Nothing But the Truth

by Sam Lock

  At ten o’clock that night, Arnold began to prepare for his little ‘gathering’, knowing that none of his guests would be arriving before ten-thirty or gone; except Lottie, perhaps, who was usually early; but whose presence was always welcome, since she was so neat and tidy in her ways, and would arrange the table for him with care.

  ‘I’ve got in a piece of Dolcelatte, for a change,’ Arnold would tell her when she arrived, which was a great treat in those days, when the shops as yet weren’t flooded with continental delicacies.

  ‘Oh, I don’t like it,’ said Lottie flatly. ‘Give me a good old piece of English cheese any day. Like Stilton, I mean. It’s the best there is in the world. Most English things are. I don’t know why there should be all this clamour for stuff from abroad.’

  ‘Well, there’s no Stilton for you tonight, darling,’ Arnold told her. ‘You’ll have to make do with Cheddar.’

  ‘Is it a good one?’ asked Lottie, as she set out a number of plates and glasses upon the lace-edged cloth that Arnold had just spread over a table top.

  ‘It’s just Cheddar, dear,’ answered Arnold, a little sharply. ‘Whether it’s good or not doesn’t come into it.’

  Lottie ignored this remark, as she ignored so much of what Arnold would say. And, on turning to a mirror, occupied herself with checking to see that her make-up was in order.

  ‘Lottie. Do you know who came to see me today?’ asked Arnold.

  ‘God knows. The Queen, I suppose.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Princess Margaret, then.’

  ‘No – silly! Someone local. Someone we were speaking about only yesterday.’

  ‘Oh! Your neighbour, you mean. The writer. Why did he come to see you?’

  ‘Just to make sure that I was all right – that’s all. Very kind of him, I thought. He seemed different. Different from how he has been of late, that is.’

  ‘In what way?’

  ‘Well – I don’t know. More human, perhaps: or something. More present.’

  ‘Not drunk then, I presume.’

  ‘No! He’s never drunk, Lottie. He drinks a lot, but he’s never drunk.’

  ‘They’re the worst kind,’ remarked Lottie firmly, as if she might be an authority on the subject. ‘The silent types, as they call them … Arnold, is this eyelash of mine coming off, or is it just my imagination?’

  ‘Oh, you fusspot, you. Always going on about your clothes and about your looks. Of course it’s not coming off. It’s too bloody big – that’s what it is; and you’re not used to them, darling. They make you look like a blinking mummy.’

  ‘Oh, shut up,’ answered Lottie. ‘See to the drinks. I’ve done all the glasses for you; rubbed all of them clean. And you do know that Darren is coming, don’t you, Arnold? John and Billy’s friend: the actor, that is … You’ve not yet met him – have you? I don’t like him too much, but it’ll be a change. We’ll have to watch what we say though. Mind our gossip a little. Walls have ears, you know, when there are new people around.’

  ‘What do you think, Lottie?’ asked Arnold, who was now taking out some bottles of wine from beneath the draped table upon which the plates and glasses had been arranged. ‘Shall I put out just three bottles, or four?’

  ‘Oh, three won’t be enough – not for six of us,’ said Lottie. ‘Sophie drinks like a fish, and the boys can knock back a few as well. I don’t know about Darren.’

  ‘Well, I’ll put out four then,’ said Arnold, who was always quick to be influenced by his friend, ‘and if someone brings me a bottle, I’ll just swap theirs for one of mine.’

  And it was as Arnold said this that they heard a sharp ring on the doorbell and guessed that their party was about to begin.

  ‘Lottie, dear – go down and let them in, if you will. It’ll be Sophie, I expect. I don’t know if that Darren is going to be with them, but the boys don’t leave the theatre until ten-thirty, I think they said. And they’ve got their own key in any case.’

  Lottie flicked her fingers and glanced swiftly into the mirror again; then went out and down the stairs; feeling quite pleased with herself and with her appearance. But on opening the main entrance-door of the house she received a shock; for standing there, with blood streaming down his forehead, was Jason.

