He found himself nodding again. Edwin went on speaking.
“So tell me. How did he know I am a seeker? Where is it written on me? On my forehead like a caste mark? Are there tribal cuts on my cheeks? Put aside all the technicalities, clairvoyance, second sight, extrasensory perception, all the skrying, seeing, the Gift—he simply knew! And as we walked I found myself—now this is the point, I found not that he spoke but—”
Edwin paused and looked as nearly furtive as a man of his open appearance could.
“You’re not going to believe this, Sim. He didn’t speak. I did.”
“But of course!”
“No, no, not for me! For him! Somehow I was finding words for him—I was never at a loss—”
“You never have been. We both have what my mother called tongues hung in the middle that wag both ends—”
“Just so! Just so! He at one end, I at the other. And then—walking along the gravel path towards the elms they haven’t cut down yet—as the rain pricked and the wind came and went—”
Edwin stopped. He got up from the desk. He thrust his hands deep into his pockets. The overcoat shut in front of him like drawn curtains.
“—I spoke in more than words.”
“You sang, perhaps.”
“Yes,” said Edwin, without a trace of humour. “Exactly so! That is to say I experienced more than words can say; and I experienced it there and then.” A small black boy pressed his face to the plate glass, looked into the impenetrable innards of the shop and ran away. Sim looked back at Edwin.
“There’s always come a point when I have had to take your say-so. Can’t you understand, Edwin, that I’m fettered by a kind of social politeness? I’ve never been able to say to your face what I actually think about it all.”
“I want you to come along. Back to the park.”
“Have you arranged a meeting?”
“He’ll be there.”
Sim passed a hand over his baldness then shook himself in irritation.
“I can’t leave the shop whenever I like. You know that. And Ruth is out shopping. I couldn’t possibly leave until—”
The shop bell rang and of course it was Ruth. Edwin turned back to Sim triumphantly.
“You see?”
Now Sim was really irritated.
“That’s trivial!”
“It all hangs together. Good morning, Ruth.”
“Edwin.”
“Still going up, dear?”
“Just the penny here and there. Nothing to worry about.”
“I was explaining that I can’t leave the shop.”
“Oh but you can. Cold lunch. I shall be glad to sit.”
“And you see again, my dear Sim? Trivial of course!”
Driven, Sim became stubborn.
“I don’t want to come!”
“Go with Edwin, dear. Do you good. Fresh air.”
“It won’t be any good, you know. It never is.”
“Up you get.”
“I don’t see why I— look Ruth, if Graham’s comes through tell them we haven’t got a full Gibbon after all. One volume of Miscellaneous is missing. But we’ve the full Decline and Fall in good condition.”
“That’s the first edition.”
“Price as agreed for the Decline. New dicker for the rest.”
“I’ll remember.”
Sim got his overcoat, his scarf, his woollen gloves, his squashy hat. Side by side they walked up the High Street. The bell struck eleven from the tower of the community centre. Edwin nodded at it.
“That’s where I met him.”
Sim did not answer, and they passed the community centre, from whose graveyard the tombstones had not yet all been moved, in silence. Harold Krishna, Chung and Dethany Clothing, Bartolozzi Dry Cleaning, Mamma Mia Chinese Takeaway. In the door of Sundha Singh’s Grocery Store one of the Singh brothers was talking liquidly to a white policeman.
The temple and the new mosque. The Liberal club closed for repairs, graffiti on every available surface. Up the Front. Kill the Bastard Frunt. Fugglestone shoe repairs.
Edwin swerved round a Sikh woman in her brilliant costume only partly hidden by her raincoat. For twelve yards or so Sim followed him among white men and women waiting for a bus. Edwin spoke over his shoulder.
“Different when I came, wasn’t it, after the war? London wasn’t crawling all over us. The Green was still a village green—”
“If you shut one eye, it was. Ponsonby was vicar. You met this man of yours in there, you said.”
