Harnessing Peacocks

by Mary Wesley

  Hebe began to laugh.

  ‘Then,’ said Silas, laughing too, ‘he seduced you.’

  ‘Oh Silas, I don’t know, I honestly don’t.’

  ‘Just this nightmare thing?’

  ‘No, one other thing. There’s a smell.’ Hebe sat up. ‘My God, Silas, you smell of it now, how weird, and I haven’t told you. I quite forgot. Amy is ill. How could I forget?’

  Silas gave a shuddering sigh. ‘Will she die?’

  ‘She had a heart attack. She is in bed resting.’

  ‘I can hear yours. Amy won’t leave us.’

  Hebe kissed the top of the head laid against her chest. Time later to worry about Amy but for this moment she felt lighthearted, overjoyed by Silas.

  ‘It’s this jersey that smells, Jim lent it to me,’ he said.

  Hebe was not listening. Her relief at finding Silas, telling Silas, blocked all other thought. She filled her lungs with the smell of Bernard’s cottage—woodsmoke, garlic, paraffin, herbs, coffee, wet salty air coming across the fields from the sea. She breathed it all in and let out an exhausted sigh. Silas could be right about LSD. She simply couldn’t remember.

  ‘What’s the difference,’ Silas was speaking, ‘anyway?’

  ‘What difference?’

  ‘Between marrying for money and being,’ he hesitated, then, ‘being a tart? I don’t think there is any difference except—’

  ‘Except what?’

  ‘Except that you seem happier than a lot of people at school’s mothers.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘We are happier, Giles and I, than people at school. Mr and Mrs Reeves don’t seem happy. Do I have to go back to that school?’

  ‘I—’

  ‘You know Giles talks like us when he wants and when I am with him I talk like him.’

  Hebe said nothing.

  ‘Giles only talks as he does to tease Hannah and it’s easier to be like other people. It’s a waste of money, Hannah having elocution lessons. Who wants to sound like Mrs Thatcher?’ Silas laughed. ‘What is your nightmare about, do you think?’

  ‘My grandparents trying to find out who your father was.’

  ‘What did they say? Tell me again.’

  Hebe whispered, ‘Who was the man? Long-haired layabout, dirty feet, might be a foreigner, who was the man, abortion, might be black, earrings, cannabis, dirty fingernails, may have a police record, who was the man—’

  ‘I’m not bothered,’ said Silas.

  Thirty-one

  ‘TAKE ME TO WILSON Street.’ Bernard, who had sat hunched in silence during the drive, now spoke.

  ‘I thought you wanted to go to a movie.’ Jim, too, had been silent, prey to feelings of anger, anxiety and exhilaration, an uneasy mix which made him so inattentive of his driving that several times along the road there had been a near miss with another car.

  ‘I’ve changed my mind. Stop at the corner, I want to buy flowers for Amy.’

  Jim drew into the kerb. ‘Wouldn’t it be sensible to wait for the funeral?’

  ‘Sensible!’ Bernard snorted as he opened the car door. ‘Shan’t be long.’ He darted across the pavement into the flower shop.

  ‘We’re on a double yellow line,’ Jim yelled after him. He watched the inexorable advance of a traffic warden. ‘This is all I need.’ He drummed impatient fingers on the steering wheel, cursing Bernard. The traffic warden sauntered down the street slipping tickets behind windscreen wipers. ‘Come on, Bernard.’ Why am I in such a rage, what does it matter? Jim asked himself. ‘Hurry up! he shouted to the old man. Bernard, arms full of roses, emerged from the shop.

  ‘Hullo.’ Bernard and the warden met beside the car. ‘Karen, isn’t it?’ Bernard bared his ancient teeth. ‘You are looking very beautiful. How’s your mother? I don’t think I’ve seen you since you left school. You have your mother’s looks.’

  ‘I am married now, Mr Quigley,’ Karen chirped.

  ‘Goodness, how time—I say, were you going to put one of your billets doux on our windscreen?’

  The warden laughed and held the car door open for Bernard. ‘Courting, Mr Quigley?’ she queried, eyeing the roses. Bernard showed his teeth again. The warden snapped shut the car door. ‘Don’t forget your seat belt, Mr Quigley.’ Bernard leant back in his seat. ‘I love women, can’t do without them.’

  Jim drove on, wondering why Bernard had not long ago got himself murdered.

  At Amy’s house he stopped the car, deciding he would play no part in whatever obscene pantomime Bernard planned.

  ‘Come on.’ Bernard extricated himself from the seat belt. ‘Idiotic infringement of personal liberty, these things. Look sharp. Follow me.’

