The man chuckled again. The sound of bats against a window pane, of candles being snuffed.
'Don't go casting spells now,' he called bitterly as he closed the door. Sandy's stomach did a single somersault, no more, and then he grinned at having forced the feeble old man into saying that. He took off his jacket and reversed it as he walked. He felt stronger now, different. But he could not go through that again, not for anything, not even for Rian, his Rian. He moved further up the hill, away from the noises of the children. He lifted some newspaper from the ground and spat on it, scrubbing it against his face. He opened his warm, grubby hand and counted nearly fifty pence. Fifty pennies only. But he had gained something else, something that oozed from him as he rubbed harder and harder at his cheeks, enjoying the harsh, bright pain. Fifty bright pennies for Rian, his Rian.
So he had twenty-four pounds and eighty pence with which to tempt the gypsy.
There seemed to Darroch something religious about Mahler's Fifth. He listened to it while sipping dry sherry, the glass absurdly small between his fingers -- strong, hair glazed fingers. He had finished Sunday's sermon. His sermons - full of disguised morals, and some not so disguised - had been warmly received by the congregation, none of whom, however, sought to put them into practice. He felt frustrated. What else could he do? He scribbled in the margin of the sermon, which was balanced on his knees. If only he could summon up the courage to speak with the woman in some depth, then he could fathom the extent of the town's feelings towards her. Yet each time he spoke to her he felt himself choking back the words and the feelings.
It was absurd. Her eyes made him totally unable to say aloud what he felt so intensely. He was becoming obsessed by her. He did not want to think of it as love, and decided instead that it would only be cured if he were able to make himself talk with her about her life in the town. That, however, only led him back to his initial dilemma. There was emotion in Mahler's piece too, and emotion in the warming sherry. He felt them acting on him like chiding, agreeable friends. They put their arms around his shoulders and whispered, snake-like, in his ears. The room surrounded him like mortality itself: oppressive and inescapable. He shook himself free of these growing abstractions. It was time to be rational and clear-headed. He thought of the long walk to Mary Miller's house, and decided to take his car. The flooding between St Cuthbert's and Cardell was not too bad.
He would manage to get his car through, God willing.
She wept for the first time in a week. She had resigned herself to the gulf which had opened out of nowhere between Sandy and herself. She had watched Andy as he had explained the reasons why he felt it best that they separate for a while. She had watched him make his apologies and leave her house, the house of her parents and of her grandparents. She had felt the world collapsing in on her.
She had walked in a dream to the telephone box, but had not been able to get through to Canada. Now she was in the dreary graveyard, and, the grass being too wet to sit on - no, that was not the reason - she stood by the grave of her parents. She formed words in her head. She opened her mouth once or twice but produced only a dry clucking sound.
Then she wept. She wept and she sniffed back the tears into her eyes, not wanting to waste a drop, and she wept again.
She stared through the blur at the engravings on the headstone. She read her father's name. His age at death.
The tiny sentiment at the bottom. Then she started to speak.
She spoke to her mother alone, and the story she told would make her father disappear from everything for ever.
'I've lost him, Mum. He's decided that we should not see each other for a while. You know what that means. The coward's brush-off. It wasn't his fault though, Mum. No, he tried. It was me. I wouldn't have sex with him. That was the problem. It's a big problem with me, Mum, but I've never told you about it, have I? It's embarrassing, isn't it? But shall I tell you why? Shall I tell you what I could not bring myself to tell Andy? Dear Andy. You'll hate me, Mum. You'll hate me for eternity.' She blew her nose. The sky around her was darkening. Streetlamps suddenly came on outside the cemetery. *You always thought that it was Tom, didn't you, Mum? It wasn't. People here believe that it was Tom too; I think even Sandy believes it. You know that he has never asked me seriously who his father was. I would never have told him anyway. But I'm going to tell you, Mum. Lord knows I've kept it bottled up for too long.'
She paused again and pulled her coat around her, though the evening was milder than the day had been. Sandy had given one of the shawls away, one of her mother's shawls.
