Starlight (18 page)

‘Look out! You’d better let me drive, if you’re going to sleep!’ she exclaimed in a minute.

‘
Better let you!
I should think so. It’s your fault – I can’t concentrate,’ he said angrily.

Peggy laughed.

As they approached their destination, through meaner and meaner streets, Arnold’s interest became stronger. He had been puzzled to ‘place’ her since his first sight of her; for she seemed one of the rare people who truly are classless; even her voice gave no clue to her background, and when the car, on her instructions, stopped at last outside the two cottages, side by side at the end of the street of silent, half-ruined houses, he frankly stared at her. Would she say anything about the neighbourhood in which her mother lived? He betted himself she would not.

‘Thanks,’ she said casually, preparing to get out.

‘Wait a minute – I’ll do that.’

She waited while he went round to open the door.

Rose Cottage and Lily Cottage had a festive appearance, for, as in every other house in the neighbourhood, their rooms had been decorated with paper-chains; and festoons of pink and yellow could be seen through their windows in a glow of light. A red paper crown had been fixed somehow on the head of the horned and bearded mask that smiled down between them.

Peggy went up the steps, and paused for a moment at the door, looking back at Arnold where he stood beside the car. Dusk was falling, the air was clear and still; the railway lines caught a faint sheen from the dying light. The windows of the Council flats across the gap glowed golden, filled with intricate patterns of red and green and blue.

‘I’ll come back for you – what time?’ he called, hoping to see what kind of a someone opened the door. The house looked prosperous enough, incongruously so. But a lick of paint, he told himself, cost little and could do a lot.

‘Oh – five-ish. Thanks.’ She waved and turned away as the door was opened by Erika, who looked fearfully at her. Arnold, trying to see, but getting only an impression of youth and a coloured dress, backed the car and drove quickly away.

‘Mrs Pear-son in zir living-room,’ said Erika over her shoulder, painstakingly repeating what she had evidently been taught to say, and Peggy followed her.

She came upon a scene which continued the festive note struck outside. Three people were sitting on the rose-covered chairs drawn up to a bright fire; the fourth, Annie Barnes, was stretched, with an air of trying to take up as little room as possible, on the sofa. There was a table laden with bottles and glasses, an open box of sweets, a smell of roasting chestnuts, and Gladys Barnes, with a green paper cap over one eye, lifted a glass, crying ‘Here’s Peggy! Merry Christmas!’ The only gentleman present, Mr Fisher, began to get slowly to his feet as she appeared, and totter into the curve of a formal bow.

‘Dearie! I knew you were coming; I
saw
you!’ Mrs Pearson cried, from her place close to the fire. ‘We’re having a party – come on, Erika, near the fire,
schatz
– I knew it was you, when I heard the knock. See who’s here?’ pointing with a skeletal finger at Annie. ‘Isn’t it grand?’

‘Never thought to see Annie downstairs at a party again,’ put in Gladys, as Annie, deprived of balaclava and coats, looked around for something to shrink into, ‘ever so kind, well, I said, turkey and all, sent it up on a tray, doesn’t speak hardly no English but means well, and Mr Fisher too – you all come, your mother said, not but what we hadn’t got a bit of something for ourselves but that’ll do over Boxing Day, I said, and came up, ever so kind, just said, you take my hand and try – you’ll find it’s much easier, and down she came.’

Gladys signed off with a flourish, finishing her glass of port.

‘Got to get up again, though, mayn’t be so easy,’ put in Annie, in a warning pipe.

‘Oh, you’ll do it, you see,’ Mrs Pearson assured her smilingly. ‘Come to the fire, Peggy.’

‘Mother, I can’t stay long,’ Peggy said. ‘I just came to bring you these. She has twelve people for dinner to-night.’ She put the roses into her mother’s hand.

‘Mercy it isn’t thirteen!’ said Gladys, re-filling Mr Fisher’s glass. ‘No more – no, Miss Gladys, I beg of you no more. This will have very serious results for me,’ the old man protested, but Gladys imperiously filled it up to the brim, saying that she could always drink it if he didn’t.

‘Oh Peggy – Christmas Night! Can’t you phone her?’ Mrs Pearson cried.

‘I said definitely I’d be back by just after five.’

‘Well, have a drink with us then – you must have a drink. What’ll you have? Whisky, port, gin?’

‘Whisky – strong.’

