by Louise Welsh
As things were – dead or living the letter writer sent her only a threat. Unable, for some minutes, to go on kneeling with her back exposed to the empty room, Mrs. Drover rose from the chest to sit on an upright chair whose back was firmly against the wall. The desuetude of her former bedroom, her married London home’s whole air of being a cracked cup from which memory, with its reassuring power, had either evaporated or leaked away, made a crisis – and at just this crisis the letter writer had, knowledgeably, struck. The hollowness of the house this evening canceled years on years of voices, habits, and steps. Through the shut windows she only heard rain fall on the roofs around. To rally herself, she said she was in a mood – and for two or three seconds shutting her eyes, told herself that she had imagined the letter. But she opened them – there it lay on the bed.
On the supernatural side of the letter’s entrance she was not permitting her mind to dwell. Who, in London, knew she meant to call at the house today? Evidently, however, this had been known. The caretaker, had he come back, had had no cause to expect her: He would have taken the letter in his pocket, to forward it, at his own time, through the post. There was no other sign that the caretaker had been in – but, if not? Letters dropped in at doors of deserted houses do not fly or walk to tables in halls. They do not sit on the dust of empty tables with the air of certainty that they will be found. There is needed some human hand – but nobody but the caretaker had a key. Under circumstances she did not care to consider, a house can be entered without a key. It was possible that she was not alone now. She might be being waited for, downstairs. Waited for – until when? Until “the hour arranged.” At least that was not six o’clock: Six has struck.
She rose from the chair and went over and locked the door.
The thing was, to get out. To fly? No, not that: She had to catch her train. As a woman whose utter dependability was the keystone of her family life she was not willing to return to the country, to her husband, her little boys, and her sister, without the objects she had come up to fetch. Resuming work at the chest she set about making up a number of parcels in a rapid, fumbling-decisive way. These, with her shopping parcels, would be too much to carry; these meant a taxi – at the thought of the taxi her heart went up and her normal breathing resumed. I will ring up the taxi now; the taxi cannot come too soon: I shall hear the taxi out there running its engine, till I walk calmly down to it through the hall. I’ll ring up – But no: the telephone is cut off… She tugged at a knot she had tied wrong.
The idea of flight… He was never kind to me, not really. I don’t remember him kind at all. Mother said he never considered me. He was set on me, that was what it was – not love. Not love, not meaning a person well. What did he do, to make me promise like that? I can’t remember – But she found that she could.
She remembered with such dreadful acuteness that the twenty-five years since then dissolved like smoke and she instinctively looked for the weal left by the button on the palm of her hand. She remembered not only all that he said and did but the complete suspension of her existence during that August week. I was not myself – they all told me so at the time. She remembered – but with one white burning blank as where acid has dropped on a photograph: Under no conditions could she remember his face.
So, wherever he may be waiting, I shall not know him. You have no time to run from a face you do not expect.
The thing was to get to the taxi before any clock struck what could be the hour. She would slip down the street and round the side of the square to where the square gave on the main road. She would return in the taxi, safe, to her own door, and bring the solid driver into the house with her to pick up the parcels from room to room. The idea of the taxi driver made her decisive, bold: She unlocked her door, went to the top of the staircase, and listened down.
She heard nothing – but while she was hearing nothing the passé air of the staircase was disturbed by a draft that traveled up to her face. It emanated from the basement: Down there a door or window was being opened by someone who chose this moment to leave the house.
The rain had stopped; the pavements steamily shone as Mrs. Drover let herself out by inches from her own front door into the empty street. The unoccupied houses opposite continued to meet her look with their damaged stare. Making toward the thoroughfare and the taxi, she tried not to keep looking behind. Indeed, the silence was so intense – one of those creeks of London silence exaggerated this summer by the damage of war – that no tread could have gained on hers unheard. Where her street debouched on the square where people went on living, she grew conscious of, and checked, her unnatural pace. Across the open end of the square two buses impassively passed each other: Women, a perambulator, cyclists, a man wheeling a barrow signalized, once again, the ordinary flow of life. At the square’s most populous corner should be – and was – the short taxi rank. This evening, only one taxi – but this, although it presented its blank rump, appeared already to be alertly waiting for her. Indeed, without looking round the driver started his engine as she panted up from behind and put her hand on the door. As she did so, the clock struck seven. The taxi faced the main road: To make the trip back to her house it would have to turn – she had settled back on the seat and the taxi had turned before she, surprised by its knowing movement, recollected that she had not “said where.” She leaned forward to scratch at the glass panel that divided the driver’s head from her own.
