The Black House

12

“Is this hot or cold?” Anne Motherwell’s spoon was poised over the soup.

“It’s vichysoisse,” said Mrs. Awdry. “I hope you like it.”

“That’s means cold,” said the vicar.

“There’s always a first time,” said Jerry. Saying this he engaged the attention of the table. Everyone watched for his reaction while he took a spoonful. He smiled and swallowed. He said in a surprised voice, “Potatoes,” then, “but very tasty,” and the rest began to eat.

“Did anyone here go over to that meeting in Brid-port to protest the oil-drilling?” asked Janet Strick.

“We were there,” said Peter. “It was very encouraging to see all those concerned people.”

“What exactly are they concerned about?” asked Munday.

“Marauders,” said Anne.

“They’re planning to turn the countryside here into an industrial wasteland,” said Michael. “There’s a scheme afoot to drill for oil in Powerstock.”

“It’s got everyone up in arms,” said Awdry.

“Not everyone,” said Janet. “It looks as if they might go through with it.”

The vicar cleared his throat. He said, “Some years ago—this was before my time—they said they were going to put huge pylons through Marshwood Vale. There were protest meetings and so forth, petitions and letters to the paper. Some people were quite vocal.” He smiled. “And then of course they put the pylons up.”

“That’s always the way,” said Mrs. Awdry.

“I’ve seen them from the back of my house,” said Munday.

“Sorry about that,” said Awdry.

“It’s a rotten shame,” said Janet. “Why should the government designate this as an area of outstanding natural beauty one year and then put up oil rigs the next? I can’t fathom it.”

“They need oil,” said Jerry.

“There’s plenty of oil in the Middle East and America,” said Janet.

“I mean in Britain,” said Jerry.

“I see we’re divided on the oil question,” said Munday. He smiled at Caroline.

“What about the North Sea?” said Anne. “There’s masses there.”

“There’s none here,” said Janet.

“They say there might be,” said the vicar.

“There is,” said Jerry. “It’s here, all right. I’ve seen it running out of the ground over in Hooke— natural seepages.”

“I suppose you don’t care a damn whether they drill or not,” said Janet to Jerry.

Peter spoke to Munday. “It’s quite a problem,” he said. “People coming down here and spoiling the view.”

“People come down here and do all kinds of things,” said Jerry quietly. “I know you folks like the countryside and walks and that. So do I. But these hikers treat my property as if they owned it, break down the fences, leave the gates open for the cows to wander about in the road. I wanted to put up a cow-pen and they refused me planning permission, said I’d spoil the view.” He laughed. “Never heard that one before.” He had not taken another spoonful of his soup; he continued to talk, toying with his spoon, while the others ate. “There’s not a lot of iribney around here. If finding oil means money and jobs then I’m sorry but I’m for it one hundred percent.”

“It’s pollution,” said Anne.

Jerry laughed again. “The farmers over in Powerstock make fifty thousand pounds from a few acres of pastures and you call it pollution!”

“I didn’t chuck a good job in London to come down here and stare at an oil-rig,” said Peter. “No thanks. I’ll go somewhere else if they start that sort of thing down here. I’ve had all I wanted of smoky chimneys and factory noise.”

“I saw the drilling rig, Mr. Awdry,” said Jerry. “She looks like a Christmas tree.”

“You don’t say,” said Awdry.

“With fairy lights,” said Jerry.

“What business are you in?” Munday asked Peter. “I’m in the building trade,” he said.

“What about planning permission?”

“It doesn’t affect me.”

“Peter does up houses,” said Anne. “And very nicely, too. But I'm biased.”

“Clever chap,” said Awdry. “He gets a condemned building at auction for a few hundred pounds, fixes it up with a council grant and sells it for ten thousand.”

“Not quite as simple and profitable as that,” said Peter to Munday. “But you get the idea.”

“Bam of character,” said Michael.

“Ah,” said the vicar, pressing his hands together and looking up.

Mrs. Awdry was carrying the turkey in on a platter. She was followed by a woman in a white bib apron who had a tray of steaming dishes of vegetables. Awdry carved while his wife and the servant collected the soup plates.

