Judgment Day (13 page)

George gritted his teeth. This could go on for some time. He took a fresh sheet of paper and wrote “Dear Sir,” his pen scoring the paper.

“…Just thought you'd like to know,” said Mrs. Tanner. There was a note of grievance in her voice.

“Sorry?”

“Thought you'd like to know we were right, my husband and I, about it taking me out of myself, coming here once a week. I'm feeling a bit of change. Thursday evening, I went along to the corner shop on my own. They're very surprised, at the clinic, they say they wouldn't have expected it.”

“Oh,” said George. “Well, that is good. Splendid.”

“They broke the window of that Mr. Porter opposite,” she went on. “Shame. I stopped by to have a look on the way here, I had my daughter walk me that way instead of the usual. They cost a bit to fix, that type of glass.”

“Perhaps you could have done that on your own too,” said George nastily.

Mrs. Tanner gave him a look of contempt. “They say we can't expect miracles, at the clinic. They say it'll take time; time and patience. D'you want me to do anything more in here or is it all right if I have my cup of tea now?”

*  *  *

“Come here,” said Clare. “Come here and sit down. I'm going to read to you.”

“Good-o. Can we have…”

“No, you can't. We're going to read something rather different tonight.”

“That's the
Bible
,” said Anna, shocked.

“This, as you rightly point out, is the Bible. The Authorized King James Version, with which you are sadly unfamiliar. My fault, principally. I am a bad mother. You eat sweets between meals and go to bed at all hours and there are holes in your socks. But there is one thing I can try to put right. I can expose you to the language, like it or not.”

“‘The Lord is my shepherd,’” she read; “‘I shall not want …’ Stop fidgeting and take that gob-stopper out of your mouth … ‘Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.’”

*  *  *

Keith Bryan, leaving the house in a hurry, did not notice the vandalizing of the Green. He had been one of the only residents who had refused to contribute to the Tree Planting Fund. “Oh, come on,” Shirley had said. “A pound or two, it's all they want, it's so embarrassing saying no.” “Why the bloody hell should I? It's not my personal property, is it? What's it got to do with me? They can whistle for it—busybody Coggan and the rest of them.” “Well, we all look at it, I suppose, the Green, and it's nicer with trees than not.” “You can tell them to sod off,” he
said sulkily, “if they come back. You just want to get in with the other wives, that's all.” And they had had a row—no rare event—not that Shirley cared much more than he did, she was only trying to get a rise out of him. And it was a bloody nerve, these people expecting you to shell out for something that was basically none of your business. Like some new form of bloody income tax.

When Shirley told him about the vandalism he laughed. “Well, that'll show them.”

“I think you're disgusting. Anything that doesn't affect you personally you don't care about.”

“That, my girl, is human nature, isn't it?”

He was in a glow of well-being. Debbie Comstock's perfume was on his hands still; there was a glittery hair on his lapel. Better get upstairs and have a clean up.

Shirley said, “You might have said you wouldn't be back for supper.”

“I tried to ring—the phone must be on the blink again.”

“It's not the phone that's on the blink, it's you.”

He was halfway up the stairs. “I don't have to answer to you for everything I do. So I went out for a drink.” He slammed the bathroom door. Below, he could hear her keening on.

The trouble was, he didn't know how serious Debbie was. Oh, she was saying and doing all the right things, but was it, when it came to the crunch, more than just a pretty heavy affair? He was going to have to find out—take the risk and find out—because he couldn't stand it like this much longer.

He washed and changed. It was that American series tonight, thank God, which would shut Shirley up for the next hour. When he was at the top of the stairs, he heard
Martin's voice. “Dad?” It was funny how you could clean forget about the kid, he'd always been a quiet, buttoned-up sort of boy. Keith went into the bedroom.

He was sitting up in bed, with a pile of tattered comics. “Dad—it's the Air Show next week.”

“Is it?”

“Would you take me?”

“Yeah,” said Keith. “O.K., then, why not?” He was filled with geniality, with generosity. Why not, indeed. Give the kid a smashing day out—it wasn't that often he took him anywhere. He saw himself, in a flash, walking with Martin among the planes, explaining, instructing, the benign indulgent father, the boy hanging on his every word—“Look, Martin, here's an old Spitfire Mark II, now the superstructure's interesting …” “Gosh, Dad, fancy you knowing all about this land of thing.”

