In the Time of Greenbloom (36 page)

Greenbloom produced his flask.

“Somebody whistled.” he said. “Did you hear it, Mick?”

“Only a policeman.” Michael's tone was dry.

“What policeman? Where? I saw only one—on Magdalen Bridge, and the noise I heard occurred just before Carfax.”

“That, I imagine, was the one. You were doing about eighty, you know Horab.”

“Are you sure?”

“He was doing eighty-five,” said Kate. “I've had my eyes glued to that speedometer ever since we started.”

“Well, as long as you're sure?” said Greenbloom with relief. “He couldn't possibly have got my number at that speed.”

Michael put a hand on Kate Holly's shoulder and she smiled at him quickly. “No,” he said yawning, “always supposing no one else heard his whistle and that five or six of them are not converging on us while you drink the last of the Scotch.”

“Good old Mick!” said Greenbloom. “Here, take it and get out. We really haven't got the time to start squaring the Police. I've got to get Rachel fixed up somewhere before it's too late.”

Michael took the flask. “There's just one other thing Horab—before you go. What are you going to do about John? He's already three-quarters of an hour late on his pass and somebody will have to explain to his housemaster—”

“Do not worry! But for God's sake get out and let us get started. John is coming with
me
, and I shall deal with everything as it arises. Kate, my dear, you'd better get out and let Rachel come into the front. I have some telephone calls to make and there is much to do.”

“There's only
one
thing to do,” Michael spoke from the pavement, “and that is to get John back to the School. You'd better tell them about the accident.”

Greenbloom leaned over and closed the door beside Rachel.

“I have been considering everything very carefully, leave John to me. We will explain in the morning.”

“The morning will be far too late. You will have to explain tonight and if you are going to insist on seeing John's housemaster, though I don't advise it, for heaven's sake don't have anything more to drink on the way.”

“No! no! no!” said Greenbloom with great impatience. “You are too limited. It is not a question of explanation, one cannot go through life explaining to people—there are matters you do not understand, but fortunately for your brother they
are clear to me; quite clear. One thing only I wish to know; I take it that you did say he would in any case be leaving this frightful school at the end of the term, that they have bowed before the publicity and will be asking him to go?”

“It's not
settled
. You mustn't start acting on—” Michael got on to the running-board of the Bentley.

“Everything is settled.” Greenbloom turned to John. “That
is
the position about your expulsion?”

“I'm sure it is,” said John eagerly. “This morning, Rudmose—that's the housemaster—was telling me that I'd do much better to go to some Jewish crammer friend of his in Worthing.”

Greenbloom sat very still. He became a waxen figure protesting against all circumstance by his profound immobility. “As I thought,” he said quietly. “Another exile! A scapegoat to be sent out into the wilderness laden with offerings. Get off the car, Michael. We are starting!”

“You're
drunk
!” shouted Michael bitterly. “Rachel try and make the damn' fool understand that if he goes up to the School in this mood we shall all be sent down at the weekend.”

“Michael
deear
!” whispered Rachel. “What can
I
do? You know what Horab is when he's like
thisss
! His tide is coming in and no one can stop it; one sss-imply has to get out of the way. Please,
sweeet
Michael, get off the car or you will end up like the urn.”

“But where are you going?” implored Michael. “Horab, tell me where you are going?”

“If you will only get down from the running-board he will tell you; I know he will, because tonight he is fond of me and I am very very fond of him because he is so exciting when he's like this, aren't you Horab?”

Greenbloom did not even nod, the engine of the Bentley began to boom softly as the great body slid forward. In a few yards Michael jumped off and began to run along the pavement beside them.

“I'm off! Now tell me where?”

“Tell him!” said Greenbloom to Rachel.

“But I do not know.”

“
Tell
him!” repeated Greenbloom as the car gathered speed. Rachel leaned out of the window and kissed her hand to Michael. “He says we are going to Paris.”

With beautiful timing the car sprang forward and a few minutes later they drew up outside the entrance of the Mitre Hotel.

Despite the hot coffee and the ham sandwiches they had eaten in the deserted lounge John found the morning air chilling and uncongenial as he waited with Rachel while two rumpled mechanics wheeled the Moth out of the hangar. Across Port Meadow the mist of the rising dew lay almost level with the backs of the cows grazing and coughing in the middle distance. The poplars and willows lining the banks of the Cherwell far away to the West were invisible, but already the sun was picking out the crests and trees of the Whiteham Hills.

Rachel in her mink coat looked pale and somehow wizened in the clean slant of the light. He watched her slyly as she stood there beside him alternately glancing over towards Greenbloom and then at the little mirror which lived in the flap of her handbag. Overnight, her face had lost its distinctness: neither the eyelids, the lips, nor the curved and minute nose had the lovely precision he had noticed the previous evening; there was a blurring of edges, a loss of boundary, as though each separate feature had missed its place and character and mingled with its neighbours in the night. It must worry her, he thought, or she would not have been looking so distracted or found it necessary to make so many little dabbing movements with her lipstick eye pencil and powder-puff.

The fact that she should be so self-concerned at a time like this irritated him. He was sure that there was nothing she
could do about it. She would just have to wait until the day grew older, till it got later; and then presumably if they were all still alive and in Paris her face would come right again.

She looked up suddenly and catching his frown smiled at him.

“You like watching me, John?”

“Yes.” He was awkward. “At least I wasn't really watching you; I was thinking.”

“And what were you thinking about? Was it
sso
distasteful?”

“I was wondering about Greenbloom—”

“You funny boy! Why do you always call him Greenbloom?”

“I don't know; it's just how I think of him, I suppose.”

“And what were you wondering?”

“Oh—dozens of things.”

