The Pyramid (6 page)

“How much milk today Madam? Thank you Madam, yes Madam, no Madam, thank you Madam, good day Madam—”

I stuck my tongue out at myself.

“Meeeeeh—”

There was no doubt about it. I should simply have to be subtle, devious, diplomatic—in a word, clever. Otherwise the only way I was going to
have
a girl was by using a club. Evie was girl, much girl. I remembered the violence with which she had shoved me down the bank, remembered the ease with which she had put away my tentative pawings—the gentle, pleading way she had put my hands aside. I doubted to myself whether I should really get very far with a club either. Yet the evidence of the trousers sunk without trace was indisputable.

Evie was accessible.

“Meeeeeh—!”

She passed along the south side of the Square without looking across at our house this time and experience had taught me to wait for a while. She was already sitting on the coping stone of the bridge therefore when I came up with her. I was doubtful about any course of action, had evolved no brilliant stratagem. I had thought of professing an interest in bird watching in the hope that she would agree to come with me and stalk the lesser redshanked strike or whatever it was. But in fact I could not tell a barn owl from a skylark and knew myself to be entirely ignorant of the patter. As for looking for wild flowers or searching out the lines of ancient fortifications, or digging for rare minerals—No. I could think of nothing. And anyway, all Evie had to do was to hang up her parent’s prohibitions like a sort of notice, and I was confined to the bridge, or the impossible route between it and Chandler’s Close. In the event, what I did was to make a little dancing step in front of her and stand, my walking stick held across my waist.

“Hullo Evie!”

Evie put her head on one side and smiled up at me.

“Took you a long time.”

“I was busy.”

“You!”

I resented the implication.

“I’m recovering. I worked very hard, you know.”

“Isn’t the piano work?”

“Course not.”

She said nothing, but continued to smile. I wondered vaguely what the piano was; but while I wondered, Evie began to hum. The notes drew and preoccupied me, as notes always did so that I searched my memory.

“Dowland!”

Evie laughed aloud, her face lovely and all alight. She began to sing.

“‘—and daily weep

and keep my sheep

that feed upon the down, upon the down, upon the down, upon the down!’”

“You’ve got a jolly good voice! You ought to—”

“Used to have singing lessons.”

“Miss Dawlish? Bounce?”

She nodded, laughing.

“Lah, lah, lah, lah, lah, lah, lah, lah!”

Then we were laughing together in the sodium light at the memory of our dreary teacher and her dull lessons.

“
Lah
,
lah, lah, lah, lah, lah, lah
laaaah
!”

“Why don’t you sing more often?”

“Not Dowland, someone else—see, Mr. Clever!”

“You should keep it up, Evie.”

“Would, if I had someone to play for me.”

“Haven’t you got a piano?”

She shook her head. I looked past it at the river but examined instead an instant picture of Chandler’s Close.
Sergeant
Babbacombe’s cottage faced Captain Wilmot’s across the entry—two cottages a distinct degree superior to the rest. Beyond them, the cottages got progressively smaller, meaner, dirtier and more decayed down to the ruined mill. Children tumbled and fought in the muddy road. The boys wore the uniform of a Poor Boy; father’s trousers cut down, his
cast-off
shirt protruding from the seat. Mostly they had bare feet. I realized suddenly that it was what the papers called a slum. If Sergeant Babbacombe hadn’t got a piano, certainly none of the others would have one.

“What about Captain Wilmot? He—”

She shook her head again.

“He’s got a gramophone and a wireless. Used to ask me in when I was a kid, to listen.”

“That was kind.”

“Glass of lemonade and a bun. All classical music. And he’s got a typewriter.”

We were silent for a while.

“So I don’t keep up my singing,” said Evie at last. “And what with learning to type—”

I understood. I nodded solemnly. It was a shame.

“You weren’t playing today, Olly, were you?”

I laughed and held up my bruised finger. She took it to examine the tip with her own white fingers; and the
performance
repeated itself as if we were something reproduced from a die or plate—the giggles and laughter, the change from pursued to pursuer, the lugging down into the darkness of the pier, the semisurrender face to face, denial, consent, denial, kiss and struggle, scent, three plums and a glimmering skin, vibration—

“Don’t you like me?”

