The Search (7 page)

Pain twitched at the corner of his mouth and he slept.

Ten

T
REVOR LISTENED TO
Professor Anderson talking about Richardson, noticing that on the table there were the usual glasses of wine and orange juice. There were perhaps 25 people in the room altogether, arranged in a semi-circle around the professor who was reading from a sheaf of typescript. He himself had never managed to study much of Richardson but remembered him as an author of novels in which a member of the upper classes, usually a squire, tried to seduce a maidservant, usually obsessed with sexual prudery, into bed with him. The professor was talking about the devices used to prolong suspense in the author's long epistolary novels and how in one of the books Richardson had great difficulty with the ending.

For the first time since he had come to Australia Trevor felt restless, imagining himself, inside the room with the other lecturers and professors, as a goldfish in a pond such as the one that adjoined the college. Everything around him was clean and hushed and polished, though now and again when he remembered the weals on his arms he shivered with distaste and shame. It seemed to the professor, as far as Trevor could make out, that Richardson was a greater novelist than Fielding since he had been so winding and oblique and experimental in a curiously modern psychological manner. He noticed that the German professor was writing furiously in a notebook, his hair falling over his eyes, preparing himself to deliver a learned fusillade of questions at the end of the lecture. He felt at the same time a drilling ache beginning to throb relentlessly behind his right eye, as if a needle were being inserted there. Hadn't Douglas said that he suffered frequently from headaches? He had a picture of the leering squire bending over the apparently innocent yet calculating servant girl in the middle of a rural night impregnated with the scents of blossoms. The lecturer had made a joke and the German professor laughed before anyone else did, like an obedient and perceptive pupil. Suddenly Trevor couldn't stand being there any longer and rose quickly and left the room, making a muttered apology as he passed the lecturer.

He walked along a corridor and saw a telephone there. He took some cents from his pocket and dialled the number which Douglas had given him. The phone rang endlessly, perhaps in an empty house. Where on earth was Douglas? Why did he never answer?

He left the college and walked into Canberra, passing some beautiful trees with orange leaves on the way, while under them some students were reading quietly in a tranquil Arcadia of their own. For a brief moment his university days returned to him, piercing and present, in a fresh poignancy of feeling. Then he remembered quite out of the blue that Australians were compelled to vote and unless they did so they were fined. He made his way to the post office and asked if he could see the voting registers. But if Douglas had only been in Canberra a short time his name might not be on the register. He looked up the name
DOUGLAS
but could find only three and none of them had the initials that he had been given.

When he came out of the post office he didn't know what to do next. He had no address for Douglas and he felt helpless and baffled. He sat down on a green bench beside a tramp who had a bag at his feet and as before he watched a small bird pecking at crumbs which had been thrown to it by passers by. It occurred to him that its fierce dedication to the moment wouldn't allow it to comment on its surroundings even if it wished to do so: birds couldn't be poets, however lyrical for instance nightingales might appear in mythology. Prose, poetry, these were the luxuries of a mind which preyed on landscapes and people, freed from economic necessity. A fountain jetted clear water into the sparkling air. A man was talking into a microphone about the Fraser Government, attacking it for its right-wing policies that were causing so much unemployment. All around him he could see the privileged, well-dressed people in an arcade that had beautiful shops.

Feeling suddenly disgusted with his own idleness, he walked back to the college again, as if he were hurrying to a specific destination. He didn't know what he would do if Douglas didn't communicate with him. He passed a police station and nearly went in to ask if they knew anything about Douglas, if they had his name on their books, but decided against it. There would have to be too much explanation, too much documentation, too much questioning. He turned towards his college and stood for a moment, before turning in, staring down at some ants which were scurrying across the dusty earth with their burdens of twigs. Even when they bumped into each other with obsessive haste they did not stop but continued on their relentlessly urgent journeys which to him appeared so mysterious.

