Human Croquet

by Kate Atkinson

  – she wasn’t dead. The front wall of the house had gone and she was on the ground floor, where a few minutes ago she’d been on the second. Far away, at the back of her head, Eliza could hear bells ringing and people shouting. She could smell burning. Someone was walking through the dust towards her. For a moment she imagined it was the ugly red-haired boy come to rescue her and she smiled. But it wasn’t, it was someone else. He snatched her up and carried her out of the house, straight out where the front wall had been, and placed her on the pavement. ‘Are you all right?’ he asked, his voice full of concern. Eliza put out a hand and felt the cloth of his RAF greatcoat. He took it off and wrapped her up in it, very tenderly. ‘My hero,’ she said. She looked down at her feet, she’d lost a shoe. ‘My shoe,’ she said helplessly, ‘I’ve lost my shoe.’ She’d heard of things like this, escaping death by a cat’s whisker and being obsessed with irrelevant things. It was shock, she was in shock. ‘I’ll get it,’ he said, and moved as if he was in a dream. ‘Would you?’ she smiled. ‘They were so expensive, darling.’

  Her rescuer disappeared back into the building, came out with the shoe. Two firemen brought out Dickie Landers and no-one cheered. He was very dead. ‘Did you know him?’ her rescuer asked, taking off his RAF cap and wiping his brow. ‘Never seen him before,’ she said. He offered her his arm, ‘Can I take you for a cup of tea? There’s a café round the corner.’ It was nearly dawn.

  ‘The age of chivalry is alive and well,’ she laughed, tears in her eyes, ‘and is called?’

  ‘Gordon, Gordon Fairfax.’

  ‘Wonderful,’ Eliza murmured.

  And now there was a problem. He was the problem. She’d never meant to take him as a lover, never meant to be unfaithful to Gordon. The Widow and Vinny, of course, thought she was out committing adultery every night, but she wasn’t, this was the first time. Really. But it was a big mistake, she had to stop it. She didn’t even like him. He wasn’t a nice person, he wasn’t … kind.

  It had just been a game really, she was bored and he was there, so nearby, so keen. And the sex with him was so … dark, there was a certain attraction in that. Gordon was so … wholesome. And that had been so wonderful at first, she had really loved him. Such a hero. But he couldn’t keep on being a hero, more’s the pity. She got restless. That was why she’d taken a lover, a little bit of fun, a little bit of power. Now it was a game she couldn’t stop. She hadn’t realized how inflamed he was by her, how obsessed. How mad.

  He wouldn’t let her go. She couldn’t tell Gordon, couldn’t tell anyone. She wanted to tell Gordon, wanted him to look after her, the way he always did. She was choking, she had to get some air. Maybe she could just leave, walk away and leave the whole sorry mess behind?

  She loved Gordon, really she did, but he got on her nerves. He was so bloody good. And he made her feel so bloody bad. He followed her everywhere. Really, in her heart, she thought that the only person she’d ever truly loved – apart from Charles and Isobel, it went without saying – was that scarred red-headed boy in the air-raid shelter. She didn’t even know his name, had only been with him for half an hour. Less. She’d half-expected Charles to be born with scar tissue on his face, was relieved when he wasn’t. An invisible hand squeezed her heart when she thought about her children.

  The old witch was driving her mad, a pair of witches, come to that. It was Gordon this and Gordon that, they had to get away from this house, live their own lives. Maybe she should kill the old witch, and Vinny too. This was ridiculous. She was going mad.

  A picnic, it’s half-term, after all, and we’ve done absolutely bloody nothing all week. We’ll take the bus into town and meet Daddy at lunchtime and give him a surprise.

  Gordon and Eliza were having this tremendous row. He just wouldn’t leave her alone, would he, chasing after her in the wood, when she needed to be on her own. ‘You’re having an affair, aren’t you?’ he shouted, his words echoing in the silent autumn air. ‘Be quiet,’ she said sharply, ‘the children will hear. Leave me alone.’

  ‘I don’t understand you, I don’t bloody understand you.’ Gordon was weeping. Eliza hated him when he was weak. He pushed her up against a tree.

  ‘Stop it,’ she hissed at him.

  ‘Why should I bloody stop it? Admit it, you’re having an affair.’

