The Philosopher's Pupil (49 page)

‘Yes, I met him once.'

‘
Once?
'

‘Well, yes — '

‘I supposed that he knew you quite well.'

‘I hadn't met him before last week, when he asked me to come and see him.'

‘Oh,' said Hattie. ‘What about?'

‘About you.'

‘About
me?
'

‘Yes, but - he must have told you — '

‘Told me what?'

‘His idea.'

‘What idea?'

‘About us.'

‘
Us?
'

‘You and me. Sorry, I'm not putting it very well — '

‘So it was his idea that you should come and see me?' said Hattie.

‘In a way, yes. I mean, yes.'

‘But why?'

‘He wants us to know each other.'

‘Why?'

‘Well, why not!' said Tom. He was aware of having made a number of blunders already and was acutely conscious of the perfectly horrid falsity of his position, but he was exasperated too by Hattie's hard aggressive tone, as if it was all his fault. He thought, has she no sense of humour, no sense of
fun?
Why is she so cross with
me?
‘I mean,' he said, ‘you're a newcomer here — '

‘And so —?'

‘I could show you round and introduce you and - that's strictly all, I - there's no need to think — '

‘Oh I don't!' said Hattie. She seemed to be stiff with anger.

‘I wasn't suggesting — '

‘Naturally not,' said Hattie with extreme coldness. ‘We haven't met anywhere, have we, that I can recall?'

‘No, I saw you for about three seconds at the Baths on that awfully cold day when it snowed. Two seconds actually. I can't say that I — '

‘No indeed. I see. Well, I'm sorry you've been put to this trouble.'

‘No trouble, I assure you - I do hope — '

‘My maid knows Ennistone well and will be perfectly able to show me round, so there is no need for you to be inconvenienced.'

‘But — '

‘Anyway, I am going home soon.'

‘Home —?'

‘Back to Colorado where I live.'

The American name entered the conversation with a kind of fierce chopping movement, and Tom felt brought up short as if he had been suddenly confronted by an icy cliff of Rockies. ‘Oh well - in that case — ' he murmured.

There was a silence, during which Hattie picked up her glass from the floor and reached out to replace it with a click upon the glass-topped bamboo table. Then she stood up.

Tom began to say, ‘I'm afraid I — ' Then he stood up too.

Pearl, who had of course been listening outside, smartly opened the sitting-room door. Tom (this had now somehow become inevitable) marched out into the hall. He turned and faced the two girls, the thin pale young one, the sturdy brown older one, their faces knit up into expressions of extreme hostile anxiety. He thought, this is
absurd,
it is all a
mistake,
I can
explain.
But he could not explain. He said, ‘I'm awfully sorry - I'm sorry I bothered you - I'm afraid I didn't manage to say — '

‘Not at all,' said Hattie.

Pearl opened the front door.

Tom went out into the rain and began to blunder his way through the now totally dark garden in the direction of the back gate. The rain, soaking his hair and running down his neck, reminded him that he had left his umbrella behind. He turned back and was approaching the house again when the front door flew open. Something was hurled violently out and scattered on the lawn. It was his ill-fated bunch of tulips. As the door slammed shut he stood still, shocked, for a moment, looking at the candle in the hall window wavering wildly in the sudden draught. Then he turned and ran away down the garden.

‘But what
is
it?' said Pearl, as Hattie's tears ran through her fingers.

‘Didn't you hear?'

‘Yes, but — '

‘He isn't an admirer, he's a
liar -
and he brought those horrible lying flowers — '

‘It wasn't the poor flowers' fault! And why is he a liar?'

‘He just came because he was told to.'

‘All right then, but he thought you'd understand.'

‘Understand what? Something
horrible —
'

‘But you're complaining because he's not an admirer.'

‘I'm not complaining!'

‘You said you didn't want one!'

‘I
don't.
I just want to be left
alone.
And then this horrible
spoiling
thing happens. Oh why did he have to
come?
He's a horrible person. so
rude -
and it's
all
spoilt now - oh Pearlie, Pearlie, I want to go home. I want to go home!'

Oh dear, thought Pearl, as she took Hattie in her arms, what a mess, whatever is it all about - and what a handsome boy he is too - well, I suppose that's part of the trouble. Awful things are just starting. And soon poor Pearl was finding tears of her own to shed.

‘Are you going for your usual walk?' said Gabriel to Brian.

The notorious McCaffrey summer expedition to the seaside was in full swing. The sun was shining, the east wind was blowing, it was now May. The jaunt had, after discussion, settled down to being for one day only, which was generally agreed to offer the worst of all worlds. Brian usually demonstrated his dislike of this intensive family gathering by turning his back on the famous element and walking inland, thus avoiding any participation in junketings on the beach.

