The Old Jest Page 6

  ‘I expect you will someday, in something or other; even yourself. It doesn’t have to be in God, you know.’

  ‘I often wonder if it helps … Faith in God, I mean. Does it make life easier? Less … well … full of dark corners?’

  ‘I’m afraid not. I’m not really a God man myself, so I wouldn’t like to mislead you. I can say with conviction, though, that it’s very important to feel you have a reason for being alive.’

  ‘I’ve always hated caves. When we used to go on picnics … when I was … well young … you know … a …’

  He nodded encouragingly.

  ‘They all used to go rushing into any caves that might be around. Hurray, they’d shout, lovely lovely caves! I couldn’t bear it. I used to stay outside. I could hear them calling and laughing inside. I knew I was missing something, but I couldn’t go in. They used to tease me when they came out. You sometimes find terrible things in caves.’

  ‘True.’

  ‘And mazes and locked rooms that haven’t been opened for years and cellars. And dark secret passageways. I hate being frightened.’

  ‘You seem to have no sense of adventure. Most young people get a thrill from being scared. They sometimes even find it stimulating. Not you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘What do you get a thrill from?’

  She thought for a moment, gnawing nervously at a fingernail.

  ‘I like throwing stones into the sea.’

  ‘A noble occupation.’

  ‘Sarcasm,’ she said angrily. ‘I’m trying to tell you. I think I must be a mutt of some sort. Words. I get a thrill from words. Written, spoken, words just jumbling themselves round in my head … hardly even thought, like shadows, but making their own noise. Do you understand?’

  ‘I think you’re probably in for a hard time, young woman.’

  ‘I’m starting out with a lot of advantages.’

  ‘Yes. But you must realise that sometimes those advantages can get very much in the way.’

  There was a long silence between them. A gull landed on the roof. They could hear its claws scraping impatiently on the wood until it found a position to its liking.

  ‘And yet,’ he said eventually. ‘You’re not afraid of me?’

  ‘Should I be?’

  ‘I am as unknown to you as a locked room might be.’

  ‘People don’t frighten me. Only the very clever ones who seem to know everything.’

  ‘But you must know they don’t.’

  ‘I feel they can’t really, but I’m never sure.’

  He put his hand into his pocket and pulled something out. He held it out towards her. It was a gun.

  Inside her stomach some very disagreeable thing jumped. She neither moved nor spoke until whatever it was had settled itself back into its appointed place again. Her heart was beating very fast.

  ‘Well?’

  ‘Is that all you’re going to say?’

  ‘What do you want me to say?’ Her voice was angry, rather shrill. May I live, may I live, may I live!

  ‘Are you going to kill me or … something?’

  ‘Of course not.’ He put the gun back into his pocket.

  ‘Why … why …? ’

  ‘I carry a gun. I just suddenly thought you ought to know.’

  ‘You … have you …? ’

  ‘I use it if I have to.’

  He put his hand once more into his pocket and she braced herself to see the gun again, but he took out his cigarettes instead. He took one from the box and tapped it for a moment on his thumb before putting it into his mouth.

  ‘I make no apologies if I have upset you.’ The cigarette nodded in the corner of his mouth as he spoke. ‘The first fact of life you have to grasp if you want to get anywhere at all is that life isn’t full of sweetness and light and gentlemen standing up when ladies come into the room. On the contrary, it’s full of violence, injustice and pain. That’s what you’re afraid of seeing when you open those locked doors, peer into caves. The terrible truth.’

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘No, no … oh …!’

  ‘Once upon a time …’ His hand groped again in his pocket, this time for the matches. ‘They gave me a lovely uniform and a gun and exhorted me to go and kill the enemies of the people. I did my duty. I was a damn good soldier, Nancy, probably because I don’t really have a fear of dying … I know that sounds grandiose, but it’s true; my fear would be of being trapped by eternal life, like your grandfather … I became a major. I was no heroic child, like so many poor fools, just galloping into middle age. Four bloody years in a Field Artillery brigade. I watched men die for what some of them thought were the rights of the small nations. Slaughter. Young men, old men, heroes and devils and just poor sods who thought they were doing their duty.’ He struck a match and the flame was reflected in his eyes. Three flames trembled. ‘I thought at first we might be striking a million blows for justice. A purge of some sort might be taking place, but of course I was wrong … One thing I learnt though.’ He shook out the flame on the match and in his eyes and took a deep pull on his cigarette. ‘I know the true enemies of the people. The true enemies.’ He laughed suddenly. ‘I suppose you think I’m a little touched?’

