Act of Darkness

by Francis King

  ‘No, sweetie. You stay down here with Isabel. She’ll take you for a walk round the lake.’ Or she’ll play Bézique with you. Or she’ll give you an arithmetic lesson. Or she’ll help you with your sewing.

  He would limp back from the sanatorium strangely grey and remote, as though he had made an arduous journey from some foreign country far, far away. It was only after he had devoured the food piled before him (chunks of stringy beef, glutinous dumplings, boiled carrots, turnips and potatoes, a gravy thick with cornflour) that the colour would return to his cheeks and the joviality to his manner.

  ‘How is she?’ Isabel, fiddling with the stopper of the vinegar bottle on the silver cruet stand, would lean forward to whisper. Helen, seated opposite, could hear the whisper; so why not speak in an ordinary tone of voice?

  ‘Making progress, making progess.’

  Helen knew that her mother was ill; but she did not know that she had had yet another recurrence of pulmonary tuberculosis. For that reason she could not understand why, when her father trudged up that stony path, with the huge, grey-green ferns, as stiff as cardboard cutouts, on either side of it, she could not accompany him. ‘I don’t see why I’m not allowed to visit her too. I don’t see it!’

  ‘Germs. This thing of hers is infectious. We don’t want you to pick it up.’

  ‘But what about you? You go to see her. Every day.’

  ‘At a certain age one acquires a certain immunity,’ he drawled, as he scraped the sides of the hive-shaped honeypot and then put the spoon in his mouth.

  Isabel laughed delightedly: ‘You look like a child doing that. Exactly like a child.’

  He smiled across at her with a flash of complicity like the lightning which, in this remote valley among the mountains, would suddenly leap from one peak to another or snake across the lake. Helen was excluded; she might not have been there.

  That same morning, after Toby had started to limp doggedly up the narrow, steep path to the sanatorium – there was also a drive but that swerved back and forth in enormous loops – Helen told Isabel that she was going out to play with the other children. The other children meant the grandchildren, raw-boned and freckled, with thick, matted blond hair, of the woman with the birthmark. Helen, in fact, seldom played with them, since she was afraid of their good-humoured teasing and even more afraid of their rough, dangerous exploits – climbing trees or rowing out into the centre of the lake in a boat far too small to contain them all with safety, or savagely wrestling, even girls with boys. Isabel did not really care what Helen did provided she did not do anything dangerous or amiss for which she, Isabel, might later be held responsible and so she looked up from her embroidery and nodded: ‘All right. But see you don’t get dirty. And don’t tear that new frock.’

  Helen made furtively for the gate at the corner of a field in which some goats were tethered. She was made to drink goat’s milk, instead of cow’s milk, while staying on the farm; and each time the thick, strong-tasting warm liquid, produced from an earthen crock, would make her gorge rise. No one told her that goat’s milk was healthier than cow’s milk, since it was free of the dreaded tubercle, and in consequence she regarded it as a peculiarly cruel caprice of her father and Isabel not to allow her the cow’s milk which everyone else drank and which she so much preferred. She began to walk pensively up the hill, careful to remain so far behind her father that, if he should happen to glance round, he would not see her.

  It was a sultry day, with an overcast sky and mist, metallic in its leaden sheen, sealing over the centre of the lake. Huge flies settled on her lips, her nostrils and the corners of her eyes, so that she was obliged repeatedly to brush at them. An Indian woman in a white sari approached, a load of wood on her head, but they did not look at each other. Perhaps the woman had been stealing the wood, since she at once quickened her pace as soon as she had passed. From somewhere, presumably a clearing, Helen heard distant voices, a man and a woman talking in English. But, no, it was not her father and mother.

  Eventually, the path joined the drive and she was treading on gravel instead of on rough stones and slabs of rock. Brilliant rhododendrons arched high on either side and beyond them, glimpsed through gaps, were wide lawns and rosebeds, with white-painted garden furniture set out here and there. The whole place seemed to be deserted, until suddenly, glancing up to the building, she saw, to her amazement, that on each of the balconies, both those facing the gardens and those cantilevered over the abyss, there were people lying out on day-beds or seated, wrapped in scarves and blankets, on chairs. They were all staring at her, she was sure of that; and the conviction that they were doing so all but paralysed her legs.

