Household Ghosts

by James Kennaway

  It was her turn to weep. She did so, hanging on to Pink, who looked very big beside her. He patted her back as she buried her nose in his jacket, and he said:

  ‘The world’s your oyster, Lilian. You mustn’t forget that.’ Then, as she did not recover for a moment, he went on, ‘Full marks to old Pinky boy. He funked it altogether.’

  At last she paused to take a breath, and tipping back her head she asked, ‘Oh God, oh God, why was I no good at all?’

  ‘Purely subjective thing. You seemed to be doing wonders. “Rip his clothes off,” I heard you shout. “Don’t forget the rings, Nelly—”’

  ‘No, Pink—’ she said, meaning ‘Don’t joke,’ and Pink said, with a sort of tight jaw, ‘De peur d’être obliger d’en pleurer, je me hâ-hâ-hâte de rire de tout, old mole.’ It was something he often quoted.

  Mary said, ‘Macdonald’s not much good either. She would be, mind you, if he wasn’t going to die. It’s just because he’s going to die, I think that’s why one’s so incredibly bad.’

  ‘Is there something we should do?’

  On the main road above they heard a car stop and a door open and close. ‘Maybe that’s the doctor,’ she said after a moment, but when nothing further happened she dropped her head on to his shoulder again.

  Pink said, ‘Courting couple, you bet. The doc would come right down.’

  ‘Pobbles?’ she asked, meaning Peebles.

  ‘Snogging.’ He nodded towards the car. ‘Really killing them in Covent Garden – “Signori signore”, you can’t see him for flowers.’

  She laughed a little at that. It struck true.

  Then she went on, ‘I suppose it happens to everybody but I always thought I would cope with death. Should I go back?’

  ‘God, no.’

  ‘He’s not dead yet, but he’s kind of paralysed.’ She gripped him a little harder.

  He said, ‘Good-oh. No mistake, it’s the light fantastic tonight.’

  ‘He was rather brave, I thought. She’s reading to him now.’

  ‘What? Journey’s End?’

  ‘Pink, don’t.’

  ‘Well – hell—’ he said.

  ‘Actually it’s Treasure Island.’

  Pink’s shoulder began to shake. It was difficult at first to know if he was laughing or crying. But in a moment it became quite clear. It was laughter, all right.

  ‘But that’s marvellous,’ he said. ‘What, sitting there?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘it’s not funny.’

  But Pink could not stop laughing.

  She started battering at him with her fists.

  ‘Don’t, Pink. Don’t. We’ll both sink into the ground. I’ll kill you. Don’t.’

  But he was out of control now and she too began to laugh, a little hysterically, as her fists began to hurt.

  Then, very suddenly, Pink sobered. There was a figure of a man standing on the road above them.

  ‘Oh crikey,’ he said. ‘Don’t look now, old fish, but there’s a boy on the Via Flaminia.’ He jerked his thumb over his shoulder and she looked up.

  ‘Very strong,’ Pink said, as she stared at the figure looking over the low concrete wall of the new bridge. It was David, but for a moment she did not seem to take him in.

  ‘It’s nearly light,’ she said. ‘It must be bloody late.’ Then she bit her lip. She looked down at her knuckles and licked a scratch which one of Pink’s buttons had made.

  ‘He looks so idiotic there,’ she said. ‘It makes me rather cross.’

  ‘Are we leaving Macdonald?’

  ‘Yep.’ She was still sucking the scratch.

  ‘Shall I go up and tell him the wedding’s off?’ Pink asked.

  She did not reply. He raised his eyebrows.

  ‘It is off?’

  She said, ‘Why doesn’t he come down, or shout, or do something?’

  ‘If you like to bundle into my limousine here,’ he said, ‘you can bed down with a noted tenor and a hysterical Welsh collie.’ For once he tried, quite strongly, to lead her. ‘Come on.’

  She pulled her hand away from her face, irritably, correcting herself—

  ‘Don’t! It’s worse than biting your nails.’ Then she looked up into Pink’s face and said very plainly:

  ‘You take Pobbles home. I’m going to walk.’

  He looked more hurt than anxious. Rather mechanically he rattled off another of his imitations – this one of the Sunningdale set.

