Another Part of the Wood Read online

  She was bending low over Balfour, free of the masculine jacket, wearing a top of some soft woollen material, no bra beneath; he could feel the bounce of her breast against his temple. Dim and dreamy, with a temperature of 103, Balfour craned upwards and kissed her on the lips. He was kissed in return.

  ‘Nice boy,’ said Dotty, a little embarrassed and stroking his face with more assurance now that they had been so close. ‘Isn’t kissing nice? It is nice, isn’t it? Are you well enough to go home? It must be awfully late.’

  There was one steady stream of wind coming across the black field, blowing hard and steadily right into her face.

  He sat up slowly and struggled to his feet, scraping his head against the hedge as he rose. Staggering, he set off down the road.

  *

  There was no air in the hut. The wood had burnt quickly and with great heat. Already the pile cut by George that morning had been reduced to ashes. There were only a few logs left on the sofa occupied by May. She quite enjoyed being alone with three men – four, if she bothered to include the peculiar Kidney. It made her feel something of a queen. It was odd Dotty wasn’t back yet from the shopping expedition. It was getting on for midnight. Perhaps they had gone to the pictures. Lionel had irritated her earlier by wanting to set off with a lantern to look for them. It was obvious Joseph wasn’t worried, only furious she hadn’t returned with the food.

  George was talking to Lionel about architecture. He said, ‘Today the modern architect is a constructor as well as a designer. He can’t, however, expect to combine all the engineer’s functions as he did before the Industrial Revolution. Contemporary construction is too complex.’

  ‘Quite so,’ Lionel said respectfully, fumbling inside the neck of his shirt for the comfort of the penny. The chain had gone. He sat there with his face politely inclined in George’s direction waiting for the words to end, for the man’s mouth to close.

  Gone, but where? It had been about his neck that morning when he changed his shirt. The water he had liberally splashed against his face had run from the edges of the coin down to his belly. He had shivered with the sensation.

  ‘Excuse me,’ he said to George. ‘I’ve mislaid something, old boy.’ He stood upright, slapping his hands against his stomach, wriggling his knees violently in his creased flannels.

  ‘Been bitten?’ Joseph wanted to know, drawing lines on a sheet of paper at the table. He was trying to make a graph of his subconscious. His toil of the afternoon had been of little use in regard to solving the problems of his dream. George had talked to him at length about the use of shoddy materials in housing projects. He had enquired about Joseph’s own property and about his ex-wife’s flat in Liverpool. He said that some of the property in the cathedral quarter of the city was in a bad state of repair. He said that housing conditions were directly related to delinquency and neurosis. The dream had been pushed from Joseph’s mind, to be replaced by guilty thoughts of Roland growing up in the dilapidated city, far away from the green fields and the clean air. Lionel had played with Roland in the field before the boy had been put to bed. May had helped him clean his teeth and combed his hair, telling him he had very smart pyjamas. Roland had looked at her listlessly, without enthusiasm. Joseph had meant to play with Roland himself, but he had been too whacked after the day’s exertions to do more than cuddle the boy on his knee.

  ‘What’s wrong with you?’ May was looking at Lionel standing there with his arms slack at his sides, his mouth open beneath his auburn moustache.

  ‘I’ve lost something.’

  ‘What?’ she said.

  ‘My coin.’ He shook his head, crestfallen. ‘I had it this morning. I distinctly remember I had it this morning.’

  ‘Oh, that.’ She settled herself more comfortably.

  ‘The dead Jerry’s Reichsmark?’ Joseph asked. ‘You’ve lost it? What a bore.’

  Joseph wasn’t all that attractive, May thought, seeing him above the arm of the sofa, seated at the table with his head bent. Nose too flat and mouth too big. A plum mouth, not attractive in a man. Dotty was a fool, suffering agonies over a man like that. She was just too inexperienced to know that there were hundreds of men to choose from – better than Joseph with his snub nose and his high voice, always going on about education and the meaning of dreams. She let herself remember all the men who had found her attractive. Some of them. It was strange how the good and solid ones evoked no response in her, no feeling of being a woman. All those dreary kindly men, ending with Lionel, wanting to give her security and a nice home – while the other kind, the unstable ruthless ones, who treated her like a whore, slapping her bottom and flinging her on to the bed at the first opportunity, exerted such power over her.

