Read Another part of the wood Online
Authors: Beryl Bainbridge
Tags: #Fiction, #General, #Fiction in English, #Poetry
It was only a little warmer inside the hut. George hung the lantern from an iron hook in the ceiling and the wooden walls
rolled outwards and back as the lamp twisted above their heads.
‘I’ll go now,’ he said, standing in the doorway, his long face white and his eyes never quite looking at them. Despite his
height and the terrible size of his boots he appeared insubstantial. He opened the door and the wind blew at the lantern and
shadows disintegrated the quiet pool of his face. He went out of the door, without saying good night. May listened for his
footsteps, but she couldn’t hear anything.
Maybe, thought May, he had simply flown, like some terrible bird to his nest higher up the hillside.
Lionel was fussing about the bedding.
‘How many blankets, old man?’ he asked Balfour, looking about the room for another doorway. ‘Bedroom through there, eh?’ he
said, nodding his head in the direction of the kitchen, his hands caressing the army-issue blankets of the upper bunk.
‘No, there’s no b-bedroom. That’s the kitchen, L-Lionel.’
‘The kitchen.’ He looked up incredulously at the discomfited Balfour and then at the double-tiered bunks on either side. ‘I
say,’ he began, smiling broadly, and stopped, not wishing to appear suggestive. It was, he thought, a bit of a lark. A bit
not on, of course, but still quite a lark. He hoped his sweetheart would see the funny side. She was sitting hunched and shivering
with cold, on the rocker by the black stove.
‘Sweetheart,’ he called. ‘We’re all together.’
‘I know,’ May said, massaging the ends of her toes and noting the cuffs of mud on the sleeves of Lionel’s best jacket.
Relieved, Lionel decided it would be more sensible to move one bunk unit to the other end of the hut, near to the kitchen
opening – more privacy for the little woman. He began to drag the iron frame across the wooden floor. Balfour helped him.
It was the second time that day that they had carried a bed together.
‘What are you doing?’ May asked. She was damned if she was going to let Lionel sleep on one of those narrow beds with her.
‘Just making a little more space,’ he panted, his large nose resting on the side of the upper bunk, his ginger moustache sunk
in the bedding. He positioned the bedstead sideways across the
room, shutting out the kitchen doorway, and draped a blanket from the top bunk to the floor. It would mean less warmth, but
it did curtain them off quite successfully. He stepped back to admire his arrangements and smiled at Balfour with satisfaction.
‘Very good, old boy … pretty good, don’t you think?’
‘Very good,’ agreed Balfour, wondering if the little woman would perversely insist on sleeping above, so that it would be
the orderly Lionel who would be modestly hidden away behind his curtain, leaving May with her breasts exposed in the moonlight.
Shaken, he went to the red curtains and drew them together, though it was black as pitch outside. Better to be sure, he thought,
though the moon was not needed to make May visible to him. Imagination alone would fill the occupied hut with light.
He said, ‘I’ll just take a walk round till you’re s-settled, till Mrs – ’ he stumbled, not knowing what to call her – ‘till
you’re settled.’
‘All right, old boy.’ Lionel appreciated his thoughtfulness. ‘We’ll be as quick as we can,’ he said. ‘Shall I give you a call,
old boy?’
But Balfour had already fled into the damp wood.
May knew she must look awful, absolutely awful. Probably blue with the cold and her hair all over the place and her make-up
rubbed clean off her face. She would have liked to beautify herself quickly before Balfour returned, but she didn’t want to
give Lionel the comfort of thinking she was back to normal again. She could hear him on the other side of the bunks, behind
that ridiculous blanket, running water in the kitchen. Dear God, did he really expect she would rinse herself in a bucket
of ice?
He called, ‘You can wash now, sweetheart. It’s all ready for you.’
‘I don’t want to wash, Lionel.’
There was a moment’s silence. Only a moment. The resourceful Lionel appeared with a bowl in his hands, manoeuvring himself
around the bedstead, slopping water as he came.
‘Now, now, little love. Your sweetheart will help you.’
Gently, yet not wasting time, for he was considerate of the
walking Balfour, Lionel slipped her sandals free and splashed her feet with water.
