Appleby Plays Chicken Read online

  ‘Very creditably, Leon. Alpha-minus-query-minus. And they are certainly a tiresome crowd.’ Pettifor swept the rest of his charges with an appraising glance. Whatever his odd preoccupation tonight, he’d been continuing to follow the talk with some part of his mind. ‘Still,’ he said, ‘they really do seek knowledge of your astounding country. They’re hydroptic for that, you might say, as well as for this endless cider. Tell them…let’s see. Yes – tell them about playing chicken.’

  2

  ‘But I’ve seen that! I’ve seen it on the flicks.’ Timothy Dumble announced this triumphantly. ‘It’s precisely this business of proving to yourself that you’re as tough as the other chaps.’

  ‘Is it done with a revolver?’ someone asked. ‘A revolver with one of the six chambers loaded?’

  ‘No. That’s Russian roulette. Chicken is done with cars. You line up a lot of cars facing a sheer drop over a cliff. Then you all drive for the edge, hell-for-leather. The chap who jumps out first is the chicken. It’s very simple.’

  There was a moment’s silence, and then David spoke. ‘What about the cars?’

  ‘Americans have no end of cars – isn’t that so, Leon?’

  ‘Sure. They just can’t pile them over the cliffs fast enough, Timothy.’

  ‘Although I suppose chicken can be played only by the fairly substantial classes. Have you ever played it, Leon?’

  ‘Not that kind, I guess. But there are others, in which you hazard a higher ratio of lives per automobile. What you might call over here utility chicken. And you don’t need a cliff. A perfectly ordinary road will do.’

  ‘That sounds more our style.’ Ian Dancer’s dark eyes glinted above his pewter tankard as he threw off this. ‘Tell us more, Leon.’

  ‘You want a straight road, a bit of a slope, and handsome ditches on each side. You have four or five people aboard, all placed so that they can make a grab at the wheel. Off you go, with somebody steering only until you’ve got up speed. After that, the first man who touches the wheel is the chicken.’

  David shook his head. ‘Not nearly so good as the cliff,’ he said. ‘Lacks drama, while continuing to promise mess.’

  Ian put down his tankard. ‘You mean you wouldn’t care for it?’

  ‘Of course I wouldn’t care for it.’ David spoke a shade shortly.

  Timothy nodded. ‘Quite right,’ he said. ‘Chicken, if indulged in at all, should plainly be sumptuously dressed. Austerity chicken would be a bloody flop. Let’s go to bed.’

  Old Pettifor was already on his feet. His business being with young men, singly and in groups, it is conceivable he had scented something he didn’t care for. Certainly he was uneasy. ‘To bed, to bed, to bed; there’s knocking at the gate,’ he murmured. ‘What’s done, cannot be undone; to bed, to bed, to bed.’

  They stood up and watched him from the room. It wasn’t merely that he liked to mutter Shakespeare idly in his beard. He had reminded them of a brute fact.

  But that night they played chicken, all the same.

  Afterwards, David found he couldn’t clearly tell why. But he supposed Ian to have been at the bottom of it. There had been two elder Dancers up at Oxford a few years before; and they were still legendary. Perhaps Ian had a wild streak by way of family endowment. Or perhaps he just felt obscurely compelled to measure up to his brothers – who by this time were probably staid and prosperous young bankers or brokers in bowler hats. There was no doubt that the chicken idea had power to get under the skin.

  Certainly they weren’t encouraged by Leon. The thing went through in the face of a sort of grim anger that was something quite new in him. He had declared instantly that he wouldn’t play. Then he had gone off and had some carefully casual conversation with the landlord, who was working late cleaning up the bar. He came back and said briefly that he now knew a bit about doctors, district nurses, hospitals, and ambulances. This did have a chilly effect, but it failed to stop the prank from going forward. Ian – this was David’s guess – had taken it into his head to exploit a sort of smothered feud that existed oddly between the entirely good-natured Timothy and a man called Arthur Drury, who was entirely good-natured too. These two never jeered at each other, but stuck to an elderly politeness; probably neither could have explained in what the mutual irritation lay. Anyway, Ian had worked on it. David hadn’t attended to the drift of the talk. He simply knew – out in the inn yard and a clear moonlight – that the game of chicken was essentially a challenge between Timothy and this chap Drury, but that others were involved, including himself after all.

