A Dream of Wessex

  Julia was restless, and stared back up the rampart several times.

  ‘Was that your boyfriend?’ Harkman said in the end, breaking a silence that had endured for several minutes. ‘The one in the paint-shop?’

  ‘Greg? He’s no one special.’

  ‘I thought you were waiting for him to come back.’

  ‘No ... it’s just...’ She sat up, and turned round to face him. ‘I shouldn’t be here with you.’

  ‘Do you want to put on your dress again?’

  ‘It’s not that. If Greg ... or anybody came back, they’d wonder why I was still sitting here.’

  ‘Well? Why are you?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Shall we close the deal?’ Harkman said. ‘I’ve brought the money with me.’

  ‘No.’ She put a hand on his. ‘Please don’t. Stay and talk to me.’

  And there it was: for Harkman, a confirmation of his own feeling. Nothing specific, nothing he could put into words. No reasons, but a need to stay with her, a need to talk and make some kind of contact.

  He said: ‘When I arrived in Dorchester two days ago, I felt I recognized you. Do you know what I mean?’

  She nodded. ‘I knew your name. David Harkman ... it was as if it was written in large letters all over you.’

  ‘Was it?’ he said, smiling.

  ‘No - but I knew it. Have we met before?’

  ‘I don’t think so. I’ve never been to Wessex in my life.’

  ‘I’ve only been here for about three years.’ She spoke then of her past, as if to set out a sequence of events where their lives might have intersected. Harkman listened, but he knew that there was nowhere they could have seen each other: she had been brought up on a cooperative farm near Hereford, and lived there until three years ago. She’d never been to London, never even travelled further east than Malvern, where she had been to school.

  Harkman thought of his own life, but didn’t speak of it. He felt his age, realizing that he must be nearly fifteen years older than her ... and that those fifteen years would take longer to tell than the story of her own whole life. And yet, in terms of events nothing much had happened: education, career, marriage, career, divorce, career ... offices, government departments, reports written and published. Not much for more than forty years of life, but more than he wanted to describe to her.

  ‘Then what is it?’ she said. ‘Why do I know you?’

  ‘You really do feel it.’

  She was looking at him directly, almost earnestly, and he remembered the evasiveness of those same eyes when they had been talking outside the shop.

  ‘I’m glad you said something,’ Julia said. ‘I thought it was only me.’

  ‘I’ll say it plainly: I’m attracted to you.’

  A large fly buzzed around Julia’s face, and she flicked a hand at it. Undeterred, it landed on her leg and walked up her thigh in quick, staccato movements. She knocked it away.

  She said: ‘I thought for a time that I ... It’s difficult to say. Yesterday at the shop. Well, I thought it was one of those sexual things. You know, when you can’t control it.’

  ‘You’re very attractive, Julia.’

  ‘But it’s not that, is it? Not just that.’

  ‘I’m tempted to say yes,’ he said. ‘I wish it was only that, because it would be simpler. It’s there for me ... but that’s not all.’

  ‘I’d like my dress, please.’

  He passed it to her without a word, and watched as she pulled it over her head. She stood up to shake it down over her legs, then sat beside him again.

  ‘Did you get dressed because we were talking about sex?’ he said.

  ‘Yes.’ ‘Then I think we understand one another.’ He had a sudden urge to touch her, and he reached out to take her hand, but she moved it away from him. He went on: ‘I feel that we somehow possess each other, Julia. That we are linked in some way, and that it was inevitable we would meet. Do you know what I mean?’

  ‘I think so.’

  ‘I’d like a direct answer.’

  She said: ‘I’m not sure I can give you one.’

  Harkman flicked away the end of his cigarette, and it cartwheeled into the water and hissed. He lit another immediately. ‘Am I offending you by talking about this?’

  ‘No, but it’s very difficult. I know what you mean, because I feel it too. As soon as I saw you I felt it.’

