The Lost Life Read online

  If they are any kind of couple, they are a mature couple giving themselves licence to be young. For they first met in what must now seem to them like another world altogether, and is: Boston before the war, when she was eighteen (she is now forty-three) and he was twenty. She is Emily Hale, Miss Hale to the drama students she has left behind at a Californian girls school. She is a frustrated actor and always yearned for the theatre but having been born into Boston aristocracy she was forbidden by her guardians (her aunt and uncle, with whom she is staying in the town) to step on to the stage as a professional.

  Miss Hale has left the job that she loves and her friends to be with this man whom she calls Tom. Had the world outside of that tight Boston society not called to him, had he not travelled to Europe and never come back, they might well have married in their youth as everyone expected and eventually become the middle-aged couple that they now give the impression of being as they leave behind the high street in the town and head into the countryside where the ubiquitous sheep bleat and the cows wait. But, instead of living that life, this Tom of hers settled in England, married an Englishwoman, and became both unhappy and famous. When he is not being called Tom by his family and friends, he is referred to as Mr Eliot, in journals and newspapers. For this is an age in which critics of literature (and Mr Eliot is both a poet and critic) refer to their subjects as Mr So-and-So, or, occasionally, Mrs or Miss So-and-So. Mr Eliot, Mr Yeats, Mr Pound. The name that Tom — who is adjusting his cap and eyeing the fields for cattle because cattle unnerve him almost as much as humanity does — the name with which Tom presents himself to the world, the name by which he is known and read (indeed by Catherine and Daniel, who are, at this moment, discovering the disappointment of the drained pools of the estate), the name that he sends into the world with his books of verse and criticism, is T.S. Eliot. In tweeds and old cap, he is Tom. But it is in his best suit of T.S. Eliot that he is known to the world.

  Emily has been living in the town throughout the summer. As soon as she arrived, Tom rushed from what society calls a ‘difficult’ marriage, and an even more difficult separation, to be with Emily Hale, whom he first met (and never forgot) at a Boston soiree in another life, when he had played Mr Knightley to Emily’s Emma Woodhouse.

  On this bright autumn day, at the suggestion of her aunt and uncle, they have embarked on the short mile or so walk to the eighteenth-century manor house of Burnt Norton. The house, they are told, is nothing special. But the rose garden, they are assured, is worth the walk. And, as the house is unoccupied, they are also assured (in the manner of a friendly wink) that they will not be disturbed. The house is not famous, and no one ever goes there.

  As they enter the estate’s grounds through the same gate as Catherine and Daniel had not long before, Emily Hale, who precedes Tom, pauses and notes that it would be an ideal spot from which to observe the sunset. He nods and they stroll on through the green shade, holding hands as they have for most of the walk. But as they leave this thickly wooded section of the estate and approach the open lawns, Emily rushes ahead. She turns, raises her voice as she looks up to the treetops and the sky, and loudly, theatrically, pronounces everything perfect: the day, the time, the place. She also calls back to him, demanding to know if they have everything they should. He checks his pockets and assures her that, yes, everything is here. They have all they need. Nothing has been overlooked and nothing can go wrong.

  It is this exchange that Catherine and Daniel, currently lounging on the lawns in front of the house, drinking beer and chomping on cheddar sandwiches, hear. And it is this exchange (the two young people assuming it to be an exchange of the owners, not two interlopers like themselves) that prompts them to pick up their bags and bottles and take cover in a patch of thick shrubbery and low trees that look down upon the estate’s rose garden.

  At the same time, Emily and Tom come upon the drained circular pool. Bright sunlight (the pool is set in a small lawn, open to the sky) fills the concrete pool and they stand for a moment, speechless, transfixed by the glare. It is dazzling, but they are drawn into the intense, white reflection, struck motionless by its blinding light. Then a small cloud passes over and the pool is as drained of light as it is of water. Released from the spell, they move on, almost floating over the lawns as if in some hypnotic state until they come to two more pools a little further on. In the same trance they walk slowly, without speaking, up the path lined with roses, pass under an arch and out into the rose garden, humming pink and white in the autumn sun, which still retains the heat of summer.

