The Skull Beneath the Skin

by P. D. James

  He paused, but again there was no response. He had spoken as if Sir George were no longer with them. Cordelia saw Roma glance at Ralston, surprised, a little wary. She half opened her mouth then thought better of it. But she kept her gaze on him with a stubborn intensity rather as if she were seeing him for the first time.

  Ambrose went on: “I don’t know any of the details. Someone does, I suppose, or as much of the truth as came out. There must be an official record of the incident somewhere although it was never published. All I know is what my uncle told me on one of my rare visits and that was mostly rumour.”

  Clarissa permitted herself a display of nicely judged impatience. It was, thought Cordelia, as artificial as the simulated moue of distaste with which she had first regarded the shelf of skulls. Clarissa had no need of impatience; Clarissa knew exactly what was coming.

  Ambrose spread plump hands and shrugged, as if resigned to a recital he would prefer to have avoided. But he could have avoided it, thought Cordelia, if he had really tried. And for the first time she wondered whether the conversation, even the visit to the crypt, had been the result of collusion.

  He said: “In March 1940 there were about fifty internees on Courcy and, among them, a hard core of dedicated Nazis most of whom were Germans trapped in Britain at the outbreak of war. They suspected one of their number, a boy of twenty-two, of having betrayed their secrets to the British authorities during interrogation. Perhaps he did. On the other hand, he may have been a British undercover agent who had infiltrated their group. All I know are rumours, and secondhand rumours at that. What does seem beyond dispute is that the group of Nazis convened a secret court in the crypt of the Church, convicted their comrade of treason and condemned him to death. Then they gagged him, bound his arms and brought him down the passageway to this cave, the Devil’s Kettle. As you can see it has a narrow opening which leads to the east cove but the cave is always flooded at high tide. They bound their victim to that iron ladder and left him to drown. He was a very tall young man. He died slowly in the darkness, and he died hard. Later one of them crept back to untie him and let the body float out to sea. When it was washed up only two days later the wrists were cut through almost to the bone. One of his fellow internees told a story of the young man’s mounting depression and it was suggested that he had bound his wrists to prevent himself from swimming and had leapt into the sea. None of his judges or executioners ever spoke.”

  Roma asked: “Then how was the story ever known?”

  “Someone talked eventually, I suppose, but not until after the war. Oldfield was living in Speymouth at the time and was employed here by the Army. He may have heard rumours. He doesn’t admit it now, but someone on the island must have suspected. Someone may even have condoned what happened, or at least closed his eyes. After all, the Army were in charge here. Yet the gang got their hands on the keys to the crypt and the secret passage and managed to return them undetected. That suggests, well, let’s say a certain degree of official carelessness on someone’s part.”

  Clarissa turned to her husband.

  “What was he called, darling, the boy who died?”

  “His name was Carl Blythe.”

  Clarissa turned to the company. Her voice was as out of key as an hysteric’s: “And the most extraordinary thing is that he was English—well, his father was anyway, his mother was German—and George was at school with him, weren’t you, darling? They were both at Melhurst. He was three years older and rather a horrid boy, cruel really, one of those bullies who make other boys’ lives a torment to them, so he and George weren’t exactly friends. In fact George hated him. And then to find him here and at his mercy. Wasn’t it odd?”

  Ivo said easily: “Not particularly. The British public schools produced their share of Nazi sympathizers and this is where you’d expect to find them in 1940.”

  Cordelia stared down at the iron ladder. The light in the passage, fierce and garish, did nothing to mitigate the horror; rather it intensified it. In the old days, the cruelty of man to man was decently shrouded in darkness; the mind dwelt on airless unlit dungeons, on light filtering through the slits of narrow windows. But the modern interrogation rooms and torture chambers were ablaze with light. The technocrats of pain needed to see what they were at. Suddenly the place became intolerable to her. The chill of the passageway intensified. She had to tauten her arms and clench her fists to prevent herself visibly shaking. In her imagination the tunnel behind them stretched to infinity and they were doomed to rush down its contracting brightness like terrified rats. She felt a bead of sweat roll down her forehead and sting her eyes and knew that it had nothing to do with the cold. She made herself speak, hoping that her voice didn’t betray her.

