And Ravenstreet knew that his companion, now silent, was worshipfully contemplating a magical image that might or might not bear some resemblance to the woman giggling somewhere ahead of them with Prisk. This fierce little chemist, who turned so truthful and shrewd an eye on his retorts and test-tubes, went home to live in a dream world, adoring somebody who simply wasn’t there.
“I’ve done it mostly for her,” Sepman continued, almost as if he were being interviewed. Ravenstreet wasn’t hurrying, and the car was wonderfully quiet. “I don’t know what you’re going to put in the adverts—the usual bilge, I suppose—and of course I’m not going to interfere—but I don’t mind telling you that I’ve not been slaving away for the public good—no fear. The public can take a running jump at itself. I stopped liking people a long time since. I bet you’ve forgotten what they’re really like.”
Mildly ironical, Ravenstreet pointed out that his life was not so sheltered as Sepman seemed to imagine.
“No doubt, but you want to try living on this income level to find out what most people are like. Sheep or rats, that’s what most of ’em are nowadays. An’ they’re getting worse so far as I can see. Sheep and rats. Either with no guts to stand up for themselves, to tell somebody important to go to hell, and have to take what they’re given, do what they’re told. Or all the time trying it on, fiddling and finagling, selling anybody out for fourpence. And some of my old Socialist pals, who used to thump it out at street corners, are among the worst. The rest are just mugs, who believe what they read in the paper or what they see and hear on the radio or TV. Mervil has them taped, you must have heard him. Mugs! Drugs for mugs,” he cried with harsh derision, “that’s the business we’re going into. And I’m not grumbling so long as I get my percentage. But once we get going and it’s all ticking over nicely, you won’t see Nancy and me for dust. Where are we going? I don’t know yet, but it’ll be a long way from here if I can manage it.” His voice softened and took on a boyish note. “I’d like some sort of yacht, to go anywhere, with a good little lab I could work in when I fancied it.”
Meanwhile, Ravenstreet asked, did he and Nancy console themselves with liberal doses of Sepman Eighteen?
“No,” replied Sepman, frowning. “To start with, there aren’t liberal doses to be had. I’ve had to try it of course, but so far I’ve kept it away from Nancy. Slow up—this is the place. Food’s good—famous black-market place at one time—and Nancy likes to come here whenever we think we can afford it—but there are too many twerps throwing their weight about here to suit me. That’s right—turn in here. The other two are here—there’s his car.” He put a detaining hand on Ravenstreet’s arm. “This chap Prisk a friend of yours?”
“Not at all. I’ve only met him two or three times. Why? Don’t you like him?”
Sepman replied in a low angry tone: “No, I think he’s a nasty bit of work. Gets on my nerves—pretending to be a dam’ fool and trying to be too clever all the time. Nancy doesn’t like him really either, but she thinks we ought to keep in with him because he’s so close to Mervil and the big money. He doesn’t know it, but she kids him along. And he thinks he’s so bloody clever—wonderful, isn’t it? Hasn’t a clue where she’s concerned. You watch.”
Ravenstreet replied truthfully that he would. He followed Sepman into the crowded little cocktail bar, where Nancy was happily kidding Prisk along over large gins and Dubonnets. This inn was a tasteless compromise between Ye Olde Englishe and the seedier West End night clubs, and was doing a fine trade with angry little men like Sepman trying to celebrate something and with the smarter types of South Cheshire. Prisk, an old hand at this sort of thing, tried to take charge again, but this time Sepman rather angrily insisted upon playing host and doing it all himself. This worked badly because he was spending far more than he could comfortably afford, so that his anxiety made him still more aggressive and he had a nasty scene with the waiter. This embarrassed Nancy, who in turn was grateful when Prisk, the old hand with waiters, came to their rescue. Feeling much discomfort in the middle of the hot crowded dining-room, Ravenstreet ate his smoked salmon and roast duck, and made no attempt to rescue anybody from anything. He maintained a watchful and rather sardonic silence while Sepman, still keeping his feud going, glared and muttered, and Nancy, with the slightly hysterical over-emphasis of a woman who feels she is riding high, rallied and giggled at the irrepressible Prisk, who among other things entertained them with an account of a big film party he had recently attended. This led to trouble because Nancy was, as she said, “thrilled to the marrow” by the glamour of such occasions, and her Ernest was dead against them.
