Jill

by Philip Larkin

  “Er …” John made a taut, inexpressive gesture. “That is, I think this is—my name’s Kemp.”

  “Oh, you’re Kemp? How d’you do? I’m Warner—Chris Warner.”

  They shook hands.

  “We’re just having tea: there’s rather a crowd inside, I’m afraid I’ve sort of taken possession.” He began filling the kettle from the tap. “Come from Town?”

  “From Huddlesford,” said John, not knowing that Town meant London.

  “Oh, yes. Good journey?”

  “Yes——”

  He was acutely aware that the conversation in the room had stopped and that the unseen tea-party was listening to the colloquy outside.

  “Well, come in and have some tea, if there’s anything left.” John followed him in. “Friends, my better half has arrived, Mr. Kemp. These are Elizabeth Dowling, Eddy Makepeace, Patrick Dowling and Hugh Stanning-Smith.”

  He smiled blindly from face to face. They looked at him, and smiled too.

  The room was large and airy, and in a terrible mess. Tea was laid on the hearthrug and dirty cups and plates were littered about, while the table was covered with wrapping paper, crumbs from a half-loaf, a pot of jam, a pile of books, and other things recently unpacked from the trunk that stood open under the window. A fire burned brightly in the grate. The room was bigger than any in his own house.

  He looked at Elizabeth Dowling first, because she was a girl and because hers was the only name he had caught. She was broad-shouldered, with a regular face, and sat in one corner of the sofa. She was powdered carefully, had a reddened mouth, and her golden hair was brushed fiercely up from the sides of her head, so that it formed a stiff ornament, like a curious helmet. Her right hand lay quiescently holding a burning cigarette, and she wore a check tweed costume.

  Then he looked at Eddy Makepeace, who wore a yellow silk tie with horseshoes on it. He had a youthful, spotty face, that expressed great confidence and stupidity, and his eyes bulged.

  Patrick Dowling lounged foxily, with a faint resemblance to Elizabeth that showed they were related, and stared back at John with unpleasant candour: Hugh Stanning-Smith was quiet-voiced and white-fingered.

  “Chris, you are impossible,” said Elizabeth fretfully. “Filling it so full.… It’ll take hours to boil. Simply hours. And I’m dying for another cup.”

  John stared at her, never having heard before this self-parodying southern coo, and a sense of his alien surroundings came over him. “I think …” he muttered, casting about for an excuse to go. “I think.…”

  “Here, have some cake.” Christopher roughly whacked a large slab on to a plate and held it out. “Come on, take your things off and sit down,” he added kindly. “Pat, get up and give the gentleman a seat.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” said John hurriedly, who would have liked to sit down. “I’ve been sitting all day.”

  “So has Pat,” cooed Elizabeth. “But he’s lazy.”

  “And he’s going to sit all night, too.” Patrick gave a sudden disconcerting roar of laughter, then stuffed cake into his mouth. As no one showed any signs of rising, John took off his coat and leant against the wall.

  “Have you come a long way?” Elizabeth pronounced each word very clearly, as if speaking to a foreigner, and looked up at him. Staring down at her lips, he perceived that they were actually much thinner than they were painted.

  “From Huddlesford.”

  “M’m. Quite a distance.”

  As John did not say anything else, the conversation turned away from him again and became general. “What were you saying about Julian, Chris?” inquired Eddy, moving irritably in his chair. “Did you say he’d volunteered?”

  “That’s right. In the Signals.”

  “Oh, I see. I thought there was something in it.”

  “You bet.”

  “Aren’t the Signals dangerous, then?” Elizabeth asked, with an air of intelligence, tapping ash into the saucer of her cup. “Is that what you mean?”

  “Can’t be if Julian——”

  “Is that the person we met in Town, Chris?” Elizabeth turned to Christopher Warner, who was carelessly shuffling plates together, the meal being more or less done. He nodded. “At the Cinderella, after the theatre? I didn’t think he was very clever.”

  “What Lizzie means”, said Patrick sarcastically, “is that he——”

  “Shut up!” Elizabeth made as if to throw a cushion at him, and pouted instead. “You’re just a swine.” For a second her eye caught John’s, and she looked down at her lap. Otherwise the atmosphere of the room was almost the same as before he had entered it.

