“Ah,” said Hogarth, “the propaganda squad.”
“The sphere and navel group. New World Taoists.”
“Well, you are not very far wrong; for although I think some of them have the answer, it often represents little more than a retrenchment upon an original pragmatism. Dealing in revelation, they obviously lack the true illumination. Why? Because if they had the secret they could perfectly carry on with the Christian corpus—you would not need these humpty-dumpty Eastern religions to fall back on, with their athleticism. A mass attack on the Gita has the effect of merely getting sections of it printed in the Reader’s Digest. To what end? It is mere non-creative theorizing. If we could get the West to study the Karma Sutra it would be more to the point. If we could unfreeze the Dutch canal of the average man’s blood up here.… Hullo! My tram.”
Hogarth was always in an ecstasy of apprehension lest he miss the last tram. “No it isn’t,” he said, turning back. “And while I’m on the subject of pins and needles I might ask you to tell me just what you want to do with your life.”
Baird shrugged his shoulders. “I wanted to write once. I was born a yeoman, I think, and pressed too early into the science of arms. You are right about my being merely typical. The whole of my generation believes in nothing beyond the aimless death-activity. We were sold into slavery—action—while we were unformed. Now we don’t belong anywhere, don’t want to have homes and families and roots. We are a sort of Hitler Youth, used to armies, and battles and small adventures. I thought of enlisting in this civil war in China when my time is up. If it’s still on, I mean.”
“Nothing more appropriate,” said Hogarth ironically. “You evade your own civil war in order to stick your nose into someone else’s. Why don’t you commit suicide and have done with it?”
“I have thought of that. More than you imagine.”
“Here comes my tram,” said Hogarth for the tenth time, and launched himself into space like a goose, his neck thrust forward. It was not. He returned rather crestfallen, adjusting his crooked hat brim and dusting ash off his lapels with both hands. “I have an idea,” he said. “To what sort of merit on earth do you attach importance? Are you proud of your medals? Your prowess with women? Would you like to have children? Be a doctor and save people? At what point of your character do you flow out? No. Don’t tell me,” he added hurriedly, catching sight of his Balham tram at last, “I don’t give a hang. I’m trying to get you to draw your own portrait.”
He clutched the rail and boarded the groaning monster. Then, thinking of something more he wanted to say, he turned his huge body round and leaning out, shouted, “Or is it something beyond all these things?” His voice rose as the distance widened. The other passengers standing outside regarded him with concern. “Do you think it is somewhere in the region we call God? Ask yourself? Eh? Just ask yourself.” He was borne gesticulating out of earshot. The look of concern on the faces of the other passengers changed to one of relief. They looked at one another knowingly. It was clear that he was a harmless religious maniac.
It was not unlike editing a very long and very dreary film, thought Baird walking homeward across London. Immense discursive spools of recollection run through at every sitting—the greater part of it irrelevant: mocking in its irrelevance. Still the experience had done him good; he had been able to expand to the full extent in his talk at least. And, as Hogarth said, the major function of analysis seemed to consist of reliving and re-digesting experience. He felt lighter, more buoyant in himself. Only the dream of Böcklin did not vanish.
One Wednesday, Hogarth, who was very interested in painting, took him to a gallery where, among other things, he saw several of Campion’s great raving canvases, and one that he recognized as Alice’s; Hogarth examined the former with great attention and reverence. “The only English painter,” he said. Baird was quite charmed to see Hogarth’s look of awe when he said that he knew Campion. “Another candidate for your clinic,” he said. “No doubt,” said Hogarth softly, “no doubt.” He stood back and admired the powerful landscape which has since become famous—Campion’s Tree Near Arles. “But so long as he can keep spitting it out in pictures he’s all right,” he added. He made no comment on Alice’s picture.
Walking across Oxford Street Baird said: “All English women kiss with their mouths shut. Now if your psychological axiom is true …”
“What axiom?”
“The identification of the mouth with the more intimate organism—then you have a thesis.…”
“What thesis?”
