She went to the door and opened it wide, and stood listening. Mrs Gandell was actually singing to herself in the kitchen, but Jones himself seemed silent. She supposed that at any time now she would hear that call to lunch. Immediately she put on coat and hat and gloves, picked up her handbag and went downstairs and straight out of the hotel, only to bump into Jones at the first corner she turned. He stopped dead and stared at her.

  ‘Why? Miss Vaughan! Well indeed. I thought you were resting. I thought you were having lunch with us.’

  She noted the parcel tightly hugged under his arm. ‘I am going for a walk,’ she said, and passed him by, and Jones hurried back to the hotel.

  Mrs Gandell was waiting for him, and seized the parcel and hurried off with it to the kitchen, to return a few moments later with a cigarette in her mouth, and a glass of gin in each hand.

  ‘Sit down,’ and Jones sat down.

  ‘I thought you were never coming.’

  ‘But I did come, didn’t I, Mrs Gandell. I did my duty.’

  She flung him a cigarette which he lit, and they drank each other’s health.

  ‘Everything’s ready, Jones.’

  ‘Good. Good.’

  ‘She won’t be long now. Perhaps you’d better give her another shout.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Who on earth d’you think?’

  ‘I hardly know, such abruptness, Mrs Gandell.’

  ‘Go and call her.’

  ‘Call who?’

  Mrs Gandell, glass at her lips, screeched, ‘Miss Vaughan. Who else?’

  ‘She’s gone out.’

  ‘Gone out?’

  ‘Passed her in the street, nose in the air as usual.’

  ‘You amaze me.’

  ‘She amazed me.’

  ‘But she said .…’

  ‘Said not a word to me, Mrs Gandell. I asked her how she was, and she said she was quite all right now.’

  ‘But lunch was arranged .…’

  ‘The logic of the situation is as follows,’ said Jones. ‘We will eat it all up .…’

  ‘I can’t understand her,’ Mrs Gandell said.

  ‘Does it matter?’

  ‘So extraordinary, Jones.’

  ‘Nothing is extraordinary, Mrs Gandell. Iesu mawr! I keep telling you that. Do brush the sawdust from your ears,’ and Jones laughed, since for him, Gandell in a predicament was always a sight to see. He got up abruptly and went off to the kitchen.

  ‘And bring the bottle,’ she called after him.

  ‘Will do.’

  They ate in silence for a whole five minutes.

  ‘She may indeed have come here because nobody else would have her, Jones.’

  Jones was far too involved in his lunch, he didn’t bother with a reply.

  ‘I was speaking to you.’

  ‘I heard,’ snappily.

  ‘Well?’

  ‘Well what, Mrs Gandell?’ and slowly his head came up.

  ‘Oh … nothing … it doesn’t matter?’

  ‘Then stop worrying. Be like me, say nothing and accept everything.’

  ‘I am not like you, Jones.’

  ‘Pity,’ Jones said, tittering, then bent to his meal.

  A momentary silence, and then Mrs Gandell remarked casually that the town was talking about them.

  ‘About who?’

  ‘Us.’

  ‘There you go again, worrying. The town has a very large mouth, Mrs Gandell.’

  ‘Give me that bottle,’ and he gave it.

  She helped herself to another glass of the fortifying gin.

  ‘You simply love that stuff, don’t you, Mrs Gandell?’

  An observation she refused to confirm, and pushing away her plate she ordered Jones to remove everything to the kitchen. He carried out the loaded tray, and she sat back in her chair and lit another cigarette.

  ‘Disgusting,’ she thought. ‘What on earth could Miss Vaughan have been thinking of? Ordering lunch, and then walking out on it.’ She could hear Jones threshing his way through the dishes and pans. And then the smile came, as it always did after the third glass.

  ‘Jones!’

  ‘Coming.’

  ‘Sit down, Jones.’

  He sat down. She seemed to be looking, not at him, but at his person.

  ‘What are you staring at, Mrs Gandell?’

  ‘Your jacket,’ she said. ‘You’d better get another one at Davies’s when you go in this week.’

  ‘Very well. But I still like it,’ he said.

  ‘I don’t.’

  He walked across the dining-room, surveyed himself in the mirror.

  ‘Thanks, Mrs Gandell,’ he said, and returned to the table.