“All this glamour,” he snarled, “what’s it amount to? Who are they, these people, when you get down to brass tacks? What have they got that we haven’t got? When you get down to it—nothing but a lot of dam’ silly publicity. You may swallow that stuff,” he was glaring at Prisk, “but I don’t. It doesn’t fool me.”
“Quite right, old boy,” cried Prisk. “Doesn’t fool me either. Not on your life. I’ve been in the kitchen where it’s cooked, chummie. I know how it’s done. I’ll be helping to do it to you two soon, I hope. Leave it to me.” And he beamed at them through an alcoholic haze. Nancy gave him a long sideways look; she was flushed, dimpling, dark-curled, moist and all ripe. Ravenstreet saw Sepman, forgetting his anger, stare hungrily at her; but she was too busy with Prisk to give him an answering, welcoming smile. Feeling rather like a hermit a hundred years old, Ravenstreet began to think about the Magicians, wondering what they would make out of these three. They should have their chance, he decided again.
As Sepman still insisted upon paying for the dinner (although Prisk pleaded a fat expense account) and was obviously ready for another angry scene with the waiter, whose every item would be checked, Nancy declared that she couldn’t wait because the room was now so unbearably hot and accepted Prisk’s offer to run her home at once. It was about a quarter of an hour later when Ravenstreet and Sepman left; nevertheless, the other two were not there when they got back. There was time for plenty of unsettled talk—for Sepman was plainly uneasy—before the other two did return.
“Where the devil have you been?” Sepman demanded angrily.
“Darling, it was that stupid car,” cried Nancy, whose cheeks were burning and her eyes dancing bright.
“Gaskets again, old boy.” Prisk wagged his head with impudent solemnity. “I’ll have to turn in that bus. Took me half-an-hour at least, near those crossroads, to get her to move at all, and then we had to crawl. Too bad.” And it was, thought Ravenstreet.
“Well, you men want to talk. I’m going to bed. Stay up as long as you like, Ernest, darling. I know it’s all frightfully important.” With a last glimmer of mischief showing somewhere, in an eye, a dimple, a curl, she departed. Sepman stared after her like an untidy little bull bewildered in a strange field. For a moment Ravenstreet felt sorry for him.
They settled down to talk, solid men now. Prisk told them about the first medical report, which was cautious but not antagonistic. Sepman had some ideas about manufacturing the drug on a large scale, and Ravenstreet asked some questions. The discussion drifted on. Then Ravenstreet, who had done this sort of thing before, decided to clear the way for his demand that they should meet at his house. It would need a little performance and he began to stage it. He asked sharp questions in a dissatisfied tone, looked dubious, showed impatience, shrugged himself into silence.
Prisk took the bait. “You’re not with us, old boy, are you?” He was worried. “Just bored or have you some objections?”
“Both. I think we’re wasting time.” He knew that would appeal to Sepman. “This isn’t any use. Of course I’ve some objections—who wouldn’t have? But that’s not the point. Nothing can be settled here.”
“It wasn’t suggested that anything could be settled here,” said Prisk. “The idea was for you to get together with Sepman, and for us to have the general chat we have had. Can’t see what’s worryi
ng you, chummie——”
Ravenstreet stood up, pretending to be annoyed. “It isn’t necessary you should see, Prisk. I’ll talk to Lord Mervil.”
“Now, now, please, Ravenstreet!” Prisk was on his feet now. “He’ll think I’ve botched it somehow. And what am I supposed to have done wrong? What do you say, Sepman?”
