by Mavis Cheek
Gradually, gradually, the laughter subsided and people began to ask each other why they were laughing. Dorcas put her hand over the drawing on the beer mat as Julie came over with their food. Julie was a quick-eyed woman when she was stoked up, and she saw the sketch, but could not make out exactly what it was. She did, however, fix Molly with a gimlet eye and ask her outright if she had found anything up there. To which Winifred said, ‘Could you bring the salt and pepper, do you think? I always like a bit of flavour with my game.’ Which, for some reason, started Dorcas and Molly off yet again.
Nigel, who along with the rest of the bar had just begun to calm himself and return to normal, thought it was time to go over and join them. But first – the cava. He squeezed past Marion who may, or may not, have patted his bottom, which made him stop and smile at her momentarily and receive a smile back before recollecting himself, gaining a little colour in the other cheeks department, and moving on. Green eyes, he thought, how unusual. Dulcima put down her glass of Merlot regretfully but very firmly. Yes, she had neglected her daughter. ‘Marion,’ she leaned over and whispered, ‘one does not pat young men on the rump as if they were horses.’ And Marion replied, perhaps a little too innocently, ‘Oh really?’ Dulcima shook her dainty head, more in sorrow than disapproval. She’d have to crack on, but how could she teach the girl to go among men? Marion gave Peter a smile and a wink.
Nigel, watched intently by Julie, was now making ox-eyes at the archaeologist person, and although the archaeologist person was only being friendly back – and hardly even that – still, Julie was on the envious alert. It seemed that little Miss Molly had learned an art that Julie had never managed: Treat ’em Mean, Keep ’em Keen. Right then. She picked up the bottle of cava and shook it for all she was worth.
Outside the wind had increased a little. It carried the sound of laughter up and over Pound Hill and made the tarpaulins covering the Gnome flap and slap in a restless rhythm that echoed its reply down into the village. Miles, who had his window open to try to hear what was going on in the pub, was irritated by the way the air whisked his hair all over the place and slapped him about. He looked up at the Hill. The sky was deepest ink, and clouds scudded across the moon bringing strange shadows with them: one minute the Gnome was lit with the bright, white light, and the next he was in moving shadow – with the undignified addition of what almost sounded like clapping coming from the covered portion of his famous anatomy. The Gnome did not look his usual relaxed and arrogant self. Or perhaps, thought Miles, I am having that thing that Dorcas calls transference? Whatever it was, the covers flapping and slapping and the light going on and off made the Gnome all the more obscene, thought Miles. What was even worse was that laughter was coming from behind the bright yellow glow of the pub windows and all in all, from where Miles was standing, it was not a comfortable experience. Miles very badly wanted to know what that laughter was about. Perhaps the Molly person had told them what she had found? Perhaps they were laughing at the fact that she had got one over on him? Suddenly he could bear it no longer. He pulled his window closed and slipped down the stairs and out of his front door.
Just for a moment he thought his shadow had extended further than reality could possibly create, until, on getting his eye in, he saw that the darkness moving opposite him was Donald Porlock. Who also seemed to be bent on visiting the pub, and also bent on doing it discreetly. He looked, thought Miles, like someone out of an Alfred Hitchcock film, clinging to the walls as he slipped along the street, looking from left to right as if expecting a gunshot from a foreign power.
Moonlight, as it had played on the Gnome, also played on Donald Porlock; there was no mistaking that he did not wish to be seen. Miles moved silently along the railings of his front garden, in synchronicity with Donald – which would have been all right had not there come a sudden tremendous shout – a hollering, really – that made Miles nearly jump out of his already jumpy skin – and Donald do the same – with the addition of a little squeal. Miles looked up the Hill, fully expecting to see the Gnome striding down, mouth agape, arms akimbo, but he was still where he always was, if looking a little peevish – perhaps at having his mighty member half hidden by flapping sheets. Miles looked back to the street. The mystery was solved by the appearance of Sir Roger who had nothing Hitchcockian about him and was quite openly striding down the street towards Donald and the pub.
‘What are you two fellers skulking about for? Come in and have a drink.’
