Devil By The Sea

by Nina Bawden

  The roundabout slowed down, the kaleidoscope pattern resolved into the Bingo table, the shooting gallery with the bobbing, white, cardboard ducks, the rolling balls where you got a prize every time and, high above them all, dominating and unattainable as age, the Big Wheel.

  Then there was the Bingo table again and, standing beside it in a long, black coat, a thin and familiar figure. The next time round, the horizontal movement of the horse more noticeable now they were moving slowly, he was still there, his collar turned up round his chin, chewing at his nails. Hilary craned sideways to watch him as she was carried out of sight and almost lost her balance.

  She slid off her horse and looked for Janet and Aubrey. They were waiting for her at the other side of the roundabout.

  “I saw him,” she said. “I saw the man who took the little girl away. He’s watching Bingo.”

  Excited, she pulled at their reluctant hands, drawing them towards the Bingo and the lonely, watchful figure. Their eyes, wide and disbelieving, turned towards the round stall with its arched canopy of striped canvas, its gaudy mound of prizes, stuffed dolls, whistling kettles, plaster cats. The man chanted the numbers in a syncopated rhythm. On the spot, number four; on the spot, eighty-two….

  “There, look …” Her voice was shrill and triumphant. The man looked in their direction.

  “Hilary.” Janet’s face burned.

  Hilary persisted, “It is the man. I know. I talk to him sometimes.” She was not afraid, she was exhilarated. She pranced and capered round Aubrey and Janet, her face radiant with joy. “He’s the Devil, the Devil, the silly old Devil, his jacket was red and his breeches were blue and there was a hole where his tail showed through …” She howled the last words in a paroxysm of delight.

  Janet seized her by the shoulders. “Do be quiet,” she hissed. “Oh—I could beat you.”

  Hilary twisted out of her grasp. Her eyes were bright and luminous, excitement twisted in her stomach. “He is, he is, silly Janet, soppy Janet.” She turned in a pirouette, her cotton skirt flying round her. The man was gone.

  “What newspaper do you take?” asked Aubrey. Janet nodded at him, her lips compressed into a disagreeable grin. Aubrey bent and said in a soft, mocking voice, “Hilary, Hilary, what a tangled web we weave, when once we practise to deceive….”

  Hilary screamed with laughter and butted him in the stomach. He caught her hands and swung her round in a wide circle. Sudden gaiety possessed them all. They walked, hands clasped, among the glittering stalls. Little puffs of dust blew in their faces. The colour had begun to fade out of the sky.

  They went on the Ghost Train, jammed into the same, rattling carriage. Skeletons rose out of the dark, gleaming like dead fish, hands brushed their shrinking faces. They whirled out into the light through clashing doors. Hilary shouted, “Lovely, lovely, I wasn’t frightened, I’m never frightened.”

  She went, alone, down the Heiter Skelter, landing on the mat at the bottom, her skirt flying over her head. Her face scarlet, she rolled deliriously on the mat, dragging her skirt over her head. “I showed my knickers,” she shouted, scrambling to her feet and running to Janet, “Whoopee.”

  She saw the yellow light winking in the distorting mirror. “I want to go in the Big Laugh.”

  “You’ve had enough. It’s time to go home.” Janet’s hair was wild and tangled as a gipsy’s, her skin glowed with colour. She was drunk as Hilary was drunk: this was life, happiness, not the sombre colours of death. She leaned her head against Aubrey’s shoulder, loving him truly now she was going to leave him for ever, crooning a sentimental song. She felt the blood tingle along her veins, the glorious strength of her young body. “I’m going to London, to London town,” she cried suddenly, and the world opened at her feet.

  “Come on, come on,” Hilary grasped their hands. They laughed.

  “Go by yourself, then.”

  She ran, the turnstile clicked and she was inside. It was dirty with bright, glaring lights. The passages, lined with mirrors, twisted and turned.

  Hilary was long and thin, her neck as graceful as a swan’s. She turned sideways and smiled at herself. She was thin: perhaps when she grew up she would be thin like this and wear long, pink satin dresses and a spray of orchids on her breast. She would be a Princess. She bowed deeply to her reflection. “Your Highness … if Your Highness permits….”

