The Long Shadow (7 page)

“
Spells.
You
know. Magic. He was all hunched up and
muttering
magic words!”

“No, he wasn’t”—Vernon corrected his small brother—“He was only—”

“Yes, he was …”

“No, he wasn’t …”

Darlings, darlings. Don’t shout so. One at a time.
Who
was …? Why do you say it was a wizard….!

“Because it
was
a
wizard …!”

“He was certainly wearing a wizard’s hat,” confirmed Vernon judicially, “I suppose he
might
have just put it on for fun, but he did look very wizard-y. And he was writing funny signs …”

“Magic signs, all triangles and things”—Timmie filled in the picture gleefully—“just like the wizard in Ali the Donkey….”

*

And so the story escalated, the adults chipping in here and there as best they might with deflating questions of fact. Well, but what did he
look
like? Old or young?

This drew a blank, because of course wizards aren’t old or young, are they, they are just wizards.

Well, was his hair grey? Or what colour?

“Grey,” said Timmie at once; and, “Black,” simultaneously asserted Vernon.

“Silly, it was his
hat
that was black….”

“No, it wasn’t….”

“Yes, it was, and anyway, you couldn’t have seen, you were behind me….”

“No, I wasn’t….”

“Yes, you were…. Besides, wizards always have grey hair….”

“No, they don’t….”

“Yes, they do. In Ali the Donkey …”

Hush, darlings, hush, not so much shouting! Tell us what happened next? What did he do when he saw you? Well, he
didn’t see us, not actually; we sort of tiptoed away…. Well, why didn’t you come straight and
tell
someone …?

“We
did
,
Granny! We were just looking for Mummy when Uncle Robin …”

*

“It’s all lies!”

Robin’s voice cut across the discussion with sudden vehemence, and everyone looked up, startled.

“It’s all lies. They’ve made up the whole thing from start to finish. First they wreck my room, and then they try to lie their way out of it. Bloody little vandals! They’ll both end up in Borstal….”

Here, Timmie burst diplomatically into tears, and Dot turned on her brother like a tigress, accusing him of being a bully, a hypocrite, and a sadist.

This cheered him up at once, and he listened with interest to the rest of her accusations. He had done a terrible thing, she told him, the worst thing you can possibly do to a child: he had been
unjust.

“They’ll never trust you again,” she concluded tearfully, “Never!”

“Oh, rubbish. They never have trusted me. I’m their Wicked Uncle, aren’t I, kids?”

The shrieks of delighted assent which this evoked made Dot wince. And later, after tea, she stood watching while her brother settled down to his crossword puzzle with a nephew leaning rapturously over each arm of his chair.

“Why did the fly fly, Uncle Robin?”

“Uncle Robin, have you ever heard of a cat that lived to be thirty-one?”

He didn’t answer, he never did, but they didn’t seem to mind at all.

“… Because the spider spied ’er, Uncle Robin!” they shrieked, in an ecstasy of one-way rapport. “Uncle Robin, it says in the Guinness Book of Records …”

*

Dot looked on sourly. She was wondering, as she had wondered all her life long, why it was that love could be earned so easily. In almost any way, it seemed, except by deserving it.

*

Imogen, too, was watching the little tableau.

He knows something, she was thinking; he knows something that he’s not telling us. He may not know who the “wizard” was, or what he was doing; but he knows
something.

I
MOGEN
HAD DECIDED
some while back that on the first of January she was going to feel better. “My husband died last year”, she would be able to say, distancing the thing at a single glorious stroke.

And so when she woke up on the appointed day feeling just as miserable as she had ever felt, the disappointment was almost worse than the grief. She turned and buried her face in the pillow, hiding away from the light of the New Year.

A bright, pure light it was through the small square window of her attic room. White, as if in the night snow had fallen. It hadn’t, Imogen knew, because the air didn’t feel right; but that’s what it looked like when she’d first opened her eyes.

*

Ivor had loved the snow. He loved to quote tags of poetry about it—from Virgil, from Hesiod, from Tennyson—standing at the dining-room window with everyone listening to him. He loved, too, the vast impact he could make on it with such minimal effort, stamping with mighty footsteps up and down to the snow-bound garage; across the flawless whiteness of the lawn and back again. Huge his footsteps looked, as if the Abominable Snowman had been there, having his will of the pure expanse.

“A tramp in the snow….” “I’m off for a tramp in the snow….” Ivor had loved phrases like these, rolling them round his tongue as he watched from the window, sometimes venturing outside and sometimes not, while the white light filled the house, and Imogen built the fires high.

A tramp in the snow. She could see him now, through her tightly-closed eyes, striding down a white mountain side, very small and far away, and thank goodness not in the Father
Christmas
outfit. Just his old anorak and boots, and moving
towards
her for once, getting bigger and bigger as she watched. She could see his face now, glowing with the sharp cold, and with the joy of being the one who was out in it, the one who would be able to talk about it all evening to those who had stayed huddled by the fire. She remembered how cold his cheeks would be when she kissed him, chill and exciting from the great
outside
. And while she made hot coffee, and fussed, as he loved her to do, over his damp socks, he’d be telling her how deep it had been. Three feet … four feet. By tomorrow, it would have been five.

