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By Root 2192 0

an abandoned dog. I recalled Bob Arkwright’s words. Titus had refused to be beaten by the cliff. He had tried again and again to get a hold on it and each time the strong quiet waves had simply pulled him off. Then when he was desperate and weary a yet stronger wave had dashed him against the rock. I went into the kitchen and poured out some of Perry’s whisky. A breeze was blowing in from the sea through the open door and I could hear the bead curtain clicking on the upper landing. I drank the whisky. Now everything in the world depended on Hartley’s letter. I sat down at the table. I looked at my watch. It was nearly six o’clock. James and Lizzie would stop for dinner on the way. James was sure to know a good restaurant. They would turn off the motorway. They would sit in the bar and study the menu. They would recover from their shock and feel liberated. No more secrecy now. It doesn’t matter who sees them holding hands. Oh God, if I had only told Titus, don’t swim there, it’s dangerous. If there’s any swell you can’t get out. Never swim in a rough sea, dear boy, this sea’s a killer. But the past refused to come back, as it did in dreams, to be remade. Titus walked in my dreams in the brightness of his youth, which was now made eternal. Or else I dreamed that he was dead and felt joy on waking. I took Hartley’s letter out and pressed it to my brow and prayed to her that she would save me out of the desolation and the wreck.

I looked at the envelope. I had not received a letter from Hartley, it occurred to me, for over forty years. Yet of course I had recognized the writing at once. It was much the same, a little smaller and less neat. I had kept all her old letters for a long time, then destroyed them all in a mood when it upset me (or perhaps exasperated me) too much to see them, then regretted this. I had of course already invented dozens of possible letters which she might have written to me. Charles, goodbye, I can never see you again. Or Ben has gone, whatever shall I do? Or Darling, I shall come to you, have a car ready tomorrow. I had already checked the number of the local taxi and placed it beside the telephone. I had felt the envelope and decided it was a short letter. Was that a good sign? At any rate it was not an incoherent inconclusive unburdening of the heart. I love you, but I cannot leave him, etc. etc. for pages and pages. Not that anyway. Had Hartley really made up her mind? What would we say, what could we say, when we met, about Titus? This was the overwhelming thing, this would perhaps decide all. How strange, how terrible, of fate to bring him to me and then to drown him. Would I ever mourn for him with Hartley? Whatever would this mourning be like, and whatever would it do to us? So I put off opening the letter. But of all the things I imagined, not one was what she had actually written.

In fact not a very long time passed. I stopped drinking whisky. I hate the stuff really. I walked all round the house, entering every room. I even climbed up to the attic and looked at the hole in the roof. The place was still very damp up there. Lizzie and Gilbert had put two buckets under the hole. These were both brimming full. I left them there. I searched the house as if I were looking for something, and all the time now I was holding Hartley’s letter in my hand. At last I threw myself down on my bed and began to open the letter as if I were a child and this were some strange treat which I had carried off to enjoy at last in secret. What spurred me to end the play of hopes was the thought that if I were to carry Hartley off effectively I had better book the taxi at once. And at the very last moment I fell into a frenzy because it occurred to me that I might already have delayed too long.

Then real absolute panic came. My teeth were chattering, my trembling clumsy fingers tore the envelope, tore the letter, spread it out. Then I had to get up and run to the window for a better light.

Dear Charles,

We would be very glad if you would come and see us for tea. Four o’clock on Friday would suit and we will