The Oracles Page 14

  Christina had now collected all the pins and was standing, icily patient, on the other side of the table. She had made up her mind what to say and said it, as soon as Mrs. Hughes came to a pause.

  ‘Thank you, Mrs. Hughes. If you’ve quite finished, shall we get on with our cutting out?’

  ‘Oh, I’ve finished. You needn’t think I like preaching sermons, Christina. But I can’t bear to see you making a big mistake which you’ll regret later on.’

  Since Christina made no reply to this they continued their work in silence.

  So Allie feeds her husband out of a tin from Monday to Saturday, thought Christina, and Timmie is always in and out of the Cellar Bar, so she takes it out on me. She must be very worried over her own children, poor thing, to burst out like this. I shan’t let it annoy me. She has always been very kind and we must bear with people when they are upset. Thank goodness I’m not the sort of person to bear a grudge and fly out over little things.

  The soothing sense of her own tolerance enabled her, after a while, to make some pleasant remark. Her friend eagerly responded. Their work continued in apparent amity until half-past four, when they broke off for tea.

  They brought Bobbins in from his perambulator outside the window and put him in his play-pen. Just as they began to clear the table there were sounds in the hall; Dickie had come in and was talking to someone. Christina ran out to see who it was. Quite a commotion seemed to be going on; they all went chattering into the lounge. Mrs. Hughes, who was chirruping to Bobbins, thought she could distinguish Martha Rawson’s voice—fluting, monotonous and inescapable. Presently Christina reappeared.

  ‘Is that Martha Rawson?’

  ‘Yes. And know what? Dickie’s asked her to tea! It’s lucky I made a cake.’

  Christina dived into her sideboard and extracted a number of green baize bags containing her silver tea service. It was, of course, brilliantly polished, but she began rubbing the pieces over with a bit of chamois leather.

  ‘In that case,’ said Mrs. Hughes, ‘I’ll slip off.’

  ‘No, Mrs. Hughes. I asked you to tea and I didn’t ask her. It seems she blew into the office to tell Dickie how much she admired him in The Bishop’s Candlesticks. And then she asks if he thinks I’ll give her my recipe for Polish borsch. It seems the Idens told her I can make it, and she’s gushing about it like a geyser. So Dickie falls for all this and brings her along, since he’s coming home to tea himself.’

  ‘Cooking!’ marvelled Mrs. Hughes. ‘That’s new. I wonder if that’s to be her latest craze.’

  ‘Let’s hope not!’ said Christina. ‘Poor us, if Martha starts on cooking. She’ll want to get laws passed to stop us eating what we like.’

  ‘Bobbins needs changing. Shall I …’

  ‘Oh, if you would! I have to cut cucumber sandwiches. All this would happen on my busy day.’

  Christina took the silver into the kitchen, set a tray with her best china, found a lace tea-cloth, and went into the lounge. Martha and Dickie were hard at it. They scarcely noticed her as she got out the tea-table and put up the flaps. Dickie was looking crestfallen.

  ‘I don’t see how an abstract can be sentimental,’ he protested.

  ‘Oh, but Mr. Pethwick’s artefact isn’t exactly an abstract, is it? It has definite associations. It represents something: an explosion.’

  ‘Yes. But how can an explosion be sentimental?’

  ‘All Conrad’s work in that period had just the least taint of sentimentality. Just a little too deliberately agreeable somehow. It’s a tendency he’s quite thrown off now.’

  ‘I suppose I haven’t seen enough to judge.’

  ‘No,’ agreed Martha. ‘But the central truth about an explosion is its terror. If Conrad were to do anything of that sort now, it would frighten you. You’d want to run from it. Now his Apollo …’

  Christina returned to the kitchen. Mrs. Hughes, having changed Bobbins and put on the kettle, was now cutting cucumber sandwiches.

  ‘Poor Dickie!’ reported Christina, with callous glee. ‘He’s made a mistake. That statue Mr. Pethwick gave him, the one that Mr. Swann did—well, he thought it was good. But it’s turned out to be bad. He’s looking so apologetic.’

  ‘Where is it?’ asked Mrs. Hughes. ‘Have you got it here?’

