Operation Pax (16 page)

At the same moment a group of people emerged from a side road just in front of him and walked down the road in the same direction as himself. They were elderly persons of leisurely movement, and they had an air of proceeding to some nearby social occasion. There was a silver-haired man in an Inverness cape and an elderly lady in clothes that were uncompromisingly Edwardian. To Routh, who by this time estimated all mankind simply in terms of potential resistance to armed aggression, they looked far from promising. And now they had paused by a garden gate. At the same moment he heard the van accelerate behind him. He found himself without the resolution to look round again and learn the worst. The group of elderly persons were moving up the path towards a large, ugly house standing in a substantial garden. Routh followed them. And at this the silver-haired man in the cape turned round for a moment and wished him a courteous good evening. He realized that the group was a heterogeneous one, and that not all its members were known to each other. Routh replied amiably, put one hand in a trouser pocket – the pocket that was no more than a jagged hole – and affected an unconcerned stroll. One of his new companions, a man of imposingly intellectual features, wore clothes very like a tramp’s. His own shabbiness, Routh realized, was something that the conventions of Oxford rendered virtually invisible.

He heard the van stop and its door being flung open. Simultaneously the party to which he had attached himself turned away from the house and passed through a further gate leading to a garden on a lower level. At the end of this stood a large wooden hut. It was being used, Routh guessed, for some sort of entertainment. For on either side of a wooden porch attached to it stood a small girl in fancy dress, handing out what were evidently programmes. At the sight of this Routh’s group blessedly mended its pace, as being fearful of keeping the show waiting. In another moment he was inside the hut.

The interior formed a single large room, long and low and bare. Islanded in the middle, something like a score of people had disposed themselves on forms and chairs. The farther end was shut off by an untidy but effective system of curtains. Routh slipped into a seat and glanced at the piece of paper which had been handed to him. It read:

DICK WHITTINGTON

PLAY

IN AID OF

DUMB FRIENDS

Routh turned from this to his neighbours, and his heart sank. It was true that nobody seemed disposed to question his presence. The gathering was one of parents and grandparents, uncles and aunts; and in various groups and couples they were animatedly discussing the schooling, athletic ability, artistic talent, physical health, nervous stability, feeding, clothing and disciplining of their own or each other’s charges. They all spoke very loud – this being necessary in order to make themselves heard above a hubbub rising from the other side of the curtains. But although an individual voice could be lost, an individual face could not. Anybody stepping into the hut in search of him would be bound to succeed in a matter of seconds.

‘You
are
Martin’s father, are you not?’ A woman beside Routh had turned to him and was looking at him in friendly interrogation.

For a moment Routh stared at her in stupid panic. Then he nodded spasmodically, ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘that’s right. I’m Martin’s father.’ He might as well say one thing as another. It must be a matter of seconds now.

‘I saw the resemblance at once. May I introduce myself? I’m Elizabeth’s mother.’ The woman laughed charmingly, as if there was a great deal of merriment in this fact.

Routh half rose from his seat. ‘How do you do,’ he said – and found even in his desperation a grain of satisfaction in having done the thing rather well. Polished Routh… His eye went past the laughing woman to a window close by the door through which he had entered. He just glimpsed, walking past it, the man with the red beard. So they were all after him. Probably the fellow he had knocked out in the helicopter as well.

‘And in that case I have a message for you. Martin wants his part.’

‘I beg your pardon?’ Although still automatically the thorough gentleman, Routh was momentarily uncomprehending.

‘It seems you have Martin’s part. And he wants it to glance at between the scenes.’

‘By jove, stupid of me – what?’ Routh rather overdid it this time. But what did that matter? He was on his feet and dashing for the curtains. ‘Give it to him now,’ he called back. He was just vanishing through them when he sensed, rather than saw, the form of the man with the red beard darkening the farther doorway.

