by Nina Bawden
“I want Daddy,” said Hilary perversely. She had cried out the storm, her eyes peered out of swollen sacks of flesh. She scowled heavily at her mother who waited, anxious to be kind, beside her.
“Darling.” Alice stretched out a loving hand and Hilary closed her lips and turned away. The rebuff was intentional and Alice knew it. She stood up and went to the door.
“Wait then,” she said. “He’ll be home soon.” She hesitated and added, in a colder tone, “And change your dress. It’ll be fit for nothing, lying on the floor.”
Her eyes shut, Hilary heard the door close. She lay still, tears of real sorrow squeezing between her puffy lids. Then, getting to her feet, she took a handful of peas from the colander on the table and chewed them absently. They tasted mealy: the season was over. The kitchen was empty and silent except for a dripping tap. She felt her body surrounding her like an unfamiliar envelope. Looking down, she saw her two feet in grubby, white socks and patent shoes. This is me, she thought, my two feet, my two, silly, fat hands. Lonely, suddenly, she began to cry a little and opened the kitchen door. Climbing the stairs, the house seemed empty: she held her breath. Creeping across the landing she saw, through the half-open bedroom door, her mother’s motionless back. Alice stood before her dressing-table, hands resting on the polished wood, bright head sunk forward between hunched shoulders. She is crying, thought Hilary, surprised, and a lump rose in her own throat. She longed for her mother to turn and see her: her pride forbade her to make the first move. Suffering and alone, she passed into the nursery where she dragged off her party dress and flung it in a yellow heap on a chair. Peregrine’s white bed, already stripped, the folded blankets lumpy beneath the counterpane, mocked her from its corner. She commented in a low voice on the other signs of his absence. “His dressing-gown, gone from the door, gone his red slippers with the rabbit’s head, gone his Meccano box.”
She refused to cry, instead she admired her stoic face in the mirror with the painted, wooden frame. Ah, she was brave! Surrounded on all sides by savage tribes, outnumbered, she faced death heroically. “Too late the Phalarope,” she murmured. This was a phrase she had heard her mother use at a tea party and it had remained with her ever since. The words seemed to Hilary mysterious and noble, in times of crisis, they comforted her soul.
Then she remembered the Devil and the magic ceased to work. Her face, in the mirror, shrank and altered; she turned away from it lest she should see his face, dim and awful, looking over her shoulder. In her vest and knickers, she climbed on to a chair and looked out of the barred window at the soaked Downs, the muddy sea. A cluster of trees immediately opposite the house made a dreadful hiding-place. Was he waiting for her there? She began to tremble, a fear greater than anything she had felt before possessed her. She felt his presence round her, she did not dare to turn her head.
Then she saw her father’s head, bobbing beyond the dripping hedge of the front garden. He stopped, opened the gate and glanced upwards at the windows of his house as he always did on coming home. Her misery, her humiliation were forgotten: she felt a warm tide of comfort and relief. He was not angry with her any more. He knew everything. He had come back.
“Daddy,” she shrieked, and tumbled off her chair.
Charles knew everything—or almost everything. He even, with a leap of imagination unusual in him, understood the significance of the club foot. And yet, as he climbed the hill, he found it difficult to concentrate on Hilary. His mind, while acknowledging the seriousness of the situation, kept slipping away from it and wandering along side alleys. He measured Hilary’s Devil against his own childhood fears. They had not been many: his parents had been sensitive and kindly people who had never forced him, while he showed the slightest unwillingness, to swim or to ride a bicycle. They had provided a night light in his nursery to shut out the dark which he did not fear. Any admitted terror would have been dispelled with kindness and understanding. It had not been their fault that he could not speak of the one thing that had made the winter evenings terrible.
A black puma crouched above the well of the stairs waiting to pounce upon him. He knew the look of the puma intimately. It had a sleek, shining fur like his mother’s moleskin coat, one large, golden eye and long, raking claws like marlin spikes. It was not there when he was in the bathroom or the lavatory. It did not threaten him until he was below, in the hall. Even then, he was safe until he passed beneath the dark well which lay between the foot of the stairs and the drawing-room and safety. Sometimes he could not face the danger. He would stand, shivering, at the bottom of the stairs, cold with fear, waiting for the drawing-room door to open and a grown-up to appear.
