The Stones of Muncaster Cathedral

by Robert Westall

  ‘February 11th. Last week, I got a record of “A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square”. Sung by Judy Campbell. From the West End show New Faces. It is all the rage at the moment, so with the shortages and all, I was very lucky to get it. I took it home and played it and played it. I’m afraid I wept, because it reminded me of London in happier times. Well, if I’m to be honest, not just that. It is so romantic. I thought it would make me think of poor Ben, out in Egypt. But it didn’t. It made me want some other man, whose face I can’t even see – a man who lives only in my mind, a man who will sweep me off my feet like poor Ben never did. A dark, secret man, with whom I will do dark, secret things. I sometimes think I am going crazy. But it is just the War. London is full of men, and, in the black-out, dark, secret things going on in dark, secret places. All the husbands and wives apart and alone; it is as if some Great Being has shuffled the pack of cards all over again, and the game can be won by anyone who dares to play it. But I don’t dare to play it. The worst poor little innocent me can do is to change into my virginal nightdress and play my record over and over again and wish. While that mood is on me, I seem to go out of time altogether. Well, not tonight. Tonight I will drink cocoa, and go to bed early and sleep sound.’

  It was lying in bed that night that the whole thing seemed to become clear to him; on the very verge of sleep. As things so often do.

  She was still in the house.

  She had never found her lover.

  She was calling to him.

  But she was like a bird, timid, shy.

  And yet she wanted him so much.

  And Mrs Meggitt was her enemy. Her clumsy unwitting earth-bound enemy, who didn’t even know she existed. Where Mrs Meggitt was, she could never come.

  ‘Can you really come? I can’t come to you, I don’t know how. Is there really a way? I want you so much. Find a way, please,’ he said to her, in his mind.

  And then, still wishing, still muddled, he was asleep.

  It was the sound of the siren that wakened him. He lay helpless, sweating. Is it 1940? Should he get up and rush to the shelter? He had a terrible impulse to, when he heard the sound of bombers, when the cracks of the guns echoed through the house.

  But he only reached out to his bedside-table, and found the photo and the diary. That somehow meant he was safe; still in 1955. In any case, even in 1940, this house was never hit by a bomb, his coward self assured him.

  More than that, he must be passive. He could not find his way to her. He was alive. Alive made you clumsy. When he rushed at her, she vanished. She must come to him. She would know how. Because she was dead.

  Were those soft footsteps outside his door? How could he tell, above the noise of the guns? Was she waiting there, listening too, breathing softly, trembling? He strained his ears. Would she knock?

  A flashing at the curtains of his windows made him swing his head. The searchlights . . . ? Then the flashings were lost in a steady brilliant blue glare that he remembered. Incendiary bombs.

  There was a rattle on the roof, down the slates into the gutter. God, that was an incendiary too. On the house. How well he knew the sound. He must deal with it, before it set the house on fire . . .

  But no, he must lie passive. Or it would all vanish away . . .

  He sniffed. Was that the smell of Lily of the Valley?

  And then he thought of the cumbrous form of Mrs Meggitt lying in her bed downstairs. Where was she in all this, hearing nothing, seeing nothing, snoring on?

  As if he had broken some spell, there was silence in the house.

  Stillness. Nothing.

  He switched his bedside light on then. Checked his watch. Half-past two. Went to the window, pulled back the curtains, opened the window.

  Nothing but the dim orange glow over the West End. Nothing but the distant growl of London never sleeping. Sounding almost like waves breaking on a distant shore.

  But he still looked into the guttering, where the rattling sound had ended up.

  His skin crept. There was something there. Something slim and long and light-coloured, about the size of a big torch. If he stretched out his hand, he could touch it, grasp the round coolness of it.

  He knew what it was before he drew it in and looked at it.

  A German incendiary bomb of 1940, with the green tail-fin still attached, and the yellow German markings on the pale, shining side.

  She had done what he asked.

  She had breached time itself.

  With a sudden moan of fear and revulsion, he shoved it back where it had come from, and slammed the window, and drew the curtains and went and huddled by his bedside light.