  Harkman said: ‘Julia, two years ago I was working at my office in London, when I suddenly felt a tremendous necessity to live and work here in Wessex. It obsessed me; I couldn’t stop thinking about it. Eventually I applied for a transfer to Dorchester ... and although it took two years for the permit to come through, I got here in the end. Now I’m here, and I still don’t know why. It feels to me now, as I talk to you, that it was to meet you, or someone like you. But I know rationally that that’s nonsense.’

  He paused, remembering how he had fretted in London, waiting for the appointment to be confirmed.

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘That’s about it. Except that now I’ve met you, it feels as if my reason for coming here was just a pretext.’

  Julia said, unexpectedly: ‘I think I understand. When I came to Maiden Castle for the first time, everything that had happened before seemed unreal.’

  Harkman looked at her in surprise. ‘Are you making that up?’

  ‘No. I can remember my father and mother, and I can remember the farm, and schooldays ... and all that. But at the same time I can hardly remember what it was really like.’

  ‘Do you ever see your parents?’

  ‘Sometimes. I think I saw them ... recently. I’m not sure.’

  ‘And you’d never go back to the farm?’

  She shook her head. ‘It would be impossible.’

  ‘Do you know why?’

  ‘Because I’m committed to the Castle.’ She was looking away from him. ‘No, it isn’t just that. My place is here. I can’t say why.’

  ‘My place is with you,’ Harkman said. ‘I don’t know why, either. I’ll never leave Wessex.’

  ‘What do you want, David?’

  ‘I want you, Julia ... and I want to know why’

  Looking directly at him, she said: ‘If you had to settle for one, which would it be?’

  And she looked away, just as she had done outside the skimmer-shop.

  There was a noise above them, and Harkman turned. Greg had appeared at the top of the nearest rampart, and was walking down towards them. Julia had seen him too.

  Harkman said: ‘Will you come to my room tonight? In Dorchester.’

  ‘No, I can’t. It’s impossible.’

  ‘Tomorrow, then.’

  She shook her head, watching Greg come towards them, but said: ‘I don’t know where it is.’

  She stood up, straightening her smock with guilty movements of her hands.

  ‘The Commission hostel. Room 14.’

  Greg scrambled down on to the sand, and walked towards them. Harkman turned to face him.

  ‘I’d like this one,’ he said.

  Greg said: ‘Two thousand dollars. Seven thousand extra for the engine.’

  ‘Greg, that’s not the usual price,’ Julia said.

  Harkman looked at her, and, conscious of the double meaning, said: ‘Well?’

  Julia brushed the sand from her smock, keeping her face averted. ‘We normally charge six thousand for the whole unit.’ Greg showed no response.

  ‘That seems a fair price.’ Harkman bent down and picked up his jacket.

  ‘I’ll deliver it myself,’ Julia said. ‘Tomorrow evening.’

  As Harkman counted the money into Greg’s hand, Julia was standing by the edge of the waves, staring out across the narrow inlet.

  eight

  By mid-afternoon, Tom Benedict was plainly very ill, and Julia’s intrigued day-dreams about David Harkman were interrupted as she arranged for Tom to be taken to the infirmary in the Castle village. Hannah and Mark, who ran the stall in Do
rchester with her, were expecting her there for the evening trade, and she had to take time to send someone down with a message.

  When she returned to the infirmary, Allen had already visited Tom, and the old man was laid out as comfortably as possible in the cool, white-painted ward. He recognized Julia when she arrived, but soon afterwards fell asleep.

  The Castle infirmary was run on an entirely voluntary basis, and had no proper medical facilities. It was simply a long, low hut, which was kept clean and ventilated, and contained sixteen beds where people suffering from minor ailments could be looked after. A few medical supplies were kept in a small room at one end, but any serious disease had to be treated in the Dorchester hospital.

  Julia sought out one of the women who served occasional duties as a nurse.

  ‘Where’s Allen?’ she said. ‘What’s he doing for Tom?’

  ‘He said he needed rest. He’s sent away to Dorchester, and someone’s coming up this evening.’

  ‘This evening! That might be too late. Did he say what was wrong?’

