“He wants a human gas-fire as well as the other one,” was Rendell’s private analysis of the situation.
But, aloud, he said:
“Devilish good of you to remember I like black coffee. It’s first-class, too. Better not spoil me, or I shall be here too often.”
“It’s all right then, is it? Really? Excellent! You’d better have the cigarettes near you.”
Wrayburn curled up in his chair and looked round approvingly.
“I like this—just this! Everything shut out. Yes, very pleasant—eminently satisfactory!”
He looked at his watch.
“Nine-twenty-two. You said you weren’t in a hurry. That’s all right then.”
There was silence for some minutes. Wrayburn seemed to be exploring the rare sensation of satisfaction in much the same manner as a frozen tramp—suddenly finding himself before a fire—surrenders to the investigating warmth.
“Coming to Trent,” Rendell said at last, but was instantly interrupted.
“I was coming to him. The essential quality in him can be stated in a sentence. Potentially, he is the New Man.”
“The what?”
“The New Man,” Wrayburn repeated coldly. “Even to you it must be a commonplace that the only deliverance for humanity lies in a new order of consciousness. Everybody knows that nowadays. The old consciousness and all its works is toppling to ruin. Nothing can be done with that. It will just go—and it is going.”
Wrayburn paused, but as Rendell said nothing, he went on:
“The only salvation lies in the coming of the New Men. Four-dimensional men, if that phrase helps you. Potentially, Trent is one of them.”
“But—well—damn it!” Rendell exploded. “I’m quite out of my depth, of course, but—well—what will these New Men be like?”
“They will think and feel from a new centre. They will have new motives, new aims. They will be priests of a new vision. They will possess a cosmic consciousness. But, frankly, Rendell, I wouldn’t try to understand, if I were you. I’d just accept the idea. You’ll find it simpler.”
“That’s undoubtedly true,” Rendell agreed. “So tell me what you meant when you said earlier on that Trent’s friends represent only his time-killing activities.”
“So they do—so does his writing, on another level. Trent is strong. He has Being. But he evades his spiritual destiny by amusing himself with that hulking Vera—who is as repressed as a bomb—and dear Peter Marsden, to whom he once gave two ideas. Our Peter rattles them about in his empty skull like two sixpenny-bits in a money-box.”
Rendell laughed, somewhat against his will.
“You’ve heard him rattle them, haven’t you?” Wrayburn inquired judicially. “He rattles them, and then looks at you as if to say: ‘Hear what I’ve got’”
“You couldn’t say what they are, I suppose?”
“Definitely! One is something about the spiritual structure of a book. He’s always rattling that one. The other one is Trent’s belief that man contains in himself the potentiality of a new being. Our Peter doesn’t rattle that one so often. He’s not certain that he knows what it means. Also, I gave him an idea once. I told him that Trent’s books were only a by-product of an intense interior activity.”
Rendell was too startled to reply. He remembered that Marsden had used these three phrases when he had dined with him—exactly a week ago.
His thoughts ran on till eventually he asked:
“What about Rosalie Vivian?”
“She’s a point better,” Wrayburn conceded grudgingly. “At any rate, she feels what is going on in the world, although she knows none of the facts. She’s rather like a seismograph. She vibrates when there’s an earthquake, although she does not know what an earthquake is. That’s why she’s a psychic invalid.”
“But is she a—psychic invalid?”
Wrayburn leaned forward and peered at Rendell. His expression suggested that he had had immense experience of idiots, but was now confronted by an unknown type.
“Can’t you see that?” he asked at last. “Can’t you see she lives in a psychic thunderstorm?”
“She’s certainly very nervy.”
“Nervy!” Wrayburn’s tone made the word ridiculous. After a long pause he went on: “Yes, Rosalie is a point better. And so is Elsa.”
“Who is Elsa?”
“That model with the hair. But Trent ought not to loiter with any of them. It’s an evasion of his destiny.”
“And you’re not interested in the fact that he never told you he had rooms in No. 77?”
“Not in the smallest degree,” Wrayburn replied contemptuously. “I’m not interested in where people’s bodies are. I’m interested in their potentialities.”
Neither spoke for some moments, then Rendell reverted to an earlier phase of their conversation.
“Do you regard yourself as one of the New Men, as you call them?”
“No, my good man, I do not. I am a wholly negative person. I cannot make any organic contact with humans. One reason is that I regard small talk as the babble of articulate apes. I am like a bubble. I can only maintain my shape by remaining in the void. Trent is different. He has Being. He might be a link between the Old Order and the New—if any link is possible.”
Wrayburn gave the flick of his hand to indicate that this subject was dismissed.
He rose and began to wander about the room, giving Rendell excerpts from experiences encountered in his bouts with the world. He had a dossier relating to every job he had had which contained an exact account of his duties, the amount of his salary, and descriptions of the people with whom he had had to associate. The last were very penetrating character studies. Wrayburn called them “psychological evaluations.” Rendell spent some time reading them, impressed by their insight, repelled by their inhumanity.
“Good Lord, Wrayburn,” he exclaimed, “you analyse these people as if you belonged to a different species.”
“I do. If I were a dictator, I would exterminate them. Never mind about a managed currency. What we need is a managed pestilence. Whole hordes of people ought to be obliterated. Nothing can be achieved owing to their deadly inertia. They rivet themselves to the skeleton of tradition. Also, they breed with fearful fecundity. They spawn and cumber the earth with their replicas. And I fancy that dear Peter and the bulging Vera will shortly enter holy wedlock and perpetuate their insignificance in a herd of dense-faced brats. Devouring bodies, my good Rendell, devouring bodies.”
Rendell decided to make a frontal attack.
“I’m not sure I’m not a devouring body myself. Anyway, I’d like to know this: why does it interest you to see me?”
Wrayburn flushed, then said quickly:
“One reason is that you are a disturbed person. When you were happy, you must have been totally uninteresting. But now you’re disturbed you’ll have to make some move. Probably you’ll marry again—but it will be a dangerous sort of affair this time. Or you’ll do something quite stupid. Possibly become a Fascist.”
Rendell laughed.
“Well, if I become a Fascist, I promise to come and drink black coffee here in my black shirt.”
“When Fascism comes to England, my good man, its adherents will not wear black shirts. Incidentally,” Wrayburn went on quickly, “it’s interesting that men have ceased to be men and have become shirts. Red shirts, black shirts, brown shirts, blue shirts—but men no longer. That’s interesting. An age is known by its symbols.”