As Near as I Can Get (16 page)

The bus swerved up to the stop and I mounted mechanically and, since its abrupt arrival had almost exactly coincided with my final rejection of the idea of paid intercourse, pointlessly. Although the traffic was light and should therefore have been predictable, the driver seemed to be behind schedule for he sent the massive vehicle hurtling round the flat, residential crescent with wheels swishing and motor roaring. So intense, indeed, was the centrifugal impulse generated that I felt a twinge of nausea and resentment and a satiny, fierce old lady opposite began to stir
and murmur indignantly. ‘Give her a chance’, I thought, ‘she belongs here, in these substantial houses. She grew up in a world that could be meaningfully related to her own experience. Don’t affront her with dynamics.’

My own cerebral dynamo began to turn again as it grew dark and, after nothing more stirring than an idle stroll, I wandered out of the park at Marble Arch into Neonville. Under the Arch had been Tyburn Tree, braced beams of execution from which putrifying felons had swung. Stupid old world of mere bodily potential, picking pockets, apprehended, dragged to the dungeon, carted to Tyburn Tree for
al
fresco,
hempen strangulation with the sweaty,
boisterous
mob swapping their unsuspected bacilli and the smell of sewage and blood. Coaches rolling down from the north had passed carts creaking home to the farm and the little, wind-dragged hulls had bobbed erratically across interminable oceans. Tyburn Tree, the gaunt gallows, there where now the surging traffic swept endlessly round the monumental arch—and the teamed horses, sailing ships,
cottages
and dungeons….

As I waited for a gap in the traffic stream, I suddenly had a vision of change so fundamental, of a world structure and dynamic so different from those of even our
grandfathers
, that my thoughts recoiled with a little thrill of revulsion. It wasn’t (in its essence) the machines, our mighty technology, nor the quality of urban life, nor the stupendous weapons, nor the covetous eyes already prospecting outwards from our island in space—it was a change in the basic integration of our species into the cosmic environment, an irreversible change, survive or perish, modify this or that aspect of daily life, mitigate the glaring political anomalies of what was, in fact, a global machine civilization, do anything or nothing, we could never go back. We were in the midst of a ‘crisis in evolution’ and, cast whatever intensity of nostalgic backward glance on the
pretechnological
world, we could no more return to it, no more inhabit the conceptual, though we might be able to
simulate the physical, environment of our forefathers than they could have retreated back to the tribal jungle. We, of the twentieth century, were a new force in the cosmos.

Giddy from this unexpected blow, the reassuring and seductive thoughts of saloon bars and girls now beginning to mobilize for a counter-attack in the margins of my consciousness, I belted across the road, under the aggressive snout of a zooming sports car, and gazed greedily around for a pub.

In the second or third, a rasping, almost chemically
unmistakeable
, voice modified my order.

‘He means two pints.’

Which, with an unnecessary glance, and a disconcerting stab of pleasure at what it revealed, at Willy Logan, I confirmed to the barman. I had been unable to shed the oppressive metaphysics. The blue lights, the soft lights, pile carpets, docile drinkers had refused to become reassuring and behind and through and permeating London pub life I had felt the mighty stress of evolution warping the skeleton of the world.

‘Willy!’

To his patent, blinking surprise, I embraced the little swindler, doting on the rock of his beer-bloated face and the happy materialism behind.

‘You been—at the golden syrup again?’

‘Willy, nice—no really——’

I wanted to explain what an asset he was, a prop in the dark mine of the world, a cheery light, a crude, easily fathomable biped of indispensable qualities, in the night of saloon bars. And, in fact, for a quarter of an hour or so, his elaborate monologue, leading up, I cheerfully suspected, to what I complacently knew must be an unsuccessful touch, of ‘bashed up wings’, ‘fixed clocks’ and other arcana of the automobile trade, in which I inferred he was currently exercising his substantial criminal talents, sounded, after the awful beating of the angel’s wing, as comforting as a happy ending to a half-dozing child. I gazed at him, absorbed in
the epic of ‘The Jaguar and the Major’, occasionally for greater assurance, allowing my glance to drift past his fleshy nose on to the pekinese corrugations of the squat, blonde barmaid’s face, or towards young Geoff and Lila, mild and wordless, having a big evening together at a low table by the wall. When we reached the ‘couple of quid—even one—just till tomorrow when I’ll have the cheque for the Jag.’, I eased myself sufficiently far out of my comfortable reverie to display a wallet containing one ten shilling note and also a palmful of small change, and wondered if he’d now breeze off to more fruitful pastures. But no. I sensed that the touch had been more routine than urgent and that, having already dedicated so much narrative effort to me, he found himself, in a way, committed to my company for the evening.

