A Severed Head

It then occurred to me that this was precisely what I might be able to manage. I noticed a little gate at the side of the house which doubtless led into the garden. I tried it and it was open. I passed down a narrow passageway of mossy bricks which divided the houses and found myself in a small garden. I stepped back a little. Above the black shape of a drooping tree the high moon revealed the back of the house, which was in darkness. French windows of a lower room gave on to the garden. I tiptoed back across the grass and put my hand against the windows. Here I had to pause again to subdue a wave of sheer panic. My breathing, even my heart-beat, must I felt already be audible through the house like the panting of an engine. I tried the doors, got my finger into a crack and pushed them sharply away from me. They gave; I was not sure whether they were unlatched anyway or whether my violent push had broken some weak fastening. I opened them wide with both hands.

A dark room gaped before me, very faintly illuminated by the remains of an open fire. By now I scarcely knew what I was doing. My movements took on the quality of a dream. Things melted before me. I crossed the room and opened a door whose white surface I saw glimmering in the darkness. I came out into the hall. A little light from the street lamp in front, coming through the open door of one of the front rooms, showed me the stairs. I began to mount the stairs, leaning hard on the ba

I advanced to the door and knocked. After so much breathless silence the sound of the knock seemed thunderous. I let it die away and then as there was no reply to it I opened the door. For a moment the light dazzled me.

I saw opposite to me a large double divan bed. The room was brightly lit. Sitting up in this bed and staring straight at me was Honor. She was sitting sideways with the sheet over her legs. Upwards she was as tawny and as naked as a ship's figurehead. I took in her pointed breasts, her black shaggy head of hair, her face stiff and expressionless as carved wood. She was not alone. Beside the bed a naked man was hastily engaged in pulling on a dressing gown. It was immediately and indubitably apparent that I had interrupted a scene of lovers. The man was Palmer.

I closed the door and walked back down the stairs.

Twenty

I turned a light on in the hall, finding the switch instinctively, and went back into the room through which I had come. I turned the switch here and various lamps came on. I vaguely took in a white book-lined room with chintz armchairs. I went over and closed the french windows which were hanging ajar. It appeared that I had broken the fastening after all. I pulled the curtains which were also chintz. I turned back towards the fireplace. On a low table before it stood a tray with two glasses, a decanter of whisky, and a jug of water. I poured out some whisky, spilling a good deal of it on the table. I drank it. I poured out some more, poked up the fire a bit, and waited.

Ever since the moment near Waterloo Bridge when I had come to consciousness of my condition, I had felt like a man ru

I felt this steadiness, this setting as it were of my feet sturdily apart; yet with it I was in a confusion amounting to agony. I had so rapaciously desired and so obtusely expected to find Honor alone. The simple fact of her not being alone was a wrench almost separately felt, even apart from the nightmarish significance of who her companion was. From this there shivered through me a violence of amazement not distinguishable from horror; and I felt as a physical pain the shock of what I had done to them. How naively had I imagined that Honor must be free; I had even, it now occurred to me, imagined that she must be virgin: that I would be the first person to discover her, that I would be her conqueror and her awakener. Caught in the coils of such stupidity I could not yet even begin to touch with my imagination the notion that she should have had her brother as a lover.

Palmer came in. He shut the door softly behind him and leaned against it. He was wearing a dark silk dressing-gown and as was again apparent was naked underneath it. He was barefoot. He leaned back against the door and looked at me with a steady wide-eyed gaze. I looked back at him meditatively, looked into the fire, looked at him again. I willed myself not to shiver. We remained so in silence for a minute. Then I poured some whisky into the other glass and motioned Palmer to approach.

He came forward and took the glass and stared into it for a while. He seemed to be quietly and carefully deciding what he was going to say. I resolved to let him begin. His first words surprised me. 'How did you know I was here?'

I hesitated and my mind began to waken up. This remark revealed two things, two doubtless interco

I said, 'Need we go into that?' I hoped he would not press me.

'Well, it doesn't matter,' said Palmer. 'You've found out what you came for and that's what's important. Does Antonia know?'

I thought for a moment. 'No,' I said.

'Are you going to tell her?'

I was completely cool by now. I said, 'I don't know, Palmer. I honestly don't know.'

Palmer turned to face me. His voice was deep with earnestness and his countenance had a stripped quality which I had never seen before. He put his whisky on the mantelpiece and took a step towards me. For a moment he put his two hands on my arms, pressing me slightly. Then he let them drop to his sides. It was a supplication. He said, 'This is desperately grave, Martin. There are some things we must get clear.'

Looking back on the scene, I felt admiration for the way in which, from the start, Palmer took it that something catastrophic and irrevocable had occurred. He did not attempt –and indeed it would have been difficult – to explain away the scene I had witnessed upstairs. Nor did he attempt to minimize its importance or cover it with any veil of distracting mystification. He faced me frankly as one faces a conqueror or a judge; and as our interview progressed it was with a certain sick giddiness mingled with an agony of compassion that I so felt, for the first time, the scales of power inclined in my direction. We were indeed on the other side of the mountain.

I said, out of an immediate sympathy for him, 'Palmer, I'm sorry.'

'Don't,' said Palmer. 'You've acted cleverly, resolutely, doubtless properly. I didn't know you had it in you. Let's have no nonsense here. It's just that what has happened may prove fatal. And I want us to understand each other.'