THE SPARROW

by MARY HOCKING

  ‘Is that you, Maynard?’

  Mr. Maynard, who must have been coming across the path from Apsley Crescent, answered. The voices merged and then receded. Mr. Rudedge said:

  ‘What the devil are they doing?’

  Mr. Harris, who was now slouched forward so that he looked as though he might fall off the table at any moment, muttered:

  ‘Maynard wanted to have a look at the boiler. Perhaps . . .’

  He pushed his hands up to his face again and began to pat his cheeks. He was mumbling:

  ‘I don’t know. Oh dear, I really don’t know at all . . .’

  Mr. Rutledge turned back from the window and went to the opposite side of the room where a few chairs were stacked. He put five chairs round the table and counted them; then he paused, looking down at the fifth chair. There was a puffy vein standing out on one side of his face and his mouth was shut so tight that the lips had disappeared altogether. He was still there, glaring at the chair, when Uncle Ralph’s voice was heard again. Mr. Harris said:

  ‘If I were you I shouldn’t . . .’

  As Uncle Ralph came through the door, Mr. Rutledge said:

  ‘Where’s Wilson?’

  Uncle Ralph looked startled.

  ‘I thought he would be here by now.’

  Mr. Rutledge leant forward, his hands gripping the sides of the table. He was staring at Uncle Ralph. Mr. Harris had turned away and was shuffling through the pages of a hymn book. His face was pink and shining. Mr. Rutledge said:

  ‘Well, he isn’t here. And that’s a pity because there are one or two things I want to ask him.’

  Mr. Maynard raised his eyebrows.

  ‘We have all the evening, my dear fellow.’

  He made a movement towards a chair, then stopped with his hand on the back-rest, and glanced from Mr. Rutledge to Uncle Ralph.

  ‘Is something the matter?’

  Uncle Ralph gave an uncertain smile.

  ‘Not that I know . . .’

  ‘Don’t you, Vicar? Don’t you know?’

  Mr. Rutledge leant further forward, his chin thrust out. He looked as though he intended to say something else; then there was the sound of footsteps outside and he stopped. The footsteps came on, rather slowly. As the door opened, Mr. Rutledge said to Uncle Ralph:

  ‘We’ll ask him then, shall we?’

  Mr. Wilson came in. Sarah stared at him, willing him to go away again; just for a moment she thought she was going to be successful because he hesitated, looking at the men who formed a half-circle round him. Then he turned and shut the door, his movements rather clumsy. He wiped the palm of his hand down the side of his trousers and began to apologize for being late. Mr. Rutledge waited until Mr. Wilson’s voice trailed away. Then:

  ‘You were discharged from prison in January, weren’t you?’

  He rapped the question out and Mr. Wilson answered: ‘Yes, sir,’ as though he were on parade and then drew his breath in sharply. Colour came and went in his face. Uncle Ralph, who had his back to Sarah, said:

  ‘This is unforgivable.’

  Mr. Rutledge took no notice. He said, still staring at Mr. Wilson:

  ‘What was the charge?’

  ‘Grievous bodily harm.’

  Mr. Wilson was not looking at the others now, but down at the table. He reminded Sarah of someone being made to stand out in the front of the class for punishment. Uncle Ralph moved towards Mr. Rutledge. Sarah was still unable to see his face, but the unsteadiness of his voice was enough to frighten her.

  ‘Couldn’t you have come to me about this?’

  ‘Couldn’t you have spoken to me about it, Vicar? Right at the beginning?’ Mr. Rutledge seemed to let go of breath that had been bottled up within him for some time and words rattled out. ‘If you had had any respect for me as your warden, isn’t that what you would have done? Instead you stood by while I made a damn fool of myself; you let me push him into the youth club, knowing that he was the last person for the job, knowing the kind of influence he would be. People came and made complaints to me, told me about things that were supposed to be going on; people who trusted my judgement. I brushed them aside because I believed the things you had told me about him—served in the navy, recommended for a commission; the one thing you neglected to tell me about was the thuggery.’

