There were skylarks over North Foreland, so high you could barely see them, but each had its own room of song. Chalk paths crossed the farmland and there was an aroma of hot weeds. It had been stifling all day; even now, in late afternoon, the fields were shimmering.
Gwendolin wore a blue cotton dress and a funny-looking straw hat that seemed too big for her. It had cherries and tiny painted apples on it. She’d taken her shoes off and given them to Thomas to carry, walked a little way ahead of him picking the big daisies. They had held hands and they had kissed, but they’d hardly talked all day. She told him she was ‘three-quarters’ through Copperfield, but it was obvious she wasn’t past page 26.
He smiled but didn’t say anything.
‘You seem so distant, Tom.’
‘Not really.’
‘You are.’
‘I’ve been trying to work out a poem,’ he said. ‘“Chocolate Beach”. But I can’t seem to get the words in order.’
And then they’d sat for a while in the meadow, eating biscuits she’d made, drinking lemonade, and lying on their backs in the scarlet poppies, looking up at the sky and listening to the larks. It was the second Sunday in the month. Across the headland, they could hear the bells ringing at Holy Trinity …
Thomas was filled with misgivings, a foreboding he kept to himself. It wasn’t so much a presentiment that something dreadful was going to happen, but that something dreadful was already in process. More than once, Gwendolin had sat up to ask him what the matter was.
‘Just thinking,’ he told her.
‘Why don’t you think out loud?’
He took her hand.
‘Is it your parents that’s worrying you?’
‘No. I’m not thinking about them.’
‘Then what?’
It was pointless telling her what he would never know himself, so he lied, said he just didn’t really feel like talking much today, there wasn’t really much the matter at all. It was a lie of some dimension. He was in a jungle of anxious thoughts. All this had to go somewhere, surely? He couldn’t live the rest of his life with this? It was like a feeling of regret, of guilt almost, without knowing the felony. Had there been some kind of deal done with Rob, a contract to ‘be his father’, that was broken? He would never know now. Walter was dying and hadn’t spoken for a week. Neither had his parents, hadn’t said a word. What was going to happen to them? He imagined they would stay together for the newspapers. They didn’t need a ‘marriage’ for what they had, just an endless awful road with no stops. And if they ever ran out of fuel, they’d get out and fucking push …
‘Thomas? Come on?’
Gwendolin had wandered a long way up the path in front of him. She turned and stood clutching a swathe of daisies, her hat at her side, the sun inside her hair. He looked at her and loved her, thought they would always be together, he and her, although this was the last day he was ever going to see her in his life.
A wall of ancient flint crumbled into cow parsley. Gwendolin sat on it waiting for him, knees tucked under her chin. Her dress had collapsed up her legs, her smile was sweetly promiscuous.
‘I’ve got a present for you.’
He climbed the wall and sat next to her to take it. She’d torn the string out of her hat and tied it around the daisies.
‘They’re to cheer you up.’
He made a big thing of sniffing them, of getting cheered up by them, and realised he was a bit breathless.
‘You’re sweating, Tom.’
‘It’s hot.’
He felt a zip of perspiration running down his cheek. Gwendolin leant in and kissed it, touched it with her tongue. He wasn’t at all sure he liked her doing it.
‘Why did you do that?’
‘I wanted to,’ she whispered, her lips still very close. ‘It tastes like seaweed.’
‘When did you eat seaweed?’
‘You taste like the sea.’
They kissed again, her fingers searching a way into his shirt. And his hands were all over her. He could smell heat in the nettles and the aromatic in her hair. She was wearing the same perfume, like vinegar mixed with roses. At the periphery of the kisses he could see her naked thighs. He thought about it, and thought about the thought, and then he didn’t think about it and just did it. He put his hand up her dress. A pulse of raw adrenalin hit him in the brain. It was a moment of exquisite crisis whose penalty was reward. Gwendolin opened her legs and let him touch her. He put fingers inside her knickers. It was without prohibition, no censure but the elastic across his hand.
Gwendolin kissed him, complete, luscious kisses her mouth wouldn’t satisfy. ‘We could do it, Tom?’ she whispered. He felt her heart beat, the contour of her breast. Everything she was was his, and everything he could ever want was her …
‘I love you so much,’ she said.
