LOOK, STRANGER

by MARY HOCKING

  Vereker went into the kitchen. Nan, who had been having a late breakfast, was standing by the window. ‘Who is that lovely red-head?’

  ‘They are all squatters.’

  ‘We have squatters? That’s great! Are they going to stay?’

  ‘Some of them might. I’m going to telephone Mr. Jarman. Would you be able to make coffee and toast for them?’

  She looked doubtfully out of the window, counting. ‘Do you think the kids want coffee?’

  ‘Make it for the others and then ask what the kids would like.’

  ‘Suppose we don’t have it?’ She was losing ground already. ‘There’s only one bottle of milk and . . .’

  Vereker left her to sort this out and went to telephone Donald Jarman who had little practical advice to offer, but promised to come round.

  By the time Vereker returned to the kitchen, Nan was out in the garden with the squatters. The kitchen smelt of burnt toast; coffee had boiled over on the stove and the sink was coated with charred toast scrapings. In spite of this. Nan appeared to have satisfied the squatters and she looked as though she was enjoying talking to Milo. Meg Jacobs was playing with the younger children who were holding hands and dancing round her.

  Donald Jarman arrived in a quarter of an hour. He was a tallish man, with a heavy body sprucely controlled by a dark grey suit; he carried a rolled umbrella. He had dark hair, short, but with a crinkle here and there not entirely ironed out by careful grooming. His face had humour and a certain urbanity, the eyes smiled and the brows lofted in rueful resignation, but the jowls were those of a heavyweight. It was a face which had contradictory elements held together by some ruling principle which might be the public school ethos, or, just conceivably, the belief that most things are permissible provided one is not found out. For some reason, he reminded Vereker of a latter-day Stanley Baldwin; a man with a comfortable, bluff exterior cloaking a more subtle, even devious, personality. Vereker was an avid reader of biographies and had recently read one on Baldwin.

  ‘I’ve been in touch with the rural dean,’ Jarman told Vereker.

  ‘What did he say?’

  ‘ “Get them out”. Which is fine for him, away on the mainland.’

  ‘It’s a very big house just for Nan and me,’ Vereker said.

  ‘We may have to take the Anguilos, but don’t promise anything. I’ll give the rector of Doddlecombe a call and find out how he managed; I know he had a bit of trouble with squatters at one time.’

  ‘What kind of a person is Meg Jacobs?’

  ‘Meg Jacobs?’ Jarman smiled. He had oddly-shaped triangular eyes with a sense of mischief in them kept under superficial control. ‘She’s well meaning enough, but not very effective – frightens herself as much as anyone else. We ought to come to terms with her before someone really nasty takes over.’

  The morning passed. The squatters were taken away in relays to a home for unmarried mothers where lunch had been laid on for them.

  Jarman had spent the morning on the telephone with little to show for it. The rector of Doddlecombe had gone on a sponsored walk and Tudor Lindsay was in court. ‘I suggest you go over to Carrick Farm this evening and get Lindsay on the job. He probably knows more about sorting out this kind of mess than anyone else.’

  ‘Is he helpful?’

  ‘He’ll have to be over this. It’s his job.’

  Jarman departed for a late lunch and Vereker and Nan sat down to the remains of the cold ham and salad. She seemed in better spirits than the night before. ‘I’ve made a list of things we need.’ Her tone challenged her father to question her list, but when he failed to do so she hung around for a few minutes to give him another chance; eventually, however, she set out for the shops looking resolute, if not exactly confident.

  The squatters returned and seemed content to amuse themselves in the garden. The reporter from the Herald arrived, delighted about the squatters, and asked Vereker for his views on squatting. Vereker said that he had not been here long enough to have any views.

  ‘But doesn’t Christianity involve loving our neighbours?’ the reporter asked predictably.

  Vereker said that indeed this was so.

  ‘Then aren’t these your neighbours?’ the reporter persisted.

  ‘Well, in a way they are, and in a way they aren’t, because this isn’t my house.’

