Checkmate

by MARY HOCKING

  Amy was dismayed. She preferred to be rebuked rather than praised by the minister whose standards were dauntingly high. She rearranged the position of the milk jug and the sugar bowl and took a piece of cake.

  ‘It is for this reason that I came to you.’ Jonas Harkness studied her flushed, anxious face thoughtfully. ‘You never married?’

  A crumb of cake caught in Amy’s throat and she began to cough violently. When at last she had recovered her breath and her vision was no longer blurred, she saw that it was pity and not marriage that was being offered to her.

  ‘It is something I have never been able to understand . . .’ the minister said, ‘. . . why the blessings of life should be denied to those who seem most worthy to receive them.’

  Amy looked out of the window. The glass was misting over, but she could just make out old Mrs. Parker, holding her big man’s umbrella so that all the drips went down her unhappy daughter’s neck. Three of the spikes poked out, threatening anyone who tried to pass the old lady on the narrow pavement. Irritation came to Amy’s rescue.

  ‘Marriage isn’t everything,’ she said firmly. ‘I should have liked it, of course, but one has to be practical; and the sooner we realize that there are some things we can’t have, the better chance we have of enjoying what remains to us.’ She felt like adding that old Mrs. Parker had never known love, but this would have been very unkind, and tactless, too, since it could probably be applied to the minister. So she went on, ‘But I have had good health, a home, and enough money. I have enjoyed running the shop and it has kept me from being lonely. And I still look forward to things . . . That’s most important of all, the way you feel inside yourself.’

  ‘Ah, yes!’ he nodded. ‘The quality of your spiritual life.’ That was not what Amy had meant, but she could not express her meaning except to say that there was a part of her that was young and expectant still. As this might lead back to the subject of matrimony, she said instead, ‘I’m well content.’

  ‘How many of us could say that!’ There was a bitter edge to his voice. ‘But then you are a good woman.’ This brought him back to the point at which he had allowed himself to be sidetracked. ‘It was for this reason that I came to see you.’

  Amy was relieved. Perhaps someone was ill and needed visiting, or perhaps he wanted her to take a stall at the bazaar. She hoped it was not the table-linen and lace, her eyes were not good enough. As she steeled herself to refuse the table-linen and lace stall, he said:

  ‘When you spoke at the prayer meeting the other week, I knew that you were speaking to me. Oh, don’t look so concerned. God spoke through you that evening.’

  Amy stared at him, her mouth sucked in so that her lips quite disappeared.

  ‘In our church,’ he went on, ‘we do not believe in confession to a priest, we need no mediator between us and Almighty God. And in this we are undoubtedly right. But there is one aspect of the confessional from which we might learn something. It takes considerably more humility to confess to another human being than it does to confess to God in the privacy of our own homes.’ He raised his head and gazed at Amy with hard, burning eyes. ‘I come to you in all humility.’

  A look of resentment came into the old woman’s faded eyes. In her lap her fingers plucked irritably at the soft material of her dress. She had reached an age when she did not want to be directly involved in other people’s dramas. On the mantelshelf a little gilt clock ticked away the uncommunicative seconds; she glanced at it, as though hoping it would remind her of some task which must be performed at this moment. The smell of the minister’s wet clothes drew her attention back to him. The smell reminded her of small boys, uncomfortable and apprehensive. When she looked at the minister she saw that beads of sweat had formed along his hair line. This sign of weakness in the strong moved her in spite of herself.

  ‘Oh, don’t, don’t!’ she said gently. ‘Don’t distress yourself like this, God is good. He would not ask this of you.’

  ‘Your God is good. But I have never known him.’

  ‘He is the same God.’

  ‘Perhaps. But I have created another God; I have served him all my life and now I must accept his punishment.’

  ‘He is the God of love.’

  ‘I am a man who finds it hard to love. I loved only once in my life, and then I betrayed it, dragged it in the dust . . .’

