The Centre of the Green (14 page)

Still keeping her head turned away, Mrs. Baker let the rug go, and extended her hand towards her son. But Julian was out of his depth, and still suspicious of the
demand
. “Well, I don’t know,” he said. “Pretend then, Mother, if it’s all you can do,” and Mrs. Baker drew back her hand again.

“Give me your handkerchief, dear,” she said. “I haven’t got one.” She wiped her eyes, blew her nose, and gave the handkerchief back. Then she went indoors to wash the tearstains from her cheeks and bathe her eyes in cold water. Julian, feeling confused and sulky, remained where he was. Something had gone wrong. He had won, he supposed, but after its first successful stages, the
interview
had gone altogether out of his control. “Oh, Christ!” he said. “What does she expect me to do about it?” and took another piece of cake.

When the Colonel returned that evening, Mrs. Baker told him that she had been thinking about Charles’ idea and had decided that it could probably be afforded after all. “I thought
you
might go with Julian, dear,” she said. “You know I can’t bear leaving England.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” the Colonel heard himself saying, “why don’t you come with us. Have a bit of a fling, eh?” and Julian echoed him, “Why not?”

“Oh no, dear,” Mrs. Baker said, “I wouldn’t dream of it. You two will be far better off on your own.”

CHAPTER FIVE

A Wet Week-End

C
harles awoke from a dream of solitude. It had
begun
realistically enough. He was at Victoria
seeing
his father and Julian depart, as he had done that very morning. That was all right; they were as they had been in reality, both quiet, both drab in raincoats and travelling clothes; Julian carried the two suitcases. They were to go by sea from Southampton to Barcelona, then across to Palma by the ferry. All the beginning of his dream, Charles thought as he lay in darkness trying to recall it, had been realistic and natural. He had dreamed even the smell of Victoria, that sour smell of damp and old smoke, laced with the hops from Watney’s brewery close by. The Colonel found a carriage. Julian put magazines on the seat to keep their places, hoisted the suitcases to the rack, and rejoined them at the
carriage
door, where they stood uneasily, making
conversation
. In the dream as in fact, a whistle was blown, doors slammed. Charles shook hands with them both, and said, “Enjoy yourselves. I’m sure you will,” and Julian replied, “Surely”. The train pulled away from the platform, and then, he remembered … then it began to grow strange. It was so vivid. Julian appeared at the end of the train, which was an observation car of glass, as Charles now discovered. Julian said something to Charles, but the
glass cut off the sound. What Julian had said was
important
, but Charles could not hear him, and as he strained to hear, Julian was borne away from him by the train—very slowly, because the train was pulled out like
chewing-gum
, but nevertheless borne away. Backwards. All the time Charles could descry his brother’s figure, could see the tiny mouth opening, the tiny arms making their
important
, futile gestures. Then the train disappeared
altogether
. Already Julian and the Colonel had begun their journey to the sea and the warm south. “What?” Charles shouted, “what did you say?” but it was too late now for that; he should have made the effort sooner. “You haven’t got the message, have you?” a voice inside him said. Nevertheless he was not defeated. Many people had come to watch the train depart; perhaps they had heard, and would tell him what Julian had said. Of course, they were leaving now that the train had gone, but he could stop them. He decided to approach a person in uniform, a porter. “Excuse me——” he said, but he could not hear the porter’s reply either, and, when he tried to question him more closely, the porter went away. Nobody remained on the platform any longer. There was no one left to question. Then the platform itself grew broader. Buildings, carriages, railway lines, the Left Luggage and the loo, all receded. The roof drew back. Charles was alone under the bare sky on a broad and metalled plain. And when he looked down, he saw that he cast no shadow, and so awoke.

He awoke to darkness. Having succeeded in
remembering
his dream, he considered whether to get out of bed and write it all down, so as to be able to discuss it with the group at their Tuesday meeting. But what was the point? To interpret the dream was not difficult. It told him what he and the group already knew, that he lived in isolation.
How to Live Alone and Like It
. There was no
reason to go over that ground again. Lately, and a little to his annoyance, Charles’ position in the group had changed. He was no longer attacked for standoffishness. Instead, the others seemed sorry for him—sorry and
beginning
to be uninterested, because he contributed
nothing
. “You don’t progress, do you?” Ethel had said recently, “not the way we do.” It was true. Progress or regress, there was usually some difference from week to week in their relations with each other and with the world. Only Charles was always the same, and always on the same polite, uninvolved terms with each of them.

