by Nina Bawden
Auntie watched her anxiously for a moment for signs of disgust. Then, “No, it isn’t important,” she said, suddenly smiling and then hiding the smile. She got up slowly, placing her massive body between Alice and the playbox. “Is there no hope?” she asked.
“None. He’d been drinking. I smelt his breath. He wasn’t supposed to drink.” She went on wildly, her composure vanishing. “He knew he shouldn’t drink. He had no right to do it. Leaving us like this, without any money. So upright, you’d think, such a responsible man. That was the front he showed, wasn’t it? He had to be generous, he couldn’t bear to seem poor. He had to act grandly, like a gentleman. Such airs—and he leaves us paupers. There won’t be a penny,” she exaggerated.
“You mustn’t talk like this,” cried Auntie, shocked. “Not now.”
“It’s all right for you,” said Alice rudely. “You’ve got plenty of money. You haven’t anything to worry about.”
Her retort lacked fire. She was shamed by her outburst as people are always shamed by their own natural behaviour.
“Is that what you thought?” Auntie’s old voice was incredulous. “Is that what he told you?”
“Not exactly. But he didn’t contradict me when I said …” Alice reddened uncomfortably. “You mean it isn’t true?”
“I haven’t a penny,” said the old woman. There was silence. The heavy clock ticked the seconds away. Auntie stood still and proud. “I’ll leave, of course, as soon as I can make arrangements.”
“Nonsense, you’ll do no such thing. What sort of a bitch do you think I am?” Alice was moved but she was incapable of expressing her feeling gracefully. “You’ll stay. I want you to. My kind don’t get rid of their old people. It’s only the rich who shut them up in nursing homes. We can’t afford to.”
“It’s good of you,” said Auntie, stiffly. Her mouth was shaking. Alice saw this with appalled pity.
“You poor old thing,” she said awkwardly and ran from the room. She met Mrs. Peacock looking for her on the landing. There was no need for words. Alice went straight to her husband’s bedside.
“Charles?”
His face looked defenceless and much younger. The skin on his flat cheekbones was youthfully pink. The soldierly moustache looked absurd above the kind, weak mouth. She saw a slit of light beneath his lids. “Darling,” she said, with genuine love, pressing his hand, and the light was gone. She waited, trembling. Surely something stronger, more dramatic, must happen when life went out of the body? Had it happened? What had gone, if so, and what remained? She took the pocket mirror from her handbag and held it before his lips. She thought it misted slightly and then she knew she was wrong. Awed, though she had seen her mother die, she crossed his hands on his breast.
“God bless you,” she said, and it came to her with sudden pain that she did not believe in God. “Poor Charles,” she said his epitaph, and turning saw Mrs. Peacock at the door of the room.
“She’s not back,” Mrs. Peacock said. “She’s been gone twenty minutes. She should have been back by now.”
For a moment, Alice did not know what she was talking about. Then she said, “She’s dawdling, the naughty girl.” She burst into wild, shaking tears, the first she had shed. “It’s over,” she cried. “He’s gone.”
The shop was warm and bright. It sold groceries and sweets and ice cream although it had once been a draper’s shop and along one wall there were still a number of fitted drawers labelled, vests, night-caps and, curiously, infant’s bods.
The woman behind the counter was plump and pale. She wore a plastic collar round her neck for she had slipped a disc. This appliance fascinated Hilary: she could not take her eyes from it.
“Half a pound of tea, dear,” The woman slapped two oblong packets on the counter. Hilary held out her scratched hand with the money and the woman said, “Goodness me, what have you done? Fallen over in the dark?” She looked at Hilary more closely. “Does it hurt, dearie?”
The kind, sympathetic tone brought tears to Hilary’s eyes. She nodded silently.
“Well, never mind. Your mummy will bathe it when you get home, I’m sure.”
“Give her something to make it better, Captain,” said a woman who appeared from a curtained doorway at the back of the shop.
Hilary wondered, as always, at this curious address and stared at the newcomer who wore what appeared to be a faded, girl guide’s uniform. She was about fifty, as thin as a child and with a scraggy neck like a tortoise’s. A heavy, leather belt, dangling whistles and scouting knives, hung round her meagre hips.
