Lucky Jim

Beesley leaned forward; 'Come on, Jim: beer or beer?'

'Here we are and here we stay till they throw us out,' Carol said with synthetic defiance.

'Yes, I'll just have one, thanks, but I mustn't stay,' Dixon said.

'Because you've got to go and see how dear Margaret's getting on, is that right?'

'Well, yes, I…'

'I thought I told you to let dear Margaret stew in her own juice. And how about just using your eyes? She's enjoying herself ever so much, thank you, Mr Dixon, and thank you, Mrs Goldsmith. And thank you, too. Now's your chance, Jim; remember your moral duty? Thank you, Alfred; here's to you, my boy.'

'What moral duty's this, Carol?'

'Jim knows, don't you, Jim?'

Dixon looked over at the group in the corner. Margaret had taken off her glasses, a certain sign of abandonment. Christine, her back to Dixon, was sitting as immobile as if she'd been mummified. Bertrand, still talking, was smoking a black cigar. Why was he doing that? A sudden douche of terror then squirted itself all over Dixon. After a moment he realized that this was because he had a plan and was about to carry it out. He panted a little with the enormity of it, then drained his glass and said quaveringly: 'Here goes, then. Good-bye for now.'

He went over and sat down in a vacant chair next to Christine, who turned to him with a smile; rather a rueful smile, he thought. 'Oh, hallo,' she said; 'I thought you must have gone home.'

'Not quite yet. You look as if you're being rather left out of things here.'

'Yes, Bertrand's always the same when he gets talking like this. But I mean, of course he did really come here to meet Uncle.'

'I can see that.' Just at that moment Bertrand got up from his seat and, without looking in Christine's direction, walked across to where Carol was standing with Beesley; a faint bay of salutation could be heard. Glancing at Christine, Dixon was favoured with the rare sight of somebody engaged in the act of flushing. He said quickly: 'Now, listen to me, Christine. I'm going to go out and order a taxi now. It should be here in about a quarter of an hour. You come outside then and I'll take you back to the Welches' in it. There'll be no funny business; I can guarantee that. Straight home to the Welches'.'

Her immediate reaction looked like anger. 'Why? Why should I?'

'Because you're fed-up, and no wonder either, that's why.'

'That's not the point. It's a ridiculous idea. Absolutely mad.'

'Will you come? I'm ordering the taxi in any case.'

'Don't ask me that. I don't want to be asked that.'

'But I am asking you. What about it? I'll give you twenty minutes.' He looked her in the eyes and laid his hand on her elbow. He must be out of his mind to be talking to a girl like this like this. 'Please come,' he said.

She snatched her arm away. 'Oh don't,' she said, as if he'd been telling her that she had the dentist to go to in the morning.

'I'll wait for you,' he said in an urgent undertone. 'In the porch. Twenty minutes. Don't forget.'

He turned and left by a route that gave a view of part of the dance-floor and band. She wouldn't come, of course, but at any rate he'd made his gesture. In other words, he'd thought of a way of hurting himself more severely than usual, and in public. He stopped for a moment to wave good-bye to the band, then, receiving no response, went off to find a phone.

XIII

DIXON paused in the portico to light the cigarette which, according to his schedule, he ought to be lighting after breakfast on the next day but one. The taxi he'd ordered was due any minute. If by the time he'd finished his cigarette Christine bad still not appeared, he'd just ask the taximan to take him to his digs, so whatever happened he'd be in a car soon. That was good, because total inability to move was almost upon him. Ten minutes to go; he tried not to think about it.

The darkness of the street was uneven. The daylight lamps above a nearby main road were glowing pallidly; the cars parked along the kerb had their sidelights burning; the windows of the building behind him were full of light. A train moved slowly and with great steadiness up the incline from the station. Feeling less hot, Dixon heard the band break into a tune he knew and liked; he had the notion that the tune was going to help out this scene and fix it permanently in his memory; he felt romantically excited. But he'd got no business to feel that, had he? What was he doing here, after all? Where was it all going to lead? Whatever it was leading towards, it was certainly leading away from the course his life had been pursuing for the last eight months, and this thought justified his excitement and filled him with reassurance and hope. All positive change was good; standing still, growing to the spot, was always bad. He remembered somebody once showing him a poem which ended something like 'Accepting dearth, the shadow of death'. That was right; not 'experiencing dearth', which happened to everybody. The one indispensable answer to an environment bristling with people and things one thought were bad was to go on finding out new ways in which one could think they were bad. The reason why Prometheus couldn't get away from his vulture was that he was keen on it, and not the other way round.

Dixon abruptly made his head vibrate; without tilting it, he moved his lower jaw as far over to-one side as he could. His cigarette was smoked right down, so that, after about twenty-five minutes, he not only had no Christine, but no taxi. At that moment a car rounded the corner from the main road and stopped near him where he stood at a lower corner by a side-street. It was a taxi. A voice from the driver's seat said: 'Barker?'

'How do you mean, barker?'

'Taxi for Barker?'

'What?'

'Taxi for name of Barker?'

'Barker? Oh, you must mean Barclay, don't you?'

'Ah, that's it: Barclay.'

'Good. We're nearly ready now. Just back into that side turning, will you? and I'll be back in a couple of minutes. I may be taking a friend back with me. Don't let anyone else hire you, mind. I'll be back.'

'That'll be all right, Mr Barclay.'

Dixon walked briskly back to the portico and looked up the lighted corridor, nerving himself to contemplate going back and trying Christine again. A bend hid all but the first couple of yards of the corridor from his view. Without delay Professor Barclay appeared round this bend, squirming into his overcoat and followed by his wife. Dixon had the sense of having heard him referred to recently in some connexion. Then he glanced up the street; the taxi, in mid-road, was just beginning to reverse cautiously into the side turning, where it would be hidden by an office block. As Barclay came up, it still had several yards to go.

Dixon barred his path. 'Oh, good evening, Professor Barclay,' he said in measured tones, as if dealing with a hypnotic subject.

'Hallo, Dixon. Haven't seen a taxi wailing for me, have you?'

'Good evening, Mrs Barclay… No, I'm afraid I haven't, Professor.'

'Oh dear,' he said pleasantly. 'Well, we shall just have to wait, then.' As he spoke, a loud brassy chord rang down the corridor, almost obscuring the sound of a handbrake ratchet from the side-street. 'Was that a car I heard then?' he asked, raising his head like an old cob disturbed at grass.

Dixon put on a listening attitude. 'I can't hear anything,' he said regretfully.

'I must have been mistaken.'

'All the same, Simon, I think I should walk along a bit, just in case he arrived and parked before Mr Dixon came out.'

'Yes, dear, that is a possibility.'

'He couldn't have done that, Mrs Barclay. I've been out here for nearly half an hour, and I can assure you quite certainly that no taxi has driven up here.'

'Well, it's most odd,' she said with a glandered movement of her jaws. 'My husband ordered the taxi half an hour ago at least, and City Taxis are usually so punctual.'