Oscar and Lucinda

pennysized area of vulnerable skin beneath the eyes.

'You can no longer put me off,' said Mr Stratton. He pushed his face up close to Oscar's. Oscar leapt a good two inches from his seat.

'Hooo,' he said. <•••

Mr Stratton's face stayed complacently where it was, although the hand which served it went back, searching blindly along the edge of the settee for its master's sherry. Oscar had remained very fond of both the Strattons and his pity for Mr Stratton had not diminished his feelings, quite the contrary, but today he was repulsed by the too- obvious signs of cunning he saw on the face which had once been-the past showed through the corruption of the present-so innocent and boyish.

Oscar was too preoccupied with the loss of his papa properly to grasp the clergyman's intention. He laid his hand on Mr Stratton's shoulder. 'It's time,' he said, 'and a sad time too.' But Mr Stratton's face had become tight with suspicion. It was a face that knew the world was not as it is commonly presented. It knew there were tricks and larks played everywhere, by bishops, provosts, kings, even rural deans. It was a face ripe for some heresy, one that would make even the Lord God of Hosts nothing but a vain and boastful demiurge whose claims to omnipotence were based on ignorance and pride.

'There has been enough of cat and mouse,' said Mr Stratton, pinning his eyes to Oscar's, 'you must tell me now.'

When Oscar looked at Mr Stratton's eyes, he felt that he must never have done so before this moment, that he must have, through

Oscar and Lucinda

politeness, even squeamishness, have slid around them, knowing he would see only unhappiness there. Today he was not permitted to avoid them. They were blue and watery; the whites were yellow, veined, stained, like the porcelain basin at the Swan in Morley. Mr Stratton's hand brought the sherry glass to his mouth. The lower lip reached out to anticipate it. The foot of the glass came close to Oscar's nose.

'We have looked after your poor father,' he said, 'as best we could. We fed him when we could barely afford to feed ourselves and we could have no expectation of reward, at least not on this earth. Similarly, we looked after you. You could not imagine we had profit in mind,' Mr Stratton laughed, a shallow noise made from old air at the back of the throat. 'We educated you so you might bear witness. We did not think we were assisting a wealthy man.' Mr Stratton looked around the promenade, underlining the opulence of their surroundings in a manner which, had it occurred upon the stage, would have been pure ham but which here, driven before the rough current of his hurt, served only to fill Oscar's heart with shame.

'I thank you,' Oscar said, 'I have always-'

'I have been thanked before,' said Mr Stratton. 'I cannot think that it has been beneficial to be taunted with fancy coffee or mysterious packets of currency.' For a moment Oscar was angry. The amounts he had sent the Strattons had not been insubstantial.

'Naturally you wish to speak to me,' said Mr Stratton. 'You do not wish to taunt me any longer.' And he opened his mouth a little as was his habit when waiting for someone to speak. The tip of his pink tongue flicked quickly across his sherry-sticky lips.

The sirens were blaring. They had changed their tempo and were now short, sharp, insistent, like dagger thrusts into taut white canvas.

'Now you will tell me, God help me. You cannot leave without it.' He took Oscar's wrist and squeezed it. He would not let it go. It hurt. 'How does a Christian clergyman acquire the funds to travel in such luxury? I am not a cadger. I do not come to you with a begging letter. I am sunk low enough, but not so low. You must tell me how it is you have managed.'

'You would not find the story pretty.'

'You need not worry about my sensibilities, little lad.' He gave the wrist a harder squeeze and his mouth, for that moment, was twisted by the spasm of his anger. 'My poverty does not allow them.'

'You would not be proud of me.'

184

The System

'Would not? Am not. Oh, I pray You, stop him prattling.'

'If I were to tell you and my papa were to hear of it, it would be a torture beyond his toleration.'

'You have my word he never shall,' said Hugh Stratton and, seeing that Oscar still hesitated,

'oh, dear Oscar, you must accept my word.'

'I have gambled,' said Oscar, 'as you long ago suspected.'

'So,' said Mr Stratton, and let out some air, 'gambled.'

'I think the ship is moving.'

'You have a system, then? Is that what it is called?'

'A system?'

'Yes, a system. Temple has explained them to me. You have a system and you will write it down for me.'

And, indeed, he was selecting, from the over-full pocket of his shiny coat, a used envelope and a stubby pencil which he now managed to push at Oscar without ever once letting go his painful hold on the wrist.

'It is not so simple. It is not a thing you can just write down. We have left it too late.' Mr Stratum's hand relaxed its grip on the wrist and his jaw was slack and all the skin on his face seemed lifeless and crushed, a second-hand substance from the bottom shelf in the scullery. Oscar wished to retrieve his wrist, but did not.

'Write it down, boy, please, I beg of you.'

He did not know what it was he was asking. It was not possible. The charts and tables that made up the system were contained in sixteen black clothbound journals. They were at once as neat as the boxes of buttons he had classified in his father's house, all ruled with columns and divisions, and, at the same time, smudged and blotted. His hand was a poor servant to his mind-the first was a grub whilst the second was a fastidious fellow with white cuffs on his sleeves and a tyrant for having everything in its place.

These notebooks were in his trunk. They would be worth nothing to him in New South Wales. Surely there was time to run to his cabin and thrust them into Mr Stratum's hands. The clergyman would not understand them, of course, but the explanation could be conducted by mail and what was important was the gift. For the books did prove that a man could make a good living at the track if he should apply himself with Christian industry. But no, he could not relinquish them.

He did not know why he could not. He had not expected to be asked, and when it happened he felt not generosity, but anger and confusion.

Oscar and Lucinda

The books were so intimately involved with his life, were his life, his obsession, his diaries, his communion with his God, his tie to the monster who must be fed. They were private. They were secret. They were five years' work. He had travelled all over the south of England recording the coded information therein. He had assembled a history which, blots and smudges aside, was superior to any bookmaker at Tattersall's-the record of five hundred and twenty-five racehorses, positions, weights, whether rising in class or in weight, distances of race, conditions of track, etc, etc. And although he did not bet on mares or fillies, he had the information on them just the same.

'Please, I ask you to leave me, Mr Stratton,' said Oscar gently. 'You hold a very dangerous secret and can therefore be confident I will write to you from New South Wales. I will tell you how I have achieved it.'

He was a miser. He was unchristian. He must give away the books. Even if he had owed the Strattons nothing, he should give away the books. But he was a weasel, cunning with excuses, with substitutes.

'I will send the letter to you by return post from Sydney. I give you my solemn word before God. And you are quite right that I have been thoughtless and unkind in not thinking of your situation. I feared only that you would inform my papa.'

Hugh Stratton held the gaze of the young man's clear eyes/not quite daring to trust them.

'Write it down.'

'It is not so simple. I cannot.' '

'You swear before God?'

'I do.'

What did he swear? Simply that he could not transcribe the books in five minutes. This was true, quite true,