FAMILY CIRCLE

by MARY HOCKING

  ‘This isn’t an isolated instance, sir. This kind of thing is on the increase lately and we have had several reports from this area …’

  ‘It is in the minds of certain people that it is on the increase.’

  Bitterness jarred his voice. Beside me, Owen Lander looked down, his face strained as though his usual concentration was splintered by anxiety. ‘People who have had their emotions played upon by ruthless and evil men. This is the worst kind of racial discrimination; if it was not for the colour of their skins, we should have rallies in Parliament Square and scenes at airports whenever any of them were deported, the sense of justice of the ordinary Englishman would not normally condone a system whereby families were separated in this inhuman way. But good sense has gone for the time being, bludgeoned into submission by those who use fear to gain ascendancy for their views.’

  The chief inspector, who had let this passionate indictment run on while he listened with mandarin unconcern, now asked:

  ‘Do I gather that you are sympathetic to these people, sir?’

  ‘If you mean by “these people” the Asian immigrants, yes, I am more than sympathetic to them, I am ashamed of their plight, I feel myself personally involved as a citizen of a country which can allow such things to happen.’

  ‘Perhaps you would like to hear a little more about these particular men, sir?’

  ‘We have not yet established that they were immigrants, have we?’ Mrs. Routh intervened.

  ‘Before we go into that, there is one more question I would like to put to Miss Brett. If no one has any objection. Did you notice anything about this man?’

  I passed my tongue over my lips. My mouth was very dry. Dr. Lander put his hand on my wrist. I said, ‘He smelt.’

  ‘If he was dossing down in the graveyard, he probably did!’ Mrs. Routh commented.

  ‘What kind of smell?’ the chief inspector asked patiently.

  ‘Dirt, I suppose, sweat … and something else, something about his breath, a strong smell, like garlic but not garlic …’

  ‘Had you ever smelt it before?’

  Now that he had mentioned immigrants, I knew that it was the kind of smell I associated with the many Pakistanis in the part of London from which I came; but until this moment I could not have identified it and I had no intention of identifying it now. I said, ‘Yes, but I couldn’t say where. In a restaurant, perhaps,’ and I added, unless this should be too specific, ‘or on the metro in Paris… .’

  ‘But because Miss Brett thought that she noticed a particular smell, it would be absurd to imagine that she could thereby swear to the identity, or even the nationality, of her attacker,’ Mr. Routh intervened sternly. Plainly he thought that I had been extremely unwise to make this statement, if not actually mischievous. ‘I hope that this idea is not in your mind. It is this kind of over-eagerness which gives you fellows a bad name.’

  Dr. Lander turned his head to look at Mr. Routh; it was a look of some distaste and I was aware of a certain fastidiousness about him which was not normally evident.

  The chief inspector said evenly, ‘No, sir. I merely wanted to give Miss Brett an opportunity to make a statement before I said too much about the man concerned, so that I couldn’t have been said to have influenced her unduly.’

  ‘You talk as though this man was already condemned!’

  ‘Oh, we have him, sir, and he has made a statement admitting the attack.’

  ‘Do you mean to tell me . .?’

  ‘I have been trying to tell you for some time, sir.’

  ‘I take very strong exception to the way that you have gone about this, chief inspector, and I shall make my views known …’

  ‘Let him say what he has to say, Oliver,’ Mrs. Routh intervened quietly.

  ‘If you will let me speak, sir, you can say anything that you wish when I have finished. The story that we have is that these men were promised, on payment of a sum of five-hundred pounds each, that they would be smuggled into this country where arrangements would be made for them to join their wives and children. In order to obtain the five-hundred pounds most of them had to sell what little property and possessions they had. They were then brought overland, somehow or other, by some route which they themselves don’t know and cannot adequately describe. Most of the time they seem to have travelled in conditions in which a battery hen could scarcely hope to survive. They eventually reached a port. The weather was bitterly cold and they were not adequately dressed to withstand it. There appears to have been little attempt to get proper food for them. Eventually they were transferred to what seems to have been a cabin cruiser; and after a rough crossing they were put into a rowing boat and landed somewhere along the Seven Sisters coast. Not a very clever place to choose when you consider the busy shipping lanes around there, but then the whole enterprise seems to have been a rather botched job. What happened after the Pakistanis landed, we have little idea, because by that time they were ill and hardly knew what was happening to them. But as we picked them up in this area, it seems certain that they were brought to Stanford Church at some time. Two have died from exposure and malnutrition and two are very ill in hospital. The statement which we got was from the one who survived the ordeal the best, and he was in pretty poor shape. It’s a sad story, isn’t it, sir? But there’s always something in it for someone, and in this case that someone received two-thousand five hundred pounds. What you might call, Scarlet Pimpernel, twentieth-century style. We are rather anxious to find this gentleman and his associates, and I assume from the sentiments that you have expressed, that you would be willing to give us every assistance?’

