A Temporary Life, page 10
‘Like you.’
‘Like me.’
She laughs again.
‘Would you like to see the other rooms?’ she says.
We go outside. The door to the lounge is closed.
‘The painter by the way is dead.’
‘In that case, I suppose, you could hang it up.’
‘As a momento.’
‘A memorial.’
‘I suppose I could. It cost enough, in any case,’ she says.
We go upstairs. A dance tune, faintly, is playing from a room above.
‘Did Beccie show you round?’ she says.
‘Your room,’ I tell her, ‘and not much else.’
‘She showed you that?’
We reach the door.
‘You won’t need to look inside again.’
‘It was too dark,’ I tell her, ‘to see the view.’
‘The view?’ she says. ‘She mentioned that.’
‘About the only thing she did,’ I say.
The bed, the four-poster, is still the same. The photograph of the blond-haired man still stands beside the bed.
‘It looks out towards the town,’ she says.
The village, with its ancient, black-stone houses, is spread out around the green below.
Black, mullioned windows look down towards the heath.
The town is scarcely visible beyond, a long, drawn-out ligament of rock, dark, knotted, mounded up against the valley side.
Her hand, I notice, as she holds the curtain aside, is small; the sharp-featured face is set in profile against the whiteness of the cloth behind.
She turns her head.
‘Nothing to excite you much,’ she says.
A car comes up the drive below: there are several shouts, a cry.
‘I’ll show you the other rooms,’ she adds.
When we go back down two men and two women are sitting in chairs around the fire. The blonde, her head on her knees, is sitting on the floor. Pettrie, his hands in his pockets, is standing at the window, gazing out. The other couple, it seems, have gone.
‘Here comes the ape-man,’ Leyland says.
He sits, his knee up, his nose inflamed, his lip swollen, on one of the couches across the room.
‘I’m thinking of suing him,’ he says.
The heads of the newcomers have already turned: Mrs Newman reels off a list of names, then adds, ‘No more fighting. For today, at least.’
‘I didn’t start it,’ Leyland says. ‘I only asked him where he worked. The next thing I knew he’d knocked me out.’
The four figures across the room have laughed.
‘Do you know what Johnny is?’ a man with short black hair and dark protruding eyes has asked.
I shake my head.
‘Have a guess.’
‘I take it we’re keeping to professions,’ Leyland says.
‘Perhaps he has views on other things,’ he says.
‘In terms of identity as well as job.’
They laugh.
‘No,’ I tell him. ‘I’ve no idea.’
‘Going by his dress: bohemian. You notice the muddied jeans, the collarless shirt.’
‘A solicitor.’
They laugh again.
‘How did you guess, for God’s sake,’ someone says.
‘Is this something you’ve arranged, Elizabeth?’ the other man has said.
He’s built like a wrestler; his arms, it seems, are suspended from his ears; fists the size of melons dangle lamely in the region of his knees.
‘I’ve told him nothing,’ Mrs Newman says.
‘Eddie?’
‘Not a thing,’ the tall man says. He shakes his head.
‘He’s such a rotten egoist, he’s surprised when anyone sees through him,’ Mrs Newman says. ‘He’s only tolerated in a place like this. Anywhere else he’d get his teeth pushed in.’
‘They very nearly were, Liz,’ Leyland says.
The men across the room have laughed.
In the hall outside the girl appears; she looks into the room, sees me, then comes across. She’s wearing a jumper and a pair of jeans.
Without looking at anyone else in the room she sits down heavily in the chair beside me; breathless, red-cheeked, she dangles her hands between her knees.
‘Have you been here long?’ she says.
‘Long enough for some,’ I tell her.
‘I’ve been out riding.’ She looks over to her mother. ‘Did you show him the picture, Mum?’ she says.
Her mother nods.
‘He was full of admiration, Bec.’
‘I told you he would be, Mum,’ she says.
Pettrie, his hands in his pockets, has come across.
