Lord Dismiss Us (27 page)

‘Such delicate brown fingers,’ Ashley thought.

‘Owen lay on his stomach in the warm sunlight that spread over the green carpet. He cast the dice again. Six and four! The Bentley, a closed coupé, came again past the sports Alvis.’

‘Right. We may have to scrub all that, because we don’t know what will follow. It may not combine. As a complete paragraph it may not flow. It may even refuse to adapt itself to the
next
paragraph. There may be no personal rhythm. Your Voice may be lost.’

‘But
you
seem to be doing everything.’

‘No, I’m not. You’re there, in the middle of it. This is only Method. You’ll see. Now then, what have you got next? . . .’

They were rather like lovers.

Lucretia Crabtree, on a half-holiday from Gillingham, had been standing under the sycamore, looking up at the window, and she thought so. She wandered away with a mind to report the fact. She had long ago dismissed her Starling. She was bored, and she was contemplating going back into business; though the two and sixpence had been a lie.

The other wanderer looked down from the War Memorial and saw her crossing the Quad towards the Head’s House.

Gower liked no one, and no one liked Gower. But he felt a distant affinity with this other creature. They were rivals in boredom. Frequently they passed each other, as they mooned away their days, and shared a look that was apparently icily detached, but was in fact an unwanted but inescapable admission of understanding.

They never spoke. But she was the one person he might very nearly have told. Even Gower occasionally felt this need. To carry on an occupation of infinite skill and subtlety without the plaudits of a single other human-being was hard indeed.

He was waiting to see if his Housemaster was in his shower.

He had given Rowles nearly an hour since Afternoon School to get settled in there.

He had even selected the most visible of his ailments – a twisted ankle – to rouse them to activity; and had been limping heavily past his Housemaster all day.

Oh yes, Rowles knew, and that cleverboots, Carleton, knew, and the other three beastly Prefects, but you could hardly call them appreciators.

With a slight quickening of his very steady heart, Gower dawdled up the five stone steps into the Big Schoolroom. They were worn down at the centre by thousands of young feet. He skirted the ping-pong table, entered the corridor, and turned right for the Washroom.

The slanting eyes were now very useful. He could see into the little mirror on the floor without apparently looking anywhere near it.

Today, it did
not
reflect Dr Rowles.

Gower felt damply disappointed.

The spice had gone out of the afternoon. The way of business was all too open. There had been three Juniors reading books at desks in the dusty darkness of the Big Schoolroom. But they looked settled. Not a soul in his territory. A cold corridor of lockers. He had the notion, for the first time, of going for the highest available prize. Carleton’s was Number
5
. There might be something transportable. Slouching along, all innocence, he swiftly raised the latch and darted a hand into the pocket of a mackintosh. Nothing. The other pocket. Nothing. Well, a piece of paper. He took it out and closed the locker door, and without expectation unfolded the paper and read – ‘Every time I see you – you’re more wonderful than ever. Love, love, love. . . . N.A.’

Baffled for a moment by these alien words, and then excited by various possibilities, and then back in control again as a master-mind, Gower finally smiled. This time it was all Taunting. No fear at all. Swiftly, for a creature of sluggish habit, he went up the stone stairs, paused on the landing, glanced into the Upper Dormitory – empty – and knelt with one slanting eye to the keyhole of Rowles’s door. There was no key. (There never was). Nor was there anyone at home.

‘What the devil is eating you today, Milner?’ said Rowles as they emerged from the wood. The yellow of the gorse made him blink. Boys in bathing-togs lay about on the vivid grass. There was the twang of the diving-board and an instant splash, as one curious creature after another leapt into the noisome pool. The sky was deep blue. No breeze. In belated deference to the summer, Rowles sported a fat walking-stick and Milner a white hat which he had owned for twenty years.

A paradisical afternoon, but the Pedant was speechless and odd.

‘I’d other plans when you came and persuaded me out,’ Rowles said. ‘I understood you’d something to impart, but I was evidently mistaken. Furthermore, it may surprise you to hear I have an appointment with the Headmaster in half-an-hour.’

He glanced up quickly. The Pedant was frowning.

‘I haven’t told you about our friend Ashley,’ he said.

