by A. L. Barker
“You’re seeing me.”
“I’m family.” Uncle Fred rubbed his mouth with the back of his hand and left one bar of his moustaches cocked.
Marise had come across a packet of cornflakes and realised that she had eaten nothing since yesterday. She took the box to the window and ate the flakes from her fingers. It was a grey day, the pebbles in the drive were the colour of iron but a woman walking towards the house wore a hat which Marise envied, butter-yellow and bristling. Marise might have eaten it or warmed herself at it or just sat in its glory. She recognised the woman without interest. Bertha Shilling was a dull person and Marise did not care what she might have come here for.
The cornflakes tasted of cardboard. Had Jack been at home they would have had a meal and perhaps some of the pink wine called ‘Rosie’. She wanted him to be home because the dread of yesterday was still with her. He always understood and held her, gripped into a merciful little blackness. He wouldn’t be home for four more days.
“What if that geezer upstairs was to see you?”
“Well?”
“It’s incitement, that’s what.” Uncle Fred’s clothes creaked with strain and all but broke down. In a moment he would come near enough to press his knee against hers and to breathe down her neck. Jack said he was a flesh engine: feed him food and combustion started, feed him sex and his cogs engaged. “You’re asking for it, my girl. I’ve seen some that asked for it and I’ve seen what they got.”
Marise watched Bertha climbing the steps to the front door. “He has a house with knives and whips all over the walls.”
“Whips?” Uncle Fred, negotiating his bulk between the furniture, paused to stare.
“He has two women there and they do whatever he wants. They wouldn’t tell me anything, they were too afraid. What does he want to do in all that space?”
“Space?”
She had not asked for it but the reminder came and she flung herself on Uncle Fred and screwed her face into his chest. The rank flavour of his old jacket was in her mouth and nostrils, her eyes were squeezed shut and still she was blindingly, hideously lost in white bottomless light.
“Here, here,” said Uncle Fred, touching her with alarm.
“He took me to that place – horrible, horrible –”
“What place? Who took you?” Uncle Fred cottoned slowly. “Whips? Women?” and then, more rapidly, “You mean it was one of those places?”
“I can’t bear it, I can’t, I can’t!”
“Here, here,” he held her as if she were a damp baby. “You don’t have to bear anything. Tell me what happened, tell me about this place.”
“I’ll never tell anyone.”
“Did he force you to go? Against your free will, was it?”
She pulled away, his waistcoat buttons made weals on her cheeks. “I won’t think about it any more.”
“Listen, my girl, if he forced you to do what you didn’t want to, that’s criminal assault. I know his sort –” Uncle Fred’s breath grew steamy – “rape, with specialities, three in the bed and whips all round. Did he make you whip him?”
“Of course not.” She noticed that her arms were prickling with cold and found Tomelty’s dressing-gown. “He’s a tenpenny rabbit.” She put the robe over her shoulders and crossed the sleeves under her throat.
“Tell me what he did.”
“He did nothing.”
“You’d better tell me or I shall make you.” Uncle Fred opened wide the tea-brown whites of his eyes, “Don’t think I couldn’t.”
Marise did not think so. She hadn’t seen him violent because the direct object of his violence had never been present at the same time as herself, but if she were to be the direct object she knew that he would not only be capable of violence, he would enjoy it.
“Oh he tried, he tore my dress but he couldn’t make me.” She said scornfully, “He couldn’t make water run downstairs.”
“He tried, did he? He did try?”
Marise had just thought of the business of the water under the house. She wanted to know more about that, though not from Ralph Shilling, she preferred to be independent of him, he was such a liar, look how he had lied about her being a water-diviner. She wanted the truth about the water – she could get the truth from Bertha Shilling.
“I’ll make him pay for your dress –” Uncle Fred spat on his knuckles – “I’ll make him pay for trying. I’ll be waiting here for him when he comes in.”
Marise had opened the door a crack. There was Mrs Shilling in her splendid hat sitting in the hall. But Marise couldn’t question her and Mrs Shilling wouldn’t answer with Uncle Fred on hand.
“It’s no use you waiting tonight,” she told him. “He’s gone away.”
“Gone away? Where? I’ll find him –”
“He’s gone to that place.”
“Ah!” From under his waistcoat Uncle Fred erupted satisfaction and appetite together. “That place now, where is it?”
“I don’t know. We went into the country where there were no streets and no names. We walked and walked, it was at the sea –”
“At the sea?”
“A horrible place.” Marise shuddered. “I feel bad thinking of it.”
“That bastard will feel bad when I get to him.”
“You’d better go. I’m ill, I’m going back to bed.”
“You said you weren’t ill –”
“I am now!” cried Marise. “And I’m going to be sick!”
Uncle Fred had no ministering instincts, he left hurriedly. But when Marise looked out again, Mrs Shilling and her hat had gone.
12
Ralph admitted that Krassner had a point in suggesting that he ask for his money back from Picker, Gill. But Pecry wouldn’t give it to him at once, Pecry would make him wait, would hold up repayment by putting it through all the hoops – Board meetings, Committees, agendas, staff policy – and on the question of precedence could examine and re-examine his conscience until the furthest of further notice.
