A Treasonable Growth

by Dr Ronald Blythe

  ‘What’s wrong?’ asked Bateson ineptly. Everybody laughed again with fearfully good-natured exuberance. Bateson’s handsome head was bowed to the level of the landlady’s. In a jolly, half-mesmerised way, lifting and letting drop her huge pink hands, she was advising him. She stared at him steadily, her eyelids falling and opening and her breasts rollicking under the generous satin. ‘Back room,’ bawled Bateson. ‘Hang on.’ The landlady swung a leaf up from the counter and led the way. Bateson followed holding two pints of beer high in the air like libations. ‘She says it’s quieter,’ he was shouting. ‘Quieter—did you hear what I said?’

  And indeed it was so. The back bar was a cell of quiet. Again, in some miraculous fashion, the Breughel uproar was sealed away and they found themselves in a hot, dismal little room where the fire blazed under a black-leaded Norman arch. The landlady, jelly-like yet agile, mounted a sofa and put a match to a swinging paraffin lamp. When she had gone they were left self-consciously with their backs to the fire facing a photograph of a bun-faced sergeant in labyrinthine puttees standing in front of a cardboard view of the Pyramids. On the opposite wall was a framed and glazed poster which said, ‘Save the Women from the Hun.’ It showed a lady in a lozenge-shaped hat criss-crossed with ospreys being chased by a gorilla. There were two dark pleasant buttony seats of worn leather, two highly-shone shell-cases filled with spills on the mantelpiece, a spittoon filled with fibre and planted with unwholesome looking bulbs of some kind or another, an upright piano, vaguely Parthenonian in design, its front filled in with dirty silk stretched across fretwork lyres and one small window absolutely crammed with frost-nipped geraniums. There was also a close, cupboardy, nudging smell, not wholly objectionable.

  The landlady returned to put a log on the fire. When she had gone, slamming the door behind her and cutting out the neighbouring hubbub as neatly and completely as though she had switched off a wireless set, their privacy was so intense as to be almost sensual. Bateson swigged his beer at an alarming rate so that Richard had to follow suit and say, ‘the same again?’ long before he was ready.

  The bar was at the other end of a long passage. Feeling slightly amazed at the turn his polite day at Sheldon had taken, he walked down it hardly comprehending the boisterous uproar getting louder and louder at every step, and certainly not comprehending that in the minute or two since he and Bateson had passed to the snug, two girls had taken up their position in the passage and were regarding him with predatory interest as he edged his way by them. The landlady’s warmth as she spilt his change all over the counter had to be answered and he was still smiling vaguely when he passed the girls for the second time. They smiled back narrowly. Richard’s smile extended itself into a hard, meaningless grin. At once the girls’ faces froze into immobility. One of them gave a short, rough little laugh, over almost before it began. Richard didn’t look back but he couldn’t help being faintly entranced by this. So that was the kind of evening it might possibly turn out to be! He continued to grin as he plonked Bateson’s beer down in front of him.

  ‘Still awful?’ Bateson asked.

  ‘Packed.’

  ‘You soon got served.’

  ‘It’s the landlady—she seems to like you.’

  Bateson pressed his lips together in a pleased smirk.

  ‘All you have to do,’ he declared, ‘is to find out in what capacity a woman has decided to show herself in the eyes of a man—mummy, auntie or baby.’

  ‘Oh—? What is it in this case then?’

  ‘Mum,’ said Bateson. ‘Mum every time, old boy. Didn’t you notice that matriarchal leer? Why it was all she could do to stop herself from turning me over and tanning my behind!’ Then he lolled against the fireplace, his eyes half-closed, as though he was divesting himself of certain small graces. There was an edge to the most trivial of his movements, even in the way one leg rocked on the slippery brass fender. It was like a dress-rehearsal for the sort of person he wished to be known as during the next few years. And if you’re sensible, he implied, you’ll damn well be the same! Forget that potty little school, forget that odd fish, Sir Paul, forget all you’ve ever known—because, boy, it’s going to be easier that way! A bright streak dramatised the wilting geraniums for a second or so and then travelled on.

  ‘You on the searchlights?’ the chalky-faced girl was enquiring.

  ‘We’re …’ Richard began.

  But Bateson was more alert. ‘Not this lot,’ he said with careless ease. The beam returned to the window, pierced the barrier of dusty stalks and entered the half-lit room like a waggish pointer.

