by Francis King
Chapter Fourteen
‘Ah, Christine! You’ve come just at the right moment! We’ve been talking about Thomas’s song. This is Chris Reid-Falconer, president of the College musical society,’ – Michael pointed to a stooped, bespectacled youth in a shiny, dark blue serge suit – ‘ who is really quite enthusiastic about it. And this is Nick Meredith, who wants to sing it. He’s also at Balliol.’
Reid-Falconer gave a jerky, little bow, hand to the bridge of his glasses. Meredith turned a handsome, vaguely dissolute face, the protuberant eyes giving it a perpetual look of faint surprise, towards Christine, as he drawled: ‘I’m not sure I’m really the person for the job. But it was a choice between me and the Jew Meyerstein, and I really don’t think that your German pal would regard it as a compliment if a member of the hooked-nose fraternity were to be chosen as his singer.’
‘Thomas wouldn’t have minded in the least. He’s in no way anti-Semitic.’
Meredith raised his eyebrows and grinned. ‘Oh, you bet he is! They all are.’ He was either genuinely unaware of Christine’s indignation or had decided to pretend that he was. ‘Of course just at the moment it’s worth their while to keep their traps shut. I don’t blame them. But if you’d talked to as many as I have –’
‘Oh, I’ve talked to quite as many as you have,’ Michael intervened sharply. ‘I still haven’t met a single confirmed Nazi, not one.’
‘Oh, my dear Michael, when people are in trouble, they tend to say what is likely to get them out of it. Surely you know that?’ From his coolly de haut en bas tone it might have been he who was the tutor and Michael the student. ‘You’re a good, old-fashioned liberal, so of course they trim their sails accordingly. Whereas to me – since I’m none of those things – they are, well, shall we say, a little more frank.’
‘Are you saying that all my Germans lie to me?’
Meredith ran fingers through his thick, corrugated blond hair. ‘You can accuse them of that if you like. But ‘‘lie” has such a whiff of moral disapproval. Let’s face it. If our positions were reversed, with our being wholly at the mercy of the Germans instead of the other way about, well, I wonder how many of us would have the courage to a say a good word of the Jews – or a bad word of the Holocaust?’
‘Oh, Nick!’ Hand once again to spectacles, Reid-Falconer cleared his throat. ‘Why do you always have to be so perverse – and silly?’ His disagreement was no more than mildly plaintive. ‘Why do you keep spouting the very ideas that caused the war?’
Meredith swung his legs over an arm of his chair, and looked down at his suede shoes as though inspecting them for any scuffing. ‘Come on, come on! Or – better – come off it! Ideas never cause wars. If only they did! What causes wars is economic necessity or economic greed. You’re clever enough – and educated enough – to know that, dear boy.’
Reid-Falconer lowered his head, frowning in exasperation. Then he looked up. ‘Oh, I don’t want a row. You know how I hate them. And I’m sure Michael doesn’t want to have one, or hear one, either. But all you say makes such a farce out of those years of horror – and sacrifice – and suffering. How can you, Nick?’
‘Those years were a farce anyway.’
‘The war a farce!’ Christine exclaimed.
‘Of a particularly dismal kind – yes. Admittedly not the sort of sunny, imbecilic, Tom Walls and Ralph Lynn farce that used to fill the dear old Aldwych Theatre.’ Meredith now turned back to Reid-Falconer, like a cat pouncing on a fledgling. ‘Incidentally, Chris, before we continue to argue about the war, let me remind you that I served in it and you didn’t.’
Reid-Falconer drew himself up until he was almost on tiptoe, with arms held rigid to his sides, as though at a challenge to a fight. His prominent Adam’s apple jerked up and subsided. ‘ That was hardly my fault.’
‘Of course not! No fault at all.’ The tone was brutal in its sarcasm.
‘Lets drop this subject,’ Michael interposed.
But Meredith continued, in the same coolly derisive voice as before: ‘I’m sure, dear chap, that you did everything expected of you. Burrowing away at your research – if one can burrow away at a retort or a test tube. Firewatching on the roof of Bodley. First-aid lessons. And so forth, and so forth. An admirable war! But when you tell me why I fought it – why I was at Dunkirk, Salerno and Normandy – I just want to say ‘‘Oh, bloody well, fuck off, dearie!”’
