The Good Apprentice Read online

  Harry gazed at himself in the mirror. Oh to make a new imagined self in place of the failed soiled present self! When he was young Harry had declared as his motto, ‘simply the thing I am shall make me live’, a bold declaration which he interpreted in his own way; and he had been sincere in saying to Stuart that he was only interested in what he could invent entirely by himself. Yet he was also, as Ursula had observed, ambitious, a sort of disappointed authoritarian. His present lack of interest in politics was rightly seen as a case of ‘sour grapes’. He thought of himself as a man of the future, not a mere power-monger but a prophet: for better or worse, the modern consciousness at its most conscious. Time was passing. Could he still believe that his best work lay ahead? From the face in the glass the bland mask of self-satisfaction and energetic joie de vivre had fallen away. He saw his tired wrenched older face, marked by drink and sin. He thought, Casimir is dead, and Romula is dead, and Stuart’s mother is dead, and lovely Chloe who was so very much alive is dead too, and I shall die. Harry had a terrible shameful secret. He had, recently and privately, written a novel, a long mature novel containing all his best thoughts; but no one would publish it. Using a pseudonym he had tried several publishers. Nobody liked it, nobody would take it, nobody took it seriously at all. Harry Cuno hated failure, hated even more to be known to fail. Suppose they found out. He had another even more terrible secret too.

  He became aware that his burnt hand was hurting, it was blistered and throbbing, it would keep him awake. The physical pain, by an old deep grasping of the mind, conjured an image which travelled with Harry. It was an imagined scene. His father had been drowned when out sailing alone on a mildly breezy day in a lonely region of sea off the coast of Scotland. His empty boat, in perfect order, was found later ghosting along by itself. Casimir must have fallen overboard accidentally. Harry knew that his life-hungry father would never have committed suicide. He was a strong swimmer. Harry pictured the man in the sea swimming and swimming, and watching the boat, always moving a little too fast, gradually draw away. Deep painful associations, framed in the deep secrecy of his mind, drew him back to the present. He pictured Stuart’s pale unlined calm face, so lately that of a boy, his pale face, his yellow eyes, his ‘don’t be cross’, so reminiscent of childhood. What’s the matter with him, he wondered, and why does it upset me so? Is it mania, or to attract attention, or is it some unusual form of courage? In that boy, it’s not nothing, he’s got a will, he’s tough, he’s tougher than me. Had he engendered a monster? He was hurt in his secret soul by Stuart’s judgment of him.

  Stuart, dismissed by Harry, went upstairs and knocked on Edward’s door. He could see the light was on. There was no answer. He went in.

  Stuart had of course seen Edward and uttered words to him since Mark Wilsden’s death, but he had not had ‘a talk’ with his brother. Stuart had been occupied with closing down his academic life, moving out of his digs, ordering his mind. He had had, during this time, no close friend or mentor. He reproached himself for not having earlier forced a meeting with Edward, who had made it clear that he did not want to talk to Stuart.

  Edward, in pyjamas, was sitting up in bed reading a book. He looked different, changed, smaller. His face had shrunk, it was gathered and stained. Wrinkles had appeared on his forehead and about his eyes, the flesh of his brow was pulled into a painful knot above his nose, which had become sharp and thin. When he saw Stuart he frowned with irritation, and held onto his book with the air of being determined to see his visitor off promptly.

  ‘What is it?’ said Edward.

  ‘Can we talk?’

  ‘What about?’

  ‘Oh — about things — ’

  ‘What things?’

  Stuart looked round Edward’s room. There were bookshelves, French posters, a pink azalea on the chest of drawers. The floor and every other level surface was covered with Edward’s clothes interspersed with letters, some unopened. He decanted Edward’s shirt and trousers off a chair and sat down beside the bed. ‘Are you warm enough, would you like a hot water-bottle?’

  ‘No. I’m all right.’

  ‘What are you reading?’

