The Hide

by Barry Unsworth

  I proceeded as rapidly as possible to the side turning and crawled down into my subterranean salon. Going across to the corner on hands and knees, I lit the paraffin lamp and squatted back on my heels waiting, while the light brought the room immediately into familiar focus, even the rosy half-light before the wick was turned up, the various things disposed about asserted almost with violence their familiarity, their quality of being objects that, however common in themselves, have a uniqueness of placing, of consideration in my mind. I turned the light up gradually, it whitened, and things assumed their placidity of existence here below, as though it had never been dark at all. The goddess or nymph, yellow-skinned and heavy-lidded, still dreamed in her nudity among the olive trees, pale tapering fingers screening the pudenda, as if no interval of time had elapsed since I saw her last.

  I turned myself rather laboriously about, intending to go over to my stool and sit on it, but I became aware at this point that a certain invasion had taken place: vivid glints against the wall, the faint collisions of imprisoned wings. I saw it come to rest just below the roof, wings close together, a Red Admiral butterfly, and at practically the same moment I saw a spider’s web just beyond the butterfly at the junction of wall with ceiling and the spider itself motionless at the centre. I did not know which to wonder at most, the presence of the butterfly, a creature of sunlight and the upper air, or the spider’s industry in anticipation of further flyers.

  The butterfly was evidently exhausted, it did not move as my hand approached it. I took the soft powdery wings between finger and thumb, aware already of damage irreparably done to their delicate texture. The legs clung for a moment to the wall with a gentle adhesiveness so that detaching the creature finally was curiously like plucking a very fragile flower. Holding it still by the wings, I turned the lamp down and blew out the flame. Then, with the aid of my trusty torch, I climbed out into the tunnel again and continued along it until it came to an end. I knew myself now to be in more or less the dead centre of the grounds, immediately below the thicker part of the shrubbery. This is where I had been working when that interloper of a gardener first appeared on the scene. Had it not been for him, I reflected, I should probably have been able to take the tunnel clear across the grounds by this time, right to the farther hedge.

  I shone the torch down on to the thing in my hand. Its legs had ceased to move, they were coppery in the light, and the butterfly appeared artificial, jewelled. Its wings glowed, colour strained through the drab backs. Switching off the torch I put up my hand and raised the trap-door. Immediately sunlight rushed down on to my head and shoulders, my eyes ached, the colours of the butterfly paled. I raised my arm well above ground level and released it, giving at the same time an upward impetus with the fingers that held it. The creature dropped almost to the ground then fluttered up again higher and higher until it was lost in the sunlight. I was about to duck down again into the tunnel when my eye, which had risen above the surface of the ground to watch the butterfly’s flight, caught through the ramifications of the bush nearest me, through the close mesh of the lower branches, a momentary glimpse of white, gone again immediately as my head in motion lost the particular configuration of branches which had allowed the view. Carefully and slowly, moving my eyes laterally by very slow degrees I sought again that minute and fortuitous gap. I had it again, this time there was no mistake, again I caught that glimpse of white, clothing surely, about fifty yards off as far as I could judge. Moving with great care, I raised myself up and on hands and knees emerged from the shaft. I remained still a few moments, from a primitive sense of cheating any expectations my entry into the upper world might have aroused. Then, kneeling up, I looked over the top of the same bush, through the thinning leaves. The sight that met my eyes was clear and open, so far from any attempt at concealment that for some moments my devious heart refused to credit it: not forty yards away, full in the open, the gardener and Marion were standing motionless, locked in each other’s arms, engaged in a protracted kiss. With a startled particularity I noted the exact position of his dark arms across her white jersey back, exactly parallel, one across the middle of the back, the other against the waist, both his hands flat slightly splayed, one directly above the other, pressing her against him. There was a feeding intensity about his lowered head, a distraughtness in the surrender of her raised one. Beneath the white skirt her bare legs were lost, forgotten, the toes turned inward like a cloth doll’s because her weight was not on them but taken in the gardener’s arms, supported against his body. The kiss went on, soundless and motionless, until there was finally something of horror in its continuing. Then I saw their faces part but still regard each other closely, and as it seemed, anxiously.

