“It’s the only thing I drink.”
“Sorry, dear.”
He ordered gin and Italian instead and got it warm with no cherry. Walking had made him tired. He sat on the bench which ran along the wall, watching the darts foursome. They did not speak, but pursued their game with quiet devotion, as if they were deeply conscious of tradition. It was like the film club. One of them had a date, and they called to Leiser, “Make a four then?”
“I don’t mind,” he said, pleased to be addressed, and stood up; but a friend came in, a man called Henry, and Henry was preferred. Leiser was going to argue but there seemed no point.
Avery too had gone out alone. To Haldane he had said he was taking a walk, to Johnson that he was going to the cinema. Avery had a way of lying which defied rational explanation. He found himself drawn to the old places he had known: his college in the Turl; the bookshops, pubs and libraries. The term was just ending. Oxford had a smell of Christmas about it, and acknowledged it with prudish ill will, dressing the shopwindows with last year’s tinsel.
He took the Banbury Road until he reached the street where he and Sarah had lived for the first year of marriage. The flat was in darkness. Standing before it, he tried to detect in the house, in himself, some trace of the sentiment, or affection, or love, or whatever it was that explained their marriage, but it was not to be found and he supposed it had never been. He sought desperately, wanting to find the motive of youth; but there was none. He was staring into an empty house. He hastened home to the place where Leiser lived.
“Good film?” Johnson asked.
“Fine.”
“I thought you were going for a walk,” Haldane complained, looking up from his crossword.
“I changed my mind.”
“Incidentally,” Haldane said, “Leiser’s gun. I understand he prefers the three eight.”
“Yes. They call it the nine millimeter now.”
“When he returns he should start to carry it with him; take it everywhere, unloaded of course.” A glance at Johnson. “Particularly when he begins transmission exercises of any scale. He must have it on him all the time; we want him to feel lost without it. I have arranged for one to be issued; you’ll find it in your room, Avery, with various holsters. Perhaps you’ll explain it to him, would you?”
“Won’t you tell him yourself?”
“You do it. You get on with him so nicely.” Avery went upstairs to telephone Sarah. She had gone to stay with her mother. The conversation was very formal.
Leiser dialed Betty’s number, but there was no reply.
Relieved, he went to a cheap jeweler’s near the station, which was open on Saturday afternoon, and bought a gold coach and horses for a charm bracelet. It cost eleven pounds which was what they had given him for subsistence. He asked them to send it by registered mail to her address in South Park. He put a note in saying Back in two weeks. Be good, signing it, in a moment of aberration, F. Leiser. So he crossed it out and wrote Fred.
He walked for a bit, thought of picking up a girl, and finally booked in at the hotel near the station. He slept badly because of the noise of the traffic. In the morning he rang her number again; there was no reply. He replaced the receiver quickly; he might have waited a little longer. He had breakfast, went out and bought the Sunday papers, took them to his room and read the football reports till lunch time. In the afternoon he went for a walk; it had become a habit, right through London, he hardly knew where. He followed the river as far as Charing Cross and found himself in an empty garden filled with drifting rain. The tarmac paths were strewn with yellow leaves. An old man sat on the bandstand, quite alone. He wore a black overcoat and a rucksack of green webbing like the case of a gas mask. He was asleep, or listening to music.