it, which the padre said he reckoned he could tackle himself. There's a piano, and he reckons there he could easily get one of the locals to do it. And then there's a flute, and he asked me if I thought I could have a go at that. He'd heard from somebody that I double on flute in the group, you see.'
'That was probably me, I'm sorry to say. Anyway…'
'Well, what he's got in mind, he wants to put this piece on in a concert. I was just wondering what you thought of the idea.'
Hunter refrained from answering while the waiter came back with their order and the bill. He poured the coffee efficiently and unobtrusively. Lighting a cigarette, Hunter noticed the smooth firm Une of his jaw, and vaguely contemplated a little luncheon-party a un at this table while he was still in the area. He counted out money for the bill, adding a tip that was just perceptibly more than one-eighth of the total. The waiter took this in and bowed.
'Thank you very much, sir,' he said politely. 'I hope everything was all right?'
Hunter gave a friendly smile. 'Better than all right. You were very nice to us.'
Only somebody who was watching for it would have seen the waiter's eyelid move.
'It's a pleasure, sir,' he said, and went away.
'Oh yes, about Willie's concert,' said Hunter. 'I should say from your point of view all you needed to know was how much practice and what-not you'd have to do.'
'I'd have thought you'd have been against it never mind how little practice there was to it.'
'Why should I be?'
'Well, it's music, isn't it?' Pearce grinned faintly. 'I'd have thought that'd be enough for you, that it's music. The first time I came and talked to you in the hospital you sounded off against music.'
'So I did. What a good memory you've got.'
It was unlikely, considered Hunter, that Pearce remembered that occasion as well as he did himself. He had looked up at the sound of Pearce's boots on the block floor of the ward and seen him approaching past the table with all the flowers on it, blushing a little at perhaps intruding upon an officer who had chatted to him casually two or three times only, everything about him full of sensuality, empty of lechery or coquetry. For the first time in Hunter's experience he had felt a sharp desire not to have a drink.
He went on now, 'You don't want to take me too seriously about that sort of thing. Did you look at the stuff? Can you play it?'
'I don't think there's a lot to it. It looked pretty simple, what I saw of it.'
There was a short struggle within Hunter between his opposition to serious music, which was perfectly sincere, and his fondness for the prospect of Pearce's developing an off-parade life into which he, Hunter, could plausibly wander from time to time. Principle lost.
'In that case why don't you have a crack at it? It might be quite fun.'
'I might as well.'
Pearce took a sudden swig of his Chartreuse and licked his upper lip with a darting movement of the point of his tongue. Hunter's lips opened slightly in turn.
'Anyway,' said Pearce, 'I told him I'd think about it, the padre, and then… Well, he started off by asking me how I was feeling these days. He meant about… you know.'
'Yes.'
'So I said I thought I was beginning to get over it a bit, during the days at least, but I couldn't really be sure. And he didn't say anything for a bit, but you could tell he was, you know, sympathizing. But he looked terrifically ill, Max. All haggard. Is he really ill?'
'I don't think so. He's looked like that ever since I've known him.'
'I see. Anyway, then he wanted to know if what had happened had made me angry. Angry with life, sort of. I said not particularly, just sorry. Was I sure I wasn't angry with God, he said. I had to tell him I didn't believe in God, so I couldn't very well be angry with him. By this time I was wondering what it was all about. The next thing he said really floored me, though. Had I ever written any poetry. What do you think of that?'
'He must have been out of his mind is what I think of it.'
'I thought the same for the moment. But then he explained that someone had sent him a poem for this magazine he's trying to run, and it had upset him a lot because it looked as if whoever wrote it was very unhappy and had it in for God, which according to him is very dangerous, so he's trying to find the author. Apparently the chap hadn't put his name on it or anything.'
'Did he show you this poem? Poem, Christ. I feel rather more strongly about poetry than about music. At least with music the general sense of uneasiness and misery isn't tied down to anything. Poetry's got messages in it. You know, above love and spring and getting into a state. It says you ought to notice things.'
'I don't see any harm in that.'
'I do. The best way of dealing with the problem would be to send any author to prison who wrote a book that sold less than a million copies. That would put paid to most of the stuff I'm against. Anyway, it's not important enough to go on about. This poem that's got Willie all of a twitter. Did you get a look at it?'
'No, he'd got it locked away somewhere. It wouldn't really do for people to see it, he said.'
Hunter laughed silently. 'So presumably the editor will very much regret being unable to find a place for the contribution. Good old Willie. I never realized he was such a loyal son of the Church. I wonder he didn't burn the thing on the spot.'
