The Hide Page 8

  I was right, of course. Even before I heard their voices, heard Marion’s voice raised in a laugh, I knew I was right. I stopped immediately. If I had advanced any further I should almost certainly have been seen or heard. There wasn’t a great deal of cover immediately adjoining the hedge. I had to make a roughly semicircular detour through the thicker vegetation. I was perspiring and my heart was beating heavily when I heard Marion laugh again, quite clear and close and a moment or two later, body full length and pressed against the ground, peering with utmost caution, I saw him standing with his back to me at the hedge talking over it to somebody who could only be Marion, although I could not see her.

  He was standing erect and rather proud-looking, with his hands on his narrow hips and his feet planted a little apart. I could not distinguish any words but again I heard her laugh; obviously the gardener was a gayer fellow than his outward appearance suggested. The hedge stood between them, like the sword of old. How long had this been going on? There was what seemed an ease, an absence of constraint in the conversation, which marked it as not the first. On the other hand they were not meeting by appointment, that much was clear from Marion’s behaviour earlier. She had known, obviously, that the gardener was to be found working at this section of the hedge this morning. She could not have approached him from within the grounds, picking her way deviously through the undergrowth, because this would have indicated too clearly her design, removed all pretence of the accidental. So she had wandered along on the other side of the hedge, perhaps on a pretext of looking for mushrooms, something of that sort. Probably she had allowed him to notice her first. . . . I had not thought Marion capable of so much guile.

  I could not help feeling as I lay there, my heart beat returning to normal and my agitation subsiding, that I was witnessing something of great, though not yet clearly defined importance, something portentous for the future; and this sense of significance, like a meaning suddenly perceived in something previously obscure, brought with it a momentary lessening of interest, of concentration—I allowed my attention to be taken up by a stirring in the grass immediately before my eyes. Probing a little into the pale roots, I found a huge beautiful beetle with an iridescent back. A beautiful creature somewhat distraught now with fear of me. With my forefinger I rolled him over on to his back; hairy jointed legs waved at me—in expostulation presumably; the works of the creature were black and ingenious-looking like clockwork. . . .

  I was alerted by the sound of steps through the grass, not far from me. Looking up I saw that there was no one now at the hedge. It was the gardener then, making those sounds, since they were definitely on my side. He was heading, as far as I tould judge, inwards at right-angles to the hedge. If this was so I should have him in full view for a few seconds when he had passed through the laurels adjoining the drive on that side. Sure enough he emerged, looking as sullen as ever—this dalliance had effected no slightest change in his expression. What was visible of his in any case negligible forehead was strangely smooth, smooth as plaster beneath the curls. For all its permanent sombreness of expression, the gardener’s is a face that never seems to have needed to express any but the most unexacting of emotions. He is very young, of course, one mustn’t forget that.

  I hesitated for some moments, then followed. I had more or less decided to assay the gardener and so was proceeding with something less than my usual care, with the result that I very nearly blundered into Audrey as she came down the drive. Only the fact that she was absorbed in balancing the tea tray saved me from being seen. She looked graver than on the last occasion and was wearing a white blouse with a frilly front.

