Then there was silence in the rosy room for a long, long time. Sim was not thinking about the meeting at all, or the seance, which was what it would be better called. He was thinking about the way in which circumstances could seem to imitate the intuitive understanding that so many people claimed to have and so many others denied was possible. Here, in the rosy light, with the shut cupboard, a few sticks and twists of artificial fibre had betrayed the secret as clearly as if they had spelt it out in print; so that two men, not by a mystic perception but by the warmth of imagination had come simply to a knowledge they were not intended to have and ought not to have. The man who looked too old for Sophy, and the brothel light—His mind dived into the explanation of it all, glamorous and acrid, so fierce an imagination he caught his breath at the scent and stink of it—
“God help us all.”
“Yes. All.”
More silence. At last Edwin spoke, diffidently, almost.
“They’re a long, long time.”
“Pedigree won’t come without him.”
“He won’t come without Pedigree.”
“What shall we do? Ring the school?”
“We couldn’t get hold of him. And I have a feeling he’ll be here any minute.”
“It’s too bad. They might have told us, if—”
“We gave our word.”
“Wait for an hour, say. Then go.”
Edwin reached down and slipped off his shoes. He climbed onto the divan and crossed his legs. He held his arms close to his sides, then extended the forearms, palms upward. He closed his eyes and did a great deal of breathing.
Sim sat and thought to himself. It was all the place, just that and nothing else, the place so often imagined, then found, with its silence but also with its dust and dirt and stink; and now seen to have the brothel image added, the pink lights and bobbled femininity—and at the end, like something out of the furtive book in his desk, the perverted chair.
I know it all, he thought, right to the bitter end.
Yet there was, after all, a certain sad satisfaction, and even a quivering of salt lust by association in this death of an old imagination. They had to grow up, lose the light of their exquisite childhood. They had to go under the harrow like everyone else; and doubtless at the moment it was subsumed under having a good time or being with it or being into sex, into bondage. Heaven lies round us in our infancy.
Edwin honked suddenly. Glancing across at him, Sim saw him jerk his head back up. Edwin had meditated himself asleep then woken himself with his own snore. That reduced everything, too. He felt, in the wake of Edwin’s snore, an overwhelming sense of futility. He tried to imagine some deep, significant spiritual drama, some contrivance, some plot that would include them both and be designed solely for the purpose of rescuing Pedigree from his hell; and then had to admit to himself that the whole affair was about Sim the ageing bookseller or no one.
Everything was all right after all, just ordinary. Nothing would happen. It was as usual a matter of living among a whole heap of beliefs, first-class, second-class, third-class, and so on, right through to the blank wall of his daily indifference and ignorance.
Nine o’clock.
“He won’t come now, Edwin. Let’s go.”
Matthew Septimus Windrove had the best of all reasons for not coming. He had mended the tyre slowly and methodically. Then with what for him was an unusual saving of time and energy he had carried the bike over his shoulder to the garages so that he could blow the tyre up in a few seconds with the air pump. But he could not find Mr French to explain to him. He found the garage doors open, which was strange; and he went through to the back of the garages, wondering why Mr French had not turned the lights on. As he moved to the door of the office that opened out of the garage at the back, a man stole round a car and hit him hard on the back of the head with a heavy spanner. He did not even feel himself fall. The man dragged him like a sack into the office and pushed him under the table. Then he returned to his work, which was the placement of a heavy box against the wall of the garage where it backed on to the bookstore. Not long after, the bomb went off. It destroyed the wall, brought down the watertank over the bookstore and broke open the upper face of the nearer petrol tank. The water ran into the burning tank, and instead of putting out the flames, sank down and pushed the petrol up. The burning petrol flooded out in a blazing tide as the fire alarms went off.
There were figures, not known to the school, running towards it. Sophy’s idea worked perfectly. Fire drill was not intended for coping with bombs. There was chaos. No one could believe in the extraordinary sounds that were just like shots. In the chaos a strange man dressed as a soldier was able to carry a burden out of the school. It was wrapped in a blanket from the end of which small feet protruded and kicked. This man stumbled on the gravel but ran as fast as he could towards the darkness of the trees. But the flaming tide made him take a curving run and as he did so, a strange thing happened in the fire. It seemed to organize itself into a shape of flame that rushed out of the garage doors and whirled round and round. It made as if on purpose for the man and his burden. It whirled round still and the only noise from it was that of burning. It came so close to the man and it was so monstrous he dropped the bundle and a boy leapt out of it and ran away, ran screaming to where the others were being marshalled. The man dressed as a soldier struck out wildly at the fire-monster, then ran, ran shouting away into the cover of the trees. The fire-monster jigged and whirled. After a time it fell down; and after some more time it lay still.
Sophy, when she left the stables, hurried along the towpath to the Old Bridge and then up into the High Street. She ran to a phone box and dialled a number but the phone rang on and on. She came out. She ran back to the Old Bridge and down to the towpath but there was still a rosy light in the dormers of the stable buildings. She stamped her foot like a child. For a time she seemed lost, taking a few steps towards the green door then coming away, going towards the water then backing off. She ran again towards the Old Bridge then turned round and stood, her fists clenched and up by her shoulders. All the time, in the glare from the street lighting over the bridge, her face was white and ugly. Then she began to run along the towpath, away from the town and the light. She left the stabling, she passed the broken roofline of what had been Frankley’s, then the long wall of the almshouses. She passed on, light of step, but panting now, and once, slipping in the mud of the towpath.
