The Wine-Dark Sea (20 page)

By the end of it, and indeed long before that, Millie knew perfectly well that Phineas should have produced the whisky, but that, thanks to Phineas, there was no whisky in the house. Most assuredly she could not be absent long enough to make tea, even supposing the officer to be interested in tea at that hour.

‘If the accused really are what the law calls minors,’ said the officer, ‘then a parent will be required to attend the Court.’

‘Of course my husband will attend the Court,’ said Millie.

‘Perhaps you too, madam? A mother can often influence the Justices more than a father.’

Millie smiled. ‘I shall remember that, officer.’

‘Not that a case of this kind is likely to remain with Petty Sessions for long. It will be simply a matter of a quick committal, as far as I can see.’

‘I’m sure you are once more greatly exaggerating, officer,’ said Phineas, smiling in his turn.

‘You’ll be there to hear for yourself, sir,’ replied the
officer
, entirely reasonable.

When he had gone, Millie found it almost impossible even to speak to Phineas.

‘I’m not sharing a room with you,’ she managed to say.

‘Please yourself,’ said Phineas. ‘After today’s news, I’ve still a great deal to think about and plan, as anyone but you would see at once.’

*

Next morning, and really quite early next morning, the
childless
Hubert Ellsworth was the first with the local news; or with a bit of it.

In his old yachting jumper, with part of the club name still on it, and shapeless grey bags splashed with oil from his garden workshop, he stood there trying to arrange his
scattered
locks.

‘I thought I ought to tell you first, Phineas, as, after all, we are neighbours. I’ve heard that there are two sex maniacs on the loose. Apparently, the authorities feel we should warn one another to keep everything bolted and barred. What times we live in! Eh, Phineas?’

Millie, who had overheard this in her nightdress, could already see, from the bathroom window, Morwena Ellsworthy sealing every aperture with passe-partout, despite the season, and even pulling down blinds.

The next arrival was young Graham, the local weekly’s cub reporter, as people described him, and the only one who left the office very often. Girls tended to tell him that they liked the name Graham.

That time, Millie opened the door.

‘May I come in for a few moments, Mrs. Morke? It’s really rather important.’

Millie had never before spoken to him, though, like
everyone
else, she knew who he was. He was a nice young lad, everyone said. In any case, he was by now sufficiently
practised
in his profession never to take even the hint of a negation as an answer.

‘Well, what is it?’ asked Millie. ‘Do sit down.’

Phineas, having dealt with Hubert Ellsworthy, had gone back to bed. In the marital bedroom: Millie had spent the night on the lounge sofa-convertible which, at the time of hire-purchase, she had, consciously or subconsciously, made sure really was long enough and wide enough to live up to its brochure.

‘You’ve heard the news, Mrs. Morke?’

‘What news in particular?’

‘The police station in The Approach has been completely wrecked. I’ve never seen anything like it,’ said young Graham very seriously.

‘Well, what can I do? Would you like a cup of coffee?’

‘Not just at the moment, Mrs. Morke, though thanks all the same. The thing is that the Station Inspector tipped us the wink that your two boys were being held for all that damage last night. And now, presumably, they’ve made a getaway. Would you care to give me a statement?’

‘No,’ said Millie.

‘Are the boys here, Mrs. Morke? After all, it’s their home.’

‘I have nothing to say,’ said Millie, hoping she had the formula right.

‘Then, presumably, they
are
here? Don’t worry, I shan’t give them away. Nor do
you
have to give them away. You can just say whatever comes into your head. It doesn’t much matter what it is, really.’

Millie could see that he was only trying to be kind.

‘Nothing. So would you please go? I’m sorry to turn you out, but I’m sure you’ll understand.’

‘Rum tykes, aren’t they? Sorry, I suppose that’s not a very nice way of talking to their mother. My kid brother told me about the month or whatever it was they spent in the under-seven. They made a mark there all right, from what Matheson had to say. Marked everyone, in fact. Do please give me a statement of some kind, Mrs. Morke. Anything you like. Just anything.’

‘I’m sorry,’ said Millie. ‘I really am. I know you’re only doing your job.’

