Perfect Gallows

by Peter Dickinson

  “There!” said Cousin Brown. “Now you can see what it is all going to be like, if only we put our backs into it. Enter Ariel. ‘Come unto these yellow sands … ’”

  It had somehow been impossible to go back. From then on, without trying to match Samuel’s total involvement, Andrew spoke his lines with definite commitment. Tedious though the whole idea had seemed, he was going to do his best to make the play work. If it meant spending most of the hols here, just getting back to see Lily once or twice a week, missing some Saturday hops next term, well, too bad. He was, he realized, a bit bored with Lily anyway. She was too easy. She was like the sailors in the back rows at the panto, who had laughed at anything the Dame gave them.

  “… As you from crimes would pardoned be, let your indulgence set me free,” he said and snapped the book shut, smiling.

  “Capital!” cried Cousin Brown. “Absolutely capital! You know, in spite of everything we are really going to make a go of this. Now, one of the convenient things about The Tempest is that apart from Caliban and Ariel there are three sets of characters who do not meet until the final scene, and this means they can rehearse quite independently. So now we will split up and make some preliminary arrangements, to see what will suit everybody best. Prospero and Miranda, if you would go over and wait under the memorial tablet …”

  Andrew rose and crossed to the far wall, where a panelled plaque declared that this Institute had been given to the village as a memorial to the glorious dead by the generosity of Sir Arnold Wragge of The Mimms. In a useless, momentary attempt to harden himself against his own terrors Andrew forced himself to look at the list of names. A dagger marked the ones who were missing, presumed killed. There were four others, besides Lieutenant Charles Wragge.

  “Such a stupid waste,” sighed a voice.

  He turned. It was the Miranda girl.

  “Hello,” he said. “I’m Andrew Wragge.”

  “I know. I’m Jean Arthur.”

  He laughed with surprise. She blushed.

  “I was trying to remember where I’d seen your face,” he said. “Why aren’t you in Hollywood?”

  “Oh, it’s stupid. Don’t tease me. Mr Mkele was terribly good, wasn’t he?”

  “Yes.”

  “So were you. And Miss Elspeth’s clever, putting on that man’s voice. I’m terrible. I wish I’d never agreed. I know I’m going to let you all down.”

  “There’s lots of time.”

  “I just can’t think of myself saying the stupid sort of things I’m supposed to.”

  “It isn’t you saying them, it’s Miranda. That’s what makes it exciting. I mean let’s say you’re actually not the type to keel over at the sight of a handsome shipwrecked prince …”

  “I’m certainly not!”

  “By the way, it looks as if I might have to bring you out a Ferdinand from school. My cousin Elspeth doesn’t seem to have found anyone round here. What do you fancy, blond or dark?”

  “Neither.”

  “Bald is going to be difficult.”

  She took him seriously for an instant, then laughed with his laughter. The tension between them altered. He realized that in spite of her robust, no-nonsense look she was probably very shy, and had actually forced herself to speak to him in much the same manner that he had been forcing himself to read the list of names. When she laughed her green eyes crinkled at the corners. He felt a tingle of interest.

  “I suppose you’re going to have to wear a beard to make yourself look old,” she said.

  He shrank, craned, thinned his lips, put a tic into his cheek. “A beard!” he spat. “What do I want with a beard? D’yer think I’m Father Christmas, gel?”

  She backed off a whole step from his glare.

  “But that’s Sir Arnold!” she whispered.

  He straightened and became easy-going confident Adrian. Cousin Brown had a very good eye, he thought. There was something Miranda-like there, a directness, an unhandled innocence, a sense of never having seen—well, looked at—a man. Her shyness was like her uniform, an outside layer, contrasting with what lay underneath, making it seem more exciting—if you could get there.

  “I’ve half a mind to play Prospero like that,” he said.

  “Isn’t Prospero supposed to be a nice old man?”

