Poor Caroline (32 page)

The more they pushed, the farther the door seemed to
recede from them. Roger found himself starting to pray
instinctively that they might reach the door — only the door
- alive. But his disdain for instinctive prayers of panic
checked him. He would not, even for Eleanor's sake, fall
into that abasement of spirit. He bent down and caught the
weight of the cupboard more securely in his straining arms
and stepped forward. With almost the entire burden of it
leaning against his chest, he lifted the thing across the thres
hold and they went through.

They had still to cross the dark uneven floor of the factory,
to stumble over fallen masonry, old wheels and bricks, but once outside the laboratory itself, the nightmare ended. On
the waste land beyond the factory walls, they set their
burden down in the mud and stretched their aching
arms.

'Now which next?' asked Eleanor. 'Hadn't we better get the cameras?'

'You're not going back,' Roger stated.

'Why not? Come on, while the lull lasts. We'll all go and
grab something,' she answered, darting off towards the
building.

'Stop! Eleanor! Eleanor' Stop,' cried Roger, stumbling
after her through the darkness and calling frantically as he
ran. There is in the act of calling a sort of desperate pathos,
which in itself augments desire. In his childhood, lying
alone at night, Roger had sometimes started, out of a cold-blooded devilry, to summon his nurse or mother up to the
nursery. But as he called the sound of his own voice, impotent and wild in the darkness, filled him with panic, until
he was driven to real hysteria by the fears he feigned. So
now, calling for Eleanor through the black wind, he found
himself stricken by agonized and childish terror. The broken
walls crouched like monsters waiting to pounce upon her.
The wind buffeted him; a pile of rubbish tripped him and
drove him on to his knees, scraping his skin through his thin clerical trousers.

'Eleanor! Eleanor!'

This was the nightmare of his childhood. He wanted to
wake up and find himself in the lighted streets, with Eleanor
safe beside him.

'Eleanor! Eleanor!'

He was near the laboratory wall again, groping his way
along the wall. He found her tugging impatiently at the
door. But the displacement of the -wall had already pinned
it. It would not open, though she set her foot against a
fallen brick and pulled valiantly.

Eleanor.
Come away. Come away, you little fool.'

He tried to wrench her hands from the knob, and she,
furious at his interference, turned round on him.

'Let go. Damn you - let go.'

Then, when he seized her by the arms and with a quick
schoolboy trick snatched her away, she shouted, 'Get away -
even if you're afraid for yourself. Let Hugh and me
get in.'

But at that moment there was a new sound above the
creaking of the brickwork and howling of the wind. Like the
crack of a whip, the dry mortar let go its hold, and for a
moment it seemed as though all the darkness before them
stirred and shifted. It was such an extraordinary sight that
Eleanor stood gaping, watching the black night move in
front of her eyes. Then with an unexpected blow, Roger
sprang on her and pushed her roughly to the ground, him
self spread-eagled on top of her, sheltering her struggling, kicking body below his own, as with a thunderous roar, the wall went down in front of them.

It had, of course, fallen away from them on top of the
laboratory, but a few odd bricks dropped into the factory, one hitting Roger on the ankle. They lay quite still, their
mouths full of dust. The roaring seemed to continue for
about half an hour, though really it only lasted a few
seconds. It was followed by a complete and terrifying
silence.

Then, very cautiously, Roger began to move. Eleanor,
surprised and indignant, still squirmed with reassuring
vigour underneath him. The dust was settling, and the
wind, as though thankful to rest for a minute after its un
precedented triumph, held its breath.

'Are you all right? Did I hurt you? I do apologize,' cried
Roger, helping Eleanor to her feet.

'My mouth's full. I know now what it is to bite the
dust,' coughed Eleanor. 'I suppose it was the only thing
to do. Oh, poor Hugh! Do you think it's smashed every
thing?'

As the dust settled, another and much lower profile of wall
was arranging itself against the clear star-spangled sky.
Roger looked round, coughing and blinking,

'We must get out of here. Before anything else - ugh!'
For he stepped on to the ankle that the brick had hit, and
found it gave way beneath his weight. He would have
fallen if Eleanor had
not seized his arm.

'What's the matter?'

'I think something hit my foot I'm quite all right, You
go on. I'll follow.'

'Nonsense. We'll go together. Lean on me." Anything
seemed better than remaining in that place; he limped
forward, leaning on her arm. They found Macafee staring
ruefully at the ruin.

