A Dance To The Music Of Time Part 8

'I still see a certain amount of Craggs,' he admitted. 'His firm may be launching a little scheme of mine in the near future-not a book. Craggs is politically sound, but I prefer a publis.h.i.+ng house of more standing than Boggis & Stone for my books.'

Since Quiggin's books remained purely hypothetical ent.i.ties, it seemed reasonable enough that their publisher should exist hypothetically too. I was tempted to say as much, but thought it wiser to avoid risk of discord at this early stage. Quiggin was evidently enjoying his own efforts to stir up my curiosity regarding his landlord and benefactor.

'No, no,' he said again. 'My friend, the owner-well, as a good social revolutionary, I don't quite know how I should describe him. He is a man of what used to be regarded-by sn.o.bs-as of rather more distinction, in the old-fas.h.i.+oned sense, than poor Craggs.'

'Poor Craggs, indeed. That just about describes him. He has the most loathsomely oily voice in the whole of Bloomsbury.'

'What has been happening in London, talking of Bloomsbury?' asked Mona, bored by all this fencing on Quiggin's part. 'Have there been any parties there, or anywhere else? I get a bit sick of being stuck down here all the time.'

Her drawling, angry manner showed growing discontent, and Quiggin, clearly foreseeing trouble, immediately embarked upon a theme he had probably intended to develop later in the course of my visit.

'As a matter of fact there was something I wanted specially to ask you, Nick,' he said hurriedly. 'We may as well get on to the subject right away. Mona has been thinking for some time that she might make a career as a film star. I agree with her. She has got champion looks and champion talent too. She made more than one appearance on the screen in the past-small roles, of course, but always jolly good. That gives the right experience. We thought you ought to be able to hand out some useful "intros" now that you are in the business.'

To emphasise his own enthusiasm for Mona's talent, Quiggin renewed in his voice all the force of his former rough honesty of tone. The enquiry revealed the cause of my invitation to the cottage. Its general application was not unexpected, though I had supposed Quiggin, rather than Mona, hoped to launch out into the fierce, chilling rapids of 'the industry'. However, since Mona was to be the subject of the discussion, we began to talk over possibilities of introductions to those who might be of use. Her previous employment in films seemed to have been of scarcely higher grade than superior crowd work, or the individual display on her part of some commodity to be advertised; although, at the same time, it could be said in her favour that when, in the past, she had belonged to the advertising world, she could have claimed some little fame as a well-known model.

Quiggin, whose grasp of practical matters was usually competent enough, must have known that I myself was unlikely to be any great help to an aspiring film star. As I had explained to Jeavons, I had little or no contact with the acting side of the business. But people of undoubted ability in their own line are often completely lost in understanding the nature of someone else's job. It was possible that he pictured nothing easier than introducing Mona to some famous director, who would immediately offer her a star part. Alternately, there was, of course, the possibility that Quiggin himself wished merely to allow the matter free ventilation in order to supply Mona with some subject upon which happily to brood. He might easily have no thought of practical result, beyond a.s.suming that a prolonged discussion about herself, her beauty and her talents, held between the three of us over the course of the weekend, would have a beneficial effect on Mona's temper. This might even be a method of scotching the whole question of Mona's dramatic ambition, of which Quiggin might easily be jealous.

On the other hand, the film business, always unpredictable, might envisage Mona as a 'discovery'. Perhaps, after all, the change from the time when she had been married to Templer was not so great as physical and financial circ.u.mstances might make it appear. She was still bored: without enough to do. A woman who could 'cook a bit' had been provided by the mysterious personage who had lent them the cottage. It was natural that Mona should want a job. Chips Lovell, always engaged in minor intrigue, would be able to offer useful advice. We were still discussing her prospects later that evening, sitting on kitchen chairs drinking gin, when a faint tapping came on the outside door. I thought it must be a child come with a message, or delivering something for the evening meal. Mona rose to see who was there. There was the noise of the latch; then she gave an exclamation of surprise, and, so it seemed to me, of pleasure. Quiggin, too, jumped up when he heard the voice, also looking surprised: more surprised than pleased.