She could never forgive him for that. He had given it to that bitch of a tinker. And after all she had done for him . . .
'Sandy,' she said. 'Sandy.' Then she collected herself. She was here to speak with her mother.
*You remember that day, Mum. It was Boxing Day. You were going to Auntie Beth's in Leven. I said that I wasn't feeling well. Tom and Dad had arranged to meet with friends in the evening. So you went by yourself. I really thought that you were leaving us then, I mean leaving us for good. But you came back. I thought that Dad's drinking and his depressions were becoming too much for you. I know, he wasn't really to blame. The pits were all closed or closing and he didn't have much money left, or much of his pride. It was hard for everyone, wasn't it?
There were always excuses. But when you came back, and when I told you laittt that I was pregnant, you thought it had happened
You were right.'
A car passed on the road outside. It was a!
was driving on a night like this.
'Tom was out most of the night at a d 獶 M|| with that girl he sometimes saw in her upstairs lying in bed, but dressed. I heard?Patterson come in. You remember, Mum, very friendly. George Patterson was with died. It was suicide, you know.
I figured that It was suicide that night, and George Patterson!guilt all on his own shoulders ever since. I've done remove it. I hope his life's been hell!' Her voice, uncannily calm, had now built towards minor hysteria.;tugged at her coat, staring over the wall of the graveyard at the clouds beyond. 'They were drunk and noisy downstairs. I could hear glasses falling, and then a bottle rolled across the kitchen floor. It's funny how those details stick in my mind, but they do. I can remember some of what they were shouting, too. All about the death of the town and the death of the workers and the death of pride. High-blown stuff. Self pity mostly. They shouted and laughed and grew angry.
They cursed the system and the bureaucrats. They cursed the NCB. They cursed just about everything but themselves.
Dad did most of the shouting, didn't you, Dad? George was just backing you up. He had little enough to worry about.
His shop was doing nicely. He was like a tiny fat king in a sugar palace.
But he grew angry with you anyway. I couldn't stand it. By that time I really did have a headache. I crept downstairs.
'When I entered the living room it was like walking into somewhere for the first time. It seemed to have changed utterly. The chairs had been moved, and the settee. Some glasses were on the table, some others were on the sideboard, and two were on their sides in the middle of the room.
A cardboard box half filled with cans and bottles of beer was on the floor. I remember it all so clearly. And a bottle of dark rum stood beside another of whisky on the mantelpiece. Dad had his arm round George Patterson. They were swaying in the middle of the floor, circling round the box. Dad saw me first. His hair was plastered down over his forehead. Sweat was hanging in the folds of his throat, or it might have been tears. His shirt-tail hung out over his trousers. I'd heard him that drunk before, when I was lying in bed sometimes, but I'd never seen him that drunk. Although I was looking at my father, I knew that I was dealing with someone else, someone with a different voice from the person I knew and with a different look in his eye. He came up to me and put an arm around my waist, but it wasn't funny, Mum. I slipped away from him and went and sat on the settee, arms folded.
I was s
cared, yet I wanted to be in on it, do you see? I wanted to be part of their grown-up, men's world. I was fifteen, remember. I was already on the edge of that world. So I acted like a grown-up woman. Stupid of me. I sat on the settee and scowled. And Dad slumped down beside me and asked for a kiss from his daughter. He brought his face near mine and kissed me on the lips. It felt obscene. His face was bristly, and it scratched me. But he held me there for a few seconds. Then he pulled me to him again and kissed me again, not a dad's kisses this time but adult things. He was talking too, talking about the waste he had made of his life, and how I was the only thing he really lived for, how he had always cared more for me than Tom. He was stroking my back, and his breath was rancid. I thought he was all I had. I thought you'd run away. I suppose I was a bit sorry for him, but not much. I was sorrier for myself. He grasped me hard, pulling me towards him all the time. His grip was tight, a real miner's grip, and I fell against him. Oh, Mum, that was it, you see. It all happened then, and Patterson was there too. But Dad was half-hearted. No, I'm not telling it right.'
