“Wotcher Robert! Going off today? Good luck!”
Robert cut me dead. He hoisted the duke of Wellington’s profile into the air with all its plaster and carried it straight through into the house. I did not laugh. I was humiliated and ashamed.
Nor was it easy, however I contrived and loitered, to meet our mutual friend, young Babbacombe. She was on the hook. She was padlocked and bolted, chained. Each day, Sergeant Babbacombe brought her to work, stood watching her through the door, then went on to set out the chairs in the Town Hall; or gather them and stack them up; or collect the pennies from the locks in the public lavatories; or hoist the union jack; or ring his brass bell at stations round the town to proclaim a whist drive at the Working Men’s Institute or a fete in the vicarage garden. Mrs. Babbacombe usually fetched her. At normal times Mrs. Babbacombe radiated a social awareness and friendliness that was indomitable, though seldom reciprocated. She was a sparrow of a woman, neat like Evie, but already wizened. She moved quickly, head up and turning from person to person, smiling—sometimes inclining her head, aiming it right across the High street in a gracious, sideways bow to a person entirely out of her social sphere. Naturally these greetings were never acknowledged or even mentioned; since no one could tell whether Mrs. Babbacombe was mad, and believed herself entitled to make them, or whether she came from some fabulous country where the Town Crier’s wife and the wife of the Chief Constable might be on terms of intimacy. The first alternative seemed the more probable. You might see her, shall we say, chirping like a sparrow at the counter of the International Stores, then smiling graciously (head on left shoulder slight inclination of the neck) at Lady Hamilton-Smythe who was apparently unaware of her existence. She was about our only Roman Catholic, was Mrs. Babbacombe—unless you include Evie—and that, taken with her other eccentricity, made her notable and trying. Since she would not mix with the riff-raff of Chandler’s Close and nobody else spoke to her, it seemed strange that she persevered with her useless smiles and bows. However, for a few days after the episode of the cross, the smiles and bows were absent. Sergeant Babbacombe delivered Evie like a parcel and little Mrs. Babbacombe collected her, wizened and grim.
After a week, Evie came into the dispensary complaining of a headache and my father fixed her up with something. That evening when Mrs. Babbacombe came to the steps of the Ewans’s house, the two ladies left together, laughing and chattering like old friends. It was a remarkable change, and went still further. Evie was let off the hook, having done this bit of penance. A few evenings later—it must have been about nine o’clock—Evie came pacing along by herself on the other side of the square. She wore her cotton summer dress, no stockings, white socks and sandals. She slid along, lips breathlessly everted, slight smile enchanting the evening air, bob glossy, both eyes by this time shining bright, only her legs moving below the knees. We were back to square one. And mysterious as a glowworm, she was emitting a radiance of desirability so strong as to be almost visible light. As she came near Miss Dawlish’s bow window opposite our cottage, her pace slowed till it was imperceptible. Nor was it my imagination that even at that distance I could see a mad fluttering of the black paintbrushes and the flash of eyes swivelling in my direction. As if commanded by a master I stole out of the house.
Evie was sliding past the Town Hall down the High Street. There were very few people about unless you count a policeman and the girl in the box office of the cinema. With a proper sense of taboo I followed her at a distance of fifty yards. This was difficult since she did not seem to have the same social awareness and moved at a snail’s pace. Indeed I was forced to examine the Saddler’s window, the Tobacconist’s, and the less likely seductions of the Needlework Shop in order to maintain my proper distance. When she reached the Old Bridge she went no further. In the conflict between social propriety and sexual attraction there was never much doubt which would win. Besides, the sun had set, night was coming on and already the darkness had settled under the arch of the bridge. Above it, there was a degree of twilight. Evie had arranged herself, leaning with her bottom on the stone coping at the top of the rise. She was watching the place where the sun had gone down. I went up to her. We were surprised to see each other.
“How’s your eye, Evie?”
“Quite, quite all right. How’s yours?”
I had forgotten my own injuries. I pressed my hand into the socket of my right eye.
“Seems all right.”
“You heard from Bobby?”
I was so surprised that I did not answer for a moment.
“No. Why should I?”
Evie did not reply for a while. She leaned her head back and smiled at me out of the corner of her eye.
“You’ve got a lot of time to spare haven’t you, Olly?”
“I’m off school.”
It was difficult to take my eyes off her, for not only was she exhaling her individual light, she was breathing out the scent of flowers and pretty things with embroidery on them, and girl’s laughter an octave higher than a man’s. Nevertheless I managed to glance sideways, and as I did so the sodium lamps shivered on all the way up the High Street towards the Square, each plucking itself out of the twilight. We were not invisible.
“Let’s go for a walk.”
“Where is there?”
“We could stroll up the hill.”
“Dad wouldn’t like me to go in the woods. Not after dark.”
A pair of trousers deeply embedded in mud flashed through my mind, then hung themselves on a bush to dry.
