Jill (27 page)

“No, I don’t think so.”

“No, nor have I. I’m thinking of having one put on. There’s
thieves
in this college.”

“Thieves?”

“Ay, thieves. Only t’other day I lost a cake from my room, only a third eaten. A lovely cake it was, too—from home. That’s no joke. To my mind, a lot of these fellows are pretty light-fingered, for all their cash.”

He slept at last: and woke at last in the morning, lying for perhaps five seconds wondering what there was to remember until he remembered it. It was as if the world lay silent as an orchestra under the conductor’s outstretched arms. Then the moment of remembrance set every nerve in his body trembling, as a movement by the conductor might send a hundred bows to work. For one curious transient second he thought he knew how a bride feels on the morning of her wedding.

He watched Christopher’s face very carefully as they got up.
If Eddy and Patrick had spread the ribald news, he would sooner spend the day twenty miles away. But Christopher made no reference that could be construed in any way as bearing on Jill’s promised visit. He had certainly spent the night before with Eddy, but all he said was, sitting semi-disconsolately in his bath robe, with a towel around his shoulders as if he was at the barber’s, that they had met a very interesting man who repaired organs. So John dressed in his best clothes—his suit, that is, his bow, and a clean shirt. He put some oil on his hair to help part it, and immediately disliked the effect, so undressed and went to wash his head in the showers.

It was Saturday once more, busy, yet full of pleasure. The town was as gay as a landlocked swimming pool. Ancient buildings lay petted in the sun: roofs where the sun had not yet reached were white with frost. As John came out of the College at about ten o’clock to buy food for tea, it seemed impossible on such a day that anyone should be short of five minutes or five pounds, or be unable by entering the next café to find handfuls of his best friends. He inspected the crowded shops. He bought here and there a number of fruit tarts, a jam roll and a sponge cake filled with jam, and a fruit cake. He carried them most carefully and watched the clean new bags for any stain that would show that the jam was crawling out. As soon as he could, he took them back to his rooms and arranged them on plates. The daily pint of milk had just arrived and he set that with them at the back of the cupboard.

At this point he noticed that his hair since washing had become far too fluffy, and he spent some time in front of the bedroom mirror with a comb and hair oil, smearing drop after drop along the teeth of the comb in an effort to distribute it evenly. This made it look better, but he still was not satisfied, though there was nothing else he could do. He went out a second time to look for radishes and lettuces, for he had noticed them in the shops and it occurred to him that they would contrast pleasantly with all the sweet things he had just bought.

The market was the best place to buy them, a stone-paved maze of semi-permanent stalls covered with a glass roof right in the centre of the town. John had already visited it several
times before: he had discovered that to step into it from the streets outside was to enter an unexpectedly different world, a world he found he liked. It smelt of chrysanthemums and vegetables; all around the butchers’ shops sawdust was scattered on the stone flags, naked electric bulbs shone on boxes of fruit, and always pools of water were slowly draining and drying away as if the place was sluiced down with a hosepipe every hour or so. At this time of the day there were lines of women queueing for meat, dressed in dull clothes and carrying baskets. They straddled round as they stood, talking patiently, exchanging traditional unquestioned comments on things that affected their daily lives. As he slipped past them he heard them say things their parents must have said, things that women like them said in every country, and looking at their fat or withered faces, their hair tucked into old hats, and the worn purses in their hands, they seemed to him the oldest thing in the city he had seen.

John, because of experience at home, could choose lettuces with sound fresh hearts, and radishes that were not fibrous; the newspaper parcel he carried away was light and damp. For a moment, attracted by the large vases of flowers, he was tempted to buy a dozen blooms to decorate the room, but turned aside instead to a tobacconist’s, where he selected a packet of semi-expensive cigarettes and was momentarily alarmed at the price of them. As he left the shop he noticed from his reflection in the window that his hair was just breaking prettily out of place, half-way between wildness and precision, and this pleased him.

When he he had hidden his purchases away in the cupboard and washed his hands, it was time for lunch. He was too nervous to eat and almost immediately after leaving Hall began to feel hunger.

