by Nina Bawden
“There, there,” said Cooper, who was kindly natured. “It’s all over now, isn’t it?”
“No,” she wailed in black despair. “Never. I hate him. It’s not fair.”
“Hush your mouth,” said Cooper suddenly in quite a different voice. He flung his cigarette away and called, “It’s all right, Mr. Bray. Hang on. I’m coming.”
Charles could not remember clearly what had happened in the field: all that remained was the memory of an emotion that was fading like a dream on waking. In the moving car, leaning his head against the cold leather, he had a sense of unreality. He saw Cooper’s back, the pale tear on Hilary’s cheek, the houses, the cliffs, the sea, and felt them to be illusions that would vanish if he touched them. His limbs had become large and swollen. If he moved, he felt it would be slowly and heavily like a deep-sea diver.
The car stopped. “Here we are,” said Cooper in a jolly voice. “Out you get, young lady.”
Hilary stalked, her back humped like an angry cat’s, into the gateway of Peebles. Cooper’s anxious face appeared in Charles’s line of vision. “Sure you don’t want to get out too, Mr. Bray? That was a nasty turn you had, up in the field. You ought to have a good lie down.”
“Take me to the shop,” said Charles in an odd, slurred voice. As the car moved off, he murmured, “Poor child,” and was seized with an attack of giddiness so violent that he closed his eyes. For a moment, it seemed as if all the blood cells in his body were rushing towards his throat in a mass conspiracy to choke him. Then, as he waited clutching at the soft, puffy seat, the moment passed and, he felt weak and curiously free of his body. The sky wheeled above his head, the sun made a trail like lightning across it and his spirit floated on the wind over the glittering holiday town. He sighed, his jaw hung slackly. The car passed Gorings and he saw red lobsters arranged on the fishmonger’s slab like a painting. A child in a sun hat carried a bunch of flags for his sandcastle. Miss Fleery-Carpenter in white, woollen stockings and a moth-eaten fur cape, muttered to herself on the pavement and made extravagant gestures.
The car swung into the narrow, back street and stopped outside the book shop. Cooper, his left arm laid affectionately along the back of the seat, grinned at Charles. There was a sweat line on his collar and he had not shaved. Once, he would have got out and opened his passenger’s door, doffing a respectful cap. But why should he, thought Charles, surprised, an old man in his sixties?
Cooper said, “You look better, Mr. Bray. More colour in your face. Been overdoing it a bit, haven’t you?”
“Have to be careful, now,” Charles muttered. His voice was stronger, more normal.
“None of us is getting any younger.”
“No.”
Cooper said, “D’you know who I took to the station this morning?”
Charles shook his head, clutching at coins in his pocket.
Cooper leaned closer. His breath was foul. “Mrs. Jenkins, poor woman. Her and her husband. They buried the little girl quiet yesterday.”
“Jenkins? Oh, yes …” Charles bent his head. The thought was too painful, he shrank from it.
“She said there was a lovely lot of flowers. Wish I’d thought to send a nice wreath myself. It must have been a comfort, all those people thinking of them. She kept on about it all the time: it was so kind of everyone, she said. And such a lovely funeral, she looked so pretty in her coffin. I wouldn’t take the fare from them although she kept on offering it and afterwards I wished I had because it made her cry. But it wasn’t anything of course …”
Cooper was talking in a confidential voice. The flash of genuine feeling that had briefly illuminated him was gone and his expression displayed simply a kind of greedy eagerness. “Just as well it happened at the end of the Season. Bad for business. Most of us would be finding things a bit tight. Stands to reason, no one wants to bring their kids to a place where they might get their throats cut. Would you, I ask you?”
“I suppose not,” said Charles carefully, edging his way out of the car. The whole business sickened him, he did not want to discuss it. “Anyway,” he concluded, standing on the pavement and smiling at Cooper, “they’d be safe enough now.”
He fancied that Cooper looked surprised. He took off his cap and scratched his head, then opened his mouth to speak. But Charles had had enough. He did not want to have to listen, to smile. The demands of other people clawed at his nerve ends with savage fingers, affecting him like the scrape of a nail across a blackboard. His head felt enormous: he would need all his strength to carry him down the stairs to his tiny, private room, his haven, the peace of his old school desk.
