It is curious at last to write on the subject of Virginia. She passed out of my life twenty-eight years ago. Yet she has never been entirely absent from my life, even when I have not thought of her for months, perhaps years. Now I am on the subject, I can hardly bear to come off it.
I loved Virginia well. I did not love her for sex alone. Before I found out about all the lies, I believed her to be good, almost saintly. I can still see how and why I thought her so wonderful, although irrelevant things like snobbery clouded my judgement – for she must always have been no more prosperous than my family, and so the simple way she came into humble cafés with me was not the elegant piece of broad-mindedness I imagined it at the time, but the indifference of custom.
So I come back to my first intuitions about her – that she had been deeply hurt. Something in her childhood had disrupted the entire course of her life … such a judgement is a cliché now, so much so that it is often patronizingly dismissed by the sophisticated. But the elementary perception that childhood injustices warp lives has done little to affect the general consensus of opinion, which acts on an older and more primitive principle, that an eye merits an eye, that sin deserves punishment. In many cases it is the punishment which fathers the sin.
But I refuse to think of Virginia in these text-book terms. Something had severely hurt her in childhood – no doubt her nature was also prone to receive the hurt. As an adult, she would be classified now as paranoic, I suppose.
In my youthful eyes she was none of these things; she was only herself, a woman in whose arms I had first tasted beauty and release, and through them discovered my better self.
She left me standing by the Thames. It seemed to me that I would never be able to recover myself, that I had lost too much. After a little while it occurred to me to run after her, to seize her, to force her to believe me and tell the truth. But by then it was too late.
For the rest of the day I wandered through the city. The painful deflections of life that all the towns of Europe were suffering found their echo in England’s capital. Barricades of sandbags were going up; the fountains were turned off in Trafalgar Square. A platoon of soldiers was marching towards Westminster; I stopped to watch them go by, looked at the set faces of the men, lacking individuality. Already children were being evacuated to the country. Their place was being taken by men in uniform.
Idly, I looked about to see if by any chance I could see Nelson. But it was my father I wanted. Perhaps he would come down to London and persuade me to go back home with him …
The nights were closing in. As the sun went down, blackouts went up.
I had begun to relish my melancholy, but hunger overtook me. In those days I was always hungry. Half-lost, pretending I was wholly lost, I stopped on my way towards my favourite pie shop and drank a cup of tea at one of those wooden tea-stalls on wheels which stood in Leicester Square, enjoying being among the down-and-outs. Only when I had finished my pie-and-peas-did initiative return to me.
Virginia had told me Josie’s surname. With luck, I would find it in the phone directory, and her number. I could ring Virginia; the next day was Sunday. We could meet again. Somehow I could persuade her that I was no part of the conspiracy she imagined to be building against her. I would make her see I was innocent.
Back at Lou’s, I borrowed her directory, found Josie’s number, and put through the call. I knew Virginia hated talking on the telephone; perhaps she thought of it as a sinister instrument; but this was a case of necessity.
Josie answered. I recognized her languid voice immediately.
Without thought, I said, ‘I have a present for Virginia. Tell her I must meet her at eleven o’clock tomorrow morning. She must meet me, because I am then leaving London almost immediately.’ I named a church I had noticed near her house; church seemed a good canny idea.
It may have been the idea of a present; although I had never given her anything, I knew she would be childishly delighted by a present. As I was setting out to meet her that Sunday morning, I belatedly realized that I had indeed better take a present, just in case Virginia did turn up.
I had nothing to give her. I had no money with which to buy her anything. For a moment, I contemplated stealing a piece of Lou’s costume jewellery. Then I remembered that I had in my wallet the little silver holder to contain books of postage stamps which my mother had given me on my fifteenth birthday. The intention had always been to have my name engraved on it, but fortunately this had not been done. Virginia could have it.
Unthinkingly, I had chosen a time when a service was in progress in the church. Great sadness filled me as I stood by the wide deserted steps and looked across the faded prospect of Hyde Park, listening to the organ. In a way, I wanted this all to be a failure, wanted to lose Virginia, wanted everything to be spoilt and broken. That would be only just, and in tune with the dismal years that were past.
When I saw her coming I forgot all that and knew I had at least some strength to fight.
Such joy to see her again, worn and brave and small and half-nodding her greeting at me! I smiled and took her hand.
‘We’re late for the service, Virginia! Let’s have a walk in the park!’
‘Josie teased me and said it would do me good to go to church!’
‘Perhaps it might do us both good. We’ll try and make it next Sunday, shall we?’
‘Horry, I did not expect to see you again after what I told you yesterday. I can’t spare much time now, only I didn’t want you to be sad, so I came to see you.’
‘I’m not sad, Virginia. There’s something more I must say to you.’
‘More even than you said yesterday?’ She gave a painful smile.
We crossed the road and walked familiarly together, relieved for the moment not to have to talk.
When we were in the park she said, ‘Darling, I should not have come. But I am frightened. To tell you the truth, I am getting a bit frightened to remain in the house. There is a man in the street watching me – it’s not who you said it was, it’s another man. I’m sure he has a big gun in his pocket. I’m afraid they are going to kill me.’
I just did not understand that she believed what she was saying. Trying to laugh it off, I said, ‘You’re making it all up, darling!’
Perhaps she also had thought about the whole situation over-night. Perhaps she saw, through the veil of all that obsessed her, that I was no part of the conspiracy against her. Perhaps she had struggled against herself, and won, and come to me to give me another chance. I don’t know. But I should not have told her she was making it all up! By her expression, I knew I had committed a bad tactical blunder.
‘You don’t know my father! He’s a dangerous man! He would quite easily have my sister and me shot to inherit my grandfather’s money.’
I blurted out, ‘You haven’t got a sister, Virginia!’ Maybe I hoped shock therapy would work.
She began to walk on, talking rapidly, telling me I was getting involved in something I did not understand. Her gas-mask case rolled against her hip. Tagging by her side, I had to admit to myself that she was, after all, right; yesterday I had been innocent; today I was involved and no longer innocent. Perhaps she was correct to fear me because I was a part of her world, just as Britain had finally become involved in the far more squalid delusions of the man over in Berlin.
So I broke into what she was saying, and asked, ‘Tell me just one thing – tell me if you said you were married simply to save me further hurt. You aren’t really married, are you? I can’t believe it!’
We stopped under a tree and looked at each other. Her grey uncertain eyes were searching my face. I believe she was not married; that would have been too binding a contract for her elusive nature; and possibly what she said next was the nearest she could come to an admission it was so. Lowering her head, she said five heavy words:
‘He left me long ago.’