The Song of the Wren

by H. E. Bates

  ‘Lovely and sharp after the fish.’

  ‘No,’ he said, looking deeply now into her dark brown eyes. ‘You’re much more like a moth.’

  ‘A what?’

  ‘Moth. A beautiful warm soft brown moth.’

  ‘I don’t know whether I should take that as a compliment or not.’

  ‘Oh! compliment. Not the slightest doubt. Moths are beautiful.’

  ‘Doesn’t it say somewhere they also have a capacity for corruption?’

  ‘All baloney.’

  ‘And don’t they have to beware of candle flames?’

  ‘Not this candle.’

  Throughout this conversation he became increasingly aware of a growing physical excitement. Impulsively he put out his hand to touch her right one as it lay face downwards on the table. And suddenly as if this were a signal, the door opened and an American voice said:

  ‘Hullo, baby. The Forbsie said you was here. Sorry I’m late. Had to attend a court martial.’

  Williamson turned to see an American Air Force sergeant at the door, burly, rather fat of face, with signs of black stubble sprouting round a boar-like mouth.

  ‘Court martial? Not you, I hope?’ she said in a voice incredibly cool.

  ‘A buddy of mine, that’s all.’

  ‘And you baled him out.’

  Whether the joke was intentional or not it was impossible to say but she laughed, the voice again coming deep from the throat. A second later, to his eternal astonishment, Williamson saw her get up from the table.

  ‘I have to go now,’ she said and again the voice was incredibly cool.

  For some moments longer he sat impotently speechless before standing unsteadily up.

  ‘That’s my baby,’ the sergeant said.

  ‘Good-bye,’ she said, ‘thank you for the evening. I’m sorry, but this was fixed some time ago—’

  Dumbly he watched her leave with the sergeant and then sat down, steaming with rage, and stared at her unfinished dish of raspberries.

  For a quarter of an hour longer he went through a twisted, furious dream, drinking the remainder of the wine, unable to believe that the evening had happened, that the innocuous, placid moth had been and flown.

  At last he got up, more than a little drunk, and went back into the bar.

  ‘Any brandy, Mrs Forbes? Any brandy? By God, a large one, please.’

  He took the brandy back to the table. As he stared with impotent rage at the oat-field in the late evening sunlight every head of it seemed to dance with mocking fire.

  ‘God damn her,’ he said, ‘God blast her. God help her.’

  For the next several days he went about in an agony of conflict, alternating between blistering hatred of her and equally searing anger at himself. Twice he flew on operations, once over Hamburg, once over Bremen, and each time it was the oatfield rather than she, the innocuous moth, that mocked him.

  Eventually the weather broke and on a cool blustering wet evening he went back to the pub. There she again sat at the bar, again apparently placid, moth-like, innocuous-looking as ever.

  ‘So,’ he said, ‘it’s actually you.’

  ‘Oh! hullo.’

  ‘May I join you? That is, of course, if you’re alone?’

  ‘I am alone.’

  Thanks to the cool rainy spell there was now beer in reasonable plenty and his leg gave no pain. He drank deep at a pint of bitter and then said, his voice brittle:

  ‘I wonder if Mrs Forbes has raspberries tonight? I know – or am I mistaken? – that you’re fond of raspberries.’

  The joke had been long thought out; but somehow it didn’t seem very funny any more.

  ‘Nor, I suppose,’ he said, ‘is there any salmon?’

  ‘I’m afraid not.’

  ‘The outlook is bleak.’

  ‘Not, surely, as bleak as all that.’

  He sipped silently at his beer.

  Presently Mrs Forbes said from behind the bar:

  ‘Will you be staying to eat tonight, Mr Williamson? I’ve got a little—’

  ‘No, not tonight, Mrs Forbes. I ate at the Mess. Thank you all the same.’

  ‘I see. Would Mr Thomas be coming in?’

  ‘I’m afraid not. Mr Thomas bought it yesterday.’

  ‘Bought it? Bought what? Oh! I see – I’m terribly sorry.’

  ‘Ours not to weep. It’s just the way it is.’

