For Love or Money (13 page)

David frowned.

‘I don’t often get the chance, they just go on bickering the whole time.’

‘Can’t you change your
room?’
said Andrew 
sympathetically
,
responding to the more serious
mood.

‘No, they’d say that Mummy pulled strings or something. Last
term
Prindle’s mother asked if
he
could have a bigger
bed
and
he
never heard the
end
of it when the thing
arrived
.
’

‘
I had
hell
like that
too
,
’
said Andrew
,
making up the story as
he
went along, ‘I lived in a study with three other people. One had a
tape-recorder,
one a wireless, the other a cello and I had a gramophone
.
It was absolute
murder
.
’

‘The worst thing of all is the
food
that
gets
left
around. I can’t put anything down in the place without getting grease or
jam
all over
it
.
’

‘
I always found the smell terrible
too
,
’
said Andrew
embroidering
again. He had always been a
day-boy
and a
very-well-looked-af
ter
one at that
.

‘Yes,
the smell
gets
me down
too;
Hotson
always comes in after
rugger
and
sits
round before having a
shower
.
’

Andrew remembered David’s performance of a week
ago
with pleasure. He had never been good at games himself.
Rather a ‘swot’ really; but David was the complete man, sensitive with it. Anxiously he looked at him. He should never have brought up his room-mates. It was going to be hard to get the conversation back on to a more frivolous level again. Fortunately they were coming to Coombe
Bassett
and the tea-rooms would provide other topics of conversation. They could talk about the other people and try and guess what they did from their clothes.

‘What’s this village called?’ said David, breaking a few moments of silence.

‘Coombe Bassett; worthy of a “Beautiful Britain”
calendar
photograph. Note the Gothic church and
fourteenth-century
cottages and over there, lichened with age, is an inhabitant …’

David tried to smile as he fought with his memory. It had been here hadn’t it, about two years ago, that he, George and Mummy had come? And it had been for tea then, too.

‘Is the name of the tea-rooms The Green Woodpecker?’ he asked suddenly.

‘Yes. Why, have you been here before? I hope the place is all right. I’ve only driven past myself.’

Andrew looked at him apprehensively. Perhaps the ‘White Hart’ at Stockhampton would have been better.

‘I came here with my mother once. I can’t remember what the tea was like.’

But the tablecloths had been blue-and-white check and the waitress had had a limp. George had said, ‘why can’t the damn woman hurry’ and then he’d noticed her limp. His mother had wondered why there should be a cuckoo clock in a tea-rooms called The Green Woodpecker. ‘There ought to be a woodpecker clock, oughtn’t there dear.’ David winced at the memory of it. She could be so stupid.

Andrew held the door open for David. A couple of steps led down into a large room filled with a number of tables. David had been right about the blue-and-white tablecloths. The cuckoo clock was still there also.

Andrew saw that he would have to give up his idea of talking about the other customers. The place was empty.

‘How about the one in the corner,’ he said cheerfully,
indicating a table on the other side of the room. Their feet sounded noisily on the uneven oak floorboards. The room was dark and badly lit. They sat down and Andrew leant out to draw the curtains of the window next to them.

‘I could have done that,’ came an irritated voice from a hatch in the middle of the opposite wall.

‘Very friendly, I must say,’ said Andrew. ‘Anybody might think I’d spat on the table.’

He said this loudly enough to be heard. David looked over anxiously at the hatch. In his embarrassment he started fiddling with the cutlery in front of him. They waited for several minutes in silence.

‘Pretty quick service,’ Andrew said as loudly as before.

‘I think she’s a cripple,’ David replied softly, hoping that this would make him lower his voice. It had the reverse effect.

‘I bet the floor plays hell with her joints.’

David went on fiddling with a knife. Andrew looked at him despairingly. Crofts wasn’t the only one without a sense of humour. He ought to have looked inside the place before bringing David. Enough to depress anybody he thought sourly.

At last the waitress was limping towards them. She slammed the tray down in front of them. A few biscuits and a couple of meanly buttered bits of toast was the feast that Andrew saw before him. He controlled his anger and asked whether it was possible to have a cream tea. He was told that he was lucky to get toast out of season. David seemed
thoroughly
indifferent. Andrew decided not to swear at her as she retreated. Instead he said to David:

‘I expect I’d be bad-tempered if I had to carry trays with a limp like that.’

‘Me too,’ said David, less distantly. Why, why, he was
asking
, did he have to have been there before? Just George, Mummy and himself only two tables away. It had been summer and
they
had had cream tea. George had looked out of the same window and said, pointing at the cottages
opposite
, ‘All very pretty but just one hydrogen bomb …’ Mummy had told him not to be so silly on such a lovely day
and had given him another cream-covered scone. In spite of hydrogen bombs he remembered being happy, but now everything had changed. School made one forget, but the problem was still there, just as it had been there in the train. He took a large bite out of his piece of toast. He looked up to see Andrew staring at him.

