Over Chantilly trifle and Orange Surprise the name of Torridge was heard. The name was always mentioned just about now, though sometimes sooner. ‘Poor old bean,’ Wiltshire said, and everybody laughed because it was the one subject they all shared, No one really wanted to hear about the Mace-Hamiltons’ garden; the comments of the Arrowsmith boys were only for each other; Mrs Arrowsmith’s needs could naturally not be voiced; the shyness of Mrs Wiltshire was private too. But Torridge was different. Torridge in a way was like an old friend now, existing in everyone’s mind, a family subject. The Wiltshire twins were quite amused to hear of some freshly remembered evidence of Torridge’s naïveté; for the Arrowsmith girl it was better at least than being questioned by Mrs Mace-Hamilton; for her brothers it was an excuse to bellow with simulated mirth. Mrs Mace-Hamilton considered that the boy sounded frightful, Mrs Arrowsmith couldn’t have cared less. Only Mrs Wiltshire had doubts: she thought the three men were hard on the memory of the boy, but of course had not ever said so. Tonight, after Wiltshire had recalled the time when Torridge had been convinced by Arrowsmith that Buller Yeats had dropped dead in his bath, the younger Arrowsmith boy told of a boy at his own school who’d been convinced that his sister’s dog had died.
‘Listen,’ Arrowsmith suddenly shouted out. ‘He’s going to join us. Old Torridge.’
There was laughter, no one believing that Torridge was going to arrive, Mrs Arrowsmith saying to herself that her husband was pitiful when he became as drunk as this.
‘I thought it would be a gesture,’ Arrowsmith said. ‘Honestly. He’s looking in for coffee.’
‘You bloody devil, Arrows,’ Wiltshire said, smacking the table with the palm of his hand.
‘He’s in the button business,’ Arrowsmith shouted. ‘Torridge’s, you know.’
As far as Wiltshire and Mace-Hamilton could remember, Torridge had never featured in an Old Boys’ magazine. No news of his career had been printed, and certainly no obituary. It was typical, somehow, of Arrowsmith to have winkled him out. It was part and parcel of him to want to add another dimension to the joke, to recharge its batteries. For the sight of Torridge in middle age would surely make funnier the reported anecdotes.
‘After all, what’s wrong,’ demanded Arrowsmith noisily, ‘with old school pals meeting up? The more the merrier.’
He was a bully, Mrs Wiltshire thought: all three of them were bullies.
Torridge arrived at half past nine. The hair that had been like a mouse’s fur was still like that. It hadn’t greyed any more; the scalp hadn’t balded. He hadn’t run to fat; in middle age he’d thinned down a bit. There was even a lankiness about him now, which was reflected in his movements. At school he had moved slowly, as though with caution. Jauntily attired in a pale linen suit, he crossed the dining-room of the Woodlands Hotel with a step as nimble as a tap-dancer’s.
No one recognized him. To the three men who’d been at school with him the man who approached their dinner table was a different person, quite unlike the figure that existed in the minds of the wives and children.
‘My dear Arrows,’ he said, smiling at Arrowsmith. The smile was different too, a brittle snap of a smile that came and went in a matter-of-fact way. The eyes that had been small didn’t seem so in his thinner face. They flashed with a gleam of some kind, matching the snap of his smile.
‘Good God, it’s never old Porridge!’ Arrowsmith’s voice was slurred. His face had acquired the beginnings of an alcoholic crimson, sweat glistened on his forehead.
‘Yes, it’s old Porridge,’ Torridge said quietly. He held his hand out towards Arrowsmith and then shook hands with Wiltshire and Mace-Hamilton. He was introduced to their wives, with whom he shook hands also. He was introduced to the children, which involved further handshaking. His hand was cool and rather hard: they felt it should have been damp.
‘You’re nicely in time for coffee, Mr Torridge,’ Mrs Mace-Hamilton said.
