The Penguin Book of the British Short Story

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The Penguin Book of the British Short Story Page 53

by Philip Hensher


  ‘Good for her,’ said the doctor. ‘What did he say to that?’

  ‘Well, he seemed rather confused. He bowed from the waist, exactly as if he had clothes on, and explained that he never drank tea. “I have a stupid habit of talking to myself. I beg your pardon,” he said, and off he went. We got home and my wife locked herself in the bedroom. When she came out she wouldn’t speak to me at first, then she said that he was quite right, I didn’t care what she looked like, so now she didn’t either. She called me a mean man. A mean man. I won’t have it,’ said Mr Eliot indignantly. ‘He’s mad, walking about with a cutlass. He’s dangerous.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t think so,’ said Dr Cox. ‘He’d probably left his clothes round the corner and didn’t know how to explain. Perhaps we do cover ourselves up too much. The sun can be good for you. The best thing in the world. If you’d seen as I have …’

  Mr Eliot interrupted at once. He knew that when the doctor started talking about his unorthodox methods he went on for a long time.

  ‘I don’t know about all that. But I may as well tell you that I dislike the idea of a naked man with a cutlass wandering about near my place. I dislike it very much indeed. I’ve got to consider my wife and my daughter. Something ought to be done.’

  Eliot told his story to everyone who’d listen and the Ramages became the chief topic of conversation.

  ‘It seems,’ Mrs Cox told her husband, ‘that he does wear a pair of trousers as a rule and even an old coat when it rains, but several people have watched him lying in a hammock on the veranda naked. You ought to call there and speak to him. They say, she added, ‘that the two of them fight like Kilkenny cats. He’s making himself very unpopular.’

  So the next time he visited the district Dr Cox stopped near Spanish Castle. As he went up the garden path he noticed how unkempt and deserted the place looked. The grass on the lawn had grown very high and the veranda hadn’t been swept for days.

  The doctor paused uncertainly, then tapped on the sitting-room door, which was open. ‘Hallo,’ called Ramage from inside the house, and he appeared, smiling. He was wearing one of his linen suits, clean and pressed, and his hair and beard were trimmed.

  ‘You’re looking very well,’ the doctor said.

  ‘Oh, yes, I feel splendid. Sit down and I’ll get you a drink.’

  There seemed to be no one else in the house.

  ‘The servants have all walked out,’ Ramage explained when he appeared with the punch.

  ‘Good Lord, have they?’

  ‘Yes, but I think I’ve found an old woman in the village who’ll come up and cook.’

  ‘And how is Mrs Ramage?’

  At this moment there was a heavy thud on the side of the house, then another, then another.

  ‘What was that?’ asked Dr Cox.

  ‘Somebody throwing stones. They do sometimes.’

  ‘Why, in heaven’s name?’

  ‘I don’t know. Ask them.’

  Then the doctor repeated Eliot’s story, but in spite of himself it came out as trivial, even jocular.

  ‘Yes, I was very sorry about that,’ Ramage answered casually. ‘They startled me as much as I startled them. I wasn’t expecting to see anyone. It was a bit of bad luck but it won’t happen again.’

  ‘It was bad luck meeting Eliot,’ the doctor said.

  And that was the end of it. When he got up to go, no advice, no warning had been given.

  ‘You’re sure you’re all right here?’

  ‘Yes, of course,’ said Ramage.

  ‘It’s all rubbish,’ the doctor told his wife that evening. ‘The man’s as fit as a fiddle, nothing wrong with him at all.’

  ‘Was Mrs Ramage there?’

  ‘No, thank God. She was out.’

  ‘I heard this morning,’ said Mrs Cox, ‘that she disappeared. Hasn’t been seen for weeks.’

  The doctor laughed heartily. ‘Why can’t they leave those two alone? What rubbish!’

  ‘Well,’ said Mrs Cox without smiling, ‘it’s odd, isn’t it?’

  ‘Rubbish,’ the doctor said again some days later, for, spurred on by Mr Eliot, people were talking venomously and he could not stop them. Mrs Ramage was not at Spanish Castle, she was not in the town. Where was she?

  Old Myra was questioned. She said that she had not seen her god-daughter and had not heard from her ‘since long time’. The Inspector of Police had two anonymous letters – the first writer claimed to know ‘all what happen at Spanish Castle one night’: the other said that witnesses were frightened to come forward and speak against a white man.

