — I myself hadn’t looked into them very closely, instinctively aware that they wouldn’t stand careful examination. However, he tactfully kept off the subject — nor did he ever, as far as I can recall, introduce it again. I was more than grateful to him for keeping silent, as by doing so he seemed tacitly to agree with me, exonerating me from blame.
Everyone, I suppose, knows those periods when everything in life seems to conform to a pattern, as though every event and meeting were preordained and carefully timed by a thoughtful providence. Such a period began for me after my unfortunate evening with Spector, from whom I heard nothing more, so that after a while I was forced to conclude I must have alienated him to the point of losing interest in me altogether. For almost my whole life I’d considered the loss of his friendship (if that’s the right word) the greatest catastrophe imaginable. Yet now, when the disaster had actually taken place, I suffered far less than I’d expected, events in the outer world all conspiring to soften the blow.
First and foremost, my association with Link provided what was most essential for my distraction: a perfectly normal companion of my own age and one whose special qualities, derived from solid good sense rather than brilliance, were especially useful to me at this time.
A better person couldn’t have been found to take me out of myself. And his stability saved me from extremes of emotion, keeping things in perspective and providing me with a sort of ballast out of the steadiness of his own character. Though rather reserved, he was by no means unsociable, and I soon found myself sharing many of his activities. He took me to his home, where his sisters supplied the lightness and gaiety I might have missed in him — the quiet one, as they called him.
I became a frequent visitor there, fascinated by this introduction to the happy family background I’d never known but for which I’d always felt an unconscious longing. It was so different from anything in my experience that my previous life began to seem like another existence; its happenings grew dim and unimportant, just as the world of imagination faded out like the memory of a dream in the sun, now that I no longer felt in need of an escape from reality.