Devil By The Sea (20 page)

“Did he go to prison? Your father, I mean.”

“Nope. It was the first time. I’d pinched some apples off a barrer and he was learning me. I deserved it, all right,” he ended
righteously.

“Well, I didn’t,” Hilary burst out indignantly. “I hadn’t stolen anything. I only threw one stone. And after all, it was the
Devil. It wasn’t wrong to throw stones at
him:
”

Wally saw her earnest expression and his face became serious. “See here, kid,” he said in a suddenly assumed American accent,
“that wasn’t the Devil, you might as well get it straight. It was only Dotty Jim. He lives in a caravan in our field. He’s
just ordinary, like everyone else, only a bit soft in the head. He sweeps the roads.”

“Peregrine says he’s the Devil,” she cried, and he laughed at her.

“I shouldn’t listen to
him.
He’s only a little kid. Little kids get funny ideas sometimes.”

She frowned crossly and stuck out her lower lip. “He said you could tell he was the Devil because he’s got a cloven hoof,
so there.” She glared at him and he smiled in a superior manner.

“That’s his club foot.” He saw that she did not understand and began to explain to her with an air of condescension. “You
see, some people are born sort of wrong.”

“Have you
seen
his foot?” she broke in triumphantly.

“No …” he conceded, “but …”

“Then you can’t
know,
can you?” Drunk with the power of her own logic, she turned a somersault in the wet grass.

“Seeing isn’t always believing,” he said loftily. She saw his sulky look and jumped hastily to her feet.

“Anyway, he’s a bad, horrible man,” she temporised.

“Oh, don’t be daft.” Bored and irritated, he turned away from her, wriggling inside his clothes and jerking his hips. She
caught his arm. “He
is.
He was in the paper. He’s the man who took the little girl away.”

“What d’you mean? The one who done her in?” His
expression was blank and incredulous; behind it, he was dismayed. Hilary pushed her round, obstinate face close to his.

“He was sitting next to us at Uncle Jack’s. Afterwards he talked to the little girl on the beach and they went away and after
that I saw her picture in the paper.”

Wally was too well acquainted with the boastful lie not to recognise the truth when he heard it. He also knew enough about
the world to know that Dotty Jim might easily be that kind of murderer. His heart shrank inside him. His maturity dropped
away and he looked, suddenly, small and frightened.

“Have you
told
anyone?” he asked in a hoarse voice.

Hilary saw the change in him with dismay. “They didn’t believe me,” she said helplessly.

“Grown-ups.” The scorn in his voice lacked conviction. He began to bluster. “You can’t ’ave told them proper. You should have
told someone important, like a policeman.”

“Oo, I daren’t.”

“Well, you got to do something, haven’t you?”

“I can’t.” Tears trembled in her eyes. At this sign of childishness, Wally recovered some of his composure. “Stop bawling
and let me think, can’t you?” he said roughly. “I’ve gotter think what to do.” He sat down on the steps of the summer house,
gazing sternly in front of him, his chin in his his hands. His pose did not deceive Hilary.

“You can’t do anything, you’re only a boy,” she accused.

“I’m bigger than you,” he argued, hurt. “Besides, I’ve got a scholarship.” For once, this fact did not help his self-esteem.
“You’ve made it all up,” he said, not believing this for a moment but unable to think of anything else to say.

“I didn’t.” Hilary licked her finger and drew it across her throat. “Cross my heart.”

“You did.”

“I didn’t. Oh, you’re no
good”
she screamed at him and ran round the side of the house. Wally sat, scraping at the earth with the heel of his boot, scowling
fiercely. Then he got up, retreated a few yards and began to throw stones at the summer house. One of them cracked the small,
dusty window and he glanced round guiltily, scarlet in the face. Thrusting his hands in his pockets, he followed Hilary. He
found her, crouching by the front gate, a kitten in her lap. It was dead and covered with dust; its small head hung over her
knee at an unnatural angle.

“Coo,” he said, “where did you get that? You’d better put it down or you’ll catch something. Germs,” he ended impressively.

She looked at him coldly. She was not crying and this filled him with awe and admiration. “It’s mine,” she said and her mouth
set in a thin, obstinate line. “It was in the hedge.
He
killed it and threw it there.”

