The Charioteer

  Someone turned up the radio. A brassy-lunged female sang of rainbows. Her vibrato was excruciating; Laurie made a vinegar face. Sandy replied with another, which expressed a subtly different kind of distaste; he must have thought that this was what Laurie had meant, and now Laurie himself was uncertain. Their eyes met in an indefinite kind of acknowledgment.

  “Look here,” said Sandy, “we’re having a few people in for drinks tonight. It’s Alec’s birthday, he’s my friend I was telling you about. Why don’t you come along?” After the faintest pause he added, with more directness than he had so far used, “Can’t offer you any girls, I’m afraid. If you mind that?”

  “Not in the least.” So much seemed only fair. “But unless I catch this bus I’ll be for it. Thanks all the same, I’d have liked to.”

  “Oh, well, but if that’s all I’m sure we can fix it. Someone will run you back. Let’s think …”

  Laurie for his part was thinking that this was what came of brushing people off with too soft a brush. It was a fault of his. Evidently he would have to use a hard one. “No, thanks very much, but—”

  “You can count on someone with a car, definitely. If Bim can’t make it there’s still Theo Sumner, or Ralph Lanyon, or—”

  “Who did you say?”

  “Oh, d’you know Ralph Lanyon?” Sandy brightened. Now, he seemed to say, we’re getting somewhere.

  “Not for years.” He had a dazed feeling of having fallen through a crack in time. “I expect it’s someone different.”

  “Unusual name, after all. R.N.V.R. type; in armed trawlers, I think he was. He got wounded in the hand during the Dunkirk show and lost a couple of fingers. Now he’s doing a hush-hush technical course, radio or something. Well, there you are. That settles it, you’ll have to come along now.”

  As if he had been drifting in uncertainly eddying water, and felt the sudden, authoritative pull of an ocean current, Laurie said easily and clearly, “Well, if you can do with me. Thanks very much.”

  6

  “IT’S A MAUSOLEUM,” SAID Sandy at the front door. “All you can say is, the proportions are good.”

  Laurie said something about Italian influence. He could recall few doors which he had felt such reluctance to enter.

  They had been separated in the bus, which had saved conversation. All kinds of little things came suddenly back to him; but most of all he remembered the term after Lanyon had gone. Over and over, during those first months, Laurie had relived the scene in the study, guarding it with fierce secrecy as a savage guards a magic word. Now he felt strands and fibers of Lanyon twitching in his mind where he had not recognized them before, and realized the source of those standards which had supplemented his mother’s in those parts of his life where she could not go.

  He knew that he didn’t want to submit any of this to daylight. Lanyon’s survival belonged only between the worn leather covers of the Phaedrus. The only firm fact about him now was that he was a friend of Sandy’s. It was madness to have come.

  The bus had halted and an old woman was getting out. It would wait for her; for him too, if he wanted to escape. Sandy wasn’t looking; he reached for his stick. But it would be a lout’s trick, he thought; and this distaste gave pretext enough to his divided mind. He sat back again, and the next stop was theirs.

  The house was tall and narrow, in a massive late Palladian terrace of Bath stone. As they crossed the threshold, Laurie agreed that the proportions were good.

  Inside it looked, like many others in that old once-wealthy suburb, as if it had been lived in for thirty years by a Lord Mayor’s widow. It looked uneasy now, turned into a respectable tenement full of transients in a time of flux. They crossed the hall with its thick red and blue Turkey carpet. On the half-landing a huge stained-glass window was half blacked-out with paint, half curtained with an army blanket; there was a cigarette burn on the white-painted tread of one of the stairs.

  The first landing had a mahogany tallboy, the second a half-acre engraving of Victoria and Albert at the Crystal Palace. Sandy said, “I’m frightfully sorry about all these stairs.”

  “It’s good practice for me. Sorry to be so slow.” There were no stairs at the hospital and he hadn’t expected it to be so bad. He took his time. He wasn’t going to waste his strength impressing Sandy Reid.

