‘We got on to chain letters this morning, Mrs Jaraby. Have you ever come across that kind of thing?’
‘Chain letters? The expression rings a bell. Now I cannot quite recall what it means.’
‘Her mind is slipping,’ suggested Mr Jaraby. ‘They are letters which form a chain, foolish lady. The chain is scattered all over the world.’
‘My mind is as sharp as a razor. I remember chain letters now. Basil had one during an Easter holidays. I remember copying the letter out.’
‘One sent them to far-off destinations,’ said Mr Sole. ‘California and Italy. I seem to think the Italians were inveterate writers of such mail.’
‘Basil’s had to do with a certain Major Dunkers, a fallen warrior of the Boer War.’
‘Good heavens, that is the same man! Major Dunkers who started the ball rolling from the battlefield. I was telling you, Cridley. What an amazing thing!’
‘Were you involved with the Major, Mr Sole?’
‘I was part of the chain. I helped to keep it going, and passed it down the years, it now appears, to your son.’
‘I did not know they had so long a life.’
‘Nor I. Think of the half-crowns that must have changed hands!’
‘It must have thrived for thirty years at least. Had it become well rooted in that school that both of you were part of it? It may yet survive. Immortal Major Dunkers!’
‘The Headmaster, Burdeyon, was against those letters,’ Mr Cridley said. ‘It surprises me to hear of a tradition like this. Subsequent headmasters could hardly have given the thing their blessing I would have thought.’
‘It was a harmless pastime, Mr Cridley. I see no call for a headmaster to condemn it.’
‘Burdeyon considered it as a dishonourable pursuit,’ Mr Sole explained, ‘with gain its only end. As I was remarking to Cridley, a mutual friend of ours, one Swabey-Boyns, made a small fortune in this manner. Burdeyon would have called that reprehensible. He was a man of violence and high principle.’
‘Who, who?’ asked Mr Jaraby.
‘Old Burdeyon. He disliked those chain letters.’
‘Quite right. A waste of time and energy. Dowse ordered me to clear the House of them.’
‘Because they came from the outside world,’ cried Mrs Jaraby, striking a dangerous note.
‘That they did,’ her husband agreed with vehemence. ‘From idle pawnbrokers, Dowse said. I tore up dozens in my time.’
‘Not Basil’s though. I doubt if you even knew that Basil honoured the death of the good Major Dunkers.’
‘Of the good who? What is the woman talking about?’
‘He fought –’ began Mr Sole.
‘Do not go into it all again,’ said Mr Cridley, clambering to his feet and adding: ‘We thought of attending a Wednesday Compline in Putney. In which case we should be on our way.’
‘It rests our minds and offsets what Miss Burdock has concocted for dinner. Though after your excellent tea we shall require very little.’
‘Salami and a leaf of lettuce. It is likely to be that on a Wednesday.’
‘There was part of a fork in my bun,’ said. Mr Sole when he had passed from his hosts’ earshot.
‘It might have killed you. I did not know about this Basil Jaraby. Who is he, and why did she think him interesting? I must say I had hoped for sherry. It is customary to be offered something as one leaves.’
Mr Jaraby called his wife. He cupped his hands about his lips and shouted. The cat came in from the garden and rubbed itself against his legs, clawing his trousers. Mr Jaraby went to the lavatory and shook the locked door back and forth. ‘What is this nonsense about Basil? We have heard enough of it. I must forbid the name in the house; indeed in the garden too. It is outrageous that you should have spoken so before old friends. I felt my position to be intolerable.’
‘It was meant to be. Please preserve the conventions. I expect peace and privacy in the lavatory.’
‘Oh, rubbish. You cannot pretend that Basil is returning to the house just by stating it. You are making yourself a figure of fun.’
‘I state what is to be. I do not overstep the mark.’
‘Obedience is my due. I will demand it: refrain please from these references to one who is a near-criminal.’
‘I speak of our son.’
‘You speak of a serpent’s tooth who has disgraced the name we bear.’
‘He has done what you have driven him to do. You must mellow and forgive him, as he has forgiven you.’
