Part 49 (1/2)

”What does that matter, Laming? We must be open-minded, though of course I wouldn't actually marry Ivor.”

Laming could think of no rejoinder.

In any case he needed no reminding that he was a man marked down.

And to think that he had started all this himself, taken the initiative quite voluntarily! At least, he supposed he had. In what unpredictable ways just about everything worked out! Most things, in fact, went into full reverse, just as was always happening at school! If you want peace, prepare for war, as the cla.s.sics and history master had admonished them.

”I can't wait till next time,” said Helen unexpectedly, as they parted. Not that even then her eyes lighted up, or anything like that. Laming realized that work, with poultry statistics in the civil service was hardly calculated to put a light in anyone's eyes. He quite appreciated the need to be fair. It was simply so difficult to act upon it..

Laming thought of Ellen's eyes.

But apparently the immediate trouble was to be that Helen's inability to wait until next time had to be taken literally. Laming began to see her all over the place.

The first occasion was the very next morning, Thursday. He had been sent out by the office manager to buy sponge cakes to go with everyone's midmorning coffee, and he had glimpsed her back view on the other side of the street, still in that same dress, purchased or brought out for the summer that was now upon them all.

He was very upset.

Nonetheless, the second occasion proved to be that same afternoon. Laming had been dispatched by the partner who was in charge of buying to an address in E. 1., almost Whitechapel, Laming thought; and, in that unlikely region, he saw Helen in her dress climbing aboard a No. 25 bus, not ten yards in front of him. She was having difficulty with what appeared to be a heavy black bundle. Indeed, on account of it, she might well have spotted Laming, and perhaps had. Of course it would have been unreasonable to suppose that in the course of a single day she would have had time or reason to change her dress. Still, Laming was now not merely ordinarily frightened, but for the time almost deprived of thought, so that he could not for the life of him recall what he had been told to seek in E.1. The buying partner spoke very sharply to him when he crept into the office empty-handed (he had managed to lose even his library book) and ashen.

And after Laming had been totally unable to explain himself to his mother, and had then pa.s.sed one of his utterly sleepless nights, came, on Friday morning, the third occasion; and, this third time, he walked straight into Helen, head-on. Things had begun to move faster.

He had left the office quite voluntarily, saying that he needed to be in the fresh air for a few minutes, and had walked into Helen within a bare two hundred yards from the outer door, where Tod sat, the one-eyed custodian. It was before Laming had even reached the appliance place on the corner, about which everyone joked.

What was more, he could have sworn that not for a second had he seen her coming, even though there were very few people on the pavement, far, far fewer, he would have said, than usual at that hour. If he had detected her, if there had been even the slightest tremor of warning, he would have shown the swiftest possible pair of heels the street had ever seen, convention or no convention, bad leg or no bad leg; and if he had been run over in the process, would it have mattered very much?

Helen was wearing another neat summer dress (after all, a whole sleepless night had pa.s.sed), this one white creeping foliage on a brick wall background, as Laming could see quite well; and she was again carrying something weighty, this time slung over her left shoulder, which gave her an utterly absurd resemblance to the cod-carrying fisherman in the Scott's Emulsion advertis.e.m.e.nt. There was no advertis.e.m.e.nt that Laming knew better than that one; standing, as it did, for mens Sana in corpore sano.

”Hullo,” said Laming, in a very low, very s.h.i.+very voice, audible to no one but her.

She simply trudged past him in her white court shoes, very simple in design. She showed no sign of even seeing him, let alone of hearing his greeting. Under other circ.u.mstances, it might have been difficult to decide whether she looked alive or dead. Her burden duly took the shape of a long, gray anonymous object. It seemed to be heavier than ever, as Helen was staggering a little, deviating from a perfectly straight course.

Laming clung sickly to the railings until a middle-aged woman with hair made metallic by curlers came halfway up the area steps and asked if he was all right.

”Quite all right,” replied Laming, a little petulantly.

The woman washed her hands of him on her flowered ap.r.o.n.

But then a police constable materialized.

”Had a little too much?”

Laming thought it best to nod.

”Work near here?”

Laming nodded again.

It was fortunate that all the partners had left together for luncheon before Laming was brought back to the office by an arm of the law.

The next day, Sat.u.r.day, Laming's leg was suddenly much worse. Indeed, it hurt so much that he could hardly walk the short distance to the park, and the American Garden was, of course, on the far side. His mother looked extremely anxious as she stood on the porch, kissing him good-bye again and again. It was quite terribly hot.

Still, much was at stake, and Laming was determined to meet Ellen, even if he did himself a permanent injury. He would be most unlikely ever again to find anyone like Ellen in his entire life, so that, if he lost her, a permanent injury might hardly matter. Confused thinking, but, as with so much thinking of that kind, conclusive.

When he arrived, he found that the railwaymen were actually lying on their backs upon the gra.s.s. They were in their braces, with their eyes shut, their mouths sagging. It was like the end of a military engagement, the reckoning.

And, this time, there was no sign at all of Ellen, who had previously been there first. Laming looked in vain behind all the shrub arrangements and then lowered himself onto one of the seats which the railwaymen normally occupied. He extended his bad leg, then lifted it horizontally onto the seat.

A fireman in uniform sauntered past, looking for dropped matches, for tiny plumes of smoke. There was a sound of children screeching at one another, but that was over the brow of the hill. Laming would have taken off his jacket if he had not been meeting a lady.

”Hullo, Laming.”

It was Helen's voice. She had crept up behind his head in complete silence.

”Ellen asked me to say that she can't come today. She's so sorry. There's a difficulty in the shop. We're both a bit early, aren't we?”

Laming pushed and pulled his bad leg off the seat, and she sat beside him.

She was in the brick-wall dress with the mesh of white foliage: She looked cool and dry as ever. How could Laming be there early? He must have made too much allowance for infirmity.

”Say something!” said Helen.

What could anyone say? Laming felt as if he had suffered a blow on the very center of the brain from a lead ingot. His leg had begun to burn in a new way.

”I'm sorry if I frightened you,” said Helen.

Laming managed to smile a little. He still knew that if he said anything at all, it would be something foolish, ludicrously inappropriate.

”Please take me to Kelly's flat.” It seemed to be a matter of course.

”Kelly?” Even that had been copycatted without volition.

”Where you usually go. Come on, Laming. It'll be fun. We might have tea there.”

”I can only walk slowly. Trouble again with my leg.”

”Ellen says it's just around the corner. We can buy some cakes on the way.”

They set forth, a painful journey, where Laming was concerned. They circ.u.mvented the inert railwaymen. In one or two cases, Helen stepped over them, but that was more than Laming cared to risk.

Helen spoke. ”Won't you take my hand, as it's Sat.u.r.day?”

”I'd like to, but I think I'd better concentrate.”

”Take my arm, if you prefer.”

Orsino, Endymion, Adonis: how differently one feels about these heroes when one re-encounters them amid such pain, such heat!

Nor did they buy any cakes; there was no shop, and Laming did not feel like going in search, even though he realized it might be wise to do so.

”I forgot,” exclaimed Laming, as they turned the last and most crucial corner. ”I haven't got any keys. I think we need two at least.”