The Self-Enchanted

by David Stacton

  Sam stopped eating his sandwich and looked carefully up. “I’m eating my lunch,” he said.

  “Put it away. Why aren’t you working?”

  Sam deliberately bit into his sandwich and munched slowly.

  “Eat your blasted lunch in the lunch hour,” snapped Christopher.

  “I felt like eating it now.”

  It had been the design of the house that, though the edge of the cliff could not support the weight of the house, a terrace was to be built there, bounded by a retaining wall along the brink, spaced with stone seats. There was no sign of the wall.

  “What about the wall?” bawled Christopher.

  “I’m not going to build any wall,” said Carson, getting up and looking at Christopher defiantly. Hearing her father’s voice, Sally came forward to the rail and glanced down. Old Man Carson looked up at his daughter angrily. “You come down here,” he said. He obviously did not like to have to look up at his daughter. Sally moved automatically to the stair, but Christopher caught her arm.

  “Stay where you are,” he said.

  “You leave my daughter alone,” called Carson.

  “I wouldn’t be caught dead with your daughter,” snapped Christopher. “What do you mean, you aren’t building the wall?”

  “I mean what I say. It ain’t safe.”

  Curt coughed. “It’s right on the fault,” he explained. “I thought it better to let it go.”

  Christopher turned on him. “You did, did you?” he said. “And what makes you think you can make a decision without consulting me? I want that wall built.”

  “Not on my responsibility,” snapped Curt. “If it’s built, it will be on your personal order.”

  Christopher stared at Curt, and then, with a sudden decision, and an almost malicious expression, he again leaned over the rail. Sally had not stirred. She was still gazing down at her father. “What’s the matter, Carson,” demanded Christopher. “Are you yellow?”

  Carson looked up at him, his face suffused with purple that made the coarse veins stand out. He glanced at his daughter, and then at Christopher, and seemed to make up his mind.

  “Double pay,” he said, and his voice was scornful.

  “Any pay you choose.”

  “Okay,” said Carson. Again he looked at his daughter. “In advance.”

  “Half in advance.”

  “Fair enough,” said Carson. He stared again at his daughter, and then at Christopher, and turned away and slowly began to finish his sandwich. Christopher came away from the railing with a shrug. “Well?” he demanded.

  “He’ll be killed,” said Curt.

  “I doubt it. You couldn’t kill that bastard if you tried. And we’ll watch.”

  “I shan’t,” said Sally.

  “Oh, yes, you will. You will because you hate him,” said Christopher and left the terrace.

  Sally stared after him and then looked at Curt. “How dangerous is it?” she asked.

  “Very.”

  “He’s been like a madman since he came back,” she said unexpectedly. “He wants him to die. What’s happening?” She began to sob. “And so do I,” she said. “And so do I.”

  Curt shifted uneasily, his small eyes looking harder because tears frightened him. “You could talk your father out of it.”

  She shook her head. “Not Dad. He’s too proud.”

  “That’s no reason why Christopher should corner him.”

  Sally looked up. “That is it, isn’t it?” she said gravely. “That’s what he works on: your pride. I think it’s because he hasn’t any of his own.” She shivered. “It’s awful not to have any pride.”

  “Do you really want him so much?”

  She could not answer that. “I don’t know,” she said, and Curt was tempted to believe her.

  *

  So it went on for five days, and on the sixth day it was the same. It was too nerve-racking for Curt to endure. It was a game the meaning of which he could not understand.

  On the first day Sally had appeared at noon and ate lunch with her father. She lingered below, but came upstairs later. On the second day she sat down beside Christopher, on the balcony above. On the third day she did not go down to Carson at all, and Christopher seemed satisfied.

  On the sixth, as on every other of the days, Christopher sat on the terrace of the house, in a deck chair that could not have been too comfortable, hunched slightly forward, watching, but saying nothing. Fifteen feet below, sometimes in sight, but sometimes not, Carson glumly worked on his wall. The sweat rolled down his forehead in huge yellow drops. He took off his shirt, and his skin, flabby with age, glistened angrily in the long cool light.