He went to his room and lay down on the bed, then phoned Douglas again. Again the phone rang and rang with the same hollow sound, and no one answered. Had Douglas by some final black joke given him the number of a public call box and was the phone ringing perhaps at the side of a road somewhere? He looked down into the garden below at the red chairs, hearing from them the sound of laughter as people ate and drank from the wooden tables set in front of them. Such a simple almost bucolic scene! It seemed to him like a theatre readying itself for a great invisible event. The sprinklers played over the dusty earth in remorseless shining arcs and among the trees he saw a black cat loping silently, now and again stopping and gazing up into the trees where birds with brilliant plumage were perched like unattainable fruit.

Again he phoned and again there was no answer. He poured himself a whisky and lay on the bed watching the ceiling. He felt sleepy, and did not wish to continue with the notes of the lecture he had been preparing before he had left for Sydney. Then suddenly the phone rang stridently and he picked it up quickly. A voice at the other end said,

“Is that Mr Grierson?”

“Here,” he said eagerly.

“This is Malcolm Douglas,” said the voice. “You're back from Sydney? Did you find out anything?”

“I did,” said Trevor. “Could I see you?”

“When?”

“Well, could you come here or could I go and see you?”

Douglas hesitated for a moment and then said, “You could come here, I suppose,” and gave him an address which Trevor copied down furiously on to the back of a page of his lecture notes.

“On the other hand,” he said, “it might be more convenient for you to come here.”

“It doesn't matter,” said Douglas. “Whatever you want. You can come here if you wish.”

“All right,” said Trevor. “I'll come and see you. I've got a lot to tell you. When should I come?”

“Would you like to come tonight?” said Douglas.

“Yes, of course. I shall be there fairly soon.” And then inconsequentially he added, “Which part of Scotland did you originally come from?”

“Ayrshire.”

Trevor wanted to continue speaking, as if Douglas were his only link with reality but couldn't think of anything to say to him. Other people could chatter on about nothing in particular but he couldn't.

“All right then,” he ended lamely. “I'll be along about half-past seven. Is that okay?”

“Yes,” said Douglas. “No worries.”

When he had put the phone down Trevor finished his whisky and then restlessly switched on the radio. A woman was interviewing someone about unemployment.

“Have you got much to live on?” she asked. Trevor switched the radio off and went out to the balcony. As he looked down on the lawn where the men and women were drinking and laughing he felt isolated and without energy. It seemed to him that the scene below him, the people, the trees, and the black cat were assembled into a drama of which he himself was the author. The flute player was still composing his watery notes, bubbling over a dry landscape. Many of the leaves were falling from the trees, and lying on the lawn in yellow patterns.

He sat there for a long time and then decided that he ought to bring something to Douglas. Would a bottle of wine be sufficient? And what about the wife and child? He went down to the shop which adjoined the college and bought a flagon of white wine with the remains of the money that he had left over from the bus fare. He realized that he had forgotten to go to the bank and explain what had happened to him in Sydney and he cursed himself for his forgetfulness. Still, he had some money in his case which he could use. Feeling more restless than ever he decided that he could walk to the bank, which was in the city centre.

He took his passport out of his case and pulled the door shut behind him. He would need some money for the taxi that would take him to Douglas's house. He walked briskly out of the college again as if he had a renewed purpose in life, hoping that the people in the bank wouldn't be too officious. It seemed to him that his life which had been ordered had now become disordered. How had he not thought about the bank when he had been downtown before? Why, when he had come over to Australia he had written in a notebook all the places he would visit, and the dates in which he would be in those places. It was in fact lucky for him that he had thought of locking his passport and air ticket in his case when he had gone to Sydney. In that sense he had been more fortunate than he had deserved. He mopped his face with his handkerchief as he walked along, removing his jacket and carrying it over his arm, and making sure that his wallet wouldn't fall out.

