by P. D. James
“You wrote this?”
“Yes. It’s for you. A poem.”
“No it isn’t. It doesn’t rhyme. A boy in our class Billy Price -writes poems. They always rhyme.”
He said indignantly, “It’s a different kind of poem.”
“No it isn’t. If it’s a poem the words at the end of the lines have to rhyme. Billy Price says so.”
Later he had come to believe that Billy Price had a point. He got up, tore the paper into small pieces and dropped them on the wet sand, watching and waiting for the next tumbling wave to suck them into oblivion. So much, he thought, for poetry’s famed erotic power. But Sadie’s female mind, in achieving its elemental ends, operated a less sophisticated, more atavistic ploy. She said, “Bet you daren’t dive off the end of that groyne.”
Billy Price, he thought, would no doubt have dared to dive off the end of the groyne in addition to writing verse which rhymed at the end of each line. Without speaking he got up and tore off his shirt. Wearing only his khaki shorts he balanced on the groyne, paused, walked over a slither of seaweed to the end and dived headlong into the turbulent sea. It was less deep than he thought and he felt the scrape of pebbles rasping his palms before he surfaced. Even in August the North Sea was cold, but the shock of the chill was only temporary. What followed was terrifying. It felt as if he were in the grasp of some uncontrollable force, as if strong hands were seizing him by the shoulders and forcing him backwards and under.
Spluttering, he tried to strike out, but the shore was suddenly obliterated by a great wall of water. It crashed over him and he felt himself drawn back, then tossed upwards into daylight. He struck out towards the groyne, which seemed with every second to be receding.
He could see Sadie standing now on the edge, arms flailing, her hair streaming in the wind. She was shouting something but he could hear nothing but the drumming in his ears. He gathered his strength, waiting for the wave to advance, making progress, then desperately trying to hold on to it before the backward tug lost the few feet he had gained. He told himself not to panic, to husband strength, to try and catch each forward movement. And at last, foot by painful foot, he made it and, gasping, clutched the end of the groyne. It was minutes before he was able to move, but she reached down her hand and helped pull him up.
They sat side by side on a ridge of pebbles and, without speaking, she took off her dress and began rubbing his back. When he was dry, still without speaking, she handed him his shirt. He remembered now that the sight of her body, of the small pointed breasts and the pink and tender nipples, had aroused not desire, but an emotion that he now recognized as a mixture of affection and pity.
Then she said, “Do you want to go to the mere? I know a secret place.”
The mere would still be there, a stretch of dark still water separated from the lively sea by a bank of shingle, its oily surface hinting at unfathomable depths. Except in the worst storms, the stagnant mere and salt sea never met across that shifting barrier. At the edge of the tide the trunks of black fossilized trees stood like totem poles to some long-dead civilization. The mere was a famous haunt of sea birds, and there were wooden hides concealed among the trees and bushes, but only the most enthusiastic bird-watcher ever penetrated to this dark and sinister stretch of water.
Sadie’s secret place had been the wooden hulk of a wrecked ship half-embedded in the sand on the spit of land between the sea and the mere. There were still a few rotting steps down to the cabin and there they had spent the rest of the afternoon and all the days that followed. The only light had come from slits in the planking and they had laughed to see how their bodies were striped, tracing the moving lines with their fingers. He would read or write or sit back silently against the curved wall of the cabin while Sadie imposed on their small world her ordered if eccentric domesticity. The picnics provided by her grandmother were carefully laid out on flat stones, the food to be ceremoniously handed to him and eaten when she decreed. Jam jars filled with water from the mere held reeds and grasses and unidentified rubber-leaved plants from fissures in the cliff. Together they scoured the beach for stones with holes to add to the necklace that she had strung on cord along the cabin wall.
