Reality and Dreams Read Online Free PDF Page B

including the present Pope. Greene
never called me Tom, by the way. It was always “Richards”. But he called Claire
“Claire” of course. Which reminds me of Allen Tate another Catholic who was
keen on women. Have you heard of Tate?’
    ‘No,’
said Ralph. ‘Unless you mean an American writer, I seem to remember…’
    ‘You
remember right. He was an American poet, critic, and Anglophile. He went to see
Pius XII in 1957. He told me how it went. Allen said, “Your Holiness, the
English and American Catholic Bishops are feeling uneasy about the Index of
Forbidden Books. After the acts of censorship under totalitarianism the
intelligent Catholic laity want more democratic freedom.”
    “‘Ah
yes,” said Pius, “Maritain was here last week with that problem. Greene came
about it recently. How many children, — nephews, do you have?”
    ‘Allen
told him how many.
    ‘The
Pope said, “Here are four rosaries. The black ones are for boys, the white for
girls.” End of audience.’
    ‘Was
that the Pope before this?’
    ‘No it
was actually five Popes ago.’
    ‘Don’t
your friends ring you up?’
    ‘Yes,
they do. Claire takes the calls. I don’t always want to talk. People can send
me a fax. They do, quite often. I don’t always want to reply. They want to know
if I’ll be ready to give a lecture on film-making at some university in six
months’ time, they want to know if they have my permission to change some
paragraphs in my film script, they want to know if they can come and see me.
What do I say? — I could say “I’ve got a back-ache. Disintegrate. Drop dead. Do
what you damn well like.” If it was Louis MacNeice I’d let him come and see me.
I worked with him several times on the Third Programme when it and the radio
really meant something. But Louis is dead.’
    ‘Don’t
you think you should write your memoirs?’
    ‘I’m
too young at sixty-three to write my memoirs. I’m still in the act of creating
memoirs, which is right. But just at the moment, as you can imagine, my experiences
of historic moments are limited if not nil. One never knows, of course, until
one looks back.’
    Ralph
was still looking out of the window. ‘There’s an extremely beautiful girl,’ he
said, ‘coming up the garden path.’
    ‘That
will be my daughter Cora by my first marriage. Half-sister to Marigold. You
would hardly know it. Cora increases in beauty every year. Hadn’t you better be
joining the others?’
    Ralph
went quite quickly, obviously hoping to encounter Cora. The girl, however, came
up by the back stairs to Tom’s room holding a single flower, a large yellow
daisy, in a slim vase, her offering of the day.
    ‘Can I
have my lunch with you, Pa?’
    ‘Fine.
Tell Claire I want it served on the Sèvres china.’
    ‘Oh,
no, she won’t do that.’ Cora looked over to a table where about a dozen
ordinary plates were piled up. ‘You can break these any time you like,’ said
Cora.
    ‘I don’t
want to break that ghastly crockery. To relieve my feelings I want the best
china in the house.’
    Julia
came in with a thermometer and some pills.
    ‘See
you later,’ said Cora.
    Tom had
an instinct of disquiet. He felt that Cora would run into Ralph, and after that
some drama might happen. He knew himself to be jealous for Cora, and didn’t
like the idea of her solving the redundant Ralph’s sexual problems.
    ‘Will
these pills make me impotent?’ he said to Julia.
    ‘Impotent?
Shouldn’t do.’
    ‘I miss
sex.’
    ‘You
mustn’t strain yourself, anyway. Think of something else.’

 
     
     
    CHAPTER
SIX

     
     
     
    Cora’s life had been
fairly easy for the first nineteen years. She was always much admired for her
good looks and her ability at riding, swimming and tennis. She was average at
school work. When her father left home she was too young to notice his absence,
which in any case was almost a constant factor. The difficulties of her life
had started when she was nineteen. It was obvious