two people as a way of understanding - oh, well, you
know - the world and what it may all mean and so on. You
can't fault Christ's teaching, of course, but that just seems
something He might have said and didn't.'
'I think that's a fair criticism,' said Tony. 'All the same,
the Christian concept of love and marriage developed quite
well and remains pretty sound, you know.'
'But don't you think the Church has sometimes sort of sort
of ignored or even tried to push away the fact that
people have bodies and are supposed to express love with
them? It's often left people with the idea that that wasn't
229
important, or wasn't really anything to do with their religion.'
'Oh, Lord, yes, and for that matter the Church has burned
heretics and supported the slave trade and heaven knows
what-all. You can make out a hell of a case against Christianity
on its history. Every generation has to keep going back
to square one and working out Christ's teaching for itself.
That's what you're doing, isn't it?'
'Do you enjoy swapping punches with Tony?' I asked her
later that night, when he had gone home.
'I like him very much. He's the best clergyman I've ever
met. He really listens to what you say and doesn't just come
back with a ready-made answer out of the book. He's like a
doctor who lets the patient make suggestions and behaves
as if they might be sensible.'
Nevertheless she did not go to church that Sunday, or the
next. I went once to Matins and once to Evensong, where,
naturally, I was politely asked by one or two people whether
she was well and so on. I simply replied Yes and talked
about the weather. Tony's unobtrusive support was helpful
and so, I suspected, was the known fact that Kathe was a
mad, mysterious foreigner.
Not that she remained unknown - quite the contrary.
The Stannards came to lunch and presented us with a beautiful
little Victorian folding tea-table. Several other friends
called, both at Bull Banks and at the shop. We went out to
dinner twice during that fortnight - once to Lady Alice
Mendip's, where there were about twelve people. What Flick
had said proved plumb right, as usual. It seemed as though
no one could have enough of Kathe, and behind her back I
was congratulated again and again. If people were surprised
at Alan Desland having married such a girl, they were too
polite to show it; and too polite, also, to inquire about my
mother's continued absence.
I had talked to her on the telephone the evening after the
incident of the non-existent tortoise, and she had been most
warm and affectionate. She made no further reference to
Florida, but on the contrary stressed how much Flick had
liked Kathe, adding that she herself was greatly looking
230
forward to meeting her. However, she said nothing about
when she meant to return or what arrangements she envisaged
for the future of Bull Banks.
Til be staying down here just a little longer, darling,' she
said. 'I know you'll understand. They're all so kind, and I'm
teaching little Angela to read. We read to each other. Isn't
that wonderful? But I'm coming up to meet your Kathe very
soon. I know you must be marvellously happy and I'm so
glad. Flick tells me she's a wonderful help to you in the shop,
too. I'm certain you've done something very wise and sensible
and I'm longing to come and see you again just as
soon as I can.'
I felt a bit mystified. Flick, I thought, had evidently done
a darned good job, but I couldn't reconcile my mother's
patent goodwill and warmth with her evident determination
to stay at Bristol for a while longer. However, it suited
Kathe and me, who were more than content to be alone in
the house. I let it go at that and simply rang up every other
night. Sometimes she was in and sometimes not.
'I believe your darling mother's the rreal Merry Widow,'
said Kathe.
A heat wave set in - day after perfect June day, ideal for
hay-making, sitting in the garden and, for the matter of that,
business. People in general are, I suppose, unaware that they
are more disposed to buy things like antique ceramics when
the weather is fine, Britain has won three gold medals or one
of the royal family has had a baby; but the man behind the
counter, who sees them as a gamekeeper sees the birds,
notices it clearly enough.
