by MARY HOCKING
Somewhere up above a bird was singing, a thrush, a blackbird? He wasn’t good on bird song, but it was very nice and he hoped the wretched cat wasn’t about. He was not sure of the time, the clock on the table had stopped; there had been a rattle of milk bottles a couple of hours ago, but milkmen, according to his landlady, weren’t as reliable as in former years and this one could come at any time from eight until twelve noon. The postman was a better guide, but he hadn’t been this morning. The feet in the street? More stopping and starting now, he could imagine women shifting shopping bags from one arm to the other as they exchanged the little currency of their daily lives; the nine-till-five workers had moved briskly off at least an hour ago. Ah, now this was something – the thud of bottles in wooden crates, quite a different sound to the cheerful cacophony of milk bottles, and quite a lot of crates. A delivery was being made to The Three Trumpeters, and that usually took place just after ten o’clock. He looked at the brick wall beyond the window, it was not easy to tell the time by the sun in a basement room; once the sun came down the steps, he knew it was getting towards evening, but that was no help in the morning. But something about the air told him it was not much later than ten o’clock; there was a little freshness left, not much, but a little.
So it was ten o’clock. In the next hour three things could happen: the doctor could call, the landlady would certainly come with a cup of coffee and one of those biscuits with dried flies embedded in it, Neil or Hannah would call to see whether there was anything he needed. The excitement of waiting to see who would be first scarcely bore contemplating. But he did contemplate it and decided to put his money on Mrs. Simpkins; since he had begun to improve, the doctor called on his way back to the surgery at lunchtime, Hannah would go to the office because it was Friday and Neil would probably be down from Westminster (didn’t they ever work on a Friday at Westminster, or was it just Neil who didn’t?); they would go through the urgent mail before deciding which of them should visit him. His callers would, therefore, be Mrs. Simpkins, then Neil or Hannah, then the doctor. He hoped they wouldn’t all come at once, he couldn’t have all his little joys concentrated like that.
That was his morning settled, the only thing left to decide was whether it would be Neil or Hannah who came; and that would depend on the amount of soul-searching Neil had done during the week and whether he had found his soul. Cope rather expected Neil to avoid him.
In between these wandering thoughts, he lay quietly, listening to the bird singing. He was at that stage of recovery where the body needs rest and the mind is prepared to let it rest. Soon his body would begin to ache with inaction and his mind would leap ahead of his strength; but now he felt as though he was stretched out in a hammock slung some little distance above earth’s sad and lowly plains, like the angels who came upon the midnight clear. He could not have believed that there could be such peace in being thus suspended, nor, for that matter, that he could ever find satisfaction in peace. It was something that had been missing from his life. Should he have been a monk? He had left it a little late for that. Nevertheless, it was good to think that there was a whole world as yet unexplored, indeed, scarcely imagined, a Shangri La, perched just above the lamps in Scotney Square.
A breeze blew the curtains back and fluttered the sheets of newspaper lying on the bed. It didn’t worry him that Pauline Ormerod should intrude into his thoughts. She had had no place in them alive, but she fitted easily enough into them now that he had killed her. There was no disharmony. He didn’t believe that she had resented her death nearly as much as the people who would read the account of the inquest in The Scotney Gazette. In any case, it was over and done with. He didn’t remember much about it. There were times when his thoughts whirled round and round, faster and faster until they concertinaed and there was an explosion. He did not think this would be an acceptable defence. To defend oneself, one must study the system; in the eyes of the law, the truth is an irrelevance. The truth, in any case, was between himself and Pauline Ormerod.
Neil came first, carrying the cup of coffee which he had taken from Mrs. Simpkins thus depriving Cope of her morning news bulletin. Cope eased up on the pillows and then rested against them, feeling a delicious weakness after the exertion; he had come to recognise this weakness as being, in fact, the hidden strength which heaved him up into that hammock. He was well up in it this morning. He could view Neil in much the same way as a pilot flying over a cornfield will see the lines of a Roman encampment, all that intricate plumbing beneath the golden surface.