  For two minutes or more Felicia Craxton stared into her almost empty glass and then at last said:

  ‘It’s my turn to buy you a drink.’

  ‘Thanks all the same. My cup is full.’

  She drained the few remaining drops from her glass.

  ‘Are you bitter because of Mr Thomas,’ she said, ‘or because of me?’

  ‘I’m constitutionally bitter. It’s my nature.’

  ‘In that case I’ll buy myself one.’

  She bought herself a gin-and-lime. Rain beat heavily, almost like hail, on the windows outside. She was wearing a rather old faded mackintosh and she started fingering a little nervously at the collar.

  ‘You’re gloomy. I can only ask again it is because of me or because of – what was his name? – Mr Thomas.’

  ‘Mr Thomas, Maxie. Bad type.’

  ‘If bad, why the gloom?’

  ‘It’s always the bad ones you miss most.’

  ‘I don’t really understand.’

  Tensely, gloomily, he went on to try to enlighten her lack of understanding. Very bad type, Maxie. Whistled most of the time when not on ops. For ever unfaithful to the popsies. Born liar. Occupations: seduction, alpine-climbing and collecting shells. Cashed dud cheques, borrowed money right left and centre. None returned.

  ‘Devious character.’

  ‘I loved the bastard.’ He laughed briefly, his voice brittle. ‘Know what he’d do? We’d get him pickled after dinner in the Mess and then he’d do his alpine-climbing act. Along the picture rail. Edging along on his toes and finger-nails. Scaling the South Col and all that. All went well until one night he got to a length of picture rail that had merely been painted on.’

  He laughed again. ‘Bloody funny.’ She was quiet.

  ‘Collected shells ever since he was a kid. Holidays at the sea-side and all that. He always carried one as a mascot. Good-luck charm, sort of. Other types had a rabbit’s foot or a St. Christopher or some other damn thing. He had this shell. Shaped like a cream horn – you know, the thing you get at confectioners’. He used to do rude things with it. Knew the Latin name for it too, but I’m damned if I can remember.’

  His pent-up gloom had expressed itself in an unusual lot of words. He felt slightly less tense now.

  ‘Damn funny thing. He was carrying the shell in his tunic pocket when he fell off the picture rail. Broke the end off. Upset him like hell. Went about for days in sackcloth and ashes.’

  ‘Had a sort of premonition perhaps?’

  ‘You eat premonitions at this game. Three meals a day.’

  Again she fingered at the collar of her faded mackintosh.

  ‘Well,’ she said, ‘I suppose I really ought to go.’

  ‘Another appointment no doubt.’

  Her mouth tightened to a thin line that almost matched his own.

  ‘You won’t believe this,’ she said, ‘but that sergeant was in the middle of an exam at University when he was drafted. He’s determined to graduate, war or no war, but he’s a plain big dunce on English literature. Well, we happened to meet in the bar here one night and he told me about it and I offered to give him lessons three times a week. That’s all.’

  ‘Extra mural studies.’ He laughed briefly again, not without a certain aridity. ‘“Let me not to the marriage of true minds admit impediments.”’

  ‘I see that you, at least, know your Shakespeare.’

  ‘An old love of mine.’

  Now she started to button up the collar of her mackintosh.

  ‘Well, I really must go. I’ve a pile of exercise books to mark before I go
to bed.’

  ‘I trust that one and all will get full marks.’

  She stood up. The mackintosh collar was fully buttoned. Rain struck the windows with a heavier, quite savage attack.

  ‘I will,’ he said, ‘run you home if you like.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  His ancient Austin, not much more than a pram, let rain through the roof. In the mile drive to the cottage a pool actually formed in the lap of the mackintosh. He apologised and she said:

  ‘I suppose you wouldn’t care to come in for coffee?’

  With icy brevity he merely said, ‘Thank you.’

  The fireplace of the cottage sitting-room was filled with pine cones. She murmured something about gathering them in the woods on her way home from school and should she light the fire? It would be more cheerful.

  ‘Let me light it.’

  ‘I’ll start the coffee. There are lots more pine cones. They burn well.’

