The Penguin Book of the British Short Story

by Philip Hensher

  ‘He was caught in an off-moment there,’ said Sybil’s hostess. ‘Oh, there goes Sybil. I thought you looked a little sad just then, Sybil. There’s that other girl again, and the lovely dog.’

  ‘Was this a typical afternoon in the Colony?’ inquired the young man.

  ‘It was and it wasn’t,’ Sybil said.

  Whenever they had the camera out life changed at the Westons’. Everyone, including the children, had to look very happy. The house natives were arranged to appear in the background wearing their best whites. Sometimes Barry would have everyone dancing in a ring with the children, and the natives had to clap time.

  Or, as on the last occasion, he would stage an effect of gracious living. The head cook-boy, who had a good knowledge of photography, was placed at his post.

  ‘Ready,’ said Barry to the cook, ‘shoot.’

  Désirée came out, followed by the dog.

  ‘Look frisky, Barker,’ said Barry. The Alsatian looked frisky.

  Barry put one arm round Désirée and his other arm through Sybil’s that late afternoon, walking them slowly across the camera range. He chatted with amiability and with an actor’s lift of the head. He would accentuate his laughter, tossing back his head. A sound track would, however, have reproduced the words, ‘Smile, Sybil. Walk slowly. Look as if you’re enjoying it. You’ll be able to see yourself in later years, having the time of your life.’

  Sybil giggled.

  Just then David was seen to be securing the little lake boat between the trees. ‘He must have come across the lake,’ said Barry. ‘I wonder if he’s been drinking again?’

  But David’s walk was quite steady. He did not realize he was being photographed as he crossed the long lawn. He stood for a moment staring at Sybil. She said, ‘Oh hallo, David.’ He turned and walked aimlessly face-on towards the camera.

  ‘Hold it a minute,’ Barry called out to the cook.

  The boy obeyed at the moment David realized he had been filmed.

  ‘OK,’ shouted Barry, when David was out of range. ‘Fire ahead.’

  It was then Barry said to Sybil, ‘Haven’t you found a man yet … ?’ and Désirée said, ‘You ought to try a love affair …’

  ‘We’ve made Sybil unhappy,’ said Désirée.

  ‘Oh, I’m quite happy.’

  ‘Well, cheer up in front of the camera,’ said Barry.

  The sun was setting fast, the camera was folded away, and everyone had gone to change. Sybil came down and sat on the stoep outside the open french windows of the dining-room. Presently, Désirée was indoors behind her, adjusting the oil lamps which one of the house-boys had set too high. Désirée put her head round the glass door and remarked to Sybil, ‘That Benjamin’s a fool, I shall speak to him in the morning. He simply will not take care with these lamps. One day we’ll have a real smoke-out.’

  Sybil said, ‘Oh, I expect they are all so used to electricity these days …’

  ‘That’s the trouble,’ said Désirée, and turned back into the room.

  Sybil was feeling disturbed by David’s presence in the place. She wondered if he would come in to dinner. Thinking of his sullen staring at her on the lawn, she felt he might make a scene. She heard a gasp from the dining-room behind her.

  She looked round, but in the same second it was over. A deafening crack from the pistol and Désirée crumpled up. A movement by the inner door and David held the gun to his head. Sybil screamed, and was aware of running footsteps upstairs. The gun exploded again and David’s body dropped sideways.

  With Barry and the natives she went round to the dining-room. Désirée was dead. David lingered a moment enough to roll his eyes in Sybil’s direction as she rose from Désirée’s body. He knows, thought Sybil quite lucidly, that he got the wrong woman.

  ‘What I can’t understand,’ said Barry when he called on Sybil a few weeks later, ‘is why he did it.’

  ‘He was mad,’ said Sybil.

  ‘Not all that mad,’ said Barry. ‘And everyone thinks, of course, that there was an affair between them. That’s what I can’t bear.’

  ‘Quite,’ said Sybil. ‘But of course he was keen on Désirée. You always said so. Those rows you used to have … You always made out you were jealous of David.’

  ‘Do you know,’ he said, ‘I wasn’t, really. It was a sort of … a sort of …’

  ‘Play-act,’ said Sybil.

  ‘Sort of. You see, there was nothing between them,’ he said. ‘And honestly, Carter wasn’t a bit interested in Désirée. And the question is why he did it. I can’t bear people to think …’

  The damage to his pride, Sybil saw, outweighed his grief. The sun was setting and she rose to put on the stoep light.