“Well, it explains the abnormal sexual emphasis of the English male in his dress—old school tie, bowler-hats, large pipes—like yours, Hogarth, if I may say so—and amnion-like tobacco-pouches.”
“Young man,” said Hogarth, “it is extremely unkind of you to wing your analyst like that. According to the text-books I must represent God to you—I must be above criticism.”
“Well, I feel neither here nor there as regards God. I let you represent my father, however. If he had given me half the advice you have I’d be a more thawed-out character. Anyway, Hogarth, you’ve made a mess of the analysis by letting me become your friend. I see you in a context now. As a father, for example, you are charming and touching.”
Hogarth suddenly blushed scarlet. Baird was recalling that every Wednesday they had lunch together, after which Hogarth would allow him to keep him company to Balham where he lived with an only son and a middle-aged housekeeper. Together they lunched, and afterwards walked in the park each holding a small grubby hand. Hogarth was at his most endearing when he was with the child; all through the winter they would visit the shabby little park with its nude trees and crisp brown water—its three dejected ducks gabbling at their own reflections. Hogarth’s son was nine and full of enthusiasm for the toy boat his father had made for him. It was a brave little cutter which bore the legend Europa upon its smart white breast. Hogarth himself was fascinated by the technique of sailing, and was hardly less eager than the boy to propose new ways of setting the sail, or a new run across the pond. Baird could see him now, down on one knee at the concrete margin, watching the little ship flutter and heel through the circles of still water under the willow-tree, or turn over on its side and run from one corner to the other of the pond without a fault.
“Father, it’s not set properly.”
“Yes it is: be patient.”
In an ecstasy of apprehension they watch it come into the wind and hang trembling. Hogarth is making ludicrous gestures at the boat, as if trying to coax it towards them. His pipe goes so hard that the dottle gleams red. His trousers are baggy and dusty at the knee. From time to time his son slips an absent hand into his vast pockets in search of boiled sweet to suck. It is a moment of intense excitement, for the little craft has turned over on its side and threatens to sink. Hogarth and the boy squat down and begin to paddle the water with their hands in the hope of creating concentric ripples which will draw it within reach. Hogarth groans. Their attempts are useless it seems. The boy starts to take off his shoes, but his father, fearful of letting him get his feet wet, lumbers into the pond, shoes and all, and skids uncouthly out to where the boat lies, flapping hard. He comes ashore laughing and cursing at the same time. Mrs. Gregory is going to scold him again for his wet feet.
“That’s the third salvage he’s done this month,” says the boy, shaking the water from the flapping canvas of the Europa.
Afterwards, walking home to tea, their noses and fingers burned blue with cold, the father and son wrangle interminably about the boat, the one protesting that the mast is too high and the sail area too large, the other shrilly maintaining that the Europa would be better for a little extra lead on her keel.
Hogarth lives in one of those common-place semi-detached villas. In the cosy little front parlour a big coal fire is blazing and Mrs. Gregory has laid out an excellent tea: muffins fume in butter on the fender. They get out of their wet things and draw up chairs: and the boy, fetching a sigh, says
thankfully, “It’s so wonderful. I’m glad I haven’t got a mother, Dad.” Hogarth looks at him indulgently. He is so secure and happy in a habit of male friendship, a male world with its triumphant relations to purpose and adventure. “Women always spoil things,” he says. Presently Mrs. Gregory will come in with her silly talk about unwashed hands and wet socks. Hogarth smiles.
“What do you think, Baird?” he asks.
Hogarth’s own wife, whose picture stands on the mantelpiece, was much younger than he when they married. Her face is smooth and round and innocent in a Germanic way: she was a student of Hogarth’s.
Now he has taken up his spectacles and placed them upon his nose. A radiant contentment shines upon his face. His feet are clad in old battered carpet-slippers, one of which has a convenient hole in the sole; convenient because he enjoys holding to the fire his slippered foot, into which a toasting fork has been cunningly lodged.
