The Charioteer (19 page)

“Not for a minute, thanks.”

“How are your drinks?” asked Sandy, who all this time hadn’t been far away. “The usual, Ralph? Oh, by the way, I’m afraid I’ve rather been committing you in your absence. Have you got your car?”

Lanyon’s face shut like a door. Laurie had seen him first take in the room with one angry, summarizing glance. “Well,” he said, “yes and no.”

“If you can’t, never mind,” said Alec easily. “It was just for Laurie. It seems he’s got to run for some godforsaken bus in about five minutes, unless someone can lift him back.”

“Oh. I see. Where to, Laurie? Surely, yes, I can do that all right. I thought Claude wanted a taxi for his bit of rent.” The soldier was still sitting where Laurie had left him, staring in front of him with a glazed, hazy eye. No one seemed to be taking the slightest notice of him.

Beside the fireplace, opposite the toy cupboard, was a gramophone on which Sandy now put a stack of dance records. Two or three couples stood up. They all danced very seriously and correctly, as if they were in a ballroom.

Lanyon said abruptly, “For God’s sake let’s sit down, and tell me what’s been happening to you.” They went over to one of the hessian divans; it was very low, and Laurie hesitated for a moment. Lanyon at once slid a hand under his elbow, and firmly lowered him down. It was smoothly authoritative and unfussy, like hospital. Then he remembered the glove. Lanyon kept the left hand in his pocket most of the time; but it was on his knee now, and Laurie could see that half of it had a padded, artificial look.

“Cigarette?” said Lanyon. Laurie was only just beginning to notice how naturally he did with one hand a great many things for which most people are apt to use both. This is Lanyon, he thought, actually sitting here and lighting my cigarette.

Suddenly Lanyon stared at him and said, “Good God! Don’t tell me they saved that leg for you after all?”

This approach to the matter gave Laurie an oddly comfortable and relaxed feeling. “More or less. They’ve been tinkering with it ever since.”

“Well, I think that’s a bloody miracle. When I saw you on deck, the only thing I couldn’t understand was why they hadn’t taken it off back at the dressing station. But they’d lost most of their equipment anyway, I suppose.”

“I expect so.” For a moment, through the press of their own concerns, there rose between them the shadowy constraint of the beaten army confronting the unbeaten navy, the suppressed withdrawal, the carefully careless tact.

“I’m the one to talk,” said Lanyon. “You know I lost my ship.”

Something in his voice reminded Laurie for the first time that this was rather more than an incident in which one was liable to be killed.

“I just heard,” he said. “I’m sorry. Had you commanded her long?”

“Five and a half months. My first; and my last, of course. In seventeen ninety-eight, missing parts were considered quite amusing, even for admirals, but all that’s terribly dated now. Well, it might have been worse; we were on the way out, not coming back. Really, there are some bloody good surgeons about nowadays. You had a great splinter of bone sticking clean through the dressing into the open air. We had some of those big gunshot jobs in hospital. They seemed to give people hell for months. Does yours?”

“Only off and on. They’ve sent me in for treatment here, to get it fixed up.”

“Why on earth don’t you get yourself transferred here altogether? Isn’t yours one of these temporary dumps? This place is quite good, or so Alec always says.”

“I couldn’t do that,” said Laurie, with an absurd prick of anxiety. “I only come in twice a week.”

“Oh, well,” said Lanyon. He picked up their glasses and made for the table, at the last moment noticing that Laurie’s was nearly full and putting it back.

While they had been talking, two or three more people had arrived. He realized that a young man, one of the newcomers, was threading among the dancers in a purposeful way, and was plainly making for the place beside him. Just then Lanyon came back. He stood over the young man, quite quietly, with the kind of expression a captain uses on a tipsy passenger he has found exploring the bridge. “Excuse me,” he said. The young man flinched like a startled fawn, and hurried away.

Lanyon sat down again with what, Laurie supposed, must be his fourth or fifth double. He seemed as self-possessed as if he had been drinking water. His voice had got louder, but so had Laurie’s; it was the only way of making oneself heard. Except for two people in a far corner who seemed to be holding hands in dead silence, they were probably the quietest couple in the room.

“I nearly didn’t come tonight.” Lanyon stared for a moment unseeingly at the dancers, then added circumstantially, “I was working on something and nearly forgot about it.”