  ‘No. It’s in a packing-case down at Dale’s warehouse. And perhaps it can stay there, now it’s turned out to be bad. Martha says what’s wrong is that it doesn’t make everybody run away.’

  The kettle boiled and they took the rest of this elaborate tea into the lounge. Martha was so much absorbed in her subject that she barely greeted Mrs. Hughes. She turned again to Dickie and said:

  ‘So we decided not to send it to Gressington after all. It’s rather a wonderful colour, by the way. I don’t know how to describe it. Like … like dried blood.…’

  ‘Quite my favourite colour,’ murmured Christina, as she poured out the tea.

  It was said so softly that Martha did not catch it. The other two did, and Dickie flushed angrily.

  Mrs. Hughes wished that she had not upset Christina by that little scolding. She would not have done so had she known that this trial to Christina’s patience was about to occur. Only a saint could put up with Martha, who was behaving very rudely herself, talking only to Dickie, and refusing, in a superior manner, to eat anything. Christina was beginning to look so aggressive that Mrs. Hughes intervened hastily with enquiries after old Mr. Pattison, who was still in bed.

  They were safe while they kept to this topic, but neither Dickie nor Mrs. Hughes could spin it out for very long, since there was nothing much the matter with the old man. Martha fidgeted and awaited an opportunity to sidle back on to her hobby-horse. At the first pause she turned to Christina and congratulated her upon the acquisition of a Swann. It must, she said, have been a wonderful surprise.

  ‘Yes,’ agreed Christina. ‘We never expected it. But Mr. Pethwick is a very keyhotic man, don’t you think?’

  Neither Martha nor Mrs. Hughes could make anything of this queer word. Dickie averted speculation by plunging into an incoherent account of the difficulties he was having in the sale of Brinstock. From there he proceeded to the housing situation in general. Mrs. Hughes supported him, for it was plain that Christina and Martha must not be allowed to converse. Together they shook their heads over subsidised rents and agreed that the new council building estate was too far from the shops.

  Martha became increasingly impatient and showed it by making a little noise which was characteristic of her when she was thwarted. It sounded like Heh! Heh! and implied that she was joining in this conversation but had something much more important to say as soon as she was allowed to take the floor.

  Christina calmly presided at her tea-table and watched them all. She knew that Dickie and Mrs. Hughes were on tenterhooks and she was not sorry, because she was furious with them both.

  ‘Heh! Heh!’ put in Martha, at last. ‘And when are you all coming to my house? I’ve got something to show you.’

  ‘Whenever you ask us,’ said Dickie, who was anxious, by marked cordiality, to atone for Christina’s rudeness.

  ‘Sunday evening? Sixish?’ suggested Martha, smiling. ‘A few people are coming in for sherry and I’ve got a little surprise for you all. Mrs. Hughes? Can you and Mr. Hughes come?’

  Mrs. Hughes was not sorry to be able to say that Sunday evening was impossible for a minister’s family. Christina said nothing until Dickie had accepted for both of them; she then reminded him that she would be putting Bobbins to bed. She made no attempt to thank Martha or to express regret. Her open hostility to her guest could no longer be ignored.

  Martha, however, was used to hostility. She countered it by an enquiry about the borsch. It was so wonderful of Christina to have got the recipe. The cook at The Moorings—quite a good cook in her way, Provençal—had, alas, certain limitations. She refused to believe in any dish outside her own repertoire. This stupid Annette had denied the existence of Polish bors
ch. Could Christina find it in her heart to disclose the secret?

  Christina curtly named a fourpenny women’s weekly magazine of which Martha had never heard. There was, she said, no secret not shared by thousands of housewives.

  ‘But it isn’t real borsch,’ she added. ‘Not Russian borsch.’ She made a vague circular gesture and shook her head. ‘Il n’a pas assez de ça!’

  She was a clever mimic. They all recognised Don Rawson’s phrase and gesture when finding fault with a picture.

  ‘I don’t think,’ said Dickie, ‘that you quite know what you are talking about, Christina.’

  She opened her eyes innocently.