At such moments Baird is filled with envy for the elder man as he watches him taking his ease, while on the carpet at their feet the boy strips the Europa and sets the canvas to dry.
On April Fool’s Day Hogarth gave it up. “Baird,” he said, “we’ve reached a point where we are over-elaborating the problem. We are indulging you and pandering to the bloody dream. I’ve got all the factual data I need; you’ve had the whole works. But somewhere I must have made a mess of it, or else you need to keep on dreaming the dream until something happens to you—I mean until you change inside. You know, the dream may be simply a sort of prompting to change inside; it’s possible that it might be necessary to you—until you change. It’s no good following it down the time-track any farther. Anyway, our method is not inclusive enough. Come back in a thousand years when psychology has become an adult science. Meanwhile I’m going to suggest something.”
Baird put out his cigarette and listened attentively.
“Can you get away abroad now?”
“I should think so. On sick leave. Why?”
“To Crete?”
Baird looked surprised and a trifle pained. “It is part of your system to propose long and expensive journeys to your poorer patients?” he said ironically. But Hogarth continued seriously.
“I’m suggesting something that would occur to any intelligent Hottentot. That you should return like a good murderer to the scene of your crime. Dig up Böcklin with your own hands once more. It’s just an idea. I know it sounds shocking. But get him buried in a cemetery or something. Take a responsible line. It’s worth it: you might come to terms with him—who knows? Besides I’m tired of indulging your maimed literary genius. Think it over.”
Baird sat for a moment in silence. They looked at each other. “It’s a curious thing,” he said, “but I was offered a mission about a month ago to do precisely that. To go to Crete and try and find something out for the Intelligence people.”
Hogarth spread his hands out. “Well, there you are. What more do you want? Accept, my dear fellow.”
It was more easily said than done; the idea was rather a startling one, and Baird felt that he needed time to think it over. “And by the way,” said Hogarth, as he was putting on his mackintosh, “let me know when you are off: and don’t forget you are a tenner behind with your payments—the child is going to school soon, you know.”
In the vestibule, Baird met Fearmax. He had called to leave a cheque for Hogarth. From time to time during the last few months when their paths had crossed they had been in the habit of exchanging civilities. Now Fearmax walked down to the corner of the street with Baird. He looked pale and tired. He walked with an eccentric springiness beside the young man, remarking that spring would soon be here, though it was plain to see that his mind was not on the weather. He said that he was going abroad for a short holiday—to Egypt he thought. He hoped the weather would not be too hot. Baird, who knew what Cairo could be like in June and July, said nothing. It was not the best time of the year to visit Egypt, and he wondered whether Hogarth knew of the journey. “Hogarth is a remarkable man,” said Fearmax with vehemence, “a very remarkable man. He has been of considerable use to me—both as a friend and a doctor,” Baird found it curious that Hogarth had never introduced them. “He has attended all my séances this year: I’ve been trying to put him in communication with his dead wife, you know.” This was rather an interesting sidelight on Hogarth. Fearmax shook his head and sighed, watching the shining toecaps of his shoes as they performed their eccentric progress under him.
Baird suggested that the Lebanon or Greece would provide a cooler climate for a rest during the late spring and summer than Egypt, and Fearmax nodded very precisely. “I wish, however,” he said, “to make one or two observations on the pyramids. And I imagined the sea-journey will be refreshing. I am going on … Let me see.” He fumbled in his wallet and produced a green ticket for Baird’s inspection. “A large comfortable summer-cruise boat, the Europa. It is only half-full I’m told.”
It was this piece of information that decided Baird, for want of any other, to ask for a reservation on the Europa before he next visited Hogarth. The civil servant in the dingy office above the roar of Whitehall had been more than accommodating. There were certain independent inquiries that the Foreign Office would like made in Crete. It appeared that a certain quantity of small arms had been shipped across from an organization in Palestine. It had been gathered and hidden in caves—possibly the labyrinth which had been mentioned recently in the Press as having been discovered by Axelos. The Foreign Office would like to know what it meant. It might mean a danger to the monarchy in Greece, which England had determined to maintain. Could Baird undertake such an inquiry and report back as soon as possible?
