Nobody spoke, sitting half-listening in the silence.
John walked back to the station, which was hardly more than two platforms by a level crossing, and leant against a wooden fence to wait for the train. He was tired, and what he had seen made him feel as negligible as a fly crawling over a heap of stones: it made life seem like an unsuccessful attempt to light a candle in the wind.
He was travelling all night. At Birmingham he managed to get a meal which left him with two and threepence and the return half of his ticket. Most of the travellers were soldiers, clustering loudly about, dumping their kitbags like corpses on the floor of the waiting-room. Their necks were red as if scalded. The train ran slowly, cautiously, through the darkness. He grew very tired and slept.
The dirty yellow light spread over his face and hands, showing them relaxed, and his pale silky hair. His shoes were stained with red mud, so were the bottoms of his trousers and his right sleeve. The galloping wheels insinuated their unrest into his dreams, and he saw once again the scarecrow buildings, the streets half heaved-up by detonations, the candlelit bar. It no longer seemed meaningless: struggling awake again, rubbing his eyes with chilled hands, he thought it represented the end of his use for the place. It meant no more to him now, and so it was destroyed: it seemed symbolic, a kind of annulling of his childhood. The thought excited him. It was as if he had been told: all the past is cancelled: all the suffering connected with that town, all your childhood, is wiped out. Now there is a fresh start for you: you are no longer governed by what has gone before.
The train ran on, through fields lying under the frost and darkness.
And then again, it was like being told: see how little anything matters. All that anyone has is the life that keeps him going, and see how easily that can be patted out. See how appallingly little life is.
He yawned and grinned, clasping his hands between his knees. What a mess he had been making, when it was all really so easy: he could hardly believe it. He had been a proper fool, worrying and bothering himself. But he’d show them. Stretching full length on the carriage seat, he did not bother to formulate any particular promises; light-heartedly, he simply repeated that he’d have done with it, that it was all over, that now they’d be seeing something. It was cold, and he pulled the short flaps of his overcoat as far as they would go over his knees. In his position, half-awake, shivering and imagining things to himself, he spent the rest of the slow journey through the night, squinting round the blind as they stopped and restarted. He was aching when at a little before five in the morning they drew into the long, almost-deserted station. It was frosty, and he wished for gloves. Rows of lamps spread pools of light along the platform. Here and there there were milk churns and a pile of parcels. From the end of the train came a banging as porters threw luggage in and out of the van.
He left the station and walked slowly through the streets. The shops were all locked up, every entrance being chained and barred. His head rang with fatigue. His body was weary to hysteria, inventing dance-rhythms and figures for the echo of his footsteps. Now and then they became suddenly hollow as he passed an arcade or deep shop door. In the gutter the wind rustled an invisible bit of paper.
There was a faint starlight in the open, but he had in the alleys to feel his way along rough stone walls, encountering cold moss with his fingers. Above him soared the elaborate-shaped colleges. And as five began to strike, his exalted exhaustion took one more queer twisted impulse from them. He leant against the wall, sobbing dryly, as the numerous bells discussed the hour in the darkness and the frost. Their age was comforting: he could wrap himself in it like a cloak.
It was easy to climb over the wall near a chestnut tree, and he did so, scratching his hands. Then he made his way quietly back to his own room.
He did not wake up till after two the next day. The black-out was taken down, the room cleaned and Christopher’s bed made all without disturbing him. For some minutes he lay staring at the ceiling, reviewing the thoughts and memories in his mind, arranging them in an orderly way: then he heaved back the bedclothes and got up. He drank a glass of cold water and stretched his arms.
There were voices coming from the sitting-room, so after slipping on his overcoat and hanging a towel round his neck, he pushed open the door. Christopher, Eddy and Patrick were sitting round an enormous coal fire drinking bottled beer and smoking cigars. The air was hot and smelt richly.
“Oh, come off it,” Patrick was saying contemptuously. “You don’t know anything about racing.”
