Ilona said to Edward, ‘Their car is stuck, we’re going to help them.’
‘But they’ll stay to supper first,’ said Bettina. ‘They can’t be rescued till they’ve eaten something, it wouldn’t be right! Ilona, go and get some more plates and glasses, and some wine.’ Ilona ran off across the slates.
‘Oh yes, you must stay,’ said Edward to Harry. He seemed not to have heard or taken in Bettina’s remark. ‘The food’s all vegetarian but it’s super, you’ll see. And I’ve got those two marvellous sisters. So Thomas told you! He said he’d keep it secret, but I expect he decided it was long enough. Have you come to fetch me? I can’t come yet. I’m so sorry about the car. We’ll all go and pull it out.’
Ilona had returned and was laying the table.
At the arrival of the two boys Harry and Midge had stood transfixed. Then they had looked at each other. Then they looked at Stuart. Midge pulled her scarf out of her pocket and put it round her head, then pushed it back a little.
Stuart, after standing quite still at the door with clenched hands, walked carefully, with lowered eyes, round the pair, who shrank back a little. As he passed he gave a kind of awkward ducking nod or bow. He set off across the hall as if to enter the Interfectory, then changed his mind and went and sat at the table. When Ilona began to set out extra glasses he smiled up at her and said ‘Thank you.’ He looked uneasily at his father, then looked away.
Harry said, ‘Hello, Stuart. We’re just going.’
Midge, looking at Stuart, uttered an extraordinary sound, a sort of long wail like an animal’s whine or yelp. She sat down on one of the chairs. She said to Harry, ‘Let’s go at once, we’ll find the car.’
‘Don’t be silly,’ said Harry.
Mother May laughed.
Edward, beginning to realise that something was wrong, and what it was, ran up to Mother May. ‘It’s all right, you know, it’s all right — But I think they do want to go, they won’t stay to supper. I’ll make up some sandwiches — Ilona will — I’ll take them in your car — I can tow them, do it all — Bettina — just give me the car keys.’ He ran to Bettina.
‘You’d never find the way,’ said Bettina. ‘You’d be in the ditch too. It’s difficult to drive in these roads, and the mist is up. I’ll get the car out, or the tractor, if that’s what everyone wants. We’ll try with the car first, there’s only room for two in the tractor. No doubt someone will let me know if there’s a change of plan.’ She left the room.
Edward, pulling at his lock of hair, said, ‘Oh — oh dear — ’ He ran over to Stuart and touched his shoulder. ‘All right, Stuart?’
Stuart smiled at him. A moment later he began playing with the cutlery on the table, setting it out in various patterns.
Edward went to Ilona and said, ‘Do you think you could make some sandwiches?’
Ilona said, ‘In a minute. I want to stay here.’ She moved back against the tapestry so as to see the whole scene.
Mother May moved back to the table and sat down near Stuart, leaving Harry and Midge still standing near the door.
Harry said, ‘I think I hear the car, we’ll wait outside.’ He made a move.
Bettina came in saying, ‘I can’t find the car keys.’
Mother May followed Bettina out again through Transition.
Edward said to Harry and Midge, ‘Look, won’t you
please
sit down? Come over here, eat something, have some wine?’
‘No thanks,’ said Harry, ‘we really must be off.’
Edward said, ‘Ilona, won’t you make some sandwiches? Or just a bit of bread or something?’
Ilona seemed to be paralysed. She was leaning back against the tapestry, breathing hard, her hand at her bosom.
‘Then I will!’ Edward set off toward Transition but met Mother May on the way and turned back.
Mother May said smiling, ‘We found the keys!’ Then she laughed with the sort of half-stifled irrepressible explosive laugh of someone who has, in some solemn or pompous scene, suddenly glimpsed something funny. She said to the two at the door, ‘Look do sit down. If you won’t sit with us at the table at least sit on these two chairs.’
‘Thank you, we’ll wait outside,’ said Harry. He went to the door and made another attempt to open it but failed. No one moved to help him. He came back and sat on one of the chairs. Midge, affecting to fiddle in her handbag, still stood. Then Jesse came in.
