by A. L. Barker
“He had a car, Jack used to have rides.”
“We could go somewhere by motor-coach if you prefer. There are excursions to all sorts of places. The Isle of Wight’s very pleasant at this time of year.”
“I don’t prefer motor-coaches, I prefer cars because they’re smaller.”
Ralph had an idea. “We could go on a Mystery Tour. Would you like that?”
“I’d like to go to your house.”
“Why?”
Marise thought that a tiresome question. To be asked showed his tiresomeness to the full – he was often not like what he ought to be – and to have to answer would be the most tiresome of all.
“I shan’t tell you. It would be pandering to your bad side.”
“My bad side? If I could be sure it was mine, I wouldn’t mind. But I never know if you’re mixing me up.”
“You’re mixed up already. Yes, no, right, left, that’s you.” He was obliged to turn away, realising that if he had thirsted for sight of her, looking at her was going to make him hunger. “Saying you can’t just because he could. Jack says the trouble with liars is they don’t know where to stop.” Jack said that it was the trouble with her and he would be glad to know where she began. He didn’t understand that she told the real truth. That was beyond him, sometimes she had to pinch herself to try to see what he saw. “Are you going to say you’re alive because he’s dead?”
“I’m not going to say anything about him. Shall we go? There’s a train at nine forty-five.” He had a primitive feeling that even this – especially this – bad start could be wiped out if the actual name was not spoken.
“If he’s alive you’ll have to be dead. I can see through you.” Marise went to take Barbra out of the window. “She shouldn’t be there, Jack’s gone away.”
“Where to?”
“Ireland. He won’t be back for a week. We needn’t go to your house today, we can go tomorrow, or the next day.”
Ralph said quickly, “We must go today, it’s all arranged.”
“Arranged with who?”
When she looked at him like that, yes, he believed she saw through him. His deceits couldn’t stand up, she had the innocence that swamped them and washed them away.
“I’ve taken time off from the office.”
“You can take time off tomorrow, can’t you?”
Ralph flinched, thinking of Pecry. “If you don’t want to go out we could stay here.” He went close but did not touch her. He touched the teddy bear which she had put on the couch. “That would be nice.”
“I want to go out. You must understand,” Marise said firmly, “I don’t often get the chance. Jack won’t let me, he wants me to think I’m the only one alive. And when I’m alone in this room I am the only one alive. I haven’t got used to it.”
“To being alone?”
“No, to being alive.” She went into the bedroom and came out carrying a brown and white pony-skin coat.
“Shall I wear this? Jack brought it from Liverpool, he says it’s trendy, but I don’t want to embarrass you.”
Touching her under the soft hairs of the coat made him dumb. She said, as he helped her on with it, “Are you angry?”
He nodded. It was a kind of rage, one unknown to him, he trembled with the effort to suppress it.
“Then let’s go!” She took his hand and pulled him to the door, she was suddenly completely happy with him. He wondered at the reason for it, which might be wrong, which in the context could only be wrong.
They walked hand in hand, it was the supreme moment of his life. He did not ask for better or more to date – the best was still to come.
“Do you see who that is?” Marise waved her free hand to someone on the other side of the street. “It’s the old Madam from upstairs. Why does she wear two hats?”
“It looks like two but it’s only one very elaborate one.”
“She looks like two the way she’s staring at us.”
Ralph didn’t care that Madame Belmondo was staring, he wouldn’t have cared had Bertha and Emmy been staring too. They came into another story altogether and he wouldn’t be at the ending of that one.
“I feel like running!”
Marise pulled at his hand but she soon had to give up. There could be no running beautifully with him, he was so clumsy and his money rattled in his pockets. People turned to laugh and no wonder, he was running with his knees pump, pump, pumping like pistons.
Marise laughed too and he asked her, “Are you happy?”
“Happy! You kill me!”
“Don’t say that.”
“You kill everyone when you look so funny.”
He wanted to talk to her, he had a lot to say to himself as well as to her. Perhaps it was all to say to himself: he was the one in the net, she was poles apart, she was more than free. Tomelty couldn’t come near her.
“Let’s run somewhere we’ll never be found.”
It was what he might have said, would have started out to say and after thousands of words might have bungled through to it.
“Do you mean that?”
There he went, fogging the issue, throwing up a defence against heaven. Why not take her at her words, why not take her? “I want you to be sure.”
“Jack would never stop looking for us, he’d give up his life to it. So would Uncle Fred. But we’d vanish into thin air.”
“I’m sure, I haven’t a grain of doubt. We’ve both got the world to gain, I promise you that.”
“Would your Bertha and Emmy go into mourning? Would you leave two widows?”
“I couldn’t assume you felt the same, you see, I had to give you the benefit of the doubt. I’m careful by nature and with something as important as this – the most important thing, I may say, that has happened to me – I expect I shall be ultra-careful. If I didn’t come forward quickly enough it wasn’t because I don’t feel – it was because I couldn’t believe that you could think that much of me –”
“Let’s run,” said Marise. “There’s a bus.”