‘I love you so much too.’
‘We could do it, darling?’
A divine anaesthetic drenched his senses. She abandoned the wall without letting go of his hand and he followed in a kind of dream. They were going to make love. He could hear crickets in the field, and a cuckoo in the wood. They walked towards it hand in hand, up a gentle slope away from the path.
There were bluebells here, spilling from the trees, washes of indigo stewing in the sun. They lay down together, and what he wanted was her pleasure to approve. But it was different this time, this time he was to love her without error. She guided his hand, he touched where instructed, kissing with her enthusiasm. Her dress was open at every button, lifted and relinquished; she wore no brassière. Whatever else was her underwear was lost about her legs.
Her mouth called him darling, and he was kissing the word. Then, with unexpected abruptness, she put an end to the embrace, sat up and knelt in the flowers. Thomas looked at her with a frisson of doubt: had he done something wrong, had he hurt her?
Staring at him all the while she reached for the hem of her dress, lifting it in one simple movement. When her arms were stretched above her head, with her breasts raised, eyes looking into his, she paused for the smallest moment. It was an expression of breathtaking femininity, so beautiful, she looked like a spell, blue eyes and bluebells behind her like ink. She was completely naked now, except ribbon in her hair, her knickers pulled down and useless around her thighs. Yet not a trace of embarrassment or disconcertion; were it not for the imposition of her sensuality, she might have been alone.
Still kneeling, she took the remnant of what she wore past her toes, dropped it like a little pink handkerchief next to her dress. She was looking at him, one knee slightly turned in and the only symptom of modesty. Thomas was bewitched, knelt facing her, trying to still the arousal in his breathing. She touched his lips with her lips, but it wasn’t a kiss. Diligent fingers unbuttoned his shirt, let it fall from his shoulders. He felt the sun on his back and didn’t move. The same fingers undid his belt, and the buttons underneath. She opened his jeans. With sweetest care, she slipped fingers inside his pants, gently moved them away from him, lowering them with one hand, while caressing him with the other. ‘I want you to take your clothes off.’ He barely heard her, but did as he was told. They undressed him together, Gwendolin discarding his clothes on top of hers.
She put her mouth to his, again it was no kiss, the tip of her tongue choosing which lip to touch. There was something in his head as dangerous as a blush, but it felt like a kind of radiance. Now naked as she, they lay down once again in the flowers.
‘I love you, Thomas.’
Reckless caresses, tingling like sherbet, one found a way to his sex. She teased at first, hardly touching, endearing with the back of fingers, as if to soothe. He felt a shudder in her blood as his fingers returned to her. She was liquid and ravishing, kissing properly with her legs very apart, and rubbing him firmly now. He belonged to her, and she to him, and he knew she wanted him where his fingers already were.
He could smell the hot earth, bluebells and her hair. Her eyes were closed. There was a catch in her breath as he moved on top of her. He pushed where he thought, but couldn’t get inside.
‘Let me, darling, I’ve done it before.’
‘Have you?’ he said, and felt foolish saying it.
‘Lots and lots of times, but never with anyone I love like you.’
So it was the first time, and she was helping him. ‘There.'
'There. Push now.’
He pushed inside her. She felt like light. A stench of bluebells, vanquished in ruthless joy.
He could feel her racing heart and, as he began to fuck her, something cold going up his arse. Was it her? It wasn’t. It was a dog, a fucking Corgi, sniffing and licking his bottom. He had paws on Thomas’s back, and was trying to mount him.
‘Branwell! Come here!’
Thomas saw the dog skid off, but didn’t see its outraged owner. Her name was Penelope, and she was fifty-eight years old. She walked briskly away, tugging the ridiculous animal on its lead. Shortly after, she was followed up the path by her son, the maths guru and Rotary Club member, Gordon Norris. He was some distance off, but near enough to recognise the lovers.
He watched them, for perhaps longer than was necessary, to get the gist of what was going on.
‘Come along, Gordon.’
She had scarpered up the wall, her fat arse following towards the side-car.
