Time and Time Again (30 page)

Memories now were assembling so fast that Charles took cautious inventory of them, as with an old trunk in an attic that may have things in it one doesn't expect and might not want to find. The framed picture of a pretty girl holding up a glass of beer reminded him of something . . . or perhaps nothing. Another picture, of a khaki-clad soldier posing with a large Union Jack, harked back to that period, so alien, so distant, of the phony war. Abruptly amidst these musings he felt a touch on his arm. It was an old man whom he did not recognize. 'Mr. Anderson . . . am I right, sir? You'll remember me . . . FRED MANSFIELD.'

Charles stared, and a whole flock of memories broke through, so that his voice was hard to control as he shook the bony hand. 'Of course I remember . . . of course . . .'

But he hadn't, at first, and if he had met the man in the street he knew he would have passed him by. He remembered the voice, though-- the high-pitched gentle Cockney. And soon, of course, the features fitted in, so that he could judge Mr. Mansfield hadn't changed much either, except to look older and frailer, especially in the throes of his excusable excitement.

'CHARLIE . . . well, of all the . . . and 'ere again--'ow many years is it?'

Charles had to think, and in thinking remembered how, during those early years in European capitals, he had sometimes imagined meeting Fred Mansfield again--a meeting in which, out of his own deep hurt and humiliation, he would tell the fellow exactly what he thought of him. But now, it seemed, even the hurt and humiliation could be remembered only with an effort; and perhaps for this reason he didn't actually know what he thought of him, or of himself either, except that they had both been victims.

So all he answered was: 'Yes, it was a long time ago. . . . What are you drinking?'

'No, Charlie--this is on me when I get me breath. . . . Gorlummy, wot a surprise! . . . Mrs. Appleby, two bitters for me an' this gentleman. 'E's an old friend of mine. . . . Mr. Anderson--Mrs. Appleby.' Charles shook hands with the landlady, and something else occurred to him. 'It was Mrs. Webber, wasn't it, Fred, the last time I was here?' It seemed quite easy and natural now to call him Fred.

'That's right! Now fancy you rememberin' Mrs. Webber. . . . Mrs. Appleby, Mr. Anderson remembers Mrs. Webber!' But Mrs. Appleby did not seem specially interested. 'Poor Mrs. Webber died of a stroke, and then there was the Johnsons, and then the Brackleys--nobody liked THEM--they let the 'ouse down, they did. . . . But now we're all 'appy again, ain't we, Mrs. Appleby?'

'Maybe some of us are,' said Mrs. Appleby as she turned to other customers.

'The fact is,' whispered Mr. Mansfield confidentially, 'she ain't 'ad it too easy litely. That larst raid shook 'er up. Two bombs just rahnd the corner, but only a few winders broke in 'ere. Ain't that luck?'

Charles agreed that it was. 'You're looking very well, Fred--very well indeed.'

'Can't complain. Not so bad for seventy-eight. Your dad still alive an' well, I 'ope?'

'Yes. He's eighty-one.'

'Good for 'im. I remember Sir 'Avelock. . . . I ses to 'im, when 'e left 'ere that time, Sir 'Avelock, I ses, it's bin a honner and a pleasure. Same 'ere, Mr. Mansfield, 'e ses, or words to that effect. I daresay 'e remembers me too.'

'I'm certain he does.'

Mr. Mansfield gripped Charles's arm in a still rising abandonment of delight. 'You know, Charlie, it's 'ard to believe, seein' you again like this. I can't say you don't look older, because you was only a boy in those days, but you certainly ain't changed your drinks, 'ave you? Bitter it was an' bitter it is, an' 'ere you are at the Prince Rupert like you was at 'ome.' But he added, suddenly curious: 'You rahnd 'ere on business?'

'No . . . just chance. I was driving back from Suffolk and found myself so close I thought I'd see what the old place looked like.' As soon as he said it he knew it rang false; it sounded like some sentimental Old Boy revisiting his alma mater. But to Mr. Mansfield the explanation seemed perfectly satisfactory.

'You'll find some changes, Charlie. That is, if you was 'ere in the daytime and could see. Lots of bombs in the 'Igh Road.'

'And at the corner of Ladysmith Road too.'

'You saw that? Ah, that was a narsty one. Land mine, they said.'

'No damage at Number 214, I noticed.'

'So you came by an' 'ad a look? Well, well, to think of you rememberin'. . . . I don't live there no more. When the wife died I moved in with Evelyn an' 'er 'usband--in Roberts Road. Just the next turnin' from 'ere. Convenient.'

'I'm sorry to hear about Mrs. Mansfield.'

'Poor old soul, she missed a lot o' trouble, that's one thing. Bert 'ad to 'ave an operation an' ain't bin the same since. Maud's married and got two boys--lives at Chatham--'er 'usband's in the Navy.'

