South of the Lights

by Angela Huth

  Protected as he was from Rosie by the visions of his Leopard, the steely needle of real alarm, that punctured even this protective skin, concerned death: what if he should die, now, unable to see the Leopard again? That he should go to his grave without ever speaking of his love, without enriching her life with the knowledge of its existence, seemed to him a tragedy beyond contemplation. It also seemed quite likely. He felt very close to dying, at this moment: sweat seeping over his body, head thumping, eyes pricking, hands weak, three hot-water bottles scalding his shins. It would not be a dramatic death, a courageous death, his: it would be a mere death. There would be no reason for the Leopard to hear of his passing, unless she happened to be in the Star on the day of his funeral and someone mentioned it. There would be no possibility of her extending so much as a sigh of regret. In the circumstances, Henry reflected, perhaps it would be better to start wresting himself back from the gaping jaws – pull himself together, face the horizon, breast the waves: for where there was life, in his case, there was at least constant new hope of seeing the Leopard again.

  The thought invigorated him. Almost at once he felt better. Unused to illness – not a day in bed for twenty years – Henry remembered it was a question of mind over body: think yourself well and the battle is half over.

  During the night he braced himself to put his theory into practice and, in some measure, it worked. The fact that the swirling, sweaty sheets clung to him like tendrils, his damp pyjamas chafed, his head ached and his throat was a hollow cinder mattered to him not at all: such bodily discomforts were quite bearable. What he could not endure was the torment of his mind: mind over mind – there was the weakness. That was the part that did not work.

  For no sooner had Henry re-established himself firmly upon the banks of life (a not ignoble feat which one day he would confide to the Leopard) he was at once beset by one of its tribulations: worry. Searing worry that increased its grip with every moment – the worry that the Leopard would return to the Star and here, in his prison bed, Henry would miss her. At the thought of such irony, having surreptitiously managed to visit the pub every day since her appearance, Henry groaned out loud. Rosie, wonderfully alert to any such signs of distress, came hurrying from her armchair downstairs.

  ‘Oh, my poor love, what’s the matter now?’ she asked, in a voice appropriately low for a sick room. ‘What can I do for you?’

  As there was nothing Rosie could do to alleviate Henry’s real suffering, but as he felt too weak to say so, he remained silent. Rosie took this to be serious. With great diligence she repeated all her useless ministrations – pumping pillows, straightening sheets, even blowing her warm tea-and-biscuits breath on to the burning skin of his forehead. Henry nodded ungratefully and finally, imagining that the information would put him at least partly at his ease, she said again how comfortable she had managed to make herself downstairs, considering.

  Henry’s night then bloomed with cauliflowers. Over and over again he imagined himself, the magnificent frothy white heads in his hands, placed auspiciously in the car park as the Leopard swung out of the pub door in her inimitable style. Over and over again he imagined his beautifully timed approach, the look of amazement and wonder in her blue (blue? blue-green, more) eyes, the grateful way with which she took the cauliflowers and clutched them to her breasts – a moment which inspired Henry with the new idea of how delightful it would have been to be born a vegetable, tendered by Jack Mackay. But once she had the cauliflowers firmly in her pretty hands, what happened next was a little confused in Henry’s vision. He knew quite definitely they were suddenly in her Jaguar, speeding down a car-less motorway, the cauliflowers back on his lap as her hands were on the steering wheel. But when he went to return them to her she was mysteriously coming out of the pub again. They went through the whole process of the meeting once more, and the journey in the Jaguar. All this happened twenty, thirty times maybe, the non-fruition of the car drive, as each time it made a mysterious U-turn back to the pub, driving Henry to greater realms of frustration.

