by Tim Jeal
‘Maybe this one liked duets,’ laughed Diana.
What other fey little pieces of local information did he have up his sleeve? Something interesting in the vestry? Spread out the choir boys’ cassocks on the floor and …
‘There’s a pretty good view from the tower. One can see right across the bay over the roofs. Very picturesque.’
‘Lovely.’
To his right Derek could see some wooden stairs leading upwards, doubtless to the top of the tower. Nothing for it but to announce himself before they found him spying on them. He took hold of one of the three available bell ropes and gave it a sharp tug. A feeble clang sounded somewhere above him. He tried again with a more gratifying result. Then he clambered down the stairs and gave them a cheery ‘good morning’.
‘We didn’t see you come in,’ said Charles with a smile. For a moment Derek wondered whether they might suspect him of malice but on reflection that did not seem very likely. Good old Derek sneaking up into the belfry, just the sort of idiotic, retarded adolescent joke he’d fancy to start the day.
‘Didn’t know I was a campanologist, I suppose? One of my many talents.’ He grinned at them both and then feigned dismay. ‘God, it isn’t some time-honoured local way of summoning a fire engine from the nearest town?’
‘Not that I know of,’ Charles replied.
‘What a relief.’
The view from the tower was quite as good as Charles had predicted. The sea a brilliant blue, the sky clear, the hills on the other side of the estuary a pleasing green. They would probably take it in good part if he made a desperate lunge for the parapet. Didn’t know I could fly, I suppose? One of my many talents. The wind blew back Diana’s hair attractively. She was wearing a very short pair of white shorts with matching socks that came up just below the knee. Derek hadn’t previously seen her green singlet with a yellow stripe across it just below the breasts. It suited her; so too did her large sun glasses.
She turned to him. ‘Don’t you wish we had a house down here?’
Derek nodded. The archivists’ strike is now into its eighth week. Angry crowds of book lovers broke windows outside several public libraries yesterday. The archivists are demanding a basic rate of ten pounds a week. Last week booksellers announced that Mr Derek Cushing’s European Expansion in East Africa: 1870–1900 has become a best-seller in Burundi. Ninety-seven per cent of the population of Burundi one thought to be illiterate. Derek could remember dozens of dinner parties, when they had entertained more frequently, and the same topic: a small weekend place in the country. Suffolk’s still cheap. No, not any more. Lincolnshire then? A bit flat and dreary, isn’t it? Most of the participants had had no intention of buying anything anyway. I was thinking of something a little different: a semi in a dormitory suburb, a penthouse in an industrial overspill, not actually in the country but with the country not too far away. A chance to do an exciting survey of the sort of social problems that crop up where country meets town.
All three of them were silent. If I had stayed away they would be talking now, thought Derek. Charles would be pointing out interesting features of the panoramic view. How interested Diana had been by the story of the mermaid, how happy and exuberant and now his presence seemed to drain her. Once, and not so many years ago, he had told her similar anecdotes about buildings of historic interest. The piscina on the south side of the chancel —pronounced pisseena—was used by the priest to pour away the water he had used to wash the cup and his hands after communion. Strange that a small stone basin in a wall should have the name the Romans gave their fish-ponds; and so he would have talked about words and how they changed. And she had not found it dry and dull; but now my hair is falling out, and I suffer from piles and there’s no denying Charles is very well-preserved and she has never had to wash and mend his underwear. They are not long the days of wine and roses. Sympathies should belong to lovers and not to thwarted husbands. They could have kissed under the bells without his intrusion. So why not leave them now? Why tag along simply to watch your own defeat in each look and word that passes between them? You suffer and achieve nothing except an increase in their desire.
Outside the church Charles suggested that they went all three to see a nearby creek which could be reached by walking through some woods; a most delightful walk, he said.
‘You two go,’ answered Derek.
‘Are you sure? No, come on, Derek.’
‘I’d rather not.’