  There was silence again after the little burst of speech. Amy stared at the table; she had the expression of someone who is waiting for something very unpleasant but not altogether unexpected.

  ‘You know of what I am speaking?’ he said in a dry voice.

  ‘There are always rumours in a village.’

  He was not interested in rumour: the truth for him was more terrible. He spoke as though he had forgotten where he was, the words were forced out with much pain like a man whose chest has been crushed but who still must speak.

  ‘Somewhere it has been said that love is born of lust. This is true. When she was there in my room, I was not conscious of her, only of my own desire. But afterwards, when she had gone away, I found that I loved her.’

  The old woman was still now, sitting with her head bowed and her hands clasped in her lap as though resigned to his need.

  ‘The terrible thing is that I cannot repent. It is the only part of my life that I would want to live again. I would renounce God for one moment with her.’

  The muscles in his forehead stood out and his face grew rigid as he spoke the words. Amy said softly:

  ‘You speak as though you cannot have both.’

  ‘That is blasphemy!’

  ‘Oh, dear!’ She pulled herself up straight in her chair as though she had been caught sleeping. Her hands began to flutter agitatedly, straightening her cardigan, brushing crumbs off her skirt. ‘I don’t know what I’m saying, my mind wanders lately . . .’

  ‘This is all you have to say to me?’ he asked.

  A hot flush spread over her face and neck, her chin began to quiver. She was suddenly old and petulant; she turned her face away from him and muttered:

  ‘I never thought to hear such things.’

  ‘I see I have offended you,’ he said in his most sarcastic voice. She began to collect the tea things, but when she had put one plate on top of another she stopped. She put a knife down on the table.

  ‘Since you have asked for my advice, I will give it to you.’

  He looked at her warily, suspecting her tone, which was practical.

  ‘You should send Gabriel to the technical school in Truro. He wants to go there.’

  His face reddened; he clenched his hands and waited until he had composed himself. It was a very long time since anyone had given him unsolicited advice.

  ‘Gabriel has nothing to do with this,’ he said.

  She went on collecting the crockery. She looked determined in the obdurate way that old people do once they have started on something that they mean to finish.

  ‘You can do nothing about Melita,’ she said. ‘But you can do something about Gabriel. If he stays here he will come to a bad end. He is better away from you.’

  ‘I came to you in humility . . .’ He choked on the word. ‘It was a mistake.’

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I think it was.’

  He went out of the room and Amy finished clearing the table. It was wet and cheerless and the light was fading early. When the tray was stacked and the cloth folded, she stood for a moment by the table looking round the gradually darkening room. She must be getting fanciful in her old age, because it was not the wet smell of the minister’s clothes that seemed to pervade the room: it was the scent of jasmine.

  Chapter Ten

  The house interested Gabriel because it was cluttered with old furniture and useless bric-à-brac whose obscure origins fascinated him. There was dust everywhere and a lot of smells had accumulated because the windows were seldom opened. It was a dark house and this gave it a certain mystery, a suggestion that there were things that it could keep to itself
. It had been built in a period which did not respect compact design and it was full of waste spaces, long passages, big landings with dark alcoves. One would never be quite sure at any given time whether the house was empty. Like now. Gabriel stood in the hall, close against the grandfather clock. Opposite him was the dining-room door which was shut; but further along the drawing-room door was half-open and he could see light falling on wallpaper so faded that the pattern was no longer discernible. Old Mrs. Jory could not be in the room or she would have drawn the curtains. But Catherine might be there. It was no use listening, Catherine was a silent person; if she came down those steep dark stairs now, Gabriel had a suspicion that the treads would not creak. But he would see her, because there was a stained glass window at the turn of the stairs and her outline would show against it. To the side of the stairs, a dark corridor led to the kitchen. He could smell the cabbage which had been cooked for lunch and he could hear a tap dripping.

