Dover Beach

by Richard Bowker

  Kathy shook her head. "She thinks maybe—maybe he's off on a binge. My father drinks too much, you see."

  "Strange that he'd take a bus to London and switch to another bus, just to go to some small town so he could get drunk."

  "Yes, that's what I think."

  "But if he knew somebody there—"

  "I can't imagine who, and neither can my mother." Kathy said this with a finality that precluded further discussion. We were silent until we reached her father's house.

  We smelled it before we saw it: the acrid, overpowering smell of destruction by fire. It brought back a few unwelcome memories. We fought off the smell and walked up to the remains of the house.

  Two men were inside, poking through the icy rubble. "No trespassing, please," one of them said when he saw us. "It's quite dangerous in here."

  "It's my father's house," Kathy said.

  "Ah, of course," the man replied. "We're from the fire brigade, you see. Investigating. The fire appears to be of suspicious origin." He had one of those lower-class British accents that made bureaucratic clichés sound newly minted.

  "May we come inside?" I asked.

  "You may, but I don't recommend it. It's dirty and dangerous, and there's not much to be salvaged."

  Nevertheless, we felt obliged to take a look around. The man from the fire brigade was right. The room where we had enacted our little scene the day before was just a pile of debris surrounding a lonely and useless chimney. "Any clues?" I asked the man.

  "The official verdict will have to await our final report," he replied. "But I'd say an empty petrol can in the livin' room's a pretty good clue, wouldn't you, sir?"

  "Not bad," I agreed.

  Kathy reached into the wreckage and pulled out something dark and shapeless. It was the dressing gown she had given her father.

  "You'll have to look into having the place pulled down," the man said. "It's a public menace right now. The kids'll be into it in no time, no matter how much it's boarded up."

  Kathy nodded, still staring at the dressing gown. Then, abruptly, she dropped it and rushed outside. I followed.

  "I'm sorry," she said when she reached the sidewalk. "I'm afraid the place was too much for me."

  "That's all right," I replied. "Anyway, I think you should stop apologizing."

  She attempted a smile. "I'll try." She took a couple of deep breaths. Two kids riding bicycles stopped on the opposite sidewalk and stared appraisingly at the house, trying to figure out a way to make it fall on top of them. I waited for Kathy to calm down. "Let's go," she said finally, and we headed off along the now-familiar route to the railway station.

  The wait on the platform was short and pleasant this time; there were no interruptions, and the train arrived on schedule. We boarded it, found seats in an empty compartment, and left Oxford behind.

  Kathy seemed enormously relieved.

  "I get the feeling the past couple of days have not been among your favorites," I said.

  She managed a real smile this time. "You're very perceptive." And, after a pause: "You've been a big help, Walter. Thank you."

  I couldn't see that I'd done much of anything, but I shrugged graciously.

  "I have to spend Christmas with my mother," she said, abruptly changing the subject. "It's not the sort of thing one can get out of. You know how it is."

  I nodded in sympathy. I didn't really know how it was.

  "But anyway, I have a feeling you've nowhere else to go, so I was wondering if you'd like to spend Christmas with us."

  I must have been a very good boy. This was better than coal in my stocking. "That would be wonderful," I said, "but I'm sure your mother wouldn't want—"

  "Oh, but you see she was the one who suggested it. I told her about you when I phoned this morning. She's rather sweet on Americans, actually. That's what attracted her to my father, I think. Anyway, she's frightfully dull and not a very good cook and the two of us are likely to have a fight before the day is through, but we'd both love to have you."

  "Well," I said, "I suppose I could ask her about your father. Maybe I could help figure out what's going on."

  "Yes, of course. Does that mean you'll come?"

  I smiled. "Of course I'll come. I have always relied on the kindness of strangers."

  Kathy looked puzzled for a moment, then grinned and squeezed my forearm, just a little.

  Chapter 22

  Kathy left me at Russell Square. Our plans were set for Christmas, but there was no mention of Christmas Eve, of the long, lonely day and night that stretched ahead of me. I guess you can't have everything.

