It had not risen to anything like that pitch during lunchtime opening the next day. Trade was small and slow, confined to a few local tradespeople and one or two young couples. Catharine got the tables and her counter cleared as soon as the bar shut at half-past two. Then she was free until a quarter to seven. Eames explained that the girl in the saloon, which communicated, could easily deal with an early evening custom, adding that Catharine was not to overtax herself and that she was to tell him at once if there was anything she thought was not as it should be.
In the afternoon she slept for an hour or so. After that she got up and made a pot of tea and took it into Lucy's bedroom. They went over the price list together a final time. At the end of it Catharine was pretty confident about everything except the bottled beers and stouts.
"I'll never get all those lagers right," she said.
"What does it matter? What's so awful about looking at a list? You can't expect to have it all off by heart the first evening. Anyway, I've just noticed they go in alphabetical order. The Esbjerg's the most expensive, then the Gesundheit and then the Lyre. And the price goes down threepence between the first two and three-hapence between the second and third. Just half as much."
"Good, that is a help."
"I hope this won't turn out to be too much for you, Cathy. I've realized it's getting on for two hours' travel by car every day. But you're a good strong girl, and I thought after being cooped up in that disgusting place all those months you wouldn't mind rushing about a bit. Now we've got to decide what you're to wear. It's Mr. Eames we have to consider really. Strike the happy medium between what he'd think was tarty and what he'd think was dowdy. It won't be quite plain sailing. I tell you what, I think I'd better have another little sleep. I was late last night and as far as I can remember I look like being late again tonight. You go and have a lovely bath and then bring all your best things in here and we'll go through them together."
By six o'clock they had finally settled on a blue sleeveless linen jacket, a pleated skirt, sandals and gold earrings, and Catharine was arrayed in these as she sat and talked to Lucy, who in turn was in the bath. She looked at Lucy's body as its owner soaped it. It seemed to her a prettily molded body with delicate skin, and touching it would not have revolted her, but she could not imagine what it would feel like to want to do so. At this distance Dr. Best's ideas, whose unexpectedness and difficulty she had taken as an extra proof that they were right, struck her as amateurish and affected. He talked as if he had forgotten all about going to bed with people, if he had ever known. But how was he going to keep his eye on her?
"Are you all right, Cathy?"
"Yes, fine. A bit nervous. It's all so public, you see. I know I can look after myself with just one or two of them to deal with at a time, but it's probably not so easy when there's a whole crowd of others there listening and getting ready to laugh. You know what they're like; you've been in pubs."
"Not for some time, actually, until the other day with you. But you're looking at things the wrong way. You should be expecting somebody marvelous to turn up. It's about due for that to happen to you, goodness knows."
"Yes, I suppose it might happen." The difficulty was in deciding whether somebody was really marvelous or would only go on seeming to be until it was too late. Catharine felt she was slightly worse at this now than she had been when fifteen.
"That's the spirit. When you get back you can sneak up to bed if you want, or come into the drawing-room and mingle with the throng. You wouldn't have to mingle too thoroughly, I'll see to that. I can always keep the wrong sort away from you, you remember, even if you can't. Mr. Stoker should have you back here by quarter past eleven, so there'll be some of the evening left if you fancy it. That's him hooting now. Off you go, Cathy. Good luck with the lagers. Enjoy yourself."
Catharine arrived at the White Hart in good time, hung up her coat in the alcove next to Eames's office and went into the saloon. There were half a dozen people drinking there, all of whom turned to stare at her. The barmaid already on duty, a round-faced nineteen-year-old called Anne, raised the leaf of the counter to let her through.
"Nothing very much for you next door, Cath. Couple of peasants on brown ales and four of those soldiers, three of them on large pink gins and the other on angostura and soda. Can't think what he gets out of it, can you? I've been charging him ninepence a go. You'll have it easy for a bit but it'll start filling up after seven. Give me a shout if you want me for anything."
Catharine went through the communicating doorway into the lounge bar and came face to face with a young man in khaki standing on the other side of the counter. Immediately she remembered having seen him on her way to her last interview but one with Dr. Best. She was startled and could tell that he was too. Neither spoke for a moment.
"I've seen you before," he said in a clear voice. "At the…"
"Yes. At the mental hospital. I came out the day before yesterday."
"I knew you straight away."
She could not stop herself saying, "And I knew you straight away."
"I know."
She noticed his finely shaped ears and square hands. "You'd better tell me what you want to drink. We can still talk."
"Yes. Three large pink gins and a dash of angostura bitters with soda. Friend of mine on the wagon. I'm called James Churchill."
"Catharine Casement. Any particular kind of gin?"
"I think the Plymouth. That's a pretty name."
"Half of it's not too bad. Would you like some ice?"
"Yes, please."
"In all of them?"
"Yes, please. How do you mean?"
"The Casement's somebody else's name. But I never see him. But I don't seem to be able to divorce him. He's in London. I live about fifteen miles away."
