Mr. Porter and the Brothers Jones

by Reinhold, Margaret;

  She said, “It was icy. I fell on solid ice.”

  She lay in the bath with closed eyes. He noticed a number of dark red marks on her neck, like abrasions. He said, “What’s wrong with your neck, those marks?”

  She said, “Oh, that’s nothing, just my sweater, it’s very rough. Could we have the luxury of a lovely drink in the room? Or would you rather go down?”

  He stood a moment, still staring at the marks on her throat—surely too dark and sore to have been caused by a sweater? It looked as if someone had tried to strangle her. He looked away and said, “Of course we can have a drink up here. What would you like?” and he went to ring for Room Service.

  Joshua was to catch an early train to take him to Geneva in time for the afternoon plane home.

  He slid very carefully from the bed, hoping not to wake Lilac and Emily, but Lilac was already awake and Emily woke, too, when the light was switched on.

  Breakfast arrived. They chatted. Joshua said carefully, “I’ll come back to bring you both home next weekend.”

  Lilac protested. “It’s really not necessary. We managed the journey here perfectly well.”

  “I’d like to come,” said Joshua firmly and Lilac, in fact, felt a sense of relief.

  “All right then, thank you! We’d like that, wouldn’t we, Emily?”

  Emily had been, it seemed, thankful and happy to see her daddy and she cried when Joshua kissed her goodbye. He really was as much a mother as a father to her; he had taken over motherly duties from Lilac many times in Emily’s short life.

  “I’ll be here in a few days,” he said firmly and reassuringly, and left with sinking heart. They seemed a fragile pair, unsuited to the serious business of coping with the world.

  He sat in the train feeling both sad and irritated. When would Lilac grow up? He recalled with disquiet the red marks, like fingerprints, on her white neck. Was it possible that someone—some man—had tried to strangle her? No. He dismissed the idea as fanciful. Probably her jersey had caused an allergic reaction. But he’d be relieved when he had them both safely home. He stared out at the snow-covered valley. Once again, his thoughts turned to the consideration of the possible “affair” between his brother and Lilac.

  On the platform at Visp a group of young people was singing loudly. He felt alienated in his neat, urban clothes, from the cheerful, brightly-dressed skiers. His disquiet intensified until, with an effort of will, he relaxed over a double whisky on the British Airways flight.

  Meanwhile, Lilac was busily telephoning Mr Porter. Knowing of his early morning rituals, she had waited until he was likely to have reached his office.

  The telephone buzzed on Mr Porter’s desk. He raised the receiver irritably. “Yes?”

  “There’s a Miss or Mrs Lilac Jones from Switzerland on the line. I asked if Miss or Mrs, she said it didn’t matter and you’d know anyway …”

  There was the faintest hint of “Well, you’re a dark horse, aren’t you, who’d have guessed?” in the tone of Nancy the receptionist’s voice, which infuriated Mr Porter.

  “Put her through,” he growled, too excited at the prospect of talking to Lilac to put Nancy in her place.

  After exchanging niceties, Lilac said, “I was nearly strangled yesterday.”

  Mr Porter thought he hadn’t heard. He glanced at the receiver. “Strangled or mangled?” Mangling was something he knew about—but not strangling …

  “Strangled!”

  Mr Porter visualised immediately a minor skiing accident, her scarf caught in the door of one of those diabolical ski lifts—“I’m sorry! How did it happen?”

  “Well, I met this man on the train—an Italian—he seemed very nice, a gentleman, respectable and all that …”

  “You mean a man nearly strangled you?”

  “Well, I’m telling you about it, aren’t I? It was after we’d—made love—no, that’s not the right word, gone—to bed—no, had intercourse, I suppose you’d say—suddenly he put his hands round my neck and squeezed—really hard! I was choking and it’s still sore …”

  Mr Porter panicked. He almost shrieked, “Lilac, what d’you think you’re doing? What are you doing to yourself?”

  She cried, almost joyfully, “I am living, that’s what I’m doing—and there are a few risks involved—”

  Mr Porter became calm: “Lilac—don’t do it! Don’t go to a stranger’s room!”

