Fen Country Read online

  I am typing a senrence which starts His crushed hand, paining him less now, nevertheless gave him a sense of…

  I know what is going to happen after ‘of’: the appalling frailty of the human body.

  Or rather, I did know, and it wasn’t that. It might have been that (feeble though it is) but for the fact that then the doorbell rang. (I hope that it might have been something better.)

  The doorbell rang. lt was a Mrs. Prance morning, but she hadn’t yet arrived, so I answered the door myself, clattering down from the upstairs room where I work. It was the meter-reader. The meter being outside the door, I was at a loss to know why I had to sanction its being scrutinized.

  “A sense of the dreadful agonies,’ I said to the meter-reader, “of which the human body is capable.”

  ‘Wonderful weather for the time of year.”

  “I’ll leave you, if you don’t mind. I’m a bit busy.”

  “Suit yourself,” he said, offended.

  Then Mrs. Prance came.

  Mrs. Prance comes three mornings a week. She is slow, and deaf, but she is all I can hope to get, short of winning the Pools.

  She answers the door, but is afraid of the telephone, and consequently never answers that, though I’ve done my utmost to train her to it.

  She is very anxious that I should know precisely what she is doing in my tatty little cottage, and approve of it.

  “Mr. Bradley?”

  “Yes, Mrs. Prance?”

  “It’s the HI-GLOW.”

  “What about it, Mrs. Prance?”

  “Pardon?”

  “I said, what about it?’

  “We did ought to change.”

  “Yes, well, let’s change, by all means.”

  “Pardon?”

  “I said, Yes.”

  “Doesn’t bring the wood up, nor the way it ought to.”

  “You’re the best judge, Mrs. Prance.”

  “Pardon?”

  “I’m sorry, Mrs. Prance, but I’m working now. We’ll talk about it some other time.”

  “Toffee-nosed,” says Mrs. Prance.

  Gave him a sense of—a sense of— a sense of burr-burr, burr-burr, burr-burr.

  Mrs. Prance shouts that it’s the telephone.

  I stumble downstairs and pick the thing up.

  “Darling.”

  “Oh, hello, Chris.”

  “How are you, darling?”

  “A sense of the gross cruelty which filled all history.”

  “What, darling? What was that you said?”

  “Sorry, I was iust trying to keep a glass of water balanced on my head.”

  A tinkle of laughter.

  “You’re a poppet. Listen, I’ve a wonderful idea. It’s a party. Here in my flat. Today week. You will come, Edward, won’t you?”

  “Yes, of course, I will, Chris, but may I iust remind you about somethingl”

  “What’s that, darling?”

  “You said you wouldn’t ring me up during working hours.”

  A short silence; then:

  “Oh, but just this once. lt’s going to be such a lovely party, darling. You don’t mind just this once.”

  “Chris, are you having a coffee break?”

  ‘Yes, darling, and oh God, don’t I need it!”

  ‘Well, l’m not having a coffee break.”

  A rather longer silence; then:

  ‘You don’t love me any more.”

  “It’s just that I’m trying to get a story written. There’s a deadline for it.”

  “If you don’t want to come to the party, all you’ve got to do is say so.”

  “I do want to come to the party but I also want to get on with earning my living. Seriously, Chris, as it’s a week ahead, couldn’t you have waited till this evening to ring me?”

  A sob.

  “I think you’re beastly. I think you’re utterly, utterly horrible.”

  “Chris.”

  “And I never want to see you again.”

  …a sense of treachery, I typed, sedulously. The agony still flamed up his arm, but it was now

  The doorbell rang.

  —it was now less than—more than—

  “It’s the laundry, Mr. Bradley,” Mrs. Prance shouted up the stairs to me.

  “Coming, Mrs. Prance.”

  I went out on to the small landing. Mrs. Prance’s great moonface peered up at me from below.

  “Coming Thursday next week,” she shouted at me, “because of Good Friday.”

  “Yes, Mrs. Prance, but what has that got to do with me? I mean, you’ll be here on Wednesday as usual, won’t you, to change the sheets?”

