Seven Days in New Crete (Penguin Modern Classics) (21 page)

‘Please don’t move on our account!’ said the polite captain.

‘I’m sorry that I can’t stay: I have an appointment up the lane,’ I said hastily and went off, speeded by their grateful adieu. And with an oddly contrasting memory of Crosby Links near Liverpool where one fine summer evening I had sat down on the edge of a bunker to smoke a cigarette: oh, the obscenely expressed bursts of outraged modesty from a sailor and his girl already curled up there!

The woman was waiting for me under an oak. I heard the rushing sound of a waterfall. She came forward to meet me. I could not see her face, which was shadowed by a hood, but she was too tall to be Erica, and too young to be the Hag. She was sobbing quietly. It was the stock romantic situation: an unknown young woman – beautiful, of course – weeping under an oak in the forest. Like Coleridge’s Geraldine, or the enchantress from one of the mediaeval romances of chivalry. When the knight approaches with courteous sympathy, she displays her dress all in disarray, beats her bosom, and complains of an outlandish knight…

As soon as she spoke I realized that she was Sally. ‘Come quickly,’ she said. ‘I need your help.’

‘More trouble?’

‘Yes, it’s Fig-bread.’

‘Oh, yes? How did he die?’

‘You know, then? I thought that I was the first to find him. Who told you?’

‘My little finger, as they used to say in France; in fact, simple intuition, a quality with which both See-a-Bird and Starfish seem to be strangely ungifted. They should have realized early this morning that Fig-bread was a doomed man. But tell me what happened.’

‘His horse must have gone crazy, thrown him and savaged him on the ground; the beast came home, guilty and dejected, about two hours ago, with blood all over his muzzle and hooves. When I mounted him and gave him his head, he brought me here and I found the body behind that tree. Then he lolled his head and waited for me to kill him, poor creature. And I did.’

‘What did Fig-bread mean to you?’

‘He was in love with me – you must have known that – and of course a woman can’t help having tender feelings for anyone who falls in love with her and behaves irreproachably.’

‘But you weren’t in love with him, I gather?’

‘How could I be?’ she asked accusingly.

She was trembling from head to foot. I knew the reason, of course – ‘by the pricking of my thumbs’, as one of the witches in
Macbeth
put it – and felt acutely uncomfortable.

‘One thing at a time,’ I said hastily. ‘We can discuss our emotions all day tomorrow, if you like. Meanwhile, what do you propose to do with the body?’

‘You and I must bury it.’

‘Very well. It’s a shame that you had to destroy the horse, but I’ll go back to Zapmor at once and fetch mine. I’ll borrow some sort of shroud and tie the body across his back. We’ll be home before dawn if we waste no time. Is there a cemetery in our village?’

‘There are no cemeteries in New Crete. We must bury him here. In the hut that you passed on your way up the lane you’ll find a pick and a spade.’

‘What about getting hold of a priest to say the burial service over him?’

‘That isn’t our custom. Whatever dies is laid underground and turfed over without religious ceremonies or spectators.’

‘Oh, as you please. It seems a bit hasty and heartless, but if it’s the custom…’

I went back down the lane, found the hut, groped about inside until I found the tools and was back again soon afterwards.

Sally stood by the waterfall, letting the water splash over her hands. Fig-bread’s body was lying not far off; it was in a dreadful state: the face smashed in, one of the hands bitten completely off. His dead horse lay beside him; there was no evidence of violence. But I gathered from what she had said about its lolling head that she had given him the
descabello,
the neck prick with which bullfighters finish off weary bulls; she probably used the lancet that she always carried.

‘Do we have to bury the horse, too?’

‘Yes.’

‘Look here, Sally. I’m not much good with a spade. The job will take me hours. I don’t mind burying poor Fig-bread, but surely the disposal of the horse can be left to local labour?’

‘No, that’s impossible. Both bodies must be buried before dawn and we can’t call anyone away from the feast to help us. The Goddess will give you strength. First remove the turf and lay it carefully aside.’

Sally unbraided her hair and began to comb it, singing softly. I set to work with some reluctance; but under the turf the soil was quite soft and I did not need the pick. While she combed her hair she sang a ballad of adventures in the Bad Lands. I missed the first two verses, but the next ones went something like this:

We sailed through the channel
Across the Atlantic,
The lordly great channel
With ramparts of stone,
Six weeks we were sailing
From island to island,
Our cargo was dana
And butifaron.

