The Death of the Heart - Elizabeth Bowen [114]
St. Quentin, the previous Wednesday, had been more enthusiastic. Portia had met him walking briskly, aimlessly along Wigmore Street—black Homburg hat cocked forward, gloves tightly clasped in both hands behind his back. Half stopping now and then, and turning his whole body, he gave the luxury objects in dark polished windows glances of a distracted intensity. His behaviour was, somehow, not plausible: Portia felt uncertain, as she approached him, whether St. Quentin really did not see her, or did see her and wished to show that he did not. She hesitated—ought she to cross the street?—but then made on down the pavement, swinging her despatch case, like a too light little boat before a too strong wind: she could find no reason to stop. Something about her reflection in a window caught St. Quentin's eye, and he turned round.
"Oh, hullo," he said rapidly, "hullo! So you're back, too: how nice! What are you doing?"
"Going home from lessons."
"How lucky you are—I am not doing anything. That's to say, I am putting in time. Do you go down Mandeville Place? Shall we walk down Mandeville Place?"
So they turned the corner together. Portia shifted her despatch case from one hand to the other and said: "How is your new book?"
Instead of replying, St. Quentin looked up at the windows. "We'd better not talk too loud: this is full of nursing homes. You know how the sick listen.... Have you had a nice time?" he continued, pitching his voice low.
"Yes, very," she said almost down to a whisper. She had an inner view of white high beds, fever charts, waxy flowers.
"I'm afraid I can't remember where you were."
"At Seale. The seaside."
"Delightful. How you must miss it. I wish I could go away. In fact I think I shall; there is no reason why I shouldn't, but I'm in such a neurotic state. Do tell me about something. How is your diary?"
He saw Portia's face flash his way; she at once threw him a look like a trapped, horrified bird's. They pulled up to let someone, stepping out of a taxi, cross the pavement and carry a sheaf of flowers up the stark steps of a nursing home. When they walked on again, St. Quentin was once more up to anything, while Portia looked ahead steadily, stonily, down the overcast canyon of the street that was threatening in this sudden gloom of spring. He said: "That was just a shot in the dark. I feel certain you should keep a diary. I'm sure you have thoughts about life."
"No, I don't think much," she said.
"My dear girl, that is hardly necessary. What I'm certain you do have are reactions. And I wonder what those are, whenever I look at you."
"I don't know what they are. I mean, what are reactions?"
"Well, I could explain, but must I? You do have feelings, of course?"
"Yes. Don't you?"
St. Quentin bit at his upper lip moodily, making his moustache dip. "No, not often; I mean, not really. They're not so much fun for me. Now what can have made me think you kept a diary? Now that I come to look at you, I don't think you'd be so rash."
"If I kept one, it would be a dead secret. Why should that be rash?"
"It is madness to write things down."
"But you write those books you write almost all day, don't you?"
"But what's in them never happened. It might have, but never did. And though what is felt in them is just possible—in fact, it's much more possible, in an unnerving way, than most people will admit—it's fairly improbable. So, you see, it's my game from the start. But I should never write what had happened down. One's nature is to forget, and one ought to go by that. Memory is quite unbearable enough, but even so it leaves out quite a lot. It wouldn't let one down as gently, even, as that if it weren't more than half a fake—we remember to suit ourselves. No, really, er, Portia, believe me: if one didn't let oneself swallow some few lies, I don't know how one would ever carry the past. Thank God, except at its one moment there's never any such thing as a bare fact. Ten minutes later, half an hour later, one's begun to gloze the fact over with a deposit of some sort. The hours I spent with thee dear love are like a string of pearls to me. But a diary (if one did keep it up to date) would come much too near the mark. One ought to secrete for some time before one begins to look back at anything. Look how reconciled to everything reminiscences are.... Also, suppose somebody read it?"