PM_E_441 - Cold Snap

by Francis King

  ‘Do you think she’ll like it? You remember, she liked the London bus I made for you.’

  ‘I’m sure she’ll treasure it.’ Michael began to rewrap the carving.

  This was what he had gone over to remove from his desk and give to Christine and had then, on an impulse, pushed back into the drawer. He now once again went over to the desk, took out the package and peeled away the friable, yellow sheet of newsprint. He turned the wooden bobby over in his hands, staring down at it. The manikin, with his shiny black hair and boots and his shiny red cheeks, seemed to grin up at him with an idiot’s bonhomie. He felt an ache in his throat and a pricking of tears.

  No, he would not pass it on to her. The present would mean so little to her. She would hoard it away somewhere in a cupboard or trunk. She might even throw it away when making a move from Oxford. It was highly unlikely that she and Klaus would ever meet again. He would thank Klaus from her and tell him how delighted she had been with the gift. He would keep it for himself.

  He walked oyer to the desk and slipped it back into the drawer, with a feeling both of guilt and of joy.

  Chapter Twenty Two

  Christine saw Thomas long before he saw her. He was with two other prisoners, not known to her, and they were all laughing as they passed under the railway bridge. Then one of them punched Thomas on the shoulder in play, and they laughed even more uproariously. She felt a fleeting resentment that they should be so light-hearted when for the past few days she had been so anxious and depressed.

  When at last he noticed her, he waved, grinned and began to race down the hill, his boots scattering gravel. Unashamedly they embraced at the corner where the main road curved up to the station, disregarding the stares, inquisitive, disapproving or amused, of the people hurrying, often laden with suitcases or bags, past them. For the first time since she had heard the news that she was pregnant, Christine felt happy.

  ‘Oh, darling Thomas, Thomas, Thomas!’ As she held him, there was an approaching rattle and then a long, melancholy whistle from an express plunging into the station overheard. Steam billowed downwards. She fancied that she could not merely taste its sulphur but also feel its heat. ‘It seems such an age.’

  ‘Years and years.’

  Hands clasped, they began to walk towards the centre.

  He turned his head and stared at her. He shook his head. ‘Christine – you still look beautiful. But – not well.’

  ‘Don’t I? That’s because I’ve been away from you. I feel better already.’ Her eyes shone; she put her cheek again his sleeve and hugged him closer. ‘What’s your news?’

  ‘You know my news. All those long, long letters written in bad English. Or perhaps you don’t read them?’

  ‘Of course I read them. Over and over again. I think I must know them by heart.’

  ‘And yet your letters become shorter and shorter.’

  ‘That was because nothing ever happened. Home was worse, far worse than I’d ever expected. My father so difficult, everything so boring. I don’t think I’ll ever live there again.’

  ‘What are you saying? I’m sure your father needs you.’

  Hurriedly she changed the subject. Later she would tell him about her father’s death – and everything else. ‘Everything else’ was chiefly her shameful absence from the funeral.

  Aunt Eva had been clearly disbelieving when Christine had produced her excuse of a bout of flu. ‘If you’re seedy, perhaps Michael might drive you over? After all, he’s a cousin by marriage of your father – even if they never got on.’

  ‘But I’ve told you – I’ve got flu. I have a temperature. Well over a hundred. In a draughty church and at a graveside in this weather, I might easily get pneumonia.’

  ‘I do think that you should forget all about that little showdown. Unkind and silly things were said. But now is not the time to –’

  ‘The ‘‘little showdown’’, as you call it, has absolutely nothing to do with my not being able to come. Can’t you get it? I’ve got flu. I’m ill. Ill!’ It was with the desperation of someone whose lie has failed to be convincing that she shouted the last word.

  ‘What an odd girl you are! Well, if that’s the case – we’ll just have to manage without you, I suppose. Though how I’ll explain to everyone … Fortunately all his British Legion friends have been quite marvellous in rallying round. And so has everyone at the church.’

  Yes, she would confess her mean-spirited behaviour to Thomas in due course – but not now, when she and he were both so overjoyed at being re-united. ‘Oh, Thomas, you haven’t shaved properly. Look!’ She ran the back of her hand under his chin and over a cheek. ‘It’s dreadful.’

