Ah’ll be parp tar gat you in a taxi, honny,
Ya’d batter be raddy ’bout a parp-parp eight;
Ahr, baby, dawn’t be late,
Ah’m gonna parp parp parp whan the band starts playeeng . . .
In trying to pull Christine out of the path of a short red-faced man dancing with a tall pale-faced woman, Dixon got badly out of time. ‘Start again,’ he mumbled, but they seemed unable to move together as before.
‘Here, you’ll never do any good while you stand right over there,’ Christine said. ‘I’m not close enough to you to feel what you’re doing. Get hold of me properly.’
Gingerly, Dixon moved forward until they were standing up against each other. He again took her warm right hand, and steered her off. This time things were much better, though Dixon was a little shorter of breath than he thought he should be. Her body felt rounded, and rather bulky, against his. They moved down the floor away from the band, through the sound of which Dixon faintly caught a baying laugh. Bertrand, his big head flung back, was just disappearing into a gap some yards away. Though Dixon couldn’t see Carol’s face, this seemed to indicate that she’d been at least partly mollified. What the hell was Bertrand up to? This was a problem deserving as urgent attention as the problem of why he wore a beard. Was he trying to have two mistresses at once, or was he trying to discard one in favour of the other? If the latter, which one was he trying to acquire and which one was he trying to reconcile to being discarded? Would he bother, though, about reconciling people to what he wanted to do with them? Probably not, in which case it was presumably Carol who was in the ascendant, because that was the only way of explaining her presence here tonight. Christine must be functioning merely as Gore-Urquhart’s niece, but would have to be somehow retained on Bertrand’s establishment until the Gore-Urquhart deal was safely concluded. Dixon found his head beginning to sing slightly as he realized that the third round in his campaign against Bertrand was about to begin, though he didn’t yet see how battle was going to be joined.
‘How are you getting on with Professor Welch these days?’ Christine asked suddenly.
Dixon stiffened. ‘Oh, not too badly,’ he said mechanically.
‘He hasn’t been on to you about that phone call?’
He couldn’t stifle a howl, but hoped the music would drown it. ‘You mean Bertrand did find out it was me after all?’
‘Find out it was you? How do you mean?’
‘That I was pretending to be the reporter that time.’
‘No, I wasn’t talking about that business. I meant the phone call from that man in your digs, that Sunday.’
As the body of a decapitated hen is said to go running about the farmyard, Dixon’s legs continued to perform the requisite dance-steps. ‘He knows that I arranged for Atkinson to tell me my parents had come down?’
‘Oh, is that who Atkinson is? He seems to have done a lot of phoning since we met. Yes, Mr Welch knows you asked him to ring you up about your parents.’
‘Who told him? Who told him?’
‘Please don’t dig your nails into my back . . . It was that little man who played the oboe—you did tell me his name . . .’
‘Yes, I did. Johns is his name. Johns.’
‘That’s right. It was the only thing I remember him saying the whole time I was there. Except for when he said you must have gone to the pub the previous evening, that is. He seems to have got it in for you rather.’
‘Yes, he does, doesn’t he? Tell me: was Mrs Welch there when he blew the gaff about the phone call?’
‘No, I’m sure she wasn’t. Just the three of us were chatting together after lunch.’
‘That’s good.’ There was a fair chance that Welch hadn’t noticed what Johns had told him, since he’d presumably only told him once; Mrs Welch, on the other hand, would have been likely to go on telling Welch until he did notice. But perhaps Johns had told her separately, out of Christine’s hearing. Then a fresh aspect of the situation struck him: ‘How did Johns say he got to know about this? I didn’t tell him, as you can imagine.’
‘He said he was there when you were arranging it.’
‘That’s pretty rich, isn’t it?’ he said, scowling. ‘As if I’d have said a word in front of that little ponce . . . Sorry. No, he was listening outside the door. Must have been. I remember thinking I heard something.’
‘What a filthy trick,’ she said with unexpected venom. ‘What had you done to him?’
‘Only mucked about with a photograph of a chap on the front of a paper of his with a pencil.’
