I don’t need no doctor, I said to her. I got my right hand round into my left pocket somehow and I got the horse out and I handed it to her. She looked at it for a bit then she said, Where did you find this? I did not find it, I said. I done it myself. That is how I come to cut myself, I said. She still looked as if she did not believe me. I was just finishing it off like, I said. Are you telling me you carved this horse yourself? she said. She had another look at it, a good long look this time. holding it up about six inches from her eyes then slowly moving it away, looking at it all the time, narrowing her eyes like. Well, I thought to myself, you can look at a thing without going through all that paraphernalia, but I did not say nothing a course. It is very, very good, she said, looking at me in a sort of solemn way. She started handing it back, but I said, No, it’s for you. She got a surprise then and the bossy look come back on her face as if I had said something out of turn. What do you mean? she said. Maybe it was because of me losing all that blood, I dunno, but I suddenly felt like going off and sitting down on my own for a bit. It is for you, I said, and I started moving towards the door. Wait a minute, she said. She looked at me, then down at the horse then back at me again. She didn’t look bossy any more. Are you sure? she said. Do you really want me to have it? Yes, I said, it’s for you. But it must have taken you a long time, she said. Yes, I said, a fair old time, but I only worked on it when I had a bit of time to spare like—. Quite soon after you started here, she said. You must have begun it quite soon after starting here. . . . That’s right, I said. And you had it in mind from the start to give it to me? That’s right, I said, it is for you. It is quite beautiful, she said. It shows great talent. Have you had any teaching? No, I said, I never had no teaching. Good, she said, and she suddenly started smiling, she was holding the horse tight in her hand. Self-taught, she said. Like Blake, she said, and since then it’s been art books.
I spend more time in the house than out of it these days, well it’s all right a course, but I dunno what I am getting paid for, the only time I can get a word with Marion is in the afternoon when the old girl is having her nap and just lately I can’t even get away at five o’clock, take last night for example. She was waiting for me on the terrace when I come round from putting the shears and the rake away in the shed at the back. There’s something here that I think will interest you, she says, and she shows me the back of another art book. German wood-carvings of the Middle Ages, she says. You have a lot in common with these peasant artists and craftsmen, working obscurely but in a great tradition, she says. But first have a sandwich, I got Marion to make up some ham sandwiches. Oh yes, I said. I could of objected of course. It was five past five. Mortimer says I should of objected. But when I seen her sitting there with the art book like, and a pile of sandwiches all ready on a plate, I didn’t feel like saying nothing. What I mean is, she had been making preparations for it and she had this sort of cheerful bossy look that meant she was enjoying herself. You can’t just say, Sorry, it’s gone five, and go off.
So I started on the sandwiches and I told her something about the stall where I was before I come here, how they used to work it with the elastic bands, whip them off to get a crowd up. How do you mean? she says. I don’t quite follow you. Well, I said, they had these rubber bands see, that they could fix on from behind, there was blokes behind developing the photos, and if they put the bands on, never mind how many times you hit the bull, nothing happens, but if they wanted to get a crowd up they could whip the bands off and the lights would be flashing all over the place. . . . I see, she says, but that is cheating isn’t it? It is all one big fiddle, I said, from start to finish. It was Mortimer who told me about that, I said, he knows everything that is going on. Oh does he? she says. Who is this omniscient person? I beg your pardon, I said. Who is this person Mortimer, who knows so much? she says.
Well a course she’d never met him, there was no reason why she should remember, but for a minute I was surprised like. It was hard imagining somebody not knowing who Mortimer is. That is my friend, I said, that I worked with on the stall. Oh yes, she said, now I remember. He is your sort of protector, isn’t he? I dunno about that, I said. She looked at me for a bit, then she said, You can have him here for tea one day next week if you like. Show him round and so forth. I should like to meet him. All right, I said, I’ll ask him. One day after the garden party, she said. He might not be able to come, a course, I said. He might have a previous appointment like. Mortimer has a full social life, I said. I didn’t want her thinking that Mortimer was just a typical stall attendant. Well, if he can manage to fit it in, she said. Shall we go inside?
