The Syme Papers (52 page)

‘
I
need not account – for
my every thought, my dear Tom,’ Sam
answered in a light tone, too weak for its purpose. Then he added
more heavily, ‘You are here on sufferance only –
all of you –
on
sufferance only.’

‘Turn to me when I speak to you!’ Tom said again, in a voice I had
never heard. Syme turned, somewhat cowed. ‘These are only some
calculations
–
Phidy and I sketched between us
–
concerning an
eclipse,’ he answered more gently. ‘It occurred to me
–
we could apply
a similar logic –
to the outer sphere
itself, which might explain …’

Tom was strangely agitated. ‘What right have you to speak to me of
sufferance, knowing as you do the daily sacrifices –
daily
–
I
make for
you in my absence, and all that absence necessitates, from my home?’

‘Hush,’ I urged again, more boldly now; and I ventured a word
between them for the first time.
‘
I
have never heard you speak this
way. Do not speak this way to him. Not now, Tom.’

He never so much as glanced at me. Sam turned and said, ‘Sit
down, Phidy. This does not concern you.’ And I sat down.

Tom swayed somewhat on his feet, and his voice had a thin rasp in
it, like the rattle of a cracked coin. The first cloud of a fever flew over
his head. He continued in a very bitter spirit that overleapt its cause,
pricked by some fear I could not see. ‘If it pleases you to plot palaces
and kingdoms with this weak-kneed calf of a German schoolboy, do
not expect my patience. I have come for your triumph, which you 
seem so willing to exchange for the easy admiration of children and
the dying lust of a sailor’s widow. You have a speech to make tomor
row afternoon, a speech attended (through my exertions) by a man
named Ezekiel Harcourt, who is in the way of doing you a power of
good. If you intend to read a list of numbers at this gathering, you
may
continue. If not, TURN
TO THE WORK AT HAND.’

Syme did turn, but not towards his desk. ‘If you wish to speak –
of the easy admiration of schoolboys –
how
would you call the calf
love
of a gullible young journalist –
whom
I took on at his own
request –
out of my forbearance?’

‘Your salvation. Now turn to the work at hand.’

‘No,’
Sam said, instantly childish, and flung himself on the
ottoman in a heap.

Tom strode towards his bedchamber, and I shuffled aside to let
him pass. His coldness stung me deeply (
‘this’,
he called me, wrin
kling his nose) and I blushed at the recollection, but the rush of
blood brought with it a secret joy.

At dawn, in a chill fever, Tom pasted pamphlets advertising
Sam’s presence around the town, on lamp-posts and public trees.
Few were out to see them. Those who were saw the ink smeared in
the heavy air and a flaccid sheet of grey paper announcing:

The town hall, a cavern of a place, was filled with chairs from the
local school, at Tom’s arrangement. Naturally, given the subject of
Syme’s discourse, we could rarely avail ourselves of the church for a
platform; but the church came to us, as was not infrequently the
case. They formed a solitary battalion. No one else challenged to
meet them, except a spreading widow who thought Doomsday was
to be preached and a tottering old man with a sparse beard, like grey
sticks of straw, and afoul breath, who came for the relative coolness
of the great hall and the promise of refreshments.

The local chapter of the Oceanic Society provided red punch on
the neighbouring tables. Its chairman, Mr Cooling (the famous
nephew), met us in great apology. ‘It is too bad. I know it, I feel it
strongly, sir, but the truth of the matter is that old Mrs
Cumberland cannot venture out in the heat (her doctor wouldn’t
hear of it), can indeed scarcely lift her feet from basins of water
without someone upbraids her, at her age and girth. And she is by
way of being the leading light of our little organization. I am, as it
were, a lieutenant-commander, on board a vessel where the admiral
presides. I have preached and begged, sir
–
yes
sir!
–
to little effect,
for we are no better than schoolchildren when the master is away.
And as I said, sir, poor Mrs Cumberland; and to do my poor flock
(yes, that’s what I call them, between ourselves, sir, and Mrs
Cumberland) justice it is a whacking great heat to be going on with.
I can scarcely stand myself. Yes, I
will
take an early dip in the
punch if it’s all the same. We might as well ladle it out now to keep
the congregation happy. It is a great shame, sir, but as you can see
we should have a very warm, warm response, ha!, from the
Reverend Mr Kirkland’s flock. A great shame.’ There were nine of
us in all.

Mr Cooling bent a long leg and rose to the dusty platform,
walked over to the pulpit and began banging it. ‘Order, order, the
two hundred and sixteenth meeting of the Middletown Chapter of
the Oceanic Society is called to order, order.’ The fat lady sat up
very straight at that, but the Reverend’s congregation barely
stirred, leaned like horses towards the table of punch. No one had
been talking. Tom glanced slyly at me, from his chair on the corner 
of the platform, and winked. (An apology?) I sat
alone in
a row
of
otherwise empty chairs.