He had tumbled into a midget world of confused and furious activity. A horde of children, none of whom could have been older than thirteen, were making final preparations for their play. Close by Routh, a small boy in a boiler suit was cautiously testing the cords that were to draw aside the curtains. At his feet a small girl, also in a boiler suit, was banging at some invisible object with a hammer. In one corner several coal-black savages – presumably of the country which was going to be overrun by rats – were practising what appeared to be a spirited cannibal feast. A flaxen-haired girl in a ballet dress waved a wand in the manner approved for the Good Fairy; another girl, dressed as a cook, was warming up at the business of banging a ladle loudly inside a metal pot; a boy with a sheaf of papers was rushing up and down shouting ‘Where’s Miles? Miles ought to be here. Has anybody seen that twerp Miles?’ And in the middle of the floor Dick Whittington – who was a boy, not a girl, sat in austere distinction on a milestone, surveying the scene with the resigned condescension of a superior mind.

Routh took all this in very vaguely indeed. He had no doubt that the bearded man, as soon as he had satisfied himself that the fugitive was not in the audience, would come straight behind the scenes. One or two children were staring at him, but the majority were too much occupied to notice. He began to circle the stage, tripped over a welter of dangerous-looking electric wiring, and almost crushed a member of the boiler-suited squad who was crouched over a portable gramophone. He spied a door behind the backcloth and made a dash for it; as he reached it and slipped through he heard an adult voice behind him.

‘May I just take a look round, boys? I am the inspector, you know, from the Fire Brigade. I go round all the theatres.’

There was a respectful hush on the stage. Routh ground his teeth and looked desperately about him. He was at an
impasse
. This room at the end of the hut was no more than a storage space; it had no other exit and was lit only by two small windows impossible to scramble through. The floor was littered with costumes and effects, and there was a square wicker basket in which some of these appeared to have been stored. Routh opened it with the desperate notion of jumping in. But he realized that even an incompetent searcher – and the bearded man would be far from that – would throw open the lid as he passed and glance into it. He was about to shut it again when he realized the nature of the single article left inside. He had worked in panto himself and had no doubt about it. If only he had the time –

From the stage behind him rose a clear, level voice. He guessed at once that it was Dick Whittington’s. ‘I think if you were from the Fire Brigade you would be in uniform.’ The bearded man’s answer was lost in a buzz of speculation. And then Dick Whittington was heard again, speaking very politely. ‘If you don’t mind, I think I would rather you saw my father.’

Already Routh had profited by the delay. His jacket and shoes were off. There was a minute of breathless struggle – the thing was, of course, far too small for him – and then he had bounded back on the stage on all fours, metamorphosed into Dick Whittington’s cat. He miaowed loudly; a small girl screamed delightedly: ‘Miles! Here’s Miles!’; he went forward in a series of quick jumps, making his tail wave behind him. Through his mask he had a glimpse of the bearded man, confronting Whittington in momentary irresolution. Routh jumped at him, and rubbed himself vigorously against his legs. The bearded man cursed softly, looked quickly round him, strode into the inner room. Routh could hear him lifting the lid of the basket. Then he was out again and had vanished through the curtains. There was an indignant shout or two, and then everybody appeared to forget about him. The gramophone was giving out the sound of Bow bells very loudly.

‘What are you doing in my cat?’

The mask was twitched indignantly from Routh’s head. A red-haired boy stood planted before him in a belligerent attitude, looking him very straight in the eyes. ‘I’m sorry,’ said Routh. ‘I thought it would be fun to try.’

‘It’s not Miles – it’s a man!’ The small girl who had been shouting before, now cried out in high indignation. A circle of children gathered round Routh and there was a hubbub of voices.

‘I never allow anybody in my cat.’ Miles, as he realized the enormity of what had happened, was going as red as his own hair. ‘And you’re much too big. You might bust it.’

‘I’m very sorry.’ Routh was inclined to think that he had escaped from the frying pan merely to fall into the fire. He scrambled hastily out of the cat. ‘I’d better be–’

‘And who are you, anyway? And who was that other person?’ This was Whittington’s voice again, bringing its higher cogency to bear on the situation.

‘Yes, who are you… Why are you spoiling our play… Dick’s father should send for the police… He’s bust Miles’ cat…’ The tumult of indignant voices grew, so that Routh was convinced that some of the grown-ups from the other side of the curtain were bound to come and investigate.

‘Oh, he’s all right. He’s cracked.’