‘Has he forgiven me? For what? Did I commit some crime?’
‘In terms of Basil, not one but many. Return to the garden and think. Sit in the evening sun with your cat upon your lap and reflect on your son. He is my son too, you know. Weak woman though I am, I have rights in the matter.’
‘You have no rights. If you will see him, then see him. Visit the wretch, but do not impose him on me. You have no rights there.’
Mrs Jaraby had sought her present refuge for no other reason than to escape a face-to-face inquisition. She stood within the small space, sighing between sentences. ‘Basil is invited to tea on Sunday, as the old men were invited today. We shall sit in the garden in the sun, as we have done in the past.’
‘That I forbid.’
‘Then you must forbid when the time comes. You must scuffle with your son in the hallway and prevent his entry with force.’
‘You have cut across my simple desires in this matter –’
‘No, no, that is not quite the story. That is not the essence of what we talk about. What we are saying is that your sting has been drawn: a part of you is dead.’
Mr Jaraby saw that his wife was mad. It saddened him for a moment that she had come so soon to this.
4
The heat continued and increased. It turned the remaining green of the lawns in Crimea Road into a uniform brown. It turned the sun-lounge at the Rimini into a hot-house. It blistered the backs of Mr Nox’s hands when he sat too long on the tiny flat roof that was one of the attractions of his flat. It ripened the bulging tomatoes in General Sanctuary’s glass-house and it affected Mr Turtle. It warmed his bald head as he sat through an afternoon in the park, and afterwards as his body cooled he shivered and switched on the electric fire. Sir George Ponders watched the blue stripes fade on his front door cover and mentioned the fact to his wife. Mr Swabey-Boyns pulled the blinds down, for of all things he loathed sunlight.
The eight men went their ways, living their lives as they had grown used to living them. They spoke daily of the heatwave, and to a varying degree they remembered that which gave them an interest in common.
‘I shall be glad when the end of the year comes,’ Sir George confessed to Lady Ponders. ‘I have felt undertones of something or other at committee meetings of late. One becomes tired of sitting round a table.’
‘You must not worry. You have done it for longer than the others. And being always in the Chair is now clearly a wearing business.’
‘Jaraby should make a better hand of President than I did. In a way I feel I have failed in this final official position. I have filled so many, it seems a shame.’
‘Mr Jaraby is still full of beans. But he is the kind of man who suddenly snaps in half, like a brittle twig, and then that is that. My dear, you have aged in a more dignified way. Gradual processes are the happier too.’
‘Perhaps so. Certainly Turtle snapped into dotage in an alarming manner. He is like an old, old ghost.’
‘I wish Mr Jaraby would not telephone you quite so often. Is it always necessary?’
‘He is selected to step into my shoes. He imagines we have much to discuss. He has an eye for detail.’
‘I would not like to be married to him.’
‘No. And you are safe in saying it – there cannot be much chance that you will experience that now. It is Turtle I worry about. We must try and entertain him now and again.’
Mr Turtle was ashamed of himself. He was ashamed that he could make no hand of th
e loneliness that had crept upon him. He was ashamed that he could let his mind wander so, and watch it wander and not care; that he had to ask so often for words to be repeated to him, and had invented a story that he was deaf. When the committee had last met, for instance, it had seemed to Mr Turtle that the men around the table were not at all what they were but Ponders major, Sole, Cridley, Jaraby, Swabey-Boyns, Nox, Sanctuary: the boys they had been, sitting thus to arrange a rugger team or talk some inter-House business. To Mr Turtle they seemed fresh-faced and young, starting out on a life that he had finished with; patiently and kindly waiting for him to find his way from the basement to the room, and not blaming him at all, because they accepted that he should make mistakes.
‘I beg your pardon?’ said the man on the seat in the park. Mr Turtle repeated his question.
‘Oh, it is ten to four,’ said the man, and smiled. Mr Turtle nodded and smiled back. He let a minute or two go by, then he said:
‘What weather!’
