by Peter Benson
I said, ‘Do you want something to eat?’
She gave me a pitying look.
I did not blame her. I cooked potatoes, beans and bacon, and gravy.
I sat down to eat at the table, cut my bacon and said, ‘I’ve got a tractor.’
‘What?’
‘A tractor.’
‘Does it work?’
‘Sometimes.’
‘God.’
‘I can get to Zennack in an hour.’
‘Can you?’ she said.
‘Not tonight, but tomorrow.’ I put a piece of bacon in my mouth, and chewed. She poured herself another shot of vodka. Her nose was turning purple. ‘I’ve got to fetch some timber.’
‘Timber…’ she said.
‘Yes. For the house.’
She shook her head. ‘There’s no way I’m riding on a tractor.’
‘You can’t,’ I said to Elizabeth Green.
‘So?’ she said to me.
‘I can ask Dan to come and fetch you.’
‘Dan?’
‘The taxi.’
‘Oh, yeah.’ She drank. ‘The cab.’
I moved some beans around my plate. They were okay, but I wished I had something to feed her. She ate food in Missing You. There’s a scene where she has a bowl of soup and a piece of bread. She’s sick with worry. Her fiancé is missing in the Middle East. She sips the soup carefully, and hardly eats any of the bread. I said, ‘You’ll be in Zennack by midday.’
She looked at her drink, swilled it around and said, ‘Okay.’
‘Until then, make yourself at home. There’s a bed upstairs.’ I pointed at a couch by the window. ‘I’ll sleep down here.’
She nodded.
‘Do you want to wash?’
She sat up, touched her hair and her eyes widened. ‘You’ve got a shower?’
‘No.’
She rolled her eyes. ‘But a bath?’
I shook my head. ‘There’s a sink at the top of the stairs. I bathe in the sea.’
‘Please…’
‘It’s clean.’
‘You’re kidding,’ she said, and she shook her head. ‘You’re not kidding…’
‘No.’
She looked at me, through me and then stood up. She swayed, as if she were being blown, reached out and steadied herself against the wall. ‘I’m tired.’
I pushed my plate across the table, picked up a lamp and said, ‘I’ll show you the way.’
She took a deep, heavy breath. I went first, pointing out the missing bottom stair, and telling her to watch out for nails sticking out from the wall. I stopped at the top, opened the landing cupboard, showed her the sink and said, ‘I’ll fetch you a towel.’ She gasped, and covered her mouth with her hands. I went to the bedroom.
Elizabeth Green stood at my bedroom door while I pointed to the mattress on the floor, the piled blankets, the lumpy pillows and a cold cup of tea. I put the lamp on a chest of drawers, bent down and straightened the blankets. There was a pile of books in one corner, and a collection of sea-shells on the window sill. Planks of wood were stacked along one wall, and a couple of bricks. A sheet of plastic covered the window. It cracked in the wind. I said, ‘I’m getting some glass.’
‘This is bad.’
It was but there was nothing I could do. I said, ‘I’ll fetch that towel.’
‘I’ve got to sleep here?’
‘Yes.’
‘How can I?’
‘You’ve got no choice,’ I said, and she laughed, hollow and short. The noise cut. I waited a moment, then went back downstairs.
9
I slept badly, drifting in and out of a dream about the Lyme Chicken Festival. The rain poured, and the roof creaked. All the doors in my house rattled with the wind. The sea raged along the shore, and its sound beat against the walls, and I thought that this was the only house I could ever have owned.
My couch was uncomfortable. I like to sleep in a proper bed. I heard Elizabeth Green creaking above me, and in my dozing I thought, No, she’s not upstairs at all. She didn’t arrive with her jewels and a bottle of vodka. I’m sleeping downstairs because I am getting old and going mad. My imagination has caught fire.
The Lyme Chicken Festival is not held any more. It has been replaced by more usual entertainments, but for decades it was a popular attraction. I was there in 1947, on leave from the MV Maids of Cadiz, docked in Exmouth awaiting cargo.
