Mercier and Camier (7 page)

Camier raised an imaginary tankard, with flexed fingers to clinch his meaning. The real he emptied slowly at a single draught, then caught up his packet and went to the door. There he turned.

Mr. Conaire, he said, I present my apologies. There was a moment yesterday when you were much in my thoughts. Then suddenly pff! no longer, gone from them utterly. As if you had never been, Mr. Conaire.
No, that's not right, as if you had ceased to be. No, that's not right either, as if you were without my knowledge. Don't take what I say in evil part, Mr. Conaire, I have no wish to offend. The truth is I suddenly saw my work was over, I mean the work I am famous for, and that it was a mistake to have thought you might join me here, if only for a moment. I renew my apologies, Mr. Conaire, and bid you farewell.

And my bitch! cried Mr. Conaire.

Your old pet, said Camier. You miss her. You'd pay dear, what passes for dear, to get her back. You don't know when you're well off.

He went. Mr. Conaire half made to follow him. But for some time past he had been fighting the need. On his return from the yard he went to the street door and looked out, then turned back into the saloon where such sadness overcame him that he ordered more gin.

My little bitch! he groaned.

Come, come, said George, we'll get you another.

Queenie! groaned Mr. Conaire. Her smile was almost human!

One more out of the way, with any luck.

Mr. Gast was nowhere to be seen, and with good reason, for he was looking for snowdrops in a little wood, snowdrops for Patrick's sheaf.

Blow, blow, thou ill wind.

Teresa was nowhere to be seen either, without regret be it said, Teresa was nowhere to be seen.

Mercier would not eat. But Camier made him.

You are green, said Camier.

I think I'm going to be sick, said Mercier.

He was not mistaken. Camier held him up.

You'll feel better without it, said Camier.

And sure enough, little by little, Mercier did feel better, better than before being sick that is.

It's all the dark thoughts I've been revolving, said Mercier, ever since you went. I even wondered if you had abandoned me.

Leaving you the raincoat? said Camier.

There is every reason to abandon me, I know, said Mercier. He reflected a moment. It takes Camier not to abandon Mercier, he said.

Can you walk? said Camier.

I'll walk, never fear, said Mercier. He got up and took a few steps. How's that? he said.

The raincoat, said Camier, why not dump it? What good is it?

It retards the action of the rain, said Mercier.

A cerecloth, said Camier.

You go too far, said Mercier.

Do you want my honest opinion? said Camier. The one who has it on is no less to be pitied, physically and morally, than the one who has it off.

There's something in what you say, said Mercier.

They contemplated the raincoat where it lay spread out at the foot of the bank. It looked flayed. Flitters of chequered lining, its ghostly tartan rending to behold, still clung to the shoulders. A paler yellow marked those patches where the wet had not yet soaked through.

Let us be gone from here, said Camier.

Shall we not throw it away? said Mercier.

Let it lie where it is, said Camier, no needless exertion.

I should have liked to launch it, said Mercier.

Let it lie there, said Camier. Soon no trace of our bodies will subsist. Under the action of the sun it will shrivel, like dead leaf.

We could bury it, said Mercier.

Don't be mawkish, said Camier.

Otherwise someone will come and take it, said Mercier, some verminous brute.

What do we care? said Camier.

True, said Mercier, but we do.

Camier moved off. After a little Mercier came up with him.

You may lean on me, said Camier.

Not now, not now, said Mercier irritably.

What has you looking back all the time? said Camier.

It moved, said Mercier.

To wave, said Camier.

We didn't leave anything in the pockets by any chance? said Mercier.

Punched tickets of all sorts, said Camier, spent matches, scraps of newspaper bearing in their margins the obliterated traces of irrevocable rendezvous, the classic last tenth of pointless pencil, crumples of soiled bumf, a few porous condoms, dust. Life in short.

Nothing we'll be needing? said Mercier.

Did you not hear what I said? said Camier. Life.

They went a little way in silence, as every now and then it was their wont.

We'll take ten days if need be, said Camier.

No further transport? said Mercier.

What we seek is not necessarily behind the back of beyond, said Camier. So let our watchword be—.

