The Penguin Book of Modern British Short Stories

by The Penguin Book of Modern British Short Stories (retail) (epub)

  ‘Doctor – on the assembly deck!’

  Mallory followed the girl’s raised hand. A hundred feet above them, Anne and Hinton stood side by side on the metal landing of the stairway. The flames from the burning aircraft wavered against their faces, as if they were already moving through the air together. Although Hinton’s arm was around Anne’s waist, they seemed unaware of each other when they stepped forward into the light.

  IX

  As always during his last afternoons at Cocoa Beach, Mallory rested by the swimming pool of the abandoned hotel, watching the pale glider float patiently across the undisturbed skies of Cape Kennedy. In this peaceful arbour, surrounded by the drowsing inmates of the zoo, he listened to the fountain cast its crystal gems on to the grass beside his chair. The spray of water was now almost stationary, like the glider and the wind and the watching cheetahs, elements of an emblematic and glowing world.

  As time slipped away from him, Mallory stood under the fountain, happy to see it transform itself into a glass tree that shed an opalescent fruit on to his shoulders and hands. Dolphins flew through the air over the nearby sea. Once he immersed himself in the pool, delighted to be embedded in this huge block of condensed time.

  Fortunately, Gale Shepley had rescued him before he drowned. Mallory knew that she was becoming bored with him. She was intent now only on the search for her father, confident that he would soon be returning from the tideways of space. At night the trajectories were ever lower, tracks of charged particles that soared across the forest. She had almost ceased to eat, and Mallory was glad that once her father arrived she would at last give up her flying. Then the two of them would leave together.

  Mallory had made his own preparations for departure. The key to the tiger cage he held always in his hand. There was little time left to him now, the light-filled world had transformed itself into a series of tableaux from a pageant that celebrated the founding days of creation. In the finale every element in the universe, however humble, would take its place on the stage in front of him.

  He watched the tiger waiting for him at the bars of its cage. The great cats, like the reptiles before them, had always stood partly out of time. The flames that marked its pelt reminded him of the fire that had consumed the aircraft at the space centre, the fire through which Anne and Hinton still flew forever.

  He left the pool and walked towards the tiger cage. He would unlock the door soon, embrace these flames, lie down with this beast in a world beyond time.

  * * *

  WILLIAM TREVOR

  * * *

  A MEETING IN MIDDLE AGE

  ‘I am Mrs da Tanka,’ said Mrs da Tanka. ‘Are you Mr Mileson?’ The man nodded, and they walked together the length of the platform, seeking a compartment that might offer them a welcome, or failing that, and they knew the more likely, simple privacy. They carried each a small suitcase, Mrs da Tanka’s of white leather or some material manufactured to resemble it, Mr Mileson’s battered and black. They did not speak as they marched purposefully: they were strangers one to another, and in the noise and the bustle, examining the lighted windows of the carriages, there was little that might constructively be said.

  ‘A ninety-nine-years’ lease,’ Mr Mileson’s father had said, ‘taken out in 1862 by my grandfather, whom of course you never knew. Expiring in your lifetime, I fear. Yet you will by then be in a sound position to accept the misfortune. To renew what has come to an end; to keep the property in the family.’ The property was an expression that glorified. The house was small and useful, one of a row, one of a kind easily found; but the lease when the time came was not renewable – which released Mr Mileson of a problem. Bachelor, childless, the end of the line, what use was a house to him for a further ninety-nine years?

  Mrs da Tanka, sitting opposite him, drew a magazine from an assortment she carried. Then, checking herself, said: ‘We could talk. Or do you prefer to conduct the business in silence?’ She was a woman who filled, but did not overflow from a fair-sized, elegant, quite expensive tweed suit. Her hair, which was grey, did not appear so; it was tightly held to her head, a reddish gold colour. Born into another class she would have been a chirpy woman; she guarded against her chirpiness, she disliked the quality in her. There was often laughter in her eyes, and as often as she felt it there she killed it by the severity of her manner.

  ‘You must not feel embarrassment,’ Mrs da Tanka said. ‘We are beyond the age of giving in to awkwardness in a situation. You surely agree?’