  Behind me, from the direction of the lawn, I heard a sudden outcry, a kind of concerted acclamatory chorus, and I realised that at that moment the Reverend Ede must have drawn the winning ticket out of the bag. And with this sound ringing in my ears I perceived that here perhaps was an opportunity for snapping that thread, causing that recoil.

  As quickly as possible I covered the entrance to the shaft. Then I made my way, on hands and knees for the first dozen yards or so, back through the shrubbery, into the cover of the trees, towards the lawn. The tribal sounds gained in volume as I advanced but I experienced no faltering. I composed my features, resolved on no gestures, rehearsing mentally as I went along the respectful way in which I would draw Audrey aside, yes, if necessary, even from the side of the Reverend Ede himself, and intimate to her what her protégés were getting up to in the grounds. . . .

  Fosh . . .

  I NEVER THOUGHT Mortimer would of brought someone else with him when he come to meet me. There was no reason why he shouldn’t a course, but he never said nothing about it before. They come in together. I was waiting in the cafeteria, I went there straight from work. They come in together, laughing over something. This is Lionel, Mortimer said. He is working on the stall now, he is the one that got your job. Pleased to meet you, I said. I didn’t take to him at all, right from the start. He was a fattish bloke with greasy fair hair and a round face and a little wet mouth. He was older than me, about Mortimer’s age. As a matter a fact he looked to me like a typical stall attendant and I didn’t understand what Mortimer saw in him. He didn’t say nothing back to me when I said, Pleased to meet you, he just looked at Mortimer, still with a sort of laughing look on his face. That is not how you behave when you are introduced to someone.

  How’s the boy? Mortimer said. Lionel went to get two teas. I’m all right, I said. There was a bit of trouble at work this afternoon. Oh yes? he said, what was that then? I’d prefer, I said, to tell you later. And I give a look towards Lionel, who was standing at the counter getting the tea. Right, Mortimer said, as if he was not particularly interested. So I didn’t say nothing more, two can play at that game.

  Lionel blew on his tea to cool it. That was another thing that put me off him. I mean, if your tea is too hot, you just wait, you don’t blow on it. Also he neglected his person, he had hairs growing out of his nose. Look at that, look at them tits, he said all of a sudden. He was looking at one of the women serving the tea, she must of been over forty. I could do her a bit of good, he said. He talked in a funny way as if his mouth was full of spit.

  Lionel and me will be having a pint or two later on, Mortimer said. At the Blue Post. Would you like to join the revels, Josiah? I couldn’t understand why he was talking to me in this way, sort of not caring. As if we didn’t know each other so well. He was different with me all the time Lionel was there. A course I didn’t let on that I noticed. I got my self-respect. Anyway I couldn’t go with them. No, I said, I can’t. I’m going out tonight. That must be with Marion, Mortimer said. Going hedging and ditching, are you Josiah? He was smiling but I knew he wasn’t too pleased. Lionel stopped looking at the woman and looked at me. Mortimer had guessed it, a course. I was taking Marion to the pictures.

  I have been thinking about that Marion of yours, Mortimer said, and
he got a certain look on his face. I tried to think of something to say to change the subject, but I couldn’t, nothing come to mind. I wanted to hear his opinion of Marion but not in front of a third party as you might say, and certainly not in front of someone like Lionel.

  Yes, Mortimer said, and the conclusion I have come to is that she’s had a length or two slipped into her one time and another.

  Lionel laughed, but I didn’t look at him, I was looking at Mortimer all the time. Mortimer wasn’t laughing at all. How could you of known that? I said. You only talked to her for half an hour. How could you of known?

  It’s easy when you know what to look for, Lionel said. He was still laughing and I knew at that moment that Mortimer had said something to him before about me and Marion. I looked at Lionel and I seen the spit in the corners of his little mouth. Seeing him sitting there laughing, and Mortimer encouraging it like, when he knew it was something just between the two of us, well it upset me, when we were on our own was a different matter, but he never done it in front of anyone else before.