  Edward displayed the paperback thriller. ‘Harry got me some more of these.’

  ‘You shouldn’t read that stuff,’ said Stuart.

  Edward, instead of getting annoyed, replied reasonably enough, ‘I can’t read anything else, nothing else would hold my attention.’ He rearranged his pillows. ‘What do you suggest I read,’ he asked ironically, ‘the Bible?’

  ‘Well, why not, just a bit now and then. I just mean — like good novels — like — ’ Stuart, who was not a reader of fiction, could not immediately think of one.

  ‘Don’t suggest Proust — I’d be sick, I’d choke and die. Not that that would signify, I’m dead anyway. Do go away, Stuart, there’s a good chap.’

  ‘I won’t just yet if you don’t mind. What a nice plant you’ve got. What is it? It’s like a little tree.’

  ‘It’s an azalea, Midge brought it yesterday. She brought some chocolates too. You don’t like chocolates, do you? I’ll throw them away.’

  ‘Did you talk to Midge?’

  ‘Of course not, she was shivering with embarrassment, she just wanted to make a virtuous gesture and run. No wonder. I’m a stinking corpse. Particle by particle I’m going bad.’

  ‘Don’t talk so,’ said Stuart, ‘what is it, what is it?’

  ‘It’s no good talking to me,’ said Edward. ‘Just let me alone, will you? I’m a machine. I say the same things to myself a thousand times a day, I see the same things, I enact the same things. Nothing can help me, nothing.’ As Edward spoke these words a strange grimacing uncanny smile, not at all like his ordinary smile, came onto his face.

  Stuart shuddered. ‘Don’t make misery an end in itself. There must be something you can do, some good move that you can make — ’

  ‘I can’t move.’

  ‘You must find some refuge — ’

  ‘Oh I’m in one, it’s hatred, that’s something to do, hating everybody, hating Harry, hating you. I loathed that abominable dinner party, all false smiles and lying talk. I hated the clothes those women wore and the smell of their faces. It was true though what they were saying, there’s nothing deep, the world’s turning into nonsense, everything is coming to an end, it’ll all collapse into hell and burn and finish, and I’m glad. I’m there already, burning in hell. My soul is gone, I have no inward soul, it’s all burnt away.’

  ‘But what is this fire,’ said Stuart, ‘is it guilt, do you feel guilty?’

  Edward threw the book across the room. He shouted, ‘Go away and stop amusing yourself by hurting me! You grate on my nerves so that I could scream — everything you say is just like scraping a wound with a knife — ’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Stuart, ‘I just want to understand, I want a sense of direction. All this repetitive misery is bad, it’s not truth. I’m not suggesting you just try to jump out of it all, you can’t. It’s not like a riddle with a magic solution. You’ve got to think about what happened, but try to think about it in a bit of clear light. The burning has to go on, but hold onto something else too, find something good, somewhere, anywhere, keep it close to you, draw it into the fire — ’

  ‘The one thing the devil didn’t make,’ said Edward, suddenly quiet again. ‘Yes. If the devil can’t find it I’m sure I can’t. You see, nothing connects any more, nothing makes sense, in extreme pain it can’t do, there are no ways any more. Do you know what I’ve discovered? There’s no morality, no centre, since guilt can exist outside it, on its own. You don’t know what this pain is like. Words don’t help, names don’t help, guilt, shame, remorse, death, hell, at the level I’m at distinctions don’t exist, concepts don’t exist. I wake in the mornings and hear the birds singing, and for a second I forget, then I’m back in liquid blackness, everything’s black, everyone’s a devil tormenting me, all of you this evening, and his mother sending me letters and — ’

>   ‘Mark’s mother?’

  ‘Yes, she sends me letters accusing me of murder, every two or three days I get one. She’d be glad if she knew how much I suffer.’

  ‘You’ve answered?’

  ‘Of course not. I hate her. I’ve stopped reading her vile letters. There’s two there I haven’t opened, by your feet. I meant to burn them. I wish I could burn her.’