  The house was like an old person, closed in upon itself, concerned only with the past. Gabriel had no time for the past as represented in history lessons, but here it had a reality which both excited and repelled him. A noise like the whirring of rusty wings came intermittently from the diaphragm of the grandfather clock, farther away a shutter flapped on complaining hinges, and all around him wood cracked and creaked. The house had begun to talk to itself. ‘It won’t be long now!’ Gabriel murmured; and this silly, random thought spurred him on. He moved swiftly across the hall to the foot of the stairs and then paused, turning his head from side to side. He wore only denim hipsters which he had this afternoon soaked in the bath to make them fit really tight; his hair had been cut forcibly by his father and stuck out in ragged tufts around his head. Above him on the wall was a lurid painting of a pirate ship breaking up on the Manacles. Gabriel might well have been a survivor as he stood at the foot of the stairs listening. After a moment, he went up the stairs, his bare feet moving quickly and lightly because this was the best way to prevent the treads creaking. It was not the first time that he had been in the house unannounced. He had never gone beyond the turn in the stairs before. Today, however, he had taken a long drink from an old, dust-speckled decanter in the kitchen and had been miraculously cured of fear. He went past the stained glass window against which his form was clearly outlined, on up to the first floor. There was a door straight ahead and two doors on the wall to the left. He tiptoed across to the door straight ahead which was half-open. The room had a sour smell as though a chamber pot had not been cleaned out properly. He decided that this must be old Mrs. Jory’s room. He walked past the other doors which were closed; at the end of the landing there was another flight of stairs, narrow and uncarpeted. A big picture of the charge at Balaclava hung on the wall at the bottom of these stairs; the soldiers were stiff as wax dummies, but the horses, with their dilated nostrils and wildly thrashing hooves, had the feel of the thing. Gabriel paused again and listened. Water spluttered in a cistern somewhere near, an unpleasant, bronchial sound: old age again. He went up the narrow stairs without asking himself how he was going to get down. Life was not worth living if one tried to avoid trouble. Trouble is my inheritance, he thought, and the words rang splendidly like great bells in his head. There was a narrow landing at the top of the stairs. The roof sloped steeply. All around him there were scurrying noises in the wainscoting. He could see the box-room at one end of the landing and a lavatory at the other; the lavatory must be out of use because there were boxes heaped on the seat. In between the two rooms was another door. Gabriel bent down and looked through the keyhole; it was rusted and he could not see anything. He opened the door and walked into the room. He felt light-headed and unconcerned with consequences: It was rather an anti-climax to find the room empty. The first thing he noticed was the air. The window was open and the curtains filled out in the draught from the door. The air did not make him feel as good as he might have expected. The room was long and narrow and the roof sloped so steeply that it was like being in a tent. There was no carpet and hardly any furniture, only a bed against one wall, a small table by the window, and a chair. But it was not at all like a prison. It was very bright and clean; the ceiling and walls were inexpertly whitewashed and there were specks of whitewash on the floor; the floorboards were worn, but they shone and he could smell polish. There was a white quilt on the bed with purple flowers embroidered on it in a rather exotic design. The room was full of sound, birds scratching in the eaves, the wind rustling the branches of the cedar, the distant boom of the sea on the rocks. He began to feel guilty and also rather sick. He went to the window. The room must be at the side of the house, he could see the moors away to the east and the sea to the west; there was a long drop immediately below. In the days when they were young and Anna was locked in her room, he had dreamt of rescuing her. The wind whipped around him and goose pimples came up on his bare chest. He turned quickly away from the window and sat for a moment on the chair. His pulse was beating fast and his head was beginning to ache. He felt very depressed. This was so obviously Anna’s room, and yet there was nothing tangible here. It was all light and air. Then he noticed the door in the one upright wall. He went across to it and pulled the knob; the door opened to reveal a shallow cupboard. Anna’s dresses were hanging there, all three of them, but the slacks and the raincoat were missing. On the floor there was a mound of old blankets. He was just turning away when he noticed that the mound had a hard edge. He lifted up the blankets and saw that there was a trunk underneath. While he was standing looking down at the trunk, the door behind him opened. He had the presence of mind to drop the blanket into position before he turned.