  Someone moved in the mirror behind her, a giant, incredibly tall, incredibly thin. His dead eyes met Hilary’s in the glass; she turned and the corner of his raincoat whisked round the corner.

  Drawn, like a person in a dream, like a pin to a magnet, she followed him through the pattern of changing shapes. She had a feeling of fearful excitement, of awe, as if she were on the point of some essential discovery. There were hundreds of Hilarys, fat ones, thin ones—all with blue, cotton dresses and brown, sandalled feet. Then he was there too: in the mirrors his reflection flickered and changed until reality no longer existed. Only the opaque eyes and the long, bitten fingers, twisting in the mirror did not change.

  “Hallo, Girlie,” he said softly and smiled, showing his long, yellow teeth. His fingers closed on her shoulder, she could feel the heat of his hands through the stuff of her dress.

  “Let me go,” she cried, but the fingers tightened. She bent her head and bit his hand: it was like biting a bone.

  He let go and she ran, with an enormous head and thin tapering legs towards the end of the passage. She put out a hand and it disappeared as she approached the glass. She slipped into another passage. She was tiny now, a tiny Hilary running in a blue dress down an empty corridor. Then the man was behind her, a fairy creature with legs made of pea sticks. She opened her mouth but no sound came out of it except a small, hurt whimper. She stumbled beneath the red Exit sign and out into the fairground.

  It was getting dark now, the lights were brighter and there were more people. She looked for Janet and Aubrey but they had gone. Behind her, the man called in a coaxing voice, “Girlie, wait for me,” and she ran past the Dodgems and the Bingo table, past the Ghost Train to the Enchanted Garden. She saw Janet and Aubrey in one of the moving trucks that took you through the Garden to the Blue Grotto where there was falling, coloured water, magical caves full of treasure and fairy lights among the trees.

  She called, “Janet,” but her voice was thin and small and lost in the noise of the fairground. To the accompaniment of Handel’s Water Music, Janet and Aubrey were borne into the Enchanted Garden.

  She ran on. She ran into a fat woman, hitting her hard in the middle of her stomach.

  “Look out,” said the woman, and caught her by the elbow.

  “Please,” she said. “Please,” looking up into the kind, fiery face beneath the hat crowned with roses. For a moment she thought she was safe, held close to the sheltering stomach, but suddenly the man was there, saying, “Come here at once, dear, do what your Daddy tells you….”

  “But you’re not,” she said with incredulous surprise and then she saw the concern fade from the woman’s face and knew there was no safety there. She ducked beneath the plump arm and ran.

  She slid beneath the barrier of the Scenic Railway and jumped into the last coach as it moved off from the platform. Someone shouted behind her: she stared straight in front of her, clasping the bar, longing for the first, slow climb to end and for the rush downwards to safety.

  It was dark at the top of the climb, the velvet night received them. The coach poised for a moment above the brilliant fair and then plunged with a howl down into it. The lights went past like ribbons, the jolt at the bottom threw her against the bar. They climbed up again and she kept her eyes on the shaking, juddering structure, not daring to look outwards into the fairground. Up and down they climbed and swooped, their screams rose above the grinding music. They rushed into the last, dark tunnel, unbelievably black, and out into the light.

  A big man bent over Hilary, his chin covered with stubble.

  “Now see here, I could give you in charge…
.”

  “I’ve got my money,” said Hilary and dragged her purse out of her pocket. “I want another go.”

  She opened it and shook it on to her lap. The purse was empty.

  “That’s enough of that, I know all about you,” the big man roared. “Get out of here.” He lifted her out of the coach and dropped her on the platform like a dirty puppy.

  “Listen,” she said, plucking at his arm.

  The people were filing into the coaches for the next ride. She saw Wally, wearing his old clothes again, getting into the front coach. “Wally,” she screamed, and he turned, searching short-sightedly among the crowd. He felt slowly in the pocket of his trousers and put on his spectacles. The train began to move away from the platform. Seeing her at last, Wally waved. His eyes went beyond her, beyond the barrier to the thin, waiting figure. He stood up in his seat. There was a gasp from the big man, a gasp from the crowd. Then someone in the coach pulled him down again and the train moved slowly on, upwards into darkness.

