Devil By The Sea (16 page)

Panic seized him. He was frightened of policemen. He fled into the nearest cave. It was wedge-shaped and sandy with high,
chalk sides closing above his head. Most of it was above high water mark because the floor was carpeted with dry seaweed and
stirring with sand-flies. He went straight to the cold depth of the cave and crouched by a petrol drum that was full of rubbish
from the shore. He stirred it hopefully and a stench arose, offending his nostrils. He kicked it over angrily and the mess
rolled out among the seaweed. He saw maggots crawling over the breast of a long-dead gull and he gathered up the seaweed with
his hands, covering the body. Then he waited, crouching on his haunches, biting his fingernails.

He heard the shingle scattering outside the cave and began to whimper softly, watching the entrance. It darkened and he put
his hands across his eyes.

Someone came inside the cave. He peered between his spread fingers and saw a woman bending over the spilled petrol drum. She
righted the drum and began to pick up the
contents. A smell of putrefaction filled the cave. A whirl of flies arose. He stood up slowly and carefully and stared curiously
at her, wondering what she was doing. She was old, he saw, as old as his grandmother. Her hair was wild and white, she wore
a pink blouse and a pair of mackintosh trousers fastened at the waist with a silver belt. Her bare ankles were thick and pulpy
looking with a discoloured network of veins across the bone. She was completely absorbed in what she was doing. She filled
the drum and covered the rubbish with seaweed. Then she stood upright and saw him.

A low, surprised grunt came from the back of her throat. She moved backwards, her outspread hands pressed nervously against
the cold, chalk wall.

“What do you want?” she asked him in a loud, harsh voice.

He shook his head stupidly, mouthing at her. His eyes gleamed dully in his lean face, beneath the lank, dark hair.

“What do you want?” she repeated. Her hand went up to the bright brooch that fastened her blouse at the neck. Her hand was
old, covered with brown spots and trembling. He saw that she was afraid and this upset him. He frowned. He would not hurt
her, he would never hurt a poor, old woman who looked like his grandmother. The brooch was pretty but he did not want it.
He moved indecisively towards her and she cringed against the wall of the cave, her mouth drooping open. She looked very ugly
with her scalp showing through the thin strands of hair and the loose flesh quivering over her jawbone. Her ugliness disgusted
him: her fear made him very angry. He stretched out his long, bony hands, clenching and unclenching the fingers, feeling their
strength. As she crouched and shook he grinned at her like a dog, knowing,
before he touched her, how soft and unresisting the flesh would be about her throat.

A sound diverted him. He turned, his hands loosely swinging and looked at the mouth of the cave. He saw the white sea fling
back the screaming gravel. He saw, against the suddenly darkening sky, the policeman pass.

He gave a soft, singing moan and fled, hands flapping, to the back of the cave. There, he flung himself down in a heap, burying
his face in the collar of his coat.

A hand touched his shoulder. He looked up in fear and saw the old woman bending over him. “What’s the matter? Are you ill?”
He heard, in her clear, upper-class voice, the authority that had always pursued him. He shrank from her. Sighing, she felt
in the pocket of her trousers and held out a few, small coins.

“Here,” she said. “Take this. Don’t come back here, ever. This is
my
cave. Do you understand?”

Auntie had no illusions as to what his intentions had been towards her. Now she knew he would not harm her, she dismissed
his behaviour from her mind. He could not be dangerous, she told herself, not this abject bag of bones. There was no need
to mention the matter to anyone, no need to explain her own presence in the cave.

She sighed thankfully, placed the money on a flat, white stone beside him and turned away. She took her clothes from a ledge
that jutted out from the side of the cave. She fastened her cloak round her neck and thrust her skirt and shoes into a large,
inside pocket. She gave him a last, doubtful look and left the cave. He crawled on his belly over the stinking seaweed. He
reached the petrol drum and rested there.

The policeman had returned. He heard his voice and then the old woman’s. They were standing by the entrance to the cave. He
could see the corner of her cloak as it
blew out in the wind. He trembled and chewed at his fingers.

“No officer,” she said. “I’ve been shrimping. I’ve been dressing in this cave. There is no one there.”