  ‘No, Julia. Tom’s old ... it could be anything.’

  Exasperated, Julia returned to the bedside and took Tom’s tight-skinned hand in hers. The fingers were cold and stiff, and for a moment she thought he must have died while she was away from the bed. Then she saw a very slow, very shallow movement of his chest. She slipped his hand beneath the blanket and continued to hold it, trying to warm him.

  It felt cold in the ward, because the windows were open and although there was only a slight breeze the sun never seemed to warm the infirmary. Julia swept back the thin white hair from the old man’s brow, and felt that the skin there was also cool, not perspiring.

  Julia felt closer to Tom than she could ever say; closer than she felt to her parents, closer than she felt to Greg ... and yet it was neither a blood relationship nor a sexual one. There was an affinity there, an unspoken understanding.

  There were approximately two hundred people in the Castle community, children included, but of these only a handful had any influence on her life or thoughts. She thought of the rest as pale shadows, lacking in personality, following where others led.

  Allen, the doctor, was one such. He was unquestionably qualified for medical practice, and in the treatment of minor ailments and in diagnosing diseases he was excellent. But he seemed never to act; anything that could not be treated with available medicines was referred immediately to the hospital in Dorchester. Perhaps it was right that this should be so ... but Allen’s personality was negative, unforthcoming.

  Greg was another. In spite of the fact that she had slept with him for months, and in spite of there having been a certain amount of mutual interest at the start, Julia had never really grown to know the young man. He was, to her, always the distant, efficient craftsman who worked in the skimmer workshop, or the inconsiderate, selfish and loveless man who used her body. In the Castle community Greg seemed to be one of the more popular people - and when Julia was not suffering his physical attentions she found him amusing and pleasant company - but he too had this paleness to his character that was a constant frustration to her. Sometimes, when she was alone with him, Julia wanted to shout at him or scream at him or wave her arms ... anything to elicit some kind of positive response.

  There were the others, though, and they were here at the Castle, and in Dorchester and the surrounding countryside.

  There was Nathan Williams, who played a great part in organizing and shaping the community; some said he had been at the Castle when the community was first formed. There was a woman named Mary, who was one of the potters. There was Rod, who worked on the fishing smack owned by the Castle. There was Alicia, one of the teachers. There was Tom Benedict.

  Sometimes, while she was working on the stall in Dorchester, Julia would see local people passing the harbour ... and she would detect that with them, too, there was this certain affinity. For a long time she had felt it was a talent, an uncontrollable clairvoyance. She had wondered if she had powers of telepathy, or something similar, but there were never any other kinds of manifestation. Just an empathic understanding, a recognition.

  Ignoring it, as she had tried to do for some time, it became less important, but meeting David Harkman had reminded her that it was a real and inexplicable fact of her life. Although with David there was another thing, a sexual charge, a physical desire, an emotional tension.

  ‘Is that you, Julia?’

  Tom spoke very weakly. His eyes hadn’t opened. She squeezed his hand gently, under the blanket.

  ‘I’m here, Tom. Don’t worry. There’s a doctor coming from Dorchester.’

  ‘Don’t let go ...’

  She looked around. She and Tom were alone in the infirmary; summer was a healthy time for the villagers. But she wished there were someone with them, a trained nurse ... or Allen.

  Through one of the windows she could see children running around, playing and calling to each other with shrill voices. School had finished for the day, evening would soon be here.

  She never detected the affinity with any of the children, although she liked them, and the teachers at the school were always glad of her help. She saw the children as a milling, diminutive presence: noisy, quick-moving, demanding of time and energy. But as David Harkman had said of his career, and as she felt about her own past, the children were a fact, not something she had any feeling about.

