by A. L. Barker
She came and put her arms round his neck and her lips to his ear: the old gleam used to progress from there. But now there was a change, a tensile strength in her arms. She nipped the lobe of his ear and blew into it. Deafened, he tried to detach himself. She tightened her grip, drew down his head and sought his mouth. There was to be another price which he would gladly have paid under different circumstances. He said, ‘I never forgot you.’ She locked her fingers and made a rope of her arms: Nina commanding. He said, ‘Hadn’t we better go upstairs?’
They might have gone, and been caught in flagrante delicto, and the outcome unnecessarily complicated had Charlie not caught sight of a glitter approaching along the drive. It vanished behind the yews: it could only be Felicia’s fun-glasses. ‘Someone’s coming—’
From the shadows J.T.’s bald pate emerged, steaming into the sunlight. Nina smoothed her hair, drew her dress up over her shoulder – Charlie didn’t remember pulling it down. He said urgently, ‘What about the bill?’
‘What bill?’
‘The garage repair bill on the car. You said get them to send it to you.’
She came close, cupped his chin in her hand. ‘Little boys mustn’t always get their own way.’
It was one of her well-remembered and most disliked ploys. Sometimes she turned it on them both, mimicking a little girl, piped and wheedled and pouted until he was forced to abandon whatever he had been trying seriously to discuss.
J.T., putting his head round the door, found them entwined. ‘There’s a woman waiting for you, Olssen.’
Nina hit Charlie on the nose.
*
Piper, making for a quiet corner in the garden, was unpleasantly surprised when Senga fell into step beside him. She was smoking, the habit he regularly castigated in his column. She said, ‘Why does every other place-name here begin with TRE?’
‘TREOW is old English for tree.’
‘Tregony, Trelissick, Tregallow, Trewoon – they have to advertise?’
‘It’s an indication that this area was once extensively forested.’ He stopped before taking the path through the shrubbery. ‘Excuse me, I have work to do.’
‘I like Brocéliande better.’
It gave him another, alarming, surprise to hear her speak a name which he had thought his own discovery.
She expelled twin plumes of smoke. ‘The sacred wood where dragons feared to tread. Where the Holy Grail was buried and Merlin, the first cult figure, was locked up in an oak tree by his lover.’
‘I am not addicted to fantasy fiction.’
‘It had a bad reputation. Saints, sorcerers, lunatics and pilgrims went into the trees and never came out. Wolves and wild boars made short work of them. People said the way through the wood was the way from earth to heaven. You can interpret that any way you like.’
Piper had been impelled by a hypothesis encountered in a magazine article: ‘If one accepts that the land-mass was not always fragmented as it is now, the primordial forests could have extended from Brittany to Bodmin Moor.’ The concept of the enchanted woods seemed to promise new perception in his counselling. He said, ‘In point of fact there’s a place called Greatwood only a few miles away.’
‘And fifty million years ago London was all trees. Lest we forget, we’ve got St John’s Wood, Kenwood, Chorley Wood, Hinchley Wood, Wood Green, Wormwood Scrubs …’
Piper planned to extol the calmative influence of trees, was already facing the problem of how to invoke their therapeutic properties in high-rise flats and supermarkets.
He said bleakly, ‘The theory is ecologically sound.’
‘Oh sure. Did you know there are still bits of the old forest at Paimpont in Brittany, just off the N24? They’ve got a training camp there: the French exercise their tanks and armoured cars in what’s left of it.’
He had begun his piece: ‘There can be no sight more pleasing and healing to the troubled spirit than the natural rhythm of great trees bending to the breeze …’
She said, ‘You know I’ll have to raise that business of the little girls.’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘You were tutoring backward children at the time.’ His heart missed several valuable beats, then hammered on his ribs. ‘Amanda, Rosealeen and Sue. Three little girls. Remember?’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
‘It rated front pages of the tabloids. Blew over, though, didn’t it?’