All the way to Thorne he was tormented by that conversation. He began to doubt whether it had taken place, and if it had, whether it meant what he thought it meant. Marise sat opposite him in the train, what was she thinking so calmly while he was trying to handle the bare bones of the idea of that conversation? Was she thinking about it? Or was she fifty-thousand thoughts ahead, was that how everything came to her, without question or surprise, just the doing?
He leaned across and asked, “Did you mean what you said about running away?”
“Of course. Aren’t we?”
“Yes – but not now. Not today.”
“Why not today?”
She was fifty-thousand thoughts and the deed ahead. She was already away, this railway carriage the start of her new world. He felt both envy and compassion for the courage of youth.
“For one thing, I haven’t any money.”
“You have in your pockets, I heard it.”
He pulled out a handful of coins. “How long would we last on that?”
Marise saw that it was going to be left to her, as usual. People had absolutely no idea. Ralph Shilling was as bad as Jack Tomelty for making the worst of himself and if she didn’t stop him she was going to be bored, he would stamp her right into the ground with boredom.
“We should need money,” said Ralph and noticed the implied condition – if they went away, if he took her, if he allowed miracles to happen. “Don’t worry, I can get it.” Where and how were some of the fifty-thousand thoughts, but the deed was at the end of them and he would get it.
“Which is Mrs Brown? Bertha or Emmy?”
She watched him put the coins back in his pocket, he was not like Jack who started something else when he was stopped. Nor like Uncle Fred who had to be turned out.
“Oh look!” A flock of birds wheeled across the sky. That was what she looked for, that cutting and driving and smoothing away was the finish of something she herself had begun, something that forever n
eeded finishing. The day would have been worth it, even if there was no more to come.
“They’re gulls from the estuary. We get out at the next station.”
There were no taxis in the yard and he said they would have to wait for one to come back. He hoped it wouldn’t be long but there was no telling at this time of day.
“Don’t let’s wait,” she said, “let’s walk.”
“It’s a long way.”
“I don’t want to wait any more.” She had been maintaining her interest since they left Lilliput Lodge. It wasn’t easy because her instinct was not to be here at all. “Where’s all the light coming from?”
“The estuary. When the tide’s out it reflects like a mirror.”
“What is this estuary?”
“You’ll see in a moment.”
As they walked down the road the enormity of it overcame him. What on earth was he doing, bringing her here to Bertha and Emmy? Emmy had not been well, it was ten to one they hadn’t gone to Chelmsford. The prospect of bringing Marise face to face with them turned his inside over.
“Let’s go back.” He pulled her round. “The up-train’s signalled, we haven’t long to wait.”
She shook off his hand and ran and he watched her. He had not had an opportunity of seeing her from a distance before. He saw that she took it all with her, everything moved down hill into category. For a moment there was just a girl, some girl in a pony-skin coat, just an earthquake, just a world-shaker. He thought never mind, she doesn’t know which way to go.
But she stopped to ask some men working on the railway bank. “Where’s Thorne Farm?”
“Thorne Farm?”
“Over there. Maybe three miles.”
“Mrs Openshaw’s? More like four.”
“How do I get there?”
“You’ve got a long walk. Why don’t you wait for the bus? It’ll take you best part of the way.”
“There won’t be one for half an hour.”
“More like three-quarters.”
She cried, “I don’t want to wait!”
They began to direct her but she heard Ralph’s footsteps and turned. “I know what it is, you don’t want me to see where you live.”
“There’s nothing to see.”
“There’s a farm, isn’t there?”
“It’s pointless. A waste of time.”
“Why? What else would we have done?”
He drew her out of earshot of the workmen who had downed tools to listen. “What do you expect to see?”
“Cows, pigs, ducks.”
“Please be serious.”
She looked puzzled. “It’s called Thorne Farm, isn’t it?”
“It isn’t a farm and I’m afraid you’ll be disappoined.”
Afraid, yes, because her disappointment would be the death of him, and in taking her to Thorne he was sabotaging his chances. What interest or kinship or illusion remotely helpful, even remotely kin to himself could she find there?
“We could have gone anywhere you liked, we could have gone to the sea.”
She pointed to beyond the next curve of the road. “We are at the sea.”
“That’s the estuary. The open sea is miles away.”
“I hate the sea.” She turned her shoulder to the empty sky, the hairs of the pony coat split softly against his hand as they walked. “Why did those men say it was Mrs Openshaw’s?”
“It is Emmy’s home. I’m only the weekend guest.”
Marise sighed. She was finding it a strain to keep interested with so much bright air chilling and belittling her. It was a relief when he helped, she was sure now that he had something to hide.
At the turn of the road they came into full sight of the estuary, cubic miles of sky and inch-high land. The mud gave back the light, and more. On a bright day it was like looking across the flashing blade of a knife.
“I suppose the truth isn’t enough for you,” said Ralph. “I see why, of course, but I can’t help wishing and hoping you’ll make do. It’s so hard to live up to anything else, good or bad.” He hesitated, then tried it with a smile, “I do find it terribly hard to live up to someone as bad as John Brown – in the way he was bad.”
