God on the Rocks

by Jane Gardam

  Mrs Marsh said very carefully, ‘Margaret, I don’t think you ought to talk about dinosaurs. You know what Father thinks. I suppose this is school.’

  ‘No. It’s just real. They’ve found the bones. Father doesn’t underst . . . ’

  ‘Of course Father knows there were dinosaurs. But you know that we believe in Genesis here, don’t you? You’ve known this for a long time. You especially, Margaret, with your wonderful memory. Most people nowadays don’t, they believe in a very old-fashioned idea that was disproved years ago by people your father knows all about. Most people believe in myths—you know what myths are?—invented by Sir Charles Darwin about how we grew out of fishes and monkeys and things. Doesn’t that seem silly? But in this house we believe that God put us down all complete, Adam and Eve in the garden, so that we could share all the lovely things God had made.’

  ‘Very kind,’ said Margaret, ‘but . . . ’

  ‘Exactly!’ Mrs Marsh looked really delighted now whereas, considering dinosaurs, she had seemed uncertain. ‘Exactly. Kind.’

  ‘Unnecessary,’ said Margaret. ‘God and the world would have done. Like me before the baby came.’

  ‘Now, Margaret dear, I know you don’t realise it but that is blasphemy.’

  ‘What’s blasphemy?’

  ‘But you hear about blasphemy every week at the Primal Hall!’

  ‘Is it what Father talks? I thought what Father talked . . . ’

  ‘Margaret! Blasphemy is taking the name of God in vain.’

  ‘In vain. A lot of things are in vain.’

  ‘No. It means lightly. You are taking the name of God lightly.’

  ‘Better than heavily.’

  ‘God,’ said Mrs Marsh going rather red in the cheeks and buttoning her dress after adjusting a massive camisole beneath and easing herself to an even balance, ‘made us in his own image.’ She looked at the trussed baby, face down, its red head like a tilted orange rearing up and down on the undersheet as if desperately attempting to escape. Giving up, it let its head drop into suffocation position and there was another explosion followed by a long, liquid spluttering from further down the cot: and a smell. ‘Oh dear,’ said Mrs Marsh contented, ‘now I’ll have to start all over again with a new nappy. Could you hand me the bucket, darling?’

  ‘His own image,’ said Margaret watching the horrible unwrapping. ‘If God looks like us . . . What’s the point?’

  ‘You must speak,’ said Mrs Marsh sternly, ‘to your father.’

  3.

  They walked to the ice creams, but unlike the previous Wednesday did not sit on the seat overlooking the sea. They licked the ices as they walked along, passing the oi-ois and the whistles, to the turnstile to the wood, and slowly—for it was an even hotter day than last week—they set off down the woodland path. Lydia said she’d somehow last till the bandstand before taking off her shoes and when they got to the terrace above it they sat down on the grass, finished the ices, and looked down. Flower-beds surrounded the bandstand lawn in the shapes of hearts and diamonds as if big biscuit cutters had bitten into the grass. Inside each shape was a pattern of artificial-looking plants, first a diamond or a heart of leathery clumps the colour of purple cabbages, then a round of succulent yellow-green, then a blue lobelia and, in the centre, a triumph of vermilion geraniums. Between the beds and the bandstand was a circle of green and white deck chairs. In the bandstand the band played, very confident and strong.

  ‘Let’s go down,’ said Lydia and they went and sat in two deck chairs, buying penny tickets. Lydia lay back watching the bandsmen who became aware of her.

  After a bit she said to Margaret, ‘D’yer want to ’ave a laff?’ and took out of this week’s paper bag an orange which she peeled, throwing the peel at her feet. She parted the pieces of orange, and slowly slid them into her mouth, watching one particular bandsman all the time. In a moment water came out of his trombone in a spray. Margaret found she was laughing out loud and Lydia gave her a nudge and silently doubled up in the chair. ‘We used to do it in Bishop,’ she said, ‘when I were a lass. At all t’processions.’

  ‘Are there a lot of processions in Bishop?’

  ‘Oh aye. Watch again now.’ She fastened her attention on another player, a tuba player who was very damp in the face and robust rosy red. The collar of his stiff blue serge uniform looked like a throttle. His very eyes were hot, and bulged from between the eyelids like brooches. His expression was anxious. ‘Wait on,’ whispered Lydia and sucked the orange.

