What Was Promised (43 page)
Authors: Tobias Hill
You stay away from me
, he would have hissed,
you stay away from me and mine
. Then – had she done these things – she would have gone. And after all, would it have been worth it? To be sure of the end of it? But it can’t have happened that way. Only a woman with no pride would go so far. Only a madwoman would do those things, and afterwards go home to her husband with the taste of her lover still on her tongue.
What kind of husband would let that pass? Hers would look up from his pages, his eyes still wanting. He’d kiss her a welcome.
How are you, dear?
he would ask her, and she would answer,
It’s so cold outside.
Never mind
, he’d have said,
never mind. It’s warm in here
.
*
Besides, it never ends. Days might pass at a time, but then something will bring him back. A woman will laugh like Bernadette, and she will pity Michael all over again. Or it will be the back of a man’s head in a crowd, or Solly’s touch as she’s sleeping: or Iris, when she used to come; Iris’s eyes, and the remnant of his accent in hers. How frightened she was, the first time Iris rang! She thought that she had been found out, that Michael’s daughter had come to bring her to book.
She’ll always love him now. It is 1968, the end of autumn. The days are shortening. The nights are lit with harvest moons, even here, where nothing waits for harvesting. Dora rises from Solly’s lap and goes in. She hears the radio start up again, her man humming along. She goes into the bedroom, opens her dresser, draws out a box. From it she takes the black pearls. She lifts them against her neck. She looks up into her eyes.
*
London, dark and early. No light yet except the moon, that and what the city gives. Clouds the size of motherships, their bellies urbilucent rose.
In the Hotel Ibis, Euston, Michael Lockhart lies alone, half dressed in evening clothes. His breath is rank, from age and from the drink he failed to hold last night. He sweats soured vintages. His breath comes haltingly, apnoeic: a watcher or intruder might think him dying in his sleep. Only his pulse still moves, and his eyes, under their lids.
One arm lies thrown out, like that of a suicide or singer. Gold gleams dully at his wrist. How far Michael has come from the Columbia Road Buildings, from his days of cutthroats and carnations! Still, there’s a hunger to him, a needful severity. Even asleep, he has a look which says,
Don’t touch my plate, I’m not yet done with that
.
In his dreams he shrugs off years: they come away so easily. What does a man like Michael dream about? The same as anyone. Michael dreams of Michael, every night, in one skin or another. Asleep, he’s selfish as a child, as rooted in himself. Of others he dreams only of cobbled forms he fears or craves. Sometimes it might be Dora, and then he’ll groan at the clench of her teeth in his cheek, but most nights he dreams of family; more nights than not, of Mary.
This morning it isn’t her. Instead it is the Lockhart men, the company of his childhood. Michael’s stroke is still to come – the war itself is still to come, and the years of punishment – and he is a boy again, cocksure, fifteen, without impediment.
‘How about a song, Dad?’
‘No, I’m not in the mood.’
‘Oh, aye? Look out, lads, the old man’s got the hump.’
‘You’d have one yourself, Mickey, if you ever bothered with the news. It don’t turn a fellow on to singing. Who’s took my apron?’
‘Jerry, I shouldn’t wonder.’
‘You can laugh now.’
‘So I can and so I do. How about a story, then? Christy, you’ll have one.’
‘Nothing mild enough for your tender ears. Besides, a song’s better for shop.’
‘Graeme?’
‘I’ll work to either.’
‘To neither, more like. Go on, Dad.’
‘I’m thinking.’
‘Hold the front page!’
‘Will you not prattle on? Alright, now. There was a man like the three of you, by which I mean still half boy where it mattered most, up here –’
‘
–
So says you!’
‘
–
Strong of arm and thick of wit, and his mother called him Percival. Percy aimed to be a knight, so off he went to make his name. One evening he was riding and he came into a barren land. In its hills no tree put on its green, in its valleys no flower bloomed, and its fields lay unsown, because no seed would flourish in them.
