South of the Lights

by Angela Huth

  Brenda hesitated. To go back and find the room empty would be unbearable, and judging by Evans’s coldness tonight she had no doubt there was a good chance he would try his luck with Mrs Browne . . . who could not, of course, refuse him. No one in their right minds could refuse Evans, the irresistible sod. Oh God, in all her confusion, in all her regret at having behaved so stupidly, she wanted him. It took uncommon strength to keep walking in the direction of the flat.

  Augusta Browne went to bed at eight o’clock. She drew the blinds, but the evening sky seeped through the lilac cotton making the room an aquarium of mauve shadowed light. She stretched a leg into the cool empty area of linen where Hugh should have been. The sheets hurt her skin. She shut her eyes and probed at the flesh of her cheeks with her fingers. Pain rankled far beneath, gnawing through the bone. The doctor had said she was suffering from migraineous neuralgia, and there was little he could do to help. Against the pain she was conscious of the smell of lavender and roses by her bed. After a while she slept, deeply.

  Two hours later Augusta woke to exploding pains in the bones under her eyes, and in her jaw. The room was still not quite dark. She reached for two more pills and a glass of water. Above her she heard angry footsteps, then the slam of a door. She switched on her light and picked up her book, Swann’s Way. She had intended this to be her Proustian summer, but reading increasingly hurt her eyes, and progress was slow. Now, the print blurred. Her eyes were filled with neuralgic tears – a common symptom, the doctor said – and she knew if she looked at them they would be hideously bloodshot. She closed the book and lay quite still, for any movement made the sheets prickle like thistles.

  More footsteps. Evans was coming down the stairs from the attic. Augusta wondered if he was going after Brenda. They led a hopelessly dramatic life, as far as she could tell. Perhaps it stimulated them. It would exhaust her: all she required was interesting peace. The footsteps crossed the landing outside her bedroom, came right up to the door, then stopped. Silence. Augusta raised herself upon one elbow. There was a soft knock.

  ‘Evans? Is that you? Come in.’ Through the hammering of pain in her face she found it difficult to muster her voice.

  The door opened. Evans came in. He stood just inside the huge room, sleeves rolled up, a V of reddish skin in the open collar of his shirt. His face was pale and hard. Augusta realised he could see her breasts. He was looking at them without shame. She switched off the light.

  ‘Sorry,’ she said, ‘my head. It makes everything dazzle.’

  ‘That’s all right,’ Evans replied, and in that moment August understood why Brenda loved him. His voice was infinitely caring. ‘I saw your light and wondered how you were.’

  ‘Not too bad.’ There was no point in trying to explain the peculiar condition of the sheets.

  ‘Nothing I can get you?’

  ‘No, really, thank you.’ Pause. ‘Brenda’s gone?’

  ‘She went off in some kind of state.’

  ‘It’ll be better when everything’s settled, perhaps. When you’re in the house.’ Augusta was aware of the futility of her observation.

  ‘Daresay it will.’ Evans rubbed at his eyes with a large hand. ‘Well then, I’ll leave you if you’re sure there’s nothing I can get you.’ His voice was quiet, his shirt almost luminous, his kindness a distant balm. Augusta recognised it beyond the pain.

  ‘Thank you, Evans,’ she said.

  ‘Goodnight, Mrs Browne.’

  ‘Goodnight.’

  He left the room, closing the door gently behind him. His formality in the dark made her feel quite stupid with gratitude. She closed her eyes and tried to sleep again.

  It had been a sleepless night, bright with visions of Evans and Augusta Browne. Now, at seven-thirty in the morning, Brenda was light-headed and restless. She dressed and made a pot of tea, wondering how best to patch things up with Evans. There was a small fear within her, not consciously felt before, that one day soon she would provoke him too far. He would feel there was no safety in their future, and cast her out for good. Someone else would be mistress of the house, someone else might even breed chickens in the garden. The thought was intolerable. Brenda dug a spoon into a tea bag, watching its brown liquid spiral into the water.

