Jill (8 page)

John always regretted they did not spend more time together. After their first tutorial he suggested timidly that they should walk round the gardens, but Christopher said rather abruptly that he was meeting some people, and left him. But it was nevertheless this regret that came first to his mind when their Tutor, the day after, sent him a note asking him to be good enough to call on him.

“Come in, Mr. Kemp.” The Tutor smiled kindly, keeping one finger in the book he was reading. “Sit down. I wanted to ask you if perhaps you’d prefer me to take you alone in future.”

“Alone?”

“Alone, instead of with Mr. Warner.”

“Why—er—no, I don’t think so, sir.” He was flabbergasted and spoke without thinking.

“Are you sure? You don’t feel the present arrangement hinders you in any way?”

“Oh, no, sir.”

The Tutor covered his eyes for a moment with his hand and rubbed his forehead. His long body was clothed in a rough green tweed suit.

“Well, as you please. It wouldn’t be any trouble.” He waited a few seconds, but John said nothing, keeping his eyes fixed on the brightly-polished fire-irons in the hearth. “All right, that’s all I wanted to say.”

John left the room, and walked back round the cloisters, the shadows of the pillars falling across his path and his long black gown billowing out behind him. He met Christopher just lounging down the steps of staircase fourteen and told him eagerly what the Tutor had said.

“I hope you put a stopper on it.”

“Oh, I did, yes.”

“Good show. I suppose he thinks if he gets us alone he can screw more work out of us.”

“I’m glad you think I did right.”

Christopher nodded briefly, and strolled off, keeping his hands in his pockets and his head erect. John watched him go, and then went into the rooms. He was trembling slightly as he hung up his gown behind the door, partly from the nervousness that any contact with authority produced, and partly with pleasure that he had done Christopher a service. If the empty days that meandered past had any object at all, it was to please Christopher and win his favour. Whenever Christopher entered the room, John could not help brightening up and getting ready to laugh: he did not expect to be included in the talk, but it seemed a great privilege simply to be allowed to listen to them as they stood talking casually, the collars of their coats turned up, discussing where they should go of an evening. He had a keen sensation of their presence, like the smell of a fine cloth or leather. The night before their second tutorial, when they had known each other for exactly a fortnight, Christopher took John’s notes and hashed up a careless rigmarole to present in the morning, sitting in the lamplight with a cigarette in his mouth. His pen moved quickly over the paper. When he had done, he pushed the papers aside with a sigh of relief.

“Thank God that’s finished. White of you to lend me all this.” He studied his wrist-watch, yawning unconcernedly. “What about a drink?”

John laid his pen very carefully down across his notebook.

“A—er—where, d’you mean?”

“Oh, somewhere out.” Christopher stood up and picked up his scarf from the top of the cupboard; he blinked at John in a way that suggested that he had only just realized who he was talking to. “Oh, it doesn’t matter, if you’re working.”

“But of course—yes, of course!” John shoved his chair back, jumping to his feet. He bundled on his overcoat, keeping an eye on Christopher, as if he might suddenly disappear or the invitation be rescinded. Christopher crossed to the looking-glass and passed a hand over his hair from back to front: then, catching
sight of the small clock that stood on the mantelpiece, picked it up and wound it a few times.

“Ready!” said John, by the door. There was a look on his face that fleetingly recalled the expression of a child who is being taken to a circus. As they walked round the cloisters and across the first quadrangle together, he regretted it was too dark for them to be seen. A light came on in the Master’s lodgings, but almost instantly a maid drew a heavy plush curtain across it, and there was no light anywhere. Christopher paused at the Lodge, where he found a postcard inviting him to play in a trial football match. He put it in his pocket.

“We’ll go to the Bull, shall we?” he said. “Eddy might be there.”

John did not want to see Eddy, but he was content to let Christopher go where he wanted, so they turned left on leaving the great gates. The bells were chiming for half-past six, and from the centre of the town came a mournful hooting of traffic, while from a taxi-rank near by a telephone rang persistently. The night air was cold. An aeroplane, bearing red and green pilot lights, flew diagonally across the sky.

