The Hide

by Barry Unsworth

  Several times I am able to observe Marion and the gardener talking to each other in various parts of the grounds. This is of much too frequent occurrence to be accidental. They take care, though, only to consort together at times when Audrey would not be likely to discover it. The time they most favour is early afternoon, when Audrey is resting in her room. They stand close together and appear to have a great deal to converse about. I have not so far succeeded in getting near enough to hear what is said, but I have noted that the gardener displays a much greater volubility with Marion than he does with my sister.

  As far as gardening is concerned, he does very little these days. He very rarely comes anywhere near the shrubbery or the central part of the grounds where my tunnel is. He clips the hedges, he has tidied up the lawn ready for the garden party and weeded all along the borders of the drive and he has done quite a bit of work on Audrey’s projected patio. But he has made no real impression as yet on the grounds as a whole. I think he would do more if left alone; but Audrey is always distracting him with tea or these illustrated books of hers. She changes her clothes for the morning and afternoon tea-breaks, appearing in things I never knew she possessed, flowered dresses, wedge-heeled sandals, chiffon scarves. The gardener is more taciturn with her and indeed does not often look directly at her. The average tea-break now lasts at least thirty minutes and on Tuesday, instead of bringing back only the tray, Audrey brought him back as well, established him on the terrace and together they began looking through another of her books. . . .

  I wonder who it was yesterday, whether there had really been a stranger in the grounds. I heard the gate quite distinctly, it is an unmistakable sound to one who knows, a sound between whirring and grating. I was standing near the pond when I heard it. I moved at once of course towards the gate, but circumspectly, using the cover afforded by the privet. The accustomed stillness spread about me as I advanced. Three frogs took headers into the pond as I went by, with the faintest of plops, the minimum of displacement. Thereafter there is silence. I come out at the front hedge and look over it, down the road. Fifty, seventy yards off I see a man’s back, receding, a long back held erect, in a grey flannel jacket, surmounted by a rather thin neck. Hair on the crown cut very short. I watch him take measured soldierly steps along the road, disappear from sight round the bend. Perhaps of course just a man passing, but I had heard the gate, of that I was quite certain. In my perturbation I very nearly blundered into the gardener. He was coming down the drive, away from the gate, walking very near the edge on the same side as myself. Fortunately at the last moment I heard him and was able to conceal myself, but it was a near thing. He looked as I had never seen him look before, in some extremity of illness or exhaustion, face bloodless even to the lips, mouth hanging slackly open. . . .

  The robins have hatched a second brood. The fledgelings snooze until one of the parents alights on the rim of the nest then their blind heads lift and gash yellow, the membraned eyes like raised bruises. On this occasion, however, I count only four of them. I place a finger on the rim of the nest and press gently, very gently. Almost immediately the naked heads rear up their soundless vociferation of hunger, but now there are only four. I look about at the foot of the hedge below the nest. Nothing. I extend the search for several yards around: still nothing. It would not seem then to have fallen out. But what predator would take only one? Rat, weasel, snake would leave no edible morsel. I ask myself what can have happened to this fifth one. Perhaps there were never five after all, it is difficult now to be sure.

  Certain, however, that there is no one in the world of whom I can enquire.

  Fosh . . .

  I NEVER WOULD of dreamed of it. Such a thing would never of come into my mind, we are all God’s creatures great and small is what I say and besides I have a weak stomach, them kind a things make me feel sick. I wouldn’t of showed him where the nest was if I’d of known what he was going to make me do, not that I think he knew himself to begin with. There wasn’t no plan like, it was one of them spontaneous actions. I am giving you his own word now. That is the point of it, he says. Spontaneous actions is what we need in this world today. Too much habit about, Josiah, he says. A course I can see what he means, we are all creatures a habit, like. In this day and age. I like it when he talks to me about serious things.

