Harriet Said Read online

  ‘Please,’ I pleaded. ‘You don’t know how I feel at school shut away from the sea.’

  They were worried for me but they could never argue with conviction. ‘Don’t be long,’ they cried. ‘Walk straight home, don’t talk to strangers, don’t get your feet wet,’ and I was out of the car with Frances still whining to be allowed to come with me, and scrambling down the bank on to the shore.

  I had to take my shoes off but I left on my stockings. My legs were so large and white. I liked it best when the wind blew strongly. I whistled and ran with my arms spread out like a bird. All the time I kept looking for interesting objects left stranded by the tide. There were no end of things Harriet and I had found. Whole crates of rotten fruit, melons and oranges and grapefruit, swollen up and bursting with salt water, lumps of meat wrapped in stained cotton sheets through which the maggots tunnelled if the weather was warm, and stranded jelly fish, purple things, obscene and mindless. Harriet drove sticks of wood into them but they were dead. Several times we found bad things, half a horse and two small dogs. They were full of water, garlanded with seaweed, snouts encrusted in salt, and teeth exposed. Their necks were tied with wire. ‘They buy them for their children,’ Harriet told me, ‘and when they muddy up the house they bring them down here and drown them.’

  At Ainsdale the shore narrowed and I went inland to the golf-course. There were more pines to walk through, growing in ragged grass beside the smooth green turf of the course. Nearby was a college for Catholic priests and I hoped one day I might meet someone from there and have a chat about religion. Harriet met a priest once but she said he was awful, his fingers stained up to the knuckles with nicotine and obviously he hadn’t got a vocation because the body was a framework to the soul and his frame was dreadful.

  But I met nobody.

  At Freshfield, the small estuary was fouled up with mud and refuse. There were cans and bottles and paper smeared with excrement, petrol tins and ammunition containers. ‘One day,’ Harriet warned, ‘we shall find a unborn baby still in a bag of skin on its side in the mud.’ The thought both thrilled and horrified us.

  Without her I did not look too closely; I did not know what I should do if the presentiment became actuality. There were two shabby boats stuck fast, never used. Nobody had the money any more.

  Once on the Freshfield side of the estuary the beach ran straight to Formby and I jogged along with my shoes in my hand, thinking all the time about Harriet, about the Tsar, and a little about Charles Boyer. The tide was a long way out, the sea lay motionless; at the rim of the sky an oil tanker stayed still.

  When I cut away from the seashore over the dunes to the woods, I was praying, ‘Please God, oh please God,’ ducking under the barbed wire and on to the cinder path, praying to God as I turned a bend in the road. I was not religious but I had a crucifix in my room and I often called on God when I was at school or away from Harriet. I just wanted something to happen.

  At the gate of the Canon’s house stood a group of men, standing in a circle with legs like misshapen tulips, trousers tied at the knee with string. Jimmy Demon, the Canon’s gardener, was leaning against the fence and laughing.

  ‘It’s old Perjer,’ he explained. ‘Had a drop too much by the look of him.’

  Perjer was the village recluse who lived in the sandhills with his dog, in a home made of odd planks and boxes. Harriet said he was a pederast, but I didn’t really believe she knew, so I bent over him confidently and helpfully, saying to Jimmy Demon, ‘I’m sure he’s ill, Jimmy, he’s a funny colour.’

  ‘Dirt,’ he said callously, touching the body in the dust with the toe of his boot. The men sniggered and looked sideways at me, and laughed again.

  Perjer’s dog sat apart, nose sniffing the air, waiting till his master should move. He turned his head suddenly with ears well forward and the Canon came out from the garden at the back of the vicarage with the Tsar. We had called the Canon senile years ago; now he seemed less so, but dribbling from the mouth and lisping as he spoke.

  ‘Dear me, Jimmy, what is it, a meeting?’

  The Tsar, with hat in hand, came nearer and looked at Jimmy.

  ‘Drunk,’ he said.

  ‘I think he looks ill.’ I turned to the Tsar. ‘He almost looks as if he might be dying.’

  ‘Rubbish.’

  The dog settled down in the dust and went to sleep.