So Charles accepted it and he and Diana got into the silver grey Lancia and drove off towards their wood. Derek mounted his son’s bicycle and pedalled back to the house; a hard up-hill ride that made his thighs ache and misted his glasses with sweaty condensation.
He didn’t go into the house but taking one of the prawning-nets from the garage, where he had left them the night before, he headed down to the beach.
When he reached the shore Derek realized that he had no bag to put his possible catch in. He sat down on a rock and put his head in his hands. A fine sight he would be to any observer: a balding man with his prawning-net, sitting alone by the sea like a forgotten child. What possible point could there be in catching prawns anyway? Did any sane man pursue pop-eyed crustaceans while his wife was screwed on the ferny floor of a nearby wood? Was such a pursuit reasonable or probable? Derek imagined some alternatives: a trunk call to his solicitor, a feverish bicycle ride to the nearest town to buy a camera and then a blundering lumbering run through the undergrowth to surprise them with his flash bulb. A long swim towards America, or some more bizarre form of suicide involving a deadly jelly-fish. In my position there is nothing rational to be done. Simply by coming to Cornwall I have destroyed all normal courses of action, all natural responses.
The question was whether to wade into the sea in his trousers or whether to take them off. Stupid to get them wet. In sky-blue underpants Derek wandered along the beach searching for a container. After some time he found a rusty can. The prawns could be kept down with a flat stone. The next step was to find the prawns. From childhood holidays by the sea he remembered that prawns normally liked places where there was an abundance of the kind of seaweed with bubbles that pop when trodden upon. If he could find this weed and a firm sandy bottom there was every chance of success. The tide was low and just beginning to turn. Perfect conditions and in an estuary famous for its prawns.
For fifteen minutes he was unsuccessful but then as the tide began to flow they started to come, not small and sandy-coloured like shrimps but large and clear green in the sunlit water. He had forgotten how quickly they could dart away, forwards or backwards, to hide under a ledge of rock or in a clump of weed. They needed stalking carefully; the net had to be plunged down and then retracted quickly if they were not to escape. The best way would have been to have a bag tied round his neck to drop them into, so that both hands could be free to wield the large cumbersome net, but Derek managed well enough with his one free hand and the tin clutched firmly in the other. After an hour his fingers were numbed with cold, his back ached and his legs felt weak but he had filled the tin. Elated he splashed back to the shore and lay down on the shingle, listening to the prawns rustling and flipping under the retaining stone that blocked their escape. For the first time in several weeks he felt light-hearted. In circumstances like these? He thought of his wife’s white shorts discarded, her green vest tossed aside carelessly on some bush, he thought of more intimate details, but strangely his mood did not change immediately. Suffering and fear are sometimes said to give way to numbed indifference; but that wasn’t it at all. The truth was that while hunting his prawns he had forgotten her. So intent had he been on the green bottom of the sea that he had barely noticed the passage of time. A brief and futile piece of self-induced forgetfulness? A temporary anaesthetic to numb the pain? But the mood persisted. He had acted by himself and for himself without any suggestion from her and not in response to something she had done.
When he got back to the house she would ask him what he had been doing and he would give
her a full account and perhaps she would think: how typical of him to be so easily duped; searching for prawns while Charles and I were fucking. Maybe one day he would tell her that he had known but had gone prawning in spite of his knowledge. I enjoyed myself more because I knew, and he would laugh at her stupefaction. You see, I’m free. I let you have it away with him, not because I couldn’t stop you; I could have cramped your style to the bitter end, forced you to do everything with me, subjected you to family games on the sand till you screamed with anger and frustration, but I decided not to. Ironic, isn’t it, that you were bored with me because you thought you knew me through and through? Sad; because you didn’t begin to understand me. You jumped to a foregone conclusion and looked for easier pleasures. I forgive you. And she would weep as she had never wept before. Derek heard footsteps crunching on the shingle. He turned to see Angela looking down at him.
‘Catch anything?’
