paintings.
His last book, How to Kill (1943), from which this story, ‘Lord Rendall’s Song’, is taken, was the only one he tried to publish in a commercial edition; however, at the time, with the country still at war, he was unable to find a publisher willing to accept it, partly because of the depressing effect it was felt the book might have on civilians and soldiers alike and partly because of the oddly erotic undertone present in some of the stories. Before that, Denham had published a book of poetry, Vanishings (1932), another volume of short stories, Knives and Landscapes (1934), a short novel, The Night-Face (1938), and Gentle Men and Women (1939), a series of sketches of famous people, among them Chaplin, Cocteau, the dancer Tilly Losch and the pianist Dinu Lipatti,. Denham died when he was thirty-two years old, killed in action in North Africa.
Although the story published here (a vertiginous mise en abîme ,) is self explanatory, it might be useful to know that the popular English song ‘Lord Rendall’ consists of a dialogue between the young Lord Rendall and his mother after the former has been poisoned by his lover. To his mother’s final question, ‘What will you leave your sweetheart, Lord Rendall, my son?’ he replies: ‘A rope to hang her, mother, a rope to hang her.’
I wanted to give Janet a surprise and so I decided not to tell her exactly when I would be home. Four years, I thought, is such a long time that a few more days of uncertainty will not make any difference. Getting a letter on Monday informing her that I would be arriving in two days would be far less exciting than finding me there on our doorstep when she opened the front door on Wednesday itself. I had left war and imprisonment far behind me now, and so quickly had they been left behind that I was already beginning to forget them. I would gladly have forgotten it all instantly so that I could do my best to ensure that my life with Janet and our son would be unaffected by my sufferings, so that I could pick up my life again just as if I had never gone away, as if my time at the front—along with the orders and the fighting and the lice, the mutilations, hunger and death—had never existed. Nor the terror and the torments of the German prisoner-of-war camp. She knew I was alive, she had been notified to that effect, she knew that I had been taken prisoner and was therefore alive and would come home. She must have been waiting daily for some word of my return. I’d give her a surprise, not a fright, and that would be a good thing. I would knock at the door and she would open it, drying her hands on her apron, and there I would be, dressed in civilian clothes at last, looking rather ill and thin, but nonetheless smiling and longing to embrace and to kiss her. I would take her in my arms, untie her apron, and she would bury her face in my shoulder and weep. I’d notice my jacket growing damp with her tears, so very different from the constant dripping of the damp punishment cell or the monotonous rain falling on our helmets during marches and in the trenches.
From the moment I made that decision not to announce my arrival, I enjoyed the anticipation of my return so much that when I finally found myself standing outside the house, I almost regretted having to put an end to that sweet waiting. And that was why I first crept round to the back, hoping I might hear or see something from the outside. I wanted to accustom myself to all the usual, familiar sounds again, the sounds I had missed so dreadfully all the time I had been kept from them: the kitchen clatter of pots and pans, the creaking bathroom door, Janet’s footsteps. And the child’s voice. The child had been one month old when I left, and then he only used his voice to scream and shout. He would be four now and would have a real voice, and his own way of talking, perhaps like his mother’s, since he would have spent all that time alone with her. His name was Martin.
I
His last book, How to Kill (1943), from which this story, ‘Lord Rendall’s Song’, is taken, was the only one he tried to publish in a commercial edition; however, at the time, with the country still at war, he was unable to find a publisher willing to accept it, partly because of the depressing effect it was felt the book might have on civilians and soldiers alike and partly because of the oddly erotic undertone present in some of the stories. Before that, Denham had published a book of poetry, Vanishings (1932), another volume of short stories, Knives and Landscapes (1934), a short novel, The Night-Face (1938), and Gentle Men and Women (1939), a series of sketches of famous people, among them Chaplin, Cocteau, the dancer Tilly Losch and the pianist Dinu Lipatti,. Denham died when he was thirty-two years old, killed in action in North Africa.
Although the story published here (a vertiginous mise en abîme ,) is self explanatory, it might be useful to know that the popular English song ‘Lord Rendall’ consists of a dialogue between the young Lord Rendall and his mother after the former has been poisoned by his lover. To his mother’s final question, ‘What will you leave your sweetheart, Lord Rendall, my son?’ he replies: ‘A rope to hang her, mother, a rope to hang her.’
I wanted to give Janet a surprise and so I decided not to tell her exactly when I would be home. Four years, I thought, is such a long time that a few more days of uncertainty will not make any difference. Getting a letter on Monday informing her that I would be arriving in two days would be far less exciting than finding me there on our doorstep when she opened the front door on Wednesday itself. I had left war and imprisonment far behind me now, and so quickly had they been left behind that I was already beginning to forget them. I would gladly have forgotten it all instantly so that I could do my best to ensure that my life with Janet and our son would be unaffected by my sufferings, so that I could pick up my life again just as if I had never gone away, as if my time at the front—along with the orders and the fighting and the lice, the mutilations, hunger and death—had never existed. Nor the terror and the torments of the German prisoner-of-war camp. She knew I was alive, she had been notified to that effect, she knew that I had been taken prisoner and was therefore alive and would come home. She must have been waiting daily for some word of my return. I’d give her a surprise, not a fright, and that would be a good thing. I would knock at the door and she would open it, drying her hands on her apron, and there I would be, dressed in civilian clothes at last, looking rather ill and thin, but nonetheless smiling and longing to embrace and to kiss her. I would take her in my arms, untie her apron, and she would bury her face in my shoulder and weep. I’d notice my jacket growing damp with her tears, so very different from the constant dripping of the damp punishment cell or the monotonous rain falling on our helmets during marches and in the trenches.
From the moment I made that decision not to announce my arrival, I enjoyed the anticipation of my return so much that when I finally found myself standing outside the house, I almost regretted having to put an end to that sweet waiting. And that was why I first crept round to the back, hoping I might hear or see something from the outside. I wanted to accustom myself to all the usual, familiar sounds again, the sounds I had missed so dreadfully all the time I had been kept from them: the kitchen clatter of pots and pans, the creaking bathroom door, Janet’s footsteps. And the child’s voice. The child had been one month old when I left, and then he only used his voice to scream and shout. He would be four now and would have a real voice, and his own way of talking, perhaps like his mother’s, since he would have spent all that time alone with her. His name was Martin.
I
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