“I’m not saying anything,” Sepman replied, with no particular show of friendliness. “It’s between you two, whatever it is. Except that if Sir Charles thinks that time is being wasted, I’m on his side. You people ought to get busy now, for God’s sake.”
Ravenstreet looked at him. “Exactly. What I want is a proper round-table conference at the earliest possible moment—tomorrow if it can be managed. And the place for it is my house at Broxley—not too far from here or from London.” He looked at Prisk now. “The three of us and Mervil and Karney. I can put you all up for the night. But it must be at once——”
“Couldn’t be too soon for me,” Sepman put in eagerly.
“All right, all right, all right,” cried Prisk, obviously relieved. “I’m quite happy about it—couldn’t agree with you more. Only let me handle it, please. You know what Mervil’s like—he’s always up to the neck, or when he isn’t he pretends to be—and put it to him and he’ll suggest the middle of August——”
“I’m having no more of that,” Sepman shouted angrily, doing exactly what Ravenstreet had hoped he would do. “There’s been a lot too much already. Sir Charles Ravenstreet’s talking sense—he’s got the right idea——”
“Yes, yes, old boy, I agree,” cried Prisk. “Calm down. And let’s have a drink before we go any further. We all need one. Then I’ll start telephoning. It’s all very well you fellows getting rough,” he went on, in a mock-grumbling tone, as he helped himself to whisky, “but believe me, there’s only one man in England who can get Mervil out of his engagements tomorrow and have him show up in Warwickshire—and that’s your chum Prisk. If it can be done, I can do it, knowing what those engagements are and how they can be put off.” He swallowed his drink in one great gulp. “Now lead me to the phone.”
“It’s in the hall, you can’t miss it.” And then, when Prisk had gone out, Sepman looked enquiringly at Ravenstreet. “Suppose my wife wanted to come along, would you have any objection?”
Ravenstreet told him he would be delighted to entertain Mrs. Sepman.
“Mind if I go and have a word with her? I don’t think she’ll be asleep yet.”
Left to himself to yawn, Ravenstreet began wondering what he thought he was up to. Out of electrical engineering, the only trade he really knew, messing around on the edge of some possible drug-manufacturing concern, at the same time lending himself to the preposterous plotting of three eccentric old men—wasn’t he beginning to make a fool of himself? Could this, together with his growing desire to explore his past, in memory if not in ‘time alive’, be taken as evidence that he was beginning, at a ridiculously early age, to break up? Or was it simply that he was now climbing out of a rut? Another self, long in hiding, coming forward to take control? Had the Magicians been at work on him?
“She’d like to come along,” said Sepman on his return. “And it’ll make a change for her. She’s had it round here, like me. So that’s settled. That is, if Prisk can persuade his boss.”
“How do you get on with Mervil?”
“He wants something I’ve got,” said Sepman grimly. “I want something he’s got—money. I don’t think he trusts me. I know I don’t trust him. That’s about how it stands. He doesn’t kid me. Once he’d got the Eighteen formula—and of course he’s had one of those sample tablets analysed, you can bet your boots on that, but it won’t have done him any good—it’ud be all right to him if somebody like Prisk was having me beaten raw in a concentration camp. It annoys him to have to negotiate with somebody like me. He wants a set-up where chaps like me take orders—or else. In short, he’s a nasty bit of work, like our chum on the telephone out there. Only more dangerous, of course.” He looked hard at Ravenstreet. “I’m risking something talking like this to you, because after all it was Mervil who put you on to me. I’ll tell you why I’m doing it. I don’t feel the same about you. You’re a different type. You’ve made things, real things, not just done a lot of manipulating and finagling in the background, kidding the poor dear bloody public—which is Mervil’s game, probably Karney’s too. I’m glad you’re in this, Ravenstreet. You don’t look at me, when you think I’m not watching, as if I’d crawled from under a stone, which is what Mervil does. If anything goes wrong at this conference and you don’t think you can work with the other two, make me a reasonable offer and I’ll come in with you.”
