The Seahorse

by Anthony Masters

  As yet Paul’s and Meg’s departure had not been announced to the school in general for Storm had decided that a few appropriate words during the Prizegiving would be a fitting send-off. Paul wryly wondered what particular clichés Storm would use whilst Meg hoped that he would keep it all very short.

  And so they drove up in swanky cars, the chromium flashing. Directly the occupants had been welcomed by a beaming Storm, who had placed himself dominatingly by the front door with an unhappy Lettie in attendance, they were led away by two deputised boys in the direction of the cloakrooms, and Casey. Then, devoid of their outer wrappings, the parents were herded towards the gym display where Laura, clad in her briefest shorts, was impatiently waiting to begin. She wished that the event could take place later in the afternoon as she was usually a hearty eater and lunch seemed uncomfortably near still. The fathers hurried as they saw Laura from afar but slowed as they came nearer. The sight of her legs close to deterred them. The team looked anything but happy and stood at ease, with their hands behind their backs, conscious of the scrutiny of their relations behind them. Storm, satisfied that no more parents would be arriving, strolled down with Lettie on his arm. He was immediately surrounded by a group of parents who ignored the ensuing display of athletics and bombarded him with questions–mainly irrelevant. Lettie took the opportunity to melt quietly away, and as she wandered down the drive she met Casey hurrying purposefully towards the beach. He saw her and hesitated, obviously wondering if she was going to spoil his afternoon and send him on an errand.

  ‘Hello,’ she said–her watery grey eyes looking at some point over the top of his head.

  ‘Hello,’ returned Casey, eyeing her suspiciously.

  ‘Where are you going?’ asked Lettie.

  ‘To the beach,’ said Casey firmly, ‘Mr. Langham-Green said I could do what I liked when I’d finished the cloakroom–as long as I get back by tea-time–and I will,’ he added defensively.

  ‘Can I come with you?’ asked Lettie on a sudden impulse. ‘I won’t spoil things for you–I won’t interfere–and I won’t even speak if you don’t want me to.’

  Casey considered; to obtain all these rash promises from a grown-up was really quite something.

  “All right then,’ said Casey condescendingly, ‘but let’s run.’ And he began to tear down the drive as fast as his short legs could carry him. Lettie paused for a moment and then began to run too, her long legs covering the ground twice as fast and soon she was abreast of him. She looked an extraordinary sight, her sensible tweed skirt billowing about her knees, and her breath coming in little gasps. Her hair, which was drawn up in a bun at the back of her head, became unclipped and billowed out behind her. She was red in the face as she followed Casey down the drive, over the road and on to the shingle. Then they paused for a moment and she turned to him–the breeze from the sea stirring her hair and keeping the colour in her face.

  ‘That was marvellous–I haven’t run for years. What shall we do now?’

  ‘Look at things,’ said Casey stolidly, and walked down towards the rocks.

  Lettie followed humbly behind him.

