The Kingdom by the Sea

by Robert Westall

  As they must have cut Don’s paw last night. The dog was lying looking at him, still half-soaked, its fur in great wet lumps. It was licking its paw, and red blood showed.

  Jesus, he’d got Don up last night. How on earth was he going to get him down? The sand looked dizzying miles away…

  Shivering, he dragged on his damp clothes.

  It was only then that he realised the precious attachè case had gone.

  He didn’t even remember dropping it, in the fight against drowning. All the insurance policies, and all the ration books, and the little bottle of brandy. The last of Mam and Dad and Dulcie. And Dad’s watch, that he only wore for best…

  Still, he was thirsty, so he climbed down and had a drink. It was such a calm, warm, lovely morning… but for once the lovely morning didn’t work. He just kept thinking about the attachè case and feeling totally guilty and miserable.

  Don barked at him, hopelessly, absurdly, from the door of the watchtower. How was he going to get him down?

  And yet that solved itself so easily. A man with a horse and cart, coming across the sands.

  “Hey, kid, what’s that dog doing up there?”

  “He’s my dog. We got caught by the tide last night.”

  “Want me to fetch him down for you?”

  “Please.”

  He was a huge man. The biggest man Harry had ever seen. He just climbed up the ladder, spoke to the dog, heaved him over his shoulder, and climbed down with him. On his shoulder, Don didn’t look much bigger than a fox-terrier.

  “You wanta get that dog’s paw seen to. It’s a bad cut.”

  Then he was off across the sands again.

  A miracle. But it didn’t make Harry feel any better. He began to worry about getting Don to a vet. Felt for the banknotes he always carried in the right-hand pocket of his raincoat…

  A shapeless sodden wad of green paper, that he had to squeeze the water out of. He tried to peel off a note, and it began to tear.

  He didn’t even feel like crying. He was beyond crying. He didn’t feel he had any tears left in him. He didn’t feel he had any blood left in him.

  But they had to get ashore. The man had told him he only had an hour.

  Half-way to the shore, he saw something brown and square in the middle of a rock-pool. It couldn’t possibly be… But it was. The attachè case. It was a morning for miracles. But strangely, that didn’t make him feel any better either. The miracles were coming too late. Especially as, when he picked up the attachè case, it was far too heavy and deluged water out of the corners.

  Inside, everything was sodden, ruined. But he wearily picked it up and plodded on.

  They reached the land. They went as far as the main road. But Don was limping worse and worse, so they went and sat down on the grass by the roadside. He got Don to show him his paw. The dog was very reluctant. The gash was still bleeding, and full of sand, muck and little stones. Don wouldn’t let him take the stones out; it must hurt too much.

  So they just went on sitting and sitting. While the tide came in, and began to go out again.

  Harry just felt that his own personal tide had gone out forever. It was never coming back. It was all no good. He had fought and schemed and walked and gathered sea-coal all these weeks, and now they were worse off than ever. It was no good trying any more. No matter how hard you fought everything just went wrong in the end. The chip shop at Tynemouth, the stay with Joseph, Artie, his own little pillbox, Lindisfarne, the further shore. All… useless. Look at Ada’s mother, all that adventure and cheerfulness and flying and climbing mountains, and now she was just a fat old lady falling downstairs and waiting to die.

  Everybody died in the end. He wished they’d drowned last night. By now, all his troubles would be over…

  Even the airman’s marvellous watch had stopped, the water-glass dewed with droplets.

  With that thought in mind, he fell asleep.

  He never noticed the man.

  The man had been noticing him for some time. He was in a tiny Austin Seven. He had passed once, and seen Harry sitting there. When he passed again, an hour later, Harry was still sitting in the same place.

  The man took much more interest this time.

  The third time the man drove past, Harry was lying on the grass verge asleep. And Don was sitting holding up his bloody paw helplessly, and watching the passing traffic.

  The man drove past Harry.

  Then stopped his car with a tiny squeal of brakes. He seemed to sit for a long time, hands on the wheel, as if he was having an inner argument with himself. Then he banged his hands on the steering wheel, as if he’d made up his mind to do something. Then he backed the car slowly to where Harry was lying. And got out.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Harry came awake in a blur. At first he thought he was in bed at home, and it was Mam shaking his shoulder. He opened his eyes, and there was this man’s face, a total stranger’s face, saying something he couldn’t understand. Over and over again.

