by Louise Welsh
“The go to her, my boy. Later on you may have something to tell me. You will find me in the strawberry beds.”
It was very cool and fragrant on the porch. Overhead, little breezes played and laughed among the roses. Somewhere in the distance sheep bells tinkled, and in the shrubbery a thrush was singing its evensong.
Seated in her chair behind a wicker table laden with tea things, Rose Maynard watched James as he shambled up the path.
“Tea’s ready,” she called gaily. “Where is Uncle Henry?” A look of pity and distress flitted for a moment over her flower-like face. “Oh, I – I forgot,” she whispered.
“He’s in the strawberry beds,’ said James in a low voice.
She nodded unhappily.
“Of course, of course. Oh, why is life like this?” James heard her whisper.
He sat down. He looked at the girl. She was leaning back with closed eyes, and he thought he had never seen such a little squirt in his life. The idea of passing his remaining days in her society revolted him. He was stoutly opposed to the idea of marrying anyone; but if, as happens to the best of us, he ever were compelled to perform the wedding glide, he had always hoped it would be with some lady golf champion who would help him with his putting, and thus, by bringing his handicap down a notch or two, enable him to save something from the wreck, so to speak. But to link his lot with a girl who could tolerate the presence of the dog Toto; a girl who clasped her hands in pretty childish joy when she saw a nasturtium in bloom – it was too much. Nevertheless, he took her hand and began to speak.
‘Miss Maynard – Rose –…”
She opened her eyes and cast them down. A flush had come into her cheeks. The dog Toto at her side sat up and begged for cake, disregarded.
“Let me tell you a story. Once upon a time there was a lonely man who lived in a cottage all by himself –…”
He stopped. Was it James Rodman who was talking this bilge?
“Yes?” whispered the girl.
“ – but one day there came to him out of nowhere a little fairy princess. She –…”
He stopped again, but this time not because of the sheer shame of listening to his own voice. What caused him to interrupt his tale was the fact that at this moment the tea table suddenly began to rise slowly in the air, tilting as it did so a considerable quantity of hot tea on to the knees of his trousers.
“Ouch!” cried James, leaping.
The table continued to rise, and then fell sideways, revealing the homely countenance of William, who, concealed by the cloth, had been taking a nap beneath it. He moved slowly forward, his eyes on Toto. For many a long day William had been desirous of putting to the test, once and for all, the problem of whether Toto was edible or not. Sometimes eh thought yes, at other times no. Now seemed an admirable opportunity for a definite decision. He advanced on the object of his experiment, making a low whistling noise through his nostrils, not unlike a boiling kettle. And Toto, after one long look of incredulous horror, tucked his shapely tail between his legs and, turning, raced for safety. He had laid a course in a bee line for the open garden gate, and William, shaking a dish of marmalade off his head a little petulantly, galloped ponderously after him. Rose Maynard staggered to her feet.
“Oh, save him!” she cried.
Without a word James added himself to the procession. His interest in Toto was but tepid. What he wanted was to get near enough to William to discuss with him that matter of the tea on his trousers. He reached the road and found that the order of the runners had not changed. For so small a dog Toto was moving magnificently. A cloud of dust rose as he skidded round the corner. William followed. James followed William.
And so they passed Farmer Birkett’s barn, Farmer Giles’s cow shed, the place where Farmer Willett’s pigsty used to be before the big fire, and the Bunch of Grapes public house, Jno. Biggs propr., licensed to sell tobacco, wines and spirits. As it was they were turning down the lane that leads past Farmer Robinson’s chicken run that Toto, thinking swiftly, bolted abruptly into a small drain-pipe.
“William!” roared James, coming up at a canter. He stopped to pluck a branch from the hedge and swooped darkly on.
William had been crouching before the pipe, making a noise like a bassoon into its interior; but now he rose and came beamingly to James. His eyes were aglow with chumminess and affection; and placing his forefeet on James’s chest, he licked him three times on the face in rapid succession. And as he did so something seemed to snap in James. The scales seemed to fall from James’s eyes. For the first time he saw William as he really was, the authentic type of dog that saves his master from a frightful peril. A wave of emotions wept over him.
“William!” he muttered. “William!”
William was making an early supper off a half brick he had found in the road. James stopped and patted him fondly.
“William,” he whispered, “you knew when the time had come to change the conversation, didn’t you, old boy!” He straightened himself. “Come William,” he said. “Another four miles and we reach Meadowsweet Junction. Make it snappy and we shall just catch the up express, first stop London.”
William looked up into his face and it seemed to James that he gave a brief nod of comprehension and approval. James turned. Through the trees to the east he could see the red roof of Honeysuckle Cottage, lurking like some evil dragon in ambush.
Then, together, man and dog passed silently into the sunset.
That (concluded Mr Mulliner) is the story of my distant cousin James Rodman. As to whether it is true, that, of course, is an open question. I, personally, am of opinion that it is. There is no doubt that James did go to live at Honeysuckle Cottage and, while there, underwent some experience which has left an ineradicable mark upon him. His eyes to-day have that unmistakable look which is to be seen only in the eyes of confirmed bachelors whose feet have been dragged to the very brink of the pit and who have gazed at close range into the naked face of matrimony.
