Judgment Day

by Penelope Lively

  When he got outside the mini was on the other side of the Green, stopped now, the window wound down, Mrs. Paling talking to Sydney Porter. George, crossing the road, heading for the lych-gate, prepared and executed a wave of greeting (nonchalant, a little preoccupied, the gesture of a man with concerns of his own …} which neither of them saw.

  * * *

  “Poor little blighter,” said Clare.

  Sydney, awkward and slightly agitated, continued. “It's not that I'd choose to go round talking about it, I'm not a one for gossip.”

  “I never thought you were.”

  “It's the question of this Air Show.”

  “I see the problem. It would be difficult for you because you haven't got a car…”

  Sydney nodded.

  “…Whereas I have and as you've rightly guessed I'm taking my own offspring anyway—worse luck, I can't think of anything I need less than a day with a lot of roaring aeroplanes—and yes, of course I'll take him. A pleasure.”

  “It'll be appreciated,” said Sydney stiffly.

  “Well, it won't be much of a substitute, but it'll be better than nothing, I daresay.” There was a pause. Clare scowled at the car windscreen.

  “What charming people. It makes the blood boil, doesn't it?”

  Sydney cleared his throat and looked away.

  “Sorry. I just meant … Anyway, it's good of you to keep an eye on him.”

  “He's not a bother.”

  “Let me know if there's anything I…”

  “That's all right,” said Sydney quickly. “We'll manage.”

  Clare looked at him reflectively. “She—the mother—she said she'd be back on Tuesday?”

  “Thereabouts.”

  “Hmn. Well, I'm glad you mentioned it. Tell Martin we're planning to have a picnic lunch on the way and make a day of it, being as it's their half term holiday.”

  * * *

  They had moved from rummy to whist, and thence to a game of Martin's unfamiliar to Sydney called “Attack!” Cardboard armies, French and English (an archaism that struck neither of them as curious} confronted one another, hierarchies of generals and colonels and lieutenants and sappers and the all-powerful mine that could put an end to anyone, even the commander-in-chief. “Attack!” “Private.” “I'm a major. Your go.” “Attack!” “Mine!” “Bother, that was my last general.” They watched the telly. Sydney made a treacle tart, resuscitating a long-forgotten skill. Under a watchful eye, Martin learned to wield a hoe, to distinguish a carrot from a weed. From time to time, he drifted back to his own house, returning on one occasion to say, “My mum telephoned.” “Ah.” “She said she'd been trying on and off for ages, she said she was getting ever so worried.” “Did she, now?” said Sydney coolly. “Anyway, she said thank you ever so much for letting me come over here and it's O.K. if I go on sleeping in your house. She said she may stop up in London with Auntie Judy till next week, since I'm getting on fine on my own.” After a moment Martin added, “She didn't know about Dad taking me to the Air Show, he's gone off somewhere for the firm, she doesn't know when he'll be back.” “Ah.” “He forgot, I suppose.” “I been thinking,” said Sydney. “There's that old shed far side of the potting-shed that I don't use, we could clear that out and you could have it for somewhere of your own, keep your junk in it, like.”

  * * *

  “I'm happy!” cried Anna. “I'm so happy I could scream!”

  “Let's scream, then.”

  “Goon, Thomas!”

  “You first.”

  Anna gave a ladylike shriek. “Now you.”

  “Maybe not,” said Clare. “I might upset the cows.”

  The picnic site, unlike most picnic sites, had indeed turned out a perfect selection. It was by the river, near the spot at which Clare had seen the Red Devils. They sat on luxuriant grass intricately woven with wild flowers; the water, a few yards away, was dappled with light that filtered down through alders and willows. There was birdsong and faint mysterious ploppings along the river-bank, and a smell of hay.

  “Can we start the ice cream now?”

  The flowers sparkled: yellow and blue and mauve and crisp white. Examined closely, at eye level in the forest of the grass, their arrangement was of wonderful complexity, a labyrinth of growth, stems twisting and spiraling, swarming under and above, an anarchic but ordered world in which everything struggled for light and air and achieved a mindless perfection in the process: the glint of buttercups against a misty undergrowth of speedwell, a bright tangle of stitchwort pierced by mauve pinnacles of bugloss. Elaborate, disorderly, and beautiful.

