Jill (12 page)

What would she be like? he asked himself, forgetting that only a fortnight ago he was thinking the same about Christopher. Christopher never talked directly about her, but he would sometimes tell an anecdote deliberately in which she figured as a distant acquaintance; he used an objective tone that would separate them completely. She was very fond of bridge and golf and (John remembered) it was all Christopher could do to out-drive her. He also recalled her squabble with the Rural District Council to bring the water main up to their house, and the sports car she drove. How was he going to receive a person like that?

Secretly he hoped she would not come.

Looking round among the baskets of pigeons, the bicycles with labels tied to their handlebars, and the mailbags, he sought for some memory of the station as he had reached it a fortnight ago. How long back that time seemed. All that had since happened had left an equal, confused impression, all of similar importance: the bronze in the Tutor’s room, Elizabeth’s voice, Christopher’s endless smoking, Eddy’s clothes.

With a sudden increase in apprehension he saw the engine come hissing up the platform, and as the few people who had
collected to meet the train moved forward he backed behind an empty chocolate machine. The long line of coaches drew in; doors opened and porters began handing out parcels from the guard’s van. John watched the travellers stroll to the barrier, scanning each woman for any familiar features; a small feeling of delight was just rapidly expanding inside him when after all he saw her, a long way behind the rest, looking round her expectantly. He recognized her not from the photograph, but from the likeness she bore to Christopher. She had the same broad forehead and jaw and her dark hair was drawn down to her neck, with no sign of grey.

Like Christopher, she dressed in tweeds, with a felt hat, low-heeled shoes and an artificial spray of berries and leaves at her left lapel. These suggested maturity. She looked far too young to be Mrs. Warner; the light swing with which she carried a small green case expressed the mobility and youth of her being. He stared at her, and as her eye searched the platform it rested a moment on him, passing onwards incuriously. But he recollected himself, and stepped forward, knowing dejectedly that he would be too nervous to speak the words he had made up.

“Er——”

“Yes?”

“Er—I—— Excuse me, but are you Chr—— Are you Mrs. Warner?”

“Yes, I am. Can’t Christopher come? Are you a friend of his?”

“No. I—yes. He—he asked me to meet you. He—he’s playing in a——”

“Oh, I see. When did he get my telegram?”

“At lunch. He couldn’t alter his arrangements.… If you—— He’ll meet you for tea at the—the Green Leaf.”

Scarlet, he mouthed it out.

“Where? I don’t know it.”

“The High Street—I’ll show you.… He asked me to show you.”

“I see.” They began walking towards the exit. “What’s he doing? Playing rugger?”

They passed out into the street together, Mrs. Warner
straightening her gloves. “So this is Oxford,” she remarked, looking round her. The sky was a complete blank of clouds, giving no sign of rain or sun. “Who are you, by the way?”

John blushed again, realizing he should have introduced himself in the first place.

“I’m Kemp—er—John Kemp. I share rooms with Christopher, you know.”

“Do you really, now? He never told me that. How odd of him, don’t you think?”

“Oh—yes——”

And indeed, on thinking it over, he did think so, remembering his own first letter home.

“Where are we going? Is it far? Shall we take a taxi?”

“I don’t think—I mean——” Her luxuriant glance put him off. “Christopher said, to meet him there at half-past four, so, if we walk——”

“We shall be in nice time, shall we?” she finished brightly. “Right, let’s walk.”

His heart expanded towards her, now that the most awful part of the encounter was over, and now he perceived she was one of those rare people who could construct his meaning from the few truncated phrases and gestures his nervousness permitted him to utter. As they walked towards the town, he looked admiringly at her easy stride, her breasts and youthfulness, and, holding himself erect, he hoped he did her credit. He wanted the passers-by to think that he was her son.

She asked him some questions about the life they led, revealing that Christopher had told her absolutely nothing, not even the most trivial things such as how many rooms they occupied, or what they were doing. He tried to answer her amusingly, but she only smiled faintly, and looked about the streets. This was the old, pre-industrial part of the town, where canal transport offices were, coal merchants and corn and hay dealers. Remnants of the Saturday crowd strayed about in their best clothes, pushing perambulators or pausing to stare into the showrooms of a second-hand furniture shop. Paper blew about in the gutter.

