Dream of Darkness, page 8
‘That’s your job, then?’
‘Our job,’ said Vita.
Sairey turned to face her.
‘Vita, this is taking up a lot of your time. I mean, is it worth it? People go around with lumps of shrapnel in them all their lives. Why can’t I manage with one bad memory?’
‘I could explain that, but are you sure that’s really what you mean?’
‘Christ, Vita, it does get irritating you telling me what I really mean all the time,’ exclaimed Sairey angrily.
‘I’m sorry,’ said Vita. ‘You’re right. My task is to make you understand what you mean, not simply to tell you.’
Sairey mastered her extra irritation at this Vita-ish apology, and said with a wry smile, ‘There you go. It’s not the telling which is irritating. It’s the being right. So, what I really mean is, why all this bother? You don’t like Daddy much, so it’s hardly a favour to an old friend. On the other hand, because you dislike him, you’re probably too proud to charge him, so you end up doing it for free anyway.’
‘It’s not Nigel I’m treating,’ said Vita.
‘Yes, but I wonder how much you really like me,’ said Sairey. ‘I know you’ve always been a kind of aunt, but …’
‘A bit weird?’ said Vita. ‘Not a big-cheque-at-Christmas and cream-tea-at-Fortnum’s kind of aunt? You mustn’t be worried about people liking you, Sairey.’
‘Am I worried?’
‘Tell me one person you’re absolutely sure loves you, warts and all, for your own sake.’
Sairey thought about this for a long time, realized it was too long, and said quickly, ‘Celia, I think.’
There was no triumph in Vita’s face but Sairey felt triumphed over.
‘What about you, then?’ she demanded. ‘Can you do it?’
‘Probably not,’ said Vita Gray with one of her smiles. ‘But the difference is, I’m not worried about it. Now, you won’t forget that Fanny and Nigel are coming for tea?’
‘For a progress report, you mean?’
‘This is not a school and they’re not coming on a half-term visit,’ said Vita. ‘If asked, I shall say you seem in good health and reasonable spirits. For detail, I shall refer them to you.’
‘Thanks,’ said Sairey. ‘Vita, you managed to avoid saying how much you liked me.’
‘Think of me as a mirror, Sairey,’ said the older woman. ‘I like you as much as you like me. Now, let’s talk about the tape.’
Sairey went out for a walk in the afternoon. It was a murky day, with sight and sound muffled in a clamminess that was not quite rain and not quite mist. She walked by the brown swirling river, lulled by its gurglings into a melancholy near-trance which she couldn’t break free from, though she was much more aware of it than she ever was of Vita’s hypnosis. In its grip, she walked further than she intended and realized she was going to be late back for her father’s visit. Or perhaps it wasn’t unintentional. That was one thing a deal of Vita’s company did for you. It made you mistrust the apparent causes of things.
She set off back at a brisk pace. In a rutted and muddy lane about a furlong from the house, she thought she heard a sound ahead of her. She paused. She could hear nothing, but her straining eyes caught a movement in the gloom. Someone was approaching, so far nothing more than an eddying of the vapour which seemed to fill the hedge-lined track like a horse’s trough. A foot splashed in a puddle. To her left was a gate into a field, horrent with young wheat. Crossing it diagonally would bring her straight to Britt House. Normally such a damaging trespass would have been unthinkable, but now she was over the gate and into the field before she’d even begun to wonder what she was running from.
Not that she was making much of a show of running, with every step on the sodden furrows skidding and sliding back almost as far as it took her forward. She’d forgotten what a huge field it was. The air was clearer here but she could hardly make out the boundary hedge ahead. She glanced behind her to take encouragement from the distance she had covered. Instead, she found terror. The figure in the lane had entered the field too. Now it had shape and bulk, possibly exaggerated by the distorting glass of the air, but she wasn’t going to wait in the hope that closeness might cut it down to size. She threw back her head and tried to sprint for the security of the house, which she could now see, apparently floating on the vaporous air. It was like running through the shallows at Dunelands, except that there it was joy that exploded in that huge waste of energy, and it was Polly and Mop who loped along behind her, barking their delight at the game.