  He always wanted to know everything I was doing. I told him everything, but he wanted to see the grounds. He wanted to actually come and see where I was working. Well he was always interested in anything I done, Mortimer was, sometimes you might think he didn’t care, but I can remember a lot of times he took a personal interest. He should never of made me do that, though, it was cruel. A course I see what he means about us all in this day and age being in a rut like, but if anyone had told me that on such and such a day I would of been doing a thing like that, I would not of believed them. Not even afterwards I couldn’t hardly believe it. I knew I’d done it a course, I felt different, not bad, I didn’t feel bad, not straight away, I felt a bit out of breath as if I’d been running. And there was this other thing that happened to me, at the same time. It was only afterwards I felt sick. You have to violate your moral framework, he says. His own words. Standing there beside the hedge with the thing sitting on the palm of his hand, bluish fluff all over it, not frightened, stretching its skinny neck, trying to see. . . .

  It keeps coming into my mind. I try not to think about it, but it keeps coming in. The best thing, the thing that keeps it out best, is what Marion told me about the way she makes herself into two people when she is having a bath. I haven’t told this to Mortimer yet. I only told the facts to Mortimer, up to now only the facts about Marion, not any stories like. What she does, when she has a bath, is make herself into two separate persons.

  Mortimer met Marion. That’s why he come really. Her name kept cropping up, my fault really, well she was in my mind a lot, I couldn’t help mentioning her and he asked to meet her. I wanted it too. I got her to come out in the grounds while Mrs Wilcox was having her kip. (She calls it siesta.) Mortimer waited near the gate. I introduced them like. My best friend. That was before we done that to the bird. Marion didn’t see nothing, she’d gone back then. I wouldn’t of wanted Marion to see that.

  I just thought I’d show Mortimer the hide that the nutcase was going on about, his precious hide, it was only a little screen of bushes, then I showed him the nest and we had a look in at the young uns, all head and beak they was, with bumps where their eyes should be, I never touched them, never laid a finger on them, it was Mortimer that took it out. . . .

  Mortimer was very polite to Marion. He knows how to behave, Mortimer does. Well, I mean, he is a man of the world. He’s been a lot of places. He’s never told me half the places he’s been. Yes, he said and no, he said. Of course not, he said, and I quite agree with you. You’re not from this part of the world are you? he said. Originally I mean. She answered him, she spoke up for herself, but she was shy you could tell, she could see that Mortimer was not an ordinary sort of person, far from it, and she wanted to make a good impression like, seeing this was my best friend. She smiled a good bit that kind of uncertain way she has, I used to think she should of had a brace for them front teeth when she was little, but I like them now, I wouldn’t want to change them now. She kept looking at me a good bit and I smiled at her to show her she was doing all right like. I was feeling happy, matter a fact, seeing Mortimer and Marion talking together. But it was when they started on about film stars that Mortimer showed his ability as a conversationalist. Who is your favourite film star may I ask? he said, and it turned out David Niven was. I like mature men, she said. You must have had a very satisfactory relationship with your father, Mortimer said, in the same tone of voice, not making anything of it. That is just what Mortimer is like, you can’t help admiring him, he isn’t content just to go along on the surface, he goes straight to the root like. I don’t know I’m sure, she said, he died when I was five. And she smiled like, as much as to say, not much of a re
lationship there. The first five years of life, he said, is the receptible period. His own words. I like Cary Grant too, she said. She’s not really what you might call happy on the intellectual plane, a course. Well there aren’t many that could keep up with Mortimer. I think she was impressed though.

  I think she was. She never wants to talk about Mortimer, mind. If I start talking about him, she says, no, talk about you. I dunno what he thinks about her neither. Now that he has met her, I haven’t had a chance to ask him since then. Since we done that. . . .

