Radcliffe

by David Storey

  For some time this massive projection was more real and frightening than any of his experiences of that day; so that whereas, at some distant level of his mind, he was aware of his mother and sister entering the room below, and the faint voices of Austen and his father, they seemed only the peripheral accommodation of his mind to some new and uncertain experience. When, a few moments later, the door of his room opened and his mother dutifully stood there, the fact seemed simply the mechanical confirmation of his previous sensations. She turned away, evidently thinking him asleep, glancing back to allay some brief anxiety, then quietly shut the door. Her footsteps sounded briskly along the landing to the stairs.

  His senses radiated from him with a compressed uninterrupted energy. The birds chattering shrilly across the lawn were swiftly absorbed in his mental abstraction. He felt an acute reluctance to extend his mind further than the Place, so that the faint cries of the children playing on the estate were suddenly rejected and he heard them no more.

  It was the sound of the door shutting and of his mother’s footsteps, the note of deference, that sent a preliminary pulse through his body. For a second that enigmatic energy faltered and, like some formidable contour torn across a beach by a storm, he saw his mind once more confined to the narrow structure of his body but shaped now by the force of his recent experience.

  His awareness of the room grew, and a shocked tiredness overwhelmed him. For a while he struggled to keep himself awake. He stared at the drawings pinned on the wall as though to recall their faded enthusiasms. But tiredness weighed him down, enclosing him more tightly until, at the point when it seemed he must fall asleep, he got up stubbornly from the bed.

  He went to the door and out onto the landing. The voices of the family rose in mild argument from below. He turned to the partition that occupied the whole width of the landing and stood for some time at the door on the point of grasping the handle and pulling it open. But with a final gesture of despair he swung round and went back to his room. Within a few minutes of lying on his bed he had fallen into a deep sleep. Only some hours later, in the early evening, was he woken by his mother. She came into the room and stood there as if she sensed his need for reassurance.

  He opened his eyes to see her beside his bed. At that moment her coarseness and simplicity of expression were no more than an extension of that figure which had dominated his dreams; her affinity to Tolson seemed stronger than his own less discernible bond of flesh and blood.

  ‘How are you feeling, then? Goodness, you’re looking browner. I’ve brought you up some tea. Your uncle said you’d promised to come down and see him before he left.’

  It was only at that moment that he woke. He sat up, coughing, and felt the mug guided into his hand.

  ‘Well, how are you feeling? You look fitter.…’

  He answered her mechanically and drank mechanically, his body stiff and awkward. She watched him almost morosely, a weary and familiar sympathy verging on indulgence.

  ‘I’ll start your meal,’ she said as she went to the door. ‘You better get washed and changed before you come down, and leave those clothes up here for me to wash.’

  He scarcely heard her instructions and she was about to repeat them when he was suddenly overcome with confusion and, blushing violently, got up quickly from his bed.

  For a while she stood watching him, her own face slightly flushed. Then she slowly came from the door and stood over him.

  He had sat down on the edge of the bed, stooping forward, his arms resting on his thighs. She put her hands on his narrow shoulders, feeling them at first gently, then gripping them almost ferociously.

  ‘Now … come on,’ she said slowly.

  He didn’t move, but appeared to stiffen under her fingers. His head had touched her stomach.

  ‘Your father said Tolson came back this morning,’ she said.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘By himself?’

  ‘Yes. I came back with the men.’

  She waited, staring down at the straight black hair.

  ‘Did you have an argument?’

  ‘No.’

  But he moved against her vaguely. His arms had risen now; for a moment they were folded round her thighs. She bent down and kissed his head. He stood up.

  ‘I’ll get washed then.’

  ‘Yes.…’

  She watched his strange confusion. Then she picked up the empty mug from beside the bed. ‘Now you hurry up,’ she said suddenly and without any recrimination in her voice. She closed the door quietly, as though from an habitual deference.