Norris followed her.
Gwendolin and Thomas were still fucking. She was full of light. It was coming out of him, and he fucked it into her.
After love they lay naked until the evening came. She nuzzled in his arms; it was still incredibly hot. She was a part of him that would always be, and he a part of her.
He would remember this night for ever, the moon rising in its yellow room of heaven, her nakedness in the broken flowers.
There was singing in the darkness, but in this infinite darkness, there was light. He could remember her name, hear her laughter in a plait of burning stars.
She was the love of his life.
It was a morning of miracles. You don’t need the list, but the sun was on its way and the roses full of dew. Outside on the chimney pots, a bird was singing sweet as jam. And at ten-past eight, on this morning of miracles, Thomas’s grandfather died.
There was no shock of course, and very little fuss. Rob went to work and a pair of young undertakers came round to take the body away. It was all done very quickly. Thomas didn’t want to look at him when he was dead.
‘It’s a blessed relief, really,’ said Ethel.
There were relatives to inform, and at last, a phone call was put into Vicar Potts. The Reverend had ‘popped out’ and Susan took it, offered condolences, very sympathetic, but better to speak to Michael, ‘Yes, yes, he’ll be home in a minute.’
She cradled the phone and was already on her way back upstairs. She carried a fat can of white paint, and a pair of ancient brushes still melting in a jar of turpentine. It had been a long winter, and what with Maurice ill for most of it, a bit of belated spring-cleaning was in order. She was going to do the landing and his room.
Just then, the Reverend appeared in the hall, his sunlight harsh on a polished wood floor. Susan leant over the banisters, and shouted down the news of Walter Furseman’s passing.
‘All right, I’ll give Mrs Penman a call.’
‘I’ll need your help in a minute,’ she said.
‘For what?’
‘I’ll need your help to move the bed.’
Precisely fifty-five minutes later, Potts sat at his kitchen table with the pornographic photographs and accompanying literature. There were various dirty magazines, including something called Razzle and another by the name of Spick and Span. Almost all of it was pretty girls climbing over gates, showing their stocking tops and underwear. Lewd, but innocuous stuff compared to the photographs.
How could anyone refer to that monstrous aberration as ‘Eve’? And this complementary, male indecency with hair slicked down, given the name of the finest, first sentient creature of God?
‘It’s an iniquity,’ thundered Potts. ‘An outrage.’
But curiously, he wasn’t as offended by the Duck and Apple as he was by the pages that came out of the same envelope. It was a story – or part of a story – about a fifteen-year-old boy at a boarding-school, and his relationship with a nymphomaniac matron. Some of the lines were as unhappily unforgettable, as they were unforgivable …
Viz …
One of the older boys, Watson, a blond little homo, who had sucked him off in the bath house, told him to look out. ‘She’s got a cunt like a leprechaun trap,’ he said.
And …
With womanly vigour she got hold of his wanking-piece, stropped his member, and whipped his balls.
And …
She brought in Mrs Herbert, an enormous hagiographer who taught divinity. ‘I’m going to put you to the breast,’ said Matron, and he was forced to suckle a tit with a nipple the size of a lolly.
‘It’s iniquitous!’
The Reverend exhaled, flattening another butt in the ashtray.
‘Might I read it?’ said Susan.
‘I’m not at all sure you should.’
‘He’s my son too, Michael.’
An undeniable truth; even so he hesitated before handing the pages across. They were in no particular order. She sat at the table to read, and he definitely didn’t like her doing so …
The boy went up and knocked on her door. ‘Come in,’ said a cultured, slightly husky voice. And he did go in. It was raining softly against french windows, a small coal fire in her grate. She was sitting at her writing bureau. She didn’t look up at him. ‘Take your blazer off, and go and stand by the fire. I don’t want you to get cold.’ ‘I’m not cold, Matron.’ ‘Do as you’re told,’ she said. She continued writing, he could hear the pen scratching, smell her perfume from here. She wore a full-skirted, very tailored black dress, a single row of pearls, and black high-heeled shoes. She also wore glasses which she took off. It was possible, that, not so long ago, she was very beautiful …
Susan turned over and found the next page in correct order.
