Silent multitude, p.15
Silent Multitude, page 15
“I prefer to stay here in the Deanery. So does Sally."
“I do not."
They were the first words she had spoken since Paper Smith and the Dean had returned from Evensong. Sim jogged easily through them.
“So well stay here. You two can go to the crypt. It sounds an excellent arrangement.”
“I am not staying here with you.”
Paper Smith saw signs of an open conflict, and laid down his finely picked bone. His eyes moved from Sim to Sally, deciding which would win. Remembering the scene on the Library precinct that morning it should have been Sim—on either level, mental or physical. But Sim was different tonight, he had a harsh uncertainty that showed even in the candlelight. He was eating too quickly—Paper was reminded of a boxer he had once sponsored, a young man who lost every fight they ever got for him.
“Did I tell you I owned a boxer once?”
They weren’t interested.
“She doesn’t trust me. Tell her, Dean, tell her how trustworthy I am. Tell her about my trustworthy father.” “Whichever of you goes and whichever of you stays,” a Deanish evasion, “I hope both of you will at least help us carry over some pillows and bedding. It’s going to be. a long night, and very cold.”
“We’ll help. Won’t we, girl?”
Disappointed, Paper searched in all the lettuce on his plate for some more turkey. The Dean must have thought he was a rabbit.
They were coming downstairs with a third load of blankets when the Deanery’s south chimney at long last gave in and tottered separately brick by brick through the slates of the roof and onto the attic floors. The other chimneys quickly followed, shaking the house gently down under them. The three minutes that Sim had promised were only barely fulfilled. The night outside was so black that Paper Smith standing with the others well back among the settled ruins of Canon Falck’s house saw nothing whatever of the fall. But its sound was curiously, painfully unpretentious. The grandfather clock on the first-floor landing was recognizable—apart from that, nothing. Bored as he was with falling buildings, Paper Smith felt something of the hurt in this one. He hunted for the Dean’s arm, to offer it some sort of comfort, but the dark was too dark. When the noise had settled, and some of the dust, the four of them went away, under an arch that was no longer there, into the Cathedral Close. Sally carried the Deans torch to help them.
THIRTEEN
As a journalistic exercise Sally set herself to describe the intensity of the cold that had met them when they entered the crypt. Not able to sleep on account of the acute discomfort and not daring to sleep on account of Sim, she lay fully clothed in the middle of a bundle of blankets and attempted to analyze the qualities of coldness that made one kind so much harder to bear than another. Dampness was a powerful factor. And total stillness. The knowledge of being enclosed. And could utterly dark cold be somehow fiercer even than the coldness of a night sky? She lay under all her blankets on the hard stone shelf and stared and listened and shivered. She clasped her hand tightly around the now warmed surface of her large smooth pebble. On the way across the Close she had stubbed her foot on a big egg-shaped stone and had picked it up with the vague thought of self-protection. It was heavy—it would hurt if she hit him hard enough with it.
From the far side of the cavern she Could hear the slow unsteady breathing of old Mr. Smith. From his upbringing, and also no doubt from fear of his own thoughts, he had established himself as far away from her as possible, and now he slept. So deep and easy it would be called the sleep of the righteous. Slightly nearer, in one of the chapels radiating off the central crypt, Sim was lying. He made no sound at all. Like herself. And she could sense the darkness that was consuming her eyes consuming his as well. She turned her head very slowly, so as not to make a rustle. She was sure he turned his head also.
The Dean was in the Cathedral above. She made herself hear his footsteps on the tiles of the Choir over her head, but she knew it was no more than an illusion. He’d hardly spend his all-night vigil marching up and down. She knew she should have told him about Sim, have asked him to stay with her. Yet incredibly she felt that he and Sim were on the same side, that she could no more ask the Dean to help her against Sim than she could ask Sim to help her against the Dean. Her true ally, unworthy though he might be, was Billie Smith.
