The Night of the Flood

by Zoe Somerville

  ‘What do you like?’

  Although she kept her eyes on the paintings, she was aware that he was looking at her. No one had ever asked her that. She had been angrily ranting and now he had wrong-footed her. She had to think quickly. ‘I actually rather like the Americans, Mr Doherty, painters I mean—’

  ‘Call me Jack,’ he said.

  But she carried on. ‘People like… Rothko.’ She knew very little about the artist aside from an exhibition brochure Miss Gardiner, who went down to London for the shows, had lent her. But it was new and strange and the opposite of the English landscapes and religious oils she had grown up on.

  ‘Yeah, I know him. Big blocks of colour. Kinda strange.’ Verity cast him a suspicious glance. ‘No need to look surprised. I lived in New York before I came out here.’

  ‘Did you?’ This seemed improbable too but then she was starting to feel blindsided in her assumptions. ‘Did you see them?’ she asked.

  ‘Oh no. I was kinda busy. New York’s a wild kind of place. And I prefer photography anyway.’ She flushed and fell away from him, suddenly aware of a tang of something unknown, sensual and alarming. Although he could have meant anything by it, she was sure he was determined to make a fool of her with his insinuations of a worldly life far away from Norfolk. And it was probably a lie about New York and the artists.

  ‘Do you?’ she said. ‘What kind of photographs?’

  He appeared to think. ‘I like your mother’s,’ he said. ‘You know, Miss Frost, despite what I said to your father, I don’t really care about old English houses.’ He was standing rather close to her and she was glad of the dim light because her face was burning. She wished he would stop. ‘I think English people are funny, though. I think it’s the way most of them never say what they really think but spend a lot of time pretending to be so proper about everything.’

  ‘I see.’ Was he mocking her? It was hard to tell. He probably thought she was stuck up and pretentious. She had made a fool of herself staring at him like that downstairs. ‘Well, it was very nice to see you again, Mr Doherty, but I must get back to my books. Can you find your own way down?’ Her voice was high and too loud. She turned awkwardly and took the few steps needed to get to her bedroom without looking back.

  But when she opened the door he was standing next to her. He put his hand on the door.

  ‘I’m only teasing you. I’m not really such an ass.’ Even in the dull light of the landing she could see the whites of his eyes.

  ‘You mean you just can’t help being one,’ she said, her tone horribly prim and hard. Good grief, he was so provoking.

  ‘Well, I guess I deserved that.’ He paused, seeming to consider something. ‘I really did live in New York City. It’s not a lie.’

  She blushed. ‘I never said it was,’ she said, in a voice of hurt. ‘Now I would appreciate it if you could let me get into my room, Mr Doherty.’

  He stood back to let her go in but, as she passed him, her arm brushed against his chest and for a few seconds she didn’t move: they were touching, and she could almost imagine falling against him. But then the tip of his finger ran along her back and she pushed past him and into the safety of the room, her back on fire.

  ‘I’ll be seeing you, Miss Frost,’ he said.

  ‘Will you?’ she said.

  ‘At the Midsummer dance,’ he said, ‘I already invited you.’ There was the hint of a question in his voice and that gave her great satisfaction. He did not know she would go to the blessed dance. That was the key.

  She wanted to shout back that she had no intention of going but he had gone and she was left slumped on her bed, her heart beating far too fast.

  7.

  Midsummer’s Night

  ‘You look smart, Arthur.’

  He glanced at his mother, reddened and took refuge in his bread and jam. Mother leaned back in her chair with a teacup in her hand, peering at him across the table. Her hair was in rollers ready for the night. Though she still had her ‘face’ on as she called it, she was in slippers and housecoat and she looked settled for the evening. It made him feel restless. He was wearing a tight-fitting shirt that dug into his neck and had combed his hair up into a quiff. He expected another comment on his hairstyle but none came. Through the open window he heard the seagulls calling. A male voice rang up from the street.

  ‘That’s Peter,’ he said, scraping his own chair back. He was hitching a ride on Peter’s bike to the Midsummer dance. He was only going because Verity would be there.

  ‘Don’t speak with your mouth full.’

