The Charioteer (18 page)

“Oh, he still has. Is your drink all right?”

“Yes, thanks, fine. I rather feel, really, that I’ve come here under false pretenses.” He was quite sure Alec had subtlety enough to interpret that.

“So far,” said Alec, “you seem to me very lacking in pretenses.” It struck Laurie that he would be formidable in a consulting room someday. “Oh, by the way, I don’t know whether you get a kind of functional deafness during introductions, like me? I never got your name properly; was it—er—Hazell, or—?”

“Christ!”
said Laurie, nearly spilling his drink. “No, it wasn’t.”

“I really do apologize. I thought not, but I just wanted to exclude the possibility before Ralph got here. Evidently, from your strong reaction, you were there the term he was expelled?”

Laurie put down his drink and said, in the formal voice of open hostility, “Lanyon left the term he was due to leave. There was nothing else to it, as far as I know.”

“I’m sorry. But Ralph makes so little secret of it; everyone in our own set knows. And I suppose you struck me as not being a mischievous person.”

Laurie felt his anger go cold on him. Under a score of surface differences, and accompanied no doubt by many basic ones, he recognized a speaker of his own language; another solitary still making his own maps, his few certainties gripped with a rather desperate strength. “I didn’t mean to be cagey,” he said. “Lanyon was a very good Head and generally liked, and I suppose that’s what one mostly remembers. Of course you must know much more about him than I do.”

“Don’t apologize,” said Alec, “I liked it.” He had a smile of unexpected decision and charm. “And what
is
your name, if you’ll forgive my unmannerly persistence?”

“Oh, sorry. It’s Odell. I don’t think he’ll remember me, you know.”

Alec looked up. His dark eyes had a peering, short-sighted look. “Odell?” he said.

“Without the apostrophe, if it matters. Needless to say I got called Spud just the same.”

“Yes,” said Alec. “Yes, I expect so.” His characteristic alertness seemed lost; he stared in silence. “You say you don’t think Ralph will remember you?”

“Well, I suppose he might dimly.” Laurie himself was remembering with sharpening clearness: the green paint in the corridor, the torn books in the basket, the silver pencil. “But I should hardly think so; he had a good deal else to think about, after all.”

“You never knew he brought you back from Dunkirk, then?”

“What?” said Laurie dully. His brain refused to yield him the least response. His memories had been healing; he could recall nothing of that journey with any clearness now.

“You didn’t recognize him?”

“No. I can’t have seen him, even. I think I passed out, you see, most of the way.”

“Yes, of course. Apparently he picked up some kind of impression that you knew him. At least, I remember him saying he wrote to you afterwards; but of course he hadn’t much to go on. Evidently there was some muddle, because the letter came back ‘Died of Wounds.’ And from the state you were in when he saw you, it didn’t seem unlikely, so he left it there.”

“I see. I wondered why you seemed surprised when I told you my name.” The shadows of memory were disconnected and meaningless, like the first markings on a negative in the tank. “Fancy his bothering to write to me. That’s just like him, you know; he made everyone feel he took a personal interest. He was wounded himself, Sandy says?”

“Yes, that was later. He went back two or three more times for another load. His ship got a direct hit in the end, but they picked him up out of the water. Well, he’s late, I hope he’s going to turn up. Excuse me, I’d better see how the drinks are doing.”

He got up. For the first time, Laurie perceived in his movements a kind of reticent, controlled delicacy, like that of a well-bred woman who is usually aware of making, without vulgar emphasis, the right impression. He collected someone’s glass and went over to the table with it, catching Sandy’s eye on the way. They met at the table and went through some business with a siphon, and talked discreetly. Laurie heard nothing except the end of a sentence from Sandy: “… started out long ago. Does it matter?” The rest was drowned by a conversation going on just behind his chair. “So I said to him, well really at that point I couldn’t help saying, ‘Well, if that’s your attitude, I don’t mind telling you I think I’ve treated you very nicely, and when I say that you know what I mean.’ And he did, too. ‘I’ve treated you nicely,’ I said, ‘and in return you’ve done nothing but two-time me, and not even with decent people, but with people whom I consider absolute riff-raff.
You
know who I mean.’ He knew all right; he looked very silly, I can tell you, when he saw I’d been checking up on him. ‘I think you’ll go a long way,’ I said, ‘before you’ll find anyone who …’ ”

Oh God, Laurie was thinking, where has it got to? He had left his chair and was now searching for his stick. There it was, fallen flat on the floor; and he knew from past failures that he would have to sit down in the chair again in order to retrieve it without looking ridiculous.

