Hurriedly he said goodnight to Lancing and walked quickly out of the room.
Ten thirty. Pockets of activity were isolated amidst the sounding corridors of the house. Dimly he could hear the murmur of the staff-room recede as he walked towards the stairs. The pale glare of the unshaded bulbs stabbed at the grey shadow of notice-boards and cupboards, and his step rang out harshly on the worn, uneven boards. Paul walked down the stairs, undid the chain on the front door and walked out into the night. He felt a slight sensation of shock as he closed the front door and the shadows misled him into seeing, once again, the ragged shape of the cat. He passed the tent, pitched on the front lawn, its canvas filling in the wind. He paused to inspect it, wondering if it was secure. There were two guy ropes out, which he replaced. Laura Strang was taking some of the seniors camping in the summer and she was conscientiously going over every detail with them beforehand. This was the third attempt at pitching and the boys had to complete the operation within a specified time. Laura had little experience of camping either, and so far attempts had been punctuated by shouted commands and little result. Paul remembered that she had come to him only a week ago, almost in tears, fiercely asking for his assistance. He had come down and supervised the erecting of the tent, subtly making it seem as if he, too, was anxious to benefit from Laura’s text-book instructions. He smiled as he hammered in the pegs with his shoe, thinking of the first pitch, and the spreadeagled canvas that had greeted Laura and her fellow-campers in the morning. So far they had not slept in it, and Paul was relieved–rescue operations in the early hours of the morning were an unattractive prospect. He supposed that experience might make a difference to Laura but her avid text-book philosophy continued undaunted whilst her bewilderment increased–it seemed so difficult to translate theory into practice.
Paul walked on down the drive, crossed the road and began to climb over the shingle. The wind met him, salt fresh and clean, and he stumbled over the round, flat stones. There was an inky sheen to the water and the breakwaters faltered out to sea, becoming indistinct as they broke into the surface. He sat in the lee of one of them, cupping his hands to light a cigarette. He picked up a pebble and hurled it into the sluggish swell–it hardly made a sound. He smelt the rotting weed around him and lay back against the wet boarding, relieved to be out of the lazy wind. Stephen–he said the name aloud–almost unconsciously. Stephen–and he could see him. Stephen–how soon would he stop loving him? Do you go on loving someone who is dead in the same way as if they are alive? As far as he could tell, Paul loved his son now as if he were alive. Once he had written on a piece of paper: ‘I have killed my son.’ He had written it again and again. It had been an experiment about three years ago, to try and erase the feelings he had had at the time. Paul felt that the bare facts recorded on paper with none of his perpetual, unproven excuses might exorcise the over-indulgence of his imagination. But it had merely provoked his own defence: I did not kill my son deliberately, what happened was an accident, what happened could not have been prevented, what happened was quite outside my control. He had written these four statements on the same piece of paper underneath the words ‘I have killed my son.’ Paul had kept the piece of paper in his wallet and looked at it every day. About two months later he had added three more words at the very bottom. It then read in entirety:
I HAVE KILLED MY SON
I DID NOT KILL MY SON DELIBERATELY
WHAT HAPPENED WAS AN ACCIDENT
WHAT HAPPENED COULD NOT HAVE BEEN PREVENTED
WHAT HAPPENED WAS QUITE OUTSIDE MY CONTROL
I WAS DRUNK
At Christmas he had flushed it all down the lavatory.
He suddenly realised that the back of his shirt was wringing wet and the tide was already creeping towards him. The waves rushed up the beach in a spur of silky foam and Paul jumped up to avoid them. The wind darted on him as he turned to do so, and he cursed as he stumbled over a limpet-covered rock. Something broke away and, perhaps because of its unfamiliar, spiky surface, he put it in his pocket. He then ran up the shingle rise and walked quickly over the road to the gates. Someone had closed them whilst he had been on the beach–a few of the staff lived in digs in the town and usually cycled back to them at about eleven. Cursing again Paul climbed over, his long legs easily negotiating the low gates. Jumping on to the drive he felt something sharp against his flesh and, feeling in his pocket, drew out the object that he had picked up on the beach. It was still too dark to see it properly so he returned it to his pocket. Paul reached the front door, and heard Casey. It was a strange sound–a sort of strangled sobbing, dry and almost elderly. It came in short bursts punctuated by silence. Casey hardly ever cried. In fact Paul had only heard him do so once before–a few hours ago–and then it was the same sound–like a cough. Rapidly he opened the door and stepped quickly inside.
Meg and Lettie Langham-Green sat watching television in the cupboard-like flat that Storm had had constructed on the top floor of the house. The room was unornamented and undistinguished. There were a few pictures, reproductions of Degas’ dancers, and a landscape original that had been executed by one of Storm’s pupils. The furniture was anonymous and a bookcase ran the entire length of one wall. The contents were mainly composed of text-books, whilst at one end there were a few jumbled paperbacks. An unlived in sort of room, thought Meg dully, as she looked away from the blast of noise and the flickering images of the television set. Both women were in the unenviable position of being consistently thrown together, and having absolutely nothing in common. They were both well aware of this, yet were lonely enough to appreciate their transitory need of each other. Meg turned back to contemplate bleakly the pandemonium in front of her, whilst Lettie, whose gaze had never shifted from it, continued to stare unseeingly directly in front of her.
