The Day the Call Came

by Thomas Hinde

  They’d forgotten something. I was astonished that I’d not expected it. Voices in the drive, the front door open­ing, feet on the stairs. I stood frozen. I stepped into the hanging cupboard and pulled the flimsy door shut.

  Despite the chinks of light from Wilfred’s horrible carpentry it was dark in there. My head was among the dresses and they felt thin – diaphanous is the word – and smelt of old scent and sweat. I shuddered. At the same time I had the uncomfortable thought that Rene might need something from this cupboard. Or that they might have given up the whole camping holiday and be going to settle down to live here with me inside their cupboard. And anyway, what would they think of Boodles standing in their bedroom staring at the place where he’d last seen me?

  Already they were coming nearer along the upstairs passage and, more as a reflex than because I thought it would help, I edged deeper into those stale, scented dresses. Among them I found something hard and scratchy. For a second I thought it was important till I recognized the feel of a dried orange stuck with cloves.

  Perhaps it was my preoccupation with this, or with the sudden discovery that the dresses had changed to clothes of heavy material which must be Wilfred’s suits, and my instinctive hesitation at breathing among these, which made me fail to concentrate for a moment on sounds in the room. I wasn’t sure if they were still in it. I wasn’t even certain whether they’d come into it.

  Into this complete silence and uncertainty I heard Wilfred say, ‘Don’t do that’. It wasn’t particularly loud, but shockingly close, so that I knew I’d have heard any small sounds which had come before or after. There weren’t any. It was imperative but not hopeful, just the normal way he would say it, admitting a two-to-one chance it would provoke the opposite reaction.

  It seemed to come from about half-way between my cupboard and the doorway of the bedroom. I couldn’t tell which way he was facing. I couldn’t tell whether it had been said to Rene or Boodles. Neither of them answered.

  And that was all there was. Soon after, I heard doors shutting, the mini’s motor starting in the drive, a grind of gears and they’d gone.

  Had they known I was there and chosen not to let me know they knew? I couldn’t guess.

  Quickly I completed my inspection of the house. Boodles, who wasn’t in the bedroom when I came out, padded upstairs to watch. I found nothing. Perhaps I didn’t want to find anything else. I had enough to think about.

  The back door was still unlocked. That was a relief – though of course they could have left it unlocked to quiet my suspicions. Outside the back door, lying under its stone in the sunlight, was that message. ‘Monday one pint only please.’ It mocked me. In a second of instinc­tive rashness, or angry desire to punish it for its inscru­tability, I slipped it into my pocket.

  If I already had enough to think about I was to be given more. I’d relocked the back door, slipped into the rhododendrons, and made my way at a crouching trot through the pines and birch scrub to the point where I’d left the drive. I’d recovered the camp-bed, brushed off the leaves and begun to stroll with it towards the Dray­cotts’ drive entrance, when I heard steps on the New Lane.

  It was Charles Quorum.

  Charlie Quorum was the retired civil servant of Irish background, whose wife was called Queenie and who’d been at the Brightworths’ barbecue. He was heavy, with a big face the shape of a Victoria plum. Also with a Victoria plum’s red stained effect, and without much hair. Because he was preoccupied he began to turn into the Draycott drive without looking along it. As soon as he saw me I noticed him start.

  It was a habit of Charlie’s to start when he saw you, as if your tie were missing or your fly undone, so that for several minutes you were surreptitiously feeling and checking. And if you asked, he would look astonished, so that you were unsure whether he was denying that he had started or refusing to believe that you didn’t know why. Charlie specialized in uncertainty. It was his form of humour. Sometimes I felt it was more than this, that if he ever heard a complete explanation of anything, his benignly humorous pose would unexpectedly change to anger. I’d never seen it.

  But I’d seen him move away from an explaining con­versation, as if he could not bear to be close to it. I liked the way Charlie made conversation, just the ordinary meeting of ordinary people, into something less ordinary, always unexpected. I liked the way he refused to give or ask for explanations, and started when he saw you to make you guess. But I wondered if this particular start had been genuine. I wondered if Charlie would have preferred to be seen walking straight past the Draycotts’ drive.