She ached for his lies and boasting, and it was like aching for the sun.

*

Four months. Four months gone. It was like a pregnancy; at three months you can expect it to be like this, at four months like that: at five months you will feel it quicken, the new life stirring within you.

But it wasn’t happening, she wasn’t getting anywhere, nothing inside her was growing. The pain was as bad this morning as it had been on the very first day. No, the second.

I’ll never get over it. Never.

*

“You’ll never get over it, of course, dear,” was Edith’s New Year greeting across the hedge a couple of hours later: and in that moment, suddenly, Imogen knew that she
would
get over it. Knew, with a blind fury of conviction, that one day she would be happy again, would enjoy herself again. Would wake up happy in the morning: would fall asleep looking forward to the new day.

The knowledge was too new, too sudden, to tell to anyone. It must remain a secret as yet: a secret that she hugged to
herself
, saying not a word. It enabled her to listen to Edith’s good wishes as calmly as one might listen to burglars ransacking a building from which all the valuables have already been taken.

“Not a
happy
New Year, Imogen, because we both know that cannot be,” Edith was saying, her lined, indoor face haggard and hungry-looking in the silvery winter sunshine. “Not a
happy,
but
a
peaceful
year, that’s what I shall wish for you, my dear: I pray that you may discover what I discovered: that even though happiness is at an end, you may still win through to a kind of peace….”

I won’t. If they try to palm me off with peace, I’ll throw it at them. Happiness is where I’m going, and I shan’t stop till I get there. If Peace comes and gets in the way, I shall kick it.

“Thank you, Edith, and the same to you,” was what she said aloud: and five minutes later, found herself wondering whether Peace hadn’t, after all, something to be said for it.

Dot and Herbert were quarrelling again. In the kitchen, this time, which was going to make lunch very, very late. Because, of course, you can’t just walk in and start clattering saucepans and washing greens. The quarrels of married couples are sacred; it would be like cooking in church.

Not that you could help hearing what they were saying, whether you went into the kitchen or not. What Dot was saying, anyhow; Herbert, as usual, was keeping pretty quiet, treading the
precarious
path between saying the wrong thing and not answering when he was spoken to.

It was about That Woman again. The one who was forty if she was a day, who was only out for what she could get, and who didn’t know what Love meant. Her hair was dyed, too, in case Herbert hadn’t noticed: just take a look at the roots some time.

I
don’t know what Love means either, Herbert was defending himself, that’s what is so restful about her. Here, something hurtled across the kitchen and smashed against the wall.
Something
cheap, it would be, and easily replaceable—Dot was a prudent sort of a person. She’d have been careful, too, that it didn’t actually hit Herbert, perhaps drawing blood, and thus putting him hopelessly in the right about everything for weeks to come.

Even being
missed
by a teacup, though, confers a certain moral ascendancy. Imogen could hear the new confidence in Herbert’s voice as the clatter of broken china died away. Unfortunately, he
used his momentary advantage, as men will, for the assembling of facts to support his case. No, the letter he’d slipped into his pocket this morning wasn’t from Her, it was from the Inland Revenue—here, see for yourself. No, he hadn’t taken Her out to lunch that day, he went back to collect his extra shirts. And no, that wasn’t Her on the phone last night at midnight. And
anyway
, it wasn’t midnight, it was only 11.45.

Imogen could only sigh for him. Why is it that men, who so pride themselves on their rational, factual approach, never examine rationally one of the facts about facts: namely,
has
a jealous wife ever actually been pacified by one?

Half past twelve. In about ten minutes, by Imogen’s calculations, Dot would start crying; and for approximately fifteen minutes after that Herbert would be apologising, and saying Yes, of course he loved her, he hadn’t meant that at all…. And then Dot would cry some more—perhaps five minutes—and Herbert would agree (with just the tiniest hint of boredom in his voice by now) that yes, he was a sadist and a monster and a heartless brute….

*

A soft step behind her made Imogen spin round guiltily, caught in the act, caught standing in her own hallway. She had been a landlady (to all intents and purposes) for only a couple of weeks, but it is amazing how quickly a landlady learns to feel like a burglar in her own house, with no right to be anywhere.

But it was only Piggy. Appearing from nowhere as usual,
barefoot
, and wearing a draggly floor-length brocade skirt with tassels. She gave Imogen her usual sidelong, evasively disapproving glance, and continued on her unregarding way into the kitchen, right into the firing-line, armoured in a kind of bullet-proof
self-absorption
that filled Imogen with awe and incredulity. She heard the click and clatter of Piggy’s special non-stick saucepan, and the rustle of her Natural Foods in their neat white packets—all of them, actually, looking like packets of bicarbonate of soda. She heard the rattle of the dresser drawer as Piggy searched for her special wooden spoon: and then the tip-tap of natural wood on natural non-stick metal as Piggy stirred her de-hydrated
wheat-germ
,
or whatever. Imogen envied passionately the girl’s nerve. If it
was
nerve? Even if it wasn’t, even if it was just blank,
self-absorbed
insensitivity, she still envied it. Had she herself
possessed
this quality—whatever it was—then the potatoes would have been nearly cooked by now, and lunch on the verge of ready.

