After Henry’s birth, with Henry still crimson and grizzling in his crib, Dr Bendick had advised his mother not to have any more children. Henry had grown up as spoiled as any small boy could desire to be. His father had carved him a huge wooden rocking-horse; his mother had dressed him in lace. Both parents had talked to him from the age of three as if he were already grown-up; and although that had sometimes encouraged him to act precociously and exasperate his school-friends, it had developed within him a calmness of character, and a sensitivity towards the feelings of other people that had eventually won over almost everybody in Bennington who had disliked him when he was very young. His father was proud of him. His father believed in Christian contentment. His father had engraved too many names on too many tombstones at 9 cents the letter to think otherwise.
Henry’s only filial rebellion against his parents had been to spend most of his wage on clothes, and beer. He had also grown up into an incurable practical joker. Fenchurch and Margaret had decided that they could comfortably accept both of these idiosyncrasies; although Fenchurch had warned Henry against pranks involving tombstones, and funerals. A laugh was a laugh, but business was business. He should always be careful not to hurt anybody else’s feelings.
Fenchurch had known how much Henry had liked Doris, although he hadn’t suspected for a moment that he had liked her enough to propose to her; and it had been a shock to him when Henry had said that they were engaged. But he sympathized with Henry deeply; he could share the hurt that Henry was feeling; and he also understood from his own experience that there was almost nothing he could do.
‘Do you want to try and get some sleep?’ he asked Henry.
Henry shook his head.
‘You should,’ said Fenchurch. ‘It’ll make you feel better in the morning. It’ll help you to cope with it.’
‘Not tonight,’ replied Henry. He reached out and touched his father’s hand. ‘Don’t worry, Dad. Tomorrow, I’ll sleep like a log.’
There was a long silence between them, and at last Fenchurch stood up, pressing the back of his hand against his mouth to stifle a yawn. ‘I’d better get to bed. There’s church tomorrow. The Reverend Jones will think I’ve been doing something I shouldn’t, if I turn up with circles under my eyes.’
Henry said, ‘Maybe it’s time you did.’
Fenchurch frowned, ‘What?’
‘Did something you shouldn’t. It’s been over a year.’
Fenchurch realized that Henry was testing him; probing his grief to see how long it had lasted. And so he simply smiled, and laid his hand on his son’s shoulder, and said, ‘Maybe you’re right. Trouble is, I only know two pretty women of the right age in Carmington; and both of those are well and truly married.’
‘Mrs Gordon?’ asked Henry.
‘She’s one, yes. Fine lady. Don’t know how she stands that husband of hers.’
Henry said, ‘I’m sorry.’
‘What for?’
Henry reached up and grasped his father’s hard-calloused hand. ‘I’m sorry for making you say things that you don’t want to say; I’m sorry for making you pretend.’
Fenchurch was quiet for a moment. Henry guessed that he was remembering his mother. It was strange, he thought: here are the two of us, carvers of memorials into solid marble; and yet the most enduring memories we have are deep within us; that is where people are really remembered; that is where love and devotion really last. He thought of Doris again, of kissing Doris in the woods, with the distant thunder grumbling like indigestion, and the birds singing, and he knew there was no possible way in which that moment could be immortalized in stone.
‘Goodnight, Dad,’ he said, gently.
‘Are you going to be all right?’ his father asked him.
Henry nodded. ‘I’ll be all right.’
He stayed by the window, listening to his father in the bedroom next door, clanking the jug in the wash-basin, dropping his shoes on to the bare-boarded floor, and at last climbing into bed. The moon had risen high now, and the sky was unnaturally clear, and in the garden the ranks of tombstones shone like the petrified seasons of Doris’ life, fewer than a hundred of them. There was one consolation, he thought, with bitterness, and that was that Mr Paterson wouldn’t ask him to carve Doris’ epitaph. From the conversations that he had overheard downstairs since returning from the fair, neighbours and friends and inquisitive acquaintances, it sounded as if Mr Paterson was blaming him for everything. God, he thought, doesn’t Mr Paterson realize just how savagely I blame myself? ‘Fell Asleep’ could never be the words for Doris. But what else could you say? ‘Mangled To Death by the Colossal Whirler’? ‘Cruelly Crushed’? Or ‘Killed by the One Who Said that He Loved Her’?
