Jumping the Queue

by Mary Wesley

  Hugh changed, dropping his clothes onto the floor while Matilda stood looking out of the window.

  ‘How do I look?’

  ‘Changed.’ She eyed him carefully. ‘Tom was very dark. He was thin like you.’

  ‘I think I’ve lost weight on the run.’

  ‘I daresay. Here’s his watch. Put it on. It’s a cheap Ingersoll, goes like a bomb and tells you the date.’ She strapped it round his left wrist.

  ‘What shall we do with mine?’

  ‘I’ll put it in the bowl in the hall. It’s full of unwanted stuff, anything small and broken. We’ll hide it under the world’s nose.’

  ‘How much nose does the world put in your door?’

  ‘Very little. I can’t help the occasional person. Nobody comes regularly. Tom and I put people off. They got the message and left us alone.’

  ‘And when he died?’

  ‘One needn’t encourage people. Everyone comes to the funeral, then they leave you alone.’

  ‘The children?’

  ‘They have husbands or lovers. They came once or twice dutifully. I could see my grief bored them. Mothers are not supposed to be in love with your father – there’s something indecent about it. They adore love and sex for themselves but for parents it’s unnatural.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘Do you?’

  ‘Well, yes, I do. I’m not your child.’

  ‘You could be if –’

  ‘Only if you’d been a child bride.’

  ‘You flatter me. Actually Tom and I never stopped squabbling in front of the children so they thought my grief hypocritical.’

  ‘Quarrels are often an indication of love.’

  ‘Tell that to Louise, Mark, Anabel and Claud.’ Matilda picked up Hugh’s discarded clothes. ‘Found any shoes that fit?’

  ‘These sneakers are fine but my feet are bigger than his.’

  ‘Perhaps it will be safe to keep your own.’ She was doubtful.

  ‘They are a very common make.’

  ‘All right, then.’

  In the kitchen Matilda cut up the discarded clothes and fed the bits into the Rayburn. Hugh sat watching her profile as she worked. What have I let myself in for? he wondered. He tried to place her among the women of his world and failed.

  In the afternoon sun the garden shimmered with heat.

  ‘I shall have to water my vegetables. There’s been no rain.’

  ‘I’ll help you.’

  ‘You might be seen.’

  ‘Couldn’t I be a visitor?’

  ‘It’s not normal for me to have visitors.’

  Matilda, putting the last sock into the Rayburn, sat back, her hands folded in her lap, silent.

  People do shy away from the slightly loopy, Hugh thought. They don’t know what to say. If they are harmless they leave them alone. Watching her lids droop, he wondered whether sitting upright she would snore.

  They sat companionably, both tired by the emotions of the past days.

  It was Folly who heard the footsteps, first pricking her ears and looking from Hugh to Matilda. Hugh listened. Someone coming—a child on bare feet? Footsteps coming rather slowly from the copse. Was it a trick? A spy? Whoever it was, was coming on steadily. Folly growled. Hugh half rose then sat down again. He was cut off from the passage door by Matilda and could be seen through the open door from the garden. The footsteps were on the flagstones now. Matilda’s head jerked up. She cried out, rushed to the door. The footsteps stopped.

  ‘Gus!’ Matilda sprang out, swooping down in a birdlike movement. Her arms and Gus’s flapping wings made patterns in the sunlight. Gus raised his proud head, honked loud, then laid it across Matilda’s lap. She gathered him into her arms.

  ‘Gus, oh Gus! How did you get here? Oh Gus, it’s more than ten miles – your feet –’ She stroked his neck, his back, his breast. She examined each foot. ‘You hero!’

  Hugh brought a bowl of water. The gander dipped his beak in the water, raised it high, looking at Hugh with an enraged blue eye.

  ‘It’s all right, Gus, he’s a friend.’ Gus snipped quickly at Hugh’s wrist and dabbed his beak at Folly who backed into the house, tail between her legs. ‘She’s a friend. Oh Gus, I betrayed you.’ Matilda sat inelegantly, her legs apart, skirt riding up. Gus made throttling noises, weaving his sinuous neck against her throat, nibbling her ears, tweaking her hair.

  ‘He’s made a frightful mess on your skirt.’

  ‘That’s love.’

  ‘Will it wash off?’

