Tom broke off in the middle of a word. ‘Doctor Clough Doctor Kill Off!’ He laughed. ‘Kill off they’re killing me Doctor Off!’
The doctor realised that he wasn’t taking his pills properly. ‘Aren’t you tired, Tom?’
He began to nod and couldn’t stop. ‘So much to do’ emerged from the middle of his next mumblings.
‘I could arrange a rest.’ The nodding became shaking. ‘If you wanted to, you know, talk to someone who could help you feel better, make sure you took care of yourself.’
‘Family’ came out from between almost chattering teeth.
‘Sometimes family is the problem, not the solution.’ Dr Clough’s bluntness was soothing and Tom was able, briefly, to concentrate.
‘Just put things in place then if I feel bad maybe you’re right maybe go somewhere for a little rest.’
The doctor was surprised and pleased. ‘How long will you need, Tom? To put things in place, I mean.’
‘Rain’s supposed to clear after Remembrance Sunday say the end of next week?’
Dr Clough stood up. He could hear the orchestrated coughing and tutting from the waiting room as he opened his door. ‘Come and see me then. Speak to Betty, I mean Melanie, and she’ll write an appointment down for you.’
‘Thank you Doctor I’ll be off Doctor Off Clough Doctor …’ Tom went on following this string of words while Betty dictated his appointment to Melanie, who wrote it on a card and handed it over, and he continued to follow it all the way back to the Chapel.
Mary had gone back to school, but much of the rest of the time she spent at home. Billy went in every day on his bike now and often gave June a lift, as if to spite her. She didn’t want to see him anyway. He made her feel childish.
Mary didn’t want to talk to anyone; it was just too tiring. Each afternoon she ran to get the first bus home so that there would be no chance of bumping into Daniel. Once or twice she had longed for him to be waiting at the gates like he had that time, but mostly she felt so feeble and awful, she dreaded being seen. She was always cold, even though there had been no frost for weeks. She ate her supper, did her homework and got into bed. She hardly read at all now and the sight of those Russian novels with their thick black spines, the poetry books with their jazzy graphic covers, the sight of anything she had read and knew and loved, was exhausting. She dug out some older books, Tintin, Asterix and Babar, and was comforted by her name carefully inscribed on each flyleaf in leaden, wonky script. She had written both ‘R’s backwards and thought now that it looked rather stylish; she might try it out again. Sometimes she listened to records but music didn’t work anymore either, it left her cold. Once, her mother had come in to tell her that her father was on the phone, but she went on pretending to be asleep.
One Sunday morning, Stella went off with two poppies in the lapels of her purple maxi coat, one white and one red. She bustled in to pull back Mary’s curtains and wake her up. Mary could smell real coffee, something they hardly ever had.
‘There’s a bit of a special breakfast for you downstairs. Don’t let it get cold. I’d better be off to start helping the ancients get to church. It’s the Armistice Parade, remember?’
The coffee smelt delicious. Mary went down and poured herself a cup from the enamelled pot on the stove and found two croissants on top of the oven. They only had things like this for birthdays and Christmas. Then she remembered. It was Stella’s birthday.
Each year, the Armistice Parade got smaller and its pace slowed. Harry Marten led the procession of veterans with his bandsman’s drum, and the beat they marched to had slowed, too. Ever since Mary could remember, Remembrance Sunday had been a dull day just like this, when the traffic stopped and the only sign of life was this handful of tottering shrunken old men, straightbacked and tight-faced, with ribbons and medals pinned to the breast of their black coats and worn as if they were the only colour in these men’s lives. Behind them came the congregations of the two churches and the chapel, hushed and cold. The men gathered at the war memorial and several laid wreaths. The three ministers lined up and each said a prayer. Harry Marten beat his drum to settle the crowd and to count them into the minute’s silence. As he stopped, the drumming continued and he looked down at his hands, startled to think they had carried on without him and even more surprised to realise that although they hadn’t, the beat persisted, like a delayed echo.