And, if further proof be needed, there is William. He is now James’s inseparable companion. Would any man be habitually seen with a dog like William unless he had some solid cause to be grateful to him – unless they were linked together by some deep and imperishable memory? I think not. Myself, when I observe William coming along the street, I cross the road and look into a shop window till he has passed. I am not a snob, but I dare not risk my position in Society by being seen talking to that curious compound.
Nor is the precaution an unnecessary one. There is about William a shameless absence of appreciation of class distinctions which recalls the worst excesses of the French Revolution. I have seen him with these eyes chivvy a Pomeranian belonging to a baroness in her own right from near the Achilles Statue to within a few yards of the Marble Arch.
And yet James walks daily with him in Piccadilly. It is surely significant.
THE SECOND DEATH
Graham Greene
Henry Graham Greene (1904–1991) was educated at Berkhamsted School where his father was headmaster. Greene was bullied at school, suffered a nervous collapse and took up Russian Roulette. He started writing while at Oxford University. The varied locations of Greene’s novels reflect his extensive, international travels. His sister recruited him to MI6, where the double agent Kim Philby was his handler. Greene divided his novels into serious works and ‘entertainments,’ a distinction that became increasingly difficult as his career progressed.
She found me in the evening under trees that grew outside the village. I had never cared for her and would have hidden myself if I’d seen her coming. She was to blame, I’m certain, for her son’s vices. If they were vices, but I’m very far from admitting that they were. At any rate he was generous, never mean, like others in the village I could mention if I chose.
I was staring hard at a leaf or she would never have found me. It was dangling from its twig, its stalk torn across by the wind or else by a stone one of the village children had flung. Only the green tough skin of the stalk
held it there suspended. I was watching closely, because a caterpillar was crawling across the surface, making the leaf sway to and fro. The caterpillar was aiming at the twig, and I wondered whether it would reach it in safety or whether the leaf would fall with it into the water. There was a pool underneath the trees, and the water always appeared red, because of the heavy clay in the soil.
I never knew whether the caterpillar reached the twig, for, as I’ve said, the wretched woman found me. The first I knew of her coming was her voice just behind my ear.
“I’ve been looking in all the pubs for you,” she said in her old shrill voice. It was typical of her to say “all the pubs” when there were only two in the place. She always wanted credit for trouble she hadn’t really taken.
I was annoyed and I couldn’t help speaking a little harshly. “You might have saved yourself the trouble,” I said, “you should have known I wouldn’t be in a pub on a fine night like this.”
The old vixen became quite humble. She was always smooth enough when she wanted anything. “It’s for my poor son,” she said. That meant that he was ill. When he was well I never heard her say anything better than “that dratted boy.” She’d make him be in the house by midnight every day of the week, as if there were any serious mischief a man could get up to in a little village like ours. Of course we soon found a way to cheat her, but it was the principle of the thing I objected to – a grown man of over thirty ordered about by his mother, just because she hadn’t a husband to control. But when he was ill, though it might be with only a small chill, it was “my poor son.”
“He’s dying,” she said, “and God knows what I shall do without him.”
“Well, I don’t see how I can help you,” I said. I was angry, because he’d been dying once before and she’d done everything but actually bury him. I imagined it was the same sort of dying this time, the sort a man gets over. I’d seen him about the week before on his way up the hill to see the big-breasted girl at the farm. I’d watched him till he was like a little black dot, which stayed suddenly by a square grey box in a field. That was the barn where they used to meet. I’ve very good eyes and it amuses me to try how far and how clearly they can see. I met him again some time after midnight and helped him get into the house without his mother knowing, and he was well enough then – only a little sleepy and tired.
The old vixen was at it again. “He’s been asking for you,” she shrilled at me.
“If he’s as ill as you make out,” I said, “it would be better for him to ask for a doctor.”
“Doctor’s there, but he can’t do anything.” That startled me for a moment, I’ll admit it, until I thought, “The old devil’s malingering. He’s got some plan or other.” He was quite clever enough to cheat a doctor. I had seen him throw a fit that would have deceived Moses.
“For God’s sake come,” she said, “he seems frightened.” Her voice broke quite genuinely, for I suppose in her way she was fond of him. I couldn’t help pitying her a little, for I knew that he had never cared a mite for her and had never troubled to disguise the fact.
I left the trees and the red pool and the struggling caterpillar, for I knew that she would never leave me alone, now that her “poor boy” was asking for me. Yet a week ago there was nothing she wouldn’t have done to keep us apart. She thought me responsible for his ways, as though any mortal man could have kept him off a likely woman when his appetite was up.
I think it must have been the first time I had entered their cottage by the front door since I came to the village ten years ago. I threw an amused glance at his window. I thought I could see the marks on the wall of the ladder we’d used the week before. We’d had a little difficulty in putting it straight, but his mother slept sound. He had brought the ladder down from the barn, and when he’d got safely in, I carried it up there again. But you could never trust his word. He’d lie to his best friend, and when I reached the barn I found the girl had gone. If he couldn’t bribe you with his mother’s money, he’d bribe you with other people’s promises.