  ‘Lionel,’ she said, ‘do you remember that day you came home and I was out and I said I’d been to see Christine? Well, I hadn’t.’

  He looked at her distracted, hardly hearing, trying to think where the coin might be.

  ‘I didn’t go to Christine’s. I got picked up by a man and went home with him.’ Defiantly she swung her foot up and down in the air.

  The barn, thought Lionel, that’s where it must be. He remembered the tussle with his sweetheart in the barn. He didn’t suppose Joseph would like him to go in there now. ‘Joseph, old chap,’ he said. ‘Do you think you could possibly come into the barn with me?’ He appealed to Joseph, standing there at the table, his face yellow in the lamplight.

  ‘Dear me,’ said Joseph, looking up from his paper. ‘Do you fancy me, darling?’

  May giggled.

  ‘I’ve got a feeling I left my coin in the barn earlier this afternoon.’ I’m almost certain. May and I were in there having a little chat this afternoon.’

  ‘Look where you like. It’s not my barn,’ said Joseph.

  ‘I was thinking about Roland … being in beddy-byes.’

  ‘Don’t you wake him up for God’s sake.’

  ‘I’ll be terribly quiet.’ Gratefully Lionel turned towards the door and opened it and came back again. ‘I’ll have to take the lamp,’ he said apologetically.

  May bounced on the little sofa and waved her hands about. ‘Oh, sit down. Leave it till the morning. What a fuss about nothing.’

  Joseph was looking at Kidney. ‘Hold on a tick,’ he said. ‘I think it’s time Kidney went to bed.’ He stared at the youth, whose eyes were closed. ‘Kidney, do you hear?’

  The boy opened his eyes at once.

  ‘Bed for you. Come on.’

  Kidney rose obediently at the command and blundered towards the table. ‘My pill,’ he said. ‘Please, my night pill.’

  Joseph handed him one, putting the bottle back on the shelf above the door, standing over him while Kidney wiped his face with a flannel and cleaned his teeth. Kidney took a long time, brushing assiduously, gargling and spitting. At last he went out into the night with Lionel, leaving the others in darkness.

  ‘Don’t forget to pee,’ Joseph shouted, slamming the hut door and finding his way back to the table.

  May gave a little squeal in the darkness. She didn’t mind being alone with Joseph, but George gave her the creeps. ‘Isn’t Lionel awful,’ she said, clutching her bare toes, bending right over to touch the floor. ‘Doesn’t he make you sick?’

  ‘Now now, Mrs – ’ Joseph faltered. ‘What’s your name?’

  ‘Gosling. Mrs Gosling. Isn’t it a funny name?’ She laughed, bringing her head up, feeling with her hand the heat of her face. ‘Sounds like a duckling.’

  ‘It’s Jewish,’ George said.

  May thought she saw the whites of his eyes, luminous in the blacked-out hut. ‘Do you think so? Jewish … A bit, you mean … I’ve often thought that.’ She tried to sound polite and chatty. ‘His nose, you know … His grandmother was called Rebecca. I do know that. And that’s Jewish, isn’t it? It’s in the Bible.’

  George said, ‘He’s a Michling.’

  ‘A what?’ she tittered.

  ‘The Nazis had a definition for quarter-Jews
,’ said George. ‘Originally they were exempt from the gas chambers.’

  He had a thing about the Jews, that was obvious. May supposed you had to get obsessed by something, if you were like him. He’d probably have a heart attack if someone kissed him.

  ‘I’m a Catholic myself,’ she said. ‘A lapsed one … but still a Catholic.’ She felt quite intelligent, talking like this to two invisible men. ‘Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi,’ she gabbled, proving her point. ‘Christe, audi nos.’ The words had a strange effect on her. She curled up on the sofa and closed her eyes, feeling she was a child again, fearful of the probability that Christ did hear her. What if He had heard what Lionel said last night? Lionel’s worry, not hers. ‘I’d love a double-barrelled name,’ she said aloud, opening her eyes again and looking in the direction of Joseph.

  He didn’t reply. She could hear him breathing, soft and hurried as if he were running.

  ‘I’ve got Lionel’s blasted penny in my pocket,’ she said, glad to confess.