 

When we came to New York
Where the sea-lion bellows
And gulls scream aloud
On the desolate sands,
We said our farewells
To the crew and the captain
And marched up the river
With bows in our hands.

 

There was Sealskin and Teazle,
Red Gauntlet, Plum-porridge,
Old Rock, Never-see-me
And Happy Reply,
Kissing Mouth, Little Bedstraw,
Snail, Cloud, and Forked Lightning;
The Captain was Holloa,
The poet was I.

 

The tree-bears were tumbling
Among the blueberries;
We camped the first night
Where a tulip-tree stood,
But a sudden tornado
Swept by from the westward
And tore a wide swathe
Through the heart of the wood…

 

We warred with the wild men,
We hunted the bison.
Plum-porridge fell wounded
While crossing Hyde Park.
Though we clapped on a plaster
And prayed to the Goddess
He spoke his last wish
And was dead before dark.

 

In cool Saratoga
We met with a portent:
An eagle devouring
A fawn with two heads;
So we halted five days
And I danced out a penance,
Head shorn, body painted
With yellows and reds.

 

When we came to Lake Champlain
And saw the twin statues
We spat on the ground
To avert the ill-luck,
There we met with a wild man
Tattooed like a serpent
Who offered us raisins
And breasts of wild duck.

I can remember only a few more lines of this part of the ballad – the adventurers had unexpected trouble with man-eating bears near Niagara Falls – but no complete verses, because though I continued to dig steadily I was soon conscious of little except the rhythm: the words and even the notes fell away until I was fast asleep and Sally’s voice sounded like the dancing tick of a cheap alarm-clock. I could have sworn that I was home and in bed with Antonia. Rain pattered on the window and presently I heard the purring of a motor-cycle along the road to the station, followed by a sleepy whimper from the nursery next door and Antonia’s voice saying: ‘It’s nothing, darling, go to sleep again!’ and then: ‘Damn that young doctor and his motorbike!’ But the ticking grew louder and more musical and I woke to hear Sally concluding her song:

With joy in our hearts,
Though with knots in our girdles,
We pushed out the gang-plank
And hastened ashore.
A weary long time
We had passed in the Bad Lands,
Which, Ana be praised,
We need visit no more.

‘Who wrote that?’ I asked, to show I was listening.

‘Fig-bread.’

‘Will it be recorded on gold, do you think?’

‘Of course not. It’s what we call a barber-shop ballad. I sang it to pacify his ghost. He left no real poems. He was too conscientious to commit his work even to clay – not a line of verse, not a bar of music.’

‘Well, well… I seem to have put Fig-bread underground already. I didn’t realize I was a natural sexton. Now what about that unfortunate horse? Where do I dig his pit?’

‘You’ve already dug it and turfed it over. Look at the blisters on your hands.’

‘Good God! The things I do in my sleep! And a neat job, too. I shouldn’t have believed myself capable of it, though when I was a boy I once got out of bed, put on my roller-skates and went careering down the long passages of the Rectory in the dark. What comes next?’

‘Presently we’ll ride home; you can sit behind me on your horse.’

‘What? No tears, no prayers, no headstone, no last words, no nothing?’

‘He’s dead. Ana has his body, and the murderer has made amends. I’ll report the death at Sanjon tomorrow; then his real name will be published and everyone will be free to use it and say what they please of him.’

‘And his soul? Does that go to the Other World?’

‘There is no Other World. There’s only New Crete, where his name will live on for a few generations perhaps – in the barber-shops.’

‘Well, I like to think that, when I come to die, my liberated soul…’

‘You like to think! That’s not the same as knowing. Children like to think that there’s an island across the water where all their hopelessly broken toys go to be mended.’

‘You mean that your religion offers no consolation of immortality?’

‘Only the Goddess is immortal.’

‘That’s what we liked to think about God.’

‘You liked to think! All gods must die in the end. They grow senile and dribble at the mouth; their priests steal the offerings and tell lies about them. Then their temples fall in ruins and they close their eyes. Only the Goddess lives for ever, blessed be her name!’

‘What on earth are you doing now, Sally?’

