The Watch Tower (27 page)

He became more eloquent still and the customary obscenities assaulted the ears of his listeners.

Half-yawning, Clare went to lean against the rough wall of the house. The voice filled her calm head. She looked at the sky. (Hail, sky.) It was a cause for perplexity, she thought, that sounds like those still pouring from Felix could fail to poison the heart’s blood or make the heart itself shrivel and crack. What a noble organ it evidently was! (Her mind paused, then rattled off:

Ah, Sun-flower! weary of time,

Who countest the steps of the Sun
,

Seeking after that sweet golden clime

Where the traveller
’
s journey is done —
)

Feeling nothing, shivering impersonally, she sought out the planets for something to do, and the Southern Cross.

Felix continued.

Her mind paused. ‘
In India
,’
it quoted a passage
she knew very well,

‘in old times, whole communities used the method of passive resistance to redress a grievance. The technique was to sit motionless in a public place, without food and exposed to the weather, until the ruler agreed to the people’s demands. Sometimes, when he was particularly tyrannical, his subjects would desert the land, leaving the ruler to live in loneliness and mend his ways. In ancient India it was considered the duty of a wise man to abandon the kingdom when all methods of weaning a king from bad ways had failed.’

Eminently, eminently wise men.

‘Felix!’ Laura’s voice, which had been inaudible this immeasurable time, rose to a high warning quaver. ‘
Felix—
’

Clare jumped with fright. She sprinted along the side of the house to the hall window and paused, listening with every nerve, heart and head beating
the knife
,
the knife
,
the knife
,
the knife—

There was a long curved knife in the kitchen. What was it but a sly consciousness that his smiling-eyed unspoken threats of blood and death were felt in the marrow by his wife, that led Felix late in the night to perform his last grisly scenes in the kitchen, with its dangerous armoury of sharp pointed steel?

In that instant Clare recalled the scores of identical moments reaching back to her childhood, when the idea of murder was in the air, when Felix’s mind toyed audibly, almost visibly, with the possibility. And it was always just like this: about to happen. There had never been a friend to call—only ever the night sky, darkened houses where strangers slept, darkened houses that were empty, lighted houses full of strangers who would carefully take no notice of neighbours who might ask, appeal, expose—unpleasant things. Only ever the indifferent papery sound of wind in the trees, and distant traffic, winking planets.

Like never having belonged to the human race, she thought. Never to have been known And she experienced a sense of isolation that was—bearable now, and even almost joyful in its rightness and inevitability since all had changed, whereas in the past it had sometimes seemed unendurable. It no longer mattered. It was only natural, only the way things were. And in some sense she went out to embrace and accept this fact while the knife hung in the air and Laura’s voice quavered in panic.

A car pulled up. Its doors opened and slammed. In the kitchen there was instant silence, then furtive scrambling sounds of a scurried tidying-up, of chairs being scraped over the floor, and bottles and glasses being stacked. Then the lights went out. In Clare the tension fell as suddenly. She felt a little sick. All clear. False alarm.

Trailing round to her bedroom window, she lifted
it and slipped over the low sill into the room. They had thought it was Bernard coming home; it was only some neighbour along the street. Felix’s discretion in not wanting to be seen was fantastically out of character. A thorough-going nightmare with witnesses, during which he masochistically despoiled his unblemished image before the stranger to whom he still seemed like anyone else, was the normal ending to these ideal relationships. Another long night’s scene. And because, in a way, they had no idea what was wrong, they would rise unpurged, inflexible and sombre all the mornings of their lives. In her mind she did not so much salute as take cognisance of their plight; but nevertheless, she thought, nevertheless. The level of her spirits was not to be assailed.

The room trembled. The noise was so great that the very furniture seemed to sway. Straight from an uneasy sleep, Laura was on her feet and running to close the windows. Felix raised himself on one elbow and looked about sharply.

It was very early, only just daylight, and a sudden extraordinary wind was making the solid house shake on its rocky foundation.

At the windows Laura cried, ‘Oh, Felix! Come here!’ and he was out of bed at once, shocked wide awake by the moving house, the turning world, the ghastly noise.