  ‘That’s an inhuman thing to say!’ Uncle Ralph’s voice stabbed at Sarah as though a nerve had been touched. ‘A first offender . . .’

  ‘They all start as first offenders.’

  ‘You know nothing about the circumstances.’

  Mr. Maynard came forward and took Mr. Rutledge by the elbow.

  ‘I really think we should talk this over quietly. And not leave this young man standing while . . .’

  ‘I know about the circumstances all right.’ Mr. Rutledge pulled away from Mr. Maynard, ‘Spencer told me—read it up in a paper or something. He beat up a kid in a café—kid had to go to hospital afterwards.’

  ‘That’s not true!’ Uncle Ralph sounded desperate but Mr. Wilson just stood there taking no notice, looking down at the table.

  ‘It is true!’ Mr. Rutledge brought his fist down on the table and even Mr. Wilson winced. ‘And I know about more recent attacks, too.

  Mr. Harris gave a little whinnying noise.

  ‘Oh Stanley, for goodness’ sake!’

  ‘There have been no recent attacks,’ Uncle Ralph protested.

  ‘I’d like to hear that from your niece Jill.’

  They all looked at Mr. Wilson. He closed his eyes. He seemed to have gone limp, as though all the air had been let out of him. Mr. Rutledge went up close to him.

  ‘Well?’

  Mr. Wilson kept his eyes closed and pleated up his lips tight. His face had a blank look as though the real Mr. Wilson had gone away somewhere. Mr. Rutledge did not like that. He hit Mr. Wilson across the face so hard that it jerked his head to one side.

  ‘I’ll have your attention, young man.’

  Mr. Maynard put his hand on Mr. Rutledge’s arm.

  ‘Enough of that.’

  There were red marks on Mr. Wilson’s face and a little blood on his mouth. Mr. Rutledge looked rather ashamed, but he began to shout all the louder.

  ‘Do you deny that you attacked Jill Hunter in the church hall after one of the youth club meetings?’

  Mr. Wilson spoke slowly, his lips stiff.

  ‘I didn’t attack her.’

  Mr. Maynard was standing very erect with his hands behind his back; his lower lip was thrust slightly forward and he looked severely at Mr. Wilson. Mr. Harris was looking at the floor and jingling the money in his pockets again. Mr. Rutledge went on:

  ‘Now be careful. There was a witness present, although you didn’t know it.’

  Mr. Wilson turned his head away; his eyes wandered along the wall looking for a way of escape, but without much hope.

  ‘You didn’t touch her?’ Mr. Rutledge pressed. ‘Is that what you are saying?’

  Mr. Wilson did not answer, but he turned his head and examined the other wall.

  ‘Well, did you?’

  Mr. Wilson licked a speck of blood from his lips.

  ‘Maybe I touched her.’

  ‘You touched her but you didn’t attack her! What kind of talk is that? Are you trying to make out it was with her consent?’

  ‘No . . . No, I’m not saying that . . . But . . .’

  Mr. Wilson had his back against the wall now. The child didn’t like to look at him; it made her feel sick to see the way his head writhed from side to side and his lips shook so that he didn’t seem able to control his words. Why didn’t Uncle Ralph make Mr. Rutledge stop? She looked at Uncle Ralph. He was standing at the top of the table and she could see his face now. He was staring at Mr. Wilson and he was not angry like Mr. Rutledge, or severe like Mr. Maynard, or embarrassed like Mr. Harris. He was sorry for Mr. Wilson. Or, at least . . . There had never been anything stronger than ‘sorry’ in Sarah’s experience of feeling for another person, bu
t this time she knew it was not enough. The child saw that her Uncle Ralph’s face had lost its brightness; it was grey, hollowed with shadow beneath the eyes, bleached about the mouth; the eyes were dark and dull. His body was stiff, but his hands hung forward with the palms spread out as though he wanted to go to Mr. Wilson but was unable to move. It seemed to the child that her uncle was growing old and sick before her eyes. Sarah felt a crushing-pain in her chest that was beyond bearing.

  Mr. Rutledge put his hand under Mr. Wilson’s chin and made Mr. Wilson look at him.

  ‘Did you or did you not?’

