by Susan Price
And if I lived to be tried, what could I expect? I was guilty, and if I admitted that . . . If I denied it, I would be suspected of lying merely to save my sinful body which, being an atheist, I valued more than my immortal soul, and I would - possibly - probably - be "questioned'' until I was forced to admit that I had been lying. And then I would be burned. It was clear to me that the only way out of the trouble I found myself in was to run away.
All the money I had, I was carrying on me. I collected together all my spare clothes, and, since George was sleeping on my University blanket, tied them together, with my papers, pens and ink, in one of my shirts. Then I was ready to leave. I opened the door of the room and stepped out. From the darkness of the landing, a voice said, "Where are you going?"
The owner of the voice came close as I peered into the darkness. It was either Frazer or White, I could not tell which.
"Nowhere," I said, and stepped back into my room. I crossed to the window, opened it and leaned out.
The room that George and I shared was on the third floor, and, as I looked down into the darkness below me, I decided firmly that I was not going to try escaping by the window. Besides, if one man was waiting outside my door, the other was probably waiting in the street.
I went back to the table, dropped my bundle at my feet, and sat. It was hardly worth while asking myself what I was going to do next, since the answer was so obvious: make a friend of Brentwood.
Later that morning, without having slept, I left the lodging-house, and found one of the men waiting outside for me. He did not acknowledge me; he simply followed me, and I knew that my movements and my doings would all be reported to Bagthorpe.
I went straight to the Bear. I knew that I should find friends or acquaintances there, and I was curious to know what the man following me would do. Would he stay in the street, or would he follow me into the tavern? I never found out, because, when I strolled across and joined a couple of writers whom I knew slightly, I found that the man sitting between them at their table was Brentwood.
They nodded, and greeted me, and one even smiled; but Brentwood rose and held out his hand, saying, with his rather shy smile, "Christopher! I am so pleased to see you again. Will you join us?" I did not speak or take his hand. I couldn't. After standing and staring at him for several moments, I turned and left the tavern.
I worried because I thought that Brentwood could not help but be insulted, and Bagthorpe would not approve of that. I invented and rehearsed easy, natural remarks that I could make to Brentwood when I next met him, hoping that his own good manners would lead him to overlook my rudeness, and that I could put myself on friendly terms with him once more. But when I did meet him again, in the Bear, and he turned to face me, such a vivid, living picture of his coming execution sprang up in my mind that I involuntarily screwed my eyes shut and put up my hand, as if to push the picture away. Brentwood, surprised, said, "Christopher?'' I could only shake my head and whisper to someone else that I was not well.
Everyone silently agreed to ignore my strange behaviour, and, after listening to their talk for a while, I attempted to join it; but my guilt tripped my tongue and made me say, "murder'' instead of ''maybe''; "hanged'' instead of "thanks''. I stopped talking, waited until I thought no one would notice, and left.
I knew that Bagthorpe expected more than that; he expected me, somehow, to become Brentwood's friend, not someone whom Brentwood regarded as a lout or an idiot - but I couldn't see how I was to make a friend of the man, and stayed in my room and did not try. I expected a banging on the door and an angry summons from Bagthorpe at every moment, but I heard nothing from him at all. The only summons I received was from Dick Hobson, asking me to go and see him at the theatre.
I went along and waited patiently until Dick thought that he had time to speak with me, and then followed him to the prop-room. Dick turned to me and said, ''Are you feeling well?"
"What is it you want?" I asked irritably. "Stop playing games."
"I introduce you to somebody who could do you some good," Dick said, "and you look at him as if he had eight legs, and walk out. You'd do better to butter him up, you fool."
"Butter who up? Why should I butter up anyone?"
"You know who - Brentwood. And you know why. Why don't you write something for him?"
I looked round, my face open with surprise.
"Why not?" Dick asked defensively. "That's how you get patronage, isn't it?"
"He wouldn't be interested - " Any excuse but the real reason.
"He is interested in you," Dick said. "It's laughable. When he speaks to you, and you turn your back and walk away without a word, he thinks it's a sign of genius. He thinks it's the strain of prostituting your great talent to hacking for me - of course," he added, "I did lead him on to think that - a bit."
"I have never turned my back on him and walked away."
“You've been equally rude - But strike while he still thinks it's frustrated genius, and write him a poem."
"Wouldn't it be more profitable to write a play for you?"
"Write both if you like. I pay you a lump sum for a play, and that's soon gone; but Brentwood might pay you a retainer that'd see you through a lot of sticky patches.''
I nodded, and said, "I'd find some money useful now.''
"Chris, you don't understand - I don't have money to hand over to you every time you ask. It's all tied up - in property - in this theatre, and where would you be without the theatre, eh? I can't put my hand on cash that easily."
"I still need money," I said. "I've run up some more debts since you started speaking.''
Dick sighed. "Are you writing?''
"I began a new play a week ago."
He hesitated, then clapped his hands together in a frank, honest manner. "Well, just you bring it in for me to see, Chris. Then we'll talk of how much we can advance."
