The Spring Madness of Mr Sermon (5 page)

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compartments, so that the one never encroached upon the other. These were not, however, the only departmentalised aspects of her life. Just as she could retain an almost photographic image of articles read in Digests, so she was able to file her interests and obligations in the tidy, tier-like galleries of her brain. On the ground floor, so to speak, was the Dramatic Society and its by-products and on successive storeys were her modest financial investments, including expectations from Dad. Then came her health and appearance, her gardening activities and, up near the roof, her family. Sebastian, her husband, had occupied a top tier for years and sometimes remained up there for days on end, for her feelings about him were neutral. She regarded him as she might have regarded a blameless gentleman lodger and the fact that her lodger shared her large double bed failed to increase the tempo of their association. She was a woman who needed a husband, not only as a bedmate but as a seal of respectability, for at heart she was a conventionally-minded woman and lived in a neighbourhood where tongues wagged at the slightest opportunity. Apart from this, Sebastian was a nice, comfortable, unexacting, dutiful little man, who kept out of the way when necessary and was always on hand as a sort of adjutant when she needed help with correspondence and matters of administration. I a return for his presence and his clerical services she was happy to sleep with him and even to spend an occasional holiday with him. For the rest he could remain on the top tier and keep from under her feet.

When she saw him enter the room and make a puzzling gesture in her direction she remembered the Headmaster's phone call and at once excused herself and crossed over to where he stood, just inside the garden-room door.

' You've been a long time getting back, Sebastian," she said, gently, "are you better now?" He looked a little breathless and distraught and at once her tidy mind began to conjure with aspirins and hot-water bottles and a quiet lie-down at the top of the house.

"Yes, yes, I'm quite all right, Sybil," he said, but with an urgency that was not usual and caused her a slight prick of irritation. She supposed that he could see she was heavily engaged and decided that it was tedious of him to come home unexpectedly early on the

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second day of term after she had deliberately postponed the conference until after the end of the holidays.

"That little Mr. Whatshisname, the Headmaster, rang. He told me you weren't very well."

Sebastian looked rather startled. "He did? What else did he say?"

"Nothing, or nothing of any consequence, he just said you left early."

"That's so," said Sebastian, slowly, "and I walked part way home. The fact is, Sybil, I ... I've got to talk to you! Something happened today and we ought to discuss it. How long will these people be around?"

She looked at him disapprovingly. Miss Teake and Tim O'Neil were standing less than two yards away discussing the latest French film at the Carlton and he at once interpreted her glance.

"All right then, let's go somewhere," he suggested but still urgently, as though what he had to discuss was important.

"Don't be so stupid, Sebastian," she said, firmly. "Whatever happened at your school can't be that urgent! It can surely wait until everybody's gone!"

"But it can't . . ." he began, but she turned away, pointedly taking a plate of cucumber sandwiches from the dumb-waiter and floating across to the group near the window.

He stood for a moment indecisive, staring after her, a hard knot of rage in his throat. The chatter of twenty people filled the room and odd words and phrases fell on him like drops of cold rain . . . 'revolting!' 'undeveloped!' 'over-emphasised!' and then 'quite enchantingly weird!" He stood by the door chafing his hands and feeling sullen and helpless. A few hours ago he had seen the Reverend Victor Hawley for the first time and now, he told himself, he was getting his first real glimpse of his wife's coterie, a group of affected, class-conscious nonentities, dissipating nervous energy they could ill-afford in attempts to impress each other and perhaps Sybil. Why did she bother with them at all ? What need had she to fill her life with so many trivial people when she had a family, a husband and plenty of money of her own ?