  At the top of the next flight he saw, still set in the newel-post, the hinges of the wicket gate which, fifty years since perhaps, had guarded the nursery floor. Voices and laughter came from a door beyond it. Sandy said, “Here we are.”

  Laurie’s first glance around the room told him only that Lanyon was not there; he felt a dull flat relaxation, which he took for relief. Several introductions went through his ears unheard. He roused himself in time to identify Alec, his other host: a dark, narrow-headed, nearly good-looking young civilian, whose calling didn’t need guesswork; he looked already much more like a doctor than Sandy did, or like a better doctor perhaps. He talked like one, coolly, throwing all his good lines away. Sandy treated him, rather ostentatiously, like a lovable dreamer to be bossed and protected. The first few minutes were enough to give Laurie all this.

  The other dozen or so faces had closed in a little; he became aware that the conversation had a poised, tentative feel. The unspoken query in the air became as unmistakable to him as a shout. Deciding that it was no business of his to resolve it, he threw the onus on Sandy by the simple means of asking to go and wash. As he crossed the landing, he heard Sandy’s voice on a rising note: “… my dear, right across the ward in the middle of the teaching round, as bold as brass, no possible error, it made me feel quite shy. Goodness knows why he won’t drop a hairpin now, the silly boy.”

  Returning, Laurie began to take in the room. It contained a big white-painted cupboard (the toy cupboard, he thought at once) and an old-fashioned nannie’s rocking chair. There were also two divans covered with hessian and strewn with bright cotton cushions; a couple of modern Swedish chairs; one or two charming little pieces in old walnut; various poufs; a wooden black boy holding an ashtray; and a crayon drawing, literal and earnestly dull, of a young sailor’s head. Across the lower half of the big windows, rusty but still thick and strong, the nursery bars remained protectively fixed.

  He had heard, as he came in from the doorway, the conversation swerve awkwardly. He was acutely conscious of his limp, of the lowness of the divans and poufs which would exhibit his stiff knee when he sat and when he rose. He recognized Sandy’s changed voice which he had heard from the landing: it was the voice of Charles’s friends. Suddenly he imagined Lanyon frisking in and speaking like that. With a trapped feeling he saw Alec coming up carrying a whisky and soda.

  “I believe it’s your birthday? Many happy returns.”

  “Thank you. Do sit down; try this one.” It was one of the Swedish chairs, with helpful arms. Alec poised himself on the edge of a table and said, “You’re a friend of Ralph’s, I hear.”

  “Well, I can’t honestly claim that. He was Head of the School when I was in the fifths, and we’ve never even met since he left. If he remembers me at all it’ll only be because he’s got a good memory for faces; or used to have.”

  “Oh, he still has. Is your drink all right?”

  “Yes, thanks, fine. I rather feel, really, that I’ve come here under false pretenses.” He was quite sure Alec had subtlety enough to interpret that.

  “So far,” said Alec, “you seem to me very lacking in pretenses.” It struck Laurie that he would be formidable in a consulting room someday. “Oh, by the way, I don’t know whether you get a kind of functional deafness during introductions, like me? I never got your name properly; was it—er—Hazell, or—?”

  “Christ!” said Laurie, nearly spilling his drink. “No, it wasn’t.”

  “I really do apologize. I thought not, but I just wanted to exclude the possibility before Ralph got here. Evidently, from your strong reaction, you were there the term he was expelled?”

  Laurie put down his drink
and said, in the formal voice of open hostility, “Lanyon left the term he was due to leave. There was nothing else to it, as far as I know.”

  “I’m sorry. But Ralph makes so little secret of it; everyone in our own set knows. And I suppose you struck me as not being a mischievous person.”

  Laurie felt his anger go cold on him. Under a score of surface differences, and accompanied no doubt by many basic ones, he recognized a speaker of his own language; another solitary still making his own maps, his few certainties gripped with a rather desperate strength. “I didn’t mean to be cagey,” he said. “Lanyon was a very good Head and generally liked, and I suppose that’s what one mostly remembers. Of course you must know much more about him than I do.”

  “Don’t apologize,” said Alec, “I liked it.” He had a smile of unexpected decision and charm. “And what is your name, if you’ll forgive my unmannerly persistence?”

