He helped the boy as far as the opposite kerb, then left him after a few
conversational commonplaces. George’s sense of timing was never, indeed, so
infallible as when he found himself up against that rare phenomenon—
someone who didn’t seem particularly glad to see him.
He spent an hour or two in further sightseeing, then made his way to St.
Jude’s after another bad meal. The night was cloudy, and the staircase
leading to D One proved hard to find, even by enquiry. To George’s
astonishment, after he had knocked, the door was opened by a rather pretty
girl in nurse’s uniform who admitted him to a large pleasant room in which
Charles, with one arm bared to the shoulder, had evidently been undergoing
some sort of treatment which George’s arrival had interrupted. George
apologized for being early (though actually he was punctual), but Charles
assured him the job was finished and introduced the girl, who joined in
unimportant conversation while she packed her equipment. She seemed very
charming, friendly, and efficient, and George, whose mind always flew to
Browdley on the slightest provocation, wished he had her in the towns health
department. He had also noticed the state of the arm, and Charles, aware of
this, felt constrained to cover a certain embarrassment by making light of
it. “Still have to be patched up, but I’m sure a lot of fellows would envy me
the method.” The girl laughed and made business-like arrangements for her
next visit. She demurred at first as George picked up her bag, but when he
insisted she let him carry it down the stairs. Outside the door he said: “It
isn’t just that I’m being polite. I’d really like to know how that boy is,
and I thought you’d be the one to give me the true facts.”
She replied calmly as they walked across the court and through the gateway
into the street: “He’s not well at all—but that’s a usual experience
after the sort of crash he had. They seem to improve, and then they get worse
again. It’s partly because they expect to recover too soon and too completely
—and it doesn’t happen.”
“But it will eventually—in his case?”
“He has a good chance. Physically he’s doing fine. He fractured both
ankles, and one of his hands and arms had bad burns—that’s the one I’m
working on—the muscle’s damaged. And his face, too—that was
burned, but they did a wonderful job with plastic surgery—I’ve seen a
photograph of him as he used to be and it’s really remarkable. Of course the
shock is really the hardest thing to get over.”
“But he WILL?”
“I hope so, though he’s pretty bad at times. He has sudden nerve- storms
—you can’t imagine what they’re like until you’ve seen him… But he
should improve gradually.”
“It all sounds serious enough,” George said.
“It is—though I’ve seen many worse. And he has heaps of courage. You
know he got a D.F.C.?”
“No?… When was that?”
She mentioned a time earlier than that of George’s visits to the Mulcaster
Hospital.
He said: “He never told me.”
“I’m not surprised.”
“But isn’t he proud of it?”
She smiled. “He’s just shy about those things, that’s all. Do you know him
well?”
“Not very. But I—I like him a great deal.”
“So do I.”
They had reached the pavement where she said she would wait for a bus.
George would have liked to go on talking, but the bus came up almost
immediately. “And where are you off to now?” he asked, curious as always
about the lives and work of others.
“Back to the hospital here. They keep me busy.”
“I’ll bet they do,” he answered admiringly. The bus moved away and he
walked back to the College room encouraged by a feeling of community with all
who worked with such quiet, cheerful skill—the real aristocracy on
earth, he reflected, if there ever were such a thing.
Charles had put on his coat and was making sure the curtains were drawn
over the windows. George apologized again for having arrived perhaps
inopportunely.
“Not at all… Sit down. You’ve had dinner, of course. How about some
coffee? I make it here, on my own.”
George agreed and watched Charles as he busied himself with the small but
intricate task. It was as if he wanted to show how he could do things—
as if embarrassment, aware of itself, could find relief in a kind of
exhibitionism. He made excellent coffee, anyhow, and over several cups they
fell to discussing the business that had brought George to London, which
George explained in as much detail as was interesting to himself until it
occurred to him that Charles might not be similarly enthralled. But the boy
urged him to continue. “Go ahead. It’s shop talk, but I always enjoy that
from anyone who knows what he’s talking about.”