  “No,” she replied meekly. “I won’t again. There won’t be much more opportunity. Joshua’s coming to bring us home on the weekend. Can I come to tea on Wednesday week?”

  Fourteen

  Once again, Mr Porter sat in Dr Katzenheimer’s calm room, looking at her with dark accusing eyes.

  “You have never believed that Lilac would come to harm—you have never agreed she’s likely to have a … disastrous end—but look what’s happened! Almost strangled! Isn’t that a sign?” he stammered with dismay.

  Dr Katzenheimer did not seem seriously alarmed. “Well, she hasn’t come to any great harm, has she? She provoked a man to anger, he decided to give her a fright as a sort of lesson—and she’s left with a few bruises. I hope it will teach her a lesson, but I doubt it. She may come to some harm if she goes on like this. I’m not saying it’s not possible. But murder is rare—although anger—well, it’s there all the time, of course. There is a kind of hiatus,” she added reproachfully, “as well you know, between the feeling and the act …”

  “But murders do take place.” Mr Porter was not reassured by Dr Katzenheimer’s words. “You remember, that man, in the cottage last year.”

  Mr Porter was referring to events in which he claimed he had participated the previous spring. He had gone down to his cottage, feeling reasonably in control. He had found the great field on the hillside opposite his house full of a huge herd of black cattle. He counted at least fifty of them. They roamed restlessly across the grass, adding to an impression of a large land—a land of enormous skies and vast savannahs. Mr Porter could not distinguish individuality in this tracking, tossing, crowding, and shouldering mob of turbulent black beasts.

  On his last visit, there had been only four young calves in the field, which sloped from the hilltop down to the little river in the valley. The calves were black and white, sweet, stumbling creatures who trotted and ran and played like four children. They came to the edge of the field and stared inquisitively over the hedge at Mr Porter. He studied them. They were clearly distinguishable one from the other. Their characters showed in their faces. Clumsy and harmless, they stared with huge eyes, steamy breath, wet nostrils dilating. They stamped and tossed their heads. Then, on a single impulse, they all charged up the slope of the field far away to the top of the hill—and slowly came down again. Now, the intimate personal sense which the calves had given was gone. He went disapprovingly indoors, lit the fire, and switched on the radio.

  Between unpacking and stacking wholemeal biscuits, cans of dog food, tomatoes, yoghurt, grapes and lemons, he heard the news announcer report the escape of a dangerous man from Winchester Prison now thought to be in the countryside around Portsmouth (near Mr Porter’s cottage in fact), police were searching the Hampshire countryside with dogs, he heard. When he had finished unpacking and everything was neatly stored, he went to the window and looked out down the hillside to the road. A cold wind was now driving grey clouds across the sky. The distances were blurred by a white mist.

  A stuttering clatter overhead made Mr Porter look up. He saw a helicopter edging southwards over the Downs. He remembered that a man was being hunted by police with dogs. Well-protected by warm clothes against the weather, he decided he would take a walk.

  As if to confirm this decision, there was a joyful skitter of paws as Bimbo the farm dog rushed down to welcome him. He opened a tin of dog food which the dog gulped hungrily. Do they never feed him? he thought with irritable anxiety. Then, together, they set off up the track through the woods.

  By the time he returned it was quite dark. Bimbo had stop
ped off at the farm and he was alone. He could no longer see the cattle in the field. He built up the fire and went to inspect the provisions in the kitchen. Suddenly he heard a little noise on the tiled porch. It sounded as if the plate on which he had put the dog’s food was grating, as if it was shifted a little. “Bimbo,” he called—but he couldn’t see the shape of the eager animal pressing itself against the glass panels of the back door, nor, as he opened the door and peered into the darkness beyond, could he see him on the lawn. He took the torch from the windowsill and went out. “Bimbo!” he called again. He sent the beam across the grass, zigzagging here and there. But there was no sign of the dog. Instead, the travelling ray caught in its tunnel of light a pair of man’s shoes, muddy and stained, in the corner by the hazel bushes. Moving slowly upwards, the beam revealed untidily trousered legs, a steady hand holding a small glittering knife and a wild, white, face.

