The Paper Chase (8 page)

“Here’s mud in your eye, Eileen,” said the man with the gold teeth. The parrot woman nodded. Applegate gave a brief cry of pain as his ankle was kicked under the table. Fortunately, it remained unheard at the bar. Hedda smiled at him sweetly.

“Need a drop of brandy to put some warmth into you,” said the gold-toothed man. “Hell of a place, the Kent coast. Hell of a time of year too.”

“Never mind, Barney, we won’t go out on any picnics.” The woman’s voice sounded like a saw cutting wood.

“I got a job of work to do, I like to get right along and do it,” said gold tooth. “Hanging about gives me the itch.”

“You’ve been hanging about just four hours, Barney. And any time the fidgets get too bad, well, you can just go home.”

“You got too sharp a tongue. You know Barney doesn’t mean it.” The man turned to the bar and Applegate saw the great roll of fat at the back of his neck.

Hedda had been fiddling frantically with her handbag. Now she pushed a scrap of paper across the table. Applegate read:

What are you waiting for? Get talking to them
somehow,
spill a drink over him or something.

He snorted, and took their glasses up to the bar, standing next to the man with gold teeth. Did he mean to knock over the man’s drink or not? Afterwards he was never quite sure, but it was a fact that as he turned to take away his own drinks his elbow knocked the man’s brandy glass off the counter to the floor.

“Why, you clumsy bastard,” the man said. With horrified fascination Applegate watched the empurpled swelling of the brutish face, saw the great fists becoming knots. On a screeching parrot note the woman’s voice said: “Barney.”

The fists slowly unclenched. Applegate said rather squeakily: “Terribly sorry. Let me buy you another, what was it?”

“Brandy, large brandy.” The man stared at Applegate while the latter ordered and paid for a large brandy.

“Nasty weather,” he ventured inanely. The big man seemed not to have heard. “Here we are. Good luck.”

“You’re a gentleman,” the woman said. “I can tell a gentleman when I see one. Have you mislaid your thank yous, Barney?”

“Thank you,” the big man said. “Success to temperance.”

“Success to temperance.” Unable to think of anything else to say, Applegate went back to his table. “The cost of living’s getting too high for me. He’s drinking double brandies.”

“You certainly missed your chance. If that had been me I’d be on the way to getting his life story by now. Your technique is…”

Applegate ceased to pay attention. The bar door had swung open to admit Jenks. With him was a young man who stood with his hands in his pockets. Jenks looked at the two standing at the bar, then murmured something to his companion and turned. But he had been seen, and the big man’s voice boomed a greeting.

“Why, it’s Henry. The Archbishop and his new choir boy. Don’t be bashful, Henry, come on and have a drink.”

Jenks hesitated, then advanced with his precise, slightly mincing step to the bar. “That’s very kind of you, Barney. Just a little drop of whisky for me. Arthur drinks only tonic water.”

“And how’s my old chum Henry.” The big man showed his gold teeth and gave Jenks a thump on the back. “What’s Henry here for? Not for his health.”

“Not for my health.” Jenks sipped whisky.

“You’d be silly to come down here for your health. This isn’t a health resort, eh, Eileen.”

“Barney,” Eileen Delaney said.

“Not at all, it isn’t. No healthier than Earl’s Court used to be for Ikeymoes.”

“I am here on a little matter of business.”

“I know your kind of business. You don’t have to come down to Murdstone to do it.”

Jenks said quite softly: “Oh, but I do, Barney.”

The big man swayed a little on his feet. It occurred to Applegate that he was slightly drunk. “Not healthy to do business in Murdstone. Ask Eddie Martin.”

There was suddenly silence in the shabby-smart bar. The barman stopped polishing a glass and looked thoughtfully at some point ahead of him. Hedda gasped and then put her handkerchief to her mouth. Eileen Delaney put down her glass on the counter with a sound somehow decisive. Jenks gave a slight, nervous snigger. Only the boy called Arthur sipped his tonic water, apparently unmoved.

Then the silence was broken. “Eddie Martin,” the barman said. “Isn’t he the one who was staying here and –”

Eileen Delaney said: “Let’s go, Barney.”

Jenks looked maliciously pleased.

“Now you must have the return drink with me, Barney. And you too, Eileen, for old times’ sake.”