  ‘Arnold!’ shrieked Lottie, unable to stand the sight of blood, and having retreated into the hallway and then run back to the foot of the staircase.

  ‘Arnold!’ she shrieked a second time, with a look of real horror on her face.

  ‘Lottie, dear, whatever is it?’ Arnold’s voice responded, as he moved with surprising speed, padding in slippered feet onto the landing.

  ‘Arnold! It’s your neighbour. It’s Mister –’

  ‘Callow,’ muttered Jason from beneath lowered eyebrows, and as he stumbled through the open doorway, feeling that he might be about to faint.

  ‘Jason!’ cried Arnold, seeing the blood that Jason was now wiping from his forehead. ‘What have you done? … Lottie! Quickly! Come! Ring for a doctor – for my doctor. His number’s on a card close to the telephone.’

  Lottie obeyed, being glad to escape the scene; and fearing that she might be asked to apply first-aid or something; any form of nursing care being beyond her. And as she went up, Arnold came down; picking his way with caution, but still moving at surprising speed.

  ‘John! Billy!’ Arnold then cried, as he reached the foot of the staircase, and as he saw the two of them step in through the open doorway. ‘Quickly! Come! We need your help.’

  But before John and Billy could adjust to what was happening, Jason had collapsed, and lay in a heap upon the floor.

  ‘John! Help me lift him,’ cried Billy.

  ‘He’s not broken anything, has he?’ John asked Arnold, as he dashed across to Billy.

  ‘We’ll just get him to the stairs,’ Billy then said, not waiting to hear Arnold’s reply; ‘where he can sit;’ which they did; and where Jason half recovered consciousness; enough to mutter something to Arnold about his brother being in town, and to hand him a crumpled sheet of paper upon which he had written the telephone number of the Addisons’, which his mother had given to him that morning.

  ‘We’ve sent for a doctor, Jason,’ said Arnold.

  ‘But we’d still do well to clean that wound, I think,’ said Billy, who was good at such things, and who had now taken out his own handkerchief, which was unused, and had applied it to Jason’s forehead.

  ‘Do you have proper stuff for that?’ John asked Arnold. ‘First-aid stuff, I mean.’

  ‘There’s a box in my bathroom,’ Arnold replied, ‘next to the mirror … And it’s clearly marked!’ he shouted, as John raced up the stairs.

  And so it was that by the time the doctor had arrived, Jason’s wound had been bathed and dressed, and it had become obvious to everyone that, severe though it was, it wasn’t all that deep a cut – more of nasty graze; but with heavy bruising, which the doctor later confirmed. And after a while, when he felt sufficiently composed and had sufficiently recovered from the shock, Jason insisted upon climbing the stairs to his rooms; which he did slowly, and with John and Billy’s help.

  ‘Oh, dear,’ said Arnold to Lottie, who was standing close to him on the landing, watching the three figures ascend, ‘you never know what’s going to happen in life, do you? … Now, Lottie dear, I think I’d better ring and tell his brother. Certainly, someone in the family ought to be told; in case it’s something worse than we’ve been thinking … Come now. Let’s have a drink. The boys will see to it all. I’ll just give his brother a call and it’ll be off our hands for the moment.’

  Jason slept for more than an hour, then half woke, hearing the muted sounds of voices below, and at the same time becoming conscious of the fact that there was someone sitting close to him on his bed.

  ‘Jason?’ he heard a voice say, ‘it’s me. It’s Jeremy.’

  ‘Jeremy?’ replied Jason quietly, not opening his eyes. ‘How? What happened?’

  ‘You must ha
ve fallen; or slipped or something – in the street. A doctor has been. You spoke to him, I gather. He said it’s nothing too serious, thank goodness; although it will be wise, he thinks, to have it looked at in the morning.’

  ‘Ah,’ said Jason, still partly dazed, but now opening his eyes. ‘And how do you come to be here, Jeremy? – to know about it?’

  ‘Your landlord. He rang me at the Addisons’. I had just arrived.’

  ‘Ah,’ said Jason a second time: then muttered to himself, ‘So stupid. So utterly stupid of me.’

