All Souls (21 page)

There's a verb in English which can only be translated into Spanish by a gloss, that verb is "eavesdrop" which means (and this is the gloss) to listen indiscreetly, secretly, furtively, to listen deliberately, not by chance or unwillingly (for that you'd use the verb "overhear"), and the verb itself contains two separate words, "eaves" which means "the edge of a roof projecting out beyond the wall of a house" and "drop", which can mean several things but basically has to do with liquid dropping (the listener places himself at a certain minimal distance from the house: he stands at the spot where the water would normally run off the eaves after a shower of rain, and from there listens in to what is said inside). Vladimir Vladimirovich, he of the former British colonies, once pondered on the device of "eavesdropping" in the nineteenth-century novel, and more specifically in
A Hero of our Time,
and although Nabokov was at Cambridge, not Oxford, I'm sure that during his time there in the 1920s he would have had ample opportunity to make the same discovery I made in my time at Oxford, which is that eavesdropping was and is not only a practice in active use in both places, but still the best (admittedly primitive) means of obtaining the information one needs in order to avoid becoming the kind of outsider who neither possesses nor transmits any. In Oxford (and in Cambridge too, I imagine), eavesdropping becomes exactly what Nabokov describes in the Lermontov novel mentioned above: "the barely noticeable routine of fate". I had seen circumspect, sententious dons actually down on one knee before a keyhole in a corridor in the Taylorian (getting their trousers dusty in the process), or sprawled on a carpet in one of the colleges (literally prostrating themselves, their gown like a spreading ink stain) with one ear glued to the crack beneath the door, or keeping watch with a spyglass (made in Japan) from some Gothic window; not to mention neglecting their own conversational partners in the lounge at the Randolph in order to catch some sentence unleashed from another corner, or else imprudently craning their neck at high table (or afterwards, more likely, once their napkins were irredeemably soiled). But I had never done this, I had never stood beneath the eaves. I did so then for the first time, and when I did (only momentarily and almost at the end of my stay there) I felt somehow more integrated; although I think the first clear words that reached my ears from Cromer-Blake's apparently bloodless lips were, strictly speaking, merely overheard. What happened afterwards, however, was eavesdropping pure and simple.

"Come on, please, be nice, come to bed with me," those were the first distinct words I overheard Cromer-Blake saying; and in the following seconds, during which I remained stock still, my friend added: "Just this once, just one more time, please, I implore you, it will be the last time." The voice that answered was young, younger, rather unpleasant, rather cracked, as if the young man's voice had not yet completely broken, which was odd because although he was young he was not so young that his voice would not yet have stabilised. And that countertenor voice replied without irritation, patiently, trustingly, like an old friend: "Don't go on about it, I've already said no, and that's that. Anyway, Dayanand says you're ill and you shouldn't overdo things, he says it's dangerous, for me too. That's what he says." His diction was rather crude, not so very different from the way Muriel spoke, or the mechanic Bruce (except that it wasn't Bruce, who had a much deeper voice), the diction of someone who would say things like: "abaht", "fings", "nuffink", "nah" (but then, nowadays, that's not unknown amongst certain
television presenters either). And because of that, because of the plebeian accent, I knew at once that it couldn't be an undergraduate (it had crossed my mind that it might be young Bottomley), and anyway Cromer-Blake would never do anything so foolish, even if he were in love and desperate: nothing was taken more seriously in Oxford than an accusation of sexual harassment, or, even worse (and equally possible), of gross moral turpitude, another (anglicised) Latinism, an exquisite euphemism for, in plain language, penetration. "Ah, Dayanand says so does he, our omniscient doctor," remarked Cromer-Blake (almost to himself) recovering the ironic tone that was so much more characteristic of him than pleading; it made me uncomfortable to hear him plead. "Dayanand knows nothing about my health, he's just saying that to take you away from me, to eliminate me, it's ages since he last saw me as a patient; that's about as valid as if I were to tell you now that it's him who's ill. To call someone ill is always a way of discrediting them. It's a way of getting rid of people. I've been a little unwell, but I'm fine now, I'm cured. Do I look like a sick man?" I'd seen Cromer-Blake two or three days before and he looked good, as I imagined he would at that moment, on the other side of the door. I wondered if the young man who was speaking could be the "Jack" whose name Cromer-Blake had let slip months before, just after I saw Clare for the first time (saw her face and her tasteful décolletage); and I waited to hear a name in his - in Cromer-Blake's - mouth that would clarify this for me, but I can categorically state that during my period of eavesdropping no name was uttered.