  Not just someone, Josiah, Mortimer said. Old Uncle Tom Cobley and all. It’s the way they walk. It is their gait, Josiah. I have made a study of it. Particularly the way the legs go devious from the vertical, that is what you have to watch out for. Your Marion is slightly bow-legged, to use a non-scientific term, proving that she has been raising and opening them more or less steadily ever since she knew what it was for.

  Do you mean you can tell just by watching them walk?

  I have rarely seen a more well developed specimen than that Marion of yours, he said. Just by watching them walk? I said. Certainly, he said.

  I looked at Mortimer’s face and it was as if I had never seen it before, just for them few seconds he was like someone I didn’t know and I got this feeling that he didn’t care what Marion was really like. Always before, I accepted everything Mortimer said, so now I tried to think what Marion walked like, but I got confused because now he had said them things about her I couldn’t keep clear in my mind what I thought about her before. Mortimer has this way with him, once he has said something on a subject, it isn’t the same, you can’t feel the same exactly as you felt before. But Mortimer gave himself away by what he said next. Maybe if he hadn’t of said nothing more, I dunno, maybe I would not of questioned it. Or maybe if Lionel hadn’t of been there. What Mortimer said was, That Marion has seen more pricks than you’ve had hot dinners, Josiah. It was then, it was when he said that, that I started not believing it.

  You said that same thing about Joyce, I said. What are you on about? he said, and he looked at Lionel. That made it worse a course. You said that about Joyce, I said, and I understood something then, I could see Mortimer was not really interested in giving me the benefit of his advice, I needn’t of bothered to give him only the facts about Marion, I needn’t of been so careful, because nothing I told him about her made any difference. And I felt something else at the same time, behind this other thing, and that was Mortimer did not have the same kind of feelings I did, and it wasn’t just him being a man of the world but something maybe only Mortimer felt, there was something in his ideas different from everybody else’s. And I knew then that what he was saying about Marion wasn’t what was in my mind before, but only in his.

  You only said that, I said, because you know I like her. And I don’t believe you, I said, I don’t believe you can tell just by watching them walking. They could all have Plastic Surgery, if that was the case.

  I do not think I would ever of spoken to Mortimer like this if he hadn’t of tried to show me up in front of a typical stall attendant like Lionel. (I never looked at Lionel again the whole time he was sitting there.) I was frightened myself by this time, because Mortimer didn’t say nothing, he just looked. I tried to look back at him but I couldn’t. I went on talking though. You can’t tell, I said, you can’t, not just by watching them walk. I couldn’t hardly swallow, my mouth was so dry inside because I was contradicting Mortimer like this, something I never done before. I dunno what would of happened, but just then old Mr Harding come in for his break, he works in the Amusement Arcade, giving out change, and maybe Mortimer was just as glad of it as me, because he started on at him right away. Here’s Lord Nuffield, he said, putting a smile on. (Mortimer always makes out Mr Harding is rich through giving out short change.) Lend us a couple of quid, Uncle, he said.

  Peace on this house, Mr Harding said, cheerful-like, but meaning it. He always says that when he comes in anywhere. Mr Harding is very religious. He went up to the counter and got his tea then he come back and sat down with us. He pulled at the strap of this big satchel he has for the change, working it round from his side till it was resting in his lap. Then he started sucking up the hot tea. He made a lot of noise doing it, well he don’t know any better. He’s had a very hard life, Mr Harding has. He was holding the cup in his big red hands and you could see half way up his arms, his jacket sleeves was so short, and that is another reason Mortimer makes these jokes about him being rich like, because he always wears such old clothes that I wouldn’t be seen dead in myself. He don’t care about clothes, a course. He is a big bony bloke and he is very strong. He stands about all day and half the night in the Amusement Arcade, digging in his satchel for coppers for people who want to have a go on the slot machines. He always looks happy.

  Somebody must of put a tanner into the juke box because Eartha Kitt come on, singing Monotonous.