  The children, replete, flung themselves down: Anna and Thomas on their backs, Martin a few yards away leaning against a tree stump. He had been quiet, polite, a little withdrawn before the exuberance of the younger two.

  “Sure you wouldn't like some more, Martin?”

  “No, thank you.”

  The bodies of children, Clare thought, have the same grace as plants: they sprawl and reach and bend, they help themselves to the atmosphere, to light and warmth and nourishment. They neither posture nor contrive; they are unconcerned: they are a delight to the eye. How curious, and how significant, that of the many ways in which one loves one's young, the physical should be one of the most forceful: the feel of them, the look of them.

  At such times as this, at such transcendent moments when in a suspension of time all is actually right with the world, it is the feel and the look of things that manifest that rightness: the marvelous presence of the physical world, impervious and uncaring, but to which nevertheless one turns for exaltation. The sky, on a day like this, is deeper, the clouds more lavish, the touch of the sun on my arm more sensual. Color is more intense: the flowers, the grass. Sound is more complex: the river, the birds.

  Thomas rolled over and heaved a sigh. “I like this place. Can we come here again?”

  “It's lovely !” said Anna theatrically. “It's so beautiful. Don't you think it's beautiful, Mum?”

  “It is. Yes, it certainly is.”

  “When I see anything beautiful like those flowers I feel a bit weepy, don't you?”

  Thomas, maddened by this display of sensibility, sat up and began resolutely popping bubble gum.

  “Well,” said Clare with caution, “that's pushing it a bit, perhaps.”

  “Stupid!” snarled Thomas.

  “Shut up.”

  “Shut up yourself.”

  “Enough, both of you!”

  Anna was now leaning cozily against her mother, in exclusion of the lumpen male element. “Mrs. Driver at school says things being so lovely, flowers and snow and mountains and everything, proves there must be a God.”

  “Does she now.”

  “Don't you think she's right?”

  “Frankly no. Both wrong and unoriginal.”

  “If I was God,” said Thomas, “I'd make a cow pat, an absolutely enormous cow pat, and push Mrs. Driver in it.” He howled with mirth.

  Anna threw him a withering glance. “He's torn his new T-shirt, Mum. Mrs. Driver says the world couldn't just be like that by itself. What do you think, Mum?”

  “Perhaps,” said Clare tersely, “Mrs. Driver would like to explain in that case why He also allows people to fall off lovely mountains and kill themselves, or die of cold in the beautiful snow.”

  “Or eat poisonous plants and get horrible agonies and die,” added Thomas triumphantly. “Some berries are deadly poison, they burn away your insides and you scream and scream and die.”

  “True,” said Clare, “if a bit over-dramatic.”

  Anna, affronted, had removed herself and was picking flowers. She examined a sprig of forget-me-not with exaggerated reverence and glared at Clare and Thomas. “Well, I don't care if you don't like the flowers. I'm going to take them home and put them in water and give them to Daddy when he comes back.”

  “I do like them,” said Clare, attempting appeasement. “I think they're lovely. Just I don't think they have anything to do
with God.”

  “Nor do I,” said Thomas, closing ranks. “Silly old God.”

  Clare began to pile the picnic debris into the basket. “That'll do. And don't talk like that—it's a serious matter, as it happens. Come on, we'd better be moving.”

  In the car, Anna said, “How far is it to the Air Show? How long till we're there?”

  “Not far. About twenty minutes or so.”

  “Hurray!”

  Clare could see, in the mirror, their faces, lined up in a row; eager, glowing faces. Martin, too, looked animated now, excited. She said, “You'll have to tell me all about the aeroplanes, Martin—I'm dead ignorant about that sort of thing.”

  “O.K.!”

  “I want to see a Spitfire. And a Hurricane.”

  “A biplane.”

  “The Red Devils!”

  “Isn't it exciting!”

  “Let's all sing!” cried Thomas.