He emptied the last of the Mad River whiskey into his glass, and drank it slowly, watching the night turning around the town, the wheels of the stars, the revolving moon. The dog stopped barking; the temperature fell; the trees began to whisper amongst themselves in the early-morning wind. But Henry kept the window open, and at three o’clock, when the moon sank blandly behind the mountains, he got up from his chair, and felt around in the darkness for his discarded coat.
He opened his bedroom door. He could hear his father snoring. Fenchurch very rarely drank, and even one glass of Mad River Sour must have been enough to send him off. Henry tiptoed across the creaking landing, and down the stairs. At last he reached the kitchen, with its darkly gleaming casseroles and pans, and made his way to the back door. He drew the bolts, turned the key, and stepped outside.
It seemed warmer out in the back yard than it had in the house. He walked through the rows of blank-faced gravestones, each one waiting for a name. He unlocked the wooden workshop door, and went inside. He knew exactly what he was looking for.
He would have to walk to the fairground; he didn’t want to risk waking up Fenchurch by leading out either of the horses. But now that the moon had gone down, it was unlikely that anybody would see him, even if they did happen to be standing by their window, sleepless or haunted or waiting for the dawn. He walked along the main street, and past the sloping green, staying close to the trees where the thickest shadows were gathering. Only the church shone out in the darkness, with its silent spire.
At last he reached the meadow. The fairground was deserted under the starry sky. It looked like the abandoned encampment of some absurd and motley army, Attila the Clown and his hundred saltimbancos. The waggons in which the barkers and the sword-swallowers slept were right over on the far side of the field, their tin chimneys smoking, and there were two or three guard-dogs chained up to their wheels. But Henry was too far away for them to take any notice of him, although a mountain lion growled as he passed the canvas-shrouded cages next to the menagerie.
His arms were aching by the time he reached the Colossal Whirler. He had carried with him, all the way from Hancock Street, a full two-gallon screwtop can of kerosene. He set it down on the steps of the Whirler, and stretched the muscles in his back, and looked up at the massive watermill machine that only a few hours ago had crushed Doris to death. Its spokes formed black interlocking patterns against the night; and in the darkness it looked like some elaborate engine of death. Henry unscrewed the top of his can, and smelled the oily vapour of kerosene on the wind. Then he mounted the Whirler’s steps, and crossed the platform until he was standing right beneath the main wheel.
As silently as he could, he poured kerosene all over the platform and around the steam-engine housing, so that it ran liquidly all across the boards, and dripped from the wheel and the drive-belt. He felt nothing: neither guilty nor afraid. All he knew was that he was determined to destroy this grotesque machine forever. Even if he couldn’t give Doris an epitaph, at least he could give her a memorial pyre.
He stepped back, and took a box of matches out of his pocket, and struck one. It flared up, and then he tossed it. It lay beneath the big wheel for a while, burning blue and sputtering. Henry was just about to throw another one when the first rush of flame
s fled outwards from the match, and across the platform. There was a breathy explosion, and suddenly the whole platform was ablaze, its railings and its steps and its crosspieces. The bunting that was strung around the front of the Whirler’s entrance was caught by the updraught of fire, and whirled blazing into the air. Then the lower circumference of the big wheel began to burn.
Henry slowly retreated, feeling the heat against his face. The Whirler’s supports were on fire now, and the timbers spat and crackled so loudly that he was amazed that nobody from the waggons had yet woken up. One of the guard-dogs had begun to bark, and jump on its leash; and over on the right-hand side of the field, beneath the trees, the horses began to whinny and thrash in their corral. Henry backed further and further away, until at last he had reached the edge of the fairground, where he could see the blazing Whirler in all its ghastly glory.