“Will you honestly?” There was amazement in Martin's voice, and disbelief.

“Yes, sure, great—we'll have us a day out together.”

“The Red Devils are doing a display.”

“Good, good.”

The boy's eyes shone. “Fantastic! Cor!”

“O.K., it's a date, then.”

“Promise?”

“Cut my throat,” said Keith cheerfully. He could afford a bit of largesse, feeling the way he did, Debbie only eighteen hours away, at the Black Horse at six, and later—well later they'd have to see about.

“Cut my throat and may I die. Good night, kiddo.”

*  *  *

“Why do we have to go with you to Spelbury?”

“Because,” said Clare, “there is food to be got and new
shoes for you both and a business about the broken mixer. Come on, hurry up.”

Outside, Anna said with exaggerated concern, “The
poor
trees. The poor baby trees, all spoiled. I think those naughty boys ought to be—ought to be
beaten
”

“Ah. You're one of those, are you?”

“And they smashed Mr. Porter's window,” Thomas put in.

“I know.”

“One of what, Mum?”

“Floggers and hangers. Never mind, love—you'll grow out of it, I trust.”

“Well, don't you? Think they should be beaten?”

“Not beaten, perhaps,” said Clare cautiously. “But I agree it's thoroughly disgraceful.”

She opened the door of the mini, stowed the children away in the back, got into the driving seat.

“Hey, what's that?”

There was something on the passenger seat. A creamy ribbon, some long rag of plastic, a burst balloon. She went to pick it up, touched for a moment its sliminess, recognized it, gave a yelp. The children leaned forward, interested.

Clare said, “Oh,
Christ!
”

“What is it? What is that thing? Can I see?”

“No, you can't. It's nothing, some rubbish.” She grabbed a hank of Kleenex from the parcel shelf, swept it up, deposited the lot in the bin, came back, and cleaned the seat. The children were arguing now over territorial rights. “Shut up, Tom—move over and give her some room.”

She drove to Spelbury, surprised at the sense of violation.
Just because a bunch of yobbos … While one lay in tranquil unsuspecting sleep. It was the sudden intrusion of lurking, dormant nastiness; as though the mud were stirred up. It was the stab in the back from that uncontrollable other world whose haunting presence on the fringes of bright reality it was never possible—or expedient—to forget.

Chapter Eight

Shirley Bryan seldom got out of bed before ten. What was the point? Martin could get himself off to school; Keith was poisonous in the mornings, they never exchanged a word anyway. She would lie frowsy in the curtained room, hearing the milkman's clink, passing cars, passing people. Quick, busy footsteps. She couldn't think what other people did with themselves: Sue Coggan, always on the go, off to the shops, baking, cleaning, bustling hither and thither. Her own days were cavernous with boredom, a long slouch from one hour to the next, with accompaniment by Radio One. The house was full of abandoned projects: half-finished garments, hexagons for patchwork
cut out and then stuffed into a drawer, a junk-shop chest of drawers painted sparkling white until the paint ran out and it was too much of a sweat to go and buy some more. Occasionally she had tried evening classes: yoga, fitness, upholstery. But dropped out, always, after the second or third time. She couldn't be bothered when something became an effort; it was always like that, the dress or skirt or whatever would run into difficulties, or the recipe would turn out more of a bother than she'd reckoned, or she'd just lose interest, cop out.

Today, she thought, lying there (the bed a bit smelly, the sheets needing a wash, curse it}, she'd wash her hair and do it in a new style. Yes. Get a rinse maybe from Boots and try something really way out. The day took on some color: yes, she'd do herself up nicely, give Keith a surprise, and finish off that pink shirt and wear it this evening. He wouldn't know what had hit him. And they'd go out for a drink.

