George stared at the priest for a moment or two as if he were thinking over what had been said. Then he said, ‘Oh,’ and turned suddenly and went from the room. The priest ran after him. The front door banged.
Father Bernard came back into his sitting-room and stood still for a while. It was getting dark outside and he turned on another lamp. Then he telephoned the Druidsdale number and heard Stella’s calm voice saying that yes, George had been there and was now gone, and yes of course she was all right.
He sat for a while thinking about George and feeling softened and exalted. He wondered to himself, did I give George the right answer? What did he want? He took up his Prayer Book, and remembered Miss Dunbury holding the torch so that she could read his lips during the power cut. He knelt down and read aloud the prayer for those troubled in conscience. ‘Oh Blessed Lord, the Father of mercies and the God of all comforts, we beseech thee look down in pity and compassion upon this thy afflicted servant. Give him a right understanding of himself and of thy threats and promises, that he may neither cast away his confidence in thee, nor place it anywhere but in thee. Give him strength against all his temptations, and heal all his distempers. Break not the bruised reed, nor quench the smoking flax. Shut not up thy tender mercies in displeasure, but make him to hear of joy and gladness, that the bones which thou hast broken may rejoice.’
After his flight from Belmont, Tom walked slowly back to Travancore Avenue. He had to keep having to stop and gasp a little and hold his chest. He felt as if something alien and too big for him had been encased in his body and were clumsily and painfully trying to get out, as if his whole body wanted to vomit. He felt that he ought to do something difficult and awful and perhaps fatal, but he tried not to think about this. He absorbed himself in his physical feelings and the strange new pain.
When he reached Travancore Avenue he went upstairs and lay on his bed, but found this position tormenting. He sat on his bed, he sat on a chair. He said out loud in a dull echoing voice to which he listened with surprise, ‘It was here and now it’s gone, I’ve lost it, it’s gone away, I shall mourn for it and that’s all there’ll be, that’s all there’ll ever be.’
At last he did attempt to think. Today, this very afternoon, Hattie had been still in Ennistone. What did that mean? Did it mean anything that made any real difference to him, or did it only matter because it made him so terribly sick? Had he not finished with it all? It had never really been anything anyway. It was totally artificial, a maniac’s fantasy. He had rejected her, she had rejected him. Even this was too portentous. They had, to satisfy the old fool, politely said hello and good-bye, they had passed with a casual wave. It had been all over before John Robert’s anger. He must keep that clear in his head, he must keep John Robert out of it. Though how could that make sense, since it was all his idea and only his idea? Tom’s sense of time was all mixed up, he could not remember what had happened on what day, and what had happened after which. He could not recall why he had felt it so necessary to go to the Slipper House on the day of the ‘riot’. He must have wanted to go to see Hattie again. And then she was gone, she and John Robert had returned to America, and he was rid of the whole nightmare, he was set free. Had he felt relieved? That was the end of the story and he could rest at last. But what was he resting from, and into what awful renewed sense of possibility and demand and power was he now awakening? Now he was free? Was it that he felt that he still might, if he would, have it, gain it, win it, after all? But what was it, of which he had been speaking just now, this thing which evidently he desired so? Was it to do with John Robert, John Robert’s esteem or approval or even affection? Or was it his own esteem, some image of himself as a hero, which was missing? Well, it was missing, but he could have noticed that loss and regarded it as temporary. What was it about Alex’s story of Hattie running down the garden and trying to get into the Slipper House which had driven him so absolutely mad? It was not even Hattie really that he was thinking about now: that image of the running girl seemed to have usurped her real being in his bewitched mind.
The shock was partly to do with time. He had settled into thinking they were gone, into a state of protected impossibility. He felt now that he had even recovered a little as a result of William’s funeral and the phenomenon at the Baths. These had been events, barriers between him and that terrible pair. There had been, it now seemed to him, a little touch of elegiac sadness in the pain he had felt as he watched the jet d’eau, a curative energy in his thought of Hattie as removed from him absolutely, gone into the invisible world. Even remorse was a challenge to be met. Now he had been suddenly jolted back into a previous era with all his tasks undone, with it all to do again. But what were these tasks and this hideous freedom and this it with which some new sense of possibility tormented him so? The thought that she was still in Ennistone was somehow unbearable. Oh God, if only she were far away! But then perhaps she was, she could have been here in the morning and be gone now. And if so he would be back where he was, and wasn’t that where he wanted to be? All he had to do was to allow the time to pass. He looked at his watch. It was nine-thirty.
Tom now lay down again on the bed and tried to let his thoughts wander. He must not concentrate. If he did … he might be led … to decide something … John Robert had appointed Tom to be Hattie’s protector, her knight. But what was he supposed to protect Hattie from? Tom was far from guessing that the answer was, from John Robert himself. Yet intuitively he wandered round the idea at a distance. He thought, he knows he can’t look after her himself, it’s like living with a monster, a big rough animal, she might come to harm accidentally. Oh, let her not come to harm. But not to think like that, remember William dead and the water flying up and the way it had burnt his hand, he could still feel the bum. What Tom was all the time trying to keep out of his mind by the wandering of his thoughts was the terrible idea that there was nothing in the world to stop him going round to Hare Lane now and finding out whether Hattie was still in Ennistone. But, no, he thought, there is nothing I can do for them or with them now. I must simply stay quiet until it is all too late, and oh let that be soon. But how can I know, it may already be too late, they may already have gone, and I am suffering simply from not knowing. He thought, I could go round to the Ennistone Rooms and ask someone, they might know, John Robert had a room there, so someone said … And as he was thinking this he fell asleep.
‘Tom, Tom, wake up, Tom dear, wake up.’
Tom rolled over and sat up. A bright light was on in the room and a woman was standing beside the bed. Tom stared at her, not recognizing her. Then he knew her. It was Judy Osmore.
‘Greg, come here, here’s Tom, he was fast asleep. Tom, we’ve come back, did you get our letter?’
‘No,’ said Tom. He put his feet down and stood up, felt giddy and sat down again on the edge of the bed.
‘Well, we only sent it last - I forget - we did everything in such a hurry - we’ve had the most wonderful time.’
Gregory Osmore came in. He was looking tired and not best pleased to find Tom there.
‘Hello, Tom, still here?’
‘Of course he’s still here!’ said Judy.
‘Hello, Ju, hello Greg, great to see you,’ said Tom. ‘Have you just got back?’
‘Yes, we feel terribly funny, don’t we, Greg, jet lag you know, we flew all the way from Dallas, we saw the place where Kennedy was shot, we flew non-stop and we’ve been drinking all the way, I just can’t think what time it is here, what time is it?’