A Spell of Swallows

by Sarah Harrison

  The dog was with Ashe now, snuffling around in the tussocky grass at the side of the path, never straying more than a few yards. From time to time it made a little play for attention, pouncing on his bootlace and giving it a tug, or hurtling furiously after some invisible prey only to skid to a halt, ears askew and tongue hanging out, pretending to have seen off the imaginary interloper.

  Ashe ignored it. The more he ignored it the better it liked him. Mrs Mariner pretended to be quite put out.

  ‘I’m his favourite person until you turn up, Ashe,’ she’d said only the other day.

  ‘Then all of a sudden I’m cast aside like an old glove. And—I hope you don’t mind—but you do nothing to deserve it.’

  Ashe had shrugged. What could he do about this fatal magnetism?

  He did, however, make sure always to have a few broken biscuits in his pocket when he was there, and before leaving he would give one to the puppy as its reward for staying with him. Everyone had his price, and a dog’s was next to nothing.

  Though to all intents and purposes his eyes and his mind were always on his work, he was learning the rhythm of vicarage life, its comings and goings, its small excitements and its longueurs, the habits of its occupants. He was careful not to display the smallest curiosity with Hilda. There was no point in testing her loyalty and discretion and so running the risk of losing her hard-won friendship.

  With young Susan Clay it was different. In some respects she was like the puppy: she had time on her hands, and she liked to hang around with him if Mrs Mariner was busy. Like the puppy, he often ignored her and she didn’t mind; indeed, he sensed that she found it relaxing. Sometimes he’d say ‘hold this’ or ‘pass me that’ and she’d jump to it, wanting to be useful.

  As long as you were careful, you could ask her anything, and get an answer: she was transparently truthful and guileless. But the innocence which told you what you wanted to know would be just as likely to relay your question to someone you’d rather was kept in the dark. And to suggest that something was just between the two of you might lead to another person being told ‘it’s a secret’ and having their suspicions aroused.

  His way round this was to start her talking with a statement. He might come out with something like: ‘Mr and Mrs Mariner are out today.’

  And she’d pick up the cue and say: ‘They’ve gone to London,’ or whatever it was.

  What he wanted, of course, was something more personal, but that would have to be taken at a snail’s pace. This was frustrating when Susan would have told him everything in a minute. All in good time, he reminded himself. More haste, less speed. Because something was easy made it no more safe, but less so.

  Susan wasn’t here today. But Mrs Mariner was about, he’d been aware of a flicker of movement on the other side of the window. The puppy, getting less roly-poly and more gangling by the week, lay on the grass chewing an old tennis ball, intermittently shaking its head and snapping its jaws in an attempt to spit out the shreds of fluff.

  He succeeded in removing the old sill and laid it on the ground alongside the piece of wood he was preparing to take its place. The puppy immediately abandoned the tennis ball, scampered over and began to gnaw on the discarded sill, gagging noisily on splinters and flakes of paint.

  ‘No.’ He pushed it away and it flopped down, gazing at him as if awaiting another command.

  Ashe picked up the new sill and tested it in its position. As he did so he saw, from the corner of his eye, Mrs Mariner come into the garden from the direction of the back door. She was wearing her glasses and had her arms folded as she looked around her. She spotted him and began walking in his direction but he was careful to give no sign of having seen her.

  ‘Ashe—goodness, you’re doing wonders.’

  He looked up. ‘We’re getting there.’

  The puppy rolled over, waggling its bottom back and forth. Mrs Mariner crouched down to pet it. She was wearing a threadbare man’s shirt with a button missing; it gaped at the neck.

  ‘Faithless beast.’

  Ashe removed the new sill, placed it on his workbench, and began planing the side, bending forward to his task with narrowed eyes as though playing billiards. Mrs Mariner stood up and the puppy rolled over on to its front. They were both watching him now.

  ‘I drove all the way up to Eaden Place this morning,’ she said. ‘By myself.’

  ‘How did you manage on the hill?’ he asked, not looking up.

  ‘She laboured a bit, but we didn’t have to stop.’

  He nodded, and blew the shavings off the sill. ‘That’s good.’

  She rubbed the puppy’s chest with her foot. ‘I was wondering if you’d like a drink?’

