FAMILY CIRCLE

by MARY HOCKING

  ‘Or its way of protecting itself?’ he asked.

  ‘This, of course, is always the excuse.’

  ‘But it seems a legitimate excuse to me.’ He was a very tenacious little man.

  ‘I can see Rasim’s difficulty.’ Mr. Routh, who had been prowling the room, paused to place one hand on Dr. Ahmed’s shoulder. He explained Dr. Ahmed’s difficulty for him. ‘We have not yet reached the stage when we can deal with these people under ideal conditions, and most certainly any civilized society must protect itself. Rasim is quite right about that. Until such time as we have devised the proper methods, and have adequate facilities, we are indeed faced with a dilemma… .’

  Dr. Ahmed preferred to do his own explaining. He said, ‘I am not satisfied that we can dispense with the idea of punishment. And no one has yet told me what is to be done with this man who attacked Flora.’

  ‘He needs treatment,’ Mrs. Routh said.

  ‘Undoubtedly. But punishment is not to be part of the treatment?’

  She shook her head.

  ‘Not under any circumstances?’

  She shook her head, smiling.

  ‘But if children do wrong, are they not punished?’

  ‘No!’ The room rocked with the chorus of voices.

  ‘But you do punish them,’ he said quietly. ‘You devise your own form of punishment and you do not call it by that name, but you punish them. You withdraw, you turn away, you refuse to respond… .’

  ‘But that is not punishment!’ Mrs. Routh protested.

  I had an idea that the young woman was not quite so sure; I had been wrong to imagine that she paid no attention to the views of others. She was looking thoughtfully at Dr. Ahmed. He said, ‘It is punishment to them. Sometimes it is worse than corporal punishment, because it is more subtle and they are less able to cope with it.’

  There was a moment of silence, then Mrs. Routh said, ‘Well, we won’t argue about it.’

  At this point, Timothy came in. His arrival was a welcome diversion and everyone took advantage of it. He was not best pleased to find himself the focus of attention. He did not look well, his face was a putty colour and there were weals under his eyes.

  Constance said, ‘You’re not expecting breakfast?’

  ‘No, I’m not,’ he snapped. ‘I’m not interested in lunch, either.’

  ‘You remember Eileen and Desmond?’ Mrs. Routh said. He nodded at them and forced a smile.

  ‘How is the offspring?’ he asked.

  We all looked at the offspring who had been forgotten all this time. He was a nice little boy with bright red hair, playing on his own quite happily in the garden; he was obviously used to amusing himself and none the worse for it.

  ‘He grows apace,’ Timothy said. He seemed to adopt a special kind of language according to the people he was with, but it was beyond him to match the casual indifference of these two. He was too anxious to please.

  Constance got up and said she would get lunch, and Dr. Ahmed announced his intention of helping her. I could not imagine that he would be of much use in a kitchen, but Constance was prepared to connive in his escape. While Mr. and Mrs. Routh talked to their guests, and Margaret fumed darkly in her corner, I watched the little boy. He had got tired of playing and was now balancing himself precariously on a deck-chair. His mother and father watched, too, their faces creased in mild anxiety as though anticipating a calamity in which it would not be proper for them to intervene. Mrs. Routh talked to the mother about hospital management. The deck-chair rocked beneath the boy’s wriggling weight. The back rail was not properly slotted into the grooves. He put his hands on the side supports. His mother averted her eyes, his father bit his lip. I got to my feet, ran out and scooped him up. It was a terrible mistake. He was not a bad or unpleasant child; but he was as unused as an animal to this abuse of his body. He screamed with shock rather than rage. It was Constance who came to the rescue. She ran out of the kitchen and led him off to find Joshua.

  ‘It will be much more fun,’ she told him. ‘On that deck-chair you could only have snapped your fingers off, you’ll have a chance to mangle your whole body if you fall off Joshua.’ He wiped his tears away, greatly restored by this grisly thought. Mrs. Routh said:

  ‘A carrot is certainly needed. It is a great mistake to manhandle a child.’

  The mother, who had been examining the deck-chair, murmured, ‘But he could have broken his fingers.’ She looked at me gravely and said, ‘Thank you very much.’

