The Sea, The Sea - Iris Murdoch [128]
‘Charles—’
‘Don’t say anything yet. I just want to know that you’re here. I’m so happy.’
‘Listen, I—’
‘Please, darling, oh please don’t talk—and please don’t push me away like that.’
‘No, but I must talk—there’s so little time—’
‘There’s plenty of time, all the time. You did read the letter, didn’t you?’
‘Yes, of course—’
‘And that’s why you’re here?’
‘Yes—’
‘Then that’s all that matters. You’re staying here. You’ve come, haven’t you?’
‘Yes, but only to explain—’
‘Hartley, don’t. What is there to explain? Everything is explained already. I love you. You’re here. You love me, you need me. Don’t resist. Let’s go away to London, tomorrow morning, tonight. Never mind about clothes. I’ll buy you clothes. You’re my wife now.’
I held her at arm’s length, gripping her shoulder with one hand, while with the other I moved the candle so that it illuminated her face. The eyes were thickly encased in wrinkles, the eyelids were brown and pitted as if stained, the cheeks were flabby and soft, not rounded, and faintly pink, perhaps with hastily-applied powder. Her short grey undulating hair was dry and brittle-looking, no doubt from years and years of absent-minded visits to inept hairdressers. Now she was past caring about it, and a forgotten slide hung down from the end of one twisted tress. The face was dry, dry, save where her tongue now moistened her unpainted lips, and where her blue eyes, those strangely timeless pools, were moist and now suddenly full of unshed tears. She moved her shoulder, pulling weakly away, and I released her. It was the first time since our reunion that I had really studied her face, and I felt with a deep triumphant joy how really unchanged that dear face was, and how little it mattered to my love that she was old.
Now too I saw in her face, though it looked both anxious and sad, something of the animation of youth. I recognized, and realized how much I had forgotten, the shape of her mouth, so much prettier without the lipstick. I kissed her gently, briefly, on the familiar mouth, as we used to kiss; and there was an intelligence in her quiet negative reception of the kiss which was itself a communication.
She said, ‘I’ve changed so much, I’m a different person, you were so kind in your letter, but it can’t be like that—you care about old times, but that’s not me—’
‘It is you. I recognized you in the kiss.’ It was true. The kiss had transfigured her, like a kiss in a fairy tale. I remembered the feel, the texture, the movement of her mouth; and all that awkwardness was gone, that sense which I had had in the church of the impossibility of holding her. Our bodies were suddenly in tension in the same space, moved by the same forces. When I felt this I wanted to shout with joy, but I kept a quiet tone, wanting to coax her into speech, not wanting to affright her. ‘Hartley, it’s a miracle, I gave up the theatre, I came here to solitude, and I found you—I came here for you, I realize it now—’
‘But you didn’t know I was here—’
‘No, yet I’d been searching for you, I’ve always been searching for you.’
She said, ‘It can’t be like that,’ and lifted up her hand as if to conceal her face. Then she put her hand on the table where I covered it firmly with mine. ‘Charles, listen, I must talk to you, there’s so little time.’ With the back of her other hand she touched her eyes, and caused the unshed tears to fall. Then she said, ‘Oh Charles, my dear, my dear,’ and bowed her head and thrust it towards me with a doglike movement. I stroked the dry brittle hair, I gently undid the hanging slide and put it in the pocket of my trousers.
‘You’ll stay with me forever now, Hartley.’
She raised her head and mopped her eyes again, this time with the sleeve of the green cotton coat which she was wearing over the yellow dress which I had seen before.
‘Hartley, take off your coat, I want to see you, I want to touch you, take it off.’
‘No, it’s cold here.’
I pulled at the coat and she took it off. There was an intense charm in these movements, as if they were