At first no one noticed him. The Interfectory door was in shadow and he moved in silently. He was leaning on a stick which after a moment made a tiny tapping sound on the floor.
Ilona, who was the first to see him, cried aloud ‘Jesse!’ and ran to him. Without attending to her he put a hand on her shoulder to support himself and looked round the room. Jesse was imposing. Huge-headed he stood like a magisterial prophet supported by an acolyte. He was dressed in dark trousers and an unbuttoned white shirt. His dark beard and hair were combed, his lips were red and moist, his large prominent round eyes glowed, he was barefoot. He looked about him frowning upon the sparsely lit room into which the mist from outside seemed to have penetrated.
Mother May moved forward. She said, as if this were some ordinary social scene embarrassingly intruded upon by an ill person, ‘Please excuse him. Come along now!’ She pushed Ilona away, causing him to stumble slightly, and began to try to turn him round, but without seeming to notice her he resisted, half turning and looking back over his shoulder with his bright reddish-brown eyes. He looked toward the table, then suddenly forced Mother May away from him and advanced, thrusting his head forward and glaring. Then he said in a ringing voice, ‘There’s a dead man, you’ve got a corpse there, it’s sitting at the table, I can see it.’ He pointed his stick at Stuart. Stuart got up.
Jesse went on raising his voice further, not hysterically but in a tone of urgent command. ‘That man’s dead, take him away, I curse him. Take that white thing away, it’s dead. The white thing, take it away from here.’
Bettina came in through the front door with her overcoat on. She went towards Jesse, then stopped beside Mother May and spoke to her.
Mother May said sharply to Jesse,
‘Stop that, at once,
come along, come to bed!’ Jesse flourished his stick at her and she retreated.
Bettina said, ‘The men will have to deal with him. It’s like that time when we had to have the tree men in.’
Stuart, who was still standing, moved back a little, still facing Jesse, like a man backing out of a royal audience. He bumped against a chair.
Jesse, no longer attending to Stuart, moved on into the middle of the room, looking intently at the ring of people who were staring at him. He stopped, then he seemed to tremble and dropped his stick, he uttered a low wailing sound. He said, not loudly, ‘Will no one love me, will no one help me, will no one
help
me, will no one come to me?’
Mother May and Bettina, and Ilona too, had followed him, but he suddenly began flailing with his arms and they retreated hurriedly.
Midge pushed her scarf back from her face. She took it off and dropped it on the floor. Then she took off her coat. She went toward Jesse slowly, turning her head to the lamp so that he could see her face, and stopped in front of him and put her hands upon his shoulders. She said, ‘I love you, I’ll help you. Dear Jesse, it’s all right, it’s
all right.’
Jesse started, he hunched his shoulders, his mouth opened and trembled. He peered at her. She kept her hands firmly upon him, gathering him a little. Jesse said at last, almost whispering, ‘Chloe — they told me you were dead — no one tells me the truth — now — I’ve been waiting for you to come back to me — such a long long time.’ And he put his arms around her. Midge began to cry with audible sobs which were silenced when Jesse began to kiss her. With closed eyes, in rapt absorption, arms locked about each other, they stood there kissing passionately, kissing hungrily, quickly, unable to get enough of the longed-for food.
Mother May said in a tone of disgust but without emphasis, ‘Oh what a vile mess!’ She put a hand on Midge’s arm to drag her away but the two figures were entwined together. Mother May and Bettina stood looking at them with an exasperated calm.
‘Can’t we propel them,’ said Bettina, ‘get him out of here anyway. Let her do it.’
Mother May said in a piercing voice, ‘Mrs McCaskerville, could you please just help us to get him back to bed? He is seriously ill.’ She began to prod Midge violently in the back. Jesse’s bare feet began to slide forward upon the slates passing between Midge’s feet, and as she moved, unable to sustain his weight, he fell down heavily, first sitting, then lying full length. He lay still with his eyes open, breathing heavily. Midge twitched herself angrily away from Mother May’s hand.