  “Oh, sorry. It’s Odell. I don’t think he’ll remember me, you know.”

  Alec looked up. His dark eyes had a peering, short-sighted look. “Odell?” he said.

  “Without the apostrophe, if it matters. Needless to say I got called Spud just the same.”

  “Yes,” said Alec. “Yes, I expect so.” His characteristic alertness seemed lost; he stared in silence. “You say you don’t think Ralph will remember you?”

  “Well, I suppose he might dimly.” Laurie himself was remembering with sharpening clearness: the green paint in the corridor, the torn books in the basket, the silver pencil. “But I should hardly think so; he had a good deal else to think about, after all.”

  “You never knew he brought you back from Dunkirk, then?”

  “What?” said Laurie dully. His brain refused to yield him the least response. His memories had been healing; he could recall nothing of that journey with any clearness now.

  “You didn’t recognize him?”

  “No. I can’t have seen him, even. I think I passed out, you see, most of the way.”

  “Yes, of course. Apparently he picked up some kind of impression that you knew him. At least, I remember him saying he wrote to you afterwards; but of course he hadn’t much to go on. Evidently there was some muddle, because the letter came back ‘Died of Wounds.’ And from the state you were in when he saw you, it didn’t seem unlikely, so he left it there.”

  “I see. I wondered why you seemed surprised when I told you my name.” The shadows of memory were disconnected and meaningless, like the first markings on a negative in the tank. “Fancy his bothering to write to me. That’s just like him, you know; he made everyone feel he took a personal interest. He was wounded himself, Sandy says?”

  “Yes, that was later. He went back two or three more times for another load. His ship got a direct hit in the end, but they picked him up out of the water. Well, he’s late, I hope he’s going to turn up. Excuse me, I’d better see how the drinks are doing.”

  He got up. For the first time, Laurie perceived in his movements a kind of reticent, controlled delicacy, like that of a well-bred woman who is usually aware of making, without vulgar emphasis, the right impression. He collected someone’s glass and went over to the table with it, catching Sandy’s eye on the way. They met at the table and went through some business with a siphon, and talked discreetly. Laurie heard nothing except the end of a sentence from Sandy: “… started out long ago. Does it matter?” The rest was drowned by a conversation going on just behind his chair. “So I said to him, well really at that point I couldn’t help saying, ‘Well, if that’s your attitude, I don’t mind telling you I think I’ve treated you very nicely, and when I say that you know what I mean.’ And he did, too. ‘I’ve treated you nicely,’ I said, ‘and in return you’ve done nothing but two-time me, and not even with decent people, but with people whom I consider absolute riff-raff. You know who I mean.’ He knew all right; he looked very silly, I can tell you, when he saw I’d been checking up on him. ‘I think you’ll go a long way,’ I said, ‘before you’ll find anyone who …’ ”

  Oh God, Laurie was thinking, where has it got to? He had left his chair and was now searching for his stick. There it was, fallen flat on the floor; and he knew from past failures that he would have to sit down in the chair again in order to retrieve it without looking ridiculous.

  “Looking for this, chum?”

  “Thanks,” said Laurie. “Yes, I was.”

  It was a soldier, whom Laurie had till now scarcely had time to notice, though he had been vaguely aware of him as a somewhat incongruous presence. He now said, “You don’t mind, do you, chum, if I sit here with you and have a word or two?” and, carefully bringing up a pouf before Laurie could answer, settled himself beside him.

  Laurie recognized at once the solemn intensity of drink taken; to go away instantly might start a scene. After a little heavy breathing, the soldier addressed him in the flat accent of the Midlands.

  “I reckon you got that packet at Dunkirk. Eh?”

  “Yes,” said Laurie. “Were you there too?”

  “No, I was still doing training. I saw you come in. You got one leg shorter than the other, haven’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Don’t they reckon that’ll get no better, then?”

  “Probably not.”

  The soldier leaned forward; he smelled of jasmine hair oil and of beer. “Here,” he breathed huskily. “I want to ask you something. You ever been here before?”

