by Denton Welch
‘You’re like a kid frightening itself on the way upstairs to bed at night,’ said Russell.
They walked up to the hall and joined the end of the long queue.
‘When we get in we might find my old friend who gave me the tickets,’ Russell said. ‘He told me he’d try to come; he may be late though.’
They sat down in their two-shilling seats, and when the music began Russell unrolled the long score on his knees and drew Robert’s attention to the line of notes being played, by following it with his square-tipped fingers. Robert leant forward and politely kept his eyes on the score. He did not follow the music for long, but found himself gazing at the pink finger. He noticed the black crescent of dirt under the nail. It was not particularly revolting; it seemed to suit Russell’s hands well. He was one of those people who would always seem fresh, although they were never scrupulously clean.
Robert found this bending forward and arching of his neck tedious. He sat back and shut his eyes to listen properly. The music flooded over him in a lovely wave. He kept as still as ice, knowing that the feeling would only last a moment.
Before the moment died, a nudge from Russell broke and splintered it to bits. He drew Robert’s attention to the score severely. Robert was so angry that he turned his head away and muttered, ‘Leave me alone. I don’t want to look at your bloody score!’
Russell twitched his lips and withdrew into himself completely. There was a sort of vicious jutting out of his chin, and a no-expression in his eyes.
In the interval they did not look at each other at once; then both evidently decided to pretend that nothing had happened.
‘Do you think your friend’s here?’ asked Robert, smiling.
‘I don’t know; I can’t see him. Shall we go and get some coffee? We might find him there.’
They walked round the curving passage where people leant against the wall, laughing and chattering.
The first person they saw in the crowded room was Russell’s friend.
He pushed towards them, smiling and showing the gold in his teeth. The short paunchy body and the fish-shaped head, covered with silvery bristles, repelled Robert. He hated the worn pin-striped suit, the watch-chain with the spade guinea and the boy scout’s fleur-de-lys in the buttonhole. He remembered being told now that this person had been Russell’s scout master.
‘Introduce me to your friend, John,’ said the man, smiling ingratiatingly and reassuringly at Robert.
‘It was very good of you to give us these tickets for the concert,’ said Robert after they had shaken hands.
‘Oh, I always give John tickets. He must hear good music, you know.’
There was a pause; the man slipped away and came back bearing two cups of coffee. He opened his arms dramatically and held out the cups to Robert and John.
‘Oh, you lucky young things!’ he said, with fervour. ‘What wouldn’t I give to be right at the beginning of life again, with all youth’s glorious chances and friendships before me!’
This outburst immediately embarrassed both Robert and John. They took the cups and looked down at their feet with confused smiles. Robert gulped the hot drink too quickly and felt the pain wriggling down his body like some knotted rope.
The warning sounded. People began to crowd out of the room. Robert put his cup down thankfully and turned to say goodbye. The man caught Robert and John by the hand, linking both of them to him at the same time.
‘Well, this is where we have to part,’ he said; ‘enjoy yourselves, my children, and—be good!’ As he stressed the two last words he dropped their hands and gave them each a lightning pat on the shoulder. Then he chortled and slipped out of the door to go back to his more expensive seat. For so dumpy a man he moved rapidly.
‘He’s all right,’ said Russell, as soon as they were alone. It was almost as if Robert had offered some criticism.
‘He seems very kind,’ said Robert guardedly.
‘He’s always talking about being young, that’s why he likes young people so,’ Russell explained.
They went back to their seats, and this time Russell did not produce a score. They sat without moving until the final insanely prolonged burst of clapping.
‘Will they never stop?’ shouted Robert through the din.
Russell looked pained and clapped and thumped all the louder.
They streamed out into the cold dark street and started to walk to the station, for they had decided to go back by train. Knots of laughing, talking people passed them. Robert felt sorry that he was only with Russell. He wanted to belong to one of the parties—to be going somewhere to eat and drink. He leant on his stick heavily, giving his gait almost the appearance of a limp. He did not know why he did this, but he enjoyed tottering awkwardly.
