“Thank you for writing to me. I wish I’d had the letter.”
“There must be some reason why things happen. Something in us must touch them off. Like a magnetic mine.”
“I don’t know. I always think when you go to war you make yourself over to chance by an act of will.”
“You have a peaceful mind, Spuddy.”
“You’d be surprised.”
“Should I?” There was a long silence. Laurie could hear, deep in the field, the clumsy shifting of a sleepy horse, waking to graze. “Well, life’s full of surprises, isn’t it?” Suddenly his voice was light and hard, as it had been at the party. He sat up, stretched, put on his cap, switched the ignition on. “Let’s see how it goes now.”
They talked very little after that. Ralph’s contest with the car had developed a certain grimness. There was nothing wrong with his driving, except a persistent impression of something difficult being done for a bet, which kept Laurie on edge all the time. Because of the cold, or his fixed position in the car, or the bad springs, the ache in his knee was turning into a tight cramp. He was anxious not to bother Ralph with any of this; when he could bear it no longer, he dropped the cigarette-case on the floor as an excuse to move about. The knee had stiffened; he chose a moment when Ralph was turning a corner to try and flex it in his hands.
Ralph said, “How long has that been going on?”
“I don’t get it.”
“Don’t insult my intelligence,” said Ralph shortly. “Is it very bad?”
“No, it’s only seized up on the bearings a bit.”
“Whyever didn’t you tell me?”
“It just comes and goes again in no time. Sort of muscle spasm.”
“You bloody liar. We’ll be back in five minutes.”
He opened the throttle. Oddly enough, Laurie didn’t feel nervous. It was rather as if Ralph were driving himself as well as the car, with an eye on the defects of both.
They were back in four minutes. In the hall Laurie looked up the high well of the stairs and said, “Run up and give the things to Alec, he’ll be waiting for them. I’ll take my time.”
Ralph paused at the stair-foot. In the dim light outside there had been something young and rakish about his profile under the tilted cap. Light destroyed the illusion; he looked worn at the edges, hard and drawn. “God, he can wait another minute. It’s such a hell of a climb, Spud. Let me give you a hand.”
For the first time he looked uncertain and ineffective. Why, thought Laurie, pain twitching at the nerves of anger, why not accept the obvious fact that he couldn’t do anything, and get out of the way? Any fool must see that one couldn’t get up there with somebody staring. The mere sight of all that drive and force, poised indecisively, was oppressive; he had a feeling that at any moment Ralph would do something high-handed and insufferable, like trying to carry him. He drew back and said uncontrollably, “Oh, do get on, I can’t bear being stood over.”
“Sorry,” said Ralph. He turned and ran upstairs, brisk and straight-backed, as if he were on a companionway.
Alec had got a table set out with sterilized dishes and boiled water and Dettol, on a white cloth. It looked very professional; Laurie saw it through the open door and didn’t go in.
Just then Ralph crossed the landing from the kitchen. Each at the same moment began a strained tentative smile, which suddenly gathered kindness and relief. Ralph was going to help Alec with the suturing; he indicated this with an ironic gesture, and disappeared. Laurie lay flat on his face on one of the sitting-room divans; this posture, which always relieved the pain, was a luxury he had been looking forward to.
“Where are you, Spud?” said Ralph’s voice outside.
“Here,” said Laurie, rolling over. He guessed that Ralph was trying not to take him by surprise.
“Brought you some more dope. One more lot can’t hurt.”
Laurie took it thankfully. Soon he was sleeping, his head buried in his arms. The smell of strong coffee wove itself into his dreams.
Afterwards he had only the dimmest recollection of Ralph sitting beside him and persuading him to wake up, of getting downstairs again and into the car. He could not remember whether he saw Alec again or whether Ralph asked him the way to the hospital. Wrapped in something rough and warm he sank, as the car ran out into the country, deeper and deeper into sleep. At first his dreams were full of haste and confused emergency; but later they grew easy and idle, till at last the ivory gate opened, and the phantasms of happiness came out, like Arabian genii answering a wish. He was in bed at home; he had had a new operation on his leg, which had put everything right, and his mother was nursing him. There was some special joy in the fact of her presence, some danger past; but even the memory of what this danger had been was healed and smoothed away. When she had said good night she kissed him, very lightly but with more tenderness than she had shown him since he was a child. He was half aware that he dreamed, and was conscious of an extra happiness because, even after this fatal knowledge had touched him, he still felt the kiss as if it were real. To bring her back he began to put out his hand to her; but she had gone, and his own movement woke him. The car had stopped; beyond the shadow of the tree was the gate of the hospital. Ralph was sitting back in the driver’s seat, lighting a cigarette.
“Hello, Ralph,” said Laurie, smiling at him out of the peace he had just left.
“Hello, Spud. Here we are. Will you be all right going in, or shall I come with you?”
“No, I’ll be all right. I feel wonderful now. I’ve been sound asleep.”
“Have you? Good. Oh, I’d better take Alec’s burberry. Next time we meet perhaps it won’t be in such a madhouse. I’ll ring you up. Good night.”
The hospital lay flat in staring moonlight. As Laurie walked up the wide asphalt path between the huts, he thought that if he had been demobbed for years, and had looked in as he happened to pass, it couldn’t seem more altered and remote. He reached the ward without meeting anyone. In the corridor Nurse Sims swept down on him, and drove him with fierce whispers into the kitchen.
“No one saw you? Here, drink this while it’s hot, you look dead on your feet. To think of you breaking out like this! Don’t you dare go in the ward till you’ve changed; I’ll bring you your pajamas in the bathroom. Night Sister would kill me. When she did her first round I just threw your bed open and she thought you’d gone through. What have you been up to? No, don’t tell me, it’s written all over you. Don’t you ever think I’ll cover up for you if it happens again. And another thing. Next time you see your friend, you tell him from me that he’s a very naughty boy. He’s in the navy, he ought to know the man on the switchboard always listens in. Who drove you back here? Oh, did he? Well, I’m only surprised he didn’t come wandering in here, he seems to have cheek enough for anything. I suppose he thought he’d gone a bit too far. Well, goodness, I’d have found him a cup of cocoa or something, driving all that way this time of night. You tell him, I’m not such a sourpuss as all that.”
As he was creeping up the ward, someone whispered hoarsely, to the effect that his girl would be wanting breakfast in bed. It was Willis, making the first joke Laurie had ever heard from him which seemed inspired, on the whole, by good nature.