Facing the Tank (30 page)

Dawn was in the open air for the first time in four days. The morning after Sasha’s death she had been woken by the telephone. Presumably this was Fergus ringing to ask her to come to admire his new roses. She did not answer it and she lay motionless when it rang again in the afternoon. She lay in bed all day, venturing out only to use the bathroom and to make cups of tea. She did not get up on Monday either, but lay there checking off a missed work appointment in her head at each neglected sounding of the telephone bell. On Tuesday she rang Mrs Merluza and Fergus’ answering machine to explain that she had been forced to rush to the aid of a sick aunt. For Lydia Hart she had summoned up a throaty choke and muttered about highly infectious gastric flu. With a certain irony she decided that the aunt was the same one she had been meant to be visiting during her pregnancy; ‘Auntie June in Leeds’. She was not prostrate with sorrow all this time; she simply felt the need to be alone, undressed, to think things through.

She had lain staring at the bedroom ceiling on the first morning and perceived, with the clarity of one not given to self analysis, that she was utterly at peace. As a child she had played a game where a friend pressed hard on the top of her head for the count of thirty then released her, so inducing the sensation that her skull weighed nothing and that her neck was growing as long as a swan’s. The feeling now was like that. She felt different, new, because something had stopped. It was now that she could say to herself,

‘I had a daughter, but now she is dead’, that she could see how much the worry of Sasha’s welfare and whereabouts had been pressing in on her thoughts. And for how long. Sasha was dead but Dawn had done her grieving. Her daughter had quite clearly been in no state to take a place in Barrowcester society and trying to keep her presence a secret would have proved a crippling strain. Sasha had been more an idea for her than a person and it was difficult to grieve long over so unknown and unknowable a daughter. Dawn was left with an obligation to live in the cottage and to guard its garden from curious shovels until her dying day. She also found herself tending the small but long-rooted satisfaction of having been recognized as a mother, if only on a brief, bestial level.

This morning she had telephoned Fergus from her bed to say that she was back and to ask about the roses and he had told her that in her absence his mother had died.

‘You missed the funeral.’

‘I’m sorry, Fergus.’ Rare for her, she felt a twinge of remorse. Mrs Gibson had been in her wild way curiously likeable. ‘Was it bad?’

‘No. Not really. She had a massive coronary – very quick – and the woman at Brooklea handled everything for me.’

‘She hadn’t been there long.’

‘No. I think they felt they ought to deal with the funeral directors and everything for me to earn the fat profit they’ll have made. I’d paid a non-returnable month’s rent.’

‘Had she started playing up?’

‘Well they were very discreet but I think she might have. She …’ He broke off to laugh.

‘What’s so funny?’

‘She was vandalizing a loo when she went.’

‘Good for her.’

‘How’s your aunt?’

‘Auntie June? Oh fine. Faking as usual, I think, but she looked pretty ropey. I’ve got a neighbour of hers to keep an eye on her.’

‘Oh, Harpy, I’d love to see you. Are you busy this morning?’

‘Well I’m meant to be doing for Lydia Hart but I haven’t let her know I’m back yet. She thinks I’ve got gastric flu.’

‘So I gather. Why didn’t you tell her the truth?’

‘I felt like lying.’

‘Be a devil and skip her.’

‘See you in an hour.’

As she hung up, her eye fell on the copy of
Visions of Hell
that lay on her bedside table and she remembered her resolution of the night before. When she had dressed, she opened the kitchen drawer and took out the thin, old book Evan Kirby had let her borrow, and a piece of paper.

‘Dear Mr Kirby,’ she wrote. ‘I return the book you lent me. It was very trusting of you and I want to thank you because I got the thing I wanted and no longer need the book. I know you thought I was after a man or money or something but you were wrong. It was a little red-haired girl; my daughter. I can only write this because you aren’t from here. I used the fifth incantation (page 9). Yours sincerely, Dawn Harper.’ Then she wrapped book and letter in brown paper, ready for posting. She would steal the address off Old Merloozy when she went there to clean tomorrow or, failing that, post it to his publishers for forwarding.

