South of the Lights

by Angela Huth

  Henry blinked. He had only had three drinks with Mrs Browne. They had fractionally lifted his spirits, but that recognisable state of confusion, brought about by a heavy night’s drinking, was far from him. He could see quite clearly. He could see quite clearly that the figure at the bar was a woman. She had blonde hair and wore a leopard skin coat. Beside her on the bar was a small glass of ruby-coloured liquid: snaking through it, among cubes of ice, a twist of lemon.

  Henry experienced the timelessness of shock. He felt a spasm in his bowels and lethargy, rather than weakness, in his knees. Such ineluctable confusion, shrinking his skin as well as his reason, caused him to sway gently on his feet, as if already inebriated, and he noticed old Joe gave him a funny look. Then his head cleared, though the pounding o f his heart had sent the blood to his face, and he felt himself to be as scarlet as Lark’s horrible flowers. He moved slowly, thoughts trailing some paces behind his movements. In a way that sometimes happens in times of crisis, a plan came easily to him. He would go the bar, order his first drink, and take it to his table. He would consume it quickly, but give himself time enough to gather courage and gallantry. Then he would return to the bar and offer to buy the Leopard a drink, at last making real the moment he had imagined so many thousand times that the picture was part of the tissue of his mind.

  The bar was suddenly before him, supportive. Bill was pouring his drink, muttering about the weather. The Leopard, his Leopard, was not two feet from him. He dared not look at her, but could smell her powerful scent. He was aware of her small movements: glances at her watch, the crossing and recrossing of her legs. Then, as he turned, drink in hand, to go to his table, the whole picture of her, three-dimensional, life-size, billowed into his vision. It filled in small blanks that had confounded his memory: her nose tipped upwards, delicate, in a way he had never recalled. Her hair fell in chunks, rather than curls, on her forehead. Her wrist, thicker than he remembered, was cut by the thin gold strap of her watch in a way that must have been painful. Pushed back from her poor wrist was the cuff of her fur coat. Its beautiful spots, which had patterned Henry’s sleeping and waking hours for nine months, dazzled him now in reality. Incredible. Henry’s eyes remained on the cuff. He could not drag them away. There was something about it he had not expected, a thinness of quality. As he stared harder, he realised the edge of the cuff was worn to a thread of baldness, and he bit his lip to stifle an amazed cry. For here, under the cruel lights of the bar, the fabric of the coat was exposed, the illusion broken. Nylon. Henry said the ghastly word to himself several times, weak with disbelief. But he knew his eyes were not mistaken. No one, then, had hunted a wild animal in the jungles and had its skins fashioned for his Leopard. She was but the possessor of a cheap nylon coat, the kind of thing thousands of women, of lesser breed than her, fancy will upgrade them in the esteem of men. How could she have deceived him so?

  ‘Good evening,’ she said, head turning to him, eyes wide, shadows from clotted eyelashes fluttering on her cheeks. A low voice, she had, and plum-coloured lips that shone as if with grease. One of her front teeth protruded a little, and rested on the cushion of her lower lip. It was a dark, inky colour Henry had not remembered.

  ‘Evening.’ His face burned. Should he apologise for having stared at her? Even as he contemplated the question Henry felt himself moving away towards the safety of his table. He sat down with relief and took a long gulp of whisky, determined to look no more in the direction of the Leopard until it was time to put his plan into action. Only two things crowded his mind: the thought that the Leopard’s smile and greeting had been an invitation – she was making it easy for him. And, less good, that she had tricked him with her coat. However, he could forgive her for that. Christ, it wasn’t even a case of forgiveness: simply a matter of overcoming his own foolish shock. He would love her whatever she chose to wear, whatever illusions she chose to employ. It was a woman’s prerogative, after all, to attract by any means: the fact that the Leopard had turned out to be as weak as any other woman was suddenly more endearing than Henry could bear. Dizzy with love for her, he finished his whisky with shaking hand and wondered at the scorching sensation that scoured his body. Was he feverish? Had his death plan worked too well? Was he already struck by pneumonia? At the thought of such irony tears grazed Henry’s eyes, and he had to dry them with his handkerchief.

