Colour Scheme (5 page)

He wondered what Gaunt would say to it. He was to return to his employer next day by bus and train, a long and fatiguing business. Gaunt had bought a car, and on the following day he, Dikon and Colly would set out for Wai-ata-tapu. They had made many such journeys in many countries. Always at the end there had been expensive hotels or flats and lavish attention — amenities that Gaunt accepted as necessities of existence. Dikon was gripped by a sensation of panic. He had been mad to urge this place with its air of amateurish incompetence, its appalling Mr. Questing, its incredible Claires, whose air of breeding would seem merely to underline their complacency. A bush pub might have amused Gaunt; the Springs would bore him to exasperation.

A figure passed the window and stood in the doorway. It was Miss Claire. Dikon, whose job obliged him to observe such things, noticed that her cotton dress had been most misguidedly garnished with a neck bow of shiny ribbon, that her hair was precisely the wrong length, and that she used no make-up.

“Mr. Bell,” said Barbara, “we were wondering if you’d advise us about Mr. Gaunt’s
rooms
. Where to
put
things. I’m afraid you’ll find us very
primitive
. She laid tremendous stress on odd syllables and words, and as she did so turned up her eyes in a deprecating manner and pulled down the corners of her mouth like a lugubrious clown.

“Comedy stuff,” thought Dikon. “Alas, alas, she means to be funny.” He said that he would be delighted to see the rooms, and, nervously fingering his tie, followed her along the verandah.

The wing at the east end of the house, corresponding with the Claires’ private rooms at the west end, had been turned into a sort of flat for Gaunt, Dikon and Colly. It consisted of four rooms: two small bedrooms, one tiny bedroom, and a slightly larger bedroom which had been converted into Mr. Questing’s idea of a celebrity’s study. In this apartment were assembled two chromium-steel chairs, one large armchair, and a streamlined desk, all of rather bad design, and with the dealer’s tabs still attached to them. The floor was newly carpeted, and the windows in process of being freshly curtained by Mrs. Claire. Mr. Questing, wearing a cigar as if it were a sort of badge of office, lolled carelessly in the armchair. On Dikon’s entrance he sprang to his feet.

“Well, well, well,” cried Mr. Questing gaily, “how’s the young gentleman?”

“Quite well, thank you,” said Dikon, who had spent the greater part of the day motoring with Mr. Questing, and had become reconciled to these constant inquiries.

“Is this service,” Mr. Questing went on, waving his cigar at the room, “or is it? Forty-eight hours ago I hadn’t the pleasure of your acquaintance, Mr. Bell. After our little chat yesterday, I felt so optimistic I just had to get out and get going. I went to the finest furnishing firm in Auckland, and I told the manager, I told him: ‘Look,’ I told him, ‘you’ve got the right stuff! It’s modern and it’s quality. Listen!’ I told him. ‘I’ll take this stuff, if you can get it to Wai-ata-tapu, Harpoon, by to-morrow afternoon. And if not, not.’ That’s the way I like to do things, Mr. Bell.”

“I hope you have explained that even now Gaunt may not decide to come,” said Dikon. “You have all taken a great deal of trouble, Mrs. Claire.”

Mrs. Claire looked doubtfully from Questing to Dikon. “I’m afraid,” she said plaintively, “that I don’t really quite appreciate very up-to-date furniture. I always think a homelike atmosphere, no matter how shabby… However.”

Questing cut in, and Dikon only half-listened to another dissertation on the necessity of moving with the times. He was jerked into full awareness when Questing, with an air of familiarity, addressed himself to Barbara. “And what’s Babs got to say about it?” he asked, lowering his voice to a rich and offensive purr. Dikon saw her step backwards. It was an instinctive movement, he thought, uncontrollable as a reflex jerk, but less ungainly than her usual habit. Its effect on Dikon was as simple and as automatic as itself; he felt a stab of sympathy and a protective impulse. She was no longer regrettable; she was, for a moment, rather touching. Surprised, and a little disturbed, he looked away from Barbara to Mrs. Claire, and saw that her plump hands were clenched among sharp folds of the shining chintz. He felt that a little scene of climax had been enacted. It was disturbed by the appearance of another figure. Limping steps sounded on the verandah, and the doorway was darkened. A stocky man, elderly but still red-headed and extremely handsome in an angry sort of way, stood glaring at Questing.

“Oh, James,” Mrs. Claire murmured, “there you are, old man. You haven’t met Mr. Bell. My brother, Dr. Ackrington.”

As they shook hands, Dikon saw that Barbara had moved close to her uncle.

