by Denton Welch
Robert rushed at him excitedly. ‘Stop that appalling tune,’ he shrieked through the noise. Hope let his hands fall from the keyboard and looked up in surprise. He did not enjoy being interrupted.
‘Don’t you hate it yourself?’ asked Robert in amazement. ‘I hate it more than—than Kipling’s “If”,’ he finished with spluttering emphasis.
‘Why should you dislike it more than any other light tune of that period?’ asked Hope coldly.
‘I don’t know, I can’t think. It’s just repulsive to me.’
Hope would play no more after this, and Robert was exhausted, so they both sat down in silence and waited.
‘Would you like to see my own room?’ Hope asked at last, not knowing what to say.
‘Yes, do show it to me. But after that I really must go. It’s so late.’
Robert followed Hope up the linoleum-lined stairs. The turned banisters looked Edwardian and mean. Hope turned the gas up in his room, and the first thing Robert saw was a line of boots: a huge pair of wellingtons, some wooden clogs and a pair of fur-lined snowboots.
‘I love boots,’ said Hope, rather pleased to explain his idiosyncrasy.
‘Do you ever go out in your wooden clogs?’ asked Robert, to be amusing.
Hope took him quite seriously. ‘Of course not. I hate making myself conspicuous.’ He turned his gaze on to Robert’s rather extravagant clothes and let it stay there for a moment.
Robert lifted his eyes hastily and took in the rest of the room. Hope had arranged a rope in loops all round the cornice, and the panels of the door were painted with harsh Greek honeysuckle and key patterns. On the desk two very gaudy Russian dolls sprawled drunkenly, and the mantelpiece was decorated with a long line of those frightfully painted German discs, two of which had been used under the glasses on the table at supper. More of Hope’s paintings stood with their faces to the wall and a riding-crop was nailed up over the bed.
‘I’m not sporting or sadistic or masochistic,’ said Hope laconically, noticing the direction of Robert’s gaze. ‘I found it in a field near Dorking and brought it home as a souvenir. It’s got M.E.R. on the silver band. What do you think it can stand for? Marcus Edward Rawlins, I always tell myself.’
They both laughed at the nasty name, and Robert said, ‘Wouldn’t it be awful if you scourged yourself with the hunting-crop every night before you went to sleep? I can imagine you as a holy man being proud of the drops of blood that trickled down the white wall.’
‘Can you?’ asked Hope interestedly. He really seemed flattered that he could be imagined in this character. ‘I’m afraid I’m not a very holy man, though. Religion doesn’t mean anything to me and it never has. I know that your sort often adores going to church for the smells and the sights and the pretty bells; but it just seems utterly silly to me and I get irritated and come out.’
‘What do you mean by “my sort”?’ Robert asked suspiciously, a little fiercely.
‘Oh, you know, the romantic, airy-fairy sort that loves to be titillated; that gets carried away.’
‘It sounds as if I was the sort of person who loves to be tickled all over with feathers; and who was that Roman emperor who buried his boys in rose leaves and then picked the petals off one by one in his mouth? I suppose you think I’m like that. What peculiar impressions we give other people!’
‘Are you sure you’ve got the story right?’ asked Hope with interest, ignoring the last part of the sentence. ‘I think I must read about the Roman emperors. They seem to have left no stone unturned where sensations are concerned.’
‘Who wants to be titillated now?’ asked Robert in triumph.
‘I must go,’ he said, moving to the door. ‘I shan’t get enough sleep unless I do.’
‘Do you think of things like that?’ asked Hope incredulously.
‘Yes, don’t you?’ was Robert’s simple reply. ‘I suppose we all have our own fads, however old or young we are—yours may be that you must get enough exercise, or that you must be “regular”, as the advertisements put it.’
‘But I am “regular”!’ said Hope almost angrily. And Robert knew that that was his fad.
Hope turned the gas low in his room and saw Robert down the dark stairs to the front door.
‘Goodbye, I have enjoyed myself,’ said Robert. ‘You’re a fine cook!’
‘Shall we go for a long walk in the country one weekend?’ asked Hope rather rapidly and disconnectedly, as if he were afraid that the suggestion would not be liked.