He remembered, when the plane had landed briefly in the damp heat of Singapore, seeing a native lying under the shadow of the wing of a huge plane as if to protect himself from the intense humid heat: and later how some natives with their names written on the backs of their shirts had entered the plane to clean it. They talked to each other in their own language, which of course he hadn't understood. He had wondered vaguely what sort of life they led. Why, they were like servants attending to transient overlords, vassals to the aristocracy of the sky. And then the plane was airborne and they were heading into the sun and as the blinds were down because of the film that was being shown the windows suddenly became like the windows of a cathedral, encrusted with a blood-red colour. Down below were the fields which looked exactly like strips of linoleum or marquetry, wooden barren floors. And in the sea were boats with strangely shaped sails. Now the strangeness returned to him as if it had some deep significance.

Eleven

A
T A QUARTER-PAST
seven he took a taxi from the college to the address which Douglas had given him and which was in Melba. It occurred to him that he wasn't as nervous now as he had been in Sydney, as if the city of Canberra itself, bureacratic, governmental, guaranteed order, though of course this might be an illusion. He tried to speak to the taxi driver who was unaccountably silent, and then gave up and looked out of the window. It disturbed him a little that the taxi driver didn't seem to know where the street was, and had in fact taken out a map which he unfolded and studied while the cab was standing at the traffic lights. At last he found the street on his map and they sped on. Lights twinkled all over the city making it lustrous and beautiful.

At last the taxi stopped at No. 158 Morgan Close, though the number Trevor wanted was 154. He told the taxi driver that he would find the house himself and went to see whether 154 was two doors down from 158. It turned out however that 157 was next to 158. As he searched for the house the rain began to fall heavily and he sheltered under the overhanging roof of a tin hut, hearing the heavy drops banging above him like hailstones. The houses didn't seem to be in a good area and he asked a fat woman who was puffing her way up a brae in the rain where 154 was. She pointed down the hill to another row of houses. The raindrops bounced from the road and in the distance he saw sheet lightning illuminating the sky. There were dull, hollow bursts of thunder.

He made a rush for the houses which she had indicated and as he ran along a pathway he saw Douglas standing at a window looking out. He knocked on the door and after a while Douglas came to it.

“Did you have difficulty finding the house?” he asked Trevor, whose jacket had been drenched by the rain.

“Yes,” said Trevor angrily.

“My wife and child are out,” Douglas told him, ignoring the fact that he looked enraged. The room into which Trevor was led seemed to be reasonably well furnished with black leather armchairs, and paintings on the walls. One of the paintings showed a face red as the sun resting on spindly legs, and its savage, almost primitive colouring made him wonder once again if there was something psychologically wrong with Douglas. The latter appeared tense and smoked continually.

They sat down opposite each other and Douglas said,

“What did you find out then?”

Trevor told him everything that had happened to him and Douglas listened intently though rather impatiently, smoking furiously.

He didn't seem to have much sympathy for Trevor even when the latter told him that he had been hit on the head.

“That happens if you're not careful,” he said. “Did you find out anything about Norman?”

“No,” said Trevor. “I still don't know where he is.”

“I'd better tell you what he told me,” said Douglas at last. “You're not going to like this.”

“Like what?”

“As I said, what Norman told me. I don't think you know him very well. That is my impression though I may be wrong. He's totally different from what you think he is. I imagine you consider him rather stupid because he didn't read books and left school early, but you would be wrong about that. Norman has worked out a technique for survival, you know. We all had to do that. I remember the time when we went to this particular place where they were giving out food. Do you know what we got? A pie each. They were practically uneatable. We hit rock bottom at that time. But we had a lot of fun too.”

He went over to a cupboard and took out two cans of beer and opened them, ignoring the bottle of wine that Trevor had brought.

“You'll have one,” he said. “I don't have very much money but I can run to beer.”

Trevor who didn't usually drink beer accepted it just the same.

“I said you're not going to like this but Norman told me that when the two of you were growing up you were the one who was always getting preferential treatment. For instance you never took a job: you were studying for the university. Is that right?” And he lit another cigarette from the one he had just finished, drawing the smoke deeply into his lungs.