Dawn had climbed half way up the High Street when she noticed a small commotion coming her way. At first all she saw were several children rushing headlong down the hill cheering and being pursued by a couple of barking dogs, then she saw that they were chasing a thin stream of water. (Drains were scarce on the hill, the slopes rendering them largely unnecessary, or so some tight-pursed counsellors must once have thought. When it rained heavily the lower parts of town, like Bross Gardens, were awash.) The children hurtled past her, chasing the water and chased by the dogs. Dawn continued upwards, noticing with some amusement the way in which shoppers were pausing on the pavement to watch the dusty flood as intently as if it had been a bicycle rally. She slipped into a cake shop – not Hart’s because she disliked adding to Lydia’s considerable wealth – and bought some doughnuts to share with Fergus. When she emerged she found that people were heading towards the Close. She had to walk the same way before turning off. There was a curiously excited atmosphere. People were laughing and craning their necks. There seemed to be dogs everywhere – none of them on leads and all of them in a near-frenzy. Incurably inquisitive, she decided to approach Tracer Lane by Tower Place and the Close and so catch a glimpse of whatever was causing all the fuss.

Dawn only ever entered the Close to take the short cut to the Bishop’s Palace, and she would not be going
there
again. In her Christian phase she used to come every day. She looked over the heads at the birds wheeling around the sunlit towers and wondered whether she might not slip into Evensong tonight or tomorrow maybe; for old times’ sake. She pushed to the other side of the pavement and saw that there was even more water here. It was running fast and lay so deep all over the road that the gutters could not drain it all away. There was a woman with a little girl on her shoulders and the girl and Dawn both gasped with surprise at the same time.

The great lime tree, centuries old, that stood yards from the west end, had sunk. The ground seemed to have melted beneath it and the whole trunk had been swallowed. The lowest branches now rested on the grass. There were leaves and twigs scattered everywhere. Four or so policemen were trying in vain to put up a rope to keep the crowds away. Several children and one or two youths who had forgotten to be mature had slipped easily past them and were climbing among the foliage and rudely displaced birds’ nests. One girl who could not have been more than nine had reached the topmost branch, which at dawn had been up near the Cathedral roof, and was excitedly waving what looked like a pair of knickers. The trunk had evidently interrupted the course of one of the underground streams for the water Dawn had seen on the way was gushing up from beneath the incongruous mass of earth-bound boughs. The water was brown with clay but the sun was hot and it looked so inviting that Dawn took her shoes in her hands and jumped into it to paddle. All around her people were doing the same and the ubiquitous dogs were running riot, splashing innocent passers-by and pawing awestruck, mud-dabbling infants. A policeman had taken out an electric loudhailer and was trying to drive people back with threats of further subsidence but his words were lost in the holiday din.

‘Harpy! What the hell are you doing?’

Dawn turned slowly to scan the crowd. She had moved to where the water was deeper and was peacefully rubbing one bare foot against the other and splashing the insides of her calves. She saw Fergus, who was staring at her from the safety of the pavement a few yards away. Dreamily she beckoned him with the hand that was holding her shoes.

‘Come,’ she called and smiled.

Over pre-Evensong tea and banana loaf later that day, Marge Delaney-Siedentrop told Mercy Merluza that she and her husband had seen the newly motherless bachelor sharing a bag of doughnuts with his and her cleaning lady.

‘Both of them up to their knees in that filthy water,’ she said. ‘He’s quite clearly taking the sad loss of his mother very hard, poor man. Of course, St John and I just happened to be passing.’

