The Forgotten Story (14 page)

‘You know the way we always go to Mother's grave? Well above the cemetery a lane leads out towards the sea. There are four houses on it; Dr Penrose's is the last. You can't miss it.'

‘Is Uncle Joe … Has he –'

‘He's ill again, Anthony. I feel so awful about it, as if it was my fault. The doctor said he mustn't have worry or excitement.'

Anthony had overcome his shyness sufficiently to touch her hand. ‘It wasn't your fault a bit. I'm sure everything will be all right. And I'll run like anything.'

This promise he was now proceeding to carry out. Up the hill, padding silently in his rubber shoes, his breath coming sharply, he moved among the shadows, one moment slipping through darkness, the next crossing one of the brilliant shafts of moonlight, which lay in bars athwart the narrow street. Soon he had reached Western Terrace and the going became easier. He dropped down towards Swanpool.

In the moonlight the cemetery looked unfamiliar and ghostly. All the white tombstones trailed black cloaks of shadow. They were like an army marching up the hills, an army of invaders fresh landed on the coast and marching to attack the town.

Every few yards along this lane the boy glanced over his shoulder to see if there was anything behind. Once he stopped and sheered to the other side of the road. But the object which barred his path was no more than the shadow cast by a misshapen hawthorn tree.

Once past he was comforted by the thought that on the return journey he would have company. He reached the doctor's house and pulled at the bell. At length his summons was answered, and in about ten minutes he was on his way back, walking and trotting beside the tall physician, whose breath came in grunts and whistles in the cold moonlit morning.

They reached Smoky Joe's almost without conversation; Dr Penrose seemed a little petulant at the inconsiderateness of a man who could take ill at such a time of the night. Anthony led the way upstairs and then was shut out of the lighted bedroom. For a few moments he hung about on the landing listening to the murmur of voices within; then he slowly went down.

Little Fanny, red-eyed and sleepy, sat by the stove on which a kettle and a pan simmered. She looked up at Anthony's entrance and said: ‘ 'As 'e come?'

Anthony nodded. ‘Have you heard how Uncle is?'

‘Miss Pat was down just now. She didn't say much.'

Anthony took a seat on the opposite side of the stove and the conversation lapsed. Fanny began to doze.

‘What's that?' Anthony asked suddenly.

She jumped. ‘ Uh? What? What's what?'

‘I thought I heard someone talking downstairs.'

‘Oh? Oh, yer-rs. That's Mister Perry. 'E's still clearin' up the mess what was made. 'E's not been to bed at all.'

Silence fell again. Fanny's small tattered shoes were stretched towards the warmth, toes touching. Her mouth fell slowly open.

The boy got up and tip-toed out. Better to help Uncle Perry than sit and do nothing. Sleep was impossible until the doctor had left.

Down in the restaurant a single gas jet cast its anaemic light upon the ruins. For a moment Anthony could not see his uncle and supposed him to be brushing up the floor. But further inspection showed him to be sitting at the little corner window table where all the trouble had begun. He was resting from his labours.

Anthony's rubber soles made no sound until he stepped upon a piece of glass. Uncle Perry jumped a visible inch and glared at the boy.

‘Belay there! Damn me, I thought it was a ghost! Never wear rubbers, boy; they're an invention of Old Scratch himself.'

Anthony saw that there were three bottles on the table, and two were empty. Uncle Perry had been resting from his labours almost since they began.

‘Sorry; I thought perhaps I could help. I … don't feel like sleep.'

Perry was not long in recovering his temper.

‘Don't go away; don't go away. Of course, you don't feel like sleep. No loving nephew would at a time like this. Nor do I; no more do I; that's why I'm down here trying to think of something else. I've worked myself to a standstill. Have a taste of rum?'

‘No, thanks, Uncle Perry. I'll just wait down here till the doctor goes.'

‘So you've been for him? There's a good lad. I said you would. I said, “Young Anthony's got the fastest legs of any of us. Why ask me?” I said, “I'm good for nothing tonight. I'm out of sorts myself. I'm worried about Joe,” I said. “ It's the anxiety that's getting me down.” I'm a – an abstemious man, Anthony; anyone'll tell you that, but the anxiety over Joe is getting me down. I'd got to do something, so I came down here and began clearing up.'

