by Peter Benson
For the last twelve years she had lived in seclusion with three cats, a vegetable garden and the forest that grew all around her. She’d grown too old to travel, and wanted to live in her own house.
Wootton Fitzpaine, Catherston Leweston, Birdsmoorgate and Whitchurch Canonicorum were places on the signposts around Marjorie’s. I was born in Grays.
Her place was a lodge, set back from the road, a few miles from the next house. We’d driven into a forest. Trees were dark and solid on both sides, and where there were breaks in them, more trees stood in the distance, rising and falling like enormous waves. I didn’t anticipate the turning but suddenly she swerved the car and we swept up a long drive to an oval of gravel in front of the house. ‘There we are!’ she cried. ‘Home! Like the old place?’
I nodded. The dust cleared.
‘Old gamekeeper’s lodge,’ she said.
It looked bigger than it really was, an illusion created by a classical style. Small columns framed the windows, porch and door. The windows were leaded and the walls built of big, pitted blocks of stone. Marjorie leapt out of the car and said, ‘I could do with a drink!’ but I had to sit there, as if a great pressure was on my shoulders. There was a sudden, deep and unforgiving feeling in the air that blew past the car, stopped to look at me and then blew away.
We sat in her kitchen, in small armchairs. ‘I live in here,’ she said. ‘It’s the only room I can keep warm this time of year.’ There was a big table, a set of four dining chairs, two big cupboards and a Rayburn. Three cats were asleep beneath it. ‘My friend,’ she said, and patted the oven door. One of the cats woke up and yawned at her. ‘And here’s another.’ She poured some whisky, passed me a glass, said, ‘Sit down,’ drank hers and poured another.
‘Alice’, she said, ‘didn’t say why she wanted you to stay, but I can guess, if your father’s anyone to go by.’
‘What do you mean?’ I didn’t want Dad brought into it. ‘She said you needed a hand, so…’
‘He never got on with his life.’ She drank, held the whisky in her mouth for a moment and then swallowed. ‘Mind you, that wasn’t necessarily his fault. The male condition.’ She turned away. ‘You can’t help it.’
‘What condition?’
She didn’t choose to hear me. ‘But I suppose I owe Alice something, so we’ll do without the explanations.’
‘Why do you owe Alice?’
She looked straight at me and said, ‘I won’t ask you any questions if you don’t ask me any. No explanations for no secrets.’
‘I—’
‘Good,’ she said, and when we’d finished our drink she showed me to my room.
It was freezing in there. She had the room over the kitchen, mine was over the front room.
‘I didn’t get a chance to air it,’ she said. It smelt of damp sugar, an old cake tin, dust. I stood at the window and looked out. ‘Nice view out there,’ she said. ‘You’ve got that.’ She patted her hair all over. ‘You’ll see it in the morning.’
‘I can’t wait,’ I said.
She looked at me. ‘Are you being funny?’
‘Me?’ I said.
The night was solid, but I could see the silhouettes of gently swaying trees. In the distance, the horizon was split into two curves that joined in the middle. Marjorie pointed to some sheets and blankets on a table. ‘I put them out,’ she said.
‘Thanks,’ I said.
‘You know how to make a bed?’
‘Of course.’
‘Good. Then when you’ve done it you can peel me some potatoes.’
‘Potatoes?’
‘In the kitchen.’
She left me on my own. I shivered. There were pictures around the walls of the room - one of an old woman praying by a window, and another of a cat surrounded by mice. Some of the mice were pulling the cat’s whiskers, but it had a scheming look in its eyes, a big bushy tail and strong stocky legs.
We ate late. She told me she’d get me fixed up with boots and a decent jacket in the morning. She had a lot of stuff in a cupboard under the stairs. ‘Trousers too,’ she said. ‘But we’ll have to get the boots in town. What size are you?’
‘Nine.’
‘We’ll go to Bridport.’
She had gone to bed and I was sitting on mine when the phone rang. It was half ten. I heard her get out of bed, open her door and walk along the corridor. I put my head around my door.