  ‘Jason – don’t think about it,’ said his brother. ‘Go back to sleep now – there’s a good chap. I gather your landlord has people in – a small party; but he told me that he’d get rid of them early, and asked me to assure you of that.’

  ‘Ah,’ replied Jason, yet another time, not quite taking in what his brother had said.

  ‘Look, Jason,’ said Jeremy, ‘I’ve got to go. I’ve been here for well over an hour. I’ll ring you in the morning. Or better, I’ll just turn up here at about ten, when the doctor is due … Now,’ he said, lightly patting his brother’s thigh, ‘you just rest – do you hear? You’ve had a nasty blow. You weren’t coshed, I hope. It was a fall, Jason – wasn’t it?’

  Jason smiled. ‘Thanks, Jeremy,’ was all he replied.

  ‘Right then. I’ll be off,’ said Jeremy, ‘and I’ll be back to see you tomorrow … Take it easy now; and if you do need anything, your landlord said that all you have to do is to knock on the floor; if you can’t get to the telephone, that is.’

  Jason smiled again, which Jeremy didn’t quite understand; not knowing that what Jason’s mind was now directed towards was the contents of his new notebooks; that were lying in wait for him, as it were. And that what he would be using them for was the setting down of a few truths: and that nothing – not even the sudden diversion of this accident – could prevent him from fulfilling that idea.

  ‘Goodnight,’ Jeremy called out, as he was about to leave; and as John appeared at the doorway; who had come to make sure that Jason was all right.

  ‘Goodnight,’ answered Jason; for the first time looking his brother directly in the face, and taking in how very well he appeared to be, and how trim and neat and clean-looking; and all the things that he believed that he was not.

  It is of no real consequence to the narrative of this book to know exactly what the cause of Jason’s accident had been – which is just as well, probably, since he seemed intent upon telling it to no one; not even to the doctor when he came to see him the following day: and he would reply to any suggestions that he had perhaps tripped or stumbled in the street with a ‘possibly’, or an ‘I expect so.’

  However, what is of importance to the narrative of this book, is to realise that, to Jason’s mind, all this seemed part of some scheme, and of the changes that were being wrought in his life. Not in his outer life, or in his daily life, for that was little different from how it had always been (in recent years, that is), in that he hadn’t changed his habits much, or met someone new, with whom he had become involved, or to whom he had become attached. But in his inner life; in the life of what we now call the psyche and that used to be called the soul. For he had the feeling – indeed, he had the knowledge – that he was being forced by pressures that were beyond his control, to release thoughts and ideas that were deep, and that he had not touched upon before; and that had been held in check for years – perhaps for all his life. And he felt excited by this, sensing, as he did, that there was danger in it. Danger, that is, in the way that one would sense danger if one were about to release a wild animal from a cage; knowing that it could lead to one’s death, perhaps, or to some savage form of wounding; and yet being conscious, at the same time, that this was a risk he wanted to take: that for some reason, this seemed to be a necessary form of action, and one which, if it became thwarted or suppressed, could bring death to him of a different kind. A death of the spirit, that is, that roots itself in secrecy and lies; and that puts truth on hold; forcing it to wait for its release until some other point in time; and which was something at which, over the years, Jason had become skilled.

  Within minutes of his brother having left the room, and of his having given strong assurances to John that he was comfortable, and that all he was wanting to do was to sleep, Jason had crawled his way to the foot of his bed, in order to collect the ‘first’ of his two notebooks: then he had picked up a pencil with which to write, and had switched on a light close to his pillow.

  ‘I will not tell lies,’ he hurriedly set down – abandoning all habits he had of neatness. ‘Not any longer. Tomorrow, if I can – if I am well enough; or if not that, then the day after, or the day after that again; I will attempt to pursue this line, wherever it might be leading me. This’ (he underlined the word heavily) ‘is a promise I now make myself, and it is one that I vow to keep.’

  VIII

  It was a week later that Jason’s painter-friend, Joseph Mallory, decided that he was going to pay Jason a visit in order to find out how he was; not having been satisfied by what had been said to him on the telephone when Jason had spoken about his accident, and when Jason had refused to meet him out at their local pub.