  It had begun to rain halfway through Laura’s P.T. Display. Probably only a shower, she thought hopefully, looking up at the swollen grey clouds above her. She dragged the vaulting horse into position and did a neat somersault over it, her large behind thumping down hard on the canvas top and attracting a lot of curiosity. Most people were watching now, with the exception of the group who still continued to cross-examine Storm on domestic matters. Now they were all going over the horse–finishing the trick neatly by standing to attention in a line, headed by Laura. The rain hardly seemed to distract Storm’s questioners, but the silent viewers of the gym display began dismally to turn up collars and unfurl umbrellas preparatory to withdrawing. Laura, who had worked hard on the arrangements, cursed them silently–and Storm, hunched in the spitting rain, doggedly answered the questions put to him, with one eye on the sky which threatened to overspill into a complete downpour at any moment. He wished that the day was over–he had arranged to meet Meg in the evening and was looking forward to it with mixed feelings of anticipation and disquiet. Whilst he automatically replied, his mind nagged at the threads of unease that had been growing since the afternoon of a few days ago. He felt indecisive and had gone over each detail of the entire business countless times–and had exaggerated his own responsibility out of all proportion. He felt compelled to apologise abjectly to Meg–to ask her forgiveness–to plead that she eradicate the whole business from her mind. On the other hand, he knew that unless he made love to her again very soon his frustration would be intolerable. He almost laughed at himself–but not quite. He really had no idea of when he first began to want her so much. Conscious desire had overtaken him before he had realised how or when it had originally occurred. Could it be that he had been too preoccupied to realise what was happening to him? Surely a positive physical emotion could not go undetected, yet there seemed no other explanation for his lack of premeditation. He thought of touching her again and to his embarrassment found he was about to have an erection. Desperately he tore his thoughts away from the physical, wondering where on earth he had got to in the present conversation. He suddenly realised that he was being determinedly addressed and he focused on the bucolic features of a large, heavily moustached middle-aged man whom he quite failed to associate as a relative of any child in the school. The man’s eyes were fixed on Storm, who hoped that his expression had not been too blank in face of this stern regard. The man seemed to have hair sprouting from anywhere it could take root; the tiny black quills ran generously over his hands and there were even short tufts appearing from his ears. Where his face was not hairy it was very red, whilst his wife stood large and pale, too heavily made up with some kind of mongoose fur draped around her neck. Whilst her husband boomed she gazed steadily at Storm, seeming to encompass him all in one stare. For a moment he wondered if she would begin to gaze horrified at his fly buttons if he really went on the jack. His mind conjured with various interesting possibilities; one of which involved the police arriving during his closing speech that evening to arrest him for indecency whilst the large pale woman, pointing at his trousers, belaboured him with an umbrella and shouted for justice. Once again he tried to concentrate on her explosive husband, whilst around him, other parents either nodded humbly or attempted to break into the intensive harangue.

  ‘What I like about you–and this place–and everything about it, Mr. Langham-Green, is that you don’t monkey about,’ the man was booming reflectively. In his present mood Storm almost raised his eyebrows. ‘None of this bloody psycho hanky-panky–lot of witch doctors, that lot. You really are damn straightforward. Lot of commonsense applied. I can see that all right. Mark you, it was my wife who persuaded me–you can thank Betty for all that. I was absolutely set against taking him away from Sevenoaks–no reason for it, I told her. He’s a regular little milk-sop and he’s got to learn to muck in with the others.’

  Storm gazed back attentively whilst his mind raced ahead to the evening. God, it was going to be marvellous–they’d have hours together–

  ‘But as usual she won.’ He wrapped a large arm around his wife’s expansive torso. She was wearing lavender blue and great wafts of attar of roses made Storm wince. He scratched at his beard savagely–how long was he going to endure this?

  ‘Anyway, I was still sceptical and I must confess even after I’d met you I said to Bet on the way home, “Funny place but that chap’s all right–a man’s man I can talk to and there’s no damned hedging.” ’Course, I still had me doubts, but certainly now he’s been here two years he seems to have made friends. And he’s a little devil in the holidays, you know–healthy sign that–and it’s always been a case of never getting a word out of him before he came here. Got one good friend–chap called Adrian–been to our place once or twice in the holidays. Got his head screwed on all right, that boy, plenty of common-sense. Knows what he wants and goes
right out to get it–like me–I’ve always done that–gone right out to it and brought it back–only way–Wish Eric had been more like me. Still, there’s hope for him yet here, I reckon.’

  Storm felt that whatever Eric’s father had said before to Bet about the headmaster of Exeter Court, which was obviously quite a lot, was unlikely to exceed his own low opinion of his son. Storm felt sorry for Eric–but that was as far as he could go.

