by David Lodge
‘I’m terribly sorry to have made such a fool of myself.’
I murmured my dissent.
‘I’m very fond of Michael you see.’
I said nothing. There was a long silence. I swallowed the cold dregs of my coffee and said I ought to be going. I didn’t want to go, but I couldn’t think of any pretext for staying.
‘Yes, I’m sure you must be very busy. It was awfully kind of you to come and tell me everything.’
‘I’m not busy,’ I said hopefully, ‘but I’m sure you are.’
‘Well I’ve got to go to the launderette. If you can wait a moment, I’ll walk down to the station with you. The launderette’s just near there.’
It was still raining as we left the house. I carried the washing, and Pauline put up an umbrella. She held it awkwardly, trying to shelter us both without coming too close to me. I said that I didn’t need the umbrella, and raised the hood of my duffle coat.
‘Should Mike’s parents be told about this?’ I asked her. She looked suddenly cross.
‘You can tell them if you like. I shan’t.’ Observing my surprise, she added: ‘They’ll probably blame me for it.’
I said:
‘I gathered from Mike that you didn’t quite hit it off with his parents. I must say I was surprised.’
She smiled. ‘Why?’
‘Well, as I said to Mike at the time, I should have thought you were a very presentable girl-friend.’
She laughed shyly, but I could see she was pleased.
‘What are they like?’ I asked
‘Who? Mike’s parents? Well they’re both Irish of course. They’ve both got broad Irish accents, though none of the children have.’
‘Mike has brothers and sisters then?’
‘Oh yes, two brothers and three sisters. And two others died. I’ve only met Sean,—he’s a medical student,—and Dympna, she lives at home and works as her father’s receptionist. He’s a doctor, as you probably know. The other girls are married, and the eldest son’s a teacher in Africa.’
‘Mike is the youngest?’
‘Yes, unfortunately.’
‘Why “unfortunately”?’
‘Oh, you know what mothers are like with their youngest sons. She worries about him all the time. Not without reason I must admit. Michael said to me once: “You know that deep furrow in my mother’s forehead, just over her nose? Well that’s my furrow.” And it’s true. He showed me the family album once. She never had it till he was born.’
We were now approaching the station. Pauline glanced up at a clock.
‘Good heavens! It’s ten to one. I had no idea … I’m terribly sorry. You’ll probably be terribly late for your lunch.’
‘It’s all right. I’m not going home for lunch. I was thinking of going to Charing Cross Road this afternoon to browse in the bookshops. I’ll get something to eat at a snack bar.’
Pauline had come to a halt in the middle of the pavement, frowning slightly, and obviously pondering whether to invite me back to lunch. I studiously avoided an expression of expectancy; looked away from her to the trolley-buses hissing on the wet tarmac; transferred the bag of washing to my other hand.
‘Look, would you like to have lunch with me, Jonathan? I was expecting Michael, and I bought a big steak and kidney pie. I shan’t be able to eat it all.’
After a token show of hesitation, I accepted. We entered the launderette, had the clothes weighed, and collected a little beaker of soap-powder. Pauline opened a machine, and began to stack the clothes neatly around the inside of the drum. I watched her deft, efficient movements admiringly. She pulled out a soiled brassière from the bag and put it back again.
‘Jonathan, would you mind terribly getting me some frozen vegetables while I’m doing this? It will save time.’
When I returned from the errand she was sitting before the machine, staring into the little window behind which the clothes were revolving, as if it were a crystal ball that could tell her something about her future, or Mike’s.
I ate Mike’s portion of steak and kidney pie with relish. Pauline picked listlessly at her meal. There was only one topic of conversation. To talk about Mike seemed essential if my protracted visit was to be respectable. But I kept trying to nudge the conversation on to Pauline herself.
‘So Mike’s mother is the problem,’ I said, as we were washing up.
‘Yes. Mr Brady’s all right. I get on with him quite well. A bit too well. He pinched me once.’
‘Where?’
She blushed and said: ‘The usual place.’
Laughing, I explained: ‘I mean whereabouts. I mean, did Mrs Brady see him? It might explain her hostility.’