‘The doctor says you have made a remarkable recovery.’ Neil was making his excuses because he had something unpleasant to say and couldn’t wait much longer.
Cope sipped his coffee, and nibbled a bit of the biscuit.
‘You are feeling better?’ Neil asked anxiously; he had made his plans and didn’t want a hitch in them now.
‘I feel that “I have slipped the surly bonds of earth”,’ Cope said. ‘Can you remember where that comes from? I’ve been trying to think all morning.’ Neil studied his fingernails, he wasn’t trying to remember the poem. Cope went on, ‘Something about putting out one’s hand and touching the face of God.’ He finished the biscuit. Neil allowed a short period of silence before turning from the sacred to the profane.
‘I’m afraid there are one or two things I must ask you,’ he said eventually. His eyes had the unwavering determination of the man who is quite inflexible where his own interests are at stake. ‘In the first place, I’m not happy about the West Front development. At the beginning of next week I have to speak at the Chamber of Commerce dinner and I think I must make my position clear then.’
Cope finished the coffee and put the cup down on the table, then he folded his hands across his chest, like a crusader, and said, ‘Go on talking. I am listening, but I find this rests my eyes.’
There was a pause. Neil had been prepared to override resistance but was at a loss as to how to deal with lack of resistance. He wants a fight. Cope thought, a gentle skirmish to give that final stiffening to his moral fibre. ‘What are you going to tell them?’ he asked sleepily.
‘I am going to tell them that now that more details of the scheme have become available, it is not one which I could support. I will admit that some of these details may well have been available during the campaign, but that there were other more important matters to which I had to attend then, and so I merely entered a plea that the scheme should be given careful consideration. I shall remind them that at no time did I commit myself to the scheme. . . .’ Perhaps it had sounded devastating stuff the first time it was said, but the words now fell as flat as pancakes. Wisely, he broke off. ‘Exactly what I say is not of importance now. But I must know the extent to which you have been involved with Heffernan.’
‘I saw him once or twice.’ Cope opened his eyes and gazed up at the ceiling. ‘Three times, I think . . . yes, three times. What a pity you didn’t come, too; we might have sorted all this out.’
Neil said, ‘I don’t think you understand my question.’ His voice sounded strained. Cope turned his head slowly and looked at him. Neil’s face was strained, too; personal combat at close quarters was something Neil didn’t enjoy.
Cope said, ‘I’m sorry. Could you spell it out for me?’
‘Did you have a business deal with Heffernan?’
‘With Heffernan? I’m not in his league.’
‘You had no business transactions with him at all? He didn’t ever pay you money?’ Neil spoke the word ‘money’ without flinching; all emotion had been levelled from his voice, he might have been asking a doctor whether he had cancer.
Cope said, ‘You know, if you are going to make this kind of accusation, it’s Heffernan you should see, not me; because it is him you will have to reckon with. He’s fairly formidable. I think you’d be advised to see him before you make any public statement.’ He closed his eyes again; he was genuinely very tired now, he wished Neil would go. ‘I’m sorry, Neil. I’m not being very helpf
ul. But just at the moment I don’t feel I have the stamina to take on Heffernan and Mario Vicente – and you’ve already made an enemy of one of them.’
There was silence in the room. The bird was singing again, it must be a thrush, mustn’t it? Blackbirds sing in the evening. He heard Neil get up and go to the window.
‘Is that a thrush singing?’ he asked.
‘No. It’s a blackbird.’ Neil sounded very sure.
‘Can you see him?’
‘I don’t need to. I was brought up in the country. It’s a lovely call, isn’t it? Lovelier than the nightingale’s, I always think.’
Cope opened his eyes and looked at him. He was really listening to that bird.
‘What are you going to do?’ He was intrigued by the possibility that Neil might do something interesting.
‘Do?’ Neil sounded as though their conversation was a long way behind him.
‘About the Chamber of Commerce speech.’