  He had finished his cake, and dare not ask for more, so he gave his attention to the room. It was large, impressively conceived, though the details were shabby: windows on one side of the room looked out on to the Founder’s Quad (he could see the statue), and on the other on to what he later discovered was the Master’s Garden. Long curtains hung by them to the floor. The walls were panelled and painted cream: on each side of the fireplace was a set of shelves in the wall, and the furniture consisted of a table, a desk, two armchairs and a sofa.

  Christopher’s things were tumbled everywhere. Besides books and clothes, he had taken things at random out of his trunk and put them down anywhere—a bottle of hair lotion, a squash racquet, a few illustrated magazines. Several pictures were propped against the wall. Another suitcase, unstrapped and partly empty, was pushed behind Eddy’s chair.

  Even with the big fire and comfortable furniture, though, it was not a cosy room. John thought of himself reading a volume of essays in front of the hearth with snow falling outside, but in reality the windows were large and draughty and the room never became properly heated.

  The five of them were sprawled round the fire, while John stood behind them by the wall. When he brought his attention back to them, he found that they were not, as he had thought, forgetful of him. As his eyes moved, startled, from face to face, they each hurriedly looked away from him: the one called Eddy had actually been grinning vacuously at him. He flushed, for while it seemed only natural that they should ignore him, he could not believe they were actually pointing at him amongst themselves and laughing together. Yet this was what it looked like.

  “Hurry up, kettle!” fretted Elizabeth. He looked at her suspiciously, but with lowered eyelashes she merely recrossed her legs and straightened her skirt. Could he be imagining things? All their faces bore expressions of unconcern: Christopher Warner—John had begun to study him the most, as he knew that Christopher and he were already linked together—Christopher sat on the edge of the fender seat, staring lightly at the carpet, occasionally glancing sideways at Eddy. The gap in the conversation widened second by second. What was wrong?

  Cautiously, beginning to feel a twisting apprehension like the beginnings of seasickness, he inspected himself, noting that his fly-buttons were fastened, finding nothing unusual about his appearance, so that his blush intensified, and he tried to stand very erect and militarily. Then he thought this was silly, and tried to adopt a nonchalant pose, crossing his feet and staring out of the window. Eddy Makepeace cleared his throat with a sharp, artificial sound. And Elizabeth took a handkerchief from her handbag and wiped her nose carefully, so as not to disturb the powder. Christopher, extending his silver cigarette-case, said with an uneasy smile:

  “Tube for anyone?”

  But his words were drowned by the frothing of water on the hot fire as the kettle boiled over, and he quickly took it off, using a handkerchief to hold it. Everyone reached for their cups, stretching and shifting. “Oh, what an age,” cried Elizabeth, trying to obscure the pause that had been broken by holding out her cup childishly. “Me, Chris, me. Oo, do buck up.”

  “Visitors first,” said Christopher Warner, filling a cup for John. “Do you take sugar?” He paused, changing his grip on the teapot. “Christ, the damn thing’s hot.”

  “Oh—er—thanks,” John, still fiery red, struggled for something to say.
“Do you know—er—rather a funny thing, I think we’ve both brought the same kind of china——”

  He was interrupted by a howl of laughter so sudden and boisterous that he jumped and looked round him in alarm. Everyone was wildly amused. Elizabeth snatched her tiny handkerchief again, and, holding it to her eyes, shook with merriment. Eddy Makepeace gave short barks of laughter, that were irritating because they sounded forced: Hugh Stanning-Smith was chuckling in a well-bred way, and Patrick Dowling looked sideways up at him with a foxy jeer.

  “What—what’s wrong?” he exclaimed, startled for once into natural behaviour.

  More laughter. His bewilderment caused a second, cruder burst, as if a comedian, having told a funny story, had proceeded to sit on his hat.