  “I wouldn’t fancy a dad like that—peeping round rocks, planning everything for me, rubbing his hands because it’s working out the way he wants it.”

  “Oh … I haven’t seen Daddy for more than three years. Three and a half now, I suppose. He was caught at Dunkirk.”

  “Mine was caught at Singapore.”

  “Oh, isn’t it ghastly!”

  “Worse for a girl, I expect. What about your mum?”

  “She’s all right. I suppose.”

  The change in tone, from yearning warmth to chill was very marked. You didn’t talk about Jean’s mother. What had she done? Taken a lover, probably. Andrew considered a moment whether to mention what had happened to Mum. No, save it up. He’d be seeing quite a bit of Jean. No point in wasting ammo.

  “Where are you working?” he said.

  “At Mimms Home Farm.”

  “Handy for rehearsals—you and me and Caliban.”

  “It’s only just behind the plantation, though it’s more than a mile round by road.”

  “What’s it like, being a Land Girl?”

  “All right, I suppose. Better than being an AT or something.”

  “They have quite a bit of fun, I gather.”

  She blushed, and then, visibly, forced herself to keep the conversation going.

  “Not my kind of fun. I was in a hostel at first with eight other girls. All they could talk about was the boys they’d met at the last hop. I hated that, so I put in to be a cow-girl. You mostly have to live on the farm for that, because of early milking. Mrs Althorp—she’s the tenant at Home Farm—wanted a girl. Really she should have had two. We aren’t supposed to be alone, but she persuaded them Dolly counted and I said I didn’t mind.”

  “It sounds a bit lonely.”

  “Well, I suppose so. Mostly I’m so busy I don’t notice. I hope Miss Elspeth isn’t going to be much longer. She did say half past six, and I promised I’d be back to clear up after milking.”

  “How are you going?”

  “I’ve got a bike.”

  “OK. You push off. I’ll explain. It’s just you and me and Ferdinand and we haven’t got him anyway. I’ll come over to the farm tomorrow and see if we can fix some times. Otherwise we’ll just have to say our lines to and fro between the udders.”

  “You appear to have made an excellent start with Miranda,” said Cousin Brown. “Oh, do get on, Brutus, it is not that steep. How I long for my Lagonda at times like this. I noticed you jollying her up. She is going to need a good deal of that. But she has the potential, don’t you agree?”

  “I said I’d go over to the farm tomorrow and try and fix something up about rehearsals.”

  “Ah, now. I was in any case going to talk to you about the farm. You will no doubt consider that you should be doing some war-work during your holidays.”

  “I suppose so.”

  “Mrs Althorp, Jean’s employer, is a somewhat intransigent woman. She has come through a difficult time with her husband’s death, and other things, so one must not blame her too much. I have had trouble persuading her to release Jean for what I would regard as a minimum of rehearsals, but if you were to work, say a few mornings a week, at the farm, then we would be in a position to argue that we had made up for Jean’s lost time, and we could get that first difficult scene at least blocked in before you need to go back to Southampton. That would be a satisfactory solution, don’t you agree?”

  There was an odd emphasis on the word “satisfactory” which suggested that Cousin Brown was thinking of more than simple convenience, that sh
e took a personal pleasure in the neatness of the solution, the arrangement of other people’s lives. It was a moment of decision. If Andrew agreed, it would mean saying good-bye to Lily. A fortnight till term. She would certainly find another bloke. And farm-work was not his idea of fun. But he had called Caliban from his cave and more than a voice had answered.

  “OK,” he said. “How do you see Miranda?”

  “It is the relationship between you that really concerns me, and that in turn depends on your relationship with both Ariel and Caliban.”

  “It all depends on how beastly you want poor old Caliban to be.”

