A Disturbing Influence (11 page)

Allen looked startled, then went in. His shoes squeaked on the composition floor of the showroom. The white coats of the ambulance men shone with an antiseptic cheerfulness in the polished sides of a new Rover 105.

‘We can’t get round,’ said one of the men. ‘Can you move that car forward a couple of feet?’

Allen took off the Rover’s hand-brake and pushed the car to the front of the showroom.

‘Thanks,’ said the man.

‘Can I help?’

The man shook his head. Through the door of the cubby-hole Allen could see Archie sitting in his chair, his head fallen forward. There was no blood. He looked all right. He often dozed like that.

‘Will he be all right?’

‘He’s dead,’ said the man.

Allen went out again and stood by Mr Nisbett.

‘Thanks,’ said Nisbett. ‘I just can’t stand it. Never could.’

‘He’s dead,’ said Allen. ‘Archie’s dead.’

Nisbett moved away quickly towards the washroom. At the same moment a telephone began to ring in the office. Joan Cartwright, who was standing beside the pumps, went to answer it. In a minute she came out again and said to Allen: ‘It’s Mr Solomons. Something about his car. You took it up to him, didn’t you?’

‘Yes.’

‘Well, I think you’d better speak to him.’

He went into the office and picked up the receiver. ‘Hallo.’

‘Is that you, Sid?’

‘No, sir, it’s me, Allen Bradshaw. Was there something wrong with the car?’

‘No, the car’s all right. But can you tell me what it was doing outside Hudson’s this morning when it was supposed to be being washed and delivered to
me
?’

‘I’m sorry, sir. It was me. I didn’t think you’d mind.’

‘It was you, was it? Well, I do mind, I mind very much. I saw you, roaring the engine like that.’

‘Yes, sir. I’m sorry, sir.’

‘I’m glad to hear it. I’d like a word with Mr Trinder, if you don’t mind.’

‘He’s busy, sir. Archie just died.’

‘What?’

‘Archie just died. He had a stroke.’

‘Oh.’ Allen could hear Solomons clearing his throat. ‘Oh. I see. I’ll call back later.’ Allen heard the line go dead. As he hung up, Trinder came into the office.

‘What was all that about?’ he said.

‘It was Mr Solomons, sir. I went by Hudson’s and he saw me. That’s all.’

‘I haven’t got time for that now,’ said Trinder. He went into his own office and began to dial a number.

When Allen came out the ambulance men were putting the stretcher with Archie on it into the back of the ambulance. The
body was completely covered by a blanket, except for the feet. Two sturdy black boots pointed to heaven. The door of the ambulance shut and the men drove away.

Mr Nisbett came out of the washroom, still looking pale, and watched them go.

‘Poor old Archie,’ said someone. ‘I thought he’d go on for ever.’

People began to move away. In ten minutes work was going on as usual. Allen was assigned to the pumps, but he didn’t use Archie’s cubby-hole. From the repair-shop he could hear someone whistling, the tune echoing loud above the hammering and the testing of engines.

That evening, as they walked towards the cinema, he said to Ruth: ‘I had a near squeak today.’

‘Did you?’

‘Mr Solomons saw me with his car outside Hudson’s.’

She removed her arm from his and said: ‘What were you doing in there, I’d like to know.’

Slipping his arm round her waist he said: ‘That’s my business, isn’t it?’

‘Could be,’ she said. ‘Could be mine, too.’

‘Could be,’ he agreed.

They walked along in silence for a while, both thinking about the same thing, without either of them knowing that the other was thinking about it. Then Allen said: ‘It’s a nice evening. Would you like to walk down by the canal? We can go to the pictures any night.’

‘Now listen to me,’ said Ruth, pulling herself away from him.

‘Well?’

‘I don’t want any of your nonsense, that’s all.’

‘Archie told me something today,’ said Allen, putting his arm round her again as they turned towards the canal. ‘He said you’ve got to know what you want. Funny he should say that to me. Just before he died. I may have been the last person to see him alive.’

Awed by the thought, they held each other tighter, walking in silence to the old towpath.

‘He said he never regretted anything,’ said Allen.

‘What did he have to regret? He was pretty old, wasn’t he?’

‘Oh yes.’

‘Well,’ said Ruth, with the air of one saying something profoundly new, ‘we all have to go sometime.’

‘Might as well get what you want first, though,’ said Allen.

Archie had been right to trust the wireless. It was a warm evening. The trees were just beginning to move from fluffiness to leafiness, bare branches still visible against the very pale blue sky. The day’s wind had dried the puddles. Allen and Ruth found
themselves
a place to sit under a beech tree in Chapman’s Wood. In front of them the canal, long stagnant, reflected nothing but clear sky, paler every minute.

‘Now stop that,’ said Ruth. ‘Don’t think I don’t know what you were buying this morning.’

