Buster Page 4

  He didn’t care that he was an officer.

  “Congratulations! Of course you’ll be coming home for your leave,” his father wrote. It seemed Bryan was shamming ill again, sitting in a deckchair in the garden, staring, or lying in bed all day. The idea clearly was for Dan to sit with him, spend his leave playing chess, reading Proust aloud, making coffee, being polite to Helen, chatting, visiting relations in his new uniform. No. He was going to have a good time.

  He drew his first month’s officer’s pay, wrote home to say that he had already arranged a holiday “with some newly commissioned officer friends”. And by the way, he would not need the five pounds a month any more – thanks for sending it so regularly.

  He packed a bag and, alone in a taxi, went to the railway station.

  “Single to Llangollen, please.”

  He loved the sound of the name; that was why he had chosen it.

  He booked a room at a hotel. A steamy-hot day. He walked in the park, searching. He knew he didn’t care what she was like, as long as he could have her without you or anyone or her knowing.

  A girl lay on the grass in front of him. Her hair spread a pool of blond on the green. Her body spreadeagled, arms and legs wide, cheek against the warm lawn. The earth curved against her tummy and thighs and breasts. He felt the weight of heat in the leaves. Minute eyes of birds winked. A slow plane murmured by. She raised herself so he could see into her blouse. Her breasts moved with her breathing: lowering to brush the ground, then rising barely to touch it. A grasshopper, conspicuous on the smooth lawn, was jumping away to shelter. He caught it gently: pale green, dark green, streaks of hazel brown. He took it to her.

  “Look at this.”

  “He’s lovely” – soft Welsh voice; “let him go now.”

  She pulled his fingers apart, and the insect hopped out and away.

  “Did you hear about the pea-catcher?” he asked.

  “Tell me.”

  “A man stood on a high, flat roof, threw a pea up, took a step back and caught it in his mouth, threw a pea up, took a step back and caught it in his mouth, threw a pea up, took a step back, fell a thousand feet, feet first. It’s an old Welsh folk tale taught me by my Granny.”

  “No.”

  “No, I made it up.”

  “I can see you talk a lot.”

  “Too much.”

  His hand played with her heavy fair hair, slid inside her blouse, held her breast, squeezed till his nails bit deep, felt the nipple rise hard in his palm. He strayed, searching and feeling, beneath her wide skirt.

  “Let’s go over there, to the trees,” she said.

  They walked easy together, arms round waists, to the shadow of the trees. He stretched beside her, moved closer, lay over her, in.

  “I love you,” he said.

  “You say that easily.”

  “Can you make love without loving?”

  “Don’t be silly – of course I love you. I saw you come into the park, wandering round, and I thought you were lovely.”

  “What’s your name?”

  “Deirdre Watkins. I work in a shop. But I’m studying fashions, to be a designer.”

  “I’m Lieutenant Daniel Graveson – just call me Dan.”

  “My brother’s in the army,” she said; “I thought you were something like that.”

  They lay close, without talking.

  She said: “Have you seen our swans?”

  She took him to see the lake, over the other side of the park. They watched the swans floating slowly, careful, deceiving. He was dizzy with them, felt their softwhiteness. Two swans together suddenly whizzed off the water, skinning the surface with their feet, like waterskiers. They fluttered heavily around, realized the air was not for them, came skidding down, bottoms first. Ducks bounced on the small waves.

  An alien, starched Scottish nanny sat on the bench beside them, lecturing her neat child:

  “It’s fesh, not wishes, fesh, not wishes. It’s time you were learning to say the few words you do say properly. Do you want a sweet?”

  “No.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Fank you.”

  A moment later: “Nanny, can I have a sweet?”

  “Please.”

  “Pease.”

  Across the lake, a herd of mauve-and-white schoolgirls giggled and yelped, like flamingos drinking the Amazon. An intermittent “peep” came from an angry schoolteacher blowing her whistle – the toneless cry of an unimaginative bird.

  A brilliant scarlet speedboat went mad in the middle of the lake, whining round in small circles. A big boy in a striped blazer told them:

  “It’s got enough petrol to keep that up for three days.”

  “Hurrah!” Dan said.

  “We’d better be going, Dan – there’s a storm coming.”

  They hurried back the way they had come. They reached the trees just in time. Came a maniac intensity of the sun; the shadowed side of sunlit leaves showed black, veinless. Pearly pregnant evening light invaded the afternoon. Rain fell grey against blueblack trees. They moved to where the trees were so thick that the sunlight was always shut out: no grass, only bare earth under layers of dead leaves. They were safe and dry. They looked out. A huge weight of rain drove like iron across the park, soaking, drenching, flooding, making the lawns wallow in water, forcing water into the flowerbeds, compelling the flowers to gulp and swallow hundredweights of water.

  It drizzled. Raindrops filed along twigs. Budge up. Budge up. Drops dropped from leaf to leaf to ground. “While it’s pouring it’s driest under the trees, but afterwards it’s wettest,” she said.

  It stopped. The last waters sluiced away. The air was clear.