  Maybe she had a date, I thought with a pang. She had to have a boyfriend, of course. Maybe her Trigorin: I pictured a bearded, serious type who would use her for his pleasure, then discard her when he became bored. Well, we'd see how he would stack up against the dashing, enigmatic American.

  But we wouldn't see today. I walked back to the hotel, alone.

  "Wot's yer mate been up to, then?" the desk clerk demanded before I had a chance to ask for the room key.

  I hadn't had to deal with the day clerk before. He was fat and had a crew cut and wore suspenders. He was reading a newly published dirty magazine that Art would have lusted after. "Dr. Winfield hasn't shown up here by any chance, has he?" I asked.

  "No, and if 'e does the police wants to know about it too. We don't like 'avin' the police nosin' around."

  "I understand, but I'm sorry, there's nothing I can do about it."

  "There's sumfin' I can do about it, though, and that's to kick both of you out. You owe us forty quid anyway."

  "Look," I tried to explain, "the police in Oxford want to speak with Winfield. He may have witnessed a crime there yesterday. But that's got nothing to do with me. Now could I have my room key, please?"

  "Wot about the forty quid?"

  "It's Christmas Eve, for God's sake! Would you give me a break?"

  The desk clerk grimaced, but he handed the key over. "Americans," he muttered as I headed upstairs.

  I felt almost as if I had returned home when I entered the dreary room. The first thing I did was to search Winfield's stuff to see if he had left any money. I wasn't going to steal it, understand, just pay the room bill and take the per diem he owed me.

  My scruples didn't matter, in any event; there was no money to be found.

  I began to feel depressed. And hungry. I counted up my money, and decided I should give myself a little treat. I went to a McDonald's and had a Big Mac. It was everything I had hoped it would be.

  The restaurant was crowded with last-minute shoppers resting from their exertions. So much to buy. About all I could afford, in addition to the Big Mac, was a newspaper. I read it while I ate.

  PM Promises Prompt Action on Budget. Two Tots Die in Brixton Blaze: Christmas Decorations Blamed. Sixteen-Year-Old Found Murdered in East Norton. Corruption Alleged in City Inspection Services. Sutton United Sack Manager.

  To Have and Have Not and The Petrified Forest were playing at Notting Hill Gate. No money to see them.

  There was no mention of a house burning down in Oxford. More important things going on in the world, I expect. They didn't particularly interest me at the moment, however. I counted up my remaining money, and tried to figure out how I was going to buy Christmas presents for Kathy and her mother.

  I realized with a start that I had an untapped source of funds—considerable funds. But as soon as the realization came I pushed it away. I wasn't ready for it yet; I would know when I was. Meanwhile, I would make do. I would have to make do.

  I left McDonald's and wandered the streets of London. So much to buy—and so little time. I thought of Dickens: "The brightness of the shops, where holly sprigs and berries crackled in the lamp heat of the windows, made pale faces ruddy as they passed. Poulterers' and grocers' trades became a splendid joke; a glorious pageant, with which it was impossible to believe that such dull principles as bargain and sale had anything to do." It was exciting and depressin
g. The shops were closing early. Time to go home, sit with your family around a roaring fire, sing carols, read Dickens, reminisce.

  Ah, well. Using all my ingenuity, I picked out a couple of gifts finally, and I trudged back to my lonely hotel room with them.

  The Indian desk clerk was on duty by then, thank goodness. He smiled knowingly at me, and his smile seemed to say: Yes, you and I are two loners in an alien world. I smiled back and went upstairs.

  I took a bath. I reread the newspaper. I reread the Gideon Bible. I stared out the frosted window of my dreary room and gazed at the ruddy faces passing by in the dark, alien world. And I waited for a visitor.

  It was the Ghost of Christmas Past. I knew he would come. He always came, so why should he make an exception now that I was in London, in his hometown?

  "Rise, and walk with me!"

  There was no refusing him, of course. Some nights, perhaps, but not on Christmas Eve.

  Through the window, across the frigid London sky, over the fierce, churning ocean—to the awful abode of memories, still alive, still waiting to claim me...

  "Why, it's old Fezziwig!"

