Complete Short Stories (VMC) (12 page)

‘Eels,’ I said lightly.

‘Eels? Oh, eels! Why, only last night some friends of ours, a Mr and Mrs Sibley, were telling us about an experience they had when they were staying near the Severn Estuary. They were going to bed one night and Mr Sibley happened to look out of the window, and he suddenly called out to Mrs Sibley, “Just come and look at this,” he said. “There’s something moving down there on the grass,” and Mrs Sibley said, “Frank, do you know what I think those are? I do believe they’re eels, young eels” – I forget the name she gave to them. What was that word, Roy?’

‘No one has a drink,’ I cried, running frantically from one glass to another. The bird-watcher looked gravely, peacefully, at the view.

‘Thank you, dear,’ said Mrs Crouch. ‘I am not at all sure that I haven’t had too much already. What was that word, Roy? I have it at the tip of my tongue.’

‘Elvers,’ he muttered, and took a great swallow at his gin. He looked dejected, worn, as old as his mother almost. They might have been husband and wife.

The Home For The Blind absorbed the surplus of that rural charity – so much more pleasant to give than to receive – the cakes left over from the Women’s Institute party, and concerts which could no longer tempt appetites more than satisfied by homely monologues and the post-mistress’s zither. Fruit and vegetables from the Harvest Festival seemed not richer from their blessing, but vitiated by being too much arranged, too much stared at. The bread in the shape of a corn-sheaf tasted of incense, and, with its mainly visual appeal, was wasted on the blind.

No week went by without some dispiriting jollity being forced upon him. This week, it was a choir of schoolgirls singing ‘Orpheus with His Lute’. ‘Which drives me finally up the wall,’ Harry decided, and clapped his great horny hands together at the end with relief. ‘Your
nails
, Harry!’ Matron had said earlier, as if he were a child; and, like a child, he winced each time the scissors touched him. ‘You’ve been biting them again. I shall have to get very cross with you.’ He imagined her irritating smile; false teeth like china, no doubt; thin lips. He was on the wrong side of her from the start; had asked her to read out to him the runners at Newmarket. ‘You old terror! I shall do nothing of the kind. I’m not having that sort of thing here.’ He was helpless. Reading with his hands he regarded as a miracle and beyond him. He had steered clear of books when he could see, and they held even less attraction now that tedious lessons, as well as indifference, stood in the way; and the
Sporting Life
was not set in Braille, he soon discovered.

His request had scandalised, for – he had soon decided – only the virtuous lose their sight: perhaps as a further test of their saintly patience. None of his friends – the Boys – had ever known such a calamity, and rebelliousness, as if at some clerical error, hardened his heart. Set down in this institution after his sister’s death, he was a fish out of water. ‘I’m just not the type,’ he thought, over and over again.

The great house, in its park; the village; the surrounding countryside – which Harry called ‘the rural set-up’ – was visually unimaginable to him. His nearest experience of it was Hampstead Heath or the view (ignored) from Goodwood Racecourse. Country to him was negative: simply, a place
where there was not a town. The large rooms of the Home unnerved him. In his sister’s house, he could not go far wrong, edging round the table which took up most of the space; and the heat from the fire, the clock ticking on the dresser had given him his bearings. When she had died he was helpless. The Home had appealed to him as a wonderful alternative to his own picture of himself out in the street with a tray of matches and a card pinned to his breast with some words such as ‘On My Beam Ends’ or, simply, ‘Blind’. ‘You’ll have the company of others like you,’ his neighbours had told him. This was not so. He found himself in a society whose existence he had never, in his old egotism, contemplated and whose ways soon lowered his vitality. He had nothing in common with these faded seamstresses; the prophet-like lay-preacher; an old piano-tuner who believed he was the reincarnation of Beethoven; elderly people who had lived more than half a dim life-time in dark drapers’ shops in country towns. Blind they might not have been; for they found their way about the house, its grounds, the village, with pride and confidence. Indoors, they bickered about the wireless; for the ladies liked a nice domestic play and thought some of the variety programmes ‘suggestive’. The racing results were always switched to something different, hastily, before they could contaminate the air.

‘I once went to a race-meeting,’ Miss Arbuthnot admitted. She had been a governess in Russia in the Tsarist days and had taken tea with Rasputin: now she overrode her companions with her past grandeur. No one knew, perhaps she least of all, what bizarre experience might be related next. ‘It was at Ascot after the last war. I mean the one before that. I went as chaperone to Lady Allegra Faringdon and one of the Ponsonby cousins.’