The driver braked to what was almost a stop, turned round, and slid the glass panel back: The jolt of this flung Mrs. Drover forward till her face was almost into the glass. Through the aperture driver and passenger, not six inches between them, remained for an eternity eye to eye. Mrs. Drover’s mouth hung open for some seconds before she could issue her first scream. After that she continued to scream freely and to beat with her gloved hands on the glass all round as the taxi, accelerating without mercy, made off with her into the hinterland of deserted streets.
MONEY FOR JAM
Sir Alec Guinness
Sir Alec Guinness (1914–2000) was one of the foremost actors of his generation. His impressive range was reflected by performances in Shakespearean plays, Ealing comedies and Hollywood blockbusters. In the 1970s and 80s he won a new generation of fans as Obi-Wan Kenobi in Star Wars, and as John le Carré’s quiet spy George Smiley. Guinness served in the Royal Navy Volunteer Reserve in World War II, during which he commanded a landing craft taking part in the invasion of Sicily and Elba.
The sun was hot and the foreign sea like plate-glass, the colour of peacocks’ tails. Little breezes played around a salt, low, bare, rocky Arcadia, and at noon, when we sailed, the day sang with prettiness. It was like the sound of a flute. Or an oboe. Or was that the wind? The wind? No, little breezes, pirouetting down from the north, a trifle cold, for they came from high, snow-covered mountains. Even in retrospect the day held nothing sinister, not until the sun went down. There was nothing that wasn’t quite as it ought to be. Yet this was the day dated 31 December, 1943. Curiously enough, I still have my diary for that time, somewhat battered and stained, but legible, and a proof to myself what life was like before the storm and what I was after it. There is no entry under 31 December except a jotting in pencil, “St. Luke 12. And if he shall come in the second watch, or come in the third watch, and find them so, blessed are those servants.” Why does this fascinate? Then it is blank for three days. Finally in ink, with a strange borrowed pen and writing mine, but not like my own, are the words, “January 2. Not the second or third watches. Unprepared in the morning, but resigned in the Dogs.” For January 3 there is entered up, “We took the rings off Broadstairs’ hand.” After that I didn’t bother to keep a diary.
This was the situation. The enemy, thirty miles up the coast, also held all the opposite shore except the island of K. During the week ending 28 December they had attacked and overrun the three large islands that are grouped round K. It was apparent they would land on K. at any moment. They had complete air superiority in that part
of the world, and no Allied craft could sail in those waters except under cover of darkness. The idea was that the ninety-foot schooner, of which I was captain, should run fifty tons of ammunition to the resistance group on K. and take off as many women and children as possible. K., being the last link on the opposite coast, must be saved at best, or turned into a battlefield at worst. Losing it was out of the question. It meant a trip of two hundred and twenty miles for us, there and back. The plans were hurried, but reasonably good and simple. We were to arrive at midnight and leave not later than 2 a.m. That would give us six hours of darkness at ten knots to get away from enemy reconnaissance planes. Everything had to be done in the dark, and if, by some misfortune, such as a breakdown or encountering an enemy vessel off the island, it would be imprudent for us to get away at the prescribed time, we were to find a small creek, run the schooner alongside rocks, disguise her with branches and camouflage netting and try our luck the following night. That is if we weren’t spotted during the day. When loaded with the “ammo” the Peter – for that was her name – sat down squarely in the water.