  “Can’t we get out of here? I feel like a voyeuse.”

  Ivo said: “And I feel cold.”

  Taking her cue promptly, Clarissa shivered. Then Sir George spoke for the first time. Cordelia wondered whether it was her confused senses or the echo from the low roof which made his voice sound so different.

  “If my wife has satisfied her curiosity, perhaps we might go.”

  Then he made a sudden jerk forward. Before they could guess what was coming he put his foot behind the open trapdoor and pushed. It crashed down. The walls seemed to crack and the passage shook under their feet. They must all have cried out, their voices thin screams in the echoing, reverberating roar. When it had faded no one spoke. Sir George had already turned on his heel and was making his way towards the entrance.

  Cordelia found herself a little ahead of the others. Fear, and a deadening sense of misery which was stronger than fear and which added to her claustrophobia, urged her forward. Even the crypt with its neatly disposed ossuary was preferable to this horrible place. She stooped to pick up the neatly folded oblong of paper almost instinctively and without curiosity, without even turning it over to see if it were addressed. In the harsh light of the single bulb the neatly drawn skull and the typed quotation were starkly clear and she realized that she had known from the first what it must be.

  Thy death is plotted; here’s the consequence of murder,

  We value not desert nor Christian breath,

  When we know black deeds must be cur’d with death.

  It was not, she thought, completely accurate. Surely the first word should be “My” not “Thy.” But the message was plain enough. She slipped it into her shirt pocket and turned to wait for the rest of the party. She tried to recall where they had all been standing when the lights went out. Surely it had been at about this spot where the tunnel curved. It would have taken only a few seconds for one of them to dart back under cover of the darkness, someone who had the message ready, someone who didn’t care, might even have been pleased, that Clarissa would know that her enemy was one of this small party. And if anyone other than she had seen it first, or if the group had been together, then it must have been placed in Clarissa’s hands. It was addressed to her in the same typed letters. Ambrose was perhaps the most likely culprit. That light had failed very conveniently. But any of the others could have done it, any except Simon. She had felt his hand firmly in hers.

  And then they came into view. She stood under the light and scanned their faces. But none betrayed anxiety, none showed any surprise, no eyes dropped to the ground. Joining them she felt that she fully understood for the first time why it was that Clarissa was so afraid. Until now the messages had seemed little more than a childish persecution which no intelligent woman would think worth more than a moment’s real anxiety. But they were a manifestation of hatred, and hatred, whatever else it was, could never be petty. They were childish, but there was an adult and sophisticated malice behind the childishness and the danger they threatened might, after all, be real and imminent. She wondered whether she was right in keeping this message and the earlier ones from Clarissa, whether it might not be safer to put her on increased guard. But her instructions had been clear: to save Clarissa from any anxiety or annoyance before the performan
ce. There would be time enough after the play to decide what else should be done. And there were less than four hours now before the curtain rose.

  While they were passing the row of skulls, this time without a glance, Cordelia found herself walking with Ivo. His speed, whether by necessity or design, was slower than the others and she kept pace with him. He said: “That was an instructive episode, don’t you think? Poor Ralston! I take it that the whole episode and his subsequent moral scruples were an offering of conjugal unreserve. What did you think of it all, oh wise Cordelia?”

  “I thought that it was horrible.”

  And both of them knew that she wasn’t thinking only of that poor renegade’s last agony, his lonely and terrible death. Roma came alongside them. Cordelia saw that, for once, she looked animated, her eyes brightly malicious. She said: “Well that was an unedifying performance. For those of us fortunate enough to be unmarried it makes holy matrimony seem a pretty unholy estate. Almost terrifying.”

  Ivo said: “Marriage is terrifying. At least I’ve found it so.”

  Roma was unwilling to let the matter rest.

  “Does she always need to psych herself up with an exhibition of cruelty before a performance?”

  “She’s nervous certainly. It takes people different ways.”

  “But this is only an amateur performance, for God’s sake! The theatre can’t hold more than eighty or so. And she’s supposed to be a professional. What do you think George Ralston was feeling back there?”

