There was the sound of a lavatory flushing upstairs. Arnold moved to rise, then fell back. He said, «There you are. She'll be down. I won't bother her just yet. I'm sorry I troubled you, Bradley, there was no reason, I just stupidly panicked.»
I thought, He will soon feel resentment against me because of this. I said, «Naturally I won't mention this business to anyone.»
Arnold, looking a little annoyed, said, «Do what you like. I'm not asking you to be discreet. More sherry? Why did you chuck that doctor chap out so, if I may say so, churlishly?»
«I wanted to talk to you.»
«What was all that he was saying to you just at the end?»
«Oh, nothing.»
«He said something about 'Christian.' Was he talking about your ex-wife? Wasn't that her name? Pity I never met her, but you got rid of her so early on.»
«I'd better go. Rachel will be coming down for the reconciliation scene.»
«Not for another hour, I reckon.»
«I suppose that's one of those skilled inductions you married people live by. All the same-«Don't be evasive, Bradley. Was he talking about your once wife?»
«Yes. He's her brother.»
«Really? Your ex-wife's brother. How fascinating. I wish I'd known, I'd have looked him over more carefully. Are you being reconciled or something?»
«No.»
«Oh come on, something's happening.»
«You love happenings, don't you. She's coming back to London. She's a widow now. It's nothing to do with me.»
«Why not? Aren't you going to see her?»
«Why the hell should I? I don't like her.»
«You are picturesque, Bradley. And so dignified! After all these years. I'd be dying with curiosity. I must say, I'd love to meet your ex-wife. I can never quite see you as a married man.»
«Me neither.»
«What do you mean? You said he was.»
«He was struck off the register.»
«Ex-wife, ex-doctor. How interesting. What was he struck off for?»
«I don't know. Something to do with drugs.»
«But what to do with drugs? What did he do exactly?»
«I don't know!» I said, beginning to be exasperated in a familiar way. «I'm not interested. I never liked him. He's some sort of scoundrel. By the way, I hope to God you didn't talk to him about what really happened tonight. I just told him there'd been an accident.»
«Well, what really happened wasn't very-I dare say he guessed-«I hope not! He's capable of blackmailing you.»
«That man? Oh no!»
«Anyway, he disappeared out of my life long ago, thank God.»
«But now he's back. Bradley, you are censorious, you know.»
«I disapprove of some things, oddly enough.»
«Disapproving of things is all right. But you mustn't disapprove of people. It cuts you off.»
«I want to be cut off from people like Marloe. Being a real person oneself is a matter of setting up limits and drawing lines and saying no. I don't want to be a nebulous bit of ectoplasm straying around in other people's lives. That sort of vague sympathy with everybody precludes any real understanding of anybody.»
«The sympathy needn't be vague-«And it precludes any real loyalty to anybody.»
«One must know the details, justice, after all-«
«I detest chatter and gossip. One must hold one's tongue. Even sometimes just not think about people. Real thoughts come out of silence.»
«Bradley, not that, please. Listen! I was saying justice demands details. You say you aren't interested in why he was struck off the register. You ought to be! You say he's some sort of scoundrel. I'd like to be told what sort. You obviously don't know.»
Making a strong effort to check my exasperation I said, «I was glad to get rid of my wife and he went too. Can't you understand that? It seems simple enough to me.»
«I rather liked him. I asked him to come and see us.»
«Oh Christ!»
«I don't think curiosity is a kind of charity. I think it's a kind of malice.»
«That's what makes a writer, knowing the details.»
«It may make your kind of writer. It doesn't make mine.»
«Here we go again,» said Arnold.
«Why pile up a jumble of 'details'? When you start really imagining something you have to forget the details anyhow, they just get in the way. Art isn't the reproduction of oddments out of life.»
«I never said it was!» said Arnold. «I don't draw direct from life.»
«Your wife thinks you do.»
«Oh that. Oh God.»
«Inquisitive chatter and cataloguing of things one's spotted isn't art.»
«Of course it isn't-«Vague romantic myth isn't art either. Art is imagination. Imagination changes, fuses. Without imagination you have stupid details on one side and empty dreams on the other.»
«Bradley, I know you-«Art isn't chat plus fantasy. Art comes out of endless restraint and silence.»
«If the silence is endless there isn't any art! It's people without creative gifts who say that more means worse!»
«One should only complete something when one feels one's bloody privileged to have it at all. Those who only do what's easy will never be rewarded by-«Nonsense. I write whether I feel like it or not. I complete things whether I think they're perfect or not. Anything else is hypocrisy. I have no muse. That's what being a professional writer is.»
«Then thank God I'm not one.»
«You're such an agonizer, Bradley. You romanticize art. You're a masochist about it, you want to suffer, you want to feel that your inability to create is continuously significant.»
«It is continuously significant.»
«Oh come, be humbler, let cheerfulness break in! I can't think why you worry so. Thinking of yourself as a 'writer' is part of your trouble. Why not just think of yourself as someone who very occasionally writes something, who may in the future write something? Why make a life drama out of it?»
«I don't think of myself as a writer, not like that. I know you do. You're all 'writer.' I don't see myself in that way. I think of myself as an artist, that is, as a dedicated person. And of course it's a life drama. Are you suggesting that I'm some sort of amateur?»
«No, no-«Because if you are-«Bradley, please let's not have this silly old quarrel again, I don't feel strong enough.»
«All right. Sorry. Sorry.»
«You get so worked up and flowery! You sound as if you were quoting something all the time!»
I felt a sizzling warmth in my coat pocket wherein I had thrust the folded manuscript of my review of Arnold's novel. Arnold Baffin's work was a congeries of amusing anecdotes loosely garbled into «racy stories» with the help of half-baked unmeditated symbolism. The dark powers of imagination were conspicuous by their absence. Arnold Baffin wrote too much, too fast. Arnold Baffin was really just a talented journalist.
«Let's start up our Sundays again,» said Arnold. «I so much enjoyed our talks. We must just keep out of those old rat runs. We're both like mechanical toys when certain subjects are mentioned, we go whirring off. Come to lunch next Sunday, why not?»
«I doubt if Rachel will want to see me next Sunday.»
«Why ever not?»
«Anyway I'm going abroad.»
«Of course, I'd forgotten. Where are you going to?»
«Italy. I haven't made detailed plans yet.»
«Well, you aren't going at once, are you? Come next Sunday. And let us know where you'll be in Italy. We're going there too, we might meet.»
«I'll ring up. Better go now, Arnold.»
«All right. Thanks. And don't worry about us. You know.»
He seemed ready to let me go now. In fact we were both of us exhausted.
He waved me off and closed the door quickly. By the time I reached the front gate I could hear his gramophone. He must have hared straight back into the drawing-room and put on a record, like a man racing for his fix. It sounded like Stravinsky or something. The action and the sound set my teeth on edge. I am, I fear, one of those who, according to Shakespeare, are «fit for treasons, stratagems and spoils.»