Jerry said, “All this talking—I haven’t had time to finish my soup.” He took a spoonful and held it in his mouth.

“Don’t eat it if you don’t like it,” said Mrs. Awdry. “It’s just that I’ve never had it cold before,” he said, surrendering his plate. “I say, that’s a fair-sized bird.”

“A sixteen pounder,” said Awdry, still carving thin slices from the breast. “Now please tell me whether you’d like light meat or dark. Doctor Munday, I know you’ll want dark—all those years in the African bush.” Munday was angered by the laughter Awdry’s arch comment caused, and he said sternly, “Light for me, if you don’t mind.” The ticking of the mantelpiece clock became audible, timing the silence; Munday relished the pause.

Then Anne Motherwell said, “I saw a rat today.”

“Oh, good girl,” said Caroline.

“Was it a very big rat?” asked Janet.

“Average size I suppose,” said Anne. “I’d never seen one before.”

“I hate rats,” said Emma. It was the first thing she had spoken and everyone waited for her to say more. She put her head down and stared at the plate that had been handed to her.

“There is something sexual about rats,” said Caroline. “I think I know why.”

“Do tell us,” said Michael.

“Perhap when you’re a bit older,” said Caroline.

“We had one at the camp,” said Munday. “Right inside the bungalow.”

Emma said, “We never did!” and Munday realized that what he had just said so easily to all those people, he had never told Emma. He was going to reply, but Jerry had already started.

“Used to be a lot of rats around here,” he said, passing a plate heaped with turkey. “Why, I seen more rats in one little place than you see now in five acres. Caught thirty of the buggers one night.”

“I’ve been ratting myself many times,” said Awdry. “Not enough of them for that now,” said Jerry. “After the rabbits went down with myxomatosis, the weasels and foxes had nothing to eat, so they started feeding on the rats.”

“I was six or seven,” said Awdry, “and I was going for a walk with my father. He was a great walker— five miles before breakfast—he gave me my first walking stick. We were on a country lane in South Worcestershire and suddenly he put his hand on my shoulder and said, ‘Wait!’ I looked up and couldn’t believe my eyes. The road was absolutely black with rats, jostling this way and that. ‘Don’t you move,’ he said. ‘They’re migrating.’ ”

“That thatcher from Filford,” said Jerry. “He was coming up the road one night and a whole mob of rats was crossing the road. Maybe migrating, like Mr. Awdry says. Knocked him down and the bike too!”

“Scrumpy knocked him down more likely,” said Awdry.

“I remember him,” said Mrs. Awdry. “He’s dead now. He thatched for us over at the cottages—up on the ladder with a keg of cider around his neck. Queer old fellow.”

“You must find all of this fascinating,” said Caroline to Munday.

“I do,” said Munday. “Very much so.”

“Doctor Munday is studying us,” said Anne.

“Not exactly,” said Munday. “Though I think someone ought to.”

“It must be very exciting to come back to England after all these years.”

“Exciting?” said Munday.

“Seeing all the changes.”

“The changes I saw weren’t in England,” said Munday, “though it’s true I’m still baffled by the new money, and sick of these television programs perpetually discussing things and ending the show when someone loses his temper. And football results. And God, these color supplements—we never got them in Africa—too heavy to airfreight.”

“We decorated our loo with color supplements,” said Anne.

“They represent everything I loathe about this country,” said Munday. “Everything they stand for, I despise. Isn’t that right, Emma?”

“What’s that?” Emma stared vacantly at Munday.

“Are you all right, my dear?” asked Awdry.

“I’m afraid I’m not feeling terribly well,” said Emma.

“All this talk about rats,” said Mrs. Awdry. “I’m not surprised.”

“Would you mind if I went into the living room and sat down?” said Emma.

“Please do,” said Mr. Awdry. “Can I get you anything?”

“No, no,” said Emma. “Don’t get up.” She rose and went out of the room before anyone could help her.

“Has this happened before?” asked Awdry.

“I think we should call a doctor,” said Janet. “She looks very pale.”

“Hadn’t you better go and see if there’s anything she needs?” said Mrs. Awdry to Munday.

Munday, the only one at the table still eating, gestured with his knife and fork. “Please eat,” he said, chewing. “She’ll be fine.”

