by Molly Keane
In spite of all this unhappiness, her practical intentions guided her religiously through her preparations for the afternoon. Fragile, paper-thin spokes of wheel-like flower heads, preserved intact, along with teazles and seedheads and apple branches, went into the sturdy Renault. The basket holding the wrapped candlestick and the tweed picture had a safe place by her side. The suitcases containing darling Mummie’s desecrated clothes, and the parcel April had left to be delivered to horrid Ulick were in the boot. With Gripper, rigid in disciplined obedience, on her knee, May reversed the car carefully through the jungle of discarded household junk that half filled the garage – once a coach house, where clean carriages waited under great dustsheets for the ladies’ afternoon drives: for parties and pleasures, and for the long roads to those legendary balls given by dead soldiers in long-forgotten garrisons. Only April could faintly remember the very last of these festivities. April too was gone, May thought with a pang, first of relief, then of regret at the passing of another certainty: no more squabbling as to who should drive.
Down the avenue she drove, missing most of the deeper hazards, one of her perfected skills; but as she dodged and swerved her way along she felt no satisfaction, only the persistent miasma of loss. Beyond the shade of the trees, the mountains on her right, and the fields, dipping to the river valley on her left, were equally endowed and blessed in the change of the year. Larks should have been singing; the strong spring sun required their celebration. The lovely day found no response in May; the dead flower-heads in the back of the car matched her mood far better than sunlight; the suspicion that she had a flat tyre fitted in perfectly with the day’s disasters. When she stopped at a bridge over the river to verify the matter, she was almost disappointed to find that she was mistaken. Changing a wheel had no difficulties for her. It would have been some assertion of her capabilities, which far exceeded Jasper’s in any mechanical direction. Looking down the river without much interest she saw a swan, nesting solitary between reeds and willows. May watched while the swan bent her cold neck double to nuzzle eggs farther beneath her. “That’s right, girl, keep your secrets,” May said aloud. Secrets? At the word a blush rose in excited shame for the secret that should never have been told; for the betrayal of her hidden strength. Colour streamed down her neck; her breasts sweated. When she got back into the car she put Gripper’s welcome aside, all values lost.
Passing the monstrous gates to Ballynunty she thought how once she might have made of the exquisitely restored candlestick a reason for an afternoon visit, a cup of tea; stretching that hour to the time for sherry; then home again through the enlivened evening, fortified by the glamour of Alys’s friendship, and ready for any tease from Jasper. Now, such a gap had been torn open through all that mattered to her that she drove past the gates – cold to their familiarity as any stranger. If I had a car crash today and broke my leg, she thought, I wouldn’t tell them to carry me in there.
Rain came down, violating the afternoon; rain fell into the dark river beside which she drove, rain almost defeated the power of her windscreen wiper; it streamed before her on the wet, black road; rain possessed the day, and a stormy wind buffeted the car and the steering in her hands. Common-sense had failed her for once; no umbrella, not even a mackintosh. There she was, muttering her annoyance, in her neat trouser-suit, hatless, scarfless, when she came to the town where her afternoon’s activities waited for her – the suitcases full of filthy clothes for the cleaners; the Flower Guild meeting, and the delivery of April’s parcel to Ulick Uniacke. She had put that commission last on her list, hoping that his shop might be closed, and Jasper could do the job on a different day.
It was the rain that changed her plan. If she put Ulick first on the list, she could at least potter in shelter until the downpour lessened. She parked her car opposite his shop. Rain slapped against the flat old windows, sustained on their trumpet-shaped uprights – an original shop window, no gothic glazing bars or manufactured bow to vulgarize it towards any pretension other than being a shop window. Today the window was filled with a deadly dull display of barometers and weather vanes, all looking too large for their setting. Looking in through the sheets of rain, May knew how much more attractively she could have arranged it. Silly old queen, she thought, as she shut the car door on Gripper’s imploring face. “Sit,” she said with some shred of authority, and scurried for shelter, April’s mysterious parcel in hand. Suddenly struck by a fear that Gripper might do some accidental mischief to the basket containing the candlestick and her tweed picture, May delayed, while the rain was sticking her smoky grey hair to her cheeks, to open the car door and take them with her.
