The Children of Men

  The christening party was coming up the path, the old man, now wearing a stole, shepherding them with small cries of encouragement. There were two middle-aged women and two older men, the men soberly dressed in blue suits, the women wearing flowered hats, incongruous above their winter coats. Each of the women was carrying a white bundle wrapped in a shawl beneath which fell the lace-trimmed pleated folds of christening robes. Theo made to pass them, eyes tactfully averted, but the two women almost barred his way and, smiling the meaningless smile of the half-demented, thrust forward the bundles, inviting his admiration. The two kittens, ears flattened beneath the ribboned bonnets, looked both ridiculous and endearing. Their eyes were wide-open, uncomprehending opal pools, and they seemed worried at their confinement. He wondered if they had been drugged, then decided that they had probably been handled, caressed and carried like babies since birth and were accustomed to it. He wondered, too, about the priest. Whether validly ordained or an impostor—and there were plenty about—he was hardly engaged in an orthodox rite. The Church of England, no longer with a common doctrine or a common liturgy, was so fragmented that there was no knowing what some sects might not have come to believe, but he doubted whether the christening of animals was encouraged. The new Archbishop, who described herself as a Christian Rationalist, would, he suspected, have prohibited infant baptism on the grounds of superstition, had infant baptism still been possible. But she could hardly control what was happening in every redundant church. The kittens presumably would not welcome a douche of cold water over their heads, but no one else was likely to object. The charade was a fitting conclusion to a morning of folly. He set off walking vigorously towards sanity and that empty inviolate house he called home.

  9

  On the morning of the Quietus, Theo awoke to a weight of vague unease, not heavy enough to be called anxiety, but a mild unfocused depression, like the last tatters of an unremembered but disagreeable dream. And then, even before he put out his hand to the light switch, he knew what the day held. It had been his habit all his life to devise small pleasures as palliatives to unpleasant duties. Normally he would now begin planning his route with care: a good pub for an early lunch, an interesting church to visit, a detour to take in an attractive village. But there could be no compensation on this journey whose end and purpose was death. He had better get there as quickly as possible, see what he had promised to see, return home, tell Julian there was nothing that he or the group could do, and attempt to put the whole unsought and unwelcome experience out of his mind. That meant rejecting the more interesting route, via Bedford, Cambridge and Stowmarket, in favour of the M40 to the M25, then northeast to the Suffolk coast by the A12. It would be a faster if less direct and certainly duller route, but, then, he wasn’t expecting to enjoy the drive.

  But he made good progress. The A12. was in much better condition than he had expected, considering that the east-coast ports were now almost derelict. He made excellent time, arriving at Blythburgh, on the estuary, just before two. The tide was receding but beyond the reeds and mud flats the water stretched like a silken scarf and a fitful early-afternoon sun struck gold in the windows of Blythburgh Church.

  It had been more than twenty-seven years since he was last here. Then he and Helena had taken a weekend break at the Swan in Southwold when Natalie was only six months old. They had only been able to afford a second-hand Ford in those days. Natalie’s carry-cot had been firmly strapped to the back seat and the boot filled with the paraphernalia of babyhood: large packets of disposable nappies, sterilizing equipment for the bottles, tins of baby food. When they reached Blythburgh, Natalie had begun to cry and Helena had said that she was hungry and should be fed now without waiting to get to the hotel. Why couldn’t they stop at the White Hart at Blythburgh? The innkeeper would be sure to have facilities for heating milk. They could both have a pub lunch and she could feed Natalie. But the car park, he saw, was crowded and he disliked the trouble and disruption which the child and Helena’s demands would cause. His insistence on pressing on for the few extra miles to Southwold had been ill-received. Helena, attempting ineffectually to pacify the child, had scarcely glanced at the gleaming water, at the great church, moored like a majestic ship among the reed beds. The weekend break had begun with the usual resentment and had continued with half-repressed ill-humour. It was, of course, his fault. He had been more ready to hurt his wife’s feelings and deprive his daughter than to inconvenience a pub bar full of strangers. He wished there could be one memory of his dead child which wasn’t tainted with guilt and regret.

