6

After that, Reeve lay in ambush. He had not long to wait. Gerald’s requiem for the living dead had offended. The Desert Fathers met as before, but Brownlee wore an air of fastidious malaise, and some went home early. Pritchard could hardly conceal from himself that he found the singing less buoyant.

Two months after his lunch with Sheila Maune, Reeve had a call from Gerald: “We haven’t had a real talk in a hell of a long time. There’s something I want to ask you. Why don’t we have a drink at the club before the dinner starts next Tuesday. Say we make it half past six.”

Posted by the high window in the smoking-room, Reeve saw Gerald turn the corner of Londsdale Terrace. For a brief instant, he had the hallucination that he was looking at the wrong man. Maune had gotten paunchy, and in the sharp gust which swept the street his gait was imprecise. Reeve tautened his muscles, and noted with content that he himself had kept lean, that he would still be able, without shortness of wind, to follow the beagles over hedgerow and muddy ground, as he had done at Magdalen fifteen years before. But it was Maune’s face—Reeve peered at it with the closeness of imperfect recognition—that arrested. It was a young face gone indecently old, without the buttress of intervening years. The hair was still flaxen at the temple and the chin unsteady; but the eyes were set deep and tired, and the skin was finely cracked. Like a new house, hurriedly plastered, and already flaking to dust.

They ordered drinks (the barman knew that Gerald took a double with only a wisp of tonic) and arched their legs against the fire-guard. Their talk strayed here and there, of taxes, of an acquaintance gone to New Zealand, of a libel action to which Reeve’s firm was party. The old, easy cadence seemed between them.

Gerald went to fetch a second round. Bending over the back of Reeve’s chair, the glasses poised in his hand, he asked with a casual drag in his voice: “I say, old man, you wouldn’t happen to remember Ina? That girl I got involved with at Oxford?”

Reeve blinked at the fire and half turned his supple neck: “Ina? I’m not sure I do.”

Gerald stirred heavily: “But you must. Don’t you remember the funk I got myself into? I sat in your room and sweated like a frightened hog. Then you went and saw her.”

“I do have a vague memory of the thing, now that you mention it. But she didn’t make the same impression on me, old boy, as she obviously had on you.”

Gerald coloured: “No. Of course she wouldn’t. I was just wondering …” He faltered.

Reeve spun out the bogus silence: “You were wondering about what?”

“At the time I must have been too damn scared to ask. About what happened. Now I’d like to know. Whether she got herself taken care of,” he winced saying it, “or whether she was going to have the baby.”

“How should I know? I wouldn’t have the foggiest notion.”

“But surely you must. You went and talked to her. Don’t you remember? She was to meet me in front of the Lamb and Flag. You were going to tell her what to do. She must have said something.” The words had a dry, fuzzy taste in his mouth, like a blotter.

“I imagine I gave the little tart five quid and told her I’d call the police if she ever showed her face around Oxford again. But maybe it was only three. Yes, that’s it. I gave her three pounds and she went off snivelling.”

Gerald hunched forward, uneasy in his weight: “Look here, Flash,” (it was a nickname Reeve hadn’t heard since he ran for his house at Brackens, and it set his teeth on edge like a hint of blackmail) “I’m sure you know whether or not she was lying. I mean she was pregnant, wasn’t she? And so there might have been a child.”

Reeve leaned back in the dun mantle of his chair and spread his palms wide. He was amused to note how near to his mood were the stale postures of Victorian villainy: “How would I know?” He made reasonableness knife-sharp: “You are a nit! I’d almost forgotten the whole ballsup until you reminded me just now. How the devil should I know?”

“Because you weren’t going to give her a farthing if she was lying. She wouldn’t have stood a dog’s chance with you, Flash. You liked things neat. And you were a great one for finding out.”

Reeve mimed amazement: “Are you blaming me now? No, don’t shake your head that way. I’m asking. Did I set asunder whom God had joined? You were going to kiss my hand when I came back to tell you it was all right. You were going to get down on your bloody knees, lad, and kiss my hand. Or don’t you remember?”

“Come off it. You know damn well how grateful I was. And still am. It’s just that I wanted to know about the baby.”

“Why? What’s all this about?”

Gerald made an odd gesture, as of a broken wing: “There are some things I’ve been trying to straighten out in my own mind. And I want to know. Very much.”