‘Sweetheart,’ he said, ‘how warm you are – how we love each other.’ He pulled her head down and further disarranged her hair,
which reminded her anew of Balfour. If he slept over by the window he would see her face when he awoke. He would surely see
her. She couldn’t bear anyone to see her when she first awoke. He mustn’t sleep by the window. She must make Lionel move the
other bunk closer to their own. That way Balfour would be so near he would never dare to look at her, not without branding
himself as a Peeping Tom. He would just have to bound out of bed in the morning embarrassed, leaving her in peace to renew
her crumpled face.
‘Lionel, I’m sorry, but I don’t intend sleeping in that bottom bunk with you.’ She leaned backwards in the rocking chair and
pushed him with her bare foot so that he sat back on his heels.
‘Steady on,’ he protested, knowing she was about to be difficult and feeling there wasn’t time to cope with it. Couldn’t let
that poor fellow run about the woods all night. ‘What do you want to do?’ he asked, defeated.
‘You sleep on that bed,’ she said, pointing to the bunks at the window.
‘That bed?’ he repeated, flushing red.
‘Not over there. You bring those beds over here and put it beside my bunk.’
‘Beside your bunk.’ He looked at the window and back again in despair, thinking of Balfour. Didn’t she realize what she was
suggesting? Didn’t she realize the temptation she was throwing in Balfour’s path? But of course she didn’t. She was so innocent.
But it was a bit not on – more than a bit not on. Balfour was bound to get the wrong idea. He said, ‘I don’t see what you’re
driving at.’ It was one of his expressions. It meant she had offended him.
‘I’m not driving at anything. I sleep on the bottom bunk of that bed, and you sleep on the bottom bunk of the other one, and
Batman, or whatever his name is, can sleep above you.’
‘I see.’ His expression was still hurt.
‘Well, I’m not bloody well sleeping in that tiny bunk with you and I’m not going to sleep up there on my own with all those
animals and things flying around.’
He was touched. How childish she was, not wanting to be alone in the dark. The way she had said ‘up there’ as if the top bunk
were several miles away and swarming with insects. Several of the chaps in his group in the army had been afraid of the dark.
He could see her point.
‘All right, my darling,’ he conceded. ‘You just get undressed and get into the bunk and I’ll call Balfour.’
‘I’m not undressing,’ she said. ‘It’s too cold and you left the suitcases in the other hut.’
He had. It had been foolish of him not to remember. He stood up and took the bowl of water back into the kitchen. Perhaps
it was just as well he had been so careless. She could have been warmer and in one of her moods and determined to annoy him.
She might have chosen to flaunt herself before Balfour. There had been occasions in the past, one or two, parties and things,
when he felt she deliberately sat down with too much leg showing. Nothing very bad, she was too innocent for that, but she
did lay herself open to abuse. She just hadn’t the experience to know how dangerous her behaviour could be. He constantly
had to be on guard to protect her. And himself. She would never know the torment it was for him to see other men looking at
her with lust. It filled him with anguish, it unmanned him, he screamed inside himself. He had told her once what he would
do if he caught any man messing about with her. He would kill.
‘Would you really?’ she had asked, her innocent eyes round with fear. ‘Would you really kill him, Lionel?’
‘Yes, I would.’
‘And me, Lionel, what about me?’ How frightened her eyes had been.
‘I would use karate on you, my sweetheart.’
‘Karate?’ Her pink mouth opened. Her hands flew upwards.
‘A quick blow with the edge of my hand at the pit of your stomach – just there on either side – one-two, and your womanhood
would fall to the ground.’ How childishly amused she had been, how she had laughed, showing the curved row of white teeth
and the pale pink of her moist gums. Everything he said caused her to laugh, she was so innocent.
Tenderly he led her to the curtained bed and removed the coat from about her shoulders, taking his jacket with equal tenderness
to the rocking chair, moulding it above the curved back. The bedraggled sleeves brushed the floor.
When he returned to the bed May was under the blankets with her face turned towards the kitchen. He stroked her yellow hair,
black in the lamplight, and went to call Balfour.