  Mr Mileson did not know. He did not know how or what he should feel. Analysing his feelings he could come to no conclusion. He supposed he was excited but it was more difficult than it seemed to track down the emotions. He was unable, therefore, to answer Mrs da Tanka. So he just smiled.

  Mrs da Tanka, who had once been Mrs Horace Spire and was not likely to forget it, considered those days. It was a logical thing for her to do, for they were days that had come to an end as these present days were coming to an end. Termination was on her mind: to escape from Mrs da Tanka into Mrs Spire was a way of softening the worry that was with her now, and a way of seeing it in proportion to a lifetime.

  ‘If that is what you want,’ Horace had said, ‘then by all means have it. Who shall do the dirty work – you or I?’ This was his reply to her request for a divorce. In fact, at the time of speaking, the dirty work as he called it was already done: by both of them.

  ‘It is a shock for me,’ Horace had continued. ‘I thought we could jangle along for many a day. Are you seriously involved elsewhere?’

  In fact she was not, but finding herself involved at all reflected the inadequacy of her married life and revealed a vacuum that once had been love.

  ‘We are better apart,’ she had said. ‘It is bad to get used to the habit of being together. We must take our chances while we may, while there is still time.’

  In the railway carriage she recalled the conversation with vividness, especially that last sentence, most especially the last five words of it. The chance she had taken was da Tanka, eight years ago. ‘My God,’ she said aloud, ‘what a pompous bastard he turned out to be.’

  Mr Mileson had a couple of those weekly publications for which there is no accurate term in the language: a touch of a single colour on the front – floppy, half-intellectual things, somewhere between a journal and a magazine. While she had her honest mags. Harper’s. Vogue. Shiny and smart and rather silly. Or so thought Mr Mileson. He had opened them at dentists’ and doctors’, leafed his way through the ridiculous advertisements and aptly titled model girls, unreal girls in unreal poses, devoid it seemed of sex, and half the time of life. So that was the kind of woman she was.

  ‘Who?’ said Mr Mileson.

  ‘Oh, who else, good heavens! Da Tanka I mean.’

  Eight years of da Tanka’s broad back, so fat it might have been padded beneath the skin. He had often presented it to her; he was that kind of man. Busy, he claimed; preoccupied.

  ‘I shall be telling you about da Tanka,’ she said. ‘There are interesting facets to the man; though God knows, he is scarcely interesting in himself.’

  It was a worry, in any case, owning a house. Seeing to the roof; noticing the paint cracking on the outside, and thinking about damp in mysterious places. Better off he was, in the room in Swiss Cottage; cosier in winter. They’d pulled down the old house by now, with all the others in the road. Flats were there instead: bulking up to the sky, with a million or so windows. All the gardens were gone, all the gnomes and the Snow White dwarfs, all the winter bulbs and the little paths of crazy paving; the bird-baths and bird-boxes and bird-tables; the miniature sandpits, and the metal edging, ornate, for flowerbeds.

  ‘We must move with the times,’ said Mrs da Tanka, and he realized that he had been speaking to her; or speaking aloud and projecting the remarks in her direction since she was there.

  His mother had made the rockery. Aubretia and sarsaparilla and pinks and Christmas roses. Her brother, his uncle Edward, bearded and
queer, brought seaside stones in his motor-car. His father had shrugged his distaste for the project, as indeed for all projects of this nature, seeing the removal of stones from the seashore as being in some way disgraceful, even dishonest. Behind the rockery there were loganberries: thick, coarse, inedible fruit, never fully ripe. But nobody, certainly not Mr Mileson, had had the heart to pull away the bushes.

  ‘Weeks would pass,’ said Mrs da Tanka, ‘without the exchange of a single significant sentence. We lived in the same house, ate the same meals, drove out in the same car, and all he would ever say was: “It is time the central heating was on.” Or: “These windscreen-wipers aren’t working.” ’

  Mr Mileson didn’t know whether she was talking about Mr da Tanka or Mr Spire. They seemed like the same man to him; shadowy, silent fellows who over the years had shared this woman with the well-tended hands.