  ‘Oh, but I do. It hasn’t got what really makes Russian borsch. Wild-duck stock. Polish borsch is a cheap sort, you know. Just for the masses.’

  ‘Suppose you go and get the recipe?’

  He gave her a look which sent her scuttling into the kitchen. Mrs. Hughes, following with the tea-tray, found her standing there, obviously upon the defensive.

  ‘Well, she deserved it,’ began Christina at once, although her friend had made no comment.

  ‘I’m off,’ said Mrs. Hughes, putting down the tray. ‘Thank you very much for an excellent tea.’

  ‘Now you’re annoyed with me, I suppose.’

  ‘I’m distressed, because I’m fond of you. All that fuss about the cake and the silver and the sandwiches, and you haven’t the self-control to be polite to your guest. It was ugly, that’s what it was.’

  ‘I suppose it’s provincial to eat anything for tea.’

  ‘I was thankful I was the only person to see it. A good many people in this town, Christina, would have rushed off and made a great tale of it. And you needn’t think they’d have admired you. They’d have laughed at you for making such an exhibition of yourself. I shan’t tell anybody. Goodbye.’

  Mrs. Hughes took her departure, not without dignity. She kept her word and said nothing about the incident, not even to Mr. Hughes. But she prayed long and earnestly for Dickie and Christina before she went to bed that night.

  Dickie, left alone with Martha, felt obliged to attempt some sort of apology for his wife’s behaviour. It was received very graciously. Christina’s imitation of Don had been brilliant, declared Martha. But brilliant! She must remember to tell him; he would be very much amused. And then, before Dickie could collect his wits, she confided to him her little plan for the Apollo. She had not meant to do this quite so soon, but her intuition told her that the moment was favourable; she would never get him more completely at a disadvantage. In strictest confidence, what would be his attitude if she put this proposal before the committee? What was his opinion of the legal position?

  Dickie was so sure that the committee would be hostile that he doubted whether the legal position would be of importance. But he was anxious to be as pleasant to Martha as he could, since she had been so grossly insulted in his house, so he refrained from throwing cold water on the scheme. She would find out for herself soon enough that it would never go through.

  ‘The resolution specified a work of art for the town,’ he said, ‘without mentioning any particular site. I don’t see that that rules out the Pavilion. Of course the Pavilion trustees wouldn’t own anything bought with the war-memorial money. But I don’t see why the town shouldn’t lend …’

  ‘Supposing all that could be arranged,’ said Martha, ‘you wouldn’t object to the purchase as you did to the portrait of Mr. Dale?’

  ‘Why, no!’ said Dickie. ‘I objected to that because I didn’t consider it would be a work of art, within the terms of the resolution. Swann’s Apollo isn’t in the same category.…’

  At this point Christina appeared and offered to Martha, with a subdued demeanour, a copy which she had made of the recipe. The guest was shown off the premises. The door was shut behind her.

  ‘All right,’ said Christina, getting in the first word. ‘Blow me up. It was mean to pinch your crack about keyhotic.’

  ‘I’ve no intention of blowing you up,’ said Dickie, quite incorrectly. ‘If you aren’t sorry, it’s no use to discuss it. If you are, you must be as anxious to forget it as I am.’

  ‘Martha Rawson gets in my hair. She …’

  ‘You made that perfectly plain. Believe me, Christina, I never have the slightest difficulty in knowing what you think about anybody or anything. I’m told. Repeatedly. Nobody who has to live with you can be in any doubt about your opinions. Your idea of conversation is to make them known. I know what you think of Martha Rawson. I know what you think of Martha Rawson. I know what you think of Martha Rawson. I know everything you’re going to say before you say it. So that’s why I’m a little agitated just now. You see, you’ve surprised me. Yes! You’ve actually taken me by surprise, when I thought you never could. I thought I knew you, through and through. I’d have sworn you were incapable of it. If I hadn’t seen it I wouldn’t have believed it. You, who talk so severely about other people’s filthy manners … flouncing about like some cheap little …’

  Dickie was by now addressing the hall clock. Christina had rushed upstairs.

