In the Gathering House Miss Calligary reflects upon the irrational behaviour of the man who occupies 3 Duke of Wellington Road. Her efforts to rectify any misunderstanding there might have been inspired a response that causes her now to believe there was no such misunderstanding in the first place. Something else is the matter. When first they called on the man he refrained from interrupting Marcia Tibbitts’ personal saga, and while it is true that he made some small protestation when it came to an end, the nature of this was not out of the ordinary. Indeed, in Miss Calligary’s experience the more opposition there initially is the greater the conviction later. The intimation she experienced after their first encounter – that the man would sooner or later enter what the Priscatts call ‘a relationship’ with the Church that is her life’s work – is something she now finds herself questioning: clearly, more work needs to be done. For not only has the fellowship she offered been peremptorily rejected, it appears to have become a cause of alarm. Miss Calligary has more than once explained to the young companions who bear the Message with her that you can’t hope to get anywhere unless you persevere, that a lack of interest, even abuse, should not be permitted to upset or dishearten. But alarm is quite another matter; as a reaction, she has not experienced it before. ‘Irrational, certainly,’ Mr Priscatt agrees when she tells him, and Mrs Priscatt recalls a couple who behaved queerly in the early days of her gathering, inviting her and her husband on to their premises and then playing jokes on them: mechanical spiders crawled up Mrs Priscatt’s legs; every time she and Mr Priscatt moved on their chairs an unpleasant sound erupted; and the bottoms fell out of the cups they were given tea in, drenching their clothes with warm liquid. ‘No, it is not like that,’ Miss Calligary explains. The edginess of the occupant of 3 Duke of Wellington Road is retailed among the other Gatherers also, Miss Calligary still seeking advice. The old Ethiopian hears about it, as Bob and Ruthie do, and Mr Hikuku, and all the others. And when it reaches Agnes she recalls that it was she to whom the Irish girl first spoke of this man, and mentioned Duke of Wellington Road. Responsible for the Irish girl’s presence in the Gathering House, Miss Calligary does not shirk blaming herself, and there is certainty in her tone when she offers her final opinion. ‘That girl brought pain to the Gathering House, and what I am thinking now is she brought pain to this man also, for at the mention of her he turns his back.’ This could be so, Mr Priscatt agrees, and the old Ethiopian, who has seen a thing or two on the streets and on the doorsteps, sagely nods his head. Bob and Ruthie murmur together, saying to one another that all this makes them sad. ‘He has been diddled and is distrustful,’ Miss Calligary states. ‘He is jumpy to an extent.’ The others do not argue with this. Since they have been offended themselves by the pregnant girl they gave shelter to, it seems likely that a good-hearted man would suffer also. ‘We have a duty in this matter.’ Confident that guidance has been offered, Miss Calligary is more cheerful.
22
He recognizes him at once: the tidy dark hair, the greenish eyes, the high cheekbones. Other features have not been included in the description Mr Hilditch has heard so often: a shiftiness in those eyes, a knowing smile that slants the mouth, a freshly grown moustache. Mr Hilditch waits until he is certain – until he hears the youth’s name used – before drawing back into the shadows of the corner he has chosen to occupy in the Goose and Gander. This is the first public house near the Old Hinley barracks he has tried, twenty minutes from Duke of Wellington Road. He was in his corner only long enough to sip half of the glass of mineral water he ordered before the five soldiers noisily arrived. Although they’re not in uniform, you can tell they’re soldiers from their haircuts and their gait. Fragments of their talk flutter across the bar to where he sits: it appears to be about motor-racing, a loose wheel spinning off into the crowd. ‘Bloody killed a bloke,’ one of the soldiers says. Mr Hilditch doesn’t know why he has come here. Some compulsion has drawn him to the place, and further presses him to eavesdrop on this conversation. As he listens to subsequent exchanges about car-racing tracks, he does not remember what his thoughts were before he left his house, and senses that there were no thoughts: he simply drove off, knowing where he was going. ‘Your bloody round, mate,’ one of the soldiers roughly reminds another, and there’s a general noise of agreement. Glasses are drained. As an encouragement to the soldier whose round it is, the surface of the table is repeatedly struck. Extraordinary to think of what she went through, deceived by this lout who cleared off without leaving her any means of contacting him, cunningly aware that he would be protected by an embittered mother. Mr Hilditch remembers the tears that so often flowed when they sat together watching the door of some café, the distress there was when another blank was drawn at a factory, the guilt induced by the aborting of the unborn child. A Wednesday it was when she appeared on the forecourt. Without making an effort, he has always been able to establish the day of the week on which events occur: a Friday when the recruiting sergeant said he’d better try something else; a Monday when he got the transfers and stencil set for his birthday – the smell of washing, the small red candles, Uncle Wilf there specially. It was a Saturday, always, when they went by train down to the Spa. ‘Bloody poofter,’ one of the soldiers says. ‘Corner of Brunswick Way every evening on the dot. Forty quid he’s offering.’ ‘Bloody never,’ is a disdainful comment, and: ‘Pull the one that chimes, boy.’ ‘Pull bloody nothing. Fancies a uniform, that poofter does.’ Mr Hilditch doesn’t know why he can’t see her as he still sees all the others, and can offer himself only the explanation that it is because she went from him in some different way, which is the feeling he has had since the black woman stirred everything up by mentioning her. His presence here has to do with how they parted: he recognizes that now, he knows it. He is here because there’s no place for her in his Memory Lane, because any moment she may walk in. He leans back in the shadows, the conversation of the soldiers lost to him. With his single glass of mineral water he remains in this corner until the landlord calls last orders and then inquires if his customers have a home to go to. The glasses are collected by a barmaid whom the five soldiers flatter with attentions before rowdily making off. Outside, Mr Hilditch watches them from his car and then drives about the streets, searching as desperately as his quarry once searched herself.