Lucky Jim

XIII

DIXON paused in the portico to light the cigarette which, according to his schedule, he ought to be lighting after breakfast on the next day but one. The taxi he'd ordered was due any minute. If by the time he'd finished his cigarette Christine bad still not appeared, he'd just ask the taximan to take him to his digs, so whatever happened he'd be in a car soon. That was good, because total inability to move was almost upon him. Ten minutes to go; he tried not to think about it.

The darkness of the street was uneven. The daylight lamps above a nearby main road were glowing pallidly; the cars parked along the kerb had their sidelights burning; the windows of the building behind him were full of light. A train moved slowly and with great steadiness up the incline from the station. Feeling less hot, Dixon heard the band break into a tune he knew and liked; he had the notion that the tune was going to help out this scene and fix it permanently in his memory; he felt romantically excited. But he'd got no business to feel that, had he? What was he doing here, after all? Where was it all going to lead? Whatever it was leading towards, it was certainly leading away from the course his life had been pursuing for the last eight months, and this thought justified his excitement and filled him with reassurance and hope. All positive change was good; standing still, growing to the spot, was always bad. He remembered somebody once showing him a poem which ended something like 'Accepting dearth, the shadow of death'. That was right; not 'experiencing dearth', which happened to everybody. The one indispensable answer to an environment bristling with people and things one thought were bad was to go on finding out new ways in which one could think they were bad. The reason why Prometheus couldn't get away from his vulture was that he was keen on it, and not the other way round.

Dixon abruptly made his head vibrate; without tilting it, he moved his lower jaw as far over to-one side as he could. His cigarette was smoked right down, so that, after about twenty-five minutes, he not only had no Christine, but no taxi. At that moment a car rounded the corner from the main road and stopped near him where he stood at a lower corner by a side-street. It was a taxi. A voice from the driver's seat said: 'Barker?'

'How do you mean, barker?'

'Taxi for Barker?'

'What?'

'Taxi for name of Barker?'

'Barker? Oh, you must mean Barclay, don't you?'

'Ah, that's it: Barclay.'

'Good. We're nearly ready now. Just back into that side turning, will you? and I'll be back in a couple of minutes. I may be taking a friend back with me. Don't let anyone else hire you, mind. I'll be back.'

'That'll be all right, Mr Barclay.'

Dixon walked briskly back to the portico and looked up the lighted corridor, nerving himself to contemplate going back and trying Christine again. A bend hid all but the first couple of yards of the corridor from his view. Without delay Professor Barclay appeared round this bend, squirming into his overcoat and followed by his wife. Dixon had the sense of having heard him referred to recently in some connexion. Then he glanced up the street; the taxi, in mid-road, was just beginning to reverse cautiously into the side turning, where it would be hidden by an office block. As Barclay came up, it still had several yards to go.

Dixon barred his path. 'Oh, good evening, Professor Barclay,' he said in measured tones, as if dealing with a hypnotic subject.

'Hallo, Dixon. Haven't seen a taxi wailing for me, have you?'

'Good evening, Mrs Barclay… No, I'm afraid I haven't, Professor.'

'Oh dear,' he said pleasantly. 'Well, we shall just have to wait, then.' As he spoke, a loud brassy chord rang down the corridor, almost obscuring the sound of a handbrake ratchet from the side-street. 'Was that a car I heard then?' he asked, raising his head like an old cob disturbed at grass.

Dixon put on a listening attitude. 'I can't hear anything,' he said regretfully.

'I must have been mistaken.'

'All the same, Simon, I think I should walk along a bit, just in case he arrived and parked before Mr Dixon came out.'

'Yes, dear, that is a possibility.'

'He couldn't have done that, Mrs Barclay. I've been out here for nearly half an hour, and I can assure you quite certainly that no taxi has driven up here.'

'Well, it's most odd,' she said with a glandered movement of her jaws. 'My husband ordered the taxi half an hour ago at least, and City Taxis are usually so punctual.'

'Half an hour; oh well, he couldn't have made it before I came out,' Dixon said, as one making calculations. 'The City Taxis garage is over the other side of town, behind the bus station.'

'Are you waiting for a taxi too, Mr Dixon?' Mrs Barclay asked.

'No, I… I just came out to get a breath of fresh air.'

'You've had time for several lungfuls,' the Professor said, smiling.

His amiability made Dixon a good deal ashamed of having stolen the taxi, but it was too late to withdraw. 'Yes, I have,' he said, trying to sound casual. 'I'm waiting for a friend as well, actually.'

'Oh, really? We might as well walk along a little way, Simon; it's getting rather chilly, standing here.'

'Yes, dear, we could do that.'

I'll stroll along with you,' Dixon said. He hated leaving his post, but not to leave it seemed the worse alternative. But what was he going to do to prevent the Barclays finding their taxi?