'I'm terribly sorry. The wall's gone,' said Eleanor. 'Oh,
Hugh, you mustn't go back there. It's no use. You can't see
anything in this darkness, and you can't save anything if you
could. And it's not safe.'

It certainly was not safe, and though they all felt rather
stupid standing there in the wind, there was clearly nothing
else to do.

'Well, what do we do next'
³
asked Eleanor.

Roger pulled out his watch, but it was too dark to see and
he had no matches.

'Well, we'd better get out of here, anyway. I suppose the
next thing to do is to tell die police,"

'Police?'

'Well, isn't that what you do when a building falls in?'

He started hobbling towards the street. The pain in his foot had subsided, so that when he stepped on it he could
feel nothing but a dull pain from the knee downwards.
Macafee and Eleanor walked one on each side of him.

It was curious to come out into the placid normality of the
lighted street. What with the noise of the wind, and the

isolation of the old chemical works, nobody in Annerley
appeared to have noticed that the gale had blown down a
whole huge factory wall. All that noisy tumult and drama
had not disturbed a single citizen.

Under a street lamp, Eleanor, Hugh and Roger looked at
each other. All three were covered with mud, and brown
as gypsies with brick dust, from which their red-rimmed eyes
blinked foolishly.

Roger found himself suddenly obliged to sit down on the
pavement with his back against the lamp-post. His ankle
had begun to hurt intolerably, yet he felt elated rather than
distressed.

It was at this moment that two policemen, rolling along
with the majestic dignity of their profession, came upon the trio.

'Hullo. Hullo! What's this? What's this?' they asked.

Roger, remembering the responsibility of his cloth, sat up
and tried to brush some of the dust out of his eyes, but he
was covered with mud, he had lost his hat, and his clerical
collar, having come unfastened, stood upright behind one
ear.

'Ah, a very opportune arrival, sergeant,' he began in his
formal Oxfordish voice. 'We were about to seek your aid.
There has been a slight accident.'

Then, suddenly, Eleanor saw the absurdity of his pompous
manner, and began to laugh, and Roger, though he had not
felt amused until that moment, burst out laughing too, and
rocked helplessly against the lamp-post.

'Come, come,' said the policeman, turning to Macafee as
the one apparently sober member of the trio. 'We can't
have this here, sir. You'd better tell me what's happened.'

'He's not drunk,' the Scotsman declared gruffly, 'he's
hurt his foot. There's been an accident. The wind's blown
in my factory wall. We were coming to report it.'

Macafee's sobriety was more convincing than Roger's
laughter, but the policemen were still a little incredulous until Eleanor and Macafee escorted the fatter one through
the gap in the hoarding and showed him the ragged outline
of the factory. After that final gust, the wind was quieter.
In the street they hardly noticed it. Convinced at last, the
policemen became helpful and almost animated. They took
down pages of particulars from Macafee, and offered to look at Roger's crushed foot. At first he was reluctant, feeling shy
in front of Eleanor, but when she brushed aside his scruples
as nonsense, and herself got down on her knees to remove his boot, he at once preferred the attentions of the police, and in order to get rid of Eleanor, suggested that she and
Hugh should go in search of a taxi.

The policemen, glad of a little distraction from their dull night promenade, and anxious to display their skill in first aid, inspected Roger's foot, and pronounced it to be nastily
bruised,

'In fact, I shouldn't wonder if there isn't a bit of some
thing broken here,' said one of them, sending little jets of
pain up Roger's leg.

'No, I shouldn't wonder, either,' agreed Roger amiably.
'Well, we'd all better go home.'

But by the time Eleanor returned with a taxi he had been able to picture the housekeeper's dismay at finding an invalid on her hands in the Clergy House, and consented readily enough to be taken to the local hospital. He wanted Eleanor to go back to her club, but she declared herself to be wide
awake. So in the end it was agreed that Macafee with
one policeman should go to report upon the damaged
factory, while the other escorted Roger and Eleanor to the
hospital.

'Of course, it's perfectly absurd, going to hospital for a
bruised ankle,' argued Roger in the taxi, 'but if one's going
to be a nuisance at all, I suppose one is better there. In any case, a hospital seems the proper and artistic conclusion to
such an evening.'

'What an evening!' Eleanor said. Roger could imagine to himself in the darkness how her eyes shone, and how her cheeks were bright with excitement. 'Oh, what an evening!
But poor Hugh! I can't bear to think of all his lovely
cameras and projectors smashed.'