Some Here Among Us (2 page)

Then, a few yards ahead, Race saw someone coming towards him. Even in the fog the figure suggested haste and agitation. It came forward, stopped, bent down, straightened up and darted forward again, and then stood in front of him.

‘Morgan,’ said Race.

They stood a yard apart in the mist.

Morgan looked at Race without any sign of surprise.

‘Oh,’ he said, ‘Race Radzienwicz.’

‘What are you doing?’ said Race.

‘I’m looking for something,’ said Morgan.

He bent down and examined the pavement at the foot of a parking meter beside them.

‘What?’

‘Something I lost.’

‘You want some help?’ said Race.

‘Possibly.’

Race bent down and looked at the ground as well.

They went to the next meter and repeated the action.

‘It might help,’ Race said, looking into the gutter – he noticed its clean, dry walls – ‘if I knew what I was looking for.’

‘Not necessarily,’ said Morgan. ‘If you saw it, you’d know.’

‘How did you lose it?’

‘I put it down,’ said Morgan. ‘Somewhere round here.
Somewhere
. . .
or
. . .
other
.’

He was, Race realised, quite drunk as well. Morgan had also been at the fancy-dress ball at the university, although he had not worn fancy dress. Nor had he gone with a partner. Race had seen him at about midnight, dancing alone, with absorption, right up by the stage, almost under the guitar-necks of the band.

‘It’s not here,’ said Morgan, ‘and I know it’s not down there—’

They had reached the intersection and Morgan stood looking into the mists of Wakefield Street.

‘I didn’t go down Wakefield Street, so I can’t have left them down there, now can I?’

‘Them?’ said Race. ‘I thought it was an it.’

‘It’s an it and a them,’ said Morgan.

‘How can it be?’

‘How can it not be?’ said Morgan. ‘Most things are.’

‘Cut it out,’ said Race.

‘All right,’ said Morgan. ‘It’s jewellery. They are several separate jewels, forming a single item of jewellery.’

‘Jewels!’ said Race. ‘What kind of jewels?’

‘Rubies,’ said Morgan. ‘Or possibly amber.’

‘Where did you get them?’

Morgan didn’t answer.

‘And why leave them in the street?’ said Race.

‘I heard the police coming,’ said Morgan, ‘and so I hid them.’

‘The
police
?’ said Race.

‘Oh, OK,’ said Morgan, in the tone of a man burdened by many unreasonable demands. ‘First I went to the fancy-dress dance. It was
quite
a good band, I thought.’

He stood at the corner and sang:

There must be some way out of here

Said the gaoler to the thief

His voice was light and rather hoarse.

‘Joker,’ said Race. ‘It’s joker, not gaoler.’

‘Gaoler’s better,’ said Morgan.

Race screwed up one eye to consider this in the fog – the sacrilege of re-writing Dylan.

‘Then after the dance, I came downtown and went to that dive you go to,’ said Morgan.

‘I don’t go to it,’ said Race. ‘I went to it once in my life, tonight.’

‘I went to your filthy dive,’ said Morgan, ‘and I met some people there who asked me to a party. One was called Pinky, and one was her girlfriend, and one was this beautiful girl called Butterfly. And I went to the party and I was dancing with Butterfly and then I kissed her. Then I left and came down here and broke a shop window and took a ruby necklace.’

‘Oh,’ said Race.

He thought for a while.

‘But, I mean –
why
?’ he said.

‘Well, I was dancing with Butterfly,’ said Morgan, ‘and she and I went out in the back garden and we kissed. This was a party up on The Terrace and we went out the back, and we kissed and then Butterfly said: “Excuse me. I have to have a pee.” And she went over to the wall and lifted her skirt and she pissed against the wall. Butterfly was a boy! And I thought “Oh, boy! What am I doing here?” and I got out of there. I ran away and I came back downtown and took this necklace.’

‘Oh,’ said Race.

‘Then I heard the police coming,’ said Morgan, ‘so I put it down by a parking meter and walked away. And then I realised it wasn’t the police, it was only a fog horn, and now I can’t remember which parking meter it was.’

‘I see,’ said Race.

He looked at Morgan in the dark, concealing his surprise. He was surprised not only at what he had just been told but that Morgan had told him at all, for after all they were not friends, they had never been friends since the day they met: Race remembered the occasion clearly. He had walked into FitzGerald’s room six months earlier, at the beginning of term, and there were two men prowling round, watching each other like wrestlers before a clinch. One was Adam Griffin, FitzGerald’s new room-mate, whom Race had met once or twice already that week. The other he had never seen before. Griffin started to speak:

They said “You have a blue guitar,

You do not play things as they are
,” 

‘
Things as they are
,’ said the other, ‘
are changed upon the blue guitar
.’

‘
But play, you must
,’ said Griffin, ‘
a tune beyond us, yet ourselves
.’

‘
A tune upon the blue guitar
,’ said the other, ‘
of things exactly as they are
.’

Race had no idea what they were talking about. He stood leaning on the door-jamb, listening. Griffin was short, fair, stocky, and had a stutter. He fixed you with an imploring blue eye as he stuttered, although now, Race noticed, the stutter had gone. The other man was tall, slim, Maori, wearing a fisherman’s black jersey and needle-cord jeans.

‘
The morning still deluged by night
,’ said Griffin.

‘
The clouds tumultuously bright
.’

‘
Like light in a mirroring of cliffs
—’ said Griffin.

‘
Rising up from the sea of ex
.’