He considered his nervousness gravely as he walked round the gardens in this suspension of time before two o’clock. It seemed to have no significance.

Christopher was lazily collecting his football clothes, for a match had been arranged for the College XV that afternoon and this would take him out of the way—so propitiously that
John suspected himself of having known the fact beforehand without consciously recognizing it. Smoking a cigarette, Christopher packed up his little case full of jerseys, shorts and a towel and announced his intention of borrowing Semple’s bike for the afternoon. Since Semple had gone down, his bicycle had lain unused in the cycle sheds until Christopher had discovered it: he had since bought a padlock to keep it locked.

“Who are you playing?” John asked idly.

“An R.A.F. crowd.”

He glanced at John, making no comment on his appearance, and though John was relieved, a sense of depression also overtook him at the thought of how little he could alter even his outward semblance. When he was alone, he studied himself in the mirror, and after careful thought removed the fountain pen from his breast pocket, tucking a clean handkerchief there instead. Then he went to the bedroom to find Christopher’s nail scissors, and trimmed where his eyebrows met in the middle. His own nails he had thoroughly brushed that morning.

Now it was time to consider the food. The lettuce should be washed, he decided, turning it about on its dirty newspaper, and filled the crested washbowl for the purpose. Plunging it in, he pulled off the outside leaves one by one, shaking them and putting them on his towel, which he spread across the bed. But once he began to pull it to pieces, it seemed to grow larger, it was enormous, far too big for two. Here was enough for a hutchful of rabbits. In the end he threw away all but the centre, the succulent pale green heart: this he shook in a towel, as he had seen his mother do, to drain it.

The radishes should have been brushed, but he had to be content with rubbing the mud off by hand and snipping off the tails. He put them all in a saucer, ate two, and immediately was afflicted with a kind of nervous hiccups, which lasted while he was making fumbling attempts to cut thin bread and butter. Time and time again the knife came through with only half a slice wilting down on to the plate, and big buttery crumbs falling out of the middle. The failures he ate, and in time the hiccups stopped. When he had a successful plateful, he bundled the depleted bread and butter back into the cupboard.

He came aware that the room was not very tidy, and he put the food on to a side table while he rearranged what was lying about. A small phalanx of empty bottles belonging to Christopher he straightened, but did not remove, as he thought they might look impressive: the wine bottles he put at the front with their labels showing. He erected the books on the shelves. The gowns he hung up, also within sight, emptied the ashtrays, plumped the cushions and straightened the things on the desk. The hairy tablecloth was covered in crumbs and, failing to brush them off with his hands, he took it off bodily and gave it a shake. At each flap several loose sheets of notes went sailing into the hearth.

There were several improvements he could still make, he thought, and he set about improving the general effect rather than correcting isolated details. Christopher’s battered, tape-bound, but expensive and athletic-looking racquet he laid at a careless diagonal on the window seat. The wine list Christopher had stolen from one of the restaurants he propped up in a more prominent position on the mantelshelf. On the table he placed the two most scholarly books he had out at the moment from the College library and beside them a half-finished sheet of notes in his own writing, annotated and underlined in the way he had learnt from Mr. Crouch. The fire he stoked skilfully so that in about an hour there would be a bright comforting blaze. Then he shut his eyes, opened them, and tried to decide if the result impressed him in any definite way. It did not, but then perhaps he knew it too well.

When he had laid a tablecloth and the food, cups and saucers and knives on a small occasional table by the sofa, the whole looked daintier than he had imagined possible, and even appetizing, though he did not by this time feel hungry. But there was no salt. He had forgotten about this, clutching the salt-cellar in a desperate way, remembering that the kitchen was shut. There was nothing for it but to go out and buy a packet from the nearest grocer; it was far too large and cost more than seemed right, but he did not argue, recalling irrelevantly the
gabelle
—one of the causes of the French Revolution.

