The World in the Evening Read online

  And then I was up in the bedroom of our house. I had found one of her lipsticks and scribbled the mirror and the walls with the words I had been shouting, in big scarlet letters. Now I was throwing stuff into a suitcase as if the place were on fire. Reaching into the closet for clothes, my hands touched an evening gown, gripped and crumpled it and dragged it out, and it was Jane I was going to kill. ‘Rip her up. Rip her wide open,’ I muttered, hunting for a razor-blade in my shaving-kit. The blade was double-edged, awkward to hold. I cut my thumb deeply as I slashed with obstinate rage at the dress; the silk was amazingly tough. But it was done at last. Sobbing, I flung the poor beautiful harmless thing into a corner, all gashed and bloodied and spoiled. How horrible! I was going to vomit. I stumbled into the bathroom with my bleeding thumb in my mouth and reached the toilet bowl only just in time.

  When I had washed myself, I came back into the bedroom for my suitcase, feeling weak and shaken and nearly sober. It was then that I remembered Elizabeth’s letters. They were in a file, standing on the desk in the room I called my study but never used; I hadn’t looked at them in months. I couldn’t leave them, alone with Jane. She might burn them. She might even read them. I should have to take them along with me—wherever it was that I was going.

  At the front door I paused and turned for a last look at our little hate-nest. Perhaps I had never seen it properly until this moment; my feelings about Jane had reduced it to a sort of flat, colourless backdrop. Actually, it had considerable comic possibilities. The hall was Hollywood-Spanish, with decorated beams and a staircase of curlicue ironwork and tiled steps gaily painted with birds and flowers. High up the wall, which had a surface like very expensive cream notepaper, there was a balcony draped with an Indian blanket. ‘Romeo and Juliet,’ I said aloud. Then I noticed a bottle of whisky standing unopened in a paper bag on the carved Italian dower-chest. I picked it up and ran down the crazy-pavement to the car, leaving the door ajar and all the lights burning.

  In the darkened hotel lobby, only the reception-desk was illuminated. It was quiet here and calm like a chapel, with the desk clerk keeping his vigil amidst the shadows of big sleepy indoor leaves. I signed the guest-card, saying to myself as I often did: After all, I suppose I do actually exist. Anyhow, I seem to have a name, just like anybody else.

  ‘Stopping with us long, Mr … Monk?’ the desk clerk asked, with an instant’s glance at my signature. His manner was perfect; correct yet discreetly understanding. It was as if he knew just what I was thinking. You can trust us, his reassuring smile seemed to say. We shall accept you for what you tell us you are. We shall assume that you are a real person. All our guests, by definition, are real people.

  ‘I’m not sure about my plans, yet.’ (But, even as I said this, I knew suddenly what I was going to do.)

  The clerk nodded pleasantly and wrote something in a book. He was dressed for this death-watch job as if for a lively party; his suit, shirt, tie and teeth were immaculate, and his handsome sunburned young face showed not the least sign of fatigue. How is it, I wanted to ask him, that you can sit there, hour after hour, so calm and alone? What’s your secret? How did you learn to inhabit the Night? I would have liked to stay and talk to the young man, telling him everything exactly as it had happened, without shame or excuse, as you might tell a doctor or a priest. But already the porter stood behind me with my suitcase; and the clerk was saying: ‘Four Sixty-two, Sir. I hope you’ll be comfortable.’

  ‘Will you put a call through for me, please?’ I said. ‘Long distance to Dolgelly, Pennsylvania. You’ll have to get the number from Information. It’ll be listed under Pennington; Miss Sarah Pennington. The house is called Tawelfan. T-a-w-e-l-f-a-n. It’s on Boundary Lane.’

  ‘Surely.’ The clerk was scribbling this down. ‘Goodnight, Mr Monk.’

  The call came through very quickly; only a few minutes after the porter had left me alone in my room.

  ‘Go ahead, Los Angeles. Your party’s on the line.’

  ‘Hello—’

  ‘Yes—?’ Sarah’s voice sounded faint and anxious and old. I could picture her—with her hair in pigtails, probably—startled from sleep in the grey of dawn and fearing news of some disaster.