  ‘You take Jack, Babs can ring Daph, I’ll get the Bentley and we’ll all go up to town.’

  ‘I mean it.’

  ‘You won’t drown yourself, Bubbles?’

  ‘I’m not going to do anything silly,’ she said, and took a step away. ‘But unless I speak to him he’ll stand up there looking idiotic for everybody to see.’ At once she turned and rather seriously, putting one foot carefully in front of the other, she walked up the narrow track which led diagonally through the long wet grass to the main road, above. Pink turned away long before she reached David, and with a sniff he climbed into the Humber and prepared to take Peebles home.

  Not very far away, nearer the source of the stream, the Humber stopped at a disused slate quarry.

  Peebles said, ‘I don’t smoke because I’ve got an outstanding tenor voice,’ as he bundled out of the car.

  Flossy, too, leapt out and waited by the narrow entrance as Peebles, quite soberly, walked farther into the quarry. Pink followed. When the dog saw them relieve themselves, she settled down and put her head on her paws, as if she now understood the reason for the stop. But she sat up again and put her head on one side when Peebles suddenly announced loudly, to Pink and the blue sky:

  ‘Ladies and gentlemen, I should like to give you my rendering of an old Scotch ballad.’ He coughed and it echoed round the bowl. He took up his stance like a Victorian tenor, with his hand inside his coat. His moustache looked very small, in the middle of his moon for a face.

  The dog settled again, with one ear cocked. She and the sheep had seen some odder things than this, up on the hill, when Peebles had had a drink. Pink, meantime, with his hands clasped behind his back, listened attentively. He seemed to be glad of a pause, at dawn, before getting more deeply entangled in what he called the process of predestinate tragedy. He smiled as Peebles sang, rather well:

  Oh my luv’s like a red red rose,

  That’s newly sprung in June,

  Oh my luv’s like the melody,

  That’s sweetly played in tune.

  BOOK TWO

  A Breakfast Cabaret

  TEN

  THE SUN WAS low across the flood water and it hurt Pink’s eyes as he sat, an hour or two later, by the kitchen table. So he turned his seat round and stared blankly at the big white refrigerator. He took a sip of tea from a huge cup and swilled it round his mouth.

  ‘My cake-hole’, he said, ‘is like a parrot’s cage.’ But there was nobody else in the kitchen. He moved over to the big cupboard where most of the provisions were kept. On top there was a china jar marked ‘Spices’. Inside there were a few of Pink’s aids. Amongst other things there were two ball-point pens, an amber cigarette holder, a packet of chlorophyll tablets, a machine for cutting off the ends of cigars, a small hand pump for blowing up a Lilo, a screw-driver with fuse-wire fitted in the handle, two golf balls, a gold watch and a pair of dark glasses. It was these last which he now extracted and put on.

  ‘A little windy,’ he said, describing his condition, almost as if he meant it literally, then he put his hand on his stomach and belched. He looked out at the bright sun and knew that it was the beauty of the morning that most unnerved him; that, and the drink, and the Captain, and maybe Mary too. He belched again. ‘Just a trifle shaky.’

  Mary had not yet returned home, and it was a moment or two before Stephen arrived. Pink had time for two more cups of tea.

  When Stephen did come in, Pink pushed the dark glasses further up his nose.

  ‘Hullo, old man, long time no see. What
happened to Steve?’

  But Stephen did not reply. He took off his green hat (a hat which Mary hated) and dumped it on a marble shelf in the corner. He looked pale, tidy and depressed. He began to unbutton his coat.

  Pink raised his eyebrows and looked at his watch. He was wearing his best one, as he had, in all, half a dozen, but he had forgotten to wind it up. Before he could think of a suitable formula, an ‘On the tiles, old man?’ or ‘Burning that candle pretty low’, Stephen said:

  ‘I decided to walk.’

  ‘Really?’ Pink sounded enthusiastically interested. He asked, ‘Now tell me, did you see our Macdonald as you came down?’ and Stephen shook his head.

  Pink said, ‘I think she’s still out at the caravan. Captain’s very bad. They were ringing for his daughter earlier.’

