THE SPARROW

by MARY HOCKING

  ‘You know, Frank, I hate Good Friday. I have never been able to tell anyone quite how much I hate it. I suppose it is partly that the church is so bare all through Lent and the whole thing culminates—culminate isn’t the right word, too positive, disintegrates is better—in this appalling purple gloom. I must confess that on Good Friday I come near to understanding the utter desolation of those men who thought that the whole thing must be written off as a tragic error of judgement. Sometimes I have wished I might catch chicken pox, or some other absurd ailment, from Sarah so that I would not have to take the three-hour service.’

  ‘Perhaps it wasn’t meant to be easy?’

  There was a tartness in Frank’s tone which Ralph did not notice; he was thinking that this time it would be easier because release would be near. He felt the relief in his body, a relaxation of the muscles that made him feel momentarily light-headed as though he had slipped a mental anchor and were floating away.

  Frank, watching him, thought how hard it was to see another man in his prime, experiencing the winged exultation of the climber as he nears the peak, when you yourself experienced only the weariness of growing old, the body less willing to carry you through the slow days, the spirit longing for rest. He found himself asking: How will it be with you when life has disciplined you, when the task ahead is harder than anything you thought could be asked of you—how much courage will you have then? He got to his feet, hating himself but unable to control regret and envy.

  ‘I must finish the washing-up and get down to the shop.’

  ‘And I must get along to Jill’s. I’m having tea at her flat this afternoon—she has a day’s leave.’

  Ralph was eager to talk to Jill; he had not seen her for some time and there was a lot to tell her. She would be an enthusiastic listener; more than that, her understanding would give an added radiance to his joy. He could not, however, quite rid himself of the desire to make Frank stand aside.

  ‘If you decide not to come, no one will blame you,’ he said as they went down the stairs. ‘How could they blame you, with your record?’

  ‘It’s quite essential for me to be there,’ Frank retorted. ‘For one thing, if anything happens to you, I am supposed to take over the organizing part of it.’

  They parted a little cross with one another. As Frank went back to the flat, he was remembering Ralph’s face: the face of a man who believes that he has been granted some kind of release. But release from what? Could it be from the shadow that had dimmed his brightness when he spoke of the three-hour service? Frank was not himself a Christian, but he could understand that perhaps the hardest thing which Christ had asked of his followers was to watch with Him during those dark hours. The flat had become chill and Frank felt very lonely. He no longer envied Ralph. Glorious though his vision might be at this moment, it seemed to Frank that there was a sunset quality about it.

  II

  Jill was on the telephone in the hall when Ralph arrived; she had a pile of frocks over one arm and she looked at her most disorganized.

  ‘Oh, Ralph! Do come in.’

  She sounded as though she had not been expecting him. ‘I can’t stay,’ she said into the telephone. ‘A friend has come.’ She sounded secretive about it, and there was an amused, slightly provocative smile on her lips as though she anticipated that the statement would be disturbing to the hearer. Ralph guessed that she was talking to a boy friend. He remembered that Myra had said that she had been leading quite a gay life lately; he had not paid much attention then, but now he thought to himself, Jill is growing up. She waved him towards the sitting-room. As he turned away, she was saying: ‘Now, don’t be silly. Jack!’ in a voice which did not discourage silliness.

  Ralph regarded the sitting-room in dismay. Usually when he came there was a great deal of bustle and activity in the kitchen; she liked to experiment with new recipes and he was a tolerant victim. This time, the activity had transferred itself to the sitting- room; never tidy at the best of times, it now looked like the church hall at the peak of a rummage sale; skirts, frocks and assorted underwear heaped on the chairs and settee, shoes ranged on the mantelpiece, a pair of shorts and an anorak dumped on the table, and a badminton racket and other sporting odds and ends arranged on the floor like obstacles in a race.

  ‘I’m sorry about the mess,’ Jill said when she joined him. She was wearing a voluminous black sweater and bright tartan jeans. It was, Ralph thought, a rather repulsive outfit and yet, as he watched her stepping between the piled obstacles on the floor, he was more conscious than ever before of her femininity.

