Flight into Camden Read online

  ‘What? The university?’

  ‘No. Just this room.’

  ‘I like it. It’s very cosy and warm-looking.’

  ‘I’ll just put this down,’ he said.

  He leaned over and replaced the piece of sculpture beside the similar one on the cabinet. His hair was thinning round the crown. He must have been thirty-five, or -eight, perhaps.

  ‘Have you been here before?’ he asked.

  ‘No. This is the first time. My brother’s only been here this term.’

  ‘Yes, I know.’ He looked across at Michael. ‘I think he’ll be a success.’

  Some people left the room, going down the corridor chatting. There was suddenly more space and I felt more relaxed. I was tired. ‘Are you a lecturer?’ I asked him.

  ‘No.’ He shook his head, and smiled. He looked pleased. ‘I’m across the road. At the Art College – I teach Industrial Design.’ His pale eyes intermittently relaxed in a glazed fashion, as if suddenly frozen, then thawed. ‘I know a few of the people over here.’

  ‘You’re the odd man out.’

  ‘Aren’t we all?’

  He looked as though he could have amused himself with me. I’d felt that when he was showing me the sculpture; it was the way he held it, as if deliberately exaggerating its preciousness.

  ‘What do you do for a living?’ he asked.

  ‘I work for the Coal Board.’

  ‘Oh … The Director of mineral research.’

  ‘I’m a secretary in the accounts department.’

  He bowed his head very slightly, his eyes on mine. ‘Do you dance?’

  ‘Here?’

  ‘No. But that would be amusing. I mean downstairs.’

  I looked across at Michael. He was in a large group now and talking so intensely that I could hear his voice above the others in the room. Not his words, but the eager, bursting impetuosity, and his aggressive northern accent.

  ‘I think he’ll manage on his own,’ he said.

  ‘I thought I’d better tell him.’

  ‘He’ll know where to find you. In any case he only brought you for support, isn’t that right?’

  ‘How d’you mean?’

  ‘Why does a man take his sister to the Prof’s party? It’s one step below bringing your wife. Have you heard Sinatra’s “Chicago”?’

  I moved towards the door with him. ‘In Chicago a man danced with his wife,’ I said.

  He laughed.

  ‘Is that why you haven’t brought your wife?’ I asked.

  ‘No.’ But he was still smiling. ‘You’re looking tired already,’ he told me.

  ‘We’ve been to a funeral today. My grandfather died at the week-end.’

  He let me go before him into the corridor. I waited while he tried to catch the eye of the Professor, but he must have failed. He followed me to the stairs.

  ‘Are you still feeling upset?’ he said.

  ‘No. I didn’t know him at all. I only went for my parents’ sake. We had a terrible lunch after the funeral. That’s what really wearied me.’

  ‘You’re still living at home?’

  ‘Yes. You sound very interested in my affairs.’

  He walked beside me down to the dance floor. The hall was comparatively quiet: a spot dance was being judged. ‘Well, I know a little about your brother. I’ve spoken to him once or twice. Your father’s a miner. Mine was a down-and-out. It doesn’t matter, does it?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Then there’s no cause for resentment, I suppose.’

  He held my elbow and guided me down the side of the hall; the band began playing again and a group at the far side were cheering. It was a quickstep.

  ‘Shall we dance this one?’ he said.

  He held me loosely and neither of us danced well. We passed some students in a corner of the room jiving. He held me at arm’s length and made one or two erratic, facetious gestures with his body. ‘Can you jive?’ he asked.

  ‘No.’ I shook my head.

  He nodded quickly and said, ‘Ah, yes,’ as if reproving himself. ‘Your brother’s living with you at home as well, then?’

  ‘He has been. For the past two months or so.’ He held me against him as we turned sharply at the corner of the hall. We were jostled back into the circulating stream. ‘He’s hoping to get a flat.’

  ‘They’re difficult, I know.’

  Streamers and rolls of toilet paper were suddenly thrown across the hall, and scuffles broke out on the floor as people tried to disengage themselves. A large yellow balloon was bounced about over the heads of the dancers until it burst and there was loud applause. Some people were in fancy dress.