‘Why are you doing that? Have you hurt your leg?’ Russell asked. He jerked his foot out at the stick and sent it spinning over the pavement.
Robert ran after it, not a bit annoyed. ‘Don’t maltreat my stick, it’s valuable,’ he said gaily.
‘Why did you bring the bloody thing?’
‘Because I like it.’
‘Looks bloody silly to me. You know, you ought to be careful, or you’ll be making yourself conspicuous.’
‘But what I can never understand is why nearly everyone wants to appear inconspicuous. It seems such a queer ambition.’
‘Then you must be a bloody exhibitionist and that’s what I bloody well think you are.’
‘Have you no other adjective? That one gets a little monotonous. Can’t you think of something worse?’
Robert was getting angry. He hated this sort of animal truculence more than anything else, and could not bear intolerant criticism of his clothes or appearance.
They got into an empty carriage and waited in silence. Their dislike of each other was brewing. When the train started to move, Russell got up and pulled all the blinds down capriciously; then he sat in his corner and stared across at Robert. His gaze was so intolerant that Robert became uneasy; he felt that there might be some outburst—perhaps weeping and more self-abasement.
‘Don’t sit there staring at me like a stuffed pig,’ he said, hoping by rudeness and cheerfulness to shake Russell out of the mood.
‘I’ll do what I bloody like,’ said Russell, leaving his mouth open after finishing the words.
‘Well, all I can say is, then, don’t be so bloody-minded.’ Robert turned away, pulled up the blind and looked at the lights out of the window.
The next thing he knew was that Russell was sitting very near him on the seat and that he had caught hold of him by the shoulders and was shaking him playfully.
‘None of your side now,’ Russell said with a warning smile. Robert shook his shoulders roughly, then stood up and faced Russell.
The next moment they were fighting, rolling over and over on the filthy floor and falling against the seats. In a flash Robert remembered Hope’s mock warning; and he was still able to laugh at it, although he was being swiftly overpowered. Russell was by far the stronger; he had also some knowledge and training.
‘Now I’ve got you where I want you,’ he said at last, pushing Robert’s face still further into the dirty upholstery as he jerked his arms backwards with a brutal tweak.
Robert gave a harsh smothered grunt of pain and his body twitched, but he could not move. Russell held him down firmly and knelt on his back.
‘Now who’s won?’ asked Russell triumphantly.
Robert was clearly gasping for breath; he was blowing bubbles of saliva into the seat. Russell held him down for one more moment, then raised him up by the shoulder and let him fall back against the cushions.
Robert lay with half-closed eyes, swallowing great intakes of breath. The sweat was trickling off his face, and his hair looked warm, and damp.
Russell stared at him for a moment in dismay, then started busily and fussily, like a nurse, to repair the damage. He fastened the button at Robert’s throat and put the tie straight; then, pulling out his handkerchi
ef, he started to wipe Robert’s face gently.
‘I only hope he doesn’t lick it and rub, when he comes to a dirty place—as nurses do,’ thought Robert stupidly. But he was past all resistance and docilely allowed Russell to minister to him.
‘That’s better,’ said Russell when he had put most things to rights. ‘I’m afraid your shirt’s torn a bit,’ he added nervously and humbly.
‘That’s all right,’ Robert answered absently. He was still feeling exhausted.
When they arrived at Blackheath, Russell linked arms with him and led him down the platform. At the station door, when the fresh wind hit them, he let go of his arm and said, ‘Well, goodbye; I hope you didn’t mind me getting rough.’
‘Oh, not a bit—why should I? And thank you for taking me to the concert.’
They parted on this blank note. Russell gave him one more hangdog look, shook his head roughly and then swung round and strode away. Robert could see his clumsy white scarf after the rest of him had been swallowed in darkness.