‘Well, I suppose there’s not much more I can do this time, but you’re famous now, Mrs. Morke, and there’ll be others coming fast in my footsteps. Not that I’ve missed a scoop. Not personally, that is. I don’t suggest that.’

‘I’m glad,’ said Millie, meeting his generosity at least
halfway
.

‘And I’m sorry you’re in trouble, Mrs. Morke. I really am. You’re still a very nice-looking girl. If I may put it that way.’

‘I don’t see why you shouldn’t,’ said Millie. ‘Well, that’s it, wouldn’t you say?’

*

Millie opened her handbag and carefully combed her hair. She went upstairs.

Phineas lay there, reading Minutes.

‘Phineas! I’m leaving you.’

‘Oh, please calm down, and let’s have breakfast.’

‘Get it yourself. I’m packing and going. I’ll collect the rest of my things as soon as I can. The things that are left. Before the boys smash them too.’

‘Millie!’ cried Phineas, while she bustled around with a quiet efficiency she had not known for years. ‘Millie, don’t you realise that this is the moment in all their lives when our sons are likely to need their mother most? Surely you must see that for yourself? The moment in their lives when
I
need you most too?’

‘I’ve done all I can,’ said Millie. ‘You’re full of educational theories. Now’s the time for you to give them a real trial. You. Not me.’

‘At least come with me to the Court? Let’s have breakfast quietly and consider what line to take. I’m sure the whole thing is quite grossly exaggerated. The police do that, you know. I keep saying so.’

‘It would be quite difficult to exaggerate in any way about the boys.’

‘But you’re their mother, Millie!’

‘Perhaps that’s how I know. You learn nothing.’

Replete and bursting though it was, she shut her suitcase with new strength. It still bore her maiden name:
MELANIE
PIGOTT
. Why should she not return to that? When in due course she had left Uncle Stephen’s abode and started a life of her own? The green suitcase had been a joint present from her parents on her twenty-first birthday. At the time, she had wondered how long the family name would still be hers; but now it might be hers once more, and for a very indefinite period. When empty, the suitcase was delightfully weightless; when full, delightfully substantial.

‘I’m not going to bother with goodbye,’ said Millie.

Phineas clutched at her physically. His overlong arm was as the tentacle of an undernourished octopus.

‘Millie, do at least try to be sensible. Just get breakfast, and we’ll talk it all over as much as you like.’

She threw his elongated hand back on the bedspread.

As she bore her packed suitcase briskly up The Drive, she reflected that two days ago she could hardly have lifted the thing from the bedroom floor.

She wondered how long it would be before the inevitable reaction and collapse.

*

Uncle Stephen saw to it that Millie wanted for nothing.

Every morning he brought her the loveliest, most fragrant breakfast in bed. Every evening he lingered in her room, tucking her in, adjusting the ventilation and positioning of the curtains, putting away any clothes she had left about, gossiping about the small events of the day, taking away her shoes in order to give them a rub.

He prepared most of the other meals too. As he pointed out, he would have had to feed himself in any case, and having to feed her too made the whole thing into a work of joy. He had many outside engagements: bridge, bowls, the rifle and revolver ranges, the committee of the small amateur soccer club, the British Legion, the Skeleton A.R.P., the
Patriotic
Alliance (which was often in a state of inner schism, and therefore particularly demanding); but Millie could never for one moment doubt that she constituted the primary demand both upon his heart and even upon his time. The undiagnosed trouble inside Millie had ceased even to demand diagnosis.

‘You do spoil me, Uncle Stephen. It’s lovely.’ She lay on the settee in lounging pyjamas and matching surtout (as the manufacturers termed it). She had never been able to bother with garments of that kind before, but now Uncle Stephen had bought them for her at Katja’s in the new Vanity Market, and she had helped to choose them too. She had rather looked down on such shops and on such clothes, but that had been ignorance and the wrong kind of sophistication. It was almost impossible to believe that Phineas lived only eleven and a half miles away as the crow flew, if any crow should be so misdirected.

‘I like being spoilt, Uncle Stephen,’ said Millie.

