The Oracles

by Margaret Kennedy

  ‘Thanks. If I hadn’t heard him say so I’d be deaf. He isn’t generally so easily satisfied. But he’s soft about this Benbow, and so are you, if you ask me.’

  Mrs. Toombs threw an irritated glance at the sock which Ivy was darning. It was one of an old pair which they had given to Benbow, together with a spare shirt.

  ‘Taken him properly under your wing,’ scoffed the mother. ‘I never knew such a girl for wanting to look after people!’

  ‘I’m not a girl any more,’ said Ivy quietly. ‘I’m thirty-three, and I’ve got nobody much to look after, what with Dad so spry and you so bossy.’

  Ivy was a widow. Her husband had been killed at Arnhem. She had come back to Coombe Bassett with her little girl. Now the child was dead too, killed on the road by a truck as she bicycled to school. Ivy lived on with her parents, sometimes going out as a temporary cook to houses in the district. Her fame as a cook was widespread and she could afford to pick and choose among ladies all over the county.

  ‘He’s not a gentleman,’ she said thoughtfully. ‘But I shouldn’t wonder if he’s lived with gentry, and not as a servant, either.’

  ‘He’s not rough or awkward,’ agreed her mother. ‘But … good gracious! Supposing if he’s lost his memory, like you say, there might be people seeking him.’

  ‘I’ve thought of that.’

  ‘You have? You seem to have been thinking a lot, my girl.’

  ‘I believe he’s been married and lost his wife.’

  ‘Why ever do you think that?’

  ‘I just do. It’s just a feeling I’ve got. I think that might be at the bottom of the trouble. So he ought to have friends beside him when he gets his memory back.’

  ‘But has he said anything to make you think …?’

  ‘Nothing much. But this morning, when I took in his tea …’

  ‘You never take him tea in the morning!’

  ‘I bring tea to you and Dad when I’m home. Why shouldn’t Benbow get a cup?’

  ‘Tea? In his room? What next? A workman like him!’

  ‘He’s a Christian, I suppose.’

  ‘That remains to be seen,’ said Mrs. Toombs, pursing her lips. ‘But go on! What happened this morning?’

  ‘He was asleep. I put the tea on his chair and said: “Wake up, Benbow!”’

  ‘I wonder you didn’t offer to dress and shave him while you were at it.’

  ‘So he muttered something … it sounded like Maddy. I think his poor wife must have been called that.’

  ‘Oh, you make a lot out of a little. How do you know it wasn’t Daddy?’

  ‘A man doesn’t say Daddy when he wakes up in the morning. He says a woman’s name, if he says anything.’

  ‘Still, that’s not to say this Maddy was his wife. My goodness! Is his name really Benbow, do you suppose?’

  ‘No I don’t. And I’m sure he knows it’s not.’

  ‘For two pins I’d go to the police.’

  Ivy smiled. She took two pins from the work basket beside her and pushed them across the table to her mother.

  ‘Funny, aren’t you?’ said Mrs. Toombs, pushing them back.

  Nobody in Coombe went to the police if they could help it, for the policeman’s mother was the nosiest woman alive. Any appeal in that quarter would ensure the widest publicity for Frank’s strange conduct in engaging a nameless tramp after ten minutes’ conversation. The Toombs family, who had always kept themselves to themselves, would have detested this.

  ‘Dad’ll create if you upset Benbow before they get all those orders done,’ said Ivy.

  Her mother nodded.

  ‘Perhaps you’re right. No harm in waiting a bit. After all, we don’t know, do we?’

  ‘That’s them coming back,’ said Ivy.

  Footsteps and voices were heard in the yard. Ivy rose, put away her sewing, and began to lay the table for supper. Presently her father came in, looking very much pleased with himself.

  ‘Mr. Headley was in the field,’ he reported. ‘And he said what I say. There should have been a inch extra each side of the lettering. We won’t say so to Mr. Simms, he said, but you were quite right, Mr. Toombs, he said. It looks a treat now it’s up.’

  ‘Anybody else there?’ asked Mrs. Toombs.

  ‘Mr. Saunders. He’s still a bit sore, I fancy, that it wasn’t a library.’

