Джеймс Хилтон - So Well Remembered

“They moved you about a lot?”

“Yes. Everybody who thought he could do anything had a go at me. Not that I’m complaining. They did rather well, I reckon. And the French johnny who fixed up my nose really improved on the original. I had to spend six weeks in his private nursing home in Leeds.”

“Leeds? As near to Browdley as all that? Why didn’t you let me know? I’d have visited you.”

Charles looked embarrassed. “Well, you stopped writing, so I thought you’d got a bit bored with that sort of thing. I wouldn’t blame you.”

“ I stopped writing?”

And then, of course, the matter was explored; it appeared that George’s last two letters had never reached Charles; it was all as trivial as that. (They did arrive, eventually, after a series of fantastic re-forwardings). George exclaimed, laughing because his relief was so much greater than he could have believed possible: “And I thought it was YOU who didn’t want to write!”

Just then the air-raid siren went off, effectively changing the subject. “There’s a shelter in the next court,” Charles said, “if you’d like to go there.”

“What do YOU generally do?”

“It’s only happened two or three times before, but I’ve always stayed here. I don’t think it’s a very good shelter anyway.”

George said staying where they were was all right with him, so they went on talking. Now that the contretemps of the letters had been cleared up, the mood came on them both for subsidiary confessions; Charles, for instance, admitted that when he had caught sight of George outside the College that afternoon he had deliberately looked the other way. “It was partly because I thought perhaps you really didn’t want to see me—not now that you know I know who you are. There’s also a bit of a phobia I have about my new face. It gives me the most conflicting impulses—for instance, in YOUR case, because you never saw my old face, I didn’t mind so much, yet because I also didn’t think you’d recognize me I was glad to think you wouldn’t realize I was avoiding you… Or is all that too complicated?”

“Aye—and so are most human impulses, if you get down to analysing ‘em.”

“I’m glad you think so. I’ve had a good deal of time to analyse myself lately—perhaps too much—and on the whole I prefer flying… I suppose you know I’ll never be able to do that again?”

George had all along thought so, but deemed it best to appear surprised. Charles went on: “The doctors simply hooted when I mentioned it. Asked me whether I wasn’t satisfied with the way they’d fixed me up for a life of strictly civilian usefulness.”

“And aren’t you?”

“I guess I’ve got to be. I’m damned lucky compared with thousands. The fact is, though, I really WANTED to fly again… As long as I could be useful that way I was satisfied. But now that I have to wonder how I CAN be useful, I’m NOT satisfied.”

“What’s wrong with just being here?”

“Probably quite a lot. And that’s what makes the big difference. There never was much wrong with the R.A.F., and even if there had been it was none of my business. My job was to fly.”

“And now your job’s to get ready for some other job that’ll be just as useful in its way by then.”

“I’d like to believe that. I’d like to think the things I’m being lectured about have the slightest connection with anything that matters. The Statute of Mortmain, for example—or the Amphictyonic Council.”

“The Amphictyonic Council certainly has—because it was a sort of League of Nations, wasn’t it?”

Charles gasped. “Good God! Now how the hell did you know that?”

“Because I once studied history for a university examination same as you’re doing now.”

“You DID? You mean you…” The first gunfire could be heard in the far distance; it seemed to cause a break in the youth’s astonishment, giving him the chance to reflect, perhaps, that it was not very polite to be so astonished. He stammered: “It’s just that I didn’t realize you were— well, what I mean is…”

George let him flounder with a certain grim joy. “Aye, I get what you mean,” he said at length. “You thought education wasn’t much in my line, I daresay. But you’re wrong there. I had great ambitions when I was a lad, and to get a university degree was one of ‘em. But it didn’t come off—and perhaps it doesn’t matter so much when I look back on it now. I’ve done other things.”

“That’s what my father used to say. His ambition was always to be an ambassador in one of the important capitals, but things didn’t work out that way. In fact they worked out damned badly… You know he’s probably dead?”

George said gently: “Not PROBABLY. I don’t think anyone knows enough to say that.”

“I wish they did. I wish it was a certainty. I can’t bear to think of him being—”

George caught the note of hysteria and checked it by putting out his cup for more coffee. “Come now… I know it could be bad, but maybe it’s not as bad as that… Isn’t it possible to get word from him? Doesn’t anybody have an idea where he is?”

The whole room began to shake as if a train were rumbling deeply underground. A flake of plaster fell from the ceiling with almost dainty nonchalance. Charles answered: “My mother thinks he’s in Japan. I don’t know what evidence she has—if any. She’s—she’s a little strange —in some ways. She’s been writing to all kinds of people in the Government—making rather extraordinary suggestions for rescuing him. Quite extraordinary. I’m terribly sorry for her.” His voice trembled.

The underground train noise began again. George took his refilled cup of coffee. “Thanks,” he said. And then: “I’m sorry too, lad.”

Charles lit a cigarette. “Air-raid warden in Browdley, aren’t you?”

George nodded.

“Ever had a raid?”

“Not so far, thank goodness. But I know what they’re like. I was at Mulcaster in one of the worst.”

“I was in a few too.”

“So I understand.”

“Oh, I don’t mean THOSE. I mean as one of the underdogs. A few hours after my mother landed there was a bad one on the docks there… She wasn’t scared. I was, though.” He smiled. “Not that I wouldn’t rather be here than in a shelter. It’s a bit of a bother for me to get down steps, and I hate strangers staring at my funny face.”

“It’s not funny to me.”

“That’s because you never saw it before. The really funny thing is that you should ever have seen it at all… Just coincidence, wasn’t it, that you noticed my name on the list at that hospital?”

“Aye—but when you come to think of it, there’s a lot of coincidence in the world.”

“That’s so… Boy meets Girl—always the perfect coincidence. My father meeting my mother… YOU meeting my mother. Where was it? In Browdley?”

George nodded.

“My father met her first in Vienna.”

“Aye.”

“You knew that?”

George nodded. After a pause he asked: “By the way… did you… did you tell her you’d met me?”

“Yes.”

“Did she mind?”

“She seemed a bit surprised, that’s all.” An explosion came, nearer than any before. Charles began to laugh.

George said: “Steady, lad.”

“Oh, I’m all right. I was just laughing at something she said about you when I happened to mention you were Mayor of Browdley. She said you were like a lion when you talked at public meetings, and behind that you were rather like a friendly old dog that nobody need be afraid of, but behind everything else you had the secret strength of the dove.”

“The WHAT?”

Charles repeated the phrase, after which they both laughed together. “Well, it’s the first time I ever heard of it,” George said. “And I still don’t know whether she meant that doves are strong or that I’m weak… Maybe she didn’t know herself when she said it.”