'And Lily?' said Charles, with sudden breathlessness.

Mr. Mansfield beamed. 'Lily? Why, she done the best of any of 'em. She's married an' in Orsetrilia--got quite a family.' He laid his glass on the counter and began searching his pockets. 'Look . . . She sent me some snaps only a month or two back--taken outside the 'ouse--seaside place near Sydney.' He found a photograph and held it for Charles to inspect. 'See the 'ouse-- pretty, ain't it? Their own, too. . . . Garden all rahnd--not like the 'ouses 'ere. And that's the car they 'ave. . . . 'E's got a good job out there.'

Charles was transfixed by an emotion he could only control by being facetious. 'Very nice--very nice indeed--and Mr. Robinson seems to have put on a little weight.'

Mr. Mansfield looked puzzled. 'ROBINSON?' Then he swung a cordial hand to Charles's back. 'Gorlummy, that ain't Reg Robinson! . . . Is THAT wot you thought? The name's Murdoch--Tom Murdoch. Orsetrilian Scotsman, that's wot 'e calls 'imself. . . . But fancy you thinkin' it was Reg. . . . Dunno wot ever 'appened to Reg. They was sort of engaged for a time, but it didn't larst. Ain't 'eard of 'im now for years.'

'You were saying Lily had a family. . . .'

'You bet she 'as, an' I got a picture of them too if I can find it.' He found it. 'See. . . . Count 'em. . . . An' this is another one of Lily by 'erself. You can't see the 'ouse in this.' He handed them both to Charles.

Charles looked at the one of Lily first. She too had put on weight, not enough to make her stout, but to give her a look of ripeness that of course he could not remember; and yet it was so much like her, so much a fulfilment, that he felt he recognized her as clearly as if he had known her like that in his own life. She was smiling and the little gap between the two teeth at the upper left-hand side was still there. She looked gay and cosy and richly alive, and his heart missed a beat in its rejoicing.

The other photograph showed a row of attractive-looking children ranging in age from thirteen or fourteen to perhaps two.

Mr. Mansfield was gloating over his shoulder. 'See? I said you'd 'ave to count 'em. . . . SIX--an' another on the way since then. I wrote back to 'er when she wrote an' told me that--Lily, I wrote-- just a joke, of course--even if it ain't your fault, you really are makin' a 'abit of it. But she likes kids and she 'as 'em so easy, I suppose she don't mind.' And with a wink Mr. Mansfield added: 'I tell you, Charlie boy, you was lucky that time.'

'WAS I? I WONDER.' Charles hardly whispered the words and was glad they were not heard. He handed back the photographs, forcing himself to catch Mrs. Appleby's eye and order two more bitters. 'She looks fine. When did she meet this Mr. Murdoch?'

'That's wot I never can remember--the year, I mean, but it was the Wembley Exhibition that done it. Tom was in the Orsetrilian Pavilion--that was 'is job, you understand. Lily and me went there one day, we was lookin' at a stuffed kangaroo and a man come up and ses to me--"You interested?" Well, I wasn't, not special, not in kangaroos, but it turned out 'e was interested in Lily--that's why 'e come up to me and started the conversation. All a matter of chawnce, ain't it? Like you droppin' in 'ere tonight. They was married within three months.'

'And happily too, I can see.'

'Well, now, you know Lily--or at least you remember 'er. She always was wot you might call a 'appy girl.' Mr. Mansfield put the photographs carefully back in his pocket. 'I saw in the papers when you was married, Charlie.'

'Yes. I have a little boy of five who's now in America.' The thought of all the children in Ladysmith Road and Roberts Road made him feel apologetic about this. 'We had relatives over there and they wanted to take him.'

'Natchrally,' said Mr. Mansfield, unaware of any need for apology. 'Just like Lily wants me to go to Orsetrilia and live with 'er and Tom, and I would too if I was a kid. Gorlummy, if I was a kid I wouldn't want to stay in England. But at my age it's different. You get yer roots in a plice, Charlie, that's the way it is.'

The drinks arrived and Charles lifted his glass. His voice shook a little, but not noticeably to the old man. He said: 'Well, Fred, let ME say it this time. . . . Here's to us and our dear ones. . . .' That had come back to him too.