  The gym display was over and at the same moment the rain stopped. There was a burst of disjointed clapping. Laura, perspiring freely, marched her lads off the field, the backs of her legs caked with mud. Even the hardiest of her new admirers were a little disconcerted at the sight of her mud-splashed legs and red knee-caps. Storm, immersed in animated small talk, led his group towards the school whilst the others followed strung out in twos or threes. There were plenty of clouds left and the rag sun seemed at any moment about to be eliminated by their shadow. The school looked rather bleak and in need of a coat of paint from the back, and Storm wished that he had been better able to conceal a large outside lavatory that normally flooded at the least shower. He could see the water seeping under the door and hoped that none of the parents would be tempted either to use or inspect it. Even now he could see a large oily puddle creeping over the concrete just outside it, and was alarmed to see several boys come splashing out, kicking at the water happily. Casually he steered his group of parents over to the other side of the house, waving at those behind to follow. Demurely they went with him, gazing at him every now and then with a mixture of admiration and suspicion. Sheepishly they filed in and he managed to catch Meg’s eyes as she stood over a meccano model–he held them for a moment and then came in and closed the door. They avoided each other’s glance for the next ten minutes, and then with a muttered excuse he disappeared back to his study for an escapist five minutes. God, he was lucky, he thought, as he settled into an armchair. In a moment he rose–I must be slipping, he thought–and went out and slammed the door. He was striding briskly back to the gathering when he almost stopped as he realised how much in love he was. What a fool I am, he thought–and felt like bursting into loud, raucous song.

  Casey and Lettie scrambled happily over the rocks. She was considerably hampered by the voluminous tweeds that threatened to dislodge her from the precarious footholds she had procured amidst the miniature terrain that shone, lime green, around her. She felt alien amidst this riot of liveliness, but undeterred she struggled after him. He was yards ahead of her now–halfway towards the tide-line that was a shadow in the hazy afternoon light. Lettie sighed and sat down on a slippery, limpet-strewn rock. She felt the damp sink into the back of her dress–normally she fussed over damage to her clothes but now she was not thinking about it. She felt superficially content with the company of the little boy on the beach. There was very little that was worth doing now. Perhaps this was the only thing that was sufficient–a compatibility with the unidentified rather than the persistent self-control that had become so difficult to sustain. The mellow four o’clock light softened the harsh surround, imbuing the pools and the smooth chalk with a mobile texture that eased the continual fret that had blemished her ability to condone normality or control her own disregarded feelings. But her thoughts incessantly turned to Storm, even out here, and with a shock she realised that this must be the first time that she had left him when he might need her. She had walked out of it–duties, loyalty, the lot–and now she was sitting here like a bleached out old washerwoman, curling her bony toes in the warm balm of the sun-raked pool. He would never notice that she was gone unless she was required to answer some trivial mundanity or be dispatched on some errand. But if she had even been tempted to do this before the very inability to be away from him when she might have been useful would have been too hard to bear. Lettie wanted her usefulness noted and her merits acclaimed–by him though, and no one else. If he praised her for a moment she would glow with the immediate radiance of the loved. Yet she would be overpoweringly nervous after the hard-fought compliment, and she would stutter and stare so benightedly at him when he thanked her that it made him uncomfortable–and hesitant to repeat it–particularly never to show any emotion to her because her attitude was so unbelievably strange. He was fond of her but unlikely to think of her in anything but ‘good old Lettie’ terms–brotherly chafing and an expectancy of fulfilled, unthanked duty which was only expected because it had always been there–socially consistent and superficially undemanding.

  When Casey noticed that she was sitting down he came back hesitantly to see if she was all right. It was odd that this remote adult seemed so anxious to share his company. Disconcerted, he didn’t know what to do. Her attention, though, seemed diverted and he assumed that perhaps she was going to sit and watch him. So he came back, anxious to clarify the position, slipping and sliding from one rock to another, until he reached her side, panting and breathless. She hardly seemed conscious of his presence as he stood beside her, and after a while he said primly:

  ‘What would you like to do?’

