South of the Lights Read online

  Evans left his place behind the willow tree. It was almost dark. He walked without caution back down the drive. His excitement had crystallised into an idea, an idea that needed much attention. He would slip upstairs, avoiding his parents, and go to his room. There he would think it all out, calmly as he was able, and make up his mind before the night was through.

  Gin, Lark always said, silvered the mind. By eleven at night both she and Brenda had achieved the silvery state they desired, and were happy. Lark was drying Brenda’s hair with a hand dryer, its engine buzzing like a swarm of summer flies. Mahler had been turned down to a background hum to make talking possible. There was brandy in their cocoa.

  ‘What’s the betting he comes up here wanting his oats?’ Lark asked.

  ‘Don’t think he will tonight. I said I wanted some sleep.’

  ‘D’you think he’s crying his heart out for you?’

  ‘Expect so.’

  ‘Perhaps you should try being nicer to him. Or he should try being nastier to you.’

  ‘Let him try.’ Brenda giggled. ‘I’d be off. I’d be all right, wouldn’t I?’

  ‘You’d be all right.’

  ‘Lark, how come you’re all right, without any men? Without anyone, really?’

  Lark pulled at a strand of coppery hair, tugging Brenda’s head back, and pushed the hot nozzle of the dryer into the gaping scalp. Brenda grimaced in silence.

  ‘Haven’t the time,’ said Lark.

  ‘Haven’t the time? You’ve got tons of time. You’re in this flat night after night painting your nails and listening to your music. Think of all the other things you could be doing.’

  ‘You’ve got to have your pride as a typist, even if it’s only keeping your nails nice.’

  ‘Haven’t time! You’re barmy, Lark. If you washed your own hair more often, and bought some decent clothes, you’d have them all after you.’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘Don’t be so daft: what for? For a bit of fun, of course. Better than sitting in your room humming to yourself.’

  ‘Singing. If I could find a choir near here I’d join it, then you wouldn’t worry so.’

  Brenda shrugged.

  ‘Oh, I don’t really worry. Don’t think that. Did you really want to be a singer, thrilling away on a platform all by yourself?’

  ‘All those bunches of flowers they throw up to you at the end. I could imagine it.’

  ‘Hey, don’t leave my hair.’

  ‘It’s finished.’

  ‘Why didn’t you go on with it?’

  ‘They said I wasn’t up to the training. My lungs.’

  Brenda stood up. She turned round to see Lark, holding the hair dryer away from her like a conductor’s baton. Her face seemed to have parted a little to match her hair.

  ‘Why don’t you try it?’ asked Brenda.

  ‘I tell you, I tried to persuade them to let me –’

  ‘I don’t mean singing.’

  A pink flush seeped up through the grey skin of Lark’s face. She snapped off the dryer. The Mahler was distinct.

  ‘Don’t go on, Bren. I tell you, I haven’t the time.’

  Through the silver of her mood Brenda recognised this to be one of Lark’s mysterious remarks, but with the gin spreading like mercury through her veins the effort to ask Lark what she meant eluded her.

  ‘Well, Evans isn’t coming,’ she said. ‘I was right. I’m going to bed.’

  ‘Sweet dreams and God bless.’

  ‘You’re not going through your whole blinking rosary tonight, are you?’

  ‘ ’Course I am. God forgive me for the gin, I’ll say.’

  ‘Crikey,’ said Brenda. She pulled at her cotton bedspread. Its patterns seemed to have run into one another with bright confusion.