  ‘For God’s sake don’t keep on thanking me,’ she said.

  ‘I do what I want to do,’ he said.

  He picked up the glass, and then the bottle. He held it high to the light.

  ‘What a noble flash lies therein, Mrs Gandell,’ and he helped himself to another drink.

  The most awkward situations, the most ordinary situations hold their desperation, and they both knew this, on a flat morning. She held up her own glass, gave him a sudden smile, and said, ‘Your health, Jones.’

  ‘That’s the third time, Mrs Gandell,’ he said, refusing to smile.

  He leaned across to her, she felt the quick squeeze on her arm, as Jones said, in a wheedling tone, ‘I am sure that you are looking forward to crossing the frontier, Mrs Gandell,’ and went on squeezing.

  She kissed him with a wet mouth, took his hands. ‘I always look forward to you doing your duty, Jones.’

  ‘Lovely.’

  ‘I’m sorry about last night,’ Jones said. ‘I do have my moods.’

  ‘Don’t we all,’ she replied.

  He noticed that her speech was beginning to thicken, he sat back in his chair. The gin began to dribble on her chin, the hand with the glass was shaky, and he quietly removed it. ‘Yes, you like crossing the frontier, Mrs Gandell,’ he said, accepting without thanks, her expanding smile. ‘I’ll set you on fire.’

  ‘Will you, Jones?’ and the smile stayed.

  ‘Soon,’ Jones said, ‘soon,’ leaned across again, patted her hand.

  ‘You are very good to me, Jones,’ Mrs Gandell said, and for the hundreth time, ‘I wouldn’t know what to do without you.’

  Jones was so glad that he gave her another drink, and then helped himself. And for the fourth time they toasted each other’s health. He had begun to stutter, but she was quite blind to that.

  ‘Do - - d’you know what they call me in this town, Mrs Gandell?’

  ‘Wha - - - what do they call you - - - - Jones?’

  ‘I - - I - - I’ll tell you,’ said Jones, and he loved the great, coarse laugh that followed.

  ‘Th - - th - - they call me an emanation, Mrs - - Gand - - ell.’ He gave a loud titter, adding, ‘Think of that. An emanation. Think of it, an e - - - man - - a - - - tion.’

  ‘Wh, wh - - what is that?’ she asked, and would have dropped her glass had he not deftly caught it.

  ‘What it is,’ he said, and grinned at her.

  He sat well back in the chair, he noted the high flush that had come to the Gandell cheeks. He lit a cigarette, spread legs, picked up the bottle and replaced the top. ‘Enough is enough.’

  Mrs Gandell made to get up, but sat heavily down again. Jones watched, Jones smiled, the language was old, and he knew all the words.

  ‘Soon, Mrs Gandell,’ he said, ‘soon.’

  She made to rise again, grabbed the table.

  ‘Did I tell you that the man with the chariot in his head has written Vaughan another letter, Mrs Gandell?’

  She shook her head, leaned heavily on the table.

  He stood up, leaned over her. ‘I’ll re - - - re - - read it to you after we’ve crossed the frontier, Mrs Gandell.’

  ‘A l - - le - letter,’ she said.

  ‘A letter,’ Jones said.

  ‘You - - you - - you’ve been in - - her room, Jones.’

  ‘I always empty her wastepaper basket,’ he said, and he leaned very close to her and hissed, ‘And you know that.’

  Suddenly her head was heavy on his shoulder, and he was stroking what was vast in her.

  ‘Ah,’ he said, ‘ah!’ And he stroked, and went on stroking. ‘She never reads letters. I told you,’ and felt her breath in his face as she stuttered her reply.

  ‘Oh - - - yes - - yes, of course - I remember now. I see, Jones.’

  ‘Glad you do,’ he said. ‘I have to tell you things so often, Mrs Gandell,’ and against her ear, added, ‘Sometimes I think you’ve a brain with the fragility of a wren’s leg.’

  She seemed unaware that he was speaking, and she had closed her eyes, and only knew that he was actually there by reason of a geographical exploration across her flesh.

  ‘Shall we?’

  ‘Yes,’ she spluttered, and was heavier still, on the slight, iron, yet nervous Jones shoulder, her faithful servant.

  ‘Come along,’ he said, and raised her up, and took her total weight, and at a list of twenty degrees staggered with her across the room, and at the foot of the stairs came to an abrupt halt. She had an overwhelming desire to sit down, and sat down, and Jones knelt in front of her.