  ‘As a matter of fact I would.’

  She hesitated. ‘I bought some bottled beer . . . Does that appeal?’

  ‘I’m not a drinking man.’

  ‘Oh . . .’ She looked almost crestfallen. ‘What then?’

  ‘Cold water’s fine. Thank you, Mrs Mariner.’

  ‘Coming up.’

  She went. The puppy rose and looked after her. Ashe touched his pocket, and it lay down again, resting its chin on its paws.

  ‘I’m beginning to wonder what we did before he came,’ said Vivien at supper.

  ‘He certainly makes himself useful,’ agreed Saxon.

  The subject of Ashe’s usefulness was no longer a source of annoyance to Saxon. The man was undoubtedly an asset, and not just in the practical sense. It might have been coincidence, but Saxon had noticed a greater calm, a harmoniousness about the place since Ashe had been working there. He could not for the life of him have said why this was, though it was true that he liked the man better than he had to begin with. He was quiet, and industrious, he used his initiative and so did not need constant instruction or supervision. Most gratifying of all had been his articulate and perceptive appreciation of Saxon’s poems, in which admiration had been tempered with just enough comment to render it respectable. Saxon knew he should not have been surprised, but there it was.

  There was also the simple fact of having another male around—two, he reflected, if you included the dog. Though he and Ashe had little to do with one another on a day to day basis, Ashe’s response to his poetry as well as the better balance in the household had made Saxon more appreciative of the work done by his new handy man. Saxon had no real friends, and friendship with an employee would have been unthinkable—but he nonetheless found the mutual respect between them pleasing. A comfort, almost.

  ‘I’m thinking of doing a reading in Bridgeford,’ he announced.

  ‘I think you should,’ said Vivien.

  ‘I quite enjoyed the one I did in London and it seems a pity not to spread the word, as it were, a little closer to home.’

  ‘Exactly. Think of all the people who’d come. One word to Lady Delamayne and you’d have to hire the town hall.’

  Saxon grimaced. ‘Vivien, please, I beg you not to say anything in that direction until we’ve given it some thought.’

  ‘My lips are sealed.’

  ‘You don’t think it would seem at all—vain? Inappropriate to a man in my position?’

  ‘No, I don’t.’ She rose from her place and pulled another chair close to his, sitting with her folded arms leaning on the table. ‘I don’t, and nor will anyone else. You may be a man of God, but that doesn’t mean you can’t be a poet too. Look at David, look at the psalmists.’

  ‘Those were songs to God.’

  ‘What about the parable of the talents?’ She caught his hesitation. ‘You see?’

  ‘You have a point.’

  Saxon’s hesitation had been only a formality, his mind was already made up, but guilt and self-doubt were endemic to his nature; he was glad to have his wife’s approval. Her approach to life was so much easier, so straightforward, one that owed more to God the Son than God the Father. The moral centre, he felt, lay somewhere between her approach and his. There was a button missing on her shirt, he noticed, and her hair was
falling down. The smell of the sunny garden rose from her clothes and skin. Saxon was stirred as ever by her warm, wanton untidiness.

  ‘Vivien . . .’ He put his arm round her waist, but she slid away, placing a butterfly-light kiss on his mouth in what was unmistakably a tender gesture of withdrawal.

  ‘You must go into Bridgeford soon,’ she said, ‘and talk to Mr Baynes in the Dane Street Bookshop. If that’s the place you were thinking of?’

  ‘Vivien—’

  ‘He’s such an admirer of your work.’

  ‘He’s always been very polite about it.’ Saxon tried unsuccessfully to keep a dejected note out of his voice. The space next to him, where his wife had sat, seemed to have filled with cold air on her departure. But she appeared full of energy.

  ‘Shall we play badminton? I need to have my revenge.’

  ‘I have a meeting with the churchwardens.’ He took a small, bitter pleasure in his excuse.

  ‘When?’

  He glanced at his watch. ‘In half an hour.’

  ‘We could manage a few points.’

  ‘There are one or two things I need to do first.’

  ‘Never mind.’ She seemed completely unconcerned, her mind already on other things. ‘I shall take Boots for a walk—if I can drag him away from Ashe.’