He told no one. He bore his fear alone. Looking back, it seemed to him that his silence on the matter meant, not that he was brave, but that his fear was too great to be told. Puffing slightly, he turned in at his gate. He saw his daughter pressed against the bars of the nursery window and would have waved to her if he had had the strength. As he opened the front door, fumbling a little with the familiar lock, he felt a warning tremor in his arm. He became conscious of his heart, labouring like an engine in too high a gear.
He remembered, then, that he had told someone about the puma. He had cried out to his grandmother one day when he was sick and she was sitting by his bed making paper dolls to amuse him. She had not ridiculed him: the puma was too real to be destroyed by laughter. She had said just the right thing. If only, he thought, I could remember what she said, I would know what to say to Hilary.
He saw his daughter standing at the top of the stairs. He saw her brilliant hair, her plump, freckled legs. Her plain, clever face seemed suddenly unbearably pathetic. He knew that he loved her dearly. He thought that she cried out to him. “Wait,” he said, “I’m coming.” The stairs were steeper than he expected them to be. The pain took him, not with fear but rather with surprise, so that the expression on his face, as he fell, was one of extraordinary astonishment.
He spoke once before he became completely unconscious. Alice, who had come in response to Hilary’s frightened cry thought he said—though it seemed ridiculous— “Who’s afraid of an old puma?” He lay still. The green light from the stained glass of the landing window, playing on his extreme pallor, gave his skin a luminous, shining look. At first, she thought he was dead, but when she and Mrs. Peacock had lifted his heavy body on to the bed, they found that a faint breath, lingering in his shattered body, misted the small mirror they held to his lips.
Chapter Seven
Charles was ill, seriously so. He did not know it. He knew nothing. He lay mindless, a stiff, heavy hulk upon a Dunlopillo mattress beneath an eiderdown of shell pink silk. The room, for ten years his shared, matrimonial bedroom, reflected not his, but Alice’s taste. He had never liked the frills and flounces, the lamps draped in pleated silk, the peach-tinted mirrors and now their robust femininity triumphed over his death-bed. He was to die as he had lived, unable to impress himself upon his surroundings.
Alice moved between the sickroom and the kitchen, dry-eyed and proud. Her face was impassive and rejected pity. She accepted the fact that Charles was dying and calmly planned for the future. They had been living, beyond their income, on the little capital that Charles’s mother had left him. That money was almost gone and the bookshop had never been successful. With luck, she could sell out to the new chain-store in the High Street that sold birthday cards and stationery as well as books and ran a twopenny library.
Coldly, she looked beyond death to a modified poverty and did not fear it. Instead, a kind of exhilaration took possession of her. She was at her best in just this sort of practical disaster. At last her real talents, her tenacity, her shrewdness, her courage, could be put to some real use. She could sell the house or take in paying guests. Four spare rooms could be arranged if she and the children moved up to the unused attic floor. Ten guineas a week in summer, a little less for the right kind of permanent resident. Five mouths to feed. The children’s education to pay for—whatever
happened, they must not suffer. Frowning, she sat by her husband’s side and worked out sums on a piece of paper.
Hilary sat in a corner of the kitchen, hunched on a wicker chair. She held the kitten in her lap. Its soft paws puddled against her thigh, the flat head nuzzled into her warm hand. Her freckled face was closed and secret: behind it, demons raged. Children can feel guilt as deeply as adults and Hilary was no exception. She had not been told her father was dying but she knew the truth. Had she not wished God to strike him dead? She was a murderer—and not for the first time.
