The Queen of the Tambourine (7 page)

There was a vast round mahogany table with plates of thin bread and butter, slab cake, Marmite and honey. We had to help ourselves. Reg brought us cups of faint tea and led us to a far corner so that, he said, we might observe.

I observed. All those skulls full of brains. Some of the finest brains in the world. I could almost see the brains. The heads seemed lit from within so that each white spongey mass shone in the semi-darkness like a miner's lamp or a gigantic glow-worm. An internal halo.

Halo, by God, I thought, examining Professor Hookaneye who was lying back stirring his tea with benignity. What if I were now to say loud and clear, “Professor Hookaneye, what do you propose to do about Sarah? Were you really serious in suggesting that I should adopt your child?” I thought of what had happened to Sarah in his ascetic den, her young life spoiled, her future in sad collapse, all her carefree flute-playing in the roses done. I debated whether to pick up my slice of bread and honey and slap it on his face.

But he talked quietly and precisely on, giving us a friendly and delightful rundown on the great men before us. “I thought you might like to see the Chapel and our dining room,” he said to me (“Go with him,” mouthed the Queen) and we processed from the room followed by glances that said, Two guests!
Two
guests!

And poor Sarah at the entrance to the dining room fled again. Reg Hookaneye said, “She doesn't seem quite the thing. Overworking”—and I was speechless. But he and I wandered on until we came to a room where after dinner each evening dessert is taken. We stood looking at silver candlesticks and a fruit bowl like a Van der Meer and a great flagon of port set ready. So beautiful.

“It is a privilege to be part of it,” he said—what a dear humble man he sounds. I said, “Since we are alone, Professor Hookaneye, I should like to sit down for a while and have this business out with you.”

“Oh, we can't sit here,” he said, “I can't possibly let you sit down here.”

“Nevertheless we have to talk some time about Sarah's baby.”

“Sarah's
what
?”

Then he turned so white that the colour seemed to drain even out of his suit. He seized the back of a throne, pulled it away from the table and collapsed on it. He stared at me.

“But you knew why I had come?”

“You . . . She said only that she wanted to bring her godmother to tea.”

“Professor Hookaneye—do you mean you didn't know? About your own child?”

He stared on and on. Then he laid his head down beside the grapes. I heard voices outside, one Sarah's and the other a pleasant voice that seemed familiar. “Sorry I was late for tea, Reg. Unforgivable. I was in the Codrington. Good heavens—Eliza Peabody!” It was Tom Hopkin, very bright, his glasses flashing with good-nature.

“I think,” he said, “Good Lord, Dr. Hookaneye has fainted. Here, I'll take his head. Somebody get hold of his feet.”

“I will,” said Sarah, tottering up.

“No, no, I will,” I said, “Sarah mustn't lift anything heavy.” And then I thought, Well perhaps she should.

In the end she and I took a long thin leg each and Tom the narrow shoulders and we carried Dr. Hookaneye out of the room and on to the quadrangle to lie him down on the pale stones near a drain. No one was about. We paused.

And then Joan, a very horrible and extraordinary thing happened. Hookaneye disintegrated. The lanky, beautifully finished, excellently dressed body of Dr. Hookaneye shimmered and vibrated and melted and liquified and began to twirl itself down into the mediaeval drainage so that in no time at all only the toe of a shoe showed there—polished black, like the top of a little lost cricket ball. Dr. Hookaneye, Joan, was gone.

I raised my eyes to the others and beheld Tom Hopkin leading Sarah away. She appeared to be weeping. Her head was near his shoulder and his arm was round her. I looked back at the drain and blop, blop, bleep, gurgle, now the toe juddered, shuddered, reverberated and all in one movement was gone. The drain was full of Reg. Pray that the college tonight is not troubled by cloud-burst. I ran to Sarah.

“I'll see to her,” said Tom.

“I must find her Tutor.”

“I shall find her Tutor. You must go. Go home, Mrs. Peabody. Have a long rest. You don't seem yourself.”

“You called me Mrs. Peabody!”

“Do go, Eliza, I'll ring.”

“I shall have to tell Joan. I shall tell her everything.”

They stood staring. Tom then stepped across from Sarah and kissed me on the cheek. He lifted a finger to my face, traced a line affectionately along the edge of it. “Eliza, Eliza,” he said.

“You'll miss your train,” said Sarah. She looked rosy, invigorated. She was not being sick.

“I'll find you a taxi,” said Tom.

“You are obsessed by taxis.”

“I must take Sarah home.”

“Will you report . . . ?” I looked back at the drain.

“What?”