‘I love to do it, girl. You’re all I have, you know that, and always have been.’

That must have been what Phineas would have called an exaggeration, but it was true that Uncle Stephen, so far as was known, had at all times ‘looked after himself’. Now he had a thick mop of silky white hair, like a wise old lion, and the same green eyes as his sister, Millie’s mother, and as Millie herself.

‘All the same, I can’t stay for ever,’ said Millie coyly.

‘Why on earth not? First,
I’ll
look after
you
,
and do it with love in my heart. Then, when I’m past it,
you’ll
look after
me
–
well, some of the time. In the end, I’ll leave you all I’ve got. I’ve no one else. Remember that. It’s not much. But it will be enough.’

‘I’ll remember, Uncle Stephen, and thank you. All the same, a woman nowadays is expected to lead a life of her own. I was all set to do it.’

‘You’ve tried that sort of thing once, girl, and you’ve seen what happened.’ Uncle Stephen’s eye wandered away from her, which was unusual. ‘I wish I could put a hand to one of the rattans I used to have.’

‘What are they, Uncle Stephen?’ asked Millie, though really she knew fairly well.

‘Disciplinary instruments, my love. Disciplinary
instruments
. Never had one out of my right hand during all the years I was in the Archipelago.’

‘I wonder if anything’s happened by now?’ Millie spoke a little drowsily. The wine at dinner had been South African, and she had fallen badly out of practice.

‘You let sleeping dogs lie. Never trouble trouble until trouble troubles you.’

She smiled at him. It would be absurd to argue about anything.

‘Carry me to bed, Uncle Stephen.’

*

She dreamt that she and Thelma Modelle were climbing
Everest
together. They were both garbed in the latest chic,
waterproof
, windproof, coldproof clothing, and carried little axes, silvery in the sun. Thelma, the gypsy, was deputising as a Sherpa. It was all exceedingly enjoyable, and not at all too steep for Millie’s new energies. The summit lay straight ahead. They might have tea when they arrived there; or Thelma might have to have ideas of her own about a suitable gypsy celebration.

*

How many months later was it when Millie opened the
Daily
Telegraph
and saw the familiar headline:
LIBERAL LOSES
DEPOSIT
? Apparently the sitting member for North Zero had fallen over a cliff, or at least been discovered by children dashed to pieces on the rocks below. The coroner had returned an open verdict, and a by-election had followed. Previously Millie’s eyes must have glided over these events.

Uncle Stephen brought her the
Daily
Telegraph
or the
Sunday
Telegraph
with her early-morning tea; and
The
Imperial
ist
every time there was a new issue. That day, when a little later he came up with her breakfast, two small,
heavenly-smelling
kippers and the perfect toast upon which she could always rely, she was pensive.

‘Uncle Stephen, tell me. Did they ever catch those boys? I suspect you know all the time.’

‘I know nothing that you don’t know, little girl.’

She eyed him. ‘What exactly does that mean? Do you know the answer to the question I asked?’ She spoke quite roguishly.

‘I do not. I know what my answer would be if I only had the chance. Now eat your scrap of porridge, or it’ll go cold. I’ll sugar it for you.’

Millie dragged herself upwards. She really preferred to eat in a sprawling position, but Uncle Stephen liked to see more of her.

‘Tell me, Uncle Stephen, have there been any more
happenings
? Like the one on the night before I left. I simply don’t read the reports of things like that.’

‘That’s the self-protective instinct, my little love, and you could do with more of it, not less.’

‘But have there, Uncle Stephen? I’d rather like to know.’

‘Nothing that anyone could get a grip on. Or nothing that’s come my way. I don’t spend all day reading the
newspapers
. It can get hold of you as poisonously as the television, if you once let it.’

‘You’re hiding something, Uncle Stephen.’

‘That I am not. There are these violences all over the world every minute of the day. Everyone’s a villain without proper discipline. I haven’t noticed the names of your two lads in particular.’

‘And you haven’t heard anything locally either?’

‘Not a word. I’d be out in no time if I had, after what’s been done.’

The last words very nearly convinced Millie.

‘Let me pour your chocolate,’ said Uncle Stephen.