ATDTDA (5): Like a crushed handkerchief, 136-137

[Paul Nightingale]

Constance looks to Hunter's departure in a way reminiscent of Mayva parting
from Kit (106). Mayva tells Kit to "mind that penmanship", the letters she
expects/hopes to receive standing in for the absent boy. Similarly,
Constance has a "good-bye letter" that stands in for the now absent Hunter;
recalling Veikko (84), she will remember the memory of having read the
letter. Indeed, the letter is "held now like a crushed handkerchief in her
pocket" (137): if it ceases to be a letter (her perception is of another
object) then perhaps Hunter's departure never took place at all.

Going back to the Mayva-Kit scene one reads that the barely perceptible
shifting of the track will prefigure "first smoke" or "steam whistles"
(106); anticipation leads to an imposed meaning (what one says, or 'swears',
bearing witness before God). In the current section, Constance arrives after
the event, to be greeted by normality: "Up here the view of the sea
continued as gray as ever, the wind no colder than usual ..." etc. Either
she seeks meaning, that is to say, attempts to impose meaning on a scene
that remains stubbornly banal; or she can freely deny that there is any
significance. Mayva fusses (106) to keep on playing the mother, to remind
herself (and Kit also) of the relationship about to end; Constance, having
arrived after the ship has departed, can similarly indulge herself in
denial. Going back a few pages, we recall that she "watched the arrival of
the Malus" (127); and knew Hunter would leave (128). The ship signified an
event waiting to happen; had it not arrived, then presumably the issue of
Hunter's departure could have been avoided. At the end has she 'missed' his
departure, just as she failed to provide, earlier, the "bon voyage party"
(134)?