  Pink said again, ‘His dotter,’ rather feebly and Stephen, surprisingly, gave a wan smile. He laid his coat on one side and sat down on a clumsy kitchen chair. He stretched his legs out in front of him and, cupping his hands behind his head, tipped back his neck.

  He said with a sigh, ‘I can’t take it in,’ and that was the last he said of the Captain.

  ‘There’s a kettle on, if you want it, old man.’

  Stephen shook his head. He reached in his pocket for his silver cigarette case. It was only silver gilt. He kept his lighter, always serviced, in his sporran.

  Pink, meantime, went to his own coat pocket and brought out a half bottle of whisky, which was almost full.

  ‘Something stronger, old boy?’ he suggested.

  Again Stephen smiled rather faintly. On one note he quoted one of Pink’s own phrases, ‘Oblivion, old man, or cigar?’

  Pink saw that there were no cigarettes in the silver gilt case.

  ‘Of course,’ he said, searching his pockets. ‘I’ve got one somewhere.’ Out of his pockets he brought three empty packets, one Capstan, one Passing Cloud, and one Player’s Weights. He was a splendidly random buyer.

  ‘I don’t think I will after all,’ Stephen said. ‘Have you ever observed the Colonel? Before dinner he drinks and smokes and even talks. After dinner he doesn’t do any of these things. He hardly even listens. I’ve stopped.’

  Pink was wielding the half bottle.

  ‘I think you ought to have something, Stiffy, if you’ve walked all that way. You couldn’t come by the river with these floods, could you?’ he asked a little obviously. If Stephen had come by the road he could not have missed David’s car. ‘Did you come over the top?’

  ‘I tramped down the main road.’

  Pink nodded, and said, ‘Good Lord.’

  Then Stephen added, ‘As far as the old bridge, from which I looked up and down the river, and saw what there was to be seen.’

  That left no margin for error. Pink circled round once or twice then halted with his feet together. He rocked his head from side to side, and suddenly tried another subject. ‘Matter of fact I shan’t be hanging around too long, old man,’ he said. His face looked pale behind the big dark glasses.

  ‘Oh yes?’

  ‘Oh yes, old man. Today or domani. Business, you follow. London first stop but I’ve got Montreal in mind. Oyez, oyez. Big opportunities there.’ Then suddenly he leant forward and spoke in an altogether less portentous way.

  ‘Old Stiffy,’ he began. ‘Look, you don’t want to take this thing too hard. Mary’s all right. She wouldn’t do anything silly. I mean two and two don’t make five. She’s probably just trying to make you a bit jealous.’

  ‘Then she is succeeding.’

  Pink gave an uncertain smile. His language was more important to him than might have been imagined. Pink’s way was to humanise things by referring to them as well-known friends: to reduce their proportion. If somebody went raving mad Pink would say, ‘Bit of the old basket work,’ and faced with a homicidal maniac carrying an axe he might well manage, ‘Spot of the old butcher’s itch?’ To Stephen he said, ‘Touch of the green-eyed, what?’ His expression was set half-way to a smile. Stephen, at this point, pushing his feet along the hard stone floor, decided to talk. He used a matter-of-fact sort of voice.

  ‘Not much more green-eyed than usual. I suppose if I work it out I’m jealous all the time of all of you – even the Queen’s bar lot—’

  ‘Steady on.’

  ‘I’m quite used to the sensation. It comes down to the size of my shoulder and the span of my hand. I’m so used to jealousy and envy that David doesn’t seem to make any particular impact. He numbs me, I suppose.’

  After a pause he moved a little and said:

  ‘Perhaps I deceive myself.’

  Pink sat down by the window, behind Stephen, where he could not see his face.

  Stephen said, quietly, ‘It’s warm in here,’ and Pink put the bottle on the floor beside his chair. The kettle on the slow plate hissed as a drop of water ran down to the range.

  Stephen’s cheeks were now wet with tears. He said, without a break in his voice:

  ‘The ruling emotion is shame.’

  Pink tiptoed to the shelf and found a kitchen glass. He poured some whisky into it and pushed it across the table to him. He said:

  ‘Come on. You’d better have a tot. Doctor’s orders, old man. You’re tired out. Go on.’

