The Seahorse

by Anthony Masters

  Although he knew that it would be a fatal mistake Paul turned away and went out of the room. His exit was not made with a flourish–but almost with a whimper. As he closed the door he heard Lancing say, ‘Oh dear, it’s really too bad, you know.’

  Whilst the administration bickered, Alexander and Adrian plotted, and Storm, unconscious of everything, pursued his own ideals, Casey sat happily on the lavatory seat, listening contentedly to the screams of mild warfare that suffused the playground. This refuge was a part of the old stables and there was a high, vaulted roof that was confused by cross beams and bedecked with dust and cobwebs that ran up towards the dark recesses above. The rough and tumble outside deterred him–the sense of privacy inside only eluded him when he knew the minutes were passing too quickly to allow him to relish the true infinity of his own glorious solitude. To be alone was becoming a luxury he was appreciating a little more each day, and he knew that there was every reason to contain and to nurture his own awareness of this. Thrust into the intense, uncalled for liveliness of participating physically taxed him. He received far too much scrutiny at Exeter Court and the negative personality he had shown at other schools seemed lost beyond redemption. Yet here, at least, in the lavatory, he had just cause for being by himself. Casey, for all his outward whimsy, was a practical person. He applied himself almost entirely to seeking his own company, a ruse which he was becoming more and more expert at. The art of getting away from people was establishing itself as a practised routine. It was simple–there was hardly anyone he cared for enough to be with, therefore there was no point in seeking out anyone’s company. He had loved his father with a mute love that had been and always would be unshakeable. There need have been no one else–just his father, who had been reliable, trustworthy, loving and unconsciously ignored as an important factor. He had known he was there and would be all the time. He had need of no one else with that staunch dependability looming over him. Yet now he had lost it so suddenly his mind was too clouded to grasp that he was on his own. Casey trusted that someone was there in his place–and he traded on an overworked imagination to create and re-create a personification that was governed by an oddly logical yet transient fantasy. Whatever hard fact he came across he overlaid by an immediate concoction of his own making–a garland of ethereal nonsense that surrounded each realism–a creation that was immediately manufactured around each materiality. Amidst hard fact he wove skeins of illusion that ousted the material world, making its sterility of hard-won mediocrity ridiculous. Casey shook a foot, deadened by pins and needles, and farted happily.

  June 1964

  Two weeks had passed uneventfully. Paul avoided both Angus Clarke and Casey with relief and then frustration. Storm ploughed on in glorious ignorance of the gathering unrest, pursuing his own far-flung ideals. Meg, each day a little more aware of solitude, sought a degree of comfort in the ominous undercurrents that might at some time break the monotony of her own routine, and Casey, the happiest of them all, spun a curious blend of fantasy and subjection around everything. The most actively engaged were Alexander and Adrian, the one introspective and the other happily retaliating. Lettie regained a certain composure and placidity that sustained by a hair’s breadth a surfeit of irrepressible desire for Storm. The measured routine of Exeter Court continued, and it was only underneath the surface that the raw nerve ends touched time and time again, blowing the fuse from the initiative and teamsmanship that Storm seemed to believe existed.

  Paul felt himself becoming more and more apart from the community, sensing its pettiness and blind to its possibilities. Standing well back he realised that they had been together too long to withstand contamination. Storm’s blind helmsmanship could not account, nor allow for the everyday friction of continual contact. This term had been worse than usual and it was obvious that they were getting well and truly on each other’s nerves. The other schools Paul had known had had an entirely different atmosphere; an almost undefinable restraint must have taken place, yet normality had been its ally. Perhaps it was the children who were doing this to them all–they were the cause of the arguments basically. So conscientious was Storm in his obsessive concentration on the boys’ welfare that it had made everyone perhaps too hyper-conscious of the presence of a force that was neither receptive enough nor rewarding enough to sustain such scrutiny. Their attention seemed flung back at them, dispersing itself amongst them until they found fault in each other, rather than in themselves. Like a nervous distemper, raw and festering, the tension never quite petered out. It was always there, under the surface, whilst they squabbled openly, leaving a sulky hostility that hung like wet cotton wool over the acrid, tobacco-scented staff-room.

