In the Time of Greenbloom (28 page)

“Yes sir.” If only he would remove his hand. “Would you mind telling me why you think I ought to leave sir?”

The hand gave a little wriggle, a dying convulsion.

“Why, for your own s-sake Joseph of course! not for ours, you must
never
imagine even in your deepest dreams that we would wish you to go er—into Egypt!” He paused, the hand was removed and all at once with a lightning change its owner became the Reverend Rudmose again, the housemaster who did not like the headmaster and who was therefore determined to be faultless in the discharge of a difficult commission. “I want you to know, Joseph, that I have already written to your parents and told them that we think it would be better for you if you were to start your schooling anew in some other and m-more fortunate establishment; and I think, though even the wisest of us may be mistaken, that they too feel
n-now
that it was perhaps a mistake to let you return here, to
start
here, so soon after—after—”

“After the Moors, sir?”

“Yes Joseph, after the M-moors.”

“All right sir.”

For the first time he was able to smile brightly and sincerely into the haggard face so near his own. In his imagination his trunk and tuck-box were already packed and he was on the train for home; the horror was over. Inside him, gaiety limbered up like an athlete on a frosty field.

“And can I go out with my brother this afternoon, sir?”

“After the necessary formalities, the usual interview with the P-P-P—”

“The Prebendary, sir?” He knew that Rudmose loathed the headmaster and that there must be a long delay in the pronunciation of the bizarre and hated title.

“Yes, the P-P—, the Headmaster! You could talk all this over with your brother Michael, could you not? And then
perhaps when I have had your father's reply I could tell you about my g-good friend Mr Victor of Worthing.”

“Mr Victor?”

“Yes Joseph; an euphonious name! A name instinct with g-good omens for the future. He is a c-coach, a crammer, an am-am-m-m-anuensis, and a very able one who would, were he given the chance, soon make the d-dream of the sheaves a reality. I have already mentioned him to your father and advised him how greatly you might profit from his tutelage. He has served Beowulf's very well in the past, and more than that, he is a p-personal and unusual friend of my own.” He hesitated and his face assumed the unmistakable air of greed which precedes a confidence. “I wonder if your father or mother have ever told you about the R-Remnant, Joseph?”

“The Remnant, sir? I don't think so. What is it?”

“I must refer you to your Bible! Like m-most things of real importance you will find it there. The L-Latter Days, Joseph! the Return of the decimated portion of the Chosen Race to the fold! Wars and r-rumours of wars, signs in the heavens and I might add, s-signs in Worthing!” He grinned delightedly, and waited.

John tried to look intelligent. “It sounds like Revelations, sir, and I've never been able to understand them.”

“Revelation in the singular perhaps, Joseph. But you must search the pages of the
Old
Testament if you are to d-discover my reference.”

“Yes sir.” He longed to escape to the celebration of his thoughts but felt that a little more kindness and politeness was demanded of him.

“What has it got to do with Mr Victor sir?” he asked eagerly.

“A strange man Joseph, an unusual man in whom East and West have found their c-consummation! Mr Victor is a Jew, but a Jew with a d-difference. He is a Christian Jew, a keen Churchman and a friend of Canterbury. It is rare indeed for one of these to re-enter his religion by way of the Reform.
Today, Joseph, all roads do
not
lead to R-Rome!” he ended triumphantly.

“No sir.”

“It is my hope that in the not-too-distant future you will make more than the acquaintance of this very dear friend; that he will be able to take over the guardianship of those r-rich dreams in which I know you indulge.”

“Thank you sir.” He moved and by his movement succeeded in changing the direction of the conversation. “He sounds very interesting sir. By the way, what time have I to be back tonight?”

“T-ten o'clock. The Porter closes the gate at that hour and we do not want our young friend to have to k-knock like Macduff at the door of the castle—and, J-Joseph!”

“Yes sir?”

“Remember, no c-colleges!”

“No sir.”

