The Little Girls (24 page)

“We are in the wrong,” said Clare, turning to Dinah.

“This is not what we said,” Sheikie drove in. “It is
not
what we said.”

“Not that it will be there.”

“How do you know?”

“How can it be there?”

It was there.

It was empty.

It had been found.

The moment when the pick, through the loosened earth, struck upon the sounding lid of the coffer happened to be rendered apocalyptic: it was the moment when the lounge of Blue Grotto chose to blaze into light. An unbroken succession of door-windows floodlit the terrace they gave on. Non-indigenous maples flamed from the top down. Brittle Japanese foliage and laden berberis were stereo-scopically in Technicolor down to the last vein of a leaf and hue of a berry. As the garden descended, a statuette of Pan or some unknown faun, a white scrolled Regency garden seat, and a shell-shaped bird bath floated one after another on the illuminated darkness. Though that became less bright as it sifted down, the thicket was entered. One could see down into the bottom of the empty coffer.

Clare, kneeling, fingered round the edge of the raised lid till she detached a fragment of macerated red sealing wax. Dinah, putting down the pick, knocked against a tree which with a creak gave out an ancient shiver. But Sheila stared up the slope like a night animal hypnotized by oncoming headlights. “This is about to be the least of our troubles, let me tell you.”

True enough, in part of the window stood a man. Face to the sheet of glass,
he
was also staring. What he would chiefly be seeing would be the reflection of his lounge and himself. “He looks like a Yugoslav,” said Dinah. No longer content, apparently, with reflections, he slid aside his part of the window and came out. He crossed his terrace, came down his steps—on which he made one thick-set but rather histrionic pause, looking about—then came on steadily down his garden.

Clare pushed herself heavily up from her kneeling posture, saying: “Well …” Mrs. Artworth, in the almost contented tone of satisfied terror, said: “O My God in Heaven.”

“Make yourself into a yashmak, you silly fish!
”

Sheikie, with her wonderful reflexes, had chiffon above the bridge of her nose and had tightened it in a single flash. Her eyes, dark for the first time, looked out over the yashmak glazed by an Oriental passivity while Dinah walked out of the thicket to meet the man, saying: “Good evening.”

“Well, I don’t know so much about that,” he said.

“I’m afraid you will think us rather unconventional. We were looking for something we hid as children. We had no idea this was
your
garden.”

“That’s what it is,” he said, turning and taking a look up at it, giving himself top marks.

“How did you know we were down here?”

“Well,” he said.

“Our torches, I suppose?”

“You never know.”

“You didn’t know what you might have been walking into. There
are
only three of us.” She invited his attention into the thicket, in which her friends rather oddly stood like a non-matching pair of caryatids in transit. “That,” she said, indicating Sheila, “is a friend of mine from Somerset—I live in Somerset. Unfortunately she has toothache this evening. And that is Miss Jones, who works in London; she and I were at school together, down there—” She indicated the sea. “I really don’t think we have injured anything.”

“I see,” he said.

“Did you build that house?”

“Yes and no,” he said, extra cagily.

“It would be nice to signal from, if one wanted to.”

“I don’t know,” he said.

“We wondered who chose the name?”

“That was my wife. My former wife, I should say.”

“You don’t think your
wife
can have found our box?”

“Not that I know,” he said, with the greatest indifference.

“You don’t find the gales are bad for your rare plants?”

“Not that I’ve noticed.”

“Well,” she said, “we must be going, I’m afraid.” She went back into the thicket, picked up the pick, and handed it to Clare. He watched. “The ground here’s rather hard, 
don’t you find?” “No,” he said. She collected the spades, fork, trowels, then looked into the pit, saying to Sheila: “We might as well leave the coffer where it is, I think, don’t you?—Or would your father have objected?” Sheila chawed once or twice on the chiffon, but then thought it better to confine herself to an inclination of the head. Dinah told the man: “This is a coffer of the kind many people like to have in their hall. You might like to?”

“Not that I know,” he said.

“Come on,’ she said to the other two. In single file, as they had come down, they went level by level up the garden: he followed, keeping them under observation as far as the gate. They left. Sheikie, whose car was up at the top, said she thought she’d go on and get out the ice. “Number 11, remember, not Number 9!” were her parting words. Posted under the lantern at his gate, the man looked dully after the friend from Somerset.

“Careful!” Dinah said, stepping clear not for the first time of Clare, who was swinging the pick with too great emphasis, as they went downhill. Later: “There’s the car, still,” she said, in a tone of surprise. As they got into it, she remarked: “No wonder she left him.”

“I should have thought you’d have thought he had done her in.”

“Oh, no; too busy spying.”

Later: “You’re not driving very well, if I may say so,” Clare ventured, after minutes of it.

“I’m dying laughing.”

“I don’t hear you.”

“Oh, then perhaps I’m not.—Look, here’s the Grand coming: we’ll have to think. Do we—or don’t we, I hope not?—
not
know the way to Ravenswood Gardens? … You had better do the hitting-and-missing, if you don’t mind,” Dinah added, as she stopped in the car park and Clare got out, “and I’ll follow.”

The Mini turned in at Ravenswood Gardens, with the Hillman already some way behind. Ahead, opposite No. 11, a cream Triumph coupe had come to rest at the kerb. Clare pulled in behind that, looked back over her shoulder, switched off her engine—a minute later, some way back down the Gardens, the Hillman’s engine likewise ceased to be heard. There followed a dead, untwittering silence: birds were in bed. Sheila appeared in the door of No. 11, saying: “Well, come in,” less disparagingly than usual. Not unwilling, Clare bundled out of the Mini.

