The Chalk Giants (6 page)

I oiled her once. She was brown. Never saw a girl get so brown. Then when she stripped for the shower, the little white band across her behind . . .

I thought it was over for me. Dead. I wasn’t to know.

The afternoons were always the worst. When Richard had gone into Bournemouth. Or when he was down on the beach. Those beach scenes of his were starting to be something else...

He went up to London once. To set the big exhibition up. I could have gone with him. But I couldn’t leave, I couldn’t stand being that far from her. It had hit me, by then. Nothing like I’d ever known before.

There’s a spinney down the road. Half a mile on from the pub. I used to walk to it sometimes, sit where I could see the roofs over a swell of land and the tall chimneys, the stone slates orange-patched with lichen. I’d wonder what she was doing; if she was lying down, or changing, or stocking the bars maybe for the evening. Or if she wasn’t there at all, she’d gone into the village or across to Poole. It seemed I should be able to tell. I used to try to see through slates and walls, into her room; or send my thought out, over the grass in the sunlight. Sometimes I’d get drowsy. Then the guns would start, behind the hills, I’d wake and hear the insect noise, hum of cars maybe a long way off; and the big iron doors slamming in the sky. It was a total experience, something Nash might have understood. I think Richard was brought up on his painting . . .

Odd thing happened once. The Stan Potts man turned up, came and parked that great lorry of his just off the road, sat and looked back as well. He was there an hour or more; but he didn’t see me.

Wonder if he had a thing about her too? I wouldn’t be surprised. Queer man. Comes from the Midlands somewhere, I think. Never talked to him. Didn’t really feel much inclination. I don’t think I’d have got through. One thing I’m sure of, though. If ever there was an unhappy soul, it’s he. . .

I used to get dreams about her. Always the same sort of thing. I found her in a brook once. Just lying there, among the golden reeds. A bit like Ophelia. Her dress was open; her skin was still brown, her bra looked very white by contrast. Salt-white. No mark on her; and her eyes were closed, as if she was asleep. But I knew she was dead.

Another time it was worse. Much worse. She was lying in the road. Not much of her left; but you could see she’d been wearing that lovely cheeky shirt. A tuft of her hair was moving in the breeze; the rest of her was . . flattened, as if car after car had gone over her, like they go over cats. As if there’d been some terrible panic, and nobody had tried to stop.

Dreams? They’re like prevision now...

That broke me up. I hadn’t been going to the pub that night. But I had to. To see that. . . I know it was silly. She was there of course, talking to Arthur and Teddy King. I sat a bit; then something she said, I don’t know what it was, but she was laughing, holding a glass. I wanted to tell her . . . what was coming, what was somehow going to happen if we didn’t all take special care. I couldn’t of course. Couldn’t speak. I went out to the loo instead, sat and bawled for about half an hour. I don’t think I’d ever felt so bad. Of course Martin Knowsit Jones had moved in by then, I was just cat-jealous...

She was worried, afterwards. Wanted to know what was wrong. I said it was nothing, I’d got an upset stomach. Which I suppose was true . . .

Started fantasizing, after that. Couldn’t help it. I pretended sometimes she was living with me at the bungalow. Others, we’d got ourselves a boat; narrow-boat it was once, I remember. I’d dress her, and undress her, any way I fancied; and we were together, always together, I had her for my own.

It wasn’t easy waking up to what would happen. In a way, she’d helped me through my thirties; but any day now she was going to be away and gone like all the rest, measuring curtains and having babies, and the old man down at the boozer; or sitting watching telly with her every night, the good and dutiful husband, that would have been worse. I thought it would almost have been better if - well, she could die like that, in the stream, like Ophelia. That’s what comes, when you love somebody that much.

I’ve heard it said we can’t love. Creatures like us. The people who say that are wrong.

I’d sit sometimes and read Shakespeare; or Homer, John Donne, anybody with a soul. Then I’d think, ‘They’re talking to me, down all the centuries.’ And I’d start to cry. Sometimes I’d go on all night. Hardly a fit occupation for a grown mother of none.

Strange how Potts turned up. The more I think about it... but it doesn’t matter. I think I’d have tried to do the same sort of thing anyway. Better than being shipped out to Poole. Easy too, when it came to it. All the confusion...

