James Hilton: Collected Novels (66 page)

Presently a girl summoning help for a soldier in hospital uniform who had fainted provided a new thrill—compassion; within a few seconds the crowd was entirely swept by it, pressing in on the two donors with cries of pity, indignation, and advice to do this and that.

“Give ’im air! Keep back there! Pick ’im up and carry ’im inside—I got some whiskey—give the poor chap a nip. … No, ’e shouldn’t ’ave no alco’ol, not without a doctor. … Phone the ’orspital, they’ll send an amberlance. … Christ, I wouldn’t let ’im go there if ’e was my boy—they kill ’em, that’s what they do up there.”

Presently a few men carried the soldier from the pavement into a grocery, whose owner nervously unbarred his front door to repeated knockings. Inside the shop the stream of advice would have continued indefinitely, but for the girl, who kept saying she would take him home.

“Better ’ave a doctor first, miss.”

“I’ll get a doctor when he’s home.”

“Where’s ’e live?”

“Not far away.”

“Wounded badly, was ’e?”

“No, he’s all right—just fainted, that’s all. See, he’s coming round now—if I can get him home—”

“Your ’usband, lidy?”

“That make any difference?”

“Come to think of it, I seem to ’ave seen your face before.”

“Maybe you have, old boy, but that doesn’t mean I’ll stand any of your lip. Come on now, and give me a hand. If I could get a cab—”

“Not much chance o’ that, miss, not on a night like this.”

But the shopkeeper, anxious to get them all off his premises, whispered to her, while the others were still arguing the point: “I’ve got a van and my son’ll drive you. Think your friend can walk to it?”

“Oh yes, I’m certain he can. Let’s try.”

It proved to be a large van, smelling of miscellaneous foods and soaps; its driver was a thin youth who easily made room for them on the front seat. After he had inched his way out of the yard he lit a cigarette and began proudly: “You ain’t supposed to drive these vans till you’re eighteen, but Dad don’t tell nobody. Where to, miss?”

“D’you know the Owl—the other side of Bockley?”

“You bet I do. Biffer’s place?”

“That’s it. But stop in the lane just before you get there.”

“Right you are. Won’t arf be a journey though, in this fog. ’Ow’s the patient?”

“Fine. You keep your eye on the road.”

That’s all right I could drive round ’Ere blindfold. Aren’t you on at the Empire this week?”

“If there’s any show at all. They said there wouldn’t be tonight.”

“I saw the show in Bockley last week. Jolly good.”

“Think so? I thought it was rotten. Look where you’re driving.”

“Sorry.”

“Good of you to take us, anyhow, even if we do get killed on the way.”

“Don’t mention it. Be in the army meself next year.”

“Not now the war’s over, will you?”

“Won’t they ’ave me because of that?” He looked puzzled and rather disappointed.

“Maybe they will—if you live that long.”

“Pretty quick, ain’t you, miss? Reminds me of that scene you ’ad in the play, when you kept tellin’ orf that fat old gent with the mustaches. I could ’ave larfed.”

“Why the devil didn’t you then? You were supposed to.”

“My dad’ll stare when I tell ’im it was Paula Ridgeway. ’E didn’t recognize you. Went to the show same as I did, only ’e don’t see so well lately.”

They drove on, slowly, gropingly, chattering meanwhile, avoiding the main streets as far as possible, and especially the road junctions and shopping centers where crowds were likely. Melbury and Bockley were adjacent suburbs, completely built over in a crisscross of residential roads that afforded an infinity of routes; but once beyond Bockley the rows of identical houses came to an end with the abruptness of an army halted, and the wider highways narrowed and twisted into lanes. They pulled up eventually at the side of a hedge.

“’Ere y’are, miss. The Owl’s just rahnd the corner. Sure I can’t tike yer no further?”

“This’ll do fine. We can walk now.”

He helped them out. “Sure you know where y’are?”

“Yes—and thanks.” She was fishing in her bag for a coin when he stopped her. “No, miss—you send me a signed picture of yourself, that’s what I’d rather ’ave. … ’Is nibs feelin’ better? That’s good. Well, it’s bin a pleasure. Good luck to both of you. Good night, miss.”

She waved to him and he drove off, leaving them alone.

“Where are we going?”

