He ate his fish without answering.
‘Why not take Tory instead?’
‘I certainly shall not.’
‘I wish you could like her. There is so much I feel we might do, and she’s lonely. We have one another.’
‘Tory is frivolous,’ he thought. ‘Tory is frivolous.’ He looked at his wife’s serious little face. ‘Damn it, where is Prudence?’ and he sprang from his chair and began calling up the stairs once more, angrier with his daughter than was justified.
Prudence came running downstairs, her fringe jumping on her forehead, her breasts springing boldly, arrogantly under her jersey, cats leaping at her heels. But her haste brought on a fit of coughing; in the hall she was checked, her face suffused with red so that her eyes shone with vivid green in contrast, a thick vein standing out on her brow.
‘Steady, Prue,’ said her father and, with his arm across her shoulders, brought her into the dining-room, without a single grumble about the cooling food, and sat her in her chair.
Bertram had seen Prudence at the window and had been startled by her white face, wondering why she sat at the window of a dark room. He had asked the fishermen about her, just as she guessed. Smiling, they had tapped their foreheads, but would say no more.
Now, as he walked the length of the quay before bedtime, he wondered about this. ‘Life breaks through,’ he thought. ‘There is the pain of it all one’s life and now, with old age impending’ – in his mind it would always impend, never reach him – ‘one expects peace, expects curiosity to be laid aside, its place taken by contemplation, by easy abstractions, work. Cut away from all I knew, in a strange place, I thought I could achieve all I have dreamt about and intended since I was a young man beset at every turn by love, by hate, by the world, implicated always, involved, enfolded by life. Then I shall be freed, I thought. But even now, two days in this place and the tide creeps up, begins to wash against me, and I perceive dimly that there is no peace in life, not’ – he had reached the lifeboat house and stood looking down at the black, spangled water – ‘not until it is done with me for ever.’ Since his egotism was great and his hopes of immortality small, his fear of death was thus overwhelming and he chose to disregard it, to think instead of life, the woman with the jug, for instance, and now a figure moving in a greenish-lit room, behind lace curtains, up there above the Waxworks.
Iris came out of the pub and walked quickly homewards, keeping close to the walls of the houses.
‘I must go back,’ he thought. ‘Old Pallister will be winding the clock, putting a handful of darts in a tankard on the shelf, saying: “It’s been quiet to-night, but I feel tired just the same.” ’
He began to saunter back, the wind behind him now. The doctor came out of his house, bareheaded, wearing no coat. He walked to his car at the kerb and for a moment stood there on the pavement, looking up at the house next door, where no lights showed; then he got into the car and drove it round to the back of the house to the garage.
As Bertram reached the Anchor, the doctor came trotting back again, his head bent against the wind, his hands in his pockets. Standing on the doorstep, he sorted keys in his hand and, glancing once more, very quickly, at the dark windows next door, he let himself in and disappeared.
Mr Pallister stood in the bar with the darts in his hand. ‘Like a final beer?’ he asked.
‘No, thank you. I’m off to bed.’
‘If you weren’t a sailor I’d say the sea air tired you. That’s what visitors always notice. That and the appetite.’ He was a white, unhealthy-looking man who rarely went out of doors.
Just as Bertram was getting into bed he heard the quick tapping of high heels along the pavement, and he went and peeped out from behind the curtain. It was Tory, coming home from the cinema alone.
‘What a perpetual going and coming there is,’ he thought crossly, getting in between the rough twill sheets. He lay there looking out at the curdled, junkety sky. Lo! said the lighthouse, sweeping across his room. The painted ewer on the washstand stood forth, then vanished. He thought of the fishing-fleet crouched far out upon the dark waters. ‘And I, ashore, sleeping in a bed, like a woman.’
‘Who was in to-night, Iris?’ Mrs Bracey asked at last.
‘No one much,’ said Iris, standing before the mirror and rolling her hair. She spoke indistinctly, a row of hairpins between her lips. She did not mean to be unkind to her mother, but in her mind Laurence Olivier kept opening the saloon door and coming into the bar. As soon as he approached Iris and began to speak, he grew hazy and dissolved, for she herself could not think of anything for him to say to her. Just then Maisie brought in the cocoa.
