“Look, I saw it!”
“So did I. And it didn’t.”
“Did.”
Sim burst out laughing and after a moment or two Edwin allowed himself to smile.
“Sorry. But—look. As clearly—”
“It didn’t. Because if it did—you see, Edwin the, the miracle would be trivial. More than trivial. What difference would it make if the ball struck and bounced off? Or did in fact, as I am sure it did, happen to find a passage between his feet in an unusually neat but still possible way?”
“You are asking me to doubt the evidence of my own eyes.”
“For God’s sake! Haven’t you seen a conjurer? He’s unusual, he’s extraordinary, he embarrasses me and so do you, but I’m not going to have a trick of the light or a minimal coincidence stuffed down my throat as a violation of the natural order, as a miracle if you prefer the word.”
“I don’t know what word to use. It was another dimension, that’s all.”
“Scientistic top-dressing.”
“His life, as far as I have shared it—and that’s a matter of minutes—well, it may be hours—is thick with that sort of—phenomenon.”
“Why isn’t he in a laboratory where the controls are?”
“Because he has something more important to do!”
“More important than the truth?”
“Yes. Yes, if you like!”
“What then?”
“How should I know?”
But the man had stopped by a seat that was set by the gravelled path. Sim and Edwin stopped too, a few yards short of the seat, and Sim had a moment or two of feeling acutely foolish. For now, plainly, they were following the man not as if he were another man but as if he were some rare beast or bird with whom there was no possibility of human intercourse but whose behaviour or plumage or pelt was of interest. It was silly, since the man was no more than some sort of white man dressed all in black, and with a head on him, the one side of which had received severe damage many years ago and been imperfectly repaired; and who—all this Sim told himself with increasing comfort and increasing amusement—who was very reasonably annoyed at what life had done to him.
Edwin had stopped talking and was looking where the man was looking. There was a scatter of children playing, little boys mostly but also a small girl or two on the edge of the group. There was also a man. He was a slender old fellow, seeming, thought Sim, older than I am, the oldest man in the park, this childish morning, a slender, rather bent old fellow with a mop of white hair and an ancient pepper-and-salt suit, a suit far, far older than the children, a good suit, a too good suit, a suit that gentlemen used to have made for them in the days when there were gentlemen and waistcoats were worn; also brown, elastic-sided boots, but no coat on this childish morning, together with an anxious, rather silly face—the old man was playing ball with the children. It was a big ball, of many colours. The old fellow or perhaps old gentleman or just old man was active, springy, and he threw the ball to one boy and had it back and then to another boy and had it back and all the time he was working his way—him and the boys—towards the lavatories, with an anxious and gleaming smile on his thin face.
What am I seeing?
Sim swung round on his heel. The park attendant was nowhere to be seen. There were, after all, many groups of children and one man cannot be everywhere. Edwin was looking outraged.
The old man, with an agility that the years had not impaired very much, kicked the ball hard with his shiny boot and laughed and giggled with his thin mouth. The ball beat the boy, beat all the boys. The ball flew and bounced and came as if the old man had intended it, bounce, bounce, and the man in black held up his hands with the ball in them. The old man, giggling and waving, waited for the ball back and the man in black waited and the children. Then the old man with a loping, a springy catlike run came across to the path, but began to slow and stop smiling and even stop panting and he bent a little, just a very little and examined each of them in turn. No one said anything and the children waited.
The old man lowered his chin and looked up at the man from under white, springy eyebrows. He was a clean old man, unnaturally clean in his suit, however worn. His voice was expensively educated.
“My ball, I think, gentlemen.”
Still no one said anything. The old man gave his silly, anxious giggle again.
“Virginibus puerisque!”
The man in black held the ball against his chest and looked at the old man over it. Sim could only see the undamaged side of his face, his undamaged eye and ear. The features had been regular, attractive, even.
The old man spoke again.
“If you gentlemen are connected with the Home Office, then I can only assure you that the ball is my ball and that the little men at my back are undamaged. To put the matter clearly, you have nothing on me. So please, give me my ball and go away.”
Sim spoke.
“I know you! All those years ago—in my shop! The children’s books—”
The old man stared.
“Oh, so it’s a meeting of old acquaintances is it? Your shop? Well allow me to tell you, sir, we pay as we go, these days, no credit allowed or given. I paid! Oh yes I paid all right! Not for that but for life you see. You don’t understand, do you? Ask Mr Bell, there. He brought you. But I’ve paid so don’t any of you dun me. Give me that ball! I bought it!”
Something was happening to the man in black. It was a kind of slow convulsion, and it shook the ball at his chest. His mouth opened.
“Mr Pedigree.”
The old man started. He stared into the melted face, peered, head on one side as if he could look under the white skin of the left side, searched all over, from the drawn mouth to the ear on that side, still so imperfectly hidden. The stare became a glare.
“And I know you, Matty Woodrave! You—all those years ago, the one who didn’t come and had the face, the cruelty, the gall to, to—Oh I know you! Give me that ball! I have nothing but—it was all your fault!”
Again the convulsion, but this time with the grief and anger made audible—
“I know.”
