That Glimpse of Truth

by David Miller

  He would ask his mother to open the trunk after supper. It was full of his father’s belongings and they had a sort of malign aura about them. Whenever he remembered them, he got the sinking feeling in the Bovril advertisement, and he remembered the time when his mother’s sweet, woeful voice told him that his father had gone on leave to Cyprus with a Greek lady. After that, he had heard her crying once or twice, when he was in a different room.

  He took his fishing bag into the kitchen. You could hear the piano thumping away, just beyond the thin wall. He opened the fishing bag and let out a sharp exciting gust of wet rubber and fish slime. He took out his two fish and then turned the bag inside out and left it under a running tap. The two perch looked less interesting in death, the prickly fins folded down and the dark stripes fading. He got out a rusty kitchen knife and ripped them open from the vent upwards and pulled out their insides. There was no sinking feeling anymore as he did this, which proved you could train yourself to do anything, like becoming a vet or a medical student. He washed out the cleaned fish, rubbed salt into them and put them on a white plate in the larder; he would have them for breakfast tomorrow.

  When his mother had stopped playing, he went through to the sitting room.

  “There he is! How long have you been in? Come and kiss Mummy.”

  Godfrey Weare was in uniform, but kept a somewhat odd appearance. His jacket stuck out over his large behind, and his hair stuck out where it had been sorely clipped.

  “Hullo, Andrew old man.”

  “Hullo.” He had no way of addressing Godfrey Weare at all. If he had been obliged to shout to him in the street, he would have had to shout “I say.”

  “Did you catch anything? He’s been on the Peverills’ estate, Braxby Park.”

  “It’s a super lake. I caught three perch and I gave one to Jeremy, who caught one. We met a man who said there was a giant pike in the lake.” He decided it would be embarrassing to admit having tea up at the house.

  At supper he asked: “Can I open the big trunk in the shed?”

  His mother looked agitated. “What do you want to do that for? They’re not your things.”

  He spoke with his mouth full. “Sea tackle. It’d do for pike.”

  His mother said: “I think we had better discuss this another time. Some more ham, Godfrey?”

  “I need it. I need it after supper.”

  “That’s enough.” She was trembling, obviously, enraged at him.

  Godfrey Weare caught his eye and winked. It was an attempt at ingratiation; Andrew despised him for doing this when he could have no idea what the dispute was about.

  IV

  On the second day, they caught nothing at all. The weather had grown much warmer; dragonflies hovered and made sudden turns above the water lilies. Halfway through the afternoon, Jeremy announced that he was returning home early because he had relations coming to tea. Andrew felt let down; he wondered if this excuse were true, or whether it marked the beginning of a desertion. He decided to stay on alone.

  He fished with the lighter of his two rods off the jetty. The lake water was dark, reflecting the massed green leaves of summer. He watched two dragonflies in a mating dance settle on his float.

  Then, among all the other sounds, he heard a long way off something approaching through the undergrowth: there was a crash of heavy footsteps, followed by sharp breathing. He wondered whether to hide and watch, but decided to hold his ground as the footsteps drew nearer, crashing on dry foliage and twigs.

  The girl came out on to the path by the jetty. She was dark in the face, and there were bits of greenery stuck to her long plaits.

  “I took a shortcut. I thought I wasn’t going to make it.”

  “Are you running away?” he asked.

  This seemed to him a feasible form of activity. From some boarding schools people did it all the time, though rarely from Chalgrove Park, which had a high reputation.

  “No, not really. I just had to get away from them for a bit. Gosh, I’m thirsty. Have you got anything to drink? I could drink the lake.”

  “I’ve got some Tizer.”

  He fished out the bottle and undid it. She drank straight from the bottle without wiping it, and this impressed him a good deal. He noticed she was wearing the same blouse and herringbone tweed skirt as the first time they had met. He thought it was odd to wear school clothes in the summer holidays, especially for a girl.

