Judgment Day (10 page)

He turned the page, to the Far East, the names making him think now of the war: Singapore and Java and the Philippines. Images came and went in his mind like a series of projector slides: Podd and Lacy and Binns, ragged ineffectual figures with country accents herded into some creaking ship; troops streaming up the gangway of the
Ranchi
at Portsmouth in 1940, hung about with kit, waving three deep from the rails; the dust and debris and broken glass in Mansell Road, Mary's plaster-whitened hair. He saw people hustled hither and thither, blown by terrible mindless winds, helpless, hapless. He saw too, suddenly, the wall painting in the church and the gray figures bundled away by red devils or stern condescending angels. A Doom painting, the church guidebook said; “Doom wall-paintings, Day of Judgment scenes, were common in
medieval churches and served as a pictorial reminder to the illiterate congregation of the brevity and insecurity of life and the perils of non-repentance.” Forgive us our trespasses. Deliver us from evil. Ha bloody ha, he thought in sudden fury. He was trembling, he realized. Alarmed by his own feelings, he put the atlas back in the bookcase and went out into the garden, where he took down the large fork and set about a systematic dig of the plot in which, next week, he would plant out young cabbages.

He had been saved from thought, after the bomb, by the posting to the Med and all that that implied. He hadn't cared, one way or the other, if he died himself. But he hadn't died; he'd survived to go on to the tedium of the Bombay run and eventually to Portsmouth again and being demobbed and finding a job and somewhere to live. There was a padre who had tried to talk to him from time to time, meaning well, had him on a list, no doubt: keep an eye on this man. A nice enough bloke; trouble was, they couldn't think what to say to each other. The padre would bumble on and grind eventually to a halt, and Sydney would nod and then there'd be a silence; both of them, Sydney supposed, not being fools, knew that in the end there was nothing to be said. The padre talked of faith and the comfort of prayer and the love of God; he talked to Sydney as one believer to another. What he didn't know, what could never have been explained, was that it was order Sydney sought, and found, in the Church, rather than any of that. The order of things said and done each time in the same way, the order of knowing that nothing could interfere with how those things were said and done, the knowledge that this order had gone before and would go on after, that it survived the chaos of everything else.

For the rest of his life all he wanted was order. To move from day to day without disturbance; to know that day would follow day; to anticipate with some accuracy what the next day might hold. He had lost everything. For the rest of his life he would have nothing, so that that might never happen again. No more love; no more commitment. They can't take away from you what you haven't got. He would live on the foothills, expect little and risk little.

He moved away from London in the mid fifties to the job in Spelbury and bought the Laddenham house. Even that seemed to him rash; he was choosing the place with an eye to retirement. A quiet place with a good garden on light soil.

You took no risks, gardening; your only commitment was to the seasons, which never fail. Small disappointments, yes; minor triumphs. And you could safely plan, knowing that till the end of time, come what may, summer will follow spring, there will be growth and fruition and decay. There is a natural order, if no other. Sydney dug and planted and reaped again. And again. And again.

This year he intended trying a new cabbage: Autumn Giant. He wiped the tines of the fork clean and hung it in its place in the tool shed. His anger had subsided; he felt himself once more. Now he would do some reading, because Mrs. Paling wanted those books back by the end of the week. Reading and making notes, carefully, his memory wasn't what it used to be and he wouldn't be able to keep tabs on all those facts and dates without. He was no scholar, but he'd work something out, and he didn't want to look silly in front of Mrs. Paling when it came to writing up their piece for the committee.

He'd felt obliged to offer her a cup of tea when she brought the books over; she stood there in the hall, grinning away, with no sign of leaving, and in the end he had to ask her to come through and sit down. He hadn't really wanted to get involved, but you couldn't be too un-neighborly.

She sat drinking her tea with those long, thin trousered legs stuck out in front of her. He put the biscuit tin on the table, the Coronation biscuit tin from Mansell Road, and she picked it up and said, goodness, you only ever see those in antique shops nowadays, with some ridiculous price on, nice to see one being used. And then went red and started off about something else and he realized she was embarrassed, thought she'd dropped a brick, making out his things were old-fashioned. And realized too she was quite a nice woman, really, even if a bit off-putting with that sharp way of talking and a strung-up feeling about her, as though she had to hold herself back all the time.