From where she stood, beyond the door, Imogen had heard Dot’s scandalised little intake of breath at Piggy’s intrusion. “Will you
please
get out of my kitchen,” she’d wanted to say; but of course “My stepmother’s kitchen” doesn’t have quite the same ring about it, so she had controlled the impulse, and
contented
herself with dropping her voice to a strangled mutter; while Herbert stared at the ceiling, humming a little tune, and at intervals saying Well, I suppose. Both of them, it seemed to Imogen, were playing for time, trying desperately not to lose the thread of their quarrel: to keep it, somehow, in a state of
suspended
animation until Piggy should be gone. It was a desperate business, like trying to keep a goldfish alive while someone rushes to fetch water. Even Imogen, out of sight of the whole thing, could feel the suspense of it.

Not so Piggy. Three minutes, it said, on her packet of powdered compost-grown whatever, and three minutes she gave it, stirring slowly and meditatively, tap-tap-tap, with her wooden spoon, while above and around her, filling the air with its tension, the quarrel hung between life and death, with Herbert and Dot, like surgeon and anaesthetist, locked in a desperate co-operation to keep the thing going.

But it was too late. By the time Piggy left the kitchen, carrying her tray of food and her mug with Please Do Not Bend inscribed on it, the quarrel had already drawn its last, feeble breath. The death-agony was over, and first Herbert, then Dot, left the kitchen, heads bent.

Now, at last, for the potatoes. Hurrying to the sink, Imogen set to work, pausing only to put under the tap the saucepan in which Piggy had scorched her mysterious repast, and to replace the white, medicinal-looking packages on to their shelves. It was a nuisance in a way having Piggy do her own separate meals like
this, but the girl seemed to prefer it, and anyway it was difficult to see how her peculiar concoctions could have been fitted in with the family meal.

“
I
want vitamin-enriched heather-grown mountain honey,” Vernon and Timmie would have been screeching in next to no time: and, “Not with
parsnips,
dears,” Dot would have countered, scandalised. “But
she’s
having it on her parsnips, Mummy” … and so it would have gone on, and on, and on. Better leave well alone.

At first, Imogen had worried a little about Piggy’s aloofness and her strange, solitary ways. “Boy-friend trouble,” Robin had airily explained, but Imogen didn’t believe it. Imogen had known a lot of girls in the throes of boy-friend trouble, and in her experience they didn’t behave like this at all. On the contrary, they were greatly in evidence most of the time. They hung around, red-eyed, waiting for someone to ask them what was wrong: they hovered over the telephone, ate chocolate cake, and had their girl-friends round for all-night condolence sessions, the earnest voices twittering low and soft behind closed doors as the sufferers lounged against cushions in orange or purple lamplight, assuring one another that he was frightened by the strength of his own feelings: that he didn’t trust himself to speak on the phone: that he had phoned twice today already, once while she was in the bath and once while she was out posting the letter. Anything—anything at all—rather than touch on the possibility that he just didn’t care all that much, and never had.

Still, Piggy might be different, and present different symptoms. Several times, at the beginning, Imogen had tried to draw her into the family circle, inviting her to join them for meals, and in the sitting-room, and asking her friendly questions about herself. But without being exactly rude, Piggy had an uncomfortable knack of making every approach seem an interference, every question an impertinence. From her laconic replies, they’d so far managed to learn that Yes, she was a student: and No, she wasn’t in her first year, she was in her second, sort of. And Yes, she’d known Ivor, sort of, everyone did, but she herself was English,
not Classics. No, she didn’t usually go home for the vacations: and No, her parents didn’t mind, why should they?

This last had brought a little squeal of protest from Cynthia, who, while not a parent herself, was a great believer in people minding things.

“What a hard, disagreeable sort of a girl,” she’d protested to Imogen later on. “I can’t think
why
you let her stay, darling, I really can’t. Those awful, shapeless skirts of hers … and no shoes … and that dreadful dusty black thing she wears, a nun’s habit, or something….”

“A burnous,” Imogen explained. “An Eastern burnous—they were all the rage with the students a year or so back, they used to pay the earth for them second-hand. It’s all part of the
anti-materialism
thing, the anti-establishment—”

But two six-syllable words in succession were too much for Cynthia. She looked pained, wrinkled her nose, and then went on with her own disquisition as if there had been no interruption:

“I mean, Imogen, apart from anything else, it’s the sheer cheek of it that gets me. The way she just simply arrived, the day before Christmas, and then just stayed and stayed….”

Look who’s talking, Imogen could have said, but didn’t; and anyway, Cynthia gave her no chance.

“I don’t suppose the wretched girl is even
paying
you
anything
,” she continued indignantly, swelling with the righteous wrath to which, in a way, she was entitled, having herself insisted on paying for her keep right from the beginning. At first, Imogen had been pleased at the sight of all those voluntarily-proffered pound notes each week—Cynthia was as lavish with money as she was with advice, tears, complaints, and everything else—but quite soon it began to dawn on Imogen that with these same pound notes Cynthia had quietly bought the right never to go away at all. Ever.