Somehow, it’s absurd but I feel sorriest for Ray. And the pub.

I wonder if ... but we shan’t ever know. Those shots ... They were shots, living down here you hear enough small-arms fire. And they were both of them out there, in the fog.

Queer, how she reacted. As if she knew.

At least I knew what she was going to do. That’s prevision, if you like. I don’t think she’d have taken anything with her. Not even a coat...

Strange, too, how we didn’t talk. Just walked like that, side by side in the fog.

Feeling bad now about Richard. Maybe . . . what I thought happened, didn’t. But it did, I don’t know why I’m so sure but I am. Martin Jones isn’t coming back. So Richard’s alone there, with that creepy man. But she didn’t know what she was doing. She was ... strange, I had to go with her. He’ll understand. . .

It wasn’t really all that far. She started crying once, after the flashes. Thank God we’d left the cliffs. I held her, till the noise stopped. I’d never held her before.

If I’d let her go, on her own. She might have gone mad...

At least you couldn’t miss this place. That black, littered beach; and the cliffs, bulging, lines of stone set in them like lines of teeth... I thought there might be people at the house. I thought we could get a night’s rest, something to eat.

It took us an hour to get in. Inside, it was strange; the mist pressing against the panes, and the odd light, and the furniture still and stark, reflecting in all the polished floors. If you called there were echoes, you heard them run through room after room; but nobody was there to answer.

We went up the big staircase, through the bedrooms. Then the attics. It’s weird, the great white house in the mist, all the things inside it and nobody to come, perhaps nobody to come, perhaps nobody will ever come again. So different from last time . . .

On a normal day, you could see across the bay. There’s a wood, on the high ground to the west; in one place somebody had felled the trees, made a sort of notch. You could see the sea through it, like a pale blue eye. They told me they used to put a lamp in the window, for the smugglers. But there’ll be no lamp tonight. . .

There’s food in the larder, tins and tins of it. And we found a woodpile in one of the outhouses, and some coal. There was a gun rack too, it took me another hour to find the cartridges. Maybe they weren’t supposed to keep them here.

Whatever happens, we’re all right. For a day or two at least I still can’t get round to feeling afraid...

I’m beginning to see now, she ran away from him. I don’t know why. Not yet.

I laid a fire in one of the bedrooms. Hung sheets round it to air. We’d found candles, I lit some for her. Then I got her to bed. She looked beat. I told her I’d stay down here for the night, in the kitchen. I’d got one of the shotguns, and a pocketful of cartridges. Felt very tough.

Well, wasn’t it the best thing to do? There could have been prowlers, anything, somebody had to watch. And I didn’t want to be close to her, I couldn’t afford to be close. I was trying to do the best I could.

I don’t know when the noise came. I was dozing. Don’t know what it was either. Something caused by... this afternoon.

I sat up. The fire was low. Pink light reflecting from the walls, and the big grey squares of the windows. I listened, and it came again. Soft and booming. Almost summery. Like those strange sounds you used to hear far off, on a warm, still day. Then there was another, closer; and another, they seemed in line. And then ... I don’t know what it was like. A monstrous horse galloping, straight for the house. The windows shook, the doors swung and rattled; then it was past, fading over the sea,. When it had gone I heard her scream.

I’d never heard anybody scream like that. For a moment I thought... you know, there was something. Something really there. I’d found a torch, I took the stairs three at a time. She ran into me on the landing.

She was ... well, in a state. She wouldn’t go back to the bedroom, not at first. I got her back eventually, I told her it was nothing, it couldn’t hurt her, it was gone. She’d had a dream I think. He was coming for her, out of the sea. So she knows he’s dead too. The candles had burned down; I lit some more, and built the fire. But she wouldn’t let me leave her again. I held her till she was quiet; and maybe it’s true that fear is communicable, for that was the first time I was really afraid. I’d shot the bolts on the door, I sat there staring with the gun across my lap. Don’t know what I was waiting for, what I expected to see; the handle turn, jump, something like that. Nothing happened of course; I broke the gun finally, set it to one side. I said - this is the silliest thing - ‘If he’s been killed once, he can be killed again.’

Then I looked round at her. She was watching me, in the flame light; and I think quite suddenly we both of us knew.

MARTINE

I don’t know why I went with him in the first place. Well, I suppose I do; but you don’t like admitting that sort of thing, even to yourself.