He said, “I gave it to my wife for her birthday, one year.”

She looked at the biscuit tin again, and then at him; trying to put two and two together, no doubt.

“My wife was killed in an air raid, second year of the war. And the little girl.”

She couldn't know the compliment that was. He didn't often tell anyone that, only let it leak out when it had to. Particularly not women; there was a kind of woman never let you alone once they knew, women he'd worked with at Robinsons, or neighbors; as though you were a cripple, to be smothered with kindness. Somehow, he didn't think Mrs. Paling was that type; dropping in with homemade
cakes to see you were getting on all right, sharp eyes looking over your shoulder and into the kitchen, or up the stairs, wondering how you managed, what it felt like.

She went on holding the biscuit tin, staring at the oval-framed faces of the king and queen. She said, “How appalling,” in a low voice, and then, “Thirty-nine years ago.”

Sydney said, “Won't you take a biscuit?”

She took a coffee cream and put it in her saucer. She wasn't going to eat it, you could see; it was done out of politeness.

Mrs. Paling began to talk about the books she'd brought. She gave him a piece of paper on which she'd made a note of the chapters and page numbers that had most about what they were looking for. From the way she talked, Sydney guessed she knew a fair bit more about historical things than he did, not that she was trying to patronize or anything, it just slipped out. He nodded and made one or two remarks—cautious, unrevealing remarks. They agreed to meet again when Sydney had had time to do some reading, and draft some sort of report for the committee. Mrs. Paling said dryly that when Sydney read about the transportations he'd probably agree with her that it wasn't quite the jolly sort of history Miss Bellingham had in mind. But then, she said quietly, I don't imagine you feel history's all that jolly, Mr. Porter. Thanks very much for the tea, I'd better dash, the kids'll be back from school and if I'm not there they start pulling the place to pieces. Bye. See you.

Sydney put the biscuit she hadn't eaten back in the tin; waste irritated him. He cleared away the tea things. Then he arranged the books in a pile on the coffee table in the
lounge, with slips of paper marking the right places, and set to reading what was to be read.

When he finished he was oddly shaken; involved, as though what he'd been reading was fiction, novels, thrillers—not things in history books, over and done with. You never thought of all that as having to do with you personally. You never thought of yourself as being part of the same process. Now, remembering Mrs. Paling's remark, thinking of Podd and Lacy and Binns, he saw suddenly an unending remorseless sequence; people harried and cut down, Christians, Jews, fanatics, prophets, stubborn religious soldiers, disgruntled country laborers, Mary and Jennifer.

*  *  *

Keith Bryan, standing at the downstairs toilet, jumped violently. There was this cardboard box on the floor, which he hadn't noticed when he went in, and suddenly something started scuffling inside it. He zipped himself up and stooped over the box; there were holes stabbed in the lid with a pencil, and this crawling, shuffling from inside. Martin. Bloody little wretch. Christ alone knew what … If there was one thing Keith hated it was rats. He shuddered, and slammed out of the room in search of Shirley. This just about put the lid on it for today; he was still rattled from that business with the woman in the car park, all in front of Debbie Comstock. Not that he hadn't coped with the silly bitch and afterward he and Debbie had had a laugh about it, maybe in the end it might actually have sent his stock up a bit with Debbie, you never knew. At least he'd let that woman know where she got off.

Shirley was watching the telly. Of course; what else? He said, “What's in that bloody box in the toilet?”

“It's a bird. Some bird Martin brought in.”

“Well, I didn't think it put itself there, did I?”

She kept her eyes glued to the box: the two Ronnies. He'd watch himself, for two pins, but he was still all het up.

“I said: did I?”

“Eh?”

He reached out and switched the set off. Now he had her attention, for what it was worth. God, what a slag she looked, after Debbie Comstock: trousers that did nothing for her, sweater with stains down the front, frizzy hair that hadn't seen a comb since this morning.

“Do you mind?” she said. “I was watching that.”

