A Pagan Place Read online

  He crooked his finger and said Come here, Honey, come, come to me, and you ran, went by banister for fear in your trepidation you might have capsized down the stairs. You ran out the front door and down the fields and through the fort and through the lily swamp to the open callows. You saw the dark coming but that did not deter you. You kept running away, away from the house, where he was packing to leave. The night went under the trees. Under the trees began to be vast dimensionless places. It was the worst light, because of being creepy, because of being over-suggestive. The dark rose in spines around the trees and the bushes and the new telegraph pole and they were distinguishable as tall shapes in a thicket of deeper dark.

  You prayed to your guardian angel. Your guardian angel was a tall dark man. So was the Devil. So was your cousin. It made you crawly to think of his chest. His chest was infested. A pediculous place. An occasion of sin. The branches acquired their nocturnal shapes. They were beasts of prey. It was the blackest time before the moon and the stars came to light the way. You arrived at the river.

  The two swans were there, stately as ever, the same two who presided year after year. They never had any young. The river was in flood. You went through the labyrinth of reeds down to the water’s edge. They were wetter than grass. They had harboured the rain. At the far side of the river and three fields away, there was a road on which the wheels of a cart rumbled. You shouted. You shouted with all your might. You shouted Help. You could hear your own voice, then your echo. You had no idea what would come to you, a kindly person, a ghost or the Nigger who might nail you down and do pooly in you. He rampaged at night to look at celestial bodies.

  There was no response save the rushing of the water and the bats and in the distance dogs and other carnivorous things that you could not name. It was a mistake to yell, a cardinal error, you only drew attention to your plight. You couldn’t move. Your legs were going from under you. Your legs were liquid, were like snot. You couldn’t retrace that long, terrible, vicious route again. You couldn’t move. You had to. You ran through swamp, through high grass, through not so high grass and through the woods. Your speed was wizard. Nothing impeded you. You got wet. You got covered in mud. Your sweat was streaming. There were assemblies of briars, as high as you and higher and when you approached them you closed your eyes to intercept the thorns. It did not matter that thorns got in your flesh, anyhow it was unavoidable. When your dress caught on a briar you ran on without turning round to free it. It freed itself. The noise was like the tearing of a sheet or a bandage. When you saw the kitchen light you slowed down and when you got close to the house you leaned against the hedge to get your composure back.

  She said your cousin had not left a shilling or a box of chocolates for you. She said that was chivalry for you. When she saw your injuries she exclaimed, asked what had happened to you. You said you had lost your way. She said to stop sounding like a little lady in a sonnet like Lucy Grey. The cuts fizzed when she put peroxide on them. Before taking out the thorns she sterilized the needle, she let it suffer the flame of a candle.

  You walked in your sleep. She said a step farther and you might have walked out the window. She brought you to the doctor. She thought it was worms. He squeezed your cheeks and asked if you had seen a hooka man. You said no. He said to slip out of your clothes. You went behind the screen that was from China. Both the frame and the silken cloth had seen better days. He tapped your chest. He put his stethoscope to it. You said Aah. He put a flashlamp down your throat. He frowned. You liked the prospect of dying, of having galloping consumption, of being in heaven with God and the angels, away from everybody. You envisaged heaven as an open-air spot with plenty of roaming white clouds.

  He sent you to the nearest city to have an X-ray. You had to await your turn. A nurse gave you tea and cake because of being his patient. The cake was iced with coconut and the flakes lodged in your teeth. They were stale. She referred to him by his first name. She said he always disliked the stage-shows she liked and vice versa and that that was the only divergence between them. While she was doing the X-ray you had to hold your breath. You were afraid that you might let her down but you didn’t, you held your breath until she said to you that it was all right and to breathe normally again.

  The result didn’t come for three days during which time your mother gave you egg flips which you swallowed in a gulp. When you heard that you hadn’t consumption you went upstairs and lay on your bed, in rage. The teacher sent for her, said it would be better if you didn’t take the exam, said you were too highly strung. Your mother said they would not force you, they were not believers in force. So did he.

  You got to hate boiled eggs. You also had an aversion to mashed potato. You became a thief. You stole a slab of chocolate and when closing the sideboard door let it creak to its utmost to confound her. You tore the silver paper in bits, then whirled each bit into a tiny ball and put them in the coal scuttle where there were old cigarette boxes and a goosewing and butts. You gorged. She discovered you.

  She took you in her arms and said she did not begrudge you anything, not anything, if you would stop being so mistrustful. Her fingers smelt of his scalp. She had been rubbing his head. He liked his head rubbed, also his back. During the day he often asked for a rub, called it a pick-me-up.

  You went to the chapel. It was quiet except for the flutter in the rafters. Birds lived there. The sanctuary lamp hung on a long low silver chain. The silver had a dull gleam to it and the flame smouldered steadily. It meant Jesus was present.