Mary, wrapped in a blanket and watching from her mother’s window, saw what was coming before anyone out on the Green did: another procession. This time, the marchers were dressed in white. Their leader also had a drum and they, too, walked at a stiff and measured pace. The drummer was wearing a fox mask and there were others, dogs and cats and monkeys. There were banners too, and Mary screwed up her eyes and made out the animals on them, rivetted into wired metal skullcaps, clamped in cages, scarred, amputated, and full of pipes and tubes. Mary realised that they must be marching on the research centre out past the Setts.
The gaggle around the war memorial jostled and nudged one another. Questions went round followed by explanations and, a second later, the decision was circulated to stay put. The veterans were still standing to attention as Eric Mower had forgotten to play reveille on his trumpet, with which he signalled the end of the minute’s silence. He was staring at the marchers in white, who were almost upon them now. The congregations drew close together, some holding on to their neighbours, children shielded between arms and legs. The drummer in white reached them and stopped. The entire white procession stopped too, and waited in silence as the drummer counted off a minute on his watch and then raised his sticks and began his beat again. During that minute, most of the congregation could not resist casting a quick look at the marchers. They saw their banners and were sickened and outraged.
Mary watched the drummer in white lead the procession towards the massed congregations, and saw how easily they parted to let the protestors pass through in single file. Separated out like this, each person in white became distinct and Mary recognised the tall, skinny drummer with the shock of blond hair as JonJo and among the others was the crop-haired and ambling Billy, clumping June, even Clara, her thick plait bound in a white silk scarf. Everyone she knew! As the last marchers passed through the crowd, Mary saw they were carrying a bucket and that all along the High Street was a dribbled line of red paint. She traced its path through the congregations, a thin line like a border just glimpsed before Eric Mower began to quaver on his trumpet and the two halves of the crowd shut like an eye.
Mary was so angry at being left out that she got dressed, tore up and ate the croissants, gulped the coffee and marched off towards the research centre. It was a place she had never liked to pass on foot because of the dogs, alsatians with an enormous bark, who hurled themselves against the high fence in a casual frenzy that gave passers-by an idea of what they were capable of. Without the dogs, everyone would forget the centre was there. They rarely saw anyone go in and out of the double-gated drive with its shaded sentry box, and the lights inside the shielded compound were always kept at the same level dimness.
The centre was tucked beyond the postcard end of the village: the C of E church with its sunny white spire, Mary’s old school that was now a house, the almshouses and their knot garden, the village pump, horse trough and milestone. If you turned off down Hive Lane instead of continuing along the High Street out towards Mortimer Tye, you came first to Brock Hall, derelict, overgrown and earmarked for ‘development’. Mary remembered sneaking into the grounds with Billy and Julie and a gang of other children from school. There had been a jungle of rhododendrons and enormous beds of dead plants. There had been so little glass left in the greenhouses that no one had had the heart to break what remained.
Hive Lane was a dark tunnel grown over by hedgerows and trees, but when Mary turned into it that morning, it was crammed with white. She saw JonJo’s skinny back and blonde hair and almost tapped him on the shoulder then thought, Not him; why should he have thought to tell her? She l
ooked for Billy. The crowd was milling and people talked among themselves until someone established a chant or call and echo, which they took up and repeated till they grew bored. The guard dogs sat rigidly behind the fence, impassive but alert. There was no sign of anyone inside. Mary pushed her way rudely through the crowd, too cross to care. She saw someone like Billy in a cat mask talking to someone in a puppy mask, who might be June. Mary stomped up to them and pulled Billy round. ‘How come I didn’t get to hear about this?’
It wasn’t Billy but a girl that Mary had never seen before. She had forgotten about Billy’s hair. She said sorry, rather grumpily, and moved off, still searching. In the end, it was Billy, a cat, who found her and he was with June, who was a cat too. With them were Tobias and Clara (both rats).
‘Mary! We didn’t think you were up to it!’
‘You didn’t ask!’ Mary was still angry but chastened by her audience. ‘You must have all been planning this for months and … and it’s my village!’
‘Sweetie,’ Clara cooed, throwing an arm round Mary’s shoulders. ‘These people plan nothing that far in advance because it would get stopped. It’s all last minute and word of mouth.’
‘Well why didn’t any words come out of your mouth?’ Mary turned on Billy again, who muttered something about her not having been around.