  ‘You ought to read them,’ said Stuart.

  ‘To punish myself?’

  ‘No. She might have changed her mind, she might regret those letters and be writing to say so. She’s distraught with grief. She might even suddenly need you.’

  ‘You want me to pity her. She curses me. I curse her.’

  Stuart picked up one of the letters and handed it to Edward. Edward tore it open, glanced at it, and gave it to Stuart. ‘You see. This is what I live with.’

  Stuart read the beginning of the letter.You murdered my child whom I loved, he trusted you and you killed him, you broke his body and you shed his blood, he is dead and all my happiness and my joy is dead and will lie there broken forever, lying in blood and broken bones, and never live again, I shall never lift my head again, you have killed my joy …

  He put the letter back in the envelope and dropped it. ‘Yes. She’s mad with misery, like you. I expect writing this is a sort of automatic relief, like crying. I think you should write something to her, just a few lines, it could change her scene a bit.’

  ‘Write what? She’d spit on it.’

  ‘Say you’re sorry, say you’re wretched, anything — it might do you good too.’

  ‘Oh go away, go to hell, you don’t understand. Anyway, I’m not a murderer, I didn’t intend it, or do you think I did — You can’t understand, you don’t know what it’s like to be where I am — ’

  ‘Ed, don’t go on like this,’ said Stuart, ‘try something. Sit still and try to make your mind quiet, breathe quietly, say words, aloud, quietly.‘

  ‘What words?’

  ‘Any words, like a prayer, or just “stop” or “help” or “peace” — ’

  ‘Words without thoughts never to heaven go.’

  ‘I’m not so sure,’ said Stuart, ‘you see what happened just now. If you’re sorry about what you did, suffer with some point. Don’t hate, put away resentment, say “stop” to some thoughts, keep your intent pure, live quietly in your pain, quietness is good, reach out and touch things gently, other things, innocent things — it may seem artificial, like a ritual — like when you wake in the morning and hear the birds singing, hold onto that after you’ve remembered, and just think “the birds are singing”, and hold that away from the blackness and keep it there, even for a second.’

  ‘What use is a second, it just makes the blackness more black.’

  ‘Find something good anywhere and hang onto it like a terrier. Try to sort of pray, say “deliver me from evil”, say you’re sorry, ask for help, it will come, it must come, find some light, something the blackness can’t blacken. There must be things you have, things you can get to, some poetry, something from the Bible, Christ if he still means anything to you. Let the pain go on but let something else touch it like a ray coming through from outside, from that place outside — ’

  ‘It’s no good,’ said Edward, ‘you’re talking to yourself, you’re intoxicating yourself with pious rhetoric. You live in some sort of blank childish place, you don’t know how terrible the world is, what it’s like for your whole mind to be taken over by hopeless darkness and corruption. It’s like cancer, what I shall probably die of soon anyway.’

  ‘Or look at something,’ said Stuart, ‘anything, any existing thing, that azalea for example — ’

  ‘Oh go away, go to hell, and take the bloody plant with you, I’m going to smash it up and trample on it! If you want it to survive you’d better remove it, take it away, and take yourself away, oh God, if I could only weep. Why do you come here to look at me?’

  ‘I’m your brother and I love you.’

  ‘You are not my brother, and you have never loved me, never, never, never, you’re a liar. You were always jealous, always watching and calculating — Go away, I loathe your presence, you suffocate me, and take that vile plant or I’ll kill it!’ Edward’s whole face was wrinkled now into a reddened grimace of hate and fury, like a primitive mask in a museum.

  Stuart got up. He went over to the bookshelves, and inspected Edward’s books. He pulled out a book, the Bible, and put it down on the chair beside Edward’s bed. Then he picked up the azalea. ‘All right, I’ll take this away now, but I’ll bring it back later. Don’t be angry with me. Forgive me. Goodnight, Edward.’

