The Glass-Sided Ants' Nest (16 page)

“Bob always says she's utterly helpless without a man around.”

And that was true. He'd used almost those words. Pibble, so expansive a moment ago, shrank into himself like a disturbed anemone, one of those blobs of unresponsive jelly which disappointed children poke at in rock pools. The sensation was so sudden and so fierce that he was sure a physical spasm must have rippled across his features, plain for Mrs. Caine to see if she hadn't been at the stove refilling his teapot.

“Doesn't Paul count as a man?” he said.

“I don't know. Bob hates Paul; isn't it funny? He hates him worse than Aaron, and he always used to say Aaron was a thief. He's got a bee in his bonnet about them both.”

“What did Aaron steal?”

“A … Oh, I don't really think he stole anything. He was such an honorable old boy. But Bob lost a lucky mascot which he'd had all through the war, and he convinced himself that Aaron took it.”

“And what about Paul?”

“I'm not at all sure about that, either, but Bob's always had a roving eye, you know, and there they were alone in the jungle, two white people among a lot of savages, and in a film they'd have finished up falling into each other's arms; only in real life Eve preferred Paul. Lucky for me, but bad luck on Bob. She's rather special, don't you think? And she still will be when I'm a fat old crone. Is that you, darling?”

Pibble heard a cough and a shuffling in the hall, rather stagy, a noise made by someone who meant to be heard. Eve put her head around the door.

“May I come in, Susan?” she said. “I think the Superintendent wants to talk to me.”

“Super,” said Mrs. Caine. “You're just the excuse I need to make the Superintendent a fresh pot of tea. Do you ever get on Christian-name terms with people before you arrest them, Superintendent?”

“Not yet,” said Pibble. (And not this time, please God.) “I'm sorry to bother you, Dr. Ku, but there are two things I really need your help on. The first one hasn't got anything to do with the murder directly, but I've landed myself in a spot over Robin. I ought to tell the N.S.P.C.C. people what's been going on, but he's rather cornered me into not doing so. Still, I must do something or I shan't sleep easy, but I don't know what. Have you got any ideas?”

Eve sighed and settled into one of her ballet poses on the tall kitchen stool.

“I have been brooding on that also,” she said. “Do you know if the men forced him into being priest?”

“I don't think so,” said Pibble. “If anything, he maneuvered them into having him, but mostly it was something that suited them all.”

Eve sighed again. “That makes the moral issue no clearer,” she said. “Left to myself, I think I would do nothing; any action must cause a greater upheaval, a worse derangement of the pattern. But I see you must do something. You had best tell Rebecca what has been happening, and leave her to act. I think she will do whatever it is that turns out to be for the best, and she's the only person Robin will take interference from. The priest is very much set apart from the rest of the tribe, but as he cannot marry he tends to develop a forceful relationship with his mother; many of his powers are felt to stem through her. I don't know how much Robin knows …”

“He got most of it out of a book you wrote,” said Pibble.

“Ah, yes, I see—my doctorate thesis. I did lend him that. What pits one digs for one's own feet. When I wrote it, I thought how pleasant to think that it was all now history, dead and buried. How could I have foreseen this loathsome ghost walking? How could I?”

“Here's your tea, Eve,” said Mrs. Caine. “You mustn't think that she's specially favored, Superintendent, having a cup when you've only got a mug, but she doesn't have milk or sugar, so I keep our only cup for her, and even that doesn't have a saucer.”

“What is it?” said Pibble, glad of a little chitchat to give Eve a chance to recover from her agonies. The cup was the thinnest imaginable china with a green and violet parrot on it. “Meissen? It's very pretty.”

“Not bad, Hawkshaw. Nymphenburg, actually. I got it in the Portobello.”

“If Robin's read my book with care,” said Eve, “he will be very impressed by his mother's wishes. I don't know how much he actually
believes
, and how much is just make-believe, but theoretically Rebecca could withhold a lot of his powers from him. They are transmitted through her, you see; the hereditary ones, that is. I wonder how they managed the earliest steps of initiation. I can't ask myself, but if he tells you I should be most interested to know.”

