Frank Baker Read online

  I stood again in the square where weeks before the pretty winged visitors had first alighted. And as I stood there I perceived for the first time the engraved words in the pediment of the Exchange:

  “The Earth is the Lord’s and the Fulness thereof.”

  I wanted to weep. But a merciful hardness closed round my heart and would not let me.

  I felt a hard, metallic drop upon my bare forehead; another, and another. Rain was falling. I realized with all my running how in­tensely cold I was, shivering as though I had just come out of an icy pool. The rain fell, slowly and ponderously at first, stinging and pecking my head like globules of ice. Presently, I knew, it would burst down in full force and I might be trapped in the dying City.

  Again I ran, and coming down a little street by the Bank, to­wards a place called Moorgate, I saw, standing outside a church door strewn with twisted bodies, a forlorn and battered-looking car with a head hanging face downwards over the wheel.

  I ran towards it like a man who finds an old friend in a foreign country. Then I stopped dead.

  An old friend?

  Why was the car a pale blue in colour with a tattered black hood drooping half over the back? Why was the tumbled head covered with such gleaming gold hair? Where had I seen such a head before? Where had I driven this old car before?

  It seems to me still, as it seemed to me then, when I lifted up the bloody face of Ivor, that of all the terrible things that happened in that day, this was the most terrible; that a lad who possessed all the beauty of the earth and could crystallize it into a single note drawn from a violin, should have come to the City to “see life” and only have met his death.

  That hardness which had begun to close like a protective armour around my heart, broke. I could do no more than fall down by the side of the car, weeping because Beauty had been defiled.

  *

  I did not stay long. I still knew I could live; that here, delivered into my hands through the tragedy of Ivor’s death, was the instrument which could bear me to freedom.

  I lifted the body into the back of the car. I did not know what I was going to do with it, but the thought of leaving it here for worms to devour, refused acceptance in my mind. He should be left somewhere in the open country beside the woods and streams which were his natural heritage. So I lifted him into the back, unable to look at the face—for I had never seen a dead body before, and I could detect nothing of that repose which poets had assured me lingers like moonlight over a dead face. This form of lifeless matter was repulsive to me; the hand that could never again hold a bow over a violin string, had lost all the beauty it once possessed.

  I started the engine and began to drive, nervously and slowly. It was bitterly cold and the rain began to beat against the glass-screen in front of me. I realized that I had forgotten to raise the hood. Stop­ping, I got out, put up the hood and the cracked yellow side-screens, and got in again. With the car now closed around me I felt a new security; a feeling of warmth began to flood over me. The smell of the petrol, which I generally detested, seemed to me now the most consoling smell in the world. When I found that I had not forgotten how to steer, that the accelerator respected my touch, that I could change gear without much grinding of the engine, the old feeling of elation began to return to me. I was like a child who has found a favourite toy.

  I drove on, very slowly, for the streets were so thick with obstacles that it needed all my skill to circumvent them. I began to forget that Ivor’s dead body lay in the back, that the shops and houses I passed were empty shells of the life I had known. I knew only that the rain slashed upon the canvas hood and trickled through a small hole down my neck; that the wind threatened to lift the frail old car into the air; and that by careful control of the wheel in my hand and the pedals under my feet I could and must reach north London and the outer country.

  The farther away from the City I drew the greater became the stillness. I took as many side streets as possible, for the main roads were often impassable. Sometimes I saw solitary birds in pursuit of half-demented figures. One incident stands out in my memory. A corpulent man came running towards the car, crying at me to stop and take him. He was an extraordinary sight. Appar­ently he had been in a barber’s shop, for his face—down which a great cut painted a line of blood—was still speckled with the lather of shaving soap. Sticking into his collar were little bloody pieces of cotton-wool. He shrieked at me to stop, and my foot was on the brake. But round his head I saw a great bird flying. I drove on, hardening my heart, knowing I could do nothing for him.

  I remember, too, in some sordid houses, seeing the shapes of women lying half out of windows, their arms swinging in the wind, their hair fluttering about their heads. But I was so intent upon the driving of the car, my eyes fixed always on the road immediately before me, that I noticed little.

  It was late in the afternoon as I drew near Finsbury Park. The sky, thick yellow from east to west, seemed to gape open to release the torrent of rain that poured without ceasing, until the streets and gutters were bubbling like mountain streams. I came under a railway bridge, along a street that I knew well but which now seemed barely recognizable. Out in the road was a drenched mass of crushed fruit, raw lumps of meat, old books, broken bits of cheap furniture, carts, twisted bicycles, ragged materials, and twined in and out of this sodden heap, trampled corpses lying as though thrust deep down into the steaming pave­ments. I took a side turning where there were no shops, and here it was easier to drive, though even more desolate. In many of the houses windows were smashed and doors swung wildly on their hinges.

  I was afraid now. The zest of driving had worn off. I only knew that I was shivering with cold, and that presently into one of these houses I should have to go. I dreaded what I might find there.