  ‘Hallo,’ I said.

  ‘Bale of the veld,’ Charlie said, stopping and staring. He let his eyes drift once or twice to my camp-bed, then lifted them quickly away as if in pain.

  ‘Not me,’ I said. ‘I was offering it to Wilfred. For his week-end.’ I’d given the explanation too soon and anxiously.

  Charlie didn’t answer, just glanced a bit more directly at the bed.

  ‘He didn’t want it,’ I said. I gave a colourful description of the loaded Draycott mini-car. ‘They’ve gone now,’ I ended, unnecessarily.

  ‘It comes to the best of us,’ Charlie said.

  I smiled, uncertain what he meant.

  ‘Ah well,’ Charlie said, and went on down the drive. When he had gone a couple of paces, and without turning, he said, ‘Lone Wolf Bale’. A yard or two farther on he raised one soft hand with three extended and separated fingers. Still without turning he gave a two-noted whistle of Red Indian film type and began to work his arms as if breaking into a double, but his legs went on walking.

  I was still staring after him when he passed round the bend towards the Draycott house.

  I was astonished that he should go there when I’d told him they were away – unless he hadn’t heard. Or had I never told him but only thought I’d told him? With alarm I felt in my pocket for the piece of paper. It was there all right.

  Of course there were many reasons why Charlie might call on Wilfred Draycott. He might be taking an invita­tion; they often went with their wives to dinner at each other’s houses. Or a message for the children; Queenie took a grandmotherly interest in Rene’s little girls. Or a suggestion for a round of golf; Charlie and Wilfred sometimes played together. Still more likely, he might have had hidden in his big loose jacket some map or other piece of camping advice. And it would have been sus­picious if Charlie had voluntarily told me where he’d been going or why. I could imagine him continuing to go there even when he’d been deprived of his reason, simply from a habit of creating confusion. I could also imagine him coolly taking advantage of this well-known behaviour pattern.

  It was true, I remembered, that beyond the Draycott back garden was the common, and a short walk across it would take Charlie to his own garden. It might even be a quicker way home. It was still amazingly cool.

  I came from the Draycott drive and crossed the New Lane in deep thought. I was turning up my own back drive when I saw Molly, only a few yards away, coming towards me.

  ‘I couldn’t find you anywhere,’ she said.

  ‘Did you want me?’

  ‘No,’ she said vaguely.

  I’d sometimes known her become frightened when she couldn’t find me. I held up the camp-bed. I went slowly. It was easier with Molly because I knew the exact, slightly absent-minded way in which I talked to her. ‘The Dray­cott safari,’ I said. ‘Offering them a comfortable night – and a few tips on water divining.’

  ‘That’s a coincidence,’ she said.

  ‘Oh?’ I said. For the first time I noticed that she was carrying a jam jar with a grease-proof paper lid held on by an elastic band with some grey stuff inside.

  ‘Taking them a few iron rations,’ she said.

  I guessed it was pâté. Molly made good pâté.

  ‘Too late I’m afraid. They’ve gone.’

  She listened to my colourful description of the loaded Draycott mini. Half-way I came to a curious halt to hear myself sayin
g these things a second time, but I recovered and finished.

  ‘When did they leave?’ she said.

  That was awkward, and I glanced sharply at her, but she was peering at the pâté through the glass jar as if worried about its quality. ‘Just now,’ I said vaguely.

  ‘I’ll put it in their frig,’ she said, as if she hadn’t heard me.

  ‘But how . . . ?’ I began, and checked myself heavily, sensing the many mistakes I might make.

  ‘All the burglars know where Rene hides her back door key,’ she said.

  I found that answer a shock. Perhaps I was worried by the way she had watched me as she said it. Or perhaps by the way she had listened to my camp-bed explanation. Or perhaps I was shocked to realize that I, like everyone else, knew that the Draycotts hid their back-door key in the pea-green gutter immediately over their back door. I stood in the sun, thinking about it, as she went away from me, across the New Lane, into the Draycott drive.

