But he not only sent me his book. He also produced the account he had promised me. This is not the place to discuss these matters. I have handed them over to my solicitor who has already acquainted me with his conclusions. Here I may only say that Sebastian’s candour in practical affairs was taken advantage of in the coarsest fashion. Mr Goodman has never been a regular literary agent. He has only bet on books. He does not rightfully belong to that intelligent, honest and hard-working profession. We will leave it at that; but I have not yet done with The Tragedy of Sebastian Knight or rather – The Farce of Mr Goodman.
8
Two years had elapsed after my mother’s death before I saw Sebastian again. One picture postcard was all I had had from him during that time, except the cheques he insisted on sending me. On a dull grey afternoon in November or December 1924, as I was walking up the Champs-Йlysйes towards the Йtoile I suddenly caught sight of Sebastian through the glass front of a popular cafй. I remember my first impulse was to continue on my way, so pained was I by the sudden revelation that having arrived in Paris he had not communicated with me. Then on second thought I entered. I saw the back of Sebastian’s glossy dark head and the downcast bespectacled face of the girl sitting opposite him. She was reading a letter which, as I approached, she handed back to him with a faint smile and took off her horn-rimmed glasses.
‘Isn’t it rich?’ asked Sebastian, and at the same moment I laid my hand on his thin shoulder.
‘Oh, hullo, V,’ he said, looking up. .’This is my brother, Miss Bishop. Sit down and make yourself comfortable.’ She was pretty in a quiet sort of way with a pale faintly freckled complexion, slightly hollowed cheeks, blue-grey near-sighted eyes, a thin mouth. She wore a grey tailor-made with a blue scarf and a small three-cornered hat. I believe her hair was bobbed.
‘I was just going to ring you up,’ said Sebastian, not very truthfully I am afraid. ‘You see I am only here for the day and going back to London tomorrow. What will you have?’
They were drinking coffee. Clare Bishop, her lashes beating, rummaged in her bag, found her handkerchief, and dabbed first one pink nostril and then the other. ‘Cold getting worse,’ she said and clicked her bag.
‘Oh, splendidly,’ said Sebastian, in reply to an obvious question. ‘As a matter a fact I have just finished writing a novel, and the publisher I’ve chosen seems to like it, judging by his encouraging letter. He even seems to approve of the title Cock Robin Hits Back, though Clare doesn’t.’
‘I think it sounds silly,’ said Clare, ‘and besides, a bird can’t hit.’
‘It alludes to a well-known nursery-rhyme,’ said Sebastian, for my benefit.
‘A silly allusion,’ said Clare; ‘your first title was much better.’
I don’t know…. The prism…. The prismatic edge’ murmured Sebastian, ‘that’s not quite what I want…. Pity Cock Robin is so unpopular….’
‘A title,’ said Clare, ‘must convey the colour of the book, not its subject.’
It was the first time and also the last that I ever heard Sebastian discuss literary matters in my presence. Rarely, too, had I seen him in such a light-hearted mood. He appeared well groomed and fit. His finely-shaped white face with that slight shading on the cheeks – he was one of those unfortunate men who have to shave twice a day when dining out – did not show a trace of that dull unhealthy tinge it so often had. His rather large slightly pointed ears were aflame as they were when he was pleasurably excited. I, for my part, was tongue-tied and stiff. Somehow, I felt that I had barged in.
‘Shall we go to a cinema or something,’ asked Sebastian diving into his waistcoat pocket, with two fingers.
‘Just as you like,’ said Clare.
‘Gah-song,’ said Sebastian. I had noticed before that he tried to pronounce French as a real healthy Britisher would.
For some time we searched under the table and under the plush seats for one of Clare’s gloves. She used a nice cool perfume. At last I retrieved it, a grey suйde glove with a white lining and a fringed gauntlet. She put them on leisurely as we pushed through the revolving door. Rather tall, very straight-backed, good ankles, flat-heeled shoes.
‘Look here,’ I said, ‘I don’t think I can go with you to the pictures. I’m dreadfully sorry, but I have got some things to attend to. Perhaps…. But when exactly are you leaving?’
