The Wedding Party Page 4

  Suddenly he slipped his hand into the open neck of her dress, running his fingers across her bare breast.

  ‘Please,’ she said. ‘You’re hurrying things. I’d like a little time—’

  ‘Now is the time.’

  She became very quiet again. She seemed almost to go to sleep in his arms. Her head was low across his chest and he pressed his mouth against her hair. An unbelievable serenity flowered from all this and he lost completely all count of time until, drowsy himself, he roused up to hear somewhere down on the lakeside, a clock striking eleven.

  ‘Are you awake?’ he said. ‘I wondered if the Stube might still be open. We could have a Kirsch—’

  ‘That’s a nice idea.’

  They started to walk slowly down the hillside. He couldn’t tell what her thoughts were now but she seemed, at last, immensely at peace with herself. And then, some way beyond the lowest of the waterfalls, he stopped and held her lightly by the shoulders and looked at her face.

  ‘Come with me tomorrow.’

  ‘I can’t make up my mind.’

  Jocularly he said why didn’t they toss for it? He took a 10-pfennig piece from his pocket. Heads she would come with him, he joked, tails he would just take her away. Blithely he tossed the coin into the air, missed catching it again in the darkness and heard it go rolling and tinkling away down the road.

  ‘Oh! God!’ she suddenly said.

  He had hardly time to wonder what this sudden nervous exclamation was about before he heard, from the foot of the slopes, a raucous chorus of men’s voices and a tramp of marching feet.

  ‘Heidi! Heidi! Heidi! Heidi! Heidi!’ they were shouting, all in drilled stentorian unison, and it might have been that they were shouting ‘Sieg Heil!’

  ‘Oh! God,’ she said. ‘I half expected something like this. Let’s run for the Stube—’

  They had hardly started running before he saw the ordered squad of penguins pounding up the slope, wild and wine-fired, some waving bottles, some in fancy hats, some skeined about with coloured streamers and all shouting the one brassy stentorian word:

  ‘Heidi! Heidi! Heidi!’

  Frightened now, she stopped and clutched him by the shoulders.

  ‘Listen a moment. I will come tomorrow. I’ll meet you here at seven – wait for me. I will come. But just at the moment – you won’t be able to stop them – they’ve come to take me back—’

  More like a pack of hunting dogs now the squad, suddenly catching sight of her, broke into disordered running, whooping and laughing. She gave him a single desperate kiss and then they were in for the kill, drunk and triumphant, yelling with evil idiocy, seizing her bodily and picking her up. In that moment all his own rage came seething back and he started shouting: ‘God, you bastards! You bastards! You bastards!’ flailing about with his fists. A second later a bottle hit him behind one ear. He dropped to his knees, half-stunned, and when he finally got to his feet again he knew it was no use any longer. They were already at the foot of the slope, running madly, carrying her away shoulder high, like someone on a bier.

  In the morning, at seven o’clock, he walked slowly back up the slope. Some yards below the water-trough he caught sight of something glinting in the road and stooped and picked up the 10-pfennig piece he had dropped the night before.

  ‘Heads you come with me. Tails I just take you away—’

  He sat on the edge of the water-trough and waited, tossing the coin idly from one hand to another. There was a sharp chill in the air and once, when he dipped his hand into the water, he drew in his breath with shock. Gradually he heard the sound of all four quarters strike from the clock on the lakeside and then, soon after eight, he knew it was no use any longer.

  He walked back to the hotel. The concierge, outside the vestibule, was taking an early morning breath of air.

  ‘Have all the wedding guests gone?’

  ‘Yes, sir. All of them. Every one.’

  ‘What time did they leave?’

  ‘Between five and six, sir. You mean you didn’t hear them go, sir? They were very gay. They were very, very happy.’

  He turned away. The first of the day’s steamers was sliding swan-like across the lake and after watching it for a moment or two he turned and stared at the water-falls, the lower meadows rich with flowers, the high mountains and a solitary woman hanging out clothes in a garden, between rows of red currant trees, shining crimson with ripening fruit.

  But in reality he was neither watching nor listening to anything. All he could see were the eyes like palest blue campanulas; all he could hear was the echo of the voice of the girl with death in her heart.

  Early One Morning

  Mrs Daly, who had woken early in the warm summer morning, lay drowsily listening to what she thought was the sound of a thrush cracking a snail on the stone garden path outside.

