John Brown's Body

by A. L. Barker

  Bertha did not smile, she couldn’t see the joke, of course. Her normal face was setting into normality and he thought that if it set much harder she’d be able to take it off at night and it would stand up until morning. Perhaps that’s what she wanted.

  “It was a miracle,” he said sharply. “None of us has a defence against that.”

  “It can’t have been long –”

  “No.”

  “I think I knew yesterday. So did Emmy.”

  “I’m not married to Emmy!”

  “Ralph, Ralph –” She put her face into her hands.

  “I lied to Emmy. She wouldn’t understand and it’s none of her business. I would always have told you the truth –”

  “Make me understand. Please,” she said into her hands, praying again.

  He looked down at the hat, wondering why she had put it on. Intimidation? Moral support? Armament? Didn’t she know – or did she – how that hat was going to look on her today? She was clever, in her way she was cleverer than Emmy, she could twist his arm with things like this sharp hat. He turned away and there was the cat watching with slit eyes from the sill. In a rage he snatched up a tea-cup, the cat moved, but not fast enough, and earned every dinner he had given it. The cup rebounded from its flank and smashed completely on the floor. Ralph took a deep breath of relief.

  “You used to be so fond of it.” Bertha lifted her face and looked at him fixedly. “I think I understand. Yes, I do.”

  “I was never fond of the creature, it was a habit.”

  “About the girl, I mean. I understand that. What a fool you must think me – how thick!”

  There was almost gaiety in her manner, she would not meet his eye except briefly sideways. Perhaps he should be frank and tell her how little he had thought about her side of it.

  “I was selfish enough to think, to hope, anyway, that we had enough, you and I. It was – oh more than enough, it was everything for me and I thanked God for it. Yes, I did.” She touched each of her cheeks, aware of their sudden heat. “I saw no harm in thanking the Author of our being, it was what you might call – I did call it – the Act of our being. And it never occurred to me that you might want, might need more. Oh, it should have done!” She forced a smile, “That’s ‘I’m alright, Jack,’ I suppose. Even though I understood – I was given to understand – that other men – I’ve thought of you – but I haven’t really thought of you at all, have I?”

  “Other men?”

  “Of your age.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  He knew, but what he didn’t know was what to do first, laugh at her or strike her. Not as he had struck the cat, not by shying a teacup – to satisfy the feeling he had now he would have to strike her down.

  And then she said, “You’ll come back, that’s all that matters.”

  “Come back?”

  “When you’re ready.” She looked steadily up at him, her cheeks pink but no longer painful. “I can wait if I have to.”

  What he should do was laugh, probably it was all he should do. But not yet. She had just done him a service, she had relieved him of the duty of pitying her.

  “Come back? To Thorne? To Emmy?”

  “To me.” With her old shyness she touched his hand, her smile was a grimace before tears.

  She thought he would return. Let her think so then, if it saved her anything. Let hope die a natural death a long time from now. But he wouldn’t forgive her for it. He turned away, treading the fragments of broken china. She had insulted him with her hope. It was based on the premise that he was a middle-aged man among middle-aged men, needing to relieve himself with a girl, any girl. She had made him out a goat and she was sending him to rut.

  “I shall want some money,” he said.

  13

  She was scarcely out of the house before he was on his way downstairs. He had such a sensation of light and freedom, there had been a wonderful clarifying of the air. He tasted it, got a little drunk.

  He flung the front door wide to the hinges at the risk of causing Bertha to look back at him from the drive. He didn’t care, she was not even part of the landscape now. Behind him his life lay flat, collapsed as neat and paltry as a pack of cards. He knew now how Marise felt about running.

  At first there was no answer when he knocked at her door. He seized the knocker and pressed the bell and knocked and rang together. The bell made no audible sound on his side of the door although he knew by the vibration under his finger that it was working. His knocking filled the hall and the well of the staircase.

  Why didn’t she answer? Had she gone? Where could she go? Where couldn’t she go, a creature like her, a miracle, a mirage? Had she ever really been here? He called her name, he was making an appreciable din and would make more; would waken the dead if necessary.