In a way I wish he’d never come. But then I wish so many things, I wish life could have gone on just like it was. I loved the pub, the hours were a bit long but there was always a laugh, always something going on. And Ray was good to us, good to all of us. I wonder where he is, I hope he didn’t...

Mustn’t think like that, mustn’t get scared again. I’m warm and safe, I’m all right, nothing’s going to happen tonight. Not now. The noise has gone, it was only a noise...

Keep wondering where they all are. Can’t help it. Don’t know what happened...

Remembering the good times. Crabbing at Chapman’s with old Teddy, used to have to get up about five. And the carnival, everybody did their own costumes, some of them were terrific ... And when they got the cricket team going, Ray knocked the ball right through Mrs. Dangerfield’s greenhouse roof...

Always liked Maggie. Don’t know what it was about her. Everybody liked her, Ray liked her a lot and he’d known her for years. Lot longer than me. And Richard, he was round her place nearly all the time. They weren’t lovers, she told me once. I remember I felt embarrassed somehow. Her just coming out with it like that.

Richard used to stay on sometimes, when we hadn’t been all that busy. I think he was a really good painter. Ray had bought one of his of the castle. We were going to have it in the Barn...

Something funny about him and Vicky. Never found out. I think they used to know each other before...

Don’t know how old Maggie is. In her thirties somewhere. I think she’s older than she looks, but she’s got a terrific figure. And she was sort of ... alive. Can’t explain it. I used to love to hear her play. Used to try and get Ray to put me in the back, he was always having me on about it. But the front bar got so crowded anyway, you never stopped running...

She’d got this sort of husky singing voice. And she was a terrific guitarist. She used to say though, listen to Segovia. She didn’t like what she played for the tourists all that much, it was only because it was good for trade. She said once she used to try and remember not to wash her feet.

Perhaps it’s over now. The. . . bombs. Please God make it be over. Perhaps we’ll all go back, they’ll just let us go back. I don’t care if the country gets ... taken over, or whatever. I never did . . .

I suppose it was really my fault. What happened. Well, part of it...

I always knew she liked me. Don’t know how I could tell. I used to know whether she was in the pub, I could always tell if she was there. Sometimes you could feel it more than others, a breeze, or a prickling. Used to wonder sometimes, if it was something she did herself. Like switching something on. Used to think perhaps I’d got a crush on her. That was silly though. I mean you don’t just go round getting crushes. Not after school anyway.

That day after the beach was worst. That was the day I wore the new bikini. Martin said the first Bikini started all the rest. I don’t know what he meant, something about a bomb . . .

I wanted to get a new swimsuit anyway. And it was in this lovely sort of off-brown. What there was of it. The girl said it was all right, they were all like that that year. I said well, if it was the only one in that colour...

Don’t want to lie. Not any more. I wanted her to see me, I wanted to ... show off, I suppose. It was like ... well, being admired.

Afterwards, when she came up, I wasn’t dressed. She was helping with the bar that night, Ray was in Bournemouth at the cricket and Penny wasn’t coming in till seven. I said to come in. I mean, it didn’t matter. Not with another woman. And I’d got this mother thing about her anyway, at the time.

I felt ... well, funny round the knees. She didn’t
do
anything, she was just sitting talking, smoking a cigarette. Then in the bar, she had to stoop past me to get a bottle, she put her hand on my hip. Just lightly, to steady herself. I thought I was going to pass out, I don’t know what was the matter with me. I wanted to ... I don’t know, do a striptease, something crazy, just have her look at me again.

She went off when Ray came in, she said she’d got somebody to see. I was miserable, afterwards. I wanted ... something, but there was nothing you could do. Just nothing. I thought, I don’t know, if she’d been a man ... But that was wrong too. I didn’t want her to be like anything else. Just what she was...

I never liked Martin all that much. He was too ... well he was a right smoothie, to start with. That accent; and he’d never been near a public school, he told me himself. I never knew where he got his money, he never used to do a stroke. But he used to reckon if you once started working that was the end, you’d work the rest of your life. He used to spend a lot of time in Bournemouth, he said if you hung round money long enough some of it would rub off. He’d been ... oh, a steward on a liner, thousands of things. I never could decide how much of it was true.