A La Carte

by Jeffrey Archer

  She placed him in the pram, propped up by a small pillow (she had embroidered the case herself with his name, Patrick.) She tied on the white bonnet. It made him look pale but in the late autumn a slight chill was seeping into the air. She pushed the pram into the path, pushing down hard on the handbar so that she could lower it down the steps on two wheels. There was no need to lock the door, she would not be long. The letter to her mother had to be posted and it was not far to the blood red postbox. As she walked she talked to him in the pram. His feet jiggled the letter lying on his blanket. He watched her carefully, hands held out in the air at either side of his body. He responded to her sounds with sounds of his own, his whole body involved in the interaction. They were complete. They began and ended with one another. They took and gave back to each other, never diminishing, always growing.

  She became aware of a noise some way off. She realised at once that it was the sound of a horse galloping very fast. There were other noises with it. Dragging, scraping, urgent noises that she could not identify, but felt a growing panic surging up into her throat. She instinctively stood frozen to the spot leaning into the hedge, her knuckles white on the black, black handle of the pram as she tried to pull it into the hedge with her. The child watching her started to cry, sensing her fear. The horse broke upon them around the bend with such suddenness that she screamed out. Its eyes were white, weird and wild and reflected the fear in her own. It frothed at the mouth, the foamy bubbling, sprayed away from its mouth and caught on the chestnut flanks. It drew the air in through its nostrils with sharp whines. It galloped towards the pair with crazed, blind speed not noticing her at first, standing there crouched in the hedge. When it did see her it veered away and it was then that she saw the trap. It was still harnessed to the horse and swinging from side to side. The trap caught her on one of her legs and threw her on to the road and there she watched helplessly as it gathered up the pram.

  She started to run after her child and saw the pram turn over. He was strapped in, she remembered, as she heard the thud. With the pram on its side, wildly thrashing about the road she noticed the blood. And he was not crying.

  The horse was getting tired, she could tell it was slowing. Even so, it was far ahead of her still, the trap and pram bouncing oddly on the hard surface. Other voices burst upon her consciousness. A man had run up to the horse with his hands above his head, stopping it. The creature was exhausted and relieved to be under control. The workmen saw her coming and stood silently as she knelt on the road slowly undoing the strap that had held her child. The pram cover and blanket were shredded and muddy. The ‘k’ in Patrick had been obliterated by blood. One man took off his coat and placed it on the road next to the wrecked pram. She laid the lifeless child on it and looked at him.

  She stood up and looked down at him. She knew he was dead.

  She suddenly gathered him up holding him tightly to her body. She felt her milk come with a sharp, stinging hardness as she pressed him to her. She held him so that his mouth was near her nipple, her painful stinging breast that was leaking his milk. A damp patch grew on her dark blouse.

  They asked her name, where she was from. Women arrived in aprons smelling of bread and soap and told her that the doctor had been sent for. Her distress repelled them, no one moved towards her. They looked at the limp child and she thought … they know. They know. No one dared to move the baby from her. They stood around her as if guarding her and him from more danger. They did their bit. One woman recognised her.

  ‘It’s that English woman. You know. Her husband is doing the Government work in Betws-y-Coed. Shy she is.’

  ‘We must get a message. How do we get in touch with him?’

  She knew she must answer. She did not.

  The doctor came.

  ‘You must come with us. You must come to the hospital with him. You can carry him if you want.’

  A car arrived from somewhere. As she got into it clinging on to him, the letter to her mother fell out of his clothing and fluttered on to the road alongside the wet and muddy leaves. She noticed the ink bleeding across the envelope and then it ceased to claim her attention further.

  At the hospital they took him away. They pulled him from her. One nurse held her arms from behind and another prized the bundle away. Her coat was open exposing blood and milk stains. She looked down at herself feeling the cold entering where she was wet. Blood and milk. She remembered the moment of his birth. Blood and white …

  Your name please?’ said a nurse standing with a form and pen. She opened her mouth but no sound came out.

  ‘Speak up.’ said the nurse sharply. There was so much to do, this was irritating. She tried again. No sound.

  ‘It’s shock,’ said another nurse. ‘Go and get that doctor back before he leaves, quick.’

  ‘She is suffering from shock. She needs a sedative … to calm her down … the husband … she won’t be able to stay here … ask her to write down her name, address and how to get in touch with him … need to know the child’s name, age, any other information we should know … ? He’s in Ward 5 … Yes, head injury … not much hope … For God’s sake get that woman out of here … give her something … stay with her a while … ’ The voices went in and out of focus. Her throat solidified and froze.

  A middle-aged nurse came and held her hand.

  “It’ll be all right dear. Come on, now. Here’s a cup of tea. I’ve put some sugar in it. It will help you. You’ve had a shock. It’ll be all right, it looks better than we thought at first. You should go home now … he’s in the best place. He is in the right hands, you mustn’t worry yourself about him. That’s better.’

  Swallowing was almost impossible, there was a constriction. She could only let little sips through.