  Lark came into the room, waving a letter. Face like a ghost, she had: thumping dark shadows under her eyes. Brenda could never understand Lark’s perpetual tiredness. She went to bed early most nights, and slept long hours, and yet every morning she looked like death. Today she smiled an uncontainable smile. Brenda scowled back. She was in no mood for anyone else’s good spirits. Whatever joy Lark wished to share she should not count on Brenda to be responsive, not this morning.

  ‘It’s come,’ Lark said, rather breathlessly, sitting at the table. ‘It’s come at last! My first proposal!’ She flapped the letter in Brenda’s face.

  Brenda reacted slowly. As far as she knew Lark had not been going out with anyone, and it seemed a funny way to propose, by letter.

  ‘When’s the happy day?’ she asked.

  ‘December the thirteenth. How about that?’ Lark was reading the letter again, incredulous.

  ‘Who’s the lucky man?’ Any other time Brenda might have cared. The flatness of her voice indicated that, this morning, she could not. Lark looked up.

  ‘The what?’

  ‘The man. You said a proposal.’

  Lark laughed. ‘That’s all you ever think of, Bren. Not a man, idiot. Not that kind of proposal. Something much more exciting – the real thing. My first concert. They’ve asked me to sing.’ She flushed a little, her voice unsteady.

  ‘December the thirteenth? That’s a long way ahead.’

  Lark giggled. She seemed to be quite weak with pleasure.

  ‘Perhaps,’ she said, ‘they thought I might be booked up if they left it any later.’

  Brenda couldn’t help smiling.

  ‘Where is it? Albert Hall?’

  ‘Not exactly.’

  ‘They paying you a huge fee?’

  Lark hesitated.

  ‘They’re not really paying me anything, in cash, like. But they’re giving me supper, and as many drinks as I like. And they’re paying me expenses. You know, a taxi.’

  ‘A taxi? To London and back? Or Luton, or wherever?’ Lark said nothing. ‘I think that’s bloody mean,’ went on Brenda. ‘Ridiculous. A person’s got to earn their living. I should say no.’

  ‘I’ve already written to say yes. It would be stupid to turn down my first chance, wouldn’t it? I don’t care about the money. Really I don’t.’

  Brenda sighed impatiently.

  ‘Who are these people you’re to sing for?’ she asked.

  ‘I’m not telling you. Please don’t make me tell you. I want it to be a surprise. I’ll send you complimentary tickets, of course. I’ll see to it you and Evans get complimentary tickets.’

  ‘Thanks,’ said Brenda. ‘And we’ll throw flowers on to the stage and shout for an encore. Why don’t we celebrate with bacon and eggs? I’m ravenous.’

  ‘Couldn’t eat a thing, myself, the excitement,’ said Lark, ‘but I’ll get you some.’ She went to the stove and broke two eggs into a frying pan.

  Brenda’s interest in Lark’s concert expired. Her head was now aching: she needed comfort. She stirred her tea.

  ‘Lark,’ she said, ‘what would you say were Evans’s chances with Augusta Browne?’

  Lark looked up from her cooking, puzzled.

  ‘I should say absolutely none. Why?’

  ‘Supposing Evans and I had had a bit of a ding-dong. Would he go off screwing her to spite me?’

  ‘’Course he wouldn’t, silly. He’s the faithful type.’ She sounded quite certain, Brenda thought. But then Lark couldn’t really know. She wasn’t the type Evans would be attracted to, ever. ‘Well, I mean,’ Lark went on, ‘I don’t know Mrs Browne, do I? I’ve only seen her once or twice. But she doesn’t look the sort to me who spreads it about.’

  ‘You can never
tell,’ said Brenda. Lark put a plate of eggs and bacon down in front of her. ‘Thanks. I’ll never be able to do breakfasts like this for Evans. You’ll have to come round every morning, once we’re in the house.’

  ‘Delighted, except after late night singing engagements.’ Lark’s merriment this morning was almost more than Brenda could take, but she supposed it would be mean to make a sarcastic remark. Instead she asked,

  ‘If he succeeded, if he had her, do you think he’d tell me?’

  ‘’Course he wouldn’t, idiot. What a daft idea. Men don’t tell about the odd screw if it’s going to get them into trouble.’ She sounded quite definite again.