Gladys, who seemed to have appointed herself Ganymede to the gathering, poured out a potion strong indeed and held it out to her.

‘How’s Erika getting on, Mother?’ Peggy asked, taking it; she sounded bored, and was.

‘She’s getting along fine,’ said Mrs Pearson, looking indulgently at the girl seated on a tuffet at her knee and slowly eating something. ‘Doesn’t her hair look pretty? I did it for her, this morning. And she’s going to learn a new English sentence every day, aren’t you,
schatz
?’

‘Wood – yuh – lakyuh – tea?’ said Erika with lowered head, looking up from under the yellow ribbon circlet that confined a tiny knob of hair, and Gladys broke into clapping.

‘Bravo – that’s the style – be chattering away nineteen to the dozen soon, won’t you, Erika?’ Mrs Pearson also clapped; lightly, as if two skeleton leaves rattled together in the wind, and Gladys glanced at the window. ‘Getting dark, isn’t it – brrr! glad I’m not outside – shall I draw the curtains?’

Mrs Pearson silently indicated that Erika would do it, and, when it was done and she had stumbled back to her place, Gladys, glowing with port and still pleasantly distended by a generous Christmas dinner which did not seem to have suffered by being confined in frozen packets, and glasses, and tins, almost shouted –

‘Christmas Night! Christmas is the time for ghost-stories, always sit round the fire and tell ghost-stories at Christmas. What say we put out the light?’ and before anyone could speak or move, she had blundered up and across to the door and touched the switch. The room sank instantly into deep shadow and sumptuous red glow, in which every face became transformed into a mask of strong lines and cavernous darkness or blanched with ruby fire.

‘That’s better – nice and cosy,’ said Gladys, as no-one else seemed inclined to speak. ‘Now who’ll begin? Mr Fisher, I bet you know some ghost-stories, don’t you? At your age. Come on, don’t be shy.’

But the room continued silent. Peggy leant back, nursing her glass and staring into the fire, and Annie’s eyes were fixed doubtfully on her sister; Mr Fisher moved uneasily, muttering, under Gladys’s exhortations.

‘Oh come on now – ninety next birthday and don’t know no ghost-stories –’

Mr Fisher either could not, or would not, find any words, but sat on the edge of Annie’s sofa, nursing his glass and staring down at his barely visible slippers, and was mute. Annie felt sorry for him; Glad ought to know that he never had liked the ladies, and here he was, the only man among five women; enough to make anyone shy. He was moving his head from side to side in a movement that conveyed absolute refusal, discernible even through the dimness, and Gladys was compelled at last to give way.

‘Oh all right then – some people can be very funny – what say I start, then –’

‘Mother?’ Peggy’s voice came sharp and low across the good-natured one, ‘are you all right?’ She made a movement then checked herself, listening. They were all listening now.

‘She’s breathing funny,’ Gladys said doubtfully, staring across the soft dim glare into the darkness where Mrs Pearson reclined. ‘Here, I’ll put on the light –’

‘
No!
’ Peggy whirled round on her, ‘whatever you do –
no-one’s to put on the light
.’

‘She does sound funny – better go for the doctor, p’raps? Only they’ll all be out probly – being Christmas Night –’ Gladys shivered, suddenly and violently, ‘You got the door open, anyone? There’s an awful draught in here – cold as charity.’ She glanced overhead; the paper chains were moving, with a faint rustling sound.

‘You’d all better –’ Peggy was beginning, when a high soft shrill sound began to waver up into the darkness. The room was bitterly cold now. No-one moved. The fire glowed wild but still, giving out light but no heat.

‘… I … see …’ keened a voice that might have been the wailing of a suddenly awakened evening wind, ‘and people … red … red light … food in them … I … taste … taste … one, two three, four … kinds food … and smell … her tongue … her mouth …’ And then … ‘Go now. Coming back soon.’

Gladys uttered a moo of terror.

‘She’s gone mad – she’s raving – get a doctor, quick –’ and Annie began to struggle up from her couch, silently pushing her feet against the old man, who was sitting as if frozen, his eyes fixed on the dim corner whence the sounds were coming. Only Erika did not move from her place by Mrs Pearson’s knee but crouched down to the floor, and slowly covered her face with both hands.

Peggy spoke, calmly and with authority.

