The newspapers were filled with international crises. They were beginning to have a mesmerizing effect. But I was not completely mesmerized: I had decided to see Myrtle as little as possible until the term ended; and then, whether I was going to America or not, to quit the town without leaving an address.
It takes two to make a parting, and it takes two to avoid a meeting if they live not much more than a mile apart. Never before had I been so intensely aware of playing out time. Sometimes I felt like a powerful man in control of his own destiny: sometimes I felt I was being hunted by Hitler and Myrtle in conjunction.
One evening I was sitting peacefully outside the french windows of my lodgings marking examination papers. At the bottom of the garden the landlady’s niece and Mr Chinnock were working. It was one of what Myrtle and I had been used to call their ‘off-nights’, and they were spending it in weeding the vegetable plot.
Occasionally one or the other of us would stop to cough. This was because smoke was blowing over us from a bonfire of weeds in a neighbouring garden. It was always the same. There were so many gardens and the neighbours were such indefatigable incendiarists, that one could never hope to sit in one’s garden for an hour or so without somebody lighting a bonfire. The breeze appeared to blow in a circular direction.
I was just completing my estimation of the mathematical powers of a junior form, when I heard the landlady showing someone into my room. I looked round, and saw Steve. He stepped out of the window.
‘I’m sorry to bother you,’ he said, and sat down on the step near my chair. He waited till I put down the last paper, and then pulled out of his pocket a poem that he had written.
‘You see, Joe!’ he said. ‘When I can get away from Tom for a week-end I really do do some work.’
I read the poem. I have observed earlier that Steve’s poems showed talent. This poem showed quite as much talent as usual and somewhat greater length. I congratulated him.
The trouble I find with a poem is that when you have read it, and congratulated the author, there is nothing else to say. It is not like a novel, where you can sit down to a really good purging burst of moral indignation at the flatness of his jokes, the shapelessness of his plot, and the immorality of his characters.
A silence fell upon Steve and me. ‘Britons, never, never, ne-ever shall be slaves!’ whistled Mr Chinnock.
‘Tom isn’t going to America,’ said Steve.
‘Why not? How do you know?’
Steve shrugged his shoulders. ‘He says there’s going to be a war.’
‘Oh.’
‘Don’t you think there is?’
‘What?’
‘Going to be a war.’
‘Possibly.’ I paused, and said with shameful lack of conviction: ‘I hope so.’ The fact is that I did not want to give up the idea of going to America.
Steve glanced at me. ‘By the way, you know Myrtle’s going about saying that you intend to go to America if there is a war.’
‘The devil!’ I was very angry.
‘That’s what she’s saying, anyway.’
‘Who told you?’
‘I heard it myself.’
Though my own conduct may not have been above reproach, I was infuriated by Myrtle’s perfidy. I began to question Steve for more circumstantial evidence. He was speaking the truth, and he was in a position to know what Myrtle was saying to other people, since he was now going regularly to the parties she frequented with Haxby.
In my anger, I thought: ‘That’s one more thing against her!’
‘Surely Tom’s furious?’ I said.
Steve said: ‘I think he thought she was saying it to provoke you.’
‘Well, it has!’
Steve laughed good-naturedly.
‘What else has she been saying about me?’
‘I don’t think I ought to repeat this scandal, Joe,’ he said with embarrassment.
‘You can’t put me off now, Steve.’
‘She told Tom,’ Steve began slowly, ‘that she was never in love with you.’
‘For what reason does she think she? …’
‘I know, I know. She admits that you have a curious attractive power. You’re now spoken of as if you were a sort of Svengali. It’s ridiculous, of course. Anybody can see that you’re not like Svengali.’
‘Hell!’
‘I think we ought to be a little quieter, Joe.’ Steve motioned towards the landlady’s niece and Mr Chinnock, who were easily within earshot.
With an effort I simmered down.
‘Anything else?’ I asked.
Steve did not reply.
‘I bet Tom put that idea into her head.’
‘If you’re going to break it off, it’s not a bad idea, is it, Joe?’
‘That wasn’t why he did it. He’ll next prove that she’s always been in love with him. And he with her.’
‘Heavens!’ said Steve, not having thought of this before.
‘That’s his plan, mark my words. It leads to a proposal of marriage.’
Steve looked distinctly crestfallen.
‘Though what her plan is, I don’t know,’ I went on. ‘No doubt it will do her more harm than good.’
‘I’m sorry,’ said Steve.
I was regaining my detachment. There was much in what Steve observed about Myrtle saying she had never been in love with me. It was a face-saving device. It was the first sign of her beginning to protect herself. I suddenly thought: ‘She’s pulling out.’