‘How queer!’ he said aloud, and went on saying it several times as he started to walk across the heath. As he dipped down into a hollow he remembered that neither of them knew the other’s address.
‘All the better,’ he said; and he went on repeating this too.
VI
Hope, of course, had not been to see Robert since the night of the scene. At the school they passed each other in the corridors, or worked together in the Life Room, without speaking. Each tried to look natural and not sulky if their eyes met; but the constraint between them was becoming tiresome.
Robert broke it at last, because he had received a curious letter from his aunt. She had written, ‘Would you like to ask your friend, Hope, to spend a few days with you in the Easter Holidays?’
Robert never remembered her doing anything like this before. All the years of his schooling she had never suggested that he should have a friend to stay. And as he had not wanted to have anyone, this had seemed quite natural.
He wondered what to do—whether to suppress the message or give it. One part of him did not particularly want to have Hope to stay; he had also the suspicion that the headmaster had told his aunt that Hope’s was a good influence towards hard work and industry. He knew that his aunt had written to the headmaster about his progress—a strange thing to do at an art school—and he resented this invitation which smelt of interference. But he knew how pleased Hope would be, and so felt mean in concealing it.
Seeing Hope alone, in front of the big composition he was doing for his examination, Robert decided suddenly to go straight up and tell him.
‘My aunt wants to know if you’d like to spend a few days with us down at my grandfather’s, at Easter.’
Hope gave the slightest glance out of the corner of his eye and went on dabbing at a clergyman’s trousers.
‘That’s very nice of her,’ he said, ‘but how does she know I exist?’
‘Oh, I expect I’ve told her about you in a letter, and I think Clive has too, for she seems to think you a prize-pupil.’
They both laughed, and naturalness was more or less restored.
‘As a matter of fact,’ Hope said, ‘Clive spoke to me the other day and said he thought you were promising, but that you didn’t work hard enough, so would I keep an eye on you and give you a bit of encouragement. He said your aunt was worried about you and had written to him.’
‘I knew it, I knew it!’ shrieked Robert. ‘What busybodies they all are!’ There was a pause, then he added, ‘But will you come, or have you something better to do?’
‘Of course I haven’t, and of course I’d like to come. Will you tell her, or shall I write?’
‘Oh no, I’ll tell her when I answer her letter—it’ll be rather dull, you know—nothing but my grandfather, a white Persian cat, my aunt and her wire-haired terrier and me.’
‘That sounds infinitely more exciting than Queen’s Grove and my mother, which is the alternative,’ said Hope dryly. He was still busily touching his painting here and there with darting, bird-like dabs. The scene was of a circus making its triumphant entrance into a country town. The bright procession of clowns, dwarfs, men on stilts and animals was being watched by the whole gaping population. A sinister clergyman (looking curiously like Hope) raised black-gloved hands. Children danced and crowed delightedly. Some drunkard was reeling out of the nearby pub and holding his head in astonishment, not able to believe his eyes.
‘Won’t they think it against the Church and in praise of drunkenness?’ asked Robert. ‘You know what examiners are like. I don’t expect they’ll look at it as a picture at all.’
‘Oh no, you’re quite wrong; they love a rather bold subject, so that they can show how broadminded they are. They’re still under the spell of the problem pictures that used to be hung in the Academy.’
‘How clever you are! But don’t overdo it and put in dogs lifting their legs or other rude things, will you?’
‘You might give in to your childish fancy and do that sort of thing, but you know I’m never likely to, now don’t you?’
Robert had to nod his head. He had never met anyone quite so reasoning as Hope.
‘Are you coming to the end-of-term dance?’ Hope asked. ‘And if so, what are you going to wear?’
‘I don’t know; I shall have to make something. Do people take a lot of trouble with their get-ups?’
‘Some do—others go to the other extreme and dispense with almost everything.’
‘Which do you do?’
‘Wait and see! … And do thank your aunt from me and tell her that I shall be delighted to come, won’t you?’