  She handed back the bottle. “That was fine. Where’s Jeremy got to?”

  “He had to go back. His aunts were coming to tea.” He blushed. “I suppose I shouldn’t be here alone, actually.”

  “Don’t worry. Nobody ever comes here.” She inspected him in silence for a moment. He thought she was going to attack him for fishing, which she had seemed to disapprove of. Instead she asked him: “Were you shy up at the house the other day?”

  “Not really.”

  “You looked shy. You looked as though you’d never been anywhere like that before, or met anybody like them.” He turned away to pull in his line and examine the bait. Nothing had touched it yet.

  “Uncle Maurice is a bit peculiar. Did you notice?”

  “Well, I suppose so.”

  “Suppose so? You don’t know much, do you?”

  He was silent, not knowing whether to like her or to hate her. The pigtails certainly fascinated him; they were secured at the ends with twisted rubber bands, and had been so tightly plaited that bits of hair seemed to have broken under protest. She tossed them around her shoulders with confidence, but somehow this seemed the only thing she was confident about. Liking her completely would be like succumbing to a bully at school – one of those bullies who tried to frighten you because they themselves were frightened. Outram, for instance, a big bland boy with smooth, almost concave, knees. Rowena had a distinct look of Outram.

  “My grandmother’s terribly rich, did you know?”

  “No, I didn’t.”

  “Well, she is. That’s why she thinks she’s perfect. Lots of rich old women get like that, you know. Even if their husbands leave them or shoot themselves in the gunroom or die of drink, they go on thinking themselves perfect. She’s like that.”

  He did not know what to make of this, except to think that she must have heard it from somebody grown-up.

  Quite close by, a musical voice shouted: “Cooee! Cooee!”

  “Don’t worry. It’s only Nurse Partridge. I ran away from her.”

  “Why do you have to have a nurse?”

  “She’s been here since I got ill at school. She’s Australian. My parents employ her,” she added with some grandeur. “They can afford it, you see.”

  Without turning his head, he began to watch the girl cautiously. He had hoped to be alone when Jeremy left, and here she was extremely close to him, with her large tweed behind planted on the bank beside him and her regulation shoes staring at him with the bright eyeholes of the laces. She was as close as Outram was when he sneaked up behind you and pinched the chilblains on your ears with stamp tweezers. Andrew imagined pulling her pigtails until she would weaken and cry out and honor him.

  “Cooee!”

  The nurse’s voice, raised in forced cheerfulness, re-echoed among the sandstone rocks: if she came any nearer, there was risk of frightening the fish. A silence followed. The nurse must have been approaching along one of the paths that twisted downhill through the rhododendrons.

  “I’d better go,” Rowena said. “Will you come here again?”

  “I’d like to come every day but it depends on Jeremy.”

  “Honestly, no one ever comes down here. You can get in without going near the house. There’s a gap in the wall on the main road. See you tomorrow, then.”

  V

  He was surprised that he missed her when she had gone. It was as though nothing would be quite as exciting and interesting as before. Then he saw that his float had moved a long way over towards the water lilies. He pulled in the line and found a small roach deeply hooked. He d
id not unhook it, but left it swimming in the clear water under the jetty. Back on the bank, he drew his father’s sea rod out of its canvas case.

  Dusk was approaching and small fish began to flip through the black surface of the lake. Andrew felt gloomy and guilty and treacherous at what he was doing. Yesterday he had stood by while his mother had unlocked the big trunk. There was a strong smell of mothballs and pipe tobacco. His father’s remaining possessions included a winter overcoat, a porkpie hat with a salmon fly in it, a pair of brogues, some sports jackets and gray flannel bags. When she saw them, his mother made a little sharp sobbing noise, as though she had cut her finger. She pointed to three tin boxes at one end of the trunk.

  “Those are the things you want, aren’t they? Hurry up and get them out.”