I began to feel uneasy directly I got inside the door. It was natural that the house should be quiet, for the pair of them never had any friends to stay, although the old woman had a sister-in-law living only a few miles away. But I didn’t like the sound of the doctor’s feet as he came downstairs to meet us. He’d twisted his face into a pious solemnity for our benefit, as though there was something holy about death, even about the death of my friend.
“He’s conscious,” he said, “but he’s going. There’s nothing I can do. If you want him to die in peace, better let his friend go along up. He’s frightened about something.”
The doctor was right. I could tell that as soon as I bent under the lintel and entered my friend’s room. He was propped up on a pillow, and his eyes were on the door, waiting for me to come. They were very bright and frightened, and his hair lay across his forehead in sticky stripes. I’d never realized before what an ugly fellow he was. He had sly eyes that looked at you too much out of the corners, but when he was in ordinary health, they held a twinkle that made you forget the slyness. There was something pleasant and brazen in the twinkle, as much as to say “I know I’m sly and ugly. But what does that matter? I’ve got guts.” It was that twinkle, I think, some women found attractive and stimulating. Now when the twinkle was gone, he looked a rogue and nothing else.
I thought it my duty to cheer him up, so I made a small joke out of the fact that he was alone in bed. He didn’t seem to relish it, and I was beginning to fear that he too was taking a religious view of his death, when he told me to sit down, speaking quite sharply.
“I’m dying,” he said, talking very fast, “and I want to ask you something. That doctor’s no good – he’d think me delirious. I’m frightened, old man. I want to be reassured,” and then after a long pause, “someone with common sense.” He slipped a little farther down in his bed.
“I’ve only once been badly ill before,” he said. “That was before you settled here. I wasn’t much more than a boy. People tell me that I was even supposed to be dead. They were carrying me out to burial when a doctor stopped them just in time.”
I’d heard plenty of cases like that, and I saw no reason why he should want to tell me about it. And then I thought I saw his point. His mother had not been too anxious once before to see if he were properly dead, though I had little doubt that she made a great show of grief – “My poor boy. I don’t know what I shall do without him.” And I’m certain that she believed herself then, as she believed herself now. She wasn’t a murderess. She was only inclined to be premature.
“Look here, old man,” I said, and I propped him a little higher on his pillow, “you needn’t be frightened. You aren’t going to die, and anyway I’d see that the doctor cut a vein or something before they moved you. But that’s all morbid stuff. Why, I’d stake my shirt that you’ve got plenty more years in front of you. And plenty more girls too,” I added to make him smile.
“Can’t you cut out all that?” he said, and I knew then that he had turned religious. “Why,” he said, “if I lived, I wouldn’t touch another girl. I wouldn’t, not one.”
I tried not to smile at that, but it wasn’t easy to keep a straight face. There’s always something a bit funny about a sick man’s morals. “Anyway,” I said, “you needn’t be frightened.”
“It’s not that,” he said. “Old man, when I came round that other time, I thought that I’d been dead. It wasn’t like sleep at all. Or rest in peace. There was someone there, all round me, who knew everything. Every girl I’d ever had. Even that young one who hadn’t understood. It was before your time. She lived a mile down the road, where Rachel lives now, but she and her family went away afterwards. Even the money I’d taken from mother. I don’t call that stealing. It’s in the family. I never had a chance to explain. Even the thoughts I’d had. A man can’t help his thoughts.”
“A nightmare,” I said.
“Yes, it must have been a dream, mustn’t
it? The sort of dream people do get when they are ill. And I saw what was coming to me too. I can’t bear being hurt. It wasn’t fair. And I wanted to faint and I couldn’t, because I was dead.”
“In the dream,” I said. His fear made me nervous. “In the dream,” I said again.
“Yes, it must have been a dream – mustn’t it? – because I woke up. The curious thing was I felt quite well and strong. I got up and stood in the road, and a little farther down, kicking up the dust, was a small crowd, going off with a man – the doctor who had stopped them burying me.”
“Well,” I said.
“Old man,” he said, “suppose it was true. Suppose I had been dead. I believed it then, you know, and so did my mother. But you can’t trust her. I went straight for a couple of years. I thought it might be a sort of second chance. Then things got fogged and somehow… It didn’t seem really possible. It’s not possible. Of course it’s not possible. You know it isn’t, don’t you?”
“Why no,” I said. “Miracles of that sort don’t happen nowadays. And anyway, they aren’t likely to happen to you, are they? And here of all places under the sun.”
“It would be so dreadful,” he said, “if it had been true, and I’d got to go through all that again. You don’t know what things were going to happen to me in that dream. And they’d be worse now.” He stopped and then, after a moment, he added as though he were stating a fact, “When one’s dead there’s no unconsciousness any more for ever.”
“Of course it was a dream,” I said and squeezed his hand. He was frightening me with his fancies. I wished that he’d die quickly, so that I could get away from his sly, bloodshot and terrified eyes and see something cheerful and amusing, like the Rachel he had mentioned, who lived a mile down the road.
“Why,” I said, “if there had been a man about working miracles like that, we should have heard of others, you many be sure. Even poked away in this god-forsaken spot,” I said.