  “Right you are. What shall we sing?”

  “Ten green bottles, hanging on the wall. Ten green bottles, hanging on the wall. Then if one green bottle … you too, Mum … should accidentally fall, there'd be nine green bottles, hanging on the wall.”

  “Drive fast, Mum!”

  “Nine green bottles…”

  Now, now, she said, we mustn't let things go to our heads. Their discordant voices shrilled in her ear. “Move a bit, Tom, I can't see out of the back window”; a gray ribbon of road vanished under the white nose of the mini and unreeled again behind. “… should accidentally fall, there'd be eight green bottles hanging on the wall.” Oh, the exuberance of children! Well, there's nothing like spreading a little happiness. “Seven green bottles …” Cow parsley brushed the side of the car. “Isn't it a lovely flowery road, Mum!” “A lovely narrow road, too.” Sharp bend—I'll say—good and sharp.

  Christ!

  The decision, if that is what it can be called, is instinctive rather than considered. Hurl the car to the left, anything rather than meet head-on the thundering maw of the lorry. Stupid bastard, stupid murderous bastard. Plunge the mini into the grass, the cow parsley, the meadow-sweet…

  A jolting, sliding stop. A sickening lurch. Christ, will it go right over?

  Keep calm. Switch the engine off.

  She said, “Anna?”

  “Yes.”

  “Tom?”

  “What?”

  “Martin?”

  “I'm O.K.”

  If they can all speak, she thought, then it is not too bad.

  Chapter Nine

  “…And we were all in a heap on the floor, Tom's elbow was in my eye, the car tipped right over almost on its side, and there was broken glass, Mum had a cut on her leg, and the front was all bashed in.”

  “…And we went in the police car, a real panda car…”

  “…And the lorry driver gave us some chocolate.”

  “As well he might,” said Clare tartly. She felt, suddenly, exhausted. Anything to get indoors and into a hot bath. Not to stand here talking to the neighbor though he means well, I'm sure, the solicitude is quite genuine.

  George Radwell was clucking away. “He was on the wrong side of the road, I suppose?”

  “That's right.” Poor man, one ended up feeling a bit sorry for him, the lorry driver, for goodness sake—white as a sheet and more shaken than we were, if anything.

  “And they were measuring the road with tape measures…”

  “…And we couldn't go to the Air Show at all. And a truck came with a crane and just picked Mum's car up, just like that!”

  “Come on,” said Clare. “Enough commotion for one day. Thanks, Mr. Radwell—no, honestly, there's nothing you can do, everything's taken care of. Thanks all the same, bye.”

  Later, the children in bed, when she was sitting at last with her feet up on the sofa, a drink and a book in hand, the telephone rang.

  There were cracklings and sighings, then Peter's voice: distant, going on about thank goodness, you're all right then, I've been worried.

  “Look,” she said. “Are you suddenly psychic or something? What is all this? How did you know? In the evening paper? Peter, just what is it that you think might have happened to us today?”

  He was clearer now: she could hear what he said.

  She took a long, deep breath: explained.

  “Are you there, Clare?”

  “Yes, I'm here.”

  “Well, thank goodness you never got to the thing.”

  “How many people,” she said, “were killed?”

  “About half a dozen, I think. And injuries. Some children, I'm afraid. Ghastly. Well, look, love, I'm tremendously relieved. Look after yourself. And I'll see you on Friday.”

  * * *

  “Those red aeroplanes,” said Mrs. Tanner, “that do the displays. They say it came down just like that. Plowed into the fence and the people that were standing there. The radio said a few yards more and it would have been dozens. It makes you think, doesn't it? They say there was the most terrible screaming. The children, see. And there was the debris flying in all directions, there was one woman got hit nearly five hundred yards away, a chunk of metal split her arm from the shoulder to the elbow. There's three in the intensive care still, the radio said—no, four I think it was. Terrible, isn't it? My sister-in-law was there, but they were over the far side. They saw it come down, though. Afterward they tried to get nearer—to see the wreckage and that—but the police had it all cordoned off, they said you couldn't get anywhere close. I said to my husband, good thing I wasn't there, with my nerves. And we'd thought of it, now I'm getting out so much more. There was a little girl of three, you know. Shame. It was on the news—but of course you've not got the TV, have you Mr. Radwell? We saw it on BBC and then we switched over—they had pictures on ITV.”

