The Old Jest Read online

  You couldn’t make a rhythm as you walked along the tracks, as the sleepers were not a proper stride apart and you had to keep shortening yours to avoid stepping on the sharp little stones between the wood. Sometimes in the summer you could see dolphins, way out near the horizon, their bodies arching and shining as they played. Sssssh! The sea broke the silence and begged for more in one long breath.

  When she got to the point, she climbed down from the line and walked along the sand. Here the only marks were the criss-cross patterns made by the birds along the edge of the sea.

  He was sitting with his back to the hut, reading. He looked up from the book as she approached, then he got to his feet and stood there looking at her, the book held loosely in his right hand.

  ‘I didn’t expect you back quite so soon. I was going to leave in the morning.’

  She shook her head.

  ‘I thought maybe … perhaps …’

  ‘First thing. In the morning.’

  ‘I’m sorry. That’s what I came to say. Please don’t go.’

  He stared at her in silence for a long time. She felt her face getting red.

  ‘I haven’t done anything awful.’

  ‘Sssssh!’ said the sea.

  ‘I was afraid you might have gone. I hurried …’

  The thousand-year-old seagull flew in from the sea and settled on the roof.

  ‘Please don’t go.’

  ‘Do you understand what that means?’

  ‘I will try.’

  He nodded.

  ‘I think we might have a drink. I take it you’re not too young to have a drink?’

  ‘I’d love a drink.’

  ‘I only have whisky.’

  ‘Whisky sounds lovely.’ What would Aunt Mary say?

  ‘In or out?’

  ‘Out. Always out, unless it’s raining.’

  ‘I’ll get a rug.’

  ‘Don’t bother. I’m all right.’

  ‘I’ll get a rug.’

  He went into the hut.

  Just like Aunt Mary, fuss, fuss about piles and draughts and rheumatism. All grown-ups were blooming well the same in the end. She did a little whirl around and her black dress flew out like a bird’s wings. Nice. She whirled again. He came out of the hut with a bottle and two cups and the rug draped round his shoulders.

  ‘What a pretty dress!’ he said.

  She blushed.

  ‘Oh … do you really like it?’

  ‘I do. It makes you look like a young witch. I don’t mean the hook-nosed variety who fly around on broomsticks. Perhaps I should say sorceress.’

  ‘Oh!’

  She watched him spread the rug on the sand.

  ‘Aunt Mary doesn’t like it.’

  ‘For once Aunt Mary doesn’t know what she’s talking about. Won’t you sit down?’

  He gestured to her to sit down and when she was settled he handed her a cup with a small amount of whisky in it.

  ‘It has to be neat, I’m afraid. My digs don’t boast a tap.’

  ‘I don’t mind,’ she said. ‘I’ve never tasted whisky before.’

  She frowned into the cup.

  ‘Easy does it,’ he said and sat down beside her.

  ‘I love it when the stars are coming out and the sky is still blue.’

  ‘So, you came all the way back.’

  ‘Well … yes … I wondered what I ought to do and then I thought it wasn’t my business anyway and I suppose I’m not really old enough to understand about … things … things. I haven’t thought much yet. Anyway I stood at the door and I saw someone coming to open it and I thought I couldn’t stand being there all evening and being polite and knowing they didn’t really want me. Even in my best clothes I didn’t feel … adequate … I can’t bear sitting watching them holding hands … metaphorically, I mean.’ She stared up at the stars in the blue sky. ‘I’m jealous. I hate that. I really do.’

  She took a quick sip of her whisky. It was very strong and made the inside of her mouth tingle.

  ‘Do you expect me to have understood all that?’

  ‘Maybe you could just listen and not insist on understanding.’

  He smiled faintly and turned away from her, looking out towards the horizon. His face was deeply lined and the skin around his eyes was stretched and wan.

  ‘What age are you?’

  ‘I’m supposed to be listening, not answering questions. Damn fool questions.’

  ‘What am I going to do with my life?’