‘Yes, let’s!’ said Robert, taken aback, but not unpleased. ‘We could both take sandwiches and chocolate and fruit, or find a not too Tudor tea-house, if it were too cold to sit out of doors.’
‘Good, we’ll fix it up soon, then.’
The door clicked sharply and Robert heard Hope walking down the passage. He was to learn that at meetings or partings Hope was always abrupt and brusque—like a schoolboy aggressively self-contained with his parents on Speech Day.
III
It was the very earliest spring—all mud and puddles and winter aconites with petals unpleasantly like the stiff wings torn off poor beetles. The shell-like shape and brittleness were so exactly alike. The patches of blue seemed to be racing as well as the clouds in the sky. Robert had brought his silver-knobbed stick and Hope his umbrella. Each regarded the emblem of the other with disfavour.
‘Where on earth did you get that from?’ asked Hope, pointing to the cane.
‘In a junk shop. It cost five and six. Isn’t it nice? Have you seen all the little Chinese people on the silver knob, and isn’t the Malacca fine?’
‘Don’t you think it’s rather stagey?’ suggested Hope.
‘Perhaps I like the stage,’ said Robert, adding as sweetly as possible, ‘Haven’t you ever learnt to roll an umbrella?’
‘What’s the good of rolling an umbrella when one has to use it every other moment?’
‘Don’t you think it looks just a tiny bit drab blowing about and flapping in the wind? They always remind me of meat-teas or funerals or the “smell of a congregation on a wet Sunday afternoon”, as Aldous Huxley has put it.’
‘I’m afraid I don’t a bit mind being taken for a member of the middle classes, if that’s what you mean; and are you quite sure that you’ve got that quotation absolutely right?’
They trudged on in silence, disgruntled with each other. Hope had arranged the whole day. He had suggested that they should take the train down to Dorking and walk to a charming cottage he knew of, where they could have tea. Robert had agreed to everything, finding the plan already laid so carefully.
They passed a long line of trees which dipped down into a hollow and then rose, leading the eye to a little church on the top of the hill.
‘The vicar of that church used to be a great friend of ours when we were small,’ said Hope, pointing with his umbrella; ‘he was so fond of my brother that he wanted to adopt him. I can’t think why, for my brother was a fiendish child. He invented a terrible game called Operations. For this, I had to strip myself naked and lie down on the table, which had already been covered with a sheet. Then my brother, dressed in another sheet, with a handkerchief tied across his mouth and nose, would approach me, a devilish look in his eyes. Sometimes he would produce an enormous jack-knife and scrape it across my shivering flesh; but worse, far worse, were the times when he passed electric shocks through me. You can guess what part of me he chose for these experiments. The pleasure, the pain, the excitement and the shame are vivid to me still. One day the vicar silently opened our bedroom door, just as the operation was coming to an end. He must have seen my brother’s intent, gloating face and my own agonised one. He must have seen my naked, twitching limbs, the electric battery, and what was being done to me, but he said nothing. For a second I saw his glasses glittering as he watched us, seemingly fascinated, then he brushed his hand roughly across his mouth and shut the door with a click. My brother only came to with the sound of the door. His head jerked up and he looked abo
ut him rather wildly. I told him that the vicar had seen; he rushed at me with my shirt and pulled it over my head, telling me to dress myself at once. The sheets were folded up and put away and the batteries hidden. We waited, not daring to go downstairs. Through my fear and horror I hoped that this would stop my brother from ever practising on me again. It did; for although the vicar never said anything about it to our mother and father, we lived in terror that he would. He never even mentioned it to us, or hinted that he had seen. Don’t you think that was curious?’
‘Yes,’ said Robert, ‘unless one imagines that the poor parson was much too ashamed and horrified ever to think of your brother’s wickedness again. But, tell me, did it change his attitude to your brother?’
‘Not a bit; he seemed to be more affectionate towards him than ever!’
Robert laughed loudly and Hope joined in. The walk was much more enjoyable now that they were swinging along in a rhythm of mind and body. There were no more arguments about sticks or umbrellas, and although they were not in any way marching in step, a sort of coherence had been established between their movements which helped both of them along.