“Home—at least it’ll do for one.”

“But—I—I have to get back to the hospital.”

“We’ll see about that tomorrow.”

“But this place—I don’t understand—”

“It’s the Owl Hotel if you like the word. Call it a pub to be on the safe side. I know the landlord.”

“Will he mind?”

“The odds are he won’t even know, old boy, not in the state he’ll be in tonight.”

She guided him a little way along the lane, then through a side gate into a garden where the shapes of trees loomed up at regular intervals. “Lovely here when the summer comes—they serve teas and there’s a view.”

“What name was it he called you?”

“Paula Ridgeway. It’s not my real name, though. What’s yours?”

“Smith—but that’s not real either.”

“You don’t remember your real name?”

He shook his head.

“Well, Smith’s good enough. Come on, Smithy.”

As they found their way along a path, the silent blanket of fog was pierced by a murmur and then by a paleness ahead, the two presently merging into a vague impression of the Owl on this night of November the eleventh, 1918. A two-storied, ivy-clustered, steep-roofed building, ablaze with light from every downstairs room, and already packed with shouting celebrants of victory; a friendly pub, traditional without being self-consciously old-world. Established in the forties, when neighboring Bockley was a small country town, it had kept its character throughout an age that had seen the vast obliterating spread of the suburbs and the advent of motor traffic; it had kept, too, the sacred partitions between “private” and “public” bars—divisions rooted in the mythology of London life, and still acceptable because they no longer signify any snobbish separation, but merely an etiquette of occasion, dress, and a penny difference in the price of a pint of beer. Even the end of a great war could not shatter this etiquette; but with the sacred partitions still between, the patrons of both bars found community in songs that were roared in unison above the shouting and laughter and clatter of glasses. They were not especially patriotic songs; most were from the music halls of the nineties, a few were catchy hits from the recent West End revues. But by far the most popular of all was “Knees Up, Mother Brown,” a roaring chorus that set the whole crowd stamping into the beer-soaked sawdust.

On the threshold of the Owl Smith felt a renewal of nervousness, especially as the girl’s entry was the signal for shouts of welcome from within. She pushed him into a chair in an unlighted corner of the lobby. “Stay there, Smithy—I won’t be long.” A group of men pressed out of the bar towards her, dragging her back with them; he could hear their greetings, and her own in answer. He sat there, waiting, trying to collect his thoughts, to come to terms with the strange sequence of events that had brought him to a noisy public house in company with a girl who was something on the stage. A few people passed without noticing him; that was reassuring, but he suspected it was only because they were drunk. He decided that if anyone spoke to him he would pretend to be drank also, and with the safeguarding decision once made the waiting became easier. He watched the door into the bar, expecting her to emerge amidst a corresponding roar of farewells, but when she did come, it was quietly, silently, and from another direction. “I managed to get away, old boy, and believe me it wasn’t easy. Come on—let’s go before they find us.”

She led him through another door close by, and up a back staircase to the first floor, turning along a corridor flanked by many rooms; she opened one of them and put a match to a gas jet just inside. It showed up a square simple apartment, containing an iron bed and heavy Victorian furniture. He stared around, then began to protest: “But how can I stay here? I can’t afford—”

“Listen, Smithy—the war stopped this morning. If that’s possible, anything else ought to be. And you’ve got to stay somewhere.” She began to laugh. “You’re safe here—nobody’s going to bother you. I told you I know the man who runs this place—Biffer Briggs—used to be a prize fighter, but don’t let that frighten you. … It’s cold, though—wish there was a fire.”

She suddenly knelt at his feet and began to unlace his boots. Again he protested.

“Well, you
must
take your boots oft—that’s only civil, on a clean bed. I’ll come up again soon and bring you some tea.”

He took off his boots as soon as she had gone, but the effort tired him more than he could have imagined. The day’s strains and stresses had utterly exhausted him, in fact; he almost wished he were back at the hospital, because that at least promised the likelihood of a known routine, whereas here, in this strange place … but he fell asleep amidst his uneasiness. When he woke he saw her standing in front of him, carrying a cup of tea. She placed the cup on the side table, then fixed the blankets here and there to cover him more warmly. She was about to tiptoe away when he reached out his hand in a wordless gesture of thanks.