Mrs Wilson locked the bedroom door against the ghostly company downstairs. When Bob was alive she had not minded; now she was ever conscious that they stood grouped there, unmoving, eyes glittering as the lighthouse beam winked upon them, their arms crooked unnaturally or knees flexed slightly in everlasting informality, a disintegrating glove draped between the fingers of Royalty, the unfamiliar faces of forgotten murderers turned to the door, Mrs Dyer, the baby-farmer, with dust upon the backs of her hands.
She lay coldly in the stuffy bed, to one side of it, as if at any moment Bob would come and lie down beside her, and she prayed that sleep might carry her through safely to the morning.
2
Beth sat at breakfast among her press-cuttings. ‘Her perception,’ she read, ‘her broad humanity.’ She held the strips of paper high, sipping her coffee, rather pleased with the picture of herself which was suggested.
‘I shall be late for the register,’ Stevie said.
Robert put down his newspaper. ‘Beth, what about Stevie?’
‘Run and wash your face, then, dear,’ said Beth.
‘I don’t want to go alone.’
‘Prudence, you go with her.’
Robert could see the child was tensed-up ready for a scene. When she returned he knew that Prudence had worsened the situation, rushing her into her coat, tightening her little pigtails until she could not have closed her eyes. Suddenly she broke down and stood there, feet apart, fists in her eyes, her mouth squared.
‘What is the matter?’ Beth asked in amazement.
‘She popped the elastic under my chin.’
‘Oh, good God!’ cried Prudence, flinging herself back into her chair.
‘Well, it can’t still be hurting now. Where’s your handkerchief? Don’t go to school with red eyes.’
But Stevie had no intention of stopping for quite a time. Steadily, relentlessly, she roared.
‘There’s not even a red mark,’ said Beth, running a finger along between fat chin and elastic.
‘I should have thought it was quite obvious,’ said Robert, speaking in a low voice and pushing back his chair, ‘that the elastic has nothing whatsoever to do with it.’
Prudence knew by her father’s saying ‘whatsoever’ that he had lost his temper. When he had gone out Stevie’s crying dropped into the minor key.
‘Could you tell me what is wrong?’ Beth asked politely.
‘I don’t see why I can’t believe in God like the other girls,’ Stevie sobbed. ‘I wish I did. I wish I did.’
‘Then do so, do so,’ Beth said coldly.
‘You said it wasn’t true.’
‘It was only my opinion. You came home with all this nonsense about hell-fire. Naturally, I have to explain that it is nonsense.’
Prudence, who played for safety, thought her mother tempted Providence rather unnecessarily.
‘I’d much rather believe in it.’
‘Why start all this just as you’re leaving the house? There’s Robert bringing the car round now. Come here, my love, and let me dry your eyes. Be a good, sensible girl and you shall believe in God as much as you like, and the Immaculate Conception, and Transubstantiation and the Grotto of Lourdes and all the rest of it . . .’ She spoke with a fastidious sarcasm.
‘I only wanted to believe in God,’ said Stevie sulkily, ‘so t
hat I can go into Prayers.’
Robert sounded the horn.
‘Now run along, or Robert will get impatient.’ She kissed Stevie’s throbbing face and went to the window to watch her get into the car. It was a grey and blue seaside day. The sky looked like a child’s painting. Robert waved and drove away.
‘I wonder why they don’t have miracles in England,’ said Prudence, still thinking of religion.
‘Who is “they”?’ her mother asked, at the window-sill. No warmth fell from her over her children. Even their ages, the fifteen years between Prudence and Stevie, suggested that they were haphazardly conceived, incidental to her, strange unexpected flowerings.
‘A visitor already?’ she now said, watching Bertram as he crossed from the pub to the water side.
‘Let me see!’ Prudence came running to the window and stood at her mother’s shoulder, her bosom pressed softly against her. Beth moved a little, without knowing.
‘Oh, yes! I saw him last night. What a lovely white handkerchief!’ They watched Bertram blowing his nose. ‘And here comes Tory.’
‘How dressed up she is!’
