Another part of the wood (13 page)

‘ … When he came at last to the temple and saw Lalla Rookh for the first time he was utterly ravished. She stood on the steps
of the golden altar, dressed in a robe of transparent gauze, with the tips of her toenails dyed blood-red and a gold rod in
her hands …’

Balfour, alone in the upper air, was huge and bloated with excitement. Legs, arms, stomach, mind ballooned out into the darkness,
leaving only his head pinned to the pillow like some specimen butterfly.

‘ … Abdalla bowed low to the beautiful Lalla Rookh and seated himself on a low stool to observe her performance. First the
handmaidens, each one with a cornelian of Yemen about her neck, still in their robes of deepest mourning, knelt before Lalla
Rookh and licked the soles of her feet. She stood with eyes demurely lowered …’

May was thinking about the age of her mother. Not an old woman, she wouldn’t die for years yet. Even if she never visited
her, it was comforting to know she was alive. It made one old if one’s mother died, it was the beginning of the end. Or the
end of her beginning … Wasn’t it futile the way one forgot what mothers did? All that loving and kissing and rocking and changing.
All those mothers smelling of woollies and bread. Either you were with someone or you weren’t, it didn’t really matter. Lionel
thought he loved her and thought she loved him. It didn’t matter. Either the person wasn’t right or the time wasn’t, or love
came out as something else … Take Lalla Rookh – she didn’t really care for Abdalla or he for her. It was just they were all
so perfumed in those days and sexy, and it was all right to behave like that in church in those days.

‘ … and now the lovely Lalla Rookh was standing before the great Abdalla, naked to his eyes. “Eyes of mine, why do you droop?
Golden dreams, are you coming back again …” ’

That was a lovely thing to say, she thought. He always said that at some point in the story. Even if it was the version about
Lalla Rookh and the donkey in Port Said. ‘Eyes of mine, why do you droop?’

Later on, when Abdalla had ravished her and gone away, there was the other bit, the poetry bit Lionel liked reciting:

‘ … slowly the lovely Lalla Rookh thrust her abdomen at the mouth of the mighty Abdalla, her mound of Venus against his throat,
the perfume of her sex assailing his nostrils …’

Outside the wind howled like voices singing a sea song. The unlit paraffin lamp quivered imperceptibly above the wooden floor.

‘ … naked came I out of the womb of my mother, said Abdalla the King, casting his garment from him and seizing the wanton Lalla
Rookh …’

It shouldn’t happen to a d-dog, thought Balfour, grinding his teeth lest he moaned.

In the morning when Joseph woke it was raining. He went through to the kitchen and filled the kettle with water. He had dressed
and walked through the little hut without feelings of any kind. Now, triggered by the sight of the unwashed cups in the sink,
he became irritated. Someone had spilled grease on the draining board. There was Monopoly money in a long streak of water
under the utility table and a cup half filled with discoloured liquid, possibly coffee, with three drowned and disintegrating
cigarette butts. Where was the ashtray he had found for Dotty last night? He had been wasting his time expecting her to use
the saucer he had placed at her elbow. It was typical of her whole attitude.

He rubbed his face with his hands as if to erase Dotty’s memory and the disgust she aroused in him, peering into the looking-glass
by the window, liking his brown skin. The reflection helped to restore him, but not wholly. There was something somewhere
inside him that persisted. Not unhappiness, not pain. He walked away from the deceptive mirror and opened the door to look
out at the field lying green under the falling rain. Mist was covering the hills, rolling down sideways towards the Glen,
unfolding the mountain inch by inch, uncovering the cotton-wool trees on the lower slopes. Still he remained heavy and unyielding.
What was wrong within him?

He stepped out into the field, away from the sleeping Dotty, and walked through the wet grass in his bare feet to the swing
he had made for Roland, reaching out for the rope with one hand as if to anchor himself to something, seeking in his mind
for a clue. He must list his worries, his problems. But he was too absent-minded. Thoughts slid across his mind and curled
to nothingness. Roland … Dotty … his bank manager. I must do … If I write a
cheque post-dated … I should tell her to use the ashtray. He saw himself bent over his cheque book, Dotty lying with her face
against the pillow, Kidney hanging from the bough of a tree … Dear Sir, With reference to your letter of … His toes threaded
with grass, he stamped his feet. George had planted two young trees in the corner of the field. Mountain ash, circled by stakes;
to protect the hut from the winds, George said. In time. How many years before the trees grew high enough and thick enough
to be effective? Fifty perhaps. George was planting for posterity.