  Out flew the spit and a strange dark note broke into the melody, making the conductor, whose back was of course to the audience, turn to the tuba player with very vigorous arms. Margaret and Lydia collapsed against each other in not quite silent laughter, tipping their chairs, and an official came up and asked them to leave.

  ‘We’ve paid tuppence,’ said Lydia with streaming eyes. Shushing came from the surrounding chairs, newspapers were taken from heads. Panamas turned. ‘There’s no rule agen eatin’ oranges, is there?’ She was enjoying herself.

  ‘There is against litter,’ said the man, pointing at the peel.

  Lydia picked it up and pressed it all in his hand. ‘Sorry,’ she said, lifting her shoulder and dropping her eyelids, which were shiny with Vaseline. She smiled up at the man and closed her teeth over another piece of orange. ‘You get off now,’ said the man in a fluster. ‘I’m comfy,’ said Lydia, stretching out and crossing her feet. Margaret said, ‘Let’s go, Lydia.’

  ‘No. I’m resting me feet. We’ve paid tuppence.’

  ‘Do let’s go.’

  ‘Okay then,’ said Lydia, ever pliant. ‘Bye, beautiful. ’Elp us up.’ The official looked stern and glared about him as he gave his arm. Lydia turned to the tuba player and winked, and there followed two very unfortunate mistakes in the phrase he was engaged upon as the two of them went hand in hand up into the wood.

  At the private bridge they stopped a moment and Lydia said that now she’d take off her corset and rest and they pushed open the gate thankfully as if they were going home.

  ‘I’ll climb the tree again,’ said Margaret.

  ‘Don’t kill thysen.’

  ‘Don’t disappear.’

  She climbed higher and higher. Near the top she stopped to see whether she might not be able to take a different direction so that at the very top she would be able to look over at the house, but there seemed to be no obvious route. She tried a rather spindly fork that grew to a good height and over in the direction of the bank she had climbed when she was looking for Lydia, but when her head came out at last all she saw were the trees of the bank itself which was still a little higher than the high sycamore. There was still a barrier; only over her shoulder could she see the tree-top carpet that stretched along above the stream over towards the bandstand and the sea, and the sky overhead. Her foot slid and she slipped down the tree, crackling through the slim branches, luckily landing in a safe cleft below. From away down on the ground she heard Lydia shout and then another voice, a man’s. ‘I’m all right. Don’t fuss,’ she called, but sat on, riding the tree, getting her breath back, examining for some time the long lavender and white graze on her arm, watching it turn to blebs of scarlet and then begin to bleed quite creditably. ‘I’m bleeding a bit. I’m all right,’ she called down again as there was silence. She felt undervalued when there was no reply.

  Lydia was on the bridge resting a hip against the rail, and smiling and leaning over the little gate facing her was a man who was smiling too. He was in a dark cheap suit but looked an out of doors man. He had a hungry, ageing indoor face but rough hands. He appeared to hold some sort of authority in the place but was smiling slyly as he exerted it. Margaret felt these contradictions, and distaste.

  ‘Lydia!’

  Lydia did not turn but tossed her head back, looking at the man. ‘You can’t stay here, you know,’ he said. ‘I saw you last week.’

  ‘Why not?’ Lydia asked. She watched the man closely, looking at him all over as
if he were more interesting to her than his answer.

  ‘Can’t you read?’ He came through the gate and tapped the board on the outside of it. ‘Private.’ Margaret dropped out of the tree with a thud but neither of them turned round.

  ‘I’m bleeding,’ she called.

  ‘Oh git on,’ said Lydia, looking down at her blackcherry finger nails, and leaned farther back against the bridge. Margaret hoped it was safe. Lydia’s great back, without the corsets, looked very powerful. She was in the blue sateen again. Her legs beneath it were like long thick bottles. Her feet were broad and each big toe was yellowish and square. Yet she looked very lovely somehow. ‘Git on,’ she said to the man. ‘It’s bonny ’ere. Why not?’

  ‘It’s private property.’

  ‘Lydia!’

  Still they paid no attention. ‘Is she your sister?’ the man asked, not taking his eyes off Lydia.

  ‘No. I’m the maid. I tek her out.’

  ‘Cushy, eh?’

  ‘It’s since the baby. It’s the holidays. Gives the mother a rest. There’s not much else to do of an afternoon anyway.’