They went away. For the moment he could not believe in his safety. He crept to the mouth of the cave. The little bay in which
the cave lay hidden was empty. He was safe. Dark clouds drove across the sky like a falling curtain. He smiled and chattered
to himself.

Then he grew suspicious. Why had she not given him away? There must be something in the cave she had not wanted the policeman
to see, something she had hidden there. Frowning, he stared at the damp, smooth walls. Perhaps she had hidden something in
the petrol drum. He laughed excitedly and flung himself upon it, churning up the rubbish. Rotten fish gleamed like jewels
in the dark seaweed, their transparent bellies shining with the pale colours of the rainbow. He cut his thumb on a broken
piece of glass, sucked the blood away and bound the cut with his handkerchief. One-handed, he delved deeper and came upon
something wrapped in a piece of dirty sailcloth. He laid it carefully on one side. This was her treasure, he thought, smiling.
She was clever to have hidden it like this. Oh, she was cunning, but not cunning enough for him. He emptied the drum without
further interest and kicked it contemptuously away from him. The stench was too much for his nostrils. Grimacing with disgust,
he picked up the precious bundle and left the cave. The sea air blew cleanly in his face, carrying a hard spatter of rain.
He sighed happily and sat down upon a rock. Tenderly, he unwrapped the sailcloth and saw it was a shroud.

Screaming, he flung it down and ran. He went back up the cliffs with fear behind him, the soft clay slipping
beneath his feet. The cold wind blew from the north, blowing away the fine weather, the last of the summer. The cliff tops
were empty. There was no one to see him, flattened against the sides of the cliff, clutching at lumps of coarse, grey grass.
He went the way that Hilary had gone the day before and came upon the fallen garden, sheltered in its hollow. He stayed there,
out of the wind, and when the rain began to fall more heavily he crawled inside an empty water tank that lay on its side near
to the broken, concrete pool. The rain thudded on the zinc sides like rifle shots but he felt safe there, enclosed and unobserved.
After a little while, when the noise ceased to trouble him, he fell asleep.

On the beach near the cave, the cat that Auntie had wrapped in sailcloth lay where he had thrown it; stiff, dead eyes staring,
paws folded back on its breast. The mouth was open, the lips curled back showing the dainty, savage teeth. The tide crept
up the beach and took it. It bobbed in the yellow scum at the edge of the water and, for a time, took on a semblance of life.
Then the sea washed it higher up the beach and it lodged between two rocks, lying on its back and snarling at death.

“It’s not
fair”
said Hilary hopelessly, staring at her mother. “Nothing is ever fair.” She had learned one lesson from the episode in the
field and not one that Charles had intended. Once her first, dreadful humiliation had faded, she bore no malice against her
father. She did not understand why he had beaten her: she simply and philosophically accepted it as a sign that life never
was, and never would be, just.

“Don’t be silly, dear.” Sitting in the kitchen in her pretty, flowered apron, Alice shelled peas into a colander.

Hilary shucked a pod and found a fat maggot inside.
“You didn’t tell me he was going away,” she accused. “I don’t see why I couldn’t have gone too.”

“Because you couldn’t,” snapped Alice. Her head was splitting and she felt ill-used. She had been unprepared for Hilary’s
abrupt return: she had expected Charles to keep her with him for the rest of the morning. How like him, she thought with mounting
bitterness, to dodge his responsibilities in this fashion. None of her plans ever turned out as she intended them to do—on
this occasion, even Peregrine had been difficult. He had shown no pleasure at the prospect of his holiday. He had even wept
on hearing that Hilary was not to accompany him and, sitting tear-stained beside Janet in the taxi that was to take him to
the station, he had threatened to be sick in the train and had refused to kiss his mother.

“You wanted to get me out of the way,” screamed Hilary suddenly and flew into a rage. She cast herself on to the floor, drumming
her heels and grinding her teeth. Her eyes, screwed into slits, spurted water.

“Ah,” said Alice, “I thought that was the matter with you.”

“Of course,” said Charles aloud, “that’s what’s the matter with me.”

He set down his glass with extreme care. Watching his reflection in the lighted mirror behind the gin and whisky bottles,
he saw that his neighbour at the shining bar was regarding him suspiciously.

Turning on his stool, Charles smiled at him gravely. “Do you know,” he confided, “that was my first whisky?” His skin was
pearly pink, his eyes very blue and bright. “In five years,” he ended, and slid gracefully off his stool.

