The Book and the Brotherhood (8 page)

Tamar had at last found Conrad. For a while she had sat on a chair in one of the tents and actually slept for a short time. When she came out the sky was light and the sun had risen. The light was terrible. The skirt of her white dress had become mysteriously covered with grey smudges. She felt terrible, like an ugly ghost. She decided to comb her hair with her little comb, then accidentally dropped the comb and did not turn to pick it up. She walked slowly, for something to do and because she might attract more attention if she stood still. Everything about her looked unreal and appalling, the laughter and the music came to her in gusts like little blows, making her blink and frown. Her head drooped, her mouth drooped. She came to the pop tent where recorded music was still being played, was about to pass it, then looked in. In a second the world changed. There he was, Conrad, her tall fellow, leaping, smiling, twirling round and round by himself. Tamar was about to cry out and rush to him. Then she saw that he was dancing with Lily Boyne.

Tamar turned quickly away, raising her hand to shield her face, and began to run away across the grass. She raced, lifting her skirt, through the cloisters and on to the main gate and out into the High Street. The curving High was empty, beautiful, solemn, in the quiet early sunshine. Tamar made her way, desperately, like a fugitive, hurrying now not running. During her run the strap of one of her sandals had snapped, and she hurried on, skipping a little, limping a little, past the silent magisterial buildings which were glowing in the clear cool sunlight against the radiant blue sky. She felt cold, but the coat which, anticipating this chill daybreak, she had brought with her was locked up in Conrad’s car. Fortunately, during the whole nightmare of the dark hours, although she had lost her shawl, she had not mislaid her little evening bag, with cosmetics, money, keys, which she had carried unconsciously looped onto her wrist. She rushed along, holding her dirtied skirt high, her dress crumpled, her hair uncombed, her face unpowdered, in the direction of the bus station. The few early passers-by saw her streaming tears and turned to look after her. As she reached the bus station and boarded
a bus for London all the bells of Oxford were tolling six o’clock.

After Gulliver’s departure, the four in the room did not look at each other. Rose brought the electric fire near to Duncan’s soaked trousers, asked if it was too hot, and commented with a laugh at the steam which immediately began to rise. Duncan replied suitably, said really he was almost dry, not to trouble and so on. Jenkin and Duncan went on drinking whisky. It was agreed to be unfortunate that there was now nothing to eat, Gulliver was blamed for having eaten up all the sandwiches. Jenkin wished he had brought some chocolate, said he had intended to. Gerard and Jenkin discussed whether one of them should sally out to the breakfast scene and bring back some sausages and bread. They wondered if they could now do this without having to queue. No decision was reached. They were all silently wondering if Jean would turn up and what on earth they were going to do if she did not.

After about half an hour Jean Kowitz-Cambus did appear. She clopped audibly, neatly, up the stairs and entered the room already wearing her coat over the famous red dress with black lace which Rose admired so much. Jean had evidently planned her appearance and her entrance carefully. She was already dressed for a quick departure and had attended to her make-up and arranged her hair. Her very dark hair, sleek and glowing like the feathers of an exotic bird, so orderly in its even lines that it might have been enamelled, flowed evenly back from her delicate hawk-face. Her rather stern, though calm, expression relaxed suitably to Rose’s greeting.

‘Darling Jean, you’ve come, oh
good
!’

Rose put her arms round Jean, Jean patted Rose’s shoulder and said how lovely it was to hear the birds singing. Gerard and Jenkin stood back. Then Jean approached Duncan who remained slumped in his chair. She said, ‘How’s the old man? Sozzled as usual? Can someone help him up?’

Duncan stretched out his hands, and Jenkin took one hand and Gerard the other and they hauled him to his feet.

Jean and Duncan then had a conversation. Jean said where was his coat, and he said he thought he had left it in the car, but where was the car? Jean told him where it was, not in the car park, but in a road nearby. They both said it was a good thing it was not in the car park, Jenkin agreed, you could get boxed in, young people were so thoughtless. Rose said lightly that she hoped that Jean was driving, and Jean said she certainly was. Jean kissed Gerard and Jenkin and Rose. Duncan kissed Rose and tried to argue with Gerard about contributing to the tip for the scout. Rose hugged Jean and kissed her and stroked her hair. Then she put her arms round Duncan in a special embrace. Jean told Duncan to come along and took his arm. Amid various valedictory remarks and waves of the hand they took their leave. Their footsteps receded down the stairs.

