Operation Pax (12 page)

‘Then let us proceed side by side. I was suggesting that, in the vulgar phrase, you gave me quite a turn. You look wretched, Ourglass.’

‘Wretched?’ Dr Ourglass was dismayed.

‘No doubt it is no more than a bilious attack – a passing error of the table. But to a stranger, Ourglass, your appearance would suggest dissipation.’

‘Dissipation!’ For a moment Dr Ourglass was indignant. Then some fuller light seemed to break upon him. ‘You are gamesome,’ he said. ‘This is merriment.’ And Dr Ourglass laughed conscientiously. Bultitude’s high acclaim as a humorist had often been mentioned in his presence, and he understood that he was now in the experience of it. ‘Evening is closing in,’ he said. ‘But it might yet be possible to take a stroll in the Parks.’

Mr Bultitude soberly assented to this proposition – but with no sense of its bearing any application either to himself or his interlocutor.

‘I mean,’ pursued Dr Ourglass, rather feebly, ‘that we might take a stroll in the Parks.’

The massive placidity and benignity of Mr Bultitude’s countenance gave place to looks of the liveliest consternation and alarm. ‘The
Parks!
and how do you propose, my dear Ourglass, that we should
get
to the Parks? Have you a conveyance? I see no sign of it.’

Although the University Parks might have been reached in some five minutes’ leisured walking, Dr Ourglass was abashed. ‘Perhaps it is rather far,’ he said. ‘And, you, Bultitude, are a very busy man.’

Mr Bultitude, although again disrelishing being thus dealt with in the present indicative, extended an arm more or less horizontally before him, and succeeded thereby in extracting a gold watch from his waistcoat pocket. ‘Shall we walk,’ he inquired courteously, ‘to the farther end of Beaumont Street? Shall we even venture to turn for a few yards into Walton Street itself?… My dear Ourglass, you have taken to walking devilish fast – particularly up this damned hill.’

Dr Ourglass slackened his pace. ‘Reverting to your jest–’ he began.

‘Ugh!’

Mr Bultitude’s grunt might have been the consequence of unwonted exertion, or it might have been an exclamation of disgust. Dr Ourglass interpreted it in the former sense. ‘Reverting to your jest upon my appearance, I am bound to admit the possibility of my not appearing quite in the – um – pink. You, after all, are a man of keen observation.’

Mr Bultitude continued to feel resentment at his companion’s fondness for character-sketching. He contented himself, however, with what was virtually an imperceptible movement – that of coming to a full stop.

‘And you may have noticed,’ pursued Dr Ourglass, ‘that I am worried. The fact is, Bultitude, that my nephew has disappeared.’

Mr Bultitude, although a man of various information and extensive views, possessed a discriminating mind. That Dr Ourglass had a nephew was information that he was disinclined to treat as momentous, and from this it necessarily followed that the nephew’s vagaries could be of no interest to him. Nevertheless he looked at his companion as if in sudden naked horror. ‘My dear Ourglass,’ he said, ‘were you present when this surprising phenomenon took place? And was any lingering appearance left behind? A smile, for example, as in the case of the Cheshire cat?’

Dr Ourglass took no offence at this. Possibly he supposed that Bultitude had entirely misheard his remark. Patiently he began again. ‘I am speaking of a nephew of mine, Geoffrey Ourglass, who came up to Bede’s last year to read Physiology. This term he has simply not appeared. You have, perhaps, heard his disappearance discussed at a meeting.’

The nethermost of Bultitude’s chins contrived a caressing movement across his chest. It held the negative significance which a physically more reckless man would have achieved by shaking his head. ‘So far this term, I have managed to attend only the wine committee. We discussed the disappearance of three dozen of vintage port. A graver matter, you will agree, Ourglass, than the mere evaporation of an undergraduate, however talented and charming. But have you yourself heard nothing from this young man?’

‘Nothing whatever, although it has been his custom to write to me regularly when he is away. A friend, however, claims to have caught a glimpse of him some weeks ago in a place called Milton Porcorum.’