  “Oh, God,” gasped Christopher Warner at last, taking his handkerchief from around the teapot handle and mopping his eyes with it. “Oh, dear! My dear fellow, these are your crocks.… Oh, Lord!” His face creased in another spasm of laughter, and gusts of it coughed from his chest. “Oh, God, I shall spill the——” He put the teapot down and a little tea slopped out of the spout on to the cloth. “I say, you must excuse us. I haven’t any crocks: I’m afraid we broke your crate open and gave your things a christening—I say, I do hope you don’t mind——”

  John understood at once. Like every freshman, he had received a list from the Bursary giving a list of domestic articles that he should be provided with on coming into residence, such as two pairs of sheets, a set of china, a kettle, a cruet and so on. Three weeks ago his mother had insisted that they spent an afternoon among the shops buying these things: it had been a touching little expedition, meaning, he realized, far more to her than to him. They had had tea afterwards in a cinema café, with teacakes.

  Most of the things they had bought lay dirty and scattered around the room; in fact, John wondered they had lain unrecognized for so long. The crate (he saw it now) was behind Christopher’s trunk, broken open carelessly, so that it would be impossible to use it again, as he had intended to do. These, then, were his cups and plates: his coffee strainer (choked with tea leaves); his shining kettle blackened by the fire. His bread-knife, his sugar basin.

  “God, I thought he’d never notice,” gurgled Eddy Makepeace, drying his bulging eyes. “How damned funny.”

  Elizabeth Dowling burst into another peal of laughter. “And the exquisite way.…” She gulped, to strangle her laughter. “He brought the subject up so politely.… Oh dear, oh dear!”

  John sipped his tea, which was hot and burnt his mouth. He was acutely conscious of being referred to in the third person, but it expressed his mood. While being trapped in their laughter, he only wanted to drag himself stiffly away and hide.

  “I say, you don’t mind, old man, do you?” asked Christopher Warner, with an anxious tone that seemed flattering.

  “Oh, no—no——”

  “Hell, there’s nothing to mind about,” said Patrick Dowling sneeringly. “It’s only that it was so damned funny. He must have thought he was seeing things.”

  “Haven’t you really got anything, Chris? You are awful. I spent days in Harrod’s making up my mind about patterns and colours and shapes and things. If anyone dares to break them, oo, I’ll—I’ll——”

  Christopher, laughing loudly, kicked the fire into a blaze and straddled the hearthrug.

  “Well, I only brought glasses, so we can share and share alike.”

  “Trust you, Chris,” said Eddy Makepeace knowingly.

  “Well, I mean to say. That list they send you’s enough to make a cat laugh. Breakfast china and tea china—do they think you’re made of money? Anyway, it’ll only get pinched or broken. No, I just picked up some beer mugs and sherry glasses from home—and God help the bastard that breaks any of them, too. Well well, I expect Kemp’ll be using my glasses soon enough.”

  John muttered something, too embarrassed at being the centre of the situation and at hearing the word “bastard” used in front of a girl to consult the feelings that raged inside him. When he did, he found them a turmoil of anger and bitter humiliation and self-pity. While the light conversation moved around the subject and eventually away from it, he found himself staring at the coffee-strainer that had been used to strain tea, and feeling sorry for it, as if they had suffered in the same way. His impulse to run away was neutralized by the fact there was nowhere to run to. This was home for him, now.

  “What’s on at the flicks?” demanded Eddy Makepeace loudly, dropping ash into his cup. John stared with growing dismay at the bulging eyes and spotty face, feeling he had wandered into a place where he had absolutely no counterpart. Putting down his cup, he continued to remain silent.

  It seemed too much to hope that they should ever go, but just before six they all got up and at last departed. Christopher saw them to the gate. Evening had more than begun to fall, and John heard them go laughing round the cloisters. Left alone, he sat dejectedly down on the sofa, among the litter of dirty china, feeling that if he were left alone for long he would begin crying. But this feeling changed to alarm as he heard Christopher Warner coming back, for the idea of living with a stranger made him shrink. Would they have to share the same bedroom? He had never done that before, and was intensely shy. Further, he felt nothing but dislike for Christopher Warner so far.

  “Now,” said Christopher briskly, slamming the door. “Most of this mess is mine, I think.… I say, bung a bit of coal on the fire, would you?”

