Poetry Magazines - The best collection of poetry magazines online - Simon Armitage

It didn’t show too clearly at first. And even to the end it did not quite show at all. But that probably was because so many other people were taking — well, let’s say, it was because of other people’s minds. Even Miss Kane, unique a person as she was, could not avoid the complications that are brought by the interests of other people.

     When the case came up before the court the question was not whether she loved the man. It was whether the man loved her. And thus the onus, much to her dismay and chagrin, was thrown upon him leaving her simply to recall the episodes of the history. She would have preferred the whole thing to be seen from her side, placed in the positive position of stating, demonstrating and proving.

     He, too, had felt a certain disappointment in being asked to disprove allegations by positively stating a case. He never wanted that. He wanted to be the one who had suffered. He was so gentle and modest.

     The case itself was a queer affair, becoming queerer and queerer as it went on until it ended in a correspondingly queer way.

     Forever afterwards it was asked (and never answered) why had Miss Kane taken him to court? (perhaps it would have been more profitable to ask who had courted whom?) and just what, exactly, was the case all about? Miss Kane, whenever she was asked these questions, took refuge in a precarious silence: there was always a slight advertency that she was about to say something. But she managed always never to say anything. And strangely enough it was he that everybody held responsible for the case and its inexplicable collapse for want of explanation. No one blamed Miss Kane or appreciated her part in the affair — not even he. Not he, not she, not the court officials, not his friends, not her friends saw the curiosity of the affair. Perhaps there had been no affair and no curiosity to see and that this unfathomable innocence on all sides was not so sophisticated as it now seems.

     Another, even stranger, thing was that nobody actually blamed the jesuits for anything although his mother came in for a bit of the stick.

     At the age of seven his mother gave him to the Jesuits. And that he should become a priest in that brotherhood was taken for granted, until that day, at the age of 17, when he was chosen as one of a team to go abroad to win honours for the school in an athletics competition. He was by then a distinguished young scholar and athlete. Both these distinctions were amply demonstrated abroad — perhaps a little too amply. Having won most of the honours in the competition he sat down one night and composed and set to music a number of songs which he performed before a select audience at the college where his team was staying. The performance was such a success; the young man’s brilliance came out with such a sharp point that the television corporation immediately came after him to give a repeat performance on television before the nation. Only for this performance he would be given a professional companion who would help to give his raw edges their finished polish and glow. The companion turned out to be a Miss Kane — a person in show business and in immense popularity with the nation. From that moment a strange relationship evolved between the two personalities. But another, stranger yet, had already evolved. This between him and an unsuspecting young lady who was a student at the university where his name had already been entered for a three-year history course. Theirs had been nothing but a casual friendship which began with her teasing him for wanting to contain his tremendous physical powers in an ambition to become a priest, although when it came to his scholastic abilities and precocious subtleness she conceded that she saw the point. With her, although two years his senior, it was just tomboyishness. With him it became a passion. The moment he realised the nature of his new experience he vowed to marry her though persisting in his ambiguous admiration of Miss Kane. It was perhaps not so ambiguous since Miss Kane fully realized the nature of the admiration and its possibilities, though having, herself, an unclear idea of what to do. What she seemed clearly to feel was that she was becoming perverse towards him.

     However, he returned home and back to a final year at school. He had never openly made himself frank to Miss Kane although in a peculiar way he had hinted at it. And because he was so certain of what he felt for the college student he had remained perfectly well-behaved and discreet.

     One day he received a telegram saying that he had been given a place at the university. Four months later he was there. On the night of his arrival he went straight to the rooms of some friends, where he had made the acquaintance of the tomboy student. He found a note on the door saying that the occupants had gone to a history professor’s house where there was a little gathering. He felt pleased: he already knew the professor as a friend. When he got to the house he found just the bunch including the tomboy who looked very much a lady. He was welcomed by all and the professor’s wife gave him a kiss. Glasses were raised to welcome him to his new academic life. He drank and turned to the young lady. “To you”, he said raising his glass once more. “Oh”, said a fellow, “there’ll be enough drinking to her yet”. “Yet?” he asked. “The engagement, didn’t you know?” He was frozen. Someone perceiving that the glass had become loose in his fingers quickly snatched it away from him. The professor’s wife tried and succeeded to draw his stupid gaze from the young lady. His ambition had been ruined. And that poisonous secret of his which only he and he alone knew of to abandon the vocation chosen for him suddenly became for him a bolder and more destructive argument. The young lady had laughed, of course. Not so long after the door-bell rang and the professor’s wife went to answer.

     Miss Kane was at the door and she wanted to see him. The room was very still. He himself was still too shocked to say anything immediately. One young person said the caller should be asked to come in. The young lady whose engagement had been referred to looked pale and nervous — the measure, perhaps, of her realization of something her action was doing. However as the room began to buzz again he rose and left it.