As they turned up a little alleyway, John wondered what the Bull would be like: it had figured prominently in the anecdotes he had heard, and he had always pictured it as a tiny den. He was surprised, therefore, to enter a dazzlingly bright bar, where the light glanced off the chromium fittings and the mirror behind the counter, and a powerful coke fire slumbered in the grate. The room was empty except for the landlord, who read the newspaper, and a tremulous old man sitting in a corner with an untouched pint of beer before him.

“Evening, Christopher,” said the landlord, folding the paper up.

“Good evening, Charley. Two bitters, if you please.”

John took his with a gesture so casual that he nearly spilt it. It would never do to let Christopher think he had never drunk before, as was the case; that was something to be hoarded up till it had ripened into an anecdote. He imagined himself saying in the future: “D’you remember that time we went to the Bull, old boy. In our first term? D’you know, that was really and
truly the first time I’d ever seen the inside of a bar.…” (“Oh, come off it, old boy!”) “S’fact! My dear fellow, it’s absolutely bloody gospel! Here, after you with the—whoops! Don’t drown it.…” His voice would be rich and husked with tobacco.

Aloud he said: “Thank you.”

“Not busy yet, Charley.”

“Not yet, sir.” Charley laid his hands palm downwards on the counter and watched Christopher light a fresh cigarette from the stub of an old one. “It’s the black-out. That’s what it is.”

Christopher nodded seriously.

“It is, I tell you. I’ve just been reading a bit in this paper”—he made a gesture as if to unfold it, but contented himself with tapping it several times—“all about the British pub Jerry can’t kill. Garrh! ’E’s killing it. ’E is! Why, at this time we’d have an ’ole barful of fellers—commercial, office chaps.…”

John listened impatiently, but as Christopher looked interested and amused, he tried to look interested and amused also.

“You won’t be sorry to see the lights go up again, then.”

Charley gave a short burst of laughter and drank: John drank too. Ugh, what a vile taste. The old man in the corner parted his mouth in a grin, and, speaking as if with difficulty, said:

“I reckon you’ll shut down—an’—an’ drink the place dry yerself!”

It was hard to hear what he said.

“Now that,” said Christopher, with a laugh, “is what I call taking a really unfair advantage.

Charley grinned too, and wiped the bar down with a foul wet rag. But before he could think of an answer more men came in, and the conversation dropped. John and Christopher took further swallows of beer, John trying to decide whether he really disliked it or whether he just found it unpleasant. Then he beat desperately about his mind for something to say: he felt that unless he flung nets of words over Christopher he might escape, borne off by another unaccountable whim,
perhaps to seek Eddy or Patrick. “Do—er—do the Proctors ever come in here?” he inquired with a nervous laugh. “Have you ever seen them here?”

“I’ve never seen them anywhere,” replied Christopher, stirring. “They don’t bother about the little places much.”

“Is this a little place?”

“Fairly, but you see it’s early yet. They don’t come out till after Hall.”

When Christopher blew out smoke, it was like cloudy breath—why was that?

Suddenly realizing Christopher had finished his beer, he drank his own and ordered two more, noticing that a group of men in the corner had switched on the light over the dartboard and begun to play. His pale face, with a hanging lock of yellow hair, looked back at him excitedly from the mirror, and he wondered how soon he would begin to feel drunk.

“I expect you managed to drink a good deal at school,” he ventured.

As expected, Christopher looked interested at once. “I don’t know about a good deal,” he began, lifting his full glass. “It wasn’t so easy. But there were ways, you know … I remember once——”

But before he could say more, the door swung open and Eddy Makepeace with another young man appeared, both dressed in raincoats, and after a second’s squinting in the light, made straight for Christopher.

“There you are, you elusive bastard,” greeted Eddy, coughing noisily. “It’s foggy outside. Here, come down to the King’s. Know who’s there?”

“Who?”

“Brian Kenderdine.”

“No.”

“Fact. Here for a night. He’s been to Narvik. He asked after you—we called at your rooms, but you weren’t there. I said I’d look for you here, while Brian and the boys went along to the King’s.”

Eddy stopped, licking his lips, and took a swig of Christopher’s beer. John, vainly trying to compose his disappointed
heart, noticed that Christopher was already tightening his muffler and looking more animated than he had yet done that evening.