  ‘That’s another damn fool question. Very few people know at your age. A handful do, people born with a bloody purpose. By and large man has to pick up the use of his functions as he goes along. It’s important to understand that. The young have no patience.’

  ‘When this war is over … what will happen then?’

  He laughed.

  ‘There’ll be another one … I mean the people fighting together now will fight each other. It always happens like that.’

  She took another sip from her cup.

  ‘Then the people who win will sit in their thrones and exploit everyone, just the way they’ve been exploited before. It will be very sad and little progress will have been made. Some people will still have too much to eat and others not enough.’

  ‘It all seems very pointless. Why do you do it?’

  ‘Me? I’m not fighting specifically against the British, I hope I’m fighting for the people. I don’t want power, I want to see justice for everyone and I’m prepared to kill anyone who seriously threatens …’

  She shivered. He put out a hand and touched her shoulder.

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘That’s all right. It’s just all this killing business. I hate it so much.’

  ‘There are worse things than killing going on in the world. Terrible crimes are committed against people all the time. By other people.’

  He took a deep drink.

  ‘The only thing to do is fight.’

  ‘It all sounds very peculiar to me.’

  ‘Yes. I think we’ll talk about something else.’

  ‘We live up there on the hill.’

  He nodded.

  ‘I know. I told you, I knew this place when I was a child. This … this …’

  He banged with his knuckles on the wall behind them. ‘We used to come down here nearly every day. We came in the pony trap with our governess, to play on the beach.’

  ‘We …?’

  ‘Yes. We. The children. I remember it so well. Each time I come out of the hut in the morning I remember it all again. Empty sky and beach. Empty sea. And the trains. The driver would lean out and wave to us as he went by. Then it was time to go home for lunch. She always let us stay till the train had passed.’ It was dropping into darkness; up behind the line the hills would be black now. ‘That was a long time ago. Before …’

  ‘Before …?’

  ‘Before I became the person I am now.’ He laughed. ‘A truly seedy revolutionary.’

  ‘Did you know my mother?’

  ‘She would only have been a baby. Our world was very small. Even then there wasn’t much future for it. I was born in 1870.’

  ‘Gosh!’ She counted in her head.

  ‘On Easter Day. A lovely day to be born, when our world was full of daffodils and bells ringing and no one had heard of James Connolly or Patrick Pearse.’

  ‘Grandfather’s eighty something. Four I think. He fought in the Crimea.’

  ‘I don’t suppose I’ll reach such an exalted age.’

  ‘You’re ill? I knew you were ill.’

  He laughed.

  ‘I am disinclined.’

  ‘I’m sure Grandfather’s disinclined, too, but it doesn’t get him anywhere. He’s cold, as if he were dead already. A dead hand couldn’t be colder than his. To touch him makes you shiver. He just sits there covered with rugs and watches the trains go by. He has these field glasses … he says he saw my father the other day.’

  She put the cup to her mouth and car
efully watched him over the top of it.

  ‘Oh!’ His face and voice were non-committal.

  ‘He’s potty really.’

  ‘He must be. Aren’t you getting cold?’

  ‘A little. Crossing the field towards the railway. It could have been … Did you know my uncle Gabriel?’

  ‘Shall we go inside?’

  ‘No.’

  She stood up abruptly and handed him the cup.

  ‘I must go home. I will have music to face.’

  ‘What have you been up to?’

  ‘It was like I told you.’

  ‘You didn’t really tell me anything.’

  ‘I ran away from Harry and Maeve.’ She grinned. ‘For the second time.’

  ‘The pair who metaphorically hold hands all the time?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You could hardly be blamed for that.’

  ‘Aunt Mary will say I was rude.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘A lecture on basic elementary manners.’

  ‘And very good for you too. I am old-fashioned enough to believe in manners.’

  ‘Even when you kill someone?’

  ‘I consider that remark to be very rude.’

  ‘Yes. I’m sorry.’

  ‘It’s almost dark. Will you be all right walking home on your own?’

  ‘I don’t mind the dark, I’m used to.’

  She held out her hand towards him. He smiled up at her.