For years after that summer the smell of tar, of warm rotting oak combined with the tang of the sea had held for him an erotic charge. Where, he wondered, was Sadie now? Probably married with a brood of golden-haired children if their fathers hadn’t been drowned, electrocuted or otherwise disposed of in Sadie’s preliminary process of selection. It was unlikely that any trace of the wreck would remain. After decades of pounding the sea must now have claimed its prey. And long before the final plank was tossed into the advancing tide, the string of the necklace would have frayed and, at last, finally broken, letting slip those carefully gathered stones to fall in a heap on the sand of the cabin floor.
It was Thursday, 12 October and Margaret Munroe was writing the final entry in the diary.
Looking back over this diary since I began writing it, most of it seems so dull that I wonder why I persevere. The entries following Ronald Treeves’s death have been little more than descriptions of my daily routine interposed with descriptions of the weather. After the inquest and the Requiem Mass it sometimes seemed as if the tragedy had been formally tidied away and he had never been here. None of the students speak of him, at least not to me, and nor do the priests. His body was never returned to St. Anselm’s, even for the Requiem. Sir Aired wanted it to be cremated in London, so it was removed after the inquest by London undertakers. Father John packed up his clothes and Sir Aired sent two men in a car to collect the bundle and drive back Ronald’s Porsche. The bad dreams have begun to fade and I no longer wake up sweating, imagining that sand-caked, blind-eyed horror groping towards me.
But Father Martin was right. It has helped me, writing down all the details, and I shall go on writing. I find I look forward to that moment at the end of the day when I have tidied away my supper things and can sit down at the table with this notebook. I haven’t any other talent but I do enjoy using words, thinking about the past, trying to stand outside the things that have happened to me and make sense of them.
But today’s entry won’t be dull or routine. Yesterday was different. Something important did happen and I need to write it down to make the account complete. But I don’t know whether it would be right even to form the words. It isn’t my secret, after all, and although no one will ever read this account but me, I can’t help feeling that there are things which it’s unwise to put down on paper. When secrets are unspoken and unwritten they are lodged safely in the mind, but writing them down seems to let them loose and give them the power to spread like pollen on the air and enter into other minds. That sounds fanciful, but there must be some truth in it or why do I feel so strongly that I ought to stop writing now ? But there’s no sense in carrying on with the diary if I leave out the most important facts. And there isn’t any real risk that these words will be read even if I place the book in an unlocked drawer. So few people come here and those that do wouldn’t rummage among my things. But perhaps I ought to take more care over privacy. Tomorrow I’ll give some thought to that, but now I shall write it down as completely as I dare.
The oddest thing is that I wouldn’t have remembered any of it if Eric Surtees hadn’t brought me a present of four of his home-grown leeks. He knows that I enjoy them for supper with a cheese sauce, and he often comes up with gifts of vegetables from the garden. I’m not the only one; he gives them to the other cottages as well as to the college. Before he arrived I had been rereading my account of the finding of Ronald’s body, and as I unwrapped the leeks that scene on the shore was fresh in my mind. And then things came together and I suddenly remembered. It all came back as clear as a photograph and I recalled every gesture, every word spoken, everything except the names and I’m not sure I ever knew them. It was twelve years ago but it could have been yesterday.
I ate my supper and took the secret to bed with me. This morning I
knew that I must tell the person most concerned. Once I’d done that I would keep silent. But first I must check that what I remembered was right, and I made the telephone call when I went into Lowestoft this afternoon to shop. And then, two hours ago, I told what I knew. It isn’t really my business and now there’s nothing else I need do. And, after all, it was easy and simple and nothing to worry about. I’m glad I spoke. It would have been uncomfortable to go on living here knowing what I know and yet not speaking of it, wondering all the time if I was doing right. Now I needn’t worry. But it still seems so odd that things wouldn’t have come together and I wouldn’t have remembered if Eric hadn’t brought me a present of those leeks.
This has been an exhausting day and I’m very tired, perhaps too tired to sleep. I think I’ll watch the beginning of Newsnight, and then to bed.