  In fact, neither Emily nor Tom needed to be told that the house was vacant, nor did they require the reassuring wink that they would be undisturbed. They’d already been here. They’d already discovered the rose garden the previous week, along with the pools that dazzled them then and dazzled them just now.

  Today, they have come prepared. As Emily leaves the archway and walks towards a hedge-boxed bed of flowers, she takes a small pair of scissors from her dress pocket. She pauses, admiring the sun on the flowers, then selects two white roses (it is a private joke, for he affects support for the White Rose of York, which amuses both of them, for it is an affectation, and as much as he tries to be English, he never quite gets his ‘Englishness’ right) and she cuts them off the bush, looking about the property briefly before doing so.

  Her ‘special friend’, as she calls him when talking about his letters with her ‘girls’ at the college or those people with whom she is not intimate enough to mention names, is standing under the arch, bewitched, it would seem, by the combined spectacle of Emily, the roses and the garden. She closes the gap between them, her eyes upon his. There is a hint of a smile on his face; his eyes are both focused on her and far away. She knows the look; he is both here and not here. He is, she knows, someone who is either continually looking back or looking forward, one of those who feel the pastness of a moment even as they are living it; who feel, at odd times, ordinary moments as if already having lived them, as if living them, and as if about to live them, all at once. He is either dogged by nostalgia or drawn into yearning for something more. She, although knowing all this, is much better at simply living the moment, in the here and now, without too much looking forward or back, or towards other worlds, other realities behind the ‘appearance’ of this one. Emily Hale is better at simply doing things without the eyes of Emily Hale looking on. And as she reaches for his coat lapel, he lowers his eyes and notes her nimble fingers pinning the bloom to his chest as perfectly and securely as he would dearly love to pin this moment, in all its detail, to that part of the mind where memory is contained, and which he draws upon when he picks up the pen to write. To pin these moments to a page, with such perfect ease, poetry without the poetry, that would be something. His eyes flicker, she pins the second rose to her dress, and, rising slightly on her toes, kisses him on the cheek. His face breaks into a smile and she nods. Yes, that’s it, she seems to say: just let the moment take you without too much thought, for once.

  She then takes his hand, leading him through the rose garden, along the central aisle that runs in between the boxed beds of roses, pausing occasionally, pointing to this bloom and that. And when they finally come to a stop, it is at the front of the garden, underneath the windows of the unoccupied house.

  He removes his cap and runs his fingers through his hair, shiny, parted down one side, with a hint of brilliantine. And as they pause, arm in arm, they look out over the garden, almost as if surveying an assembly or a congregation. The roses, in their second blooming, glow pink and white in the heavy autumn sun, witness to the couple’s presence and what it is that they are about to do, for they have the appearance of two people paused on the brink of a ceremony.

  With the rose pinned to his lapel, Tom inclines towards her, his figure tall and stooped, his face solemn, almost grave. She stands beside him, both facing the garden, but with their heads turned, eyes upon each other. They hold hands and it is then that he speaks, softly, slowly, almost a
whisper, words that are meant for only two people to hear. It is brief, and when he is finished he raises his eyebrows slightly, in the manner of a question. Without hesitation, the moment he has finished, she nods. If, indeed, it is a question that has been asked, it has been answered with a yes.