  ‘He will be wearing city clothes,’ her friend had said, ‘grey or nondescript. He is like anyone else except for his hat, which is big and black and eccentric.’ An odd thing about him, the hat: like a wild oat almost.

  There he had been, by the tobacco kiosk, punctual and expectant; gaunt of face, thin, fiftyish; with the old-fashioned hat and the weekly papers that somehow matched it, but did not match him.

  ‘Now would you blame me, Mr Mileson? Would you blame me for seeking freedom from such a man?’

  The hat lay now on the luggage-rack with his carefully folded overcoat. A lot of his head was bald, whitish and tender like good dripping. His eyes were sad, like those of a retriever puppy she had known in her childhood. Men are often like dogs, she thought; women more akin to cats. The train moved smoothly, with rhythm, through the night. She thought of da Tanka and Horace Spire, wondering where Spire was now. Opposite her, he thought about the ninety-nine-year lease and the two plates, one from last night’s supper, the other from breakfast, that he had left unwashed in the room at Swiss Cottage.

  ‘This seems your kind of place,’ Mr Mileson said, surveying the hotel from its ornate hall.

  ‘Gin and lemon, gin and lemon,’ said Mrs da Tanka, matching the words with action: striding to the bar.

  Mr Mileson had rum, feeling it a more suitable drink though he could not think why. ‘My father drank rum with milk in it. An odd concoction.’

  ‘Frightful, it sounds. Da Tanka is a whisky man. My previous liked stout. Well, well, so here we are.’

  Mr Mileson looked at her. ‘Dinner is next on the agenda.’

  But Mrs da Tanka was not to be moved. They sat while she drank many measures of the drink; and when they rose to demand dinner they discovered that the restaurant was closed and were ushered to a grill-room.

  ‘You organized that badly, Mr Mileson.’

  ‘I organized nothing. I know the rules of these places. I repeated them to you. You gave me no chance to organize.’

  ‘A chop and an egg or something. Da Tanka at least could have got us soup.’

  In 1931 Mr Mileson had committed fornication with the maid in his parents’ house. It was the only occasion, and he was glad that adultery was not expected of him with Mrs da Tanka. In it she would be more experienced than he, and he did not relish the implication. The grill-room was lush and vulgar. ‘This seems your kind of place,’ Mr Mileson repeated rudely.

  ‘At least it is warm. And the lights don’t glare. Why not order some wine?’

  Her husband must remain innocent. He was a person of importance, in the public eye. Mr Mileson’s friend had repeated it, the friend who knew Mrs da Tanka’s solicitor. All expenses paid, the friend had said, and a little fee as well. Nowadays Mr Mileson could do with little fees. And though at the time he had rejected the suggestion downright, he had later seen that friend – acquaintance really – in the pub he went to at half past twelve on Sundays, and had agreed to take part in the drama. It wasn’t just the little fee; there was something rather like prestige in the thing; his name as co-respondent – now there was something you’d never have guessed! The hotel bill to find its way to Mrs da Tanka’s husband who would pass it to his solicitor. Breakfast in bed, and remember the face of the maid who brought it. Pass the time of day with her, and make sure she remembered yours. Oh very nice, the man in the pub said, very nice Mrs da Tanka was – or so he was led to believe. He batted his eyes at Mr Mileson; but Mr Mileson said it didn’t matter, surely, about Mrs da Tanka’s niceness. He knew his duties: there was nothing personal about them. He’d do it himself, the man in the pub explained, only he’d never be able to keep his hands off an attractive middle-aged woman. That was the trouble about finding someone for the job.

  ‘I’ve had a hard life,’ Mrs da Tanka confided. ‘Tonight I need your sympathy, Mr Mileson. Tell me I have your sympathy.’ Her face and neck had reddened: chirpiness was breaking through.

  In the house, in a cupboard beneath the stairs, he had kept his gardening boots. Big, heavy army boots, once his father’s. He had worn them at week-ends, poking about in the garden.