Early in the year, competitors for the main event would select an eight-week-old chicken from their flocks, paying particular attention to the size of the bird’s wings. Separated from the flock and fed a special diet of fresh fruit, organic corn and mineral water, they were reared carefully. Their owners guarded them at night, often sleeping with them in cramped conditions.
The festival was held in April, on the beach. It started early, with the judging of the fancy chickens. Size of crop, comb, tail feathers and puffing chest were all considered, and rosettes presented. Photographs were taken, and local newspapermen licked their pencils. I was twenty years old, and had just returned from my first transatlantic. I was more man than I had ever been, with huge shoulders and massive arms.
After the judging of the fancies, chicken races were held, and competitions like ‘Chicken that most looks like its owner’, and ‘Miss Lyme Chicken ‘47’, but the main event was the most eagerly anticipated, and was held in the late afternoon.
A buzz went round the beach as the competitors carried their boxed birds through the crowd. They climbed on to a wooden platform and lined up. The boxes were opened and the chickens shown to the crowd. They were wearing leather harnesses. People applauded and yelled encouragement. I drank beer from the bottle.
Helium-filled balloons were brought and attached to the chickens’ harnesses by three-foot lengths of twine. Then, at the drop of a flag, the birds were released.
At first they swung madly and struggled, but then they hung limply from the balloons as they floated into the sky. It was a windless day and they rose vertically. People craned to watch while the owners took out air rifles, and aimed at the balloons. At the drop of a second flag they fired. All hit the target, and as the balloons burst, the chickens began to flap.
The winner of the event was the chicken who flew the furthest, but no one had told the birds to fly in the same direction. A couple headed towards the sea, others towards the town, a few more chose the beach. One, stunned and confused, fell without opening its wings and crashed into the sand directly in front of the owners’ platform. A dissatisfied groan rippled through the crowd, and a disappointed man went to collect the corpse.
The seabound chickens flew well but failed over water; as soon as it was beneath them they panicked, tried to turn and lost momentum. They dropped behind the breakwater, and a man dived in to try and save them, but they drowned.
Meanwhile, the birds that had headed towards town struggled to gain the height required to avoid a terrace of houses, but they failed. The first bounced on to a roof with a sickening thud, dislodged some tiles and slid to the pavement badly. The second glanced a chimney pot and careered into a back garden, while the third smashed through an upstairs window. Almost immediately a woman yelled and came to the window, and screamed ‘You’re animals!’ at us below. We applauded wildly, and cheered. I drank another bottle of beer. Another cheer went up, and we turned to watch the surviving chickens’ descent to the beach. One of these would be the winner.
There were three of them, neck and neck at this stage, their burst balloons flapping beneath them, their legs stretched right out. People shouted for their favourite, and began to run towards their likely landfall. There was madness in the air, and lust, and I had had enough, and turned away. I dropped my last beer bottle in a bin and caught the bus back to Exmouth, and the MV Maids of Cadiz.
I woke in a sweat. Sunlight was breaking the morning. The rain had passed. I sat up suddenly, and slipped off the couch. My back was sore. Elizabeth Green was in my bed. I stood up and put the kettle on t
he stove.
I went outside, took deep breaths, rubbed my face and the sleep from my eyes. The sea had calmed, and birds flew over the offshore stacks. I turned and looked up at the house.
I went back inside, and upstairs. I knocked on the bedroom door, and she said, ‘Come in.’
I put my head round the door and said, ‘Good morning.’
She was sitting up with my shaving mirror in her hand, brushing her hair.
I said, ‘Would you like a cup of tea?’
She put down her brush, lifted her chin and patted the skin beneath. ‘Lemon tea?’
‘I haven’t got…’
‘… a lemon,’ she said. ‘Okay. Make it plain. No milk. No sugar. Weak.’