  John obeyed. Christopher Warner began carrying armfuls of clothes into the bedroom, not paying much attention to John, who knelt down awkwardly beside his ridiculous semi-trunk and undid it.

  “I’ve taken the farther bed—I suppose that’s all right?” said Christopher, as they passed in the doorway. The farther bed was away from the door, and was nearest the small lamp.

  “Oh, yes.”

  John put his three shirts into the corner of one drawer, hearing the sound of Christopher screwing up wrapping-paper, and looked about the bedroom. It was small, and held two beds, a washstand and a large clothes-cupboard. On the marble top of the washstand Christopher had grouped his shaving things, which John studied cautiously. What was ‘shaving lotion’, and ‘talcum powder’?

  “I’m glad you met some of my friends,” said Christopher as he cleared up. Taking the first of the framed photographs, he began scanning the walls for nails. “I know them pretty well in Town.… Elizabeth is Patrick’s sister, you know. That Hugh fellow’s a pal of Patrick’s. I was at school with Eddy—at Lamprey, you know.”

  “Oh, yes.”

  “A fine place. A bloody fine place.” Christopher hung his first picture, and stepped back, wiping his hands on his trousers. “That’s it. Etching, you know.”

  John had not heard of Lamprey School, but looked deferentially at the etching while Christopher hung up three other pictures, two of which were Lamprey teams with Christopher represented.

  “That makes the place look more like home. I say, I’m sorry, you haven’t anything, have you?”

  “No, no, that’s quite all right.”

  “I was afraid you might be the sort of guy that would want to hang lousy modern daubs about. It’s a bore, having to share, isn’t it?”

  John would have thought this exceptionally rude had he said it himself. From Christopher Warner, who was burrowing for his lighter with a fresh cigarette in his mouth, it did not seem so.

  “Lord, you don’t catch the dons sharing. You’ll know there’s a war on when they do.” A cloud of smoke hid his face, then parted. “Not that I blame them.”

  “What are you going to read?”

  “I’m supposed to be doing English.”

  “Yes—so am I.”

  “Oh, then that’s why we’re together.” He took another look round the room. “I think most of the mess is cleared up now.”

  It was becoming dark, and the sitting-room was filling with shadows. Christopher pushed a pile of magazines carelessly on to one of the shelves of the b
ookcase; far away and near bells were beating the half-hour, the sound spreading mellowly through all the arches and stone traceries to John’s ears. He bent his head, thinking of words like “angelus” and “refectory”.

  There came a knock on the door.

  “Come in.”

  A thin, delicate-looking man in an apron entered and stood by the door.

  “Good evening, gentlemen. I’m your scout.”

  “Oh, yes—put the light on, will you? That’s right. I’m Warner. This is Kemp.”

  John ducked his head shyly.

  “I’ll put the black-out up, sir, if you wouldn’t mind watching.… You’ll be wanting to do it yourselves when the days get shorter.”

  They watched him fit the sheets of plywood across the windows in the bedroom and close the shutters in the sitting-room. Then he began collecting the used tea-things on a tray, working swiftly and methodically while they watched. “You know I’m entitled to take your dusters?” he said, glancing up. “For the cleaning——”

  “Oh, yes, of course. They wouldn’t be much good to us!”

  “No, they wouldn’t, would they, sir?” The scout began to put the bread and sugar away. “I don’t suppose you’d want my job as well as your own, would you? No, I don’t suppose you would.” He laughed quietly the while, as though his chest hurt him. “Hall’s at seven, gentlemen, you know that? Have you your gowns?”

  “Yes——”

  “No, I haven’t——” John looked startled at them both, having in the strain of the last hour forgotten the rule (which had been worrying him) that everyone who ate in Hall must wear the gown of their degree.

  “You haven’t, sir? A scholar, are you, sir? I’ll get you one—just a few moments, if you’ll hang on.” And, taking the tray, he went out, closing the door quietly. John was relieved, both at this promise and at the fact that Christopher had been there to deal with the man. He had not been looking forward to the unfamiliar experience of speaking to a servant.

  “I got mine from the porter for half a dollar,” explained Christopher, picking up a scrap of black cloth. He yawned. “I’m going to the Junior Common Room. A man was telling me you can get sherry there.”