  Tomorrow, he told himself over and over again, he would pack his bags and leave. But he had to tell himself that a long time, before he finally slept.

  In the morning, grinning at him, jeering at him, the bomb was still in the gutter. He had no heart to touch it. Maybe, he told himself, it had been lodged all these years behind some chimney-stack and the wind had finally dislodged it. Maybe, he told himself, the whole thing had just been a nightmare.

  But a bloody morbid nightmare. Not a nightmare he would ever want to have again. And he’d bloody asked for it, rummaging through the underclothes of a woman who’d been dead fifteen years. He felt a terrible revulsion at all the things he had done, a deep uncleanness. He must have been mad!

  It was all the fault of the house. It was all Mrs Meggitt’s fault, the morbid old bitch, keeping the place like some sodding museum. Well, he’d have no more of it. He would pack his bags and go today. This very morning. He was sure his mate Timmy Waters would let him sleep on his floor for a couple of nights, while he found somewhere else to rent.

  He packed his bags, right down to the tea and sugar packets on the little work-surface. Then he went downstairs to tell her. He knocked on her door, and heard her footsteps inside. The door opened.

  ‘Ah, Mr Shaftoe. I’m glad you knocked. I wanted a word. I’ve just had a summons to dash up to Edinburgh for a couple of nights – talks on Scottish country life for the Hong Kong programme . . . I’m relying on you to keep an eye on the house and feed my cat. I hope you don’t mind. I’d be so grateful.’

  All he could think of to say was, ‘I didn’t know you had a cat.’

  ‘She keeps to the kitchen. It’s better that way, than having her coming into the house. She’s getting rather old and frail, and her bladder’s not very reliable any more, I’m afraid. If you’ll come through, I’ll show you where things are kept.’

  He followed her through, trying all the time to frame the words that would get him off the hook and give him a chance to run.

  But she never seemed to stop discussing arrangements for the cat. And her calm assumption that he would help was a wall he could not climb. What made it worse was that the cat was a sweet-natured, rather lovely, old, grey tabby, that rubbed her head against his hand trustingly.

  ‘Right, that’s settled then. I must be off, I’ve a train to catch. The 9.15 from King’s Cross. See you Friday!’

  As if by magic, she hoisted what looked like a portable tape recorder with a strap on to her shoulder, from where it had been lying just inside her room door; snatched up a holdall from beside it, and was out of the front door before he could open his mouth.

  The door slammed behind her.

  In the darkness of the hall, he almost felt the house rustle into life. Mrs Meggitt had gone; the sensible old cork had come out of the bottle; the lid of Pandora’s Box had been opened with a vengeance now.

  He ran; he ran all the way upstairs, and all the way down again; with the great encumbering weight of his luggage, he almost tripped and fell headlong. Twice. Steady, Shaftoe, steady! You don’t want to be lying here in the dark for two days, with a broken leg.

  He did not stop until he reached a Joe Lyons’ tea-shop, half a mile along the main road. It was starting to rain heavily, and he’d packed his mack, so he slipped inside. He sat miserably over a cup of tea and a bit of custard-tart, worry
ing about the cat.

  Hell, he told himself, there’s no chance of it starving to death in two days. It’ll survive.

  But it’ll need something to drink . . .

  It can go outside and drink from puddles . . .

  But it might get wet and die of pneumonia. It was old, for God’s sake . . .

  Well, it was too late to worry now.

  Or was it? He felt for his house key, and it was still in his jacket pocket.

  And he hadn’t left Mrs Meggitt any kind of note. She might get worried, report him missing to the police. Oh, shit, what a mess!

  He would write her a letter from Timmy Waters’ place, and enclose the key, wrapped up in tissue paper.

  But the letter mightn’t get there before Friday . . .

  The rain came down heavier, beading the big plate-glass window with trickling drops, and making it steam up inside. Buses and cars passed, with their lights on, making a great hissing with their tyres on the wet mirror-black street. Women kept on coming into the tea-shop, shaking collapsed umbrellas, peeling off soaking headscarves from their damp hair. The air filled with the smell of wet people. God, it was getting so sordid; somewhere towards the back of the shop, a child began to cry, making his nerve-ends curl up like it always did.

