James Hilton: Collected Novels (35 page)

He did not know whether he really intended to visit Winslow or not, but as he was strolling towards the college entrance he saw a man leaning on two sticks walk out towards the curb and there hesitate, as if uncertain whether to risk crossing. George caught his glance from a distance and immediately changed direction to help him; whereupon the man turned away, evidently deciding not to cross after all. But the whole maneuver puzzled George, so that he approached nevertheless and asked if he could be of any service. The man was a tall young fellow in a rather ill-fitting tweed jacket and gray-flannel trousers, with a hat turned down over his forehead in such a way that, with the further obstruction of dark glasses, the face was hardly to be seen. Yet immediately—from some curious instinct rather than from any arguable recognition—George knew who it was. He had never seen him dressed before, or even standing up before, yet there was not a shadow of doubt as he exclaimed: “Why, Charles…” and took the other’s arm.

The youth stared at him for a moment before forcing a smile. “I—I didn’t expect you’d recognize me.”

“Don’t say you didn’t want me to!”

“I won’t say it if you’d rather not.” The voice and the tone were ironic. “What are you doing in these parts, anyhow?”

George explained and added heartily: “No need to ask what
you’re
doing.”

“Isn’t there? At present I’m going to have my hair cut by a barber who most obligingly does it for me privately every third Sunday afternoon. I can’t face that sort of thing when there’s the usual audience.”

George nodded with understanding. “Then I mustn’t keep you. But perhaps afterwards…How about having a meal with me?”

Charles declined with a brusqueness that softened into an only slightly irritated explanation that he hardly ever left the college after dusk. “For one thing there’s the damned blackout.” And then, either shyly or grudgingly (George could not be sure which): “I’m in Room D One in the First Court. Come up tonight after dinner if you like. About eight.”

George had been intending to return to London by the seven-thirty train, but he canceled the arrangement quickly enough to accept without an appearance of hesitation. A later train, however inconvenient, would do all right. He said: “Thanks, I will. And now, since you
were
wanting to cross the street…”

He helped the boy as far as the opposite curb, 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 sight-seeing, 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 inquiry. 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 town’s 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 businesslike 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 visit 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’llbet 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 reforwardings.) George exclaimed, laughing because his relief was so much greater than he could have believed: “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 analyzing ’em.”

“I’m glad you think so. I’ve had a good deal of time to analyze 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.