Starlight

by Stella Gibbons

  ‘Sorry, dear – nearly dropped it. Take it, will you, I feel rather bad – dizzy – just sit down.’ She groped her way to the stairs and sank on to them.

  ‘Going to faint!’ cried Gladys, putting the tray down anyhow on a table. Mrs Pearson, with closed eyes, moved her head weakly. ‘Be all right in a minute.’

  ‘Get the doctor,’ and Gladys started for the front door.

  ‘NO!’ that other voice screamed thinly, and she stopped, gasping, and staring. Slowly, very slowly, the air in the hall, that reflected the sunlight in the street in a subdued yellow glow, seemed to unfreeze; to melt, and become the air of a spring day again. Gladys released her held breath; she was trembling. Mrs Pearson’s eyes slowly opened, and fixed themselves on Erika.

  ‘Been to church, dear? That’s right – I don’t like the bells, they go through my head, but it’s nice to go. It’s years since –’ she began to get up, with feeble, groping movements, and Gladys, though still very frightened, hurried to help her. Erika stood motionless. A lowering sulkiness was creeping over her face.

  Mrs Pearson began to mount the stairs, supported by Gladys’s arm. Half-way up, she turned, and looked down at Erika.

  ‘But I wouldn’t go again, dear,’ she said, in a higher voice, ‘not if I were you … it upsets me, I don’t know why,’ pitifully, turning to look at Gladys, who held her firmly, though drawing now slightly away from her, ‘it upsets me … and Mr Pearson won’t like it. I might have to tell him, if you go again, dear. Because I must have my peace and my quiet. Just to enjoy my house … my house that can touch and taste and smell … I must have my house in quiet. So you remember, dear.’

  She turned, leaning heavily on Gladys, and resumed her slow ascent. Then, as Gladys was opening the door of her room, she turned and whispered, staring at her, ‘She must have her way, you see. If she can’t get it, she’ll set them on us.’

  When she was lying, shivering, under the eiderdown, Gladys remembered the tray of tea and said that she would go down and get it.

  ‘Sure you be all right, Mrs Pearson?’

  A nod, and a feeble smile. Lovely eyes, really, thought Gladys, bending over her, only … best go and see what young Erika’s up to.

  She bustled out. She felt, for all her bustling, shockingly weak, and her knees were not their usual sturdy selves and her heart kept on bang, bang, bang …

  Erika was wandering about the kitchen, presumably occupied, though signs of occupation were absent.

  ‘Well! There was an up and a downer for you,’ said Gladys, sighing heavily. ‘Never mind, she don’t mean it – I expect. Eh?’ glancing sharply.

  Silence.

  ‘Did you hear what I said?’

  After a pause, that seemed insolent to Gladys, there was a slow movement of the head.

  ‘Well, answer, can’t you? Say something to a person. Sulks, now s-well’s everythink else,’ she added to herself. ‘Oh come on, come on, talk about dwindlepin to wind the sun down … you’ll be all right at that rate … let me do it for Gawd’s sake,’ snatching at the tea canister. Erika let go; Gladys missed it; and half a pound of tea showered on to the floor.

  ‘Oh my Gawd!’ shrieked Gladys and plumped down on the nearest chair and began to cry.

  Erika looked at her in scared silence, then crossed over to her and, after a moment’s wondering gaze at the blubbering face, put both arms around her and bestowed a small, inexperienced hug.

  It was heartily returned, and Gladys fumbled for her clean, church-going handkerchief. She looked up and smiled waterily.

  ‘Silly, aren’t I? But that’s fair put the wind up me. Ne’ mind, all be the same in a hundred years, won’t it? I don’t expect she meant it – upset her, you going to church.’

  ‘Mrs Pearson doesn’t like I going to church …’ said Erika, after an extended pause for thought.

  ‘Me going to church, not I – you sound like that black what sweeps the road up the corner – don’t want to sound like him, poor soul, do we? – no, she doesn’t like it and now I sp’ose you can’t go again … there’s the kettle boiling now, it would, and the tea all over the floor … oh, my goodness, there’s that tray waiting ready all this time in the hall! I’ll forget my own name next. Here, we can take that up, and clear up the mess afterwards.’

  Erika took the tray in; Gladys suddenly found herself unequal to facing Mrs Pearson.