I stood and looked at her, and I allowed my heart to swim. The sunlight was muddied by the plastic over the window, and pooled like custard on the floor. Her hair shone the colour of the flesh of some fish in a market in a port in the East. I couldn’t remember which port. I couldn’t remember ever going up to a woman and offering her a cup of tea in the morning. ‘Weak,’ I said. I thought about asking her if she wanted something to eat, but Gloria barked and I went downstairs.
An hour later I was sitting on my tractor. Smoke poured from its pipe. I don’t think I got a good deal when I bought it. I wasn’t concentrating. Gloria sat in the link-box.
Elizabeth said, ‘When will you be back?’
‘In a couple of hours.’
‘What time?’
‘Eleven,’ I said. ‘Or twelve. I haven’t got a watch.’
‘You haven’t got a watch…’ Her voice trailed away. ‘Stupid of me to think you’d have a watch.’
‘There’s a clock in the post office.’
‘Is there?’
‘Yes.’
‘Can you tell the time?’
I ignored this remark. Gloria looked towards the road. I said, ‘Make yourself at home.’
She said, ‘What am I going to do?’
‘I don’t know. Go for a walk?’ I pointed towards the point.
‘A walk?’
‘Yes.’
‘You must be kidding.’
‘No.’
She thought. ‘Where?’
‘There’s a path along the cliff.’
She shook her head. She looked at her feet. ‘I haven’t got any shoes. And my clothes are…’
‘Help yourself to some of mine. There’s a clean pile in the bedroom.’
‘Yours?’ Her voice sounded distant, as if she couldn’t hear it herself. She looked at my trousers. They were brown, stained with salt and earth, and hung in creases over my boots. My shirt collar was frayed to the tips, and the lining of my jacket was torn from back to front. My coat was thick, with wide lapels and a broad belt. I wasn’t wearing a tie. I had let my standards slip. ‘I don’t think so,’ she said.
Once, twice, three times, endlessly I had dreamed about Elizabeth Green arriving at my door in distress, drinking in front of my fire, warming herself back to life. You know you do, you know how being alone breeds a dream’s furthest borders. Life is not a dream. Don’t believe people who say it is. Life is actually happening to you.
‘Please yourself,’ I said.
She gave me a pitying look. I slammed the tractor into gear and headed up the road. I did not look back or raise my hand.
10
I drove slowly and allowed my mind to clear. I passed a farm where a child was fetched in from the step. A pair of cows was grazing in the field beside the road. They looked towards me. A curtain twitched in the farmhouse window, and a woman’s face appeared. Gloria stood in the link-box and watched the cows. Her tail wagged and her tongue hung from the corner of her mouth like a leaf.
As we drove into Zennack more children were whisked away. Cats glided over fences and on to roofs. Mrs Boundy watched from the post office window as I steered across the square, past the pub and the pavement benches to Dunn’s Builders’ Yard of Zennack.
Mr Dunn came from a shack in the corner of the yard, rolling up his sleeves and licking doughnut sugar from his lips. He was a fat and bald man. His pate was covered with a light dusting of cement. He didn’t care if I had murdered men or stolen women from their homes and sold them to passing slavers. If I paid his account on time or, better, cash in an unaddressed envelope, then I was his friend. ‘Michael,’ he said. ‘Good morning. Gloria.’ He patted the dog. ‘Still busy?’
‘Yes,’ I said. We shook hands, and I said, ‘I need some timber. Two by fours.’
‘I’ve got short lengths I could let go cheap.’
‘What are short lengths? How short?’
‘Three, three and a half foot.’
‘Okay.’
‘I’ll show you.’
We crossed the yard and went inside a low shed. Wood was stacked to the roof and cement dust columned in the light. I stood back while he pulled the timber from its racks, and laid it on the floor. He had a tape measure, and used it quickly. Gloria stood outside and stared at a child that stood by the fence. Everything was very businesslike. Mr Dunn did not ask me any personal questions.
I went to the post office and asked if Dan was in the village.