  ‘You get in touch tomorrow, we’ll let you know how he is. You’d better leave some of your milk, if he’ll take it that is. Come on. I’ll get the breast pump, we can keep your milk in the fridge. There is always other babies that need it … had a mother die in childbirth two days ago … now, what did you say your name was?’

  She again tried to speak but the sounds would not come. She mouthed her name. The nurse turned towards her so that she could stare at her mouth.

  ‘What’s that? Margaret? Is that what you are called? Margaret? Yes? Good. Margaret what?’ Again she closely watched the mouth.

  ‘Ommm? Margaret Ommalee? No? O, yes? No? O’Malley? Margaret O’Malley? Good.’

  When her husband took her home, he talked gently to her and coaxed her to tell him what had happened that day. She tried to talk but her throat had knitted across. It had tightened and hardened so that no sound was possible. Her voice had been left back there in the past.

  The child remained in hospital for three weeks. He had been hurt badly, the doctor said, but he had made an amazing recovery. There might be some long-term effects but nothing had surfaced so far. He had to have check-ups every week. Every week she took in a pad and pencil and wrote or signed answers to the questions about the baby’s activities. After six months the doctors said he was fine. There was no need for her to bring him back unless he showed unexpected signs that caused her worry. He congratulated her on how bonny the baby was. How strong and healthy and how very, very alert he was. She smiled and was proud. On the way home in the bus he sat on her lap watching her face all the time. She spoke to him constantly. No sound came out of her mouth but he understood every word. He watched her eyes, her hands, her mouth and he responded all the while with the same wordy and agitated silence.

  THE NICE BOYS

  Isabel Colegate

  October 8th

  Of course Venice is not the same. How could it be? Last year was the first time, and with Jacob.

  There were two nice boys on the train from Milan. I talked to them. I have been through bad periods before. I know how easy it is to become isolated if you are unhappy.

  I asked them for a light.

  The one in the corner brought out a box of matches, lit one,
and held it out to me with a steady hand.

  ‘What’s that on your arm?’ he asked. ‘A bite?’

  I had taken off my coat, and the sleeves of my dress were short. There was a circular bruise on my forearm.

  I explained feebly that I had bitten myself in a temper. The travel agency had muddled all my arrangements just when I was fussing about my packing. ‘I know it sounds stupid,’ I said. “But it did calm me down as a matter of fact.’

  The boy who had lit my cigarette pushed back the sleeve of his jacket, undid the button of his beautifully white cuff, and showed me his wrist. One side of it was purple and swollen. It was a much more serious bruise than mine.

  “That was a bite,’ he said.

  I wondered what to say.

  The other boy said, ‘His kid sister did it,’ and they both laughed, excessively I thought, but I suppose they were remembering a funny incident.

  ‘She’s a terror,’ said the first boy.

  ‘How old is she?’ I asked. They told me she was eight and called Jean, |and then a noisy Italian family moved into the carriage with a lot of luggage and our conversation came to an end for the time being.

  We exchanged another non-committal word or two on the journey, about the weather and this or that, and I was rather struck by them. It was not just that they were nice-looking and well-dressed, with good haircuts and Italian shoes, but that they had a certain air of confidence and reserve as if they already had some achievement to their credit. I don’t know what the achievement could be. They might have been pop singers; but there would have been fans, and a manager or something. Academic success? They might have been grammar school boys who had won scholarships somewhere; but no, they had more assurance than that. Anyway, whatever its origin, their air of authority was rather charming.

  Of course, all young people are confident these days. Confident, independent, and cool. He didn’t sink his teeth into his own flesh at three o’clock in the morning after hours of sobbing and screaming with jealous misery. I wish I had his self-control.

  October 12th

  I am glad I came. Venice is wonderfully soothing, wonderfully sad.

  I remember my very first impression, which was one of gaiety; but that was misleading. I remember going down the Grand Canal in a launch boats dashing about through the choppy water, the sun on buildings of pure fantasy it was so active, startling, beautiful, such a glorious joke. I remember standing up and laughing, and Jacob watching me with surprise and pleasure. Later I discovered the Venice I loved best, the Venice of regret.

  We stayed for two nights at the Gritti Palace, but then it became obvious that my money was not going to last, and so we moved to this same seedy pensione where I am now, not far from the Accademia bridge. The pale German woman is still the proprietress. She does not remember me, thank goodness. I was right to come. It is easy to be sad here, and when I am sad I am not enraged. Besides, Venice’s glory is all over too.

  I was rather nervous when I came in. I was afraid she would ask about Jacob. I could not decide whether to deny having been here before, or to say ‘He is busy,’ or to say ‘He has married someone younger, prettier, and richer than I am.’ I need not have bothered. She hardly looked at me; but when she saw my English passport she said, ‘I see you have more terrible murders in London.’ She was not interested in me, only in some idea she had about a gas-lit London where sadistic murderers pad through the fog about their dreadful business: some foreigners do have this picture of London in their minds. I asked her if she had ever been there and she said no. ‘It is terrible,’ she said. ‘These poor girls.’ Someone has evidently been chopping up prostitutes again. She seemed to have a morbid interest in the whole business.

