Young Pattullo

by J. I. M. Stewart

  ‘I’m not an authority either,’ Kettle said. ‘But certainly we are fearfully and wonderfully made.’

  ‘The psalmist says it’s something to be thankful for.’ I thought I’d show Kettle I’d been properly brought up. ‘Sex is coming to seem just one hell of a risk to me.’

  ‘A risk,’ Kettle said surprisingly, ‘we all must take sooner or later. Unless, of course, one has a vocation for celibacy.’

  ‘I don’t suppose Martin has that.’ I paused, and saw that we were straying from the point. ‘You were going to tell me what he said.’

  ‘He said he had seen the light.’

  ‘Martin said that?’ For some reason I felt obscurely uneasy.

  ‘He said that at last he could see. But then – and this is why I’m puzzled – he became agitated. You’d expect calm to follow illumination, wouldn’t you?’

  ‘I haven’t a clue. Isn’t there a lot of ecstatic behaviour mixed up with religion? Even hysteria?’

  ‘Hysteria?’ This time, it was Kettle who was uneasy. ‘He has rather been rushing around. And waving. What you might call beating the air. Beating something off.’ Kettle seemed concerned to convey with as much precision as possible the disturbing appearances he had been presented with. ‘Do you know what I thought of? A chap caught in a searchlight and trying to get away from it. And soon I couldn’t make him pay any attention to me. So I thought I’d better leave him for a while. I went back to my own room, and prayed by myself. I was guided to try again. But when I went out on the landing I heard sobbing. I stood outside Martin’s door and listened. I hope that wasn’t dishonourable.’

  ‘Well?’

  ‘Just that. He was weeping and weeping. It was then that I thought I’d come and consult you.’

  ‘You bloody fool, why didn’t you tell me this at the start?’ I had jumped to my feet – appalled to think that, but for my own obstinacy, the distraught Fish would by now have been well on the way to being in competent professional hands. ‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘I beg your pardon. I’m going straight up again. I’ll look in on you later.’

  And I left Kettle in my room. He was getting on his knees for more prayer as I had my last glimpse of him and ran upstairs.

  There was not much sign of Fish’s having so recently been in the state described by Kettle. He answered my knock in a normal manner, and revealed himself as engaged in the commonplace activity of preparing for bed. He greeted me in his pyjamas and carrying a toothbrush; and if he had really been in a paroxysm of tears he had washed all trace of it away. Only he was very pale. Once in bed, his complexion would have matched the sheets.

  ‘Hullo,’ I said cautiously. ‘I’m afraid it’s a bit late to look in. But are you all right, Martin? I thought I’d just like to know.’

  This seemed to me fair enough. After what had been passing between us it would be silly to pretend that I didn’t have

  Fish’s condition on my mind. But now for a moment I wondered whether he had it on his mind, since he looked as if he didn’t know what I was talking about. Perhaps, I thought, after a real brain-storm a protective amnesia sets in, and I was putting my foot in it through not perceiving this. Fish’s puzzled expression, however, faded almost as soon as I noticed it; it was as if he was bringing me into focus as a familiar physical object against a background of recent events which it just took a little time to sort out. I concluded that his mind was working slowly, and that he was very reasonably in a condition of extreme fatigue.

  ‘I’m dinkum, Duncan, thank you.’

  I didn’t know whether to judge this whimsical jingle reassuring; only once or twice before had I heard Fish indulge the affectation of using Australian slang which probably wasn’t particularly native to him.

  ‘Then that’s fine,’ I said, as easily as possible, and wondered whether to go away. Fish looked stabilised at least until the following day, when I could take stock of his state again. This was what, in Badgery’s room, I’d suddenly decided to work for; Kettle had panicked me into thinking I’d perhaps been fatally wrong; now I was thinking myself right again.

  ‘Can you stay a minute, Duncan?’ It seemed that Fish had detected some slight movement I had made. ‘I want to tell you what’s happened. Things have cleared up a bit, I think.’

  ‘It all seems less desperate?’ I asked – perhaps rashly.

