Read Online The Centre of the Green by John Bowen - Free Book Online Page A

Julian thought as he followed his mother into the kitchen; she can’t want me to tell her anything tonight. While the tea was boiling and brewing, he kept up a chatter of questions about local matters, but his mother had so little contact with her neighbours and the world of the Women’s Institute that it was difficult. “I’ll cut some bread, shall I?” he said, fetching the breadboard and the knife, and making a great show of busyness , but all too soon the cups were on the table, the tea poured, a thick meat sandwich on his plate, and hismother was saying to him gently and gravely, “Now, darling, what’s the matcer?”
    “Nothing, Mother.”
    Mrs. Baker sipped her tea. Julian bit into his sandwich . Would she say something else, or would she agree to silt things over for the night? But she said nothing at all.
    They would have to know, of course. Later.
    Mrs. Baker said, “You can tell
me
, darling.”
    “I’m…. I’m in trouble, Mother.”
    He would tell her by degrees. Just a little tonight; the rest tomorrow. “There’s a girl….”
    “A girl?”
    “Yes.”
    “Have you——? Does Penny——?”
    “She’s going to divorce me.”
    “My poor Julian! Poor boy!” Mrs. Baker gathered up her cup, and took it over to the sink. She was afraid of saying anything more, because she did not know what would come out.
I always knew
—but that was not true—
always hoped
—what a ridiculous thing to say! If only Penny could have been the one, if only Julian could have been wronged—and yet if she were divorcing him, was she not the aggressor, and was not Julian all the more to be defended? A loyal wife would try to understand (as a loyal mother understood), instead of turning on him like that. What girl? Triumph … jealousy … fear … wanting to comfort him … to question him—it was all too much for her to get clear at once. “We’ll talk about it tomorrow, darling,” she said. “You mustn’t worry. Just try and get some rest.”
    “I’ll try, Mother.”
    “That’s right.”
    “Thank you, Mother.”
    “Now off you go, darling. Leave the cups. Your father will do them in the morning.”“Good night, Mother.” Julian was in bed, washed and his teeth cleaned, within seven minutes, asleep within ten. But his mother took longer to get to sleep that night. She was not at all clear about her feelings.
    *
    Charles travelled down on the overnight train which leaves Paddington at five minutes to midnight. The blinds of the compartment were pulled down; the bulb was taken from the socket of the electric light, and laid in the luggage rack; Charles’ fellow passengers adjusted themselves for sleep. Just touching his flank were the feet of a drowsing marine, folded up like a foetus, who filled the rest of the seat. On the seat opposite, a country-woman in an old round brown felt hat smoothed down her skirt, and stretched out tranquilly. A faint light from the corridor shone round the edges of the blinds. The marine began to breathe heavily with a touch of catarrh. Charles leaned his head against the upholstery, and decided he would “come to grips” with his problem; he would “think it through”. But you cannot come to grips with thought. It eludes the grasp. You can turn thought into words—as a writer must do if he is to make sense of it—but what you end up with
are
only words; you are not really thinking any longer, but composing.
    Charles composed then. He created a sheet of paper in his mind, and wrote question and answer on it in brown ink with a thick-nibbed pen. Question:
Why?
(Why not? —but this was an interruption, and not written down.) Answer:
No point. Lonely
. Old people talking to themselves in subway stations. A man, about fifty-five years old, bald-headed, with brown mottled patches on the crown, the purple of burst capillaries in his cheeks and nose; steel-rimmed spectacles; an old stained overcoat— “Oh, I know you intellectuals and public school types,” he had said.