Free Stop Press by Michael Innes Page B

been doing in the interval? Nobody will doubt for a moment that he has been there at the club and going steadily about his job. But consider Iago or Mr Micawber, creatures incomparably more vital than our porter. What happens when I cease to think of them ? I sometimes wonder–’ Mr Eliot broke off, appeared to take a long breath. ‘The problem is a teasing one and perhaps it is just as well that it is a metaphysical problem merely.’ He brought out his pipe again and stuffed it with what was to Winter a deliberately steady hand. ‘I mean that there is no practical problem; these different modes of being never collide. The real world into which we are given and the imaginative world to which our words can give: both perhaps are dreams and they flow, unmingling, side by side.’ He struck a match and the little spurt of flame lit up a face which was questioning and absorbed. ‘But what’, said Mr Eliot, ‘if, after all, there may come a point at which the two dreams cross?’
     
    Once more the train jerked to a stop. With a shade of uncharacteristic fuss Timmy began handing his companions their possessions. ‘Rust,’ he said. ‘Let’s nip out before the Birdwire pack.’
    Winter, who was grateful for the diversion, jammed on his hat and prepared for undignified haste. He was halted by the finger of Mr Eliot – an aerial and floating finger, raising itself with the suddenly renewed buoyancy of a submarine. ‘In these matters’, said Mr Eliot, ‘there is a technique to be observed.’ He smiled and – as if years had been ripped from him – the smile was Timmy’s. ‘In taxis one jumps in at one door and out at the other. From trains one gets off at the wrong side. And so one eludes – or, if one believes in English, dodges – pursuit. Such manoeuvres are perennially pleasing.’ He looked about the compartment. ‘Timmy, I can’t believe that you really needed to bring such a big suitcase. Winter and Toplady are going to have much less trouble.’ And Mr Eliot – the particular Mr Eliot, Winter felt, who was in charge at the moment – threw open the door beside him and dropped with confidence to the line. Toplady, not without one longing lingering look at the orthodoxy of corridor and platform behind, followed; Winter went next; Timmy stayed to hand down the luggage. In a minute they were all standing in a siding between some sacks of bone ash and a truck-load of pigs. Mr Eliot, on whom the scramble and the cold air – it may have been – had produced once more a delicate glow, inspected the pigs. ‘Gloucester Old Spots,’ he told Toplady; ‘probably my neighbour Gregory’s.’ He glanced round the siding. ‘I think we’ll make for Laslett’s barn.’ They trudged down the siding; from behind them a rising river of sound indicated that Mrs Birdwire and Lady Pike had begun to disembogue. ‘I’m sorry’, said Mr Eliot, ‘that it’s raining so hard.’
    For quite suddenly it was raining very hard indeed. Winter hoped that Laslett’s barn was near at hand. His trousers were flapping wetly against his calves. He read commiseration as well as cautious amusement in the look of a young porter who was respectfully touching his cap to Mr Eliot’s curious procession. Toplady, he conjectured, was carrying on a parenthetical debate with himself as to whether he might usefully stop to put up his umbrella. Timmy had gripped his hat between his teeth and was experimenting with carrying his streaming suitcase on his head.
    ‘I myself’, said Mr Eliot, ‘prefer Lincolnshire Curly Coated.’ He took Toplady’s arm in a friendly way. ‘You will say at once that they are coarse in the bone, but I reply that they are exceptionally hardy and prolific. And in pigs at least’ – from under dripping eyebrows Mr Eliot glanced innocently at Winter – ‘to be prolific is to possess the ultimate virtue.’
    They trudged on. The rain, driven by a veering wind, drifted about them in washes of grey, pattered on