  ‘This is terrible.’ Mr. Routh sat down slowly. He was caught in a trap. His face was childishly undefended, his anguish showed in narrowed eyes and twisted mouth.

  ‘No one could possibly condone such …’ He sought for a word and the chief inspector said:

  ‘Inhumanity, sir?’

  ‘The original inhumanity is with us, chief inspector.’

  ‘Then let’s say, those who profit from our inhumanity, shall we, sir?’

  Mr. Routh was humbled. He did not seek to deny or minimize his mortification, but submitted to it. His gaunt frame writhed, the hands clenched and unclenched, the palms sometimes striking together as he was stung by a new torment. Margaret watched him, with that mixture of love and aversion which bedevils family relationships.

  Owen Lander got to his feet.

  ‘Chief inspector, have you any reason for detaining Miss Brett any longer?’

  ‘No, sir. Miss Brett may go if she wishes. I shall want a formal statement, but that can wait.’ He said to me, ‘Thank you for being so helpful, Miss Brett. I hope I can count on your further co-operation should you remember anything which is likely to be of assistance to us. It’s the fellows who organize this traffic we are really after.’ He sounded like Jack Warner rounding off an episode in Dock Green.

  Owen Lander and I went out of the room.

  ‘Get your coat,’ he said.

  ‘My coat …!’

  ‘Oh, don’t argue!’ His eyes snapped at me angrily. ‘Tell them you’re coming to my house for a prescription. Then get your coat.’

  ‘They’ll think it highly unlikely.’

  ‘In view of all that has gone before, I hardly think it will be noticed.’

  He looked impatient enough to strike me. I put my head round the door and muttered something about prescription. As he had predicted, no one took any notice of me. I fetched my coat; Owen Lander bundled me into it and we went out of the house. As we walked along the lane, he gripped my hand rather as though I was his prisoner, not his patient. Neither of us spoke. When we reached his house, he opened the front door and led me into a room at the back of the house which he used as a study.

  ‘That was dreadful, wasn’t it?’ he said. ‘I need a cup of tea. What about you?’

  This seemed to me a novel way of ensuring oneself a cup of tea, but I agreed to make it for him.

  ‘How do you
put up with things so calmly?’ he asked me as we stood by the stove in the kitchen.

  ‘I’m not really all that calm,’ I said. ‘I just seem to get upstaged all the time.’

  He shook his head. ‘No. Your presence is noted and felt. You’re a great little scene stealer.’

  ‘Well, I can’t say I’ve ever seen myself in that light!’ I poured hot water into the pot and over the table as well. I wished he would not watch me so intently. I mopped up some of the water and said fretfully, ‘What I need is another day in Brighton.’

  He said, ‘Come tomorrow.’

  It was so completely unexpected that I could only stare at him. He said dryly, ‘Has no one ever asked you out before?’

  ‘Is this part of the treatment?’ I said, to give myself time to recover.

  ‘No. It is a straight invitation which you may take or leave.’ His face was stiff, and I realized that he was close to taking offence at my hesitation.

  ‘I’d like to come,’ I said. ‘Can we make it in the afternoon? I had planned to go to chapel tomorrow morning.’

  ‘Does Mr. Routh still preach there?’ He seemed to welcome this change of subject.

  We talked rather formally about chapel and church services generally until I left. I never received a prescription.

