Lucky Jim

When no reply came, he went quietly out and into his bedroom, where he lay on the bed smoking a cigarette and reflecting, to small purpose, on the events of the last hour. Margaret he succeeded in putting from his mind almost at once; it was all very complicated, buf then it had always been that, and he'd hated what she'd said to him and what he'd said to her, but then he'd been bound to do that. How well, really, the Callaghan girl had behaved, in spite of her stand-offishness at times, and how sound her suggestion had been. That, and her laughing fit, proved that she wasn't as 'dignant' as she looked. He remembered uneasily the awful glow of her skin, the distressing clarity of her eyes, the immoderate whiteness of those slightly irregular teeth. Then he cheered up a little as he put it to himself that her attachment to Bertrand was a fair guarantee of her being really very nasty. Yes, Bertrand; he must either make peace with him or keep out of his way.

Keeping out of his way would almost certainly be better; he could combine it with keeping out of Margaret's way. If Atkinson phoned punctually he'd be out of the house in well under the hour.

He put out his cigarette in the ashtray, taking twenty or thirty seconds over the job, then went and had a shave. Some time later a loud baying bawl of 'Dixon' brought him to the stairhead. 'Somebody want me?' he roared.

'Telephone. Dixon. Dixon. Telephone.'

In the drawing-room, Bertrand was sitting with his parents and his girl.

He pointed to the phone with his big head, then went on listening to his father, who, canted over in his chair like a broken robot, was saying splenetically: 'In children's art, you see, you get what you might call a clarity of vision, a sort of thinking in terms of the world as it appears, you see, not as the adult knows it to be. Well, this… this…'

'That you, Jim?' said Atkinson's cruel voice. 'How are things at Barnum and Bailey's?'

'AH the better for hearing your voice, Bill.'

While Atkinson, unexpectedly garrulous, described a case he'd been reading about in the /News of the World, /asked Dixon's opinion on a clue in its prize crossword, and made an impracticable suggestion for the entertainment of the company at the Welches', Dixon watched the Callaghan girl listening to something Bertrand was explaining about art.

She was sitting bolt upright in her chair, her lips compressed, wearing, he noticed for the first time, exactly what she'd been wearing the previous evening. Everything about her looked severe, and yet she didn't mind sheets and charred table-tops, and Margaret did. This girl hadn't minded fried eggs eaten with the fingers, either. It was a puzzle.

Raising his voice a little, Dixon said: 'Well, thanks very much for ringing, Bill. Apologize to my parents, will you, and tell them I'll be back as soon as I can?'

'Tell Johns from me where to put his oboe before you go.'

'I'll do my best. Good-bye.' "That's the real point about Mexican art, Christine,' Bertrand was saying.' Primitive technique can't have any virtue in itself, obviouslam.'

'No of course not; I see,' she said.

'I'm afraid I shall have to leave right away, Mrs Welch,' Dixon said.

"That phone call…'

They all looked round at him, Bertrand impatiently, Mrs Welch censoriously, Welch with incomprehension, Bertrand's girl without curiosity. Before Dixon could begin to explain, Margaret walked in through the open door, followed by Johns. Her recovery from prostrating fatigue had been rapid; had Johns somehow assisted it?

GARDEN CITY LIBRARY

'A-ah,' Margaret said. It was her usual greeting to a roomful of people; a long, exhaled, downward glissando. 'Hallo, everybody.'

Those already in the room began moving uneasily about in response to this. Welch and Bertrand began talking simultaneously, Mrs Welch looked rapidly to and fro between Dixon and Margaret, Johns hung whey-faced at the threshold. When Welch, still talking, sprang ataxically from his chair towards Johns, Dixon, finding his own chance to talk about to lapse, moved forward. He heard Welch use the phrase 'figured bass'. He coughed, then said loudly and with unforeseen hoarseness: Tm afraid I've got to be off now. My parents have come to see me unexpectedly.' He paused, to give room for any cries of protest and regret. When none came, he hurried on: "Thank you very much for putting me up, Mrs Welch;

I've enjoyed myself very much. And now I'm afraid I really must be off.

Good-bye, all.'

Avoiding Margaret's eye, he walked through the silence and out of the door. Apart from making him feel he might die or go mad at any moment, his hangover had vanished. Johns grinned at him as he passed.

'On, Dixon, can I have a word with you?'