In the Time of Greenbloom (15 page)

In front of him the pianola trilled. The willow-wren sat forlornly on its branch and called out of its agonising loneliness from the depths of the rosewood.

He was back! but only for four more weeks, and
then
, Northumberland! Danbey Dale, Victoria, and one day the new home in Anglesey. He must get into the habit of not
thinking again. From somewhere far behind his immediate consciousness he heard the scratchy gramophone on the kitchen-table in the Vicarage as the voice of some elderly light-opera singer sang out the words of the tune the pianola played:

“
Is it weakness of intellect birdie?” I cried
“Or a rather tough worm in your little inside?”
With a shake of his poor little head he replied:
                    O willow! tit willow! tit willow
!”

In what pale pastures leaning up to mountains
Browsed her flock of sheep
Whilst she the blue girl deep past counting
Drowsy ewes slipped further into sleep
?

Why call them back who wandered from her dream
To some white watershed of earth and sky
Whence she herself streamed down in ringlets
Like a lamb with heaven in her eye
?

 

Scuffing along the dusty white road that led from the village out towards the farm, he refused to allow himself to think of the School. His luggage, neatly labelled, JOHN BLAYDON, RUDMOSE'S HOUSE, BEOWULF'S SCHOOL, OXFORD, had been sent on well in advance and by now it would be awaiting him and the start of his first term, in some basement or day room he had never yet seen. In five days, at the end of this strange holiday with Victoria, when the time came for him to follow it South and eventually claim it from amongst the piles of the other new boys' possessions, it would have a profound significance for him, even a sort of sanctity; for not only would it preserve beneath its labels and rope tangible and absurdly hurtful evidence of Nanny's love for him: the boxes of chocolates and slabs of toffee smuggled in between the layers of folded pyjamas and shirts, but also, like some kingly sarcophagus, it would contain the very last of the air of the Vicarage and of his childhood that he was ever likely to breathe again.

He paused in his rather hurried walk from the village shop and placing the haversack on the grass, leaned against the moorland wall by a holly tree. Never to see the Vicarage again! It seemed impossible, like never seeing one's parents again or even oneself; for it had reared him, had mirrored him in its wide windows and gleaming corridors. He had grown under its elms, sat in the sun astride the huge v-shaped tiles which crowned its roof and explored, on winter afternoons, every cobwebbed cranny of its attics. It was his home: unchanging, receptive, even merciful; it was his abiding safety at the end of every term, the sure star of his ultimate direction during his every absence; and at present he could not conceive of his life going on without it. Yet the rest of
them seemed to have left it without any regrets, had set off on that memorable Wednesday last week for the new life in Anglesey with never a regretful glance nor even the semblance of a dropped tear.

No longer swinging his legs, no longer worrying about the time, he allowed the insistent memory of that last morning at Beddington to rise unrestricted in his mind.

He had watched them from the nursery window; Simpson piling the last of the cases into the trailer, Melanie suddenly appearing with a minute fir tree from the garden and insisting on having a place found for it, Mother here there and everywhere, telling Father that he must sit in the back, asking Nanny if she were sure she had brought the china tea, and chivvying the maids about the tongue sandwiches.

Something had been forgotten and Simpson had been sent to find it. He had come clumping up the bare stairs and discovered John as he stood there by the uncurtained window trying to look unconcerned.

“Hello, what are tha doin' here? Aren't ya coomin' down to see 'em off?”

“No, I said goodbye after breakfast.”

“Tha looks proper down, lad. Coom on with me and kiss'm all goodbye.”

“No thanks Simpson, I'd rather not.”

“Well cheer up anyway. Holy Moses! you'll be going off to your little lass's in half an hour, you know—what'sa name, the little gal at the wedding in Loondon?”

“You mean Victoria.”

“Ay, ut's the one. Ya wouldn't catch me lewking lak a Christmas dewk if I was laiking for a week int' moors with t' little lass whose nobbut me own, I can tell thee.”