  ‘Such formality!’ He touched the palm of her hand with his fingers.

  ‘What’s your name?’

  He grinned.

  ‘You never give up, do you?’

  ‘I’d like to be able to think of you as someone. Not just that man.’

  ‘X?’

  She shook her head.

  ‘Too geometric, and not very original.’

  ‘It’s a matter of complete indifference to me what I’m called. Labels are what you put on parcels to make sure they get to their destinations.’

  ‘What did your mother call you?’

  ‘I don’t remember.’

  ‘Liar.’

  She turned and walked away from him. The sand was beginning to feel cold. A rising wind was singing in the telegraph wires along the railway. The seagull, settled for the night, stared into space. She had a sudden desire to clap her hands or yell, and see its startled flight. It would have been unkind. The sea was restless. She stopped on one of the granite blocks and called back to him. ‘I know what I will call you.’

  ‘What would that be, Miss Gulliver?’

  ‘Cassius.’

  ‘Charming.’ His voice was ironic.

  ‘Because you have a lean and hungry look.’

  ‘He came to a sticky end. But remember … “so often shall the knot of us be called the men that gave their country liberty”.’

  ‘Who said that?’

  ‘Caius Cassius.’

  ‘The beastly conspirator.’

  ‘Run along and face the music.’

  ‘Will you be here…?’

  ‘Who can tell? It is probable.’

  ‘Goodnight, Cass.’

  She climbed on up to the line and began to walk along the sleepers.

  ‘Goodnight, Miss Gulliver.’

  She retrieved her damp shoes and stockings and walked barefoot along the road towards home and retribution.

  ‘Wu … hoo!’ called a friendly owl as she turned in the gate. The moon smirked from the centre of an empty sky.

  ‘Yoo-hoo!’ answered Nancy.

  ‘To who?’

  ‘To you, silly thing.’

  Impenetrable banks of rhododendrons bordered the avenue, with brambles climbing their way up through the branches and bursting out, covering the tops of the bushes with alien white flowers. Light shone through a crack in the drawing-room curtains.

  ‘Wu-hoo!’

  ‘Goodnight, owl. Wish me luck.’

  The brass knob was cold in the palm of her hand as she turned it. She thought of his warm fingers.

  Aunt Mary was standing in the drawing-room door.

  ‘Honestly, Nancy … words fail me!’

  Nancy followed her into the room. The old man was sitting in his chair smiling to himself about something that had happened a hundred years before. Harry was sitting opposite him, his long legs stretched out across the fireplace. No smile there, not even a flicker. Aunt Mary stood in the middle of the room and looked exasperated.

  ‘Honestly, Nancy …!’ began Harry.

  ‘Aunt Mary’s already said that.’

  ‘You have been very rude, Nancy. There is no need for more rudeness.’

  ‘Sorry.’

  ‘So you should be.’

  Aunt Mary moved towards the old man’s chair and gripped the back of it.

  ‘I am going to put father to bed.’

  ‘Bed,’ said grandfather. ‘Am I to go to bed?’

  ‘It’s late, pet. You’re tired.’

  ‘I am not tired, Mary. Sometimes … just sometimes I like to be able to make my own decisions.’

  ‘Medicine and things. I’ll rub your back. If you’re good I’ll read to you. A little read. I too am tired.’

  ‘I may not be able to sleep.’

  ‘Of course you’ll sleep, father.’

  ‘I can’t ever sleep. I just lie there. What’s the point of going to bed, if I just lie there in the dark?’

  ‘Hush, dear. It’ll be all right. Apologise, Nancy. You really must do that, you know.’

  ‘And then to still be awake when it starts to get light. It’s unbearable, Mary.’

  ‘I’ll rub your back father dear …’

  The door swung closed behind them.

  Nancy turned to Harry.

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  She sat down on the arm of the sofa and looked at her bare feet. Strands of grass and tiny stones clung to their dampness.

  ‘I simply don’t understand you, Nancy.’

  She shrugged her shoulders slightly.