‘We ready for off?’ he says. He looks at his watch.
‘I’m feeling tired.’ The girl has shaken her head.
‘Don’t you want to come?’
‘I suppose I ought to, since it’s all arranged.’
‘Ed’s showing her the factory,’ Mrs Newman says. ‘There might be something there to draw.’
She adds this more coolly, looking at the girl.
‘If Ed’s arranged it, Bec,’ she says.
‘I suppose I’d better, then,’ she says.
‘Don’t let me force you, Beccie,’ Pettrie says.
‘Do you want to come as well?’ she asks.
‘Maybe another day,’ I tell her.
‘Mr Freestone’s recovering from his fight, Bec,’ Pettrie says.
‘What fight?’
‘He’s been fighting Mr Leyland, Bec,’ her mother says.
The girl looks over to where Leyland, his shoeless foot in his hand, is showing a hole in his sock to the figures round the fire.
‘Did he hit him on the nose?’ she says.
‘That’s right.’
‘Johnny’s working out at present how to get his own back, Beccie,’ Pettrie says.
‘I say. How super. I wish I’d been here,’ the girl has said.
Pettrie glancing at his watch, has sighed.
‘I suppose we better be off,’ he says.
‘Do you need a coat, Bec?’ Mrs Newman says.
‘I don’t know,’ she says. She shakes her head.
‘I think you should.’
The girl looks up.
‘I shan’t be a minute, then,’ she says.
Somewhere at the back of the house a door has opened. The dogs come in the room.
Leyland, seeing them, begins to bark; he stoops down, barking; then, shouting, climbs back on his chair.
The blonde girl holds her cheeks and laughs.
The man built like a wrestler begins to laugh as well: his teeth, large, gleaming, are set wide apart inside his mouth. The man with the coal-black eyes is standing by the fire.
‘We’d better see you off,’ Mrs Newman says. ‘Will you come and see Bec off?’ she adds.
As we reach the hall she takes my arm.
The small red shooting-brake is drawn up outside the door.
Pettrie, followed by Leyland, comes out from the house. A moment later the girl appears; she’s followed by the dogs.
‘Bring her back alive, Ed,’ Leyland says.
Pettrie, dressed in a suede overcoat, has climbed in behind the wheel. The dogs, barking, leap up at the door.
The girl gets in the other side. She glances out, briefly, towards the porch.
‘She’s furious at having to go,’ Mrs Newman says.
The car moves off: a hand appears on Pettrie’s side; it’s waved for a moment to and fro.
‘Poor old Eddie,’ Leyland says.
‘Eddie’s all right,’ Mrs Newman says.
‘And poor old Beccie,’ Leyland says. He looks at me.
‘It’s time I was leaving as well,’ I say.
‘You might have said that sooner,’ Leyland says. He steps up, limping, towards the door.
‘I’ll walk with you. For some of the way,’ Mrs Newman says. ‘I could do with getting out.’
She steps inside the hall.
‘I’ll get a coat.’
The woman with the greying, close-cropped hair has appeared at the door of the room opposite the lounge.
‘Are you taking calls yet, Liz?’ she says.
‘I’m out all afternoon,’ Mrs Newman says.
‘You here again, then, Leyland,’ the woman says. ‘I thought I heard your inimitable cries.’
The phone has begun to ring in the room behind.
‘This is Jacqueline Spencer, my husband’s secretary,’ Mrs Newman says. ‘This is Colin Freestone,’ she adds. ‘He came up this afternoon to see the picture.’
‘What does he think of it?’ she says.
She turns to me.
‘He likes it on the whole,’ she says.
The secretary, nodding, has looked across.
‘Where did you put it, in any case?’ she says.
‘In the library, Mrs Newman says.
‘I knocked on the door. There was no reply.’
‘That was me, I’m afraid,’ Mrs Newman says. ‘Not to be disturbed.’ She smiles.
‘I’d better see to the phone,’ the secretary says.
