Cards of Identity (24 page)

‘Obviously, sir, they are in need of authority.’

‘Am I not supplying it? Am I not an absolute
image
of authority? Could I be
more
a president?’

‘Sir, I well remember your predecessor….’

‘What! Poor old Planorbis? My good Mallet, you are not comparing me to
him
?
Why, he was utterly decrepit, totally broken-down! He had the
manner
of a president to the last, but he was a mere shell, Mallet, a husk, nonentity in presidential disguise. But I – I am in my prime, a bare seventy-five years old. For twenty years I have piqued them, squashed them, resurrected them, at will. I have dumbfounded them with my intuitions, sat on them with my logic. Where their interpretations
of human behaviour have been ingenious, mine have been labyrinthal. Often, I have penetrated so far behind the scenes that they have never expected me to re-emerge. As to the great theory, no sooner has the smallest leak appeared than my thumb has stopped it. I have urged-on the younger members, showered undeserved congratulations on the older ones. They have laid a thousand traps for me and I have not only escaped every one but trounced their setters. Is this leadership or is it not? Could more be asked of authority?’

‘Only that it be
recognized,
sir.’

‘But they cannot help recognizing it, Mallet. It is indisputably
there.
I
am
every
inch
a
president
… Come now, you yourself are a man of presidential timber. Is there any doubt in
your
mind as to the reality of my identity?’

‘Sir, it is not for
me
to doubt. I am a loyal officer.’

‘Oh, Mallet, this is no time for scruples! You need only answer my question.’

‘Sir, I am not a flexible type, except in dealing with patients. It would undermine me absolutely.’

‘Oh, very well! I shall go and do some more spying. Do you know that Orfe is getting his whisky from Jellicoe?’

‘It would be in the tradition of these great houses, sir.’

‘Give me the old Club premises any day. I shall be thankful when all this junketing is over. The very keyholes give me earache.’

He opened the door cautiously. As he closed it behind him a segment of his dressing-gown, faded and full of moth-holes, remained in its clasp. There was a sharp tearing sound as the President padded away without it.

Beaufort picked it up a few minutes later when he opened the door. ‘Good evening,’ he said. ‘I say, what’s this?’

‘A piece of the President’s dressing-gown,’ said the captain.

‘Is it a symblem or an embol? Does it mean he has cast his mantle upon your shoulders? Is he afraid you may step in a puddle? And all those moth-holes. I expect they token a parting of the ways.’

‘Thank God for your high spirits!’ said the captain. ‘I was far down in the dumps. Why was our lady-member not at the session today?’

‘Headache. She chose to lie down. Here she comes … It was only a
woman’s
headache, you know. No pain in the head, or anything like
that – just buckled despair in the legs and blue rings round the eyes. Is this a spinet? May I play it?’

‘What a very good mood you are in! Good evening, dear! Do sit down. We missed you.’

‘I simply couldn’t face a Bitterling,’ explained Mrs Mallet. ‘I thought a shaded room would be much better.’

‘But all is well now,’ cried Beaufort, vigorously playing a theme. ‘The shadow has passed. We had feared that I was going to become a father.’

‘Good heavens! Have you two been keeping this tormenting fear to yourself – for days, weeks?’

‘It’s not something one talks about, you know,’ said Beaufort, ‘even to one’s best friend.’

‘It would have been the first time since ’21,’ said the captain. ‘Dr Reingold and Miss Y.’

‘My despair was terrible,’ said Beaufort, turning from the spinet. ‘I can’t tell you what I have gone through. Like any expectant father, I first thought of all the things I would have to sacrifice to send it to a public school. That alone was enough to reduce me to tears. Then I thought of all the horrors that would henceforth accompany me through life – the crushing responsibilities, the slow but steady increase in torpor, the decline of the critical and adventurous faculties. It was like the end of the world.’

‘And you spared no thought for the wonderful woman who was the principal sufferer in this?’ asked the captain.

‘I tried, but it was no use. There was nothing to spare.’

‘His selfishness was rocklike,’ said Mrs Mallet, sighing. ‘It bound me to him like cement.’

‘Another awful thing about it,’ continued Beaufort, ‘was what the members would have said. I could already hear Shubunkin explaining it all in terms of mysticism.’

‘You mean Orfe, do you not?’