How long the black silence spun itself out she had no idea. She could feel his unmoving restlessness grow like a vine that fingered the darkness. She thought how their different, complementary tensions might communicate, how by the intensity of her fear she might be willing him to that which she might most desire to resist. If it really was fear. Given bom aggressors why should there not also be bom victims? Mice whose function it was to be tortured and eaten by cats. Perhaps on some deeply hidden level she wanted him to come. Her stomach knotted, rejecting. Yet the decision, when he made it, was hers as well.
She heard him sit up. She heard matches rattle, saw the low curve of the vault illuminated by a wavering flame. The flame was transferred to a candle and the light steadied. It spread around the soft almost furry edge of the pillar. The light from the one candle seemed to stretch impossibly far, catching glints on the aching ribs of the most distant vaulting. She heard him free his legs from the blankets, place his boots on the stone floor. He came around the side of the pillar carrying the candle, its light robbing his face of all but bone.
“Sally? Are you awake?”
She didn’t answer. He stooped away to where old Smith was lying, pulled his blankets closer around his chin with gentle hands. She opened her eyes as he approached her. He stood with his knees brushing the edge of the stone shelf.
“I know you’re awake, Sal. Has nobody ever told you how eyes catch the light? Look—it’s no use pretending.”
She opened her eyes, stared up stiffly like a corpse.
“Move over, girl. We’ve got to have a talk.”
She remained motionless, so he perched beside her on the very edge. At this stage if she really wanted there was still a chance to stop him.
“I said we’ve got to have a talk.”
“I don’t see we have anything to talk about.”
“Two people in extreme positions. It always seems a bit silly.”
“I’ve only to wake up the old man, you know.”
He began taking off his boots.
“Did you mean that as a challenge, lover? Because that’s what it sounded like.”
She was pushing him now to what she most dreaded.
“I said we had nothing to talk about. People can only communicate when they have respect for each other.”
“Look lover, why not just say you don’t respect me? Why wrap it up in a lot of pretentious balls? Anyway, I don’t respect you either, so what the hell.” He kicked his boots across the floor. “I’ve never gone screwing in my boots, and I don’t intend to start now.”
She looked up at him. When he bent over her she’d hit him with her stone.
“Now, what’s it going to be? Cheerful and not all that bad, or a battle all the way and probably no good to either of us?”
He placed his candle in a niche beside a carved inscription. He started undoing the waistband of his trousers, then looked down at her and stopped.
“Christ, girl, its not a visit to a dentist. If it wouldn’t insult you I’d almost say you were a virgin.”
He smiled at her. He was no rapist—he simply couldn’t believe that in the end she wouldn’t give in and like it. So sure he was that he lowered his face to kiss her. She raised her arm but he saw it coming and caught her wrist. She’d forgotten how strong he was. He found her other wrist and held them both back against the stone shelf.
“I wonder how much you mean it,” he said.
He released her left wrist and hit her face experimentally, not very hard. Then he had her wrist again. The thing she found worst was that his eyes didn’t change, or the serious line of his mouth. She wondered exactly how rape happened, how a man managed, how he held your arms while he did all the other things. Perhaps you had to be beaten unconscious first. Could any man really make love to an unconscious woman?
“Sally,” he said mildly, “take my shirt off for me, will you?”
She couldn’t believe it. She stared up at him, not understanding. He released her wrists. At arm’s length he patted her face from side to side and she knew what he meant. She eased herself up out of the blankets. She would get hurt if she just stayed there.
“Undo the buttons. That’s right.” The stone hampered her but his eyes were on her face. “One sleeve at a time now.” He looked almost sad. “I thought you were going to call out to the old man,” he said.
“I can handle this myself. I don’t need any help.”
As she eased his arm out of his sleeve their faces came close. He made no move. She was expecting an opening, a vulnerable moment when one hand was entangled, but he flicked it quickly free. The candle flame above them was a still bright leaf. He put his free hand softly up to the side of her face.
