In the Time of Greenbloom (33 page)

“You mean about credits?”

“No! no! you've misunderstood me, but don't let's waste time. The important thing is for you to get into the first possible train and report to your housemaster.”

“But I don't
want
to! I want to go to the theatre. Horab's booked for me and everything, and besides I've got a late pass—nearly three hours yet—and so far we seem to have done nothing except visit pubs and lavatories.” He felt absurdly
near to tears again, and as if to emphasise his mood the automatic flusher began to operate throughout the length and breadth of the room; with a short premonitory hiss like a soda syphon, water and disinfectant began to flow copiously down the glistening surfaces which surrounded them.

The sound galvanised Michael; followed by John he pushed open the doors and hurried across to a hand-basin.

“Now be sensible old chap! It's just seven-forty-five, and the earliest train you could catch from Paddington would be the
eight-fifteen
. Allowing half an hour between here and the station, and even that would be cutting it fine, you would only just reach Oxford in time to get out to Beowulf's before your pass expires.”

“Yes, but—”

“But quite apart from that,” his voice was as remorseless and measured as the flushing apparatus sweeping away impurities next door, “quite apart from that the whole situation is unsuitable.”

“Unsuitable? You mean the play we're going to see?”

“That is the least of my worries.” He was washing his hands very carefully.

“Oh dear,” said John. “What else is worrying you?”

“If only you would be your age, Laddie. I know that you'll probably counter with Horab's remarks about your lost youth—he's inclined to dramatise, but one ignores that and really you should be able to see that your being here this evening is as embarrassing to Rachel and Kate, and probably to Horab himself as it is to me. They don't see an awful lot of each other, one can't when one's in the thick of exams and so forth, and naturally after the show they'll want to say goodnight to one another and enjoy a little—intimacy. In addition, as Rachel herself pointed out—”

“You mean that I'm too young,” said John angrily. “Is that it?”

“Frankly yes; but not primarily. You see old chap, whatever Horab likes to say, you
are
my responsibility both from
the point of view of the School and, more important, from the
parental
angle.”

He let the water out of the basin and gazed at himself earnestly in the looking-glass as though he were appealing to a judicious and favourable friend. “I mean an evening like this wouldn't make awfully good reading at home, would it? You can't really imagine Mother and Father feeling that all is for the best in the best of all possible worlds when they hear that you've been dashing about London in the middle of the term with people like Horab and Rachel can you?”

“I suppose not, but I don't see who's going to tell them about it. And anyway what will Horab say if you shunt me off back to Oxford without saying anything to him? He seems to like me and to want me to be with him, and in a queer way I rather like
him
.”

Michael tapped his shoulder affectionately. “I don't want to hurt you Johnny! you must have had enough of that lately; but at the risk of repeating myself I must emphasise that Horab happens to be
my
friend and consequently I have a good deal more insight into his motives than you're likely to have. Horab likes to
appear
to run things, all Jews do, but the moment he's presented with a
fait accompli
he accepts it at once. He's fickle you know, capricious, and you must take it from me that it was only a flutter—a
lubie
, the sudden whim of an
enfant gaté
which made him insist on bringing you along tonight; and if you must know he only thought of it this afternoon.”

“I thought you said he'd invited me yesterday.”

Michael sighed. “You're forcing me to it,” he said indulgently, “you seem to want me to hurt you—I never knew such a chap for arguing, you're worse than Uncle Felix. To be brutally truthful it's the publicity that's taken Horab's fancy, he admitted it to me this evening. His rather unpleasant way of putting it was to suggest that publicity is a racial weakness with the Jews—he cited the New Testament as an example—and he made it perfectly clear that if no one had ever heard of you he'd find the whole situation as much of
a bore as any other undergraduate saddled with a teenager in London; but as things are and through no fault of your own you've got a sort of notoriety which makes Horab think he's sorry for you.” He paused and John interrupted quickly:

“He
is
sorry for me. He's much sorrier for me than you are because he's not sorry for me, he's sorry
with
me. And he's
doing
something about it! He wants to take me away somewhere—he mentioned Paris—or write about me.”

Michael groaned. “Oh Lord! I suppose he's been telling you about his aeroplane, has he? or was it the book?”

“No, he only mentioned the book once and that was when you were there, something about Wittgenstein. Who
was
Wittgenstein?”

“Who
is
Wittgenstein, you mean; he's still alive, I can't tell you anything about him except that he's one of a vast variety of people and concepts that Horab is going to touch on in a book he intends to write. Another of his obsessions is the scapegoat idea and quite obviously he looks upon you as a recent example and that's why he's making such a confounded nuisance of himself over this evening. Don't you see?”

“You mean he doesn't really sympathise with me at all? He's just using me because I fit in with some idea of his?”

“I'm afraid so, but there's something else as well; I'm quite certain that if you happened to be Jewish Horab would not be taking the least notice of you despite the tragedy.”

“Why not?”

“Because I'm pretty sure he's not, in any sense, sorry for us; he's simply exulting in our humiliation as Christians.
Now
do you understand?”

“Yes I think so,” said John slowly. “But why do you let him?”

“There isn't time to explain now, but briefly I'm trying to help him. He's a man completely without Faith, and it flatters his vanity to let him think for the present that I a Gentile, a Christian Gentile, am allowing him to dominate me. It's the only hope I have of influencing him and of winning
him round.” He broke off. “I'm afraid we can't go into it any further at the moment, John; and really you know it's nothing with which you need concern yourself, is it?”