Seek? said Mercier.

We are not faring for the love of faring, that I know of, said Camier. Cunts we may be, but not to that extent. He cast a cold eye on Mercier. Don't choke, he said. If you have anything to say, now speak.

I was thinking of saying something, said Mercier, but on second thoughts I'll keep it to myself.

Selfish pig, said Camier.

Go on you, said Mercier.

Where was I? said Camier.

Let our watchword be, said Mercier.

Ah yes, said Camier, lente, lente, and circumspection, with deviations to right and left and sudden reversals of course. Nor let us hesitate to halt, for days and even weeks on end. We have all life before us, all the fag end that is.

What's the weather like now, said Mercier, if I look up I'll fall down.

Like what it's always like, said Camier, with this slight difference, that we're beginning to get used to it.

I thought I felt drops on my cheeks, said Mercier.

Cheer up, said Camier, we are coming to the station of the damned, I can see the steeple.

God be praised, said Mercier, now we can get some rest.

III

The train.

Madden interlude I.

The slow train.

Madden interlude conclusion.

The village.

The inn.

Mr. Gast.

The beasts on the roads.

The farmers.

Mercier's dream.

The journey in jeopardy.

Camier's presence of mind.

Patrick's illness.

Mercier and Camier mount.

Mr. Graves.

Patrick's death.

His second-last words.

Conaire interlude I.

Mr. Gast treats of the guest.

Mr. Gast's vision.

Conaire interlude II.

Mercier and Camier sleep.

IV

Next day.

The field.

The goat.

The dawn.

Mercier and Camier laugh.

Mercier and Camier confer.

Camier laughs alone.

Mercier's face.

Camier departs.

Mercier alone.

The inn.

Conaire interlude conclusion.

The snowdrops.

Mercier eats and vomits.

The raincoat.

They press on.

The steeple of the damned.

The day came at last when lo the town again, first the outskirts, then the centre. They had lost the notion of time, but all pointed to the Lord's Day, or day of rest, the streets, the sounds, the passers-by. Night was falling. They prowled about the centre, at a loss where to go. Finally, at the suggestion of Mercier, whose turn it must have been to lead, they went to Helen's. She was in bed, a trifle unwell, but rose none the less and let them in, not without having first cried, from behind the door, Who goes there? They told her all the latest, their hopes both shattered and forlorn. They described how they had been chased by the bull. She left the room and came back with the umbrella. Camier manipulated it at length. But it's in perfect trim, he said, quite perfect. I mended it, said Helen. Perhaps even if possible more perfect than before, said Camier. If possible perhaps, said Helen. It opens like a dream, said Camier, and when I release—click!—the catch it collapses unaided. I open, I close, one, two, click, plop, click, pl—. Have done, said Mercier, before you break it on us again. I'm a trifle unwell, said Helen. No better omen, said Camier. But the sack was nowhere to be seen. I don't see the parrot, said Mercier. I put it out in the country, said Helen. They passed a peaceful night, for them, without debauch of any kind. All next day they spent within doors. Time tending to drag, they manstuprated mildly, without fatigue. Before the blazing fire, in the twofold light of lamp and leaden day, they squirmed gently on the carpet, their naked bodies mingled, fingering and fondling
with the languorous tact of hands arranging flowers, while the rain beat on the panes. How delicious that must have been! Towards evening Helen fetched up some vintage bottles and they drifted off contentedly to sleep. Men less tenacious might not have withstood the temptation to leave it at that. But the following afternoon found them in the street again, with no other thought than the goal they had assigned themselves. Only a few more hours and it would be night, nightfall, a few more leaden hours, so no time was to be lost. Yet even total darkness, total but for the streetlamps, so far from hindering their quest could only further it, all things considered. For the district they now aimed to get to, one to which they hardly knew the way, would be easier for them to get to by night than by day, since the one time they had got to it before, the one and only time, it had not been day, no, but night, nightfall. So they entered a bar, for it is in bars that the Merciers of this world, and the Camiers, find it least tedious to await the dark. For this they had another if less weighty reason, namely the advantage to be derived, on the mental level too, from immersion as complete as possible in that selfsame atmosphere which had so unsteadied their first steps. They set to therefore without delay. There is too much at stake, said Camier, for us to neglect the elementary precautions. Thus with a single stone they accounted for two birds, and even three. For they availed themselves of the respite to talk freely of this and that, with great profit, to themselves. For it is in bars that the Merciers of this heavenly planet, and the Camiers, talk with greatest freedom, greatest profit. Finally a great light bathed their understandings, flooding in particular the following concepts.

