by Ted Lewis
My father and I walked back into the house together where my mother had already begun to adjust to the empti¬ness by beginning the washing-up.
I spent the rest of the afternoon in the orchard, on the barn roof, staring across the river and trying to pin-point the exact location of Janet’s house as if its location would add an even sweeter, keener edge to my self-pity, and after tea I spent the evening in the front room, listening to records which I knew we could have shared together if the whole thing had turned out the way I thought it would, pretending at times that in fact the right ending had been achieved and that she was there in the gloom with me, responding to me the way I’d wanted her to, the way I’d hoped, before the events of the party had shattered the prospect of any such illusions.
Monday morning. The platform. The sky was overcast and still and a dead wet heat hung over everything. All morning the rain had been expected but it didn’t come and the closeness of the atmosphere got worse. The whole land¬scape seemed foreshortened and claustrophobic in the motionless unnatural gloom. Clacker and I worked away without speaking and even Jackson limited his comments to speculations about when the storm was going to break.
When, in the end, the storm finally came it was with a sheet of lightning that seemed to span the whole horizon. Then there was a shattering thunderclap and huge spots of rain began to slap down on to the stone and in seconds we found ourselves in something similar to a monsoon. We threw down our hammers and raced for the tarpaulin shelter by the bush at the top of the flint tip. There was just room for the three of us to sit on the plank that formed a seat, supported as it was by three bricks at either end.
“Bloody hell,” said Jackson. “Look at it. It’s siling down.”
The rain was vertical, like something from a Hollywood film. The three of us sat there and watched it fall and smelled the wet fresh smell the rain was beating up from the ground. Viewed from this vantage point, the platform and the line of wagons and the passenger platform beyond, with its station signboard, were incredibly depressing, form¬ing the kind of soulless horizontals of a Mondrian painting. It was impossible to see beyond the far platform because of the intensity of the rain. Then, abruptly, the rain eased off and turned to a light drizzle. Jackson stood up and got from under the tarpaulin.
“Where are you off?” Clacker said to him.
“Dunno,” Jackson said.
“You’re not off back to wagons, are you?”
“No.”
“You don’t want to be. You don’t work when it’s raining.”
“I was off for a walk.”
“You what?”
Jackson declined to repeat himself.
“Now I know you’re fucking barmy,” Clacker said, shak¬ing his head and fishing for his cigarettes.
Jackson sniffed and walked out of our range of vision. Clacker lit his cigarette and flicked the match out into the rain. I found it uncomfortable sitting there with him in the confined space of the shelter and the silence made my dis¬comfort worse so I said:
“Did you have a good weekend?”
I fully expected the usual Clacker-type sarcastic reply but instead, after a pause, he said reflectively:
“Aye, not too bad.”
I couldn’t believe my ears. A straightforward answer without a trace of irony. It took me a while to adjust and go on.
“Go anywhere good?”
“To the pub. So long as beer’s good, that’s all that worries me.”
“Yes,” I said, searching about in my mind for something with which to extend the conversation, but Clacker ex¬panded his reply unsolicited.
“Good beer,” he said. “If the beer’s good, then I’m happy.”
“There’s worse philosophies than that,” I said, and immedi¬ately I’d said it I could have bitten off my tongue.
“There’s what?” he said.
I didn’t answer.
“There’s worse what?”
“Philosophies.”
Clacker took a deep drag on his cigarette.
“Philosophies,” he said in disgust, smoke pouring out of his nostrils. The conversation was over.
“Clacker!”
It was Jackson. His voice sounded as if he was some distance away. Clacker took no notice.
“Clacker!”
“What does that stupid cunt want now?” Clacker said, throwing his cigarette away and getting up from the plank.
“What?” he shouted irritably once he was outside the shelter.
“You’ve got a rabbit in one of your snares.”
Clacker turned and looked beyond the shelter to the wheatfield. I got up and joined Clacker. Jackson was stand¬ing in the wheatfield, waving.
“It’s a big bugger,” he shouted.
Clacker slithered down the flint tip and cleared a way through the wheat to where Jackson was standing. For no reason than the fact there was nothing else to do I followed behind Clacker. Jackson was standing in the small trodden-down area that he’d made to display the rabbit, smiling with pride at his being the one to find it. The three of us stood there and looked down at the animal.
The rabbit was trembling terribly and its eyes were wide and wet. Every so often it would thrash violently about in an effort to get free but all it achieved was to make the snare cut deeper into its neck.
Clacker squatted down on his haunches and for a while he contemplated the rabbit but he made no effort to kill it. Then he took hold of the snare and began to twist it round and round, slowly strangling the rabbit. The animal’s eyes began to pop from their sockets and when I couldn’t stand any more of it I said:
“Why don’t you kill the fucking thing?”
Clacker looked up at me and grinned.
“I am doing, mate,” he said.
“I mean properly. You know how I mean.”
