The Oracles (3 page)

But I’ve got my rosary, remembered Serafina. I’ve got the Holy Cross. God is stronger than the devil. If he comes at me, I can hold my cross up.

Her panic subsided a little. This was only an Artefact. It was not real. It could not think. How it had come there she did not know, but it had not come of itself. Somebody must have brought it.

‘Pooh!’ she shouted suddenly. ‘I’m not afraid of
that
!’

Gripping her rosary, she advanced upon it. Her heart was thudding and she felt sick, but she forced herself to go on. Having reached it, she gave it a little push. It wobbled and fell upon its side at her feet. Immediately half its malignity seemed to evaporate. It looked weak and silly, lying there, shooting its
harmless
arrows at the sky.

A yell of triumph arose in the meadow. Dinah, Polly, Mike and Joe rushed up and gathered round the fallen foe. They would not have touched it for the world, but they danced and jumped, threw sticks and dirt at it, shouting shrill taunts:

‘Stinking old Artifack!’

‘Now you’re dead!’

‘Lousy old Artifack.’

‘Lousy ole Arfitax! We’ll kill you, and we’ll kill you, and then we’ll come back and kill you some more!’

‘We’ll send you to the shed.’

‘Oh yes! Yes! Serafina! Put him in the shed!’

This was rather more than Serafina had bargained for. She did not much like having to touch it. But she had a reputation to sustain. She compelled herself to raise it, whereat the triumphant clamour died away and the others drew off, eyeing the business uneasily. No help was to be expected from them. Alone she dragged the horrid thing out of the meadow and down the garden to the shed.

This turned out to have an occupant already.

‘Why,’ cried Polly compassionately, ‘it’s a poor Form. Shan’t we rescue it, Serafina? It looks almost holy.’

Serafina agreed. There was something benign about this flame-shaped object, which rose from a slender base with so much suggestion of movement that they all
instinctively looked upward, to some point above it. They dragged it out, pushed it into the garage, and
concealed
it under an old car tarpaulin. The Artefact was then placed in the shed. Set upright it looked formidable again, as though it might come hopping out at any moment. They slammed the door upon it and took to their heels.

All except Joe, who had never really been frightened of it. He was too young to understand the game; he merely shrieked and ran when the others did. To his eyes there was a certain familiarity about the prisoner, a connection which had eluded the others, because their imaginations had been more strongly assaulted. He lingered behind, for a moment, to yell, through the
keyhole
of the shed, a final taunt:

‘You ole
chair
!’

T
HE
invitations to Conrad Swann’s party had not been issued by the sculptor himself but by a Mrs. Rawson, who had constituted herself his patroness in chief.

This toothy, determined little woman believed that she was born to lead. She had inherited considerable powers of domination from her father, old Tom
Skipperton
, who had owned a fleet of pleasure steamers and made a large fortune out of persuading people that they liked to be sea-sick. But she lacked his coarse geniality; she suffered from a chronic unpopularity, a total absence of followers, until she took up the cause of Art. In this field she encountered inertia but little serious resistance. Her fellow townsmen were never to be convinced that she knew more than they did about politics, economics, religion or hygiene—few troubled to gainsay her when it came to aesthetics. Since nobody cared to stop her, she was able to accomplish a good deal.

She seldom travelled, but she did occasionally go to Paris, and it was there that she met Don Rawson, a large, lazy, handsome American, several years younger than herself. He believed that Paris was his spiritual home, but, having squandered his patrimony in an attempt to become an artist, had failed to find a material home there. Had he not married Martha he would have been obliged to return to North Dakota. He brought to the
partnership
a number of very small etchings and a gift of tongues. He preferred, more often than not, to express
himself in rapid French or Italian, which Martha would translate to the company, with an indulgent smile.

Until Conrad Swann came to East Head she had been rather short of
protég
é
s.
The biggest fish in her net had been an architect called Alan Wetherby, who lived in Bristol, and for whom, after some crafty campaigning, she had got the job of building a new Marine Pavilion. Swann, however, was more rewarding. He had an
international
reputation and he was easier to manage, since he cared only for his work and took little notice of
anything
which went on outside his studio.

Martha it was who stopped Dickie Pattison in the street one day, and asked him to come to Conrad Swann’s house on Sunday night. A band of the Elect were to enjoy a rare privilege; a first view of Swann’s Apollo. He was going to enter it for the Gressington Arts Theatre Competition; a prize of
£
500 had been offered for the winning entry, which was to have this title, although, as Martha explained, a representational
treatment
would not be expected, naturally. In addition to this, the prize work would find a permanent home in the vestibule of the Arts Theatre.

‘Conrad likes you so much,’ she concluded. ‘He very much hopes you’ll come. I’m sure you’ll excuse this informal invitation. He’s such a simple person. It never occurred to him that anybody would want to see the Apollo before it goes to Gressington. But I told him there
must
be a party.’