‘No, Shubunkin. Sex is the only thing that he does not interpret sexually. Orfe, on the other hand, would have blamed it
all
on sex.’

‘We thought Mr Jamesworth would see its statistical necessity, too,’ said Mrs Mallet. ‘After all, charts must rise and fall.’

‘And I did
not
relish the reproach of my old teacher, Mr Harris,’ said
Beaufort, ‘who would have blamed me most severely for construing hetaira as matron.’

‘It is a pity, really, Beaufort,’ said the captain. ‘You cannot postpone your maturity indefinitely, you know. Sometime in the next year or two you are going to have to give your wonderful talents a decisive bent.’

‘I shall see which way the wind blows. I can feel it blowing pretty hard already.’

‘Indeed?’

‘Come on, now,’ said Beaufort, laying a hand on the captain’s arm. ‘Tell us what’s happening. We’re
dying
to know. Is the President …?’

‘I am afraid so,’ replied the captain.

‘Soon?’

‘It cannot be long, now.’

‘How miserable! I shall miss him horribly.’

‘Why? I thought you were much too irresponsible and carefree.’

‘I am. It makes me very fond of old people. He’s such an old dear … Well, you’ve quite spoilt the happiness I felt at my own reprieve.’

‘You think there is no hope at all?’ asked Mrs Mallet.

‘I’m afraid not,’ said the captain. ‘The symptoms are unmistakable. Explanations, protestions, insistence that he is totally unlike any previous president - it’s all there. I’m afraid Nature is going to take her course.’

‘We couldn’t keep him as emeritus, or something like that?’ asked Beaufort.

‘Don’t be silly,’ said the captain.

They sat in silence for some time. Eventually, the captain said: ‘I count on you two to keep very steady heads. That’s why I’ve told you. We can’t have the staff disorganized, and events of this kind are soon felt downstairs.’

‘They seem peaceable enough at the moment,’ said Mrs Mallet. ‘Quite engrossed in themselves. This play of theirs has greatly excited them, too. The thought of
acting,
of being other than what they
really
are, seems to thrill them inordinately.’

‘Do you think we may have to leave here earlier than we planned?’ asked Beaufort.

‘It would not surprise me,’ said the captain.

‘What a shame! After all our hard work…. Tell me, did you see this coming?’

‘Only now, when I look back. And don’t grieve for the work we put in here. It will take its place in the chain of events. Nothing is ever wasted. The course is always predetermined.’

*

All the bells began to ring, the light on the bulletin board, as arranged by the Electrical Committee, flashed on and off, alternately illuminating and extinguishing the large words typed beneath:

A stream of members poured down the corridors; but only when most of them were in their seats did a sort of cortège conspicuously appear, leading, or bearing, yesterday’s victim, Dr Bitterling. It was clear from the way they towed and coaxed him into a seat that they intended to take the fullest advantage of his injury: their expressions were those of devoted friends suddenly possessed of a most-grindable axe. The doctor, for his part, played his active, though supine role to perfection: unable to speak, he worked his lips with passionate intent and bestowed thankful pats on his helpers. Around his neck they hung a sheaf of blank paper and a pencil on a string: he was thus attired when the President raced in and assumed his dais.

So loudly did he bang his gavel that all talk ceased abruptly. Only Mr Harcourt, slower of response than his colleagues, was trapped with the end of a sentence ringing through the silence.

‘Did you say something, Mr Harcourt?’ demanded the President, looking straight over the top of Dr Bitterling’s head.

‘Not above a whisper,’ said Mr Harcourt.

‘Then why are you blushing?’

The members, who couldn’t resist feeling better when one of their number was shown to be worse, forgot about poor Dr Bitterling and stared at Mr Harcourt. He, unfortunate man, had actually turned quite
pale; but as a result of the President’s words the blood was now rising slowly over the brink of his pate.

‘A damned good start!’ the captain whispered to Beaufort. ‘I take my hat off.’

The President continued: ‘I heard the word “string”, did I not, Mr Harcourt? What have you to tell us about string? Are you an authority on string?’

‘It was strings, not string,’ said Mr Harcourt.

‘The plural is of even greater interest. The word that goes with it is “pulling”, is it not?’

‘Not always,’ said Mr Jamesworth, smiling winsomely. The denial made him Mr Harcourt’s champion; the smile provided him, he hoped, with a means of dismounting if the battle were too hot. ‘There’s also tangled, multi-coloured, and knotted,’ he said.

