The Seahorse

by Anthony Masters

  ‘This is ridiculous–why are we here?’ Then a few minutes later, ‘Let’s go–for Christ’s sake–let’s go, Meg. We’re only making each other miserable–’ Then again after a few moments, ‘What can we do–what can we do? Let’s hold each other. It’ll be different if we do–let me touch you.’

  ‘I don’t see why it should make any difference to you,’ said Virginia, lighting their cigarettes. ‘I don’t want to spend an evening with someone I like without knowing where we both stand–sorry–perhaps I’m too demanding–I don’t want to embarrass you.’

  ‘It’s all right,’ said Paul, raising his voice so that a couple opposite stared at them both. ‘I’m sorry if I took it badly–it’s not pleasant to know that someone may like you but never admire you. You’re right in saying I’m selfish but it’s because I want something very badly. I’ve made too many mistakes for it not to be obvious.’

  Self-pity swam comfortingly around him–better still, there was a shoulder to cry on. He ordered more beer and it set up a comforting aura of well-being. Here he was–misunderstoood–abused by everyone–only Virginia would be sympathetic. He leant back again and prepared to pour out his soul.

  ‘Let’s talk about something else then,’ said Virginia, looking directly at him.

  ‘Don’t you–?’

  ‘No, I don’t want to hear how much you’re misunderstood, Paul. I find it rather tedious. I want to have a pleasant evening and go on liking you. You know I was absolutely fascinated by Sussex when I first came here–I’d never been anywhere quite like it. It’s an outstanding county, you know. One has such a tremendous feeling of well-being and unworldliness. After Africa it was a tremendous sort of relaxation to teach at Exeter Court. Mark you, I admire Storm’s work here very much but I don’t think I shall stay much longer. I’d like to go back soon and carry on with the work I was doing. But meanwhile I find my outlook recharged with such a complete change of circumstances–do you know what I mean?’

  ‘Oh yes,’ said Paul in a hollow voice, ‘I can quite understand it.’

  ‘What will you do?’ asked Storm.

  ‘You know damn well what I’ll do,’ she snapped. ‘I’ve already told you.’ Then more gently, ‘What will you do?’

  ‘Oh, carry on–investigate–find the fault in the system. See what went wrong–’ He picked at a knothole in the pew, the wood was rotten and came away easily, a screw of pulp. He crumbled it between his fingers. ‘I don’t think you need take it too seriously. It’s a dreadful thing to happen–horrible and cruel. I just can’t understand anyone who would be capable of doing that. It was unfortunate that it had to culminate on this of all days–’

  ‘It’s rather worse than you think, you know. They’re not going to keep their children here, surely, after such a public demonstration of–of such an extraordinary trick. Why don’t you say what you really think, Storm, that there’s someone here with–a very disturbed mind? You just don’t, won’t admit it. What normal child would dismember an animal like that? And play such macabre tricks with it? I mean, you know, it’s a question of one of those children being–unbalanced to a horrible degree over all this. But you won’t admit it–will you? You just don’t believe that any of them would do it. I know it’s difficult to realise–that it’s even possible. But it’s not fair on the child–he needs special attention somewhere else–’

  ‘There’s no need to try and convince me so desperately,’ said Storm brusquely. ‘I know what I’ve got to do and I agree the very best thing I can do for–whoever it is–is to pinpoint him and send him somewhere where they can look after him better than I can. I agree with you–it’s got to be done. But I think there is a fault somewhere–in my administration–in me–you and everyone else.’ Storm’s voice was dogged and tired. ‘I make a great show of how much everyone is behind me here. I fall over myself in trying to say what a great team we all are. I know, in fact, that this isn’t true–that they bicker among themselves, that they disagree in principle with each other over the ethics of the whole project. They snap to when I turn up, slap each other on the back and to all intents and purposes they look a bloody fine team, compatible and dedicated to a great experiment–’

  Meg was watching him as he talked. He looked miserable and defeated. His foot tapped irritably at the crumbling wood and he twisted a ring on his finger to and fro. But she didn’t want to touch him, they must not touch each other now–she wanted to preserve the memory of that afternoon intact. She fought down the desire she felt for him–it was imperative that memory was not jeopardised.