  You went inside the rails. No woman was supposed to do that. The consecration bell was at the foot of the steps. It was an ordinary brass bell and you were disappointed. You tip-toed out.

  You said the Stations. You lingered at each one, studied the faces and the poses and the expressions until you got to the Crucifixion and then you rushed it. It was too gory. It lent itself to too much awful speculation.

  You had a vision. You were with Jesus on a mountain road and he wore a white robe and was performing miracles easily. You were his assistant, you were carrying his equipment.

  The sacristan came in and ordered you out of there, said she was about to lock up. It was so you wouldn’t clash with the young priest, who was home on holiday. She was without her glasses and had a clean smock on. She was struck on him. Everyone was struck on him. One woman had swooned. He wore no collar, had rented a car and was a connoisseur of table wines. His sermons were stunning. People were riveted. They were all the rage the way once upon a time the Prince of Wales had been and Miss Amy Johnson for her valour. He was very partial to Mary Magdalene and went into rhapsodies about her hair and the ointment with which she anointed Jesus.

  No particulars were known about that ointment. You yourself thought it might be pomade. Neighbours gathered in his house each night to listen to the gramophone and play cards. And people hung around outside playing pitch and toss to get the benefit of the gramophone too.

  Your father was yearning to be part of that merriment. Your mother said oughtn’t they invite him up first, have a spread for him. Your father said by all means. Your mother devised it, a meal consisting of cold ox tongue with fresh beetroot and potato salad.

  But he arrived unexpectedly when the breakfast things were not cleared away. She said all her grand schemes were kiboshed, hinted about the banquet that was to be prepared. He said he was not one for ceremony. He had a lovely tan. He also had freckles. He looked at you, fixed you with his eyes which were grey. The freckles were in a haze across the bridge of his nose.

  Your father abandoned his outdoor duties and came in protesting that his hand was not clean enough to be shaken. Calves stayed at the gate bawling for their rightful quota of milk and the dogs had no influence on them and failed to quell them. Your mother put an embroidered cloth at one end of the table and got clean cups down. Your father and the priest discussed whose hay had to be saved and then got on to the war and the whacking that the Germans were getting. The priest said he was neutral, th
at it was a priest’s duty to be. He described the tropical island where he lived, emphasized its scenic beauty, its flowers and said its chief crop was sugar cane. He said the coconut was the indigenous tree, and waxed eloquent about its slender trunk and its big palms. He looked at you. He said the loveliness of a tropical night could not be overrated. He asked you if you knew the latitude and longitude of his island, or why Red Indians were called Red Indians.

  Your father said you knew your stuff but when it came to being asked you got flustered which was why you didn’t take the examination. The priest pretended not to register that. He signed your autograph book. He signed on the very last page, as if the book had come to an end, which it hadn’t. He hawed on it before closing it. It was a secret:

  My body is but a cabbage

  The leaves I give to others

  But the heart I give

  To you.

  You wished that Emma were there so that she could see. You thought how you would love to go to the Tropics with him and see people who offered mangoes and sweet potatoes to the Virgin Mary instead of flowers or candles.

  He insisted on taking you all out. Your mother and you ran upstairs to get into good dresses and put on Eau-de-Cologne. You put a button-down dress on and left the two bottom buttons open to be able to make greater strides.

  You went to a hotel that overlooked a lake. There was a lemon tree and although it had no fruit it was a marvel to see. He was the one to point it out. You had cold salmon and then ice-cream. You all had the same thing. He had half a bottle of white wine which he asked them to chill. Your father was not tempted. The label got damp and defaced in the chilling. He took you in a boat. It was a joyride. You had only been on that lake attending funerals before.

  At close quarters the water had different facets. Some patches were agitated, some lackadaisical and there was a whole sheet that was not doing anything at all, not falling in with the rest of the water’s rhythm. The lake was not a single thing but many-faced. That was on the surface. There was no telling what went on down through the level of the water, down to the very bed. No one knew that, not even the fishes. The fishes only knew their own realm.

  You passed two houseboats with names on them. You commented on them. He took off his shoes and socks. His feet were tanned too. Between his toes was still white and you were able to see how thoroughly he had tanned. He had been away for five years. Five summers had gone into changing the colour of his skin.

  The hills were very near, were like old acquaintances. Your mother said that there was no country so beautiful and how people never appreciated what they had. He said travel broadened the mind.

  The clouds were sweeping the heavens. The clouds were the brooms, the heavens the causeway. Something went though you, a shiver. It had come out of nowhere. It was like mercury in a thermometer suddenly shooting up.

  He gave you half-smiles that only you could detect. Your father trailed a line and each time when it got caught in the engine your mother flapped. The trees from one island to the next seemed to be bowing to each other. Nothing was downcast, not the islands, nor the reeds, nor the trees, nor the chanting that went on. Your father said Blast when a bottle got itself tagged to the end of his line. At first they thought it was a trout and there was great excitement but when he found it was a bottle he reproached himself for not knowing better. He got indignant.

