‘Do we have to bury the horse, too?’
‘Yes.’
‘Look here, Sally. I’m not much good with a spade. The job will take me hours. I don’t mind burying poor Fig-bread, but surely the disposal of the horse can be left to local labour?’
‘No, that’s impossible. Both bodies must be buried before dawn and we can’t call anyone away from the feast to help us. The Goddess will give you strength. First remove the turf and lay it carefully aside.’
Sally unbraided her hair and began to comb it, singing softly. I set to work with some reluctance; but under the turf the soil was quite soft and I did not need the pick. While she combed her hair she sang a ballad of adventures in the Bad Lands. I missed the first two verses, but the next ones went something like this:
We sailed through the channel
Across the Atlantic,
The lordly great channel
With ramparts of stone,
Six weeks we were sailing
From island to island,
Our cargo was dana
And butifaron.
When we came to New York
Where the sea-lion bellows
And gulls scream aloud
On the desolate sands,
We said our farewells
To the crew and the captain
And marched up the river
With bows in our hands.
There was Sealskin and Teazle,
Red Gauntlet, Plum-porridge,
Old Rock, Never-see-me
And Happy Reply,
Kissing Mouth, Little Bedstraw,
Snail, Cloud, and Forked Lightning;
The Captain was Holloa,
The poet was I.
The tree-bears were tumbling
Among the blueberries;
We camped the first night
Where a tulip-tree stood,
But a sudden tornado
Swept by from the westward
And tore a wide swathe
Through the heart of the wood…
We warred with the wild men,
We hunted the bison.
Plum-porridge fell wounded
While crossing Hyde Park.
Though we clapped on a plaster
And prayed to the Goddess
He spoke his last wish
And was dead before dark.
In cool Saratoga
We met with a portent:
An eagle devouring
A fawn with two heads;
So we halted five days
And I danced out a penance,
Head shorn, body painted
With yellows and reds.
When we came to Lake Champlain
And saw the twin statues
We spat on the ground
To avert the ill-luck,
There we met with a wild man
Tattooed like a serpent
Who offered us raisins
And breasts of wild duck.
I can remember only a few more lines of this part of the ballad – the adventurers had unexpected trouble with man-eating bears near Niagara Falls – but no complete verses, because though I continued to dig steadily I was soon conscious of little except the rhythm: the words and even the notes fell away until I was fast asleep and Sally’s voice sounded like the dancing tick of a cheap alarm-clock. I could have sworn that I was home and in bed with Antonia. Rain pattered on the window and presently I heard the purring of a motor-cycle along the road to the station, followed by a sleepy whimper from the nursery next door and Antonia’s voice saying: ‘It’s nothing, darling, go to sleep again!’ and then: ‘Damn that young doctor and his motorbike!’ But the ticking grew louder and more musical and I woke to hear Sally concluding her song:
With joy in our hearts,
Though with knots in our girdles,
We pushed out the gang-plank
And hastened ashore.
A weary long time
We had passed in the Bad Lands,
Which, Ana be praised,
We need visit no more.
‘Who wrote that?’ I asked, to show I was listening.
‘Fig-bread.’
‘Will it be recorded on gold, do you think?’
‘Of course not. It’s what we call a barber-shop ballad. I sang it to pacify his ghost. He left no real poems. He was too conscientious to commit his work even to clay – not a line of verse, not a bar of music.’
‘Well, well… I seem to have put Fig-bread underground already. I didn’t realize I was a natural sexton. Now what about that unfortunate horse? Where do I dig his pit?’
‘You’ve already dug it and turfed it over. Look at the blisters on your hands.’
‘Good God! The things I do in my sleep! And a neat job, too. I shouldn’t have believed myself capable of it, though when I was a boy I once got out of bed, put on my roller-skates and went careering down the long passages of the Rectory in the dark. What comes next?’
‘Presently we’ll ride home; you can sit behind me on your horse.’
‘What? No tears, no prayers, no headstone, no last words, no nothing?’
