Jill (32 page)

But the time! He was horrified to see that it was half-past seven. He jumped up so suddenly he knocked his glass on to the floor, where it smashed. Everyone looked round as the landlady came out from behind the bar to sweep up the bits, and John tried to pay for the damage. He got her to accept the shilling he was holding. Crimson, he hurried out of the place, banging his shoulder on the doorpost, thinking furiously that they must think he was drunk, which he wasn’t.

The darkness was appalling after the bright room. He bumped into three people and scratched his bare hand on some railings, so that he cursed out loud. This made him chuckle. In the cold air he became conscious of a slight dizziness.

Somewhere a clock chimed the half-hour and this recalled him to his fear that he would be too late to get into Hall for dinner. Nevertheless, he hurried back to the College and found his gown. From the kitchens came a warm breath of food and there was a subdued chattering from the Hall itself.

As he expected, the steward would not admit him.

“No, sir, you’re too late, sir.”

John was much too afraid of him to argue, and, blushing deeply, walked away again, muttering some excuse about having been delayed. Hurrying, the cold air and the cigarettes all made him cough, and he coughed till he thought he would be sick, slipping off his gown as he walked. When he got back to his room he found he had left the light on. There was an open note lying on the table addressed to Christopher, and he began to read it, squatting in front of the fire and shielding his face from the heat. It ran:

Dear Chris, I suppose it will be all right if I bring Gillian tonight? It’s her last evening here and I’ve got saddled with her as usual—and Eddy said vaguely that he was amalgamating with someone who was holding a kind of social with sandwiches—I mean do you think I could leave her there, somewhere people won’t be too drunk. I’m afraid we shall have to leave early, too, but I do want to come. Can you ring me up between four and five? …

There were a few lines more, but he did not bother to read them, scratching his head and reading the first part again. The page trembled as he held it. Then he got to his feet and leaned against the fireplace, his head against his wrists, then he lifted his head and stared at his own reflected eyes. His face had gone very pale. Folding the note up, he threw it back on to the table, and walked up to the door and back several times. He wiped his hands on his trousers. The clock on the mantelpiece had stopped at twenty to five.

Pushing back his hair, he made his way through the darkness back to the Buttery.

“I wanted two bottles of sherry,” he said, looking confusedly at the wine list. “That kind,” he pointed out, indicating the most expensive. The steward took a key from a nail and fetched them, wiping each bottle carefully with a duster when he brought them back. “Will you sign for them, please, sir,” he said. John wrote his name awkwardly on a slip of paper printed for the purpose, then went back with the bottles towards his own room. Half-way there he dropped one and it smashed instantly on the flagstones: he hesitated a moment, then hurried on, carrying the remaining bottle with both hands.

When he set it down it glowed in the light like a column of amber: the label was spotted with age. He did his hair in the bedroom, then put on his overcoat again, turned up the collar, and, picking up the bottle, made for the door. There he paused. He put the bottle back on the table and going to a drawer pulled out the folder that held all he had written about Jill. He lit a cigarette, leant against the mantelpiece, and turned the pages over one by one, slowly, quickly.

Awful at breakfast this morning. We were just starting the porridge when I remarked that it was significant that both schools and prisons began their meals the same way—with skilly—when old B. was passing and heard. “I don’t think that’s a nice thing to say,” she said, so mild and pained that I really felt it wasn’t, and was quite deflated. Odd.…

And:

I mean I know things will get worse, but I don’t mind because they’ll get better and better, too. I wouldn’t go back, not for millions.

With a sudden shrugging movement he pitched the handful of written sheets into the fire, where they burst alight. He watched them a moment. Then he went out, slipping the sherry bottle into his pocket and leaving the light on and his cigarette burning on the mantelpiece where he had laid it.

As he walked through the archway he trod on broken glass and wondered what it was.

It was so cold outside that he went into a public house and asked for whisky. They only had gin, which he swallowed at a gulp. It had no perceptible effect on the coldness of his hands, so at the next bar he asked for whisky again and this time got it, though he thought as he drank it down that he would have done better to stick to gin. He then asked for a pint of beer to quench his thirst.