  He stood there with the thing on his palm, talking. It kept on stretching its neck as if it was trying to see. I dunno if it could see, I don’t think it could. Its eyes was open like but there was a sort of skin over them. You could see the eyes underneath, but I don’t think it could of seen through, besides it didn’t look at nothing, it didn’t know nothing until the thorn was going in. It wasn’t me that got the thorn, I would never of dreamed of it, it’s not in my nature, besides I have a weak stomach. He never meant to, I’m sure he never, not when he got it out of the nest. He just wanted to have a look. It was when it shit on his hand that his face changed. It was just like it done it on purpose, biding its time then letting out a squelchy one in the middle a Mortimer’s palm, well I laughed at first and he smiled too, but his face got a certain look I knew because I seen it before. He didn’t wipe it off neither, that was another funny thing, he just left it there.

  He looked down at it for a bit, kind of smiling. Moral frameworks, he said. I am giving his own words now. He looked at me. I don’t follow you exactly, I said. Define your terms, I said. Do you consider yourself a good person? he says. I was just going to say, yes a course, but that was bit flat, a bit disappointing like to Mortimer who had started this conversation, then I remembered what Mr Harding, he works at the Pleasure Park, was always saying about Original Sin. (His life was changed by reading a bit of the Bible once when he was inside.) A course, I said, there’s Original Sin, we all got a touch a that.

  I felt proud of this remark at the time, I didn’t know a course what it was all leading up to. I didn’t have no inkling.

  No, it’s all habit, Mortimer said. What you have to do, he said, is give yourself a shaking up. Every now and then you have to perform an outrage on your moral frameworks, or it will all only be habit. Outrage, Josiah, he said and he was looking at me now very fixed like, not smiling any more. I dunno what you’re on about, I said, I was too scared now to try to understand what it was about, because Mortimer’s face had gone so serious and sort of determined. No, he said, listen Josiah. Listen. You don’t know what I’m on about because you never think for yourself. Your moral frameworks are blunted. From time to time, he said, Josiah, and this is one of the times, this . . . creature gives us our opportunity, from time to time we have to do things that may well go against the grain but we have to do them for the sake of our moral frameworks. . . .

  I didn’t like him saying that about me not thinking, so I nodded and said a course, a course . . . . I’m glad you agree, he said and went over to the hedge and when he come back he was holding this thorn, must of been an inch long, curved like, with a thick base, a briar thorn. Well, I looked at it and I looked at him and it still never come into my mind what he was intending, that is how I know such things is not in my nature, because I never had no inkling of it it. . . .

  You’re an artist, Josiah, he said, so you have got a good eye. That’s a pun, he said, that’s a pun, by the way. I want you, he said, to push this thorn through its eye. Right into its rudimental brain, he said. I am giving his own words now.

  I knew he meant it, from the way he was looking at me, not only that but all of a sudden I saw that everything we had been talking about could only mean something if it led up to this. It was something that was necessary like, and it was because of this I had been afraid ever since Mortimer’s face had changed. Afraid, but not only that, sort of expecting something as well, excited really.

  You must be joking, Mortimer, I said. You don’t mean it do you, Mortimer? I knew he did though, and I felt my lips beginning to tremble a bit like they always do when I get worked up like or when I feel I got no protection, nowhere to turn. Now he began to look at me as if he really had made a joke and wasn’t sure if I understood or not and that was like a lot of other times in my life when people told me things and waited to hear what I said with just that look Mortimer had now, and whatever I said they laughed. I got to recognise that particular expression and what I done was laugh first, without saying nothing. I’m what you call the intuitive type but you can’t tell people that. So I tried it now, I laughed a bit, but Mortimer didn’t laugh. He just held out the thorn on the palm of his hand. On his other palm the thing was shivering as if it was cold and its head had stopped craning and settled back on its breast like. You could see it was missing the warm nest. Mortimer’s face did not look as if he was expecting anything now, he looked as if everything was decided. Please, Mortimer, I said. (He never changes his mind a course, once he says a thing.) Take the thorn, he said. Take it, Josiah. But not angry, he wasn’t angry, he spoke to me very quiet and . . . affectionate—as if he was giving me some kind of help and that is how it seemed to me at that moment, as if I had something very hard to do and he was giving me a bit of help. Go on, he said. You want to really. Please, I said, please don’t make me, I said, and I took the thorn, I never remembered taking it after, but I had it with my thumb against the flat base and I was still asking him to let me off but I dunno what I said because while I was talking I was doing it, near enough somehow to the thing to see the thorn going in, all the way in like it was a pin cushion till my thumb was stopped against the thing’s head, no blood, nothing, it was on Mortimer’s palm all the time, so easy, the thorn went in so easy with my finger at the other side of the head to hold it steady and it didn’t hardly move, only it made a sort of cheeping noise when the thorn first went in, and its beak half opened and stayed like that. . . .