“Well, the disappearance of Dr. Hookaneye.”

“Oh, he's always doing it,” said Tom. “Don't worry. He'll be right as rain in the morning.”

“As rain! As right as rain?”

“Don't
worry
so, dear Eliza,” they said together, like two nurses.

“I think I'd like to walk to the station.”

And saying goodbye to the delightful porter (had he seen? was he used to it, too?) I set off through Oxford with feverishly beating heart, coming at last to the gates of my old college.

And there I quite forgot about the station but turned automatically in through the gates and enquired for my own old Tutor who I knew still occupies her old rooms. I knocked on the door and found her as always perched on the window-seat, pen in hand. Through the window, behind her, willows swung their ropes about, studded with buds. I could see young women walking in twos and threes, calling and laughing, their hair flipped by the wind. Alert, light on their feet, feeling the spring.

“Eliza—but how nice. Do sit.”

I sat with her and for a time did not speak.

“You have caught me between tutorials. Dear Eliza—why didn't you write? We might have arranged for a talk. It must be four years.”

“I had to come up all of a sudden. To a sort of—godchild.”

“Not your child, alas.”

“No.”

“Are you still sad about that?”

“Not today. Not now. I know now that I couldn't have coped.”

“Your godchild is in trouble?”

“She is in some—I think she is in the power of some evil energy. Some malign force. It attacked me, too. Something very queer. As if we were wearing other people's glasses. Her lover . . .”

But in the quiet room I knew so well, with the parchment- covered cocoa-tin of coloured spills in the grate, the nice noisy gas fire, the white bookcases all over the walls, the blue Pissarro oil-sketch between the windows and the silver cigarette-box on the table beside a pile of essays—the smell of books, ink, flowers, peace—I said no more. Let me give thanks for this unchanging place.

“Cigarette, Eliza?”

Whoever now offers cigarettes? But who knows, should I accept, that some long and scaly thing may begin to surge and swell and spill out of the box, flow over the table, down and across the old Persian rug at my feet, reaching me only to wind itself, wind itself.

“Something is wrong, Eliza.”

“No. Not at all. Just rather a strange afternoon. I don't understand the young anymore.”

“Has this girl a mother?”

“Oh yes. She's run off. To the East.”

“How very antique. And she has left you in charge?”

“Yes. No. Well, not in so many words.”

“Has she a father?”

“Yes.”

“Then leave it to him. They have to make their own beds in college now, literally and figuratively. And lie on them. And suffer if they find that they are full of coals.”

“Oh, she's been lying in beds all right—but then so did we. She looks so lost. So unhappy. I must go now, Dr. Pye. Goodbye.”

“Come back soon. Write to me.”

“I never write letters.”

I was gone, and in the windy street I looked for some cloak to put round myself, with which to wrap the same body and bones that had walked this road to the station thirty years ago—the same arrangement of chemicals, water and fat that had been in flaming love with Henry. A body that had given up Oxford for him, all its self for him, in a public renunciation ceremony in Merton Chapel.

Oxford to Paddington. In the train I write you this letter in an exercise book bought on the station. Envelope too. I close my eyes. I try not to think. I write on.

Fields and cows. Streets then hedges. In the hedges, new blood-red shoots and white worms, the straw-stalks of last year's flowers. Here for a season, then goodnight. This the end of my day, Joan, is the beginning of a new age for you. Your first grandchild is coming. Someone is eyeing you out there in Bangladesh, an invisible eye nobody has seen and that up to now has only seen the dark. It will find you. When you are dead he will talk about you. “My grandmother went crazy and disappeared to Bangladesh and nobody ever saw her again.” You and Sarah will never be on your own again though. You will take equal shares in this new human being. There is no father, for Dr. Hookaneye is down the drain.

He is washed up, and I shall post this at Paddington.

 

Sincerely yours,

Eliza

 

Very dark the house is, very thick it smells (poor dogs). The phone is ringing.

“Hullo?”

“Oh, Eliza.”

(La, it is the Queen!)

“Eliza, I'm so terribly sorry.”

“Don't apologise, Sarah, you are right off-course apologising to me.”

“We wondered—Mr. Hopkin and I—we wondered if . . . Are you all right? Eliza?”

“Quite all right. Just a little puzzled. No—not all right.”

“Eliza, I should have been clearer. I think you misheard. Professor Hookaneye is my
godfather
.”

“But that is even more appalling.”

“He has nothing to do with the baby. I said we were going to have tea with my
godfather
. Not the baby's father. The father's just a guy at Merton. I don't like the father much. I wouldn't dream of involving him. I thought you and Uncle Reg might just—you know—give advice. Are you there? The father's a first-year too. But when I say father—Eliza?”