He knew to whom she referred. “Oh, come off it,” he said concerned, and squatted down beside her. She stood up, the kitten
clutched against her dress.
“You
…” she breathed contemptuously and, pushing past him, ran into the house.

The Fun Fair was crowded. At some of the resorts along the coast the fairs had closed down already and the car park was full
of charabancs, motor-scooters and family cars. The dusty ground was covered with blowing paper; children buried their exultant
faces in the pink glory of candy floss. Coveys of middle-aged women, squeaking like partridges, patrolled the ground wearing
paper hats
labelled Kiss-me-quick, Don’t-look-now and Oh-boy-oh-boy. The lights were lit on the roundabouts and on the stalls; music
blared from the Tannoy high above the Scenic Railway which towered like a neolithic skeleton against the dying sky.

Hilary, clutching her purse in the pocket of her frock, was filled with a wild and splendid happiness. It seemed a miracle
that she was here at all, a piece of staggering luck. She did not connect it with the kitten’s death. Once it was buried,
decently coffined in a shoe box, beneath the laburnum bushes at the bottom of the garden, its death had ceased to trouble
her. She had had plenty of pets and was accustomed to their dying: it was not nearly so painful as when they escaped from
their match boxes or jam jars or, like the caterpillars, turned into butterflies and flew away. But the grown-ups had surrounded
her with sad and solemn faces, given her sweets and asked her if there was anything special she would like to do. “Such a
dreadful shock for the child at this time,” Alice had said in an undertone to Janet. Auntie had given her a necklace of moonstones
in a Victorian silver setting to wear with her party dress. Hilary, bewildered by this sudden rush of attention, had not lost
her head. She seized, without much hope, on the one concrete offer. “I want to go to the Fun Fair,” she said in a whining
voice. She did not expect her request to be granted— it came into the category of unattainable joys like the full-size bicycle
or the pony she asked for every Christmastime. But she did not show her astonishment when, after a hushed discussion she was
told that she might go, just this once, and was given some money to spend.

Janet took her on the Scenic Railway. They climbed, on the creaking cable, to the top of the last, highest dip and rushed
gloriously down through the pale, cold air, shrieking
against the wind. Hilary saw the world turn and topple, change into fantastic shapes; she saw people with legs like pins and
enormous, gaping faces. When they lurched into the wooden platform and the ride was over, she felt sick and her legs were
trembling.

They played Bingo. Hilary was bored because only two of the numbers on her card came up but when the game was over and Janet
abruptly left her seat, Hilary ran after her, shouting, “But I wanted another go.”

“Then Want must be your master,” said Janet in a cold, school-mistressy voice. Her unfriendliness sobered Hilary. She tugged
at her sister’s hand and gave her an ingratiating smile but Janet jerked her hand away and stared into the distance in an
offended way.

“What’s the matter?” asked Hilary in a fretful voice.

Janet gazed at her bitterly and said, “You stole my letter.” Hilary was startled by the trembling anger in her voice. She
could not remember the incident. She stared at Janet, open-mouthed, a stupid expression on her face.

“It was a beastly thing to do,” continued Janet, two red spots appearing on her sallow cheek-bones, “a nasty, deceitful, sneaky
thing to do.” With each adjective, she gave Hilary’s shoulder a little push. The child looked down at her feet, bewildered,
her happiness temporarily destroyed by this manifestation of dislike. “And I have to drag you round with me,” went on Janet,
giving her another push. “It’s poor Hilary, poor Hilary, never poor Janet.” Her words increased her vindictiveness towards
her sister.

“Poor Janet,” said Hilary in a placating voice. “I’m sorry.”

“You’re not, you never are, nasty, spoiled little beast,” said Janet viciously. Then her expression changed. She smiled. Surprised,
Hilary saw the smile and essayed one
of her own before she saw that Janet was not smiling at her but at Aubrey, who was coming towards them with long strides,
his open, worsted jacket showing a brightly coloured, cotton shirt.

“There you are,” he said, pressing Janet’s hand and looking down at her lovingly. They walked across the fairground, talking
in low tones. Hilary trailed after them. They stopped outside the Big Laugh.

Hilary said loudly, “I want to go into the Big Laugh. It’s full of funny mirrors and it’s a maze. Sometimes people get lost
in there for days and days and no one finds them till they’re dead and their bones are sticking out like matches.”

“Silly child,” said Janet indulgently and smiled upon her for Aubrey’s benefit.