After a suitable interval of silence, Jenkin stifled a little snort of laughter, then went to look out of the window and compose his face. Rose looked at Gerard who frowned slightly and looked away.

Gerard, expected by the other two to make a statement, said, ‘Well, I daresay it’s all all right, and we won’t have to think about it any more, I certainly hope so.’

‘You may be able not to think about it,’ said Jenkin, returning from the window with a composed face, ‘but I doubt if I will.’

‘Gerard’s good at not thinking about things when he doesn’t feel he ought to,’ said Rose.

‘Or feels he oughtn’t to,’ said Jenkin.

Gerard said briskly, ‘Time to be off. I’ll leave an envelope for Levquist’s chap.’

Rose wished she was going to drive back to London with Gerard, but she had brought her own car, partly because Gerard had said he was driving Jenkin down, and partly because she wanted to be able to leave earlier than the others if she felt very tired. She fetched her coat which she had left in Levquist’s bedroom. They all did a little elementary tidying
up, but their heart was not in it. They went down the stairs and through the cloister and faced the warm sunlight and the deafening chorus of birds and the loud cries of the cuckoo.

Gulliver was having a marvellous dream. A beautiful girl with big liquid dark eyes and long thick eyelashes and a moist sensuous mouth was leaning over towards him. He felt her warm sweet breath, her soft lips touched his cheek, and then his mouth. He woke up. A face was close to his, and big dark beautiful eyes were gazing into his eyes. One of the deer, finding this black bundle curled up under a familiar tree, had thrust a dark wet muzzle down towards it. Gulliver jolted up. The deer sprang back, gazed for another moment, then trotted with dignity away. Gulliver wiped his face, wet with the creature’s gentle touch. He got to his feet. He felt terrible, he looked terrible. He began to walk back. He felt giddy, bright lights danced around him and little black hieroglyphs kept appearing at the side of his vision.

As he emerged, rubbing his eyes, from the archway of the New Building onto the main lawn, he stopped dead. A dreadful and extraordinary sight which he could not interpret met his gaze. Somewhere, how far away he could not at first estimate, for the phenomenon was so odd, a long line of people, two long lines of people, one above the other, were drawn up directly opposite to him and staring straight at him. He felt helpless panic as at some shattering of a natural law. He rubbed his eyes. They were still there, standing rigidly at attention and looking at him in silence. Then he realised what it was. It was the dance photograph. Nearer, with his back to him, the photographer was marshalling his camera which was mounted on a tripod, looking through it at the posed silent ranks which were looking at him. The dancers were immobile, mostly solemn, many of them looking as terrible as Gull, their clothes disordered, their faces bleary with exhaustion, exposed, graceless and haggard, in the cruel light of day. Under the song of the birds the silence of the music made itself felt. Frowning and focusing his eyes Gulliver scanned the large
staring assembly for any familiar faces. He could not see Gerard or Rose or Tamar or Jean or Duncan or Crimond. He spotted Lily however. She was standing beside Conrad Lomas with her arm around his waist. Gulliver began to slink along the front of the building in the direction of the car park. He wondered if his car would be boxed in. It was.

Gerard turned the key in the door and entered the silent house. In the car driving to London he had told Jenkin of his father’s death. Jenkin had been shocked and distressed, and the spontaneity of his grief for Gerard’s father, whom he had known for many years, was touching. But after the first few exclamatory exchanges Jenkin had begun to think, to worry about how much Gerard would suffer, to wonder whether Gerard felt guilty because he had not left the dance at once. Jenkin did not say any of this, but Gerard intuited it behind some clumsy expressions of sympathy and was irritated. He was driving into the sun. He told Jenkin to go to sleep and Jenkin obediently did so, tilting the seat back, settling his head, and going to sleep instantly. The presence of his sleeping friend was soothing, at the moment Jenkin asleep was preferable to Jenkin awake. Coming into London they hit the early rush hour, and as the car crawled slowly past Uxbridge and Ruislip and Acton Jenkin continued to sleep, his hands clasped upon his stomach, his shirt rumpled, his legs stretched out, his trousers undone at the waist, his plump face expressing trustful calm. The sleeping presence, surrendering itself to his protection, calmed Gerard’s painful thoughts, held them off a little, catching their sharpness as in a soft bandage. When they reached the little terrace house in Shepherd’s Bush where Jenkin lived Gerard woke his friend up, came around and opened the car door and pulled him out, not forgetting the little suitcase into which Jenkin had put, so he said, a woollen cardigan to put on if it was cold, and slippers in case his feet became swollen with dancing. The chocolate had been left behind. Gerard refused the suggestion, less than wholehearted perhaps, that he should come in for a cup of tea. They both felt it was time to part, and the door closed before Gerard had even started the car. He had no doubt that Jenkin would go upstairs, undress, put on pyjamas, pull the curtains, get into bed, and fall asleep again at once. Something about the
orderliness of his friend’s arrangements irritated Gerard sometimes.