  Stephen picked up the glass and drank.

  ‘A dram before seven, dry by eleven,’ Pink said and Stephen tried to laugh.

  ‘Good man,’ Pink said, as the empty glass was placed back on the scrubbed wood table. Stephen turned his chair round, put his elbows on the table and played with the empty glass. He rolled it along the surface.

  He said, ‘I love her. That’s what’s so hopeless. That’s what it’s so difficult to explain. And useless to try, now. But I’ve looked at it all ways and I love her. I just don’t seem able to express it in words, in bed, and now in simple, definite action.’

  Pink said, ‘Old cock, if you feel it as badly as that why don’t you just say so? Just say what you said to me just now. Say it to her.’

  Stephen shook his head.

  ‘You could give it a try, damn it,’ Pink said.

  ‘It wouldn’t work.’

  ‘Can’t do any harm, can it?’

  ‘Pointless,’ Stephen replied and Pink rocked his head impatiently.

  ‘Damn it,’ he said, hopelessly.

  Stephen, sitting up again, said, clearly, ‘I just don’t bother to fight impossible battles.’ The tears had all gone.

  Pink shrugged. He said, ‘I suppose that’s sensible enough, in a way. Best generals do that, so they say.’

  ‘Yep,’ Stephen replied. ‘And I often wonder if they’re cowards too. Unsympathetic creatures that they are.’

  Pink would have developed that, if only to keep Stephen’s mind off himself, but they were interrupted by a noise in the scullery by the back door. They waited quietly as the footsteps came nearer.

  ‘Hello, Mary-bags,’ Pink said.

  ELEVEN

  PINK SAID, ‘Stephen’s just got in.’

  Mary stood quite still with her hands behind her on the door.

  Pink went on, ‘Celebrating with me here; celebrating my proposed departure.’ Hearing the lie in his voice, Mary hardly bothered to listen, but his opening remark helped her. She swam in, asking Stephen:

  ‘Where on earth did you get to?’

  He said, ‘I promised to clear up the classroom.’

  ‘Which classroom?’

  ‘The one we used.’

  There was no change in her physical appearance. Her cheeks had been pink before, her eyes had looked as bright. Her hair, when it had been washed, was always the same brilliant colour. In the morning sunlight the down on her cheeks and her forearms always looked golden. Her movements were no more energetic than they had ever been. She did not look happier, or wiser, and her voice was neither higher nor lower.

  She said: ‘It can’t have taken you all night to do that.’

  ‘No,’ Stephen looked up at her. His eyes were bloodshot. ‘I
walked home.’

  ‘What a stupid thing to do.’ She did not take her eyes off his face as he looked back at the buckles on his shoes. She said, ‘You look quite worn out.’

  ‘I’m quite tired,’ he replied.

  ‘We’re all a bit whacked,’ Pink said, but she paid no attention to him. She was close to Stephen looking down at him, hard, demanding a full answer; almost predatory.

  ‘When did you go back to the classroom?’

  ‘At the end.’

  ‘After I’d gone?’

  ‘Long after; I was the last.’

  Stephen was silent.

  Pink shuffled forward. ‘Look here, old sis, we’re all a bit whacked. What say we leave the post-mortems?’

  ‘No,’ she said.

  Stephen lifted his head and stared at her. Pink shuffled back.

  ‘You saw David go?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes,’ Stephen said.

  ‘You didn’t ask him where he was going?’

  ‘No. I told him where you had gone.’

  ‘God, but I think that’s despicable.’

  ‘Steady on,’ Pink said. ‘You won’t do any good this way, old flesh.’

  Stephen, forced to it, had found, if not courage, a positive value in his cowardice: a point beyond which he could not retire. Looking at Mary, he said quietly:

  ‘It’s all right, Pink. I’ll walk away when I want to.’

  ‘But it’s horrid,’ Mary said.

  ‘I’m not very proud of it.’ Stephen answered coldly.

  Mary moved and said, ‘You knew, didn’t you, at that horrid time – when we were all sitting round at the table, before old Fishface, Captain Fish-face – before all that? And after that when I was going off to Peebles’ car, you knew. Yes, you knew.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And you followed David?’