“I'm sorry, Sarah I must ring off at once.”

“Why?”

“I wrote to your mother. On the train. I posted it at Paddington.”

“Oh my glory,” cried neither the Queen nor the Brum-Bronx but Sarah's heart's blood, “Great heaven!”

“I'll send a telex. A fax. A ‘disregard' message.”

“But, listen, Eliza, don't go yet . . .”

But I did, which will soon, pray God, explain much to you, I flew to the post-office which was of course by now closed.

Fax. How does one send a fax? You need an office. Henry's office. I stepped into the phone-box on the High Street and realised it was eight o'clock in the evening. All would be shut. I'd have to ring Dolphin Square. What if I got Charles? A risk to be taken.

“Hullo? Oh, hullo Henry, this is Eliza.”

A sticky silence.

“Henry. It's not about us. Or the dogs. It's urgent. I have to send a fax to Joan.”

“Oh, Eliza, please.”

“It's very short. Will you get it done somehow? Get it to Bangladesh? Find the Embassy number—you must know how. Sarah's in trouble. She's not in quite such trouble as I thought she was, but she's still in fearful trouble.”

“Eliza,” little nervous cough, “Eliza dear, take hold for a moment.”

“Let me just dictate—oh, Henry, please.”

“Since we are at last speaking, Eliza, could we perhaps mention for a moment the current account?”

“Oh yes. Have it back. I can manage. It was hysteria. But please could you send this fax?”

“Yes. My dear. Hem, hem of course. Also, Eliza, why won't you answer my letters? About the portrait? Somebody wrote from Epsom offering to buy it. I'm rather perturbed.”

“Tell him it's not for sale. Your wife is unauthorised to sell it. Anything, but just . . . To Joan: ‘Terrible mistake Hookaneye godfather not father disregard letter written in train Oxford to Paddington have made muddle. Writing again Eliza.' All right?”

“All right of course. Hold on. ‘Hookaneye godfather.' Is it some code? I don't understand . . .

I rang off and reeled into the road and watched the cars roll by. Then I turned homeward, the long way round, through quiet side-streets, walking slowly, looking first over one garden hedge and then another. Hard polished knobs of spring bulbs were showing, one small lawn an embroidery of crocuses. Now and then there passed me by the home-coming men of the parish in their crumpled London suits. Their briefcases for the stint of the evening's work looked heavy, their mouths taut, eyes in a glaze of desire for the double Gordon's. Some said, “Oh,
hullo
, Eliza,” and made as if to stop (I've not been about much recently) but I smiled and drifted on until I came to the doors of St. Saviour's.

Our Church stays open quite late. We risk our treasures. Anyway, there's always someone inside. Tonight the organ roared. Someone practising. A shadow or two lurked about the pews and a light clatter was coming from the vestry. I knelt in a pew and waited for God.

He was not at home.

When in doubt, pray. By rote, if nothing else is possible. Traditional instruction. Until you grow calm and the line clears.

Our Father which art in Heaven whatever have I been doing in Oxford? Thy will be done in earth as it is in Heaven help Sarah what a terrible mess she's in and I'm sure I don't know what to do about it and forgive us our trespasses sounds very like youth and silliness but after all not
that
inexperienced think of all those boys at school, and Mozart at one
A.M.
She must know something of men by now Thy kingdom come Thy will be done and maybe it is as well we don't know whose this child may be Shakespeare's was a shot-gun wedding there is always some sort of pattern perhaps? In earth there are so many mysteries as is not in Heaven and when it comes down to it why should I
not
look after Sarah's child? I might be allowed. I have nothing else in my life except The Hospice. I must fight for my sanity my kingdom, and Thy power and Thy glory for ever and ever, Amen.

I looked up to see the Curate looking down on me. I made the sign of the Cross and got off my knees.

“Sorry, Eliza. Thought you were free.”

“Oh yes. I'm free. I'm perfectly free.” I waited for him to say, “How are you? I've often called but you've never been in. Can I help you in any way? I've heard about it all.” That's what the Vicar would say, but we never see him—the parish is too big and he's worn out. The Vicar and his wife are marvellous they tell me, but miles away across the Parish. The Curate said nothing.

Looking at his sharp face I thought, I ought to try him. There must be something in his head except parish difficulties. After all it takes six years to become a priest—long as a vet. He must have learned something about sick souls since the first flush of his vocation. Even though his sermons are all about his summer holidays.

“Could I talk to you, Nick?”