  ‘Stop!’ he said. ‘Turn round. My God, you did look like Désirée for a moment.’

  ‘You’re nervy,’ she said, and switched on the light.

  ‘In some ways you do look a little like Désirée,’ he said. ‘In some lights,’ he said reflectively.

  I must say something, thought Sybil, to blot this notion from his mind. I must make this occasion unmemorable, distasteful to him.

  ‘At all events,’ she said, ‘you’ve still got your poetry.’

  ‘That’s the great thing,’ he said, ‘I’ve still got that. It means everything to me, a great consolation. I’m selling up the estate and joining up. The kids are going into a convent and I’m going up north. What we need is some good war poetry. There hasn’t been any war poetry.’

  ‘You’ll make a better soldier,’ she said, ‘than a poet.’

  ‘What do you say?’

  She repeated her words fairly slowly, and with a sense of relief, almost of absolution. The season of falsity had formed a scab, soon to fall away altogether. There is no health, she thought, for me, outside of honesty.

  ‘You’ve always,’ he said, ‘thought my poetry was wonderful.’

  ‘I have said so,’ she said, ‘but it was a sort of play-act. Of course, it’s only my opinion, but I think you’re a third-rater poet.’

  ‘You’re upset, my dear,’ he said.

  He sent her the four reels of film from Cairo a month before he was killed in action. ‘It will be nice in later years,’ he wrote, ‘for you to recall those good times we used to have.’

  ‘It has been delightful,’ said her hostess. ‘You haven’t changed a bit. Do you feel any different?’

  ‘Well yes, I feel rather differently about everything, of course.’ One learns to accept oneself.

  ‘A hundred feet of one’s past life!’ said the young man. ‘If they were mine, I’m sure I should be shattered. I should be calling “Lights! Lights!” like Hamlet’s uncle.’

  Sybil smiled at him. He looked back, suddenly solemn and shrewd.

  ‘How tragic, those people being killed in shooting affairs,’ said the elderly woman.

  ‘The last reel was the best,’ said her hostess. ‘The garden was entrancing. I should like to see that one again; what about you, Ted?’

  ‘Yes, I liked those nature-study shots. I feel I missed a lot of it,’ said her husband.

  ‘Hark at him – nature-study shots!’

  ‘Well, those close-ups of tropical plants.’

  Everyone wanted the last one again.

  ‘How about you, Sybil?’

  Am I a woman, she thought calmly, or an intellectual monster? She was so accustomed to this question within herself that it needed no answer. She said, ‘Yes, I should like to see it again. It’s an interesting experience.’

  ROBERT AICKMAN

  Bind Your Hair

  No one seemed able to fathom Clarinda Hartley. She had a small but fastidious flat near Church Street, Kensington; and a responsible job in a large noncommittal commercial organisation. No one who knew her now had ever known her in any other residence or any other job. She entertained a little, never more nor less over the years; went out not infrequently with men; and for her holidays simply disappeared, returning with brief references to foreign part
s. No one seemed to know her really well; and in the course of time there came to be wide differences of opinion about her age, and recurrent speculation about her emotional life. The latter topic was not made less urgent by a certain distinction in her appearance, and also in her manner. She was very tall (a great handicap, of course, in the opinion of many) and well-shaped; she had very fair, very fine, very abundant hair, to which plainly she gave much attention; her face had interesting planes (for those who could appreciate them), but also soft curves, which went with her hair. She had a memorable voice: high-pitched, but gentle. She was, in fact, thirty-two. Everyone was greatly surprised when she announced her engagement to Dudley Carstairs.

  Or rather it was Carstairs who announced it. He could not keep it to himself as long as there was anyone within earshot who was ignorant of it; and well might he be elated, because his capture followed a campaign of several years’ continuance, and supported by few sweeping advantages. He worked in the same office as Clarinda, and in a not unsatisfactory position for his thirty years; and was in every way a thoroughly presentable person: but even in the office there were a number of others like him, and it would have seemed possible that Clarinda could have further extended her range of choice by going outside.