  ‘Well, then, do you suppose I’d know? By instinct?’ Brenda wiped her plate with a piece of bread and sucked up the runny egg yolk, in imitation of her Birmingham friends in roadside cafés. It was a habit which had always annoyed Evans but she made no effort to give up.

  ‘’Course you wouldn’t. People are good at disguising things.’

  ‘Then I shall make it my business to find out.’

  ‘Come on, Bren. What’s up?’ Lark was a bit impatient.

  ‘We had a row last night. All my fault, I suppose. He turned me out. He hinted he was going downstairs for a bit of comfort.’

  ‘Nonsense!’

  ‘So I think the thing to do is to go and see Mrs Browne today. Find out the truth from her. I’ll take her some eggs, six large brown. If it turns out I’m wrong I won’t say a word to Evans, and I don’t imagine she will either.’

  ‘I’m all for leaving the truth alone, myself, cases like that,’ said Lark, ‘but if you’ve got to go nosing about, that sounds like quite a good plan.’

  ‘You’ve got to get at the truth if things are going to work for ever,’ said Brenda. ‘There’s not many things I believe, but that’s one of them.’ She noticed there was sun on the red rooftops outside. Breakfast had calmed her. Lark filled both their cups with tea. Poor old Lark, she was good in a crisis. You could depend on her for support. She deserved a nice man to look after her, one day. She deserved someone who would make her understand the disadvantages of independence.

  ‘Where do you think I should go for a dress?’ Lark was saying.

  ‘For a dress?’

  ‘For the concert.’

  ‘Oh, for the concert.’

  ‘I was thinking of a pale grey, almost a white.’

  ‘Tea-time, I think I’ll go.’

  ‘Go where?’

  ‘Up to the house with the eggs.’

  ‘You could ask her, perhaps, if she’d be interested in coming.’

  ‘What to?’

  ‘The concert, of course. I’m sure I could get her a complimentary ticket, too. I mean, seeing as they’re not paying me.’

  ‘I’ll take her six of the big speckled ones,’ said Brenda. ‘Hope Wilberforce won’t catch me.’

  Lark got up and began to clear the table. For all their tiredness, her eyes were sparkling in the light of the September morning.

  ‘Perhaps I’ll go for a silver,’ she said. ‘Christmas time, that would be appropriate, I think.’

  By dawn the worst of the pain had receded, leaving Augusta’s face merely a dull ache, and a pulse beating in her temple. She got up and dressed, went outside, and breathed deeply. The lawns shimmered with dew. Spider webs spun like Catherine wheels among leaves, and the bulrushes by the pond were parted from their roots by a ground mist.

  Augusta went to the walled garden at the back of the house. The mulberry tree, a wizened old thing when stripped of its foliage in winter, was now rich with geometric leaves. Among them clustered dark red berries, more than ever this year. Augusta picked one and ate it. Sour, still, and quite hard. The juice ran from the corner of her mouth. She dabbed at it, and it came off on her finger like blood. The colour of their mulberry mousses – how many had they eaten in four summers? – had been altogether paler. A creamy pink. Swaying, fragile things, surprisingly sharp. Hugh was very fond of mulberry mousse. (He considered the mulberry far superior to the strawberry.) This year, there had been no mousses. Oh God, I’m in mourning for the best puddings of my life . . . Augusta leant against the striated bark of the tree’s trunk. Its leaves made a low canopy all about her, variegated greens. The private acts of solitary behaviour were beginning to interest her. A year ago, had anyone suggested she would one day rise at dawn and stand in melancholy fashion under the mulberry tree meditating upon puddings – why, she would have laughed them to scorn. Now, it seemed quite natural. Now, it was no longer shocking to contemplate burning down the house. She had thought about it several times during the past few days. She would set light to it, then go up to the woods and look back at the flames. There would be no saving it. Its old panelling would be devoured in a moment, but it would never know the indignity of being altered by the office men. That, at least, it would be spared.