Miles was inclined to think that Sir Roger had already taken up his own invitation – as did Donald when suffering a beefy red hand upon his shoulder and a blast of Sir Roger’s warm breath in his face, not unconnected with the fruit of the vine, and accompanying the arrival of the hand. What Miles had taken to be one of Sir Roger’s many dogs tottering along by the wall proved, on closer inspection, to be Orridge. ‘No more for my friend on the floor,’ said Sir Roger cheerfully, walking on past. ‘He’s driving.’
Miles, who might have slipped back inside his house had he the chance, gave a weak smile and trotted over to the pair. Donald was glad to see him and said so. ‘Very glad to see you, too,’ said Miles in a voice that suggested he would like to know exactly why Donald was skulking (Scand. as in skulke, 1175– 1225. Norw. skulka). ‘Just taking a walk, actually,’ he said. Miles nodded. ‘As was I.’
At that moment there was a tremendous crack from the Hill, like a gunshot, and both men looked up at the Gnome. ‘Tarpaulins,’ said Miles nervously. ‘Wind’s getting up.’
Sir Roger, who was looking fondly at both of them, agreed that the wind was certainly getting up and the best place to be in that case was the public house known as the Old Holly Bush for a snifter. ‘Lady Dulcima is already in there,’ said Sir Roger again, with a sudden childlike expression of surprise. ‘And if my wife is in there, then so shall we be. She is in there with my lovely daughter. I thought I ought to accompany them home.’ He looked at Donald. ‘Is your wife in there too, Porlock?’ he asked benignly, and with his face less than an inch from the doctor’s.
Donald Porlock recoiled a little, enough to nod without giving Sir Roger a header, and said that she was. And that he, too, thought to accompany her home.
Then, after nodding and agreeing and bringing the beefy hand up and down a few times on the less than beefy shoulder, Sir Roger turned his attention to Miles. ‘No wife in there for you, eh? No wife, no daughter, no brother … Sad, so very sad.’ And he flung an equally beefy arm around him. And thus flanking the somewhat wasted member of the local gentry, they made their way to the door of the pub. Orridge, knowing his place, snuggled up to the foot of the steps and fell soundly asleep. He had read a lot of Dickens in his time.
Some of the laughter had died away now and those gathered were beginning to wonder what it was that had started them off. Something to do with the Hill and the Gnome, wasn’t it …? Winifred saw that the natives were getting restless and she suggested – in the diplomatic way of a good doctor’s wife – that Molly should stand on a stool and tell the crowd what they had found. Molly thought this was a good idea – otherwise they might break the rule and go up there to see for themselves, and so much could be destroyed or damaged if they did. So she got up from the table, pulled out a stool, mounted it and prepared to speak. But she was not quite quick enough.
For as Molly drew breath Nigel appeared at her side. He was wrestling with the bottle of cava, so thoughtfully and enthusiastically moved about a bit by Julie, and trying to get the cork out in the manner of James Bond. He failed. Winifred, who found such inefficiency irritating, and who wanted Molly to get on with it, had no thought that it might be a love libation: she took the bottle from him and whipped out the cork like an A1 sommelier. Whereupon the scene was magically transformed into the Formula One championship.
Except that the bubbling spray was pink and somewhat inferior to a jeroboam of Taittinger, it was very similar in its effect. Most of it – and you might think that the gods were being particularly fair t
hat night – hit Julie, who stood wet and gasping and rooted to the spot behind the bar. Happily for Peter she had her eyes closed, for the sight of him racked with silent laughter might have occasioned some damage in the gonad department. Julie was not known for her considered reactions which was, in Peter’s estimation, part of her charm.
On the other side of the bar Winifred gaped at Julie, who continued to drip and who, on opening her eyes at last, gaped, back. Nigel looked at her, then at Winifred. Winifred looked at the bottle, now almost empty, in her hand. ‘Oh I say,’ said Nigel. ‘That’s a bit buggered.’ Molly and Dorcas looked at each other, which they should not have done, for they descended into further uncontrollable laughter. At this point the door of the pub opened and Sir Roger pushed his way in, closely followed by Miles Whittington and Donald Porlock. How warm it felt, how lively, how full of light after the darkness of the street outside – and how oddly wet.
