Darkness Visible (25 page)

“What at?”

“He might be having—”

Edwin trotted across the grass towards the lavatory. Sim waited, feeling not just foolish but disgusted, as if the ball was a contamination. He wondered what to do with it; and the memory of the clean old man with his disgusting appetite made him wince inside. He turned his mind aside to things that were really clean and sweet, thinking of Stanhope’s little girls. How exquisite they had been and how well-behaved! What a delight it had been to watch them grow; though no matter how wonderfully
nubile
they became they could never surpass that really fairy delicacy of childhood, a beauty that could make you weep—and of course they hadn’t turned out just as they should but that was as much Stanhope’s fault as theirs and Sophy was so pretty and so friendly—good morning Mr Goodchild, how is Mrs Goodchild? Yes it is isn’t it? There was no doubt about it, the Stanhope twins shone in Greenfield like a light!

Edwin was coming back.

“He’s gone. Disappeared.”

“You mean he’s gone away. Don’t exaggerate. There’s a gate out to the road among the laurels.”

“They’ve both gone.”

“What am I supposed to do with this ball?”

“You’d better keep it, I suppose. We’ll see him again.”

“Time I was going.”

Together they walked back along the gravel path but before they had gone more than fifty yards, Edwin stopped them.

“About here.”

“What?”

“Don’t you remember? What I saw.”

“And I didn’t.”

But Edwin was not listening. His jaw had dropped.

“Sim! Now I understand. Oh yes, it all hangs together! I’m one step nearer to a complete understanding of—if not what he is—of how he works, what he is doing—That ball that went round or through—He let it go. He knew it was the wrong ball.”

Ruth was being fanciful. This was most unusual for her since on the whole she was a down-to-earth woman; but now she had a feverish cold and was staying in bed. The Girl minded the shop now and then, though Sim was always nervous when he did not have both her and the shop in sight, but he had quite often to take hot drinks upstairs and persuade Ruth to drink them. Each time he did this he had to stay a bit because of the fancifulness. She lay on her side of the double-bed where the children had been begotten a generation ago. She kept her eyes closed and her face shone with perspiration. Now and then she muttered.

“What did you say, dear?”

Mutter.

“I’ve brought you some more hot drink. Wouldn’t you like to sit up and drink it?”

Ruth spoke with startling clearness.

“He moved. I saw him.”

An almost physical anguish contracted Sim’s heart.

“Good. I’m glad. Sit up and drink this.”

“She used a knife.”

“Ruth! Sit up!”

Her eyes flickered open and he saw them focus on his face. Then she looked round the bedroom and up at the ceiling where the sound of a declining jet was so loud it seemed visible. She put her hands down and heaved herself up.

“Better?”

She shuddered in the bed and he draped a shawl round her shoulders. She drank, sip after sip, then handed the glass back without looking at him.

“Now you’re what they used to call all-of-a-glow you’ll feel better. Shall I take your temperature again?”

She shook her head.

“No point. Know what we know. Too much noise. Which way is north?”

“Why?”

“I want to know. I must know.”

“You’re a bit hazy still, aren’t you?”

“I want to know!”

“Well—”

Sim thought of the road outside, the High Street, the Old Bridge. He pictured the enlacement of canal and rail and motorway and the high jet road searing across them all.

“It’s a bit difficult. Where would the sun be?”

“It keeps turning, and the noise!”

“I know.”

She lay back again and shut her eyes.

“Try and sleep dear.”

“No! Not. Not.”

Someone was hooting in the road outside. He glanced down through the window. A juggernaut was trying to get on to the Old Bridge and the cars massing behind it were impatient.

“It’ll be quiet later.”

“Mind the shop.”

“Sandra’s there.”

“If I want anything I’ll thump.”

“Better not kiss you.”

He laid his forefinger on his lips then transferred it to her forehead. She smiled.

“Go.”

He crept away downstairs, through the living-room and into the shop. Sandra was sitting at the desk and staring straight at the big shop window without a trace of expression. The only thing that moved was her lower jaw as it masticated what seemed to be a permanent piece of chewing-gum. She had sandy hair and sandy eyebrows imperfectly concealed by eyebrow pencil. She was rather fat, she wore bulging jeans and Sim disliked her. Ruth had chosen her out of the only three applicants for a job that did not pay much, was dull by modern standards and required no intelligence at all. Sim knew why Ruth had chosen the least attractive, or most unattractive of the applicants and agreed with her, ruefully enough.

“Could I have my chair, Sandra, do you think?”

Sarcasm was wasted on her.

“I don’t mind.”

She got up. He sat down, only to see her wander across to the steps which he used for reaching the high shelves and perch her large bottom on it. Sim watched her savagely.