The man who came into the room was, I suppose, in his early thirties. At first he seemed older on account of his straggling beard and air of utter down-at-heelness. His hair was long on the top of his head, but had been given a rough military crop round the sides. He wore a tweed coat, much the worse for wear and patched with leather at elbows and cuffs; but a coat that was well cut and had certainly seen better days. An infinitely filthy pair of corduroy trousers clothed his legs, and, like Quiggin, his large feet were enclosed in some form of canvas slipper or espadrille. It seemed at first surprising that such an unkempt figure should have announced himself by knocking so gently, but it now appeared that he was overcome with diffidence. At least this seemed to be his state, for he stood for a moment or two on the threshold of the room, clearly intending to enter, but unable to make the definitive movement required which would heave him into what must have appeared the closed community of Quiggin and myself. I forgot at the time that this inability to penetrate a room is a particular form of hesitation to be a.s.sociated with persons in whom an extreme egoism is dominant: the acceptance of someone else's place or dwelling possibly implying some distasteful abnegation of the newcomer's rights or position.

At last, by taking hold of himself firmly, he managed to pa.s.s through the door, immediately turning his sunken eyes upon me with a look of deep uneasiness, as if he suspected-indeed, was almost certain-I was plotting some violently disagreeable move against himself. By exercising this disturbed, and essentially disturbing, stare, he made me feel remarkably uncomfortable; although, at the same time, there was something about him not at all unsympathetic: a presence of forcefulness and despair enclosed in an envelope of constraint. He did not speak. Quiggin went towards him, almost as if he were about to turn him from the room.

'I thought you were going to be in London all the week,' he said, 'with your committee to re-examine the terms of the Sedition Bill.'

He sounded vexed by the bearded man's arrival at this moment, though at the same time exerting every effort to conceal his annoyance.

'Craggs couldn't be there, so I decided I might as well come back. I walked up from the station. I've got a lot of stuff to go through still, and I always hate being in London longer than I need. I thought I would drop in on the way home to show you what I had done.'

The bearded man spoke in a deep, infinitely depressed voice, pointing at the same time with one hand to a small cardboard dispatch-case he carried in the other. This receptacle was evidently full of papers, for it bulged at top and bottom, and, since the lock was broken, was tied round several times with string.

'Wouldn't you rather deal with it another time?' Quiggin asked, hopefully.

He seemed desperately anxious to get rid of the stranger without revealing his ident.i.ty. I strongly suspected this to be the landlord of the cottage, but still had no clue to Quiggin's secrecy on the subject of his name, if this suspicion proved to be true. The man with the beard looked fairly typical of one layer of Quiggin's friends: a layer which Quiggin kept, on the whole, in the background, because he regarded them for one reason or another-either politically or even for reasons that could only be called sn.o.bbish-to be bad for business. Quiggin possessed his own elaborately drawn scale of social values, no less severe in their way than the canons of the most ambitious society hostess; but it was not always easy for others to know where, and how, he drew his lines of demarcation. Possibly the man with the beard was regarded as not quite at a level to be allowed to drink with Quiggin when friends were present. However, he was not to be expelled so easily. He shook now his head resolutely.

'No,' he said. 'There are just one or two things.'

He looked again in my direction after saying this, as if to make some apology either for intruding in this manner, or, as it were, on behalf of Quiggin for his evident wish that we should have nothing to do with each other.

'I haven't b.u.t.ted in, have I?' he said.

He spoke not so much to Quiggin as to the world at large, without much interest in a reply. The remark was the expression of a polite phrase that seemed required by the circ.u.mstances, rather than anything like real fear that his presence might be superfluous. My impression of him began to alter. I came to the conclusion that under this burden of shyness he did not care in the least whether he b.u.t.ted in on Quiggin, or on anyone else. What he wanted was his own way. Mona, who had gone through to the kitchen now returned, bringing another gla.s.s.