“All right, then!” Eddy sat indignantly upright. “I bet you I’m up on the month—on the term, then! I bet you I’m up on the term.”
Eddy was wearing a yellow waistcoat with brass buttons, which made his flushed face look very pink. The ash from his cigar broke and fell.
“Hallo, John,” said Christopher, sitting with his back to the door and twisting his neck to look round. “Have a drink.”
“There’s none left,” said Patrick, filling up his tumbler again and throwing the bottle away into a corner. It thundered on the boards without breaking.
John found a full bottle under the desk, and, pouring himself a glassful, sat down at the table to cut bread and butter. He ate huge slices ravenously, scattering crumbs.
“It doesn’t mean anything, just being up on the term,” Patrick persisted. “You might follow a tipster and do that.”
“You know damn all about it, there’s the hell of a science in betting. You have to work on a system——”
“Where’s this lad been?” demanded Patrick, pointing at John. “Why isn’t he dressed properly?”
John chewed for a few moments in silence, staring at Patrick.
“I went to Huddlesford.”
“Why?”
“I live there, that’s why.”
“Do people live there?” inquired Patrick, with an air of surprise. “I thought it was a music-hall fiction.”
John was cutting himself more bread. “Yes,” he said, “quite a lot of people live there.”
“I’d forgotten,” said Christopher. “Is there a lot of damage?”
“A fair amount, yes.”
“The blitz is like a good show,” Patrick remarked, putting his feet up against the fireplace. “After a long run in town, it’s touring the provinces.” Eddy coughed, and put his cigar back into his mouth. “See much of it?” he inquired, not without truculence. John thought he was being addressed, and said:
“The centre was all barricaded off.”
“Is that so,” said Christopher. “Of course, there’s not much to hit in these provincial towns, they can hit it all at once. I must say, I found the blitz rather fun. One was nearly always tight, and it seemed quite natural. Did I ever tell you how when we were having that party of Julian’s, how one came down and put all the lights out, and when he got candles we found all the corks had been pulled out of the bottles?”
“Oh, I don’t believe that, Chris,” said Eddy, grinning broadly. “Not unless you’d done it yourself.”
“Well, near Shepherd’s Bush, when I was doing special constable’s duty,” said Patrick, “we found a shelterful of corpses, not a mark on them. There hadn’t been a bomb within twenty yards. We thought it was gas or something. But it was only blast, all their lungs had been burst with the blast——”
“Cheery,” said Eddy. “Of course, I shouldn’t be surprised at anything happening at a party of Julian’s. If the Archangel ruddy Gabriel came in and blew the Last Trump, it would never surprise me. Lord, what you can do with money.”
“Money!” exclaimed Christopher, theatrically clapping his pockets. “Have you got any?” he inquired of Patrick with interest. Patrick stared back at him and gave a sudden, barking belch.
John finished his bread and pushed his plate aside. “I could do with some,” he said. “Just now I’ve got two and threepence in the wide world. Have you a cigarette, Chris?”
Christopher threw him the packet. “I think we should have a
party before term ends,” he said. “I think that would be a very useful contribution to the war effort.”
“Not in this college it wouldn’t,” said Patrick. “Not after all that damn row about Semple.”
“That twerp,” said Eddy. “Well, bring it round to my place. You can have women in there.”
Patrick frowned. “I think women mess up a serious party.”
“Well, you needn’t have anything to do with them,” said Christopher, throwing the end of his cigar into the fire. “You can leave them alone.”
“You can’t,” chuckled Eddy. “We all know what you’re after.”
Christopher attempted to tip Eddy’s chair over backwards and only succeeded in making him spill his beer. They scuffled for a few moments, knocking over a pile of books and papers.
“Don’t fart about,” said Patrick wearily.
“Well, when are we going to have it?” demanded Eddy, mopping himself. “I think it’s hell’s good idea, if we can get the stuff.”
“Oh, we can get the stuff all right,” said Patrick. “And you can pay for it out of your turf winnings.”