  ‘You’ll probably pile up your car,’ he said prosaically to Timothy. ‘And it won’t be honest to fudge up a claim on your insurance company.’

  Timothy made no direct reply. He was the son of wealthy and indulgent parents – a fact to which he hated the slightest allusion. He flung open the doors of his big ancient tourer. ‘Muck in, chaps,’ he said. ‘We’re going to find a hill.’

  Arthur Drury and Ian scrambled in beside him, and David found himself in the back with the two remaining members of Pettifor’s reading party. One of these, Tom Overend, he knew quite well; they had gone to tutorials together the term before. The other was a mere infant called Ogg – a freshman from another college, who was on the party only because he was Pettifor’s nephew. Ogg hadn’t yet done his National Service, but had grown a beard instead. He ought to be at school still, David thought, and a prominent member of the Field Club. He certainly oughtn’t to be in this damned car.

  ‘Drive on, chaps – drive on!’ Ogg shouted this out so loud that there seemed a chance of his waking the whole pub. His voice was full of happiness. He was seeing life.

  They drove through the village and out into open country. Finding what they wanted didn’t prove easy. Most of the roads, narrow and winding, ran not between ditches but between high banks. An uncontrolled car trundling between these might be turned over; but more probably it would simply scrape and bump to an inglorious stop. When they caught a glimpse of anything else, it was of fields empty in the moonlight. Everything was alarmingly still. The only sound from outside the car was the chug-chug of Leon Kryder’s motorbike behind them. Leon was following, presumably, to do what he could. David, twisting round to have a look at him, was vaguely reminded of something sinister in a film. They swept round a bend and Leon vanished.

  ‘Are we really going to be complete idiots?’ Tom Overend asked this in David’s ear. His voice was carefully not suggesting anything.

  ‘It’s quite crackers, if you ask me.’ David spoke casually too. ‘And this infant should be in its cot.’

  ‘What’s that, old chap?’ Ogg’s face, flushed with excitement, was turned to him.

  David felt a sudden spurt of anger – he wasn’t certain at what. ‘I said you ought to be in your cot,’ he repeated brutally. ‘Tucked up. Not out with the big, rough boys – rot them.’

  Ogg laughed wildly in his absurd beard. He was too keyed up to be offended. ‘Turn right!’ he suddenly yelled. ‘Turn right, Timothy. There’s a clear run downhill. I remember it.’

  The three men in front had been muttering together. It sounded like a quarrel. Perhaps Timothy and Arthur were at last blasting each other openly. But now Timothy swung the wheel and they were at once on a broader road that ran downhill before them into dimness. Ogg, blast him, had been right. David turned again and saw Leon swing after them. A Death-Rider in that fantasy of Cocteau’s – that was it. Something between a speed cop and an AA patrol – and waiting to convoy you to a nether world.

  ‘You lot, behind – stand up and get so you can grab the wheel.’ Timothy continued to gaze straight ahead as he spoke, but David knew that he was now looking quite cool and placid. ‘I’m going to hold on till we get a bit of momentum, and then let go. After that, we wait for our preserver. Don’t we, Mr Drury?’

  ‘Yes, Mr Dumble. We do.’<
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  David didn’t know whether to laugh at them or curse them. They might have been acting in some ridiculous college play, and trying to obey the producer’s instruction to sound insolent. As for Ian, he had edged himself forward and sideways to allow the three behind to lean over the front seat, so that David caught a glimpse of his face. It was quite white and his mouth was moving oddly. And yet he wasthoroughly daredevil – a hard rider who was due, David remembered, to ride in some Point to Point or other next day. You never knew what would take whom how. It occurred to David that he had no notion how he looked himself. But how he felt was another matter. It should be possible to inform himself of that. The answer, he found with some surprise, seemed to be pretty well covered by the word exasperated – or even by the extremely modest word cross. He glanced at Ogg. Ogg was exalted. The bearded brat might have been getting ready to gallop into the valley of death and save the guns – or whatever it is that people so gallop for in phoney poems. David wished he could get round behind Ogg and restore him to reality with a boot in the bottom. But that wasn’t practicable. And now Tom Overend was talking again in his ear.