  She opened the door and he almost fell in. Joy was as shocking as pain.

  “Thank you,” he said, “oh, thank you –” He wasn’t in the habit of calling on God in extremity and didn’t have to thank Him either.

  “You were trying to frighten me,” said Marise.

  “I was frightening myself.”

  He had never realised before how ruthless perfection could be, thrusting out of a dingy room. It was his own fault for not being ready, he never would be ready for her. To be ready would be to be untouched.

  “When you didn’t open the door I thought something was wrong.”

  “Why does everyone think that?”

  She still wore Tomelty’s dressing-gown and her perfections – neck, shoulders, thighs – thrust out of the stuff like flowers out of an old brown calyx he thought.

  “Everyone?”

  “Uncle Fred Macey nearly broke the window. I didn’t want to let him in. I was in bed.”

  “You’re not ill, are you?”

  “Yes. You know why.”

  He would have wiped out that struggle on the floor and started from now if he could, he would be strong and reverent now, now that he knew how to begin.

  But when he moved to touch her she twisted her shoulders sharply out of his reach.

  “Marise, I’d give anything for that not to have happened. I’ve no excuse, none that you’d understand. You’re not a man –” he smiled – “first and foremost you’re not that.”

  “I used to think you were so clever, you used to frighten me.”

  “And now?”

  “Oh good heavens, I should say not!” She let Tomelty’s dressing-gown glide off her shoulders, watching her reflection in the mirror.

  “I’m glad I don’t frighten you.”

  She was absorbed in her peacocking and it caused him acute physical distress to see her draw the sleeves of Tomelty’s robe tightly under her breasts.

  “You’re just like everyone else. Why didn’t you keep your bowler on?”

  “Marise, listen to me –”

  “I don’t want to listen.” She turned on him, “I’m ill, you made me ill, you took me to that great empty place –”

  “The estuary? Oh my darling, I didn’t know – tell me what’s wrong – what is it? What’s the matter with you?”

  “I don’t want to talk about it. I want Jack, he knows, he helps me.”

  “I’ll help you –”

  “You can’t.” She huddled into Tomelty’s robe, held it tight under her chin. She looked forlorn, incongruous and untouchable by him. He longed to touch her, his longing was so strong it was a bodily deficiency.

  “Where’s Bertha? She was here, I saw her.”

  “She’s gone. All that’s finished – Bertha, Emmy, Thorne. I shall never go there again.”

  “Did they find out about me?”

  “I’m going to take you away.” He dared to touch her – but Tomelty’s garment came first to his hands – “I’m taking you away from him.”

  “Why did you tell them I was a water-diviner?”

  “I’ve got the money, I’ve got two hundred pounds, there’s nothing to stop us –”
r />   “That’s a lot of money.”

  “It’s enough to get us away and keep us until –” Until what? He knew the why of it and he had solved the how, but there remained imponderables. Beyond the fact of having her with him it was all imponderable. Until he could get more money? Until he could get another job? Until they settled what to do? Who would settle that – he, or Marise? Would he be able to go off and do whatever he had to and leave her to wait for him? Could he risk that? Where could he leave her where she would be happy waiting?

  “The important thing is to get you away from here and then –” Then at least he could stop thinking of Tomelty with her.

  She allowed him to hold her and he did so almost gingerly because he was beginning again and dared not begin wrongly. She wanted to know where they would go.

  “Far away, wherever you like – but no sea, no estuary, no wide open space.”

  “Now?”

  “Not actually now, not today, but we might get away Friday.” Folded into his arms she smelt of sweets, the small perfumed sweets he remembered from childhood.

  “I want to go now.”

  “There are just one or two matters I have to see to.”

  “Can I take Barbra?”

  “You can take anything you like.”

  She rolled round and broke out of his hold. The teddy bear was face down on the couch, Marise picked it up, buttoned its woollen jacket and straightened its tattered dress.