  Christ, though Augusta, am I now deranged? (The last owner of the house, soon after she left, was sent to an asylum.) But there is a talent in endings. Some people have it: she felt she was not one of them. Some people can love, and leave without regret. Some people can achieve flights into the void: others fear swift grounding. If parting is a smaller death, there are few adequately equipped for that kind of dying. Augusta knew herself to be unprepared, and feared her own weakness. For a start, she could not persuade herself to accept the facts. The steady progress towards the precipice remained unbelievable, a nightmare from which she expected to wake every morning. And yet it was true. The contract was signed. Hugh had telephoned to break the news yesterday.

  Augusta slipped to the ground, sat on the soft earth, supporting her back against the tree’s trunk. She was weak from lack of food, yet eating nauseated her. She was drained by the storms of neuralgia which, on occasions, made her groan out loud: and as one unused to pain or illness of any kind, she was angered by their force, and by her inability to cast them out. Now, even as she sat beneath the mulberry tree listening to the church clock strike seven, Augusta felt the absurdity of her own position. But she was powerless to change it. To remain where she was, undisturbed, the tree’s prisoner, was her only inclination. She would be quite happy to die there . . .

  And mourn not me

  Beneath the yellowing tree

  For I shall mind not, slumbering peacefully.

  As it was, she remained there all day. Sometimes she dozed. Sometimes, quite awake, she rubbed at the grass with her hand, and made small holes in the earth with her finger. At midday she felt the heat beneath the leaf canopy grow denser, and needles of sunlight penetrated here and there, making speckled shadows on her legs. By late afternoon it was quite cool. Augusta got up at last. Stiffly, she returned to the house. Swallows were gathering on the telephone wires and pigeons, their iridescent breasts puffed up in competition with the pinkish sky, preened themselves on the roof. She marvelled at the benevolence of God, or whoever, providing such an evening at the end of a lost day. Now, all she required was someone to talk to for an hour or so – someone to exorcise, temporarily, the useless ravings of her mind. She settled on a window seat in the bathroom. Outside, the distant chimneys of the brickworks sent spires of white smoke into the sky. The lawn was the lavender colour that grass becomes to indicate autumn. Augusta concentrated on willing someone to arrive. Anyone would do.

  Brenda had no trouble in making off with the six largest, brownest eggs she could find. Wilberforce was not about. She had seen him little of late. In fact, his interest in his farm seemed to have declined. Weeds grew in profusion in the yard. Buildings rotted, hinges grew stiff with rust. There were several holes in the roof of the chicken house – Brenda’s only concern. She would have to persuade Wilberforce to mend them before winter, but felt disinclined to approach him. She had decided to put off the tiresome day until the weather changed.

  Brenda walked up the back drive of Wroughton House, carrying her carton of eggs, pleased to think that no one she knew had seen her on the way. She wanted this meeting with
Mrs Browne to be private: above all it was essential Evans never discovered her plan.

  She noticed the sickly smell of roses – hundreds of them tumbled over the wall that divided the drive from the kitchen garden – and the buzz of swallows on the telephone wires. Both things annoyed her. Irritation prickled along her spine. She was on edge: had been all day. The mental pictures of Evans having it off with Mrs Browne last night, just because of a bit of a disagreement, were enough to get anyone down. Not that she was of a jealous nature. Jealousy was not a thing she would succumb to, it made everyone so ugly. Though, to be truthful, when it came to Evans, a weird anger sometimes overcame her at the thought of his fancying anyone else.

  Inside the house it was wonderfully cool. Brenda shouted to Mrs Browne. No answer. Silence. She went through the door that led to the front hall, clogs clicking on the flagstone floor. There, from the drawing-room, she could hear the melancholy whine of old dance music. Awful thirties stuff. Almost gave her the spooks, music like that playing in an empty house.

  There was no one in the drawing-room. It looked as if it had been deserted all day. The other downstairs rooms were empty, too: each one smelling of roses. In Mrs Browne’s study the windows were open and an ostrich-feather quill pen on the desk fluttered in a small breeze. Creepy as anything, thought Brenda, shutting the door quickly behind her. She was glad she would never be able to afford such a house herself. Thank heavens for the inventors of the ordinary estate.

  She went upstairs, saw the bathroom door open, and crossed the landing. Mrs Browne was huddled up on the window seat, a silhouette against the huge window. Brenda knocked at the open door and went in. She held out the carton, aware that she trespassed upon some kind of private reflection.