CHAPTER 26

A party of noisy people spilled into the train at Bishop’sStortford. Some were wearing morning suits with carnations looking alittle battered by a day’s festivity. The women of the party were insmart dresses and hats, chattering excitedly about how pretty Julia hadlooked in all that silk taffeta, how Ralph still looked like a smug oafeven done up in all his finery, and generally giving the whole thingabout two weeks.

One of the men stuck his head out of the window and hailed a passing railway employee just to check that this was the right trainand was stopping at Cambridge. The porter confirmed that of course itbloody was. The young man said that they didn’t all want to find theywere going off in the wrong direction, did they, and made a sound alittle like that of a fish barking, as if to indicate that this was apricelessly funny remark, and then pulled his head back in, banging iton the way.

The alcohol content of the atmosphere in the carriage rosesharply.

There seemed to be a general feeling in the air that the best wayof getting themselves in the right mood for the post-wedding receptionparty that evening was to make a foray to the bar so that any membersof the party who were not already completely drunk could finish thetask. Rowdy shouts of acclamation greeted this notion, the trainrestarted with a jolt and a lot of those still standing fell over.

Three young men dropped into the three empty seats round onetable, of which the fourth was already taken by a sleekly overweightman in an old-fashioned suit. He had a lugubrious face and his large,wet, cowlike eyes gazed into some unknown distance.

Very slowly his eyes began to refocus all the way from infinityand gradually to home in on his more immediate surroundings, his newand intrusive companions. There was a need he felt, as he had feltbefore.

The three men were discussing loudly whether they would all go tothe bar, whether some of them would go to the bar and bring back drinksfor the others, whether the ones who went to the bar would get soexcited by all the drinks there that they would stay put and forget tobring any back for the others who would be sitting here anxiouslyawaiting their return, and whether even if they did remember to comeback immediately with the drinks they would actually be capable ofcarrying them and wouldn’t simply throw them all over the carriage onthe way back, incommoding other passengers.

Some sort of consensus seemed to be reached, but almostimmediately none of them could remember what it was. Two of them gotup, then sat down again as the third one got up. Then he sat down. Thetwo other ones stood up again, expressing the idea that it might besimpler if they just bought the entire bar.

The third was about to get up again and follow them, when slowly,but with unstoppable purpose, the cow-eyed man sitting opposite himleant across, and gripped him firmly by the forearm.

The young man in his morning suit looked up as sharply as hissomewhat bubbly brain would allow and, startled, said, “What do youwant?”

Michael Wenton-Weakes gazed into his eyes with terribleintensity, and said, in a low voice, “I was on a ship…”

“What?”

“A ship…” said Michael.

“What ship, what are you talking about? Get off me. Let go!”

“We came,” continued Michael, in a quiet, almost inaudible, butcompelling voice, “a monstrous distance. We came to build a paradise. Aparadise. Here.”

His eyes swam briefly round the carriage, and then gazed brieflyout through the spattered windows at the gathering gloom of a drizzlyEast Anglian evening. He gazed with evident loathing. His grip on theother’s forearm tightened.

“Look, I’m going for a drink,” said the wedding guest, thoughfeebly, because he clearly wasn’t.

“We left behind those who would destroy themselves with war,”murmured Michael. “Ours was to be a world of peace, of music, of art,of enlightenment. All that was petty, all that was mundane, all thatwas contemptible would have no place in our world…”

The stilled reveller looked at Michael wonderingly. He didn’tlook like an old hippy. Of course, you never could tell. His own elderbrother had once spent a couple of years living in a Druidic commune,eating LSD doughnuts and thinking he was a tree, since when he had goneon to become a director of a merchant bank. The difference, of course,was that he hardly ever still thought he was a tree, except justoccasionally, and he had long ago learnt to avoid the particular claretwhich sometimes triggered off that flashback.

“There were those who said we would fail,” continued Michael inhis low tone that carried clearly under the boisterous noise thatfilled the carriage, “who prophesied that we too carried in us the seedof war, but it was our high resolve and purpose that only art andbeauty should flourish, the highest art, the highest beauty — music.We took with us only those who believed, who wished it to be true.”

“But what are you talking about?” asked the wedding guest thoughnot challengingly, for he had fallen under Michael’s mesmeric spell.”When was this? Where was this?”

Michael breathed hard. “Before you were born — ” he said atlast, “be still, and I will tell you.”