Judith

by Nicholas Mosley

  Then I said ‘Things are difficult not when you love too little, but when you love too much.’

  He said ‘Then that’s all right.’

  There was the sound of a horse’s hooves on the ground outside. I did not think this possible, because the shadows on the ground did not move. I thought – But of course, those shadows are not the legs of a horse.

  The child had put his head down by the sheep. He looked up at me. I thought – He is that third eye; for which conditions will one day be ready, to look outwards, on the world outside.

  I wanted to say – But pray that the other people will have found the Tree!

  I thought I should go to the door and look out. After all, a bomb had gone off.

  I thought – We will get used to living like this?

  Outside there was the make-believe village square: there was also someone, quite still, on a horse. I thought – That wild-haired girl, having come to an end of riding across battlefields –

  It was Lilia, sitting with her head down, her hands on the horse’s neck. I thought – She has rescued the horse; she has brought home her string of dragons?

  The horse seemed to be Eleanor’s. Lilia was looking at an empty place on the ground. I thought – She overheard me talking to the child?

  Lilia was in her white suit. She seemed, as usual, to be an angel. I thought – You mean, we have come on our long journey to this place in order to stay alive?

  There was that cloud, like angry cherubs with arrows, drifting somewhere in the direction of the American air-base.

  I thought – You mean, that is why we have been looking for the child?

  There was an object that I had not noticed before; it was strange that I had not noticed it. Among the bars of light like a grid that ran across the ground of the square there were the two long shadows that I had imagined, impossibly, to be the legs of a horse: in fact they came from behind the horse, passing over and around it, with the strange red sun behind: they were from a large structure at the back of the square that was some sort of watchtower. I mean, it was extraordinary that I had not noticed it when I had looked down from the brow of the hill, or when I had come down to the buildings. It was a high wooden construction with four legs like telegraph poles; with a platform like a tin can on top. It was the four legs that made the shadows – two by two almost in line with the sun. Perhaps I had not noticed the watchtower because it was not in the same frame, as it were, as the rest of the village; I mean, it had been built not to be part of games, but to look down: presumably to be used by observers, judges, referees: like those beings I had imagined, perhaps, reclining on clouds. And so one might not have noticed it: until – what? – one had done whatever one was to do? and then were out in the sun again: and saw whatever might be the seeing of things together with their shadows.

  The sheep was coming out of the doorway of the building into the sun. It was being led, or followed, by the child: he held on to the wool of its back. The sheep walked cautiously – as if on its tightrope. The child let go of it when it got into the sun. He stood in the doorway and looked at his mother. The sheep went on across the square. It seemed to move with its central eye like some gyroscope. When the sheep got to the far side of the square it lay down in a patch of sun. One head looked into the distance; the other seemed to be observing the scene in the square.

  Lilia sat with the reins loose on the horse’s neck.

  The sun had become very red over the tops of the trees; giving the impression that the landscape was lit with its own light because it was burning.

  Lilia was crying.

  Her child said ‘Mummy!’ He ran to her. He tried to climb up on to her horse. He was like one of those figures in a cartoon film who run up a cliff on air. Lilia bent down to him.

  I thought – We must not stay here too long: the air will run out in this bright atmosphere.

  The child put his arms round his mother. Lilia held him.

  Lilia said ‘A bomb went off by that pub. On the green.’

  I said ‘By the pub?’

  She said ‘Yes.’

  There was a ladder going up one of the legs of the watch-tower. I wondered if I climbed up I might see what was going on.

  I said ‘Were people hurt?’

  She said ‘Yes.’ Then – ‘One or two.’

  I thought – One does not use the word ‘killed’. Then – That officer? That woman like someone in drag? Then – But not you!

  I got as far as the foot of the ladder of the watchtower; then sat down.

  I thought – But it’s true we all might have been there!

  The child said ‘I wanted to see my sheep.’

  Lilia said ‘I told you not to come here.’

  The child said ‘I wanted to see my sheep.’

  Lilia said ‘I know.’ She went on crying.

  I thought – We need not cry! Do something: like climb up the leg of that watchtower.

  – The watchtower might be that from which, in the outside world, the third eye can look out?

  The child said ‘Look! We are all right!’

  I thought I might ask – What sort of bomb was it that went off? How did you get away from the pub and the green?

  Lilia was saying ‘Yes of course we are all right.’

  The child was saying ‘I found it easily. It was where I used to feed it.’

  We were looking at the sheep. It was watchful, composed. It was looking this way and that: its eye in the middle.

  The child was saying ‘Do you think it will die?’

  Lilia said as if to me ‘In the end they believed me when I said that I had to look for my child.’

  I thought – Have we not all been looking for the child?

  Then – So what if we don’t know who a father is: we are all fathers and mothers who go across that desert with a donkey!

  From where I was sitting with my back to the bottom of the watchtower there was this scene, growing slightly less lurid now as the sun went down behind the trees – these toy houses for families of four to six; the storerooms with bodies piled in memory; the circles of figures, inside and out, looking at places in the dust where there might have been nests; which might now be empty; from which birds have flown. Lilia and the child were on the horse. I was sitting by the watchtower. The sheep, like the rest of us, was something that might or might not survive.

