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.Martin asked her to bring in the child to say goodnight.As she carried him in he stayed quiet, and Martin took him in his arms.Their glances met, the child’s a model of the man’s, fixed, hard, transparently bright; then, with a grave expression, the child turned in to his father’s shoulder.Martin’s glance did not move from the child’s head.‘We must make some plans for you too,’ he said.‘I’ve told you, we’ve made one or two plans for you already.’It was after dinner that Martin spoke with an openness that came out of the blue, that I had not heard more than twice in his life.He was smoking a cigar, emblem of the celebration that night, but he had drunk little and was cold sober.He had just been mentioning Hector Rose, for whom perversely he had taken a liking – and I teased him about his friends at court.Martin smiled and without any preliminary said: ‘It’s nice to have a little confidence.’He said it simply, naturally, and with gratification.‘I never had enough,’ he said to me.Perhaps it was true, I was thinking: in his struggle to be a scientist, to live in the same air as Mounteney or Luke, he had never believed in himself.He was still speaking to me: ‘I got a bad start.’‘We both did,’ I said.‘Mine was worse.’‘How?’He said: ‘You always overshadowed me, you know.’It was so unexpected that I could not have left it there, but he went on: ‘This has done me good.’I was just beginning to speak when Irene, who had been biting back a worry all the evening, could keep quiet no longer.She cried: ‘Then why don’t you sit tight when you’ve got it?’‘That’s not so easy,’ said Martin.‘Just when we’re getting everything we wanted, you’re ready to throw it away.’He said to her: ‘We’ve talked this out, haven’t we?’‘I can’t let you go on with this madness.Do you expect me just to sit quiet and wait for the end of the war to stop you? I suppose if the war does end you will have a glimmer of sense?’‘If the war ended there wouldn’t be any necessity to go so fast,’ he said, curiously stiff.His smile had an edge to it: ‘I shouldn’t be sorry if the necessity didn’t arise.’‘You know you’re frightened.’‘I am extremely frightened,’ said Martin.‘Then why don’t you think of yourself?’‘I’ve told you.’What had he told her? Probably the coldest motive – that, if he did not follow Luke’s lead, he would lose the ground he had won.‘Why don’t you think of me?’‘I’ve told you that, too.’Her face puckered, she said: ‘All you’ve done is to think of Lewis (the baby).And I don’t know whether you believe it’s enough just to insure yourself for him.Do you believe it really matters whether he goes to the sort of school that you two didn’t go to?’For the first time, Martin’s tone showed pain.He said: ‘I wish I could do more for him.’Suddenly she switched off – to begin with it was so jarring that one’s flesh crept – into a wail for her life in London before her marriage.Though she was wailing for past love affairs, her manner was fervid, almost jaunty; she was talking of a taxi drive in the snow.I had a vivid picture of a girl going hot-faced on a night like this across the Park to a man’s flat.I believed, though she was just delicate enough not to mention the name, that she was describing her first meeting with Hankins, and that she was using private words so that Martin should know it.Bitterly she was provoking his jealousy.To an extent she succeeded, for neither then nor later was he unmoved by the sound of Hankins’ name.As I listened, I thought I must do like other friends of his, and finish with her.Then I saw the look in her eyes – it was not lust, it was not malice, it was a plea.She had no self-control, she would always be strident – but this was the only way she knew to beg him to be as he used to be.All of a sudden, I understood a little.I could hear her ‘I am defeated’ in my flat that night last year which, if it had led one to think that she was leaving Martin, was totally misleading.It was he before whom she felt defeat.I could hear the tone in which, ten minutes later, she had pressed him about the child.Their marriage was changing, in the sense that marriages which start with their disparities often do; the balance of power was altering; their marriage was changing, and she was beating about, lost, bewildered, frightened, trying to keep it in its old state, which to her was precious [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]