‘Aren’t you feeling well?’ he asked softly.

‘No, no, I’m all right, really. I’m an awful day-dreamer that’s all.’

Then after tea they’d gone to see the house where that famous writer used to live and George had managed to knock over an ink-well that hadn’t been moved since the great man died. But Mummy had been terribly apologetic to the guide, who’d said that it didn’t matter. She was so good like that. David felt suddenly like crying. He pressed his nails into the palms of his hands to try and stop himself, but it was no good. He looked down at the floor as though searching for his napkin.

‘It’s here,’ said Andrew pointing at the still unfolded triangle of white paper on the table by David’s plate. As David looked up to take it his eyes caught Andrew’s.

‘What is it?’ said Andrew gently. ‘You’ll probably feel better if you tell somebody.

David shook his head.

‘I can’t, really I can’t.’

But five minutes later he did. He forgot the waitress and the hatch in the wall, he forgot to try and stop his tears. He told him about the rabbits, about last Christmas, about his mother’s drinking, about Dr. Everett, about Sally.

 *

Three-quarters of an hour later the waitress came in again.

‘I’m shutting up now, so if you don’t mind …’ she nodded in the direction of the door.

Andrew desperately wanted to put his arm round him as they walked towards the door. As David stepped out into the empty street he heard the cuckoo clock mocking him,
‘Cuckoo … cuckoo … cuckoo …’ Six times, Andrew looked at his watch. Had they really been there for two hours.

As they walked towards the car, David didn’t dare look at Andrew, he didn’t know whether to feel relieved or ashamed. He had been so understanding and sympathetic and yet hadn’t burdened him with easy consolation or cheap words of comfort.

If only I could have said something, Andrew was thinking, as he opened the driving-seat door. But there was nothing he could say. He felt helpless, if only he had suffered as a child. The only way he could hope to show his sympathy was through physical contact and that was out of the question … out of the question, out of the question.

 *

It was now completely dark. After a few miles Andrew realised that he had taken a wrong turning. They would have to stop and look at a map. In the darkness Andrew groped along the shelf under the dashboard. As he leant over to David’s side of the car he slipped and felt his hand fall on David’s knee. He started to withdraw it but suddenly felt it clasped.

What happened next Andrew found it hard to reconstruct a couple of seconds afterwards. He had been supporting his weight with his left arm resting on the back of David’s seat when he leant over. Had he meant that arm to slip? Or had he really lost his balance? As his arm had left the back of the seat and lighted on David’s shoulder, Andrew’s cheek touched his. David instantly snatched away his hand and recoiled against the door.

‘Oh my God, my God,’ moaned Andrew.

The motor was still throbbing, otherwise there was no sound. Andrew could sense David’s tenseness almost
physically
. What could he do, pretend it hadn’t happened? After all, couldn’t a momentary mistake be wiped out by refusing to acknowledge it?

‘Funny, I could have sworn there was a map in here. But I suppose we can ask the way at the next house.’ There was no
reply. Andrew went on, ‘anyway, we’d better be pressing on or we’ll be late for supper.’

The engine sounded louder to Andrew than it had ever done, as he let out the clutch. Ten minutes later they came to a signpost which showed them the right road. David had still not spoken. Andrew was beginning to panic. Suppose he went straight up to Crofts and said that he had been assaulted. In his present state of mind he might do anything. Andrew tried again.

‘Stupid that these cars don’t have interior lighting. If they did, there’d be no need for groping about in the dark
looking
for things.’

‘I’d rather you drove a bit slower,’ was the only reply he got. Andrew bit his lip. Of course he’d deny it if any
allegations
were made. The whole thing had been a
misunderstanding
, anybody presented with the facts would see that. Or would they? If there was any chance of Crofts getting to know about it, oughtn’t he to get there before David? Or would that look like self-confessed guilt?

When David finally spoke he was no longer angry.

‘I trusted you. After all I told you, then you go and do … that,’ he brought out after a pause. ‘I feel such a fool. I really thought that I’d found somebody, but I ought to have known better. I can’t touch anything without making it go wrong.’

Andrew was afraid that he was going to cry again, but he need not have worried. After another lengthy silence they were nearly at the school gates. Andrew was now in no doubt as to how David had interpreted what had happened. If he was to get any promises of silence out of him, he would have to admit that something had really taken place.

They were getting out of the car. David turned to Andrew,

‘I won’t tell anybody.’