He did not reach it. Miss Hubback met him as he entered the shop. She was weeping, her delicate, absurd nose swollen to the size and colour of a plum. Her generous tears confused the issue: at first, Charles thought that it was a purely private matter that distressed her. That it was not, he understood at last after some moments of disordered conversation. She brought him the morning papers which he had not seen, sobbing her kind heart out at the sadness and uncertainty of life. The man the police had held for questioning had been released. He had been seen by an old lady to buy an ice cream for a child who had since been found to be alive and well. The police were looking for the murderer.
Miss Hubback wondered at the expression on Charles’s face and also, some time afterwards, at some of the things he said, not to her but to himself. His words were vague and rambling, there seemed to be something wrong with his speech. She caught something about Hilary, there was something that she had done, or said that troubled him. He said in a soft, wondering voice, so low that she had to strain to catch the words, “She could have seen him … it is quite possible … what a terrible situation for her …” Then, in a stronger voice, “I have behaved abominably….”
“No,” cried Miss Hubback, shocked. “Never, Mr. Bray.”
He looked up at her after a brief silence, his face ghastly and hollowed like a skull so that she brushed aside what he was trying to tell her and offered, alarmed, to fetch a doctor. But he shook his head and tried to smile. He was perfectly well, he insisted, a little tired, that was all. Really all….
The man kept on running. It hurt him to run and he was slow: he got over the chopped ground with a curious hop and skip and looked like Worzel Gummidge. After a while, he forgot why he was running. He only knew that the fear inside him was like a pain, as real a pain as the wound on his cheek. He avoided his caravan like a frightened animal and made for the cliffs. When he reached them, he went straight down over the sides, clinging like a fly. The tide was going out and the beach was empty except for a bent figure paddling some distance away at the edge of the sea. Once on the shore, he felt safe. He smiled to himself and began to limp along the shingle. Then he looked up and saw a policeman, black against the skyline.
Panic seized him. He was frightened of policemen. He fled into the nearest cave. It was wedge-shaped and sandy with high, chalk sides closing above his head. Most of it was above high water mark because the floor was carpeted with dry seaweed and stirring with sand-flies. He went straight to the cold depth of the cave and crouched by a petrol drum that was full of rubbish from the shore. He stirred it hopefully and a stench arose, offending his nostrils. He kicked it over angrily and the mess rolled out among the seaweed. He saw maggots crawling over the breast of a long-dead gull and he gathered up the seaweed with his hands, covering the body. Then he waited, crouching on his haunches, biting his fingernails.
He heard the shingle scattering outside the cave and began to whimper softly, watching the entrance. It darkened and he put his hands across his eyes.
Someone came inside the cave. He peered between his spread fingers and saw a woman bending over the spilled petrol drum. She righted the drum and began to pick up the contents. A smell of putrefaction filled the cave. A whirl of flies arose. He stood up slowly and carefully and stared curiously at her, wondering what she was doing. She was old, he saw, as old as his grandmother. Her hair was w
ild and white, she wore a pink blouse and a pair of mackintosh trousers fastened at the waist with a silver belt. Her bare ankles were thick and pulpy looking with a discoloured network of veins across the bone. She was completely absorbed in what she was doing. She filled the drum and covered the rubbish with seaweed. Then she stood upright and saw him.
A low, surprised grunt came from the back of her throat. She moved backwards, her outspread hands pressed nervously against the cold, chalk wall.
“What do you want?” she asked him in a loud, harsh voice.
He shook his head stupidly, mouthing at her. His eyes gleamed dully in his lean face, beneath the lank, dark hair.
“What do you want?” she repeated. Her hand went up to the bright brooch that fastened her blouse at the neck. Her hand was old, covered with brown spots and trembling. He saw that she was afraid and this upset him. He frowned. He would not hurt her, he would never hurt a poor, old woman who looked like his grandmother. The brooch was pretty but he did not want it. He moved indecisively towards her and she cringed against the wall of the cave, her mouth drooping open. She looked very ugly with her scalp showing through the thin strands of hair and the loose flesh quivering over her jawbone. Her ugliness disgusted him: her fear made him very angry. He stretched out his long, bony hands, clenching and unclenching the fingers, feeling their strength. As she crouched and shook he grinned at her like a dog, knowing, before he touched her, how soft and unresisting the flesh would be about her throat.