“You heard him! You’re my witnesses, gentlemen, I hold you to it! You see? A life wasted, a life that might have been so, so beautiful—”
“No.”
The word was low, and grated as if from somewhere that was not accustomed to making speech. The old man gave a kind of snarl.
“I want my ball, I want my ball!”
But the whole attitude of the man before him who held the ball so firmly against his black-clad chest was a refusal. The old man snarled again. He glanced round and cried out as if he had been stung; for the children had run or drifted away and were mixed among the playing groups spread round the park. The old man loped out into the empty space of grass.
“Tommy! Phil! Andy!”
The man in black turned to Sim and faced him over the ball. With great solemnity he held the ball out in both hands and Sim understood that he must take it with an equal solemnity. He even bowed a little as he took the ball between his two hands. The man in black turned away and walked after the old man. As if he knew they had made the first step of following him, he gestured on one side of him in a gesture of admonition, without looking round. Don’t follow me.
They watched him right across the grass until he disappeared behind the lavatory. Sim turned to Edwin.
“What was all that about?”
“Some of it is clear at any rate. The old man. Pedigree, his name is.”
“I said, didn’t I? He used to shoplift. Children’s books.”
“Did you prosecute?”
“Warned him off. I understood him. He wanted the books as bait, the old, old—”
“There, but for the grace of God.”
“Don’t be sanctimonious. You’ve never wanted to go round interfering with children, neither have I.”
“He’s a long time there.”
“Spend a penny just like anyone else.”
??
?Unless he’s having trouble with the old man.”
“It’s such a particularly contemptible business. Let’s hope we don’t see him again.”
“Who?”
“The old fellow—what did you call him—Pettifer?”
“Pedigree.”
“Pedigree, then. Disgusting.”
“Perhaps I’d better have a look—”
“What at?”
“He might be having—”
Edwin trotted across the grass towards the lavatory. Sim waited, feeling not just foolish but disgusted, as if the ball was a contamination. He wondered what to do with it; and the memory of the clean old man with his disgusting appetite made him wince inside. He turned his mind aside to things that were really clean and sweet, thinking of Stanhope’s little girls. How exquisite they had been and how well-behaved! What a delight it had been to watch them grow; though no matter how wonderfully nubile they became they could never surpass that really fairy delicacy of childhood, a beauty that could make you weep—and of course they hadn’t turned out just as they should but that was as much Stanhope’s fault as theirs and Sophy was so pretty and so friendly—good morning Mr Goodchild, how is Mrs Goodchild? Yes it is isn’t it? There was no doubt about it, the Stanhope twins shone in Greenfield like a light!
Edwin was coming back.
“He’s gone. Disappeared.”
“You mean he’s gone away. Don’t exaggerate. There’s a gate out to the road among the laurels.”
“They’ve both gone.”
“What am I supposed to do with this ball?”
“You’d better keep it, I suppose. We’ll see him again.”
“Time I was going.”
Together they walked back along the gravel path but before they had gone more than fifty yards, Edwin stopped them.
“About here.”
“What?”
“Don’t you remember? What I saw.”
“And I didn’t.”
But Edwin was not listening. His jaw had dropped.
“Sim! Now I understand. Oh yes, it all hangs together! I’m one step nearer to a complete understanding of—if not what he is—of how he works, what he is doing—That ball that went round or through—He let it go. He knew it was the wrong ball.”
Chapter Thirteen
Ruth was being fanciful. This was most unusual for her since on the whole she was a down-to-earth woman; but now she had a feverish cold and was staying in bed. The Girl minded the shop now and then, though Sim was always nervous when he did not have both her and the shop in sight, but he had quite often to take hot drinks upstairs and persuade Ruth to drink them. Each time he did this he had to stay a bit because of the fancifulness. She lay on her side of the double-bed where the children had been begotten a generation ago. She kept her eyes closed and her face shone with perspiration. Now and then she muttered.
“What did you say, dear?”
Mutter.
“I’ve brought you some more hot drink. Wouldn’t you like to sit up and drink it?”
Ruth spoke with startling clearness.
“He moved. I saw him.”
An almost physical anguish contracted Sim’s heart.
“Good. I’m glad. Sit up and drink this.”
“She used a knife.”
“Ruth! Sit up!”
Her eyes flickered open and he saw them focus on his face. Then she looked round the bedroom and up at the ceiling where the sound of a declining jet was so loud it seemed visible. She put her hands down and heaved herself up.
“Better?”
She shuddered in the bed and he draped a shawl round her shoulders. She drank, sip after sip, then handed the glass back without looking at him.
“Now you’re what they used to call all-of-a-glow you’ll feel better. Shall I take your temperature again?”
She shook her head.
“No point. Know what we know. Too much noise. Which way is north?”
“Why?”
“I want to know. I must know.”
“You’re a bit hazy still, aren’t you?”
“I want to know!”
“Well—”
Sim thought of the road outside, the High Street, the Old Bridge. He pictured the enlacement of canal and rail and motorway and the high jet road searing across them all.
“It’s a bit difficult. Where would the sun be?”