It seemed to Ralph that he had been waiting through all his lifetime and through all women, through Scobie and Bertha anyway, without knowing what he was waiting for. Now that he knew, he ought not to wait any longer. Miracles could get cold.
He was living by degrees: the first to see her, the second to touch and apprehend her, the third had already begun, on the floor of Bertha’s bedroom.
He obliged himself to go back over the fight, sitting woodenly at his desk while his inside flesh burned and froze at the memory. The fight had been shameful and had started something which, he knew, would give him no peace or other satisfaction on earth until it was finished.
Before time – he was no longer keeping to time – he left the office and hurried back to Lilliput Lodge. He could feel her, wave after wave coming out of the bricks of the house in deadly assault on his senses. But his senses didn’t die, they awoke: many more than five of them flinched wide, wide awake.
His hand was out to knock at her door and then as he stepped into the porch he saw Bertha. She was sitting on a chair in the hall, her bag and gloves in her lap and her hands clasped on top. She wore her best suit and her important hat. But only the hat looked important, it bore no relation to her face.
Ralph’s hand fell to his side, he only just stood still. His impatience carried him to the brink and something over. He looked at Bertha from the other side.
She stood up, dropping her gloves and bobbing to retrieve them. The sight of Ralph disrupted her though she must have been prepared for it. A strong pink flush ran up under her hat, totally unsuited to the yellow silk arabesques at the brim.
She said, “There you are, dear,” and Ralph said, “What do you want?” and having said it was himself confused. But why should he be? After all, he had reason to ask and no time to ask any way but outright.
“I wanted to see you. I hope it’s not inconvenient, dear.”
“You saw me yesterday.”
“That’s why I want to see you today.”
She blushed deeper as at an improper witticism, and busied herself putting her gloves into her bag, snapping it shut with a beaky sound. “You’re nice and early, I thought I’d have to sit here a long time yet.” She managed to smile, apologetically, apologising for what she meant to do but meaning, he could see, to do it. Under the soft rind was the essential Bertha.
“We’d better go upstairs,” he said.
She meant to ask questions. He could have asked them for her in one: “Why must it be different?” and answered: “Because I am different.” And since it could not help her to know how different, or why, that should have been that, she should have said goodbye and gone straight back to Thorne.
“I’m so glad to see you,” she said. He could have told her that that part was over, they had moved on and were past gladness in connection with each other.
“You saw me yesterday,” he said again, impatiently.
“I don’t get tired of it.” She put her hand into the small of his back as she followed him upstairs and he sprang up the steps out of her reach.
The cat was waiting on the other side of the door, watching them both as they came in. Bertha took one quick, panicking look round the room and held out her fingers.
“It still comes –”
“Do you want anything?”
She looked up humbly from the unresponsive cat. “Only to see you.”
“I meant any refreshment,” he said irritably. “A cup of tea?”
“That would be nice, if it’s not too much trouble.”
He could feel Marise reaching up to him undiminished through two floors. Through Madame Belmondo’s flat she drew on him like one of Emmy’s underground streams. But she didn’t make his head ache – he grimaced and smiled – not his head.
“Is anything wrong, dear?” said Bertha.
“I’m waiting for you to tell me.” He filled the kettle and set out cups, thinking if it’s going to be a tragedy it’ll be an English one, with tea. “Emmy’s not worse, is she?”
“She’s no better.” She exclaimed with sudden artificial gaiety, “Pussy wants its din-din – aren’t you going to give it anything?”
“Why should I?”
“I thought you were fond of it. Emmy said it showed how kind-hearted you are –”
“Emmy said I was like a spinster with a neutered tom.”
He turned to find her gazing at him with her shyness amplified into fear. She was on thorns and wouldn’t get herself off them. She had come to ask questions and she wasn’t asking. If she was so scared why didn’t she simply wait and let things happen? She might have had another week or two’s peace of mind, he might have thought up a story, he just might have left her something to keep her going a little longer.
“Ralph, I’m so worried, I had to come. Emmeline only has you and me and she trusts us and she’s in our hands –”
“In our hands? You know better than that.”
“She believes what we tell her.” Bertha looked unhappy, “I think she would believe anything you told her.”
“Emmy thinks what she likes.” He turned up the gas flame until it roared under the kettle. “You haven’t come here to talk about her, have you?”
“I had to. You must know how things stand before ever you see her again.”
“Why do you say that?”
“It’s a matter of life and death.”
It was the way she had said it that momentarily roused his curiosity, as if she already suspected that he wouldn’t be seeing Emmy again, it was the “ever” that made him ask – not that it influenced anything in the long run.
“Every day counts. I can see the difference, what you’d call a difference in degree but every day it’s a degree less of Emmy and a degree more of – something else.” Bertha was trembling, the arabesques on her hat snapped and twinkled independently.
“What can I do? She won’t listen to reason – from me or anyone.”
“She listened to unreason from you.”
“What do you mean?”
“That girl was not a water-diviner.”
Here they were, here they went, Bertha and Emmy, hand in hand, with a whimper. He was glad and relieved that they were going together.