  He decided almost on impulse to lunch at the pub. Today his was the only car parked there. And inside the low-raftered room the black hearth of blazing logs which he remembered had been replaced with a two-bar electric fire. He was the only customer. The publican, very old, served him with a local beer. It was excellent, but the only food on offer was pre-cooked pies which the man heated in the microwave oven. It was an inadequate preparation for the ordeal ahead.

  He took the remembered turn on to the Southwold road. The Suffolk countryside, crimped and barren under the winter sky, looked unchanged, but the road itself had deteriorated, making the drive as bumpy and hazardous as a cross-country rally. But when he reached the outskirts of Reydon he saw small gangs of Sojourners with their overseers, obviously preparing to make a start on repairing the surface. The dark faces glanced at him as he slowed and drove carefully past. Their presence surprised him. Southwold had surely not been designated as a future approved population centre. Why, then, was it important to ensure reasonable access?

  And now he was driving past the wind shield of trees and the grounds and buildings of St. Felix School. A large board at the gate proclaimed that it was now the East Suffolk Craft Centre. Presumably it was open only during the summer, or at weekends, for he saw no one on the broad, unkempt lawns. He drove over Bight Bridge and entered the little town, its painted houses seeming to sleep in a post-prandial stupor. Thirty years ago its inhabitants had been mainly elderly: old soldiers walking their dogs, retired couples, bright-eyed and weather-beaten, walking arm in arm along the front. An atmosphere of ordered calm, all passion spent. Now it was almost deserted. On the bench outside the Crown Hotel two old men sat side by side staring into the distance, brown gnarled hands crossed over the handles of their walking sticks.

  He decided to park in the yard of the Swan and have coffee before making his way to the north beach, but the inn was closed. As he was getting back into his car a middle-aged woman wearing a flowered apron came out of the side door and locked it behind her.

  He said: “I was hoping to have coffee. Is the hotel closed permanently?”

  She was pleasant-faced but nervous, and looked around before replying. “Just today, sir. A mark of respect. It’s the Quietus, you see, or perhaps you didn’t know.”

  “Yes,” he said, “I did know.”

  Wishing to break the profound sense of isolation which lay heavily on buildings and streets, he said: “I was last here thirty years ago. It hasn’t changed very much.”

  She laid one hand on the car window and said: “Oh, but it has, sir, it has changed. But the Swan is still a hotel. Not so many customers, of course, now people are moving out of the town. You see, it’s scheduled for evacuation. The government won’t be able to guarantee us power and services at the end. People are moving to Ipswich or Norwich.” Why all the hurry, he wondered irritably. Surely Xan could keep this place going for another twenty years.

  In the end he parked the car on the small green at the end of Trinity Street and began walking along the cliff-top path towards the pier.

  The mud-grey sea heaved sluggishly under a sky the colour of thin milk, faintly luminous at the horizon as if the fickle sun were about once more to break through. Above this pale transparency there hung great bunches of darker-grey and black cloud, like a half-raised curtain. Thirty feet below him he could see the stippled underbelly of the waves as they rose and spent themselves with wea
ry inevitability, as if weighted with sand and pebbles. The rail of the promenade, once so pristine and white, was rusted and in parts broken, and the grassy slope between the promenade and the beach huts looked as if it hadn’t been cropped for years. Once he would have seen below him the long shining row of wooden chalets with their endearingly ridiculous names, ranged like brightly painted dolls’ houses facing the sea. Now there were gaps like missing teeth in a decaying jaw and those remaining were ramshackle, their paint peeling, precariously roped by staves driven into the bank, waiting for the next storm to sweep them away. At his feet the dry grasses, waist-high, beaded with dry seed pods, stirred fitfully in the breeze which was never entirely absent from this easterly coast.