Standing with bare feet and rumpled hair, they
searched each other’s eyes with no difficulty for the first time for years, hardly noticing the boundary they had crossed in doing so, the minor miracle that allowed them to talk spontaneously without thought of profit or loss or hidden meaning. For out there in the grey of water, sky and land, there were dreadful clouds, a mad wind and hideous noises. They stood watching, sides pressed together, their faces distorted with apprehension.

‘What do you think it is, Felix?’

He moved his head very slightly from side to side. ‘I’ve never seen anything like it.’

They stared out at the strange water of the harbour and the stranger light in the sky.

‘What do you think those clouds are?’

Felix looked into her eyes again, then back at the sky, which changed second by second, assuming cloud-shapes such as he wished he had never seen. ‘What do
you
?’
he prevaricated.

‘I don’t know.’ Laura’s body shivered with fear.

Felix rubbed his lips. ‘It isn’t a hurricane, either.’

But that was not what they were afraid of. They were not afraid of anything natural.

‘It doesn’t look too good, does it?’ he said, and they stood silent together, looking out, for a long time.

‘Should we wake the others?’ Laura murmured. Her head reeled. She was afraid of fainting.

They looked at each other, deciding that that would
be to admit too much, to acquiesce, perhaps, and alter some fine balance disastrously.

‘Oh—I guess they’re either awake or—if not, they’re pretty sound asleep.’

‘We’ll leave them. It might be best. I’ve never been so cold.’

Chilled, silent, they watched from the window and listened. At length Felix said, ‘Oh, well. We can’t stand here all night. There’s nothing we can do, anyway. Maybe it’s all right. I don’t know.’ The house shook. ‘Might as well go back to bed, eh? I am.’

Imperceptibly, then more swiftly falling back on themselves, they both began to remember: if by any chance this was not the end of the world, they were Laura and Felix Shaw. They had grudges, positions to protect, angles to work out.

Laura followed him, slipping between the sheets and stuffing her feet to the bottom of the bed where vestiges of warmth had remained.

They could still see the grey surrealist sky and feel the uneasiness of the house under the bombardment. Not talking, they put out all their senses to apprehend this peculiar dawn, breathing carefully so as not to impair their understanding of it.

Several countries were exploding bombs. There was another crisis. There were new weapons that killed people without damaging things.

Behind closed eyelids Laura read yesterday’s head
lines. Could it be? Could it be? That they meant to kill her, to kill them? Never even having seen them? ‘What do you think then?’ She dared to turn her head although she did fear that the least movement might bring down the holocaust.

‘Uh?’ Felix’s forehead was clearing, though it still felt possible that they were in danger, and the wind was hammering and howling all about. ‘Oh—I suppose it’s all right.’ It always had been before. He had never been exterminated yet. What could he do, anyway? And, in a way, if the worst came to the worst, since he was older than the others and would die first, would it be such a bad thing?

Laura allowed herself to be lowered slowly, by degrees, back into her horizontal body on the bed. Immediately, her face set in the old way, and her mouth and eyes began to endure again, while on his far side of the bed, Felix let his teeth clash together in his suddenly splitting head, remembering who he was, and that he had to live and be this person now that this was evidently just a freakish morning. (Worse luck? Worse luck?) And now, more confident that they would live a while, they were peculiarly more miserable than they had been before. They were captured again, put back in their cages. They were quickly compressed again to this size that was not comfortable. They were known, filed, had records.

Known! Who had the effrontery to imagine so?

Ah, well! The world was in a bad way, but still spinning. So here they were—no holidays from themselves forthcoming—as they had been for years.

‘Who asked your opinion?’ Felix smiled. ‘Who asked your opinion?’ he said again, loudly, to Clare.

Tapping one small foot in quick march-time, Laura dissociated herself from them and stared at the cover of a women’s magazine with an excited frown.

‘No one. I gave it.’

‘Then would you mind keeping your big mouth quiet, please?’ He smiled at Clare, and through her black lashes she gave him back a closed and strangely glittering smile.

‘Here’s some peanut brittle, Felix!’ Laura had remembered the white paper bag of sweets at her side and jumped up with it.