A shard of live coal had tumbled from the grate; Reeve darted at it with his shoe.

“The whole thing’s a blur. I don’t even remember what the tart looked like. I’ve never given it another thought. But if it’s any comfort to you, and you’re making your peace with the Lord, thanks to St. Jude for favours received and all that, well I’ll you, boy, she wasn’t any more pregnant than my aunt Sally! So stand easy. No one’s going to turn up at the funeral and shout ‘daddy’. You are a queer one.”

Reeve came out of his chair making a face like a gargoyle, his long fingers to his chin and his face convulsed into an air of impish lechery. It was one of his best turns. But Gerald didn’t laugh.

“You’re sure of that?”

“Absolutely. She played you for a patsy. She saw what a soft touch you were and tried to pull a fast one. Pregnant? Don’t make me laugh.” He exhaled with mock finality.

“You’re lying,” said Gerald, “I don’t know how I can be so sure,” (the knowledge had sprung upon him, with a jarring, sickening impact), “but I know it. You’re lying.”

And in the moment he said it, all changed. The contour of the room, the bite of smoke and cold in the air, the yellow of the lamp, the rub of the tweed suit against his wrist. All changed utterly. A huge, dim shape had passed across the light making the heart hammer and be still.

He said it once more: “You’re lying to me.” Not in hatred, but in amazement before the breadth and simplicity of his ruin. The shrill of the lie had sounded out of the depths of Reeve, and Gerald had heard it resonant in the room, derisive. There need never be a second. The scratch was unalterable in the voice. To hear a lie in a friend, and Reeve had been the sharer and strong shadow of him, was to hear the soft start of death. It changes all.

Reeve did not know whether he was lying; perhaps the falsehood lay only in the easy stress he had put on his denial. But Maune’s outrage, and what he dimly perceived of withdrawal and contempt, goaded him like the sight of an open wound. He would not let silence pass judgment: “Look here, old boy, I’ve had a hard day. I don’t know what you’re after, or why you should think I’m lying. I’ve never been in such a bloody silly argument in my whole life. Okay. Have it your way. She was going to have twins. I could hear them saying ‘where’s poppa? Where’s old man Maune?’ We decided to name them Jeremy and Egbert and put them down for Eton. Now be a good chap and get me a drink, will you. Christ. You’d think I’d knocked her up.”

“Forget it. I don’t care to talk about it any more.”

Gerald stood quite near, but Reeve had difficulty hearing him, as if a sudden turbulence had cut between. A sour spasm gripped him, and his skin went hot: “I don’t know what the hell’s biting you. But don’t take it out on me. I’m telling you, boy. Don’t you take it out on me!”

“Keep your shirt on, old man. I’m not saying anything.”

“I’m fed up sitting here and having you look at me as if I’d stolen money off a blind man. Who the hell are you calling a liar? It’s time you grew up, Maune. I’m telling you for your own good.”

“Why are you getting so excited? I said, forget it.”

He spoke it kindly, there being room for kindness and tact in the new emptiness. Reeve heard the note. It made his nerves leap, and he lunged out like a runner stumbling: “Are you patronizing me? Well, are you?”

Gerald looked away, and made a vague motion towards the bar.

But Reeve pulled him close: “Look Maune, I’m not your analyst.”

Being in a new world, where touch and voice betrayed, Gerald was not startled.

“Ah. So you know. Of course. Sheila must have told you. She’s cut up about it. She thinks it’ll ruin us. Probably true.”

“That’s not the reason, and you know it. She can’t bear the thought of you making an ass of yourself. Of your doing something so utterly bogus.”

Reeve felt back in the saddle. He poured out his derision of psychoanalysis, his intimate, contemptuous knowledge of the havoc it created among his American acquaintances. His arguments flashed bright and crowded as from a Roman candle: “You’re having a rough patch with Sheila. All right, I don’t want to know the details. None of my business. Nor anybody else’s. I don’t suppose there’s a marriage going that doesn’t have its bad stretches. Right from the start, and when I was most involved, there were days when I looked at Vi and had grit in my mouth. Fair enough. That’s the old snake’s apple in our throats. Thou shalt sow thy seed in stony furrows and sweat thy balls off doing it. But you’re a big boy now. You’re the only one who can make a go of it. You and Sheila. And you know damn well there’s nothing I wouldn’t do to help, if you want me to. So why open your fly and wave the bloody thing at some Hebe in Hampstead, and pay the old goat for leering?”