She closes the door. The ringing stops.
‘I shan’t be a second,’ Mrs Newman says.
Leyland reappears at the door of the lounge. He runs his tongue across his lips.
‘You’re going now?’
‘That’s right.’
‘All being well,’ he says, ‘we’ll meet again.’
His eyes, for a moment, examine mine.
The man built like a wrestler is standing on his head in the room behind. His face, reddened, inverted, is turned towards the door.
The man with the coal-black eyes is visible between his outstretched legs.
‘The odds’ll be more even then.’
‘A dozen of you,’ I tell him, ‘to one of us.’
‘Something of a joker, then.’
‘That’s right.’
‘I should watch out for Mrs Newman, too.’
He glances back, idly, towards the stairs.
‘The odds are mounting up.’ I smile.
‘There’ve been people like you before,’ he says.
‘Here?’ I ask him. ‘Or somewhere else.’
‘Wherever the Newmans settle, friend.’
He tries to grimace now himself.
‘I should see a doctor about your nose.’
‘I shall.’
Mrs Newman appears at the end of the hall. Leyland, seeing her, moves over to the door of the adjoining room.
‘I know you’re in there,’ he says, knocking. ‘Sending coded messages to the gestapo bloody chief.’
A dull thumping and a muffled voice answers from the other side.
‘I won’t go far,’ Mrs Newman says.
She’s dressed in slacks now, and a fawn coat, with a scarf around her head.
‘Tell him everything’s under control, then,’ Leyland says. He bangs against the door again. ‘Do you hear that now?’ waiting for this to be confirmed. ‘I should be careful what you say,’ he adds to me, genially, as if no word of any sort had passed between us. ‘I won’t tell you where the mike is in the loo, but when you grab hold of it it flushes.’
He goes back in the lounge. The man who was standing on his head is now kneeling on the floor: he’s trying to pick up some object between his teeth.
‘This is how we spend our week-ends,’ Mrs Newman says. ‘When Neville’s back it’s even worse.’ She takes my arm.
The dogs, barking, follow us to the porch.
‘In. In,’ she says. She drives them back. ‘Leyland, you see,’ she adds, ‘has made them worse.’
She closes the door.
‘What do you think of that?’
She points to a coat-of-arms above the door.
In the form of a plaque, the design represents three sheaves of wheat surmounted by a stork.
‘“Nunc mea, mox hujus, sed postea nescio cujus”,’ she says reading the inscription. ‘Now mine, soon thine, but afterwards I know not whose.’ She gestures round. ‘When the village was built it stood at the edge of Sherwood Forest. Robin Hood and the bad King John. At least, that’s what they told us when we first moved in.’
She takes my arm.
‘Latin’s not one of your other subjects, then.’
‘That’s right.’
She laughs. ‘Leyland translated it for us when we first arrived.’
‘He’s been with you, then, some time?’ I ask.
‘Years,’ she says. ‘I couldn’t count.’
We reach the green.
‘And the other two?’
‘The one with the staring eyes?’ She laughs again. ‘That’s Groves.’
‘And the one built like a tank?’
‘That’s Fraser.’
‘And what do Groves and Fraser do?’
‘They work with Nev.’ She shakes her head. ‘Do you want to see the Hall?’ she says.
The village consists, in fact, of several large stone mansions, the most recent at least a century old, the remaining five or six so ancient that the largest, it seems, is falling down: its remaining balustrade is silhouetted against the sky like a set of broken teeth.
The second largest house, with steps leading up to its massive portico, has been converted into offices: a number of cars are parked outside; figures can be seen moving to and fro in several of its windows. The remaining houses have been converted into flats: the driveways and gardens are overgrown; a row of bells shines from a plastic surround by each of the ancient doors.
It’s the largest of the houses, it seems, that Mrs Newman is making for. We cross the road beyond the green and enter a narrow lane at the end of which, beside a gate-house, stands a pair of metal gates. On top of one of the gate-posts stands a metal stork, on the other merely a pair of long thin legs and the lower half of a stork’s thin body.
