I followed him all the way, keeping him in sight. So many times we had been together to the Pontefract Arms. I knew which bar he’d go to, what he’d order. Should I go in after him, I wondered, and order mine and see him turn and everything would start over again? The mornings would be full of hope because I could telephone him as soon as Henry left, and there would be evenings to look forward to when Henry warned me that he would be home late. And perhaps now I would leave Henry. I’d done my best. I had no money to bring Maurice and his books brought in little more than enough to keep himself, but on typing alone, with me to help, we should save fifty pounds a year. I don’t fear poverty. Sometimes it’s easier to cut your coat to fit the cloth than lie on the bed you’ve made.
I stood at the door and watched him go up to the bar. If he turns round and sees me, I told God, I’ll go in, but he didn’t turn round. I began to walk home, but I couldn’t keep him out of my mind. For nearly two years we had been strangers. I hadn’t known what he was doing at any particular hour of the day, but now he was a stranger no longer because I knew as in the old days where he was. He would have one more beer and then he would go back to the familiar room to write. The habits of his day were still the same and I loved them as one loves an old coat. I felt protected by his habits. I never want strangeness.
And I thought, how happy I can make him and how easily. I longed again to see him laugh with happiness. Henry was out. He had had a lunch engagement after the office, and he had telephoned to say that he wouldn’t be in till seven. I would wait till half past six and then I would telephone Maurice. I would say, I am coming for tonight and all the other nights. I’m tired of being without you. I would pack the large blue suitcase and the small brown one. I would take enough clothes for a month’s holiday. Henry was civilized and by the end of a month the legal aspects would have been settled, the immediate bitterness would be over, and anything else I needed from the house could be fetched at leisure. There wouldn’t be much bitterness: it wasn’t as though we were still lovers. Marriage had become friendship, and the friendship after a little could go on the same as before.
Suddenly I felt free and happy. I’m not going to worry about you any more, I said to God as I walked across the Common, whether you exist or whether you don’t exist, whether you gave Maurice a second chance or whether I imagined everything. Perhaps this is the second chance I asked for him. I’m going to make him happy, that’s my second vow, God, and stop me if you can, stop me if you can.
I went upstairs to my room and I began to write to Henry. Darling Henry, I wrote, but that sounded hypocritical. Dearest was a lie, and so it had to be like an acquaintance, ‘Dear Henry.’ So, ‘Dear Henry,’ I wrote, ‘I’m afraid this will be rather a shock to you, but for the last five years I’ve been in love with Maurice Bendrix. For two years nearly we haven’t seen each other or written but it doesn’t work. I can’t live happily without him, so I’ve gone away. I know I haven’t been much of a wife for a long time, and I haven’t been a mistress at all since June 1944, so everybody’s the worse off air round. I thought once I could just have this love affair and it would peter slowly and contentedly out, but it hasn’t worked that way. I love Maurice more than I did in 1939. I’ve been childish, I suppose, but now I realize that sooner or later one has to choose or one makes a mess in all directions. Good-bye. God bless you.’ I crossed out ‘God bless you’ very deeply so that it couldn’t be read. It sounded smug, and anyway Henry doesn’t believe in God. Then I wanted to put Love, but the word sounded unsuitable although I knew it was true. I do love Henry in my shabby way.
I put the letter in an envelope and marked it Very Personal. I thought that would warn Henry not to open it in anybody’s presence - for he might bring home a friend, and I didn’t want his pride hurt. I pulled out the suitcase and began to pack and then I suddenly thought, where did I put the letter? I found it at once, but then I thought, suppose in my hurry I forget to put it in the hall and Henry waits and waits for me to come home. So I carried it downstairs to put it in the hall. My packing was nearly done - only an evening dress to fold, and Henry wasn’t due for another half an hour.
I had just put the letter on the hall table on top of the afternoon’s post when I heard a key in the door. I snatched it up again, I don’t know why, and then Henry came in. He looked ill and harassed. He said, ‘Oh, you’re here?’ and walked straight by me and into his study. I waited a moment and then I followed. I thought, I’ll have to give him the letter now: it’s going to need more courage. When I opened the door I saw him sitting in his chair by the fire he hadn’t bothered to light, and he was crying.
‘What is it, Henry?’ I asked him. He said, ‘Nothing I’ve got a bad headache, that’s all.’
I lit the fire for him. I said, ‘I’ll get you some Veganin.’
‘Don’t bother,’ he said. ‘It’s better already.’
‘What sort of day have you had?’
‘Oh, much the same as usual. A bit tiresome.’
‘Who was your lunch date?’
‘Bendrix.’
‘Bendrix?’ I said.
‘Why not Bendrix? He gave me lunch at his club. A horrible lunch.’
I came behind him and put my hand on his forehead. It was an odd thing to be doing just before leaving him for ever. He used to do that to me when we were first married and I had terrible nervous headaches because nothing was going right. I forgot for a moment that I would only pretend to be cured that way. He put up his own hand and pressed mine harder against his forehead. ‘I love you,’ he said. ‘Do you know that?’
‘Yes,’ I said. I could have hated him for saying it: it was like a claim. If you really loved me, I thought, you’d behave like any other injured husband. You’d get angry and your anger would set me free.
‘I can’t do without you,’ he said. Oh yes, you can, I wanted to protest. It will be inconvenient, but you can. You changed your newspaper once and you soon got used to it. These are words, conventional words of a conventional husband, and they don’t mean anything at alclass="underline" then I looked up at his face in the mirror and he was crying still.
‘Henry,’ I said, ‘what’s wrong?’
‘Nothing. I told you.’
‘I don’t believe you. Has something happened at the office?’
He said with unfamiliar bitterness, ‘What could happen there?’
‘Did Bendrix upset you in some way?’
‘Of course not. How could he?’
I wanted to take away his hand, but he held it there. I was afraid of what he’d say next: of the unbearable burdens he was laying on my conscience. Maurice would be home by now: if Henry hadn’t come in, I would have been with him in five minutes. I would have seen happiness instead of misery. If you don’t see misery you don’t believe in it. You can give anyone pain from a distance. Henry said, ‘My dear, I haven’t been much of a husband.’
‘I don’t know what you mean,’ I said.
‘I’m dull for you. My friends are dull. We no longer -you know - do anything together.’
‘It has to stop sometime,’ I said, ‘in any marriage. We are good friends.’ That was to be my escape line. When he agreed I would give him the letter, I would tell him what I was going to do, I would walk out of the house. But he missed his cue, and I’m still here, and the door has closed again against Maurice. Only I can’t put the blame on God this time. I closed the door myself. Henry said, ‘I can never think of you as a friend. You can do without a friend,’ and he looked back at me from the mirror and he said, ‘Don’t leave me, Sarah. Stick it a few more years. I’ll try…’ but he couldn’t think himself what he’d try. Oh, it would have been better for both of us if I’d left him years ago, but I can’t hit him when he’s there and now he’ll always be there because I’ve seen what his misery looks like.