‘I’ve never done it,’ said Allen, happy to find himself completely unembarrassed. ‘Have you?’

‘No,’ said Ruth. She was going to add: ‘And I’m not going to tonight, either,’ but for some reason she didn’t. The words were there in her mind, but her tongue wouldn’t say them. And Allen’s arm was strong and warm around her, his lips soft against her ear.

Allen kissed her very long and slow on the mouth. His hands began to fumble under her dress.

‘Let’s move back a bit,’ Ruth whispered, ‘someone could see.’

They moved back into the woods, hand in hand, both seventeen.

Mr Drysdale, out for his evening walk, heard a boy and a girl laughing softly together. He walked on along the towpath, shaking his head, muttering, and from time to time allowing himself to smile.

A
LONE
porter walked down the platform, past the still hissing length of the train, shouting: ‘
Car
tersfield!
Car
tersfield!’ When he reached the luggage van he peered in and said: ‘Anything for us, mate?’

‘Not much, Bob.’

From the second of the five carriages a young man appeared, reaching back into the train to lift out a large expandable suitcase of scratched brown leather. It was spattered with torn brightly coloured labels, and attached to the handle were pieces of dirty knotted string, dangling the ends of old luggage tags.

He was tall, about six foot, though his thinness made him look taller. Even under the camel-hair coat his waist seemed as slim as a girl’s. And his face was thin, too, the cheekbones prominent, the dark-brown eyes set deep, and his nose like a geometrical figure, sharp, bridgeless, straight from the brow. The wind made passes at his short coarse black hair, but he ignored it, searching the pockets of his coat, then his cavalry-twill trousers, finally his tweed jacket.

Finding the ticket, he picked up his case and looked about him, suddenly ceasing to be just another descending passenger like the two or three who were now shuffling through the gate into the station yard, watchful, not committing himself yet to anything so definite as arrival or departure, not admitting the probability of destination. Surveying the platform, his glance brushed quickly over
the travel posters for the Isle of Man and Bath and Pwllheli, the time-tables, the peeling notice-boards with GWR still legible on the mouldings, the crates of pigeons and one-day-old chicks, the dirty chocolate-coloured seats, the lone porter now pushing his trolley towards the gate. He seemed to see these things and dismiss them in the instant of seeing.

The guard blew his whistle and waved a green flag. The young man took a step away from the train as it began to move, but paid it no further attention. After a few moments of groaning and clanking the train had gone, blank faces looking sightlessly from dirty windows, and the platform was suddenly empty, somnolent, silent, except for the young man and the porter, the wind picking loosely at rubbish in odd corners.

‘Are you looking for someone?’ said the porter. He stopped several yards from the young man and examined him. He found him underfed but upper-class. ‘Sir?’

‘I was expecting Mr Henderson to meet me.’

‘Would you be Mr Mander, then, sir?’

‘Yes.’

‘Ah. Well, your uncle says to tell you he’s busy this afternoon, sir. He’s marrying Harry Mengel, so he can’t be here to meet you. He said to look out for you.’

‘Well, here I am,’ said the young man.

‘Mr Gilbert’s waiting to take you up to the vicarage, sir. He’s out in the yard.’

‘Thank you.’

They reached the gate, where a woman in a British Railways uniform took Mander’s ticket. Her eyes had looked at the same faces day after day for so many years that she no longer distinguished between them. Into them now came a flicker of life, of focus.

‘This is Mr Mander, Mary,’ said the porter. ‘I was telling him how his uncle can’t be here to meet him.’

‘That’s right,’ said the woman, ‘he’s got a wedding, you see.’ She scrutinized his face. ‘You’ll be the vicar’s nephew, then, Mr
Mander?’ He looked cold, she thought. And thin. There was a nippy little wind about today.

‘Is that all your luggage, Mr Mander?’ said the porter.

‘Yes, just the suitcase.’

‘Well, that’s Mr Gilbert over there now.’ He pointed to a
dark-blue
Austin Sixteen of some age parked in the yard. ‘Give my best to your uncle, won’t you, sir?’

‘Oh, certainly. Thank you very much. I’m most grateful,’ said the young man. He smiled at them both. His teeth seemed
unnaturally
white, and the smile failed to bring any warmth to the pallor of his cheeks. It was, too, slightly crooked.

‘Funny accent he’s got,’ said Mary, watching him go over to the car. ‘He looks a nice young man, though.’ Her eyes went blank again as she began to count the tickets.

‘He looks as though he could do with a good tuck-in,’ said the porter. ‘Did you put the tea on, Mary?’

Mander went over to the Austin Sixteen and spoke to the driver. ‘I’m Mr Mander. I believe you’re waiting for me.’