  I stood where I was, waiting for Audrey to return. She took longer than before. I thought she must be chatting to the gardener while he had his tea. At last, when I was beginning to wonder if she had returned to the house by another way, she reappeared without the tray, walking with what seemed a rather spurious briskness, her head up, as if to demonstrate the normality of her whole proceeding. I gave her plenty of time to regain the house, then I made my way to the point where I had seen him scything. He was not there, but after another minute I saw him sitting with his back to one of the birches, studiously whittling away at what I guessed to be the horse. He did not look up though he must have heard me approach. He sat, head studiously bent, outstretched legs in the sun, the rest of him in shadow. Only his hands moved. It occurred to me that for a person who had just had a half-hour tea break, he was being a bit leisurely about resuming work. Moderating my gait to what I hoped was a saunter, I moved towards him. He saw nothing of my saunter, however, as he still did not look up. Even when I stopped before him, raising my hand in a gesture of salutation and smiling broadly, even then he did not look up, and my arm remained suspended rather I felt now in benediction, the smile losing much of its breadth. For some reason it did not immediately occur to me to speak. I had begun, and almost completed in fact, the lowering of my arm when he did raise his eyes, so what he must have seen was a quite pointless motion, a light slapping of the hand against the thigh. The mere greeting, the initial contact was proving so difficult a hurdle that I began to feel agitated and it was very fortunate that at this point I remembered the device of speech and said, ‘Good-morning, beautiful morning isn’t it,’ inclining my head towards his muttered reply. ‘No,’ I said ‘don’t get up,’ and fortunately he did not persist in scrambling to his feet, which would have obliged us to exchange civilities, but lowered his head once more to the work that was engaging him. So I had time to collect myself and also to get a good look at the horse. It was to my surprise an extremely accomplished piece of carving in sand-coloured wood, pine perhaps. He had arrested the horse at a noble moment—distended nostrils, arched neck, heraldic mane. He held the knife lightly, blade at a little more than right-angles to the direction of the cut, defining repeatedly the long beautiful line from belly up towards haunches, again and again, slowly, his rather dirty thumb pressed against the flattened edge, guiding the track of the blade, spilling each time a minute shaving.

  ‘That is a very finely carved horse if I may say so.’

  He looked up again, this time more lingeringly. He had blue eyes of an astounding beauty and vacuity. Looking at those eyes one understood that the sullen, rather bitter melancholy of the whole face was merely an accident of bone structure, not an expression of temperament. ‘I done a good few,’ he said. One time and another.’

  ‘Always horses?’

  ‘Horses, dogs, cats. I done elephants before now.’

  ‘You must be very fond of animals.’ He returned no answer to this, merely continued to look at me—steadily but without any apparent expectation of more words being said or needed. He seemed in a way like an animal himself, quiescent, incurious because the immediate experience was not within the zone of his instinctive life. ‘Well,’ I said, sketching a gesture in the air before me—a reassuring gesture, but for my reassurance, not his—‘Well, there was one thing I wanted to speak to you about, actually, and that was my hide, yes you may come across a hide in the course of your scything. Are you interested in birds at all? No perhaps not. What I want you to do is to avoid with your scythe the grass between the hedge and the shrubbery for a dozen yards or so, I could show you where, because I have constructed a hide there. . . .’ It was no use, of course, I was not conveying anything. I experienced a momentary bafflement and then I had another idea: ‘Snakes,’ I said. ‘Moreover there are small but deadly snakes in that area of the shrubbery, nowhere else in the grounds, there is something nourishing to them in the soil . . . keep out of that area is my advice to you.’

  He was staring fixedly at me now. His eyes seemed somewhat more alert, ‘Snakes,’ he said. ‘Nobody said nothing to me about snakes before.’

  ‘Yes indeed,’ I said. ‘So long as you keep out of the shrubbery you’re all right. Don’t mention this to my sister, Mrs Wilcox, by the way.’

  Suddenly, in making this reference to Audrey, I remembered the pink mohair, the tea
tray, that strange look of suppressed mirth, the braced and extrovert walk back along the drive. An idea of a different sort came to me, and without pausing to think I asked the gardener what he did with the horses. ‘What do you do with them when they are finished?’ I asked him, and he replied with an almost startling promptness and eagerness.

  ‘I was thinking of giving this one away,’ he said. ‘There’s someone I want to have it like, but these things isn’t always welcome, that’s what it is, Mortimer isn’t like other people, you don’t know how he’ll take things—’

  ‘Give it to my sister,’ I said. ‘Forget this Mortimer person. I strongly advise you to give it to Mrs Wilcox. Just as a gift you know. She takes a great interest in such things, I’m sure you won’t regret it. Don’t say anything about me, don’t bring me into it at all. I’ll tell you what, I’ll buy the horse from you, I will give you . . . a pound for it. But you must give it to her yourself, just as though it is a gift from you. You keep the pound, my sister has the horse.’