‘Well, we’d better go to this party….’

That was where I saw Ned Collins again, in that little, lantern-hung orchard (lawn with fruit trees) behind a Chelsea wall in which some car dealer was holding a party and to which the unworldly man had invited Willy and, I gathered, ‘a friend? Bring as many as you like.’ Our transit of the metropolis was interrupted by various calls for refreshment and, by the time we reached the entrancing scene, neither metaphysics nor automobile transactions any longer marred the purity of our
rapport.
Hoarsely chanting a bawdy song, we lurched in among the momentarily diverted guests, and almost the first mortal to swim into definition before me, nestling under a baby pear tree, was Ned Collins. I detached myself from the clinging Willy, a cloud of militant, but imperfectly directed, resentment gathering on my brow and marched over to confront the courteous journalist.

‘Well?’

‘Yes?’ imperturbably he inquired.

But somehow I could not quite isolate the relevant source of grievance and was ultimately compelled, after a mere scathing glance, and a feeling of nameless wrongs
unavenged
,
to go and join Willy in his attempt to undress the dealer’s squealing sister, a ladylike but rather scrawny girl who seemed torn between appropriate indignation at the outrage and pleasure at the unaccustomed attention, in a little bower of lilac. She kept stuttering:

‘Really—I say—George! (her brother)—no, stop it, now stop it—oh dear——’

While Willy unbuttoned and unzippered all the fastenings he could locate. Finally, when her skirt seemed in imminent danger of dropping to the ground, she suddenly smote Willy roundly on the face and burst into tears. And then a lot of male guests came over and manhandled us out into the street. I had taken no part, beyond encouraging exclamations, in the exploit, and indeed had remained partially absorbed in speculation about Ned Collins. It wasn’t until we were being rather roughly propelled across the garden that I suddenly and dismally recalled who he really was. I caught a glimpse of his bland, amused face observing our ejection. Hell! I had been, quite unjustifiably, jealous of him, yes, but I had also wanted to make a good impression. Somehow he had already assumed a rôle in my phantasy life—powerful protector and inalienable friend. I had seen us, walking together, drinking together, complementing each other’s sphere of vision, elevating friendship to an art.

‘No, for God’s sake——’

But Willy, now virtually demented, after bawling ‘Bastards! Swine!’ several times and finding this an
inadequate
expression of his displeasure, lifted a bicycle from the kerb and lobbed it over the wall. Looking back from the corner, to which, after this gesture, I had precipitately removed myself, I watched Willy, unwisely it seemed to me, attempting to scale the wall, doubtless for the purpose of haranguing the gathering below. He failed in the attempt, probably too heavy with liquor, and, somewhat appeased, looked around for me. He failed to locate me and I,
marvelling
that no one had yet emerged to reason with, or fell,
him, turned the corner after watching him begin to stride, only slightly unsteadily, away in the other direction.

In spite of Ned, of the disgust or contempt he might have felt, or rather because, residually, I felt a certain complacent assurance that he would not have been
too
disgusted, that he might even have been amused at, and sympathetic towards, our boisterous exploits, I felt pretty good for some time. I had a few more drinks, but met no one, and even contemplated returning to the party. Suddenly, however, as I was calling for a last drink at the ‘George’ before heading north towards Bayswater and home (furnished room), I felt wretched. A vulgar exploit with a common, obscene little crook. God, what a spectacle we must have been—not robust and merry, but squalid, mannerless and, worst of all, immature. Damn! And that poor girl. It suddenly seemed a monstrous thing that a scrawny, unattractive girl, but one who, like all young girls, doubtless trembled with need for reverent attention, should first have to pretend to herself that the gross and contemptuous advances of someone like Willy were the longed-for courtship and then actually be driven beyond the point at which the pretence was tenable. Squirming inwardly in intense self-disgust, I passed the ‘George’, in any case looking rather empty and forlorn, and plodded on towards the underground station and my hard bed.