  Another day stretched before her like a long stale loaf. Ten hours of it would be cut off in dry, boring slices. At eight o’clock Mr Daly, umbrella neatly rolled, black homburg squarely set on his head, morning paper under his arm, would be off to catch the London train; at six o’clock, umbrella neatly rolled, black homburg still squarely set, evening paper under his arm, he would be back again.

  Mrs Daly listened to the thrush. Even thrushes, industriously cracking snails, had more excitement in their days than she did. Then slowly, as she listened, it struck her that there was something strange about the sound of the tapping thrush and soon she knew that she wasn’t listening to a thrush at all.

  What she could hear was the sound of feet running up and down.

  With the beginnings of alarm she gave Mr Daly a sudden poke in the ribs and said:

  ‘Stan, there’s someone prowling about the garden. Listen. There’s somebody outside.’

  ‘Oh! Hell!’ Mr Daly said.

  ‘It’s no use swearing about it like that. Get up and see who it is. You don’t know who it might be. It’s perhaps one of those soldiers from the depot up to no good.’

  ‘Oh! why in Heaven’s name should soldiers – God, what time is it?’

  ‘I don’t know. The electric clock’s gone to be repaired. What difference does the time make? Get up and see who it is. It might be someone breaking in.’

  ‘Oh! Hell,’ Mr Daly said.

  Drowsy and fretful with temper, he swung his legs out of bed. Slowly his feet fumbled their way into his slippers. Even more slowly he tied the white cord of his pyjamas a little tighter.

  ‘You hear such awful things nowadays,’ Mrs Daly said. ‘I’ll get ready to telephone the police if it’s anybody suspicious.’

  ‘It’s probably the postman with a registered letter—’

  ‘It can’t be. It’s too early. I’ve been watching the sun come up.’

  Mr Daly groped his way to the open bedroom window and stared mistily out. An unfriendly brightness, almost a glare, lay over everything, hurting his eyes. A thick dew covered the lawn and in the already strong sunlight the grass looked like a sheet of minutely shattered glass, each fragment glistening brilliantly.

  ‘Ye gods and little fishes,’ Mr Daly suddenly said, ‘it’s a stark raving lunatic!’

  ‘Oh! no. Not one of them. Not from the St Saviour’s mental – Oh! my goodness, I’ve heard they do get out sometimes – I’d better telephone—’

  ‘He’s stark, staring mad. He’s running round the lawn with a ruddy great butterfly net.’ Mr Daly craned his neck deeply out of the window and in an explosive voice shouted: ‘Hey! you there – what the merry Hell are you doing in my garden? Get out of it! Go on – get out!’

  An improbable figure of a man about forty, in grey slacks, pale green shirt and brown sandals performed a strange sort of spiralling act in the centre of the lawn, his large green butterfly net swivelling over his head, and then came to an abrupt and distressful halt, panting.

  ‘Oh! pardon me. Excuse me. You haven’t seen a budgerigar by any chance, have you? A blue one. It’s my wife’s. It flew over your garden fence just n
ow—’

  ‘Oh! tell it to the marines!’ Mr Daly shouted and then turned sarcastically to Mrs Daly, whispering, ‘Says he’s looking for his wife’s budgerigar—’

  ‘Well, perhaps he is—’

  ‘Budgerigar or no budgerigar,’ Mr Daly shouted, ‘I damn well won’t have you trampling all over my place! Get out of it!’

  ‘I’m certain it’s in here. I know it’s in here. It’s probably hiding among your roses—’

  ‘Keep off my roses, damn you!’

  ‘Don’t get so worked up,’ Mrs Daly said. ‘If he has lost it why don’t you go down and help him find it—’

  ‘Me?’ Mr Daly said, his voice bleakly choking. ‘Me?’

  ‘Yes,’ Mrs Daly said, ‘the poor little thing. It’s probably terrified to death.’

  ‘Let it be terrified!’

  ‘It’ll probably get caught by the cat or something. That would be horrible. All those precious blue feathers all over the lawn. Tell him you’ll go down and help him.’

  ‘I’ll tell him no such thing,’ Mr Daly said. ‘Who the Beelzebub do you think I am? Go on – get out of it! Go and hunt your blasted budgerigar somewhere else! It’s probably flown home to Mamma anyway by now. There, there, diddums lose ums Mamma then, sweetie precious? Did budgums think ums—’

  ‘You really are rude,’ Mrs Daly whispered. ‘If you won’t go down and help him I will.’

