The Human Factor Read Free Page A

agony of the chair from outsiders – but again because his neighbours bore with theirs, he preferred to leave it alone. The schoolmasters in King’s Road were strong upholders of the aesthetic principles of North Oxford, where many of them had taken tea with their tutors, and there too, in the Banbury Road, his bicycle would have fitted well, in the hall, under the staircase.
    He opened his door with a Yale key. He had once thought of buying a mortice lock or something very special chosen in St James’s Street from Chubb’s, but he restrained himself – his neighbours were content with Yale, and there had been no burglary nearer than Boxmoor in the last three years to justify him. The hall was empty; so seemed the sitting-room, which he could see through the open door: there was not a sound from the kitchen. He noticed at once that the whisky bottle was not standing ready by the syphon on the sideboard. The habit of years had been broken and Castle felt anxiety like the prick of an insect. He called, ‘Sarah’, but there was no reply. He stood just inside the hall door, beside the umbrella stand, taking in with rapid glances the familiar scene, with the one essential missing – the whisky bottle – and he held his breath. He had always, since they came, felt certain that one day a doom would catch up with them, and he knew that when that happened he must not be betrayed by panic: he must leave quickly, without an attempt to pick up any broken piece of their life together. ‘Those that are in Judaea must take refuge in the mountains . . .’ He thought for some reason of his cousin at the Treasury, as though he were an amulet, which could protect him, a lucky rabbit’s foot, and then he was able to breathe again with relief, hearing voices on the floor above and the footsteps of Sarah as she came down the stairs.
    â€˜Darling, I didn’t hear you. I was talking to Doctor Barker.’
    Doctor Barker followed her – a middle-aged man with a flaming strawberry mark on his left cheek, dressed in dusty grey, with two fountain-pens in his breast pocket; or perhaps one of them was a pocket torch for peering into throats.
    â€˜Is anything wrong?’
    â€˜Sam’s got measles, darling.’
    â€˜He’ll do all right,’ Doctor Barker said. ‘Just keep him quiet. Not too much light.’
    â€˜Will you have a whisky, Doctor?’
    â€˜No, thank you. I still have two more visits to make and I’m late for dinner as it is.’
    â€˜Where could he have caught it?’
    â€˜Oh, there’s quite an epidemic. You needn’t worry. It’s only a light attack.’
    When the doctor had gone Castle kissed his wife. He ran his hand over her black resistant hair; he touched her high cheekbones. He felt the black contours of her face as a man might who has picked out one piece of achieved sculpture from all the hack carvings littering the steps of an hotel for white tourists; he was reassuring himself that what he valued most in life was still safe. By the end of a day he always felt as though he had been gone for years leaving her defenceless. Yet no one here minded her African blood. There was no law here to menace their life together. They were secure – or as secure as they would ever be.
    â€˜What’s the matter?’ she asked.
    â€˜I was worried. Everything seemed at sixes and sevens tonight when I came in. You weren’t here. Not even the whisky . . .’
    â€˜What a creature of habit you are.’
    He began to unpack his briefcase while she prepared the whisky. ‘Is there really nothing to worry about?’ Castle asked. ‘I never like the way doctors speak, especially when they are reassuring.’
    â€˜Nothing.’
    â€˜Can I go and see him?’
    â€˜He’s asleep now. Better not wake him. I gave him an aspirin.’
    He put Volume One of Clarissa Harlowe back in the