Andrew fought for words to defend himself with but none came. In the end he merely nodded his head and walked away in the direction of the Common Room. How the hell would he be able to go on teaching him after this? Even if he didn’t go to Crofts, mightn’t it get to him through rumours?
Perhaps he would have to forestall any chances of this. Stupid boy, he was leaving him little choice.

 *

David decided to miss supper, instead he went up to his study, where he was certain of being alone for the next
half-hour
. He slumped down into the best arm-chair and put his head in his hands. Strangely enough he did not feel too downcast. If this business had been humiliating and
disgusting
, it had shown him the way to deal with his other problem: the same way, by saying nothing. Both George and Andrew were to be spared.

 *

Nevertheless at that moment Matthews was making his way towards the housemaster’s study.

S
TEVEN
hurried on through the fog. What had the man said? Was it second on the right or third? Must be clean out of my mind going to a party on a night like this. It could wait till tomorrow, but Christ it was three weeks since he’d gone to London and still no word. How could it have failed? And yet there had been no word from home either. Steven felt the most terrible need to speak to Robert and speak to him as soon as possible.

He stopped for a moment, swore, and then started to
retrace
his steps. This must be the one. He turned and began looking at the numbers. Why did street-numbering always have to be done by lunatics? After a few more yards he noticed a number of parked cars and heard the mushy sound of dance music rising weakly from a basement.

He reached the gate and looked at a group of people in front of the door. Badly dressed men clutching badly dressed girls, moths flocking to the nearest evening candle. Turn on a gramophone and see them come slavering for bad drink and bad music. Steven arrogantly pushed his way to the front of the group to find his way barred by the man giving the party. A couple of bottle-bearing thugs were being turned away. Steven watched them shambling off.

‘I don’t care if you’ve got bishop’s urine in those bottles,’ the host said magnanimously to another uninvited guest. Then turning to Steven:

‘I don’t believe I’ve had the pleasure …’

‘Nor do I. Robert told me you wouldn’t mind my coming.’

‘Well, if Robert told you perhaps …’

But Steven had already pushed inside. Most of the party seemed to be sitting on the stairs. He could see no sign of
Robert there, so started to pick his way down the stairs. Leaving a rustle of resentful murmuring in his wake, he finally emerged in the basement. Just one room and packed with sweating heaving bodies, Steven groaned, as he leant against the door-frame. Why couldn’t Robert go to slightly more civilised parties? The drinks table was fortunately just to the left. One of the dancing masses had been good enough to leave a bottle of whisky there until he returned. A
half-bottle
: it fitted into Steven’s pocket tidily. Steven felt better tempered as he fought his way across the room towards a sofa in front of the window. Short of hanging from the ceiling, staying in one place seemed the best and least energetic way of finding Robert. When he arrived at the sofa he was amazed to find it untenanted. He found a glass on the floor and poured himself a large one. After several more drinks a red-faced young man and his girl plumped down next to him. The girl had somehow forced her arms into a tight pair of elbow-length gloves. Steven noticed the pallid roll of flesh at the top of each glove. Still, not a bad face. He looked at her more closely as he refilled his glass: china-blue eyes and long fair hair.

‘Hello, Mr. Lonely,’ she slurred, looking at Steven. Then added sympathetically, ‘Don’t you like dancing?’

‘I’m a homosexual actually,’ Steven smiled charmingly.

The red-faced man cut in. ‘I can’t place your face.’

‘Can’t face yours,’ said Steven, still smiling.

‘I hope you’re not trying to take the piss.’

‘Do have some of mine,’ Steven held out the whisky bottle in red-face’s direction.

‘Where did you get that bottle?’

‘You don’t have to shout. I bought it in a wine merchants.’

‘I don’t believe you.’

Red-face was on his feet. Steven wondered whether he was going to hit him. Probably not; didn’t look the sort.

‘If you think I got hold of it here, I suggest that nobody would be stupid enough to leave such precious …’

‘Who invited you?’

But the girl with the china-blue eyes lost patience before Steven did.

‘Charles, go and get me a drink, please. Be a dear.’

Steven watched him unwillingly pushing through the dancers. Then he turned to his next-door neighbour.

‘Thank you, deliverer mine,’ he said.

‘Not at all. Anything for peace and quiet.’

‘So you come to parties for it?’

‘You’re here too.’

Steven looked at her more appreciatively. Absently he reached for his bottle and this time didn’t bother with the glass. Robert seemed infinitely remote. Probably hadn’t come anyway. What the hell. Now that he was here might as well try and enjoy himself. None of Sarah’s friends were likely to be there. Red-face would be back soon. Better do something.

‘How about a dance before your friend comes back?’

‘He bought me dinner.’