Christine had hoped that Michael would intervene. When unaccountably he failed to do so, she did so herself. ‘If you feel as you do, why on earth did you fight?’
‘Oh, God knows! I was clever enough to get exemption as a conchie at a tribunal, I imagine. But, well, I was a bloody fool and I never tried. At eighteen one thinks that that sort of bloodbath is going to be as much fun as a dive into a swimming pool during a heatwave. And yes, I must admit, a lot of it was fun. And there’s also the herd instinct – isn’t there? The young can rarely resist it.’
Reid-Falconer, body slumped, was staring gloomily into the fire. Suddenly Meredith leapt to his feet with a crow of laughter, rushed at him, and began to thump him on the back as though he were burping a baby. ‘Cheer up, old chap! I’m not really as rotten as you think.’
Reid-Falconer ducked away from under Meredith’s arm and stood up. He turned to Michael. ‘I must be getting back to the labs.’ He gave a little, formal bow. I apologise for having started this argument in your rooms. Please forgive me.’
‘Oh, don’t worry! Don’t worry! In any case, Nick started it, not you.’ Michael looked over to Meredith and, in a voice the geniality of which exasperated Christine, told him: ‘And now, Nick, perhaps youd better go too.’ He laughed. ‘ For today I think I’ve had enough of you.’
‘You can never have enough of a good thing. But no matter. I’ll toddle off to White’s for a drink.’
Once alone with Michael, Christine turned on him. ‘You treated all that disgusting nonsense as though it were just a joke. How could you? How could you?’
‘Oh, you really mustn’t take him too seriously. The young always exaggerate so much. Not you, but most of them. Dear Nick can be utterly maddening. As he’s just shown. Amazingly for someone so intelligent, he’s become besotted with Mosley. The only thing is to laugh at his childish antics.’
‘I wish I could.’
‘How about a glass of sherry? I got this really rather good Tio Pepe from the Buttery. Unobtainable for ages.’ He began to pour out the sherry, then looked up with a smile, decanter in hand. ‘The funny thing is that there’s really something attractive about Nick – underneath all that Byronic posing and posturing. Isn’t there?’
She took the glass that he was now holding out to her, and firmly shook her head. ‘Balls!’
Disconcerted by her vehemence, he sipped from his glass. ‘He has a very distinguished war record. He sings well, has a blue for cricket. He is also – so John Austen tells me – quite a good philosopher. And he has looks and charm, as I’m sure you’d agree. If only he hadn’t got mixed up with all this Mosley business! That really worries me.’
‘I love your fatherly attitude to your pupils – even the most repellent of them. Women dons are never really motherly. They regard one as no more than a possible name high up on an Honours list.’
‘Oh, I’m sure Mrs Dunne must take a motherly interest in you.’
‘Don’t you believe it!’
‘The last time I ran into her, she did nothing but talk about you.’
‘Really?’
‘She said you were the most brilliant pupil she’d had since – oh, I can’t remember whom, but it was ages back.’
‘Exactly. That proves my point. So long as she thought I might win a fellowship, she was interested in me. But now!’
‘What’s happened between you both? Haven’t you been a good girl?’
‘Oh, I don’t know. I don’t seem to be able to concentrate this term. I suppose I’m losing interest.’
‘What’s the trouble? What’s on yo
ur mind?’
She shrugged and turned her head away. She might confide in him another time but she was in no mood to do so now.
He crossed over to his desk and picked up the two sheets of paper on which Thomas had written out his setting of Isaac Rosenberg’s ‘Returning We Hear the Larks.’ It was Christine who had suggested both the poem to him and the performance to the Balliol Music Society. He smiled as he tapped the sheets against his chin. ‘I’m glad they’re going to do this. It may encourage poor old Thomas to embark on something else. I wonder if Nick realised that the poem was by a member of what he calls the hooked-nose fraternity! He again looked down at the score, absorbed. ‘Yes. It’s good. Not all that distinctive but he’s really got something. If only he doesn’t lose it picking Brussels sprouts that no one likes or digging that wretched road that no one needs or wants. He should have some lessons of course. Perhaps Tommy Armstrong – I might have a word with him. The trouble is that those poor devils have so little spare time – and what they have is rarely to themselves.’ He threw the sheets down and began to fuss over the ink-bottles and pens on his desk. ‘ I suppose Thomas uses every spare moment he’s got at your piano. It’s an age since I saw him.’
