LOOK, STRANGER

by MARY HOCKING

  Outside, Nancy and Meg Jacobs had strolled along the road and were now leaning over a farm gate.

  ‘How is it with our Tudor?’ Meg asked. ‘I haven’t liked the look of the lad recently. Been overdoing things again, has he?’

  ‘He really identifies with people, and I guess that’s a bit wearing.’

  ‘He identifies, I grant you that! But I’d have said he identified people with his convictions, and I’m not sure that’s good for them.’

  ‘In what way can it be bad for them?’ Nancy asked.

  Meg turned her head to one side to get a cigarette going before she answered. Her fingers were stained with nicotine and so was her upper lip. The cigarette bobbed about as she talked.

  ‘Tudor can’t see that a few small adjustments might meet their needs quite as well as a revolution.’

  ‘You don’t believe in revolution?’

  ‘My God, yes! I’ll be there at the barricades when it happens. But I get worried about the inadequate; they can’t cope with day-to-day living, let alone a revolution.’ She gave a deep sigh, caught her breath and spluttered. ‘I always have a nasty feeling that the same sort of people are going to come to the top after the revolution, like they always say the bright pupils win out whatever system of education you have.’ She stopped talking to cough in earnest. She looked very depressed; it was obvious she had little confidence in herself. When she had got her breath back, she began to revise her previous statements. ‘Don’t think I don’t admire Tudor. I know some of the other social workers think he’s unprofessional, but I think he’s worth a dozen of them. I just don’t have his guts, that’s my trouble.’ Tudor was coming towards them. When he joined them, she said, ‘What are we going to do about that little lot?’

  ‘If there was a better health service he’d get to see a psychiatrist more often than once in six weeks.’ He put his hands on the top bar of the gate, which was padlocked, and rattled it to and fro as though this locking of the gate was the final demand on his patience.

  ‘You can’t send her to a psychiatrist.’

  ‘The children won’t come to much harm from her.’

  ‘They’ll come to harm left on their own. Can’t you get a care order?’

  ‘On what evidence? The old woman next door? She’d turn milk sour by looking at it. We’d need something more than her unsupported testimony, and the G.P. won’t co-operate.’ His hands moved restlessly, fingers examining the padlock. ‘What we need is a commune for problem families, supervized by resident social workers.’

  ‘Mmh, I like that.’ Meg tended to quick enthusiasm, but even she could see drawbacks. ‘Where would you find the money? More important, where would you find a site on this tight little island?’

  ‘There’s the priory site.’

  ‘You wouldn’t have a prayer, Tudor!’ Meg hooted. She was pleased to be noticed by Tudor but reacted to him in a gauche way. ‘Problem families have a very bad rating in the charts. If you suggested giving some of this island’s precious open space over to them, you’d be lynched!’

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘And, what is more, my dear boy, that old priory is part of our heritage. And it’s no use making rude noises, because if anyone threatens that heap of rubble, you’re going to hear a lot more about our wonderful heritage; the priory site may be neglected now, but just breathe the word “development” and the archaeologists and conservationists will spring up everywhere like buttercups and daisies.’

  She turned away to her car, pausing before getting into it to shout, ‘But if you want to stick your neck out, “I’ll be there, I’ll be there, and the creed and the colour and the name won’t matter. . .”.’

  ‘What a woman!’ Tudor said disdainfully.

  ‘Are you going to stick your neck out?’ Nancy asked.

  ‘I’m going to have lunch. Are you coming? The woman at the farmhouse does a nice line in bacon and eggs.’

  ‘Super!’

  ‘What an enthusiastic creature you are. If I’d suggested dry bread and stale cheese you would still have said “super”.’

  Nancy did not answer and he bent down to look in her face. ‘I’m sorry.’ He picked her up and sat her on the gate. ‘You look very nice today, did I tell you that? My idea of the all-American small-town girl, young and eager and wholesome.’ He clambered over the gate and lifted her down. They began to stroll round the side of the field. His arm was round her waist and she wanted to stroll in silence, bumping against him, getting the feel of him; but he kept throwing out inconsequential remarks in a nervy, staccato manner.

  ‘What are American small-town boys like?’

  ‘Not so formal as English boys.’

  ‘I always think of Americans as being rather stereotyped. Particularly the women. I imagine salons everywhere that will rid you of your individuality and turn you into the all-American matron.’

