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By Root 21128 0

‘Cor!’ I gasped. ‘You aren’t half orchidaceous, Toby!’ Later he got very sharply told off for dressing above his rank, and I could see that it was only a matter of time before he fell out of the balloon, so to speak. I did what I could as an old friend to reason with him but somehow I couldn’t bring him to see the point. I even tried to get him back on to beer but it wasn’t any go at all. Nothing but fire water for Toby. Once I had to have him carried back aboard by the police. He was all figged up in a prelate’s costume. I think they call it a shibboleth. And he tried to pronounce an anathema on the city from ‘A’ Boat Deck. He was waving an apse or something. The last thing I saw of him was a lot of real bishops restraining him. They were nearly as purple as his own borrowed robes. My, how those Italians carried on! Then came the crash. They nabbed him in fragrant delicto swigging the sacramental wine. You know it has the Pope’s Seal on it, don’t you? You buy it from Cornford’s, the Ecclesias-tical Retailers in Bond Street, ready sealed and blessed. Toby had broken the seal. He was finished. I don’t know whether they ex-communicate or what, but anyway he was struck off the register properly. The next time I saw him he was a shadow of his old self and dressed as an ordinary seaman. He was still dr ink ing heavily but in a different way now, he said. ‘Scurvy’ he said. ‘Now I simply drink to expiate my sins. I’m drinking as a punishment now, not a pleasure. The whole tragedy had made him very moody and restless. He talked of going off to Japan and becoming a religious body there. The only thing that prevented him was that there you have to shave your head and he couldn’t bear to part with his hair which was long, and was justly admired by his friends. ‘No’

he said, after discussing the idea, ‘no, Scurvy old man, I couldn’t bring myself to go about as bald as an egg, after what I’ve been

through. It would give me a strangely roofless appearance at my age. Besides once when I was a nipper I got ringworm and lost my crowning glory. It took ages to grow again. It was so slow that I feared it never would come into bloom again. Now I couldn’t bear to be parted from it. Not for anything.’ I saw his dilemma perfectly, but I didn’t see any way out for him. He would always be a square peg would old Toby, swimming against the stream. Mind you, it was a mark of his originality. For a little while he managed to live by blackmailing all the bishops who’d been to confession while he was O.C. Early Mass, and twice he got a free holiday in Italy. But then other troubles came his way and he shipped to the Far East, working in Seamen’s Hostels when he was ashore, and telling everyone that he was going to make a fortune out of smuggled diamonds. I see him very rarely now, perhaps once every three years, and he never writes; but I’ll never forget old Toby. He was always such a gentleman in spite of his little mishaps, and when his father dies he expects to have a few hundred a year of his own. Then we’re going to join forces in Horsham with Budgie and put the earth-closet trade on a real economic basis. Old Budgie can’t keep books and files. That’s a job for me with my police training. At least so old Toby always said. I wonder where he is now?” ’

The recital ended, the laughter suddenly expired and a new expression appeared on Clea’s face which I did not remember ever having seen before. Something between a doubt and an apprehension which played about the mouth like a shadow. She added with a studied naturalness which was somehow strained:

‘Afterwards he told my fortune. I know you will laugh. He said he could only do it with certain people and at certain times. Will you believe me if I tell you that he described with perfect fidelity and in complete detail the whole Syrian episode?’ She turned her face to the wall with an abrupt movement and to my surprise I saw her lips were trembling. I put my hand up her warm shoulder and said ‘Clea’ very softly. ‘What is it?’ Suddenly she cried out:

‘Oh, leave me alone. Can’t you see I want to sleep?