‘It was total slander. I would never harm a child, by word or deed. I received a public apology from the newspapers concerned.’
‘My remit is to explore the myth of the Agony Uncle. Whether I explode it or not is up to me. Of course kids are such liars and little girls are the worst. I might leave you with the benefit of the doubt if it made for an intriguing ending.’
He said between his teeth, ‘How dare you! Any such inference would be libellous!’
She grinned, unabashed. ‘I dare because my editor specialises in investigative journalism, pulling the wool off people’s eyes. His idea is a searchlight on cult figures, anyone who has caught the popular fancy, or a significant section of it – yours is highly significant. You’re down to the bottom layer – the born losers who look to you to sort them out. So we’ll begin the series with you and work through the media, the glitterati, the royals, and end with one or two of the more charismatic serial killers.’
‘I am not a cult figure!’
‘In character assessments you can’t neglect the libido. It’s the first thing you look at. Your name’s not really Piper, is it?’
‘Piper is a nom de plume. Anonymity is essential for the role of confidant.’
‘The reclusive, solitary type, fascinating to women – they long to draw you out.’
‘I was not aware—’
‘Oh come on! Our eligible spinster, Miss Gascoigne, is already in your toils.’
Piper’s heart sank. Or was it his stomach turning? He had been nervous about this girl from the beginning – he was deeply alarmed now. Her skin, covered with pale gold confetti marks, effectively modified any change of expression. With such an advantage she was not to be underestimated. He said stiffly, ‘I have a wife and child.’
She laughed. ‘You won’t get away with that. Your boy, Sam, loves to talk. Lonely people do.’
*
It was one of the days Mildred thought of as having holes in them, holes in time. Looking into the window of the antiques shop known as Grandma’s Tidy the holes were visible between warming pans and stuffed birds and the case of ammonites. It meant that she was made aware of lapsing. There were a few things she had done – walking to the village, looking round the church, buying postcards and a cake of unperfumed soap. She planned to take coffee at eleven, leaving time for a visit to the castle before lunch. It had become necessary to justify how she spent her time, something she did not have to do while at home. As yet it was barely ten-thirty. Half an hour to fill if she kept to her plan of walking up to the castle after coffee.
The last time she had stood looking through the window-sockets at the view she had experienced a compulsion to think herself back into the past and had succeeded to a certain extent, though the past was comparatively recent and the history her own. She had recalled, with painful clarity, the moment at her father’s funeral when he had made his final gesture of rejection.
He sent a gust of wind which plucked her wreath from its privileged place on his coffin and bowled it across the churchyard. One of the undertaker’s men went in pursuit. It was a pretty wreath of red carnations and yellow roses, bearing her message: ‘In loving memory …’ She had tried loving, it was her duty and he was the only one she owed it to, she had tried, had wanted.
The wreath came to a halt beside the standpipe where people filled their vases. As the undertaker reached for it, it rolled gently into a puddle. By the time he brought it to the grave, muddied and battered, her father’s coffin had been lowered out of sight.
She had come to, her chin on
the crumbling stone of the castle wall, and tears in her eyes. A darkening over the sea which had been mirror-bright did not reassure her as to the time factor. How long had she remained propped in that undignified position?
Grandma’s Tidy promised a happy medium: no need to ponder on the ammonites, their past was unthinkable. She went in, determined not to be prevailed on to buy anything she did not want.
At first glance it seemed there was nothing she, or anyone of normal disposition would want: moose’s heads, African voodoo dolls, glass walking sticks, a garishly painted ship’s figurehead built to – literally – breast the waves. Mildred averted her eyes, and so doing caught sight of something which caused her heart to leap and sink simultaneously: a collection of medals displayed on dark blue velvet in a glass case.
She went close. They reminded her how little she needed reminding, how close to the surface of her thoughts he still was. In years nobody had come closer yet stayed so distant. She was brought face to face with the fact, and what it entailed. The hole in the day filled with the knowledge.