  Leonard stood at the window and undressed. It was early evening. The row of walnut trees was eroded with shadow, dissolving the leaves and dispersing the branches against a descending sky. The rooks were gliding back now towards the outskirts of the city, silent, blackly poised. Insects floated like dust in the space between the outbuildings.

  In the bathroom he was able to watch himself in the mirror. His face was tanned brown, reddening over the high cheekbones. His whitened body intersected the large blank wall behind, and confirmed the tall outline of the sash window. The panes were shrouded outside by leaves.

  On one side, a fireplace had been sealed off and bulges in the plaster traced the contours and directions of an eccentric maze of plumbing. The basin stood on a narrow pedestal set slightly away from the wall. The floorboards were bare except for a small mat at the side of the bath which itself lay against the wall like the defunct cylinder of a vanished machine. The dim interior was reflected in the mirror. It was against this variegated texture, as though so many things presented an unfelt touch to his skin, that the room was composed and re-composed, accommodating its scale to every movement of his body.

  As he crossed the landing again to his room he heard Austen’s voice in the kitchen below say, ‘If it seems so, then forgive me. At least it wasn’t done with that intention.’

  Leonard closed his door and returned to the window to dress. The narrow towers of hollyhocks were thrust up into the darkness of the trees in pink and purple wedges. The long stems swayed slightly with their ungainly weight, the lower, crumpled leaves drooping on white, fibrous stalks. They were torn slivers of colour in the darkness.

  Watching them, his head pressed against the window, the flowers congealed in the growing dusk until, gradually, they floated out like live crests from the shadows. He suddenly turned from the window and, dressed in clean shirt and trousers, went out onto the landing. The smell of cooking meat rose from the kitchen below.

  He went to the partition door, turned the key, and pulled it open. The landing continued as a long broad passage to the opposite end of the building. Here it was illuminated by a tall window, partly shuttered on the inside, but admitting sufficient light to indicate the numerous doorways and the main staircase opening off the corridor. Cold air moved in where he was standing, and, having opened the door, he seemed undecided whether to go any further. Faint sounds came from the dark interior: the intermittent creaking of wood, the movement of water in pipes, and a low murmur that emerged from the heavy stillness of the deserted rooms themselves.

  Any decision he might have made was interrupted by a voice behind him. ‘Have you heard something?’

  Elizabeth stood in the faint light of the passage, a slim girl of eighteen.

  ‘Did you hear something?’ She glanced at him expectantly, then beyond at the interior. They were silent, standing side by side.

  He watched her expression a moment, then said, ‘No,’ and closed the door. He bolted it. ‘Which of them sent you up?’ His voice was suddenly indulgent, as though some familiar ritual were to be performed.

  ‘Guess.’ She turned her face shyly towards him as though to penetrate his reserve. She was very slender. Her black hair was parted and drawn back smoothly and tightly, like a close-fitting cap to her small and peculiarly delicate features. It was a child-like face, excessively alert.

  ‘You wouldn’t have come up on your own, since you have no affection, int
erest or respect for me. It must have been Austen sent you.’

  ‘No. But then do you think he has all those admirable things?’

  ‘Wouldn’t you say so?’

  ‘It was my mother. How’s Vic?’ She turned, her yellow frock flaring out.

  ‘You don’t know him. Why should you ask?’

  She swung away as though in one movement she were abbreviating several steps of a dance.

  Leonard said very suddenly, ‘See if you notice any change.’

  She followed him into his room. He put on the light and she stood frowning in the door. Then she stepped in. ‘You look browner.’

  ‘Do you think I look healthier?’

  ‘No. But certainly browner.’

  He watched her a moment as she moved elusively round the room. She had a strange restlessness, almost ritualistic, as though each movement were pre-determined and conformed to some eccentric pattern in her mind.

  ‘Do you think I look like a workman?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Do you notice any change?’ he said, very intently.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well? What is it?’

  ‘Not in you.’