  ‘You could be.’ She spoke cautiously. ‘A little.’

  ‘I probably am. Ranting. Spouting mumbo-jumbo foolishness at a young person who may never care, never be ruffled … by … by … after all, why should you?’

  Smoke began to trickle out through his nose and mouth. She stared at his thin face. Dying, she thought viciously, soon; I hope you die soon. The cigarette drooped between his fingers, hardened by years of pulling the trigger.

  ‘My war,’ he said the words gently, ‘will never end.’

  She stood up.

  ‘The sooner you get away out of here the better and ‥ and … don’t think I’ll bring you any more bananas … or anything. I jolly well won’t.’

  He leaned his head back against the wall and laughed.

  ‘It’s no laughing matter. Get away. Go away. You …’

  ‘I don’t mean to offend you. Believe me, I’m sorry. I just find things funny.’

  ‘Don’t you realise that I will probably go to the police. The army … we … know officers in the …’

  ‘I don’t mean to sound patronising, but you go ahead and do that, if you feel you have to. That’s all right with me.’

  She walked across the room and opened the door. Rain and wind burst turbulently in. The gull on the roof, disturbed by her movement, shifted its position. Its feet clawed impatiently, waiting for calmness again. She turned and looked back at the man. He leant against the wall still, a smile on his face.

  ‘Goodbye.’

  ‘Do you want to take your bananas with you?’

  ‘Shut up! You damn … damn …!’

  She climbed up on to the railway line and walked down the line without looking back. Far out on the horizon a ship ploughed its way towards England. It looked like hard work, pushing its way through the grey rising sea. The sand rose in sheets and flew along the beach before the wind. The sleepers were slippery and the deep cracks in them were filled with water.

  Aunt Mary was crossing the hall as Nancy came in through the door. In one hand she held a cup of tea and in the other a plate of thin fingers of hot buttered toast.

  ‘My dear child, you’re soaking. Where have you been? Run up and change at once or you’ll be all aches and pains tomorrow.’

  ‘Tea …’ suggested Nancy.

  ‘Don’t argue. If you’re quick, the tea’ll still be drinkable, it’s only just made. Your grandfather’s actually asked for toast. It’s amazing. He’s so much better today, the pet. Such a relief.’

  ‘I’ll bring a cup up with me.’

  ‘You shouldn’t dilly dally round when you’re wet like that.’

  Nancy went into the drawing room and poured herself a cup of tea. The pyramid of turf in the fireplace smouldered gently. She cut a piece of sponge cake and went back out into
the hall. Aunt Mary was still there.

  ‘There was something …’ she said vaguely. ‘Look at those drips on the floor, dear. Bridie will be most upset. Drip, drip.’

  ‘Something?’

  ‘Where is death’s sting?’ sang out the old man from his room across the hall.

  ‘Coming, pet. Toast. Now what was it?’

  ‘I hate that blooming old hymn.’

  ‘Where grave thy victory?’

  ‘Just this moment.’ She moved towards the door. ‘Harry, ah yes. That’s it.’

  ‘Harry?’ Nancy’s mouth was full of cake.

  ‘He telephoned. Luckily I wasn’t in the garden … all that rain. I should have been, it’s beginning to look like a jungle. I never hear the telephone when I’m in the garden … well, I do really, but Mrs Burke is so aggravating, she’ll never ring more than twice and you rush, huffing and puffing to the dreadful machine and she’ll say … I didn’t think anyone was in, Miss Dwyer. She knows perfectly well there’s always someone in. No patience. It’s not even as if she were madly busy. I suppose she can’t bear to tear herself away from all the fascinating calls she listens to.’

  ‘Harry …?’

  She dropped a piece of cake on the carpet and stooped to pick it up.

