Perfect Gallows

by Peter Dickinson

  “But you are used to margarine, aren’t you, Andrew?” said Cousin Blue.

  “Stand up for yourself, Andrew,” said Cousin Brown. “Don’t be a mouse.”

  “Mum mixes our butter and marge together,” said Andrew. “She says you get a butter taste with all of it that way.”

  “It is very, very hard,” sighed Cousin Blue, holding her butter-knife in feeble mittened fingers to chip at the little yellow cylinder in front of her. In front of Andrew on a small silver dish was a slice cut out from a similar round, but a slightly paler yellow. He also had his own set of condiments—twinkly silver and dark blue glass like a Milk of Magnesia bottle—and his own bowl with about three spoonfuls of sugar in the bottom. It was the same with all four places. There were silver candlesticks too, but no candles of course, as well as other bits and bobs on the shiny mahogany table. Two knives, two forks, two spoons at each place. Glasses for wine and water …

  “If you put it by Father’s stove it will soften,” said Cousin Brown, clearly misunderstanding her sister on purpose.

  “I was thinking about Doris,” said Cousin Blue. “It really is unfair. After all, this is not truly my country, for which I have given so much. Last night I dreamed about the Wynberg.”

  “Do not be absurd,” said Cousin Brown. “South Africa is also in the war, and in any case Father was born in Southampton, weren’t you, Father?”

  Uncle Vole, huddled in shawls at his end of the table, may not have heard. Andrew and the Cousins had finished their soup, but he was still eating his, not with a spoon but by dipping in hunks of bread and sucking at them until they disintegrated. Each suck was a squelch permeated by a thin whistle, a bit like Mum’s snoring. The noise must have made it impossible for him to follow the conversation, though he gave no sign of wishing to. Cousin Blue timed her remarks to coincide with the dipping process but Cousin Brown spoke firmly through the squelches. She turned to explain to Andrew.

  “We children did not come to England until I was ten and it was time for Charlie to go to Eton, so we still tend to talk about the Cape as ‘home’. Until this dreadful war we used to go back every other winter.”

  She swayed to one side to let a hand—dark-skinned, pink-palmed—snake past her and remove her soup plate. The body to which the hand belonged was almost invisible outside the dim pool of light shed by the central chandelier, which had only three bulbs working in its twenty-odd sockets.

  “Not nearly so amusing as the Riviera, and Diamond,” said Cousin Blue. “That was Father’s yacht, Andrew. So beautiful. Such parties.”

  “Perfectly dreadful,” said Cousin Brown. “Imagine, a pair of horse-faced girls—too old because of the first war …”

  “Oh, that war spoiled everything. If only it hadn’t happened. Darling Charles. Oh dear.”

  “My brother Charles was killed at …”

  “We cannot be sure that he was killed.”

  “Of course he was. Nor do I think there is the slightest sense in referring to him as darling Charles. The only attention he ever paid us was to tease or bully.”

  “I worshipped him.”

  “Distance lends enchantment, and death more so. Be that as it may, there we were on this useless steamboat, totally unseaworthy …”

  “But so pretty …”

  “Father playing poker with his cronies in the saloon and us on deck pretending to feel comfortable in short skirts and shingles and knowing perfectly well that any young man who looked at us twice …”

  “They could be so amusing …”

  “… was estimating the time before he could decently divorce us and weighing that against what Father might stump up by way of settlement. If there had not been a male heir, perhaps the prospect …”

  “And now the Germans have killed him too. I do think they have a lot to answer for, really I do.”

  “Not that Father had the slightest intention of allowing us to marry anyone, had you, Father?”

  Again there was no response, though by now Uncle Vole had finished his soup and the darkie had removed his plate. The main course appeared slowly, like something happening in Chapel. A plate slid silently into each place. Rissoles (one each) were handed on a silver dish. Mash. Sprouts. Gravy in a silver boat with a ladle. The Cousins abandoned their cross-talk act—food was more important. Andrew himself was almost desperate with hunger and cold. Though the distance, as the crow flies, was only a bit over twenty miles, he’d had dinner at twelve, then lugged his suitcase down to the bus station in Southampton, getting there an hour before his bus went to be sure of getting on. That bit of the journey had been ninety minutes, snaking to and fro between the villages up to Winchester. More than an hour to wait at the bus station there, but the queue had been forming for his next bus before he’d got in, so he hadn’t dared leave it to look for a snack, and then this bus had been the sort that towed a gas-bag, so it had really doddered along for almost two hours through the icy dusk. Last of all there’d been half an hour in an open pony-trap up from the village.

