Oscar and Lucinda (5 page)

26

Throwing Lots

long and shaped, as his face was, a little like a heart. He was not aware of this coincidence. He did not, in any case, accept the notion of coincidence. He squatted, drawing, moving backwards, his teeth chattering.

When he had all the symbols down he stood with his heels against the omega square, facing away, towards the smell of the sea.

He then said these words from the Book of Judges, silently, without moving his lips: "And he said unto him, If now I have found grace in Thy sight, then show me a sign that Thou talkest to me."

There was rain in the wind now. It stung his face. He took his yellow stone, his "tor," and threw it over his shoulder.

It landed on alpha.

He stood, with his shoulders bent, peering at it. He stood for a long time, his heart heavy. It could not be true. But it must be true. If it was true, he could not live in his father's house. He must live in an Anglican house. He stooped quickly, picked up the stone, and put it in his pocket. He wore a long oilskin coat, of the same burnt-toast material as his father's jacket. But being cut down from something else, the pockets were close to the ground. He tried to get something from one of these large pockets, but it would not come. He walked, awkwardly, his hand still in his pocket, down near the hem, and perched himself on the edge of the ivy-covered seat. He heard the milk pail tumble further down the stream. He tugged at the pocket. A rolled-up handkerchief came out. He retrieved this. Next there was a pencil, and finally a bulky notebook. As the rain was now heavy he undid the front of his oilskin and held it out-this made a sort of tent within which he could record the result. He wrote: "1st Monday aft. Epiphany: Alpha." Then he put the book, the pencil, the tor and the ball of handkerchief back into his pocket and, having scrubbed at his "hopscotch" markings in a desultory sort of way, rushed down the bank to rescue the milk pail. He scrubbed it out quickly, shivering, and climbed the slippery mulchsoft bank to the path.

He ran home, counting. He had to pass the Anglican vicarage. His knees clicked. He made faces against the click and the rain. He wished to be home by the fire in the clean, lime-cold cottage where his father and he frightened Mrs Williams by discussing famous murders in calm and adult detail. They were closest then. Afterwards his father would give him a sharp hug and rub his beard across his cheek, making him giggle and squirm. This was called 27

Oscar and Lucinda

a "dry shave." It was an expression of love.

But God had chosen alpha. There was no way he could talk to his father about this. It was one hundred and twenty-five paces from the markings to the Anglican privet hedge. The hedge was patchy and broken like the beard of a sick man. Oscar caught his breath there. Through the hedge he could see the back of the house where the Anglican and his wife were trying to kill a pig with no help from a butcher. The pig should have been killed in the weeks after All Hallows, not now. They stuck it in the cheek. The pig shrieked. Oscar's face contorted. The Anglican took the pig sticker from the Anglican's wife; his hands were red, not from blood, from mud, from slippery red mud from the wet pig. The clergyman stabbed a number of times. His face was screwed up more than Oscar's. At last the boy heard the rattle of wind from the pig's windpipe. He unclenched his hands and saw that his nails had made crescent moons in the fleshy part of his palms.

It was not possible that these were God's servants. And yet they must be.

"That the Lord called Samuel: and he answered, Here am I." The Anglican could not have heard, but he saw him, somehow, standing there.

"Go away," said the Reverend Mr Stratton. He threw a muddied fir cone at him. "You horrid child, go
home."

Oscar went home and hid his book.
.",,
;• ;

10

False Instruction

Oscar had his new divining "tor" in his pocket.

This was not the yellow "tor" he had begun with, but a new one, a red oxide of a colour his father would (should he be given a chance) have told him was
caput mortem,
or death's head. His father 28

False Instruction

appropriated everything by naming it, whether he was asked or not. He had discovered the yellow divining "tor." He had come out on to the flagstones by the cellar door when Oscar was bathing. (It was the custom that they bathed outside, in all weather. It was intended to strengthen the constitution.) Oscar was pouring cold water from the big zinc ladle, huffing, puffing, rubbing his narrow chest and stamping his feet. There was a peg on the wall where Oscar was meant to hang his clothes. He preferred to lay them on the lip of the well. His father came out to wash, saw the shirt and knickerbockers on the well, picked them up, hung the shirt on the peg, and proceeded to go through the pockets of the knickerbockers. This was not prying. There was no such category. His father examined all the little pieces his son had collected in the day. He held them between thumb and forefinger, as if they were the contents of the gut of some fish he wished to study.