  ‘There are ditches, all right, David my boy. Who’s going to read out the rules?’

  David said something obscene about the rules.

  ‘Are you a chicken if you just jump?’

  This time David didn’t reply. He was wondering if it would be feasible for Tom and himself simply to pick up Ogg and pitch him overboard. He was particularly without a fancy, he found, for having to take the mutilated remains of Pettifor’s nephew back to their nursery. But he had no time to pursue this possibility. The car was running gently downhill.

  ‘This is it, chaps.’

  Timothy spoke unemotionally, and David suddenly judged his voice beautiful – an extravagant notion that had certainly never occurred to him before. And Timothy had taken his hands from the wheel.

  So they were doing it – playing chicken. It was – in its small, silly way – incredible; it was like the knowledge that one’s country is now at war. What’s done cannot be undone. Ogg had started to cheer.

  The pace quickened. They were on the crown of the road and the car felt as if it would go like an arrow forever. The headlights were on – without much effect in the full moonlight. But the beam just steadily skimmed the nearside ditch. David tried to glimpse the speedometer, but Ian’s humped knees were in the way. They weren’t yet hurtling, but the pace wasn’t slow. There was no chance of a fiasco now – of their simply rolling gently into the ditch at the start. They were playing chicken; the game had begun; and there was nobody to blow a whistle.

  But the wind whistled. It whistled in David’s ear as he stood leaning over the front seat. That was an indication that they were getting up quite a lick. Ogg had quit cheering. Perhaps he had come out of it, and regained some rational notion of what they were booked for… There was a terrific jolt. The car had gone over a pothole. That almost certainly meant…

  Yes, it did. The shock had abruptly deflected their course, and they were heading straight for the ditch. Nobody could grab the wheel now, for there was nothing but a split second in question. This, as Timothy said, was it. The car would be the hell of a mess. And they would be very lucky if they themselves got off with broken bones…

  Bump. When they seemed to be right off the road, and their near wheels in air, it had happened again. Incredibly, their course had shifted, and the clear road was once more in front of them – with an increasing gradient and a bend at the bottom. David heard Tom Overend gasp. It had been an absolutely fatal reprieve. For they were now moving really fast.

  But David was no longer conscious of their speed. Suddenly he had become aware of nothing but his own hands. They felt enormous – like hands by Picasso in his period of elephantiasis. And they felt as heavy as if hewn out of granite.

  It was the same with the others. David was visited by a quite clear intuitive knowledge of this. There were twelve hands in Timothy’s car, and each weighed a hundredweight. It had been entirely unimaginative not to know that that was how it would be. Or call it paralysis. Like the sort of dream in which terror clamps one’s feet to earth, fuses one’s tongue on the palate.

  There was a lurch. Once more – but this time on a fine diagonal and with incredible momentum – they were headed for the ditch. David made a tremendous effort of will. His arms just wouldn’t stir. He glanced sideways, and saw Ogg’s face. And suddenly his arms were free, his hands were normal. He leant forward, clasped the wheel, and steered the car to the centre of the road. Timothy instantly and viciously applied the brakes. The car slowed down. The game of chicken was over.

  Coasting down the hill on his motorbike, Leon Kryder came to a halt beside them. His grimness was gone. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘now you know.’ He passed, and got no reply. ‘Scared dumb?’ he asked cheerfully.

  But he knew it wasn’t exactly that. They were scared; it would be impossible to recover from honest terror that quick. But they were also awkwardly avoiding one another’s glance; and Timothy had found a resource in getting out and feeling the brake drums – muttering that they were lucky not to be on fire. What’s done cannot be undone. They had played the damned game.