  Reluctantly Jim followed.

  Bernard crossed the pavement, pushed open Amy’s door. ‘Never locks her door. Get raped one of these days, the old fool.’ He mounted the stairs, opened Amy’s bedroom door. Jim heard a faint exclamation and Bernard said, ‘Stupid ass told me you were dead, brought you roses. Don’t tell me you’ve had a heart attack.’

  Jim heard Amy’s crisp reply, ‘It’s not only Louisa who has a weak heart.’

  ‘Still jealous after all these years,’ Bernard crowed. Then, ‘Let’s look at you. You don’t look too bad, give us a kiss.’ Then, raising his voice, ‘Jim, come in here.’

  Jim went in. Amy lay with an arm round the bouquet of roses. Her free hand held Bernard’s old claw. She smiled at Jim.

  ‘Thought I was dead, didn’t you? Where’s the dog?’

  ‘He wasn’t my dog.’ Jim felt acute embarrassment. ‘I must apologise for coming into your house like that. I wanted—’

  ‘Sit down, both of you.’ Amy indicated chairs. Bernard sat holding Amy’s hand. Jim sat uneasily by the window. ‘You came to see my paperweights,’ Amy said to Jim. ‘I’ve got real flowers, now.’ The hand holding the sheaf of roses tightened its grip round the cellophane wrapping.

  ‘Just because I thought you might be dead doesn’t alter anything,’ said Bernard loudly.

  ‘I’m not deaf any more than I am dead,’ said Amy angrily. ‘It never occurred to me you would change.’

  It seemed to Jim that here was confirmation of an old quarrel.

  Amy went on, ‘You are not getting the paperweights. I have left them to Hebe.’

  ‘I don’t want your paperweights,’ Bernard shouted, his voice cracking.

  ‘Then why are you here?’ Amy’s eyes watched Bernard. Jim felt her hostility.

  ‘Can your heart stand a bit of news?’ Bernard peered into Amy’s face.

  ‘Of course. Spit it out.’ Amy had the upper hand in this subterranean feud.

  ‘A surprise?’ questioned Bernard on a rising note.

  ‘Go on,’ she said.

  ‘This friend of mine, Jim, has reason to believe he is Silas’ father.’ Bernard stared at Amy, his mouth slightly open, as though sharing in the surprise he was causing.

  ‘He looks very like him,’ said Amy unsurprised. ‘Same nose. Your hair was chestnut before you went grey, I take it.’ She was talking now to Jim. ‘Silas has Hebe’s eyes, though.’

  ‘Dammit it, Amy, must you be so calm?’ Bernard yelped.

  ‘Doctor told me to keep calm.’

  ‘He’s been looking for her for years.’

  ‘Does he want to marry her? Do you want to marry her?’ Amy tried to see Jim’s face, sitting with his back to the light.

  ‘I’m,’ began Jim, ‘I’ve—’

  ‘He’s in love with her,’ Bernard volunteered.

  ‘Ho,’ said Amy. ‘Love! You are in love with me.’ Bernard made a clucking noise, ‘And with Louisa. There was talk of love with Lucy and even Eileen. That’s Hebe’s grandmother,’ Amy spoke towards Jim, ‘and a lot of others. Used to take us all to the same hotel in Paris. Talked of love. It didn’t mean a thing.’

  ‘Rubbish,’ yelled Bernard. ‘Am I not here with roses?’

  ‘You came to make sure I was dead and pinch my paperweights.’

  ‘Unfair,�
� yelled Bernard. ‘I came because I love you.’

  Amy said, ‘Fancy that.’

  In the silence that followed Jim stood up, disturbed by these grotesque old people.

  Amy said in accusation, ‘You keep in touch with Louisa.’

  ‘I telephone,’ admitted Bernard, ‘sometimes.’

  ‘And why not?’ Amy was magnanimous. ‘But you don’t let her see you, poor shrivelled old manikin.’

  ‘No.’ Bernard closed his eyes. ‘I don’t.’

  ‘He didn’t want to marry any of us.’ Amy switched her attention to Jim. ‘Not that it matters now. Do you want to marry Hebe?’

  ‘I—’ Jim felt distraught. What business was it of this old crone to question him?

  ‘It’s up to Hebe, isn’t it?’ said Amy.

  Bernard opened his eyes. ‘Only Hebe?’

  ‘As far as I am concerned only Hebe matters,’ said Amy, her eyes flicking from Jim to Bernard. ‘And for Hebe read Silas, for Silas is what matters to Hebe. Wherever he is, he seems to be lost.’