Into the assurance of the big man’s voice a whining note entered. “If I’ve said something out of line – shot my big mouth off – you know Barney never means–”

“Have the other half, Barney.” There was the sound of a giggle in Jenks’ voice.

The little woman gave Barney’s sleeve a tug and walked towards the door. Reluctantly he shambled after her. The boy Arthur put his foot out and Barney stumbled. The boy laughed.

“Why, you little runt,” Barney said. Then he stopped. The boy laughed again, a light, pleasant sound. The expression on his face was eager and even exultant. Something bright shone in his hand. Barney muttered something inaudible, turned and went out of the door. A couple of minutes later Jenks and Arthur followed them, Jenks giving Applegate a fluttery wave of the hand as he reached the door.

“Did you see what I saw in that boy’s hand?” Hedda asked. “Was it a knife?”

“A knife or a razor.”

Outside the hotel the old car was parked, but they did not get into it immediately, because Hedda suggested that they should go and look at the sea. In bright moonlight they watched waves coiling and uncoiling from the shore, very much as they had done an hour or two earlier. Hedda’s lips parted as she watched. “Wonderful, isn’t it? So sexy.” She began to sing:

“When they dilute the bay gin, oh, oh, let them play,

When the spire that was once a desire becomes a remember

And our memories fade to the light of a lonely October,

Then nobody knows the trouble I’m in

When they dilute the bay gin.”

The wind howled gently across the beach. Applegate shivered. “I’m cold. Let’s go.”

“Man, there’s no romance in your heart.” They stumbled up the pebbles to the promenade and then over to the car. It started with the usual jolt and pan-clattering sound, but fortunately this time there was no hill to climb. Wind shrieked through the tattered hood. While they bumped their way back to Bramley Applegate shouted his ideas about the scenes they had witnessed.

“That was Barney Craigen, the one Jenks said was a Fascist, and Eileen Delaney. What Jenks said about them seems to be true. Barney seems a fool, I wouldn’t back him against that boy. Obviously they’re two lots of cut-throats after the same thing.”

Hedda had her head done up in a scarf. “What?”

“Two lots of cut-throats–”

“Yes, I heard that. What do you think they’re after?”

“Bogue’s fortune.” He felt the lameness of the explanation. The car stopped with a sigh. “What’s the matter?”

“I switched off the engine.”

“Oh.”

“Can’t hear ourselves talk. That’s a crackpot story about Bogue’s fortune. Why should everyone be hurrying round just now to find it? It’s something hidden at Bramley and connected with the people there, very likely. Do you suppose there are any nice rich skeletons in Uncle Jeremy’s or Aunt Janine’s cupboards that would be worth dragging out?”

“I shouldn’t think so.”

“Neither should I. And I thought you were going to buy me dinner.”

“So I was. I forgot all about it.”

“Doesn’t matter.” She leaned across, and he thought she was about to restart the car. Instead, a powerful arm coiled round his shoulders. Her face loomed before him, large as a cinema close-up. A mouth clamped itself upon his with the intensity of a rubber suction pad. His response to this forceful kiss was rendered less adequate by the fact that he had sunk down into the seat and some hard object was being pressed into his ribs. He wondered for a moment whether it could be her knee, and then realised that it was the gear lever. When he shifted in an attempt to get the lever out of his ribs her anaconda grip moved to his neck. He began to murmur inarticulately, afraid of being stifled. His feet frantically tapped the floor. Suddenly he was released and Hedda sat back on the other side of the gear lever adjusting her scarf. “You don’t know how to kiss.”

He felt his neck. “That’s an extraordinarily powerful grip you’ve got.”

“I told you I lived with a boxer who used me as a punching-bag. I had to develop some kind of resistance.”

“You dug the gear lever into me.”

“Sorry. Cars are never comfortable. What about it?”

“What about what?”

“It’s a fine night. There’s a rug in the back and an awful lot of grass out there.”

“My dear girl.” He was horrified. “You call this a fine night. We should be frozen stiff, very likely catch pneumonia.”

“I shouldn’t be frozen. Feel my hand.” He touched her hot fingers. “I’ve got an electric generator inside me, but I see you haven’t. Would you like the rug round your legs?”

“That’s a good idea.” He got the rug from the back of the car and wrapped it round his legs. They drove the rest of the way home in silence.

“Do you know what I think?” she said after they had put the car away. “I think you’re one of those.”