  ‘I’m going home for the week-end,’ she explained, stepping over an open suitcase and clearing one armchair.

  ‘You must be expecting remarkably fine weather,’ he murmured, eyeing the cotton frocks.

  ‘I have to sort things out for when I go abroad.’ There was something a little evasive in her manner.

  ‘Your character must be undergoing an interesting transformation.’ He lowered himself gingerly into the armchair having first removed a needle from one arm. ‘I seem to remember your mother complaining that your going-away preparations were always done early on the morning of departure. And here you are preparing for next September!’

  She sat down on the pouf by the fire and pushed her tangled hair back from her face.

  ‘Tell me your news.’

  She did not sound really interested, merely anxious to change the subject. He said, stiff with disappointment:

  ‘Perhaps I should come another time when you’re not busy?’

  ‘No.’ She gave him an odd look, almost compassionate, as though she were a much older woman. ‘It had better be now.’

  ‘I’ve just come from Frank Godfrey.’

  He waited. She looked down at the carpet and picked up a thread of black cotton.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Do you want to hear about it?’

  ‘Please.’

  While he was talking she sat with bowed shoulders looking reflectively at the carpet. He might have wondered whether she was searching for more black cotton if her eyes had not remained so fixed.

  ‘We shall go to the airfield to the B camp entrance. The rest of the party will stay at the main gates. There are quite a few tree on the B camp site and some of the branches hang over the barbed wire—they seem fairly sturdy.’

  Now she did look at him. It was not the frank look that had been so dear to him; there was a reserve that was new to her. There was, too, a suggestion of amusement in the eyes, as though she had discovered some inner secret which she would never share with anyone. She pushed the sleeves of her sweater up just below the elbows and then let her hands dangle between her knees.

  ‘It sounds very exciting.’

  ‘There is just a fifty-fifty chance—no one would put it higher than that—that with the help of those trees at least one or two of us may manage to get in.’

  She turned away and looked down again, she flicked her hands to and fro and watched the shadows move on the carpet. He began to feel a constriction in his throat. When he spoke his voice was too loud and he sounded tiresomely hearty.

  ‘So you had better not pack those hefty boots!’

  She gave a little start, as though realizing for the first time that she herself was implicated in these plans. Her hands clenched over her knees.

  ‘I shan’t be there.’ There was a pause, and then the sentences came out in short, sharp bursts. ‘I’m going abroad in May. I was very lucky to get the passage. I can’t risk any trouble.’

  He sat quite still; he had the strange feeling that he had known for a very long time that this moment must come. He still hoped that he might evade its consequence.

  ‘That’s human enough,’ he said lightly.

  But just for a moment the old Jill had returned, youthfully determined to analyse and probe and dissect.

  ‘I think I should like to explain. You see, I’ve discovered that I’m a very emotional person; everything I do is governed by my emot
ions. If there was a war I’d be first in the queue to join up and fight. I really have no place sitting around demonstrating non-violently.’

  As if to give substance to this statement, she stretched out one slim, trousered leg and kicked at a log on the fire which was smouldering ineffectually.

  ‘My dear child!’ he expostulated. ‘Most of us at some time or other want to fight. Man is a warring animal, violence is part of his nature. But one doesn’t meekly submit to the worst part of oneself, take one’s foot off the brake and just let rip!’ He began to feel renewed confidence; her arguments would not be difficult to refute. ‘We all have our private weaknesses and frailties, but we have to learn to control them. Are you sure you don’t belong in our movement? Don’t you think that even if in the end you failed, you should try to walk this hard path?’

  ‘I don’t want to walk any hard path!’ The words seemed to explode from her. ‘I’m young. There’s a lot that I want to do, I can have a lot of fun . . . I’ve been realizing that lately. I’ll start fencing myself in with responsibilities and duties when I’ve been around, when I’ve lived freely and . . .’

  She stopped abruptly, seeing his astonished face.

