Marlford (17 page)

Twenty-Three

O
scar staggered forwards. He could not be sure now that it was not he that had been shot; he put his hand to his side, searching for the unequivocal wet pain of a wound. His thoughts tiptoed away from him in all directions. He had a sense of them abandoning him; when he tried to pin one of them down it dissolved, leaving nothing but a nagging discomfort.

‘Are you all right there?' Gadiel paused in the back doorway and scanned the yard. ‘You seem in a bad way.'

Oscar did not look at the intruder. ‘It's nothing.'

‘You haven't been shot, have you? I heard a gun going off again.' Gadiel started towards the van. ‘Are you on your own?'

‘It seems that way.'

Gadiel ignored Oscar's blistered tone. ‘It's just — I've come back for Ellie… I thought… I was hoping she was OK.'

‘You came for her, too?'

‘I couldn't leave her.' He stopped, keeping his distance, the space between them inviolable. ‘Did you shoot them?'

Oscar hauled himself sideways to face him. ‘Only him.'

‘Dan? Is he all right, though?' Gadiel could not believe his own calmness, as though none of it mattered.

‘I presume not. On a good day, I can shoot a rabbit at fifty yards.'

‘Where's he gone? If he's hurt—'

‘Why did you come for her? If you thought I'd be here, with a gun?'

‘I didn't know you were here. I didn't know that – I just came… to the van. In case Ellie…'

‘That's very heroic.'

‘She might have needed me.'

‘Why you?'

Gadiel could not answer this. She would not have needed him, it was true; there was nothing he could do for her, nothing she would accept from him.

‘Look, young man, she went back to the house with the Marxist.' Oscar felt a new swell of nausea and swallowed hard. ‘He might require some help. They both might. Perhaps you should go after them.'

Gadiel looked down, seeing the uneven sag of the stones under his feet. He did not move.

Oscar watched him for a moment and then straightened, as if fortified. ‘I see. Well, if you're not going after them, I think I will.' He offered Gadiel his stiff bow. ‘There's still a great deal to be resolved. And I should find Mr Barton.' He picked up the shotgun and began to walk away.

‘Leave the gun.'

Oscar paused, surprised at Gadiel's authority.

‘I don't think so. It belongs to me,' he said.

‘Leave it here. I'm not letting you go after them with the gun.'

‘You think I'll shoot them?'

Gadiel reached out a hand to take the weapon. ‘You should leave the gun here.'

The stable clock chimed an impossible hour.

‘I won't hurt her.' Oscar wanted this finished; he imagined Ellie with the wounded squatter. ‘I'll take the shotgun to the farm. But I have to go – I have to speak to her.'

Gadiel stood firm, larger than Oscar, more certain.

‘Just leave it. Drop it there – I can't trust you. Leave it.'

Oscar recognized Gadiel's determination, and his sorrow. He let the shotgun fall to the ground and stepped away. Gadiel made no effort to collect the weapon and for a moment they both hesitated, not quite sure how to escape the clutch of the old walls. Then, with a sudden movement, Oscar broke free and went quickly towards the house, keeping his face averted as he slipped under the arch.

Gadiel remained still. He stared at the cobbles around the gun, feeling himself empty into the cracks and joints, spilling away. He could not think where to go or what he might do. He did not have the energy for anything. He wished he had never come there and never seen Ellie. He realized that the rest of his life would be foolish and blunt and precarious without her.

He shook his head at the shotgun and wondered, vaguely, without interest, how he would ever leave that spot in the stable yard.

Twenty-Four

W
hen Ellie heard the door slam, she had only cut the sleeve of Dan's T-shirt; she had not begun to clean away the blood or examine the ragged patch of shoulder torn by the shot. She did not bother to look up but quickened her fingers, trying to work more rapidly. Dan attempted to shift in his chair but she held tight to him in her efforts to continue. Perhaps, this way, the interruption might never happen.

‘Ellie?'