  He looked at my face. ‘You don’t have to dance, you know.’

  Another quickstep tune started, and he held my hand. We came off the floor and pushed our way through the crowd of students. He nodded at several, and called out once, ‘All right. All right,’ in a tone of deep irritation.

  A large notice was painted in dripping red over one of the exits: ‘This way for nervous wrecks, dyspeptics, paranoics, and lecturers. Professors only: Gents.’

  ‘There’s a rest room somewhere here,’ he said, not seeing the notice, and finding the right door, pushed it open.

  Students sat about in pairs amongst benches. He sat down on a bench, moving along for me, and nodding quickly and awkwardly at another couple, as if disturbed at his own familiarity. It was fairly quiet. There was a small bar in the corner which was just closing down. He got himself some beer, and a glass of draught cider for me.

  ‘I think I’ll be going soon,’ I told him.

  He set the two glasses on a sloping desk, and we held them upright.

  ‘Do you find it a bit much?’ he asked. ‘All these bloody students.’ He smiled, perhaps at his own irritation as well. ‘They’re only young once,’ he said. ‘Thank God.’

  ‘Wouldn’t you like to be a student all over again?’

  ‘I don’t know … perhaps I would. But I was in London just after the war. It was different then. Most of us were old soldiers. Being a student in the provinces isn’t much to being one in London. You can imagine.’ He offered me a cigarette. ‘Do you smoke?’

  ‘Yes. But I won’t now if you don’t mind.’

  He lit his cigarette. He smelt of tobacco.

  Beyond him was a large wall chart illustrating the circulation of the blood. I was thinking of Michael, and I stared at it as if it were a diagram of my brother himself.

  ‘Where do you live?’ he said. But I felt he wanted to talk about himself.

  ‘At Upton. It’s a housing estate on the outskirts.’

  ‘You’ve always lived there?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Have you any other brothers?’

  ‘A younger one who’s married. He lives at Maudsley. It’s near Doncaster.’

  ‘Have you been married?’ He asked it leisurely.

  ‘No.’

  ‘And you think about it?’

  ‘Often.’

  ‘But they don’t come up to your standard.’ He was looking along the bench, with one eye closed.

  ‘Or I don’t come up to theirs.’

  ‘It’s not very common,’ he said, ‘to find somebody like you not married.’

  ‘I must have been unlucky.’ Perhaps I was staring reproachfully at him. He flushed. ‘You sound as though you know a lot about marriage,’ I suggested.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Why do you think people get married, in any case?’

  ‘You should know,’ he said, ‘if you live on a housing estate. So they can get a room to have sexual intercourse in.’ He stubbed out his cigarette only half smoked. ‘At least, that’s the working class half, isn’t it?’ He was nearly smiling again, and indulgent.

  A group of noisy students bursting into the room gave me a shock. ‘The bloody bar’s closed in here already!’ they shouted. He stood up.

  ‘Are you going to see your brother before you go?’ he asked. ‘I’ll see you to the
front steps. I’ll most likely be going myself soon.’

  ‘I think I’ll tell him I’m going.’

  We seemed to be chased from the room. We seemed to have been chased from one place to another since we’d met. We went back through the crowded hall, which was now dimly lit by coloured revolving lights. His hair was blue, then green, then red.

  ‘You didn’t drink your beer,’ I said, as we went up the staircase.

  ‘No. I’m slimming.’ He stopped to pull in his chin and exaggerate the two creases of fat; then he unbuttoned his Harris tweed jacket to show me the premature bulging of his stomach. There was this carelessness about him.

  He was holding his stomach in this way as we went into the Professor’s room. Michael saw us come in, and raised his head. There was now only one group remaining in the room, of seven or eight people, with the Professor, and they were talking heatedly. Michael came away quietly. ‘I’m just going,’ I told him as he looked at the man behind me. ‘I feel worn out.’

  ‘I’ll see her to the door,’ the art teacher said.

  ‘You’re sure you won’t stay?’ Michael said to me. He was polite.

  ‘No. I’ve seen enough for one day, I think.’