  “We’re ready.” She went to the door, in her nightdress, with Tomelty’s dressing-gown over her shoulders, her feet bare, the ragged toy held to her breast.

  “I mean what I say. I’m not playing, Marise, we’re going away for good.”

  “Yes, for good.”

  “We’ll go on Friday. I should be able to settle everything by then. It can be no later than Saturday morning anyway because Tomelty comes back Saturday night –”

  “I don’t want to go on Saturday.”

  “If I could tie everything up by Friday we could go Friday night –”

  “I want to go now.”

  She stamped the ball bone of her bare foot on the floor and he cried, “If you knew what hell it’s been for me! So do I want to go now, I want to take you out of here, I want you to myself!”

  “We know what you want. Barbra knows, she’s seen it often, at least she did when she had her eyes. Now she just listens –” she put her lips to the teddy bear’s muzzle – “‘Air on a Bed Spring’ Jack calls it.”

  “For God’s sake, Marise!” – there had never been an extremity like this.

  “Then there’s Uncle Fred Macey, he’s family, but he wants the same. So do you. So does the Pope, so do monkeys. Did you think you’d surprise me?”

  “It isn’t like that, I love you – I shall surprise you.”

  She was surprised already. “Love me?” and opened her eyes wide and parted her lips as if to have it overwhelm her. Then she shook her head. “If you loved me you wouldn’t be ashamed of me.”

  “I am not ashamed of you!”

  “You are. You’re ashamed of being seen with me like this, you think tomorrow or the next day I may have my clothes on. Well, I may, I may not.”

  He caught the lapels of Tomelty’s robe and pulled her to him. “I’d take you wearing a sack, I’d rather you wore a sack than anything of his.”

  “I’m not going with you anyway.”

  “You don’t mean that –”

  “Tomorrow or the next day – I mean it!” She began to cry, with anger or despair he couldn’t tell which.

  “Listen, there’s nothing to be afraid of. I’m taking you away from here and no-one can stop us.” Holding and rocking her he heard himself say, “I’ll take you anyhow and any time, now if you like – yes, tonight if you like –”

  I can write, he was thinking, there’s no umbilical cord tying me to Picker, Gill, I can do it all by letter – “circumstances beyond my control oblige me to tender my resignation” –

  “We’ll go where Tomelty and Macey will never find us, they shan’t touch you again.”

  “But you will.” She stilled herself in his rocking arms. “You’ll touch me.”

  He wasn’t sure if she was asking, or how she was asking. He couldn’t identify the look she turned on him.

  “You’ll touch me everywhere, won’t you?”

  “Marise, I love you, I reverence you –” It would not be too much to say he worshipped her and later on he would say it, he would go down on his knees and worship. “When we’re together I’ll show you –”

  He was to think afterwards that that was where he had gone wrong. It was so easy, she was sensitive, she had been badly used. But what could he have said with truth, with more truth, when he was in such a rage of longing?

  Anyway, it was the beginning of the end: he began it, he practically ordained it, from that moment the sequence was set. Perhaps he had known all along that it wouldn’t get any farther than this room and that was why he couldn’t plan. Making arrangements was like trying to put the miracle on tap.

  He had confused memories of what happened between them then. One thing led to another, that was all he could be sure of, each word and action made the next inevitable. He marvelled at the cunning of the escalation – God’s was it, or Fate’s, or the nature he was born with?

  Marise merely obstructed him at first, twisting and stiffening, making herself awkward in his arms. He wouldn’t let her go, he was having the same feeling, the over-toppling rage for her that he had had at Thorne. But this time he knew that he could lose.

  He circled his arms and locked his hands to contain her – it reminded him of a children’s game, children chanting “Chop, chop, here comes a chopper to chop off your head.”

  It was all wrong, Tomelty’s dressing-gown, the teddy bear and the way she whined and twisted in his arms. She was only petulant then, not bothered enough to make a real effort to get away. If she had, if she had seemed to mean it, to mean something, he would have let her go. Holding her was a rage and a torment and there was the dressing-gown and the teddy and “Chop, chop, here comes a chopper” to burke him.