‘He’s dead. Ana has his body, and the murderer has made amends. I’ll report the death at Sanjon tomorrow; then his real name will be published and everyone will be free to use it and say what they please of him.’
‘And his soul? Does that go to the Other World?’
‘There is no Other World. There’s only New Crete, where his name will live on for a few generations perhaps – in the barber-shops.’
‘Well, I like to think that, when I come to die, my liberated soul…’
‘You like to think! That’s not the same as knowing. Children like to think that there’s an island across the water where all their hopelessly broken toys go to be mended.’
‘You mean that your religion offers no consolation of immortality?’
‘Only the Goddess is immortal.’
‘That’s what we liked to think about God.’
‘You liked to think! All gods must die in the end. They grow senile and dribble at the mouth; their priests steal the offerings and tell lies about them. Then their temples fall in ruins and they close their eyes. Only the Goddess lives for ever, blessed be her name!’
‘What on earth are you doing now, Sally?’
She had thrown off her cloak and spread it over Figbread’s grave, unclasped her belt, and kicked off her shoes. Now she was peeling off her dress and chemise. She did not answer, but lay down on the cloak, naked as Eve, and held out her arms for me commandingly.
The unexpectedness of her action shocked and paralysed me.
‘Come here!’ she said. ‘Come and share my cloak; it’s a religious obligation! When a man dies violently his ghost has the right to a chance of rebirth. We’d be impious to deny him that.’
I stared at her incredulously. ‘So that’s it, is it?’ I said at last. ‘You’re actually making me an offer of what you call the rights of fatherhood?’
Her face was drawn with passion; her stretched-out hands shook wildly. ‘Come to me, darling barbarian,’ she said. ‘I love you, I love you more than all the world.’
I spoke as calmly and brutally as I could: ‘No, my dear Sally! I’ll admit that the Goddess has blessed you with shapely legs, slender arms, ripe lips and a seductive bosom. I’ll also admit that I’m as hot-blooded as the next man. But I’ve never yet committed adultery on a murdered man’s grave at the invitation of his murderess, and what’s more, I refuse to do so now. Naturally, I don’t want to baulk Fig-bread’s chances of rebirth; he was a fine fellow, though a little heavy-handed. But I can’t accept your invitation. That sort of thing isn’t done where I come from, barbarians though we may be. Get someone else to share your cloak – get Starfish, if you like. Perhaps he’ll be less squeamish. Sapphire says that he’s one of your admirers, too. Then if Fig-bread gets reborn he’s got at least a chance of bearing a family resemblance to himself.’
She had never before been spok
en to like this. It startled and momentarily sobered her. Turning half over on her elbow she said in a small, uneven voice: ‘But I made quite sure that you wanted me. You told the servant to put your fearful love-gift under my pillow, and you didn’t return to Sapphire at noon, when she expected you. And please don’t worry about Fig-bread. You see, he often told me that he was ready to die for my sake. And he meant it literally.’
‘Good God! So you bewitched the horse and deliberately sent Fig-bread to his death to provide a religious pretext for spreading your cloak for me?’
She nodded, rolled over, and buried her face in her arms. Then something began happening to me: I found myself relenting. This was not my age, I argued, and Sally did not show any guilt for what she had done. If she really felt as strongly for me as all that, and I had a religious obligation to humour her, perhaps…
‘Sally,’ I said.
She looked up and the glow-worm light shone about her, so brightly, so evilly, that I felt a sharp physical pain at the pit of my stomach.
‘Hell! No, not that again!’ I thought. ‘I finished with that for ever on the day Antonia said she’d marry me. I’d rather be savaged by a mad horse like Fig-bread, poor devil, than get burned up in that green fire.’ I said aloud: ‘I’m going home, Sally. Your deliberate murder of Fig-bread and your transferring of the guilt to his horse may be your own concern; but there’s still Sapphire to consider, and she’s my concern. You’ve treated her hatefully, and I hope that the Goddess plagues you as she should.’