“You know what to look for, don’t you?” said the wiry little naval officer who brought me my sailing orders. “There’s no moon, but if it’s a clear night you should see the mountains of B. fine on your port bow by 22.00. Z. island is very low, but, as you can see on the chart, there’s plenty of water round it. Keep as close inshore as possible in case of mines. When you come into the bay keep the guns closed up and slow down. And for God’s sake tell the crew to keep their mouths shut. Silence is vital. When the chaps on K. spot you they will light a bonfire for ten minutes. If they light two bonfires or no bonfire, buzz off – it means we are too late. If it’s all O.K. and they are ready for you, they’ll swing a red lantern at the end of the jetty. There’s a Major Backslide there, a drunken old so-and-so, but he knows his onions. He’ll give you the latest dope which, incidentally, we’d like in the office when you get back. So long! It’s money for jam.”
“One moment,” I said. “What other craft are out tonight?”
“Well, there’s the usual patrol, but they won’t touch you. Anything you see will be enemy. Except for twelve schooners, including Mother of God, Topaz and Helena, which are leaving here a few hours after you and working their way up the coast. Secret job. But you won’t see them on the outward passage. Possibly coming back, though.”
He went as briskly as he came, leaving my first lieutenant muttering “Money for jam!” Jimmy had an instinctive, and often unreasonable, dislike of the people who issued orders from offices. But really it wasn’t a bad-looking little job, so long as the weather lasted. Never cared for the Peter when the sea got up. Always considered her top heavy.
So we sailed at noon on this cloudless day, hardly apprehensive, pleased to think we were on a mission of some small importance, but grumbling that it was going to mean New Year’s Eve at sea. This annoyed the Scots lads in particular, but Taffey said “Think of the WOMEN we will be bringing back”; and the coxswain said, “Got a tin of turkey and two of ham. Big eats!” Able Seaman Broadstairs went down to the mess-deck, stripped, and vigorously applied hair-oil to his chest. “You’ll never get it to grow by tomorrow night, son,” grunted Stoker White, the oldest member of the crew. Broadstairs had a fine figure, and was a decent living kid, but he had no hair on his chest, which distressed him deeply. Whenever women were mentioned out came the violently-smelling hair-oil. Now he put it away and took to cleaning his silver signet rings with metal polish. He wore five of them and had a ring tattooed on the little finger of his left hand.
“Money for jam!” said Jimmy. “I could kick the tight little arse of that office boy!”
*
We sailed up the coast for ten miles, then pushed out to sea. I came off watch at tea-time and Jimmy took over. The crew consisted of the two of us and fourteen ratings, and we worked it watch and watch about, which is easy going on these short trips. Off watch in the daytime I usually sat in the cabin reading. Thinking to myself, I’m bound to be up all night, I turned in to get some early sleep after tea. The sun had grown dim, the bright blue sky was overcast with pale grey, and the sea was oily looking, shot with patches of dark satin-like water. No stars, tonight, I thought, and turned away from the scuttle and the light. A minute later Broadstairs entered the cabin to “darken ship.” Very easily and swiftly I fell asleep. No dreams that I can remember. I slept for nearly two hours. When I woke it was with the strangest notion I have ever had in my life.
I am not a deeply religious man, and before the war was avowedly irreligious. I did not have convictions that could be called atheistic, but they were certainly agnostic. The war brought me back to an acceptance of the doctrines of the Church of England. I suppose I believe in ghosts. Certainly in good and evil spirits. But all that speculation had always seemed unimportant – chit-chat for a winter’s evening at home, by a log fire, in the good old days of indifference. All thoughts of religious subjects, angelology, demons and what not were far from my mind that evening. I had no worries, other than the navigational one of successfully finding the island K.; and there was no obvious difficulty about that; I only call it “worry”, because I have never sailed anywhere without wondering whether I would find the place. It is difficult to describe what happened to me at six o’clock that evening, yet I must attempt it, for on it hangs the whole significance of this experience from a personal point of view. It was as if – . It is impossible to state it simply enough and sound credible. It was as if – . I woke up with a start, the sweat pouring off me. I trembled. The cabin was filled with an evil presence and it was concentrated twelve or eighteen inches from my left ear. Fully awake, I heard