'Have a drink, Alf,' she said. 'Nice to see you unexpectedly like this.'

She had brightened up noticeably.

'Yes, of course, Alf, have a drink,' said Quiggin, now resigning himself to the worst. 'And sorry, by the way, for forgetting to explain who everybody is. My rough North Country manners again. This is Nick Jenkins-Alf Warminster.'

This, then, was the famous Erridge. It was easy to see how the rumour had gone round among his relations that he had become a tramp, even if actual experience had stopped short of that status in its most exact sense. I should never have recognised him with his beard and heavily-lined face. Now that his name was revealed, the features of the preoccupied, sallow, bony schoolboy, with books tumbling from under his arm, could be traced like a footpath lost in the brambles and weeds of an untended garden: an overgrown crazy pavement. Examining him as a perceivable ent.i.ty, I could even detect in his face a look of his sisters, especially Frederica. His clothes gave off a heavy, earthen smell as if he had lived out in them in all weathers for a long time.

'Alf owns this cottage,' said Quiggin, reluctantly. 'But he kindly allows us to live here until the whole place is turned into a collective farm with himself at the head of it.'

He laughed harshly. Erridge (as I shall, for convenience, continue to call him) laughed uneasily too.

'Of course you know I'm frightfully glad to have you here,' he said.

He spoke lamely and looked more than ever embarra.s.sed at this tribute paid him, which was certainly intended by Quiggin to carry some sting in its tail: presumably the implication that, whatever his political views, whatever the social changes, Erridge would remain in a comfortable position. When Quiggin ingratiated himself with people-during his days as secretary to St. John Clarke, for example-he was far too shrewd to confine himself to mere flattery. A modic.u.m of bullying was a pleasure both to himself and his patrons. All the same, I was not sure that Erridge, for all his outward appearance, might not turn out a tougher proposition than St. John Clarke.

'I don't know that farming is quite my line,' Erridge went on, apologetically. 'Though of course we have always done a bit of it here. Incidentally, is the water pumping satisfactorily? You may find it rather hard work, I am afraid. I had the hand pump specially put in. I think it is a better model than the one in the keeper's cottage, and they seem to find that one works all right.'

'Mona and I take our turn at it,' said Quiggin; and, grinning angrily in my direction, he added: 'Guests are expected to do their stint at the pump as a rule. Pumping is a bit of a bore, as you say. You can't do it any better, or any quicker, or any way that makes the tank last longer. The pump movement is just short of the natural leverage of the arm from the elbow, which makes the work particularly laborious. But we get along all right. Pumping is a kind of image of life under the capitalist system.'

Erridge laughed constrainedly, and took a gulp of gin, involuntarily making a grimace as he did so. This seemed to indicate that he belonged to the cla.s.s of egoist who dislikes the taste of food and drink. He would probably have abstained from alcohol entirely had not his special approach to life made a duty of mixing on equal terms with people round him. He seemed now a little put out by Quiggin's lack of affection for the pump. Having installed the equipment himself, like most innovators or, indeed, most owners of property, he did not care for the disparagement of his organisation or possessions; at least on the part of persons other than himself.

'1 met some of your sisters the other day,' I said.

Erridge's face clouded at these words, while Quiggin gritted his teeth in irritation. This, as intended, was nothing short of a declaration that I knew more about Erridge and his background than Quiggin might think desirable, and also was not prepared to move solely upon lines laid down by Quiggin himself. Indeed, Quiggin may have hoped that the name 'Warminster' inarticulately mumbled with the emphasis on the prefix 'Alf, would in itself at the time convey little or nothing; later, he could please himself how much he revealed about his current patron. There was a moment's pause before Erridge answered.

