The Collected Short Fiction Part 54

Replete and bursting though it was, she shut her suitcase with new strength. It still bore her maiden name:MELANIEPIGOTT. Why should she not return to that? When in due course she had left Uncle Stephen's abode and started a life of her own? The green suitcase had been a joint present from her parents on her twenty-first birthday. At the time, she had wondered how long the family name would still be hers; but now it might be hers once more, and for a very indefinite period. When empty, the suitcase was delightfully weightless; when full, delightfully substantial.

'I'm not going to bother with goodbye,' said Millie.

Phineas clutched at her physically. His overlong arm was as the tentacle of an undernourished octopus.

'Millie, do at least try to be sensible. Just get breakfast, and we'll talk it all over as much as you like.'

She threw his elongated hand back on the bedspread.

As she bore her packed suitcase briskly up The Drive, she reflected that two days ago she could hardly have lifted the thing from the bedroom floor.

She wondered how long it would be before the inevitable reaction and collapse.

Uncle Stephen saw to it that Millie wanted for nothing.

Every morning he brought her the loveliest, most fragrant breakfast in bed. Every evening he lingered in her room, tucking her in, adjusting the ventilation and positioning of the curtains, putting away any clothes she had left about, gossiping about the small events of the day, taking away her shoes in order to give them a rub.

He prepared most of the other meals too. As he pointed out, he would have had to feed himself in any case, and having to feed her too made the whole thing into a work of joy. He had many outside engagements: bridge, bowls, the rifle and revolver ranges, the committee of the small amateur soccer club, the British Legion, the Skeleton A.R.P., the Patriotic Alliance (which was often in a state of inner schism, and therefore particularly demanding); but Millie could never for one moment doubt that she const.i.tuted the primary demand both upon his heart and even upon his time. The undiagnosed trouble inside Millie had ceased even to demand diagnosis.

'You do spoil me, Uncle Stephen. It's lovely.' She lay on the settee in lounging pyjamas and matching surtout (as the manufacturers termed it). She had never been able to bother with garments of that kind before, but now Uncle Stephen had bought them for her at Katja's in the new Vanity Market, and she had helped to choose them too. She had rather looked down on such shops and on such clothes, but that had been ignorance and the wrong kind of sophistication. It was almost impossible to believe that Phineas lived only eleven and a half miles away as the crow flew, if any crow should be so misdirected.

'I like being spoilt, Uncle Stephen,' said Millie.

'I love to do it, girl. You're all I have, you know that, and always have been.'

That must have been what Phineas would have called an exaggeration, but it was true that Uncle Stephen, so far as was known, had at all times 'looked after himself'. Now he had a thick mop of silky white hair, like a wise old lion, and the same green eyes as his sister, Millie's mother, and as Millie herself.

'All the same, I can't stay for ever,' said Millie coyly.

'Why on earth not? First, I'll look after you, and do it with love in my heart. Then, when I'm past it, you'll look after me well, some of the time. In the end, I'll leave you all I've got. I've no one else. Remember that. It's not much. But it will be enough.'

'I'll remember, Uncle Stephen, and thank you. All the same, a woman nowadays is expected to lead a life of her own. I was all set to do it.'

'You've tried that sort of thing once, girl, and you've seen what happened.' Uncle Stephen's eye wandered away from her, which was unusual. 'I wish I could put a hand to one of the rattans I used to have.'

'What are they, Uncle Stephen?' asked Millie, though really she knew fairly well.

'Disciplinary instruments, my love. Disciplinary instruments. Never had one out of my right hand during all the years I was in the Archipelago.'

'I wonder if anything's happened by now?' Millie spoke a little drowsily. The wine at dinner had been South African, and she had fallen badly out of practice.

'You let sleeping dogs lie. Never trouble trouble until trouble troubles you.'

She smiled at him. It would be absurd to argue about anything.

'Carry me to bed, Uncle Stephen.'

She dreamt that she and Thelma Modelle were climbing Everest together. They were both garbed in the latest chic, waterproof, windproof, coldproof clothing, and carried little axes, silvery in the sun. Thelma, the gypsy, was deputising as a Sherpa. It was all exceedingly enjoyable, and not at all too steep for Millie's new energies. The summit lay straight ahead. They might have tea when they arrived there; or Thelma might have to have ideas of her own about a suitable gypsy celebration.