  Paul remained aloof, uninvolved, unconcerned with what he mistook as triviality. Somewhere in the back of his mind, cluttered alongside other realisms he never brought to the front, lay the sneaking feeling that a middle-man was needed–a liaison between Storm’s idealism and inscrutable ignorance and the others’ incompatibility. The united front of diligence, enthusiasm and initiative that existed only in his presence had collapsed beyond repair. He supposed that he ought to do something about it–but he was too deeply involved in his too obvious regard for Casey, who seemed to become more and more out of reach. Since Angus Clarke’s show of temper and his subsequent accusations Paul made sure of keeping well clear of the staff-room. With the flat on the same floor he hardly needed to use it anyway. The others seemed to take the attitude that the whole issue had been excruciatingly embarrassing. Angus Clarke was unscrupulously vicious and Paul had been maligned. They sneaked up to him, one by one, anxious to make amends. Vaguely he reciprocated, and forgot them.

  Apart from the fact that he slept with her, dined with her in the evenings, and occasionally made non-committal conversation, Paul did his very best to ignore Meg’s existence, or certainly any claims she might make on him. During these next weeks, in common with the contagious mood of irritated disquiet, he began to find her introspection annoying. Previously he had been relieved at her reticence, but this evening as he fidgeted at the dinner table, folding and refolding his napkin, he began to find it oppressive. The period following the macabre cat incident, Casey’s disturbance and the sudden clannishness of the boys had been suspiciously quiet–dull and rather flat, in fact. Suddenly everything seemed very bleak and Meg’s silence the bleakest part of it–and particularly tonight he wanted her to be warm.

  Paul spooned his minestrone and swore as he dipped a cuff into the dull, red soup.

  ‘Oh Christ–that was a clean shirt.’ He looked across at Meg, demanding some kind of response. It came.

  ‘Oh dear,’ she said flatly.

  ‘Well–is that all you’ve got to say?’ snapped Paul childishly.

  ‘What do you expect me to say–or is this what you call a major crisis?’

  She looked at him and burst out laughing.

  ‘You look as if you’re going to burst into tears.’

  Quite suddenly Paul smiled at her. Actually it was quite false but was an attempt to prevent a row. Better to withdraw, he thought, than have a row. He just wasn’t up to it. The effect of the sudden smile on Meg was alarming. She burst into tears and Paul’s hopes of an easy way out came to an abrupt halt. Ruefully he realised he had wanted some kind of response–now he regretted it as if his conscious thought had set off a transmitted chain of reaction.

  ‘Look,’ he began awkwardly, ‘I’m sorry if I’ve been a bit bloody this month–it’s this damn school–maybe the novelty’s wearing off a bit.’

  ‘Should it be a novelty?’ she sniffed.

  ‘No, it shouldn’t–but I’m losing interest, I think. I’m safer on firmer ground, you know. All this specialist stuff gets me down a bit.’

  ‘For God’s sake, we can’t go on moving around.’

  ‘We’ve been here over five years now. The trouble with you is that you always exaggerate everything so much–any length of time you treble. Why can’t you get things in proportion?’ Paul ch
ecked his mounting irritation. ‘Look, I’m a schoolmaster, not a psychologist. If I’m going to be a psychologist why aren’t I paid more? Blimey, I’m getting less here than I was getting up North–and so are you.’

  ‘We get free board–’ Her voice was sulky.

  ‘Yes, quite–so we can both be on the spot all the bloody time. We never get any spare time–’

  ‘I thought you were such an admirer of Storm’s.’

  ‘I am, but I get tired of being general dog’s-body.’