"I'll do that," I said, and left the theatre.
I had no intention of writing anything for Brentwood. To seek the patronage of a man on whom I was spying seemed to me to be wicked. But then I read about the murder of Edward II. The order for the murder had been written - or so said my book - in such a way that it could also be understood as an order forbidding his murder, making it possible for the usurper to explain the corpse away as a terrible mistake. Reading this gave me an idea so suddenly that I was startled. I would write Brentwood a poem; and I would write it in such a way that, while seeming innocuous, it would warn him of his danger.
I jumped up from the bed where I had been reading; I wanted to begin at once, and only the fact that I had yet to think of something to write about stopped me. I walked to and fro across the room instead, slapping the walls with my hands as I reached either side.
I was trying to plan clearly what I had to do. A Catholic subject for the poem would obviously appeal to Brentwood, and would also serve my purpose, but I was afraid to trust what I knew of Catholicism, since most of it had come to me with an anti-papist bias. And how to make the poem a warning? I was followed everywhere, and when this poem was written, I would have to deliver it. Bagthorpe was sure to hear about it . . . And then it occurred to me that the best way to convince Bagthorpe that the poem was innocent was to tell him about it now. I put on my cap and left for the Talbot almost as the thought came to me.
I made my follower hurry more than he was used to, and I think he was disconcerted when he saw where I was going. I heard him begin to run after me in the Talbot yard, and so I ran up the back stairs and along the landing, and had opened Bagthorpe's door and gone in before the poor short-winded devil had reached the stairs' foot.
There was, as always, a large fire in the grate, and the room was hot. The table was still more crowded, and more balls of paper had been thrown on to the floor; but Bagthorpe was not there. I saw the door which led into the other room, but before I could reach it, it opened, and Bagthorpe came out. His sudden appearance made me stop short. In daylight, with his almost garishly red hair and beard, and rough, bur
nt skin, he certainly looked striking. He shut the door behind him, and, as he did so, the man who had been set to follow me came in at the other door. Bagthorpe gave a flick of one hand, and said, "Out.'' There was a gasp for breath from the man at the door; then the sound of the door shutting.
"Good morning, Kit," Bagthorpe said with a nod, and, helplessly imitating him, I nodded and wished him good morning too. "You wanted to see me about something?'' he asked.
"I wanted - '' But I didn't know where to begin.
Bagthorpe walked round me - I quickly turned to keep him in sight - and drew a chair away from the table. "Please take a seat, Kit. Then we can talk."
I looked at him, wondering where the snare was. This was not what I had expected - but, if he was going to be well-mannered, I would be equally so. "Thank you," I said, and sat.
Bagthorpe took another chair from near the table, turned it to face me, and sat himself. "Now," he said. "What was it?"
"Brentwood," I said, pretending to be brisk and businesslike. "What would you think if I wrote a poem for him? If I asked him for his patronage?''
"As a way of getting closer to him?" Bagthorpe looked thoughtful, as if friendship and patronage were the only things under discussion.
"I thought I'd better keep you informed,'' I said, still businesslike. "I'd write on a Catholic subject - that should please him and gain his interest."
"Good . . . Yes, I think you might do very well for yourself, Kit," Bagthorpe said.
"I'd bring it and let you read it, of course."
"Would you? Thank you. I'd very much appreciate that," Bagthorpe said. I looked at him, and he grinned, showing his tiny, square teeth. "Let's hope that you're better at getting close to people on paper than you are in person. When will it be finished?''
"The poem? I can't say. I haven't begun it yet. It might take me - ''
"Don't take too long. He'll only be in town another month at the longest.''
"I can manage something in that time."
"Good, good," he said soothingly. He stood and reached across the table for a small box. "How much do you want?" He turned the key of the box and opened it. There was money inside.
"Nothing!” I said. "God help us! It's bad enough that I'm doing this without being paid."
Bagthorpe looked at me with an expression of surprise; then took several coins from the box and arranged them on the table in a flower-pattern; two sovereigns and four angels. "This isn't pay," he said. "Your pay, Kit, is staying out of prison. This is an allowance. Take it."
I had heard such euphemisms before. "No. When I need money, I borrow it from Dick Hobson.''
He gave me a glance that had almost physical weight behind it. "And how much did he lend you the last time you asked? I'm giving you this, Kit, because I don't want you arrested for debt while you're working for me. Now take it." I did not, hoping that something would happen to let me off, but Bagthorpe went on waiting, and, eventually, I took up the money and jangled the coins together in my hand, to show how careless I was of them. "Not hard, was it?" Bagthorpe said. "Why do you make everything so hard, Kit?"
I turned away towards the door.
"What, going already?'' he said. "Well - if you must. I shall be waiting to read the poem, remember." He leaned on the table to watch me go, grinning.
I turned to face him as I reached the door, and asked, "For whom do you work?"