‘What a time to phone,’ she said.
‘Shall I get it?’
She stopped and looked at me. Her face was inches from mine, and softer than before.
The landing was dark. One of the cats was sitting outside my room. ‘Certainly not,’ she said, and went down the stairs. When she reached the hall, the phone stopped ringing. ‘Typical,’ she said. I watched her come back up.
‘It might have been Alice,’ I said.
‘I wouldn’t be surprised.’
‘Maybe I should phone her and see…’
‘To Brighton?’
‘That’s—’
‘No one’, she said, ‘phones Brighton from this house,’ and she disappeared into her room. She was wearing a navy blue towelling dressing gown with a red dragon embroidered on the back; like a Hell’s Angel, or a Japanese priest.
When I undressed, got into bed and turned the light out, I began to feel my situation.
I couldn’t remember ever sleeping in a room that wasn’t illuminated in some way - even a crack of light between curtains was enough, but in that room there was nothing but total darkness. Even when my eyes got used to the light I couldn’t see anything beyond the faint outline of the bottom of the bed, and the wardrobe and chest of drawers against the opposite wall.
I started the night on my back; spent ten minutes like that and then turned on to my left side. I kept the blankets pulled to my chin. Breathing made my lips cold.
The house was quiet. Marjorie made no squeaks with her bed, the dust gathered in the loft, the Rayburn was damped down and the cats were out. Nothing moved in the freezing front room, or in the hall, on the stairs or outside my room on the landing. Outside, the trees breathed through their leaves and needles.
I turned on to my right side, towards the door. I never get to sleep quickly. I tried to imagine a blackboard. I stood in front of it with a piece of chalk, and the idea is to cover the board with chalk. Usually, you fall asleep before you finish the job. I never have.
Instead, I tried to remember the full names of the 1966 England World Cup squad. I got ten full names, but couldn’t remember Cohen’s Christian name. I know Geoff Hurst (hat-trick) is in the motor trade now, and one of them is an undertaker. I always said, ‘Even if that goal wasn’t a goal, we still won the game.’ In 1966 we were living in Deptford. We’d bought our first television and invited neighbours to watch the match on it. We were appreciated in our street. I remember looking outside at half-time and the city was deserted, as if people had been hit by a mystery virus that had struck the planet without warning from Outer Space. I was ten.
I strung thoughts and memories, turned over and lay on my back, and slowly felt my eyelids get heavier.
I slept for a few hours before I was suddenly woken up by the sound of a loud cough. A second followed, and then a twenty-second burst. I got out of bed, and thought I’d fetch Marjorie a glass of water at least.
I opened the bedroom door and left the coughing, which started again, behind me. I turned around. It came from outside. I stood with the doorknob in my hand. The milkman.
I went to the window and looked out. The sky was beginning to lighten, and for the first time I could make out some detail of the landscape around the house. I looked down. There was no milkman in the drive.
The house was totally surrounded by trees. Trees disappeared in every direction and as far as the two sloping hills on the horizon. I could see that most had been planted in ranks, but others were in disorganised clumps. Some still had their leaves, others were bare. I couldn’t identify any of them.
The sky was the colour of a train window, and looked thin. The cough started up again. It came from the other side of a high wall that ran beyond Marjorie’s property. I focused on this, but couldn’t see anything moving. Marjorie’s garden was a lawn, a few flower-beds, half-dug vegetable plots and a terrace. I could see the corner of a greenhouse and a wheelbarrow parked against a brick shed.
The coughing went on for a few minutes, but I didn’t go out to find out who was watching me peek between the curtains. I closed them again, and went back to bed, but didn’t sleep.
3
When I was six, I was approached by a man who wanted to touch my private parts. He said he was a doctor, so I asked him, ‘Why aren’t you in a hospital?’
‘I’m a special sort of doctor,’ he said. ‘I work outdoors, making sure that little boys and girls are being looked after.’
‘My mum and dad look after me,’ I said.
‘Where are they?’
‘Home, I suppose.’
‘Where’s home?’