John thought of his own mother, and drove her angrily from
his mind. As he walked beside Mrs. Warner, he felt the same air of pride that he felt when with Christopher: their similarity was instantly noticeable; the same characteristics manifested themselves, and what might be called the same aroma of personality—something fierce and careless. How could he do anything but admire them? They seemed to live without a second thought.

“I don’t suppose you’ve settled down yet,” she said. “You’re northcountry, aren’t you?”

“Yes—from Huddlesford.”

“I’m afraid our family has a terrific prejudice against north-country people. It’s my husband’s fault, really. I think one of them got the better of him in a business deal!”

She burst into a crow of laughter as she said this, recovering immediately. “I don’t know. As a matter of fact, I’ve never been farther north than Crewe.”

“That’s funny—I’d never been farther south than Crewe,” said John eagerly, looking up at her.

“And what d’you think of us, now you’ve crossed the border?”

“Well, I don’t know.” His face grew puzzled, and his voice bore the shadow of pure Lancashire dialect, as he sought about for a true comment. “The people—I don’t know, they’re so sure of themselves——”

“You think so?” Her voice was amused. “Perhaps they’ve only got smoother tongues.”

He was startled by her friendly smile and overcame an impulse to take her hand.

The Green Leaf teashop was full, many people eating slowly or waiting amiably to be served, and John felt at a loss, feeling that it was incumbent upon him somehow to create an empty table. As they walked through the centre of the town he had half assumed the role of guide, pointing out the buildings he knew, and explaining that Carfax was a corruption of
carre-four
. It pleased him to imagine she was his own mother. She had listened pleasantly, occasionally asking questions.

The café was a long low room, partitioned regularly into
alcoves which seated four, and every one of these was full. Mrs. Warner gazed about her with a comic expression of helplessness on her face, which John had observed in Christopher and knew did not mean any such thing. He was uncomfortable as they stood conspicuously there, and suggested they took two places that were just being vacated.

“But we want a three, don’t we?” Mrs. Warner turned to look at him, and then looked past him to the door. “Hallo, there’s Christopher. Yes, obviously he’s been playing some game. What a ragamuffin he looks.”

Christopher, after a moment’s hesitation, came to them. His hair was ruffled and he was untidily dressed in sweater, blazer and flannels. John felt his own significance diminish rapidly.

“Hallo, Mother.”

“Well, my son. You look a mess.”

“I didn’t stop to dress properly. I say, can’t we sit down?”

As if in answer, four undergraduates got up and left a table free, one of them nodding to Christopher as he passed him, and waving a black cigarette holder. As Mrs. Warner led the way to the table, John thought uncomfortably that perhaps he ought to go now as his part in the afternoon was finished and they might want to talk privately. “I think …” he muttered, as they reached their seats. “Er—I think perhaps——”

They paid no attention, so, his courage failing, he sat down by Christopher with Mrs. Warner opposite. As she put her bag and gloves on the seat beside her, he could see that she was in early middle age, though it was easy to see how she looked as a girl. Her broad, dark good looks and sturdy shoulders would have been more attractive in the long run than more brittle beauty. He looked again at her, and then at Christopher, and it seemed that their resemblance was so strong that the third party—his father and her husband—was eliminated entirely.

Christopher said:

“What time does your train go?”

“Heavens, what a question.” She glanced laughingly at John, sharing the joke. “You don’t come to meet me, and the first thing you ask is, when am I going? Half-past six, if you must know. What would you like to eat?” she added, as one of the
ladies in print overalls came and stood by them. “What is there, please?”

“Bread and butter, cakes, scones, sandwiches, teacakes——”

Her voice trembled slightly on the last word as if she were very fond of them. Mrs. Warner listened critically.

“Teacakes sound nice,” she said. “Everything sounds nice. We’ll have everything. What are the sandwiches?”

“Fish, lettuce, tomato——”

“Tomato, then, and lettuce. And scones, bread and butter and jam, all for three.”

“Yes, madam.”