And when he got back, panting, the afternoon post had
come. There was nothing for him, and at this moment, with the hands of the College clock pointing at twenty to four, a definite unease began swerving about his bowels. She was going to come. Up till then he had not believed she would, or he could not have gone about the preparations in such a methodical way. All his actions had sprung from a kind of theoretical assumption, as a farmer might prepare against the winter, and he had been placidly expecting a note from her to say that she was very sorry, but the visit was impossible. Now this had not happened, and was not going to happen. In a half-hour she would probably be here. The last barrier had been taken away.

Salt in hand, he walked diffidently back round the cloisters, and he found the room looking so different because of his scene-shifting that it looked unfriendly, and a small hysteria seized him. He must get away before she came. He would leave a note pinned to the door. The idea of her standing there, taking her coat off, expecting to be entertained, sent him shuddering to the window to see if there were any signs of her. There were not. He could sport the oak and slip out the back way, through the gardens, and run no risk of meeting her. That was what he would do.

But with an effort of will he filled the salt-cellar, resigning himself to whatever should happen. For, after all, he did want her to come, he knew he did. Whatever happened, they would be together; even if they sat in miserable silence, out of this single circumstance some virtue could be distilled. Even the fact of meeting would be a point that with the passage of time might spread out fanwise behind her into a new country, somewhere free of himself. Though he knew he had been stupid in aiming dumbly in this direction with no regard for his incapacity to control any situation that might arise through doing so, he was still not really sorry. In a small outlandish way he was proud, seeing it as an act of bravery, like a soldier without weapons charging a machine-gun emplacement.

He rocked backwards and forwards on his heels in front of the fire, hands in his pockets. All was ready—too soon, of course.

But his thoughts were interrupted by the sound of a girl’s
quick steps round the cloisters. Eight minutes at the very least early? Compliment or accident? He sat down, stood up. No, perhaps it was no one for him. They drew nearer. He fixed his eyes on the door, seriously, his hand moving in surprise round the bow tie he was wearing. The feet mounted the steps, approaching the door.

Two knocks.

“Come in.”

Elizabeth entered.

He blinked. His first thought was that she had called to see Christopher, and that he must get her out of the way as soon as possible. But she did not seem surprised to see him. She released the doorknob, and holding her handbag in both hands, addressed him:

“Oh, hullo, John. I just wanted to talk to you a moment.… Gillian said you asked her to tea.”

“Yes, I——”

“Well, I think it would be better if she didn’t come.” She paid no attention to the tea table, keeping her eyes fixed on him and speaking rather more loudly than usual and without her customary trailing vowel sounds. “You see, her people are really awfully strict and would be very annoyed if they found out. I thought you knew all that.”

“But—she said——”

“Well, she’s only a kid, and didn’t want to hurt your feelings. Really, you ought to have known.… I thought you knew how things stood.”

Cold air from the door reached John’s face.

“Well, I—I’m sorry.…”

“When she told me, I thought it was some kind of a joke you or someone were trying to play.… But even if it isn’t, I’m afraid it’s not possible for her to come. I should have thought you’d have guessed that.”

And in the hesitant interval after this she suddenly turned and went out, closing the door behind her, with no farewell.

In a couple of minutes there was a fresh noise of six stumbling feet outside, and the door burst open to admit Eddy Makepeace. Patrick Dowling and Tony Braithwaite. Tony and
Eddy gripped him jovially by the arms and slapped his back. Patrick went round the sofa to the little table that held the food.

“Bad luck, old man!” cried Eddy. “Bad luck. A damn noble attempt. We saw her come in. Did she take your pants down and smack your bottom?”

“What did she say?” asked Tony. “I knew she’d jump on it.”

“But you should have let us in on it,” protested Eddy. “I didn’t hear till lunch-time. If we’d known, we could have fixed everything, got her out of the way and all the rest of it.”

“I thought she was ill,” said Tony.

“Supposed to be.” Pat’s mouth was full. “Not too ill, it seems.”

“The interfering sow,” said Eddy indignantly. “You know, Pat, all respects, but your sister is the hell of a bitch. A nosy bitch, that’s what she is.”