Aubrey said, “Why such a fat child should have fantasies of starvation bewilders me.” Janet laughed, a high, ringing laugh
as if he had said something surpassingly witty. The man in the pay box of the Big Laugh shouted, “Come along, ladies and gentlemen,
see yourselves as you really are. In some cases, people find it an improvement.”

“It’s like another world,” said Aubrey in his sad, parsonical voice, “not just a reflection of this one.” He stared deep into
Janet’s eyes as he said this and Janet looked uncomfortable. He murmured something in her ear and, in the mirror, two fat
midgets held hands. Hilary scuffed the toe of her sandal along the ground. A deep disappointment invaded her: nothing was
ever so wonderful as she expected it to be.

“I want to go on the Roller Coaster,” she groaned.

“It’s too fast. It would make you sick. You were nearly sick on the Scenic Railway.”

“I wasn’t. Anyway I don’t care if I’m sick. I want to go. More than anything in the world.”

“The roundabout is better, dear.” Aubrey smiled in a patronising manner and patted her on the head. “Look, see the horses….”

She was perched high on a galloping horse with flaring red nostrils and golden stirrups. She clutched at the brass pole in
front of her and the roundabout began to move. In the middle, a mechanical drummer banged his drum and nodded his head. The
world flew past her, a mad panorama of colours and light: in the middle of the world, Hilary swooped and soared like a creature
of the air. “Lovely,” she screamed and kicked at her horse’s sides. Briefly, she closed her eyes and it was like the moment
of flying in a dream just before you wake.

The roundabout slowed down, the kaleidoscope pattern resolved into the Bingo table, the shooting gallery with the bobbing,
white, cardboard ducks, the rolling balls where you got a prize every time and, high above them all, dominating and unattainable
as age, the Big Wheel.

Then there was the Bingo table again and, standing beside it in a long, black coat, a thin and familiar figure. The next time
round, the horizontal movement of the horse more noticeable now they were moving slowly, he was still there, his collar turned
up round his chin, chewing at his nails. Hilary craned sideways to watch him as she was carried out of sight and almost lost
her balance.

She slid off her horse and looked for Janet and Aubrey. They were waiting for her at the other side of the roundabout.

“I saw him,” she said. “I saw the man who took the little girl away. He’s watching Bingo.”

Excited, she pulled at their reluctant hands, drawing them towards the Bingo and the lonely, watchful figure.
Their eyes, wide and disbelieving, turned towards the round stall with its arched canopy of striped canvas, its gaudy mound
of prizes, stuffed dolls, whistling kettles, plaster cats. The man chanted the numbers in a syncopated rhythm. On the spot,
number four; on the spot, eighty-two….

“There, look …” Her voice was shrill and triumphant. The man looked in their direction.

“Hilary.” Janet’s face burned.

Hilary persisted, “It
is
the man. I know. I talk to him sometimes.” She was not afraid, she was exhilarated. She pranced and capered round Aubrey
and Janet, her face radiant with joy. “He’s the Devil, the Devil, the silly old Devil, his jacket was red and his breeches
were blue and there was a hole where his tail showed through …” She howled the last words in a paroxysm of delight.

Janet seized her by the shoulders.
“Do
be quiet,” she hissed. “Oh—I could
beat
you.”

Hilary twisted out of her grasp. Her eyes were bright and luminous, excitement twisted in her stomach. “He is, he is, silly
Janet, soppy Janet.” She turned in a pirouette, her cotton skirt flying round her. The man was gone.

“What newspaper do you take?” asked Aubrey. Janet nodded at him, her lips compressed into a disagreeable grin. Aubrey bent
and said in a soft, mocking voice, “Hilary, Hilary, what a tangled web we weave, when once we practise to deceive….”

Hilary screamed with laughter and butted him in the stomach. He caught her hands and swung her round in a wide circle. Sudden
gaiety possessed them all. They walked, hands clasped, among the glittering stalls. Little puffs of dust blew in their faces.
The colour had begun to fade out of the sky.

They went on the Ghost Train, jammed into the same, rattling carriage. Skeletons rose out of the dark, gleaming like dead
fish, hands brushed their shrinking faces. They whirled out into the light through clashing doors. Hilary shouted, “Lovely,
lovely, I wasn’t frightened, I’m never frightened.”