“‘Course I do—no, Olly, you mustn’t—”

“Aw come on—”

“You mustn’t—it’s not nice!”

I knew and accepted that it wasn’t nice; knew too that as far as I was concerned, niceness wasn’t the point.

“Leave go, Olly—leave
go
!”

I was down the bank again. This time, one foot went in the river. I scrambled back up but Evie was staring into the sky.

“Listen!”

There was a faint droning among the stars. She skipped to the rise of the bridge and stood still. As if some exotic star had come adrift, a red light was moving under the shaft of the Great Wain.

“It’ll come right over head.”

“R.A.F.”

A green light appeared beside the red one.

“I wonder if it’s Bobby?”

“Him?”

Evie was still staring up, her mouth open, her head leaning further and further back. The plane became a dark shape between the lights.

“He said he’d fly here as soon as he could. Said he’d stunt over Stilbourne. Said if he could find a place to land he’d take me up—”

“I bet!”

“Oh look! It’s going to—No, it’s not.”

She turned on her heel as the plane passed us, and lowered her head gradually, until the shadow had sunk behind the trees of the wood.

“They wouldn’t let him yet. He’s only been there a week or so.”

She stamped her foot.

“Boys are
lucky
!”

“I shall learn to fly when I go to Oxford—probably. I’d thought of it.”

She turned back to me quickly.

“Oh I should like to fly more than anything! And I should like to dance—and sing, of course—and travel—I should like to do everything!”

I grinned at the idea of Evie doing everything; then stopped grinning as I remembered the trousers, and the one thing I wanted her to do—or let me do.

“Let’s get back down.”

Evie shook her head.

“I’m going home.”

She began again the sliding walk, back towards the arc of street lights. I followed, cursing the R.A.F. to myself, and its latest recruit in particular. As we passed each light in turn, I felt the spheres of influence thickening round me and slowed. Evie slowed too.

“Well—so long, Evie. Until tomorrow.”

Evie went on with a glint of smile over her shoulder. Looking back, she lifted her left hand by her shoulder and wiggled the fingers at me. With great care I examined the poster of Douglas Fairbanks that stood outside the cinema. When she had disappeared into the Square, I went home too, keeping to the other side of the Town Hall and not leaving its shadow until I was sure the Square was safe.

My mother was darning a pair of my pants when I got in. She flashed her spectacles at me as I sat down, then bent her greying head to the work again.

“I see young Bobby’s back.”

“Bobby Ewan?”

“Weekend.”

“Good God—He didn’t fly down, did he?”

My mother laughed and adjusted her spectacles with a glittering thimble.

“Of course not. Mrs. Ewan took the car into Barchester and met his train.”

My father knocked out his pipe in the grate.

“He’ll have travelled First Class. Have to. Officers do.”

“He’s not an officer yet, Father! A sort of cadet.”

“Oh. Well. I don’t know.”

I got up, seeing my mother glance at me then away again. I went straight off to the bathroom and examined my mouth, but there was no lipstick on it. I stood before the mirror, confirmed in my previous estimate of my face. It was not only unfragile. It was melancholy and bad-tempered. I wondered what a naked girl looked like exactly—what Evie looked like. I had no precise idea but thought it would look pretty good. I found myself wondering the same about Imogen Grantley; and caught myself up, appalled at having even inadvertently equated the two of them. I knew I had no business thinking these thoughts or wanting these things. I was only eighteen; cricket, football, music, walking, chemistry, were what I was for. Imogen would win the subtle, indescribable competition. I leant my forehead against the little mirror, shut my eyes and stayed like that for a long, long time. Not thinking. Feeling.

With the morning however, I plotted fiercely. I played with extravagant bravura, determining that somehow I would get Evie to a place where I might wreak my wicked will. I
understood
it to be wicked. Well, I was wicked. I swore a great oath of implacability and felt better. After tea I walked up to the woods and searched the nearer fringes for a place of dalliance and concealment. There were enough of them; and each raised my temperature a little higher until I was sweating and panting. I went back towards the road, to go down the hill and wait for her on the bridge; and heard a rocket coming up from it. The Duke of Wellington’s profile flashed by me. I had a glimpse of Evie sitting astride behind him, white embroidery shivering in the wind, eyeflash and the open mouth of delight. Then they were gone and the woods settled behind them.