  ‘Aunt Sarah, it’s me, Stephen … I woke you, didn’t I? I’m so sorry, but I had to tell you this at once. I—’

  ‘Stephen! It’s you! Where are you?’

  ‘Still here. In California. But listen—’

  ‘I’m sorry, Stephen dear. I can’t hear you—’

  “What I want to know is—could you possibly have me at Tawelfan? I mean, right away?’

  ‘Stephen! You mean to stay? To live here?’

  ‘Well—it might be only for a day or two. Or maybe longer. I’m not sure, yet … But are you quite certain it won’t be inconvenient?’

  ‘Inconvenient! Listen to the man! He expects me to tell him that it’s inconvenient to have him here … Oh, Stephen dear, I’m so excited I can hardly believe it! When do you suppose you’ll be coming?’

  ‘I ought to be with you tomorrow. That is, if I can get on a plane sometime later today. I’ll send you a telegram when I know for sure.’

  ‘Oh, how wonderful … Stephen, I’m not dreaming, am I? You really are coming?’

  ‘Of course I’m coming, Aunt Sarah. Now you go right back to bed and finish your sleep.’

  ‘Oh, I shan’t sleep another wink. Besides, it’s getting light already. I must be up and doing. Goodnight, Stephen, my dearest. I suppose it is still night, with you? How odd that seems! God bless you.’

  ‘Goodnight, Aunt Sarah.’

  I hung up with a sigh of pain and relief. Her joy made me feel sad and guilty, as though I had somehow cheated her. But what a relief to know that it was done, now; I had taken the single, necessary irrevocable step. And now I knew what I hadn’t realized or admitted to myself until this moment—that I’d taken it only just in time. The least delay in getting that phone-call through, and perhaps—no, it was certain; I’d have gone back to the house. Back to Jane, on her own terms, any terms. That was the simple, miserable truth.

  ‘But it’s done now,’ I repeated aloud. I opened my suitcase and took out the whisky-bottle. First I would get into bed, then drink until I slept. Very soon it would be morning. Things would start to happen of themselves, and Life would begin to carry me slowly, slowly away from the wreck.

  But the whisky nauseated me. I couldn’t touch it. Instead, I lay there staring at the ceiling and was shaken by another trembling-fit of hate. Grinning savagely, I thought of Roy Griffin, that film-fairy, that pansy male-impersonator who fooled nobody but himself, stuck with a very expensive nymphomaniac. Stuck with her, and not knowing how to wriggle out of it, and scared silly because of his career. Maybe he’d even have to marry her. Ha-ha, what a laugh! The poor miserable little pansy bastard, married to a bitch who’s been accustomed to spend more on herself in one week than he earns in six months. Or did he think he was going to live on alimony? Well, if he did, he certainly had another guess coming. Not one cent would that whore get. Not one single cent. Not even if she took the case to the Supreme Court. I’d go to jail, first.

  But I got hot, then, thinking of them together; two mating giants filling the dwarf world of the doll’s house, and nearly bursting it apart with their heavings and writhings. I played the scene over and over to myself, elaborating every detail, until it left me sick with disgust and exhaustion. And so, toward dawn, I fell asleep.

  2

  WHAT ARE YOU doing now, Jane? What are you thinking? Aren’t you wondering where I am? Aren’t you amazed? Aren’t you angry? Aren’t you sorry? Aren’t you a bit scared? Oh, Jane, why did you make me do this to you? I hate you for that. I hate you for making me hate you.

  I hate you for going your own way always, and not giving a damn. I used to lay plots and set traps; but you never worried and you always won. I hate you because I couldn’t hurt you.

  I hate you for what you made me do to Elizabeth. It meant noth
ing to you. It merely tickled your vanity. You never understood how I felt about all that. I hate you for making me hate myself.

  You’ve never known me, really. There’s such a lot you just couldn’t be bothered to explore. Sarah and Tawelfan are part of what you don’t know. Elizabeth is another part. I never could tell you properly about any of that, because you were never really interested. At first, I used to make all sorts of little tests to find out if you wanted to share any of it with me. And you didn’t. You didn’t even realize what I was doing. You were much too tightly wrapped up in your own cocoon. Watch out, though; it’s getting thicker all the time—as you’ll discover one day, when you try to break out of it and find you can’t.

