Seven Tales and Alexander

by H. E. Bates

  ‘Don’t you go to church, either?’

  His face screwed itself up with contempt. ‘Church?’ he said.

  Alexander was impressed by this also, and would have been glad to say how he too hated church, and that he did not understand the psalms or the sermon and could never remember the responses, and how he agreed with his Uncle Bishop that it was all popery and humbug, but suddenly the man drew out a bottle from somewhere and took an immense drink, a drink so long that it seemed to the boy that the bottle must have been emptied over and over again. When it ended the man stretched himself, licked his lips several times and said suddenly:

  ‘You look as if you’ve never seen a man drink. Why, my dad, if he were alive, poor old devil that I should ever say so, he’d tell you how he used to drink ten pints of a morning, mowing grass …’

  He squinted and nodded with all his cunning, and then got nimbly to his feet.

  Something at frequent intervals had been troubling Alexander, and now as the man prepared to leave him he felt an overwhelming desire to ask another question. And almost against his will he said:

  ‘Do you know the people over there in the wood?’

  ‘Which wood?’ said the man.

  ‘There’s a little house,’ began Alexander, and suddenly he felt a strange ache as he visualised it all, ‘you can hardly see it, the trees are so thick. There’s an old woman there and someone used to live there named Pollyanna, only she’s married and bedridden now, because of her legs. And there’s an old man—he’s had an operation. It’s over there, not very far. We passed it as we came this morning.’

  All through this the boy’s voice trembled and there lurked in his mind a picture of the young girl. Overcome by a suspicion that every word he spoke must reveal his inner feelings he began to stammer also. Anxiety and joy set up a conflict within him.

  ‘In the wood, you say? The wood .… but which wood?’ said the man. ‘There’s so many woods.’

  ‘Over there,’ said Alexander, almost desperately.

  ‘No, I can’t say. Lord Almighty, there’s a good many people I don’t know—thousands!’

  Suddenly he cocked his eye for the last time at Alexander and walking very like a sharp little dog down the narrow path, passed from sight.

  When Alexander returned to the high bank overlooking the disused stone-pit his Uncle Bishop was stretching himself after his sleep.

  ‘Cover the plums with a sack or two,’ he began saying. ‘That’s it, that’s it. The basket we’d better take down with us. Drink before you put the bottle away, drink, drink!’

  ‘Where are we going?’ asked the boy after drinking some herb-beer.

  ‘You take the baskets while I bring the ladder. Make straight for the big pear-tree. Straight on, you couldn’t miss it.’

  Under an immense pear-tree, on which the fruit hung almost like ropes of onions, the boy presently set down the baskets. A thick, angry hum of wasps met him, and some birds flew up with startled cries from among the branches. Half-rotted pears lay about in the grass under the tree, bored by wasps and pecked at by birds, and a faint odour of what he thought was like wine or balm met him as he walked round and round the tree, crushing pears with his boots and disturbing wasps in his anxiety to find a pear to taste.

  ‘Try one, try one,’ suddenly urged his uncle, who had come up behind, a little breathless, with the ladder.

  Gaining courage from this, Alexander snatched a fine yellow pear from the tree and crushed his teeth into its unblemished skin. For ever afterwards a recollection of the rare flavour, the strange, wine-like odour and honeyed juice of this pear remained with him. His uncle had seized a pear also and was sucking it with quick gasps of pleasure. Even more excited than Alexander about the fruit he kept opening his eyes extremely wide, until they shone like blue glass marbles.

  Neither the man nor the boy for some time uttered a word. At last Uncle Bishop said:

  ‘You must put a few in a bag for yourself. Not yet, not yet. Later on. And don’t let the old tit see you do it.’

  Alexander neither did nor said anything in answer to this, but remained spell-bound for some moments under a sudden notion which had flashed into his head.

  And throughout the afternoon this same idea of taking something, perhaps a plum or pear, as a gift to the girl never ceased to attract and trouble him. Screened by the thick leaves from view, he would sometimes gather a pear, rub it to a polish on his shirt and put it aside very religiously and tenderly. If however a bruise or crack appeared, he would drop it, feeling a sense of acute loss, into the basket. The afternoon slipped by. Once as he was gathering a pear from a high branch he heard a rustling in the grass beneath him. He started and looked down to see four or five dogs snuffing about the baskets. He heard the old woman coming, too. Her snail-like approach and the remembrance of her keen sight made it agonising for him to sit in the tree without movement or sound.