A voice talked inside her head.
They must be at the crisis if it’s on. I hope it isn’t on. Lights out for little boys. Little men. There flashed into her mind the image of a poster the day after tomorrow. BILLION FOR BOY. But no, no. It is impossible that I that we are now at this very moment it may be.
Be your age. Well. Be more than your age.
There was a loud thumping noise in the hedge and it stopped her dead. Something was bouncing and flailing about and then it squeaked and she could make out that it was a rabbit in a snare, down there by the ditch that lay between the towpath and the woods. It was flailing about, not knowing what had caught it and not caring to know but killing itself in an effort just to be free, or it may be, just to be dead. Its passion defiled the night with grotesque and obscene caricature of process, of logical advance through time from one moment to the next where the trap was waiting. She hurried past it, hurried on, a chill on her skin that competed successfully for at least a minute with the warmth from her thrusting speed.
All of a glow.
That was where the children were playing. The rubber boat is still tethered there. That means they will be back, tomorrow, perhaps. I must remember that. What’s a girl like etc. And the woman. Family life. Where’s Dad? In his column room. Where’s Mum? Gone to God or in New Zealand. Well it’s much the same thing dearie, innit? That’s the lock and that’s the bridge and that’s the old barge. Those are the downs up there all a-glimmer under.
That’s the sunken road to the top with trees over. No one would come down tha
t way, not with a car, he wouldn’t. Not with a parcel in his arms. Would the water in the canal cover a car? We ought to have found that out. If I walked up the sunken road or along beside it I could see the valley and the slope over the school. That would not be sensible. It is more sensible to stay here where I am placed to warn anyone off. To stay here is sensible.
She turned left and moved into the sunken road. The walking in the groove under the trees was a slower business than walking on the towpath; and some of the things in the air seemed to catch up with her and hang at her shoulder so she hurried as much as she could. The cloudy moon made a dapple everywhere and between the stems and trunks of the trees that had invaded the old road the sides of the downs floated and glimmered, made mostly of two-tone cloud and sliding moonlight.
Then she stopped and stood.
It was a question of direction. You could try to persuade yourself that a straight line to the sky directly over the school was not just there and that coincidence could stretch—a real coincidence as the lanky blonde might think it—could stretch to there being two entirely disconnected fires on that line, one, a small, controllable fire, the other—
It was a rose-coloured patch, half-seen over the shoulder of the downs. There was nothing nasty, nothing direct, just a rose petal or two; and now opening and spreading, taking in another cloud corner, the rose lighter and brighter in hue. They said it took the fire engine fifteen minutes to reach the valley by the school when called for. Phone wires cut. But this light in the sky must be beckoning; and in that school of all others there would be some form of communication they could not get at, could not cut—
And he will bring the boy here, down by the canal, to carry him along the towpath to the stables—we could use the old barge, the cupboard up in the front of it, that old loo—
The light brightened over the downs. Suddenly she knew it was her own fire, a thing she had done, a proclamation, a deed in the eye of the world—an outrage, a triumph! The feeling stormed through her, laughter, fierceness, a wild joy at the violation. It was as if the light, shuddering on the other side of the downs, was a loosening thing so that the whole world became weak and melting like the top of a candle. It was then she saw what the last outrage was and knew herself capable of it. She shut her eyes as the image swept round her. She saw how she crawled along the long passage that led from one end of the old barge to the other. She ceased to feel the rough bark of a tree-trunk between her hands and against her body, where she clung with eyes shut. She felt instead the uneven planks of the flooring under her knees, heard the wash of the water under it, felt the wetness well over her hands. Somehow Gerry’s commando knife was in her hand. There was a sound like a rabbit thumping that came from that cupboard, that loo right up in front. Then the thumping stopped as if the rabbit was too terrified even to move. Perhaps it was listening to this slow, watery approach.
“All right! All right! I’m coming!”
The thumping would start again, a girl’s voice, well, natch.
She addressed the door conversationally.
“Just wait a moment, I’ll get you open.”
It came easily enough, swung wide. The first thing she could see inside was the ellipse of the little round window, the porthole. But there was also a small white rectangle on the midline of the boat and directly above the seat of the loo, the elsan or whatever. This rectangle was moving violently from side to side and she could smell wee-wee. The boy was there, arms bound behind his back, feet and knees bound. He was seated, bound, on the loo like he might have been in the cupboard and ropes held him on either side to the walls of the boat and there was a huge pad of sticky stuff stuck across his mouth and cheeks. He was jerking as violently as he could and there was a whining noise coming out of his nose. She felt an utter disgust at the creature itself sitting there on the stinking loo, so disgusting, eek and ooh, oh so much part of all weirdness from which you could see that the whole thing was a ruin and
I chose.
Should have brought a gun only I don’t know, it is better with the knife—oh much better!