  ‘I triumph still if Thou abide with me.’

  ‘Oh yes. He and Maeve are expecting you to dinner. Sevenish. Her parents are going up to town to some function or other and Maeve is entertaining Harry and you to dinner. Something like that.’

  ‘And you said yes … Honestly, Aunt Mary!’

  ‘I thought you’d want to go, dear.’

  ‘How exasperating! How … bloody!’

  ‘Swearing is very unbecoming in one so young.’

  Nancy kicked angrily at the banisters. The tea slopped over the side of her cup into the saucer.

  ‘He sounded very pressing. Have a nice hot bath, dear, there’s no point in laying yourself open to rheumatism.’

  ‘He just needs me there as … well as … sort of …’

  ‘Ballast. You’ll take all the paint off if you go on doing that.’

  ‘There’s hardly any paint left on anyway. It’s all so beastly shabby.’

  Aunt Mary sighed. She suddenly looked forlorn and very tired standing there with the toast cooling rapidly in one hand.

  ‘Isn’t it your bridge afternoon anyway?’

  ‘I just thought I’d stay with him. I’d have done some gardening only … the rain … It wasn’t really necessary to stay, but…’ She looked up at the ceiling and surprisingly whistled a few tuneless notes. ‘Mrs Heslop was very put out. You know what she’s like … but there you are.’ She moved a couple of steps towards the door of the old man’s room. ‘I think he’s better, much, much better.’ She pushed at the door with her empty hand. ‘Perhaps he’ll outlive us all. Seven, Harry said. Do run along, dear, and get into that bath.’

  She went into the room and closed the door behind her.

  ‘Oh well!’ said Nancy to the empty hall.

  The bathroom smelt of witch hazel and warm dry linen. Wisteria had crawled its way in through the small window. Nancy lay and stared at the twisted stems of the plant as they worried their way towards the ceiling. There couldn’t be many people who had wisteria growing in their bathroom. That was always her routine thought as she lay down in the hot steaming water, and then she forgot about it.

  ‘I will go to the police,’ she said to her sponge. It made no comment.

  ‘I am glad after all that he isn’t, can’t be, my father. Can’t be. Deliriously glad. He could be. What am I talking about?’

  Her pale untouched body glimmered in the green light.

  ‘Oh sponge, what would you do?’

  A drip from the cold tap landed on her big toe. She moved her leg sideways and ripples distorted the shape of her legs.

  ‘Why can’t I think straight? Why?’ In a moment of rage she threw the sponge across the room. It hit the wall by the basin and fell wetly on to the floor.

  ‘It’s all I ask, to be able to come to tidy conclusions. Well, almost all. I am biologically, psychologically, physiologically a mess. Blooming mess.’

  She glared across the room at the blameless sponge and then felt better. Aunt Mary’s knuckles banged on the door.

  ‘Nancy, pet, not too long lolling in the boiling water. So bad for the skin. It will all dry up. Pits and wrinkles.’

  So, Nancy scowled, you bully me into the bath, now you bully me out. That’s life.

  ‘Anyway time is running on. I’d like to come in. I have to wash my teeth.’

  Aunt Mary had impulses to wash her teeth at all sorts of odd hours of the night and day. She had little gold fillings in the back of her mouth that you could see when she laughed; perhaps it was important to keep such valuable assets up to the mark.

  ‘Well, come on in. I’ve nothing to hide.’

  ‘Tut!’

  Nancy heard the landing floor creak as she moved away.

  ‘Aunt Mary.’

  ‘Out child, out. You’re not even washing. I can hear the silence of total inaction. Out.’

  With a sigh Nancy stood up and reached for her towel.

  ‘Are all informers rats?’

  The creaking started again, as Aunt Mary came back towards the door.

  ‘I didn’t quite hear what you said.’

  ‘Informers? Are they?’

  ‘What a curious question?’

  ‘Have you an answer?’

  Silence.

  Nancy wriggled the plug out with her big toe. Water rattled down the pipe.