'Oh, yes-yes-' he said. 'Which-which ones-?'

'Priscilla and then Frederica, who took me to see Norah.'

'Oh, yes,' said Erridge. 'Priscilla-Frederica-Norah.'

He spoke as if he had now begun to remember them quite well. The manner in which he screwed up his face, while making this effort of memory recalled his uncle, Alfred Tolland. Although, at first sight, it would have been difficult to think of two men whose outward appearance was superficially more different, something deeper remained in common. If Alfred Tolland had grown a beard, dressed in rags and slept out all night, or if Erridge had washed, shaved and a.s.sumed a stiff collar and dark suit, something more than a pa.s.sing resemblance might have become evident. Indeed, Erridge's features had a.s.sumed some of that same expression of disappointment which marked his uncle's face when Molly Jeavons teased him; with the contrast that, in Erridge, one was reminded of a spoilt child, while Alfred Tolland's countenance was that of a child resigned from an early age to teasing by grown-ups. There could be no doubt that Erridge recoiled from the invocation of his immediate family. The world of his relations no doubt caused him chronic dissatisfaction. I saw no reason, for my own part, why he should be let off anything. If he lent Quiggin the cottage, he must put up with Quiggin's guests; especially those invited primarily to help Mona become a film star.

Silence fell. Erridge looked out towards the uncurtained window beyond which night had already fallen. Unlike his uncle, he had no wish to discuss his family. After all, it was perhaps hard that he should be forced to talk about them merely to plague Quiggin, though to try the experiment had been tempting. Quiggin himself had become increasingly restive during this interchange. Mona had spoken little, though undoubtedly cheered by the visit. Quiggin seemed to judge, perhaps correctly, that Erridge was displeased by all this chit-chat, and began to mention tentatively executive matters existing between them; although at the same time unquestionably anxious that Erridge should leave the cottage as soon as possible. However, Erridge in spite of his own unwillingness to make conversation, showed equally no desire to move. He took an ancient leather tobacco-pouch from one of his coat pockets and began to roll himself a cigarette. When he had done this-not very successfully, for a good deal of tobacco protruded from each end of the twist of rice-paper-he licked the edge to seal it and lit the rather flimsy result of these labours. The cigarette seemed not to 'draw' well, so after a minute or two he threw it into the grate. Sipping the drink Mona had given him, he again made a face, tipping back the kitchen chair upon which he sat until it cracked ominously. He sighed deeply.

'I was wondering whether it would be better for you to be secretary instead of Craggs,' he said.

'What makes you think so?' asked Quiggin cautiously.

'Craggs always seems to have something else to do. The fact is, Craggs is so keen on running committees that he can never give any of them the right amount of attention. He is on to German refugees now. Quite right, of course, that something should be done. But last week I couldn't get hold of him because he was occupied with Sillery about the embargo on arms to Bolivia and Paraguay. Then there's the "Smash Fascism" group he is always slipping off to. He would like us to pay more attention to Mosley. He wants to be doing the latest thing all the time, whether it's the independence of Catalonia or free meals for school-children.'

'Anti-fascism comes first,' said Quiggin. 'Even before pacifism. In my opinion, the Sedition Bill can wait. After all, didn't Lenin say something about Liberty being a bourgeois illusion?'

Quiggin had added this last remark in not too serious a tone, but Erridge seemed to take it seriously, s.h.i.+fting about uncomfortably on his hard wooden seat as if he were a galley-slave during an interval of rest.

'Of course,' he said. 'I know he did.'

'Well, then?'

'I don't always think like the rest of you about that.'

He rose suddenly from his chair.

'I want to have a talk about the magazine some time,' he said. 'Not now, I think.'

'Oh, that,' said Quiggin.

He sounded as if he would have preferred 'the magazine' not to have been so specifically named.

'What magazine?' asked Mona.

'Oh, it's nothing, ducks,' said Quiggin. 'Just an idea Alf and I were talking about.'