“Things like what?”

“Well how he manages to keep an aeroplane at Oxford and get people out of bed at this hour to service it for him; and how on earth he's ever going to find the way to Paris; and what we are all supposed to do when we get there; and what Mick and the School and my parents will say when they hear about it.”

“
Goodnesss! What
a lot of questions!”

“Yes, I know.” He smiled. “It's not that I'm really worried, of course; it's only that this morning is the first chance I've had of thinking about things. I wish you could answer some of them for me.”

“Oh but I can't I'm afraid—not all of them. Perhaps we had better start with Horab; he is very rich, you know?”

“Yes, I guessed he must be—he leaves money lying about in his rooms.” He paused and looked round him swiftly at the great beauty of the morning. “As a matter of fact—a few days ago—I stole some of it.” He corrected himself. “No, it was only yesterday—that's odd, it seems much longer ago. Do you think you could give it back to him before we start?”

He found and held out the notes to her. Over their
crumpled edges she looked up at him, her face bright with sudden laughter.

“Oh John! You wicked
perss-son
!” Her amusement overcame her; the tiny blue-eyed face creased until its tears coursed down over her cheeks.

“Please stop it!” he said angrily.

“But—I—
can't
! To take Horab's money when you have only
jusst
met him—and then—to give it
back
to him.” She dabbed at her face with a powder-puff. “Oh he'll never get over it!”

“I don't see that it's funny.”

“Oh but it
is! Sso
funny—I'll tell you John, you must promise me you'll give it back to him in front of me. I want to watch his face.”

He ground his heel on a fat worm-cast. “No,
you
give it to him.”

“
Me
? Never! I
never
give Horab
money
.” She was very serious again. “Horab gives
me
? Rachel, money; and he's lucky that I will take it.”

“Why?”

“
Well
!” She drew in a deep breath and putting away her cosmetics looked up at the sky and then at the hangar and lastly over in the direction of the quiet cows as though she were appealing for their support.

“Oh I know you're pretty and young,” he said sulkily. “But I think you're jolly lucky to have a person like Greenbloom running you about all over the place in Bentleys and aeroplanes.”

“So that's what you think is it, John?”

“Yes.”

“I wonder
why
.” The word emerged from the shaping of her lips as softly as a kiss.

“Well because anybody's lucky to be loved by someone—”

“By someone who is rich?”

“Yes, or by anyone for that matter. Anyone
alive
, I mean.”

Her eyes, so interested, suddenly ceased to look into his face; their gaze shifted to his feet.

“Oh I see,” she said softly. “I see! Horab was telling me.”

He said nothing.

“Poor John Blaydon! We will talk about something else—about the University Flying Club and how Horab paid the mechanics—” she laughed brightly. “
He
says he bribed them but
I
say he
paid
them; we often argue about it; he says no payments are ever made, only bribes. But never mind, it cost him five pounds each, you know, five whole pounds for each man.”

“Did it?”

“Yes.” She was watching him. “And then we shall talk about Paris and what we shall see when we get there, shall we?”

“If you like—I don't really mind though if love interests you more.”

“Oh but it does Johnny, it
does
. Love and money! money and love! I hardly ever think about anything else; and if there were a goddess of both I'd say my prayers to her every night.”

“Would you?”

“But of course! There should be a golden Venus, an Aphrodite all of gold, for Rachel to pray to and light little candles for.”

“Oh,” he said; and then, “Rachel?”

“Yes?”

“What do you think he will say when I do tell him?”

“About the money, you mean?”

He nodded.

“He will say ‘
was sich in der Sprache spiegelt, kann sie nicht darstellen
'.”

She watched him closely.

“Is that German?”

“Yes, it is from Wittgenstein. He always quotes from Wittgenstein when he is cross.”

“What does it mean?”

“It means ‘That which mirrors itself in language, language
cannot represent'. In other words that he is so angry he will not know what to say. He says it to me very often.”

“I wish I knew who Wittgenstein was,” he said.

“Don't worry. Horab will tell you. I have some of his book in my case. The very end of it.”

“The
end
of it? I thought he hadn't started it yet.”

“Oh but he has. He has started at the end. He says that is the only way to deal with Wittgenstein.”

“How very odd.”

“Not really,” she said. “You were talking about love just now and you said it was lucky to love somebody who was alive, didn't you?”

“Yes.”

“Horab would not agree. He says that we love most when it is too late, when it has ended. So you see that in a way everything begins at the end.”

He was silent; he wished they were on their way. Over by the hangar the little plane was nearly ready. He watched the men empty the last can of petrol into the funnel protruding from the petrol tank and saw Greenbloom's head appear out of the cabin window just above the star painted on the white fuselage. Something touched his left hand as it hung by his side and he looked down to see Rachel caressing it gently: tiny stroking movements as though she were playing a stringed instrument.

He withdrew his hand. “What is it?”

“Only that I wish I could make you see that it is not at all so lucky to
be
loved as it is to
love
.”

“Isn't it?”

“No. It is far luckier to love somebody whether they are alive or dead; and if
you
love somebody like that, John, you are richer than Horab and happier than Rachel.”

He was trying to read the letters above the yellow star, but his shortsight made it difficult. He screwed up his eyes and slowly they became apparent:

SCAPEGOAT

“Do you see?” she asked again.

“No,” he said flatly. “I don't. I'd rather be loved by someone
alive
.”

“One day you will be Johnny; you
will
!” She walked away from him over towards the plane. One of the men was handing her tiny suitcase up to Greenbloom and seeing it she turned and laughed at John.

“
Sso
fortunate that whenever Horab takes me anywhere I should always have my case ready. I keep one packed now in case I have one of his telephone-calls.” He caught up with her.