“Awake, Smithy?”

“Have I been asleep?”

“I should think you have. Four solid hours, and this is the third cup of tea I’ve made for you, just in case. … God, I’m tired—tell you what, old boy, I’ve had just about enough of it downstairs.”

“It’s late, I suppose.”

“One
A.M.
and they’re still hard at it.”

“Do you live here?”

“Not me—I just know the Biffer, that’s all. I reckon
everybody’s
living here tonight, though. Hope the noise won’t keep you awake—it’ll probably go on till morning.”

“I shan’t mind.”

“You sleep well?”

“Sometimes.”

“Lie awake thinking about things?”

“Sometimes.”

“About who you are and all that?”

“Sometimes.”

Her voice softened with curiosity as she looked down at him. “Drink it up, Smithy. What does it feel like—to think of the time before—before you can remember?”

“Like trying to remember before I was born.”

She gave his hand an answering touch. “Well, you’re born again now. So’s everybody. So’s the whole world. That’s the way to look at it. That’s why there’s all this singing and shouting. That’s why I’m drunk.”

“Are you?”

“Well not really with drinks, though I have had a few. It’s just the thought of it all being over—I’ve seen so many nice boys like yourself, having a good time one week and then by the next … Oh well, mustn’t talk about
that
—better not talk any more about anything; you’re too sleepy; and so am I. How about making a bit of room?”

Without undressing, except to slip off her shoes, she lifted the blankets and lay down beside him. He felt her nearness slowly, luxuriously, a relaxation of every nerve. “Tell you what, old boy, I’m just like a mother tonight, so cuddle up close as you like and keep warm. … Good night, Smithy.”

“Good night.”

“And Paula’s the name, in case you’ve forgotten that as well.”

But he felt no need to answer, except by a deeper tranquillity he drew from her, feeling that she was offering it. The crowd were still singing “Knees Up, Mother Brown” in the bars below. It sounded new to him, both words and tune, and he wondered if it were something else he had forgotten. He did not know that no one anywhere had heard it before—that in some curious telepathic way it sprang up all over London on Armistice Night, in countless squares and streets and pubs; the living improvisation of a race to whom victory had come, not with the trumpet notes of a Siegfried, but as a common earth touch—a warm bawdy link with the mobs of the past, the other victorious Englands of Dickens, Shakespeare, Chaucer.

Presently, as he lay listening, he fell asleep in her arms.

In the morning he had a temperature of 103. He didn’t know it; all he felt was a warm, almost cosy ache of all his limbs, as well as a trancelike vagueness of mind. She didn’t know it either, but his flushed face and incoherent speech made her telephone for a doctor. A majority of the other occupants of the Owl on that first morning of Peace were also flushed and incoherent, though from a different cause. The Biffer himself, sprawling, disheveled, and half undressed, snored loudly on a sofa in the little room behind the private bar; Frank, the bartender, boastful of never having touched a drop, languished in sober but melancholy stupor on the bench in the public bar, watching the maids sweep sawdust and broken glasses into heaps. Other persons, including a second bartender, a waiter, and several dilatory patrons who had either declined or been unable to go home, were not only fast asleep in various rooms and corridors, but likely, to remain so till many more hours were past. It had been a night in the history of the Owl, as of the world.

The only doctor who heeded the call proved, on arrival, to be extremely bad-tempered. As she met him in the lobby he took a sharp look round, eyeing distastefully the prostrate figures visible through doorways. “Daresay you know how busy I am—three Bockley doctors down with the flu—I’m trying to do the work of five men myself, so I hope you haven’t brought me here for nothing. I know Briggs—known him for years—he drinks too much and I’ve told him he’ll die of it—what more can I do? A man has a right to die as well as live the way he chooses—anyhow, a doctor can’t stop him. By this time she had led him upstairs and into the bedroom. He walked across to the bed, took one look, and swung round angrily. “What’s the idea? Who is he?”

“He’s been a soldier. He’s ill.”

“But I thought it was Briggs. … You had no right to drag me out here—who
are
you?”

“A friend of the Biffer—like yourself.”

“Well, I’ve no time for new cases,”

“But he’s
ill.
Can’t you see that?”

“How much did he drink?”

“Nothing. It isn’t that.”

“How do you know?”