  ‘It doesn’t matter. It’s marvellous to have you back. We need you.’ She looked up at Hugh who was grinning. ‘We need him to protect us from prying eyes. Mr Hicks, for instance.’

  ‘Who is he?’

  ‘The postmaster. He’s an inquisitive menace, dangerous.’

  Hugh noted that Matilda had said ‘we’.

  9

  WATCHING MATILDA WITH Gus, Hugh wondered whether they were as beautiful as Leda and the Swan. This up-to-date version touched him. Matilda, bare legged, in a crumpled dress, stroking the bird, her hand sliding down his neck from head to breast, her white hair flopping forward over his head while he nibbled at her ears. Now and again the bird stopped his attentions to peer at Hugh and hiss.

  ‘There’s some maize in the scullery. Could you find it?’

  Hugh brought it, holding out a handful to the bird. Gus snipped his forefinger in a painful grip. Hugh kept his hand still. Gus held on while Hugh waited. After a while the bird released him and began to eat. Matilda watched the blood returning to Hugh’s finger.

  ‘He won’t do that again.’

  ‘I hope he won’t, once is enough.’

  ‘He will terrorize Folly.’

  ‘I think she will be all right. She’s not very brave, a rabbit scared her in your wood.’

  ‘Let’s see.’

  In the room behind them Folly sat anxiously on the chair by the Rayburn.

  ‘I think he will ignore her.’

  ‘She will keep out of his way.’

  ‘Doesn’t he have a new owner?’

  ‘Oh Lord!’ Matilda sat up. ‘He will come over to tell me Gus is lost.’

  ‘He may telephone. Couldn’t you telephone first?’

  ‘Yes.’ Matilda was examining Gus’s feet. ‘He doesn’t seem footsore.’

  ‘Could he have flown?’

  ‘Not the world’s greatest flyer. He can fly but doesn’t.’

  ‘The stream?’

  ‘It goes nowhere near – oh yes, it does, it comes down from the reservoir and he was at the farm at the far end of it. That must be it. You clever, clever Gus.’

  ‘So diddums swam and paddled the whole way home –’

  ‘I know I’m soppy.’ Matilda got up, eyeing the goose mess on her frock. ‘Frightfully hard to get the stain out. Lucky this dress is old. I’ll telephone.’

  Hugh listened as she went indoors. He could hear her dialling. The dial whined six times. Not 999, not the police. The gander, having finished the maize, began preening. In the house Matilda was talking. After a few minutes the receiver was replaced with a bang. Hugh waited. The gander finished preening and tucked his head along his back, letting himself sink down on the path.

  Hugh looked at the watch on his left wrist. Twenty-four hours ago he had got off a train and taken a bus to the port.

  ‘What are you thinking about?’ Matilda sat down beside him.

  ‘What did the man say?’

  ‘He said Gus was no good, attacked his geese, killed one. He was rude, said Gus is no gander, no good to him, and will I send a cheque for the damage! I said I would and to bugger off.’

  ‘Wouldn’t do for the W.I.’

  ‘I told you.’

  ‘Not a very successful betrayal.’

  ‘No. What were you thinking just now?’

  ‘How I was twenty-four hours ago.’

  ‘Tell me.’

  ‘I had been on the move since I killed my mother. I thought I might get to
France, might meet someone with a boat who would take me across. That’s what I thought early on. Then I decided it was all too silly. I’d wait until dark and go out with the tide. The police have been no help at all.’ Hugh laughed. ‘I’ve discovered how to run away successfully in this country.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘For starters you don’t mind whether you are caught or not. You never hurry. You ask the way, if possible from a policeman. He will obligingly tell you. I even went into a police station and stood by a wanted poster of myself and asked the way to the bus station. They gave me a lift in a Panda.’

  ‘Where was that?’

  ‘Salisbury, I think. If you run you are chased. If you wander about unworried nobody bothers.’

  ‘You were just lucky.’

  ‘No. The nearest I ever got to getting caught was when you started helping me.’

  ‘Thanks!’

  ‘I do. But now I don’t want to be caught. I’m dead scared.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘I keep thinking you will send for the police. I thought when you went to the village that you would get them then, that I would find them waiting when I came back from the wood. I thought just now you might dial 999 not the goose man. I’m sorry.’