  * * *

  Sydney Porter, also, watched the BBC news. When it was over he turned the set off and sat staring at the blank screen, filled now with sights he would rather not have seen. The boy was in bed, upstairs; he had come back tired, eaten ravenously, and gone up. The mother had telephoned to say she would be back tomorrow. Sydney thought of those aeroplanes, slicing the sky above his vegetable garden that day; he heard that invasive, inescapable noise. He heard other inescapable noises, in other places, at other times. At last he sighed and went into the kitchen to tidy up for the night.

  Later, he looked into the room in which the boy was sleeping—cautiously, not to wake him. In the shaft of light from the door Sydney could see his clothes flung down on the floor, the hump of his body in the bed. The curtain billowed in a gust of air; Sydney stood hesitant, concerned suddenly about drafts; eventually he tiptoed across the room and closed the window a little more.

  * * *

  Martin dreamed he was running through grass, thick grass that snatched at his ankles, in flight from something unseen, something enormous and bestial that snuffled after him. And the grass grew thicker, thicker and longer, it was like trying to run in water, his limbs dragged, he was panting, he ached with the effort, and all the time the thing got closer. And then he knew suddenly it was a dream, and all he had to do was claw his way back to reality. But he couldn't do it; he struggled to wake, and the dream clutched him, dragged him back, fought to keep him.

  And then he was out of it, sitting up in bed gasping, as though he really had been running, too hot, sweat trickling under his pajamas. And the bed felt funny, and the bedclothes, he thought in panic he must be in another dream until he remembered it was Mr. Porter's spare room bed, that was where he was.

  He lay down, and the dream receded. Mum was coming back tomorrow, he wouldn't be sleeping here any more. She sounded funny, on the telephone; when he'd asked her where Dad was she'd said something he didn't quite hear. And when he said, “What?” she'd said never mind, and started on about Auntie Judy and how they might go for a holiday in Spain, with her and her boyfriend and this other man Auntie Judy knew.

  He was glad she was coming back. He didn't like the empty house; when he w
as there it seemed to crouch around him, hostile, the silence thumping in his head. It was all right here, at Mr. Porter's. Mr. Porter was nice. He hadn't known he was nice; before, he'd just been someone you saw, he was neither nice nor nasty, he just was, that was all there was to it.

  He felt a bit sick. He often felt sick, and he had that knotty feeling in his stomach a lot of the time now.

  * * *

  “How awful about your car! But wasn't it a miracle you weren't any of you hurt, you must feel it was your lucky day, in a way, and then not getting to the Air Show. Of course I suppose the odds are you wouldn't have been anywhere near the crash anyway, but it makes you think doesn't it? Tracy, don't drag like that, I'm talking to Mrs. Paling, be quiet. I could hardly believe it, when it came on the news. I mean, you don't expect things like that on your own doorstep, do you? It made me feel quite funny for a minute. All right, Tracy, I'm coming.”

  * * *

  Clare stood at the window. The world, on this summer day, was blue and green, sky above and rich pushing growth below, the showering willows of the gardens opposite, the shaggy laden chestnuts, the bright trim grass. Outside, in her own garden, the children played. It was still the half term holiday. They had been joined, this morning, by Martin. Yesterday's events had, it appeared, initiated a relationship of some kind between him and Thomas.

  Sue Coggan came out of her house, set off briskly for the shops. George Radwell crossed the road, went through the lych-gate and up the churchyard path. Sydney Porter opened his front door and set about sweeping his steps.

  A red Ford Capri, registration number KJO 520S, drew up outside the Bryans' house.

  Clare moved closer to the window, more central, continued to observe.

  Keith Bryan got out of the car, sorted keys, opened his door, went in. Came out, three minutes later. Stood, for a moment, hesitant. Caught sight of Sydney Porter.