The Indian Clerk (40 page)

"Who?"

"Your mother."

"Oh, yes." He sits up in bed. This must be Maisie.

"You weren't here last summer, were you?"

"No, sir, I started just before Christmas." A cry issues from downstairs. "Excuse me, sir, but like I said, she's asking after
you. She's been ever so grumpy this morning."

"Fine, I'll be there in a minute."

"Very good, sir."

"And close the door!"

"Sorry, sir." It clicks shut. A house of women. He gets out of bed, puts on his clothes, is just finishing combing his hair
when he hears the voice again. "Mr. Hardy—"

"Yes?"

"I'm very sorry, sir, but she's got quite ill-tempered. She won't have her breakfast, wants you to go down."

"Very well. I'm coming, Mother!" he shouts, and hurries downstairs, his shirt still half-unbuttoned. His dying mother. Why
does it all feel like a stage comedy?

On the bed that has been dragged into the drawing room for her to die on, Mrs. Hardy lies on her back, gazing up at the ceiling.
Her gray hair is tied with a bow. Maisie sits at her side, lifting a spoon from a bowl.

"Well, Mother, I'm here," he says.

"Harold," she says weakly. "Sit down. Sit down next to me."

Obligingly Maisie gets up. She hands him the bowl; the spoon. "See if you can get her to eat," she says, then strides off
with the brisk vigor of youth to the kitchen.

His mother smiles up at him. He smiles back.

"Well," he says. "And how about some breakfast?"

"Dear Harold. I was speaking of you today with your father."

"Oh yes?"

"He was just back for dinner—from the—the boys were . . ."

"Where, Mother?"

"And then we were shelling peas."

"But what about father?"

"Don't bother to ask," Maisie says, returning with a cup of coffee, which she hands to him. "She'll never follow anything
to the end." And Maisie's right. Mrs. Hardy's conversation, if you can call it that, is all sentences that stroll and meander
and collapse into themselves; infinite regresses, like Russell's barber. Things he recognizes from the past are mixed up with
references to people he's never heard of, as if she's half slipped into someone else's life.

"Won't you rub my legs?"

"Your legs?"

"They're so sore."

"I'll just call Maisie," he says, but before he can stand, she grabs hold of his wrist. Her grip is stronger than he would
have guessed.

"No, not the girl," she says. "You."

"Mother, I . . . Maisie!"

The girl comes in, wiping her wet hands on her apron.

"Maisie, will you rub her legs?"

"I'm not rubbing her legs, the last time I tried she nearly bit my hands off. She only lets Miss Hardy do it."

"Rub my legs, Harold."

"You'd better do it, sir. I'll show you how. There now, Mrs. Hardy, I'm not going to touch you, I'm just lifting up the blankets . . ."

"Mother, perhaps you should wait until—"

"There." The blankets are lifted back, exposing his mother's fragile torso in its nightdress, the stockinged feet. He remembers
Lawrence describing, with horror and relish, the sight of Keynes in his striped pyjamas. "Now I'll just pull back your nightdress—"

"Don't!"

"All right, Mrs. Hardy, don't worry!" Maisie backs away. "You do it," she says to Hardy. "Come on."

Hesitantly Hardy bends toward his mother; touches his hands to the hem of the nightdress.

"How far back?"

"Halfway above the knees."

But halfway to what? Halfway between the knees and what?

"Maisie, how did she get these bruises?"

"She bruises easily, sir."

"But Mother, it might hurt you if—"

"Please rub my legs."

"All right." And he touches the skin, which is warm, the consistency of paper. He moves his hands up and down. "Is that all
right?"

She closes her eyes.

"Well, I'll just be getting back to the kitchen," Maisie says.

"You know this building used to be a school."

"Did it?"

"The governesses would get very cross. The girls used to cry. The other day in town I ran into . . . I ran into . . . Florence
Turtle and she . . . With the loveliest violets . . ." She seems to be gasping, as much for her thought as for air. "That's
what gives it its atmosphere," she concludes.

"Well, Mother, and what do you think of Gertrude's new dog?"

"The dog whelped outside the kitchen . . . We had to drown the pups . . . The girls—Margaret said they shouldn't see, but
I . . . and the school." Suddenly she looks up at him. "You should marry. I fear for you, dear."