  “Let me wait for my friend,” begged Hilary, but the big hand propelled her firmly towards the barrier. “Off you go, lucky I haven’t sent for a policeman,” the man scolded wearily, used to the children stealing rides. “Don’t let me catch you here again.”

  The man stood, waiting, in her path. She swerved, dodged, ran towards the exit. She was purposeful now. She was not afraid: all feeling had dried up inside her. She would get on a bus and go home. The conductors on the buses knew her: she would be safe with them.

  The streets were dark after the fairground and almost empty. The sea was far out and still. On the shingle, the beached boats lay and beyond them the last light glimmered on the long line of mud.

  The pier stretched its jewelled finger towards the horizon. As she approached the stop the waiting bus moved off, changed gear, passed her small, waiting figure.

  There was no one on the front. Beyond the pier the road was empty, there were no houses. Only the shacks and the marshes and the waiting sea.

  As the Scenic Railway rattled and clattered and dived, Wally sat, still as a stone statue in his seat, hunched over the bar in front of him. Excitement raged within him. He was not frightened, but thrilled, at the emergency that had arisen. Life was at last living up to the promise of the comic papers and the Telly. He, Wally Peacock, was called upon to take heroic action. He muttered under his breath, his gaze becoming fixed and purposeful. When the train stopped at the platform he scrambled out hastily, treading on the toes of the woman sitting next to him. “Pardon,” she called after him in an outraged voice but he took no notice, merely making a hideous face at her before he vanished beneath the barrier.

  “Well,” she said and turned, incapable of further speech to the couple in the compartment behind her. They gave her no support. Their faces, only a moment before contorted in wild, abandoned screaming, assumed their normal blank surfaces. Their eyes stared beyond her with faint reproach.

  Wally could not see Hilary. He ran aimlessly round the sideshows, pushing his spectacles more firmly on to his nose. His initial feeling of purpose deserted him. He stopped at the shooting gallery and watched a military man with a moustache knock down the moving file of painted jungle animals, one after another. Transfixed by this display of skill, Wally stood with his mouth drooping open. The man called for another turn and dug a handful of change out of his pocket. A silver coin tinkled to the ground and Wally was on to it like a terrier, running with bumping heart while the man shouted half-heartedly after him. Hiding behind the Haunted House, he examined his prize, a florin, with pride and joy. Thrusting it into his pocket, he swaggered triumphantly through the fairground, a gay buccaneer on the prowl.

  “Wally.” A boy hailed him from a waiting queue. “Come on the Tubs.”

  Wally gave him a sneering, supercilious look. “That’s jus’ kids’ stuff.”

  The boy was faintly crestfallen but returned with spirit, “Go on, now. You haven’t got the money.”

  “I have,” Wally answered, stung, and displayed his wealth.

  “Gawd, you must’ve pinched it.” The boy produced an insane, cackling laugh that was instantly echoed by his buddies waiting in the queue.

  Wally blushed. It was not the truth of this accusation but the evidence of his own unpopularity with his fellows that saddened him and made his response feeble. “I didn’t, so there,” he said and, by some curious mental process instantly recalled his mission. “I got better things to do than go in the ole Tubs,” he said proudly.

  “I got better things to do than go in the ole Tubs,” chanted the boy triumphantly, and Wally knew himself to be beaten. Any retort he produced now, however cutting, would immediately be repeated: there was no satisfactory way to divert to your own advantage this well-tried method of defeating an opponent. Wally stuck out his tongue, turned his back and walked away. He reminded himself that there really was something important that he had to do. His anxiety mounted as he realised that he had no clear idea of how to do it—in his heart, he had expected his plan of rescue to be laid before him, as gloriously simple as something on the pictures.