Her voice was dry and controlled. The scholar, when cholera ravishes his children, retreats to the dust of the library.

“Well, I'll talk to Rebecca, then,” said Pibble. “The other thing I wanted to consult you about is more complicated. It seems to me probable that whatever motive there was for murdering Aaron was connected with the revival of this drumming ritual. Everyone who knew him agrees that he would have wanted to stop it, and I think it's possible that one of the steps he would have taken to try and stop it might have been so inconvenient to somebody that they decided to kill him. It also seems that he was thinking, and had been for some time, of trying to persuade you to move the tribe back to New Guinea, and that this was somehow bound in with the process of stopping the drumming. Does any of this make sense to you?”

“I've been talking to Paul,” said Eve. “I only just missed you when you left. You will have discovered by now that we are all—to some degree, at any rate—obsessed with my father. I had not realized how much the others were before; it is, of course, natural for me. Aaron, Paul thinks, was more obsessed than any of us. He was a difficult man to explain to a European, though not an uncommon type among peoples with a pre-urban mode of thought. He was both intelligent and simple. If I said that he held his beliefs with the intensity of a peasant, I would be putting a wrong image into your mind, but you must think of something of that order; think of those dingy, relic-crammed chapels in the parched south, where the hills are steep and barren and the richer soil in the narrow valleys is owned by hundreds of cousins in hundreds of tiny parcels. The peasants there have something of Aaron's kind of faith, believing with passion in the virtues of their own chapel's precious fragment of the veil of Saint Chrysostoma. But Aaron's relic was my father; he had talked with him, learned from him, knew his virtues as real in the real world, and not just erratic emanations from a capricious heaven. We think, Paul and I, that he must have felt that the soil of the valley where my father had walked had a special virtue; that that was where Daddy had chosen to do his life's work, and that it had been a sort of sacrilege to abandon the shrine (though, in fact, we did so at Aaron's bidding). If I am right, he would have applied his considerable intelligence to possible means of moving the tribe back. He would have looked for a little advantage here and another little advantage there. It was at his wish that we originally got an estate agent to have the Terrace valued, for instance.”

“What would the obstacles have been?” asked Pibble. “I imagine Paul's work would have been a major one.”

“Curiously, no,” said Eve. “Or at least I don't think so. I don't think he ever realized the quality of Paul's work. The picture of the Crucifixion was just a picture of a holy subject to him; a cheap print might have met his needs just as well. Paul's picture has a particularly startling meaning to us, of course, but Aaron would have been satisfied with a much cruder drawing which bore the same interpretation. The position of the artist in a primitive community is a very different thing from his position in a civilized city, Superintendent. In some ways, the village artist is much happier; art, to us, is an ordinary part of the ritual of living, and the man who is painting a picture, or practicing a gymnastic dance, is in our eyes doing an ordinary job of work, just as much as the man who is snaring lizards or thatching a hut; his place in the community is accepted, normal, and he can just get on with his job. This is a much healthier state of affairs than prevails in Western civilization. On the other hand, the position of the artist who happens to be an outstanding­ practitioner­ is much less fortunate; innovation is difficult and constricted­ in the framework of a ritual tradition; the opportunities­ for cross-fertilization­ between cultures are rare; the audience is receptive and uncritical, quick to appreciate nuances inside the tradition but baffled by anything outside it. I believe that Paul is an exceptional artist, but I do not think Aaron had even thought about the idea. He was amused that Londoners should pay so highly for our tribal art, but he would have expected Paul to be just as happy and fulfilled back in the valley decorating the doors of huts.”

“I see,” said Pibble. “Then what other boulders would he have tried to shift?”

Eve glanced sideways toward where Mrs. Caine was sitting, not seeming to listen at all, nibbling at a bitten-to-the-quick little-finger nail.

