Sweet Compulsion

by Woolf, Victoria

  Shortly afterwards her aunt Thomasina had died, leaving her the old London house, the family springboard from which the Campions had spread out over the world. There were uncles in various parts of the Commonwealth. Cousins in Hong Kong and Jamaica. An aunt in Canada. Marcy knew nothing much of any of them; they were not a communicative family. Aunt Thomasina had left the old house to Marcy for no reason at all—almost as if she had picked the girl out of a hat.

  Marcy had been excited by the news. Her own house in Cornwall was leasehold—the lease had another year to run, that was all, and she had been

  considering leaving the West. Now she knew she would go to London, and she made rapid preparations.

  Her aunt's solicitor was a thin, grey, weary man. He looked at the girl indifferently, gave her the keys and informed her of the 'very handsome' offer for the property.

  `You can sign the papers today,' he ended drily. `Seventy thousand pounds!' Marcy was hoarse with amazement. 'Did you say seventy . .

  He nodded. 'It's completely ridiculous, of course—the land is worth very little intrinsically. But the developers want to acquire your property in order to complete their plans.'

  `Developers ?' Marcy gazed at him. 'You mean they want to pull the house down ?'

  He nodded again, his neck wrinkling like the neck of some thin, aged tortoise, in grey folds. 'Saxton and Company. They plan to build across the whole block. The development is to be vast, I understand.'

  Marcy had put aside the idea for the moment, staggering though the figure of seventy thousand pounds seemed to her. She had been eagerly waiting to see the house. She knew something of her family history, although her parents had not discussed it much. That the family had once lived in Spitalfields during the eighteenth century she knew, and that they had prospered, and built this house in the newly developing marsh area along the river which was later to become the dockland areas of London. She had a vague yet eager curiosity about the house.

  When she first saw it she thought that there had

  been some mistake, but then she looked again at the name on the corner of the road. Paradise Street.

  The house stood in a vista of corrugated iron fences, broken pavements and dirty wisps of paper blowing desultorily along the filthy road. There were no buildings apart from the house itself.

  All around rose high flats, like concrete mountains looking down upon a grimy valley.

  At the other end of Paradise Street a narrow alley intersected, choked with workmen's cottages and shabby shops with peeling paint, cracked wood and uneven roofs.

  A fence had been erected around the site of the old house and she could not find an opening. She saw the upper storey over the top of the fence—a flat Georgian facade with a stark elegance born of functional lines and generosity of proportion. The dusty windows seemed to appeal to her mournfully against the dull sky.

  She went to the council offices and requested them to open up the site again. They seemed taken aback to find her determined. The Borough Surveyor, a choleric gentleman of fifty in a rough liver-striped tweed, seemed almost disposed to refuse to comply, but Marcy, despite her youth, was aware of her rights.

  `You had no business fencing off private property,' she reminded him.

  He grunted furiously about protecting property, and then asked abruptly if she had not heard the offer from Saxton's. 'Is there any point in opening the site? You'll be selling, anyway.'

  `I haven't decided,' she said.

  Not decided? What does your father say about that, young lady ?' he asked, half angry, half patronising.

  `He's dead,' she told him.

  He flushed. `Oh.' He cleared his throat. 'Your guardian ?' He laughed half-heartedly. 'You can't be of age yet, I fancy.'

  `I'm of age,' she assured him. 'Will you have the fence opened?'

  He gave in with reluctance.

  As she was about to leave she asked idly what sort of redevelopment scheme was scheduled to begin on the cleared site. 'Flats ? Or houses ?'

  `An office block with shops below,' she was told curtly.

  She had looked at him in appalled disbelief. 'An office block? Have you seen those streets? Those people need houses. Homes, a park, anything to make up for that inhuman landscape.'

  She had met a stone wall of indifference. The plans had been approved. Saxton's, the multi-national company, intended to build a vast complex on the site for commercial and private use.

  `People need shops. They need work.' The Borough Surveyor had been briefly patronising. 'Things are never as simple as you young people think!'