‘It sounds, my dear Ourglass, as if your nephew, with all the generosity of youth, may be casting his pearls before swine. But let me set your anxieties at rest.’ Bultitude, as he spoke, laid an arm on his companion’s shoulder and exerted an encouraging pressure – with the consequence that Ourglass almost buckled at the knees. ‘A young man who withdraws into the heart of the English countryside is most infallibly engaged upmon one of two ventures. He is writing a play, or he is pursuing a woman. It is true that both activities are singularly futile, and that a young physiologist, oddly enough, stands no special chance of success at either. But at least the first pursuit is never, and the second is very seldom, dangerous. Whether it is a tragedy or a trollop, Ourglass, you may depend upon your nephew’s turning up again as soon as he has completed the last act to his satisfaction… Dear me! We have got to the very end of Beaumont Street.’

Although expressed with some extravagance, the fact was undeniable. Like stout Cortez in the poem, Bultitude had now toiled to an eminence from which he could survey, on his right, the illimitable Pacific of Walton Street. He eyed it with disfavour, however; took out his watch once more; and then shook his head. ‘I think,’ he said, ‘that we must abandon the more ambitious part of our design. For Walton Street, the hour is too far advanced. It is chill. It lacks colour. We will therefore turn left, Ourglass, and make a little tour of Gloucester Green. We will survey the buses.’

They walked for a minute in silence. ‘This nephew of yours,’ Bultitude asked abruptly; ‘is he a schoolboy; or out of the Services?’

‘Certainly not a schoolboy.’ Ourglass beamed at this show of spontaneous interest. ‘And Geoffrey was certainly in the army for a time. After that, he was engaged on some other government work, and his decision to come up to Oxford was quite sudden. I greatly welcomed it, I must confess to you. His abilities have always impressed me – and I hope not entirely as a consequence of – um – avuncular partiality. He might do very well. He might even prove quite a scholarly person.’

‘Ugh.’

Bultitude’s ejaculation was occasioned, Ourglass supposed, by the efforts of changing course in order to propel himself directly towards his confessed goal of the bus station. ‘Or if not
that
,’ Ourglass pursued with innocence, ‘Geoffrey might at least enter politics with some chance of becoming a minister. There is our family connexion, you know, with the Marquis of Horologe.’

‘Your connexion with Lord Horologe?’ Bultitude looked at his companion with quickened interest.

‘Quite so. Adrian Chronogramme – as you know, the present marquis – and I were Collegers together. The 1910 election. And Geoffrey’s aunt, Clepsydra… But, really, I must not bore you with genealogies.’

‘Not at all – not at all.’ Bultitude appeared to make one of those rapid social reassessments which even the most finely intuitive Oxford men are sometimes obliged to in deceptive cases. ‘I am most interested in your nephew. From all you tell me, I have no doubt that he has the seeds of scientific distinction in him. We must find him. We must bring him back. Milton Porcorum, after all, is not an
ultima Thule
. It would by no means surprise me to learn that there is a bus waiting to go there now. Come, my dear fellow – come along.’ With altogether surprising vigour Mark Bultitude waddled quite rapidly forward.

Ourglass followed, apparently bewildered but much pleased. The celebrated Bultitude, he perceived, had begun to treat him with altogether higher consideration. Perhaps he had recalled that Ourglass was the author of that really very searching monograph on the Phoenicians in Spain. That must be it. And now he seemed disposed to take the matter of Geoffrey’s worrying disappearance as a matter of personal concern. He had plunged among the buses like a bather resolved to breast the flood. Ourglass panted after him.

There is nothing exclusive about Gloucester Green. It bears no resemblance to Oxford railway station at, say 9 a.m., when an endless line of first-class carriages rolls in, to bear whole cohorts of the eminent to their learned occasions in the metropolis – nor to the same shot at six o’clock in the evening, when the same cohorts, exhausted by the implacable pursuit of knowledge throughout the day, are smoothly decanted into lines of waiting taxis, to be carried off to a refreshing bath before the ardours of dinner in hall and long hours of keen intellectual discussion in common room. Gloucester Green is given over not to Heads of Houses but to mothers of families – massive women for the most part who, having been sucked in from the surrounding countryside by the lure of Woolworths or Marks and Spencer, reappear at this evening hour with bulging baskets, knobbly parcels, and jaded and vocal children brandishing glutinous confections on short sticks. For the more convenient reception of these hordes there has been erected a complicated system of tubular pens or runs, suggestive of arrangements whereby some race of gigantic and reluctant sheep might be driven to be dipped. And in and out between the pens rumble the big, red buses – extruding one horde, gobbling up another, and then winding themselves with altogether miraculous dexterity round several awkward corners before making for the open country. It was into the thick of this animated scene that Bultitude had now plunged.