  ‘But they’re not–they don’t believe in what I want.’

  ‘But you won’t get anyone to be–be as intense and single-minded over the school as you. You expect too much, and when you don’t get what you want out of them you’re too bitterly disappointed. Perfectionism is wrong–I know it is. Paul’s every bit as single-minded and every bit as much a perfectionist as you are–if he doesn’t get what he wants then there’s hell for him to pay. Don’t you see–you can’t expect too much of people. They won’t meet your expectations, Storm–they can’t do it. You ask too much, I think.’

  He was looking at her, listening to her disjointed harangue.

  ‘You’ve got to judge their capabilities very carefully–you can’t afford not to. But you both fall so hard–and–I’ve been very–fond of you both–I mean it. Look, if it comes to a choice between me and Exeter Court, you won’t take me, will you? The same with Paul–he wanted to sort of vaguely keep me in the background, but he’d take Stephen–or Casey–because he wanted them and not me. I’m sick of trying to love people with obsessions. Paul behaved badly–I can’t forgive him but because possibly I–I think better of you–I’m fonder of you.’

  ‘You love me–’

  ‘Because I’m fonder of you, Storm, I can’t forgive you either because of what you do to yourself–because of what you expect of other people, which is the impossible–and the way they never satisfy you. I wouldn’t satisfy you, Storm, you know I wouldn’t. Because I can’t live up to what you see in me now. It would be hell for me to try and do it–and you’d be continually disappointed. It wouldn’t work, Storm. I promise you it wouldn’t work.’

  ‘Am I such an insensitive idealist? Is it so wrong to be ambitious?’

  ‘There’s nothing wrong in it, Storm–but like Paul–’

  ‘Will you stop comparing me, for Christ’s sake, will you stop comparing me with that sod of a husband of yours!’

  ‘Who is your friend.’

  ‘Who was my friend but is so despicably weak that I despise him.’

  ‘What right have you got to despise him?’ she raved. ‘Who the hell are you to say he’s weak?’

  ‘Because I’m not.’

  ‘Because you are–you’re as weak as he is–’

  ‘I know damn well what happens around me. He blinds himself to everything except what he wants.’

  ‘Don’t you think you’re being just a little childish?’

  ‘I’m sorry, Meg, but I prefer to stand up for the ideals I’ve got–I know they’re not all they might be.’

  ‘But how can you say this?’ she shouted furiously. ‘What makes you so wonderful?’

  ‘Surely you’re the one who’s being childish now?’

  ‘You make me so–so repelled by your complacency. You’re so convinced that you’re right whilst everything you’ve built up crashes around you. But has it ever occurred to you that you don’t do enough? You expect people to follow you around worshipping at the shrine, carrying out all your ideas to the very last letter. And yet you say you know that there’s so much dissension here–then why don’t you do something about it? You’re the great leader. Do you expect everyone to come to you and say, “Look, I’m terribly sorry, Storm, but I radically disagree with most of your ideas on this Progressive Education”? When do you go to them except to give them a pep talk–to blast them out with your own obsessions? You just don’t bother to sound out anyone else�
��s opinions, do you? As long as your precious theories remain intact then to hell with anyone else. And how intact are they? Do they still hold while the school is a sort–of wild mêlée of unrest? Undercurrents switch back and forth–there are scenes and arguments–and there is a child, ill and needing help, somewhere here and you haven’t even been able to find out which one it is. Just how brilliant do you think you are? And what are you going to do now?’

  Storm had listened to the full blast of her argument. He had watched her intently whilst she was talking but now he looked away, up towards the crude stained-glass, which ghosted back at him, suffused with wan moonlight. Then he turned to her again and began to talk softly, enunciating each word sharply but speaking quickly, giving her no opportunity to interrupt.

  ‘I think perhaps before you began to abuse me so roundly you should have considered that one of the main elements of disruption has been the erratic relationship you had with Paul, which was the most public and the most disastrous.’