  He was suddenly bewildered, frowning. ‘What?’

  ‘Not in you. In my father.’

  Leonard began to tidy his discarded clothes, picking them up carefully, folding them, then flinging them loosely beneath the bed.

  ‘What a smell,’ Elizabeth said. ‘My father was very happy this morning. He was down at dawn, gardening. You can tell. Now he’s sitting down there as though he’s been hit on the head.’

  Leonard said nothing. He went to the door and waited with his hand on the switch.

  Elizabeth stooped and began to examine the drawings. ‘Did you have a good time while you were away?’

  ‘Yes.’ He put out the light. She stood quite still in the darkening room. Then Leonard added, ‘The other night I had a dream about my mother where I slit open her belly, stuffed it with apricots and peaches, and braised her in the oven for three hours. I invited all the family to dinner and they commented on the unusual delicacy of the meat.’

  He started down the landing. She followed him, walking on her toes and swaying to some silent rhythm as though mockingly she were stalking him.

  ‘I had a letter while you were away,’ she said. ‘I can go to college next year. They’ve given me a place.’

  He reached the top of the stairs and paused. Then he went to the single window at the end of the landing and looked down. She waited for him, moving still on her toes as if to indicate certain divisions of the carpeted floor. ‘I have to wait the one year, though,’ she added.

  He stood with his back to her, gazing out of the window. The silhouettes of the trees grew from his head; they were like huge antlers; he was lit by the red evening light. Massive horns reared up in profile from his head. When he turned round he said, ‘You look like a flower, standing there.’

  ‘Oh? And which one?’

  ‘A hollyhock.’

  ‘God. How ugly. That’s not very complimentary, is it? Why did you say that, Leonard?’

  ‘Are they ugly?’ He looked at her with an almost private alarm.

  ‘Well. Not if you don’t think so.’

  She waited on the top step for him to lead the way. Then, when he didn’t move, she started down. He immediately followed her.

  ‘Perhaps it’s just the name that’s ugly,’ he said.

  ‘No. It’s the plant. It’s hard and fibrous.’

  ‘But the flower …’

  She burst out laughing, her face turning up to his, half-lit from the kitchen below. ‘Why, what is the matter?’ she said.

  ‘Nothing. I don’t know.’ He seemed distressed and suddenly restless. Then he started to cough.

  She was about to ask him something when her mother called from the kitchen, ‘Oh, for goodness sake, Elizabeth, let him come.…’

  As Leonard entered the kitchen he saw Austen sitting with John at the opposite end by the open door. They were gazing out into the yard. The evening light and the electric light mingled on their figures so that it seemed they had been revealed through an invisible wall: the easy chairs, the long, central table, the sofa, were like boulders reflected in the dull reddish glow of the three windows. Between them moved the melting shapes of his mother and Elizabeth.

  Austen stood up. By his feet were his hat and gloves, and his coat was laid ready over a chair.

  ‘Come and look at this, Leonard,’ he said.

  Leonard crossed the room and stared out into the darkened yard. Several bats flickered against the pale sky.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Can’t you see?’

  Leonard glanced down at his father. John was leaning back, gazing abstractly into the faint light. The roof of the outbuildings was a simple orange sheen.

  ‘In the middle of the lawn,’ Austen said.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘A cat.’

  Leonard could just distinguish the animal; then more clearly as it moved, apparently tugging at the ground. It was a stiff, ferocious action, vibrating and tense. Austen, his eyes still on the animal, had sat down again.

  ‘They’ve been sitting there for hours just watching it,’ Stella said. She worked at the gas stove beside the large polished range.

  ‘But what is it?’ Leonard seemed stifled by the attention they gave the cat.

  ‘Can’t you see what it’s doing?’ Austen said. ‘It’s caught something.’

  ‘Oh, no.…’ Elizabeth had come to the door. ‘What is it?’

