I said, ‘I won’t leave you. I promise.’ Another promise to keep, and when I had made it I couldn’t bear to be with him any more. He’d won and Maurice had lost, and I hated him for his victory. Would I have hated Maurice for his? I went upstairs and tore up the letter so small nobody could put it together again, and I kicked the suitcase under the bed because I was too tired to start unpacking, and I started writing this down. Maurice’s pain goes into his writing: you can hear the nerves twitch through his sentences. Well, if pain can make a writer, I’m learning, Maurice, too. I wish I could talk to you just once. I can’t talk to Henry. I can’t talk to anyone. Dear God, let me talk.
Yesterday I bought a crucifix, a cheap ugly one because I had to do it quickly. I blushed when I asked for it. Somebody might have seen me in the shop. They ought to have opaque glass in their doors like rubber-goods shops. When I lock the door of my room, I can take it out from the bottom of my jewel-case. I wish I knew a prayer that wasn’t me, me, me. Help me. Let me be happier. Let me die soon. Me, me, me.
Let me think of those awful spots on Richard’s cheek. Let me see Henry’s face with the tears falling. Let me forget me. Dear God, I’ve tried to love and I’ve made such a hash of it. If I could love you, I’d know how to love them. I believe the legend. I believe you were born. I believe you died for us. I believe you are God. Teach me to love. I don’t mind my pain. It’s their pain I can’t stand. Let my pain go on and on, but stop theirs. Dear God, if only you could come down from your Cross for a while and let me get up there instead. If I could suffer like you, I could heal like you.
4 February 1946.
Henry took a day off work. I don’t know why. He gave me lunch and we went to the National Gallery and we had an early dinner and went to the theatre. He was like a parent coming down to the school and taking the child out. But he’s the child.
5 February 1946.
Henry’s planning a holiday abroad for us in the spring. He can’t make up his mind between the chateaux of the Loire or Germany where he could make a report on the morale of the Germans under bombing. I never want the spring to come. There I go again. I want. I don’t want. If I could love You, I could love Henry. God was made man. He was Henry with his astigmatism, Richard with his spots, not only Maurice. If I could love a leper’s sores, couldn’t I love the boringness of Henry? But I’d turn from the leper if he were here, I suppose, as I shut myself away from Henry. I want the dramatic always. I imagine I’m ready for the pain of your nails, and I can’t stand twenty-four hours of maps and Michelin guides. Dear God, I’m no use. I’m still the same bitch and fake. Clear me out of the way.
6 February 1946.
Today I had a terrible scene with Richard. He was telling me of the contradictions in the Christian churches, and I was trying to listen, but I wasn’t succeeding very well, and he noticed it. He said to me suddenly, ‘What do you come here for?’ and before I could catch myself, I said, ‘To see you.’
‘I thought you came to learn,’ he said, and I told him that’s what I meant.
I knew he didn’t believe me, and I thought his pride would be hurt, and he’d be angry, but he wasn’t angry at all. He got up from his chintzy chair and came and sat with me on the chintzy sofa on the side where his cheek wouldn’t show. He said, ‘It’s meant a lot to me, seeing you every week,’ and then I knew that he was going to make love to me. He put his hand on my wrist and asked, ‘Do you like me? ‘
‘Yes, Richard, of course,’ I said, ‘or I wouldn’t be here.’
‘Will you marry me?’ he asked, and his pride made him ask it as though he were asking whether I’d take another cup of tea.
‘Henry might object,’ I said, trying to laugh it off.
‘Nothing will make you leave Henry?’ and I thought angrily, if I haven’t left him for Maurice, why the hell should I be expected to leave him for you?
‘I’m married.’
‘That doesn’t mean anything to me or you.’
‘Oh yes, it does,’ I said. I had to tell him some time.
‘I believe in God,’ I said, ‘and all the rest. You’ve taught me to. You and Maurice.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘You’ve always said the priests taught you to disbelieve. Well, it can work the other way too.’
He looked at his beautiful hands - he had those left. He said very slowly, ‘I don’t care what you believe. You can believe the whole silly bag of tricks for all I care. I love you, Sarah.’
‘I’m sorry,’ I said.
‘I love you more than I hate all that. If I had children by you, I’d let you pervert them.’
‘You shouldn’t say that.’
‘I’m not a rich man. It’s the only bribe I can offer, giving up my faith.’
‘I’m in love with somebody else, Richard.’
‘You can’t love him much if you feel bound by that silly vow.’
I said drearily, ‘I’ve done my best to break it, but it didn’t work.’
‘Do you think me a fool?’
‘Why should I?’
‘To expect you to love a man with this.’ He turned his bad cheek towards me. ‘You believe in God,’ he said. ‘That’s easy. You are beautiful. You have no complaint, but why should I love a God who gave a child this?’
‘Dear Richard,’ I said, ‘there’s nothing so very bad…’ I shut my eyes and put my mouth against the cheek. I felt sick for a moment because I fear deformity, and he sat quiet and let me kiss him, and I thought I am kissing pain and pain belongs to You as happiness never does. I love You in Your pain. I could almost taste metal and salt in the skin, and I thought, How good You are. You might have killed us with happiness, but You let us be with You in pain.
I felt him move abruptly away and I opened my eyes. He said, ‘Good-bye.’
‘Good-bye, Richard.’
‘Don’t come back,’ he said, ‘I can’t bear your pity.’
‘It’s not pity.’
‘I’ve made a fool of myself.’
I went away. It wasn’t any good staying. I couldn’t tell him I envied him, carrying the mark of pain around with him like that, seeing You in the glass every day instead of this dull human thing we call beauty.
10 February 1946.
I have no need to write to You or talk to You, that’s how I began a letter to You a little time ago, and I was ashamed of myself and I tore it up because it seemed such a silly thing to write a letter to You who know everything before it comes into my mind. Did I ever love Maurice as much before I loved You? Or was it really You I loved all the time? Did I touch You when I touched him? Could I have touched You if I hadn’t touched him first, touched him as I never touched Henry, anybody? And he loved me and touched me as he never did any other woman. But was it me he loved, or You? For he hated in me the things You hate. He was on Your side all the time without knowing it. You willed our separation, but he willed it too. He worked for it with his anger and his jealousy, and he worked for it with his love. For he gave me so much love, and I gave him so much love that soon there wasn’t anything left, when we’d finished, but You. For either of us. I might have taken a lifetime spending a little love at a time, eking it out here and there, on this man and that. But even the first time, in the hotel near Paddington, we spent all we had. You were there, teaching us to squander, like you taught the rich man, so that one day we might have nothing left except this love of You. But You are too good to me. When I ask You for pain, You give me peace. Give it him too. Give him my peace - he needs it more.
12 February 1946.