  Wracked by such sudorific thoughts, he tossed noisily about, maddened, aching. As the church clock struck four, Rosie paid another of her regular visits, this time to say there was no need to worry, no need at all, but she thought he ought to know Evans was not home yet. Whatever could have happened? Whatever had happened, Henry brought himself to say, it was neither their business nor concern. The Boy was grown up now, and the sooner she got that into her head the happier her life would be. He spoke so sharply that Rosie hurried away, having only dabbed at a crumpled pillow, full of understanding about how in sickness people say things they do not really mean.

  In the peace that followed her departure an idea then came to Henry that was to boost his low spirits for the rest of the night. The Boy: that was it, surely. Could not he be Henry’s salvation? It could all be done so delicately, why, the Boy might never need to know just what act of goodness he was undertaking. Fired by his inspiration, the next part of the plan came easily to Henry’s troubled head. He heard the conversation, loud voices in his ears, as it would be next morning.

  It was so easy. Why had he not thought of it before? That sense of tranquil pleasure, peculiar to times of sought-after solution, brought calm to Henry’s fiery limbs and eventually, much to Rosie’s disappointment, he slept. She would not, now, in truth, be able to say he had been awake all night. Nonetheless, they had been worrying hours which had caused a not unwelcome stir in the ordinary fabric of her life.

  When Evans had gone Augusta Browne gathered herself together once more to protect her house. She wandered about from room to room, each one quiet and husky with early sunlight. She despised herself for these nostalgic pilgrimages, reminding her as they did of the bright times that were over: but she indulged in them all the same, ashamed of her weakness. Restless, afraid, she touched the pale wood of the panelled walls, she paced the stone flags of the hall, confining to memory for ever the places where they dipped unevenly. From her study she saw that the first roses were in bloom. Later, she would pick them. But not now: she must detract, somehow, not add, to the pleasures of the house, till the predators had gone. Mounting the stairs, dazzled by sunbeams, she prayed for vile skies, torrential rain and an east wind to inquinate the place with a sulphur smell unbearable to the noses of all prestigious office men.

  In the upstairs room at home Evans felt particularly large. He stood at the end of his parents’ bed, head bowed to avoid the ceiling. His father was propped up among an extravagance of pillows, uncomfortable, flushed. A crochet pattern of sun and shadow, made by the elm leaves outside, played upon the bed cover.

  ‘You not so good, then, Dad?’

  ‘Had a rough night, Boy.’

  ‘Ah. I’m sorry. Mum says Doctor Kennet is on his way.’

  ‘There was no need to fuss the doctor.’

  ‘Well, anything I can do for you? Anything I can get?’

  Henry swivelled his eyes towards the window. Their whites were strung with brown veins.

  ‘Going down the pub, lunchtime, Boy, are you?’

  ‘Yes, Dad. Why?’

  There was a long silence. Henry continued to look out of the window.

  ‘Well, you never know,’ he said at last. He flung out his hand towards the bedside table, an indeterminate gesture, his mind fixed on the casual way he should say the next words. He knocked over the milk bottle that held the single iris. Water poured down the side of the bed. The iris head and small stump of stem lay on the table like some obscene purple organ, smile full of stamen dust, mocking.

  ‘Dratted flower,’ said Henry, ‘throw the thing away, Boy.’

  Evans was at the bedside, clumsily wringing part of the wet sheet.

  ‘I’ll get Mum. She’ll soon clear this up.’

  ‘Yes.’ Henry picked up the iris, scrunched it up in his hand. He watched the slimy purple juices run into the lines of his palm.

  ‘I must get to work, Dad. Sure there’s nothing I can do for you?’
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  ‘No, Boy. Thank you.’

  Evans waited a moment.

  ‘Take care, then,’ he said, and left.

  With a clenched fist Henry wiped a trickle of saliva from his chin. There was a horrible sweet taste of tea in his mouth, but the thought of having to take out his teeth, put them in a glass of water and give them to Rosie to scrub, in order to get rid of it, was intolerable. She should not be allowed the pleasure of such intimacies, not Rosie. He would endure the tea-taste. Endure, somehow, the stifling day ahead. Already, at eight-thirty, Henry was beginning to realise he had taken the wrong decision: perhaps, after all, he should not have made so fine an effort to fight the lure of gentle death which had beckoned him last night.