The fire was now so intense that it had started to boil the water in the Whirler’s boilers; and the engine began to let out jerky little jets of steam. At first, the pressure did nothing but shake the Whirler’s wheel in showers of sparks, because the brakes were still applied. But when the flames ate away at the wooden brake-shoes, the wheel slowly began to turn, and as it turned it burned like a monstrous Catherine wheel, shedding a hideous flickering light all over the fair.
The fire-bells began to beat; and there was shouting and screaming from the waggons. Henry watched from the shelter of the roadside as twenty or thirty fairground men went running up the hill towards the blazing Whirler, most of them still in their nightshirts. Someone was screeching hoarsely for buckets, but it was obvious that there was nothing left of the Colossal Whirler worth saving. It turned faster and faster, groaning and crackling with every revolution, until at last the supports collapsed and the huge fiery wheel dropped on to the grass and broke into hundreds of blazing pieces.
Henry turned away at last, and began to walk back home. As he passed the green, Carmington’s fire-pump came rattling past, clanging its alarm bell, followed by a small crowd of running townspeople. George Davies was among them, and he called out, ‘Henry! Come along! The fair’s on fire!’
Henry walked back to his house on Hancock Street and went in by the back door. He climbed tiredly up the stairs; but as he reached the door of his room, he saw his father standing at the far end of the landing.
‘You’ve been out,’ said Fenchurch.
‘Just for some air, yes. I thought you were asleep.’
‘I was, until I heard the fire-bells, and went into your room, and found that you were gone. I heard someone shouting that the Whirler’s on fire.’
Henry said nothing; but stood and waited in the doorway.
Fenchurch came forward and looked at Henry carefully. ‘Once, when you were small, and your toy cart lost its handle, you tried to burn it, do you remember?’
Behind his father’s head, through the circular landing window, Henry could see the sky beginning to grow lighter, and the outline of trees and houses. ‘I remember,’ he said.
‘Then can you swear to me that what happened tonight, that Whirler catching fire, that wasn’t anything to do with you?’
Henry said, ‘Dad, I’m twenty-five years old. I can take my own responsibilities. I don’t have to promise you anything.’
‘I’m not asking because I don’t think you’re responsible for whatever you do. I’m asking because I’m your father.’
‘Because you’re my father, you shouldn’t have to ask me.’
‘You did set fire to it, though?’ Fenchurch insisted.
Henry didn’t answer. But Fenchurch turned away, and grasped the banister railings with both hands, and took a deep, steady breath. ‘Well, of course you set fire to it,’ he said, quietly. ‘And who can blame you? All we have to be sure of now is that nobody can prove that it was you. You realize, don’t you, that you’ll be the very first suspect? And you realize what the penalty is for wilful arson? You won’t have made yourself very popular, setting alight the biggest attraction at Carmington Fair.’
‘It killed Doris, that’s all I know,’ Henry replied. He tried to stop his voice from trembling.
His father turned around again and laid his hands on his shoulders. ‘Henry, I know. And if you really want to hear the truth of it, I’m proud of you. I think I probably would have done the same thing, if I’d have had the courage. But what worries me now is that you’ve put yourself at risk; and that you haven’t learned much of a lesson, either. Never seek revenge, Henry; it’s never worth it. You know what Shakespeare said, “the whirligig of time brings in his revenges.” Time, and fate, have a way of making people pay. You don’t have to do it.’
Henry hugged his father close. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I must be the worst kind of disappointment to you.’
Fenchurch said, ‘You’re Margaret’s son. You can never be a disappointment. You’re the very last living part I have of her.’
Henry rubbed his face with his hands. ‘I think I’m going to have to get some sleep,’ he said.
‘You’re going to take lunch with the Pierces?’
Henry nodded. ‘I guess so. I wouldn’t want to upset Augusta. I seem to have managed to upset almost everybody else.’
His father was about to go back to his bedroom, when he turned and asked, ‘How did you do it? How did you burn the Whirler, I mean?’
‘Kerosene. The whole can, splashed over the bottom of it.’
Fenchurch thought about that for a moment, and then said, ‘Remind me to tell Johnson’s Hardware to deliver some more. Goodnight.’
‘Goodnight, Dad.’
