School for Love (14 page)

‘The rent?’ Felix thought of the visit to the mosque.

‘The rent of the attic. Does she think I ought to be paying?’

‘Oh, no. No, I’m sure she doesn’t.’

Mr Jewel was not listening to Felix’s reassurances.

‘Wonder she hasn’t been in for it. She’s religious, y’know,’ he said in a cracked, humorous whisper. ‘Where I came from it’s all religion; keep the Sabbath like anything they do – lot of Holy Joes but wouldn’t give you what dropped off their finger. D’you think you’d better take her this quid,’ he began fumbling in his breast pocket. ‘Wouldn’t like her letting it over m’head.’

‘I’m sure it’s all right; wait till she asks you.’

‘Ah, well,’ Mr Jewel let his hand drop, ‘I’ve got to give a bit here, y’see, not being a Government official. It doesn’t leave much.’

Felix, brooding over Mr Jewel’s condition, decided the thing to do was to find someone who would help the old man. This brother Samson was the best bet. In his mind, Felix began to formulate an anonymous letter modelled on some he had met in his reading: ‘
To Mr Samson Jewel: Sir, Are you aware that your brother is lying penniless in
. . .’ In his efforts to discover more about Samson Jewel, Felix sent Mr Jewel’s mind back to very early days when he had just left home and set out to see the world.

‘Samson! I met a Falmouth man once who told me Samson became an alderman.’

‘D’you think he’s rich?’ Felix cunningly asked.

‘Maybe. We were both left a bit,’ said Mr Jewel. ‘I remember I lent mine to poor Eli Frobisher. Eli owed money to everyone. It just slipped through his fingers. One day he borrowed twenty pound from a money-lender, had a good binge and shot himself. The only feller I knew that ever got the better of a money-lender.’ Mr Jewel cackled to himself.

‘And what about Samson?’

‘He had a headpiece, Samson. He invested his bit in a business. Sent lobsters and crayfish and such to big London hotels. Did very well, they say.
And
they made him an alderman.’

‘Alderman Samson Jewel, The Town Hall, Falmouth. Sir, Are you aware . . .’

‘Did you come from Falmouth, Mr Jewel?’

‘Near enough. Our old dad was a coastguard. Funny thing your asking all this now, for sometimes lately my mind’s gone back there so I think I’m a lad again. Yes, it’s a funny thing when you imagine you’re only a lad and then you look down and see your own hands like this,’
he fixed his eyes on his hands and murmured: ‘Deary me!’ then, quite suddenly forgetting his hands, he said: ‘The coastguard station was out on a headland. To get to it, I mind, you’d walk a double hedge for two miles with the wind blowing a gale over you.’

‘What! Always?’

‘In the winter anyway. It’d come across there so strong the birds ’d drop exhausted from the sky. Some of them died, too. I remember I found a guillemot once – dead, without a mark on it. I can see that bird lying on the sand now; I can see every feather – the breast so white and silky, the wings folded, the little feet clenched under it and the beak lifted as if it were still driving against the wind. As clear as clear. I’ve wondered often since at God who made these birds so perfect to fly, and the wind too strong for them.’

‘Yes,’ murmured Felix, much affected by the bird that had fallen before the wind perhaps fifty years before he was born.

‘Ah,’ said Mr Jewel. ‘In my head here I can walk again over the cliff-top and see every leaf and stone. And there’s a cove there, the most beautiful in the world, and I’ve seen the world, you know. I don’t speak from ignorance. No, I’ve seen nothing like it, with great caves in the green rock and the sand as smooth as a ballroom floor. The sand went right into the caves – like a carpet fitted everywhere – and when you walked alone, everything was silent, except the sea.’

‘Where was that?’ Felix asked eagerly. ‘What was it called?’

The old man shook his head as though puzzled by the question.

‘What was the name of the cave?’ Felix persisted.

After a pause Mr Jewel shook his head as though he had lost interest: ‘I can’t remember.’ The conversation was at an end.

Mr Jewel shivered a little and, suddenly petulant, said: ‘They’re leaving me out here too long.’

Felix said: ‘Shall I help you in?’

‘No, no. They said stay in the sun until tea-time. But it must be tea-time. I’m getting hungry.’

Felix was getting hungry, too. When Mr Jewel shut his eyes and sat for several minutes as though asleep, Felix got to his feet and whispered quietly: ‘Good-bye, Mr Jewel.’

Mr Jewel answered in a surprisingly firm voice: ‘Goodbye, good-bye. Come again,’ but did not open his eyes.