  He laughed. ‘ I can’t help it. For five, six days now I’ve had to use the same blade.’

  ‘And I promised to send you some! I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.’

  When they arrived at Michael’s room, it was to find a note, large Italian italic letters in red ink, on the hall table: ‘Sorry. Last minute change of plan. Have had to go to London to see June’s dress rehearsal. Clothes in bedroom. Love and kisses, M.’

  Christine looked up from it, smiling. ‘I don’t know if I’ll shed many tears over that.’ She handed the note to Thomas. ‘I’m glad we’re going to be alone. Aren’t you?’ At once she felt a twinge of guilt for her disloyalty.

  Thomas frowned down at the note as he read it. Then, as if shrugging off some disagreeable reminder, he screwed it into a ball and neatly lobbed it into the wastepaper basket. He smiled at her. ‘Yes, that’s good news.’

  She followed him into the bedroom and watched him as he changed. She had always found both a pathos and an attraction in the rough khaki vests and pants issued to him and she did so now. She crossed over and put her arms around his neck. But on this occasion, mysteriously, the touch of his flesh and her pressure against his body filled her with nothing but desolation.

  ‘Christine.’ He ran a hand down her neck and repeated: ‘Christine.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘There’s something I must tell you. Bad news.’

  ‘Bad news?’

  ‘I didn’t wish to write and tell you. I don’t wish to tell you now because I’m so happy to see you again.’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘I’ve been posted.’

  ‘Posted?’

  He nodded, ‘To Norfolk.’ He pronounced the last syllable as in ‘folk’. ‘I must leave next week.’

  ‘Oh, Christ!’ She put her hands to her cheeks. Then she sank on to the bed.

  Puzzled he sat down beside her, the shirt that he had just put on unbuttoned and his feet in only the borrowed socks. ‘ What is it? Don’t be so upset. Come on.’ He pulled her towards him but she jerked away. ‘We knew such a thing can happen. We can write. You can come to visit. Christine!’ Suddenly there was a scolding note in this voice. ‘What’s the matter with you?’

  She sat up. ‘ Well, I’m afraid I’ve also got some bad news. Even worse news than yours.’ She stared fixedly at him. He stared back, waiting for what she might reveal. ‘ I’m going to have a baby.’

  ‘Oh, Christine!’ She did not know whether it was with horror or joy that he grasped both her hands in his. ‘ Is this true? Are you sure?’

  She nodded.

  ‘No mistake?’

  ‘Not unless the doctor has made a mistake.’

  There was a silence. Then he said: ‘What do we do?’

  ‘Well, that’s what we have to decide. Now, if possible – this evening. Oh, I’ve been so worried.’

  Listlessly he began to button up Michael’s monogrammed shirt. Then with a sigh, he got to his feet, to look for the shoes that Michael had put out for him. ‘ It is you. We must think of you, Christine, you only, what’s best for you.’ He reached for the tie, crossed to the glass and, peering into it, fastened the knot and then tugged it tight.

  ‘Oh, your tie! Can’t you ever get it straight?’ She went over and pulled the knot leftwards. As she did so, he slid an arm round
her waist. She looked up and saw only despair.

  Together they once more sank on to the bed. A hand on his knee, she began to explain to him the possible alternatives that they must face. But he seemed barely to listen. From time to time he would nod, shake his head or ask some question in a flat, almost peevish voice. It was only when she spoke of the possibility of brazening the whole thing out that she aroused him.

  ‘No, no. Impossible. We can’t do that.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘It’ll be terrible for you. We can’t do that. I forbid you to do it. Forbid you, you understand?’ He got up off the bed and stared down at her. ‘It’s a mad idea.’

  ‘Mad? What’s mad about it? For me that’s the best – the only – solution.’

  ‘Yes, yes, now. Now it’s easy to say – this is the solution. Such solutions seem very brave, very romantic. But later …’ He bent over and grabbed her hands. ‘You can’t do it. You must have adoption. Or someone to look after baby. Anything. You cannot keep baby. Anything better than disgrace for you.’ His English was becoming increasingly incoherent, as always under the pressure of some uncontrollable emotion. ‘Yes, you’re a strong, a brave woman. But that’s not enough, not enough. Everything is against us. Everything, everyone. We’re alone. Understand? Alone.’

