The Naylors (17 page)

But if the amenity, almost the cosiness, of Uncle George’s developing relationship with the minder was a surprise to Hilda, another surprise was sprung on her by her uncle later that evening. Dinner was over, and Father Hooker (who was proving to be not without gleams or glints of social tact) had declared his intention of taking a solitary stroll beneath – as he expressed it – ‘that beautiful harvest moon’. The harvest moon was still a good many weeks ahead, but Father Hooker was not to be mocked because of that. If Sherlock Holmes was to be admired for knowing nothing about the Copernican System, an eminent theologian was not to be aspersed for getting lunar matters a little wrong. There
was
rather a splendid moon, and he was entitled to go out and enjoy it. And it gave George Naylor the opportunity for a comfortable chat with his niece.

‘My dear,’ he said, ‘can you tell me what a coincidence is?’

‘Something surprising brought about by chance.’

‘Why should we be surprised by anything brought about by chance? Chance is blind and mindless pretty well by definition isn’t it? So why should any of its operations seem surprising?’

‘It’s something to do with statistics and probabilities.’ Hilda was accustomed to whimsical catechisms of this sort from her uncle, but rather suspicious on the present occasion. ‘Is this to be more about necessity and free will and divine intervention?’

‘I suppose it might connect up that way, but it’s not what I’m thinking of. Coincidence is a notable coming together of
X
and
Y
counter to any probability – although probability, mark you, is an uncommonly tricky counter – and without distinguishable cause. Suppose Hooker and I are strangers . . .’

‘I rather wish you were.’

‘And suppose each of us happens to have a wooden leg. And we meet.’

‘But not at the club or clinic for wooden-legged men.’

‘Exactly!’ It was evident that Uncle George was delighted that his niece should be so promptly on the ball. ‘We may never have so much as heard of one another, but be attending the burial, say, of a common friend. So there we suddenly are, standing shoulder to shoulder at the graveside: two wooden-legged men.
That’s
a coincidence.’

‘So it is. But just what are we getting at?’

‘The girl who came to tennis.’

‘June Gale has been to a funeral?’

‘No, no: there’s no analogy of that sort. I simply felt this afternoon that she reminded me of somebody. I couldn’t place her, and was quite bothered about it. Then I realised that I’d actually run into Miss Gale herself a few days ago. It was in Oxford when I was on my way to Plumley. I rather think I told you how it was.’

‘You mean that June Gale was the girl’ – Hilda was gazing at her uncle round-eyed – ‘who . . . who landed you a hand-out on the bomb?’

‘Just that. And her bobbing up on me again within the week in an out of the way place like Plumley certainly rates as a coincidence. And no causality at work. No link. A completely random thing.’

‘Well, no.’ Hilda sought for further words. ‘Or, rather, perhaps not quite.’ She paused again, conscious that large new vistas may suddenly confront the inward eye. ‘Do you think that this afternoon she recognised you as somebody she’d canvassed in that way?’

‘I’m not all that striking, my dear.’ Uncle George must have found this a gratifying reflection, for he chuckled happily. ‘No doubt she was handing out those leaflets like mad. She wouldn’t know me from Adam.’

‘Masaccio’s Adam.’

‘Whatever do you mean by that?’

‘Something I
did
see in Florence. In the Carmine. It’s called
La Cacciata,
meaning the expulsion of Adam and Eve from Paradise. The Angel with his sword is above them. But what’s ahead is the bomb. It’s why Adam is shielding his eyes. I saw it that way at once.’

‘My dear child!’ For a moment Uncle George was silent. ‘Are you,’ he asked gently, ‘by way of thinking a good deal about the bomb?’

‘Not inordinately. But my whole generation, I suppose, gives a thought to it from time to time. One sees, perhaps, some children playing around in a field, or a street. And the bloody old bomb rears its ugly head.’

‘Yes.’ George was silent again, so that from the next room a faint quacking could be heard. It was the BBC entertaining Hilda’s parents to the nine o’clock news. ‘How have we got on to this?’

‘I was going to tell you about Christopher Prowse’s notice-board. You know it. Vicar: The Revd C. Prowse M.A.’

‘Of course I know it.’

‘Well – just the other day, it must have been – somebody stuck up a notice on it. BAN THE BOMB. Simply that.’

