by Tim Jeal
There was one problem though, David didn’t want to write and ask George himself. Once, he had asked George whether he would take him with him on one of his visits to London to see his ailing mother. His request had been curtly dismissed. What was he thinking of? Who would keep Mummy company and besides he didn’t really want to see a sick old woman and spend a couple of uncomfortable nights in a dreary hotel. Heaven only knew … it wasn’t as if there was nothing to do at home. No, George was not the person to ask. David’s mother, on the other hand, had always been vague when asked where George stayed in town. ‘Oh, some hotel or other, darling.’ But Steven, Steven did know. David could hardly have forgotten the time when he had burst into his room at Trelawn, less than a year ago and had announced that he had found out George’s London address.
‘Well, what’s so marvellous in that?’
‘We’ll see, we’ll see‚’ had been the perplexing answer.
‘Are you going to send him post-cards?’ David had asked.
‘You’re a bit young to understand.’
David had been hurt at the time. Of course he’d understood. Obviously George had a small flat and liked to go out to the theatre occasionally or see a film or two. What was so wrong in that? Besides, he knew his mother didn’t like George going to London, so that was clearly why he hadn’t told her. Anyway, as she didn’t like the place, George could hardly take her too. Steven as usual had been looking for things where they hadn’t been. David decided to write to Steven for the address; he would also phone his mother and find out whether George was going to London. The only person who mustn’t know would be George. After all he might refuse like the time before. He could be very difficult at times. No, he’d ask his mother on the phone in an off-hand way, ‘I expect George will be in London next week-end. Trelawn must be awfully lonely in term time when he’s away as well.’ Once he arrived outside the flat door he could hardly send him away. Perhaps he might even take him to the theatre as well. David smiled … when he wanted he could think pretty clearly. Of course George mightn’t be in London that week-end. His face fell a little. Still he hadn’t been for some time and as he went about once a month there was a fair chance.
That afternoon he was allowed to telephone his mother. The matron tactfully left him alone while he did so. Everything went according to plan. Yes, poor old mumsy was going to be alone that week-end, but not to worry, George would soon be back and London always left him feeling better. Besides, it was only fair that he should see his mother every now and then. She was glad he was going to see a good specialist. Could he thank matron for her? They’d had men messing round the house re-doing the drive; but thank goodness they wouldn’t have to bear all that noise for long. Otherwise nothing very exciting had happened. You know only the usual. At last David was able to ring off. His inquiry had been so well phrased that there was no chance of her mentioning it to George.
He told the matron that his uncle was going to be in London. She seemed pleased but said that he would have to write and ask for a letter of definite acceptance. One couldn’t have small boys running around London all on their own, could one now? David tried not to show his dismay. Anyway he felt sure Steven could fix it. He would be able to write the letter of consent as well. Steven could be very helpful when he chose.
‘Oh, by the way what is your uncle’s name?’
David thought quickly.
‘Esmond Flower.’ It was the first name that came into his head.
‘Dr. Blossom and Mr. Flower. What funny names there are about.’ She laughed unsuspiciously. Silly woman, thought David. What was so splendid about her name? … Miss Price … very dull really.
*
David had just started on the letter to Steven when Andrew Matthews came into the sick room. Miss Price was on to him at once, faster than a magnetic mine, thought David.
‘Oh, Mr. Matthews, you oughtn’t to be in here you know,’ she twittered, ‘I mean you wouldn’t want to be down with the ’flu.’
Andrew wasn’t at all sure that he’d mind especially if he could recover in the same room as David.
‘I’m not often ill, thank you,’ he said coldly. ‘I’ve come to see one of my pupils, Lifton.’
‘Well, I suppose it’s all right … only don’t say that I didn’t warn you.’
‘Not even on my death-bed, Miss Price, would I allot you the smallest particle of blame.’ He nodded politely to her and turned towards David’s bed. David saw him advancing towards him smiling a smile full of the sanity of the outside world. He found himself smiling back.
