Lamb in Love (12 page)

“Well done, Manford!” she said warmly. “That's it!”

Manford had grown into a big man. That night she felt for the first time how big he had become. He wasn't a boy anymore. Six feet two, and nearly fourteen stone. He swung his hands harder and harder, concentrating, his mouth open, his big head bobbing up and down. He began to stamp his feet.

“Well done,” she said, gently now, quieter. “Lovely dancing, Manford.”

And then she began to resist him a little, to try to calm him, slow him down. He was, she realized, so much stronger than she.

“Manford,” she said at last, breathless. “You're hurting my hands.”

She stopped dancing and stood still, tried to stand still.

She held fast to his hands to stop him from swinging. She pulled on his arms, but he only looked at her with a kind of desperation, stamping more wildly now, opening his mouth wider, as if he were being pulled apart somehow, as if there were a feeling inside of him that couldn't get out, something he wanted to be rid of, wanted expelled from his body.

She shook her head at him, frowned, tried again to wrest her hands away.

“No,” she said. “That's enough now,” she said.

And then, when he failed to stop, she had to speak sharply to him and heard, unmistakably, the little flicker of fear in her voice.

“No, Manford!” she said.

And then again, louder, “No! Manford!” she cried. “No! Stop it now.”

And then finally she broke one hand free.

He was frightened, terrified, she saw, as his face came up close to hers. He'd seen that she wanted to get away from him, that she was angry, fearful, and so he tried to hug her to him—she understood it even as it was happening, with a kind of slow-moving clairvoyance. He was trying to prevent her from leaving him, trying to climb into her arms like a baby.

The weight of him as he jumped against her, still bobbing wildly up and down, was enough to knock her over.

She fell, striking her head against the claw foot of the table.

Manford dropped to his knees and crawled away fast across the rug, scurrying like a rabbit. She saw him trying to fit himself into the knee space beneath his father's desk, but he was too big. Only his head and shoulders were hidden.

Vida sat up, reeling, and touched her head. A little smear of blood, shockingly bright, came away on her hand. “Manford,” she managed, to the twinkling air before her eyes. “It's all right.”

Her head hurt terribly, and she felt sick to her stomach. “It's all right,” she said. “Come out. Come on.” She looked around for him, her vision clearing. There he was, still under the desk. “Manford,” she said again. “Come on.” But he wouldn't move, wouldn't turn round and look at her.

She got carefully to her feet, walked unsteadily across the room to where his backside protruded from beneath the desk. She could see how he shook. She knelt down, put her hand on his back, crooning his name. He flinched away from her. “It's all right,” she said. “It was my fault. Come on out now.”

She saw him contract his shoulders, as if trying to fit more of himself inside the well space of the desk. She sat down heavily beside him, put her head in her hands. The last notes of the record fell away. All over the world, she thought, things were passing from view, never to be seen again. Shooting stars. Ships disappearing over the horizon.

She reached over and put her hand on his back, began to rub gently between his shoulder blades.

“I'm sorry,” she said. “I'm so sorry. It was all my fault.”

T
HE VERY MORNING
she writes her thank-you letter to her uncle Laurence for the painting for her birthday, she decides, as she's walking down the road after leaving Manford at Niven's, that she will pick up a cellophane envelope of stamps for Manford for his collection. Mr. Lamb has been very helpful about this in the past, and Vida has encouraged the hobby. It seems so normal. Manford has several bound volumes of stamps, from all over the world. He pastes them in place very neatly and can sit for hours turning the pages, looking at the tiny pictures.

She enters the post office that morning, the bell jingling overhead. Mr. Lamb is nowhere in sight.

“Hallo? Mr. Lamb?” she calls out.

He appears a moment later, bursting through the black curtain hung before the door to the rooms in back like a musketeer drawing his sword, making her jump.

“Oh! Good morning!” she says. He looks possessed, she
thinks, glancing away from him awkwardly. She hands him her letter to post. He takes it and sets it down on the countertop. He puts his hands to his hair and smooths it back nervously.

“I thought I'd see if you have any stamps for Manford,” she says after a minute, looking away again. Mr. Lamb has been so odd lately, she thinks, so—disorganized. Perhaps he's going senile!