She looked back no more, and the pounding of blood in her ears shut out whatever noise of pursuit there might have been.
Finally it was there, the boundary hedge. She burst through it, heedless of damage to herself or the hedgerow, ran up the tussocky lawn and came to a halt against the french window. There was no time to compose herself. Inside, with the light unseasonally on against the dusky day, she saw her father with Fanny and Vita. Vita was pouring a cup of tea, her father was nibbling gingerly at a slice of the coarse seed cake which was Vita’s sole concession to the demands of hospitality. Fanny was doing nothing except look beautiful and composed.
It was, of course, Fanny who saw her first. Her eyes registered her stepdaughter’s strange apparition but her expression of gentle amusement did not change. Sairey wanted to slip away out of sight but she was certain there were sounds of pursuit close behind her. She seized the handle of the window and pushed it open. Only her father showed any surprise.
‘There you are,’ he said. ‘No one can say you’re a fair-weather walker.’
She stepped into the room and at last felt brave enough to turn round, fully expecting that her pursuer would have evaporated into one of her wispy fantasies.
But there he was, standing in the open doorway, bold as brass. The next shock was that she recognized him. That young dark face with its star-shaped scar. It was the wounded boy from the Masham Square gardens. And the third shock came from her father.
‘So you found her, Allan. Well done. Did you recognize him, Sairey? Probably not. He looked a bit different last time you saw him! But don’t stand around, you two. You’re dripping all over Vita’s carpet. Get those wet things off and have some tea!.’
9
By sitting quiet and listening carefully, Sairey learned a lot.
‘Did you meet Bill Bright, Allan’s father, when you came out to Kampala?’ Nigel Ellis asked Vita.
‘I never came out,’ said Vita. ‘I was planning to, but Sarah died.’
She had no use for euphemism.
‘Yes, of course … well, you’d have loved old Bill. Real Empire-building stuff, all the virtues, none of the flaws. The salt of the earth.’
Against Vita’s directness, Sairey weighed her father’s ability to produce clichés with all the vibrant sincerity of new coinage, and declared a draw. Her father reminisced on, giving Sairey the facts to work out that her ‘wounded boy’ was six years older than she was. But with those fine features, that golden skin, he really didn’t look any more than sixteen or seventeen. He must have got the best of both parents, whereas she …
‘I seem to recall Sarah mentioning Mr and Mrs Bright somewhere in her letters,’ said Vita.
‘Yes, she would,’ said Ellis. ‘Allan lived with us for a while. He and Sairey were great friends.’
‘She doesn’t remember,’ said Allan, smiling at Sairey, who shook her head.
‘Perhaps Vita will help bring it all back,’ said Fanny, speaking for the first time since the young people had arrived.
‘Perhaps,’ said Vita. ‘Your parents are dead, Mr Bright?’
‘Yes …’
‘It was tragic,’ intervened Ellis sharply. ‘I’m sure Allan doesn’t want to be reminded of it.’
‘It’s a painful memory,’ said the young man. ‘Mr Ellis was tremendously helpful afterwards. I’ll never forget what his friendship meant to my family.’
Looking rather embarrassed, Nigel Ellis went on, ‘You can imagine how delighted I was, Vita, to hear from young Allan a few weeks ago. And when I realized he was between jobs, I snapped him up to give me a hand with my memoirs.’
‘As a secretary?’ said Vita.
‘Secretary, researcher, editor – remember, though young, he was actually around during that last, most frightening period of my time in Africa.’
‘Yes, he would be,’ said Vita. ‘Tell me, Mr Bright …’
‘Allan.’
Vita considered this, as she considered all things before making a decision.
‘Allan,’ she said experimentally. ‘Tell me, Allan, what jobs are you between?’
‘Before, rather than between,’ he said. ‘I did a degree at Makerere, then came to London to do postgraduate work, which I’ve just finished. I hadn’t really made up my mind what to do next. I suppose what I mean is, I haven’t really made up my mind whether I’m European or African. Running into Mr Ellis was a lucky break. It gives me a breathing space as well as some really interesting work to do.’