This utterance, enigmatic enough in itself, was half blotted out by the disturbance which now arose to mark the end of the set. After Dixon had explained, Christine, who was just starting to move off at his side, turned and looked at him, laughing with her mouth closed. When he smiled sourly, she began laughing with her tongue between those slightly irregular teeth. Dixon felt desire abruptly flooding his entire frame with an immense fatigue, as if he’d been struck by a bullet in some vital spot. All his facial muscles relaxed involuntarily. She caught his eye and stopped laughing.
‘Thank you for the dance,’ he said in a normal tone.
‘I enjoyed it very much,’ she replied, compressing her lips after she spoke.
Dixon realized with wonderment that he didn’t really care about Johns’s latest piece of gaff-blowing, for the moment anyway. It must be because he was having such a good time at the dance.
In the bar again, they found Gore-Urquhart in his former seat, already being talked to by Bertrand, as if their conversation had never been interrupted. Margaret was in even closer attendance, if possible; she broke off from laughing at a retort of Gore-Urquhart’s to look up casually at Dixon with an air that suggested she was wondering idly who he might happen to be. More drinks arrived, proving inexplicably to be double gins. They were brought, of course, by Maconochie, one of whose jobs at these functions was to prevent the importation of spirits. Dixon, who was beginning to do what he’d have described as ‘feeling his age’, sat down in a chair and began drinking his drink and smoking a cigarette. How hot it was; and how his legs ached; and how much longer was all this going to go on? After a moment he roused himself to talk to Christine, but she was sitting next to Bertrand and, though unheeded, evidently listening to what he was saying to her uncle, who was keeping his eyes on the floor in the way that Dixon had noticed earlier. Margaret was laughing again, swaying towards Gore-Urquhart so that their shoulders kept touching. Oh well, Dixon thought, each must enjoy himself as and when he can. But where was Carol?
Just then she reappeared, walking up to them with a kind of deliberate carelessness that made Dixon suspect her of having a bottle of something, now no doubt much depleted, hidden in the ladies’ cloakroom. The expression on her face boded ill for somebody, or perhaps everybody. When she reached the group, Dixon saw Gore-Urquhart look up at her and try to flash some facial signal; ‘You see how I’m placed’ was possibly its nearest equivalent. Then, alone among the men present, he stood up.
Carol turned to Dixon. ‘Come on, Jim,’ she said rather loudly, ‘I want you to dance with me. I take it that nobody here will object.’
12
‘What’s going on, Carol?’
‘That’s what I’d like to know.’
‘How do you mean?’
‘You know how I mean, Jim, unless you go about with your eyes shut. And you don’t do that, do you? No, I’m sick and tired of being pushed around. I don’t mind telling you this, because I know you. I do know you, don’t I? In fact, I’ve got to tell someone, so I pick you. You don’t mind?’
It was having to dance again, and so soon, that Dixon minded, not hearing what Carol wanted to say, which promised to be at least interesting. ‘You go ahead,’ he said encouragingly, looking round to see who was dancing near them. The floor seemed fuller than ever of jigging, lurching couples, who every few seconds lurched all one way together, bearing one another along like a crowd that knows a baton-charge is immine
nt. The noise was enormous; every time it rose to a maximum Dixon felt sweat start out on his chest as if it were being physically squeezed out of him. Above eye-level, the painted Pharaohs and Caesars seemed themselves to be twisting and toppling.
‘He thinks he’s only got to crook his bloody finger and I’ll come running,’ Carol announced in a shout. ‘Well, he’s mistaken.’
It was on the tip of Dixon’s tongue to tell Carol not to think she was fooling anyone by talking and behaving so much more drunkenly than she was in fact feeling, but he didn’t, guessing that she needed some sort of mask and knowing by experience that this was a much more efficient one than drunkenness itself. He only said: ‘Bertrand?’
‘That’s the fellow; the painter, you know. The great painter. Of course, he knows he isn’t great really, and that’s what makes him behave like this. Great artists always have a lot of women, so if he can have a lot of women that makes him a great artist, never mind what his pictures are like. You’re familiar with the argument. And with the fallacy too, no doubt. Undistributed how-d’you-call. Well, you can guess who the women are in this case. Me and the girl you’ve got your eye on.’