  ‘They’re from Wintlesham I reckon,’ said the chalky-faced girl. ‘But there, we don’t want to be nosy, do we!’

  ‘You got wet,’ stated the other girl. Looking down he saw the steam gently rising from the bottom of his trousers. The girl laughed her rough little laugh of silly concern.

  ‘You didn’t though,’ said Bateson. He stared at her ankles with enormous deliberation, though hardly with interest.

  Both girls at once began to shift, carefully, because of their platform-soled shoes, which were surgical in thickness.

  ‘They had them in white, Rube—do you remember?’ said the chalky-faced one. ‘Fancy white, Rube! I wouldn’t want white would you, Rube?’

  ‘Are you at Wintlesham then?’ asked Rube, ignoring her friend.

  ‘Hush,’ said Bateson. ‘You heard what the lady said, didn’t you—you musn’t be nosy!’

  ‘Rube!’ cried the other girl. ‘Oh isn’t she awful!’ She gave her friend a violent push.

  ‘Well are you—?’ persisted Rube. She obviously relished her role of terrible and knew it was her duty to lead the way in such encounters and to gain ground with her mock-childish daring that might later be consolidated with the other’s more formal approach.

  Bateson gave her a sample of his most splendid indifference, then turned to her friend. ‘And what did you say your name is?’ he asked.

  ‘Miss Lilley,’ said chalky-face. ‘And I didn’t say.’

  ‘Lily’s your Christian name?’

  The girls shrieked suddenly and fell on each other. Then Rube cried, ‘No. Her name’s Daphne.’

  ‘Miss Daphne Lilley,’ said Bateson in a very proper voice, ‘it’s a beautiful name.’

  ‘That’s right.’ They were at once composed. How lovely he talked!

  A hiatus followed in which Richard struggled desperately to think of something to say. He felt as though he had been smiling for days on end. Seeing Daphne looking at the framed sergeant—she was actually looking through the sergeant at herself to see what her mouth was like—he said ‘Was he the landlady’s husband?’

  Daphne wheeled round at once. ‘’Ow should I know?’ she demanded indignantly.

  ‘How indeed,’ Bateson mocked, very sure of himself, and enjoying these brash preliminaries. He stared past Daphne at Rube. Rube stared back. Their wordless arrangements concluded, he said, ‘Come on, what about a little drink?’ His fist full of glasses, he disappeared down the passage.

  ‘I just thought you might happen to know,’ said Richard apologetically, ‘—as you live about here,’ he added.

  ‘You know a lot, don’t you?’ Daphne said rudely and then, in a surprisingly refined and solicitous voice, ‘I expect you find it very cold working on the searchlights?’ In the fraction of a second between her first statement and the remark she was about to follow it with, the significance of the wordless rapprochement that had taken place between Rube and Bateson had worked itself up in her mind like yeast. So that was the way it was, she thought. Winner take all—or first pick—which was about the same. No flies on old Rube. She was lucky. That big feller ought to go on the pictures. She resigned herself philosophically to Richard. He looked a bit artistic, she considered doubtfully. Though nice; ever so nice when you came to think of it. Rube was lucky though. Trust old Rube!

  ‘Freezing,’ Richard answered shortly. ‘—Does he know what to get for you?’

 
‘Gin,’ she said; ‘gin and orange.’

  But Bateson had got it right and was soon back and the bantering, two-edged conversation was continued. After quite a number more rounds of drinks, Bateson and Rube, who had been sitting with superb detachment on one of the buttony sofas carrying on a laconic conversation, the gist of which could only be guessed at either by Bateson’s snuffly laugh or Rube’s sudden short scream, over almost before it began, were rapidly becoming much less detached.

  ‘Well, really,’ Daphne remonstrated, observing this.

  ‘Aren’t we awful!’ said Rube happily. ‘Go on, say it, Daph; you were just about to!’

  ‘I’m not saying anything,’ Daphne retorted primly. She held her dusty, dead-white face high and sniffed. Rube lolled against Bateson, sipped her gin like a bird and made no attempt to conceal her huge satisfaction at the way things had turned out.