  At this point they were interrupted by the arrival of the other churchwarden. Colonel Maitland, an old man in tweeds and a hat which Vereker associated with Sherlock Holmes. The old man had watery blue eyes and was a little hard of hearing; he was, however, in full possession of his wits and proceeded to interview Vereker on his life in America on behalf of the reporter. He spoke in a series of short barks, turning every now and again to the reporter to snap, ‘Got that?’ ‘That what you want to know, eh?’ When the reporter had the temerity to mention the squatters, he was put down with a growling, ‘Can’t talk about that now. Later, later. Always in a hurry, you fellahs.’ When, like a sheepdog protecting a particularly foolish sheep, he had nosed the reporter away from Vereker and out of the front door, the old man said severely, ‘Should have waited for me before seeing that fellah.’

  ‘I didn’t know you were coming,’ Vereker pointed out.

  The old man stared at him in angry reproach; obviously he considered that he had reached an age when occasional unreason is allowable and should not be questioned.

  ‘But I was very glad to see you,’ Vereker assured him.

  ‘Humph.’ The old man walked to the window and looked at the squatters, screwing up his eyes in the bright light. ‘Bad business. Just when you’ve arrived. Drifters and spongers most of them. Still, there are reasons why we ought to take the Anguilos.’ He did not say what those reasons were.

  Vereker said he would like to take the Anguilos. He also said that it had been suggested he should see Tudor Lindsay in the evening. He did not want to get involved with the Lindsays and hoped that this wily old man would take the task from him, but Colonel Maitland merely nodded and asked, ‘D’ye have this sort of caper in America?’ Then, before Vereker could answer, he went on, ‘When I was a child I knew an old man who saw Abraham Lincoln. How old d’ye think that makes me?’

  ‘Eighty?’ Vereker hazarded.

  ‘Eighty-three. That was a bad business, y’know. A country can’t afford to squander its great men like that.’ He looked at Vereker shrewdly. ‘What happened to Kennedy, eh? Was it that fellah, forget his name. . . .’

  The telephone rang before Vereker could confess his ignorance. It was a Miss Draisey who was a member of the parochial church council; she had telephoned to welcome Vereker and to give him a list of people who were sick on whom he should call preferably today but certainly before Sunday. When Vereker had taken down the list of names, Colonel Maitland went through it, crossed off three names and added two others. Then he told Vereker about an old man he had known who had seen Disraeli drive up to Gunnersbury Park to greet Baron Rothschild. After two more telephone calls, a discussion of church business and the casualties at Passchendaele, the old man departed.

  It was half-past four and Vereker was eager for tea; this was one English habit he seemed to have acquired instantaneously. The hall was dark now, but the kitchen door was open and sunlight slanted in at the window and cast a cone of light on the floor. As Vereker walked towards the kitchen, a shadow blocked part of the light. Nan must be back. But instead of going forward to greet her, he stopped. It was quiet. Nan was a hurrying person; she would be at the table by now, banging down her purchases and calling out to him that she was back. Whoever was in the kitchen was having second thoughts about being there. One of the squatters, another parishioner with pickles, fruit-cake? He had so wanted a few moments alone. Whoever it was, wasn’t welcome.

  He went into the kitchen and found a strange woman standing by the back door; a tall woman, in a dark-green, belted coat, wearing a dark-green felt hat which dipped on one side so that only the plane of one cheek and a shadowed eye
were visible. She remained quite still, her back against the door, perhaps startled by his sudden arrival; she reminded him of a figure in a ’thirties movie, one of the ‘heavier’ actresses, Garbo or Dietrich, who were always standing around looking fraught with their backs to doors.

  ‘Mr. Vereker?’ She took off her hat and looked for somewhere to lay it down. ‘I’m Zoe Lindsay.’ He did not respond, but she seemed unaware of any lack of courtesy on his part. ‘I said I’d help with the house.’ She glanced around the kitchen; Nan had left it in a mess, but this did not seem to concern her. She still had not found anywhere to put her hat and had not moved away from the door.

  ‘We’ve got squatters,’ Vereker said. His mind was not on the squatters.