"You're not usually a barmaid, are you?"
"No, I'm not usually anything very much. This is my first day. That'll be seventeen and three altogether."
While he was taking out his money, the street door opened and four or five men came in. They all gathered at the bar and started looking at her.
"Thank you," said Churchill, not paying yet. "Can I take you home after you finish here?"
The new arrivals grinned and nudged one another.
"Well, I've got a car coming for me."
"What sort of car?"
"Well, it's a sort of taxi really, I suppose."
"You could cancel it, then."
"Yes, I suppose I could."
"Right." He handed over the money. "Thank you."
"Thank you, sir. Two and nine, one pound… Yes, sir?"
"You've got a moment to spare to get me something now, have you, love?" said the man she had addressed, grinning no longer. "Or would you rather carry on chatting?"
"I beg your pardon, sir, I'll get whatever you ask for immediately, of course."
"Oh. Well, uh, two gins and tonic and a pint of best bitter, one light ale, make those large gins…"
After staring at the speaker for some seconds, Churchill withdrew, a drink in each hand. When he came back for the other two drinks he told her he had to leave shortly but would be back later. Until he did leave she kept glancing over to the corner where he sat with his three companions, a pale man with a mustache, a man who looked like an Indian, an older man wearing a clerical collar. They talked animatedly now and then but kept falling silent. She missed their departure.
By closing-time Catharine was tired, but not too tired to be pleased with herself for not once having given wrong change. Through the open doorway she caught sight of Churchill waiting on the pavement. The unspoken questions she had thought she would never again put to herself about anybody formed in her mind. Is it now? Is it you?
When she came out he took her arm and walked her along to a small military car with a canvas roof but open sides.
"This was the best I could do at short notice," he said. "I'll get hold of something more suitable next time. Which way?"
She told him. Th
ere were cars backing and turning in the street ahead with a mixture of lights and shadows, and they had reached the last few houses of the village when he said,
"I've thought of you every day since I saw you."
"I've thought of you too." She knew now that she had, though until this evening she had not caught herself doing so.
"You looked frightened that first time. Were you?"
"Yes." She explained about the cat and the bird.
"But why should that have frightened you?"
"It was something I didn't understand but looked as if it was going to turn violent and horrible, and those two things together tend to frighten me."
"What, violent and horrible?"
"Well, more violent-and-horrible and I-don't-understand-it, really."
"Have lots of things like that happened to you?"
"There were quite a few at one stage." Catharine paused. "Just before I went into the asylum. About six months ago."
"Were they to do with Mr. Casement, the frightening things six months ago?"
"Yes. I'll tell you about them another time, but I will tell you."
"I hated you being in that place."
"So did I, but it was necessary, I suppose. Anyway, it must have done me some good, because here I am going about my own business like everybody else, not mad any more."
"You'd probably have got better on your own."
"Maybe. I doubt it, though. I wasn't in a good way at all. I couldn't carry on any more. I used to sit in my chair all the time because I was afraid I couldn't find my way back to it if I got up. It was like having something wrong with your eyes."
She looked at the small farmhouse they were about to pass. It was solid, like a building brick, pegged down immovably into the ground, staying exactly the same real size as they approached it, drew level and left it behind. Since they were moving, the fence that ran alongside the house could not do otherwise than seem to swing towards them and away again. On either side of them now were acres of uncultivated land, rising to low wooded hills that swept round in a semicircle ahead. If she could see them, these would appear small, because they were quite distant. Everything was as it should be, and so the loneliness round about did not matter.
"But it's all right now," she went on. "Which is much more interesting. I used to think that being mad might be rather fun. Inconvenient, of course, and awful, but quite exciting, with visions and things, and thinking the Russians were after you, and doing marvelous paintings. But it isn't at all really, not my sort anyway. Nothing ever happens. And the other people are such bores. Those first… weeks I suppose they were, it was like being on holiday in a lousy hotel with it raining all the time and you can't speak the language and let's say you've lost your glasses and can't read."
"Sounds a bit like the Army. I'm glad you're well now. And I'm very glad you got that job in the pub. If you hadn't, I might easily not have seen you again. You know, lots of times I wanted to go over to the hospital and try to find you."
"How would you have set about it? You didn't know my name or anything."
"That was what decided me against it. All I could have done was to walk round the place on the off-chance of seeing you."
"Just as well you didn't. If you'd stuck at it at all our learned Dr. Best would have clapped you inside."
"Oh yes, of course, you must have known Dr. Best."
"Why, do you?"
"Not personally. I know a bit about him from the chap I was visiting when I saw you. Did you ever run into him there? Name of Hunter, Max Hunter. He wasn't mad, only drying out after too much whisky."
"I may have done, I don't remember."
"Of course, he was only in there a couple of weeks. Hey, I had him with me when I was in the pub earlier."
"Which one was he?"