Today the shop was crowded and choked, a mouth too full of food, with pieces of furniture strange and diverse, good, bad and indifferent. She thought there was some sort of coarse purpose in their disarrangement as if a voice had said: I refuse to make a pretty display. Find your own interest and purpose. There was no one there to sell, or prompt a purchase. Huge pictures were leant against mahogany Victoriana of vast solidity. She was looking, with unfashionable distaste, at the portrait of a fat little boy, wearing red velvet knickerbockers and standing with one hand on a pedestal and the other on the head of a deer-hound, when a voice from behind the cupboard on which the picture was propped, said: “Lather fun,” and a really hideous Japanese dwarf in a very expensive velvet coat – black, with frogs – followed the voice. “Les?” he said enquiringly.
Here was the sort of quiet indecency one could expect to find among Ulick’s macabre collection, she thought with dull acceptance, rather than with the interested disapproval and condemnation of a happier day, when she would have noted every nasty detail for relay to Alys. “I have a parcel for Mr Uniacke,” she said.
The tiny idol shook his head as if it nodded on a wire spring. His flat yellow face was closed firmly against any wish to please or assist. He eyed the round parcel with oriental disdain. “We don’t buy any lubbish here,” he said.
To be treated by a yellow catamite as though she had come into a pawn shop with a piece of indifferent plate made a further hideous turn in May’s misfortunate day. On any other occasion she would have found a ready reply to snub such insolence. Today she only said, “Mrs Grange-Gorman sent this parcel. For repair. Not for sale.”
“Mrs Glange-Gorman,” the dwarf repeated in his small hissing voice. “The lady who lang this morning orderling me to pack her tlunks – I deny.”
Through a filter in May’s memory came the recollection of April’s morning telephone call. No doubt she had assumed that Ulick was its recipient. “Where is Mr Uniacke?” she asked, explicit in her denial of the familiar “Ulick”.
“Ulick? Gone to Dullaghglass and leaving me to move all this ugly lubbish into place. Who does he think I am? A White Witch? To move gland pianos by myself? Oh, he is Bad News. A load of old lubbish himself.”
May looked away from the furious Oriental, and out at the teeming rain. There was nearly an hour to fill before her meeting. She could shelter here for a little longer since an encounter with horrid Ulick seemed remote. “I’ll wait for a few minutes,” she said, “if that’s all right?”
“Oh, feel flee,” the boy said. “You’ll excuse. I have my own tlunks to pack, my leservations to confirm.” He was gone, clattering away up some staircase in the remote bowels of the shop.
May could see absolutely nothing to interest her in the shop; nothing to envy; nothing to excite. That the interior atmosphere of the old Fisherman’s Bar had been so well preserved – the bar counter for small disarranged objects (none displayed), the bottle shelves behind it, the half circular corner of the snug (room for two and confidences) – seemed to her affected and untidy. She sat sadly down on a bench in the snug, cushioned austerely in cracked buttoned leather stuffed with horsehair – like pony-carriage seats of long ago – and looked out at the rain through gaps in the barometers and weather vanes. There was not one busy, trimmed-up thought in her mind; absolutely nothing to which she mig
ht look forward with her usual lively spark of interest or criticism; nothing to wake her again to the artistic achievements she recognised so clearly and respectfully in herself. Because she felt their recognition was halved and quartered to nothing by a macabre and greedy interest in her deformity, now, she told herself, whatever she did was deprived of its rightful values. Jasper’s sceptical acceptance of Leda’s dreadful betrayal followed by his simmering kindness would stay with her always. And for how long would he be kind? she wondered. With such advantage as he now had over her, how could she ever hope to put him down again? She would see it in his eye; she would hear the unspoken “poor thing”, that belittled all she knew herself to be. April and June she could discount. One had not heard Leda’s wild revelations, and the other, she was sure, would neither understand nor believe in such an adventurous travesty of dull morals.