  By mid-afternoon Rosie was exhausted, what with all the running up and down stairs, changing the sheets, hurrying to the shop for instant coffee (Henry had suddenly taken against tea) filling hot-water bottles, making two lots of junket (the first hadn’t set), emptying the chamber pot, opening and shutting the window – quite apart from all the usual housework. Doctor Kennet had pronounced the illness to be a slight chill, and even given that the doctor was a man of exaggerated understatement, Rosie” could see Henry’s condition could cause no alarm. But the way he was carrying on, just like a man, you’d think he was dying. Still, to be fair, it was the first time he had been ill in twenty years: he had every right to make the worst of it – and this gave Rosie a good opportunity to make the best of it, which she felt secretly she was doing, and was not displeased.

  Now she sat in her small neat kitchen, slippered feet on a stool in front of the fire – an unaccustomed position, for her, mid-afternoon. The chair and stool were Henry’s property, but in his absence she felt the rest was deserved. Besides, as he was too weak to come downstairs, he would never know of her laziness, and that was important because one of the things he loved her for was her energy. (Or so he once said, some thirty years ago.) He would also never know that at lunchtime, while he had been sipping at his junket upstairs, complaining it hurt his throat, she had stood in the larder, eating small slices of cold canary pudding. Solid and clammy, just as she liked it, it had stood in its plate of congealed treacle, wonderfully tempting. She had happily given way to temptation, running her finger through the treacle, slicing the sponge with a small knife. Picking, Henry would have called it: a habit he deplored – a habit, unable to relinquish, Rosie continued at subtly chosen times of day in the privacy of her larder. Oh, you’ve been playing truant today, Rosie Evans, she said to herself.

  There was no need, of course, this time of year, to have a fire: it was a warm June afternoon. But Rosie liked a fire all year round. One of her little luxuries, she called it. An empty grate gave her the spooks, a strange feeling of hollowness in her stomach. And so she watched the small flames and the shifting sun patterns on the floor, and turned her mind to Evans. The look on his face when he had opened the door this morning had given her quite a turn. She would not like to think what he had been up to and tried to remember, in her anxiety, if she had plied him with the sort of questions a son prefers his mother not to ask. He had been very offhand and gruff, she thought, leaping upstairs to see his father without any kind of satisfactory explanation. Rosie had not wanted to know any details, naturally: but surely it was up to a son to put his mother’s mind at rest after a whole night out?

  Ah, the young. They were hard to understand, sometimes. Their lack of thought, their funny ideas about right and wrong. Not that she could complain in general. No, on the whole Evans was a good and kind son, a bit quiet, like his father, but diligent and appreciative, good-natured. It was only since Brenda had come into his life that Rosie had begun to worry about him. The merry dance she led him was quite a strain, sometimes, judging by the pallor of Evans’s face. But still, there was a long time to go until the actual wedding day. Anything could happen before then. In fact in her most secret heart, as Rosie once confided to the vicar, she wouldn’t be that surprised if anything did . . .

  She looked at the lumps of her hands lying on her lap, their imperfections diminished in the speckled light, and smiled to herself. Part of her present contentment was due to the fact that she had decided, this afternoon, to put the first part of her plan into action. This afternoon she would burn her mittens. This afternoon would mark the passing of a seventeen-year phase which had, perhaps, been a mistake. Still, better late than never, and she was sure it was not too late.