‘Indeed, Jamesworth?’ replied the President, baring his own teeth in a full-dress smile. ‘You think, then, that Harcourt’s very ordinary mind shares with yours associations of an involved and brilliant kind?’

The members, delighted to have a second and better victim, laughed most heartily and looked at the President with respect. Mr Jamesworth fell back on the worst and most-degrading phrase: ‘I only said …’ he said.

‘Jamesworth only said,’ cried Mr Harcourt desperately, ‘that there was something … that I had a feeling …’

‘About what did you, of all people, have a
feeling?’
asked the President, raising another laugh.

‘It was only a very trifling one. I just said, in quite a low voice and without any confidence, that I had a feeling about this house – a feeling that someone or something was …’

‘Pulling strings?’

‘Well, frankly, yes.’

‘Do you still have this feeling?’

‘Oh, Lord, no. It came and went like a flying-saucer.’

‘We are glad to hear that, Mr Harcourt. It is not a feeling we encourage in this Club, is it?’

‘Certainly not.’

‘We don’t want trails of disquiet left by mysterious projectiles, do we?’

‘Indeed we don’t.’

‘I imagine, sir, that it was a simple case of evasion,’ said Mr Jamesworth, hoping to recoup favour. ‘Harcourt got one of his nervous spasms and tried to project it on the house.’

‘You are very talkative this morning, Jamesworth,’ observed the President. ‘Perhaps you would like to ask Dr Shubunkin to put aside the history on which he has worked for so long in order that you may address the session impromptu?’

This was well received by members, and above all by Dr Shubunkin. Both Beaufort and the Captain were impressed and looked at the wiry, confident President with affectionate respect.

‘It had been my intention to start this session off with a few words of praise for you all,’ said the President, pacing the dais. ‘Despite interruption, it remains my intention. A week ago, you were a pretty sorry sight, gentlemen. You were pale, tremulous, excitable, utterly at sea in this place. Today, you are a ruddy, capable body of men, at ease with yourselves, and perfectly at home. The change in your condition is all the more marked in that it is not shared by yesterday’s speaker, who has clearly lacked the stuff and stamina that distinguish the rest of you. However, none of us worries very much about him, any more than we do about the man who fumbles idly with the gas-cock or points a revolver at his head with the safety-catch on. Such a feigned suicide, we know, is a mere gesture, no more than a passing glance through a dark window. And so, gentlemen, I ignore this crippled trifle and press on to congratulate
you.
I am proud to preside over so stout a body. We have now only to clap upon the strings of Mr Harcourt a mute borrowed from Mr Jamesworth, and all will be well indeed.’

Clapping and laughter followed. All eyes were fixed admiringly on the President, who strode his elevation like a mannequin in sables.

‘Let us now,’ he said, ‘proceed to business. I have only a few more words to say and they are as follows … Last night I lay awake and thought about Dr Shubunkin. I recalled his previous histories. I recaptured as best I could their characteristics – their beautiful naturalness, their marvellous economy, their amazing penetration into the minds of others. Then, I was about to go to sleep when it suddenly occurred to me that by dwelling on these aspects of Shubunkin I had blinded myself to the
man.
With shame, I recalled that this wise and brilliant doctor was also a most lovable and admirable human being –
the type we often saw in our younger days on the cinema-screen – devoted, dutiful, and handsome. If we have not always realized this, it is because Dr Shubunkin’s field is human nature at its most sordid. Sex, a subject which most of us are only too happy to avoid, has been quietly and scrupulously taken over by this gentle, modest scientist. Daily, he plunges his hands into the sulphurous pit and brings them out as white as snow. Only the dedicated are permitted to do this – and Shubunkin has paid for his dedication. We watch him run through his manifold tics, which break from his nervous system much as sparks break in erratic order from aligned combustion units. We note his singular habit of scraping his left eye-tooth with the bloodstone of his signet-ring; we hear his tinny laugh and shrink from his grin. But these, we know, are not the real Shubunkin, who lives beneath these configurations like a gold thing beneath a habit of dross. Gentlemen, let us salute Dr Shubunkin, the model investigator of our times, the untarnished road-maker, the throbbing liver encased in chromium-plate, the prober into the Place of the Skull. Without him and others like him, we would be living in a
very
different world.’