“Of course, of course,” he says very heartily. He stares at her a moment longer and then bends over to shuffle madly through the drawers under his countertop. At last he stands up and extends toward her a sheet of eight stamps, all sailing vessels. He is red in the face.

Vida glances at him, dismayed. “Oh,” she says, “he already has these.”

But she is unprepared for the violence of Mr. Lamb's apology. He looks undone. “Oh! Has he? I'd forgotten, I'm so sorry, I—” He rushes over his words.

Vida stands there, frowning at him. He's been
so
queer lately, she thinks.

“I've written my friend at the Hellenic Post Office in Athens,” he goes on desperately, “but I'm afraid they've misunderstood. This is all they would send.” He holds his hands up helplessly.

Vida looks down at the stamps and then back at Mr. Lamb. His eyes are watering. She notices that he has a bit of sticking plaster on his chin and finds herself distracted by this. “Well, I
am
sorry,” she says at last, finally dragging her eyes away from his chin. “It isn't your fault, Mr. Lamb.” She closes her purse; suddenly she wants to be on her way.

But Mr. Lamb has disappeared from view. He has bent over and is rummaging beneath his counter again. Vida can hear his heavy breathing.

“I have these,” he says, popping up suddenly and startling her. “From the Commonwealth of Dominica?”

He spreads the stamps before her on the counter. His hands are shaking slightly. She is dismayed by this.

She inspects the stamps. They feature American cartoon characters. Minnie. Huey, Dewey, and Louie. Goofy. They are all playing musical instruments.

“Will these do?” Mr. Lamb asks, wiping his forehead with his handkerchief. He puts a finger on one. “They're very bright.” He touches his mouth with the handkerchief. “I thought, as they were very bright, he might—”

“Yes, well, thank you, Mr. Lamb.” Vida finds herself strangely breathless, too, as though she has been breathing for Mr. Lamb as well as for herself. She's feels almost light-headed, in fact, and fumbles for her handbag to pay Mr. Lamb for the stamps.

“Shall I post this for you?”

She looks up.

Mr. Lamb is holding her aerogramme aloft. “Writing to your uncle Laurence?” he says.

But it doesn't sound like a question, she thinks. More like a comment about the weather. Poor
thing,
she thinks hopelessly. And then, surprised, she thinks, poor
us!
Poor us, to be standing here like this!

“Yes. To Laurence,” she says unnecessarily. “You're very kind,” she says quickly then, desperate but wishing to be kind herself. And she turns to go.

“And how is he? Painting coming on?”

Vida pauses, turns back again to face Mr. Lamb. His eyes are full of a strange pleading.

“Very nicely,” she says weakly. “Nice of you to remember, Mr. Lamb.” She looks around her vaguely, as though the post office is
somewhere she's never been before. “He'd be pleased you remembered his painting.”

“Oh, yes!” Mr. Lamb says emphatically, giving her a brilliant smile then. “Oh, yes. Marvelous painter, Laurence was. Is.” He opens his mouth but nothing more comes out.

Vida tries to manage another little smile, as friendly as she can make it, but her face feels stiff, as if she's been cold. When Mr. Lamb says nothing more, she turns again to leave. He has fallen silent, staring down at his feet, apparently lost in thought. Then he lifts his head, looks out the window of the post office. “Ah! There goes the double-decker,” he says brightly. He takes a deep breath. “Do you ever,” he says, as she turns back to him again, confused about whether he is speaking to her or just to himself, “do you ever think about just hopping on a bus? Going someplace? Wherever it might take you?”

Vida looks at him. “That bus always goes into Winchester,” she says at last.

“Yes.” Mr. Lamb looks worried. “But some other bus, perhaps?”

“Perhaps.” She smiles. He's
funny,
Mr. Lamb; what a notion! Jumping on a bus when you don't know where it will go! A vague relief, like the sun coming out, comes over her. She actually feels warmer.

“Seems as though we'll have fine weather for our Sadie Hawkins Day,” he goes on. He looks calmer now, she sees. He's smiling, too. And he's stopped perspiring quite so much.

Vida pauses. “Oh, yes,” she says. “I'd forgotten.”

“Such good fun, Sadie Hawkins Day.”