“You’ve got beautiful cheeks,” he said. “Like hillsides. Like little curves of earth.”
He turned his head away. She had a chance to hit him. She waited, still hoping his compassion would win.
“D’you see, Sally? If you look at it like that, then my father was a rapist too, so where are you?”
He had raised his voice, and it rang on the dark stones. “He built, Sim. Your father built.^
“And what he built was a monster. Perhaps between us we’ll build a monster too.”
And she knew her hope was futile.
She removed the shirt sleeve from his other arm. She let him unzip her jacket. She let him press her down onto the blankets. She let his fingers deal with the buttons inside, let him peel back the ridiculous clothing. She would not struggle and she would not get hurt. She hid her distaste in case it might give him pleasure. She was so withdrawn into herself that it surprised her how coldly the air touched her breasts. He leaned his chest onto hers, his whole weight. He put his head beside hers among the rumpled blankets and said gentle things she couldn’t hear, didn’t want to. She swung her right arm as far and as hard as she could, hitting him behind the ear with her stone. And again.
As she worked herself out from under him a movement caught her eye on the far side of the crypt. From the shape of the lump in the darkness it was clear that the old man Smith was leaning up on one elbow. And Sim had been right—the candlelight gleamed in his eyes, as if in little polished flints.
Sim had been left on the pile of blankets fallen forward, his head twisted sideways so that his unmoving eyes saw across the dark width of the crypt. In a way it was strange that the uncomfortable position did not hurt him. He saw Sally go across to old Billie and they held a whispering conversation that twittered incomprehensibly around the vaulted roof. He loved the line of the arches. They were pure Norman—he noticed how they had been strengthened by later hands, perhaps when the building above was enlarged. The stonework was as crisp and as clean as it had been the day it was put up. He would have liked to run his hands over it. He admired good stonework. He admired things made to last.
He watched Sally return to him. He thought he was smiling at her. She spoke to him, moved one of his arms, spoke to him again.
“Sim? Are you all right, Sim?”
What did she mean? He knew that she was turning him over onto his back because his angle of vision changed. He could see the candle now, and nothing else but a steep reverse slope of stones. He saw her hand come over him and take down the candle, her fingers pressing into the wax spilled down its side. She held it close above his face and he had the thought to wince away.
“Bill—Bill, come here.” She was very pale. “His eyes are open, Bill. They don’t look right.”
“Perhaps he’s dead. You certainly wopped him one.”
The words formed in his mind to tell them of course he wasn’t dead. He could see the old man’s face as well now, both of them peering down at him and the candle held up high. Christ, he thought, its like one of those Italian paintings. Heightened realism, the thick shadows and every hair of the old mans beard so real you could touch it And Sally—what a pity her hair was that characterless metallic color. It should have been dark and lustrous, or red like Mary Magdalene.
“My God,” the old man said, “hes dead all right.*
Sally moved, and he realized that the hand she was holding was his own. He recognized it with no sadness. She was feeling for a pulse.
“You stay here, Billie. I must fetch the Dean.”
“He was mauling you around. I saw it. He was mauling you around and he tried to kiss you and you wopped him one.”
“I must find the Dean. Do you mind being left here alone?”
“You certainly wopped him one.”
“Do you mind if I leave you here alone, Billie?”
Why should the old man mind? He’d spent half his life alone—why was now suddenly so special? Sim liked the depth of Billies eyes: they saw with more than just lenses.
“The poor young fool won’t worry me. Not if you leave me the candle.”
Our of Sim’s range of vision there was hurried silent activity. The one light source became two, doubling the shadows confusing them. Then one set of shadows slanted away to nothing. He remembered the soft soles of Sally’s shoes. Distantly a door latch was raised and hinges creaked.
“It’s a hard life,” said the old man. “First they want it and then they don’t. You decide to give it to them regardless, so they wop you one.”