Dickie accepted with delighted alacrity, not because he wanted to see the Apollo, which he did not expect to understand, but because he liked Conrad Swann, with whom he very much wished to be better acquainted. Earlier in the year a truck, turning in the lane in front of
Swann’s house, had knocked down part of his garden wall. Dickie had acted for him in the business of
extracting
compensation. And then, a few weeks later, they had met down at the harbour just as Dickie was hiring a boat for a day’s fishing. Swann had come upon the same errand, but there was no other boat to be had. He had looked so much disappointed that Dickie offered hospitality on his own. They had enjoyed a delightful day and caught a great many fish. Swann, in Dickie’s opinion, was the best company in the world. Only diffidence prevented Dickie from suggesting another expedition; he did not want to thrust himself upon an older man, a celebrity. He hoped that Swann might make some proposal of the sort, but weeks went by and no word of encouragement came from the great man. This was the first indication that Swann liked or
remembered
him.

‘We shall be delighted to come,’ he told Martha. ‘Though I expect the Apollo will be rather above our heads.’

Her face clouded. She had her reasons for wishing to stand well with Dickie, but she had not intended to invite his wife. ‘Little Mrs. Pattison’ would, she felt, mix badly with the Elect. Dickie thought that she was shocked at hearing that the Apollo might be above his head and hastened to assure her that he was ready and willing to learn more about contemporary Art.

‘If people want to learn,’ she said, ‘that’s everything. So many don’t. I’m glad Mrs. Pattison can come. I was afraid she mightn’t be able to leave the baby.’

‘Oh, for an occasion like this,’ said Dickie, with enthusiasm, ‘we can get a sitter.’

‘Splendid! Nine o’clock. Informal dress. Mr. Pethwick will be coming. You know him, don’t you?’

Dickie rushed home to Christina with the news, and was disappointed when she made a face.

‘How like Martha Rawson to give other people’s parties for them,’ she said. ‘Why didn’t Mr. Swann ask us himself?’

‘I suppose,’ said Dickie, ‘… it might be rather awkward.’

‘You mean he hasn’t got a proper wife to send invitations? What about the Cucumber? Will she be there?’

This was their name for Swann’s lady. It had originated in some primitive joke about concubines.

‘I suppose so,’ said Dickie. ‘But it would be awkward for her to be hostess, perhaps, so that’s why Martha is running the party. You wouldn’t mind meeting her, would you, Tina?’

‘Oh well … no. Though I’m sure I shan’t like her. Married or not, she ought to look after those children better. Such pathetic little things. But what a funny sort of party! In aid of a statue! Will they put it in the lounge and bring us all up to shake hands with it?’

Dickie ignored this crude sarcasm and said, rather solemnly, that the statue would be in the studio.

‘We must take care to say the right thing,’ she
continued
. ‘And we mustn’t laugh, whatever we do, or they’ll look at us as if we were the dog’s dinner.’

‘Swann won’t,’ said Dickie quickly.

She agreed. She also liked Conrad Swann, who did not seem to be at all conceited, in spite of being a genius. She had sat next to him, at the opening of the new Marine Pavilion, and had been frightened out of her wits, until she found how nice and human he was. When the Archdeacon walked into the fountain by mistake, Mr. Swann laughed his head off, and she had been quite
as bad until he gave her some chewing gum. You can’t chew and giggle, he said, and that was perfectly true.

‘How he puts up with Martha Rawson and her set I can’t think,’ she commented. ‘Or why he does those awful statues.’

‘If we knew more about Art we mightn’t think them awful,’ said Dickie.

‘Dickie! You do annoy me sometimes. We know about Art. We’ve been to Italy and you’re always buying Phaidon books.’

‘Bobbins may think the earth of Mr. Swann’s work.’

‘Oh no. Even at that age you can tell if a child is going to be mentally deficient.’

She continued to scoff at the party until Dickie was secretly relieved when, on Sunday evening, she decided that she could not go. The sitter upon whom she had relied was afraid of going out in the thunder.

‘It’s you they want, not me, anyway,’ she said, as they sat down to Sunday supper. ‘So it’s just as well that Mrs. Simpson has failed me, under the
circumstances
. Or
in
the circumstances, as you say I ought to say.’

‘Do I? Well, it’s right, you know. Circumstances are all round us, not on top of us.’

‘
Under
is what everybody else says.’

‘Not everybody.’

‘Everybody we know, unless they’re Martha. She just can’t talk like other people. Do you remember the time she said she was something of a donkey-hoty? Nobody could think what she meant, except that we agreed with the donkey part of it.’

‘Martha,’ said Dickie gravely, ‘is a keyhotic type.’

Christina laughed. She had a delicious laugh, soft and merry, which set her, in Dickie’s opinion, above
all the other women in East Head. They roared and hooted and tittered. He had begun to fall in love with her on the day when he first noticed that laugh, and told himself that Christina Forbes was not like other girls. She had turned out to be more like them than he
originally
supposed, but he still loved to hear her laugh.

‘Keyhotic!’ she said. ‘That’s good.’

She made a note of this witticism to pass on to her friends. None of their husbands would have thought of it.

‘Thank you,’ said Dickie. ‘What is this we’re
eating
? It’s very nice.’