  Little by little the wall began to grow. One seat was already finished.

  “Do you like sitting up here?” asked Christopher.

  And did she, Curt wondered. She sat forward in her chair, anxious, with an apologetic glance downward at the old man. Christopher bathed in the sun, with his shirt off, soaking up sunlight like a cat, his eyes sleepy with the heat of it. Despite himself, Curt was drawn to the balcony. He knew that in the struggle between the old man and the younger, it was the old man who would lose. But he still did not know which of them would win, or how.

  The sound of hammering had stopped. The last stroke had been false. Even Sally sat forward tensely. Only Christopher, who lay full length in the sun, did not move. The old man halted. Christopher roused himself, looked down, but said nothing. He bit his lip.

  Carson looked up at his daughter. “What have you got to say now?” he demanded.

  There was an endless moment of silence, and then, with a grinding noise, the rock gave way. It gave slowly at first, the crack appearing south of the pylons as the rock fractured off, and Carson heard it. He gave a grunt and looked behind him quickly, like someone in a speeded-up film. Christopher caught his eye and flinched. Curt heard Sally suck in her breath. Then the rock slid off smoothly, flaking from the cliff in one slab, and Carson fell out into space and vanished. He did not even scream, but after a while they heard the crash of the rock, as it hit bottom.

  Sally ran into the house. They heard the rock smash as though miles away, and echo, the powdered stone of it settling in the air. They heard the breaking of trees, and almost endlessly later, the delayed crack of a branch, in the roar of the shattered stone hitting the valley floor.

  Christopher let out his breath, still staring at the place where a moment before Carson had been. There was nothing to say. Then he gave a sharp, explosive laugh, and Curt saw his eyes. Their expression was one of relief. Behind them they heard a car start up. Sally had gone.

  Christopher went into the house and sat on a keg of nails, his head in his hands. Curt found him there.

  “You’ve got to help me,” Christopher said. “I can’t face her alone.”

  To Curt it smelled of a propitiatory death, but he agreed. It was evening, though, before he could persuade Christopher to leave the house. They drove down to the Carson farm, with Christopher huddled up in one corner of the pick-up. The trees of the valley had never seemed more savage or more dark. The farm was lit up, but nobody answered their knock. Curt opened the kitchen door. There was a big fire going in the stove and Sally sat by the kitchen table. She looked up, but said nothing.

  Christopher prowled round the room. “Okay,” he said. ‘I’ll do anything you want.”

  “I don’t want anything.” Curt noticed that Sally did not take her eyes off Christopher for a moment.

  “You’ve got to let me do something.”

  “I don’t want anything.”

  She was not grieving for Carson, Curt thought. Carson must have made her life unbearable. It was something else that she saw in Christopher that frightened her. Curt had the feeling that it was all part of a rehearsed plan between the two of them that had somehow gone wrong.

  “That’s very impractical,” said Christopher after a while.

  “Perhaps.”

  “Let him do what he can,” said C
urt.

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because that’s what he wants.” They were both speaking as though Christopher was not there; both realized it at the same time and stopped speaking. It was Sally who went on. “Did you see the body?” she asked. “I don’t want your help. But come to the funeral, if you’re not afraid to.”

  “I don’t belong there.”

  “I want you there,” she said, and her voice had authority. Christopher moved out of the shadows of the stove, where he had been standing watching the room. “Very well,” he said.

  She did not answer. She merely nodded and smiled, the last thing Curt had expected her to do. He felt the same tenseness in the room that he had felt on the balcony for the last six days. Christopher looked at her and then left the house. And so it was arranged.

  *

  Because the undertaker had to come fifty miles, the funeral was not held until three days later. During those three days Christopher did not leave the house.

