The Walking Stick (2 page)

My sister Sarah was a brilliant young woman and had just added another degree to those she had already got, which was what the party was about. After four or five more years in
the hospitals she intended to specialize in gynaecology. She was tall and a bit big generally but
very
good to look at, with those blue eyes in which even the whites seem to take the colour.
She had been engaged twice and had always got some young man about her, but the link-up never seemed to last long, maybe because she was too high spirited to stay in the shafts. There was so much
in life apart from love. She was probably very much like my father when he was young.

My other sister, Arabella, was only just twenty and was reading medicine at London University. She was as tall as Sarah but much slighter, and rather delicate looking, with very sexy blonde hair
hiding one side of her face and one eye, and a lovely figure. If she got through her studies without being ravished – which seemed unlikely – she would probably go into research, as she
was clever enough but hardly had the face or figure for medical practice.

Although I am myself above average height, I always feel a dwarf in my family, with my mother the next shortest at five feet nine.

When I got to Sarah’s flat in Ennismore Gardens about half a dozen people were already there. Two of them I knew slightly, the others were already busy talking and drinking happily.

‘Hi,’ said Sarah, pecking down at me. ‘Lovely to see you. You know Philip, don’t you? And Greta? Oh, that’s the door again. Could you go and help Arabella pour the
drinks?’

There were shouts of welcome behind me as I went across to the table where the bottles were. Arabella had a new young man called Bruce Spring, who was a Registrar from the Middlesex and had odd
Edwardian side whiskers, a hairy mole on one cheek, and pronounced some of his words as if they were corks being drawn out of wine bottles.

The room began to fill up, but as Sarah had said, this was no shabby bottle party with corduroys and woollen shirts and patched jeans. Sarah shared the flat with a girl called Virginia, and they
had converted their big bedroom into a dining room for the night. For the first hour we drank and talked in the sitting room, and Arabella and I were pretty busy pouring the drinks. Just as we were
about to go in to eat and Sarah had given me the nod not to refill any more glasses, two late arrivals came. One was David Hambro, a young surgeon I’d seen before. The other was a man called
Leigh Hartley.

When you get to know someone very well it’s often hard to remember first impressions, they come like Morse signals and you don’t take the trouble to unscramble
them. I remember most his curly hair, his common voice, his look of tormented vigour. He was not tall, but somehow wasn’t overlooked by taller men; he had heavy eyelids which could droop over
his eyes to give the italics to some word or look; his nose was too narrow for the broad face; his mouth was big and sensitive, the teeth as white as high-gloss paint.

Not handsome. But it was a face that meant quite a lot in a world where so many are anonymous.

The first words he said to me, I remember, were: ‘Burnt umber.’

I looked at him – he was smiling – but I didn’t reply, not seeing the joke.

‘Break it with Naples yellow,’ he said, ‘because of that light coming from overhead. You Sarah’s sister?’

‘Yes.’

‘Crikey, three sisters all so attractive! I only met Sarah three weeks ago. Last week it was Arabella. Now you.’

‘Can I get you a drink?’ I said.

‘Sure. Lovely. Just what I need.’

I waited. ‘Well, what?’

‘What?’ He blinked with his heavy lids. ‘Oh, you mean to drink. Well anything that’s going. How’s the tap water? Is it a vintage year?’

‘Yes,’ I said, ‘but this side of the valley only.’

‘Pour me half a glass then and dilute it with a dash of Scotch.’

While I did this he looked me over. I suddenly found myself angry with Sarah for putting me behind a table where I couldn’t properly be seen and with myself for falling for the trick; or
angry with coincidence if that was all it was.

‘Seriously,’ he said, ‘I do think your hair’s great.’

‘Was that what it was about? Well, thank you.’

‘Does it ever get out of place?’

‘What?’

‘Your hair.’

‘Oh, frequently.’

‘It
shines
, you know.’

He sipped his drink and I sipped mine. Arabella was laughing with her new boy friend.

The young man said: ‘Maybe I talk too much.’

I half-smiled but did not look at him.

‘What’s your name?’

‘Deborah.’

‘Mine’s Leigh. Spelled with a gh. Leigh Hartley. You a doctor?’

‘No. I work in the West End.’

