I Hear Voices (9 page)

I obey her instructions and go and sit on the padded bench provided doubtless for the teeming contacts that normally throng Arthur’s office. The girl takes a number of messages. Finally she calls me over again. “I used to work in that tavern,” she admits, avoiding my glance. “I was the waitress. I
recognized
you the moment you came in, but then, when you didn’t recognize me, I didn’t like to say anything.”

“You worked in the tavern?” I ask. “The tavern?”

It seems impossible. My incredulity derives less from the difficulty of imagining this attractive secretary in a tavern than from a feeling of disbelief that such a place ever existed. And yet the knowledge of it is clear in my mind. Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that the knowledge of it that is in my mind is incontrovertible. There
was
such a place that someone visited and whose recollections and glancing memories of it are securely lodged in my mind. And for a moment, forgetting my newfound purpose, I can not repress a sign of nostalgia.

“But why did you leave?” I ask. “Weren’t you happy there? Didn’t we have some splendid times?”

“I suppose I was happy there,” she admits. “But I didn’t have much fun. It was all right for you. You only came in for breakfast and found it all tidy and polished and a blazing fire in winter. But I had to lay the fire and chop the wood, and I only had a tiny little room upstairs. It was dark and had mice and I hardly even had any time off.”

“But,” I can not help protesting, “you had other things—trees and clear air, and solid, real things all around you—real chairs, real food—things weren’t all melting and changing the way they are here. You had a life.”

“I do miss it sometimes,” she admits. “But not for long—I can always go to the films. That takes my mind off it. And I don’t have to work nearly as hard here and I have much nicer things. Anyway, I couldn’t have been so very happy or I wouldn’t have listened to you with such interest.”

“Listened to me?” I ask, mystified. “When did you listen to me?”

“Oh, you’ve forgotten. I’m not surprised. As a matter of fact I never really had the feeling that you knew what words you were using even as you used them. You never talked like other customers. They’d say, ‘Good morning’ or ‘Lovely morning’ or ‘Got any haddock?’ and the words would be exactly what was in their mind at the moment. And then they’d think of the next thing and say that. But you never used words in that way. I could tell. I always had the feeling that what was in your mind was something quite different from the words and that the words were just experiments, to see if they had anything to do with that thing, whatever it was. If you said ‘Bring me some haddock,’ I always felt that you’d be surprised if haddock
arrived
, or at least that you might just as well have expected eggs or coconuts or a thunderstorm.”

“Do you mean,” I ask, struck by what she is saying, “with thunderbolts?”

“Oh, I don’t know about thunderbolts. I saw a film once where a thunderbolt struck an old mansion—still that’s not the point. What I was going to say was that even knowing this, knowing that if another customer said ‘There’s going to be a dance, or a race or a war,’ it was probably based on something he knew and might be true, still I was more interested in the sort of things that you used to say although I didn’t think they had any real meaning at all.”

“Yes they did,” I affirm. “I hope you won’t talk like this in front of Arthur. This is about my last chance to please him.”

“I remember one morning you came down and you were in such a hurry you wouldn’t even stop for breakfast. You said something about having to rush off and win me eternal
fulfillment
, eternal enthusiasm. I had hardly any idea what you meant and I had a pretty strong suspicion that you didn’t either, but I couldn’t help brooding about what you’d said. As a matter of fact, I think that was the last time I saw you. Well—I don’t suppose you found it, did you?”

“Well,” I begin, and even as I begin, strange memories of myself, of myself at other times, in other places, with lakes, mountains, stars, with happy or unhappy people and different races of people, seem as if they are trying to invade me. They seem to flit towards me and break like desperate ghosts on the impenetrable body of my momentary self. “I don’t think you should say things like that. After all, I’ve got to get on. This may be my last chance. The professor thought so, I could tell. And Arthur’s patience won’t last forever. If I said anything that distressed you, I’m sorry. I’m really sorry, but you shouldn’t reproach me—I’m not doing wrong. I’m just trying to—trying to—”

“Oh, it’s all right,” she exclaims, “don’t upset yourself. I’ve forgotten all those things now. I was only giving them as an example of why I must be happier now—I don’t feel any need
for the sort of things that you used to say anymore.”