“Wouldn’t it be better, Sandra, if you kept on your feet? It’s what people expect you know.”

“There isn’t any people and there hasn’t been. And there won’t be not now it’s so near lunch. There hasn’t been anybody not even the phone.”

All that was true. The turnover was becoming ludicrous. If it weren’t for the rare books—

Sim experienced a moment of exquisite inferiority. It was no good expecting Sandra to understand the difference between this place and a supermarket or a sweet shop. She had her own idea of that difference and it was all in favour of the supermarket. There was life in the supermarket, fellows, talk, chat, light, noise, even muzak on top of the rest. Here were only the silent books waiting faithfully on their shelves, their words unchanged, century after century from incunabula down to paperbacks. It was a thing so obvious that often Sim found himself astonished at his own capacity for finding it astonishing; and he would move from that point to a generalized state of astonishment that he felt obscurely was, like the man said, the beginning of wisdom. The only trouble was that the astonishment recurred but the wisdom did not follow. Astonished I live; astonished I shall die.

Probably Sandra felt her weight. He looked at her and saw how her broad bottom overflowed the step. Then again, she might be having a period. He stood up.

“OK Sandra. You can have my chair for a bit. Until the phone rings.”

She heaved her bottom off the step and wandered down the shop. He saw how her thighs rubbed each other. She sank into the chair, still chewing like a cow.

“Ta.”

“Read a book if you like.”

She turned her eyes on him, unblinking.

“What for?”

“You can read I suppose?”

“’Course. Your wife asked me. You ought to know that.”

Worse and worse. We must get rid of her. Get a Paki, a lad, he’d work. Have to keep an eye on him though.

Don’t
think that! Race relations.

All the same they swarm. With the best will in the world I must say they swarm. They are not what I think, they are what I feel. Nobody knows what I feel, thank God.

But they were to have a visitor, perhaps a customer. He was trying the door now—ting! It was Stanhope, of all people. Sim hurried down the shop, hands washing each other in the appropriate manner, his personalized bit of play-acting.

“Good morning Mr Stanhope! A pleasure to see you. How are you? Well, I hope?”

Stanhope brushed it all aside in his usual manner and went straight to the point, a technical one.

“Sim. Reti.
The
Game
of
Chess.
The nineteen thirty-six reprint. How much please?”

Sim shook his head.

“I’m sorry, Mr Stanhope, but we do not have a copy.”

“Sold it? When?”

“We never had one, I’m afraid.”

“Oh yes you did.”

“You are at perfect liberty—”

“It’s a wise bookseller that knows his own stock.”

Laughing, Sim shook his head.

“You won’t catch me out, Mr Stanhope. Remember I’ve been here since my father’s day.”

Stanhope hopped briskly up the steps.

“There you are, poor condition.”

“Good Lord.”

“Knew I’d seen it. Haven’t been in for years, either. How much?”

Sim took the book, blew dust off the top, then looked at the flyleaf. He did a rapid calculation.

“That’ll be three pounds ten. I mean three fifty of course.”

Stanhope reached into his pocket, grumbling. Sim, unable to resist, heard his own voice going on without, apparently, his volition.

“Yesterday I saw Miss Stanhope. She passed the shop—”

“Who—one of mine? That’ll be Sophy, idle little bitch.”

“But she’s so enchanting—they’re both so enchanting—”

“Be your age. That generation’s not enchanting, any of it. Here.”

“Thank you, sir. They’ve always been such a pleasure to us, innocence, beauty, manners—”

Stanhope gave a cackle of laughter.

“Innocence? They tried to poison me once, or damn nearly. Left some filthy things in a drawer by the bed. Must have found the spare house-keys and then
plotted
—bitches! I wonder where they found those beastly little monsters?”

“A practical joke. But they’ve always been so kind to us—”

“Perhaps you’ll meet them then, you and Bell at your meetings.”

“Meet them?”

“You
are
looking for a quiet place aren’t you?”

“Edwin said something.”

“Well then.”

Stanhope nodded at him, looked briefly towards Sandra then withdrew, ting! A loud thump came from the ceiling. Sim hurried upstairs and held Ruth while she brought up some phlegm. When she was better she asked who he had been talking to.

“Stanhope. Just a chess book. Fortunately we had it in stock.”

Her head turned from side to side.

“Dream. Bad dream.”

“Just a dream. Next time it’ll be a good one.”

She drifted off to sleep again and breathed easily. He tiptoed down into the shop. Sandra was still sitting. But then the shop bell tinged again. It was Edwin. Sim made shushing noises and then breathed the reminder melodramatically.

“Ruth’s poorly. She’s asleep up there—”

Edwin’s declension from noise to near silence was as dramatic.

“What is it, dear Sim?”