     Miss Kane was standing in the vestibule before a small table on which was a large Grecian vase full of green ferns and above which was an oval mirror. Opposite the table, against a wainscotted background, was a large open bookcase full of books and numbers of defunct periodicals. Next to it was a rack for coats, hats and umbrellas. Leaving the room where the gathering was the wide corridor swept in a left-hand curve — like a crescent — into the vestibule from which another corridor turned, in the opposite direction, with the same crescent sweep and led to another smaller drawing-room reserved for quiet intimacies and as a place for the reception of distinguished strangers.

     He was showing all the marks of his recent shock when he greeted her. “But how did you know I was here? I arrived in this country only a few hours ago”, he said.

     “Do say hello, first”, she said with a practised smile.

     “How are you?”, he asked.

     “Well — but for you. But you don’t look well. Surprised to see me?”

     “More than delighted. But you see . . . . .”

     “Yes, in there. Are you afraid of the inferences? Or is it the imaginings?”

     “Nothing like that. I just wondered . . . . .”

     Neither he nor Miss Kane noticed the sudden quiet that had come into the house. As far as sounds were concerned they were quite, quite alone.

     “I was North when I was told”, she said. “I came immediately”.

     “By train?”

     “I drove”.

     “All that way?”

     “Dear me! I’ve been driving for 9 years. And it’s only 42 miles. You look very disappointed, you know.”

     “Yes, I do. But it’s something else. Did you leave your friends in the car?”

     “What friends?”

     “Oh! Is your husband not . . . . .?”

     “He’s doing a cabaret. Besides he’ll be getting his divorce in three months.”

     “I see. I wonder how careful . . . . .”

     “You needn’t be. I’m very tired”.

     “I must say it’s disappointing.”

     “That I am . . . . . ?”

     “No. You and him. The last time I was with you two I got the impression . . . . .”

     “I think I’ll spend the night. Can you suggest where?”

     “I’ve just arrived”

     “Haven’t you got a room?”

     “It’s a college room. But would you like to stay? — I mean in companionship?”

     “In your room?”

     “No, somewhere else.”

     “Where?”

     “Here are some keys. Go to this place. It’s quite empty and stands all alone.”

     “You’ll use the college?”

     “I’ll see you.”

     “Can I bathe?”

     “Use everything”.

     And she went away. His ambiguities had given way to a direct feeling which had a corresponding response. And Miss Kane felt she knew just what she wanted to do.

     He did not notice that the house had suddenly jumped back to life as he quitted the vestibule and approached the room. He sat down beside the professor’s wife.

     “Did you ever meet Miss Kane’s husband?” he was asked by someone.

     “Who?” There was just enough in his tone to give the person a doubtful significance as if it was something he could not immediately place.

     “Miss Kane’s husband, you know old boy”.

     “I wonder we’re talking about Miss Kane at all”, he said.

     “But she’s just been at the door!”

     “Has she?” he answered and threw everyone into a look of surprise. “I had never thought”, he went on, “that Miss Kane would be the subject of a conversation in a gathering like this”.

     “Let alone . . . . . ?”

     “Indeed”, he replied.

     “But have you met the husband?” he was pointedly asked again. He squirmed and blanched.

     “Oh, never mind, it’s enough if one has the right kind of information. You knew from the beginning”.

     He got up to go.

     “Surely, you’re not already going?” asked the professor’s wife. “This is the beginning of a new life. Perhaps you’d prefer a more intimate touch. We could all go to your room.”

     He was looking, a little drunkenly, at the young lady who had remained very white and conspicuously silent ever since the reference to herself. She had not joked with him. At length he said no. He did not want an intimate touch. He was going to catch a train to the capital.

     “At this hour! My dear boy, please do not feel driven away. But if you feel you must go, do. The least we can do is come along with you as far as the station”.

     “Good heavens, no! I couldn’t take you away. Besides, it’s a short walk all too short for my heavy thoughts. I’ll go alone”.

     “I am thinking”, said the professor, “that he must meet his tutor tomorrow.”

     But they so insisted — all of them — that he soon found himself walking, trembling towards the station in the company of 14 very lively people. The 15th was still very conspicuously quiet. He was noting that all the time. And most of his actions had their point from this — then and up to the end of his life.

     The station clock was showing a quarter past 2 am. The day was over. There were no more trains.

     “I must have miscalculated”, he said. “I am sorry to have brought you here”.

     “Nonsense. Where would you like us to accompany you to now?”

     He didn’t know how to resign and he didn’t know how to fight. He stood there looking at the ground. Everybody waited on him in silence. When he raised his head he met her eyes. He turned away and began to walk followed by them.