When the three were within ten yards of the relevant corner, a car swept round the corner above it. Dixon knew at once it wasn't his proper taxi, because all City Taxis taxis had a little illuminated sign over the windscreen, and this one hadn't. Nevertheless, a diversion was now possible. When they were right at the comer, Dixon stepped into the road and raised his hand, shouting urgently: 'Taxi. Taxi.'

'Taxi yourself,' a shrill voice called from the back seat.

'Ah, taxi off, Jack,' the driver snarled, accelerating past him.

He went back to the Barclays, who'd had their backs to the corner to watch. 'No good, I'm afraid,' he said. But it was good for him; the incident made it seem natural to turn back towards the portico. What would happen at the next outward journey? A regular service of private cars past that corner was too much to hope for. He hoped fervently that his own taxi, the one he'd ordered, wouldn't take it into its head to turn up; he'd have to go away in it and leave the Barclays to find the one he'd taken from them. Or could he persuade them to have his?

They stood about for a minute or two at the portico, while nobody came and nobody went. Another walk to the corner became imminent. Dixon glanced desperately up the corridor. Two people appeared round the bend in it almost together. The first one wasn't Christine, but a drunken man clicking frenziedly at a cigarette lighter. The second one, on the other hand, was.

The manner of her appearance was so ordinary that Dixon was almost shocked. He didn't know what he'd expected, but it wasn't this look of recognition on her face, this purposeful walk towards him, this matter-of-fact sound of her shoes on cloth, on wood, on stone. Glancing over at the line of cars, she said abruptly: 'Did you manage to get one?'

Dixon knew that the Barclays, or Mrs Barclay at any rate, would be listening. He hesitated a second, then said 'Yes' and patted his pocket. 'I've got it here.'

He tried to get her to walk off with him, but she stayed where she was in the doorway, the lights from the corridor throwing her face into shadow. 'I meant a taxi.'

'A taxi? a taxi? just for three or four hundred yards?' He gave a shuddering laugh.' I'll have you back with Mum in less time than it'd take to phone. Good-night, Professor; goodnight, Mrs Barclay. Well, it's a good thing we haven't far to go; rather chilly. Did you say good-bye to the others for me?' They were far enough away by now for him to be able to add: 'Good. That's fine. Well done.' Nearby a car started up. Behind him he heard Mrs Barclay say something to her husband.

'What's going on?' Christine asked with undisguised curiosity. 'What's all this about?'

'We've pinched their taxi, that's one of the things that's going on. It's parked just round this corner.'

As if answering its name, the taxi, tired of waiting, emerged from the side-street and turned up towards the main road. He ran furiously off in pursuit, calling loudly: 'Taxi. Taxi.'

It drew to a stop and he went up to the driver's window. After a brief conversation, the taxi moved off again and disappeared into the main road. Dixon ran back to Christine, whom the Barclays had now rejoined. 'Sorry I couldn't get him for you,' he said to them. 'He'd got someone to pick up at the station in five minutes. What a nuisance.'

'Well, thank you very much, Dixon, for trying,' Barclay said.

'Yes, thank you all the same,' his wife said.

He took Christine's arm and walked her round into the side-street, calling good-night. They started to cross over.

'Does that mean we've lost the taxi? It was ours, was it?'

'Ours after it was theirs. No, I told the driver to drive round the corner and wait for us a hundred yards along the road. We can cut up through this alley, be there in a couple of minutes.'

'What would you have done if he hadn't driven out just then? We couldn't have driven off under the noses of those people.'

'I'd already worked out we'd have to do something like that. We'd got to establish that we and the taxi were leaving separately. That's why I was quick off the mark.'

'You were, very.'

With no more said they reached the taxi, parked outside the lighted windows of a dress-shop. Dixon opened a rear door for Christine, then said to the driver: 'Our friend isn't coming. We'll make a start, if you're ready.'

'Right, sir. Just by the Corn Exchange, isn't it?'

'No, it's further than the Corn Exchange.' He named the small town where the Welches lived.

'Oh, can't make it there, I'm sorry, sir.'

'It's all right, I know the way.'

' So do I, but they told me at the garage the Corn Exchange.'

'Did they really? Well, they told you wrong, then. We're not going to the Corn Exchange.'

'Not enough petrol.'

'Bateson's at the foot of College Road doesn't shut till twelve.' He peered at the dashboard. 'Ten to. We'll do it on our heads.'

'Not allowed to draw petrol except at our own garage.'

'We are tonight. I'll write to the company explaining. It's their fault for telling you you were only going to the Com Exchange. Now let's go, or you'll find yourself eight miles out without any petrol to get you back.'

He got in beside Christine and the car started.