‘In the can, as they say in the film world; I haven’t counted them.’
‘Shrimps?’
‘No, prawns.’
Derek was suddenly aware that he was still trouserless. He started to reach for them but then stopped. Why bother? He laughed aloud. Angela gave him a questioning look.
‘I’m sorry,’ he murmured. ‘Shrimps, you see. Reminded me of my favourite spoonerism. Shrotted pimps.’ He looked at her expectantly. ‘Potted shrimps.’
‘Stupid of me,’ she replied with a wry smile.
Derek tried to think of something else amusing to say but invention failed him. He very much wished to avoid a repetition of the aggression of the previous evening. Angela was still standing beside him. He wanted to get up because he disliked any woman looking down at the top of his balding head, but the thought of standing up without his trousers kept him seated on the shingle. True, there was little difference between some swimming trunks and some underpants but all underwear had a greater tendency to appear soiled and stained, and Derek had not changed his pants for several days.
‘Why not sit down?’ he suggested.
When Angela had done so, she said, ‘What’ll you do with the prawns?’
‘There’ll be just about enough for each of us to have a couple before lunch.’
‘Why not eat them now?’
‘A small matter of cooking.’
‘We could light a bonfire and boil them in seawater.’
‘There’s nothing to keep the can above a fire, unless you’d care to hold it.’
Angela shrugged her shoulders. ‘I thought men were supposed to be able to solve that sort of problem.’
‘And I thought independent women didn’t make remarks like that, but we can but try.’ He got up and hurriedly clambered into his trousers.
‘If it’s all too much trouble, don’t bother,’ she replied.
‘I said we’d try.’
So they set about making a fire. Angela had some matches and they used her cigarette packet to provide the initial flame to ignite the dead heather, dry bracken and other kindling which Derek collected from the edge of the woods. The principal fuel was driftwood. After a fair amount of experimenting they managed to balance the can over the fire using two piles of stones and two thick planks of damp wood. Their hope was that the water would boil before these wooden supports burned through.
In the bright sunshine the flames were hardly visible but appearances were deceptive for the fire was a good one and the water heated up fast. As it started to boil, the prawns changed from brownish-green to pink as though a powerful dye had suddenly been put in the water.
‘What was so hard about that?’ asked Angela with a smile.
As she spoke one of the supports gave way and Derek had to give the can a hefty shove with a stick to save the prawns from the flames. The can and its contents spilled out onto the beach but well clear of the fire. Having cooled the cooked prawns in the sea, they stripped them and then started to eat.
‘I’ve never tasted better,’ Derek admitted and Angela didn’t argue. They ate seven and a half prawns each: the entire catch. Ahead of them the tide was slowly advancing up the beach making slight noises like a wet sheet brushing the shingle. The water sparkled, caught by the sun where the slight breeze ruffled the surface: like reflections in fragmented glass. To their left a low reef of black rocks jutted into the sea. The bonfire was dying down. Once again Derek could think of nothing to say. He prodded the fire with a stick sending a shower of sparks into the air. Angela was looking at him with undisguised curiosity.
‘Why were you so nasty yesterday?’ she asked pleasantly.
‘Why should I tell you?’
‘That’s a child’s evasion.’
‘It was a child’s question. One thing led to another as things tend to do.’ He tossed a stone down the beach into the sea. ‘Your friend would have said that I was temporarily overcome by the fragmentation, alienation and despair endemic in a decadent bourgeois culture.’
She lay back on the beach and shut her eyes. A long silence.
‘I’m afraid I’m not much good at instant honesty,’ said Derek.
‘You should give it a try; it’s not much harder than cooking prawns.’ She sat up and grinned at him. ‘Would you mind if I take off my shirt?’ she asked suddenly. Derek had noticed she was wearing no bra.