  ‘I really think I’d better phone for the Constable to remove him … he can’t stay here.’ The Canon was already purposefully moving up the path to the house. His legs were very bowed. Harriet always said to my father to annoy him ‘O the Canon, decent fella, been on a horse all his life’. But my father never knew what she meant.

  The Tsar stood irresolute in the road. He looked at the circle of onlookers and back to the Canon fast disappearing out of sight. He passed his hand wearily over his head and said finally, ‘Move him into the woods, Jimmy. He’ll sleep it off. They’ll only fine him at the station.’

  ‘Reckon the Canon won’t like it,’ said Jimmy Demon.

  Eager to show I didn’t care about that, I bent too swiftly to tug at Perjer’s feet. The dog swivelled in the dust and nearly caught my wrist in his teeth.

  ‘Aaaah,’ I wailed, genuinely shocked.

  ‘O God,’ the Tsar said, with disgust in his voice. Come on lads, get him into the trees.’

  The men looked knowingly at the Tsar, picked Perjer up from the road, a welter of trousers and flapping jacket, and bundled him over the wire netting into the trees. The Tsar and I stood in the road and watched the men climb the fence and drag Perjer deeper among the pines till he was hidden. They returned and the Tsar said, ‘Good, lads. We’d better be moving. Canon might not like it.’

  I thought while the men were about I had better be seen going away alone, though I wanted to stay with the Tsar.

  But he seemed unable to make a move. He stood, turned away from me, watching Perjer’s dog run agitatedly among the trees.

  Without looking at me he said, ‘Let’s have a look at the old fraud to see if he’s comfortable.’

  When I ducked quickly under the netting and waited for him I thought again he must be old. He laboured over the fence, his feet betrayed him as he alighted on the sand; he gave a little delicate sideways skip to regain his balance.

  Perjer lay in a trench, one of the many left by the soldiers during the war, his head in the sand, his large hands moving frettishly over his mouth. I knelt at the side of the pit, turning my face upwards slightly so that the Tsar would see my kind expression.

  ‘Are you feeling all right, Mr Perjer?’

  There was no reply; the man’s dirty face lay against the sand, the pale mouth slack.

  The Tsar looked down at me. ‘The police are coming,’ he warned.

  There were voices now in the road; we could hear the Canon lisping out the story and the high voice of a woman, recognisable as that of the Canon’s sister. We crouched down in the trench, Perjer’s dog lying across the Tsar’s legs.

  ‘The Canon’s sister has got wind of us.’ The Tsar peeped cautiously out. Elsie stood, one capable hand on the wire netting, peering into the woods.

  ‘O fat white woman whom nobody loves,’ whispered the Tsar, and giggled nervously as he knelt in the sand.

  Perjer moved his head restlessly and opened his eyes.

  ‘He wants something,’ I said, turning round awkwardly and putting my head close to the recluse.

  ‘What is it, Mr Perjer?… What do you want?’

  There were no voices from the road now, and the Tsar swung himself up to sit on the side of the trench, legs dangling over the edge.

  ‘I got to piss,’ said Mr Perjer very firmly, and the peevish hands struggled with his fly.

  I wanted to laugh. I thought how Harriet would have stood on one leg and screamed, ‘Aye, Yah! I gloat, hear me gloat!’ but I pretended to be shocked, scrambling out of the trench and turning my back on the crude Mr Perjer.

  The Tsar said, ‘Well, th
ere’s nothing much wrong with him,’ and placed his hand under my elbow and steered me away through the trees.

  Sometimes late in summer Harriet and I carried what we called divining twigs, to hold before us and brush aside the webs of spiders, slung invisible from bark to bark. Now it was the Tsar who waved his hand, bestowing blessings, keeping a way clear for us. The contact of his hand on my arm was so delightful that I walked very fast, talking inarticulately and not noticing the path we travelled, till we were in the Rhododendron Lands. The Lands were private gardens and alone I should have kept to the grass verge, ready for the gardener or the squire himself, not walking in the centre of the path as I did now, alone with the Tsar. Great flowering bushes three times my height rustled on either side of us and hid the sky.