  As he closed the door he heard the flung Bible crash against it and fall to the ground.

  After Stuart had gone Edward lay back on his pillows for a few minutes, panting with exhaustion. His heart was beating violently and painfully, his head ached, and when he sat up he felt giddy. He got out of bed. Still breathing heavily and hunched up with weariness and spent fury he opened the window, which gave onto the darkened garden, and hurled Midge’s box of expensive chocolates out into the night. He turned round for the azalea, then remembered Stuart had taken it. Damp smells of spring, of wet earth and green things growing, which would have made him happy once, came through the window which he closed with a bang. He saw the Bible on the floor and picked it up. It was a fine India paper edition which a religious cousin of Harry’s had given to Edward when he was fourteen on the occasion of his confirmation. Yes, he had been confirmed into the Church of England and had even felt a glow when the Bishop’s hand touched him. The book had opened on its fall and many of the frail pages were creased and crumpled. Edward automatically tried to straighten them out, then angrily bunched the book together. He was about to drop it again into the chaos of his strewn clothes when a superstitious idea occurred to him. The only use he had ever put the Bible to was occasionally to take a sors, to open it at random and extract a message, an absurd or ridiculously apt one, from the verses his finger lighted upon. He did this now, opening the book and pointing quickly. He held the page under the lamp and looked at what he had been vouchsafed. Destruction cometh, and they shall seek peace and there shall be none. Mischief shall come upon mischief and rumour shall come upon rumour, then shall they seek a vision of the prophet, but the law shall perish from the priest and counsel from the ancients. Edward laughed, and his laugh, like his smile, was uncanny, as if a demon within him were exulting with gloating scorn. So, he thought, it’s all ending, it’s all coming down, all rules, all law, all the old cant of civilisation. It isn’t just me who is to perish — it’s only me … first … He looked at his bottle of sleeping pills, harmless things of course, but there were many other methods. Refuge, take refuge. He took refuge in his endless conversations with Mark, his endless explanations of why he had gone away, why he had not come back, how much he suffered, with what pain he paid, how much he loved Mark and longed for him — But these conversations were one-sided, simply lonely fruitless lacerations of the soul. He tossed the Bible away and began kicking his clothes about, searching for his thriller. Then suddenly, as if magically, he saw that something had appeared, a yellow card upon which in capital letters were written simply the words DO THE DEAD WISH TO SPEAK TO YOU? Edward felt as if a dart had struck him, something piercing deeply into him from outside. He picked up the card and returned to sit on his bed. He stared at the apt and fateful message. Then he turned the card over. On the back it read: Mrs D. M. Quaid, Medium. SEANCES every Tuesday and Thursday at 5 p.m. There was an address near Fitzroy Square. Edward held the card, then laid it down carefully beside the lamp. Perhaps things connected after all.

  It is a terrible thing to fall into the hands of the living God. These words came into Stuart’s head as he entered his bedroom. His room, directly above Edward’s, the room of his childhood, was unadorned, only lately indeed stripped of the last trophies of that time. His books, hastily brought from his digs, were piled against the wall. He h
ad put his clothes away. He turned on the lamp, turned off the centre light, and sat down on an upright chair. He sat with his eyes open and breathed slowly and was at once rapt into a state of complete quietness. The ability to achieve, instantly, this separated stillness had come to him naturally and spontaneously at school. It had not been connected with any sort of instruction, certainly not any religious instruction. Perhaps it had struck him first simply as a method of escaping from childish misery, banishing certain unsavoury thoughts, an instant nothingness which could diminish such ailments or make them vanish. Later he had apprehended it as something more positive, a kind of lightness, an escape from gravity, an available levitation to a higher viewpoint, a removal from time, wherein huge and complex awarenesses could be contained in seconds. A huge space opened, accompanied sometimes by intense joy. Honeydew. Occasionally he worried about it, but not often. This, whatever it was, was one of the things which had put it, whatever it was, which Harry had enquired about, into his head.