  That was the first time I wondered what Molly knew. Not once in the years that had passed could I remember her discovering anything. I didn’t congratulate myself. I’d had no choice. I wondered if my care and secrecy had been enough. Had she been able, by adding up a thousand little remarks and occasions, to make an in­tuitive guess, to jump to the truth though the logical steps were missing?

  I had a new idea: might she also have joined? Had we for years, unknown to each other, been working side by side? Had she been listening curiously to my answers about the camp-bed because this same suspicion about me had occurred to her? Was she, too, off to check the Draycott house, now there was this good chance? I felt my mind start to spin.

  I came slowly up to the house. I needed peace to work things out. I went past the farm office on to the lawn and lit a cigarette. I didn’t often smoke, but used the habit carefully and privately to help me think.

  Dan and Peggy were reading side by side on a blan­ket against the house. Dan was on his stomach and el­bows, his chin in his hands, his heels occasionally kicking his buttocks. Peggy was on her back with her shoulders against the wall and her book against her bent knees. They seemed unusually absorbed till I guessed it was a reading competition. Who could read most pages by lunch-time.

  To start with, Molly wasn’t a concealing sort of person. She was often surprised when I guessed her thoughts. But I realized that people weren’t consistent. I was always discovering unexpected things about them, especially things connected with other things about which they’d already talked to me. It was as if they kept taking the covers off deeper holes. It was as if they were contin­uously trespassing near these holes in the hope that one day they might have the courage to lift these final covers. I’d become good at sensing when there were holes about, and encouraging them to open them. Was it possible that, because I’d thought I knew Molly better than anyone else, I’d failed to look for what she might be hiding?

  One thing was certain, I must never again be so un­observant . . .

  ‘Hallo,’ Peggy called.

  ‘Have we got to stay here?’ Dan called.

  ‘Why should you?’ I said cautiously.

  ‘Because of Mummy,’ they said together.

  ‘Dan’s not to get lost before the doctor comes.’ Peggy said.

  ‘Doctor?’ I said. I found the idea annoying. ‘Who’s called the doctor?’

  They didn’t answer, no doubt hearing my anger, un­sure who it was for.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ I said, making it casual.

  ‘He’s got spots,’ Peggy said. Now it was she who seemed annoyed, but I guessed that was because Dan had them and she hadn’t.

  I was close by this time and about to ask to look when I heard a car pass below our lawn and saw it turn in at our front drive. At the same moment I saw Molly return­ing round the side of the house.

  ‘Good morning,’ Dr. Grott said. He was six foot two with a lot of stiff grey hair. He advanced across the lawn, carrying a bag and holding out a strong hand. ‘How’re we keeping?’

  For a moment I couldn’t answer. The phrase had a professional flavour for a fruit farmer and I wished he wouldn’t use it. Also the word ‘we’ confused me and I wasn’t sure whether he knew who was ill.

  ‘Good morning, doctor,’ Molly said, coming past me. ‘I’ve managed to hold on to the young man.’

  ‘Hallo, young man,’ Dr. Grott said.

  He squatted by Dan’s rug and Molly bent opposite while Dan took off his shirt. ‘Give you a sunbath too, shall we, young man?’ Dr. Grott said.

  ‘All right,’ Dan said.

  ‘Open wide,’ Dr. Grott said.

  With Molly on one side and Dr. Grott on the other, I couldn’t examine Dan closely but I was surprised not to be able to see any spots.

  Dr. Grott stood up. ‘There we are then, young man,’ he said, in the wise way doctors have, hiding what they know in preparation for the times when they won’t know.

  I’d have liked to look at Dan myself but at this mo­ment I was distracted by Molly and Dr. Grott, who be­gan to walk away together. Soon I couldn’t hear them. I felt again the anger I’d felt when I’d heard that Molly had called him without consulting me. I was angry with Dr. Grott for the way he had manoeuvred her on to this walk, and with Molly for going. But I didn’t try to join or follow, guessing how that would hurt Molly, because her children’s illnesses were her business. By the time I’d decided this Dan had dressed.

