A Spell of Swallows

by Sarah Harrison

  With difficulty she got to her feet and stumbled on, swiping at the snot and tears with clenched fists. She couldn’t carry the awfulness inside her head for a moment longer, it was too big and too dreadful, like a painful swelling that might burst. Someone else must go and look, someone who would understand, who would tell her not to worry, who would know what to do.

  The back door crashed open as she went in. The dog, lapping water in the scullery, turned his head, but Hilda, who was peeling things at the sink, hardly glanced at her. By the time she reached the top of the stairs there were spots before her eyes and her legs hurt. She had to stop again before stumbling to the study and bursting in.

  Mr Mariner was standing in the middle of the room. His cheeks were pink, and his black hat lay on the desk. He was holding one of Mrs Mariner’s big wavy hairpins in his hand. He didn’t say anything to Susan about her not knocking, but smiled and twiddled the hairpin in his fingers.

  ‘Susan, my goodness you have been running, look what I found on the floor.’

  ‘They’re in the church!’ She pointed.

  ‘I beg your pardon? Who’s in the church?’

  ‘In the very holy place, lying down!’ She began to cry. ‘They shouldn’t be there, should they . . .’

  ‘Who?’ Mr Mariner’s voice changed. It got very, very quiet, and he came and stood very close to her and took her hands away from her face, and made her look at him. He was still holding the hairpin, and when he did that it grazed her cheek.

  ‘Who?’ he said for the third time. His face wasn’t pink any more but grey and white. His eyes looked watery. ‘You must tell me at once.’

  Susan sensed the enormous importance of what she was about to say. For this one moment she was important, and that stiffened her resolve and made her speak up clearly.

  ‘Mrs Mariner and John Ashe.’

  He made a funny, frightening sound. He must have squeezed the pin and hurt himself because in the moment before he disappeared she saw blood on his hand. He ran out of the front door and she heard his footsteps crunching across the gravel as she crouched down to pick up the pin which had fallen to the ground. Holding it, she felt calmer. Here was a job she could do: she could return this to Mrs Mariner, later.

  Vivien burst through the garden gate into her husband’s arms. For a second only—his fingers bit into her shoulders as he pushed her aside. She staggered and fell, feeling her spectacles break beneath her in her pocket.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘Get up.’

  She did so. His face was shrunken, unrecognisable, the face of an ugly dwarf.

  ‘Where is he?’

  She couldn’t speak.

  ‘In the church?’ He saw what the answer was. ‘Were you there with him?’

  She was shaking violently now.

  ‘What have you done?’ he moaned. ‘What have you done?’

  She ran on into the house. Susan Clay was sitting at the kitchen table, petting the dog; she held something out to Vivien but she beat her hand away.

  ‘Go! Get out!’

  The dog barked excitedly.

  Closing the narrow door behind her she ran up the narrow stairs and into his room. She closed that door too—a white shirt hung on the back of it. She took it off the hook and lay down on the bed. Then she wrapped the shirt about her head and over her face, so tight that she could not see, and could scarcely breathe.

  There was no trace of him on the shirt; only the smell of clean, washed cotton.

  LONDON

  I found out later that Jarvis was wounded for a second time at Dujaila, but not seriously. I’ve often wondered about that, but there were no rumours. He came to visit me in hospital, in Basra. I couldn’t say when, exactly. Pain’s like prison, it’s another world, you lose track of time. He took me back, sold them his story of what happened: I got attacked by Buddhoos, apparently when following him on his valiant lone recce. Frankly I felt so bad then I didn’t give a stuff. I knew he was hoping I’d concentrate and take it all in, for future reference. Doubtless thought he’d been very clever, getting us both off the hook. He didn’t need to worry, did he think I was going to split on him, when I could have all that to myself? I’m a miser, I’d never give it away.

  Later, of course, I could picture it all: him lugging me back into camp, both of us covered in my blood, him a hero on two counts, me the simple soul misguidedly keeping an eye on him. His brain must have been working overtime on that little trip. Did they really believe him? I doubt it, but he was a popular chap. They knew he’d got the shakes, but he’d come back, and with a halfway plausible story, too, so they were going to let it go through on the nod, especially as I was in no position to contradict . . .