He looks away. "Mother—"

"The eye worries you, I know. But you can be discrete. So long as you never let him see you with it out . . ."

"Oh, yes." He keeps rubbing, harder now, so that he feels the bones through the dry flesh. It strikes him that in her ravings
(what else is there to call them?) a common theme keeps emerging. She speaks of school. And why not? All her life she has
spent in schools. Both she and his father. From Ramanujan's perspective, there must be little difference between him and Littlewood,
him and Russell. All are children of affluence to him. And how can he be expected to recognize what separates Hardy from the
others? For Littlewood comes from a Cambridge family; Russell is an aristocrat. Whereas Hardy is merely the child of teachers.
Not born, as Russell was, with any guarantees. No private income. Easy enough for Russell to declare that if Trinity doesn't
want him, he'll simply teach on his own in London. He can afford to. But Hardy is dependent on Trinity, just as his father
was dependent on Cranleigh, his mother on the Training College, his sister on St. Catherine's. The only difference is one
of prestige. Without the support of munificent institutions, all of them would be lost. He is more like Mercer than Littlewood.

After she has fallen asleep, and he has tucked her in again, he goes into the sitting room. He wants to have a word with Gertrude—about
something, he's not sure what—but of course, the plan is for him to leave before Gertrude returns. And if he's to be on time
for his appointment—at the prospect of which he flushes with pleasure and a slight revulsion, to think that these hands, which
so lately rubbed his mother's legs, will soon be touching Thayer's; one set old, the other maimed—if he's to be on time, he'll
have to leave soon.

So he leaves. He has his rendezvous with Thayer. He spends the night in London, at the flat. But on Sunday he returns to Cranleigh.
Gertrude seems only mildly surprised to see him there.

"How was your day in town?" he asks.

"Adequate," she says. "I treated myself to tea at Fortnum's. Rather a limited spread, given the rationing."

"It's even got to Cambridge. At Trinity it's fish and potatoes but no meat on Tuesdays and Fridays, meat but no potatoes the
rest of the week. No vegetables to speak of."

"One wonders how Ramanujan survives."

"One does." He looks away from her, at the fire, next to which Daisy sleeps. Then he says, "Gertrude, I want to talk to you
about Mother."

"Oh?"

"She's got very demanding. The whole time you were gone she insisted that I sit with her and that I rub her legs."

"Yes, it seems to soothe her."

"My impression is that you coddle her. And then, because you rub her legs, I must rub her legs, else the sky will fall."

"An interesting point," she says. "Given how infrequently you're here, it hasn't seemed much of a problem until now."

"Well, but if I am here . . . in the summer and such . . ."

"So I'm to refuse our dying mother's wish that I rub her legs in order that you, on the rare occasions when you happen to
visit, won't be burdened? Is that what you mean?"

"No, it's not what I mean. What I mean is—it can't be good for her."

"No, we mustn't spoil the child, else she'll grow up rotten."

"Oh, for God's sake, Gertrude. Look, just because you're willing to give up everything—"

"Yes, I've chosen to do that. I could have chosen differently. I could have just left and then you would have been it."

"So I'm to be punished because I have the life I have?"

He sits down; rests his chin on his hand. How helpless he looks! Helpless enough, Gertrude thinks, to melt anger. To inspire
tenderness. And to think that he thinks himself a feminist!

She's tempted to touch his shoulder. To help him out of the hole into which he's dug himself. To give him an out. She almost
feels kindly enough. But not quite. Not quite.

It takes him about an hour to read the partitions paper. About ten minutes in, Littlewood arrives, in uniform and looking
the worse for wear. He sits near the back, then pulls a pencil and what appears to be a postcard from his rucksack and begins
taking furious notes. Indeed, every time Hardy looks up, he's taking notes—and always on the same postcard, which he keeps
turning, presumably in order to find another cranny he can fill with figures. It's his usual maniacal style—vexing to Hardy,
who believes in penmanship, in cream-colored eighty-pound paper, in legibility. Should Hardy make a mistake when he is writing
something, he will not cross it out; no, he'll start again with a fresh sheet. Littlewood, by contrast, seems to take a peculiar
satisfaction in the very messiness of the page, as if somehow, from amid that morass of symbols and equations and blots, a
vision will coalesce.