  He saw Janet and Aubrey watching the Dodgem cars. No particular worry was expressed on their faces. This diminished his own sense of urgency and made him unwilling to appear ridiculous. He went up to them and said, “Miss,” in an almost inaudible voice. Janet turned, surprised. “Oh, Wally,” she said kindly, “are you having a lovely time?”

  Her condescending air annoyed him. “I’m looking for Hilary,” he said nervously. Realising that this remark might have an arch significance, he flushed unhappily.

  Janet smiled broadly and raised her eyebrows. “I expect you’ll find her if you look hard enough, dear,” she said in a grown-up voice.

  Who does she think she is, he thought rebelliously. Only seventeen and acting like she was twenty.

  He scowled. “She’s scared,” he said. “I saw her and she was scared.”

  “Couldn’t find us, I expect,” said Janet with an odd note of satisfaction in her voice. “Serve her right,” she added suddenly and with a most un-adult nastiness.

  Wally was so dumbfounded by this descent into childish spitefulness that his powers of reasoning were temporarily destroyed. He saw only that Janet “had it in” for Hilary and therefore did not care what happened to her. Two other factors contributed to this assessment of the situation. He believed that Janet understood as powerfully as he did the extent of Hilary’s danger—it had been such an effort for him to approach her that he confidently expected her to realise at once the full urgency of his message. He was also disconcerted by the discovery that Janet was not properly “grown-up” and so could not be relied upon to act with real responsibility in the matter. He thought, with some justice, that she was a fool and he had a precocious contempt for fools.

  He said, in an anguished voice, “You oughter do something. It’s Dotty Jim. It’s awful,” and fled with a scarlet face.

  “Looking for attention,” said Janet in a superior voice, but her face and voice were uncertain.

  “I think we should look for her,” said Aubrey judiciously. “One doesn’t know, it may be something important.”

  Wally ran, his expression serious and lowering. He called Hilary’s name in a shrill, nervous voice. People turned to look at him briefly, attracted by his air of intense anxiety. Near the entrance to the Fun Fair, he saw a policeman and at once slowed down, halting a few yards away from the blue clad figure. His normal fear of the boys’ natural enemy asserted itself. He had run, so often, from the Law, that he could not now approach with confidence. He remembered, with belated guilt, the florin he had stolen. Perhaps the man at the shooting gallery had told this very policeman, perhaps he was, even now, on the lookout for a fat boy in spectacles. Furtively, he removed his glasses and slipped them into his pocket. The policeman appeared, through a fog of defective vision and terror, as an enormous man with a menacing air of authority. Wally’s bladder weakened, he turned away, clutching his groin. Th
en Hilary’s face rose up before him, freckled, pale, surrounded by a mass of floating hair. He hesitated, swallowed at the lump in his throat and then performed the most heroic action of his life. He went blindly up to the policeman and touched him on the arm.

  As Hilary jumped from the promenade on to the beach, a stone spat up from the shingle and hit her knee. She fell, moaning, beside a boat: the man came down like a great, black bird and put his arm around her.

  His voice was gentle and crooning. “Girlie, why did you run away from Uncle? I only wanted to show you something nice.” A trickle of spit ran out of the corner of his mouth. “We’ll have a lovely time, would you like some sweeties? I’ll give you some if you come with me.”

  “I’ll tell my Mummy.” She wriggled and he let her go. One hand was hidden inside his raincoat.

  “Don’t be frightened of Uncle. I won’t hurt you. Not a nice little girl like you. I only want you to have a nice time. At home I’ve got a walkie-talkie doll, wouldn’t you like to come with me and see it?”

  “You’re a liar,” said Hilary, coldly and precisely.

  His voice chided her. “What an unkind thing to say to Uncle. Uncle only wants you to be happy. It’s cold on the beach. Look at you, in a thin frock. Let’s go back to the fair, you can go on anything you like and then I’ll take you home, I promise.”

  His voice was kind and gentle. Calmed, Hilary thought of the Roller Coaster, even, perhaps, the Big Wheel.

  She hesitated. He stood up and held out his hand to her. “Come along. There’s a nice, good girlie. We’ll have a lovely time, won’t we?”