  When we were here before the sun was shining. This time it is misty and damp. Appropriate, perhaps. Loneliness, damp, melancholy, the seediness of a place from which the glory has fled. I went to Torcello in the water-bus, simply to be on the lagoon again, and visit those dead islands, grass on stone, quiet water over fallen palaces; and felt a sort of happiness. How soon will all Venice slide into the sea?

  The boys from the train are staying in the pensione. They were signing themselves in when I came in this evening. I greeted them, and saw that they had written ‘N. Bray, S. Brook’. Seeing where I was looking the one who had been writing said with a smile, ‘He’s Sig. I’m Poney.’ Sig is slightly smaller and quieter, Poney darker, more handsome and less intense. They seem unlikely names.

  October 15th

  The fog has come. Damp cold fog has flopped over Venice, making the whole place mysteriously different. The people seem to accept it with a certain gloomy relish.

  They say it is better than the floods they often have at this time of the year.

  There is nothing to do. I walk endlessly. Everyone seems to have disappeared: only occasionally another human being pads past in the fog, muffled to the eyes, a stranger. The little restaurant round the corner where I often go for lunch is usually empty, the student waiters have disappeared and only the close-faced husband and wife who own it are there. And the cats. There are always cats in Venice.

  I begin to think it may be lucky that I could not keep my room after November the first. Apparently the German woman closes down then and goes for a holiday, to her mother in Munich, she told me. She’s an odd woman. She seems to have no family here, or friends. She has struck up some sort of relationship with the two boys. They order her about in a rather disagreeable manner: they are really awfully arrogant, but she seems to like it. There is something slavish in her attitude as she fetches and carries for them.

  They have the room next to mine. Last night I was awake until about five. I had taken my last sleeping pill, and when it didn’t work I began to panic. I walked up and down, tried to read, did exercises. It was no good. All the agony came back. I am so bloody jealous. It is hardly sane. I hate it, but what can I do? Here she is at that party, leaning against the door – how pleased with her own looks and Jacob walking towards her, unsteadily because he is a bit drunk, and I recognise with a shock that the curve of her cheek and chin is rather like mine and I am lost in the endless torture of imagining them together, of remembering his love-making and imagining him making love to her. He said, ‘She’s awfully sweet really, you’d like her.’ Unimaginable cruelty.

  At some stage in the night I opened my window and leaned out into the fog. The water of the little canal below slopped gently against its walls. Someone laughed, quite close to me. I shut the window quickly and leant against the wall for a moment. The laugh had come from the next room and had sounded so spiteful that I thought for a moment that the two boys must have been watching me and were laughing at my agony. It was half-past three. I had seen them go upstairs at about eleven. I listened, and could just hear a murmur of voices, then a series of bumps. After a moment I opened the window again very slightly, but I could still only hear the voices without being able to make out what they were saying. Evidently it was not me they were interested in. And then I heard someone cry out ‘The King!’ in a harsh high voice. ‘The King! The King!’ Then the laugh again. Then silence. I shut the window.

  I don’t know what the explanation was. They didn’t look in the least tired this morning, which is more than could be said for me. They were talking to Frau Engels when I came down, about the famous London murders again. It was not prostitutes apparently, but a respectable family in a respectable suburb who were found dead in their beds one morning, having all been murdered and mutilated during the night. It does seem extraordinary and horrible. They had no enemies. I imagine Jacob’s wife but no, of course I don’t want her to be murdered sometimes I could be half in love with her in a sort of way. Today I feel sick and tired. Lack of sleep gives me indigestion, my obsession makes me feel guilty: I must try to distract myself, but my will seems hopelessly weak.

  I asked Frau Engels about the boys when they had gone.

  ‘They are charming,’ I said to start the conversation. ‘Are they on hol
iday?’

  ‘Yes.’ She did not seem particularly keen to talk, but I persisted.

  ‘What part of England do they come from?’ I asked.

  They are from – what do you call it? a home,’ she said.

  ‘What sort of home?’ I asked, startled.

  They are from very distinguished parentage,’ she said portentously.

  ‘Oh, yes?’ I did not understand.

  They have been supported in this home for orphans by their fathers who were both from high up in the English aristocracy, but who were not married with their mothers.’

  ‘I see. That sort of home. But how have they money? I mean, to buy those clothes and come for holidays in Venice?’

  ‘From their fathers, who gave them much money when they attained eighteen years.’

  ‘But do they know their fathers then?’

  ‘They know, but they cannot tell.’

  And then an elderly Italian couple who were staying in the pensione came up to ask whether it was not possible to stay after November the first: their daughter was joining them and they hoped the weather might have improved by then.

  ‘It is impossible, I am so very sorry, but on the first I must everything close.’ She gave her remote correct smile, and I walked out into the fog.

  In order to reach the vaporetto stop I had to cross the small canal which ran beside the pensione, and as I turned across the little humped bridge, the boys materialised out of the fog and crossed with me, one on each side. They did not speak at first, and nor did I, Finally Sig said, in a mild conversational tone, ‘What were you talking to the old bag about?’