  ‘That wouldn’t have been the same thing,’ said Ivy. ‘Those two poor boys, Mr. Bill and Mr. Maurice, they were all for games, not books. Where’s Benbow?’

  ‘He stopped in the shed. He’ll come in when supper’s ready, if we give him a call.’

  There was a short pause. Benbow’s position as a lodger was scarcely settled yet. He ate with them but he had nowhere to sit. He spent all his leisure hours in the sheds.

  ‘He’s welcome to sit here evenings,’ said Mrs. Toombs, taking a fish pie out of the oven.

  Her husband gave her a grateful glance. He had not liked to be the first to suggest it.

  ‘I’ll tell him,’ he said. ‘But I really think he likes pottering about in the sheds. He’s no talker.’

  ‘He can listen to the radio,’ said Mrs. Toombs.

  They all laughed. Frank was old-fashioned about the radio. He did not like to have it turned on all day as their neighbours did. He complained of the row it made, and would only turn it on for the purpose of listening to it.

  ‘He might like The Archers,’ said Ivy.

  He looked at his watch. He was as much interested in the adventures of the Archers as were his women.

  ‘Plenty of time for supper first,’ he said. ‘They don’t come on till a quarter of seven.’

  ‘I’ll go and fetch Benbow,’ said Ivy.

  ‘You’ve no call …’ began her mother.

  But she had gone.

  ‘All this fussing over Benbow!’ complained Mrs. Toombs.

  ‘She’s a good-hearted girl, is Ivy,’ said Frank.

  ‘Yes, but we don’t want …’

  She stopped. To put into words what they did not want would be to bring it nearer. She did want, more than anything in the world, for poor Ivy’s aching heart to be filled again. She had prayed for some nice chap to come along. But Benbow! She thrust the idea from her without naming it. That’s Ivy’s way, she told herself. Always running after lame dogs.

  Ivy found him chipping away in the big shed. He rose and smiled at her as she came in.

  ‘Always at it!’ she scolded gently. ‘Too much is as bad as too little. You should take your proper time off. Now it’s supper, and after that you’re not to come rushing out here again. You’re going to stop with us and listen to the radio.’

  ‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘I’d like to.’

  ‘It’s the Archers. They …’

  She was pulled up by the expression on his face, the spasm of doubt and fear. He knew that name. It meant something to him, something which had no connection with the radio. Could it be his name? She did not think so.

  ‘That family,’ she said. ‘You know. On the radio.’

  He shook his head and picked up a chisel. She had noticed his habit of doing that, his liking to hold some tool in his hand, as though it gave him confidence.

  ‘I don’t remember,’ he said, in a low voice.

  Yes, but he could though, she thought. He could remember a lot, but he doesn’t want to.

  That name was a clue. She would try it again. She was sure that, by her own methods, she would get at the truth sooner or later.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ she said. ‘You’ll remember by and by.’

  At that he gave her a puzzled smile.

  ‘By and by? That’s a song, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes. “In the Sweet By and By”, it’s called.’

  ‘No. Not that. There was another one we used to sing.’

  ‘You’re fond of singing?’

  Her mother would rebuke them for dawdling, but she was not going to miss this chance of getting him to remember something.

  ‘I used to be.
’

  ‘You haven’t forgotten all your songs?’

  He shook his head, turning the chisel in his hand. Then he sang:

  ‘Not the labours of my hands

  Can fulfil Thy law’s demands;

  Could my zeal no respite know,

  Could my tears for ever flow,

  All for sin could not atone,

  Thou must save, and Thou alone.’

  ‘You ought to sing in the choir,’ said Ivy. ‘You’ve got a nice voice and we’ve got no good bass. Did you never sing in a choir?’

  ‘Yes. At home. When I was a boy.’

  ‘You had a yard like ours at home, didn’t you?’

  ‘My father had.’

  ‘Where was that? Up in the Shires?’

  ‘In New South Wales.’

  She felt that this was disconcertingly far off. Instinct forbade her to ask any more. He was beginning to look hunted.

  ‘Well, you don’t need to listen to the radio if you don’t like it,’ she said. ‘All I mean is, it’s not expected you should work evenings.’