George acknowledged the compliment with a pleased ‘Aye’, and then, to keep
it modest, added: “So long as it’s anything to do with Browdley… Now tell
me YOUR gossip.”
“Nothing to tell except a lot of dull stories about hospitals.”
“They moved you about a lot?”
“Yes. Everybody who thought he could do anything had a go at me. Not that
I’m complaining. They did rather well, I reckon. And the French johnny who
fixed up my nose really improved on the original. I had to spend six weeks in
his private nursing home in Leeds.”
“Leeds? As near to Browdley as all that? Why didn’t you let me know? I’d
have visited you.”
Charles looked embarrassed. “Well, you stopped writing, so I thought you’d
got a bit bored with that sort of thing. I wouldn’t blame you.”
“
I
stopped writing?”
And then, of course, the matter was explored; it appeared that George’s
last two letters had never reached Charles; it was all as trivial as that.
(They did arrive, eventually, after a series of fantastic re-forwardings).
George exclaimed, laughing because his relief was so much greater than he
could have believed possible: “And
I
thought it was YOU who didn’t
want to write!”
Just then the air-raid siren went off, effectively changing the subject.
“There’s a shelter in the next court,” Charles said, “if you’d like to go
there.”
“What do YOU generally do?”
“It’s only happened two or three times before, but I’ve always stayed
here. I don’t think it’s a very good shelter anyway.”
George said staying where they were was all right with him, so they went
on talking. Now that the contretemps of the letters had been cleared up, the
mood came on them both for subsidiary confessions; Charles, for instance,
admitted that when he had caught sight of George outside the College that
afternoon he had deliberately looked the other way. “It was partly because I
thought perhaps you really didn’t want to see me—not now that you know
I know who you are. There’s also a bit of a phobia I have about my new face.
It gives me the most conflicting impulses—for instance, in YOUR case,
because you never saw my old face, I didn’t mind so much, yet because I also
didn’t think you’d recognize me I was glad to think you wouldn’t realize I
was avoiding you… Or is all that too complicated?”
“Aye—and so are most human impulses, if you get down to analysing
‘em.”
“I’m glad you think so. I’ve had a good deal of time to analyse myself
lately—perhaps too much—and on the whole I prefer flying… I
suppose you know I’ll never be able to do that again?”
George had all along thought so, but deemed it best to appear surprised.
Charles went on: “The doctors simply hooted when I mentioned it. Asked me
whether I wasn’t satisfied with the way they’d fixed me up for a life of
strictly civilian usefulness.”
“And aren’t you?”
“I guess I’ve got to be. I’m damned lucky compared with thousands. The
fact is, though, I really WANTED to fly again… As long as I could be useful
that way I was satisfied. But now that I have to wonder how I CAN be useful,
I’m NOT satisfied.”
“What’s wrong with just being here?”
“Probably quite a lot. And that’s what makes the big difference. There
never was much wrong with the R.A.F., and even if there had been it was none
of my business. My job was to fly.”
“And now your job’s to get ready for some other job that’ll be just as
useful in its way by then.”
“I’d like to believe that. I’d like to think the things I’m being lectured
about have the slightest connection with anything that matters. The Statute
of Mortmain, for example—or the Amphictyonic Council.”
“The Amphictyonic Council certainly has—because it was a sort of
League of Nations, wasn’t it?”
Charles gasped. “Good God! Now how the hell did you know that?”
“Because I once studied history for a university examination same as
you’re doing now.”
“You DID? You mean you…” The first gunfire could be heard in the far
distance; it seemed to cause a break in the youth’s astonishment, giving him
the chance to reflect, perhaps, that it was not very polite to be so
astonished. He stammered: “It’s just that I didn’t realize you were—
well, what I mean is…”
George let him flounder with a certain grim joy. “Aye, I get what you
mean,” he said at length. “You thought education wasn’t much in my line, I
daresay. But you’re wrong there. I had great ambitions when I was a lad, and
to get a university degree was one of ‘em. But it didn’t come off—and
perhaps it doesn’t matter so much when I look back on it now. I’ve done other
things.”