While his mind was alight with the idea, Felix went over to the post-office and bought an airgraph. He went into a corner to write to Samson Jewel. At the top a line demanded his name and address – and of course some sort of address must be given. Weeks would pass before a reply came and meanwhile Mr Jewel might leave the hospital. After some consideration he wrote: ‘
From: “X”, c/o Miss Bohun, Herod’s Gate, Jerusalem. To: Alderman Samson Jewel, Falmouth, Devon. Dear Sir, Are you aware that your brother Mr Jewel is in desperate straits without home or money here in Jerusalem? Drop a line to “X” if you can help. Yours faithfully, A Friend
.’ When he handed in the airgraph he was relieved that the girl behind the counter glanced neither at it nor at him.

Felix had been afraid that by some super-subtle instinct Faro would know that, despite his reconciliation with her, his mind was still occupied by Mrs Ellis: but Faro still came to lie in the sunlight in his room and at night would push her way in between the covers as soon as he was in bed. He was surprised, and perhaps as much hurt as relieved that the secret workings of his emotions made no difference to her. He accused her: ‘You’re only a little cat. You only want to be warm and fed and made a fuss of. You don’t care for anything else,’ and she yawned enormously, showing the corrugated roof of her pink mouth.

Whenever he was working in his room he was alert for the footsteps of Mrs Ellis, who was more often out of the house than in it, more often out for meals than in. Even Miss Bohun had ceased to complain that Mrs Ellis regarded the house merely as a
pension
and could not be controlled. At meal-times she would look at the empty chair and say: ‘I wonder if our young lady is coming in or not?’ but there was a strain about her forbearance that was less irritated than disappointed. Felix reflected that, after all, Miss Bohun had more to be disappointed about than he had. She had discovered Mrs Ellis and had planned
to make her a friend, while Felix had expected nothing until he met her. Then he had been startled delightedly by the sight of her, and by the luck that brought her to live in the same house and share four meals a day; he could scarcely complain when it became clear that Mrs Ellis intended to share very few meals with them. Her life was lived in some independent way, mysteriously and out of their reach. Miss Bohun’s cheerfulness became subdued. The relationship was clearly at a standstill.

Mrs Ellis was out of the house when, a few days after the visit to the mosque, Felix sat in his room unwillingly overhearing Miss Bohun giving a lesson to Mr Liftshitz. Now that the windows were open, he could hear every word she said. He recognised the exercise as one from the Russian grammar.

‘There are weasels in the palace of the Czar. . . . Weasels, weasels,’ she repeated impatiently, then was forced to spell the word: ‘W-e-a-s-e-l-s, Mr Liftshitz . . . Yes, weasels . . . Oh, something like rats. Now,
do
let us get on. Coachman, bring your drosky nearer. . . . Drosky, d-r-o-s-k-y. What is a drosky? I’ve no idea. Now . . . Tell me a queer story . . . a
queer
story. . . .’

A door opened. Suddenly (it seemed to Felix) the dictation lesson was lost in a babble of voices. The noise grew rapidly. Laughter rose. It was as though an endless stream of persons was pouring into the room below. Faro pricked her ears and sat alert on Felix’s lap. Felix listened intently, but could make nothing of it. Whoever had arrived had evidently settled down to stay. At last, consumed by curiosity, he sorted out what excuse he could give for going down. Miss Bohun had said: ‘Please, Felix, try not to pass through the room when I’m giving a lesson,’ but
there were some excuses that had to be accepted. He decided to go to the privy in the yard.

He shut Faro into the room behind him and quietly, unobtrusively, started down the stairs.

As soon as he had descended half-a-dozen steps, he could see into the room. It was full of women. They were all dressed in black. Some, very old, wrinkled and dark-skinned, were wrapped in black robes from head to foot; but the girls – some lovely girls, pale-skinned, black-eyed, smiling – wore short skirts and silk stockings. Each one, as soon as she glimpsed him, raised a hand to her veil, but seeing at once that he was not a Moslem, she let the hand fall again. All of them, young and old, seemed to be excited and shy; and each, even the oldest, as she caught Felix’s eye, began to giggle.

Miss Bohun was still sitting at the table with Mr Liftshitz; her face had the blankness of someone too lost to express anything. Seeing the others look at Felix, she looked up herself and in her helplessness seemed to snatch at him:

‘Why, Felix, there you are. Isn’t this nice! The ladies of the Imam’s family have paid us a visit. Could anything be nicer? What on earth – I mean, what can we do?’ her voice dropped and she repeated: ‘What
can
we do?’