  He then lets go of her hand, puts his cap back on, reaches into his coat pocket and takes out a small rectangular container, a tin of some sort. She watches, rapt, perfectly still, as he opens it and takes out a gold ring. But it is at this moment that his head jerks up and swings about, his nose, his brow, his eyes those of an eagle as he scans the garden, not so much in search of prey as intrusion. The lightness leaves his features, his eyes are concentrated, his whole bearing one of somebody on guard. It is as though he has heard something. Was it a bird, or was it, surely not, laughter? In front of a manor house that they have been assured is unoccupied, in a garden that should be free of people, he feels disturbed. As if the occasion has been intruded upon, even mocked, the way laughter cheapens a solemn moment, and he now scans the garden with eagle eyes as if seeking out the source of hidden laughter, somewhere out there in the bushes. But the garden is silent apart from the occasional calling of birds, and the flapping of wings as they dart from one bush, one tree, to another. The eagle then relaxes, becomes Tom again, and turns back to the puzzled face of Emily, who is wondering what on earth could have caught his attention, for she heard nothing.

  He lifts her left hand, as if preparing to bestow a kiss upon it, but instead slips the ring onto her third finger. She then, quite smartly (it is over in a second or two), accepts another ring that he takes from his coat pocket and puts it on his finger. He then kisses her cheek, and she his. The ceremony is done, but they linger, breathing in the moment and the warm autumn air.

  When they are done, they stroll, side by side, back up the central path of the rose garden and soon kneel at the trimmed hedged border of one of the flower beds. Here he drops his cap onto the lawn, then, opening the small rectangular tin, places it on top of the low hedge. Together they unpin the roses and place them gently in the tin. Then he takes a small piece of paper from his coat pocket, and, already folded, places it in the tin with the two white roses. And finally, reluctantly, he slips the ring from his finger and puts it, too, into the tin. He snaps it shut, strolls a few feet back to the arch, picks up a stick he noticed as they entered the garden and returns to the flower bed, where he begins to dig a hole with it. The bed has been recently tended, the soil is loose, and the digging is easy. When the hole is deep enough, he buries the tin in the hole and covers it, all in an effort to make it look as though the soil has never been disturbed. But it clearly has. The only article left over from the ceremony is the ring on Emily’s finger. And when she eventually returns to America, she will wear this ring in public. Friends, acquaintances, even strangers, will remark upon the ring, but not to her. And, even if they were to ask, she wouldn’t tell them, for that would be to betray her special friend.

  The tin is consigned to the secret earth, and they both wear the calm, peaceful expression that comes with a job well done. Then there is the sound of a motor car, loud and intrusive, coming from the driveway of the estate. Doors slam. They both look up and exchange anxious glances, then rise from where they have been kneeling and leave through the same archway by which they entered the garden, almost in the same way Catherine and Daniel fled the scene upon their arrival. They pause for a moment beneath the arch looking over the rose garden, it would seem, one last time. Satisfied, yet warily eyeing the driveway, they retrace their steps. Neither of them notices his cloth cap, lying on the lawn beside the hedge where he dropped it and which has been forgotten in their haste.

  Catherine and Daniel kneel in the thick foliage beside the rose garden, hidden behind the leaves. They are perfectly still, listening to the low, muffled voices coming nearer from the path just to their left. Then a man and a woman, dressed sensibly for a walk, but also, they notice, almost formally, emerge from under the archway and Catherine knows who they are straight away. They are not the owners. They are not to be feared, but having concealed themselves in the bushes it is now impossible to reveal themselves. Besides, the couple, absorbed in their own company, give every impression that they would not welcome an intrusion.