‘Can I help you?’ The shopkeeper was at her side. ‘Are you interested in gongs?’
‘Gongs?’
‘Allow me.’ He depressed a catch on the lid of the display case. ‘These range from the Crimea to the Falklands. A truly representative collection. Here’s a genuine Iron Cross Second Class with the original ribbon and swastika – the swastika must be removed if the medal is worn now. Here’s an Air Crew Europe Star: the silver rose means service as the crew of fighter planes during the Battle of Britain. The Victoria Cross is an excellent replica. You can read the words “For Valour” under the lion and the crown.’
‘I have some medals at home. They were my father’s.’
He looked at her, adjusting to the fact that she was not a likely customer. ‘You want to sell?’
‘I would never part with them.’
The shopkeeper snapped the case shut, an impatient sound.
Mildred said, ‘May I look around?’
‘Be my guest.’ He went and leaned against the counter, watching. She pretended interest, picking up things for a closer look, careful to let him see her put them down again. Moving towards the door, preparing her escape, she took up a small, heavy brass object. ‘What’s this?’
‘A fly.’
‘Yes, I see. It’s well made, such detail.’
‘Should be. They have plenty to copy where that comes from.’ He bared his teeth which were younger than he was. ‘Genuine Benares paperweight. Four quid. Three-fifty to you.’
‘Thank you.’ She put it down. ‘I’ll think about it.’
He watched her cross the road. She could feel him watching; he had nothing much else to do.
‘Aren’t you the lady from the Bellechasse?’ said the waitress in the café, bringing coffee in a pretty china cup and pot to match. ‘How do you find it?’
‘Very satisfactory, such nice people.’
‘Any little upsets?’
‘How do you mean?’
The waitress smiled. ‘You may be lucky – with the weather.’
At half-past eleven Mildred left the café to walk up to the castle. Sun and sea breeze restored her spirits. Sense, she told herself, was more important than sensibility. The man designated her father was dead, leaving her his kitbag containing his dirty socks, a packet of strong mints probably intended to relieve stomach pains which she had not known he suffered from, and some metal discs engraved with commendations for meritorious deeds which he had never spoken of. No word of love, no tender gesture to remember him by.
Sense was a series of negative responses. Perhaps the answer to everything was nothing. At that point sensibility took over and she was afraid of nothingness, the extent of it, of its engulfing herself.
The castle, knocked about a bit, was still something, after five hundred years. From the ramparts she watched a man ploughing, pursued by gulls. The way they rose up, whirled and sank, reminded her of Piper’s paper-storm and how she had cried ‘I am so sorry!’ and he had consoled her, ‘It has allowed us to get acquainted.’
She hurried down the green flank of Castle Hill. She would say, ‘It’s to make amend for my clumsiness, a paperweight to ensure that your work will not be disturbed again.’ Three pounds fifty was not too much to pay for the thought: to let him know that she had had the thought.
*
‘I have been so remorseful about the interruption to your work.’
Struck by an implied longevity of her regret, Piper said dryly, ‘I trust it hasn’t spoiled your holiday.’
‘Oh no, indeed not. It was such a trifle – not the interruption, I mean; that must have been extremely aggravating. I keep remembering.’
‘There is no need.’ When she gazed at him in silence the likeness to an earless rabbit was quite pronounced. ‘I have forgotten the incident.’
‘I have not. Your papers all disarranged, displaced by the wind – because of me. Inexcusable.’
‘Don’t give it another thought.’
‘Will you accept this small atonement?’ She proffered a package wrapped in tissue-paper.
‘I assure you it isn’t necessary.’
‘Please take it.’
He did so, reluctantly, unwrapped the package and held on the palm of his hand a brass fly with wings outstretched. ‘Why are you giving me this?’
‘It’s a paperweight, to prevent your work being disrupted in the same way again.’
‘How very kind.’
‘It has happened before: on that occasion it was a message from my father.’