She had thrown off her cloak and spread it over Figbread’s grave, unclasped her belt, and kicked off her shoes. Now she was peeling off her dress and chemise. She did not answer, but lay down on the cloak, naked as Eve, and held out her arms for me commandingly.

The unexpectedness of her action shocked and paralysed me.

‘Come here!’ she said. ‘Come and share my cloak; it’s a religious obligation! When a man dies violently his ghost has the right to a chance of rebirth. We’d be impious to deny him that.’

I stared at her incredulously. ‘So that’s it, is it?’ I said at last. ‘You’re actually making me an offer of what you call the rights of fatherhood?’

Her face was drawn with passion; her stretched-out hands shook wildly. ‘Come to me, darling barbarian,’ she said. ‘I love you, I love you more than all the world.’

I spoke as calmly and brutally as I could: ‘No, my dear Sally! I’ll admit that the Goddess has blessed you with shapely legs, slender arms, ripe lips and a seductive bosom. I’ll also admit that I’m as hot-blooded as the next man. But I’ve never yet committed adultery on a murdered man’s grave at the invitation of his murderess, and what’s more, I refuse to do so now. Naturally, I don’t want to baulk Fig-bread’s chances of rebirth; he was a fine fellow, though a little heavy-handed. But I can’t accept your invitation. That sort of thing isn’t done where I come from, barbarians though we may be. Get someone else to share your cloak – get Starfish, if you like. Perhaps he’ll be less squeamish. Sapphire says that he’s one of your admirers, too. Then if Fig-bread gets reborn he’s got at least a chance of bearing a family resemblance to himself.’

She had never before been spoken to like this. It startled and momentarily sobered her. Turning half over on her elbow she said in a small, uneven voice: ‘But I made quite sure that you wanted me. You told the servant to put your fearful love-gift under my pillow, and you didn’t return to Sapphire at noon, when she expected you. And please don’t worry about Fig-bread. You see, he often told me that he was ready to die for my sake. And he meant it literally.’

‘Good God! So you bewitched the horse and deliberately sent Fig-bread to his death to provide a religious pretext for spreading your cloak for me?’

She nodded, rolled over, and buried her face in her arms. Then something began happening to me: I found myself relenting. This was not my age, I argued, and Sally did not show any guilt for what she had done. If she really felt as strongly for me as all that, and I had a religious obligation to humour her, perhaps…

‘Sally,’ I said.

She looked up and the glow-worm light shone about her, so brightly, so evilly, that I felt a sharp physical pain at the pit of my stomach.

‘Hell! No, not that again!’ I thought. ‘I finished with that for ever on the day Antonia said she’d marry me. I’d rather be savaged by a mad horse like Fig-bread, poor devil, than get burned up in that green fire.’ I said aloud: ‘I’m going home, Sally. Your deliberate murder of Fig-bread and your transferring of the guilt to his horse may be your own concern; but there’s still Sapphire to consider, and she’s my concern. You’ve treated her hatefully, and I hope that the Goddess plagues you as she should.’

‘How can she plague me more than she is doing now!’ she wailed. ‘Me, a witch of New Crete, fallen obscenely in love with a barbarous demon of the past.’

‘Would you like me to find Starfish and send him to you?’ I asked coldly.

That went straight home. She leaped up and began to bewitch me, running around the clearing, widdershins, at top speed and stark naked, with her long black hair flying and madness blazing from her cat-like eyes. It was a hideous experience. My skin crawled. I knew what it felt like to be a bird fascinated by a snake: try as I would I could not stir from the spot. But my brain was still working normally and I found that I could control my hands and voice.

I tried taunts: ‘The other evening, Erica Turner told me that your patterns were well worth watching; though she didn’t think much of them as magic. She’s quite right. I’ve paid money to see far worse performances in low dives at Cairo and Alexandria.’

But she circled all the more rapidly, making queer, clicking noises with her tongue and fingers, slapping her breasts at each complete turn, and gradually closing in on me.

I grew desperate. In another minute she’d either tear me to pieces or make a sexual assault on me, or both. Who would be a male spider when the murderous female begins her rhythmic courtship?

I searched feverishly in my mind for a counter-charm. The furtive, intimate charm against the evil eye that the peasants of St Jean used to make whenever the Vicomte de Martinbault passed?