‘I shall tell them that I can’t commit myself to the development and why. But don’t worry, I won’t bring you into it.’ There was no bitterness in his voice; he sounded gentle and considerate. ‘You get some rest. I shouldn’t have come bothering you like this. Would you like more coffee? I could place an order on my way out.’ He smiled; he wasn’t a person who smiled if he didn’t feel like it. Whatever else Cope had expected, it wasn’t that Neil would seem so serene, just as though he had found his own Shangri-La. Something would have to be done about this.
After Neil had gone, Cope lay listening to the blackbird which was still singing at noon. Regretfully, he stretched out an arm for the clock. It was surprising how much effort he had to put into winding that clock.
Chapter Fourteen
On the Saturday, Major Brophy gave a party for Moray.
It was a warm evening. Hannah had all the windows in the flat open, but the leaves of the plants on the window ledge were still. The town seemed hushed, as though no one was in a hurry.
The air in the flat was moist and smelt of talcum powder and pine bath oil. Hannah was drying herself leisurely; she felt a delighted incredulity as though she was performing all these simple, intimate actions for the first time. When she had finished, she sat for some moments on the edge of the bath, her eyes closed, enjoying all the pleasurable sensations that come simply from breathing. She had said she would go to Lomax’s house for a drink before they went to the party. In her bedroom, the wardrobe door was open and her summer skirts and dresses, bunched close together, orange, lime, cinnamon, plum, looked bright as fruit on a stall. It took her some time to decide what to wear. Her mind wasn’t very active, consciousness seemed centred in her stomach; it fluttered at every movement and when she tugged a brush through her hair it set up a series of sharp quivers that spread through her body.
She dressed slowly, shivering as the silk blouse touched her flesh. Out in the street, the air was gentle and a little warmer than it had been in the flat; it seemed dense, she felt it under her arms and between her breasts. It was the first time this year she had been out in the evening without a wrap of any kind. She felt as if she had shed a skin. The streets had been crowded at lunch-time and she had had to leave her car in a cul-de-sac off Scotney Square. The strap of one of her sandals was tight and this slight discomfort had the effect of sharpening her awareness. There were people sitting on benches on the square, sweating lightly in the shadow of the plane trees; they were relaxed and quiet, making no demands on one another, yet briefly belonging together. Children frisked about the fountain in the centre of the square and shouted shrilly when the water touched their sunburnt flesh. In one of the houses, someone was playing a piano; the notes trilled up and down Hannah’s spine.
It was an hour later that Moray set out from his flat. By this time the garden at the back of Lomax’s house was mostly in shadow. It was a sad garden which spoke of a stand having been made against chaos and little more; Hannah appeared momentarily at a bedroom window, paused, a hand to her blouse, and smiled with dazed tenderness at a tub in which wallflowers fought a losing battle with weeds. The clock of St. Barnabas Church struck the quarter hour. It was always ten minutes fast; but Moray, who did not know Scotney well enough to be aware of this, wondered if he had set out too soon.
He decided to walk. There would be plenty to drink at the Brophys, and he was in a mood to accept all that was offered.
One way and another, things had gone badly for him since the election. He had imagined, rather naïvely, that the very fact of standing as an independent candidate would ensure his independence; but it soon became obvious that to the local councillors, the trade union representatives, the members of the Chamber of Commerce, he was no lonely eminence, he was their member of parliament. The possessive their disturbed him. On all sides, people snatched at him as he passed, until in the end he began to feel they were tearing bits of him away. His time alone was precious; yet when he shut the door of his flat and took the telephone receiver off the rest, instead of peace descending upon him, he had a feeling in the region of his stomach as though he had severed an umbilical cord. He had to fight down panic at the thought of being alone. He had never worried about being alone before his meeting with Heffernan.
Then came that moment in Cope’s room when he had realised that he must break free or be destroyed. As he had stood listening to the blackbird his whole life, and the pattern of events which had made him what he was, had been etched on his mind as clearly as the finest engraving: it had all been there, past, present and future, and because it was incomplete it had resolved all the questions and eliminated the need for answers.
If only he could have gone immediately to face the members of the Chamber of Commerce, he could have accepted his destiny – or whatever it was that had been vouchsafed to him in that meaningful moment. Unfortunately, as the days went by, it became increasingly difficult to hold on to the experience. The beautiful precision was lost; the pattern became blurred, and he began to feel insecure, even a little giddy, as though Cope had pushed him over the edge, out into space.