  Then she carried on a conversation with his uncle which seemed to him to go on and on, everlastingly.

  ‘Oh! the wasps, you see the destruction they cause,’ she wailed. ‘The fruit all eaten away! If it goes on like this I shall have nothing. Dear, dear, just look at it. Just look. It drives me out of my mind to think about it. What shall I do? Come away, Pretty, come away, naughty creature. There’s nothing for you. Oh! dear, dear. If it weren’t for the labour I’d have all the trees down, I’d have them all down to-morrow, and there’d be an end of it all.’

  All her troubles and griefs had to be poured into Uncle Bishop’s ear. Over and over again she complained and sighed, until Alexander felt that he must drop off the branch with exhaustion and suspense.

  Worst of all, she at last looked round and asked in a quaking, suspicious voice:

  ‘Where’s the little boy?’

  ‘Oh! he’s gone off,’ bellowed Uncle Bishop. ‘Lord knows where, but he’s not far away. Down among the rabbits I shouldn’t wonder.’

  ‘Look after him,’ she implored. ‘Don’t let him touch them. I wouldn’t have them touched, not for anything. No one’s ever killed one, and no one ever shall, I can’t bear it.’

  ‘They’ll eat you out of your bed before very long!’ muttered Uncle Bishop brutally, not loud enough for her to hear.

  ‘Don’t let him touch them, don’t let him touch them,’ was all she said.

  A moment later she had begun to shuffle away, all the dogs trailing in a waddling, abject string behind her skirts. A long time elapsed before she passed out of sight and the boy had courage to move again. When he descended at last and looked about him it seemed as if the sun were already lower in the sky.

  III

  When evening began to come on at last, Alexander and his uncle carried back to the house all the fruit they had gathered, and under the supervision of the old lady, who stood tottering a little distance off, weighed and measured it, Alexander writing down the figures with extreme care on a sheet of paper. All the dogs and the white cat were also there, staring like wooden things or dragging themselves about the grass on their bellies, never running or barking. The little horse seemed to have grown impatient and stood restlessly stamping and frisking against the evening flies. The boy shared this impatience, fixing his mind constantly on the time when they must pass through the wood, longing desperately to depart.

  ‘Does the little boy understand figures?’ the old lady wanted to know. ‘He won’t make mistakes?’

  ‘Bless you, he goes to school!’ shouted Uncle Bishop, with pride and force. ‘What he doesn’t know isn’t worth knowing. Nowadays things are different. They’re taught everything, every mortal thing you can wish. Why, he learns Latin now—Latin! God bless your heart, he could write all the names of these apples and pears down for you in Latin.’

  ‘What good would that do?’

  ‘A good deal, you bet your life, a good deal. The boy wouldn’t do it for nothing. He’s got a head on him—you see for yourself. Turn round, my boy. There, you can see now—his head’s as big as a pump
kin.’

  Uncle Bishop never lost an opportunity of showing how proud he was of Alexander, and to complete the force of this pride he often exaggerated and frequently told lies. And as he turned round in order to display his head, Alexander felt extremely foolish and half-scowled in vexation. He longed for his uncle to pay his accounts and ached for the sound of wheels again. But his uncle dallied a little longer, and patting the boy’s head, at last said to him:

  ‘Now, you go over and show the lady what you’ve written. Go along.’

  Alexander held out the paper in silence.

  ‘I see, I see,’ she said, squinting and trembling more than ever. ‘Good lad, he writes well.’ And for a long time he had to stand at her side, writing down all the figures his uncle shouted, vexed and uneasy. During this time he discovered that a strange smell hung about her, compound of preserved cloth, dogs, camphor, horse-beans and something dry and musty. And so much fruit had to be weighed and accounted for that he felt at last as if he had breathed this queer odour all his life.