  When Henry was better, she had decided, and longing for exercise again, she would let him go off on a walk alone. She would then, taking a different route, hurry to the woods herself. It was lovely up there, this time of year, the place he would be bound to visit. He would come upon her in one of the glades, sitting in the long green grass, wearing her straw hat (she would get a new ribbon) and nice new seersucker blouse. Amazed, he would ask her what she was doing. She would be very careful what she said. Not talk too much. Just smile at him and say something like was that a missel-thrush or a song-thrush, Henry? I was wondering which it was. He would be delighted to tell her. He knew a lot about birds and warmed to people who shared his interest. Well, though she couldn’t tell a hedge-sparrow from a female chaffinch herself, and didn’t privately much care, from now on she would be interested. Henry, surprised and filled with pleasure, might then suggest she join him for a drink in the Star. Not that she liked pubs in themselves, but she liked to be in a public place with Henry. She liked to be beside him up at the bar, to hear him say, ‘A shandy for the wife, please.’

  If all this happened, as in her bones Rosie felt it might, she would further please him with steak-and-kidney pudding for supper, gentle on his teeth, and roly-poly pudding. She herself couldn’t abide suet for two courses, but Henry could live on the stuff. If the plan was to work, of course, much sacrifice was required on her part, and she was prepared for that. Because in the end she would be rewarded. In the end, her unmittened hand on his shoulder, surprising him, moon in the window, window ajar as he liked it – he would turn to her.

  At the thought of it, the heave of the bed as Henry rolled over, Rosie’s heart gave a small flutter. She pulled the pair of white lawn mittens from the pocket of her apron and threw them on the fire. The flames quickly consumed them, leaving a small dust of ashes on a lump of coal.

  ‘A good thing that’s done, then, Rosie my girl,’ she whispered out loud, ‘it was about time.’

  Leopard spots among the elm leaves in the window: damn leaves and their confounded bloody moving, never still for a moment, never possible to catch clear sight of her face, shifting sun and leopard spots always hiding it. My dearest Leopard keep still one moment dearest Leopard for me to see you. Smile upon me and I shall come to you and we shall go to a place which is quiet and still, no elm leaves, and you will take off your coat take off your Leopard spots and then be warm against me. Dearest Leopard what are you doing now? How cruel it is that you might be at the Star while I lie helpless here . . .

  Towards evening Henry’s temperature rose again. The one comforting thought was that the Boy would be bound to come and see him, soon as he got home, and mention he’d been at the Star. It shouldn’t be too difficult to ask if there had been any new life down there, anything going on.

  Oh, yes, that was certain: Henry could rely on the Boy to come back and tell him. Not long now. He tossed in the hot sheets. An hour or so. Impatiently, he waited.

  Even without Augusta Browne’s encouragement Evans would have found himself walking towards Wilberforce’s farm when work was over. There was no possibility of his not seeing Brenda for a week, no matter what she had done. As the emerald rage diminished during the day his desire to be with her again had increased.

  They met at the door of the chicken shed: Brenda was locking up for the night. She turned to him, head high, but docile eyes.

  ‘I wasn’t expecting you.’

  ‘Thought I’d better come.’

  ‘To apologise?’

  ‘I’m sorry I hit you.’r />
  ‘Well, I suppose I should have told you I was going out.’

  ‘That’s all right.’

  ‘Where are we going?’

  ‘I have a surprise for you.’

  She walked with him quietly to Wroughton House, asking no questions, though she seemed surprised when they turned into the back drive. She was further amazed when Evans took a key from his pocket and unlocked the back door.

  ‘Are we going to pay a social visit on Mrs Browne or do a burglary?’ she giggled.

  ‘Wait and see,’ said Evans.

  The house was quite silent. No sign of Augusta Browne. Evans led Brenda up the stairs to the attics, flung open the door of the furnished room. She stepped inside, looked about at the comfortable arrangement of things, the evening light on flowered curtains and patterned rug.

  ‘Ours,’ said Evans.

  ‘Are you mad?’

  ‘Ours till she sells the house.’

  ‘I don’t know what you mean, I really don’t.’

  Brenda sat on the double brass bed, testing the mattress. Evans would have liked to have sat next to her, but thought better of it. Instead, he paced up and down, hands in pockets, explaining how the whole idea had come about. Brenda seemed bemused.