  The Gazette published a fiery article:

  The so-called ‘Imperial Road’ was meant to attract young Englishmen with capital who would buy and develop properties in the interior. This costly experiment has not been a success, and one of the last of these gentlemen planters has seen himself as the king of the cannibal islands ever since he landed. We have it, on the best authority, that his very eccentric behavior has been the greatest possible annoyance to his neighbour. Now the whole thing has become much more serious …

  It ended: ‘Black people bear much; must they also bear beastly murder and nothing be done about it?’

  ‘You don’t suppose that I believe all these lies, do you?’ Dr Cox told Mr Eliot, and Mr Eliot answered: ‘Then I’ll make it my business to find out the truth. That man is a menace, as I said from the first, and he should be dealt with.’

  ‘Dear Ramage,’ Dr Cox wrote. ‘I’m sorry to tell you that stupid and harmful rumours are being spread about your wife and yourself. I need hardly say that no one with a grain of sense takes them seriously, but people here are excitable and very ready to believe mischiefmakers, so I strongly advise you to put a stop to the talk at once and to take legal action if necessary.’

  But the doctor got no answer to this letter, for in the morning news reached the town of a riot at Spanish Castle the night before.

  A crowd of young men and boys, and a few women, had gone up to Ramage’s house to throw stones. It was a bright moonlight night. He had come on to the veranda and stood there facing them. He was dressed in white and looked very tall, they said like a zombi. He said something that nobody heard, a man had shouted ‘white zombi’ and thrown a stone which hit him. He went into the house and came out with a shotgun. Then stories differed wildly. He had fired and hit a woman in the front of the crowd … No, he’d hit a little boy at the back … He hadn’t fired at all, but had threatened them. It was agreed that in the rush to get away people had been knocked down and hurt, one woman seriously.

  It was also rumoured that men and boys from the village planned to burn down Spanish Castle house, if possible with Ramage inside. After this there was no more hesitation. The next day a procession walked up the garden path to the house – the Inspector of Police, three policemen and Dr Cox.

  ‘He must give some explanation of all this,’ said the Inspector.

  The doors and windows were all open, and they found Ramage and the shotgun, but they got no explanation. He had been dead for some hours.

  His funeral was an impressive sight. A good many came out of curiosity, a good many because, though his death was said to be ‘an accident’, they felt guilty. For behind the coffin walked Mrs Ramage, sent for post-haste by old Myra. She’d been staying with relatives in Guadeloupe. When asked why she had left so secretly – she had taken a fishing boat from the other side of the island – she answered sullenly that she didn’t want anyone to know her business, and she knew how people talked. No, she’d heard no rumours about her husband, and the Gazette – a paper written in English – was not read in Guadeloupe.

  ‘Eh-eh,’ echoed Myra. ‘Since when the girl obliged to the everybody where she go and what she do chapter and verse …

  It was lovely weather, and on their way to the Anglican cemetery many had tears in their eyes.

  But already public opinion was turning against Ramage.

  ‘His death was really a blessing in disguise
,’ said one lady. ‘He was evidently mad, poor man – sitting in the sun with no clothes on – much worse might have happened.’

  ‘This is All Souls Day,’ Rosalie thought, standing at her bedroom window before going to sleep. She was wishing that Mr Ramage could have been buried in the Catholic cemetery, where all day the candles burnt almost invisible in the sunlight. When night came they twinkled like fireflies. The graves were covered with flowers – some real, some red or yellow paper or little gold cut-outs. Sometimes there was a letter weighted by a stone and the black people said that next morning the letters had gone. And where? Who would steal letters on the night of the dead? But the letters had gone.

  The Anglican cemetery, which was not very far away, down the hill, was deserted and silent. Protestants believed that when you were dead, you were dead.

  If he had a letter … she thought.

  ‘My dear darling Mr Ramage,’ she wrote, then felt so sad that she began to cry.

  Two hours later Mrs Cox came into the room and found her daughter in bed and asleep; on the table by her side was the unfinished letter. Mrs Cox read it, frowned, pressed her lips together, then crumpled it up and threw it out of the window.

  There was a stiff breeze and she watched it bouncing purposefully down the street. As if it knew exactly where it was going.

