Part 13 (1/2)
He immediately looked consciously learned.
”Like a baby, you know--it grabs for a thing and can't aim at it. It reaches a few inches the other side of it. It means your brain and body are not on speaking terms.”
”Oh, my goodness! Am I like that? Does it matter? How do you know all about it?”
”I learnt it at the hospital.”
”Oh, are you a doctor then?”
”No. N-not n-now,” he stammered, and began to untie and retie his shoe lace very carefully. ”I--I was going to be.”
”You must be clever,” she said admiringly. ”What a lot of things we can talk about!”
”Rather! I'm w-wondering what m-makes you like that!--you know what I mean, without co-ordination. Babies and drunkards and that sort of thing usually are.”
”Well, I'm neither of those. But I'll tell you why I think it is. It's because I've lived in the open air, where there was nothing to knock over except trees and stones; or else I've lived in an enormous house where everything was so big you couldn't knock it over if you tried. I'm not used to being among things and people.”
”Been in prison?” he said, smiling for the first time.
She entered on a vivid description of Lashnagar. He seemed to think it was a fairy tale, though he listened eagerly enough, and once she saw him actually look directly at her face for an instant.
”Are you going to Sydney?” he asked at length.
”I'm booked through to Sydney, but I'm going to live with an uncle right in the backblocks somewhere, and he may meet me at Melbourne. I've never seen him yet. Where are you going?”
”Sydney.”
”To live there?”
”No, die probably,” he said, and his face that had been animated suddenly became morose and gloomy, and his hand shook as he lighted a cigarette. Her eyes opened wider.
”Are you ill, then?” she asked gently. ”You don't look ill.”
”No, I'm not ill. By the way, do you smoke? It didn't occur to me to offer you a cigarette.”
She shook her head, watching him with a puzzled frown. She wondered why his hands gave her such a vague sense of discomfort as she watched him light another cigarette. It was not until she was in her bunk that night that she remembered that his nails were bitten and ragged--one finger was bleeding and inflamed.
”No, I'm not ill. I'm sick, though. The Pater says I want stiffening.
This is my third trip in the stiffening process. Like a bally collar in a laundry! Oh, d.a.m.n life! What's he know about it, anyway? Have you got a deck-chair?”
”Yes, but--”
”I'm going to put mine on the fo'c'sle presently. If we don't peg out claims they'll all go, and the fo'c'sle is the best place in the steerage. Where's yours? I'll t-take it there, if you like.”
He had begun to stammer in the last sentence, suddenly self-conscious again. She told him where her chair was on deck, and next minute, without another word, he was half-way along the alley-way, leaving the tea-things where they were. Then he turned back and spoke from several yards away.
”I suppose you're wondering what the devil I'm doing in the steerage, aren't you? A chap like me--a medical student! And I'll t-tell you w-why it is! The p-pater's too mean to pay for me to go decently.”
He was looking down at his shoes as he spoke. She noticed that the nice brown eyes were quite far apart; the forces that set them so had not meant them to be s.h.i.+fty. His chin was strong, too, but his mouth was loose and much too mobile. It quivered when he had finished speaking.
She reflected that if she had seen him in a train reading, and not speaking to anyone, she would have thought him very nice to look at.
Only his nervousness and his mannerisms made him unpleasant.