by Peter Benson
I stood at the counter, staring at a rack of guns. I fancied a Stanley Repeater. Three foot six of steel tube with a kick that might knock you into next week. A box of shells. I could load up, stalk the moor, shoot anything. With a fatal range of half a mile, a steady wind and hand, my eye, piercing the scene.
‘Young man?’
‘Me?’
‘You want cheque or cash for the creels?’
‘Cash.’
The shopkeepers wore army surplus pullovers, heavy boots, and made a lot of noise.
‘How much is that one?’ I said.
‘You got a licence?’
‘What for?’
‘A gun.’
‘No.’
‘Why not?’
‘I haven’t got a gun.’
It was £340, a great deal of money; could cause a great deal of trouble. I thought about it in a pub, and drank while the barman had a bean contest with the other customer.
‘Borlotti.’
‘Cannellini.’
‘Flagolet.’
‘Ful Medame.’
That’s Wellington, stranded in a sea of wind. I drove home. It was not easy to. Thursday. Half-day closing in every town. Faded baskets of flowers hanging in shop doorways. Trying to guess what would go wrong with the van, nursing it to Blackwood, sitting in the workshop with a cup of tea and the door closed. It opened.
‘Billy?’
‘What?’
‘Help me.’
My old man stood outside, the stick he had to use now had slipped from his hand.
‘Pass it back,’ he said. I put a chair under the window. ‘Sit down,’ I said, ‘you had a cup of tea?’
‘Yes.’
‘Want another?’
‘No.’
‘How’s the back?’
‘How’s it look? He like the creels?’
‘Suppose so.’
Dick lost Hector again. Chedzoy said he’d have to pay the cost of a new dog. I was asked to help.
‘You looked on West Moor?’
‘No.’
‘Come on!’
I rode pillion to Midelney, pushed the bike down a track and hid it in a wood. The first leaves were turning, greenfinch and blackbirds covered heavy sprays of blackberry, in the twilight an owl perched on a post, watched us walk by; the moon rose, Dick and Billy again. He asked after my old man, offered me a cigarette.
‘Billy?’
‘What?’
‘We find Hector, I’ll buy you a drink.’
West Moor buildings stood in the gloomy light, it started to rain, a line of cows moved across the fields to the shelter, I felt hollow, like my body had been emptied.
‘Dick?’
‘What?’
‘I hope we find him.’
I’d had such big ideas, now I walked in the rain with someone I’d ignored for someone less than understandable. But it had been my fault, all my life I wanted to hang onto anything that seemed to care; when I was at school I kept a rabbit, stolen by the milkman; when I was older I found a wounded rook, nursed it back to health, let it free, but it had grown to trust people, landed on a neighbour’s lawn, and their dog killed it.
‘I don’t care,’ I said.
‘What?’
‘Nothing.’
‘You’re talking to yourself.’
‘So what?’
‘That’s the first sign of madness.’
‘Not if there’s no one better to talk to.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘Sorry, Dick. I’m …’
‘I know.’
We looked in the buildings, disturbed the cattle, but Hector wasn’t there; we walked to Lower Burrow Farm, couldn’t find him, Dick said, ‘I don’t think I care anymore’, and took me to Jackson’s garage. In wet weather, the place was even more squalid; half empty, it was cold. Someone was stacking sacks of potatoes against the back wall, five or six buckets collected drips from the roof.
‘Jackson!’
‘Who is it?’
‘Dick!’
We drank the same green cider, smoked cigarettes; we didn’t say much. Summer had gone, it seemed winter had arrived already. I had banned all thought from my mind. I did not want to be reminded. I had thrown the memories away, I didn’t need them. You can only take so much. I had taken mine. I counted the nails in a floorboard, sat with Dick.
‘We’ve got a lot in common,’ I said.
‘Have we?’
‘Same age. We’ve lived here all our lives. Do you know what that means.’
‘No.’
‘We’ve real straw in our hair.’
‘Have we?’
‘Yes.’
‘We haven’t.’
‘Dick?’
‘What?’
‘What’s the furthest from home you’ve been?’ Dick looked at the floor while the rain came down, scratched his head.
‘Charmouth?’ he said, ‘that’s quite a long way.’
‘Thirty miles?’
‘Bristol. We went to Bristol.’
‘Fifty.’
‘And …’
‘Dick?’
‘What?’
‘We’re originals.’
‘Original what?’
‘Original non-originals.’
I drank so much I saw awful things. Every time I looked down my glass was full.
‘Dick?’
‘What?’
‘Why do you say “what” all the time?’
‘What?’
‘You said it again.’
‘What?’
‘What.’
Autumn, time of mellow fruitfulness; autumn, time of madness, sadness, tears and grief. I didn’t care. I didn’t think about her anymore. I’d worked it out. If it was to be a train in a couple of days from the last time I’d seen her, that would be tomorrow, Friday, half past two; she would leave forever, thinking any more would be too good for her.
‘Come on,’ I heard Dick say, ‘I’ll get you home. I was ill, saw brown shapes and faces looked down at me, a door opened, it was raining, a car in the road, movement, I woke up a little. Another voice said ‘Dick?’ Dick said, ‘What?’ It did not surprise me. It had come to this. I could not stand, I was put on the ground; it was cold.