  There were swarms of midges. Your mother said it was later on you’d feel the bites when you got under the covers and the heat aggravated them. When the Angelus bell rang the priest gave it out and you all replied very stiffly and it was like a service. Your mother reminded your father that they had to be back to milk. The cows suffered, their udders were pierced with pain if they were left unmilked too long.

  Since Ambie’s departure your mother milked but your father rounded them up. That was their pact. When your father was away drunk and then recuperating your mother went down the fields with a pail and milked them wherever they happened to be.

  The priest said he was taking you to Hilda’s. He didn’t ask their permission, he simply presented them with a fait accompli. You got out of the back of the car and into the front. You couldn’t think of anything to say. You sang dumb. He said that when he was young he used to think of a dream and then get into bed beside his brother and dream it. He said they were dreams about being a captain and a prince and a stowaway and a robber.

  Hilda’s gardener was mowing the grass. Sometimes he stooped to remove bits of gravel and other nuisances from the lawn proper. It was on a slope. The mower ran away with him each time when he got near the bottom. He tipped his hat to the priest and said she was lying down. The priest asked how old were the monkey-puzzle trees. He did not know. The gardener made a guess. He made various guesses, all different, all inconsistent. The upstairs casement window was thrown open and Hilda leaned out.

  She was livid. She asked was he always so punctual. In her drawing room there was a trolley laid for tea. She was wearing a long dress and necklaces. There were pies with caster sugar sprinkled on them and white scones, quadrant shaped. She passed things to him and then pushed the plate in your direction for you to help yourself. She said she never ate tea. She put her hand to her forehead and seemed to be burping discreetly to herself. He knocked on her wrist. He said Knock, knock, knock. He was very debonair. He said I’m ribbing you.

  You wished that you were invisible. You wished that you were a gnat. They were having a lovers’ quarrel. You sucked your cheeks. If you sucked for long enough you would have an oval face and not a round one.

  He told her that she was like an oil painting, of the Renaissance School. Her dress was flame pink. All of a sudden she ran out of the room and she had to bunch it up in her hands, because being long it endangered her. He ran after her and called her by her name which he abbreviated. He called her Hil.

  You examined the cups. They were bone china and English. They were more faded round the rims where mouths had impinged over the years. You studied the tealeaves. There were storms in all three teacups. You stood up and smelt some flowers that were in a bowl. Their stems had been cut away. They had no nourishment except from the water that they were laid into. They were specially for the occasion. They were tea roses, the same but different. They had the same smell but different characteristics. When you looked into them without blinking it was like getting drawn into them, it was like a spell, getting drawn into folds and folds of red. They were different near the base, had different shadings, different gradations of colour and all had unique centres. Some were worried looking like a person and some agog. There were insects crawling quietly, making quiet, eventful journeys from one petal to the next, from one flower to another. There were no gaps in between. Insects did not have to use any ingenuity to get about.

  You pitied them being packed so close together. You separated the fallen petals to try and do a design. It was a straight line. It was unadventurous. He came and squeezed your arm and asked what mischief you were up to. He said how soft it was. It was nearly fleshless but the bones were weak from the way he clasped it. He said that was why a cat played with a mouse, to make her soft, to loosen the muscles.

  He brought you for a conducted tour of the houseboat. He knew where the key was. He had carte blanche to go there any time. When you stepped from the pier to the boat you knew you were taking a monumental step. He stood spraddle-legged in order to take your hand and help you over. Inside the cabin everything was on a smaller scale and you had to get used to crouching.

  He started a conversation with himself the moment he switched on the engine. He was conciliatory to it, said Whoa and Easy and There. He steered with his feet. He did that so that he was able to stand up and look through a hatch and gauge where he was going. The village began to recede.

  He made his way between the other boats and the buoys and the boulders. As soon as he was out of difficulties he turned to congratulate you as if you had been responsible. You stood on the seat directly opposite to his. A
skylark went back and forth on a different jaunt from all the other birds and he moved his finger imitating its buoyancy and its swoops. He said that in the tropics the birds were bright and had bright plumage but that their songs were raucous. He liked dun birds with quiet notes.

  He let the boat take its own course, let it drift. He sat on the edge of your seat, touched your knees a few times, then unlaced your shoes, removed them, then your ankle socks. He said hadn’t you better come down from your perch.

  You ignored that. But not for long. You went delirious when he touched your toes and seeing how you reacted he was spurred on to take even greater liberties. You begged for mercy. You made all sorts of rash promises, how you would be good, how you would be bad, how you would never eat jelly, how you would dance a hornpipe, how you would anything he asked. You had to crouch and he petted you across your lap and said what a nice friendly lap it was.