The Day of the Tortoise Read online

  Flossie having been appeased with salt and the evening paper, which had just dropped through the letter box, he walked slowly down the avenue with the letters. The evening was still very warm and he had long since discarded his cardigans and was wearing a rather battered coat of biscuit-cream alpaca at least twelve years old.

  He idly turned over the letters as he walked and discovered that Aggie, in a field day, had written to Gandhi, President Roosevelt, the Prime Minister, Dr Banda, the Dean of St Paul’s, Sherpa Tensing, Mr Chou en-Lai, the Governor of Dartmoor Prison and William Cowper. The fact that three of them were dead was of no consequence at all. Cowper’s hymn, God Moves in a Mysterious Way, was not only one she often sang in her industrious seclusion upstairs; it also formed a constant source of messages to wrap round the feet of the speeding Francis. Fred now remembered that he hadn’t seen Francis all afternoon but he had no doubt as to the bird’s busyness, inspired by the hymn that, by a mysterious miracle, had long ago brought Cowper back from the verge of the grave.

  Less in absent-mindedness than in growing confusion he put the letters in his pocket and, as with salt, custard and a number of other things during the course of the day, promptly forgot them. The realization of what exactly he was doing walking down to the dairy had been slow in coming to him. Now his mind started grasping at the notion that he was, in fact, actually keeping a date with a girl.

  ‘Hullo. There you are. I got off a bit early and I thought I’d walk up and meet you.’

  As if by another miracle the girl seemed suddenly conjured before him, startling and fresh as ever, under the lengthening shadows of the street limes. Instinctively he looked for the suitcase but discovered that she was carrying two brown paper parcels instead.

  ‘Good evening,’ he said. ‘Is it – I mean are you—?’

  ‘Oh! yes. I’ve had it all right,’ she said and as though this were the really big joke of the day, laughed splendidly, throwing back her red hair. ‘I knew I would. It was on the cards.’

  ‘I’m awfully sorry,’ Fred said. ‘I’m really awfully sorry.’

  ‘Oh! don’t let’s mope about it,’ she said. ‘Let’s have that drink I promised you. I could use one. I’ve got a thirst on me like a fish.’

  ‘May I carry your parcels?’

  ‘Well, thanks. Be careful, though. All I got in the world.’

  There were gramophone records in the flat parcel and all her clothes in the other, she explained as she and Fred went into the lounge bar of The Devonshire Arms, half way up the avenue, where Fred insisted on ordering the first drinks, a beer for himself and a double gin for her.

  Sipping beer, Fred felt nervous and worried. What in the world, he asked, was she going to do?

  ‘I’m damned if I know,’ she said. ‘I hoped someone would tell me.’ The inevitable laugh set her head shaking over her gin. ‘I can always doss in the park.’

  No, no, no. Fred was full of nervous protest. That wouldn’t do at all.

  ‘Why not?’ she said. ‘It’s warm. Worse things happen at sea.’

  When her gin had gone, with much the same rapidity as Fred had noticed at lunch-time, she insisted on ordering another. At the same time Fred protested that the single beer would see him through. This she called plain silly on a hot evening and urged him to drink up and be sociable.

  Slightly heady after a second beer, Fred had no substantial word of objection to offer when suddenly, on a quick impulse, she seized his hand and said:

  ‘Come on, let’s take a walk across the park. There must be a nice tree somewhere I could sleep under.’

  And soon, as they walked across the park, she was impulsive again.

  ‘Oh! it’s too hot to walk. Come on, let’s find a seat somewhere.’

  Late white acacia blossom had fallen on the grass where the seat stood. In the middle distance mallard ducks swam about a pond.

  ‘That’s a funny bird,’ she said after sitting there five minutes or so. ‘It’s got something tied to its leg.’

  Fred, looking up from pondering without solution on what homeless people did at night time, saw that Francis had arrived and was perching among the lower branches of the acacia tree.

  ‘Oh! it’s Francis.’

  ‘Who? What?’

  ‘Francis. Our jackdaw.’

