The Philosopher's Pupil (75 page)

‘Tom, Tom, wake up, Tom dear, wake up.'

Tom rolled over and sat up. A bright light was on in the room and a woman was standing beside the bed. Tom stared at her, not recognizing her. Then he knew her. It was Judy Osmore.

‘Greg, come here, here's Tom, he was fast asleep. Tom, we've come back, did you get our letter?'

‘No,' said Tom. He put his feet down and stood up, felt giddy and sat down again on the edge of the bed.

‘Well, we only sent it last - I forget - we did everything in such a hurry - we've had the most wonderful time.'

Gregory Osmore came in. He was looking tired and not best pleased to find Tom there.

‘Hello, Tom, still here?'

‘Of course he's still here!' said Judy.

‘Hello, Ju, hello Greg, great to see you,' said Tom. ‘Have you just got back?'

‘Yes, we feel terribly funny, don't we, Greg, jet lag you know, we flew all the way from Dallas, we saw the place where Kennedy was shot, we flew non-stop and we've been drinking all the way, I just can't think what time it is here, what time is it?'

Tom looked at his watch. ‘Ten-thirty.'

‘My watch says - oh I started changing it about, it's crazy now. Whatever have you done to your eye?'

‘I suppose there's something to eat in the house?' said Greg.

‘I don't think so,' said Tom. ‘I don't remember.' He suddenly realized that he was very hungry.

‘Didn't I tell you?' said Greg to Judy.

‘We can go out to the Running Dog.'

‘It'll be shut.'

‘Not the restaurant. Anyway let's have a drink, I bet there's some, where there's a McCaffrey there's drink.'

‘There's drink,' said Tom.

‘Come on downstairs, I feel so over-excited, I must have something.'

They went down to the sitting-room and Greg found whisky and glasses while Judy pranced restlessly about, touching things, touching Tom, laughing.

‘Oh it's so marvellous, we've had such a time, we went to New Orleans, the South is
fantastic,
have we got southern accents, I quite feel I have.'

Tom saw on the sofa the plastic bag containing Judy's dress which he had evidently brought back from Belmont without noticing it. He said, ‘Oh Ju, I'm so sorry, someone spilt wine on your dress, look, but Gabriel fixed it.'

‘Who was wearing it?' said Greg.

‘Oh well - a friend of mine - I hope you don't mind.'

‘Let me see,' said Judy.

‘Gabriel dyed it with tea.'

‘With
tea?
'

‘Was Gabriel wearing it?'

‘No, Greg, a girl, a - I'm terribly sorry.'

‘Well, it's not quite its old self,' said Judy, ‘but it doesn't matter.'

‘I'm so sorry.'

‘Tom dear, don't worry, it doesn't matter, we're so glad to see you! Aren't we, darling?'

‘What else have you done?' said Greg, looking round.

‘Oh nothing else - the place is fine - if I'd known you were coming I'd have cleaned up, changed the sheets.'

‘And how is Ennistone, and how is everybody? Isn't it funny to think that you've all been leading your quiet little lives here while we've been having the most
amazing
time, we must tell you all about it.'

‘William Eastcote died,' said Tom.

‘Oh - I'm sorry to hear that,' said Greg putting down his glass. ‘I am sorry - such a dear good man - an old friend of my father's. When?'

‘Oh recently,' said Tom. He felt he could not give details, count days, describe the funeral.

‘How sad, a dear man,' said Judy.

‘I'm going to telephone the Running Dog,' said Greg. He left the room.

‘We haven't slept for
ages,
we couldn't sleep on the plane,' said Judy, ‘we were travelling first class, there was a staircase and a bar, it was super, I enjoyed every second, even the silly film, and - oh Tom, it's so good to see your old familiar face, only you look so pale! See how brown we are! We got quite tired of the sun. Look.' She rolled up the sleeves of her dress and displayed a sunburnt arm.

‘I must go,' said Tom.

‘Of course not - you must stay tonight - mustn't he, Greg - Tom says he's going — '

‘Shut up,' said Greg from the hall. ‘A table for two if we come at once?'

‘For three,' called Judy.

‘I must go,' said Tom. ‘I've got to catch the train to London, I was just packing up when you came.'