  He looked round desperately. He was in the open air, in a totally strange place he couldn’t even remember coming to. Panic surged inside him. The man said the same thing again. And again. What was he saying?

  With a last despairing effort, Harry focused his concentration.

  “Your dog’s hurt,” said the man. “You must get him to a vet.

  He looked at the man’s face. The man flinched and looked away. At the sky. At the sea. Anywhere but at Harry. What a strange man…

  The man looked at him again; a fleeting, almost guilty glance. “Can I look at the dog’s paw?” he said, looking at Don.

  “Yes,” said Harry. He couldn’t understand this man at all. Maybe Don would understand him. He trusted Don’s judgement. If Don let the man touch him, the man must be all right.

  Don let the man touch him. Let him stroke his ears. The man talked to Don in a gentle voice, calling him “boy”. Then he raised the hurt paw gently. Again, Don let him. The man looked at the paw, then let go of it. Don licked the man’s face, with his long pinky-purple tongue. The man came back, his face serious.

  “We must get him to a vet. That gash won’t heal itself. He could lose his foot. He could die.”

  “OK!” said Harry. He didn’t understand anything except about Don’s paw.

  The man helped Harry to his feet. His touch was soft, like a woman’s; his hands were strong enough, but they trembled. Harry knew the man was terribly excited about something.

  The man put Harry into the seat next to the driver’s seat. Then he pulled forward the driver’s seat, and piled all Harry’s gear on to the back seat, The stuff dripped all over the cracked leather of the back seat, but Harry was beyond caring. Then the man coaxed Don into the back seat, next to Harry’s stuff, got in himself, and they were off. Not very fast. The car was little and old, and the engine sounded weak, as if it might give out at any moment. The windscreen was all yellowed round the edges, and there was some kind of silver dial on the front of the bonnet. The man drove silently, keeping his eyes on the road. His hands were very white and tight on the wheel. All he said was, “That cut paw’s bad, very bad. We must get it seen to, straightaway.” He said it four times without looking at Harry at all. As if to himself.

  The vet’s was more reassuring. A big house with a big brass plate saying “John Harper MRCVS”, very highly polished, but with dried Brasso in the lettering. Inside, there was highly polished brown lino, and it smelt like a hospital.

  The vet came bristling in, in his white coat, which had pale pink washed-out stains down the front.

  “Now, now, what have we here?” He lifted Don on to the table, played with his ears a bit, then lifted the foot and said, “That’s a nasty one. How’d he get that?”

  “On an iron ladder,” said Harry in a very small voice. Then added, “Is he going to be all right?”

  “Be a big job,” said the vet. “I’ll have to chloroform him before I can see to it. And I’ll have to keep him in for a few days. He�
�ll have to be kept still.”

  Harry despaired. “How much will that cost?”

  “You can leave that to me,” said the man with the car. He gabbled it, like he was saying something shameful.

  “Bight, Mr Murgatroyd,” said the vet. There was something odd in his voice, as he said it. It wasn’t dislike. It was more pity. As if Mr Murgatroyd had a wooden leg, or was deformed or something. “Right then. We’d better get on with it straightaway. Sooner it’s done, the better.” And he picked up Don, and carried him away through an open door, without even giving Harry a chance to say goodbye. “Give me a call this evening, Mr Murgatroyd, and I’ll let you know how he’s got on.”

  And suddenly, Harry and Mr Murgatroyd were outside and back at the car. Without Don, Harry was suddenly terribly embarrassed. He could think of nothing to say, but went on staring at the little silver dial on the bonnet of the car. Mr Murgatroyd didn’t seem to know what to say either. Then Harry reached in his raincoat pocket, and felt the wet wodge of notes.

  “I’ve got money,” he said. “Only it’s all stuck together.”

  “How’d you mean?” asked Mr Murgatroyd with a sudden burst of enthusiasm, as if he was glad he’d found something to say.