  ‘Maybe you’ll be like that over here one day,’ she answered. ‘When Wales and Scotland and Cornwall and Yorkshire have their own state government, you’ll find it’s necessary to have something in common, to prove you’re one people, and then you’ll start trying to look British instead of being it in your bones.’

  ‘Very penetrating.’ He had a way of cutting her down to size with a sardonic comment. She decided not to say anything more until they were settled over the meal.

  The meal was simple but good. Unfortunately, the farmer’s wife was lonely and welcomed any chance to talk to people; she did not leave them alone for longer than it took her to clear the dishes and fetch butter and cheese.

  When they left the farmhouse, Tudor said, ‘I feel sleepy. I shouldn’t have eaten so much. Usually, I have a sandwich on my way from one place to another.’

  ‘Isn’t that bad for you?’

  ‘It’s even worse if I don’t get round to seeing all my urgent clients.’

  ‘You’re too conscientious.’

  ‘The day you’re a little less conscientious, something blows up.’ They walked round the back of an outhouse; there was a bundle of straw on the ground outside disused stables. It was very quiet, even the farm dog was too sleepy to do more than raise a dusty nose from its paws. Tudor said, ‘I’m going to have five minutes’ sleep. Be my alarm clock.’ He was asleep almost before he touched the straw. Nancy sat beside him, wondering how long she should let him sleep. She did not think that less than half an hour would do him any good. The outhouses were not overlooked by the farmhouse and there was no sight or sound of human activity. She supposed that she and Tudor could probably stay here undisturbed for the afternoon. Even so, she felt guilty as if there were notices flashing “forbidden” all round the yard: very earthy places, farmyards, all right for animals but rather rugged for humans. She looked down at Tudor. He looked very fierce, even in sleep.

  After half an hour, she shook his shoulder gently, but he only groaned and turned his head away. She tickled his nose with a straw and he sneezed. ‘What’s the time?’ He looked up at the sky, startled, and then turned his head to one side, blinking his eyes at the stable wall.

  ‘Two o’clock. You’ve been asleep half an hour. Do you feel better?’

  ‘God, no!’ He hunched himself up and rested his head on his knees. It was obvious that the sleep had not done him any good. He had wound himself up for the day and this short rest had interfered with some vital piece of the mechanism that kept him going; he wasn’t sure he could get himself started again.

  ‘Lie down,’ Nancy commanded. ‘Have a few minutes just lying and breathing deeply.’

  He did as he was bidden. She put a hand on his ribs. ‘You’re so uptight you can’t even take a deep breath,’ she accused him.

  ‘Never mind about that.’ He drew her down against his chest and said, ‘Just stay with me.’ For a few minutes, he seemed to labour for breath, then, when it came more easily, he began to talk. ‘I live in a straitjacket, a damned straitjacket!’

  ‘Tudor, why?’ She raised herself to look at him, but he pulled her down.<
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  ‘No, don’t leave me.’

  ‘I won’t ever leave you.’

  ‘The only way I can function is to conform, to obey the laws even if they are bad laws; I have to consent to be lamed and limited.’ He sounded as if he was working a problem out aloud rather than confiding in her. ‘I accept all this so that I can do my social work. I don’t push beyond the limits because if I did I would be locked up, in prison, or a mental home. And what use would I be then?’

  ‘You’re much more use where you are, doing. . . .’

  He held her tighter, crushing her to silence while he went on, ‘But sometimes I cannot stand it any more. I can feel it closing in on me. I try to smash it; but it doesn’t work. You can’t smash evil, you only release it and then it has you cornered.’

  Nancy thought he was not as much in command of himself as usual. Poor Tudor! He was like a child who has had a nightmare and she had the responsibility of comforting him. She was unused to responsibility and unsure how to exercise it.

  Tudor said, ‘I broke that window in the church.’ He spoke quietly. ‘I am proud of it. It was the most magnificent thing I have ever done.’ He was silent for a moment, and then he said, ‘I wanted to tell you,’ as though he was giving her a present.

