The Lost Life (4 page)

But as he does this, laughter erupts from Daniel, and Catherine’s palm slaps hard against his mouth, sealing it and silencing him, while signalling with her eyes that she would dearly love to kill him for this. And with her hand across his mouth, she turns back to the garden path to see if the laughter has intruded upon the solemnity of the scene and notes, straight away, that Miss Hale’s friend has swung round, his eyes like those of an eagle, staring right at them, and she is certain they are about to be discovered, and shame will follow when Miss Hale sees that the intrusion of sniggering laughter came from one of her girls, who was not worthy of the confidences entrusted in her, after all.

They remain silent and still, the eagle eyes of Miss Hale’s friend on their part of the garden, his hand still poised in mid-air, the unwanted tension that Daniel’s laughter brought to the moment still
there. But soon the eyes of Miss Hale’s friend return to her and smile, a smile that Catherine can see even from the distance of the bushes. As the tension breaks, his hand descends and he places the ring on her finger. He then produces a second ring from his coat pocket for her to place on his finger. She does this swiftly, and happiness is restored. With a deep sigh, Catherine drops her hand from Daniel’s mouth and turns to him, shaking her head, only to see that he is still grinning. But she also sees that his eyes have a slightly glazed look. And this is when she remembers the beers they drank with their sandwiches — how he had drunk all of his bottle, for the walk was thirsty work, and then half of hers (as he always does), and she wonders if this particular local brew is not stronger than they thought. Wonders if half of this is the beer laughing along with the prankster, and ponders the possibility of some little devil having been let loose in Daniel’s brain, intent on shaking things up.

Daniel knows who they are, this couple, because Catherine has told him all she knows. Catherine, actually, talks quite a lot about this Miss Hale. And she talks about her with great enthusiasm, as if she had not so much been admitted but introduced to
some secret society. Or is it just that she talks about her the way a middle-class heroine in a Jane Austen novel might talk about Lady So-and-So who has condescended to take her into her confidence? He can’t make up his mind, but he doesn’t like the sway that this Miss Hale has over
his
Catherine. And, of course, he knows all about Miss Hale’s special friend (their very language, the way they talk about each other, Miss Hale, her ‘special friend’ and so on, grates in itself, the way code — ‘some people’ and ‘certain types’ — in the mouths of town gossips does). He knows about this special friend. Who doesn’t?

Not having heard of her friend is a bit like not having heard of Westminster Abbey. And he’s got a face like the Abbey too, the way he looks down on you in those larger-than-life photographs on bookshop walls; his great nose, and great eyes. And they talk about him at Daniel’s college at the university as if he
were
Westminster Abbey. Mr Eliot says this, and Mr Eliot says that (mind you, Daniel counters them by saying that Marx says this and Marx says that). And this whole Mr Eliot talk, too, like it’s all some gentlemen’s club, a club for which they sign themselves up (don’t bother applying). No, Miss Hale’s special friend is nothing more than a
jumped-up snob who’s got a special way with mumbo-jumbo that everyone seems to swallow whole. But what Daniel really hates is that underneath all the mumbo-jumbo, what he is really saying is wouldn’t it be nice to get back to the middle ages? Wouldn’t it be nice to get back a bit of order in the crumbling world, eh? Yes, underneath all that fancy, dazzling mumbo-jumbo, this special friend of Miss Hale’s would dearly love to see the three-field system back, right out there, just beyond the rose garden, the empty pools and the estate grounds, out there in the fields they’ve just walked over, where Daniel’s stride had so resolutely proclaimed to all manner of animal and vegetable life that the world belongs to everybody. And a select few, like the stuffy few in the gentlemen’s club they call English Literature, watching over it all, making sure everything runs smoothly, and the muck stay in the fields where they belong, with the consolation of God just a little above their bowed heads at Evensong, or whenever it is that the muck bow their heads in thanks for all they’ve received. Yes, underneath all the fancy mumbo-jumbo, that’s what Miss Hale’s friend (and all their other like-minded friends) gets teary-eyed about having lost. And he
smiles at this, tossed between the impulse to laugh again and the impulse to put a bomb underneath the whole shooting match.