  He sat in that stinking ward, eyes never quite meeting mine, never stopped smiling. Thanks to his handiwork, I’ll never stop smiling either.

  Mine was a Blighty one, in the end. My face got infected and I nearly died. For the first and last time I damn near wished I had, the pain was so bad. Like I was being eaten alive. Along with my rotting flesh they must have smelled a rat, because I heard he was transferred on to the staff after that. Got sick in the last months of the war, long after I was back in Civvy Street, and was shipped home a shadow of his former self. It took them months to get him right—the twice-wounded brilliant young officer, breaking the nurses’ hearts.

  I bet he thought we’d never see each other again. Shows how little he knew. From the moment those metal teeth ripped my face apart, he owed me. And I was going to make it my business to collect.

  I never broke any nurses’ hearts. Nerve, yes; hearts, no. I’d have laughed if I’d been able to. Did they think I couldn’t hear them whispering about whose turn it was to change my dressing? I got a certain pleasure out of lying there, waiting, knowing one of those stupid girls was sooner or later going to have to come over and deal with the monster. I’ve always known if you keep quiet and wait, people will have to come to you, whether they like it or not.

  Once, when two nurses were walking away after making my bed, I heard one of them say under her breath: ‘Poor fellow . . . What sort of life will he have?’ Looks were so important to her, she couldn’t imagine going through life with a face that made people cross the road. Stupid, patronising bitch. Didn’t she realise I’d be able to turn all this to my advantage? Not everyone was as vain and stupid as her.

  I’ll allow there was quite a while when things didn’t look too rosy. It was a year—Christmas 1917—when the doctors finally threw their hands up and said they couldn’t do any more: sick of the sight of me, in every sense. I was healed, but not mended. I’d been spoiled again.

  London at that time was pretty grim, full of wrecks and ghosts and crazies back from the war, and no end in sight; full of families who’d lost their precious son or husband. You’d think that would make them more charitable, wouldn’t you? Make them want to be good to people like me, but you’d be wrong. They’d had enough of trenches, and thinking how their lads had died; the last thing they wanted to see was a bloke with a trench on his face.

  I swept streets, I collected litter, I cleaned toilets—that didn’t last long, the customers complained. Seeing me must have put a knot in their willies. I lived in a hostel. Every night it was full to capacity. After a few months I got a cubicle because I was a regular, but it was then I began to get really angry about what the war had done. The dead ones were lucky, in a way. Not their families, but the men who’d died went out as heroes, or martyrs, they’d always be remembered as the brave young ones who went away. A hell of a lot of the ones who came back, came back to this—menial work, or none at all, nights spent in dormitories that smell of urine and dirty clothes and unwashed skin and hair. The people who ran the hostel were OK, God-botherers, but I didn’t hold that against them, they were doing their best. We had to be out by nine in the morning. By five o’clock when we were allowed back in the place was clean and tidy, so they must have worked like blacks. They gave us a cooked tea and a hot breakfast. But w
hat they couldn’t give us was dignity. I looked at those men, hundreds of them, lots of them younger than me, and they’d turned into animals, not fierce, wild ones but sad, tame, ill-treated domestic animals, cringing and humble, glad of any crumbs that came their way. It made my blood boil.

  There was a lad there for a while, Danny, who’d been in Mesopotamia, like me. He’d been at Ctesiphon, but caught one at Hanna, come back and been pretty much on the streets ever since, One night I sat with him on his bed and we talked about it. He remembered Jarvis shooting his horse—strange to think he and I were standing less than a hundred yards apart back then with no idea about each other, and here we are sitting together in this dormitory. He’s a pretty pathetic specimen, skinny and pale with a bad skin (though who am I to talk?) and he bites his nails; he washes up in a hotel in Bayswater. Not a very nice hotel if you know what I mean—businessmen away from home. I asked him about his family.

  ‘I couldn’t stay there. My widowed sister and her kids live there and it’s only two bedrooms, I had to get out.’