Vida doesn't know how to reply to this, exactly. She doesn't really like Hursley's Sadie Hawkins Day. It's an embarrassing business, she thinks, girls chasing after the boys, a custom imported
to Hursley by an American woman who was briefly headmistress at Prince's Mead.

“The women having
their
go at things, for once.” Mr. Lamb raises his eyebrows, smiling and leaning over the counter. He winks at her and then backs up, looking vaguely appalled at himself. He collects himself. “So you
will
—you
will
be going?”

“Well, I hadn't thought of it.” Nearly everyone in the village
did
go, she considers. If the weather was fine, it could be a jolly enough afternoon, a chance for Manford to be out and about. “I might take Manford round,” she concedes finally.

“Oh,
fine
idea,” Mr. Lamb says enthusiastically. “He'll
enjoy
that. All those girls racing round.”

Vida gives him a tight smile. Honestly, she thinks, what
do
they understand about Manford? Absolutely nothing!

But Mr. Lamb doesn't appear to notice. “I was quite a sprinter in my day, you know,” he says.

Vida looks him over. It is true that he's quite tall, she thinks in surprise. And long legged as well. And she has a sudden memory then, as if it were a photograph held up before her eyes, of races day at Prince's Mead. She was young then, just twelve or so, and assigned late in the day, after her own events, to the spoon races for the younger set. Norris, she remembers, was one of the older ones, ten or more years ahead of her, most of them already done with school and working in the village or at nearby farms or in Winchester. But they all came back home for the games that day, the schoolgirls swooning over the older chaps, who were sporting soft new beards. She is surprised to find herself remembering Norris, tall and spindly in cricket whites, doing the pole vault, his limbs spread against the blue sky. She had looked up that afternoon from a gaggle of children at her knees to see Norris close by. “Well done, Lamb,” she'd heard someone say, but Norris had
brushed past, his long, narrow face flushed. He'd turned an ankle or something, hadn't he? She thinks she remembers him sitting down alone on a bench, nursing his foot, rolling back his sock, and probing tentatively at his shin, a worried look on his face. She had watched him, had noticed his white leg extending like a root, like something peeled, from within his trouser leg. After a while he'd stood up and hobbled away. Someone had veered into him, clapped him on the back, but she'd seen him wince, make fluttering gestures with his hands, say something inaudible.

“I remember—” She pauses and looks up to find Mr. Lamb surprisingly near, as though he has veered up into close focus. “You had an accident,” she says vaguely. “You—” She stops.

“An accident?” Mr. Lamb looks alarmed. “I don't recall—”

“Yes.” Vida pauses. “I remember you—up there. In the sky. Doing the pole vault.”

Suddenly Mr. Lamb looks thrilled. “Yes, yes!” he cries. “The pole vault. I remember!” He spreads his arms up high. “Like this!” He throws his arms wide, a gesture of tossing something overboard.

Vida smiles at him. “Only, you fell. You hurt your ankle or something.”

The excitement leaves Norris's face, replaced by something else. “It's so—remarkable,” he says, looking at her, quieting, “that you should remember that.”

“Yes,” she says slowly. “Isn't it?”

There is a silence between them. They are both surprised to find themselves staring at each other.

“We've known one another such a long time,” he says then, strangely tender, and as Vida looks at him, she suffers a surprising rush of feeling for them as young people again. She herself had been shy, but with passionate, speechless crushes on the boys
around her. She'd been too young for real affairs, and by the time she was old enough, well, there was Manford. But she remembers watching the older boys and girls, wishing she were older, as well—old enough. Had she ever had feelings for Norris?

The notion surprises her and she finds herself staring at him. No, she thinks. Not a crush. And yet there had been a kind of curious recognition she'd felt for him as she'd watched him sitting on the bench that afternoon, nursing his ankle. At the end of that day, she'd stood by herself under the spreading arms of the cedars at the edge of the school grounds, watching couples disappearing arm in arm into the shade of evening, the boys in their whites stained green at the seat and on the knees, the girls changed hurriedly from their gymnasts' uniforms into spring skirts and blouses. Beneath her foot she had pushed at the fallen needles, a blanket of spongy turf, and had wondered how they would feel against her bare back, the relief of a boy's unnatural weight spread over her.