‘Did you see the King and Queen drive down the Course?’ asked the sycophantic Mrs Hussey. ‘What a picture that must be!’

‘It is quite a pageant of English life. The cream of the cream, as one might say; but, dear, dear me! What a tiring way to spend a day! My poor feet! I wore some pale grey buckskin shoes, and how they
drew
. I dare say they would look very old-fashioned nowadays, but then they were quite
à la
.’ She gave her silvery, trilling laugh. ‘“Well, I have been once,” I used to say. “I know what it is like, and I know that I give the preference to Henley, even if the crowd there is not so brilliant. Oh, yes, give me Henley any day.”’

No one would be likely to give her any such thing ever again, but this occurred only to Harry.

‘Did you have any luck – with the horses, I mean?’ he asked, breaking his sullen silence with his coarse, breathy voice. Exasperation and nostalgia forced him to speak, although to do so invited ridicule. He was driven to broach the subject as lovers are often driven to mention the beloved’s name, even in casual conversation with unworthy people.

‘Do you mean betting?’

‘What else do you go for?’ he asked huffily.

‘Well, certainly not for that, I hope. For the spectacle, the occasion – a brilliant opening to the London season.’

No one thought – their indignation was so centred upon Harry – that she spoke less as a governess than as a duchess. She coloured their lives with her extravagances; whereas Harry only underlined their plight; stumbling, cursing, spilling food, he had brought the word ‘blindness’ into their midst – a threat to their courage.

‘Cantankerous old virgin!’ he thought. ‘Trying to come it over me.’ A spinster to him was a figure of fun; but now he, not she, sat humble and grumpy and rejected.

That evening at the concert, Miss Arbuthnot, with the advantage of her cultured life behind her (‘Ah! Chaliapin in “Boris”! After that, one is never quite the same person again’), sat in the front row and led and tempered the applause. A humorous song in country dialect wound up the evening, and her fluting laugh gave the cue for broad-minded appreciation. Then chairs scraped back and talk broke out. Harry tapped his way to a corner and sat there alone.

The girls, told to mingle, to bring their sunshine into these dark lives, began nervously to hand round buns, unsure of how far the blind could help themselves. They were desperately tactful. (‘I made the most frightful
faux pas
,’ they would chatter in the bus going home. ‘Dropped the most appalling brick. Wasn’t it all depressing? Poor old things! But it doesn’t bear thinking of, of course.’)

One girl, obediently, came towards Harry.

‘Would you like a cake?’

‘That’s very kind of you, missie.’

She held the plate out awkwardly, but he made no movement towards it.

‘Shall I … may I give you one?’

‘I should maybe knock them all on the floor if I start feeling about,’ he said gloomily.

She put a cake into his hand and looked away as the crumbs began to fall on his waistcoat and knees, fearing that he might guess the direction of her glance; for the blind, she had been told, develop the other senses in uncanny ways.

Her young voice was a pleasure to him. He was growing used to voices either elderly or condescending. Hoping to detain her a little longer, he said: ‘You all sang very nice indeed.’

‘I’m so glad you enjoyed it.’

He thought: ‘I’d only have run a mile from it given half a chance.’

‘I’m fond of a nice voice,’ he said. ‘My mother was a singer.’

‘Oh, really?’ She had not intended to sound so incredulous, but her affectation of brightness had grown out of hand.

‘She was a big figure on the Halls – in more ways than just the one. A fine great bust and thighs she had, but small feet. Collins’ Music Hall and the Met … I dare say you heard of them?’

‘I can’t really say I have.’

‘She had her name on the bills – Lottie Throstle. That was her stage name, and a funny, old-fashioned name it must sound nowadays, but they liked to have something out of the usual run. Louie Breakspear her real name was. I expect you’ve heard your mum and dad speak of Lottie Throstle.’

‘I can’t remember …’

‘She was a good old sort.’ (‘She’d have had you taped,’ he thought. ‘I can hear her now … “Ay can’t say, ay’m sure.”’) ‘“Slip Round the Corner, Charlie”, that was her song. Did you ever hear that one?’ (‘“No, ay can’t say ay hev,”’ he answered for her. ‘No, I thought not. Orpheus and his sodding lute’s more your ticket.’)

‘No, I haven’t.’ She glanced desperately about her.

‘What colour dress you got on, miss?’

‘White.’

