THE SPARROW

by MARY HOCKING

  How this promising scene would develop had to be left to Spencer’s imagination because at that moment he heard voices in the graveyard. It was the children, Sarah and Sukie Price, As he hurried towards the shelter of the shrubbery at the bottom of the garden, he heard Sukie say:

  ‘I think we ought to have a word of prayer now.’

  ‘Not here.’

  They must have been moving about among the gravestones by the wall because their voices sounded very near.

  ‘But this is just the right place. We ought to pray for Joanna Dove because she’s going to die soon.’

  ‘I’ll pray in bed tonight,’ Sarah answered.

  ‘She might be dead by then.’

  Suddenly a form appeared atop the brick wall. Spencer drew back, overbalanced and rolled in some nettles.

  ‘I can see your auntie in the kitchen,’ Sukie said. ‘She’s got that man with her. She’s washing his face.’

  Sarah scrambled up on the wall beside her.

  ‘Perhaps he hurt himself.’

  Sukie drummed her feet on the wall.

  ‘He came to the youth club the other night. My brother says he wasn’t much good. He had some silly idea they were going to paint the hall.’

  Sarah did not reply.

  ‘My brother says they’ll have some fun with him before he’s finished.’

  Sarah screeched:

  ‘My aunt says your brother is developing into a great lout.’

  Spencer was surprised by the virulence in her voice. Sukie must have been surprised, too; she almost fell off the wall.

  ‘I shall tell Mummy that!’

  ‘ “I shall tell Mummy”,’ Sarah mimicked. ‘Tell your mummy then. And your brother, too!’

  A door opened. Mrs. Kimberley called into the darkness:

  ‘Sarah? Is that you making all that noise? Come in at once. And bring Sukie with you. Her mother has been out looking for her.’ Spencer waited while the two children scrambled down from the wall and ran across the lawn towards the house. Then he crawled slowly out from the shrubbery, rubbing his hands where the nettles had stung him. He was shocked. The vicar’s last sermon had had as its text: ‘Of such are the Kingdom of Heaven.’ He should have heard his niece just then! And talking about Joanna Dove in that matter-of-fact way . . . There were not many things which Spencer had learnt to respect in his life but death was one of them; it was something to be spoken of in a certain tone of voice or not at all. He was so put out that he almost forgot about the scene in the kitchen until he came to the church path and saw that the light was still on in the church.

  He wondered about the vicar. Could there be any connection between the vicar’s increasing need of prayer and the scene he had just witnessed? It was true that the vicar had gone into the church to pray ever since Spencer had known him and that he often spoke aloud. But this last week it had seemed to Spencer, as he watched the vicar at his devotions, that there was something different in the man’s approach to his God. It was not so much what he said. The vicar had always addressed God in the language of the prayer book, not man to man as had the people in the chapel to which Spencer had attached himself briefly. But although the language was reverent and traditional there was a calm assurance that rivalled the familiarity of the chapel people. God, one felt as one listened to the vicar, was indeed round about him. But during the last week a new note had crept into the vicar’s voice, and once Spencer had heard him say: ‘Reveal Thyself to my impatient heart’ in the kind of voice in which one might address a god who had neglectfully turned away and was becoming a little deaf.

  Spencer opened the inner door to the church very slightly so that there would be no tell-tale draught. The vicar was raising himself to his feet; his hands were gripping the sides of the altar rail and his movements were stiff and laboured for so vigorous a man. He must have knelt for a very long time. Spencer saw that his face was white with fatigue. The vicar looked round about him slowly as though trying to locate something he had lost. Then he put his hand to his face; in the moment before the hand masked the face, Spencer saw the resolute features crumple. Despair was not a thing which Spencer associated with the Reverend Kimberley. He was astonished. What could so trouble the vicar? There was to be another sit-down in Trafalgar Square at the week-end, but usually the vicar’s spirits seemed to be remarkably good when he embarked on these demonstrations. The only explanation of the vicar’s behaviour to occur to Spencer was that he was worried about personal matters. Later, as he sat alone in his cottage, Spencer pondered over this.