After so much solemn silence, there was a skittishness that distu
r
bed the Doctor. There had always been this element in Milner, and it was never quite tolerable. He walked with his leather elbows in, and his hands in the pockets of that sports coat, despite the heat, with the two thumbs showing. A neatness. Little elegant steps with the toes turned in. Something elegantly under control. The faint danger that it might break forth into the Dance. Jack Buchanan moving suddenly, carefree, over the grass. That white hat. It didn’t accord entirely with what the Doctor would have preferred. The gift for limericks. The gift for gossip – yes. But gossip had a seriousness for the Doctor. It was a study of Mankind at its most curious. Next to the Chapel, it was the centre of Weatherhill life. It was not a dancing matter. The Pedant had, centuries ago, taught in India, and he possessed a permanently crumpled fawn linen summer suit. At any moment it, too, might appear. When it did, the Doctor always found himself immediately removed, a yard or so, from his customary companion. Thick tweed was Sanity.

‘What? What, Milner?’ said the Doctor, already perturbed, and prodding at the grass with his stick.

‘A misadventure of a public nature in the Crown and Anchor on Saturday night.’

‘Where? I don’t believe it.’

‘One presumes . . . how can I phrase it for you . . . a flight . . . an inadequacy in an upper room.’

‘Look here,’ said Rowles, seeming pale, though they were both reluctantly burnt pink. ‘What in arsehole are you talking about?’

‘A lady,’ said the Pedant.

‘Oh no,’ said Rowles.

‘I speak euphemistically. She delivered herself of some downstairs . . . or rather upstairs . . . castigations. After our fleeing hero. They were public property.’

They walked on. The Doctor was breathing loudly.

‘Please, Sir. Sorry, Sir. Can I come and see you about permission to get a new cricket-bat in Marston, or can I ask you now, Sir?’

‘Get what you want. Keep out of my way. Clear off.’

‘Oh thanks awfully, Sir.’

‘He’s a fool,’ said Rowles. ‘As if it were necessary!’

The Pedant glanced uneasily at him.

There was a long silence.

‘Is that what you had to say?’ Rowles inquired. (They were near the pool). ‘Listen here, let’s turn back out of this. It goes right through my head. If they want to jump into cold dirty water why can’t they do it without screaming like hyenas?’

They began to descend towards the wood.

‘You know that De Vere Clinton has rented a Volkswagen autobus today, and taken five Artists out sketching in the woods above Little Hammerton?’ said Milner.

‘I heard he was granted permission. I was surprised, I may say.’

‘They are thought to have left with a large supply of ginger beer. Clinton, with some ingenuity, made me agent and witness in the matter, as I happen to have a permanent order, being particularly fond of the liquid, as you may know.’

‘I am aware of that.’

‘What you are not aware of is that Clinton subsequently and secretly altered the order to an equally large supply of light ale.’

Rowles halted, dropped his mouth open a little, without intending it, and said: ‘Is this true, Milner?’

‘Absolutely.’

‘And why did you not put a stop to it?’

‘I only discovered it an hour ago.’

They walked on.

The question was long delayed.

‘How did you discover it?’

The Pedant cleared his throat.

‘You may have detected that both my pieces of news originate in a particular locality.’

‘The Crown and Anchor.’

‘This is difficult, Rowles. I wanted you to be the first to know. Now don’t fly off the handle, old man. I have proposed marriage . . . and I have been accepted.’

‘Your mind is going, Milner. It must be.’

‘Alice is an employee of the hotel in question – a position to which she is infinitely superior. I’m fully aware of the thirty years diff . . .’

‘Come off it, Milner! You can’t be serious. You’re throwing away a Housemastership for this!’

‘What the deuce are you talking about, Rowles?’

‘You . . . you don’t mean that you plan to bring the woman
here
?’

‘Oh, don’t be impossible!’ said Milner, very testily indeed. ‘Of course I do. I intend to ask the Head for one of the bungalows.’

‘Then good day to you,’ said Rowles, and he walked away.

‘Rowles!’ Milner called after him, in vain.

His great head was swirling. He stumbled once in the long grass, in spite of the stick, and then marched stoutly away, down towards the Chapel Square.

‘Do you want to rest for a minute?’ said Ashley.

‘No, no. It’s just . . . it’s terribly hot. Can I take off my coat and tie?’

‘Certainly. I don’t really notice it. My old bones.’

Ashley felt a small pang. A regret for his own lost youth, that was all. Yes, that was it. The boy had rolled up each of his white shirtsleeves. Brown forearms with golden hairs. Strong, but young somehow. The creature was fresh as a baby, and at the same time he was almost a young man.

‘I presume the mother is . . . entirely fictional?’ he said.