  “Exactly. That is the nub. We have to start from the point that Samuel is very strong in the part. Bestial but noble. Old, too—after all he is in fact only a few years younger than my father, at least Prospero’s equal in age. This affects the balance of the play in what I hope will prove interesting ways …”

  The pony plodded between the hedgerows. The blackthorn buds were swelling, pale dots in the watery evening light. Andrew had not yet fully adjusted to double summer-time, which had just come in, and the uneasiness added to the strangeness, the sense of moving between worlds which did not quite belong in the same space-time. Cousin Brown, absorbed in her plans for the production, seemed to forget that Samuel was sitting in the back of the trap and talked about him as though he weren’t listening. Sometimes she forgot about the pony too, and let it drift almost to a halt and lower its head to try and browse at a patch of fresh-sprung grass on the verge.

  “I see Prospero as really a bit potty,” said Andrew. “He’s got his magic power, but the power has done things back to him. Sometimes you can see it shuddering through him. I’d like to try that.”

  “My thought exactly! He is a shaman—the text says he falls into a trance in Act Five …”

  “And Miranda when she’s explaining to Ferdinand …”

  “Of course. So those awkward moments in your first scene with her …”

  “Not her losing interest. Him going dopey and shaking himself out of it …”

  “Dragging himself out. The dark backward …”

  “She’ll have to feel it too—be a bit scared?”

  “Perhaps … yes … but soothing too. Used to his fits. She says so to Ferdinand. They must know each other extremely well, as well as I know my own … Dear me, is that a motor? It is extraordinary how some people manage to acquire the petrol.”

  The trap had heaved out of a dell of coppiced hazels. Just over the crest was a Rover Fourteen, black, facing towards The Mimms with its side-bonnet up and a man bending into the engine-space. He straightened and turned at the sound of hooves. Cousin Brown reined the pony in, but Andrew had recognized the coat and hat before he saw the face. Mr Trinder raised the hat.

  “May we be of any assistance?” said Cousin Brown.

  Mr Trinder held his hat over his heart, like a war veteran at an Armistice Day celebration. He glanced quickly at Samuel and Andrew, but with no sign of recognition.

  “Would you be going anywhere near the camp, ma’am?” he said.

  “The Americans? Yes, indeed. We pass the gate. But I fear a fourth passenger would be too much for Brutus. It is barely half a mile to walk.”

  “Perhaps the young gent would do us a favour and ask after Sergeant Stephens in Supply. Tell him how Mr Trinder’s stuck out this way, and if he could send a truck with a mechanic …”

  “Right-oh,” said Andrew.

  “Ever so grateful. Do you a good turn one day. Scout’s honour.”

  The wink was in his voice, not his eyelid.

  “What a peculiar man,” said Cousin Brown, almost before the renewed hoof-beats could cover her strong voice. “A spiv, right out here in the country! No doubt he gets his petrol from his American friends—they seem to have such masses of everything. I think I told you in one of my letters that we now have American officers in the house, General Odway’s staff, preparing for the invasion, if it ever takes place. May plays bridge with the General most evenings. Do you know, when they first arrived they brought their own drinking-water, in tins, shipped all the way from America, in case ours was not safe to drink! Think of the dreadful cost in the lives of our poor seamen! And we have had to move ourselves upstairs into the old nursery wing, though Father of course has retained his study … Now, another problem with Prospero is to establish his right to behave as he does. His own dukedom has been usurped, but he is in definite sense also an usurper …”

  Halfway down the drive to The Mimms the-smooth tarred surface, laid to take the big American trucks, swung left. Cousin Brown flipped the reins as soon as Andrew had climbed down and the pony, brisker now with thoughts of home, took the trap scrunching down the unmended gravel of the lower part of the drive. The new road led out under arching holm oaks into what had been the park. At the point where it emerged into the open it was barred by a red and white pole which could be swung up to let traffic through. A soldier sat in a canvas booth beside the barrier reading a pulp magazine. He was chewing gum. His cap was pushed to the back of his head.

  “Yeah,” he said—as much a yawn as a word.

  “I’ve got a message for Sergeant Stephens. In Supply.”