He would not bother, then, to write down the dream. Now he must get back to sleep. He closed his eyes, lay on his back, conscientiously tried to empty his mind, and practised controlled relaxation, beginning with the toes. After about a quarter of an hour of this, he was so tense that he decided to try thinking about something definite instead, and so go to sleep by forgetting that he wanted to. What should he think about? His work? There was nothing much in that to occupy his mind. (
Conference Notes. “Harrogate once again made an ideal venue for the annual gathering of the Amalgamated Society of Bathroom Tile and Garden Ornament Manufacturers. An exciting outing to
Knaresborough
Castle formed the climax of the week’s festivities.”
) “What exactly do you do, dear?” his mother had once asked him, and he had replied, “Sub-editing mostly. I check the proofs for stray commas, and try to find
attachments
for our contributors’ unattached participles.” (
Personality of the Month. “Ron Whitstable is the well-loved Secretary of Batter sea Potteries ‘Old Cronies’ cricket team.
Although
crippled with arthritis for the last twenty years, the game is nevertheless no stranger to him.”
) A journalist leads such an interesting life, meeting constantly the people who make the news, and the people behind the headlines.

He looked at the illuminated dial of his watch.
Two-thirty
. How many hours to go? This was a Saturday morning, and he would lie in late—about nine-thirty in summer; in winter, it would be much longer. Late on Saturday, late again on Sunday, back to work on
Monday
—but not, he remembered, this Monday, which was August Bank Holiday. Three days to fill. Not as difficult as Easter though. The weather would be fine. He would go to the Serpentine, and lie in the sun, drugging himself, dazing himself with sunlight, and so the days would pass. A Bank Holiday in the middle of summer was not so bad. Almost, it was something to look forward to. Thinking of the sun, he fell asleep, waking again to the red of
sunlight
behind the eyes.

When he awoke, it was day. There was a thick wedge of sunlight on the carpet beneath the window; it was all the direct sunlight that Charles’ basement ever had, and it extended about four feet into the room. Charles rose, and began the day. The radio announcer spoke of showers, but announcers are often wrong. Charles scanned the sky, and saw no sign of showers. He hurried through his scanty shopping, and had reached the
Serpentine
by eleven o’clock. Already, emboldened by the sun and the clear sky, people were coming from all over Hyde Park to form a queue outside the entrance gate. Teen-agers, married couples, families with children, lovers, pairs of friends, young women on their own, and men of all ages also on their own, they carried towels and bathing costumes, packets of food, inflatable rubber balls, gramophones or radios, beach bags and even (Charles saw at the head of the queue) a guitar.

The queue lengthened more quickly than the people in it moved forward, but they did move forward
nevertheless
. Immediately in front of Charles, three generations queued together; the middle-aged mother and father,
the three children, and the old lady in black. “I’m tired,” the old lady said.

“Sit down under the trees then.”

“I don’t like to.”

“Nobody’s going to look at you. You’re old,” the mother said. The old lady lowered herself to the ground, and sat in the shade, her black stockings and flat-heeled black shoes stretched out in front of her, while the queue passed on.

Soon Charles, clad in bathing trunks, was inside, lying face downwards on his towel in the sun. This was what he had come to do. He lay there as on a raft, the sun warm on his back and shoulders, listening to the surge and murmur of the crowd around him. He was in a
different
element. It had warmth and noise and a scent. He floated in it. It buoyed him up, lapped around him, bounded him on all sides. Yet the noise was not a single noise, the scent not a single scent, but many scents and many noises were blended together, and first one and then another would steal from the general ruck, occupy his attention for a while, and then mingle again with the rest or be displaced by a successor. Suntan oil. Perfume. The distant shrieking of the group by the shower. A shout from the diving board. Sweat. A child collecting empty pop bottles to sell back to the cafeteria attendants. “Aren’t you going to do my back?” Someone on the radio announcing the news. A whiff of the water from someone who had just come out of it. “Well, you are bold, aren’t you? Go on—he’s probably trade.”
Happy
…
happy
…
happy
… where a gramophone needle had stuck in a record. Oranges. Charles lay there, savouring it for a while, then dozed for a while, then tried to read for a while, then dozed again. He looked up, and the soles of a woman’s feet were in line with his eyes. He turned to his left, and there was a gentleman in a silken
slip
, made, it appeared, from a survey map of some part of China. Beyond this gentleman, a young man and his girl lay holding hands. Beyond them a skiffle group had formed, its members sitting upright in a circle, and chanting, “
Freight train! Freight train!
” to a steady
thrumming
from two guitars. From Charles’ right, a voice said, “Thirty-five quid a week actually,” to which another voice commented, “I say. That’s rather a lot to chuck up, even in D’ar es Salaam.”