This disorientated feeling had been even worse this morning. The heat didn’t agree with him. It was still very warm now. Everywhere, windows were open and music blared into the streets; people spilled out of pubs and stood drinking and laughing on the pavements. A young couple strolled in front of him, the tips of their fingers touching; this roused more erotic sensations in him than if they had been mauling each other. The girl wore a long brown dress which looked dowdy and old-fashioned. Moray didn’t like brown. But he admired the style of her boy friend who wore a purple corduroy suit. He had thought of buying a purple suit himself, but had decided that this wasn’t what Scotney expected of its member of parliament. Only a few days ago, he had seen a vision of himself fearlessly flouting the members of the Chamber of Commerce, and here he was fretting because he couldn’t wear a purple suit! It was the heat; he had never been able to think coherently in the heat. He was glad when he reached the tree-lined streets on the edge of the town.
Major Brophy lived in a baronial style mansion which had been completely refurbished by his wife after their marriage in a style more suited to a cinema foyer than a private house. All the reception rooms had enormous plush sofas and there were velvet curtains looped on either side of french windows so that one half-expected to see engraved on the glass the censor’s certificate that the entertainment which was to follow had been given a ‘U’ certificate. The carpets were thick pile in shades of pale blue and pink and there were enormous vases of flowers in alcoves with coloured pink lights above them. Moray found all this rather exciting. As a child he had studied the films advertised on hoardings outside cinemas, and had made laughing comments in the hope that he would be taken to one of the films. His mother had always said, ‘You don’t want to see that, do you?’ and he had been too ashamed to say ‘yes’.
The Brophys themselves were quite unreal to Moray. Major Brophy still had a bewildered look as though he had gone on reconnaissance
one night into unfamiliar territory and had never been able to get back to base; but he was devoted to the lady who had taken him captive and who was always dressed in a froth of some material which Moray imagined to be either voile or chiffon. Moray’s parents had been quite different from the Brophys. He had no idea, for one thing, whether his father had loved his mother, although undoubtedly he had respected her; demonstrations of affection were unknown in the Moray household where physical contact was limited to helping one another off with Wellington boots and the conversation was devoted almost exclusively to intellectual topics, even a reference to the next door neighbour’s cat being invariably followed by a quotation from T. S. Eliot.
Tonight, he needed the world of illusion, and as he walked towards Major Brophy’s house he felt like a character in one of those films in which the hero staggers down a long, straight road towards the iron gates of an embassy, once inside which nothing can touch him. As he came up the drive, he heard music through an open window, a big band record, very smooth, a vocalist with one of those effortlessly sad voices, singing. For all we know/We may never met again/Before you go/Make this moment sweet again. . .
The front door opened and Major Brophy stood in a square of light, hands extended, as though inviting him to step through the silver screen. Major Brophy wore a mulberry-coloured velvet jacket which toned well with the mushroom pink walls of hall and staircase; he had a waxed moustache and thick eyebrows which jerked up and down, giving to even the simplest remark a suggestion of the risqué.
‘Your secretary has yet to arrive.’ His eyebrows did double duty.
Neil, at a loss, said, ‘The last shall be first.’
Major Brophy chuckled, ‘Eh, eh? Don’t like the sound of that at all!’ Conversation with him was unnervingly disconnected. He cried, ‘Onward, onward!’ and pushed Neil through an archway. ‘The conquering hero!’ he shouted in a parade ground voice.
The long lounge, with its ornate chandeliers, was full of people, unfamiliar in evening dress: the style of the house inhibited the casual and most people had, for better or worse, made an effort. Someone cheered and Mrs. Brophy started For he’s a jolly good fellow in a tremulous soprano. Major Brophy handed Neil a dry martini. Feeling rather foolish, Neil raised the glass in the general direction of the people on the dance floor. When they stopped singing, he said, ‘There’ll be no speeches tonight, folk. So carry on dancing.’
