Collected Essays by Graham Greene

Author:Graham Greene
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Random House
Published: 1968-12-31T16:00:00+00:00

HARKAWAY’S OXFORD

MY father used to have hanging on his bathroom wall a photographic group of young men in evening dress with bright blue waistcoats. They were, I think, the officials of an Oxford undergraduate wining club, but with their side-whiskers and heavy moustaches they had more the appearance of Liberal Ministers. Earnest and well-informed, they hardly seemed to be members of the same world as Jack Harkaway, whose adventures at Oxford were published in twopenny numbers – or bound together in two volumes at 6d. apiece – by the ‘Boys of England’ office some time in the early eighties. They seemed, sitting there on dining-room chairs, squarely facing the camera to hark back more naturally to that much earlier Oxford described by Newman, when Letters on the Church by an Episcopalian was a book to make the blood boil – ‘One of our common friends told me, that, after reading it, he could not keep still, but went on walking up and down in his room.’ But unless we are to disbelieve the literary evidence of Jack Harkaway at Oxford, the earnest moustache is deceptive: it is the bright blue waistcoat which is the operative image, and I like to imagine that my father’s photograph contained the whole galaxy – Tom Carden, Sir Sydney Dawson, Fabian Hall, Harvey, and the Duke of Woodstock – of what must have been known universally as a Harkaway year, for in 188— Harkaway succeeded in the then unprecedented feat of winning his Blue for rowing, cricket, and football and ending the academic year with a double-first. All this too in spite of the many attempts upon his life and honour engineered by Davis of Singapore whom he had baffled while still a schoolboy in the East. Their reunion at Sir Sydney Dawson’s ‘wine’ is an impressive scene – impressive too in its setting:

A variety of wines were upon the table with all sorts of biscuits and preserved fruits. Olives, however, seemed to be the most popular. A box of cigars, which cost four guineas, invited the attention of smokers. . . . Jack walked over to a tall, effeminate looking young man, with a pale complexion, and having his hair parted in the middle.

‘How do, Kemp?’ he said.

‘Ah, how do?’ replied Kemp, with a peculiar smile. ‘Allow me to introduce you to my friend, Mr Frank Davis of Singapore.’

Jack stared in amazement. Before him was his sworn and determined enemy. Davis had told him that he was going to England to complete his education at a University. He had added that wherever Jack was, he would still hate him, and seek for his revenge. . . . That it was Davis of Singapore he had no doubt. He had lost one ear.

Making a cold and distant bow, Davis replied – ‘Mr Harkaway and I have met before.’

‘Really?’ exclaimed Kemp. ‘I’m glad of that. It’s such a nuisance helping fellows to talk. Davis is not in our college. He’s a Merton man.’

It was unwise of

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