  In that moment when they were shut painfully behind a blur of cotton, smelling of Rosie’s horrible lavender bags, Henry missed the entrance of a man into the lounge. By the time the handkerchief was back in his pocket, eyes and cheeks still burning, but dry, a new scene was taking place at the bar. A scene Henry could not resist observing (indeed, none of the regulars made any pretence of ignoring what was going on). The Leopard was laughing, laughing up at the great swarthy brute of a man beside her. He was unkempt, unshaven, cocksure – Henry could see that just from the mould of his back. One of his hands was over the Leopard’s wrist on the bar, digging into the flesh in so familiar a manner that Henry felt a sour flame of nausea in his throat. The man, who then Henry recognised to be that vile brute Wilberforce (crooked bastard, shady past), was tugging at the Leopard’s hair with his other hand, making her laugh more loudly: a sharp, frosty laugh, whereas Henry had always supposed it would have been musical as sleigh bells (at least, how he imagined sleigh bells would sound). As he tugged at her hair Wilberforce parted it and thus exposed areas of dark root. From where Henry sat, some yards away, he could see them quite clearly. It was perhaps a trick of those confounded bar lights. Was the Leopard’s hair not pure gold, as he had remembered? But Henry had little time to contemplate such matters: stunned, he concentrated on the actions at the bar. Wilberforce was giving a handful of silver to Bill. Then, with the same hand that he had groped through the Leopard’s hair, he wiped his glossy mouth, but failed to clean it of a long string of beer froth that ran down to his chin. The Leopard, with a spring of impatience, left her high stool, and stood beside him. She put her hand through his arm. Henry noticed the extraordinary smallness of her waist, gripped in its leather belt, and a spray of dried mud on one of her legs. He saw her smile at Wilberforce, and knew she was going for ever. He stood up, raised his arm, noticed the pattern of pulsing veins on the back of his hand: all he had to do was to stretch out to her, and take her, and protect her, and save her.

  ‘My Leopard!’ he cried, and no one heard. But she looked at him, eyes still for a fraction of a second, and for the same amount of time Henry saw himself as he appeared in her vision: a drunken old man, swaying by his table, indeterminate hand raised to indicate some kind of muddled idea that he could not hope to articulate.

  Then she and Wilberforce were gone, together. They swooshed through the lounge, arms linked, exuding that peculiar heat and energy that a man and woman, sexually or emotionally enflamed, have no interest in hiding.

  Henry lowered his hand very slowly. The pulsing veins reminded him of a dying animal. He picked up his empty glass and took it to the bar. Bill grinned at him.

  ‘There’s a pair that’ll come to no good,’ he said, but Henry did not answer. He stood at the bar, drank several more whiskies – he did not count how many. His left hand rested on the leather seat of the Leopard’s stool. At first it still retained her warmth, but soon cooled. Her scent was strong in the air. Her sharp laugh, her bald cuff, and her puffy wrist cut by the gold watch strap – the visions ebbed and flowed in Henry’s mind, flotsam against the nobler memories, unstable, giddying. Only the bar stool was firm beneath his hand.

  When he left the Star Bill warned him to take care. He even offered to go with him. But Henry shook his head. He needed no help. There was a full moon: he was quite capable of navigation. He steered himself along the sharp roads, pausing only at a hedge to be sick. There, in the bitter retching, he rid himself of every living organism in his body, and with them he spewed out the illusions that had bred and festered within him for so long. So when he stood up again, pushing a hand into a mass of brambles for
support, he could feel no pain, for there were no nerve ends left with which to feel.

  Much later he arrived at the cottage and knocked at his own front door. He listened to the twittering of the elms, and watched the cracked image of the moon in the kitchen window. Then the door was opened, cautiously. Rosie’s face, ridiculous with concern, but it no longer irritated him.

  ‘I’m a dead man,’ he said.

  Rosie’s mouth, feeble, shaking, fell open.

  ‘Oh, dear, there you are, Henry,’ she said. ‘What on earth do you think you’re doing, knocking like that? Come on in.’ She dragged the door wider open. Henry staggered into the husky lights and shapes of a room he recognised to be his own kitchen.

  ‘I’m a dead man,’ he said again, and fell into his chair.

  Rosie smiled, controlling her mouth.