They dragged the second bunk beside the first and they washed in the dark kitchen, the two men, with the little woman who
was so afraid of the dark lying there breathing softly behind their backs. Balfour just knew she wasn’t asleep. She was spread
out there with her blue eyes wide open, laughing silently at their absurd preparations for the night. What a noise Lionel
made swilling water round his mouth. He had left his toothbrush in the other hut, he said. May was sleeping in her clothes
because her nightdress was in the suitcase. He hoped Balfour wasn’t too inconvenienced by the sleeping arrangements. He came
closer in the darkness and whispered sincerely, ‘My hands are tied, old boy,’ and for a second Balfour took him literally,
and stood there helplessly, feeling the captive man’s breath on his cheek. Hastily he said he understood and felt for the
cold water tap with his invisible fingers. Was Lionel stripping himself naked? Would he move, huge flanks scarred with bullets,
into the lantern light? Balfour stayed in the corner of the kitchen, endlessly turning his hands in water so cold that it
burnt him.
‘Will you see to the lamp, old boy?’ Lionel asked finally. Half way down him a pair of little shorts caught a shaft of light.
Balfour waited till he felt Lionel must have come to rest. He threw the water noisily down the sink and cleared his throat.
He
hung his pullover and his trousers on the nail above the back door and stood in his bootless feet trying to smell himself,
wondering if he should remove his socks or not. He decided not. He crept, partly naked, and defenceless with cold, into the
main room, dragging a chair to the centre of the hut, stepping on it with body curled away from the recumbent May, turning
down the wick of the lamp, and fading with it into blackness. He padded to the bunks and placed his foot on the lower bed.
He thought maybe Lionel would give his merry laugh, but there was absolute silence in the arctic night.
Hauling himself aloft, Balfour squirmed into his blankets and pushed his head under the clothes for warmth. He could hear
his own breathing and his own heart beating and the sound made by the straw mattress he lay on, as he moved. Nothing stayed
in his head. He tried to visualize the horizontal May, with her malicious eyes covered by the flannel sheets and her busty
breasts bunched high in her gingham blouse. But he was almost asleep. Hours seemed to have passed. He poked his congested
face above the bedding and settled his head more comfortably.
‘Sweetheart,’ whispered Lionel. ‘Are you awake … are you?’
He felt with his large hand for her shoulder and she hissed angrily, ‘Go away, Lionel, be quiet.’
‘I just want to know if you’re quite comfortable, my darling.’
She wouldn’t answer. She jerked her head backwards and forwards on the pillow and compressed her lips in the darkness. She
daren’t turn away from him. It was too black facing in that direction – and besides, that man up there might think she was
moving into Lionel’s arms. She didn’t want him to think she was lying close to anyone, not anyone as awful as Lionel.
‘Let me tell you a story, my darling … only a short one … Just you lie still and I’ll tell you a story.’ He was putting his
thick fingers under her neck, feeling for the little hollow under her ear, treading the skin as if she were a heavy object
he needed to lever upright.
‘Go away,’ she whispered as loudly as she dared, lifting her head fractionally, so that he hooked his arm about her neck on
the
instant and she could feel the ginger moustache brushing her cheek.
‘Lie quite still, little sweetheart, little Lalla Rookh …’
She lay pinned beneath his weight, his body half in her bunk and half in his own, his bald head bobbing up and down above
her.
‘Sssh,’ she said weakly, ‘sssh.’
Balfour heard the whispers. One moment he was poised on the very brink of sleep and the next he was wide awake, his eyes cold
under the timbered roof, his chest constricted.
‘Sweetheart,’ breathed Lionel. ‘Listen to me, sweetheart. This is the story of Lalla Rookh, goddess of the temple. In the
eleventh year of the reign of Aurungzebe, Abdalla, King of the Lesser Bucharian, set out on a pilgrimage to the shrine of
the Prophet, and passing into India through the valley of Kashmir rested at Delhi on the way, where he was entertained most
lavishly. It was not long before he heard of the beauty of the renowned Lalla Rookh, Priestess of the Temple of Love. She
was, he was told, more lovely than Leila, Shirine or Dewilde, or any of the heroines of the songs of Persia and Hindustan.
She was small and rounded with breasts as white as snow and nipples as red as the thorns of the rose …’
May didn’t hear the words at all. She was thinking about her mother and father and how long it was since she had last been
to see them. She ought to have visited them, she ought to have sent them some money. They were her family. Her mother wouldn’t
like her to lie in some rotten hut with this strange old man telling her stories in the night. Her mother called her May,
or My Daughter, not Sweetheart or Lalla Rookh. Her mother knew who she was …