  But Mrs. Routh had been right; I should have lured him away, not manhandled him. I would make the most disastrous parent. The young woman said to me at lunch, ‘I hope the police won’t be too beastly.’ She had misunderstood my discomfort and meant to be kind. I ended up by quite liking her. The little boy was unspoilt and had the assurance of a child who is loved; he might well be a credit to her, if he survived.

  Margaret and I did the washing up to give Constance a rest. Timothy went out for a walk. ‘Tell Mother and Father I shan’t be back until late. I need a hell of a lot of fresh air after a couple of hours of those two!’ He did not sound his usual good-natured self, and he slammed the back door as he went out. Margaret said to me:

  ‘I apologize for my family.’

  ‘He’s had a rough night,’ I said lightly. ‘All that chasing about in graveyards.’

  ‘I don’t mean Timothy. I mean my mother and father.’

  ‘You don’t have to apologize for them. They haven’t done anything.’

  ‘Their attitude to the attack on you …’

  ‘Margaret, your parents can’t be expected to change the ideas of a lifetime because I was attacked. Their beliefs wouldn’t have had a very firm foundation if they could be changed so suddenly.’

  I did not really feel so reconciled to their behaviour, but Margaret’s attitude annoyed me almost as much as theirs and I did not want her sympathy. In fact, all that I wanted was to be left alone; I was beginning to feel the after-effects of so much excitement.

  ‘Are you better?’ I asked her, to change the subject. So much had happened that I had almost forgotten that only recently she had been in bed after that frightful scene when Timothy came home.

  She said, ‘Yes, thank you,’ in a subdued voice. ‘I’ve decided that I must make an effort.’

  She certainly seemed to have taken herself in hand. Her hair was well-brushed and she wore a cheerful yellow sweater with her leather skirt. But the outer appearance of order was misleading; her mind still nagged away at her grievances.

  ‘I should be better still if only I had a normal family.’

  I did not answer, but she went on, ‘When someone you are fond of is attacked, it’s natural to be angry, isn’t it? But not with my parents. What was it Chesterton wrote, “And dead is all the innocence of anger and surprise”? That about sums it up. They don’t react naturally to situations as they actually happen; they detach themselves and then run the scene through again, altering the perspective to suit their purpose. They aren’t connected to life any more, they’re looking down at it from the projectionist’s room. And when the show’s over, they have a discussion about it. They talk about violence in the abstract and turn the attacker into the victim. They are more sorry for that tramp than for you.’

  ‘You’re not sorry for me, either.’ I tipped the bowl and emptied the dirty water into the sink. ‘You’re just using me as a weapon with which to hit out at your parents. And I don’t like it.’

  She stared at me. She had been so ill that other people’s feelings registered very little with her, but just for a moment I believe I made an impression. She looked startled as though I had touched a nerve.

  ‘I’m sorry, Pug.’

  She was genuinely sorry, but I couldn’t leave it at that. I was trembling with weakness and beginning to feel sorry for myself.

  ‘Please don’t do it again. I object to being used in that way.’

  Tears blurred her eyes. ‘I don’t mean to be so hateful about my family. To
day when I got up I swore I was going to get a grip on myself, but it was no use. We are so close and yet we can’t make each other understand. I get so confused and frustrated, and the beastliness spews out of me. But I don’t want to hurt them. I would die for my father, but I can’t live with him.’

  It was all too much for me. I said wearily, ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you, Margaret. Don’t take any notice of me. This is just a reaction.’ She went on talking about her parents. I wished that someone cared about me.

  Someone did. He arrived at three o’clock, just after the lecturer and his wife had left. He was a big man, not with that generous largeness that characterizes some big men; there was nothing to spare here, every nerve, sinew and muscle had been compressed and tightly packed. His body was powerful. There was more than a suggestion of violence about him. He believed, one felt, in the enforcement rather than the upholding of law. No one could have been a better foil to Mr. Routh who had been working himself up throughout lunch, recounting rumours of police misbehaviour current in the village. From the moment that this man crossed the threshold it was obvious who would be the main protagonists; I was merely the pretext for the engagement.