She paused. Her throat was dry. She scooped up some water from a puddle and lapped at it like a dog. She felt she was going too quickly; none of it seemed plausible.
'I don't really know what I'm trying to say, Mum. It was so long ago. But later, when Dad was sick and had to go to the bathroom and collapsed there, well, Patterson. He did it. He did it. And it was against my will all right, but I was confused. I hit him, but he was a big, heavy man. And he was talking to me, but differently from Dad ... He was trying to talk like a boyfriend. It was horrible. Talking about maybe getting married. Eventually I ran upstairs and sat with my body against the bedroom door in case they tried to get in.
I was awake all night while they slept. It was disgusting, Mum, but how could I tell you? How could I? I
don't know why I'm telling you now.'
She wiped tears from her face. Her breath was heavy. Her heart was a slow machine, rusted. She looked again at the ground, at the broken flowers in their jars, at the earth which held the two corpses.
'Oh, Mum, I don't know, I really don't know. But that's why Dad committed suicide. Because . .. I'm not even sure if he knew about Patterson. Probably not. So all the guilt was on him.
But now all the guilt is on Patterson, you see. And though I love Sandy with all my might, still I can't help feeling sometimes that part of him belongs to someone else, someone I hate. Oh, Jesus, help me. You see now, Mum, don't you? And I couldn't tell Andy. If only I could tell Andy.
Tom had nothing to do with it, you see. Nothing at all. He was mystified when he found out. He thought it might have been one of his friends. Oh, Jesus, how can I talk to you again, Mum? How can I make you listen? I'm sorry. But it wasn't my fault, Mum. It wasn't my fault.'
She breathed deeply, her face to the cast-iron sky. Rain was falling somewhere, and soon would fall here again. She walked quickly from the cemetery, her coat around her like a rough skin. A car had stopped at the gates, but it was not Andy. There were to be no miracles. It was the minister. He walked around the car towards her. She was elsewhere, but he could not see it.
'Miss . .. Mrs Miller, eh, I was just coming to see you. I didn't catch you at your house so I. . .'
'Go away, will you? Just leave me alone!' She began to run downhill. She did not know where she was going, but she knew that it had to be somewhere lonely and somewhere uninvolved. In the end, she ran towards the flooded park.
Robbie was blind drunk. That much Sandy knew by just looking at him. The young man was slumped against the outside wall of the mansion. He cradled a near-empty bottle of vodka in his arms and sang to it as if it were his baby sister.
'Oh ho,' he said as the boy approached. 'It's Sandy, is it?
Will you sit down here and have a drink with me, Sandy?'
He waved the bottle in Sandy's general direction. 'You will have a drink, won't you? I'm hellish lonely these evenings.
You stopped coming to see us. What's wrong?'
Sandy crouched in front of him. With one hand he steadied himself on the ground, while the other hand stayed in his pocket, where the roll of notes lurked.
'Listen, Robbie,' he began, staring at the bleary slits of the young gypsy's eyes, watching the eyes themselves glisten and roll and pull themselves into focus, 'I want to speak to you about Rian.'
'About Rian? Ha! That little bitch? Don't let's speak about her, Alexander. Let's enjoy ourselves. Here.' He motioned towards Sandy with the bottle. Sandy took it from him and gulped down the vodka. It burned in his throat, but made him feel better.
Tea,' he continued, 'about Rian. I've got some money together, Robbie, and I want to ...' Robbie's head rolled.
'Money,' he said, 'money, is it? Oh yes,' he rubbed at his chin and a little wise old man's face came over him, 'the money. Rian told me about that. You're supposed to be getting together some money. What for again? Oh yes, to buy her from me. Ha! That's a good one! Buy Rian! As if she could be bought. She can be bought, mind you, but not like that.