Mother May called, ‘Edward!’
Edward, who was still standing at the other end of the hall, ran forward and knelt, putting one arm under Jesse’s arm. Mother May began to lift him on the other side, and Jesse, suddenly revived, began to scrabble with his feet and allowed himself to be pulled upright. He consented to be led toward the door of the Interfectory, only resisting for a moment to point to his stick, which Mother May picked up from the floor. He did not look back. His arms still held on either side by Edward and Mother May, he disappeared. The door closed after him.
Harry, who had remained seated throughout this drama, got up. He glanced at Midge who was standing beside the door crying, her face in her handkerchief. Then he walked over to the table, sat down, and poured himself out a glass of wine. Stuart a little way from him also sat down. He put one hand on the table but was trembling so much that the knives and forks began to tinkle. He took his hand away and gave it to his other hand. He sat trembling, looking down at his clasped hands. Harry stared at him with curiosity.
‘Well, son, sorry for this embarrassment.’ Harry reflected that he had never called Stuart ‘son’ in his life before.
Stuart muttered, ‘Oh don’t worry, I mean there it is — ’
‘There, as you say, it is. Must be a bit of a shock.’
Stuart said, ‘Meredith told me, only I didn’t believe him.’
‘What?’
‘He said she — he didn’t say who — ’
‘Meredith. Oh God.’ Harry was about to ask: does Thomas know? Then he thought, what the hell does it matter what Thomas knows. He’ll know everything soon enough. This is the end of Midge’s marriage. This is the catastrophe I was hoping for. How I wish I’d told Thomas ages ago, as I wanted to, told him straight and not been meanly found out like this. It’s a nasty bloody mess, not what I’d have chosen — still it’s just as well really, it’s all
happened
at last, and I’ll just
keep
her now. I’m sorry about Stuart — but he’d have had to know anyway. And Meredith — of course it’s sickening — But all I’ve got to do now is keep my head and be as ruthless as hell.
Bettina said to Harry, ‘The car is outside. Hadn’t you better get off? Would you like to go to the lavatory? Mrs McCaskerville, would — ? No, all right.’
Midge, no longer crying, but with her back to the scene, ignored Bettina. She was standing, as if in deep thought, holding the back of one of the chairs.
‘What about sandwiches?’ said Bettina to Harry. ‘Ilona, could you make some — Ilona — ’
Ilona, who had pulled a chair away from the table to her place beside the tapestry, and was sitting with her face in her hands, did not move.
‘No, thank you,’ said Harry. ‘Let’s go. Come on, Midge. Goodbye, Stuart. Please thank Mrs Baltram — ’
‘If we can’t do it with the car I’ll have to come back for the tractor, but I don’t suppose you’ll want to — Ilona, you’d better go to bed.’ Bettina picked up Midge’s coat and scarf and handbag from the floor and put them on the chair beside her. Harry held Midge’s coat while she obediently groped for the sleeves, he saw her desolate swollen face which yet wore a fierce strange expression.
Bettina repeated,
‘Ilona,
go to bed. At once.’
Ilona rose and without looking at the company ran to Transition and went through the door, slamming it behind her.
Stuart, as if awakened by the noise, leapt up. He said to Harry, ‘Could you wait a moment, please. I want to come with you, do you mind? Just wait, I’ll get my stuff, I won’t be long.’ He ran off, following Ilona.
Midge turned furiously to Harry, ‘We can’t take him, we
can’t!’
Harry, coolly, said, ‘I don’t see why not, I don’t see that it matters a hang. He knows all about it anyway, Meredith told him.’
‘Meredith told Stuart — oh — no — I never told you — Meredith saw — ’
‘He
saw
us — what did he see?
Hell
— I told you we shouldn’t be in your house — ’
‘It wasn’t my fault!’
‘Well, there you are. I expect Thomas knows by now. We’re blown, thank God. We’re on our own now, Midge.’
‘Do you want to wait for him?’ said Bettina, who was standing listening to these exchanges.
‘Thomas needn’t know — I’m
sure
he doesn’t — ’
‘He soon will!’