“God bless,” said Laurie, meaning it. The last thing he saw of the room was Ralph settling back in the chair again. As he went out, he saw Bunny go back and take the lighted cigarette out of Ralph’s hand. He’s thinking of his nice carpet, Laurie thought.
They went down without speaking. Laurie heard the dot-and-carry sound of his own feet on the stair-treads, and imagined Bunny in the hall below, hidden by the darkness, standing and listening to it.
Outside in the street Bunny said, “We’ll have to use old Ralph’s car, I’ve lent someone mine this evening.”
They got into the car, which Bunny started with a patronizing kind of carelessness. The guns were still going and a lot of searchlights were out; the streets were almost empty, till they came to one where a house lay half across the road with a rescue squad working, and they had to go another way.
Laurie thought: Andrew wouldn’t judge too quickly. Andrew would say you should get free of yourself and try to understand. For example: Bunny had gone to a good deal of trouble, which only made sense if one assumed that he was much fonder of Ralph than he seemed. It was true that his methods had not been aristocratic; but he had probably had a very unhappy childhood, or something. Very likely he tormented himself as much as Sandy did, but hid it better.
A bomb came down, not very near, somewhere behind them. Laurie thought of Ralph asleep in the deep tilted chair and wondered if it had been close enough to rouse him: but this did not further the effort to understand Bunny.
“I’m afraid this is rather a way for you.” To say he was sorry Bunny had had to turn out would have been too much.
“Oh, no, I adore driving at night, don’t you? Before the war I had one of those huge spotlights on my Riley. It made everything look madly dramatic, just like a color film. People used to look so funny blinking and staring in it, like fish in a tank. You’d love the Riley. I had her done specially, a sort of bronze, with cream upholstery. If I’d only known, I wouldn’t have lent her tonight. I hate doing it really, but this boy helped me out of a rather awkward predicament and saved a lot of unpleasantness, so one could hardly refuse. Of course, it would be tonight. Never mind, you must try her another time.”
“Thanks,” said Laurie reluctantly. One could hardly pick a quarrel in the face of this unexpected civility, unless one had decided never to see Ralph again. After all, he thought, people were patchy; Ralph, who was no fool, had found something in Bunny to love; and there was always the risk of investing one’s snobbery with moral sanctions.
“Most of the excitement seems to be the other side of town. We’ll be out in the country in a minute, then you’ll have to begin showing me the way. I didn’t mean to seem callous about Ralph, just now. I just happen to know that the old dear practically never passes out flat, no matter what he has; and that hag downstairs would wake him at a pinch. She adores him, you know, she thinks he’s a wicked romantic sailor; it would kill you, honestly, to see the way he plays up to her, and she’s such a dim draggle-tailed old thing, Christmas in the orphanage I always call it. My dear, I said, one dark night you’ll find you’ve given her so much self-respect, if that’s what you call it, that she’ll nip up the stairs and into bed with you and then you’ll be sorry. He got so annoyed, I think that must have really happened to him somewhere or other. There’s a lot of funny little kinks about old Ralph.”
“Yes?” said Laurie, whose attention had wandered; he had been watching Bunny drive. Unable to stand it any longer in silence, he said, “You’ll only make the gears worse than they are, slamming them like that.”
“Oh, my dear, the whole bus is just a Palladium turn. I think it originally went by steam, and they modernized it at great expense about 1920. Have you seen it in daylight?”
“Yes.”
“The thing that always astonishes me is to find the lever inside at all, and not sticking out of the mudguard in a brass casing.”
“Ralph seems to manage it pretty well, considering what he’s got left of that hand. It must be a bit of an effort for him.”
“Oh, but you know he adores effort, it’s his thing. He thinks comfort’s absolutely decadent. Now, I’m not a bit like that myself.”
“No,” Laurie said.
“The great thing, I think, is for everyone to be happy. What I always say is, life’s so simple really, if you don’t complicate it. It’s just a matter of live and let live, don’t you think so?”
“For God’s sake, do put the clutch in properly when you’re changing down. If you grind them like that they’ll soon be jamming all the time.”
“It’s all such a nonsense,” said Bunny petulantly. “Well, this is the very last time I lend the Riley.”
Laurie’s hatred faded in spite of him. His mind groped over the personality beside him seeking something to grip on, and everything that had seemed salient resolved itself into a deficiency. He was too tired to be choice with words: Common, he thought inadequately. I thought after Dunkirk that would never mean anything again. How does he keep all this from Ralph?
They were out in the country; the sounds of the raid behind were muted by distance. Less warmly than he would have spoken to a chauffeur, Laurie showed Bunny the way.
“Oh, yes, I know. You’re an awfully reserved person, aren’t you?”
“I’m afraid I’ve never thought about it.”
“I get terribly bored with people who are just on the surface. They never give you any surprises, do they? That was the thing that first attracted me to Ralph, you know. He didn’t put everything in the shop window. Now, of course, I know him inside out, and it’s not that I’m not terribly fond of him, but—well, I wouldn’t tell just any one this, but it’s different telling you—”
Laurie had to speak twice before he succeeded in interrupting. “I’m sorry; but if you don’t mind, I’d rather not hear about all this.”
“I wouldn’t have told you,” said Bunny in a hurt, sincere voice, “without a very good reason.”
Laurie said abruptly, “Well, you can tell me this, then. Why did you do it?”
“Well, really, my dear, I was more or less swept off my feet. Between ourselves …”
“Tonight, I mean. You gave him about five neat gins straight off. It was in the water-jug.”
“Goodness, you are observant, aren’t you? Or is it an old trick in the army too?”
“I wouldn’t know, I’m not an officer.”
“Of course, it doesn’t work with everybody. If I’d tried it on you, you’d have spotted it straight away. But with hard-drinking types like old Ralph, who’ve got one or two on board already—”
“I asked why you did it, that’s all.”
Bunny stopped the car.
“You awful boy,” he said. “You do believe in playing hard to get.”
It was probably for not more than a second that Laurie was paralyzed by sheer incredulity. It seemed far too long. Though Bunny hadn’t got beyond the arm flung along the back of the seat and the deep intimate gaze, Laurie felt already a nauseous anticipation of contact.
“Look,” he said, “shall we get something straight? I don’t like you. I don’t like you in any possible way that one person could like an other.” He paused for breath. When he remembered everything it didn’t seem enough. “If you were the last human being left alive, I’d sooner—” The phrase with which he finished took him by surprise. It was what Reg had said to the girls in the blackout. Laurie had never supposed that a time would come when he would use it with satisfaction.
“My, my,” said Bunny. “Aren’t we butch?”
Laurie thought, That got through.
“In that case,” said Bunny. He leaned over and snapped at the catch of the door. “I should hate to force my company on anyone who felt like that about it. Good night.”