A Severed Head

'I am not one of your primitive savages, Dr Klein,' I said, 'and I do not believe in vendettas.' With that I recalled how she herself had been called primitive. Strained back against the door, close to me now, she seemed something black and untouchable.

'You ca

I listened to her with great attention. I wanted to understand exactly what she meant. 'You said earlier that you thought they both wanted to back out,' I said, 'but what you say now could imply that if I were violent it might make them happier with each other.'

Honor Klein gave a tired gesture. The tension left her body and she drooped, moving a little away from the door. 'Could imply, could imply!' she said. 'Where logic breaks down anything can imply anything. While you are all so soft nothing can be clear. It seems to me now that you do not really want your wife back after all. And as I am surprised that you have not yet told me, it is nothing to do with me, your side of the matter. If you want to let them steal your mind and organize you as if you were an infant I suppose that is your affair. All I say is that only lies and evil come from letting people off.'

I looked at her harsh and melancholy profile. I said, 'I don't imagine that you ever let people off, do you, Dr Klein?'

She turned towards me and suddenly smiled, revealing strong white teeth, her eyes narrowing further to two black luminous slits. She said, 'With me people pay as they earn. You have been patient. Good morning, Mr Lynch-Gibbon.' She opened the door.

Ten

'Now you're in a fix, aren't you, you old double-dealer?' said Georgie.

I could have wept with relief. I loved her so much at that moment that I nearly knelt down then and there and proposed. I kissed her hands humbly. 'Yes, I am in a fix,' I said, 'but you'll be kind to me, won't you? You'll let me off?'

'I love you, Martin,' said Georgie. 'You never seem to get this simple point into your old head.'

'And you don't mind if we keep our thing secret still? I just can't cope otherwise, my darling.'

'I don't understand why,' said Georgie. 'But if you want to. For myself, I'd like to publish our liaison in The Times!'

'It would hurt Antonia so if she knew,' I said. 'And the least I can do is make things easy for her. The way we've managed it all is really a remarkable achievement. Without bitterness, I mean. I don't want to add any more strains at present.'

'This «without bitterness» idea seems to me rather obscene,' said Georgie. 'And I suspect you of wanting to play the virtuous aggrieved husband so as to keep Palmer and Antonia in your power. But perhaps I underrate your goodness!'

'In my power!' I said. 'I'm in their power, it seems. No, it's all much simpler. I just want to finish the thing off perfectly without any more complications. If Antonia knew, she'd want long intimate talks about it. She'd want to understand. And I couldn't bear that. Don't you see, little imbecile?'

'You speak of «the thing» as if it were a work of art,' said Georgie. 'Sometimes I think you're a very odd fish, Martin. However, I do see, about the intimate talks. Promise you'll never have an intimate talk about me with Antonia?'

'I promise, my darling, I promise!'

'Anyhow, don't worry,' said Georgie. 'You don't have to do anything special, here I mean. It's only me.'

'Thank God it's only you,' I said, 'and thank God for you, Georgie. You save my sanity. I knew you would.'

'Well now stop looking so tall,' said Georgie. She stroked down the tip of her nose. The action and the words were beautifully familiar. I blessed her in my heart and sat down at her feet.

Georgie was sitting back in the shabby green armchair in her lodgings. A cold staring afternoon light revealed the room, the humpy half-made bed, the bowl of cigarette ends, the table strewn with opened letters and dirty glasses and half-eaten biscuits and books on economics. She was wearing very tight oatmeal-coloured trousers and a white shirt, and had her hair in a chaotic bun. Her face was pale, and in the creamy transparent pallor of her skin the rose of her cheek glowed faint and deep. A few golden freckles, revealed in the cold light, were scattered on the bridge of her uptilted nose, which she was still absently mauling. Her large blue-grey eyes, lucid with intelligence and honesty, held my gaze steadily. She was wearing no make-up. Yet even as I adored her, looking to see in those eyes which held nothing but good will, beyond the granular iris some more distant shapes of my destiny, I realized that I did not desire her.

I was intensely grateful to her. It now seemed absurd to imagine that, being herself, she could have reacted otherwise, less humanely, with less sheer sense and kindness. I must have been in some irrational state of fear to have been so nervous about Georgie's reactions. I had feared some persecution of her love, the exaction now of pledges half given. But she was all gentleness and filled with so genuine a concern to save me here and now from distress and anxiety; and as I thanked her from my heart I reflected a little guiltily that after all there was nothing very much that Georgie could do to me. Her power was limited. Here at least I was free.

'Because of something craven and disloyal in these thoughts, and because of a strange sense of guilt because I did not at that moment desire her, I wished to do after all something significant which would please her. I said suddenly, 'Georgie, I want to take you to Hereford Square.'

Georgie sat up straight and put her hands on my shoulders. She studied me, grave and intent. 'Surely that is not wise.'

'If you're thinking of Antonia, she's gone to the country with Palmer. There's not the slightest chance of her turning up.'

'It's not exactly that,' said Georgie. 'Do you really want to see me there, so soon?'

We looked at each other, trying to guess at thoughts.

Georgie added, 'Don't misunderstand me, Martin.' She meant that her words held no implied expectation of ever living at Hereford Square.

'I don't misunderstand you,' I said. 'You mean it may upset me to see you there. On the contrary. It will be good and liberating and somehow natural. It will break down some of the doubleness.'

'You don't think you will just feel resentment?' said Georgie. 'I can see that all this has made you fall in love again with Antonia.'

'You're a clever girl,' I said. 'But no, no resentment. I want to give you something, Georgie. I want to give you that.'

'You want to do something hostile to Antonia.'

'No, no, no!' I said. 'I'm not in that sort of emotional state about Antonia. I just want to break an obsession. I want you to know that Hereford Square really exists.' Georgie had never questioned me about my home, and I knew how carefully she had averted her thoughts from all my life away from her.

'Yes,' said Georgie softly. She stroked my nose now. 'I do want to know that it exists. But not yet, Martin. I'm frightened. You will see me there as an intruder. As for breaking down the doubleness, we can't really do that until we stop telling lies.'