Another world, p.19
Another World, page 19
Thomas watched Miss Vaughan grab the air.
‘I once was followed a very long way by a man, Colonel, but I never looked round, and he went on his way, and then I forgot him.’ She turned violently left, still clinging on to the Colonel’s arm, gave a little run, and stopped again.
When Thomas saw her arms widen, he knew that she had embraced him. Her voice grew louder, more anxious, more persistent.
‘I remember a day when I nearly died. Think of that, Colonel. Died.’
‘So that is the Colonel,’ thought Thomas, his voice sepulchral, choking. ‘Out of the air, out of the sea.’
‘God help you’ Thomas said. ‘I still love you.’
‘There’s a ship now,’ she cried.
‘Poor creature,’ he said, and shut his eyes.
‘The wind,’ she cried, ‘I love the wind,’ and he saw her waltz the Colonel round and round, and then back to the dunes. She sat, she punctuated her words with a finger stabbing the air.
‘The first time I ever saw the world, Colonel, was out of a tiny window at Cae Mawr. Do you know Cae Mawr? Oh, you do. Fancy that. You’ve been there, and she clapped hands. ‘It makes me think of my father, made me think that I’m forty-five today. Imagine that, Colonel. As you grow up, my father said, the roads will get longer, and the walls higher. Age is for tumbling, he said. I think of that. The sea was very far away then, very far. I thought you’d never come today, Colonel. I said to myself, “Perhaps he is not being careful with his father, perhaps he hasn’t locked the door.” If you had not come, I would have gone straight ‘back to my room. I have a key. I would have locked the door, put out the light. Hidden. My father was sometimes wise, and sometimes, very good indeed with the words of Christ. He was also of the law, and very very careful of the law.’
‘To what am I listening,’ thought Thomas. ‘And at what am I looking?’
Thomas gripped the grass, hugged the sand, then suddenly he could no longer see her, she was not there, and it had grown quite dark, and darker again, and darker than that.
‘My sister did not say that I was blind,’ Thomas said.
‘Suki! Suki!’
And Thomas opened his eyes, and she was there again, close.
‘Miss Vaughan,’ he thought. ‘Miss Vaughan,’ he said.
She was so near, and yet so far, so strange, so lost.
‘Miss Vaughan,’ Thomas said.
Miss Vaughan was suddenly bolder still, her hands clasped tightly and lying on her knees. She looked neither right nor left.
‘Miss Vaughan,’ Thomas said, and rose slowly out of the ground. ‘Miss Vaughan.’
And she saw him, and he was real.
Thomas got a vision of red, an explosion from the dune, and’ then she was running, madly, wildly along the shore.
‘Miss Vaughan! Miss Vaughan,’ and he was running after.
‘Poor creature,’ he said, ‘Poor Miss Vaughan. I still love her,’ and ran, and ran, and ran.
There she was, flying before his very eyes, that had been so near and yet so far.
And he ran on and on.
He saw her make wide, and more widening circles across the sand, he saw her fall.
‘Oh God,’ he said, running still.
He stood a moment, exhausted. When he fell, when he knew he was falling, he shouted at the top of his voice. ‘Miss Vaughan! Miss Vaughan,’ and watched her rise, watched her move further and further, watched the sky, and the light beginning to go.
‘If I could catch her, hold her, speak to her,’ Thomas said, and words thrust him forward again, and he ran on. His overcoat flew open, flapped like a sail, and his eye was fast upon the figure that sometimes ran, and sometimes stopped; sometimes dallied, and sometimes turned round and looked back, where, in the distance she could yet see a bridge, and behind her the shore, and more shore, and yet more shore. She did not see Thomas stumble again, fall to the ground, lie there; she did not hear him call her name. ‘Miss Vaughan,’ he shouted, came to his knees, cupped hands, cried again, ‘Miss Vaughan!’ his spirit riding behind this endeavour of flesh and bone, then rising, and shouting again. ‘Wait! Wait! Miss Vaughan!’ and the words lost, the name lost, torn to shreds in the wind.
‘I must. I must.’
Suddenly she was walking, and not running, he wondered if she would stop, if she would turn again. If only she turned, came back, came his way.