A sound diverted him. He turned, his hands loosely swinging and looked at the mouth of the cave. He saw the white sea fling back the screaming gravel. He saw, against the suddenly darkening sky, the policeman pass.
He gave a soft, singing moan and fled, hands flapping, to the back of the cave. There, he flung himself down in a heap, burying his face in the collar of his coat.
A hand touched his shoulder. He looked up in fear and saw the old woman bending over him. “What’s the matter? Are you ill?” He heard, in her clear, upper-class voice, the authority that had always pursued him. He shrank from her. Sighing, she felt in the pocket of her trousers and held out a few, small coins.
“Here,” she said. “Take this. Don’t come back here, ever. This is my cave. Do you understand?”
Auntie had no illusions as to what his intentions had been towards her. Now she knew he would not harm her, she dismissed his behaviour from her mind. He could not be dangerous, she told herself, not this abject bag of bones. There was no need to mention the matter to anyone, no need to explain her own presence in the cave.
She sighed thankfully, placed the money on a flat, white stone beside him and turned away. She took her clothes from a ledge that jutted out from the side of the cave. She fastened her cloak round her neck and thrust her skirt and shoes into a large, inside pocket. She gave him a last, doubtful look and left the cave. He crawled on his belly over the stinking seaweed. He reached the petrol drum and rested there.
The policeman had returned. He heard his voice and then the old woman’s. They were standing by the entrance to the cave. He could see the corner of her cloak as it blew out in the wind. He trembled and chewed at his fingers.
“No officer,” she said. “I’ve been shrimping. I’ve been dressing in this cave. There is no one there.”
They went away. For the moment he could not believe in his safety. He crept to the mouth of the cave. The little bay in which the cave lay hidden was empty. He was safe. Dark clouds drove across the sky like a falling curtain. He smiled and chattered to himself.
Then he grew suspicious. Why had she not given him away? There must be something in the cave she had not wanted the policeman to see, something she had hidden there. Frowning, he stared at the damp, smooth walls. Perhaps she had hidden something in the petrol drum. He laughed excitedly and flung himself upon it, churning up the rubbish. Rotten fish gleamed like jewels in the dark seaweed, their transparent bellies shining with the pale colours of the rainbow. He cut his thumb on a broken piece of glass, sucked the blood away and bound the cut with his handkerchief. One-handed, he delved deeper and came upon something wrapped in a piece of dirty sailcloth. He laid it carefully on one side. This was her treasure, he thought, smiling. She was clever to have hidden it like this. Oh, she was cunning, but not cunning enough for him. He emptied the drum without further interest and kicked it contemptuously away from him. The stench was too much for his nostrils. Grimacing with disgust, he picked up the precious bundle and left the cave. The sea air blew cleanly in his face, carrying a hard spatter of rain. He sighed happily and sat down upon a rock. Tenderly, he unwrapped the sailcloth and saw it was a shroud.
Screaming, he flung it down and ran. He went back up the cliffs with fear behind him, the soft clay slipping beneath his feet. The cold wind blew from the north, blowing away the fine weather, the last of the summer. The cliff tops were empty. There was no one to see him, flattened against the sides of the cliff, clutching at lumps of coarse, grey grass. He went the way that Hilary had gone the day before and came upon the fallen garden, sheltered in its hollow. He stayed there, out of the wind, and when the rain began to fall more heavily he crawled inside an empty water tank that lay on its side near to the broken, concrete pool. The rain thudded on the zinc sides like rifle shots but he felt safe there, enclosed and unobserved. After a little while, when the noise ceased to trouble him, he fell asleep.
