After about half an hour Jean Kowitz-Cambus did appear. She clopped audibly, neatly, up the stairs and entered the room already wearing her coat over the famous red dress with black lace which Rose admired so much. Jean had evidently planned her appearance and her entrance carefully. She was already dressed for a quick departure and had attended to her make-up and arranged her hair. Her very dark hair, sleek and, glowing like the feathers ofan exotic bird, so orderly in its even lines that it might have been enamelled, flowed evenly back from her delicate hawk-face. Her rather stern, though calm, expression relaxed suitably to Rose's greeting.
`Darling Jean, you've come, oh good!'
Rose put her arms round Jean, Jean patted Rose's shoulder and said how lovely it was to hear the birds singing. Gerard and Jenkin stood back. Then Jean approached Duncan who remained slumped in his chair. She said, 'How's the old man? Sozzled as usual? Can someone help him up?’
Duncan stretched out his hands, and Jenkin took one hand and Gerard the other and they hauled him to his feet.
Jean and Duncan then had a conversation. Jean said where was his coat, and he said he thought he had left it in the car, but where was the car? Jean told him where it was, not in the car park, but in a road nearby. They both said it was a good thing it was not in the car park, Jenkin agreed, you could get boxed in, young people were so thoughtless. Rose said lightly that she hoped that Jean was driving, and Jean said she certainly was. Jean kissed Gerard and Jenkin and Rose. Duncan kissed Rose and tried to argue with Gerard about contributing to the tip for the scout. Rose hugged ,Jean and kissed her and stroked her hair. Then she put her arms round Duncan in a special embrace. Jean told Duncan to come along and took his arm. Amid various valedictory remarks and waves of the hand they took their leave. Their footsteps receded down the stairs.
After a suitable interval of silence, Jenkin stifled a little snort of laughter, then went to look out of the window and compose his face. Rose looked at Gerard who frowned slightly and looked away.
Gerard, expected by the other two to make a statement, said, 'Well, I daresay it's all all right, and we won't have to think about it any more, I certainly hope so.'
`You may be able not to think about it,' said Jenkin, returning from the window with a composed face, 'but I doubt if I will.'
`Gerard's good at not thinking about things when he doesn't feel he ought to,' said Rose.
`Or feels he oughtn't to,' said Jenkin.
Gerard said briskly, 'Time to be off. I'll leave an envelope for Levquist's chap.'
Rose wished she was going to drive back to London with Gerard, but she had brought her own car, partly because Gerard had said he was driving Jenkin down, and partly because she wanted to be able to leave earlier than the others if she felt very tired. She fetched her coat which she had left in Levquist's bedroom. They all did a little elementary tidying up, but their heart was not in it. They went down the stairs and through the cloister and faced the warm sunlight and the deafening chorus of birds and the loud cries of the cuckoo.
Gulliver was having a marvellous dream. A beautiful girl with big liquid dark eyes and long thick eyelashes and a moist sensuous mouth was leaning over towards him. He felt her warm sweet breath, her soft lips touched his cheek, and then his mouth. He woke up. A face was close to his, and big dark beautiful eyes were gazing into his eyes. One of the deer, finding this black bundle curled up under a familiar tree, had thrust a dark wet muzzle down towards it. Gulliver jolted up. The deer sprang back, gazed for another moment, then trotted with dignity away. Gulliver wiped his face, wet with the creature's gentle touch. He got to his feet. He felt terrible, he looked terrible. He began to walk back. He felt giddy, bright lights danced around him and little black hieroglyphs kept appearing at the side of his vision.
As he emerged, rubbing his eyes, from the archway of the New Building onto the main lawn, he stopped dead. A dreadful and extraordinary sight which he could not interpret met his gaze. Somewhere, how far away he could not at first estimate, for the phenomenon was so odd, a long line of people, two long lines of people, one above the other, were drawn up directly opposite to him and staring straight at him. He felt helpless panic as at some shattering of a natural law. He rubbed his eyes. They were still there, standing rigidly at attention and looking at him in silence. Then he realised what it was. It was the dance photograph. Nearer, with his back to him, the photographer was marshalling his camera which was mounted on a tripod, looking through it at the posed silent ranks which were looking at him. The dancers were immobile, mostly solemn, many of them looking as terrible as Gull, their clothes disordered, their faces bleary with exhaustion, exposed, graceless and haggard, in the cruel light of day. Under the song of the birds the silence of the music made itself felt. Frowning and focusing his eyes Gulliver scanned the large staring assembly for any familiar faces. He could not see Gerard or Rose or Tamar or Jean or Duncan or Crimond. He spotted Lily however. She was standing beside Conrad Lomas with her arm around his waist. Gulliver began to slink along the front of the building in the direction of the car park. He wondered if his car would be boxed in. It was.
Gerard turned the key in the door and entered the silent house. In the car driving to London he had told.Jenkin of his father's death. Jenkin had been shocked and distressed, and the spontaneity of his grief for Gerard's father, whom he had known for many years, was touching. But after the first few exclamatory exchanges Jenkin had begun to think, to worry about how much Gerard would suffer, to wonder whether Gerard felt guilty because he had not left the dance at once. Jenkin did not say any of this, but Gerard intuited it behind some clumsy expressions of sympathy and was irritated. He was driving into the sun. He told Jenkin to go to sleep and Jenkin obediently did so, tilting the seat back, settling his head, and going to sleep instantly. The presence of his sleeping friend was soothing, at the moment Jenkin asleep was preferable to Jenkin awake. Coming into London they hit the early rush hour, and as the car crawled slowly past Uxbridge and Ruislip and Acton Jenkin continued to sleep, his hands clasped upon his stomach, his shirt rumpled, his legs stretched out, his trousers undone at the waist, his plump face expressing trustful calm. The sleeping presence, surrendering itself to his protection, calmed Gerard's painful thoughts, held them off a little, catching their sharpness as in a soft bandage. When they reached the little terrace house in Shepherd's Bush where Jenkin lived Gerard woke his friend up, came around and opened the car door and pulled him out, not forgetting the little suitcase into which Jenkin had put, so he said, a woollen cardigan to put on if it was cold, and slippers in case his feet became swollen with dancing. The chocolate had been left behind. Gerard refused the suggestion, less than wholehearted perhaps, that he should come in for a cup of tea. They both felt it was time to part, and the door closed before Gerard had even started the car. He had no doubt that jenkin would go upstairs, undress, put on pyjamas, pull the curtains, get into bed, and fall asleep again at once. Something about the orderliness of' his friend's arrangements irritated Gerard metimes.