Greybeard

“Where you are concerned, I’m always as weak as water, and you know it.” Along the path known as the “Corn”, presumably from a ploughed-up strip of wheatland along one side of it, many people were flocking. Their appearance was as grey and seamed as that of the ruined buildings below which they shuffled; they sucked their gums against the cold and did not chatter much. They gave way falteringly to a cart pulled by reindeer. As the cart creaked level with Martha and Greybeard, someone called her name.

Norman Morton, with a scholastic gown draped over a thick array of furs, rode in the cart, accompanied by some of the other Students, including the two Greybeard had spoken with already, the tallowy Gavin, the silent Vivian. He made the driver stop the cart, and invited the two pedestrians to climb up. They stepped up on the wheel hubs and were helped in.

“Are you surprised to find me participating in the common pleasure?” Morton asked. “I take as much interest in Balliol’s children as I do in my own animals. They make a pretty display as pets and reflect a little much-needed popularity on to the Master. What will happen to them when they are grown up, as they will be in a few years, is a matter beyond the power of the Master to decide.”

The cart trundled to a convenient position before the battered fortress of Balliol, with its graceless Victorian façade. The ultimate effectiveness of Colonel Appleyard’s mortar fire was apparent. The tower had been reduced to a stump, and two large sections of the façade were patched rather clumsily with new stone. A sort of scaffold had been erected outside the main gate and the college flag hung over it.

The crowd here was as large as Martha and Greybeard had seen in years. Although the atmosphere was more solemn than gay, hawkers moved among the numbers assembled, selling scarves and cheap jewellery and hats made of swans’ feathers and hot dogs and pamphlets. Morton pointed to one man who bore a tray full of broadsheets and books.

“You see — Oxford continues to be the home of printing, right to the bitter end. There is much to be said for tradition don’t you know. Let’s see what the rogue has to offer, eh?”

The rogue was a husky broken-mouthed man with a notice pinned to his coat saying “Bookseller to the University Press”, but most of his wares were intended, as Morton’s friend Gavin remarked, turning over an ill-printed edition of a thriller, for the rabble.

Martha bought a four-page pamphlet produced for the occasion and headed, HAPPY NEW YEAR OXFORD 2030!! She turned it over and handed it to Greybeard.

“Poetry seems to have come back into its own. Though this is mainly nursery-pornographic. Does it remind you of anything?”

He read the first verse. The mixture of childishness and smut did seem familiar.

“Little man Blue Come rouse up your horn, The babies all bellow They aren’t getting born.”

“America…” he said. The names of everything had deserted him over almost thirty years. Then he smiled at her. “Our best man — I can see him so clearly — what was it he called this sort of stuff? ‘Slouch!’ By golly, how it takes you back!” He wrapped his arm round her.

“Jack Pilbeam,” she said. They both laughed, surprised by pleasure, and said simultaneously, “My memory is getting so bad…”

Momentarily, both of them escaped from the present and the festering frames and rotten breath of the crowd about them. They were back when the world was cleaner, in that heady Washington they had known.

One of Bill Dyson’s wedding presents to them was a permit for them to travel throughout the States. They took part of their honeymoon in Niagara, rejoicing in the hackneyed choice, pretending they were American, listening to the mighty fall of waters.

While they were there they heard the news. Martha’s kidnapper was found and arrested. He proved to be Dusty Dykes, the low comedian Jack Pilbeam had taken them to see. The news of the arrest made headlines everywhere; but next day there was a mighty factory fire in Detroit to fill the front pages.

That world of news and event was buried. Even in their memories, it lived only flickeringly; for they formed part of the general disintegration. Greybeard closed his eyes and could not look at Martha.

The parade began. Various dignitaries, flanked by guards, marched from the gates of Balliol. Some mounted the scaffold, some guarded the way. The Master appeared, old and frail, his face a dead white against his black gown and hat. He was helped up the steps. He made a speech as brief as it was inaudible, subsiding into a fit of coughing, after which the children emerged from the college.