  Chapter Eight

  It was a wet day, rain pounded the roof of the chapel and inside the light was dim. We had arrived early. It was the first time on this visit that I had been to chapel with the Rouths, on previous Sundays Margaret had shown no inclination to attend and I had remained behind with her. The chapel was on the outskirts of Lewes. It lay between a builder’s yard and an old railway siding; behind it, the chalk cliffs of the Downs reared up menacingly. It was a small, dour building erected by people who had taken very seriously the injunction regarding graven images and the need to suppress the desire for silver and gold. Colour was provided by a bunch of chrysanthemums on the Communion table, but apart from this no effort had been made to brighten a Victorian gloom which seemed to have been cemented in with the bricks. Quite the most splendid thing was the pulpit which stood in the centre of the platform; a commanding piece of heavy, carved wood, it demonstrated uncompromisingly the importance of the preacher. Mr. Routh, who had had many years here as minister, had known how to rise to the heights of oratory which the pulpit demanded, but the anxious-looking young man who preached this morning was not of the same breed. He did not detain us long and soon the pianist was striking the note for the last hymn.

  ‘O love that wilt not let me go,

  I rest my weary soul in Thee;

  I give Thee back the life I owe,

  That in Thine ocean depths its flow

  May richer, fuller be.’

  At the end of our row, Mr. Routh towered above us, his lips not moving; perhaps he was thinking of the sermon that he would have preached, he certainly looked very stern. Mrs. Routh was singing without enthusiasm; later she denounced the choice of hymns, ‘We shall be going back to Sankey & Moody next!’

  ‘Oh Light that followest all my way,

  I yield my flickering torch to Thee;

  My heart restores its borrowed ray,

  That in Thy sunshine’s blaze its day

  May brighter, fairer be …’

  Beside me, Constance sang like a bird, the words coming without effort or meaning.

  ‘O Joy that seekest me through pain,

  I cannot close my heart to Thee;

  I trace the rainbow through the rain

  And feel the promise is not vain

  That morn shall tearless be …’

  Only Margaret, on my other side, sang as though every word had meaning for her. Her resonant contralto was particularly suited to this rather sombre hymn. I looked at her, and it seemed to me that at this moment she did indeed catch a glimmer of the rainbow. She raised her eyes and sang:

  ‘O Cross that liftest up my head,

  I dare not ask to fly from Thee;

  I lay in dust life’s glory dead,

  And from the ground there blossoms red

  Life that shall endless be.’

  She seemed so deeply moved by some experience which this grim little place afforded her, that I was surprised when she whispered to me as we bowed our heads for the blessing, ‘I’m not going to stay for the prayer meeting, are you?’ I said, ‘No’ with great relief, the prayer meeting always embarrassed me. Constance stayed with her parents and Margaret and I walked out. We were very conspicuous, no one else moved.

  ‘They can get on with it now that the irreverent ones have gone,’ Margaret said as we closed the door behind us.

  ‘Will your parents mind?’ I asked.

  ‘My father will, but he won’t say anything. Perhaps he will purge his grief in extempore prayer.’

  The bitterness in her voice upset me, she had looked almost radiant for a moment there in the chapel.

  ‘Margaret, don’t!’ I said. ‘You hurt yourself more than anyone else.’

  ‘I know.’

  It had stopped raining. We walked across the road to an asphalt path that ran alongside the river. A row of cottages built on a steep track leading up to the Downs gazed precariously down at us. A few boats pulled on creaking ropes; gulls flew overhead. One was reminded that many hundreds of years ago, Lewes had been a port.

  ‘I used to get such joy from chapel when I was a child,’ Margaret said. ‘Or does one look back and imagine this?’

  ‘One imagines a little, I think.’

  ‘I suppose so. But I really can remember being very happy sometimes, listening to my father preach and feeling so proud of him.’

  ‘He was a splendid preacher.’

  ‘Yes.’ She shrugged her shoulders.

  The path was muddy and ahead I could see water lying on the surface; the wind had an edge to it and the sluggish river looked cold. I pulled my coat collar up around my face.

  ‘I always used to think you were such a happy family. Weren’t you happy, Margaret?’

  Perhaps people reach a psychological moment when it is right for them to speak, or perhaps it is simply that the guard slips and they suffer a mental diarrhoea. Whatever the answer, Margaret talked now and there was no stopping her.