‘No, she didn’t see, thank goodness. It was on the landing. No, the trouble with Mrs Brady is that she’s so pious. She goes to mass every morning before anyone’s awake, and makes everyone else feel guilty at breakfast. Even I felt guilty.’
‘And Mr Brady isn’t religious?’
‘Oh he’s religious in a way. He goes to church on Sundays—the last mass always. But he doesn’t make a show of it like Mrs Brady. In some ways he seems to dislike his religion. He’s always making cracks against the parish priest over Sunday dinner, and Mrs Brady gets quite angry because she thinks he shouldn’t say such things in the presence of a non-catholic.’
‘Meaning you?’
‘Meaning me.’
‘Do you feel any attraction towards Catholicism yourself?’
‘No, that’s the trouble. If I did, everything would be all right. Mrs Brady would be pacified; and Michael would be delighted. He’s always trying to convert me. And he got me to agree to have lessons,—instruction, they call it,—once.’
‘What was it like?’
‘I don’t know. I got cold feet outside the priest’s house, and refused to go in. We had an awful row.’
She hung up the wet dish-cloths, and we went back into the sitting-room. I offered her a cigarette, and for the first time she accepted one. She handled the cigarette without familiarity, closing her eyes as she blew out the smoke.
‘Are you a Christian, Pauline?’ I asked.
‘No. Well, not really. My parents are C. of E. They go to church occasionally. I used to when I was younger. I still do at Christmas, just to please them, and because I like the carols. But I don’t really believe. If I did, I think I’d go back to the Church of England. It’s sort of sane and reasonable. It leaves you alone; it doesn’t go prying into your mind like Catholicism. And it’s so much simpler. I mean, Catholicism is so complicated. I mean, it’s difficult enough to believe in God,—why make it more complicated with Transubstantiation and the Immaculate Conception and indulgences and all that? It’s like algebra. And it eats into them, you know. They can’t stop talking about it, Michael’s family. And it’s all mixed up with Irish politics, which makes it even more confusing. They keep teasing me because I’m English, and because the English were so beastly to the Irish, and really, sometimes I feel like asking them why they’re all living in England if they despise us so much.’
I laughed sympathetically, recalling my experience at O’Connell’s Club. We had a cup of tea, and then I had to go. I could think of no further excuse for staying, and Pauline made no attempt to keep me. She said she would write a letter to Mike that evening.
‘But Jonathan,’ she added, ‘I don’t suppose Michael will tell me anything in his letters, in case it would upset me. He never writes much anyway. So I rely on you to let me know if anything serious happens. Otherwise I’ll only worry all the more. Would you mind?’
I promised to keep in touch.
‘You wanted to see me, Sergeant?’
I had been told when I handed in my pass that Hamilton wanted to see me, and I stood now in his ‘office’, a stone-flagged annexe to the Clerks’ classroom, containing only a wooden trestle table and a chair. The stove in the middle of the floor had only just been lit, and gave little warmth. Wisps of smoke escaped from the cracked chimney. Sergean
t Hamilton sat with his overcoat on, and wore fingerless mittens. He looked up.
‘Thank Christ you’re back, Browne. I nearly lost a stripe over you.’
‘Why was that, Sergeant?’
‘You weren’t supposed to go on your forty-eight because of this Brady business. You’re a witness.’
‘I didn’t see anything, Sergeant.’
Hamilton displayed his multitudinous teeth in a sly grin. ‘That’s you’re story and you’re sticking to it, eh?’ I shuffled back half a pace, out of range of the fine spray of saliva which issued from his mouth. ‘Well anyway, Brady’s going to be charged. Baker came round in hospital on Saturday.’
‘Is he all right?’
‘Yes; lucky he had his beret on. Your friend might have killed him otherwise. As it is he’ll get two years for this.’
Two years! It sent a shiver through me.
‘Does it count towards your National Service, Sarge, the time you spend in the glasshouse?’
‘Does it fugg. It’s added on. When he comes out he’ll start all over again.’