Neville takes no notes. He neither blinks nor moves. His hands are coiled on his lap.

Hardy has very strong opinions about how one should read a paper aloud. Some of his colleagues, when they stand before a group
of listeners, become amateur actors; they dash off witticisms, use their pointers as if they were epees, indulge themselves
in the crudest flourishes. Hardy, on the other hand, believes that the work should take center stage, and therefore tries
to speak, today, in as uninflected a voice as he can manage, with the result that two or three of the older members of the
audience fall asleep. When he finishes, the weakest of applause greets him. No one understands the paper's importance. He
takes two questions, one from Littlewood, the other from Barnes, both technical, after which the meeting breaks up, and he
finds himself surrounded by a group of predatory dons from obscure universities, all with narrow little inquiries to make,
the sort of inquiries that seem designed to lead him into a trap, or to catch him out in an error. Such feeble efforts, however,
he deflects easily, and his persecutors leave disappointed, unrewarded.

The circle breaks up, revealing Neville, who takes Hardy's right hand in both of his. "Very well done," he says. "It does
my heart good to see all Ramanujan's managed since he's been here."

"Indeed."

"A pity he couldn't make it."

"Oh, you know Ramanujan, this isn't really his sort of thing."

"But you did ask him."

"No, I—he hasn't been feeling well."

"And will you be seeing Alice while you're in town?"

Neville laughs. "No," he says. "She's far too busy with her translating to see me. I'm going back to Cambridge right after
this. Alice will come down tomorrow." He lowers his voice. "Funny thing, her staying in your flat. If I didn't know you so
well, I'd say, 'Hands off the wife!'"

With a laugh, Neville punches him softly on the shoulder.

"Well, there's nothing to be concerned about on that front," Hardy says, "because the fact is, I never see her. I don't use
the flat during the week, only on weekends."

"I know. I'm just joking. Hello, Littlewood."

"Neville," Littlewood says. "Hardy."

"Littlewood." Hardy can smell beer on his breath.

"Well, I must be off," Neville says. But he hesitates. "Hardy—" No response. "Well, it's nothing. See you."

With a wave, he disappears through the great dark doors.

Littlewood gazes after him. "Poor devil," he says.

"I know."

"I wonder what Ramanujan will think."

"Littlewood, should I have asked Ramanujan to come up today?"

"I assumed you did."

"No, I—that is, I assumed that even if I did ask him, he wouldn't come."

"It might have been a kind gesture. After all, he's the coauthor. Oh dear, looks like we're being given the heave-ho," he
says, for by now the room has emptied out, and a char stands by the doors, impatient to tidy up. He and Hardy move toward
the doors. "Sorry to have kept you, darling," Littlewood says, winking at the char, so that she smiles at them.

They stroll out into the corridor, down the stairs, into the dusk light on Piccadilly.

"Shall we walk a bit?"

"As you like. Where are you heading?"

"Back to bloody Woolwich. The end of a very short leave, the bulk of which I spent, I'm sorry to say, engaging in activities
of a most insalubrious nature."

With or without Mrs. Chase? Hardy wonders. But he doesn't ask— not, as before, because he knows not to, but because he doesn't
know how.

"And have you seen Ramanujan's friend Winnie lately?"

"I haven't been by the zoo in ages." They stop in front of Hatchards, gaze through the window at a display of novels all of
which advertise their capacity to take readers far from London, far from the war. "I say, Hardy," Littlewood says, "you wouldn't
be willing to let me use the bath at your flat, would you? I'm filthy, and the chances of my getting a decent bath at Woolwich
are close to nil this late in the day."

"Of course you can have a bath," Hardy says. "We'll take the tube, shall we?"

"Thanks." And they descend. From the ticket hall, a moving stairway carries them down, effortlessly, into the earth. Hardy
hears the rumble of the mechanism; looks at the tired faces of the men and women on the other side of the partition, rising
as he and Littlewood fall.

"You know I saw you once climbing a tree?" Hardy says.

"What? When?"

"Just before you took the tripos. I remember that it struck me as particularly odd, that you should be climbing a tree when
all the other would-be wranglers were off practicing problems against the clock."

"I have no memory of ever engaging in any such activity. That said, I did try to maintain a lighthearted attitude toward the
tripos. I took things as they came."

