Dark Entries Page 5

  ‘They have ways of their own in Holihaven,’ said Mrs Pascoe. Her undertone of militancy implied, among other things, that if Gerald and Phrynne chose to leave, they were at liberty to do so. Gerald did not care for that either: her attitude would have been different, he felt, had there been anywhere else for them to go. The bells were making him touchy and irritable.

  ‘It’s a very pretty room,’ said Phrynne. ‘I adore four-posters.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Gerald to Mrs Pascoe. ‘What time’s dinner?’

  ‘Seven-thirty. You’ve time for a drink in the bar first.’

  She went.

  ‘We certainly have,’ said Gerald when the door was shut. ‘It’s only just six.’

  ‘Actually,’ said Phrynne, who was standing by the window looking down into the street, ‘I like church bells.’

  ‘All very well,’ said Gerald, ‘but on one’s honeymoon they distract the attention.’

  ‘Not mine,’ said Phrynne simply. Then she added, ‘There’s still no one about.’

  ‘I expect they’re all in the bar.’

  ‘I don’t want a drink. I want to explore the town.’

  ‘As you wish. But hadn’t you better unpack?’

  ‘I ought to, but I’m not going to. Not until after I’ve seen the sea.’ Such small shows of independence in her enchanted Gerald.

  Mrs Pascoe was not about when they passed through the lounge, nor was there any sound of activity in the establishment.

  Outside, the bells seemed to be booming and bounding immediately over their heads.

  ‘It’s like warriors fighting in the sky,’ shouted Phrynne. ‘Do you think the sea’s down there?’ She indicated the direction from which they had previously retraced their steps.

  ‘I imagine so. The street seems to end in nothing. That would be the sea.’

  ‘Come on. Let’s run.’ She was off, before he could even think about it. Then there was nothing to do but run after her. He hoped there were not eyes behind blinds.

  She stopped, and held wide her arms to catch him. The top of her head hardly came up to his chin. He knew she was silently indicating that his failure to keep up with her was not a matter for self-consciousness.

  ‘Isn’t it beautiful?’

  ‘The sea?’ There was no moon; and little was discernible beyond the end of the street.

  ‘Not only.’

  ‘Everything but the sea. The sea’s invisible.’

  ‘You can smell it.’

  ‘I certainly can’t hear it.’

  She slackened her embrace and cocked her head away from him.

  ‘The bells echo so much, it’s as if there were two churches.’

  ‘I’m sure there are more than that. There always are in old towns like this.’ Suddenly he was struck by the significance of his words in relation to what she had said. He shrank into himself, tautly listening.

  ‘Yes,’ cried Phrynne delightedly. ‘It is another church.’

  ‘Impossible,’ said Gerald. ‘Two churches wouldn’t have practice ringing on the same night.’

  ‘I’m quite sure. I can hear one lot of bells with my left ear, and another lot with my right.’

  They had still seen no one. The sparse gas lights fell on the furnishings of a stone quay, small but plainly in regular use.

  ‘The whole population must be ringing the bells.’ His own remark discomfited Gerald.

  ‘Good for them.’ She took his hand. ‘Let’s go down on the beach and look for the sea.’

  They descended a flight of stone steps at which the sea had sucked and bitten. The beach was as stony as the steps, but lumpier.

  ‘We’ll just go straight on,’ said Phrynne. ‘Until we find it.’

  Left to himself, Gerald would have been less keen. The stones were very large and very slippery, and his eyes did not seem to be becoming accustomed to the dark.

  ‘You’re right, Phrynne, about the smell.’

  ‘Honest sea smell.’

  ‘Just as you say.’ He took it rather to be the smell of dense rotting weed; across which he supposed they must be slithering. It was not a smell he had previously encountered in such strength.

  Energy could hardly be spared for thinking, and advancing hand in hand was impossible.

  After various random remarks on both sides and the lapse of what seemed a very long time, Phrynne spoke again. ‘Gerald, where is it? What sort of seaport is it that has no sea?’

  She continued onwards, but Gerald stopped and looked back. He had thought the distance they had gone overlong, but was startled to see how great it was. The darkness was doubtless deceitful, but the few lights on the quay appeared as on a distant horizon.

  The far glimmering specks still in his eyes, he turned and looked after Phrynne. He could barely see her. Perhaps she was progressing faster without him.