  “Pardon?”

  “Thank you for telling me, Mrs. Prance.”

  One way and another, it was a remarkable Tuesday morning: seven telephone calls, none of them in the least important, eleven people at the door, and Mrs. Prance anxious that no scintilla of her efforts should lack my personal verbal approval. I had sat down in front of my typewriter at 9:30. By twelve noon, I had achieved the following:

  His crushed hand, paining him less now, nevertheless gave him a sense of treachery, the appalling frailty of the human body, but it was now less than it had been, more than, indifferent to him since, after, because though the pain could be shrugged off the betrayal was a

  I make no pretense to be a quick writer, but that really was a very bad morning indeed.

  II

  Afternoon started better. With sorne garlic sausage and bread inside me, I ran to another seven paragraphs, unimpeded.

  As he clawed his way out, hatred seized him, I tapped out, enthusiastically embarking on the eighth. No such emotion had ever before—

  The doorbell rang.

  —had ever before disturbed his quiet existence. It was as if—

  The doorbell rang again, lengthily, someone leaning on it.

  —as if a beast had taken charge, a beast inordinate, insatiable.

  The doorbell was now ringing for many seconds at a time, uninterruptedly.

  Was this a survival factor or would it blur his mind? He scarcely knew. One thing was abundantly clear, namely that he was going to have to answer the bloody doorbell.

  He did so.

  On the doorstep, their car standing in the lane beyond, were a couple in early middle age, who could be seen at a glance to be fresh out from The Duke.

  The Duke of Devonshire is my local. When I first moved to this quiet part of Devon, I had nothing against The Duke: it was a small village pub serving small village drinks, with an occasional commercialized pork pie, or sausage-roll. But then it changed hands. A Postgate admirer took over. Hams, game, patties, quail eggs and other such fanciful foods were introduced to a noise of trumpets; esurient lunatics began rolling up in every soft of car, gobble-mad for exotic Ploughman’s Lunches and suavely served lobster creams, their throats parched for the vinegar of 1964 clarets or the ullage of the abominable home-brewed beer; and there was no longer any peace for anyone.

  In particular, there was no longer any peace for me. “Let’s go and see old Ted,” people said to one another as they were shooed out of the bar at closing time. “He lives near here.”

  “Charles,” said this man on the doorstep, extending his hand.

  The woman with him tittered. She had fluffy hair, and lips so pale that they stood out disconcertingly, like scars, against her blotched complexion. “It’s Ted, lovey,” she said.

  “Ted, of course it’s Ted. Known him for years. How are you, Charley boy?”

  “Ted, angel.”

  I recognized them both, slightly, from one or two parties. They were presumably a married couple, but not married for long, if offensive nonsenses like “angel” were to be believed.

  “We’re not interrupting anything,” she said.

  Interested by this statement of fact, I found spouting up in my pharynx the reply, “Yes, you sodding well are.” But this had to be choked back; bourgeois education forbids such replies, other than euphemistically.
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  “Come on in,” I said.

  They came on in.

  I took them into the downstairs living-room, which lack of money has left a ghost of its original intention. There are two armchairs, a chesterfield, a coffee-table, a corner cupboard for drinks: but all, despite HI-GLOW, dull and tattered on the plain carpet.

  I got them settled on the chesterfield.

  “Coffee?” I suggested.

  But this seemed not to be what was wanted.

  “You haven’t got a drink, old boy?” the man said.

  “Stanislas,” the girl said.

  “Yes, of course. Whisky? Gin? Sherry?”

  “Oh, Stanislas darling, you are awful,” said this female. “Fancy asking.”

  I had no recollection of the name of either of them, but surely Stanislas couldn’t be right. “Stanislas?” I asked.

  “It’s private,” she said, taking one of his hands in one of hers, and wringing it. “You don’t mind? It’s sort of a joke. It’s private between us.”

  “I see. Well, what would you like to drink?”

  He chose whisky, she gin and ltalian.