Christina smiled complacently. She believed that her cooking set her above all the other women in East Head.

‘I was wondering when you’d notice. Oh dear! That was quite a flash. It’s coming nearer again.’

‘Are you … shall you mind being left alone?’

‘Oh no. Not really. I’m not nervous of thunder. And it would be a shame if you missed your old party. I won’t tell you what this is because I can’t pronounce it, but we had it in Milan and you liked it. I found the recipe in a magazine.’

‘It’s absolutely delicious.’

‘It took me some time to get it right. I tried it out at lunchtime before I fed it to you. Ooh!’

‘Don’t sit facing the window if you don’t like it.’

‘Oh, I know it’s not dangerous. Only it makes me jump. You know, it’s a funny thing, you remember Rita? This, that we are eating, was really the reason why I sacked her. I mean her attitude about it. Just watching her slouch around over her work was bad enough, but when it came to actually criticising
me
… “Ow, Mrs. Pattison! I wonder why you bother!” Some people! The most awful thing they can imagine is having to take a lot of trouble over anything. How can
you get anything good if you think saving trouble is more important than what you want to do? But people like Rita! As long as food isn’t downright uneatable, as long as it doesn’t poison you, they think: It’s good enough! It’ll do. It’ll get by. They don’t know what
good
is.’

Dickie nodded amiably. He had heard this indictment of Rita before, and was a little tired of it. But he listened without protest, just as Christina listened to him when he complained of his clerk.

Christina was a lovely girl. Her sweet mouth, high cheekbones, and slanting eyes would, he sometimes thought, have delighted Botticelli. He listened and nodded, his thoughts straying elsewhere, while she chattered on. Anybody looking at them through the window, unable to hear the conversation, might have been excused for supposing that he hearkened to the siren’s song.

‘So I said to her, I said: Now, Rita! Is there anything … anything in the world you
would
take trouble for? In your own house, I mean; or over your clothes or anything? No, she said. She didn’t believe in ever taking any more trouble than she had to. And that meant just enough so that she could say: It’s not too bad! I can’t stand people who don’t even know they’re lazy. So I said: Bye-bye, Rita! You needn’t come after the end of this week. So now she’s washing up in the Blue Kettle. Which is why I never go there. I know what Rita’s washing up is like, thank you.’

Dickie nodded for the dozenth time, and tried not to see that she was frightened of the lightning, because, if he had to see it, he would not be able to go to the party with a clear conscience. He was still managing not to see it when he went upstairs to change into his best suit.

Bobbins slept soundly in his cot at the foot of their bed. He had kicked off his coverings and lay coiled up with his fists under his chin. Dickie wondered if he would get curvature of the spine, but when he called over the banisters, to ask if it was all right, Christina said that it was.

‘It’s the ante-natal attitude,’ she called, as she carried a tray into the kitchen. ‘The book says so. Normal at his age.’

She did not say that it might be a symptom of
retarded
development, if it persisted too long, because she did not want to have Dickie ringing up the doctor if Bobbins did not drop the ante-natal attitude on the very night of the correct birthday. ‘Dr. Browning! Dr. Browning! My son has got retarded development!’ Dickie, she considered, took books more seriously than he need. He did not seem to realise that they all say different things, and are always changing what they say. Sensible people merely select what suits them, out of books; they use their own judgment.

She smiled as she shook soap powder into a basin. She was remembering the book which had accompanied them on their honeymoon. Mrs. Hughes, the minister’s wife, had given it to them; it was a bright, aseptic little book about the technique of a happy marriage. Christina had refused to look at it, but Dickie read it from cover to cover with earnest attention. The wonder was that he did not actually take it to bed with him, and at last she protested. What could this book have to tell him which he did not know already? She was not the first woman in his life; conscience had driven him to confess as much, when they were engaged.

‘I’ve never been married before,’ he explained. ‘This book describes how a girl feels when … when she’s
a bride. It says that some brides are very shy, and the man makes mistakes, and never finds out until it’s too late. So the marriage is wrecked.’

‘Oh dear! How sad! Poor things! Oh, I do think life is sad. Well, darling, next time you want to have a read in this sa-ad book, you must look in the
waste-paper
basket, for that’s where I’ve put it.’

‘Tina! The chambermaid might read it.’

‘She couldn’t. She’s Italian. And if she could, I expect it would give her a good laugh. If you ask me, she knows more about it than the people who wrote that book.’

‘I’ve thought that sometimes,’ said Dickie, who had caught Angelina’s eye once or twice.

‘You have? The idea! You’ve no business to go thinking anything at all about the chambermaid. On your honeymoon too!’

They eventually got rid of the book by posting it to an imaginary couple, invented by Dickie, a Mr. and Mrs. Huntingtower, who lived in New Brighton and needed advice very badly. As the young Pattisons grew easier together, more secure in their own happiness, they got a good deal of fun out of the fantastic ineptitudes of this luckless pair. Dickie, in soaring spirits, was always inventing a new mistake for them to make, in order to hear Christina laugh.