“It’s so bright – I can’t see.” Marise hid her face in his shoulder.
“There doesn’t seem to have been any reason for him to do what he did. It wasn’t for money or revenge or to get out of trouble. You know, I have to have a reason, I have to have something to go on.”
“What reason?”
“The trouble is, I can’t think of any.”
They stood in the road, he was stiffly holding her and a strand of her hair blew against his mouth.
“I don’t like it here, all this light makes me cold.”
He held her closer. “We could go into the field where it’s sheltered and the sun is warm.”
“There’s too much of it. I don’t like a lot of anything. You should have told me it was like this.”
“It’s only air.” The strong scrupulous light always bucked and excited him. “Air and mud.”
“I shan’t look again.” She moved resolutely forward, head up, eyes tightly closed.
“Why not? The estuary isn’t so beautiful but it’s not ugly.”
“It makes me feel sick to death.” She opened her eyes to accuse him. “Is that why you brought me here?”
“Why do you say such things?”
“Let’s get away!”
She pulled at his hand and absurdly they ran to get away from the estuary and the estuary followed them, the fields like moss and the houses like dice – and farther than the eye could see, round corners, behind backs, the strong shine of the mud.
“Wait – please –” he was soon out of breath – “presently you won’t see it, we’ll be in the village.”
“You can’t run,” she scolded him, “because your pockets are full of money.”
“I wish they were, we’d run far enough then.”
“Would we?”
“If my pockets were weighted down with money we’d run like the wind.”
She couldn’t follow that sequence. In her thought she often ran away, simply opened the door and went. Why shouldn’t she do the same in reality? The running was important, she ran through places she knew and did not know, past people she knew and did not know, ran beautifully for their sakes. She took them out of themselves, they would always remember seeing her run.
“I want to get away from here. There’s too much of it!”
“I’m sorry you don’t like the estuary. I’m rather fond of it. When the tide’s in it doesn’t look so big. And although all that mud looks empty it isn’t, it’s full of life. Crowded, in fact.”
“There’s too much life!”
“You can’t have too much life –” only a dealer in pesticides could – “or too much air or too much breath.”
“I can,” said Marise, “and there’s too much time to wait before it’s over.”
“All things bright and beautiful” were words that came into his head as he looked at her. She shone, but not like the estuary. She was probably the sum of bright things, of all beautiful creatures great and small. It must be the balance of Nature which caused her to talk like that, every bright and beautiful creature had to have its imperfections. But if she could only be faulted by her own unhappiness it was Tomelty, not Nature, who was making her unhappy.
“You’ve got to get away –” he held her bare wrists, the sleeves of the pony coat were too short, Tomelty couldn’t even get her size right – “you’ve got to leave him.”
“Leave who?”
“It won’t be wrong, it will be no crime, he’s not your husband in the true sense of the word.” The small cold bones of her wrists made him wild. “He’s only your keeper –”
“Leave Jack?”
“And come to me.” As he said it he saw pictures of his future, he saw the scene with Bertha, he was leaving her and she was crying: he saw the encounter with Pecry, he was leavi
ng Pecry too, and he saw the confrontation with Tomelty who snarled like a dog. He saw Marise and himself indissolubly together at last.
With the power of the moment he bent to kiss her but she broke away.
“I can’t leave him.”
“You can, you must.”
“I can’t stay here, I’ll die!”
To his consternation she began to cry “I can’t bear it!” and to cover her ears with her hands and to sink to the ground. The tears came through her skin, her face was slippery with them but her eyes were dry. She was crying and fighting to get down to his feet and he believed she would have lain with her face in the earth if he hadn’t held her up by force. “I can’t, I can’t, I can’t!”
“We’ll get away, right away,” he said, not really knowing what it was all about. In desperation he half-carried her, shielding her face, holding down her fists. “Just a little farther and you won’t see it. It’s almost gone, we’re coming to houses, look – a street and houses –”
It was the middle of the morning and there were people about who turned and stared. They could hardly do otherwise, Marise was raging like a small storm and Ralph was at the centre of it. An unimportant part of his mind hoped that nobody knew him.
She calmed down when she felt the houses round her, she could only have felt them because she was past seeing and identifying. He judged her well advanced into hysteria and as she returned to normal he felt the full shock of it.
Guiding her into the lounge of a small hotel, a place he had not been into before, he said violently, “We’ll stay here and rest. We must rest –”
He was the one in need. Now that it was over, she looked almost unblemished. He saw that she was drying out like a plant in the sun, retaining only a slight extra tenderness after a storm.
Marise looked about. The brown Windsor dusk and the thick carpet solaced her.
“It’s nice here.”
Ralph felt shaken, extremes always did shake him. So far as he was concerned both ends of the scale were unhappy, he trusted only in the medium. But this extreme of hers committed him even more deeply to her, and committed her to him. And he was glad, he was indebted to anything that did that.
“What frightened you?”