She carried her notebook from the table and placed it in the drawer of the bureau. Then she changed her spectacles for the pair most comfortable for watching television, switched on the set and settled herself in the high winged armchair with the remote control resting on its arm. She was getting a little deaf. The noise swelled alarmingly before she adjusted the volume and the introductory music came to an end. She would probably fall asleep in the chair, but the effort ol] getting up and going to bed seemed beyond her.
She was almost dozing when she felt a draught of cooler air and was aware, more by instinct than by sound, that someone had come into the room. The latch of the door clicked down. Stretching he head round the side of the chair she saw who it was and said, “OhJ it’s you. I expect you were surprised to find my light still on. I wa just thinking of going to bed.”
The figure came up behind the armchair and she bent her heac upwards, looking up, waiting for a response. And then the hands came down, strong hands wearing yellow rubber gloves. They pressed against her mouth and closed her nose, forcing her head back against the chair.
She knew that this was death but she felt no fear, only an immense surprise and a tired acceptance. To struggle would have been useless, but she had no wish to struggle, only to go easily and quickly and without pain. Her last earthly sensation was the cold smoothness of the glove against her face and the smell of latex in her nostrils as her heart gave its last compulsive beat and was stilled.
On Tuesday, 17 October at five minutes to ten precisely, Father Martin made his way from the small turret room he occupied at the south of the house, down the twisting stairs and along the corridor to Father Sebastian’s study. For the past fifteen years, Tuesday at ten a.m. had been set aside for the weekly meeting of all resident priests. Father Sebastian would make his report, problems and difficulties would be discussed, the details of next Sunday’s Sung Eucharist and of other services in the week would be finalized, invitations to future preachers decided upon and any minor housekeeping matters disposed of.
Following the meeting, the senior student would be summoned for a private meeting with Father Sebastian. His job was to report any views, complaints or ideas that the small student body wished to communicate, and to receive any instructions and information the teaching staff wished him to pass on to his fellow ordinands, including details of the services for the following week. This was the extent of student participation. St. Anselm’s still adhered to an old-fashioned interpretation of in statu pupillari, and the demarcation between teachers and taught was both understood and observed. Despite this, the regime was surprisingly easygoing, particularly in regard to Saturday leave, provided students didn’t depart until after five o’clock Evensong on Friday and were back in time for the ten o’clock Eucharist on Sunday.
Father Sebastian’s office faced east over the porch and gave an uninterrupted view of the sea between the two Tudor towers. It was over-large for an office but, like Father Martin before him, he had refused to spoil its proportions by any partition. His part-time secretary, Miss Beatrice Ramsey, occupied the room next door. She worked there Wednesday to Friday only, achieving in those three days as much as most secretaries would achieve in five. She was a middle-aged woman of intimidating rectitude and piety, and Father Martin was always afraid that he might inadvertently let out a fart in her presence. She was totally devoted to Father Sebastian, but without any of the sentiment and embarrassing manifestations that a spinster’s affection for a priest sometimes exhibits. Indeed, it seemed that her respect was for the office not the man and that she saw it as part of her duty to keep him up to the mark.
In addition to its size, Father Sebastian’s office contained some of the most valuable objects bequeathed to the college by Miss Arbuthnot. Over the stone fireplace with the carved words which were at the core of St. Anselm’s theology, credo ut intelligam, hung a large Burne-Jones painting of crisp-haired young women of improbable beauty disporting themselves in an orchard. Earlier it had hung in the refectory but Father Sebastian, without explanation, had removed it to his office. Father Martin had tried to repress the suspicion that this had been less a sign of the Warden’s affection for the painting or admiration for the artist than his desire that objects of particular value in the college should as far as possible grace his study and be under his eye.