“But—”
It was staggering and infuriating. She was defended, bland, secure. The dregs of the western day glinted in one eye, sodium light in the other. I took a step or two, then stood, looking back.
“Come on, Evie—we can go along by the river.”
She shook her head so that the bob flew, then settled.
“Dad says I mustn’t.”
I knew why, without having to think. That way led through fields to Hotton where the racing stables were. Sergeant Babbacombe probably envisaged stable lads lurking lecherously behind every bush; and he may very well have been right.
“Well then—We could go the other way along the river, round Pillicock.”
Evie shut her mouth, and shook her head again, smiling mysteriously.
“Why not?”
No answer; just the glint, smile and shake. Each time the bob flew it seemed to release a new cloud of scented suggestion. I thought in bewilderment of what reason she might have for this other geographical prohibition. The most notable thing in that direction was a famous boarding school, keeping itself very much to itself, though only half-a-dozen fields away from us. Perhaps Sergeant Babbacombe had ideas about that too? “Don’t let me catch you playing about with the young college gents, my girl—they’re devils, they are!” But for whatever reason, the countryside was closing in round us. To the south, the erotic woods, west the racing stables, east, the college, and to the north, nothing but the escarpment of the bare downs—and here we were, visible, the pair of us on the crest of the Old Bridge.
As if this confinement made Evie happy, she began to hum, nodding her head in time.
“Boop-a-doop, boop-a-doop!”
The blood surged in my head. I said something, I couldn’t tell what. I needed a club or a flint axe. Evie looked up at me, surprised.
“Don’t you like them?”
“Who?”
“On the wireless. The Savoy Orpheans. I listen to them every night.”
The surge became a rage from head to foot.
“I hate them! Hate them! Cheap—trivial—”
Then we were silent, both of us, while the rage died down in me and settled to a steady trembling. When Evie spoke at last it was very coldly and haughtily.
“Well. I’m sorry, I’m sure!”
I was getting nowhere, that was certain. But while I was wondering what to do next, Evie gleamed up at me and smiled.
“That music you were playing yes
terday, Olly, I liked that. You know—on the piano.”
“Chopin. Study in C minor, opus twenty-five, number twelve.”
“You can play loud!”
“Oh I don’t know—”
I thought for a moment. When I was practising the semiquaver passages of the Appassionata, or the left-hand octaves of the Polonaise in A flat major, if my father had left the door into the dispensary open, he would sometimes close it gently. He was very musical himself and could not afford to be distracted at moments when his work was particularly delicate.
“I didn’t know you passed our house, Evie!”
“I was in the reception room, silly!”
I was a little surprised at this. After all, there was the sitting room door, a passage, the door through to the dispensary, another passage and another door between the reception room and our yellowing keys. Perhaps I could play loud.
“It’s just practice. I do it for fun.”
“When I left after morning surgery you were playing it. When I came back for evening surgery there you were again! You must like music a lot, Olly. How long were you playing?”
“I do. All day.”
“It’s nice. You must play it for me some time. Dr. Ewan likes it too.”
“Honestly?”
“He came into the reception room yesterday after Mrs. Miniver left and said was that you still playing.”
“Did he say anything else?”
“Not much. Just how glad he was that you were going to Oxford.”
I was deeply gratified. I had not known that Dr. Ewan was musical too. I was trying to learn the Chopin study, because those wild broken chords, that storm of notes had seemed so exactly to express and contain my own dry-mouthed and hopeless passion for Imogen Greatley; but the technical difficulties were enormous and obsessed me. I explained. “There’s a note—G natural—I have to hit it in passing with this finger, you see—”
I held my right forefinger up close to her face. She took it in both hands and examined it, pulling it about.
“Ow! Careful! It’s a bit sore—”
Laughing aloud, Evie pulled and pulled. Instantly the ice broke up and cascaded away. With shouts and giggles we wrestled in the sodium-lighted twilight. In some way that was not clear to me I changed from pursued to pursuer and Evie was trying to escape.
“No! No, Olly! You mustn’t—”
She was close to me, hard against my chest. She ceased to struggle.
“You mustn’t. Someone’ll see us.”
I grabbed her wrist and lugged her off the rise of the bridge, down to where the pier was set, half on land, half in water. The sodium lights were out of sight. She had stopped laughing and I had started trembling again. The only light came from Evie, her three black plums so close to me against the pier, but now with no hair smeared across them, no trickling rain, and the exhalation of mysterious perfume constant and maddening. I pressed against her, my loins stirring, my body burning. I got all the kisses I wanted. I got more kisses than I wanted. I didn’t get anything else.
The church clock struck. Evie changed from a girl whose strength was barely sufficient to protect her from assault unless it was reinforced by warm and pathetic pleading, to one who could carry coal and chop wood. Since my head was still whirling I was not ready for the change, and her thrust with both arms sent me backwards halfway down the bank.
“There! And Mum said—”
She was scrambling up to the road. I scrambled after her, pushing clods out of the earth. I caught up with her on the bridge.