‘I hope you’re not too ill for a visitor?’
‘No, sir, really I’m much better now. I feel awfully silly being ill so much longer than everybody else.’
‘But why. Why should you? Keats was ill most of his life. Provided the will is strong, what can the body matter?’
Was this perhaps a little fulsome? Andrew decided not. The boy was above the ‘stiff-upper-lip’ clichés which Crofts and his brethren would doubtless use. And he did look so delicately sensitive tucked up between those white sheets.
‘You don’t mind if I sit down on the bed, I feel so terribly tall with you so low down.’
‘No, of course not, sir, why ever should I?’
Such innocence, Andrew inwardly groaned. So near and yet so far. Hastily he recalled his entirely platonic interest. The pleasures of the art gallery rather than the bedchamber. How could so delicate a bloom be associated with rumpled sheets and bedroom smells?
David looked at him. Hotson and Chadwick had been quite wrong about him. He had come out of pure kindness. It would be impossible to make a pass in the sick room, so what other motives than sympathy could he have had for coming? He need not have come at all. That ghastly old Crofts would never have bothered, and as for his hag of a wife, she never came anywhere near any of them, ill or healthy.
‘I expect you must get very bored. There isn’t anything I could get you … or anybody else?’ he added hastily.
‘The thrillers in the san. library aren’t too bad and matron gives us fruit every other day … so really … it’s very kind of you …’
Matthews was delighted to see that his offer had produced that well-remembered blush. But God, what was he thinking behind the impregnable darkness of his eyes? His eyebrows might be a palisade, his lashes sharpened stakes for all that he could hope to know. But how hopelessly inappropriate were such coarse and military images. Andrew almost squirmed with inadequacy.
David felt so proud … a master … come just to see him … and a junior too. He glowed with self-importance rather than embarrassment.
Andrew wondered whether David was in pain; he felt a deliriously sharp pang of sympathy, almost as if the pain was his.
‘I wondered if you might like to come out to tea with me when you’re better … to sort of make up for all this …’ he gestured vaguely round the sick room. ‘I expect an afternoon away from the school will do you good.’
‘That’s terribly kind of you, sir. I’d simply love to.’
He really sounded enthusiastic. Andrew purred.
‘Well, good … fine then … let me know when you’re a free man again.’
‘Yes.’
Andrew rose to go.
‘Thank you very much, sir. It really was most awfully good of you to come and see me.’
‘Not at all … not at all‚’ said Andrew breezily. All the tension had gone now and he had fixed the invitation. He hadn’t quite known what the reaction would be. Now he felt like a kite in a dropping breeze, coming gently down to earth. He got up and turned as he stood in the doorway. He smiled once more and was gone.
Outside in the corridor he slapped his hands against his jacket pockets and with several light skipping steps left the building. How long would it be … a week? Probably not long … ‘but ah methinks how slow this old moon wanes’. He hummed softly as he walked back to the main part of the house.
When he had gone David finished his letter
to Steven and gave it to Miss Price to post. It ought to reach him the next day … Tuesday … plenty of time till Saturday.
*
The same evening at Trelawn, Ruth and George were sitting in the drawing-room in their usual chairs. Neither had spoken for almost an hour. The ticking of the clock on the mantelpiece was clearly audible above the crackling of the log fire. At last George looked up from his book.
‘I forgot to ask you, who was that on the phone earlier?’
‘Only David, just to tell me that he’s going to a specialist in London on Saturday.’
‘Why didn’t you tell me at the time? You know I am interested in the boy.’
In London on Saturday? I’ll say I’m interested. George pursed his lips.
‘But darling, you looked so peaceful … and I know it’s stupid, but sometimes you feel so close that I sort of assume that you know everything I do.’
At a moment like this to give one this kind of rubbish. She could be absolutely maddening. He threw down his book and got up.
‘And I suppose you didn’t ask him where he was going to stay?’
