The Stranger Came

by Frederic Lindsay

  People heard what they expected to hear, she knew that. Stumbling in her haste over the rutted track, she had begun a sort of apology as soon as she was near enough. 'I didn't think you would come this way. The woods are still muddy, of course, though it's so cold. I couldn't stay indoors.’

  The men had been walking side by side, but the track was too narrow to take three abreast. Maitland had her and Norman go in front of him. His voice from behind them said, 'Alfried Krupp had a torture chamber in the basement of the company's headquarters.’ When she looked round, he smiled at her. 'I'm talking about during the war, of course.’

  Talking about the war. If that was all! Past history.

  Between shoulder-high banks like walking down the bed of a ditch, they came to a place where they were forced out on to the frozen surface of the burn. Maitland was wearing heavy walking shoes with ribbed soles that let him step confidently. He took her by the arm. Beside them, Monty Norman's thin-soled city shoes slid under him treacherously.

  'Did you ever hear that speech by Oswald Mosley – "there comes a time in the lives of great nations?" Those extraordinary snarling vowels ranting on about destiny. They tell me street-corner orators are spouting that stuff again. Don't you find that extraordinary?' As he spoke, she watched the breath puff from his mouth like the white smoke that came with each boom from a cannon. 'That conference hand-out reminded me of it. A sentence like that is a collector's item. "Those of us in industry, the privilege of leadership.” And for syntax as much as semantics. How much of a balance sheet do you need before you can get away with talking about "destiny"? Without anybody laughing, I mean?'

  'Laughing? How far before we get back to the road?' Monty Norman ran the two questions into one. He hates this, Lucy thought.

  'Not far. Or instead of "laughing" you might as well say "weeping.” Did you know the SS contracted to provide labour from Auschwitz to Siemens? Not just the lampshades were made of skin in those days, eh? And BMW got its workers supplied from Dachau. The camp at Dachau. In the Thirties the Party used to run trips to Dachau for the industrialists- a way of saying thanks for your help – picnics on the grass. And I. G. Farben was so hard on its slaves that the SS complained – they told the directors, “Please, the supply isn't infinite.” Infinity – another big word. Do you think businessmen use it too, like "destiny"? Without laughing, I mean. Heads held high. Jowls quivering. Wouldn't you think so?' In the way she knew so well, he leaned across her with a little bark of interrogation. 'Hmm?'

  'Like you say, there was a war on.’ Badgered into responding, Monty Norman spat out the words in a nasal whine, his accent quite altered.

  And Maitland had stopped, pulling her to a halt with him, and thrown back his head laughing. '"A war on!"' he mimicked. 'A war on…My mother said the village grocer in those days made the women stand in line, grumbled at them, shut up shop when the notion took him, quite apart from overcharging . She got so angry one day, she said to him, “Wait until the war's over, no one will come near you then.” “War over,” he said, “do you think I'll bloody well be here when the war's over?”'

  She had heard him like that often, she told herself, ideas in a spate like drunkenness as he jumped from one to the other. And on the other hand – for something was wrong, this wasn't like those other times, however much you might want to pretend it was – my God, hadn't he almost died?

  At one point: 'The air's full of lies. We're surrounded by them, swimming in them. Lies and half-truths. And euphemisms like candy to sicken you on sweetness. You get sick with longing for the unvarnished this-is-so. If I was in advertising I'd have a picture of a tramp on a bench staring at two Andrex toilet rolls, one wrapped on the bench, the other draped over it. And I'd put the caption: "Bums love them.”’

  At another: 'Benjamin Lee Whorf who had a hypothesis. A Choctaw Indian could only see the world in one way because of the structure of tenses he had. Language made the world. Take that too literally – some do – and reality would be what we think it is. The crew of a flying saucer looking down one morning and seeing the whole world dislimn – Ben Nevis and Tibet levelling down into the plain and the sand moistening under the Bedouin, till everywhere is much the same – and one little green man turns to the other and says, “Oh, oh, they've all learned Esperanto, big mistake.”’

