This takes place during Psmith, Journalist, which comes after Mike and Psmith in the City -- all of which may be found online at Gutenberg.

* * *

Spherical Objects
by afrai

* * *

Exertion always made Psmith chatty. Where others, having acted and braved and done, rolled over onto their sides and got down to the serious business of having their forty winks without further ado, Psmith settled back and pondered Life. Not for him the drooping eyelid, the whiffling snore, the foetal curl into the bedclothes. The pillow was to Psmith as the Clapham Common platform to the working Socialist.

"Love, the philosopher tells us, is a quest for completion of the self," said Psmith. "The idea being, that in times now lost to us in the mists of history, Man was a sort of spherical object, composed of two of our modern humans, with twice the usual number of limbs, eyes, ears and so forth. This striking the gods as a silly sort of creature to have around, they took it upon themselves to split Man into his two component pieces, thus creating him as you see him now -- two-armed, two-legged, and more cylindrical than anything else. Saving Man," Psmith added thoughtfully, "considerable outlay on extra pairs of trousers and the like. Nonetheless, it left him in a frightful state of loneliness, and since then he has sought his other half untiringly, and not been satisfied until he has found it. Thence has sprung love, thence romance, thence the great giddy poetry of life."

Mike, his hair ruffled from activity and his face buried in a pillow, reflected.

"Sounds a lot of rot to me," he said.

"There is that point of view," Psmith conceded. "A charming myth, however. -- I could wish, Comrade Jackson, that the demands of American cricket did not claim so much of your time. When we stepped hand-in-hand upon the fair shores of this grand nation, I had already prepared myself for you to be snatched from my side. I realised I could expect nothing less than that the masses should cluster around Cambridge's foremost batman. I find I underestimated the extent of the public's desire for your presence, however. They hunger for it. One dinner is not enough for them. A thousand dinners would not be sufficient to quench their thirst for you. 'Comrade Jackson,' they say to themselves, 'is hot stuff. We cannot let him slip from our grasp.' And so it goes. They deluge you with invitations to their strange and unholy revelries. As Psmith, the friend, I look upon their fondness for you with a sympathetic eye. As Psmith, the man of business in urgent need of his confidential secretary and adviser, I cannot but condemn. I make shift to get on in my own poor way in your absence, but I am sadly at a loss more often than I would care to admit in public." He sighed.

Mike snorted.

"You seem to be getting on well enough," he said. "Windsor seems a decent chap. I expect you hardly notice I'm gone."

He was attempting to sound casual, but there was a stiffness in his voice that the least perceptive could not have failed to detect. Another man might have thought him offended. Psmith, who had been on an intimate footing with Mike for years, saw that his abruptness concealed an embarrassment at some deep emotion. He gazed at Mike's back in surprise. Mike was not given to jealousy. He did not make friends easily, but he was generous with his affection to those he liked, and he was not possessive in friendship. He had never grudged Psmith friends or pursuits apart from him -- though it was true Psmith had rarely spent so much time with anyone else since he had become acquainted with Mike, as he was spending with Billy Windsor.

"Not so, but far otherwise," said Psmith. "An upstanding fellow, Comrade Windsor, and an editor of considerable genius. I should entrust any newspaper of mine to him without a twitch of concern, in the full confidence that he would keep its readers on their toes. But his company is a poor substitute for yours."

"I didn't -- " Mike heaved himself up onto his side, so that Psmith could see his face, with the imprint left by the bedclothes. His eyes were bright in the darkness of their room. He looked worried.

"I meant to say -- it's all right, really," he said awkwardly. "If you want to -- with him. I don't mind, I mean."

"Ah," said Psmith blankly.

"Because I am away rather a lot, and -- well, I expect it does get pretty lonely. I wouldn't -- I don't want you to think you owe me anything, that's all."

"Obligation is death to all affection," murmured Psmith in absent-minded agreement, but he was caught unprepared, and for once felt himself unequal to the situation. He laid his head upon his crossed arms and gazed at the ceiling, considering his next move.

"That's about the size of it," said Mike. "And I'd rather you didn't feel obliged." He hesitated, and in a harsh tone quite abnormal for him, "You have been so awfully good to me -- "

Psmith interrupted decisively.

"It is interesting that you should have brought up the subject of obligation," he said. "It is not one that had occurred to me before, but it has potential. It has possibilities. Yes . . . . Would you say that you felt yourself obliged to me?"

"Obliged!" said Mike heatedly. "I should jolly well think so! After all you have done, I'd be a pretty sort of brute not to -- "

Psmith hummed in pleasure, as if they were having a debate, and Mike had made a particularly interesting point.

"Yet I think you agree that friendship cannot exist where obligation is, and vice versa?" he said. "In fact, I distinctly remember you saying something to the effect. It occasioned you some displeasure, it seemed, to think that I might harbour some feeling of obligation towards you."

"It's not the same thing at all -- " Mike began, but he fell silent when Psmith extracted a hand from the complicated tangle supporting his own head and touched Mike's face. The skin was warm with his flush. It warmed further as Psmith spread his hand to cover his cheek, thumb brushing an eyebrow, fingers tracing the line of an ear.

"I -- "

"Do you consider yourself obliged to restrict your affections to me?" said Psmith dreamily.

"No-o," said Mike. "Well, yes, but that's not why -- "

"That's not why you do it? Perhaps," Psmith suggested, "you could explain your reasons. I should like to hear them. They are of absorbing interest to me."