Last summer she had played on the beach with a boy called Cyril who had had an operation on his head. He was a big boy, nearly fourteen, but he played with the little ones because he was slow and stumbling and childish. They had been playing hide-and-seek. He had followed her into one of the caves and tried to kiss her. Frightened, because he was big and had a white, stupid face, she had pushed him away and he fell, striking his head on a stone. She had run out of the cave into the sun and pretended that she did not know where he was. Her relief, when he eventually rejoined the other children, had been boundless. Then, a week later, Alice had told her that Cyril was dead. The boy had died of a tumour on the brain: a final operation had been too late to save him. Hilary, however, did not know this and believed his death to be the direct result of his fall in the cave. She told no one, she suffered her dreadful knowledge in silence. Time had softened her wretchedness but she had never forgotten the incident. Now it returned to her with redoubled force. She had killed her father as certainly as she had killed Cyril. She was wicked beyond redemption.
Mrs. Peacock, seeing her solemn little figure, retired into the outside lavatory and sobbed loudly and gloriously. Poor Mr. Bray; his poor, fatherless children. Her tears were the tears she shed at christenings and funerals alike: she wept for the beautiful sadness of life. After a little, she dried her eyes and, coming back into the kitchen, gave Hilary a bar of chocolate.
Alice, noticing the child, so still and quiet, felt a stab of pity. Had she neglected her? She should have seen that she had something to keep her busy.
She said, in a bracing voice, “Darling, would you go on an errand for us? We’ve run out of tea.”
The child’s quick, recoiling movement, the slight enlargement of her pupils, went unnoticed.
“It’s dark,” Hilary said and looked at the limitless blackness behind the uncurtained window.
“Nonsense, dear. Not really dark, not yet. Not outside.”
She took Hilary’s coat from the peg behind the kitchen door, slipped it over the unresisting arms, buttoned it across her chest.
“It’s raining,” said Hilary helplessly, her eyes wide and strained.
Alice laughed at her. “Why, silly one, it stopped an hour ago. You’d like to help us, wouldn’t you?”
Hilary nodded. Something was going to happen to her and she was powerless to stop it. It was like a dream. She felt the roughness of her tweed coat against the back of her knees, the cold coins in her hand. Her mother’s face, Mrs. Peacock’s, floated above her smiling false smiles, cut off from her as by a wall of glass. Then she was in the long hall, smelling of polish, her mother’s hand on her shoulders. Alice opened the front door on to the grey dusk and the wild wind.
“Look, a lovely evening. It’ll do you the world of good. Get some air into your lungs. Run.”
At the gate, Hilary turned. For a moment, her mother stood at the door, the lovely light streamed safely along the gravel path. Then the door closed and she was alone. The wet hedge brushed her cheek. She began to run, her feet echoing against the walls of the houses, looking straight in front of her. On her right, the Downs stretched to the cliff edge. She gave them one fearful glance and saw the dark tree clumps, the pale metalled paths, the silver grass. There was a pain in her chest as sharp as a needle. Puffing, she slowed down, clasping her side. A man was coming towards her, bent against the hill and the wind. She stopped, not daring to move, her doubled fist crushed against her mouth. Her wild eyes sought the houses, the nearest one was set far back behind dripping laurels and the windows were dark. Anyway, he would reach her before she had time to press the bell. He was very close now, and she whimpered a little.
He was beside her. He had passed. She held her breath. Then he stopped, turned. She felt faint and leaned against the hedge. She heard his voice, a gentle, old man’s voice. “I say, is anything the matter?”
She moaned and, suddenly released, ran from the kind question, across the road and on to the grey Downs. The wet grass squeaked beneath her rubber soles. From the dark trees, blackness stretched out long fingers to snare her. Above her sobbing heart, she heard the sound of the sea; at her feet, the grass sloped steeply away to the lighted town. She caught her breath. She could go down to the town and come back to the shop on the bus. She had enough money for the fare as well as for the tea. She stumbled on to one of the tarmac paths that criss-crossed the Downs. It flickered whitely before her, leading sharply downwards. She followed it, running faster and faster until her legs were out of control and she slipped, falling sideways, her wide-flung hands grazing on a heap of stones. She cried a little with the shock and scrambled to her feet. A little below her, at the side of the path, there was a high, tangled patch of blackberry bushes. As she watched, a shadow moved beside it.