  And at another, 'Freud practised hypnotism, did you know that? Eh?'

  'Yes, as a matter of fact.’

  'I thought you might. He came from Vienna.’

  'Yes.’

  'Like Hitler. Another hypnotist.’

  'If you say so.’

  'At the headquarters of Krupp Industries, the secretaries on the fifth floor could hear the screams from the basement.’

  And this time Monty Norman hadn't answered, losing his balance as he slithered on the smooth surface of the burn, hating all of this. Without thinking she put out her hand to steady him when he seemed about to fall. As he pulled away – her instincts always out of place – she saw under their feet folds of lank grass as leached under the ice as drowned child flesh might be.

  All right at first, after an hour or so out of bed she realised she was cold. Something had gone wrong with the heating. Nothing happened when she turned the thermostat valves to full on the radiators. In the cupboard under the stairs the Potterton box showed both lights on at red, for hot water and central heating. In the garage apart from the little blue lick of the pilot light there was no flame under the boiler. She went back for a jersey and gloves and then outside to where the grey Calor gas tank bulked awkwardly placed at the side of the house. The padlock on the gauge cover wouldn't work loose and she took off her gloves to fiddle with it.

  By the time it wrenched free she was almost weeping with the pain of her fingers, numb and white at the tips. The gauge showed the tank still a quarter full.

  Her first thought was of Maitland who had been collected by Sam Wilson after breakfast and carried off to Balinter for a faculty meeting. To disturb him with a call for help, it was the kind of thing you had to do at once without a thought, otherwise it seemed too feeble. She could phone an electrician or a plumber; a heating engineer assuming it was the boiler that had gone wrong; there was no one in the village though. Weren't you supposed to have them serviced? Maitland should have seen to it.

  There was an electric fire stored at the back of the garage for throwing out. The first thing was to get warm. She carried it into the living-room, panting with the unexpected weight of it. Switched on it fizzled and gave off a smell of frying dust. She put on both bars and the convector for immediate warmth, and then filled the basket in the hearth with paper screwed up to burn slowly. As the flames ran up through them she added sticks and sat on her heels watching until it was time to lay two split logs on top.

  In here at least would be warm.

  Climbing upstairs, she could tell on her skin how little time it had taken for the heat to drain out of the house. Just behind the door in Maitland's study, a shelf of the bookcase had been cleared for the answerphone and a calendar and phonebooks and a clutter of papers. She sifted through them without finding the list of tradesmen that was usually kept by the phone in the kitchen. The shutter cover of Maitland's desk was rolled down and she hesitated about opening it; but more papers were distributed along the flat top and she had a look through them. Even that felt uncomfortably like snooping.

  About to leave, she noticed the tell-tale light on the answerphone signalling a message. She had been so intent on her search she hadn't noticed it before. Smiling at that she pressed the play button. The light flickered as the tape ran back then a woman's voice spoke.

  'Maitland,' the woman's voice said, 'it's Beth. Don't die of surprise or anything but I've been offered an exhibition in Edinburgh. I want you there. No excuses. Ring me the first chance you get. Love you.’

  When it finished she pressed the stop button to keep the message and then played it once more; and again. She was about to listen to it for the fourth time when she hear
d the ringing of the doorbell.

  'I was on the point of giving up,' Janet said, moving forward into the hall. Her cheeks were flushed with the cold and as she came in she tugged off the wool ski cap and shook out her hair. That gesture, the mane of red hair swinging loose, reminded Lucy of something, someone, a stirring of memory, so tenuous yet bitter as death, gone before she could grasp it.

  'The back door isn't locked.’ That was stating the obvious. It was the way things were in the village.

  Janet frowned as if at a diversion. 'I didn't think.’

  She wanted it to be like this, the thought came to Lucy, at the front door, ringing the bell like a stranger. She hasn't come as a friend. All the more necessary to treat her as if she had.

