«And don't called me 'Brad.' I'm catching a train.»
«I won't keep you for a moment, I'll just explain, I've been thinking-yes, I'll make it snappy, just please listen to me, please, I beseech you-Look, it's this, you see you're the first person Chris will be looking up in London-« What?»
«She'll come straight to you, I bet, I intuit it-«Are you completely mad? Don't you know how-I can't discuss this-There can be no possible communication, this was utterly finished with years ago.»
«No, Brad, you see-«Don't call me 'Brad'!»
«All right, all right, Bradley, sorry, please don't be cross, surely you know Chris, she cared awfully for you, she really cared, much more than for old Evans, she'll come to you, even if it's only out of curiosity-«I won't be here,» I said. This suddenly sounded horribly plausible. Perhaps there is a deep malign streak in all of us. Christian certainly had more than her share of sheer malignancy. She might indeed almost instinctively come to me, out of curiosity, out of malice, as cats are said to jump onto the laps of cat-haters. One does feel a certain curiosity about an ex-spouse, a desire doubtless that they should have suffered remorse and disappointment. One only wants bad news. One wants to gloat. Christian would yearn to satisfy herself of my wretchedness.
Francis was going on, «She'll want to show off, she's rich now, you see, sort of merry-widow style, she'll want to show off to her old friends, anybody would, oh yes, she'll be sniffing after you, you'll see, and-«
«I'm not interested,» I cried, «I'm not interested!»
«You are interested, you know. Why if ever I saw an interested look on a bloke's face-«Has she got children?»
«There you are, you are. No, she hasn't. Now I've always liked you, Brad, and wanted to see you again, I've always admired you, I read your book-«Which book?»
«I forget its name. It was great. Maybe you wondered why I didn't turn upя?
«No!»
«Well, I was bashful, felt I was small fry like, but now with Christian turning up it's-You see, I'm in debt up to the neck, lave to keep changing my digs and that-Now Chris sort of paid ic off, you might say, some time back, and I thought that if you Chris were likely to get together again-«You mean you want me to intercede for you?»
«Sort of, sort of-«Oh God!» I said, «Get out, will you?» The idea of my prising money out of Christian for her delinquent brother struck me as unusually lunatic even for Francis.
«And, you know, I was knocked when I heard she was back, it's a shock, it changes a lot of things, I wanted to come and chew it over with somebody, for human interest like, and you were natural-I say, is there any drink in the house?»
«Just go, will you please.»
«I intuit she'll want you, want to impress you and that-We broke down in letters, you see, I was always wanting money, and then she got a lawyer to stop me writing to her-But now it's like a new start, if you could just sort of ease me in, bring me along like-«
«You want me to pose as your friend?»
«But we could be friends, Brad-Look, is there anything to drink in the house?»
«No.»
The telephone began to ring.
«Go away, please,» I said, «and stay away.»
«Bradley, have a heart-«Out!»
He stood before me with that air of revolting humility. I threw open the sitting-room door and the door of the flat. I picked up the telephone in the hall.
Arnold Baffin's voice was on the wire. He spoke quietly, rather slowly. «Bradley, could you come round here, please? I think that I may have just killed Rachel.»
I said immediately, quietly too but in emotion, «Arnold, don't be silly. Don't be silly!»
«Could you come round at once, please.» His voice sounded like a recorded announcement.
I said, «Have you called a doctor?»
A moment's pause. «No.»
«Well, do so!»
«I'll-explain-Could you come round at once-«Arnold,» I said, «you can't have killed her-You're talking nonsense-You can't have-«
A moment's pause. «Maybe.» His voice was toneless as if calm. A matter doubtless of severe shock.
«What happened-?»
«Bradley, could you-«Yes,» I said, «I'll come round at once. I'll get a taxi.» I replaced the receiver.
It may be relevant to record that my first general feeling on hearing what Arnold had to say was one of curious joy. Before the reader sets me down as a monster of callousness let him look into his own heart. Such reactions are not after all so abnormal and may be said in that minimal sense at least to be almost excusable. We naturally take in the catastrophes of our friends a pleasure which genuinely does not preclude friendship. This is partly but not entirely because we enjoy being empowered as helpers. The unexpected or inappropriate catastrophe is especially piquant. I was very attached to both Arnold and Rachel. But there is a natural tribal hostility between the married and the unmarried. I cannot stand the shows so often quite instinctively put on by married people to insinuate that they are not only more fortunate but in some way more moral than you are. Moreover to help their case the unmarried person often naively assumes that all marriages are happy unless shown to be otherwise. The Baffin marriage had always seemed pretty sound. This sudden vignette of home life set the ideas in a turmoil.