  Not likely. It was a solemn, gaunt man—too gaunt, far too solemn—his bony hand resting on my shoulder, light as a leaf. I was warm—the wood stove was kept well filled. But I was hungry. Always hungry. The man's eyes glittered, reflecting the oil lamp's flickering flame. "Tomorrow is Christmas," the man said. "Least, Mrs. Simpkins says so. I've kinda lost track myself. Thing is, well, there's nuthin' to give you. I've tried—you've seen how I've tried, haven't you? But everything's gone. The entire world is gone. Oh, I'm so sorry."

  The man's glittering eyes turned liquid and overflowed, wetting his leathery skin, his gray beard. His hand moved down onto my back and pulled me toward him. He held me against his chest, and I heard the ka-thump ka-thump of his heart beneath the frayed flannel shirt. The intensity of the sound scared me. The sudden strength of the hand scared me. I stayed there, listening, and eventually the hand loosened its grip, and I stepped back. The man looked at me—looking (I know now) for forgiveness, and if not forgiveness, at least some sort of understanding. But he was looking for something I was far too young to offer.

  "Daddy," I said, "what's Christmas?"

  "These are but shadows of things that have been," said the Ghost.

  "That's swell," I said. "That's really swell."

  The Spirit pulled me along.

  And I was chopping wood outside a familiar, broken-down barn. I was sweating, despite the cold, and my arms ached. A woman came out of the barn, carrying a scrawny chicken she had just killed. Her face was lined and wind-burned, her body shapeless under a heavy coat. She stopped and looked at me, and I kept on chopping. "Walter," she said, "things is tough."

  "Yes, ma'am," I said. I kept on chopping.

  "Mr. Simpkins says we'll have to leave here pretty soon if things don't get better. I don't know what we'll do if we leave, where we'll go, but there's got to be someplace better."

  "I expect," I said. I put another log on the block.

  "But we'll take care of you, Walter. We made a promise, and no matter how hard things get, we keep our promises. You understand?"

  "Yes, ma'am. Thank you, ma'am."

  The woman nodded, satisfied. "Christmas is coming, but I'm afraid there won't be any gifts. We can have a tree, though. You like them old ornaments, right? We can make the place real festive. Won't that be nice?"

  I split the log neatly. "Very nice," I said. "Much obliged."

  The woman nodded some more. Chicken blood dripped onto the snow. "It's the spirit that counts, that's what I always say. We don't have much in the way of things anymore, but we still have the spirit, don't we, Walter?"

  "Yes, ma'am. We still have the spirit."

  The woman smiled and went inside. I picked up another log and put it on the block.

  "Spirit," I said, "show me no more! Conduct me home. Why do you delight to torture me?"

  "One shadow more!" exclaimed the Ghost.

  "No more!" I cried. "No more. I don't wish to see it. Show me no more!"

  But the relentless Ghost pinioned me in both his arms, and forced me to observe what happened next.

  The three of us were sitting in the parlor that first year together, and Stretch was expounding. "If we're going to preserve our civilization, we have to preserve its rituals. Rituals are what bind us together. They shelter us from the terror of loneliness and death. They give life meaning and shape."

  "Christmas sucks," I said.

  Gwen smiled.

  "It isn't Christmas that sucks," Stretch explained earnestly, "it's your experience of Christmas. That's why it's so important to create our own experiences—to overcome those other experiences, to connect with the best of the old civilization, to keep us alive. Don't you see?"

  Yeah, I saw.

  And then it was Christmas Eve. The pine boughs had been strewn, the popcorn strung, the fire roared wastefully; and at midnight we all kissed and exchanged presents that we couldn't afford.

  I gave Gwen a typewriter I had bought at the Salvage Market.

  Gwen gave me a book from Art's special stock. It was called The Maltese Falcon.

  "See?" Stretch said. "Isn't this good? Isn't this the way life should be lived?"

  And then later, lying upstairs in each other's arms. "What do you think of Christmas?" I asked Gwen. "Is Stretch right?"

  "I think," she said, "that I have never been happier in my life."

  "Spirit," I said, in a broken voice, "remove me from this place."

  "I told you these were shadows of the things that have been," said the Ghost. "That they are what they are, do not blame me!"

  "Remove me!" I exclaimed. "I cannot bear it!"