  ‘Silas,’ said Bernard smugly, ‘is at my house and Hebe is with him. That is why Jim is here. I tactfully removed him so that Silas could explain why he ran away from the Scillies without a problematical father getting underfoot.’

  ‘I thought you came to visit the dead. Is Silas all right?’

  ‘Perfectly,’ said Bernard. ‘We cherished him as I’—he squeezed Amy’s hand—‘cherish you.’

  Amy heaved with laughter.

  ‘Mind your heart.’

  ‘Actually,’ murmured Amy, ‘my heart is better.’

  ‘All the better for seeing me?’ asked Bernard slyly.

  These outrageous old people are flirting, thought Jim. He wondered whether they would notice if he slipped away. They did not, he thought, need an audience for their reunion.

  ‘Actually,’ the word seemed to amuse Amy, ‘actually yes.’

  Hannah chose this moment to come into the room, followed by Terry and Giles, her green eyes sparkling, teeth aflash.

  ‘Goodness! Is this a party?’ She looked from Bernard to Jim. ‘We came to impart our good news.’

  ‘Impart?’ questioned Amy, holding Bernard’s hand.

  ‘One of Terry’s words. We wondered whether your heart was up to it.’

  ‘My heart is fine.’

  As he left the room Jim thought the good news is the white girl and the black boy are, for want of a better word, in love. As he ran down the stairs and out to his car he resented the almost tangible glow of happiness surrounding the ill-assorted couples. He had yet to confront Hebe.

  Jim parked his car beside Hebe’s. He walked fast across the fields, fighting the inclination to go back to London, recapture the shield which had effectively protected him from serious relationships for thirteen years. Skirting the kale field and climbing the banks he reviewed the girls of past years. Fun girls, pretty girls, clever girls and stupid, he had shielded himself from any depth of feeling, with the memory of the perfect girl in Lucca, the girl who had left him, running fleet of foot, disappearing into the crowd. Remembering Hebe racing across the fields earlier in the day, he thought, She still runs pretty fast. He gritted his teeth, forcing himself on. She is there in Bernard’s house. I have to put an end to this one way or another, he thought, as he climbed the last bank into Bernard’s garden. Put an end to my dream, he thought resentfully, face up to some sort of reality. It is destruction, he thought, opening the door and walking into the house. He felt desolation and regret for his loss, now that it was too late to run away. If I had had any sense I would have stopped looking years ago. Not finding her I would have had something to keep.

  Hebe was sitting in Bernard’s chair, her arms round Silas curled beside her, asleep.

  Jim sat on a chair by the door. Feathers came wagging and grumbling to greet Jim, pressing his head on his knee, inviting attention. Jim stroked the dog’s head and looked at Hebe, who peered at him over Silas’ head.

  ‘Is he all right now?’ indicating Silas.

  ‘Yes,’ she said evenly.

  Feathers wandered back to sit at Hebe’s feet. Jim felt exposed. Hebe had Silas as protection and now the dog also. He cleared his throat, unable to think of anything to say. Minutes passed. Hebe and Jim looked at one another. Hebe said something in a low voice.

  Jim said ‘What?’

  She said, ‘It’s the smell. I think I recognise the smell, it’s—this jersey you lent him.’

  ‘You mean me? I smell?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I smell of coffee. I keep a coffee shop, my clothes are impregnated with it. Why?’

  ‘I get panics, nightmares. Then there’s this smell which is nice.’

  ‘I’m glad of that.’ He studied her. She had cut off most of the long hair, the eyes were the same, the face thinner. ‘It’s a coffee shop on one side and antiques on the other.’ Must keep talking, he thought.

  ‘Oh.’ She was not giving him much help.

  ‘I was working in a coffee bar in Lucca; do you remember me? Do you remember the fiesta, the nut necklaces, the candles along the window-ledges, the narrow streets? You ran away—’

  Hebe watched him. What were her thoughts?

  She said, ‘My nightmare panic.’

  ‘It’s been a marvellous haunting memory for me,’ said Jim. ‘I’m sorry if it was a nightmare for you.’ He was stupefied. After all these years all she remembers is a bloody nightmare.

  ‘The smell is mixed up with something else. I see now it was you. It’s the other, the result, the—the—I—’ She looked at him, distressed. ‘I tried to tell Silas and do you know what he said?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘He suggested I’d been on a “trip”, that someone had given me LSD.’

  ‘That would explain a lot,’ said Jim. ‘You were with a bunch of hippies, people said, when I tried to find you.’