“He said that he started working after he left school but you were intended for university. One time when you were coming home from university he carried your case for you and he hurt his back. It was loaded with books. Do you remember that incident?”

“Yes.”

“That's what he told me. If there was any money for clothes it was you who got it; he didn't get any because he wasn't going to university. And when an uncle came home from Africa and he gave you five pounds for writing a letter for him you never thought of giving Norman any of the money. And at the time he was very short of money. He told me that he always regretted leaving school early.”

“What?” said Trevor incredulously.

“That was what he said. But since you were getting all the preferential treatment he didn't think there was any point in staying on. As I told you, Norman isn't stupid. He may not appear to be paying much attention, but he doesn't miss much. He could have gone to university if he had wanted to. Psychologically your life depends on the way in which you are treated. You understand that. Have you read Laing?”

“Yes,” said Trevor, “I've read a little of him.”

“Well, then, you don't need me to tell you all this. My father came out here to join the Army but he didn't like it. To tell you the truth he had deserted from the British Army. He went back again to Britain and my mother divorced him. I was brought up by my mother: I can't remember my father very well. I can't take ordinary jobs because I get headaches. That is why I'm working on my novel. I'm sure it will be published: as I told you I have contacts.”

“I'm sure,” said Trevor in an embarrassed manner.

“See, there you go again,” said Douglas, who suddenly became very agitated. “You're saying, ‘I'm sure' when you don't mean it. You haven't seen my novel yet and you dismiss it. One thing that happens in publishing is that people lay down the law as to what you should accept as payment. I'll lay down my own rules: I'm not going to be tied to any publisher. Obviously publishers are going to look after themselves. Do you believe that?”

“I believe it,” said Trevor, “but on the other hand if you're starting off for the first time …” And his voice trailed away.

“I'll do what I want,” said Douglas, his uncertain temper flaring again. “Do you know what money I'm getting for my wife and child. Seventy dollars a week. The other night I couldn't type, the child was crying all the time. There's something rotten about this country. They say there is no class system but there is. We have a man in Queensland but I'd better not go on …' And he lit another cigarette, his hand shaking. “I told you I came from Ayrshire. My people were miners. They worked long shifts for little money. You wouldn't know about that. I'm sure that in your college there's plenty of food and wine.”

“That's true,” said Trevor, “but what I want to know is about Norman.”

“I know you do and I'm coming to that. What seems to me fairly obvious is that you don't know anything about him. I know more about him than you seem to do. Don't worry about getting back,” he told Trevor who was looking apprehensively through the window at the sheet lightning which played about the sky. “I'll phone for a taxi for you.”

He paused and Trevor stared at him. The man was a tangle of nerves and rancour. He wondered how he could afford to smoke so many cigarettes on 70 dollars a week.

“Don't think I want money from you,” said Douglas, “not at all. Have you ever heard of the cargo cult? The aborigines thought that supplies which came by plane belonged to them because they came from the sky and therefore from their gods. They have a myth about a god who will bring them food. I'm not like that. I don't have a myth like that.” It occurred to Trevor that this was a highly intelligent man who had been almost crazed by destitution, but who was still more penetrating and astute than he was himself.

“You see,” Douglas continued, “you categorize people. You probably think that your brother is an alcoholic and that allows you to forget about him and think about alcoholism instead. Everybody has a label for everybody else. When I came back from Sydney my sister characterized me as the black sheep. I don't speak to her now. What is an alcoholic? Nobody knows. And they don't try to understand why each individual became an alcoholic. Alcoholism is not like the plague, it does not strike without reason. Perhaps your brother Norman had the strength to break out of his environment, perhaps not. But he should not be characterized as an alcoholic.”

“But,” protested Trevor, “alcoholism is a specific disease which can be characterized.”

Douglas became extremely agitated and walked about the room smoking furiously.