“I’m worried about her,” said Anne.

“Good God,” said Munday, “you talk as if she’s fading away! Emma has survived Africa, and I assure you she’ll survive Four Ashes. She’s really very fit.” But the large paneled room and the hushed listeners gave his overloud denying voice a ring of falsity.

Caroline said, “I’m sure Doctor Munday is right.”

So they resumed, but Emma’s absence made the rest of the meal somber. Anxious, they ate quickly and to the scrape of the knives and forks on the plates they addressed each other inconsequentially, with a whispered respect. From time to time Awdry said, “More wine?” but only Munday accepted it, as if the others thought it unseemly to drink with Emma unwell in the next room. Munday went on eating, but his appetite left him. The rest made a show of dining. The strain was evident. Emma’s absence, so sudden, was an intensification of her presence, which was felt more strongly two rooms away than it had been when she was seated with them at the table. Her chair was empty, she was missing, and their excessively tactful avoidance of commenting on this was like a continual mention of her.

After the dessert of strawberries and clotted cream, which they ate as solemnly as mourners—not cheered by the vicar’s wife saying too clearly “These are awfully good,” inspiring several uncertain responses which diminished down the table, from “Yes, they are” to a grunt of agreement from Jerry Duddle— Mr. Awdry pressed his napkin to his mouth, scraped his chair backward, and said, “Shall we have our coffee in the lounge?” Emma sat on the sofa with a brave half-smile of pain on her face. There was a copy of The Field on her lap; her hands were on the cover, smoothing it. She looked up slowly as the guests entered the room, and Munday at the head of the procession said brusquely, as he might have to a student with a medical excuse, “How are you feeling now?” She shook her head. “I think you’d better take me home.”

“Emma, do you really—”

“Have an early night,” said Awdry. “Do you a world of good.”

“I’m very sorry,” said Emma. “I feel I’ve spoiled your lovely party.”

“Don’t be silly,” said Mrs. Awdry. “I only wish there was something we could do.”

“You’ve been most kind,” said Emma. “Perhaps Alfred could drop me and then come back.”

“Not if you’re sick,” said Munday.

“Do what you think best,” said Awdry, and he helped Emma on with her coat as Janet Strick, squinting in sisterly commiseration, said, “I know just how you feel.” Driving back in the car Emma was silent. Munday said, “There were no paintings on the library ceiling. Branch had that all wrong. Typical! And I saw the gold bell on the table. It was brass.” He pulled up at the Black House and said, “Do you want me to stay?”

“Not if you don’t want to.”

“So you’re leaving it up to me.”

“You’d only be keeping me company,” said Emma. “I think I’ll go straight to bed.”

“Awdry’s right. It’ll do you good.”

Emma opened the car door and said, “Isn’t it odd. For the first time in ages I’m not afraid to go into this house. I know it’s perfectly empty and secure. She’s not here—she’s there.”

“Don’t talk such nonsense,” Munday said.

“I thought I was going mad that day in the garden —imagining things,” said Emma. “Now I know I’m perfectly sane. I did see her.” Emma’s voice was assured, but in the car’s overhead light, a yellow lozenge of plastic, the illness dimming her face made her look complacent. Munday could raise little sympathy for her. Her insisting on being taken home was devious, a withdrawal from the challenge she saw in Caroline. He was ashamed of her. She had no life but his life, no friends aside from those he had made. She had pretended her sickness to chasten him, but her apologies only made him embarrassed for her. She was a part of him, but the weakest part, and he saw that without her he might have succeeded. There was still time for him; she had little claim upon him. Her weakness obliged him to be attentive, but he understood: what she feared he desired, and what had confused him before was that her fear had obsessed her in the same way as his desire. But she had deprived him of his pleasure. It had always been that way, from their first day at the Yellow Fever Camp, when the heat and the musky smells had possessed him physically, and the lushness had made him gasp even after the people themselves had lost all interest—to their arrival at the Black House, where she had been the first to name what they had both seen. She had called it fear, and so he had. But it was not fear at all.

She said, “I know you want to go back.”

“Would you rather I stayed?”

“I’m fine now,” she said. “I’m safe. Please go.”