His face sharpened. "For whom? For whom do I work?" He pushed himself upright from the table. "For whom I bloody well please; but you work for me."
I watched him from the door. He held his sharp-faced expression a little too long, and I felt sure it was not genuine anger that showed on his face. I nodded, and said, "I work for you."
I had the message I wanted to send - that Brentwood was in danger - as a starting-point for my poem, and there were a hundred stories of heroes persecuted by their fathers or grandfathers, or kings in general, which could be made to carry that; but I did not think the message specific enough. Brentwood was in danger of being arrested and executed because of his Catholic sympathies. The poem would have to be on one of the Catholic martyrs.
I had read of St. Stephen, who had been stoned to death; St. John the Baptist and St. Denis, both of whom had been beheaded; and St. Sebastian, who had been shot full of arrows. The awful fate of St. Sebastian appealed to me most and I spent the rest of that day, and a large part of the night, in thinking about his story, and planning the words in which I would frame it.
Finding words that not only tell a story, but fall into rhythm and rhyme without apparent effort, is always hard, even when the poem is one the author wants to write. I ought to have been thinking about the subject for weeks, if not for months, building up a store of rhymes, phrases, images, and whole passages of verse. When I tried to begin this miserable commission of Bagthorpe's, sitting at my table with paper before me, and ink and pen within reach, I found that I had nothing to begin with; no starting-point, no interest.
After I had spent a long time in looking at the paper without a single idea occurring to me, I fetched one of my plays and tried to read. I would realize, at intervals, that I was staring at the wall, having completely forgotten the characters and action of the play, and thinking instead of St. Sebastian; wondering what kind of man he must have been, so obstinate that he allowed himself to be killed rather than recant. An idiot, was my immediate assessment; but for the purpose of the poem I had to convince myself that his idiocy had been admirable. And perhaps it had been - and was. Recanting would be humiliating; perhaps he had died with pride, in a kind of triumph. I considered the possibility, but could not convince myself. Humiliation passes; death never. Still, there remained a suspicion of admiration. I could seize on that, and exaggerate it, and it would please Brentwood.
The admiration which I had felt for the saint gave me a brief enthusiasm for the job, and I had to start at some time, I had to write down something as a first line. I put aside the play, and, scowling and twisting my mouth awry, I managed to invent six lines, none of which were any good; but I told myself that they were a beginning, and that I could change them if I thought of better. I picked up my play-script again and read a little more; drank some beer and looked out of the window at the street for a while before returning to the table and contriving a few more lines.
They made sense; they rhymed; some of them even scanned; but they were as dead and dull as the table-top on which I leaned my elbows. I knew that they were dull, and the knowledge depressed me, and made me feel rebellious. I was easily distracted. Rising, to fetch a drink or stretch my legs, I would be drawn to the window, where I would watch the carts going by. I would sprinkle water, or flick bits of plaster, onto the head of the carters, and then duck back behind the window, before they saw me.
At last I went back to work, hacked out a couplet; and stopped to think about the next couple of lines. I heard shouting from the yard at the back of the house. Someone was always shouting and if I had been interested in what I was writing, I should have taken no notice; but as it was, the slightest sound drew my attention away. Something terrible must be going on, I thought; someone is being attacked. I went down into the yard. Two women were calling each other dirty, and snotty-nosed, and idle, and Spanish. I hung about, with the other inhabitants of the yard, but I could not find out what had started the argument, and, when it began to look as if they would never come to blows, I grew bored and returned to my room; where I felt guilty when I saw how little writing I had done. I sat, once more determined not to leave my chair until I had written something which I could feel was a real beginning to the poem.
It became easier to concentrate after dark. George went to bed, and so did everyone in the rooms round and below us. There were no more screaming arguments, or shouts, or bursts of laughter, or chattering below the window.
With the relaxation and freedom of thought that quietness and darkness bring, I decided to leave the poem's beginning and write about Sebastian's arrest instead. I became in
volved, and wrote a little over a page, in verse which was far from good but at least capable of being improved.
The candle went out and left me blinking in the dark. I sat on, wondering whether to relight the candle and finish the sentence that the darkness had interrupted; but decided that it was too much trouble and went to bed.
The writing went on for several days, seemingly tedious and never-ending, but really very fast for any work of mine. I would get up in the morning and promise myself that as soon as I had eaten something, I would begin to write; but when I had eaten, I would tell myself that I needed a few minutes to gather my thoughts together. When I had wasted those few minutes, I would decide that a short walk would help me to think more clearly, and so I would take a short walk, which would become a long walk, and, when I returned, I would need a drink and something else to eat before I could begin. But, eventually, and usually at dusk, I would start. I wrote all the interesting parts about Sebastian's arrest and execution first; then there were the opening and the linking passages to write. I had to make poetry of them too, somehow; and force my message for Brentwood in between the lines. I was bored, and, by the time I finished it, exhausted. Boredom is always more wearing than the most concentrated work in which you are interested. For two days after finishing the poem, I did no work whatsoever.
