Blackadder ate hake abstemiously. Leonora ate lobster and talked about Kernemet.
"So sad, only the foundations and the orchard wall, nothing left. The menhir's still there but the house is quite gone. Do you know what happened to LaMotte after she came here, Professor Cropper?"
"No. There are some letters in America in my possession, which describe her whereabouts in 1861. But about the time you speak of, the end of i860, no. But I shall find out."
He wielded a claw-cracker and a serpent-tongued pick. The heap of debris on his plate was higher than the original creatures had been, every sweet white morsel extracted.
"I intend to have those letters if I can," he said. "And I intend to find out the rest."
"The rest?"
"What became of their child. What they concealed from us. I intendto know. " -^
"It may lie concealed forever in the grave," said Blackadder, raising his glass to the fierce and melancholy face across the table. "May I propose a toast? Randolph Henry Ash and Christabel La-Motte. May they rest in peace." Cropper raised his glass. "I'll drink to that. But I shall find out."
They parted at the foot of the stairs. Cropper bowed to Blackadder and Leonora and took himself off. Leonora put a hand on Blackadder's arm.
"He's kinda scarey, so intense, he takes it all personally. As though they did it to deceive him. Personally.”
“So they probably did. Among others. Shakespeare foresaw him, writing that curse."
"I'm glad I scraped his great hearse. Do you want to come up with me? I feel all sad, we could comfort each other. It makes me sentimental, the sea and the sun."
"It's nice of you, but no thank you. I'm touched and grateful and glad you brought me here-I shall probably regret it forever-but better not. I'm not-" he wanted to say "up to it" or "in your class" or simply "strong enough," but all those sounded vaguely insulting.
"Not to worry. Pity to complicate a good working relationship, hunh?" She kissed him good night, with considerable force, and strode away.
The next day, they were driving quietly along a side road, having decided to make a small detour and take in the chapel with Gauguin's wooden Christ, when they heard behind them a strange and fearsome sound. It combined a cough with a regular rhythmic thump followed by a scraping wheeze. It was like a beast in pain, or a creaking cart with an uneven wheel. It was the Mercedes with a crushed mudguard and an obviously damaged fan-belt, which overtook them, grinding, at the next junction. Its driver was again invisible, its wound painfully prominent.
"Horrid," said Leonora. "Sinister."
"Cropper is the Ankou," said Blackadder, with sudden wit.
"Of course he is," said Leonora. "We should have known that."
"He won't catch Bailey and Michell at that rate."Nor shall we."There isn't much point to catching them, I suppose, really. We could have a picnic.”
“Let's do that."
Chapter 24
Maud sat at her desk in Lincoln and copied out a useful passage of Freud for her paper on metaphor:
It is only when a person is completely in love that the main quota of libido is transferred on to the object and the object to some extent takes the place of the ego.
She wrote: "Of course ego, id and super-ego, indeed the libido itself, are metaphorical hypostasisations of what must be seen as" She crossed out "seen" and wrote "could be felt as." Both were metaphors. She wrote: "could be explained as events in an undifFerentiated body of experience." Body was a metaphor. She had written "experience" twice, which was ugly. "Event" was possibly a metaphor, too.
She was wholly aware of Roland, sitting behind her on the floor, wearing a white towelling dressing-gown, leaning up against the white sofa on which he had slept during his first visit, and on which he slept now. She felt the fuzz of his soft black hair, starting up above his brow, with imaginary fingers. She felt his frown between her eyes. He felt his occupation was gone; she felt his feeling. He felt he waslurking.
If he went out of the room it would be grey and empty.
If he did not go out of it, how could she concentrate?
It was October. Her term had begun. He had not gone back to Blackadder. He had not gone back to his own flat, except once, after repeated telephone calls that failed to rouse Val, to make sure she was not dead. There had been a large notice, propped against an empty milk bottle: GONE AWAY FOR SOME DAYS.
He was writing lists of words. He was writing lists of words that resisted arrangement into the sentences of literary criticism or theory. He had hopes-more, intimations of imminence-of writing poems, but so far had got no further than lists. These were, however, compulsive and desperately important. He didn't know whether Maud understood-saw-their importance, or thought they were silly. He was wholly aware of Maud. He could feel her feeling that he felt his occupation was gone, and that he waslurking.
He wrote: blood, clay, terracotta, carnation.
He wrote: blond, burning bush, scattering.
He annotated this, "scattering as in Donne, 'extreme and scattering bright,' nothing to do with scattergraphs." He wrote: anemone, coral, coal, hair, hairs, nail, nails, fur, owl, isinglass, scarab.
He rejected wooden, point, link, and other ambivalent words, also blot and blank, though all these sprang (another word he hesitated over) to mind. He was uncertain about the place of verbs in this primitive language. Spring, springs, springes, sprung, sprang.
Arrow, bough (not branch, not root), leaf-mould, water, sky. Vocabularies are crossing circles and loops. We are defined by the lines we choose to cross or to be confined by.
He said, "I'll go out, so you can think."
"No need."
"I'd better. Can I buy anything?"
"No. It's seen to."I could get a job, a job in a bar or a hospital or something."Take time to think."There isn't much time."One can make time."I feel I'm simply lurking."I know. Things will change."I don't know."The telephone rang."Is that Dr Bailey?"Yes."Is Roland Michell there?"
(IT) C "
It s tor you. "Who?”
“Young, male and well-bred. Who is that, please?”
“You won't know me. My name is Euan Maclntyre. I'm a solicitor. I wanted to talk to you-not to Roland-or at least Roland will be very welcome, I've got things to say to him, too. But I've got something interesting to communicate to you. "
Maud covered the mouthpiece and communicated this to Roland. "How about dinner in the White Hart at say seven-thirty to night? Both of you.”
“We'd better," said Roland. "Thank you very much," said Maud. "We'd love to.”
“I don't know about love," said Roland.
They went into the bar in the White Hart that evening with some apprehension. It was the first time they had gone out publicly as a couple, if that was what they were. Maud was dressed in bluebell blue, her hair well-anchored, gleaming. Roland looked at her with love and despair. He had nothing in the world but Maud-no home, no job, no future-and these very negatives made it impossible that Maud would long go on taking him seriously or desiring his presence.