One evening, when Tony was at leisure and willing to take
on what Kathe called 'Lee Dubose's job', we swam down the
Kennet, from the tow-path above W. H. Smith's as far as the
Wharf. It took only about ten minutes, and we went back and
did it again before getting dressed and proceeding to the bar
of the White Hart. 'Not half as good as the Itchetucknee,'
said Kathe, whereupon Tony teased her for 'coming the old
231
soldier', and thus gave her a new idiom which she used, inappropriately
and quite charmingly, at Lady Alice's dinner
table. (This was also the occasion on which she told Lady
Alice that when working at Mr Hansen's in Copenhagen she
had been as bored as a stiff.) Another evening we slipped
down to the woods below Sandleford, bathed in a warm,
shallow pool of the Enborne and afterwards made love on
the bank.
At the week-end Kathe raised again the idea of going to
the downs, but it seemed so hot and airless for walking,
even on the escarpment, that I demurred. Besides, there was
the garden to be seen to, and plenty that needed my personal
attention, Jack Cain or no Jack Cain. Kathe, whose inexhaustible
appetite for luxury and pleasure included, out of doors,
a kind of sun-soaking indolence, put on her green-ribboned
straw hat, snipped off dead flower-heads for a while and
then lay in a chaise-longue, from time to time dipping into
W.B. Honey on Old English Porcelain.
'Once an Englishman told me that it's always raining in
England. I see he was lying about that as well, for now I'm
lying here.'
'Oh, who was that?'
'Poor Alan, I think the heat's lying heavily on you. Why
don't you put down that hoe for a bit? You look as hot as a
bear in a fur coat. I'm going indoors to get you some beer
out of the 'fridge.'
The following Wednesday - midsummer day - she said at
breakfast, 'Aren't you ever going to take me up to the
downs?'
'You seem - er - main set on the idea, as Deirdre would
say.'
'Oh, it was that lovely night when we were looking at them
in the moonlight. Do you know, I was imagining then that
I was the downs and you were the beech trees, with their
roots in the ground, just swaying a little in the wind, backwards
and forwards? You say the wild flowers are nice up
there?'
'They are indeed. But do you honestly want to walk on a
day like this is going to be? Look at the mist on the fields,
>
232
and that purple edge all round the sky. It's going to be hotter
than Lola Montez.'
'I'd love to walk, as long as it's not too far.'
'Well, I'll tell you what. Let's get up there about half-past
six and walk in the evening, when it's cool.'
We had high tea on the verandah, Kathe stuffing herself
with boiled eggs, hot buttered toast and fruit cake.
'I've never gone for a walk with you, have I? Alan, have I?
Pass the jam: I'm going to put some on this cake. It won't
be windy up there, will it? These shoes - d'you think they'll
be all right?'
She was charmingly excited, simply by the prospect of the
outing. We drove out by way of Ball Hill and West Woodhay
to Inkpen, and so along the steep lane up the hill to Combe
Gibbet. The Gibbet, standing grim and lonely in the still
heat above the fields, naturally attracted her attention at
once. I stopped the car and got out, pretending to be looking
at the map and waiting to see what she would say.
'It is - it is ein Galgen?'
'Yes.'
She was always quick. 'Then there's a reason - a story,
/a?1
'Yes - the Black Legend, as John Schlesinger called it.'
'Tell me.'
'Well, we don't really know an awful lot about it. "Taint
surprisin' - all dead n' gone, see?" as Jack Cain said to me
once. But what we do know is pretty nasty. In 1676 two
people called George Broomham and Dorothy Newman were
convicted at Winchester of murdering Broomham's wife and
child - "with a staff", it says - on Inkpen Beacon - here, in
other words; or hereabouts. The crime was considered so
dreadful and excited so much local horror that they were
sentenced to be hanged on the highest point in the county,
which by a coincidence also happens to be here. A double
gallows was put up for the purpose and they were hanged
together. No one else has ever been hanged here, but the
gallows has stood ever since.'
'But that - over there' (she shivered), 'that doesn't look
very old.'
233
'No; whenever it gets worn out they put up another.'
She pondered. 'Well, but it is all past. They should forget
the past, after all this time.'
'They don't, though. Schlesinger made a short film about
it in the late 'forties, with local people. I remember being
taken to see it. I must have been about eight.'
She shrugged her shoulders. 'Ach, so. Let's walk, Alan.'