  Harry showed him. “If I wait till they’re dry, I might be able to…”

  “No, no,” said Mr Murgatroyd. “The way to separate them is to make them wetter. Come on, I’ll show you.” And he bundled Harry back into the car, as if there was nothing in his life at all half so important as separating some banknotes.

  It was quite a long drive, full of twists and turns. Long enough to convince Harry he could never find his way back to Don on his own. Then they were arriving at a big grey stone farmhouse, with windows each side of a blue door. But the man drove up the cobbles at the side, to the back door.

  There was a large black and white cat sitting on the back doorstep. She came forward to greet Mr Murgatroyd with a loud miaow, her bushy black tail vertical. Mr Murgatroyd bent to stroke her, and started a long conversation.

  “Dinnertime, is it, Mrs Murgatroyd? Not really, you know. You’re half an hour early, you scheming puss. You won’t go to Heaven, telling such lies. You’ll go down there, where the great Dog will gobble you up. Why don’t you go and catch your own dinner for once? Plenty of fat mice round the barns. Only you’d rather sit in the sun and be a kept woman…”

  And so on, and so forth, as if he was never going to stop. And the cat talked back to him, non-stop too, in a series of prooks and miaows, striding backwards and forwards, while he gently pulled her tail, until Harry could have died with embarrassment.

  Then Mr Murgatroyd clapped his hand to his forehead, said, “Banknotes”, and dashed indoors. He filled an enamel basin in the sink from the cold tap, and took the solid wodge of notes and dropped them in. Harry watched anxiously, while they just floated, waiting for them to dissolve into pure sludge at any moment. Fourteen pounds ten shillings; four weeks’ wages for a grown man. He wondered if Mr Murgatroyd was some kind of lunatic. The silence between them deepened and deepened.

  “Fancy a mug of tea?” asked Mr Murgatroyd suddenly.

  “Yes, please.” Well, at least that got rid of him and his terrible silence. It was all right while he was clinking and bustling round the kitchen.

  “Right,” said Mr Murgatroyd. Harry turned, and saw a tray set not only with a mug of tea, but a neat embroidered little traycloth, and a plate with three huge slices of fruitcake.

  “Help yourself to sugar.”

  Harry stirred in three spoonfuls; the sight of all that cake made his stomach erupt as if it was full of fizzing soda-pop.

  “Eat up all the cake if you want. It’s Christmas cake really. It needs finishing up.” Mr Murgatroyd settled into a chair, and watched Harry eat. Why was he watching so closely? As if he was counting every crumb. He’d said it could all be eaten up… he was a jumpy person, sitting on the edge of his chair. Harry suddenly grew ashamed because his hands weren’t all that clean.

  “Sorry, my hands are dirty…”

  “Don’t worry about that,” said Mr Murgatroyd. “Don’t worry about that at all. Not important. Not important.” Then he got up and dashed from the room, as if he’d been shot. Through the window, Harry saw him talking to the cat again. Then, the next time he looked, Mr Murgatroyd had got hold of a spade and was frantically digging up a patch of garden.

  Harry finished all the cake; even gathered the crumbs together with his finger-end and ate them. Then he drained the tea to the last drop. And still felt ravenously hungry. But it was all gone. So he drifted over to the window above the sink. Through the window, he could see Mr Murgatroyd had finished digging the patch of earth, and was now frantically nailing up a bit of fence.

  Then he looked down.

  A miracle. Three pound notes had floated free; they were nearly transparent with wet, but clear of the wodge. As he looked, another one began to curl free of the wodge… Mr Murgatroyd wasn’t as mad as he seemed. Harry tried to lift one of the floating notes out of the water. It tore nearly all the way across.

  “No, no,” said Mr Murgatroyd, appearing suddenly at his elbow. “A fish-slice and blotting paper.”

  He had come in so silently, Harry jumped a foot in the air. His heart still seemed to be pounding as he watched Mr M. fish out the last note safely.

  “Put them by the fire. By the fire. Face upwards. Then even if they stick to the blotting paper, the bank manager can still read the signature, and will give you a new one.”

  Harry had an awful vision of himself walking into a bank…

  “Don’t worry,” said Mr M. kindly. “I’ll take them to the bank for you in the morning.”

