The Sandcastle (20 page)

‘I should hate to hurt him,’ she said.
They sat there avoiding each other’s eyes. The rain was battering the house on
all sides.
‘There’s no earthly reason,’ said Mor, ‘why you shouldn’t stay here. It’s
idiotic anyway to go out on a night like this. You can sleep in Felicity’s bed.
I’ll go and put some clean sheets on it now.’
She caught his coat as he got up to go. ‘Mor,’ she said, ‘you’re sure you don’t
mind my staying and not -’
Mor knelt down again beside her. I love you,‘ he said, ’will you get that into
your head, I love you.‘ He kissed her.
As Mor went upstairs he felt how strange and wonderful it was after all to be
keeping her in the house. He began to make up the bed. He wanted to sing.
Rain soon followed him up. ‘I shall go to bed soon,’ she said. ‘I’m terribly
tired.’
Mor felt exhausted too and knew that he would sleep well. He sat down for a
moment on the edge of the bed and drew her on to his knee. She curled up, her
arms about his neck.
‘Mor,’ said Rain, ‘one thing - are you absolutely certain that your wife won’t
come back in the night and find me here?’
‘It’s impossible, my darling,’ said Mor, ‘she’s in Dorset. Anyway, she wouldn’t
come back in the night. And I know she in Dorset.’
‘I feel frightened all the same,’ said Rain. ‘I think I should die if she came
back.’
‘She won’t come back - and you wouldn’t die if she did,’ said Mor. ‘But I tell
you what I’ll do. All the outer doors have bolts. I’ll bolt them all, including
the front hall door, and so no one could come in, even with a key. Then if my
wife should come we’d hear her ring, and you could go out of the back door
before I let her in. But these are just wild imaginings. No one will come.’
At last he left her to go to bed. He went downstairs and bolted all the doors.
When he came up again her light was out. He called good night softly, heard her
reply, and then went to his own bed. The rain was still falling steadily. The
thunder had passed over. Very soon he fell asleep.
Mor was awakened by a piercing and insistent sound. He sat up in bed and saw
that it was just daylight. A cold white light filled the room. It was still
raining. In an instant he remembered the events of last night. Rain was with
him in the house.
Then the sound came again. Mor’s blood froze. It was the front-door bell. It
rang a long peal and then was silent. Who could be ringing at this hour? He got
out of bed and stood there in his pyjamas, paralysed with alarm and indecision.
Then the bell rang again, and then again, two short insistent peals. It must be
Nan, he thought - no one else would ring like that, as if they had a right to
come in. Horror and fear shook him. He crossed the room in the pale light and
put on a dressing-gown and slippers. The bell rang again. Mor went out on to
the landing.
At the same moment the door of Felicity’s room opened and Rain came out. She
had already dressed herself. She must have heard the bell before he did. She
was carrying her stockings over her arm as she had done on the day of the Riley
disaster. He read upon her face the same frozen horror as he felt upon his own.
The bell began to ring again and went on ringing. The whole neighbourhood must
be being wakened by the sound. It rang out with violence in the dreary pallid
silence of the morning.
Mor took Rain’s arm. Neither of them dared to speak. He began to lead her down
the stairs. She was trembling so much that she could hardly walk. Mor was
trembling too in fits which shook his body from top to bottom. The bell was
still ringing. It stopped just as they reached the foot of the stairs. Here
they were only a few paces from the front door. Mor drew in his breath. Their
footsteps must be audible. He could hear the patter of the rain outside. He
hoped that it would drown the sound they were making.
He drew Rain, half supporting her, through the kitchen, and unbolted the
kitchen door. His shaking hands could scarcely control the bolt. The front-door
bell rang again. Mor threw the kitchen door open and pointed to the gate in the
fence beyond which was an alley which led away into the next road. For a moment
he put his arms about her shoulders, and then he turned back towards the front
door.
As he did so his heart sank utterly. He did not know what sort of demon of fury
and suspicion might now confront him. He felt as if Nan would launch herself
upon him like a tiger as soon as he let her in. Slowly he began to draw back
the bolt. Then he opened the door.
Mor stood petrified with amazement. A man was standing on the step with his
back to the door. Violently, amazement was followed by relief. The man turned
his head slightly, then turned right round and looked at Mor with equal surprise.
They stood for a moment staring at each other. Then Mor recognized the man. It
was the gipsy-looking woodcutter whom they had seen in the wood, playing with
the cards. A second later Mor realized the fantastic thing that had happened.