Still rosy with the rush of blood which Arnold's words had occasioned, and also, I should make clear (there is no contradiction), very alarmed and upset, I turned round and saw Francis, whose existence I had forgotten.
«Anything the matter?» said Francis.
«No.»
«I heard you say something about a doctor.»
«The wife of a friend of mine has had an accident. She fell. I'm just going over.»
«Shall I come too?» said Francis. «I might be useful. After all, I am still a doctor in the eyes of God.»
I thought for a moment and said, «All right.» We got a taxi.
I pause here to say another word or two about my protege Arnold Baffin. I am anxious (this is not just a phrase, I feel anxiety) about the clarity and justice of my presentation of Arnold, since this story is, from a salient point of view, the story of my relations with Arnold and the astounding climax to which these relations led. I «discovered» Arnold, a considerably younger man, when I was already modestly established as a writer, and he, recently out of college, was just finishing his first novel. I had by then «got rid of» my wife and was experiencing one of those «fresh starts» which I have so often hoped would lead on to achievement. He was a schoolmaster, having lately graduated in English literature at the university of Reading. We met at a meeting. He coyly confessed his novel. I expressed polite interest. He sent me the almost completed typescript. (This was, of course, Tobias and the Fallen Angel. Still, I think, his best work.) I thought the piece had some merits and I helped him to find a publisher for it. I also reviewed it quite favourably when it came out. Thus began one of the most, commercially speaking, successful of recent literary careers. Arnold at once, contrary, as it happens, to my advice, gave up his job as a teacher and devoted himself to «writing.» He wrote easily, producing every year a book which pleased the public taste. Wealth, fame followed.
It has been suggested, especially in the light of more recent events, that I envied Arnold's success as a writer. I would like at jnce and categorically to deny this. I sometimes envied his freedom to write at a time when I was tied to my desk. But I did not in general feel envy of Arnold Baffin for one very simple reason: it seemed to me that he achieved success at the expense of merit. As his discoverer and patron I felt from the start identified with his activities. And I felt, rather, distress that a promising young writer should have laid aside true ambition and settled so quickly into a popular mould. I respected his industry and I admired his «career.» He had lany gifts other than purely literary ones. I did not, however, much like his books. Tact readily supervened however and, as I have said, we soon instinctively avoided certain topics of conversation.
I should make clear that Arnold was not in any crude sense «spoilt» by success. He was no tax-dodger with a yacht and a house in Malta. (We sometimes laughingly discussed tax-avoidance, but never tax-evasion.) He lived in a fairly large, but not immodest, suburban villa in a «good class» housing estate in Ealing. His domestic life was, even to an irritating extent, lacking in style. It was not that he put on an act of being «the ordinary chap.» In some way he was «the ordinary chap,» and eschewed the vision which might, for better as well as worse, have made a very different use of his money. I never knew Arnold to purchase any object of beauty. He was indeed quite deficient in visual taste, though he was rather aggressively fond of music. As to his person, he continued to look like a schoolmaster, dressed shapelessly, and retained a raw shy boyish appearance. It never occurred to him to play «the famous writer.» Or perhaps intelligence, of which he had plenty, suggested this way of playing it. He wore steel-rimmed specs, behind which his eyes were a very pale bluish-green, rather striking. His nose was pointed, his face always rather greasy, but healthy looking. There was a general lack of colour. Something of an albino? He was accounted, and perhaps was, good-looking. He was always combing his hair.
Arnold stared at me and pointed mutely at Francis. We were standing in the hall. Arnold looked unlike himself, his face waxy, his hair jagged, his eyes without glasses crazed and vague. There was a red mark like a Chinese character upon his cheek.
«This is Dr. Marloe. Dr. Marloe-Arnold Baffin. Dr. Marloe happened to be with me when you rang up about your wife's accident.» I stressed the last word.
«Doctor,» said Arnold. «Yes, you see-she-«She fell?» I suggested.
«Yes. Is he-is this chap a-medical doctor?»
«Yes,» I said. «A friend of mine.» This untruth at least conveyed important information.