  He smiled and put his hand on one side derisively. ‘O.K.,’ he said. ‘I’ll see you at home. Tell my mother I’ll most likely be late. And not to wait up for me.’

  He was already going back to his group before we reached the door, but he was watching us.

  He came back down to the hall again. It was garish with its coloured lights and noisier than ever.

  ‘Did you leave your coat in the cloakroom?’ he said, and waited while I fetched it. He looked at my hat, quickly, when I reappeared. The hall was almost empty and many of its decorations torn; the clowns were peeling from the walls. It was cold. A porter stood stamping his feet in the archway.

  ‘We might meet again,’ he said.

  He held out his hand and I shook it. It was slim, and hard. ‘Yes, I hope we do.’

  We stood a moment, blankly.

  ‘Do you want me to see you home?’ he asked.

  ‘No, of course not. I was just wondering why my brother looked so annoyed.’

  He came to the archway. The porter said good night.

  Then he followed me to the top of the steps and stood in the open portico. ‘Good night, then,’ he said, as I went down. There was a burst of noise behind him, of shouting and cheering.

  I called back, ‘Good night. And thank you.’

  When I reached the street and glanced back he was still there. He was lighting a cigarette; then he airily waved with it in his hand, and looked up at the dark sky.

  I didn’t see Michael until the following evening when I got home from work. But he was waiting, delaying getting ready for another end-of-term celebration, arguing with my mother about his white shirts.

  ‘I see you picked yourself a winner,’ he said, the moment I’d taken off my hat and coat. He often resorted to a northern accent or colloquialism when he wanted to deride someone for whom he had an affection. My mother was puzzled, but sensed the usual breaking of animosity in the air.

  ‘Don’t go on at our Margaret,’ she said. ‘She’s been working.’

  ‘What did you think to him?’ Michael said.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘That Howarth camel … the indestructible mentor from across the way.’ He was unexpectedly bitter.

  ‘Is that his name? Howarth.’

  ‘He didn’t tell you? But then that’s typical. He goes everywhere on the assumption that he’s “known”.’

  ‘I was impressed with him. I’ve seldom met a more interesting person …’ But it sounded so serious that he was the only one to laugh.

  ‘Who was it you met last night?’ my mother asked. ‘And you want to be quiet,’ she warned Michael. ‘Your dad’s off to work in two hours and he hasn’t had much sleep.’

  ‘Nobody,’ I told her. ‘If I did it’d be somebody objectionable to our Michaelouse.’

  He’d never got used to this suffix to his name – a girlish remnant of anger which somehow I’d kept in spite of his and my parents’ long distaste. As a boy he reciprocally used to call me Margarine. When he was ten. But I had clung to my habit.

  My mother went into the scullery to get my tea. ‘You want to be quiet,’ she said. ‘Your dad’s not sleeping well.’

  Michael was impatient. ‘What did you think to him?’ he asked again. ‘I’d like to know.’ He was polite now. He began to unbutton his shirt, casually, before going up to shave.

  ‘He didn’t tell me much about himself, and I was too tired to bother asking.’

  ‘It didn’t look like that from the glimpse I had – he was showing off his belly when he came in the Prof’s room with you. It’s one of the habits he keeps for his closer friends: to ask them to share his concern over his figure.’

  He looked at me openly and determinedly, making sure that he had stamped out this Howarth person for good. ‘A few people noticed you with him,’ he said. ‘You want to be careful who you’re seen with. After all, I’ve got a position to keep.’

  ‘Oh shut up!’ I flushed strongly, and grasped the table.

  He was looking at me with his strained grimace of victory. ‘I’m beginning to think you were taken in by him,’ he said.

  ‘You can think what you damn well like.’

  My mother was bringing in my tea. She wearily repeated her entreaty, but awkward and ashamed at seeing me angry. ‘There,’ she said.

  The springs creaked in the double bed as my father rolled over and pushed his feet into his slippers.

  ‘Here comes the bloody martyr,’ Michael said. ‘Dragged out of his sleep by his greedy, selfish children. Will there ever be an end to their selfish stinking meanness?’