She got up and ran a bath. Lying there in the steam, she thought of the night before. He'd been late—but he was always late, these days—and they'd had a row, of course. And in the middle of it he said, “Christ, I wish I hadn't bloody well bothered to come back at all.” And her stomach plummeted; he means it, she realized, it could happen. But later it had all been all right again. He'd had a drink—given her one too; surprise, surprise—and they'd sat watching the telly together, first the new comedy series and then the news. On the screen, robed figures in some hot country were digging the bodies of children out of rubble: she said, “That's terrible. Isn't that terrible, Keith?” and he nodded, and she thought, he's coming around, he'll snap out of it by bedtime, thank God for that. “Another beer?”
“Yeah, thanks.” There would be sunny periods tomorrow, the forecast said, and temperatures around normal. She went out into the kitchen; it's O.K. really, she thought, I mean
really
everything's all right.

A blond rinse? Or one of those coppery ones?

*  *  *

He said, “My dad's taking me to the Air Show.”

“So's mine.”

“We're all of us going. Mum says I can take Steve.”

“I'm going,” Martin said, “all on my own with my dad. We're having us a day out together. Just my dad and me. And he's going to tell me all about those old wartime planes and that.”

“There's going to be a Red Devil display. And there'll be a Phantom fighter.”

“Fantastic.”

“Brrrr-m! Brrrr-m!”

*  *  *

Clare said, “Well, well, well.”

“What's up?”

“That car.”

“The Ford Capri?”

“That's it. What would you say the number was?”

“KJO 520S,” said Peter.

“That's what I think too. Well, well.”

“Could you,” he said kindly, “expand?”

“That bloke I told you about, that charming fellow who boxed me in for two hours in a car park, is one of our neighbors. Isn't that nice? There he is setting off to work.”

He grinned. “What are you going to do about it?”

“Nothing. Reserve it as an interesting piece of information.”

“And setting off to work is what I must do, too. Bye, love.”

“Bye. Incidentally, there was a used french letter on the passenger seat of my car yesterday.”

“How the hell did that get there?”

“Someone,” said Clare coldly, “bunged it in through the window, I presume.”

“You should lock the car. It'll get stolen one of these days, which would be even more inconvenient.”

*  *  *

The vicar had called in about the arrangements for the Saturday wedding. He hung on, chatting, while Sydney eyed through the window the only bright spell that morning and thought grimly he'd be lucky if he got in half an hour with the hoe.

“I was having a talk with Mrs. Paling the other day about the new texts.”

Sydney said, “Ah.” He watched cloud surge up behind the trees: mean, gray cloud.

“She's not altogether in favor. Interesting. Of course I've always had a few reservations myself, as I told her. There was a lot to be said for the old forms. But there it is—the Church has to move with the times like anything else. She took my point, I'm glad to say.”

Sydney made a non-committal noise. He didn't much care for this new stuff himself, the old words were quite good enough as far as he could see, but it wasn't worth a lot of palaver and in any case where his own devotions were concerned, he continued to say what he always had
said. Radwell, though, was in a twitch for some reason. He stood there in the hall grinding the toe of his shoe into the carpet, making balls of fluff which would have to be swept up, and going on about Series 3 and Mrs. Paling and the Appeal Fund—which was a matter for the Restoration Appeal Fund Committee and not relevant at this moment. On the other side of the fanlight, cloud was massing and darkening. George, following Sydney's glance, said, “Ah—you got your window fixed.”

“Seventeen pound fifty,” said Sydney sourly.

George shook his head in condemnation and sympathy. He said again, twice, that he must be getting on, and did not. Outside, raindrops pattered. It came to Sydney, all of a sudden, that the vicar was a lonely man as well as one who could never be done with what he was saying or say what he meant to any effect. He seemed, standing there with his sandy hair and his pink face, like one of those diffident small boys who lurk on the edges of a playground, not invited to join in, while all around people are whooping and shrieking. Poor bastard, Sydney thought. It was one thing to have chosen that sort of life: another to have been shoved into it by circumstance. Because you were a bit of a ham-handed bloke with a silly laugh. It was one thing to have turned your back on involvement, quite another never to have known it. There he stood, in the murky subaqueous light of the hall, nattering on, while Sydney experienced a curious and uncomfortable combination of pity and patronage. Thus, once, in the war, he had watched the panic of a young officer during a sticky hour or two somewhere in the Red Sea, while he himself felt no fear: poor sod, he had thought, as he thought now, poor sod.