The driveway, overgrown, and overhung by trees, bends slowly to our left.
Immediately to our right the house appears, a curving flight of steps running up to its central door which is heavily barred and bolted.
‘Too dangerous to go inside,’ she says.
The same coat-of-arms of the stork and the sheaves of wheat is carved above the door. Mullioned windows above and on either side run up to the crumbling, soot-encrusted balustrade. Tower-like structures with battlemented crests are set at either end of the black façade.
‘The gardens ran down there,’ she says.
A series of low mounds and overgrown terraces stretch down towards the heath below. A stone wall separates the gardens from the heath itself.
‘If you stand on the steps you can see inside the rooms. The floors have rotted and the ceilings are coming through. They’ve got panelled walls, you see, like ours.’
We climb the steps; the wind, still fresh, has caught the scarf: she stands on tiptoe, gazing in.
‘I’ll walk with you to the heath,’ she says, finally, when we climb back down.
A path winds down between the mounds. As we reach the wall a man appears from behind the house. He wears a belted raincoat and a trilby hat. He gazes up, in much the same fashion as Mrs Newman had, first at the door and then at the windows. Finally, his hands behind his back, he glances down towards the wall itself.
‘If you’ll hold my hand,’ she says, ‘I can climb across.’
At the other side I help her down.
The man, briefly, has removed his hat.
‘You sound,’ I tell her, ‘as though you’ve walked here quite a lot.’
‘Once or twice. I bring the dogs. Sometimes Beccie comes as well.’ She says, ‘I’m the only one, you see, who likes to walk.’
The path beyond the wall leads down to the road which runs up, circuitously, towards the village. Below us, a group of men in coloured jerseys are playing football on a pitch marked out between the clumps of heather.
‘Perhaps one night you could come to dinner.’ She glances back. ‘I’m sure some of the people we have you’d like to meet.’
‘I don’t mind anyone,’ I tell her.
The man in the raincoat has disappeared.
‘Not even Leyland?’
‘Him least of all,’ I say and laugh.
She laughs herself. By the football pitch, for a moment, we watch the game.
‘But then you have an advantage, I suppose,’ she says.
‘In what?’
‘In fisticuffs,’ she says. She shakes her head.
‘I have an advantage,’ I tell her, ‘in lots of things.’
‘It just takes people time to recognize it, I suppose,’ she says.
‘That’s right.’
‘You’re very cocky.’
‘I believe I am.’
She laughs.
There’s a shout from the pitch. The ball appears. A figure leaps up. There’s a shout of, ‘Goal!’
The people standing at the side have clapped.
Across the pitch the man in the trilby hat has reappeared.
‘I’d better be getting back,’ she says.
A string of riders gallop past.
‘Will you come up to the house again?’
‘I suppose I shall.’
‘One evening, then?’ She glances back.
‘I’ll do my best.’
‘I know some days, of course, you’re free as well.’
‘I’m free nearly all the time,’ I say.
She begins to laugh.
‘If you walk up to the house I could drive you back.’
‘I think I’ll take the bus,’ I add.
‘In that case,’ she says, ‘we should say good-bye.’
She holds out her hand as we reach the road.
‘Our ways divide.’
She shakes my hand.
‘Until our next encounter, then.’
There’s a sort of arrogance in the way she moves, her hands thrust down in the pockets of her coat, aware of being watched, it seems. Having set off up the heath she doesn’t look back.
Her scarf, loose around her shoulders, flutters in the wind.
I sit on the wall at the foot of the heath and wait for the bus. I’m joined a little later by the spectators and some of the players from the football match. At the back of the queue stands the man in the belted raincoat and the trilby hat. He lights a cigarette, his hands cupped to his mouth; then, almost slily, his face still shielded by his hands, he looks at me.
Part Three
1