  Chapter Six

  ‘If you get ’flu sitting about in the square, don’t expect me to nurse you,’ Myra said to Ralph. ‘I’ve had quite enough of playing Florence Nightingale to Keith.’

  She had meant to say it jokingly, but nervousness sharpened her voice as it always did when she was unsure of herself. Ralph remained outwardly calm, but he felt in his body the familiar twinge of pain.

  ‘I’ve got a cardigan on under my jacket, darling.’

  She flicked an apprehensive glance at him. She was sitting in front of the dressing-table mirror and she could see him moving about the room. He was in a great hurry to go—almost a panic, judging by the way his fingers fumbled with the buttons of his jacket. Poor Ralph! Anxious to escape before the storm broke, no doubt. But there wasn’t going to be a storm. She would be calm and reasonable this time, and then perhaps he would listen to her. Perhaps it would be better to start with Keith.

  ‘I’m a bit worried about that young man, Ralph.’

  ‘ ’Flu does seem to have got him down a bit.’

  ‘That, and losing his job.’

  He looked at her. There were dark shadows under her eyes and her face had the stiff look which always indicated strain. Only the other day Mrs. Thomas had said to him that she thought it was very good of Myra to nurse Keith. She had added that if it had been her, she would have employed a nurse. This remark had been accompanied by a rather odd look which he had innocently interpreted as a reproach for overburdening his wife. He said solicitously:

  ‘We must see that you have a break now that Keith is up and about again.’

  ‘I was thinking about that,’ she said quickly. ‘And I was wondering whether you would give up this meeting—just this once—and take him out somewhere. It would be a relief for me, and . . .’

  He looked at her incredulously; she might have been asking him to forgo a picnic.

  ‘I can’t do that, Myra. But I’ll . . .’

  ‘Can’t! There’s no question of can’t.’ Her voice rose. ‘No one will know whether you are there or not.’

  ‘I shall know, for one.’

  She swivelled round to face him.

  ‘Have you read the papers this morning? They’re talking about longer sentences. People are getting fed up with all this.’

  ‘Yes.’ His mouth was dry. He had been afraid of this scene. ‘Yes, I know.’

  She looked at him wonderingly.

  ‘But you might be arrested. Hadn’t you thought about that?’

  ‘Thought about it?’ He had thought about nothing else lately. ‘Of course I’ve thought about it.’

  ‘Really thought about it?’

  If only she wouldn’t sound so sharp! Didn’t she realize how much it injured a man when a woman needled him in this way?

  ‘My dear . . .’

  ‘But the church, all your work in the parish . . .’

  ‘I shall be doing more important work in jail.’

  She turned her head away.

  ‘And me?’

  Fear of her sharpness drove out the sense of what she was saying. He muttered:

  ‘I know it’s difficult for you.’

  But he was thinking that he must get out before she jabbed at him again.

  ‘You don’t know, Ralph. Or you wouldn’t do it. I can’t cope with things as they are. Sarah and Wilson. They’re your responsibility as well as mine. You can’t just walk out on them, leave me to manage alone . . .
’

  ‘I can’t walk out on this other thing, either. And it is for you and Sarah that I do it, you know, darling. To build a safer world . . .’

  ‘A safer world in the future, perhaps. But it’s now I need you. Here and now.’ He shook his head helplessly, and suddenly her control snapped. ‘You’re a coward. A coward!’

  He turned away, his face impassive. She thought to herself: ‘I can’t reach him; I shall never be able to reach him.’ She picked up her hairbrush and began to flick at her hair. ‘I shall never try again.’ Aloud, she said:

  ‘Run away then, and play with the bobbies.’

  He did not dare to kiss her, but at the door he hesitated.

  ‘I’m going now.’

