18

‘An old man, Turtle, has died,’ Mrs Jaraby said. ‘The event has taken a toll of your father.’ And Basil thought that he owed Mr Turtle fifteen pounds ten and would owe him no more. Mr Turtle had been going to buy a bird, had even picked one out.

‘Why did he die?’

‘Your father did not say. God called him maybe, as God called Monmouth on the same day.’

Mr Jaraby sat without speaking, picked at the lunch on his plate.

Basil had not shaved. He thought it wise to let his beard grow for a while and perhaps do something about the colour of his hair.

‘Your father is not himself. These Old Boys’ occasions are tiring, exposed like that to the sun all day. Why do women not make a fuss about their schooldays?’

Basil took lettuce and radishes, remembering Old Boys’ Days when he had been at school.

‘There is more in a woman’s life I suppose,’ Mrs Jaraby went on. ‘Women are often more sensible than men.’

‘So you are living in the house.’ Mr Jaraby spoke with his head bent over his plate, his eyes on the food.

‘I have lived here for forty years,’ said Mrs Jaraby. ‘In the room next to yours.’

‘I am speaking to Basil, as well you know. You are hellbent on trouble today, and you will find the reward is not pretty. You are living in the house, Basil?’

‘I came yesterday, in the evening.’

‘Did I issue the invitation when you came to tea? My memory fails me, I had quite forgotten.’

‘I can vouch for you,’ Mrs Jaraby cried. ‘I stood beside you at the time. You invited Basil, I clapped and cheered you.’

‘You are telling a lie, woman.’

‘How can you know? You say your memory has gone!’

‘I know my emotions, I know what I do and say or do not do and say.’

‘After lunch, sleep in the garden. You will be clearer in your mind when you awake. We must not tax ourselves too much. We have to get used to this and that before we can operate properly again.’

‘What in God’s name are you talking about now? Are you simply using words because they are there and you can call upon them? All our conversation is like that. A yes and a no and a thank you are all I require from you. I ask you to note that, and act upon it.’

‘I must note it since I have heard it. To act upon it is another thing. I ask you to note that I do not intend to act upon it.’

‘You serve us with lettuce that is foul and coarse. One day in the year you have to order the lettuce and this is what we get. Do you not find the lettuce inedible, Basil?’

‘Basil has eaten his lettuce without noticing anything amiss. There was not much wrong with today’s lettuce. You bought it yourself.’

‘How could I have? I have been away.’

‘You have not been away for a year. You bought it the day before yesterday. I saw it was a little shot, but did not worry much. Rightly as it turned out, for it tasted –’

‘I deny that I bought this lettuce. It was your doing on my day of absence.’

‘You make too much of it. We are lucky to have food at all.’

‘Lucky – why are we lucky? What do you mean we are lucky to have food?’

‘If we were starving you would not make this fuss about a head of lettuce.’

Basil rose and left the table, shambling from the room and lighting a cigarette in the doorway.

‘The lettuce has been paid for. We have a right to it, and a right to a better quality than this. We are not starving, and certainly in my present troubles I do not consider myself lucky.’

‘We have exhausted the subject of the lettuce. You tell me to answer you simply with a yes or a no, and then you start a complicated discussion of a lettuce. You are not consistent.’

‘I am consistent in this: I do not like that man lighting cigarettes in the house. I do not like him in the house at all. Did you see how he addressed me? Hardly listening to what I asked, surly and ill-tempered.’

‘You did not meet his eye. What did you expect in return?’

‘He has always been a trouble. As a child he was never off the sick-bed.’

‘That was because he was sick. Should we have given him away when we discovered that? Should we have sold him to the highest bidder?’

‘Did I say that? You are putting words into my mouth.’

‘Are they words that displease you as much as the lettuce? They should not, for the thought has been in your mind.’

‘To sell my son? You are mad. I have never thought of selling – this is a ridiculous conversation.’

‘All our conversations are ridiculous. We speak without communication.’

‘Am I to blame? Other people understand me. In my public life I am a success.’

Mrs Jaraby laughed. ‘You are past public life now. Did you have a public life once? I had not noticed.’