  The sun had plunged behind the largest tree before his uncle and the old woman vanished into the house to settle the accounts. All the dogs disappearing also, he was left alone and sat on a little wooden bench with great relief, wondering what time it could be and how soon a start would be made. Then shortly his face assumed an intense, meditative expression.

  ‘Shall I get the apricot?’ he thought. ‘Could I go back into the garden without being seen?’

  And presently, followed by the indistinct voices of his uncle and the old woman, he edged away and strolled in an indifferent manner down the path under the trees. His heart seemed to swell, beating with ponderous thumps. All things were flagged and hushed. An army of shadows advanced to meet him. His footsteps awoke echoes infinitely, making him turn round in fear, as if other footsteps were following him. Mysterious objects under the trees made him start and hasten too.

  Suddenly he became aware of footsteps coming not from behind, but before. His impulse was to turn and run, but for some strange reason he ceased walking.

  Then a figure appeared. It was Smack. Approaching very slowly, he began to say as soon as he saw Alexander:

  ‘Oh, it’s you, it’s you, is it? God strike me, it looked like the old woman.’ The boy remained dumb, simply gazing at the sack of either apples or potatoes that the man was carrying.

  ‘You’re like my son Squint, you are,’ Smack went on, ‘he creeps about on hands and knees and gets atop of you before you hear a sound. Why, I’ve seen him drop on a hare like you might drop on a beetle. Perhaps you wouldn’t believe that? Well, believe it or not, but there it is. He’s a miracle .… “Squint,” I says to him one day, “you can drop on hares, but could you drop on a fox?” He looks at me and says “Could I drop on a fox?”—just like that. That’s all. He’s like that. But next day there was a meet. Full cry they came across from these woods, all the pinks and the ladies thinking they would be in at the kill, and the dogs running like mad. I was there, with Squint, behind a hedge. All of a sudden there’s a gallows of a row, and God bless my poor old mother, the fox walked through the hedge. Dainty! I never saw a wedding where there was anything so dainty. And there she stood. She never moved. She just looked at Squint, and Squint—what did he do? God strike me, but he dropped on her, he dropped on her. And when the hunt came up, there he stood, there stood our Squint with his arms round the fox’s neck .…’

  And once again Alexander was carried away by the cunning of it all. Almost hypnotised by nods and winks he did not know what to say. But suddenly Smack asked him sharply:

  ‘Where’s the old woman, eh?’

  ‘She’s in the house, settling the accounts up,’ stammered Alexander.

  ‘In the house, eh?’

  ‘They’ve just gone in.’ And abruptly he gathered courage to ask: ‘You didn’t remember the name of the people in the wood, did you, after all?’

  ‘Name of the people in the wood?’

  ‘There’s an old man, and two women who …’ began the boy.

  But Smack shook his head, this time almost sorrowfully, as if he hated not being able to conjure up some answer.

  ‘Perhaps I know them,’ he said at last. ‘There’s thousands of people I do know, thousands. I daresay I know them.’

  ‘There’s a girl,’ persisted Alexander.

  ‘A girl?’ the other repeated. ‘A girl?’ And suddenly he managed to attach to that word something incredulous, cynical, mocking, and his thin lips and eyes squeezed themselves into a repellent smile.

  Directly afterwards he laughed and sidled off, and Alexander found himself walking rapidly towards the wall bearing the apricot-tree, no longer afraid, but driven by a feeling of desperation and wretchedness. All his sweetest, most tender emotions felt wounded. It seemed to him monstrous that what aroused in him elation and joy should have struck Smack as contemptible and petty. He did not understand and felt that it was all horrible, that in some strange way he had betrayed a mysterious and precious trust. Only the intensity of his own beliefs comforted him.

  He hurried on. He resolved suddenly to snatch the apricot quickly, and, regardless of everything, run as fast as possible back to the house again.

  In the dying sunlight the apricot-trees had a rich, luxuriant, exclusive look about them. On the third tree hung a very special apricot he had noted several times. He plucked it, quickly and gently, and began to run.