The gipsy had been sheltering from the rain under the porch, and without
noticing it he had been leaning his shoulder against the bell.
In a wild relief Mor put his hand to his face. At the same moment he felt anger
against the gipsy for having given them such a fright. He said, ‘You’ve wakened
the whole house up. You were leaning against the bell. Didn’t you hear it
ringing?’ The sound of his voice was strange, coming after the terror and the
silence.
The gipsy said nothing. He had not taken his eyes off Mor’s face. He turned and
went away without hurry down the path. The rain fell relentlessly upon his
black head.
Mor closed the door. He ran towards the kitchen. Heaven only knew how far Rain
might have got by this time. He ran out of the kitchen door and nearly fell over
her. She had been waiting just outside the door. He pulled her back into the
house and began embracing her like a mad thing.
‘Mor, Mor,’ said Rain, ‘what was it?’ Her face was still twisted with fear and
her hair was plastered to her head, blackened by the rain.
‘It’s mad, mad,’ said Mor. ‘We must be haunted. It was that gipsy. The one we
saw in the wood. He was sheltering at the door and leaning with his shoulder
against the bell.’ He began to laugh in a helpless desperate way, clutching her
to him.
‘Oh,’ said Rain, closing her eyes, ‘I was so frightened!’
‘So was I!’ said Mor. He was still laughing, almost hysterically, and holding
her.
‘Mor,’ said Rain, ‘did you give him any money?’
‘No,’ he said, ‘of course not! I was very cross with him.’
Rain released herself from him. ‘Please, please,’ she said, ‘you should have
given him money. If we had given him money the last time he wouldn’t have come
this time!’ She looked at him, her eyes still strained with terror.
Mor felt a chill at his back. ‘My dear one,’ he said, ‘if you wish it I’ll go
after him now and give him some money. He can’t have gone far.’ They looked at
each other.
‘Go, please,’ said Rain. ‘I know I’m stupid, but please go.’
Mor went into the hall and drew on a coat over his pyjamas and put on a pair of
shoes. He found some silver. He left the house at a run.
The sudden chill silence of the morning appalled him. The rain was falling
steadily from a white sky. It must be nearly six o‘clock. He looked both ways
along the road. There was no sign of the gipsy. He ran a little way and turned
into the lane that led towards the fields. His damp footsteps resounded
strangely. As he turned the corner he saw the man some thirty paces ahead. Mor
ran after him, and as he came up to him he touched him on the shoulder. The
gipsy stopped and turned to face him.
‘Excuse me,’ said Mor. He suddenly felt very apologetic to the man and a little
nervous. ‘I do hope you will accept this. I’m sorry I turned you away so
harshly.’ He held out the money.
The man looked at him silently. He was wearing an old mackintosh which reached
well below his knees. From out of the upturned collar his streaming head,
carved by the rain into something more unmistakably Oriental, was turned in
Mor’s direction. There was no comprehension in his face; but neither was there
questioning or any alarm. He looked at Mor as one might look at a momentary
obstruction. In that instant it occurred to Mor that the man might be deaf.
That would explain this strange stare and why he hadn’t heard the bell ringing.
When he had thought this he was certain that he was right, and with the thought
came a certain awe and distress.
The man turned away, ignoring Mor’s outstretched hand, and continued to walk at
the same steady pace towards the fields. His soaking mackintosh flapped at his
heels as he walked.
Mor stood still and watched him till he was out of sight. Then he began to walk
slowly back. He was very shaken, both by the ringing of the bell, the horror of
which was still with him, and by the gipsy’s silence. He decided that he would
not reveal what had happened. He walked back through the abominable rain and
stillness. The light was increasing, but always with the same dead pallor. The
rain fell steadily, steadily. But for his footsteps there was no other sound.
The sleeping houses lay about him. He turned into the garden and came through
the door to find Rain waiting in the hall.
‘Did you give it to him?’ she asked anxiously.
‘Yes,’ said Mor. ‘I did.’
‘What did he say?’ said Rain.
‘Oh, he mumbled some sort of thanks,’ said Mor, ‘and walked on.’
Rain sighed with relief and let him embrace her.
He took her into the drawing-room, pulled back the curtains, and poured out a
glass of brandy. ‘Dear child,’ he said, ‘you’ve had a terrible hour. I’m deeply
sorry. It was somehow my fault. Drink this.’
Rain sat on the sofa, holding the glass, while Mor sat on the floor and laid
his head upon her knees. They stayed in this way for a long time.