Henry shut the door of his room behind him and stood for a moment with his eyes closed. Then he slowly undressed, hanging up his fair-going suit in the closet, alongside his bottle-green velvet coat and his blue broadcloth Sunday suit. He sat down on the edge of his bed to tug off his long cotton underpants, and as he did so he saw the daguerreotype of his mother in the oval silver frame on the nightstand. The strong, pretty, smiling face. The brown upswept hair. He picked up the picture and looked at it for a long time.
‘I’m sorry, Mom,’ he said; but the words sounded flat and meaningless in the gradually-brightening room. He put the picture back on the nightstand. He wouldn’t even have a picture of Doris to remember her by. He opened his bureau drawer, took out his white cotton nightshirt, and slipped into it. Then, with aching bones and an aching mind, he climbed carefully between the sheets of his bed, and lay there with his face against the pillow and his eyes wide open, watching the sunlight strengthen across the green and brown Brussels carpet.
The burning-down of the Colossal Whirler already seemed like a dream; and he was almost convinced as he lay there that if he dressed again and walked back to the fairground, he would find everything exactly as it had been before, with the sideshows crowded and the Whirler whirling and the animals roaring in the menagerie. The only recollection of which he was certain was that Doris was dead; and that recollection felt as hard and as cold and as uncompromising as a heart of lead. The heart of lead of the Happy Prince, which would never melt; not even in a furnace.
He was still awake when his father brought him a mug of black coffee. He sat up in bed while Fenchurch went to the window and looked out over the assembly of gravestones. The sun shone on Fenchurch’s thick grey whiskers, making them shine like the bristles of shaving-brushes.
‘I didn’t tell you last night,’ Fenchurch said, ‘but Mr Paterson created one hell of an uproar when they first told him about Doris.’
Henry sipped the scalding hot coffee without looking round. ‘I overheard Gregory Evans,’ he admitted. ‘I was out on the landing, and I heard him say something about Mr Paterson wanting to take me to the courts for manslaughter.’
‘Well, he’d never succeed in that,’ said Fenchurch, emphatically. ‘It was an accident, even Mr Paterson himself knows that. But what I’m saying is that Mr Paterson and his wife are just as sad about Doris’ death as you are; and in many ways much more so. So
, if he’s rude towards you, and aggressive; if he blames you for everything that happened; well, remember that she was his daughter, that’s all. His eldest daughter. And remember that when you burned down that Whirler contraption last night, you probably succeeded in punishing the people who were really responsible for Doris’ death, and in the most effective way possible.’
‘You’re trying to tell me to be content?’ asked Henry, looking at his father sharply.
‘I’m trying to tell you that accidents are accidents, and that most of the time you have to accept them, whether they’re lucky or whether they’re tragic. Who are you going to blame? Yourself, for shouting Doris? The engineer who was supposed to check the chain on Doris’s seat, but wasn’t given the time? The man who owns the Whirler, who has to keep the Whirler going even when it needs maintenance because he’s obliged to pay out wages, and keep his family fed?’
‘So everybody’s to blame and nobody’s to blame? Is that it?’
‘Not at all,’ replied Fenchurch. He was silent for a moment or two, and then he said, ‘I’m just trying to make you understand that there is nothing simple in this world, nothing. Everything is complicated. People are complicated. Incidents are complicated. Most of the time, they’re so complicated, that it’s a waste of time looking for blame, or for reasons, or for any kind of justification. Take what life gives you, Henry, whether it’s good or bad. What do you think luck is? A complicated series of circumstances that just happen to have a happy effect. And what do you think tragedy is? The opposite. That’s all.’
Henry didn’t really understand what Fenchurch was trying to explain to him, and so he turned away again, and carried on sipping his coffee. But Fenchurch came over and knelt down beside his bed, and pointed his finger at him and said, ‘You were not to blame for Doris’ death, Henry, no matter how much you may want to be. You did nothing wrong, except that you loved her and just happened to be there when she died. I know how sad you are, Henry, I know how you feel. But you were no more responsible for Doris dying that I was for your mother dying. That’s the way life happens to be; and nothing you do or say is ever going to make any difference.’
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