There was no order or disorder to be called. We were all too hot
for either. Even Mr Cooling was too hot. His notes stuck under
his damp thumbs and his jumbled words fell in the heavy air
almost before they reached us,
like dropped sheets of paper:’…
rose to the rank of lieutenant in the 53rd, before being called to
God’s greater army
 
…
among the scientists battling … if I
might have a drink
…
having found the trapdoor into this little
planet of ours
…
Mr
Mooler,
if it wouldn’t trouble you
…
now
proposes, in
short
…
yes,
NOW, Mr
Mooler,
if you please 
…
from a dizzying height of intellect, perhaps I should say depth
[chuckling], perhaps I should say depth indeed 
…
thank you very
much, it is a trifle hot
…
proposes to open that door
…
yes,
if
you would be so kind
…
MOOLER.
’

Here he peers at a note from Tom. ‘Oh, I see, open that trapdoor
and descend like a thief into the, yes, into the heat of Nature. Into
the
heart.
Order Mr Syme a warm round. Samuel Syme.’ And he
went to the edge of the platform and lowered a stiff leg and sat down
beside me, whispering, ‘Most kind.’

Syme rose from his seat beside Tom and walked to the pulpit. He
drew inward at such shrunken occasions as these. Then he appeared
to me in his plainest dress, in the open, unmarked by grandness or
falseness or failure. Nothing remained but the scars of thought in his
features, the dignity of his figure, and the disappointment in his
address. He was heavy-hearted; still heavy with last night’s anger,
though a forgotten weight; heavier still with the heat and the
meagre crowd and the hopelessness of it all. But he was a brave man.
Perhaps more than anything else, he was a brave man. For once he
rose not
to
but
above
the occasion. ‘Ladies and gentlemen. It is a
pleasure to see such a fine representation of the Middletown elite here
today
–
despite the heat –
particularly Reverend Kirkland himself –
another expert, I believe –
in
internal fires.’ He always began a lec
ture to a small audience with a dig at the Church, to agitate interest
among them. ‘To you,’ he continued, in a phrase I had heard a dozen
times
before, ‘I have a most particular proposition.’

It was slow work and he worked on. The sweating widow soon
recognized her error, that no damnation was to come, though Sam
preached underground flames in abundance. She rose abruptly and
left; returned a minute later and ladled a dose of punch into one of
the glasses, drank it noisily, set it down noisily, and said noisily,
‘I’m sorry to interrupt,’
before departing once more. ‘Hell-fire;
indeed they’ll see Hell-fire,’
Tom says he heard her mutter.

Syme soldiered on. ‘Between the second and the third spheres –
no,
that is to say 
(yes,
you’re quite right, Tom), I was about to
mislead
you, gentlemen –
between the fifth and the sixth spheres
–
that must
have puzzled you for a moment …’ I ceased to hear him as I shifted
to one side, stretched my tired legs and gazed out of the heavy win
dows into the white summer air. I heard silence surround us like
sea-noise, larger than any stir we could muster.

Syme buzzed on. ‘Volcanic eruptions
–
once ascribed to the anger
of gods
–
must now be seen in
their true light
–
free
of their hideous
mythological
drapings
–
like nothing so much as the costumes of
an amateur
theatrical
society. They must now be seen as the prod
uct
of gases
–
released when
–
in
inverted eclipse
–
two vacuii
of the
outer crowns overlap. What is at stake, gentlemen? Why have I
troubled you on this heavy afternoon
–
a
fly in
your midst
–
buzzing, settling and unsettling, buzzing, ever disturbing? Why
can’t I rest? Why have I kept you from the cool waters waiting on the
table
–
so generously provided by Mr
Cooling
–
that on a day
like
this must have drawn more of your glances –
and more of mine,
I’m
afraid …’

Here a small boy slithered from his father’s lap and dipped a quick
cup into the silver bowl, while his father hissed, ‘Henry!’ only to
take a long draught when the boy returned to him, carefully bal
ancing the heavy drink. ‘He said there was going to be volcanoes,’ the
boy announced, to no one in particular, in obscure apology.

Syme had lost his place
on the page. ‘An omission
–
my dear boy
–
entirely of my own neglect,
I’m afraid. But to proceed
– I
will not
detain you much longer
–
indeed, I have said more than I had come
to say. My passion carries me with it.’ Never to me did a man’s pas
sion seem capable of so little weight, and he smiled wearily as he
said it. ‘The objection to my theories –
theories that, if we are to
believe them, earnestly, with more than a mere religious faith,
would shake the very ground we stand
on to its
core –
the objection
that I have heard more than any
other is not
scientific –
as indeed it
could not be, since the theories themselves bear no scientific
refutation –
but psychological, or
moral,
if you prefer such a term.’
He had lost us all by now, though he rose to what followed, and I
thought he could never lose me again.

‘Churchmen, widows, children, sailors, newspapermen, profes
sors,
schoolteachers, wives
–
all reproach me with one thing.
“From what arrogance do you speak?” they ask. “From what high
arrogance do you preach –
against the thousand-year-old traditions
of your people
–
your universities –
and your God? Have you alone
seen the truth –
where so many great men
have been blind?” And I
answer them: “From the courage of my two eyes –
my thoughts
–
and the hands He has given me for digging.” I ask instead, “With
what arrogance dare I refuse? With what arrogance dare I deny the
only gifts I am
certain of –
the gifts of our great God –
contenting
me with another man’s answers – as
I rely
on the cook to buy
the
butter or dress a roast?”’