‘No,' said Brian.

‘Why? Are you too tired?'

‘No. I'm not in the least tired. Why should I be?'

‘Will you sit here then? Or would you like to go on the rocks?'

‘Why do you want to make it all out into a programme? Just don't
bother
me!'

Gabriel gave a little (maddening to Brian) frown at being hurt, and went on silently unpacking the various ritual objects which always made up the Brian McCaffreys' home base on the beach.

Brian asked himself, why don't I want to go for a walk like I usually do? The answer was terrible. He was afraid that Gabriel might find herself alone with George. She might actually
attempt
to be alone with George. Am I going mad? Brian wondered. Why did George come anyway? It was shameless of him to come to the seaside just as if he were an ordinary person.

Of course there were other expeditions to the sea but this was the one which was supposed to assemble all the clan, and which Gabriel had (not felicitously for her husband) compared to Christmas. It continued a tradition of annual family summer gatherings at Maryville and could be seen as a kind of remembrance of, or mourning for, that house which was less than a mile distant from where the clan was now encamped. This was an aspect of it which Brian particularly detested. He had never liked the McCaffrey seaside house, since he so much preferred his own. He had however resented (as they all did) Alex's disgraceful act of selling it without consultation. Now he felt the whole thing was better forgotten. Gabriel always came back in tears, lamenting for the lost house. And if the visit was supposed to show the usurping Blacketts that the McCaffreys didn't care it was clearly misconceived. Of course, that particular bit of coastline, as well as being the nearest unspoilt sea to Ennistone, was exceptionally delightful; but it would have showed more spirit to abandon the place altogether. In a more general sense of course the pilgrimage survived because it had somehow become a family custom, animated and maintained by the sentimentality of the women (that is Gabriel, Alex and Ruby) and the expectations of the children (that is Adam and Zed). Alex pretended indifference, but in fact valued the event as an exhibition of her matriarchal power.

‘If only Stella were here,' said Gabriel, as she spread out a large tartan rug, ‘it would be — ' she was going to say ‘perfect', only honesty compelled her to realize that no such picture with Brian in it could be perfect - ‘so nice.'

Stella, who had not reappeared, was now said, in terms of a rumour which probably had no sounder foundation than the one that pronounced her dead, to be staying with friends in London.

‘Stella hated this jamboree as much as I do,' said Brian, kicking a stone. ‘And if we must come I fail to see why we have to have those bloody outsiders.'

The persons gathered, now scattered, upon the windy sunny beach were as follows: Brian, Gabriel, Adam and Zed, Alex and Ruby, George, Tom and Emma, and Hattie and Pearl. Alex had prompted Tom to bring Emma. Tom, who loved the occasion, would have come anyway, and the two ‘idle louts' as Brian called them, had evidently found no difficulty in escaping from their university work in London. Gabriel had also, to Brian's disgust, invited Hattie and Pearl, encountering them one day at the Baths. She did this partly out of benevolence to one generally agreed to be a waif, partly out of a sort of motherly possessiveness which she had enouraged herself to develop about Hattie and which had so far found no other expression, and partly out of an obsessive irritated envy and curiosity which she felt about the fortunate tenant of the coveted Slipper House. Anyway, there they all were.

The Brian McCaffreys had driven themselves, together with Tom and Emma, in Brian's old Austin. Pearl had driven Hattie in a hired Volkswagen. (The girls had never been allowed to have a car of their own, but Pearl had learnt to drive in America where they were occasionally permitted to hire a car.) Alex had driven George and Ruby in William Eastcote's Rover, which William always pressed her to borrow whenever she needed it. (It had never for some reason been ‘the thing' to invite the Eastcotes, William, Anthea, and when she was alive, Rose, to join this family occasion.) The cars were parked on a track at the upper end of the long sheep-dotted yellow field of wiry wind-combed grass down which they had walked to the sea. The grass ended in a wire fence through which one crawled on to the dark rocks, easy to descend, which fringed the beach all along. The beach itself was gritty, the coarse sand mingling with small pebbles, and the dark raggedy rocks began again seawards, covered with golden brown seaweed and extensively visible at low tide.

