October Men

I told him of his sin and he agreed that I was right.'

'So—' Richardson bottled his impatience with an effort: this was one hard lesson he had learnt these last three years, not to let the seconds stampede him when time was pressing '—

just what is this sin of his?'

Freisler beamed at him. 'Sloth, Mr. Richardson. Sloth and sluggishness. It was a peculiarly monastic sin in the Middle Ages—it is I think a medieval word, accidie, and I do not know the true modern word for it in English.'

'But David isn't slothful, Professor. He works like a ruddy beaver with his files and his reports. He eats 'em up by the dozen.'

The old man's face fell. 'No, then I have missed the right word . . . degout, the French would call it, perhaps. ... It is when one loses the interest in—and the desire to do—those things which one does habitually and does well. When some men do well it is for them fulfilment, but for others it is dust and ashes —and David is such a man.'

'He's bored with his job, you mean?'

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'So! Except that 'bored' is too little a word.'

'And when did you tell him all this?'

Freisler looked at him questioningly. 'Pardon?'

'When did you tell him he'd got this—accidie?' Richardson pushed forward gently. 'Was it when you had dinner down at his place?'

'Dinner?' For a moment Freisler seemed confused. 'It was—

yes —it was then. . . . But you know about it?'

'Not enough. Not nearly enough. And not the right things yet

—I know you had roast beef and apple pie to follow.'

The piggy eyes brightened again momentarily at the memory.

So far all Richardson knew of the crucial meal was a cook's view of it: the roast beef had been for the old German himself

—a fine big sirloin, with fiery-hot home-made horseradish sauce and Yorkshire pudding and roast potatoes and three vegetables, because it was heavy eating that he loved; and the apple pie with thick Devonshire cream was for Sir Laurie Deacon, because he had a famous sweet tooth and Mrs.

Clark's apple pies had taken prizes in shows from Steeple Horley to Guildford for twenty years; and the very Englishness of both dishes made them right for the oilman Ian Howard, just back from a year of tinned food and Arab delicacies in Saudi Arabia.

But that cook's view had not been unprofitable. For David Audley loved these apple pies as much as any man —and this one had been good enough to make Sir Laurie promise his dummy2

services free to Clarkie if she ever needed them, to the subsequent utter confusion and discomfort of the authorities.

Yet to Clarkie's chagrin David had left his pie to congeal while he listened with rapt attention to what was being said—

an event so unlooked-for that sharp-eared Clarkie was too disconcerted to eavesdrop into the actual conversation.

That had been the moment, though: something had happened between the cutting of the pie and the serving of the cheese to turn David from a taciturn sorehead into the schoolboy who kissed his wife publicly and outrageously in the middle of the kitchen and pinched Clarkie's backside as she bent over the washing-up.

Whatever it was it had been a cure for accidie, anyway.

And whatever it was Richardson was betting it had already brought one man to his death.

'Not the right things?' The Professor was staring at him now, alert. 'You are meaning that I know of those right things, eh?'

'I hope so, yes.' Richardson nodded. 'What did you talk about over dinner?'

Freisler thought for a few seconds, then spread his hands.

'But —so many things we talked of. ... The food, the European Community—which you insist on calling the Common Market, the Industrial Relations Act—'

'What did David have to say?'

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'He did sot say much. That is, at first he did not say much—it was for that that I finally chided him.'

'Go on.'

'But I have told you. I spoke of his sin and he agreed. He said he was—' The wide brow crinkled with concentration '—

confined and —'cribbed' I think was the word he used. It must have a meaning other than that my students attribute to it, though.'

'It does. 'Cabin'd, cribb'd and confin'd'-'

'Ach! A quotation. I see.'

'From Macbeth, Act Three,' murmured Richardson, gratified at the surprised lift of Freisler's eyebrows, which decided him not to add that he had once been conscripted into the play at school and