‘What is your subject?’ asked Vita.
‘Literature,’ said Allan. ‘In particular, the African novel.’
‘Then you’ll have a lot in common with Sairey. She’s going to read Eng. Lit. at Cambridge. Like her mother. There were many who felt she had the finest critical mind of her year.’
Sairey bowed her head so that her hair, had it been long, would have screened her face. The movement drew Fanny’s attention and she said, ‘At least you seem to be having a good influence on Sairey’s hair, Vita. A few weeks ago it was just a fluorescent stubble!’
‘Yes,’ said Sairey, ‘I thought I’d try it long. If I don’t run out of patience.’
She caught Vita’s eye and forced herself not to look away.
After tea, a wind blew up from the south and transformed the murky afternoon into a comparatively pleasant evening. Underfoot, it was still soggy and the hedgerows left damp fingermarks along any sleeve that brushed against them. But the palling mist was gone, and the big East Anglian sky slipped away on all sides to horizons so distant as to be foreign.
Sairey and Allan walked together beside the river. Vita had proposed it. Sairey had looked at her father, thinking that perhaps he was hoping to get her on her own for a while, but he had smiled and said, ‘More fresh air? Best tonic there is – when you’re young. When you’re my age the only good tonic comes with a lot of gin in it. I’m sure Vita’s about to satisfy my needs. Off you young things go, and satisfy yours.’
Now as they paused to watch a pair of tufted ducks diving for their supper, Allan Bright said, ‘Which of your needs shall I satisfy first?’
‘Is that meant to be a pass?’
‘I’m merely obeying your father’s instructions.’
He smiled as he spoke, but Sairey was looking beyond the joke already. Could it be that her father thought that she might be more forthcoming with someone of her own age group, and would debrief Allan later?
She said, ‘Curiosity, then. What were you doing in the Square that night?’
He said, ‘You didn’t mention seeing me?’
‘No. You were a needless complication. And I didn’t know who you were, of course.’
‘Will you mention it now?’
‘Not without cause.’
He didn’t ask what the cause might be, but said, ‘It was an amazing coincidence, that was all. I’d been at a party and I was on my way home. I’ve got a flat in Victoria. I was walking, because I thought the air would do me good as I’d got a bit tiddly at the thrash. Then I ran into this bunch of yobbos. There was the usual provocation, where you been, nig-nog? that sort of thing. Sober, I’d have put my head down and kept going. But I let them get to me. There was trouble. They soon sorted me out and about ten minutes too late I decided to run. They came after me. I turned into Masham Square, went over the rails into the gardens, and lay still as a mouse under a bush till I was sure they weren’t still looking for me. Then I got up and started cleaning myself under that tap when suddenly I heard you. I nearly dropped dead from fright. I was sure those bastards had come back.’
It rang true, but not wholly.
‘And you didn’t know who I was?’ said Sairey.
‘No. How should I? But when your father called to you, that voice rang a bell. I had the coat cleaned and left it on the step. And I found out from the postman that the family who lived there was called Ellis. It seemed so unlikely a coincidence that I hung around the house from time to time till I got a glimpse of your father. He’s changed a little, of course, but I still recognized him.’
‘I can see why you should want to have a look at Daddy, but why did you spy on me?’
‘You saw me, then?’ He smiled. ‘Curiosity. To get another look at this strange creature who runs around parks in her night-clothes and doesn’t scream rape when she bumps into a bleeding black man!’
‘So. All coincidence. But bumping into Daddy, I take it that the coincidence had stopped by then?’
‘I’m afraid so. Though if I’d known he was living in London, I’m sure I would have looked him up a great deal earlier. After all, he and my father were very good friends. Look, I’m not trying to worm my way into his affections and get you disinherited. Anything he gives me, I’ll have worked for!’
The vehemence with which he spoke took her by surprise.
‘What on earth are you talking about?’ she asked, annoyed. ‘Do you really think I see life like a Victorian novel?’