  “I believe I had been expecting him,” Mr Porter said evenly to Dr Katzenheimer, “not with any sense of fear, but almost as if I had anticipated a meeting with my other self. It may sound odd—but here was my mirror image, my fantasy come to life. After all, he had committed a murder in a fit of rage and jealousy. He might even have murdered me if I’d got in his way.”

  He was silent.

  “What happened?” asked Dr Katzenheimer, with a tension she tried to conceal.

  “Well—as you know—they’re still searching for him …” He fell silent again—then, “I feel very sorry for the man,” he said gently.

  He paused.

  “We talked. I fed him. I gave him a drink. Then he went off. I did nothing. I let him go. He trusted me not to call the police. But I was tempted to keep him. To conceal him. To protect him for as long as possible.”

  In the latest silence, Dr Katzenheimer said, with a little dryness in her tone, “I see you don’t need me to interpret.”

  “Well,” said Mr Porter, hesitant and meek, “I think I understand.”

  Another pause.

  “He seemed quite a decent young fellow,” added Mr Porter mildly.

  He was not of course, he thought with a certain smugness, telling the truth. If she only knew, the man Jackson—murderer of wife and unborn child—was still at Stonycroft hiding by day and moving about only in darkness. He had an urge to tell her.

  Once he had calmed and reassured his unexpected visitor, Mr Porter had offered him refuge for as long as he liked.

  In doing so, he had no very clear idea of his intentions. He was moved by pity. During their long night of conversation, Jackson had told him how he’d come to commit murder.

  He’d come ashore from his ship after a long voyage, found his wife pregnant by his neighbor, had a terrible scene with her. She began to insult him and he completely lost his head.

  Mr Porter understood perfectly.

  In the hours that followed, Jackson fell asleep in the spare room. Mr Porter remained awake in the sitting room. When day came, Mr Porter went to the window and sat there for a while, staring down at the green valley. The sun rose. After a while, Mr Porter became aware of the busy traffic of flickering wings. The air was full of swallows returning from Africa, feathers flashing, blue, black, and white in the early sunlight.

  From time to time a few birds suddenly came to rest under the eaves above the window, clinging to the wall with frail claws, then darting away. The wild freedom of their movements in the air disturbed him. He became restless. He was compelled to go to the spare room, open the door very quietly and stare for a while at the young, exhausted, face of the sleeping Jackson.

  “After all,” he said to Dr Katzenheimer, “we don’t sign a contract with society when we’re born.”

  “But we do,” cried Dr Katzenheimer. “In a sense, we do, as soon as we realise that society depends on individual actions.”

  Mr Porter made one of his rare movements—a small, restless shifting of his legs.

  “I was tempted,” he said, “to keep that young man, that Jackson, and somehow save him. It seems to me that whatever our duty to society, we have a choice … I believe I’ve mentioned this before—we have a choice.”

  “In this case we have no choice,” said Dr Katzenheimer briskly. “There is a law which tells us what to do. If we break the law, we go to prison.”

  “I may decide to take that chance.”

  “In fantasy, you mean?” Dr Katzenheimer was suddenly caught up in a strange anxiety.

  “Not in fantasy,” said Mr Porter firmly. “In reality. The boy is still with me. He is at Stonycroft. I am helping him to hide from the police.”

  The face of the sleeping Jackson and the wild flight of the arriving swallows came to him.

  “Now you are implicated too. What are you going to do?”

  “What was I to say?” Pinkly protesting, Gertrude demanded of Oscar.

  “Say? You had to say, of course, that you would tell the police. What you did is another matter!” Oscar laughed indulgently. “What a fantasy the man has! He should be a poet, that Porter.”

  “You think it’s all a fantasy? There is a risk, Oscar. The man murdered his wife!”

  “Trudi! Trudi! From all you’ve told me, can you really believe such a story? That Porter lives his entire life in one great fantasy. Nothing is real, nothing! He simply does not live in the real world.”

  It was during the next twenty-four hours that Mr Porter remembered his sleeping tablets. A bottle full of green capsules rose clearly in his mind’s eye, standing on the shelf of the bathroom cupboard at Stonycroft, marked one or two to be taken at night. Fear clutched him—a slowly increasing fear. He lay trembling in bed. Then, because he could lie no longer, he got up and walked about. Unable to contain himself, he dialled the number of Stonycroft. A few clicks and then silence—number unobtainable.