‘Is that Billy?’
‘Yes.’
‘Is he all right?’
‘I think so.’
‘What happened.’
‘Jackson’s cider.’
‘Tell him; I didn’t mean what I said.’
‘What did you say?’
‘Just tell him, please?’
‘Billy!’ I got shook. I couldn’t move. I was crying. I had not realized I could cry so much. My tears mingled with the rain and ran into the corners of my mouth, I felt my body heave to take a breath, I turned my face away.
‘Billy! She says she didn’t mean it.’
‘Dick?’
‘What?’
‘Tell him I did love him, do love him, really. I really didn’t mean it the other way.’
‘Billy! She says she loved you …’
‘Loves you.’
‘Loves you. She didn’t mean it.’
‘Billy?’ I heard her say, ‘I’ve got to go now.’ I tucked my knees into my chest, reached for the edge of my coat and pulled it over them. I felt a bug crawl up my sleeve. It would not be warm there.
‘She says she’s going.’
‘Dick? Tell him what I said. You won’t forget.’
‘No.’
‘And look after him for me.’
‘Look after him?’
‘Yes. He’s fragile.’
‘Fragile?’
‘Yes.’
‘He’s not.’
‘Billy?’ she said to me. She crouched down so I could feel her breath on my cheek. It was warm and scented air, coming from her body, where my seed had withered and died.
‘Goodbye Billy.’
23
I felt ill on Friday. Friday
. I remember Friday. When I told my mother I was going to Taunton, she wanted to come, and sat in the van with a bag on her lap. She wanted a tin of Poultry Spice, a powder with the smell of licorice, fed to chickens in their usual mash, one teaspoon for every ten fowls; in cold weather a little more may be given. I told her I could get it but she insisted. I could not stop her. She sat in the van the first chance she got, to keep out of the rain, while I washed up. The old man was in the front room counting raindrops, poking at the fire, with a pile of geographical magazines and a bottle of beer.
‘You be all right?’ I said.
‘Get on! Don’t get back till late.’
‘I can’t promise.’
‘The quiet will be a change.’
I drove to Curry Rivel and over the hills to Taunton. The roads were empty. My mother didn’t have the same passenger habits as the old man, she just sat there, staring ahead, her mouth shut and her hands holding each other so tight the knuckles turned white. Rain dripped in through the roof and fell on her head. She didn’t wipe it off. She wanted to be dropped off outside Debenhams. I told her she couldn’t, but that I’d park the car and walk her there. I did. She took my arm, turned up her collar, and said she’d buy a tea to warm herself up with. I lied when I said I had to see the saddlemaker about some hamper straps. I lied when I said I wanted to buy the old man a book about tropical fish. I lied when I said, ‘Goodbye.’ I did not mean it. I would see her again. Some people do not lie when they say ‘goodbye’.
‘Billy, don’t move the van.’
‘I wasn’t going to.’
‘You move the van, I won’t know where to find you.’
‘Mother! I’ve got one key. Here it is. You have it.’
‘Billy?’
‘You can use it to open the door.’
I walked through Taunton in the lull between the office workers going back to work after lunch, and the schoolkids getting out of school. Some drunks leant against a wall and asked me the time. I said I didn’t know. They called me a fascist. I didn’t know what they meant. I felt left out again. I got younger as I grew older. Soon, even the things I still knew would be sucked from my body. But I did not care. I would ignore society and see if it noticed.
Taunton. Taunton has an ancient history. Shopping is a big industry. Private schools are a big industry. Rich children stalk W. H. Smith’s and shoplift. Car parks are important centres of activity. If they are not being parked in, driven out of or looked for, someone is building a new one or digging up an old. Small car parks are reserved for particular people in particular cars, residential roads for miles around are lined with cars whose owners don’t carry change. Traffic flow analysis is a popular leisure activity. Sometimes, one-way streets are redesigned or even relocated, so a familiar row of houses might suddenly appear where they didn’t seem to be before. My old man reckoned Taunton Council built themselves a nuclear fallout shelter with an outside loo.
Taunton. Taunton is also important on account of its connection with the Great Western Railway; Brunel’s big one. Brunel believed the valley of the Isle suitable canal-building territory, but never made the impact there as he made in Taunton. Taunton, where Muriel leaves the county. Trains are unstoppable. Once someone’s on a train there’s no turning back. The last sight of them is the one that sticks. Stations weep goodbyes from every brick, girder and waiting room.
I stood on the platform and watched a gang of men carrying a sleeper in the rain. I bought a cup of tea and waited for the train. A pair of lovers, he with the suitcase, she with an umbrella, stood beneath an advertisement for holidays in London. She nibbled his ear, he pinched her bum, they laughed. I stared at a hoarding so long the letters didn’t seem like letters at all. The train was late. It was twenty-five to three; but I had all afternoon. Mother could talk to the feed merchant for hours. She wanted to know why ferrous sulphate was the most important active ingredient in Poultry Spice. He would keep her happy. I would wait. I could buy another cup of tea. I smoked a cigarette. Some schoolboys threw sandwiches at each other. I remembered something Muriel had said. A Russian writer had died in a railway station waiting room. He had been the conscience of a nation and breathed his last in solitude. His beard had been a marvel, his eccentric ways a source of misunderstanding.