“She lives here,” said Bertha. “I saw her name on the door of the downstairs flat.”
He got on with the business of making tea. Let her ask, it was her chance to get an answer from him. When she brought the questions out again later on, one at a time, one a day, she would have to answer them herself.
“You lied to us.”
“It wasn’t the moment for truth.”
“Truth?” She spoke fearfully, then, because this wasn’t the moment either, put it aside, to come back to. “Emmy thinks it was the truth.”
“Well, she’d want to.”
“She’s going to leave Thorne, she says she’ll sell it and get away, she says before it – kills her.”
“Emmy has these fads, they’re the aim of an aimless woman. If it wasn’t electro-magnetic radiation it would be food reform or anti-vivisection. She’ll con herself out of a perfectly sound property and that will be a pity. But she’s a business woman, she won’t lose on the deal, not financially.”
He set the tea tray on the table thinking how this would have disturbed him once: any threat of any change in the pattern of their lives had disturbed him. He used to cherish his routine and his habits, aware that they would seem pitiful small pleasures to most people and hoping thereby to rouse no envy and be allowed to keep them.
“Ralph, she’s ill, organically ill – she can’t run away from it.” Bertha’s eyes filled with tears. “That’s the truth and that’s what she can’t accept.”
Bertha was going to find it hard to accept too; he wished again that she had waited for the truth to come to her instead of chasing after it.
“Dr Chinn wants her to have an X-ray but she won’t. She won’t talk to him about herself, she says it would be like trying to treat sunstroke while sitting in the sun.”
“Don’t worry too much, she’ll treat herself. If she does sell up the change will do her good, she needs something to keep her busy.”
“Change? Busy?” Bertha was not afraid of these words as she had been of the word “truth”, these she scorned and rejected. “Have you seen her lately? Really looked at her? Have you caught sight of her when she didn’t know you were looking and wouldn’t have cared if she had known? Of course not! When you’re there she always knows and she always cares.”
“You’re wrong. Emmy despises me.”
“Oh Ralph, Ralph –”
“There’s nothing I can do.”
“You can tell her the truth about that girl.”
“Tell Emmy? Why?”
“Because I can’t. You must see that I can’t.”
Neither could he, she must see that too. It was one thing to tell her about Marise, one imponderable thing which he wanted over and done, and another to tell Emmy. The idea made him squirm.
“This is entirely your business and mine, not hers. I’ll tell you what you should know and that’s enough.”
Bertha clasped her hands as if she were praying. She said her prayers each night kneeling by her bed and she might feel that an extra prayer might save her, she would know that she was the one who needed saving.
“Please, say that it was a misunderstanding, the girl misled you, you didn’t know –”
“I’ll say nothing of the sort. I don’t care what Emmy thinks.”
“I’m so afraid she may die because of what she thinks. She shouldn’t be running to property agents, to lawyers, making out inventories, packing up furniture, she should be resting and having treatment. Ralph, I beg you, if not for her sake, for mine!”
He cut the air between them with a furious gesture. “Tell her yourself, tell her anything!”
Her skin darkened and thickened, this time with dismay: again, under the important hat, it was the wrong colour. She put down her clasped hands, prayer-time was over.
She began to understand that she wasn’t going to be saved.
“She’ll be so angry, she’ll never forgive you. Don’t you see, if you don’t tell her, she can’t forgive you. She’ll want to, later –” she looked up at him, “that will be the worst of it.”
“I don’t care if she forgives me or not.”
“If I tell her she’ll stop you coming to Thorne.”
“If you don’t tell her, there’ll be no Thorne to come to.”
“I could come to you. I should, shouldn’t I?” Her gladness suddenly shone out, transforming her. “I’m your wife, my place is with you.”
He picked up the teapot and put it down again. This was the moment, whether she was ready or not, but it wouldn’t be appropriate to be pouring tea.
“The question won’t arise. I’m going away.”
“Away?” The gladness was still there, it had been so real and could not fade so swiftly, but it was losing depth. “Going away?”
“With Marise.” The name was spoken between them for the first time, it broke out like a banner. He had to say it again, brandish and fly it. “Marise!”
Suddenly he wanted her so blazingly that to stay where he was was an injury. He got up and paced about, passing and re-passing Bertha who suddenly hadn’t even an identity. The cat sprang from under his foot, the cat was nothing too – and knew it.
“This is the truth?” She had no doubt, she was formally acknowledging the enemy.
The truth was always hurtful to someone. Today it hurt her, tomorrow might be his turn. He would take the hurt as he meant to take everything, he was wide open, no reservations, scruples, conscience, manners.
“Yes, it’s the truth.”
Bertha had ceased flushing an unsuitable colour, she looked normal, a normal woman in a super-normal hat.
“You’re going away. With her.” Now that she was bringing out the questions she did not ask them, she used them – “You’re leaving me” – tapped each one home like a nail.
“You can tell Emmy what you like. Tell her I’m a liar, pink Ralph’s as black as hell. She’ll believe you, she’ll believe anything bad about me.” He felt drunk with freedom. “Tell her I’m a murderer!”