"No, you look good," said the young man's voice, "but it makes no difference, it's over, it can't go on. Anyway, Dayanand would be furious." "But it doesn't matter if I get furious I suppose." The cracked voice softened for a moment: "Yes, of course it matters to me but it's not such a big deal. Things being how they are." There was a pause of several seconds (perhaps a
pause created by a kiss, for kisses do impose silence), and then the voice spoke again, raised in harsh protest now (sounding still younger and even less pleasant): "Let go of me! Stop it! You're hurting me!" "I'm sorry," said Cromer-Blake, and his tone reverted to that of the petitioner: "But please, I'm begging you, please, I swear it won't be dangerous, and there's no reason Dayanand should ever find out. I just want us to lie down for a bit and for me to hold you for a while, it's ages since anyone held me." "Well, get someone else to do it," the voice said acrimoniously (like the voice of a don refusing alms to a beggar and sending him packing). I felt my face flush crimson with a mixture of shame and indignation, it offended me that this young man, whoever he was, should mistreat and reject my friend Cromer-Blake at that moment pleading with him. But I still stayed where I was, by the door. The door had a gold handle, it was closed but certainly not bolted or locked, all it needed was for me to turn the handle and push the door open; Cromer-Blake rarely kept it locked when he was in, no bolts or keys, just the plaque I could see before me which said: "Dr P. E. Cromer-Blake". There was another pause, as if Cromer-Blake had been temporarily rendered speechless, deprived of his usual capacity for irony and anger. I heard the other door leading into the bedroom creak; Cromer-Blake had gone in there, whether alone or accompanied I couldn't tell. But then I heard the door creak again and he returned to the room. He said: "All right. But at least do the photographs for me, there's nothing too dangerous about that is there, no reason for anyone to get angry?" The ironic tone was there again although he was still begging (but not to be held this time). I wondered about his friend Bruce and about the tempting offers and superior methods of seduction he'd mentioned on a previous night. I wondered about the pretty faces and athletic bodies, which, according to him, were sometimes at his disposal in his bedroom. Cromer-Blake was a good-looking man, but, judging by what I could hear from my position beneath the eaves, his good looks were proving of little avail, and this was long before he was to become an old man, long before he was reduced to sifting through the memories he'd manufactured and stored up in the hope of providing a little variety for his old age, at a time when in the normal run of events, the manufacture and storing of memories for the future would still be in full swing. I thought it couldn't be because of his illness, whatever that was and assuming it wasn't yet cured; there are some things before which no danger seems too great. It was Cromer-Blake himself who was asking to be held although perhaps he really shouldn't have been overdoing things. I recalled that Dayanand, whose fiery gaze I had first encountered at that high table, was not a man to be trifled with. Dayanand must have been possessed of a stronger will and a greater ability to get what he wanted, more so at least than Cromer-Blake; his gaze was unveiled, a southern gaze like mine; the Indian doctor carried his demon within him, like Toby Rylands, who some said had originally been South African, or like Clare Bayes, who'd spent her childhood in far-off, southern lands, and possibly also like the dead Gawsworth, who'd been in Tunisia and Algeria, in Italy, Egypt and India (although never on the island of Redonda), and doubtless like myself, who always was, am and will be from Madrid (I know that now). My blood can be hot or lukewarm or cold. But as soon as the occasion arose, as soon as I was given the chance, it would be my turn to play the postulant. I'd already spent weeks playing that part from afar, with Clare, to whom I addressed my pleas.

