He wanted to chase the vehicle, stop it somehow, and murder the driver. He might even know him: one of the dimwitted pig-ignorant kids now grown up whom he had laboured to educate and civilize. He cursed the driver because on the swerve Daniel had screamed in fear at the explosion he thought was inevitable, and now above the noise of the engines he imagined the driver and his mate or mates laughing at his panic, gleeful at what they had done, nothing in front but heaven’s white light, a joke to last the rest of their shabby lives.
He had failed the test, except that he had survived and therefore had not, needed to steady himself with a couple of doubles, but the stench of his breath would tell them, and booze on active service was punishable by injury or worse, the rules stipulating nothing less than the whitest probity.
The engine was throaty, but healthy enough, yet gave a roar on him pressing the clutch, as if the plates needed looking at. He increased speed, hating the pestilence of swarming flakes sent to torment him alone.
Asking where Daddy had gone his mother told him: ‘He’s dead and buried.’ If she had said only: ‘He’s dead,’ he would have understood, but dead and buried showed his father in a coffin and never entirely dead, struggling in the dark and unable to breathe.
Ribbed snow lay where no car had made a mark. If they had, it was soon covered. The sides of the road could no longer be seen, though he glimpsed a tree, all but its head buried, cold arms and rags of white scurrying in the wind.
He couldn’t tell her of his horror in case she thought him soft like his father. When she questioned him as to how he felt he knew she would like to hear about his terrifying worries, even if only to show that he loved her and was for ever part of her. But he had never talked to her openly, as afraid of her as if his father had been born again in him.
A scuffing along the belly made the van feel like a boat speeding through turbulent water, every mile saturating his underclothes with sweat. He crossed from rut to rut, sculpting new ones, a skidding zigzag yet staying afloat. She died because he had never spoken. Dig your own grave, and others fall in. She had fed him, bought his books and clothes, but she dug the grave, fell in first. She dug her own grave right from the start, ran from her family and was cast off because they were Catholic. After his Protestant father was sent to jail she went back to the Church, though never to her family. You didn’t need to dig your own grave. Others would do it for you.
Wheels fought the deeper snow. He hadn’t thought so gloomily on other trips, only by himself in his room, but when called to action he regained clear thinking, a purposeful alacrity. Maybe the snow was an intimation that he was going to die. Their intelligence section hadn’t accounted for the weather, or the task was so urgent they knew they could rely on him to get the stuff through. But a white-out was different and, after a nervous unforeseen slewing across the road, a snowbank pulled him into a lay-by and wouldn’t let go.
He jerked the van back and forth in its soft jaws, raced the engine, swore, banged the dashboard – and maligned God. Attacked by the impossible, he closed all systems, and sat a few minutes through the silence he imagined his father enduring in the coffin. He pulled painfully at his moustache so as to stay in the world and think, while a white veil covered the windscreen.
There was a light in the distance. He couldn’t tell how far off, whether house or farm. He would shelter and use the telephone, though it seemed no longer a matter of getting through but of saving his life, so he fought his way along the road like a swimmer, bitter cold pushing wet and then icy against ankles and knees, abandoning an amount of explosive that, if touched off, would at the worst blow the empty road apart.
SIX
Eileen took a Michelin map from the glove box, its colours suffused by the light of his torch. ‘I suppose we’re heading for Bakewell?’
The car trundled under a railway bridge. ‘That’s right.’
A winding valley of snow caught in the mainbeam didn’t like their attempt at straightening. ‘I could buy a tart,’ she said.
More traffic, so he dipped the headlights and slowed, put them on again, but again had to dip. He seemed to have been in the car for ever. In the office or at home he could go the regular time between meals, but when motoring he felt sick if he did not eat every hour or so. Every feeling should have been coloured and distorted by the fatal fracas at home, but it wasn’t. He could forget for minutes at a time that it had happened, which made him happy and afraid in turn, a rhythm slowly changing him to a state of weary indifference. ‘The shops will be closed,’ he told her.