"Unlike Mercer."

"Poor Mercer. He took it all very seriously. Too seriously."

They step onto the platform just as the train pulls in. The station smells of bakeries. The carriage is crowded. Not far off
from where they stand, holding straps to keep their balance, a woman tries to quiet a weeping baby. When Littlewood looks
at her, his face breaks a little, and Hardy, to avoid a scene, says, "If these air raids don't let up, I expect we'll all
be living in the Underground."

"I'd feel safer," says the woman with the baby.

"But they have let up lately," Littlewood says.

"Men in the sky in big balloons," the woman says. "It isn't natural. It isn't meant to be."

Hardy does not want to have a conversation with this woman. Yet Littlewood—it is his way—always manages to bring strangers
into the fold. "How old is your baby?"

"Three months. His name's Oscar."

"Poor fellow, he must not like the crowds. I'm a father myself."

"Are you now!"

"Yes, just a few months. A girl."

"What's her name?"

"Elizabeth."

"Elizabeth. What a lovely name. Now my sister, she's just had a baby girl, and she's insisted on burdening the poor thing
with Lucretia. I said, please, give the child a chance, let her be Gladys, Ida. But no. My sister's always put on airs. And
how's your wife? Sometimes after birth women become a bit touched—"

"Well, actually . . ." But this must be stopped, Hardy decides, so he leans into Littlewood, and asks in a low voice, a voice
meant to exclude, "Do you think there'll be a revolution in Russia?"

"Russell does."

"Oh, have you seen Russell lately?"

"We dined together last week."

"How is he?"

"In fine fettle. He says he wrote a biting piece about rich men deriving pleasure from the deaths of their sons, but Ottoline
wouldn't let him publish it."

"Wise of her, I suspect. You know why they're dismissing Neville, don't you?"

"I have my suspicions."

Now the train has arrived at Embankment station. Littlewood tips his hat to Oscar and his mother, and they get off; switch
onto the District and ride to Victoria. The sun has set in the meantime and when they step into the gloom of Hardy's flat,
he switches on the electric light, revealing Alice's chattels spread about the place, underwear hung to dry in the kitchen,
books and newspapers strewn across the table. He was telling the truth when he said he never stays here during the week—even
when he's had meetings of the Mathematical Society, he's stayed at a hotel or with friends—and now he sees for the first time
how Alice lives when he's away, for on Friday she always cleans everything up; leaves the place immaculate.

"What's all this?"

"Didn't you know? Mrs. Neville stays here during the week. She's working for Mrs. Buxton. The foreign press stuff."

"But what about you?"

"Well, tonight I was planning to go back to Cranleigh. My mother, you know—"

"So you only came here with me so that I could have a bath?"

"It's not a bother."

skin that forms over warm milk. Why can't people be honest? Mrs. Chase for inst. insisting that the baby is her husband's,
or Hardy who imagines that no one knows he's queer. Yet we persist in thinking that lying is the proper thing to do, hobbled
by our inbred attitudes, shutting the windows on the sun and saying, "What a pity the rain makes it

Hardy drops the diary, as if it's bitten him. From the bathroom, he hears Littlewood singing:

It suddenly occurs to Hardy that there are no towels in the bathroom. So he fetches one from the closet and knocks on the
door. "Yes?" Littlewood calls.

"I've brought you a towel."

"Come in, then."

Hesitantly Hardy enters. Steam rises from the tub, within which Littlewood, naked and immodest as ever, is smoking and scrubbing
himself with a big old-fashioned brush that Hardy doesn't recognize. It must belong to Alice. "I'll just hang this on the
hook here."

"Thanks." Littlewood lifts his left arm to soap his armpit. And how odd! Here in the bath he might once again be the young
man who climbed the tree just before the tripos, as if he's scrubbed away not just the grime of a debauched night, but time
and worry and age. To Hardy, his head looks too old for his body, as if, in a child's game, the mustached face of a middle-aged
man has been set atop the neck and torso of a youth: thin shoulders, visible ribs, the flat nipples pink against the white
flesh. Littlewood has his arm in the air, and for a moment Hardy is transfixed by the sight of his armpit hair; a whirlpool,
black water whitened with flecks of foam.