The Heart of the Matter - Graham Greene [68]
‘Oh, that’s all right,’ Wilson said.
‘I’ve only engaged one steward. I thought we could save a bit by sharing.’
‘The less boys we have knocking about here the better,’ Wilson said.
That night was the first night of their new comradeship. They sat reading on their twin Government chairs behind the black-out curtains. On the table was a bottle of whisky for Wilson and a bottle of barley-water flavoured with lime for Harris. A sense of extraordinary peace came to Harris while the rain tingled steadily on the roof and Wilson read a Wallace. Occasionally a few drunks from the R.A.F. mess passed by, shouting or revving their cars, but this only enhanced the sense of peace inside the hut. Sometimes his eyes strayed to the walls seeking a cockroach, but you couldn’t have everything.
‘Have you got The Downhamian handy, old man? I wouldn’t mind another glance at it. This book’s so dull.’
‘There’s a new one unopened on the dressing-table.’
‘You don’t mind my opening it?’
‘Why the hell should I?’
Harris turned first to the old Downhamian notes and read again how the whereabouts of H R. Harris (1917-1921) was still wanted. He wondered whether it was possible that Wilson was wrong: there was no word here about the panelling in Hall. Perhaps after all he would send that letter and he pictured the reply he might receive from the Secretary. My dear Harris, it would go something like that, we were all delighted to receive your letter from those romantic parts. Why not send us a full length contribution to the mag. and while I’m writing to you, what about membership of the Old Downhamian Association? I notice you’ve never joined. I’m speaking for all Old Downhamians when I say that we’ll be glad to welcome you. He tried out ‘proud to welcome you’ on his tongue, but rejected that. He was a realist.
The Downhamians had had a fairly successful Christmas term. They had beaten Harpenden by one goal, Merchant Taylors by two, and had drawn with Lancing. Ducker and Tierney were coming on well as forwards, but the scrum was still slow in getting the ball out. He turned a page and read how the Opera Society had given an excellent rendering of Patience in the Founders’ Hall. F.J.K., who was obviously the English master, wrote: Lane as Bunthorne displayed a degree of aestheticism which surprised all his companions of Vb. We would not hitherto have described his hand as mediaeval or associated him with lilies, but he persuaded us that we had misjudged him. A great performance, Lane.
Harris skimmed through the account of five matches, a fantasy called ‘The Tick of the Clock’ beginning There was once a little old lady whose most beloved possession ... The walls of Downham - the red brick laced with yellow, the extraordinary crockets, the mid-Victorian gargoyles - rose around him: boots beat on stone stairs and a cracked dinner-bell rang to rouse him to another miserable day. He felt the loyalty we feel to unhappiness - the sense that that is where we really belong. His eyes filled with tears, he took a sip of his barley-water and thought, ‘I’ll post that letter whatever Wilson says.’ Somebody outside shouted, ‘Bagster. Where are you, Bagster, you sod?’ and stumbled in a ditch. He might have been back at Downham, except of course that they wouldn’t have used that word.
Harris turned a page or two and the title of a poem caught his eye. It was called