'Are you going to start a magazine?'

Mona sounded quite excited.

'We might be,' said Erridge, moving his feet about.

'It is all very vague still,' said Quiggin, in a voice that closed the matter.

Mona was not to be so easily silenced. Whether her interest had been genuinely aroused or whether she saw this as a means expressing her own views or teasing Quiggin was not clear.

'But how thrilling,' she said. 'Do tell me all about it, Alf.'

Erridge smiled in an embarra.s.sed way, and pulled at his beard.

'It is all very vague, as J.G. has explained,' he said. 'Look here, why not come to dinner tomorrow night? We could talk about it then.'

'Or perhaps later in the week,' said Quiggin.

'I've got to go away again on Monday,' Erridge said.

There was a pause. Quiggin glared at me.

'I expect you will have to go back to London on Sunday night, won't you, Nick?' he said.

'Oh, do come too,' said Erridge, at once. 'I'm so sorry. Of course I meant to ask you as well if you are staying until then.'

He seemed distressed at having appeared in his own eyes bad mannered. I think he lived in a dream, so shut off from the world that he had not bothered for a moment to consider whether I was staying with Quiggin, or had just come in that night for a meal. Even if he realised that I was staying, he was probably scarcely aware that I might still be there twenty-four hours later. His reactions placed him more and more as a recognisable type, spending much of his time in boredom and loneliness, yet in some way inhibited from taking in anything relevant about other people: at home only with 'causes'.

'The trains are not too good in the morning,' said Quiggin. 'I don't know when you have to be at the Studio-'

'The Studio is closed all this week owing to the strike,' I said. 'So I had thought of going up on Monday morning in any case-if that is all right.'

'Oh, are you on strike?' asked Erridge, brightening up at once, as if it were for him a rare, unexpected pleasure to find himself in such close contact with a real striker. 'In that case you simply must come and have a meal with me.'

'I'd love to, but it is not me on strike, I am afraid-the electricians.'

'Oh, yes, the strike, of course, the strike,' said Quiggin, as if he himself had organised the stoppage of work, but, in the light of his many similar responsibilities, had forgotten about its course. 'In that case we would all like to come, Alf. It's an early supper, as I remember.'

So far as Quiggin was concerned, it had been one of those great social defeats; and, in facing the fact squarely, he had done something to retrieve his position. Presumably he was making plans for Erridge to put up the money to install him as editor of some new, Left Wing magazine. It was perhaps reasonable that he should wish to keep their plans secret in case they should miscarry. However, now that the dinner had been decided upon, he accepted the matter philosophically. Erridge seemed to have no similar desire to discuss matters in private. He was, I think, quite unaware of Quiggin's unwillingness to allow others to know too much of their life together. I could see, too, that he was determined not to abandon the idea that I was myself a striker.

'But you support them by not going,' he said. 'Yes, come early. You might possibly like to look round the house-though there really is nothing to see there that is of the slightest interest, I'm afraid.'

He moved once more towards the door, sunk again in deep despair, perhaps at the thought of the lack of distinction of his house and its contents. Shuffling his espadrilles against the stone floor, he caught his foot in the mat, swore gently and a trifle self-consciously, as if aspiring to act as roughly as he was dressed, and left with hardly a further word. Quiggin accompanied him to the door, and shouted a farewell. Then he returned to the room in which we sat. No one spoke for a minute or two. Quiggin slowly corked up the gin bottle, and put it away in a cupboard.

'Alf is rather sweet, isn't he?' said Mona.

'Alf is a good fellow,' agreed Quiggin, a shade sourly.

'Where does he live?' I asked.

'Thrubworth Park. It is a big house heyond the trees you see from our windows.'

Quiggin had been put out by this sudden appearance of Erridge. It had been a visit for which he was unprepared: a situation he had not bargained for. Now he seemed unable to decide what line he himself should take about his friend.