Engines raced and roared; horns blew; across impenetrable masses of compressed humanity mothers separated from children, and children separated from lollipops, cried out in a dismal and surprising manner. It was a peak hour. The whole place throbbed like a mighty heart, governing with its deep pulsations the converging and diverging streams of red.

‘Bultitude,’ called out Ourglass, ‘might it not be simpler to inquire at the office? I believe there is always someone–’

‘No, no – nothing more fatal.’ Bultitude was already forcing his way into the thickest of the crowd. ‘To inquire there, my dear fellow, is invariably a labour
de longue haleine
.’ The better to make himself heard he shouted this last phrase virtually in the ear of a large woman in front of him – with the satisfactory result that she gave ground in suspicion and alarm, and thus enabled him to press more rapidly forward. ‘Always make your inquiries of the drivers – or of the conductors as second best. Particularly when it’s a matter of connections. Know the surrounding counties like the back of your hand.’ And Bultitude continued to thrust through the press, peering up now at one bus and now at another. Ourglass, impressed by this superior
savoir faire
, laboriously followed.

‘Now, here’s Burford. I shouldn’t be at all surprised–’ With the head of his cane Bultitude tapped authoritatively on the windscreen of the bus before which he paused. ‘Can you tell me,’ he called up to the driver, ‘if you connect with the bus for Milton Porcorum…yes.
Porcorum
?’

The reply was lost on Ourglass, but was presumably in the negative, since Bultitude again plunged forward. Ourglass made a great effort and caught up with him. The quays of ancient Carthage, he was reflecting, must have presented just such a bustle as this. The consideration afforded him mild comfort as he was bumped about.

A bus had just moved in beside them, and Bultitude sidestepped to peer at it. ‘Abingdon,’ he said. ‘No good at all. Chipping Norton would appear to me to be much the most likely thing. Hullo! There’s Kolmak – I wonder what he has been doing? You know Kolmak, our Research Lecturer?’

Ourglass looked obediently at the crowd pouring off the Abingdon bus. First came a small mob of young airmen; then a nondescript man, weedy and pale, and with a scratch across one cheek; then, following close behind, the person called Kolmak, whom Ourglass just knew by sight. But already Bultitude had lumbered off and was conversing with another driver; in a few seconds he was back, nodding his head in placid satisfaction. ‘As I thought,’ he said. ‘The Chipping Norton driver knows the place quite well. And there is a connexion, should we care to go by bus.’

‘Should we care…?’ Ourglass was somewhat baffled by the speed with which the physically inert Bultitude appeared to be taking charge of his affairs.

‘Certainly. We will go out there, Ourglass, and investigate quite quietly. We may avoid scandal. Of course it may mean squaring the girl.’

‘Squaring the girl?’ Ourglass, who now felt himself being propelled gently out of the crush, looked helplessly at his companion. ‘I am willing to believe that Geoffrey may be engaged in dramatic composition – although I have never suspected him of cherishing any literary ambitions of the sort. But your hypothesis – apparently your preferred hypothesis – of a
girl
–’

‘Quite so. We must discuss it.’ And Bultitude gave Ourglass a soothing – and again alarmingly flattening – pat on the back. ‘And we might well consult Geoffrey’s tutor – Birkbeck, would it be? – in a perfectly confidential manner. I think, Ourglass, that you had better dine with me. I believe Birkbeck is dining. We will plan out what is best to be done.’

‘Really, Bultitude, you are very kind. But I fear the hour is somewhat late for your putting down a guest.’

‘Not a bit of it, my dear man. At Bede’s our arrangements in such matters are entirely domestic. Have you twopence? I said twopence. I’ll slip into this box and give our kitchen a ring.’

And at this Mark Bultitude, much as if among his other angelic attributes was that of diminishing his bodily frame at will, contrived to insert himself into an adjacent call box. He emerged again in a couple of minutes, appearing to dilate as he did so. All his fondness for slow motion had returned to him, and he made several majestic pauses
en route
to Ourglass, much as if the latter had been a beacon on a distant eminence. ‘Well, that is capital,’ he said. ‘We shall meet–’

‘I really ought to say,’ Ourglass nervously interrupted his prospective host, ‘that this – um – conjectural female–’