I pointed down the street. ‘Past the shops,’ I said.
‘Would you like to come in my car and let me show you my home?’ he said.
I didn’t know. He looked like anyone you might meet in the street. He was wearing a smart brown suit, a shirt and tie, and had a coat over his arm. It was a warm spring day.
I said, ‘I’m not meant to go with strangers.’
He said, ‘I’m not a stranger.’ He smiled.
‘Who are you?’
‘I told you. I’m a special sort of doctor. And I’ve got a television…’
‘A television?’
‘Yes. Have you got one?’
I shook my head. No one had a television in our street. I’d seen one on in a shop, and looked behind it to see the person, but it was magic. It was joined to the person in it by a wire. The special sort of doctor smiled at me when he saw me wondering what to do. He showed me a Mars bar.
‘Which is your car?’ I said.
‘Come and have a look,’ he said.
It was a Ford Popular. I touched its headlights. ‘How fast does it go?’ I said.
‘I’ll show you’, he said, ‘if you want. Have you been in a car before?’
‘No.’
I was a pretty boy; the only trace I still have is my dimples. I had lots of fine fair hair when I was six. The special sort of doctor ruffled it. I didn’t mind. ‘Come on,’ he said, and opened the door for me.
I got in. The seats were comfortable. He got in too. Before he started it, he put his hand on my knee and squeezed it. I didn’t mind him being my friend.
He had put the key in the slot, and was about to turn it when I heard BANG, and saw my dad’s face, upside down, looking in the windscreen. He had jumped on to the roof of the car and was staring in at the special sort of doctor. He had a brick. He was fit. The Ford Popular was a very narrow car. He yelled, ‘Get out!’ at me.
I got out. Mum was there. She led me away as Dad beat the doctor up. I never watch television without thinking about paedophiles. I don’t like Fords. I always lived in cities. I never learnt that you can’t trust most people.
Marjorie was up at seven, and got me up at half past. She had breakfast on the table.
‘Out your lazy bed!’ she called around the door. I was exhausted. The coughing had stopped for an hour, but then started again. It stopped the moment I saw her. ‘Tea’s hot!’
I sat in the kitchen with my back to the Rayburn, eating muesli. ‘Most important meal of the day!’ she said. ‘Fill the old tank!’ She slapped her stomach and grinned keenly.
I nodded.
‘You normally this quiet?’ she said. She was wearing a red cravat.
‘In the mornings.’
‘You liven up later?’
‘Sometimes…’
She poured me a cup of tea, and when one of the cats rubbed her legs, put a saucer of milk on the floor. ‘Didn’t you sleep well?’
‘No. And last night there was this coughing. Did you—’
‘Spencer’s sheep,’ she said. ‘I let him put them in the orchard. Did they bother you?’
‘It wasn’t sheep!’
‘Gregory,’ Marjorie said, and put some toast on. ‘Have you lived in the country before?’
I shook my head.
‘It was sheep,’ she said. ‘I’ll show you them later,’ and as if to agree, the coughing started again. ‘There!’ It sounded just like an old man.
Bridport started where a sign said WELCOME TO BRIDPORT, and when I stood at the traffic lights by the town hall, I could look in any direction and see where it finished. I was wearing a German army surplus parka, and Italian army surplus trousers. They still smelt of Marjorie’s cupboard under the stairs, but they were warm and I was grateful for that. She dragged me into a shoe shop.
‘Boots!’ she said to an assistant.
I got a black pair, but she didn’t make me wear them out. I’d never owned a pair of rubber boots in my life. It was half twelve. ‘I need a drink,’ I said.
‘Good idea,’ she said.
I insisted on paying. ‘You bought the boots,’ I said. ‘Do you want something to eat?’
‘Why not?’
We ordered mushrooms on toast.
The pub had a low ceiling, brown paintwork, an exposed kitchen and was crowded. While we ate, Marjorie said, ‘Spring’ll be here before you know it.’
‘So what?’ I said.
‘So I could do with a man about the place.’
I laughed.
She put one hundred pounds on the table and pushed it towards me. I looked at it.