“I wanted to see young Steven’s wood sculpture. He’ll go some distance—not far; but it’s already a fallout from using the place as a community centre—there was also an exhibition of what’s his name’s photographs of insects—you know the man I mean. Fascinating. Oh yes. The Little Theatre Group was rehearsing that thing of Sartre’s—you know—In Camera—in the, the north annexe—”
“You mean the north transept where they used to reserve the sacrament.”
“Now Sim! You old stick-in-the-mud! You weren’t even a communicant! Remember we’re multi-racial and all religions are one, anyway.”
“Try telling them that in the mosque.”
“What do I hear? Has the Front been getting to you?”
“Don’t be obscene. This man—”
“I met him just where the—no it wasn’t. The font was on the other side. But he was standing under the west window, staring down at one of the old inscriptions.”
“Epitaphs.”
“I teach books, you know. I live by them too. The school does, after all. Yesterday after meeting him, I suddenly thought when I was talking about Shakespeare’s own Histories—Good Lord, that’s why he didn’t bother about having his stuff printed! He knew, you see. Well, he would, wouldn’t he?”
“‘Venus and Adonis’. ‘Rape of Lucrece’. Sonnets, to you.”
“A young man. The letter killeth. Who said that?”
“You found it in print.”
“Some of the time we were both silent. I mean very silent. During one of these silences I found something out. You see, the silence was seared by the passage of these ghastly jets; and I knew that if, if we, or he, could find a place with the quality of absolute silence in it—that was why he was in the community centre, I think. Searching for silence—disappointed of course. So we were talking for only part of the time. Or rather I was. Have you ever noticed that I talk a lot, almost logorrhoea, talking for the sake of it? Well I didn’t. Not then.”
“You’re talking about yourself. Not him.”
“But that’s the point! Part of the time I—well, I spoke Ursprache.”
“German?”
“Don’t be a—God, how lucky they were, those old philosophers and theologians who spoke Latin! But I forgot. No they weren’t. It was a kind of print—one remove from. Sim. I spoke the innocent language of the spirit. The language of paradise.”
Edwin was looking sideways defiantly and flushing. Sim felt his own face go hot.
“I see,” he muttered. “Well—”
“You don’t see. And you’re embarrassed. I don’t see either and I’m embarrassed—”
Edwin covered his privates again with his two fists thrust into the overcoat pockets. He spoke fiercely. “It’s not the thing, is it? Awfully bad form, isn’t it? A bit methodist, isn’t it? Back street stuff isn’t it? Just talking with tongues, that’s all. Now the moment is gone I can’t re-experience it. I can only remember, and what’s a memory? Useless clutter! I should have it down and sewn into the lapel of my jacket, here, somewhere. Now we’re both blushing like a couple of naughty schoolgirls who’ve been caught using a bad word. In for a penny in for a pound. You’re for it, Sim. Treat it as science, that’ll make it feel better. I’m going to describe that memory as exactly as—I said seven words. I said a small sentence and I saw it as a luminous and holy shape before me. Oh, I forgot, we’re being scientific aren’t we? Luminous would pass. Holy? Right then—the affect was one commonly
associated in religious phraseology with the word ‘Holy’. Well. The light was not of this world. Now laugh.”
“I’m not laughing.”
They walked on in silence for a while, Edwin with his head turned sideways, in defence and suspicion. He struck a small Eurasian with his shoulder and exploded into the social Edwin which always seemed more real than any other of his private committee.
“I’m so sorry—inexcusable clumsiness—are you sure—oh really it was too bad of me! You’re not hurt? Thank you so much, so very very much! Good day. Yes. Good day!”
Then as suddenly switched off, the defensive Edwin looked back at Sim as they walked.
“No. I don’t believe you are. Thank you.”
“What were the words?”
Astonished, Sim saw a positive tide of red sweep up Edwin’s neck, up his face, his low forehead, and vanish under his tough but grizzled hair. Edwin swallowed once and over the knotted scarf it was possible to see how his prominent Adam’s apple bobbed up and down. He gave a self-conscious cough.