‘The only unmedical Dainton, eh? Thank God. I’m always scared of doctors, even those I know well. And women doctors frighten me even more.’

‘Why?’

‘Why? Oh, I don’t know. Because they’re somehow the wrong sex for the job, I reckon. And people who are the wrong sex for a job are always slightly more sinister than people
who are the right sex . . . like male nurses, f’rinstance.’

Sarah was leading the way into the bedroom for supper.

I said: ‘Your ideas are a bit Victorian, aren’t they?’

‘Old-fashioned, maybe. But why blame the poor old Queen? There weren’t any women doctors in Edward’s day, were there? Or the earlier Georges or the Stuarts or—’

‘Well, they burned them then,’ I said. ‘Perhaps you think that’s a good idea.’ I picked up my stick. ‘Supper’s ready.’

‘Can I sit with you, d’you think?’

I smiled. ‘No. I have to help. You follow Arabella and then you won’t lose your way.’

He smiled back at me and turned away, glass in hand. Before he could move far I deliberately came out and limped beside him to the bedroom door. ‘In there. I
think
there are enough
seats, but I’m afraid it’s going to be crowded.’

He pretended not to notice and nodded and slipped in.

Actually I didn’t help much because it’s always hard for me to get up and down in a hurry, and anyway the kitchen would hardly take more than three. So after
passing a few things I grabbed a plate and a glass of wine, and a couple of people made room for me sitting between them on a bed.

There was a biggish round table which was normally in the living room, and that took seven. Three or four more sat around the low dressing table, and the others sat on or between the two beds or
stood or squatted on the floor. Leigh Hartley was at the dressing table and spent most of the meal talking to a stout dark girl whose name I never knew; but every now and then I could tell his head
was turned and once I glanced up briefly and met his look.

We ate for about an hour. It was Spanish Chablis, with
vichyssoise
, followed by
jambon à la crème
. Virginia fancied herself with her foreign menus. But actually it
was very good. The man next to me was a doctor and the man on the opposite bed was a doctor and they were discussing the opening of a new psychiatric ward. The man next to me said: ‘What
I’d really like is a selection: about fifteen schizos, five paranoids and a dozen manic depressives to begin. That’s about the right proportion. It doesn’t do to get out of
balance right at the start.’ He sounded as if he was ordering plants for his herbaceous border.

‘Well maybe we can fix that,’ said the second man. ‘I’ll talk to Villars-Smith in the morning.’

The man on the other side of me had just come back from a skiing holiday in Norway, and if supper had gone on another hour he might just have been able to get the whole thing out of his system.
I sat there listening and saying yes and no and watching his red young self-important face swelling up like a frog as the room got hotter: a perfect subject for a coronary at forty-eight; but
he’d still got twenty years ahead of him of swelling and shouting and accidentally spitting out bits of food. One couldn’t help but speculate what he would be like as a husband. Some
poor girl . . .

Supper finished about eleven, and everyone was very jolly and talkative. I went into the kitchen, but after a bit Sarah pulled me out. ‘I’ve told you before, Deborah, you
are
an ape. We
pay
to have this cleared up. Come and talk.’

So I went in and somebody found me a chair, and in about five minutes Leigh Hartley had edged over to sit on the arm of the settee nearby.

‘Hello,’ he said. ‘Remember me?’

‘Not very well.’

‘I’m that fresh guy who insulted you by admiring your hair.’

I didn’t reply, and after waiting he said: ‘I suppose the old cold shoulder is the easiest way of keeping wolves like me at bay.’

I met his eyes. They were grey, absolutely clear grey, with whites nearly as bright as his teeth. ‘I haven’t any trouble usually. After the first howl or so, they don’t come
after me.’

He continued to look. ‘Because you’re lame, you mean?’

Most people weren’t quite tactless enough to spell it out. But all I said was, ‘It could be,’ and turned to speak to David Hambro, who was squatting on a cushion nearby. I
carefully didn’t turn back for quite a time, and knew he was sitting there more or less isolated, because the girl on the settee was chatting to Arabella. I tried to think of a way I could
get up and leave without speaking to him again, but presently he got up himself and crossed the room. It was funny how angry one could still become, because it probably hadn’t been intended
as offensive. You shouldn’t victimize a man for speaking the truth . . .

He came back carrying two glasses. ‘You were nearly empty so I’ve brought you a refill,’ he said.