  “If you’ll excuse me, I’ll have to go upstairs for a minute,” I said, after serving them.

  One thing was abundantly clear: Giorgio’s map had been wrong, and as a consequence—

  “Ooh-hooh!”

  I went out on to the landing.

  “Yes?’

  “We’re lonely.”

  “Down in just a minute.”

  “You’re doing that nasty writing.”

  “No, just checking something,”

  “We heard the typewriter. Do come down, Charles, Edward I mean, we’ve got something terribly, terribly important to tell you.”

  “Coming straightaway,” I said, my mind full of Giorgio’s map.

  I refilled their glasses.

  “You’re Diana,” I said to her.

  “Daphne,” she squeaked.

  “Yes, of course, Daphne. Drink all right?”

  She took a great swallow of it, and so was unable to speak for fear of vomiting. Stanislas roused himself to fill the conversational gap.

  “How’s the old writing, then?”

  “Going along well.”

  “Mad Martians, eh? Don’t read that sort of thing myself, I’m afraid, too busy with biography and history. Has Daphne told you?”

  “No. Told me what?”

  “About Us, old boy, about Us.”

  This was the first indication I’d had that they weren’t a married couple. Fond locutions survive courtship by God knows how many years, fossilizing to automatic gabble, and so are no guide to actual relationships. But in “Us,” the capital letter, audible anyway, flag-wags something new.

  “Ah-ha!” I said.

  With an effort, Stanislas leaned forward. “Daphne’s husband is a beast,” he said, enunciating distinctly.

  “Giorgio’s map,” I said. “Defective.”

  “A mere brute. So she’s going to throw in her lot with me.”

  Satisfied, he fell back on to the cushions. “Darling,” he said.

  As a consequence, we were two miles south-west of our expected position. “So what is the expected position?” I asked.

  “We’re eloping,” Daphne said.

  “This very day. Darling.”

  “Angel.”

  “Yes, this very day,” said Stanislas, ostentatiously sucking up the last drops from the bottom of his glass. “This very day as ever is. We’ve planned it,” he confided.

  The plan had gone wrong, had gone rotten. Giorgio had failed.

  “Had gone rotten,” I said, hoping I might just possibly remember the phrase when this pair of lunatics had taken themselves off.

  “Rotten is the word for that bastard,” said Stanislas. Suddenly his eyes filled with alcoholic tears. “What Daphne has suffered, no one will ever know,” he gulped. “There’s even been… beating.” Daphne lowered her lids demurely, in tacit confirmation. “So we’re off and away together,” said Stanislas, recovering slightly. “A new life. Abroad. A new humane relationship.”

  But was his failure final? Wasn’t there still a chance?

  “If you’ll excuse me,” I said, “I shall have to go upstairs again.”

  But this attempt aborted. Daphne seized me so violently by the wrist, as I was on the move, that I had difficulty in not falling over sideways.

  “You’re with us, aren’t you?” she breathed.

  “Oh yes, of course.”

  “My husband would come after us, if he knew.”

  “A good thing he doesn’t know, then.”

  “But he’ll guess. He’ll guess it’s Stanislas.”

  “I suppose so.”

  “You don’t mind us being here, Charles, do you? We have to wait till dark.”

  “Well, actually, there is a bit of work I ought to be getting on with.”

  “I’m sorry, Ted,” she said, smoothing her skirt. “We’ve been inconsiderate. We must go.” She went on picking at her hemline, but there was no tensing of the leg muscles, preliminary to rising, so I refilled her glass. “No, don’t go,” I said, the British middle class confronting its finest hour. “Tell me more about it.”

  “Stanislas.”

  “H’m, h’m.”

  “Wake up, sweetie-pie. Tell Charles all about it.”

  Stanislas got himself approximately upright. “All about what?”

  “About Us, angel.”

  But the devil of it was, if Giorgio’s map was wrong, our chances had receded to nil.

  “To nil,” I said. “Nil.”