  Carefully, she walked around the building, passing an open window from which came other voices, this time in Hindustani, and a sweet-sour stench, as of something rotting. There was a mound of garbage, buzzing with flies, in a clearing under some straggly trees, and behind it a rusty metal wheelbarrow, lying on its side. A diminutive male Indian was pinning dishcloths to a clothesline, standing on tiptoe and reaching up, the pegs between his teeth. She sank into despair. Everything here was so vast and so complex, lawn beyond lawn, room beyond room, balcony beyond balcony. What chance did she have of ever finding her mother? She moved on. A white man in a grubby white coat passed her at one moment, making her draw back into the shelter of a doorway; but he seemed totally unconcerned about her presence as, with lowered head, pursed lips and a deep frown, he marched on.

  Then all at once, miraculously, she heard her mother’s voice. ‘Oh, but I get so tired of being here! I’m all right now, as right as I’ll ever be.’

  ‘They say you need at least another –’

  ‘They say! Of course they say! Think of all the money they’re making. It was the same in Davos. Don’t you remember? If they’d had their way, I’d be there still.’

  Then, there before her, was her father pushing a wheelchair in which her mother, in wide-brimmed felt hat, tweed overcoat and scarf, was sitting with a plaid rug tucked so tightly over her lap that it seemed intended to imprison her.

  Helen raced forward, both arms outstretched. She tripped, all but fell, recovered. She threw herself on her mother: ‘Mummy! Mummy!’

  ‘Helen!’ That was her mother, delighted and amazed.

  ‘What the hell are you doing here?’ That was her father, angry.

  But strangely, disconcertingly, even as Helen pressed herself against her mother, she became conscious that, instead of holding her, her mother was pushing her away from her. ‘Helen. Helen! No! No, darling!’

  ‘But why can’t I –’

  ‘I’ve told you. We have to be careful. Of germs.’ Toby had taken her hand in his. His pale green eyes had in them an expression of humiliated sadness. ‘You shouldn’t have come up here. This isn’t a place for you.’

  ‘It’s only a hospital. I’ve visited hospitals. Aunt Sophie worked in a hospital once. Didn’t she?’

  ‘It’s different for grown-ups. They don’t – catch things so easily.’

  ‘I had to see Mummy. Had to, had to!’ She was on the verge of tears.

  ‘Of course, darling.’ Her mother put out a hand, then quickly withdrew it. ‘Of course. And I often feel, marooned on my own up here, that I have to see you. But it’ll only be a short time now. A week or two. All this mountain air and cosseting and feeding-up have done wonders for me. I’m a totally new person.’

  Helen gazed at her mother and, yes, her eyes looked unusually bright and her cheeks unusually red.

  ‘I’ve missed you.’

  ‘Darling! And I’ve missed you too. But you mustn’t come here again. Ever. Promise?’

  Helen hung her head.

  ‘Promise?’

  Helen nodded. Her lower lip trembled, she felt an unshed burden of tears beneath her eyes.

  Suddenly, as though dead leaves were being trampled underfoot, there came the dry, friable sound of her mother coughing, with a terrible, long-drawn-out insistence and patience, on and on, while T
oby asked: ‘Are you all right?’ and all Eithne could do was to nod her head as yet another paroxysm shook her. Involuntarily, Helen put her hands to her ears. She did not know how she knew, but she knew that she was listening to the sounds of death.

  At last the coughing ceased. Her mother withdrew her crocodile leather handbag from underneath the rug, in hands from which, Helen now noticed, the rings were hanging loosely, clicked it open, and took out a small bottle of a wonderful shade of blue. Helen thought, as her mother carefully unscrewed the top, that she was about to drink some medicine; but instead, lowering her head and turning away, she spat into it. Then she screwed the top back on again and replaced the bottle in her bag.

  ‘You see, Helen? Excitement is bad for your mother.’ The quiet accusation bewildered and affronted her.

  ‘Oh, it’s nothing to do with her, poor little mite. From time to time I still get these attacks – wherever I am, whatever I’m doing. But they come less and less often now.’ She smiled at Helen. ‘And how are you, darling?’

  ‘Oh, fine, fine.’

  ‘You get my letters?’

  ‘Yes, Mummy, of course. Daddy’s a wonderful postman. It’s just that – oh, I miss you so much and I so much wanted to see you.’