Natural good manners, however, prevented him from pursuing these thoughts at the moment or doing what he might have done an

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1 our or so ago, that is, to take Sybil by the hand and march her upstairs to the bedroom, locking the door on the silly chatter and announcing that they had reached a crisis in their lives. Instead he turned and drifted across the hall and into the kitchen where a hired waitress from Galley's in the High Street was pouring cider-cup into little glasses. The girl returned his glance without interest and went on with what she was doing. The sound of a tinny hammering tame from the workshop-shed across the asphalted yard opening on to the vegetable garden and he recognised the sound at once. It was Keith, his sixteen-year-old son, tinkering with one of his greasy machines. A sudden glow warmed him. After all, Keith was almost a man now and his own flesh and blood. Surely this was something that a father might discuss with a sixteen-year-old boy and hope to get some kind of comfort from him. He crossed the kitchen and yard and went into the shed.

"Hullo Keith. Are you finding it too much for you as well?"

The boy looked up from the motor-cycle that was engaging the whole of his attention. Sebastian decided that he was growing quite good-looking, with strong features, a mop of brown hair and a long, straight back. Through the thickness of the cherry-coloured sweater Keith was wearing, Sebastian could see the play of muscles as the boy moved his arms.

"They gone yet?" said the boy, briefly.

"Unfortunately, no," said Sebastian, but he felt slightly cheered for it was obvious that Keith shared no community of interest with the Wyckham Rise Operatic and Dramatic Society.

"I suppose you're busy right now," said Sebastian, tentatively.

"Damn" busy," replied the boy, "this was a bad buy. Good mind to take it back. Transmission's lousy!" and he went back to his tinkering. Sebastian waited a moment and then cleared his throat. "I ... er ... I'm in a bit of a spot, son," he began and the boy looked up with a flicker of interest.

"Then why don't you kick the silly sods out?" he demanded.

"Oh, it's nothing whatever to do with your mother's friends," said Sebastian, hastily, "it's just something that happened at school.
^{1
· · · er . . . I've given notice! I lost my temper with one of the boys and gave him a damned good hiding!"}

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^{Keith's interest seemed to be caught at last. "You did? Well, bully for you, Dad! What happened ? Did he fight back ?"}

^{"No," said Sebastian, "he didn't get the chance," and he briefly outlined what had occurred in the Lower Fourth at 3.20 p.m. that afternoon. "The Head seems to think his father will take it to Court," he concluded. "You see, son, you can't do that sort of thing nowadays. Parents are outrageously soft about discipline and the fact is, Keith, I'm a little worried."}

^{Keith grinned. "I wouldn't lose any sleep over that if I were you! So you clouted a boy and so his father takes it to Court. They can only sting you a quid or so, can't they? It happens all the time!" and then, to Mr. Sermon's mortified astonishment, Keith dismissed the subject altogether and returned to the motor-bike. "Damn thing won't pick up like she should. Stutters and burps. Shouldn't be surprised if they hadn't cooked the mileage. Twenty-two thousand or so Mike said at the garage but I'll bet it's nearer forty!" and he stood up, rubbing his hands on a filthy rag. "Look here, Dad, suppose you talk Mother into coughing up the extra sixty for my two-seater? She might bite, she's dead scared of me running a motor-cycle and I'm seventeen in two months and can take a driving test for a car!"}

^{Sebastian looked at him glumly. It was obvious that Keith's brief display of interest in the disaster at Napier Hall had been pretence, designed to humour him into an alliance for the purpose of getting something he wanted. Disappointment in the boy curdled in the pit of his stomach.}

^{"We'll discuss that later," he said, grumpily. "I'm certainly not in the mood to consider your problems just now!"}

^{"Okay!" said Keith, lightly, "no need to get the needle about it!" and he went back to his work.}

^{Sebastian turned his back on the shed and stood for a moment in the yard, listening to the sustained twitter that issued from the open windows of the garden-room. It sounded, he thought, just like a monkey-house at feeding time and on a small wave of disgust he coasted round the shrubbery and down the border path to the stone wall that overlooked the avenue. He was leaning here, elbows on a stone block, when he saw his daughter drive up in the family Singer. She eased the car into the kerb and got out. He was relieved to see}