That her passionate confession to Leda had been made subsequently to the afternoon’s tête-à-tête between her own two dearest friends, seemed to May the only mercy granted her in the whole tragic affair. Every prop but that one had been struck from under her. Alys didn’t know. Not yet. The two words choked her with their presage.
Anything to dispel the mortification – she was unconsciously arrogant in her lack of repentance: who repents adventure? She would face the horrible weather after all, and transfer the subjects for her lecture to the hall where they were to be displayed. But, when she had picked up her bags, ready for departure, a further consideration of the torrential rain reminded her of the frailty of last year’s dead heads and bog flosses. True to her feeling for all pretty things and the importance of their preservation, she delayed again, and stood irresolute, pining for any activity to disturb the fixed depression of her mind and mood. It’s not like me to feel like this, she thought, genuinely surprised by her reaction to catastrophe: it’s not like me at all. Not a bit like me. In compensation to her more proper self she set out on an inspection of the large boring objects which represented Ulick’s present stock in trade.
Mahogany curtain poles, with their rings, lay about on the floor. Why should he have been stupid enough to lumber himself with a really elephantine brass fender? she felt pleased to wonder. Only three bedside steps and their candle box, the piece covered in dry chicken manure and without its properly secreted po, struck her as interesting. The gothic window panes, torn out of some ruined gate-lodge, had no charm for her. There was no trivial elegance to amuse: not a papier-mâché tray, not a blotter nor a lonely ink-pot – only one pretty chair, its cane seat broken, most of its mother-o’-pearl chipped and lost. I could have done something with that, she thought, her lips pursed in disapproval at so much anonymous neglect.
She pursed her lips again, disapproval restoring some interest and confidence, as she surveyed a kitchen dresser, painted bluer than blue – she could not see that stripping and restoration would do much for that. Why buy such stuff, she wondered, and rather agreed with the Jap about loads of old rubbish. An enormous brown enamelled tea-pot, black bottomed from smoke, stood on one of the dresser shelves. Loose notes, two one pound notes, three five pound notes, and a wad of others, held together by an elastic band, were clustered like leaves in the dark circle of their container. May replaced the lid and put back the tea-pot. What a silly place to keep money. Too obvious, was all she thought. Enlivened a little by such an absurdity, she tried one of the two deep drawers; all it contained, besides old crumbs in cracks and corners, was a small note book; in it accounts of other days were carefully noted: 1 doz. eggs – 2/ –, 1 lb. sugar 4d., Leg lamb (7 lbs.) – 15s. 8d., 1 gal. paraffin oil – price indecipherable. She put the book back thinking regretfully that times were easier then.
The second drawer was half open, obviously shoved in at an angle. She suspected the angry little Oriental of that piece of carelessness. Although she saw that the rain was now stopping, May’s innate sense of order made her delay her departure and put down her bags so that both her hands were free to set the matter of the crooked drawer straight; it would have been unnatural for her to have done otherwise. She pushed and coaxed for a minute without success; then, determined to do the job properly, she pulled the drawer out as far as it would go. It was full of broken pieces of china. Entranced, May peered, then picked them over – small pieces, all broken, or with cracks grotesquely riveted – a mute swan, both wings gone; a saucer dish, three times riveted through its strawberries; an enamel bird that had been the lid of a snuff box, perhaps comfits? she wondered; a bantam hen, russet-backed, beakless, legless; not a rabbit among the lot. Though interested, she envied nothing. She straightened and shut the drawer, then tried it again to see if it slid and ran easily. She never left a task unfinished. As she gave a last quick look before the final closing, a small parcel caught her eye. Not like me to miss anything, she thought again, upset by an inattention to detail so unusual for her.