  ‘Phrynne! Darling!’

  Unexpectedly she gave a sharp cry.

  ‘Phrynne!’

  She did not answer.

  ‘Phrynne!’

  Then she spoke more or less calmly. ‘Panic over. Sorry, darling. I stood on something.’

  He realised that a panic it had indeed been; at least in him.

  ‘You’re all right?’

  ‘Think so.’

  He struggled up to her. ‘The smell’s worse than ever.’ It was overpowering.

  ‘I think it’s coming from what I stepped on. My foot went right in, and then there was the smell.’

  ‘I’ve never known anything like it.’

  ‘Sorry darling,’ she said gently mocking him. ‘Let’s go away.’

  ‘Let’s go back. Don’t you think?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Phrynne. ‘But I must warn you I’m very disappointed. I think that seaside attractions should include the sea.’

  He noticed that as they retreated, she was scraping the sides of one shoe against the stones, as if trying to clean it.

  ‘I think the whole place is a disappointment,’ he said. ‘I really must apologise. We’ll go somewhere else.’

  ‘I like the bells,’ she replied, making a careful reservation.

  Gerald said nothing.

  ‘I don’t want to go somewhere where you’ve been before.’

  The bells rang out over the desolate unattractive beach. Now the sound seemed to be coming from every point along the shore.

  ‘I suppose all the churches practise on the same night in order to get it over with,’ said Gerald.

  ‘They do it in order to see which can ring the loudest,’ said Phrynne.

  ‘Take care you don’t twist your ankle.’

  The din as they reached the rough little quay was such as to suggest that Phrynne’s idea was literally true.

  *

  The Coffee Room was so low that Gerald had to dip beneath a sequence of thick beams.

  ‘Why “Coffee Room”?’ asked Phrynne, looking at the words on the door. ‘I saw a notice that coffee will only be served in the lounge.’

  ‘It’s the lucus a non lucendo principle.’

  ‘That explains everything. I wonder where we sit.’ A single electric lantern, mass-produced in an antique pattern, had been turned on. The bulb was of that limited wattage which is peculiar to hotels. It did little to penetrate the shadows.

  ‘The lucus a non lucendo principle is the principle of calling white black.’

  ‘Not at all,’ said a voice from the darkness. ‘On the contrary. The word “black” comes from an ancient root which means “to bleach”.’

  They had thought themselves alone, but now saw a small man seated by himself at an unlighted corner table. In the darkness he looked like a monkey.

  ‘I stand corrected,’ said Gerald.

  They sat at the table under the lantern.

  The man in the corner spoke again. ‘Why are you here at all?’

  Phrynne looked frightened, but Gerald replied quietly. ‘We’re on holiday. We prefer it out of the season. I presume you are Commandant Shotcroft?’

&n
bsp; ‘No need to presume.’ Unexpectedly the Commandant switched on the antique lantern which was nearest to him. His table was littered with a finished meal. It struck Gerald that he must have switched off the light when he heard them approach the Coffee Room. ‘I’m going anyway.’

  ‘Are we late?’ asked Phrynne, always the assuager of situations.

  ‘No, you’re not late,’ called the Commandant in a deep moody voice. ‘My meals are prepared half an hour before the time the rest come in. I don’t like eating in company.’ He had risen to his feet. ‘So perhaps you’ll excuse me.’

  Without troubling about an answer, he stepped quickly out of the Coffee Room. He had cropped white hair; tragic, heavy-lidded eyes; and a round face which was yellow and lined.

  A second later his head reappeared round the door.

  ‘Ring,’ he said; and again withdrew.

  ‘Too many other people ringing,’ said Gerald. ‘But I don’t see what else we can do.’

  The Coffee Room bell, however, made a noise like a fire alarm.

  Mrs Pascoe appeared. She looked considerably the worse for drink.

  ‘Didn’t see you in the bar.’

  ‘Must have missed us in the crowd,’ said Gerald amiably.

  ‘Crowd?’ enquired Mrs Pascoe drunkenly. Then, after a difficult pause, she offered them a hand-written menu.

  They ordered; and Mrs Pascoe served them throughout. Gerald was apprehensive lest her indisposition increase during the course of the meal; but her insobriety, like her affability, seemed to have an exact and definite limit.