  Rosie lay in bed looking at the dark shape of her husband’s shoulders beside her. He was deeply asleep, she could tell by the way he kept quite still. Under the sheets her hands were clasped in a large knot on her chest. She moved them gently, so as not to disturb Henry, and rubbed the tops of her arms. In their fine lawn mittens they felt wonderfully smooth. She had started wearing night mittens seventeen years ago when Henry had said her knuckles scratched his chest. After the announcement he had gone straight to sleep, easy as if it hadn’t been an accusation, as if he’d meant it as a friendly remark. Rosie had lain awake listening to rain against their window. It was a warm night but she felt cold. She wondered what to do, if there was a doctor she could consult about the terrible ailment of her hands. She would pay any money to improve them, but probably a doctor would merely laugh. By dawn she had had the idea about the mittens. The next day she had set about making them, and had worn them every night since. In seventeen years she had been through eleven pairs. After the first few nights of shyness – Henry had made no remarks – she had dared to stroke his shoulder with a covered finger. Then his back, his neck. But Henry remained silent. ‘Don’t they feel better, love?’ she had eventually asked. Henry stiffened – she could just feel the muscles trying to disguise their contraction, and did not answer. Nor did he turn over, pulling the bed-clothes from under the mattress, which always seemed to happen when he felt desirous. He went quickly to sleep. Since then, on special occasions, New Year’s Eve and birthdays, Rosie still stroked his shoulder blades tentatively with her muslin fingers, but he did not respond. She had given up, really. She realised that when that side of married life dies you cannot bring it back, and must make the best of other, more important things. Still, she had her regrets: one of the most profound was that she had ever started wearing the mittens. It had occurred to her some time ago that they were what had dampened Henry’s urges. They were the culprits. In trying to disguise the burden of her hands she had inadvertently emphasised them. And on nights like these Rosie was haunted with new resolve: when she dared, she would throw away the wretched things. There were still a few years left in which they would make up for lost opportunities, she and Henry. ‘Oh, there are, my love,’ she said to herself.

  Henry lay wide awake looking at the moon perched on the elms like an owl. The Leopard, as she had become in his mind, had not been in the pub. He had drunk three beers and two double whiskies, something he was quite unused to at night. Still, the alcohol had inspired him. On his walk home he had had a brainwave. Tomorrow he would go and see his old friend Mackay. Mackay ran a small market garden a mile out of the village. He was known for his prize vegetables, in particular his cauliflowers. Henry didn’t know why, but he had a strange strong feeling that the Leopard, sophisticated creature though she was, would appreciate good things straight from the earth. She was the kind of woman, he felt, who would go out of her way to attend a Harvest Festival Service. Now, if he could talk Mackay into it, he would persuade him to have one or two of his best cauliflowers constantly at the ready. He would have to be careful how he put this, of course, or Mackay, a sly old dog, would know something was up. But that was no real problem. The next part of the plan was less clear, he would have to work upon it. Roughly, it was this: the next time he saw the Leopard in the pub he would slip quickly out, muttering some excuse if anyone was interfering enough to draw attention to his departure. He would hurry along to Mackay – which would probably mean coming home to fetch the car, so an explanation to Rosie would have to be thought up – buy a couple of cauliflowers, and hurry back to the Star. There, he would hang about outside. He might even light his pipe, to look more casual. When the Leopard emerged he would wish her the time of day and fall into casual conversation, bringing the talk, of course, round to the magnificent cauliflower he was holding, which she would be bound to remark upon. Then he would say, ‘Well, a beautiful cauliflower for a beautiful lady,’ or something like that. The precise words he would think out more carefully tomorrow. He might even write them down, trying out different things. The main thing was to hand her the cauliflowers with a small, old-fashioned bow. It would be such a surprising gesture, so much more subtle than flowers, she could hardly refuse t
hem. After that, it would be easy enough to ask if she would care to have a drink with him one day, next time she was passing through the village. After that . . . well, anything could happen.

  The idea of playing with such fire burnt into Henry with a thrill that made him want to roar out loud like a forest animal, and clap his hands, and kick his feet in the air. As it was, he lay clenched into stillness, grateful for the self-control taught him by the Navy. Now all he had to get to grips with was patience. Patience, patience, Henry old fellow. The whisky was a sour pain in his chest. He would have liked to have moved his position. But it was never worth moving before Rosie was asleep. The smallest heave to greater comfort and she would start up with her confounded tickling. Henry shut his eyes.