  Yet the moment went by for that, and it was Janet tired of waiting who led the way into the kitchen.

  'We can't stop in here,' Lucy said, coming no further than the doorway.

  Janet looked at her in silence, then took a seat at the table.

  'Why not?'

  She spoke as if issuing a challenge.

  'Don't you feel the cold?' And it was cold. Become cold so quickly that she could see her breath as she spoke. 'The heating's gone off. I don't know what's gone wrong with it.’

  'Yes.’ Janet glanced around. 'Yes…’For the first time she seemed uncertain.

  'Can't stay here,' Lucy said again. Surely it should be plain to her it would be better if she went?

  'You've a smudge,' Janet touched her own cheek with a finger, 'of soot or something.’

  'I was lighting the fire.’ That was an admission. She had looked at her hands and, yes, they were dirty, licked the side of a knuckle and begun scrubbing her cheek clean when the admission slipped out. That was stupid. Anyway the words once said, there seemed no choice but to go on…‘In the living-room. We could go in there.’

  'Hmm. Let's.’

  As they came out of the kitchen, Lucy indicated by a touch the picture hung in this darkest corner of the hall.

  'Do you like this?'

  Janet had moved past her and, turning, seemed still poised to go on.

  'Like it? Is it new?'

  'No. No…Maitland used to have it in his study.’

  Four potatoes on a rumpled cloth, a dull-seeming thing, a study made with a dark palette. Certainly it might have been easy to overlook; it made no obvious demands.

  'Can we get on?' Janet asked, and shivered, seeming to say, It's cold, as if by way of explanation. Apology? If it was a sign of weakness, it was the only one she gave.

  'Maitland bought this just before we were married. Such a beautiful day, oh, how the sun shone. The art students had hung their paintings on the railings at the Botanical Gardens. They did that in Glasgow then. What seems strange is that a day like that, all bright colours, flowers and girls' dresses, sunlight in floods, should be tied to a dull thing like this. Beth, her name was Beth. We heard she had died.’ With one hand she straightened the painting, making the smallest of adjustments. 'Isn't it strange how we stop seeing things? There they are right in front of our noses. We don't see them. Maitland told me she was dead.’

  But Janet was gone, and by the time she went into the front room had taken her stand back to the fire waiting for her.

  'It's quite warm,' Lucy said. Janet nodded, one sharp jerk of her chin. 'It's the heater, it's very efficient. Once the fire is properly caught this place will be like an oven.’

  'I have to talk to you.’

  'Too warm or too cold. Isn't it always the same? I think it's too soon to put the heater off yet, don't you?'

  'I'm sorry you haven't been well, but things can't go on like this.’

  'But you always have something. When you come, I mean.’

  'What?'

  'You always have something. Tea, coffee, something to drink?'

  'No, Lucy, not today.’

  Lucy went anyway to the sideboard and found a bottle – the first one that came to hand. From the upper shelf she lifted out two little tumblers. 'Because it's been so cold. It's too cold to go back into the kitchen. So I suppose that's an excuse. We'll have a glass of –' She had to stop and glance at the bottle. 'It's gin. What's best with gin? Tonic, of course. We do have, yes,' she bent to search and came up with a small bottle of Schweppes, 'we can spoil ourselves, just for this once, since it's not an ordinary morning, I still have to phone, for help…’

  But as she began to take the cap off the bottle of gin, behind her Janet said, 'Why don't you leave him?'

  'Last night,' Lucy said pouring the gin into the glasses in turn, trying to judge it, not wanting to ask Janet if it was enough or too much, 'I had the oddest dream. The thing is I don't – well, I know everybody does, but most times I don't remember, they say it has to do with how quickly you wake up.’ She added the tonic water to Janet's and then stood with the bottle over her own glass, not pouring. It was always Maitland who made the drinks. 'I was standing on the road outside these high walls, brown not grey, you might have thought they would be grey, and a double door big enough to let in a bus but it was closed. And a little door by the side opened and a man came out. This is the prison, he said. But the poor prisoners – I was crying – there must be thousands and thousands of them. It was such an enormous place. “Oh, no,” he said, “there never has been a prisoner, not ever one since it was built. Just that it's there, that's quite enough, you see.”’