“I can’t remember.”
“You—”
“All I have left is a memory of sevenness and a memory of that shape, imprecise as it was, but now crystallized—colourless, now alas—”
“You’ve done an Annie Besant.”
“But that’s exactly it! That’s exactly the difference! I’ve done it or rather it’s been done—Our geese—have been those whose opinions we thought might be helpful, whose philosophies, whose religions, whose codes might be what we were looking for; and what would eventuate tomorrow or the day after or the year after in some kind of illumination—the difference is that this was it! Was tomorrow, the year after next! I don’t have to explain, Sim, I am not looking for anything—I found it, there in the park, sitting beside him. He gave it me.”
“I see.”
“I was a little downcast you know when you—Dejected. Yes, I was cast down.”
“My fault, sorry. Uncivil of me.”
“It all falls together as it should. I don’t think he would object to a man having and carrying about with him the written word rather than the printed—so, so long as he had copied it out himself—”
“Are you serious?”
“You would write down yourself and keep private to yourself—you know, Sim, I’ve just remembered. That’s coming together. He took my book from me.”
“What book?”
“A paperback. Nothing important. He took it and went away into the public lavatory and of course when he came back—well he didn’t give it back.”
“You’ve forgotten. Like the seven words.”
“There was one thing he did, though. He picked up a matchbox and a stone. Then he very carefully balanced the matchbox on the arm of the seat with the stone on top of it.”
“What did he say?”
“He’s not got a mouth that’s intended for speaking. Good Lord, what have I said? That’s exactly it! Not intended for speaking!”
“What happened to the matchbox and the stone?”
“I don’t know. Perhaps they’re still there. Perhaps they fell off. I didn’t look.”
“We’re crazy. Both of us.”
“He can speak of course, because he said ‘Yes’. I’m nearly sure he said ‘Yes’. He must have done. I’m quite sure in my mind that he said some other things. Yes, he said quite a bit concerning ‘Secrecy’.”
“What secrecy for God’s sake?”
“Didn’t I tell you? That’s the other thing. No reproduced words. No permanent names to anything. And no one must know.”
Sim stopped on the pavement so that Edwin had to stop as well and turn to him.
“Look Edwin, this is fantastic nonsense already! It’s masonic stuff, inner circle stuff, conspiratorial—don’t you understand? Doesn’t he understand himself? You could get up in the High Street or the Market Place and speak; you could get up and shout, you could use a loudhailer and no one, but no one, would give a damn! The jets would still come over, the traffic pass, the shoppers the coppers the teeny boppers and all, and no one would even notice. They’d think you were advertising fivepence off at the supermarket. We’re damned with our own triviality, that’s what it is—secrecy? I’ve never heard anything so silly in my life!”
“Nevertheless—you see, I have brought you to the gates of the park.”
“Let’s get it over.”
They stood together a few yards inside the gates, while Edwin swung on his heel looking round. Groups of children were playing here and there. The attendant stood only a few yards from the public lavatory, watching the children morosely as they ran in and out or took each other there.