  Again her mother put out her hand impulsively and then at once withdrew it. ‘And I’ve missed you so much and I so much wanted to see you. But …’ She shrugged and gave a little shiver.

  ‘You’re getting cold.’ Far off, thunder growled. ‘And it sounds as if a storm’s on the way. I’d better wheel you into the conservatory or at least to the verandah … Helen, be a good girl, go home now the way you came.’

  ‘Oh, can’t I stay with Mummy a little longer – with both of you? Can’t I? Please!’

  ‘Helen!’ It was like a slap on the cheek, imposing a reluctant discipline.

  ‘Go, darling!’ Eithne’s voice was tremulous.

  ‘Did you tell Isabel that you were coming up here? Did you?’ Helen hung her head. ‘ Well, that’s another reason for going back at once. She’ll be frantic with worry when she finds you’ve disappeared.’

  ‘Dear Isabel. Yes, go back for her sake too. We’re so lucky to have her. Helen, sweetie … please. Do what we ask you. Really, truly, it’s for your own good …’

  Her mother blew her a kiss and she blew one back, her eyes filling with tears as she did so. Then she turned reluctantly and, with quickening steps, went back past the clothesline, the rubbish tip and the open kitchen window and down the drive with the garish rhododendrons towering on either side. She put a finger to her damp cheek and then placed the finger between her lips, tasting her tears. Somehow their salt appeased her.

  … Now, as the Indian girl stoops and nervously pats the dog, Helen reminds the old woman with the birthmark how, ten, eleven years before, she, her father and the woman who was then looking after her and is now her father’s second wife occupied the top floor of the farmhouse.

  ‘Did you, dear?’ the old woman says vaguely, in the north-country accent which she has never lost, despite her sixty and more years in this alien country. ‘We get many of the sanatorium people here. Convalescents, relatives. It’s a miracle, I always say, that none of my lot has ever caught TB. One of the doctors up there, an Indian chap, told me once that they must have developed an immunity. Well, thank God for that!’

  ‘I used to play with your grandchildren,’ Helen says.

  ‘Did you now?’ The old woman sighs. ‘Well, some are still about the place and some have married and moved on. And one of the boys is in an office in England,’ she adds proudly. ‘An accountant. Jim. He was always the bright one.’ She shows no inclination to summon those still about the place; and Helen’s memories of them are now so faint that she cannot even recall who Jim might have been.

  ‘You used to give us honey from your bees for breakfast. My father always made a pig of himself over it.’

  ‘Yes, we still have our bees.’ The old woman, though friendly, is again not really interested.

  Eventually, having given the order for the milk, Helen and the Indian child make their way back home the way they came. The dog patters along behind them until, in a surprisingly strong, harsh voice, the old woman calls him back.

  ‘May we come and see the dog again?’ the child asks Helen.

  ‘Oh, I don’t think so. I don’t think we’ll come again.’

  Later that evening, as the sun suddenly dips behind the mountain to the west and her skin contracts at the chill of its abrupt departure, Helen leaves the party and makes her way up the path to the sanatorium. As when she first returned to the house on the hill above the lake, she is amazed by how small and constricted everything seems now when measured against her recollections. Can this sparse wood really be that forest? Can this gentle incline really be that steep path? Can that building above, with its dozen or so balconies, really be that huge edifice from which innumerable eyes seemed to glitter down at the apparition of a slender little girl in a new cotton frock, cardigan and sandals? She takes a few more strides; then, on an impulse, decides to give up.

  Hurrying back down the path, the jagged stones from time to time biting into her shoes, she thinks, momentarily, that she hears a sound, as of dead leaves being trodden under foot, of an insistent, patient coughing. But of course, she tells herself, that is only an illusion.

  Helen and Mrs McGregor share a tent, with camp beds side by side, kerosene lamps by which they undress, and a tin chamber-pot discreetly placed behind the larger of the two folding chairs. ‘This is rather fun,’ Mrs McGregor says, meaning it. Helen is not sure. Later, when the lamp has been put out, Mrs McGregor says: ‘You probably won’t remember, but your mother was one of my dearest friends. I loved her, really loved her. She was, oh, such fun and so kind and generous.

  Helen can say nothing.

  ‘That strange sister of hers,’ Mrs McGregor murmurs and, soon after that, she falls asleep.