They made an odd contrast to each other as they sat in the ugly, pre-war armchairs. Meg was short, wore a lumpy cardigan and skirt, and had a plain, round face that was unedifying, yet appealing. Her hair, short and sensible, was mousy brown and was cropped Grecian style around her temples. But the most startling thing about Meg was her eyes–they seemed too large for her diminutive face and out of place amongst the regularity of her neat features. When she spoke to someone her eyes would rest on them all the way through the conversation, and although she was unconscious of this it was a very disturbing characteristic. It gave an impression of an attention and intensity that were quite often not there at all.
Lettie was very tall, slightly stooping, and wore a heavy tweed suit that was too large for her bony structure and hung monstrously on her, encompassing her in an innate clumsiness that was entirely unattractive. Her iron-grey hair was caught up in a clumsy bun at the back of her head and she tended to hover, unsure of her own movements, invariably appearing self-conscious and shy. Lettie was fifty–yet seemed like an uninitiated child. Her conversation was abrupt and unwieldy to the point of embarrassment and she gave the impression of being immoderately eccentric. This very eccentricity forbade practically any human contact at all–people shied away from her, surprised at her self-conscious incompetence.
Both women were in love–Lettie with the idea and the need to be in love and Meg, ecstatically and inevitably, with something that she could never attain. Neither had any idea of the other’s feelings.
As Matron and domestic factotum Meg found that she had very little time to think in–a fact that relieved her considerably. The odd existence that she lived with Paul only depressed her when they were together–which was mainly at meal times. It was a great mystery to her as to exactly how he employed his evenings–he was never in and their own flat had become a base for eating and sleeping in. Her increasing loneliness had forced her to find company, and Lettie was the only woman who, like herself, seemed to have a certain amount of spare time and nothing to fill it with. Sometimes they talked–but it was a strain and usually they occupied themselves purposefully with the television so that there was no need for conversation. Meg had grown tired
of racking her brains for new topics. Lettie hardly ever volunteered any remarks and seemed to want to be talked at rather than with. It was all very difficult and seemed to be increasingly worthless.
Meg was the kind of person who was self-reliant only because she had to be. Given a renewal of Paul’s love, a return of the old security and a rekindled domestic pattern, she would be happy to see no one, do nothing, and simply be content to remain with him alone. But because she was no longer loved, it had become vitally necessary to get away from the flat, and she began to have an insatiable desire for human company that grew more and more important as the weeks passed. Her loneliness had become a positive force that made her desperately anxious to avoid her own company. In a way she was glad to be with Lettie, and the lengthening silences between them gradually became comforting–nothing was demanded of her–and at least Lettie was someone just to be with.
Lettie watched the gunsmoke blaze across the television screen. Beyond it she was watching Mother make toast round the drawing-room fire. She was sitting beside her in her Sunday dress and Storm had come in and sat down between them. He had been playing football, and at fifteen his large moon face had established its own pattern of feature and expression that would only slightly change as he grew up. His knees were very muddy and Mother told him, rather crossly, to go up and change before he had tea. He stumped untidily out, leaving them raising their eyebrows to each other over the indelicacies and iniquities of the world of men. Lettie was fourteen, a tall awkward girl with the slight stoop just beginning. Mother was always telling her to throw her shoulders back, but she felt even sillier when she did. Lettie loved to share the bond of mock severity and tongue clicking amusement with Mother, when Storm came in so grubby and endearingly small boyish. She always seemed to be at home with mother nowadays–and Storm was always out doing boyish things that excluded her. The television desert echoed to the sound of shots, hooves and screams, but Lettie was still deployed by the tumbled childhood memories–instantaneous flashes that suffused the present, distorting it and making it vague and insubstantial. Mother–waiting for Storm to come home from football and Lettie beside her, watching and waiting, anticipating the rejuvenation of her own personality by his return. She never had to look back; her own private treasure house was always there into which she could dip at random.