“Shall I? I wonder, now …” Captain gave Hilary a bright, meaningful smile. Hilary regarded her stupidly and the thin woman leaned over the counter and said in a clear, loud voice as if she were speaking to a deaf person, “Sweeties? Don’t tell me you don’t like sweeties, dearie?”
To Hilary their faces, one so thin and grey, one fat and the colour of lard, seemed to flicker and recede. Boiled sweets rattled on the scales, a small paper-bag was pressed into her free hand.
“Thank you,” she whispered and lingered. The darkness pressed about the little shop, ominous as thunder. Glances passed between the two women.
“Does her mother know she’s out, d’you think, Captain?” said the old girl guide.
“Does your mother know you’re out?” repeated the fat woman in a low, serious voice, not smiling now.
“She sent me,” said Hilary in a faint voice.
The women looked at each other again. Hilary heard their voices distantly like the whisper of talk from another station when the wireless was on.
“Not right, d’you think? Not in the dark. Not now. Shall I go home with her, Captain?” said the thin one. Hilary saw them clearly now, nodding and smiling. She saw the leather belt and the sharp knives. The thin woman’s eyes were queer: one was blue and the other a green colour that changed under the light. Hilary knew the women well: she had spent her Saturday money at their little shop since she had been able to toddle. But now they seemed quite unfamiliar and strange. The odd-coloured eyes, the thin face, the eccentric costume frightened her. Hilary said, “I’m all right, really. Thank you. I like the dark.”
Their faces seemed to alter, to swell and move towards her. Hilary flung herself against the door that tinkled as she opened it. The picture postcards, hung on tapes on the inside of the door, rustled in the wind. As she went, she banged into a tiny figure.
“Wretched child,” said a muttering, venomous voice. Hilary was gone and the little creature went into the shop and banged the door behind her. “I hate children,” said Miss Fleery-Carpenter, clutching her wolf fur round her skinny neck.
The darkness outside was complete. Pale lamps splashed islands of safety along the pavement. She had only to run now, and she would be safe, run and no one would see her in the dark. Clasping her sweets and the soft packets of tea, she reached the first lamp and thought: under the light, he can see my hair. She crossed the road. Here there were no lamps, only the grass verge at the edge of the Downs. She splashed her feet in the puddled gutter. Then she heard the footsteps. They followed her, matching their pace to hers, footsteps that were not quite even, one step heavier than the other so that each second step seemed only an echo of the first. She began to run, the cold rain-water splashing on her bare legs but running, she could not hear the footsteps and that frightened her. So she walked as fest as she could, not daring to look round, hearing the footsteps gain upon her, slowly, slowly, counting the lamp-posts on the other side of the road. She saw, in her mind, the man behind her; his long coat blacker than the surrounding night; his terrible face, white as bone. She did not cry, she was beyond tears now. Nothing could be worse than not knowing, she thought and suddenly turned defiantly to face him. She did not see him. She saw only the long, wide road, the stirring trees, the yellow, puddled light from the lampposts and the thin woman from the shop whirring slowly towards her on a bicycle. She saw the spindly legs, bare to the thighs beneath the short guide dress, the
kind, evil face bent towards her.
“You forgot your change.” The words seemed to hold some dreadful, hidden purpose. Hilary thought: He can take any shape, he can look how he likes. She ran with wild fear behind her, reached the last lamp-post, reached, hurling herself against the gate, scattering the gravel, her house. Pounding on the door, the brass knocker echoing in the street, she heard voices calling her on the wind, Hilary, Hilary. The door opened and she fell forward into the hall, saved by Mrs. Peacock’s hand. A grey streak, a phantom, fled past them into the night.
“The cat, the cat’s out.” Mrs. Peacock stood at the open door and peered out into the dreadful dark.
“Shut the door.” Hilary clutched at the rough stuff of her apron.
“It’ll get run over.” Mrs. Peacock spoke reproachfully, stepped out into the porch.
“Shut the door, shut the door,” Hilary shrieked at the top of her lungs, clapping her hands over her ears.