“There was that other thing I talked to you about in our house. Aaron was certainly obsessed with the idea that I gave greater attention to the matter than I should. I think he might well have decided to try and find a method of convincing me that the relationship involved was deleterious. I have been thinking, while I was out walking, about your conjuring trick this morning which so impressed us all, and it does seem to me possible that Aaron was going to try and use his evidence (if evidence it was) to detach me from that particular reason for staying. It would have been pointless, but he could not have known that.”

Just like doing an easy crossword puzzle. The relationship was with Caine, the evidence was the penny, the conjuring trick was tossing it. What the hell did Mrs. Caine make of it all, if she was listening?

“Because he couldn't understand about Paul?” he said.

“When we were still on the island,” said Eve, “he came to tell me one day about his plans for the future of the tribe, because they affected me. He was always secretive, but very honorable, too; he would not have thought it right to involve me in one of his schemes without my knowledge. Then I discovered that he had really no conception of the nature of my relationship with Paul …”

VIII

I
am an addict, thought Eve. I am addicted to Paul. So young, so young, so young, under the razzle-dazzle leaves. I'll take us all to London and buy a proper bed, a brass one with knobs you can unscrew and leave messages in. The inside of the rims of his eyelids are red; as red as … as … as a rose. Paul scarlet. My love is like a black, black rose. You can shut your eyes and feel the color of his skin, through your fingertips and the palms of your hands, black as … as … Oh hell! Like suède, sort of; but not, sort of. . .velvety. It's the extra cutaneous layers they have because of the sun. Bet you white men feel like the inside of sponge bags; can't imagine being addicted to the inside of a sponge bag. Never know now. Have to deduce all men from Paul, being all things to all men, all men to all things. Daddy said you mustn't argue about God as if there were more than one. I believe in one God, to Whom statistics therefore do not apply. Thus, therefore, it follows … it follows … it follows … it—only one Paul in my universe, no other portent in my small sky. Or is it only a pash? Could it be for anyone, for Humphrey Bogart or a history mistress or the Duke of Windsor? His breath smells of cinnamon. Oh Christ, what can I do with them all? Why should it have to be me? I want to go away and live alone with Paul, alone in a civilized country where you can buy brass bedsteads. And what do you propose to do to earn your bread, Miss Mackenzie? Man cannot live by bed alone, still less two men. And Bob, please God, will go back to Australia and we'll never hear or see or think about him again, except to send him a telegram when he gets his D.S.O. Poor Bob.

Six months now—a pash couldn't last six months, surely. If you're under a strain and all your friends are being killed and there isn't enough to eat, then you might fall into the nearest man's arms just because he was handy, but we stuck all that time out. And we stuck out three feasts, too—not like feasts in the village, but even so—hope Mummy and Daddy enjoyed themselves after the feasts in the village; I wonder what Mummy made of it all. Four feasts, if you count the first moon feast we weren't allowed to go to, and they didn't even turn a hair because they were so pleased to have a couple of sentries; wonder if Aaron had thought of that, too, the wily old ape. They've got subtle minds, only they don't use them the same way. Sometimes I know what he's thinking now; I know when he's happy. Funny, three nights of drink and shouting and dancing and we didn't even hold hands, and then we stumbled against each other on the path up to the lizard traps and both said yes together. Soggy, that's what I am, soggy with love. If I take him—them all—to London, he'll have to have something to do which he's happy doing, not for money but just for his mind to grind on; otherwise it'll grow round and round into itself like a rabbit's teeth and bury itself in his own skull. What can you do with patterns? Fabrics and wallpapers and things, I suppose—there must be technical schools which teach people. And I'll write a book about Daddy, except that I don't know enough about it all, but they must teach that, too; they must teach everything. Now we move on in our next lecture to a curious and rather repellent aspect of the Thames Valley Culture, the ritual segregation of females of the higher castes at puberty into establishments known as Colleges, where they lived for five years and worshiped the minor deity called Pash. He knows what I'm thinking, too. He's a saint. His skin tastes bitter, like burned herbs. If we could go away and live together, we could have children and not be ruled by this miserable rhythm. It's always been the men poets who made such a fuss about the moon. I must ask Aaron whether a hunting Ku has ever had a baby—there might be something in the myths, and then life would be simpler. He's ambitious, that's the word, not like the other Kus; he wants to do whatever he does as well as it can be done, not just as well as it's always been done. There's no scope for him here, in this tiny crumb of a tribe. Edinburgh. If there's enough money. How rich
was
Mummy? I wonder if he'll get fat when he's old, as fat as the old men. It depends how I feed him, or perhaps it's hereditary—I must keep notes. And in London we'll be able to feed Becca properly, though it's too late, surely. He walks like a clever toy. It's the way they put their feet down which makes them move so quietly. I'll get him to draw me pictures of a Ku walking and pictures of Bob walking and see if he can see the difference. Lucky Bob gets incapable so early at the feasts—wonder if he's worked it out yet about me and Paul; bet he has. Bob's not really stupid—that's the wrong word—hell to teach, a scowling lump at the back of the class, but cunning about people—bet Bob knew before Aaron, if Aaron knows now. Funny, Aaron's
clever
—scholarship class, given the chance—but simple about people; he can count their leaves and their sepals but he cannot feel how their roots writhe between the crumbs of soil. Paul can. If I tried to write him down, it'd come out all wrong, a noble savage, a tender orangutan, a super collection of scooped muscles and tingling skin, a love animal—all wrong. I never looked at Bob properly till Paul drew him in the dust. Poor Bob.

