The old man considered Selby with the same vacant, passionless gaze.
"Have you ever ate Navy beef?" he asked abruptly. It was a thin colourless voice, almost the falsetto of the very old. Selby smiled. "Oh yes, sometimes."
"Navy beef—that's what brought me here—an' the rheumatics. I'm dyin'." He made the statement with the simple pride of one who has at last achieved a modest distinction.
The vicar asked a few questions touching the old man's comfort, and opened the little oriel window to admit the morning air. "Lieutenant Selby was most interested in your unique collection of curios outside, Mr Tyelake. Perhaps you would like to tell him something about them." He looked at his watch, addressing Selby. "I have a meeting, I'm afraid.... I don't know if you'd care to stay a few minutes longer and chat?"
"Certainly," said Selby, and drew a chair near the bed. "If Mr Tyelake doesn't mind, I'd like to stay a little while...." He sat down, and the vicar took his departure, closing the door behind him. In a corner by the dresser a tall grandfather clock ticked out the deliberate seconds; a bluebottle sailed in through the open window and skirmished round the low ceiling.
The old man lay staring at his hands as they lay on the patchwork quilt; twisted, nubbly hands they were, with something pathetic about their toilworn helplessness. Every now and again the wind brought into the little room the tinkle of the glass ornaments pendent in the apple-trees outside: the faint sound seemed to rouse the occupant of the bed.
"I've seen a mort of religions," he said in a low voice, as if speaking to himself. "Heaps of 'em. An' some said one thing an' some said the other." His old blank eyes followed the gyrations of the fly upon the ceiling. "An' I dunno.... Buddhas an' Me-'ommets, Salvation Armies, an' Bush Baptists, ... an' some says one thing an' some says the other. I dunno..." He shook his head wearily. "But many's the pot of galvanised paint I used up outside there ... an' goldleaf, in the dog-watches a-Saturdays."
This, then, was the explanation of the fantastic decorations outside. Altars to the unknown God! The old man turned his head towards his visitor. "But don't you tell the parson. He wouldn't hold with it.... I tell you because you're in the Navy, an' p'r'aps you'd understand. I was in the Navy—Mr Tyelake's my name. Thirty year a Gunner; an' Navy beef——" For a while the old man rambled on, seemingly unconscious of his visitor's presence, of ships long passed through the breakers' yards, of forgotten commissions all up and down the world, of beef and rheumatism and Buddha, while Selby sat listening, half moved by pity, half amused at himself for staying on.
About noon a woman came in and fed the old man with a spoon out of a cup. Selby rose to go. "I'll come again," he said, touching the passive hands covered with faint blue tattooing. "I'll come and see you again this evening." The old man roused himself from his reveries. "Come again," he repeated, "that's right, come again—soon. When she's gone—she an' her fussin' about," and for the first time an expression came into his eyes, as he watched the woman with the cup, an expression of malevolence. "I don't hold with women ... fussin' round. An' I've got something to tell you: something pressin'. You must come soon; I'm slippin' my cable.... Navy beef an' the rheumatics—an' it's to your advantage...."
The shadows of the alders by the river were lengthening when Selby again walked up the bricked path leading to the cottage. The old man was still lying in contemplation of his hands: the grandfather clock had stopped, and there was a great stillness in the little room.