  Bateson hummed, ‘When a Broadway baby says goodnight’ under his breath, equally contented it seemed. Rube wriggled and said that’s an old one and didn’t he know ‘Room 504’—it was ever so nice and her favourite. Richard, glancing round in search of the clock, discovered only the maroon timelessness of the wallpaper and the threadbare carpet and the Hun and the lady rushing helter-skelter through the dun confines of their mount.

  ‘“Fleeter of foot than the fleet-foot kid,

  Follows with dancing and fills with delight

  The Maenad and the Bassarid …”’ Richard couldn’t remember any more. But that’s what the poster outlandishly brought to mind.

  ‘What on earth is he jabbering about?’ Daphne beseeched the company.

  ‘It’s just a poem,’ he was about to explain, when Bateson, with uncharacteristic humour declared, ‘Now don’t tell me you’ve never heard of the Fleet-Foot Kid! Better than Tom Mix any day!’

  ‘Go on …!’ Rube said, pushing free of his grasp.

  ‘Go on yourself,’ retorted Bateson, pulling her back. He was expert at all this and enjoyed every minute of what might be termed his pre-conquest hour.

  ‘He’s a lad, isn’t he!’ Daphne declared admiringly and, Richard couldn’t help feeling, critically so far as he was concerned. He defended himself by saying, ‘He’s always like that when he’s had a few.’

  ‘What’s your name?’ Daphne enquired.

  ‘Di—Richard.’

  ‘I thought it might be Arthur.’

  ‘Arthur—why?’

  ‘I don’t know. I just thought.’

  Something in the way she said this made him suspect that ‘Arthur’ carried with it some subtle insufficiency. Arthur wasn’t a good name—it was déclassé in Hollywood perhaps—and Richard wasn’t over-good either it seemed. ‘He’s Arthur,’ he asserted treacherously, waving the hand with his glass in it at Bateson.

  ‘That’s right,’ Bateson agreed. Names meant absolutely nothing to him. ‘I’m Arthur—he’s Dick—Richard.’

  ‘I think you’re both soppy,’ Rube said.

  ‘Oh we are, are we,’ Bateson muttered.

  There was a slight scuffle, a loudish squeal and an ear-piercing, ‘No.’ Richard waited in agony for the fat landlady to come bustling in and was surprised to hear Rube asking in a very politely moderated voice, ‘What time did you say you have to be in by?’ And Bateson answering her with, ‘I didn’t say—what time do you?’

  ‘Really!’ said Rube, outraged.

  ‘Tut-tut-tut!’ admonished Bateson. There was a further romp, a fainter, more rabbity squeak, then Rube shook herself free, reached for her gin and said:

  ‘Those two standing up there—just look at them! Who do they think they are anyway—God or book-ends?’

  Bateson considered this exquisitely funny. He rocked with spluttery laughter and in the process, rocked Rube as well.

  ‘Do you want me to be sick?’

  This must have reminded Bateson of some primordial disaster in his career as a lover, because he stopped clowning at once and gave Rube the full benefit of his two-thirds profile smile. ‘You’re not really going to be sick, are you?’ he asked in a worried voice.

  ‘Of course not, daft,’ she said. ‘But larking can make me sick.’

  ‘Larking always makes her sick,’ corroborated Daphne, who was, if anything, managing to hold her head even higher on her pale thin neck. Most of the time she was smoking inexpertly; making little pup-pupping sounds and letting her weight fall first on one foot and then on the other.

  ‘Come on, we’ll take our ease too, shall we?’ Richard said, aware that they must look pretty ridiculous standing one either side of the fireplace. Besides, although it hadn’t seemed much at the time, the five or six hours he had spent perched on Sir Paul’s library steps were making themselves felt. The backs of his legs didn’t ache; they had atrophied into a kind of stony discomfort. I suppose it’s all right … he was wondering. Any movement towards the buttony sofas at once implied so much more than sitting.

  ‘They ring a bell when it’s closing-time,’ Daphne said, settling herself on the sofa with about as much enthusiasm as if she were going to have a tooth extracted. ‘Mrs Rook’s a good sort,’ she added. ‘One of the best.’

  ‘Well it only wants the Winner to see us now …’ Bateson said. Rube was sitting at right-angles to him with her head on his shoulder and her legs across his lap. A wordless debate made up of squirmings and little shoves went on between them in a struggle to decide where, exactly, Bateson’s hands should be. As in most debates, there was a foregone conclusion and Rube’s defence was rhetorical more than anything else.