The sea front was empty and shone with rain. Water streamed in the gutters and enclosed the houses like a curtain.
Women in summer dresses crowded into Woolworth’s for shelter and trod between the counters with unregarding eyes. Beneath
a driving sky, the tide ebbed across the stinking mud.

Charles leaned on the rail and gazed at the deserted beach. Rain sluiced down his neck and polished his hair like silk.

“Left behind by the tide,” he said, “that’s what’s wrong.” Nodding his head, he was filled with a great solemnity. Then, mocking
himself, he smiled. He had amounted to nothing but what, in the end, did it matter? He lifted his head and walked along the
front, ignoring the rain. He reached the steps that led from the promenade to the main street and ran up them like a boy.

He found himself opposite the police station. The blue lamp, the square, red-brick, white-painted frontage, cleared his mind.
He remembered what he had been going to do when guilt and indecision had driven him, for the first time for years, into a
public house. He remembered, quite clearly now what had happened in the field: the painted caravans, the cripple and his own
daughter, in a yellow dress, throwing a stone at a murderer. He did not doubt, now, that this had been the case. It seemed
to him incredible that he should ever have thought she was lying. With a deep and growing shame, he saw his criminal failure
as a father and a citizen.

He stepped off the gleaming pavement and a bright pain seized him. It travelled along his left arm and pointed a dagger at
his heart. He stood rigid, one arm raised as if to ward off an enemy. Slowly, the pain receded and left him weak and afraid.
Colder than the rain, he felt the sweat on his forehead. Cautiously he moved his limbs and felt nothing except a slight stiffness
in one arm. He sighed on a long, trembling breath. Through the fear
that clouded his mind, one thought stayed constant: he must get to Hilary. His daughter was more important than the murderer:
the police would get
him,
poor devil, soon enough. Hilary was his business. He had let her down badly, he must put this right between them. If he failed
in everything else, he must not fail in this. He turned his back on the police station and began to walk carefully down the
long, wet street.

“I want Daddy,” said Hilary perversely. She had cried out the storm, her eyes peered out of swollen sacks of flesh. She scowled
heavily at her mother who waited, anxious to be kind, beside her.

“Darling.” Alice stretched out a loving hand and Hilary closed her lips and turned away. The rebuff was intentional and Alice
knew it. She stood up and went to the door.

“Wait then,” she said. “He’ll be home soon.” She hesitated and added, in a colder tone, “And change your dress. It’ll be fit
for nothing, lying on the floor.”

Her eyes shut, Hilary heard the door close. She lay still, tears of real sorrow squeezing between her puffy lids. Then, getting
to her feet, she took a handful of peas from the colander on the table and chewed them absently. They tasted mealy: the season
was over. The kitchen was empty and silent except for a dripping tap. She felt her body surrounding her like an unfamiliar
envelope. Looking down, she saw her two feet in grubby, white socks and patent shoes. This is me, she thought, my two feet,
my two, silly, fat hands. Lonely, suddenly, she began to cry a little and opened the kitchen door. Climbing the stairs, the
house seemed empty: she held her breath. Creeping across the landing she saw, through the half-open bedroom door, her mother’s
motionless back. Alice stood before
her dressing-table, hands resting on the polished wood, bright head sunk forward between hunched shoulders.
She
is crying, thought Hilary, surprised, and a lump rose in her own throat. She longed for her mother to turn and see her: her
pride forbade her to make the first move. Suffering and alone, she passed into the nursery where she dragged off her party
dress and flung it in a yellow heap on a chair. Peregrine’s white bed, already stripped, the folded blankets lumpy beneath
the counterpane, mocked her from its corner. She commented in a low voice on the other signs of his absence. “His dressing-gown,
gone from the door, gone his red slippers with the rabbit’s head, gone his Meccano box.”

She refused to cry, instead she admired her stoic face in the mirror with the painted, wooden frame. Ah, she was brave! Surrounded
on all sides by savage tribes, outnumbered, she faced death heroically. “Too late the Phalarope,” she murmured. This was a
phrase she had heard her mother use at a tea party and it had remained with her ever since. The words seemed to Hilary mysterious
and noble, in times of crisis, they comforted her soul.