‘He’s gone to Plymouth,’ said Mr Boundy. ‘Won’t be back till tomorrow morning.’
‘Plymouth?’
‘Yes.’
‘Oh,’ I said.
‘You need a taxi?’ I don’t know if this was a question or a statement of fact. You need a taxi.
I said, ‘I’ve got this woman at the Port. She turned up yesterday.’
He smiled and his teeth yelled at me. I took a step back. He said, ‘We know.’
I looked into Mr Boundy’s eyes. He was Cornish and had the dull look of men who have lived in one place so long that they think it is the only place. I have known people like this with their clenched hearts and their whispers. Mr Boundy was harmless but not to himself. He popped his tongue into his cheek. I said, ‘Elizabeth Green’ to him.
‘Missing You, wasn’t it?’
I nodded.
‘Load of rubbish,’ he said. ‘Couldn’t make head nor tail of it. Lost the thread completely. You know it was on telly last month?’
Missing You is a simple story. I said. ‘Tomorrow morning?’
‘Yes.’
‘There’s no one else who could…’
‘Insurance,’ Mr Boundy interrupted.
‘What?’ I could hear Mrs Boundy shuffling around in the back room.
‘It’s insurance, isn’t it? If you’re a fare-paying passenger and you have an accident, who’s going to cover you?’
‘What if she’s not paying?’
‘No one’s going to do it for free.’
‘I’ll pay.’
Mr Boundy smiled now, and smoothed his greasy hair. He had a moustache and was about fifty years old. I knew what he was going to say before he said it, roughly. ‘Desperate, are you?’
I stared at his mouth.
‘You’ll have to wait. Tomorrow morning. He’ll be along, no worries.’
‘Don’t forget, will you?’
‘No,’ he said.
I moved from the counter to the corner of the shop where he keeps a small selection of fruit and vegetables. I looked at his scraggy carrots, bought a pound of apples and asked if he had any lemons.
‘Lemons?’ he said.
‘Yes.’
‘I think so,’ and he came and found one hidden behind the bananas. ‘We always keep a few.’ He wrapped it. ‘You haven’t bought one before, have you?’ and I knew he was going to ask why, but I gave him a hard stare, the captain’s look, and he didn’t say anything else.
I left the post office and as I crossed the square to the tractor, Mrs Bell came from her guest house and raised her hand. ‘Michael!’ she called, and this time there was no way to avoid her. She waved and I waved back. The sun was weak in the sky, and not very warm. She was wearing a blue apron over a floral dress, and a woollen hat. I went to meet her.
Mrs B
ell’s eyes were too big for me, too moist and wanting. She doesn’t believe any of the stories about me, even though I insisted that most of them could be true. I stayed in her guest house for a few nights in the winter, while I was buying my house. She fed me huge breakfasts, offered me exclusive use of the top bathroom and gave me the biggest bed in the place. She told me that I was to make her house my house. I tried to tell her that I couldn’t do that but she insisted. I didn’t want to argue, so I thanked her though I didn’t mean it. She owns a dog called Vauxhall, a retired greyhound.
I told her my story and she took me into her confidence by telling me her husband’s story. He had worked as a rigger for the Electricity Board. One day he had been working on a feeder line from Penzance to St Ives. He was harnessed up all right, but as he was moving his braking clip from one spar to the next, he lost his grip. He was one hundred and twenty feet up. He tried to find a footing, slipped, shouted and dropped ten feet. Now he was balanced on a crossbeam, clear air behind, struts to the front. He tried for another grip but twisted, tipped sideways and fell another ten. Here the beams were broader and the pylon wider. One of his harness clips clattered on to his head and began to play out beneath him. He grabbed it, clipped on, fell again and hung in mid-air with nothing between him and the ground. The harness held but he was being strangled one hundred feet up. ‘Help…’ he wheezed to a man twenty feet below, who looked up, yelled to a third and started to climb. Mr Bell was unconscious on arrival at hospital, in April 1965, and remained in a coma for six weeks.