  ‘The Winner …?’ Daphne asked.

  ‘Their officer, daft,’ said Rube.

  ‘I was talking to the butcher not the block. Is he?’ She turned to Richard.

  ‘I suppose he is …’

  ‘Major Winner,’ elaborated Bateson, for whom the fantasy possessed a singular piquancy.

  ‘That’s a crown, isn’t it?’ Daphne allowed Richard to squeeze her hand into his and knead the back of her knuckles with his thumb.

  ‘Yup.’

  ‘We thought you were pippers.’

  ‘Oh——?’

  Bateson’s eyes shone with anticipated delight. He felt like the footman in an eighteenth century farce approaching the cue when he must go off-stage and return gloriously as the earl’s son to the acclamation of the entire theatre.

  ‘You’re not though?’ persisted Daphne.

  ‘Er—no,’ said Bateson regretfully.

  ‘Must be chilly in them searchlight huts …’

  ‘Must be,’ Richard answered shortly. ‘Here, isn’t it time we all had a drink!’ Feeling decidedly odd and unnaturally facetious, he said, ‘How about you—Arthur?’ and got a you-wait-till-later glower from Bateson.

  ‘He’s had enough,’ Rube said repressively. ‘Honestly, he’s worse than my dad—I told him he’s worse than my dad, Daph.’

  Daphne confirmed this. ‘Her dad’s a one! You ought to see him.’

  ‘I’d sooner see you,’ Richard said promptly and was just as promptly appalled by his own unsuspected gift for banality.

  Daphne was enchanted with this answer. ‘I don’t really want no more to drink,’ she said, ‘and I’m sure your friend doesn’t. Just look at him!’

  ‘Look at yourselves,’ Rube said in a half-smothered voice. After which recriminations were ended by Bateson rising suddenly and declaring, ‘This thing’s smoking’—when it was doing nothing of the kind—and turning the lamp down until they were all but plunged into darkness and the dying fire tinkled into cinders and became a dull yellow puddle amongst all the brass pokers, tongs, shovels, scuttles and things which loaded the fender. Bateson and Rube remained reflected monolithically against the blind for a minute or so, then sank down and became united with the slab of horizontal gloom which was their buttony sofa. Rube chattered amiably the whole time, like a hostess whose party contains an unavoidably embarrassing element. ‘Honest,’ she was saying, ‘you ought to see it. They’re having it the whole week beca
use it’s so good. It’s at the Palace, you know, the Palace in ’Friston. ’Friston’s a lousy hole, isn’t it Daph? We always go to Ipswich weekends, don’t we Daph? You know Ipswich? You know the ‘Bell and Book’? Well that’s where Daph and me go. It’s a Tolly house …’ There was a clock-racked silence and the landlady bounded in and bounded out again saying, ‘Whoops—sorry’ quite abjectly. Richard kissed Daph but she didn’t kiss him. Dutifully she turned cheek or mouth or chin in his direction when she felt it obligatory to do so. Apart from these parroty considerations she maintained the equanimity of a well-powered clothes-peg.

  It wasn’t long before he concluded that she didn’t like him and so was the more greatly surprised when, after he had sat up to have a drink, merely retaining her contracted little claw of a hand for the look of the thing, she made a small cheated-baby sound and tugged him towards her. He was then further troubled by the fact that, now his eyes had got used to the firelight, the room was just as visible as it had been before Bateson had turned the lamp low, in fact more visible, since their four bodies seemed to have absorbed the darkness and swollen up to twice their proper size. Richard had never been more aware of two other people in the same room as himself in his life before. Rube and Bateson had hogged so much of its privacy and its ordinary amenities that he felt like a goldfish pushed up to the lip of its bowl and gasping for its very existence. Being so drained of action himself he was willing to forgive Daphne her res infecta. It was in the spirit of a solicitous understanding that he planted a last kiss or two on her fat red mouth. For most of the time she stared up at him unblinkingly with glassy grey pupils and once she smiled and showed two rows of exceedingly small teeth. And once she said, ‘You’re nice,’ which in the circumstances sounded less inflamatory than it might had they been alone. It was a proof of the non-participatory state of his senses that all this time—in fact almost from the moment Bateson had arrived to drag him out—Richard was still going over in his mind all the earlier events of the day.