‘Nonsense, you were fast asleep when we came. Anyway you've missed the ten forty-five.'

‘We can have dinner if we go now,' said Greg.

‘I
must
go,' said Tom.

‘Certainly not, don't go!'

‘Let him go if he wants to,' said Greg. ‘God, I feel terrible.'

‘I'll just pack my bag,' said Tom. He ran upstairs into his bedroom and closed the door. He saw the room, so bleak now, with his stuff strewn around, his suitcase which he had so cheerfully unpacked, the room with the view over the town which he had chosen when he had moved in such a long time ago, in a previous era, when he had been young and happy and innocent and free. He pushed his things roughly into the case and then he couldn't close it. He wanted to wail with vexation. He thrust the case, with its lid almost closed, into a corner, and began to tidy up the messy unmade bed. He began to pull the sheets off, then left them as they were. He went downstairs.

‘Judy, do you mind if I leave my suitcase here? I've tidied my stuff away. I'll come and fetch it later - I'll ring up - I must just get off to London. Thank you so much for letting me have the house, I've loved it here.'

‘Thank you for looking after it,' said Gregory, who felt he had been churlish. ‘You must come and stay,' said Judy, ‘any time you like — '

‘I must run — '

‘And we'll tell you
all
about it.'

When Tom got as far as the Institute he hurried along the front of the building making for the entrance to the Ennistone Rooms where there was always a porter on duty. However, when he got as far as the big main door, which was usually closed at this time, he saw that it was very slightly ajar and there was a light inside. He went to the door, pushed it cautiously, and peered in. A light was on at the far end of the Promenade. There was no one about.

It occurred to Tom that if he were able to get through to the Rooms by the back way through the Baptistry he could find out what he wanted to know (whether Rozanov was still in Ennistone) by looking to see if his name was on the board in the corridor. If he went by the Lodge he would have to speak to the porter, and while a porter who knew him would no doubt be chattily informative, a porter who did not might ask him who he was and what he wanted; and in his present guilty frightened state Tom felt that any unsympathetic questioning might simply elicit a flood of tears. Tom could also picture Rozanov suddenly appearing, seeing him in the brightly lit Lodge, and cornering him, glaring at him through the glass partition, his huge face distorted by rage and hate. Tom was in the state of restless obsessive nervous energy which drives people to meddle when they are too stupid to think clearly and too frightened to act decisively. What he needed was some sort of symbolic or magical act which concerned or touched his situation without running any danger of changing it. He wanted, as it were, to light a candle or recite a formula, he needed to busy himself about his state of mind.

The Promenade was empty, silent, half dark. The tables had been pushed to one side and the chairs stacked. The counter was covered with white cloths. Tom took a few careful noiseless steps, conscious of his shadow behind him. A flood of excited physical fear took possession of the lower part of his body, a painful vertiginous thrilling urgent pressuring feeling, like sexual desire. Then Tom thought, it's not like sexual desire, it
is
sexual desire. He moved quickly now, his mouth open, his eyes wide. He padded on his toes toward the source of light, which was the partly open door of the Baptistry, which housed the descent to the source, and led also to the long downstairs corridor of the Rooms. Tom paused, listening, then slipped through the door.

He had for a moment been aware of a warm steamy smell and a kind of vapour in the air. Now he stood still, amazed. The Baptistry was full of steam. The big bronze nail-studded doors under their stone pediment stood wide open. There was a low throbbing humming sound. Tom moved toward the opening. He touched one of the open doors and quickly withdrew his hand. The door was scalding hot. He stepped through the doorway, blinking, his eyelashes already wet with steam.

Before him and below him a great many extremely bright lights were on. He stood on a sort of railed- In shelf or gallery from which metal stairways led steeply down to left and right. A great mass of gleaming pipes, some very small, some enormous, filled the space below. The pipes were a light silver gilt in colour, a very very pale gold, and covered with tiny droplets of moisture which glittered here and there like diamonds. The design made by the pipes, obscured by areas of steam, seemed geometric yet made an unintelligible jumbled impression. They went on down and down for a long way without any floor or bottom being visible. Tom was aware of a warm breeze blowing and could see, looking down, that the steam which seemed to pervade the chasm was in irregular motion. There were evidently hidden fans, air currents which were intended to keep the space clear of steam, perhaps now unable to do so.