1. The lack of money is an evil. But it can turn to a good.

2. What is lost is lost.

3. The bicycle is a great good. But it can turn nasty, if ill employed.

4. There is food for thought in being down and out.

5. There are two needs: the need you have and the need to have it.

6. Intuition leads to many a folly.

7. That which the soul spews forth is never lost.

8. Pockets daily emptier of their last resources are enough to break the stoutest resolution.

9. The male trouser has got stuck in a rut, particularly the fly which should be transferred to the crotch and designed to open trapwise, permitting the testes, regardless of the whole sordid business of micturition, to take the air unobserved. The drawers should of course be transfigured in consequence.

10. Contrary to a prevalent opinion, there are places in nature from which God would appear to be absent.

11. What would one do without women? Explore other channels.

12. Soul: another four-letter word.

13. What can be said of life not already said? Many things. That its arse is a rotten shot, for example.

These illustrations did not blind them to the goal they had in view. This appeared to them, however, with ever increasing clarity as time wore on, one to be pursued with calm and collection. And being still just calm and collected enough to know they were no longer so they reached without difficulty the happy decision to postpone all action to the following day and even, if necessary, to the next but one. They returned then in excellent spirits to Helen's apartment and dropped asleep without further ceremony. And even the following day they refrained from the pretty frolics of wet forenoons, so keen were they to be on their toes for the trials to come.

It was chiming midday when they left the house. In the porch they paused.

Oh the pretty rainbow, said Camier.

The umbrella, said Mercier.

They exchanged a look. Camier vanished up the stairs. When he reappeared, with the umbrella, Mercier said:

You took your time.

Oh you know, said Camier, one does what one can. Are we to put it up?

Mercier scrutinized the sky.

What do you think? he said.

Camier left the shelter of the porch and submitted the sky to a thorough inspection, turning celtically to the north, the east, the south and finally the west, in that order.

Well? said Mercier.

Don't rush me, said Camier.

He advanced to the corner of the street, in order to reduce the risk of error. Finally he regained the porch and delivered his considered opinion.

In our shoes I wouldn't, he said.

And may one enquire why not? said Camier. It's coming down, if I am to believe my eyes. Can you not sense you're wet?

Your inclination would be to put it up? said Camier.

I don't say that, said Mercier, I simply ask myself when we'll put it up if we do not do so now.

To the unprejudiced eye it was less an umbrella than a parasol. From the tip of the spike to the ends of the stays or struts was a bare quarter of the total length. The stick was terminated by an amber knob with tassels. The material was red in colour, or had been, indeed still was in places. Shreds of fringe adorned the perimeter, at irregular intervals.

Look at it, said Camier. Take it in your hand. Come on, take it in your hand, it won't bite you.

Stand back! cried Mercier.

Where was it dug up at all? said Camier.

I bought it at Khan's, said Mercier, knowing we had only one raincoat to our name. He asked a shilling for it, I got it for eight pence. I thought he was going to embrace me.

It must have come out about 1900, said Camier. The year I believe of Ladysmith, on the Klip. Remember? Cloudless skies, garden parties daily. Life lay smiling before us. No hope was too high. We played at holding fort. We died like flies. Of hunger. Of cold. Of thirst. Of heat. Pom! Pom! The last rounds. Surrender! Never! We eat our dead. Drink our pee. Pom! Pom! Two more we didn't know we had. But what is that we hear? A clamour from the watch-tower! Dust on the horizon! The column at last! Our tongues are black. Hurrah none the less. Rah! Rah! A craking as of crows. A quartermaster dies of joy. We are saved. The century was two months old.