Ravenstreet felt guilty. “It wouldn’t work, Sepman. I don’t control the sort of machinery you need, I don’t mean for manufacturing the stuff but for making the public aware of it. As it is, I’m only half in this. I’ve not committed myself. No, Mervil’s your man, even if you don’t like him. Incidentally, I rather share your opinion of him.”
“I thought you would,” said Sepman gloomily. “That’s why I risked telling you. Pity, though, we can’t do it together. But I see what you mean. And I want the money. Must have it.”
“Yes, I’ve gathered that.” Ravenstreet sounded dubious.
“Seems to worry you.” Sepman hesitated a moment, then produced a harsh little laugh. “You’ve not done so badly, I understand.”
“No, I suppose not,” Ravenstreet replied slowly. “But that’s because I’ve never really gone after it. I’ve been busy doing something else, which I wanted to do—designing and manufacturing electrical equipment—and fortunately the money came along too. But it’s my experience, Sepman, that you’ve got to be a very special type—and not one I’m very fond of—to go after money itself, making it your chief aim. If you’re not that special nose-for-it type, then it’s much better to make something else your target and hope the money will be there. You see what I mean?”
But of course it was no use. “I see what you mean, and you may be right. But then I think I’m one of those fellows with a nose for it. I’ve been stuck in a lab for years but only so that I could come out with a bang. I may look like one of these scientists you see in films about atomic secrets—absentminded, untidy sort of bloke—but really I’m not that type at all. You won’t hear any big words about Science from me, Ravenstreet. To hell with Science! I have to laugh when I read some of the tripe these journalists write about it. You won’t get that stuff from me. What Science has done for Modern Man! How lucky we are to be living in this scientific age! Don’t you believe it. For everything it gives us, it takes something at least equally as good away from us. Take my Eighteen and it’ll stop you feeling worried for a few hours—good enough! But what are you worried about? Who and what have made you feel so anxious?”
“But what about that little lab you’d like to instal in that dream yacht of yours?”
“Oh—well!” Sepman grinned in a rather boyish fashion, suddenly making himself likeable. “It’s the only thing I know—and I’d like to try a few experiments. For instance, what most people now need most of, when you come to think of it, are drink and sex. Well, I might be able to do something there. Mind you, I make no promises. Once I’m on that yacht, off into the blue with Nancy, I might never want to do another hour’s work.”
It was then exactly that Ravenstreet knew, without any doubt whatever, that Sepman would never see his yacht, never make a fortune, never realise the least ambitious of his dreams, that in fact his doom was already hanging heavy over him. So strong was his conviction that he had to turn away his head, as if Sepman might read his doom in one single glance, like a character in some wise ironic old tale of the chessboard of fate. The multiplicity of things, the vast elaboration of the surface of life, the records of our conquests and triumphs, concealed from us the fact that we were all still characters in such old tales, epitomes of this life, and so still went blindly, like Greek or Norse heroes, Arab
ian buffoons or Indian princes, along the course of our destiny.
“What’s the matter?” asked Sepman, almost startling him.
“Tired.” Ravenstreet could look at him now. “I hadn’t much of a night last night, and it’s been a long day.”
A few minutes later, Prisk burst in. “Well, thank your uncle, chummies—I’ve fixed it. I haven’t spoken to Karney, but the Chief’ll do that. He’d never have agreed if he hadn’t been coming north anyhow, day after tomorrow. They’ll be with you about seven. Gives us plenty of time. What are we going to do?”
“I’m leaving after breakfast,” said Ravenstreet decisively. “I’ll drive straight to the Central Electric works, where I’ve a few jobs to finish. You two and Mrs. Sepman can set off much later, and arrive at my place about tea-time, when I’ll be back.”
The Magicians Page 11