  Helen lies awake, a yellow bar of moonlight falling through the tent-flap on to the right side of her upturned face.

  Her mother came down from the sanatorium and they all returned home. Helen went riding with her and they played a kind of tennis together, taking it in turns to hit the ball against the wall which shored up the hill above the tennis court. Her mother taught her English and French, while Isabel continued to teach her all other subjects. Her mother often rested and, when she was not doing so, Toby was always reminding her of the need to take things easily. Toby did not like the rides, however gentle, or the tennis, however desultory. ‘You must remember you’re still a sick woman,’ he would tell Eithne. Isabel was more silent and more still than when her mistress had been in the sanatorium.

  A few months later, Toby had to go to Simla to see what was happening in one of his hotels and, though he protested, Eithne decided to accompany him. ‘I need un petit changement de décor, I need some excitement.’ Toby still protested but could not move her – what harm could a journey so short and easy do?

  Eithne never came back. In later years, Helen pieced together the story of what happened. On the train she ate something which upset her; and the strain of vomiting brought on a heart attack. In some dusty little town, they carried her from the train to the consulting room of a flustered Indian doctor. He had injected her with what he said was camphor; but soon after the injection, with a little moan and a sigh, she died. Toby often wondered if the doctor had not made some mistake – he had become abject with terror when his patient had not responded. But seeing that he was a humble Indian and Toby an important Englishman, that terror was natural enough.

  … Mrs McGregor is snoring, her mouth wide open. Her false teeth, which she has unashamedly placed in a container on the floor beside her, gleam in the moonlight. On the chair which she has decided is hers, her stays and brassière are spread out like items of armour. Helen gazes at her, then she looks away. Somewhere, some of the girls are whispering and giggling. But Helen cannot be bothered to get up and tell them to be quiet.<
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  It is odd, she thinks now, that it took her so long to remember when she had been in this place before. After all, she was a child of eight when her mother died and memories of that time should be easily recoverable. She has never forgotten the sound of her mother coughing and she has never forgotten that blue bottle, such a beautiful colour, into which her mother spat. But the calm of the lake and mountains, the apprehension of that climb up the path through the wood, the shock of her mother inexorably pushing her away from her: how strange that all those things should have become as faint in her memory as in a photograph so inadequately fixed that its faces are now blank and its background a blur.

  CLARE

  Clare leans across the balustrade of the verandah, cigarette holder between fingers, and stares morosely down over the dark green of the deodars, the yellow-green of the already withering lilacs and the yellow of the grass, waist-high in the cud, to the lake far below. She shudders in her pink shantung frock, with its inset, at the neck, of some Chinese embroidery bought from the same pedlar from whom Isabel bought her wrap – how ‘unsuitably’ the poor girl dresses is a constant comment at the bridge table – but, consumed by the restlessness which nowadays so often afflicts her like some unappeasable hunger, she has no desire to go into the drawing room where Isabel and Toby face each other, each with a copy, weeks old, of The Times, and Helen, Peter and dreary old Mrs Thompson are playing pelmanism. She herself cannot be bothered with the news and her mind is too easily apt to wander off for her to be successful at a card game which Peter almost always wins.

  She wishes that the calm lake were a mighty river, like the river by her home, sweeping on, brown, broad and muscular, through half a continent. She would like that river to carry her, as it carries its ships, logs, sewage, dead animals and even dead humans, out from this constricted hollow among the hills into the plains and perhaps even to the sea. She yearns for the sense of distance to be restored to her. At evening, from the outskirts of the city in which she was born and brought up, she could see, on one side, the plains stretching away illimitably to the desert and the desert then stretching away illimitably to a far, pearly haze, and, on the other side, the whole vast, complex structure of houses, roads and parks laid out before her, each roof, spire, dome, terrace, tree so distinct that it seemed only necessary to put out a hand to touch it. She dreams of sailing out on that river, as her great-grandfather, the pilot who came from a famine-stricken Ireland to live with an Indian woman, would sail out on it, and then of embarking on one of those liners which she has never seen except in pictures and voyaging on and on over seas now rough and now calm until she reaches – well, Australia, New Zealand, America. She does not dream of reaching England, since she guesses that there too the people will comment on the darkness of her fingernails, the thickness and blackness of her hair and that accent which, more than anything else, betrays her. She fancies Australia most of all.