He took a chunk and stuffed it into his still-smiling mouth, not looking away from Clare.

Laura hesitated, then pronounced her sister’s name on a discreetly low note, ‘Clare?—’

Clare shook her head. Laura sat down on the sofa with a little bump, and lit a cigarette. She noticed then that she had one, newly lighted, in the ashtray.

‘Oh! Bernie! Hi there, young fella!’ Felix cracked the hard toffee with his teeth alarmingly and gave a disingenuous grin. ‘Come on in, come in. What you doing out there in the cold, eh?’

‘Am I interrupting you?’

‘What? Oh, sparring with old Clare here? This harem of mine. Got to keep ’em in order somehow, or a man’d never get a look in. Come in. Or why not let’s you and me have a game out in the office? How’s about getting licked at chess?’

Bernard grinned. ‘I don’t even have to try—but do you mind if I see Clare for five minutes first?’ He looked at her. ‘I wanted to show you a letter I’m working out.’

Abruptly, and as if they were quite alone, Felix turned to Laura. ‘You’ll have to go through those accounts with me.’

‘Now?’ She put aside the magazine, and stubbed out her cigarette.

‘I don’t mean next week.’ He strode past Bernard and Clare as if they were pieces of furniture, and Laura followed him, raising her eyebrows at them hopelessly.

Left alone, the other two wandered outside, not speaking. In the sheltered courtyard the sun was hot and the sky was almost colourless in its height, transparency and clearness. A ti-tree six feet high stood as if in radiant surprise to find itself so very young and ornamental, alight with tiny flowers, a wondrous pink. (Behold!)

Looking at it, Bernard asked, ‘What was that about?’

‘In there? Oh, nothing. I’ve forgotten.’ Clare looked at the ti-tree. ‘What letter were you going to show me?’

‘Only an answer to that Department of Education
letter. It’s inside.’ He said, ‘I couldn’t take any money from Felix.’

‘No.’

‘I’ll have to find a room soon.’

‘Yes.’

‘What will you do when I go?’

Clare shrugged and they frowned at each other in the sun. ‘I haven’t given it any thought.’

‘Why have you stayed so long in the house with them?’

Turning from the little shrub they walked over to the lawn at the side of the house. ‘I didn’t know I could go,’ Clare said vaguely.

Bernard could not believe this, but knew it might be true. They dropped to the grass. After a pause he said, ‘Laura’s very nice. She’s been very kind to me.’

‘She is nice. She would brand you with hot pokers, of course, if Felix asked her to. Or hammer nails into you, apologising for the inconvenience, if she thought it would please him.’

Bernard looked pained. This cynicism, this disloyalty to her sister, had no place in his ideal picture of Clare. ‘What are you saying?’ He looked at her almost sulkily.

‘I’m saying remember that you, and I, and people, only exist for Laura in relation to Felix.’

Bernard rolled over on the grass and sat up and
stared about at the white walls of the house and the green garden. ‘It looks charming. But I know you’re right. From what I’ve seen and heard. What he’s said to me. Nothing he does is ordinary; everything has extra meanings in his mind. Even playing chess. What does he want?’

Slowly Clare shook her head. ‘I don’t know. Anything obvious you can think of, he’s had. And it’s never been the right thing. Sometimes I think he wants to make us like himself, strangle our minds. To have us see everything as he sees it. He’d like that.’

‘Poor Felix. I wouldn’t.’

‘No. And what enrages him so much, I think, is that he sometimes realises now that you can constrain people physically up to the limit without being able to get within miles of their minds. You can’t change their thinking—leaving brain-washing and drugs aside.’

‘He makes the atmosphere very odd. Tormenting you and Laura. He smiles at me as if I should admire this. I don’t. When he speaks it’s a voice from on high—meek attention. When he’s silent—tremble silently. His assumptions make me feel as if I’d walked off the end of a gangplank.’

Clare nodded. ‘Any sign of aspiration, affection, any gaiety or open-heartedness has to be axed to the ground. If you say a word in favour of the Buddha, it’s a reflection on him. And how much more so if the favoured one is only a mortal still caught on the wheel of existence.’ She raised her eyebrows at him and
smiled faintly.