For a moment I wish to protest, but the desire is instantly thwarted and negated by understanding. She is quite right. She must be right, otherwise how could she say it? It is only my dullness that I complain of. Otherwise I have done right. I had to accept Arthur’s invitation. I had to follow the professor’s advice and all the other things that preceded my being here—all those had to be absorbed somehow, somehow into my course. But being here, having followed them, how can I say anything, the sort of wild consolations that now wrack me? Are they not negated by my presence, my neat or untidy clothes, my
immobility?

“At least,” I plead, “at the very least, don’t call me metaphor.”

“You’re doing it again,” she complains. “I don’t understand that, and I’m not even going to think about it—even if I had time between these electric messages that keep pulsing into my head. And I mustn’t neglect those. That circuit is the work of the world. But all right, if it pleases you, I promise not to call you that—there, do you hear?”

“Yes,” I answer. “Activity—someone approaching.” 

“That’s Arthur now, approaching rapidly. He must have
settled
his affairs.”

At the thought that Arthur is about to enter I feel a slight shock of apprehension but this at least has the effect of clearing from my mind all the confused remorse and nostalgia that the girl’s words have evoked. I try to think of exactly the right attitude with which to meet Arthur but before I have decided on anything the door has opened and he has hurried in.

“All settled,” he cries boisterously, not, since I have retired to the wall, noticing me at first. “The goods are flowing again, exports buy imports. Imports persuade men to make exports—the flow of trade, back and forth. Mind you, I had to be firm—ah, you’ve come.”

He has turned, in response to the girl’s signal.

“Well, step forth. Don’t huddle against the wall. This,” he announces, presenting me, not without a certain exuberant and good-natured contempt, to the now-smiling girl, “is my younger brother. He’s going to learn the trade. He’s had a long holiday—not like us poor slaves (ha, ha)—but then, he’s not been very well—have you, old son?”

“Not very I suppose, Arthur, still—”

“Yes, never mind, you can tell her your symptoms later. Well,” he asks the girl, “what do you think of him? Good material? Think he’ll shape well? Think we can do anything with him?”

The girl does not answer. In fact, by the deliberate way in which she reaches for her message pad, as if she had not been addressed, I feel sure that she is not prepared to assist Arthur’s mocking, albeit good-humored, banter. I feel that Arthur senses this too for, in a slightly different tone, he asks:

“Have you two been talking? I suppose you’ve got to know each other a bit. Been waiting long?” he asks me.

“I don’t think so, Arthur. I came down as soon as Susan—”

“We never allude to personal matters here. Come on. Come in to my office.”

And he leads the way into his adjoining office. It is a large room with colored panels. Arthur immediately goes to his desk and frowns at some messages. After a few moments, he strides over to me and seizes my hand.

“Well, I was confident that you would come,” he begins. “I was so sure—and in this business you don’t take high-level decisions unless you
are
sure—that I’ve summoned, or at least requested, the directors to put in an appearance so that we can decide what to do with you.” He looks at his watch. “They’re bad about time, they have numbers of interests, their own developments, clubs and so forth, to detain them, but they
should all be here before long. How does that strike you?”

“Well, I’m really overwhelmed, Arthur,” I confess. “I sensed that you were feeling well-disposed towards me when you left this morning, but I’d no idea that you’d go to these lengths. What are the directors like?”