Now he was in his own house in Notting Hill, standing in the hall and listening. He did not call out. He hoped Patricia was asleep. The house, a fairly large detached brick-built villa, had belonged to Robin Topglass’s father, the bird man, then to Robin. For some time Robin and Gerard had lived in it together. Then when Robin got married and went to Canada he sold the house to Gerard. He stood in the familiar smell and familiar silence of the house, seeing and feeling the presence of the familiar quiet things, the paintings of birds by John Gould which had belonged to Robin’s father, the carved Victorian hallstand which they had bought at an auction, the red and brown Kazakh rug which Gerard had brought from Bristol. The house seemed to be waiting for Gerard, expecting something of him, that he would bring comfort, restore order, take charge. Yet also the house was a spectator, it was not all that involved, it was not a very old house, it was built in 1890, but it had already seen many things. It had seen much, it would see more. Perhaps it was just watching with curiosity to see what Gerard would do. Gerard hung up his coat, which he had brought in from the car, upon the hall stand. He took off his black evening jacket and his black tie. He undid his shirt at the neck and rolled up his sleeves. His heart, quiet earlier, began to race. He took off his shoes and began, holding them in his hand, to mount the stairs, stepping long-legged over the stair that creaked.

On the landing, he saw that the door of Patricia’s bedroom was closed. He did not hesitate but walked on and opened the door of his father’s room. The curtains were pulled against the sunshine but there was a bright twilight in the room. The long thin figure on the bed was entirely covered by a sheet. It was somehow startling that the face had been covered up. The bedclothes had been removed. So had all the paraphernalia of illness, pills, bottles, tumblers, even his father’s glasses had gone, even the book he had been reading,
Sense and Sensibility
. Gerard put down his shoes and crossed the room and pulled the curtains well back. Their movement made a familiar
running metallic sound which, in the particular silence of the room, made Gerard shudder, perhaps at some unconscious memory from a time, much earlier, when he had slept in the room himself. He looked out at the harsh sunlight which revealed the back garden surrounded by an old brick wall dark with grime, the damp mossy rockery, the gaudy rose bushes (Robin’s choice) in full flower, the walnut tree, the many trees in other gardens. He turned and quickly, gently, not touching what lay beneath, drew back the sheet from his father’s face. The eyes were closed. He had wondered about that in the car. He drew a chair up beside the bed and sat down. So lately dead, so only just, but so absolutely, gone. He thought, I shall lie so one day, neatly upon my back with my eyes closed and look just so thin and so long; unless I drown and am never found, or smash to pieces like Sinclair. The face was not exactly calm, but withdrawn, absorbed, expressing perhaps a quiet thoughtful puzzlement, the good kind face, abstracted, already alien, already waxen and very pale above the faint beard, already shrinking, like his father’s face yet unlike, like a work of art, as if someone had made quite a good but rather stolid simulacrum. One could see that the soul was gone, no one looked out, the puzzled look was something left behind, like a farewell letter. He lifted the sheet at the side to look at one of the hands, but quickly replaced it. The hand looked uncanny, more alive, its familiar thin spotty claws relaxed. The neck was darker in colour, sunken, the muscles and tendons prominent, the skin stretched not wrinkled. The wrinkles of the face looked like artificial lines scored in pale thick wax. His father’s face, so long youthful, had lately become very wrinkled, the eyes deep in skinny folds, the lower lids curiously fractured in the centre, forming runnels for a perpetual discharge of moisture from the eyes. These were now dry, the face was dry, the hidden eyes were tearless. Death dries the tears of the dead. The dead dry face looked older, the ageing process, after the great change, being gently metamorphosed. Faster it would go on soon, and faster. His father looked gaunt, a gauntness disguised before by the glow of stoical humour which made every further misery of terminal
illness into a self-depreciating joke. Without the transparentrimmed glasses and the false teeth the mask looked ancient now, the nose thinner, the chin sunk, the helpless affronted mouth a little open. So he had eased himself into death as into a garment which now, perfectly, fitted him.