  ‘Well, I don’t know.’ Fish frowned, as if I had said something obscure or irrelevant. ‘It’s a matter of finding an objective standpoint, I’d say. Seeing oneself, and being dispassionate about it. I suppose that’s what really wise people can do. It’s what I’m trying to do. Only, you see, I’m not wise – so ought I to be a bit cautious? Suppose you were an unspeakably hideous old dotard, or some awful sort of abortion. In a country without looking-glasses. And suddenly you were given one. Say you were a king, and nobody could possibly tell you the loathsome truth about yourself. And then an explorer or merchant or somebody made you a gift of a whacking great mirror. If you had sense, you’d begin with no more than a quick peep. That’s right, isn’t it?’

  ‘I suppose it is.’ I found the thought being developed by Martin Fish unnerving. He would never have struck me as a particularly imaginative type, or as having the instinct of the fabulist. But the burden of this concoction was clear enough. He was projecting himself in the image of a man so despicable and repellent that he couldn’t stand up to self-scrutiny. And all – for it came down to this – because he had been ditched by a depraved girl, and mocked when caught out as not much liking cold water. That was the cold truth of the matter, and realising it sent an appropriately chilly shudder down my spine. Fish’s grotesque state suggested some travesty of the situation of the Tragic Hero as propounded in my textbooks: a tiny flaw in character or a tiny slip-up in conduct being visited with utterly disproportionate misfortune. And his own sense of proportion had deserted him. The more he looked the humiliating little business in the eye, the less could he bear it.

  ‘Look, Martin,’ I said on a reasoning note, ‘there’s no point in going on about that now. Let’s talk about it another time. What you need is a good night’s sleep. And I’ve just remembered. When I was scared about my idiotic Prelim I scurried off to the college doctor and got some sleeping stuff. It’s called sodium amytal, and he said it’s quite harmless, just in an occasional way. But I didn’t use it, after all. I’ll go down and get it for you. It’s a little bottle of things called capsules.’ I paused, and was visited by a moment of sanity. ‘I’ll bring you up a couple of them. That’s a night’s dose.’

  ‘It’s frightfully kind of you.’ Fish had squared himself; his instinct for courtesy was on top; he smiled at me – for the first time in many days. ‘But I don’t in the least need anything of the sort. I’ll tell you what: just see me into bed.’

  I performed this nursery ritual, which ought to have been absurd but seemed entirely natural. It was as if I had been fussing in an unnecessary fashion, and Fish had found a light and whimsical way of giving me a sense of being useful to him. Within a couple of minutes I was standing again at the door of his bedroom, managing my own confident smile.

  ‘Good night, Martin. Are you going in to breakfast?’

  ‘Yes, of course, Duncan. I’ll call for you. Good night. Pleasant dreams.’

  No dreams visited me. But in the small hours I woke up, aware that there was somebody in the room. I didn’t know how late it was, and thought at once that a blundering drunk had turned up on me; even – for I was still freshman enough for such alarms – that it was designed to make me the victim of some foolery. In such circumstances boldness is all. I snapped on the bedside lamp.

  ‘Duncan?’

  It was Fish – standing strangely in the doorway.

  ‘Good Lord, Martin! You scared me.’

  ‘Duncan—is it you?’

  ‘Yes, of course.’ I sat up. ‘What is it?’

  ‘The bloody lights have failed. Fused, or something. I was going to the loo.’ Fish’s voice cracked. ‘D
uncan, try yours.’

  We stared at each other – or rather I stared at Fish – in the clear light of a 60 watt bulb.

  ‘It’s on, Duncan?’

  ‘Yes, Martin – it’s on.’

  ‘Then that’s it. I’ve had it. I’ve gone blind.’

  I got Tony, and Tony got the night-watchman, and the night-watchman got the Dean. With surprising speed – although it felt like an aeon – the college doctor arrived from somewhere in the town. Habituated to the panics of young men, he was prepared to be tough as well as kind. He examined Fish, and listened to what he had to say. He listened to me. He went to the telephone. I believe I was in a state of considerable shock, but as people were not then removed to hospital on that account Fish presently departed in an ambulance alone.

  The doctor gave the Dean a look, and the Dean returned to bed. The doctor packed his bag; he had no appearance of inviting conversation.

  ‘Sir,’ I said, ‘will Fish have ECT?’