  I thought – Where is Jason? Up in some watchtower? Writing a book? Waiting for Lilia?

  And you – Looking? Reading this? A bright light coming down!

  The Professor is a little better today, thank you.

  I had become aware, for some time, that there was the sound of a car, or van, or Land-Rover, approaching from somewhere in the direction of the church. From where I was sitting I could see only the top of the spire of the church because the view of the rest of it was blocked by the toy buildings. The noise of the engine stopped: then there were people’s voices. One of the voices I recognised as Bert’s. I thought again – I must get away: we have always said, haven’t we, that what is not bearable is not too little –

  While I was watching it, a bit off the top of the spire of the church fell down. Then I heard Bert’s voice saying ‘Boo!’

  The child climbed down from Lilia’s horse. He ran to the far side of the square. He picked up a bicycle.

  I thought – All right, you can call this not bearable.

  The child called ‘Where are you?’

  Bert said ‘Here!’

  The child said ‘I’ve found my sheep!’

  When Bert and whoever was with him came into the square, I was trying not to look. I was thinking – Oh yes, why should not Bert have been in that Land-Rover by the flint-mines: he would have been looking for the child –

  Bert came into the square. The person with him, of course, was Eleanor. Eleanor did not seem to be walking with so much difficulty now. I did not feel I was yet able to get to the top of the watchtower.

  Bert said ‘I say, did you see me say Bo
o! and that bit of the spire fell down?’

  The child said ‘No, the spire fell down, and then you said Boo!’

  Lilia said ‘A bomb’s gone off.’

  Bert said ‘Well it was nothing to do with me.’

  Eleanor was crossing the square. I was thinking – But still, if we survive, how do we live with survival?

  Eleanor said ‘Are you all right?’

  I said ‘No.’

  Eleanor said ‘Well there was nothing in that suitcase. And it was not to do with that hut in the woods.’

  I thought I might say – But is not everything to do with everything?

  Bert and the child were looking at the sheep. He said ‘Where did you find it?’

  The child said ‘It was where it was at Christmas.’

  Bert said ‘And now it’s Easter!’ He hit the palm of his hand against his forehead like a clown.

  Lilia said ‘Oh do shut up!’

  Bert said ‘Willingly.’

  He came across the square towards the watchtower. Then when he saw me he stopped.

  I thought – You mean, he had not noticed me before: it is as if I am in a different dimension, like the watchtower?

  Bert said ‘Hullo.’

  I said ‘Hullo.’

  He said ‘You’ve found it.’

  I said ‘What?’

  He said ‘The Tree of Life.’

  I said ‘Oh do shut up!’

  Eleanor smiled. She put a hand on my hair. Then she moved away across the square to the sheep.

  The child said ‘Do you think it will die?’

  Eleanor said ‘They usually do. We’ll see. One day.’

  Lilia was getting down from her horse. Her child went and held the reins. I thought – He is like a mother seeing his child come home from war.

  Bert said ‘Are you pregnant?’

  I said ‘Yes.’

  He said ‘I thought you might be.’

  We are all of us in this square. You are here, because you are reading this.

  Lilia called – ‘You might marry her!’

  Bert called ‘I want to be a surrogate mother!’

  Eleanor sat down by the sheep. The sheep let her put her arm around it.

  Bert went past me and began climbing the ladder of the watchtower. When he was half-way up he stopped and looked down. He said ‘I’d like a girl.’

  The child said ‘Then I’ll have someone to play with!’

  He left Lilia and the horse and began riding round the square on his bicycle.

  Bert climbed to the top of the watchtower.

  Well, how much more do you want to see of this?

  My child, who is a girl, is asleep by the window as I write.

  So, hullo. Talk quietly.

  You know the code. You know the message –

  Love from Judith

  A Note on the Author

  Nicholas Mosley was born in London and educated at Eton and Balliol College, Oxford. He served in Italy during the Second World War, winning the Military Cross for bravery. He succeeded as 3rd Baron Ravensdale in 1966 and, in 1980, he also succeeded to the Baronetcy.

  He is the author of twelve novels. Hopeful Monsters won The Whitbread Book of The Year Award in 1990. Mosley is also the author of several works of nonfiction, most notably the autobiography Efforts at Truth and a biography of his father, Sir Oswald Mosley.

  Discover books by Nicholas Mosley published by Bloomsbury Reader at

  www.bloomsbury.com/NicholasMosley

  Efforts at Truth: An Autobiography

  Hopeful Monsters

  Imago Bird

  Judith

  Time at War

  For copyright reasons, any images not belonging to the original author have been

  removed from this book. The text has not been changed, and may still contain

  references to missing images.

  This electronic edition published in 2012 by Bloomsbury Reader

  Bloomsbury Reader is a division of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, 50 Bedford Square, London WC1B 3DP

  First published in Great Britain 1986 by Martin Secker and Warburg Ltd

  Copyright © 1986 Nicholas Mosley

  All rights reserved

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  may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

  The moral right of the author is asserted.

  eISBN: 9781448210527

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