‘There’s nothing to be frightened of. She’ll be better in a minute. She gets these attacks sometimes, it’ll pass. It’s nerves.’

The voice was chanting, more faintly now.

‘Go … so dim here … dim … can’t see … but soon see with her eyes … ah – ah – ah only light on the tunnel … grass … so green … so … Can’t go there you fool. Never go there. You fool.’

It ceased abruptly and there was complete silence. No-one moved until Annie dared to drag a hand across her face to wipe away her streaming tears of terror. Mr Fisher suddenly gave her feet a sharp push, freeing himself.

‘Peggy?’ said Mrs Pearson’s voice faintly out of the dimness. ‘I dropped off, I’m so sorry, everyone, I was dreaming.’

‘Dreaming!’ Gladys exclaimed, very ready to welcome this explanation. She was chilled, inwardly and outwardly, by the cold that had checked the fire’s warmth and the uncanny breezes that had stirred the paper-chains. ‘Of course you were – feeling bad, are you? or better for your forty winks? I shouldn’t wonder if it wasn’t that tinned pudding, say what you like it’s not natural. Tinned pudding.’ She gave a nervous laugh.

‘Put the light on, Peggy dear,’ Mrs Pearson went on tranquilly, ‘you’ll have to be going, you’ll be late. Erika,
schatz
, wake up.’

Their eyes, fixed on the outline of her dim reclining shape, saw her hand steal out and rest on Erika’s bent head, ‘It’s tea-time – “would-you-like-your-tea-now”,’ she coaxed softly. ‘We’ve got a Christmas cake.’

Peggy suddenly flooded the room with light, and Erika went off docilely towards the kitchen.

The explanation offered by the familiar word
dreaming
, with its lifelong connotation for them all of nightmares and garbled speech, has soothed some of the party. Gladys felt a glow of anticipation, in spite of her distended person, at the mention of Christmas cake, and Annie, glancing at Mr Fisher, experienced a revival of the friendly feelings momentarily quenched by his abrupt movement.

Mr Fisher, however, did not seem restored. He was even paler than usual, and continued to gaze silently at the floor. In a moment, while preparations were being made for tea, he tottered slowly to his feet and made his way perilously and silently between chairs and coffee-table to where Mrs Pearson sat.

He began slowly to incline himself above her, performing a bow so deep that Gladys, idly watching, was on the verge of screaming, ‘Watch out, Mr Fisher!’ in anticipation of his overbalancing when he began tremulously to come up again.

‘Thank you indeed, madam,’ he said in his weak voice. ‘A very pleasant party and a very agreeable occasion. Hospitality. Unfortune, I must be off now. My daily walk. Even Christmas I don’t miss it so will say good-afternoon and many thanks. The dinner was much appreciated. Turkey. Many a year since turkey. Good-day, all.’

Turning, he tottered away, so slowly that Gladys had to resist a second impulse to grab him and arm him out of the room and into the hall, where they heard him, through the half-open door, slowly climbing the stairs.

‘Just go and see what young Erika’s up to,’ announced Gladys; it was the first opportunity she had had for being alone with the interesting newcomer; ‘shan’t be not a tick. You and Peggy can keep Mrs Pearson company,’ she added to Annie, who fixed a glare of the liveliest alarm on her hostess at the suggestion. Peggy slowly lit a cigarette, looking thoughtfully at her mother.

The kitchen looked less gloomy than usual, scattered as it was with the remains of the Christmas dinner and the various packets and cartons that had contained it. Erika was standing by the cooker, twisting her hands together and staring vacantly at the kettle on the hot plate.

She looked up not quite smiling as Gladys marched in. The past days had taught Erika something; in this house that was like a shop window people did not suddenly hit you, and although she understood perhaps a sixteenth of Gladys’s Niagara of words, she felt dimly that they were
something
that was not directed adversely at herself: she had no concept or words to express
kind
.

‘Just on the boil is it?’ began Gladys. ‘Don’t like these ’lectric stoves, never did, you can’t trust them, give me gas any day, you can see what it’s up to, and takes all night and blow you up if you get water on it, she swore by it, had the latest kind, but I never could, I’ll just put the cups on the tray, how many are we, you, me, Annie, and Mrs P. four, s’pose Peggy’ll be off; the old gentleman’s gone out, very arbitary, can’t stop him if he makes up his mind, can you? You come from far off? Germany? Ger-ma-ny? Dootch?’