  ‘I mean to say … you never think of people … poor Maeve … I mean, I know you, but what is she … to think?’

  ‘I just couldn’t bear the thought of sitting there all evening looking at you two mooning at each other.’

  ‘We do not moon at each other.’

  ‘That is a matter of opinion.’

  He picked up the poker and banged at a piece of wood in the fire angrily; it hissed at him like a cat.

  ‘You’ll have to grow up soon. Learn to behave. I’ve said it before …’

  ‘And you’ll say it again. I’m hungry.’

  She rubbed a hand over her flat, empty stomach.

  ‘I’m angry. How can you expect people to treat you nicely?’

  ‘I don’t.’

  He chewed at his lower lip as he looked across the room at her. His exasperated blue eyes flickered slightly as they focused on her face.

  ‘I must go and find some food. I might collapse at any moment. Die, oh Lord, die, my belly sticking to my backbone!’

  She sucked in her cheeks and looked skull-like at him. He didn’t show any sign of smiling. She moved towards the door; he got up and followed her.

  ‘You’ve upset Mary too.’ The sound of their footsteps filled the stone passage.

  ‘She was shocked when I told her, really shocked. Upset.’

  ‘Why did you tell her? Tell tale tit. Informer. That’s what you are.’

  ‘Don’t be silly! I thought you might have been taken ill or something. Or …’

  ‘Run away with the milkman.’

  She lifted her right fist and banged on the kitchen door, then she threw the door open and switched on the light all in one rather confused movement.

  ‘Wah!’

  The kitchen smelt of ironed clothes and fresh bread.

  ‘What’s all that in aid of?’

  ‘Mice,’ she said, stepping cautiously through the door and looking round. ‘I always hope to scare them away. Attack, you know, is the best form of
defence. As an old military man you should know that.’

  ‘Gosh, are you afraid of mice?’

  ‘Don’t sneer. We all have our problems.’

  ‘Anyway, there’s the cat.’

  A large orange cat was pretending to be asleep in the pool of light in the middle of the kitchen table.

  ‘He likes mice. They’re his friends. He wouldn’t dream of hurting a mouse. He’s too blooming well fed.’

  She lifted the lid of the bread crock and looked in.

  ‘Have some bread and jam? Nice brown bread and raspberry jam.’

  ‘I’ve eaten,’ he said coldly.

  ‘Oh yes. A piece of cake? Do sit down. Bridie always hides the cake, but I bet I could find it if you wanted some. A healthy glass of milk?’

  ‘Nancy …’

  ‘The cat has yellow eyes. Well, sort of yellow. They match his fur. Orangey-yellow. Isn’t that amazing?’

  ‘Nancy …’

  ‘I always think that only very evil people have yellow eyes, witches,’ she smiled suddenly. ‘Sorcerers. Such-like. Wouldn’t you agree?’

  ‘Nancy …’

  ‘For heaven’s sake sit down, Harry! You’re making me nervous. That’s why I keep talking such nonsense.’

  She opened the press and took out some yellow butter on a plate.

  ‘I won’t say another word until you sit down.’

  A pot of jam, a knife, a plate. In silence she put them on the table. The table was pale and grained and glowed with much scrubbing. The cat’s tail quivered for a moment and then the end of it flipped, striking the table a hard blow. Nancy cut a piece of bread and then sat down. Her hands moved in the light. The rest of her, face and body, was shadowy, almost invisible.

  Harry rattled a chair across the flags and sat down opposite her. ‘Why do you wear black?’

  Her hands moved busily.

  ‘Young people shouldn’t wear black. Something bright, gay, pretty.’

  ‘I like it.’

  ‘Black is … well … I’m not saying you don’t look nice … but … Maeve thought so too. Black she said …’

  ‘I’d like to be beautiful.’ She took a bite of bread and jam and chewed at it for a moment. Beads of raspberry jam stuck to her lips. ‘Burn the topless towers of Ilium. Nothing less would do.’

  ‘I can’t get a word you’re saying. Your mouth is full.’

  ‘Sweet Helen make me immortal with a kiss.’