of tongues but did not care to employ it, that he had three kidneys. In the end there emanated from them the claim that a liaison existed between Torridge and God Harvey. ‘Love and the holy spirit’, Wiltshire pronounced, suggesting an ambience of chapel fustiness and God Harvey’s grey boniness. The swish of his cassock took on a new significance, as did his thin, dry fingers. In a holy way the fingers pressed themselves on to Torridge, and then their holiness became a passion that could not be imagined. It was all a joke because Torridge was Torridge, but the laughter it caused wasn’t malicious because no one hated him. He was a figure of fun; no one sought his downfall because there was no downfall to seek.
The friendship between Wiltshire, Mace-Hamilton and Arrowsmith continued after they left the school, after all three had married and had families. Once a year they received the Old Boys’ magazine, which told of the achievements of themselves and the more successful of their schoolfellows. There were Old Boys’ cocktail parties and Old Boys’ Day at the school every June and the Old Boys’ cricket match. Some of these occasions, from time to time, they attended. Every so often they received the latest rebuilding programme, with the suggestion that they might like to contribute to the rebuilding fund. Occasionally they did.
As middle age closed in, the three friends met less often. Arrowsmith was an executive with Shell and stationed for longish periods in different countries abroad. Once every two years he brought his family back to England, which provided an opportunity for the three friends to meet. The wives met on these occasions also, and over the years the children. Often the men’s distant schooldays were referred to, Buller Yeats and Old Frosty and the Sergeant-major, the stout headmaster, and above all Torridge. Within the three families, in fact, Torridge had become a myth. The joke that had begun when they were all new boys together continued, as if driven by its own impetus. In the minds of the wives and children the innocence of Torridge, his true happiness in the face of mockery and his fondness for the religious side of life all lived on. With some exactitude a physical image of the boy he’d been took root; his neatly knotted maroon House tie, his polished shoes, the hair that resembled a mouse’s fur, the pudding face with two small eyes in it. ‘My dad’s in the button business,’ Arrowsmith had only to say to cause instant laughter. ‘Torridge’s, you know.’ The way Torridge ate, the way he ran, the way he smiled back at Buller Yeats, the rumour that he’d been dropped on his head as a baby, that he had three kidneys: all this was considerably appreciated, because Wiltshire and Mace-Hamilton and Arrowsmith related it well.
What was not related was R.A.J. Fisher’s error in placing a note beneath Torridge’s pillow, or the story that had laughingly been spread about concerning Torridge’s relationship with God Harvey. This would have meant revelations that weren’t seemly in family circles, the explanation of the world of
One evening in June, 1976, Wiltshire and Mace-Hamilton met in a bar called the Vine, in Piccadilly Place. They hadn’t seen one another since the summer of 1974, the last time Arrowsmith and his family had been in England. Tonight they were to meet the Arrowsmiths again, for a family dinner in the Woodlands Hotel, Richmond. On the last occasion the three families had celebrated their reunion at the Wiltshires’ house in Cobham and the time before with the Mace-Hamiltons in Ealing. Arrowsmith insisted that it was a question of turn and turn about and every third time he arranged for the family dinner to be held at his expense at the Woodlands. It was convenient because, although the Arrowsmiths spent the greater part of each biennial leave with Mrs Arrowsmith’s parents in Somerset, they always stayed for a week at the Woodlands in order to see a bit of London life.
In the Vine in Piccadilly Place Wiltshire and Mace-Hamilton hurried over their second drinks. As always, they were pleased to see one another, and both were excited at the prospect of seeing Arrowsmith and his family again. They still looked faintly alike. Both had balded arid run to fat. They wore inconspicuous blue suits with a discreet chalk stripe, Wiltshire’s a little smarter than Mace-Hamilton’s.
‘We’ll be late,’ Wiltshire said, having just related how he’d made a small killing since the last time they’d met. Wiltshire operated in the import-export world; Mace-Hamilton was a chartered accountant.
They finished their drinks. ‘Cheerio,’ the barman called out to them as they slipped away. His voice was deferentially low, matching the softly lit surroundings. ‘Cheerio, Gerry,’ Wiltshire said.
They drove in Wiltshire’s car to Hammersmith, over the bridge and on to Barnes and Richmond. It was a Friday evening; the traffic was heavy.
‘He had a bit of trouble, you know,’ Mace-Hamilton said.
‘Arrows?’
‘She took a shine to some guy in Mombasa.’
Wiltshire nodded, poking the car between a cyclist and a taxi. He wasn’t surprised. One night six years ago Arrowsmith’s wife and he had committed adultery together at her suggestion. A messy business it had been, and afterwards he’d felt terrible.
In the Woodlands Hotel Arrowsmith, in a grey flannel suit, was not entirely sober. He, too, had run a bit to fat although, unlike Wiltshire and Mace-Hamilton, he hadn’t lost any of his hair. Instead, it had dramatically changed colour: what Old Frosty had once called ‘Arrows’ blond thatch’ was grey now. Beneath it his face was pinker than it had been and he had taken to wearing spectacles, heavy and black-rimmed, making him look even more different from the boy he’d been.
In the bar of the Woodlands he drank whisky on his own, smiling occasionally to himself because tonight he had a surprise for everybody. After five weeks of being cooped up with his in-laws in Somerset he was feeling good. ‘Have one yourself, dear,’ he invited the barmaid, a girl with an excess of lipstick on a podgy mouth. He pushed his own glass towards her while she was saying she didn’t mind if she did.
His wife and his three adolescent children, two boys and a girl, entered the bar with Mrs Mace-Hamilton. ‘Hi, hi, hi,’ Arrowsmith called out to them in a jocular manner, causing his wife and Mrs Mace-Hamilton to note that he was drunk again. They sat down while he quickly finished the whisky that had just been poured for him. ‘Put another in that for a start,’ he ordered the barmaid, and crossed the floor of the bar to find out what everyone else wanted.
Mrs Wiltshire and her twins, girls of twelve, arrived while drinks were being decided about. Arrowsmith kissed her, as he had kissed Mrs Mace-Hamilton. The barmaid, deciding that the accurate conveying of such a large order was going to be beyond him, came and stood by the two tables that the party now occupied. The order was given; an animated conversation began.
The three women were different in appearance and in manner. Mrs Arrowsmith was thin as a knife, fashionably dressed in a shade of ash-grey that reflected her ash-grey hair. She smoked perpetually, unable to abandon the habit, Mrs Wiltshire was small. Shyness caused her to coil herself up in the presence of other people so that she often resembled a ball. Tonight she was in pink, a faded shade. Mrs Mace-Hamilton was carelessly plump, a large woman attired in a carelessly chosen dress that had begonias on it. She rather frightened Mrs Wiltshire. Mrs Arrowsmith found her trying.
‘Oh, heavenly little drink!’ Mrs Arrowsmith said, briefly drooping her blue-tinged eyelids as she sipped her gin and tonic.