  ‘Well … I’ve often wondered about Judas, you know. I find it hard to accept that for all these centuries he’s been regarded as the most despicable man in the world.’ There was more silence through the door as Aunt Mary thought about Judas. ‘You see … maybe he was a hero. I mean, maybe even the greater hero of the two. Terribly strong, far-sighted, the true ally. I only say maybe.’

  ‘I’m sure that’s blasphemy or something.’

  No thunderbolt. Just the creaking of old dry boards.

  ‘Get a move on, dear child. My teeth are aching to be washed.’

  ‘You haven’t answered my question.’

  ‘It’s an impossible question to answer. Circumstances are never the same. Sometimes it would be terribly silly not to inform, if that’s the word you want to use, other times one wouldn’t do it for love nor money. In this country the word informer has rather nasty connotations. Why do you ask such a question anyway?’

  ‘I was just wondering about this and that.’

  ‘Well wonder about them somewhere else.’

  Nancy rubbed herself fiercely with the towel and watched with interest the tiny white flakes of skin that she scoured off her body.

  ‘I wouldn’t do it,’ she said.

  ‘What’s that?’ shouted Aunt Mary through the door.

  ‘Nothing.’

  As a gesture to the formality of the occasion, she decided to approach the Caseys’ house by the wrought iron gate, the swept path, the front door. She walked sedately down the avenue and along the road, wearing her best shoes and stockings and her black crepe dress that Aunt Mary hadn’t wanted her to buy because she said it was too old for her. She felt old as she walked … well, older anyway. She stretched her neck, swan-like, as they had been implored to do at dancing class. ‘Heads in the clouds girls, up, up, up. Grow.’ She grew as she walked. She must be six feet tall. She gazed disdainfully at the dusty road, at the silver buckles on her best shoes. The rain clouds had blown away and the sky was a luminous greeny-blue. Even from Nancy’s great height you couldn’t see the sea, but you could always smell the sharp breath of salt in the air; sometimes if you were feeling undignified and put your tongue out, you could even imagine you could taste it.

  As she pushed open the Casey’s gate, her disdain and her height dwindled a little. Perhaps Aunt Mary had been right about the dress after all. Maybe she just looked silly in it. She walked s
lowly up the path towards the hall door. Harry’s motor was parked outside the garage. Maybe he would drive her home in it after dinner and she could just sit there silently beside him and not say anything idiotic or immature. Glass panels on each side of the door glowed with light. She put her finger on the bell. She thought of the man who wasn’t Robert and wondered if he were all right. Had he decided to go? She took her finger off the bell. A figure moved in the hall. She turned and ran down the path, scattering gravel on to the neat edges as she ran.

  ‘Nancy …’ Harry’s voice called her name.

  She ran out of the gate on to the road.

  ‘Nancy …’

  Once she had safely turned the corner on to the main road that led to the railway arch, she stopped running and walked on as sedately as she could manage. Every pulse in her body seemed to be bumping at a different rate. The shoes and stockings and the black crepe dress now were irrelevant. They would murder her, she thought, but that would be tomorrow. Now, it was important to stop him leaving. If he went, she knew he would never come back, disappear totally as he must have done so many times in his life before. Gun or no gun, she didn’t want that. By the railway bridge she climbed over the fence at the bottom of the embankment. The grass in the field was long and wet around her ankles. She pulled off her shoes and stockings and left them by the fence. She clambered up on to the line and began to walk towards the point. The slipping sun was gold and its long rays coloured the unfolding waves.

  Up on the hill she could see the light shining from the dining-room window. Aunt Mary and the old man would be sitting there in silence, worn-out thoughts humming gently in their heads. The tapping of their knives and forks on their plates would be the only sound in the room. The sleepers were wet under her feet. It was strange, she thought, that silence, which was, after all, merely an emptiness in the air, could have such a powerful effect. Presumably the old man led some strange comforting life inside himself that no one could touch, evading even Aunt Mary’s gentle watchfulness. You sometimes got tiny splinters of wood in your bare feet, the devil to get out, and if you allowed them to work their way into your bloodstream, they whirled round inside you and eventually pierced your heart. And that was that. A boy and a girl walked on the beach below her. More silence. Their hands were knotted together, their faces looked exhausted by their emotions. Loving was such a problem.