the immense pull skyward. Celia kissed him and left him.
“God willing,” said Mr. Kelly, “right out of sight.”
Now I have no one, thought Celia, except possibly Murphy.
3
The moon, by a striking coincidence full and at perigee, was 29,000 miles nearer the earth than it had been for four years. Exceptional tides were expected. The Port of London Authority was calm.
It was after ten when Celia reached the mew. There was no light in his window, but that did not trouble her, who knew how addicted he was to the dark. She had raised her hand to knock the knock that he knew, when the door flew open and a man smelling strongly of drink rattled past her down the steps. There was only one way out of the mew, and this he took after a brief hesitation. He spurned the ground behind him in a spring-heeled manner, as though he longed to run but did not dare. She entered the house, her mind still tingling with the clash of his leaden face and scarlet muffler, and switched on the light in the passage. In vain, the bulb had been taken away. She started to climb the stairs in the dark. On the landing she paused to give herself a last chance, Murphy and herself a last chance.
She had not seen him since the day he stigmatised work as the end of them both, and now she came creeping upon him in the dark to execute a fake jossy’s sixpenny writ to success and prosperity. He would be thinking of her as a Fury coming to carry him off, or even as a tipstaff with warrant to distrain. Yet it was not she, but Love, that was the bailiff. She was but the bumbailiff. This discrimination gave her such comfort that she sat down on the stair-head, in the pitch darkness excluding the usual auspices. How different it had been on the riverside, when the barges had waved, the funnel bowed, the tug and barge sung, yes to her. Or had they meant no? The distinction was so nice. What difference, for example, would it make now, whether she went on up the stairs to Murphy or back down them into the mew? The difference between her way of destroying them both, according to him, and his way, according to her. The gentle passion.
No sound came from Murphy’s room, but that did not trouble her, who knew how addicted he was to remaining still for long periods.
She fumbled in her bag for a coin. If her thumb felt the head she would go up; if her devil’s finger, down. Her devil’s finger felt the head and she rose to depart. An appalling sound issued from Murphy’s room, a flurry of such despairing quality that she dropped the bag, followed after a short silence by a suspiration more lamentable than any groan. For a moment she did not move, the power to do so having deserted her. No sooner did this return than she snatched up the bag and flew to the rescue, as she supposed. Thus the omen of the coin was overruled.
Murphy was as last heard of, with this difference however, that the rocking-chair was now on top. Thus inverted his only direct contact with the floor was that made by his face, which was ground against it. His attitude roughly speaking was that of a very inexperienced diver about to enter the water, except that his arms were not extended to break the concussion, but fastened behind him. Only the most local movements were possible, a licking of the lips, a turning of the other cheek to the dust, and so on. Blood gushed from his nose.
Losing no time in idle speculation Celia undid the scarves and prised the chair off him with all possible speed. Part by part he subsided, as the bonds that held him fell away, until he lay fully prostrate in the crucified position, heaving. A huge pink naevus on the pinnacle of the right buttock held her spellbound. She could not understand how she had never noticed it before.
“Help,” said Murphy.
Startled from her reverie she set to and rendered him every form of assistance known to an old Girl Guide. When she could think of nothing more she dragged him out of the corner, shovelled the rocking-chair under him, emptied him on to the bed, laid him out decently, covered him with a sheet and sat down beside him. The next move was his.
“Who are you?” said Murphy.
Celia mentioned her name. Murphy, unable to believe his ears, opened his eyes. The beloved features emerging from chaos were the face against the big blooming buzzing confusion of which Neary had spoken so highly. He closed his eyes and opened his arms. She sank down athwart his breast, their heads were side by side on the pillow but facing opposite ways, his fingers strayed through her yellow hair. It was the short circuit so earnestly desired by Neary, the glare of pursuit and flight extinguished.
In the morning he described in simple language how he came to be in that extraordinary position. Having gone to sleep, though sleep was hardly the word, in the chair, the next thing was he was having a heart attack. When this happened when he was normally in bed, nine times out of ten his struggles to subdue it landed him on the floor. It was therefore not surprising, given his trussed condition, that on this occasion they had caused the entire machine to turn turtle.
“But who tied you up?” said Celia.
She knew nothing of this recreation, in which Murphy had not felt the need to indulge while she was with him. He now gave her a full and frank account of its unique features.
“I was just getting it going when you rang up,” he said.
Nor did she know anything of his heart attacks, which had not troubled him while she was with him. He now told her all about them, keeping back nothing that might alarm her.
“So you see,” he said, “what a difference your staying with me makes.”
Celia turned her face to the window. Clouds were moving rapidly across the sky. Mr. Kelly would be crowing.
“My bag is on the floor your side,” she said.
The fall on the landing had cracked the mirror set in the flap. She stifled a cry, averted her head and handed him a large black envelope with the title in letters of various colours.
“What you told me to get,” she said.
She felt him take it from her. When after some little time he still had not spoken nor made any movement she turned her head to see was anything amiss. All the colour (yellow) had ebbed from his face, leaving it ashen. A pale strand of blood scoring the jaw illustrated this neap. He kept her waiting a little longer and then said, in a voice unfamiliar to her:
“My life-warrant. Thank you.”
It struck her that a merely indolent man would not be so affected by the prospect of employment.
“My little bull of incommunication,” he said, “signed not with lead but with a jossy’s spittle. Thank you.”
Celia, hardening her heart, passed him a hairpin. Murphy’s instinct was to treat this dun as he had those showered upon him in the days when he used to enjoy an income, namely, steam it open, marvel at its extravagance and return it undelivered. But then he had not been in bed with the collector.
“Why the black envelope,” she said, “and the different-coloured letters?”
“Because Mercury,” said Murphy, “god of thieves, planet par excellence and mine, has no fixed colour.” He spread out the sheet folded in sixteen. “And because this is blackmail.”
THEMA COELI
With Delineations
Compiled
By
RAMASWAMI