  ‘I’d just met them. I was living with a family as an au pair learning Italian. I didn’t know them.’

  ‘In Lucca?’

  ‘I was going home next day. I remember now. I must have blotted it out when the horror came later. I am sorry.’

  ‘I am Silas’ father,’ said Jim, making the effort. There is no retreat now, he thought. For years my dream has been her nightmare. ‘I think, I mean it’s obvious, look at his nose and hair, he’s my son.’ Hebe said nothing. ‘He has got your eyes,’ said Jim. ‘Perhaps we could get to know each other.’ Still she said nothing. ‘We seem to have put the cart before the horse,’ he said. ‘I don’t want to bother you but Silas seems to be the result of our encounter. Perhaps if we—’

  ‘The result.’ Hebe looked down at Silas. ‘I see I—’ She tightened her hold. She is afraid I may hurt Silas, Jim thought. I must stop her being frightened. She makes no attempt to deny my fatherhood.

  Hebe said, ‘If you are—’ defensively.

  ‘I am sure I am.’ Idiot, there is still time to back out.

  ‘Yes.’ She was not in doubt.

  ‘Look,’ said Jim, ‘when I met Silas yesterday he was pretty upset. Perhaps we could start from there. Perhaps I could help if he is in trouble. How would that be?’

  ‘Put the cart before the horse again?’

  She’s intelligent. Thank God. ‘Put Silas first and possibly we will get to know each other.’

  ‘I don’t mind you getting to know Silas,’ said Hebe, keeping herself out of it, reminding herself not to be possessive.

  Jim, who had been sitting grim and strained, smiled for the first time. ‘You don’t know me,’ he said. ‘You can keep yourself as private as you like.’ I don’t mean that, he thought. I want to know her but it may take the rest of our lives to break down this privacy.

  Hebe reached for her glasses and put them on to see Jim clearly. He is already assuming possession, she thought. He thinks he can barge into my life, Silas’ father. I can’t deny it, they are alike, he even talks like Silas. What about my Syndicate? My cooking? How does he think he will fit i
n with Mungo, Rory, Louisa, Lucy, with Silas who I live and work for, and Hippolyte? Does he think he can just appear like this? Do I want this man barging in? Thoughtfully she regarded Jim through her glasses.

  She is not a bit my dream girl, thought Jim. She looks a fighter. The dream girl was so vulnerable. What is this woman holding my son in her arms going to do with my life? How will she fit in with my coffee trade, my antiques. And the boy, my son, what of him? Oh God, he thought, do I want all this? Resentfully he regarded Hebe, blaming her.

  ‘If we were writing a book,’ Jim said, ‘this would be a joyful occasion.’

  ‘In real life it’s a positive quicksand,’ said Hebe.

  They succumbed to laughter and Silas woke.

  Thirty-two

  SILAS, LOOKING FROM HIS mother to Jim, remembered where he was. The humiliations of his visit to the Reeves came crowding blackly back.

  ‘What am I to do about my bag? I left it behind.’ His duffle bag seemed of paramount importance.

  ‘Mrs Reeves is bringing it tomorrow. We can collect it at the heliport,’ said Hebe.

  ‘And have to talk to her?’ Silas was aghast. ‘Meet them all?’

  ‘We’ll be with you.’ Jim stood up and stretched. ‘It’s rather claustrophobic in this small room,’ he said. ‘What about a cream tea somewhere?’

  ‘Brilliant. There’s a farm which does teas over the hill. We could walk along the cliff.’ Silas was delighted at the prospect. ‘I’m starving.’

  ‘Come on, then,’ said Jim. ‘It stopped raining long ago.’

  ‘All right.’ Hebe felt violently hungry, tried to remember when she had last eaten. Breakfast in Louisa’s house in the early hours. Was it the same day? ‘I’m quite hungry, too,’ she said carefully.

  Feathers ran ahead across the fields, carrying his tail high, signalling them to follow as might a tourist guide in St Mark’s Square. They crossed the road to the cliff path winding above the sea. We look like any ordinary family, thought Jim, as they walked in single file. Family dog, child, mother, father, but the dog is not our dog, the father has not spoken to the mother for thirteen years, he only met his child for the first time yesterday. Bringing up the rear of the procession he studied Hebe’s back, observing her long stride, the dark hair falling against her shoulders. She walked ahead above the sea which, calm now in the afternoon sun, was cobalt blue, the rocks shading lighter and paler over sandy patches. What is she thinking, Jim wondered. If we were what we appear to be, an ordinary family, would I know?