Anthony perceived that he had mistaken the nature of the relationship between the two brothers; evidently the way they barked at each other sometimes only disguised their real affection. He forgave Uncle Perry for getting drunk.

He shivered, having cooled off from his run. ‘It's a bit cold down here.'

‘Get a glass,' said Perry. ‘ Ever tasted rum, boy? That'll warm your lights. Go on, there's nothing to be afraid of.'

The boy brought a glass and sipped at the liquid Uncle Perry put in it. He thought he had never tasted anything so vile: sweet and sticky and hot in the throat. When it was gone he shivered worse than ever.

‘It's the starting that matters,' said Perry, pushing back his hair. ‘It's the first drop that counts. The first teeny drop. Once you've taken a sip there's no turning back, no innocence any more. Life's like that; I tell you, boy, take it from me. You drink a glass of rum or have a bit of lovey-dovey, and where does it lead? Nobody knows; you've started something and 've got to follow it; one thing leads to another; see what I mean? It isn't that a man's bad – nor that he's good – it's just following a lead. Often it's just being good-natured; nothing more than that; no intentions of any sort, and then where are you? They say who rides on a tiger … But which of us isn't in that fix? Can I get down? Can you get down? We're all on our own tigers which – which we've fed for a bit of sport or brought up from being a cub; and – and now we wish we hadn't …'

The rum was warming the boy. Sleepy in spite of himself, he gazed out across the harbour. There were two lights on the water, that of the setting moon and that of the dawn. The reflection of the moonlight was like tinsel silver, twinkling, without colour, except a suggestion of coffee brown in the water not immediately caught by it. The dawn light was a pure cold blue glimmering on the water like a shield.

‘What's that?' asked Uncle Perry, peering towards the shadowy stairs.

‘I didn't hear anything,' Anthony said after a moment.

‘I thought maybe it was the doctor. I thought it was him or somebody else. I thought it was. But there you are, mistaken again.' He drained his glass and the lock of hair fell back from his forehead. This morning hour seemed to have caught Perry in a strange mood. He was not his usual jovial buccaneering self. Even Perry had his moments of doubt.

‘Shall I go up and see?'

Perry tapped the boy on the shoulder. ‘I know how you feel. I know what it's like to be young. You think you know everything at that age. But the older you grow the more you see your mistake. The world's a snare, boy, make no mistake of it.
And
everybody in it. Everybody's different. Like – like the trees in a forest. Some's crooked; some's straight. Some's healthy; some's got moss on 'em. Some'll stand any storm; others'll fall at the first puff. Some's got fruit that's good to pick; some hasn't.
And
you can't tell. That's my meaning, boy: you can't tell. Not the cleverest person in the world can tell what's behind a face. They think they can, but they can't. It's been a shock to me … Many times it's been a shock to me. It shakes your nerve. You don't know where you are. Then before you can say knife you're riding somebody else's tiger …'

Silence fell. Uncle Perry's disjointed allegories were too much for Anthony. Eyes pricking, he watched the shadowy light grow in the east, slowly gaining ascendancy until it penetrated into this room, showing up new outlines of disordered chairs and tables, whitening a pile of broken crockery, driving before it the dismal defeated light of the flickering gas jet. Unnoticed, Uncle Perry's face had also emerged, wan and bloated and strained. When he poured himself a drink the bottle neck went
tat-a-tat
against the side of the glass.

The doctor had been here a long time. He could not have gone for they would have heard his footsteps.

Day was coming. Clouds high in the sky had begun to flush. They reflected a terracotta stain upon the opal blue of the harbour. Seagulls had begun to wheel and cry.

Suddenly there was a footstep behind them. Uncle Perry knocked over his glass. They had both expected to see the doctor, but it was Aunt Madge.

The monumental calm was shaken. ‘Very tired,' she said distantly. ‘Brandy or something …'

‘Well?' said Perry, and his mouth twitched.

‘About the same. Dr Penrose is doing all he can. Touch and go, he says …'

Perry wiped his forehead. ‘Poor Joe.'

‘Brandy or something,' said Aunt Madge. ‘I feel … can't stand it.'

Perry put some rum into Anthony's glass. ‘This'll do.'

She kept pausing to wipe her eyes while she sipped it.

‘What does he say?' said Perry anxiously.

