“My father said I needn’t make my Confession until I felt like it.”
He was tired of the whole thing; all he wanted was to forget about everything not immediately connected with the present. Today was Saturday and a few hundred yards away was the beach.
“Even Protestants acknowledge the Ten Commandments and ‘honour their fathers and mothers in the days of their youth’. Your father has evidently changed his mind; very possibly he has prayed for guidance in making his decision.”
It was Mother of course; he couldn’t very well explain that to Victor, it would take too long; and in any case being a Jew a Convert and a bachelor he could not possibly understand that a woman, and a clergyman’s wife at that, could ever rule a household as she ruled theirs. Mother must have decided that a little spiritual pressure should be put on him and had probably dictated the letter which Father had written. He was more determined than ever that he would not go to his Confession without making some show of resistance.
“But the Doctor sir. He didn’t think I ought to go yet.”
“That, if I remember rightly was some time ago. You have certainly seen no doctor in the past eight weeks of the present term.”
The voice, remorseless and inexorable, continued to enunciate the syllables beside him. They moved gently together from sun to shadow and then back into the sun again as they circled the inside of the standing yews. Mr Victor’s hand had now rested so long above his elbow that the heat from it was perceptible to his skin. The smell of his pipe-smoke, bitter because it had reached the wet section of the tobacco, made him feel sick. It stirred the memory of the Sergeant’s pipe in the far-off days of ‘punishment drill’ at the Abbey, it reminded him of the escape to David’s wedding, and of Victoria.
“After all,” his voice was high and strained even to his own ear, “I didn’t do anything sir. I did nothing; I want to forget it. It’s two years ago and I want to be left in peace. I don’t want to make my confession. He should make his confession; they should find him and make him go to his confession before they hang him. That is what they should do.” He took in a deep breath. “But even though they’ll never forget and though I’ll never forget, they’ll never find him; never!”
Mr Victor had stopped. John saw his blurred outline in the shade cast by the tall hedge. There was silence and his pipe lay neglected in his hand.
“I am sorry John that it should have been necessary to upset you like this. Your response to my suggestion only makes me feel more sure than ever that it was and is a good suggestion, that your need of absolution is very great.”
There was no more that John could say.
“But quite apart from that, there is your mother’s point of view, and that is expressed in this letter.” Slowly he produced a letter from his pocket, clean and uncrumpled; he held it out and John saw the familiar eager handwriting.
“Need I read it to you, John?”
He felt the infuriating prick of tears behind his eyelids. Mr Victor spoke very softly.
“Peter has very kindly arranged to go with you to Father Delaura at five o’clock this afternoon and I have suggested that you might have tea together at Bobby’s at four-fifteen.”
“Yes sir.”
“You will not keep him waiting, will you John? Peter is a very unselfish boy and is giving up a part of his afternoon on your behalf.”
“That is very kind of him.”
“Very well then, there’s no more to be said. I have some writing to do in my Study so I must leave you now.”
He walked away as far as the yew hedge gap where he stopped and turned.
“And Bowden?”
“Yes sir.”
“They will catch the criminal, you need not fear—sin never goes unpunished.”
The olive-grey face turned, the hooked nose was no longer silhouetted against the dark hedge, the dumpy short-necked figure passed out of his sight and he was left alone standing in the rose-garden beneath the cloudless sky.
He lay prone on the high terrace of the pebbles, his head pillowed on his folded arms. Below him he could hear the shouts of the bathers as they tumbled in the sea and all about him were the casual voices of the beach parties: the laughter or wails of young children, the clucking of mothers, and the irascible tones of fathers down for the week-end. The sun was warm on his back and he dozed indulgently, enjoying the unreality of the voices, the sense of detachment which is experienced when the eyes are half-closed and the body relaxed.
It was extraordinary how easily the World receded under such circumstances; trivial remarks overheard, the most banal of conversations, assumed the immediate poignancy of an out-of-date photograph or gramophone record so that it became increasingly difficult to believe in the importance of anything, and the whole world, the entire generation of one’s own time, became unreal and somehow purposeless—no more momentous or meaningful than the calls of children at play.
In the wind which blew from the direction of the bandstand he could hear the muted blare of a military concert and nearer at hand the flapping canvas of the bathing tents lined up below the promenade. By opening his eyes he could see the group of girls whom he so ardently longed to know and to whose conversation he had listened greedily nearly every week-end for the past eight weeks.
He knew their names now: there was Audrey of the brown skin, always sunning herself scientifically and delighting in having someone massage sun-tan oil into her back. There was Sheila, a nearly silver blonde of exquisite fragility who rarely bathed but always posed herself on a cushion with her knees drawn up to her chin as she sat no more than ten yards from his speculative eye. There were two or three others, not such constant beach-fans, casual droppers-in who would arrive with shrieks of greeting, stay for a time making-up their faces or running down for a quick peck at the sea and then departing as gaily and suddenly as they had come. He thought of them idly as migrants like the swallows arriving at the twitter of noon, skimming the sunshine of the day and then loudly and rather churlishly going off about their small perpetually delightful and exclusive concerns.