  He had been right about Catherine: one would never hear her approach. Gabriel shut the cupboard door and Catherine shut the bedroom door. They moved towards the middle of the room and surveyed each other. Gabriel’s face was grey as lard; his shoulder bones gleamed sharply and his thin chest laboured. Catherine, calm as an ivory madonna, said:

  ‘I’m afraid Anna has gone out, Gabriel.’

  Gabriel belched and put a shaking hand to his mouth.

  ‘She should have told you. It was very thoughtless of her.’ She looked round the room as though it was new to her. ‘Do you often come here?’

  He licked his lips; he was beginning to sweat profusely. Catherine crossed the room and sat on the bed.

  ‘Come and sit beside me.’

  He sat on the bed, hard against the wooden headrest. There was a ticking sound and he noticed that the wood was riddled with tiny holes. Catherine said:

  ‘Tell me about you and Anna.’

  He could not think of Anna with Catherine sitting there beside him. She was wearing a lilac dress in some coarse material; the dress fitted very tightly and he kept thinking how it must chafe her fine skin.

  ‘Are you in love with Anna?’ she asked.

  ‘We go for walks and I tell her about birds.’ He did not seem to have proper control over his speech, the words slipped and slithered. Catherine repeated:

  ‘Are you in love with her, Gabriel?’

  He did not dare risk speech again. Catherine’s long white hands were folded in her lap like a prayer. She had a long white neck, too. When she turned her head he could see a red mark where the edge of the dress had cut into her throat.

  ‘Poor Gabriel! Is she very cruel to you?’ Her eyes had a strange, dreamy look as though she was half-asleep. ‘You must learn to be cruel, too. Do you realize that? Love is a struggle for dominion. A competition in cruelty.’

  It was not just her eyes that did not focus, it was her whole face. Gabriel said: ‘I think I’m going to faint.’ He put his head between his knees; his tight hipsters cut him in the groin and it was agony. Catherine sat beside him as though she had noticed nothing. When he felt a little better and sat up again, she said:

  ‘Does your father know that you come here?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘What would he do if he did know?’

  ‘He would beat me.’


  ‘Does he still beat you?’ She looked at him with interest and the white hands tightened in her lap.

  ‘Not often now.’

  ‘No one has ever beaten me. Tell me about it. Does he make you strip for him?’

  But Gabriel had other things to tell. ‘I drank something in the kitchen,’ he gasped. ‘In an old decanter. It wasn’t poison, was it? It’s making me very ill.’

  Hot pincers clawed at his stomach. He did not wait for her to answer, but rushed out of the room and down the stairs; the cistern was still gurgling so he had no trouble in finding the right room. When he came out she was waiting in the centre of the big landing; her hands were quietly folded again but she eyed him more sharply than before.

  ‘Why were you looking in Anna’s cupboard?’

  Gabriel had recovered himself a little. He lied, ‘I wanted to see if her raincoat was there. If it was gone, I knew that she was out.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘Please don’t tell her.’

  ‘No, I won’t tell her.’ He wanted to go, but he found it difficult to turn away while she was looking at him. She said, ‘You don’t want me to tell your father either, do you, Gabriel?’ Because if I told him he would beat you, wouldn’t he?’ She came across to him and touched his arm. ‘This is a secret between us, Gabriel.’ Her hand stayed on his arm, cold as a dead thing. He jerked away and ran down the stairs and out of the house.

  When he got home he was convinced that whatever Catherine might do, God would have acquainted his father of all that had happened. He went into the house prepared for a beating. To his amazement, his father informed him that he had decided to send him to the technical school in Truro.

  Chapter Eleven

  ‘That little horror William Abbott was messing about with a piece of paper,’ Rhoda told a fellow teacher as they revived themselves after the rigours of the day at the tea-shop in Trewellian. ‘It was all very ostentatious, so I knew I was meant to see it.’