  As she left Marcy had heard him pick up the telephone and dial. Looking back her eyes met his, and she saw hostility in his glance.

  Marcy had gone back to Paradise Street with a council workman who had crossly wrenched out the

  nails and lifted out two boards so that she could walk on to her property.

  It was, she found, quite a large area—oblong in shape, with a red brick path running between a jungle of shoulder-high grass, towards the grimy walls of the house, against which grew a lilac tree in brilliant green leaf. There were, too, several very old apple trees, mossy and gnarled, like sulky old men, creaking in the wind, their leaves coated with dust.

  The workman, a West Indian with big ears and a close-cropped head, came inside after her and looked slowly around. A light suddenly lit his sulky face. `Nice little piece of land here, miss,' he said. 'You could grow stuff here, that's for sure . . .' He began to pace about, kicking at the dark, sour soil. 'Yeah, if you was to put a bit of goodness back into this earth you could grow vegetables here.'

  `Those trees look dead,' she said.

  He studied them, wrinkling his wide nostrils. 'Yeah, they is in a bad way. I'd have them out and plant two young ones . . .' Then he sighed. 'If they wasn't going-to build here, that is.'

  Something moved at the edge of the iron fence. Out of the corner of her eye she saw a red sweater topped by a small, dark face. She pretended to be unaware of the new arrival and soon he sidled in, crouching in the long grass like a tiger, peering around the summer-bleached stalks at them.

  Marcy had a bag of sherbet lemons in her denim jacket. She pulled it out and offered it to the workman. He took one absently, then grinned at her, his whole face coming alive.

  `Thank you, miss. You with the council ?'

  She liked his voice, the warm, lilting rhythms of his speech, her trained ear picking it up instinctively and trying to reproduce it. She had intended to take up a scholarship at a London drama school this year—she had been studying speech and drama privately for some years at home, and wanted to teach it herself, in time. In the autumn, if she had made up her mind, her place would be waiting for her.

  `I'm a student,' she told the workman. 'My aunt left me this house, so I came to look at it. They say I should sell it to the developers.'

  He grimaced. 'They build on every little bit of land they can. Soon there going to be no land for people to walk on anywhere in this city.'

  She was struck by his words and stared at him, then looked up at the high-rise flats, the grey sky behind.

  The watcher in the long grass crept closer. Behind him another child had appeared, stalking patiently on all fours.

  `My kids play around dustbins all day. Where else they got ?' the workman sighed in resignation.

  The children were very close now. Marcy turned slowly, grinning, holding out her bag of sweets. 'Want one ?'

  They froze, staring at her through their screen of pale grass. Then the first, his grin splitting his face, laughed and stood up, taking a sweet with a dive of eagerness.

  `Scat, you damn kids!' the workman shouted. They poised for flight.

  `Let them play,' said Marcy. She looked at them, her face heart-shaped, like a child herself in her denims, her hair bright as spilled orange marmalade.

  The two boys looked at her, looked at each other. Then they looked around the garden. A strangled whoop came from the throat of the older. He ra
n, skipping and leaping in ecstatic elation.

  The other one turned and vanished, too, in the direction of the hole in the fence.

  The workman gave her a frown, a shake of the head. 'That was a silly thing to do, miss. They'll cause bother now.'

  `You'd rather they played around dustbins ?'

  He thought. 'I got to nail that fence back before we go,' he said slowly.

  `This land belongs to me, not the council,' she said. `Leave it open.'

  He looked alarmed. 'I got orders to close it,' he repeated.

  `They can't give orders about my property,' she said cheerfully.

  `I'll have to go back to the Town Hall,' he said. 'I don't know what Mr Askew's gonna say.'

  She smiled, offering him her small hand. 'No hard feelings? I'm Marcy Campion, by the way. What's your name ?'

  He swallowed her hand into his own large dark one, shook it in a firm, friendly fashion. 'I'm Luke Green.'

  `You live around here, Luke ?'