I was too numbed by this revelation to reply. Hamilton leafed through some papers on his desk. ‘He was a rum character that Brady,’ he continued. ‘I could see he was heading for trouble. He even messed up his trade test.’
‘He passed didn’t he?’ I asked. Surely not even Mike could have failed the trade test.
‘Yes he passed,’ replied Hamilton grudgingly, ‘but only just. He spoilt his paper with a lot of silly jokes.’ Hamilton pulled Mike’s script from the pile of papers. ‘Like the specimen charge sheet. He made it out for the C.O. and charged him with conduct to the prejudice of good order and military discipline in that his fly-buttons were undone on parade.’
I laughed.
‘Of course he covered himself. He didn’t write down Lieutenant-Colonel Algernon Lancing. He put Trooper A. Lancing. But it’s obvious, isn’t it?’
I agreed that it was. Hamilton drew out my own script, and smoothed it out on the desk.
‘Well, Browne, you didn’t mess your paper up. You came top with 100 per cent.
I mimicked an expression of mingled pride and modesty appropriate to a Nobel prize-winner. Hamilton seemed to expect it. ‘Thank you, Sergeant,’ I said.
‘The Army needs more clerks, Browne, needs them very badly. With a little experience you should make a very good clerk.’
‘Thank you, Sergeant,’ I said again. What was this leading up to? I wondered: conferment of a degree? letters after my name? Trooper Jonathan Browne, B.A. Hons (Lond.), Clerk B III (Catt.)?
‘How would you like an opportunity to gain some experience before you’re posted?’
‘What do you mean, Sergeant?’
‘The Orderly Room is a bit over-worked at the moment. They’ve asked me if I can find a man who could help out temporarily. What do you say?’
There was something touching in Hamilton’s naïveté. He really thought that I was keen on being a clerk in the Army. The incentive he offered was quite ridiculous, but I didn’t hesitate to accept the offer. It would mean that I would avoid the boredom and fatigues of Waiting Wing. Instead of shovelling coal in the raw November air, I would be comfortably installed in a warm office.
My expectations were not disappointed. The Orderly Room was probably the most comfortable berth in Amiens Camp. Paradoxically, the nearer one gets to the hub of authority in the Army, the easier and idler is one’s existence. Discipline was lax, nobody bothered about parades, one could wear shoes instead of boots, there were frequent cups of tea, and mild flirting with the shorthand typists. I was excluded from this last diversion, since the girls in question were uninterested in anyone with less than two stripes. But I was content to make myself as inconspicuous as possible, and to ride out my last weeks at Catterick in relative comfort.
I was placed in the Records Office to assist Lance-Corporal Gordon, a volatile Scot jubilantly in sight of his release date, the 15th of January. I bore patiently his gloating over our relative positions, and he soon tired of it. Why I had been co-opted into the Orderly Room remained something of a mystery, for Gordon did not seem over-worked. In fact there were many hours when we just sat about chatting, or reading the newspapers with an eye cocked on the door. I amused myself sometimes by looking up the record cards of various people in the unit and finding out their past histories. It was there that I discovered Mason’s age, and read the Personnel Officer’s comments on my first interview with him. I also discovered that I had failed at pistol shooting in my Basic Training, which seemed rather unfair, as I had never fired a pistol either before or since being called up.
I saw Mike again when he went before the C.O. It was bitterly cold. We were all on the veranda outside the C.O.’s office,—Mike, Baker and I, standing at ease in a curious, artificial silence. Baker had a thick white plaster round his head. I did not see him and Mike look at each other once. I caught Mike’s eye and he smiled, but the Provost Sergeant who was escorting him told him to keep his eyes to the front. Mike’s smile was produced with an effort, it seemed to me. He looked worried, scared even.