Ernest sounded perplexed. He rounded the table to a point where he could see Dan clearly and squinted at the boy bleeding in the shabby dining room, a specimen in a bell jar.

‘Oh. It's you. Did I wing you?'

‘Mr Quersley shot him,' Ellie said.

‘Did he? Good fellow… jolly good.' But he sounded lost. ‘It's nothing that, man – a graze. I've seen worse at fairground target practice.'

Ellie lifted her hand from the wound but did not retreat. ‘It needs cleaning,' she insisted.

Dan spoke to neither of them in particular. ‘I still want an ambulance.'

‘Just wait, I'll—' Ellie gave a little shriek. They followed her stare to the door.

‘Good evening, everyone,' said Oscar Quersley in response, offering them the slightest of bows.

He had returned to the farm, changed quickly and combed his hair. He appeared at the doorway now in his very best suit, his eyes hollow, ringed with dark, his mouth tight. He stood unnaturally still and spoke slowly, as though breathing was a strain.

‘I've come for Ellie. I've come to settle our agreement, Mr Barton.' He gestured loosely at Dan's wounded shoulder. ‘You see?'

Ernest nodded, his movements slow now, too, as if in response, or as if time was unwinding, stranding them both. ‘Yes, I see you clipped him. Good work.' His tone was flat, exhausted. ‘Better if you'd finished him, of course, but nonetheless – a decent effort. Good man.'

‘It's enough though, isn't it?'

‘Wait – Mr Quersley…' Ellie began.

Oscar ignored her.

‘We simply need to agree the finer details,' he went on. He kept his eyes on Ernest. ‘We need to clarify the matter, so that we know where we stand. So there's no mistake.' Finally he turned to her. ‘And I wanted to say something to you, too – I wanted to tell you, Ellie…'

‘Look, what's going on?' Slumped in his chair, Dan was below the line of their gaze. ‘What's all this about? Come on, I need help. I've been shot.'

They ignored his exasperation, each of them looking steadily at the other, knowing how long this moment had been coming.

‘Go on,' Ellie prompted, quietly. ‘Go on, Mr Quersley.'

‘It's not just an agreement, Ellie, or some kind of deal with your father. You know that, don't you? You know that all these years… all this time, I've been living in the hope that one day, you and I might… that I might have the chance to ask you this question. I want you to marry me, Ellie. It's the right thing, for both of us, for everyone, for Marlford.'

Dan groaned, with pain perhaps, or disgust.

‘Shut up,' Oscar hissed at him. ‘What right do you have? It's nothing to do with you. If you think a few days, a few hours, makes any difference to the way things are —' He collected himself, pushing aside the thought of the sordid van. ‘Ellie, you know this is the right thing.'

Ellie was very still for a moment.

‘How on earth can I agree to marry you?' she asked at last. ‘You've shot Dan.'

‘But that was nothing. Look at him. He'll be fine.'

‘Mr Quersley, you shot him because he was in your way.'

‘I shot him because he's a squatter. I gave my word to your father—'

‘You shot him because I was with him. Because I wanted to be with him.' She felt the prick of tears but swallowed them down. ‘So how can I marry you, Mr Quersley? Why would I marry you?'

‘It's your duty, Ellie.'

‘I don't agree.' She waited, perhaps expecting her father to intervene. But Ernest said nothing.

‘Ellie – you're making a scene.' Oscar was wringing his hands so hard that the squeak was audible. ‘In front of a stranger.'

Finally Ernest spoke, but uncertainly. ‘He has a point, Ellie. This kind of thing… you know.'

Ellie placed her hand on Dan's uninjured shoulder. ‘It's because of Dan that I know what I want to say to you. It's good that he's here. Besides, he and I are – tell them, Dan… tell Mr Quersley why I can't marry him.' She moved round in front of Dan and crouched.

But he looked at something on the far wall: a scruffy picture frame or a tear in the paper. His voice was expressionless and tired. ‘I don't understand. I have no idea what's going on, man. What do you want me to say, Ellie – that you can't marry him because we've been having it off in the van? Is that it? Oh, for God's sake – I've been shot. Hasn't anyone noticed… I've been fucking shot.'