She supposed he didn’t want to talk, but what the hell? ‘When I was at school we put on plays.’ He smiled at her embarrassment at having been to such a place. ‘I liked acting, though. I got second prize one Christmas because I helped to stitch the clothes as well. My part wasn’t big. All I had to do was run onto the stage with my hair flying and arms akimbo – that’s what it said: arms akimbo! I thought I was supposed to be Dumbo the Elephant! – and then I had to shout at the top of my voice: “Fire! The place is burning down, and you’ll all be killed if you don’t leave by the nearest available exit!” That was my part. By the time I’d finished they’d all pushed by me, and I still stood there, as if I was sniffing the smoke. Then I ran off. It was a comedy, and because everybody laughed at me I got second prize.’
Snowflakes drove horizontally, ones and twos burning up into the beams like moths, drops of water on the windscreen tackled by the wipers. He was glad when she became too fascinated by the sight to talk. Then they ran in dozens, like soldiers on patrol searching out weak points along the runway of lights. ‘I’ve always hated the stuff, even when I was a kid. Others loved it and ran out in it to play, shouting and squealing, as if it weren’t cold. But I got chilblains, and hated it.’
Legions of flakes pelted in, the space in front shaped like a cone, the steering wheel at the narrow end. He made tracks along the whitened road, hard to see the edges or gauge the true lie of the camber. Caution was coated with anxiety as he slowed and hoped the tyres would grip. ‘It’s like a canal of milk,’ she said. ‘We should have brought our skis.’
‘It’s not thick enough.’ Now he was glad of her soothing chat. Gwen would have implied that the weather was his fault, which in a way it would have been, since he had been aware of its advent before turning into the hills. ‘But I forgot mine. Why didn’t you bring yours?’
‘They’re at the cobblers,’ she said, ‘being soled and heeled.’ Headlights burned from behind, so he slowed enough to let the car race on into the storm. ‘The suicide club. The world’s full of ’em, especially up North.’ She took off her jacket. ‘It’s as warm as toast in here. I was going to learn to drive once, but my boy friend had to sell his car because he was on the rock.’
He thought of Gibraltar. ‘The what?’
‘The rock and roll – the dole. He only got twenty-five quid for it. A real old cronk, all rusty and no MOT. But he wouldn’t teach me how to drive. I think he hated me. He didn’t even want me to talk. He was bone idle, though. Even when he had a job he took the day off whenever he felt like it. He would sit all the time. When he wasn’t sucking fags he was supping ale. And when he wasn’t supping ale he was sucking fags. And when he wasn’t doing both at the same time he was shouting at me. He was bored, I suppose. He didn’t even take much notice of me when we went to bed.’
She wasn’t thinking unless she was talking, so it would be unjust to condemn her to silence. As long as you encouraged her to speak you would know what was on her mind, such as it was, and in any case her patter could be quite amusing. The road forked without his noticing, or he went as if in a dream thinking it didn’t matter. He could only go on, regardless of which blue-white sock of the land he went into, as long as the car kept its mobility. Navigating unknown country in darkness was like being at sea: the nose of the vehicle had to go with winds and currents, and you hoped it would sooner or later get you somewhere.
At a wide bend and steep hill three cars
at different slants had been scattered by a black pantechnicon. Or, with lights on and exhaust steaming, they had failed to get up the skid-patch of the hill. He thought she was asleep, till she said: ‘What’s happened here, then?’
‘You’d better start praying.’ The sight of the sombre enormous van chilled him more than the snow, but he grinned it out of his psyche and winkled through a gap to begin a lone cavalry charge up the slope, bottom-gearing as he got higher, anxious to put distance between him and the enormous van, though not knowing particularly why, just a fear still lingering over the heart. There were more twists than had been apparent from below, a straight run to start with, but a sharp turning at the top.
She put her palms together. ‘I’m good at praying, but only to myself.’
The car slid off course when he released the accelerator before a bend, a drift building up in the cutting, the top of a hill elusive and ever far away. ‘If we get stuck it’ll be for a long time.’