We went into the room through the french window and we sat on the sofa and for the next couple of hours it was these German bed posts and screens and church pews, very good work I don’t deny it, and I was beginning to get really interested like in some of it, asking her to stop a bit so I could get a good look, some of that work was really beautiful. I could tell she knew I couldn’t read so well, but it didn’t make no difference. What I mean is, that didn’t matter to her, and there is one thing I will say for Mrs Wilcox, there was things about her I didn’t care for, but she would never of tried to catch me out or show me up like.
By the time we come to the end of it the light was going. She got up to draw the curtains. You must realise your great heritage, Josiah, she said. She was wearing a fussy sort of blouse with a lot of lacy bits and a black skirt. And the grey hair shining in the light. She come back and sat beside me on the sofa. Are you working on anything at present? she said. No? That is a pity. Listen, she said, have you thought of an exhibition, of holding an exhibition? I think it might be rather a good idea. Would you care for a sherry?
I liked the sherry. I don’t think I ever had none before. I liked the glasses too, with them long handles. They didn’t hold much though. Some more? she said. I don’t think we should be drinking it so fast actually, but this is a special occasion, isn’t it? And she drunk hers down, shuddering a bit at the end like. I feel that this is the start of a fruitful collaboration, she said. She poured out some more sherry. Then she come and sat down on the sofa again. She crossed her legs one way and she crossed them the other. I have been thinking, she said. I know a lot of people. In my late husband’s time, she said. There was a little nerve throbbing just under her left eye. Have some more sherry, she said. This would mean our collaborating closely. To be quite frank with you I have hesitated a long time before broaching this matter to you. Yes. You may think it cowardly of me but. . . . Yes, since my husband died I have been . . . asleep as it were. I have a few well-tried friends, my books, the peace of these grounds. But in human terms, in emotional terms. . . . Are you ready for some more sherry? It would mean a very close association, Josiah.
She was talking different now, I dunno why, sort of slow and full of meaning like you hear them sometimes on the wireless. I did not like it. Oh yes, I said. Since my dear husband died, she said. She drank some more of the sherry and shuddered a bit. I have arrived at a certain peace, she said, and to tell you the truth I am afraid of involvements, I am content to sleep Josiah. With my books and my . . . To be aroused would be painful, she said. I do not want to be awoken.
Yes, well, I said, and I stood up. I better be going, I said. I did not like this way she was talking. Must you? she said. She looked up at me and I could still see the nerve throbbing under her eye. I was confused like with the sherry and I nearly took the wrong door, the one leading to the back of the house. No, this way, silly, she said. She went with me to the door. Promise me this one thing, she said, standing at the door. Promise me that you will respect my withdrawal from life.
I didn’t know what she was on about, really. She stood there in the light from the hall, standing bolt upright like she was on parade, looking straight at me. It was then it come to me that she might not be quite right in the head. Yes, I said. A course, I said. Good night then. And I started off up the drive. At the bend I looked back. She was still standing ther
e at attention like, looking after me.
I turned down the drive and all of a sudden I was in the pitch black night. There wasn’t no moon at all. I could make out the drive easy enough after a bit, the gravel was paler and sort of shining very faint, but both sides of me was black dark, the bushes was all massed together. I could hear my steps on the gravel and I could hear things in the grounds, rustlings and suchlike, but I couldn’t see nothing in there, well as a matter a fact I never looked, I kept my eyes in front of me but I knew there was things there in the night and after a bit I got the feeling these things was moving along level with me behind the bushes on both sides of me, keeping up with me, waiting for me to make some kind a mistake. . . . I always been afraid of the dark but I never told Mortimer that. He might make me try and get over it and I know I won’t never get over it. They used to lock me up in the dark sometimes, not my dad but my auntie, and I always used to start seeing nasty faces. You can keep them off by making noises or whistling, but not in digs, you can’t do it in digs, people complain, and they won’t let you keep the light on all night, if they see a light under the door they are knocking in no time, do you think I am made of money Mr Smith? So you have to put something round the light, all my vests have burn marks through doing that, and that is why I do not mind these digs I got now so much really because I am sharing a bed with this bloke who does the Fairy Lights on the roundabouts, who is a qualified engineer. He is a big bloke and he don’t leave me much room but I don’t mind the dark when I am sharing. . . .