Dotty was sitting at the table with her head in her hands. She had felt that if she rose before Joseph and prepared breakfast
he would be pleased. She thought when she woke that possibly he had gone for a walk through the woods, and she was disappointed
at seeing him standing outside the hut staring at the mountain. It was no use starting the breakfast, he would only tell her
she was doing it inefficiently.

‘My, my,’ said Joseph. ‘Couldn’t you sleep?’ He was pushing books aside on the shelves of the little bookcase. A pen and a
bottle of aspirins fell to the floor. ‘Where’s the notepaper?’ he asked.

‘Top shelf,’ she said without looking up.

‘I had the most extraordinary dream,’ he told her, coming to the table with the writing pad in his hand.

‘Oh yes.’ She didn’t know why he persisted in being so interested in his dreams. It didn’t seem to help him much to know what
they meant. Sometimes she felt it would be more valuable to him if he wrote down what he did in his waking hours.

‘A pen,’ he said. ‘Where’s the pen, Dotty?’

‘You knocked it on the floor.’

‘Did I? You don’t have to sound so critical. I merely asked where it was.’ He began trying to put down his dream on paper.
‘Listen to this, Dot-Dot … I was in bed with my father. It was very dark and he was just lying there … It was at home … In Wales,
I mean, and my father said, “I’ve got an attack coming.” I said, “What shall I do ?” and then – ’

He looked up hastily and Dotty said, ‘I’m listening. Go on. I’m just going for my tobacco … Go on … You said, “What shall I
do?” ’ She searched for her tobacco on a chair and failed to find it. Straightening up, she saw the field outside, framed
by the window, like a picture someone had hung on a wall.

‘What attacks were they?’

But Joseph wouldn’t answer her. He sat at the table and shut her out, keeping his eyes lowered, pushing the little plastic
pen about.

She put the kettle on and went out of the hut in her nightgown. The wood spread over her like a great arched umbrella. Underneath
the green spokes she was perfectly dry. There was the red tree Roland had talked about. She crossed to the door of the barn
and went in. Roland was sitting up in bed, his hands clutching the blankets.

‘Hallo,’ she said, looking for Kidney in the other bed and finding him, curled sideways with his hair spread across the pillow.

‘I’ve been bitten by something,’ Roland said, holding up one thin arm for inspection. ‘Look … it’s fleas or bugs.’

‘Surely not.’ She bent closer and looked at the two red marks on the delicate white forearm. ‘Not fleas, Roland, they can’t
be.’

‘Why not?’ He scratched himself hard and looked down with approval at the swollen skin.

‘Well, you only get fleas in dirty places. This isn’t dirty. We’re in the country with all the flowers and things.’ She found
her flesh beginning to itch and rubbed at her neck worriedly.

‘It is dirty in the country,’ Roland asserted. Some of the sting had gone out of his arm. ‘Anyway,’ he said, ‘we had fleas
at home and Mummy got the Health Man and it’s not dirt that makes fleas.’

She was shocked. ‘Did you have fleas at home?’

‘Fleas can be in houses for ever and ever. A flea’s egg can live for a hundred years and then you make everywhere nice and
warm and the flea comes out, hundreds of years old but all new. It’s thirty shillings a room for bugs and ten shillings for
fleas, and it’s free for mice and rats.’

‘Is it?’ she said, interested and repelled.

‘When the Health Man came, Mummy and I had to go to the park for a walk and he threw bombs in all the rooms. The smoke stuff
killed all the fleas by the time we came home for tea.’

‘That’s good,’ said Dotty. Kidney rolled over on to his back and thrust his feet hard down the bed. He made a sound between
a snore and a cough.

‘Good morning, Kidney,’ Dotty said, but he went on sleeping.

‘The man couldn’t kill all the fleas,’ said the obsessed Roland. ‘Mummy didn’t have enough ten shillings for the bathroom
or the hall. I expect they’ll come back. When we had tea he read the Bible to us.’ He knelt in the bed and pressed his nose
to the window. ‘Is it cold?’ he asked.

‘No,’ Dotty said, only a little chill in her white nightgown hemmed with mud.