  Augusta Browne clung to her house. It was inevitable that it should be sold, now Hugh had gone, but she was doing her best to delay the sale. She had had her latest success this morning. A furrier and his wife from Hampstead had arrived in their Rolls and Persian lamb collars. She had let them carry on with their insults for quite some time (strange how rude are prospective buyers in front of owners, as if selling was a complete protection from hurt), smiling at their suggestions. ‘We’d have to change the dining-room, of course,’ said the woman. ‘Terra cotta hurts my eyes. We could do it in a nice brocade paper and put beading on the shelves, like at home.’ The man ran a fat hand down the walls which had undulated gently for 300 years. ‘We’d have to smooth out these,’ he said. ‘It’s all very well emulsioning walls like this, but you’d never get a decent paper to stick.’

  Augusta waited until they reached her bedroom. The time had come for her triumph. The small couple stood at one of the soaring windows looking out at the lime-coloured lawn, the ponds, the vast elm, polluting the view with their gaze. The man screwed up his nasty eyes into the distance.

  ‘Are those the chimneys we saw from the motorway?’

  ‘Yes. The brickworks.’

  ‘Do they give you any trouble?’

  Augusta paused.

  ‘As a matter of fact they do.’ She watched the woman, sniffing, judge the Williamsburg cotton of the blind between her fingers. ‘When there’s an east wind the smell is pretty bad.’

  ‘What kind of smell?’ The man was almost prurient.

  ‘Rotten eggs. To be honest, it stinks.’

  The man pursed his bulbous lips.

  ‘Well, we’d be in Town a good deal, you see. I dare say the smell wouldn’t worry us too much, once or twice a year. We could be away those days.’

  ‘Well, on average, there’s an east wind at least three times a week,’ said Augusta.

  They didn’t bother to see the rest of the house after that, but hurried back to Hampstead muttering about a wasted journey. As soon as they had gone Augusta went to her study. It overlooked the walled garden – the wall was built of soft mellow stone. Augusta leant back in her comfortable, high-backed chair, lay her arms along its arms, conscious of their support. She watched a couple of blue-tits pecking at the bricks. Over the years they had chipped out several caves in the wall where they sometimes huddled, as if in a nest. This morning the birds were bright, elated. Augusta telephoned Hugh.

  ‘Those people the agents said were very keen – they’ve just gone. They weren’t at all interested.’

  ‘Oh.’

  In the silence Augusta sensed her husband was in a hurry.

  ‘Hugh, if I came up next week, could we have lunch? We could talk about things.’

  ‘No.’

  Another pause. Augusta’s voice trembled.

  ‘If you won’t have lunch with me, I’ll never marry you again.’ She slammed down the receiver before she could become any more ridiculous.

  Now, the evening of that day, it rained for the first time in two weeks. The rain glittered down over the garden making sparks on the emerald of the May grass. The pond water, paled by the sky’s reflected clouds, was pocked with raindrops, suddenly alive beneath the weight of its water-lilies. Augusta stretched up her arms among the branches of the lilac bush, struggling for the purple cones. It was the nature of the best lilac blooms always to be out of reach. She stood on tip-toe, rain from the leaves pouring down her arms. Her light shoes were soaked in the long grass, she could hear the squeak of her toes as she moved them. She reached the branches, snapped them off, buried her head in the tight buds, aware for a moment only of their intense scent, of their wetness against the wetness of her face. She moved away, then. Walked across the wide lawn that sloped from the side of the house down to another, natural pond. There at its banks grew cow parsley shoulder-high, heads white as summer clouds. Augusta pushed her way through the frail jungle, listening to the quiet clatter of the shower. She picked the odd stalk, then bent to gather a bunch of cowslips. The rain had intensified their yellowness, their honey smell.