‘That’s right,’ said the man in the driver’s seat. He folded his newspaper quickly. He was small and dumpy, with a brown moustache and little tufts of brown hair on his fingers. ‘Is that all your baggage, sir?’

‘Yes,’ said Mander. Then he added, half apologetically, half to himself: ‘I travel light.’

‘Ah,’ said Gilbert heavily, not quite catching it. He seemed
disappointed
. Glancing at his passenger in the driving mirror he judged him to look a good deal older than they’d said. Twenty-five or -six, he’d have said. Looked as though he could do with a good meal, too.

‘Been to Cartersfield before, haven’t you, Mr Mander?’

‘A couple of times. Just passing through.’

‘Oh yes. Weather’s been bad this spring.’ Mander made a non-committal noise.

‘Oh yes. Shocking spring. Middle of May and hardly a warm day yet.’

‘Mmmm.’

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘Let’s hope it’ll get better.’

‘Be here long, will you, sir?’

‘I really don’t know. It depends.’

‘Ah.’ Gilbert drove in silence, glancing occasionally in the mirror, till they turned through the gate of the vicarage, round the small circle of gravel, heavily weed-grown, to the front door. The house was large, but modestly so, a pleasant late Georgian
modification
of the classical model, with a stone porch supported by slim columns, tall windows gazing sternly at a tangled wilderness which might, once, have been a formal garden.

‘Thank you,’ said the young man, getting out of the car before Gilbert could open the door for him. ‘How much do I owe you?’

‘Half a crown, please, sir.’

Mander looked surprised. His dark-brown eyes and straight sharp nose turned full on the taxi-driver. ‘How much?’

‘Two shillings, sir.’

He gave him two shillings exactly, Gilbert looking ostentatiously at the lack of tip for a moment before he realized the passenger was no longer beside him to be daunted. He had put his case down by the front door and was standing back from the porch to look at the house. Again he seemed watchful, as though unconvinced that this was where he was supposed to be, as though he might still
withdraw
his visit, not accepting hospitality but granting a favour.

Gilbert got back into the car and drove down the drive with an air of thwarted dignity. The young man ignored the disappearing car, his eyes on the ruined garden, the uncut grass, the border sprouting dandelions. Then he went to the door and rang the bell, hearing it shrill inside the house.

*

The ‘Wedding March’ wheezed out under Mrs Harris’ fat fingers and frantic pedalling feet, and Raymond Henderson
watched the amused contempt twist the corner of Harry Mengel’s mouth for an instant before he straightened it into a smile and set off down the aisle with Joan, until a few moments before, Cartwright, while the older Mrs Mengel sobbed openly, and in time, in the front pew. After a few moments he followed them to the door of the church, shook hands with everyone, smiling where he should smile, and listening gravely where he thought gravity was in order, said: ‘Come now, Mrs Mengel, this should be a day for rejoicing‚’ smiled and shook hands again, then slipped back into the church, went into the vestry, removed his clerical clothes, closed the register and sighed. Usually he quite enjoyed a wedding, but this one had been rather tiresome. For one thing he did not care at all for Harry Mengel, and he knew Mengel felt much the same about him. The grimace at the ‘Wedding March’, though, had been a quite unnecessary piece of impertinence. He was an altogether too uppish young man, with a sharp tongue and ideas too big for his boots. He was for ever pestering people to sign petitions on matters he couldn’t possibly know anything about—the treatment of prisoners in Nyasaland had been the subject of the latest, if you please—instead of getting on with his business, selling soap and cheese and butter and tea like his father. And he had had the infernal cheek to ask him, Raymond Henderson, the vicar, what the Church’s policy was on the H-bomb, as though he hadn’t got quite enough to do without bothering his head with things that even the
Archbishop
found extremely complex. He could be very argumentative and at times abusive, too. It was most unlikely that he ever gave a thought to the possibility of there being a God. Sometimes Henderson felt distinctly uneasy about marrying people who made no pretence of showing up at church, let alone of being Christians, and he envied the uncompromising parsons who occasionally got their names into the papers for refusing to marry non-
communicants
. But still, it was better, after all, that they should be married in a church, not in one of those tawdry register offices with other couples queueing up behind them. And Joan was a nice girl,
and pretty, too, in an over-made-up way, even if she was hardly a regular attender, either. Why girls insisted on covering up their own natural beauties with garish paints and powders, when they had the God-given complexions of the English countryside, he would simply never understand. And then Mrs Mengel had slobbered away in the front pew all through the service——

Henderson checked himself. I really must not think of people like that. She didn’t slobber at all; she cried, simply cried. Mothers always do; they’re expected to, so they do. All the same, it was a little hard to see what she was crying about, since they were going to move in on her as soon as they got back from the honeymoon. There was nothing about ‘losing a son’ in the whole business. And perhaps that was what she had been crying about, because Joan probably couldn’t tell a kettle from a saucepan, sitting in that office at Trinder’s Garage all those years, adding up the bills all wrong.