“And the tea? Do you like China tea, John?”

“Oh, yes,” said John, never having had any.

“China tea, then, and cakes, of course.” The lady went and Mrs. Warner turned back to them. “This does remind of me when we used to motor down to Lamprey and take Christopher and his friends out to tea. Haven’t you always read, John, about schoolboy appetites? I used to order most lavish banquets. But do you know, they’d hardly eat anything. I had to coax them to the fruit salad, and as for the cream buns … Why was it, Christopher? Weren’t they hungry?”

“Oh, they were just shy. I think you frightened them.”

“Frightened them? Pooh!” She gave a little snort of laughter, directed mainly at John. But the effect of the memory had made Christopher look exactly like a small boy in John’s eyes; with his tousled hair and mingled jaunty-guilty expression, he looked remarkably like one. He welcomed the fancy that Christopher and himself were brothers, who were still at school, and who were being visited by their mother and taken out to tea.

She had made everything sound appetizing when she ordered them, and when it all came she lent delicacy to the scene by the way she poured out and arranged the food on the table. The silver teapot she held with a small handkerchief, and she whipped the silver cover off the teacakes as if to reveal a rare dish. They were crisp, with scorched, broken tops.

“Please help yourselves: I always drink my tea first.”

She sipped it softly, without milk or sugar.

“I’ve quite forgotten when you went to Derby,” said
Christopher, his mouth full. “Did the Leylands invite you specially?”

“Yes, of course. Don’t you remember, we had them to stay last summer?”

“I remember trying to teach that girl golf—Elspeth, was her name?” Christopher growled theatrically, cutting his teacake a second time. “Was she there?”

“She was, as it happened—on leave. She’s in the Wrens, you know. We had a round on Sunday.”

“Was she any better?”

“Well, it’s not fair to judge anyone who hasn’t played for ages. Now for my teacake.” To John’s astonishment, she picked it up and bit it hugely, making as she did so a shy little gesture that further endeared her to him.

By the end of the meal John would have concluded that Christopher’s schoolfriends had been too busy watching Mrs. Warner to eat much, if he had given the matter any thought.

He himself ate, but did not talk, sitting not dumb with fright, but naturally silent as if watching an actress on the stage. Her least action was a pleasure to watch, as if at some time or another she had taken lessons in deportment. Erect, her shoulders square and commanding, she conducted the meal with alert friendliness. Every now and then she would say or do something (as when she bit the teacake) that scattered the image into a thousand places, only to re-gather it more brilliant than before.

Christopher kept up the conversation, eating hungrily, and passing his cup silently for more tea. She filled it, adding milk and sugar as at home, and broke off in the middle of doing so to sneeze daintily. Sometimes she would halt the desultory conversation and put some formal little question to John, such as:

“Does being a scholar mean you have to work harder?” or “Will you have a cigarette?”

Hypnotized, he took one from her pearl-backed case.

“That’s a new departure,” commented Christopher, holding his lighter out.

“Oh, don’t you smoke as a rule? What a good influence
you’ll be on Christopher—I know for a fact”, Mrs. Warner emphasized smilingly, “that he smokes a very, very great deal too much.” She stared at them both, as if the sight of them offered her much private amusement; John, watching her closely, thought the idea of having a grown-up son seemed comical to her, as if she had never got used to it. “Get the bill, darling.”

She rose to go to the ladies’ room, shaking her skirt free of crumbs, and Christopher stared elaborately about for the waitress, not catching John’s eye. A triumphal march began in John’s head as he imagined that Christopher was loth to accept his fresh status in John’s view, now that there was nothing but common ground between them; he felt as if they had submitted some dispute to a higher authority and the decision had been in his favour.

“I say, Chris, I think your mother’s awfully decent,” he said excitedly.

“Can we have our bill, please?” said Christopher.

He did not see her again before she left, and on Saturday night Christopher went out and got very drunk with the money she had given him. “What, you in to breakfast, sir?” exclaimed Jack, in soft irony. “You’ve mistook the time, sir. It’s ’a’-past eight, not ’a’-past eleven.”

“Sure sign of trouble, Jack. The room’s uninhabitable.”