In the Memorial Room Read Online Free PDF

with the dropping of the real wind, the barking of the dogs ceased, my eyes cleared, and in my dream I found myself looking at a painting, a French comte and two hunting dogs – how still they seemed – captured and framed in the painting; they were the huge black dogs that walking beside a man have their heads on a level above his thighs and inspire fear and certain feelings of excitement associated with killing and loving; they walk like allies, equals. I am afraid of violence, in myself and in others. A sweat of relief broke out on my face when I saw the dogs were held within the painting; the stillness was not to be believed.
    I woke. The desolate sighing of the wind had ceased. The sun had gone down. I thought I must have been asleep for hours. All the colours of the world had grown a shade more sombre and a penetrating chill had fallen from the mountain peaks.
    Hastily I shut the windows and the doors of the Rose Hurndell Memorial Room and hurried back to my apartment. In the gas-smelling cooking coin I made myself a cup of coffee.
    The next day when I saw Connie and Max Watercress for lunch at a café down by the beach Connie asked, —Have you seen it?
    I thought for a moment she was talking of the new comet which everyone had been hoping to glimpse as it was supposed to droop its tail over the Côte d’Azur at six the previous evening.
    —No, I couldn’t see it, I said. —I think it’s a hoax.
    A defensive, determined light, which I was to grow used to, came into Connie’s eyes.
    —I don’t think that’s the way to talk of the Memorial Room.
    I was apologetic.
    —No, no, I was thinking of the comet. Yes, I’ve seen the room.
    —Did you feel Rose Hurndell there?
    A lustful thought came to me and I couldn’t help smiling. Then I cleared my throat.
    —Oh yes. The place reminds me of a grave.
    Again the defensive light appeared in Connie’s eyes.
    —It’s been neglected of course but they’ve promised alterations for this year. Water, toilet, electricity, and so on.
    —I shan’t be able to work there, I said. —I work long hours and it’s not suited to long hours, without facilities.
    —Still, when the improvements are made, Max said.
    —Yes, when the improvements are made, Connie said.
    —Yes, of course.
    —It’s important that you be there, feel the presence. You do like her work?
    —Yes, yes, I do.
    —I’m so glad. It’s hard to believe, isn’t it, that she actually lived and worked here, that she went to the Monaco Oceanographic Museum one day, she mentions it in a letter, I believe her sister is preparing her letters – oh and you must meet Haniel and Louise Markham, they’ll tell you so much about her. Her favourite colour was red. That shows life, doesn’t it? From the very first moment I read her books I knew: here is a genius. My brother knew her mother, you know.
    —Did he?
    —We come here every year, on the anniversary of her death, in October, to put a wreath of red flowers and leaves in the Memorial Room. There’s a small ceremony. Later, when improvements are made, we’ll have a glass case in the room, with two of her notebooks (one has no writing in it but it’s the kind she always bought, from Woolworths) and a handkerchief, some early photos, a copy of a certificate won at primary school for the best long jump – Long Jump Champion, just imagine! I think it was twenty-two feet long…
    —Twenty-one, dear, Max corrected.
    —I don’t remember exactly. But it tells something about her, don’t you think?
    I agreed.
    —There’s to be a reading of her works here, in October.
    —I shall miss it, I said regretfully.
    —We’ll be here. And Michael and Grace are coming. Michael is going to cover it for his newspaper in England. He’s doing so well with his writing. He’s not written a book yet, but the discipline will come to him, in time. Every morning all four of us straight after breakfast sit down to do our stint. Don’t we?
    They had apartments side by