‘I don’t suppose my Dad will take me up the mountain.’ The little boy didn’t look at her for a denial. He kept his eyes fixed
on the square of grey sky and rubbed at his bitten arm.

‘Did you sleep well?’ Dotty wanted to know, feeling the bed with her hand to assess its comfort.

‘All right.’ Roland fell backwards on to her lap and twisted his arms about her neck. He liked being with Dotty. The time
before when he had been to stay with Joseph there had been a pretty girl with a long plait down her back. He’d liked being
with her too. He didn’t know there would be a girl in the woods with Daddy. When Daddy came in the car to fetch him at Mummy’s
there had only been Kidney. Daddy had found Dotty just round the corner without any suitcase or even a coat. Dotty’s hair
was nice. It looked like the beige curtains hung in his room at home.

‘Carry me, carry me,’ he demanded, burying his face in the familiar curtains. ‘Ooooh,’ he squealed, as they left the trees
and the rain fell on to his neck. Dotty held him tightly in her arms for the benefit of Joseph and her own image, but Joseph
was bent over the table still wrestling with his dream.

‘Hallo, boy,’ he said, not looking up. ‘Kettle’s boiling, Dotty,’ he added, jerking his head in the direction of the cooker.

‘Did you sleep all right?’ she heard him ask Roland. ‘Kidney didn’t disturb you, did he?’

‘He lets off all night.’

‘Roland knows an awful lot about fleas,’ Dotty said, bringing them cups of tea and a saucer for the fussy Joseph. ‘He says
he’s been bitten by some.’

‘I have, I have.’ Eagerly the child rolled back his pyjama sleeve and peered at his arm. ‘They were there,’ he cried, disappointed,
tearing at the smooth skin with his nails, trying to bring back the swellings.

‘Nonsense,’ Joseph said. ‘I can’t see anything.’ He flipped the cover of the writing pad over the notes he had made and lifted
Roland on to his knee.

‘He did have some marks,’ Dotty confirmed, but the two of them were whispering together, not aware of her at all.

She went once more out of the hut. Holding the cup of tea in her hands for warmth, she sat down on the decaying wooden step
at the door. What did one do in the country, she wondered? Maybe they should go for long walks or have picnics. They might
just as well be back in the flat off the Finchley Road – her making the tea and Kidney fast asleep and Joseph scribbling away
at his dreams. It was safer at home. The constricted space forced Joseph to come close to hurt her. Here she could lose him.

She leaned her head against the wet doorpost and yawned.

As soon as he awoke, Balfour left the hut, pausing neither to wash nor cook himself breakfast. The recollections of the night
before followed him out into the wood. He was damp with recollection, saturated. He walked limply under the rain-filled trees
towards the Big House. He found it difficult to separate what had happened from what he imagined. He longed to confide in
someone. George was on the plateau of the house, holding a branch across a three-legged stool, sawing the wood into logs of
equal length.

‘C-could I make a cup of tea?’ Balfour asked. ‘I didn’t want to make too much noise in the hut like.’

George said, ‘I thought Joseph could light the stove in Hut 4.’ He looked out across the valley.

‘Good idea,’ said Balfour, sitting down on the slate slabs.

‘The kettle’s boiling, I expect,’ George told him. ‘If you call me when it’s ready I’ll join you.’ He gazed at Balfour a moment
before poising the sharp teeth of the saw above the waiting branch.

Balfour made the tea in Mrs MacFarley’s earthenware teapot and waited on the tidy bed for the mixture to brew. He wanted to
talk to George and he knew there wasn’t much point. It wasn’t as if he and George could have a good old giggle together. Hardly
likely.

‘George,’ he shouted. ‘George – tea up.’

George entered the door, blocking out the light, his shapeless hat dripping water.

‘It was a bit rum last night,’ blurted Balfour. ‘Lionel p-put the bunks together and she was in the lower bunk and he in the
other, and I was on top like, and he told her stories half the night.’

George looked as if he understood. He sat down and regarded Balfour gravely for several seconds. ‘Did you sing?’ he asked,
his eyes sliding away from the face below him, studying the map above Balfour’s head.

‘No,’ said Balfour.

‘I thought I heard singing last night from the hut … I thought I did … I wanted to come back and join you, but I felt I should
wait till I was included …’

‘We weren’t singing,’ protested Balfour. ‘Nobody sang a note. He just told her stories all night – all about someone called
Larry O’Rourke.’