'Is it ridiculous? You'd know. You've had more experience of women than me.'
Graham stuck his hands in his trouser pockets and started pacing the room. 'Everything's wrong, isn't it? You see things differently as you go through life, and often enough you realize all the time you've been seeing them wrong. When I was young I could view the way ahead, and I tramped up it not caring overmuch how I muddied my boots. Things didn't go all that smoothly-Maria, all that fuss. But I got where I wanted. In the war, I didn't really want anything for myself and I was happy. Now I'm trying to worship my old gods, but they don't represent anything any more. They're like native idols discovered in some jungle. Incomprehensible, frightening to look at, make you wonder at the simplicity of the people who venerated them. I'd got no proper sense of values. The war imposed one on me.'
'Graham, you're making yourself sound a horrible type,' smiled John.
'Well, I am. Though let's hope it's not because I can't help it, but because I try to be.'
'Because you think it's smart?'
Graham shrugged. 'I can't even contemplate meeting Clare again. Not at this particular crisis in my life.'
'She might be glad to help you. She did during several others.'
'I suppose she loved me.'
'You loved her, surely?'
'Deep down, I told myself I didn't. It was the same with every woman I've got mixed up with. I never wanted to give myself to them completely. At the age when you can face these things, it's too late to rectify them.'
Denise appeared with the coffee.
'Graham wanted to discuss a case he's doing tomorrow, darling,' John explained.
'I'm not doing it,' said Graham briefly. 'I've decided it's inoperable.'
He'd forgotten about Denise and her coffee. He then had to sit down and make conversation of some sort while he drank it, and she always made dreadful coffee, anyway.
24
Haileybury had hardly shaved when Graham arrived the next morning at his house in Richmond. His sister, who had seen six years' service in the A.T.S., had returned to offer the same dutiful devotion to her brother as to her King. She showed Graham in to the cold sitting-room, which was filled with models of railway engines. Graham sat in his overcoat, looking at them in puzzlement. He supposed Haileybury had constructed them all with his own hands. A strange secret for a man to have.
'I'm sorry to keep you waiting, Graham.' Haileybury appeared in his usual blue suit.
'And I'm sorry to have telephoned for an appointment so early. But I have some news. I have decided to accept your kind offer of a job.'
Haileybury inclined his head silently. That is good news indeed. It is all I will say, but I think you will understand how I feel. The new project is very near to my heart.'
'On one condition.'
'I'm sure any reasonable condition can easily be met.
'I don't know if this one can. The condition is that I stay out of jail. Haileybury looked at him blankly, wondering if he were joking. 'I've been involved in some currency deals. About five thousand pounds' worth of French francs. If it comes to light, I've had it. I've reason to expect it might'
Haileybury put the tips of his fingers together and blew on them. The noise still irritated Graham.
'I see.'
'It's all mixed up with Cazalay and your unfortunate friend Fred Butcher. You know a fine rumpus is blowing up?'
'I see,' Haileybury repeated.
'Of course, the very fact I've misbehaved might be enough for you to withdraw your offer. I'd quite understand that.'
'Could you explain the details?'
'I gave Cazalay a cheque for five thousand pounds and he gave me the francs. He wants me to do a job on one of his little crooks to stop the police recognizing him. I won't. It's as simple as that. So Cazalay will cook my goose.'
'But what on earth were you doing with all this foreign money?'
'Oh, I haven't it hidden in a biscuit-tin, bricked up in the chimney, anything like that, I never actually handled it, Cazalay bought me a house in France.'
'I see,' said Haileybury again.
Graham rose. 'That's the situation, Eric. If I don't land in abject disgrace over the next few weeks I presume you'll take me on?
Haileybury made an accommodating gesture. 'I'm only sorry you should find yourself in such a predicament.'
'It isn't my first,' Graham told him. 'But, whichever way it goes, it will be my last.'
He couldn't face operating or seeing patients. He rang Smithers Botham and a couple of nursing-homes, putting his day's work off, excusing himself with illness. He walked the shabby streets of London, hardly noticing where his feet took him. He found himself in Piccadilly, not far from Half Moon Street, and turned towards the Cazalay family's old town house. A hole in the ground. As he started walking northwards the rain began to fall. It was the same route he had taken thirty years before, tramping home through a thunderstorm to his father's home in Hampstead after he had first met Maria. On that walk he had decided three things-to become a plastic surgeon, to grow rich, and, more immediately, to ditch his fiancйe Edith. He had done all three, and ended up with nothing but the prospect of prison. He plodded on. It wasn't so easy to walk these days. Well, your arteries and joints had to grow stiff some time, it was inevitable. At least you were saved the effort of struggling against it, as he'd had to struggle against tuberculosis in his youth.
He decided to make for the house in Hampstead. It was still standing, but horribly dilapidated. It had been turned into flats before, the war, now there seemed to be a dozen families living in it, with washing forgotten and soaking in the front garden. The professor would hardly have countenanced that, Graham told himself. He wondered what his father would have to say of his misdeeds, personal and professional. Perhaps the old boy would have the chance to give him a celestial wigging soon. He had rather let down the family. Even the piss-prophet didn't get himself locked up.
He looked at his watch, and was surprised to find it almost six in the evening. He made for Hampstead Tube station, where he bought an evening paper. The storm had broken. The police were looking for Arthur and for Lord Cazalay, neither of whom could be found. Graham wondered if Cazalay had gone to Venezuela, too. But the stop press revealed he had gone no farther than Newhaven, where he was assisting the police with their enquiries. Graham stuffed the paper in his overcoat pocket. He would have to face the music, and the grisly concert had begun.
In the hallway of his block of flats a woman approached him.
'Graham! I'm sorry to sit on your doorstep. But I've been trying to get you all day. There's something terribly important you really ought to know.'
Graham recognized Sheila Raleigh. She must have just returned from France. 'I must apologize,' he told her absently. 'I've had rather a lot of things occupying me. It's about the Annex Club, I suppose?'
'No, it isn't.' She looked round. 'Could we have a moment alone?'
'Yes, of course.'
They said nothing until he let her into his flat. He felt she had chosen a damn inconsiderate moment to call. 'I hope you're liking the job?'
'Yes, it's wonderful. I can't thank you enough. Particularly after I said such bitter things to you once.'
'I deserved them.'
'No, you didn't. But you can understand how I felt at the time? I had to blame someone. It all seemed so pointless otherwise.'
Impatient to get rid of her, Graham asked, 'What can I do for you now.'
