“I’m all right,” he said.
“Yes, I know, you feel like a million dollars. Only I’m going to get you out of this and back to bed.” He stood up and held out his hand.
“No, thanks, it isn’t anything. I’m not tired. The leg gets up a bit in the evening, but you don’t get anywhere taking notice of it.”
“Just a minute,” said Lanyon. He went out of the room and, when he came back, took the handkerchief from his breast pocket with three tablets in the corner. He slipped them to Laurie and said, “Try that. Alec gave it me for the toothache once.”
Laurie took the tablets. On a sudden impulse he said, “Thank you, Ralph.”
Ralph smiled at him. It was an odd smile, with a practiced charm which it was impossible to mistake, and yet with something curiously vulnerable and defensive in it. Laurie felt an inexplicable urgency to be kind, for which he could find no expression.
“What treatment are they giving you?” Ralph reached up absently to the shelf and recovered his drink again. “God, I can see you now, with those filthy bandages black with blood, and the bone sticking out of them. D’you know how I came to find you? I was called to settle an argument on whether you were dead. I was rather busy just then; I remember asking what the hell I was supposed to do about it if you were, and did they think I was Jesus Christ? I didn’t come for about five minutes, and by that time you were sufficiently alive to hand me the biggest raspberry in living memory.”
“Don’t keep telling me that. I was just being funny with myself. I’d have said it to anyone.”
“You looked me straight in the eyes and brought it out snap.”
“I couldn’t tell you from Father Christmas. I don’t think I’d remember it at all if someone hadn’t told me about it afterwards. I’m only surprised that you recognized me. I can imagine how I looked from seeing the others.”
Ralph gave him a narrow, silent look. “As a matter of fact, I recognized you then more quickly than I probably should have at any other time.”
Some warning sense made Laurie look up; the dancing was getting spirited, and a couple was gambolling heavily toward him. With a flinching anticipation he saw them about to collide with his leg and tried to get it out of the way. Ralph was quicker: leaning out, he handed-off the dancers with such force that the near one almost fell over, regaining his balance, indignantly, some yards farther on.
“Why the—can’t you look where you’re—well going, you—?” If Laurie had imagined Ralph as a captain before, he now glimpsed him vividly as a first mate. The dancer said, “Well, really, I’m sorry I’m sure, but there’s no need to speak to me like that.” Ralph’s only reply was to stare him out; Laurie could hear him working off his protests on his partner halfway around the room.
“Hell,” said Ralph, “that settles it, we will go.” Just then, however, Sandy made an entrance, carrying the cake. Candles were lit and everyone stood around to see Alec blow them out. Sandy watched proudly at his elbow; someone said, “Have you wished?” and Alec paused for a moment, concentrating like a child with shut eyes, before he blew. Watching, Laurie was aware of some inward change in the group about him, a hopefulness, a wistfulness; they looked at the little ritual as though it were an affirmation of something doubtfully promised, or insecurely held, a symbol of stability, of permanence and trust. He thought of the white toy cupboard, the window bars, the place for the gate on the stairs.
Alec’s health was drunk. “Happy Birthday” was sung, and the moment of sentiment was over; a reactive rowdiness at once set in. Ralph and Laurie hung about in the middle of the room, waiting to say goodbye, but Alec was telling a story and couldn’t be detached at once. It was during this wait that someone came up whom Laurie recognized as the dancer Ralph had sworn at. He smiled at Ralph—he had a smile which looked as if he used it more often than not on people he disliked—and said, “My dear, what have you done with Bunny? Couldn’t he get away?”
“He’s working late,” said Ralph. “He’ll be along soon, I expect.” His voice was extremely cool and steady. There are moments when one is aware of an actor using his technique in social life, and this was a professional manner too, but the profession was different.
“Well, I must say, I am relieved. Claude said to me only just now, ‘Ralph’s arrived on his own, does it mean anything?’ You know what a bitchy little number that one is.”
“What am I supposed to do?” asked Ralph calmly. “Bring Claude a duty sheet to show him why we can’t all knock off at five?”
“Take my advice, my dear, and don’t tell him anything. You know I don’t tell tales out of school.” He looked at Laurie and back to Ralph again, gave a sudden startled giggle, and disappeared into the crowd.
Ralph said, “Alec’s a fool to let Sandy bring people like that here.” Then he looked straight at Laurie and added, “Bunny’s a friend of mine, as I suppose you gathered. We’re both working on the same job, more or less.”
“That’s a bit of luck for you both,” Laurie said quickly. At a deep level of irrationality, too stupid to let oneself think about, he felt sore because Ralph hadn’t told him before.
Ralph said, “Laurie, would you mind waiting here for a minute or two? I think I ought to make a phone call before I go.”
“Of course.” There had been something deliberate in Ralph’s calling him Laurie again, it put time in remembrance.
The music had started again and the dancing was beginning. Ralph said, “Will you be all right here?” and helped him down on one of the divans against the wall. “You can look after my drink for me; here’s yours.” He put them down on the floor and, as he stooped, said softly, “Don’t go away.” It was a quick throwaway, done with great charm and at the same time discarded, as if to say, “You see what nonsense amuses some people.” Laurie felt a sadness pressing on him from he did not know where. He smiled and settled his leg and said, “Not going is the thing I do best.”
After Ralph had gone he felt suddenly isolated. In the bookshelf behind him he saw a binding he knew. Its schoolroom shabbiness was friendly and he took it down.
Soon cool drafts of air began to reach me; and a few steps farther I came forth into the open borders of the grove, and saw the sea lying blue and sunny to the horizon, and the surf tumbling and tossing its foam along the beach.
I have never seen the sea quiet round Treasure Island. The sun might blaze overhead, the air be without a breath, the surface smooth and blue, but still those great rollers …
A young man sat down beside him on the divan and, without any kind of preliminary, said, “Is it a queer book?”
“No,” said Laurie.
“Oh,” said the young man, on a note of utter deflation. He got up and went away.
… but still those great rollers would be running along all the external coast, thundering and thundering by day and night; and I scarce believe there is one spot in the island where a man would be out of earshot of their noise.
A considerable tumult at the door interrupted him. Rising above it a precise, scholarly, drunken voice was singing, “Happy Birthday to You.” He looked up to see a man of about fifty-five, impeccably dressed, accompanied by a small crowd of naval ratings. There was a brief and clearly embarrassing exchange on the threshold, while Sandy and Alec eased them out again. The sailors, who were rather less drunk than their host, remained strictly neutral. Behind his shoulders two of them stood like heraldic supporters, one a curly-browed Cretan bull, the other a blank-faced boy of about eighteen. After the door had shut Alec walked over to Laurie, probably for no better reason than that he had happened to catch his eye. On a doctor’s note of mild deprecation, he said, “One can’t do anything about Harry. He’ll get himself murdered, one of these days. We don’t see more of him than we can help. I mean, one’s prepared to pay one’s own piper, but—”