‘Go on.’
I put my hand on it.
‘It would be a good idea,’ she said.
It was the first honest money I’d seen in months. She was the most persuasive old woman I’d met. She said that chopping wood, digging the garden and clearing an area behind the house was worth one hundred pounds.
When the mushrooms came they were the size of beer mats and sprinkled with chopped garlic. I scraped my garlic on to the side of my plate.
‘Don’t you want it?’ she said.
‘No.’
She scooped it up with her knife. ‘It’s the best bit. Good for the circulation too.’
‘I don’t like the taste.’
‘Don’t worry about the taste! People always worry about the taste of things, or the look of things! It’s what things do that matters.’
‘Everything does something,’ I said.
‘Not everything,’ she said. I didn’t argue.
The hundred pounds sat between us. The toast was saturated with juice. I picked mine up with my fingers. ‘OK,’ I said.
‘Well done!’ She beamed. Her eyes were blue. The blister on the right one shone. She showed her teeth when she smiled. They were big and white.
‘Just a week though,’ I said. ‘I can’t—’
‘A week’s fine,’ she said. ‘You want another?’
‘OK.’
She bought a double whisky for both of us. ‘Something to celebrate’, she said. We chinked glasses and she downed hers in one. It was a Tuesday.
‘To us,’ I said.
She smiled. ‘Us,’ she said. ‘That’s fine.’
There was a huge pile of wood stacked outside the kitchen door. She showed me how to sharpen the axe, and demonstrated the chopping technique.
She put a block on the ground in front of her, balanced a log on it, stood with her legs apart and swung the axe with a relaxed, easy motion. I stood well back.
In the daylight the forest was as open as it could be, given its feel. We were working in a yard behind the house. This was fenced; the trees started twenty yards away, beyond the vegetable garden. They were evergreens, but grey, planted in straight long ranks. When I looked down the ranks, I could feel the silence deepen there so that at the last tree there was absolute, dead silence. I hate not being able to hear cars. I hadn’t heard a car since we had got back from Bridpo
rt. When Marjorie said, ‘Are you going to stand there all day or work for your living?’ I thought about Dad.
‘No,’ I said.
She gave me the axe.
I spat on my hands, straightened a log on the block, aimed, swung and missed. She laughed. ‘You’ll get the hang of it,’ she said. ‘Do that lot and maybe I’ll get the kettle on.’
‘All of them?’
‘It’s called work.’
The pile was enormous. I chopped until I couldn’t hold the axe any more. I got blisters at the roots of all my fingers. I noticed Marjorie had been watching from the kitchen window with her face like a moon. She opened the window and called, ‘That’ll do, Gregory. Come and have a cup of tea. I’ll show you the wheelbarrow later.’
‘Wheelbarrow?’
‘Yes. I want them stored before supper time. And it’s getting dark. Come on.’
I should have bought some gloves in Bridport but wouldn’t complain. Dad never got on with his life, but he never complained, and taught me to work when you’re paid. I don’t want to cheat anyone. I’ve never committed a crime. I could have, but I need to be honest. I just can’t see myself past go.
I was hopeless at school, and easily led. I was the one who didn’t mind doing the dirty work for the ones who’d done the planning, like stealing confiscated items back from a teacher’s desk, or putting glue on the globe. I failed. I was beaten. I never had ambition. While boys and girls around me decided to become gas fitters, nurses, air traffic controllers and joiners, I developed a vacant look. I kept this on my face for the last two years of school and the first year after it. I was a walking badge.
Sometimes I did labouring - mixing cement, shifting bricks - mostly I signed on. Dad supported me. Mum didn’t complain. She’d had twenty-five years to get used to Dad, and had been expecting it with me. In some ways she looked forward to seeing it happen, so she could be reminded of her courting days.
I barrowed all the logs to a shed - it was dark by the time I finished.
Marjorie had no outside light. The night was pitch, and very cold. As I stacked the last logs, I heard a distant cry like a child’s. It hung in the air for a moment, and then was carried away.