She looked at the perilous world unworrying. The car would lie banked up in silence, but they would have shelter from the icy wind, be warm in fact, eat from the yummy stocks somebody like him would have in the car. They would only have to wait until rescue came, sleeping or telling stories about their different lives (maybe he had a few funny jokes she hadn’t come across) and hearing the radio now and again. A chap like him might not even bother her with sex. Trevor said that such blokes couldn’t get it up, though most of the time Trevor hadn’t been able to, and even when he had it was just bang-bang-bang and off to his pubs and car sales in Dreamland. You might as well sleep with the cat for what good it did.
The steering fought back as he played the circumference with his palms, wheels a slow zigzag. ‘It’s like a ballet,’ she cried. ‘I hope we don’t have to get out and push.’
He pleaded with the car to keep moving, sure they would die if forced to a stop. He wondered what might be wrong with that, but called out: ‘Come on, get going!’
She threw her arm forward as if whipping a team of huskies: ‘Mush! Mush!’
He pulled out of the swerve, iron-willing each roll of wheels to grip, but nothing would help if the powdery softness robbed them of bite and drifts built over them. The technically perfect car could balk at its chosen moment: brakes fail, power collapse, engine pack in, a tyre burst. Machinery was a god but you could never figure God’s mind, only fight off stupid fears and let Him do the thinking, it made no difference anyway.
She locked into his system of alarm, but hope didn’t die on seeing another bend in the headlights. To park would be sensible, before he was forced to. He was afraid of skidding back or being whammed by a farmer’s Range Rover coming blithely up at top speed. He would take a chance, and not surrender to the snowstorm, maintaining twenty-odd miles an hour, too intent at the wash of snow to register the dashboard.
Going on into the bend he again felt the familiar swing at the back and the slewing in front. A relaxation of feet and hands went with it, treadling at the right points, wipers on fast, all systems in full option, engine sewing a line of calico. He moved out of the swing and around a wider bend, sweat crawling over the backs and knuckles of his hands. The road ran straight, faint tracks not yet filled.
He wanted to stop, make tea on the stove, put biscuits into the munching machine, but he didn’t fancy the fight with spade and sacking to dig wheels out of the ruts. Hands shook as he passed the cigarettes. ‘Light me one.’
‘Can I smoke as well?’
No one else would have asked. He didn’t need her any more, but if he stopped, and strangled her, and was then unable to get the car out of the lay-by, what a laugh that would be. He wondered where such notions came from. ‘Please do. We’ve both earned it.’
She laughed like a child. He was thanking her, oh so fucking politely. Oh no, thank you. Who did he think he was? ‘Lovely fags. Thanks.’
‘That was a close call. Let’s hope there won’t be any more.’
Hot water burned her bladder, cold always making her want to piss pints, but it wasn’t the time to speak. With Trevor she wouldn’t wait for anything, why should she, though that mean beer-belly would never give way to anything she wanted no matter how next to nothing her request might be. This bloke was sweating blood to keep the car going, so she would cross her legs and keep her trap shut, otherwise he might chuck her out.
The road went fairly level, easy enough to take, but flakes thickened, falling as if someone was gleefully splitting eiderdowns above. How could that be, but it was. Maybe it wasn’t his car, belonged to who he worked for, yet it seemed too good for that, though some firms did give such motors to their reps.
Globules on the warm windscreen were swept aside, like people, she thought, asking for money on the streets to buy a cob and a cup of tea. As for him, each turn of the wheels meant more time that would never come back, and he couldn’t think that was anything but good.
SEVEN
Bowlegged fire irons supported a basket of logs warming the lounge of The White Cavalier Hotel. A huge copper bucket of wood stood in reserve, while a chimney hood big enough to suck up an ordinary room drew out the smoke. The fireplace was backed by a wall of small bricks that had once been red, Aaron surmised, spreading his large hands towards the heat. Most were now fairly blackened, but the pattern of mortar was plain.
Beryl had given him top marks for common sense when he had telephoned that he was stranded for the night, but the news she had passed on in return was not good, suggesting that his career as a bookdealer and manuscript merchant might be over. He didn’t care to think about it, after escaping the peril of being iglooed up for as long as nobody could tell.
