Ceremonies of Innocence

by Annie Bullen

  ‘I came really about Kattie’s christening. The concert. Your collection.’

  ‘Christening?’

  ‘The organ. Well it’s not really a christening, I suppose, but we all seem to look on it as such. Not a naming ceremony, you see, just a formal introduction to the house.’

  ‘I see. And why did she choose my charity?’

  ‘Do you know, I’ve no idea. Perhaps because Angela came to see you and Kattie knew that you collected for cancer, and the association sort of formed in her mind. Why do you?’

  ‘Why do I what?’

  ‘Collect for this particular charity?’

  ‘We discovered that it was likely that Toby had cancer when he went away. That’s why he had to make the trip when he did. The doctors didn’t know for certain and we thought it was better that way.’

  ‘Did Angela know?’

  ‘Good heavens, no. What would have been the point of telling her? It was unlikely that they would have married, you see. We must not tell her now.’

  ‘But why did you let him go? He wasn’t fit and he was in charge of those other boys. It wasn’t fair!’ Hugh was horrified.

  ‘Nonsense. You have to take your chances, you know.’ Marjorie fixed him with a speculative stare. ‘Have you taken any?’

  Hugh cast his mind into the dark of the past, hopeful of pulling out some bright venture that he could offer. There had been the one three-act opera which was briefly and enthusiastically acclaimed, and enough smaller works to bring him recognition. But that was nothing to do with taking chances. His family? He supposed he had taken a chance the second time he had married, after the absolute disaster of the first, but what failures those attempts had been. There were grown-up children somewhere in the world from his first union, but he had been out of touch with them for years. Perhaps he was a grandfather. The unpleasant thought struck him, not for the first time, and he shrugged off the cold spectre of loneliness.

  ‘No. No chances,’ he told her.

  Billy loathed aeroplanes and anything to do with them. He had opted, as had his wife some weeks earlier, for travel by train and boat. He managed to gather enough cleanish clothes together to fill a small suitcase, and he washed himself with cold water. He had tried to light the portable gas stove, but there was very little fuel left in the canister and the wick was badly trimmed, making it impossible to generate enough heat to warm even a small pan of water.

  He had been annoyed, but not surprised, at the total lack of communication from England. Losing track of the time, he could not calculate how many days or weeks ago Angela had left him. Trying to work it out by the height of the washing in the linen basket was no good, as he had now been wearing the same grubby clothes for days. His only expedition had been to the baker’s on the corner of the village street. He bought bread there every three or four days. His supply of fresh fruit, milk, coffee and meat had run out long ago and, apart from the bread, Billy made do with the tins and packets in the store cupboard. Unable to shave, he had no choice but to allow his beard to grow, and the stubble had thickened to a reasonable length.

  His tetchy communications had been sent to Angela through the good offices of the local postman, who had accepted the hastily scribbled notes – together with a few francs – when he delivered the books which still kept arriving for Billy.

  Now that there were no landmarks in the day to help him move from breakfast time through to lunch and the afternoon and thence to the evening with its meal and wine and gradual oblivion, he found himself disoriented, lost in his own house. The place was filthy, with no electricity, smelling of unwashed clothes, sour milk and dead plants.

  Billy knew that he could not survive for much longer without falling into utter decay. He had to get over to Angela and bring her back to look after him. There was a bus from the village every morning which would take him to the station in the town. There he could catch the first of a series of trains which would take him to Cherbourg or Le Havre and thence to England. Simple. The house he would simply lock up. Money would be no problem. He would go to the bank in Les Meaunes and draw out enough for the journey as he waited for the train. He thought the plans through again and again, and was now confident about putting them into operation.