  Mr. Wilson cried out:

  ‘All right! I . . .’

  Sarah picked up the lamp and threw it at Mr. Rutledge. Mr. Rutledge staggered back with his arms to his face; there was a burst of flame and a lot of shouting. Sarah ran to the door and out into the cool evening air.

  IV

  ‘You think the little girl was frightened, because she had hurt you and so she ran away?’

  The sergeant looked round the room impassively as he spoke; he noted the burnt patch on the wall, the scorched baize table cloth with which the blaze had been stamped out, the complete absence of eyebrow which gave to Rutledge’s face an expression of permanent incredulity.

  ‘We had forgotten she was there,’ the vicar muttered.

  The sergeant, a family man, frowned and licked the tip of his pencil.

  ‘And then Harris lost his head and rushed into the street bellowing: “Fire, fire!” Probably scared the wits out of the child.’ Rutledge dabbed at his blackened face with a handkerchief. ‘Oh dear, oh dear! The poor lassie. Someone has a lot to answer for.’

  It was a strange thing to say, the sergeant thought. But then something strange had been going on; they were all so subdued and didn’t seem to be able to look at one another.

  There were footsteps outside and Pym came in; he was off-duty and had come to join the search. He and the sergeant acknowledged one another rather awkwardly, as though Pym by virtue of his church membership had got himself mixed up in a dubious enterprise.

  ‘No bones broken?’ Pym asked the vicar.

  The vicar didn’t seem to hear and it was Mr. Maynard who replied:

  ‘No. Fortunately the lamp only caught Rutledge on the side of the head and then burst into flames when it hit the wall behind him. We managed to get it out quite quickly.’

  The vicar said: ‘Sarah!’ in a dazed voice.

  ‘We’ll find her soon enough, don’t you worry,’ Pym assured him comfortably. ‘She’s probably hiding in someone’s back garden.’

  The sergeant shut his notebook with a snap.

  ‘Even so, she’ll have had a nasty scare.’

  They went out into the churchyard. There was already a crowd at the church gate; several scouts, a few older people, a couple of photographers, firemen standing about with nothing to do, and Sukie Price on a borrowed bike.

  ‘We’ve come to look for Sarah,’ Sukie said.

  Sarah was very popular suddenly.

  Spencer had just left his cottage and was limping across the road. Wilson said tentatively to the vicar:

  ‘I don’t know whether we want Spencer?’

  The vicar was talking to Mr. Maynard and he did not hear. A voice behind Wilson said:

  ‘Don’t worry about Spencer.’

  It was Pym. He gave Wilson a wink and went across to talk for a few moments to two plainclothes men.

  As the various groups moved off, the two plainclothes men came up one on either side of Spencer. The first one said:

  ‘I should stay here if I were you. We don’t want so many people milling around.’

  He spoke pleasantly, just like a B.B.C. policeman. Spencer wondered how far the sweet reasonableness would stretch. He answered obstinately:

  ‘I want to help search for the little girl.’

  ‘There’s been a lot of burglaries around here lately,’ the other man said. ‘If you’re found wandering about the streets tonight, I wouldn’t be surprised if you were picked up for something.’

  Spencer turned and went back to his cottage.

  Shortly after the crowd round the church had cleared away, leaving one solitary constable searching among the gravestones, a rather battered grey car drew up outside the vicarage and a man got out. He stood watching the elephantine manreuvres of the constable, his eyes sharp and critical. After a few moments, he called out:

  ‘I should think you’ve scared ‘em as far as Hammersmith Broadway by now.’

  The constable, pink in the face, came clumping down the path.

  ‘When I want any smart talk . . .’

  He stopped, examining the card the man held out to him. He modulated his tone.

  ‘The vicar’s niece has run away, sir.’

  ‘Has she?’ The man looked towards the vicarage. ‘I was just about to call on the vicar. But it hardly seems the time.’

  ‘There’s no one in just now, sir. Someone went to fetch his wife, though. I expect she’ll be back soon.’

  The man turned and locked the door of his car.

  ‘I’ll join in the search in the meantime,’ he told the unenthusiastic constable. ‘Where do you suggest we begin?’