How many months later was it when Millie opened the Daily Telegraph and saw the familiar headline:LIBERAL LOSESDEPOSIT? Apparently the sitting member for North Zero had fallen over a cliff, or at least been discovered by children dashed to pieces on the rocks below. The coroner had returned an open verdict, and a by-election had followed. Previously Millie's eyes must have glided over these events.

Uncle Stephen brought her the Daily Telegraph or the Sunday Telegraph with her early-morning tea; and The Imperialist every time there was a new issue. That day, when a little later he came up with her breakfast, two small, heavenly-smelling kippers and the perfect toast upon which she could always rely, she was pensive.

'Uncle Stephen, tell me. Did they ever catch those boys? I suspect you know all the time.'

'I know nothing that you don't know, little girl.'

She eyed him. 'What exactly does that mean? Do you know the answer to the question I asked?' She spoke quite roguishly.

'I do not. I know what my answer would be if I only had the chance. Now eat your sc.r.a.p of porridge, or it'll go cold. I'll sugar it for you.'

Millie dragged herself upwards. She really preferred to eat in a sprawling position, but Uncle Stephen liked to see more of her.

'Tell me, Uncle Stephen, have there been any more happenings? Like the one on the night before I left. I simply don't read the reports of things like that.'

'That's the self-protective instinct, my little love, and you could do with more of it, not less.'

'But have there, Uncle Stephen? I'd rather like to know.'

'Nothing that anyone could get a grip on. Or nothing that's come my way. I don't spend all day reading the newspapers. It can get hold of you as poisonously as the television, if you once let it.'

'You're hiding something, Uncle Stephen.'

'That I am not. There are these violences all over the world every minute of the day. Everyone's a villain without proper discipline. I haven't noticed the names of your two lads in particular.'

'And you haven't heard anything locally either?'

'Not a word. I'd be out in no time if I had, after what's been done.'

The last words very nearly convinced Millie.

'Let me pour your chocolate,' said Uncle Stephen.

But immediately he spoilt it all by speaking further.

'They'll have shot up a lot further by this time,' he observed. His eyes were searching round the room, as they always did when the subject of the boys arose.

'Thank you, Uncle Stephen,' said Millie, as he stopped pouring. 'It's a beautiful breakfast. When I've finished it, I'd like to sleep a little more. Then I'll come down and give you a hand.'

He took the hint quite quietly. He merely said, 'I see now that you're looking pale. Don't you worry about helping me. I can easily bring up your little lunch when the time comes.'

'You are good to me, Uncle Stephen.'

But, as soon as he had left the room and closed the door, Millie began to heave; and in no time, while trying to m.u.f.fle the noise, she was being copiously sick into the article provided in well-found houses for that and other purposes: as sick as she had been, without cessation as it had seemed, during the long months before the two boys were born.

Really there could be no question of Millie even attempting to lead a life of her own as, like so many women, she had originally, in a vague way, intended. She was afraid to leave the house, and even more so after what Uncle Stephen had so' casually said.

That she had good reason to lie low was confirmed by the episodes that followed.

It was more than a year after Millie had left Phineas, and the gold of summer was fast dissolving into the copper of autumn, when one night Millie stirred in her sleep to see a big face pressed against the panes of her first-floor bedroom window. Whether it was Angus's face or Rodney's face, which of their faces, she would probably not by now have known in any case. It was an unseemly blot on the October moonlight, then it ducked.

What was more, her window was open, as at night it always was. The boy was far too big to climb right in, but he could easily have inserted a huge arm, perhaps reached to the bed, and then strangled or humiliated her. Millie had realised from the first that the boys must have a perfectly clear idea of where she was, even though she emerged so seldom, and Uncle Stephen never recommended otherwise. What had decided the boys to re-enter her life now? She had seen only one of them, but was sure that the other was there also, because the other always was. She suspected that by now their combined strength could throw down the entire house. And very possibly they were growing still. Boys by no means always cease to grow at sixteen or seventeen.

She drew on her kimono and ran to Uncle Stephen's room. She knocked at his door, as she had done before when hungry during the night, or when merely lonely.