  The girl, giving Fred a quick, disbelieving glance, curiously enough without laughter, was amazed a moment later to hear him whistle the bird, which promptly flew down and settled on the park seat beside him.

  ‘Hullo, Francis,’ Fred said. ‘You’re out a bit late.’

  ‘What’s it got on its leg?’

  ‘Oh! just one of Aggie’s messages.’

  ‘Aggie? Who’s Aggie?’

  ‘Aggie’s my eldest sister.’

  ‘Message? Message to who?’

  Fred explained that it wasn’t necessarily to anything or anybody in particular. It was just general. Sort of he who runs may read.

  ‘Yes, but who’s it for?’

  ‘Anybody. Anybody who picks it up.’

  ‘Me, for instance?’

  ‘You, if you like. Yes.’

  This time she did laugh, but neither so loudly nor so sumptuously as usual. The sound was brief and sceptical.

  ‘All right. Let’s see what it says.’

  Fred took the message off Francis’ leg, unfolded it and read out what it said:

  ‘Renounce the Bomb. One Peace. One World.’

  ‘Oh! that old stuff again.’

  ‘Old stuff? It’s awfully important to Aggie.’

  It was enough to bore you to bits, the girl said. Why didn’t she write something to cheer people up? It was all stale, that bomb stuff. People wanted fun.

  ‘I could think of a few good things to write,’ she said, laughing again in her natural fashion.

  ‘Such as what?’

  ‘Oh! I don’t know. Something good. Something to pep things up. Like I love Charley Williams. Kiss me, Charley. Quick.’

  Between her gusts of laughter Fred managed to ask who Charley Williams was?

  ‘Our manager. At the shop.’

  Fred said he didn’t think on the whole that confessions and invitations to Charley Williams were really much in Aggie’s line. No: it had to be something for the public good.

  ‘All right,’ she said. ‘What about Why Don’t We Have More Beds in the Park? We Got to Sleep Somewhere.’

  Levity, Fred explained, was not a thing Aggie went in for. It had to be something important and fundamental. A serious issue.

  ‘All right,’ she said. ‘I’ll tell you a serious issue. And near home too. There’s no public toilet in the High Street now they’ve pulled the old one down. The nearest one’s half a mile away. How about that?’

  ‘That would be embarrassing.’

  ‘I’ll say it’s embarrassing. Women are in a fix, I tell you. You ask them.’

  Fred, who had no intention of asking any woman if she was in a fix, was about to let Francis go when the girl said:

  ‘Go on. Let’s have some fun. I dare you. Let’s think up a really good one and send it.’

  ‘No, no. It wouldn’t be fair to Aggie.’

  ‘Are all your sisters like her?’

  Not exactly, Fred told her, not exactly.

  ‘What are the others like? Do they send messages?’

  Fred, eyes pressingly fixed on the mallard ducks, first told her briefly about Flossie. He supposed that really Flossie was incurably lazy and rather vain. But she’d never had to work for her living. You couldn’t blame her for that. She’d never had to soil her hands.

  Then, a little less briefly, he told her about Ella. He explained that Ella was touchy, but that was because she was so completely, so blindly dedicated. She was utterly wrapped up in what she did. The world just went past her.

  ‘And what does she do?’

  ‘Most of the time she prays for animals.’

  ‘What sort of animals?’

  ‘Red squirrels and hedgehogs chiefl
y.’

  ‘Why them?’

  ‘Red squirrels because they’re getting so rare. Hedgehogs because so many of them get run over. She thinks animals have souls, you see. She explained it all to me a long time ago.’

  The girl glanced sideways at the pensive, floating lozenges of Fred’s eyes. All of a sudden she found them very touching and said:

  ‘What about the tortoise? Does she pray for that?’

  ‘William? She has William up in her room every Friday and they have a little communion service together.’

  She seemed to consider this for a moment or two and then said:

  ‘Do you ever do anything with the tortoise?’

  ‘I take him for walks sometimes.’

  After another pause the girl said:

  ‘What day is it today?’

  ‘Thursday? Why?’

  ‘Oh! nothing. I just wondered if I’d missed a few out, that’s all.’