If I’d of known she was going to keep me there till it was dark I would of refused them ham sandwiches, no thank you Mrs Wilcox. . . . Now I got to go on at the same speed, if I stopped or went faster there is something out there could take me over. There’s plenty of things got every right to be out in the dark and they know each other. . . .
I come to the last bit of the drive and I am sweating, keeping myself going at the same speed, concentrating like. Then a car went past along the road and just for a second or two its lights lit up the roadway and the front hedge and I seen somebody standing there at the side of the gate, against one of the stone pillars at the side, just a white face looking towards me, then the lights was past and all I could see was the black shape of the pillar.
I stopped in the middle of the drive and everything stopped. I could taste the sherry and my head felt cold. For about half a minute nothing happened, then a voice, ‘Is that you, Josh?’ coming from the gate and my heart give one bump but I knew straightaway it was Marion and I could tell she was frightened by her tone of voice so I started moving again, not saying nothing, to pay her back like for scaring me. I was meaning to go right up to the gate like that, then I thought maybe it wasn’t Marion after all and I got scared again so I said, ‘Is that you Marion?’ and she moved out into the middle of the drive and I saw it was Marion and I went up to her.
‘What you doing here then?’ I said. ‘It’s past your bed-time.’ Trying to make a joke of it like, in case she might think I had been scared.
‘You frightened me,’ she said. ‘When you didn’t answer. I thought it must be you though.’
I could make out her face now, just the pale shape of it, darker where her eyes and mouth were. I couldn’t hear no more rustlings, everything around was quiet.
‘I saw her waiting for you on the terrace,’ Marion said. ‘Well, I knew before, when she told me to make up the sandwiches, that you would be staying over.’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Matters of business.’
‘I don’t know about business,’ she said. ‘I can smell drink on your breath.’
‘People always have a drink when they are doing business,’ I said. ‘Didn’t you know that? People have sherry and suchlike. You don’t know the world,’ I said.
‘Then you didn’t answer,’ she said, ‘and I was frightened.’
‘Frightened?’ I said. ‘Frightened of the dark? You don’t want to be frightened of the dark. The dark can’t hurt you. Do you often come out on your own like this?’
‘Lately I have been. It’s the only time I get to myself these days. That and the afternoons, when she is having her nap. She’s been terrible lately. Asking for things all the time, and she doesn’t sleep hardly at all. All through the night it’s drinks of water, cocoa, aspirins, fetch me a book. I don’t know what’s the matter with her, maybe it’s the Change of Life. I was reading, the Change of Life can affect you in all sorts of funny ways. Now she has started taking her rings off and leaving them about the place and she gets up in the night to look for them. That is exactly the kind of thing that happens in the Change of Life.’
‘I dunno about that,’ I said. I didn’t know what she was on about, change of life, I never heard of it before. Mrs Wilcox didn’t seem no different now to when I first come, I hadn’t seen no change. I thought that maybe I would ask Mortimer, only if it was something that everybody else knew about he would laugh. ‘Doesn’t sound much of a job to me,’ I said.
‘A girl of my age needs a bit of privacy,’ she said. ‘I sometimes think of leaving.’
I got a bit nearer and just very lightly put my arms round her. She didn’t say nothing and she didn’t move, only her shoulders seemed to settle a bit as if she was a bit more comfortable like. She felt soft and her voice sounded softer than in the day and I got this feeling that the dark was doing it, making everything about her softer. ‘Where would you go?’ I asked her. ‘You got no folks or nothing. You got no qualifications.’