  ‘Oh, all that doesn’t frighten me.’ But already his fatalistic acceptance of defeat had unnerved her. She had looked to him for support, believing that with it she was capable of anything. But without it her determination drifted and blurred, even as she argued with him.

  ‘Always what we were trying to do was impossible. Why didn’t we understand that before? We were fools. I was a fool. Now see what I’ve done to you. I’m terribly to blame. I’ve spoiled your life.’

  ‘Of course you’re not to blame. You’re no more to blame than I am. I went into this with eyes wide open – and arms outstretched.’

  So they continued to argue, he confusedly stumbling over words and snatching at phrases, she urgent and precise. In all that he said there was reason, logic, commonsense; while her own arguments – yes, he was right – betrayed her feeble, self-deluding romanticism. Now it seemed a heroic thing to defy the world; but next year, and the year after that, and in all the years to come …? She rested her head against the bedpost, overcome by a shattering weariness. Never before had she felt so destitute of hope, self-confidence, even the desire to go on living. Meanwhile Thomas’s unhappy voice went on and on, on and on, eager to persuade her of all the things that, in her heart, she knew to be true.

  Finally she said: ‘ Yes, you’re right. You’re quite right.’

  ‘What will you do then?’

  She wished that he had said: ‘What will we do then?’ As it was, he seemed to be making the decision solely hers. She shrugged. ‘Oh, I could go and stay in the Dunnes’ cottage. Or I might even go to June’s doctor.’

  He gripped her arm. ‘No. No doctor! Never! Promise me. Promise me!’

  ‘You’re hurting me. Let me go!’ She shook herself free. At that moment she hated him.

  They went out and had a morose tea at Fuller’s. As they both fell silent, the thought came to her: she had still said not a word to Thomas of her father’s death. She had thought nothing about her father since his funeral less than a week before. She had not even telephoned Aunt Eva to ask how it had gone off and if all was well with her. She was now horrified that she had been so self-centred.

  As though by mutual consent, they went back to Balliol as soon as their tea was over. Thomas changed back into his uniform in silence while she leafed through a copy of The New Statesman. Not a word flickered between them. Then, still in silence, they began to walk slowly back to the camp. Thomas whistled under his breath the first notes of his setting of the psalm 137, over and over again, until it so much got on her nerves that eventually she burst out: ‘Oh, can’t you either whistle the whole thing or drop it altogether?’ He looked at her in hurt astonishment and fell silent.

  From the strip of waste ground just before the intersection where the slushy path veered first right and then upwards towards the camp, the blare of over-amplified music assaulted them. Through the barely fledged trees, they could see the caravans, tents and booths of a fair. People began to pass them, coming and going. Nearer the entrance some prisoners, clearly without any money, slouched, hands deep in pockets, before a coconut shy. A girl of ten or eleven in a pink rayon dress and black patent-leather shoes, a pink ribbon in her hair, raised a hooter to her lips and, as she ran behind these prisoners, blew it repeatedly into the backs of their necks. She skipped on, giggling wildly, while her victims slowly turned, scowled after her, and then resumed their apathetic stance.

  ‘We’re very early. Shall we go in?’

  ‘Go in?’

  ‘Why not?’

  A pause, a shrug. ‘If you wish.’

  They pushed their way through a mass of laughing, sweating people in their best weekend clothes, and emerged on to an open space surrounded by sideshows. While a small boy was noisily vomiting into the grass, his mother stood unconcerned beside him, his half-finished ice-cream cone held in her hand. From the nearby swings there came the piercing screams of girls clutching at their billowing skirts. An old drunk in a cloth cap, with an almost bridgeless nose, lurched against Thomas and then demanded: ‘Who d’you think you’re shoving? Fucking Kraut,’ he muttered as he staggered off. A few drops of rain fell out of the clear sky. It was unusually hot and humid for March.