‘Oh, tonight,’ replied Sebastian, ‘but I’ll soon be over again…. Stupid of me not to have let you know earlier. At any rate we can walk with you a little way….’
‘Do you know Paris well?’ I asked of Clare….
‘My parcel,’ she said stopping short.
‘Oh, all right, I’ll fetch it,’ said Sebastian and went back to the cafй.
We two proceeded very slowly up the wide sidewalk. I lamely repeated my question.
‘Yes, fairly,’ she said. ‘I’ve got friends here – I’m staying with them until Christmas.’
‘Sebastian looks remarkably well,’ I said.
‘Yes, I suppose he does,’ said Clare looking over her shoulder and then blinking at me. ‘When I first met him he C looked a doomed man.’
‘When was that?’ I probably asked, for now I remember her answer: ‘This spring in London at a dreadful party, but then he always looks doomed at parties.’
‘Here are your bongs-bongs,’ said Sebastian’s voice behind us. I told them I was going to the Йtoile underground station and we skirted the place from the left. As we were about to cross the Avenue Klйber, Clare nearly got knocked down by a bicycle.
‘You little fool,’ said Sebastian, gripping her by elbow.
‘Far too many pigeons,’ she said, as we reached the kerb.
‘Yes, and they smell,’ added Sebastian.
‘What kind of smell? My nose is stuffed up,’ she asked sniffing and peering at the dense crowd of fat birds strutting about our feet.
‘Iris and rubber,’ said Sebastian.
The groan of a motor-lorry in the act of avoiding a furniture van sent the birds wheeling across the sky. They settled among the pearl-grey and black frieze of the Arc de Triomphe and when some of them fluttered off again it seemed as if bits of the carved entablature were turned into flaky life. A few years later I found that picture, ‘that stone melting into wing’, in Sebastian’s third book.
We crossed more avenues and then came to the white banisters of the underground station. Here we parted, quite cheerfully…. I remember Sebastian’s receding raincoat and Clare’s blue-grey figure. She took his arm and altered her step to fall in with his swinging stride.
Now, I learnt from Miss Pratt a number of things which made me wish to learn a good deal more. Her object in applying to me was to find out whether any of Clare Bishop’s letters to Sebastian had remained among his things. She stressed the point that it was not Clare Bishop’s commission; that in fact Clare Bishop knew nothing of our interview. She had been married now for three or four years and was much too proud to speak of the past. Miss Pratt had seen her a week or so after Sebastian’s death had got into the papers, but although the two women were very old friends (that is, knew more about each other than each of them thought the other knew) Clare did not dwell upon the event.
‘I hope he was not too unhappy,’ she said quietly and then added, ‘I wonder if he kept my letters?’
The way she said this, the narrowing of her eyes, the quick sigh she gave before changing the subject, convinced her friend that it would be a great relief for her to know the letters had been destroyed. I asked Miss Pratt whether I could get in touch with Clare; whether Clare might be coaxed into talking to me about Sebastian. Miss Pratt answered that knowing Clare she would not even dare to transmit my request. ‘Hopeless,’ was what she said. For a moment I was basely tempted to hint that I had the letters in my keeping and would hand them over to Clare provided she granted me a personal interview, so passionate was my longing to meet her, just to see and to watch the shadow of the name I would mention flit across her face. But no – I could not blackmail Sebastian’s past. That was out of the question.
‘The letters are burnt,’ I said. I then continued to plead, repeating again and again that surely there could be no harm in trying; could she not convince Clare, when telling her of our talk, that my visit would be very short, very innocent?
‘What is it exactly you want to know?’ asked Miss Pratt, ‘because, you see, I can tell you lots myself.’
She spoke for a long time about Clare and Sebastian. She did it very well, although, like most women, she was inclined to be somewhat didactic in retrospection.
‘Do you mean to say,’ I interrupted her at a certain point of her story, ‘that nobody ever found out what that other woman’s name was?’
‘No,’ said Miss Pratt.
‘But how shall I find her,’ I cried.
‘You never will.’
‘When do you say