‘Walking with someone else is much easier, isn’t it?’ said Robert.
‘Sometimes,’ Hope answered carefully.
The cottage, lost in the fields, with only the narrowest lane leading to it, came into view.
‘How do they ever get enough customers?’ asked Robert. ‘Nobody would know that it existed, unless they were told.’
‘Well, I suppose people do tell, then,’ said Hope. ‘You see, it’s a sort of guest-house as well; you can have rooms there.’
They pushed open the little wooden gate and walked up the brick path, which was mossy and treacherously slimy.
‘This is where we fracture our thighs and remain in bed for life,’ Robert called out gaily as his muddy shoes slipped.
Hope knocked on the door; it was opened to them by an elderly woman in glasses, whose white hair had that curious nicotine-stained tint at the sides. It was dressed in what Robert always thought of as the cow-pat manner, that is, puffed out at the sides and flattened on the top. She seemed genteel and therefore uninviting. Robert was about to regret being brought to the cottage, but then she left them and he felt contented again.
Two people were already in the living-room, sitting close to the huge fire and talking in whispers. They were very much in earnest about something, for they filled their mouths with scones and jam and cream and then leant over their steaming teacups, nearly touching noses in their eagerness.
‘Are they in love?’ whispered Robert.
‘I don’t think so. I think they’re discussing the supernatural. Astral bodies and ectoplasm and all that stuff.’
‘You don’t think anything will happen, do you?’ asked Robert in mock alarm. ‘I should hate it if an incubus or succubus or something came along and started doing things!’ He turned in his chair and saw the two cats on the other side of the fire.
‘Just look at those huge, enormous capon-cats!’ he cried out in surprise.
‘I thought you’d like them.’ Hope smiled complacently. ‘Have you ever seen such animals? They just sit there all day licking their fur and drinking milk.’
‘But their faces!—they’re so conceited they can only blink.’
‘Wouldn’t you be conceited with fur like that?’
‘But think of the price they’ve had to pay! That ought to have knocked some of the stuffing out of them.’
‘No doubt it has,’ said Hope with an elaborately wry smile.
‘Stop it, stop it; the spiritualists will hear,’ hissed Robert.
The tea arrived and they started to spread their scones with jam and cream.
‘I’ll be hostess,’ piped Robert in falsetto, seizing the teapot and arching his neck gracefully. ‘How do you like your tea, Mrs Hope? Milk in first and two lumps?’
He smiled at Hope roguishly and crooked his little finger, as he held the sugar tongs over the bowl.
Hope immediately became a restraining influence. ‘Do be careful,’ he said, ‘or they’ll send for the police and have you taken away, you’re so convincing.’
They stuffed their mouths with scone and talked quietly, until the intent couple got up to go. Then they smiled at each other and relaxed and went to sit in the chimney-seat, where they sprawled out their legs to the fire. Robert, as he lay back, played with one of the huge cats. It bore with it for a little and seemed almost about to purr, when it suddenly changed its mind and gave one of his fingers a little darting bite. The shock made Robert sit up. He held out his finger, but no blood came. He felt disappointed.
‘That’ll teach you not to take liberties!’ Hope said with glee. ‘Would you care for it if a perfect stranger began to tickle your ears?’
They asked for the bill and divided it scrupulously. The white-haired woman gave them a coldly curious look through her spectacles, and they wondered about a tip.
‘She is too genteel,’ said Robert firmly, as she moved away.
The walk back to the station was long and dreary. They began to quarrel almost as soon as they left the cottage. Robert wanted to cut across some fields and Hope told him bluntly that he did not know the way. Their strides did not coincide; one was always in front of the other, or behind.
The twinkling lights of the station were a relief to them both. They sat back in the carriage and sighed. Other people clambered in and wedged tightly against them. Robert shut his eyes and pretended to go to sleep.
IV
At the art school Robert was gradually being accepted by the other students. Some of them called out to him now as he arrived in the morning, and the lame boy, Billings, told him dirty jokes or sang to him while he washed his brushes in the lavatory.