  “Not nil at all, old boy,” Stanislas said. “And as a matter of fact, if you don’t mind my saying so, I rather resent the ‘nil.’ We may not be special, like writer blokes like you, but we aren’t ‘nil,’ Daphne and me. We’re human, and so forth. Cut us and we bleed, and that. I’m no great cop, I’ll grant you that, but Daphne—Daphne—”

  “A splendid girl,” I said.

  “Yes, you say that now, but what would you have said five minutes ago? Eh? Eh?”

  “The same thing, of course.”

  “You think you’re rather marvelous, don’t you? You think you’ve… got it made. Well, let me tell you one thing, Mr. so-called Bradley: you may think you’re very clever, with all this writing of Westerns and so on, but I can tell you, there are more important things in life than Westerns. I don’t suppose you’ll understand about it, but there’s Love. Daphne and I, we love one another. You can jeer, and you do jeer. All I can tell you is, you’re wrong as can be. Daphne and I, we’re going off together, and to hell with people who… jeer.”

  “Have another drink.”

  “Well, thanks, I don’t mind if I do.”

  They stayed for four whole hours.

  Somewhere in the middle, they made a pretense of drinking tea. Some time after that, they expressed concern at the length of time they had stayed—without, however, giving any sign of leaving. I gathered, as Giorgio and his map faded inexorably from my mind, that their elopement plans were dependent on darkness: this, rather than the charm of my company, was what they were waiting for. Meanwhile, with my deadline irrevocably lost, I listened to their soul-searching—he unjustifiably divorced, she tied to a brutish lout who unfortunately wielded influence over a large range of local and national affairs, and would pursue her to the ends of the earth unless precautions were taken to foil him.

  I heard a good deal about their precautions, registering them without, at the time, realizing how useful they were going to be.

  “Charles, Edward.”

  “Yes?”

  “We’ve been bastards.”

  “Of course not.’

  “We haven’t been letting you get on with your work.”

  “Too late now,”

  “Not really too late,” lachrymosely. “You go and write, and we’ll just sit here, and do no harm to a soul.”

  “I’ve rather forgoten what I was saying, and in any case I’
ve missed the last post.”

  “Oh, Charles, Charles, you shame us. We abase ourselves.”

  “No need for that.”

  “Naturally we abase ourselves. We’ve drunk your liquor, we’ve sat on your… your sofa, we’ve stopped you working. Sweetie-pie, isn’t that true? Haven’t we stopped him working?”

  “If you say so, sweetie-pie.”

  “I most certainly do say so. And it’s a disgrace.”

  “So we’re disgraced, Poppet. Bad,” she said histrionically. “But are we so bad? I mean, he’s self-employed, he’s got all the time in the world, he can work just whenever he likes. Not like you and me. He’s got it made.”

  “Oh God,” I mumbled.

  “Well, that’s true,” Stanislas said, with difficulty. “And it’s a nice quiet life.”

  “Quiet, that’s it.”

  “Don’t have to do enything if you don’t want to. Ah, come the day.”

  “He’s looking cross.”

  “What’s that? Old Charles looking cross? Angel, you’re mistaken. Don’t you believe it. Not cross, Charles are you?”

  “We have stayed rather long, darling. Darling, are you awake? I say, we have stayed rather long.”

  “H’m.”

  “But it’s special. Edward, it’s special. You do see that, don’t you? Special. Because of Stanislas and me.”

  I said, “All I know is that I…”

  ‘Just this once,” she said. “You’ll forgive us just this once? After all, you are a free agent. And after all, it’s only us.”

  I stared at them.

  I looked at him, nine-tenths asleep. I looked at her, half asleep. I thought what a life they were going to have if they eloped together.

  But “It’s only us” had triggered something off.

  I remembered that on just that one day, not an extraordinary one, there had been Mrs. Prance, the meter-reader, Chris (twice: she had telephoned a second time during working hours to apologize for telephoning the first time during working hours), the laundry-man, the grocer (no Chivers Peas this week), my tax accountant, a woman collecting for the Church, a Frenchman wanting to know if he was on the right road to The Duke.