There were, too, of course, the men; rarely the same ones for long, who made up the numbers at different times.
Together the parties provided a never-ending source of pleasure to him; a pleasure sharpened with the salt of pain in his longing to join in their remote and apparently eternal gaiety, to be one of their number: a ‘Jack’ or a ‘Bill’ rubbing oil into Audrey’s back or twitting Sheila about her shyness of the water, cracking easy jokes and making retorts at which they would be bound to laugh; and then casually, as though it were nothing at all, making a date for the same evening or the next morning.
Profoundly, he desired to be older different not so serious, to be able to speak their facile language and be a master of their unselfconscious behaviour. So much did he long for this ease that his isolation and the fact that he dared never properly get to know them because of his increasing terror of Mr Victor, were both a comfort to him, a barrier behind which he could shelter dreaming impossible dreams which he would never have to act out.
He tried to persuade himself that one day when he was older, as patently mature as a ‘Bill’ or a ‘Jack’, as bouncingly ‘slick’ as a ‘Kit’ or a ‘Tony’, he would automatically inherit the franchise so obviously enjoyed by all whose education and surveillance was finished and done with; that he would be able to assume the sureness of purpose and ease of manner which was theirs. But secretly he knew that this would never be so, that all his life he would have to guess at behaviour, walk carefully, and watch as narrowly as a tramp at table.
They were quite friendly towards him nowadays, quite often smiled at him when there were no other men with them and he was sure that sometimes they wondered about him, that they even talked about him when his back was turned, when he made his way down to the sea, or went into his tent to change before returning to Rooker’s Close. They probably wondered why he was so remote, why, on the one occasion they had offered him a cup of te
a from Audrey’s thermos flask, he had so diffidently refused it.
But he knew they were not greatly interested in him, that unlike nearly all the other odd men of their acquaintance he did not count; at sixteen he was too young for them. His arrival never occasioned the least change in their attitude to one another, whereas it had often amused him to see that the appearance of their own escorts invariably had its effect on their relationship.
Sometimes they would be dull, scarcely speaking to one another, their conversation monosyllabic and snippety, their self-preoccupation as intense as that of cats at a saucer; then, the moment one or two of their men had arrived, they would become gay and alert, newly fond of one another, sitting close together, enjoying shared and tantalising jokes which no matter how hard they were pressed they would not divulge. Later, when the men had gone, their vivacity would for a time be sustained like the brightness of a blown ember and would take quite some time before it dimmed and let them relapse into their former dullness.
At other times there would be quite a contrary effect; they would be sharp with one another, glancing brightly when they spoke, collecting their things with terrible efficiency and politeness and saying goodbye elaborately when it was time for them to separate. He would be left wondering if they would ever return together again; whether, abandoning their strange friendship they might not part finally and cease to be the nucleus of so many arrivals and greetings.
But always in the course of the week their differences would apparently be resolved and he could find them there together as he had found them this afternoon unruffled, gay, and secretly very busy about something which entailed doing nothing save only sitting, talking, and waiting under the bright blue sky.
Lying there, his eye at the level of the smooth globes of chalk and slate which made up the beach, he could see Audrey’s thin brown foot and watch the restless movements of her toes as she talked to Sheila.
He followed the course of the leg up to the rounded knee, glimpsed the bright cover of the magazine which rested upon it and the lacquered nails of the hand upon the open page; but he could not see her face, only the fuzzy halo of her hair in the bewildering sunshine. He closed his eyes against the blue-white glare and listened contentedly to the fall of their conversation.
“’Bout thirty, p’raps twenty-seven; you know, mature!” Audrey’s voice was desultory, pretending to disinterest. “But you’ll see him when he comes, if he does come! He said he’d be here by three-thirty. I wasn’t all that interested, he danced well of course, does a wonderful feather-step in the slow waltz, and he was—well, amusing. So I said he could use the tent if he wanted to, sort of casual; I don’t think I even said we’d be here for certain.”
Sheila’s yawn was ostentatious, it was breathed out briefly from beneath a damping hand.
“How long is he staying?”
“Don’t know, never asked him. I shouldn’t think he’s a week-ender.” She turned a page of the magazine. “He said it’d depend on how he liked his hotel.”
“Oh he’s at a hotel is he?”
“Imperial.” This time Audrey yawned. “Got quite a nice car too, one of those ones with straps on the bonnet.”
“How did he—? I mean how did you—? Who introduced you?” asked Sheila.
“Can’t really remember.”
“Surely you didn’t—”
Audrey’s interruption was quick and was accompanied by the flick of another turned page.
“Oh yes I can, it was that boy of Bill’s sister, Tony What’s-his-name, the one with the little moustache. He’d met him in the American Bar and brought him along to our table. I knew it must be something like that, but I seem to meet so many that it’s hard to remember.” She hummed a snatch of song. “Surely you didn’t think I let him pick me up without knowing his name or anything about him?”
“What did you have to drink last night?”
“Two gin-and-limes; why?”
“Oh nothing.” Sheila was watching a ship on the horizon. “I just wondered if you had a headache, that’s all.”
