I paused in the hall, envisaging the long corridor at the head of the stairs. But no. There was a limit to exorcism. I went quickly down the two steps, through the yard into the garden, and blessed the warm hand of the sun.
Henry’s men had already begun to dismantle the long wall that lay between the laurel bushes, the laburnum trees, and his spreading business. They had piled the valuable old brick; but in two places the wall had collapsed under its own weight, hiding flowers and weeds under a pile of red clay and yellow cement. I was curious to see the bottom of the garden where I had never been; and I walked forward along a cinder path that plantains and dandelions had invaded. I pushed between laurels, and the little river was before me. This end of the garden was an enclosure by the river bank, with stone steps, forget-me-nots, wallflowers not yet in blossom, and shallow, sliding water. On the top step above the water, was a windsor chair. Though spiders had spun between the members, and birds had fouled the seat; though the polish had cracked into a dark roughness, yet the chair stood there, mutely insisting how she had used it—every evening perhaps, in the last summer and autumn, among the midges and swifts. Opposite the chair and against the long wall, was a surround of brick; and the wall above it was black with smoke. I peered into the surround, and saw at once that this had been no ordinary bonfire. Even after the rain of two or more winters, there were still enough bits and pieces, spines, corners, whole sodden covers indeed, for me to decipher them. Breitkopf Und Hartel, Augener‚ MacMillan, Boosey and Hawkes‚ and the almost incombustible stacks of the Musical Times—
Henry could never have done it. The music had been worth real money. I saw a glint of metal, picked out a steel strip and my guess became certainty. The lead bob had melted away, but the knife-edge and the sliding weight that adjusted the ticking of the metronome to an unbearable accuracy were identifiable. Henry would never have burnt old Mr. Dawlish’s metronome, that valuable antique, in its polished case. Nor, I thought, as I caught a bleak eye staring at me from the ground, would he have smashed Beethoven into plaster fragments with a hammer blow. And that sodden angle of wood, might well be all that was left of a frame and a photograph—
I sat on her chair, put my elbows on my knees and my face in my hands. I did not know to what or whom my feelings had reference, nor even what they were.
*
“You’ve looked all over, then?”
Henry stood on the other side of the gap in the wall, brown face, liquid eyes, white hair—all very trim and calm. I got up and began to climb the pile of bricks, clumsily.
“Can I lend you a hand?”
“I can manage by myself—thanks.”
Side by side, we sauntered back between the machines. Our heads were bowed, hands clasped behind us, pace very slow, like mourners.
“That was a nice thought of yours, Henry, that inscription.”
He said nothing. I glanced sideways at him.
“Quick to feel, slow to learn. That’s me.”
We stopped and faced each other.
“You could say, Henry—you could say—”
You could say that the only time she was ever calm and happy, with a relaxed, smiling face, they put her away until she was properly cured and unhappy again. You could say that, for example.
But really, you could say nothing.
“It doesn’t matter.”
We walked on again in silence to the pavement before the apron. I took out some notes to pay for the petrol and looked for the Petrol Lady. She emerged, but Henry waved her away.
“Allow me, sir. No, not at all. It’s a pleasure, meeting you after all these years.”
He took my money and went to change it. I stood, looking down at the worn pavement, so minutely and illegibly inscribed; and I saw the feet, my own among them, pass and repass. I stretched out a leg and tapped with my live toe, listening meanwhile, tap, tap, tap—and suddenly I felt that if I might only lend my own sound, my own flesh, my own power of choosing the future, to those invisible feet, I would pay anything—anything: but knew in the same instant that, like Henry, I would never pay more than a reasonable price.
“—and ninepence is three pounds. Thank you, sir.”
I looked him in the eye; and saw my own face.
“Goodbye, Henry.”
He raised his hand, saying nothing. I got into my car of superior description, moved away, over the Old Bridge and at last on to the motor road. I concentrated resolutely on my driving.
About the Author
William Golding was born in Cornwall in 1911 and was educated at Marlborough Grammar School and at Brasenose College, Oxford. Before he became a schoolmaster he was an actor, a lecturer, a small-boat sailor and a musician. A now rare volume, Poems, appeared in 1934. In 1940 he joined the Royal Navy and saw action against battleships, and also took part in the pursuit of the Bismarck. He finished the war as a Lieutenant in command of a rocket ship, which was off the French coast for the D-Day invasion, and later at the island of Walcheren. After the war he returned to Bishop Wordsworth’s School in Salisbury and was there when his first novel, Lord of the Flies, was published in 1954. He gave up teaching in 1961. Lord of the Flies was filmed by Peter Brook in 1963. Golding listed his hobbies as music, chess, sailing, archaeology and classical Greek (which he taught himself). Many of these subjects appear in his essay collections The Hot Gates and A Moving Target. He won the Booker Prize for his novel Rites of Passage in 1980, and was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1983. He was knighted in 1988. He died at his home in the summer of 1993. The Double Tongue, a novel left in draft at his death, was published in June 1995.
Books by
Sir William Golding
1911–1993
Nobel Prize for Literature
Fiction
LORD OF THE FLIES
THE INHERITORS
PINCHER MARTIN
FREE FALL
THE SPIRE
THE SCORPION GOD
DARKNESS VISIBLE
THE PAPER MEN
RITES OF PASSAGE
CLOSE QUARTERS
FIRE DOWN BELOW
THE DOUBLE TONGUE
TO THE ENDS OF THE EARTH
(a revised text of Rites of Passage, Close Quarters and Fire Down Below in one volume)
Essays
THE HOT GATES
A MOVING TARGET
Travel
AN EGYPTIAN JOURNAL
Play
THE BRASS BUTTERFLY
LORD OF THE FLIES
adapted for the stage by
Nigel Williams
Copyright
First published in 1967
by Faber and Faber Ltd
Bloomsbury House
74–77 Great Russell Street
London WC1B 3DA
This ebook edition first published in 2012
All rights reserved
© William Golding, 1966, 1967
The right of William Golding to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with Section 77 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights, and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly
ISBN 978–0–571–26737–8
William Golding, The Pyramid
(Series: # )
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