  The note of satisfaction was unmistakable. Cordelia wanted to say that one had only to have looked at his face to have seen what Sir George was thinking. But she didn’t speak. Ivo said: “Like most professional soldiers, Ralston is a sentimentalist. He takes the great absolutes, honour, justice, loyalty, and binds them to his heart with hoops of steel. I find it rather appealing. But it does make for a certain … rigidity.”

  Roma shrugged.

  “If you mean that he’s abnormally controlled, I agree. It will be interesting to see what happens if ever the control snaps.”

  Clarissa turned and called to them, her voice happily imperious: “Come on, you three. Ambrose wants to lock the crypt. And I want lunch.”

  3

  The contrast between the sun-warmed terrace where, once again, luncheon was set out on a linen-covered trestle table, and the dark, rank-smelling pit of the Devil’s Kettle, was so great that Cordelia felt disorientated. That brief descent into the hell of the past could have happened in a different place and time. Looking out across the light-flecked sea to where the canvases of the Saturday sailors curved to catch the breeze, it was possible to imagine that it hadn’t happened at all, that de Courcy’s plague-ridden court, Carl Blythe’s agony as he struggled against the horror of his long dying were the remnants of a nightmare which had no more reality than the caricatures of a horror comic.

  It was a light meal, a watercress-and-avocado salad followed by salmon soufflé, chosen perhaps to soothe a nervous digestion. But even so, no one ate with appetite or evident enjoyment. Cordelia took one glass of the cool Riesling and forced down the salmon, knowing, rather than tasting, that it was delicious. Clarissa’s brittle euphoria had given way to a silent preoccupation which no one liked to disturb. Roma crouched on the step at the end of the terrace, her unregarded plate in her lap, and gazed moodily out to sea. Sir George and Ivo stood together but neither spoke. But all of them, except Clarissa and herself, drank steadily. Ambrose said little but moved among them refilling the glasses, his bright eyes amused and indulgent as if they were children behaving predictably under stress.

  Unexpectedly, Simon was the liveliest of the party. He was drinking heavily, apparently unnoticed by Clarissa, swilling the wine down as if it were beer, his hand a little unsteady, his eyes bright. At about ten to one, he suddenly announced loudly that he would go for a swim, looking round at them rather as if he expected them to take an interest in this news. No one did, but Clarissa said: “Not so soon after a meal, darling. Take a walk first.”

  The endearment was so unexpected that they all looked up. The boy blushed, gave them a stiff little bow, and disappeared. Shortly afterwards, Clarissa put down her plate, looked at her watch and said: “Time to rest. No coffee, thank you, Ambrose. I never take it before a performance. I thought you knew that. Will you ask Tolly to bring up the tea tray at once? China tea. She knows the kind I have. George, would you come up in five minutes? I’ll see you later, Cordelia. Better make it ten past one.”

  She made her slow way across the terrace with the graceful deliberation of a stage exit. For the first time, she seemed to Cordelia to be vulnerable, almost pathetic in her lonely, self-absorbed fear. She felt an impulse to follow, but knew that it would only arouse Clarissa’s fury. And she had no fear of Clarissa finding another message thrust under her door. Cordelia had checked the room immediately before coming down to lunch. She knew now that the person responsible had been one of the small party who had visited the Devil’s Kettle and all of them had been under her eye throughout the meal. Only Simon had left early. And she did not believe for one moment that the culprit was Simon.

  Suddenly Roma struggled to her feet and hurried out after her cousin, almost running from the terrace. The eyes of Ambrose and Ivo met but neither spoke, inhibited perhaps by the presence of Sir George. He walked to the end of the terrace, his back to them, coffee cup in hand. He seemed to be counting the minutes. Then he glanced at his watch, replaced his cup on the table and made for the French windows. Looking round, foot on the step, he asked: “What time does the curtain rise, Gorringe?”

  “At three-thirty.”

  “And we change before then?”

  “That’s what Clarissa expects. There won’t be time afterwards, anyway. Supper is at seven-thirty.” Sir George nodded and was gone.