  There’d been no heating on the buses of course, and the bus stations had been open-air stands, but as the frozen minutes crawled by Andrew had held in his mind a picture of the island of wealth and warmth he was going to. It turned out that The Mimms was colder still—not really, of course, but it seemed like that, and you couldn’t wear your overcoat indoors. These huge rooms, how could anyone heat them on a coal-ration? Uncle Vole had a paraffin stove either side of him, but it was an enormous table and Andrew was at the opposite end. A log fire glowed in the grate behind Cousin Blue, but all it seemed to do was suck in a draught from the door.

  Though Andrew could feel no warmth from Uncle Vole’s stoves, he could smell their oily fume. It seemed quite wrong with the silver and the mahogany and the butler, even if the butler was only a darkie. Mum wouldn’t use paraffin if she could help it. She said it made the house smell poor. She usually managed to scrounge coal from somewhere, but of course with the docks so close that was easier than it would be right out here. Andrew was used to a good fug while he ate.

  These people weren’t. Uncle Vole was wrapped in shawls and wore a tasselled smoking cap, but he kept swivelling round to hold his trembling claws in the updraught from one of his stoves. Cousin Blue wore a shawl and mittens, and Cousin Brown a thick velvet dress, almost the same colour as the table, buttoned close at neck and wrists. Her large raw-looking hands did not tremble as she sliced her rissole into sections.

  Andrew did his best not to gobble. Mum would have sniffed at what he had on his plate, not half enough for a growing lad, never mind he’s small for his age. He’d given himself a double go of mash to make up for the one rissole. The rissole was very tasty, what there was of it, and the mash was far better than Mum’s—not a lump anywhere. The sprouts weren’t bad and the gravy had something in it which wasn’t Oxo or Bisto. Wine, too. He’d never tried wine before, not counting Mum’s Christmas port once, early in the war, when you could still get it. He’d almost finished what was on his plate before the others were halfway through, so he pushed his last two sprouts around and studied his new relations under his eyebrows.

  The names weren’t bad, though he’d chosen them when he was too cold to think. He’d met Cousin Brown—Miss Elspeth—and Cousin Blue—Miss May—in the big room they called the Saloon for a few minutes before the meal, which he’d have called tea but they called supper. He’d named them from the colour of their clothes, just to go on with till he knew them better. Uncle Vole—Sir Arnold—had come shuffling in to the dining-room when the other three were already there and waiting. He was tiny, bent, poisonous-looking. He’d given Andrew a furious quick stare when Cousin Brown had introduced him and then gone shuffling on to his place without a word.

  Cousin Brown ate steadily, first the mash, then the sprouts with the gravy on them, last of all, the rissole, all in small mouthfuls chewed thirty times. Cousin Blue pecked,
hesitated, sighed at the unfairness of being made to choose. The darkie had dished for Uncle Vole and then taken a fork and mashed everything into a uniform mess which the old man shovelled into his mouth, holding his head so close to the plate that he could just as well have licked it up direct, like a dog. Again he took ages, but this time the conversation didn’t start up when the other three had finished. Instead, to Andrew’s amazement, the darkie came back with second helps. Two more rissoles. Cousin Brown took half of one, but Cousin Blue almost snatched the whole one. The last half appeared at Andrew’s elbow. He hesitated—there was still Uncle Vole.

  “May,” said Cousin Brown. “Andrew is a growing boy.”

  “Oh, I am so sorry. I forgot. I thought it was only us. But there is plenty of potato, isn’t there, Samuel?”

  “Plenty in dish, miss.”