Emma pressed his hand and got out of the car, and Munday felt that she understood how, in leaving her in the last hour of the year, the parting was crucial; and in saying what she did, she had to accept a share of the responsibility for his going. That touched him, and driving back to the party he felt a tenderness for Emma that he had never known before, as if she was his sad jilted sister, whom he might console but never rescue from her disappointment.

He returned to what seemed a different party. The guests’ mood had changed—the men were talking loudly, some angrily, and he heard bursts of bitter laughter. He saw Caroline but she was the only one who did not look up at him when he entered the room. “Ah, he’s come back,” one of the younger men said. The men were seated, hunched forward on the edge of their chairs with brandy snifters. They went on competing with successive interruptions. The women, holding coffee cups, were in more relaxed attitudes, watching closely but offering little to the discussion. Munday saw it as the conventional after-dinner posture of men and their wives, arranged like contestants and spectators. He heard, “—trouble is, we’re too nice to the Irish.”

“Help yourself to a drink,” said Awdry, who was nearest the fireplace. He lit and relit his pipe, and puffing, used the burnt match to make his point. He concluded his argument by tossing the match into the fire.

Munday’s glass of port had the texture of silk. And he had taken one of Awdry’s cigars; he stood magisterially, just behind the sofa, sucking at the cigar and turning it in his mouth. He heard Anne say to Caroline, “—told me the thing about people nowadays is they never touch each other. Here we are in a permissive age and we don’t even touch! Well, I told him I agreed with him and’that it was really very sad—and I thought so, too. It is terrible, I suppose. But I couldn’t help feeling he was spying that because he wanted to touch me ” He turned to the men’s argument and tried to follow it. Michael Strick was saying, “I know one thing, the Russians wouldn’t handle it this way.” He nodded and sipped at his brandy. “They’d go in there with tanks—that’s the way to do it.”

“I’ll tell you how they could have done this and saved themselves a lot of trouble,” said Jerry. “Internment was a mistake. They know who they want. They have a list of known IRA men. It’s simple. You just wake ’em up at night and bash ’em. By that I mean, kill ’em.”

“It may come to that yet,” said Awdry, and flipped a dead match into the fire.

“But that’s cold-blooded murder,” said Anne, who was clearly shocked. Now she sat forward. She looked to the others for a reaction.

“What is it when they kill one of our young men?” said Michael. “That’s murder too.”

“Jerry said we should shoot them in their beds,” said Janet. “Do you agree with that?”

“Please,” said the vicar. “You’re upsetting my wife.”

“I’m sorry,” said Michael, shaking his head, “but I’ve got no time for the Irish.” Caroline looked from one face to another. She said, “I think it’s disgraceful the way you’re talking.” Janet turned to Munday. “I suppose you were following this Northern Ireland business when you were in Africa.”

“Not really,” said Munday. “But I wouldn’t be foolish enough to take sides, as some of you are doing, when every side is so barbarous.”

“W^rhat would you do?” asked Anne.

“Disarm them, isolate them, and leave them to themselves,” said Munday. “Just as I would any minority tribe that became dangerous. I certainly wouldn’t expect to convert them.”

“I know what I’d do with them,” said Michael.

“They need you to say that,” said Munday, aiming his cigar at the young man. “They need that contempt—it justifies them, and the British army legitimizes their quarrel. They want attention—you see, I believe they like being photographed throwing stones and marching and holding press conferences. They’re performing and they need witnesses badly, because without witnesses you have no spectacle.”

“What you’re actually saying, Munday, is that if we ignore them they’ll stop their fighting,” said Awdry.

“They’d go on fighting in a small way, as they’ve always done,” said Munday. “They wouldn’t do much damage. What none of you seems to realize is that they enjoy it. This squabbling has a social value for them—it gives purpose and shape to their lives. Murder is traditional in a culture of violence, which theirs certainly is. And I suppose you could say headhunting is an aspect of their religion. Religion makes more warriors than politics—God’s a great recruiting officer.” He paused and drew on his cigar. “But as I say, I don’t know very much about it.”

“It doesn’t sound that way,” said Awdry.

“You should talk to Emma,” said Munday. “She’s well up on it.”