“Do I look as though I had a headache?”
“Not ’specially, but you sound a bit like it.”
“Well you shouldn’t be so nosy. You don’t find me going on when you’ve met a boy and wanting to know every least detail of when and where and how.” Audrey paused and then with an obvious effort at sweetness asked, “Is Jack coming? Did he make any date for tonight?”
“He can’t get this afternoon; but I said we’d be at the club as usual, that’s if you haven’t made any other arrangements with anyone else.”
“No, not yet, but I suppose I may do before tonight.”
They were silent for a moment; their battles were like those of hens, he decided, a flurry of beak and claw almost instantly concluded and leaving them strolling about aimlessly and with unchanged expressions.
Sheila was now attending to her cuticles with an orange-stick while Audrey was reading her magazine.
“Listen to this,” she said suddenly, “‘I am in love with a married man who is twice my age, his wife is in a mental hospital and he says the doctors hold out no hope of her recovery. He wants me to become engaged but he cannot get a divorce yet. Do you think I should allow him to anticipate our engagement until we are sure—’”
They both tittered.
“Fancy asking anyone,” said Audrey, “and the way she puts it ‘anticipate our engagement’.”
“Oh they make them up,” said Sheila, “or else people send them in for a joke. Bill had a friend once who sent in a letter asking for advice about superfluous hair; it was a scream because really he was growing a moustache.”
“Silly!” said Audrey.
“You ought to write in about your new boy friend; trouble is you wouldn’t get an answer in time as to whether it would be safe to let him date you so soon after meeting him. By the way, what’s his name? You never told me.”
“Desmond Something-or-other. I keep telling you I wasn’t that interested; he’s not my type, he’s much more your cup of tea like those tobacco advertisements.”
“Oh go on! Mind you, you’ve quite piqued my curiosity. I’m really beginning to hope he will turn up soon.”
“Well, if he doesn’t he won’t find me here,” said Audrey, “it’s half-past three and I’ve something better to do than sit about here all afternoon waiting for him.”
“Shopping?”
“No, my perm, I’m going to Jeanette’s at four-fifteen for a Marcel wave.”
“Lucky thing! I’ve always wanted to have a perm.”
“If you ask me your hair’s your best feature.”
“I’m glad you think so.”
They fell silent once again and John heard the little rasp of a file as Sheila manipulated it expertly against the points of her long nails. Three-thirty, he thought. If he were to meet Peter at Bobby’s in three-quarters of an hour it was time he had his bathe. He got to his feet and the two girls smiled over at him.
“Going in?” asked Audrey.
“Yes. What’s it like?”
“Like it always is—lovely once you’re out!”
He laughed—one of Bill’s jokes or Tony’s he supposed. But how sweet they looked sitting there on the brown pebbles: butterflies on a wall flashing their colours in the sun, talking butterfly-talk. Behind them fat red women humped along the promenade in cotton dresses and cardigans. How would these ever become those? It was Natural History upside-down for butterflies so light and airy to turn into such heavy red caterpillars, he thought as he made his solitary way to the edge of the water.
They would think him stand-offish and queer for his lack of response; but it could not be helped. One day perhaps some similar pair, though not quite so common, would be awaiting his arrival with expectancy, quarrelling quietly about him and brushing their antennae together like tiny flexible rapiers. In a dull automatic way he would probably marry one of them and down the years watch her turning slowly into a fat red woman li
ke those others.
His thoughts dissolved as he plunged into the water and swam out swiftly beyond the farthest of the shouting bathers. Turning round he saw that the beach had receded and enlarged. He was astonished at the extent of it and at the rapidity with which it had become at once panoramic and Lilliputian like the pictures they sold in the postcard kiosks. He was unable to distinguish the particular breakwaters between which he had been sitting. Sheila and Audrey must be one of the many tiny groups of coloured mould growing on the brown strand; but he was quite unable to know which group, and although he was no more than three hundred yards from the shore it now seemed utterly absurd to suppose that any of their concerns really mattered in the very least. Yet their conversation was as loud and clear in his mind as though he were actually still hearing it. What they had wished for wanted or feared, the thousand implications of the things they had said were as large as they had ever been, had not diminished in the slightest degree.
He lay on his back and floated face upwards so that he saw only the sky above him bleached by the enormous light of the sun. Tonight he had to make his confession to Father Delaura and he was still dreading it.
Hitherto he had never made his confession to anyone away from home and he associated the rite more closely than anything else with his family and the parish Church: Mother dragging them all off at the end of Lent to her latest protégé—she changed her confessor even more often than she changed her doctor, the distribution of the little cards by Father the night before; little cards on which all the possible sins were neatly tabulated under their separate headings. There were consolations of course: the gaiety of the supper afterwards, the exaltation of conscious virtue in the mysterious but assured cleanliness in which it was so hard to believe. At home, confession like going to the dentist, had its cosy ritual quality; but here in Worthing with only Rooker’s Close awaiting him at the end of it, how different it would be.
In the Time of Greenbloom Page 33