  Ivo said: “Clarissa organizes her helots with the brutal precision of a military commander. Ten minutes before you need report for duty, Cordelia. Time surely for a second cup of coffee.”

  When Cordelia unlocked her bedroom and went through the communicating door, Sir George was with his wife standing by the window looking out over the sea. The round silver tea tray with its single cup and saucer, its elegant matching pot, was on the bedside chest as yet untouched. Clarissa, still in her Bermuda shorts and shirt, was pacing up and down, her colour high.

  “She asked me for twenty-five thousand, came out with it, red-faced, as if she were a child asking for an increase in pocket money. And now of all times! She couldn’t even wait until after the performance. Talk about crass stupidity! Is she deliberately trying to upset me or something?”

  Sir George spoke without turning.

  “Important to her, I expect. Couldn’t bear the suspense of waiting. Had to know. It’s not easy to get you alone.”

  “She never had any sense of timing, even as a child. If there was a wrong moment for anything, trust Roma to pick it. Part of her general insensitivity. By God, she’s chosen the wrong moment now!”

  The voice from the window said quietly: “Would there have been a right one?”

  Clarissa seemed not to have heard.

  “I told her that I wasn’t prepared to hand over capital to support a lover who hadn’t even the guts or decency to come and ask for it himself. I gave her some advice. If you have to buy yourself a man, he’s not worth having. And if you can’t get sex without buying it, buy cheaper. She’s madly in love with him, of course. That’s what this shop of theirs is all about, a ploy to get him away from his wife. Roma in love! I could almost feel sorry for him if he wasn’t such a fool. When a plain virgin of forty-five falls in love for the first time and gets her first taste of sex, God help the man.”

  “My dear, is that our concern?”

  She said sharply: “The money’s my concern. Apart from anything else, they haven’t a chance of making a go of it. No capital, no experience, no sense. Why should I throw good money after bad?”

  She turned to Cordelia: “You’d better
go and get yourself dressed. Then lock your room and come out this way. I don’t want you fussing about next door while I’m resting. I suppose you’ll be wearing that Indian thing again. It shouldn’t take long to get into that.”

  Cordelia said: “None of my clothes takes long to get into.”

  “Nor to get out of, no doubt.”

  Sir George swung round, his voice low: “Clarissa!”

  She smiled, gratified, and going up to him gently tapped his cheek.

  “Dear George. Always so gallant.” She might have been patting a dog.

  Cordelia said: “I wondered whether you’d like me to stay next door while you rest. The communicating door could be open or locked as you like. I wouldn’t make any noise.”

  “I’ve told you! I don’t want you next door, or anywhere near me for that matter. I might want to speak some of the verse and I can’t do that when I know someone’s listening. With the three doors locked and no telephone in the room I suppose I can hope to be left in peace.” Suddenly she called out: “Tolly!”

  Tolly came out of the bathroom, dark-clad, expressionless as ever. Cordelia wondered how much if anything she had heard. Without being asked she went to the wardrobe and brought out Clarissa’s satin robe and folded it over her arm. Then she went and waited silently beside her mistress. Clarissa unbuttoned her shirt and let it fall. Tolly made no move to pick it up but unhooked the back of Clarissa’s brassière. That too fell away and was plucked off by Clarissa, held out and let drop. Lastly Clarissa unbuttoned the front of her shorts and eased them off, together with her pants, letting them fall together over her knees to the floor. She stood there for a moment immobile, her pale body dappled in the sunlight, the full, almost heavy breasts, the narrow waist, the jutting angular hips and smudge of corn-gold hair. Without haste Tolly unfolded the dressing gown and held it out for Clarissa’s waiting arms. Then she knelt, collected the bundle of discarded clothes and returned to the bathroom. Cordelia thought that it had been a ritualistic display of almost innocent sensuality, less vulgar than she would have expected, narcissistic rather than provocative. A conviction came to her as certain as it was irrational, that this was the image of Clarissa that she would remember all her life. And, whatever its motive, Clarissa’s moment of frank exultation in her beauty seemed to have calmed her. She said: “Don’t take any notice of me, darlings. You know what it is before a performance.”