  ‘Nothing to be sorry about. I’m a great betrayer.’

  ‘Not really.’

  ‘Half of me is. I hoped you’d be gone, taking Folly, when I came back from the village. I thought having a dog with you would be splendid camouflage. I didn’t want to get involved and then –’

  ‘Then?’

  ‘Then I thought I do want to be involved, it’s fun.’

  ‘Fun? Who for?’

  ‘Me. I’ve had no fun for years.’

  ‘I wondered whether you were mad.’

  ‘Menopause?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘No way – beastly expression – but it applies, it’s true. This is fun, let’s make a success of it.’

  ‘Harbouring a murderer is a criminal offence. Don’t be frivolous.’

  ‘Don’t be so conventional. People are conventional, we can’t do without them. In your case, in my life, I’ve no room for it.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘If you want to go to the police yourself or throw yourself into the sea –’ Matilda flushed, getting angry.

  ‘And what will you do?’

  ‘Kill Gus, have Folly destroyed, wait for the tide to be right and swim out as I’d planned.’

  ‘Such despair.’

  ‘We have equal despair. Your despair could cancel mine, that’s all.’

  ‘Blackmail now.’

  ‘If that’s what you like to call it.’

  They stared at one another with horror.

  ‘We are getting a bit near the knuckle,’ Hugh murmured.

  Matilda nodded.

  Feeling their tension, the dog had got down from the safety of the chair and sat between them, managing to press her bony ribs against each of them. She shivered a little, eyeing Gus, but more fearful of losing Hugh and Matilda.

  ‘It’s all right.’ Hugh stroked the dog’s head. ‘Nothing to worry about.’

  ‘Sorry to be nervy.’ Matilda was apologetic. ‘It’s Mr Hicks. There’s something very unpleasant about that man. Maybe Anabel wasn’t lying.’

  ‘About what?’

  ‘She said he groped up her skirts years ago. We couldn’t believe her, but I don’t know. He frightened the children. Today he made me uneasy. He pries through pebble glasses.’ Matilda shivered. ‘A goose walking over my grave. Not you, Gus, not you.’ She looked at Gus, folded compactly in sleep. ‘Horrible Mr Hicks was one of the first on Louise and Anabel’s list.’

  ‘What list?’

  ‘They took a great interest when they were about fifteen and eleven in the population explosion. It was about then Louise joined the Conservative Party. They hung a sheet of foolscap on the wall by the clock and listed people they would eliminate. Mr Hicks was high on the list. They ran out of actual people rather soon or changed their minds and reinstated them, but Mr Hicks and Charles Manson were constants. It became a little macabre. I objected.’

  ‘Little girls?’

  ‘Little girls, yes, but I found Tom often agreed with them. They switched from actual people to kinds of people. The list included spastics, lepers, brain-damaged people. Claud wrote in brain-washed, and Louise started it again – the very old, all the handicapped, all Communists. Then Anabel decided Berlinguer was rather dishy and stopped playing. Louise took the list up to her room and carried on alone. A world without weak or imperfect people is, she thinks, she still thinks, a better world. She’s a Fascist, my child.’

  ‘And your Tom’s.’

  ‘Yes, of course. Oh well.’ Matilda shook herself. ‘Louise is one of the reasons I was picnicking. It would be intolerable to be looked after by Louise, however right she may be about Mr Hicks.’

  ‘Have you a terminal illness?’ Mention of the picnic suggested this reason to Hugh.

  ‘Haven’t we all?’ He could see by the set of her jaw he would get no other answer.

  10

  THAT EVENING THERE was a thunderstorm which solved the problem of watering the garden. Clouds gathered about six o’clock while Hugh and Matilda watched the news on television.

  The pound was down – the Bank of England had intervened.

  The meeting in Brussels –

  The E.E.C. –

  Unrest in Spain, Ethiopia, the Middle East, Africa – Cambodia –

  China –

  Students –

  The earthquake in Central Asia –

  The C.I.A. –

  Our correspondent in Beirut reports that the Moslems and Christians –

  Mr X, the honeymoon husband of Perranporth told the police that –

  Mrs Y, the owner of the dog eaten by her husband was arrested by the police this morning and will be charged with grievous bodily harm –

  Our correspondent in Cape Town reports Hugh Warner, the Matricide, was seen at the races by an intimate friend Mrs Vivian Briggs –

  Here the television blanked out, lightning flashed, followed by a clap of thunder.