  She went into the kitchen. He heard the clink of spoons in saucers. He put a match to the pine cones, which shot into flame almost explosively, burning with resinous sweetness.

  ‘Will you have it with milk,’ she called, ‘or black?’

  ‘Black, please.’

  She came back into the sitting-room carrying a tray bearing two cups and saucers, a sugar basin and a small dish of biscuits. She had now removed the mackintosh, to be revealed wearing a scarlet blouse and a plain black skirt. The blouse, buttoned down the front, was cut rather low.

  His idea had been to inflict some sort of revenge on her, quite how he didn’t know, but suddenly the entire notion evaporated. As she set down the tray on a small circular table by the fireplace he suddenly noticed, to his intense astonishment, that she was wearing a wedding ring.

  ‘I see you’re wearing a ring tonight,’ he said. ‘Pour encourager les autres?’

  ‘I don’t wear it at school, that’s all.’

  ‘Or, naturally, when you have dates with sergeants.’

  Without a word she went back into the kitchen. Soon the aroma of coffee mingled with that of burning pine cones. Its effect was to excite him, so that when she finally came back with coffee-pot and milk jug he felt himself draw in his breath with involuntary sharpness. At the same time he got the impression that the light of the burning pine cones had ignited the scarlet blouse.

  For some minutes they sipped coffee, not exchanging a word. During this time a strong tension built itself up, taut as the moment before a race starts. Finally he drained the last of his coffee and set down the cup on the table and almost at the identical moment she did the same.

  He turned to stare at her. It was in his mind to ask some questions about the wedding ring. When the moment came, however, he found it impossible to form the words.

  For fully a minute the deep stare of the dark moth-brown eyes had him transfixed. Once her lips moved perceptibly, as if she were about to say something, but she stayed quiet too, merely letting her tongue pass slowly across her lips.

  The gesture acted on him like an invitation. He moved forward to kiss her. A moment later, in an incredibly violent, almost tempestuous movement, she wound her arms completely round him. He was then sitting half on the edge of the couch, so that the strength of the embrace caught him off balance and a second later they rolled together to the floor.

  They lay there together for fully five minutes or more, lips locked together, neither saying a word, until she actually helped him in the act of baring her breasts.

  It was at last she who spoke first.

  ‘I’m all for comfort in these matters,’ she said. ‘After all I have a bed.’

  Some long time later he emerged from a daze, almost a coma, of half-exhaustion to see that the rain had stopped. The long twilight of double summer time had still not faded. The western sky was a great pool of orange-crimson, its reflection falling on her surprisingly large uplifted breasts with a tender glow.

  After a time she said: ‘I don’t really think you believe me about the other night.’

  ‘Never talk about the past.’

  ‘Don’t you want to know about my marriage either?’

  ‘“Where ignorance is bliss”—’

  ‘He was in the Army. His troopship was torpedoed somewhere in the Mediterranean. No survivors.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘Well, there was a divorce pending anyway.’

  He could find nothing to say but:

  ‘God, I’ll be glad when this bloody war is over.’

  ‘Yes? It might mean I’d never see you again.’

  ‘Do you want to see me again?’

  She gave a great impulsive sigh, and at the same time swung her body round to face him.

  ‘Make love to me once more. Please.’

  Unshaven, taut, almost in a state of hypnosis, he eventually drove back to the Mess for breakfast and was then unable to eat it. Thereafter, for the remaining two months of the summer, except when operations made it impossible, he saw her night after night and sometimes in the afternoons. She was, she told him once, particularly addicted to things of an amorous sort in the afternoons. It was odd, but somehow it gave her a lovely feeling of guilt. That made it all the more exciting.

  As for himself he spoke a lot of the future. Did she know what he longed for more than anything? Two things. He wanted to grow apples and buy himself a boat. Somewhere in the West Country. Something like thirty or forty acres. The boat a twenty-five footer. There was no sight in the world like an apple orchard in full blossom and no feeling like that you got when you saw a sail at full stretch in a good wind.

  ‘No feeling? Not even with me?’

  It was something like the same thing, he said. The curve of a sail or an apple always reminded him of the curve of a woman’s breasts.