  `Albert Street,' he said. 'I share a house with my brother Ignatius. He lives upstairs, I live down.'

  `Albert Street ?'

  He pointed to the bisecting road. 'That's Albert Street. See the shop on the corner? Next to that there's Crancy Alley. That's a real fleapit.' He gave her a thoughtful look. 'This ain't exactly the West End, you know, miss.'

  `Marcy, please,' she prompted.

  He stared down at her. The bottle-green eyes twinkled Luke began to laugh, his teeth big and white.

  `A minute ago I was sorry for you, Marcy. Now I'm sorry for Mr Askew. He don't know what's about to hit him.' He turned to go, then halted in dismay, seeing children slipping into the grass in an increasing throng. 'Boy, have you got problems,' he said. 'You don't know what you've started.' Suddenly his jaw clenched as two little girls in bright cotton dresses and spotless white socks came running towards him.

  `Papa!' they shouted. 'Is it true? Can we play here ?'

  `My goodness, Teresa Green, Agnes Green, what are you doing in here ? Does your mama know you're here ? You get off back home there at once!' His voice was stern, his face frowning.

  Marcy saw the two little faces cloud over, the bright eyes grow wet with tears. She looked at Luke reproachfully. 'Is it to be dustbins for ever, Luke? Let them stay for a while. I'll keep an eye on them.'

  Luke groaned. 'I hope I don't lose my job over this.' He looked down at the two small girls. Their round eyes begged silently, and he groaned again. `O.K., O.K. But you go on home and tell your mama

  where you are, first, and tell her I said it was fine for you to play here a while.'

  They were gone, like eager puppies, scampering through the grass. Luke followed them, whistling softly to himself, plucking a blade of grass and chewing on it as he went.

  Marcy walked over to the apple trees. A little band of Tarzans already swung from the branches. 'Hi,' she said. 'Anyone know where we could get some rope or an old tyre for a swing?'

  `I do,' one said, while the others looked at her warily. 'Down the bottom of Crancy Alley there's a dump.'

  `Could you fetch something ?' she asked.

  A couple of the boys ran off, the others kept watching her, like stray cats ready to fly at the first hint of danger. She looked round at their faces, smiling. 'Did you know my aunt ?' She told them her name.

  `I'm Wesley,' said the first boy who had arrived. His grin was warming. 'My mum runs the laundrette in Albert Street.'

  A Pakistani boy shouted, `Show-off, show-off!' A fight started, bodies rolling over and over in the dust and grass.

  Wesley sat up, triumphant. 'Your aunty was a witch,' he told Marcy.

  The others giggled and pushed each other. Marcy stared at them. 'A what ?'

  `A witch,' Wesley nodded. 'We used to creep in and watch her through that window . . .' pointing at the ground floor of the house. 'Stirring a black pot over the fire . . . witches do that.'

  Marcy turned and made towards the house, accompanied by a band of eager, talkative children, all bursting now to tell her their version of Aunt Thomasina.

  She unlocked the dusty front door. The key grated in the lock, the hinges protested and squeaked as the door swung slowly back. The children crouched, half afraid, half curious, and stared past her into the wideceilinged hall.

  The still-beautiful fanlight made an exquisite pattern of sunlight on the grimy tiled floor of the hall. There was a vista of doors set in a long wall from which ancient wallpaper peeled damply. Slowly the little party advanced.

  They turned in at the first doorway on the left and found themselves in the room in which, according to the children, the old lady had mainly lived in her last years.

  Here, too, the paper peeled from the walls, in sagging strings. The room was elegant in proportion, with high light windows, and a high ceiling. The fireplace was exquisite—moulded in cream-painted panels, with an ironwork grate above which swung around hob.

  `That's what she cooked on,' Wesley pointed. A saucepan stood on the tiled hearth, blackened by fire.

  Marcy felt tears prick at her eyes. She had a vision of the old lady, alone and cold, in this great chill house, cooking some inedible meal in a saucepan.