‘Thanks, but I’m fine with what I’ve got.’

‘Well, let me exchange a new one for the old. It tastes better out of a clean glass.’

I smiled at him. ‘No, really, I don’t slobber. This is perfect, thanks.’

He sat down on the arm of the settee. ‘OK, I’ll drink them both.’

That ended diplomatic relations for quite a while. About midnight one or two couples began to dance, and David Hambro asked Arabella. Hartley slipped down onto the cushion and hugging his knees
looked up at me.

He said: ‘You’re quite right, you don’t slobber. I’ve been watching.’ He went on: ‘I’m not really a wolf, you know. Haven’t the time.’

I smiled again, but thoughtfully.

He said: ‘Well, stone the crows, but you’re really beautiful. Maybe it is a bore to you, but think of the kick it gives other people.’

The disc ran out at last, and couples stopped dancing, and Sarah went to turn the thing over. It was long-playing and I could see I was stuck for another twenty minutes.

‘Why haven’t you the time?’ I asked. ‘You should make it.’

‘I’m sorry,’ he said, ‘but sarcasm is almost always lost on me.’

‘You still haven’t answered.’

‘I paint.’ He bit it off with his teeth, like someone biting the end of a cigar.

‘Oh, I see, that explains the yellow.’

‘What yellow?’

‘You said something about Naples yellow before supper.’

‘Well, yes. Well, it explains me, see. I’m the uncouth type. Haven’t had time to pick up the graces of society.’

I looked at his hands: they were broad and stubby; he might more probably have been an engineer or a carpenter. His clothes were odd too, quite good but overstyled. A few people were going now;
two of them came across to say good night to me. My stick got in the way, and one of them stumbled over it. The music was late-night music, dreamy, beat stuff suitable for amorous couples and a
crowded floor. I wished I hadn’t come. I wished so much that Sarah wouldn’t ask me. She did it always out of a loving goodness of heart and trying to draw me into the circle of her
friends, and always it was a failure.

‘What do you paint?’

‘Pictures. You know. With a brush. Oil on canvas. Or hardboard when I’m short of cash. Or canvas paper when I’m broke. It’s a simple question of economics.’

‘What isn’t?’

‘Well, you aren’t . . . I shouldn’t think so anyway.’

‘Are you a good painter?’

‘No.’ He stopped looking at me and looked through me. ‘I’m a good draftsman. But that isn’t enough.’

That was original anyway. Or maybe it was just a new line. ‘You’re modest.’

‘No – clearsighted.’

‘In that case, why do you still go on with it?’

I thought he was staring at my bad leg, and moved it for him to see better.

He said: ‘Why do you go on breathing?’

‘Do you sell your paintings?’

‘One or two.’

‘Do you work at something else, then?’

‘No. I’ve a bit of lolly from an aunt. She married an ironmonger in Dulwich and I was her only blighted nephew. It just about keeps me above the Chinese famine level.’ He
gulped his other glass of wine. ‘Can I take you home?’

‘Thanks, but I’m spending the night here.’

‘You don’t live with Sarah – not normally, I mean?’

‘No, with my parents in Hampstead.’

His face set into fixed angular planes. ‘Will you come out some evening with me?’

‘. . . I actually don’t go out much. I get home latish most evenings.’

‘A Sunday then.’

‘Well . . .’

‘Good, that’s settled. I’ll ring you. Or what about next Sunday?’

‘No, I’m booked.’

‘OK. I’ll ring you.’ He looked round. ‘I don’t know anything about
you
yet. Odd, isn’t it? But you’re beautiful – or nearly beautiful. Been
watching you. With some expressions and in some lights it’s like catching light on water. Quicker here and gone than a rainbow.’ He brooded. ‘It’s so unfair.’

‘What’s unfair?’

‘Beauty. It does things to you. Doesn’t it?’

So did ugliness. But when he rang I could be out.

He said: ‘There’s no Goddamn fairness in art. What you feel is absolutely no guide to what you can express. We can all be Rembrandts, Rouaults, Picassos in what we feel and what we
get fun out of and that sort of thing, but not one in a bloody million can
express
it.’

Most people were going. Release was not far off.

He said: ‘What do you do? You’ve got a different face from your sisters. You musical?’