  Tiredly she climbed the stairs to their rooms, pausing for a moment on the landing.

  It was not to collect her thoughts; she had never paused to do such a thing in her life. It was to put some cheerfulness on to her face and into her voice as she confronted Annie.

  They had all been getting on so nicely. And now everything was upset. I can’t never feel safe again, not after this, she thought.

  ‘Glad – Glad! Oh do come on in, what are you up to, hanging about?’ called Annie crossly. ‘Something’s up, isn’t it?’

  Slowly Gladys began to move across the landing, pulling off the brightly retrimmed little hat and gay scarf she had put on for church. Sunlight streamed in through their parlour window: the far-off slopes of the Heath were fresh and green. Parlour, thought Gladys, looks downright awful, full of old rubbish. Must be the sun, it always shows things up. There was not a thing fit to be seen.

  Yet it was nice to be home. She didn’t mind home being a lot of old rubbish.

  She was unprepared for the presence of Mr Fisher seated in Annie’s armchair, facing Annie’s bed, with his feet very close together. He looked up mildly as she came in and said, ‘Good-morning, Miss Gladys.’

  ‘’Morning … quite a surprise, seeing you, I thought you’d be off over the Heath, it being such a fine day,’ she retorted; his presence was the last straw.

  ‘Me and Mr Fisher’s got the lunch on,’ Annie said, ‘I asked him to stay and have a bite with us, there’s plenty.’

  ‘There’s crowds on the ’Eath this morning. I hates ’em,’ said Mr Fisher, ignoring the reference to the invitation.

  ‘Well what a thing to say! They’ve got a right to a bit of fresh air, same as what you ’ave,’ said Gladys, scandalized momentarily out of her perturbation by this frank statement.

  ‘No doubt. No doubt. Just as you say, Miss Gladys. But the air they breathe isn’t the same air as what I breathe, and I hates them. The litter, too. Ugly. Unharmonious – drives me mad.’

  ‘Just as well to stay at home, then,’ muttered Gladys. Faint sensations of comfort were creeping over her, caused by a savoury smell from the oven. ‘You come and give me a ’and setting the cloth?’

  ‘Glad –?’ breathed Annie inquiringly as the old man obediently got up and shuffled towards the next room.

  ‘A bit of trouble with Mrs P. – didn’t like me taking young Erika,’ whispered Gladys, with a warning glance at his back.

  ‘I told you so!’

  ‘Oh do give over, you’re enough to give anyone the sick – it … wasn’t nothing. She’ll have forgotten by this evening … it’s when she feels bad …’ solemnly, with stilled face as memory swept over her, ‘but my God, Annie, she was bad when we come in – not like herself – not herself – I was frightened, I don’t mind telling you. Very frightened, I was, and you know that’s not like me.’

  Annie stared at her, awed.

  ‘I’ll tell you what –’ Gladys burst out, but still in a subdued tone, after a pause, ‘we’re getting out.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Out of ’ere. I don’t like it. I’ve got the wind up and that’s the truth. If she isn’t mental … but … I don’t know. I don’t know. She’s all right, been very nice to us, but I’ve got the wind up, and we’re going.’

  ‘Must be mental yourself!’ Annie exclaimed, alarm giving her courage. ‘Where’d we go?’

  ‘We’ll find somewhere. I’ll write to Georgie …’

  ‘Georgie! When we ain’t heard a word for eighteen months –’

  At this moment the appearance of Mr Fisher at the door, with mildly inq
uiring face, prevented further talk.

  The Vicarage party were at tea on the afternoon of Easter Monday, in the cavernous drawing-room that Mrs Geddes had restored to use. They had decided against a fire, but the light pouring in through the tall windows came from a sky now clouded over, and had the cool, silvery quality of snowdrops. The cat had just strolled in, to a murmur of ‘Well, I’m bothered’ from Mrs Geddes.

  The cat halted, purring, with its tail waving and lifted head, looking at her. Gerald absently took the milk jug and was pouring milk into his saucer, from which he had removed the cup, when Mrs Geddes’s expression recalled him.

  ‘I’m awfully sorry.’ He began to laugh. ‘I wasn’t thinking – I do beg your pardon.’