“Hush,” said Mrs. Peacock. “What a dreadful noise. Aren’t you ashamed to make a noise like that? Your poor Daddy….” She shut the door and glanced uneasily at the stairs, putting her finger to her lips.
“I want Mummy,” said Hilary in a lower tone. She had gone very white, the freckles stood out on her skin like stones.
Mrs. Peacock bent and wiped Hilary’s running nose with the corner of her apron. “Not now, lovey. She’s busy.” She took the child’s cold hand and led her into the kitchen. “Where have you been all this time, that’s what I’d like to know. Worrying us all. Now you stay with me for a while. I tell you what—we’ll make a gingerbread man. There’s a bit of dough left over in the larder and I’ll find you some currants for eyes. You can light the oven all by yourself.”
The mixture of scolding and kindness bewildered Hilary. She stamped her foot. “No, no.” The angry colour came back into her face.
Mrs. Peacock sniffed. “Someone’s in a naughty temper, aren’t they? You’ll stay here as you’re told, my girl, and no nonsense. Your Mummy’s busy.”
“Daddy, then,” said Hilary, forgetting, and pouting her lips.
“He’s very ill,” said Mrs. Peacock in solemn tones. Her heart softened as she thought of the child’s dreadful loss. She placed thin, loving arms about the small body. “What’s the matter? Let’s see if we can make it better?”
“It was dark,” said Hilary in a tiny voice. “The dark. And he was there, the Devil. I know he was. He takes little girls away. He was waiting for me.”
She looked hopefully into the small, owlish face. She saw blankness and incomprehension. She saw the thin lips tighten impatiently. “Oh, let me go” she said, wriggling, and pushed hard at the flat chest.
She was big and strong for her age and the sudden movement took Mrs. Peacock by surprise. The woman stepped backwards and jarred her hip-bone on the sharp corner of the kitchen table.
“Well, I don’t know,” said Mrs. Peacock crossly. “What a silly story.” Her hip was extraordinarily painful and her eyes watered. She continued spitefully, “I don’t know what your mother would say, I’m sure. I would have thought a little girl would have behaved better than this with her poor Daddy so ill.”
“He’s dead, isn’t he,” stated Hilary calmly. She saw nothing wrong in mentioning this fact but her disinterested tone shocked Mrs. Peacock deeply.
“Don’t you care?” she asked, drawing a long breath and glaring at the child.
“No,” said Hilary in a stony voice and burst into tears.
“I don’t know what to do with her,” said Mrs. Peacock. “It’s a terrible thing to say of a little child, but she has no heart.”
Auntie looked at the sullen child, huddled in the basketwork chair beside the stove. She had been sitting there, quite still, for the last hour. The doctor had been and gone, cups of tea had been made and drunk: she had not said a word. Her bright hair shone against the dark quilting of the chair, beneath it, her face seemed wan and dead as if the life had been sucked out of it.
“She’s very pale,” Auntie said.
“It’s her hair. All her blood goes into her hair.”
“Does she know?” asked Auntie in a whisper.
Mrs. Peacock rattled the cups and saucers in the sink. “Oh, she knows, all right. Quick as a monkey, that one. But that’s not the trouble, believe it or not. Something frightened her in the dark.”
“Hilary, come to Auntie. Come and tell me what’s wrong.”
Impressed by her stillness, her silence, the old woman went to her and touched her gently on the arm. Hilary looked up at her and shook her head stubbornly.
“Darling,” said Auntie and bent, creaking, to touch the flaming hair.
The child’s reaction was violent. She flung herself out of the chair and across the room. Back pressed against the tiled, kitchen wall, she screamed at her great-aunt. “You’re no good, no good. You’re deaf. You can’t hear a word. I hate you.”
“Little wretch,” said Mrs. Peacock and moved angrily towards the child, her hand upraised. Auntie barred her way.
“Can’t you see she’s upset?” she said in ringing tones. “The best thing you can do is to fetch her mother.”
“Won’t he come back next week?” asked Hilary patiently. Her mother’s account of what had happened to her father had confused her own, perfectly clear sense of the finality of death. It seemed, now, that he had simply departed on a journey.
“No, darling.” Alice’s eyes brimmed with tears at this simple innocence. “He won’t come back ever again. He’s gone to heaven.”