  ‘You’re hurting me. Gordon!’ He was hurting her, he had his hands round her throat, pressing her windpipe, she began to struggle, he was frightening her. ‘Admit it,’ he growled, his voice unnatural. He let go of her throat. ‘Admit it, you’ve been unfaithful, haven’t you? And before me,’ he said suddenly, ‘were there a lot of men? There must have been a lot of men, weren’t there?’

  ‘Yes,’ she spat at him, ‘there were absolutely hundreds, I’ve no idea how many!’

  He slapped her face, ‘Liar!’ and she kneed him hard in the groin so that he crouched down on the forest floor, gasping. Immediately Eliza felt sorry, gave him her hand, pulled him up, said, ‘Oh, Gordon,’ sadly, ‘you’re such a fool.’ She wanted to tell him everything, sink onto his breast, feel the shelter of his arms around her, find redemption in this awful world. She leant her back against a tree and said blankly, without emotion, ‘I was a whore, a common or garden whore who got paid for it. I fucked anyone who paid me, darling.’ She could hear her voice, knew her tone was all wrong, couldn’t do anything about it, she was so tired.

  Gordon grabbed hold of her hair either side of her head and crashed her head backwards against the tree. She sank down on to her knees, on to the carpet of golden leaves and Gordon ran off through the trees, wildly, like a mad disciple of the great god Pan.

  Eliza struggled to sit up. Her head hurt horribly. The back of her skull was bruised and sore. She didn’t have a watch on, didn’t know what time it was. She was cold. It would soon be dark. They shouldn’t have fought like that. Gordon would come back soon and find her, look after her again like he always did, gather up his family and take them home. She would explain to him properly, he would forgive her. She’d tell him about Herbert Potter and Mr Reagan, and Dickie Landers, tell him about her ghastly adulterous lover who wouldn’t let her go.

  Eliza started to cry. She felt tremendously sorry for herself. It was growing darker and she was suddenly frightened. She shouted Gordon’s name. Someone was approaching through the trees, ‘Gordon, oh thank God,’ she struggled to her feet. But it wasn’t Gordon.

  ‘Oh it’s you,’ she said coldly, trying to pretend she wasn’t frightened. But she was. ‘What are you doing here? You’ve followed me, haven’t you? This has to stop—’ Eliza’s voice grew more high-pitched, terror crept over her, she broke out into a cold sweat, he was mad, unhinged.

  She tried to pull herself together, to placate him. ‘Come on, let’s go back and find the path, let’s be sensible, Peter, darling – please…’ Eliza wasn’t very good at pleading, she knew it was no good. He had one of her shoes in his hand. She looked down at her feet in surprise, she only had one shoe on. He lifted the shoe up, it had a very thin heel, her heart was fluttering, it was trying to escape from the cage of her ribs, she was clammy all over, her body felt as if it was going to shut down with fear.

  Her feet wouldn’t move, she had to move, she turned and started to run but he was on top of her, hitting her with the shoe on the back of the head. ‘If I can’t have you,’ he said breathlessly, ‘then nobody will, you bloody whore.’ She cried out and dropped to her knees and started to crawl away. She looked back. He was lighting his pipe, very calmly, as if he was in his living-room at home. Eliza thought maybe that was the end of it, maybe he’d got rid of his anger now and would leave her alone. She crawled further away, further into the forest.

  She was beneath a tree, kneeling on a carpet of leaves and acorns. A golden leaf drifted down past her eyes and brushed her cheek. Eliza struggled into a sitting position, her back against the stout trunk of the tree. For a moment she couldn’t see him, but just when she thought he must have gone, he stepped out from beh
ind a tree. The aura of madness around him was a sulphurous yellow and he was grinning like a skeleton. ‘I am older than you, you know,’ he laughed, ‘and I do know more.’

  ‘Please,’ Eliza whispered. She was shivering uncontrollably. She was so very cold. ‘Please don’t,’ but he grabbed hold of a handful of hair and yanked her head forward and began to hit her skull again with the heel of the brown shoe, grunting with the effort. Again and again he hit her, long after the trees around grew dim and Eliza had slipped into blackness. Then he walked away, discarding the shoe like an old piece of paper.

  And that was the end of Eliza. Or Violet, or Violet Angela, or little Lady Esme. Or whoever she was.