  Apparently the embarkation was to take place not from the pier itself but from a specially erected wooden jetty alongside it. He could see in the distance the two low boats, their decks festooned with garlands of flowers, and, on the end of the pier overlooking the jetty, a small group of figures some of whom he thought were in uniform. About eighty yards in front of him three coaches were drawn up on the promenade. As he approached, the passengers began to get down. First came a small group of bandsmen dressed in red jackets and black trousers. They stood chatting in a disorderly little group, the sun glinting on the brass of their instruments. One of them gave his neighbour a playful cuff. For a few seconds they pretended to spar, then, bored with the horseplay, lit cigarettes and stared out to sea. And now came the elderly people, some able to descend unaided, others leaning on nurses. The luggage hold of one of the coaches was unlocked and a number of wheelchairs dragged out. Last of all the most frail were helped from the coach and into the wheelchairs.

  Theo kept his distance and watched as the thin line of bent figures straggled down the sloping path which bisected the cliff, towards the beach huts on the lower promenade. Suddenly he realized what was happening. They were using the huts for the old women to change into their white robes, huts which for so many decades had echoed with the laughter of children, and whose names, not thought of for nearly thirty years, now came unbidden to his mind, the silly, happy celebrations of family holidays: Pete’s Place, Ocean View, Spray Cottage, Happy Hut. He stood grasping the rusty rail at the top of the cliff, watching as, two by two, the old women were helped up the steps and into the huts. The members of the band had watched but made no movement. Now they conferred a little together, stubbed out their cigarettes, picked up their instruments and made their own way down the cliff. They formed themselves into a line and stood waiting. The silence was almost eerie. Behind him the row of Victorian houses, shuttered, empty, stood like shabby memorials of happier days. Below him the beach was deserted; only the squawk of gulls disturbed the calm.

  And now the old women were being helped down from the huts and arranged in line. They were all wearing long white robes, perhaps nightdresses, with what looked like woollen shawls and white capes over them, a necessary comfort in the keen wind. He was glad of the warmth of his own tweed coat. Each woman was carrying a small posy of flowers so that they looked like a bevy of dishevelled bridesmaids. He found himself wondering who had placed the flowers ready, who had unlocked the huts, left the nightdresses folded for that purpose. The whole event, which seemed so haphazard, so spontaneous, must have been carefully organized. And he noticed for the first time that the huts on this part of the lower promenade had been repaired and newly painted.

  The band began playing as the procession shuffled slowly along the lower promenade towards the pier. As the first blare of brass broke the silence he felt a sense of outrage, a dreadful pity. They were playing cheerful songs, melodies from the time of his grandparents, the songs of the Second World War, which he recognized but whose names he could not at first recall. Then some of the titles fell into his mind: “Bye Bye, Blackbird,” “Somebody Stole My Girl,” “Somewhere over the Rainbow.” As they approached the pier the music changed and he recognized the strains of a hymn, “Abide with Me.” After the first verse had been played and the tune began again, there rose from beneath him a querulous mewing like the sound of sea birds and he realized that the old people were singing. As he watched some of the women began swaying to the music, holding out their white skirts and clumsily pirouetting. It occurred to Theo that they could have been drugged.

  Keeping pace with the last couple in the line, he followed them towards the pier. And now the scene was plain beneath him. There was a crowd of only about twenty, some perhaps relatives and friends, but most members of the State Security Police. The two low boats might once, he thought, have been small barges. Only the hulls remained and these had been fitted with rows of benches. There were two soldiers in each of the boats and, as the old women entered, they bent down, presumably either to shackle their ankles or to attach weights. The motorboat, moored at the pier itself, made the plan clear. Once out of sight of land the soldiers would knock away the plugs and then board the motorboat and return to shore. The band on shore was still playing, this time Elgar’s “Nimrod.” The singing had ceased and no sound reached him except the ceaseless crash of the waves on the shingle and an occasional quiet word of command blown to him on the thin breeze.

  He told himself that he had seen enough. He would be justified now in returning to the car. He wanted nothing more than to drive furiously away from this little town which spoke to him only of helplessness, of decay, of emptiness and death. But he had promised Julian that he would see a Quietus and that must mean watching until the boats were out of sight. As if to reinforce his intention, he walked down the concrete steps from the upper promenade to the beach. No one came forward to order him away. The little group of officials, the nurses, the soldiers, even the bandsmen, concerned with their part in the macabre ceremony, seemed not even to notice that he was there.

