He waited till evening in order not to disappoint Avery, then caught the last train home to Oxford.
Avery knew a pub behind Balliol where they let you play bar billiards on Sundays. Johnson liked a game of bar billiards. Johnson was on Guinness, Avery was on whisky. They were laughing a good deal; it had been a tough week. Johnson was winning; he went for the lower numbers, methodically, while Avery tried cushion shots at the hundred pocket.
“I wouldn’t mind a bit of what Fred’s having,” Johnson said with a snigger. He played a shot; a white ball dropped dutifully into its hole. “Poles are dead randy. Go up anything, a Pole will. Specially Fred, he’s a real terror. He’s got the walk.”
“Are you that way, Jack?”
“When I’m in the mood. I wouldn’t mind a little bit now, as a matter of fact.”
They played a couple of shots, each lost in an alcoholic euphoria of erotic fancy.
“Still,” said Johnson gratefully, “I’d rather be in our shoes, wouldn’t you?”
“Any day.”
“You know,” Johnson said, chalking his cue, “I shouldn’t be speaking to you like this, should I? You’ve had college and that. You’re different class, John.”
They drank to each other, both thinking of Leiser.
“For Christ’s sake,” Avery said, “we’re fighting the same war, aren’t we?”
“Quite right.”
Johnson poured the rest of the Guinness out of the bottle. He took great care, but a little ran over the side onto the table.
“Here’s to Fred,” Avery said.
“To Fred. On the nest. And bloody good luck to him.”
“Good luck, Fred.”
“I don’t know how he’ll manage the B2,” Johnson murmured. “He’s got a long way to go.”
“Here’s to Fred. Fred. He’s a lovely boy. Here: do you know this bloke Woodford, the one who picked me up?”
“Of course. He’ll be coming down next week.”
“Met his wife at all; Babs? She was a girl, she was; give it to anyone … Christ! Past it now, I suppose. Still, many a good tune, eh?”
“That’s right.”
“To him that hath shall be given,” Johnson declared.
They drank; that joke went astray.
“She used to go with the admin bloke, Jimmy Gorton. What happened to him then?”
“He’s in Hamburg. Doing very well.”
They got home before Leiser. Haldane was in bed.
It was after midnight when Leiser hung his wet camel’s hair coat in the hall, on a hanger because he was a precise man: tiptoed to the drawing room and put on the light. His eye ran fondly over the heavy furniture, the tallboy elaborately decorated with fretwork and heavy brass handles; the escritoire and the Bible table. Lovingly he revisited the handsome women at croquet, handsome men at war, disdainful boys in boaters, girls at Cheltenham; a whole long history of discomfort and not a breath of passion. The clock on the mantelpiece was like a pavilion in blue marble. The hands were of gold, so ornate, so fashioned, so flowered and spreading that you had to look twice to see where the points of them lay. They had not moved since he went away, perhaps not since he was born, and somehow that was a great achievement for an old clock.
He picked up his suitcase and went upstairs. Haldane was coughing but no light came from his room. He tapped on Avery’s door.
“You there, John?”
After a moment he heard him sit up. “Nice time, Fred?”
“You bet.”
“Woman all right?”
“Just the job. See you tomorrow, John.”
“See you in the morning. Night, Fred. Fred …”
“Yes, John?”
“Jack and I had a bit of a session. You should have been there.”
“That’s right, John.”
Slowly he made his way along the corridor, content in his weariness, entered his room, took off his jacket, lit a cigarette and threw himself gratefully into the armchair. It was tall and very comfortable with wings on the side. As he did so he caught sight of something. A chart hung on the wall for turning letters into figures and beneath it, on the bed, lying in the middle of the eiderdown was an old suitcase of continental pattern, dark green canvas with leather on the corners. It was open; inside were two boxes of gray steel. He got up, staring at them in mute recognition; reached out and touched them, wary, as if they might be hot; turned the dials, stooped and read the legend by the switches. It could have been the set he had in Holland: transmitter and receiver in one box; power unit, key and earphones in the other. Crystals, a dozen of them, in a bag of parachute silk with a green drawstring threaded through the top. He tested the key with his finger; it seemed much smaller than he remembered.