‘I am seventeen now,’ she said. ‘My mother has been dead for nearly six years now. Once when I was just turned eight she took me on the train to see her cousin in Durham, he’s a farmer in a small way. He’s got this little farm and he does all the work himself, him and his wife. He used to in those days anyway. They didn’t have any children. It is flat country up there, but it is pretty. I can remember it very well. It is all red roofs, not like here. He grew a lot of vegetables. He had a long shed with cows in it. There was a lot of fruit trees there, apple trees and suchlike. I can remember it now, how it all looked. He asked me if I liked animals and I said yes. I do, you know, I do like animals. I fed the chickens. His name is Lipton, my mother’s cousin, he was always laughing. He asked me if I wanted to stay there, not go back home, and I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t want to hurt anybody’s feelings you know, by saying one way or the other, so I said I didn’t know, and they all laughed. We never went there again, I don’t know why. I suppose my mother couldn’t afford it. That’s where I’d go if I left here. There’s lots to do on a farm.’
She stopped a minute then she said very slow, ‘Lipton. Outside a place called Castle Eden. If I wasn’t here, that is where I would be.’
She said that last bit as if she meant it specially for me. ‘Don’t go yet anyway,’ I said.
‘No,’ she said. ‘I won’t go yet.’
Neither of us said nothing for a bit, then I kissed her. ‘I like you,’ I said.
‘I like you too,’ she said. ‘You know that, don’t you?’
‘Couldn’t we sit down somewhere for a bit?’ I said.
‘No,’ she said. ‘We’d better not. You’d better go.’
‘Stay a bit longer,’ I said.
‘No,’ she said, ‘maybe Mrs Wilcox will be wanting something.’
‘I am wanting something,’ I said. She put her face up to mine and kissed me on the cheek. Then she turned and went down the drive towards the house. I looked after her for a bit. I couldn’t see nothing but I could hear her steps getting fainter. Then I went through the gate. Now I could see where the street lamps started, but it wouldn’t of made no difference if they hadn’t of been there, because I didn’t mind the dark now. I just suddenly didn’t mind it. Walking down to the bus stop I felt different, as if I had a right to be there. In the dark. As if I belonged with them things that the scared people are scared of.
Simon . . .
THE DAYS BEFORE the garden party are hot, cloudless, perfect summer days.
The gardener keeps away from the shrubbery, restricting himself to peripheral tasks, and this is a source of great satisfaction to me; perhaps after all he heeded my warning about snakes. Nonetheless I do not dare to resume tunnelling. I still need an hour or so each day in my subterranean salon, of course; but most of my time is spent walking about the grounds observing what there is to observe.
At these times I have a strange and persistent illusion that my body is moving through silence and emptiness, or rather that my body itself imposes desolation as a condition of its passage. But when I stop short, stand still and listen, this faculty seems to leave me, to be transferred to the things growing and living around me, and I am assailed by the scents and sounds of germination, rained upon, deafened, overwhelmed, obliged to move on again, resume my blighting progress. This sensation is most intense in the middle hours of the day, when the sun is hottest.
Morning is my best time, on the whole. The early watches. There is a heavy dew and the spaces between trees look very slightly smoky. On the way to my post in the corner of the grounds my trouser bottoms get quite sodden, stuck all over with little blue seeds, the grass heads. I generally make a detour to visit the robins, since they have hatched a second brood now. Walking towards the nest I impose stillness on all but my moving body. If I place a finger on the rim of the nest and very gently press downward, simulating thus the weight of the alighting parent bird, immediately the bruise-coloured mass of flesh and feather squirms violently, divides itself, five bald heads rear up blindly, split into yellow gashes, soundless but with a concerted hunger so intense it has the effect of piercing sound, a kind of miniature trumpeting.
It would seem also to be a season of activity for snails. I see numbers of them as I crouch at the hedge waiting for the woman to appear, tiny ones the colour of milk-chocolate with beautiful speckled shells. She emerges with her brush and everything else is forgotten, but when she has gone back inside and I am experiencing the depression that always follows upon her withdrawal, I become aware of them again, clambering among the moist leaves, slender plasmic creatures possessed of great acrobatic skill. Their delicate horns shrink in at a touch. As the sun gets hot they retreat into the interior, leaving glittering crystals of slime on the leaves. The dew dries, the snails retreat, the larks begin. High up in the sky one sees them embedded. Hour upon hour, through the heat, their song is sustained, to the point of relentlessness. Beyond the bungalow the wheat is tall, the stalks and ears green-gold, stiff as cane on these windless days. . . .
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