  He had lowered his eyes again to look at the horse. I took out my wallet, extracted a pound note, and leaning forward, carefully laid the note over the horse, covering it completely. He put the knife, which had a mother of pearl handle, down beside him, took the pound note and after a moment, began slowly to fold it. He folded it longways and then broadways. Taking this action as a token of his acceptance, I quietly withdrew.

  Fosh . . .

  THEY DON’T KILL you with work here, I will say that. Tea breaks going on for forty minutes, I never seen nothing like it. Ever since that time I asked for a whetstone she brings me down a tray every morning. And if it’s not her bringing tea it’s him dodging about telling you things. Her brother. He gives me the creeps, matter a fact.

  Not that I mind the tea, a course, but these days she stays on talking. She asks me questions. I dunno what to say to her most of the time, but it don’t seem to make no difference. I tell her about the stall where I used to work and I tell her about Mortimer. I tell her some of his sayings but she just smiles, very slightly like. Probably beyond her. I mean she speaks very la-di-da, there is elocution there, but I don’t suppose for a minute she has thought things through like Mortimer. The thing she enjoyed most was when I told her how I have to share a bed with the bloke who does the Fairy Lights. His name is Mr Walker. She asked me if he snores like and if he rolls about in the bed, hogging the blankets, and I told her Mr Walker don’t do none of them things and she laughed. Mr Walker sleeps like a log, I told her, especially when he has had a pint or two. A course, the principle is all wrong, having to share a bed when you are paying three pounds ten a week, but I got reasons of my own for not minding. Anyway she listens and she laughs quite a bit and she calls Mr Walker fairy feet because of his job like. He is an electrical engineer, fully qualified, Mr Walker is. What I don’t understand is why she don’t send Marion down with the tea. She makes her do everything else, just about, and it would give us a chance to see each other for a bit.

  Then there is this brother of hers. He has got some of his faculties missing, if you ask me. He is always about the place. Going on like that about birds and snakes. Mortimer said that was a lie about the snakes, they’d never just keep to one place, they would be all over. He was having me on, Mortimer said. What is the point of it though, coming up to a bloke, claiming there’s poisonous snakes in the grounds? He moves his hands about all the time, all the time he’s talking. He comes out of the undergrowth at me, and starts talking about birds and hides and snakes and then he’s offering me money to give the horse to his sister. Something funny about that. Perverted. I am buying the horse, he says, but you are to give it to her. He’s very la-di-da too, a course. Do not say anything, just hand it to her, she will be so pleased. Smiling, opening and closing his hands. I was surprised Mortimer agreed to it, I would of thought he’d smell a rat. But no, he said do it. You do it, he said. You give the old lady the horse, and we will await developments. (His own words.) What kind of a horse is it? he said.

  We was in the bar of the Blue Post down near the front when I told him. That same evening it was, the same day he give me the money. Friday night, pay night, very crowded, half past six we started. Mortimer was on pints, I was on halves. I’m not a great beer drinker, to tell you the truth I don’t like it, I have a delicate stomach, but I always go with him—he’d only go alone if I didn’t. I told him about Marion, too, that same night, not just then but a bit later on. He wasn’t annoyed at all at me not telling him before. What’s she like, bit of all right is she? he said, and that was all, at first. He didn’t seem to mind at all, which was a bit of a surprise and to tell the truth I was a bit hurt in my feelings, he didn’t show no more interest in it than that. No, you give the old dear the horse, he said. He was in a good mood, he was drinking quickly, and I had to drink fast too, to keep up like. What kind of a horse is it? he said. I didn’t know, he said that you had artistic prolixities, Josiah, his own words, and I could tell from the tone of his voice that he was taking the micky. There is a lot you don’t know, I said. Come on, he said, don’t be like that. But still in the same tone a voice. So I just put my hand in my pocket and brought out the horse. That’s it, I said. If you are interested. Sarcastic like.

  He took a good long look at it and then he said, But this is very good, Josiah, very good indeed, and there wasn’t a trace of a smile on his face and so it was a bit like what I’d thought it would be if I’d actually of been giving the horse to Mortimer instead of only showing him it so I said straight off, I was going to give it to you, Mortimer.