Robert went down the stairs and left the building; he was glad that he had spoken to Hope and cleared the air. He even thought he might enjoy his company at Easter.
At the entrance gates someone pushing a bicycle emerged from behind the black bushes. It was Russell. He waited diffidently for Robert to speak first; then, as nothing happened, he twiddled the handle of his bell, looked down and said, ‘I was just passing and I knew it was your time for coming out, so I thought I’d wait a tick or two.’
He walked on the pavement beside Robert, pushing the bicycle in the road. ‘I was going to the church at the top of your hill—it’s Ash Wednesday,’ he explained.
Robert looked at him with new interest. ‘Are you a Catholic?’ he asked.
‘Yes; are you? I was going to ask if you’d like to come too.’
‘I’m not a Catholic. I’ve only been to a service once before in my life, so I’d like to come. I’ve always been curious, but I’ve been afraid that I wouldn’t know what to do—when to bob and when to bow and when to make crosses on my breast—but now I’m with you and you can show me.’
They walked along together. Robert was thinking that the day was full of reconciliations and that it was stupid to think that Russell could not get in touch with him again just because he had not the Croom’s Hill address. There was always the school. Russell could catch him every day there, if he chose.
Russell put his bicycle into the laurels that screened the central heating boiler-room, and they both entered the Gothic-revival porch—all rusticated stone and squalid notices pinned to green baize with rusting drawing-pins.
The church inside was warm and pretty. Most of the congregation were already there, kneeling. The candles and lamps twinkled; there was no other light, and they could not see to read the prayers or chants.
Russell genuflected and Robert aped him rather successfully. He copied Russell in everything and enjoyed himself.
Until the last moment he had not realised that the culmination of the ceremony was the marking of crosses in ash on the foreheads of the congregation.
As the long line passed up to the altar steps, he heard Russell whisper, ‘Are you going up? I am. Do you want to?’
Robert gulped nervously. The whole affair was causing him anxiety. Any ceremony unknown to him was liable to throw him into confusion.
‘All right,’ he said desperately.
He followed Russell up and knelt down on the step. The priest passed along the line muttering something for each person. At last he stood in front of them. Robert saw the hand outstretched; then he shut his eyes and felt the soft touch of ashes on his forehead. Their feel was like dry worm-castles, he thought. He followed the tracing of the tiny cross on his skin and suddenly became possessed with an excitement that was almost sexual. He trembled hungrily and felt an upsurge of heat. He knew that it was nothing to do with religion in the accepted sense of the word—it was the solemnity, the intimacy, the touch of the curious stuff on his skin, that had caused it.
He went back to his seat still elated and hungry. Russell looked at him, but seemed to notice nothing. With one more genuflection they left the church and went to pull the bicycle out of the laurels.
‘Let’s go for a walk over the heath. I don’t want to go in just yet; do you?’ said Robert.
Russell looked at him with a certain amount of pleasure. ‘Your ash-cross suits you,’ he said, ‘I don’t know why.’
‘God! I’d forgotten about it!’ Robert cried, putting his hand up to wipe his forehead. Russell caught it and threw it down.
‘Leave it,’ he ordered; ‘don’t wipe it off.’ Robert smiled weakly.
‘I think we must look like two Hindoos,’ he said; ‘they always seem to walk about with spots of different-coloured earths and paints on their faces.’
They walked swiftly over the dark heath. Their shoes cut through the harsh dirty grass. They linked arms and started to sing. Russell was full of directions and orders.
‘Don’t slur the notes,’ he would say, or, ‘You sing alto, I’ll sing bass,’ then when Robert tried his part, ‘That’s not alto but the most peculiar sort of castrato I’ve ever heard!’
They laughed and reeled from side to side until Robert tripped over the bicycle and lay on the ground, helpless.
Russell jerked him up, dusted him down with hard slaps on the back and behind, and said, ‘Don’t jelly. Pull yourself together!’