‘Oh goodness,’ said Phrynne, turning from the window and stretching her arms above her head. ‘Let’s go somewhere else tomorrow.’ She began to take off her dress.
Sooner than usual they were in bed, and in one another’s arms. Gerald had carefully not looked out of the window, and neither of them suggested that it should be opened, as they usually did.
‘As it’s a four-poster, shouldn’t we draw the curtains?’ asked Phrynne. ‘And be really snug? After those damned bells?’
‘We should suffocate.’
‘They only drew the curtains when people were likely to pass through the room.’
‘Darling, you’re shivering. I think we should draw them.’
‘Lie still instead, and love me.’
But all his nerves were straining out into the silence. There was no sound of any kind, beyond the hotel or within it; not a creaking floorboard or a prowling cat or a distant owl. He had been afraid to look at his watch when the bells stopped, or since: the number of the dark hours before they could leave Holihaven weighed on him. The vision of the Commandant kneeling in the dark window was clear before his eyes, as if the intervening panelled walls were made of stage gauze; and the thing he had seen in the street darted on its angular way back and forth through memory.
Then passion began to open its petals within him, layer upon slow layer; like an illusionist’s red flower which, without soil or sun or sap, grows as it is watched. The languor of tenderness began to fill the musty room with its texture and perfume. The transparent walls became again opaque, the old man’s vaticinations mere obsession. The street must have been empty, as it was now; the eye deceived.
But perhaps rather it was the boundless sequacity of love that deceived, and most of all in the matter of the time which had passed since the bells stopped ringing; for suddenly Phrynne drew very close to him, and he heard steps in the thoroughfare outside, and a voice calling. These were loud steps, audible from afar even through the shut window; and the voice had the possessed stridency of the street evangelist.
‘The dead are awake!’
Not even the thick bucolic accent, the guttural vibrato of emotion, could twist or mask the meaning. At first Gerald lay listening with all his body, and concentrating the more as the noise grew; then he sprang from the bed and ran to the window.
A burly, long-limbed man in a seaman’s jersey was running down the street, coming clearly into view for a second at each lamp, and between them lapsing into a swaying lumpy wraith. As he shouted his joyous message, he crossed from side to side and waved his arms like a negro. By flashes, Gerald could see that his weatherworn face was transfigured.
‘The dead are awake!’
Already, behind him, people were coming out of their houses, and descending from the rooms above shops. There were men, women, and children. Most of them were fully dressed, and must have been waiting in silence and darkness for the call; but a few were dishevelled in night attire or the first garments which had come to hand. Some formed themselves into groups, and advanced arm in arm, as if towards the conclusion of a Blackpool beano. More came singly, ecstatic and waving their arms above their heads, as the first man had done. All cried out, again and again, with no cohesion or harmony. ‘The dead are awake! The dead are awake!’
Gerald became aware that Phrynne was standing behind him.
‘The Commandant warned me,’ he said brokenly. ‘We should have gone.’
Phrynne shook her head and took his arm. ‘Nowhere to go,’ she said. But her voice was soft with fear, and her eyes blank. ‘I don’t expect they’ll trouble us.’
Swiftly Gerald drew the thick plush curtains, leaving them in complete darkness. ‘We’ll sit it out,’ he said, slightly histrionic in his fear. ‘No matter what happens.’
He scrambled across to the switch. But when he pressed it, light did not come. ‘The current’s gone. We must get back into bed.’
‘Gerald! Come and help me.’ He remembered that she was curiously vulnerable in the dark. He found his way to her, and guided her to the bed.
‘No more love,’ she said ruefully and affectionately, her teeth chattering.
He kissed her lips with what gentleness the total night made possible.
‘They were going towards the sea,’ she said timidly.
‘We must think of something else.’
But the noise was still growing. The whole community seemed to be passing down the street, yelling the same dreadful words again and again.
‘Do you think we can?’
‘Yes,’ said Gerald. ‘It’s only until tomorrow.’
‘They can’t be actually dangerous,’ said Phrynne. ‘Or it would be stopped.’
‘Yes, of course.’
By now, as always happens, the crowd had amalgamated their utterances and were beginning to shout in unison. They were like agitators bawling a slogan, or massed troublemakers at a football match. But at the same time the noise was beginning to draw away. Gerald suspected that the entire population of the place was on the march.
Soon it was apparent that a processional route was being followed. The tumult could be heard winding about from quarter to quarter; sometimes drawing near, so that Gerald and Phrynne were once more seized by the first chill of panic, then again almost fading away. It was possibly this great variability in the volume of the sound which led Gerald to believe that there were distinct pauses in the massed shouting; periods when it was superseded by far, disorderly cheering. Certainly it began also to seem that the thing shouted had changed; but he could not make out the new cry, although unwillingly he strained to do so.
‘It’s extraordinary how frightened one can be,’ said Phrynne, ‘even when one is not directly menaced. It must prove that we all belong to one another, or whatever it is, after all.’
In many similar remarks they discussed the thing at one remove. Experience showed that this was better than not discussing it at all.