  His mother held her face averted. When he had collected the boxes, she smoothed out the clothes again and slammed the lid of the trunk shut. He wanted to comfort her but she pulled herself away.

  “No, don’t touch me. You’ve no idea of what you’re making me do.”

  He had an apprehensive feeling as he thought of the world of childhood closeness dying out, of there being nobody he could touch anymore. He already knew that he was physically unattractive, because people didn’t much like him leaning on them at school. The naval master, who would often tickle Jeremy Cathcart to the verge of asphyxiation, usually pushed Andrew away. But his mother’s coldness would be temporary; she was too changeable and excitable to stay in one mood for long. She would get up from the piano and dance him around the room, saying: “You haven’t a spark of rhythm in your body. Watch me.” He would trample on her feet and they’d collapse on the settee together, weak with laughter, until she’d suddenly stare closely at his face and say: “Why are you so ugly? I can’t imagine where you came from.”

  He threaded the flax line through the four white porcelain rings on the sea rod, and knotted on the weighted wire trace with a single triangle hook. Then he pulled out the roach, unhooked it and laid it on the still-warm boards of the jetty. He slipped one barbed point of the triangle under the back fin and felt the slight crunch of the hook entering living flesh. The little fish wriggled and then lay still gasping, trying to recover. He let it swim around in the water and it seemed to accept its fate.

  He pulled several yards of line off the reel and let them fall at his feet. Then he cast out, releasing the line as the live bait swung out in front of him, so that it hit the black water about fifteen yards out. The slack line whipped through into the fading rings of water until none of it was left and the reel began ticking, faster and faster. He was not sure what was happening, except that he could see the line cutting through the surface towards the water lilies and knew he had stop it. He put his hand on the reel and it was like having the whole lake moving. The reel jerked down and he held on in panic. The line snapped and sprang back in a tangle.

  A great wave of loss rose up and hit him. He dropped the rod, and back on the bank he threw himself down with his hands on his crotch, moaning and jeering at himself and shouting all the bad words he knew.

  It took him about five minutes to recover. He had no more live bait or tackle, it was growing dark and he knew he would have to go home. But he kept staring at the lake, the reed beds and the water lilies, as though by force of will he could bring the big pike out of the water. He packed up the rods and put the bag over his shoulder. Then, as he looked once more at the lake, a gray shape on the bank, which his eyes must have raced across again and again, turned into the figure of a man standing quite still, watching him.

  His insides leaped upwards. Fear was confused with the sense that he had been watched making a fool of himself.

  “Boy! Boy!” the figure called out to him. “Come here! Don’t be frightened.”

  Andrew was already on the cart track that led up through the woods. He ran without stopping until he arrived at the bicycle in the stable yard. For the first time he looked back: nobody was following him.

  He strapped the two rods to the bar of the bicycle. He was able to free-wheel most of the way down the long drive; between the big gate posts he stopped to look at his watch, which showed eight o’clock. He had promised to be home by half past six. He switched on the bicycle lamp, which threw an uneasy circle of light on the cow parsley at the road’s edge, and seemed to make the surrounding darkness darker. When he set off, two cars approached him from behind: he thought he was being followed, but the cars roared off down the long straight road. Each time they passed his shadow leaped out and staggered down the long wall of the Braxby estate. By the lights from the second car, he saw the gap in the wall which Rowena had told him about. It had been roughly blocked off with a stack of dead thornbushes, but you could get through these fairly easily. Obviously the girl could be trusted about things like that.

  A third car was slow in passing. It seemed to pause about thirty yards behind him. When he turned to look at it he got the full glare of the headlights in his eyes. Somehow he convinced himself that this time he was being pursued by the man, whoever he was, who had been watching by the lake. He pedaled as hard as he could but the road began to go uphill and he sensed the car drawing nearer until it was beside him.

  Then suddenly, his mother’s voice was shouting: “Stop at once, you little fool.”