'Come in, girl. Come in.'

'Uncle Stephen. The boys are back. One of them has just looked through my window in the moonlight. I think I'm going to be sick again.'

'Come in with me, little love. I'll look after you and protect you. That's what I'm doing in your life. That's what I'm here for. You know that.'

Fortunately, it was a very large bed. Uncle Stephen had brought it back from the East; from gorgeous, sanctified Goa, now for ever lost.

'When I was young, I could never in my life have even imagined anything so frightening,' said Millie. 'Not until the boys were born. Or actually a little before that. When Phineas and I were on our honeymoon. In France, and then in the marshes behind Ariano. I never dared to read horror stories and ghost stories.' She snuggled towards Uncle Stephen.

'No man and no woman knows anything of the troubles they are going to meet with in life. Or I take it they'd succeed in dodging them,' said Uncle Stephen. 'They're supposed to be sent to form and mould us, but my idea is to form and mould them whenever possible. Remember that.'

'You're the most wonderful uncle,' Millie murmured, though she was still s.h.i.+vering and gulping.

'I'll stay with you ten minutes while you calm down and arrange your pinafore, and then I'm going hunting.'

'No, Uncle Stephen! It's too dangerous. They're watching the house. They're immense.'

'Many times in my life I've been under siege. Each time, in the end, I burst out and destroyed everything in sight. I'm hard to hold, Millie.'

'Things have changed since those days, Uncle Stephen. It's sad, but it's true. Even The Imperialist admits it. That was the bit I read you, when you ordered me to stop. There's nothing for either of us to do nowadays but escape. A fortune-teller told me that last year, and now it's come true.'

'I know all about times changing, none better,' said Uncle Stephen, holding her close. 'The fact remains that I have not changed. I am older, unfortunately, but otherwise exactly the same. Also I have weapons, I have strategy and tactics, and I have experience. I am going to give those cubs the lesson they've needed since their first birthday. I learned, my little love, to deal with growing boys in a harder school than Eton and Harrow or any of those places.'

'I'm not going to let you try. You're over-confident. Those two are like children of the future.' She was appalled. 'Perhaps they are children of the future?'

'I'll admit that they're too big for their boots,' said Uncle Stephen drily.

'If you go anywhere near them they'll harm you. We're just going to wait for the daylight. I'll stay with you if you'll let me. Then we'll steal away somewhere for a bit. Somewhere nice. You've always said you could afford it, if only circ.u.mstances had been different. Well, circ.u.mstances are different, whether we like it or not. We could go and stay in an hotel at Southampton and you could look at the different s.h.i.+ps going to places. You would like that, wouldn't you?'

'And if everyone behaved in that way?' enquired Uncle Stephen. 'If everyone did, what would become of our country? Things are rough enough already. You're as bad as that so-called man of yours, Millie.' But he spoke affectionately, none the less, cuddling and caressing her, not meaning his comparison very seriously.

'Uncle Stephen, don't be silly. They're not ordinary boys you can either pamper or stand in the corner. They're enormous. I told you what the man from the police station said. They're quite beyond handling by any single individual.'

'All I know is that they're boys, and that's enough. I don't want to leave you alone, as you know perfectly well, my little pet, but I'm going. You just lie in my bed until I'm back. And don't worry. I'm here to keep you from all harm. And I have weapons. Remember that.'

He squeezed her hand, and clambered out into the night.

Soon he was on the roof, directly above her. She could hear the slotting of iron into iron, or was it nowadays steel into steel? When she had lived beside the Heath as a small child during the Second World War, the A.T.S. girls operating the anti-aircraft unit concealed among the evergreen gorse had made that noise all day as they took the long guns to pieces and put them together again. Uncle Stephen possessed artillery of his own. It was included in the weapons he had mentioned; nor did it consist in a couple of squat, serio-comic muzzle-loading Peninsular War mortars, looking like pugs. On the contrary, Uncle Stephen could mount at least three quite modern-looking pieces, painted not black but dark green as gorse and palpably requiring expert knowledge to discharge satisfactorily; the kind of knowledge that the girls on the Heath had been acquiring during the daytime. He had explained to Millie that these guns were designed by the authorities primarily for withstanding a concerted rush. She wondered when he had managed to dismantle at least one of them in the room downstairs and rea.s.semble it on the roof of the house without her hearing or noticing a thing. She might have been impressed by his foresight, but instead resurrected her suspicions that Uncle Stephen had all along known something that he had failed to pa.s.s on.