“Have a good run up?” asked Dr. Ackrington, throwing a needle-sharp glance at Dikon. “Ever see anything more disgraceful than the roads? I’ve been fishing.”

Startled by this
non sequitur
, Dikon murmured politely: “Indeed?”

“If you can call it fishing. Hope you and Gaunt aren’t counting on catching any trout. What with native reserves and the damned infamous behaviour of white poaching cads, there’s not a fish to be had in twenty miles.”

“Now, now, now, Doctor,” said Questing in a great hurry. “We can’t let you get away with that. Why, the greatest little trout streams in New Zealand…”

“D’you enjoy being called ‘Mister’?” Dr. Ackrington demanded, so loudly that Dikon gave a nervous jump. Questing said uneasily: “Not much.”

“Then don’t call me ‘Doctor,’ ” commanded Dr. Ackrington. Questing laughed uproariously. “That’s just too bad,” he said.

Dr. Ackrington looked round the room. “Good God,” he said, “what are you doing with the place?”

“Mr. Questing,” began Mrs. Claire, “has very kindly…”

“I might have recognized the authentic touch,” said her brother, turning his back on the room. “Staying here tonight are you, Bell? I’d like a word with you. Come along to my room when you’ve a moment.”

“Thank you, sir,” said Dikon.

Dr. Ackrington looked through the doorway. “The star boarder,” he said, “is returning in his usual condition. Mr. Bell is to be treated to a comprehensive view of our amenities.”

They all looked through the doorway. Dikon saw a shambling figure cross the pumice sweep and approach the verandah.

“Oh dear!” said Mrs. Claire. “I’m afraid… James, dear, could you…?”

Dr. Ackrington limped out to the verandah. The newcomer saw, stumbled to a halt, and dragged a bottle from the pocket of his raincoat.

To Dikon, watching through the window, the intrusion of a drunken white figure into the native landscape was at once preposterous and rather pathetic. A clear light, reflected from the pumice track, rimmed the folds of his shabby garments. He stood there, drooping and lonely, and turned the whisky bottle in his hand, staring at it as if it were the focal point for some fuddled meditation. Presently he raised his head and looked at Dr. Ackrington.

“Well, Smith,” said Dr. Ackrington.

“You’re a sport, Doc,” said Smith. “There’s a couple of snifters left. Come on and have one.”

“You’ll do better to keep it,” said Dr. Ackrington quite mildly.

Smith peered beyond him into the room. His eyes narrowed. He lurched forward to the verandah. “I’ll deal with this,” said Questing importantly, and strode out to meet him. They confronted each other. Questing, planted squarely on the verandah edge, made much of his cigar; Smith clung to the post and stared up at him.

“You clear out of this, Smith,” said Questing.

“You get to hell yourself,” said Smith distinctly. He looked past Questing to the group in the doorway, and very solemnly took off his hat. “Present company excepted,” he added.

“Did you hear what I said?”

“Is that the visitor?” Smith asked loudly, and pointed at Dikon. “Is that the reason why we’re all sweating our guts up? That? Let’s have a better look at it. Gawd, what a sissy.”

Dikon wondered confusedly which of the party felt most embarrassed. Dr. Ackrington made a loud barking noise, Barbara broke into agonized laughter, Mrs. Claire rushed into a spate of apologies, Dikon himself attempted to suggest by gay inquiring glances that he had not understood the tenor of Smith’s remarks. He might have spared himself the trouble. Smith made a plunge at the verandah step shouting: “Look at the little bastard.” Questing attempted to stop him, and the scene mounted in a rapid crescendo. Dikon, Mrs. Claire, and Barbara remained in the room, Dr. Ackrington on the verandah appeared to hold a watching brief, while Questing and Smith yelled industriously in each other’s faces. The climax came when Questing again attempted to shove Smith away from the verandah. Smith drove his fist in Questing’s face and lost his balance. They fell simultaneously.

The noise stopped as suddenly as it had begun. An inexplicable and ridiculous affair changed abruptly into a piece of convincing melodrama. Dikon had seen many such a set-up at the cinema studios. Smith, shaky and bloated, crouched where he had fallen and mouthed at Questing. Questing got to his feet and dabbed ai the corner of his mouth with his handkerchief. His cigar lay smoking on the ground between them. It was a shot in technicolour, for Rangi’s Peak was now tinctured with such a violence of purple as is seldom seen outside the theatre, and in the middle distance rose the steam of the hot pools.

Dikon waited for a bit of tough dialogue to develop and was not disappointed.

“By God,” Questing said, exploring his jaw, “you’ll get yours for this. You’re sacked.”

“You’re not my bloody boss.”