He tried to pull himself from the chair but gave up, squawking with pain, clutching the wound on his shoulder. He threw his head back and closed his eyes, shutting out the sight of the veins of damp patterning the ceiling. ‘Just let me go. Get me an ambulance, or put me in your horse and carriage or whatever it is you've got here – just let me go.'

‘But, Dan —' She could not believe it. This was his moment – he could explain. He could begin, if he liked, with the structures, the hierarchies, the crumbling aristocracy, the new world. The squat. Although none of that would matter. She placed her hand very gently on his knee. ‘We'll go and fetch help, if you want – for the wound. I promise. But you need to tell them about me,
about us.' She was gentle, as though prompting a child. ‘They'll listen now – they have to. Make this little room an everywhere.'

Oscar snorted at the poetic quote.

‘Come on, Dan.' She was suddenly impatient. She recognized an encroaching fear, not yet quite tangible. ‘I'm sorry you're hurt; I'm really sorry. But it'll only take a moment, that's all. It'll set everything straight, you see, once they understand.'

She looked up at her father. ‘Just give him a little time,' she pleaded. ‘He'll be all right. Just give him a minute and he'll explain it to you, Papa. You'll understand. You'll see.'

Dan opened his eyes; he lowered his head and looked at her. He took a deep breath and finally heaved himself from the chair, clinging to his injured shoulder as though it might detach. His face was drawn, old.

‘I'm going, man. I'm sick of the lot of you. Of this whole stupid place.' He took a few steps, then seemed surprised by the distance still to be covered, the dimensions of the dining room deceptive.

‘Dan – no! Wait.'

Ellie hurried to him but he brushed her away, lurching on towards the door, his face furrowed as he concentrated on holding his shoulder still, stifling the pain. He ignored Ernest and Oscar, the way they scrutinized him, as if he were a novelty, an inexplicable intruder from another world. He did not cry.

At the door he paused.

‘Do what you like. All of you. The squat is officially ended – kaput. I'm fed up of it all, man, of everyone – I've got nothing to say.'

Ernest spoke gently, understanding the defeat. ‘Good man. Quite right – quite the right decision. Take your friend and leave Marlford and we'll pretend it never happened.'

‘Perhaps it didn't.' Dan snorted. ‘Perhaps it's some crazy dream.' But he winced again in pain, real and inescapable.

Ellie felt as though she were floating, drifting away, cut loose from the threads that had bound her to things. She had little sense of Oscar Quersley or her father, only of Dan being swallowed into the gut of the manor, dissolving into the liquid shadows of the entrance hall.

‘Wait – Dan, please. Wait.' She tried to hurry, but her limbs were loose, unruly, and by the time she caught up with him it felt as though she had run a long way. She was breathless, already exhausted.

‘Ellie, I'm going to find Gadiel and I'm going to get help for this shoulder and then I'll arrange for the van to be picked up and we'll be out of your way.' It was a shopping list of intentions, blandly delivered. He did not look at her. ‘I think you'd better do whatever you like; whatever you think best,' he said, flatly.

The evening was falling fast; he was not quite tangible in the speckled gloom.

‘You're just going to leave?' Ellie stared at him.

‘Yeah. I think so.'

‘But that's a horrible thing to do. It's not gentlemanly.'

‘Sorry. But you have to be clear, man – I never promised you anything.' He smiled. ‘I never promised to be gentlemanly. You can't say I did, Ellie. I've not misled you.'
He winced at a new pain. His voice hardened. ‘If anything, it's Gadiel and me who've been let down. It's not at all what I thought it'd be like, man, not when we started, when we set up the squat. We've not had the opportunity to make our point. We've not got the message across – it doesn't look like the others are coming. It's – it's confusing, Ellie.'

‘Confusing?' It seemed the slightest of objections.