  ‘You could cross now,’ he said, ‘here, or we can go upstairs.’

  She flung her arms round him. ‘Upstairs, Jones.’

  ‘Soon, I’ll send colour flying into your Yorkshire mug, Mrs Gahdell,’ and as he leaned heavily against her glanced up the long flight of stairs, that in this moment seemed to stare back at him with a hint of menace.

  ‘Soon,’ he said, ‘soon.’

  ‘Ah,’ she sighed, and gave him another wet kiss.

  And always remembering his manners, his place, Jones said, ‘Thank you,’ and after some effort, managed to get her on her feet, and then began the slow ascent of the stairs towards that other room that could never be Miss Vaughan’s.

  ‘Jones,’ she said.

  ‘Mrs Gandell,’ he replied.

  And inch by inch, and stair by stair, until they finally reached the top. She swayed, and he caught her, turned her the right way round, slowly pushed. He kissed the Gandell ear as they reached the door.

  ‘Soon,’ he said, ‘very soon. And then the explosion, Mrs Gandell, and much better than a mere collision. Yes, indeed.’ She promptly sat down again, and refused to budge.

  Jones knelt, her face between his hands.

  ‘It could never be said that yours was a handsome face, Mrs Gandell, but it’s kind, I mean kind, and that’s the square root of something better, yes indeed,’ and he patted her on both cheeks, and stroked her hair, as he whispered, ‘We’re on the threshold of our moment. I’ll do my duty, and you’ll do yours. Simpler than plain fractions. Ah! But I have been obliging to you. Just think of the occasions when I’ve made you feel twenty-five, and lifted you far away from that struggling widow, and the outlandish place from which she came.’ He put his arms round her. ‘And you can really tingle when you want to, Mrs Gandell. So here we are together, so high up, and remote, and safe, and silent, and cuddly, and warm. I can see the signal in your eyes, the words, the messages, dear Mrs Gandell, light of my ordinary life.’

  He got his hand to the doorknob, he turned it, and they both fell in. He pulled her to the bed, he heaved her into it, and then sat down.

  ‘Jones,’ she said, and Jones came, and lay across her, and said, ‘We are about to cross. D’you know, the first time I ever saw you, I wondered where your leg ended. I did indeed. Close your eyes now, my dear.’

  The fierceness of her embrace quite staggered him.

  ‘At last,’ she said, ‘at last, Jones.’

  ‘Ssh,’ he said, ‘ssh!’

  ‘Jones,’ and it was hot in his ear.

  ‘What, Mrs Gandell, what?’

  ‘I wouldn’t care if I never went down those stairs again,’ she said.

  ‘Wouldn’t you really? Um! Ah.…’

  ‘Jones?’ she said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Jones,’ she spluttered, ‘For once I am not Mrs Gandell,’ and she pressed closer and closer, and suddenly the fiercest whisper in his ear. ‘Sometimes, Jones, I positively hated you addressing me like that.’ Jones could not, and did not hear, lost and abandoned as he was, yet safe and warm at the harbour of her feeling.

  ‘Um .…’

  ‘Ah .…’

  ‘Grist mawr! This must be what they call the end,’ muttered Jones, the words as soft as water in her ears.

  ‘Ssh,’ she said, ‘ssh!’

  And then the silence, the light beginning to go, the dusk coming down. The clock in the corner struck the hour, but they did not hear it. Beyond the window clouds were suddenly rampant as a fresh wind blew in from the sea. The silence arched. She stirred slightly, but Jones lay motionless, his moment crowned. And then the faintest whisper from her lips, the fairy breath.

  ‘Jones!’

  Hot and abrupt in his face, against his still closed eyes, but he made no answer. Her fingers wandered in and out of his hair, ran down his back and up again, encircled his neck, but not a move nor a sound made. Jones was deeply sleeping, beyond the frontier of the world. And a warmth, a tiredness was suddenly pressing upon her own eyelids, and easily, casually, like a child, she, too, was sleeping. The clock struck four, and darkness was full and home. They seemed scarcely breathing.