In the end there could be no doubt that the shouting had stopped, and that now the crowd was singing. It was no song that Gerald had ever heard, but something about the way it was sung convinced him that it was a hymn or psalm set to an out-of-date popular tune. Once more the crowd was approaching; this time steadily, but with strange, interminable slowness.
‘What the hell are they doing now?’ asked Gerald of the blackness, his nerves wound so tight that the foolish question was forced out of them.
Palpably the crowd had completed its peregrination, and was returning up the main street from the sea. The singers seemed to gasp and fluctuate, as if worn out with gay exercise, like children at a party. There was a steady undertow of scraping and scuffling. Time passed and more time.
Phrynne spoke. ‘I believe they’re dancing.’
She moved slightly, as if she thought of going to see.
‘No, no,’ said Gerald, and clutched her fiercely.
There was a tremendous concussion on the ground floor below them. The front door had been violently thrown back. They could hear the hotel filling with a stamping, singing mob.
Doors banged everywhere, and furniture was overturned, as the beatic throng surged and stumbled through the involved darkness of the old building. Glasses went and china and Birmingham brass warming pans. In a moment, Gerald heard the Japanese armour crash to the boards. Phrynne screamed. Then a mighty shoulder, made strong by the sea’s assault, rammed at the panelling and their door was down.
‘The living and the dead dance together.
Now’s the time. Now’s the place. Now’s the weather.’
At last Gerald could make out the words.
The stresses in the song were heavily beaten down by much repetition.
Hand in hand, through the dim grey gap of the doorway, the dancers lumbered and shambled in, singing frenziedly and brokenly; ecstatic but exhausted. Through the stuffy blackness they swayed and shambled, more and more of them, until the room must have been packed tight with them.
Phrynne screamed again. ‘T
he smell. Oh, God, the smell.’
It was the smell they had encountered on the beach; in the congested room, no longer merely offensive, but obscene, unspeakable.
Phrynne was hysterical. All self-control gone, she was scratching and tearing, and screaming again and again. Gerald tried to hold her, but one of the dancers struck him so hard in the darkness that she was jolted out of his arms. Instantly it seemed that she was no longer there at all.
The dancers were thronging everywhere, their limbs whirling, their lungs bursting with the rhythm of the song. It was difficult for Gerald even to call out. He tried to struggle after Phrynne, but immediately a blow from a massive elbow knocked him to the floor, an abyss of invisible trampling feet.
But soon the dancers were going again: not only from the room, but, it seemed, from the building also. Crushed and tormented though he was, Gerald could hear the song being resumed in the street, as the various frenzied groups debouched and reunited. Within, before long there was nothing but the chaos, the darkness, and the putrescent odour. Gerald felt so sick that he had to battle with unconsciousness. He could not think or move, despite the desperate need.
Then he struggled into a sitting position, and sank his head on the torn sheets of the bed. For an uncertain period he was insensible to everything: but in the end he heard steps approaching down the dark passage. His door was pushed back, and the Commandant entered gripping a lighted candle. He seemed to disregard the flow of hot wax which had already congealed on much of his knotted hand.
‘She’s safe. Small thanks to you.’
The Commandant stared icily at Gerald’s undignified figure. Gerald tried to stand. He was terribly bruised, and so giddy that he wondered if this could be concussion. But relief rallied him.
‘Is it thanks to you?’
‘She was caught up in it. Dancing with the rest.’ The Commandant’s eyes glowed in the candlelight. The singing and the dancing had almost died away.
Still Gerald could do no more than sit upon the bed. His voice was low and indistinct, as if coming from outside his body. ‘Were they . . . were some of them . . .’
The Commandant replied, more scornful than ever of his weakness. ‘She was between two of them. Each had one of her hands.’
Gerald could not look at him. ‘What did you do?’ he asked in the same remote voice.
‘I did what had to be done. I hope I was in time.’ After the slightest possible pause he continued. ‘You’ll find her downstairs.’
‘I’m grateful. Such a silly thing to say, but what else is there?’
‘Can you walk?’
‘I think so.’
‘I’ll light you down.’ The Commandant’s tone was as uncompromising as always.
There were two more candles in the lounge, and Phrynne, wearing a woman’s belted overcoat which was not hers, sat between them, drinking. Mrs Pascoe, fully dressed but with eyes averted, pottered about the wreckage. It seemed hardly more than as if she were completing the task which earlier she had left unfinished.
‘Darling, look at you!’ Phrynne’s words were still hysterical, but her voice was as gentle as it usually was.
Gerald, bruises and thoughts of concussion forgotten, dragged her into his arms. They embraced silently for a long time; then he looked into her eyes.
‘Here I am,’ she said, and looked away. ‘Not to worry.’
Silently and unnoticed, the Commandant had already retreated.
Without returning his gaze, Phrynne finished her drink as she stood there. Gerald supposed that it was one of Mrs Pascoe’s concoctions.
It was so dark where Mrs Pascoe was working that her labours could have been achieving little; but she said nothing to her visitors, nor they to her. At the door Phrynne unexpectedly stripped off the overcoat and threw it on a chair. Her nightdress was so torn that she stood almost naked. Dark though it was, Gerald saw Mrs Pascoe regarding Phrynne’s pretty body with a stare of animosity.