  ‘I had no idea that you worried so much about this,’ he said, entirely at a loss.

  The evasive look came into her eyes again. She turned away, mumbling:

  ‘I want to be free.’

  ‘But isn’t this the greatest of all battles for freedom?’

  Her lips twitched, she seemed a little amused again.

  ‘Is it?’

  ‘Indeed it is! How can man live freely in the shadow of this terrible fear? How can he . . .’

  ‘Ralph!’ She put her hands to her face; she was laughing, and then suddenly the laughter turned to tears. ‘Ralph, don’t you ever see any of us little people?’

  He stared at her. And he did see her suddenly very clearly, his beloved niece Jill with her bright candid face twisted by some convulsion which he did not at all understand but which moved him very deeply.

  ‘My dear, what is it?’ he asked helplessly.

  Her lips trembled and tears blurred her eyes, but the effect was mutinous rather than appealing.

  ‘I don’t care about mankind at large, I’m not big enough for that. The smaller things are trouble enough for me.’

  The ferocity in her voice shocked him. He came across to her; he wanted to pet her as he had done when she was a child but somehow it was no longer possible. He laid his hand on her shoulder almost timidly.

  ‘I’m sorry, Jill dear. This is my fault, I see that now. It has been wrong of me to involve you in all this. I had no idea it preyed on your mind to this extent.’ His words, intended to soothe, seemed to have the opposite effect; she ground her heels into the carpet and her sobs became more convulsive. He said distractedly: ‘Of course, you’re quite right. You’re young and your small individual freedom is important; you mustn’t let yourself be driven into something that seems to be beyond you . . .’

  But now, inexplicably, she was laughing again. She held a sodden handkerchief to her mouth and laughed until he began to fear hysteria.

  ‘Ralph darling! You’re much too good for us,’ she gasped when the paroxysm had subsided.

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  She turned and pressed her damp face against his shoulder.

  ‘Of course you don’t understand. You’re like one of the great crusaders; always riding at the head of the column without the slightest idea of the preoccupations of the baser elements in the ranks.’

  Although she spoke affectionately there was a hint of raillery in her tone that wounded him. He dropped his hand from her shoulder. After a moment, he said quietly:

  ‘What are these preoccupations of which I am unaware?’

  She got to her feet and stretched lazily, then pulled the heavy sweater down across her thighs. As he watched her a hazy idea occurred to him.

  ‘Is it this Jack that you were speaking to?’

  ‘Jack?’ She swung one leg over the open suitcase; her movements, he noticed, were a little less athletic than they had once been. She was becoming conscious of the subtleties of her body. ‘Jack? Oh dear me no! Things would be very simple with Jack—quite basic, in fact.’ She bent down and kissed the top of his head. ‘Have I shocked you? I didn’t mean to.’

  After that she went out to prepare tea and he could not persuade her to talk about herself any more. But just as he was leaving, she said:

  ‘I shall have so much to do between now and May that I don’t think there’ll be time to get over to Shepherd’s Bush. But you must all come over here—you and Myra and Sarah, I mean.’

  Her eyes met his, then she looked away again. She murmured:

  ‘You do know what I mean, don’t you?’ When he did not answer, she persisted: ‘I think there’s something to be said for running away sometimes, don’t you?’

  He was so utterly unprepared. She had become a stranger to him, and the world seemed to have shifted slightly out of focus; he could think only that he must get away and sort things out in his own mind before he dared comment. He took his leave hastily, muttering: ‘Yes, yes. No doubt you know best.’