  ‘Do they know where you’re living?’

  He shook his head. ‘I’ve told them I’m well set.’

  I don’t often feel sorry for people—we all make our own lives—but I felt sorry for that lad. Lived through all that and came home to find there was no room for him. He’d got to be the big grown-up son and make his way, and look where he wound up—clearing up after those dirty bastards in Bayswater, and sleeping in this place with the likes of me. Except, of course, that I’m different. He was a nice enough bloke, he probably felt sorry for me, with my ugly phiz that no one wants in their kitchen, or their office, or their factory if they can help it.

  Then one day Danny cheered up. Or at least he cheered up gradually, and one day it was noticeable enough for me to pass a comment.

  ‘Things are looking up, John,’ he said. ‘I’m moving out of here.’

  ‘What happened?’ I asked. ‘Find a diamond in the dirty dishes?’

  ‘Sort of.’ He smirked. ‘I found this man’s business card, turned out he was a city councillor from Manchester. When I asked if it was his I used his name: Councillor Pryke, I said, is this yours?’ Danny’s grin nearly split his face. ‘He said it was, and gave me a quid.’

  ‘Then you gave it back, eh.’

  ‘Exchange ain’t no robbery. And there’s been more since. It’s a good little earner.’

  Danny, the big blackmailer. Still, he did leave the hostel, so there must have been some truth in it. Never found out how he got on after that . . . Probably ended in tears, he was no brainbox.

  Still, he’d given me an idea.

  At long last the show was over. On Armistice Night I stayed in my cubicle and read a book. The streets of London were heaving with drunks. Not long now and they’d be crawling with returning heroes looking for work. That’s when I had the idea of clearing off for a bit. I was never one to be part of the herd, I’d seek my fortune somewhere else.

  Springtime, I thought, when the sap rises—that’s the time to see the countryside.

  Chapter Sixteen

  The last time I saw anyone so changed it was Jarvis, that night in Dujaila. But what was sweet about this time was that I’d made the change happen. Mariner seemed to have got smaller, and to be getting smaller all the time, right in front of my eyes. His face was like waste paper; his hands were clasped behind his back but his shoulders twitched. Those long fingers would be writhing and twisting like snakes.

  He wouldn’t let me into the house.

  ‘You’re never going in there again,’ he said, in a wheezy voice like barbed wire. ‘I won’t have you setting foot in my house.’

  That was understandable. He didn’t want me in the house, but he didn’t want to be in the church—holy ground, that we’d desecrated—or in the street, where we might be heard or seen. So we were standing under the trees at the end of the garden, that part where I’d been working on and off all summer. My suggestion; I’d led the way up here, and he’d followed. The irony of that wasn’t lost on me, and I doubt it was on him, though he was in no state to appreciate it. There were flowers here now, and a little path, and the seat I’d built out of the broken branch . . . all the things I’d made. I stood facing the house, he with his back to it, defensively. The house looked good, too, thanks to me. I didn’t know where she was—up in their bedroom, probably, watching us from the window. I’d changed her, too. Nothing was going to be the same in this poxy village—and all my doing.

  ‘You’ve ruined us, haven’t you?’ he said, as if it had just come to him. There was a funny look in his eyes. It would have been going too far to call it admiration, but he was impressed. Now he took a step towards me, and I could see little gobs of spit at the corners of his mouth. He smelt bad, too; I’m sensitive to these things.

  ‘You are loathsome, John Ashe,’ he whispered. He was short of breath, but the barbed wire was still there, snagging and scratching. ‘You are a viper.’

  I stared back at him. He’d have to do a lot better than this. Of the two of us, I knew who felt worse.

  Then he said, in that curious, wondering tone again: ‘I’ve never before spoken of the devil. To do that is to give him credence, to dignify him. But now I know that the devil exists, and that I have given him house room—here, in this vicarage. And in the house of God!’

  This was better, he was getting into his stride. I gave him a nod, not exactly agreeing, but acknowledging the compliment.