  She is the woman from America, who teaches drama at a girls school in California. She is staying with her aunt and uncle in the town, occupying one of the cottages adjoining the large house they have rented for the summer. Catherine knows this because she cleans the house and cottages every other day. Miss Hale, as Catherine calls her (although she knows perfectly well her name is Emily), has been living in the town all summer. She has even got to know her a little, for Miss Hale is a friendly woman who is very interested in everyone and everything around her. She has an enthusiasm for the town and the countryside that Catherine has warmed to, for it is not a condescending enthusiasm. It does not make Catherine feel ‘quaint’ as some of the holidayers in the town, from different parts of the world, do. There is also something theatrical about her, at least to Catherine, for she often talks like the drama teacher she is. Especially when referring to her ‘girls’ back home, almost as though she fashioned them herself, so that, wherever they went in life after their school years, whatever they did, they would always have the stamp of Miss Hale upon them. And Catherine, right from the beginning of the summer when this woman started to open up to her, could feel the pull of being one of Miss Hale’s girls, of wanting to be one of Miss Hale’s girls. The fun of it all, but, more importantly, that sense of being outside the march of usual female society. Of being different. Being special. Being one of Miss Hale’s girls. And perhaps Miss Hale senses this, for, on the occasions that they chat (Catherine often asking about the distant wonderland of California, with its vast blue skies and sun, the likes of which she can barely imagine), Miss Hale asks what she does, and takes more interest than most people from the town in the fact that Catherine (and she is quite proud of this) will soon begin her final year at school, literature being her first love and her whole reason for studying at all; the rest, geography and maths, the things you have to get through because they make you. Miss Hale is most interested. Who does she read? Who are her favourites? Has she ever heard of so-and-so, who might be good for a young woman such as Catherine to read at this particular time of life? Yes, Miss Hale takes an interest in Catherine’s studies, more than most around her. In fact, she takes an interest in Catherine’s studies in such a way that Catherine is beginning to feel that she has, to some extent, been taken under Miss Hale’s wing. The same wing under which she takes her girls, for Catherine has lately begun to feel, to understand, just what it might be like to be one of Miss Hale’s girls. That, in just being one of her band, one automatically grows and leaves behind that fine line that separates adolescence and adulthood, being a girl and being a young woman. One is spoken to like a grown-up. One gives one’s views on a variety of subjects in the company of equals. More importantly, one trusts and receives trust on the unspoken assumption that it will never (on pain of death) be betrayed. And, ultimately, one is judged fit to receive confidences. That sense of being taken under Miss Hale’s wing early in the summer, the interest Miss Hale took in all she did, it struck Catherine later, might not just have come from her friendly nature but the result of curiosity, a desire to find out if this young woman was fit to receive confidences. If it was a test for which Catherine didn’t even realise she was sitting, she apparently passed it. Yes, she had, it seemed, been found up to receiving what confidences Miss Hale might see fit or find necessary to bestow upon her. She had, in fact, already received one.

  For it was, in just such a way, that Catherine first heard of Miss Hale’s special friend. You may, she told Catherine early in her employment, you may, from time to time, see or meet a special friend of mine who comes up from London to visit. You will do me a service more valuable than work, she suggested, if you say nothing of it. And Catherine had nodded, saying nothin
g, both flushed with the tone of the request (one adult to another) and intrigued as to whom it could possibly be. It was all part of that world of confidences and trusts, the kind of confidence bestowed on Miss Hale’s girls and the kind of trust expected of them. If, her manner clearly implied, if you were one of my girls (and if you attended my college you most certainly would be, for, you have, her manner once again clearly inferred, that something extra that all my girls have), you would know without being told the need for discretion. She doesn’t use the word ‘secrecy’, Miss Hale. Whenever she speaks to Catherine on the subject of her special friend, she instead speaks of discretion. And care. And, on one such occasion, as if to dispel any unnecessary sense of mystery, as if to explain that this required discretion was no affectation, she spoke, in distant terms, of someone she knew, a dear friend who had made a most unfortunate match in his youth and married a very weak woman. And don’t imagine that the weak don’t have power, she’d said, gazing from her cottage window on to the garden below, they have enormous power. The selfishly weak will always rule the strong. For they cling and they hold on long after they have any right to. This is the selfishness of the weak. They hold on to things long after they have any right to, just so nobody else can have them. Do you know such people, she had asked, turning her head back from the garden the way actors do on the stage. Just the way actors do when they have revealed something of their inner character and are momentarily vulnerable. Catherine shook her head and Miss Hale had smiled. Good, the smile implied. You are lucky. Let’s hope it stays that way.