  ‘Have what?’

  ‘Electric shocks.’

  ‘I’d say it was most improbable. Have people been talking about electric shocks?’

  ‘Well, yes.’ I pressed on. ‘Do you think he’s likely to be permanently blind?’

  ‘My dear lad, heaven forbid!’ The doctor had moved to the door, but now he paused there. ‘Mr Pattullo, does anything else occur to you?’

  ‘Well, this girl—’

  ‘Yes, I think I understand about that. But anything else? Take your time.’

  ‘It does occur to me that Martin – that’s Fish – had rather a lot to say about seeing, and not seeing, and not daring to see.’

  ‘Humph!’ The doctor appeared to think better of receiving this without comment. ‘Does it also occur to you that there’s more sense in remembering that than in talking rubbish about ECT?’

  ‘I suppose it does.’

  ‘I expect you’ll be able to go and visit him in a few days’ time. I’ll let you know. Good night.’

  Tony had already departed. I was left alone in my bedroom, which had remained the scene of all these activities. I climbed into bed. Shock or no shock, I was asleep again within minutes. But when I woke up I was very anxious about Fish. I had no idea of how to find out where he had been taken, or whether it was more likely to be an eye hospital or an asylum. When at length I received a summons it was to a private nursing home to which he had been transferred – he was to tell me later – on the strength of peremptory cables from his parents in New South Wales. I found him sitting up in bed, reading Punch. He was peaked and pale still, but entirely composed.

  ‘Hullo, Duncan!’ he said. ‘I’ve been the most awful nuisance to you, and I’m frightfully sorry.’ He smiled cheerfully, as one who indicates that his words are to be accepted in a conventional sense. ‘But look at this one,’ he said. ‘Not bad for Punch.’

  I looked at some meaningless joke, and realised that Fish was a different man – so different that I insanely wondered whether he had been crammed full of electricity after all. I don’t think that at this moment I recalled my mother, whose own burdens would sometimes lift and vanish within an hour.

  ‘No, not bad,’ I said. Looking up, I saw that Fish had transferred his gaze to a large looking-glass on the wall opposite his bed.

  ‘Funny thing to keep in a place like this,’ he said. ‘Might turn patients a bit blue, if they weren’t exactly feeling in the pink.’ He continued to study himself with complacency. ‘Do you know? I think I’ve lost a useful bit of weight. I’d been putting it on, rather. Not enough squash.’

  ‘Or messing about in boats,’ I said. Before this transformation, the spirit of experiment was momentarily strong in me.

  ‘Or messing about in boats,’ Fish repeated – and if it wasn’t indifferently, this was merely because he had recognised the quotation from The Wind in the Willows. ‘I say, Duncan! About the long vac. That was a good idea of yours. Let’s go.’

  IX

  Dear Mr Pattullo,

  You must certainly dine with us on Thursday! Seven-thirty for eight o’clock. Black tie. The Provost and I are very much looking forward to the occasion.

  Yours sincerely,

  Camilla Pococke

  I found this note waiting for me when I got back from the nursing-home. It was almost as mysterious as the psychology of Martin Fish, and for the time being banished from my head all consideration of the hazards of foreign travel in Fish’s company. I was so conscious of bewilderment that I took the thing straight across the staircase to Tony. ‘What do you make of that?’ I demanded. ‘It’s an invitation to dinner. Such civilities are quite common in polite society.’

  ‘It’s nothing of the sort. You accept an invitation, or decline it, don’t you? I can’t do either with this. It’s not worded that way. Why should the woman send me a bloody summons, complete with exclamation-mark?’

  ‘I don’t think it’s a summons, exactly. It’s what you might call the vehement expression of a wish. She’s conscious of a prospect so enchanting that she expresses it as something that just must happen.’

  ‘Do talk sense. It’s very worrying.’

  ‘Worrying?’ Tony repeated the word with tolerant amusement. ‘Perhaps the lady’s conscious of usually comporting herself with excessive formality, just like her better-half. That’s what’s said of her. Here she’s taking a random stab at something else.’ Tony read the note a second time. ‘No,’ he said, ‘you’re right, in a way. There’s an unknown factor at work.’