“Of course. You could. You could.”

The organist pulled down the front of the organ and clicked off the switches and clattered out of the south door, calling goodnight. The pew-dusters seemed to have departed. The Curate and I were alone in the last of the day, the single, clear-glass window near us still bluish, the big Cross on the altar shrouded in black gauze for Lent. “It's getting dark in here,” he said. “Can't see my watch. I'm off to a meeting. Late already, I expect. Oh dear. Get in touch.”

I thought, Sit down here and now.
Look
at me. In this pew in front of me. Turn your head sideways and bow it a little. Kindly. Christ listened. He really
thought
about women. The woman taken in adultery. He doodled with His finger in the dust. (Wonder what he wrote? “Let her be.”) Christ listened quietly.

I said, “I suppose I couldn't talk to you now? You see I'm frightened. I saw someone disintegrate today.”

“I'd forgotten you work at The Hospice. Yes, the first sight of death is a shock.”

“It wasn't a death, I don't think. It was at Oxford.”

“Oh, there's a lot of disintegration there. Look, Eliza—I'm so sorry but I have to go. There's a Finance Committee.”

“Yes, all right.”

And it happened again. I was looking at the pointed, worried little face, the busy black eyes flicking away through an invisible appointments-book and found that I was looking through skin into bone and beyond the bone into the squashy pillow of the brain. Through the contour map of the face and out again through the bristly back of the neck to the carving on the lectern behind him. “I'm seeing through you,” I thought, and even, I suppose, said, for he replied, peering down at his watch, “Seeing through me, are you Eliza? Oh dear—sorry about that.”

Soon—I waited for it to happen again—he will liquify and flow away. He will become nothing beneath the cloth. He will become water. Water under the bridge. Water running away down through the iron mesh and the aisle's heating pipes and his shabby cassock will be left lying, and his shoes, that I see are a pair of boy's shabby trainers looking out from below the hem, will be lying alongside.

As I looked, rather tenderly, at the trainers the Curate began to solidify again, to hold his shape. When I dared look again at the face, I saw its poor little mouth, sharp little teeth bared in a Pastoral smile. “I don't want to take up your time selfishly,” said I, “but—I'm so sorry; I've not asked before—but I must talk
now
.”

“The trouble is, Eliza, that it isn't
my
time. My time is not my own, especially today. It's been a frightful day. I've had three committees already. There are simply not enough of us.”

“You should let us help you.”

“Us?”

“Women.”

“Oh well—you all do marvellously, but come on, Eliza, full participation is something you and I really would have to talk about.”

“Well, could we?”

“I'm really frightfully sorry . . .” and he was gone with a flick and a flourish of skirts.

 

When I reached the bottom of Rathbone Road two streets away I climbed the hill to our flat bit at the top—the top of the top, the peak of the peak—and my feet were dragging like weights. The Gargerys were in their front garden preparing for summer with paper sacks of fertiliser and shining garden implements. “Come and have a drink,” they called. “We never see you now.” She took off her gardening gloves and shook them, and he laid aside his half-moon edging-tool. They came quickly to the gate. They looked at me curiously. “Come and celebrate. Don't go home alone. Sam has got into Mrs. Rigby's.”

“But he's hardly five.”

“Oh yes!” They laughed and he put his arm around her. “There's an entrance exam and a year's waiting list for Mrs. Rigby now.”

She said, “She won't take them unless they can read, you know.”

He said, “And the Basics.”

She said, “She likes them to be able to sing in tune.”

He said, “Feet on the ladder. Do come in.”

I said, “It's been a long day. Give Sam a kiss from me,” and I felt their troubled eyes at my back. Good Gargerys. So perfect. It will take them half an hour to clean the forks and trowels. They will clean them, still in their gardening gloves, their hands and nails all pure within.

“I've been ringing and ringing since last time,” cried The Queen as I stepped into the house and picked up a frantic telephone. “Where did you go to? Eliza? Are you there? I didn't finish. You went tearing off before I finished. I wasn't telling you only that Uncle Hookaneye was my
godfather
, I was telling you that it is
all right
.”

“All right?”

“Yes. Something has set me right. I must have relaxed or something after tea, when Uncle Hookaneye had to leave us. I think it was you, Eliza. You were so marvellous, coming all this way. And I did truly mean it—I
would
have trusted you to take my baby.”

“You mean there's been some development? With the father?”

“No, Eliza. I mean it is
all right
. I wasn't going to have a baby after all. It was a phantom pregnancy. Like a dog.”

So that I can now sign myself your undeniable friend,

 

E. P.