  Tell us, Mr Harding, Mortimer said, what is the secret of your financial aspirations and success? Give us a tip or two.

  Mr Harding looked over his cup at Mortimer for a minute. He has blue eyes and he looks at everything in the same kind of way, whether it’s a cup a tea or a person or just the wall, like. The peace that passeth understanding, he said to Mortimer.

  I am talking about money, Mortimer said. He has no time for religion a course.

  Mr Harding supped up some more of his tea. Mock not, he said. He has these round blue eyes and lots of wrinkles in his face, dirt in the wrinkles, and he keeps his hair about a quarter of an inch all over.

  I have known the peace that passeth understanding, Mr Harding said, since I accepted Christ as my personal saviour. Is that right? Mortimer said, in a sort of gentle way I wasn’t expecting. Personal saviour, eh? he said. In them days, Mr Harding said, I used to drink. He sat up in his chair and you could see how thick his shoulders was, under his old black jacket. Four policemen, he said. It took four coppers to get me to the station. I never knew me own strength in them days. Is that right? Mortimer said, still in the same kind of voice. You got no proof, though, have you, that’s your trouble. Proof? Mr Harding said. I’ve proved it in me own life, since I accepted that Christ died for me. That’s not proof, Mortimer said. You have had no legal training, you don’t know the rules of evidence. Doesn’t it occur to you, doesn’t it enter your cranium, that plenty of people in the antiquity era managed to live without getting drunk and knocking coppers about? Centuries before Jesus Christ was even thought of, before he was so much as a gleam in the Holy Ghost’s eye, they were managing without those pleasures, Mr Harding. That was blasphemy what you just said, Mr Harding said. That was sheer blasphemy. Forgive them for they know not what they do. They lived lives, Mortimer said, of a most salutary character and without all this self-congratulation, if you’ll forgive the liberty, Mr Harding. Take those classical Greeks for instance, Perikles, Brutus, all that lot. Take Socrates. What was that name? Mr Harding said. Is it pagans you are talking of? I am a living witness to my redeemer. I know that my redeemer liveth.

  Mortimer got up and put his hands on the back of his chair. You think it over, he said. Just because you cut out the booze doesn’t prove Jesus Christ died for you at all. Just you think about those classical Greeks.

  We started to go out. Let not sin reign as king in your mortal body, Mr Harding shouted after us as we were leaving.

  Like talking to a brick wall, Mortimer said when we got outside. I think I shook him a bi
t though. I think I gave him food for thought. Well, I heard Lionel say, I better be getting back. I didn’t look at him at all. Yes, Mortimer said, that old cow will be missing you. See you later then, Lionel said. Mortimer and me stood just outside the cafeteria watching Lionel walk away through the crowd. Where’s he going then? I said. He is going back to the stall, Mortimer said. He’s on till nine. Oh, I said, he just happened to be having his break then, when you were coming off? That’s right, Mortimer said. Oh, I said, I see. I felt a lot better now that I knew Mortimer hadn’t asked him along on purpose like. I didn’t think much of him, I said, but Mortimer didn’t answer.

  I am going to change my tactics with that old hoary Harding, he said, after a bit. Every time I see him now I’m going to insinuate a doubt. A bloke like that, he has never been argued with. He goes on telling everybody about being washed in the blood of the lamb, and nobody says anything. What’s the point? I said. I mean, he’s happy enough, he don’t do no harm. Mortimer looked at me for a minute, pressing his lips together. You are in a contradictious mood this afternoon, aren’t you Josiah, he said. He’s ignorant, he said, and all of a sudden he looked angry again. Ignorant old bastard, he said, going round spreading all that shit. There’s no Christ or angels waiting to save us. If this country was run on rationable principles he would be prosecuted for spreading the sentimentalist point of view, it’s worse than the pox because there are no injections for it. I hate all that shit. I am a realist. Oh, I said. Realist. And he is a sentimentalist, Mortimer said, and he is a soft-headed old bastard into the bargain, but I’ll fix him.

  I said them words to myself a couple of times, trying to get them fixed in my mind. I could see it was better to be a realist a course.