For Patten too there was an hour—a van was calling for him at three. Patten had no particular worry, nor was he unwell—but suddenly he saw the long lonely prospect and saw it so clearly he clenched his hand till the knuckle-bones flushed in their white. There were things to do—he could get a hair-cut, he could walk out on to the Monday pavements of the red-brick suburb, he could look in shop windows. But nothing seemed worth the effort. An afternoon neither hot nor cold, under a low sky, depressive and of no interest. He looked round him. Not a paper anywhere. Boredom on the barmans’ face—no small talk. No cat. And so it was with relish that as he sipped his beer he remembered he had not been to the Gentlemen’s for some time. He welcomed the definition of such need, put down the beer and made for the stairs.
The way to the lavatory, as with many such large Victorian houses, led through the billiards room. And on pushing the frosted glass door to this, Patten was surprised—in that emptiness almost shocked—to see there a man holding a cue. The room was never used now—it lay shrouded and in an upstairs manner deserted. He was in fact so surprised, feeling in some way an intruder, that he felt bound to greet the man—the greeting of two on a lonely road.
Like a townsman to a countryman, he turned away his face awkwardly as soon as he had spoken—vaguely perturbed too that he should have said ‘Good afternoon’ instead of ‘Good morning’; it all depended on whether the fellow had taken his lunch or not. It seemed a long time after, when he had crossed the long linoleum past the table and had his hand already on the brass door-plate, that there came from behind him the words:
‘Good day.’
At first it sounded like a correction. But the words were most amicably spoken, with a pleased purr to the first of them, and Patten turned and nodded back. The man had straightened upright and was looking at him—he must have stood thus throughout Patten’s long walk across the floor. He was a large man—in his first glimpse Patten called to mind a type of Dutch or Scandinavian sailor, large and pale-eyed, the evocation of the ‘big Swede’ with solid breadth never quite controlled by his sombre suit of Lutheran grey. But this man was plainly affable; he smiled and said across the room:
‘You’re not going, are you?’
Patten of course laughed and went on through the door. A few seconds later he looked up at the grilled window and frowned. An extraordinary thing? Hadn’t the man been leaning over the table in an attitude of play? And there had been no ball? And wasn’t the table under its dust-cover? He tried hard to draw his mind back to the ball—he would have seen the polished round of white or red? It was odd? Then he shook his head—of course the man had been balancing the cue for weight, or measuring the floorspace, or so forth.
But when he opened the door again there was the man crouched across the table, now almost lying across it, his cue reaching hard for nothing. And just then the grey-suited arm gave a short jab, the man sighed, and grunting his effort lumbered down off the table. He shook his head at Patten.
‘Sorry about that. But there isn’t a rest anywhere.’
Patten’s eye turned to the wall-bracket, looking automatically for the serrated head of a cue-rest. He stopped himself, and laughed. Then walking on towards the door said:
‘I don’t think your opponent will mind, anyway.’
‘Oh, but he does. Binder’s very particular. And rules are rules, after all.’
To Patten, reasonably polite but in no lively mood, this was taking the joke a little too far. Irritating to underline the thing. So he said nothing further, merely nodded, not smiling. But now the big man had shifted himself round to the door; to pass, Patten was forced to move to one side. The man moved to one side, too, jumbling the approach as of two people meeting on a pavement. Above all now not wanting to raise his head or smile, Patten moved the other way. The man moved too. Patten struggled a ‘sorry’ and then looked up into the pale blue eyes above him. The man simply stood there, eyes fixed on him, unconfused. It was plain that he was blocking the way.
As their eyes met, the big man smiled again:
‘Please don’t go. It’s most fortunate, most fortunate indeed—you can score. It’ll be a great help.’