The man shook his head, as if to say: ‘It is too much of a good thing.’ It was a large head, its face pink and fleshy, with a small black moustache, and spectacles to which had been added clip-on lenses of shaded glass.
‘I read somewhere,’ said Mr Turtle, poking at the gravel with his stick, ‘that our unreliable weather is due to bombs.’
‘Ah yes, yes.’
‘The flat I live in is not designed for this kind of carry-on. It messes up the food, and the woman who does for me complains. I dare say you have similar problems, sir?’
‘Ah yes. I keep birds. Though originally tropical, they have by now had to become used to the vagaries of these isles. Budgerigars.’
‘Little coloured ones? I have seen them about. In the houses of friends. Cage-birds they’re called.’ It occurred to Mr Turtle that he had forgotten to take his pill after breakfast. He rooted in his waistcoat pocket and finally brought one to light. Fumbling and unsteady, his hands were inefficient. The bones beneath the flesh seemed fragile, as delicate as chalk. ‘My medicine. I cannot offer you a share. Unless you have a heart condition.’
The man shook his head. Mr Turtle said:
‘Birds are interesting.’
‘Ah yes.’ The man’s voice was pitched high, not unlike a bird’s itself.
‘I found them interesting as a child. Their eggs especially. I remember the thrush’s was nice. Is that the greeny one, speckled?’
‘My interest is in the one breed only.’
‘I think it is a speckled one; unless there has since been a change. You will understand, sir, a considerable period has elapsed.’
The man nodded. After a silence he volunteered, rather unexpectedly, that the day was his birthday. ‘I am forty today. Though still young, it is a blow to leave the thirties behind. This is the middle of middle age.’
‘Well, congratulations.’
Abruptly the man spoke with great speed, stumbling over the words: ‘I say, look, I recognize your tie. We attended the same school. Forgive my mentioning it, but I am embarrassed about funds. Now say so at once if I should leave the subject, but could I perhaps prevail upon you – five pounds or less would see me through. I am owed a lot for birds. But you know, I sell a lot to ladies in distressed circumstances. They do not always pay on the nail.’
‘Oh dear, have I misled you? I do not think I could have a bird. The woman who does for me is strict, she would not take to the trouble of an animal about the place. Mrs Strap. She is rather hard to get along with.’
‘Sorry. I meant a loan. I am being hasty, I know, but since we come from the same school – well, it’s a bond – though I have known you but a matter of minutes – five pounds or less would fit the bill – I could pay you back by post or in this park. I would not ask – I can promise you my credit is good – oh, shall I go? Have I embarrassed you?’
‘No, sir, I enjoy a bit of company. The error is mine, I had imagined you were selling me a bird in a cage. I knew I could not manage it, and found myself in an awkwardness. I wished to refuse as politely as I could. Is five pounds sufficient? It will not go far, you know.’
‘Well, seven goes further.’
‘Take seven. That is my school tie I am wearing. Mind you, not the one I wore at school, but the tie of our Association. The Old Boys’ Society, of which I am a committee member.’
‘What I am saying is that I, too, was at the School, though in fact I do not belong to the Association. Three guineas a year is a little beyond the means of a bird-fancier.’
Mr Turtle, having parted with seven pounds and absorbed the facts the man proclaimed, became excited: an acquaintance had become a friend, or, if that was rushing things, there was at least the promise of a future for this chance meeting. He tapped the head of his stick with his left hand, flapping the fingers rapidly. He proffered his right hand for the man to shake, which the other, as pleased as Mr Turtle, promptly did.
‘What a happy coincidence!’ exclaimed Mr Turtle. ‘You must have been there – when?’
‘Nineteen thirty-seven to forty-two.’
‘Well, well. I of course was much earlier. Nineteen-o-six to nineteen-eleven. Burdeyon was Headmaster. And the great H. L. Dowse died in my day.’
‘Were you in Dowse’s?’
‘No, I was with the less illustrious – heavens, I’ve forgotten the man’s name!’
‘I was in Dowse’s. I didn’t much care for those years. I don’t remember much about them even. Not wishing to, I put them from my mind. There was a big brown photograph of Dowse somewhere.’