Dixon started insincerely; the charge was quite unfounded, but at the same time it managed in some unscrupulous way to be well-founded too. ‘What the hell are you talking about?’
‘Don’t waste time like this, Jim. What are you going to do about it, anyway?’
‘About what?’
She dug her nails into the back of his hand. ‘Stop doing that. What are you doing about Christine Callaghan?’
‘Nothing, of course. What can I do?’
‘If you don’t know what to do I can’t show you, as the actress said to the bishop. Worried about what dear Margaret would do?’
‘Look, do cut it out, Carol. You’re supposed to be telling me something, not cross-questioning me.’
‘I thought so. And don’t worry; it’s all connected, all connected. No, you let dear Margaret stew in her own juice. I’ve met people like that before, old boy, and believe me, it’s the only way, only thing to do. Throw her a lifebelt and she’ll pull you under. Take it from me.’ She nodded, her eyes half-closed.
‘What do you want to tell me, Carol? If anything.’
‘Oh, I’ve got plenty to tell, plenty. You knew he was bringing me to this hop originally?’
‘Yes, I had gathered that.’
‘Dear Margaret again, no doubt. Well, then he ditches me so that he can bring his new piece and her uncle, and pairs me off with the uncle. Not that I minded that after a bit, because I think old Julius and I have got a lot in common. We started to, anyway, until dear Margaret decided she could make sweeter music with old Julius than I could. I’m using her vocabulary, you understand; not mine.’
‘Yes, I understand very well, thanks.’
At this point they both heeled over sharply in the crowd, but he heard her say: ‘None of your Galsworthy dialogue here, please, Jim. Can’t we go and sit down for a bit? This is a bit too much like a C. and A. sale for me.’
‘All right.’
They made their way effortfully towards the Carthaginians, under whom they found two vacant chairs against the wall. As soon as they were seated, Carol leaned vivaciously over to Dixon, so that their knees were touching. Her face was in shadow, and seen so it had a romantic bloom. ‘I suppose you’ve guessed I’ve been sleeping with our friend the painter, haven’t you?’
‘No, I hadn’t.’ He began to feel frightened.
‘That’s good; I shouldn’t like it to be generally known.’
‘I won’t tell anybody.’
‘That’s the spirit. Especially not dear Margaret, eh?’
‘Of course not.’
‘Good. Rather a surprise, isn’t it?’
‘Yes, it is.’
‘You’re a bit shocked, aren’t you?’
‘Well, no, not that exactly. Not in the ordinary way, that is. It’s just that he seems such a queer fish for you to have . . . gone for in that way.’
‘Not so queer as all that. His determination’s rather a good thing about him, you know. And he’s very attractive in his way.’
‘Is he?’ Dixon’s mouth tightened.
‘And, well, old Cecil isn’t much of a boy for that kind of business, as you can imagine. We’ve more or less packed it in, that side of things. The trouble is that I still quite like it.’
‘And so does Bertrand, eh?’
‘Of course, the thing’s been dragging on for some time now. We’d been getting rather fed-up. Bertrand was always in London hopping into bed with people, the Loosmore girl chiefly, and I’d been getting sick of his line about being a great artist and so on. Then it flared up again the last time he was down. I think perhaps Christine wasn’t coming up to scratch, or not quickly enough,
possibly.’
‘Oh, then you don’t think they’ve . . . ?’
‘Hard to say. I should think not, on the whole. She doesn’t seem the type, really; at least, she doesn’t talk or behave like it, though she does look it in a way. It depends how deep that prim, prissy look of hers goes. Still, the point is that he gets me all lined up for the Ball, with a hint of other things to follow, and then tells me he’s not taking me after all in front of that mother of his, and in front of dear Margaret too. That’s what annoyed me in the first place. Then he starts trying to conciliate me in front of Christine this evening. That got me down again. Then he takes me in here for a dance and tries to laugh the whole thing off by treating me man-to-man and telling me I know what little girls like Christine are like and how I’m not the sort of person he’s always taken me for if I let that sort of thing interfere in a friendship—note that—between two adults—note that too. Oh, I know I oughtn’t to be taking it like this, but . . . Honestly, Jim, it does get you down, the whole thing. I feel so fed-up with it all. I don’t even want to bash his brains out any more.’