Now Percy came to a river. An old man was fishing there, from a pinchbeck little boat moored up on the other side, and he had with him two boatmen. One was busy gutting fish while the other held a lamp, and this one saw the rider and tugged at his master’s sleeve.
Who’s that, the fisher calls, trespassing in my lands?
Lord, Percy calls back – thinking himself very civil – I am Percival, and I seek to cross your river.
Your luck’s out, lad, says the fisher. My little boat won’t do, nor will you find bridge nor ford, not here nor elsewhere in my kingdom.
Now, Percy knew little of the world, and of its kingdoms only Arthur’s – that being the isle of Britain – and he didn’t think he could have strayed so far as to have left that behind. Still, not wanting to offend, he knelt before the fisher, as a knight would to a king. Sire, he says, if there’s no way across, I’ll beg a night’s boarding.
The fisher gave him a hungry look and pointed with his rod. My hall lies on your bank, says he. You’ll have shelter of me there. Ride upstream and I’ll follow.
So Percy went upriver, into the woods where the trees put on no green, and the day was between the dog and the wolf, the sun was almost set, he was picking his way and losing it along the dusky bridle paths, grumbling all the time that the old codger had played him false, when up ahead he saw a light, and there was the hall of the fisher king.
A big place it was, but a sorry one, too, just like the lands around it. The walls were overgrown, and what had grown no longer grew, but lay dead as if struck off at the roots. There was no banter in the yard, no hounds to start up barking. Percy banged at the door. Out came men for his horse and arms and in they led him. Gloomy, they were, and inside stood a lily-white girl as maudlin as her men, who washed Percy’s hands and feet and showed him to his place at table.
Now in at the door came the fisher king, hollering for his supper. The boatmen were at his sides, and by the firelight Percy saw their liege was lame. He weren’t that old when it came to it, he still had all his hair on him, but he was houghed, which means hamstrung, and his legs couldn’t bear him.
Up to his throne limped the fisher king, and at his word the meal was brought. First came soup, in a gilt tureen that made the trestle groan. Fish soup, it was, and the fisher king drank it up through his moustaches, but Percy only played with his, because it hardly hit the spot, a soup, after a long day’s riding.’
‘You can’t get your teeth into soup.’
‘So Percy thought himself. Still, he held his tongue, as he felt a knight would in company.
Next came gruel, in a fine cauldron it took two men to bear. Fish gruel, it was, and the fisher king wolfed it down and mopped his beard, but Percy couldn’t help but think, fine crockery’s all well and good if you’ve something worth putting in it. What kind of king eats gruel? I could murder a pie, he thought – but he kept his mouth shut, because his mother always said to mind his manners.
After that three men came in, carrying an iron spear. Blade to butt the weapon was as long as the three men were tall, and in the hearthlight Percy saw blood shining down its haft, and the men themselves were downcast. What’s happened now? thought Percy. He saw the king was eyeing him, as if eager to tell his tale, but still the young man held his tongue, as he thought only proper.
Last the lily-white girl came in. In her hands was a golden bowl that seemed to turn her hands to gold, and as she stepped across the hall all the king’s men wept and groaned. What now, Percy thought – more fish? For something was in the bowl, bobbing in dark wine or water, but only as the girl approached could he peer in at its lip. It was the king’s head, floating, with hair around and eyes upcast.
Percy jumped up from his place. There sat the king beside him, head on neck, neck on trunk, though his gaze was keen and waiting; but Percy asked nothing of him. He didn’t know what to ask, or how to ask, or where to start, the supper having turned so strange and inhospitable. He was a callow boy, one who’d been raised gently and who aimed at being a gentleman. So the girl passed on and the king arose, and off they all went to their rest. Come morning Percy thanked the girl for his bed and board (such as it was, what with the fish), and took his leave of her.
He came to the woods and he came to the river and what did he find in the light but a ford. So the old man tricked me after all, Percy says to himself, but there being no harm done he spurred his horse across. Soon enough he found a road. By it grew ripe orchards and down it was a city that looked British as Birmingham. Percy rode up to the gates where a beggar sat, whistling birdsongs, and Percy threw him down a coin, because a knight shows charity.
