“It’s all right. I’ve only looked in for a drink.”
“That’s what you think, chum. Here, do you know what they are, all this lot here?”
“Don’t you worry about me; I’m leaving to catch a bus in a minute.” He had missed it, but there was another at nine, and he would sit in a cinema till it was due. He looked around, trying to catch Sandy’s eye.
“I know what you think,” said the soldier earnestly. “I could see it in your face when you come in. You think being lame like what you are, a girl won’t have you. You think to hell with all that. It takes all sorts to make a world, give it a go and look after number one same as we all got to do, that’s what you think. Now I’ll tell you something.”
“Yes,” said Laurie. “Excuse me.” He gripped the arms of the chair and braced himself to rise. But the door had opened. Sandy was saying, “So here you are at last. Come along in, we’ve got a little surprise for you.”
Laurie straightened himself smartly. When he was on his feet and standing still, there wasn’t much to notice. In his haste he threw his weight too quickly on his lame leg, so that it was shot through with a violent stab of pain. When the effort of concealing this was over, he saw that Lanyon was already in the room.
He had come alone. Laurie would have known him instantly, anywhere; which is not to say that he had not changed. He was in R.N.V.R. uniform with a lieutenant’s rings; and Laurie’s first clear thought was that if one had had the sense to notice it, he must have looked like a ship’s officer even at school. Now the incipient lines were graven in; against his weathered skin his light hair looked several shades fairer, almost ash-colored. He was still spare and alert-looking, but he held his shoulders more stiffly now. There was time for all this while he stood in the doorway. For Sandy he had a suitable smile which, without being exactly guarded, revealed nothing whatever except good manners: when he turned to Alec, though the transition wasn’t crude, Laurie could see that it was Alec on whose account he had come. He had brought him a birthday present, Laurie couldn’t see what, and the unwrapping and thanks took a little time. Laurie was glad of it. It had all been more disturbing than he had expected, and it occurred to him for the first time that Lanyon might find his sudden appearance embarrassing, once he remembered who he was.
Alec took some time to admire his present; he was evidently one of those who are generous in the receiving of gifts. It was Sandy who seemed suddenly to grow impatient. He gave Lanyon a shove which turned him half around from the door, and said, in a voice carelessly audible through the room, “And now come over here and see what we’ve got for you.”
Lanyon stared at this and Laurie saw for the first time his light-blue, wary, sailor’s eyes. Above the superficial smile on his mouth, they swept the room as inexpressively as if it had been a doubtful stretch of sea. Laurie got ready: but when they reached him, he forgot after all to say anything or even to smile, since Lanyon did neither: he simply stood there, with his face draining, visibly, of color, till one could see that his mouth and chin were less deeply tanned than the rest of his face, because they suddenly stood out pallid against the darker skin above. His mouth straightened; Laurie knew the expression well, but now it seemed part of a naval uniform, emergency kit. It jerked Laurie out of himself. He took a step forward and said, “Hello. They told me you might be coming.” But Lanyon still stared at him in silence, so he added, “Do you remember me? Spud Odell?”
Lanyon came up, and Laurie noticed for the first time the glove on his left hand. He said, so abruptly that he might have been charging Laurie with a disciplinary offense, “I thought you were dead.”
“Only temporarily.” Laurie thought: I can’t have very much imagination, not to have expected this. That day at school must have been the worst in his life, much worse than anything the sea’s done to him or even the war; seeing me must be like living it over again. He felt so strongly for Lanyon in this that his nervousness left him. He smiled and said, “Alec’s just told me that I owe you for a Channel crossing. Is it true?”
Lanyon said in the same court-martial voice, but rather more slowly, “You knew that.”
“No.” (It wouldn’t have taken much more, Laurie thought, to have made him say, “No, please, Lanyon.”) “I hadn’t the least idea. I was dead to the world most of the time.”
With startling abruptness, Lanyon’s face broke into a hard gay smile. “Well, for someone alleged to be unconscious, I must say you did pretty well. Sending me up sky-high in front of a petty officer and a couple of ratings. You’ll be telling me you can’t remember that now, I suppose?”
Laurie’s mouth opened. He stared at the jaw-line from which, now, the pale margin had disappeared. “Oh, my God,” he said. “That wasn’t you?”
“You’re telling me. I got down into the beard I was mercifully wearing at the time, and pulled it up over my head. Much to my relief, a Stuka came over a few seconds later and machine-gunned us. I was a great deal more frightened of you.”
“But … God, this is … I’d had a lot of morphia, and they gave me another shot just before they embarked us, to stop the bleeding. I remember realizing I was light-headed, even at the time.”
“I never quite worked out whether you were thinking, ‘Well, well, so that was R. R. Lanyon,’ or if it was just a case of ‘Oh, Lord, here comes another.’ ”
“I was off my head. Of course I didn’t know you. Christ, you don’t suppose if I had—”
“Same old Spud,” said Lanyon, in a kind of echo of the bright voice he had used before. “I wouldn’t have believed it.” He took a step back and looked at Laurie, then said, not brightly but with a dull kind of incredulity, “Good God, you haven’t changed a bit.”
“It was the beard,” said Laurie. “That was all. I’d have known you anywhere, but for that.”
“Ah, well,” Lanyon said smiling again, “we’ve both got a shock or two coming, I daresay.”
It was then that Laurie remembered, for the first time in some minutes, the presence of other people. Alec was hovering, with a couple of drinks, tactfully on the fringe of the conversation. Sandy, less tactful, was drinking in their reunion open-mouthed. There had been so much to say, Laurie had scarcely noticed till now the special phrases casually accepted, the basic assumption on which all their words had made sense. What after all could Lanyon have supposed, finding him here? Well, he thought, Sandy should be satisfied. The hairpin had been dropped.
“Aren’t you drinking, Laurie?” Alec said. “Here’s yours, Ralph.”
“Healths in water are unlucky,” said Lanyon, looking at the glass.
“Sorry, I gave you the wrong one. This is yours. Laurie, this do for you?”
Laurie, who had lost his first drink, took it. It was rather strong, but he didn’t like now to do anything about it. They drank to Alec’s birthday and then Lanyon, turning, said, “Well … hello, Laurie. I’ll get used to that, I suppose.”
They drank. Laurie said, “There’s no need to, Spud will do.”
“No. Boys will be boys, but heaven defend us from Old Boys. Now I think of it, I never did know your real name. When I was doing the lists sometimes I used to wonder what it was. Odell, L. P. What was the P. for?”
“Patrick.”
“Well, I got that one right, anyway. I wish you wouldn’t keep looking at me as if I might give you a hundred lines at any moment. For God’s sake relax.” He stared at his glass, then emptied it with a jerk.