‘No darling, he didn’t mention it, so I suppose the school are fixing it up. He may only go up for the day, the fast train shouldn’t take more than five hours from Devonshire.’
George relaxed. She went on:
‘Perhaps you could have met him in London, but I expect the school are fixing it all. Schools are like that, aren’t they? … so independent.’
‘Yes, yes, of course they are.’
‘So independent … when he comes back, it’s as though from another world … there doesn’t seem anything to talk about … that’s why I don’t …’
‘Quite, quite, not your fault at all … fault of the system.’
George felt he could afford to be magnanimous. He even smiled at her. Damned nasty moment but his week-end wasn’t going to be ruined after all. It was Monday now, only five days to go till Saturday and Sally.
SIX
TERM at Oxford was now into the third week.
Steven was sitting at a table in his rooms. It was four o’clock in the morning. Six books of criticism lay limply open in front of him in ordered disarray. As he stared at the printed pages, isolated words stood out, jumping forward and then falling back into the distance. Six books and a text … I’m getting pretty versatile, thought Steven without conviction. Sluggishly he continued copying chunks out of the criticism.
‘The child who, like Hercules, can in his swaddling bands control the serpent and all his instruments named, is (as Hercules was to the mythographers) the Sun.’
Americans could make nonsense out of anything. Slowly the jigsaw of his essay was beginning to take shape. He looked at his watch … only six more hours till his tutorial. At the end of his arm his pen moved very slowly.
Outside, through the tissue of mist in the quad below, he could see the first signs of a blearly and indistinct dawn. In half an hour the birds in the deanery garden would be singing.
He covered his face with his hands and rocked gently from side to side.
‘Chaucer … more sir … force her …’
He tore the fly-leaf out of one of the books and started to compose a limerick. Afterwards he still felt bored, his eyes fixed on the lamp … the edges of the shade crinkled slightly as he stared. Over on the windowsill an almost empty bottle of gin grinned at him … blast the bloody stuff. Behind his eyes he felt a dull thumping … the night stretched on in front of him endlessly.
He thought of the day before him; after his tutorial with Barnard Sarah was coming round. He smiled momentarily. Idly he wondered whether he was fond of her or whether she gratified his pride. Could it be love? After all his love needn’t be conventional … he didn’t feel too bad when she wasn’t there … but because he felt no jealousy, that didn’t necessarily invalidate his affection. Perhaps soon it might grow … He went on writing … ‘Mature appreciation … thought patterns … underlying symbolism … vivid contrasts of light and dark, good and evil …’ The words were at last beginning to race in the familiar way, pouring into the well-cut channels of pseudo-scholarship. ‘Gefallen sind die Blätter … blät … blät … blät.’ Pure unadulterated cock, he sighed to himself contentedly. His watch showed half past seven.
A soft knock sounded behind him and he turned to see the peasant features of his scout Morgan appearing in the growing gap between door and wall.
‘You’re up early, sir … or should I say late? … Ha … ha …’ his laughter petered out in a tubercular fit of coughing.
‘Wicked out this morning, sir. Fog’s something awful.’
‘Yes.’
‘Shall I be making your bed, sir?’
That laugh again. Steven turned round and looked at him in the face.
‘All right then, sir. I’ll be leaving you.’
Tiptoeing like a robber in a silent film he made for the door. Steven reapplied himself to his task, desperately he looked for a concluding quote. In the end he wrote his own. He got up and went to lie down on the sofa, his legs felt unsteady. Just like poor old fuddled George, he thought. Sarah … in three hours she’d be sitting in that chair. Somehow it seemed less important now that the essay was over.
*
He must have been dozing; it was five minutes till his tutorial. His eyes followed the carpet patterns, first the blue shapes and then the pink. Each time he tried it became more complex. Eventually he shut his eyes, then jerking into action he heaved himself to his feet. He picked his gown from the floor; bat-like he flapped his arms until it fell into place.