Tom did not like high places. He felt a genuine vertigo, like to, perhaps continuing, the sexual thrill he had experienced in the Promenade. He had never seen the ‘workings' of the Institute since the source had never been open to the public in his lifetime. He had vaguely imagined a deep cleft or grotto and a steamy surging spring, not all these terrible glittering pipes. But, he thought, there must
be
a spring, there must
be
rocks, right down at the bottom water must be flowing out, rising up. If I go down a bit I shall see. Passing a red notice saying
Danger
he stepped on to the nearest stairway. It swayed slightly. Tom stopped, sick, then holding on to the smooth round banister, ran on down toward a steadier-looking platform below. The stairways, of which he could now see more, were made of some kind of light faintly flexible metal, presumably steel, but some kind of exquisite steel, Tom thought, since they were so elegant and spidery, almost insubstantial, with their narrow treads and eye-defeating lines of thin vertical rails supporting slanting banisters, more like suspended trapezes than stairs. They were silvery grey in colour, contrasting with the maze of pipes among which they hung, and were wet with steam and rather slippery. Tom's hair and face were already wet, his clothes damp, his shoes covered with beads of water. The temperature was high, and as he descended, higher. The humming throbbing sound was louder. The platform on which he stood swayed too. He went down another flight of spidery steps. He could still see nothing below except yet more pipes beyond the ones he had seen at first. He had noticed no sidewalls and could see none now as the steam was a little thicker. The whole contraption, with him upon it, seemed to be hanging in space.

Tom thought, the place is open because the engineers have been trying to control the spring, something has happened to it. All that boiling water came shooting up at Lud's Rill. It could run through the whole place, it could run through all the pipes, it could burst out everywhere in a flood. They must be very alarmed, otherwise they would have remembered to close the door. Then he thought, but where are they? There seems to be no one here but me. And they - are they dead, all those engineers, all lying down there at the bottom, drowned in scalding water or suffocated by steam, was there no one to give the alarm? Can steam suffocate? It surely could. Tom's mouth was open as he inhaled, almost eating the thick hot steamy air which was beginning to feel devoid of oxygen. He realized he was still wearing his mackintosh. He took it off and dropped it on the little landing where he stood, then took his jacket off too. The same frightful thrilling nervous anxiety was making him go on, go down rather than up. He thought, I must see the source, I must
see
it, it's my only chance, then I'll run up again. There hasn't been any awful accident, there's just no one here. He went down another longer flight of trembling stairs which seemed to be suspended on nothing in the middle of the space, passing through a thick cloud of steam.

A piece of concrete wall, wet and grey, appeared on his left. At least it seemed a wall, then turned out to be a vast pillar, beyond which the view was closed by two huge vertical pipes from whose bolted joints, level now with Tom's head, steam was escaping with a hissing noise. This hissing, joined with the humming noise which was louder and more vibrant, became suddenly urgent and menacing. The presence of so much compressed steam, so much sheer awful force, seemed to animate the sweating pipes as if they were all quivering with life. Might not the whole thing be about to
explode,
and was not this imminent danger the reason why the place was empty? Everyone had run away except him. The pipes seemed to pant, and in the steamy air to be shuddering and bending. Tom retreated a few steps. The air, almost too hot to breathe, was oppressing his lungs. Then as the long section of stairway swayed, he ran on down to a large substantial platform. He looked below him: more pipes overlaying each other, mixed now with monstrous horizontal tubes, another glimpse of wet concrete. The thrilling hum seemed to have entered his body, making him vibrate with an ecstatic urgent anguish.

Tom thought, why am I here? There must be a reason. I have got to do something, I have an aim, a task, I must go on down, I've come so far I can't give up now. Several stairways now led downward, less steeply. He took one at random, running down, leaping down it, sliding his hand along the warm highly polished rail. He thought, I must get to the end, I must find the source, I
must
get there, it's dangerous, yes, at any moment I may hear something terrible, some loud roar as of some huge thing breaking, it's all out of control. But I can get there first and get back, I've got to find
the place,
I've got to see
it,
the real source, there's rocks and water and earth down there and a cleft in the ground, somewhere down below, I must get there and … and touch it …