It was a superb evening, with high, white clouds and a
light breeze. We walked eastward, through Walbury Hill fort
and on to Pilot Hill. We could see across fo the White Horse
downs on the other side of the Kennet valley. There was a
sweet-sharp smell of tansy and chamomile, and the flowers
were everywhere - purple spikes of sainfoin, pale-blue
chicory, wild orchids - though only the Common Spotted salad
burnet and white dropwort. Kathe was delighted by
the clustering, pink blooms of the centaury, the great sheets
of red campion spreading downhill in shady places and the
viper's bugloss blooming red and blue together on the plant.
'Putting their tongues out!' she said, picking one with my
handkerchief round her hand and looking at the branched
spikes drooping out and downward. 'I wish I'd brought some
scissors. I'd have cut a big bunch of flowers - all different
kinds mixed up.'
'They wither very quickly, these wild flowers,' I said.
'They'd be in a pretty sorry state by the time we got them
home. The best thing's to come up with a few jam-jars full
of water, cut them and put them straight in. I sometimes
bring a water-spray too, just to keep them fresh. You can't
really combine a walk with picking wild flowers. You have to
have a picking expedition.'
'We'll have one next time. Couldn't we dig some up roots
and all, and take them back to plant in the shrubbery?'
'They'd only die. It's the chalk they like. They wouldn't
take to different soil."
'They're not like me, then, are they? Let's go on further.
I'm not tired."
'You've got to walk back again, don't forget.'
'I shall - you see. It's easy walking, isn't it, on the grass?'
We must have walked about four miles and were not far
234
short of Ashmansworth when she flung herself down on the
turf, lay looking for a while at the sky and then, turning over
prone, began scrabbling with her fingers in the ground.
'What are you after?'
'A piece of chalk - a nice, big bit.'
'Well, don't break your finger-nails. There's always a
loose piece somewhere. Yes, here you are."
She took it and, as best she could, wrote on a smooth
beech trunk 'K liebt A'.
'Oh, it doesn't write nicely! It's scratchy and hard - not
like schoolroom chalk.' She lay down again. 'Come here - I
know a better way to show that K liebt A.'
In this love-making she appeared entirely passive and
withdrawn, but I, knowing her as I did, felt no less close to
her. She lay sighing, with closed eyes and parted lips, her
arms not embracing me but spread wide in the grass on
either side; so that I, on elbows and knees to spare her my
weight on the thyme-smelling, sun-baked ground, could not
be sure of the moment of her final pleasure. But after a time
she whispered 'Danke'; and then drew me down upon her,
clutching and shuddering. For some minutes after we were
so quiet that a hare, lolloping hesitantly out of the long
grass and down the track, approached to within a few yards
before coming to a staring halt, recognizing what we were
and dashing away. I knelt up and watched it go.
Very lightly, Kathe touched my tepid, wet limpness.
'Now who's got to walk back, my lovely spent boy?"
'You have, my splendid full girl. Come on!'
'Pull me up, then. Up on the down!'
She was tired enough when we came once more in sight
of the Gibbet. It was getting dark, for we had been out nearly
three and a half hours. We were talking, not very seriously,
about the Faringdon sale to be held next week when suddenly
she said, 'Look, Alan, what's that by the car - can you see?'
I looked at the car through my field-glasses. Lying beside
it was a large, black dog - a tough-looking Alsatian. Its head
was raised and it seemed alert, glancing here and there as
though waiting for someone, though there was no one in
sight and no other car near by. In the dusk I could not see
235
whether it was wearing a collar, but I could see its teeth
all right. It looked, I thought, a distinctly nasty customer.
As we came nearer it got up and stretched itself, watching
us intently but showing no sign of moving away. It had got
a collar.
'I don't know that I terribly care for the look of him,' I
said to Kathe. 'Why not let me go over there and bring the
car down to you - just in case he's feeling stroppy for some
reaso
n? He's obviously on the loose from somewhere. I suppose
I'd better see if I can get a look at his name and address.'