‘He was thinking of coming here next Sunday,’ Christine lied.
‘Then I hope you’ll come too. I look forward to that. Without him and Klaus my weekend gatherings have now become really rather dreary. Ludwig will bring that ghastly Miss Bollinger, and last week a man turned up who had been a hairdresser in Berlin and was so camp that he might have been the Jerry equivalent of one of the performers in those forces drag-shows – Soldiers in Skirts or Fig Leaves and Apple Sauce, you know the sort of thing! He took Christine’s glass from her and began to refill it. ‘By the way, do you ever see Thomas’s chum – Horst?’
She shook her head. ‘No. Why? Do you?’
‘An odd thing happened. He came here last Sunday – late, when the others had gone. I’ve been meaning to tell you about it.’
She felt a sudden foreboding. ‘And?’
‘There was something frightening about him – though he was in no way aggressive or rude – as there is about so many people with that degree of self-control. He asked for Thomas, that was his reason for coming – or so he said. When I told him that I hadn’t seen him for weeks, he seemed to imply that I’d hidden him somewhere. Then he said he wanted to talk to me, so I asked him to sit down. But he wouldn’t do that, so we both remained standing – not the best position from which to conduct an amiable conversation. He told me he was worried about Thomas – quite why he didn’t really make clear – and in some way he seemed to imply that I was to blame. It was my ‘‘influence” – that was the word he used – as far as I could gather.’
‘Your influence?’
‘Well, you can see at once how crazy all of it was. When I repeated that it was weeks, literally weeks, since Thomas had been here, it was obvious that he didn’t believe me. In fact, he as good as told me I was lying.’
‘And what did you say to that?’ Her foreboding had intensified.
‘Well, I told him that, as far as I knew, he spent the weekends over at your place, practising the piano.’
‘You told him that?’
‘Yes. Does it matter? I’m only surprised that Thomas had never told him himself. They always seemed so close.’
‘And how did he respond?’
‘Well, at first he said that he didn’t believe me. So I just shrugged my shoulders and said ‘‘Well, why don’t you ask Thomas then?” That shut him up. All through the interview his face had been totally expressionless – rather alarming. It remained like that as he bowed – clicking his heels in that awful German manner – apologised for causing me trouble, thanked me, and left.’
‘How strange!’
‘Very. What I can’t understand is why Thomas never told him about using your piano so often? Why did it have to be secret? You know, I have a hunch. I think that Thomas may have told him that he was coming here when he was really going over to you.’
‘Why on earth should he do that?’
‘Search me!’
‘Oh, I do wish you hadn’t said anything about the visits to me! The last thing I want is a visit from him.’
‘Perhaps that was a mistake. Sorry, old girl. But you and I both tend to tell the truth. It comes naturally to us. Anyway, I was so anxious to clear myself. At your expense, I’m afraid. Typically selfish of me! Anyway we must have a word with Thomas about it all.’
‘Do you really think we should?’ Secretly she had already resolved to question Thomas; but she did not want Michael also to be involved. ‘One’s got to be so careful. I mean, small things take on so much importance for them. Living cooped up like that, isolated, away from their familiar worlds. A recipe for paranoia, I’d have thought. You know what I mean?’
‘Good God, yes! Because that’s exactly what I felt when Horst was grilling me – aha, paranoia! So stiff, so outwardly polite, but with such an obsessive intensity over something so trivial. Yes, perhaps it would be better if we didn’t get involved.’ He crossed over to the window, glass in hand, and looked out. ‘Amazing! I can see the first snowdrops.’
She went across to join him. He pointed. ‘There – under that tree.’
‘Yes, yes!’
‘They are really rather mean little flowers, I always feel. But the first sight of them makes me happy. It announces that this ghastly winter must at last be nearly over. Do you know what John Clare called them? ‘‘The gentle midwives of the nascent year’’. Rather absurd. But I like it.’
As they returned to their seats, she asked, ‘What news of Klaus?’ At unexpected moments – boarding a bus, brushing her teeth, opening a newspaper – she had often thought of him.