  She nodded her head; tears brimmed in her eyes so that she could not see him properly and she could only trust herself to say idiotically: ‘It’s a nice day for you.’

  Ralph shut the bedroom door. Sunlight filtered through the frosted glass of the landing window and a branch of the creeper moved gently to and fro. The claustrophobic urge to escape from the house was strong. He hurried down the first flight of stairs, afraid of the knock on the front door, the telephone call which might yet prevent his escape. When he turned the corner he saw to his dismay that the front door was open and there was someone in the hall. The figure moved, head bent, hand searching in a jacket pocket. It was only Wilson. The sunlight was bright through the open door; it showed up the shininess of his suit. The suit was rather loose on him; the collar of the shirt looked as though it was loose, too, and it was curled at the edges. His face had a grey look.

  Ralph hesitated at the turn of the stairs, shaken with a bitter anger against this unwelcome stranger for his intrusion at this moment. Unwelcome! The word had slipped unbidden into his mind. He felt ashamed. But the resentment was still there and, strying to stifle it, he behaved with uncharacteristic heartiness as he hurried down the stairs to join Wilson.

  ‘How did things go this morning?’

  He laid a hand across the young man’s shoulders. The gesture was not well-received.

  ‘I didn’t get the job,’ Wilson informed him dourly.

  ‘I shouldn’t worry. Take a rest over the week-end and we’ll see what we can do about it on Monday.’ He picked up his raincoat and put it on as he went out of the door. ‘Are you coming my way? We can walk together as far as the tube station.’

  They were not good company for one another. As he walked away from the house Ralph could not escape the feeling that some kind of climax had been reached in the battle between himself and Myra; he was not at all sure who had triumphed.

  ‘We don’t see much of one another, do we?’ he said, trying to propitiate the absent Myra. ‘You must come up to my study one evening and we can have a good chat.’

  Wilson did not respond to the invitation. He turned his head and gazed bleakly at the blackened cottages beside the coal depot. He needs a job, Ralph thought; once he has a job in which he can take some pride it will make all the difference to him.

  ‘Where are you going?’ he asked Wilson.

  ‘I thought perhaps I would sit in Kensington Gardens.’

  ‘February, however sunny, is no time to sit around.’ Ralph felt in his trouser pocket and produced a ten-shilling note. He handed it over with a guilty feeling that it represented conscience money. ‘What about a ride on a Green Line bus? Or the pictures, or one of the art galleries? I don’t know your tastes . . .’

  Wilson thanked him, briefly and ungraciously. They walked in silence for a while. Wilson began to look around him as though trying to come to terms with his surroundings. Ralph, who thought that it would be a great mistake ever to come to terms with anything so unrelievedly drab, looked straight ahead as though Trafalgar Square were already in view at the far end of the street. Even so, he found it more difficult than usual to insulate himself from the influence of this brash section of his parish. They passed a milk bar, its smeared chromium plating lit by pink fluorescent tubes; a grocer’s store with cut-down prices painted on the windows; a hairdresser’s shop bizarre with designs in mauve and green of the latest hair styles; a disused cinema, now a furniture store, but still retaining outside tattered bills advertising a film starring Gina Lollobrigida. The dreariness of it seemed to fall like a weight across Ralph’s shoulders. He was glad when the tube station came into view.

  He left Wilson outside the tube station. As he waited at the booking office for Frank Godfrey, he looked round and saw the young man standing on the edge of the pavement, hesitating, much as a blind person might have done.

  ‘A nice day for you.’

  Myra’s remark rankled; even after they arrived in the square Ralph found it nagging at his mind so that he was denied the feeling of exaltation which he usually derived from these occasions. As he followed Frank Godfrey into the square he felt, in spite of himself, rather like a small boy who has evaded his household chores.

  It was indeed a nice day! A faint breeze sprayed the water in the fountains and the sky was blue, almost cloudless. The square was as crowded as Brighton beach on a bank holiday. Even the atmosphere was not dissimilar. In front of them, a few youngsters were emptying a basket containing sandwiches, fruit and a thermos flask; they searched anxiously for something lost or forgotten. They might have been on a picnic.