  The villagers made the most of it. There was a steady stream of them to the farmhouse. It went on right up until the funeral, which was to be held during the afternoon. Curt was glad his work was almost over. He wanted no more of it. The attitude of the workmen had grown more difficult than ever. Carson’s death had turned him into a martyr, and so the valley people, who hated all intruders, now hated them more than ever. He would be glad to wash his hands of the whole mess.

  He did not want to attend the funeral. In a way he dreaded it. But there was nothing else for him to do. He drove down from the site to pick up Christopher, and found him dressed in sports clothes under a black topcoat with a velvet collar. It was a costume that made him look more Italian than ever. The wrong sort of Italian.

  “Couldn’t you wear something less conspicuous?” he asked angrily.

  “Isn’t that the idea?” asked Christopher in return. “Besides, what could they possibly do to me?”

  “I don’t know. I shouldn’t find it pleasant.”

  “Do you think I do?”

  “Yes.”

  “You’re wrong. I hate funerals.” Christopher looked mock sad. “Do they really hate me?” he asked after a while. He looked out the car window. “That makes it more interesting.”

  But as they turned up the road to the Carsons’ place he was less sure. “What in God’s name do I say?” he demanded. And he hesitated before getting out of the car.

  Curt shrugged. Inside the hostility of the valley people struck them like a blow. Even Christopher seemed taken aback by it. As they entered Sally came forward. “He’s in the living-room,” she said. She was wearing a grey dress and her mouth was firm. “You’d better go in and take a look.”

  Christopher grabbed Curt. “I’m not going in there alone,” he said. He dragged him into the living-room and shut the door.

  It was never used, that was obvious. It was furnished in the style of twenty years ago, and the air was stuffy. Carson lay in his coffin in the centre of the room. It was a bronze coffin, massive and sullen. One-half of the lid was propped up, and that end of the coffin was surrounded by hothouse flowers. Christopher avoided that part of the room, but when he saw Curt watching him, stepped forward and glanced down.

  Carson lay on a pillow, his body dressed in a dark suit that looked baggy. His head had been carefully put together, but without skill. It was an image all paraffin and powder, with thin, unnatural lips. It was not Carson, and yet it had something of Carson about it. The expression had been contorted into one of artificial piety. Lying there, he seemed deflated and unreal, as though he had never existed. Christopher turned away and Curt did not blame him.

  “They’ve made him look very saintly,” said Christopher.

  “They do that to everybody.”

  Christopher seemed startled. “I wonder,” he said. “I wonder if they could.”

  Half an hour later the undertakers came and screwed down the lid. You could hear them from the kitchen. When the sound had stopped everybody seemed to breathe easier. The coffin was carried down through the yard. It was difficult to manage. The villagers, Curt thought, were enjoying themselves. Then he realized that of course Carson must have arranged for it to be like this, probably years ago. It took eight men to carry the coffin. It was only then Curt remembered where they were going, and Christopher must have done the same, for he started.

  It took three-quarters of an hour to get to the clearing in the woods. There was a hostile silence all around them. It seemed to get even on Sally’s nerves, as she plodded along slightly ahead of Curt and Christopher. Sometimes the coffin caught against the branches. Pine needles scraped over it with a hissing sound. Once a bough caught in one of the handles, almost upsetting it, and half forcing the bearers to their knees. The mourners were the worst; old Mrs. Bowditch, the village gossip, a shrivelled hen-faced woman who had a trick of drawing her flat breasts up with a cough and then letting them fall again; and next to her, Mrs. Grimes, of the general store, immense in a black silk dress, her hands piously locked in each other like rolls of dough.

  At last they reached the clearing. The cold air had the effect of night, and the sun had fallen behind the mountains, emphasizing the coldness. The smooth and polished sides of the obelisk were damp and clammy. Everyone stared at Christopher.

  There was a short sermon preached by someone brought along by the undertakers, for the valley had no church. In front of the obelisk, to one side, was a freshly-dug hole. At least six inches of pine needles had had to be cleared away. Curt could not figure out why the hole was to one side until he remembered that Carson’s wife was buried there. He wondered what sort of woman she had been.