* * * * *

They talked on till closing time; then Charles took Mr. Mansfield back to his house in Roberts Road. They shook hands at the gate and Charles meant it when he said he hoped they would meet again. During the very short walk (not worth while to get in and out of the car), he had noticed that Mr. Mansfield was a little unsteady on his feet--hardly from the few drinks, but more likely a sign of age that had not been apparent in the Prince Rupert. Another and perhaps a sadder sign was that Charles had been introduced in the bar to no one except Mrs. Appleby, who had not been too cordial. It rather looked as if the old fellow had outlived his cronies and that younger patrons found him a bore. Charles's sympathy was acute because he himself had a morbid fear of being a bore, a fear that sometimes made him awkward and speechless, or else foolish and facetious, in the presence of people who were perfectly satisfied for him to be himself. But Fred Mansfield WAS himself at all times, and always had been; and if others found him a bore he would bore them more by not realizing it, or else (as he had with Mrs. Appleby) find some charitable reason for having been snubbed. And to Charles this seemed the saddest thing of all.

He drove back to London and was in bed before midnight. There was no raid, but he could not sleep. He wished he were in a house or flat where he could go to the kitchen and make himself a cup of tea, but his club bedroom had no such facilities and after an hour or two of lying awake he got up and looked in desperation for some job to do. It was too late to dress and go out again and he had little to read except the pencilled notes he had made at the Under- Secretary's house; these, with their deep concern for Cypriotes and Turks, did not easily engage his attention in the mood he was in. Lacking any better idea to pass the time, he turned to the suitcases he had brought with him from the Chelsea flat; he hadn't unpacked, since his stay at the club could only be temporary, but he had stuffed them so hastily with personal things that he thought it might be worth while to sort out the contents. Several were full of papers grabbed from desks and bureau drawers--old letters and miscellaneous documents he hadn't looked at for years, but which, from the fact that he had ever preserved them at all, might be considered of some importance. But, of course, as always happens with such accumulations, many seemed at this later date quite valueless, so he began to tear them up. There was a certain pleasure in doing this, though to be on the safe side he would take the fragments to the office in the morning and burn them in the fireplace . . . notes on the Tacna-Arica boundary dispute, for instance, flimsies about forgotten visits of forgotten foreign officials, a copy of a preposterous letter from a duchess to Ramsay MacDonald complaining that she had been insulted by a customs inspector at Pontarlier (this, Charles remembered, had been handed round the Office for laughs). And there were also more personal oddments--ancient menu cards and concert programmes with names and addresses scribbled on them of people he had met and had wished to remember at least for a time; worthless paper money of countries that had devalued their currencies; cuttings from newspapers and magazines; reports of company meetings; a dossier of correspondence with the P.L.M. about a lost trunk; old lists of dinner guests in Jane's handwriting with places at table arranged according to protocol (what a job that had sometimes been!). And then--suddenly-- a foolscap envelope full of snapshots and letters from Lily. . . . Lily standing by the Serpentine bridge, eating a bun from a paper bag; Lily leaning out of a train window waving her hand; Lily against the background of the turnstile entrance to the Zoo; Lily in a mackintosh and sou'wester, facing the wind and rain on the slopes of Box Hill; Lily feeding the squirrels in Regent's Park; Lily in the doorway of a cottage that had a home-painted inscription 'Teas' with the 's' turned the wrong way. . . . So many places, so many scenes, and in nearly all of them Lily was smiling--not with the fixed grin of a pose, but as if she had always had something to smile about--which perhaps she had. The letters, too, were light-hearted, though usually not much more than fixings or confirmations of appointments. She had hardly been a good letter writer, though nothing she ever wrote was stiff or self- conscious. She simply could not be bothered to write when she was to meet someone soon; which was why, doubtless, the longest of all her letters to Charles was the last--the one when she was not to meet him soon, or indeed again.

When Charles unfolded this letter after an interval of a good many years, the memory it gave him was predominantly of the Rhineland village where he had first read it--a cold twilight with snow in the air and Brunon handing him a batch of mail picked up at the post office. He remembered his own distress with something of the sad contentment that time always brings; so that he even paused to light a cigarette, as if to savour the re-reading.

Dearest Charlie,

I don't know how to write this, but I must, and I hope you won't be hurt. Perhaps you won't be after all this time, it seems years and years to me. Reg and I are engaged. Oh Charlie, please don't be upset. It's for the best, like your dad and my dad both told me, and especially now you've done so well in all the examinations and are going to have such a wonderful future. I was so happy when I heard about that, really I was. You know it was the one thing that had been worrying me all along, that you'd spent too much time with me when you ought to have been studying. But now that's all right. I'll bet you were pleased when you heard the news. My dad told me about it and I wanted to write then to congratulate you, but he said no, he'd given his word. But he said I could write this. Oh Charlie, I can't say much more. I'll always remember you and hope you'll go on having great success, I'm sure you will. I can't say all I would like to in a letter, perhaps it wouldn't reach you if I did, so better not, eh? I know you never liked Reg, but he really is all right when you get to know him. Charlie, I did love that visit to Cambridge. Dear Charlie, this is all I can say.