“It keeps turning, and the noise!”
“I know.”
She lay back again and shut her eyes.
“Try and sleep dear.”
“No! Not. Not.”
Someone was hooting in the road outside. He glanced down through the window. A juggernaut was trying to get on to the Old Bridge and the cars massing behind it were impatient.
“It’ll be quiet later.”
“Mind the shop.”
“Sandra’s there.”
“If I want anything I’ll thump.”
“Better not kiss you.”
He laid his forefinger on his lips then transferred it to her forehead. She smiled.
“Go.”
He crept away downstairs, through the living-room and into the shop. Sandra was sitting at the desk and staring straight at the big shop window without a trace of expression. The only thing that moved was her lower jaw as it masticated what seemed to be a permanent piece of chewing-gum. She had sandy hair and sandy eyebrows imperfectly concealed by eyebrow pencil. She was rather fat, she wore bulging jeans and Sim disliked her. Ruth had chosen her out of the only three applicants for a job that did not pay much, was dull by modern standards and required no intelligence at all. Sim knew why Ruth had chosen the least attractive, or most unattractive of the applicants and agreed with her, ruefully enough.
“Could I have my chair, Sandra, do you think?”
Sarcasm was wasted on her.
“I don’t mind.”
She got up. He sat down, only to see her wander across to the steps which he used for reaching the high shelves and perch her large bottom on it. Sim watched her savagely.
“Wouldn’t it be better, Sandra, if you kept on your feet? It’s what people expect you know.”
“There isn’t any people and there hasn’t been. And there won’t be not now it’s so near lunch. There hasn’t been anybody not even the phone.”
All that was true. The turnover was becoming ludicrous. If it weren’t for the rare books—
Sim experienced a moment of exquisite inferiority. It was no good expecting Sandra to understand the difference between this place and a supermarket or a sweet shop. She had her own idea of that difference and it was all in favour of the supermarket. There was life in the supermarket, fellows, talk, chat, light, noise, even muzak on top of the rest. Here were only the silent books waiting faithfully on their shelves, their words unchanged, century after century from incunabula down to paperbacks. It was a thing so obvious that often Sim found himself astonished at his own capacity for finding it astonishing; and he would move from that point to a generalized state of astonishment that he felt obscurely was, like the man said, the beginning of wisdom. The only trouble was that the astonishment recurred but the wisdom did not follow. Astonished I live; astonished I shall die.
Probably Sandra felt her weight. He looked at her and saw how her broad bottom overflowed the step. Then again, she might be having a period. He stood up.
“OK Sandra. You can have my chair for a bit. Until the phone rings.”
She heaved her bottom off the step and wandered down the shop. He saw how her thighs rubbed each other. She sank into the chair, still chewing like a cow.
“Ta.”
“Read a book if you like.”
She turned her eyes on him, unblinking.
“What for?”
“You can read I suppose?”
“’Course. Your wife asked me. You ought to know that.”
Worse and worse. We must get rid of her. Get a Paki, a lad, he’d work. Have to keep an eye on him though.
Don
’t think that! Race relations.
All the same they swarm. With the best will in the world I must say they swarm. They are not what I think, they are what I feel. Nobody knows what I feel, thank God.
But they were to have a visitor, perhaps a customer. He was trying the door now—ting! It was Stanhope, of all people. Sim hurried down the shop, hands washing each other in the appropriate manner, his personalized bit of play-acting.
“Good morning Mr Stanhope! A pleasure to see you. How are you? Well, I hope?”
Stanhope brushed it all aside in his usual manner and went straight to the point, a technical one.
“Sim. Reti. The Game of Chess. The nineteen thirty-six reprint. How much please?”
Sim shook his head.
“I’m sorry, Mr Stanhope, but we do not have a copy.”
“Sold it? When?”
“We never had one, I’m afraid.”
“Oh yes you did.”
“You are at perfect liberty—”
“It’s a wise bookseller that knows his own stock.”
Laughing, Sim shook his head.
“You won’t catch me out, Mr Stanhope. Remember I’ve been here since my father’s day.”
Stanhope hopped briskly up the steps.
“There you are, poor condition.”
“Good Lord.”
“Knew I’d seen it. Haven’t been in for years, either. How much?”
Sim took the book, blew dust off the top, then looked at the flyleaf. He did a rapid calculation.
“That’ll be three pounds ten. I mean three fifty of course.”
Stanhope reached into his pocket, grumbling. Sim, unable to resist, heard his own voice going on without, apparently, his volition.
“Yesterday I saw Miss Stanhope. She passed the shop—”
“Who—one of mine? That’ll be Sophy, idle little bitch.”
“But she’s so enchanting—they’re both so enchanting—”
“Be your age. That generation’s not enchanting, any of it. Here.”
“Thank you, sir. They’ve always been such a pleasure to us, innocence, beauty, manners—”
Stanhope gave a cackle of laughter.
“Innocence? They tried to poison me once, or damn nearly. Left some filthy things in a drawer by the bed. Must have found the spare house-keys and then plotted—bitches! I wonder where they found those beastly little monsters?”