  ‘Does that explain Adam and Eve or why men hanker after possessing boats?’

  Could be, he said. But what did she feel? About the apples and the sailing, he meant. It didn’t sound too impossibly dull for words?

  ‘On the contrary.’

  In due course he got a week-end’s leave. They drove to the West Country, staying for two nights at a farmhouse as man and wife. Apples still glowed crimson in the October orchards. There was good rough cider to drink and home-cured bacon and home-baked bread for breakfast. The farmer had injured his spine in a fall from a hay-rick that summer and hobbled about on two sticks. He seemed unlikely ever to work again, so that now the wife made a few pennies by taking in guests.

  ‘Ever think of selling the farm?’ Williamson said.

  It wasn’t a question of thinking, the wife said. If things didn’t improve they’d have to.

  ‘They say if you want a thing passionately enough you’ll get it in the end. You name the price and I’ll pay you a ten per cent deposit. The war won’t last more than a few more months and the deposit’ll keep you going that far.’

  ‘We’ll talk it over and let you know in the morning.’

  Driving back east Williamson could only repeat, over and over again:

  ‘It’s a bloody miracle. It’s a bloody miracle.’

  ‘More like a dream.’

  He loved her for saying that, he said. Well, it wouldn’t be long now. A matter of a few months, he thought. The invasion had gone pretty well so far and for the life of him he didn’t see how the Germans could last another winter. We were giving them hell with the bombing too.

  ‘I’ll be able to give up teaching. That’ll be a relief.’

  How she’d brightened up his war, he said. God, he could hardly wait for the peace.

  Then at last came a day when he was obliged to tell her that his squadron was moving. He couldn’t tell her where, of course, but only that he had just one more day.

  In a long night of passionate farewell he again spoke a great deal of boats and apple blossom. She wouldn’t let him down? God, he knew he kept on saying it – but it was all a miracle.

  ‘More like a dream.’

  No, no, he insisted, a miracl
e. His mind went back to the first meeting with her, his impression of an innocuous, moth-like quietness, and then the second, his almost suicidal bitterness about Maxie and then his final discovery that the moth, if it were moth at all, was at least, in its flaming affections, a tiger moth.

  ‘You got me halfway back from the dead that night when I told you about Maxie. I loved that bastard. It may sound screwy but I wanted to buy it too and be with him. Damn stupid, but that’s the way it was.’

  ‘I shall never forget your face.’

  ‘You know what they say? – there’s no future in it. But that night you got my future back for me. You are my future.’

  ‘I’m glad.’

  ‘And will be, for ever more?’

  ‘For ever more.’

  There eventually came a day when, the war finished at last, he drove his ancient Austin back past the grey distorted perimeter of the old bomber field, a kind of grass and concrete ghost town, and called for a brief drink at The Blue Boar before driving on to the cottage down the road. For some reason he found Mrs Forbes’s manner uncannily quiet, guarded and withdrawn as she poured his gin-and-tonic. No, she wouldn’t have one for herself, she said, thanking him all the same. She never drank in the mornings.

  ‘God, I can hardly believe the damn war’s over. Got myself a place down in the West Country, Mrs Forbes. Apple orchards. Near the coast. Going to get myself a boat. Going sailing every day. Fishing. Stuff myself with fish and apples and fresh air. How’s that for a life, Mrs Forbes?’

  ‘Sounds wonderful, sir.’

  ‘Wonderful? It’s a bloody miracle.’

  Thus excited by both dream and future, he bought himself another gin-and-tonic, and then said:

  ‘Mrs Craxton still around?’

  ‘Oh! she’s still around, sir. The school hasn’t gone back to London yet.’

  ‘Good show.’

  He drove the ancient Austin down the lane towards the cottage. There seemed a threat of rain in the dull summer air. His leg, as it always did on occasions of humid, thundery weather, pained him a little.

  As he drew up at the cottage he saw a tallish man in khaki army shirt and light khaki denims clipping, with a certain meticulous care, the top of a yew hedge. Behind him, in the garden, hung a line of washing, among it a black skirt and a scarlet blouse.