Donald, on seeing Winifred with the bottle in her hand, and several dripping personages around the place, let out a groan. Oh God, he thought, she’s at it again. ‘My wife,’ he whispered to Sir Roger, ‘has gone mad.’
‘Have a Scotch,’ said Sir Roger quite reasonably.
‘I think I will,’ said Donald. ‘A large one.’
Winifred was doubly amazed: at giving young Julie a dousing, and at seeing her partner of so many years propping up the bar in a distraught state and slugging back a large whisky with what appeared to be very inebriated companions (though it was hard to tell with Miles, who was a man of infinite self-control. His eyes, however, were very staring which was a certain sign). So this was what happened, she thought, when a serving wife decides to go for a little freedom. Drinking with the boys. And she resolved not to give in to the blackmail of it.
Dorcas stopped laughing the instant she saw Miles at the bar. It was absolutely unheard of that he should enter a place so clearly connected with the proles. ‘Miles?’ she called across the bar. ‘Are you all right?’
Miles turned and gave her what could only be described as a look of ghastly endeavour – with teeth. It was a smile. ‘Perfectly,’ he said. ‘Perfectly.’ He picked up his glass and tried to sound nonchalant. ‘By the way, the wind is up out there and your tarpaulins are going at a hell of a crack. I hope they aren’t going to make that noise all night? I think I’ll go up and tighten them for you before I turn in …’ But before he could finish his whisky Molly was up the stairs and down them again. She went up in her jeans and jumper, and returned in her sou’wester, sou’easter and very probably all points on the compass protective outwear – and she was off, up the Hill, before anyone could do more than blink. Nigel might have followed her if Julie had not held on to his coat collar with something less like affection and more like a gesture of apprehension by a police officer. PC Brown noticed nothing out of the ordinary for he was in the back room having a smoke. Lufferton Boney was a quiet little place where people kept themselves to themselves, and so did he.
‘Well, well,’ said Sir Roger, ‘I’ll say it was going it up there. Like a rifle shot. And I’d say that Gnome of ours is exceedingly angry. And frankly, you can’t blame him – digging up his – his – thing – like that … Can’t say I’d like it very much. What about you, Porlock?’
‘Same again, Sir Roger,’ he said, not thinking beyond what on earth he should do about Winifred. Winifred was looking at him very coldly across the bar.
A voice, somewhere to Sir Roger’s right and half hidden, said, ‘Daddy?’ A shocked voice. And another voice, equally shocked, said ‘Roger?’ To which he raised his glass, said ‘Hallo dears,’ and fell over.
Later, with her husband propped up in a chair between wife and daughter (with the help of the vicar), Dulcima thought how undignified drink could make you. While Marion thought that if she also had a father bent on drinking himself into a stupor, she was – frankly – off out of it. Marriage might well be necessary and no sacrifice after all. She smiled at Nigel even more firmly. He gave her a cautious twist of his lips in return.
Pinky and Susie, having wiped away their tears of laughter, were tucked into the furthest corner of the bar – as puzzled as anyone else about why they had laughed so much, but perfectly accepting the communal oddness. After all, as Pinky pointed out, if you were going to become involved in a communal anything, then a communal laugh-in was about the best. And he was moved to remember the words of Pablo Neruda, which someone had read at their wedding, saying into his wife’s warm ear, tickling her with his own hot breath, ‘deny me bread, air,/light, spring,/but never your laughter/for I would die.’
To which Susie replied, ‘When the green woods laugh with the voice of joy/And the dimpling stream runs laughing by …’ But she forgot the rest of her Blake, being overwhelmed by the strong smell of alcohol, not usually considered by either of them unpleasant but now, suddenly, making her feel a little queasy. And when Pinky said ‘Come on, sweetheart, let’s have another one for the road,’ she could only shake her head with a wan smile and say that she thought she had probably drunk enough, and laughed enough, and that half of shandy was her limit tonight, and as much pink champagne as she could bathe in. Which set them both off again. Pinky hoped that if he walked her home very carefully she would stop feeling sick. He had other plans. And if it ever occurred to him how strange it was that nowadays the marital boot was most certainly on the other marital foot – he kept the thought to himself.