  A police car zizzed past them, microphone bellowing. Among the incomprehensible syllables Dan heard “Graveson”. Impossible. The car was away and turned a corner. A grave young policeman walked on the other side of the rainshining street, impregnable in helmet, cape, waterproof boots. Dan told her about his brother’s mock German:

  “LuftwaffenBomben, Watford-Bypass gebomben, Auntie-Dolly gebomben, Ark Royal ein zwei drie gebomben, Corporal Graveson gebomben, Schikelgrüber über alles gebomben…”

  They held hands past the hotel receptionist. In the corridor he joked:

  “Do you come here often?”

  “Of course not. Do you think I’m that kind of girl?”

  “At least you’ve heard about ‘that kind of girl’. I didn’t know they had them in Llangollen.”

  “If you don’t stop, I’m going straight home.”

  “Only kidding.”

  Arm round her waist, hand on the doorknob, he kissed her.

  On the carpet, just by the door (it had been pushed under he door) lay a telegram.

  NO.

  “Your brother.”

  His fist was through the wardrobe; the mirror inside was battered. He waved his fist about so that it bled all over the fawn carpet, spattering it with purplish stains.

  The girl stood still, one hand white on the mock-walnut dressing table, looking at the stains. She packed his things into his bag, went downstairs to explain to the manager.

  “He was very understanding,” she said.

  She handed him his bag.

  “I’ll never see you again.”

  He didn’t say anything.

  He could not decide whether to walk to the station or get a taxi. It was not far, yet the bag was heavy. Platform one. Which platform? Platform one.

  Early morning. He fumbled at the burglarproof double lock. Helen opened the door.

  “Hello Dan. Glad you could come so quickly. Your father is upstairs.”

  The house was ordinary. The dead body had been taken to hospital to make sure it was dead. He opened the door of their room. His father was sitting up in bed, backed by pillows, readi
ng the Daily Mail. Dan said nothing, because he could not think of anything to say.

  Doors of expensive cars slammed heavy. Husbands waited while wives titivated. Thicker greyer overcoats from Leeds greeted slick, tight London ones. Stretched and skinny car reflections had squeezed waists, bodies split into two shrinking pears or tears. Ladies’ sharp high heels spiked between the new grey gravel stones; men trod the gravel down. Stone cemetery arch, square cemetery building of stone. Foreign, clean, preserved from contact with the countryside. Chemical sprays and regular scrubbing with disinfectant killed small creepers and scraps of moss. Not a fleck of grass, not a living insect survived to spoil the stone. They filed in, past a pile of broken prayer books heaped on a backless chair. They edged round the walls, chatted hushedly, continually. No coffin – only an oblong space of floor. Outside, somewhere, the body lay in its warm, brown varnished box.

  “Move in a little closer if you please, thank you,” the priest said. Like a market salesman to his customers. Were they the customers, or was the thing in the box? It depended whether the funeral expenses were charged to the deceased’s estate or were paid by the surviving relatives. Dearly beloved. The priest was enjoying his rich voice. Cut off in his prime. Splendid young man. Loyal son and brother. Credit to his church. Brilliant mind and wonderful promise. Mourned by all who remember his loving nature. Dust unto dust. Recitative without end. He towed them down the long path to the yellow trench to watch the coffin dumped in. The body in the sheet in the coffin in the earth was in the universe.

  “Unassuming, unpretending,

  Straight the Path of Life he trod,

  May his bliss be never ending

  Thro’ the mercies of his God.”

  Oh God.

  Chapter 4

  Brother officers gathered round him.

  “Fighting for freedom and democracy with the Yanks in Korea? You can’t believe that rubbish!” Dan was saying.

  “Another whisky?” Lieutenant Crabbe stooped over the siphon; hard head, thick ginger stubble. He had a parachute badge and medals.

  “Here’s a stiff one. Or would you prefer vodka?”

  “Thanks. Remember Hiroshima. A hundred and twenty-eight thousand bodies. What colossal contempt they must feel for us with our measly machine guns.”

  “You mentioned that before.”

  “Then tell me, who profits from the war? Korea? China? The answer may show who started it.”

  Someone said: “Those Yankee millionaires you were talking about, with their arms factories—”

  “Yes,” said Dan, “and there were five million American unemployed before the arms drive solved that problem overnight. There’s no unemployment or arms manufacturers in the New China.”

  “They produce a deal of arms.”

  “But not privately,” Dan said.

  “Does that make any difference?”

  “It’s a long story. And I must get to bed. I’m drunk.”

  “Wait a bit,” Crabbe said. “So the North Koreans are fighting for peace and independence? Is that right? Let’s get the whole thing perfectly clear.”

  “That’s an over-simplification… but I can’t think straight. I must owe you all buckets of whisky.”

  “Think nothing of it. It’s been a pleasure.”

  Lieutenant Gerson, an attached officer from the Education Corps, spoke for the first time:

  “Let’s talk about something else, for Heaven’s sake.”

  “Hey, don’t spoil the fun,” Crabbe said.

  Dan blinked.

  “Fun?”