‘Brandy more like,’ Arrowsmith suggested. ‘Brandy, old chap?’
‘Well, that’s awfully kind of you, Arrows. Chartreuse I’d prefer, really.’
A waiter drew up a chair. Room was made for Torridge between Mrs Mace-Hamilton and the Arrowsmith boys. It was a frightful mistake, Wiltshire was thinking. It was mad of Arrowsmith.
Mace-Hamilton examined Torridge across the dinner table. The old Torridge would have said he’d rather not have anything alcoholic, that a cup of tea and a biscuit were more his line in the evenings. It was impossible to imagine this man saying his dad had a button business. There was a suavity about him that made Mace-Hamilton uneasy. Because of what had been related to his wife and the other wives and their children he felt he’d been caught out in a lie, yet in fact that wasn’t the case.
The children stole glances at Torridge, trying to see him as the boy who’d been described to them, and failing to. Mrs Arrowsmith said to herself that all this stuff they’d been told over the years had clearly been rubbish. Mrs Mace-Hamilton was bewildered. Mrs Wiltshire was pleased.
‘No one ever guessed,’ Torridge said, ‘what became of R.A.J. Fisher.’ He raised the subject suddenly, without introduction.
‘Oh God, Fisher,’ Mace-Hamilton said.
‘Who’s Fisher?’ the younger of the Arrowsmith boys inquired.
Torridge turned to flash his quick smile at the boy. ‘He left,’ he said. ‘In unfortunate circumstances.’
‘You’ve changed a lot, you know,’ Arrowsmith said. ‘Don’t you think he’s changed?’ he asked Wiltshire and Mace-Hamilton.
‘Out of recognition,’ Wiltshire said.
Torridge laughed easily. ‘I’ve become adventurous. I’m a late developer, I suppose.’
‘What kind of unfortunate circumstances?’ the younger Arrowsmith boy asked. ‘Was Fisher expelled?’
‘Oh no, not at all,’ Mace-Hamilton said hurriedly.
‘Actually,’ Torridge said, ‘Fisher’s trouble all began with the writing of a note. Don’t you remember? He put it in my pyjamas. But it wasn’t for me at all.’
He smiled again. He turned to Mrs Wiltshire in a way that seemed polite, drawing her into the conversation. ‘I was an innocent at school. But innocence slips away. I found my way about eventually.’
‘Yes, of course,’ she murmured. She didn’t like him, even though she was glad he wasn’t as he might have been. There was malevolence in him, a ruthlessness that seemed like a work of art. He seemed like a work of art himself, as though in losing the innocence he spoke of he had recreated himself.
‘I often wonder about Fisher,’ he remarked.
The Wiltshire twins giggled. ‘What’s so great about this bloody Fisher?’ the older Arrowsmith boy murmured, nudging his brother with an elbow.
‘What’re you doing these days?’ Wiltshire asked, interrupting Mace-Hamilton, who had also begun to say something.
‘I make buttons,’ Torridge replied. ‘You may recall my father made buttons.’
‘Ah, here’re the drinks,’ Arrowsmith rowdily observed.
‘I don’t much keep up with the school,’ Torridge said as the waiter placed a glass of Chartreuse in front of him. ‘I don’t so much as think about it except for wondering about poor old Fisher. Our headmaster was a cretin,’ he informed Mrs Wiltshire.
Again the Wiltshire twins giggled. The Arrowsmith girl yawned and her brothers giggled also, amused that the name of Fisher had come up again.
‘You will have coffee, Mr Torridge?’ Mrs Mace-Hamilton offered, for the waiter had brought a fresh pot to the table. She held it poised above a cup. Torridge smiled at her and nodded. She said:
‘Pearl buttons d’you make?’
‘No, not pearl.’
‘Remember those awful packet peas we used to have?’ Arrowsmith inquired. Wiltshire said:
‘Use plastics at all? In your buttons, Porridge?’