‘I knew it in the chapel that night. I know it now.’ He stopped to button an overcoat that he did not realise was holding him back, and he felt for the hat that was no longer there. And he went on, blindly, determinedly, as though this was the journey that was final. One did not turn back, but went on, and on again. He sat down, bowed his head, and he prayed quietly for the figure that was now moving out towards the sea.
‘Miss Vaughan! Miss Vaughan!’ shouting again, stumbling on. Once he thought he saw the sky and the sea meet, once stopped abruptly to listen, and heard the laughter following after. ‘The sea, the sea,’ he shouted, then fell flat on his back. He felt lost in this vastness, and emptiness, in the silence that seemed total.
‘I can’t go on,’ he said, and went on, and there on the horizon was the figure, still moving, further and further away. Or was it just another bird? The sand pulled, the wind held, and he went on, dragging his feet after him, his hands now pawing air itself, and wondered when she would stop, when he would stop. He clapped hands to his head.
‘Oh God! Perhaps I am mad.’
And went on nearer and nearer to where sea and shore would meet.
‘I cannot go on,’ he cried, ‘I cannot go on’ and went on, the roads of his life behind him, the world reduced to a moment.
‘I’m coming,’ he shouted, ‘I’m coming.’
And then he saw her stood quite still, almost as though she were waiting for him to come. And Thomas cried in his mind, ‘Wait. Wait.’ He stopped again, he closed his eyes. For a moment he seemed to sense that he was falling again, falling down, and down, and down again, and lower than that, and his hands reached out to grasp, to hold.
‘Where am I?’
His finger tips touched his eyelids, he was afraid to open his eyes.
‘Where is she?’
She was there. Motionless, her back turned on him, she was still waiting. He thought of her silent life, he was in the chapel again, under the hooded light, he felt her eyes upon him. What was she thinking? Now. Miss Vaughan was drowned in the wind, and the sea was lapping at her feet. Thomas stopped again. How small she was, and still as still.
‘If only she knew, if only she understood.’ And Thomas moved again, hoped again. He saw her close, so close, and he had spoken to her, calling her name. And she had leaped away. The look, the violent movement still shocked and frightened him. He wanted to cry her name now, wanted to shout ‘Wait, wait!’ and dared not. His heart leapt when she turned slowly round. Was she looking at him? Was she looking beyond him, was she actually waiting for him to come?
Almost without realising it he was calling her name, he was shouting at the top of his voice. ‘Wait, I’m coming, Miss Vaughan.’
Miss Vaughan moved nearer to the sea, and Thomas fell flat on his face. And then he knew that he could not move. ‘Oh Christ,’ Thomas said, hearing it and knew that he had said it, his mouth touching sand, the word falling, the word dying in it, his arms stretched out before him. And then he hammered with clenched fists, ‘What shall I do with the moment?’
As he tried to rise, as he rose, as he cried out again. ‘Wait! Wait!’ But she did not hear him, and, unlike Thomas, seemed to know what to do with her own moment as she walked further and further away, and never again looked at that staggering figure in black that came on, lurching this way and that, and never heard the words from his mouth that the wind fragmented, that the sea’s roar drowned.
‘My God! She’s walking into the sea,’ he cried, and dragged himself to his feet, and lunged, and fell again, and again rose, and the shout frantic. ‘Wait! Wait!’
He watched, he hoped again, he was anguished, he fell again. He dragged himself into a kneeling position, he leaned on his elbows, he cupped hands again, and cried at the top of his voice. ‘Miss Vaughan! Miss Vaughan. Wait! Please. Wait. Wait.’
He saw her raise her hands in the air, as she went on, further and further in, as the sea pulled, as the moment died in him, as he opened his mouth to speak and could not, as he fell flat on his face again, and lay there, inert, a black heap, and the light going fast. There was a word on his tongue, and it wouldn’t move, he knew the word that was closest to him, but it froze there, the lips mouthed air. He heard nothing, and felt nothing, and saw nothing. After a while he fell asleep.
When he woke it was fully dark, and the sea soundless. There was no wind. There seemed no sky.
‘Where am I?’
He did not know. With the flat of his hands he forced himself into a sitting position, he turned his head from right to left. There was nothing. No sound, and no world, and no moment.