  What Marion does when she has a bath is make herself into two persons. Especially when it’s chilly like, which is nearly always. There’s no heating in that bathroom at all, she told me. She stays in the bath on purpose like and the water gets colder and colder but she puts off getting out until she has to and then she pretends to be someone else. She pretends she is a poor orphan with nothing in the world, that’s one part of it, and the other is a rich kind lady. When she gets out of the bath she is cold and wet but the kind lady dries her with a towel and then the poor orphan begins to get cold again so the kind lady gives her clothes, one by one. First she gives her a vest and she puts that on and she feels better for a bit but then she gets cold again so the kind lady gives her a pair of knickers and so on till she had all the nice warm things and you get the pleasure of giving them like. That really makes me smile, thinking how she waits on purpose till she is really cold again before she gives herself the next thing. I told her I’d come and do it for her, I’d be the kind old lady, I’d dry her down with a towel and put her things on for her, only too pleased, I said. Yes, you’d like that wouldn’t you? she said. Still, she wouldn’t tell me them kind a things if she didn’t want me to think about it, picture her clothes going on bit by bit, I mean it stands to reason she wants me to have a mental picture like, but there’s more to it than that, it’s not so sexy because it’s like her, it’s just exactly like her and nobody else, to make things up like that, it’s her character. You only make things like that up if you’ve been alone a lot. I know that because of my own life. So it’s not so sexy really, well it is and it isn’t, it makes me like her more but I wouldn’t get a hard on thinking about it.

  That’s what happened to me after I done that to the bird, that’s the other thing that happened to me after I pushed the thorn in, I started going stiff down below like, dunno why. It didn’t die all that quick. It went on sitting there on Mortimer’s palm for I dunno maybe half a minute with the thorn right through its eye stuck in its brain and during that time it shit
on Mortimer’s hand again and I felt like I’d been running and then I felt myself getting stiff down there, only in a few seconds it got all stiff and the bird just sort of settled over on one side and that was that. Then I slowed down, everything seemed to slow down, difficult to explain really, I wasn’t excited any more and after a bit I began to feel sick.

  Mortimer threw the thing over the hedge and wiped his hands on the grass. He was breathing through his mouth, I could hear him. I wondered if Mortimer’s had gone stiff too, when mine did. I didn’t like to ask him. Besides if I’d of asked him he would of known that it happened to me. I wouldn’t of wanted Mortimer to know that. I wouldn’t of wanted Mortimer explaining it, giving me the benefit of his experience like, telling me why I got a hard on just in them few seconds.

  Simon . . .

  HE FINISHED CUTTING the lawn about three o’clock on the afternoon before the garden party. Quite early next day, soon after breakfast, I watched him carrying the trestle tables round to the front of the house and settling them out on the lawn. It was another very fine day. There were to begin with some thin clouds low down in the sky on the seaward side of the town but the sun as it got hotter licked them up. By now the sky was a deep hard blue. A breeze sprang up about this time, scarcely felt at all among the trees and in the enclosed space of the terrace and lawn, but noticeable in the open, especially on the side looking towards the bungalow and the open country beyond. A warm dry breeze, full of spice. He set up the trestles round the lawn leaving the side nearest the terrace open.