"Mustache. The one who wasn't with me the day I saw you."
"I don't remember anybody being with you then,"
"That is flattering. I'm afraid I remember somebody being with you."
"It's true, though."
"I know. What did Dr. Best say was basically the matter with you?"
"He kept telling me I subconsciously wanted to sleep with other girls."
Churchill burst out laughing.
"I don't, though."
"Of course you don't. I'm sorry. I was laughing because he told Max Hunter the same thing, that he was a repressed homosexual. If you knew Max… But you will soon. When's your day off?"
"Monday."
"That's too far ahead. I'm only going to be round here another five weeks or so."
"That's not at all long, is it?"
"Then I'm being sent abroad, but only for a short time. I'll come and see you as soon as I get back."
"You're not being sent to fight anybody, are you?"
"No. Not fight anybody. It isn't that sort of thing."
"That's not too bad, then. But Monday's still a long way off. I'm free for bits of tomorrow, the first part of the morning and the afternoon."
"I'm free in the afternoon. I'll come and fetch you and we'll drive somewhere. It's a pity you live so far away. Where is it exactly?"
She told him.
He drove on to a level piece of ground by the side of the road, stopped, and switched off the ignition. There was a faint sighing in the air which she thought at first was just the sound of silence, but then she felt a gentle breeze on her cheek. She started being afraid.
"What's the matter? Why have you stopped?"
"Cathy. So you're Lucy's friend."
"Is that bad? Don't be angry with me."
"I'm not angry with you. The other night one of the other chaps and I drove over to Lucy's place. He went up and went to bed with her and then I did the same."
"I don't do that, though. I'm just her friend and I just live there. She's got them all organized so they don't even make passes at me. I just help her with the drinks when I'm there, that's all. I don't sleep with any of them. We're company for each other. I haven't got many friends in this country because I spent eight years in Australia when I was married to my first husband. When I left Casement she was the only person I could really go to. She doesn't try to make me go to bed with any of them. She helps me not to. I haven't been to bed with anybody since I went to live there. Honestly."
"Don't you mind my having been to bed with her?"
"Are you in love with her and do you want to go to bed with her again?"
"No, neither of those."
"Then I don't mind at all. Do you believe me?"
"About not going to bed with those chaps? Of course I do."
"Well, in that case…"
"There doesn't seem to be anything for either of us to mind, does there?"
"No."
Catharine was not afraid when he put one arm round her shoulders and the other hand on her breast and kissed her. It is now, she thought. It is you.
"I love you," said Churchill.
"I'm going to love you too, probably by tomorrow. But I'll have to have just a little time. I thought I'd stopped, you see. Loving people. So it'll take me just a little time to start again. Is that all right?"
"Yes."
He kissed her another once and then started the engine.
Churchill parked Ross-Donaldson's jeep in its space and made towards the front door of the Mess. One of the D4 sentries, grateful perhaps for the smallest novelty, turned towards him and came to attention. Acknowledging, Churchill wished him good night and went indoors.
Hunter's room was on the first floor. It had one very comfortable chair in it, the seat of most of the drinking-bout which had ended in his admission to hospital. He had adopted it after becoming dissatisfied with the more usual procedure of drinking in the ante-room downstairs. It had seemed to him uneconomic to keep a Mess waiter up until four A.M. serving him with whisky, and twice running he had found himself, a couple of hours after that time, lying in the grass somewhere near the house and resisting the efforts of a member of the camp patrol to pull him
to his feet. Even the chair had finally proved inadequate by being too easy to fall out of, and he had had to take to his bed, where, after a twenty-four-hour absence from the general scene, he had been found by Churchill.
When Churchill entered, Hunter was sitting in his chair drinking a glass of soda-water. Naidu was sitting opposite him, on the edge of the bed, a heavily diluted whisky in his hand.
"Willie not back yet?" asked Churchill.
"No," said Naidu.
"Pour yourself a whisky," said Hunter. "On the dressing-table. You'll notice the cap is off. Don't put it back. In fact throw it away. Having no cap saves time, the loss by evaporation is trifling, and there are probably figures to show that a bottle's more vulnerable to being spilled or dropped when the cap's being removed and replaced. Like aircraft when taking off and landing. I must get Ross-Donaldson to give me the statistical breakdown. Look, you need more whisky than you've got there if you're going to be a satisfactory drinking companion to a man who isn't drinking. Moti's hopeless at that. He only drinks to be sociable, which is no use to anybody."
"It's the taste of the beastly stuff which is such a snag," said Naidu.
"No, it's a blessing. We'd all be dead if it were palatable. At least James and I would be. And Willie. Well, you're back early. It's only twenty to one. What didn't keep you?"
Churchill had taken his place on a heavy wooden chair with a high back, moving a pile of motoring magazines to do so. He lit a cigarette. "It was quite late," he said. "And she was tired."
"So you cut short the final embraces. Very considerate of you."
The Anti-Death League Page 8