“You’re a mean sod,” said Eddy, simply and sincerely.
“This is the last week, isn’t it.” Christopher lolled by the fireplace, twisting the signet ring on his finger. “It’s happened fast, this term. No good starting work now.”
“How about Thursday night?” suggested Eddy. “Thursday, at my place.”
“I’ve got a tute on Friday.” Patrick leant back deeper in his chair.
“Well, Friday night.”
“I’m going to a dance.”
“Well, damn it,” Christopher was impatient. “You can work on Thursday.”
“I’ve got Corps.”
“Lord!” said Christopher sarcastically. “The man about town. You were a b.f. to join that racket.”
“I don’t think so. Wait till you’re pitched into the ranks.”
“Ranks my arse! They won’t get me yet.”
“I’ll lay half a dollar,” said Patrick judiciously, “that they register the nineteens in the next three months.”
“Half a dollar it is.”
“All right.” Patrick drew out his tiny notebook.
“All right yourself. I’ll join the Corps fast enough, when there’s any monkey business.”
“What closed down the nunnery?” chortled Eddy. “They’ll catch up with you!”
“You’ve said it,” said Patrick, stretching out his legs. “You can’t fool all the Ministry of Labour all the time.”
“Man alive!” Christopher exclaimed. “You don’t think I care that much, do you? I’ll be sick of this place by the summer, I’ll be glad to leave. Your trouble is,” he said, pointing to Patrick, “you’re as windy as hell yourself.”
“Urcher,” said Patrick, in a bad-tempered voice.
“Well, we can’t have it Saturday, we’ll all be gone,” said Eddy. “And I think Wednesday’s a bit soon, don’t you? Make it Thursday night.”
“But——”
“Oh, sod your bloody essay!” shouted Christopher. “As if you don’t know enough to walk through a tute blindfold! … Tell your tutor you’ve got pneumonia.”
“Or pox,” chuckled Eddy. “Ha, ha, ha!”
John left them at this point to have a bath. It was nice to be back. On Monday morning he had a letter from his parents at Preston describing the air-raid they had endured. It was not vivid enough to move him, but he was perturbed to hear that his mother was still suffering from nervous shock. He slipped the letter back into his pocket and forgot it in three minutes.
While he was having coffee that morning (a thing he did automatically now, without reference to its original cause) he saw Elizabeth at a different table with some girl friends, and he watched her with amusement, the way she talked and the way she listened, as if she were part of a comedy he was privileged to watch. Indirectly she reminded him of Jill, whom he did not expect to see again. When they all rose to go, she came swiftly across to his table. “John!” she exclaimed, “do tell me … I’ve been so worried.… Are your family safe? Were they in that dreadful raid?”
Her face hung before him, ludicrously, like an advertisement for cosmetics. There was a piece of fluff on her left shoulder.
“Yes,” he said. “They were. But they were lucky.” He sat back.
“Oh, good.” She looked relieved. “I’m so glad. It must have been terrible.”
“It was pretty bad, I think.”
“And there’s another thing.…” She looked at him acutely, then frowned slightly into the distance. “I hope you aren’t too offended about … the other day, you know. I must have seemed a bit rude. Do tell me, was I?”
“Rude?” John laughed, frankly trying to remember. “Well, a bit, perhaps. But not very, considering.”
“I’m sure I was.… Well, I do want to apologize. I didn’t mean to be nasty. It’s only that Gillian …” She paused, expecting him to cover up her uncompleted sentence, but he only smiled at her. “Well, it’s only that she’s so young. She’s only fifteen, you know.”
“Fifteen? Really!” John was bland. “Is that all?”
“Yes, only fifteen.… And she didn’t really want to—you know—she asked me to—well, you see how it was,” she concluded lamely.
“I see,” said John. “That’s quite all right.”
“Are you sure? Well, so long as you aren’t nursing a grievance or anything.” She looked into his eyes with a brilliant smile.
“No, that’s quite all right. I understand.”