  Suddenly she got up. ‘It’s no good. I’ll have to go. I’ve got to find somewhere for the night. We’ve been sitting here for ages.’

  ‘Haven’t you got any friends you can go to?’

  ‘Not really. You see I don’t come from here. I’m really a stranger here. Have you a lot of friends?’

  ‘Not really,’ Fred said.

  ‘That makes two of us,’ she said. ‘Come on. Let’s go.’

  Fred, who had been sitting holding Francis, let the bird go so suddenly that the sound was like the slap of a blind going up.

  ‘Goodness gracious, I’ve forgotten Aggie’s letters.’

  Disconsolately he took the nine letters from his pocket and stared at them.

  ‘She’d never forgive me.’

  ‘Here, give them to me,’ the girl said. ‘I’ll carry them. Never put letters in your pocket. You always forget them if you do.’

  While Fred gathered up the parcels the girl took the letters, glancing idly at them. The top one was for Gandhi; that for Roosevelt was in second place of honour.

  ‘But some of these people are dead.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘What’s the idea of writing to people if they’re dead?’

  ‘It makes it more worth while. I mean for Aggie.’

  The girl, for once, had neither laugh nor word to offer in answer to this astounding statement and suddenly Fred felt that it was useless to try to explain any more about Aggie and Ella and how they felt and what they did. It was difficult to give a rational picture of the girls. He supposed he’d got used to it; it didn’t seem strange to him. After all there were people who sat for months on the tops of poles or crossed the Pacific alone on flimsy rafts or did walking races on their heads. What was strange about them? They were dedicated too.

  ‘Do you mind if I ask you something?’ he said. He was eager to change the subject now. ‘I got another bottle of gin this afternoon and I wondered if you’d care to come up for a drink? Then perhaps we can really decide what you’re going to do?’

  ‘Lovely idea,’ she said. ‘I was just going to suggest we dropped in at The Devonshire for another one, but if you’ve got the gin – by the way, where’s the nearest post box? We mustn’t forget the letters.’

  Later, in the stable loft, where the light was falling a little now, she sat much as she had done at lunch-time, glass in hand, legs stretched out on the sofa. Fred, beer in hand, glad that she hadn’t opened up the subject of Aggie and Ella again, listened to the sounds of evening in the garden outside. A late blackbird was singing beautifully somewhere beyond the catalpa tree and once he thought he heard the croak of Francis coming home.

  ‘I’m worried about you,’ he said. ‘You hear such awful stories about girls being out at night. Are you sure you’ve got nowhere to go?’

  What she said next startled him completely, even though it was merely an echo of what he himself had been thinking.

  ‘Could I stay here? I mean temporary. Just for one night?’

  ‘I’d got it in my mind,’ Fred said, ‘to ask you that.’

  ‘I could manage on the sofa.’

  ‘All right,’ he said. ‘I’ll go and get blankets and things.’

  ‘Thanks,’ she said. ‘That’s terribly good of you. Will your sisters know? Will they see?’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ he said. ‘The house is too far away.’

  In ten minutes he was back from the house with sheets, pillows and blankets. While she started to arrange them on the sofa he went back to the house for bread, the remains of the steak-and-kidney pie and a basin of cold gooseberries and custard. As she started eating this in the half-darkness he went back to the house a third time for a jug of water, soap and towel, a wash-basin and the candle-holder from his bedroom.

  ‘There is electric light, but I think the candle’s safer. Only light it, though, if you really have to. It might look strange. Ella gets up a lot in the night and she might think there was a fire.’

  ‘I thought you said it was too far away?’

  ‘She walks about the garden sometimes.’

  In some curious way it was now the girl, not he, who seemed uneasy. The habit of laughter had died abruptly. She had even begun to speak in whispers.

  Presently Fred became infected by whispering too, and said in the lowest of voices:

  ‘I think you’ve got everything. I’ll bring breakfast for you in the morning. About seven.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  The bed on the sofa was made up now and she was sitting on it. Then suddenly she got up and found her empty glass.

  ‘You don’t mind if I have one more? I feel I need it.’