  The weekend after the engagement Dudley arranged for her to spend with him and his parents in Northamptonshire. Mr Carstairs, Senior, had held an important position on the administrative side of the Northampton boot and shoe industry; and when he retired upon a fair pension had settled in a small but comfortable house in one of the remote parts of a county where the remote parts are surprisingly many and extensive. Mr Carstairs had been a pioneer in this particular, because others similarly placed had tended upon retirement to emigrate to the Sussex coast or the New Forest; but his initiative, as often happens in such cases, had been imitated, until the little village in which he had settled was now largely populated by retired industrial executives and portions of their families.

  Clarinda would have been grateful for more time in which to adjust herself to Dudley in the capacity of accepted lover; but Dudley somehow did not seem to see himself in that capacity, and to be reluctant in any way to defer Clarinda’s full involvement with her new family position. Clarinda, having said yes to what was believed to be the major question, smiled slightly and said yes to the minor.

  Mr Carstairs, Senior, met them at Roade station.

  ‘Hullo, Dad.’ The two men gazed at one another’s shoes, not wanting to embrace and hesitating to shake hands. Mr Carstairs was smiling, benignly expectant. Plainly he was one who considered that life had treated him well. Almost, one believed, he was ready to accept his son’s choice of a bride as, for him, joy’s crown of joy.

  ‘Dad. This is Clarinda.’

  ‘I say, my boy …’

  Outside the station was a grey Standard, in which Mr Carstairs drove them many miles to the west. Already the sun was sinking. Soon after they arrived they had settled down, with Mrs Carstairs and Dudley’s sister Elizabeth, to crumpets in the long winter dusk. Elizabeth had a secretarial position in Leamington, and bicycled there and back every day. All of them were charmed with Clarinda. She exceeded their highest, and perhaps not very confident, hopes.

  Clarinda responded to their happy approval of her, and smiled at Dudley’s extreme pleasure at being home. An iced cake had been baked for her specially, and she wondered whether these particular gilt-edged cups were in daily use. They neither asked her questions nor talked mainly about themselves: they all made a warm-hearted, not unskilful effort to make her feel completely one with them from the outset. She and Elizabeth discovered a common interest in the theatre (shared only in a lesser degree by Dudley).

  ‘But Leamington’s so stuffy that no one’s ever made a theatre pay there.’

  ‘Not since the war,’ said Mr Carstairs in affectionate qualification.

  ‘Not since the first war,’ said Elizabeth.

  ‘Is Leamington the nearest town?’ asked Clarinda.

  ‘It’s the nearest as the crow flies, or as Elizabeth cycles,’ said Dudley, ‘but it’s not the quickest when you’re coming from London. Narrow lanes all the way.’

  ‘Fortunately we’ve got our own friends by now in the village,’ said Mrs Carstairs. ‘I’ve asked some of them in for drinks, so that you can meet them at once.’

  And indeed, almost immediately the bell rang, and the first of the visitors was upon them. Mr Carstairs went round the room putting on lights and drawing the curtains. Every now and then he gave some jocular direction to Dudley, who was complementarily engaged. A domestic servant of some kind, referred to by Mrs Carstairs as ‘our local woman’, had removed the remains of tea; and by the time Elizabeth had borne in a tray of drinks, three more visitors had added themselves to the first two.

  ‘Can I help?’ Clarinda had said.

  ‘No,’ the Carstairs family had replied. ‘Certainly not. Not yet.’

  Altogether there were eleven visitors, only two of whom were under forty. All eleven of them Clarinda liked very much less than she liked the Carstairs family. Then just as several of them were showing signs of departure, a twelfth arrived; who made a considerable change. A woman of medium height and in early middle age, she had a lined and sallow face, but an alert expression and large, deeply set black eyes. She had untidy, shoulder-length black hair which tended to separate itself into distinct compact strands. Her only make-up appeared to be an exceptionally vivid lipstick, abundantly applied to her large square mouth. She entered in a luxuriant fur coat, but at once cast it off, so that it lay on the floor, and appeared in a black corduroy skirt and a black silk blouse, cut low, and with long tight sleeves. On her feet were heel-less golden slippers.

  ‘I’ve been so busy.’ She seized both of Mrs Carstairs’s hands. Her voice was very deep and melodious, but marred by a certain hoarseness, or uncertainty of timbre. ‘Where is she?’

  Mrs Carstairs was smiling amiably as ever; but all conversation in the room had stopped.