Evan was sitting in the sunshine working. It had not rained for a fortnight. According to Mrs Rees, the postmistress, this would shortly be recognized as a drought and they would be forbidden to wash cars or water gardens. Every morning, after his coffee and the first cigarette, he took a shower to wake himself then dragged the little kitchen table out on to the grass to start work. The cottage was at the end of half a mile of dirt track and there were fifteen good strides between front door and cliff-top. Being a holiday house, it had no real garden and the salt would have discouraged any but the hardiest plants, but there were tough old lavender and rosemary bushes in heavily fertilized soil under all the landward windows. In the warm evenings, they sat with all the windows and doors open and the air was full, now of sea and peppery gorse, now of sun-baked herb. The cottage was whitewashed on both sides of its thirty-inch walls. The old broad slates had been lovingly reset and the fireplaces in kitchen and bedroom perhaps a little too lovingly reopened. A bathroom had been cleverly tucked into an ex-coal bunker. Hot water and, when necessary, heating was provided by an Aga so that the picturesque old bread oven could be filled with books and covered with cushions to make a kind of snug. A ladder on one side of the kitchen/living room led to a sky-lit hayloft. Madeleine had insisted on sleeping on this as soon as she saw it so Evan was left with the more orthopaedic comforts of the main bed next door.

She was a few yards away from the table now, slouching in a deck chair. She was working on the first baby bootee, which she had unpicked once a day for the last week. She had sworn on emerging from the bathroom two hours ago that she was swelling in the girth but Evan could still see nothing.

A coastal path ran from one end of the twisting Pembrokeshire seaboard to the other and seemed to be very popular with bearded hikers and women like nuns in mufti, fat crosses bouncing unabashed on their energetic breasts. Officially it ran straight through the point where Evan always pulled the table and on through where Madeleine liked to set up her deck chair. The two of them seemed to exude such a scent of virtuous toil, however, that every walker turned off into the field about a hundred yards away and took a long cut around the back of the cottage so as to leave them in peace. Mrs Penfarren had intimated to Evan yesterday that the villagers knew who Madeleine was and were ‘very proud’. He had passed this news on and she still chuckled to herself about it at intervals.

‘Innocent Victim of Papist Beast Clutched to Bosom of Chapel-goers’, she had mocked.

He glanced across at her briefly as she frowned at her needles. He hoped she was happy. She seemed so. At least, she seemed as happy as any chain-smoker might who had forced herself to give up. When she made this rash but noble decision as she was finishing her last packet on Haverfordwest station, Evan had offered to give up too to keep her company, but she had said that the least he could do was to keep going and to blow a bit of smoke around so as to give her a nostalgic sniff from time to time. His surprise at her sudden appearance on his train out of Barrowcester had seemed to be slightly less than hers at finding herself on it.

‘Oh God. I feel such a fool,’ she had panted, pink, sweat gleaming on her nose and cheeks after her rush.

‘Why? It’s … It’s lovely to see you. I was sorry not to have a chance to say goodbye.’

‘Where are you going?’

‘St Merrots.’

‘Where’s that?’

‘Pembrokeshire. I’ve been lent a cottage on the cliffs for as long as I like. Where are
you
going?’

‘Well … Oh
hell
.’ She slung down her bag. ‘Thought you were going to London.’ She lit a cigarette. ‘Well, look Evan. Can I come too?’

‘Why ever not?’ he had started but she had gabbled on.

‘It’s just that … Oh I dunno. Don’t worry. I’m not eloping with you or anything but I’d like to go somewhere peaceful to have the baby. Anywhere but smelly old London or the Earthly Paradise.’

‘You’re going to have it?’

‘Of
course
I am. I was going to tell you yesterday but then I lost my temper and then … Mum told me about your manuscript. I started to write you a letter but I threw it away. You probably want to escape to peace and solitude. We’ll just chat a bit and I’ll get out at the next stop.’

‘Don’t be silly.’

‘I have been silly.’

‘Well be silly some more. Shall I go to the bar and get something to celebrate with?’

‘No,’ she said. ‘Yes.’

‘Gin and tonic?’

‘I’d rather have a Newcastle Brown. Or maybe I should be drinking Guinness now. Oh bugger. Evan, do I want to be a mother?’