She didn’t appear, I had miscalculated, she wasn’t going to catch the train. Never mind, it had been a change of scenery. I hadn’t lost out completely. I could walk back to the car and lie about the saddlemaker.
The rain poured. Groups of people huddled in doorways and stared at the weather. No breaks appeared in the cloud. It was set. They might as well get wet. They’d have to, eventually. Groups of people thrown together out of a desire for nothing more than dry conditions are doomed. I wanted to tell them, but didn’t care.
I stood at the junction of Station Road and Priory Bridge Road, waiting for the lights to change. I watched a lorry, a bus, and as my shoes filled with water, Muriel appeared, driven by her mother, swung right, the lights changed, I turned round, watched as neither of them saw me, and ran back the way I’d come.
She was carrying her suitcase through the doors, past the booking office and up the stairs to the platform. Her mother held her arm, they were talking, laughed, found a porter and asked him to help with the luggage.
I found a ticket collector, ‘What time’s the next train?’
‘Where to?’
‘London.’
‘Three thirty-five. Platform one.’
‘What’s it now?’
‘Twenty past.’
I ran through the tunnel and up the stairs to platform two, and hid behind a chocolate machine, watching. A couple of days hadn’t changed them. I was familiar with what Muriel was wearing. I had felt that material. She had treated me to many pleasures. Did she feel my presence? She looked down the line, said something to her mother, and went to the café. The station announcer said the train was coming. That was fair enough. It wasn’t late. The railway provides jobs. I don’t begrudge anyone working on them. People have families to support. They couldn’t have known they were taking her away. Many goods travel by rail; I have sent baskets that way. I’d no quarrel with them. She was in the café. I would talk to her.
I went down the stairs and through the tunnel as the train arrived. It was deafening beneath the tracks. I ran up the other side, doors opened, people said hello, porters threw sacks of mail out of the guards van and directed other people to their carriages. It was a blur. I walked towards it. A man knocked into me but did not apologize. I had a long way to go. I stepped on a damp sandwich. I saw her. She handed her mother a cup. She picked up the suitcase, they kissed each other on the cheeks. I drew closer. I heard her say ‘I’ll see you next week.’
‘Get the flat warm for me,’ her mother said.
‘Sure.’
‘And don’t forget to phone.’
‘No.’
‘Just in case.’
‘And remember what I said.’
‘What was that?’
Her voice hadn’t changed. She smiled at her mother, they held hands and kissed again. I would have had one of them. She did not see me. I was almost next to her when she climbed on the train, swung the door shut, lowered the window, and hung her head out.
Her mother said, ‘Find yourself a seat.’
‘There’s plenty.’
‘And don’t talk to strange men.’
‘No.’
‘Or sit facing the wrong way.’
‘Mum?’
‘Yes?’
‘If you see Billy …’ But behind me, a guard blew his whistle, the open doors were slammed shut, and I didn’t hear what she said; I was pushed in the back by a late passenger, the train moved off.
I shouted, ‘Muriel!’ But her mother was running alongside the carriage, holding the top of the open window, talking, her voice rising until she was shouting, but words I couldn’t hear, words her mother replied to, until the train was too fast, and Muriel was on her own, w
aving in my direction, but not at me, though she would have seen me, just not recognized my face.
I followed Anne down the stairs, thought about going up and saying ‘hello’, but it wouldn’t have mattered anymore, to me, or her. She had a house to shut up, my mother would be ready to go home, it was still raining.
I drove home. Home. That is what Blackwood is. My mother had her Poultry Spice.
‘You get a book?’
‘A book?’
‘For your father.’
‘A book?’ I was thinking about something else. I didn’t know what she was talking about.
‘You said you were going to buy him a book, on tropical fish.’
‘Oh,’ I remembered, ‘they didn’t have one.’
Mother. She was the mother I had. She knew what was going on. My father. He’d had a quiet afternoon reading. The Japanese had removed a mountain in Swaziland and turned it into steel while native girls danced the traditional reed dance. The world was a big place. Nobody denied it. But I took the van to Drove House and sat watching from Higher Burrow Hill. I was not alone. My thoughts were with me. They had real power.
Drove House, in the valley of the Isle, a world hidden from most people by the way they travel. Cars, trains, aeroplanes. These ignore the valley. I walked through a gathering storm and stood at a window while her mother covered the furniture with dust sheets. The ambulance had gone. Muriel’s bedroom window was shut, the curtains open, the panes of glass reflected nothing. It was a dark, moonless night. The front door opened. The last milk bottles were put out. The yard was bathed in light, a branch, blown from the orchard, a pair of chairs, the mud, illuminated, then darkness.
I walked back to the van. Before I went to Jackson’s garage, I sat with my hands on the steering wheel, staring at Drove House; the last light went out, I gave into it, wept, but would not cry again.
24