‘I’ve got to be honest?’ She didn’t answer. ‘It’s much harder than cooking prawns but I’ll try.’ He paused for a moment. It wasn’t nervousness precisely but his heart was beating faster and his mouth felt dry. ‘I do mind and I don’t, or part of me does and part of me doesn’t. I like looking at strange breasts … strange in the sense of new rather than deformed or grotesque, if you get my meaning; or to be strictly honest I think I like looking at strange breasts. You see it’s some time since I’ve had the chance, although there was a time when I did and enjoyed it thoroughly. I don’t find nudity boring like some people do, or say they do, because working in a library I’m not in daily contact so to speak —we don’t have a collection of erotica, you see—so I wouldn’t mind from that point of view. But looking has other effects and although I like to think that … no, the other effects don’t need explaining. Elderly men in strip clubs often hold newspapers on their knees, or laps I should say. Then I suppose somebody, my son, for example, might come upon us as I looked at them and might draw conclusions that were incorrect; might assume that we were not merely being honest with each other but were being intimate or about to be intimate. Other considerations too. If you take your shirt off I will want to look at your breasts but won’t want to be seen looking at them because that would make it appear that I’m so tit-orientated that I can’t behave naturally in the face of something natural. You might want to talk to me about racial integration or a voluntary wage restraint policy and I might want to extend my hand and this might get in the way of a useful discussion of topical … I’m afraid I find decisions rather hard to make so I usually let other people make them for me.’ He smiled apologetically. ‘If you want to take your shirt off you ought to.’
‘I don’t think so,’ she replied quietly.
Derek was surprised at the extent of his disappointment. He had been certain that she would take it off whatever he said; have made the decision for him and then have asked him to be honest about his feelings. Being a blonde, her nipples would have been as pleasantly pink as the prawns they had just eaten and the skin around them pebble smooth and very white in the sun. The black rocks, the white skin, the blue sea and that single touch of pink … those two touches of pink. As a child he had played doctors and patients with several little girls. Hadn’t there been a similar atmosphere? Playing at doctors or playing at honesty could have similar results. Is the pain there? he remembered asking, prodding a plump little stomach. Fluttering eyelids, a slight blush and the patient would say: It’s lower down, doctor. There? You ought to have a proper examination. I feel better … No, Derek. I’m still the doctor. Anger and alarm. You’re not the doctor, you’re Derek and take your hand away at once.
Perhaps he had completely misread Angela’s mood; invested the occasion with an ambiguity it didn’t possess.
‘Are we still being honest?’ he asked.
‘If you want to be.’
‘I would like you to take off your shirt. I wasn’t being intentionally dishonest before.’
Angela took off one of her shoes and tipped some stones out of it. Then she shook her head slowly.
‘You weren’t being dishonest before, intentionally or unintentionally. You want me to take off my shirt because I decided not to. You’re more interested in influencing me than in seeing my tits.’
‘My desire to influence you goes no further than the removal of your shirt.’
Angela threw back her head and laughed until she was weak with laughing. At last she said, ‘That’s what all the boys say … the words are sometimes slightly different.’
‘Haven’t you broken the rules?’ asked Derek.
‘Sod the rules.’ She winked at him. ‘If I show you, promise you won’t tell?’
‘I think I can be honest about that.’
‘Just a short look, mind. Don’t go making a meal out of them.’
‘I’m a little old for that.’
She was laughing again as she undid her shirt so they shook up and down. Derek started laughing too.
‘It’s the air down here; does something for a girl.’ She paused. ‘What do you think?’
‘The air?’
‘Them, you fool. John liked bigger nipples. I used to tell him it had something to do with babies.’
‘I think they’re very nice.’
She looked down modestly.
‘They’re quite convenient; not too large or anything like that. No lumps yet.’
‘Like pink prawns,’ he said.
‘You’re bloody twisted.’
‘I meant the colour of your nipples.’
‘I suppose they are.’ She looked at him with sudden concern. ‘You look sad. All that laughter and now you look sad. Why?’
‘Still honest?’ he asked.
‘Of course,’ she replied.