The furniture in the room, or chambre, as it seemed, seemed to be sort of old French furniture … gilded chairs. He took his blazer off and stood in the firelight, it was the only light. She at last walked over to him, slim, handsome legs, a taut bosom that seemed too full for her. She sat in a gilt armchair, discreetly pulling her frock quite high over her knees, and him towards her. ‘You are a strong boy?’ she said, eyes on his legs and her hands shortly after following. They examined him, calves and thighs, gliding up and down, ever inquisitive, exploring, from time to time, right up inside his blue serge, schoolboy shorts. Although engaged to make legitimate examination of his legs, the back of her fingers touched lightly several times in a more private area. ‘I know you are a new boy,’ she said. ‘Shy? But from reports I have of you, you seem very bookish. Handsome little boys like you shouldn’t have their noses in books. You should be out on the playing fields, and in summer, swimming naked in the river.’ ‘I don’t like sports, Matron,’ said he. ‘There must be a reason for that,’ she replied. Uncrossing her legs, she sat back. Her dress seemed to have moved higher. There was a glimpse of something that might have been a white suspender. ‘I think we better get you undressed,’ she whispered …
‘My word,’ said Susan, looking up. ‘It’s spicy.’
Potts slammed his hand on top of it all. He would have no more of this. She would read no more. He snatched the pages, and would deal with this when Maurice came home.
An eventuality that happened at half-past four.
The wrath was deep and instant. While his mother stood silently by, the Vicar puts oaths in the air. Maurice had never seen his father so enraged, a thrashing seemed imminent, there was but one way out …
‘They’re not mine,’ he said.
‘They were under your bed,’ bellowed Potts.
Maurice shook his head, trying to look amazed.
‘They’re not mine,’ he repeated.
‘Then whose are they?’
‘I don’t know.’
Potts moved in and grabbed him with some emotion.
‘Now listen to me, I want the truth, boy. If they’re not yours, what are they doing under your bed? I want to know who put them there.’
Maurice looked to his mother for support, but didn’t get it. The arsehole was freaking out. He didn’t want to drop anyone in it, but was reluctantly impelled into that desperate arena of last resort, known in the trade as, ‘Wouldn’t you?’
‘It might have been, Thomas,’ he offered.
‘Penman?’ boomed Potts.
It was possible?
After a bruising moment, Potts released the arm, staring hard at his son. He wanted to believe his innocence, but couldn’t quite accept it, not, that is, until Susan reminded him the Penman boy had been round in March, inexplicably lifting Maurice’s bed.
Suddenly it made sense. An ingratiating smile from Maurice. Suddenly he was off the hook.
‘Yes, that must have been when he done it.’
‘Penman. Penman,’ said Potts. A youth already banned from this house. It was Penman.
The situation had ameliorated itself remarkably in Maurice’s favour, but Potts was still furious. His immediate inclination was to get on the phone to Thomas’s parents, but in view of the call he’d just had from them, it wasn’t appropriate.
But he wasn’t going to let this go. He would take this matter further.
He took it to Enright.
‘You are to go and see Matron.’ Matron had to see all the new boys. One of the older boys, Watson, a blond little homo, who had sucked him off in the bath house, told him to look out. ‘She’s got a cunt …’
Enright raised eyes with a dozen pages read, perhaps a dozen left to go? He sat behind his desk, Potts and Norris at its other side, looking back at him. The headmaster made a note on his pad and, skipping a page or two, continued to read. The atmosphere was grave …
‘I think we better get you undressed,’ she whispered. ‘I’ve got religious prep,’ said the boy, in alarm. ‘All lessons for you,’ said she, ‘have been cancelled today.’ Elegant fingers reached up, unknotting and removing his tie. There were a deal of resistant buttons, first those of his shirt, then those of his shorts. She took his shorts down, and beckoned him to step out of them. He realised she was French. He was now wearing only small black gymnasium shoes, underpants, and a little vest. She told him to hold it up. Conscientious fingers examined his chest and tummy, they tickled so, and to his horror made his penis rise. She turned him round and pulled his pants down to examine his bottom. ‘Just loosen your legs for me?’ she said. He felt fingers slip between, a hand delicately cupping his testicles. She held him quite tightly. A tiny clock struck five on the mantelpiece, he felt a flood of shame. And he had a funny feeling in his penis – meek – but rude. He knew she was going to turn him back to her …
Enright took glasses off, stuck a little finger into the corner of his eye. He’d had enough of this, and addressed himself to Norris.
