Every Man for Himself by Beryl Bainbridge Page B

delusions, awash with misplaced guilt and only too prone, by virtue of unexplained chemical changes and immortal longings, to be struck by the lightning bolt of giddy ideals. He wasn’t unkind or dismissive; he eyed me with affection while he laid me bare.
    ‘But I must believe in something,’ I heard myself plead, ‘some purpose . . . some cause . . .’
    ‘Of course you must,’ he soothed. ‘It’s essential at your age. You’ll grow out of it as the years pass.’
    ‘But I don’t want to grow out of it. There has to be a new way of living . . . a different way of . . .’
    ‘Of what, exactly?’
    ‘Of men being equal—’
    ‘But they’re not equal,’ he said. ‘Nor is it desirable that they should be. What would be the value of St Peter’s in Rome if every other church in the world was of the same shape and dimensions? What price the flowers in the garden if each were of the same height and colour?’
    ‘I’m talking about people,’ I retorted. ‘Not flowers.’
    ‘It’s entirely to be expected,’ he said, ‘that a young man such as yourself, rich, pompous, ignorant of the lives of the general mass of humanity, should find himself so persuaded.’
    ‘I haven’t met any others,’ I protested. ‘You wouldn’t find Ginsberg or any of the chaps I know worrying about the working man and the worth of his labour.’
    ‘I was talking about you,’ he said. ‘Your temperament sets you apart. That and your beginnings. Which is why your dream was so explicitly symbolic of darkness and danger.’
    I was taken aback that he should be so blunt. Though I supposed some of my uncle’s generation were acquainted with the facts of my early life, none had come out with it so plain. It’s true that old Seefax had crossed the line the evening before, but then he could be excused on the grounds of near senility.
    ‘Last night,’ I said, anxious to change the subject, ‘Mr Seefax told me a confused story about a woman crawling along the outside of a train. You know how he rambles. He said it was in Madrid, where he met you.’
    ‘So it was . . . at a reception given by the Ambassador. Seefax was negotiating with some arms manufacturer and I was attending the trial of Madame Humbert. An extraordinary case, don’t you think?’
    ‘I didn’t understand it,’ I confessed.
    ‘She made up a pack of lies about saving the life of a wealthy American who was having a heart attack in the next carriage. Hearing his groans and finding the door to his compartment locked, she claimed to have climbed out of the window and gone to his aid. Later, she produced letters purporting to have come from him, promising he would leave her his fortune. All forged, of course. There never was an American, rich or otherwise. On the strength of these letters she lived the life of Madame Pompadour until found out. An ingenious woman, don’t you agree?’
    ‘Very,’ I said. ‘If shameful.’
    ‘Except in degree, no more shameful than your own action of earlier this morning.’
    ‘What action was that?’ I demanded, shocked.
    ‘Pretending to come to the aid of an elderly woman and consigning a snail to the depths,’ he said, smiling gleefully. ‘Both acts are the product of thoughtlessness and from the snail’s point of view yours is the more reprehensible.’
    We both laughed, he so much so that he had to blot his eyes with a none too clean handkerchief. Recovering, he asked why I didn’t declare myself to Wallis. ‘At your age,’ he said, ‘you have nothing to lose. She can either respond favourably or let you down gently. Very few women are deliberately cruel. It’s not in their natures. Besides, all women thrive on admiration.’
    I said I wouldn’t know what words to use. Wallis was such an unapproachable girl, so downright pure and straight.
    ‘Good heavens,’ he murmured. ‘How extraordinarily little you know about women, and that one in particular.’
    We didn’t lunch together; he said he