They were still some paces apart. Patten took a step backward—now snake-cold and alert, simultaneously conscious of the position of the door, its handle, the man’s size, the bare extent of that great room, the drop from such first-floor windows, the grille of the lavatory skylight. For that large man had spoken in a voice too high, too small, too excited. A loving tone seemed to coax it high, his muscular bloodless lips stretched back wide with the smile of a man relishing food; the pale eyes shone hard with brilliant, sad desire. He was mad.
*
At times in the past Patten had day-dreamed of this, of meeting a wild animal or a burglar or a madman. He had rehearsed his moves—and he had always shivered and sweated at the intense picture. He had always imagined that really in such a situation he would crumble instantly. But now—surprisingly—it was the opposite. He felt capable, alert, strong. After all, the rehearsals had been of use. Now he smiled as hugely, as fixedly as the man standing so still and eager above him:
‘Billiards eh? Now that sounds like something. What’s the game—a hundred up?’
‘That’s right.’
‘And what’s the score so far?’
‘Score?’
‘Yes—how many are you?’
The smile left the man’s face, he looked sly—but as instantly a new smile came, faltering then pushing his lips forward in confidence. He whispered over:
‘Twenty.’
Patten nodded. He was going to change the subject, carefully, from billiards—somehow get the man interested and over towards the window. He went on:
‘And the other chap?’
‘Binder?’
Again the slyness, and this time a huge hand, grey-fleshed but strong as the rest of him, curved up to hide a high chuckle. He looked for a moment like a man with hiccups, absorbed with some physical movement inside him. Then the eyes glittered in amusement:
‘Sixteen!’
‘Good for you—’
‘Shh!’
A pause, while again Patten nodded. He kept nodding automatically. Then suddenly he looked over straight at the window, made an urgent pointing movement. He shouted:
‘Lord, look at that! A ship!’
The man paid no attention. He was squinting at the tip of his cue, measuring it.
‘Did you see? A ship! Sails, flags!’
Patten thrashed his finger at the window. The man looked up, vaguely:
‘How could there be a ship? It’s a street, you’re seeing things.’
‘But …’
‘Couldn’t we start now?’
Patten’s arm lowered; it was no good, the man showed no interest at all. He looked only vague, as though he did not understand or that what Patten had said was so far from his world that it held no real meaning. It might take hours before the right diversion was found for such a mind. So Patten changed his tactics. He pulled up his sleeves and rubbed his wrists in energetic preparation.
‘Good. Let’s start. Over to the table with you.’
But the man stood still, shaking his head. Patten tried again:
‘Look, I’ll just slip down and get a drink. Be right up. What’s yours?’
Now the man frowned. With his fingers, with a slow controlled movement, he balanced the cue in an arc so that it pointed to Patten’s face. His fingers manipulated their stiff rotation, one protruded, a fetish of grace in the way muscular men, sailors and others of precise craft, hold with formal elegance a drinking-cup. He spoke softly:
‘You’re trying to get out of it. It’s not fair. I shouldn’t if I were you.’
His other hand had been holding the green chalk. Now—it was probably a thoughtless gesture, it was difficult to decide how much the man thought—he raised this hand to his face and with one extended finger rubbed the lid of his right eye. The slender cue was still pointed to
Patten’s face. The lid of the man’s eye became smeared—absurdly yet with some of the sinister mask of all greasepaint—with an ill chalked green.
Patten’s assurance jumped like a gulp in the throat—and vanished. The man was violent. This had always been possible—but part of the old day-dreams and the rehearsals had implied that all danger was superable and that the dream-Patten’s tactics would know a walk-over victory. Beyond this there were no resources. Now this man threatened; he imagined the point of the cue prodding into his soft eye—what had been self-command more than courage shrivelled, he backed away from the big man, shrinking with the dispirit of youth before authority.
And like authority the great grey-faced man in his sober suit strode over to the table. Patten saw his size now not only as muscle, but as schoolmasters had once been bigger than he: monuments of reserve, voracious, at a move they would spring into sharp action—contempt cold in their knowing eyes, words of ridicule on their dry lips.