‘Might it have been the vicar himself?’ This came from Uncle George almost on a hopeful note. ‘A good many of the clergy – and of the Christian laity, too – are showing themselves ready to take a pretty stiff line about any sort of preparing for nuclear war.’

‘I suppose so.’ Hilda felt awkward; she hadn’t failed to register a kind of forlorn pride in this last remark. ‘But, no – it wouldn’t be Christopher Prowse. Nor his wife, either.’

‘Then who . . .?’

‘I came on the thing almost in the same moment that their nephew did. We stared at it together.’

‘The young man who’s going to be coached?’

‘The young man who says he is. Not-so-simple Simon. But what happened was this: Simon was absolutely furious, and wanted to tear the thing down. I had to stop him.’

‘Why did you want to do that, Hilda?’

‘Because I thought a church notice-board was a very reasonable place for such an injunction. Aren’t we told about a Prince of Peace, and so on?’

‘Yes.’ Uncle George’s silence was longer this time. ‘But this Simon’s reaction is quite a common one. Plenty of people see the anti-bomb folk as virtually emissaries from Moscow.’

‘Yes, I know. But it wasn’t that way with Simon. I’m
sure
it wasn’t. He was feeling that somebody had made a false, giveaway move. And I believe now that it was that girl.’

‘That girl?’ For the moment, Uncle George seemed merely puzzled. ‘What girl? I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

‘June Gale again, his inept apprentice – who’s presumably hand-out and sticker mad. And therefore in danger of blowing the gaff. Uncle George, can’t you
see
?’

‘As far as my nose, I suppose. But, Hilda, aren’t you perhaps seeing rather far beyond yours? And may it be a matter of professional instinct? I mean, to think up a plot, and generally to get things moving in sleepy old Plumley by dumping some dark design on the young man at the vicarage and his friend, my Oxford acquaintance. And you’re promisingly quick off your mark.’

Hilda was a good deal taken aback by this, with its devastating suggestion that she went around concocting novelettes in her head. Uncle George had been entirely serious about his Church’s (or his late Church’s) attitude to the bomb. It was too bad that he should now take to making fun of her. But she gave a swift glance at him and was a little reassured. Perhaps he was really testing her out.

‘I know it sounds absurd,’ she said. ‘But listen. That coaching stuff at the vicarage is nonsense. Charles has turned out to remember something about this Simon Prowse at Trinity. He seems quite clear about it. The vicar’s nephew was, and is, a high-flying Mods and Greats type, and probably as good as booked for All Souls. He could coach the lights out of his uncle, if he wanted to. So he’s here under false pretences.’

‘I see.’ Uncle George hesitated for a moment. ‘Would I be right in thinking you find this Simon rather attractive?’

‘Well, yes – in a mild way.’ Hilda wasn’t comfortable. She was also guilelessly surprised that her uncle had an eye open on this kind of territory. ‘But don’t think I’m other than quite fancy-free.’

‘You can see my point. If Simon is deceiving those innocent vicarage people, the spectacle isn’t merely freakish but rather disagreeable as well. And its most likely occasion is . . .’

‘Yes, I know. That’s how I’ve been seeing it up till now. Some sort of irresponsible sexual escapade. Miss Gale is really Mrs Somebody, perhaps. But no doubt that’s just my inventive mind again. Let’s get back to the bomb. And Nether Plumley.’

‘And
what
, Hilda?’

‘That new Institute. Doesn’t “Institute” sound peculiarly innocuous? One thinks of Women’s Institutes at once! “Establishment” is the sinister word. So there are no new Establishments. Just Institutes.’

‘My dear, isn’t your imagination now running riot?’

‘Just
think
, Uncle George, and you’ll see it’s doing nothing of the kind. What did that girl hand you in Oxford?’

‘A nuclear disarmament thing. Vigorous in its expression.’

‘Good. Point one. And here she is at Plumley. And here’s our Simon, pretending to be mastering the details of Pliny’s stupid villa, and in fact snooping around with field-glasses.’

‘And furious when our June rashly surfaces, so to speak, on that notice-board?’

‘Capital, Uncle George. That’s just it! The Institute, incidentally, is a Government Agency. That means there can be any amount of clamping down on it. And – again incidentally – it now has a tremendous-great perimeter fence.
And
—’ Hilda had suddenly remembered another recent accession of knowledge—’its people don’t go into the pubs. So there’s a hush-hush suggestion about the whole thing. What goes on is supposed to be a ploy called animal genetics. But nobody has ever seen any animals.’