  ‘I thought I’d like to finish this,’ he explained.

  He picked up a lump of stone. She recognised it: they used it as a doorstop to the wash-house, but she had not seen it since Monday, when they washed the sheets.

  ‘I thought it looked so like a cat,’ he said, showing it to her.

  It looked much more like a cat now, although he had not done a very great deal to it. Ivy gave a gasp:

  ‘Why! It’s our Flo!’

  ‘I thought you wouldn’t mind.’

  ‘I should think not! Well, I do think that’s clever of you, Benbow. Really I do. So that’s what you’ve been doing evenings? How could you get it so like?’

  ‘You can still use it for the door.’

  ‘I must show it to Mum and Dad. They’ll laugh.’

  ‘It’s not finished yet.’

  ‘Never mind. You can finish it afterwards.’

  She hurried back to the house, followed by Benbow, who looked rather worried. Mrs. Toombs stopped short, in the middle of a tirade against their unpunctuality, when she saw what had happened to her door-stopper.

  ‘Flo to the life!’ she exclaimed. ‘If you’d smooth it down a bit.’

  ‘He hasn’t finished it yet,’ said Ivy.

  ‘I’ll put it back for your door on Monday,’ he promised.

  ‘Oh, it’s too good for a door-stopper now,’ decided Mrs. Toombs. ‘If you finish it nicely I’ll put it …’

  She was upon the point of saying that she would put it in the front room. But this would be going too far.

  ‘I’ll put it somewhere in the house where we can look at it. Really, it’s a lovely likeness, isn’t it, Frank?’

  Toombs, who had been considering it solemnly, now spoke for the first time:

  ‘It’s more than a likeness. It’s a heffigy.’

  PART V

  THE HONEST GROCER

  1

  ‘MRS. HUGHES, what do people mean, exactly, when they call anyone provincial?’

  Mrs. Hughes could not immediately answer, for her mouth was full of pins. She and Christina were revolving round the Pattison dining-room table, pinning a paper pattern to some material.

  ‘They say it in such a sneering sort of way,’ continued Christina. ‘What right have they to?’

  ‘They’re silly,’ said Mrs. Hughes, taking the last pin out of her mouth.

  This sort of conversation, this kind of enquiry into the exact meaning of a word, did not appeal to her. Nor, generally, did it appeal to Christina. One knew what one meant oneself, and one seldom said anything so unusual that other people were likely to be puzzled. Arguments are not polite, and sensible people take care to say things with which everybody can agree.

  ‘Look out, Christina! You’re pinning two left sleeves!’

  ‘No! … I am, though!’

  This, also, was unlike Christina, who seldom made stupid mistakes. She began to pull the pins out angrily, tearing the paper pattern. Mrs. Hughes perceived that she was really provoked by sneers against provincialism. Not for a moment could it be supposed that she wished to discuss the topic by way of entertainment. There was some personal implication. The puzzled matron put down her scissors and tried to consider it.

  ‘Provincial? Well … you know how tiresome some people can be about their own town. They can’t talk about anything else; they aren’t interested. They only read the local paper and get it sent to them if they go away.’

  ‘There are some like that,’ agreed Christina.

  ‘My sister-in-law, the one who lives in the North,’ continued Mrs. Hughes, ‘she’s like that. We all had a holiday in Paris once, and really! Everything she saw reminded her of Yarnborough, or else they had it better in Yarnborough. And she puts on an accent and says things like: “Ah do like ma tea hot, sitha! I suppose it’s because Ah coom from Yarnbro!” As if anyone, anywhere, doesn’t like their tea hot. She got on my nerves so much I just couldn’t help telling her that I thought the people in Yarnborough were very rough and inconsiderate the time I was there. Getting on to the trams they pushed like a herd of cows. Even then she was quite self-satisfied. Oh, that’s our way in Yarnbro! You must take us as you find us.’

  Christina followed this with an intent frown. Then she burst out:

  ‘Still, I don’t get this idea that people in London are so much better than we are. How are they better? I’ve been in London. I’ve stayed with my cousin in Bayswater. They hardly ever see any shows. They’ve never been to the British Museum, which I have. Of course the shops in Bond Street are wonderful. But they don’t shop in Bond Street. They shop in the same chain stores we do. They hardly ever go anywhere.’