  “Thanks.” He gave Mr M. a smile.

  “Don’t thank me. No need for thanks.” Mr M.’s eyes were everywhere but Harry’s face. “Anything else you want dried out - the stuff in the car - get it for you.” He fled again, and returned panting with all the stuff. “Get you a clothes-horse - then you can see to things yourself. I’ll make up the fire - good fire, good fire.” Then he was off outdoors again.

  Harry hung what he could over the old wooden clothes-horse. He laid the contents of the attachè case, and the case itself, out on the clippie rug before the fire, where they steamed gently. Then there was nothing to do. He watched Mr M. out of the window. Leading a pair of goats past the gate; feeding a small flock of geese, and talking, talking to them. Mr M. seemed to talk to everything that moved. Harry wondered if he was barmy, like old Joseph. He didn’t look barmy. Tall and thin, with a grey nibbled moustache and short-cut hair. His clothes were worn, but he looked very clean and neat. And he did everything very efficiently round the farm, and what he did seemed to make sense.

  Then there were all the books. Lots of bookshelves. More books piled neatly in the corners of the room. Big serious books, mainly history, but some poetry too. And a pile of war-magazines, in strict order of date, so that Harry hardly dared touch them. But the last one was badly out of date - six months old, and the top was thick with dust.

  He suddenly felt very tired again. He curled up in the big armchair by the fire, with the last magazine. He remembered it from home; he and Dad had bought the same magazine.

  But the last copy was a miserable one. January 1942, and the sinking of the Repulse and Prince of Wales by those Japanese bombers… had Mr M. stopped buying the magazine then, because it was such a miserable number, full of bad news? The news had got better since then. Since the Battle of Midway, the Japs were on the run…

  He slept.

  “Wakey, wakey,” said Mr M. “Teatime. It’s just bacon and eggs, but there’s plenty of it.”

  There was too. Two eggs and huge rashers of thick-cut bacon, swimming in their own golden grease. And a pile of thick-cut white bread. And butter with dewdrops coming out of it.

  “That’s a whole week’s ration,” gasped Harry “Two weeks’ rations.”

  “Not round here. I know the farmers. Plenty if you know the fa
rmers - I teach their sons. I don’t go short.”

  With a nervous flick of the eyes, Mr M. vanished behind a copy of Picture Post. A six-month-old copy of Picture Post. He seemed able to eat and read at the same time, though from the tilt of his grey head, visible above the magazine, he wasn’t getting on very well with the article he was reading.

  “Rang the vet,” he said, with his mouth full. “Your dog’s OK. Just coming round from the chloroform nicely. Vet says you can go and see him tomorrow - I’ll run you down there.”

  “Oh, thanks,” said Harry. “Thanks for being so kind.”

  A fit of coughing broke out behind Picture Post. It went on and on. It appeared a large morsel of food had gone down the wrong way. Mr M. dropped the magazine on to his greasy plate, and sat coughing helplessly, tears streaming down his face. Harry, alarmed he was going to choke to death, ran round and banged him firmly on the back.

  “Thanks,” said Mr M. when the coughing had subsided at last.

  Abruptly, the painful silence fell again. Harry had never known a silence like it. It was scarcely endurable. It hung in the room like a great dark threatening shadow. Making the tick of the clock far too loud. Every crack of the fire made you jump.

  “Fancy a walk?” said Mr M. abruptly. “I always have a walk before bed.”

  The clock on the wall said seven o’clock…

  Harry thought suddenly that Mr M. was having a fight with time itself. The same as he was having this terrible fight with silence. A silence that was choking him. Only… you couldn’t fight with time. You couldn’t fight with silence.

  It was as if… Harry struggled… as if there was another person in the house. An invisible person who was frightening Mr M. out of his wits, using the weapons of time and silence.

  Only that was mad. A mad thought. Was Mr M. mad? Or was he going mad himself? Not a nice thought either way…

  “Yes, I’ll come for a walk,” said Harry.

  Mr M. set off at a great pace, so that Harry, still tired, had a great job in keeping up. Mr M. had an old battered pair of binoculars hung round his neck. He walked so fast they must have banged against his chest painfully.