  I minded then. It hurt me more than I’d admit to myself, that you didn’t care. But now I’m glad. Christ, I’m thankful I’ve got something of my own to take away with me, that hasn’t anything to do with you. Something you haven’t touched and made cheap and stupid and rotten.

  Look, Janey—it doesn’t really matter any more—but now that this business is all over, there’s just one thing I would like you to understand, and that’s—

  Stop it.

  Stop talking to her. Stop thinking about her. You only give her power. You’re making her stronger and stronger.

  What’s the matter with you, for Christ’s sake? No wonder she despises you. You make me sick.

  Come on, relax. Unclench your fists. Lean back in your seat. Breathe in deeply. Breathe out.

  That’s better.

  Let’s see if you can’t forget all about her for a whole minute. Think about nothing but Now. Look out the window.

  Our plane was over the desert, somewhere near the Arizona state-line, and the sun was setting directly behind us, making every tiniest crumb of rock on the littered floor of the wilderness stand out black against the last blinding beams of level light. The hills, which at midday look like pale crumpled sandpaper, now showed the most unearthly mineral tints of violet and green and orange, with deep-scooped crimson shadows. It was the sort of super-spectacle which makes some people think of God or Michelangelo, and which others find merely disgusting and dull because it seems to exclude their egos so completely. Jane had reacted to the desert like that, on our trip out to the Coast; she had buried her nose sulkily in Vogue and told me to tell her when we sighted civilization again. And I knew just how she was feeling.

  But now, the aloofness, the absolute otherness of this country made me almost happy. These are real badlands, ruthlessly untidy and austerely useless. A world fit only for hermits, reptiles and military manoeuvres; prehistoric, posthistoric, timeless, strictly neutral; proving nothing, disproving nothing. A simple geographical demonstration of Jane’s total absence.

  I should have remembered this more often, I said to myself, looking down. I should have remembered that it is out here, always, beyond their dirty coast of movies and oil-wells and advertisements and unreal estate. Beyond their swimming-pools and their doll’s houses. This would have been a place to come to, in my mind. She couldn’t have followed me here.

  And now the lights snapped on, making the long tubular upholstered cabin seem falsely snug, as we climbed toward the sierras and the night. Closing my eyes, I could see the crumbling whirl of a snowstorm, feel the air grow deathly cold, hear the sputter of a failing engine, as we buckled our safety-belts and the plane nosed down into white nothingness, tiny and lost. Then, at the very last instant, right ahead, the terrible, declared face of the precipice … Days later, the search-party would reach the wreckage and the scattered bodies. Myself, of course, lying unscarred, relaxed, beautifully dead, faintly sneering. The Picture of the Week in Life magazine. Jane would keep a copy of it beside her bed. She would see it in her nightmares and wake screaming. ‘It was all my fault. I failed him. I sent him to his death. I shall be punished as long as I live.’

  But there was no snowstorm. The engines were running smoothly. The night was going to be clear and full of stars. And there was no Jane. Only the cute little hostess emerging brightly from the Charm Room (as they call it) and smoothing her uniform as she advanced along the gangway. Bending over each chair in turn, smiling her Big Sister smile, she murmured to her charges: ‘I bet you’re hungry? Sure, of course you are! Well, now I’m going to fix your supper right away.’

  This is what you always expected, isn’t it, Elizabeth?

  (It was very late, now; maybe over Kansas. I was falling slowly asleep, somewhere away high up in the thin cold air. So high, so far. In the nowhere of space and night. I felt almost disembodied.)

  Oh sure, you’d have warned me. You were always warning me against something. And you were always right. But why couldn’t you ever let me make my own mistakes? Then I wouldn’t be so helpless. Then I wouldn’t ever have gotten into this mess.

  Well, now that it’s happened, I hope you’re satisfied.

  Naturally, you hate Jane. I don’t blame you for that. You couldn’t help it. She gave me the one thing you never could give me; the thing you talked all around and were so brilliant and wonderful and funny about, and didn’t have. I realize now how you must have hated the others, too. Only you were much too clever to show it.

  Is that what you want—that I’ll be alone, always, from now on? Always looking for someone and always having to admit that there’s nobody, anywhere, to take your place? Can you really be so vain and cruel? What do you expect me to do? Go into a monastery? Or spend the rest of my life keeping up your precious cult—editing and annotating and explaining you, until people get sick of the sound of your name?