Yet this was momentary, an illusion of Patten’s as his chest seemed to shrink and his eyes falter, as dutifully he backed to where the little score-markers winked their varnish on the wall—for the man had already forgotten and was smiling excitedly as he stood to survey the position of balls that were not there. He shook his head and pursed his lips, acknowledging a difficult stroke. He bent over and with precision aimed his cue, paused, jabbed the air an inch from the cloth. Then straightened himself and turned to Patten in triumph:
‘Cannon! My shot again, I think.’
Patten marked up the score, only quickly glancing at the figure, not daring to turn his back.
*
The man played on. And on and on. He made no mistake—the sequence of play became endless. He played slowly, with many pauses and much thought, with suppressed pursing of the lips as the invisible ball seemed nearly to miss its objective, with sudden chuckles of pleasure and a triumphant toss of the head when a difficult stroke was with ease achieved. He muttered to himself, grunted an occasional remark to Patten. The score rose—but slowly. Patten stood still and moved up the little markers. Sometimes now he looked at them, they took on an appearance of freedom; he envied the ease with which they bobbed so simply up and down the long slots. How different, this freedom of the little markers!
But with his captor absorbed, at least the hard tension of fear became relaxed—the room opened out again to him and he grew to know it too well. Deserted, upstairs, of solemn quiet purpose, its atmosphere hung veiled like a face from former years.
The table in the centre shrouded like the emblem of an old feast; the walls recessive with long judicial seats dreaming from their raised platforms; a monstrous marble clock dead on the mantelpiece; the cold echo of carpetless dust-aged floors; gaunt knob-headed coat-stands guarding the corners, a frayed green curtain muffling the door, no blinds on windows strutted with machinery for the winding and opening of their upper lights. From these windows a grey north light paled into the room, the door curtain denied that there was ever a door. It might have been a room far away in an empty house, with time stopped.
But Time? Time—Patten thought suddenly how it must be half-past two, how at three o’clock the last chance of someone coming up to the lavatory would be gone, the public house would close down on even the little unheard life it had, and he would be left with the long silent hours of afternoon. And then suddenly he flinched at a new thought—what when the game was finished, when the steadily growing hundred was up?
‘Pocket for the red! Mother’ll be pleased as Punch. You should see her when she hears about this…. There we go again, cannon and in….’
Muttering always in his high voice, he moved round the table. He stood back to chalk his cue, he clambered again on the table, he winked round at Patten with his one greenish eyelid. Once he came round to where Patten stood, aimed a shot from there—so that his back was turned, his head bent down, and Patten could see the grey solid neck with its blond ash of hair. So vulnerable. A moment—then! … but it passed, it could not be risked, one never knew the resources of strength such men might have.
Watching him, Patten felt himself seeing the balls, following the play as if it had been real. Only occasionally a noise came muffled through the window to bring him to his senses. A loud lorry passing, the excited quick clatter of a woodseller’s donkey racing by, and once the distant cry—so forlorn a note of empty streets—of a rag-and-bottle man. How near the street was! And it was at a moment such as this—when life seemed again so absurdly close, just beneath the window which he dared not even approach—that a sudden and so simple idea occurred to him. He gritted his teeth for not thinking of it before. He began to move the markers backwards instead of forwards.
*
Thus at least a respite. Time now. And once more he began to look round the room. How much time? If no one came, then till five o’clock, six o’clock, later—until some man had drunk enough to have to come? The long hours of afternoon perpetuated themselves, the colourless middle-day light forecast their slow unshadowed monotony. A line of black electric meter boxes high up on the wall stared down at him and stated they would never move; the clock stayed uninterested under its veil of dust; the screen in the fireplace dozed its faded colours.