‘Yeah. It should have been perfect – politically and socially – an endless spiral of decadence, man, of usurped power – you know?' He stopped, frowning, surprised by the clink of his words, brittle somehow against the unforgiving stones, the solid doors and dense histories. ‘But, I don't know – it doesn't quite seem… with you…' Perhaps it was simply the shock of the wound, unsettling him. He felt the pain in his shoulder again, a twinge, and gestured towards it. ‘You see, you see – I've been shot…' It was incontrovertible.

‘But that wasn't me. I just like being with you, Dan. I thought… I presumed – it's old fashioned, I know, but—'

‘I don't love you, Ellie, if that's what you're after.' He had to say that; he had to be clear. ‘Man, there's nothing like that going on.'

She guessed this might be true – she imagined it was the way he saw it – but still she did not believe him.

‘Wait – I didn't mean… it's new, I know. We don't know each other, really.' She could not help blushing at the fleeting thought of his nakedness above her, inviting her. ‘But I don't want you to storm out of here… I don't want you to leave me here, Dan.'

She looked at him hopefully. It would take only the slightest softening on his part to bring her to him but he
hesitated, pressing his hand harder against the wound to stimulate the pain, to distract him, because she was, at that moment, everything he wanted: her neat face, the scrape of her hair, the outmoded silhouette of her simple plumpness, was the promise of a truly radical future.

‘You're here, at Marlford,' he said. Perhaps it explained everything.

‘Yes, but I could come with you. If you're travelling…'

‘Ellie – look.' He laughed disconsolately. ‘We've just been trying out the van. That's all, really. When I'm not at university, well… I don't live far from here – if you go on past the salt works, another eight or ten miles or so… well, that's where I live, man, in a little village, with my mum. I can see the works' chimney from my bedroom window if it's a nice day. Look, I didn't know about the manor or you or anything but, still—'

‘But that doesn't matter, does it? It doesn't matter where you've come from, not really.' She could not, just then, piece together the deception.

‘It didn't seem to matter, not at first. When we broke down and ended up here – it seemed like fate. You know, man, like it was meant to be. I thought it was my chance to make a mark.' He looked away, engrossed for a moment in the memory, already nostalgic. ‘I thought we could change things.'

She held out her hands. ‘You can change me, Dan.' It was perhaps a joke, lightly made, cheerless. She already knew it was not enough; she was already disappointed in him.

She stepped back.

The movement jolted him from his daydream. ‘Ellie, it's just bad luck, man. You're always going to be implicated in the kind of institutions… the sort of people and places,
the world view, that I'm committed to defeating. It's not your fault. But I can't get tangled up in it… I can't. I told you, it's confusing.'

She saw regret already gathering in the close lines around his eyes, partly concealed by the rim of his spectacles but precisely etched, so that the furrows would deepen as he aged and come to define his face.

She mistook it for something else, annoyance or distaste, the soreness of his wound.

‘Never mind.' She was brisk again. ‘It doesn't matter.'

‘Man, I'm sorry.'

‘You're not at all the person I thought you were, Dan.'

There was no malice; it was simply a statement of fact.

It was the last moment when he could have changed things, but it hardly existed, skittering past without trace. He fiddled with the cloth of his T-shirt, the blood drying dark, and then he left.

Oscar came for her. He stood for a while, watching, thinking she might crumble but she was still and quiet, her feet firmly planted across a deep joint in the flagstones, her sadness a strength.

‘I made a mistake.' She raised her eyes.

He beckoned. ‘Come inside. We'll talk to your father.'

‘Yes, in a moment. If you could wait, just a moment, Mr Quersley – if you have the time.'

‘Yes, of course – I'll wait.'

Ernest rose for his daughter's arrival, pulling a chair for her from the corner of the room, its tapestried seating sprouting threads. Oscar had opened a window and was
standing in the cool, damp air, gazing out into the dark shrubbery.

‘I'm sorry.' Ellie sat down. ‘I wanted to think about things.'

‘They have gone, though, haven't they?' Ernest shivered, glaring at the open window.