     The cottage stood on the flat top of a little hill, quite by itself. A light was burning in it.

     “If you wait here”, he said when they were outside the front door, “I’ll run in and tell my friend so that he can prepare to receive you”. He dashed off soon to return to let them in. They immediately made themselves at home as if entrenching for the night. He, poor thing, just stood there, so young, so beautiful and so lost.

     “Where’s your friend?” someone asked him.

     “I’m afraid he’s out. I must really apologise . . . . .”

     “Oh do. But don’t create advantages for its reception”. So he kept quiet.

     “When do you expect him?”

     “That’s the point. I . . . . .”

     “I see. You have no idea. But might we remain so late in his absence?”

     “Oh, yes”.

     “And should he not . . . . . ?”

     “I should have to stay the night”.

     “Then you’d be quite alone?”

     “Very much so, I’m afraid”.

     “No fears, old boy?”

     He laughed jerkily. “I’m not troubled by fear of the unknown”, he said. These answers were not really his: he was under so much pressure.

     “What a poor catholic that must make you”.

     “Quite alone, did you say?”

     “Yes, I’m afraid so”, he found himself saying again.

     Just then a door opened and Miss Kane appeared behind him to the whole room. There was a tremendous hush. She was wearing a man’s house-jacket that came down mid-way her thighs. Behind her could be seen two shining mahogany posts of an obviously large bed whose covers had been thrown off.

     “He didn’t know I was here”, Miss Kane said. He said nothing. He put the tips of his fingers into his mouth and slowly sank into an armchair, fixing his eyes on the floor. He heard them say goodnight and the door close.

     This event and how it came to its eventuality played a great part in the court hearing. His friends — those who went to court — were too intelligent and honest to avoid direct evidence. And it must be said here that when the case was finally thrown out of court it was in the laps of those friends — his and hers — that it landed and continued to try and resolve itself. There was, for instance, the professor’s wife —always a good friend of his — who, when asked in her old age what Miss Kane had taken him to court for, used to say: “It was, didn’t you know?” on the point of delicacy. She was as delicate as he was. The degree was all there was to it. She, because her delicacy insisted so on itself and he, because his delicacy made him so unable. Don’t you see, it had to be placed somewhere by someone? It was not he or she at all. It was their delicacy. Of course, if someone had asked the important question: when did he renounce his vocation? we might have got somewhere”. And she would hang fire with the intimation that she could have answered the question. “There was, of course”, she often appended, “one lady whom nobody bothered to question”.

     The case showed itself to be a bother from the moment the hearing began. The plaintiff’s counsel — that is, Miss Kane’s counsel — gave it to be his client’s plea that the defendant had not observed obligations and responsibilities to the plaintiff. And his counsel had sprung up to say the court would hear that his client was here not because he had refused to marry — that is, because he had breached an agreement — but because he did not marry. Whereupon counsel for the plaintiff again stood up to say with some sarcasm: “Surely, Milord, there’s more to it than that. If that were all there would be little reason why you, for example, Milord, are not in the defendant’s place”. And it was agreed that there was, after all, more to it. But that remained ever the point. Just what?

     In this mood, baffled and baffling, the case proceeded.

     “You are saying — aren’t you? — that you have actually slept with this young lady?” counsel for the plaintiff asked.

     “Oh, yes”, replied the defendant.

     “One moment”, the judge interrupted. “You realize, of course, that this gives everything away?” he said paternally to the defendant.

     “This seems to be the crux of the case. If you admit, as you seem to be doing, that . . . . . perhaps I ought to get it another way. You have admitted that you have co-habited with the plaintiff. Are you standing by that?”

     He laughed — and the judge winced as if his dignity had been affronted.

     “Excuse my laughing. But I thought it obvious that sleeping with people implies co-habiting with them. If we’ve slept together of course we’ve co-habited”.

     His Lordship didn’t quite get that. He looked puzzled, looked from one counsel to the other. He asked for the defendant to be put down and the plaintiff to be put up.

     “You heard what the defendant said?” he asked her.

     “Yes, your Honour”.

     “Is he correct?”

     “Yes, your Honour”.

     “Forgive me, but I must put it bluntly to you. You have not misunderstood my language, have you?”

     “I think not”.

     “Good. So let’s have it again. Have you slept with the defendant?”

     “Yes, your Honour”.

     “And you realize that I’m asking you whether you have co-habited with him?”

     “Yes, your Honour”.

     “How often — just give a rough estimate?”

     “I really can’t. I can only say many times”.

     The judge asked her to be put down and him to be put up again and counsel for the plaintiff to continue.

     “You have on a number of occasions been to bed with the plaintiff?”

     “Yes, Sir, I have”.

     “And you two were not married?”