  He talked on while a feeling of stale fatigue crept over Meg. This was the way to end all right–hurt each other so much that any future intimacy would be throttled. Well, that’s what they were doing–and indeed had probably successfully completed. She regretted her attack on him, but felt a tremendous lethargy. It would be too much of an effort to apologise. His voice wound on, probing, trying to wound, trying to give back as much as he had got. It really was cold now in the chapel and she wanted to go home to bed. Her feet felt like weights and her head was aching. Curiously she suddenly found that she had stopped shivering and was completely tense. She was looking through Storm, her eyes vaguely taking in his features which were devoid of expression. His words fell over one another, blandly and loquaciously seeking out the flaws in her. She imagined the stiffening of her body and senses was simply a reaction to his onslaught–and yet she could not understand her tenseness. His words eddied around her as she puzzled over it. She sensed she was vaguely expectant–something–some event–she was too tired to concentrate–she felt her eyes closing. Then the heavy door slammed with a shattering violence. Storm stopped in the middle of a sentence and to her annoyance she realised that she had taken his hands. He threw his arm round her and she whispered hysterically:

  ‘What–why did the door close like that?’

  ‘The wind, darling–’

  ‘But it couldn’t–it’s so heavy–’ Her practical streak came to the fore. ‘How very odd–I know the wind couldn’t have done it.’ All the horror stories she had read in her life began to come flooding back, particularly the most gruesome. They both sat listening, but there was no sound except the distant wash of the sea.

  ‘Look–Meg–my darling–I’m sorry–I don’t want to say all this to you–I don’t mean it–I love you.’

  ‘Shhh.’ She quieted him with an irritable wave of her hand. Again they listened, but still only the sea intruded into the void of silence. Tiny stirrings in the chapel electrified her.

  ‘Storm–I know I’m stupid–but for God’s sake let’s go–Once I get scared like this I get worse–’

  ‘Right–come on, let’s go.’

  They got up stiffly and Storm staggered.

  ‘What’s the matter?’

  ‘Cramp,’ he said and grinned at her, his smile tender. He took her arm and they began to walk down the littered aisle. Each step they took made the most appalling noise.

  ‘Oh Christ,’ said Meg, ‘what’s the matter with me?’ And she leant on him, feeling the reassuring pressure of his bulk. ‘What a fool I am.’

  Then it began as they were within feet of the door. It was such a tremendous shock–so crassly did it break the sustained tension that it was almost a relief. Meg couldn’t register it as a voice for about ten seconds–it was abrupt, harsh and strangely insubstantial. It was obvious that the speaker was behind the heavy oak door–the voice was muffled and guttural. Rasping, the sound began on a certain pitch and remained on it for the entire duration. The words began as a blur–and then relegated themselves to insatiable obscenity. The blasphemies were lingered on almost voluptuously. They were linked by a gasping, grasping tenacity as if the speaker was only intent on the abuse itself. The prepositions didn’t matter–were dulled or blurred over until the verbal atrocities were pronounced with a singular clarity over and over again with growing emphasis. Then–quite suddenly–it stopped. They stood there numbed by the force of it–with the grotesque hatred that the sound had managed to convey. Neither of them made any attempt to move and Storm said something she couldn’t hear. She turned to him but he shook his head at her–Then she began to shake–the tears streamed down her face and her sobs broke out harshly in the silence. She leant on a pew and he put his arm around her shoulders, taking her weight. They stood there for some time without speaking whilst she shook against him. Then, still supporting her, he moved towards the door. She resisted his movement but he half carried, half dragged her towards it. As best he could he pushed it open with his free arm and the night air flooded sweetly in, bringing with it a tang of salt and mown grass. The golf course stretched unbroken before them and the windbreak of trees bent away from the sea in slow, unobtrusive movements. They walked slowly on to the short grass and, with her still leaning against him, began to climb down towards the school. As they walked they made out Virginia’s car bouncing along the coast road and dimly they could hear someone singing, ‘She’ll be coming round the mountain when she comes,’ and then the song and the car were lost round a bend in the road. A gull flew enquiringly low over them and swooped away towards the cliffs. A fishing boat of some kind crawled across the bay, sending long undulating ripples across the dark swell and from somewhere far off came the dull sound of a clock striking. The two figures slowly crossed the viridian sward of the golf course and were lost to view in the thickets that overhung the path. Then a cloud rode over the face of the moon and a stronger wind sprang up, seeking to blow over the downland a soft absorbing mantle of darkness, that clung to the land like a canopy of velvet and reduced the sea to a mobile shadow that rose and fell with a steady and tenacious rhythm.