  He swallowed the bread and washed it down with a slurp of tea.

  ‘Have a nice evening, Mother.’

  She was sitting with her teacup poised in the air. Something wasn’t right about her but he didn’t know what it was except that the lines under her eyes looked deeper, there were streaks of grey in her once black hair, and she was always tired. In the background of all their interactions was the unspoken assumption that she was seriously ill. She gave him a thin smile but seemed to be gazing into a space beyond him.

  ‘Yes,’ she said, as if she hadn’t heard him.

  Peter rang his bike bell. Arthur bent to kiss her cheek and she grasped his hand.

  ‘You’re a good boy, Arthur,’ she said, her powdery face near his cheek, her hand digging into his. ‘You look after me.’

  He hesitated in the kitchen doorway with a question about how she was but he could feel the summer air wafting up from the street and wanted to be gone.

  Out on the quay, away from the cool of the dark flat, the air was thick and heavy; the sky was white with heat and reflected off the still water in the harbour. The boats slumped, deflated, like punctured balloons, from the lack of wind.

  ‘Finally,’ said Peter. He was leaning against a street lamp, looking crumpled and hot, cigarette dangling from his hand, his shirt loose at the neck, and his tie askew. ‘Here, have some of this.’ The cigarette balanced in his mouth, he took a flask out of his pocket and handed it to Arthur.

  ‘I need this,’ Arthur said, pouring the burning whisky down his throat. It buzzed through his brain and jarred his senses.

  ‘Scared of a stupid dance?’ said Peter, laughing.

  ‘Nah,’ said Arthur. Handing back the hip flask, he watched a tiny drop of water fall onto his hand. He squinted up at the white cover of cloud. ‘I think it might finally rain.’

  ‘About bloody time,’ said Peter, offering him a cigarette.

  He lit up. ‘Where’s Jack?’

  ‘Something at the base, he’ll be along later. Reckons he’s bringing his wretched motorcycle. The girls’ll love that.’ Peter sneered, as he always did at something alien, but Arthur could hear both the envy and pride in his voice. Jack was a trophy, something new and shiny to be wondered at and admired. Arthur felt a twinge of anxiety for Peter. He saw the way Peter reacted to Jack. More than the American’s novelty he was held up as an object of admiration, the perfect image of manhood. Peter had placed a lot of faith in him, as if Jack was the answer to a question he had been asking for a long time. But neither of them really knew him. Neither of them knew if they could trust him.

  They swigged the rest of the whisky and set off wobbling and guffawing down the Holkham Road towards Harborough Hall, a mile out of Wells. They were boys again.

  In the hot summers of the war they played at pilots. They kept a keen eye on the course of the Battle of Britain and chanted Churchill’s words to each other as their arms spun wide in the fields down to the woods and the North Sea, long after the real battle had been fought and won. Arthur was usually German, as he was younger. The two boys bashed into each other and hurtled, pell mell, into the wheat, laughing, legs flying.

  As they cycled, he standing on the axle holding onto Peter’s lanky frame, the sun burned through the haze and the rain held off. The evening sang with sound and life. They flew down the country lanes to the Hall and he closed his eyes, listening to birdsong and the squeak of the tyres. He wo
ndered how Verity was going to get there but he couldn’t ask, he had to concentrate on holding tight to Peter who swerved alarmingly close to the ditches on every corner they turned. He had his answer when they finally arrived at the entrance to a grand house at the end of a long gravel drive, flanked by poplar trees on either side. Gaggles of brightly dressed girls were emerging from two coaches, like princesses from carriages, in dresses of yellow and pink and green. He felt a violent desire to get off the bike and run back to the safety of the town. But Peter was veering in wide parabolas across the path. For a fleeting moment, it was the two of them on a bike freewheeling down Leafy Lane as children and he opened his mouth to whoop in the boyish joy of it.

  Peter turned his head to shout back to Arthur, ‘Look at those peacocks!’ In the same moment, he lost control of the bike and they fell sideways, scraping onto the gravel, skidding into the line of poplars.