  ‘It’s your afternoon off then?’

  ‘Not likely. I’m not that daft.’

  ‘When’s your afternoon off?’

  ‘That’s my business.’ But she laughed and heaved herself off the bridge rail and walked before him towards the tree and Margaret, slowly. She was twirling a leaf.

  ‘Good place then, is it?’

  ‘Not bad.’ She took notice of Margaret at last. ‘You goin’ int’ stream?’

  ‘No. I’m bleeding. I fell down the tree.’

  ‘Keep you at it, do they? Cook-general, are you?’

  ‘No. I’m just general. She cooks.’

  ‘She cooks, eh? Not class then?’

  Lydia lay down on her side under the tree like a range of quiet hills. ‘Git on now, Margaret,’ she said. ‘Don’t just stand there. Gis a look a’ yer arm.’

  ‘You not in a class place then?’ said he.

  ‘It’s not owt,’ said Lydia stroking the graze. ‘Come ’ere. I’ll kiss it better.’ She pulled Margaret’s arm down and kissed the inside of it slowly. Margaret drew her arm back quickly and scrubbed at it with her hand. ‘You don’t have to kiss it,’ she said. The man took out a packet of Goldflake cigarettes and offered one to Lydia and lit it and one for himself. ‘Don’t you like her kissing you?’ he said—still not taking his eyes from Lydia. Margaret did not reply but went a little way up the bank behind the tree towards the sun at the top, and the house. ‘Here. You come back,’ said the man. ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘I’m going for a walk.’

  ‘You can’t go up there,’ said the man. ‘I’ve told you. It’s private.’

  ‘What is it then?’ asked Lydia. ‘Some park or somethin’?’

  ‘That’s it,’ he said. Turning to Margaret who was standing now quite far up the bank he said, ‘Do you hear me? Come back down.’

  ‘Come on down,’ said Lydia.

  They turned back towards each other—the man sitting on a log smoking the cigarette with quick sharp puffs, Lydia sleepily watching the smoke rise up from hers in the rays of the sun slanting through the sycamore. ‘Int’ smoke bonny?’ she said. ‘Look at it. It’s like a lovely scarf.’

  Margaret sat down among the trees on the bank. ‘Can I go on up, Lydia?’ Neither of them answered her. The man said, ‘What you called?’

  ‘Lydia,’ said Lydia, watching the smoke.

  ‘I’m going on up,’ shouted Margaret, but there was no reply and she went on up and when they were quite a long way below her she turned and shouted again, ‘I’m going then. I’m going on up. Even if it is private.’

  The figures were very still under the tree and did not turn. As she reached the great grassland and the sunshine she heard Lydia’s sleepy long laugh.

  There stood the house again with the parkland in front of it and the huge spaced-out trees. It was a bright sandy house and the grass, all the wide swell of it, in the height of this astonishing summer, was dried sand-yellow too. The huge trees were a bright but darker yellow, surprised by autumn before their time. Their leaves already looked shrunken and curly under the sky of clear, steady blue. Under one of the trees a man was sitting at an easel painting. He had a large stomach under a good white linen jacket and wore a cream-coloured straw hat. He touched the canvas with the tip of a long brush and Margaret could see beneath the hat-brim a golden beard. All was yellow, white, cream and gold against blue, and the light was like a song. Margaret shot back into the trees.

  The man however did not move and had obviously not noticed her, so she took off her shoes and socks and began to walk along just inside the trees until she was behind him but much farther away. She looked over at his squat back now and saw the view that he saw and was painting though she was much further away from it. It was the house, the huge flank of it bare of windows, just a vast surface of sandstone with the bastion of the chimney flues giving angles of shadow and a spidery creeper netting part of the lower half with brilliant papery red leaves. Margaret thought it was an odd thing to paint the house where it had no windows. The man must be silly—just trying to be clever. But he looked very sure of himself somehow. Very solid and engrossed.

  She came to a brick wall with an iron door in it and looked in at a huge high-walled kitchen-garden with several broken greenhouses. A lot of the vegetable beds were bare from the drought. Outdoor tomatoes were rows of shrivelled leaves, the fruit bulging in among them blackish red. Margaret went in and took one off its frizzled stem and ate it. It was splitting and the split had a rough dark frilly edge like a nasty cut. Some of the other tomatoes had fluffy stuff on them and there were gnats about. Margaret’s mother had been going on about what a terrible year it had been for tomatoes. ‘And scarcely a bean.’