  ‘I suppose there’s more going on in London,’ said Mrs. Hughes, who could not make head or tail of this tirade.

  ‘If there is, nobody in London seems to know about it. They don’t know the names of their neighbours, or the girls in the shops, or the people in church! I think they lead very narrow lives compared to us. We know so many more people. When Mummie died everyone was sorry. Wherever I went they all looked at me so kindly, in the shops and the post office, and the policeman, even. They knew I’d lost my mother, and they knew Bobbins was on the way and she’d never see him, and they were sorry. People in London aren’t human.’

  Christina made a wide indignant gesture and upset a box of pins upon the floor. She knelt down to collect them and added:

  ‘I’m not ashamed of loving my own town. I was glad, when I married, that I didn’t have to go away from all my friends.’

  Light broke upon Mrs. Hughes. Dickie was at the bottom of all this. There had been some dispute. Instinctively she took Dickie’s side. Christina was a dear girl and would have been wholly admirable had she not admired herself so naïvely. Her self-complacency often irritated her friends; that it should have provoked Dickie was not very wonderful.

  ‘It doesn’t do to be too thin-skinned,’ she advised. ‘A little criticism sometimes is good for all of us.’

  ‘I’ve no ambition to be different from my friends,’ asserted Christina.

  ‘I daresay, dear. But perhaps not all of your friends are quite so pleased with themselves as you are.’

  ‘What?’

  Christina sat up, looking dumbfounded. It was not ‘just like’ Mrs. Hughes to say anything so sharp.

  ‘You think I’m too pleased with myself?’

  A little plain speaking, thought Mrs. Hughes, might be a kindness in the end. She had feared lately that something was amiss in the Pattison household. Now she was sure of it. If she did not speak to Christina like a mother nobody else would. Not that Christina’s own mother would ever have administered a dressing-down. That doting woman’s uncritical adulation had been responsible for most of the trouble.

  ‘Well, you’ve got a tremendously good opinion of yourself, haven’t you? And you make no secret of it. It’s not to be wondered at. You’ve never been checked or criticised. You’v
e always lived among people who praised and petted you. I’m not saying you don’t deserve praise. You’ve always been successful; head girl at the High School and quite the belle of East Head till you married. But you seem to think you’re perfect, and it annoys people.’

  ‘Just what have I said or done, Mrs. Hughes, that you take me up like this?’

  ‘I suppose it was Dickie who upset you, by calling you provincial?’

  Christina flushed and said nothing. She crawled about, collecting pins.

  ‘I don’t say it was kind of him. Perhaps he shouldn’t have said it. But you ought to ask yourself what provocation you gave him.’

  He had none, thought Christina. Only a hangover.

  ‘I’ve known you both since you were babies and I’m very fond of you. I was delighted when you married. But I did just wonder if Dickie had done as well for himself as he deserved. You seemed to think the luck was all on his side. Most girls improve a lot after they marry. I wondered if you’d think there was any room for improvement.’

  You think he’d have done better to marry Allie, thought Christina. But she did not say so. The knowledge that she had refrained from making so catty a remark did much to restore her composure. It was funny really! Her mulish expression exasperated Mrs. Hughes into more acerbity than was quite prudent. When gentle people brace themselves to scold they often go too far.

  ‘You never seem to grow up. You’re still the same complacent little thing you were in High School. It quite shocks me to hear the way you order Dickie about. No wonder he snaps! I don’t want to be disagreeable. But I do think you’re making a terrible mistake. When people marry they … they both change a little, and grow up together, and help each other to face life. But they must be ready to alter their points of view to suit each other. A married couple … they aren’t just two people. They can be one person, in a sort of way; a kinder, wiser person than either of them could have been alone, because two people’s experience has been put into it. They help each other not to make mistakes. But if one of them won’t change, and thinks they’re perfect already, then it isn’t as happy a marriage as it might have been. You don’t know what problems mayn’t come to Dickie that you could help him to solve if you are truly at one with him. A woman is sometimes much shrewder than a man.’