I must not let myself run on like this. I’m getting a mean streak as I grow old.

He put on his mackintosh and went out into the church,
locking
the door of the vestry behind him. He hid the key under a bowl of flowers in the hagioscope. The flowers looked tired and dreary.

I was never like this when Isobel was alive. I never let them get me down. I never thought of them as ‘them’.

He knelt to pray briefly, then rose, buttoning his mackintosh and moving towards the door. As he reached the middle of the church he saw Jim Nelson lurking by the offerings box. Nelson was the sidesman, or so he called himself, though in fact he was nothing more than odd-job man around the church: grave-digger,
sweeper-out
and leader of the choir. His voice was a high tenor whine, and he had absolutely no ear at all, but he made a good deal of noise, which was more than could be said for the few members of the choir, like Ruth Stevens, who could at least sing in tune. He was missing a front tooth, and Henderson would hear him breathing through it with an irritating whistle while he tried to concentrate on
the sermon, as much a part of the services in Cartersfield as the sibilant accompaniment on a record of some old song.

Now Nelson came forward into the main body of the church and said: ‘Will that be all, then, Vicar?’

‘Yes, thank you, Jim. I’ll give you the extra money on Sunday with the rest, if that’s all right.’

‘Ah.’ Jim stood there, pulling the lobe of his ear with dirty fingers. The nails were cracked, and quite definitely black.
Henderson
knew what was coming next, but he waited through it. ‘Now today’s a Thursday, sir, as you know, I dare say, and I don’t get my pay till tomorrow, that’s Friday, and I was wondering, sir, if you might see your way to letting me have my wedding money now, seeing as it’s Thursday, and I don’t have a penny left somehow this week, you know how it is, and it’s only right to drink the health of the bride and groom, sir, isn’t it, so if you could oblige, I’d be very grateful, sir.’

‘Now, Jim,’ said Henderson, ‘you know very well … Oh, what’s the use. Wait a moment. I’ll see what I have.’

He found two half-crowns and gave them to Nelson, saying: ‘Here you are, then. But I
do
urge you not to——’

‘It takes more than that to get a man drunk these days, sir,’ said Jim, taking the money quickly, as though he feared Henderson might change his mind. ‘What with beer so weak,
and
so dear, you can’t hardly feel warm for this much.’

It was almost being an accessary before the fact, thought Henderson. But this afternoon he couldn’t bring himself to care. It was a small enough sin, in all conscience.

Nelson put the money in a shabby purse that looked as though it had been rescued from a dustbin, put the purse in an inside pocket, said: ‘Thank you, sir,’ held the door open for the vicar, then shut it carefully behind them, adjusted his cap at a jaunty angle,
emphasizing
a large grease-spot, whistled for a moment through his teeth, or lack of teeth, touched the peak of the cap with the same dirty, black-nailed fingers that had pulled at his ear, said: ‘Good day to
you, then, sir,’ and vanished down the path that led behind the church to his cottage.

I shouldn’t have done that. He’ll only drink it.

Henderson took the path to the gate of the churchyard,
observing
with distaste that the confetti was already a dirty red, white and blue in the grass, trampled by muddy feet and blown by the sharp wind. He paused, more out of habit than to look at it, by his wife’s grave, and suddenly remembered what had really been annoying him about the wedding. It had prevented him from meeting his nephew. He would probably be waiting for him at the vicarage now. It wasn’t Mengel’s fault at all: it was Mildred’s, ringing up like that and announcing David was coming by that train when he didn’t even have his engagements diary with him, and no chance to remember, with Mildred talking away.

He set off up the path, briskly.

Mildred was an odd woman, rootless, but very elegant, and now she was really rather well off. Quite different from Isobel. You would never have thought they were sisters. Of course, Isobel had always led a quiet life with him at Cartersfield, while Mildred and Frank had been rushing round the world for years. But, still, you would expect some family resemblance, and it wasn’t simply that they didn’t look alike, they didn’t even have remotely the same outlook on things. Perhaps it was the difference of income between himself and Frank, perhaps that kind of basic difference really could shape an outlook after a number of years. And perhaps it was Isobel who had changed rather than Mildred, because they’d been quite decently off as young girls. And now, of course, Frank was an oil man and Raymond Henderson was the vicar of Cartersfield, and even with his small invested capital his income would scarcely pay Frank’s super-tax, and certainly wouldn’t even do that after he’d paid Mrs Crawley and Jim Nelson and the other people who made life possible by doing the chores for him. And perhaps all that travelling would give you a different attitude to life. The Manders were for ever moving about the world, Venezuela one
year, Arabia the next, and Texas for a time, and then Libya, wasn’t it? And certainly Borneo for a while. They hadn’t liked Borneo much.