  ‘That’s what I think. But what?’

  ‘She believes you already know something about her jollification, and in fact you don’t seem to. The affair’s one at which it’s so obviously appropriate that you should be present that here’s the agreeable way to express herself. She’s trying hard. It’s my impression that she does try hard.’

  ‘You don’t think it has to do with the golf course?’

  ‘Good God, that was ages ago! And how could it? Duncan, you’re bonkers. Symptoms of paranoia setting in. A consequence of association with poor old crack-pot Fish.’

  ‘Fish is absolutely okay again, as a matter of fact. Almost euphoric. He’ll be back tomorrow.’ I saw that the golf course had been a mistake. ‘But you must be on the right lines, in a general way. Somebody’s going to dinner in the Lodging on Thursday whom I might reasonably be asked to meet. But I just can’t think who.’

  ‘Then you’ll have to go and see.’

  ‘I suppose so. How do I reply?’

  ‘Pile it on a little. Dear Mrs Pococke, Thank you very much for your kind invitation. It will give me great pleasure to dine with the Provost and yourself on Thursday. Your loving Dunkie.’ Tony handed me back the letter. ‘I’ve got it!’ he exclaimed. ‘She has invited Bedworth, and she knows all about your consuming passion. She must be a very broad-minded woman.’

  ‘What you think to be funny is quite too pitiful. It occurs to me it might be Mrs Triplett.’

  ‘With a leash of brown girls? Have you become a pet of hers?’

  ‘More or less, I suppose.’

  ‘Give it to me again.’ Tony took back Mrs Pococke’s summons. ‘No,’ he said. ‘It’s not Mrs Triplett, even if she has been raving about you – which is improbable. It reads to me as if it must be about a relation. Listen! Have you any relations in Oxford? What about your dear old uncle, the retired brigadier – has he become bursar of Teddy Hall or something?’

  ‘He wasn’t ever a brigadier. He sometimes calls himself Captain, which it seems you can do if you were in his sort of regiment. And he certainly hasn’t become a college bursar. He couldn’t run a chicken farm. He has his hands full, anyway, running a private army.’

  ‘A private army?’

  ‘Oh, never mind.’ I realised that this had been a rash confidence. ‘I don’t have any relations in Oxford.’

  ‘Then one’s visiting the place. Have you heard from home lately?’

  I stared at Tony, deciding he had said something to the point at l
ast. There came back to me a strong impression that when my father, as he expressed it, entered me at the college he and the Provost had – rather surprisingly – hit it off. And there was always an unpredictable element in my father’s conduct. Suddenly I remembered, too, something I had heard at the end of the Easter vac. My father, who was now Lauchlan Pattullo, P.R.S.A., was going to attend a dinner, some time in the near future, given by his opposite number in London. (He had remarked, ungraciously, that he might look up some real painters as well. His attitude to distinction within an Establishment was whimsical and indeed equivocal.)

  ‘I think you may be right,’ I said. ‘I’ll go and ring up now.’

  The line to Edinburgh was remarkably clear. Although I was telephoning from the porter’s lodge and traffic was roaring past outside, I could hear, behind my father’s voice, that of my mother, singing vigorously in the kitchen.

  ‘Dunkie?’ my father said. ‘Good man! But make it snappy. Taxi’s waiting.’

  ‘Where’s it taking you?’ My suspicion was instantly confirmed.

  ‘The Waverley, of course. I’m going to this old gentleman’s dinner on Wednesday. He paints horses. A kind of vet. And I’m coming to Oxford on Thursday, and taking you out to lunch.’

  ‘You haven’t told me.’

  ‘Haven’t I?’ My father’s voice was entirely innocent. ‘Well, book a table at wherever’s best.’

  ‘You’ll lunch with me in college.’ I was firm about this. ‘It’s the proper thing. It will be the nice thing as well. What else are you doing?’

  ‘I wrote to your Provost, and said I’d call. It wouldn’t be polite not to do that. He has replied I’ve to stay the night. He wants to show me your pictures. And I’m to dine in the Lodging. I thought it might be your high table.’

  ‘It’s because his wife’s giving a private dinner party. I’ll be there.’