John had smiled. He liked Simpson and was glad he'd be coming down to see him off at the station.

“It's only that I don't like leaving the Vicarage,” he had confided. “I don't
want
to live in Anglesey. I want to live here where I always have lived, where they have red tiles on the roofs and red cows in the fields. According to Melanie all
the cows in Anglesey are black or black and white, and there are no tiles, only Welsh slates, and I think it sounds stinking.” Simpson patted his back.

“It's a graët place—fishing, swimming and climbing. Tha wait till end of next term, Master John and tha won't want ever to coom back to old Beddington again, I can tell thee. When ya see Anglesey ya'll—”

But he had never finished for the angry braying of the horn had cut him short.

“Ech! listen to 'er. Ut's Miss Mary again; fair time she got married to some big fella ut'll wallop her three times a day and teach her the meaning of patience. 'Ave ya seen ya mother's spectacles? She swears blind she left 'em oop in t'bathroom.”

“No, but I bet she's found them by this time or Mary wouldn't be blowing the horn like that.”

Simpson had left him at that and rushed down the stairs. Out on the drive Mary had given the horn one last triumphant opportunity and then as the waving arms came out of the windows in response to the farewells of Lizzie Susan and Simpson, the car and trailer had swept off round the berberis hedge on its long journey across the Pennines. Only Father, at the very last minute, had seen John. Something had made him glance out through the black rectangle of the rear window and for a moment John had caught his eye, the somehow comical sympathy of his smile as the three women drove him away, before Melanie's absurd horse-tail of a tree swayed between them and hid him from sight.

Ah well! he thought, you could only leave a place once, and it was all over now; that is to say, as much over as anything that affected you deeply was
ever
over.

He sighed and getting down from the wall picked up the haversack and started to run along the gritty road. This afternoon there was the expedition to the caves; he would think about that. After all, there were still five days left with Victoria and if he concentrated on those, on every live minute of every brilliant hour they would lengthen and enchant him even
longer. Had he remembered everything they had decided to buy? Yes, he thought so. Mentally he ran through the list: six candles, a loaf of brown bread, a pot of heather honey, four boxes of Bryant and May's matches in case they lost any, a new penknife for digging up the truffles when they found them, a new battery for Victoria's torch, First Aid tin with bandages, iodine and plaster and two reels of white cotton to spread out behind them in case they lost their way in the galleries.

He rounded the last bend and saw Victoria at once. She was standing on the open gate swinging herself backwards and forwards under the shadows of the oak tree.

“You
have
been a time,” she called as she saw him. “I've been waiting here for ages and ages. Annie Moses is furious with you.”

“I'm sorry, it was farther than I thought.”

“Whatever kept you? Did you go into one of your dream-sessions?”

“No, not exactly. At least—”

She jumped off the gate. “You
did
!” she said. “It was about going to your public school, to Beowulf's, wasn't it?”

“No it wasn't.” He was definite about this; for once she was wrong.

“Then it was about leaving the Vicarage?”

He said nothing.

“Yes?” she said, turning round as she danced ahead of him. “Yes?”

“Yes,” he said.

“There, I told you I knew, didn't I?”

“Yes, you always do—very nearly always.”

“Of course I do! I get it from Mummy, she's got psychic powers too. She
could
have been a clairvoyante, and I take after her. When I grow up I might be a clairvoyante.”

“What exactly is a clairvoyante?”

“You know, it means clear-seeing; they're people who see things clearly before they happen and I think they can somehow feel other people's thoughts.”

“You mean anybody's thoughts?”

“Oh no, not anybody's; there has to be a special bond between them, they have to have been born under sympathetic stars.”

“It sounds awful rot to me.”

“That's because you're jealous! But you oughtn't to be really, because it means that we're fated. I mean I find you the easiest of anyone, so there must be a very strong bond between us, the same destiny.” She jumped at an overhanging acorn. “Did you remember all our things for the expedition?”

“Yes everything.”

“I bet you forgot one thing.”