‘How do you mean?’

‘This remote and silly lady who talks about chintzes. It’s not possible that . . . ?’

‘Oh no, I made her as different as I could.’

‘I see. It’s just that you’ve otherwise written from knowledge. Which was the right instinct. And the other thing you’ve done, uninstructed, is to stay with one character – almost. It’s as well you’ve made her like this. Her role is small. We don’t need her. No, we don’t need her at all.’

‘What’s up?’

‘Nothing. Now then . . . where were we? . . . “He tiptoed to the door and saw that Ellen was sitting on the windowsill, polishing the outside of the window. As often before, he pretended to himself that she was that villain, Carter. She was heavily armed, probably with a six-shooter. She. . . .” Is there anything
you
don’t like there?’

‘The second sentence.’

‘I agree,’ said Ashley. ‘Why?’

‘
“As often before”. . . . It seems to slow things down. And, “he pretended to himself”. . . . The reader knows already that he does that. And the reader also knows that Carter is a villain.’

‘Excellent. What do you propose?’

‘
“She was Carter”. No, that’s
too
blunt. “Immediately, she was Carter”.’

‘Fine.’

‘
“She was heavily armed. . . .
”
’

‘I wonder . . . sorry . . . dare we risk a repeat of that? Let’s see. . . . “Immediately, she was Carter. She was Carter, and she was heavily armed, probably with a six-shooter.” It adds emphasis, and confirms this sudden decision, don’t you think?’

‘Yes. I see.’

‘Let’s go on. Notice how you improve as you get into it. Starts are often self-conscious. I believe your friend Tchekov used to throw them away. “He ran into the room and screamed ‘stick ’em up!’ at this old woman on a windowsill sixty feet above the ground. She was a marvel. Ellen never let you down . . .” (Good. Exactly what she’s going to do). . . . “She feigned a look of wild terror and exclaimed – ‘Glory be to God, you’re not goin’ to kill me, are you?
’
”

‘
“Dismissing the suspicion that Carter would not talk with an Irish accent, he seized a pipe from his father’s pipe-rack, levelled it at her through the glass and said, ‘I probably am. You’ve certainly asked for it.’

‘ “She cowered before him.

‘ “ ‘Oh please, sir, please don’t kill me.’

‘ “ ‘We’ll see,’ he said, walking up and down. She should not have said ‘sir’, but this was an error which he had long ago accepted, eventually coming to believe that Carter was as servile even as this.

‘ “She dipped her rag again into the bucket of water. Ellen always went on with what she was doing. She had to, in the end. They both knew it made no difference. They were still who they were.

‘ “Strands of grey hair had come out of her bun, and she pushed them away from her eyes with the back of her fat hand, which was red and swollen. He wondered why, though she looked horrible and he would have hated her to touch him . . .” ’ (Good. She’s going to) . . . ‘ “he liked to be near her. He even liked her smell.

‘ “ ‘I’ll tell you one thing,’ he said. ‘You’ve asked for it. The sheriff’s after you too. I just happened to get here a bit faster. I guess I know the way better.’

‘ “ ‘Haven’t you a better horse too?’ she asked, cajoling.

‘ “ ‘Of course I have,’ he said, only half deceived. ‘I’ve a chestnut colt.’

‘ “ ‘Gracious!’ she said.

‘ “ ‘I may have to hand you over to Jim Butler.’

‘ “ ‘And who might he be?’ she asked.

‘ “ ‘He’s my buddy,’ he replied. ‘He knows all about torturing.’

‘ “He knew well that there was no torturing in the Wild West, but at times one had to make things up for Ellen: otherwise she would be lost – even she.

‘ “ ‘Oh please don’t do that,’ she begged. ‘I’ll do anything, anything.’

‘ “But he was dreadfully bored, and prayed for something new and exciting to happen. . . .” ’

‘Yes . . .’ said Ashley, interrupting his own reading. ‘One of those prayers which unfortunately get answered. Now then . . . what do you feel about all that?’

‘I . . . can’t honestly think what to . . .’

‘I agree. I like it. A lot. What’s wrong?’

‘Nothing.’

They smiled, and for a moment looked each other directly in the eyes. The boy felt older, and the man younger. It made them close.

‘Famous last words,’ said Ashley. ‘Here comes your big mistake. “Ellen watched him through the rainbow circles that her rag . . .” My dear boy, we can’t switch over to Ellen now. We really can’t. Agreed?’

‘Yes. O.K.’