She waved her glass in sudden irritation. ‘Joe's right: doctors
pretend
to know. Anthony.… should be in bed.'

Perry slumped back in his chair. ‘I've had an awful night …'

‘You? You've done nothing. There's …'

‘It's the waiting. All of you up there and me down here. Me thinking of poor Joe and doing nothing to help. Not able to do anything; you know, Madge, it isn't so easy as you think when a brother goes down like this – stricken down in his fifties; when we were kids; it reminds you of that time; we used to go out in a row-boat together; used to fish for dabs; used to bathe up the river; he was a big boy then, or so he seemed to me; there was six years, you know; that's a difference when you're kids; now it don't seem much; those days I never dreamed there'd come a time when I should sit here while Joe lay upstairs; it shakes you up more than you'd think, more than I thought. Blood will tell, you know; blood's thicker than water; you don't think so till it comes to the test; at a time like this. Honest to God, Madge, I'd – I'd rather …'

Aunt Madge had risen to her feet again. She looked down upon Perry from an altitude, remote as a snow-covered peak, frozen and impersonal and secretive. ‘How do you think I feel? Ill myself. Husband. Lonely. Got to carry on. Not sit there. Some have got to do. To act. Not sit there over a glass. Where should we be if everyone sat over a glass? Where should we be if I'd done nothing all this night? Anthony …'

The boy got up sleepily and stood beside her. ‘All right.'

‘Let him stay here,' said Perry argumentatively. ‘ He's company for me. If you're going I'll have no company; it's too late to go to bed now; we can sit here. I'll light a fire. I'll get Fanny to light a fire and we'll sit down here; it'll help to brighten things up; then when it's light we'll go on with clearing away the mess; somebody'll have to clear the mess; if the boy goes to bed now he'll sleep till midday. We might need him before then. You don't want to go to bed, do you, boy?

‘Not if I can help.'

‘There's the boy. We'll stay down here together, Madge, if it won't affect you. We'll be anxious to know –'

‘Anthony,' Aunt Madge said, as he was about to reseat himself.

He straightened up again.

‘Quite light now,' she said. ‘You can clear up, Perry. But –'

A voice came from upstairs. It was Patricia calling her. ‘Aunt Madge! Aunt Madge!'

Ponderous in her haste, the older woman left them. With a premonitory chill Anthony watched her climbing the stairs. There had been something in Patricia's voice which told its own story. Joe Veal, for all his tenacity, had this time met an opponent who was going to get the better of him. Standing in the battered restaurant with the first full light of day creeping among the final shadows, his nephew knew this as surely as if he already heard the toll of a requiem bell. He knew it, and he was afraid.

From behind him came a
tat-a-tat
as Uncle Perry shook more rum into his glass.

The death of Smoky Joe and the other events of that August night had consequences which completely changed the lives of those concerned in them.

Everything came to a standstill. To the boy, who had known only the busy routine of Joe Veal's when it was in full working order, the silence which fell was peculiarly oppressive. It was as if he had been in a railway terminus and there had been an accident out on the line and the station had suddenly emptied. In such a case he would no doubt have wandered at will, through the turnstiles, past the ticket office, through the luggage departments and back upon the deserted platform. So now he found himself at a loose end, sitting in one or other of the empty restaurants, mooning through the kitchen, passing into the larder, where quantities of uncooked food gradually became offensive, standing in the shop behind drawn blinds allowing his fingers to play with the keys of the automatic till.

Not that there was no activity at all on the closed premises, but none of it concerned him. Everyone had more
time
, but no one had any
attention
to spare him, not even Patricia.

There were the endless visits from old customers and friends who came round with suitably grave faces and talked and drank cups of tea in the kitchen. There were the relatives: Aunt Louisa from Arwenack Street, a small tight woman with varicose veins, received with statuesque dignity by Aunt Madge. There was a cousin from Percuil and a second cousin from Mawnan Smith. By virtue of their relationship they stayed much longer than anyone else, sitting back purse-lipped in a corner while others came and went. By tactful stages they steered the conversation round to money matters and Joe's belief in blood ties; but Aunt Madge said Joe was very reserved about his private affairs, Joe's financial arrangements were a closed book to her, she'd left everything to Joe, all that would have to come out later, when the proper time came they'd be told if there was anything for them. With that they had to be content.