No, not like that at all.' It was as if he were talking to himself. His eyes stared at the gathering dusk, seeking answers to unspoken questions, then were dragged towards the ground by the weight of the alcohol. 'No, Sandy, you can't buy Rian. It was a trick. She told me all about it. Told me to keep quiet. But you're me pal, aren't you? I'll tell you. It was her idea, Sandy. Nothing to do with me.' He shook his head vigorously, but his eyes fixed themselves on the sky. 'Rain.
Any minute. Anyone can see that. More fucking rain. It's damp in that house. Why does nobody ever come to fix the roof? The tarpaulin's all torn or worn away or something.
The ceiling is rotten. Not fit to live in. Not fit. Ah, but Sandy me boy, she was taking you for a ride. Not her usual ride, but a ride all the same.' He laughed at the gods. It was the sound of drunken jubilation. It would be forgotten by morning. Taking you for a ride, my son. She wanted me to grab the money, then neither of us would have anything to do with you afterwards. We'd board up the windows proper, or disappear, and never see you again. What could you do, eh?' He shrugged his shoulders. 'Nothing. Unless you were prepared to tell people that you had been planning to buy yourself a gyppo girl, and who'd have sympathy for you then, eh? No-fucking-body. Not in this town, Sandy. So you'd be up the creek, right? Without a paddle, right? But never fear.
Your old pal has told you. He's saved your fucking neck, so sit and have a drink with him. Sit yourself down.'
He patted the ground beside him. The grass was sodden. Sandy could feel it underhand. His heart was racing. He
understood now, and he believed. It had been stupid all along not to. Robbie, Aunt Kitty, his own mother - they had known, they had instinctively known the rottenness that
was core deep, for they had lived through it themselves in many manifestations. Yet she had been loving towards him, gentle, fragile. Could it possibly have been merely a game, a charade for her own benefit? Robbie was speaking again.
^You're awful quiet, Sandy. Did you fall for it then? Did you really save up all your pennies? So have others before you. You're not alone.
Have you come here to give all your pennies to Robbie? Do us a favour and go get another bottle
instead. Keep the change. You can have the bitch for free, but I doubt if you'll be able to take her.' He grew less animated. 'She makes good money sometimes, and when she does she gives me some for a little drink. To keep me quiet, I suppose, and so I'll look after her and protect her from the big wide world out there. But I'll let you into a secret, Sandy.
I'd look after her anyway, without the bribes and the booze.
She's my sister, you see, and I've been looking after her since I was a kid.' He waved his arms in an uncertain sweep. 'How much did you bring, Sandy? Fifty pounds? She said you'd manage fifty, said you had some nice things in your house.
Myself, I said I doubted whether you'd get more than thirty or thirty-five, but she was adamant that you'd manage fifty for her. She said yo
u were that much in love.'
'Shut up!' The final syllable racketed around the garden and in Sandy's ears. 'Shut the fuck up!'
Robbie put his hands comically over his ears, grimacing, letting the bottle slip to the grass. Sandy remembered that he was only a few years younger than the gypsy. He reached out and slapped Robbie with his free hand. The feeling was shocking, but satisfying too, as if he had done something really wicked against authority: dropping litter or shitting in the playground. He touched his stinging palm with his fingertips. Robbie rubbed at the spot of red on his grey cheek. He was not going to retaliate. Sandy wondered if this were the same strong, cocky person whom he had encountered in a shadowed room only a few months previously. It was like watching a cancer victim growing old too quickly. It was like watching his grandmother as she had wept herself towards death.
'Where is she?' he asked. His voice was firm like a film actor's. Robbie shook his head. He was studying Sandy's feet now.
'Could be two or three places,' he said, still drunk but trying not to be. 'Could be down by the river in the park, but it's flooded, isn't it? Sometimes she takes them to the back of the swimming pool. Other times it's behind the Miners'
Institute.' He shrugged his shoulders. 'It's no use, though.
What could you do? Nothing. Better leave her alone, Sandy.
You'll only hurt yourself. I don't want my pal hurting himself. Stay here. Come on, we'll finish this bottle and get another. Nothing's to blame really. Just, well, everything.