  2

  UPON the thirteenth day of the great siege the Swann household hauled down its flag. Nobody had come and the money which Elizabeth had left was spent, squandered, during the first week, upon all kinds of unusual delicacies.

  After this week of feasting came a few days of fast. Meals grew scantier and less satisfying. They began to look out, with sharpened anxiety, for their promised deliverer, and even left the door open when they went to bed, in case the person should arrive during the night. But nobody ever came near them except Lobster Charlie, from whom they could no longer afford to buy, and a supercilious school-child with a paper parcel from Miss Byrne. This contained a horrid little hat and a message that Serafina was in future to wear it at Mass. Serafina flung it away in disgust, but, as hopes of deliverance sank, she took to wearing it. She did not quite believe Miss Byrne’s statement that Our Lady had sent it, but she felt that she could not afford to offend anybody.

  On Sunday morning, having breakfasted on milkless tea and stale bread scraped with anchovy paste, they had reached the end of their resources. There was nothing for it save an appeal to the Traitor, who had, as they all knew, provided food in the past. So much at least was clear to Serafina although she still maintained a brave face before the others. She would, she said, go and fetch supplies from the town if nobody had come by supper-time, but she did not tell them where she meant to go. Such a course was abhorrent to her, but she could think of no other. Conrad and Elizabeth had obviously suffered much in consequence of their dependence on the Traitor. There was no knowing what she might demand, what new bonds might be forged, by this appeal. It would have been far better to keep away from her, but they could not starve.

  They spent the weary day creeping about after snails and running to the gate, every few minutes, to see if anybody was coming. Joe greeted the appearance of every casual stroller with howls of joy and often brought them out of the house on a false report. By six o’clock they were all so hungry that Serafina decided to wait no longer and went in search of her holy hat.

  This had been a school-girl’s round straw hat, but it was now limp with age. The crown ran into a peak and the brim hung down all round. It was what Serafina called a ‘repenitance’ to wear. She crammed it down on her head and looked for a basket in which to bring home supplies. The only basket in the house turned out to have a broken handle; the scrub bucket would hold more and be easier to carry. She rinsed it out under the pump.

  None of the children had ever been inside The Moorings, but they knew where it was. The distance was not great. Had she felt less languid and giddy she could have got there in half an hour. There was every reason to hurry, but she could not do so. She crept along, stopping every now and then to pant a little. The bucket was unexpectedly heavy and bumped against her legs.

  Bells were ringing everywhere for evening services. The people in the streets looked gay
and relaxed. They wore their best clothes and their holiday faces. Serafina, clanking through the town with her squalid bucket, felt as solitary as though she had still been up at Summersdown, peering down the road for somebody who never came. Those who noticed her thought that she must be a gypsy’s child; the peaked hat, with its drooping brim, was like the hats gypsy women wear when they come selling clothes-pegs and sprigs of lucky heather through the streets.

  At the corner of Market Street she encountered an acquaintance, a child in her class at school, called Sheila Tooley. They were not friends. Sheila was one of those who shouted rude remarks after the Swanns, because ‘things’ had been found on Dinah’s head. But she now ran up to ask why Serafina had stopped coming to school.

  ‘School’s been open a week,’ she said. ‘You’ll catch it.’

  ‘Some people,’ said Serafina, ‘can’t mind their own business.’

  ‘Some people have dirty heads.’

  Serafina searched her mind for a taunt which could be flung at the invulnerable Sheila.

  ‘Some people’s brother is so stupid he can’t get to be an altar-boy.’

  She stalked on, but Sheila got in the last word:

  ‘Oh hat!’ she shouted.

  In River Road a drum thumped. There was a bray of brass, and voices were raised in a hymn. The Salvation Army was holding a street service, standing in a ring on the jetty. The singers looked thick and red in their serge uniforms. Serafina envied the women their bonnets, which looked much holier than her hat. They had cheerful faces, but they were singing something very sad. Till the storm of life is past, they sang. She hurried to get away from it and took the road to The Moorings. The music grew fainter behind her, but she could still hear it when she reached the house. A long line of cars was drawn up opposite, against the river wall; she had never seen so many cars outside the Traitor’s house before.