It was a new and tolerant voice – and a familiar one. Routh turned and saw that he was being inspected by the young ironist who had misdirected Squire when he himself was up the telephone pole. He was still in his dark-blue blazer. He even still carried a bicycle spanner.

‘Stuart knows him… Stuart says he’s cracked… Buck up… Tell Miles to get into his cat… Stuart’s brought a man he knows…’ And again there was a confused tumult. Some of the children had already lost interest in Routh.

‘He works on the telephone wires.’ Stuart spoke loudly, being anxious to keep his own sensation in the forefront. ‘But he’s cracked, and thinks he’s something out of Dick Barton.’

‘Telephone wires?’ A new voice spoke from the background. It proceeded, Routh saw, from a worried boy in glasses, who was swathed in various coils of flex. ‘If you understand electricity, will you please come and look at this?’

‘Malcolm’s electricity has gone beastly wrong… It’s a man who’s to help Malcolm with the lights… Get out of the way, you, and let the electricity man past… Shut up all of you – far too much row…curtain should be up…wait until the man’s done the lamps…’

Routh was hustled across the stage and found himself inspecting a complex piece of amateur wiring. The worried boy was asking him questions. With an immense effort Routh brought his mind to bear on them. ‘You should do this…’ he said. ‘And that terminal should take
this
wire…’ He had an elementary knowledge of what he was talking about, and the boy’s fingers worked deftly at his bidding.

A hush had fallen on the stage behind him. Routh drew farther back in the skimpy wings. The electrician was muttering in his ear: ‘I say, you can stay till the end, can’t you?’

And Routh nodded. ‘Yes,’ he whispered. ‘I can stay till the end.’

The curtains parted, rising as they did so. It was a neat job that had Routh’s professional approval. He stayed his hand on the switch beside him just long enough to scan the little audience.

The bearded man, having drawn a blank, was gone.

Apart from Dr Ourglass, there had been only one guest at High Table at Bede’s. As he had been brought in by the Provost, whose introductions were regularly unintelligible, nobody yet knew who he was.

‘Provost, will you sit
here…
and place your guest
there
.’ Elias Birkbeck, who as Steward of common room had to determine the distribution of the company upon their withdrawing from hall to the privacies of the common room, peered up from the card upon which he had earlier sketched out the most desirable arrangement. ‘And, Mark, if you would put Ourglass here on my left, and on your other side…now, let me see.’ At this stage Birkbeck, who was widely known among his fellow-scientists as a man of incisive intellect, fell into a muddle so licensed and prescriptive (for he had been known to avoid it only once, and that upon an evening when he and Bultitude had found themselves at dessert without other company) that none of those now moved indecisively about as by a tyro draughts player was at all embarrassed. Or rather nobody was embarrassed except Kolmak, who unfortunately clicked his fingers. This produced a moment’s disconcerted silence, in which everybody stared at him, including Birkbeck, who realized that he had forgotten him altogether.

Birkbeck’s confusion deepened. He felt Kolmak to be the only man present whom it would be positively discourteous to slip up on. The further result of this was that he found himself unable even to recall Kolmak’s name. His nearest approximation to recollection was first a toothpaste, and then a hair cream; and the horrid possibility of actually uttering one of these by way of address to a colleague so much alarmed him that he dropped his card. Moreover he had already begun to speak, ‘And if you…’ he had said, with an intonation making it essential that some appellative should follow. Kolmak, very well aware of the difficulty, again clicked his fingers. At this Birkbeck had an inspiration. ‘And if you, Doctor, will sit
here
…’ It is always in order to address a learned Teuton as Doctor. Unfortunately Birkbeck’s confusion was now such that he pronounced the word as if speaking German. And as everybody was now smiling encouragingly at Kolmak with the idea of being extremely nice to him he was left with the impression that some stroke of facetiousness had been intended. So Kolmak bowed, and clicked his fingers and heels, and sat down beside Bultitude. When he got home he would recount at some length to Tante Lise the fact that there had been a joke about himself which he had been unable to follow, and she would explain that incomprehensible jokes were an Englishman’s way of showing that he wished to admit you to his closer intimacy.