‘Yes.’

‘Any chance of a pork pie?’

Either she had read the diary or she was extremely intuitive. In the past weeks, as they had made tentative excursions into the village, as they had hollowed out a shamelessly comfortable routine for themselves, she had seemed fully aware of his feelings and of the slightly unresolved nature of their impromptu ménage. She did not discuss but she patted him on the shoulder from time to time or kissed him on the top of his head while he was working. Last night she had muttered something about ‘waiting a little bit to see’. She was proving wonderful company, mainly through her shared love of silence in the right places. She too was working on a book but she refused to let him see it yet. She worked on it in the afternoons while he was taking constitutional walks along the cliff paths and she worked on it far into the night. He could lie in bed watching the glow of light from her bedshelf across his open doorway and hear her sigh and turn pages. A lot of brown paper parcels had been arriving for her at the post office and seemed to be full of photocopies of erotic or downright disgusting drawings.

When Evan telephoned Jeremy to say that he had arrived safely and why and how he was not alone, his agent could hardly believe his luck. Apparently she had become a potent fantasy figure on the literary agency lunch circuit and all the Jeremies had been praying that she would wander into their offices and asked to be represented. Watching her lying on her back on the grass outside to watch the sunset, Evan had told his agent that she seemed to be working on something faintly scandalous and that he’d let him know when she’d finished whatever it was so that he could pounce.

He threw down his pen and stretched, tipping back his chair on the daisy-flecked turf. Madeleine let her busy hands sink to her lap and looked across to him. She smiled, the sun in her unbrushed hair.

‘How’s it coming on?’ she asked.

‘Great. I think. A bit odd but it’s bound to be as it’s new. How’s the bootee?’

‘Sod off. The wool’s gone all grey. I think, when the Thing arrives, I shall dress it all in black with maybe some rubber accessories.’

‘I’m sure if you let slip to Mrs Rees, she’d have all the charitable women of St Merrots knitting for you.’

‘I’m not a charity. Anyway I enjoy knitting; it’s just a long time since I last had a go.’

‘You never give up, do you?’

‘No. The meddlesome priest said it was part of my “bulldog charm”.’

Evan flipped his exercise book shut and watched a distant fishing boat drift.

‘How does a spot of cold ravioli grab you?’ he asked.

‘I thought we were going to start being healthy for the Thing’s sake.’

‘We are. Eventually. Do
you
feel like chopping up vegetables?’

‘Not a lot,’ she confessed.

‘I’ll get the tin opener.’

‘No. My turn,’ she said, lurching upright with a grunt and tossing the knitting disgustedly into the chair behind her. As she passed him she stopped to rest a hand on his shoulder. ‘Present for you,’ she said and solemnly laid a handkerchief before him. It was neatly ironed and white with a little F and a soldier embroidered in one corner.

‘Why thank you,’ he said, nonplussed but charmed. He turned round. ‘What’s the F stand for? Fitzpatrick?’

‘No,’ she said quietly and walked into the cottage.

‘Fornicators?’ he shouted.

‘No,’ she called back, clinking plates.

‘Friends?’ he asked, too quietly for her to hear. He sighed and opened his exercise book again. He scanned the paragraph he had just finished and made a rapid improvement.
Towards a New Mythology
had been donated to the waiting room on Haverfordwest Station and Evan had asked Jeremy to find him no more reviewing work until further notice. In his late forties and to Jeremy’s thinly-veiled alarm, he had embarked on his first novel. Despite the letter that had come from Dawn Harper his present idyll was overshadowed by dreams that crept up on him nightly; dreams in which the corpse of a wild-haired child rose up through bubbling soil in a rain-churned flower bed. He had never told, would never speak of what he had seen in Mercy Merluza’s garden, but he hoped that by writing a narrative that offered an explanation for it he might rid his nights of the child. Sometimes, when there was a wind to lift a spray off the waves, salt splashes landed on the paper and made the ink run.