The Collected Short Fiction Part 51

'Uncle Stephen said we ought to see what discipline could do.'

'Discipline would hardly prevent the boys growing up,' observed Phineas.

And it was still a matter of hours before it was even sunset.

The boys could be heard approaching in what had become their usual way. They stumbled in through the open French window.

'Got any good grub in your pockets, Dad?' shouted Rodney.

With a smile, Phineas produced a dun-coloured bag of huge, gluey toffees; something he would never have put into his own mouth.

The boys fell into chairs and began to pa.s.s the bag from hand to hand.

'Mum going to cook supper soon?'

'I expect so, Angus.'

'What's it going to be, Dad?'

'Better ask her, Rodney.'

It was not, as he knew, that he aimed to instil manners. It was merely that he could not care less.

One thing Millie had particularly resented was that every single evening she had to produce two very different meals, and then be silently sneered at if she herself chose the more exciting one, or consumed any sc.r.a.p of it.

Now Millie was past resentment. Panic had taken its place.

'We need food, Dad. You don't want us to outgrow our strength.'

'Besides, we're twins,' said Angus.

It was hard to see where that came in, but Millie knew quite well that somewhere it very much did.

Everything was fundamentally her own fault. She was perfectly well aware of that. Everything always is one's own fault.

'Our reports come yet, Dad?'

'I don't think so, Rodney.'

'You can't put them on the fire this time, because it's summer, but you will put them down the topos?'

'Unopened, Dad?' put in Angus. He was half on his feet again, and redder than ever.

'Unopened, Dad,' insisted Rodney, though perhaps more calmly.

'Torn up, if you like,' said Angus.

'We shall have to see,' said Phineas. 'Shan't we? When the time comes, that is.'

He rose from the settee and walked quietly from the room.

'Oh Mum,' said Rodney, jumping up and down. 'Do get on with it.'

The patience of the young is soon exhausted.

'We're hungry,' Angus confirmed. 'Remember, we only had salad for lunch. Muck, we called it.'

It had been a cut-up which Phineas had not eaten the previous evening. One could not simply throw it away; and Phineas would never accept such things unless they were completely fresh. It was the trouble with food of that kind that no one ever wanted it all, and it then became useless. Nor was the household made of money. Phineas not only lacked prospects: he lacked a suitable income also. Unhappily, Phineas was an intellectual without either creativity or judgement. Millie had realised it even during those early days in the Camargue, when Rodney and Angus were being conceived.

In the kitchen, she was shaking so much she gashed the index finger of her left hand. It would, of course, have mattered more if she had been lefthanded, as were Phineas and the boys; but it was a nasty enough cut, which bled far too much, so that fair-sized gouts fell on the newly prepared vegetable matter, which thereupon had to be slowly picked over a further time. Blood oozed through Millie's handkerchief and spotted the dress she had specially put on.

At the same time, the big fry-up for the boys was beginning to run out of fat.

In the end, they came charging in. Millie was weeping, of course, and in more and more of a muddle. Once, she had never muddled things, but quite the contrary: perhaps that was why she wept now.

'For G.o.d's sake, Mum! We're hungry. We told you.'

'Hungry as hunters.'

What had that originally meant? A kind of horse? A kind of tiger? A kind of man?

'What is it, Mum? What are we getting?'

'Chops and liver and bacon and things,' replied Millie in a very low voice, possibly inaudible above the sizzle. 'I've hurt my finger.'

'We could eat the entire animal,' said Angus.

Phineas always lay on his bed while a major meal was in preparation, and Millie had to ascend and summon him, because the boys simply did not do it, however often she asked them.

Four days later, Millie's finger was as bad as ever, and her left hand almost unusable. She knew that incurable illness often first manifested itself through minor injuries which failed to clear up.

'Oh Mum, do get better!' admonished Angus at breakfast when she let slip the teapot.

'It's entirely a matter of eating the right things,' observed Phineas mildly, 'though, naturally, it'll take some months before you can expect to enjoy the benefits.'

Phineas himself was eating a small quant.i.ty of muesli in skim milk. He always used a tiny teaspoon for such purposes.

The flap of the front-door letter-box was heard: presage everywhere of Charon's final shoulder-tap, bone against bone.

The boys made a dash, as they did each day; but this time Millie had reached the door of the room before them. She stood there facing them.