“B-boys are not allowed in the colleges!” He smiled again for the last time, a slow strangled smile.

“R-remember P-Potiphar's wife and do not go into a college, Joseph.”

“No sir.”

He closed the door briskly behind him.

Michael took him to the Carpenter's Arms, a small pub somewhere behind Carfax where he said he was occasionally in the habit of having a game of darts or shove-ha'penny with the ‘real Oxfordians'. “One should get everything out of one's time at a university,” he said, “and learn to be a good mixer. You'll like the Carpenter's John, it's an
honest
little place! Although I rarely go there, I like to feel it's there in an emergency, if you know what I mean; and of course the beer's very
sound
. Just the place for a family talk.”

“We won't get caught, will we? I mean it's absolutely dead against the rules, even more sinful than going into a college.”

“Good Lord no! That's exactly why I'm taking you there instead of the Mitre, the Ploughman, the Tenth Folly or the—” Michael checked himself. “In the Carpenter's one never meets anyone who is in the least likely to know one in the social sense; and in any case, John, I shouldn't worry too much about the School rules if I were you; from what you tell me of your little
causerie
with Rudmose you won't be there very much longer, and frankly I think it's a good thing.”

“Do you really think so?”

Perhaps he had been unjust in his attitude to Mick, perhaps he was not after all so undiscerning as he had thought. He warmed to him. “It's awfully decent of you to be so sympathetic.”

“Think nothing of it!”

“I've never said much about it at home, perhaps because of Mother's rule that once it was all over any discussion of the Moors thing was forbidden. But honestly Mick I've loathed the place from the very beginning—” his voice trailed off, he swallowed and resumed. “
She
discusses it of course;
you
know, in her bedroom at night when she thinks I'm moodier than usual, ‘haunted' as she calls it. I think it's very sweet of her to go on trying to help me, but with the rest of the family the rule is still in force; even though we're all supposed to be praying for—Victoria and Mrs Blount. I'm pretty sure she discusses it with everyone including Betty
Cae Ficer
, but for some reason,
I
'm not supposed to talk about it to anyone except her.” They walked on a few paces. “When you were up with us last Vac did she say anything about it to you?”

Beside him Michael's face lengthened. “Look here old chap! I really think it would be better if we buried the bone. I think Mother does know best about this. Myself, I always found her advice very reliable when I was in my ‘teens, though of course when one begins life at Oxford or Cambridge one has to give a little credence to one's
amour propre
.”

When Michael resorted to French, as he did increasingly
these days, and when in addition his features assumed the old and familiar lugubriousness for which he had always been marked, it was useless to argue or wheedle. John changed his approach.

“You're probably right,” he said, “but if you really see how I feel,
you
know—worse even than your Lancing days, perhaps you'll back me up with Mother and Father over the Rudmose idea of starting afresh with this tutor friend of his in Worthing or wherever it is?”

A little impatiently Michael changed his black floppy umbrella from one hand to the other.

“Of course I shall.” His spectacles were directed at the pavement. “It would be far the best thing. In my opinion it was madness, a sort of ‘insanity
à deux
' on their part, ever to send you to Oxford in the first place; so embarrassing for—everyone, myself included! Of course, I told them both that I was quite prepared to do my bit and shepherd you through the first rather unpleasant months, and I think that on the whole we have managed to keep in touch and that I may have succeeded in tempering the wind a little. Even so, I don't honestly think I've been able to do enough for you to make it really worth while from either of our points of view; I mean, one does get a little sick of people muttering in pubs and in the societies and pointing one out as the brother of the Blaydon Boy.
Il faut souffrir
, one realises that; but nobody likes to suffer unfruitfully and from your point of view, quite obviously, you ought to be given the chance of escaping the effects of that frightful
tabloid
publicity.” He quickened his pace as they approached an inn sign on the opposite side of the road. “To summarise, it's really a question of
sauve qui peut
, and since for better or worse,
I
am committed to finishing my course here, I think that
your
removal, your escape and opportunity, is what we should aim at.”