  ‘There, there, my love,’ she said, bustling, somewhere. ‘You’re so cold, too. Chilled to the bone.’ She stoked the fire. ‘The kettle’s on. We’ll soon have you warm, won’t we? Lark’s death, it’s given all of us a bit of a turn, hasn’t it?’

  ‘Lark?’ said Henry. He had forgotten she was dead, too. Rosie handed him a mug of tea.

  ‘Here, drink that up,’ she said, still smiling.

  ‘Dead,’ said Henry.

  ‘Buried this afternoon.’

  ‘Was I?’

  ‘Now, come along, love. You’re all confused. Your tea.’

  Henry let a dribble of the strong liquid spread over his tongue, dulling the bitter after-taste of vomit. He had never been less confused in his life, but the clarity of his new state could not be explained to Rosie, or to anyone on earth.

  Augusta did not sleep the night before the move, but she felt no tiredness in the morning. She was glad, at dawn, to see the sky still gravid with unfallen snow. Winter sun would have been unkind.

  She lit the fire in the hall, trying to pretend it was a normal day. She made coffee, and cupped the mug in both hands, hoping for warmth. There was a chill within her, there now for many days, that the brightest fire had not been able to melt. Since Christmas she had given up taking pills of any sort, tranquillisers or pain killers, thus leaving her senses exposed to each raw hour of every day. This, the last day, she was light-headed from lack of sleep, and still cold, but for the moment sensations more difficult to cope with had left her, a thin tide on the horizon, ready to encroach at some later hour.

  The removal men arrived early. She recognised some of them from the day they had moved in. They were strong, elderly men in starched white coats. Their handling of the furniture was systematic and careful. When it came to the grand piano they acted with particular reverence, swathing its various pieces in blankets, and carrying it to the van in more respectful fashion than the coffin bearers had borne Lark on her journey through the graveyard.

  Rosie and Brenda arrived later. They packed china and glass into packing cases in the kitchen and the dining-room. They carried piles of bright towels from the linen cupboard. They drank many cups of tea. Rosie’s face was drawn and tired. She worked with a nervous energy, making two journeys where one would have been necessary. Brenda was in a dreamy state, hands moving slowly, pausing to comment on each thing as she wrapped it. She seemed sated in some private way, mind elsewhere. Augusta herself made an effort to be useful, but no sooner than she began to clear a shelf of books or china, she felt it imperative to leave the room she was in to observe the emptying of another one.

  By half-past two the last van had gone. The house was quite cleared. Augusta, Rosie and Brenda stood in the kitchen, drinking yet more tea, in cups thoughtfully provided by Rosie. Crumpled newspapers made a choppy sea of the floor. Devoid of the bright colours made by pots and china, the empty room was unrecognisable.

  ‘Henry’s badly got down by Lark’s passing,’ Rosie was saying. ‘He keeps speaking of dying.’ Augusta noticed that her hands, clumsy on her cup, were mottled as snakeskin, an unhealthy mole colour.

  ‘He’ll get over it,’ said Brenda, blowing her tea. ‘We’ll all get over it, I daresay, one day.’

  Rosie found it difficult ever to agree with Brenda.

  ‘Hasn’t been a good beginning to the year, if you ask me,’ she said. ‘Lark going one way, Mrs Browne the other. Won’t you have a biscuit, Mrs Browne? You’re thin as a rake. You need the strength.’

  Augusta shook her head. Evans arrived a few moments later. He and Brenda kissed, clinging to each other as if they had been parted for a long time. Arms linked round each other’s waists, they leaned against the sink, warm and awkward in their protection of each other against the elements they had been subjected to of late: anger, jealousy, and finally death.

  There was no further reason for any of them to stay, but to leave was not easy. Rosie kissed Augusta on both cheeks, sniffing back tears, and said the village would miss her. Augusta doubted this, but acknowledged the compliment with a smile. She shook hands with Brenda and Evans, who thanked her for the use of the attic room. It had made all the difference to their lives, they said. They wished her well in London, and left holding hands. Rosie had to be on her way, too, she said. She had an appointment with the doctor to see if he could give her anything new for her hands. Once they had cleared up, why, she’d feel a different woman, up to anything.