“What?”

“The revolver!” She was laughing at his frown. “You know, I told you, in case one of us gets pinned under a fallen rock and the other one has to put him out of his agony.”

He shuddered. “Horrible!” he said.

“But it was cruel of you, especially after I'd reminded you and reminded you; and it's not horrible at all really!
I
wouldn't mind dying a bit as long as I'd been loved—I mean, as long as I'd
known
I'd been loved—” She stopped suddenly and confronted him. “Now
think
!” she said. “Think very hard, as darkly as though you were in your bed at night when thoughts become so real that you live in them and they are your life; and just suppose that it was me and that with my last breath I was begging you to finish me off with the blood coming out of my mouth, wouldn't you feel awful if you couldn't? If there was nothing to do it with?”

“Don't!” he said. “Not even as a joke. It makes me feel ill.”

“But I'm not joking,” she said. “We were reading
Romeo and Juliet
last term and it was wonderful. In the tomb-scene I felt much happier at them dying than I would have done if they'd gone on living and got old and out of love. I know Romeo's last speech off by heart:

“
Eyes look your last
Arms take your last embrace! and lips oh you
The doors of breath seal with a righteous kiss
A dateless bargain to engrossing death!
Come bitter conduct, come unsavoury guide!
Thou desperate pilot now at once run on
The dashing rocks thy sea-sick weary bark!
Here's to my love—oh true apothecary
Thy drugs are quick—thus with a kiss
I die
—”

She swallowed and looked at him, her eyes suddenly uncertain. “There, don't you think that is beautiful? I think it's the most beautiful thing that was ever written.”

He was discomforted by the brightness of her eyes, the tiny involuntary tremor of her lip. “It's only a story,” he said. “It never really happened.”

“What difference does that make?” she said so sharply that he did not know whether she were angry or amused. “Things that never happened are often more important, more beautiful, or sadder than things that did. If Shakespeare made her die like that in Italy four hundred years ago, it's much more terrible than if a girl was
really
knocked over by a bus only yesterday. And anyway it's different! You think I'm crying and I'm not, I'm happy.”

“Well it's a funny way of showing it,” he said awkwardly. “As Simpson would say, ‘you look like a dying dook'.” He laughed loudly and alone. “Oh come on! Cheer up. We're going to have such fun.”

“I'm not sure that we are; and what's more, I don't think you care at all. Mummy says men are different, that they don't really mind about things—don't feel them like we do.”

“That's not true; it's
because
we feel them so much more that we don't show it.”

“Well you
ought
to show it. How's anyone to know if people never show what they feel?”

He abandoned his attempt to be reserved and ran up to her.

“I do mind, really I do! I mind so much that I don't even like to
think
about you dying let alone talk about it.”

“
How
do you mind about my dying? Tell me.”

“So much that if you died I should want to die myself.”

“Oh but that's not enough.”

“Why not?”

“Well! anyone could say that. It's not wonderful; it's not like Romeo. You must say more than that, or I'll know you're not my true love. You must make a speech and tell me beautifully how much you would mind. Look! I'll show you.” She flopped down on the grass by the hawthorn hedge. “Now! You imagine that I'm dying in the darkness by the light of one of our candles and then tell me what you feel.”

“I can't,” he said. It was getting late. They ought to be at the house, they ought to be having lunch; if it wasn't late, it ought to be late.

“Please get up, Victoria! we'll be late for lunch and Mr Harkess and your mother will be disapproving.”

“No,” she said. “Not till you tell me.”

“Oh all right.” He kneeled down beside her and leant over her white unlaughing face. It was not because it was difficult that he had fought against it, but because it was so easy; it was so much what he had most naturally wanted to do, what in some foreign country perhaps he would have done beautifully like Romeo with music and singing; it was easy, so much wanted, and so uncovering, that it must be wrong. Extraordinary, that beyond letting him, she should actually have invited him to find words for all the miseries and delights which like ravens and doves encircled her image in his mind.