  The ritual of the flower-gathering over, Augusta walked slowly back to the house. Her long cotton skirt clung about her ankles, she was suddenly cold. A fire, she decided. When she had put the flowers in water she would light the fire in the hall. And then . . . what would she do for the long evening? Oh, there was plenty of time to think. She would get warm first. Have a bath. Finish that half-bottle of Hugh’s Sancerre. Some idea would come to her.

  Evans, who had been cogitating upon his plan all day in the Post Office, was disturbed by the wet evening. He had not reckoned with rain. Now Rosie’s fussing about his mackintosh would have to come into his calculations – easy enough to deal with, but a possible risk to his firmness of purpose. As it turned out, he need not have worried. Soon as she had cleared the tea, Rosie hurried off under her umbrella to a Mothers’ Union meeting. At her exit Henry emerged from behind his paper, stood up and scratched at his ribs luxuriously.

  ‘Well, Boy, don’t know about you but I’m slipping down for a quick one.’

  ‘Second night this week, Dad. Becoming quite the alcoholic.’

  Henry, through lack of practice, was as diffident as his son about smiling. But Evans observed a tilt of humour flare at the corners of his father’s tight mouth.

  ‘A man’s got to have some vices in his old age, Boy.’ Then, in silent recognition of the other’s private intentions, they put on their mackintoshes and parted at the front door.

  Evans waited until Henry was out of sight before he crossed the strip of common grass and slipped through the gates of the house. He walked up the middle of the drive, hands in pockets, rain sloping pleasantly against him. He liked the gravel crunch under his feet, the swiftness of the clouds above him. The nervousness of the day had gone. Chances were his plan would fail, but he was no longer afraid to try.

  He paused when he reached the part of the drive that unfurled into a broad sweep directly before the house. He moved his head from side to side, taking in the two rows of tall windows, feeling the rain running down his neck. He went to the porch, rang the door bell. Two minutes’ wait. No answer. He rang again. Still nothing. He peered through the glass panes of the door: another glass door. Beyond it, murkily, the impression of a large hall and the flames of a huge fire. Eventually Evans opened the doors and went in.

  As soon as he had done so he realised his mistake. This was quite the wrong night to have come. The place was set for a party.

  The hall was filled with music. The tunes seemed vaguely familiar to Evans, the sort of thing that accompanied old thirties films he watched on television. There was lilac everywhere: a pyramid set upon an oak chest, another one on the round centre table. The smell of the wet blooms, combined with the winter smell of the fire, almost stifled Evans. He put a hand over his nose, confused for a moment by the sweet power of the scents. I must go, he thought. Quickly, before anyone knows I’ve been. Reluctance was embedded in the thought. He made no move, but remained where he was, conscious that raindrops from his mackintosh fell on to the stone-flagged floor, encircling him in a grey ring of water. He looked about. Like church, and the gym at his old school, the place gave him a comfortable feeling of being a norma
l size. Here no one could accuse him of being clumsy, too big.

  There were archways each side of the fireplace. Beyond one of them rose a pine staircase, shining with polish. As its half-landing was a magnificent arched window, an echo of the inside shapes, its panes blurred with rain. Evans, still motionless, was wondering about the practical problems of window-cleaners, when a woman he supposed to be Mrs Browne appeared on the stairs. From where he stood he had not seen her coming down the upper flight. She appeared as if from nowhere, startling. Evans saw her before she saw him. He had a few seconds in which to observe her unseen. She seemed to glide down the staircase, in time to the music, head high, one hand just brushing the wood banister. It was as if she supposed a hundred people to be gathered in the hall below, and was making a grand entrance, expecting their appraisal. She wore a long, soft skirt, same colour as the pine, so that half her body merged in with the backdrop; and a pinkish cardigan, cobwebby stuff, its sleeves pushed up her arms.

  Halfway down the lower flight of the stairs she noticed Evans, and paused. She was dwarfed by the high window behind her. Its light made a subdued halo of her hair.