  Should he ask the operator to try at this time of night, 3 a.m.? That might arouse suspicion. Jackson would not answer the telephone anyway, of course. Time went by. He felt a little calmer. He dozed a little in his chair, woke again at first light. He must get down to Stonycroft as fast as possible. He bathed and dressed hurriedly. The bowel ritual was of no importance that morning. As soon as it was decent, he rang Vera at home. She sounded surprised and disappointed.

  Not very well? Going to the country? Didn’t he want to talk to Cyril?

  No, he didn’t. He’d telephone the office later in the day. How was she? Oh, good!—well, goodbye for the moment.

  Then Mr Clark’s taxi service. Mrs Clark answered—yes, he’d meet the train.

  Out into the cold street he rushed—traffic only just stirring, but thank the Lord a taxi, then only the train journey to endure.

  Mr Clark’s “How are you, sir?” By now the anxiety was reaching fever pitch again. Mr Porter did not care to think how he would feel or act if he found Jackson’s corpse with the bottle of sleeping pills beside it.

  He stood by his front door, giving Mr Clark a dignified wave before he put his shaking hand to the lock. The door opened at last. The cottage was empty. On the tidy kitchen table was a note, scribbled in pencil: “Thanks. Hope someone does the same for you one day.”

  Meanwhile, a few swallows had begun to build nests under the eaves of the cottage.

  Mr Porter felt Dr Katzenheimer’s demanding stare. He shook himself out of his reverie.

  “Murders are committed,” he insisted. He met her gaze directly. “These Joneses,” he said, “they are really a violent lot—unconsciously. Joshua would like to do away with Jerome—perhaps Jerome wants to eliminate Joshua—both perhaps would be relieved to see the end of Lilac—and that leaves out Beatrice, a thoroughly destructive woman.”

  Dr Katzenheimer smiled. “You are describing normal human beings in a normal family, I think,” she said gently. “I doubt if any serious damage will be done.”

  But Mr Porter was not reassured.

  Fifteen

  Lilac returned. Smiling with relief, she stood on his doorstep. He, too, smiled. Thus they remained for a moment
, blissful in the pleasure of renewed encounter. He held out his hand. She took it, timidly. But within a moment she had stretched herself out on the sofa, as always, and then began to chatter.

  They sipped their tea. He nodded gravely in response to the formless flow of her conversation. Dear Lilac. How he warmed to her, how happy he was in her company, how comfortable and safe she felt in his!

  The sun had tanned her ivory skin to a pearly bronze. Her pale hair was bleached to an even paler blonde. “And what’s new here?” she asked.

  He smiled again. “I missed you,” he said.

  Jerome said, “Lilac’s back.” Beatrice stiffened immediately. “How do you know?”

  “Joshua told me,” he said awkwardly. This was a lie and Beatrice knew it to be a lie. “Joshua was here to tea while she was away,” she said. “He was talking about her. We were talking about her. Joshua wondered whether Lilac is promiscuous.”

  Silence fell. Then Jerome said, “What a charming subject for conversation! And what did you decide?” His voice was strained.

  “Joshua thought perhaps so.”

  Jerome, reporting this to Mr Porter, said miserably, “Beatrice suspects us—me and Lilac.”

  “What did you say?”

  “I changed the subject. It’s none of our business,” I told her. “Would you like me to take you out for dinner?”

  “How did you know Lilac was back?” asked Mr Porter.

  Jerome looked embarrassed. “She telephoned me.”

  “Lilac telephoned you?”

  “Yes.”

  “With a view to what?”

  “She asked me to meet her.” Jerome had become increasingly uncomfortable.

  Mr Porter felt the beginnings of a jealous rage simmering within him.

  “Did you agree?”

  “I—well, yes, I said I would.”

  “When?”

  “On Friday evening.”

  Mr Porter succumbed to a huge fury. But he restrained himself, only saying roughly, “You’re more of a neurotic fool than I thought!” After a moment he added, “What about Beatrice?”