  It started politely enough. The big man was followed by a local man in uniform, and by Dr. Lander. We stood in the hall and introductions were performed. Saul rushed out to join in.

  ‘So this is the hero of the hour,’ the big man said.

  Constance said, ‘Be careful. He bites policemen.’

  The big man patted Saul on the head and Saul licked his hand. Constance removed Saul to the kitchen; we heard her say, ‘You perfidious dog!’

  We went into the sitting-room. The big man made the inevitable apology for intrusion and Mr. Routh said, ‘We are here to assist you in any way possible,’ in much the same tone that he might have used to a bailiff.

  ‘That will certainly make my job easier,’ the big man replied urbanely. ‘Since you are so happy to co-operate, I expect we can get this over without delaying you busy people for too long.’ His eyes rested on Dr. Lander, as though surprised that a doctor could spare any time at all.

  Mrs. Routh said, ‘Perhaps we could aim at being finished by tea-time?’ She said it quite lightly, but with a warning glance delivered not to the policeman but to her husband.

  The big man said, ‘A very civilized suggestion. I’ll be as brief as I can.’

  Before he had time to continue, Mr. Routh said:

  ‘Chief inspector,’ I don’t know at what stage the man became chief inspector, but he remained so until the end of the interview. ‘You will forgive me, I’m sure; but I think we are all a little puzzled that such a high-powered investigation has been thought necessary.’

  Mrs. Routh sat beside me on the sofa; her face was expressionless but a thread of anxiety ran like a hair-line crack across her forehead. Margaret clenched her hands in her lap.

  The chief inspector had his own way of handling this kind of thing. He said, ‘Indeed, sir?’

  Mr. Routh clasped his hands tightly at breast level as though trying to crack a particularly hard nut; his facial muscles reflected the effort so that although the words came quite calmly the impression was one of considerable stress. ‘I understand from one or two of the villagers whom I met this morning, that your men seem to have been conducting a house-to-house investigation, asking all kinds of personal questions not only about the movements and habits of the people, but also about their contacts outside the village, including inquiries about their distant relatives and, in the case of those who work in Brighton, their workmates.’

  ‘We like to be thorough,’ the chief inspector said, as though Mr. Routh was congratulating him on his zeal.

  ‘The private affairs of people in the village can be of no possible concern to you.’

  ‘As long as they are private in the sense that you mean. But if there is a link …’

  Mr. Routh clasped his hands still tighter and cracked his knuckles. ‘It seems to me that you are ranging far beyond what is legitimate ground for this investigation to cover. Last evening a young friend who is staying with us was attacked, possibly by a tramp. We are very distressed about this and we are anxious to help the police with their inquiries into this event. Indeed, we will give every assistance in our power, provided we are satisfied that no improper use will be made of any statements we may make.’

  ‘Improper?’ the chief inspector raised bland eyebrows.

  Mrs. Routh said, ‘Oliver …’ But he was deaf to her. His face had assumed its sternest aspect, anger vibrated in his voice. That unseen presence which he so often addressed had now materialized in the flesh. ‘You are taking this opportunity of collecting information about people’s private affairs, so that it can be filed for future reference, no doubt. In this you are behaving like one of those abominable hospital doctors who, while dealing with a minor complaint, takes the opportunity to carry out totally unnecessary probes in the name of scientific research which are of little benefit, and may be of positive harm, to the patient.’ He had been discussing this matter with Mrs. Routh recently and it still inflamed his mind. For a moment it seemed as though he must lose the thread of his discourse, but he worked the new theme into the pattern wonderfully well. ‘I do not know what germ of truth you are seeking to isolate in this village, but I suspect that it has nothing to do with this particular case and that we are merely being used by you in order to probe something entirely different. Possibly with political motives: the privacy of the individual is less and less respected… .’ He pulled himself up, seeming to realize that he was losing control. ‘This is a monstrous way to behave and if you cannot establish some credible link between your investigations and the attack on Miss Brett, I think we must all refuse to answer any further questions.’ He straightened his shoulders and flung back his head, so that he looked like some magnificent patriarchal figure confronting his destiny. ‘Now, are you prepared to tell me what lies behind this?’