“I refused twice,” said Laurie. “The third time Sandy happened to mention you, or I’d have refused again.”

Lanyon’s light eyes lifted, sharply, under his straight fair brows. Laurie remembered the look.

“You don’t know him well, then?”

“I don’t properly speaking know him at all. We knew each other by sight at the hospital. Till we ran into each other this evening, I didn’t know his name.”

“Oh?” said Lanyon without much expression. “Then which of these people have you met before?”

“Only you.”

He hadn’t meant to give this simple statement of fact any special significance. For some reason which he couldn’t understand it seemed to go on ringing, like glass picking up a note. Alec, he thought, tasting his drink again, was inclined to mix them strong.

“He will drown them,” Lanyon said. “Give it me, and I’ll tip it out and give you another.”

“This one’s all right.” However, since Lanyon looked impatient he finished it fairly soon. It still embarrassed him to have Lanyon wait on him. He watched him elbowing his way through the dancers, and saw someone snatch the empty glasses from him, and try to make him dance. He refused smiling; then at something the other man said he seemed to grow suddenly angry, and walked sharply off.

He sat down in silence with the two drinks and then, when they had scarcely started them, said, “For God’s sake let’s get out of here.”

“Are you due back on duty?”

“I said let’s get out, that’s all.”

“Isn’t it a bit early? I shouldn’t like to upset Alec, he seems rather nice.”

“If it’s Alec you want, I’ll fetch him for you.”

Laurie looked up; he couldn’t think of anything to say. Lanyon said, “Sorry, Spud.”

He gave the drink in his hand a look of cold irritation, as if someone had planted it on him, and put it up on a bookshelf near by.

“It doesn’t matter,” Laurie said. “We’ll go if you’d rather, I don’t mind.”

“No, it’s his birthday, I suppose there’ll be some nonsense with a cake. We’ll give it another minute or two.”

Someone dancing by leaned out (the dancing had grown a good deal less conventional) and called, “What’s he got that I haven’t?” Lanyon’s reply was swift and explicit; he added, “Go to hell.” Turning to Laurie he said, “This party’s deteriorating,” then, “Are you all right, Spud? You look a bit done in.”

The knee had started, but not specially badly; it was rather better than it sometimes was by this time of night. He hadn’t been thinking much about it, except as a background like the gramophone. As a rule, he hated to think that other people could notice anything, but, he thought, when most people asked these questions you could see them hoping to God you would say everything was fine, and they needn’t do any worrying. Lanyon sounded different: he even made one feel that some real, effective potential was actually being offered. It was absurd, but very comforting.

“I’m all right,” he said.

“Yes, I know, you feel like a million dollars. Only I’m going to get you out of this and back to bed.” He stood up and held out his hand.

“No, thanks, it isn’t anything. I’m not tired. The leg gets up a bit in the evening, but you don’t get anywhere taking notice of it.”

“Just a minute,” said Lanyon. He went out of the room and, when he came back, took the handkerchief from his breast pocket with three tablets in the corner. He slipped them to Laurie and said, “Try that. Alec gave it me for the toothache once.”

Laurie took the tablets. On a sudden impulse he said, “Thank you, Ralph.”

Ralph smiled at him. It was an odd smile, with a practiced charm which it was impossible to mistake, and yet with something curiously vulnerable and defensive in it. Laurie felt an inexplicable urgency to be kind, for which he could find no expression.

“What treatment are they giving you?” Ralph reached up absently to the shelf and recovered his drink again. “God, I can see you now, with those filthy bandages black with blood, and the bone sticking out of them. D’you know how I came to find you? I was called to settle an argument on whether you were dead. I was rather busy just then; I remember asking what the hell I was supposed to do about it if you were, and did they think I was Jesus Christ? I didn’t come for about five minutes, and by that time you were sufficiently alive to hand me the biggest raspberry in living memory.”

“Don’t keep telling me that. I was just being funny with myself. I’d have said it to anyone.”

“You looked me straight in the eyes and brought it out snap.”

“I couldn’t tell you from Father Christmas. I don’t think I’d remember it at all if someone hadn’t told me about it afterwards. I’m only surprised that you recognized me. I can imagine how I looked from seeing the others.”