“Evie—Let’s come here tomorrow night. Or can’t we go for a walk or something?”
She had resumed her movement in the sodium lights.
“I can’t stop you meeting me, can I? It’s a free country.”
“Tomorrow then—”
“If you like.”
She moved on up the High Street. As my wits settled I became aware of people, and of the delicate radii of influences that we were approaching. Halfway up the street one of my masters lived—or had his rooms—over a shop. At the Town Hall, the area controlled by my parents began. Beyond the Town Hall was our Square, where they might very well be looking out for me. I began to lag. Evie’s forward movement slowed. It was an impasse; and there was only one way to avoid being detected in her company.
“Well,” I said, coming to a halt. “Well. Till tomorrow.”
Evie looked over her shoulder.
“Aren’t you going home?”
“Who? Me? I was going for a walk in any case.”
Evie smiled her sideways smile.
“So long, then.”
I walked smartly back to the bridge, over the top, then crouched and peeped back round a convenient angle. I saw her dress and socks ascend the street and disappear between the Town Hall and Miss Dawlish’s bow window. I walked home by way of side alleys and entered the Square from the north west; but our cottage was dark and my parents in bed. I thought I would play the piano a bit before I went to bed so I practised the study; and now it seemed to contain not only Imogen, but Evie, a passionate frustration on every level.
My mother put her head round the door and smiled at me lovingly.
“Oliver, dear. It is rather late—”
*
The next day my right forefinger was very tender as if the end of the bone had been bruised. Regretfully therefore, I gave up the piano for the day and went for a walk instead. It was a long walk with a sandwich lunch and ended in the evening. There was very little time left before my pursuit of Evie and I spent it making myself as attractive as I could with the little basic material at my disposal. I could do nothing about Robert’s profile and extra three inches and motor bike. But I could remove any trace of what was called ‘Five o’clock shadow’, and compete with Evie’s perfume by means of hairoil. I did not deceive myself into believing that I was good looking, but I had heard that girls were relatively indifferent to that. I hoped they were; for as I inspected my face in the mirror, I came to the regretful conclusion that it was not the sort of face I should fall in love with myself. There was nothing fragile about it. I tried smiling winningly at myself, but the result made me grimace with disgust.
“How much milk today Madam? Thank you Madam, yes Madam, no Madam, thank you Madam, good day Madam—”
I stuck my tongue out at myself.
“Meeeeeh—”
There was no doubt about it. I should simply have to be subtle, devious, diplomatic—in a word, clever. Otherwise the only way I was going to have a girl was by using a club. Evie was girl, much girl. I remembered the violence with which she had shoved me down the bank, remembered the ease with which she had put away my tentative pawings—the gentle, pleading way she had put my hands aside. I doubted to myself whether I should really get very far with a club either. Yet the evidence of the trousers sunk without trace was indisputable.
Evie was accessible.
“Meeeeeh—!”
She passed along the south side of the Square without looking across at our house this time and experience had taught me to wait for a while. She was already sitting on the coping stone of the bridge therefore when I came up with her. I was doubtful about any course of action, had evolved no brilliant stratagem. I had thought of professing an interest in bird watching in the hope that she would agree to come with me and stalk the lesser redshanked strike or whatever it was. But in fact I could not tell a barn owl from a skylark and knew myself to be entirely ignorant of the patter. As for looking for wild flowers or searching out the lines of ancient fortifications, or digging for rare minerals—No. I could think of nothing. And anyway, all Evie had to do was to hang up her parent’s prohibitions like a sort of notice, and I was confined to the bridge, or the impossible route between it and Chandler’s Close. In the event, what I did was to make a little dancing step in front of her and stand, my walking stick held across my waist.
“Hullo Evie!”
Evie put her head on one side and smiled up at me.
<
br /> “Took you a long time.”
“I was busy.”
“You!”
I resented the implication.
“I’m recovering. I worked very hard, you know.”
“Isn’t the piano work?”
“Course not.”
She said nothing, but continued to smile. I wondered vaguely what the piano was; but while I wondered, Evie began to hum. The notes drew and preoccupied me, as notes always did so that I searched my memory.
“Dowland!”
Evie laughed aloud, her face lovely and all alight. She began to sing.
“‘—and daily weep
and keep my sheep
that feed upon the down, upon the down, upon the down, upon the down!’”
“You’ve got a jolly good voice! You ought to—”
“Used to have singing lessons.”
“Miss Dawlish? Bounce?”
She nodded, laughing.
“Lah, lah, lah, lah, lah, lah, lah, lah!”
Then we were laughing together in the sodium light at the memory of our dreary teacher and her dull lessons.
“Lah, lah, lah, lah, lah, lah, lah laaaah!”
“Why don’t you sing more often?”
“Not Dowland, someone else—see, Mr. Clever!”
“You should keep it up, Evie.”
“Would, if I had someone to play for me.”
“Haven’t you got a piano?”
The Pyramid Page 4