  One of the women in the village had given birth a few weeks before, and Julia had seen the mother and child soon afterwards. It had been like a classic portrait of healthy motherhood: the woman sitting up in bed in the infirmary, her hair tangled, a cardigan pinned around her shoulders. The child cried in her arms, pink and damp and very small. The mother’s eyes were bright and tired, the bedclothes had been straightened over her. Nothing had gone wrong, no worries: mother and child doing well. Julia had never known a crisis for any of the village people; there were ‘flu epidemics, and the children passed measles and mumps to one another ... but she had never known anyone fall and break a leg, nor was there ever a pregnancy that went wrong, nor did anyone ever die violently. There was a graveyard at the western end of the Castle compound, but the few deaths that occurred happened quietly, unobtrusively.

  It was a sheltered, undangerous place; the harsher realities of life seemed as if they were postponed.

  Then, as if contradicting the thought, Tom groaned, and his head turned restlessly.

  Tom was different, though, Tom recognized the affinity. He had always been at the front of the stage for her; a leading player, not a member of the chorus. This analogy had often occurred to her as if it would solve the puzzle, but all it ever did was underline the feeling.

  Until she had spoken of it with David Harkman, she had never directly acknowledged the feeling to anyone else. Not to Nathan, or Mary ... not even to Tom. But David Harkman had spoken of it himself, had pointed directly to it.

  We are different, you and I, he had said. We are different, because we are the same.

  The nursing woman appeared at the entrance to the ward, leading a small child by the hand. She walked slowly towards the bed and Julia turned anxiously towards her, but not releasing Tom’s hand.

  ‘Is the doctor coming?’ she said.

  ‘I told you, dear, he’s on his way. They’re probably busy in Dorchester, what with all the foreigners coming in.’

  ‘Then will you try to find Allen?’ Julia said. ‘Tom’s very ill. I don’t know what to do.’

  The woman reached past her, and touched the palm of her hand to the old man’s brow.

  ‘He’s not feverish. He’s just sleeping.’

  ‘Look, please find Allen! I’m very worried.’

  ‘I’ll see where he is.’

  The woman’s child had been raising himself up and down on the end of the bed, falling across his stomach and laughing, uncaring that Tom’s legs, which were directly under him, might be hurting. The woman took the child’s hand again, and walked slowly towards the door. J
ulia wanted to urge her again to hurry, sensing somehow that things had reached a critical stage for Tom. His head was still moving slowly from side to side, and his eyes were open, but unseeing.

  ‘Do you think he’d like some food?’ The woman had paused by the door, looking back at her.

  Julia turned towards her again. ‘No. Get Allen ... and please, for Tom’s benefit, find him as soon - ’

  As she spoke, Julia felt Tom’s hand move away from her own. Still facing the woman by the door, she reached further under the blanket, groping for him. She turned back to the bed, fearing the worst ... but totally unprepared for what she saw.

  The bed was empty.

  The blanket was still crumpled over where he had lain, and the sheet beneath it bore a trace of the residual warmth of his old body, but Tom had vanished.

  Julia gasped aloud and stood back, scraping her chair noisily.

  ‘Tom! For God’s sake, Tom!’

  The nursing woman was watching her from the door. ‘What’s going on?’

  ‘He’s gone!’

  Disbelieving, Julia threw back the blanket, as if the old man had somehow wriggled down under the bedclothes like a child playfully hiding. The blanket fell over the metal bed-end, humped on to the floor. The lower sheet still bore the impression of Tom’s body.

  ‘What are you doing in here, Julia? You know no one’s here - ’

  Julia scrambled on to the bed, kneeling on it, leaning over to the far side, in the desperate inspired hope that Tom had fallen from the bed, that he was still there... but the floor was bare.

  The woman had left the child by the door, and was striding towards her. As she reached the bed she seized Julia’s arm, and pulled her round.

  ‘If you were the one who had to make these beds…’

  ‘Tom has vanished! He was here! I was holding his hand!‘

  ‘What are you talking about? There’s no one here.’

  Julia felt like screaming at the woman. She pointed in silent agony at the bed, its emptiness self-evident proof of what she was saying.

  The woman pulled officiously at the blanket Julia had thrown back. ‘These beds have to be kept ready. What are you doing here? Are you ill?’