  Of course, she wasn’t really the de Brevilles’ daughter. After the wedding a doctor in Paris told Lady Irene that she would never be able to have children. Although she didn’t know it at the time she was already suffering from the disease that killed her. Sir Edward was so besotted by his new wife and his new wife was so distressed at the idea of being childless that he went out and got her a baby. He would probably have lived to regret corrupting the de Breville bloodline, but then he didn’t have to, it was taken out of his hands, Esme was taken out of his hands.

  He bought her in Paris. You can always buy children. Gypsies probably—

  PRESENT

  THIS GREEN AND LAUGHING WORLD

  I feel the touch of someone’s lips on my forehead and the sound of someone whispering in my ear, so quietly that I can hardly hear the words – You go to sleep now, darling.

  Another hallucination.

  I drift out of a heavy drug-induced sleep. ‘Where’s the woman in the other bed gone?’

  ‘Who?’ the brown-haired nurse says absently, preoccupied by a syringe she’s about to jab me with.

  ‘The woman in the other bed.’ The bed is neatly made and empty.

  The nurse furrows her brow. ‘There hasn’t been anybody in that bed.’

  ‘I’ve seen you taking her temperature and talking to her.’

  ‘Me?’ the nurse laughs.

  From my bed I can see the top branches of a tree waving around in the breeze. The branches are covered in new leaves. Can it be spring already? How long have I spent in the underworld?

  ‘What’s the date?’ I ask the red-haired nurse.

  She frowns. ‘April twenty-third, I think.’

  ‘April twenty-third?’ Can I really have lost that much time? ‘Really?’

  ‘I know,’ she says with a smile, ‘we lost you for a couple of weeks there, didn’t we?’ She fills up the water jug on my bedside locker, smoothes the sheets and looks at my chart and says, ‘That’s right – you came on the first of April, that’s over three weeks you’ve been here now.’

  ‘The first of April?’ I repeat, puzzled, but she’s gone and I’m soon asleep again. I think I must be catching up on all the sleep I’ve been deprived of over the years. Or maybe I’m turning into a cat.

  When I wake up there’s a student doctor investigating my chart and trying to look as if he knows what he’s doing. He smiles encouragingly when he sees I’m awake. ‘What year is it?’ – a familiar question somehow – I mumble at him. He looks disconcerted, ‘1960.’

  ‘April twenty-third, 1960?’

  ‘Yes.’

  It’s still happening then. Or is it? I fall asleep, I just cannot keep my eyes open.

  ‘How did I get here?’ I ask a staff nurse when she brings me my lunch.

  ‘In an ambulance.’

  Eunice and Carmen come. ‘You look a lot better,’ Eunice says and studies my chart as if it means something to her.

  ‘How did I get here, Eunice? What happened?’

  ‘A tree fell on you.’

  ‘A tree fell on me?’

  ‘That old elder by your back door, it was rotten and your dad was chopping it down. It fell the wrong way or something. It was really windy.’

  ‘It was your birthday too,’ Carmen adds sympathetically, trying to inhale a sweet cigarette.

  ‘They thought you were going to die,’ Eunice carries on, ‘they had to give you the kiss of life.’

  ‘Better than the kiss of death,’ Carmen says, nodding her head sagely.

  ‘An ambulanceman?’

  ‘No, Debbie.’

  ‘Debbie?’

  ‘Debbie.’

  Audrey is sitting by the side of my bed and greets me with her lovely crescent moon smile. ‘Mr Baxter?’ I say to her and the smile vanishes behind a cloud.

  Mr Baxter has not been killed by Mrs Baxter, he has killed himself, shooting the top of his head off with his old army revolver. Depression, according to the inquest, over his impending retirement. Audrey and Mrs Baxter discovered his body in his study and are, as you might expect, subdued in their narrative of events.

  Mr Rice, on the other hand, in this alternative version of events, is still with us, as is the Dog (‘He appeared on the doorstep one day,’ Charles says, so that much is the same). The baby, however, is non-existent. Where has it gone to? (Where did it come from?)

  * * *

  Hilary and Richard are as alive as they ever were, thank goodness, as is Malcolm Lovat. But, alas, he is not here – he’s driven his car off into the future. Left university and home and gone. ‘Where?’

  Eunice shrugs, ‘Who knows? The police say it happens all the time. People just walking out of their lives.’ And so it does.

  It’s as if reality is the same, and yet … not the same. So, it was my comatose brain that played tricks on me, not time? Yes, says the neurologist. Although, actually – as Vinny kindly informs me – I have many of the symptoms of fly agaric poisoning, especially the hallucinations and the death-like sleep. Gey queer, as Mrs Baxter would say.