  ‘You might have shown some consideration for him yesterday,’ my mother said slowly. ‘Walking away like that.’

  ‘But I couldn’t have sat down there with all those people,’ Michael said, as though he’d only been waiting to give his excuse. ‘Having a meal after a funeral. It was just a chance for a bloody gossip and nothing else, Mother. Look at my Uncle Jack in the taxi coming back. Christ …’

  ‘You know why Jack’s like that. He’s on his own. You might have given him a chance. But your dad felt it. Jack’s his brother, and it was their father.’

  ‘Ah well, I’m going out,’ Michael said. ‘I couldn’t have eaten a meal like that.’ He went upstairs to shave.

  I heard him wait on the landing while my father used the bathroom. When they passed one another they said nothing.

  My father came down in his underclothes, into the living-room. I never knew what he meant by coming down like this: whether to humiliate himself or merely to outrage us with his indiscretion.

  He sat down with his bare legs to the flames and his veins stood out in blue relief against the whiteness of his skin. He stared at the fire, his eyes screwed up against the heat, and leaning towards it. My mother rearranged the table, going to the trouble of pouring out my tea. She fetched my father’s pot and poured him his tea, setting it down by his bare feet. Then she went quietly into the scullery.

  ‘I didn’t see you last night,’ he said.

  ‘I came in after you’d gone to work.’

  ‘Your Aunt Dorothy was here, and your uncle.’

  He didn’t touch his tea. Upstairs, Michael began to sing loudly. ‘What was all the noise about?’ he asked, tired.

  ‘He’s going out soon. He doesn’t have to sing as loud as that, I know.’

  He suddenly felt for his pot and brought it slowly to his mouth. He drank slowly, in long gulps as a man needing it, the muscle surging in his short throat. Then he rested the pot down clumsily in the hearth. Its steam curled into the glowing fireplace. ‘Aye. We mu’n better wait for his lordship to leave afore we can breathe.’

  I wanted to smile at his anger, to torture him out of it.

  ‘Where’s he going tonight?’ he said. ‘It’s a r
ight fair job he’s dropped on you – gallivanting off every night.’

  ‘It’s only the end of term. You don’t want to take so much notice.’

  ‘What were you two shouting about, then?’

  He didn’t expect me to tell him. But I did, about Howarth and how Michael had disapproved.

  ‘What’s he expect,’ he said, ‘taking you out to a place like that then dropping you as soon as he’s inside the door. That’s just like our Michael. I suppose he reckoned you’d come on straight back home.’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘What was this chap, any road?’ He looked at me with interest now that I’d given in and sympathized. It had been his idea that I should go with Michael.

  ‘I don’t know him at all. We danced a bit and talked, then I came on home.’

  ‘Yes. But what does our Michael say about him?’

  ‘He doesn’t like him for some reason. I don’t know why.’

  ‘You don’t want to mind our Michael.’ He leaned down for his pot. He drank more quickly, then rubbed his hand round the pot. ‘He left the funeral yest’day. Just like that.’

  ‘You ought to know our Michael by now,’ I told him. But I was angry that he was so resigned, and had no advice.

  My mother came in, now that she thought he was soothed. ‘Are you staying down, or are you going back for an hour?’ she said.

  ‘How can I go back with that row on?’ He seemed oppressed by the ceiling.

  ‘He’ll have gone soon,’ she said fiercely.

  ‘You’ve heard how he’s been on at our Mag?’

  ‘It’s none of our concern, is it, Margaret?’ She began clearing the table, and I stood up to help her.

  ‘Oh no,’ he said. ‘They only own the house.’

  But Michael was quiet now. He’d moved to his bedroom at the front of the house, and no doubt was changing into his evening clothes.

  When he came down I was in the scullery washing up with my mother. He stood in the hall to avoid arguing while he pulled on his raincoat.

  My father called out, ‘Aren’t you taking Margaret tonight?’

  ‘If she doesn’t mind talking about dark adaptation or the learning curve of psychotics. I don’t mind.’

  ‘Don’t start coming with that,’ my father warned.