*
His tutor Barnard had his rooms on the other side of the same quad. He reached the staircase, climbed a flight, knocked and entered. Barnard was perched like an eagle on the edge of a low contemporary table. For once Steven didn’t find him funny.
‘You look tired, Lifton.’
You look old, thought Steven. Barnard was about forty-five, a few whisps of still brown hair stuck out on his otherwise bald head, as though inexpertly glued on. Behind thick glasses his eyes sparkled actively as if in soda water.
‘I didn’t sleep well.’
‘Well, what lucubrations have you brought to me this morning; a work of sound scholarship I trust.’
His laugh was surprisingly high for such a large man. He unfolded his legs and stood up.
‘Sit down, sit down,’ he said, flapping his arms up and down. Steven’s eyes rested on his large hands. The noise of traffic came up from the street below. Barnard’s room faced the quad and backed on to the street.
‘Can we have it then?’
Steven started to read; his tongue felt thick and swollen. The words seemed large and lump-like, isolated boulders in a wilderness of irrelevant matter. They wouldn’t cohere. The sentences were longer than usual. He sensed Barnard crossing and uncrossing his legs opposite.
‘Why not try it a bit faster?’ he broke in at last.
Steven complied. The sentences started to flow, punctuation ceased to matter. Somewhere in his mouth a hinge seemed to have broken: sentence ran into sentence in a whirling, racing stream of nonsense. Must finish the essay.
‘I’ll read it,’ said a distant Barnard.
Barnard read. Steven felt his eyes closing. How heavy his lids had become. Barnard read on and on. Steven tried to think out of which critic each passage came. Soon he gave up the struggle. His eyes shut and Barnard read on alone.
‘Well, let’s try and talk about it,’ Barnard was saying.
Steven woke up and tried. Barnard was getting cross. He perched on the edge of the table again. A watery sun marked the carpet in patches. Barnard’s large black shoes glistened like newly melted tar. Why couldn’t he stop for a few minutes? Steven eyed him warily, there were unpleasant vestiges of a smile wrinkling the edges of his tutor’s mouth. The corners slowly lifted. Steven waited for the coming bombardment without hope.
‘One point you don’t seem to have raised in your essay is why Chaucer
doesn’t let us know whether the dreamer knows of the dark knight’s loss earlier. I mean are we to suppose he had a reason? Or does he mean us to think the dreamer is an imbecile? Come now, this is a cardinal point. Why does this really matter?’
Barnard, still on the low table, craned forward eagerly, ready to pounce. Suddenly Steven didn’t care. A middle-aged man sat in front of him awkwardly balanced on a low table. A man old enough to know better.
In the street outside shoppers were streaming in and out of Woolworths. A gob of phlegm lay in the gutter. Sparrows were twittering in the eaves. Barnard was getting restive. Have to answer soon. Answer what? What about the gob of phlegm? The sun was slowly edging across the carpet towards Steven’s chair. The clear beams cut channels sharply in the stale air of the room. Steven’s mouth opened.
‘I don’t think it really matters.’
Barnard was on his feet, his arms were working up and down frantically. No eagle now, more like an ineffectual butterfly.
‘Point of scholarship … academic interest … cardinal importance … fundamental significance.’ Steven heard the phrases from a distance. Suddenly Barnard opened fire. A broadside … Steven sank without a trace.
‘Get out!’
*
Back in the quad Barnard was in his place again; a small brown beetle under the radiator. Viciously Steven stabbed his feet down on the paving stones. At the bottom of his staircase he halted. In his pigeon-hole was a letter with a Devon postmark. He opened David’s letter and started to read, still standing there. For the first time in the day he smiled a long and satisfied smile. Barnard might have been in Africa now. Oh, George; this, George, is it. Now I can see my way.
He climbed the stairs, took off his clothes and clambered naked into bed. Gratefully he closed his eyes and went to sleep. Behind the thick blue curtains the sun was breaking up the last of the morning mist.
At noon he heard a soft voice calling his name from the doorway of his bedroom. His face climbed over the edge of the sheets.