The two sisters, who worked with him in the Antique Room, suddenly became communicative. They called him ‘Sonny Boy’ in friendly derision and told him, in a roundabout way, of their budding love affairs. Nothing seemed to have happened yet, and Robert suspected that they had only met the young men once or twice, when other people were present. To be perverse, the dark, almost swarthy, younger one would say, ‘I like an oldish man—grey at the temples and friendly wrinkles round the eyes and all that—they’re so experienced!’
‘Jane, why will you bring out all that novel muck?’ her sister would ask exasperatedly. ‘You know you’d hate a sugar-daddy more than anything else on earth.’
Robert wondered why they talked like this in front of him. He felt in some dim way he gave them encouragement. He never asked them deep questions, but he found himself showing more sympathy and understanding than he felt.
Sometimes they would suddenly switch from love to poetry. Being almost straight from their convent school at Ramsgate, they still thought of Rupert Brooke as a poet of today. Indeed, he was the latest one that they knew anything about.
‘How marvellously handsome he was!’ said Jane. And once she brought a book to school with his portrait in the front. The photographer had taken him with naked shoulders and with his head thrown back, so that his glistening hair swept away in a wing.
‘Do you think he took off his shirt in the photographer’s studio, or did he just pull it down?’ asked Robert. He was always repelled and fascinated and curious about these naked-shoulder photographs. Theirs seemed such a peculiar brand of vulgarity.
‘What a ridiculous question to ask!’ shrilled Jane indignantly. ‘Why should it matter what he did, so long as the photograph was made?’
The taking off of shirts reminded Robert of the sculpture model.
‘Have you seen the new sculpture model?’ he asked innocently—adding after a moment, ‘He’s an all-in wrestler.’
The girls jumped to their feet.
‘Let’s go and see him,’ they said together. ‘Sonny Boy, you’re to show us the way and chaperon us.’
Robert led them up the stairs and into the smaller modelling-room, where wire armatures and clay figures, wrapped in damp r
ags, gave the room a macabre and beggarly aspect. The half-pulled-down green blind bathed the ceiling of the room in a wicked, deep-sea light. Through the open door which led into the larger room they could see the students grouped round the model, busy at their stands. The model stood above them on the dais in a pose of arrested action. His tawny body was magnificent—everything coarse and blunt and strong.
‘He must have a sun-ray lamp,’ whispered Robert. ‘He couldn’t still be that colour from last summer.’
‘Shut up!’ said Jane sharply. She turned to her sister. ‘Oh, Madge, isn’t he marvellous!’
They all three began to move into the other room as quietly as possible; the master was not there. They stood at the foot of the dais and gazed up at the model. He truly was a fine-looking man, and it is so unusual for a model to be this that they did not trouble to hide their admiration—or not all of it.
Jane was the most open; her eyes glistened quite simply with reverence and lust, and her breath came in short, very gentle gasps. It was clear that she wanted to be his slave.
Madge just stared and smiled and looked rather pale. Robert seemed more analytical; he wanted to study the excellence of the body. He envied it almost painfully—the hard thighs and stomach, the pectorals, Greek in their square-cut shape, the over-developed arms and legs with thin biceps and calves like hard rubber balls. And the wonderful brown stain on the skin with the red glow behind it—seen against the universal grey of the room; where everything was coated with clay dust—this colour seemed almost to vibrate and tingle.
One of the students called out, ‘Rest.’ The others laid down their tools, and the model, seeing Robert so close, put a hand on his shoulder and jumped down from the dais. As he jumped, his arm just brushed one of Robert’s cheeks. Robert felt the hair on the forearm tickle, like spider’s legs. A shiver went through him; he looked up and smiled at the model.
‘Don’t you get tired of holding that pose with your arms out?’ he asked.
‘Oh, I’m used to it now. It was different at the beginning. I used to think it harder work than wrestling.’ He grinned at Robert and showed that one of his teeth had been chipped; but the effect was not unpleasant, for the tooth was still white, and all the rest of the face had a rough unfinished effect which blended. Robert saw how tough the skin was from sun and exposure. The coarse pores and stiff hairs reminded Robert of Gulliver in the bosom of the giant.