  When they had gone Augusta made a final pilgrimage round the garden. It was dank and gloomy, quiet but for the dripping leaves of evergreens. She picked a small bunch of winter jasmine from the wall outside her study, brief reminder of sun, and put it in her car. Then she toured the house, room by room, banishing the unfamiliar shapes of emptiness from her mind even as she observed them: carpets dented by the feet of parted furniture, walls patterned with dark shapes left by pictures, bare shelves. She would never remember it like this. The rooms would remain in her memory furnished as they had always been.

  When the church clock struck five she lay on the floor of her study, where the telephone now stood, and rang Hugh.

  ‘I’m ringing you from Wroughton for the last time,’ she said, knowing she should have forced herself not to have rung at all.

  ‘Did it all go well?’

  ‘Oh, yes. There’s no news, really.’

  ‘No, I don’t suppose there is.’

  ‘Sorry . . . to disturb you,’ she said.

  There was a pause.

  ‘That’s all right.’ Hugh answered, more gently than in the past months. ‘Drive carefully when you leave. There’s fog on the motorway.’

  They said goodbye. Augusta went to the hall. It was already almost dark. She put more logs on the fire, giving in to final weakness – carrying out her plan which was to wait until the fire went out before she left. She sat down on the flagstones beside it.

  Some hours later, coming downstairs for the last time, she paused to listen to the comfortable crackle of the fire. Shutting her eyes, she imagined it was an ordinary night of a few years ago: one of the many times she had descended the stairs to the warmth of the hall. The sounds of shifting logs were the same – the dim, summery smell of apple boughs, preserved out of season in this winter house, unchanged. The polished wood of the banister beneath her hand, its familiar hump arching in her palm, the creak of a stair beneath her feet – if all was still tangibly the same, which it was, then the destruction that had taken place today was surely no more than a nightmare?

  The illusion lasted only while Augusta kept shut her eyes. When she opened them, and returned to the bare hall, she smiled at her own absurdity. The emptiness of reality was all about her, intumulating that sudden, last, pathetic hope with a force that flayed the strength she had relied upon all day. She sat down by the fire again, to keep watch over the flames for a few more hours.

  Much later that night Henry walked slowly home, agreeably surprised by occasional flakes of snow that melted against his face. Coming up the road to the cottage, he noticed a dim glow from the hall windows of Wroughton House. Firelight rather than lamplight, he thought, and without determining upon any plan f
ound himself approaching the house.

  Reaching the front door, he saw the empty hall through its glass panes, and remembered today was the day Mrs Browne was leaving. Then he saw her sitting on the floor by the fire, which was little more than a frill of small flames among red ash. Her knees were drawn up, her head upon them, the whole structure bound together by her arms. She seemed becalmed. For a moment Henry thought of going to her, then decided against it. There is unwitting mockery in consolation. There are areas of despair no outsider should intrude upon, lest they are rekindled by well-intentioned kindness. Henry turned away. He was shocked at having witnessed another’s private anguish, and at the same time consoled.

  As he made his way back down the drive the snow began to fall more thickly, sticking to his clothes. He did not feel drunk tonight, though he knew by rights he should be. As far as he could tell, he walked quite steadily.

  At home, Rosie was knitting.

  ‘Mrs Browne’s dead,’ he said. ‘I’ve just seen her. I looked through the window and saw her by the fire.’

  A look of horror flared in Rosie’s face, quickly replaced by one of understanding.

  ‘Don’t be silly, love,’ she said. ‘I was with Mrs Browne most of the day, helping her pack up. I expect she’s just upset. She loves the house.’

  ‘She’s dead, I tell you.’ Henry sat heavily in his chair. ‘You may not know it, Rosie, but there are a lot of dead people walking about. You run into them everywhere.’

  ‘Yes, yes, love,’ Rosie replied in her patient cooing voice. He could see her gather her most welcoming smile, which she turned upon him, striking him as it always did with profound irritation. The uncomprehending busybodying old cow. Not that her welcomes mattered, really, any more. He could pass through their smothering as a ghost pierces solid substance. So she could carry on her smiling, much as she liked – he would have no care. One day, perhaps, she would learn that welcomes are nothing to the dead.