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For Stephen Pickles

CONTENTS

ONE: A New Man

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

TWO: The Lookout

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2

3

4

5

6

THREE: Small Oils

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2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

FOUR: Losses

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2

3

4

5

FIVE: Consolations

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2

3

4

5

ONE

A New Man

1

Now Charlie suggested Orwell, and one or two names we had failed to net last year did the rounds again. Might Stephen Spender come, or Rebecca West? Nancy Kent was already lined up, to talk to us about Spain. Evert in his impractical way mentioned Auden, who was in New York, and unlikely to return while the War was on. (‘Good riddance too,’ said Charlie. ) It was Peter who said, surely knowing how Evert was hoping he wouldn’t, ‘Well, why don’t we get Dax to ask Victor?’ The world knew Evert’s father as A. V. Dax, but we claimed this vicarious intimacy.

Evert had already slipped away towards the window, and stood there peering into the quad. There was always some tension between him and Peter, who liked to provoke and even embarrass his friends. ‘Oh, I’m not sure about that,’ said Evert, over his shoulder. ‘Things are rather difficult at present. ’

‘Well, so they are for everyone,’ said Charlie.

Evert politely agreed with this, though his parents remained in London, where a bomb had brought down the church at the end of their street a few nights before.

‘Oh, they’d turn up, all right,’ said Charlie, with an odd smile.

Evert looked round, he appealed to me – ‘I mean, what do you make of it, the new one?’

I had The Gift of Hermes face down on the arm of my chair, about halfway through, and though not exactly stuck I was already alternating it with something else. It was going to break my daily rhythm, and was indeed rather like tackling a book in a foreign language. Even on the wretched thin paper of the time it was a thick volume. I said, ‘Well, I’m a great admirer, as you know. ’

‘Oh, well, me too,’ said Peter, after a moment, but more warmly; he was a true fan of A. V. Dax’s large symbolic novels, admiring their painterly qualities, their peculiar atmospheres and colours, and their complex psychology. ‘I’m taking the new one slowly,’ he admitted, ‘but of course, it’s a great book. ’