Cold sunlight came streaking through clefts in the groups of furniture. The rain was over, and she must not be late for the Guild. But a ray of sun, piercing like a spear into the small bleak contents of the open drawer, held her for a moment. All the pieces were fine porcelain, the sudden light changed them into small, jewel-like objects. Their forgotten beauty aroused her old interests enough to make imperative an examination of the parcel, there could be some pretty discovery within; a pity to neglect it. A minute or two more or less would make no difference to her flower ladies. Let them wait, she thought. Her affectionate indulgence towards her disciples had waned pitifully since the morning. She unwound the first of the wrappings, in which something that felt like a hazel nut had been carefully screwed up. A tiny piece of china, shaped like a thimble, a tasselled thimble, was in her hand. She put it down, and went on unwrapping. Whatever the further contents might be, they had been most meticulously cocooned and sellotaped into their parcel. May picked carefully at the beastly sellotape, now curious to find out what broken piece deserved so much more care than the other bits and oddments rattling round in the drawer. There was so much paper and sellotape to deal with that she felt like unpacking a Christmas parcel, or disembowelling a Russian doll; her excitement rose to a blush along her cheekbones; she stooped to her hands, intent only on what she might see.
Bared at last, she set out on the dirty dresser the wish of her heart – a rabbit, flowered gown to his feet, seated on a chaise percée, his nightcap lying in the dust beside him. Here was the mate and pair to her own precious ministering nurse, wife, or mother, complete even to the blue medicine bottle, star piece of her collection. No question, the two must be united. Gently, as though bed clothes for a baby were in her hands, she was about to lay him again between his wrappings when she heard the sound of voices, far in the dark caverns of the shop; first a disgruntled hissing, answered by a second voice, assured and dismissive: Ulick was back.
Ulick would have ideas about this treasure, pricey ideas; or ideas about keeping it. Beyond all doubt she knew it had to be hers. Now, as always when she had known risk to be greatest, she felt her hand empowered and tautened, the missing fingers daring their survivors towards a sensation that must be placated. So, gently and quickly, without a rustle of paper she wrapped up her figurine and thrust her package deep down in her basket, between the wrapped candlestick and the tweed picture. As she turned the well-considered wanderings of her footsteps in the direction of escape with her plunder, the surge in her blood sank gently to rest as though succeeding the climax to an act of love. Calm in this peace, nerve unshaken, May sauntered, unhurrying, towards the door, delayed once in a blind alley of dark mahogany. It was only when she turned the refusing handle of the shop door that a very slight uneasiness, no more than a wish to be punctual for her meeting, came over her. She tried the lock again, adding her left hand to the job. Then, looking down to enquire into her difficulty, she saw that a very new type of lock had been fitted to the old shop door, in place of the original heavy mortice. In very poor taste, too, she considered, before calling out in her clear upper-class voice, “Would
someone, please, open this door.” No answer came; and, when she turned unwillingly to retrace her steps, she saw Ulick, smiling and softly threading his way towards her through gaps in the Victorian bulwarks.
“Something seems rather wrong with your door,” she said.
“Oh, yes, it can be awkward. I’ve been playing with my little Black Box, and I don’t really understand it yet. It’s a ray, and it’s supposed to lock and unlock from a distance.”
“How interesting,” May said, without glancing at the cassette he was showing her. “I’m rather late for an appointment. Do you have a back door?”
“This locks both doors,” he said, “it’s Japanese, of course. My assistant understands the cypher perfectly, but I’m afraid he’s in one of his moods. Do sit down,” he indicated the snug, “until he’s calmer.”
May looked with total disapproval at Ulick – her scarcely known, least favourite man – wondering again at April’s taste for him. She had to admit that his clothes were remarkable, without absurdity, and he wore them with the style of a bull fighter. Perhaps it was because he had the right kind of voice that she allowed herself, muttering protests, to be enticed towards the snug; she was only surprised when he sat down beside her like an old friend.