This Tuesday it was to be a meeting of only three: Father Sebastian, Father Martin and Father Peregrine Glover. Father John Betterton had an urgent dental appointment in Halesworth and had sent his apologies. Father Peregrine, the priest librarian, joined them within minutes. At forty-two he was the youngest of the priests in residence, but to Father Martin he often seemed the eldest. His chubby soft-skinned face was made more owl-like by large round horn-rimmed spectacles and his thick dark hair was cut in a fringe and only needed a tonsure to complete the resemblance to a medieval friar. This mildness of his face gave a false impression of his physical strength. Father Martin was always surprised when they stripped for swimming to see how firmly muscled was Father Peregrine’s body. He himself swam now only on the hottest days, when he would splash apprehensively in the shallows on uncertain feet and watch in amazement as Father Peregrine, sleek as a dolphin, hurled his curved body into the surf. At the Tuesday meetings Father Peregrine spoke little and more usually to impart a fact than to express an opinion, but he was always listened to. Academically he was distinguished, having received a First in Natural Sciences at Cambridge before a second First in Theology and opting for the Anglican priesthood. At St. Anselm’s he taught Church History, sometimes with a disconcerting relevance to the development of scientific thought and discoveries. He valued his privacy and had a small room on the ground floor at the rear of the building next to the library which he resolutely refused to leave, perhaps because this hermitic and Spartan space reminded him of the monk’s cell he secretly yearned to be occupying. It was next to the utility-room and his only concern was about the students’ use of the noisy and somewhat antiquated washing machines after ten o’clock at night.
Father Martin placed three chairs in a partial ring before the window and they stood, bending their heads for the usual prayer which Father Sebastian spoke with no concession to the contemporary meaning of the first word.
“Prevent us, O Lord, in all our doings with thy most gracious favour, and further us with thy continual help; that in all our works, begun, continued, and ended in thee, we may glorify thy holy Name, and finally by thy mercy obtain everlasting life; through Jesus Christ our Lord, Amen.”
They composed themselves on the chairs, hands on their knees, and Father Sebastian began.
“The first thing I have to report today is somewhat disturbing. I have had a telephone call from New Scotland Yard. Apparently Sir Aired Treeves has expressed dissatisfaction with the verdict following the death of Ronald and has asked the Yard to investigate. A I Commander Adam Dalgliesh will be arriving after lunch on Friday afternoon. Naturally I have undertaken to give him all the co-operation he requires.”
The news was received in silence. Father Martin felt a cold clutch I at his stomach. Then he said, “But the body has been cremated. There was an inquest and a v
erdict. Even if Sir Aired disagrees with it, I don’t see what the police can discover now. And why Scotland I Yard ? Why a Commander? It seems a curious use of manpower.”
Father Sebastian gave his thin-lipped sardonic smile.
“I think we can take it that Sir Aired went to the top. Such men always do. And he would hardly ask the Suffolk Police to reopen the case since they were the ones who made the preliminary investigation. As for the choice of Commander Dalgliesh, I understand that he was coming into the county anyway on a short holiday and that he knows St. Anselm’s. Scotland Yard is probably attempting to propitiate Sir Aired with the least inconvenience to us or trouble to themselves. The Commander mentioned you, Father Martin.”
Father Martin was torn between an unfocused apprehension and pleasure. He said, “I was on the staff here when he stayed for three years during the summer holidays. His father was a Norfolk rector, I’m afraid I forget which parish. Adam was a delightful boy, intelligent and sensitive, I thought. Of course I don’t know what he’s like now. But I shall be glad to meet him again.”
Father Peregrine said, “Delightful and sensitive boys have a habit of growing into insensitive and far from agreeable men. However, since we have no choice over his coming, I’m glad one of us can anticipate pleasure in the visit. I can’t see what Sir Aired hopes to gain by this inquiry. If the Commander does reach the conclusion that there was a possibility of foul play, surely the local force will have to take over. Foul play is an odd expression. The word derives from Old English, but why the sporting metaphor? One would have expected foul act or foul deed.”
His fellow priests were too used to Father Peregrine’s obsessive interest in semantics to think the suggestion worthy of comment. It was extraordinary, thought Father Martin, to hear those two words spoken aloud, words which, ever, since the tragedy, no one at St. Anselm’s had allowed himself to say. Father Sebastian took them in his stride.