  ‘All things considered, the food might be worse,’ remarked Gerald, towards the end. It was a relief that something was going reasonably well. ‘Not much of it, but at least the dishes are hot.’

  When Phrynne translated this into a compliment to the cook, Mrs Pascoe said, ‘I cooked it all myself, although I shouldn’t be the one to say so.’

  Gerald felt really surprised that she was in a condition to have accomplished this. Possibly, he reflected with alarm, she had had much practice under similar conditions.

  ‘Coffee is served in the lounge,’ said Mrs Pascoe.

  They withdrew. In a corner of the lounge was a screen decorated with winning Elizabethan ladies in ruffs and hoops. From behind it projected a pair of small black boots. Phrynne nudged Gerald and pointed to them. Gerald nodded. They felt themselves constrained to talk about things which bored them.

  The hotel was old and its walls thick. In the empty lounge the noise of the bells would not prevent conversation being overheard, but still came from all around, as if the hotel were a fortress beleaguered by surrounding artillery.

  After their second cups of coffee, Gerald suddenly said he couldn’t stand it.

  ‘Darling, it’s not doing us any harm. I think it’s rather cosy.’ Phrynne subsided in the wooden chair with its sloping back and long mud-coloured mock-velvet cushions; and opened her pretty legs to the fire.

  ‘Every church in the town must be ringing its bells. It’s been going on for two and a half hours and they never seem to take the usual breathers.’

  ‘We wouldn’t hear. Because of all the other bells ringing. I think it’s nice of them to ring the bells for us.’

  Nothing further was said for several minutes. Gerald was beginning to realise that they had yet to evolve a holiday routine.

  ‘I’ll get you a drink. What shall it be?’

  ‘Anything you like. Whatever you have.’ Phrynne was immersed in female enjoyment of the fire’s radiance on her body.

  Gerald missed this, and said ‘I don’t quite see why they have to keep the place like a hothouse. When I come back, we’ll sit somewhere else.’

  ‘Men wear too many clothes, darling,’ said Phrynne drowsily.

  Contrary to his assumption, Gerald found the lounge bar as empty as everywhere else in the hotel and the town. There was not even a person to dispense.

  Somewhat irritably Gerald struck a brass bell which stood on the counter. It rang out sharply as a pistol shot.

  Mrs Pascoe appeared at a door among the shelves. She had taken off her jacket, and her make-up had begun to run.

  ‘A cognac, please. Double. And a Kummel.’

  Mrs Pascoe’s hands were shaking so much that she could not get the cork out of the brandy bottle.

  ‘Allow me.’ Gerald stretched his arm across the bar.

  Mrs Pascoe stared at him blearily. ‘Okay. But I must pour it.’

  Gerald extracted the cork and returned the bottle. Mrs Pascoe slopped a far from precise dose into a balloon.

  Catastrophe followed. Unable to return the bottle to the high shelf where it resided, Mrs Pascoe placed it on a waist-level ledge. Reaching for the alembic of Kummel, she swept the three-quarters-full brandy bottle on to the tiled floor. The stuffy air became fogged with the fumes of brandy from behind the bar.

  At the door from which Mrs Pascoe had emerged appeared a man from the inner room. Though still youngish, he was puce and puffy, and in his braces, with no collar. Streaks of sandy hair laced his vast red scalp. Liquor oozed all over him, as if from a perished gourd. Gerald took it that this was Don.

  The man was too drunk to articulate. He stood in the doorway, clinging with each red hand to the ledge, and savagely struggling to flay his wife with imprecations.

  ‘How much?’ said Gerald to Mrs Pascoe. It seemed useless to try for the Kummel. The hotel must have another bar.

  ‘Three and six,’ said Mrs Pascoe, quite lucidly; but Gerald saw that she was about to weep.

  He had the exact sum. She turned her back on him and flicked the cash register. As she returned from it, he heard the fragmentation of glass as she stepped on a piece of the broken bottle. Gerald looked at her husband out of the corner of his eye. The sagging, loose-mouthed figure made him shudder. Something moved him.

  ‘I’m sorry about the accident,’ he said to Mrs Pascoe. He held the balloon in one hand, and was just going.