  ‘It’s quite all right. But we really must not encourage it.’

  ‘I’m afraid it is encouraged.’ The cat had jumped on to his knees and was preparing itself for sleep.

  ‘I know. But we mustn’t encourage it further.’

  The telephone bell rang in the Vicar’s study.

  When he returned, after some time, he looked rather concerned.

  ‘Miss Barnes,’ he said to Gerald, ‘Mrs Pearson has been behaving oddly, very strangely indeed, and she’s frightened. She wants me to go and see her this evening.’

  ‘Mrs Pearson does?’

  ‘No – no – Miss Barnes.’ He took out his cigarette case.

  ‘Shall you go?’

  ‘Of course. But I’m not looking forward to it … if I hadn’t such a mistrust of the psychiatric brotherhood I’d try and pass the whole thing on to one of them.’

  ‘I’m inclined to agree with you – but don’t you give them credit for anything?’ asked Gerald.

  ‘Arrogance,’ said Mr Geddes tartly. ‘Plenty of credit for that. They’re the new Sanhedrin. You show me a wardful of happy, or even resigned and contented, people allegedly cured by psychiatrists and – I’ll give credit where it’s due. To Almighty God.’

  Gerald laughed, gently kneading the dozing cat’s ears.

  ‘It’s lack of time that’s the trouble,’ Mr Geddes went on. ‘Each patient really needs the entire interest of one person concentrated entirely on him or herself. It just can’t be done. It’s cruel to pretend it can. They find themselves clinically pigeon-holed when they need to be loved … a perfect demonstration of “I asked for bread, and ye gave me a stone”.’

  ‘I know one chap – a psychiatrist – quite well, who’s dedicated, highly-trained, skilled, charitably detached,’ Gerald said musingly, ‘but he has absolutely no confidence in anything, not even in psychiatry. If it were not a cheap expression I’d say – bloodless.’

  ‘Say it, and blow the cheapness. Well, I’ll get along there after Evensong. It will all depend on how she seems. If I think it is only nervous, I’ll try recommending a doctor. Saunders is supposed to like nerve cases; I could try him.’

  ‘Well, I shall be most interested to hear how it goes,’ murmured Gerald – with perhaps too broad a shade of the Arsenal supporter in his voice for Mr Geddes snapped, ‘I dare say … you can make the second visit,’ as he went out of the room.

  The weather was so dull that twilight seemed to have fallen earlier than was natural at this time of the year; clouds were trailing rain-banners over the roofs, in a sky lividly blue above the orange glare of the street lamps. The usual cars were darting restlessly about on their short evening journeys; discarded sweetpapers swirled in the dusty wind at the corners. Mr Geddes walked briskly along the empty pavement, away from well-lit streets, towards the darker districts.

  His thoughts were not cheerful. They had ceased to be that since the death of his wife, and the errand he was on added its own shade. There might well be what his simpler parishioners called ‘words’, and it was never pleasant to know, without any doubt, that he was unwelcome. But the words duty is duty and must be done were there to be hung on to: if they did nothing else, they provided an anchor, and they saw to it that something got accomplished, every now and then, in this world.

  He had some difficulty in again finding Rose Cottage, for his last visit had been long ago; wandering for nearly ten minutes up and down slight slopes that had once swelled gently beneath a carpet of turf and celandines; past boarded, ruinous houses faintly echoing to the almost inaudible rushing of a stream running below their foundations where willows had once looked at their reflection in the water and moorhens paddled and dived … ah (these were not the thoughts of Mr Geddes). Rose Walk – here we are.

  And surely, yes, it was Mr Fisher approaching, shuffling towards him with his unmistakable gait along the dim, uneven pavement; the only person in sight.

  ‘Hullo, Mr Fisher!’ exclaimed the Vicar cheerfully. ‘Off for your walk?’

  Mr Fisher’s reception of this was not reassuring. He paused some six or seven paces away, and, surveying Mr Geddes in silence for a moment, said, shaking his head:

  ‘I’m sorry to see you ’ere, I am that.’ His voice seemed fainter than ever and his appearance more frail.

  ‘Yes, I’m going to call on your landlady, I expect you guessed.’

  ‘I had. Yes, I ’ad guessed as much, and I says again I’m sorry to see you. An educated man – now don’t you know better? It’ll only mean trouble.’