  Christine found herself taking a perverse, self-taunting pleasure in the ugliness of the scene. She had always loved fairs, with their din, their milling crowds, and their smells of cheap scent, sweat and frying foods. But now the garishness and crudity filled her with arrogant distaste. Perched on some railings, a boy with an acne-scarred face let out a piercing whistle as she passed him, hands pulling at the corners of his mouth, so that he looked like a malevolent gargoyle. Her contempt and loathing intensified.

  ‘Mind out, Fritz!’ Two workmen in overalls thrust their way past, hefting a roundabout horse between them. One of them looked down at Christine’s legs and shouted at Thomas: ‘You’re in luck today, aren’t you?’

  A few more drops of rain spattered down out of the clear sky. The amplifier of the giant Ferris wheel at the centre of the fair was blaring out I want to be happy’. A baby in an apparently unattended pram began to wail. No one paid any attention to it.

  ‘Let’s go,’ Thomas said in a low, miserable voice. ‘Why do we stay here?’

  At that moment a group of youths overtook them. One of them elbowed Thomas and another put a hand on his shoulders and pushed him aside. Then another turned and, with an attempt at playfulness, flipped off his cap. Wearily, lips compressed, Thomas picked up the cap and dusted it off on his sleeve. His mouth sagged like a child’s on the verge of tears. ‘Fuck you!’ he muttered. He clutched Christine’s arm, ‘Why do we not leave?’

  ‘No, it’s all rather fun. Enjoy yourself, let yourself go.’ She was now hating the whole scene even more than ever. But she felt the desire not merely to hurt and humiliate him but, by descending deeper and deeper into the revulsion and horror with which the crowds now filled her, to batter her sensibilities until she lost all feeling. She found herself obsessively searching out more and more sordid details of the scene. Even the condoms abandoned by couples, many of them no doubt prisoners and their girlfriends, who had used the area as their place of assignation before the arrival of the fair, compelled her fastidious, fascinated gaze.

  ‘Let’s go on the wheel.’

  He stared at her, bewildered and stricken. ‘But it’s so noisy. And maybe dangerous.’

  ‘Dangerous! Don’t be silly. They have all sorts of safety regulations. Come on!’

  Reluctantly he trailed after her, to wait in a jostling crowd for the wheel to descend and halt for its next load. Not far ahead of them a large woman in a man’s black overcoat turned to survey the queue and then began to cackle with laughter, her mout
h so wide open that Christine could see her uvula wriggling up and down like a baby’s finger. Thomas turned away, imagining that her boisterous mirth was directed at him and Christine, rather than at some of her friends immediately behind them.

  At last their turn came, and they squeezed themselves into a tiny, swaying gondola. They were so tightly packed that Thomas had to slip an arm round Christine’s waist. The two youths in the gondola ahead were attempting to spit down on to the ancient, elongated greyhound asleep below the wheel on a bed of straw. From time to time the dog grunted, looked up at the ascending wheel and scratched an ear.

  Yet again the amplifier began to blare out ‘I want to be happy.’ The gondola creaked, jerked forward, jerked backwards and then juddered off. A strand of Christine’s hair blew across Thomas’s mouth. Impatiently he brushed it away, even though in the past he had always taken so much pleasure in stroking it or kissing it. As they rose higher, his arm tightened round her waist. Far away, they could now glimpse the winding river, the squat station, the soaring towers of Christ Church and All Souls, and the entrance to the camp. Immediately below, the crowds milled, shouted, laughed, sweated, embraced, won and lost money, sucked their ice creams, smoked their cigarettes. But she would not look below. However briefly, they had escaped from all that, as on to a mountain peak. Oh, Thomas, I love you, how much I love you! She had forgotten that during their argument earlier she had called him ‘Doubting Thomas’. She felt towards him none of the previous exasperation and despair, only tenderness. She rested her head on his chest, feeling the pressure of his collarbone through his rough battledress tunic.

  Suddenly the gondola jolted and tipped first forward and then, more violently, back, while the music briefly became a discordandy amplified screech before grating into silence. Almost at the summit of their ascent, they were now motionless, dangling over a void. One of the two boys ahead let out an anguished wail. The amplifier began to crackle. Then over the crackling a North County voice boomed: ‘Nothing to worry about, ladies and gents. We’ll have this fixed in a moment now. Just keep calm, ladies and gents, and enjoy the view. That’s the way, just keep calm.’