“Not at all,” he shouted. “And even if that were true what would it tell us? What you have to do is to see your brother as distinct from the disease. Do you understand me? Perhaps that is what Christ did, though I'm not a Christian: perhaps that is how he healed people.” He smiled brilliantly, exhaling smoke, and added, “You must read the literature on this. I used to be a nurse in a hospital and I know it. I used to be a psychiatric nurse.”

“Was my brother being dried out then and were you nursing him?” asked Trevor but Douglas didn't answer.

“I'll tell you,” he said, “you still haven't changed. You have to learn more before you will be changed. I told you that you wouldn't like what I have to tell you.” And he paused a long time as if collecting his thoughts. “You did a terrible thing to your brother, didn't you? In fact you are responsible for making him emigrate.”

“Me?” said Trevor.

“When I met you you implied that he set off cheerfully for Australia as if it was a great adventure. These were your very words. Isn't that right?”

“I don't know whether I gave that impression or not,” said Trevor.

“It wasn't an impression, it was a verbal commitment. You said that you saw him off. By this time he had finished his National Service. You gave the impression that he had been home for quite a long time. Perhaps two years.”

“I don't …” Trevor began. But Douglas interrupted him.

“He wasn't home as long as two years at all,” said Douglas. “He went away after a few months. He told me why he left and you don't need to disguise it any longer.”

He paused and then began again, rubbing his forehead with his left hand as if he had another headache.

“What Norman told me was this. He had a girl friend when he went to the Army and at first she used to write to him. Her name was Sheila, by the way. He had met her at a dance. According to Norman she was very pretty.” Trevor closed his eyes. Sheila had used to come and visit himself and his mother when his brother was in the Army. She was … it was true she was working in the same factory as his brother but at the same time she was ambitious and determined. Trevor had seen clearly what mettle she was made of but Norman hadn't seen it at all. At first she would talk to the two of them and then one day he had taken her to the cinema, a matinée, he remembered. In the middle of the film, in the darkness, he had felt her hand in his, and he had looked at her, and then … All those years when he had been studying he had never gone with girls, he had been a monk resolute in the pursuit of knowledge. True, there had been one girl whom he had helped with her Virgil and another one who sporadically sent him a Christmas card … but that hadn't been serious.

Now it was as if a dam had burst and he had found himself in the presence of an experienced girl who knew how to use her sex as a weapon. He had never met anyone like her before, so compellingly demanding, so nakedly and practically intelligent and ambitious. Had it been love he felt for her? Surely it had been love. One night he had become embittered and jealous when she had danced too long with a friend of his, and he had been ashamed and confused and frightened. For never before in his whole life had he felt jealousy, the hunger for exclusive possession. That night he had dreamt a vivid dream. He was sitting in a room with a lot of people and a cat with enormous green eyes had appeared at the door staring at him, the eyes becoming more and more enlarged. He found himself humbly apologizing to her, presenting her with a bouquet of flowers at nine o'clock on the Saturday morning as if he were asking pardon from an empress. It was as if he was flayed and irrational, raw and torn. If it wasn't love, it was a sickness entirely foreign to his nature.

Many times he had tried to withdraw from her but found that he couldn't. She was, of course, two years younger than he was, the same age as Norman. They had gone for walks in the woods above the town, and there they had … He could at that very moment see the dapple of sunlight on the thick trunks of the trees, against one of which he had squeezed her in his desperation, as if he were nailing her to the wood, punishing her for his loss of innocence, for the green coolness that had forever left him.

When he thought of his brother he used to forgive himself because of the absolute helplessness of his condition. But should he not perhaps in all honour have emigrated instead of his brother? Shouldn't he have had the courage to take the absurd leap into the blue? There was the night he and Sheila had quarrelled in her sister's house because she was dancing alone on the floor, and he didn't like her dancing in front of other people.

“If you won't stop I'll leave you,” he had said and had walked out into the frosty night. Half an hour later she had caught up with him in her sister's car as he plodded steadily towards the North Star.

“You know that I love you,” she had said. But he didn't know. Why should she love him? He was bald, stupid, older than her. And why had she abandoned his brother so quickly?