  He recognized the car as Group-Captain Weare’s Sunbeam. He swiveled the bicycle around so that the lamp shone in the car window at his mother’s white furious face and Godfrey Weare’s, concerned and keen. The moment he saw them he knew that no excuses would be worth making. For his own self-respect he had to sulk and say nothing.

  His mother got out and stood beside him. “Get in,” she said.

  “What about the bike?”

  There was a cottage not far off on the other side of the road. His mother wheeled the bicycle toward it. Andrew sat on the bench seat next to Group-Captain Weare, who fiddled around with his pipe and tobacco pouch. They were silent; his mother would be giving them the clue to how the scene was to be carried out.

  “I told them one of us would fetch it tomorrow.” She got in beside Andrew and when he brushed against her, she shrank away. “Don’t touch me,” she said. “You’ve upset me very much.”

  He moved closer to Godfrey Weare’s massive gray-flannel thigh. Neither of them was likely to speak while his mother was in a bad temper.

  However, she could not be silent for long. After about a mile she said: “I rang up Mrs. Carthcart and she told me Jeremy had been back since four o’clock. I felt such a fool.”

  They were approaching the village when she said: “She was most unfriendly, I thought.” While they were getting out of the car, she took his arm: “I don’t know why you want to chum up with that boy. They’re a lot of snobs if you ask me.”

  He pulled himself away, although his heart sank with pity for her and her obtuseness. How could she know that he had to proceed with immense caution in order to have any friends at all? People at school were pretty good at estimating just how much you were worth in the popularity stakes. The fact that Jeremy lived nearby had been a piece of God-given good luck.

  He refused anything to eat and went up to his bedroom.

  After a time his mother started to play the piano, and later the wireless was switched on to dance music from Radio Luxembourg. He heard the Sunbeam drive off at about ten o’clock. He felt starved, but going downstairs would be a defeat, and his mother knew very well how to turn honorable defeat into abject surrender. He lay back determined to punish himself and her by keeping awake as long as he could.

  He hoped his mother’s telephone call hadn’t spoiled things between him and Jeremy. Even though the girl had told him about the gap in the wall, he still needed Jeremy’s help in getting the key to the boat. If you hooked the pike from the shore, it would always head straight for the water lilies and break the line; with the boat there was a chance of keeping it out in the open water. Jeremy had as good as promised to get hold of the key.

  When the
last train had gone through, the village was quiet. Beyond it, the sleeping fields stretched out towards Braxby Park, five miles away, a place cut off from the rest of the world. When he thought of it, he imagined a special darkness in the air overhead, like a sepia photograph. At the bottom of the lake the great pike lay with the hook stinging in its jaw; it had to keep fanning its pectoral fins, otherwise it would rise slowly upward through the water. Up at the house, the girl was fast asleep; perhaps the Australian nurse had administered some broken-up pill, so that Rowena slept with her mouth open, her plump arms outside the white sheets. When he thought about her, he knew he was frightened of her and that he enjoyed his fear. But now she was a captive, guarded by the nurse, the peculiar uncle, and the hard old lady. Who was the man at nightfall at the edge of the lake? He might have been a keeper, or the gardener, or the butler from the house. By the time Andrew had got around to this, the evidence of dreams indicated that the man was Godfrey Weare, and the girl and his mother kept changing identities, and he himself was running through the rhododendrons from the unseen Australian nurse, so that he wet himself and people stared at him and told him he was completely impossible.

  VI

  Each taking one oar, they rowed out toward the open water. The sun was already high up, shining blurred through the treetops, and it would soon enter the empty patch of sky above the lake. Andrew knew that they had arrived too late and the expedition would probably fail. He had planned for today with passion but had forgotten to cross his fingers.

  After the previous day at the lake, he had fallen asleep in his clothes. He woke early and changed into pajamas before his mother called him. She was still angry with him, but three children were arriving for piano lessons and she could not give him much attention.