‘Where is he?’ he said.
‘Outside, waiting in the corridor.’
‘All right, let’s have him in.’
‘With respect, Headmaster,’ interjected Potts, ‘I know it is repugnant reading, but I do think you should finish, just the last page or two?’
Enright had been into shady dormitories of teenage sodomy, abuse through the pockets of trousers, down throats, and up corsets of a ‘Ladies’ Paradise’. He shook his head, caring for no more, but Potts insisted, and he deferred to the Reverend’s judgement …
She turned him back to her, his shame exploded. His pants were around his knees, and he was in full cock. ‘I think we’ve found out what the matter is,’ whispered she. Her fingertips fell down his penis like the petals of a collapsing rose. She turned him sideways, carefully escorted his male up to full erection, like a terrier’s tail at an important show. And then, like her trained little pet (as soon he was to be), he was turned again to face her. ‘You may ask permission to remove the rest of your underwear.’ He asked, and permission was granted. ‘And now, I want you to go over to that little table, and bring me what’s in the drawer.’ Wearing only shoes, he did her bidding, stood in front of her while she opened a small black velvet case. ‘Put your hands behind your back, and push your bottom forward.’ ‘Please, Matron,’ said the boy. ‘If you don’t want it smacked, push your bottom forward.’ From the scented pouch, she produced a lead and tiny collar, like a dog collar, and secured it around his member. ‘It’s very tight, Matron.’ She looked up, delicious red lips in a smile of charming sympathy. ‘I know,’ she said, ‘I’m sorry, it might have to be just a little tighter.’ And it was, and the lead was connected to the collar with a click. She stood, tugging him gently after. ‘Come along, I’m going to take you to the infirmary.’ ‘For what?’ he said, in further alarm. ‘I’m not ill.’ ‘To bathe you, and milk you, and no more questions.’ She put a finger across her lips, and opened the door. ‘What boys like you need is discipline, and affection, and you will find I have an abundance of both.’ He followed her out, the head of his penis throbbing like a turkey’s heart. With his lead attached, she led the naked boy, silently, along the chilly corridor …
And that really was it, for Enright. There were more pages, but he wasn’t having any more.
‘Bring him in, Mr Norris.’
Norris momentarily disappeared into the corridor, came back with Thomas following. He didn’t seem to know quite what was up. But then he saw Potts, and the pornography, and he knew. All sat, except he, and they were all staring with expressions of thankless contempt. It was a committee of moral men, Potts, Norris, Enright, the latter pacing himself to get through it all. His eyes raised, Thomas was so panicked, he could barely follow the indictment.
Here was a boy, according to Enright, who was a seasoned pornographist, a masturbator, with a predilection for loitering in girls’ lavatories. (Had Enright not beaten him for that, but some few months ago?) But worse, there was worse, so much worse than that. Loathsome as these photographs were, there was so much worse to come. For here was a boy, this rueful ‘peeping Tom’, who had taken a girl into a field, a mere child of fifteen, and had illicit, underage, and criminal sex.
Potts cleared his throat.
‘Mr Norris saw you in a field at North Foreland with Gwendolin Hackett.’
Was it a statement, or a question? It was both. Clearly, what they were all looking at was a fully formed, full-blown, adolescent pervert. There was an execrable silence before Enright spoke again.
‘This is a matter of utmost seriousness. I have spoken to your mother, who, of course, informed me of the unhappy situation with your grandfather. It is the reason we have waited some days before bringing you in here. And because of the circumstances, I don’t intend to deal with this from a disciplinary perspective now. But dealt with, it will be. Let me assure you of that.’
The Reverend nodded in sombre agreement. Enright continued.