  The darkie’s voice was not at all like Robeson’s, but light and a bit squeaky. Andrew took the half rissole, and more of the veg and gravy when it came. The darkie brought more wine, but he asked for water instead. Silence fell, apart from Cousin Blue’s sighing and the rattle of Uncle Vole’s spoon. Now Andrew watched the others with a slightly different feeling, less jumpy, more detached. There’d been something special about that last bit he might be able to use one day—and now the way Cousin Blue had cut her rissole up and buried most of the bits under her mash, trying to pretend she’d never taken more than half in the first place—and the shining huge table and the silver and wine and the butler—all that money!

  They can’t buy me. No one can ever buy me. They can’t buy me … During the endless, boring, icy journey Andrew had fallen into a sort of trance, with the same words repeating and repeating themselves like a spell, until he’d at last stumbled down out of the second bus. Three other passengers had used the same stop, but they’d known where they were going. Their hand-torches had dwindled into the black-out.

  “Mr Wragge, sir?”

  “Yes.”

  A bent, leather-smelling gnome, almost invisible, a darker bit of dark.

  “Take your cases, sir. Just the one, is it? This way, then.” Two yellow oil-lamps, glisten of brass and varnish, stir and snort of a horse.

  “Step’s on the high side, sir. Got it? Dessay you’ll be feeling the cold. There’s plenties of rugs.”

  A thick, soft fur over the knees, thick wool round the shoulders, Andrew huddling into himself, nursing his last faint inner warmth. They can’t buy me. No …

  And they couldn’t even buy two rissoles all round! Mum would have managed, scraping by on Dad’s half pay. She’d have sensed when the butcher had a bit on the side and coaxed it out of him. But these people, with all their money, they didn’t know how! The knowledge was like magic, a spell that changed things. He even started to feel less cold, and then almost warm when the afters came, a sort of pancake, only one each but decent size, with black jammy stuff inside, hot and sweet but with something extra in it sharp enough to be interesting. There must be a cook too—you couldn’t imagine either of the Cousins making a meal this stylish. And the darkie butler and the bloke who’d driven the pony-cart and the bent old maidservant who’d showed him up to his room. How many more?

  “What do you propose to do with your life when the war is over, Andrew?” said Cousin Brown.

  He looked her straight in the eyes.

  “I’m going to be an actor.”

  He had answered questions of this sort the same way since he was five, and knew how to deal with all the usual responses, the laugh of disbelief, the smirk, the suppressed shrug. This time he got a surprise. Cousin Brown’s mouth fell open and her severe face went orange-red.

  Cousin Blue giggled.

  “Elspeth hoped to go on the stage,” she said.

  “Did you really?” said Andrew. “You’ve got the voice. I can see you in Flora Robson parts.”

  “Until this war I saw every play she appeared in.”

  “I sometimes think I saw every play anyone appeared in,” said Cousin Blue. “We used not to be let go alone, so she sometimes forced me to come to the same play three nights running—dreadfully boring.”

  “I hitched to London twice last year to see Lehmann’s Ghosts,” said Andrew.

  “I caught a matinée,” said Cousin Brown. “Rather a disappointment, I thought.”

  “Oh, but …”

  “Such a mistake to play Ibsen as though all parties expected to have a thoroughly gloomy time from the first. I believe that with a less wooden translation than poor old Archer’s …”

  “Of course Elspeth’s always wanted to be a man and play Hamlet,” said Cousin Blue.

  “I’ve mostly played girls in school plays,” said Andrew. “I tried to make them let me do Lady Macbeth last summer.”

  “May is talking nonsense,” said Cousin Brown. “Of course I have my ideas about how I would play Hamlet, but who has not? I am aware that it would have been absurd for me to have attempted Helen of Troy, but, for instance, Juliet. There is nothing in the text to inform us that she is conventionally beautiful. All we know is that Romeo thinks she is, and that depends on the actors and the production.”

  “Romeo was devastating,” said Cousin Blue. “Everyone knows that.”

  “I see no reason,” said Cousin Brown. “I think one might stage it rather interestingly with a very ordinary couple. Let Mercutio be the glamorous one, and that other girl, with whom Romeo thinks he’s in love …”

  “Rosaline, but she doesn’t come on,” said Andrew.