The screen flickered again, the sequence finished and the credits came up. Gradually the image dissolved and was replaced by a bland-voiced announcer. Tea-time over she and Storm would do their homework on the large living-room table. He was clever and would help her. He was washed now and she could smell the scent of Lifebuoy on his skin. Mother would come in and out and after a while it was time for toasted cheese and cocoa. They read books then and quite soon they went to bed. This was the pattern of everyday childhood–it was a particularly dear one and she could remember Storm very vividly at this time. This was the only thing they shared–he had his own friends and she had no one except Mother. Storm accepted but hardly noticed her and, even at that time, she supposed that he was fond of her in a rather haphazard sense. At one stage she tried to tag behind him, but it had been hopeless–she remained a spectator to the games that he and his friends played. If she had been a tomboy then he might have been drawn to her–but she was not. Other girls played with them, and she watched them jealously. They could play fearsome things like football, they could bat and bowl, they were not afraid of the water, the dark or getting hurt. Yet she had still been happy as an onlooker, hoping for a word or two of praise from him from time to time. She clung to him like a leech, soaking up the vitality of his very ordinary juvenility. He was like all boys–there was nothing different about him at all–yet because she was unlike anyone she knew she clung desperately and dependently on to him as they grew up. Her love grew to immense proportions and she lived for his praise. She loved him with an unyielding passion that had begun somewhere or at sometime she couldn’t remember. The simplicity of her adoration continuously swelled her own bitterness. She had never loved, nor had she the slightest desire for, any other man. Storm was her ultimate in love and the expression of love. Lettie loved the school as a creation of Storm’s and yet hated it for the demands it made on her brother. To be together with him, alone, in the tiny flat they shared on the top floor, was her goal. Every day this seemed to grow more and more impossible as an ideal. He either ate in the school or snatched some hurried snack in his study. Lettie was very similar to her brother in her innate singlemindedness. As Storm’s dedication grew month by month to Exeter Court then Lettie’s love for him increased. At breakfast (the only meal at which they sat down together) she tried to gauge his day’s activities so that she could work out exactly how much of his time she might be able to gain. As Storm’s mind was entirely preoccupied with the school, or as Paul’s mind was entirely preoccupied with his own self-torment, Lettie’s mind always gave first place to her brother. She had no friends, nothing to disturb her concentration; she required nothing from anyone–except Storm and he was never there.
Lettie’s face was dry and narrow. She was not pretty, yet she was handsome in a near masculine sense. Her eyes, unlike Storm’s, were grey and a little watery, but her other features were almost nordic in the fine tracery of her bone structure. Meg often wondered why Lettie was so unhappy–over the five years she had known her she had watched the older woman change a little each year. Somehow she suddenly seemed to have become elderly. The filmy grey eyes were normally expressionless and yet, caught off guard, they were pathetically supplicating. Meg had watched her sometimes, sitting and smoking for hours, with eyes like a child, alternately filled with anticipation or the disappointment of an innocent. Meg could not guess at the reason, but Lettie’s loneliness was appallingly apparent. Suddenly she could bear the television no longer.
‘Lettie, I can’t concentrate and I’m tired. I think I might go to bed now.’
Lettie looked up in surprise. Her voice was unexpectedly soft when she spoke.
‘I’m so sorry, Meg. You do look tired.’ She raised her eyes–they looked like pools of dust. Suddenly she seemed revitalised. ‘I’ll tell you what–let’s cheer ourselves up and have a drink.’ She rose, like a great bird, clumsy and adolescent. Meg was always surprised by her similarity to Virginia Townshend. They were like two great hawks in appearance, yet Lettie’s personality was more like a sad, soft doe. She moved awkwardly to a cupboard and took out a bottle of whisky. Similarities seemed to abound in Meg’s over-tired imagination. She felt she was being placed in unfair circumstances–and sensed that she was as shy and embarrassed in Lettie’s presence as Storm was in Virginia’s. Meg watched Lettie pour a generous amount of whisky into each glass. The last thing she wanted to admit was that the taste was unfamiliar to her. She was not a great drinker and always considered sherry was just about her level.
‘I hope you like Scotch,’ said Lettie. ‘I never asked you, but it’s all we’ve got. Anyway, it’s a good nightcap.’ And she smiled suddenly. Meg felt a tremor of shock. How stupid I am, she thought. I suppose it’s because I’m so tired that I seem to see everything so–so differently tonight. It’s as if I’m seeing her for the first time. The sudden smile was a strange contrast to Lettie’s almost astringent lack of femininity. It softened the sharp lines of her features and made her become both sympathetic and vulnerable. Suddenly, for a moment, she became feminine. Then it was gone and she was quite impersonal again.
‘Cheers!’ She raised her glass stiffly. The door opened and Storm and Virginia came in, talking animatedly. Lettie turned at once with her glass still raised and Meg, for some unknown reason, rose to her feet. It was an awkward little moment. A time of extreme privacy between her and Lettie had been broken into, and Storm and Virginia seemed almost interlopers.
‘Skol,’ said Virginia drily. ‘Is this a private session or is there enough for us?’
‘Good Lord,’ said Storm over-heartily, ‘of course there’s enough. Lettie–do pour Virginia a drink. Have we
got any soda or do you prefer water?’ He turned frantically to Virginia, his awkwardness returning. He seemed put out–he had been expecting to talk business and now he was having a party forced on him.
Virginia stood impassively and said, ‘I have it neat, thanks,’ but Lettie had just poured out whisky and soda for both of them.
‘Oh dear,’ said Storm, ‘we’ve both got–’
‘I’m so sorry, Storm,’ barked Lettie excitedly, ‘I didn’t quite hear.’
‘Well, you know I was just asking Virginia–Lettie I really wish–’ He broke off, anxious not to let domestic trivia take precedence.
‘I really am sorry, Virginia.’ Lettie positively drooped. ‘I don’t know why I did that–I must be tired–can I get you another?’
One thing that Meg invariably noticed about Virginia was that she rarely managed to come to the assistance of anyone. Whether this was intentional or she was really quite unable to do anything positive Meg could never work out.
‘Never mind,’ said Virginia in a flat voice. ‘I’ll have it now, thank you.’
The Seahorse Page 4