  ‘A lot of people,’ Frank said, sitting down. ‘The square must be three-quarters full already.’

  Ralph did not answer. He was thinking: I must be arrested this time, and imprisoned; otherwise I shall feel that I, too, am on a picnic. He wished he had realized before how very important this was to him. Unfortunately, he had allowed Frank to lead him rather far into the centre of the square.

  ‘I wonder how many would have come if it hadn’t been such a fine day?’ Frank said.

  ‘We can leave that kind of enquiry to the Daily Telegraph,’ a girl of about seventeen said, frowning through a thatch of ginger hair.

  Frank puckered up his already wizened face as he studied those around him. How many will be here next year if we have not made the progress for which we hoped? he wondered. There would be fewer then, because the affair would be in danger of becoming ridiculous. But he would be one of them. Perhaps one day there would be just a thin straggle, not unlike the group of idiots who had marched in favour of the bomb. There would be good-natured derision; and then, eventually, a total lack of interest. He would still be there. Who else? Certainly not the ginger-headed youngster who did not like the Daily Telegraph. And Ralph? Somehow one could not quite escape the thought that for Ralph it might be rather a waste of all that energy and zeal. He shivered and drew his overcoat round his thin body; in spite of the fine weather, the breeze was keen.

  A pigeon spattered the sleeve of a constable; there was a lot of laughter and a girl offered him a paper handkerchief. Over towards the entrance to Whitehall more serious exchanges were under way. Senior policemen were conferring with one or two leaders of the crowd; they formed a small, wary group standing in attitudes of polite watchfulness. Ralph looked at this solemn conclave impatiently. He wished they would finish with the play-acting. Play-acting! Everything seemed to jar on him today. How many came just for the drama of it? Behind him there was a middle-aged man who most certainly had not come to play-act; he looked intensely serious huddled over his copy of the Daily Worker. The sight afforded Ralph no comfort. This man’s views on most important matters were so opposed to his own that he wondered whether it was right to sit by his side. There was a lot of talk about the one supreme purpose which triumphantly transcended all differences. A hollow fantasy, Ralph thought, his eyes running angrily over the paper’s headlines. Could he believe that peace meant more to this man than the spreading of communist doctrine? Did it, in fact, mean more to Ralph Kimberley than the spreading of Christ’s gospel to all men? He was becoming so annoyed with the man that he had to shift his position.

  The conference at the head of Whitehall was breaking up at last with all the signs of chivalr
y before combat; policemen saluting, civilians bowing acknowledgement of agreement to disagree. The inevitable voice over the loud-speaker. Another voice just behind Ralph continuing a conversation:

  ‘. . . made an awful fuss because she got her behind pinched. I said to her: “You must let the poor buggers get some fun out of it, dear. After all, they are human!” ’

  There had been no response to the appeal from the loud-speaker, although one or two people had politely applauded the effort. Now the police vans and coaches were coming in from the side-streets; constables were exchanging jokes with one another as they stepped forward.

  ‘Wait until it’s dark and the rugger team moves in,’ someone said caustically.

  A young man began to sing and the girl with the ginger hair said wearily:

  ‘Not that again!’

  Ralph watched as police backs bent to the toil. He hoped they would work quickly. It was not that he coveted the martyr’s crown; but it did seem rather surprising that when he was prepared to suffer so much, so little should have been asked of him up to now. Sometimes he felt as though he had volunteered and been passed over. It made Myra’s taunt about cowardice particularly hard to bear. How many other people thought that he was playing at this thing?

  ‘All ready to spend the night at Cannon Row?’ he asked Frank Godfrey.

  Frank looked across at the entrance to Cockspur Street where limp bodies were being deposited gently, under the watchful eyes of senior policemen and journalists, into the waiting coaches.