For Love or Money (6 page)

‘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.

T
ERM
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.

‘Wassat.’

‘Me.’

Sarah was slim and small. Almost everything about her was small, her waist, her voice, her pleasantly formed lips, even her shoes. Only her grey eyes were large.

‘Oh, it’s you.’

She came over and sat on the bed.

‘How was Barnard?’

‘Hell, absolute offal.’

‘You don’t look upset,’ she slipped a hand through his hair.

‘No, I had a letter.’

‘Yes.’ She had tensed. Steven smirked.

‘From a very dear friend.’

‘If you’re trying to make me feel jealous …’

‘I’m doing pretty well … quite, quite … in fact I was going to tell you that this very dear friend is sorting out all my problems.’

‘Come on, out with it then,’ she jabbed at the bedclothes playfully. Clearly it wasn’t another girl.

‘Ah, my vision in black, this is a dark, dark secret.’

She pursed her mouth into a small circle and turned away from him.

‘Well, I won’t bother you then.’

‘Good.’

Her back turned, he leapt out of bed and into a
dressing-gown
. Next he ripped back the curtains.

‘The sun, the sun,’ he yelled, ‘Miss Twiss, Miss Twiss, the sun is shining, God has sent good news, and I’m in love.’

She looked at him dubiously after this outburst.

‘So?’

‘I’ve told you.’

Under his dressing-gown he slipped on a pair of pants and then some trousers. Running over to the wash-basin he seized a towel and draped it round him.

‘Can Caesar tell a lie?’ he boomed.

‘Steven, you’ve only just got up …’

‘Sarah, my empress, don’t I look just a teeny weeny bit like Nero?’ a hunched be-toga’d Steven croaked, preening himself over by the mirror.

‘You’re quite fundamentally, absolutely impossible,’ she went over to him and slipped her arms round his neck. He let the towel fall.

‘Sarah,’ no trace of humour was in his voice now, ‘… Sarah, sometimes I could almost marry you.’

He watched her expression change. Apparently the
forbidden
word had been spoken. A small tear appeared at the corner of each eye, soon they were streaming down her cheeks. She broke away from him and sank down on the bed. With her head between her knees, her whole body shook in spasms. Steven went on
dressing
. He leered at his reflection in the mirror … on
balance
it had been a pretty satisfactory morning. He turned to her. Then walking over to the bed he put his arms round her.

‘To make a joke of that …’ she managed to say.

‘But don’t you understand? I’m serious, Sarah … perhaps it might be a good idea.’

‘You’ve only known me four months,’ she looked up, mascara was streaked down her cheeks in dirty lines. Steven turned away.

‘There’s nothing exceptional in that.’

Of course it had only been four months but he felt as sure of her as he could be. She at least—the Lord only knew why—loved him more than anybody he had ever known. Granted there had already been scenes, her clinging, him angry and indifferent. But marriages aren’t dropped from the sky, they are arranged and then worked out. There was one occasion he remembered especially well … it had been early morning and he’d been leaving her. She’d been crying like now … her face blotchy, no make-up on her eyes. He’d tried to feel involved, held her in his arms but it had made no difference. He hadn’t been really there … he didn’t understand her tears, hadn’t wanted to. She said when he asked her that he wouldn’t understand, so he didn’t ask again. He tried to break away and get to the door, but she had got out of bed, her nightdress up round her waist and ran after him begging him not to go. He could still hear her feet on the boards, she didn’t seem to run one foot at a time but in a falling rush until she’d found him again. She had been cold and shivering but he still strode out of the house leaving her shivering in the hall of her digs. Yes, she loved him all right. Most of the time she put up a bantering façade of resistance but in the end … Yet her dependence didn’t revolt him, it was genuinely touching. Steven didn’t want a domineering wife. Being dominated had never
appealed
to him. Rather ordinary really, he thought
complacently
.

But why this morning of all mornings? He held Sarah closer … one day was as good as another. No, Steven had his reasons. He thought of the letter. If it didn’t work out … if all his suspicions were wrong? But
somehow
he didn’t think they were. Marriage really mightn’t be a bad idea.

Sarah had stopped crying. Poor girl, he buried his head in
the warm hollow between neck and shoulder. Poor Sarah, innocence in this world is sadly out of place.

‘Will you take me out to lunch?’ She seemed eager.

‘Naturally. I’ve never been engaged before, not even
tentatively
. We’d better go somewhere good.’

She managed a smile, and then walked over to the mirror to make up again.

‘I look such a mess …’ She turned round to look at him, ‘You weren’t joking were you, Steven? You did mean it … didn’t you …’

There was a slight tremor in her voice.

‘I’ve never been more serious.’

She turned round again, Steven looked at her back. Sarah Twiss from neat suburban Pinner, with a mind and body as neat and trim as a Pinner garden hedge. Inwardly he felt more pity than he had thought himself capable of. So small, so young … and so necessary. In fact Sarah was in her last year at Oxford and was two years older than him.

 *

After lunch, Steven went round to see his friend Robert (the same Robert who had come to Trelawn the previous Christmas). Robert lived in another quad of the same
college
. The buildings had just been refaced, the stone was a clean warm ochre, the lawn a pleasing green. As he entered Robert’s staircase Steven gazed across the quad with an air of possession.