Well in step they crossed the road and halted on the pavement beneath the inn sign. Michael flashed him a hot smile through his horn-rimmed spectacles. “Let's leave it at that, John,” he said, in a brighter, somehow moister, voice.
“You just wait here for a moment while I see if it's all clear inside. It may take me a few minutes, and to fill in the time, you might just scan the pavements and see if you recognise anyone from the School; better take your hat off too, those boaters are so conspicuous.”

John took it off and fumbled with it. “What shall I do with it?” he asked, feeling suddenly chilled at the thought of Rudmose and Potiphar's wife.

Michael snatched it hurriedly.

“Here, give it to me,” he said. “I'll deal with it.”

He turned round, and the next moment he was gone; the little doorway with its frosted glass seemed to have sucked him in like a vacuum cleaner, leaving in his place only the faint warm smell of hops and sawdust. John waited dutifully for about three minutes, and then, beginning to feel obtrusive, walked purposefully across the empty street.

It was all indefinably and yet typically depressing; just the sort of place Michael would choose, he thought bitterly. Upright little Victorian houses with bulges all over their pillars and bow windows pushing out into minute squares of tiles and grass surrounded by chains, railings, and brick walls.

People, he thought, always gravitated naturally to their proper surroundings. This was quite obviously Michael's world; heavily respectable and rectangular outside, hinting at security and a rather frowsty cosiness within, but in reality full of seedy unsympathic people with long serious faces and a fluent excuse for everything they did. He
betted
that Michael came here often, very often. It was his area, his wall, his tree, a sort of camouflage that blended perfectly with his most prevalent mood. He saw him suddenly as a solemn spectacled caterpillar like the one in
Alice
, moving carefully on to the shadowed side of his toadstool well away from the bright sunlight.

The image made him smile, and momentarily he felt more at ease; but a little later it occurred to him sharply that to criticise his own brother like this, even though it were to himself alone, was merely to increase his isolation. Whatever
happened he must not cut himself off from the family; if a time came when he could no longer attempt to tell them the things he suffered or enjoyed, if they could not hear, there would be nothing left for him. In addition, he felt sure that there was another factor in his increasing solitariness, that somewhere there was a defect in himself. It was all very well to sneer one's way through life as he was doing, to have scoffed at the Abbey, to continue to praise Father and condemn Mother, and go on to become an evil judge of persons and start off in the same old way at Beowulf's; but if it went on, if everyone else were to be measured by the faulty eye and weighed in the biased balance all through the days of his growing-up, there would come a time when there would be no one left but himself, the same crooked and unpleasant self with which he had evidently started. He must love Michael and forgive him seventy times and seven like the man in the Bible, and at last reach the point at which he would understand that there was really nothing to forgive which did not lie within himself.

He turned and started to walk back towards the Carpenter's Arms. Yes, he must cling on to Michael at all costs and then Michael would become fonder of him and as he became fonder would become more discerning and more of a help.

He crossed the road; and as if to reward him for his moment of generosity, Michael's face, redder, rounder, and more affectionate, suddenly appeared in the brown doorway of the Carpenter's Arms. He beckoned, and John trotted over to him and into the L-shaped saloon bar. There were only five or six people in there, all of them men, and all of them wearing serge suits of a colour peculiar to the working class, something between bluebell blue and mauve. They all wore white long-pointed collars and striped ties with the exception of the landlord who had a highly polished face and wore nothing save a woollen shirt and a brass front stud in place of collar and tie. They all seemed to know Michael very well indeed; and Michael himself, once he and John
were standing comfortably in front of the bar, assumed a quite different manner towards John. He became more openly brotherly and behaved as though he were very much older and John very much younger than was the fact.

“My young brother, Mr Cudlopp!” he said to the landlord with a loudness that contrived to make the others party to the announcement. “He's at Beowulf's and between ourselves it's just as well that no one at the school—”