‘No. But you may see it like a medieval mystery.’
‘What’s the difference? They’re both rigid with moral lessons, aren’t they?’
‘In one, coincidence is a writer’s trick, in the other it’s an act of God.’
‘I don’t believe in God.’
‘If I walked across this river on top of the water, would you believe in him then?’
‘Perhaps.’
‘Then I shan’t do it.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because I don’t believe in God either and it would be immoral to persuade you of a lie.’
‘Even by a miracle?’
‘Especially by a miracle.’
The visitors stayed to an hour which would have forced an invitation to dinner from most hostesses. But meals at Britt House were as irregular in timing as they were eccentric in menu, and Vita didn’t even feel called upon to reissue the seed cake.
As they left, Nigel Ellis embraced his daughter warmly and said, ‘It’s good to see you looking so well. We must see what we can do about sending you on a long holiday soon. No, don’t say anything now. Think about it. How about the States? You’d love it over there.’
Fanny offered a non-contact kiss, then produced a book from the car and presented it to her.
‘I thought you might like to have this. I enjoyed it when I was a couple of years younger than you.’
It was a leather-bound copy of Karen Blixen’s Out of Africa. It was inscribed, To Fanny, Happy Birthday, with much love, Uncle Arch.
‘But I can’t take this,’ protested Sairey conventionally. ‘It was a birthday present.’
‘You grow out of things,’ said Fanny. ‘That’s what birthdays are all about. If it bores you, dump it.’
Allan shook her hand.
‘This is a strange place,’ he said. ‘In Africa it would be a magic place. Don’t get on the wrong side of the natives.’
That night, after a late supper of carrot soup and blackberry pie, Sairey and Vita sat together in companionable silence before the embers of an unseasonable fire and drank the herbal tea which was Vita’s inevitable nightcap.
‘What do you make of coincidence, Vita?’ asked Sairey.
One of Vita’s merits as a companion was that she never expressed surprise at a turn of conversation, so you didn’t have to waste time on pointless prolegomena.
‘In my line, it’s accepted wisdom that all accidents are significant. Perhaps this should be applied in general as well as in particular.’
‘God’s purpose at work, you mean?’
‘Do I? You’re thinking of Allan Bright, I suppose. For a young intelligent man to end up studying in London, where he looks up an old friend of his father’s, seems too forecastable a sequence to partake of the coincidental. Unless there is an element I don’t know about.’
Sairey sighed, and lied.
‘No. It’s just that I’m here because of my dreams, and Daddy brings Allan, who is part of the past you’re trying to get me to relive.’
‘Recall. If we could relive we could change. Change is an illusion sometimes known as hope.’
‘What’s the point of chasing the past then, Vita?’ cried Sairey.
‘So that the present can live in the truth.’
‘But that must affect the future. Surely that gives us hope?’
‘Why should truth bring hope?’ said Vita sombrely.
‘If it doesn’t, if truth has no spin-off in the future, what is the point of seeking it?’
‘I didn’t say it had no spin-off.’
‘What, then?’
‘Justice,’ said Vita Gray.
Sairey digested this. Then she said, ‘By the way, you mentioned some letters of Mummy’s. You said you recalled something about the Brights …’
‘Yes. Your mother was not a very regular correspondent, nor have I been very meticulous in preserving private correspondence, but I daresay I could lay my hands on the letter in question. Would you like to see it?’ ‘Yes,’ said Sairey. ‘Yes, I would.’
‘All right. But not tonight, I think. Drink up and let’s get to bed. I’d like to start early tomorrow, while young Mr Bright is still in your head. Coincidence or not, he may prove a very useful trigger.’
Triggers fire guns. Sairey didn’t speak the thought out loud, but she saw Vita regarding her thoughtfully, as if she had.
OP ANTENOR CO-OP 17/33/7 RESTRIC (NON-ATT)
DOC 78 AA
ORIG admission 835 comm on hum rts kampala 87 (PHOTOC)
no Panel Beaters today … lost track time … only regulator … moved … where? … window … too high … clothes … no shoes watch wallet but biro in lining
