The Return of Captain John Emmett

slipped his mind that John was such a good oarsman. He was not a dedicated one; although he could have been first class, he always maintained a position of ultimate disengagement. Was that just the pose of a very young man, he wondered? But John had rowed for his colege, which must have required some commitment.

Was there a girl beside him? He rather thought there was, smiling and laughing with an easy familiarity under a ridiculous hat. Was that his fiancee, the Bavarian girl? Had she ever come to England?

Just as Laurence was basking, content and almost hypnotised by the vibrations of the car, luled by memories of summer and cool water, a bump in the road and a mutter from Charles startled him and instantly his mood plummeted. Of al of them, excited and noisy, it seemed that only he was left. That June, eating strawberries in the shade of pavilions or watching the dripping boats lifted from the river, such a thing would have seemed impossible. They were al so much there, so permanent in their world. He had occasionaly wondered if it was actualy he who was dead and excluded, while the others continued together, missing him from time to time, but busy somewhere else. Suddenly, surprisingly, his eyes stung and a desperate fear swept over him that he would weep, sitting in the front seat of Charles's car, traveling along autumn roads in England, and that if he did so he would be crying not for the dead but in terrible self-pity that things he'd enjoyed had been taken away.

He lifted his head to the oncoming wind, glad that his smarting eyes were hidden.

They passed a flock of children coming out of a vilage school. Several girls in pinafores waved, while smal boys in short trousers and boots shouted at the sight of the car. Charles hooted twice. Smoke rose from cottage chimneys. A dog ran out at them yapping and in danger of hurling itself under the wheels in its fury.

They came through Wolvescot, right on the border between Oxfordshire and Gloucestershire according to their map, and gathered speed going downhil between an avenue of trees. Charles jabbed his finger vigorously out of the side window and, leaning forward, Laurence could see some sort of tal, dark tower emerging from a dense copse on a nearby hil. There was something Gothic about it, isolated in the English countryside.

'The Foly,' Charles shouted. Laurence remembered it from an outing at school; they must be nearer than he thought to the Wiltshire border.

The countryside became more undulating; the sun was almost directly in their faces, yet it was getting colder. Laurence puled up his greatcoat colar around the scarf and sank lower in his seat. Charles had come up with the name of both an inn and a smal hotel, suggested to him by friends.

They finaly roled into Fairford along a narrow street of honey-coloured, terraced houses. They passed the hotel, a tidy Georgian house, just as they came into a large market place and stopped. An inn, the Bul, occupied almost one ful side of the square. Its low, mossy roof and smal windows gave it an appearance of great age.

Charles stood by the car, looking from one establishment to the other. He puled off his goggles; each eye was surrounded by a disc of white in his grimy face.

'Shal we try the inn first?' he asked, to Laurence's surprise. 'Vilage hostelry by the look of it; sort of place one might find oneself buying a drink for a local and picking up a bit of gossip. Hotels only have guests, strangers like us, nothing to be gained there.'

Not for the first time, Laurence looked at him in admiration.

As they walked into the dark, low interior of the inn, the landlord appeared, looking surprised, wiping his hands on his apron. Charles took a large, plain room with double windows overlooking the market square, while Laurence chose a much smaler bedroom with a beamed ceiling and a tiny fireplace, but a view towards the spire of Fairford church. A boy brought in their bags and they agreed to meet in half an hour.

After a while there was a knock on Laurence's door and a plump girl stood with a large jug of steaming water. 'D'you want the fire lighted?' she asked.

Laurence shook his head and took the jug from her. He heard the squeak of floorboards as she went downstairs. He hung his coat in a wardrobe that smeled strongly of camphor, then, stripping off his jacket, shirt and vest, poured the contents of the jug into the bowl on the washstand and leaned forward, steeping his arms halfway to his elbows. His skin tingled with the sudden heat.

Peering into the speckled glass over the basin, he realised that his face was as creased and filthy as Charles's —no wonder the landlord had looked surprised.

He was quite stiff and weary, as if he'd had a day's exercise rather than a ride in a motor car. When he'd washed he lay down on the bed and puled the eiderdown up over him for warmth. The bed sank deeply beneath him, softened by age; it reminded him of school where generations of boys had shaped the mattresses into hammocks. Under the feather pilow was a horsehair bolster.

He lay on his back, looking at a ceiling yelowed with age. With his ankles crossed and his hands on his chest, he was as stil as an alabaster knight. Al he needed was a smal dog under his heels, he thought. He was drifting. The eiderdown became an ancient flag over the catafalque. He remembered a cathedral where his father had taken him as a child. Military colours and standards hung high in a side chapel, flag after flag, generation after generation: stained, torn, repaired and decayed.

The lower ones were stil dyed deep red and blue, and retained threads of tarnished gold; the highest had faded into soft, bone-coloured gauze, the distant regiments and battle honours that they represented as invisible as their mottoes had become. He must have been very smal because his father had been holding his hand.

***

An insistent rapping at the door woke him.

'Laurence. Are you coming down?'

Laurence looked at his watch but had to strike a match to read it. He'd been asleep for nearly two hours. He swung his feet out of bed and puled on his discarded jacket.

'God, Charles, I'm sorry. I must have just dropped off' he said as he opened the door.

'Not a problem. I've been having a little look around, spoken to our landlord: font of wisdom, and he's happy to serve a simple dinner in the parlour. You dress and I'l see you downstairs in a quarter of an hour, say?'

'Yes. Of course. Sorry, just went out like a light,' Laurence said.

When the door closed he lit the lamp then scrabbled to find a clean shirt and socks. He peered in the glass again, damped down his hair and combed it through with his fingers. He hardly recognised the man with the deep lines round his eyes and a few first grey hairs. When had he got so old?