  Suddenly, he hated the humdrumness of the world. But he supposed it served him right. He had run away from the supernatural; what could he have left except the ordinary? Rainy days and red, plastic table-tops, fat, ugly, middle-aged women and squalling brats?

  When he might have stayed behind at Brangwyn Gardens and learnt the truth; about so many things.

  ‘Anybody sitting here?’ It was a little thin old cockney in a cap, with a grey-green drip on the end of his nose. He settled, sniffing as regularly as the tick of the grandfather clock at Brangwyn Gardens, and took out a racing paper, and began mumbling horses’ names to himself out loud.

  So that was how you ended up in the ordinary world . . .

  Suddenly he had a vision of Catherine’s photograph, still propped up against his bedside lamp at Brangwyn Gardens. Beautiful, beautiful virginal Catherine, still waiting for him.

  Suddenly he was on his feet, hauling his luggage from under the old cockney’s legs. ‘ ’Scuse me.’

  The cockney’s bleary old eyes watched him go. ‘Funny sort of feller,’ he said, to no one in particular. ‘Must be in love or somefink.’

  Harry walked fast through the easing rain, eager to meet his fate.

  But fate takes its time. The house at Brangwyn Gardens was as quiet as any other empty house. He thought he smelt a trace of Lily of the Valley on the first landing; caught himself sniffing for it almost like an animal; but sniff as he could, it did not come again.

  He spent a lot of the day in Mrs Meggitt’s kitchen, talking to the cat, rubbing her ears, trying to get her to play with a spill of paper. But after he’d fed her at six o’clock, as per instructions, the sun came out in the wilderness of a garden, and with a flip of the cat-flap, she abandoned him. And he knew it was time to be with Catherine upstairs.

  Through the big dormer window, the sunset was building up magnificently. The view of St Paul’s dome, washed free of smoke by the rain, had never been more detailed and magnificent. He felt he could almost reach out and touch it.

  ‘Red sky at night, shepherd’s delight,’ he said to no one in particular. He hadn’t said it since he was a little kid, watching the sunset on Tyneside, waiting for night to come and the raid to start.

  Then he settled for a last time to Catherine’s diary. Determined to read every bit of it.

  ‘September 1st. They have let me join the WVS. I am the youngest member by at least forty years. They are a magnificent body of women; all upper class; pure Home Counties. No doubt their dogs are missing them back home. Never caught without their hats, however bad the bombing gets. I am co-driver of a van, with Mrs Hewitt. Our job is to run refreshments to the Heavy Rescue gangs in the East End. The tea-wagon always gets through! I feel some use at last!

  ‘October 5th. I have found my dark and dangerous man at last. I was off duty last night, and went down to the Gluepot, hoping to catch Lou and Michael in their usual snug by the bar. No such luck, but place very crowded. Saw this Polish corporal looking at me through the bar mirror. Very dark; long, greasy hair under his forage-cap, moustache. Not at all the usual kind of corporal. He just kept staring at me, in the most disconcerting sort of way. I tried to ignore him, but my eyes kept on drifting back to him. Very handsome in a Polish sort of way – high cheek-bones. Finally, he came across and asked if he could buy me a drink. I was amazed. He spoke excellent cultured English. Also French and German, as far as I could make out. I asked him what he was doing for the War Effort, but he clammed up and wouldn’t tell me. Very hush-hush, I gather. But he suddenly said, “I have a week’s leave and I know no one.” And so I asked him to come home and stay with me. Just like that. I amazed myself. But why shouldn’t I too have my dark and dangerous man? I have put him in the attic. I can hear his footsteps overhead as I write. What is going to become of me? I don’t think I really care, so long as it’s dark and dangerous. The way the war is going, we might all be dead in a month anyway.’

  Harry suddenly switched the bedside light on. It was getting too dark to read. The bedside lamp made the room suddenly darker. But he could still see the corporal’s stripes on the greatcoat that was hanging on the back of his door.

  And the thought came to him. Did she die in the East End raids, as he’d always thought? Or had she died in this house? And not from a bomb?