  He emerged from among the trees just in time to hear the voice of his uncle begin impatiently shouting:

  ‘Where are you? Where are you? Boy! Where have you been? Here, here .… tell us what ninety-three pence make. Ninety-three pence … what? Come here, you’d better come inside. Take your cap off. And remember if the old tit asks you anything shout in her ear. Shout! Now make haste, go along the passage.’

  Alexander was hurried into a gloomy passage, where he noted a strong odour of damp and mice and saw several pairs of antlers branched from the walls and a stuffed white owl staring down at him. When at a furtive whisper from his uncle he entered a door on the right, he saw the old lady, now with spectacles on, sitting alone at a shining oval table. A good deal of money, with three or four dark red leather bags and heaps of bills were strewn about. Again the odour of damp and mice met him. All the furniture was of pale yellow wood, with faded blue damask upholstery and many cushions. Little pairs of milky green and pink glass vases stood on a white mantelpiece, like small dolls preening themselves in the large mirror behind. Something dead, old-fashioned and sad lurked about the room, and to the boy it seemed full of memories, of the lingering presences of men and women who had once lived, talked and perhaps sung and danced there. He noticed that the walls were covered with old portraits, every other portrait looking like a picture of the Saviour, except that all the figures were wearing bowler hats and deerstalkers and white silk neck-ties.

  ‘Go in, go in,’ urged his uncle, giving him little impatient punches from behind.

  He advanced and stood silently before the table, staring at the heaps of money.

  Suddenly his uncle began to say at the top of his voice:

  ‘Here’s the boy. He’ll manage it. It’ll be put right before you can wink.’

  The old lady turned and searched Alexander’s face with sharp squints. ‘Mind you do, and don’t make mistakes,’ she said.

  ‘That’s all right, you trust him,’ bawled his uncle. ‘Now, my son, tell the lady what ninety-three pence are.’

  Alexander, a little bewildered, had to think a moment before replying. ‘Seven and ninepence,’ he said at last.

  ‘Shout!’

  ‘Seven and nine-pence,’ he shouted.

  ‘Seven and nine-pence?’ she repeated. ‘Are you sure? You haven’t made a mistake, have you? If you think you haven’t made a mistake, write it down .… just there .… write it down.’

  Alexander took from her shaking fingers a small black pen, with which he wrote down the figures seven and nine with laborious care in an ol
d, dirty book. As he wrote, her stiff sleeves brushed against him and he was continually afraid that she would feel or smell or in some other way divine that he had the apricot about him. All the little tremors and starts of her body alarmed him.

  ‘Has he written it?’ She croaked suspiciously after a silence. ‘I can’t see.’

  ‘Yes, he’s written it!’ proclaimed his uncle. ‘You can trust him. What you want is a light.’ Twilight was rapidly creeping through the room. ‘You’re not likely to see. Haven’t you got some sort of a lamp?’ he asked.

  ‘Wha-a-t?’

  ‘A lamp! You want some sort of a light on the subject or else you won’t know shillings from ha’pence.’

  ‘What does he say?’ she turned and asked Alexander in a puzzled voice.

  But this was never answered, for suddenly his Uncle Bishop snatched out his matches and struck a light, letting it flare up in his fingers. The old woman stood at once petrified, all her features white and stiff with horror. Then she began to struggle, as if choking, her eyes bulged, her hands waved hither and thither, she tried to stand up, her head looked as if it must totter off with rage, and then at last she croaked out in a terrible voice:

  ‘What are you doing, what are you doing? Put it out at once! Oh! you wicked man, you wicked man! You mustn’t do it, I won’t have it! Put it out at once!’

  Her voice was thin and rasping. ‘Put it out, you wicked man! Put it out!’ she kept saying in fury.

  Uncle Bishop’s mouth fell open, and without a word he pinched out the flame with his fingers. There was silence. The boy dared not stir.

  Then the old lady began another struggle: she tried to calm herself, to sit down, to administer reprimands, but only her infuriated trembling went on accompanied by a strange half-hissing, half-rattling sound. Gradually she coiled herself up, trembling less and less, like a spring, until she sank into the chair again. As she became quieter the silence seemed to become more and more intense. A little smoke wandered through the air and the pungent odour of it spread about the room. But the boy hardly dared to look or smell.