Julian said, after another short pause, «So you're going away tomorrow? Where to?»
«Abroad.»
«And what am I supposed to do? Just lock this evening away and forget about it?»
«Yes.»
«You think that's possible?»
«You know perfectly well what I mean.»
«I see. And how long will it take you to get over this, as you put it, unfortunate infatuation?»
«I did not use the word 'infatuation.' «
«Suppose I say you just want to go to bed with me?»
«Suppose you say it.»
«You mean you don't care what I think?»
«Not now.»
«Because you've spoilt all the fantasy fun of your love by bringing it out into the real world?»
I got up and got well away from her this time, walking quickly. I saw her as in a vision, her red-and-blue silk tulip dress spread by her legs, striding like a Spartan maid, her shining blue feet twinkling, her arms held out. And now again she had cut me off and we had stopped beside a lorry loaded with white boxes. A unique but unidentified smell, carrying awful associations, entered my mind like a swarm of bees. I leaned against the tail board of the lorry and groaned.
«Bradley, may I touch you?»
«No. Please go away. If you pity me at all, go away.»
«Bradley, you've upset me and you must let me talk this out, I want to understand myself too, you don't conceive-«I know this must nauseate you.»
«You say you aren't thinking about me. Indeed you aren't!»
«What's that bloody smell? What's in those boxes?»
«Strawberries.»
«Strawberries!» The smell of youthful illusion and feverish transient joy.
«You say you love me, but you aren't interested in me in the least.»
«Nope. Now good-bye. Please.»
«You evidently don't think at all that I might return your affection.»
«Nope. What?»
«That I might return your affection.»
«Don't be silly,» I said. «You're being childish.» Pigeons, unsure whether it was day or night, were walking about near our feet. I looked at the pigeons.
«Your love must be very-what's the word-solipsistic if you don't even imagine or speculate about what I might feel.»
«Yes,» I said, «it is solipsistic. It's got to be. It's a game I play by myself.»
«Then you oughtn't to have told me about it.»
«We agree on that.»
«But don't you want to know what I feel?»
«I'm not going to get excited about what you feel,» I said. «You're a very silly young girl. You're flattered and thrilled because an older man is making a fool of himself about you. Possibly this is the first time this has happened to you, and doubtless it won't be the last. Of course you want to explore the situation a bit, probe your feelings, fake up a few emotions. That's no use to me. And of course I realize that you'd have to be a good deal older and tougher and cooler than you are to be able to drop this thing at once as you ought to do. So you can't do what you ought to do any more than I can. What a pity. Now let's get away from these blasted strawberries. I'm going home.»
«Bradley, how old are you?»
The question took me horribly by surprise, but I replied instantly, «Forty-six.»
Why I told this lie is hard to explain. Partly it was just a bitter joke. I was so absorbed in prophetic calculation of this evening's damage, of how much more awful the pains of loss and jealousy and despair would now be; to be asked my age was somehow the last straw, the last dash of salt upon the wound. One could only jest. Anyway surely the girl knew my age. Also however in another part of my mind was the idea: I am not «really» fifty-eight, how can I be. I feel young, I look young. There was an immediate instinct for concealment. I was in fact about to say forty-eight, and then hopped onto forty-six. That seemed a reasonable age, acceptable, right.
Julian was silent for a moment. She seemed surprised. We turned into Bedford Street. Then she said, «Oh, then you are a little older than my father. I thought you were younger.»
I began to laugh helplessly, wailing softly to myself, how funny it was, how exquisitely insane. Of course young people do not reckon ages, do not perceive temporal distance. Over thirty it all looks much the same to them. And I had this deceptively youthful mask. Oh funny funny funny.
«Bradley, don't laugh in that horrible way, what is it? Please let us stop and talk, I must talk to you properly tonight.»
«All right, let us stop and talk.»
«What's this place?»
«Inigo Jones giving us another chance.»
«No one has ever been sick for me before,» said Julian.
«Don't flatter yourself. It was partly Strauss.»
«Good old Strauss.»
I was sitting Egyptian style, square, with my hands on my knees, looking away into the darkness where the shadow-cat had made himself a play-fellow out of the stuff of the night. A warm hand came questing lightly over my tensed knuckles. «Don't, Julian. I really am going in a minute. Please try to make it easy.»
She withdrew her hand. «Bradley, don't be so cold to me.»
«I may behave like a fool, but that's no reason for you to behave like a bloody bitch.»
«To a nunnery go and quickly too. Farewell.»
«I know this amuses you immensely. But please stop, be silent, don't touch.»
«I won't be silent and I will touch.» She put her tormenting hand upon my arm again.
I said, «You are behaving-so badly-I wouldn't have-believed-you could be so-frivolously-unkind.»
I turned round to face her, taking the offending hand in a strong grip just above the wrist. There was a shock wave as I apprehended rather than saw her excited half-smiling face. Then I put my arms very evenly and strongly around her shoulders and kissed her with very great care upon the mouth.
There are moments of paradise which are worth millennia of hell, or so one may think, only one is not always fully conscious of this at the moment in question. I was fully conscious. I knew that even if the ruin of the world were to ensue I had made a good bargain. I had imagined kissing Julian, but I had not prefigured this concentrated intensity of pure joy, this sudden white-hot rapturous pressure of lips upon lips, being upon being.
I was so utterly transported by the quite unexpected experience of holding and kissing her that it was only, I think, in some secondary moment inside this moment that I became aware that she was also holding and kissing me. Both her arms were round my neck and her lips were ardent and her eyes were closed.
I turned my head and began to push her away and she withdrew her arms from my neck. I was aided in releasing her by the innate awkwardness of seated kissing. We drew apart.
«Don't talk lying rubbish.»
«What am I to do? You won't listen properly. You think I'm a child, you think I'm playing, it's not so. Of course I'm confused. I've known you such a long time, all my life. I've always loved you. Please don't interrupt. Oh if you only knew how much I always looked forward to your coming, wanted to talk to you, wanted to tell you things. You never noticed, but lots and lots of things weren't real to me at all until I'd told you about them. If you only knew how much I've always admired you. When I was a child I used to say I wanted to marry you. Do you remember? I'm sure you don't. You've been my ideal man for ever and ever. And this isn't just a silly child's thing, it isn't even a sort of crush, it's a deep real love. Of course it's a love I've not questioned or thought about or even named until quite lately-but I have questioned it and thought about it-as soon as I felt and knew that I was grown up. You see, my love has grown up too. I've so much wanted to be with you, I've so much wanted to get to know you properly, since I've been a woman. Why do you think I made all that fuss about discussing the play? I did want to discuss the play. But I much more wanted and needed your affection and your attention. God, I wanted just to look at you. You can't think how I've longed to touch you and kiss you sometimes in these last, oh years, only I didn't dare to and thought I never would. And lately, oh ever since that day you saw me tearing up the letters, I've been thinking about you almost all the time-and so especially since last week when I-when I had a sort of premonition about-what you told me tonight-I've thought about nothing else but you.»