  She decided against adding anything and took a mouthful of neat gin.

  'This isn't any good,' Janet said, 'you have to face up to things.’

  Still there, Lucy thought, as she turned round, in front of the fire legs spread I thought it was only men did that getting whatever heat was going, I was hoping she'd gone. Face up to her then, for what it's worth.

  'We didn't want it to happen, neither of us did.’

  'Does Maitland know you're here?' Obviously not.

  'We're in love.’

  'Lovers, do you mean?'

  'In love too. That's the truth, and it won't change however sorry we are.’

  'Sorry for me, you mean.’ She went to sip again from her glass but it was emptied.

  'It wasn't something we ever wanted to happen. But it has and nothing can change it now.’

  'Sorry for me because I was your friend?'

  'We want to be together, Lucy .’

  Lucy thought about that. She realised she hadn't given Janet the gin and tonic she had poured for her. Picking it up, she drank it herself.

  'If you leave Ewen, you may miss him more than you think. Maitland isn't a wife beater.’

  'For God's sake!' Janet cried, 'can't we be decent? We've been friends. I don't want that to stop.’

  Lucy stared at her in astonishment. As far as the eye could tell, she gave every appearance of being serious. It must be all those books she's been reading, she thought, they've rotted her brains.

  'To be fair to Maitland,' she said, 'although you couldn't really call him violent, he has just killed a child.’

  From what followed, it could be gathered among other things that Janet hadn't heard of this, which proved nothing except that in the forty or so hours since getting back after the accident Maitland hadn't been in touch with her. This, again, proved nothing. She seemed to think it might though. Which perhaps proved something.

  Left alone again, Lucy went back upstairs at once. She pressed the play button on the answerphone and waited as the light flickered and the tape rewound.

  'Maitland,' the woman's voice said, 'it's Beth. Don't die of surprise or anything but I've been offered an exhibition in Edinburgh. I want you there. No excuses. Ring me the first chance you get. Love you.’

  Love you.

  Sun in the park and Maitland running hand in hand with her across the grass to where railings were made over into a summer gallery and the painters, the young painters – but the world was young then – and Maitland smiling at the girl: “Yes! five whole pounds! though we can't afford it.”

  “Since we're going to
be married!” Lucy had cried.

  “We're investing in you, we're investing in your talent.” And she had never forgotten the wonderful look which the girl, in the miracle of her talent and being young, had given him when he said that to her. “This is our investment of faith in you.”

  He could make that kind of promise and be believed. He was Maitland then…

  If she had got Maitland, there was no telling what she might have said, but in the message she left for him with Sam Wilson only the heating had failed.

  It was typical of the little man that he should turn up on her doorstep, where she kept him as he explained that not being able to find Maitland and being so concerned by the idea of her alone in an unheated house in this awful weather he'd made his mind up at last that quite the best thing would be to come himself. And here he was…Whatever his faults, he was good-hearted.

  It was typical of him, too, that when she relented and let him inside he had stared reproachfully from the log fire roaring in the hearth to the bowl of soup laid out for her lunch and taken off his coat with the air of a man waiting for an apology.

  Afterwards, when she could bring herself to think about the things that happened later, it did seem some part of the blame might be laid to him. If he hadn't come, if he had been different when he did, she would have stayed where she was until Maitland returned. To be fair, he had argued against taking her to Balinter. There was no guarantee Maitland would be there; perhaps he had gone off to hire a car; probably he was on his way home right now. Didn't that make sense? Wilson wondered.

  Plainly, the chivalric impulse was exhausted.

  In the car he drove without speaking, presumably to show how displeased he was, but after a while the silence got to be too much for him. 'It might have been better if Maitland hadn't come at all to the meeting.’

  'What?'