With old Billie Sim felt a fleeting desire to communicate. Then it passed. The light moved around and then was replaced in the niche above his head. The flame blurred, and in his ears a comfortable silence was spreading.
“I never had it, and I expect you had it too much. There you are and here I am. A moral tale, my mother would have called it—and quite right too.” There were fumbling noises. The old man’s words became obscured by chewing. “I knew I’d be hungry before the night was out. It’s a curse really, all this eating. You’re well out of it. Eating and going to the toilet—what else is there, when you come down to it?”
The candle flame was rushing down on Sim, furling around him, filling his eyes, Then it was away, tinier than a pinpoint. And the stones swelling like sails in a fine breeze. Old Smith was talking again, every fourth or fifth word as clear as a bell. The words jangled and merged, found a rhythm.
“Sometimes eat nothing and nothing wanting more no that’s and contentment and contentment and.”
The candles became two and then three. In a moment of connection the Dean’s face bloomed above him. The Dean was making signs and ancient phrases. Sim tried with all his will to stop the gentle murmuring, to ride back across the timeless distances, to beg the Dean that he might hear the singing stones and halt them, separate the eyes and ears of experience, to bring in close again the candle flame now so tiny it was a light no more but a form of pain, a point of agony into which he slipped and came at last together blindingly.
“Holy Ghost Amen. Amenamenamenamen.”
And then.
The Dean closed the dead man’s eyes. Sim had been hounded, he had died by his own hand, by the hand of the city. Nothing would have stopped him—it was why he had come. The Dean pulled up the blanket, covering Sim’s face.
“Requiescat in pace. May the Lord have mercy on his soul.” Old Smith was at his elbow, muttering.
“And what about her soul, Vicar? Is there any peace for that?”
“You are a malevolent old man.” Turning on him, belaboring him. “Your past misfortunes are no excuse whatsoever for your present malignancy. You want to destroy her. But she is young and she carries her conscience thoughtfully. She will not be destroyed.”
“I saw it all. He was mauling her around, and he tried to kiss her, and—”
“If your wish is to make the circumstances worse, more painful, by constantly repeating them, let me disillusion you. The only thing made worse each time is you.”
“You mean she’s going to get away with it? You’re going to let her get away with it?”
The Dean wondered if it was worth telling the old man that his concept of getting away with things was false, that certain people never got away with anything. He decided not. He walked the length of the crypt and back again, using the trick to give him time to examine his real opinions. He must be gentle with the old man, both from Christian charity and from base expediency.
“On your evidence as a witness Miss Paget would undoubtedly be acquitted of any serious charge. In view of the circumstances the case might very well never come to trial. I am telling you this because I have some experience in these matters.” Which was untrue; he had none. “Therefore if you choose to spread the story around you will gain nothing except some easy notoriety. I would have thought you had had enough of that in your lifetime.”
“And what about you, Vicar? What about the sins of omission?”
“Attend to your own conscience, Mr. Smith. Leave mine to me.”
Sally looked up from where she was sitting, away in one of the side chapels.
“Perhaps I did mean to kill him,” she said.
“Only God who is your judge can help you with that, my dear.”
“You’re always talking about God. I wish I knew what you meant.”
Mr. Smith was chirpy.
“There you are, Vicar. If even she thinks she might have done it on purpose, then—”
“It comes down to a simple question of mercy, Mr. Smith.” The Dean felt he was tired near to death. “Justice is something we will never know about. Are you simply prepared to be merciful?”
The old man shuffled uncomfortably. He turned away.
The Dean thanked God that his appeal had been the right one. He seated himself beside the girl, not touching her but supporting her he hoped with his presence and his prayers. Billie Smith huddled among some blankets in a comer and dozed. As the candles burned down the Dean replaced them with new ones. At last the girl also slept. He wrapped her around as best he could. It was a long night and cold, but he needed every minute of it. He knew he would not see another.