'We're going for the post, Mum.'

'I'm going for it this morning. You both sit down, please.'

'It may be our reports, Mum.'

'I'm going this morning, Angus.'

They were only a foot or two away, but before they could lay hands on her, she had not merely whipped open the door but also s.n.a.t.c.hed the key out of the lock, flashed from the room, and managed to lock the door on the other side: all this with the real use of one hand only.

For the moment she had proved as effective as she used to be, but there had been something strange about the incident; which had all begun with a vivid dream she had had the previous night, so vivid that she remembered it (or imagined it) still, and in detail: a small dream really, but prophetic.

For the moment Phineas had been left to manage the two roaring boys. The French window was in the drawing room, but soon the boys would be out through the dining-room cas.e.m.e.nts and making mischief of some kind. Happily, the big drawing-room window was never opened until after breakfast. The boys had never as yet intentionally smashed their way in or out, but Millie dreaded to see their huge faces gazing at her, diminis.h.i.+ng her, from the world outside.

None the less, Millie paused for a moment, and quite consciously.

Much was at stake if her dream could be taken at all seriously.

It could. Millie had advanced into the hall and the delivery had proved to consist of two accounts rendered and a packet with the school crest upon the envelope.

Millie went back into the drawing room, and, sitting down, even straightened the crease in her jeans. Then, while in the locked room the abominable hubbub raged on, she calmly opened the boys' reports.

Reports they had been in her dream, and dire ones: at once a burden, but also, in certain ways, a release, or a faint hope of release. The actual packet proved, however, simply to contain a letter, together with some appeal forms for reconditioning the school chapel. The letter, addressed to Phineas, was from the deputy headmaster. Millie read it.

Dear Mr. Morke, I know you will forgive my writing on behalf of the Headmaster, who has unfortunately been in Hospital since the middle of the Spring Term, as you may possibly have heard from your Sons.

I very much regret to tell you that the Trustees, to whom the matter has been referred in the absence of the Headmaster, take the view that no useful purpose would be served by the return of your Sons to the School at the commencement of the Term now ahead, that is to say, the Autumn Term.

It is the view of the Trustees, in which I am bound to say I fully concur, that the Boys are too physically mature to benefit from the ordinary course of Tuition in Cla.s.s, however excellent. Perhaps they may be regarded as outside and beyond the normal school disciplines.

In the circ.u.mstances, there would seem no advantage to our delivering the usual Reports upon the conduct of the Boys during the Summer Term, just past. Doubtless you will have drawn your own conclusions from the Reports relating to previous Terms, and will scarcely be surprised by the Decision which the Trustees have reached.

It is the custom of the School to extend Best Wishes to all its Old Boys when finally they move towards New Fields of Endeavour; and I am sure that the Headmaster, with whom, as I understand, you are on terms of long-standing and personal friends.h.i.+p, would wish me to make no exception in the present cases.

May I venture to remind you of the Outstanding Account in respect of the Boys' attendance during the Summer Term, and including a number of important Extras? The Bursar requests me to take this opportunity of remarking that he would be most grateful for a settlement during the next seven days, as he is keeping his Books open for this single item, and is being pressed by the School's Honorary Accountants. I am sure you will understand.

Yours sincerely, PHILIP DE SODA.

(REVD. M.A., B.D.).

Millie rose, unlocked the door, and re-entered the dining room, holding the letter high above her head.'

'There are no reports, Phineas. 'They've been expelled.'

When the boys had been much younger, it might have availed to hold the letter up there, but now it was pointless, because they were far taller than she was, as well as in every way more brawny. The letter was out of her hands in a flash.

It was very unlikely that they could understand it, and doubtful if they could even read all of it, but she herself had provided the clue, and at least they could take in the signature.

'It's the Sod!' cried Angus. 'The Sod wrote it.'

'Give it here,' commanded Rodney. Within seconds the floor was littered with tiny sc.r.a.ps of paper, and the boys were standing shoulder to shoulder against the world, completely obscuring the framed photograph of their mother on a horse.

'What are you going to do now, Phineas?' enquired Millie.

Phineas was, as always, making a point of being undisturbed. He continued to chase the last particles of saturated muesli with his toy teaspoon.