‘Indeed?’ Piper turned the thing over in his hand, disliking it on sight.
‘He was communicating his feelings from the grave.’
It was not unreasonable for Piper to experience a downrush of tedium. He was so often called on to counsel the bereaved that the sense of loss, he had concluded, be it of fame, fortune, or loved one, was a paramount human emotion. It was certainly the most frequent. He prepared to hear yet another tale of dispossession. ‘You had a cherished relationship with your father?’
‘I had no relationship with him. He had no time for me. He wanted a son.’
‘Fathers and daughters are privileged. They see their children grow into womanhood with delicacy, compassion and tenderness – the qualities of the gentler sex.’
‘If only that were true!’
‘You don’t believe women have those qualities?’
‘My father did not see them in me.’ She spoke with harboured bitterness. Piper thought that to be born a daughter to a man desirous of a son was unfortunate, and doubly so for one lacking feminine charm. ‘He was a professional soldier. After my mother died he lived in barracks and sent me to lodge with a Mr and Mrs Boddington and their family of three boys. I hardly ever saw him.’
‘As an army man his free time would be limited.’
‘He used to play football and cricket with the Boddington boys. I could never think of anything to say to interest him. I was still a child: I did the only thing I could think of – I tried to be a tomboy.’
Piper said, ‘Do you want to tell me about it?’ and suppressed a sigh.
She turned away to hide some too potent memory. ‘I wasn’t cut out for it, I’d always liked being clean and tidy. Trying to keep up with the Boddington boys was a failure.’
And shaming, the start of a long lease of shame. She could never forget how she had run about when there was nowhere to run to; how, when she banged doors as the boys did, Mrs Boddington, a caring woman, asked had something upset her; when she got her shoes muddy the mud disgusted her; when she shouted they all stared; when she climbed a tree she came over giddy.
Piper was listening – the Listening Ear – and surely he was seeing it too, her utter humiliation when she had tried to join her father and the boys at football. Because she had no proper clothes, she had put on her wellies and tucked her hair under a beret and run on to the field. Her father stood stock-still when he saw
her, his jaw dropping. The boys, who were kind, shouted to her to go into goal. They sent a slow ball. She threw herself on it as she had seen them do, and fell flat on her face. The ball trickled past the goal-posts, the boys cheered. She scrambled up, bleeding from her nose. Her father walked off the field. The memory still sickened her.
‘I didn’t see my father at all between the ages of ten and twenty. He was posted abroad. Once he sent a picture postcard of camels kneeling. On the back he had written “Funny beggars”’. No signature.
‘I left school and went to secretarial college. He paid for everything, there was never trouble about money. I got a job, moved into a room of my own. He sent a small regular allowance.’
‘You wrote to him?’
‘He didn’t answer my letters. Once he rang up, said we’d better meet for lunch, as if it was something we often did. I hadn’t even known he was in the country. “We’re off to North Africa,” he said, “there’s a little account to settle.”
‘I worried about what to wear for our meeting. He hadn’t seen me for ten years. I decided on a tailored suit and blouse with a bow tie. I cut my hair short: no make-up, I went with a shiny face.’
Ten years had brought him to early middle age, some fierce white flecks in his hair and a thickening of his neck. The rest of him was still hard and wiry. A seam of something, tension or vigilance, had opened between his eyes. She wanted to touch it, felt she could have eased it out.
‘He looked at me, I thought he’s really looking, for the first time. He said didn’t I have anything nice to wear. “A dress. Your mother wore a dress and she always looked nice.”’
‘It was an indication of his concern for your future.’ Piper introduced a kindly twinkle into his eyes. ‘No man is entirely indifferent to true femininity.’
‘The next time I saw him he was in a military hospital with a tent of blankets over his body. I was upset, I cried, “What is it? What’s happened to you?” He said, “The fortunes of war.” I said, “There is no war.” “There’s always a war,” he said.