  Sarah had a very long start on the searchers. While they made their way laboriously in and out of gardens and along the quiet streets away from the main road. Sarah was threading her way through the jostling Saturday-night crowds outside Shepherd’s Bush Empire. The noise and speed of it all rather overwhelmed her and she felt a guilty excitement as she watched the boys and girls strutting outside the cinema or huddled on high stools in the milk bars. They belonged to the world of the bad people in the television serials she was not supposed to watch; and although at the moment there was nothing particularly sinister about their actions, the loud blare of their laughter had a quality that was itself frightening. Across the road from the Empire it was different. Garages and a few closed shops set far back from the road; not so many people. As the tension slackened, she began to notice that her legs were rubbery again and she didn’t have much breath. She felt confused and she wondered if she would ever complete the journey. She did not know the way, but she could follow the bus route and then when she thought she was nearly there she would ask a policeman.

  She had turned into a darker road now with terraced houses on either side. The houses were old and the paintwork was dingy; some of them were used for offices and there were no lights in them; in the others she saw a few people moving about, mostly coloured, and once she had a glimpse of a dentist’s chair. She came to a row of shops and a public house with one or two men standing outside and a few children playing around. The road twisted and turned ahead; she felt as if she had gone a very long way, but a road sign said ‘Borough of Hammersmith’. Her legs could hardly carry her now. She went under a railway arch. Beyond there were some dark, sooty cottages opening right on to the street, a tobacconist’s shop with a man chatting to a woman with her hair done up in a turban and a cigarette drooping out of her mouth. Sarah was beginning to cry. There was a greengrocer’s shop with a few empty crates outside it and cabbage leaves trailing on to the pavement. She sat down on one of the crates. A man and a woman standing at a bus stop looked at her and the woman said:

  ‘I think that little girl is lost.’

  The man shrugged his shoulders.

  ‘I don’t know. She probably lives above the shop and they won’t let her in.’

  The woman shook her head.

  ‘She’s too nicely dressed.’

  ‘There’s a cop shop across the road,’ the man said irritably, ‘Make them do a bit of work.’

  The woman crossed the road and the bus came and went and the man glared at Sarah. After a time the woman came back with a constable who was muttering about having just come off duty. He squatted down in front of Sarah.

  ‘Where do you live?’

  She looked at him. He had small, pink eyes that were not friendly, but she had always been told that if she was
lost or in trouble on her own she should go to a policeman. The inference was that he would work miracles. She decided, in spite of the pink eyes, to see what he could do.

  ‘I live at 44 A Hambledon Mansions, Chelsea,’ she told him.

  He did work miracles. He stopped a car which had just come out of the police station yard. Sarah heard the driver say something about reporting to the sergeant, but her constable didn’t want to do that because he was in a hurry. In two minutes, Sarah was on the way in the police car. Twenty minutes later the same police car was on its way back with two red-faced policemen in the front and Jill and Sarah in the back.

  After all, Sarah thought as the car turned into the Uxbridge Road, it was Jill who had brought Mr. Wilson to the house in the first place. It was only fair, now that he had caused so much trouble, that she should take him away again.

  Chapter Twelve

  I

  Sarah was alone at last. There was a lot of coming and going downstairs; men’s voices, even occasional laughter. It was all as remote and aimless as a radio left on in an empty house. A night- light burnt on the chest of drawers but its light seemed only to emphasize the darkness. The glass of milk on the bedside table was untouched and already a thin, wrinkled skin was forming on top of it. Once or twice there were sounds from the street and Sarah knelt up in bed listening. But Uncle Ralph did not come and after a while she got out of bed and went along to the lavatory to throw away the milk which had a heavy, sweetish smell which made her feel sick. There were several people in the hall and as she came back she crept down a few stairs to the half-landing. There was a cold draught of air from the open door. Two policemen in uniform were being shown out by Aunt Myra; one of them was saying: ‘I know what it’s like, I’ve got three of my own.’ A man in a dark-grey suit seemed to have got left behind. When the others had gone. Aunt Myra took him into the sitting-room.