Eddy’s college was at the other end of the town, some five minutes’ walk, and the sag of the heavy bottle was making his left shoulder ache. There was a trampling of soldiers’ boots in the darkness: then enormous, minatory, the bell from Eddy’s college tolled the quarter-hour, filling every crevice of the night. A very fine rain had begun to fall. Alarmed by the huge noise of the bell, he stood irresolutely at the gates looking in, seeing a little light from the Lodge, and the porter in a bowler hat. Two young men came out, and he stepped aside to let them pass. Then he looked in again. There were bicycles leaning against the wall.

This was the very peak of indecision. Somewhere in that vast ramble of buildings was Jill, unattended, most likely bored, waiting to be rescued and taken away. He had his bottle as a passport, yet he dare not go in. Elizabeth’s note had sent him staggering back into his old longings: the realization of another
last chance gripped him, making him long to act. He forced himself towards the event, towards the last chance he would ever have. Yet he dared not go in. He was afraid that he would be turned out, or that he would find her happy with someone else. He had no idea of what he would do, only that he wanted to be with her. Oh, Jill, he thought despairingly, shivering. He longed for her so intensely that surely she could feel his longing. He put his forehead against the wall: his misery was imprisoned in him and he was imprisoned in his misery.

There was an alehouse over the road. Perhaps it would be better to wait till they had got warmed up, so that they wouldn’t be so likely to resent his presence. And he need not actually go in for another three-quarters of an hour, till nine, when the gates were shut. He would let them get started first.

The landlord looked at him suspiciously as he came up to the bar and asked for a pint.

“Are you eighteen?”

John blinked: he had to collect the words in his brain to answer.

“I am eighteen. I am a member of the University.”

The man turned away, saying something that John could not catch, and drew the beer. To cover his embarrassment John lit a cigarette at the tiny gas jet that burnt in one corner of the room, looking round him. It was an old-fashioned place, with sawdust on the floor and ornamental casks labelled brandy rum and gin along the shelves. At a table a party of workmen were playing dominoes and the landlord leant over to watch them, drinking occasionally at a pint.

“’Arold, ’Arold,” he interjected once, “is that the best you can do?”

But if he left it too late, Jill might go home. He remembered in the note that Elizabeth had said they were going to leave early, and in any case they had to be out of the College at some time, probably half-past nine or ten. He would have to act quickly if he was going to do any good. He took the burning cigarette from his mouth and dropped it by accident on to the floor, where he abandoned it after a slight preliminary groping. While he stood at the counter, a ragged man picked it up,
pinched it out, and put it behind his ear. He was sitting by John’s seat when the latter returned with another pint to drink.

“Just finished my day’s work, locking the gates of the cemetery,” he said to John affably. “Stop ’em all gettin’ out. Well, ’ere’s more lead in yer pencil.” He finished off his half-pint, wiping his mouth with relish. John looked nervously at him, noticing that he had a glass eye. The man lit John’s discarded cigarette at the gas jet and broke into confidential speech.

“Ah, I got a marble at Dunkirk. Yer know what I mean, don’t yer?” He tapped his eye. “I was there all right. Ah, I got it there. A wonder I’m ’ere to say so.”

He began talking so quickly and so intimately that John could not understand all he said, except that he gathered that he was telling the story of his Army life. At one point he took out a great bundle of papers, tattered military forms and certificates pinned together, and spread them on the table. He gave John first one, then another. John realized he was begging.

“’Ere, sir, perhaps you can give me an ’and. I ain’t no beggar. I ’ad a trade, same as anyone, I ’ad a skilled trade. I’ll tell you what it was, it was carpentry, that’s what it was. Now won’t you give me an ’and, sir, I ain’t no blasted moocher, I was at Dunkirk. I’m a discharged ex-Serviceman, and they won’t give me no work or pension. Don’t you think I ain’t tried for work, I ain’t work-shy, mister. Ha, ha, ha! I tried. I’ve stood two, three—four hours I’ve stood outside that damn Labour Exchange. It ain’t right, I tell yer. Won’t you give me an ’and, sir. I was at Dunkirk, I ain’t ’ad an easy time like you ’ave, sir. I ain’t a young fellow like you any more. They gets yer in the Army, mucks yer up, and then says you ain’t no good to them. God’s truth you ain’t: you ain’t no damn good to nobody.”