  They did not hear the sound of a key turning in the lock, nor the steps in the hall, nor the creak on the stairs, as Miss Vaughan climbed up to her room, opened the door, and switched on her light. She sat down on her bed, and sighed. The short winter afternoon had died behind her, in various places, and she had had lunch. When she left the hotel she had walked direct to the little railway station, and had sat for nearly an hour on one of the two iron benches that the station boasted, before she was noticed by the fussy station master, who came up and spoke to her. A winter afternoon seemed scarcely the time to sit watching the trains move in and out. It had seemed to him such an odd thing to do. Surely she could not be waiting, perhaps for the last train in the world.

  ‘Excuse me, madam,’ he said, and sharp enough to make the lady jump. ‘Excuse me, but are you waiting for a train?’

  ‘I am not.’

  ‘For somebody coming to the station?’

  ‘I am not,’ Miss Vaughan said. ‘Thank you,’ and got up and walked away leaving the bewildered station master staring after her. She walked the length of the main street, staring into window after window, and one or two chilly faces looked out curiously at this fugitive of the afternoon. She had then walked right out of the town in the direction of the beach. Perhaps Miss Vaughan was in love with winter.

  3

  And, quite unknown to her, the man in black, suit, raincoat, and Homburg, had faithfully and silently followed behind her. A dumb devotion had experienced a most uncharitable afternoon, for not once did Miss Vaughan turn her head, and, even had she done so, and caught his smile, she would not have answered it. Miss Vaughan was like that, private.

  ‘I smile at her, but she never smiles back.’

  And he watched her walk out of the town, towards a distant shore. ‘She looks so unhappy, lonely,’ he thought.

  He liked Miss Vaughan, he liked her greatly, he was sure that he could make her happy. He had never quite forgotten that first glance of hers as she stood at the back of Penuel, and even in recollection her too sudden departure was still felt as a shock. He had stood watching her until she finally vanished in the mist, and he had turned round and walked slowly back to his home, the derelict return to his study, and thoughts of many notes in his head. What a strange afternoon it had been, that lone traveller, and he behind her, whilst the rest of the town hugged its fires, and listened to the wind in the chimney. A silent woman. A lonely woman. Surely? And living in that awful hotel. What on earth had made her go to such a place? Where had she come from? The thoughts crowded in on him, as heavy and slow as tumbrils, and he stirred and stirred at the tea his sister had brought to his study.

  ‘I wish … I wish and I wish,’ and then he drank his tea. He knew the Decent Hotel, he knew that woman, knew that attic room where Miss Vaughan lived, knew that ‘Welsh fragment’ Jones. Ah!

  A tap on his door.

  ‘More tea, Mervyn?’

  ‘No thank you, Margiad.’

  He heard her sigh, heard her walk away. He closed his eyes, rested his head in his hands. He thought about Miss Vaughan.

  ‘What great big eyes daylight has, Miss Vaughan.’

  He swung his hat in his hand, he listened, he breathed heavily, and waited for the answer. But the silence seemed that of mountains, powerful, stupid. He waited, behind a blue curtain, at the top of the stairs. A bedroom door was closed.

  ‘Who is that?’

  It came to his ear like an echo.

  ‘Only me.’

  ‘Again?’

  ‘Again.’

  ‘What do you want?’

  ‘I could make you happy, Miss Vaughan. You know that.’

  ‘I am happy.’

  And the words dragged, ‘Is that all?’ the voice sepulchral.

  There was no answer. He rested on one leg, and then the other.

  ‘Did you have a nice dream last night, Miss Vaughan?’

  ‘I like dreaming.’

  The promptness of reply astonished him.

  ‘I - - er - - -’ he stuttered.

  ‘Are you still there?’

  ‘Once upon a time, Miss Vaughan, there was a hardbitten and winter man that walked out of a turnip-cold field, and took a great hurricane lamp to the barn, and lighted it, and hung it up. After which he walked home to his supper, and thence to bed. His bones ached after the long day, and he slept deeply. And he was real. You are not quite real, Miss Vaughan, yet I know I could make you happy.’

  And again he listened, waited. A too sudden titter quite un-nerved him.

  ‘You are full of grace at eight o’clock in the morning, Mr Thomas.’

  ‘Is that all?’

  And another titter. ‘Was there something else, Minister?’

  ‘I am myself, Miss Vaughan, yes indeed. And I am the only one that notices you as you walk down the street. Who else does? The world? Who cares?’

 

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