Dixon had been studying her face during this speech. The movements of her mouth were beautifully decisive, and her voice, abandoning its synthetic fuzziness, had returned to its usual clarity. These things helped to give her presence a solidity and emphasis that impressed him; he felt not so much her sexual attraction as the power of her femaleness. It was just as well that her married status put her beyond his ambition, since even their friendship demanded reserves of an attention, of a sort of mental and emotional integrity he wasn’t sure he really possessed. After a short pause he said hurriedly: ‘How have you managed to keep all this out of Cecil’s way?’
‘You don’t think I haven’t told him all about it, do you? I wouldn’t dream of doing anything behind his back.’
Dixon fell silent again, reflecting, not for the first time, that he knew absolutely nothing whatsoever about other people or their lives. Then Carol’s face moved out of the shadow. Though quick to detect a change in expression, he wasn’t usually observant of the actual lineaments of people’s faces, but this time he saw clearly that the outline of her lips was slightly blurred and there were two well-marked lines in her cheeks. When she spoke again he noticed something else: that the whiteness and regularity of her top teeth gave place to a black gap beyond the canines. He felt uncomfortable again.
‘The only thing to settle now is what you’re going to do about Christine, Jim.’
‘I’ve told you: nothing.’
‘Put dear Margaret out of your mind for once.’
‘Nothing to do with her. It’s just that I . . . well, I don’t want to try anything on with Christine, that’s all.’
‘I’ve heard that one before, but it’s a good one. I always laugh at that one.’
‘No, honestly, Carol. I’d much rather see her once or twice and not do anything about it—what could I do about it anyway? She’s a bit out of my class, don’t you think? If I did try to do anything I’d only get sent off with a flea in my ear. We’re both tied up with other . . .’
‘You sound as if you’re in love with her.’
; ‘Do you think so?’ he said almost eagerly; he couldn’t help regarding her remark as a compliment—one that he’d been needing for a long time, too.
‘Yes. Your attitude measures up to the two requirements of love. You want to go to bed with her and can’t, and you don’t know her very well. Ignorance of the other person topped up with deprivation, Jim. You fit the formula all right, and what’s more you want to go on fitting it. The old hopeless passion, isn’t it? There are no two doubts about that, as Cecil used to say before I broke him of it.’
‘That’s rather adolescent, isn’t it? If you don’t mind me saying so.’
‘Yes, it is, isn’t it? Have you got a cigarette, Jim? . . . Thanks. Yes, I was quite sure when I was about fifteen that that was the way things worked, only nobody could afford to admit it.’
‘Well, there you are, then.’
‘Yes, here I am now. I don’t mind telling you, since I’ve been rather letting my hair down, that after the maturity of my twenties was over I began going back to that way of explaining things with a good deal of relief. And justification, I’d like to think, too. I’m rather keen on that formula these days, as a matter of fact.’
‘Are you?’
‘I certainly am, Jim. You’ll find that marriage is a good short cut to the truth. No, not quite that. A way of doubling back to the truth. Another thing you’ll find is that the years of illusion aren’t those of adolescence, as the grown-ups try to tell us; they’re the ones immediately after it, say the middle twenties, the false maturity if you like, when you first get thoroughly embroiled in things and lose your head. Your age, by the way, Jim. That’s when you first realize that sex is important to other people besides yourself. A discovery like that can’t help knocking you off balance for a time.’
‘Carol . . . perhaps if you hadn’t got married . . .’
‘I couldn’t have done anything else, could I?’
‘Couldn’t you? Why not?’
‘Christ, haven’t you been listening? I was in love. Let’s go back to the bar now, shall we? It’s so noisy in here.’ Her voice trembled a little, for the first time since they’d begun talking.