So that this was the spectacle which greeted the eyes of Nan when twenty
minutes later she came in through the drawing-room door. She had entered by the
front door, which Mor had left unbolted after his return. The patter of the
rain had prevented the lovers from hearing the sound of her approach. The first
they knew of her presence was when they looked up and saw her standing in the
doorway and looking at them.
Mor was the first to recover. He gently and quite slowly disengaged himself
from Rain and stood up. He was about to say something when Nan turned, and
rushing away across the hall ran out of the front door.
Mor was about to follow her when Rain said, ‘Do not go.’ She had risen too. Now
that the real horror had come she was much calmer. Her hand upon his arm was
chill but only slightly trembling.
‘I must go,’ said Mor. ‘You wait here for me. Do not go away. Wait here.’ He
spoke with authority.
Then for the second time that morning he ran out of the door in pursuit. He
looked up and down. There was no sign of Nan. He began to run towards the main
road, looking down all the side roads as he passed them. She was not to be
seen. The rain fell, blinding him, and making a grey curtain through which it
was impossible to see where Nan had gone. He came up to the main road. Already
a few cars were passing and a man on a bicycle was doggedly pedalling up the
hill. Mor looked and looked. He could not see Nan. He turned back into the maze
of suburban roads, and for a long time he ran to and fro searching for her. But
he did not find her. She had disappeared into the rain and the whiteness of the
morning.

Chapter
Twelve

NAN
had had her first shock of discovery when she overheard Felicity talking by
long-distance telephone with her brother. The villa which the Mors rented every
year near Swanage was equipped with two telephones, one in the drawing-room and
one in the main bedroom. Donald had rung up; and imagining that her mother, who
had not hastened to answer the call, was still out shopping, Felicity had
spoken frankly with him. Nan, who did not think that children should have
secrets from their parents, had lifted the receiver in the bedroom and was
disquieted indeed at what she heard.
Nothing emerged very clearly from the conversation, but enough emerged to make
Nan suspect that more must lie behind. She sat for some time in the bedroom,
thinking hard. Nan’s first emotion was extreme surprise. What followed it was
anger. This was mingled with what was almost a feeling of satisfaction at the
prospect of being able to find her husband so palpably in the wrong. After the
quarrel which preceded her departure Nan had had a small twinge of conscience.
She was quite sure that she was right to oppose Bill’s foolish and unsuitable
plan; but she felt that perhaps she had been unduly unpleasant in her manner of
doing so. The information which she had gained from Felicity, vague as it was,
was sufficient to dispel her sense of guilt, and also to put her in possession
of a weapon which it was certainly at this time convenient to have. Not that
Nan imagined that Bill would persist much longer with his Labour Party scheme.
She had never in the past, in any major issue, failed to persuade him
eventually to see things as she did. But deep in her heart she was pleased all
the same to have this unexpected access of strength, although the source of it
was so extremely disagreeable.
Very soon, however, the disagreeable aspect predominated. Nan found herself
exceedingly disturbed. She was deeply certain both of her husband’s correctness
and of his common sense, and it was a measure of this certainty that the matter
had appeared to her at first sight in terms of a momentary lapse on his part
which gave her, in her struggle with him, a momentary advantage. But now her
mind began to dwell on Miss Carter. Running over every meeting she had had with
the girl, she now saw her as the sly insinuating creature that she was. How
could she have thought her naive? Yet in a way she was naive. That sort of girl
was able to mature the most infamous plans behind a mask of naivety which
deceived even herself, living in an atmosphere of hypocrisy so total that she
was unable any more to distinguish the true from the false. Was it possible
that Bill really liked her? Presumably this soft cat-like nature must appeal to
some desire to be soothed and comforted which existed in all men, especially
middle-aged ones.
Nan had never reflected on this sort of matter before. She had never in her
life for a single second doubted of Bill’s absolute fidelity to her. She did
not propose to start doubting it now. Surely the children must have exaggerated
or misunderstood. At the very most, all that was involved was some moment of
infatuation, something which even by now was over, dissolved into the air.
There was almost certainly nothing to it.
Or was there? Nan continued to be extremely uneasy and restless. What ought she
to do? She thought of writing a letter to Miss Carter, and even began in her
mind to compose one whose venom amazed her. But that was foolish. She had no
vestige of evidence, and with that sort of girl one never knew, she might have
the insolence to invoke legal proceedings. Nan had extremely vague ideas about
libel and slander, and a corresponding nervousness at the idea of putting
anything down on paper. And in any case, as she kept telling herself, it was
all probably a misunderstanding, there was surely nothing to it.