  His words weighed on Nancy, demanding a response so urgently that she had no time to examine what exactly it was that he had said. She was sure that there had never been a moment in the whole of her life when so much depended on finding the right words. She took Tudor’s hand and twined her fingers between his to give him some comfort; in spite of this talk of magnificence, she thought that he must be very disturbed by what he had done. She prayed for the right words to come, but they did not come. She never had believed those stories about God giving you the words when you really need to comfort others. The truth was out of the bag now: you damned well have to find your own words! She said, ‘I love you, Tudor. But I’m not very experienced, and you’ve been too unhappy to love. So we’ll have to take things slowly. We’ll grow into love together.’ She lifted his hand to her lips and kissed his fingers. He did not answer and his hand was heavy. She looked at him timidly, hoping he wasn’t disappointed in her. He was fast asleep.

  Chapter Nine

  At a certain stage in the meeting of the South Wessex District Council’s planning committee the chairman, prompted by his clerk, announced that the committee had now to discuss matters which, in the public interest, must remain confidential. It would, therefore, he said, glancing towards the slightly raised tier at the back of the chamber, be necessary to ask the public to leave. The few members of the public present began to shuffle about and while they did this the chairman shuffled a few of his papers. When all this shuffling seemed to be over, the chairman said, ‘Now, item six, use of the Priory site on Helmsley Island. . . .’ The clerk leant forward and hissed in the chairman’s ear. A small, docile-looking man was still seated in the public gallery. He was requested to leave, but he appeared to be deaf as well as docile, so the clerk went in search of the policeman on duty.

  When the policeman arrived, the small man followed him meekly out of the chamber. It seemed incredible that the same man could have written the piece which so upset Miss Draisey when the Herald was delivered to her house.

  ‘Read that!’ she commanded Vereker who had called on her to discuss her suggestions for the fete. She had the appearance of having dressed in some confusion, her frilly blouse had been pulled over her head leaving the sausage curls crumpled and the zip of her skirt had not been fastened. Her face was heavily made up and lipstick was smudged across her teeth. As though in explanation of her disarray, she said, ‘This is very distressing. And now the worst has happened!’ She buttoned up her mouth and breathed heavily. Vereker assumed that he was to read first and hear the worst later. He read:

  ‘The ghosts of Helmsley priory have taken on a more sinister aspect. Their activities have become so menacing that in the islanders’ interest it was necessary to clear the public gallery before the members of the planning committee could bring themselves to discuss the latest happenings connected with the priory site.

  “Of the several ways of despatching ghosts, exorcism is currently the most favoured. Could it be that last Thursday evening the members of our dauntless planning committee sat in secret concourse to devise their own brand of exorcism? It is rumoured, and rumour, on Helmsley Island, has a way of turning into fact, that the nuns of Helmsley priory may shortly be seen wandering the corridors of a luxury hotel when they are not dining in one of its three restaurants, contemplating its swimming pool, or meditating on its squash courts. The chairman of the planning committee, when asked to comment on this on the telephonic, said that he had never heard such nonsense. But then in 1968, the chairman, who is a senior partner in the firm of Engels, Biggs and Sullyman, estate agents, said that he had never heard such nonsense as the suggestion that the old market was to be closed in order to make way for a multi-storey car park.”

  Vereker let his eyes travel over the printed words, but even on a second reading his mind refused to come to terms with the matter of the use of the priory grounds. It had been a hot week, exceptional, so he was informed, for early June; and it was indeed exceptionally hot in Miss Draisey’s sitting-room. The house was Edwardian and solidly built; there was neither crack nor crevice through which air could come if the owner chose not to open a window. The chairs and settee were upholstered in a dark, oppressive brown corded velvet; there were brown velvet curtains at the window which, together with a jungle of pot plants, kept the sun in its place and allowed only a faint light to filter through. The upholstery, the curtains and Miss Draisey herself were impregnated with the smell of stale cigarette smoke and the more recently released fumes of whisky. Vereker remembered that he had been told never to call on Miss Draisey without warning, but he had not understood the reason until now. He wished he had spared her this.

  Miss Draisey sat opposite Vereker. A little sweat pricked through the thick coating of powder and she dabbed at her face with a paper tissue. Henry, who was leaning heavily against Vereker’s thigh, contributed his own smell, a mixture of leather, powdered dog biscuits, and exhaust fumes.

  ‘He’s taken a great liking to you,’ Miss Draisey said. She seemed momentarily to have forgotten about the newspaper report.