The drum began to beat, the crowd barked, whined, mewed and howled, and JonJo scaled a fence post. The dogs leapt up in a scrum, jumping and snapping, but he was too high for them. Two Black Marias skidded to a halt at either end of the lane and turned their sirens on. JonJo waved and screamed ‘Pigs! Pigs!’ and the fence rocked. When Mary saw the men in riot helmets again, she made for the hedgerow, shouting to her friends to follow. They managed to hide among the rhododendron bushes of Brock Hall until the police had gone.
Later, when the protest march was talked about on the bus, in the Common Room, at pubs and parties, Mary said little. She never felt as if she had quite joined in.
Whatever else Mary let slip, she turned up at the salon on time every Saturday. She needed the five pounds May paid her. The Saturday after the protest march Suze had flu, so Mary was put by the phone and told to cancel her appointments. May said she had ‘ever such a nice voice’ and was getting her to answer the phone more. Mary listened to as much or as little as each disappointed client wanted to tell her, passing on the kindest remarks to Jeanette and Felicity, and keeping the most unpleasant to herself. Jeanette wasn’t fooled.
‘Didn’t poor old Suze have that harridan Vi Eley this morning?’
‘Yes,’ Mary said. ‘Cut and perm.’
‘Special occasion tomorrow?’
‘That’s right.’
‘Always a special occasion with that one. Didn’t she complain?’
Mary could still hear Mrs Eley’s waspish remark, ‘Too many late nights out and about with not enough on, that’s what’s given her flu!’ She demurred, ‘Oh, you know how she goes on!’
The hairdryer clicked off at that moment, and anything they said now would be heard by Jeanette’s boiled-looking client. ‘Mary, fetch my lady a glass of water, would you?’ Her voice was full of warm air.
‘Certainly, Jeanette.’ Mary got just enough of a singsong into her reply for Jeanette to notice and wink. She was in the mood to enjoy the cosiness of the salon and the constant patter of rain across the outside of windows that, inside, dripped with condensation.
The door tinkled as it opened and there was Valerie Eyre. Mary was about to ask if she wanted to make an appointment but her hair was so short, her appearance so efficient, that Mary hesitated. Valerie spoke first. ‘Hello. What time do you finish?’
Mary wondered anxiously if she was supposed to know what Valerie was talking about. ‘Three.’
‘Could I collect you? The rain’s clearing up and I’ll have my Mum’s car.’
‘Where do you want to take me?’ Mary felt stupid. I should know what this is all about, she thought. Have I forgotten something?
Valerie glanced over at Jeanette. Felicity was sorting and piling up magazines as she waited for her next client. Both made a show of not looking up. ‘You know what I said about putting a stop to it? Remember?’ She was almost whispering and Mary, not wanting more to be said in case it was something she didn’t want the others to hear, said yes, of course she remembered. ‘We could drop by the water, see. All you’d have to do is point it out.’ Mary shuddered as she realised what was being asked of her, but she felt Valerie’s calm and was tired of being so endlessly afraid. This was grown-up life, real life. You kept things to yourself and you faced up to things by yourself. For the next two hours, Mary swept, cleaned, folded, washed-up, chatted, smiled and served with all her strength, trying to wear out her unbearable nerves.
Valerie was waiting as Mary locked up. They walked along to the Green together, so that Mary could drop the salon keys through May’s letterbox. Mary turned round to walk back to the Square, thinking the car must be parked there, but Valerie took her arm, ‘No. I left it out by the Chapel.’ She did not let go of Mary until they got there.
Tom was crouched in the back seat of the Cortina. He twisted one leg round the other, sat on his hands and dared not try to speak as he might not be able to stop. As Valerie drove to the reservoir, she could see in her rearview mirror how his poor head twitched and shook. She parked at the end of the track and Tom rushed ahead to loosen the Other Gate. He nearly let the whole thing drop, but managed to hold it back courteously as Valerie and Mary stepped through. He followed, pleased to feel the soft mulch of earth and leaves under his feet. Two weeks ago, during the cold snap, the ground had begun to harden but now this warm spell looked like lasting long enough which was good, except if there was too much rain. He hung back as Valerie had advised him to do, and watched the girl whose footsteps got slower as she neared the tree. Valerie said something to her and then came to him and held his hand. He showed her the heap of stones with which he had marked his vantage point, like a cairn.