“And I want to know about this bloody bird. What did you let him bring it in for?”

She shrugged. “Why not? Shut up, Keith, you'll have him down here.”

“I'm putting it out of the back door.”

She shrugged. “O.K., suit yourself.” She had her hand out toward the telly. He got between her and the set. “And there's no bloody beer in the fridge. I told you to get some from the supermarket.”

“Fuck you,” she said, angry now. “That's not all I've got to do, traipse around looking after your wants.”

“And what exactly have you got to do, eh? Eh? You tell me, then. What have you got to do? Sit about on your bum all day, that's what.”

“And what else can I do, stuck here? There's no jobs, is there?”

“Not for someone looking like you do, too right. You
want to smarten yourself up a bit, Shirley, I told you that the other day. You look a proper slag these days.”

“Oh, belt up. You're no Steve McQueen yourself, with the pot belly you're getting.”

The door must have opened without him hearing. Martin was standing there. He said uncertainly, “Dad?”

Shirley said, “Get off upstairs, Martin, there's a good boy. You can take a jaffa cake from the tin in the kitchen.”

“I didn't know Dad had come in. I wanted to show him my…”

The T-shirt he wore was stained down the front just like Shirl's sweater: irritation surged in Keith. The pair of them, what a dump to come back to every evening, no wonder he felt so bloody cooped up, caged in, held back. “And that bird or whatever it is has got to go, do you hear? If your mum had any sense she'd have said so straight away.”

“
Why?
It's not doing any harm. I'm going to make it tame, and train it, and…”

“I don't see why he shouldn't keep the bird,” said Shirley. “Trust you—spoil anything for anyone, you would.”

“If I say it's to go, it's to go.”

“Mum said…”

“I don't bloody care what she said. You put it out tomorrow morning, do you hear?”

Martin went out of the room, banging the door.

“Finished?” said Shirley. “Had enough? Satisfied?”

He felt suddenly weary, done in, fed up. “Oh, shut up, Shirl.”

She switched the telly on. The room was flooded with
laughter. He flung himself down on the sofa, the far end from her. She was smiling now, eyes on the screen. After a minute he began to grin; they were bloody funny, those two, no getting away from it, he'd have to remember that line.

*  *  *

The house was full of laughter. He sat on the edge of his bed and laughter came up through the floor. He shuffled through his pile of comics, looking for one he might not have read for a while. He didn't know how much he minded about the bird, really. It had strange reptilian eyes and he didn't like the cold scaly feel of its clawed feet. It smelled nasty, too. He wished he could have a dog. There wasn't much chance, he knew, that he ever would. Not till he was grown-up.

Downstairs, the laughter. In his stomach, that clenched lump again, hurting. He read a comic, his face contorted into a scowl.

*  *  *

“Why are we going to church?”

“For various reasons.”

“But you don't believe in God.”

“Tidy your hair,” said Clare.

“Do you?”

“And yours, Thomas.”

“Do you, Mummy?”

“No.”

“Then why?”

“To have a look,” said Clare briskly. “That's what. See
if it's all going on as I remember. Come on.” She bundled them toward the door. “There, that's for the collection.”

“Have I been christened?”

“You know perfectly well you haven't.”

“Julie Stevens says if you haven't been christened you go to hell when you die.”

“Julie Stevens is talking rubbish.”

“Where is hell?” Thomas, walking very slowly eighteen inches ahead of one, so that rising irritation is tempered by that melting of the vitals produced by the sight of the back of his neck, of such downy delicacy that one never ceases to marvel, and lament.

“There's no such place. Tom, could you not walk just in front of me.”

“Then why do people talk about it?”

“Because … Well, in the old days I suppose because they needed to frighten each other.”

“Why do they now, then?”

“They don't.” Thomas, again, dropping his collection money in the gutter and stooping to retrieve it with that grace, that stylish folding of bony limbs, that makes the movements of children a perpetual delight. One's own miraculous children above all.

“You just have yourself, stupid. So does Julie Stevens.”

“Anna darling, Julie Stevens is not an oracle. I suppose nowadays people think hell isn't a separate place, but a part of things.”