     “NO”.

     “Then clearly you saw that there were obligations entailed by such acts in such circumstances, which you ought to have felt you should fulfil?”

     “I am not sure I get your implications. Are you trying to tell me that what I did was somehow other than what I should think I ought to do?”

     “I want you to see that certain responsibilities are involved in certain actions. I want you to see that as a consequence of what you do you have to do other things”.

     “But then I shouldn’t be here. For I cannot have stopped doing anything”.

     “Milord”, said the counsel, “I think it would help everything if the defendant could be made to confine his answers to yes or no

     The judge thought for a moment. Then he said: “I don’t think so — at least not so far”. So the counsel returned to his job.

     “On a number of occasions you were alone with the plaintiff?”

     “Yes”.

     “All alone?”

     “Yes”.

     “Did you, at any of those times, think of marriage?”

     “The point misses me”.

     “Did you ever think that you would like to marry her?”

     “That never came up”.

     “Did it for you?”

     “Whether it did or not can only have been equivocal”.

     “What do you mean?”

     “That there was never any certainty”.

     “Surely, man, you can be certain of an idea?”

     “Is marriage an idea?”

     “Don’t ask me a question when I ask you one. Did you ever want to marry this young woman — yes or no?”

     “That’s what I’m trying to say. It simply can’t be said. You see we were too well involved at any time”.

     The judge placed his head between his hands and lowered it. The counsel sat down and counsel for the defendant stood up.

     “On the occasions that you were with the young lady did you do anything?”

     “A great many things”.

     “Anything to be ashamed of?”

     “That would have to take the lady into consideration”.

     “That is, you mean, the nature of her reaction?”

     “Oh no. What there was in the moments for themselves”.

     “Did you do what she did not want you to do?”

     “I cannot say”

     “Then you do not feel more obliged than anybody else?”

     “On the contrary. I feel particularly so “For what?”

     “For splendid moments”.

     “One moment more”, the judge interrupted again. “Can I have the plaintiff up? Now. Did you actually get into bed with this man?”

     “Time and again, your Honour”.

     “Were you ever undressed?”

     “By him, you mean?”

     “Let it be by yourself. Were you ever in bed with him with nothing on you?”

     “Yes, your Honour”.

     “Did you give him your body?”

     “It was there to be had by him”.

     “And did he take it?”

     “He rather gave”.

     “What did he give?”

     “He gave his body. No. He gave himself”.

     “You felt his body against yours?”

     “Oh always. But whether he was actually present I can’t tell. I know that physically we gave and took. But what, in the end, we did actually take or do I don’t think I can say”.

     “But you can know — can’t you — whether or not someone is exciting you?”

     “Indeed, your Honour”.

     “And you did know?”

     “Oh. yes”.

     “That he was exciting you?”

     “Yes”.

     “Then it is established?”

     “What your Honour?”

     “My dear young woman, what you’ve come here to establish a responsibility for”.

     “Well, perhaps not responsibility. Just whether he was aware all the time. That is it”.

     “Of what, my dear?”

     “Of what was actually taking place?”

     “And what did, actually, ever take place?”

     “Isn’t that for him to answer? Isn’t that what he has to answer?”

     “Then you’re not saying that he had sexual intercourse with you on the understanding that he should marry you and that he did not?”

     “Oh!” she gasped. “I thought I was saying, did he know of that and if he did was he aware that he needed to declare?”

     “Declare what?”

     “That this was sufficient to make him come out in any position he chose.”

     It was here that the judge threw it out. He rose abruptly and asked the two representing counsels to follow him to his chamber. There he implored and bullied them to find a solution between themselves out of court.

     “But do tell me”, he said before they left. “If any of you understands do tell me what this is all about. Tell me, you’re prosecuting, what are you prosecuting?”

     “Well, Milord, I thought I was briefed to try and get the man to own up to responsibilities”.

     “And what, in the devil’s name, are they?” He got no reply. “And you, Sir, what are you defending?”

     “That there were responsibilities but that they have already been taken care of, Milord, in the course of whatever took place”.

     “Which was what?”

     “Whatever it was that took place, Milord. I think you know. Milord, that my learned friend here and myself are as anxious as you are to be quitted of the whole thing”. And quitted they all were.

     But it was the parties and friends of the parties who would not be quitted. They talked it endlessly. It brought back the burning coal of youth to their old age.

     “But was it for her that he gave up the priesthood?” some friend would ask another. He himself would often say: “Well I was, you know, ready to marry her. If only she had said that, if only that was the question put plainly to me. Of course the thing was conducted wrongly from the start. If they has asked whether she was in love with me rather than whether I loved her, don’t you see . . . . .” Whereupon a kind friend would change the subject. Miss Kane, by then, had been dead a long time.