'Well?' enquired Millie. 'Our sons have been expelled from their school. You'll have to do something with them.'

'Was the term expulsion actually employed in the letter?'

'Of course not. Schoolmasters don't use it nowadays. They're afraid of libel actions.'

'Well then, we mustn't exaggerate. It's not at all uncommon for a headmaster to reach the view that a boy would fare better in some other school. Nowadays, there's no question of a stigma at all. The change in itself is often entirely beneficial.'

He drew a crispbread from the packet, broke it in half, returned one half to the packet, and began to break up the other into reasonably symmetrical pieces on his plate.

Each of the boys now had his arm round the other's shoulder, in the style of Tweedledum and Tweedledee. But they had no other resemblance to Tweedledum and Tweedledee 'If you don't do something, Uncle Stephen will,' said Millie.

The boys extended their thick red tongues at her, but Phineas's eye was glancing at the Guardian which lay on the table for him alone to read and take to work.

Millie went upstairs, locked the door of the bedroom, and began looking through her old address book. It had little to offer, apart from varying shades and intensities of nostalgia and regret.

She lay down on her unmade bed, turning her back on Phineas's unmade bed.

She could not think while the boys were in the house, or, for different reasons, Phineas either.

She could hear birds singing, and, from the next house, screeching music for early housewives. She knew that they were supposed to choose the records for themselves.

Then, duly, there was a din of the boys leaving. At the moment their craze was to do something with dogs in the local wood any dogs, as she understood it.

She had no idea what it was that they did, nor did she wish to know. The wood was of course deserted on a weekday morning, apart from the usual misfits straying about, and unlikely to present much of a problem to boys such as Rodney and Angus.

Millie gave it a little longer, lest she walk into Phineas then she unlocked the door and went down.

Phineas had departed for work, with all the others. She had feared that the letter from Mr. de Soda might have held him back. She began to collect the torn pieces into a small plastic bag that was lying about, because she proposed to keep them. It was a surprisingly long job: she could not but remember that the mills of G.o.d tear exceeding small. Then she began to clear up, and, later, to wash up. She could count on a little tranquillity until the boys returned, raging for their midday meal.

But the bell rang, and then there was that same flop from the letter-box: somewhat less menacing, however, when it is presumably a matter not of a postal delivery, but more probably of a harmless circular.

Millie went out quite calmly. Duly, it was a publicity leaflet, a throwaway.

Your Fortune is in your Hands Consult Thelma Modelle NOW.

Modern Palmistry Absolutely Private and Confidential Normally no need for an appointment Nothing Spooky Nothing embarra.s.sing 4 The Parade 'There is no reason why the human hand should not provide as good a guide to individual destiny as any other.'

The concluding quotation was unascribed. Millie fancied that it came from Aldous Huxley. She seemed to remember encountering something of the kind when trying to read one of Huxley's works at Oxford. The leaflet was inexpensively produced in simple black on simple white. It was quite small.

Millie had almost finished her immediate ch.o.r.es. There was little incentive to embellish the tasks. She stuffed the bag of torn-up paper into her handbag, because she could think of nothing else to do with it at the moment and set forth for 4 The Parade. Reason and careful thought had proved alarmingly unfruitful. The moment had come to give the subliminal a trial; if that was the applicable word. An omen was an omen, and there were few of them.

Number 4 The Parade was her own fish shop, selling rough vegetables and packet cheese as well. She had never previously had occasion to heed the number. Upstairs had lived the rheumatism lady, who went round all the old folk in her little car. Millie was aware that lately the rheumatism lady had moved to a proper clinic, paid for by the ratepayers, because everyone was talking about it. Now at the foot of the stairs there was an arrow, with a curious curve in it pointing upwards, and the name THELMA MODELLE newly painted at the heart of it in grey. Plain THELMA would, perhaps, have been too much like an unregulated fairground; and changing times were rendering the t.i.tle 'Madame' obsolete even in such cases as this. There was nothing to do but ascend.

Thelma Modelle came out on to the little landing. Her jeans were pale green and she wore a sleeveless grey jumper which looked as if it were woven from used raffia. As promised, there was to be no attempt at formality or mystification.

Thelma Modelle had a smooth dark brown mop, falling over one side of her angular, sallow face; and the enormous, rather empty eyes of the seer or pythoness.