  Yes, I admit it, you invented me. Until you’d told me who I was, I didn’t begin to exist. I was the most lifelike of all your characters. People admired me, and that pleased you. But I don’t believe you ever cared for me at all.

  No, Elizabeth. No, forgive me; I didn’t mean that. It wasn’t your fault; it was my own selfishness. It was I who used you. I clung to your strength. I insisted on your being perfect, and got scared and angry when you weren’t. I never considered how you must be feeling. I never helped you through your bad times. But you didn’t complain, not even at the end. Even then, you were helping me. You were the bravest person I’ll ever know.

  Now I’m going to need you more than ever. I hope you know how much I need you and love you. Without you, I’m lost. I’m nothing.

  Goodnight, Elizabeth. Help me to feel that you’re with me. Help me to remember.

  On Broad Street Station, Philadelphia, next afternoon, there were a lot of uniforms among the crowd. Here already—faintly still, but unmistakably—you could smell the War. Every man and woman in that crowd could smell it; and you could see how it scared and yet excited them. Through the weeks and the months ahead they would run sniffing alertly after it, muttering: ‘How dreadful! How dreadful! We’ll be in it soon! We’ll be in it soon!’ They wouldn’t rest, now, until they found it, or it found them.

  The War smelled of blood and dirt and sweaty bodies and the fumes of engines and explosives. It was filthy and evil, but at least it had nothing whatsoever to do with feelings about Jane. It would accept everyone, like a brutally dogmatic but completely reassuring religion which imposed terrible penances but guaranteed, at the same time, to take away your guilt; the guilt of having dared to indulge in private misery in an exclusive Beverly Hills home, rented at four hundred dollars a month.

  All through this last year, the War had existed merely as a loud, ugly appropriate background music for my expensive private hell. Why shouldn’t London blaze, why shouldn’t Jews be tortured, why shouldn’t all Europe be enslaved, as long as the great tyrant Me was suffering? It had seemed no more than natural.

  I suppose that’s exactly the way people in madhouses feel. I must have been very near to going insane, I thought. Maybe I was insane for a while. But here, amidst the hurrying afternoon crowd, the word was just a word. It didn’t frighten me. I would be all right, now; I knew it. Even though it was tainted by the war-smell, the outside everyday air w
as deliciously refreshing. I breathed it in, inhaling deeply, like a convalescent.

  And then the local electric train arrived, to carry me out of the city into the smugly pretty, vivid green country of the Main Line. Little towns, golf-courses, gardens, discreet prosperity adequately insured. A landscape without secrets, inhabited by people whose every word, thought and action would bear thorough investigation by the F.B.I. I didn’t exactly remember any of it, but the feeling it gave me was familiar.

  I looked my fellow-passengers over, trying to pick out the Quakers amongst them. I thought that I could. Their men are tall, bony, big-shouldered, deliberate and healthily pale. They speak slowly and prudently, selecting their words. They seem quietly harassed. Their women are energetic and bright. They comb their hair back and twist it into a knot. They use no makeup. They wear flat heels, cheap sensible dresses, and, in summer, straw hats which somehow resemble sunbonnets. Everybody knows everybody. Everybody is married.

  If War has a smell, the Quakers remind you of a taste; the taste of plain home-made bread. It is always obtainable and ordinarily you take it for granted, crumbling it wastefully in your fingers and eating a little of it between mouthfuls of Lobster Newburg and sips of Liebfraumilch, hardly thinking of what you are doing. But sometimes, after a long illness, when the tired stomach recoils from every kind of sauce, spice or sweetness, you ask for that bread and you munch it humbly and gratefully, admitting sadly to yourself that this is your sane and proper diet, that all those fancy dishes were unwholesome and that you had better eat more wisely in the future. Well, here I was, at the beginning of my convalescence from Jane; and the Quakers and Aunt Sarah and Dolgelly were going to be my diet, maybe for months to come. So I had better make up my mind to it and swallow it down somehow. It was certainly wholesome. It was so wonderfully horribly drearily wholesome that the mere prospect of it made me want to weep.