  He walked over to the mantelpiece, stood with his back to them. Eleven sharp tings sang from the glasscased clock. He knew they had followed him across the room. He watched the moving parts inside the clock swinging and linking, teeth biting precisely into delicate revolving cylinders. He heard the scrape of windows being fastened. He looked down at his reflection in the polished silver tray, on which letters addressed to officers were laid. He turned round. They had formed a halfcircle close to him.

  “I must get back,” he said quietly; “I’ve some reading to do.” (Lenin on Imperialist War* – not one of them had read a book like that.)

  “Don’t go yet – it’s been so interesting listening to you. Quite an education.”

  He wondered where his hat was; he couldn’t leave without it – had to have it for parade in the morning. He moved towards the door. A major stood in front, his tummy stuck out. Dan half saw a brown boot flick out, felt his ankle crack. He put his hands out as he fell, felt the carpet slide against his palms. A hand of iron grabbed his wrist; another twisted back his arm. Crabbe knelt down and spoke to him:

  “Now look here, we don’t want to break up the mess. Will you come out like a man?”

  “What’s happening?… Yes.”

  He was bundled outside in the middle of eight or nine of them. The cold foggy air hit him. They marched him along a gravel path, then onto grass.

  “What good will this do? There’s problems to solve, but this is not the way.”

  “Christ, he never stops.”

  He thought, “God, what are they going to do to me? I can’t speak to them. No way of getting at them.” He slithered his heels against the ground. They pushed and punched him along.

  They were behind the cookhouse, among smelly piles of rubbish and open dustbins. They stopped and held him. Two of them levered up the cast-iron cover to the grease pit. Stink came up. They shoved him in. He managed to hold his body above the slime; there was only the smell. Then a hand at the back of his neck pushed his face into the grease, held it there.

  He was out, spluttering, yelling after them: “Fascists! Fascists!”

  They’d gone. He sicked up onto the grass.

  He arrived at breakfast very late next morning, after all the junior officers had gone. A major and a colonel sat at one end of the long oak dining table. He sat on his own. On his way out he picked up an envelope from the silver tray and read, on a piece of cheap lined paper:

  “Meet me for coffee at Lyons, 7.30 p.m. this evening. Gerson.”

  Lyons was crowded. Everyone seemed old or middle-aged. He could not see Gerson. He queued up, bought two cups of tea, sat next to an old grey man who was excitedly reckoning figures down the side of a newspaper. Dan poured sugar into his tea, aiming the stream to burst the bubbles round the side of his cup.

  Gerson came in, sat opposite, saying:

  “Glad you could make it.”

  Dan looked straight at the eyes – pale behind steelrimmed spectacles – pale lips, thin fair hair. Gerson asked the waitress, an old African woman, to bring him a packet of cigarettes.

  Dan said: “What do you want to see me about?”

  “I want to have a talk with you.”

  “Hullo.”

  “Seriously. I want to know what you are trying to do.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Dan was annoyed to see Gerson continually glancing round the room. A nervous habit.

  “All this revolutionary talk,” Gerson said. “Red Flag-wagging like a ten year old.”

  “I have certain principles—”

  “Why not keep them to yourself?”

  “It’s those captains and majors. I want to kick their teeth in.”

  “You are in a bad way. Don’t you know they’re laughing at you?”

  “I don’t care.”

  “Yes you do – you’re not so stupid. I don’t know what your job is or what you’re trying to do. Frankly, I don’t trust you enough to tell you anything MI5 don’t already know. I’ve been fifteen years in the party – too long to take chances. But if you care about peace, and want to do something effective—”

  “What could we do?” Dan asked.

  “Make a demonstration, a gesture. Have you ever gone chalking?”

  “Slo
gans on walls? No. But that’s brilliant! Let’s cover the camp with hammers and sickles.”

  The old man on Dan’s left looked up, interested.

  Gerson smiled: “Lucky we live in England. Tell me, what is the main political task here today?”

  “Peace…”

  “Right. The reaction to hammers and sickles would be ‘Help! Russian spies!’ Would that tend towards peace or war?”

  “The symbol of workers and peasants—”

  Gerson interrupted: “Have you seen many peasants lately?”

  “Thousands.”

  “Being peasantless,” said Gerson, “is a British peculiarity of great political significance. But that’s another matter.”

  “Then what shall we do? Let’s decide now.”

  “No, I must go. Think about it. But for Christ’s sake keep your mouth shut. If you must talk, talk to the men – that way you may learn something. Go down to their lines, or to the public bars – even the education centre. Get to know them. You’ll find one or two good ones.”

  Dan sat looking at Gerson’s teacup. A pale-brown skin had formed on the untouched tea. The waitress asked:

  “You want this, sir?”

  “No – thank you very much indeed.”

  He put the cup with the cups, and the saucer on the pile of saucers on her tray. He looked at her tea-stained overall, the blue cotton skirt with yellow flowers peeping beneath it, thin liquorice legs. How could those skinny ankles bear her weight, hold up that huge bottom? How steeply under her skirt those legs must swell out into giant thighs! She should be sitting in a rocking chair surrounded by grandchildren. Gerson had not said “thank you” for the cigarettes.