  IAN MCEWAN

  Pornography

  O’Byrne walked through Soho market to his brother’s shop in Brewer Street. A handful of customers leafing through the magazines and Harold watching them through pebble-thick lenses from his raised platform in the corner. Harold was barely five foot and wore built-up shoes. Before becoming his employee O’Byrne used to call him Little Runt. At Harold’s elbow a miniature radio rasped details of race meetings for the afternoon. ‘So,’ said Harold with thin contempt, ‘the prodigal brother …’ His magnified eyes fluttered at every consonant. He looked past O’Byrne’s shoulder. ‘All the magazines are for sale, gentlemen.’ The readers stirred uneasily like troubled dreamers. One replaced a magazine and walked quickly from the shop. ‘Where d’you get to?’ Harold said in a quieter voice. He stepped from the dais, put on his coat and glared up at O’Byrne, waiting for an answer. Little Runt. O’Byrne was ten years younger than his brother, detested him and his success but now, strangely, wanted his approbation. ‘I had an appointment, didn’t I,’ he said quietly. ‘I got the clap.’ Harold was pleased. He reached up and punched O’Byrne’s shoulder playfully. ‘Serves you,’ he said and cackled theatrically. Another customer edged out of the shop. From the doorway Harold called, ‘I’ll be back at five.’ O’Byrne smiled as his brother left. He hooked his thumbs into his jeans and sauntered towards the tight knot of customers. ‘Can I help you gentlemen, the magazines are all for sale.’ They scattered before him like frightened fowl, and suddenly he was alone in the shop.

  A plump woman of fifty or more stood in front of a plastic shower curtain, naked but for panties and gasmask. Her hands hung limply at her sides and in one of them a cigarette smouldered. Wife of the Month. Since gasmasks and a thick rubber sheet on the bed, wrote JN of Andover, we’ve never looked back. O’Byrne played with the radio for a while then switched it off. Rhythmically he turned the pages of the magazine, and stopped to read the letters. An uncircumcised male virgin, without hygiene, forty-two next May, dared not peel back his foreskin now for fear of what he might see. I get these nightmares of worms. O’Byrne laughed and crossed his legs. He replaced the magazine, returned to the radio, switched it on and off rapidly and caught the unintelligible middle of a word. He walked about the shop straightening the magazines in the racks. He stood by the door and stared at the wet street intersected by the coloured strips of the plastic walk-thro. He whistled over and over a tune whose end immediately suggested its beginning. Then he returned to Harold’s raised platform and made two telephone calls, both to the hospital, the first to Lucy. But Sister Drew was busy in the ward and could not come to the phone. O’Byrne left a message that he would not be able to see her that evening after all and would phone again tomorrow. He dialled the hospital switchboard and this time asked for trainee Nurse Shepherd in the children’s ward. ‘Hi,’ O’Byrne said when Pauline picked up the phone. ‘It’s me.’ And he stretched and leaned against the wall. Pauline was a silent girl who once wept in a film about the effects of pesticides on butterflies, who wanted to redeem O’Byrne with her love. Now she laughed, ‘I’ve been phoning you all morning,’ she said. ‘Didn’t your brother tell you?’

  ‘Listen,’ said O’Byrne, ‘I’ll be at your place about eight,’ and replaced the receiver.

  Harold did not return till after six, and O’Byrne was almost asleep, his head pillowed on his forearm. There were no customers. O’Byrne’s only sale was American Bitch. ‘Those American mags,’ said Harold as he emptied the till of £15 and a handful of silver, ‘are good.’ Harold’s new leather jacket. O’Byrne fingered it appreciatively. ‘Seventy-eight quid,’ said Harold and braced himself in front of the fish-eye mirror. His glasses flashed. ‘It’s all right,’ said O’Byrne. ‘Fucking right it is,’ said Harold, and began to close up shop. ‘Never take much on Wednesdays,’ he said wistfully as he reached up and switched on the burglar alarm. ‘Wednesday’s a cunt of a day.’ Now O’Byrne was in front of the mirror, examining a small trail of acne that led from the corner of his mouth. ‘You’re not fucking kidding,’ he agreed.