  She looked at him, trying to drag her thoughts away from their dangerous proximities. She had no idea what she wanted to do–what on earth did you do on beaches? She looked vaguely around and her glance took in the shimmering vista of the damp heat that threatened either to enclose her too tightly or to soak her too suddenly. There hardly seemed any relief from the skittish breeze that was obvious only from the rippling pools around her.

  ‘Let’s go and look at the pier,’ she said in as casual voice as she could muster, unwilling to introduce formality into his apparent unselfconsciousness with her.

  ‘O.K.’ And he went ahead a little, feeling a new sense of importance as he guided this awkward, angular woman over the undulating shore. Neither of them spoke as they walked towards the pier.

  Casey, dressed in the full regalia of an Admiral of the Fleet, was riding the Seahorse, conveniently tamed and harnessed, in a driving wind towards the pier, on which stood Storm, trapped and helplessly watching the flounced girders buckle beneath him as the structure slowly, and with frightening deliberation, began to collapse into the sea. The rending of the girders and the shrill scream of steel clashing upon steel began to intensify and he gently dug his heels into the Seahorse’s scales and urged his steed forward. Unlike a dream, the beast obligingly surged forward, sending a trail of foam to its side and a long, untrammelled wake to its back. This was a favourite game and the climax came when the weak, scholarly figure was rescued from the crumbling pier by leaping audaciously from the topmost edifice and coming tumbling down to land neatly near Casey and his Seahorse. He was then hauled on to the scaly, slippery back and they turned towards the shore. They were followed by the battered tug boat that had formed an admiring audience to the rescue–and peering from her nautical disguise the unsuspecting Lettie acted as a prop to the drama around her. Ineffective, admiring, the tug boat followed the hero of the hour to the beach, where Storm was set down, shaken but eternally grateful, on the firm land that he thought he would never see again. Far out to sea the pier crashed into the surf, its grotesque adornment disappearing in a cloud of spray, far beneath the surface.

  Unconscious of the role she had played, Lettie slowly followed the day-dreaming Casey, looking about her at the hard core elements that were stable, never-changing and gloriously identifiable. She wanted to stay here for a long time because it was only in this atmosphere of prepared expectancy that she could forget misuse, forget Storm and watch the gulls wheeling over the giant coronet on the rusting roof of the ungainly pavilion.

  Meg was looking forward. Not particularly far–only to the evening and Storm. She had no preconceptions as to its outcome–in fact the anticipation of the unknown was particularly exciting. Where he would take her or what he would do with her were unknown, exciting elements that began to wind her up to a state of excitement that she had either forgotten–or never known.

  ‘Why–it’s Mrs. Lisbeach, isn’t it? How very nice to see you
. Have you seen what your son’s been up to with that clay modelling over there? Sorry I can’t budge but I’m meant to be supervising all this. There he is–look–over there with Jimmy Niss–they’re great friends now, you know. So nice to see you again. Let’s have a get-together before you go, shall we? Yes–any time–do let’s–bye-bye–’

  The room was alive with self-conscious activity. Dies were cast, sandpaper scratched viciously at wood, model engines hummed, plasticine was pulled and pummelled, model planes were balsa trimmed, meccano grew into astute engineering constructions, a battered clockwork train rattled against a lovingly painted toytown backcloth of sleepy villages and smoky towns, canvasses were strewn with homely, stumpy people and objects garishly doll-like in oil and poster paint, hammers beat a riotous crescendo on wayward nails, saws rasped, lathes whirred and a chisel struck iron cold, setting Meg’s teeth on edge. She watched the pre-arranged business with amusement. These activities intensified towards Parents’ Day, ending in an extravert enrapture with projects that, in the main, would be discarded the next day. She watched their preoccupation with amusement; how much happier they would be fighting in the playground, playing Kick the Can in the laurel-shrouded drive or discussing the mysterious sect they seemed so interested in recently.