“Oh?” Anne inquired. “And does she have a personal interest in it?”

“Well, she has family there, you see,” said Munday, and he smoked and watched their faces register shame, the ungainly muteness that had fallen like a curse on Alec’s cronies when in full cry against Africans they remembered his mistress was black. Before they could become conciliatory, Munday said, “It will be midnight soon.” The guests looked sheepishly at their watches.

“Has everyone got a drink?” asked Awdry.

The empty glasses were filled. They sat in silence, waiting for the hour to strike. Just before midnight, Anne said, “I loathe New Year’s Eve. You look over the past year and you can’t remember a blessed thing that matters.” Awdry rose, and with his back to the fire he said, “I’m not going to bore you with a speech. I just want to say how pleased I am that you’re here tonight, and may I wish you all a happy and prosperous New Year.” He lowered his head and began to sing “Auld Lang Syne.” The others stood up and joined in the song. When it was over Awdry said, “Listen.” Church bells were pealing at the windows, faintly, but the unusual sounds at that hour of the night captured their attention; the muted clangs had no rhythm, they continuously rose and fell, in an irregular tolling, one tone drowning another. Awdry walked through the guests to the front door and threw it open. The bells were louder now and resonant, pealing at various distances in the darkness, their clappers striking like hammers against an anvil.

“I can hear St. Alban’s,” said the vicar. “And there, that tinkling, that’s All Saints.” They rang and rang in different voices, dismay, joy, male and female, coming together and then chiming separately, descending and growing more rapid, and after a few moments competing, like bell buoys in a storm on a dangerous shore, signaling alarm with despairing insistence.

“It’s a beautiful sound,” said Caroline.

Munday walked away from the others, into the drive, then onto the lawn behind the boxwood hedge. The night was cold, but the chill, after that hot brightly-lit room, composed him. The guests’ voices echoed, traveling to him from the very end of the garden where there was only darkness. Gray and black tissues of clouds hung in the sky above the high branches of bare trees, which stood out clearly. Here and there in the tangle of trees he saw the dark slanting shapes of firs. He walked to a white fountain which materialized in the garden as he studied the darkness. He touched the cold marble. Details came slowly to his eye, nest-clusters in some trees and others heavily bundled with ivy, the bulges reaching to the upper branches; he saw nothing hostile in these densely wrapped trees. As he watched, the church bells diminished in volume and number, and those that remained were like lonely voices sounding distantly in different parts of a nearly deserted land, calling out to all those still trees. Then they ceased altogether. But the silence and the darkness he had imagined hunting him at the Black House no longer frightened him. He welcomed and celebrated it as more subtle than jungle. There was no terror in the dark garden, only an inviting shadow, the vague unfinished shapes of hedge, the suggestions of pathways in the blur of lawn, and the dark so dark it had motion.

“In the summer this garden is full of flowers.” Caroline’s voice was just behind him. But he did not turn.

“I prefer it this way,” said Munday. “The dark. Look, that shroud or hood there. In the daylight it’s probably something terribly ordinary.”

“You must be very lonely to say that”

“No,” he said, “I just like things that can’t be photographed.”

“That’s an odd statement from a scientist.”

“I'm not a scientist,” he said. He turned to her and said, “Why did you ask me at the lecture if I ever got depressed?” .

She said, “Why did you remember that?” She was beside him now, and she spoke again with a suddenness that jerked at his heart, “Do you know Pilsdon Pen?”

“That hill outside Broadwindsor?”

“Right,” she said. “It’s not far from here. It’s a sharp left, just as you enter the square. The road to Birdsmoor Gate goes around the hill, but quite high. It’s a beauty spot, so there’s a small parking lot for the view.”

“I’ve driven past it,” said Munday.

Caroline glanced behind her and then at Munday, and he saw her teeth when she said quickly, “Meet me there in half an hour.” She left him and walked towards the doorway where the others were still standing under the bright carriage-lamp. He heard her call out in a new voice, “Doctor Munday’s been showing me the Dog Star!” So all the moves were hers; but it excited him to hear her conceal them—that disguise was proof of her sincerity. Munday looked at his watch and then followed her across the vapor that lay on the grass.