  ‘I remember,’ I began, and paused to prod the purple flowers that bounced the air and showered petals at our feet. The Tsar stood still, waving an eloquent hand to encompass the garden and the sky, and brought the movement back to his heart again.

  ‘Never remember,’ he bade me. ‘It’s too boring. Think of the future and the places you’ll visit. Athens, child, think of Athens. I’m going to Bordeaux in the winter to bring back a barrel of wine to sweeten the dark days.’

  I thought of Athens and watched his face; the lines at the corner of his mouth, the dryness of his skin as if the moisture had run out with his youth, the droop to his eyelids as if he were tired. I tried to look right inside him but nothing stayed fixed. I could only see clearly the shape of his skull and the hand placed on his heart. I sat down on the grass. I had walked a long way.

  ‘I’ll be leaving school soon.’

  ‘What will you do then?’

  ‘I might go to art school … if my Dad lets me.’

  I knew I wouldn’t. It was Harriet who drew well, not me. It was Harriet who was educated; she told me what to read, explained to me the things I read, told me what painters I should admire and why. I listened, I did as she said, but I did not feel much interest, at least not on my own, only when she was directing me.

  ‘Why not come to Bordeaux with me?’

  I wanted to shout with laughter. I sang wildly to myself, ‘Here we go again Sister Jane.’ It was just it was so marvellous to be asked by a nearly old man, thirty inches round the belly-o, to go to Bordeaux to collect a barrel of wine for the winter.

  Aloud I said, ‘Oh, I couldn’t, I haven’t any money. Thank you very much for asking though.’

  Then we could not talk any more because I had been out hours and they would be worried at home and perhaps having a row over me, spoiling their supper with words. All the way home I kept repeating to myself, ‘O I couldn’t, God, surely I couldn’t’.

  But I felt I could.

  4

  On Sunday morning I went to church. My mother nearly spoilt it by making me wear a hat, but I took it off in the road and carried it. I knew very well what I should look like if I wore it, because Harriet had told me on previous occasions: like an old maid at a flower show. I met the retired postman in the lane who tried to delay me. He balanced dubiously on his bicycle, feet splayed out to steady himself. ‘Hallo, hallo, hallo.’ He was able to go on like this for ever, like a small child knowing simple words. ‘Hallo, hallo, fancy seeing you! What a bonny girl you’re growing … fancy …’

  I said, ‘Hallo, hallo’, and thought it daring, but then Harriet was not with me.

  ‘I’ve had an upset,’ the postman said confidingly. ‘Mother, you know. Yes, I heard a bump, thought she’d dropped something, she’s always dropping things, but when I went to look I couldn’t open the door. She was flat out. I had to push the door, I can tell you. She’s a big woman, and there she was with a great crack in her head.’

  ‘How awful.’

  A woman passed on a small bicycle, engulfing it ponderously. ‘Hallo, hallo,’ cried the postman, but there was no reply. ‘Mrs Biggs,’ he said, turning round on his seat and nearly toppling over.

  It wasn’t till after lunch when my mother asked me if I had seen anyone I knew in church that I remembered Mrs Biggs. The woman on the bike that the postman had called out to, was the wife of the Tsar. I went to my room and lay down on the bed, trying to think what she looked like. Big, taller than he was and grey haired; that meant she was old. And a tweed coat with a belt on. Big legs. That was all. Mrs Biggs was the one who had told my mother about me and Harriet being on the shore with Italian prisoners.

  ‘Mother!’ I opened the door and stood on the landing. I could hear her saying something to Frances in the room below.

  ‘Mother!’

  The kitchen door opened. The door knob rattled as my mother leant her weight on it. I imagined her bland face peering inquiringly into the hall.

  ‘Yes, dear.’

  ‘Was it Mrs Biggs from Timothy Street who said we were meeting Italian prisoners?’

  I felt very brave mentioning it. Of course Harriet had lied so convincingly that my father had said Mrs Biggs was a dangerous woman, but Mother had seemed very cool with me for weeks afterwards.

  ‘Yes, I think so. Why?’ At once my mother was curious. If I wasn’t quick she would be upstairs to have a little chat with me. ‘Oh nothing. I thought I saw her this morning, that’s all.’

