The tarmac was rather less pleasant beneath my feet than the gravel had been, and it was certainly much hotter there than in the avenue, but it was enough of a novelty for me to have reached a second stage in my journey, and indeed to walk along a road that contained no cars, so I was for the time being content. The view from the road was very attractive in the sun. To my right as I walked I could see a marvellous stretch of countryside billowing out beneath me in a kind of mist towards the horizon. Scattered over it were small groups of trees and one or two houses, so miniature that I might have been seeing them from a great height. This surprised me, for I was not, as far as I could make out, climbing a hill. To my left was a tall bank of hedgerows, which I took to be the continuing boundary of the grounds.
Oriented now, and with no further work to do for the time being, I allowed my mind to focus upon other things. The road, and my memories of my journey with Mr Madden, naturally brought the issue of my inability to drive to the forefront of my thoughts. My deception was still of the greatest concern, but I considered it quite calmly. Now that my arrival at Franchise Farm had been somewhat soured, I was, oddly, relieved of the desire for everything in my new life to be perfect. I had, I suppose, excluded what I can only describe as the human element from my calculations. Although I was disappointed that things had gone wrong at such an early stage of my adventures, still I could see that a measure of imperfection was admissible in, and perhaps essential to, any human situation. You will perhaps find it laughable when I say that I had imagined it possible to exist in a state of no complexity whatever; but a person has a right to their dreams, and this was mine. It had soon proved unsustainable; but I do not regret having had it. Indeed, I find it hard to see how I could be judged harshly, when my willingness to modify my ambitions was so evident. Many people, in the face of such a disappointment, would, I believe, have scrapped the whole thing straight away.
To return to the problem of my driving, I made, as I walked, several plans. This practical side of my nature often comes in handy. It was this very quality, in fact, which had allowed me to list among my attributes, although it was not in the strictest sense true, the ‘aptitude for the country life’ specified by the Maddens in their advertisement. What I meant was that I possessed the aptitude for any kind of life, country or otherwise. To continue, my several plans were designed to cater for the ‘human element’ I had now detected in my situation, and would, singly, variously, or in numbers, be adopted according to which way the wind was blowing. The first and least favourable plan was to confess fully to the Maddens if and when the opportunity arose. The second plan, a more subtle version of the first, was to construct, quite carefully, an atmosphere of reluctance around the issue of driving. I could, for example, say that I had not driven for a long time and was nervous. From this atmosphere, one of two things could emanate: either the Maddens would dismiss me from my driving duties; or they would teach me — or remind me, in their eyes — how to drive themselves. Neither outcome was particularly satisfactory, not least because even if I learned to muddle through behind the wheel, this still did not procure me a driving licence. Within minutes I had put together a corollary to the latter half of this plan. While muddling through behind the wheel during the week, I could, on my day off, take proper driving lessons. This plan was expensive, and its detail burdensome, but it was at least feasible.
My remaining plans were rather more drastic. I could feign an injury, such as a broken leg or pulled tendon, which would excuse me from driving. Alternatively I could say nothing at all, and merely drive, come what may. I could adopt a mixture of all these plans; put off driving, say, on the pretext of a broken leg, while secretly learning how to drive on my day off, and then assume my driving duties as soon as I possessed a modicum of skill, taking my test later.
By this time I had come quite a long way along the road. I was extremely hot, but no longer so tired. Indeed, after that first bout of lethargy I had felt new life spring into my limbs, and now was walking with considerable energy. The road was sloping very slightly downhill, and I swung my arms by my sides with a feeling of great physical suppleness. I had noticed some time before a definite settlement ahead of me, but not wishing to disappoint myself I held off from the certainty that it was the village of Hilltop. I had begun to understand that things were invariably much further away in the country than one imagined them to be. My scheme paid off, for within minutes I had entered the village, passing a small sign reading ‘Hilltop’ for good measure, and was delighted and surprised to have reached my destination so quickly.
The village was very pretty, and quite full of life. It was arranged mainly along the road, which became a sort of quaint high street at its centre, and consisted of a collection of very old houses — mostly red-brick or painted white — many of which had lovely baskets of flowers hanging around their doorways or in pots adorning their window sills. My first thought on seeing these pots and baskets was to smash them. I have no explanation for this impulse, other than that my thoughts were still, at this early stage, essentially urban in nature. In London, I was probably thinking, these pots would almost certainly have been smashed, and perhaps I was, while imagining such an act of vandalism, assuming part of the vandal’s character in the process.
At the centre of the village I found a small post office, which was of course closed, it being Sunday, and a very attractive pub with tables and benches outside at which one or two people were already sitting. Quite a few people were also walking about, mainly children and people of about the Maddens’ age or older. Several of the children had bicycles and were describing carefree circles on the road. I stopped for a moment, enjoying the sun on my face and the quiet contentment of the place, before remembering that I had come to find food and could as yet see nowhere to buy any. I walked along the road a bit further, and just then had a curious sensation of confidence; confidence, I suppose, in the village being such a charming place that it would provide me with what I required as if by magic; but confidence also in myself, as if my very desire was transformative and would create what it needed to satisfy it. Just as this confidence rose up in me, a small and evidently busy shop appeared on the road ahead. I accept that this was merely a happy coincidence. As I caught sight of this shop, however, I had a strange vision — strange because I could not imagine from where it had come — a vision, I repeat, of the shop door tinkling with a little bell as I entered. This bell would mark me out as an alien, an intruder, and as it gave out its warning those inside the shop would turn and stare with the blank, unfriendly stares of cows. Before long, I had decided that if I opened the door and heard that tinkle, I would go in some way mad. At the same time, I was filled with a dreadful certainty that all this would in fact come to pass; and, moreover, that the outcome was loaded or symbolic, although I could not tell you of what.
Imagine my relief, then, and also my sense that I had ‘won’ in some obscure fashion, when I came abreast of the shop and saw that its door was wide open; propped open, in fact, by a kind of news-stand displaying the Sunday papers. Jauntily, I had plucked one of these papers from the stand and was bearing it indoors when I was again assailed by this strange symbolical sense of my own activities. As with the tinkling bell, the buying of a newspaper threatened to invite some indeterminate menace. I replaced it quickly on the stand, attempting a vague pantomime of indecision and then resolution, and entered the shop for a second time.