Clacker continued to twist the snare. I stared at the rabbit for a moment longer and then I ran out of the wheatfield and found a decent-sized flint at the bottom of the flint tip and dashed back, to where Clacker and Jackson were. Clacker was still twisting the snare and the rabbit was still alive. I stood still, gripping the flint and staring at the rabbit.
“What are you off to do with that, then?” Clacker said, indicating the flint.
“Kill it.”
Clacker let go of the snare and stood up.
“Go on, then,” he said. “It’s all yours.”
In the background I heard one of the lorries groaning up the slope. I still didn’t make a move to kill the animal.
“Reckon that’ll be Arthur,” Clacker said, looking towards the platform. “Better go and unbolt his tailboard for him. Come on, Jackson.”
Clacker grinned at me, then he walked off and Jackson followed close behind him.
I knelt down and tried to release the snare but I couldn’t find the noose because every time I touched the wire the rabbit wriggled, like madness itself. On the platform, the sound of the lorry cut out and the mad rustling of the animal against the stalks of wheat filled my ears. I picked up the flint again and tried to bring it down on the animal’s head but I was incapable of completing the action. I threw the flint away and raced out of the wheatfield and up the flint tip. When I reached the platform, Arthur was re-bolting one side of the tailboard and Clacker the other. Jackson was, as usual, just hanging about.
“Arthur,” I said, ‘there’s a rabbit in one of the snares and I can’t kill it. Can you come?”
“One of yours, is it, Clacker?” Arthur said.
“That’s right. I’ll get it, Arthur.”
As Clacker passed me on his way back to the flint tip I said:
“Why didn’t you bloody well kill it when you were down there?”
“Thought you were going to do that, mate,” Clacker said. “I le
ft you to it. I had to see to Arthur, didn’t I.”
He disappeared down the flint tip.
“What’s up?” Arthur said.
“Nothing.”
“Sure about that, are you?”
I nodded. Arthur began to roll a cigarette. A few minutes later Clacker reappeared. Somehow he’d managed to free the rabbit from the snare because he was carrying the dead animal by its back legs.
“What you have to do,” Clacker said, looking at me. “is to grab hold of its ears, like this, and give it a bloody great chop on the back of its neck, like this.”
I didn’t say anything.
“Yes, well, he’ll know next time,” Arthur said, lighting his cigarette.
“I doubt it,” Clacker said, and took the rabbit over to his bike and put it in his saddlebag.
That evening I called for Mart and we went to the pictures. Just before the lights went down I turned round in my seat and saw Don and Veronica sitting on the back row. He had his arm round her shoulder and they looked to be very cosy indeed. I turned away, as if the removal of the picture they presented would ease my frustrated embarrassment. The worst aspect of the situation was the seeming accept¬ance by Mart and Cec of the fact that Veronica appeared to prefer the company of Don to that of myself. Of course I knew that the case was different, but all they could base their judgement on was what they observed, and the only way that judgement could be altered was by demonstrating the existence of the truth which lay beneath the surface. But even the knowledge I had of the reasons for Veronica’s behaviour didn’t make me feel any better in the depths of my stomach. Jealousy of her ability to go with someone else in spite of the situation with myself gnawed away at me throughout the whole of the programme.
When the end titles appeared and the yellow watery house lights flickered on I stood up and was in the aisle and walking towards the exit before Don and Veronica had time to re-arrange themselves and get out of their seats. I arrived at the end of their row just as they were leaving it. Veronica didn’t look at me but Don nodded, embarrassed, trying to look as though it was some kind of unfortunate accident that had caused him and Veronica to be on the back row, and that, of course, normally he would have been down in the shillings with the rest of us.
We shuffled out past the urine and carbolic of the men’s bog and out into the night air. Normally we would all be glad to stand around on the steps for half an hour or so discussing the pictures we’d seen and the pictures yet to come, but tonight each member of the group except myself exhibited the desire to break up the gathering as soon as possible in order to dissipate the embarrassment it was gen¬erating. But I wanted the conversation to go on for as long as was possible so that I could use Veronica’s discomfort to my own advantage. I made myself appear to be in bright spirits but the same time sent out subterranean waves to Veronica to make her aware that this was all just an act, a way of coping with the unhappiness she was causing me in continuing to persist that I was insincere in my statements of good faith. I got the impression from Veronica that I was being successful, and that the rest of the evening was going to work out depressingly for Don, but I couldn’t be entirely sure.
Cec was the first to take his leave, giving Don the excuse to raise the subject of his and Veronica’s departure, and before they went I was sure to give Veronica one last fleeting expression of despair. After the others had left, Mart and I dawdled home, and I said:
“What do you make of it all, then?”
“You what?”
“Don and Veronica.”
“What about it?”
“They seem to be getting in pretty deep.”
Mart shrugged.
“You know me and my views on women. I mean I know Veronica likes Don. But you know, the way she likes all of us. I reckon Don’s taking it all a bit too seriously.”
“You could be wrong,” I said, but that was why I asked him, to hear his endorsement of my own view.