  Meg looked across the table and for a moment almost despised him. How pathetic he was–and how selfish. Self-pity was rapidly making him a fool–yet she suddenly realised how much she still loved him as she looked at his craggy gargoyle’s face with its weak, pale-grey eyes. She wondered why he was so unhappy–and this evening he seemed jumpier and unreasonably irritable. The fact that he apologised for his bad temper both surprised and alarmed her and she had the sudden feeling that he was building up to something. They continued the inane conversation until its obvious early termination and there was a long silence. Meg felt that at any moment Paul was going to break it and it was impossible to relax. Then it came.

  ‘Meg–there’s something I’d like to talk to you about.’

  She grinned good-humouredly because she felt sorry for him. Whatever it was, he must be pretty certain that she was not going to like what he was going to say.

  ‘Yes, darling–just let me get the coffee.’ She came back with the tray to find him even more wrought up than before.

  ‘Now–what’s all this about?’

  It crossed his mind that she was being bloody patronising, but now was not the time to comment on it–there was too much at stake.

  ‘We’ve discussed at various times–having another child–Now wait,’ he interposed swiftly as she flinched back. He did not realise that her emotion was surprise rather than horror.

  ‘Go on,’ Meg said quickly. ‘But we’ve only discussed it once, Paul, and it wasn’t a discussion–it was a shouting match, which you won. I brought it up–nervously–and I wished afterwards that I’d never mentioned it. You wouldn’t listen to me–or hear anything about it. Let’s just get that quite straight, shall we? We had a row–a blazing row–but never a discussion. Paul.’

  ‘It seems you’re determined to win a battle of wits rather than be constructive. If it’s going to be like this then I won’t go on.’ He looked, in his turn, like a sulky child and he stared at her stubbornly.

  ‘I’m sorry, Paul. I want to get the past straight, that’s all–I thought you were making it a little too fair in your direction.’

  ‘You’re a sarcastic cow when you get going, aren’t you?’

  ‘Look, Paul–whatever we don’t talk about–or whatever we don’t think about–and all that is probably us–let’s have a truce–don’t let’s end this in a row. You’ve obviously got something on your mind and I’d very much like to hear it.’

  ‘All’s fair then, old girl.’ Paul’s mock heartiness was a joke between them that at least they both understood. ‘The point is this–whether we discussed or argued or screamed blue murder at each other last time, we did at least mention it. Stephen’s been dead well over five years now–we want another child and pretty soon. At least, I do.’

  ‘You know damn well I’ve always wanted one.’

  ‘All right–so we both want a child. The drawback to this has been–well–we haven’t been very intimate lately.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘We haven’t had sex lately.’

  ‘That’s the first time I’ve ever heard you being genteel.’

  ‘What the hell do you mean?’

  ‘What I say. When we were at college I was embarrassed every time you mentioned it because you seemed so crude to little milk-and-water me. You were always talking about your prick, for instance, and you used to say–’

  ‘Yes, well, let’s–’

  ‘I was terrified–’

  ‘What of?’

  ‘You, you idiot–and it wasn’t all talk either–when we were in bed I used to be so scared–’

  ‘Well, you were very rigid.’

  ‘Rigid! Christ, I thought I was shaking all over.’

  They looked at each other and began to laugh. Their laughter was genuine and they each enjoyed the sound the other made. After they had finished laughing they looked at each other, suddenly contented. Then Paul went on.

  ‘Well, whoever’s fault it is, I don’t know, but there’s nothing we can do about it. Temporarily, at least, we don’t seem to want each other. So–why don’t we–adopt a child? It seems a sensible answer.’

  A pause, and Paul watched every expression on Meg’s face intently. There–he had dropped a minor bombshell. He wondered what her reaction would be to the rest. This was the halfway point, if she would only be ecstatic over the proposal then there might be some slim chance of his plan coming true. The more he thought of it, however, the more his confidence decreased. Abruptly he turned his thoughts away and tried to assess his wife’s mind. The reaction came at last.