It sounded to Baird as if the old Abbot John had once more tired of his search for higher truth and was entering politics—for want of a war to interest him and exploit his talents as a man of action. It would not be so unpromising an adventure as he had at first thought. He would go and see; the investigation into the Böcklin business would fit into place neatly enough. He wondered, as he pressed Hogarth’s bell, whether Axelos would remember him after all these years?
He found a note waiting for him. Hogarth was out, but the note suggested a rendezvous in a familiar pub later that evening. Baird spent the rest of his time packing and touring the bookshops for suitable reading material with which to while away the journey. He did not fancy that Fearmax’s conversation would provide sufficient entertainment to justify setting forth bookless.
He was surprised to meet Graecen. He knew his work slightly, and did not like it; but the man was pleasant and friendly, and apparently an old friend of Hogarth. The analyst himself was delighted with the news that Baird was going; he had been kept in touch with developments by phone, and had heard all the details.
“Graecen will introduce you to Axelos,” he said, “who will interest you a great deal. He’s a real character from a film—a German film. No doubt you could stay at Cefalû.”.
Graecen was charitable enough to echo these sentiments. The invitation he had received was explicit enough; and he liked the look of this young Army officer who seemed to be, for a change, moderately well-read and whose manners had not been abbreviated with his weaning. He was also secretly rather glad to have at least one acquaintance on the Europa. The sudden prospect of leaving England—almost in itself a death—perplexed and troubled him. London, which he loathed normally, seemed to him for the few days left, too enchanting a capital to lose. He walked across the Green Park, hat in hand, talking softly to himself, wondering what could be expected of a future which had been so clearly and abruptly circumscribed. It hurt him too that Hogarth’s manner showed no special tenderness or consideration towards himself. Indeed, Hogarth protested firmly that he did hot believe that his old friend was under sentence; when Graecen pressed him and gave him his proofs, Hogarth simply snorted and laughed. “Well, if it’s death, Dickie,” he said. “It’s death. You may steal a march on us, but we’ll catch you up in the end. See if we don’t.”
Another of Graecen’s preoccupations had been with the question of the Cefalû statues. He had managed to get the chemical expert of the Museum to part with small quantities of his reagents without, he thought, arousing his suspicions as to the validity of Axelos’s claims. The new nitrous oxide process promised to tell one, in the case of stone-cutting, not only the approximate age of the stone but also the nature of the instrument used to shape it. With these he hoped to keep a sharp check on his eccentric friend.
His mood, however, as they all drove down to Southampton in his big car, was one of sentimental taciturnity. He was leaving England—perhaps for ever. Baird sat in front with the driver, while in the back Hogarth and his son held an endless discussion as to the capabilities of the car. Graecen saw the hedgerows flowing by with a sharp and useless regret; every turning of the great main road held memories for him—memories of great country houses buried in trees: houses where he had spent so much of his time idling, flirting, and cultivating the fine five senses. There, beyond Winchester, was Bolser, where he had had that miserable love affair with Anne Granchester. What a bitch! How miserable he had been, and how ineffectual. The road bent northward through an immense avenue of dusty oaks. Behind them, hidden from sight, lay the old house. It belonged to the National Trust now. And what had happened to Anne? She, by rights, should also belong to the National Trust, he found himself thinking vindictively. She had become in later years a sort of beauty spot trampled flat by the feet of the worshippers; a sort of Niagara Falls of a woman. Why had she never let him love her? He grimaced and tucked his chin deeper in his coat collar. At any rate she had been good for two not unsatisfactory sonnets. What a life, he thought—or rather what a death. Leopardi could not face it when it finally came. Could he? He held his breath for a second and closed his eyes, imagining what it felt like to surrender his identity. Nothing. He felt nothing, heard nothing save the soft uniform ticking of his own heart. Hogarth was speaking.
The Dark Labyrinth Page 8