A man whom he supposed to be the proprietor came down the stairs. He was short, with a solid girth, the jacket of his pinstriped suit showing a waistcoat half undone. He had a healthy spherical face with narrow eyes, large ears, and a grin that most of the time he didn’t know how to turn off, though the expression may have been more from nervousness than humour, showing teeth so even they could hardly have been his own. Thick ginger hair was swept back over a broad head, and after buttoning his waistcoat with deft fingers he picked the cellophane off a small cigar and began to smoke.
Ivy plants and aspidistras grew from plain terracotta pots along the corridor, and Aaron felt like a snowman standing at the reception desk to ask for a room. He knew the place wouldn’t be cheap, but on a night like this there was no alternative to the bed-and-breakfast rate of twenty-five pounds, as he signed the ledger, and wrote his address in perfect block capitals, so slow about it that the landlord impatiently shook a small length of ash from his cigar.
‘It’s a nice old place.’ Aaron screwed the top back on his pen. A few inches had matted the road on driving into the courtyard towards the line of garages that had once been stables. So many outbuildings gave it the aspect of a hamlet which, when lit up, would draw benighted travellers from miles around.
‘It is,’ the landlord answered, ‘if you know how to run it. Nineteenth century, it seems. And well preserved as well, much of it.’
On the lounge wall by a window was a peacock, with an enormous green grass brush of a tail speckled with royal-blue medallions on brown almond patches, the extremities of its fronds shivering due to a slight draught through the window fittings. The head was long, and deep blue wings joined the body like strongly hunched shoulders.
Aaron stood before it. ‘What a wonderful specimen!’
‘You like it?’ Fred the landlord’s chest expanded. ‘So do I. I wouldn’t part with it for what tea there’s left in China. I don’t think I’ve got anything I like better. Everybody comments on it. I got it years ago from an auction, for next to nothing. I don’t suppose anybody knew what to do with such a thing, but I did. I thought of changing the name of the hotel to The Peacock, but it would have meant too much paperwork.’
Aaron looked at the bar through the doorway, with its plain chairs and tables, and the empty dining room opening off from the receptio
n area. ‘Are there many people in tonight?’
Fred grimaced, as if not caring to fraternize with a possible tax inspector. ‘We do mini-breaks on some weekends. It’s busier then, even in winter.’
To one side of the fire a wooden settle with plain arms set against the wall was padded with a fitted bolster of flower and acorn pattern. A bare bulb in the large fireplace lit up hooks and fire irons, a copper fender gleaming in front. By the settle was a small round table, and the armchair in which he sat. A dozen other tables were scattered about on a fitted carpet of deep marine blue peppered with small rosebuds. The walls were white, bordering on cream from generations of clay pipes and large fires.
What luxury to have a pot of coffee promptly served (albeit watery) and a plate of (tasteless) turkey sandwiches. The folded Sun and Guardian hadn’t been opened, so he read both, having forgotten to buy a morning paper. Above the fireplace hung a large framed print of The Great Western in full steam and sail on a menacing green sea. Strange to see nautical pictures in an inn as far from the coast as you could get. At a seaside place the subject would probably be green fields and thatched cottages. A square-faced grandfather clock with superb Roman numerals chimed dully as if tuned not to disturb the tranquillity of the guests.
He felt grateful for this unsolicited break from reality, until morning when mechanical shovels would clear the road. Warmth and food powered his sense of wellbeing, life’s little (and some not so little) anxieties seeping away.
Two people came into the lounge and he tried not to stare, despite the excuse of being stranded. Her face suggested an oriental mixture from centuries back, but quintessentially English features sometimes did, especially in women. Most evidence was in the eyes and the shape of her pale cheeks, an unusually small mouth and thin lips. Perhaps such faces had come over from Siberia before the island was snapped off from the mainland. She was about thirty, and while the man flopped wet and exhausted to the fire, she sat with a large black mock leather briefcase by her legs as if someone might manifest out of the wall and snatch it.
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