  I waited a moment then went back to my bedroom and shut the door. So that was her. She had seen Harriet a year ago in the arms of an Italian prisoner. I was behind a sandhill with another one and she only heard my voice. She told my mother that Harriet was a bad influence but she never went to Harriet’s parents. Harriet had met her in the street and told her to mind her own business. She was so angry that the woman recoiled from her. But if Mrs Biggs spotted me with the Tsar she would come round right away and there would be no Harriet to defend me.

  I felt despair. I could not bear it when my mother was angry. When I had been little it had been different. Small sins expiated by flurried scoldings and smacked bottoms. I was not frightened of her anger, just distressed by the futility of her emotions.

  I waited anxiously till tea was over and walked to the church knowing I would meet the Tsar. It was raining again and we sat in the church porch, our feet resting on the tomb of a Norman soldier, arguing listlessly about the importance of things. I said that the historic body beneath us was a thing of reverence. After all, he had gone on about the ruins of Greece but all he said was, ‘Nonsense, just a heap of bones.’

  ‘It’s romantic.’

  He looked gloomily out at the green-drenched world and said, ‘Do you think so, do you really think so?’

  When I had nearly found the words to tell him about Mrs Biggs and that it would be better if we did not meet again, he said, ‘I was married here. Held the wedding breakfast where you’re sitting.’ How harsh, I thought, listening in the porch to an old man’s recollections.

  ‘I put on my dark suit,’ began the Tsar, blowing cigarette smoke before his face, ‘and she had a coffee-coloured dress, very short, and pointed shoes with straps. We walked here from Timothy Street and her mother and the Canon sat in the back of the church while we were married. A friend of mine, Arthur, performed the ceremony, gliding and cavorting up the altar steps. Those days,’ he said, looking out at the poplars blowing wetly by the Canon’s fence, ‘they hadn’t got graves all round the church. Instead there were trees, great tall elms that shut out the light. There were protests about cutting them down but the arguments were sound enough. Had to cut them down, there were too many dead to bury. I could hardly see Arthur but for the white smock he wore; he looked like a moth in the darkness. Then we came outside and her mother unwrapped the cake she had made, and she and the Canon and the wife ate most of it sitting where you are now. I didn’t have any. I wasn’t hungry.’

  He fell silent. I could not move. I stared at the ground expecting to see crumbs dropped effortlessly from the Canon’s mouth, but there was nothing.

  I felt sleepy; a great heaviness filled me. He was old.

  All those years we had known him and never once
was he young. We had smiled fleetingly, nodded our heads; he had raised his trilby hat and waved to us as we wandered down the lane towards the sea and all the time we grew and he stayed motionless. Twenty years before we were born, at random almost, he had married Mrs Biggs.

  The Tsar said, ‘She was pretty, you know,’ and I waited. His voice had grown small, he was talking out loud to himself.

  ‘No, not pretty. Big, full, her throat was … her hair smelled … those lovely kisses …’

  I coughed, it was too embarrassing listening to him. He turned and said, ‘We did our courting here you know. We met under the lamp under the tree.’

  ‘Indeed.’ Primly I swung my legs above the tomb and hunched my shoulders.

  ‘Lots of evenings in the rain … the struggling under the beech leaves … the talking we did … the promises we made … you do, you know, and you mean it … the smell of the grass … I thought …’

  I had to lean forward to hear him. I did not want to hear but I had to.

  ‘I thought her legs were made of pearl, dappled under the trees … when we heard a rustle in the grass I would know it was a bird or an animal, not a man prying and I would lean back tenderly, saying, “Keine mensch, my love, keine mensch” … and now our dancing days are over.’

  He cleared his throat, looked at me speculatively and turned away. I wished with all my might that he had never been. My eyes seemed so wide open in the rain; I felt I would never be happy again. The woman cycling down the road, all her promises turned to fat, the vast legs obscenely dappled under the beech leaves thirty years ago, the marionette doll on the bench, head dangling, eyes filled with sentimental tears, they walked the graveyard together.

  The thought came to me that if I touched his mouth with mine it would taste salt from all the years he had walked up and down, up and down the lane to the sea.