  ‘You’re a bit of a bitch,’ Joseph said.

  Lionel entered with the lamp.

  ‘It was on the floor,’ he lied. ‘Just near the door. Fancy that. Sorry to be a bore about it, but it means a devil of a lot to me, and I just couldn’t rest until I had it again.’

  ‘Quite,’ said Joseph, humouring him. ‘Mrs Gosling’s quite a little linguist,’ he said, drawing his pencil aimlessly across the square of writing paper, waiting for May to squeal, to pat her hair into shape.

  ‘Fides quid tibi praestat?’ she murmured modestly, on cue.

  Lionel wasn’t really paying attention. She would have to give him back his precious token. Later. ‘Lionel, you’re not listening. I was speaking Latin.’

  ‘You were?’

  ‘I was.’ Nasty brutish man tickling his moustache not hearing a word she said.

  ‘What’s it mean?’ asked Joseph. He looked expectantly at her, and she fidgeted on the sofa, smiling, wondering if she knew.

  ‘It’s the baptismal thing … what the priest says when you’re a baby.’

  ‘A baby,’ cried Lionel. ‘Ah, a baby!’

  That had moved him, thought May. He was imagining her in a long white dress with a shawl over her bald head. He was impossible. ‘The priest says “What dost thou look for from the Church of God?” and the reply is “Faith”, and then he says “What doth Faith assure thee of?” and someone says “Life eternal”.’

  ‘Dear God,’ Joseph said. ‘Life eternal, what a drag.’

  ‘It’s true,’ May said defensively.

  Joseph was quite patient, quite polite. ‘I don’t doubt some believe it to be true, nor do I doubt they’ll be bitterly disappointed. All this love thing is an appalling delusion.’

  Lionel wagged a finger at him, speaking with assurance. ‘Now, now, love does exist, old boy. It really does.’ He mightn’t know about architecture, but love – well, he did know about that. ‘You may not have been as lucky as myself, but when it hits you … ah well …’ He shook his head, baffled, as if still dazed by the blow.

  ‘I have been hit by it,’ said Joseph. ‘Many times as a matter of fact.’

  ‘Ah yes, but really. I mean, really.’

  ‘What do you mean, “really, really”? How real can you get? All I know is it passes off. Right off. Sooner or later.’ Joseph made a gesture of departure with his hand, slicing the air dogmatically, looking from Lionel to May and back again as if to say their time would come.

  Lionel would have none of it. ‘I’m a business man myself,’ he asserted modestly, ‘and I know what I’m talking about. When it hits you, you know. It’s no use giving your feelings where they’re not appreciated. It pays no dividends. Give them where you will receive an appreciable rate of interest.’ He endeavoured to adjust his expression. Try as he might, his mouth widened in a smile. He felt the kind of self-satisfaction and benevolence befitting a man who knew who he was and to whom he belonged.

  ‘Do you believe in love, George?’ May asked maliciously, propping herself on her elbow, gazing at the giant on his chair.

  ‘Tolstoy,’ observed George, paying no attention to her, ‘said that life is all right while you are intoxicated.’ He thrust the palms of his hands together, looking at Joseph enquiringly, as if setting a riddle.

  ‘Yes … well?’

  ‘When you sober up it’s impossible not to see it’s a fraud.’

  ‘Here’s another one,’ said Joseph. ‘Nothing lasts, absolutely nothing. Neither fear, nor love for one woman.’

  ‘Plato?’ suggested Lionel, half fearful.

  ‘No, Marlon Brando.’

  Lionel laughed nevertheless, thwacking the side of his leg to show that his sense of humour really knew no bounds.

  ‘Where, oh where, is Dotty?’ cried his wife, swinging her legs up and placing the black soles of her feet down again squarely on the rough floor. There was an atmosphere in the hut that made her feel irritable. It was as if they had all been plucked up out of nowhere and set down with the express purpose of being amusing or interesting or something, and they had all been found wanting. It was so embarrassing, not knowing what way to be, Lionel in a tiz about his Co-op penny and Joseph attempting to be profound. She longed for Dotty to return and give them some distraction – ask questions, undo shopping, explain the delay.

  George said, ‘I’m anxious about Balfour. I feel he may be ill.’