‘They keep out of the pubs, too?’

‘Do be serious, Uncle George. And you see what I think. They pretend it’s animals, but it’s really something about bombs.’

‘But wouldn’t that be an imposture very difficult to sustain?’

‘And you see what’s brewing.’ Hilda had happily ignored her uncle’s distinctly cogent question. ‘Simon and that girl belong to a group proposing to expose it in some way, or do a demo or even a sit-in. Simon with his binoculars is spying out the ground for something of the sort. He may even be the prime mover in the whole plan.’

‘Perhaps you’re right.’ Uncle George did now appear to be serious, but nevertheless not greatly concerned. ‘I don’t quite see that it’s any business of ours.’

‘The bomb-thing ought to be everybody’s business.’

‘I agree with you there. And there’s a sense in which everybody has to take sides about it. Do you want to
do
something, Hilda?’

This question pulled Hilda up.

‘What do you mean –
do
something?’ she asked evasively. ‘In this immediate context, I mean. What
can
I do?’

‘Communicate your suspicions to the local bobby. Or, alternatively, chase up Simon and tell him you want to sign on.’

‘Yes. And – do you know? – Simon virtually challenged me. I’ve just remembered that too. It was when he and I had come on that thing on the notice-board, and I wouldn’t let him tear it down. It led to our having a short, random sort of talk about the whole nuclear mess. He struck me as rather incoherent, as if he was confronting an unexpected situation and feeling his way in face of it. Then he asked me if I’d be prepared to lie down in front of a truck. A truck conveying the things, he meant.’

‘Quite so. And did you—?’

Rather abruptly, Uncle George broke off. Father Hooker, having conversed with the moon, had returned to the house and entered the room.

‘A magnificent night,’ Father Hooker said. ‘How astounding seem the heavens! The moon must be felt as neighbourly now, but even Mars and Venus are another matter – although lately, indeed, brought within the reach of projectiles contrived by Man. Yet we must view the planets of our little solar system as merely jostling one another in the street when we consider the stars. Were I to travel – I remind myself – at the speed of light for millions of years I should barely come up with them. Nevertheless, meditated on, these immensities but call my mind home to quietness.’

Hilda recalled Uncle George saying something about those immensities. He didn’t think them all that important, but he hadn’t said they called him home to quietness either.

‘A thousand ages in thy sight,’ she said, ‘being like an evening gone?’ Even as she spoke, she was abashed at having uttered so pert and senseless a quip. Uncle George, she felt, would be ashamed of her. But then Hooker wouldn’t decant this sort of stuff so copiously on Uncle George’s head. With him, he presumably talked hard theology – pious reflection being for old wives at tea parties, and ignorant girls.

Father Hooker, however, gave no sign of taking offence. He even glanced at Hilda as if he were genuinely capable of feeling amused.

‘Ah,’ he said, ‘Isaac Watts! Lewis Carroll very properly made fun of him – just as you make fun of me, Miss Naylor.’

‘Please call me Hilda.’ It was impossible not to be irritated by Father Hooker’s inappropriate formalities.

‘I shall be only too happy. Do you by any chance know the good Isaac’s
Divine Songs for Children,
Hilda?’

‘I’m afraid not.’

‘Some are merely comical. “How rude are the boys that throw pebbles and mire” is no doubt a virtuous reflection for well brought-up children to indulge in. But consider this:

Lord, I ascribe it to Thy grace,

And not to chance, as others do,

That I was born of Christian race,

And not a Heathen, or a Jew.’

‘I think that’s rather comical as well,’ Hilda said.

‘It may be so. But again:

There is a dreadful Hell,

And everlasting pains;

There sinners must with devils dwell

In darkness, fire, and chains.

Is it not extremely shocking that innocent children should have been required to mouth such stuff?’

‘I suppose it is.’ Hilda wondered whether it was orthodox in Father Hooker to regard children as innocent. ‘But it’s very mild, in its way. You should read the Jesuit’s sermon to schoolboys in
Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
.’

‘But I have.’ Father Hooker said this in a quite neutral tone; again he was unoffended by a gauche performance. ‘A good deal of Joyce ought to be recommended reading for Christians. Naylor, you would agree with me?’