  The chief inspector seemed quite happy for Mr. Routh to take the interrogation out of his hands. He said with every appearance of one willing to co-operate in any way possible, ‘Certainly, sir. Smuggling.’

  Beside me, Mrs. Routh repeated contemptuously, ‘Smuggling!’

  Constance said, ‘ “Brandy for the Parson, ’Baccy for the Clerk”?’

  ‘No, Miss Routh. Human beings.’

  ‘Human beings!’ Mr. Routh’s head jerked up, his whole body seemed to rear back so that he appeared momentarily in danger of dislocating his spine. ‘You mean that this man, whom you hounded across the fields with dogs, was trying to gain illegal entry into this country, possibly to join a wife and family?’

  ‘Quite possibly, sir.’

  ‘Terrible, terrible …’ He shook his head from side to side. He was confused and emotionally off-balance.

  Dr. Ahmed leant across and whispered to Constance, he looked puzzled, like someone watching a foreign film without sub-titles. Constance flicked him away impatiently.

  Margaret said, ‘May we open the window wider, please?’ She went to the window and remained there for a time, breathing in the dank air gratefully.

  The chief inspector said to Mr. Routh, ‘A moment ago, sir, you assured me that you would give every assistance possible in this case provided I could establish a link. Have I satisfied you?’

  Mr. Routh rallied. ‘What possible grounds can you have for assuming that this man was an immigrant?’

  ‘We have a number of leads that converge in this area. Then there is the fact that the church was obviously used to house these people—there was more than one man. We found quite a little stock of food …’

  ‘A tramp also stocks food,’ Mrs. Routh told him.

  ‘I wonder if I could ask Miss Brett about this?’ the chief inspector inquired, just as though it was of no great moment if his request was refused. Everyone looked at me. I felt like a character in one of those war-time films who is of doubtful loyalty. Would I, or would I not, betray my comrades?
Dr. Lander came and sat on a chair near me. The gesture was no doubt intended for the chief inspector, but it comforted me.

  ‘I don’t remember much,’ I said. ‘It was dark and it all happened so suddenly.’

  ‘Yes, of course,’ his tone was solicitous. ‘But you must have had some reason for going into the graveyard. Did you see something that aroused your suspicion?’

  ‘Goodness, no! I’m not brave. If I had seen anything like that I should have run away. I only went to have a look at the church.’

  He passed over the unlikeliness of this desire to visit churches at night without comment, and said:

  ‘Any other cars around when you parked yours?’

  ‘No. Only a bakery van.’

  ‘Appletons is the bakery which serves most of the village, isn’t it?’ he inquired.

  Mrs. Routh nodded her head, a frown nicked between her brows.

  ‘Was it Appletons?’ he asked me.

  I shook my head. ‘I don’t remember the name, but it wasn’t Appletons. It was a place-name, the Hove Bakery—only it wasn’t Hove… .’

  ‘Did anyone notice a bakery van with a place-name offloading half a dozen immigrants last evening?’ Constance asked in a high voice. ‘No? Well, that’s one short cut for you, chief inspector.’

  ‘This is a serious matter, Miss Routh,’ he said mildly. ‘And you would be advised to treat it as such.’

  ‘Chief inspector.’ Mr. Routh had marshalled his forces. Margaret pressed her fingers against her lips and closed her eyes. ‘I am quite staggered at the performance which is being made about this. I appreciate that while we have our present absurd laws it is the duty of the police to investigate any instances of illegal entry which come to their attention. But when I think of the problems which confront this country …’ He was on familiar ground now and his voice had all the emotional assurance and technical expertise of the orator, the timing and orchestration were superb. ‘… of the violence in our cities, of the drug peddling, the menace of organized crime, of all that we read about the heavy load which the police have to carry, of their inability to cope with the crime rate, to patrol streets adequately, to deal with emergency calls; when I think of all this, it seems to me quite incomprehensible that it should have been thought fit to launch a large-scale, time¬consuming campaign in order to run down a handful of unhappy men who have tried to evade a cruel law. What is happening in Brighton, for example, while you are using men and resources on this case? There are vicious professional criminals in Brighton, men whom you would be better employed hunting down, I would have thought.’