  ‘Then you’re a mug,’ Mr Daly said. ‘That’s all I can say.’

  ‘Don’t call me a mug.’

  ‘Every man’s got a right to call his wife a mug if she turns out to be one.’

  ‘I don’t want that little bird killed in my garden,’ Mrs Daly said. ‘It would be on my conscience for ever.’

  ‘Conscience,’ Mr Daly said. ‘Conscience? Hell, I’m going back to bed.’

  As Mr Daly crawled like a growling dog under the bedclothes Mrs Daly got out of bed and started to put on her dressing gown, a petunia pink silk one, and her bedroom slippers, which were also pink and lined with pure white fur. With incredulous irritation Mr Daly stared at her over the edge of the sheet, telling her abruptly that she was mad.

  ‘Well, that makes two of us,’ she said. ‘And anyway if you were anything of a man you’d go down and help and let me stay in bed.’

  ‘Snap, snap!’

  ‘Snap, snap! yourself. Perhaps one day you’ll lose something and you’ll be glad of someone to help you find it.’

  ‘Lose what for instance?’

  ‘Oh! anything.’ Mrs Daly wrenched open the bedroom door with vigorous impatience. ‘Me, for example. You never know.’

  ‘Suffering cat-fish,’ Mr Daly moaned, ‘suffering cat-fish.’

  Out in the garden the man in green shirt and grey slacks was gazing in dispirited fashion at the upper branches of a large laburnum tree, where the blue budgerigar was perching with unfluttering indifference in the morning sun.

  ‘Winkie, Winkie!’ he called and clapped his hands in gentle reprimand. ‘Winkie – pay attention. Listen to me. You must come home. Do you hear? – you must come home to breakfast.’

  At the conclusion of this sentence he turned to find Mrs Daly at his side. The unexpected sight of her in dressing-gown and nightdress quite unnerved him, so that he flushed slightly and said:

  ‘Oh! I didn’t mean to drag you out of bed. I really didn’t—’

  Something about these remarks seemed to strike him as being not quite right, so that he was embarrassed still further and tried to excuse himself by saying:

  ‘You see the awful thing is that my wife will vow and declare I let him out. She did once before. He flew miles and miles away and we had the dickens of a job – I suppose you haven’t a ladder by any chance, have you?’

  ‘I think there must be one in the garage. Shall I get it?’

  ‘Oh! no no. I’ll go. I’ll get it.’

  ‘No, please. I’ll go. You stay and watch the bird. Just in case he flies down.’

  When Mrs Daly came struggling back with the ladder, a big wooden extendable one, the man was calling with piteous insistence into the laburnum tree:

  ‘You must come home. Mumsie will be angry if you don’t come. Mumsie will cry.’

  Mrs Daly, staggering under the weight of the ladder, managed to gasp out:

  ‘What does he usually have for breakfast? Perhaps if I fetched a few bread crumbs that might entice him—’

  ‘Oh! he generally has corn-flakes with a little brown sugar. Oh! I’m so awfully sorry – let me have the ladder – Oh! by the way my name’s Greenwood. I’m terribly sorry to inflict all this on you.’

  While Mr Greenwood took over the struggle with the ladder Mrs Daly went into the house to fetch the brown sugar and the corn-flakes. With a rough clatter of wood on wood the ladder mounted the laburnum tree, first frightening the budgerigar so that it flew down and settled on a bush of cream roses and then bringing Mr Daly with renewed fury to the bedroom window.

  ‘And what in hell are you doing with my ladder?’ he shouted. ‘Who the blazes do you think you are?’

  ‘I’m trying to get up to the budgerigar—’

  ‘Good God, man, it isn’t there! It’s on the far side of the garden. Sitting on a rose bush. I can see it from here.’

  ‘Gracious me, so it is—’

  In his sudden excitement Mr Greenwood let the ladder slip so that it crashed into the laburnum tree, splitting several branches. This event had barely started to madden Mr Daly afresh when he was utterly stunned to see his wife tripping across the dew-soaked lawn with a glass bowl of brown sugar in one hand and a packet of corn-flakes in the other.