Gerald listened, but found it hard to place the man who was addressing him with such insistent flourish. The voice was familiar, but somehow off pitch, as if it had passed through a fret of static.

“You’ve got to stand on your feet, lad. To stop leaning. There was always someone, wasn’t there? At home, it was mum. And crikey, she was a strong one. At school, it was me. You remember the day you passed out in the yard? You held on to me as if I were the Lamb of God. I don’t know who it was in Cairo, but you looked as if you had a pair of golden crutches. Someone was carrying you. Right on top of the bloody wave. Well it’s time you got out of the old womb.”

“I suppose it’s true. I’ve never been as clever as you, or as sure of myself. Perhaps I always have needed someone to prop me up. I won’t deny it. But if you think that’s what Goldman does, you couldn’t be more wrong. When I’m with him, I have to walk alone. Farther than I ever wanted to or thought my legs could carry me. You remember that obstacle course they made us slog through, with the bloody sergeant-major bellowing and waving a stick at you. There was a mound of earth you had to run up and jump from, into a lot of muck and water. They made us do it at night. I’ll never forget that. I was so scared I nearly wet myself. Falling into a black hole, and the air hitting you. Well, it’s hard to explain. But it’s rather like that. He kicks you off the edge, and you come down all shivery and not wanting to move. But you pick yourself up and start crawling in the dark. Somehow. And I’d never have believed you could be so alone with someone else sitting right behind you in the same room.”

His face lit with an expression of wry love.

“You look like a bobby-soxer swooning,” taunted Reeve.

Gerald smiled, out of reach: “It’s terribly difficult trying to explain to anyone who hasn’t gone through it. Who’s outside. There are times when I feel it’s the reallest thing that’s ever happened to me, and the only thing that will help. Other days, I loathe the whole business and want to chuck it. Once, I remember wanting to take Goldman by the neck and strangle the voice out of him. It was like a dentist’s drill.”

Again he smiled, in a recollection so rich and private that it jarred on Reeve like a door closed against him.

“But don’t you see the whole thing’s a fraud, an utter fraud? That he’s just a quack sniffing at a lot of garbage? Jesus, boy, you don’t have to have a Nanny any more to wipe your bottom when you’ve been to the toilet. That’s all he’s doing. Don’t you understand?”

“I’ve always thought you were the cleverest chap I knew. I never dared argue with you. But right now you sound stupid. My fault. I’m sorry I ever bothered you with all this. Let’s just forget it. Anyhow, time to go.”

He said it easily, looking up at the clock, but it had an undercurrent, drawing the present occasion towards a dim, cold finality.

“I’m warning you. If you don’t stop seeing that charlatan, and making a show of yourself like you did here the other night, you’ll lose Sheila. And you’re not a one to go alone. I’m telling you, Maune, not alone!”

“Sorry, old man, but as you say, I’ve been leaning too much. I’ve got to decide this one for myself.”

“You’ve got to listen to me. I can prove the thing’s a bloody racket. That you’re being taken for a ride. I can prove it!”

Beneath the angry mask of Reeve’s face and his darting finger, Gerald heard the wail of jealousy. It threw him off balance.

“I wonder what Goldman would say hearing you. Why does it matter to you so dreadfully? Why do you hate it so? You should look at yourself in the mirror. You’re all white. Perhaps I’m not the one who needs it most.”

“Meaning what?”

Gerald sought to break clear, but it was too late. Their intimacy had gone overripe. Now it burst, and a rancid venom spilled.

“Meaning that you haven’t done so well either, Flash.” The nickname mocked. “I was only saying to Sheila the other day: Duncan hasn’t gotten over it, has he? Walks around like a ghost. Don’t we know anyone we could introduce him to? A nice girl with a bit of money and a garden.”

Being full of their new hatred, and savouring its cool, bracing fumes, they both calmed down. Drink left Reeve’s intelligence armed and ungoverned.

“Look here, Maune, make you a bet. Give me three weeks and I’ll prove to you that Dr. Goldman’s a fraud. That the whole thing is utterly bogus.”

Gerald listened, as to a bright, dangerous child.

“He asks you about your dreams, doesn’t he?”

“Yes, that’s the most important thing. It starts you off. Pushes you off the jump.”

