The Book and the Brotherhood Read Free

conspicuous air of calmness which annoyed some people and comforted others. She often wore a faint smile, and was wearing one now, although her mingled layers of thought were by no means entirely happy. Dancing with Gerard was an icon of happiness. If only she could experience that sense of eternity in the present about which Gerard sometimes talked. She ought to be able to be happy now simply because of Gerard’s firm arm round her waist, and the so slight but authoritative movements of his body whereby he led her. She had looked forward to this evening ever since Gerard had announced his plans for his friends. It was he who had arranged the presence of Tamar and Conrad. But now that what she had wanted was here she was allowing herself to be wilfully absent. She smiled a little more, then sighed.
    ‘I know what you’re thinking about,’ said Gerard.
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘About Sinclair.’
    ‘Yes.’
    Rose had not just then been thinking about Sinclair, but the thought of him was so profoundly associated with the thought of Gerard that she felt no qualm in assenting. Sinclair wasRose’s brother, ‘the golden boy’, so long dead. Of course she had thought about him earlier that evening when entering the college, remembering that other far off summer day when she had come visiting her undergraduate brother at the end of his first year, and Sinclair had said to her, ‘Look, that tall chap over there, that’s Gerard Hernshaw.’ Rose, a little younger than Sinclair, had been still at school. Sinclair’s recent letters had been full of Gerard, who was two years his senior. Rose inferred from the letters that Sinclair was in love with Gerard. It was only on that day in Oxford that she realised that Gerard was equally in love with Sinclair. That was all right. What was not so all right was that Rose had promptly fallen for Gerard herself, and remained, after all these years, hopelessly, permanently, in love. The extraordinary affair which she had had with Gerard less than two years after Sinclair’s early death was something they never spoke of afterwards, perhaps, such was their curious discipline, never even in their thoughts turned over, as one turns over memories, reworking, refurbishing, exposing to air and change. It lay rather in their past as a sealed package which they sometimes very gently touched but never, alone or together, envisaged opening. Rose had had other lovers, but they were brief shadows, she had had proposals of marriage, but they did not interest her. Now, feeling the pressure of Gerard’s hand upon hers very slightly increase, she wondered if he were now thinking of
that
. She did not look up, removing her head from the place where it had momentarily rested against his shoulder. After Sinclair left Oxford he and Gerard had lived together, Gerard working as a journalist, Sinclair continuing his studies in biology and helping Gerard to found a left-wing magazine. After Sinclair’s glider crashed into that hillside in Sussex, and after the very brief dream-interlude with Rose, Gerard gave up left-wing activities and went into the Civil Service. He lived at that time with various men, including Oxford friends, Duncan Cambus, who was then in London, and Robin Topglass, the geneticist, son of the birdman. Robin later married a French Canadian girl and went to Canada, Duncan married Rose’s schoolfriend Jean Kowitz and went into the diplomatic service. MarcusField, probably not one of Gerard’s lovers, became a Benedictine monk. Gerard had always had plenty of close men friends, such as Jenkin Riderhood, with whom he had no sexual relations; and in more recent years seemed to have settled down to living alone. Of course Rose never asked. In fact she had stopped worrying about the men. It was the women she was afraid of.
    The waltz had ended and they were standing together in the pleasant relaxed rather limp attitude of people who have suddenly stopped dancing. Rose said, ‘I’m so glad Tamar has met