  I came to the beginning of the long street. Under the railway arch at Stroud Green a train had tumbled over, spilling its carriages in a smoking pile in the road. I had to make a detour and come by another route to the ridge. On the top I stopped a moment, looking over to the vague outline of the Alexandra Palace, caught in the low sky. A dull redness flickered about the decapitated tower as though the place were smouldering. Some scaffolding upon the lopped tower had crashed to pieces in the gale. It was a melancholy sight. I wished with all my heart that it could be swept away, the whole vast building, so colossal a record of the cumbersome insignificance of the labour of men.

  I drove on down the hill and, without stopping to think any more, drew the car up outside the house. To my dismay the door, like so many others, was wide open. I ran in, knowing that if I did not run, I should never go.

  I called:

  “Mother, Mother!——”

  There was no answer; only the wind moaning round the house. I ran into the kitchen and stumbled over the body of Annie lying by the door. Quickly I left the room, having assured myself that Lillian was not there.

  I called again, loudly, terrified of the sound of my voice, not daring to go upstairs. Still there was no answer.

  I paused, listening to the wind and the rain, to the clock ticking in the hall. I turned towards the door, telling myself it was no good; she was dead—she was dead somewhere upstairs, and I should only torture myself looking for her body.

  But as I thought this, almost glad to find an excuse to leave the house, I heard a moan, somewhere from below.

  “Mother, Mother!——” I called again.

  The noise came from the cellar, underneath the house; a place where there were no windows and it was all darkness. I heard it again, a dreadful moaning of a lost person in a lost place.

  I ran to my room to get a candle and matches, and returned to the cellar door, under the stairs. As I opened the door, a thin gust of air blew out the candle. I lit it again with shaking hands. The gust of air fluttered past me down into the cellar.

  I heard a scream.

  In the flickering light I saw her
crouched in a corner, her head pressed into her hands, rocking her body to and fro. My candle spat as a sharp breath of air whistled near it.

  Then I saw the bird, small, grey, and ghostly, circling round and round blindly like a bat.

  I ran to Lillian and put my arms round her, but she started away from me and cried:

  “Who is it?”

  “Mother, I’ve found you; I’ve found you at last. Open your eyes. Look at me.”

  She opened her eyes and looked at me; a wild haunted face in the candlelight; a face grey with distress.

  “You—you——” she muttered.

  And then suddenly in a fearful scream as the bird darted upon her upturned face, “Christ—Christ! You’ve let it in—drive it off—oh, drive it off——”

  “Yes,” I shouted. “Yes—I’ve let it in at last, and thank God I have. You must see now. You must see. Open your eyes, Mother! Open your eyes.”

  She struggled like a maniac as I held her arms. She looked at me for a moment and seemed to understand. The bird alighted on her face, dug its claws sharp into her chin. Suddenly her struggling ceased, and she shivered to stillness with a long sigh. I closed my eyes and waited, holding her still in my arms. The fluttering of wings grew less; the sound of my mother’s breathing grew lower until I wondered whether life still beat in her.

  My heart sank like a stone in water. I was deathly cold and hungry. I opened my eyes. I saw my mother’s face, calm and peaceful in sleep. I listened for the beating of her heart and heard it, like a faint ripple of water, so slight that I thought the smallest movement would curb it. There was a small cut on her chin; I noticed how white her hair was. I saw no sign of the bird.

  I carried her out, and wrapped her in blankets. I filled a bottle with hot water and placed it at her feet. Then I laid her in the car, in the seat next to mine.

  All the time I said to myself, “She will live; she will live.” And Olga—Olga would be waiting for me. I knew now that fate could not deny me this. With an amused shock of recollection I remem­bered that I had arranged to see her this evening.

  Before I left the house, the old home I was never to see again, I filled a large basket with bread, butter, meat, and other food that I found in the larder.

  I came into the front room. Something prompted me to touch a note on the piano; but I closed the lid quickly before I should be tempted to play any more.

  I took three or four bottles of wine from the cupboard, and pouring out a glass, drank some, while I chewed bread hungrily.

  For the moment I could think of nothing while I ate and drank, slowly relishing the return of warmth to my body. But as I stood half-turned towards the win­dow, my mind wandered to an evening recently when I had looked out of this window, dreaming of flowers; of flowers and——

  I turned round sharply to face the cold, naked candles.

  I struck a match and held it to the wicks. Slowly the small flames rose without flicker until the dark corner glowed like a sunlit puddle on a wasted heath. The spent match burnt my fingers and dropped to the ground. I held my hands on the bureau and my head fell forward.

  Suddenly I left the room and closed the door.

  I came back to the car with my basket of food. I saw the figure of my mother huddled in rugs beside the steering-wheel, her head hanging forward loosely, her mouth half-open. “It would be easier to drive,” I thought, “if I put her in the back.” But there was a mound under a dark grey rug. . . .

  Then I knew that I could take Ivor no farther. Quickly I carried his body inside the house and laid him on the bed in my room. As I did so I exposed his face and turned away towards the open win­dow. The rain had splashed a pool on to the dressing-table and trailed a thin stream into a half-open drawer, drenching handker­chiefs, collars, and ties. I closed the window sharply, and as I came to the door, passing the bed, I touched Ivor’s body.