There was a flash and a crash: quite startlingly like 6:30 or 7:30P.M. when Millie had been but a tot.

Another and another. Millie fully realised that this could not continue for long; not in the modern world. Somehow it would be stopped, however justified it might be, even by the narrowest legalistic standard of self-defence and of protecting an unarmed mother.

Concurrently, Millie was subdued by a confused melee of feeling about Angus and Rodney; even though she had never been able within herself to accept that they were authentically her own offspring.

A shadow pa.s.sed between the moon and the cas.e.m.e.nt. Surely the boys should have been intelligent enough to take cover? How, without doing so, had either of them survived Uncle Stephen's cannonade? Uncle Stephen was the least likely of men to aim and then miss. He kept in continual practice, as in so many directions.

Another flash and crash: though this time in the latter was a curious rending sound, as if the gun barrel were about to burst asunder. Millie had heard of guns soldering up through being fired continuously day and night. Probably Uncle Stephen's gun had not of late been fired often enough to be in prime condition. Millie realised the danger that Uncle Stephen might be running from the gun exploding within itself and shattering into smithereens, as she understood that guns not infrequently did.

But by now the official legions were ma.s.sing. Millie could hear outers.p.a.ce blastings of fire engines, of ambulances, of police cars; and between them the insect whinings of television vans and radar. It was much as the moment when an escape from a concentration camp is first notified. She ran to the window.

Functionaries were swarming over and around machines to make sure that nothing remained unaccounted for in the designated area, except criminally. It was an ideal spot for such an operation, as Uncle Stephen's house stood in comparative isolation at a corner of the woods; a public open s.p.a.ce owned by the Council.

Millie ran back to her own room. It would be most unwise to turn on a light, and possibly the current had already been chopped at the main. In any case, public lights were beginning to range: brutal searchlights, and the torture-chamber arc lights necessary for television.

Millie tore off her nightdress. She plunged into her jeans and a thick sweater which Uncle Stephen had bought for her at the supply stores where he bought many of his own garments. She had lost her handkerchief and took out a clean one.

For these simple actions the case was cogent enough. But Millie then hesitated. Uncle Stephen had stopped firing, and Millie could but speculate upon the exact reason. She could not possibly bring herself to desert Uncle Stephen, but the thing of which she was most certain was that the two of them could not win. She suspected that Uncle Stephen really knew that as well as she did. So what then?

Cautiously, she re-entered Uncle Stephen's bedroom. The beam of light which now filled it illuminated nothing human or real. In her short absence, the room had been killed.

Millie realised that Uncle Stephen was in difficulties. The gun was refusing to fire, as cars sometimes refuse to start. Uncle Stephen was tinkering with it, bas.h.i.+ng it, cursing it. Soon, in the nature of things, the functionaries would close in finally, nor would it be a concerted attack of the kind which the gun was designed to ward off. It would be more a matter of irresistible infiltration, worked out long before in every detail, standard practice, precluding all possibility of topographical variation.

Millie ascended the attic ladder to the rooftree. 'Uncle Stephen!' she called down to him.

Absorbed though he was in his male task, he looked up at once.

'Go back,' he cried out. 'Go back, little Millie.'

'What's up, Uncle Stephen?' What's gone wrong?' Nothing else was possible than to enter into things as he saw them.

'The boys have won this round, Millie. We must admit that. They've put the gun right out of action.'

'But how, Uncle Stephen?'

'It's some kind of schoolboy muck. They dropped a whole gob of it into the breech. Clever monkeys, we must admit.'

Millie had almost forgotten the boys; incredible though that seemed.

'Where are they now?'

'I'll bet they've made off. They don't have much more to do, just at this moment.'

Millie glanced anxiously round amid the confused and inhuman lights. But she knew that for a second she had almost wished the boys had still been there; as some kind of rea.s.surance against all that was developing.