“It’ll be good to see Brian again. Is he tight? I know he always liked to get off a train tight, to make an impression.”

“He hitched,” said the young man in a disagreeable mincing London voice.

“No, soon will be though. Actually he’s been in a naval hospital—looks much thinner.”

“What was the matter with his navel?” grinned Christopher, buttoning his scarf inside his jacket. “Here, finish that beer, Eddy, you bloody pig.”

“I only wanted to see if the bitter was still the same old Bull’s piss. I can’t think why you don’t have mild.”

“Jesus!” said Christopher disgustedly. “Leave it then. Here, oh damn, I’ve got no real money. Can you see me through, Eddy?” His hand searched his pockets sketchily. “A quid will do.”

“No can do,” said the other young man. Eddy opened his pocket-book, a cutting about a horse his father owned fluttering to the ground. John silently picked it up. “Sorry, Chris, I’ve only fifteen bob till I go to the bank. Get it off Pat.”

“I owe Pat two quid,” grumbled Christopher. “You haven’t a quid handy, have you, John, old man?”

“Why, of course.”

John felt in his pockets. Rather belatedly, Christopher said:

“John Kemp—Dick Dowdall.”

John smiled uneasily, trying as he handed the note over to catch Christopher’s eye to seal the loan with a friendly glance, but Christopher was looking at the money.

“That’s white of you, old man. You’ll get it back tomorrow without fail. Right, let’s go.”

They pushed out of the bar, calling good night to the landlord and leaving the half-empty glass standing on the bar. A soldier grunted and said something sarcastic to his comrade. John heard Eddy’s high laugh in the alleyway outside—why did he laugh?

Frowning, tasting his beer reluctantly, he went over the
conversation as with a small hammer, tapping and assessing every word. Perhaps it had not been too bad, for a start. He thought about it until he noticed the time shown by the bar clock, which alarmed him and made him leave hurriedly to get back in time for dinner. He did not know it would be fast.

During dinner he thought constantly of the pound: it was the second of the five pounds pocket-money he had to last him through the term and should have covered the coming fortnight. Now he could not help feeling as uneasy about it as if he had used it to back a racehorse. He told himself that Christopher would pay it back out of sheer courtesy, but even so his mind was not at rest. He avoided sitting by Whitbread.

To comfort himself, he ordered another half of bitter, and when he had returned to his rooms he found himself too drowsy to concentrate on the work he had intended doing. Even though he took out his sheaf of notes and unscrewed his fountain pen, his mind wandered. In the grate the servant had constructed an enormous fire that was just reaching its best: the heat thrilled and stupefied him; he turned over a few pages, wondering where Christopher was at that moment. Some of the notes he had made yesterday, others dated from several years ago. He tried to remember when he had written them, and failed.

He had not noticed the precise date when Mr. Joseph Crouch had been appointed to the staff of the Huddlesford Grammar School as English master, and at the time knew nothing about him. Joseph Crouch was a young man with an excellent London University degree. Indeed, his ability was such that he was put in charge of all senior English work within a few months, and the other English master could only shrug his shoulders more or less philosophically. Mr. Crouch was very pleased about this. He found some comfortable rooms on the edge of the park, and transported at some expense all his books and bookshelves thence from his home in Watford. There were hundreds of volumes: not expensive, but there was some sort of a copy of every important work in the language, and many works of criticism, all with “Joseph Crouch” scribbled carelessly in soft pencil on the fly-leaf. Passages he approved of had a straight
pencil-stroke by them: those he disliked were marked with a wavy line: without exception the books bore traces of having been exhaustively and intelligently studied.

He also brought a suitcase full of his University notes, which in themselves explained his academic success. They covered every book he had read in one way or another, giving synopsis of the plot, the argument, the style and the book’s history; they were written in black ink on single sides of thin sheets of paper, and the headings were underlined in red. Scraps of supplementary information had in some cases been pasted in; all were frequently studded with cross-references and these were in green; the sheets were held together with brass pins. They were numbered carefully, each figure with a little circle round it, and the handwriting on the first sheet was not in the slightest way different from the handwriting on the last one. They filled one of the drawers of his writing desk.