On the beach near the cave, the cat that Auntie had wrapped in sailcloth lay where he had thrown it; stiff, dead eyes staring, paws folded back on its breast. The mouth was open, the lips curled back showing the dainty, savage teeth. The tide crept up the beach and took it. It bobbed in the yellow scum at the edge of the water and, for a time, took on a semblance of life. Then the sea washed it higher up the beach and it lodged between two rocks, lying on its back and snarling at death.
“It’s not fair” said Hilary hopelessly, staring at her mother. “Nothing is ever fair.” She had learned one lesson from the episode in the field and not one that Charles had intended. Once her first, dreadful humiliation had faded, she bore no malice against her father. She did not understand why he had beaten her: she simply and philosophically accepted it as a sign that life never was, and never would be, just.
“Don’t be silly, dear.” Sitting in the kitchen in her pretty, flowered apron, Alice shelled peas into a colander.
Hilary shucked a pod and found a fat maggot inside. “You didn’t tell me he was going away,” she accused. “I don’t see why I couldn’t have gone too.”
“Because you couldn’t,” snapped Alice. Her head was splitting and she felt ill-used. She had been unprepared for Hilary’s abrupt return: she had expected Charles to keep her with him for the rest of the morning. How like him, she thought with mounting bitterness, to dodge his responsibilities in this fashion. None of her plans ever turned out as she intended them to do—on this occasion, even Peregrine had been difficult. He had shown no pleasure at the prospect of his holiday. He had even wept on hearing that Hilary was not to accompany him and, sitting tear-stained beside Janet in the taxi that was to take him to the station, he had threatened to be sick in the train and had refused to kiss his mother.
“You wanted to get me out of the way,” screamed Hilary suddenly and flew into a rage. She cast herself on to the floor, drumming her heels and grinding her teeth. Her eyes, screwed into slits, spurted water.
“Ah,” said Alice, “I thought that was the matter with you.”
“Of course,” said Charles aloud, “that’s what’s the matter with me.”
He set down his glass with extreme care. Watching his reflection in the lighted mirror behind the gin and whisky bottles, he saw that his neighbour at the shining bar was regarding him suspiciously.
Turning on his stool, Charles smiled at him gravely. “Do you know,” he confided, “that was my first whisky?” His skin was pearly pink, his eyes very blue and bright. “In five years,” he ended, and slid gracefully off his stool.
The
sea front was empty and shone with rain. Water streamed in the gutters and enclosed the houses like a curtain. Women in summer dresses crowded into Woolworth’s for shelter and trod between the counters with unregarding eyes. Beneath a driving sky, the tide ebbed across the stinking mud.
Charles leaned on the rail and gazed at the deserted beach. Rain sluiced down his neck and polished his hair like silk.
“Left behind by the tide,” he said, “that’s what’s wrong.” Nodding his head, he was filled with a great solemnity. Then, mocking himself, he smiled. He had amounted to nothing but what, in the end, did it matter? He lifted his head and walked along the front, ignoring the rain. He reached the steps that led from the promenade to the main street and ran up them like a boy.
He found himself opposite the police station. The blue lamp, the square, red-brick, white-painted frontage, cleared his mind. He remembered what he had been going to do when guilt and indecision had driven him, for the first time for years, into a public house. He remembered, quite clearly now what had happened in the field: the painted caravans, the cripple and his own daughter, in a yellow dress, throwing a stone at a murderer. He did not doubt, now, that this had been the case. It seemed to him incredible that he should ever have thought she was lying. With a deep and growing shame, he saw his criminal failure as a father and a citizen.
He stepped off the gleaming pavement and a bright pain seized him. It travelled along his left arm and pointed a dagger at his heart. He stood rigid, one arm raised as if to ward off an enemy. Slowly, the pain receded and left him weak and afraid. Colder than the rain, he felt the sweat on his forehead. Cautiously he moved his limbs and felt nothing except a slight stiffness in one arm. He sighed on a long, trembling breath. Through the fear that clouded his mind, one thought stayed constant: he must get to Hilary. His daughter was more important than the murderer: the police would get him, poor devil, soon enough. Hilary was his business. He had let her down badly, he must put this right between them. If he failed in everything else, he must not fail in this. He turned his back on the police station and began to walk carefully down the long, wet street.