After a while I walked down the hill, over the Old Bridge and up the High Street. I went indoors. My mother looked up from darning my father’s combinations.

“Back early then, Oliver?”

I nodded and sat down to the piano. After a while my mother went out very quietly, shutting the door behind her. I played to the empty room, the empty reception room, the empty Square and town. I bruised my finger again.

The next morning when I went into the bathroom I peered round the edge of the window to see Robert, for I intended to cut him as pointedly as I could if he should notice me; but he wasn’t there. The punchball was motionless as ever between its upper and lower attachment and the motor bike was on its stand in the corner. It was chalky all over, and even at that distance I could see the deep gouges in the metal. One of the handlebars was bent right back. I was excited
immediately
; and a little worried too—not for Robert but for myself. I did not like my pleasure in the sight of the wrecked bike. I even spoke aloud to force myself into the correct human position.

“Poor old Robert! I hope he’s not hurt—”

Then I remembered the fluttering white embroidery, the naked knee, and my thoughts and feelings became too
confused
for understanding. I shaved as quickly as I could, and hurried downstairs. Breakfast was waiting for me, though my father had already gone through into the dispensary. When she heard me, my mother came in to give me my breakfast.

“Seen Robert’s bike?”

My mother put down the hot plate and wiped her hands on a tea towel.

“Heard about it. I
knew
that would happen sooner or later. Young men—motor bikes ought to be banned from the road.”

“Is he hurt?”

“Of course he’s hurt! What d’you think?”

“Badly?”

“They don’t know yet. Took him to the hospital.”

I helped myself to HP sauce.

“Anybody else hurt?”

My mother was silent for a while. Her silences always made me uneasy. She could see through a brick wall, could my mother. Uneasily I remembered how dark it had been under the bridge—reassured myself. There was no reason why I should not have met Evie accidentally on top of it, and stopped to chat. After all, she worked practically in the same house.

“Anybody else hurt, Mother?”

“Motor bikes aren’t the only thing I’d ban!”

She gathered together the débris of my father’s breakfast.

“Nobody else was hurt—more’s the pity!”

I watched her under my eyebrows as she went back to the kitchen. Clearly my mother was having one of her moods. She did not have them often, but when she did, I found it necessary to stand from under. I should not get more accurate news from her today, no matter how diplomatically I probed for it. I could not question my father either; or rather, though I could question him, he would have forgotten the details already. That left Evie herself. So after breakfast I strolled through to the dispensary, where my father was working silently as usual. I heard the laborious clatter of a typewriter from the reception room. It was true then. She was all right. Not hurt enough to stay away—well enough to get there on time, too. All at once I was swept up on a wave of joy. What my swung fist had failed to do to Robert, he had done for himself, without any help from me.

“Can I give you a hand with anything, Father?”

My father swung his heavy head round. There was surprise behind his pebble glasses. He tugged his grey moustache once, shook his head briefly, then swung it back again. I had some kind of intuition that my mother’s mood had started very early. I went to our piano and tried to strike a mean between finger-soreness, irritating my mother, and reminding Evie that I was there. I wandered into the town; saw Mrs.
Babbacombe
pecking at Sergeant Babbacombe by the Town Hall, so loitered, until she had gone on. When I passed him in my turn, he looked from the mat he was brushing and nodded to me. There was no doubt about it. He had never done it before, but now he nodded to me. I gave a jerk of my head which might be taken either as recognition, or avoidance of a fly and walked on. I was so surprised that I stood for a long time before the window of the Antique Shoppe, examining the contents. I did not know what to think. I read such titles as were still legible among the tattered books, picked one out and examined it. I did not see it. I saw instead Sergeant Babbacombe’s extraordinary nod—as if I were a soldier too, or drinking companion. I put the book back in the tray, went past the Jolly Tea Rooms where six college wives were eating buns, drinking coffee and clacking, past Douglas Fairbanks outside what had been the Corn Exchange and stood, looking down the rest of the High Street at the Old Bridge. There was nothing to worry about. From the High Street, anyone—any pair—against the further pier would be completely hidden. I was safe.