The Japanese Girl (24 page)

The man in the dark coat finished stubbing a finger into his pipe and moved off; his figure disappeared suddenly in the shadow of the cloister and might never have been there. Kendrick frowned. Then he saw it again.

‘Clamp,' he called. ‘I say, Clamp!'

The figure stopped and turned. It took its pipe out of its mouth and stared.

‘It
is
Clamp!' Kendrick exclaimed as he came up. ‘Well, my saints, what a chance!'

Clamp narrowed his eyes. ‘I'm sorry, I don't think I know you, sir …' He hesitated. ‘Or it can't be … is it Kendrick?'

‘Right first time,' Kendrick laughed, and they shook hands. Clamp's hand was cold and clammy and had no grip at all. He had begun to smile but the smile had withered on his face.

Kendrick said: ‘I don't know what the chances are against this happening! What on earth brings you here this afternoon of all afternoons? I haven't seen you since I left school, and I've only been back here twice in all these years!'

‘It's not perhaps such a coincidence,' Clamp said stiffly. ‘I come quite often. I live only a mile or two away. Perhaps you didn't know that, what?'

‘I certainly didn't. I live in London. I'm carrying on my father's firm – estate agency, you know – and had to come down here about the Compton estate which we're handling … And you? You're fatter, of course, but I'd know you anywhere. You haven't really changed.'

They began to walk together along the cloister and then out of Small Quad and beside the Second XV football pitch. Kendrick had not been a close friend of Clamp at school – a rather intense, humourless type – but after the creeping melancholy of his own company he was delighted to find someone of his own year to talk to. He ignored Clamp's cold manner and tight-drawn mouth and chatted on about Staggers their housemaster who had died ten years ago, about Mortimer who had done so well in oil, about Press and Harris who had been killed in an accident and Valentine who had made the England rugger team and now was apparently in some dead-end job in Hove.

The sun had gone and the twilight was shorter than usual because of the heavy clouds blowing up from the west. Clamp, Kendrick thought, might have been a bit middle-aged at eighteen; it was equally true that at forty-six he didn't seem to have lost his schoolboy words and mannerisms. He was behaving now like a sulky boy. Or perhaps it was more than that. His knuckles were quite white where they gripped his pipe.

‘Is something the matter, Clamp? Have I said something out of place?'

Clamp stopped. ‘Mean to say you don't remember?'

‘Remember? What?'

‘The last days of our last term, Kendrick. Before we both left the old school for good.'

Kendrick stared. ‘Not a thing. Should I?'

‘Mean to say you don't remember about Veronica Fry?'

Kendrick's greying eyebrows came together in a frown. ‘ Veronica Fry? I remember the name … But of course! She was that glamorous town piece we were both taking out that last term!'

‘She was the chemist's daughter,' said Clamp coldly.

‘Dear little Veronica. How that brings back memories!' Kendrick sighed. ‘Well, well. Oh, yes, of course, we had words about her, didn't we.'

‘We did. You called me a tin-pot Romeo and a dirty skunk!'

‘Did I?' Kendrick chuckled. ‘I say, that was going it a bit, wasn't it? Tell me about her, I remember the row but forget the exact details.'

‘You said I was behaving badly towards her by not inviting her to that Breaking-up Concert on the Wednesday. You said I'd been making up to her all term and was then just going to walk out of her life. You said I must be ashamed of her and, just to prove
you
were not, you were going to invite her to the concert yourself!'

‘Ah, yes. Go on, go on. I remember I read you a bit of a lecture, didn't I.'

‘If calling me a dirty skunk can be called a lecture. Don't you remember the rest?'

‘No.'

‘I said: ‘‘All right, if you think I'm a dirty skunk, we'll meet tomorrow morning, behind the chapel, and I'll teach you which of us is the skunk!'' '

‘Yes, I do remember now. Funny to look back …'

Clamp's story had indeed brought back many memories. Discipline had been fairly lax under Staggers just before he retired, and as prefects that last term or so they'd been able to do much as they liked. Of course it had all been painfully innocent and very respectable. ‘Taking out a town girl' hardly described the meetings in a bun shop, the stolen half-hours on the river, the rivalries and pairings that took place at the School Dance which was given every December in the Town Hall But at the time it had all been breathless and dashing.