Edwin discovered the man behind them with a great start. Sim, turning as well, found himself looking straight into the man’s face. There was something a little stagey about his appearance, as if he were got up to play a part. He wore a broad-brimmed black hat and a long black overcoat, into the pockets of which his hands were thrust as Edwin’s were thrust into his. He was, Sim saw, exactly the same size as he was so that they met eye to eye. Yet the man’s face was strange. The right side was browner than a European’s would be, yet not so distinctly brown as to type him as Hindu or Pakistani and certainly he was no Negro, for his features were quite as Caucasian as Edwin’s own. But the left side of his face was a puzzle. It seemed—thought Sim for a moment—as if he held a hand mirror which was casting faint light from the grey, misty day which lowered the colour of that side a tone or two. In that side, the eye was smaller than the right one and then Sim knew that this lighter shade was not a reflection but a different skin. The man, many years before, had had a skin graft that covered most of the left side of his face and was perhaps the reason why Edwin had said he had a mouth not for speaking, because the skin held that side of the mouth closed as it held the eye nearly closed, an eye, perhaps, not for seeing. A fringe of jet-black hair projected down under the black hat all round and on the left side there was a mulberry-coloured thing projecting through rather longer black hair. With a sudden lurch of his stomach Sim saw that this thing was an ear, or what was left of it—an ear imperfectly hidden by the hair and suggesting immediately that its appearance dated from the event that had occasioned the skin graft. Of all sights he had not expected to see such deformation. It made him wince to look at it. His mouth that had opened in the first movement of some social advance, stayed opened and he said nothing. It was not necessary because he could hear Edwin talking eagerly at his side and with that particularly loud, braying note that was a parody teacher’s and so often taken off behind his back. But Sim paid no attention to what Edwin was saying. His own gaze was held by the man’s one-and-a-half eyes and his half-mouth not meant for speaking and the extraordinary grief that seemed to contract it as much as the pull of the skin. Moreover, the man seemed to be outlined—but this must be some quirk of psychology—against his background in a way that made him the point of it.
Eyes held, Sim felt the words rising through him, entering his throat, speaking themselves against his own will, evoked, true.
“My inclination is to think that all this is nonsense.”
The man’s right eye seemed to open wider; and the effect was as if a sudden gleam of light came from it. Anger. Anger and grief. Edwin answered.
“Of course it’s not what you expect! The paradox is that if you had thought a bit, Goodchild, you’d have known it couldn’t be what you expect!”
A particularly snarling jet soughed louder and louder down over them. At the same moment the High Street seemed to be invaded by a whole string of articulated juggernauts. Sim raised a hand to his ear, more in protest than in hope of keeping the noise out. He glanced sideways. Edwin was still speaking, his short nose lifted, the hectic on his cheeks. It sounded like a comminatory psalm, overthrowing, trampling down.
Sim could only tell what he himself said because he was inside with it.
“What are we getting ourselves into?”
Then the jet had pa
ssed, the juggernauts were grinding themselves away, to turn right and go round to the spur of the motorway. He looked back at the man and found with a jolt of surprise that he had gone. A kind of mash of surmises, most of them ridiculous, filled his mind; and then he saw him, ten yards off and striding away, hands in long coat pockets. Edwin was following.
They went like that, the three of them, in single file along the main, gravelled path. Grief and anger. The two so mixed they had become a single, settled quality, a strength. Again, words seemed to find their own way up his body towards his throat like bubbles in a bottle; but with the man’s face hidden ahead there he contrived to keep them in.
I’d expected some kind of Holy Joe.
As if they shared a mind, Edwin slackened his pace and drew alongside.
“I know it’s not what anyone would expect. How are you doing?”
Unwillingly, again, and cautiously—
“I’m—interested.”
They were approaching an area where children were playing. There were swings, a see-saw, a small, metal roundabout, a slide. As they moved towards the centre of the park the road noises—and there, now, was the sudden roaring, rattling passage of a train—tended to be muffled as if the trees round the edge of the green did indeed muffle sound as they hindered sight. Only the jets soughed over, one every two or three minutes.
“There! Did you see!”
Edwin had reached sideways and grasped Sim’s wrist. They were stopped and looking forward.
“See what?”
“That ball!”
The man had not slackened his pace and was getting ahead of them. Edwin lugged again at Sim’s wrist.
“You must have noticed!”
“Noticed what, for—”
As if he were talking to a particularly dim pupil Edwin began to explain.
“The ball that boy kicked. It shot across the gravel and through his feet.”
“Nonsense. It went between his feet.”
“I tell you. It went through them!”
“Optical illusion. I saw as well, you know. It went between them! Be your age, Edwin. You’ll be having him levitate next.”