‘Many of my companions fell in the war. Sanctuary, who was my junior, rose to great heights. He is now a – a general. General Sanctuary, you may have heard of him?’
‘Ah yes.’
‘He too is – is a member of the committee. Was the food always cold at weekends? I remember that well, winter and summer.’
‘Maybe it was. Your memory is better than mine. I seem to see brown, flat sausage rolls on Sundays for tea. I sat next to a radiator in Dining Hall and would put my porridge behind it. I remember that because they beat me for doing it. When they beat me I was sick. I used to vomit in the lavatory.’
‘My name is James Turtle.’
‘Mine is Basil Jaraby. I must go, I fear. I have seed to buy. Due to your kindness my birds shall dine well tonight. If I might have your address I will put the money in the post when, as it were, my ship comes home.’
The man went. Mr Turtle watched the baggy figure move through the quiet park and felt sorry that the occasion had not lasted longer. He should have suggested a cup of tea near by, or issued an invitation for the young man to visit him. He had been preoccupied trying to bring to mind his Housemaster’s name and had allowed the chance to slip. At least he had been firm about the bird, for, though the man was kindly, a bird in a cage would have meant that Mrs Strap would be nasty. He would be obliged to show her his will again, to confirm afresh that he was leaving her a thousand pounds.
5
Mr Nox was hunched and rounded, wizened like a nut. He suffered from rheumatism in the winter, but during these hot summer months he had come into his own and felt he had the advantage of his fellows: he scarcely noticed the heat. Only when the blisters rose on the backs of his hands would he glance above him to confirm that the trouble came from a sun that was too naked in the sky. His small flat was neat and clean, every book in its place, every pencil sharpened for use. He did the work himself, made his bed, carried laundry to the launderette, sewed on his buttons, cooked his food, and twice a week ran a vacuum-cleaner over his carpets. He had been productive all his life, and had won, he felt, his way in the world. He intended to go on that way, to make no changes except the ones that were forced upon him, to earn money, though it was not much, until his brain stopped, bogged in senility. Mr Nox took pupils. He taught them mathematics or, if they preferred, Italian. He did not visit; his pupils came to him. He was urged to take more by the agency that sent them, but he wished only to work in the mornings: he k
new it was easy to become fatigued and he wished to spare his strength, to spread it over several years rather than wear it away all at once. He had never taught until he reached retirement, but he found that he was good at it and he made his charges high. His pupils themselves said he was good; good as a tutor but a little dry as a man. They thought him humourless, for he did not often smile; and when he had taught them what they wished to know they tended to forget that he had played a part in their lives.
Mr Nox’s bell rang. He greeted the man who stood at the door with the suggestion that they should spend the hour in the sun on the roof. The man, whose name was Swingler, seemed a little doubtful. He considered that the roof, cased as it was in lead, would be, at midday, somewhere to avoid. ‘As you wish,’ murmured Mr Nox, wiping the cream from the backs of his hands with a handkerchief. ‘I had prepared myself for the roof, but no matter. Sit down and tell me what, if anything, you have to tell.’
‘This time again there is nothing, I am afraid. I have drawn a series of blanks. You must take my word for it that I have worked carefully on your behalf.’
‘Indeed. I have no option but to take your word.’
A month ago the agency had sent along Swingler. He wished, he said, to learn Italian because he felt Italian would help him in his business.
‘I know little of Italian business expressions,’ Mr Nox had said, ‘having never had to use them.’
‘I am not in that kind of business.’ Swingler scratched the palm of his left hand with the fingernails of the right, making a noise as he did so. ‘I am a private investigator. I run a small detective agency. Specializing in divorce really.’
Mr Nox had given him his first Italian lesson without thinking further about his pupil’s profession. But the second time he came he questioned him more closely.
‘You say divorce, Mr Swingler. But you take on other cases, I presume? What kind of investigating do you do beyond divorce?’
Again there was the scratching of the left palm and a twitching began in Swingler’s face, for he was a nervous man.
The Old Boys Page 4