“It's not my fault Greenbloom's taking an interest in me, and I don't see why you should have all the fun while I just go back to the beastly school when I'm supposed to be having half-term with you. And what about the doctor? Greenbloom said he was sure his doctor would be able to sort me out and get rid of this feeling I'm always having that I'm separated from everybody.
He
seems to understand.”

“Look old chap you've only got twenty-five minutes to catch that train.” With a studied, indulgent, reluctance Michael put his hand into his pocket. “Here's another half-crown for you, it'll do for the taxi; take it and run.”

They swung round as the doors opened and Greenbloom hurled himself towards them.

“For God's sake! We're going to miss the whole of the first scene, what on earth have you been doing? I sent you to order that taxi ten minutes ago and you know that I object to being kept waiting.”

“It's John,” said Michael. “He's thought better of it. He doesn't feel he ought to come and I've decided to let him catch the
eight-fifteen
and get back to Beowulf's before his pass expires.”

Greenbloom straightened his tie and wriggled his head a little higher over the top of his white collar.

“The taxi,” he said, “it is obstructing the entrance.”

Like an Old Testament prophet he drove them before him down the length of the corridors past the uniformed commissionaire and into the attendant taxi.

Once inside it there was no further discussion and Michael behaved as though there had never at any time been any conflict of views between himself and anybody else. It struck John then that Greenbloom shared with Mother a capacity for such intense self-interest that lesser people and their smaller desires simply ceased to exist when he chose to exercise his power to the full. It was not that either of them necessarily
fought down opposition to their aims, it was only that they themselves were so totally engrossed in their private vision of a situation that their view ultimately prevailed over that of others to such an extent that even the memory of difference was expunged and forgotten. Michael now was bland, almost gay, and carried on a cheerful and bantering conversation with Rachel and Kate all the way to the theatre.

Their way smoothed by Greenbloom's lavish tips, in the space of what seemed to be at the most only five or ten minutes, they found themselves sitting in the stalls of the Haymarket watching the unfolding of the story of
Musical Chairs
.

From the programme it appeared that the setting was an oilfield in the Middle East staffed by two very English married men and from the outset it was obvious that the action was to be concerned primarily with the intimacies and emotional stresses engendered in their relative isolation between these two men and their sharp discontented wives. The dialogue was very modern and seemed to John to be even smarter shallower and more brutally insincere than that of Noel Coward who until this moment had been his idol among contemporary playwrights. The effect of the short lines and cold sentiments so neatly and carelessly expressed by these four people as they played out their tragedy in front of a single stark pylon glimpsed through a cardboard window in the back-cloth was to make him feel that at last he had an object in growing-up. This, he felt, was the real world whose language it should be the object of everyone to speak wittily and with merciless precision. These people were not in confusion, they knew what they were doing and what they ought to say as they did it; they were never dull or incomplete in their sentences and though they suffered, they underwent their pain so modishly that it was impossible to feel that they felt any real discomfort so long as they found an epigram ready to their lips at the crucial moment.

Beside John, at infrequent intervals, Greenbloom uttered a harsh cry of pain which, until Rachel explained that it was his laughter and that he was enjoying himself, seriously worried
him; but far more often he writhed about in his seat bending and flexing his good leg and snapping the springs of his artificial one while a spatter of angry comments and expletives enlivened the darkness about him.

At the first interval, even before the curtain had descended behind the footlights, he uncoiled himself from his seat beside the gangway and drew them out after him as he led the way to the bar where he insisted on their splitting a bottle of whisky in order, as he put it, to make some attempt to ‘save the play'. Occupying the whole of one end of the small counter on which he leaned with his back to the two middle-aged women serving the drinks, he addressed the filling room furiously, glaring over his guests' heads at the open door through which other later arrivals were entering.

“Why doesn't something
happen
?” he demanded loudly. “Why don't they get on with it? It is quite obvious that the man with tuberculosis who plays the piano so badly is going to seduce the Manager's wife and that his own wife will ultimately drown herself in the storage tank. Well why don't they
do
it and let us get on with the
action
? We cannot continue to waste time sitting out there between the intervals with nothing to anticipate in the way of
meaning
. Wittgenstein, had he been so foolish as to book seats in the first place would already by this time have demanded his money back. The cast would be playing to an empty theatre, and
that
is more than they deserve when they can give us nothing more rewarding than an artifice of this sort. Some of us came here in order to be entertained, others, and I claim that we are among them, came here in order to be made to
think
and so far no least effort has been made to satisfy either category.”

“I think you're being a little unfair Horab,” said Michael seriously, “after all a play has got to have a plot and although your solution may prove to be the correct one I think there
are
alternatives.”

“Of course there are! I do not deny it. The tuberculous fellow, Geoffrey or whatever he's called, might stop playing the piano for a moment and go and drown
himself
when his
own wife goes to bed with the man who's always worrying about their failure to strike sufficient oil. But what difference does it make? Tell me that!” His eyes suddenly swivelled away from Michael and his attention became fixed on a short man with a bald head who was trying to order a drink.

“
You
, sir!” said Greenbloom, raising his voice even higher. “I can see from you attitude that you are a critic. You appear to have overheard my remarks about this farce we are suffering. Well, tell me, am I not right? Are any of us going to leave this theatre feeling either purged or entertained as a result of the patience and attention we have accorded the play?”

The smaller man retreated a step and upset somebody's drink. He looked as embarrassed as a passer-by suddenly singled out by a Hyde Park orator to support a cause which he had always found offensive. Hoping to escape quietly in the confusion occasioned by the spilling of the drink, he turned his back on Greenbloom and started to apologise volubly to the lady with the wet dress. But it was no good; proffering a large silk handkerchief, Greenbloom stepped forward and continued his remarks as though nothing had happened.