‘How can she plague me more than she is doing now!’ she wailed. ‘Me, a witch of New Crete, fallen obscenely in love with a barbarous demon of the past.’
‘Would you like me to find Starfish and send him to you?’ I asked coldly.
That went straight home. She leaped up and began to bewitch me, running around the clearing, widdershins, at top speed and stark naked, with her long black hair flying and madness blazing from her cat-like eyes. It was a hideous experience. My skin crawled. I knew what it felt like to be a bird fascinated by a snake: try as I would I could not stir from the spot. But my brain was still working normally and I found that I could control my hands and voice.
I tried taunts: ‘The other evening, Erica Turner told me that your patterns were well worth watching; though she didn’t think much of them as magic. She’s quite right. I’ve paid money to see far worse performances in low dives at Cairo and Alexandria.’
But she circled all the more rapidly, making queer, clicking noises with her tongue and fingers, slapping her breasts at each complete turn, and gradually closing in on me.
I grew desperate. In another minute she’d either tear me to pieces or make a sexual assault on me, or both. Who would be a male spider when the murderous female begins her rhythmic courtship?
I searched feverishly in my mind for a counter-charm. The furtive, intimate charm against the evil eye that the peasants of St Jean used to make whenever the Vicomte de Martinbault passed?
I tried it, but without result.
The sign of the Cross? In hoc signo vinces?
I tried that, too; with no better success. Either it had lost its efficacy since the close of the Christian Era, or else I did not use it with sufficient faith. I am a Christian only by virtue of infant baptism.
She was almost upon me, when I suddenly remembered that interview with the Hag. My hands dived into my pockets and felt for the locket. It was still there. I raised it above my head and said solemnly: ‘In the Mother’s Name! Set me free and give me safe conduct to the house where I live!’
She made two more complete circuits, fanning me with the wind of her career, and then another half-circle, before my words sank in and she slowed down to a stumbling halt. Quietly and soberly she turned about and unwound the pattern, coil by coil, moodily braiding her hair as she went, her eyes on the ground.
‘Thank you, Sally,’ I said, when she had finished and I found that I could move again. ‘Now get some clothes on like a good girl.’
She obeyed meekly and modestly, retrieved her shoes, resumed her cloak and stood waiting for further orders.
‘Now let’s find See-a-Bird and Starfish and ride home.’
She gave me her arm and we walked calmly off down the lane towards Zapmor.
Peaches and the captain were still in the ditch as we went by.
‘Excuse me, my dears,’ I said. ‘You’ll be doing me a great favour if you finish your love-making by the waterfall at the end of the lane. You’ll find two mounds there, newly turfed. Spread your cloaks on the smaller one, and give loving hospitality to an injured ghost. He was a good man, and my friend.’
Chapter XV
The Break
From a small crowded knoll where the horses were tethered Sally and I silently watched the dancing until the first signs of dawn appeared; then formal goodbyes were said between the representatives of the two villages and the party broke up. Presently Starfish and See-a-Bird came along for their horses. They stared in surprise as they greeted us, evidently expecting Sally to explain her presence, but all she said was: ‘I’m very tired, let’s go straight home.’
The four of us rode off together, Starfish and I taking turns to sit behind Sally. Apparently in New Crete it was the woman who always rode in front when magicians of opposite sexes shared a horse. As soon as we were clear of the crowd I heard Starfish ask Sally, who was riding with him for the first stage, whether Fig-bread had come home. She answered with a simple ‘no’.
After a pause, Starfish asked whether she had walked all the way to Zapmor. Again she said ‘no’, in a voice that warned him to refrain from further questions.
Since Sally had calmed down and made at least a show of decent behaviour I had decided to say nothing either to antagonize or charm her. Though anxious to know what had happened to Sapphire in my absence, for the sake of peace I had not so much as mentioned her after we had left the clearing. I wondered whether she had already been bewitched, or encouraged to break her promise and go off. Sally had been capable of any mischief that day. I blamed myself for following the Hag’s advice about not going home at noon.