The sea of ex! Race pretended not to be impressed. And he felt a little envious as well, he had to admit it: at most he and FitzGerald could sing a few lines of ‘Sloop John B’ together –
We sailed on the Sloop John B! My grand-daddy and me!
– but these two, they had whole poems by heart, it seemed, they could read each other’s minds. He was also beginning to feel some irritation. This was his territory, after all. FitzGerald was his best friend. They had been friends in childhood, and although they then moved to different towns and went to different schools, they had kept up their friendship. Now they were in the same hall: Race regarded Fitzgerald’s room almost as his own. But these two strangers hardly glanced at him when he came in.

‘
We shall sleep by night and forget by day
,’ said Griffin.

‘
Except
,’ said the other, ‘
the moments when we choose to play
—’

Then they both chanted, ‘
The imagined pine, the imagined jay
!
’ and they laughed and swiped hands like basket-players.

‘What was all that about?’ said Race, coming off the door-jamb.

‘All what about?’ said the other man.

‘The guy with a blue guitar,’ said Race.

‘It’s, it’s, it’s—’ said Griffin.

‘It’s “The Man with the Blue Guitar”,’ said the other.

‘This, this—’ said Griffin.

‘Who’s the man with the blue guitar?’ said Race.

‘This is Morgan,’ said Griffin.

‘You don’t know “The Man with the Blue Guitar”?’ said Morgan.

He studied Race intently, without warmth.

‘No,’ said Race.

‘
Really?
’ said Morgan. His amazement appeared to be genuine. And then Race felt not just envious, but ashamed as well, and more irritated than ever. ‘Some guy with a blue guitar!’ he thought, and from that point on he decided to steer clear of Morgan or treat him warily, but in fact there had been no need to take that precaution: Morgan showed no sign of wanting his friendship, or anyone else’s for that matter, apart from Griffin’s. He and Griffin were very close, almost inseparable in fact: after a while they even seemed to resemble each other physically, like two statues which look quite different but which have been carved by the same hand – Griffin, short, stocky, with his anxious blue eye, his cowl of fair hair, Morgan slim, dark, calm, remote. Race crossed their path from time to time, but since that first meeting he and Morgan had hardly exchanged a word. Yet here was Morgan now, in the fog, in the depths of the night, calmly relating what anyone else might have regarded as private matters if not deep secrets. Kissing a boy called Butterfly . . . stealing a ruby necklace . . .

‘How did you break it?’ he said.

‘What?’ said Morgan.

‘The window.’

‘With a bottle,’ said Morgan.

‘What sort of bottle?’

‘A milk bottle,’ said Morgan.

‘A milk bottle!’ said Race. ‘You can break a plate-glass window with a milk bottle?’

‘I did,’ said Morgan.

They were walking on now, in the direction Race had been going when they met.

‘Full or empty?’ said Race.

‘Full,’ said Morgan with dignity.

‘Did it break?’ Race said, after a while.

‘What?’

‘Did the milk bottle break as well?’

‘Oh, you’d better just come and see,’ said Morgan.

They went through the fog and into a narrow lane that led to Manners Street.

‘Stop,’ said Morgan in a whisper.

Further down the alley Race could see a shop with a broken plate-glass window. There were voices, and muffled laughter. He saw a figure inside the window handing objects out to someone on the pavement. Morgan tapped Race on the shoulder and silently motioned for him to move away.

They went back to the open street.

‘That was Pinky!’ said Morgan. ‘Pinky and her girlfriend.’

His eyes registered disbelief, outrage, at what had just been witnessed.

‘What the hell is Pinky doing there?’ he said, still speaking in a whisper. ‘That was
my
smash ’n’ grab.’

2

They walked on, Morgan occasionally looking back in the dark, as if at the source of a great mystery. They arrived at Willis Street and then went up Boulcott, behind St Mary of the Angels, and began to climb the steep stairs of Allenby Terrace.

‘Allenby Terrace . . .’ Morgan said, now speaking in a normal conversational tone. ‘It’s a surprise, really, don’t you think, that they named a street after Allenby?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Race.

They had stopped at the first dog-leg of the steps, under a streetlight half-hidden by a creeping vine.

‘Our troops hated General Allenby. Don’t you know the story?’

‘No,’ said Race.

‘I’ll tell you the story,’ said Morgan. ‘It’s really the story of someone called Leslie Lowry. Want to hear the story of Leslie Lowry?’

‘Yes,’ said Race.

‘OK,’ said Morgan. ‘Leslie Lowry, a young soldier, a trooper, is asleep in his tent one night in Palestine, and in the middle of the night he’s woken up. Why is he woken? Think of that painting by Rousseau – the lion and the man asleep in the desert. Although Leslie’s not woken by a lion but by his pillow. His pillow is moving under his head! Actually, it’s not a pillow, it’s his kitbag. This is World War One. Leslie’s using his kitbag as a pillow and in the middle of the night his kitbag starts to move. What’s happening? Leslie wakes up. What’s his kitbag doing? Where’s it going? Hey – there’s someone in his tent! He jumps up. The other man runs away, and Leslie goes after him. Remember – we’re in Palestine. It’s 1918. Leslie is in camp, surrounded by hundreds of soldiers. It’s the Anzac Division. They’ve been at Gallipoli, and they’ve been in France and now they’re in Palestine. They’ve just conquered Palestine under General Allenby and now Leslie’s chasing a thief through the dark. The thief doesn’t stop. He makes for the lines. And then they’re out in the desert. The thief’s probably fairly young, and fast, and – you can’t deny his courage – he’s brave, sneaking into a camp of thousands of soldiers to steal a kitbag. Away he goes. Leslie keeps after him. Leslie’s young too, and he’s probably fairly fit – he’s a country boy. He’s played a bit of rugby.’

‘Wait a minute,’ said Race. ‘How do you know all this?’

He didn’t really care, but he thought that Morgan shouldn’t be allowed to talk too long without interruption.