  Vereker tickled Henry behind the ear and looked at a photograph of the pupils and staff at Creighton Manor School.

  ‘Do you go back to the school often?’ he asked.

  ‘Never! It’s a great mistake to think one can ever go back.’ Vereker was conscious of a great loneliness which Henry had failed to assuage. Henry, however, had not been made aware of this, for he had an air of enormous self-confidence.

  ‘You can’t trust them at all.’ Miss Draisey was not, it seemed, speaking of the unreliability of golden retrievers, but of the happenings since the newspaper report was written. ‘They’ve got a bulldozer out in Hammetts Lane. Gwynneth Jarman telephoned, she’s going to sit in front of it and wanted me to go with her. But I can’t go down to that place. Of course, she wouldn’t understand that; she’s so insensitive.’ She looked at Vereker, protruding eyes inviting him to assuage a grief she could not put into words.

  Vereker had been promised tea but so far it was not forthcoming although there was an occasional clatter from somewhere in the rear of the house. He felt acutely uncomfortable, but he was resolved not to leave before tea was served. He sensed that only too often people had backed away from this woman and he told himself that, however inadequately, he would sit this out.

  Miss Draisey sighed and patted her cheeks again with the tissue. ‘Do you believe in evil?’ she asked unexpectedly.

  ‘As an independent force?’ Vereker was cautious.

  ‘I don’t know about that,’ she said crossly. ‘You clergymen are no better than lawyers, never give a straight answer to anything.’

  Vereker, at a loss to understand the turn which the conversation had taken, chucked
Henry under the chin. Miss Draisey said, ‘He doesn’t behave like that for everyone,’ as Henry lifted an ecstatic head.

  ‘You were talking earlier about Hammetts Lane,’ Vereker said, glad to have escaped the subject of evil. ‘I don’t know where that is.’

  ‘It runs past Carrick Farm to the priory grounds. That’s where the bulldozer is now.’

  All conversational routes seemed to lead to the priory. Vereker asked, ‘Who owns the priory site?’

  ‘It was owned by the Pendrells who lived at Bookers Farm. When old Mr. Pendrell died it went to a nephew. A terrible man called Wenfield who has “interests in the city”. When he inherited, he said, “All I want to do here is to continue what has been done for hundreds of years – to farm the land well.” Which was nonsense, anyway, because it isn’t good farming land.’ Here spoke a crisper, more authoritative Miss Draisey. ‘I said at the time, “I give him three months.” And I was quite right. In less than three months he had put in an application for planning permission to build a hotel on the priory site. The site is one of the few remaining open spaces on the island; and, of course, the ruins are part of the island’s history. The Friends of Helmsley Island, of which I am Vice¬President, opposed the application and I’m glad to say we won. But now it looks as if he’s trying to take the law into his own hands.’

  At this moment, an old woman in carpet slippers backed into the room carrying a tray. ‘You want a window open in here,’ she shouted as she put the tray down on an occasional table.

  ‘No, I don’t,’ Miss Draisey snapped.

  ‘Suit yourself. You’ll have a bad head again. Do you want me to pour?’

  ‘I am perfectly capable of pouring myself.’

  The old woman looked at Henry and said, ‘Come on! OUT!’

  ‘He’s all right,’ Miss Draisey said.

  ‘No, he’s not. He’s smelly. He hasn’t been out since first thing this morning.’

  Henry, with great good nature, prevented any further altercation by following the old woman out of the room. Miss Draisey looked at the tray as though not quite sure what to do with it. Confusion made her depressed. ‘When I was a child there was nothing beyond this house but green fields. Even as late as the war I could see the priory ruins from this house.’ She sighed. ‘I fight, of course; we all fight. But it’s too late. It was too late after the first bungalow estate went up. I said to them at the time,’ she rallied at the memory and lifted the teapot, ‘ “Once you have paid the Danegeld, you never get rid of the Dane”.’ The spout of the teapot wavered above the cups, ‘And the evidence of Danegeld is not far to see anywhere you look on Helmsley Island.’ Powered by the strength of her own rightness, she held the pot steady and poured tea into the cups without spilling any in either of the saucers. Vereker rose in salute of this performance. As she handed him his cup, she said: ‘I ought to go down there and join Gwynneth, but the place upsets me. You can’t exorcise ghosts.’