  She ran her fingers through her hair which had been flattened by the hat; she did this in an abstracted way, as a man might have done. The problem of making the best of herself was not one with which she would ever have to contend: beauty was hers whether she wanted it or not. Your less fortunate human being, such as Matthew Vereker, must try to make the best of a face for which mouth, eyes, nose have been chosen at random, rejects from other models. Her face and features were all of a piece; the cavities between the finely arched brows and the high cheekbones had been hollowed for just those almond eyes, while the elegant ripple of the nostrils and the swell of the long upper lip belonged ineluctably to the oval frame in which they were contained. Unnecessary generosity would cloy such sculptured beauty: her eyelashes were not long, the light brown hair was not exceptional in colour or texture, the skin was dry and too pale.

  For how long Vereker gazed at her he could not have said. No doubt he behaved rudely, but then she had not been very polite yesterday when she observed him from an upstairs window of her house. She took his scrutiny calmly. She had found out about her beauty a long time ago and the knowledge had left her free to concentrate on other worries. Certainly, she had worries. Her face had the gentle, dazed expression of the person who has gone into retreat from life. Looking at her, Vereker heard a voice inside him crying out angrily, ‘I have had enough of ill women!’

  ‘Have you had tea yet?’ She came forward at last and laid her hat on one of the kitchen chairs. Her voice was low and subdued.

  ‘I was just coming to make it.’

  ‘You really want tea? I can make coffee if you prefer it.’

  ‘I have become addicted to tea.’ He was brusque.

  She went to the sink to fill the kettle. ‘Are those the squatters?’ she asked, looking out of the window neither surprised nor interested.

  ‘Yes. Do you know any of them?’

  ‘We all know the Anguilos, of course.’ She did not explain why this should be so. ‘Tudor will know the others, I expect.’

  She poured tea for herself and Vereker and they sat at the kitchen table. ‘I feel I ought to take in one or two of them,’ Vereker said. ‘This house is so large.’

  This surprised her. ‘But our house is large, too. I suppose we ought to take someone in. I hadn’t thought of that.’

  ‘Have you lived there long?’

  ‘All my life.’

  She sipped her tea slowly, lacing her fingers round the cup to warm them although it was not cold in the kitchen. Outside the light was beginning to fade. Vereker wished that Nan would return.

  ‘I’ll come in the morning tomorrow,’ she said. ‘I meant to come this morning, only. . . .’ She lost the thread of her thought.

  ‘We don’t want to put you out in any way.’

  ‘Why should you put me out?’ She looked at him with hostility as though he had said something presumptuous.

  ‘You’ve got your own house to look after.’

  ‘That doesn’t take me all day. I shall be pleased to come here. It’s a nice old house.’

  Vereker, feeling uncomfortable, said, ‘I’ll leave you, then. I don’t suppose you want me under your feet.’

  He went to the study and looked through the notes which Roberts had left for him. Then he made a few notes of things he might say at the social evening on Friday at which he was to meet his parishioners. At six o’clock he went into the church to say the evening office. Zoe Lindsay was about to leave when he returned.

  ‘Your daughter is in the bath,’ she told him. ‘And I’ve let the squatters into the cellar. I didn’t think they should have the run of the house until you’ve sorted things out.’

  ‘The cellar!’

  ‘It’s more of a basement,’ she assured him. ‘The Roberts children used it as a play area and there’s a lavatory and wash-basin down there.’

  He opened the door for her. The air was sharp and smelt of frost.

  ‘It’s dark now,’ he said, not sure what was expected of him. ‘Should I walk you home?’

  She smiled and for a moment all the cobwebs were blown away and her face was clear as crystal. ‘There’s no need, I’m used to the dark. I’d be a prisoner all winter if I never went out at night unaccompanied.’

  ‘You’re not afraid of ghosts down at the priory?’ he asked, a little sorry that his offer had been refused.

  ‘There’s no need to be frightened of them; they’re quite harmless.’

  He leaned against the lintel of the door, prepared to chat. ‘Now I’ve heard that said often, but it doesn’t convince me. If I went down to that priory ruin and saw a lot of nuns there in the moonlight, I’d be plain terrified.’

  ‘It’s not just in the moonlight,’ she said. ‘They’re there in the day, too.’

  There was a pause. The evening air blew in between them and it seemed to Vereker to be degrees colder. He said, keeping his voice carefully unemphatic, ‘You see them?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And do they talk to you?’