  Suddenly there was a commotion. One of the women being helped on to the nearer boat gave a cry and began a violent thrashing of her arms. The nurse with her was taken by surprise and, before she could move, the woman had leapt from the jetty into the water and was struggling ashore. Instinctively Theo cast off his heavy coat and ran towards her, scrunching over the pebbles and shingle, feeling the icy bite of the sea freezing his ankles. She was only about twenty yards from him now and he could see her plainly, the wild white hair, the nightdress sticking to her body, the swinging, pendulous breasts, the arms with their weals of crêpy skin. A crashing wave tore the nightdress from her shoulder and he saw the breast swaying obscenely like a giant jellyfish. She was still screaming, a high, piercing whistle like a tortured animal. And almost at once he recognized her. It was Hilda Palmer-Smith. Buffeted, he struggled towards her, holding out both hands.

  And then it happened. His outstretched hands were about to grasp her wrists when one of the soldiers leapt into the water from the jetty and, with the butt of his pistol, struck her viciously on the side of the head. She fell forward into the sea, arms whirling. There was a brief stain of red before the next wave came, engulfed her, lifted her, receded and left her spreadeagled in the foam. She tried to rise but again he struck. Theo had reached her by now and clutched one of her hands. Almost immediately he felt his shoulders seized and he was flung aside. He heard a voice, quiet, authoritative, almost gentle: “Let it be, sir. Let it be.”

  Another wave, larger than the last, engulfed her and knocked him off his feet. It receded and, struggling up, he saw her again, stretched out, the nightdress rucked up over the thin legs, all of the lower body exposed. He gave a groan and again staggered towards her, but this time he, too, felt a blow on the side of his head and fell. He was aware of the harshness of pebbles grinding into his face, of the overwhelming smell of salt sea water, of a pounding in his ears. His hands scrabbled at the shingle, trying to get a hold. But sand and shingle were sucked away beneath him. And then another wave struck and he felt himself dragged back into deeper water. Only half-conscious, he tried to raise his head, tried to breathe, knowing that he was close to drowning. And then came the third wave, which lif
ted him bodily and flung him among the stones of the beach.

  But they hadn’t intended him to drown. Shivering with cold, spluttering and retching, he was aware of strong hands under his shoulders, of being lifted out of the water as lightly as if he were a child. Someone was dragging him face-downwards up the beach. He could feel his toe-caps rasping the patches of wet sand and the drag of the shingle on his soaking trouser-legs. His arms dangled powerlessly, the knuckles bruised and grazed by the larger stones on the upper ridges of the shore. And all the time he could smell the strong sea-smell of the beach and hear the rhythmic thudding of the surf. Then the dragging stopped, and he was dumped ungently on soft, dry sand. He felt the weight of his coat as it was thrown over his body. He was dimly aware of a dark shape passing over him, and then he was alone.

  He tried to raise his head, aware for the first time of a throbbing pain, expanding and contracting like a living thing pulsating in his skull. Each time he managed to lift his head it swayed weakly from side to side, then thudded again into the sand. But at the third try he managed to raise it a few inches and opened his eyes. The lids were weighted with caked sand, sand that covered his face and blocked his mouth, while strands of slimy weeds webbed his fingers and hung in his hair. He felt like a man dug from some watery grave with all the trappings of his death still on him. But in the moment before he lapsed into unconsciousness he was able to see that someone had dragged him into the narrow space between two beach huts. They were raised on low stilts and he could see beneath the floors the detritus of long-forgotten holidays half-buried in the dirty sand: the gleam of silver paper, an old plastic bottle, the rotting canvas and splintered struts of a deck chair, and a child’s broken spade. He shuffled painfully to get closer and reached out his hand, as if to lay hold on it would be to lay hold on safety and peace. But the effort was too great and, closing his smarting eyes, he sank with a sigh into the darkness.