  ‘Do go on talking.’ The newcomer addressed the party at random. She had now observed Clarinda. ‘Introduce me,’ she said to Mrs Carstairs, as if her hostess were being a little slow with her duties. ‘Or am I too late?’ Her sudden quick smile was possibly artificial but certainly bewitching. For a second, various men in the room missed the thread of their resumed conversations.

  ‘Of course you’re not too late,’ said Mrs Carstairs. Then she made the introduction. ‘Clarinda Hartley. Mrs Pagani.’

  ‘Nothing whatever to do with the restaurant,’ said Mrs Pagani.

  ‘How do you do?’ said Clarinda.

  Mrs Pagani had a firm and even but somewhat bony handshake. She was wearing several large rings, with heavy stones in them, and round her neck a big fat locket on a thick golden chain.

  By now Mrs Carstairs had brought Mrs Pagani a drink. ‘Here’s to the future,’ said Mrs Pagani, looking into Clarinda’s eyes, and as soon as Mrs Carstairs had turned away, drained the glass.

  ‘Thank you,’ said Clarinda.

  ‘Do sit down,’ said Mrs Pagani, as if the house were hers.

  ‘Thank you,’ said Clarinda, falling in with the illusion.

  Mrs Pagani stretched out an arm (Clarinda noticed that her arms, in their tight black sleeves, were uncommonly long) and pulled up a chair, upon which she sat. Clarinda noticed also that when she was seated, her hips too looked bony and obtrusive. Altogether Mrs Pagani gave an impression of unusual physical power, only partly concealed by her conventional clothes. It was as if suddenly she might arise and tear down the house.

  ‘You cannot imagine,’ said Mrs Pagani, ‘how much it means to me to have someone new in the village, especially someone more or less my own age. Or perhaps you can?’

  ‘But I’m not going to live here,’ said Clarinda, clutching hold of the main point.

  ‘Well, of course not. But there’ll be frequent weekends. Whatever else may be said for or against Dudley, he’s devoted to his home.’

>   Clarinda nodded thoughtfully. She was aware that everyone’s eyes were upon them, and realised that Mrs Pagani had so far acknowledged the presence of none of the other guests, well though she must presumably know them.

  ‘Who would want to know any of these people?’ enquired Mrs Pagani in a husky, telepathic undertone.

  One trouble was that Clarinda rather agreed with her.

  ‘Why do you live here?’

  ‘I can’t live in towns. And in the country people are the same wherever you go. Most people, I mean. You don’t live in the country for the local society.’

  Clarinda failed to ask why you did live in the country.

  Elizabeth came up with more drinks.

  ‘Hullo, Elizabeth,’ said Mrs Pagani.

  For some reason Elizabeth went very red.

  ‘Hullo, Mrs Pagani.’ She left two drinks with them, and hurried away on her errand of hospitality. Mrs Pagani’s eyes followed her for a few seconds. Then she turned back to Clarinda, and said: ‘We two will be seeing a lot of one another.’

  Again Clarinda could only nod.

  ‘I needn’t tell you that you’re not what I expected. Do you know where I live?’

  Clarinda, still silent, shook her head.

  ‘Have you been round the village yet?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Not seen the church?’

  ‘It was getting dark when I arrived.’

  ‘I live in the churchyard.’ Mrs Pagani suddenly shouted with laughter. ‘It always surprises people.’ She placed her long bony left hand on Clarinda’s knee. ‘There used to be a chapel in the churchyard, with a room over it. This is a thinly populated district, and they brought the corpses from the farmhouses and cottages, often a long slow journey, and left the coffin in the chapel waiting for the funeral the next day. And the mourners passed the night upstairs, watching and, of course, drinking. When all this became unnecessary, the chapel fell into ruin. The parish council was glad to sell it to me. The vicar’s a hundred and one anyway. I restored it and I live in it. The ground had to be specially deconsecrated for me.’ Mrs Pagani removed her hand and picked up her glass. ‘Come and see me.’ For the second time she toasted Clarinda. ‘I call it the Charnel House. Not quite correct, of course: a charnel house is where the dead lie after the funeral. But I thought the name rather suited me.’ Suddenly her attention was distracted. Without moving her eyes, she inclined her head slightly sideways. ‘Just look at Mr Appleby. Used to be managing director of an important company. Appleby’s Arterial Bootlaces.’