  ‘The lease came to an end two years ago,’ he told Mrs da Tanka. ‘There I was with all that stuff, all my gardening tools, and the furniture and bric-à-brac of three generations to dispose of. I can tell you it wasn’t easy to know what to throw away.’

  ‘Mr Mileson, I don’t like that waiter.’

  Mr Mileson cut his steak with care: a three-cornered piece, neat and succulent. He loaded mushroom and mustard on it, added a sliver of potato and carried the lot to his mouth. He masticated and drank some wine.

  ‘Do you know the waiter?’

  Mrs da Tanka laughed unpleasantly; like ice cracking. ‘Why should I know the waiter? I do not generally know waiters. Do you know the waiter?’

  ‘I ask because you claim to dislike him.’

  ‘May I not dislike him without an intimate knowledge of the man?’

  ‘You may do as you please. It struck me as a premature decision, that is all.’

  ‘What decision? What is premature? What are you talking about? Are you drunk?’

  ‘The decision to dislike the waiter I thought to be premature. I do not know about being drunk. Probably I am a little. One has to keep one’s spirits up.’

  ‘Have you ever thought of wearing an eye-patch, Mr Mileson? I think it would suit you. You need distinction. Have you led an empty life? You give the impression of an empty life.’

  ‘My life has been as many other lives. Empty of some things, full of others. I am in possession of all my sight, though. My eyes are real. Neither is a pretence. I see no call for an eye-patch.’

  ‘It strikes me you see no call for anything. You have never lived, Mr Mileson.’

  ‘I do not understand that.’

  ‘Order us more wine.’

  Mr Mileson indicated with his hand and the waiter approached. ‘Some other waiter, please,’ Mrs da Tanka cried. ‘May we be served by another waiter?’

  ‘Madam?’ said the waiter.

  ‘We do not take to you. Will you send another man to our table?’

  ‘I am the only waiter on duty, madam.’

  ‘It’s quite all right,’ said Mr Mileson.

  ‘It’s not quite all right. I will not have this man at our table, opening and dispensing wine.’

  ‘Then we must go without.’

  ‘I am the only waiter on duty, madam.’

  ‘There are other employees of the hotel. Send us a porter or the girl at the reception.’

  ‘It is not their duty, madam –’

  ‘Oh nonsense, nonsense. Bring us the wine, man, and have no more to-do.’

  Unruffled, the waiter moved away. Mrs da Tanka hummed a popular tune.

  ‘Are you married, Mr Mileson? Have you in the past been married?’

  ‘No, never married.’

  ‘I have been married twice. I am married now. I am throwing the dice for the last time. God knows how I shall find myself. You are helping to shape my destiny. What a fuss that waiter made about the wine!’

  ‘That is a little unfair. It was
you, you know –’

  ‘Behave like a gentleman, can’t you? Be on my side since you are with me. Why must you turn on me? Have I harmed you?’

  ‘No, no. I was merely establishing the truth.’

  ‘Here is the man again with the wine. He is like a bird. Do you think he has wings strapped down beneath his waiter’s clothes? You are like a bird,’ she repeated, examining the waiter’s face. ‘Has some fowl played a part in your ancestry?’

  ‘I think not, madam.’

  ‘Though you cannot be sure. How can you be sure? How can you say you think not when you know nothing about it?’

  The waiter poured the wine in silence. He was not embarrassed, Mr Mileson noted; not even angry.

  ‘Bring coffee,’ Mrs da Tanka said.

  ‘Madam.’

  ‘How servile waiters are! How I hate servility, Mr Mileson! I could not marry a servile man. I could not marry that waiter, not for all the tea in China.’

  ‘I did not imagine you could. The waiter does not seem your sort.’

  ‘He is your sort. You like him, I think. Shall I leave you to converse with him?’

  ‘Really! What would I say to him? I know nothing about the waiter except what he is in a professional sense. I do not wish to know. It is not my habit to go about consorting with waiters after they have waited on me.’

  ‘I am not to know that. I am not to know what your sort is, or what your personal and private habits are. How could I know? We have only just met.’

  ‘You are clouding the issue.’

  ‘You are as pompous as da Tanka. Da Tanka would say issue and clouding.’