‘Well, don’t be shy! Nothing wrong with a white dress at your age. When you’re fat and forty I should advise thinking twice about it. You all got white dresses on?’

‘Yes.’

‘Must look like the Virgins’ Outing,’ he thought. ‘What a sight! Never came my way, of course, before now. No one ever served up twenty-five virgins in white to me in those days; showing common sense on their part, no doubt.’

His rough hand groped forward and rasped against her silk frock.

‘That’s nice material! I like nice material. My sister Lily who died was a dressmaker …’

The girl, rigid, turned her head sharply aside. He smelt the sudden sweat of fear and embarrassment on her skin and drew back his hand.

‘Now, young lady, we can’t let you monopolise Mr Breakspear,’ Matron said, coming swiftly across the room. ‘Here’s Miss Wilcox to have a chat with you, Harry. Miss Wilcox is the choir-mistress. She brings the girls here every year to give us this wonderful experience. You know, Miss Wilcox, Harry is quite the naughtiest of all my old darlings. He thinks we treat him so badly. Oh, yes, you do, Harry. You grumble from morning till night. And so lazy! Such a lovely basket he was going to make, but he lost all interest in it in next to no time.’

Sullenly, he sat beside Miss Wilcox. When coffee was brought to him,
he spilt it purposely. He had no pride in overcoming difficulties as the others had. His waistcoat was evidence of this. He was angry that Matron had mentioned his basket-work; for a very deep shame had overtaken him when they tried to teach him such a craft. He saw a picture of his humiliation, as if through his friends’ eyes – the poor old codger, broken, helpless, back to the bottom class at school. ‘You want to be independent,’ the teacher had said, seeing him slumped there, idle with misery. He thought they did not understand the meaning of the word.

‘You haven’t been here long?’ Miss Wilcox enquired kindly.

‘No, only since my sister, Lily, died. I went to live along with her when I lost my wife. I’ve been a widower nineteen years now. She was a good old sort, my wife.’

‘I’m sure she was.’

‘Why’s she so sure,’ he wondered, ‘when she never as much as clapped eyes on her? She could have been a terrible old tartar for all she knows.’

But he liked to talk, and none of the others would ever listen to him. He engaged Miss Wilcox, determined to prevent her escaping.

‘I lost my sight three years ago, on account of a kick I had on the head from a horse. I used to be a horse-dealer at one time.’ Then he remembered that no one spoke about being blind. This apparently trivial matter was never discussed.

‘How very interesting!’

‘I made a packet of money in those days. At one time I was a driver on the old horse-buses … You could see those animals dragging up Highgate Hill with their noses on the ground nearly. I bought an old mare off of them for a couple of quid, and turned her out on a bit of grass I used to rent. Time I’d fed her up and got her coat nice with dandelion leaves and clover, I sold her for twenty pounds. Everything I touched went right for me in those days. She was the one who kicked me on the head. Francie, we called her. I always wished I could tell the wife what the doctors said. If I’d have said to her: “You know, Florrie, what they hold Francie did to me all those years ago” she would never have believed me. But that’s what they reckoned. Delayed action they reckoned it was.’

‘Extraordinary!’ Miss Wilcox murmured.

‘Now, you old chatterbox!’ Matron said. ‘We’re going to sing “Jerusalem”, all together, before the girls go home. And none of your nonsense, Harry. He’s such an old rascal about hymns, Miss Wilcox.’

Once, he had refused to join in, believing that hymn-singing was a matter of personal choice, and not
his
choice. Now, he knew that the blind are always religious, as they are cheerful, industrious and independent. He no longer argued, but stood up clumsily, feet apart, hands clasped over his paunch, and moved his lips feebly until the music stopped.

In the first weeks of his blindness, he had suffered attacks of hysteria, as wave upon wave of terror and frustration swept across him. ‘Your language!’ his sister would say, her hand checking the wheel of the sewing-machine. ‘Why don’t we go round to the Lion for a beer?’ She would button up his overcoat for him, saying: ‘I can’t bear to see you fidgeting with your clothes.’ When he had put on his old bowler-hat, they would go along the street arm-in-arm, ‘Good-evening, Mrs Simpson. That was Mrs Simpson went by, Harry.’ She used no tact or Montessori methods on him. In the pub, she would say: ‘Mind out, you! Let Harry sit down. How would
you
like to be blind?’ They were all glad to see him. They read out the winners and prices for him. He knew the scene so well that he had no need to look at it, and the sensation of panic would be eased from him.