  Mrs Pascoe looked at him. The slow tears of desperation were edging down her face, but she now seemed quite sober. ‘Mr Banstead,’ she said in a flat, hurried voice. ‘May I come and sit with you and your wife in the lounge? Just for a few minutes.’

  ‘Of course.’ It was certainly not what he wanted, and he wondered what would become of the bar, but he felt unexpectedly sorry for her, and it was impossible to say no.

  To reach the flap of the bar, she had to pass her husband. Gerald saw her hesitate for a second; then she advanced resolutely and steadily, and looking straight before her. If the man had let go with his hands, he would have fallen; but as she passed him, he released a great gob of spit. He was far too incapable to aim, and it fell on the side of his own trousers. Gerald lifted the flap for Mrs Pascoe and stood back to let her precede him from the bar. As he followed her, he heard her husband maundering off into unintelligible inward searchings.

  ‘The Kummel!’ said Mrs Pascoe, remembering in the doorway.

  ‘Never mind,’ said Gerald. ‘Perhaps I could try one of the other bars?’

  ‘Not tonight. They’re shut. I’d better go back.’

  ‘No. We’ll think of something else.’ It was not yet nine o’clock, and Gerald wondered about the licensing justices.

  But in the lounge was another unexpected scene. Mrs Pascoe stopped as soon as they entered, and Gerald, caught between two imitation-leather armchairs, looked over her shoulder.

  Phrynne had fallen asleep. Her head was slightly on one side, but her mouth was shut, and her body no more than gracefully relaxed, so that she looked most beautiful, and, Gerald thought, a trifle unearthly, like a dead girl in an early picture by Millais.

  The quality of her beauty seemed also to have impressed Commandant Shotcroft; for he was standing silently behind her and looking down at her, his sad face transfigured. Gerald noticed that a leaf of the pseudo-Elizabethan screen had been folded back, revealing a small cretonne-covered chair, with an open tome face downward in its seat.

  ‘Won�
��t you join us?’ said Gerald boldly. There was that in the Commandant’s face which boded no hurt. ‘Can I get you a drink?’

  The Commandant did not turn his head, and for a moment seemed unable to speak. Then in a low voice he said, ‘For a moment only.’

  ‘Good,’ said Gerald. ‘Sit down. And you, Mrs Pascoe.’ Mrs Pascoe was dabbing at her face. Gerald addressed the Commandant. ‘What shall it be?’

  ‘Nothing to drink,’ said the Commandant in the same low mutter. It occurred to Gerald that if Phrynne awoke, the Commandant would go.

  ‘What about you?’ Gerald looked at Mrs Pascoe, earnestly hoping she would decline.

  ‘No thanks.’ She was glancing at the Commandant. Clearly she had not expected him to be there.

  Phrynne being asleep, Gerald sat down too. He sipped his brandy. It was impossible to romanticise the action with a toast.

  The events in the bar had made him forget about the bells. Now, as they sat silently round the sleeping Phrynne, the tide of sound swept over him once more.

  ‘You mustn’t think,’ said Mrs Pascoe, ‘that he’s always like that.’ They all spoke in hushed voices. All of them seemed to have reason to do so. The Commandant was again gazing sombrely at Phrynne’s beauty.

  ‘Of course not.’ But it was hard to believe.

  ‘The licensed business puts temptations in a man’s way.’

  ‘It must be very difficult.’

  ‘We ought never to have come here. We were happy in South Norwood.’

  ‘You must do good business during the season.’

  ‘Two months,’ said Mrs Pascoe bitterly, but still softly. ‘Two and a half at the very most. The people who come during the season have no idea what goes on out of it.’

  ‘What made you leave South Norwood?’

  ‘Don’s stomach. The doctor said the air would do him good.’

  ‘Speaking of that, doesn’t the sea go too far out? We went down on the beach before dinner, but couldn’t see it anywhere.’

  On the other side of the fire, the Commandant turned his eyes from Phrynne and looked at Gerald.

  ‘I wouldn’t know,’ said Mrs Pascoe. ‘I never have time to look from one year’s end to the other.’ It was a customary enough answer, but Gerald felt that it did not disclose the whole truth. He noticed that Mrs Pascoe glanced uneasily at the Commandant, who by now was staring neither at Phrynne nor at Gerald but at the toppling citadels in the fire.