  Ashe had fitted the new sill and was packing up when Mrs Mariner came round the corner, carrying the dog lead, and with a scarf tied round her hair.

  ‘Thank goodness you’re going,’ she said, ‘or he’d probably refuse to come with me.’

  ‘A dog’s always ready for a walk.’

  ‘Come on, you.’ She clipped on the lead, but did not go. Ashe raked the wood shavings into a pile and began loading them and his tools into the wheelbarrow.

  ‘So what does the evening hold for you, Ashe?’ she asked. ‘You’re a man of mystery.’

  ‘No mystery,’ he said. ‘I’ll walk back to my lodgings, have supper, and go to bed.’

  ‘How is it at Mrs Jeeps’s?’

  ‘Passable.’

  ‘Oh dear, no better than that.’

  ‘It’s all right.’

  ‘Are you getting to know people in the village? They can seem an insular lot to begin with, but they’re good at heart.’

  ‘I wouldn’t know. It doesn’t bother me.’

  ‘You’re not lonely?’

  ‘No.’ He shook his head and lifted the shafts of the wheelbarrow. ‘Never.’

  She shook her head incredulously. ‘What a wonderful thing to be able to say—that you are completely, psychologically self-sufficient, when so few people are.’ Her eyes became inward-looking. ‘My husband’s like that.’

  Ashe, holding the wheelbarrow, waited politely for a moment. When no answer was forthcoming, she said:

  ‘Oh well . . . Good night, Ashe. Shall we see you tomorrow evening?’

  ‘I’ll be along to paint this. Good evening, Mrs Mariner. Enjoy your walk.’

  Saxon, awaiting the arrival of the church wardens, saw first his wife with the dog, then John Ashe, walk out of the vicarage drive and set off in opposite directions. Gradually, he was recovering his equilibrium. He had overreacted. His advances had not been rebuffed; his wife had not rejected him; indeed, he reminded himself, it was she who had come to sit next to him, who had been so encouraging about the reading. There had simply been a tiny misunderstanding—no, no, not even that, a brief moment which she had probably not even noticed and so about which she could not possibly have made a judgement.

  The two wardens, walking side by side in deep conversation, appeared in to the drive, each carrying a businesslike folder. Hastily, Saxon lowered his eyes to his desk, as if working, and waited for Hilda to answer the door.

  In spirit, what Ashe had told Mrs Mariner about his habits was true. He was a solitary animal, who didn’t need company in order to feel comfortable. But he was disposed to watch, and observe, and relished the advantage this gave him. So a couple of evenings a week, when he had finished at the vicarage, he would sit on a stool at the far end of the Waggoner’s bar, in the corner between the bar and the taproom door, and see what went on. Now that the locals were used to his appearance they accepted him and he sensed that he had won a certain wary respect for working hard, particularly at the station where he was exposed to public view the whole time. His job at the vicarage did no harm, either. Everyone liked Mrs Mariner and had a somewhat cowed respect for her husband, and Hilda had not had cause to say a bad word about him. His reputation, after a relatively short time, was for moderation, industry and reserve; as a man who preferred to keep himself to himself. Which suited both him, and others, who were content to leave him to it. Live and let live, said the village—and rather prided itself on harbouring in its midst someone of such a terrifying appearance, an emblem of their tolerance.

  ‘Oh yes,’ they might say, to a startled visiting friend or relative, ‘that’s John Ashe, nothing to worry about, he’s not a bad chap . . .’

  All this Ashe knew perfectly well. It was the effect he had sought, and he had succeeded in achieving it. As with everything, his position in the village was a question of balance, and he had found the precise equipoise between friendliness and distance which suited him.

  On this particular evening, after he left the vicarage, he did make his way to the pub. He’d been careful to time his departure so that he and Mrs Mariner would be no more than a hundred yards apart, and he was prepared to bet she’d cast a glance his way. Not that he’d have checked. You had to trust your judgement.

  He had not been around long enough to have his own stool and tankard but increasingly the place where he liked to sit was left vacant, and so it was on this occasion. The place was dim and cool after the sunlit evening outside, and there were only a handful of men in there, three young chaps playing shove ha’penny, and Ted Clay standing at the bar talking to the publican, who greeted him.