“And our own house. They’re pretty good to you out there really.”

“Must be.”

“Couldn’t stand it, though. Not any more. I just chucked it all up, and caught a plane back. Cost me a hundred and forty quid actually.”

“Does the firm know you’re back.”

“Not yet. I didn’t bring anything with me, you know. It was just an impulse really. Just three shirts and my other suit. Didn’t even bring my photograph album.”

“Hard luck.”

“Couldn’t stand it.”

A pause. Charles cocked an ear to listen. “You know,” said the second voice as if working it out, “you hadn’t even been married a year.”

“Six months actually. You don’t know what it was like.”

“Well,” the second voice said, “I always thought Eileen was a bit neurotic actually. Sorry, old boy.”

“That’s O.K.”

“Sounds pretty mixed up,” the second voice said.

“Yes. The whole thing’s pretty mixed up actually.”

“What’re you going to do now?”

“Don’t know really. I’m pretty mixed up.”

“Sounds like it. Got a place to stay?”

“I found a room in Bayswater. Just moved in this morning, and went straight round to see you actually. Funny when you think I was in D’ar es Salaam yesterday. Your landlady said you’d be here.”

“Oh. Seen any of the other chaps?”

“No.”

“Not many left around actually. Except old Gaston, and he’s always busy. He’s with Burridge’s now, you know.”

“Sounds his sort of thing.”

“Yes. Works like a black, old Gaston.”

“Always did.”

“Yes, he did really. Like a black.”

“Mind you,” the first voice said. “The blacks don’t really work all that bloody hard, you know.”

“No, I suppose not.”

“Not like old Gaston.”

“You know,” the second voice said, “I’ve got to be getting along soon. Promised I’d meet a chap this afternoon. Glad you found me, though.”

The first voice said, “I’ll stay on here for a bit. Not much else to do.”

“Look me up.”

“Yes, I will.”

Charles heard one of the men get up and begin to gather his things together. Then his attention was
diverted. A woman’s voice said, “Oh, you are awful!” and the feminine feet in front of him kicked out suddenly, and struck him on the forehead. A large pink blonde girl in front sat up in easy consternation. With her was another girl of similar size and colouring, and between them was a man whom Charles took to be Maltese. “I
am
sorry,” the girl said. “It was my friend, teasing me.”

Charles said, “It’s all right,” but the girls did not
forget
the incident. They continued to giggle and whisper about it. Charles did not wish to pretend not to hear them, so he decided to take a swim.

Stepping delicately between the bodies stretched out on the grass, he noticed a bank of cloud growing in the west. Surely the announcer could not be right after all. He waded over the slippery concrete at the edge of the Serpentine, and into deeper water, swimming out until he could see the clock on the roof of the cafeteria. Only five to two. Rain would wreck his programme for the day; he could not idle it away in rain. He swam to a buoy, sat on it, and watched the gloom in the west move across the sky towards him. So swift a change, it seemed, from blue sky and glittering sunshine to purple and the brown tint of approaching rain. He shivered. Already, he could see, the sunbathers were sitting up, donning shirts and jumpers, and some of them, like early deserters from a beaten army, were making towards the shelter of the trees or the changing tents. The first drops hit the water. Charles submerged so that only his head was exposed, and watched first the widening ripples, and then the whole surface of the water broken and flecked. What would the refugee from D’ar es Salaam do now?—sit alone in his rented room, or pursue old Gaston in the rain? Then Charles remembered his own towel and book, still lying on the grass, and swam swiftly to save them from soaking.