  “Right on up the track. Take a left at the crossroads. Second Quonset under the trees.”

  “Thanks.”

  “You’re welcome,” muttered the soldier, already reading again.

  On his earlier visit Andrew had seen nothing of The Mimms by daylight. The road led across a shallow sloping valley. The house—red brick, red tiles, large white-painted windows, massive fluted chimney-­stacks—stood on a platform of terraced gardens with woodland slanting away beyond and looking across the valley to the wood that crowned the opposite slope. The parkland between was dotted with coppices, whose shelter had been extended with screens of camouflage-­netting to hide trucks, huts and tents. The main camp lay in the wood. It was from there that the tannoy sounded, loud despite the distance. It was playing “Is you is, or is you ain’t, my baby?” A jeep came storming out of the wood and whipped down a side-road to one of the smaller collections of huts, but once there the driver merely climbed out and leaned against the mudguard, smoking. The scurry had nothing to do with urgency. That was how Yanks behaved. So was the waste of petrol.

  A few yards before Andrew reached his turning a new object came into sight, hidden till now by the alignment of the coppices. It was so odd that he actually stopped and looked. Well down towards the bottom of the valley, outside the fence that divided the camp from the ploughed field beyond, rose a squat, round flint tower, pierced with two rows of small holes. A dovecote, or something like that, plain and functional for its lower two storeys but crowned with a ridiculous top-knot like something out of a fairground with fancy pillars and bobbly bits and a green copper dome with a weathercock on top. More than anything it reminded Andrew of Mum slopping round the house in her slippers and apron but wearing one of her party hats to cheer herself up. It was a joke building, inviting you to laugh at it, just the way Mum used to when she was in one of those moods, so Andrew laughed and walked on.

  His side-road took him up towards a coppice of sycamores which with their surrounding net hid half a dozen nissen huts. There seemed to be nobody about. Food smells floated on the breeze, unfamiliar and interesting, the oil they’d fried their evening meal in, mainly. It was nearly seven. Not much chance of finding this sergeant still in his store … But the door of the second hut was open, and light shone from inside. He tapped, heard a grunt and went in. It was a sort of office, a shadowy cave under the arching roof, lit by a pool of yellow light from a lamp on one of the three file-cluttered desks. A man was sitting at that desk reading his way through a document and making ticks on it as he compared it with another piece of paper. A black cheroot slanted up from the corner of his mouth.

  “Yeah?” he said, not looking up.

  “Sergea
nt Stephens?”

  “Right.”

  “Mr Trinder asked me to tell you that his car has broken down about half a mile from the gate. If you could send a truck and a mechanic, he says.”

  “Jesus Christ! He figures we’re over here for that!”

  The sergeant spoke in a slow nasal monotone and went back to his figures. Andrew waited.

  “You tell him …” said the sergeant.

  “I’m not going back. They’re expecting me down at the house.”

  “Uh. You visiting?”

  “Yes. I’m here for three weeks.”

  “What’s your name, sonny?”

  “Andrew Wragge.”

  “That so? One of the family?”

  “Sort of.”

  The sergeant made a note at the bottom of the sheet he had been checking and rose. He was extremely tall, about six four, but thin as a dangling skeleton, with a narrow muscular face, black brows and close-cropped grey-black hair.

  “OK,” he said. “Let’s go.”

  He switched off his lamp and locked the door as they left. They climbed into a jeep and went bouncing down to the main track and then more smoothly off to the wood on the ridge. Here there were signposts with military initials, and white-painted guide-ropes so that men could find their way around in the black-out. The camp seemed to spread endlessly off under the trees, but there were not many soldiers around. The tannoy was playing “Why don’t you do right?” The cooking smells were strong, their foreignness making them seem to promise much more exciting tastes than British wartime food. The sergeant swung into an area of camouflaged trucks and braked beside one where a man’s feet protruded behind the front wheel.