“You’re wrong.” He added primly: “There’s a time and a place for everything. If I may say so it doesn’t seem to me that your uncle’s therapeutic measures have had much effect on you.”

They stood by the studded iron door, beneath the moulding with the carved initials, “JB.” She had taken off the scarf and stood looking at him with her fair hair tangled, her blue eyes vacant of expression. “I don’t think you understand me. I’m really a one-man woman. Good night.”

Later on Applegate looked at himself in the glass and saw a thin, dark head, eyebrows that almost met in the middle, a weakly, sensitive mouth, irregular teeth. “Can she possibly find me attractive with such teeth?” he asked aloud. He brushed the teeth, but still went to sleep with the taste of her lipstick in his mouth.

The morning brought a return, not exactly to sanity, but to the familiar disorders of Bramley School as distinct from the more exotic ones of Murdstone. There remained in Applegate’s mind a vision of the look on that young boy’s face as the bright thing shone in his hand. He was perhaps no more frightened of violence than are most men. What terrified him about the bright thing in the boy’s hand was that it seemed to represent a world where violence was not exceptional but natural. It was as though the polite stiff clothes of everyday wear had been removed to reveal a rotting body.

It was with a kind of pleasure, therefore, that he ate his burnt toast and drank his lukewarm tea. With pleasure, even, he looked at Maureen Gardner when she came up and whispered to him: “Old Ponty wants you in his room. Soon as you’ve finished.”

“All right. What about classes?”

“Didn’t say anything. Will you come and help me with my thought-paintings?”

“Later on perhaps.” He found Pont in the drawing-room. Mrs Pont sat in the armchair looking grim. Her fingers moved as if she were knitting, although in fact there was no wool on her lap, no needles in her hands. As Applegate came in Pont strode forward and placed a hand upon his shoulder. “My boy, this is a crisis. Look at these.”

They were six telegrams from parents, asking that their children should return home by the first possible train. “I suppose you had to expect them.”

“Expect them. And why?” Pont exploded, like a small furious puffball. “I run a school – let us face it – for delinquent children. Social misfits with damaged personalities whom most people would call criminals. I try to recreate them as whole personalities. I am a man walking a tightrope, you understand, many of these damaged personalities are dangerous. They are young animals who do not like being caged. Through the years, how much trouble have I had? A few broken windows, one or two fights, a little promiscuity. Nothing at all. And now because, for the first time, something happens, how do these free, liberal, enlightened parents behave? They take their children away.”

“After all, it is a matter of murder.” Applegate forbore to mention that only yesterday morning Pont himself had said that the affair meant ruin for the school. Saying it, he realised, was one matter, having it said to you another.

With the air of an Old Testament prophet Pont brushed away the word. “An extreme expression of the anti-social instinct, yes. But I should have thought that those who consider themselves
enlightened –
those who are readers of the
intellectual weeklies
…”

Mrs Pont abandoned for a moment her imaginary knitting, and spoke. “It’s no good, Jeremy. You may as well accept it. We’re finished.”

The words, although decisive, were gently spoken. Yet the effect they had on Pont was to make him crumple up almost visibly, so that he was transformed from an Old Testament prophet strong in indignation to a red-faced baby on the verge of tears. “Finished, my dear?”

This morning Mrs Pont did not stumble over words.

“I’m afraid so. We have to accept that it is all over. After all, you have done enough in your lifetime, you are entitled to rest. Other educationists will follow in your footsteps, respect your name. We have said so for years.”

He listened with babyish pleasure. “I think my name may be remembered, yes.”

“And what were you going to tell Mr Applegate?”

“Tell him? Oh, yes. The fact is – Janine thinks – with this collection of missives in my hand I am unable…” He dabbed at his eyes.

“Shall I explain, Jeremy?” Mrs Pont patted her beautiful silver hair. “Mr Applegate, these notices of withdrawal are almost certainly not the only ones we shall receive. The school will have to close down. There seems no prospect of giving you a full term’s pay.”

Applegate felt much embarrassed. “Naturally, I shouldn’t expect it.”

“Within the limits of our resources we shall –”

“No, no.” Remembering guiltily the success of
Where Dons Delight
he raised his hand. “I couldn’t accept anything at all. It has been an honour to come here.”