'How much do you know about him?' he asked at last.

'Hardly anything, except that he is said to have been a tramp. And, as I said just now, I met some of his sisters the other day.'

'Oh, yes,' said Quiggin, impatiently. 'I am not at all interested in the rest of his family. He never sees anything of them, anyway. A lot of social b.u.t.terflies, that's all they are. Just what you might expect. Alf is different. I don't know what you mean by being a tramp, though. Where did you get that story? I suppose you think everyone is a tramp who wears a beard.'

'Aren't they? Some of his relations told me he had been experimenting in life as a tramp.'

'Just the sort of thing they would put about,' said Quiggin. 'Isn't it like people of that cla.s.s? It is true he has been making some study of local condidons. I don't think he stayed anywhere very luxurious, but he certainly didn't sleep in casual wards.'

'His relations suppose he did. I think they rather admire him for it.'

'Well, they suppose wrong,' said Quiggin. 'Alf is a very good fellow, but I don't know whether he is prepared to make himself as uncomfortable as that.'

'What did he do then?'

'Useful work collecting information about unemployment,' Quiggin conceded. 'Distributed pamphlets at the same time. I don't want to belittle it in any way, but it is absurd to go round saying he was a tramp. All the same, the experience he had will be of political value to him.'

'I think he is rather attractive,' said Mona.

For some reason this did not seem to please Quiggin.

'Did you ever meet a girl called Gypsy Jones?' he said. 'A Communist. Rather a grubby little piece. I'm not sure Alf may not be a bit keen on her. I saw them sitting together at a Popular Front meeting. All the same, he is not a man to waste time over women.'

'What do you mean, "waste time over women"?' said Mona. 'Anyway, n.o.body could blame you for that. You think about yourself too much.'

'I think about you too, ducks,' said Quiggin mildly, no doubt judging it advisable to pacify her. 'But Alf is an idealist. Rather too much of one sometimes, when it comes to getting things done. All the same, he has most of the right ideas. Shall I get that bottle out again? Supper doesn't seem to be nearly ready.'

'Yes, get it out,' said Mona. 'I can't imagine why you put it away.'

All this was reminiscent of the Templer household before Mona left her husband. During the twenty-four hours that followed, this recollection was more than once repeated.

Quiggin, too, had begun to placate her with 'treats', the impending dinner with Erridge certainly grading in that cla.s.s. In fact Quiggin began to talk as if he himself had arranged the invitation as an essential aspect of the weekend. Although its potentialities had been reduced for him by my inclusion, there was, I think, nothing personal in that. He would equally have objected to any other friend or acquaintance joining the party. Dinner at Thrubworth was an occasion not to be wasted, for Mona had remarked: 'We don't get invited every day of the week.' I asked how long they had known Erridge.

'In the days when I was secretary to St. John Clarke,' said Quiggin, smiling to show how distant, how incongruous, he now regarded that period of his life. 'St. J. went one afternoon to a bookshop in Charing Cross Road, where he wanted to cast his eye over some of Lenin's speeches. As you know, St. J. was rather careful about money, and he had suggested I should hold the bookseller in conversation while he looked up just as much as he needed. This was at the beginning of St. J.'s conversion to Marxism. We found Alf pottering about the shop, trying to get through the afternoon. Old habits die hard, and, of course, up to the time I met him, St. J. had been a champion sn.o.b-and he wasn't altogether cured of his liking for a high-sounding name. He often said afterwards, when we knew each other well, that I'd saved him from sn.o.bbery. I only wish I could also have saved him from Trotskyism. But that is another story. It happened that St. J. had met Alf quite a time before at the home of one of Alf's relatives-is there a woman called Lady Molly Jeavons? There is-well, it was at her house. St. J. had a word or two with Alf in the bookshop, and, in spite of his changed view of life, forgot all about Lenin's speeches and asked him back to tea.'

'And you have known him ever since?'