‘And what happened?' Kendrick said.

‘When?'

‘About our fight behind the chapel?'

‘You never turned up.'

Kendrick roared with laughter. ‘Of
course
! I remember now! Did you ask Veronica to the concert after all?'

‘Yes.'

‘I didn't go. I suppose it was a bit of a trick, old man, really. You see, I never had the least intention of asking her to the concert, or anywhere else – not because I was ashamed to, or thought you were, but because I'd found another girl and wanted to take her to the flicks instead. Veronica was dead set on going to the concert, and I was afraid I'd be let in for taking her if I didn't goad you into smart action. It was obvious you were getting a bit tired of her, too, and I had to make you keener again. Well, there's nothing like a little rivalry … I find it in my profession constantly; two people after the same house, as it were; it makes all the difference. I wonder you didn't tumble to it because if I'd
really
wanted to take her I shouldn't have lectured you on doing the straight thing!'

‘And the next morning?'

‘I remember did set my alarm for six. I was quite willing to punch your nose if you wanted me to. But lying in bed I thought, what price glory! I'm going to have another hour in bed. And I did!'

‘You never turned up!'

They had crossed beside the cricket pitch and now stood in the shadow of the school chapel. Clamp stopped. ‘You never turned up,' he said again.

‘Well, there was another reason. This other girl I'd dated – I
wish
I could remember her name – Mary something, was it? – she'd quite caught my fancy, and I was meeting her again that last afternoon before I caught the train home. And I thought: what a fool I'll look turning up for my appointment with a black eye and a swollen nose. I was rather vain about my looks in those days!'

Clamp wrenched his arm free. ‘You never turned up and you never explained; I never saw you again from that day to this. That's what
I
call the act of an absolute rotter – a dirty skunk, in fact!'

‘Oh, come off it, man,' Kendrick exclaimed, irritated himself now. ‘ Keep the thing in proportion. It all happened
twenty-eight
years ago. That's more than a quarter of a century. I'm prepared to admit that you've a marvellous memory but –'

‘My memory's quite a normal one. It shows what a shallow cad you are that you should have forgotten all about it!'

They had come to a stop again in the shadow of the trees. Kendrick shrugged his shoulders. ‘ Well, really, if that's the way you feel I think it's time you went to see a psychiatrist. I'm really sorry for you. I never heard a man talk such damned rot in my life, and I'll wish you good afternoon.'

‘Wait!' Clamp caught his arm as he turned. ‘It may be a quarter of a century since I issued that challenge but it still stands! And you've insulted me afresh over and over again this afternoon. Here we are, in just the spot behind the chapel, where we agreed to meet. Now put up your hands!'

Kendrick stared at the other in incredulous astonishment. It was now dusk. There was no one about, and the gardeners if they were still working were right round the other side of the school.

‘I'll do nothing of the sort. Take your hands off me, you silly man!'

Clamp's answer was to release him and give him a hearty painful thump on the ear. Kendrick saw red. He swung round-arm with his fist and caught Clamp on the side of the jaw. Clamp hit him in the eye.

They closed, two middle-aged portly men, out of temper and out of condition. They grappled like elderly dinosaurs, broke apart, came together again; then they fell into the bushes with an enormous thump and flurry and crackle of leaves.

In half a minute the years had rolled away; Clamp had Kendrick by the arm and was trying to twist it; but Kendrick heaved Clamp off him and fell on him as he tried to rise. Stertorously they rolled over.

Then as they struggled another figure appeared from round the corner of the chapel. Although the school had broken up yesterday the Head had not yet discarded his gown.

They both saw him at the same moment. They both stopped fighting. Then Clamp muttered ‘
cave
!'

They both scrambled up to go. The Head had not seen them yet but he was coming in their direction. Kendrick moved to duck towards the chapel alley, but Clamp caught his arm. ‘ No, that way's blocked! Follow me.'

Clutching battered hats, they crawled panting through the shrubbery towards a five-foot brick wall.

‘Who's that!' said a voice behind them. ‘Who's there?'