  ‘I’ve always wanted–something–someone to replace Stephen, but–it’s not–been that so much.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘You seem to be saying that all the time this evening. It’s just that I thought–well–if we did have a baby then you might–I know it sounds stupid–but you might be more interested in–me. Oh God, that sounds pathetic–but it’s true, Paul. Why the hell do we keep up this farce of living as man and wife anyway? There’s nothing in it for either of us. We never speak–never make love–never share anything. All right, I make it sound like one big cliché–a sort of cosy domestic trap–but we’ve got nothing, Paul–we’ve just got–nothing. Do you realise that you haven’t made love to me for the last year–not one night have we lain together in bed and made love for even five minutes.’

  The coffee was black and very bitter and there was a drawing of some anonymous wildfowl on the mat, winging its way over the pastel waters of a romantically tinted loch. There were coffee stains ingrained into it, making the mute vulgarity of the print a little more tawdry. Idly he balanced a sugar lump precariously on the tip of his spoon and ejected it into the coffee, spilling more on the now near sepia tinted mat. He said:

  ‘You blamed me for Stephen, Meg.’ He stirred his coffee and lit a cigarette; inhaling, he knew that he was losing.

  ‘I didn’t, Paul–I didn’t.’ She was desperate to convince him. ‘I swear to you that I never blamed you for one moment, darling. Believe me, I didn’t.’

  But he was hardly listening–he was almost bored with her prattle. After all–what the hell! But he needed her very much for another reason–he wanted her to be a mother rather than a wife. For an instant he wondered if he was quite demented. How could he treat her so appallingly? She needed to be loved very hard–but the thought of physical contact with her made him feel sick. Certainly there was no way back–but there was a way forward–at a risk, he supposed, to both himself and to her.

  ‘Meg–I’m sorry–I’m sorry about it all. You know how much I loved Stephen.’

  ‘But I loved him too,’ she protested, scratching at one of the mats with her knife. She was carving grooves into a mallard that nested in the reeds of another part of the loch.

  ‘Yes, we both loved him–it shouldn’t have been the end of us just because he died. But it was,’–he hesitated–‘almost, and it’s because of the way he died–’

  ‘Don’t let’s go into it again, Paul–please don’t let’s.’

  ‘I don’t want to–I only want to do something about–you and me. That’s what I really want.’

  ‘Another child isn’t going to help, Paul, you know. It’s up to us to do something.’

  ‘Yes–but–another child might let us pick up from where we left off. We could dismiss these last years–as the hell of a mistake.’

  She was quiet, looking at the cloth, her knife still prodding at the cork. He would have
liked to tell her to stop doing it, but he was intent on reaching the logical climax he had in his own mind. Why could she never volunteer any affirmation or negation–or anything at all? It was always up to him to make issues. There was a picture opposite him that she had painted, with slab-like strokes across a large canvas. A Tahitian maiden stood on a white beach, hands clasped as if she were making an offering. Behind were palm trees and a jungle of shoots and stumps that were painted in a rough Gauguin miasma of unwieldy delicacy. It was a good imitation, but she had introduced her own style, for the intricately ridged sand and dove-toned sea made an odd contrast to the heavy form of the girl on the beach. It had been heavily criticised because of this bastardisation, but he made her hang it here because he had affectionately regarded it as typical of her. It had alternately irritated and amused him that she was able to interpose her own personality on what had been nearly a representational exercise in reproduction. This had been one of the reasons why he loved her–the fact that anything she saw, or anyone she met, would be interpreted in a particularly personal way. She was never detached and would colour each event or personality in her own particular way, seeing them as a personal link to her–and also seeming to forget their existence if they were not there. She was not consciously selfish, but could only concentrate on one thing at a time–when it or they were confronting her. Faced with the application of her own art she was unable to merely reproduce a photographic likeness. And now bemused by the liveliness of her love for Paul she was unable to envisage the interference of anyone else–unless they might bring her closer to him. This he was counting on in the most calculated logic that he had used since they were married.

  ‘We can’t dismiss anything–it’s our life and it’s going past–even if it’s just this evening.’