  ‘I’ve never been happy, except in snatches, and they were so brief that I think I would have been better without them. They came like a glimpse of sun after rain, promising things the day never fulfils. As long as I can remember, there always seemed to be a great cloud hanging over me, a pressure bearing down on me. There was something lurking at the back of my mind, something I should have done or said or not said. Constance used to tease me and say I worried over how to crack an eggshell! It sounds so silly, but I did worry over things like that—whether one should cut the top off with a knife or batter it with a spoon and pick the shell off, it was like a mysterious rite, which way you did it indicated to others what kind of a person you were. I hated having to work things out, I was always afraid of coming up with the wrong answers which, again, would indicate what sort of a person I was. I wanted to be told what to wear; I spent hours wondering what shoes to put on for an outing. If I wore the wrong ones, nothing was said, but I knew the whole time that it was my fault I had a blistered heel. If I’d come downstairs and my mother had said, “You can’t possibly wear those,” we should have had an argument and the whole thing would have been forgotten by the time we left the house. It was the same with other things. I knew how I ought to feel about Mrs. Picton’s daft Kenny, but in fact I hated him and was rather frightened of him. I suppose if I’d pushed him in a pond I’d have been sorry for him and behaved better. But I knew that was something I shouldn’t do, so I wrestled with myself. One always knew in our house that something was expected of one, hoped for, waited for, that there was a right and a wrong way; although nothing was ever said, the thought waves were very strong. I wrestled with myself most of the time. Every moment I was thinking about myself and my reactions, and whether they were right or wrong. Now a
nd again, I had a little explosion when I decided to be damned and did the wrong thing! Even that didn’t bring about a conflict. I think I probably needed a few really rousing rows in order to shake all my troubles out of me.’

  ‘But Margaret!’ It seemed to me she was painting a picture of herself quite at odds with the truth. ‘You never gave the impression of being indecisive. You seemed to meditate carefully before you committed yourself; but when you did commit yourself, you held very strongly to your views. I was quite daunted by you, and you steam-rollered poor Timothy!’

  ‘One has to state one’s views strongly if one is to prevent their being challenged. I used to envy you because you didn’t take up entrenched positions. If something puzzled you, you said so. If you didn’t know the answers you couldn’t pretend, and you were even willing to admit that you were wrong. You were quite transparently honest. In fact, your honesty was devastating at times. I remember telling you a heartrending story of how my rabbit was ill and I prayed for it to live; at last it nibbled a piece of lettuce and gradually it grew stronger again. And you dismissed my miracle with the words, “But he’ll die one day, however hard you pray.” My mother used to say that I was more difficult to live with after you had been staying with us, I think she sometimes felt that you were a rather disturbing influence. I asked you once if you had been saved and you said you didn’t know. I could never have admitted that. I used to pray for you, but you didn’t need my prayers. I was the one who was in need.

  ‘Books were my way out; I could lose myself completely in a book so that I was quite unaware of what was going on around me. But I knew that was a sin. It was never said, of course. If it had been I could have argued and cried. But it wasn’t said. So I began to say it for myself. It was bad for me, this escape into fantasy was bad for me. And there wasn’t a word bad enough to describe the other thing. You see, I fell in love with all the heroes and at night I used to make up stories involving myself and I got so sexually excited I was afraid it would show in the morning. So I stopped that. Somehow, I don’t know how. I took long walks, I think. I tried to tell my mother once and she was very calm and amused and said it happened to most girls of my age and did any of the boys I knew rouse these feelings particularly strongly? But it wasn’t like that! I felt it was something deep and dreadful that had happened to me alone, and when she was so brisk and matter- of-fact about it, I felt she hadn’t understood. I wanted so desperately to be serious, there was a kind of passionate fury in me that needed an outlet but she just went round quietly closing all the doors. Perhaps that isn’t fair to her. It doesn’t matter now, anyway. I’ve had years and years of obsession with Margaret Routh and I want to get right away from her, I don’t ever want to come across her again. I don’t want to have to solve any of the social and moral problems that we talk about incessantly in my home, giving marks, eight out of ten to James Callaghan for the way he handled matters in Northern Ireland, but only five out of ten for dealing with immigration. Seven out of ten to Mrs. Craig-Warren for being a good organizer but only three out of ten socially because she can’t forget she’s a university wife. Life can’t be just about this, and if it is, I don’t want it. It’s a maze, too intricate for me. I can’t find my way around in it, I forget the rules, I don’t understand how the marking system works, I don’t trust the judges. That’s the worst thing of all, I don’t trust the judges.’