“Looking for this, chum?”

“Thanks,” said Laurie. “Yes, I was.”

It was a soldier, whom Laurie had till now scarcely had time to notice, though he had been vaguely aware of him as a somewhat incongruous presence. He now said, “You don’t mind, do you, chum, if I sit here with you and have a word or two?” and, carefully bringing up a pouf before Laurie could answer, settled himself beside him.

Laurie recognized at once the solemn intensity of drink taken; to go away instantly might start a scene. After a little heavy breathing, the soldier addressed him in the flat accent of the Midlands.

“I reckon you got that packet at Dunkirk. Eh?”

“Yes,” said Laurie. “Were you there too?”

“No, I was still doing training. I saw you come in. You got one leg shorter than the other, haven’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Don’t they reckon that’ll get no better, then?”

“Probably not.”

The soldier leaned forward; he smelled of jasmine hair oil and of beer. “Here,” he breathed huskily. “I want to ask you something. You ever been here before?”

“No. Have you?”

“It don’t matter about me. Look, when you come in here, I took a liking to you. That’s what I’m like, always have been, first impressions is what I go by; and when I see you come in limping on that stick, I thought, ‘That lad stopped a packet at Dunkirk and they didn’t ought to have brought him. That’s not right,’ I thought, ‘they never ought to have done it.’ ”

“It’s all right. I’ve only looked in for a drink.”

“That’s what
you
think, chum. Here, do you know what they are, all this lot here?”

“Don’t you worry about me; I’m leaving to catch a bus in a minute.” He had missed it, but there was another at nine, and he would sit in a cinema till it was due. He looked around, trying to catch Sandy’s eye.

“I know what you think,” said the soldier earnestly. “I could see it in your face when you come in. You think being lame like what you are, a girl won’t have you. You think to hell with all that. It takes all sorts to make a world, give it a go and look after number one same as we all got to do, that’s what you think. Now I’ll tell you something.”

“Yes,” said Laurie. “Excuse me.” He gripped the arms of the chair and braced himself to rise. But the door had opened. Sandy was saying, “So
here
you are at last. Come along in, we’ve got a little surprise for you.”

Laurie straightened himself smartly. When he was on his feet and standing still, there wasn’t much to notice. In his haste he threw his weight too quickly on his lame leg, so that it was shot through with a violent stab of pain. When the effort of concealing this was over, he saw that Lanyon was already in the room.

He had come alone. Laurie would have known him instantly, anywhere; which is not to say that he had not changed. He was in R.N.V.R. uniform with a lieutenant’s rings; and Laurie’s first clear thought was that if one had had the sense to notice it, he must have looked like a ship’s officer even at school. Now the incipient lines were graven in; against his weathered skin his light hair looked several shades fairer, almost ash-colored. He was still spare and alert-looking, but he held his shoulders more stiffly now. There was time for all this while he stood in the doorway. For Sandy he had a suitable smile which, without being exactly guarded, revealed nothing whatever except good manners: when he turned to Alec, though the transition wasn’t crude, Laurie could see that it was Alec on whose account he had come. He had brought him a birthday present, Laurie couldn’t see what, and the unwrapping and thanks took a little time. Laurie was glad of it. It had all been more disturbing than he had expected, and it occurred to him for the first time that Lanyon might find his sudden appearance embarrassing, once he remembered who he was.

Alec took some time to admire his present; he was evidently one of those who are generous in the receiving of gifts. It was Sandy who seemed suddenly to grow impatient. He gave Lanyon a shove which turned him half around from the door, and said, in a voice carelessly audible through the room, “And now come over here and see what
we’ve
got for
you
.”