  She ran out and stamped her feet in the gravel and shouted. The animal scurried away. A moment later it crashed through the shrubberies. Austen began to laugh.

  ‘It was a blackbird,’ John said. ‘The grounds are full of them.’

  Both men stood up. Austen stretched.

  ‘It stalked it across the whole width of the lawn and caught it,’ John added.

  Elizabeth came in again, flushed. ‘It was a bird. It’s awful.’

  ‘It’s true,’ Austen said. ‘Life’s very ugly. But then death’s not so pleasant either.’ He glanced at Leonard and picked up his coat, automatically handing it to John to hold up.

  ‘You see what your absences do, Leonard,’ his father said shuddering slightly as Austen forced his arms down the tight sleeves. ‘They simply make Austen mischievous.’

  He tugged the collar of the coat up to the back of Austen’s slender neck.

  ‘The greatest peace of all,’ Austen stated, ‘is that of other people’s misunderstanding.’ He buttoned his coat carefully, sliding the buttons through the holes with his thumb and forefinger, then pulling at the lapels. ‘Well, I must be off. You are what your absences say you are. I came up today to make a suggestion to your father, amongst other things, Leonard. No, he can tell you. When I’ve gone. I’m not arguing tonight.… It’s a beautiful evening. I think I shall walk back to town.’

  He picked up his hat and gloves, and his stick, nodding at the two women. ‘Good night, Stella, good night, Elizabeth. I’ll see you again soon, Leonard. Whenever you have any time free, come to the shop, won’t you? I’ll be glad to see you.’

  He stooped slightly as he went through the door, then paused to place his hat carefully on his head. John followed him, waiting a moment like a shadow behind him, then their feet crunched on the gravel.

  In the kitchen they could hear Austen saying, ‘You see, even if I wanted to ring for a taxi I’d still have to walk down to the end of the estate.’ Their voices faded round the side of the Place. Then they heard John laugh. It was a wounded sound.

  ‘Do you mean they both just sat here watching it?’ Elizabeth said.

  Neither her mother nor Leonard replied, and when John came in a short while later he said, ‘It’s not until one hasn’t seen Austen for a while that you realise what an aphoristic machine he really is.… He came to see you, Leonard, of course.’

  Leonard sat at the table stari
ng down at the white wood. His finger followed the grain minutely, his head moving as though acknowledging his father. Then he suddenly stood up and without a word went out into the yard.

  Austen had gone. For a moment it seemed that it was his uncle whom he’d rushed out to see. He stood on the gravel path a while, then walked across the lawn and stood gazing at the tall columns of hollyhocks.

  A pool of orange light was reflected under the trees from an upper window of the Place. It glowed beneath the dark foliage, holding the tall stems of the flowers. The cups trembled in the breeze. They were smooth: a light pinkish white drawn in and veined round the yellow stamens.

  The veins spread from the stamens, yellow and light green threads splayed minutely through the pink flesh. They grew, startled, caught in a tiny web of veins, a smooth, greased texture like porcelain. The veins sprang along the petals from the roots of the stamens. The centre of the flower was raw. It was huge. Round the root of the stamens, deep in the cup of the flower, the tissue was red.

  He had swung round in sudden agitation and walked back through the deepening shadow. Then he stopped, so violently that it was as if he had been physically arrested. His shoulders shook and his eyes closed.

  For several seconds he stood, frozen in mid-stride, his feet awkwardly apart and his body recoiling. Then, just as suddenly, he continued walking. He went to the stone doorway, stepped inside, and in an unusually loud voice said that he was going to see Tolson.

  11

  In the upper windows of the house no shadows moved at all; the thick, unpatterned curtains were a dull yellow. The lower windows were unlit, their darkness anchoring the building to the uninterrupted row of houses on either side.

  Leonard had stopped within the shadow of a large beech tree opposite Tolson’s house at the corner of the main avenue. Noises came from the low buildings, a child crying, a piano playing; and someone was hammering a wooden shed.