  She kept saying she wouldn’t go, she didn’t want to, turning her head like a fretful child and he tried to stop her and make her listen.

  “It’s the only thing we can do, we can’t go on like this, we can’t stay here. I can’t be apart from you any longer – don’t you understand? I can’t stay up there knowing he’s down here with you. We must get away!”

  “I won’t go with a murderer!”

  She shouldn’t have said that, it shouldn’t have come into her head to be said.

  “I can’t bear you touching me, I keep thinking what you touched last time.”

  “Last time?”

  She lay quite still in his arms. “You cut her up, didn’t you? You cut all of her up.”

  Why did it happen? Why did she turn their private joke against him? Why didn’t she smile when she said it, or look scared? Fear wouldn’t have cut him off, it would have bound them together as it had at the estuary.

  “How do I know you won’t do the same to me?”

  What was she feeling then, limp in his arms, with the teddy bear’s muzzle in her neck and her chin on its balding head?

  “Here comes a chopper, last, last, last!” He snatched the bear from her. He tore off the clothes, split the arms and legs, wrenched off the head and burst it in his hands like a loaf of bread. He crumbled the body and foam rubber chips rained around him. “Last, last, last!”

  It was an explosion and an implosion. After such an all-round detonation he scarcely registered what they did. Events were like the topside of an iceberg and his own actions were superfluous. Marise might have screamed but he thought she only whimpered. He had a last glimpse of her face and remembered that her eyes seemed to have opened inwards into the back of her head. She was probably frightened then – probably. He wasn’t even sure of that. It no longer mattered to him.

  He reached out for h
er, it was a reflex and not a hopeful gesture – after all, he was in the habit of reaching out for her, trying to touch her. And she must have run away from him because she was there and then she wasn’t and for one minute or five, until – for no purpose at all – he went up to his own rooms, he stood alone in a welter of rubber chips and torn velvet.

  He didn’t go in search of her or question whether she was within hearing. From the doorway he made one more observation but it was no parting-shot at her, just a rubbing-in to himself.

  “It’s Ralph Shilling you’re afraid of, not John Brown!” and went upstairs without noticing Madame Belmondo listening in the hall.

  Marise heard him go. She tried to keep quiet until she was sure, but she had never been able to cry quietly. Also she would be sick at any moment.

  Ralph Shilling was sickening, over and over again she saw his green-backed hands, murderer’s hands, murdering over and over again. In the dark where she had taken refuge the atrocity went on and on. The body was plundered and spilled before an eye which she could not shut. She heard the stitches unripping and smelled Barbra’s private dust. She pressed her fingers into her eyeballs until they flashed blue lights and blood-red skeins. Still the foam rubber chips ran down over her feet. She bit Tomelty’s sleeve, there was comfort in the taste of it – taste was the one sense that wasn’t given over to Barbra.

  The walls of the wardrobe were solid but if he was in the flat he would hear. She had to cry out loud to relieve herself, she wouldn’t, she couldn’t care any more if he found her.

  He was wrong anyway, he hadn’t frightened her, only disgusted her. He hadn’t frightened Barbra either, Barbra was lying out there disgusted beyond words.

  Of course things had always happened to Barbra, it wasn’t to be supposed that she would have an easy life. Jack understood that, he tossed her around, kicked her and, to punish Marise, had once put her down the lavatory.

  They had laughed because she blocked the pipe and had to be fished out and Jack said she looked like a dose of salts in a petticoat.

  But it wasn’t to be supposed, either, that she would be torn to pieces.

  Marise had no secrets from Barbra so she had been surprised to see that Barbra had had one from her. A cardboard disc with a metal plate attached had fallen out of Barbra’s stomach. She had been a squeaking or growling bear but she had not squeaked or growled for Marise. The disc lay out there on the floor, Marise wanted to go and examine it. Everything was quiet, she couldn’t hear even the bedroom clock.