Various ‘camps' had been established and sheltered spots for undressing ‘bagged'. Gabriel had undone her corded bales well out in the middle of the sand, as she never bothered about hiding to undress. Alex and Ruby occupied a little cave-like recess in the landward rocks which was traditionally theirs. Hattie and Pearl had walked away shyly along the beach and evidently found a similar retreat, since they were no longer to be seen. Tom and Emma had carried their kit to a summit of the landward rocks where the serrated tops surrounding a hollow composed a citadel. Adam and Zed had of course run down to the sea whose distant wavelets they were approaching by slithering over the seaweedy rocks, with many pauses to inspect the exciting pools. George, isolated upon a low rock which reared itself some distance away in the midst of the sand, was sitting and gazing at the sea. Further away along the coast, one topmost corner of Maryville could just be seen above the rocks which rose at that point almost to the dignity of cliffs.

A prompt start had been made and it was still early in the day. The usual procedure (‘usual procedures' are sacred upon such family occasions) was that there should first be swimming, organized from the separate camps, then sunbathing, should that be feasible, and strolling about, then
drinks
(a ceremony especially sacred to Gabriel and Alex) with the company gathered together to form a ‘party', then lunch, also taken more or less together as far as was convenient in terms of using rocks for seats and tables, then more strolling and wandering including sometimes a special short walk (not Brian's walk) inland to a ruined manor house with a wild garden, then a second bathe for those who felt strong enough, then tea, then more drinks, then time to go home. It made a long day. Ruby and Gabriel ‘did' all the food (Gabriel loved doing this) and Gabriel and Alex provided all the drinks. On this occasion Gabriel had packed the extra rations for the visitors (outsiders), Emma, Hattie and Pearl.

Since a little time has passed, some explanation is necessary concerning the present state of the parties. The university term had started and Tom and Emma had officially removed themselves to their digs in King's Cross. However, the young Osmores were prolonging their stay in America, and Tom McCaffrey was to be seen at Travancore Avenue oftener, it was said, than was consistent with strict attention to his studies. Of course many Ennistonians now, with the improved rail link, commuted daily to work in London, but it was agreed to be a tiring and time-consuming journey. However that might be, Tom, and sometimes Emma, tended to appear at weekends. Tom had a reason for these sojourns in his native town since he had become involved in the production of
The Triumph of Aphrodite
which was to be performed in June, with assistance from the Arts Council. Tom now, in fact, figured as coauthor with Gideon Parke, having learnt to imitate the style of the eighteenth-century poet, providing yards of handy additional stuff which was rumoured to be ‘better than the original'. This included a charming extra song for the boy (Olivia Newbold's younger brother Simon) who was, on the advice of Jonathan Treece (formerly choir master at St Paul's, now organist at an Oxford College), to sing the jester's part designed for the undiscoverable countertenor. During rehearsals Tom inevitably saw a good deal of Anthea Eastcote and was to be seen walking with her about the town, thereby reviving old speculations and driving Hector Gaines more often than before to the contemplation of suicide.

Of course Tom had, even in the company of the agreeable Anthea, very odd secret thoughts in his head. In fact he was worrying and annoying himself into a frenzy. He thought he could actually see lines appearing on his forehead. The ridiculous misbegotten interview with Hattie had left a painful throbbing scar upon Tom's soul. Tom was accustomed to an unscarred soul; an aspect of his cheerful temperament was indeed a calm modest sunny little self-satisfaction of which he allowed himself to be aware as harmless. He had had a poem accepted by a periodical, a real literary magazine, not a senseless rag like the
Ennislone Gazette;
but he noticed with horror that this success gave him less than the expected amount of pleasure. His pleasure was being stolen. He felt that he had done badly, he even suspected that he had behaved like a cad, a role in which he had never dreamt to see himself. At the same time the whole thing was hideously obscure and he couldn't clearly make out
how
he had done what he ought not to have done, and even
what
it was that he had done. When he had discussed the matter with Emma, he had hung his head at his friend's strictures without however receiving any enlightenment from him. Yes, perhaps he ought not to have agreed to Rozanov's dotty idea, which he had seen in the light of an innocent lark. It had then seemed reasonable to go and see the girl, so as to satisfy the philosopher if for nothing else. The trouble (was that it?) was that the philosopher had not properly warned the girl, had perhaps even misled her, which was certainly not Tom's fault. And she had been so cold and hostile from the start that he had been unable to get any grasp upon the situation. (‘You're annoyed because you failed to charm her,' said Emma.) Now there was a blot upon the world which Tom heartily wished to remove but could not; indeed it paralysed him. He considered writing a letter of apology to Hattie, but any letter he envisaged could be seen as a continuation of some unpardonable rudeness. He told himself that he ought to write to Rozanov and tell him that he had failed. But he hated the idea of writing this letter too. Would he really then have to affirm that he would never speak to the girl again? And now here she was, invited by tactless Gabriel to spoil the family picnic.