  ‘I have broad shoulders!’ he hissed. ‘And I can bear what I must! But you have defiled what is holy: the church, the sacrament of marriage, the innocence of children!’

  He didn’t fool me. It was himself he was worried about. I recognised real terror, the sort that loosens the sphincter, because I’d seen it before. Right now Saxon Mariner would have slit his wife’s throat, and the slow girl’s, if it could have saved his skin. As for the house of God, the only part that played in the scheme of things was that it made things much, much worse. There was something particularly poetic in Susan Clay being the one to tell him—a nice little bonus, when all I’d been going to do was have his wife in the church—the final taboo—and then let him know myself, while applying a little gentle pressure to the financial udder . . .

  ‘How dare you smile!’ He was so close now I could feel his spit on my face. ‘You’re mad. I despise you. God will have mercy on us, in the end, but not on you, John Ashe. You will never, ever, be forgiven. Never!’

  It was time to break the silence.

  ‘I did nothing,’ I said. ‘You should speak to your wife.’

  ‘Don’t dare to give me orders!’

  I shrugged.

  ‘My wife has been ill!’ He panted. ‘She’s not herself, I shall be taking her to see a specialist—’

  ‘She came after me.’ I cut across him but I kept my voice very, very low, so that he had to pay attention. ‘Ask her. She wouldn’t leave me alone. She came after me, and she knew what she wanted.’

  He slapped my face! It was wonderful—that fussy, weak, womanish slap that played right into my hands. I scarcely even blinked. I put my hand up to my cheek, but not because he’d hurt me. My hand, unlike his, was completely steady. I pointed.

  ‘See this?’

  He scarcely knew what to look at, or what he was seeing, I doubt if he was seeing at all, but I was going to tell him anyway.

  ‘Your wife did that.’

  Emotion recollected in tranquillity—William Wordsworth. Mariner was a poet himself, he’d know that quotation, and I was giving Mariner plenty to recollect when I’d gone. Every word, every gesture, every last agonising detail, would come back, when he was alone, and he’d die a death of a thousand cuts. Every time.

  I was beginning to get tired of this, though, and tired of him. All of a sudden I could see myself walking away up that hill, shaking the dust of Eadenford from my shoes for ever. I knew exactly what it would feel like to look down on this dull, inconsequential little place for the
last time, and that moment couldn’t come soon enough.

  ‘Your Vivien drew blood because that’s what she likes,’ I said. ‘In your study and your bedroom as well as your church.’

  ‘Don’t say her name!’ Yes—I knew that would hurt. He was shaking all over now, and there were tears wobbling down his shrunken face with its big blade of nose like a bird’s beak. ‘You have no right to speak her name!’

  ‘Oh,’ I said, ‘I have every right. But I don’t have to. Not unless people don’t believe Susan Clay.’

  He wasn’t so crazed that he didn’t understand me. I’d seen it in the war, that single, dominating impulse: to survive. The impulse that keeps unwanted babies alive on freezing doorsteps and men running with bullets in their chests, and trapped dogs breathing. For Saxon Mariner, step one in the survival process was first of all to get rid of John Ashe.

  ‘How much?’ he asked.

  I didn’t answer. He turned and walked away over the lawn—my beautiful lawn, I was almost sorry to say goodbye to it—and I followed. He was weaving a bit, I thought he might fall, but he kept going, round the side of the house to the front door. He didn’t have to tell me—at the bottom of the steps I waited, while he went in.

  I saw the study door open, and his bowed head as he stood at the desk. Susan Clay would be at home by now, she’d have told her story. They wouldn’t believe it at first, but it wouldn’t take long. I was looking at a man whose life was about to come crashing down round his ears. He bent down, then straightened up; I think he was counting. Then he disappeared and the study door closed.

  It was a lot of money—I never expected so much in cash. I thought I might have to come back, or make some complicated arrangement. I wouldn’t have minded, I’m very patient. I didn’t ask, and I didn’t bother counting, just stuffed it in my boot. But it did cross my mind that the money might not be his, that it might have something to do with church funds. He was going to cross that bridge when he came to it. I was going to burn mine.