“Asses,” laughs Arthur. “Good fellows all. Some of them are keen—Godfrey, for example, not a keener man in the
business
—but an awful ass about women. Sir George—awful old ass, but drives a hard bargain. However, his real strength is, he knows how to keep the men happy. And do you know why that is? He likes the blighters, yes: dominos and a pint to drown his ulcers and he’s perfectly content for the evening. He spends two or three evenings a year like that. You see, Sir George came up through the shops. He knows the men. He can enter into their problems, keen on football, calls them by their first names just as they do him. When he walks through the plant, the three or four who happen to know who he is sing out, ‘All right, George?’ before stooping to their machines again. And if he’s not too preoccupied with expansion or reducing waste or some other matter of policy, for he’s devilish shrewd is Sir George, he’ll chant back ‘Splendid thanks. How’s yourself, Harry?’ or Bill, or whatever the particular worker’s name is. I admire him, I tell you, I admire him for it, though I make no attempt to emulate him. That sort of thing has to come
naturally
or not at all and when all’s said and done there has to be the head as well as the arms and perhaps it’s not the most convincing thing in the world, or the most seemly, for the head to go around slapping backs. What do you think?”

“Well, of course, I agree with you, Arthur, that the head shouldn’t be unseemly, but you must remember that I don’t know much about it. I mean, I haven’t had your experience. When I was going to be a plumber—”

“Tsk!” cries Arthur. “Don’t speak of it. We’ve come a long
way since then. Plumber—dear, dear, that was years ago. You must realize, old son, that I’m well on the way to being head of this great development. It wouldn’t do—it’s not the thing—”

“No, of course not, Arthur,” I agree, ashamed of my slip, “that’s just the sort of thing I’ll have to learn. I mean it all comes so easily to you. You’ve grown into it. If someone makes a certain sort of joke or a certain sort of comment on some matter, say in the newspaper, you know just the right way to nod or to laugh, how to hold your body, how to wrinkle your forehead, how to murmur appreciative sounds and even what sounds to murmur, not necessarily words. I don’t mean you know these things the way you know perhaps the current price of some materials or dates in history, I mean you live them, you
are
them: you express, in your being, that area of potential. Well, of course, it’s too soon for me to possess this quality but I’m sure that by steady application, constant practice and so forth, I’ll soon be able to give a pretty convincing impression of having it. For example, I saw the way you came in just now, I noticed the way you flung a greeting at your secretary, loud, amiable, superficially intimate and yet expressing your
unquestioned
right to make her the recipient of your momentary
exuberance
and implying your right to change, virtually
instantaneously
, to a quite different attitude. Well, I think I could
probably
do that now, not as well as you of course, but with some approach to the orthodox manner. I just want you to realize that I’m determined to work hard and do my very best.”

When I have finished this speech, which flowed from me with a strange, disconcerting momentum, I look hopefully at Arthur to see if I can detect any signs of having pleased him. As a matter of fact, I am aware of an uncomfortable conviction that this will not be the case, that, for reasons which I dare not, in the light of the course of action to which I seem to be committed, admit to myself, the speech was a mistake.

“I mean,’ I append weakly, “I don’t want to give the
impression
that I think it will be easy, or that I’m in any way
well-qualified
, but just that —”

“When the directors arrive,” Arthur interrupts, clearly
making
an effort to be judicious, “I wouldn’t be quite so—so
articulate
. One doesn’t say everything one perceives. There are lots of things in life that one comprehends or understands but which the accepted forms of social commerce don’t require to be expressed. It’s not a question of hypocrisy. It’s simply that all these things have no conceivable practical relevance to—well, to the work in hand. They don’t help, if you see what I mean.”

“Yes, of course, Arthur. I’ll remember that—I’ll—”

“What do you think of the office?” Arthur asks quickly.

“The office?” I repeat, glancing quickly around the chamber. “I think it’s very well planned. I can see why you put that cabinet there. That’s the best place for it. And the desk is just the right size. Yes, it all seems to be very—very satisfactory.”

“The latest machines,” begins Arthur, but his eyes have a troubled look and I feel that a sudden burst of doubts and misgivings is preventing him from organizing his thoughts
properly
. “Machines—we have lots of machines.”

“So I see, Arthur,” I enthuse. “There are even some on your desk there, little machines for manipulating documents. And there are probably big machines all around us.”

“Look, you
are
going to be all right?” asks Arthur.

“All right?”

“Yes, I mean—Sir George, Godfrey and the rest—well, they’re hard-headed men, you know. I mean, naturally I want to help you, old son, but you’re not going to say a lot of funny things to them, are you?”