Mike's cheek burned against his palm.

"Just a few forceful words would do," said Psmith. "In prose, if you prefer. You may save the speeches for later occasions. We Psmiths do not stand on ceremony among friends -- "

"Oh, stop ragging," snapped Mike. Any other man would have thought him angry. Psmith smiled mysteriously, waiting.

"If you must hear it," said Mike, in a manner calculated to strike terror into the hearts of strong men, "I don't bother with anyone else because I don't care for anyone else. I'd rather stop with you. But you already know that."

"Ah, well," said Psmith, "you'd be surprised. There exist surprising gaps in my knowledge of the world. I have yet to get through Aristotle's enlightening remarks on Ethics, and I am apt to confuse Idaho and Oregon without a map. As for long division, my tutors have laboured for years to strengthen my grasp on the concept, but to no avail -- "

"And I'd rather you didn't feel you had to hold back because of me," Mike continued, adding, with dreadful sarcasm, "If you don't mind."

"It is as I had deduced," said Psmith, with the quiet pride of the detective who has known it was the butler all along. "The proud spirit of the Jacksons forbids you to accept an empty fidelity born of compulsion. You would scorn to chain love to your side. Rather, you would set it free, to flutter like a fragile, beautiful butterfly into the night."

The flush was beginning to creep down Mike's chest. Psmith's fingers followed its progress thoughtfully.

"I wouldn't say love, exactly," said Mike, squirming.

"With all due respect, I think I am the better judge of that," said Psmith. "For decisive action, for clear-sighted strategy, I will allow no man to be your equal. When the time comes for quiet contemplation, however, I am your man. You can safely leave the reflections on Life to me."

Mike seemed rather breathless.

"You seem to be managing all right in the action department," he pointed out.

Psmith pushed off the bed with languid grace, settling himself comfortably in a position where he could consider Mike fully.

"Well," Psmith admitted, in the manner of a man allowing a just point, "I have been known to bestir myself on occasion. But we forget ourselves, Comrade Jackson. We digress. To return to the subject under discussion -- we have established that you have no interest in flitting from flower to flower, sipping where you will, but that you do not object to my behaving in this fashion. Do I describe the situation accurately?"

"I -- think -- "

"Forgive me, but I must disagree," said Psmith courteously. "If you are still capable of thought, I am not doing the job properly. I am remiss. Allow me to correct the lapse."

"Umph," said Mike.

"Better," said Psmith, with simple joy. "Are you listening, Comrade Jackson? I will not require your attention for much longer. I ask you only to ponder this point: have you considered that I may be similarly motivated to confine my sippings to one blossom? That love might have stolen in, like a thief in the night, and robbed me of the desire to be anything but chaste?"

Even in the midst of the increasing disorder of his faculties, Mike laughed.

"Chaste! You! Jolly chaste you're being!"

"Perhaps 'chaste' is not quite the bon mot here," Psmith allowed. "Discriminate, then. Particular. You will, I think, allow me the liberty to be as particular as I like in my relations. We Psmiths do not lightly bestow our affections. Once bestowed, they are a very rock. Feathers may drift with every wind that blows: we do not."

"I don't -- " Mike's brow was creased with frustration, even as he surged under Psmith. "What -- on earth -- are you driving at?"

"I can't be bothered with anyone else," said Psmith. "And I'd jolly well appreciate it if you would appreciate it. Is that clear enough for you, Jackson?"

Mike did not reply: he was somewhat occupied.

When he was sufficiently composed to be able to take notice of his surroundings, he perceived that Psmith had shifted himself, and was once more on the other side of the bed. He regarded Mike with a sad, sweet smile.

"You have an unfortunate tendency, Comrade Jackson, to brood in silence upon matters which would be better aired and subjected to lively debate," he said. "Faced with, say, a grizzly bear, or a ravening Oxford bowler, you do not quail. You charge into the vichyssoise like a budding food critic with dreams of weekly columns gleaming in his eyes. Yet place before you more delicate affairs -- bung you in the midst of troubles of the heart -- and your inclination is gallantly to pretend they aren't there. Fight it, Comrade Jackson. Check this habit of bottling your emotions as if they were pickles. It can lead to no good."

Mike was not attending. He was experiencing a complicated mixture of sensations, the most clearly discernable of which was a sense of relief. He sank back against his pillow, allowing Psmith's meditative stream of remarks to wash over him as he drifted on the edge of sleep. He recognised comfort among the noisy gaggle of emotions still knocking around in his breast, but this was nothing new. He always felt at home with Psmith, and had felt so from the moment he had met him.

On impulse, Mike tugged Psmith to him and clumsily aimed a kiss at his cheek. It landed on his ear. Mike took advantage of his fortuitous position to speak into it.

"Stop rotting and go to sleep," he said.

"Excellent advice," said Psmith, with barely a pause. "That massive brain of yours strikes gold again. Sleep, that knits up the ravelled sleeve of care, the death of each day's life, sore labour's bath, balm of hurt minds, great nature's second course, chief nourisher in life's feast -- Comrade Jackson?"

"Hmm?"

Psmith kissed him. He made rather a better fist of it than Mike had.

"That's all I wanted to say," said Psmith when they parted.

"I'll believe it when I stop hearing it," snorted Mike.

They slept.

p. g. wodehouse | fanfiction | mail