Tom plunged his hands into his curly hair and pulled. ‘But you can’t control people like this — ’
‘I can attempt to. You are perfectly free to say no, and if you do meet her you are both perfectly free to decide against the plan. In which case I shall try again.’
‘With another man.’
‘Yes.’
‘Oh God!’
‘I do not see,’ said John Robert, ‘that I am proposing anything particularly unreasonable. Nobody is being forced to do anything.’
I am, thought Tom. It must be hypnosis. He said, scarcely crediting his own words, ‘May I think it over?’
‘No. Either you agree now to meet her with a view to marriage — ’
‘How can I meet her with a view to marriage? I’ve never seen her, she’s seventeen, I’m twenty, it’s not - it’s not the picture, it’s not the scene — ’
‘All right, then I bid you farewell. I am grateful to you for having come.’
‘No, no, this is most unfair, how can I say - it’s all so extraordinary — ’
‘I should have thought the situation was fairly clear. You don’t have to do anything except be serious.’
‘But I can’t just make myself be your sort of serious, I mean taking this as serious — ’
‘Come, Mr McCaffrey, you do not think that I am jesting.’
‘No, of course not, I just mean — ’
‘As I say, you can try. You can keep the end in view. I should add that if you decide at this stage to proceed no further then I must request you to make another promise.’
‘Another promise?’
‘You have already promised not to reveal to anyone what has passed between us today.’
‘Have I? Well, yes— ’
‘I must also ask you to promise, should you decide not to proceed in this matter, not ever to meet or become acquainted with Miss Meynell.’
‘But how can — ’
‘And, should you try and fail, you must engage never to see or approach her again.’
‘I don’t see — ’
‘You are not a fool. You must understand the point of these requests.’
‘Oh - yes - I suppose so — ’
‘Well, will you make the attempt?’
The phrase ‘make the attempt’ rang in Tom’s ears like the rattle of a chain - or was it more like a bugle call? He thought, is this madman carefully and by magical words, by little planned psychological movements, making me his prisoner? Or is it all random and crazy? Will what I say have consequences? Should he, he wondered, see it as a trap, or as an ordeal, a quest? Why should he accept such a ridiculous uncanny sort of plan? Except that … he could not by now perhaps bear not to … could he, in leaving the room, just leave it all behind? All sorts of emotions which he could not understand were already engaged.
Tom said desperately, just to gain a few seconds more time, ‘But do you really mean it - everything that you’ve said?’
‘Don’t ask idle questions. Concentrate your mind.’
Tom thought, am I being hypnotized? Am I going to undertake this insane business just to oblige him, just to obey him, just, oh heavens, not to be separated from him? He said, ‘All right, I’ll try.’
John Roberts gave a long sigh. He said, ‘Good - good - that’s settled then.’
‘But,’ Tom gabbled, ‘it’ll be no use, it’s certain not to work, she won’t like me, we’re bound to dislike each other, it’s all impossible, we won’t get on, she’ll hate the idea — ’
‘You have agreed to try, further speculation is pointless. You will of course speak of this conversation to no one. And when you approach her, use every discretion. This is not an escapade. There must be nothing noisy, nothing public.’
‘But people will know I’ve met her — ’
‘There is no need for this to become a subject of gossip. I desire that it should not. The Slipper House is secluded.’
The phrase sent Tom’s imagination reeling. ‘All right, but — ’
‘Am I to infer from the fact that you seemed unaware of Miss Meynell’s arrival that you are not staying at Belmont?’
‘No. I’m at 41 Travancore Avenue. Down the Tweed Mill end.’
John Robert wrote the address down in a notebook. ‘And now,’ he said, ‘it is time for me to go to the Institute. We will not walk together.’
‘But, wait, what am I to do, what do you want me to do, will you take me to her?’ Like mating dogs, he thought.
‘I shall have nothing more to do with the matter.’
‘Nothing more to —?’
‘You will make your own arrangements about meeting her.’
‘But you’ll tell her?’
‘Yes— ’
‘But how am I to do it?’
‘I leave that to your - experience.’
John Robert had risen and Tom stumbled up. He watched the philosopher put on his overcoat and gloves and a brown woollen cap which he pulled down over his ears.
Tom realized there was something that he had not asked and which in so dangerous a situation it would be as well to have clarified. ‘Can we - suppose we - well - make love - people do now when they’re not sure - and then she decides not — ’
The question seemed to annoy, even dismay, John Robert. This possibility was evidently new to his imagination. He frowned. ‘We need not look so far ahead.’
‘But I’d like to know — ’
‘I have not enjoyed discussing this matter and I do not want to discuss it any further. We have said enough.’ He spoke as if the whole disagreeable problem had been forced upon him by Tom.
Tom stood aside to let Rozanov sidle past him. They went into the hall where they stood awkwardly face to face for a moment. Rozanov was as tall as Tom. Tom smelt the philosopher’s garments, a philosophical smell of sweat and thought. Rozanov fumbled behind him, undid the front door and backed out of it. Tom followed him out and closed the door.
‘Now I go to the right and you go to the left. Remember your promises.’
The bulky man began to recede down the street until he came to Burkestown High Road and disappeared from view. Tom watched him go, then turned and walked in the other direction as far as the Green Man. The Green Man was open, but Tom did not go in. He was already like a drunken person, his head whirling and his heart dilated with a very queer mixture of pain and fear and joy. Joy? Why on earth joy? Was it simply that he was flattered by this amazing attention? He kept saying to himself, he’s mad, it doesn’t matter, it’s not real, I’m not involved in anything! He walked beyond the pub, as far as the level crossing and watched a train go by. Then he turned back.
When Tom, on his way back to Travancore Avenue, had crossed the eighteenth-century bridge and got as far as the Crescent and reached the middle of the curve, he saw Scarlett-Taylor waiting for him at the other end. As he passed number 29, the home of the senior Osmores, Robin Osmore and his wife happened to be looking out of one of the tall windows of their handsome drawing-room on the first floor. Robin said, ‘Why there’s Tom McCaffrey. What a handsome boy he has grown up to be.’
Mrs Osmore said nothing. She resented the way in which everyone, even her husband, praised Tom as if, by common consent, he had been elected to be a sort of hero. He was no better-looking than Gregory and not half as clever. She mourned Gregory’s absence and was permanently wounded by his imprudent marriage to that pert Judith Craxton child. Oh why had Greg not married Anthea Eastcote, as Mrs Osmore had a thousand times urged him to do, ever since they were children together at the Crescent play school? She was also annoyed that Gregory had lent his house to Tom without telling her (she learnt it at the Baths). She felt sure that Tom, who was so careless and thoughtless, would do the house some serious damage, perhaps burn it down. He might even wear Greg’s clothes. It would all end in tears.