with my ear, so it seemed to me, the word “TOMORROW.” It was spoken clearly and quite loudly. Then the evil thing withdrew. Never have I felt so relieved at the departure of an unwanted guest as I was by that one. The electric light on the table, throwing its warm, yellow circle of light on the dark blue cloth, the books on the shelves, the luminous clock, the barometer, the coffee percolator, the chairs, a pair of sea-boots, an old sweater, an etching of New York on the bulkhead, all these things seemed so friendly and clinging, as if they had resented the intruder as much as myself. For there was no doubt of the meaning conveyed in that one word “Tomorrow”. A whole sentence had been condensed, with evil intent, into that word. It had said, in fact, “Tomorrow you will die an unpleasant death.” Now, death is a fearful thing, and often terrible, and much has been thought and written on the subject, but it has never preoccupied my mind. We are hedged in with platitudes about death… we must all die – that makes death seem easier and less important. The poems of Beddoes I have always found funny. Death held no special terrors for me, I’m convinced. But there was something in that evil experience which shook me. Not so much the personal, unpleasant message as the feeling that swept through me that this had been a devil’s voice, and if the workings of this curious world were controlled by devils, then life was the most wretched affair, human kind the saddest creation, children merely sent into the world to mock a man with. This was diametrically opposed to what I had always believed to be true. To have trusted such a voice would have been to banish God and render Christ ridiculous. “If I am to die tomorrow,” I said to myself, “why can I not be informed by an angel, or one of the fates, or the ghost of an angry saint, if I must be told supernaturally? Why must I be told by this evil, sneaking, contemptible thing?” That gave me hope, for there was something gossipy, hearsay and underhand about that voice. I went on to the bridge.
“Hullo,” I said.
“Hullo,” said Jimmy.
“What’s the matter?” I asked. “You look white.”
“Do I?” Jimmy gave a direction down the voice-pipe. “If I do it’s because I feel a bit sick. Just had a bit of a scare. Don’t know what it was. Got the creeps. But it’s O.K. now.”
I was silent for a moment and looked round the horizon. It was getting dark, and all land had disappeared.
> “How’s the barometer?” I asked.
“Steady.”
The Peter was beginning to roll a little – not an unusual occurrence even in a calm sea. But I didn’t like the soft sighing sound in the rigging. I do not think there is a more melancholy lonely sound in the world than that whine of wind on wires and ropes. Curious, but sometimes you hear it, and it makes you shiver, when you can hardly feel a breath of wind on your face. The air round the ship seemed quite gentle, but the sighing was there unmistakably. Then suddenly a hard, bleak puff of wind screamed down, turning the small black waves white, tugging at one’s hair, the flag, sending doors banging, lifting the heavy canvas lashed over the hold, raising the sadness in the rigging to a screech, and passing as swiftly as it had come. Oh, that depressing sound, and the cold, leaden splash of the bow wave breaking on the night sea! I sent for a duffel coat and remained on the bridge.
At 20.30 the wind, such as it was, came from a north-westerly direction. Six minutes later it changed abruptly and increased. By a quarter to nine it was blowing gale force from the south. In this part of the world the dangerous winds are reputed to be the northerly ones, so I thought little of it. It was a nuisance and was going to mean a bad night unless it slackened. Almost perceptibly the waves increased in height from four or five feet to twelve. Within another half hour they were fifteen feet; that is, as high as the bridge. Coming right on the starboard beam, we rolled heavily.
“How’s the barometer?”
“Dropped two points since six o’clock.”
We altered course five degrees to starboard to make allowance for the beam sea. Jimmy turned in to get some sleep, but within half an hour was up again.
“It’s a bastard, isn’t it!” he said. He stood by me, and then added, “They are getting bigger, aren’t they?” They certainly were getting bigger, and also increasingly difficult to see in the darkness. As he said it the signalman, whose cap had gone in the wind, but who continued to hold a hand to his head, as if to keep that in place, cried out, “Look at this one, sir! Bet it’s twenty foot or more.” The monster of a wave looked as if it might crush us, but the Peter lifted herself, swayed to an alarming angle, and rode lightly over. A motor mechanic, an ill-shaped little fellow from Glasgow, put his face up the companion-way. “’Scuse me, sir, we going on?” “Yes, Mickey Mouse.” Mickey Mouse whistled and slid down the steps.