Was it that autumn we went to Ireland? Only four or five months later? No, it can’t have been. It must have been the following autumn, for I didn’t see Ned again for months and after that our friendship developed slowly. We must have met next in the autumn—October? It was in a pub—I forget which. A casual glance across someone’s back and imperfect recollection protracting the glance to a point at which speech became necessary.

‘Oh yes—yes, of course——’

‘That party—in Chelsea—fruit trees——’

After a period of smiling reflection, Ned asked, ‘Tell me, was it you who threw that bicycle over the wall?’

I denied this cautiously, retaining the possibility of
claiming
a share in the exploit since, as proved to be the case, and as I had half-suspected, Ned might have been not entirely unsympathetic towards it.

‘No really,’ he insisted, ‘I thought it was a splendid gesture.’

It seemed that Ned had been there in a semi-professional capacity, the car-dealer host (apparently the latest rags to riches candidate and now a millionaire known as the Barrow King) having been considered worthy, by one of his editors, of a satirical feature story. I was charmed by Ned’s fluent, ironic, evocative description of his investigation and deeply impressed by the way in which he resisted the inertial drive to go on being amusing at the expense of the Barrow King’s sister, who had struck him as a ‘sincere and rather fine’ person. At this point, I felt in a moral quandary, having gathered from his earlier remarks that he had little idea as to the reason for Willy’s and my ejection and yet now feeling that I ought to declare that it was this same ‘sincere and rather fine’ person towards whom we had behaved atrociously. However, I was spared the necessity for confession by the arrival, in the bar, of someone (one of the strangest-looking men I have ever seen: a vast oriental with a bald, domed head, spectacles, wispy-moustache, scholar’s face, a sort of amalgam of a mandarin and a Japanese wrestler) who was obviously expected and with whom Ned clearly had an appointment. I withdrew.

I suppose I always deferred to Ned in a way. And perhaps because of it, effortless though our later companionship was, somewhere, in some cranial recess, I retained a little charge of protest. Not at what he said, what he did, what he was—at its best, this remote, intangible reserve represented a genuine claim on behalf of the irrational, the potential, the regions beyond the grasp of civilized exposition, the womb of song, sacrifice and the future, and at its worst, it expressed the inescapable resentment of the inferior. I never led, never initiated, never questioned his
right to dominate in his sphere of competence nor pondered his duty, until the beginning of the end in Ireland, to enter mine.

Until that winter, other than in the pubs and clubs, I had never really found a harbour in London. There were a few flats and studios in which one occasionally paused, to sleep on the floor, drink wine and jive, wait while someone dressed for a tour; there was Mike Rea’s shabby den in which I lived on and off for the first few years, and there was the succession of furnished rooms, some more productive than others of tolerable fellow-tenants and the miniature community life of shared kitchens, bathrooms, meals and, too infrequently, beds. But, until I acquired casual and regular access to Ned Collins’s smartly-furnished, cosy, four-room warren of interconnecting rooms on the second floor of a pleasant square off Queensway, there was no authentic living space in which I felt at home.

When did I first visit it? Can’t remember—or rather, can remember, throughout that mild autumn, meeting Ned here and there, talking, finding those mysterious links of cultural interest which, in the modern world, can bind people from the ends of the earth. Of course, there were Kingsley and Clark and others—it wasn’t for some time before I began to discriminate preferentially in favour of Ned, to wonder, with a sudden stab of pleasurable anticipation, on pushing through the swing doors of the A. & A., if he would be studying a paper inside or talking to a stranger.

Perhaps, one evening, before going on somewhere for a few pints, I simply accompanied him home to wait while he collected a typescript or looked to see if an important letter had arrived—through the November streets, sodden leaves in the gutter, the moisture and muck-laden air
diffusing
the beams of street lights and cars, passing muffled executives and fur-wrapped matrons and children
wheeling
stuffed Guys and demanding funds for their projective pyrotechnic incineration—perhaps on firework night itself,
the air thick with the choking fumes of chemical combustion and glowing balls of coloured fire popping out, and alarmed dogs barking hoarsely, back to Ned’s flat. I wish I had them all, each paving stone, each trodden leaf, each face passed once on a city street—that nothing need be lost.