Steve broke into my reflections.
‘I suppose you know Trevor’s safe.’
I felt as much shock that he knew about it as relief that a disaster had been avoided. I said: ‘Oh!’ in a sharp, off-hand tone.
We relapsed into silence again. Steve stepped indoors and brought a cushion to sit on.
‘It’s very bad to sit on anything cold,’ he said.
‘Nonsense.’
Steve paused, and began to smile at me. ‘I know what you haven’t heard about. I’ve been learning First Aid.’ He saw my look of disbelief. ‘Honestly, I have Joe. If there’s a war and I’m conscripted and I’ve got my certificates perhaps I’ll be able to get into the Medical Corps.’
I had no idea whether he was speaking the truth, but I could see his aim was to soothe my feelings, so I let him go on.
‘I’ve taken an exam in it,’ he said. There was a glint in his eye. ‘I doubt if I’ve passed.’
I said: ‘Was it hard?’
‘It wasn’t hard,’ said Steve, ‘but it was terribly repulsive.’
Steve recounted his incompetent performance in the practical tests, and in spite of my woes I began to smile.
Steve played up.
‘The theoretical was terrifying. They asked me what I’d do with a baby in a convulsion. Fancy asking me, Joe! I wouldn’t know what to do with a baby if it was not in a convulsion.’
‘What was the answer?’
‘Put it in a bath!’ Steve paused triumphantly. Neither of us heard my landlady show in somebody else. There was a bustling noise beside us, and there stood Tom. His face was like thunder.
‘I have something to say to you. Would you mind coming indoors?’
Steve picked up his cushion and I my examination papers, and we trailed into my room. Tom closed the french windows behind us.
‘It’s as well to keep these matters private,’ he said, with an air that was both polite and reproving.
I did not reply. I had no idea what Tom had come to say. Our laughter had disappeared, as if he had made us feel ashamed of it. Steve, on the grounds that nothing Tom would say was likely to make life easier for him, was already looking apprehensive.
I sat down. Steve sat down. Tom remained standing. By great effort he was keeping his features composed. I refused to open the conversation.
‘I came to tell you that I’ve bought a new car.’
To be quite frank, the speech for me was something of an anticlimax, and also mildly funny. In my imagination Tom’s new car had become mixed up with a steam yacht.
Steve had apparently not been previously informed of the manœuvre. He was not unnaturally surprised. Foolishly he said:
‘What for, Tom?’
Tom turned his attention to him. ‘Aren’t you interested to know what kind it is?’
‘Of course,’ said Steve. ‘But I wondered what you’d bought it for?’
‘Don’t you know?’ Tom was looking at him fixedly. His tone of voice was level enough; but there was a look in his eye, a bursting, concentrated look.
‘No,’ said Steve, trying to look at me, but finding the hypnotic effect of Tom’s gaze too powerful.
‘Can’t you guess?’ Tom smiled at him.
There was silence, in which I thought of saying: ‘Tom, for Pete’s sake stop it!’ and rejected the idea.
Steve looked down, shaking his head.
‘I should have thought you would have realized,’ Tom said, with ominous silkiness, ‘it was to make our trip to Paris more comfortable.’
Steve looked at him. Nothing was said.
I shifted in my chair. I was irritated that Tom had not given me a chance to get out of the room if he intended to make a scene. On the other hand I was faintly hypnotized, myself.
‘I said I couldn’t go, Tom,’ said Steve.
‘Don’t be silly, Steve. Of course you can.’
‘I can’t, Tom. You know my people want me to go away with them.’
‘They want you to come with me.’
‘That isn’t true.’
‘Yes, it is.’ Tom glared at him now. ‘I have it in writing!’
‘Look!’ said Tom, pulling out an envelope from his pocket. ‘This letter’s from your mother, saying she agrees to your coming with me. Now we have it in black and white!’ He handed it to Steve. ‘Read it!’
Steve refused to read it.
‘All right,’ said Tom, angrily. ‘If you haven’t the manners to read it …’
‘I’m not coming!’ Steve interrupted him.
‘What’s your excuse?’
‘I don’t need an excuse, Tom.’
Tom waved the letter in front of his face. ‘What are you going to say to this?’ He waved it again, with a sweep of greater amplitude. ‘I’ve got it in writing!’
I thought he must be going slightly mad. The whole of his face, though composed, now looked somehow inflamed.
‘It’s in black and white.’ He deliberately lowered his voice again.
Suddenly Steve leaned forward, snatched the letter from his hand, and threw it in the fireplace. There was no fire.