  Dr. Grott drove away and Molly came back across the lawn. She smiled at me, but seemed about to go through the french windows into the sitting-room.

  ‘What’s wrong with him?’

  ‘Nettle rash,’ she said.

  She stopped. For several seconds she hesitated, waiting for me to speak, but she had moved on long before I’d recovered from my astonishment. They had walked slowly for twenty yards, talking the whole time, and this was all they had said! What was more, she hadn’t meant to tell me.

  Molly cooked lunch and I stood on the lawn. The day was growing hotter. I began to smoke again. Beyond the empty rug where my children had been, beyond the house, across the low lands where my orchards lay, on the far purple hills I could see if I looked carefully the line of cars creeping south on the coast road. The Draycotts too, no doubt . . . Every few seconds their windscreens flashed in the sunlight. It was some minutes before I noticed that these flashes were unusual.

  There were more of them than even the Saturday mor­ning creep would make. They came and went more quickly. And they were always from the same place, a thing which might be explained by the angle of that piece of road. On the other hand . . .

  But there was no need to argue any more, for I had realized that they were coming in groups. Instantly I started to note them on my cigarette packet. Two, eight, nine, six, four. After that they became erratic with flashes and pauses of many different lengths. I tried for five minutes to make a pattern of them but couldn’t. Perhaps I’d been mistaken. As if in answer, they became regular again with even pauses; I counted and wrote on my packet exactly the same group of numbers.

  They stopped. Several times that morning I stared across the low lands to the far hills. They didn’t start again. As the hours passed I became less convinced. There were many possible explanations. It might not have been a car, but a boy playing with a mirror. Some­one perhaps with a telephone number on his mind. Telephone number! I dialled it but there was absolute silence, the sort of telephone silence which seems to be waiting for something more. What more could I do?

  I had almost forgotten it when I strolled on to the lawn after lunch, feeling well-fed and sipping coffee. Peggy was rolling sideways down a grass bank by the tennis court. It gave me a twinge of indigestion but I resisted calling to her – there it was again, flashing in regular groups. I didn’t stop to count.

  As I hurried to the farm office I guessed how it was managed: a car unsuspiciously stopped by the roadside, a windscreen which looked normal but could be slightly moved up and down by someone sitting innocently in­side
. It was the cleverest thing I’d seen for a long time. I got the cigarette carton out of the waste basket.

  I stared at the meaningless figures.

  I went back to the lawn. The flashing had stopped. I strolled up and down. Occasionally I said something to Molly. She was moving near the flower-beds, bending for dead heads, stepping back to admire. Presently, as I’d expected, it began again and I checked the same num­bers. Throughout that hot worrying afternoon it went on. Irregular flashing, the message, degenerating into untidy pauses and flashes, stopping. It was still doing it as the sun went lower in the west.

  At five o’clock I got the binoculars. I went to our bedroom, which looked that way, and focused them on the sunlit purple hills. Though the flashing was in its irregular phase I could see it clearly, but the exact shape and type of car it was coming from was hard to tell. This was strange because the cars beyond, still creeping on the coast road, were clear.

  It occurred to me that the road and car might not be next to each other, as they seemed through the glasses, but fifty yards apart.

  Presently I focused the car more clearly, but its out­line and make still escaped me. There seemed to be three men in it. Oddly, the men were clearer than the car. They were wearing dark clothes and sitting upright but not doing much.

  That evening, despite my worry, I was careful to go to Dan’s room to say good night.

  ‘How’s the rash?’

  He looked up from his book. ‘Don’t know.’ I thought it might be upsetting him though he hadn’t meant to tell me.

  ‘When did you notice it?’

  ‘Me?’ he said. ‘Not me.’

  ‘Then who?’ I began.

  ‘How could I, in the middle of my back?’

  ‘Oh, there,’ I said, thinking hard.

  ‘Of course,’ he said with surprise.

  ‘Was it Mummy?’

  ‘That’s right,’ he said, still more astonished that I didn’t know.

  ‘When?’

  ‘Last night in my bath.’

  I knew he was telling the truth.