  Fred, who could still make out the details of her face in the half darkness, saw her eyes uplifted sharply and suddenly he knew that they were older than he had first guessed they were.

  ‘Look,’ she said. She took a quick drink, holding the glass in front of her face. ‘I got to tell you something. I got to be fair with you.’

  ‘Don’t worry tonight. You must be tired.’

  ‘It’s about why I left my sister. Why she kicked me out.’

  ‘I thought you just didn’t get on together.’

  She held up the glass. This time it masked her eyes and she spoke blankly from behind it.

  ‘It’s why I’m on this. On the gin,’ she said. ‘They say it does the trick sometimes.’

  It slowly occurred to Fred that he was listening to a confessional, the opening details of which he didn’t remotely understand. He heard the blackbird giving a final roosting cry in the garden. Across the street, in the hot night, the sash of a window squeaked dryly and the window clattered down.

  ‘I got to be fair with you. I’m in trouble. I’m going to have a baby,’ she said. ‘That’s why.’ She drank the rest of the gin with a useless sort of laugh, quickly. ‘I’ve had it. Good and proper. I’m up the creek.’

  There were a dozen questions he wanted to ask her when he took her breakfast up in the morning but she was sleeping peacefully and in the end he simply said:

  ‘Sorry to wake you, but it’s ten past seven. Did you sleep all right?’

  ‘Best sleep I’ve had for weeks.’ She sat up in bed and ran one hand through her hair. ‘I feel as right as a row of houses. Boiled eggs and toast, eh? How did you know I liked them?’

  ‘I didn’t,’ Fred said. ‘They were just the easiest things to carry.’

  ‘Thanks anyway. It’s very good of you.’

  While she sat there eating the eggs and sipping tea Fred sat down in the old Windsor chair and asked the first questions. He hadn’t slept very well himself; questions had troubled him all night long.

  ‘What about tonight?’ he said. ‘It’s been worrying me. You could come back here if you wanted to.’

  ‘I thought I’d go to the Market Hotel,’ she said. ‘My sister stayed there once before she got her house here. It’s not bad. I don’t know why I didn’t think of it before.’

  ‘It costs money. You could come back here.’

  ‘I’ll think about it. I
t’s very good of you. Could I leave my things anyway?’

  He said of course she could leave her things and then he asked the second of his questions. It was about the baby. He meant—

  ‘Oh! I know what you mean. Who’s responsible? Oh! he’s three hundred miles away in Plymouth. I couldn’t even raise the fare.’

  Actually it wasn’t that at all, Fred said. He wouldn’t think of asking a personal thing like that. No: it was just that he wondered how long it would be before—

  ‘Oh! not for months yet. Ages. Anyway, like I said, let’s not mope about it.’

  Presently she finished the second of the eggs and then spread marmalade on a piece of toast while Fred watched her solemnly.

  ‘Look,’ she said. She pointed the piece of toast at him with something like reproach. ‘I’ll come back here tonight on one condition.’

  ‘What would that be?’

  ‘That you don’t mope about me. I can’t bear moping.’

  ‘But it’s a serious matter for you.’

  ‘Serious my foot. Why should you worry? It’s my fault, isn’t it? I had a lot of fun before I slipped up. I had a wonderful time. I’d do it again if I got the chance. Anyway I knew all the time he couldn’t marry me if anything happened. He’s married already.’

  Several times the sentences were punctuated with clipped bursts of laughter. Still laughing, she poured herself another cup of tea and said:

  ‘Oh! don’t get the idea I’ve been betrayed and all that stuff. I knew what I was doing all right, don’t worry. Like I told you before, I love having fun. That’s what life’s for.’

  Fred, for so long surrounded by the vanity, good works and dedication of his sisters, hadn’t looked at life in exactly that way before and for the second time that morning he had nothing to say in answer.

  ‘You know what I thought?’ she said. ‘It’d be fun to make up messages for Francis to take out – you know, like I said last night.’

  No: that would be unethical, Fred said. It wouldn’t be fair to Aggie.

  ‘Oh! why not?’ she said. ‘Does anybody ever read them anyway?’

  That was beside the point. It just wouldn’t be fair to Aggie.