“Good. I must fly now. Good-bye!”
“Good-bye,” he said, yawning. “Bitch,” he added to himself, stirring his coffee, wondering what had prompted her to feint this submission, and tell all these lies. He wondered, too, if that had been the epitaph on Jill: in the circumstances, it seemed likely, and as he smoked and sipped his coffee he surveyed the experience with a surprising lack of shame.
It was December: the many trees were quite leafless: the views which in summer had been reproduced on postcards were now forsaken and austere. The boats had long been slung up in the boathouses: in the Common Rooms the Christmas numbers of magazines began to appear. And the term was coming to an end. He made an effort to clear up some of the work he had left undone.
Fortunately, he was working just before lunch on Thursday when there was a tap at the door and a yellow face under a soft brown hat peered in. “Hard at it?” inquired an ironical voice.
John jumped up. “Why, come in, sir. What are you—come in and sit down.”
He took Mr. Crouch’s outstretched hand. The master shut the door and put his hat on the table, coming round on to the hearthrug. He wore a thick brown overcoat with the collar turned up.
“This is a nice room you have. A pity you have to share it.”
“Yes, it is a nice room.” John looked round it vaguely.
“A great pity. I always found it essential to have a room to myself, however small. But perhaps you’re different. Cigarette?’
He held out his case, amused when the boy unconsciously took one. As far as John was concerned, Mr. Crouch looked unexpectedly young and it seemed natural for him to be there.
“Surely you haven’t broken up already?”
“Broken up? We’ve been broken up. I suppose you’ve been too secluded in your academic fastness to know that we had a little raid last week.”
“Did they hit the school?” John exclaimed.
“Fair and square. Almost completely burnt out, except for the labs and the gym and one or two of the new classrooms. So we are prematurely disbanded.” He blew out smoke. “I don’t think there was much up your way.”
“No, I was there on Friday—nothing, no damage.”
“You were, were you? Pity I didn’t know. You could have looked me up. Did you know I was married now?”
“Why, no—well, many congratulations,” said John, with a return to his old shyness and a movement of his hand.
“Thank you,” said Mr. Crouch lightly. “Thank you very much indeed.” He looked at the boy a moment with a smile.
“Then where are you living now, sir?”
They discussed Huddlesford for a while, Mr. Crouch standing with his back to the fire and John straddling the arms of the sofa. “Still, for all that, I’m not as comfortable as you,” he said, his eye travelling over the room. “You’ve done very nicely for yourself. Not that you haven’t earned it. Why didn’t you write to me?” He grinned in his old manner, seeing the boy confused.
“Well, I started to, several times.…”
Mr. Crouch lifted a yellow hand.
“I know how it is: you needn’t bother to explain.” He inspected the cigarette he held. “I know what one’s first university term is like. One feels one’s never lived before.” John looked at the carpet. “It’s been worth it, hasn’t it? Worth all that grind?”
“Oh, yes,” said the boy shyly.
“Good. Now will you come and have lunch with me? I don’t know where the best place is.”
John put some coal on the fire, and they went out to a restaurant he had heard Christopher talk about. Mr. Crouch looked about him with interest as they walked through the streets. The chance sights he saw troubled him—an art student in a red skirt sketching some vaulting, a flower-seller and a white-coated kitchen boy carrying a tray of covered plates to a don’s room. These things expressed a life he had not shared, and which he now never would share. He knew the boy at his side would not have noticed them.
“Tell me what you’ve been doing,” he asked, when they were settled at their table, his nicotine-stained fingers locked before him.
John, recounting the work and lectures of the term, at first unconsciously and then consciously tried to make it sound more impressive than it was. “Have you read my tutor’s last book?” he inquired. “It’s very good. He’s the authority on eleventh-century England. I’ve been reading a lot of his papers. I’m lucky to be under him.
“It’s a pity he can’t take you alone,” said Mr. Crouch, breaking his roll. “Have you ever thought of asking him? Of course, the war’s mucked everything up.”
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