  “She does not have a speaking part, but let her come on. Let her be as beautiful as Helen. But Romeo and Juliet are two quite ordinary children, caught up in their passion, while all their families can think of is their own pride and wealth. Romeo and Juliet are heirs. That is the point. Let it be not simply a play about doomed love, let it also be a play about money. Let that be what dooms …”

  She was interrupted by a noise, an almost animal yelp, somewhere between a swear-word and a sneeze, from Uncle Vole. She turned to meet his glare, then rose, the darkie drawing her chair aside as she did so. Andrew had seen enough high-society films to guess what happened next. He helped Cousin Blue with her chair, then went and opened the door. He’d been expecting to follow the Cousins out, but as she passed him Cousin Brown whispered, “Father wishes to talk with you,” so he closed the door behind them and went back to the table.

  The darkie was holding a chair for him just round the corner from Uncle Vole. He sat down, feeling on his right the soft warmth of the stove and on his left the chill of the air sucked in by its updraught. The old man gazed at him with gummy, red-rimmed eyes under scurfy brows. The lower part of the face was just like a rodent’s, with no real chin, bluish lips under a ragged sandy moustache streaky with the black jam. The nose was small and sharp, the eyes surprisingly wide-set. Above them the forehead bulged like a mushroom, blotched grey and khaki and purple. Uncle Vole’s body was shaken by a continual shudder which made the tassle of his smoking-cap dodder to and fro, but when he spoke the words came perfectly clearly, showing he simply hadn’t bothered before.

  “Port, Samuel.”

  “Coming, Baas. 1927 Dow.”

  The darkie moved away to the sideboard and returned. There was something about the silence of his footsteps that caused Andrew to glance down and see, instead of shiny black shoes below the pin-striped trousers, naked dark brown feet.

  “I hate to see a nigger in shoes,” said Uncle Vole.

  He stared at Andrew, challenging him to disagree, but also challenging him to meet the malice of his glare. Andrew did so, smiling. He had a trick for dealing with this sort of encounter. What you did was turn it into a scene from a play, with yourself as an actor and the other person—unwanted caller, schoolmaster, playground thug—also an actor playing his part. You could then perform, doing whatever was needed, while your true self stood off-stage, untouched. It helped to
give the other people play-names—Cousin Blue, Uncle Vole. You had a secret name of your own, too. In some ways it was more like a spell than a trick. There really was something magical about the way it worked, how you could outface the schoolmaster, dominate the thug, smile at Uncle Vole …

  The encounter lasted only a few seconds before Uncle Vole lost interest and turned to snatch at his glass. He sucked and sluiced the wine to and fro across his palate, then swallowed.

  “Might just as well be sow’s piss,” he said. “Can’t taste, can’t fuck, can’t get warm. Never thought I’d have to face another winter in bloody England­. Drink up, boy. Let’s see what you’re made of Samuel, you clear out.”

  “Going, Baas.”

  Andrew sipped at his port. He hadn’t enjoyed the wine much, but this was pretty good, not as sweet as he remembered Mum’s, but with a rich strong juicy flavour. He sipped again.

  “So you want to be an actor,” said Uncle Vole.

  “That’s right, sir.”

  “You’re a bugger, then.”

  “No, sir.”

  “Horse shit. All actors are buggers.”

  “I prefer girls.”

  “Had any?”

  “Not yet.”

  “How old are you?”

  “Eighteen in March.”

  “Drink up. Let’s see what you can hold. What did they tell you about me? Black sheep of the family?”

  In fact until Mum had suddenly decided that Andrew had better accept the out-of-the-blue invitation, Andrew had known practically nothing about the other branch of the family. Dad had never mentioned them. Mum, being Mum, couldn’t resist hinting, but not in Dad’s presence. Before sending Andrew off she’d tried to explain, in her rambling and excitable way, but he’d soon realized she didn’t know much either, and was mostly guessing and hoping.

  “You quarrelled with Great-grandfather Oswald, didn’t you?” he said. “And then you went to South Africa and made some money in the diamond fields and came back and built this house.”

  “Tell you what the row was about?”