‘Where am I?’ and he seemed scarcely to realise that he was now standing on his own feet, buried in darkness, and nothing to listen to save the sound of his own breathing.
‘I am lost. Oh God! I am lost,’ and his arms stretched, and his hands searched about for a hold, on something, on anything, and there was nothing. He moved, and did not realise that he was moving, he made to kneel again, to rest, and did not, and walked on, back by the way he had come, and again he cried into the emptiness, ‘Where am I?’ and the echo of the words came back to him, and he did not hear them. And he walked on, and there was still nothing. He put a hand to his head, but there was no hat. He ran his fingers down the length of his body, felt the buttons of his overcoat. Running fingers through his hair, he felt the sand in it. He fell to his knees, clasped hands, he prayed against nothing. And then he was walking again, through the desert, through the darkness. He did not realise that the bridge was there, that he was standing on it, clutching at its rail, feeling its cold bite, and the air about him itself frozen. If the air was struck it might ring like a bell. He stood there, blind, aimless, wondering which way he should go. Back? Forward? Then for the first time he was aware of wild water below the bridge, smashing in the darkness, and at once he felt the plunge and leap of the river under him. He turned away and went slowly on. He saw a light that danced suddenly, and then was gone. He saw another and another, and then he stopped. ‘Where am I?’
The house staring at him, the door, the windows. When his hand found the white gate he gave a violent jerk. He listened. There was nothing. Just the house, and the rooms in it, and the door that he had left open. Like a thief he crept down the path towards his own home, felt the door, the pull of it as it moved inwards, and stumbled, and went in, and stood quite still, holding it. There was no light, and no sound, and no person. There was no warmth, and there was no meaning. His hand touched banister, his feet stairs. He clung to it, listening. He waited. Nothing. And he went upstairs. He did not notice an open sitting-room door, nor the door to that room that had once so fully contained him, and then he reached the top. Clinging to the banister, he said in a low, shaky voice, ‘There is nothing,’ and immediately descended the stairs. He groped his way to the sitting-room, and there was no fire. From one emptiness to another, and he stared at that which was his study, and walked into it and sat down. ‘I am mad,’ Thomas said, ‘I am mad,’ and he switched on the light, and there before him were the days and the hours and the moments, and the root and the bone, and he touched things on his desk, and held them in his hand, and put them down again. He touched the Book. He pushed it slowly away from him, and he heard the thud as it fell to the floor. He opened the top drawer of his desk, and searched about, and then he switched out the light. He lay his head flat upon the desk, and closed his eyes. The lips parted, as though he would speak, but only air came out. When the words came, they were as loud and clear as bells, and smashed into the silence.
‘Let no man deceive himself. If any man among you seemeth to be wise, let him become a fool, that he may be wise,’ Thomas said, and after the wreck of words, was silent. It was cold in the room.
Miss Margiad Thomas plays Patience at Hengoed, and from time to time glances dubiously at the letter lying on the table, and wonders whether she should post it tomorrow, to wish her brother cleansed.
‘She knew when she was happy, and Thomas didn’t,’ Jones said. ‘She asked for nothing, and wanted nothing, and she never got anything because she never wanted it.’
But Mrs Gandell said nothing.
At Dolgoch cottage Mrs Humphreys jumped in her chair, and exclaimed, ‘What on earth was that, Emyr?’
‘Sounds like somebody back firing,’ Mr Humphreys said, and he got up and closed the window.
Miss Vaughan has had lunch with the Colonel, but no one will ask her to tea.
About the Author
James Hanley (1897–1985) was born in Liverpool, England, to an Irish Catholic family. He spent time in the merchant navy and served with the Canadian Infantry during World War I. From 1930 to 1981 Hanley published forty-eight books, including the novels Boy, The Furys, The Ocean, Another World, and Hollow Sea. He penned plays for radio, television, and theater and published a work of nonfiction, Grey Children, on the plight of coal miners. Hanley died in London but was buried in Wales, the setting for many of his works.
All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 1972 by James Hanley
Cover design by Jamie Keenan
ISBN: 978-1-5040-0582-1
This edition published in 2015 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.
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JAMES HANLEY
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James Hanley, Another World