  As he walked through the quiet backstreets leading to the river, he was saying to himself: It’s preposterous, quite preposterous! She is too young, she could never cope with anyone so difficult as Wilson. And yet, only an hour ago he had been prepared to precipitate her into an enterprise which might have forced on her experiences which would have tested her spirit to the uttermost. But that was quite different, he told himself. And yet he could not clarify in what way it was so different. There was, it seemed, an unresolved confusion in his own mind. He had reached the river and he stood On the embankment watching the brown water moving sluggishly beneath the bridge. He recalled her standing in the doorway watching him as he went, a slightly unfamiliar figure in that grotesque but compelling outfit. Did he know of what she was capable? He doubted it. She probably did not know herself. He realized suddenly that in her uncertainty she had turned to him at that last moment, hoping for guidance which he had failed to give. He rested his arms on the parapet of the bridge and looked down at the river bearing its flotsam of paper bags and sticks, broken bottles and the leaves of plane trees down to the sea. A taxi-driver sitting idle in his cab called out: ‘Don’t do it, guv! Too cold.’ He blew on his hands and watched Ralph walk away. ‘No sense of humour,’ he muttered.

  Ralph walked slowly. He loved her so dearly and he had failed her. What was more, even if he were to go back now he would have nothing to say to her. As she had said, he simply did not understand; it was as though in some extraordinary way the personal life around him had passed him by. He felt the first trickle of fear like a cold finger down his spine. I can’t just walk away and leave things, he thought desperately; I must do something. And then, he thought—Myra. Of course, Myra! He would tell her and she would know the answer, women always excelled at this kind of thing. He began to walk more quickly.

  III

  Sarah watched Spencer shut the door of his cottage and limp down his drive; it was a very small drive, not much longer than the length of Spencer lying down, but he took his time. He was stuffing a letter into his coat pocket. There was a pillar-box just beyond his cottage but he walked past it in the direction of the High Street. He did not look very pleased when she waved at him. Sarah watched him with a fixed expression on her face which seemed to denote some strong inner stress but was really due to the fact that she had given up frowning for Lent.

  There were footsteps on the gravel path and Mr. Maynard, the church treasurer, and Mr. Rutledge came round the side of the church. They stopped some distance away, but Sarah could hear their voices.

  ‘There’s no need to trouble the vicar with this,’ Mr. Rutledge was saying. ‘And there’s no need to take any notice of anything Sid Price may have said.’

  ‘But we don’t know much about Wilson, do we?’

  ‘I know abou
t him.’ Mr. Rutledge was shouting now. ‘I don’t recommend people for work in the church without first weighing their capabilities. That lad’s all right; you can take that from me. I’m not exactly a fool when it comes to judging men.’

  ‘I’m sure you’re not; just the same . . .’

  They were walking down the path now; at the gate, Mr. Rutledge said:

  ‘I’ll see to Sid Price. I’ll go round and have a word with him next week when his dad’s on night shift.’

  Their voices died away along the road. It was getting dark now, and it was very quiet in the shadow of the yews. There was a new marble slab at the end of the first row of graves; in the fading light Sarah could just make out the words: ‘Joanna Dove, aged eleven’ and underneath: ‘The Lord hath need of her’. Sarah had never like Joanna who was always complaining and telling tales; nevertheless, she felt rather sorry for her, lying here with no one to know that she was frightened in the dark and needed comfort. She wondered whether Joanna had been saved, and if not, what would happen to her. The thought aggravated the unpleasant disturbance in Sarah’s stomach. Her stomach had been very out of sorts lately. The discomfort seemed to date from Mr. Wilson’s arrival; perhaps he had some kind of sickness which she had caught.

  There was the sound of a gate creaking at the far end of the churchyard. Someone was taking the short-cut from Apsley Crescent; which would mean that, unlike Mr. Maynard and Mr. Rutledge, this person would pass close to her. Sarah crouched down. Her legs felt wobbly and the pain in her stomach was pinching tighter than ever; she wanted to shout and say dreadful things to relieve it. Until recently she had been able to cut herself off at will from people, even when she was surrounded by them. But things had changed lately: people, starting with Mr. Wilson, had begun to intrude. As she crouched down in the long grass and listened to the unknown person coming towards her, she said to herself: I hate people. Her stomach twisted again and she jumped up, pressing her hands across her mouth just as Mrs. Thomas came abreast of her.

  Mrs. Thomas took a moment to recover herself, and then decided to be amused.