The boy was motionless now, waiting for her on the flat stone. She began to fumble at his jersey with her left hand and he made no move; but when she pulled out the front of his shirt he began to struggle again. But the bonds were beautifully done, Gerry had done a super job, just amazing, the way in which the boy had only a limited kick with his stockinged feet was lovely, should he not have been in his pyjams, the nasty little creature must have been up to something, and she swept her hand over his naked turn and belly button, the navel my dear if you must refer to it at all and she felt paper-thin ribs and a beat, beat, thump, thump at left centre. So she got his trousers undone and held his tiny wet cock in her hand as he struggled and hummed through his nose. She laid the point of the knife on his skin and finding it to be the right place, pushed it a bit so that it pricked. The boy convulsed and flailed in the confinement and she was or someone was, frightened a bit, far off and anxious. So she thrust more still and felt it touch the leaping thing or be touched by it again and again while the body exploded with convulsions and a high humming came out of the nose. She thrust with all the power there was, deliriously; and the leaping thing inside seized the knife so that the haft beat in her hand, and there was a black sun. There was liquid everywhere and strong convulsions and she pulled the knife away to give them free play but they stopped. The boy just sat there in his bonds, the white patch of elastoplast divided down the middle by the dark liquid from his nose.
She came to herself with a terrible start that banged her head against the tree-trunk. There was a roaring and a great clittering of insect stuff and a red, mad light that swirled along the side of the downs. It passed overhead then swung up over the skyline to drop down towards where the fire was. She was trembling with the passion of the mock murder and she began to let herself down the tree-tunnel, back towards the old barge and her knees sagged. She came to the field bridge over the canal—and there was the car coming, no lights, heaving over the uneven track. She could not run, but waited for it. The car stopped, backed, turned and was ready to get away. Then she went to it, giggling and staggering to explain to Gerry about the old men in the stables and how they must use the boat but it was Bill there in the driving seat.
“Bill? Where is he? Where’s the boy?”
“There’s no bleeding boy. I had him and some burning bugger come out at me and—Sophy it’s all gone wrong. We got to get away!”
She stood, staring into his face that was pallid on one side and glowing on the other where a cloud burned in the sky.
“Miss! Sophy—come on for fuck’s sake! We got minutes—”
“Gerry!”
“He’s all right—they got your boyfriend as a hostage—now come on—”
“They?”
Ever since he saw her without the wig, I knew. Something told me only I refused to believe it. Treachery. They think they’ve done a swop.
The rage that burst in her overwhelmed triumph and fierceness, bore her up so that she screamed at him, at them, and cursed and spat; and then she was down on hands and knees and screaming and screaming into the grass where there was no boy but a Sophy who had been used and fooled by everyone.
“Sophy!”
“Get lost you dumb beast! Oh shit!”
“For the last time—”
“Sod off!”
And when at last she stopped screaming and began to understand how she had torn her cheeks and how there was hair in her hands and how there was now nothing else, not him nor them nor her but a black night with a dying fire over the crest of the downs the tears rained down her cheeks and washed the blood from them.
Presently she knelt up and spoke, as if he were there.
“It’s no good you see! All those years, no one—You think she’s wonderful, don’t you? Men always do at first. But there’s nothing there, Gerry, nothing at all. Just the minimum flesh and bones, nothing else, no one to meet, no one to go with, be w
ith, share with. Just ideas. Ghosts. Ideas and emptiness, the perfect terrorist.”
She got up, heavily, and glanced across at the old barge where there was no boy, no body. She slung her shoulder bag and wondered how much damage she had done her face. She turned away from the boat and the fire and began to pick her way back along the towpath, where there was now nothing visible but darkness.
“I shall tell. I was used. They’ll have nothing on me. Take the ropes off that chair. He said we were going camping, my lord. I’ve been very foolish my lord I’m sorry I can’t help crying. I think my fiancé must have been part of it my lord he was friendly with, with—I’m sure my Daddy had nothing to do with it, my lord. He wanted us out of the stables my lord, said he wanted to use them for something else. No my lord that was after he had been to a chess meeting in Russia. No my lord he never said.”
Chapter Sixteen
As they let him out of the back of the building Sim adjusted his coloured spectacles with movements so habitual they seemed to have become a part of his automatic life. They were one of three pairs he had acquired during the weeks of the inquiry. His walk was automatic, too, a stately progress. He had learnt that it was fatal—almost literally fatal—to hurry. That way he would attract notice and raise the shout of, there’s one of them, or, that’s the fellow who gave evidence today, or even, that’s Goodchild! It seemed his name was peculiarly attractive to them.
Stately, he walked down the side road to join Fleet Street and thus avoid the queue of those who still were unable to get in. He was inspected by a passing policeman, and even in the twilight of his coloured glasses, he thought the man looked at him with amusement and contempt.
I could do with a cup of tea.
The further you got away from the inquiry, you would have thought, the less there was a chance of being recognized? Not a bit of it! Television made everywhere the same. There’s the fellow who was giving evidence—No escape. The real ruin, the real public condemnation, was not to be good or bad; either of those had a kind of dignity about them; but to be a fool and to be seen to have been one—