Ralph gave him a narrow, silent look. “As a matter of fact, I recognized you then more quickly than I probably should have at any other time.”

Some warning sense made Laurie look up; the dancing was getting spirited, and a couple was gambolling heavily toward him. With a flinching anticipation he saw them about to collide with his leg and tried to get it out of the way. Ralph was quicker: leaning out, he handed-off the dancers with such force that the near one almost fell over, regaining his balance, indignantly, some yards farther on.

“Why the—can’t you look where you’re—well going, you—?” If Laurie had imagined Ralph as a captain before, he now glimpsed him vividly as a first mate. The dancer said, “Well, really, I’m sorry I’m sure, but there’s no need to speak to me like
that.
” Ralph’s only reply was to stare him out; Laurie could hear him working off his protests on his partner halfway around the room.

“Hell,” said Ralph, “that settles it, we
will
go.” Just then, however, Sandy made an entrance, carrying the cake. Candles were lit and everyone stood around to see Alec blow them out. Sandy watched proudly at his elbow; someone said, “Have you wished?” and Alec paused for a moment, concentrating like a child with shut eyes, before he blew. Watching, Laurie was aware of some inward change in the group about him, a hopefulness, a wistfulness; they looked at the little ritual as though it were an affirmation of something doubtfully promised, or insecurely held, a symbol of stability, of permanence and trust. He thought of the white toy cupboard, the window bars, the place for the gate on the stairs.

Alec’s health was drunk. “Happy Birthday” was sung, and the moment of sentiment was over; a reactive rowdiness at once set in. Ralph and Laurie hung about in the middle of the room, waiting to say goodbye, but Alec was telling a story and couldn’t be detached at once. It was during this wait that someone came up whom Laurie recognized as the dancer Ralph had sworn at. He smiled at Ralph—he had a smile which looked as if he used it more often than not on people he disliked—and said, “My dear,
what
have you done with Bunny? Couldn’t he get away?”

“He’s working late,” said Ralph. “He’ll be along soon, I expect.” His voice was extremely cool and steady. There are moments when one is aware of an actor using his technique in social life, and this was a professional manner too, but the profession was different.

“Well, I must say, I
am
relieved. Claude said to me only just now, ‘Ralph’s arrived on his own, does it
mean
anything?’ You know what a bitchy little number
that
one is.”

“What am I supposed to do?” asked Ralph calmly. “Bring Claude a duty sheet to show him why we can’t all knock off at five?”

“Take my advice, my dear, and don’t tell him anything. You know I don’t tell tales out of school.” He looked at Laurie and back to Ralph again, gave a sudden startled giggle, and disappeared into the crowd.

Ralph said, “Alec’s a fool to let Sandy bring people like that here.” Then he looked straight at Laurie and added, “Bunny’s a friend of mine, as I suppose you gathered. We’re both working on the same job, more or less.”

“That’s a bit of luck for you both,” Laurie said quickly. At a deep level of irrationality, too stupid to let oneself think about, he felt sore because Ralph hadn’t told him before.

Ralph said, “Laurie, would you mind waiting here for a minute or two? I think I ought to make a phone call before I go.”

“Of course.” There had been something deliberate in Ralph’s calling him Laurie again, it put time in remembrance.

The music had started again and the dancing was beginning. Ralph said, “Will you be all right here?” and helped him down on one of the divans against the wall. “You can look after my drink for me; here’s yours.” He put them down on the floor and, as he stooped, said softly, “Don’t go away.” It was a quick throwaway, done with great charm and at the same time discarded, as if to say, “You see what nonsense amuses some people.” Laurie felt a sadness pressing on him from he did not know where. He smiled and settled his leg and said, “Not going is the thing I do best.”

After Ralph had gone he felt suddenly isolated. In the bookshelf behind him he saw a binding he knew. Its schoolroom shabbiness was friendly and he took it down.

Soon cool drafts of air began to reach me; and a few steps farther I came forth into the open borders of the grove, and saw the sea lying blue and sunny to the horizon, and the surf tumbling and tossing its foam along the beach.

I have never seen the sea quiet round Treasure Island. The sun might blaze overhead, the air be without a breath, the surface smooth and blue, but still those great rollers …