Джеймс Хилтон - Time And Time Again

‘Yes, sir, we’re all right so far.’ And then, as if the shoelace were not wholly convincing: ‘Looking for somewhere, sir?’

Charles had to find an answer and it came as familiarly as the feel of a switch in a room one thought one had forgotten. ‘The Prince Rupert… isn’t there a pub of that name near here?’

Suspicion vanished; anyone looking for the Prince Rupert clearly had a right to stop his car wherever he liked to tie his shoelace or anything else. ‘First on the right, second on the left, sir.’

‘Thanks,’ said Charles. He closed the door and drove off… And why not to the Prince Rupert, after all?

Two minutes later he was pushing through the swing-doors into a vestibule that had been built to ensure obedience to the blackout regulations. The interior was pleasantly warm, hazy with smoke and shaded lights, companionably buzzing with talk, but not noisy. Charles went to the bar and asked for a bitter. It was rarely his drink, but the word had framed itself for speech before he could think of anything else.

Except for the dimness and the improvised vestibule he did not think the Prince Rupert had changed since his last visit. It had then, he recollected, been recently modernized in a style which some architect had imagined to be ‘Old English’; there had been a rash of dark-stained planks laid on plaster, and beams that were not beams; but now, after such a decent interval, the sham had acquired a half-reality of its own. The bar counter, for instance, originally polished to look ancient, had lost its polish and taken on an attractive patina of plain usage.

Memories now were assembling so fast that Charles took cautious inventory of them, as with an old trunk in an attic that may have things in it one doesn’t expect and might not want to find. The framed picture of a pretty girl holding up a glass of beer reminded him of something… or perhaps nothing. Another picture, of a khaki-clad soldier posing with a large Union Jack, harked back to that period, so alien, so distant, of the phony war. Abruptly amidst these musings he felt a touch on his arm. It was an old man whom he did not recognize. ‘Mr. Anderson… am I right, sir? You’ll remember me… FRED MANSFIELD.’

Charles stared, and a whole flock of memories broke through, so that his voice was hard to control as he shook the bony hand. ‘Of course I remember… of course…’

But he hadn’t, at first, and if he had met the man in the street he knew he would have passed him by. He remembered the voice, though—the high-pitched gentle Cockney. And soon, of course, the features fitted in, so that he could judge Mr. Mansfield hadn’t changed much either, except to look older and frailer, especially in the throes of his excusable excitement.

‘CHARLIE… well, of all the… and ‘ere again—‘ow many years is it?’

Charles had to think, and in thinking remembered how, during those early years in European capitals, he had sometimes imagined meeting Fred Mansfield again—a meeting in which, out of his own deep hurt and humiliation, he would tell the fellow exactly what he thought of him. But now, it seemed, even the hurt and humiliation could be remembered only with an effort; and perhaps for this reason he didn’t actually know what he thought of him, or of himself either, except that they had both been victims.

So all he answered was: ‘Yes, it was a long time ago… What are you drinking?’

‘No, Charlie—this is on me when I get me breath… Gorlummy, wot a surprise!… Mrs. Appleby, two bitters for me an’ this gentleman. ‘E’s an old friend of mine… Mr. Anderson—Mrs. Appleby.’ Charles shook hands with the landlady, and something else occurred to him. ‘It was Mrs. Webber, wasn’t it, Fred, the last time I was here?’ It seemed quite easy and natural now to call him Fred.

‘That’s right! Now fancy you rememberin’ Mrs. Webber… Mrs. Appleby, Mr. Anderson remembers Mrs. Webber!’ But Mrs. Appleby did not seem specially interested. ‘Poor Mrs. Webber died of a stroke, and then there was the Johnsons, and then the Brackleys—nobody liked THEM—they let the ‘ouse down, they did… But now we’re all ‘appy again, ain’t we, Mrs. Appleby?’

‘Maybe some of us are,’ said Mrs. Appleby as she turned to other customers.

‘The fact is,’ whispered Mr. Mansfield confidentially, ‘she ain’t ‘ad it too easy litely. That larst raid shook ‘er up. Two bombs just rahnd the corner, but only a few winders broke in ‘ere. Ain’t that luck?’

Charles agreed that it was. ‘You’re looking very well, Fred—very well indeed.’

‘Can’t complain. Not so bad for seventy-eight. Your dad still alive an’ well, I ‘ope?’

‘Yes. He’s eighty-one.’

‘Good for ‘im. I remember Sir ‘Avelock… I ses to ‘im, when ‘e left ‘ere that time, Sir ‘Avelock, I ses, it’s bin a honner and a pleasure. Same ‘ere, Mr. Mansfield, ‘e ses, or words to that effect. I daresay ‘e remembers me too.’

‘I’m certain he does.’

Mr. Mansfield gripped Charles’s arm in a still rising abandonment of delight. ‘You know, Charlie, it’s ‘ard to believe, seein’ you again like this. I can’t say you don’t look older, because you was only a boy in those days, but you certainly ain’t changed your drinks, ‘ave you? Bitter it was an’ bitter it is, an’ ‘ere you are at the Prince Rupert like you was at ‘ome.’ But he added, suddenly curious: ‘You rahnd ‘ere on business?’

‘No… just chance. I was driving back from Suffolk and found myself so close I thought I’d see what the old place looked like.’ As soon as he said it he knew it rang false; it sounded like some sentimental Old Boy revisiting his alma mater. But to Mr. Mansfield the explanation seemed perfectly satisfactory.

‘You’ll find some changes, Charlie. That is, if you was ‘ere in the daytime and could see. Lots of bombs in the ‘Igh Road.’

‘And at the corner of Ladysmith Road too.’

‘You saw that? Ah, that was a narsty one. Land mine, they said.’

‘No damage at Number 214, I noticed.’

‘So you came by an’ ‘ad a look? Well, well, to think of you rememberin’… I don’t live there no more. When the wife died I moved in with Evelyn an’ ‘er ‘usband—in Roberts Road. Just the next turnin’ from ‘ere. Convenient.’

‘I’m sorry to hear about Mrs. Mansfield.’

‘Poor old soul, she missed a lot o’ trouble, that’s one thing. Bert ‘ad to ‘ave an operation an’ ain’t bin the same since. Maud’s married and got two boys—lives at Chatham—‘er ‘usband’s in the Navy.’

‘And Lily?’ said Charles, with sudden breathlessness.

Mr. Mansfield beamed. ‘Lily? Why, she done the best of any of ‘em. She’s married an’ in Orsetrilia—got quite a family.’ He laid his glass on the counter and began searching his pockets. ‘Look… She sent me some snaps only a month or two back—taken outside the ‘ouse—seaside place near Sydney.’ He found a photograph and held it for Charles to inspect. ‘See the ‘ouse—pretty, ain’t it? Their own, too… Garden all rahnd —not like the ‘ouses ‘ere. And that’s the car they ‘ave… ‘E’s got a good job out there.’

Charles was transfixed by an emotion he could only control by being facetious. ‘Very nice—very nice indeed—and Mr. Robinson seems to have put on a little weight.’

Mr. Mansfield looked puzzled. ‘ROBINSON?’ Then he swung a cordial hand to Charles’s back. ‘Gorlummy, that ain’t Reg Robinson!… Is THAT wot you thought? The name’s Murdoch—Tom Murdoch. Orsetrilian Scotsman, that’s wot ‘e calls ‘imself… But fancy you thinkin’ it was Reg… Dunno wot ever ‘appened to Reg. They was sort of engaged for a time, but it didn’t larst. Ain’t ‘eard of ‘im now for years.’