She gave a short, strangled cry and left the path, heading sideways across the grass. The wind tore at her coat, The Way was slightly uphill now and her tired, fat legs ached with effort. Then, like a miracle, she saw the small, bright shop at the end of The Way.
She reached the road. A car caught her small figure in its sweeping headlights and the driver swore, wrenching at the wheel. Safe beside the lighted window of the shop, she turned and looked back at the Downs. A patch of darkness moved, stopped and moved again.
All afternoon, the man had hidden in the tank in the fallen garden. He was safe there, he could not be seen from the cliff or from the beach. He hid without really knowing why he was hiding. Somewhere in the depths of his mind, there was a faint memory of guilt. His mother’s voice: just you wait. He had run from her and hidden in the basement of a bombed house, the siren had wailed like a cat on the tiles and thump, thump, thump, the bombs had fallen, killing the family in the baker’s shop at the corner of the street, killing his mother as she came out of the pub.
He stirred, became aware of the hunger crawling like beetles in his stomach. He remembered his bird. He had not fed it last night or this morning. He felt for the new packet of bird seed in the pocket of his coat. He had bought it when he had finished work. He had been going to feed the bird when the child had pointed at him in the field.
Remembering this, the sweat stood out on his thin face. He had been pointed at before. “That’s the boy, Mummy, that’s him.” He had done nothing, only asked for a kiss because she had pretty hair, yellow hair, soft as cotton wool, and she had gone away screaming. The screaming had angered him and he had followed her, trapping her against a wall. He was little and lame and she was strong. She had hit out at him, raking sharp, dirty nails down his face. He had run away, crying, and then they came after him, the angry women, with hating faces and flailing arms. Dirty beast, dirty beast.
He whimpered, huddled in his hiding-place. He must get out and feed his poor bird. It was getting dark, he would be safe soon. He could crawl along the hedges in safety and darkness.
The rain had stopped, there was no more iron hammering on the zinc roof above him. He crept cautiously out of the tank, cramped and aching, and looked anxiously up at the tossing sky. He saw the last yellow light of day binding the edges of a torn cloud.
When he reached the field, there were lights in the windows of the caravans. As he passed, a chained dog barked sharply and he cowered low to the ground. He heard the ordinary everyday sounds of the caravan site: the screaming curses of a matrimonial quarrel, Radio Luxemburg turned on loud, the sad cry of a neglected child.
He pushed open the door of his home.
Johnny, Johnny, he called softly and stumbled against the table. His hand groped for the candle, the frail light flickered and threw his monstrous shadow on the dirty wall.
Johnny, he said smiling, and the bird lay on its back in the sandy tray, the helpless legs curled stiffly upwards. He touched it and it was as hard as a stuffed bird and cold.
He could not believe it was dead. He called its name and prodded it with his finger until it rolled on its side. The little eyes were covered with a faint veil, like the layer of dust on polished wood. He picked it up and held it tenderly against his cold cheek. His face darkened suddenly and he threw it away from him in disgust. Dead, he said, dead, and, staggering to the open door, retched on the ground.
A slow and terrible anger filled him. Johnny would not be dead if the red-haired child had not shouted at him. He would not have run away, he would have been able to feed his bird and it would have sung its pretty song.
He left his caravan and made his sure way through the gathering dusk, towards the Downs.
“He’s dying,” said Alice, in Auntie’s room. She had come in suddenly and found the old woman kneeling before the open playbox. Alice saw the sea-shore rubbish, the childish treasure. So that’s where she goes in the afternoons, she thought, that’s her secret. The filthy old woman! And then, with fear, will I come to this in the end?
“You should have knocked.” Auntie slammed down the lid and looked up indignantly, her eyes dead as gutted candle ends.
“Fat lot of good that would have been,” Alice muttered and thought: she’s afraid of me; I’ve found out her nasty little game and she’s afraid. She doesn’t care about anything else.
“I said, he’s dying,” she repeated harshly, “dying. That’s important. Not this.” She kicked the side of the playbox with her toe.