“I’ll bloody well get you the sack, don’t you worry. When I’m in charge here…”

“That will do,” said Dr. Ackrington crisply.

“What
is
all this?” a peevish voice demanded. Colonel Claire, followed by Simon, appeared round the wing of the house. Smith got to his feet.

“You’ll have to get rid of this man, Colonel,” said Questing.

“What’s he done?” Simon demanded.

“I socked him.” Smith took Simon by the lapels of his coat. “You look out for yourselves,” he said. “It’s not only me he’s after. Your dad won’t sack me, will he, Sim?”

“We’ll see about that,” Questing said.

“But
why
…” Colonel Claire began, and was cut short by his brother-in-law.

“If I may interrupt for a moment,” said Dr. Ackrington acidly, “I suggest that I take Mr. Bell to my room. Unless, of course, he prefers a ring-side seat. Will you come and have a drink, Bell?”

Dikon thankfully accepted, leaving the room in a gale of apologies from Mrs. Claire and Barbara. Questing, who seemed to have recovered his temper, followed them up with a speech in which anxiety, propitiation, and a kind of fawning urgency were most disagreeably mingled. He was cut short by Dr. Ackrington.

“Possibly,” Dr. Ackrington said, “Mr. Bell may prefer to form his own opinion of this episode. No doubt he has seen a chronic alcoholic before now, and will not attach much significance to anything this particular specimen may choose to say.”

“Yes, yes. Of course,” Dikon murmured unhappily.

“As for the behaviour of Other Persons,” Dr. Ackrington continued, “there again, he may, as I do, form his own opinion. Come along, Bell.”

Dikon followed him along the verandah to his own room, a grimly neat apartment with a hideous desk.

“Sit down,” said Dr. Ackrington. He wrenched open the door of a home-made cupboard, and took out a bottle and two tumblers. “I can only offer you whisky,” he said. “With Smith’s horrible example before you, you may not like the idea. Afraid I don’t go in for modern rot-gut.”

“Thank you,” said Dikon, “I should like whisky. May I ask who he is?”

“Smith? He’s a misfit, a hopeless fellow. No good in him at all. Drifted out here as a boy. Agnes, my sister, who is something of a snob, talks loosely about him being a public-school man. Her geese are invariably swans, but I suppose this suggestion is within the bounds of possibility. Smith may have originated in some ill-conducted establishment of dubious gentility. Sometimes their early habits of speech go down the wind with their self-respect. Sometimes they keep it up even in the gutter. They used to be called remittance men, and in this extraordinary country received a good deal of entirely misguided sympathy from native-born fools. That suit you?”

“Thank you, sir,” said Dikon, taking his drink.

“My sister chooses to regard him as a sort of invalid. Some instinct must have led him ten years ago to the Springs. It has proved to be an ideal battening ground. They give him his keep and a wage, in exchange for idling about the place with an axe in his hand and a bottle in his pocket. When his cheque comes from Home he drinks himself silly, and my sister Agnes gives him beef-tea and prays for him. He’s a complete waster but he won’t trouble you, I fancy. I confess that this evening I was almost in sympathy with him. He did what I have longed to do for the past three months.” Dikon glanced up quickly. “He drove his fist into Questing’s face,” Dr. Ackrington explained. “Here’s luck to you,” he added. They drank to each other.

“Well,” said Dr. Ackrington after a pause, “you will doubtless lose no time in returning to Auckland and telling your principal to avoid this place like the devil.”

As this pretty well described Dikon’s intention he could think of nothing to say, and made a polite murmuring.

“If it is of any interest, you may as well know you have seen it at its worst. Smith is not always drunk and Questing is not always with us.”

“Not? But I thought…”

“He absents himself. I rejoice in the event and deplore the motive. However.”

Dr. Ackrington glared portentously into his glass and cleared his throat. Dikon waited for a moment, but his companion showed no sign of developing his theme. Dikon was to learn that Dr. Ackrington could exploit with equal mastery the embarrassing phrase and the disconcerting silence.

“Since we have mentioned him,” Dikon began nervously, “I confess I’m in a state of some confusion about Mr. Questing. May I ask if he is actually the — if Wai-ata-tapu Springs is his property?”

“No,” said Dr. Ackrington.

“I only ask,” Dikon continued in a hurry, “because you see I was approached in the first instance by Mr. Questing. Although I’ve warned him that Gaunt may decide against the Springs, he has been at extraordinary pains and really very considerable expense to — to alter existing arrangements and so on. And I mean — well, Dr. Forster’s note suggested that it was to Colonel and Mrs. Claire that we should apply.”