  I shut the door and stood outside for a moment. I was cold again.

  I came to the outer door and closed it for the last time. For a moment I stayed looking at Riveria, the house next door. A broken jar of imitation tulips had fallen out through the smashed window. These were the flowers, I thought, and I was the mourner——

  As I stood there, with the rain still beating on my head and the wind howling, I saw in the western sky a faint honey colour, a thin strip of colour thrown out by the sun as it began to fall behind the clouds. I remembered that only a few days ago I had never wanted to see the sun again. Now it seemed that in this remote light in the western sky lay the promise of a new sun to flush over the awaken­ing earth. And a great joy flowed into my being, so that I shivered no more and barely felt the rain that drenched my clothes. Already the horror of the day seemed to have become clouded as a dream.

  I only stood in that wasted little garden for a few seconds. But time does not know of such things as seconds; I was related to an experience outside the measuring of clocks. Yet that the old humanity could still speak, could still sound its cautious note, was suddenly made clear to me in the striking of our old marble clock in the front room.

  One—two—three—four—five. . . .

  Tea-time. The hour for winter firelight and the charitable cup; the hour when tired men return to their families and read the even­ing paper, with their slippered feet stretched out before the fire; the hour when labour gives place to pleasant conversation and amusement. Tea-time——

  The clock had struck that hour for me, and for the rest of that day until the next day, it would go on striking hours. Six—seven—eight. Supper-time. Nine—ten—eleven. Bedtime. Midnight. A new day. A new day——

  Through the window I saw the two candles, their thin flames alive in their own secret world.

  Then I was afraid. Afraid of the ghosts that already began to haunt the works of men; afraid of the clock that could strike because of the life man had left with it.

  Afraid—because five strokes had no more significance, yet still sounded. Afraid—because two candles would burn till their last drop of wax had melted.

  I ran into the car and drove off without looking back once, to­wards Hampstead. I heard beside me the faint breathing of my mother, regular and easy.

  POSTFACE, BY ANNA

  The house is very quiet, the boys are asleep. Thinking of the day that has just passed, I rose from my bed and read again the last sentences that my father dic­tated to me two days ago. I have been so close to my father in the last few weeks; it is hard to know that he has withered, his body now ashes upon the earth.

  “I heard beside me the faint breathing of my mother, regular and easy.” When he had spoken those words, his voice shook a little and he said, “Anna, I am tired. You shall hear the end of my story to-morrow.” He went to his room and would not let anybody help him up the stairs. Then, perhaps in his sleep, he died; when we came to him in the morning, we found it impossible to believe that he was not asleep. Berin was the first to speak.

  “Mother,” he said to me, “he is dead.” He looked at me with an expression that I cannot forget. It is strange how my youngest son has the power to touch me more than his brothers. My brothers and sisters came here with their families. We carried his body to the little hill that rises like a loaf of bread behind our house. Roger, Allan, and Berin had prepared a pile of faggots and ash logs, lined in the centre with a hollow of moss and dried leaves. Into this bed, we laid my father. Ivan, my eldest brother, set flame to the twigs. We watched silently as the flames grew and spread up until they licked their way over my father’s body, and covered him from our sight. We came home, ate and drank together, telling tales of him and my mother Olga when we were children. Then dusk came, and Ivan with his brothers and their wives, my sisters with their husbands and children, left for their own homes.

  I was left with Berin, and as we sat over the fire thinking of these things, “Mother,” he said, “I have written a song for the Elder. C
an I sing it to you?”

  I said yes, and he sang these words:

  “Since the tree waves its branches

  Answering the wind;

  Since the bird flies to the clouds,

  The river falls to the valley,

  The flower blooms under the sun,—

  Since nothing backward turns,

  I, too, flow on.

  Nothing is made to falter,

  Nothing to die.

  Life is a flowing onwards,

  Sleep is a ledge in the fall,

  Death is a lake in the mountains,

  A quiet abiding in time,

  A longer sleep.”

  I wish my father could have heard the song.

  By his bedside was a sheet of paper with these notes written on it: “The towns with forsaken shops and dead people. The old priest. Leaving the car and taking a faster one from a garage. Tell Anna about the cold roast chicken in the empty café at St. Alban’s. . . .”

  These are clearly notes intended for the final sections he wished to dictate. Now I can only use my imagination to picture the many ter­rible scenes he must have passed before he reached this country. If, however, I am unable to end this story as he would have ended it, it is possible for me to reconstruct something of the beginning of his new life here. My brother Ivan, who is fifteen years older than myself, was not born in this house. He was born in the house of the Welsh schoolmaster in the village down in the valley, some ten miles away. Ivan has told me that he remembers his grandmother, Lillian, when he was a little boy. He liked her very well, she used to ride him up and down on her knee and sing a rhyme about Banbury Cross which is all he can remember of it. She died when Ivan was about four years old.

  A little later my father and mother, with the Welshman, moved into the ancient farmstead which we now inhabit and which had been the property of the schoolmaster’s father. Ivan does not re­member the schoolmaster’s wife at all. And he did not know of the son, Ivor, whose name was never mentioned.