‘For now, I will only say this. I spoke to Gwendolin’s parents at some length on Monday, and her mother again, on Tuesday morning. You may, or may not have noticed, that she hasn’t been in school.’
‘I haven’t been in school myself, sir.’
‘What?’
‘I haven’t been in school myself.’
‘Quite so,’ said Enright, correcting himself. He unleashed his glasses, wiped them with a clean white handkerchief, and put them on again. ‘There was a consideration of making Gwendolin a Ward of Court. It has been decided, however, that she will move to Edinburgh, live with her aunt, and complete her schooling there.’
Thomas was mortified, felt like he couldn’t breathe.
‘Why?’ he said.
‘Why?’ echoed Enright. ‘Why? I don’t think you realise the seriousness of your situation. You are the owner of these detestable photographs. They are odious and despicable. This sort of material is criminal, Penman. Do you realise that?
‘I suppose so,’ faltered Thomas.
‘Then why bring it round to my son?’ demanded Potts.
‘Where did you get it?’ This question was from Norris, in similar tone.
Thomas shook his head and didn’t answer.
‘You are an utterly degenerate boy, Penman.’ He rapped fingers hard on the photographs. ‘I can’t imagine where you got this filth, but it is utterly repugnant. And now you ask why Gwendolin Hackett has been taken by her mother to live in Scotland. Do you consider yourself a fit associate? Do you? The girl is fifteen years old.’ He said it like it was an accusation. ‘Let me tell you, Penman, if it wasn’t for the regrettable circumstance of your grandfather’s death, I would be referring this to a different authority. Are you aware that intercourse with a fifteen-year-old girl is rape? An imprisonable offence?’
‘Answer him, Penman,’ said Norris.
‘No, sir.’ He looked at him but could hardly talk. ‘It wasn’t rape, sir.’
‘Don’t contradict me,’ snappped Enright, his eyes inflamed behind the spectacles. ‘I’m dealing with the world as it is, not as you might wish it to be. It is rape. Statutory rape.’
They were, this committee, what pornography is, making something beautiful into something that is vile. Hot tears pushed around Thomas’s eyes and streamed down his face. Not so much in sadness, but in rage. And yes, in overwhelming sadness too.
‘I love her, sir,’ he said.
Enright looked at him through a long silence, and replied with all the dismal authority life had invested in him.
‘You don’t know what love is.’
He stood up and walked around his desk, slapped Thomas hard across the face.
‘I shall be writing to your parents. Some measures will have to be taken as a result of all this. When they are decided on, you will be informed.’ He opened the door. ‘Now, get out.’
Thomas got out of the office, got his bicycle out of the sheds, and got out of the school. The day was hot, he walked with the bike, he was in no hurry to get anywhere. Only one thing for certain, he would never go back into that ugly fucking building for as long as he lived. They would have to kill him and carry him in dead to get him back in there.
He threw his hat into a hedge, all sorts of tears still around. Scotland couldn’t last for ever? He hoped Gwendolin didn’t feel alone and sad. There would have to be a way to get her back. He would go there, walk there if necessary, walk to fucking Scotland and get her back …
He walked in the general direction of his home, a headful of clouds developing grandiose schemes of rescue, one involving horses and a rowing boat on the Clyde. If Gwendolin wanted to, they could run away together, get married if necessary. Gretna Green was in Scotland. He felt the loss of his grandfather; Walter was the only one who would understand, have the right advice. They buried him yesterday, that third-rate Christian with the eyebrows had buried him, he’d gone into the same plot as Old Moules. Thomas wasn’t asked to the funeral – it would be too upsetting for him, they said – and for once they were probably right. He was so upset he didn’t see the street. He hated Walter being dead, he was gone for ever, the truth buried with him. No chance of any truth now. He could ask Ethel, it was a possibility, but he knew she would never tell. ‘You’ll have to talk to your mother,’ that’s what she would say. Ethel stayed out of things, that’s how she got by …
Christ, he had a headache.
He had arrived without realising it and turned into the drive. Smoke hung over the gardens, lines of blue light through the apple trees. Thomas peered over the wall and could see his father, chaperoning a blaze at the edge of the little orchard. He had a wheelbarrow of pornography, photos of nude girls scattered in the grass. It was another funeral of sorts, and in some organic, inexplicable way, the end of Thomas’s childhood.
