CHAPTER TEN

Clara

Paul and his mother now had long talks about life.

Religion was no longer a part in the young man's life. He had thrown away all the ideas that could stop him from living the life he wanted to live. In the past, ideas had been the most powerful force in his life, but now life itself was what made his heart come alive.

Mrs Morel tried to keep him from becoming too excited by his new sense of life. He still had not stopped thinking about Miriam, and she saw that this took much of his energy. She also knew that he was becoming very interested in Clara. An older woman, she could only cause her son pain.

"My boy," she told him, "all your intelligence, your leaving behind of old things, and your new feeling for life, they all don't seem to bring you much happiness."

"What is happiness!" he cried. "It's nothing to me! How am I ever to be happy?"

Mrs Morel was troubled by his hopelessness.

"That's for you to decide, my son. But if you could meet some good woman who would make you happy, you could settle down. It would be much better for you," she told him.

She had hurt him. All the pain he felt over Miriam came to the surface.

"You mean easy. That's all a woman wants: an easy life, comfortable, and with nothing to worry about. I hate that thought. I don't care if I am happy or not. I want my life to be full. That is the only way to truly live," he told her.

"You have never given it a chance. You should care; you should try to live a happy life. The thought of you being unhappy forever breaks my heart," she said, almost crying.

Mrs Morel wanted to save her son. He was killing himself with his own pain. She hated Miriam for having taken away his joy. She knew that Miriam did not want to do it, but she had. She wished that he would fall in love with a girl who would make him strong again.

The months went slowly by. One day a friend from Nottingham asked him to take a message to Clara. She lived in a house on a small, dirty street. The house itself was old and looked as though a strong wind would blow it down. She answered the door when he knocked. They both felt strange to be meeting at her house. Whenever they had met before it was in public, or where there were other people.

Inside, the rooms were covered with clothes and books. Clara tried to clean up a little, but it was no use. She asked him to sit.

"Would you like a bottle of beer?" she asked him.

He said yes, even though he did not usually drink. He sat with his beer and watched her work around the house. He noticed her body and the way it moved. She was like something from a half-remembered dream. He could not put into words the feeling she caused in him. Confusion and excitement battled in his brain.

Paul felt as if his eyes were opening. As she continued to work, he felt that he wanted her to ask him for help. He wanted to give her what she needed. It made him sad to see her in such a small and dirty place. She was life, and she should not be spending her days shut away.

When he left her, he wanted to run. He went to the train station in a kind of dream and was home before he realized.

Clara had educated herself. She had left school at an early age, to work and later get married. But in the last five years she had read everything she could find. She had taught herself French, and knew about most of the important writers.

None of this did she tell Paul. She liked to hide her true self from the world. Sometimes Paul caught her looking at people in a strange way. It was almost like she could see into their true selves, and was always sad at what she saw there. Paul would look into her eyes, but they revealed nothing. She would smile and walk away. He wanted to know what lay beneath.

One day he found a book of French poetry on her table.

"You read French, do you?" he asked excitedly.

She was sitting by the window sewing. The afternoon sun made her blond hair come alive. Her neck and arms caught the light and seemed to send it back even brighter.

"What did you say?" she asked, smiling.

Paul's blood boiled. She wasn't even listening to him.

"I did not know you read French," he said in a quiet voice.

"You never asked," she replied.

He was quiet. He watched her work. She seemed to hate work of any kind, yet always what she made was perfect. He was amazed that she could be so cold. He was always hot and angry, troubled over everything in life. She must be something very special, he thought.

"What would you do, if you could do anything?" he asked.

"There is little chance that I will ever get that chance, so I don't waste my time thinking about it," she answered. "You only ask that because you think you are too good to be working in a factory, like most people have to do their whole lives. You think that you are a great artist and that it is below you to waste your days with anything but art. But here is some news for you, most people don't care about art, they don't care about what you think is the only reason for living. The world does not owe you anything Paul. The sooner you understand that the better off you will be."

He was angry, and very hurt.

"But I don't think that I am too good to work in a factory.

It's the opposite' I think that that is where real life happens. And that is what I want to paint," he said, trying to defend himself.

"But you don't live that life. You only use it to show what you think life is. For the people you work beside, that is life, nothing more. They are living, you are thinking about living," she said.

He did not know what to say. For days after he tried to think of an answer to what she had said, but his mind was in a storm. Was she right? Or was she hiding her own sorrows by hurting him?

After a week, Paul received a package in the mail. It was from Clara. He opened it not knowing what to expect. It was a book of poetry, witH a note inside.

'Please accept this small gift. It will make me feel less alone if you do. I wish you the best of luck.—C. D.'

"Clara! She can't afford to buy me gifts. Who would ever have thought it!" he said, very excited.

He was filled with warmth for her. It was like she was there with him. He could almost feel her beautiful body touching his. Sending him the book had brought them closer together.

One day in October they were walking together, Clara stopped at the top of a hill and sat down. She seemed to be lost in thought. Paul sat beside her and was quiet for a time.

"How old were you when you got married?" he asked quietly, after some minutes.

"Twenty-two," she answered.

"That was eight years ago," he said.

"Yes."

"And when did you leave him?" he asked.

"Three years ago," she answered.

"Five years! Did you love him when you married him?"

She was quiet for a long time.

"I thought I did. I don't think about it much anymore. He really wanted me," she said.

"You seem to have gone into it without thinking," he replied.

"Yes, I think that is true. I have been asleep nearly all my life," she said in a dreamy voice.

It was a beautiful afternoon. The sun was setting and everything seemed to be at peace. They sat in silence for a long time. Both thinking about how life plays painful games with people. Suddenly, Paul jumped up.

"Come on," he said, "Let's go and get some tea."

They found a quiet place and sat down to tea. She said nothing still. After tea she sat looking at her wedding ring. She took it off and put it on the table. Paul watched her, she was so much more alive than he was, he thought.

But she was a married woman. It could only ever be friendship. Sex had become such a difficult thing in his mind that he could never imagine having Clara or Miriam or anyone he knew. He had thought too much about it. He loved Miriam with his mind, and if he ever got married, it would be to her. But he could not honestly say that he wanted her sexually. Clara made him feel alive, and he knew all the shapes of her body, but he thought her beautiful through the eyes of a painter, not a lover.

He saw Clara as often as he could. It was when he was with her that life seemed at its best. Through the winter he was less unhappy, and his mother was happy to see it. She still worried about her son, and she knew that he could have no future with Clara, but for the time being she made his life better. So Mrs Morel said nothing against her.

All this time, Miriam still hoped that the best in her would win in the end. She knew how much he thought of Clara, but she still believed that he would return to her. She was the only one that could make the true Paul happy.

(end of section)