See-a-Bird asked the question for me. ‘How’s Sapphire?’
Sally shrugged. ‘I can’t answer for her any longer. She’s gone away. This evening she rode off, just before I started out myself.’
‘Where did she go?’
‘Probably to Dunrena, to consult the Goddess Ana at the royal shrine.’
‘Why Ana, not Mari? I don’t like that. She must be in a bad way.’
‘Not through any fault of mine.’
No more was said. We clattered through Rabnon, which was illuminated by victory bonfires, and turned down the lane for home; I was now riding behind Sally. As the light increased we began to exchange greetings with peasants from Horned Lamb, already working in the dewy fields, and smell the wood-smoke that drifted from cottage chimneys. I recognized it as chestnut-wood smoke; abstention from tobacco had made my sense of smell abnormally keen, as it had also sharpened my sense of taste.
‘Normally, you mean, not abnormally,’ Sally said over her shoulder.
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘That’s the reason why we smoke only one cigarette a day. Constant smoking would dull our appreciation of the Goddess’s gifts. It’s normal to distinguish one sort of wood-smoke from another.’
‘But I didn’t say a word, did I?’
‘Only to yourself. But I overheard you.’
‘How on earth did you do that?’
‘I’m a witch, aren’t I?’
‘And you’ve been listening to my thoughts ever since you evoked me?’
‘Oh, no. Only since you’ve been riding behind me.’
‘You might at least have warned me that you were listening.’
‘I forgot that you didn’t know why the women always ride in front. If the man did, he’d overhear the woman’s thoughts, which would be indecent. I wondered why you were being so open with me. Well, if you have any
thoughts that you don’t want me to share you’d better dismount; but we’re all friends here, and it’s most unfriendly for a man to close his mind to a woman. I was listening to Starfish on the road between Zapmor and Rabnon; he had very generous thoughts about me.’
We had nearly reached home, so I refrained from making a scene by dismounting. As we passed the Nonsense House I decided to cover my mental nakedness by silently repeating the more abstruse of Lear’s Nonsense Rhymes. But the impudence of the woman! It was difficult to keep my mind on the verses.
I went straight up to the bedroom. Looking around carefully, I was reassured to find that Sapphire had not taken any of her toilet things, except a toothbrush: evidently she had not gone off for good. Now that I’d got the locket, I felt much happier about the whole situation; it would give me the whip-hand of Sally. What a fool I had been, though, to miss the perfect chance of using it! If it was an all-purpose pass, why hadn’t I produced it just now and made Sally yield me the front seat? Then I might have been able to listen to her thoughts. I resented the theory that it was decent for a woman to eavesdrop, but indecent for a man.
I undressed, got into bed, and was soon asleep. I had taken the precaution of tying the locket around my ankle with a piece of ribbon from Sapphire’s dressing-table. Sally was quite capable of trying to steal it.
A gentle knock at the door woke me soon afterwards, and Antonia came in.
‘Hullo, Tonia,’ I said sleepily.
‘Oh, hullo, Ned.’
‘How did you come here?’
‘A woman with blue legs and a tall fancy-dress hat evoked me.’
‘That was very nice of her. I’ve missed you a lot, these last five days.’
‘How do you mean: five days? We were together all yesterday…’
‘Five of their days. And because of the tobacco shortage they seem twice as long as ours. How are you?’
‘A bit puzzled, but a good deal happier now I’ve found you. I thought I was dreaming.’
‘Well, you’re not. This place is real enough. Who’s looking after Mun?’
‘Nobody, but Mlle Blue-legs promised me that I’d be away only between one heart-beat and the next; and even Mun can’t manage to fall out of his cot in that time. I rather like the look of this place. I wish we had servants like the ones here. Just look at the polish on that chest-of-drawers!’
Seven Days in New Crete (Penguin Modern Classics) Page 17