“Just a cold and she’s getting better. But you know at our kind of age—not that she’s as old as me, of course; but all the same—”

“I know. We’re in the bracket. Look, I have news.”

“A meeting?”

“We are all there is, I’m afraid. Yet I’m not afraid, really. Many are called, et cetera.”

“Stanhope’s place.”

“He told you?”

“He was here just now. Dropped in.”

Sim was faintly proud of Stanhope having dropped in. Stanhope was, after all, a celebrity, with his column, broadcasts and chess displays. Ever since chess had moved out of the grey periphery of the news and with Bobby Fischer edged into the full limelight, Sim had come to an unwilling respect for Stanhope.

“I’m glad you didn’t object.”

“Who? I? Object to Stanhope?”

“I’ve always had the feeling that your attitude to him was faintly, shall we say, illiberal.”

Sim cogitated.

“That’s true, I suppose. After all, I’ve spent my life here, like him. We’re old Greenfield people. You see, there was a bit of scandal and I suppose I’m prudish. When his wife left him. Women, you know. Ruth has no time for him. On the other hand his twin girls—they’ve been a delight to us all, just to watch
them grow up. How he can ignore, could ignore such, such
charmers
—let them grow up any old how—”

“You will be able to sample the charm again, although at second hand.”

“They’re not!”

“Oh no. You wouldn’t expect it, would you? But he says we can use their place.”

“A room?”

“It’s the stabling at the end of the garden. Have you been in?”

“No, no.”

“They used to live there, more or less. Glad enough to get away from Stanhope, if you ask me. And he from them. They took it over. Didn’t you know?”

“I don’t see what’s so special about it.”

“I know the place. After all, I live at the top end of the garden. I should, don’t you think? When we came here first, the girls even invited us to tea there. It was a kind of dolls’ tea party. They were so solemn! The questions Toni asked!”

“I don’t see—”

“You old stick-in-the-mud!”

Sim made himself grumble.

“Such an out-of-the-way place. I don’t see why you can’t use the community centre. After all, that way we might get more members.”

“It’s the quality of the place.”

“Feminine?”

Edwin looked at him in surprise. Sim felt himself begin to blush, so he hurried on his explanation.

“I remember when my daughter was at college, once I went into the hostel where she was living—girls from top to bottom—good Lord, you’d never believe perfume could be so penetrating! I just thought, if it’s where a couple of—Well. You see.”

“Nothing like that at all. Nothing whatsoever.”

“Sorry.”

“Don’t apologize.”

“This quality.”

Edwin took a turn round one of the middle bookcases. He came back, drawing himself up, beaming. He threw his arms wide.

“Mmm-ah!”

“You seem very pleased with yourself.”

“Sim. Have you been in the, the community centre?”

“Not since.”

“It’s all right of course. Just the thing and it’s where I met him—”

“I’m not, you know—not as impressed as you are, no not half as impressed. You’d better understand that, Edwin. I don’t doubt that to you in particular—”

“Just listen. Now.”

“I am. Go on.”

“No, no! Not to me. Just listen.”

Sim looked round him, listening. The traffic produced a kind of middle range of noise but nothing unusual. Then the clock struck from the community centre and like an extension of the sound he heard the clang of a fire engine’s alarm bell ring as the machine nosed over the Old Bridge. A jet whined down, mile after mile. Edwin opened his mouth to speak, then shut it, holding up one finger.

Sim felt it with his feet, more than heard it—the faint vibration, on and on, as a train rocked across the canal and drew its useful length through the fields towards the midlands.

There came a thump on the ceiling.

“Just a minute. I’ll be back.”

Ruth wanted him to wait outside the door while she went to the loo. Thought she might come over queer. He sat on the attic stairs,
waiting for her. Through the shot-window he could see that men were already opening up the jumbled roofs that had held Frankley’s ridiculous stock. Presently the breakers would come with their flailing ball and chain, though it was hardly needed. They had only to lean against the old place and it would collapse. More noise.

He came back to the shop to find Edwin perched on the edge of the desk and talking to Sandra. He felt indignant at the sight.

“You can go along now, Sandra. I know it’s early. But I’ll lock up.”

Sandra, still ruminating, took a kind of loose cardigan from the hook behind the desk.

“’Bye.”

He watched her out of the shop. Edwin laughed.

“Nothing doing there, Sim. I couldn’t interest her.”

“You—!”

“Why not? All souls are of equal value.”

“Oh yes. I believe.”

Indeed I do. We are all equal. I believe that. It is more or less a fourth-class belief.

“You were going to explain a crazy idea to me.”

“They used to build churches by holy wells. Over them sometimes. They needed it, water, it was stuff you drew up out of the earth in a bucket, the earth gave it you. Not out of a pipe by courtesy of the water board. It was wild, springing, raw stuff.”