I was reminded of an incident at College, more than a year before. We had met by chance outside the room of one of the lecturers, where we had come to collect our sessional papers from the pile heaped on a chair in the corridor. We exchanged a nod and a muttered greeting. I flipped through my script, and noted the mark with satisfaction. I had narrowly beaten Meakin. As I made to move off Mike said to me: ‘What did you get?’ I felt a momentary embarrassment as I said ‘Alpha minus’. He was bound to have done badly, and I felt obscurely that it was slightly improper for him to compare marks with me. I refrained from the customary return of the question, but he volunteered the information that he had got a Gamma minus. He stood turning over his paper with a puzzled, hurt expression, as if he had been hard done by. I was sorry for him, but I thought to myself: ‘What did you expect, for God’s sake? You told me yourself as we went into the examination hall that you hadn’t done a stroke of work.’ I made an excuse and hurried away, but somehow the incident had blunted the pleasure of my Alpha minus.
And now, as we stood on the veranda, eyes watering in the cold wind, our breath clouding the air, that feeling returned. Mike had got himself into this mess, it was nothing to do with me, and yet his misfortune gnawed at my sense of relative comfort and security like a worm of conscience. Two years in the glasshouse! And then two years of National Service to do! A kind of vicarious desolation swept through me every time I thought about it.
Of course I could no longer fend off the implications of Mike’s possible imprisonment. It would, as they said, give me a clear field with Pauline. But would it? Best-friend-of-imprisoned-man-makes-love-to-his-girl cast me too melodramatically as the cad. And I suspected that persecution would only endear Mike to Pauline.
The C.O.’s car drew up, and he stalked past us as if we were invisible.
‘Take your cap and belt off,’ said the Provost Sergeant to Mike. For some reason accused soldiers had to remove their belts and berets when they appeared before an officer. Whether this was intended, with the rest of the ritual of shouting and stamping, to unnerve the accused, or whether it was, as some said, a precaution against the accused assaulting the C.O. with his belt, or his beret, using the badge as a cutting edge, I never established. It certainly made Mike look already a condemned convict. His hair was so short that one could see the bumps on his scalp.
Mike was remanded for Court Martial. I wrote to Pauline and told her that this was inevitable in the circumstances, and not necessarily a cause for despair. The more formal and public the proceedings, I argued, the better Mike’s chances of getting off lightly (for I could not see him getting off completely). It was still Baker’s word against Mike’s, and although the court might be more disposed to believe Baker than Mike, there would still be, as far as the court was concerned, the puzzling absence of a motive, on Mike’s part, for assault, unless someone in the old ‘C’ Squad leaked t
o an officer the truth about the triangular relationship between Baker, Mike and Percy. It was clearly not in Baker’s interest to do this himself, since it would revive the whole question of Percy’s death.
A frequent visitor to the Records Office of the Orderly Room was Corporal Weston, the C.O.’s driver. He was a tall, handsome man, with a dashing moustache. His battle-dress blouse was garnished with the medals of many campaigns, and he wore a paratrooper’s wings on his sleeve, although he was now, of course, in the R.T.R. His battle-dress was tailor-made, and he was the only man I ever encountered who looked smart in that curious garment. He was popular with the shorthand typists, who perceptibly protruded their buttocks as they passed him, unnecessarily inviting a pinch or slap. He spent long periods waiting for the C.O. in the offices of the Orderly Room, and mainly in ours. When he had finished the Mirror, he would regale us with anecdotes of his military service. These were exclusively of a sexual nature. He told us of the field-brothels set up in North Africa during the Second World War, and painted a vivid picture of soldiers stumbling out of their tents in the early morning for a ‘blow-through’ before breakfast, at sixpence a time. He told us of the curious habits of Korean prostitutes. He told us of the street in Hamburg with gates at each end, where female flesh was displayed in the windows of every house like butcher’s meat. All this with a wealth of detail that put Lance-Corporal Gorman, who had spent his two years in England, beside himself with envy and frustration, and almost made him sign on for another year in the hope of going abroad. Only once did Weston go a little too far, even for Gorman: when he described how, in North Africa an Arab woman came up to him and offered him her ten-year-old daughter for a bar of chocolate.
‘About this high she was,’ he said, holding his hand about three and a half feet off the ground.
‘You didn’t, did you?’ said Gorman.
‘It didn’t mean anything to her,’ said Weston defensively. ‘She wasn’t even a virgin.’