“It is good of you to say that.” Pont smiled warmly, sweetly, and turned to his wife. “In the very short time in which I have had the pleasure of association with him I have formed the most favourable impression of Charles. His presence of mind in dealing with Derek a couple of nights ago…” He stopped, evidently remembering the unhappy aftermath of Applegate’s dinner table presence of mind.

“Is there any news of Derek?”

“None at all. I have had long telephone conversations with his father.” From the look on Pont’s face they had evidently not been agreeable. “I greatly fear the poor boy may have done himself some injury. It is not unusual in such cases for the ultimate hatred of society to be resolved by destruction of the ego.”

“The police have no doubt that he did it?”

“I suppose not. Why should there be any doubt?”

“Do either of you know anything about a man named Bogue – Johnny Bogue?”

Applegate watched them both carefully as he asked this question. The watch was singularly unrewarding, for both of them nodded immediate agreement. “He owned this house,” Pont said. “And there was a good deal of scandal connected with him at one time and another. I did not follow his career closely – and of course I should emphasise that I am far from an orthodox Freudian – but from what I remember I should say that he was a typical case of compulsive anal sadism.” He beamed cherubically, pleased to have disposed of Bogue.

“You never met him.”

Mrs Pont replied this time, hands working furiously over imaginary knitting. “Oh, no. He was killed in – 1943, was it? He died in debt, that kind of man is always in debt.” She said this firmly, apparently forgetful of their own financial difficulties. “This house was taken over by the Army. They left it in a terrible state and we were able to buy it for a very low figure.”

Pont had been chuckling away to himself, Applegate presumed in satisfaction at his definition of Bogue as a compulsive anal sadist. Now he said, “I’m wrong, my dear. I did meet Bogue once, in connection with my idea for Unispeka. You remember the universal language, based on psychologically live word-material? No – well, I suppose you are too young. We must have a talk about it some day. At that time, in the mid-twenties, I was an advocate of Unispeka. Later I came to think that a new language would be a mere palliative for the individual problems of human delinquency. Where was I?”

“Your meeting with Bogue.”

“Oh, yes. I met him in connection with the APT – the Association of Progressive Teachers – who wanted to have Unispeka taught throughout all schools as a subsidiary language. He seemed a pleasant young man, I thought, with a great deal of ability, and he asked some questions about Unispeka in the House. Made quite a fuss about it, indeed. I remember that the APT got a great deal of publicity. But Bogue, I am afraid, used the idea as what I can only call a personal publicity device. Later on he dropped it.”

“I see. I heard about him in Murdstone and wondered about his connection with this place.” This explanation seemed to satisfy the Ponts. He left them, after promising to stay another few days.

“By that time,” Mrs Pont said grimly, “a gallant experiment will have come to an end. Education has need of its martyrs.”

He went downstairs to the great dining-hall, and saw nobody. He was going through into the Gothic addition when a voice said, “Here.” He looked round, but saw nothing. “
Here
,” the voice repeated, and Hedda stepped out from what he had supposed to be a cupboard at one end of the dining-hall. She was wearing her usual jumper and slacks, but this morning the jumper was blue-grey and the slacks nigger brown. From her hand dangled a large key. “Mission of exploration,” she said. “Want to search the cellars? All sorts of junk down there – nobody goes down more than once a year. Come on.”

They entered the cupboard, unlocked a door inside it, and went down a flight of curving stone steps. “No electric light here,” Hedda whispered. The glow of her torch showed passages leading away in three directions from the bottom of the stairs. Applegate felt his hair entangled in something thick and clinging. A spider scuttled quickly over his face.

“Which way,” he found himself whispering back.

“We’ll take the left-hand passage, then we can come round into the middle and do the right-hand one last. They all join up.” The left-hand passage took a sharp right turn and led into a storeroom. Here was an accumulation of dust-covered books and pamphlets. In the torch glow he read titles:
Patterns of Educational Life, Ego and Id in Childhood, Revolution and the Child.
How many hundreds of thousands of earnest books and pamphlets gathered dust in cellars like these, he rhetorically wondered? In one corner of the room dust had been disturbed round some large object. Hedda shone her torch and Applegate saw that it was a hand printing press.

“Somebody’s been looking at that.”