Bertram had turned, put the handkerchief into his pocket, and bowed. And they saw Tory smile suddenly and warmly, but as she came towards the house her face looked puzzled.
‘Do I know that man outside?’ she asked, bringing fragrance into the room.
‘He is staying at the pub,’ said Prudence.
‘Beth, dear, I’m going to London. Is there anything you want?’ She was all in grey, her hat feathery.
‘To London!’ Beth repeated, as if that were an act of one in extremity.
‘That house maddens me. I shall let all the clocks run down, I think, so that I can’t hear them ticking.’
‘You miss Edward. It’s always like that the first term.’
‘It isn’t right to miss children so frantically. I must get something of my own.’
Prudence gathered up her cats and went out. They heard her opening the front door.
‘Such as what?’ Beth asked, fogged.
‘A new hat, perhaps.’ Tory laughed. ‘A new spring hat.’
‘But you have dozens of hats and hardly wear them.’
‘I know. The old black shawl.’
‘You could have come in with me for the day if you were lonely and restless.’
‘You’re busy. And there’s Robert.’
‘What about Robert? He’s only here for lunch.’
‘Robert and I . . .’ Tory hesitated. ‘We don’t . . . hit it off, whatever that may mean.’
Beth began to protest, but in an insincere and social way.
‘Oh, do let me!’ said Tory, picking up one of the press-cuttings. ‘Isn’t it lovely seeing one’s name in print?’
‘No,’ said Beth. ‘It makes no difference either way.’
‘But when they say nice things?’
‘It always comes too late, when one’s indifferent. And often they say nasty things. And that doesn’t matter, either.’
‘You have a secret life.’
‘We all have,’ Beth said awkwardly, and began to stack up crockery on the breakfast-table.
‘ “Perception”,’ Tory read aloud. She put down the paper and went to look in the mirror. ‘Have you perception, Beth?’
Beth always blushed like a girl when she was asked about herself. ‘I suppose one knows one’s to be a writer from very early on. And trains oneself. Noticing things . . .’ She always became incoherent, too.
‘What is it, Tory? You look troubled.’
Tory smiled at herself in the mirror. ‘Do I? I don’t feel troubled.’ She ran her finger along an eyebrow. ‘I must be off.’
‘If you do see any of those cream socks,’ Beth began. ‘But only if you’re in the shop.’ She followed Tory to the door. Prudence was out by the water’s edge, talking to Bertram, her cats in her arms. The cats looked self-conscious, turning their heads away from the conversation as if they knew that they were being discussed.
‘Yvette Guilbert,’ said Prudence. ‘You see they look as if they were wearing long black gloves. My father has a picture of her in a book.’
‘You breed from them?’ Bertram asked, not really interested, his eyes on that front door.
‘No, they don’t like one another, you see.’
‘Awkward, rather.’
‘Yes. Especially as Yvette gets very difficult at times.’
‘Naturally.’ His mouth twitched, out came the white handkerchief again.
At that moment Tory came out of the front door and waved. They watched her go.
‘She is off to London,’ said Prudence.
‘Is she . . . she is a widow?’
‘No. Divorced. Her husband went off with one of those women officers . . .’
‘Please,’ said Bertram. ‘I am a stranger. I have no right to know.’
Now the harbour from its look of peaceful tidiness broke up and became disorganised by people beginning a day’s work. Ladders appeared outside Mrs Bracey’s and the first stroke of wet chocolate paint was laid over the salmon-pink; a mop twirled from Mrs Wilson’s top window; the men returned and stood about among the whorls of rusty wire which were full of hanging black seaweed and tatters of rag and paper, broken bottles, too. The café door shot open and the Guvnor threw out a piece of coconut-matting and began to sweep the floor, with the chairs standing neatly upon the tables.
‘The Guvnor,’ said Bertram to Prudence, smiling. She shrugged. Her mind stretched out with restless tendrils, here, there, fastening upon and relinquishing, the question always ‘What is of use to me?’ Obviously not the Guvnor, the dingy, hard-working man who looked like Charlie Chaplin.