  A sagging bed stood on the other side of the room. Had Aunt Thomasina died in it? Marcy wondered.

  Had her last hours been spent in this grey, damp room, spotted with mould and hissing with the spit of rain on the open fire?

  She shivered. 'Let's look at the rest of the house,' she said, trying to inject some gaiety back into the proceedings.

  Shouting, peering, chattering, they made their way around the house from the attics, in their empty, dusty silence to the great, whitewashed brick cellars, draped with cobwebs and mouse-droppings.

  Most of the rooms were furnished, in some fashion, but the furniture was all mildewed, dusty and beyond repair. Mice had made nests in velvet sofas, the horsehair stuffing of chairs drifted across the floors in little piles, there were broken objects everywhere.

  `Change and decay in all around I see,' murmured Marcy to herself.

  `Gloomy, ain't it,' Wesley agreed, shuddering dramatically.

  When they emerged into the daylight they found a work party busy building an obstacle course with old tyres, planks of rotten wood and piles of bricks—the tyres swung from the trees, the planks were raised on heaps of rubble and brick. The whole garden was filled with children, playing and working with vigour and noisy enthusiasm.

  A little crowd of women were standing at the opening in the fence. Marcy took a deep breath and walked over to them.

  They looked at her suspiciously.

  She smiled and began to talk. Soon she was sitting on an orange box, a mug of tea in her hand, listening

  as the women talked about the new development.

  A sleek car drew up. Mr Askew, the Borough Surveyor, climbed out, greeted with a hail of catcalls. He glared at Marcy.

  `There's some tea left in the pot,' she said cheerfully. 'Would you like a mug ?'

  `What do you think you're playing at ?' he retorted, ignoring her offer. 'You can get those kids out of there double quick. This fence has to be nailed up again. You're breaking the law.'

  `What law ?' she asked.

  The children stopped playing and came slowly over to listen. The women stood with folded arms, staring at him.

  'I'm not going to argue with you,' he blustered. `Just get those kids out of there. You've got no right..

  `No,' she said. 'You're the one who has no right—no right at all to nail a fence around my property. This is private property and I demand that you take down that fence.'

  The children began to dance like dervishes, whooping and grinning.

  Mr Askew went dark red. 'Don't you talk to me like that, miss !'

  `I'm sorry,' she said. 'I don't mean to sound rude, but I will not allow you to dictate to me. 'I have decided to give this land to the community—the house will make a fine community centre, and the garden will make a wonderful playground for t
he children.'

  `You can't do that!' he gasped.

  `Why not ?' she asked simply.

  'Saxton's want this land,' he said.

  `They can't have it.'

  `You don't understand,' he said thickly. 'This land is in the centre of the whole scheme—they've got to have it or the rest of the project will be impossible.'

  `The people here need somewhere to go,' she said softly. 'A house with many big rooms where they can play table tennis, put on plays, have jumble sales or coffee mornings. A house where their children can play safely in the fresh air . .

  The women nodded, sighing. The children watched him. Mr Askew perspired and wiped his forehead. `Jobs,' he mumbled. 'Fine shops . . . offices.' The watchful faces did not soften.

  He retreated, leaving the garden unfenced. Wesley dragged a woman from the fence, holding her plump hand tightly. 'Marcy, this is my mam.'

  `How do you do, Mrs Stephens ?' said Marcy, smiling, holding out her hand.

  `Marcy needs somewhere to live, Mam,' Wesley said, looking up at his pretty, smiling mother with appeal.

  Mrs Stephens gave Marcy a beam. 'You're welcome to sleep with us. We got a good flat over the launderette—two rooms for sleeping.'

  Through the crowd pushed a dark young man. 'I'm from the local paper,' he told her. 'Could I have a chat? What's going on? Is it true you're refusing to sell the house? You're giving it to the council for a community centre ?'

  She nodded. 'I've offered it to them, yes. They don't

  seem to be very keen so far.' She grinned at him. 'I expect you know Mr Askew.'