  ‘Evening, Ashe.’

  ‘Evening.’

  ‘Usual?’

  ‘Please.’

  Ted Clay lifted his chin. ‘Evening.’

  ‘Evening.’

  There was a silence broken only by the soft ‘glug’ of the ale from barrel to tankard. Clay left Ashe to take his first long, satisfying swig and wipe the foam from his top lip with the back of his wrist, before asking:

  ‘How’s it going up at the vicarage, then?’

  ‘Well, thanks. Plenty to keep me occupied, big place like that.’

  ‘How does the reverend suit you?’

  Ashe was far too canny to be drawn on this. ‘I seem to suit him, that’s the main thing.’

  The other two men gave a grunt of amused understanding. The landlord remarked:

  ‘Mrs Mariner’s a nice lady, though,’ as if someone had cast aspersions on her husband.

  ‘She is,’ said Clay. ‘She is.’

  A pause spread into a perfectly companionable silence, which Clay broke.

  ‘Do you see much of her?’

  ‘She’s around,’ said Ashe.

  ‘How’s the dog doing?’

  ‘Fine. That’s a nice dog.’

  ‘From a good bitch,’ Clay pointed out, with pride. He tilted his chin again. ‘Another reason for our Susan to be going up there.’

  Ashe said nothing. The publican chipped in. ‘Mrs Mariner makes everyone welcome.’

  Clay gave his empty jug a nudge. ‘So long as she’s not being a nuisance.’ When Ashe again said nothing, he added: ‘Don’t know what the reverend makes of it.’

  ‘He likes her,’ said Ashe. ‘He’s good to her.’

  This, being more information than he’d volunteered since walking in, and more than he generally offered in a week, caught their attention.

  ‘Is that right?’ said Clay. ‘I’m glad to hear it. I’ve always been of the opinion Edith lets her go to and fro a bit too often. I wouldn’t want her taking advantage.’

  Ashe sipped his beer and let it rest.

  ‘Your Susan’s a lamb. She wouldn’
t do no harm to anyone,’ said the landlord, as if that closed the matter; though Ashe knew it had only just been opened.

  It was nine o’clock when Vivien began to walk home and the sun was setting. With the tired puppy lolloping alongside she descended from the golden, west-facing hillside into the deep relief of the valley, where the church spire and its surrounding roofs were half bright, half dark, and the river of the High Street below, with its tributary lanes and alleys, lay in deep shadow.

  Halfway down the hill she paused. Without the accompanying beat of her footsteps and the vigorous swing of her arms, the utter stillness of evening fell around her like a veil. She was suspended in a pin-drop hush broken neither by sound nor movement. The village where she had lived her married years in an uncomprehending trance seemed no longer prosaic, but mysterious. A place of secrets—alliances, enmities, perhaps of spells. The puppy, a little to one side of her, stood motionless, equally spellbound.

  A single swallow sped from left to right, swooped, rose, and dived down again towards the twilit valley. She wondered if it was one of their swallows and, if so, whether it had recognised this woman with whom it shared its house.

  MESOPOTAMIA

  It took us an hour or so to recover from that spot of bother. Casualties to be retrieved, wounded to be sorted and patched up, then we’re told to take a rest, which isn’t easy. Knowing your own side’s getting trigger-happy is enough to make anyone jumpy. An even trickier one for the telegram. Drago suggests: ‘No harm intended’.

  Now we’re on our way again, night marching. It’s pitch black—no moon and overcast as well. Every so often we hit one of these damn drainage ditches, and because we’re about halfway back in the column it’s turned into a sodding great crater by the time we get to it. On top of that we’re coming into an area where there’s the ruins of a couple of ancient cities, and most of the foundations are still there, so if you’re not hauling yourself out of a ditch you’re clambering over piles of old stones. Everyone’s feet are giving them gyp. If there’s one thing worse than blisters, it’s a spot of sand between them and your boots. In the unlikely event that I’m ever in charge of getting an enemy spy to talk I’ll stuff his sweaty feet into hard boots with a handful of sand inside and get him to double round a few times—he’ll be squealing like a stuck pig in no time.