Only the pub slept, drowsing in its own beer smells. Bertram’s window was flung open, the curtains wildly agitated. This always alarmed Mr Pallister, who had spent much of his life keeping out the sea-breezes, tacking felt at the edges of doors and hanging thick curtains at his windows. Reverence for fresh air seemed to him an inland fad and was not to be expected in an old sailor.
Mrs Flitcroft, the daily help as she thought of herself, descended the steep flight of steps at the side of the Waxworks, came rocking along on her famous bad legs, her apron rolled up in her basket. As soon as she saw Prudence she began to wave her arm towards the house and was soon shouting to be heard above the wind and the sound of the water.
‘Get along inside!’ she cried. ‘Indoors with you!’
Prudence turned her head away, her throat flushing. The cats, too, patrician, affronted, removed their gaze.
‘You with your chest!’ shouted Mrs Flitcroft, coming up close.
The blood rose from throat to cheek and then, her whole face darkening, Prudence began to cough.
‘No coat! I don’t know what your mother’s thinking of. Better get inside as quick as you know how.’
Prudence moved her head in misery, the cats hampering her. Bertram gave her his nice clean handkerchief.
‘Don’t,’ he wanted to say. ‘Don’t be humiliated to yourself, for you are not so to me.’
They watched Mrs Flitcroft’s progress round the corner to the Cazabons’ side door, and when she had gone Prudence held out the crumpled handkerchief and smiled. ‘Silly old tart!’ she began, her voice unsure. ‘She must be humoured.’
‘No, that is not the way,’ he thought, liking women, even very young women, to be gentle. This brittle gallantry vexed him. The young imagine insults, magnify them, with great effort overcome them, or retaliate. A waste of emotion Bertram thought, forgetting how much emotion there is to spare.
‘Good-bye,’ he said.
The cats lay against her shoulder, their gentian eyes wide, their silken nostrils quivering a little at the hated outdoor air, the wind blowing their fur into little divisions. They yearned to get back indoors, to lie on the radiator in the surgery or at the bottom of the linen-cupboard. As Prudence carried them back to the house they looked over her shoulder at the sea contemptuously.
/> The men among the barbed wire whistled at Iris as she stood outside the Anchor waiting to be let in. She stared in front of her at the frosted-glass door panel.
‘Good morning,’ said Bertram.
‘Good morning.’ An ex-officer, she thought. (‘This is my young brother’ – for her dreams had flown ahead, skipping a stage or two – ‘How do you do?’ She was wearing a grey suit like Mrs Foyle’s and a diamond clip. His sleeves were hooped with gold braid. She was on the other side of the bar. They drank pink gin.)
Ned Pallister opened the door, wearing shirt and trousers. He had finished shaving but lather remained near his ears. Iris glanced back at Bertram walking along the quayside. He was beautifully clean in his neat navy blue suit and dazzling shirt, but pinkness showed through his hair. And if he had a brother he was sixty at least (she entered the subfusc beeriness of the saloon bar) – at the other end of the earth, the Canary Islands, she thought, or Panama.
She drew back the curtains but knew better than to open the window.
Lily Wilson sang as she shook her mop out into the glittering air. She was thinking she wouldn’t have to cook for herself, but go down to the café and have something there. This decision made her seem to herself adventurous and reckless and she forgot to feel a sense of loss when dusting the photograph of Bob on the chest-of-drawers.
Going downstairs carrying her shopping-basket she was light-hearted, knowing that the spring would come soon and then the lengthening evenings – the same daylight when all these wax figures remained what they were now, shoddy and unreal, and she could go out in the evenings to the cinema or for a chat with Mrs Bracey without fear of walking back in the dark and entering the tall, creaking building alone.
She passed the glass panelled pay-box and unbolted the door. Bertram was looking in at the window although there was -nothing to look at but the dirty-coloured paper and the old showcard. She felt ashamed and began to make resolutions, nettled by his look of curiosity. She pulled the door after her and nodded when he said good morning.
Bertram strolled on towards the lifeboat house. It seemed to him that he did nothing but wander about saying good morning to people. He fingered the sketch-book in his pocket and looked out to sea. A little yacht appeared round the Point, white-sailed, trig, something from another world.
A View of the Harbour Page 3