“And the dream is supposed to take the old letch right inside you, down to the balls of your soul.”

“I wouldn’t put it that way.”

“But that’s the whole point, isn’t it?”

“I suppose so. It opens the door. Like going down a staircase inside yourself.”

“And no one else’s dreams would do? I mean dreams people told you, or you’d read in a book?”

“Of course not. What a stupid idea. Like showing an X-ray of your aunt Tilly when you wanted to find out about your own lungs.”

“Exactly. And if a doctor couldn’t tell which was which you’d know him for a ponce, wouldn’t you?”

“Look, old man, time’s a’passing. Hadn’t we better go in now?”

But Reeve pulled him down, his knuckles aching.

“I told you I can prove it. How often do you go there? Twice a week, is it? All right. Give me three weeks. I’ll make up some dreams for you. A whole packet of them. And you’ll learn them by heart. They’ll be short enough, I can tell you. And you’ll spew them out for old Siegmund Fraud exactly as if they were your own, as if you’d dreamt them. And he won’t catch on. He’ll put his nose to them just as if they were your own. And you’ll crawl down the shaft together. But it won’t be you. It won’t be you at all!”

“That’s absurd! You are a silly ass. Why should I waste my time lying to him?”

“Because you’d see with your own eyes that the thing stinks. That it’s as fake as card-tricks. Because you’d realize that he’s making a sucker of you. That you’re getting the finger right up you, boy, right where the old Yid can smell the money.”

Reeve pitched back in his chair, quivering and hoarse with delight.

“You make me sick,” said Gerald, but he said it with a dull uncertainty.

Reeve crowded in, the lash of the harpoon whistling in his tone: “Three weeks. I’m not asking for much. Maybe he’ll see through it. But you don’t really believe that, do you, Maune? You’re afraid. You’re all shaking inside, aren’t you?”

“Leave off, will you. Just leave off.”

“One hundred pounds. I’m betting you one hundred pounds. And I’m in your hands. One wink, one giggle and he’ll smell a rat. But I trust you. You’re going to repeat those dreams just as if you’d dreamt them the night before, as if they’d made you wet the bed. I trust you like I wouldn’t trust anyone else in the world.” He said it with acid relish. “One hundred pounds to back up your new god. It’s cheap, boy, it’s cheap.”

Gerald was on his feet. He felt that if he struck out with his fist, accurately, the crazy wasp of a voice would stop whirring. Gin had made him heavy, but he sensed that he must rivet his attention, that the instant was like a top spinning, and could fall into an evil shambles. Still the wasp sang and stung.

“One hundred pounds.” He said it to himself. And saw, at the same moment, that they were not alone.

Brian Smith had come over from the bar, all ears: “I say, are you chaps making a bet?”

“We are,” said Reeve.

“What about?”

“That I can dream his own dreams for him, and no one the wiser.”

“You’re a fool, Reeve. Why should I do it?” He said it without conviction. The thing was dragging him down, away from the light. He had crossed the imperceptible shadow-line, leaving behind the feel of his own will.

“I’ll be dashed if I understand a word you’re saying. But one hundred pounds! I say.” And Smith glowed with excitement. He turned to the barman: “Timms, will you hand me the betting-book. There’s a good chap.”

He opened the clasp and turned the yellowed pages, the high note and rebuke of ancient wagers faded to a wraith-like scrawl. “Anyone know the date?”

Timms read off the calendar.

“Righti-o. D. Reeve bets Gerald Maune that he can …” He faltered, perplexed. “… I say, how did you put it? … dream his dreams for him and no one the wiser. For the sum of £100.”

Smith stared at what he had written, but a beautiful stupidity carried him before the wind. Gerald signed as if it was a tortuous joke, having nothing to do with him. Nothing real. He would wake from it as from the hammering dullness in his brain.

“Witness: Brian Smith. I’ll be dashed. A hundred quid. Crikey.” He hurried out brimful.

Through the open door, Gerald saw the Desert Fathers gathered and waiting. He drove his hand through his dampened hair and turned to go. But Reeve caught him smartly by the elbow.

“I’ll send you the first tomorrow.”

“The first what?”

“Why your first dream, old boy, your first dream.”

And as he followed Gerald, Reeve’s body seemed, for an instant, in the grip of a wild, secret dance.