If Paul agrees about going to Edinburgh, or even London, we'll have to talk to Aaron. It really would be for everyone's good, it really would; get away from all this and forget about the miseries and find a nice, big house in the Wynds where we can start all over again. When Paul gets back from the coast—please, God, keep him out of trouble. Please. Please—they killed Pastor Bollern, too, and all his people; we weren't the only ones. Five days to the river, say, and three days on makes eight and two to find out and eight back—why doesn't it ever come out different?—eighteen. Eleven, he's been gone, eleven, eleven … Buck up, Mackenzie! When Paul—

“Miss Mackenzie.”

She rolled onto her back and sat up. Aaron stood black and squat amid the bower of creepers which they had found not far from the trail to the lizard traps.

“Is Paul back?” she said.

“Soon, perhaps. He need not go all the way to the coast, I think. Elijah found one of the Amalotoluto fishing down in our marshes, who said that the Japanese are gone.”

“Gone?”

“Gone from all the island. If this be true, Miss Mackenzie, what must we do next?”

“Oh Lord, Aaron, I don't know. I'll have to go to England, I suppose, and find out what's happened to everything, and I'd like Paul to come, too.”

“We must all come. We must go far from here and learn to be a new people in a Christian land.”

“But what'll you all
do
? The men can't go out hunting all day—there's nothing except fields and houses. If you found a new valley here—”

“A new valley here would be as the old valley, Miss Mackenzie. We are too few and the Reverend Mackenzie is dead. Soon we would be lost, dried up as a puddle is dried by the sun. We must go to a different place, where we have nothing but ourselves. There our loneliness will hold us together. Paul must join the men's hut once more and wed with Rebecca, and you must wed a man of your own people.”

“Sikataro kani takarato Paul ni plarai pikaru ni kala tai!”

Aaron grunted and stared at her, clawing deeply at the side of his beard. When they got to Edinburgh, Paul would have to start shaving; that'd help to set the two of them really apart from the rest. Aaron grunted again and wheeled away, like a pachyderm confronted by a motorcar. Eve realized what had happened; he had thought his campaign out in detail, right down to the subjunctives in the sentences, and now the whole scheme had come to pieces over a minor tactical defeat. He'd go away and piece together another scheme which allowed for her aberrations. She wondered what his mental picture of England was like—Mummy had often talked to him about it, making extra coaching in English­ an excuse for dreamy nostalgia—and anyway the war would've made everything quite, quite different. She rolled over onto her stomach again, but could not recover the dozy, sensual wash, half thought, half dreamed, which had kept her happy before Aaron came. Instead she watched two ugly, clumsy beetles, impeded by their own ill-fitting wing sheaths, blundering through the process of mating as though nobody had ever thought of it before.