Lanyon stared at this and Laurie saw for the first time his light-blue, wary, sailor’s eyes. Above the superficial smile on his mouth, they swept the room as inexpressively as if it had been a doubtful stretch of sea. Laurie got ready: but when they reached him, he forgot after all to say anything or even to smile, since Lanyon did neither: he simply stood there, with his face draining, visibly, of color, till one could see that his mouth and chin were less deeply tanned than the rest of his face, because they suddenly stood out pallid against the darker skin above. His mouth straightened; Laurie knew the expression well, but now it seemed part of a naval uniform, emergency kit. It jerked Laurie out of himself. He took a step forward and said, “Hello. They told me you might be coming.” But Lanyon still stared at him in silence, so he added, “Do you remember me? Spud Odell?”

Lanyon came up, and Laurie noticed for the first time the glove on his left hand. He said, so abruptly that he might have been charging Laurie with a disciplinary offense, “I thought you were dead.”

“Only temporarily.” Laurie thought: I can’t have very much imagination, not to have expected this. That day at school must have been the worst in his life, much worse than anything the sea’s done to him or even the war; seeing me must be like living it over again. He felt so strongly for Lanyon in this that his nervousness left him. He smiled and said, “Alec’s just told me that I owe you for a Channel crossing. Is it true?”

Lanyon said in the same court-martial voice, but rather more slowly, “You knew that.”

“No.” (It wouldn’t have taken much more, Laurie thought, to have made him say, “No, please, Lanyon.”) “I hadn’t the least idea. I was dead to the world most of the time.”

With startling abruptness, Lanyon’s face broke into a hard gay smile. “Well, for someone alleged to be unconscious, I must say you did pretty well. Sending me up sky-high in front of a petty officer and a couple of ratings. You’ll be telling me you can’t remember that now, I suppose?”

Laurie’s mouth opened. He stared at the jaw-line from which, now, the pale margin had disappeared. “Oh, my
God
,” he said. “
That
wasn’t you?”

“You’re telling me. I got down into the beard I was mercifully wearing at the time, and pulled it up over my head. Much to my relief, a Stuka came over a few seconds later and machine-gunned us. I was a great deal more frightened of you.”

“But … God, this is … I’d had a lot of morphia, and they gave me another shot just before they embarked us, to stop the bleeding. I remember realizing I was light-headed, even at the time.”

“I never quite worked out whether you were thinking, ‘Well, well, so that was R. R. Lanyon,’ or if it was just a case of ‘Oh, Lord, here comes another.’ ”

“I was off my head. Of course I didn’t know you. Christ, you don’t suppose if I had—”

“Same old Spud,” said Lanyon, in a kind of echo of the bright voice he had used before. “I wouldn’t have believed it.” He took a step back and looked at Laurie, then said, not brightly but with a dull kind of incredulity, “Good God, you haven’t changed a bit.”

“It was the beard,” said Laurie. “That was all. I’d have known you anywhere, but for that.”

“Ah, well,” Lanyon said smiling again, “we’ve both got a shock or two coming, I daresay.”

It was then that Laurie remembered, for the first time in some minutes, the presence of other people. Alec was hovering, with a couple of drinks, tactfully on the fringe of the conversation. Sandy, less tactful, was drinking in their reunion open-mouthed. There had been so much to say, Laurie had scarcely noticed till now the special phrases casually accepted, the basic assumption on which all their words had made sense. What after all could Lanyon have supposed, finding him here? Well, he thought, Sandy should be satisfied. The hairpin had been dropped.

“Aren’t you drinking, Laurie?” Alec said. “Here’s yours, Ralph.”

“Healths in water are unlucky,” said Lanyon, looking at the glass.

“Sorry, I gave you the wrong one. This is yours. Laurie, this do for you?”

Laurie, who had lost his first drink, took it. It was rather strong, but he didn’t like now to do anything about it. They drank to Alec’s birthday and then Lanyon, turning, said, “Well … hello, Laurie. I’ll get used to that, I suppose.”

They drank. Laurie said, “There’s no need to, Spud will do.”

“No. Boys will be boys, but heaven defend us from Old Boys. Now I think of it, I never did know your real name. When I was doing the lists sometimes I used to wonder what it was. Odell, L. P. What was the P. for?”

“Patrick.”

“Well, I got that one right, anyway. I wish you wouldn’t keep looking at me as if I might give you a hundred lines at any moment. For God’s sake relax.” He stared at his glass, then emptied it with a jerk.

“Sorry. It’s all very well for you, but Ralph does feel a bit of a hanging matter.”

“That’ll pass off, you’ll find. Drink up and I’ll get you another.”