  Matilda got up and tried a light switch. ‘Power cut,’ she said and tried the telephone. ‘That’s gone too. Who is this intimate friend, Mrs Vivian something?’

  ‘I’ve no idea.’

  The rain came down in noisy torrents. Outside the kitchen door Gus honked, defying the elements. Folly crept under the dresser.

  Matilda ran round the house shutting windows against the rain whistling down venomously after holding off for so long. Thunder crashed overhead, then cracked and burst simultaneously with the lightning. She found candles to light the kitchen. Hugh drew the curtains. Gus stood in the doorway and Matilda let him into the scullery and closed the door to the garden. Hugh lit the candles.

  Matilda stood with her back to the stove, her arms crossed, hugging herself, her dress stained with goose mess, her feet bare. In turn she warmed each foot against the stove, standing birdlike on one foot. Her hair was swept into a crest. She looked, he thought, like a print he had once bought of a Polish Fowl.

  When the centre of the storm had moved a little way off Matilda asked again: ‘Mrs Vivian something?’

  Hugh shook his head. ‘No idea.’

  Some girl friend of yesteryear, thought Matilda. Some woman who would enjoy saying at parties, ‘Oh, Hugh Warner – of course I know him well –’ attracting attention to herself by dubious name dropping. It was the sort of thing Anabel did. She let her mind dwell briefly on her daughter and found her wanting. Anabel craved attention, always had, and so too did Louise who got more, being more beautiful than her sister. Two beautiful daughters, two good looking sons, thought Matilda. They shall find nothing of me to pick over, no surprises. Let them go on with their erroneous ideas. She smiled.

  ‘What’s the joke?’

  ‘I was thinking of my children.’

  ‘Funny?’

  ‘I have le
ft no secrets for them to pore over – burned my letters, destroyed all clues. I shall leave them nothing but a shed snakeskin.’

  ‘You look like a Polish Fowl.’

  ‘They are very rare nowadays.’

  ‘Yes?’ Hugh was delighted that she knew what a Polish Fowl was.

  ‘A white topknot, sometimes known as the Tufted Hamburg.’

  ‘Extinct,’ said Hugh, laughing.

  ‘Like me.’ Matilda smiled. ‘I am almost extinct.’

  ‘Shall we have a bottle of wine? It would pass the time.’

  ‘Okay.’ Matilda took a candle to the larder. Hugh watched her bend down, reaching for a bottle, and thought that for her age she had good legs, a good bottom. He opened the bottle, poured the wine. Matilda sat opposite him in the candlelight. Overhead and all round the hills the thunder groaned and rumbled. The rain spat down.

  ‘I am an habitual liar,’ Matilda remarked conversationally. ‘I find it almost impossible not to embroider. Anabel is as bad.’

  Hugh nodded.

  ‘When I said Tom went to Paris to meet a friend and you said he went to meet Death I thought that sounded so good I’d let it go. I lied by default. In fact I don’t like Paris. Tom knew there was no question of my going with him. When he wanted to go to Paris he went on his own. The friends he was meeting were his friends, not mine. Neither Tom nor I thought he would meet death. That was not in our plans at all. He had a heart attack in the rue Jacob – dropped dead.’

  Hugh stayed silent.

  ‘The children were all grown up. They had their lives. We were busy still with ours but –’ Matilda pushed her hair away from her face, drank some wine. A slight draught made the candles flicker. Her eyes looked dark in their sockets. ‘But Tom and I were aware of what was coming. Tom called it “La dégringolade”. He could not bring himself, as I do, to call it disintegration. You looked surprised when I talked of a wrinkled bottom. However well and fit you are the flesh grows old. We had been young together, loved, fought, had children, ups and downs, a tiring, insecure life but not a boring one. We talked to each other, Tom and I. We decided when we were still in our prime not to allow ourselves to crumble into old age where you are dependent on others, your powers fail, you repeat yourself, you become incontinent. The children try their best, then put you into an old people’s home with nothing to look forward to but the geriatric ward. That is what we both minded about age, the keeping alive of useless old people. He and Louise used to have a game: how many children could eat if old people were allowed to die? Millions.’