  “No. Have you?”

  “It don’t matter about me. Look, when you come in here, I took a liking to you. That’s what I’m like, always have been, first impressions is what I go by; and when I see you come in limping on that stick, I thought, ‘That lad stopped a packet at Dunkirk and they didn’t ought to have brought him. That’s not right,’ I thought, ‘they never ought to have done it.’ ”

  “It’s all right. I’ve only looked in for a drink.”

  “That’s what you think, chum. Here, do you know what they are, all this lot here?”

  “Don’t you worry about me; I’m leaving to catch a bus in a minute.” He had missed it, but there was another at nine, and he would sit in a cinema till it was due. He looked around, trying to catch Sandy’s eye.

  “I know what you think,” said the soldier earnestly. “I could see it in your face when you come in. You think being lame like what you are, a girl won’t have you. You think to hell with all that. It takes all sorts to make a world, give it a go and look after number one same as we all got to do, that’s what you think. Now I’ll tell you something.”

  “Yes,” said Laurie. “Excuse me.” He gripped the arms of the chair and braced himself to rise. But the door had opened. Sandy was saying, “So here you are at last. Come along in, we’ve got a little surprise for you.”

  Laurie straightened himself smartly. When he was on his feet and standing still, there wasn’t much to notice. In his haste he threw his weight too quickly on his lame leg, so that it was shot through with a violent stab of pain. When the effort of concealing this was over, he saw that Lanyon was already in the room.

  He had come alone. Laurie would have known him instantly, anywhere; which is not to say that he had not changed. He was in R.N.V.R. uniform with a lieutenant’s rings; and Laurie’s first clear thought was that if one had had the sense to notice it, he must have looked like a ship’s officer even at school. Now the incipient lines were graven in; against his weathered skin his light hair looked several shades fairer, almost ash-colored. He was still spare and alert-looking, but he held his shoulders more stiffly now. There was time for all this while he stood in the doorway. For Sandy he had a suitable smile which, without being exactly guarded, revealed nothing whatever except good manners: when he turned to Alec, though the transition wasn’t crude, Laurie could see that it was Alec on whose account he had come. He had brought him a birthday present, Laurie couldn’t see what, and the unwrapping and thanks took a little time. Laurie was glad of it. It had all been more disturbing than he had expected, and it occur
red to him for the first time that Lanyon might find his sudden appearance embarrassing, once he remembered who he was.

  Alec took some time to admire his present; he was evidently one of those who are generous in the receiving of gifts. It was Sandy who seemed suddenly to grow impatient. He gave Lanyon a shove which turned him half around from the door, and said, in a voice carelessly audible through the room, “And now come over here and see what we’ve got for you.”

  Lanyon stared at this and Laurie saw for the first time his light-blue, wary, sailor’s eyes. Above the superficial smile on his mouth, they swept the room as inexpressively as if it had been a doubtful stretch of sea. Laurie got ready: but when they reached him, he forgot after all to say anything or even to smile, since Lanyon did neither: he simply stood there, with his face draining, visibly, of color, till one could see that his mouth and chin were less deeply tanned than the rest of his face, because they suddenly stood out pallid against the darker skin above. His mouth straightened; Laurie knew the expression well, but now it seemed part of a naval uniform, emergency kit. It jerked Laurie out of himself. He took a step forward and said, “Hello. They told me you might be coming.” But Lanyon still stared at him in silence, so he added, “Do you remember me? Spud Odell?”

  Lanyon came up, and Laurie noticed for the first time the glove on his left hand. He said, so abruptly that he might have been charging Laurie with a disciplinary offense, “I thought you were dead.”

  “Only temporarily.” Laurie thought: I can’t have very much imagination, not to have expected this. That day at school must have been the worst in his life, much worse than anything the sea’s done to him or even the war; seeing me must be like living it over again. He felt so strongly for Lanyon in this that his nervousness left him. He smiled and said, “Alec’s just told me that I owe you for a Channel crossing. Is it true?”

  Lanyon said in the same court-martial voice, but rather more slowly, “You knew that.”