John wished he would go, wished so heartily that he gave him half a crown and looked away. The man jumped up and departed as if he had been sent on an errand. The door banged behind him and John covered his face with his hands. As he did so, the circular movement in his head, that was kept at bay as long as he held his eyes open, rushed in upon him. In the darkness he felt as if his chair were sinking slowly sideways to the
left. He uncovered his face and the room slowly pulled itself upright, then started to tug at his eyes, wanting to start moving round to the left. It was painful to struggle against this, and he closed his eyes again. Once more his chair began to sink sideways.

It seemed necessary that he should get some fresh air and find a lavatory, so he finished his beer and went out, the fine rain being instantly laid across his face like a piece of wet muslin. Not knowing where the lavatory was and being afraid of finding the man from Dunkirk there, he crossed the road and went into Eddy’s college. He stumbled over the gate and the porter looked round, though without saying anything.

All at once it seemed very cold. The stars marched frostily across the sky. He buttoned up his overcoat and, feeling the bottle of sherry, recalled Eddy’s party, where there would be a fire and a corkscrew and more to drink. He must go there. Eddy’s indecent remark about Jill also re-entered his mind, and he went off into a cackle of laughter, stretching out his arms before him as if literally pushing the darkness back. It would be sensible, he thought, to ask the way. But just at the moment all the walls were blank and the doors were great locked ones leading into kitchens and storerooms. He stumbled and swore and ran into a tree. At this he paused and told the tree what he was looking for. While he was talking he noticed a staircase quite near, lit by a blue light, and he went in and knocked at the first door he found.

“Come in,” cried a voice. John rattled stupidly at the door-handle and at last it was opened from inside by a young man with fair, greased-back hair and horn-rimmed spectacles.

“Yes?” he said. “What can I do for you?”

“I——” John experienced some difficulty in getting his tongue to work. “I’m trying to find a party—a party, it’s given by—by——” He could not remember Eddy’s surname. “You know, Eddy what’s-his-name. Here, have a drink.” He pulled the bottle from his pocket. “Oh, sorry. Haven’t opened it.” He fumbled at the neck. “It’s corked.”

“I’ve got a corkscrew—come inside.” The young man took the bottle and stepped back. John came in, frowning at the
light, seeing a desk under a lamp littered with sheets of paper covered with half-finished poems.

“One gets so worked up,” said the young man. “As regards your party, there are dozens all over the place. There’s certainly an unholy row in the next quad.”

He produced a corkscrew from a drawer full of knives and set two glasses on the table. John sank into an armchair, and when the young man gave him a glassful, gulped it.

“I say, this is remarkably good sherry. Where is it from? I must say I should like a dozen or so of these for myself. Where does it come from?”

John told him and a period of utter forgetfulness intervened. The next thing he noticed was that the young man was reading him a poem, in a slow voice that rose and fell, all in one sentence that seemed to go on for ever. John did not understand it, and had more sherry.

“I say, is there a lavatory about here?” he inquired, when the young man paused for breath.

“Yes, on the next staircase. Turn right when you get outside. Do hurry back or we shall lose the mood.”

John left him lighting a long clay churchwarden pipe with a glowing cinder held in a pair of tongs. It was not hard to find the lavatory, which was lit by a ghastly blue light and smelt of a peculiarly choking kind of disinfectant. He turned the wrong way on leaving it, and the room he entered was empty, with a glum fire smouldering in the grate. He switched on the light and lay on the hearthrug in an effort to get warm; he put lumps of coal on the fire with his bare fingers, but it still would not burn up. How cold it was. To help the flames he took a book from the table and stuffed it among the dim coals. Then he lay perfectly still, like an open-eyed figure on a tomb, staring at a photograph lodged on the desk. It showed a girl: Jill in fact. Slowly he dragged himself across on his knees to look at it, and when he took it in his hands the expression on the photographed face changed slowly until it was not her. He began trembling. He shielded his eyes from the light and the book in the fire burst into flames with a loud flap; simultaneously something seemed to run across the floor close by him. Holding
the photograph, he waddled frantically on his knees for the door, pulling himself upright by the doorpost, and got away out. His dirty hands had left marks on the photograph: since it was dirty, he tore it up and threw it away.