  ‘I can’t help that, Mr Fisher. She needs help – you said yourself that she looks like a lost soul – and I want to help her.’

  ‘There’s been trouble since I larce saw you. Miss Gladys was the cause. (The ladies mocely are, I finds.) Ups and takes young Erika to your church and Mrs Pearson was ever so upset, she threatened us.’

  ‘Threatened you? How?’

  ‘Sh’sh.’ Mr Fisher glanced over his shoulder, then let his eyes wander over the silent, ruined façades stretching into the twilight. ‘Don’t speak so loud … the rackman. May be here any minute.’

  ‘Oh nonsense – you mustn’t let a little trouble get you down, you know. Tenants can get protection now, it isn’t like it was a few years ago.’

  ‘Not the kind of tenants what we are,’ Mr Fisher retorted, with one of those thrusts based on unanswerable fact which occasionally struck out from his wandering talk, ‘not when ’e’s got all the money and don’t care for the law … where’d we go? Into some ’Ome, that’s where we’d go … me the age I am, and Miss Annie near bedridden and Miss Gladys – very nervous she is. Talks very fine and bold but very nervy. Where’d we go? No, best lie low and keep quiet; you’re an educated man, you can understand. We like our ’omes and our bit o’things and our independence, where’d we go?’

  ‘Yes. Yes, I can see it’s all very difficult, but you mustn’t be so – so down about it, Mr Fisher.’

  ‘I ain’t all that down. But I looks the facts in their face. Others don’t. That’s all.’ His long sheeplike mask stared, with mild but immovable obstinacy.

  ‘Yes. Well, I must get on … don’t worry, I’ll manage it, there won’t be any trouble. Good-night.’

  He nodded and smiled and walked quickly on. He felt that Mr Fisher was standing there, staring after him helplessly, but he ignored the fact. They could have gone on talking round the subject for an hour.

  He stood on the steps of Rose Cottage, with his hand on the knob of the ancient pull-bell wondering which of the two was Mrs Pearson’s house; he had not thought to ask the old man.

  He glanced upwards, his attention drawn to something pale protruding from the wall above his head which he had not noticed on his previous visit; it was the mask of the man-goat; the thick lips and broad nose and stiff curls below the twin horns seemed to be played over by a peculiarly derisive smile.

  Rather unpleasant, thought Mr Geddes, and rang the bell. I’d have that taken away.

  A rich, melancholy jangling, with something that was not mechanical in its quality, echoed inside the house. He stood patiently, his eyes fixed on the block of Council flats across the railway gap, waiting. The eyes of the Pan, once god of stream and turf and celandines, stared out above him, with the smil
e that mocked at something.

  The door opened, and there was the young German girl. She stared, with open mouth and startled eyes.

  24

  ‘Good-evening, Miss Hartig. Can I see Mrs Pearson, please?’

  She hesitated, twisting her hands slowly together.

  ‘I don’t know …’ she whispered at last. ‘She … she not like me go … to dir church.’

  ‘I’m sorry to hear that. Perhaps I can talk to her and make her feel differently. Is she in?’

  Erika moved her head uneasily from side to side.

  ‘Well, will you tell her I’m here, please? I’ve come quite a long way to see her,’ smiling.

  ‘I go … I go and ask Gladys …’ she muttered, turning away but he broke in – ‘No, we don’t need Miss Barnes, just tell Mrs Pearson I would like to see her.’

  How the child stared! Mr Geddes, putting manners aside, stepped quickly into the hall, and shut the door.

  ‘Now.’ He turned to her, while she looked, on this new development, as if she were about to run away. ‘Go and tell her, please.’

  A shake of the head. ‘I tell her, and she shout, and tell me I away must go.’

  ‘Nonsense,’ Mr Geddes said, ‘just go and tell her, like a good girl’ – here he began to speak slowly in his rusty German – ‘and I’ll wait here.’ He smiled again.

  Erika was reassured by the words of her own tongue; the well-known sounds, coming from this man associated with the church, where she had been blessed by the sight of such a boy as Barry Disher, conspired with these thoughts to soothe her fears.

  She looked at him less fearfully, and he made a brisk movement. ‘Off you go,’ he said.