She wandered about the house and got through the afternoon somehow. She managed
to conceal her distress from Felicity. By six o‘clock in the evening she had
reduced herself to a condition of mental turmoil such as she never remembered
having experienced before. She decided that the only thing to be done was to go
home at once, explain the whole thing to Bill, and get it definitely once and
for all cleared up. Then she would be able to enjoy her holiday in peace. She
was surprised at her inability to behave with normal calmness. She decided to
go on the following morning. Then she tried to settle down to a book. It was
impossible. She told a story to Felicity about having to go to London to see
someone who was ill; she packed a bag and boarded the night train.
What Nan beheld when she entered her house surprised her very much indeed. She
had arrived home at this hour, not with any intention of discovering a guilty
pair, but simply because of her own impatience and the working of the train
timetable. It had never occurred to Nan to imagine Bill capable of bringing the
girl into the house. In a second she saw that she had been wrong throughout.
Things had certainly gone very far. She turned and ran, partly as an effect of
sheer shock, and partly because she needed to think again before she confronted
her husband.
As she ran away through the rain she could hear his steps pursuing her in the
gloomy stillness of the early morning, and she ran down a side road and into an
alley that led to some garages. There she stood quite still for some time after
the sound of his footsteps had disappeared. She leaned back against the fence,
clutching her small handbag, her feet deep in a dump of weeds which was growing
out of the gravel. She stared fixedly at the side of the house opposite. The
curtains were drawn. The people in the houses all about were still sleeping. By
now the rain had soaked through the scarf which she was wearing about her head
and was beginning to trickle down her neck inside the collar of her raincoat.
As she stood there Nan felt, for the first time since she had found out that
something was wrong, overwhelmed with sheer misery. She had felt amazement,
fury, and extreme disquiet, she had even experienced a curious exhilaration,
something of the instinct of the hunter. But it had not occurred to her to feel
exactly unhappy. She had never in her life allowed Bill to cause her real
unhappiness. There had been, there could be, no occasion for this. In her
situation, that of a successfully married woman, unhappiness of that sort would
have been merely neurotic. Nan despised the neurotic. But now she felt real
grief- which her husband had caused. Gradually the conception that he was
interested in another woman began to reach not only her mind but her emotions.
As she stood there, her back against the fence, chilled and soaked by the rain,
she felt that she had suddenly been dragged into some awful nightmare: she had
been driven out of her own house. Her hand went to her mouth. She shook with
the grief and the horror of it. The hot tears warmed her cheek, mingling with
the rain.
After a while Nan began to walk along the road. She walked through the housing
estate and out at the other end, through the shopping centre. The shops were
not open yet, but the day was beginning. People were passing on their way to
work. The rain was abating a little. Nan went into a public lavatory and
adjusted her appearance as best she could. Then she went out and boarded a bus
that would take her to Marsington. She wanted to see Tim Burke.
Nan’s relations with Tim Burke were curious. She had known Tim for more than
ten years, ever since her husband, who was teaching at that time in a Grammar
School in south London, had first made his acquaintance through the Labour
Party. She had always liked him. He had, it seemed to her, a sort of absurd
grace and elegance of character which had occasionally, on particular evenings
which she still remembered, shown her husband to her by contrast as a rather
dour, rather dull and clumsy man. Nan had not, however, made much of these
thoughts, and would not even have kept them in her mind had it not been that,
at a certain moment, she noticed that Tim Burke’s attentions to her were becoming
very marked.
Tim had always treated her with a slightly ludicrous sort of gallantry which
Nan had put down to his racial origin, and which she had often laughed at with
Bill, but which had pleased her very much all the same. Her husband was never
gallant. But now she began to feel, with a mixture of distress and pleasure,
that it was possible that Tim Burke was the tiniest bit in love with her. She
had said nothing to Bill about it, had made no effort either to see or to avoid
Tim, but had watched him closely. One evening about nine o‘clock she had been
alone with him in the shop. Bill had gone down the street to make a phone call,
since Tim kept no telephone. Tim had been putting a necklace round Nan’s neck,
something which he often did when Bill was there. He was facing her and his
hands met behind her head to fasten the clasp. The clasp was fastened. But Tim
did not withdraw his hands. Then he kissed her on the lips.