  The coffin was lowered down on its ropes, and then hastily, because it was late, the dirt was shovelled in with that echo which reminded Curt uncomfortably of other funerals. The diggers made the most of this, for they prolonged the first few shovelfuls, and then heaped the earth back rapidly.

  Glancing at the obelisk, Curt saw with a shock that the other half of Carson’s terminal date had been filled in. That, more than anything else, upset him. He remembered that jagged fragment of terrace, jutting out into space, where the rock had fallen away.

  He heard a sound, and saw that Mrs. Grimes was sobbing decorously and properly into a handkerchief. She and Mrs. Bowditch hovered round Sally, until, as he could see, she began to lose her temper.

  At last the three of them were alone. Christopher walked across to the obelisk and looked at the date. “Odd,” he said.

  “I suppose so,” said Sally. She was tired, but not apparently from the funeral. Somehow the funeral had been an anticlimax. She sat down with a sigh. “Does everybody hate everybody?” she asked.

  “I think so,” said Christopher. “It takes a while to find it out, that’s all.”

  “And do I hate you?”

  “I’ve never been able to make up my mind,” said Christopher. He tapped the obelisk. “Your father, now, had his mind made up. I admired him for that.”

  “Is that why you killed him?”

  “It was his own pride that killed him,” said Christopher. He was slightly limp. “I was bigger than he was, that’s all.”

  “That means a lot to you, doesn’t it?”

  “It’s a way to be safe.”

  “Safe?” she demanded, and began to laugh. She couldn’t stop, and he slapped her.

  “Look,” he said. “I could do a lot for you. I could give you money. Enough money to do anything you pleased. Enough to get you away from here. These people will turn on you, now Sam’s dead. I wouldn’t give much for your life here.”

  “You wouldn’t give much for anybody’s life. Why help me?” But she listened to him, all the same.

  “I hate to see you at the mercy of these people.”

  “That’s a lie.”

  “Money’s money,” said Christopher. He shrugged and moved away. It began to rain, softly, but not gently, an oblique rain that seemed to divide the world up into parti
tions. Each one of them walked in a separate compartment of the rain, on pine needles so dry not even the rain could soften them.

  Glancing back, Curt saw the obelisk through curtains of water, and felt frightened, thinking of that numeral filled in with the year and the date, complete. And what did it mean? It meant nothing. That was the most frightening thing of all.

  Sally shoved her hands into the pockets of her now-damp dress. “I saw you working on Dad,” she said. “I’ve seen him working on other people. He ate them away. He liked to eat them up. I think he hated Mother. She never gave in, you see. You like people to give in, don’t you?”

  “And don’t you?” asked Christopher.

  “I don’t want to hate people.”

  “You won’t be able to help yourself.”

  This made her angry. “Go away,” she said. “You think you’re so big, but you’re not, you’re not anything at all. You’re small and mean and frightened, and at least he wasn’t like that.”

  He stopped. Then he turned on his heel and walked into the woods, off the path, blindly, blundering towards the road. Sally turned to Curt. “Please leave,” she said. But she was listening to Christopher in the woods.

  “I can at least see you home.”

  “Don’t be a fool,” she snapped. “I know my way home.” And furiously, with her back very straight, she left him standing where he was, in the thin, separating rain. So that, he knew, was the end of him. Soon Christopher would pick a fight with him, and then it would not be any of his affair at all. He was just as pleased, and yet he knew that in some way he was responsible for all of this, just because he was there.

  IX

  He was so sure of his departure that he had even packed his bags. They stood in a row at the foot of his bed and every morning when he woke up he saw them there. Yet he did not think that Christopher would ever let him get away completely. Christopher could not afford to let anybody get away from him completely. He was too insecure for that.

  But a month passed and they did not have their quarrel. Perhaps it was because Christopher seemed ashamed of himself. But that was the reason why they must have their falling out, so it did not seem to be the explanation.