  Harold’s house lay at the foot of the Post Office Tower and O’Byrne rented a room from him. They walked along together without speaking. From time to time Harold glanced sideways into a dark shop window to catch the reflection of himself and his new leather jacket. Little Runt. O’Byrne said, ‘Cold, innit?’ and Harold said nothing. Minutes later, when they were passing a pub, Harold steered O’Byrne into the dank, deserted public saying, ‘Since you got the clap I’ll buy you a drink.’ The publican heard the remark and regarded O’Byrne with interest. They drank three scotches apiece, and as O’Byrne was paying for the fourth round Harold said, ‘Oh yeah, one of those two nurses you’ve been knocking around with phoned.’ O’Byrne nodded and wiped his lips. After a pause Harold said, ‘You’re well in there …’ O’Byrne nodded again. ‘Yep.’ Harold’s jacket shone. When he reached for his drink it creaked. O’Byrne was not going to tell him anything. He banged his hands together. ‘Yep,’ he said once more, and stared over his brother’s head at the empty bar. Harold tried again. ‘She wanted to know where you’d been …’ ‘I bet she did,’ O’Byrne muttered, and then smiled.

  Pauline, short and untalkative, her face bloodlessly pale, intersected by a heavy black fringe, her eyes large, green and watchful, her flat small, damp and shared with a secretary who was never there. O’Byrne arrived after ten, a little drunk and in need of a bath to purge the faint purulent scent that lately had hung about his fingers. She sat on a small wooden stool to watch him luxuriate. Once she leaned forwards and touched his body where it broke the surface. O’Byrne’s eyes were closed, his hands floating at his side, the only sound the diminishing hiss of the cistern. Pauline rose quietly to bring a clean white towel from her bedroom, and O’Byrne did not hear her leave or return. She sat down again and ruffled, as far as it was possible, O’Byrne’s damp, matted hair. ‘The food is ruined,’ she said without accusation. Beads of perspiration collected in the corners of O’Byrne’s eyes and rolled down the line of his nose like tears. Pauline rested her hand on O’Byrne’s knee where it jutted through the grey water. Steam turned to water on the cold walls, senseless minutes passed. ‘Never mind, love,’ said O’Byrne, and stood up.

  Pauline went out to buy beer and pizzas, and O’Byrne lay down in her tiny bedroom to wait. Ten minutes passed. He dressed after cursory examination of his clean but swelling meatus, and wandered listlessly about the sitting room. Nothing interested him in Pauline’s small collection of books. There were no magazines. He entered the kitchen in search of a drink. There was nothing but an overcooked meat pie. He picked round the burnt bits and as he ate
turned the pages of a picture calendar. When he finished he remembered again he was waiting for Pauline. He looked at his watch. She had been gone now almost half an hour. He stood up quickly, tipping the kitchen chair behind him to the floor. He paused in the sitting room and then walked decisively out of the flat and slammed the front door on his way. He hurried down the stairs, anxious not to meet her now he had decided to get out. But she was there. Halfway up the second flight, a little out of breath, her arms full of bottles and tinfoil parcels. ‘Where d’you get to?’ said O’Byrne. Pauline stopped several steps down from him, her face tilted up awkwardly over her goods, the whites of her eyes and the tinfoil vivid in the dark. ‘The usual place was closed. I had to walk miles … sorry.’ They stood. O’Byrne was not hungry. He wanted to go. He hitched his thumbs into the waist of his jeans and cocked his head towards the invisible ceiling, then he looked down at Pauline who waited. ‘Well,’ he said at last, ‘I was thinking of going.’ Pauline came up, and as she pushed past whispered, ‘Silly.’ O’Byrne turned and followed her, obscurely cheated.

  He leaned in the doorway, she righted the chair. With a movement of his head O’Byrne indicated that he wanted none of the food Pauline was setting out on plates. She poured him a beer and knelt to gather a few black pastry droppings from the floor. They sat in the sitting room. O’Byrne drank, Pauline ate slowly, neither spoke. O’Byrne finished all the beer and placed his hand on Pauline’s knee. She did not turn. He said cheerily, ‘What’s wrong with you?’ and she said, ‘Nothing.’ Alive with irritation O’Byrne moved closer and placed his arm protectively across her shoulders. ‘Tell you what,’ he half whispered. ‘Let’s go to bed.’ Suddenly Pauline rose and went into the bedroom. O’Byrne sat with his hands clasped behind his head. He listened to Pauline undress, and he heard the creak of the bed. He got to his feet and, still without desire, entered the bedroom.

 

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