certainly. N.I.C. National Incorporatit Chimeras. But, eh, Ah personally would like tae see chimeras gettin’ the vote. Ah mean tae say . . .’
But Jim suddenly lost interest in chimeras and gave his attention to a tight-skirted girl just ahead. As they came abreast of her, he fell into step with her, smiling inanely into her face.
“Excuse me, modom,’ he said, twirling an imaginary moustache. ‘Could I carry your briefs-case for you?’
She gave him a chilly look and his smile went stalagmite. Then he ran after Charlie and Andy with a gust of demonic laughter.
‘You better watch it, freen,’ Charlie said to him as he caught up. ‘You’ll get what yon other wit got that spoke tae the lassie with the sweater.’
‘What was that?’ Jim asked.
‘The royal order of the boot.’
‘Ye mean sent down?’
‘That’s right.’
‘Just for talkin’? He musta been some talker right enough. What did he say, like?’
‘Well, she had oan this sweater. Ye know? Which I am led to believe she was causing to protrude in two places. And directly over the left hoodjykaplonk –’ Charlie made a vague mamillary gesture – ‘she had neatly inscribed the initial “T” – no doubt referring to her monnicker. Well, this very witty fella comes up to her and says “What do ye get out the other one – coffee?” There you are. Bob’s yer uncle, and farewell to the student life.’
Jim rasped his tongue derisively.
‘And the band played believe-it-if-you-like,’ he said.
They had reached the Union. It was crowded already. Many groups were standing about in the hall, chatting. Andy gripped Charlie’s arm.
‘Come on downstairs with me,’ he said, ‘till Ah get ma sandwiches out the locker.’
They all went down to where the lockers were, beside the toilets. While Andy was opening the locker, somebody tapped Charlie’s shoulder on the way past. It was Alec Redmond.
‘Yes, Charles,’ he said. ‘Working hard?’
‘Hullo, Alec. Oh it’s the old Trojan stuff, definitely.’
‘Oh here, Charlie.’
Alec was half-turned in the doorway of the toilets. He snapped his fingers.
‘Mickey – the porter – told me there was a telegram just come for ye,’ he threw back as he went on.
Charlie’s first thought was, God, that’s what you call premature. He was convinced it must be from Mary. He turned round abruptly to go up and get it when he bumped into Mickey, who was holding the telegram.
‘Ah seen yese cornin’ in therr,’ he said, ‘an’ Ah thought Ah better get this to ye as fast as possible. It’s like fightin’ yer wey through Hampden Park up therr.’
‘Thanks, Mickey,’ Charlie said, taking it.
The name looked strangely formal – Mr Charles Grant. He couldn’t find a way into it at first.
‘Ach aye,’ somebody said philosophically on his way past to the toilets, ‘in one end and out the other’.
Charlie managed to get it open and unfolded it. He was so sure of what it was going to say that at first all he could understand was that this was not the message he had anticipated. Spelled out on the strips of pasted paper, as if from some malevolence that wished to remain anonymous, were the words: FATHER DYING, COME HOME AT ONCE. JOHN. Slowly, Charlie brought his mind into focus. The first thing he thought was that he couldn’t take his lunch here, but would have to leave right away. Then he thought he might have to leave university. Then he thought that he would see Mary sooner than the week-end. On the heels of these came shame that he should have thought of them at all. But it was almost impossible to grasp what these words meant. He stared at the message again. The words seemed to buckle, distend elastically, defy meaning. How could this piece of paper he held in his hand above the tessellated floor, with people shouldering past him, come to mean so much? FATHER DYING. Father dying? With people talking and laughing and Andy closing up his locker and giving it a parting slap as if it were something animate and Jim putting his hand on his arm? Father dying?
‘What is it, Charlie?’ Jim said. ‘What’s the matter?’
Charlie enunciated the words gradually, as if telling himself as well as Jim and Andy.
‘My father’s dying,’ he said.
In one of the toilets someone was singing, ‘Hear my song, Violetta.’
Chapter 2
‘ARE YOU SURE YOU HAVE EVERYTHING, NOW? AND whatever you do be sure and write as soon as you get there and tell us if everything’s all right. Your father and me’ll be worried until we know for sure.’
‘Yes, Mother, yes,’ the young woman said through the small opening in the window. She had slid back the pane, and her mother stood on the platform outside, hopping with maternal solicitude in case the guard should flag short her advice. ‘Now don’t worry about me. You would think I was going to the North Pole. I’ll be perfectly all right. Oh, excuse me. I’ll shift that,’ she said, lifting her hat from the seat opposite hers and putting it on the rack above her head beside the new tan suitcase.
Charlie sat down on the cleared seat like a somnambulist. He hadn’t noticed the hat. He hadn’t noticed much between the university and the railway-station, only spasmodic and incomprehensible fragments of what was going on around him, an Underground map, a mother nursing her child on her knee, a ticket-collector’s hands clustered with warts. These things occurred as shapes and shadows against his frosted perception, threatened dimly without admittance. His awareness had frozen on the fact of his father dying, and impressions only skimmed the surface of his consciousness like skaters seen from underneath the ice. He still couldn’t realize it. FATHER DYING. Two words that detonated in his mind, exploding his concentration to smithereens, and left him searching the debris for fragments of understanding. How could he be dying? He had seemed all right the last time Charlie was home. But that was more than a month ago. Did people pass from apparent health to imminent death in a month? It seemed somehow unjust, somehow too casual. Death was something august and terrible, a climactic presence heralded by long illness. How could it come suddenly, unannounced like this, ensconce itself in your house behind your back? It was a possibility Charlie had never really contemplated. It wasn’t easy to start contemplating it now. But he tried to adjust to the fact towards which he was moving relentlessly.
The train exhaled steam and lunged forward, leaving the young woman’s mother to run a few paces along the platform, throwing snippets of advice that the wind scattered like confetti. The young woman closed the pane with a sigh of relief and sank into her seat. She looked at Charlie, shaking her head, trying to form an alliance of understanding with him on the difficulties of having mothers. Charlie stared past her through the window. The old woman in the corner opposite them looked across deliberately, appointing herself chaperone while the young woman unbuttoned her costume jacket to reveal a lace blouse. The compartment door slid open and three businessmen came in, laughing. The youngest of them chose the seat beside Charlie so that he was facing towards the young woman. They had an air of mildly alcoholic carnival about them, as if they were wearing paper hats. One of the older men was smoking a cigar and its lengthening ash stayed miraculously intact in defiance of his gestures. He was telling a joke, the climax of which was imparted in a whisper that punched their heads back, leaving them groggy with laughter. The youngest one directed his laughter at the young woman, taking a side glance at Charlie to check the competition.
Charlie’s impassivity made it obvious that he wasn’t entering. As the train gathered momentum, he strove to analyse what the news meant to him. With the numbness of the initial blow wearing off, his mind prodded tenderly at the pain, trying to determine the extent of the damage. There were certain obvious consequences.