  He read on, but there was nothing more about the Polish corporal. Just entries like, ‘Heavy raid. Did not get home till seven.’ Seven at night, or seven in the morning? Harry didn’t even know that. It was as if she had become too busy to write.

  After he had finished the diary, he didn’t know what to do with himself. He had no inclination to read anything else.

  What would the Polish corporal have done? Got washed? Got into his pyjamas? Lounged smoking on his bed? Listened for sounds of the woman downstairs? Both of them listening, straining their ears.

  For the siren, for the bombers, for death coming?

  For a foot on the stair, an opening door, love coming?

  The two of them held together by the long strands of listening, through the dark silent house.

  It came to Harry then that he must play his part too. Get washed, get into his pyjamas, lounge on the bed.

  There was a strong waft of Lily of the Valley, as he went into the bathroom.

  She was pleased with him. He was doing it right.

  He got into pyjamas and dressing-gown and lay on his bed listening. But he had almost fallen into a stupor when he heard it . . . The gramophone start up.

  ‘That certain night, the night we met

  There was magic abroad in the air

  There were angels dining at the Ritz

  And a nightingale sang in Berkeley Square.’

  On and on it played. Even after, in the far distance, there came the sound of the siren. On and on till surely the Polish corporal would answer it, come down to find out what was happening?

  Harry got up and moved towards his door. Then a distant sound of aircraft engines, of gun-fire, made him look nervously towards his two windows.

  It worried him that the black-out curtains weren’t drawn. It made the Blitz-kid in him feel exposed, insecure. He reached behind the faded floral curtains and drew the stiff, hard, black folds. And felt on the back of his hand the clinging of cobwebs, the fall of small, cold, dry, insect bodies.

  It was hard to get them to draw together, the curtains. They were so old, so set. But he managed it at last.

  And then, from downstairs, he heard the needle snatched off the record. So hard and savagely that it screeched like a wild thing.

  As if somebody, suddenly, had made up their mind . . .

  He tiptoed to the door of his room, after switching off his own light. Went and peered over the b
anister rail, down into the well of darkness below.

  There was not total darkness. There was one thin shaft of dim light, prominent as a searchlight in the dark.

  It came from the partly-open door of Catherine’s bedroom.

  He waited, motionless, trying to control his harsh breathing. His tongue explored the roof of his mouth; it was as dry as leather. He licked it back to moistness.

  And then he heard the stair creak. Near the bottom. Then creak again, on the second flight. Was it a real creak, or the ghost of a creak?

  And then something dimly white swam into view, far below. Coming up the stairs. As it grew nearer the light from her door, a smaller white patch became visible on the handrail, moving. A hand.

  Then below, the movement that could only be bare white feet.

  The thing paused, at the patch of light that was her door. Now he saw clearly the night-dress, the clinging satiny night-dress; the bare pale arms, the long neck, the cascading fall of dark, black hair. But still not her face.

  And then she turned and looked up at him. And he would have known those dark, tragic pools of eyes anywhere.

  And as he clung to the banister rail, swaying; as his whole universe swayed and swung around him, she smiled, with an upward smile.

  Still he could not move. His body refused to move. His mind said enough, you have seen enough. This is all you need.

  But it was not all she needed. For she raised a white hand and beckoned.

  And under him, his bare feet began to move. Slowly, slowly, down two whole flights on the soft, silent carpet, while in the distance the guns rumbled; and her eyes held him, across the dark depths of the stairwell.

  He halted, a few feet from her. He knew beyond doubt it was Catherine. But what sort of Catherine?

  She smiled again, a friendly understanding sort of smile, and yet an executioner’s smile too. A sympathetic executioner’s smile. And then her hand reached out to take his . . .

  Would it be empty air, or cold bone? Whatever it was, he had to take it.

  But it was neither empty air, nor cold bone. A real girl’s hand, solid, if rather thin and cold.

  Beyond her, he saw the single candle on her mantelpiece, that lit her room with a dim, golden light. He saw the satin bed, no longer rigid as a board, but opened and welcoming, with big pillows and white sheets.