The notebook was hidden, but he found the yellow "tor." For reasons he did not explain he placed the "tor" in his pocket. He did not say that he was "confiscating" it. He expressed no opinion. He slipped it into his dressing-gown pocket and it was difficult to know if he were absent-minded or censorious. Oscar, feeling himself blushing, turned away, presenting the walls of his bony shoulder blades.

Nothing was said about the "tor" in prayers.

On the next morning the stone was on the breakfast table. It sat at his place, an accusation. Oscar's heart raced. He thought himself discovered. He was wearing a greasy jersey of a type that fishermen in that area wear. Suddenly he was very hot inside it.

"A pretty stone," Theophilus said, after Oscar said grace.

"Yes, Father."

"Where did you find it?"

Theophilus was sprinkling sugar on his porridge. He had a sweet tooth. He sprinkled sugar quite gaily, giving no sign of the terrible anxiety that gripped him. There was something wrong. Something terribly wrong. He had taken the stone, pathetically, so he might be close to the boy. But now he could not think of anything to say. It was a stupid question he asked, but he had no other.

Oscar did not want to answer the question. He felt it was not innocent. Even if it was innocent, he could not tell him. With this very stone, God had told him that his father was in grievous error.

His father would not tolerate any questioning of his faith. He

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Oscar and Lucinda

imagined God spoke to
him.
Oscar was moved to pity by his misunderstanding. But he could not, not even in his imagination, find a way to tell his father why he had been smitten. Every day Oscar had thrown lots. The tor continued to land on alpha and not on ^. He wished he were a pig, that he had no mortal soul, that he be made into sausages and eaten, and released from the terrible pressure of eternity. He could not even look his father in the eye. His father asked him where he had found the stone. Oscar did not know what he meant. He stirred his tea. The window beside the small round table was steamed up. Outside, the brown bracken was drowned in fog.

His father did not seem to notice the lack of answer, and yet his eyes were strange. Dear God, lift the scales from his eyes. Lift the scales from his eyes
now.

"Do you know the name of the colour?" his father asked.

Oscar did not wish it named. He was angry at his father for what he was about to do.

"It is Indian Yellow."

"Thank you, Father."

Mrs Williams filled the toast rack, one slice in every second space, according to her master's strict instruction. She found it painful to be with them. She made a remark about the fog. They did not answer her. One of Croucher's ewes had been taken by someone's dog in the night, but this news had no effect. She had been with them in the days when they were a complete family, not this awkward lurching thing with one of its limbs cut off, out of balance and bumping into things in broad daylight. They were painful to be with. She went to the kitchen where she could not hear them.

"It is called Indian Yellow for a very good reason," said Theophilus, taking a slice of toast and testing it, squeezing it between thumb and forefinger to make sure that it had not, in spite of the careful racking arrangement, become soggy. "For a very
interesting
reason." Oscar looked up, but was embarrassed by something in his father's eyes. The look was soft and pleading. It did not belong in that hard, black-bearded face, did not suit the tone of voice. Oscar knew this look. He had seen it before. It was a will-of-the-wisp. If you tried to run towards it, it retreated; if you embraced it, it turned to distance in your arms. You could not hold it, that soft and lovely centre in his father's feelings.

"I name it Indian Yellow because it is the same colour as the pigment 30

False Instruction

in my colour box named Indian Yellow and this is made by a rather curious process. From peepee," his father said. Oscar looked up. His father made a funny face. Pee-pee was the intimate word. It was odd that he said "pee-pee" in a place he would have normally used "urine." Oscar looked down, away from the demands of his father's eyes.

Dear God, let him see.

But he knew his father would not see. He was filled with stubbornness and pride and could not hear God's voice.

Dear God, do not send me to the Anglicans.

"From the pee-pee of cows that have been fed on the leaves of the mango tree." The tablecloth was white. The yellow stone sat on it, beside the little green sugar bowl. It was named Indian Yellow and was now useless. Oscar did not bother to put it back in his pocket, and Mrs Williams, when she was cleaning up, slipped the stone into Theophilus's aquarium. A week later Theophilus discussed pee-pee again, although this time he used the proper word for it. This was in connection with a particularly large agaric he had sketched last year and of which was now preparing a finished illustration. He called Oscar from his Greek composition and the boy, pleased to be rescued from his smudgy work, was also wary of what was required of him. He could not allow himself to love his papa. He held his feelings away from him, at arm's length, fearful lest he be flooded with pity.