‘Klaus? Oh, I have a letter from him somewhere here.’ He pulled out his wallet and then replaced it. ‘ It’s in German, so there isn’t much point in showing it to you. In any case he gives so little news. Says he hopes to be back in a week or two. A week or two! Poor Klaus. More like a year or two, I’d guess. They’ve sent him to a military sanatorium somewhere in Scotland. I want to visit him, but of course there are the usual difficulties with red tape. Everyone kind and helpful but, well, as they keep telling me, I’m ‘‘not family’’. As though any of his family could ever get here, even if I sent them the fare. Still, I hope to fiddle it somehow or other – the usual strings!’
‘I’m sure you’ll succeed. You have so many strings and you always pull them so skilfully. Have you heard what’s wrong with him?’
‘What I thought. TB.’
‘Oh, dear! That’s awful. Even those two letters fill me with dread. Mother died of it so quickly and so horribly.’
‘I want to find out what are his chances. I suppose I’ll have to wait until I can speak to the doctor in Scotland. If I can ever do that.’
‘How sad it all is!’
‘Yes. Sad. Sad.’ He was staring out over her shoulder, his face frozen. ‘ I might no longer be here,’ she thought.
On an impulse, she leant forward and touched him on a knee. He started as if aroused from a dream. ‘ May I ask you something private? Don’t answer if you don’t want to do so.’
‘Why not?’ His voice and his body both seemed to sink under a burden of overwhelming fatigue. ‘ We have never had any secrets between us. That’s why I’ve always so much valued our friendship. I’ve always had to keep so many secrets from others. So – what is it?’ he prompted, sensing her hesitation.
‘Well … Am I right in thinking you’ve fallen for Klaus?’
‘I love him. Yes.’ The words were chilling in their undramatic directness and desolation. ‘But what use is it? I could never tell him. The poor creature would be horrified. He might even beat me up. In any case, how could we have any sort of life together? Can you imagine him coming with me to listen to Walton at the Sheldonian or to look at Piper at the Ashmolean? And, with no English, what work could he do? Oh, he’d hate it he
re. So, that’s that.’ He tapped his knees each with a hand, a gesture of finality.
‘Oh, Michael, I feel so sorry for you.’
Mouth compressed into a line, he again stared out over her shoulder with woebegone eyes.
‘Do you know, for a time I thought it was Thomas in whom you were interested.’
He stared at her, and then shook himself and even managed a fleeting smile. ‘Not a chance. Though of course it would have been far easier if it had been Thomas and not Klaus. We’d have been able to have some sort of life together – if he had wanted that. But of course he wouldn’t have, not in the least. Yes, I’m fond of him, who wouldn’t be? But, sadly – even if he were interested, which he certainly isn’t – he’s just not my type. You must know what my type is by now. Don’t you remember how besotted I was with your father’s gardener? I once even helped him empty a cesspit – something I’d never done before and, thankfully, have never had to do since. And yet, do you know, at this precise moment his name totally escapes me. Well, that’s everlasting love for you.’
‘Tony. That was his name – Tony Blythe.’
‘Yes. Tony. What wasted hours, and wasted presents!’
Soon after that, she got up to go.
‘Goodbye, old girl,’ he said, suddenly jolly. ‘Your friendship has always meant a lot to me – even if we hardly ever agree about a single thing.’
‘As yours to me.’
Like many close intimates, whether members of the same family or friends, he and she were undemonstrative with each other. But now she put her arms around him and kissed him first on one cheek and then the other. She smelled Caron Pour Un Homme – at once thinking ‘Funny – Peter uses that.’ She felt the cold, smooth flesh on her lips.
Chapter Fifteen
How well Christine knew the first sign. ‘ So it’s you again,’ she felt like saying to the small, jagged piece of glass that had appeared in the centre of the book. The glass began to revolve with hypnotic rapidity; it grew and grew. Now came that moment of useless panic when her eyes went from the book to the window, from the window to its curtains, from the curtains to the stove, in the hope that somewhere they might alight on a place where the glass did not exist. But that was useless. The glass was already covering and distorting everything about her. She glanced across at the librarian and found that it had covered the whole of the right side of his face; her own hand seemed unaccountably to have lost two of its fingers; and now, as she stared once again at the book, she could see only a blurred swirl of letters. Yes, it was one of the usual, dreaded attacks. Only a moment now, and she would feel the invisible thumb pressing on the right eyeball. Ah, there it was. Again and yet again the nerves behind the eye contracted in agony.