wanting to have it thought that he was acting directly on this signal, had decided that it was time for him to stir himself and come to table. He had deprived me of my drink, but there was a case for saying that that was just as well.
I heard his step, slow and steady, and after a moment the door opened. He said something wearily unfriendly as he found he was being preceded over the threshold by Victor Hugo, who got under his feet even more than most people’s.
Victor was a blue-point Siamese, a neutered tom-cat now in the third year of his age. He entered, as usual, in vague semi-flight, as from something that was probably not a menace, but which it was as well to be on the safe side about. Becoming aware of me, he approached, again as usual, with an air of uncertainty not so much about who I was as about what I was, and of keeping a very open mind on the range of possible answers. Was I potassium nitrate, or next October twelvemonth, or Christianity, or a chess problem—perhaps involving a variation on the Falkbeer counter-gambit? When he reached me, he gave up the problem and toppled on to my feet like an elephant pierced by a bullet in some vital spot. Victor was, among other things, the reason why no dogs were allowed at the Green Man. The effort of categorizing them might have proved too much for him.
My father shut the door firmly behind him and gave a neutral nod in my direction. I rather take after him physically, being quite as tall as he and as little inclined to run to fat, and his dark-red hair-colour, still vivid in places among the white, is mine too. But his large high nose and broad hands, as powerful as a pianist’s, have in me been replaced by something less assertively masculine from my mother’s side.
The neutrality of the nod he had given was a none-too-usual alleviation of the unspecific discontent with which he nowadays looked as if he regarded the world. Here was somebody else whose life I did not understand. The weekday routine, mitigated by a lie-in on Sunday mornings, was a tight one: whatever the weather, off at ten sharp into the village ‘to have a look round’ (though whatever there was to be seen there never varied, at least to a townsman’s eye like mine or his), pick up a packet of ten Piccadilly and
He looked round the dining-room now with a more directed frown than usual, on the point, conceivably, of establishing just what it was about his environment that he found most disagreeable. His eye fell on the dining- table and moved along it.
‘Guests,’ he said with unlooked-for tolerance.
‘Yes, Jack and Diana Maybury are coming in. In fact, they’ve already—’
‘I know, I know, you told me this morning. Funny sort of rooster, isn’t he? I mean peculiar. All this I’m the most responsible and efficient general practitioner in the whole bloody country and a great friend of everybody’s and that’s all there is about me. I don’t think I like him, Maurice. I wish I could say I did, because he’s been very good to me, I mean as a doctor, I’ve no fault to find with him there. But I don’t think I really like him as a man. Something to do with how he treats that wife of his. There’s no love lost there, you know. Understandable enough. That way of hers of going on as if how bloody marvellous you are considering you’ve got no arms or legs. Well, at my age I more or less expect that style of thing, but she does it with everybody. Oh, very attractive, of course, I can see that. You’re not, uh, by the way…?’
‘No,’ I said, wishing I had a drink. ‘Nothing like that.’
‘I’ve seen the way you look at her. You’re a bad lad, Maurice.’
‘There’s nothing wrong in looking at her.’
‘In your case there is, because you’re a bad lad. Anyway, don’t touch it, if you want my advice. That sort of little bitch would be more trouble than she’s worth. There are other things to a woman than taking her to bed. And that reminds me—I’ve been meaning to have a chat with you about Joyce. She’s not happy, Maurice. Oh, I don’t mean she’s miserable, nothing like that, and she does throw herself into the life of the place— you’re very lucky there. But she’s not really happy. I mean she doesn’t really think you’d have gone as far as marrying her if you hadn’t wanted somebody to be a mother to young Amy. And that side of things isn’t working out as well as it might because you’re leaving it to her to do it instead of helping her to do it and doing it with her. She’s a young woman, Maurice. I know you’ve got a lot to do running the pub, and you’re very conscientious. But you mustn’t hide behind that. Take this morning, now. Some rooster was kicking up a fuss because Magdalena had spilt a few drops of tea into his breakfast marmalade, if you don’t bloody well mind. Joyce dealt with him all right, and then afterwards she said to me…’
He stopped, as his ear, no less quick than mine, caught the sound of the outside door of the apartment opening. Then, hearing expected voices, he got up from the dining-chair where he had settled himself, so as to be on his feet by the time the door opened. ‘Tell you later,’ he mouthed and whispered.
The Mayburys and Joyce came in. I went over to the sideboard to see about the drinks for dinner, and found that Diana had followed me. Jack had started being as tolerant as ever to my father, who he seemed to feel could not reasonably be expected to maintain impeccable physical trim at the age of seventy-nine. Joyce was with them.
‘Well, Maurice,’ stated or queried Diana, managing to turn even that short utterance into a fair sample of her unnaturally precise enunciation. She also implied by her tone that she had effortlessly removed us both to a level far different from the plodding to-and-fro of ordinary converse.
‘Hallo, Diana.’
‘Maurice … do you mind if I ask you a question?’
There, again in small compass, was Diana for you. It was tempting, and would have been near the truth, to answer, ‘Yes, I do, by God, if you really want to know, very much indeed,’ but I found that I was looking at or near the low top of her serpent-green silk dress, where there was a lot more of Diana for you, and merely grunted.
‘Maurice … why do you always look as if you’re trying to escape from something? What makes you feel so trapped?’ She spoke as if helping me count the words.
‘Do I? Trapped? How do you mean? As far as I know I’m not trying to escape from anything.’
‘Then why do you look as if something’s after you all the time?’
‘After me? What could be after me? There’s income tax, and next month’s bills, and old age, and a few things like that, but then we’re all——’
‘What is it you want to get away from?’
Sidestepping another tempting retort, I glanced over her smooth tanned shoulder. Jack and my father were talking at once, with Joyce trying to listen to them both. I said in a lowered voice, ‘I’ll tell you another time. For instance tomorrow afternoon. I’ll be at the corner at half-past three.’
‘Maurice …
‘Yes?’ I said, not altogether, I hoped, through my teeth.
‘Maurice, what makes you so incredibly persistent? What is it you want from me?’
I felt an individual globule of sweat well up out of the skin of my chest. ‘I’m persistent because of what I want from you, and if you don’t know what that is I can soon show you. You will be there tomorrow, won’t you?’
Exactly then, Joyce called, ‘Let’s start, shall we? You must all be starving. I am, anyway.’
Not bothering to conceal her triumph at the way events had brought her the prize of quasi-legitimately leaving my question unanswered, Diana moved off. I uncapped my father’s pint of Worthington White Shield, picked up one of the bottles of Batard Montrachet 1961 the wine-waiter had opened half an hour earlier and followed her. In the last five seconds it had become almost overwhelmingly unlikely that she would meet me the following
