Джеймс Хилтон - Morning Journey

“Not a bit. I’d never met her till that evening. I was taking her home because my friend, who’d been with her, had passed out. I hadn’t had any drinks myself and the whole evening was simply a bore. We were driving slowly when a truck came at us round a corner. I had to swerve and we skidded. The road ran along the river-bank. That’s all. But I thought I’d tell you in case you’d heard about the girl and might think there was some romance in it.” He paused, as if waiting for comment; when she made none, he continued: “Yet it affected me a good deal—I think more so in some ways than if I’d known and liked her. And the thing itself was worse than war, if you can imagine what I mean, because killing is what wars are for and you half expect it all the time. Just as you somehow expect girls to be pretty… She wasn’t, poor thing. But her family owned vineyards, and, if you dated her, they’d give you bottles of wine. Their whole dream, and the girl’s too, was that some G.I. would marry her and take her to America. My pal was after the wine. But for that she’d have been alive today and I’d have been—I suppose —still over there.”

She saw his face twitching with some kind of agitation and thought he had probably done well to tell her, as the first step towards forgetfulness. She said, as she began cleaning the brushes: “I’m glad you told me, Norris… I hope it’s fine tomorrow—we might try the barn, or if it’s too cold to paint, we could do a quick sketch.”

But it rained the next day and the skies were so dark that it was hardly worth while to sketch or paint anywhere; and the day after that they returned to New York for the Christmas season. Austen was waiting for them, happy over the boy’s progress to health and ready to give Carey full credit for the painting experiment. Norris seemed fairly happy also, or at least indifferent to where he was taken. Of the three, the only sufferer was Carey, for whom the return was to the secret surveillance which she had not yet complained of to Austen, and could not discuss with anyone else. She was certain now that Richards had Austen’s private instructions, yet nothing was provable, since it was fully a butler’s job to sort mail, take telephone calls, and so on. And even if, when she dialled a number from her room, she heard the click of an extension elsewhere, she knew there could be a hundred innocent reasons for it. She was always on guard against an obsession, having observed so many in other people; but to measure every suspicion against the possibility was almost an obsession in itself. Only while she was with Norris could she feel utter freedom, for Austen approved so much the time she spent with him, noting each day the boy’s rising spirits. So that in a room where she and Norris were together she did not start at a sudden tap on the door; it was sanctuary of a special kind, the glass-house where nobody would throw stones.

Because of his injured arm they tried to avoid crowds, though they saw a few plays and movies, but more often they walked the two quiet blocks to the Park and then roamed for an hour or two till dusk approached and it was time to return to the house. Sometimes Norris went out on his own and came back hours later; she never asked him where he had been, though he would tell her as a rule; he liked wandering about the city, taking the subway to some distant suburb and finding pleasure in the randomness. To her this was perfectly natural, or at least not astonishing, but to Austen it would have seemed queer, so they kept such expeditions a secret. They had a few other secrets, such as the books he read (she knew because she saw him reading them, but she never discussed them unless he started it), a few records they both liked and that Austen would have played far too often if he had known what they were, and of course the biggest secret of all—that there were no important secrets. In the house they spent most time in a little sitting-room on the third floor—Norris’s since boyhood, but not boyish in character, for he had always had an aesthetic dislike of pennants and group photographs, and his entire lack of games prowess had left him without trophies. His mind, Carey thought, was abstractly intellectual rather than artistic, and he had not yet found an outlet for its proper use— maybe writing, eventually, if he developed ideas that could survive his own criticism of them. He would be formidable and fascinating in debate, and in this field it was the power of their sheathed weapons that kept father and son apart. If they ever argued, they soon reached the foothills of disagreement beyond which the mountain loomed unarguably. And the mountain was that Norris, despite facile cynicism and years at war, had certain hopes of the world ahead; whereas Austen, though he would have thought it naďve to discuss the matter, had almost none. Immortal longings against urbane misgivings was a conflict in which Carey was more on Norris’s side than she knew; in fact she did not know at all till one day, in the sanctuary of the sitting-room, Norris remarked that he didn’t think he would stay home long after he was fully recovered.

“Why not?”

“It’s hard to say, Carey, in a way that doesn’t make me seem either priggish or ungrateful. I like father much more than I did, and I can see now what a brat I used to be with him—he’s so patient and affectionate; I’ve treated him pretty badly. And yet my first instincts were probably right, if I’d only kept them under civil discipline—I mean, we don’t really have the same ideas about things. I change mine all the time, of course, but I never seem to change them to any of his, and I can’t help feeling that’s a remarkable coincidence. So it wouldn’t be much fun for either of us if I handed my future over to him and said ‘Make what you want of it.’”

“But do you think that’s what he’d like you to do?”

“He’d like me to go in a bank. He’s often said so.”

“That doesn’t sound too exciting.”

“Oh, it wouldn’t be an ordinary job—or even an ordinary bank, for that matter. It might mean going abroad—to Switzerland, and I wouldn’t mind that a bit, except that… well…”

He hesitated and she said: “You feel that if you did you’d be giving up something else even if you’re not sure what the something else is?”

“Exactly. And of course that’s where he has a case. He says ‘Try the bank and see if you like it’. If I answer ‘I don’t think I’d like it’, then he says ‘Well, what WOULD you like?’—and I don’t know.”

“Have you had this argument with him?”

“Oh, not an argument. Just friendly talk from time to time. All very detached and reasonable. I like the idea of going abroad, though. Too bad I’m not religious, I could be a missionary. Matter of fact, I wish I were a doctor, then I could be a missionary without being religious.”

“Why do you want to be a missionary at all?”

“I’m damned if I know. Does that sound a silly answer?”

“It’s better than trying to invent a reason.”

He laughed. “I think I’ll travel, when I’ve got myself a bit stronger. Father’s offered to take me on one of his business trips abroad, but I’m not really sure that’s what I want. Unless, of course, you went too—then it might be fun. But he never does take you on business trips, does he?”

“It’s my own fault, Norris. He flies everywhere and I hate flying.”

“So do I. Loathe it. The Wright Brothers were the Wrong Brothers so far as I’m concerned.”

“Perhaps so far as the world’s concerned too. There’s not much time, is there, to save anything?”

“That’s an odd remark. Fifty years ago the only answer would have been ‘Yes, if you begin early, putting by a few pennies each day’. But now the question means something else, doesn’t it? And that, I suppose, is the real grudge I have against any kind of job father would find for me. I’d feel like an old clock slowly running down if I really devoted myself to it. And father does devote himself. Not that I mean he’s an old clock slowly running down…” He laughed with some embarrassment. “A very elegant clock, at least. I hope I’ll look as handsome when I’m his age.”