‘A unique achievement. I expect I could do the same when you feel a few empty spaces.’ Steven held out his hand. ‘What’s your name?’

‘Mary.’

‘Come on then, Mary.’

Feebly resisting, she allowed him to pull her up from the sofa. Over his shoulder he could see red-face, drink in hand. None too soon. Deftly he steered her towards the middle of the room. The music seemed unaccountably louder there. Just as well really, no need to talk now. Lazily Steven rested his cheek against hers. She rubbed her face against his. Slowly their mouths moved towards each other. A big gooey sweet for a good boy, thought Steven contentedly. Just at that moment through several strands of flaxen hair he caught sight of Robert. He groaned inwardly. There would almost certainly be a moral lecture tomorrow.

‘Friends make me sick,’ said Steven confidentially.

‘Me too,’ replied Mary and then, ‘Give us another kiss.’

 *

At two o’clock, Steven and Mary were walking arm in arm towards the centre of town.

‘Aren’t you a friend of Sarah Twiss?’ Mary said
unexpectedly
.

Steven had been watching the uncertain homeward ditherings of a drunk on the other side of the street.

‘Yes,’ he said absently. ‘Actually I’m her fiancé. Didn’t you notice the little flap on my lapel. Written with my own hands: “E
NGAGED
”, reserved for betrothed couples and public lavatories.’

‘If I wasn’t drunk I’d call you a bastard.’

‘A privilege I’m not likely to enjoy,’ said Steven, abruptly turning left in the direction of his college.

 *

‘Yes, I know I behaved disgustingly,’ said Steven shutting the door of Robert’s room behind him.

Robert returned no answer from the window-seat.

‘Got any cornflakes?’ went on Steven, walking over to the cupboard.

‘The milk’s off.’

‘No bread either, I suppose, and only revolting instant coffee.’

‘How did you guess?’

Steven fastened his dressing-gown girdle more securely round him. Then sitting on the arm of a chair:

‘Come on then, let’s be having you.’

‘One day they’ll take you away for crimes committed against yourself,’ said Robert thoughtfully.

‘I’ll plead diminished responsibility and force of
circumstances
. You didn’t honestly expect me to just sit there and get drunk all on my sweet little own? Solitary drinkers are pathetic you know.’

‘And if Sarah hears about it?’

‘Stop being so bloody naïve. Anyway she won’t. I
had
come to ask your advice but I don’t think I’ll be needing it after all.’

‘Give me a handkerchief. I think I’m going to wet myself with grief.’

‘Who’s been giving you lessons in repartee?’

‘I have talked to you in the past.’

Steven got up and walked over to the fire. Flicking through Robert’s invitations on the mantelpiece he said:

‘I’ve decided to go home next Saturday and I think I’ll take Sarah too.’

‘Think the change of air will do her good?’

‘No, just a bit of elementary blackmail. “Stand and
deliver
, here’s my fiancée, we’re very much in love.” Also little brother is home for his half-term, so I feel that a word in his ear would not come amiss.’

‘It’ll be rather unfortunate if you can’t get him to spill the beans.’

‘That’s a risk I’m afraid I shall have to take.’

‘You might find yourself marrying her out of pique if you can’t get what you want.’

Steven frowned.

‘Well, there’ll be a certain self-righteous pleasure in that.’

‘One that might diminish with the years.’

‘Haven’t I told you I’m fond of her? I’ve been going out with her for the last four months. She doesn’t annoy me. She doesn’t moralise and what’s more she’s good in bed.’

Robert had turned his back and was looking out of the window. After a pause he said softly:

‘The only thing is that you don’t love her.’

‘You’ve been seeing too many films recently. Talk to an Arab about love. If they hadn’t had so much free time on their hands in medieval France …’

‘Nevertheless, scientists have decided that we are what we are because of our conditioning.’

‘Two undergraduates talk about the important problems in life. He felt the warm blood flowing from the wound and knew that this was life, that the throbbing pulsing reality …’

‘Do shut up. Now that I’ve restored your self-confidence I’ll be going to a lecture. That is if you don’t mind. If you like I’ll sport the oak so that nobody disturbs your
conversation
.’

‘Thanks.’

When Robert had left the room, Steven went over to the
bookcase and picked out a small book:
The
Collins
English
Gem
Dictionary
. Slowly he read out loud:

‘“love, (
noun
) warm affection; sexual passion; sweetheart; score of nothing; (
verb
transitive
) delight in.”’ His eye passed further down the definition, ‘“love-bird …
loving-cup
… love-in-a-mist …”’

 *

He was not laughing though when he sat down on the window-seat and looked out across the quad.

‘Oxford 1960, Oxford 1960,’ he muttered to himself.