“To be with God and Jesus?”
“I suppose so.” Alice’s voice was uncertain and Hilary looked at her shrewdly. “Don’t you know?”
“Not, really, my precious,” said Alice tenderly and took her daughter in her arms. She had no wish to impose upon her children a religion in which she could not, herself, believe. It would have seemed to her a terrible hypocrisy.
“Has he gone to hell, then?” inquired Hilary, surprised.
“Of course not.” In spite of her rationalist beliefs, Alice was emotional in her strong denial. “There is no such place.”
“But there is, it says so,” insisted Hilary. “It says so in the Bible. ‘The wicked shall be cast into everlasting fire’,” she quoted with relish. Then her face contracted violently. “Besides, I’ve seen the Devil,” she cried and clung to her mother.
She could not be comforted. Between outbursts of sobbing, in stumbling, incoherent phrases, she produced her fantastic story. It would have convinced no one. Truth was lost in terror, reality converted into a fairy tale. Over-wrought, poor child, thought Alice as she brought her hot milk and tucked her up in bed. The dark had frightened her, that was all, she should never have let her go out in the dark. Perhaps there had been a man— that sort of occurence was all too common. In the emotional atmosphere of her father’s death and following upon the murder, such a happening would have been certain to stimulate her imagination.
She went to the window to draw the curtains, remembering, uneasily, that she had always considered Hilary an exceptionally unimaginative child. She stood, doubtful, staring at her pale reflection in the black pane. The wild night enclosed the house; above the sound of the wind, she heard the front gate bang.
“It’s only Janet,” she said, to comfort herself, and turning, saw the child’s eyes watching her from the bed.
“I’ll leave the light on, shall I?” she said.
Janet sat in the kitchen, drinking a cup of tea. Listening to her distraught sobbing, murmuring the right words at the right time, Alice was conscious of great weariness. Everything depends on me, she thought, aggrieved. The knowledge of her lonely responsibility obscured other people’s sorrow.
“If only I’d been here,” moaned Janet for the tenth time.
“There was nothing you could have done,” said Alice, quite sharply, and poured herself another cup of tea.
“He looks so peaceful.”
Alice reminded herself that
even the most outworn of platitudes can express genuine feeling.
“I’m an orphan,” announced Janet dolefully and regarded her stepmother with round, sad eyes. Her tears emphasised her youth, her skin was soft and damp and shone under the harsh kitchen light.
“At least it has happened gradually,” said Alice in a bracing tone.
Janet sighed. “What am I going to do now?” she asked faintly.
“Get a job like everyone else,” said Alice briskly.
Janet blushed. “When we got to Victoria, I telephoned Sheila. She was at school with me. I thought I might get a job in London and share her flat.” Her expression became more animated.
“That seems an excellent idea,” said Alice idly.
“Of course I couldn’t now.” Janet spoke with heavy reproach. Her face expressed resigned martyrdom.
“I don’t see why not, if you want to,” said Alice cheerfully. She felt a certain lightening of the heart at the thought of Janet’s departure. “After all, you have to think of yourself.”
“Would it be all right, really?” Her obvious relief was galling and Alice replied shortly, “Of course. I’ve already said so.”
“Now you’re angry with me,” said Janet in a hurt voice and her face clouded.
“No, no.” Alice rose from the table. “We’ll discuss it to-morrow. We can’t sit here all night.”
She collected the tea cups and piled them in the sink. Together she and Janet saw that the doors were locked, turned out the lights. At some point they became aware that they were two women performing a man’s accustomed function and their hearts faltered.
They looked down at the dead man. He looked insignificant and empty, a sack of dry bones. Alice thought: I have been married to you for ten years, you are the father of my children. Her heart remained dry and cold.
“Maggots crawling out of his eyes,” whispered Janet and put her hands before her face.
“Not if he’s cremated,” said Alice perversely. She longed to shock the girl. “I knew a farmer in Wales,” she said. “When he died, it was the middle of winter and the ground was too hard to bury him. So they kept him in the kitchen, lying on a settle in front of the fire. They rubbed salt in him to stop the smell. I don’t know whether it was successful or not.”