“That’s what my father used to say. His ambition was always to be an
ambassador in one of the important capitals, but things didn’t work out that
way. In fact they worked out damned badly… You know he’s probably
dead?”
George said gently: “Not PROBABLY. I don’t think anyone knows enough to
say that.”
“I wish they did. I wish it was a certainty. I can’t bear to think of him
being—”
George caught the note of hysteria and checked it by putting out his cup
for more coffee. “Come now… I know it could be bad, but maybe it’s not as
bad as that… Isn’t it possible to get word from him? Doesn’t anybody have
an idea where he is?”
The whole room began to shake as if a train were rumbling deeply
underground. A flake of plaster fell from the ceiling with almost dainty
nonchalance. Charles answered: “My mother thinks he’s in Japan. I don’t know
what evidence she has—if any. She’s—she’s a little strange
—in some ways. She’s been writing to all kinds of people in the
Government—making rather extraordinary suggestions for rescuing him.
Quite extraordinary. I’m terribly sorry for her.” His voice trembled.
The underground train noise began again. George took his refilled cup of
coffee. “Thanks,” he said. And then: “I’m sorry too, lad.”
Charles lit a cigarette. “Air-raid warden in Browdley, aren’t you?”
George nodded.
“Ever had a raid?”
“Not so far, thank goodness. But I know what they’re like. I was at
Mulcaster in one of the worst.”
“I was in a few too.”
“So I understand.”
“Oh, I don’t mean THOSE. I mean as one of the underdogs. A few hours after
my mother landed there was a bad one on the docks there… She wasn’t scared.
I was, though.” He smiled. “Not that I wouldn’t rather be here than in a
shelter. It’s a bit of a bother for me to get down steps, and I hate
strangers staring at my funny face.”
“It’s not funny to me.”
“That’s because you never saw it before. The really funny thing is that
you should ever have seen it at all… Just coincidence, wasn’t it, that you
noticed my name on the list at that hospital?”
“Aye—but when you come to think of it, there’s a lot of coincidence
in the world.”
“That’s so… Boy meets Girl—always the perfect coincidence. My
father meeting my mother… YOU meeting my mother. Where was it? In
Browdley?”
George nodded.
“My father met her first in Vienna.”
“Aye.”
“You knew that?”
George nodded. After a pause he asked: “By the way… did you… did you
tell her you’d met me?”
“Yes.”
“Did she mind?”
“She seemed a bit surprised, that’s all.” An explosion came, nearer than
any before. Charles began to laugh.
George said: “Steady, lad.”
“Oh, I’m all right. I was just laughing at something she said about you
when I happened to mention you were Mayor of Browdley. She said you were like
a lion when you talked at public meetings, and behind that you were rather
like a friendly old dog that nobody need be afraid of, but behind everything
else you had the secret strength of the dove.”
“The WHAT?”
Charles repeated the phrase, after which they both laughed together.
“Well, it’s the first time
I
ever heard of it,” George said. “And I
still don’t know whether she meant that doves are strong or that I’m weak…
Maybe she didn’t know herself when she said it.”
“Maybe. My father once said she said things not because they meant
anything but to find out if they DID mean anything.”
George made no comment.
“And sometimes her mind seems full of words waiting for other words to set
them off like fire-crackers.” The distant underground rumbling died away and
all was silence. “Sounds as if it might be over… Where d’you think it was?
Just tip and run on some little place—they do that, don’t they?” With
difficulty the boy got up and walked to the window. “George—do you mind
if I call you George?—George, I WISH I could be of some use —some
REAL use—in this blasted country… If only I could fly again—but
that’s out, and so far I can’t seem to settle to what’s in. I guess millions
of us are going to feel like that after the war.” He moved restlessly. “How
about a stroll? I can, if I’m careful.”
“Not till the all-clear sounds. Take it easy.”
“All right, all right. I’ll bet you make a good warden. When are you going
back to that town of yours?”
“Tomorrow night, I hope.”
“So soon?”
“I’ll have finished my work in London and I’ve got plenty waiting for me
at home.”
“They can’t do without you?”