Thanks for a kindness, the beggar says, and safe journey, Percival, flower of warriors, candle of knights, though you’re a callow boy and leave troubles like weeds behind you.
How do you know me? asks Percy, and what have I left behind?
A wounded land, says the beggar, a wounded king, and you who might have healed him.
Me? says Percy. What do I know of wounds or healing, bleeding heads or bloody spears? What was I meant to do?
Don’t ask me, the beggar says. You should have asked the man who knew. You might have saved the fisher king and your lily-white girl much suffering, but you’ll never help them now. You rode on none the wiser, and onwards you’ll ride the same, for that’s the lot of callow boys, who prattle on when they should listen, and gawk when they should ask, and one day end up wounded men, waiting for their own salvations –’
As Michael wakes his eyes go wide. He heaves in breath just as, five hours ago, he heaved out Scotch and claret; as if he is or were about to drown on lack or excess. He hunches up on spine and elbows and peers, as if there might be someone there, a watcher or intruder, in the dark geography of the room he doesn’t know.
His father’s voice comes back to him. Michael sinks down. He thinks, I’ll be in Birmingham, then. The old man has come to sit, is napping in a corner. The curtains are still drawn, the way they were after the stroke, all day. Except they don’t look right . . . they look like blinds, the slats kinked wide, with deep tiers of night sky behind them.
Besides, the old man’s long dead.
Michael thinks, Where am I, then? Not home; not Cyril’s either. The sky has the blacklight tinge of darkness on the edge of dawn. There’s a feel to the room that makes him think of hospitals. Unwillingly he reaches for his heart. Its beat is turgid, less comforting than the shirt and tie which clothe it. No physician has undone the garments Michael couldn’t work himself, last night, and with that thought the night comes back to him.
He’s in a second-rate hotel, in the slagheap neighbourhood that clings to the railways of Euston, King’s Cross and St Pancras. Tenners for the night porter, small change spilling from his pockets. He’d walked there all the way from Mayfair – heading homewards, if not home – through Soho and Bloomsbury and their throwing-out-time crowds, their parting shots and furtive gropes and boozy, flagrant kisses. And before the walk there was his own crowd, upstairs at Crockford’s Casino, in a private, wine-dark room: the company of men again, the brotherhood of old companions, all drinking to Mary. Cyril with an arm around him, mouthing nonsense in his ear, and Oscar with them on the steps, sober and faithful as a hound, ready to drive him home. He hadn’t wanted that.
I’ll stretch my legs. Don’t go worrying, it’s a fine night for a stroll, I’ll get myself home when I’m good and done – I’ll just walk this off a bit, this . . . Look, look here, how much I’ve here, you all got the rounds in, didn’t you? What did you think you were you playing at? I’ve cash for a ride to John o’ Groats, let alone Highbury. Go on, I’ll see you all tomorrow . . .
So he said. He didn’t mean it, that about home. He hadn’t wanted to go back alone to the empty house.
Now he rises in the dark, fumbles at a light cord, pisses. He ducks his head to a tap and drinks, crabwise from the neck up. His feet are still chafed from the walk and his skull aches from the water’s cold and from the toxins in his blood. A scrap of dream comes back to him –
hair around and eyes upcast
– and he shuts his eyes and drives it down.
He can’t get enough of the water. He walks to the bedroom’s window with a cup brimful in his hand. Down below, a sweeper machine is crawling up Cardington Street, its rotors scrubbing, busy-busy, cleaning up after London. Two men in donkey jackets come along behind like mourners.
‘You could clean me,’ Michael says.
He has never liked hotels, their smell of loneliness. Those forms they have you filling in with name, birthplace, passport, address. Michael knows what they mean, those questions. Bad things happen in hotels. They’re careless, loveless places. If hotels were halfway honest they’d ask you for your next of kin – and who would he give them, then?