But his smile fades in the face of Catherine’s anger, his jaw still feeling the impact of her hand as she slapped it against his laughing mouth and silenced him. Giving him the once-over (and there’s no mistaking what the look means), she returns her gaze to the scene in the rose garden in time to see Miss Hale and her special friend slowly moving back up the path through which they entered the garden, holding hands, happiness theirs. Then, halfway down the path, they stop and kneel by a bed of white roses, and it is then that he removes his cap and places it on the lawn beside the hedge and takes the small tobacco tin from his pocket, for she can see it clearly now (can even recognise, from the colouring and lettering, the brand of pipe tobacco it once contained). He removes it slowly, with a deliberation that suggests they had agreed on this before coming here, and takes the flower from his lapel, she from her dress, and together they place the roses in the tobacco tin. He then, with obvious reluctance, takes the ring from his finger and places it in the tin with the roses. Finally, he
takes a small piece of folded paper and places that in the tin along with the other things. Then he snaps it shut, rises quickly, and returns with a small branch fallen on the ground nearby, and digs a hole in the rose bed, just deep enough and wide enough to take the small tobacco tin. He lowers the tin while Miss Hale watches and covers it in earth, smoothing the surface. As he does, they both suddenly look up, back towards the house (as do Catherine and Daniel) as a motor car, with loud disrespectful urgency, enters along the gravel driveway, and the sound of a motor car’s doors, opening then slamming, disturbs the stillness of the day. Together they quickly level the soil so that it gives the appearance of never having been turned, then, mindful of the driveway and the possibility of prying eyes, they leave, almost hastily, pausing for a brief, reflective moment under the arch, then disappearing back along the aisle. His cap remains by the flower bed where the tin is buried, the soil by the hedge having clearly been recently dug up, despite their best efforts to hide this.

The garden belongs to Catherine and Daniel again, but it is not the same garden. And there is this motor car in the driveway. But whose? Should they stay where they are and wait? Part of Catherine would still dearly love to strangle Daniel, for his eyes still retain the disturbing look of someone with the devil let loose inside him. Be it the beer or the prankster, his capacity for the odd, crazy act is well known throughout the town. Nothing serious, nothing even wayward, just a tendency for a bit of skylarking. He’s got ‘go’, they’ll tell you in the town, this Daniel, then nod, puzzled, as if not sure just where his ‘go’ will take him.

And it is while Catherine is considering this and gauging the intensity of the devil in him that he suddenly kisses her, a big kiss, smack on the lips (for, despite everything, he is head over heels in love with Catherine, and she knows it), and in the manner of a mission, undertaken on her behalf, he bursts from the bushes and out into the open, now deserted, rose garden. Catherine, still crouching, half a smile on her face from the kiss, watches him, fascinated, wondering what on earth he might be up to. It’s for her; she knows this. He does things for her, unexpectedly. Should she say she loves the look of
someone’s peaches, ripening on a tree under the summer sun, he brings one to her. And he has throughout the summer. Peaches and plums. And when she says that’s theft — he’ll be arrested and transported — he tells her in the manner of the teacher he will more than likely become that the peach existed in what we call a state of nature, and by investing the peach with his labour, he made it his to do what he likes with, and he chooses to give it to her. The peach was, he’d say with a grin, up for grabs.

And so she watches him, fascinated as to what he will bring back for her (roses, pink and white, she imagines) that they will pin to their shirts or simply take home as something by which to remember the day. Half dreaming, she follows his swift strides across the lawn to the flower bed, the very bed Miss Hale and her friend have just paused alongside, to the exact spot they just knelt by, and it is then that the dreamy smile drops from her face and the wonder leaves her eyes, for she knows, without doubt, what he is about to do. She rises. Bursts forth from the bushes, calling out as she does.

‘No. Don’t!’