  Or that was the reason Joseph had given himself for calling; perhaps a deeper one being that he was feeling an urgent need to express himself, and to speak to Jason about his latest ideas (this time, regarding the theatre) and for which he needed Jason as a good listener. In the meantime – meaning, during the week that had just passed – one of the big surprises of Jason’s life had been the quick relationship that had developed between himself and John and Billy; for they were the ones, not Arnold, who had decided to make themselves responsible for him; taking over from Jason’s brother, Jeremy, as it were: who was in London for only a few days; and who had little time to spare in any case.

  At first, Jason had been startled by the intensity of John and Billy’s concern, since it was something with which he was unfamiliar (in men, that is), and that he couldn’t quite understand: the fuss they made over him having been prompted to an extent by the slight disgust they had first felt regarding his lack of domesticity; and by the general disorder of his rooms: the clothes that were strewn here and there: the books that were stacked so messily in bookcases and against walls, and that were piled high and close to the ceilings.

  ‘And he can’t even fry a bloody egg,’ Billy had said one night to John, when they were snuggled up together in bed; and after they had been to visit Jason and had taken him some food.

  ‘Well, neither can I,’ replied John.

  ‘Oh, yes you can; or you could if you had to,’ protested Billy.

  ‘If I had to, yes. I suppose I could.’

  ‘Of course you could. Besides, you can do a lot of other things; like peeling spuds, for instance; or emptying dustbins; and – well, lots of things. Painting and decorating too. You painted the bathroom. That’s more than I can do. And you’re tidy – that’s the important thing. I hate men who aren’t orderly. And his bloody kitchen smells – did you notice it? It’s not been cleaned for weeks, I should think. I’ll have to have a go at it in the morning.’

  ‘Or I will,’ said John.

  ‘Well, you will then. One of us will.’

  For which type of reason, John and Billy were often at Jason’s flat: never calling unannounced (they were sensitive about things like that), but saying to him when they left that they would be back to see him the following day, or the day after perhaps; and at what time; and not taking a no from Jason as an answer.

  ‘We’ll do it until you’re better,’ said John. ‘Until you are well enough. We like you – don’t we, Billy? – we want to do it.’

  As they prepared food for him, and as they cleaned and tidied his rooms, Jason regarded his new friends in astonishment; appreciating the fact that they never disturbed his books; or, if they were forced to move them, always putting them back carefully where they had found them once they were clean.

&nbs
p; Did he really need them? Jason wondered, when, within a few days of his accident, he was at least well enough to be up and about, if not as yet to leave the house; and when he believed that he could quite easily have managed on his own, had he just called on some of his friends; including Joseph, of course, who had missed seeing him, and who would have been more than pleased to help.

  ‘Now, Jason,’ Joseph said when he arrived, ‘tell me. What happened? Come on. Tell me. Did you fall, Jason? Were you drunk? Did someone have a go at you, or what?’

  ‘I really don’t know,’ replied Jason, with a smile that almost became a smirk. ‘Fell, probably … But I wasn’t drunk, Joe,’ he asserted.

  ‘Anyway, you seem right enough now. Who’s been looking after you?’

  ‘Friends of mine. New ones. John and Billy.’

  ‘John and Billy? Who the fuck are they? I’ve never heard of them. Who are they? What do they do?’

  ‘One’s an actor – or would like to be.’

  ‘Oh, yes, well – speaking about acting, Jason, I’ve been thinking about that – or about the stage, rather. All this balls there is at the moment about Bertolt Brecht – the German playwright. Have you heard of him, Jason? Very political, apparently. Very left-wing. There’s a lot of talk about bringing him over here, you know – or bringing his company here, that is. It’s going to revolutionise the British stage, is the claim being made – which is probably rubbish. I mean, I don’t think the theatre is really a place for politics – do you? I mean, it’s got to be about deeper things, more inner things than that; as the Greeks bloody well knew … By the way, Jason, those two blokes: those two new friends of yours; are they a couple of queers; a couple of fairies?’

  ‘I really don’t know,’ replied Jason. ‘Perhaps.’