  ATTACK

  June 1964

  They were all shivering with nervous excitement when they arrived at the cave. There was a pallid moon and a heavy swell which Alexander looked at askance. They had to wade through knee-high water to reach the mouth of the cave and their apprehension grew as the waves slapped at them. Eric was almost knocked off his feet by the force of one of them and Alexander just grabbed his arm in time. He had already cut his toe on a particularly sharp rock but they had been successful so far in not tumbling into the deeper pools. Alexander knew his way, though, by now–so frequent had his journeys been to the cave. It had been ridiculously easy to slip furtively down the drive. Now they stood, in an agony of indecision, by the side of the boat–which looked unwieldy and clumsy in the grey light. The smell of pitch seemed particularly comforting–surely it was leak proof with the amount they had slapped on it. Adrian voiced this temporary security and they agreed with him readily, anxious for reassurance. Eric, strangely, seemed the most confident and he hopped about clamouring for a start to be made. Adrian was very quiet and had hardly said a word since they left the school. With an effort Alexander began preparations.

  ‘O.K. Let’s get started–But look–I know the boat inside out and you two don’t–I won’t exactly give orders but you must do what I say or we’ll end up in an awful mess.’

  His confidence returned as he briskly set about the organisation. Adrian looked young and frightened, his podgy face staring dubiously at the sea.

  ‘Where do we head for?’ asked Alexander sharply.

  Adrian pulled himself together with an obvious effort and tried to appear casual. ‘To the pier and back,’ he said abruptly.

  ‘Right. Now look–we’ll have to row her out pretty hard–you can see there’s a terrific swell–that means you’ll have to put everything you’ve got into it and get us beyond the cliffs. Then it’ll be
a long haul to the pier, but it won’t be too bad because I think the current’s with us.’ He felt reassured by his volubility–and for no reason at all he suddenly thought of Shirley. She would have liked to be in on an adventure like this, but he wouldn’t have let her come–it would be too dangerous, he would have said–and she would have argued bitterly.

  ‘Let’s make a start then, shall we?’ he said, and grasped one end of the shaky prow. The others pulled and pushed and gradually they drew the boat towards the mouth of the cave. It was difficult work as it kept getting wedged between the rocks. After five minutes of forceful exertion they manoeuvred it to a position where it overhung the water. Fortunately, the cave was sheltered behind a broken finger of rock that pointed downwards, which received the full force of the crests. Here it was comparatively sheltered and the only real problem was to manoeuvre the heavy boat into the swollen water–a drop of about a foot. There was a slight danger of the boat tilting over during even such a minute descent and Alexander decided to run no risks.

  ‘Hold it,’ he shouted, and the other two humbly obeyed. Adrian was still quiet and Eric suddenly seemed to have become rather in awe of the occasion, his former high spirits having ebbed away. Alexander looked at them both; they seemed pathetic and defenceless standing together, awaiting his instructions. He could see that Adrian was trying to regain both his composure and assertion, though it was obviously a difficult job in face of these premeditated, yet drastically forceful circumstances.

  ‘Now look–this is the tricky bit.’ His self-confidence was really flooding him now. ‘Well have to be very careful or we’ll have her over before we start. I’ll get down on the rocks and guide her while you push. But don’t push till I say–right?’

  They nodded meek assent. Adrian got behind the stern and poised himself waiting for Alexander to give the signal. Eric waited with him, his thin body crouched, shivering in anticipation. The water gently washed the rocks beneath them; an insistent coming and going that preserved a pattern of sound that sounded hostile in the extreme–a steady monotony that was sufficient unto itself and would not welcome interruption.