  The two of them sprawled where they had fallen, legs under the wheels, bruised and groaning. They weren’t boys any more. Someone came crunching over the gravel. ‘Peter, is that you?’ There was a pause. ‘Oh, for goodness sake.’

  Arthur tried to sit up. It was Verity. She was standing in a shiny blue ballgown, a gauzy shawl around her shoulders, staring at them both. ‘What on earth have you done?’

  ‘Oh there you are, Ver, help me up, will you?’ Peter held out his arm.

  ‘God, Peter, you stink of alcohol. They won’t have it, you know.’ But she knelt to help him.

  ‘Poppycock, just a little stiffener, dear sister.’ Peter straightened his long body and ran a hand through his sandy hair.

  ‘So bloody dangerous, what if this had happened out on a proper road?’

  ‘Blimey, Ver, you sound like an old woman. Let me have a bit of fun, will you?’ Arthur cringed at the hurt in Peter’s voice. He levered himself up, trying not to wince in pain. He avoided catching Verity’s eye.

  ‘I would have thought you’d know better,’ she said to him and he was forced to look at her.

  ‘He’s worse than me, you know that,’ said her brother.

  ‘I do not. Come on, Arthur, you can take me in.’

  He shrugged apologetically to Peter and, not quite believing it, took her arm. She turned to her brother, still standing with his bike. ‘Girls won’t dance with you, you know. Not if you’re drunk.’

  ‘I don’t care!’ Peter shouted at their backs.

  ‘It’s true,’ Arthur said to her, ‘he really doesn’t care.’

  ‘But you do, don’t you?’ she said, inching a tiny movement closer to him.

  ‘I really can’t dance, you know that,’ he said.

  ‘I don’t care a fig. But you’ll dance with me? I couldn’t bear it if I had to sit out the whole time.’

  ‘Yes, all right,’ he said. The thought of her dancing with other men while he watched from the side was impossible. He smelled her perfume: something floral, heavy and rather alarming. A man dressed in a tailcoat took the men’s coats and the ladies’ little shawls and cardigans in the hallway. It was brightly decked in lanterns and candles, the kind of entrance hall he had only seen in pictures, with a swirling staircase rising from the far end. Numerous doors came off each side, and on the right, one enormous door opened onto a scene of flickering light and the sound of a big band striking up.

  Without her shawl, Verity’s long white neck glowed, a curve of smooth porcelain from her chin to her shoulder blades and a wide V falling to the silky blue neckline. The tops of her shoulders were hidden under the blue capped sleeves but her arms were bare, smooth and honey-coloured from the sun. All this Arthur saw in sidelong glances as he tried not to gape. She smiled at him, and pulled him towards the ballroom.

  ‘You look terrified,’ she said, but it was not terror. Her hand was hot and urgent in his and the promise it signalled buzzed through him like a shot of electricity.

  8.

  The boy – he said his name was Jack – Muriel was dancing with had a big, wide mouth that was sort of lop-sided, and pale orange eyelashes and eyebrows, and the way he was looking was burning right into her.

  He held her in a tight squeeze, and his hands dug quite hard into her back.

  ‘Bunch of squares, eh, beautiful?’

  She laughed. ‘I’m no square,’ she said.

  ‘No, I bet you’re not,’ he said.

  But in the middle of the dance, his hands slackened, his gaze was roving about the room. Across the floor on the chairs, she saw where it rested. There was Arthur Silver, the son of that harridan of a grocer, and Peter’s sister, Verity. Muriel and Miss La-di-da Frost had been friends of a sort when they were young but that hadn’t lasted beyond the war. Back to their own worlds after that. She saw the way Arthur bent his head towards Verity and she could feel in her body the way that this American was drawn across the ballroom floor to the gawky girl in the pale blue dress. She wondered if Verity had any idea of his interest. Probably not. She was a haughty one, thought herself too good for round here. Well, they can’t both have her. They’ll realise soon enough that neither of them are from the right kind of world for her anyway.

  Verity Frost reminded Muriel of one of the horses she rode, and she imagined the other girl dancing like a horse too, thudding up and down like a shire. The boys – they were like dogs chasing after her, wagging their tails. She’ll kick them with her back hooves, Muriel thought gleefully.