  He let me go finally—back to my bleak hotel room, back to my guilt, back to this present that I had so longed for all my life—while he went off, presumably, to torture some other undeserving soul. No other ghosts came to call—I didn't expect any—and eventually I drifted off to a tense and restless sleep.

  When I awoke it was Christmas Day.

  Chapter 23

  It was a beautiful day. Even the desk clerk's dark comments about the money I owed couldn't spoil it. If I wasn't as happy as Scrooge on Christmas Day, at least I was nowhere near as depressed as the Sandman on Christmas Eve.

  I met Kathy at Waterloo Station. She was wearing a forest-green wool skirt and a white blouse with a red plaid vest. She looked gorgeous. She was carrying a shopping bag that contained a gift-wrapped box. "A blouse," I said.

  She smiled. "Absolutely correct this time. You're quite good."

  "Elementary. You look very nice, by the way."

  "Thanks. I hope my mother will approve, but I'm sure she'll find something to criticize."

  "I can't imagine what."

  Kathy took my arm when we went to board the train.

  Mrs. Cornwall lived in a suburb south of London. The train ride wasn't very long, and there wasn't much to say. Kathy had called the Oxford police, and there were no new developments; Winfield and her father were still missing.

  "Maybe if you and I and your mother put our heads together, we can figure out what's going on," I said.

  "Good luck talking about my father with her," Kathy replied. "There's a lot of bitterness."

  "But probably no one knows him better."

  Kathy shrugged and was silent.

  We walked from the station. The town was drearier than Oxford, but not unpleasant: the houses were all intact, all inhabited; there were no stray dogs lurking. People smiled and nodded to us as we passed.

  "God, how I hate this place," Kathy murmured.

  "Did you live here long?"

  "Too long—from when my father and mother split up until last year, when I finally managed to escape. My mother got a job as a cashier in a bank after the divorce. She's good at it—she's very practical, very precise. But it's all so dull. She's never seen any Chekhov. I don't think anyone in this entire town has
seen any Chekhov."

  "Does your father like Chekhov?"

  Kathy didn't respond. "Here we are," she said instead.

  We had reached a semidetached brick house with about ten square feet of snow-covered garden and a stunted tree in front. There was a wreath on the door and little electric candles in the front window. "Well," I said, "I'm sure we'll have a lovely time."

  Kathy didn't say anything. She led the way up to the door, and we walked inside without knocking. "Hullo," she hollered. "We're here."

  There was a noise in the kitchen straight ahead, and Kathy's mother came out to meet us. "Katherine, Happy Christmas, dear."

  "Hullo, Mum." They leaned toward each other and kissed, missing each other's cheek by about half an inch.

  Then Mrs. Cornwall turned to me and held out her hand. "And you are Mr. Sands. So good of you to come."

  I shook her hand. "Please call me Walter. It was awfully nice of you to invite me."

  The pleasantries continued while we took off our coats. Mrs. Cornwall was in her mid-forties, I guessed, but her features were still handsome, her face unlined. Her black hair, turning to gray, was cut short. She was wearing a white lace blouse and a black skirt, covered at the moment by a gravy-stained apron. On the blouse was a plastic Christmas-tree pin.

  She looked a little like Kathy grown older, but the style was obviously different. There was a severity in Mrs. Cornwall's looks, a no-nonsense plainness that I doubted Kathy would ever want to emulate. And Kathy had mastered the upper-class British accent in a way that her mother apparently couldn't. I could see why the two of them didn't get along, but still I was disposed to like Mrs. Cornwall. After all, she had produced Kathy—and she had invited me here for Christmas. It was hard to be critical with that in her favor.

  She led us into the living room. "And here is our other guest, Mrs. Stumple."

  I could feel Kathy suppress a groan. Apparently I was not the only stray that her mother had taken in for the holiday. Mrs. Stumple was a thin old lady with blue hair and a look of attentive idiocy. She smiled at us and started nodding, and she didn't stop.

  "Mrs. Stumple has nowhere else to go on holidays, poor thing. But she's always welcome here." Mrs. Cornwall turned to her guest and raised her voice. "Mrs. Stumple, you know Kathy. And this is her friend Walter—from America."