‘Quick, this leads into Goodwin's Lane,' Clamp whispered. ‘ Then we're safe enough …'

He tried to lead the way but the wall was too much for him. His brown suède shoes scrabbled ineffectually at the mortar.

‘Here, let me.' Kendrick knelt down and gave Clamp a hoist. Clamp arrived at the top of the wall, balancing precariously like Humpty-Dumpty; he lent a hand, and with its help Kendrick joined him. A black chasm yawned.

‘It's a bit farther this side,' Clamp panted.

But the Head was pushing his way through the shrubbery. They jumped, landed on all fours in muddy earth. Clamp managed to get up first. Again he gave Kendrick a hand, and then they both made off like thieves towards the lights at the end of the lane.

After a minute Kendrick said: ‘ I don't think he was near enough to recognize us.'

‘Not you, certainly,' gasped Clamp. ‘But I've met him two or three times. It would be damned undignified to be caught out like that!'

As Kendrick remembered this lane it led to another which ran beside a stream into the little town; but when they came out he stared about in surprise. A town street brightly lighted; the stream had disappeared; modern villas lined the road, and then shops.

‘It's a bit different since our time, Kendrick,' Clamp said. ‘The school's practically surrounded these days.'

They stood there regaining their breath and brushing themselves down. Kendrick's ear felt too big for his face, and Clamp's nose had been bleeding. After a minute Clamp hesitantly raised a hand and began to brush down the back of Kendrick's coat. They were thick with dirt and leaves.

‘What time's your train, Kendrick?'

‘Six-forty. If I turn left here it'll lead to the station, won't it?'

‘Yes. I'm coming that way, too.'

They walked off together in silence. Clamp dabbed his nose. He grunted and hesitated once or twice and then said: ‘Don't know what got into me just now, Kendrick. Seeing you after all this time, it just bubbled up. And the way you treated it, as if it was a joke.'

‘Well,' said Kendrick, his good humour never far away, ‘I must say I didn't come back expecting anything like this!'

They walked down the street into the town.

‘I remember this part now,' Kendrick said. ‘That's the old bookshop, isn't it. And the place where they sold those hot buns.'

‘They were first-class, weren't they.'

‘Yes, Clamp, it all comes back.'

‘Remember what a row there was that time Johnson was caught smoking in the White Hart?'

‘Good Lord, yes.'

Clamp brushed a last bit of moss from his lapel. ‘ Maybe you've time for a cup of tea, Kendrick? What time does your train go? Oh, yes, you've told me. Well, there's half an hour yet.'

They had stopped outside a tea-shop.

‘Well, I really should be getting along.' All this horseplay had touched up the rheumatism in Kendrick's shoulder. ‘I can get something at the station.'

‘Nonsense; I owe you that, at least. I've got to go in here and a cup of tea will do us both good. Come along, my dear fellow. I insist.'

Kendrick hesitated and then gave way. At the door of the shop they each waited for the other. ‘ No,' said Clamp heartily. ‘You first, Kendrick; you're my senior by three months.'

They went in. The shop was crowded, but Clamp led the way clumsily but unerringly to a corner table at which sat a plump, grey-haired lady.

‘Darling,' he said nervously, ‘ sorry I'm late. I bumped into an old school-friend of mine up there. Name of Henry Kendrick. Wonder if you'll remember him. Kendrick, may I introduce you to my wife. Perhaps you'll remember her better under her maiden name of Veronica Fry.'

I had known Sam Taylor for years but never closely, for we really had nothing whatever in common. As a member of my club, he was often in and out, and we spoke sometimes; but really we belonged to different sets. D'you know. He was a journalist, partly free-lance, and therefore led a precarious life, sometimes in the money, when he spent lavishly and drank himself stupid, more often on the verge of being broke, when he wasn't above touching his friends. Hail-fellow-well-met. I never actually disliked him because he was too unimportant to rouse any strong feeling either way, and at his best he was boisterously witty. He played snooker well, usually with a long cigar wobbling between his yellow teeth; and I do not play at all. He couldn't stand bridge and this is my great recreation. By profession I am a solicitor, and I am known in the art world.