The visitors – Felix by now had counted them and found there were only thirteen – were sitting wherever possible. A few of the younger girls were forced to stand, but Mr Liftshitz, understanding nothing, remained in his seat like someone stunned by shock, and stared about him with owlish eyes.

The women were grouped round the table like an audience. They were chattering in hushed tones among
themselves, the younger ones going off at times into fits of giggles, but all the time they were conscious of Miss Bohun, alert to be silent should the party begin. Felix felt her dismay; it was painful. Then, suddenly, some solution presented itself. Her face lit up and she brought her hands together: ‘I know,’ she called happily and in a few moments she had hurried from the room and returned again with a piece of halvas on a plate.

‘The very thing,’ she kept saying. ‘The
very
thing. Felix, get a knife from the dresser. Now, cut the halvas into—How many?’ she stood in the middle of the room and turned round as she counted her guests, pointing a finger at each as though they were children. The guests expressed delight and amusement at this behaviour, so Miss Bohun let her voice rise higher and higher as a form of entertainment: ‘Thirteen,’ she concluded, ‘cut it into fifteen pieces, there’s a good boy. You and Mr Liftshitz must share in. How fortunate I noticed this in the kitchen this morning. I think it belongs to Nikky; I will have to pay him for it, still it was a very lucky thing.’

Felix cut the halvas into small cubes and offered the plate round the room. Each of the visitors took a piece and sat holding it until everyone was served. When the plate with two remaining pieces was presented to Mr Liftshitz, he seemed overwhelmed and stammered his refusal, his hands moving, his face twitching in worried nervousness.

‘Oh, well, I’ll have it then,’ said Miss Bohun, and, every piece delivered, they were eaten in unison.

This accomplished, Miss Bohun seemed quite at her ease and she gave her attention to the eldest lady in the room and talked at her fluently in Arabic. The lady smiled broadly, her hand raised to hide her toothless mouth, but
she did not seem to understand what was being said to her. The others kept up their own conversations but their eyes seldom left Miss Bohun. Half an hour must have passed before the eldest lady rose, rather abruptly, and held out a hand to Miss Bohun. Miss Bohun looked disconcerted; she stopped talking, then remembered to rise and shake hands. The others, nudging one another to attention, rose too, and Miss Bohun moving in a circle round the room, shook hands with each of them. Then they adjusted their veils and, all black except for the silken legs of the girls, filed out through the door into the yard. Miss Bohun, with Felix and Mr Liftshitz following at a discreet distance, saw them into the taxis that awaited them. As they went off waving through the windows, she turned back into the yard and let her breath out with relief: ‘
What
an invasion! When they came in my first thought was: “How can we possibly spare coffee for all these . . .” Poor Nikky’s halvas!’ Then she noticed Mr Liftshitz. ‘Dear me, Mr Liftshitz, your hour is nearly up. To-day was not exactly a lesson, I’m afraid, but an interesting experience nevertheless. I hope you profited by it.’ She looked at her watch pinned to her dress and exclaimed. ‘Ten minutes left – now then, let us see how much we can get done. To work, Mr Liftshitz,
to work
.’

She motioned Mr Liftshitz back to the room as though the whole delay had been caused by his folly, and as Felix returned upstairs he heard Miss Bohun dictating at top speed: ‘“Coachman, the postillion has been struck by lightning.” Postillion? Oh, a sort of man-servant. Really, Mr Liftshitz, we’ll get nowhere if you keep interrupting with these questions.’

Although the spring was bright and dry, the night cold held a long time that year. At supper Miss Bohun would say: ‘I usually put the fire away in the spring, but if you
still
feel the cold . . .’ Felix did feel the cold, so also did Mrs Ellis. She said: ‘I’ve never lived in a house as cold as this; it’s like living in a vault.’ One evening when she came down from the attic, Miss Bohun found Mrs Ellis holding her hands to the bar of the fire, her fingers dark with cold.

‘Haven’t you any gloves?’ asked Miss Bohun.

‘No thick ones. I can’t find any here.’

Miss Bohun started her meal, but suddenly, as she was lifting a fork to her mouth, she exclaimed: ‘Oh, I know!’ and, dropping the fork with the food still on it, she rose and ran upstairs. When she came back she was holding a pair of fur-lined leather gloves.

‘Now,’ she announced impressively, ‘these are for you. I’m going to make you a present of them. They were given to me one Christmas by an officer friend who lived here, but I’ve never had occasion to wear them. They’re too good – so you must wear them for me.’