But he is too quick, too agile, and she is not even sure he heard anyway. Before she can even
leave the bushes behind, he plunges his hand into the soft, freshly disturbed soil, plucks the tin from the ground and holds it aloft as if it were a prize. His gift. But maybe something more than just his gift, for she knows what he thinks of Miss Hale, her special friend and everything they stand for, and she doesn’t dismiss the possibility that even though he’s holding it up as the prize he has won for her, this might also be Daniel’s way of shaking things up a bit and getting one up on the Miss Hales and their friends of this world. Something for Catherine, yes. But something for Daniel too. As she rushes towards him, his face alight with triumph, she is ready to brain him.

Yet, even as she acknowledges this impulse, almost as soon as she stops and stands in front of him, she finds herself (eyes darting from him to his prize and back) irresistibly peering into the tin as he opens it for her. And, in so doing, in surrendering to the impulse to peer into the tin, to spy upon its contents, to satisfy her curiosity, she also acknowledges that this weakness, this impulse to peer, makes her complicit. And even as she gazes upon the freshly cut roses, the gold ring that had so briefly been upon the finger of Miss Hale’s friend, and the folded piece of
paper that might contain anything, she is also acknowledging that she is as bad as him. That they are jackals together. As bad as each other. But, in spite of this, even as she gazes upon the prize, she lets him have it. ‘You idiot. You great, dumb village idiot!’

Sobered by her anger, and her censure, the devil bolts from his eyes. She takes one last look before telling him to close the tin. Then she attempts to collect herself. It is not, after all, a difficult situation, the calm Catherine inside her is saying. He has stolen the tin, but the garden is theirs, it is unoccupied, and they have, she reflects, all the time in the world to put the tin back in the ground where it belongs, cover it in soil, and smooth the surface for the second time, almost in as many minutes, in such a way as to suggest that the ground has not been disturbed and they are not jackals together after all.

But just as this consoling thought is passing through her mind, just as the calm Catherine inside is about to save the situation, she notices the tweed cap still sitting on the lawn beside the low hedge where it was left. And no sooner does she notice the cap than she hears their voices and the sound of their feet moving swiftly up the pathway, as yet still behind the arched wall, and she knows there will be
no time to put the thing back in the ground where it belongs. And, without even trying, she and Daniel rush back to the bushes from which they have only just emerged, and conceal themselves once more, Daniel still clutching the tin firmly in his hand.

As they crouch under the leaves, they hear laughter coming towards them, as Miss Hale and her friend re-enter the rose garden under the archway. Catherine notes, the motor car presumably still in the drive (although it may have quietly left while she was letting Daniel know what she thought of his little prank), that they re-enter the garden carefree, if a little wary, look about for human presence, and deciding that the coast is clear (that the motor car merely signified some casual visitor), stroll in. Catherine is breathing deeply from the exertion of quickly retreating to the bushes and the dread of knowing what Miss Hale and her friend are about to find. As they step onto the dappled shade of the lawn, Miss Hale points to the cap. She is still pointing to it, saying, lightly, something about age and forgetfulness, as she leads him towards the forgotten object. Then all laughter stops. They stand, scarcely believing the evidence of their own eyes. He drops her hand; she turns to him as if for an explanation, as if he might
know the secret cause of this travesty. For the soil has been brutally, hastily disturbed — almost as if by a dog or some wild creature from the district. A fox possibly. But in broad daylight? With people about? And as they stare at each other, silenced by what they see, the whole garden still and quiet, the silence is shattered by the loud urgent skidding of motor-car tyres in the gravel driveway at the front of the house. For two, possibly three seconds, Miss Hale, her friend, Catherine and Daniel — all four — listen with various mixtures of dread and alarm over their faces, as this motor car (which they cannot see) speeds from the driveway, stirring, they imagine, dust and stones into the air as it departs and fades into the distance of the estate’s front gate. Then the garden is still again. Possessing that glowing, mid-afternoon Arcadian stillness it had a mere fifteen or twenty minutes before when Miss Hale and her friend had stood, so serenely, at the top of the garden path and exchanged rings. To all appearances still the same garden, but now utterly transformed, violated. For violation is the word that comes to Catherine while she stares at the couple she had, not so long ago, urged on to happiness, as they, in turn, stand gaping at where their intimate, shared possessions had, they assumed, been safely committed
to earth, unable to fathom what manner of animal, or mad man or woman, could possibly have done this.