‘By public life I mean my life outside this house. There is, for instance, my contribution to the Association. Does that count for naught in your estimation? Are you above such matters?’

‘I imagine your contribution was a worthy one; certainly your interest never flagged. Would that you had shown similar interest within the house, or made as worthy a contribution.’

‘What do you mean by that?’

‘The house might fall about our ears, you would not notice. You cannot erect a shelf or undertake a simple home repair. You trim the garden now and then, but the very floors might rot beneath our feet before you cared. With time on your hands, I would have thought to see you painting skirting-boards and papering rooms; helping me in my daily chores.’

‘I am not an artisan, I know nothing of such things. I cannot drive a nail or saw wood: I do not wish to: I might have mastered the crafts but chose not to. The house is in fair condition; I see nothing to complain at.’

‘You would lead a more useful life now had you mastered these crafts you sneer at. You would throw some of your energy into healthy pursuits.’

‘Are my present pursuits not healthy then? Let us hear all you have to say.’

‘You have no pursuits. You do nothing. You have come to a full stop.’

‘I help to keep the Association going. I organized collections for the new classroom block. I am in communication with thousands –’

‘I know, I know. But what is that? A clerk could do it. What you do, you do for your own ends. You do not care a fig for that school. You use it and its association of Old Boys as your audience, for your display of power. You are lost if you cannot persuade yourself that you still have power. You will become President because you have paved the way. You are interested only in yourself, Mr Jaraby. You are still proving yourself in your own eyes.’

‘You decrepit old fool,’ cried Mr Jaraby in great anger, ‘I have never heard such poppycock.’

Mrs Jaraby stood up. Her long angular figure towered over him and he felt for a moment a spark of fear, for her thin hands were like claws and her eyes, he thought, had the light of a vulture.

‘I am not a fool,’ Mrs Jaraby said. ‘I am a sad, pathetic woman whose life has dropped into shreds. Basil shall remain in this house. He shall cram it from top to bottom with budgerigars and parrots and owls and eagles. He shall turn your garden into a tank for fish and train lizards to sing before your eyes. If he wishes for penguins and hyenas they shall be welcome. And the swift gazelle and the ostrich and the kangaroo. No matter what we do or what we now consent to we shall owe him a debt as we die. His birth was a greater sin than ever he in his wretchedness committed. I take my share of it. You, even at this advanced time, have not the confidence to take yours.’

‘I will have you certified,’ cried Mr Jaraby. ‘As God is my Maker, I will have you certified.’

‘Check first that He was your Maker.’ Mrs Jaraby laughed shrilly and pulled a face at him, and watched him thinking that she was mad.

In his room Basil lay on his bed. He had pulled the curtains, for like Mr Swabey-Boyns he disliked the sun. In the gloom, cigarette ash spilled over his waistcoat and on to the sheets. He was thinking of Mr Turtle, that old man, now dead and awaiting burial. Mr Turtle had invited him to his house and given him money. Mr Turtle had listened while he talked to him about the birds, explaining their illnesses and their needs. He had said a bird would be a companion for him and had spoken then of the difficulties he faced in a domestic way. Once, as they sat together in the park, a young man in running attire had darted by, trailing a pungent exhaust of sweat, and Mr Turtle told him how once he had broken the high jump record. Basil did not as a rule wish to hear the School mentioned, but somehow he didn’t mind when Mr Turtle went on about the high jump. He remembered the old man’s hands and the stick with a silver knob and the story about Mr Turtle’s marriage. Mr Turtle had suggested that some day they should go to a matinée at the cinema together, and Basil had agreed, because he knew that Mr Turtle would be the one to pay, and afterwards he knew that they would have tea. It was odd how when first he had met him he thought of him purely as a possible source of money, and had only later seen that he might become a friend. Had the relationship been a little more advanced, and had Mr Turtle not died, he might even have gone to his house rather than his parents’. He had thought before of going to Mr Turtle’s house, of offering to take the place of the difficult woman, of living there and cleaning the place and cooking for both of them. He had thought he might suggest it, and that Mr Turtle would be pleased and enthusiastic and might leave him the house in his will. Basil closed his eyes, blinking away the tears. They rolled down his cheeks into the dark stubble of his one-day beard.