Quicksand (31 page)

 

 

"Right!" he said aloud. "The next person who looks at you on the street
is going to think, 'Wow!'"

 

 

"What?"

 

 

"Never mind."

 

 

There was one large department store in Blickham which stayed open on
Saturday afternoons for the convenience of office-workers and villagers
who could only spare the time to come into the town at the weekend.
In the women's department he confronted a stately assistant wearing a
tape-measure as a girdle to her black uniform dress.

 

 

"The young lady here has been in hospital for some time and her . . . ah
. . . her clothes are in storage," he lied cheerfully. "Can you fit her
out with something suitable?"

 

 

The assistant looked doubtful. "Only from the Junior Misses' range,"
she said. "Over there we have . . ."

 

 

Paul turned to follow her gesture. He spotted racks of parrot-brilliant
clothes in a corner of the department he had overlooked on entering.
Briskly he strode over to them.

 

 

-- Now let's see if any of the fashionable taste of Iris's London friends
has rubbed off on me. I might as well reap some profit from that bloody
woman.

 

 

His eye was caught by a display of printed cotton underwear in bold black
and white checks, lacy suspender-belts, and stockings in white lace, net,
floral designs.

 

 

-- They're wearing that kind of thing nowadays, aren't they? She'll look
about fourteen, but I probably look forty by now.

 

 

"A set of those," he said, pointing. "And . . . let's see. Blue? No.
Yellow, that would be splendid. Show us some yellow dresses. And a summer
coat. A nice leaf-green coat."

 

 

"Yes, sir," the assistant sighed docilely.

 

 

 

 

He lit a cigarette nervously while he waited for Urchin to return from
the fitting-room. The department had filled up with teenage girls on
a Saturday shopping spree. He was the only man in sight, and they all
kept staring at him, except a few who apparently regarded him as part of
the furniture and disconcertingly made no bones about peeling off their
clothes if the fitting-rooms were all engaged and trying new dresses on
within arm's reach of him. He tried to think of them as furniture too,
but an instinct which had lain dormant in his mind since Iris left was
rising up at the sight of so much smooth warm skin.

 

 

-- I wonder if Mirza knows any of them. Wouldn't be surprised. He must
have worked through a fair cross-section of the local inhabitants by now.

 

 

"Paul?"

 

 

If it hadn't been for her addressing him by name, he literally would not
have recognised her. She stood before him shyly, tiny and exquisite,
in a skimpy yellow frock over lacy white stockings and a pair of flat
tan sandals, eyes shining, hair -- grown out longer since her stay in
Chent -- combed into sleek wings either side of her face. At her side
the stately assistant was looking positively smug.

 

 

"I'm sorry to have kept you so long, sir, but it struck me the young
lady would need shoes, too, and I took the liberty of brushing out her
hair into a more stylish arrangement -- "

 

 

"Don't apologise," Paul said. "Just show me the bill."

 

 

The assistant, smirking, moved to the counter to add it up, and Urchin
gave up trying to resist the impulse and threw her arms around him.

 

 

Two girls at the far side of the room, probably sisters, stared at
them. Their expression said as clearly as words, "Sugar daddy!" And in
perfect synchronicity both faces turned to a look of unashamed envy.

 

 

 

 

They were just in time for the restaurant; the next action of the waiter
who admitted them was to turn around a sign on the door so that instead
of reading OPEN it read CLOSED. But the service was unaffected by their
being the last customers.

 

 

Inconspicuously, as he hoped, Paul checked the amount remaining in his
wallet as he read down the menu.

 

 

-- Considering the exiguous quantity of material that goes into them,
modern fashions are a bit pricy!

 

 

"Let me see?" Urchin murmured, holding out her hand.

 

 

"What? Oh, this?" He drew out the money. "Don't you have money in Llanraw?"

 

 

"Yes, but it's not used very much." She hesitated, eyes suddenly widening.
"Ought I to have said that? We aren't alone here."

 

 

She put her hand to her head, a little dizzy. "I have a feeling you said
I wasn't to talk about it."

 

 

Paul smiled reassuringly. "Away from the hospital it doesn't matter.
Besides, I mentioned it first."

 

 

Examining the bank-notes curiously, she nodded.

 

 

"Why isn't it used very much?"

 

 

"Oh -- because there is enough of everything for everybody. Enough food,
enough houses . . . You don't live at Chent, do you, Paul?"

 

 

"You know -- " She laughed lightly. "At first I thought everyone in this
world lived in big buildings like the hospital, and men and women were
forbidden to go together. I thought:
tjachariva
, do they not enjoy
each other?"

 

 

-- Not much. Except for lucky bastards like Mirza.

 

 

"What was that you said just now?"

 

 

"What? Oh!
Tjachariva
?" At the beginning was the sound he had tried
and found impossible to imitate; his lips and tongue refused to work
that way. "It means 'let it not happen,' I think you might say. We put
it before saying something we do not mean to take seriously."

 

 

-- Urchin in Chent for the rest of her days:
tjachariva!
An idea struck
him, and he tensed. "Waiter! Have you a phone I can use?"

 

 

-- If I don't come back with Urchin, they're liable to assume she attacked
me and escaped!

 

 

Ferdie Silva was on duty today. Paul spun him a glib yarn about hoping
to jog Urchin's memory with the sight of familiar things in the
neighbourhood. To the demand when they would be back, he returned a
non-committal answer.

 

 

"Paul," Urchin said when he rejoined her at the table, "will you show
me the place where you live?"

 

 

"If you like." He felt giddy, careless of consequences. "And a lot more
besides. I may not be able to offer you a balloon-ride, but you can
cover much more ground in a car."

 

 

 

 

-- They told me when I was little that children came from heaven. This
person is of another brighter world: not an angel, but at least a sprite,
an elf, daughter of Llanraw and not of common flesh.