Tom stared at it, and pursed his lips in a smile. Then he glanced at me. I felt embarrassed.
Steve said: ‘This is intolerable. Why do you make these scenes, Tom?’
‘Because I want you to go with me to France.’
‘But I don’t want to go.’ Steve was looking miserable.
‘I think you do really.’
‘I’ve told you, I don’t. I can’t say more than that. I want to feel free.’
‘I want you to feel free, Steve.’
‘Then why don’t you give me a chance to be it?’
‘You can be perfectly free with me.’ Tom moved nearer to him. ‘You’re perfectly free now.’ He made a gesture. ‘There’s the door. You’re free to go out through it, this very moment.’
Steve did not move.
‘At least go out and have a look at the car.’
‘I don’t want to see it. And I don’t want to go in it!’
‘Do you mean to say I’ve wasted my money?’
At the mention of money, I thought Steve looked startled.
‘Are you going to let me waste my money, without even looking at it?’ Tom’s voice was becoming angry again.
I thought that as he must have bought the car on the hire-purchase system the waste was not permanent.
‘Heaven knows!’ Tom now burst out, ‘I’ve spent enough already. And what have I got for it? I’ve spent pounds and pounds!’
‘I didn’t ask you to.’
‘Pounds and pounds!’ Tom shouted.
‘I don’t want the car.’
‘Then at least see it!’
‘I’m not going to see it.’
‘You’re going to see it!’ Tom had been getting nearer, and now he pounced on Steve.
There had been so much argument about the car that certainly I wanted to see it. Steve was determined not to. He resisted.
‘Come and see it!’ shouted Tom, and dragged him off his chair. He rolled towards the fireplace and upset the fire-irons with a deafening clatter. Outside, in the hall, the landlady’s dog began to bark.
‘Pipe down!’ I said.
They desisted. Steve picked himself up, and Tom stood glowering. Looking sulky and furious, Steve straightened his tie.
‘I’ve had enough of this!’ said Tom, in a powerful whisper.
‘I’m sorry, Tom.’
‘I’ve had enough of this! Are you going to come and see the car or aren’t you?’
No reply from Steve.
‘It’s the last chance.’
No reply.
Tom was now oblivious of my presence. He thrust his face close to Steve’s. Steve wilted.
‘Are you going to come to France or not? I must have the answer now.’
No answer.
‘If you don’t answer now, I shall never give you another chance. I have my plans.’
Steve glanced at him.
‘It may interest you to know that if you don’t go’ – Tom paused for dramatic effect – ‘I shall take Myrtle!’
‘Don’t be ridiculous, Tom!’ At last Steve spoke. He glanced at me for support.
Tom was furious. ‘It’s not ridiculous! Who told you it’s ridiculous? Joe?’ He glanced at me. ‘You may think it’s ridiculous, but Myrtle doesn’t! I know Myrtle. You may not think I’m wonderful, but Myrtle does! She needs me. It’s only my responsibility for you that’s kept me from going to her. She needs me, and I need her! We need each other.’ His voice, though kept low, had tremendous power. ‘I want your answer now. Is it to end or isn’t it? If you don’t speak I shall go straight to Myrtle – she’s waiting for me now – and ask her to marry me!’ He choked. ‘Is it to end or isn’t it? I shall go straight to Myrtle!’
Steve did not speak.
Tom waited.
Steve still did not speak.
I saw nothing for it but for Tom to go.
Suddenly he let out an indistinguishable cry.
Steve and I looked at him in alarm.
Tom opened his mouth to speak again and failed. He had to go.
Steve looked down at the carpet.
Tom picked up the letter from the hearth.
I thought: ‘Come on, you’ve got to go!’
In a last dramatic move Tom tore up the letter and threw down the pieces. Then he turned. I made to open the door for him, but he pushed me out of the way. You may think it strange that I opened the door for him to go out and propose marriage to my mistress. The fact is that I was determined to see the car. I followed Tom across the hall and prevented him from slamming the door, so that I could peep out. I saw it as Tom drove away. And I concluded that Tom was not as mad as he seemed. In my opinion it was a car that would melt the heart of any boy.
I went back to Steve, who was sitting in his chair, shivering and almost on the verge of tears.
I said: ‘You’d better have a drink, my lad.’
Steve waited helplessly while I mixed some gin and vermouth in a tumbler. He drank it.
I had nothing more to say, so I picked up another bundle of examination papers and resumed my marking.
After a while, when he had drained the glass, Steve stood up. I looked at him questioningly.
In a jaded voice he said: ‘I suppose I’d better go after him.’