“Come off it. You know as well as I do what she’s up to. She’s getting back at you. It’s plain.”
The following evening I waited outside the library. It was half past five. Veronica would be out any minute now. I lit a cigarette and sat down on the low brick wall and kicked my heels. I heard the big green door slam to and then the sound of Veronica’s footsteps on the gravel. I turned round. She was looking very pretty, I thought, and then I remem¬bered Janet. I managed to blank out her image and I said:
“Howdy y’all.”
“Hello, Victor,” she said. “What do you want?”
“Oh, come on,” I said. “We have known each other for bloody years. You don’t suddenly have to start using that tone, you know.”
She didn’t say anything.
“I just wanted to see you, that’s all.”
She relaxed a bit, as if she’d realized the stupidity of her formality.
“All right,” she said. “Now what?”
“Now nothing. I just thought I’d like to walk home with you.”
“You can if you like.”
“‘You can if you like.’ God, you sound like Janice Marshbanks.”
She smiled and then opened and closed the library gates and we fell into step.
“How’s things, then?” I said.
“Fine.”
“That’s a pity.”
“Why?”
“If they weren’t then maybe I’d stand a chance of seeing you again.”
“Look, Victor...”
“I know, I know. I won’t say anything else.”
“Good.”
“Except that I’ve missed you.” I stopped walking and took hold of her hand and looked into her face. “I have, Veronica. Honestly.”
She looked away from me.
“I’ve missed you, too.”
We carried on walking.
“Well, this is bloody ridiculous, isn’t it. I mean, we both feel a certain way and yet we’re just not seeing each other.”
“I feel a certain way, Victor. Not you.”
“You keep saying that. Christ, what do I have to do to convince you?”
She didn’t say anything.
“Look, come on. Let’s go out tonight.”
She shook her head.
“I can’t. I’m seeing Don.”
“Tomorrow, then.”
“And tomorrow. And the day after.”
“Christ,” I said. “You’re really going to town on Don, aren’t you? Don’t you like him or something?”
“What do you mean?”
“Come off it. You know he feels more for you than you do for him. When you drop him he’s not going to take it easily.”
She didn’t answer.
“If you really liked him you’d do him a favour and stop it before it goes too far. I mean, I know I’m biased but I’m a mate of Don’s as well.”
“I don’t know what to do.”
“Are you seeing him Saturday?”
“We hadn’t arranged anything.”
“But you’re seeing him on Friday?”
She nodded.
“Then do it then. You’ve got to, you know.”
She didn’t say anything.”
“And after that we can stop playing this charade and get back the way we used to be.”
“I don’t know.”
“Tell you what,” I said. “Remember when we used to go in the White Lion? The small room?”
“Yes.”
“I’ll meet you in there on Saturday night. Eight o’clock. All right?”
“I don’t know. Victor, listen...”
“You’ll be there. I know you will.” We were at the end of her road now. “Look, I’ve got to go,” I said. “I really have. So I’ll see you then. Eight o’clock.
” I squeezed her hand and before she could say anything else I turned and walked away. She’d be there. I knew it.
The next day, about nine o’clock, my father’s car rolled up the ramps. He got out and walked across to the platform’s edge. He was grinning one of his knowing grins. In his left hand he was holding a letter.
“This came in the post after you’d gone,” he said, holding out the letter.
I put my hammer down and took the letter from him.
“It’s postmarked Hull,” he said.
My stomach turned over. My father stayed where he was, watching me. I stared at him.
“What does it say?” I said.
“You what?”
“The letter. Don’t say you haven’t steamed it open.”
“Less of that,” my father said, and stomped off to the kilns. I opened the envelope. There was a single sheet of notepaper inside. The letter read as follows:
DEAR VICTOR,
I KNOW THE LAST THING YOU WANT IS TO GET A LETTER FROM ME AFTER WHAT HAPPENED ON SATURDAY, BUT I JUST HAD TO WRITE. I DON’T KNOW WHY. I JUST FEEL SO BAD ABOUT WHAT HAPPENED. I WISH I COULD SOMEHOW SAY I’M SORRY AND KNOW THAT YOU COULD FIND IT IN YOURSELF TO FORGIVE ME. ALL I CAN SAY, VICTOR, IS THAT IT WAS ALL MY FAULT AND I’M TRULY SORRY. I REALLY AM. I JUST COULDN’T PREVENT THINGS TURNING OUT THE WAY THEY DID. THAT’S SOMETHING I KNOW YOU WON’T WANT ME TO EXPLAIN SO I WON’T TRY.
I JUST WANTED TO LET YOU KNOW HOW SORRY I AM BUT I KNOW, REALLY, THAT MY SAYING SORRY WON’T MATTER TO YOU IN THE SLIGHTEST.
LOVE,
J.
I read the letter half a dozen times but not one of the readings furnished me with the slightest reason for feeling other than utterly depressed at the letter’s contents.