  What would I do with it? he said, but he still wasn’t laughing, he give me a straight look and I could tell he was pleased, underneath like. Well, I blame the beer but when he didn’t laugh, when he took it serious, I mean the idea of me making him a gift, I suddenly felt, well I dunno, grateful. And not worried any more. There was no need to say any more on the subject. I would give the horse to Mrs Wilcox or to Old Nick, it didn’t matter, because Mortimer had taken it serious. This feeling come over me in a rush and my eyes started smarting. They do that. So I got up before he could see and went over to the bar and ordered another pint for him another half for me. I knew I didn’t ought to be drinking any more, I felt swimmy like, but there it was.

  He had not forgot about Marion a course. I might of known he would come back to her, sooner or later. You are a sly one, Josiah, he says, half way through that pint I got him, keeping her up your trouser leg all this time. What is she like then? Well, I said, then I stopped. I didn’t know how to describe her to Mortimer. What I was worried about was not getting it over in the right way, not giving the right impression like. Mortimer always sees down into things farther than what I do even if it is me that is telling it, and I was scared he might see down into this and come up with something that would change my ideas about Marion and I would have to see it because it would be what I said myself only in other words. So it would turn out to be my real opinion. He has done that before, Mortimer has. I wanted him to like her but I didn’t know how to bring that about. So what I told Mortimer this time was just a few facts, things she told me when she come to where I was working now and again, and we would talk. I told him Marion was an orphan, her dad died when she was a baby and her mam died when she was twelve. How she come to be in that house was that her mam was related to Mr Wilcox, they was some kind of cousins like but they never had no money. Mr Wilcox was rich because he come into a big catering business and that was how they all come to be living in this big house, but he died, Mr Wilcox did, soon after Marion came. He had a heart attack while he was pruning some roses. Anyway, they give Marion a home like. But from what I can see, I said, she earns it, the way she has to run around after Mrs Wilcox. She has read a lot, I said. She knows poems and that.

  But this was getting away from the facts a course, and straightaway I seen a look come on Mortimer’s face similar to when I told him about Joyce opening her blouse for me, so I went on quick. A course, I said, she’s
not all that good-looking, she’s got buck teeth. You want to get stuck in, he said. Never mind her bloody teeth. Yes, I said. That is what I am after.

  We didn’t say nothing more about Marion then and I was glad, when I thought about it, that I had stuck to the facts. I didn’t say nothing to him about feelings and I didn’t tell him about little things she said to me like for instance when she was at school she asked the teacher if clouds had skins. If they hadn’t how could they keep the rain in, she asked the teacher and she got sent out of the room. Stuff like that. She told me Mrs Wilcox dyes her hair grey. Her and her loony brother never speak to each other these days. She told me about a special way she has of having a bath when it is cold, that started when she first come to the house after her mam died. She makes herself into two people. But I never mentioned none of this to Mortimer.

  No more for me, Mortimer, I said, but either he didn’t hear me or he took no notice, he was at the bar ordering them, another pint for him, another half for me. Drink up, he says—I still had half the last one to finish. Drink up, Josiah, he says, but it was all I could do to get it down, and while I was starting on the next one I definitely began to feel peculiar, dizzy like and a bit on the sick side. I can’t finish this beer, I said. Mortimer, I can’t finish it. You got to finish it, he said. Listen, Mortimer, I said, I feel sick. Don’t make me drink it, I said. You are going to finish that beer, he said, and he was getting his big-eyed look, when he looks like that there is no arguing with him. You might as well save your breath. I knew I would have to drink it in the end but I wanted to see how far I could go, so I pushed the glass a bit away from me. I won’t drink it, I said. I always told you I had a weak stomach, I said. I felt scared, soon as I done it, but I wanted to see how far I could go. You drink up your beer, he said, with his teeth together like, and before I knew it I had hold of my glass again. You get that beer down your bloody throat, he said. So I drunk it, well I didn’t have no choice, trying not to think what I was doing, just swallowing it down, and I felt all right for a bit. That’s right, Mortimer says. That’s the ticket, Josiah.