"Of course you know," Theophilus said, "that witches eat this plant." Oscar felt the new tor heavy in his pocket and held it hard with one ink-smudged hand. He wanted to scream at him:
Your soul is in danger. You are wrong.

His father was close and familiar, so familiar he could not have described his face to anyone. He was a shape, a feeling, that thing the child names "Pa." He was serge, formaldehyde, a safe place. He was not a safe place. Not any more.

'They drink the urine of someone who has eaten the plant." Oscar did not look up. "They are in communication with the devil or, in their state of intoxication, imagine they are." The stone in his pocket was heavy, too heavy. His hand locked around it so hard he could not let it go. The muscles around his neat little jaw reflected the spasm in his hand. His safety was in God.

The beloved of the Lord shall dwell in safety by him; and the Lord shall
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Oscar and Lucinda

cover him all the day long, and he shall dwell between his shoulders.

"We have several witches in the area," Theophilus said. He felt he was talking in a fog. His son would not look at him. "I think it is true, that there are witches nearby." Oscar touched the edge of the cartridge paper his father was drawing on. It had a sharp edge but a soft velvety face.

"Do you think this is true?"

"Yes," said Oscar. He looked up and was frightened by the eyes.
Beware of prophets that come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves.

"Yes, I think so myself." There was a pause. Oscar heard his father sharpen his pencil. He smelt the sharp, metallic smell of pencil lead, the sweet, sappy smell of wood shavings.

"There is evidence," Theophilus said, "around the lanes, that the agaric eaters are out. You have seen the markings?"

"Yes."

Theophilus then did something which was completely out of character-he described something he had not actually seen. In his desperate desire to have his son's loving attention, to feel those amethyst eyes rest unanxiously upon his own face, he repeated something said to him by Smart Jack, the warrener who called at the cottage to sell his rabbits and discuss scripture.

"There is a blank square at the top," Theophilus said, "where they sacrifice a goat. They decapitate the poor creature and leave its head upon the square as a mocking image of Our Saviour."

And they shall turn away their ears from the truth and be turned into fables.
Oscar saw his father raise the glass of cold black tea he always sipped at while working. The mouth moved open a fraction. The tip of his tongue showed. Oscar saw the father whom he loved, but he also saw that person most reviled by Theophilus Hopkins-an agent of false instruction.

Oscar's hand clenched round the stone. The tendons in his neck showed the strain of the grip. He pulled his hand out of his pocket and opened it in front of his father. There!

Theophilus took the stone from the ink-stained palm. The stone was warm. He placed it on the cartridge paper and turned it over with his pencil.

"Caput mortem,"
he said.

Oscar burst into tears.

Apospâg

The Baptist boys made him eat dirt. They made him sing songs he was not allowed to sing. They showed him engravings of a pagan statue from the Crystal Palace. They put coarse mud on his skin because they could not bear it so soft and white.

He was not from "here." He was from "there." He did not like the sound of his own voice. He tried to change it, to make it soft and leafy like Timmy Croucher. He said "fayther" for father, but not at home.

How small his world was. He did not mind it small. He would have had it smaller still, have been a mole or a badger. He preferred the tangled forest of oak and elm which separated the high downs from the sea. Here he might stand still for hours, in a day-dreaming trance no wind could cut, examining dead leaf, leaf mould, spores, fungi, white indeterminate life-something without a soul that looked like spilt flour. He posted letters to his mother in a hole in a tree. Timmy Croucher, a large-boned, olive-skinned boy with soft hair on his lip, devised special prayers; they conducted their own services and argued about the nature of hell. In the bulging, spiky map which marked his territory, this was the larger part. The map did not include the village. He went there, but only when instructed, and with Mrs Williams for a guard if he could arrange it so. He had as firm a sense of territory as a dog, and when he moved across the terrain outside his map, across the Downs to Merely, for instance, he moved jerkily, running, his knees clicking, out of breath with a pain in his side.