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^{that she was alone and studied her as she reached into the boot and emerged with a tennis racket held in a press. She looked, he thought, very dainty and desirable in her sleeveless white frock and a mauve cardigan tied by its sleeves across her shoulders. As she entered the side gate he moved along inside the wall and}

^{joined her.}

^{"Your Mother has a 'do' on so I came up for air!" he said, flippantly, but there was no response and glancing at her sideways he noted that she was troubled about something and instantly he warmed towards her.}

^{"You upset about something, Jonquil?"}

^{The girl swung round, pouting. "Me? No! Should I be?"}

^{"I thought you looked a bit down in the mouth."}

^{"Don't oo/e sympathy, Daddy! I can't stand being oozed over. And I don't like prying either. Do I cross-examine you about your private life?"}

^{Mr. Sermon winced. It occurred to him that this was precisely what he wished somebody would start to do and then, unreasonably, he felt angry and deflated.}

^{"I wasn't prying," he shouted but instantly he regretted having raised his voice for, inexplicably, Jonquil burst into tears, flung down the racket and dashed up the path to the back door.}

^{Mr. Sermon forgot his own troubles for a moment. All his life women's tears had distressed him and he stumbled after her and caught her up as they entered the kitchen. Mercifully the hired waitress was just leaving with the cider-cup and had her back to them.}

^{"What is it, Jonquil? You can tell me. Don't go out there, the hall is full of those idiots . . .! "}

^{She looked at him through a veil of tears.}

^{"You wouldn't care, you wouldn't understand!"}

^{"I would, I would!" he declared stoutly.}

^{She swallowed, forcibly. "It's Derek!" she said, as Juliet speaks her final line in the crypt.}

^{Mr. Sermon floundered for a clue. He thought he knew the names of all her boy-friends. He remembered two Tonys, one John, three Bobs and a speedway driver they called 'Tex' but he did not recall a Derek.}

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^{"Derek?" he said, and again, treacherously, "Oh, Derek!"}

^{"He's going to Canada," said Jonquil, "just like that! Without saying anything! Can you wonder I'm upset ? Can you wonder I'm making a complete fool of myself?"}

^{What Mr. Sermon might have replied to this is problematical. Whatever he said would have been wrong but at that moment the phone rang in the hall and Jonquil reacted to it like a nervous filly under whose belly someone has flung a Chinese cracker.}

^{"It's him!" she shrieked, "he's thought better of it!" and she plunged out of the room and dived between two middle-aged women, both of whom were reaching politely for the receiver.}

^{"Yes?" she piped, her eyes sparkling. "Who is it? Jonquil here! Is it you, Derek?" and then, watching her from the kitchen door, Mr. Sermon saw the misery flood back into her face and she slammed down the receiver and returned to him with dragging steps. "It's for you!" and she began to sniff again. "Someone called Lane-Perkins."}

^{It was as though someone had rammed a white-hot blade into the small of Mr. Sermon's back. He gave a little yelp of fear and clutched at her, dragging her back into the kitchen and slamming the door on the chatter in the hall.}

^{"You've got to do something for me," he cried. "You've got to say I'm not here. This is important, Jonquil! Go to that phone and say you can't find me, say I haven't come in yet, do you understand?"}

^{The sheer urgency of his appeal enabled her to forget her troubles for a moment and she looked at him curiously. "What's the matter? Who is Lane-Perkins?"}

^{He gave a gesture of impatience. "Never mind, I'll explain later! Just do as I say. Do it, you hear?"}

^{"All right, all right!" she replied, sulkily, disengaging herself and opening the door, and then, bitterly; "You see? I knew you wouldn't understand. Nobody understands!" She went out and picked up the phone saying, "Miss Sermon speaking. My father isn't here. He hasn't come home yet! Very well, I'll tell him. Yes, I got the number," and she rang off.}