Oscar and Lucinda

needs, shove blue five-pound notes into some parish poor-box because he had enough for himself for the present. His jerky charity did not stop there, for there was a red-nosed clergyman from his own village who was also a recipient of bulging registered envelopes of currency which, from all that Wardley-Fish could judge, produced many emotions in the donee, but none of them having much resemblance to gratitude.

Oscar's holy profligacy infuriated Wardley-Fish, and yet it was exactly these acts of charity that he most treasured in his friend, and he could never make his mind be still about the question, which was like one of those trick drawings in Punch which have the contradiction built in so that what seems to be a spire one moment is a deep shaft the next. He took his friend by his shiny, threadbare elbow and propelled him before him, past the porter, into Cremorne Gardens. It was five o'clock in the afternoon, an hour at which the tide, so to speak, was already turning, and the clientele, having been for the most part respectable during the day, now seemed to transmogrifythe guard changed within the space of thirty minutes-into something more glamorous and dangerous. Oscar allowed himself to be propelled. He was pleased to have no

Oscar and Lucinda

choice. He felt luxury engulf him and the sensation was at once soothing and abrasive. A table loomed. He unhooked his umbrella from his arm and put it on the back of the chair. He removed the rolled-up parcel from his breast pocket and placed it underneath the table. He did all this without hurry, and when he sat down it would not have been apparent to a stranger that he was agitated. He had come here to make a very frightening decision. He smiled brightly at WardleyFish. He raked his hair with his fingers, pulled in his seat, placed his evangelical elbows square on the table. He gave all the appearance of being, dress apart, like a tourist come to Cremorne Gardens to have a look, but not a taste. He admired the room, the globed gas brackets, the pendant lustres, the high mirrored panels with ornate mouldings, the couples without wedding rings to explain their obvious intimacy.

'What a splendid place,' he said.

But Wardley-Fish could feel the Odd Bod's agitated feet tapping beneath the table. It was not just feet. It was also fingers, drumming on the chair. The surface of the table assumed a nervous kind of energy. You could experience anxiety merely by touching it.

Wardley-Fish ordered champagne. He could not afford it, but neither could he bear the nerves beneath the marble. He would need the one to cure the other.

'How enticing it is,' said Oscar.

Wardley-Fish thought none of this straightforward. The Odd Bod was in his 'holy' pose and talking at a tangent. He was admiring in order to criticize, being dazzled so that he might thereby lacerate himself for being there.

'You do remember,' Wardley-Fish said, 'whose idea it was we meet here?'

'Mine!' said the Odd Bod, watching the champagne being poured. You could feel his quivering energy in the floor and table. It felt like a trout feels on the end of a line-all the energy of a life forcing its patterns on to inert matter.

Wardley-Fish had been looking forward to Cremome Gardens. It had existed as a soft, unfocused promise on the edge of his consciousness. He had not intended to 'do' anything, but he had already seen the most delightful creature enter. She was an 'actress.' She had creamy skin and a tangled artifice of golden hair. She wore ten yards of watered taffeta. He gulped his first glass of champagne and watched it filled immediately. The table had stopped vibrating. He looked up to find the Odd Bod's pale green eyes waiting for him.

'Fish,' said the Odd Bod.

Wardley-Fish felt depressed.

'Fish, I have spent a good deal of the afternoon with the Church Missionary Society.'

'Yes.'

'And they will have me if I wish.'

'What for?'

'1 enquired about New South Wales.'

Wardley-Fish put down his glass of champagne. He did not look at the Odd Bod. He reflected that there was no natural sympathy between glass and marble.

'Do you hear me?'

'Do not drum the table. It is very irritating.'

Wardley-Fish slid his glass three inches to the right, then back again. Oscar folded his redknuckled hands around each other as if they were a puzzle he could not properly resolve. When Wardley-Fish spoke, it was very quietly and softly. 'There is no need,' he said, 'for you to frighten yourself with such ideas.'

But Oscar, when he replied, had his voice in that tight and scratchy register. 'I must,' said the Odd Bod. It was like fingernails across a

blackboard.

'So why have we come here?' asked Wardley-Fish, leaning back and folding his arms across his white waistcoat. 'Are you to drive the money-changers from the temple, the pretty whores across into

the park?'

'It is a lovely place, Fish. I am very comfortable here.' 'Then relax, dear Odd Bod, and do not drum and squeak and fidget.

You will be back in college tonight and it will not be nearly so

much fun.'

They were quiet for a moment. Wardley-Fish fussed around with his cigar as he tried to nip its end with a new patented device that did not seem to work as promised. Oscar watched him, with his palms

flat on the table.

'But I have changed,' Oscar said when Wardley-Fish had his smoke alight, 'look at me. Look at what I have become.'

'Oh, strike me,' roared Wardley-Fish. He pushed his chair back. He did not care that he made a bellow in such a quiet place. 'You have not become this,' and he waved his hands around to indicate the sort of trappings that did not exemplify Oscar's personality. 'You are tiresome, Odd Bod. You have only one conversation, and it makes no sense. You belong no more here than you belong anywhere. Odd Bod, you must realize, you do not fit.'

Oscar and Lucinda

'Speak quietly.'

'You do not fit. You are wonderful. You are perfectly unique. Do you feel you 'fit' in Oriel?' Oscar looked down into his glass. 'I have my friends.'

'Who?'

'Pennington, Ramsay.'

'Pennington is a drunk and a Puseyite. Ramsay fawns on anyone who looks at him. And do you have friends in Hennacombe? Do you fit there?'

Oscar's eyes looked hurt and troubled.

'Neither do you fit here. You are not corrupted. It is an impertinence to suggest that you are. You do not have to travel to New South Wales for a penance.'

'And you?'

'And me? Oh, I 'fit.' I daresay I 'fit' all too well.' Wardley-Fish leaned across and took the Odd Bod's hand. He shackled the wrist. 'But you showed me that I might be saved.' His smile was fixed. Oscar could feel the big hand trembling. 'So do not,' he whispered, 'start pretending you must cross the world to save your soul, because I tell you it is not true. You must not leave. And anyway,' he took back his hand and relit his cigar, 'you cannot.' Oscar was enfolded in blue smoke. He blinked and waved his hand while a slow smile budded on his lips.

'And why can I not leave?'

'Because you cannot bear a little agua. You could not sail as far as Calais.' Oscar leaned down and picked up a little wrapped cylinder from amongst his papers on the floor. This he unwrapped slowly, smiling all the time at his friend. What he then held up was a flexible material which was transparent, but not so clear as glass. On this material were drawn those lines which my mother imagined represented latitude and longitude.

'What is this, Oscar?'