‘May we take one of the candles?’ he said, normal standards reasserting themselves in him.
But Mrs Pascoe continued to stand silently staring; and they lighted themselves through the wilderness of broken furniture to the ruins of their bedroom. The Japanese figure was still prostrate, and the Commandant’s door shut. And the smell had almost gone.
Even by seven o’clock the next morning surprisingly much had been done to restore order. But no one seemed to be about, and Gerald and Phrynne departed without a word.
In Wrack Street a milkman was delivering, but Gerald noticed that his cart bore the name of another town. A minute boy whom they encountered later on an obscure purposeful errand might, however, have been indigenous; and when they reached Station Road, they saw a small plot of land on which already men were silently at work with spades in their hands. They were as thick as flies on a wound, and as black. In the darkness of the previous evening, Gerald and Phrynne had missed the place. A board named it the New Municipal Cemetery.
In the mild light of an autumn morning the sight of the black and silent toilers was horrible; but Phrynne did not seem to find it so. On the contrary, her cheeks reddened and her soft mouth became fleetingly more voluptuous still.
She seemed to have forgotten Gerald, so that he was able to examine her closely for a moment. It was the first time he had done so since the night before. Then, once more, she became herself. In those previous seconds Gerald had become aware of something dividing them which neither of them would ever mention or ever forget.
Choice of Weapons
Fenville had never been to the Entresol before, but he took it to represent the kind of restaurant to which Ann was accustomed. Ann seemed pleased to go there: which was fortunate, because the excursion was a serious undertaking for Fenville, and only possible because more money than was customary had reached him from his mother that quarter. And then as soon as he had entered the place, certainly before they were seated at their table, he had fallen in love with someone else.
He first glimpsed this other person through a painted glass screen. The screen, glazed only in its upper part, separated the main area of the restaurant from an anteroom where drinks were brought to lacquered three-legged tables. While Ann was leaving her fur coat, Fenville sat at one of these tables warding off two solicitous youths in linen jackets. Right across the restaurant, which was not full, he saw this other woman seated alone at a table by the wall.
At present the distance, the shaded lights, and the fact that the glass in the screen was obscured by small bright flowers painted round its edges prevented Fenville from seeming to himself more than pleasantly disturbed; and when Ann returned he ordered drinks and consumed his own with what he took to be the aplomb their surroundings demanded.
Immediately he was beyond the screen, however, things were different, and he knew it. The bald head-waiter, pleased by Ann’s softly luxurious appearance, led them the length of the room to a table against the far wall, and only three tables away from that occupied by the solitary woman. Even passing her table was for Fenville a strange ordeal.
Under-waiters began calling upon him to order, and such appetite as he might have had for the complex dishes listed had left him. Ann was talking to him more charmingly than ever before, but he was unable to respond to her skilful effort to lend him some of her own confidence. The wine itself, when it arrived, cased him in a shell of sobriety.
The woman at the other table he now saw was more truly to be described as a girl. She was younger even than Ann. She wore a topless black dress which made her shoulders and arms look more white and desirable than Fenville would have credited. She had a soft penumbra of hair tied with a black bow, and a small, sadly perfect face, with big, widely placed green eyes. Her hands fluttered about continuously, but she seemed to be eating as little as Fenville himself. Several courses arrived, lingered, and were removed, chilly, dispirited, intact. Fenville could hear her low musical voice as she addressed the waiters, but not her words. He was listening to her with pain in his heart
as he tried to be attentive to Ann, under conditions to which in any case he was very unacclimatised. The other girl seemed quite assured, although the circumstances of her custom in the restaurant were surely unusual. Fenville noticed that she was not even drinking, which he had always understood to be a common complaint of waiters against women customers. On the other hand, she seemed unhappy; she was pale and unsmiling; and suddenly Fenville saw her produce a small gold bag and extract from it a minute wisp of handkerchief with which she touched one cheek, as if to blot out a tear.
Ann showed no sign of being aware how unused he was to fashionable restaurants, and continued to talk about what she was going to do when her studentship was successfully concluded. They were both studying architecture; and Fenville suspected that their professors considered Ann, favoured in so many ways, to be the more promising. He heard Ann saying that she would go into practice with a partner; that her father would give her all the capital she needed, and that it was simply a matter of finding the right person. He knew that Ann, whom a month ago he had hardly dared to speak to, and a week ago had thought he loved, was offering him a chance that was most unlikely ever to repeat itself: a whole life of common understanding and prosperity and security. But while she was gently amplifying the matter, the girl at the other table called for her bill.
Fenville sat staring at her. His hand shook so much that he could not hold the fork with which he had been trying to eat vol-au-vent. Ann stopped talking. Everybody else in the restaurant, which had begun to fill up, seemed to be shouting at the top of their voices. Ann touched his arm. It was the first time she had ever done so.
The other girl paid. The waiter bowed very low before her munificent tip, and pulled away the table. The girl drew a black silk scarf round her shoulders and rose. Mysteriously her scent reached Fenville for an instant.
‘Mademoiselle has a coat?’
The girl shook her head, and began to walk away.
Dark Entries Page 7