  Arthur Drury was the first to speak. ‘Bloody nonsense,’ he said. He said it tentatively, as if fishing for the right note. Then, apparently satisfied, he conscientiously poured out all the bad language he knew – applying it impartially to Timothy’s foul old car and all its moronic passengers. ‘Although David has a gleam,’ he ended up.

  ‘Yes, David’s a frightful ass.’ Tom Overend took it up quickly. ‘But – thank God – he can show an atom of sense at times.’

  ‘A fond, a foolish, but happily a trivial episode.’ This was Timothy’s contribution as he climbed back into the car. ‘And now we go home.’

  ‘Yes, we go home,’ Ian said – and added: ‘Sorry about this, chaps.’

  Timothy glanced at him belligerently. ‘What d’you mean – sorry about this?’

  ‘Started it, I’m afraid.’

  ‘Oh, shut up, for the love of mike.’ And Timothy tugged at the starter.

  Only Ogg said nothing, and David’s opinion of him went up. They drove off, and for a moment Leon stood by his bike, watching them. They had been damned lucky, he thought – and if the affair left them feeling awkward, that was all to the good. They wouldn’t do it again. And they certainly had no future as mixed-up kids.

  3

  The next morning, David Henchman went off by himself.

  He quite often did this. It was what the others had in mind, he supposed, when they were shouting their cheerful nonsense the evening before – their nonsense about his being a pariah and a harmless eccentric. He had never himself thought twice about this mildly solitary habit of his – or certainly not to worry over it. For one thing, it was mild; he was never without his modicum of sociable occasions; and indeed if there wasn’t some positively gregarious element smothered in him, he wouldn’t presumably have come to Devon with this bunch of Pettifor’s. Commonly, when he went off like this, it wasn’t with any sense of making a break for a nervously necessary solitude. It was just a happening – as was getting back again and eating his dinner beside the next fellow.

  But this morning it was rather different. He was glad there was still nobody in the dining room when he finished his early breakfast; and he was annoyed when, getting outside, he came on Pettifor pottering round his old Land Rover. But Pettifor gave him only a cold and unseeing look. Probably he had got wind of the idiocy of the night before and wasn’t too pleased. David didn’t try to speak to him. In fact he damned Pettifor and Pettifor’s lot roundly to himself as he pushed out of the pub.

  He didn’t however succeed in getting away without any cheery matutinal talk at all. As commonly in old places like the George, there was an archway one had to go under to reach the road. The room on t
op of this belonged to Dr Faircloth – and there he was at an open window, smothering his face with lather. He might have been an advertisement for the stuff, so robustly and cheerfully did he confront the day. ‘Good morning!’ he called out. ‘Off for a tramp?’

  ‘I thought I’d go off somewhere.’ David felt ashamed of the lack of enthusiasm with which he made this response. If retired clergymen – supposing Faircloth really to be that – are able to greet life with glad cries while shaving, then it’s only civil to do the smiling morning face business in reply. ‘Because it looks’, David added, ‘as if it might be rather a decent day.’

  ‘I certainly hope so.’ Faircloth, thrusting his head further through the window, took a sniff and a gulp of day, rather as if testing it before allowing the waiter to pour out a glass all round. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘It will be pretty good. How I wish I could come along.’

  ‘Then why don’t you, sir?’ David said this with exactly the casual cordiality required. Like all Pettifor’s lot, David was a nice man with nice manners. And now, as he looked upward at Faircloth, he was interested to find that he could continue to smile engagingly while softly grinding his teeth. ‘There’s a bus in ten minutes,’ he said. It wasn’t perhaps too rash to allow a note of broader encouragement to these words. Faircloth, after all, couldn’t have breakfasted. And he probably revelled in breakfast even more than he did in shaving soap.

  ‘Unfortunately I must just hang around. My daughter turns up today, but I’m not sure when.’ Faircloth produced a safety razor. ‘Where do you think of going? What about Knack Tor? It’s a stiff climb, but there’s a wonderful view.’

  David shook his head. At least he wasn’t going to have his route planned for him. ‘I don’t expect I’ll do much. I’ve got some reading to do.’