  ‘No.’ She put on her hat; it shielded her face, but her voice sounded sad. ‘At first I tried to talk to them; then I realized that although I see them, they don’t see me.’

  They bade each other good night and Vereker shut the door sooner than was strictly polite. He did a rapid tour of the house. She had left it in good order. That was fine: he and Nan could carry on from here. Later, he would tackle Tudor Lindsay about the squatters and he would make it plain, even at the risk of giving offence, that he and Nan did not need any more help from his cousin.

  Jarman called on his way home from the office and Meg Jacobs returned from some unspecified errand. Vereker had little chance to talk to Nan alone, but when he went into the kitchen where she was preparing sandwiches, she said, ‘I like Zoe Lindsay. She’s got a very special aura. Didn’t you feel it?’

  ‘She’s unusual,’ Vereker conceded.

  ‘Yes.’ Nan sighed, as though to be unusual was the ultimate in personal achievement.

  ‘I thought she looked rather strained,’ Vereker felt his way carefully. ‘Maybe it’s asking too much of her to look after this house as well as her own.’

  ‘She likes the house. She told me so.’

  ‘I’ll have a word with her cousin,’ Vereker muttered. ‘I’m going over there now.’

  ‘You could ask them to have dinner with us sometime. Don’t you think you should?’ Nan looked doubtfully at the hunks of bread, thick at the top and tapering to mere crumble at the other end, and quailed at the thought of producing dinner for four. ‘Or drinks, maybe; or coffee.’

  ‘Maybe.’ Vereker had no intention of offering hospitality to the Lindsays; Zoe Lindsay was another of God’s creatures whom he was rejecting. He told himself he was doing it for Nan’s sake; but Nan hadn’t been in his mind when that inner voice had formed those shocking words, ‘I have had enough of ill women!’

  Nan started to say something about Tudor Lindsay, but as she was speaking Meg Jacobs came in and offered to help with the sandwiches. Vereker, glad of the interruption, said, ‘I’ll be on my way now.’

  As he shut the door behind him, Vereker blew out his cheeks in a gusty sigh. If he walked slowly it could take him all of half an hour to get to Carrick Farm. He walked down the drive, ope
ned the front gate, and turned in the direction of Virginia Close, moving with the taut restraint of an escaped prisoner who may at any moment break into an ill-considered run. His heart was pounding and he steadied his pace. Friends at home had warned him that life in England was very different to life in America; it would take him a little while, they had said, to acclimatize himself to the slower pace. His heart was still pounding as he walked down Virginia Close; the difference in pace would be the death of him if he wasn’t careful.

  The bungalows all had their porch lights on, it was like walking through a glow-worm camp. It was quiet; no one clipping a hedge, no dogs barking. The inhabitants, human and canine, were presumably holed up in their sitting-rooms. “Camp” was the wrong word, “camp” suggested a community of people living together and that was too primitive for what was happening here; these people had refined themselves out of tribal existence, they might be housed together but they did their living very privately.

  At the T junction the moon shone on the concrete mixer and the crane and the derelict buildings, roofless with empty windowless eyes. An illuminated tag at the top of scaffolding hoisted the builders name among the stars. Far in the distance, towards the town centre, a traffic light blinked. There was no traffic in sight but now all around him he could hear the banshee wail of police sirens; he stood listening for a moment, puzzled, until a rapid burst of machine-gun fire brought the realization that the noise was coming from dozens of television sets.

  He turned gratefully towards the darkness of the country lane, found the stile and climbed it. The right of way was by no means easy to follow in the dark so now he had to walk slowly. It was good to have more space around him, but he still didn’t feel right. He saw a line of trees strung out stark against the sky, he heard the wind in the long grass, he smelt the salt tang of marshes, but he had no feeling of liberation, and the dim light from a solitary cottage brought no sense of warmth and comfort. There was an older way of life trodden under foot here. There was an older way of life in America, too; but Indian territory wasn’t peaceful, not for the white man, anyway. It was absurd to make comparisons. Yet the feeling remained strongly with him of a life to which violence has been done. There was no peace here.