She laughed. “Uncle Jeremy used to have a hand printing class – little poetry pamphlets, you know the kind of thing. Return to handcrafts. Then some little devil damaged half the type. Probably Jeremy came down to have a look at it one day, had the idea of reviving the printing class. He’s like that…” She dropped the torch and gave a delicate, ladylike scream. A moment later she was in his arms. The circumstances, the place, and his feelings were all quite remote from those of the previous evening. The kiss he gave her was positively savage, some kind of recompense for a forgotten, secret humiliation. Did this kiss eradicate in some way the discovery he had made on that day at Sanderstead, or did it look further back still? He knew only that through it he experienced some kind of release, that he was glad to be holding the shoulders into which his fingers were firmly digging.

“A mouse ran over my foot,” she whispered. Then she giggled. “Last night I wondered if you were a man or a mouse. Now I know. What’s that?”

From somewhere beyond the storeroom came a scraping noise. It was repeated.

“A large rat.” He dug his fingers more firmly into her shoulders.

“
Listen.
” The sounds continued. Something fell with a clatter. “There’s somebody else in here. You go back the way we came. I’ll cut him off this way. Better not use the torch.”

In a moment she was gone, and he was left alone in the dense darkness. Blunderingly he felt a way along the passage, stumbling over books, until his hands came in contact with the wall. His ability to see in the dark was poor, but he counted paces. When he had counted fifty he guessed that he must be nearing the entrance point and felt around with his fingers, unsuccessfully. From one of the other corridors – was it the middle one? – a light advanced purposefully towards him. It could not be Hedda, since her last words had been that she would not use her torch. Applegate stayed quite still until the light was within a yard of him, then launched himself at it. He struck a hand and knocked the torch from it. Then there was a grunt, something hit him hard on the head and he fell over. Feet clattered on the stairs above him.

“Charles.” In Hedda’s voice there sounded a genuine anxiety. She was flashing her torch from side to side. “Are you hurt?”

“I shall live.” He stood up. “I went for his torch and he was holding it away from him. I knocked it out of his hand, but he hit me on the side of the head. The torch should be around somewhere.”

“Here it is.” She illuminated a cycle lamp on the floor. “You said ‘he.’ Are you sure it was a man?”

“Yes, I think so, though I really haven’t any convincing reason. Shall we go after him?”

“I don’t see much point. Whoever it was must be well away by now. Nobody’s got a key to this cellar except Uncle Jeremy and me.”

“And Bogue.”

“Bogue’s dead.”

“Yes, but I don’t suppose the key has been changed since his time. Anyone who had a key then could get in now. Or it’s easy enough to take an impression of the keyhole. The important thing is that we were right in thinking there’s some kind of secret down here. Where did he come from?”

“I came back down the right-hand passage, he must have come down the middle. There’s a store room in each passage. Let’s have a look.”

The store rooms, like the one they had seen already, were full of junk – bicycles with twisted spokes, a set of Indian clubs, two broken truckle beds, half a dozen damaged desks.

“A trap door?” Applegate poked about. He suddenly felt in very high spirits. “A secret passage? They’re out of favour nowadays, but I should rather like to come across one. Generally rather smelly, I believe, and you have to crawl through them. Here’s an iron ring fixed in the wall. That should have a purpose. If I pull at it…” He did so, without the slightest effect. “You’d better exercise that powerful grip of yours on it.” She did so, with equal unsuccess. “Defeated. Not that I really care. Come here, Gabler.” In the friendly darkness he kissed her again. “Were those stories you told me about delinquency and tea parties really true?”

“Yes.” They began to climb the cellar steps.

“I don’t mind. I’ve always said young men should marry girls with experience. Have you ever thought about marriage?”

“Marriage?” She laughed, and began to sing:

“The man I marry has got to be

As pure and white as a cemetery.

The man I call my own

Must be just as romantic as Franchot Tone…”

They reached the cellar door. Hedda carefully locked it behind her, and they stepped out of the cupboard to see the round face of Maureen Gardner. She surveyed them calmly.

“So that’s what you’ve been doing. Towsing. That’s what the Elizabethans called it, didn’t they?”

“I believe they did.” Applegate tried to suppress an unseemly simper.

“You look pretty much the worse for wear. All dusty.” She began to beat at his clothes. “I thought you were coming to help me with my thought-paintings.”

The brown-faced Deverell suddenly appeared and looked at them curiously. “What’s happened to your head? There’s a bump on it.”