  But she, Muriel, was from the sea. She was nothing like any of them – she was moveable and fluid like water.

  Oh, but it was Midsummer, dark green fritillaries plucked the nectar from the dune flowers, sea bindweed blushed pink in the dunes, black-beaked avocets sucked up bugs from the sand and shrieked over their chicks. And there went sweet, heartsick Arthur, with his puppy’s eyes, out of the ballroom.

  It was steaming and clammy among the sweaty bodies. She was hot and she needed some air.

  9.

  The band was attempting to play rock and roll songs with their fast beats. They sat out on one of the faster ones and watched some of the bolder couples jiving. Arthur didn’t care that he couldn’t do it for the life of him. He had a lemonade, spiked by Peter from his second hoard. He had a cigarette, and next to him he had Verity. They were not touching but she was flushed and happy from the dancing and close enough for him to smell her heady scent and to feel possessed of it.

  Leaning back in his chair, he surveyed the dancers. In the throng he spotted Muriel, spinning around with one of the many Americans. He’d forgotten she’d told him she would be here. Peter was over with a group of them playing up to their idea of an English gentleman farmer. He seemed to be finding them as hilarious as they found him. Arthur imagined him talking about hunting, fishing and the wonder and mystery of Norfolk. Watching Peter’s countryman act gave him again the twinge of fear for his friend. There was truth in it but it was a stereotype of the masculine country gent that hid the real Peter. This was the Peter who cared more about the cows he milked than killing animals for sport. He turned back to the dance.

  Muriel’s legs were moving so fast it hurt his eyes to watch them. She was wearing a white polka dot dress with a red sash, which matched her red lips. She caught his eye and waved at him. He raised a hand involuntarily.

  ‘Is that Muriel Gittings?’ said Verity.

  ‘Yes,’ he said, still watching.

  ‘I’m surprised she’s here.’

  He smiled to himself. Verity’s mouth twitched.

  ‘I think they invited all the young people, Ver, not just the debutantes.’

  ‘I’m not a deb.’

  He laughed. ‘No, but you act like one.’

  She looked at him quickly, the pinkness in her cheeks heightened. ‘I know you think I’m a frightful snob, Arty, but we are quite… different.’

  ‘We didn’t used to be.’

  ‘Oh, I didn’t mean you, you’re…’

  ‘What am I?’

  She was quite pink now and he was rather enjoying her discomfort. ‘You’re
very dear to me,’ she said quietly and took out a packet of cigarettes from her little bag.

  He pinched her arm. ‘Am I dear enough to dance with?’

  She laughed. ‘Yes, but if you don’t mind, I’m quite fagged. Happy just to sit out for a bit.’

  Someone else was dancing with Muriel now. They whirled out of sight behind the other dancers but then they came back into view, the two of them laughing. He saw it was Jack. The American gave him an ironic salute and Arthur half raised a hand in reply.

  ‘Funny how we’re in thrall to them when we know they’re up to something deadly.’

  ‘In thrall to whom?’

  ‘The Americans. “Sleepwalking into the Apocalypse.” It would make a good headline, don’t you think?’

  Verity’s face was stiff, her cigarette held hanging in the air.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Nothing,’ she said. ‘Shall we go and get a drink?’ She stood up, the blue dress rustling, and held out her arm rigidly for him to take.

  At the trestle table where the lemonades were set out, she found an old school friend and they started gossiping about mutual acquaintances. Arthur found Peter in a corner holding court to a group of American servicemen on the superior merits of cricket as opposed to baseball. Jack was talking to an older US officer. He spotted Arthur and hailed him but Arthur waved and slipped out to the hallway. It was subdued in comparison to the ballroom, no footmen waiting for them now.

  Outside, it was still light, although it must have been past nine o’clock. All along the driveway and away to his right, he noticed there were glass bulbs strung up in the gardens, glowing pale yellow in the slight dimming of the night. Here and there, couples were strolling among them, drinks in their hands, lit up softly like people in a painting.

  ‘Pretty, isn’t it?’ It was Muriel. She came and stood next to him in the porch. ‘Midsummer’s Night an’ all.’