Shards were rising in the heat, pages on fire as they went up. Rob fed the flames with handfuls, glancing occasionally at the pictures and smiling to himself as he tossed them on. Thumbing through one small volume, he hesitated. It disappeared into his trouser pocket. Otherwise, he burnt the lot, came out with another load. He destroyed everything, and when he’d finished burning it, he got into the Wolsey, and Went Around the Corner.
Thomas sat upstairs thinking about all those tedious hours he’d spent filing keys. But he was already sad enough to feel sad for that, and actually felt nothing. How was it the keys were so readily available to Rob? He hated adults and was becoming one. In three days he would be sixteen …
That night in his room he wrote a letter to Gwendolin. Told her he would always love her, that she was the love of his life, and that no matter what happened, he would find a way for them to be together. He wrote her address in Queen’s Road, and ‘Please Forward’ in a corner of the envelope.
In the morning he would post it.
In the morning he got up early, just after dawn, and went down into the gardens. It was glistening and warm already. For a moment he looked around like he didn’t know where he was going. Where was he going? He was going to get all the keys out of his workshop and throw them in the sea. He was going to throw all the detonators in, and the half-made bombs. They were childish things and he wasn’t a child any more – all that was past; he knew his life had changed irrevocably …
Crossing the vegetable gardens, he made an unscheduled detour through the orchard. There was a vague smell of burning still in the air. The bonfire was a grey heap, like mould on batteries. He kicked gently at the ashes, stirring up bits of a brassière catalogue, and the charred remains of what might have been a book. Only the top part survived, page numbers, and a few chapter headings. ‘Halibut’, one said, and ‘Dover Sole’. It fell to bits in his hand and he let it drop. Something else in the ashes? He picked it up. It was a coin, an American silver dollar with a hole drilled in it. He rubbed it with his thumb until the metal shone through. It was Walter’s unlucky coin.
Thomas put it into his pocket and went into his workshop. He found a piece of sacking and spread it on the bench, gathered all the keys and explosives, tying the whole thing up in a bundle. He was on his way out when he noticed something white at the edge of his vision. It turned his head so sharply it almost hurt. There was a tape, a long transmission out of the Tishman. Where had it come from? Dumping the sack, he tore it off to read
. ...– .–. –.– – – .... .. –. – –. – – – .–.. .– ... .– ..– –.. .. ... – .–. ..– .
The message was astonishing, from a dead man, and Thomas was so moved by it he couldn’t move at all. It must have taken every last bit of Walter’s life to work the Morse key.
It said: ‘Everything Olanda said was true.’
Birds were singing outside. Thomas continued to read.
.–.. – – – ...– . .. ... – .... . – – – –. .–.. –.– – .–. . .– .–.. – .–. ..– – – .... – – – .. .–.. – – – ...– . –.– – – – –
‘Love is the only truth, Tom. I love you.’
Thomas stood for a long time in the silent workshop, relishing sweet tears. Walter loved him and never let him down. He could feel the love of the old man, and felt more loved than he ever had in his life.
He put the transmission in his pocket and walked out, down through the empty town and down to the sea. The jetty was deserted to sunlight, it wasn’t yet six o’clock. At its end, he stopped and leant over the balustrade. The tide was on the turn, beginning to expose the rock pools, ruined waves coming in the colour of shit. There were many dead birds along the shoreline, everything was choked with oil. You could smell it, but couldn’t really see it in the pools. It was the same colour as the seaweed. ‘It’s like chocolate,’ Gwendolin had said. ‘Petrels in oil?’ said Thomas, feeling smart. If only he could have that day again, and do it differently. They would have been at North Foreland so much earlier if he hadn’t sat here, trying to write her a poem. And yet, it was the best day in his life.
He’d forgotten to bring the keys and bombs, but felt in his pocket for Walter’s coin. Stepping back, he threw it as hard and as far as he could into the sea …
‘Fuck it,’ he said.
And he stuck a fag in his mouth, and turned back to the town, with nothing much to look forward to, but life.