  Out of an astonished silence he managed at last to produce a wordless croak or two but these were too feeble for either Mrs Daly or Mr Greenwood to hear. By this time Mr Greenwood was approaching the bush of cream roses with the creeping stealth of a hunter of rare fauna. With coaxing whispers he begged the blue budgerigar to think of Mumsie and come home, at the same time waving his butterfly net. A few moments later the triumph of capture seemed to be almost within his grasp but at the crucial moment Mrs Daly called:

  ‘Here I am with the sugar and the corn-flakes—’

  The sudden sound of her voice startled the budgerigar into flight. With what seemed to be almost mischievous flutterings it crossed the rose-bed and flew over a thick cupressus hedge into the road beyond.

  With the desperation of a man pursuing a runaway Mr Greenwood wrenched open the garden gate and gave chase, madly waving the butterfly net, with Mrs Daly only a yard or two behind him, waving the corn-flakes and the bowl of sugar in excited unison.

  Outside in the road a lost and bewildered Mr Greenwood stood staring this way and that, unable to see his pet, but joy flooded his face as Mrs Daly called:

  ‘I see him! There he goes! Over there by the telephone box.’

  Both Mr Greenwood and Mrs Daly started running. With a few last spasms of speechless wrath Mr Daly watched them go and then dragged himself back to bed, half-convinced he was part of some wakeful nightmare.

  ‘He’s perching on the top of the box,’ Mrs Daly said. ‘Perhaps if I put the corn-flakes and the sugar inside and held the door open he might be tempted to—’

  ‘I rather fancy I could reach him with the net. But we’ll have to be quiet. He’s an awfully temperamental thing.’

  While Mr Greenwood circled the telephone box with renewed stealth Mrs Daly put the bowl of sugar and the corn-flakes into the box and then stood outside, holding the door open. The air was breathless. The sudden clatter of a crate of milk bottles on the pavement farther down the road was merely one of the customary sounds of early morning and did nothing to disturb her at all.

  She could now no longer see Mr Greenwood, who had gone into stealthy hiding on the far side of the box, and though she longed to know what was happening she had sense enough not to call. Once or twice she heard Mr Greenwood feeding the air with sweet whispers but otherwise a long time seemed to pass with nothing happening. />
  ‘Having a bit of late supper, lady? Or is it breakfast? Do you mind? I’d like to use the blower. My milk van’s broken down.’

  On the face of the early milkman there was an odd look of disbelief, irritation and sheer astonishment that was almost spiritual. As he gazed at Mrs Daly, her wet bedroom slippers and her nightdress protruding some six inches or so from under her dressing-gown his lips seemed to be framing strange silent imprecations, as if in prayer.

  ‘Oh! I’m so sorry. We’re trying to catch a budgerigar.’

  ‘We?’

  The milkman, though accustomed to seeing incredible sights in the early morning, looked sharply round, rather as if expecting to see a crazy ghost.

  A moment later one actually appeared in the form of Mr Greenwood, madly running.

  ‘He’s gone again! You frightened him off! There he goes!’

  With lean strides Mr Greenwood tore off down the road, waving the butterfly net. Mrs Daly snatching up the bowl of sugar and the packet of corn-flakes and followed in enthusiastic pursuit, to be watched with a sort of drugged patience by the milkman, who finally called out with some acidity that they should try putting salt on its tail.

  Three hundred yards down the road a heavily panting Mr Greenwood came to a halt under the last street lamp, on the arm of which the budgerigar was perched with the sly calm that both precedes and succeeds mischief. With little breath left Mr Greenwood could only shake a trembling forefinger in admonishment, his eyes actually watering with fatigue.

  Presently Mrs Daly arrived, panting too. A certain archness, almost a smooth scorn, was now evident in the pose of the budgerigar, whose flight had left it both fresh and exhilarated.

  ‘I’ve just thought of something,’ Mrs Daly said. ‘Doesn’t he have a mate? Don’t these birds pine if they don’t have company? I mean they’re love-birds, aren’t they?’

  ‘No, he doesn’t,’ Mr Greenwood said. ‘We’re always meaning to get another, but somehow – Winkie, do come down now. Do be a good boy and come down.’

  ‘Yes, Wee Willie Winkie,’ Mrs Daly said, ‘you’re really very naughty. Why didn’t you stay in your nice cage? You’ll get eaten by a cat.’