"All right," replied the young man whose voice was so late in breaking, "but let's be quick about it." "You'll take them?" said Cromer-Blake with sudden undisguised gratitude and relief. "Thank God for that, in the sort of relationships you get into through agencies, they always end up asking you for photographs. It's awfully good of you, without them I'd be really stuck, and if you don't take them, I don't know who else could. I can't ask Bruce." "Come on then, get ready, the sooner we start, the sooner it's over," said the cracked voice helpfully. Cromer-Blake, I deduced, must be having photographs of himself taken in order to send them to some sort of agency, or to someone with whom he'd been put in touch by an agency. During this break in the dialogue, interrupted only by the occasional remark and the unmistakable whirr of a Polaroid camera ("How does it look?" Cromer-Blake was saying. "Make sure you get a good shot of it." "Is this high enough?" "Whirr," said the Polaroid), I began to wonder exactly what they were taking photographs of, what kind of poses these were that they precluded Bruce the mechanic, or, for example, Clare or me from taking them for him. And as I thought that I felt my face grow even redder (as I stood there at the door), but this time it was with pure, unalloyed shame. And although there was no one there to see my blushes (the only thing looking at me was the shining plaque bearing Cromer-Blake's abbreviated name), they were provoked not by my imaginings but by my reaction or by that of my conscience (a remnant of it). For it was then that I felt ashamed of my eavesdropping.

With immense stealth, with a stealth I hadn't required when I came up the stairs because at that point I'd not yet become indiscreet, secretive and furtive, I half-turned and started to tiptoe down the stairs, while one last phrase reached my ears (overheard this time, for I didn't want to hear any more): "It's important to get a view from above," Cromer-Blake was saying. "Whirr," said the Polaroid. All the same, when I'd gone down a few stairs, I couldn't help smiling a little, ironically (as if I were Cromer-Blake), at the imagined scene I hadn't witnessed. However, my smile soon disappeared with the sudden memory of why I'd gone there and the realisation that I would not now have the chance to ask Cromer-Blake's advice or try to lessen the pain of failure beforehand or hear from his lips the encouragement or the response I hoped to hear later, when I put the plan proper into action, because in the cracked voice and on the lips of a stranger, I'd already heard the discouraging tone and the response I didn't want to hear.

O
NCE
THE
CHILD
E
RIC
had departed and Clare had agreed to see me again (alone) to listen to my proposals and to talk to me with time to spare, without undue haste and without alarm clocks going off or bells chiming the hour, the half hour and the quarter hour and inconsiderately pealing out again as evening fell (bells that I will not hear again, but which will continue pealing out until the end of time), she and I went to Brighton. We went down one Saturday (Eric was back in Bristol and Edward Bayes was travelling on the Continent) to spend the night there, the first and last that we were to spend together, for I'd never actually slept the night with her as I had with Muriel. Once there we scarcely left our hotel room, which was different from and less conventional than those in London and Reading and from whose opposing windows we could see, to one side, the minarets and onion domes of the celebrated Royal Pavilion in all its pseudo, grotesque Indian glory, and, to the other side, the beach (it was the only time that being together proved expensive: adultery is usually fairly cheap). It isn't in fact true that we didn't go out, but that's how it felt, as if Clare and I were always shut up in a room somewhere together, in Oxford and in London and in Reading and in Brighton. We went to Brighton not by train but in her car, and that also had something inaugural and new about it (although it was actually bringing something to a close): the two of us sitting in her car heading south, going on a journey, turning our backs on London and Reading for the first time, with me, seated on the left, under the false impression that I was driving and she with the same (correct) impression that it was she who was carrying me along. But it was all false, I think (as regards us, that is, but not as regards others, the person who had died thirty years before in a distant land, for example, and the person who did not die but should have died, there and then). The air was rank with the odour of farewell - always so intense, instantly identifiable — but we pretended that our farewell and separation were not necessarily decided, even though they had been right from the start (I had after all set out to find "someone to love" during my time spent at this stopping-off point, to have "someone" to think about), we pretended, rather, that a final decision might hang entirely on that meeting, on that weekend, that our fate could be determined in a hotel room in Brighton. And I enjoyed the great consolation (or perhaps even the immense pleasure) of proposing the impossible and knowing that it would be rejected: for it is precisely the recognition that it is impossible and the certainty of rejection - a rejection that the person who proposes the impossible and takes the floor first in fact expects - that allows one to hold nothing back, to be vehement and more confident in expressing one's desires than if there were the slightest risk of their being satisfied. And Clare Bayes, I think, pretended to believe me, to take me seriously, and explained things to me as if that were really necessary and as if a simple "no" would not have sufficed, as if she had to be careful not to hurt me and as if it were important that I understood (she behaved with great delicacy). It's a procedure that must be gone through in order to give a false lustre to non-blood relationships, which are never fruitful or very interesting, and yet which nonetheless seem essential for the mind, for it to be able to fantasise about things still to come and not simply to languish, or fall into a decline. In order that the mind should not slide into despair.