  ‘I shouldn’t worry,’ said Joseph. ‘Dotty can cope.’

  ‘His behaviour of the last few days has been strange. Unlike … He has been less than himself … or more. A preparation perhaps.’

  ‘He hasn’t seemed very strange to me,’ said Joseph. ‘What way do you mean?’

  ‘There are currents,’ George said. ‘Changes … attitudes … certain deviations from normal behaviour … preliminaries … an increasing impediment in speech.’

  ‘Oh aye,’ said Joseph, giving up.

  Lionel said he thought he would go and listen to the stock-market closing reports. ‘You’ve got a radio in the car, old boy, haven’t you?’

  Joseph said he had, that the car wasn’t locked, that the knob of the radio was on the floor by the clutch somewhere.

  Lionel found himself a candle and a box of matches. When he opened the door of the hut he was too troubled by the loss of his coin to look back at his sweetheart. Like a swimmer, he threw himself from the step of the porch into the field, breast-high in mist, and began to wade to the distant Jaguar.

  Though still liable to sudden fits of trembling, Balfour walked without help. The breeze tore free a corner of paper wrapped about the joint of meat. Flap, flap, it went in the night. Slap, slap went his feet on the smooth surface of the road. After a time Dotty could see shapes and grades of darkness – line of hedge, rise of field – even the outline of Balfour’s face as he walked at her side.

  She wondered if Joseph was worried at her absence. Angry, most likely. She thought she would put in her farewell letter that Balfour had kissed her behind the hedge, that she felt life was exciting. In truth, the embrace of the delirious Balfour, swift though it had been, had only depressed her, illustrating as it did how unexciting life was without Joseph.

  ‘I expect they think we’ve been boozing,’ she said. The road dipped gently down to the stone bridge, to the weeping willow, unseen, rising up out of the stream. The noise of the water coming down from the rocks was deafening.

  Then they were climbing the hill again. One more turning to go and a short stretch of road before they came to the gate into the field.

  ‘I’d rather you d-didn’t say I’ve been ill,’ said Balfour.

  ‘Don’t be daft. What else can we say? It must be nearly midnight.’

  ‘I don’t c-care for old G-George to know.’

  ‘Well, I don’t care for old Joseph to think we’ve been doing anything else.’ Dotty was quite cross and assertive, fortified by their intimacy of half an hour ago. Balfour walked stiffly, with the joint of meat held to his chin.
He would just make it back to the hut, to the barn. He would have to sleep there for the night.

  ‘Oh, all right,’ she relented. ‘I’ll say we went to the chippie or something, or that I felt sick. I don’t suppose he’ll be up anyway.’

  Behind the gate the hump of the haystack rose above the two cars. Inside the Jaguar burnt a little light, orange against the blue leather of the seats. Lionel, plump as a Buddha, sat holding his candle aloft, listening to a voice on the radio. They waved at him. He made signs and attempted to wind down the window. They climbed over the second gate, heading towards the hut and were swallowed up in the mist.

  In the centre of the field Dotty searched for and found Balfour’s hand. Like lovers they stumbled through the damp air.

  All alone in the little cabin Lionel sat listening to the market trends. A liturgy of big business, a rosary of abbreviations and percentages, gilt-edged and gold-leafed. Some things were up, some down. Some shaky, some sound.

  Awkwardly, with the stub of a pencil he wrote down figures on the back of an envelope. He would wait until the shipping reports, till the announcer said ‘Good night, gentlemen’. One gentleman to another.

  8

  Dotty put chairs outside the hut and clapped her hands. ‘A photie. Everyone must have their photie taken.’

  It was such a perfect morning, she thought, straight out of some woodland scene in a pantomime – a backcloth of shimmering trees, azure blue sky, birds singing. May, encased in white shorts, jaunty as a principal boy, came running from the barn.

  ‘Oh, I hate photographs. I always come out looking ghastly.’ Still, she sat herself on the centre chair, rocking alarmingly on the bumpy ground.

  It was important to Dotty that there should be some record she could keep of this last time spent with Joseph.

  Joseph assembled them on the chairs, Lionel next to his sweetheart, Dotty to the right, clad in her flowered coat, Roland on her knee. Behind, in a row, with arms folded, stood Balfour, Kidney and George.