  That was true too. The bean bed here was a show. A few scrawny yellow things hung down among the rows of wires and brittle stalks. They had not been watered. They were much worse than the beans at home in the back-yard. Margaret’s mother and even father, Margaret and Lydia had been taking the washing-up water to the beans—every drop—for weeks. The gardener here must be very lazy.

  Margaret suddenly knew that the gardener would be the man who was talking to Lydia.

  She turned a corner then and walked on to a pink brick path with cutting-flowers down each side of it—lupins and red-hot pokers and gladioli but all very poor and dry. It was so hot here that the sun seemed to beat with a pulse on the bricks. Black seed pods lay split wide open on stalks. A little oily water in the middle of what was meant to be a pond held the shadows of a cluster of muddy goldfish. Lily roots writhed shamefully in the open. A black wooden toy windmill on a stick meant for a scare-the-birds was warped and immovable. It was a garden neglected for much longer than one summer.

  At the end of the brick path a nurse was sitting on a bench knitting under some huge exhausted sunflowers. Like the painter she sat determinedly as if she would be here for a long time, and Margaret, as the nurse released a length of white wool out of a bag, raising her navy blue arm high in the air and briefly looking up, had just time to step out of sight behind a shed.

  And then she saw what it seemed she had known she would find and the horror of it was like remembered horror and yet a terrifying shock. Under the garden wall in what little shadow there was, at some distance from the nurse and at an angle from her, was a long high box on spindly wheels.

  It was a basket-work box, wider at one end than the other and as long as a grown person. It had black wavy wires at the narrow end and a bar to push it along. Inside you could see that it was padded in some way. It was a monstrous, shallow pram.

  Margaret knew she must look in the pram. She stood some way from it. Behind the shed was the remains of a bad bonfire—white ash, the odd blackened tin, lumpy rubbish. Beyond this was a cinder path to a back gate. Looking all round Margaret saw nobody. The nurse was out of sight, round the corner of the shed. All w
as quiet, safe, utterly still. She walked forward clutching her shoes with her socks stuffed one in each and peered over the cot side.

  Lying in the shallow trough was a woman staring at the sky. She was thin as sticks with a little brown head like wood, the head of a wooden little monkey. The hands were bundles of spotty twigs lying on a thin white sheet. The skin of the face and hands was very dark, as dark as an Indian’s. Only her eyes were bright—blue and alive, liquid and huge they stared upwards. The rest of her under the sheet was only to be guessed at, so small it was nearly invisible. Apart from the head and the hands the pram might have been empty. The face looked like the face of the oldest creature in the world.

  4.

  The almost permanent pietà of Mrs Marsh and the baby was the only sensuous thing in the house. It was a house in a long, dark-red terrace facing the sea—a biggish house with big but ugly windows inside a narrow concrete trough and a low brick wall with short lumpy railings along the top. There was a heavy and decent front door and very clean, colourless curtains, the same in every window like a private hotel. The front room was never used except on Christmas afternoon. It was crowded with huge fawn armchairs with fawn cushions and a table in the window stood with a thick cream flower vase, dead centre, which had never held a flower. Beside the vase was a Bible which could be seen clearly from the road.

  The house was what is called a good house. Marsh was a bank manager. He was moreover suspected of being if not rich, very comfortable, though there was not a hint of it in his conversation or appearance and very much the reverse in his activities. He and his wife were members of the Primal Saints and most of their free time was spent in the local Primal Hall down Turner Street—a very nasty street of plum and sandstone and silence. Twice on Sunday and one evening in the week Marsh’s careful small face was raised to his God and the unlikely loudness of his prayers drowned any noise from the chip shop and the pub round the corner. Not an empty chip bag dared blow its scratchy way down Turner Street when Marsh was praying for those who preferred to lean on the railings eating the chips rather than contemplate eternity. Mrs Marsh and Margaret and the baby sat—Mrs Marsh placidly—watching him. Mrs Marsh sometimes cried out ‘Alleluiah’ or ‘Praise the Lord’ at intervals the Lord dictated, as professionally as anyone—as professionally as barmy and holy Bezeer-Iremonger, gassed and good, the old mystery who had been there since the end of the War.