 

 

Walking back to where they had left the car outside the hospital, Paul
kept his arm on Urchin's shoulder. She liked that, and every now and again
reached up to give his fingers a squeeze. As he had predicted, there was
nothing odd any longer about the glances she attracted from passers-by.

 

 

It was in this attitude, a few hundred yards before they reached the car,
that they came face to face with Mrs Weddenhall.

 

 

Time stopped.

 

 

When it moved on again, Paul heard himself saying with idiotic gravity,
"Good afternoon, madam. Have your hounds caught any good maniacs lately?"

 

 

She purpled, and when he began to laugh she snarled at him like one
of her own dogs. Urchin was bewildered, but seeing that he was amused
smiled likewise. Without a word Mrs Weddenhall marched on.

 

 

 

 

 

 

*36*

 

 

He kept laughing at the remembered spectacle of her discomfiture the
whole of the rest of the afternoon. Everything was so perfect! The only
flaw was a brief one; he forgot that Urchin's experience of travel was
confined to the police-car and the sedate progress of ambulances, and
when he let the little Spitfire race down the road at seventy with the
top open, she was so alarmed she clung to the underside of the dashboard.

 

 

Soon enough, however, she learned to enjoy it, and he took her on a
whirlwind tour of little charming villages he'd never seen since his
first trip to this district, when he had driven around musing about
Iris's reaction to the prospect of living in Yemble. He showed her the
brawling Teme, rough on its rocks at Ludlow, the stiff-backed hills,
the trees greener than her gay new coat in full summer rig, and once
when he had stopped and backed up so that she could admire a traditional
cottage garden, its roadside wall a riot of aubrietia, arabis, stonecrop
and rambler rose, she murmured, "I thought it was all ugly here, Paul --
all, all ugly!"

 

 

His eyes stung. For an instant he thought he was going to cry.

 

 

-- I must be sensible, though. I must bring her back responsibly at the
regular time for patients with same-day Saturday leave. But why didn't
I think of this before? Why didn't I remember that she must envy the
people with friends and relatives to call for them and take them out?

 

 

She ceased her contemplation of the garden and turned to him.

 

 

"Paul, do you live in a house like that one? You said you'd show me
where you live."

 

 

He consulted a mental map. "We can be there in ten minutes, if you like,"
he promised, and accelerated down the road.

 

 

She was charmed and overjoyed at sight of his home, and struck dumb by the
interior. She wandered about the living-room, touching the furniture as if
she didn't believe it could be solid, while he stood watching and unable
to keep a smug grin off his face. There was something so refreshing about
her reaction compared to Iris's. Innocent of prejudices about quaintness
and suitability to one's status, she could look at it with an unbiased
eye, and she approved.

 

 

He toured the whole house with her, having to explain as he went:
not the cookery utensils, but the electric stove; not the television,
but the telephone, which she had seen in the hospital but never been
allowed to use. He amused her by dialing for a time-check and letting
her listen to it.

 

 

Opening the refrigerator curiously, she inspected a head of lettuce,
tomatoes, eggs, butter, with interest, then came to a packet of sausages
and sniffed them suspiciously. She turned large eyes to him, and he
thought the look reproachful.

 

 

"I'm sorry," he said awkwardly. "We don't feel the same way about meat
as you do."

 

 

She shrugged and put them back. "We have an ancient saying? 'when you
go to Taophrah' -- that's a big city which once was the capital of what
you call Denmark -- 'you must wear the clothes other people wear.' And
eat their food too, I suppose."

 

 

Paul felt a stir of surprise. He said, "We talk about Rome that way.
'When in Rome, do as the Romans do.'"

 

 

Shutting the refrigerator, she spoke over her shoulder. "Is that strange?
We are, after all, also human."

 

 

She fingered the taps over the sink, and continued, still without looking
at him, "Shall we stay to eat supper here, or will you take me back to
Chent?"

 

 

"We can eat here if you like. I haven't got much food in the house,
but there should be enough for two."

 

 

"Do you live here all alone?"

 

 

Paul shifted uncomfortably from foot to foot. "I do now."

 

 

"Once you did not?"

 

 

"Yes, that's right."

 

 

She hoisted herself up on the edge of the table and let her legs swing,
admiring her smart new white stockings. "You were not happy," she
suggested after a while.

 

 

"I'm afraid we weren't."

 

 

"In this world, I think, people have children when they live together even
if they are not sure they are happy and will be good for parents. Have you
children, Paul?"

 

 

"No."

 

 

She gave him a dazzling smile. "Good! I was afraid . . . But it was
silly. I should have known better. You are too kind to make children
have unhappy parents."

 

 

-- If that were only the truth of the matter . . . !

 

 

But her mind had wandered to another subject. "Paul!"

 

 

"Yes?"

 

 

"Am I a prisoner in Chent? Can I go away one day?"

 

 

He hesitated. "It's hard to explain," he prevaricated. "You see -- "

 

 

"Oh, I'm not complaining!" she broke in. "I have been lucky to be
looked after when I was a stranger and could not speak English or do
anything. But I have tried to learn to talk your language and do the
things that people around me do, and . . ."

 

 

Paul took a deep breath. "Urchin, how do people think of telling lies
in Llanraw?"

 

 

"Lies." A twin furrow appeared either side of the bridge of her nose:
a sketch for a frown. "We like to say the truth, but sometimes it is
unkind. Then we make pretend."

 

 

-- As she said just now: we're all human.

 

 

"I'm worried," he said slowly. "In cur world we like to have tidy
explanations for everything. We like to be sure about people -- where they
come from, what they do for a living, what language they speak. You seem
to be more of a stranger than anybody else who's ever come here.
People are going to want to keep an eye on you."