To Be a Pilgrim by Joyce Cary

Author:Joyce Cary [Cary, Joyce]
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub
Published: 2016-12-26T05:00:00+00:00

78

And as soon as the lift is out of sight, I fly up the stairs to Julie, whose presence in the building is not supposed to be known to Amy. I need consolation and support. Raging, I rush into her apartment and tell her of the plot to nail me to Tolbrook. “Bill’s in it, too.” For I like to be unjust to Bill.

Julie is wandering from one room to another, in petticoat and corsets, among heaps of silks and underclothes. She pays no attention to my complaints, and I demand angrily, “Has he been?” He, for us, is only Edward.

“No.”

“Then what are you dressing up for?”

“I thought he might want to go out with me.”

“Why, did he say so?”

“He often does after a party.”

“And you haven’t seen him for a fortnight. How can you continue with Edward?” etc. And I tell her that if she does not leave him, she will wreck her whole life.

Julie puts down one flowing garment and takes up another, throws it into the bedroom, and comes back again. Her habit of going about half-­naked before me, like a Roman princess before a slave, always pleases me; even in my anger, I am gratified by a confidence, charmed by the woman’s beauty. But the more warm my love of Julie, the greater my rudeness. For she never pays any attention to me, and I am like those Indian pagans who kick their gods when they will not hear their prayers.

“I can’t understand you,” I say, “making yourself so contemptible. It’s revolting. Letting Edward use you.”

“He uses you, too.”

“Not any longer.”

“Perhaps we were made to be used. I shouldn’t like to feel useless. Perhaps I need Edward to use me and you need Tolbrook to use you.

What will you do without Tolbrook, Tommy; and Edward to badger? Won’t you feel a little bit unimportant?”

“What nonsense,” I say, but I feel a strange moment of uncertainty. I hear again Bill’s shocked voice, “I never thought you would desert the old place.”

“I suppose Edward is used, too, by somebody or something. He’s getting more ambitious.”

“I’ve done with him.”

Julie looks at me. I am sitting on the bed among the dresses which swell up on each side of me, and my feet, of course, do not reach the floor. Probably, in my frock coat and patent leather boots, my high collar and formal tie, I appear a little absurd in this situation. Julie suddenly begins to laugh. She stoops down, red with laughter, and I see her breasts, now plump and round, within her wide-­topped stays. I do not usually mind being laughed at by Julie, but now in that uncertainty which is rising so fast in my soul, I am more touchy. I exclaim angrily, “What are you laughing at?”

“If you could see yourself,” she says, “the rebel.” And coming up to me she takes my face between her hands and kisses me. “Don’t be angry with me. I am suffering. I have been such a failure. Even in love.

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