  I suppose reality is a relative kind of thing, like time. Maybe there can be more than one version of reality – what you see depends on where you’re standing. Take Mr Baxter’s death, for example, perhaps there are other versions. Imagine—

  It wasn’t her time of the month. Audrey hadn’t had it for, let me see, thinks Mrs Baxter, three months now. Mrs Baxter thought it was because Audrey was so thin and peely-wally, still a little girl really. That’s what the doctor said. Late maturing. Makes for irregularity.

  And then finding her all curled up in pain in a corner of her room, like a poor wee animal trying to get as far away from the pain as possible. You couldn’t tell it was a baby, it was just a bloody mess of a three months’ miscarriage. Mrs Baxter knew that one well. She’d lost more than one baby at that stage. Audrey was the only one she’d ever managed to keep and now Daddy had done this to her.

  At first Mrs Baxter couldn’t take it in, how could Daddy do such a thing? But then something in her, a little voice, a tiny whisper, said – yes, this is just what Daddy would do.

  Mrs Baxter would like to cut her throat in the middle of Glebelands’ market square so that everyone can see how she’s failed to protect poor wee Audrey, see what a bad mother she’s been. But not as bad a mother as he’s been a father.

  Audrey is all tucked up in bed now, like a small child, with blankets and hot-water bottles and aspirin and Mrs Baxter’s in the kitchen making Daddy’s tea. His favourite – mushroom soup. She makes Daddy’s soup with a lot of care, slicing the onions into moons and stirring them round and round in the frothing yellow butter. The fragrance of onions and butter filling the kitchen, drifting out of the open door into the April garden. From the cooker she can see the lilac outside the window, its purple heads still hanging wet and heavy from this morning’s shower of rain.

  When the new-moon onions are soft and yellow Mrs Baxter adds the mushrooms, little cultivated buttons that she’s wiped and chopped in quarters. When they’re all nicely coated in butter she adds the big flat horse-field mushrooms that grow in the corner of the Lady Oak field, like huge gilled plates, their dark brown the colour of the earth. She stirs the fleshy slices around until they begin to wilt a little and then she adds the olive-coloured fungi that also grow in the fi
eld but are not nearly so common – a treat for Daddy, for this is Mrs Baxter’s special recipe for mushroom soup.

  As she stirs and stirs Mrs Baxter thinks about Audrey upstairs in her child’s bed and thinks of Daddy creeping into that bed. Then she puts some water in the pan, not too much, and salts it with tears and sprinkles in pepper. Then she puts the lid on and leaves it to simmer.

  When the soup is cooked, Mrs Baxter whirrs it around in the liquidizer attachment on her Kenwood, taking each pureéed batch of soup and placing it in a nice clean pot. And then when all the soup is smooth she adds some sherry (‘just a wee drappy’) and half a pint of cream, then leaves it to keep warm on the stove. This is such a special soup that Mrs Baxter makes crouûtons, crisp golden cubes that she scatters on top of the bowl of soup, along with a handful of parsley.

  ‘Mm,’ says Mr Baxter, coming into the kitchen and taking off his bicycle clips, ‘that smells good.’ Mrs Baxter is so unused to getting compliments from Mr Baxter that she blushes.

  Mr Baxter enjoys his soup. He eats alone at the dining-room table, listening to the six o’clock news on the radio. After his soup Mrs Baxter serves him lamb chops and mashed potatoes and minted peas and for his pudding a golden, steaming, syrup sponge-pudding in a sea of yellow Bird’s custard.

  ‘Why aren’t you eating?’ he asks her and she says that she’ll get a bite to eat later because she’s had one of her headaches all day and is ‘fair-scunnered’. Daddy doesn’t express any sympathy, or even interest.

  Mrs Baxter takes some sponge-pudding and custard up to Audrey in her bedroom and feeds it to her like she did when Audrey was a baby. Then she gives her a mug of hot milk and two of her sleeping tablets.

  It is growing dark by this time and Mr Baxter has gone upstairs to his study to do some marking.

  Mrs Baxter washes up all the pots and pans, scouring them with bleach and wire-wool and then cleans the kitchen, wiping everything down with hot water and Flash. Then she gives the cat a saucer of milk and sits at the kitchen table and has a wee cuppie.