At first Tom thought it wasn’t right. The girl didn’t look right. She was wearing jeans and a boy’s leather jacket, and had gained in substance. What was there about this hard-looking little thing that could float?
Valerie was amused, watching Mary climb awkwardly up onto the bough. This should lay that particular ghost. Mary had worried because everything was still so wet from the rain, but Valerie gripped her shoulders and told her she was doing a good thing, and that all she needed to do was go along a bit and point or something – that would do.
Mary did not like the look of the water. It was a drab grey and she could hear its heavy slop against the concrete bank. She crouched down and slipped her glasses into her pocket. The greasy sheen of the wet bark became a splintered gleam. She put her glasses back on and stood up. In less than three paces, she faltered and slipped. It had never seemed high before. She retreated and crouched down again. The rain began, in hard drops that slapped against her face. This was awful. Mary wished she had never pretended not to be scared, or that she was grown up and able to do the right thing. She hadn’t, after all, thought of doing this for herself. It was Valerie’s conviction, Valerie’s big ideas and bossiness that she had clung to, and Valerie was only after all ordinary. It was just that no one else had come up with anything that might make her feel better and she had thought that being brave would.
Mary closed her eyes, took off her glasses and shoved them back into her shirt pocket – one of Matthew’s voluminous old shirts dyed a patchy black now, its tails dropping to her knees, its cuffs trailing out of Billy’s jacket sleeves. She stood up. This felt better. She took a step, kept her eyes shut and sent her mind away into one of Clara’s burning watercolour skies. It worked. She kept going and each step grew lighter, the bough beneath it lighter, till the perfect moment came, of oblivion and suspension, of being nothing in nothing, empty and free.
The rain was falling hard now, but Tom didn’t notice. This time, his mind wasn’t woolly with drugs or frayed by p
anic, but quick and clear. He followed the line of the Dip, the line of the girl and the line of the water, and when he tried to bring them together, it worked – he could follow them beneath the surface, up into the air and out. He made notes on angles, using the girl as a fixed point. Now he did not have to look for clues in the water.
Valerie was cold and uneasy. There was something about Mary George, after all. She was right out there, over the water, and looked as if she could step from the end of the bough and would not fall. She didn’t even look where she was going. Valerie saw Tom’s excitement and knew he was scribbling something in one of his notebooks, keeping his eyes on the girl. She tried to catch a glimpse of what he was writing, but rain spattered the page. Then the air seemed to buckle and the girl was shaken, doubled over, and jumped or fell.
Tom needed no sleep now. He had such energy and everything was ready at last. He had sent Valerie away after drinking her soup and had gone to finish the digging, even though the rain went on steadily into the night. The deep clay clung to his spade and sucked at his boots. Mud splattered his head and clothes. Just before dawn, he found it, worked it loose and left it. Patience. He hid the new earth, laid across the board and turf, and scattered clumps of dead leaves and weeds over them. The place looked the same as ever – neglected.
Tom wasn’t going to let himself get ill again, either. He hurried back through the fields to the Chapel, took off his clothes and wrapped himself in a blanket. He pulled all his papers into a circle under the lightbulb downstairs and gathered his paraffin heaters around it. He lit them all, and the bar fire for good measure. He sat in the middle and got to work.
The next night was perfect, still and clear. The power Tom had felt for the last few days had not subsided. He needed neither sleep nor rest and only ate because a meal arrived for him. He went over his sums once more, stuffed his papers in his pockets, packed a knapsack with a blanket, a hurricane lamp and tools, and set out at midnight. There was enough of a moon, but not so much of one that he could easily be seen. He loved walking through the village at this time because he would meet almost no one. Only Dot Grieves, who didn’t sleep either, or Violet Eley walking her silly little dog. Neither acknowledged him that night, perhaps didn’t even see him pass. (‘The smell of him!’ Violet Eley said later, adding, only to wish that she hadn’t, ‘Like he’d come out of a hole in the ground!’ Dot Grieves thought it a peculiarly concentrated smell, like that of a long-locked room when first opened. She offered nothing.) Tom had tried to look unperturbed at each meeting. It was easy for him to hurry on down the lane, and to slip off along the path to find her.
Mary George of Allnorthover Page 26