  The one room in the house that was still in a reasonable state was his study. Billy had been carrying out research for his volume on naval history for well over a quarter of a century. A three-foot-high pile of blue leather-covered notebooks, each filled with handwritten references, dates, cross-references and endless lists, was placed neatly on the far left-hand corner of his desk. An old-fashioned pen-holder with grooves for the writing implements lay neatly in the middle with its full complement of pens and pencils. Billy abhorred the modern habit of cramming pens upright in pots. The room was dark, the only one in the house whose windows did not let in the sunny south light. His wooden, leather-seated swivel chair was pushed back just a fraction from the dark desk. Two dents, made over the years by Billy’s increasingly heavy buttocks, showed that he sat far more heavily on his left-hand side as he swung his artificial leg up onto a stool for comfort. Piles of books lay neatly on either side of the chair; there was no more room for them in the floor-to-ceiling shelves which lined one of the walls.

  Now, before leaving the house, Billy, spruced up as best he could, wearing a good old check flannel shirt, a wide blue tie which had a thin red stripe, navy blue trousers and a light tweed jacket with green leather patches on the elbows, stood in the doorway of his study. With a little effort he moved over to the desk and, grunting as he bent, carefully lifted the stacked books to range them neatly on his blotting pad. This still left room on the desk for the large packet of plain white paper that had lain there for nineteen years, ready for the moment that the research was completed and the book begun. Before he turned to walk smartly away from his study, Billy gave the paper, tucked inside its badly discoloured wrapping, a smart nod. New resolution welled up in him. Once his mission was completed and Angela safely back, he would be more or less ready to begin writing.

  His small suitcase waited by the front door. He stumped round the bedrooms, checking that all the windows were shut. (They were: Angela had fastened them all before she left and Billy had barely been in the rooms since.) He noted a dripping tap in the bathroom but did nothing about it. A quick glance around the kitchen revealed only a filthy dried-up dishcloth on the floor by the sink. Stiff with dirt, it did not alter its shape as he picked it up to hurl it at the sink. Grunting with the effort he turned and walked out to the hallway, picking up his suitcase. He blinked at the strong daylight which flooded in as he opened the front door, and set off to look for the village bus.

  It was as he clicked the gate shut behind him that the dishcloth, having missed the sink completely, finally ignited from the weak flame flickering around the poorly trimmed wick of the portable gas stove. The other corner jutted out over the edge of the work surface. Billy was busy flagging down the local bus when the dishcloth, now blazing heartily, dropped with startling accuracy plumb into the middle of some dusty dried reed heads sticking out of an old ceramic umbrella stand. Billy had pushed them into the kitchen a few days earlier, unable to bear the sight of them in the hallway.

  Billy’s minor adventures on his bad-tempered progress north through Europe are of little interest. It is enough to say that he achieved the trip to Le Havre with almost total lack of conversation apart from a few skirmishes with the guards on trains, a pension owner and the proprietor of a chemist’s shop who, confused by Billy’s gestures, handed him a packet of laxative chocolate instead of the soluble aspirin he had sought.

  After Billy’s letter, at first Angela had almost hourly expected the arrival of her husband. But now, almost three days later, on the day of the concert, she was beginning to relax and feel that it was a mistake, or a manifestation of Billy’s misdirected sense of humour. In any case the whole household was now caught up in concert excitement. Even the vicar, a heavy young man who had been a
rugger Blue and who believed in drinking real ale (half pints) in the village pub, had agreed to say a few words, presumably on the pedigree of the instrument and on the part it should play in carrying on the good work.

  Fergus, now settled back in his own bungalow, was expected among the guests. Kattie had bumped into him while shopping for one hundred and twenty small clips which fastened onto the side of a plate so that a glass could be steadied, leaving a hand free for eating, or making gestures or opening doors. She had used such a clip at a recent fund-raising lunch for the cathedral, and thought it a splendid invention. But no one in any of the shops seemed to have heard of them and, crestfallen at her lack of success, she returned from her expedition saying that she’d seen Fergus by the Market Cross in the main square and, although it had seemed at first that he was trying to avoid her, he had eventually spoken in a very civil manner and would come to hear Hugh play.

  ‘After all,’ Kattie told Angela earnestly, ‘I told Fergus that if it had not been for his effort in helping to shift the organ we might well not be hearing the celebration at all. He’s just as repulsive,’ she added gloomily.