She shrugged. 'As you wish, darling, but I'm not bothered.'
'Well, somehow or other I am, a bit. He's not really what
I'd call a canny tyke.'
I walked towards the car and at once the dog hackled up,
curling its lip and growling. As I came closer it began to bark
savagely. I walked round to the other side of the car and it
followed, keeping me in view and continuing to bark. I tried
calling and talking to it, but this had no effect at all. Finally
I went forward again, but at this it crouched on its belly,
snarling and giving every sign of being ready to spring if I
came a yard closer. I felt at a loss and could not think what
to do.
As I stood perplexed, looking at it, Kathe spoke from just
behind me.
'Darling,' she said, 'I think it's you he doesn't like, for
some reason. Why don't you go over there and let me see
what I can do?'
'No, I don't think you ought to. You might get badly hurt.'
'Well, I'm not going to stay here all night. I don't want
to meet poor Dorothy What's-her-name. Just let me try.
I won't take any risk - promise. Go on - go over there.'
I did as she said and she stood still and began to call the
dog, talking to it in German. To my surprise it immediately
lowered its hackles and became quiet, gazing at her almost
as though it understood what she was saying. Then, stifflegged,
it walked slowly forward and came to a stop beside
her, with lowered head and muzzle pointing to the ground.
Kathe put out a hand.
236
'I shouldn't touch it, Kathe, really.'
'Oh, f'ff, f'ff!'
She grasped its collar and bent over it. The next moment
she started back and I heard her catch her breath sharply.
'Was - was ist denn? Alan! What does it mean? Oh, Alan,
come quickly!'
I ran across to her. The dog remained quiet and made
no move as I slipped two ringers under its collar. The little
brass plaque bore a single word: DEATH.
I confess I started myself. Kathe, beside me, gave a quick,
nervous sob and clutched my arm, looking about her in the
gathering darkness.
'Alan, please -'
I wasn't afraid, but I certainly had a disturbing feeling of
tension and unreality. I looked down at the plaque again and
suddenly, as I did so, common-sense intervened.
'It's all right,' I said. 'I've got it - it's the owner's name.
It's usually pronounced "Day-arth". That'll be it. I'll turn his
collar round, if he'll let me. There'll be another plaque with
the address, I expect.'
There was; an address at Linkenholt, about two miles
away.
'Well, we'd better drive him back there, I suppose,' I said.
'I really do take my hat off to you, darling. You'll have to go
in for lion-taming next. Let's see if we can get him into the
car.'
'But - but is it really the owner's name, Alan?'
'It can only be. There's also an English name "Tod", for
that matter. Would that frighten you?'
'I don't know. I just - I just want the dog to go away.
Which way is Linkenholt, towards home or the other way?'
'The other way; not very far.'
'So you'll be coming back by here?'
'Yes; but why do you ask?'
'Well, then, I'll wait for you here. I think the dog will be
all right with you now. I'll put it in the back and tie it by
the collar to the safety-belt thing on the floor. Look, there's
a bit of cord in the back window there.'
'You mean you want to stay here by yourself?'
237
'Yes, I'd rather.'
'I thought you said you didn't want to meet Dorothy
Newman? Still, you did say the other day you didn't believe
in ghosts.'
'Oh. Oh, well, I'll have a little chat with her. Now go on,
Alan, if you're going, and then we can both get back home!'
Once again I did as she said. The dog gave no further
trouble and I was down into Linkenholt in less than ten
minutes. After one enquiry I found the address - a Council
semi-detached - without difficulty and saw over the hedge
a middle-aged, comfortable-looking man smoking a pipe as
he coiled up a garden hose on the inside of an open shed
door.
'I say, is your name Day-arth, by any chance?'
'That's right, I'm Bob Death,' he answered. 'What can I do
for you?'
'Well, I've got your dog here. I found him on the loose up
by the Gibbet.'
'Oh, hell!' said Mr Death. 'Has the bugger been off again?
The Girl in a Swing Page 27