All these proclaimed themselves so reasonably of the everyday room, the parts of the house restful and undramatized—yet there pacing round the table, muttering, clicking his cue on the floor winking and prodding, moved this one incongruous figure. Sometimes, over the distance of the table, he seemed insignificant and overshadowed by the stillness: but at others, when he came near and Patten could hear as well as the muttering a deep breathing and a near rustle of muscle straining in clothes, he grew again huge and in Patten’s fear seemed to fill the room.
Then the door opened.
It moved slowly—uncertain whether to open itself or not. But Patten’s eyes were on the curtain in the first instant. He glanced quickly back at the large man—he was leaning over the table with his back to the door, eyes concentrated on the table. The door swung suddenly in a wide curve open. A young woman stood on the threshold. She stood outlined in some sort of pink and dark blue, some blouse and suit and hat, against the dust of the passage outside.
She stood quite still, looking round the room, herself probably uncertain—but in the long exultant second she seemed to Patten to be standing for her own revelation, she had made some great entrance and waited now for the hushed moment of astounded eyes and raised hearts and then for the thundered release of applause. She stood like the embodiment of all heroic rescue—the figure of sudden salvation, the sworded angel, the wanded silver-shining Queen of Goodness. In her pink dressy blouse and her blue serge skirt.
He wanted to shout, but his breath was away. And when at last he caught it and opened his mouth he had already realized that he must make no sound. The man was still leaning over the table. He would turn. She was a woman—she could only be the messenger for help. So quietly, opening his mouth wide and shining his eyes in a fixed large expression of greeting, he raised his left arm high at her and there held it. She saw the movement instantly. Her eyebrows made a sign of question. Patten made a little jigging of urgency with his body. He formed a soundless message with his mouth. Then with raised hand he made large jabs of pointing to the passage behind her and downstairs.
She understood immediately. Her mouth opened in a horrified little O. She understood that she must not make a sound because the man at the table was taking his shot. So she made no sound instead broke into a silent giggle, raised her hand to cup over her mouth, bent forward her body as if to contain further the dreadful sound, and then stopped—nodded to Patten meaningfully, grimaced, and backed quietly from the doorway, closing this behind her. She understood very well that this was the way to the Gentlemen’s lavatory and that the Ladies’ must be back along the passage.
*
But for Patten she was already hurrying down the stairs for help. His ears sang an excitement of praise for her, for
a woman so quick to understand, so resourceful—yet calm enough to laugh! No fright, no fainting: in exaltation of relief she became impressed on his mind —as it happened for ever—a figure of strength and colour in the grey afternoon, after the grey fear, in the dark doorway.
He did not know what kind of help she would bring—warders and white attendants and strait-jackets and leather-aproned barrel-trundlers advanced together in his mind: but then as they massed and became more certain they receded as rapidly into doubt and urgency … the large man had swung up from the table startled. The door had clicked. He jerked his head round to it, then moved it backwards and forwards looking or listening or smelling everywhere in startled animal jerks. He shouted high, stifled:
‘What was that? Was someone there?’
Patten shrank into himself again, but managed:
‘Nobody. You’re hearing things.’
The man’s great muscular brows jutted together in a harsh-cleft frown, shading the eyes so that deeper back they glittered:
‘My ears are all right.’
Sound abruptly burst from everywhere. A great jangling amplified electric bell, earsplitting and mechanic. First silence, then abruptly starting nowhere this huge sound! The Time bell! Still wired to the billiards room! It split into the large man’s head; he threw down his cue clattering on the floor; he swelled his chest up and with one wide bent simian arm clutched the precious shroud and wrenched its placid surface into great troubled waves. Nothing remained of his game. The bell still ringing, he began to walk heavily towards Patten.
‘So it’s time, is it? Time to stop?’
Patten began to move away from him, backwards, backwards round the table. The man walked at every step a little faster:
‘When the bell goes, it’s time to begin….’
At least the table was a protection. He could move fast enough. It could go on for ever—it could only be a question of who first gave in—a dizzying vision came to him of minutes, hours spent circling that enormous table.
The Stories of William Sansom Page 23