“But Where’s Dinah?”

“Somewhere there in the distance… . Wake up!” Clare shouted back at the Hillman. “We’ve got here. What are you doing?”

“What
is
she doing?” Sheila complained, from the top of the steps.

Clare shrugged. She briskly came up, explaining: “She’ll come when she fancies.”

“Oh. I want to shut the door.”

“Leave it on the latch?”

“What are you talking about?—
These
days?”

“Risk it.”

“I’m alone in the house.”

“Oho. No Trevor?”

“Over at Heme Bay.”

“Why, yes. How is, is, is—?”

“Irene? She’s no more. That’s why he’s over at Heme Bay: he’s her executor.”

“That’s too bad, Sheikie. Awfully sorry!”

“We all come to it sooner or later, don’t we? Not that I shan’t miss her—that I cannot pretend.” In the Nile-green hall the guest got out of her overcoat, which was spirited on to a hanger in a built-in closet. The other of the Beaker coffers had been polished up and was prominent. “On up,” directed the hostess, with a nod at the stairs.

No sooner was Clare into the large lounge than she hurled herself on to a striped settee placed diagonally to the electric log fire. She puffed and blew, as one is entitled to do after a strain—then turned to eye a nearby table on which magazines were set out in overlapping rows. Seizing upon a top one, she set about staring her way through it. Sheila asked: “Think she’s come over funny?”

First, the magazine-addict no more than granted. Then: “Why?” she finally said, without looking up.

“Search me! Because,
what
a laugh, after all!”

“Mmmm…”

“Well, what about it?”

“A drink? I should not object.”

Down there, the door-on-the-latch clicked shut. A step began to explore the carpeted stairs. Clare changed magazines, remarking: “Well, there she
is.”
Sheila turned, to issue directions. “On up!” she called.

The room, in shades of beige with touches of colour, was brilliantly though indirectly lit. The late-comer, having entered, headed with the aloofness of a somnambulist for a space in the middle: there, she stood gazing round. The sight of one object appeared to wake her. “Sheikie,” she cried, “what a beautiful scarlet telephone! That’s the one we had such a happy time on?”

Sheila, staring, said: “You’re as white as a sheet.”

“Well, the game’s up.”

“Look, I should perch myself somewhere, if I were you…We didn’t do too badly, all things considered.
You
lied like a trooper: I give you that!”

“I don’t mean—”

“Oh. Then what
do
you mean?”

Dinah blinked. She looked round the lounge again, for about a minute. Then: “What a nice big water colour
that
is of the Old High Street!”

“What, that? Yes, it was a wedding present.”

“From the Mayor?”

“No, he did us somewhat better. Still, that picture’s come to be of historic interest, as Trevor frequently says.”

“Why?”

“Why would you suppose? You can’t make an omelette without breaking eggs, can you?”

“I suppose not,” said Dinah, hand to her face.

“What remained was found to be unsafe. The street they’ve put there instead is quite picturesque-looking, however. Quite a hang-out for gift shops.—How’s business, Mumbo?”

“Comme ci, comme ça”
said the occupant of the settee.

The settee’s owner said, drily: “Comfortable, I hope?”

“Couldn’t be more so, thanks. This is very snug.”

The third of them, wheeling round, cried: “You are there, Mumbo?”

“So far as I know. Why?”

“So long as I know …”

“We all shall feel better shortly,” guaranteed the hostess, making for the cabinet in which bottles were kept. The cabinet, extending out into flaps at the front and sides, al
ready was hospitably open. “Scotch, for all?—or anyone not?”

No sooner had Dinah clutched at her filled glass than she said: “When I’ve drunk this, alas, I shall have to go.”

Sheila, pausing before the next stage of her ministrations, smoothed her
taupe
crepe dress over her hips. It fitted: she need have had no anxiety—and indeed probably had not. (
Had
this dress been present, under the mack, all the time during the exhumation?) The skirt gave a swirl as she half-turned, in order to say to Dinah, lightly: “What can you be talking about?” To which Clare, giving a plunge round on the highly sprung settee, added: “You may not know, but you’ve only just come.”

“Yes, but I have to get back.”

“Your home,” pointed out Sheila, “won’t run away,”

Dinah examined the speaker, before saying: “That’s what it
has
done, Sheikie.” She took a shaky gulp at her drink. She added: “Everything has.
Now it has, you see. Nothing’s real any more.”

Clare reached over the back of the settee, to receive her glass. She drank angrily and at a great rate, then said: “Nothing?”

“Nothing’s left, out of going on fifty years.”

“Nonsense!”

“This
has done it,” said Dinah. “Can’t you see what’s happened? This us three. This going back, I mean. This began as a game, 
began
as a game. Now—you see?—it’s got me!”

“A game’s a game,” Sheila averred, glancing down her nose.

“And now,” the unhealing Dinah went on, “the game’s collapsed. We saw there was nothing
there.
So, where am I now?”

“At Sheikie’s, one would have thought.”

“But
you’re
real, Mumbo.”

“Oh, good.”

“You were there before.”

“I still less see, Dinah,” admitted Sheila, “why you’re in such a fuss about getting home.”

“No, I have to get back! I have to get home—there are people there. I, I have a
great
many irons in the fire. A
great
many irons in the fire. Oh yes. And I’m looking after Frank’s dog.—Sheikie, I hope it didn’t bite you?”

“It had a good try.—Frank away for long?”

“I don’t know. And Francis is no help; he won’t go near it.—Mumbo, do please remember: you
are
reality. Now I’ll start, I think.”