Home they went, holding each other tight and stepping out into the wild, dark night. Above them leered the Gnome but Pinky did not give a fig for him, and Susie did not so much as glance up to acknowledge his presence. Flap his tarpaulins as much as he might, the dwellers of Chrysalis Cottage were entirely absorbed by each other tonight and had no thoughts for either him or the young woman up on Pound Hill attempting to quell his wrath. Pinky, immersed in uxoriousness, decided to put off his denouncement of purple until another time.
One could only speculate whether the Gnome was pleased or not that he should be so ignored. Certainly Molly had to struggle all the harder against the immense strength of a new onslaught from the wind over the hills. Behind it she was certain she could hear a rather disappointed roar. ‘Damn you!’ she called to nothing and no one, and pulled on the fixings with all her strength, managing, with almost superhuman effort, to bind them to the earth again. They were secure. She crawled under the covers and took one last, longing look, but she could not see the bone in this dim light. Nevertheless it was there and safe and she said to it as she crawled back out, bum first, that it had rested there for many, many years so one more night would hardly matter – and though she was tempted, oh wasn’t she just, tomorrow would come soon enough. She would be back to reveal its secrets in daylight.
Winifred and Donald left the Old Holly Bush, at the same time but scarcely together in any harmonious sense. ‘Honestly, Winifred,’ muttered Donald, ‘I do wish you’d control yourself.’ And Winifred thought that was a bit thick, and therefore said exactly the same – save for exchanging his name for hers. As they walked back along the windy, moonlit street towards their house, Winifred looked back and up the Hill to where she saw Molly retying the straps and fixings of the covers. In the pulsing chiaroscuro of the night, Winifred thought the Gnome looked dangerous, angry even, but although she reeked of drink she had not touched a drop so she dismissed the thought as so much fancy on her part. She concentrated on getting her husband home and safely in charge of a cup of innocuous cocoa. Double whiskies in the pub? Whatever would he get up to next?
‘I’m afraid I’m invaluable to the project on the Hill, Donald,’ she said, as she stirred in the correct quantity of sugar for him. ‘So you will have to come to terms with my absences for the foreseeable. And if you wish to take to the bottle – well then, you’re a fool – but so be it.’ And Donald thought: pot calling the kettle. But kept quiet. At least his cocoa was just the way he liked it and for the time being he decided to be content with that. Hot food and a return to normality was h
is priority, but it would just have to wait.
Meanwhile when Molly returned to the pub Julie was in the ladies’ toilets wiping herself down as best she could. And crying. Peter was at the bar mopping everything up. And laughing.
Dorcas had placed a restraining hand on Miles’s arm and suggested that he leave Molly to it. To his ‘Any idea what they’ve found up there?’ she said, ‘Pieces of worked shale.’ Which was truth by omission, she told herself, for she need not mention the bone.
‘Shale?’ said Miles.
‘Yes,’ said Dorcas firmly. ‘It’s a sedimentary rock made of solidified mud – with some clay and stuff, I think.’
Over Miles’s shoulder Dorcas saw Molly give a little wave, put her fingers to her lips and indicate that she was going to bed. Dorcas gave a very slight nod and Molly slipped away.
‘I think I will have that other whisky,’ said Miles, deeply disappointed. Clay and stuff was not what he had hoped for. ‘I might even make it a double.’
Miles felt even more gloomy as Sir Roger was now upright again and sitting with his family and Miles had to pay for his own drink – and, rather annoyingly, one for the vicar, too, who seemed to be having some kind of turn. Sir Roger, in drink, was not a light man.
‘Damn,’ said Molly as she undressed for bed. She still had not talked to Dorcas about the blasted letter. But sleep was nearly upon her and – well – really, it did not matter anyway. Dorcas would know sooner or later and one way or another. And that was that. In fact, she thought, it was probably better to say nothing about it at all until she had something definite to say. She stretched and yawned and thought that today had been a perfect day. Exciting, too, with more excitement to come over the next few weeks. Maybe, she thought, trying to fix the image of that one pale bone in her mind, maybe it would be too exciting for her to get to sleep? But as she slipped her windblown head beneath the quilt and closed her eyes on the day, she discovered that it was not. Perhaps it is as Shakespeare would have it: truth makes for a quiet breast.