  ‘Well why on earth did you ask him?’ said Angela. ‘Can’t you just breathe a sigh of relief and say “Good riddance”?’

  ‘Oh, you know. You can’t just let people go. Lose them like that,’ said Kattie uneasily.

  I suppose not, thought Angela, wondering just how much of a gap in her consciousness there would be were she never to see Billy again. Or for that matter would there be any sort of ache for her in Billy’s body? Not the little loss of a cook-housekeeper, or someone who acted as a foil to his own inadequacy, but a real aching void with the knowledge that a piece of himself had also been destroyed. Even after decades Angela could still remember that sense of loss, though not its intensity, when she had realized that Toby would never return. She doubted that she could ever feel that for Billy, despite the years together which you would think might have created some sort of a bond. Weren’t couples who had lived together for a long time meant to develop a telepathic type of sympathy, even to grow physically alike?

  It’s done the opposite in our case, thought Angela. We just turned back into ourselves, tightening our prejudices against each other until we didn’t want even to communicate. Perhaps Billy would have been better if I’d made him feel more needed, not someone who just happened to be there. Ah well, she told herself, there’s precious little I can do about all that now. If he does turn up I suppose I shall just have to see what he wants and then try to get things sorted out in a reasonably honest way. At least he’s not dead, she thought. Because he’s alive I can still feel angry at the way he is; if he had died I’d feel guilty and full of regret that I didn’t do more to make things work.

  ‘Do the dead frighten you, Kattie?’ She turned to the other woman who, still thinking about Fergus, was clearing off the kitchen table in preparation for the caterers.

  ‘Goodness! What a deep question. Well, yes, I suppose they do. You don’t mean ghosts and all that do you? You’re talking about guilt and judgement?’

  ‘Yes, I think I am. I was just thinking that if Billy were dead I couldn’t feel justified in feeling about him the way I do. He would have gained some kind of senior status, some sort of moral superiority – entitled to judge me.’

  ‘Well, you certainly couldn’t argue with him!’

  ‘I never did – perhaps that was the problem.’

  Poor Billy was very much alive and uncomfortable. At the moment when the two women were picturing him vested in a gown of morbid righteousness, shooting celestial bolts of moral judgement at Angela, he was boarding a Townsend Thoresen ferry for Portsmouth. His discomfort was increased when he discovered that the ferry no longer sailed to Southampton, which meant that he had to revise all his mental plans for the train journey once he reached England.

  Just four weeks earlier Angela had boarded the same ferry. Her thoughts at the time had been introspective; but the self-destructive instincts she had detected had been a cause for speculation rather than despair. Billy’s musings were more instinctive than intellectual. He wanted food and drink and a comfortable place to sit. And above all he wanted to find Angela, so that when she had understood her selfish thoughtlessness, he could establish his own place in the world again.

  Clambering with some difficulty down a short flight of stairs, he encountered a cluster of young people possibly very like the group which Angela had observed with interest on her cross-Channel trip. Some were sitting on the seats, others on the floor. Like Angela’s group they appeared self-absorbed, wrapped up in the private rituals of youth, swigging from cans of lager and Coke, pushing at each other, shouting with obscure yells of laughter. Their general uniform was denim but, the weather being sunny and very warm, the leather jackets had given way to bright T-shirts, proclaiming status in the name of universities and colleges that Billy felt sure none of them attended. He snorted, a habit which used to irritate Angela very much, indicating, as it was meant to, a private superiority.

  As Billy tried to push past the group, he stumbled and slipped, almost falling into the lap of a youth with a crew cut and rimless spectacles. Slipping, he had time to note (and feel satisfied to confirm his worst fears about modern youngsters) that not only was the bare-armed youth wearing fingerless leather gloves, despite the weather, but also his carefully shaped fingernails were painted a shiny black.

  The lad jumped in dismay, dropping his can of Coke. He clutched at Billy just as the treacherous tin leg gave way.