Nan had been shocked and upset; yet in the very same instant she had been
delighted. She had pushed him away from her. Bill came back almost at once and
cut off any possible discussion between them of what had taken place. Nor did
either of them ever refer to it again. For some time after this Nan avoided
Tim, and saw him, if it were inevitable, only in the company of Bill. Tim
behaved in what seemed to Nan a very transparent manner, trying by his whole
bearing to indicate to her his regret for what had passed, combined with his
continued respect and affection. But Bill noticed nothing, and Nan said
nothing. That was four years ago. Gradually relations between them became more
natural, and Nan began to remember the incident not with any pain but with a
sort of sad gratification. She could not help hoping that Tim Burke remembered
it in this way too. It was packed away forever. But the distant thought of it
gave a special fragrance to the infrequent occasions on which, always in the
company of her husband, Nan permitted herself to see the Irishman.
As Nan sat on the bus, her tearful face turned towards the glass of the window,
she did not experience any doubts or hesitations concerning the propriety of
visiting Tim in this crisis. She was
in extremis
. She must have help.
She did not know what to do. The idea of confiding in one of her women friends,
such as Mrs Prewett, was inconceivable. Her need to see Tim, once the notion
had occurred to her, was extreme. She sat there and suffered — and more and
more the feeling that bit into her, appearing as a physical pang, was something
which she began to recognize as pure jealousy. She breathed in quickly through
her mouth and found that she had uttered an audible sob. She buried her mouth
in her handkerchief.
Nan got off the bus and hurried down the street towards Tim’s shop. She saw him
far off, outside on the pavement. He was taking down the wooden shutters,
although it was not yet nine o‘clock. Nan ran up to him, touched him on the
shoulder, and went at once into the shop. Tim followed her in. He had seen her
face. He shut the shop door and locked it. The room was darkened, as half the
shutters were still up.
‘What is it?’ said Tim Burke.
Nan said, ‘I’m sorry, Tim, to come like this. Something awful has happened.’
She kept her handkerchief pressed to her mouth.
‘Is Mor all right?’ he said. ‘Or is it the boy?’
‘No, not an accident,’ said Nan. ‘I’ve found out that Bill is having a love
affair with that girl Miss Carter. I came back and found them in our house
embracing at six o’clock in the morning!‘ Her voice trailed away into a wail,
and she sobbed without restraint into the handkerchief.
‘Oh God!’ said Tim. He led her back through the shop and into his workshop. The
rain had stopped, and the sun was shining into the tiny whitewashed yard where
the small sycamore tree was growing. Nan went through into the yard. Here they
were in private. The yard was not overlooked. She put her hand on the slim
trunk of the tree.
‘Let me take away your coat,’ said Tim; ‘it’s drenched you are.’
Nan gave up her coat and accepted a towel to rub her hair with. She sat down on
a little bench beside the tree, her back against the wet white wall. She felt
the dampness through her dress, but it didn’t matter now. The world had
exploded into a lot of little senseless pieces. Sensations of the body and
small pictures of her surroundings moved around by themselves, now blurred and
now extremely clear. She saw with immense clarity the leaves of the sycamore
tree, still drooping with water. She reached out and plucked one off. She had
almost forgotten Tim Burke by the time he came to sit beside her.
‘When did this happen,’ he said, ‘that you found the pair of them?’
‘What? Oh, this morning about six,’ said Nan. As she saw again in her mind the
scene with Bill sitting beside the girl on the floor, his head resting on her
knee, her tears were renewed, and she reached out and plucked another leaf from
the tree.
‘I tell you what,’ said Tim Burke, ‘I’ll give you a sup of whiskey, it’ll stave
off the shock from you.’ He came back with two glasses. Nan took hers
automatically and began to sip the golden stuff. At first she coughed, but then
she felt it warm and violent inside. She felt a little better.
Tim had swallowed his at a gulp. He sat down again. Someone was knocking at the
door of the shop. He paid no attention. Through her grief Nan became aware that
Tim was at a loss. He did not know what to do. Nan hated it when other people
did not know how to conduct themselves. She was used to taking control of
situations. She would have preferred not to have to control this one.
‘Did you know what was happening?’ said Nan, drying her eyes. The effort made
her feel better. ‘Did you ever see them together?’
No,‘ said Tim, ’I didn’t. I’m sorry. But you know it’s likely not anything
important at all. Whatever it is, it’ll soon be done. Don’t be too angry with
Mor.‘
‘Oh,
don’t
!’ said Nan. Somehow to talk of being or not being angry with
Bill had nothing to do with it. That was not what it was like.
‘What did you do?’ said Tim.