  ‘Oh! Are you all right?’ He stood up, pushing Billy down in his own seat. His black T-shirt, tucked neatly into a clean pair of tightly fitting jeans, proclaimed that he came from Penn State University. Billy struggled to rise.

  ‘Oh no sir. Do sit down. Please. Have my seat.’ The other youngsters, having momentarily interrupted their chatter, now ignored what was going on between Billy and the slim boy. Billy felt deeply insulted that this well-spoken youngster should patronize him. He spoke rudely, struggling to his feet, speaking at the bulge in the crotch of the far too tight jeans.

  ‘Don’t push at me like that! I don’t want to sit down. How dare you.’

  ‘Suit yourself.’ The young man shrugged and turned his back as Billy, balance regained, stomped through the heavy double doors into one of the main passenger cabins.

  Billy brooded on the bad-tempered interlude for the whole of the trip. His refusal of the sincere offer of a seat meant that the only place he was able to rest was at the bar where, encouraged by the generous prices, he drank far more than was wise. But who is to say that a man with a runaway wife, the discomfort of a tin leg and a home that has been burnt to the ground (not that he was to know that the white house at Les Meaunes was now only a smouldering pile of bricks, giving much anxiety to the local police chief) should not drown his sorrows in a glass or two?

  Inspector Tim Tyson was also enjoying a drink. He was off duty until late evening, but before then he planned to sort out this business with young Fergus. He had heard on the grapevine that Fergus had returned to his own bungalow and had kicked out his ex-mistress. That had not been too easy considering that she had moved in another lover and her child by an early marriage. But with the help of a couple of the lads Fergus had seen them off without too much fuss. Tim knew that it was likely that, away from the civilizing influence of his posh friends up at Puttnam, Fergus would soon revert to his old company and habits.

  Although wary of any information that came his way from Fergus, Tyson felt that he should check out this business involving Hugh. Knowing Fergus as he did, the chances were that the information was malicious and would be denied or dismissed as a ‘joke’, but once or twice in the past, genuine leads had come from that quarter. He would take a quick stroll up to the house this evening just to make a few informal enquiries. He glanced at his watch. Time for a quick one before it shut. A new barmaid had attracted him to this pub and he felt that it was time that he got to know her better.
Life in the plain clothes branch of the police force was a lot of dirty work at unsocial hours and there was only one way to relax properly. Mrs Tyson, unable to cope with the irregular pattern of his work life, had long ago run out of sympathy in that direction. Perhaps he’d have a chance to pop back here this evening, if duty allowed.

  Fergus meanwhile, totally occupied with sorting himself out, had forgotten all about his campaign against Hugh. Self-pity had given way to worry over the management of his affairs. Or rather to regaining control over that management which had been ceded to others during his long absence. His solicitor, chosen in haste and ignorance when Fergus realized that he was going to be sent down, had appointed other people to look after things. That did not worry Fergus, as long as there was some income for him from the business. Old friends and contacts had come to call as soon as news got about that he was back home, and his initial enthusiasm for cleaning the place up waned as possible deals involving the local soft drugs network were discussed.

  He lay on his back in front of the fireplace in the big main room of the bungalow, smoking a joint which he had just rolled and talking happily to a bald-headed young man called Tommy Old, who considered himself lucky that his old mate Fergus should arrive home at around the same time that he himself was released from detention after four months inside for punching a social worker. Tommy, who was to reestablish his once prestigious position as Fergus’ ‘minder’, in return for his board and lodging, was making plans for that evening.

  ‘Not tonight, Tom, mate. Got some business up that place I was staying.’ Fergus placed a finger alongside his nose and winked. Tommy was impressed but did not show it.

  ‘Oh yeah? What sort of business?’

  ‘Just business.’ Fergus’ tone was final. In truth he should have known better than to go back to Puttnam, but he wanted to show Dorelia that he was not such a spineless prick after all. He had left the house feeling that she despised him. Now, having taken hold of his possessions once more, he wanted to show her that he was a man, if not of substance, of interesting possibility at the very least. He scowled at the yellowing ceiling as he tried to remember if there was any shoe-cleaning gear in the house.