‘Hugh.’ She drew near and rested her yellowed paper hand on his sleeve, either for need of balance or affection. ‘I have always valued that print. It was my husband’s. I’ve never been to Rome … No, not Rome. Someone said something. I liked Stockholm … To me it represents the processes of the mind, the inheritance the new draws from the old, through many generations. Imagine how astonished I was when your sketches recreated virtually the same picture …’
She gasped with pain and turned slowly back to the door while still speaking. Her frame shook. She rattled the doorknob furiously when she held it for support.
‘When you wept, I wept too. Something communicated with us … Many people regard this engraving as a gloomy thing. Not I. Far from it. Well, it has shown us its vitality. Through it something communicated with us.’
For him, the transitory trumpets were playing.
When he did not respond, the old woman paused on the landing. ‘This is the occasion for a very early application of vodka, my dear. We can celebrate – nurse, nurse! Where is that bloody old woman?’
Later, when they were in the living room, Billing in the cane-backed chair with his crutch on the floor beside him, Gladys seated on the chaise-longue and the bottle and ice and glasses between them, he stared at the pattern on the carpet and said, ‘Pictures and dreams – how can they make any difference to the facts of life?’
‘Facts are open to interpretation, just as the picture is. It’s not the picture that’s important but its interpretation … Pictures and dreams. No, you removed the chest when we went to live in Malmö. My silk stockings were in that chest. It’s pure carelessness … What was that? No. What was I saying?’
He sighed. ‘I don’t know. About interpretation. I’m out of a job, I know that. Nowhere to go, life in ruins.’
‘Yes, of course. Everything with any meaning has many meanings. The picture preserves a meaning for us jointly. You see, I am the old ruin, Hugh, and you are the new building. You must come and live … within my walls. Before I fade out … There are two rooms upstairs never used. You can throw out a lot of the rubbish. All rubbish. You can be at home here. I shall try not to be a burden to you. I know I’m a burden. You need not see me every day, even. We could make it a rule of the house. Only every other day and then only for so long. An hour, two …’
He regarded her old and lined face, her trembling white hair, the hands that rested, one in her lap, one on the curved back of the chaise-longue.
‘I’d have to be free to come and go, Gladys.’
She sighed deeply and coughed. Pursing her mouth until the lower part of her face was a maze of wrinkles, she asked, ‘Is that your only response, to evade responsibility?’
‘I don’t want mothering.’
She gave a dry laugh. ‘That kind of untruth is another evasion, dear. What’s certain is that in my last years I do not require a baby son to look after. Perhaps my offer was a mistake, too generous. I’m weak in the head, that I know, I’m afraid.’
Billing went down on his good knee beside her and clutched the skeletal hand in her lap.
‘Take me in,’ he said. ‘Please take me in. I’ll just have to be free to come and go, that’s all. There’s a woman I must see again.’
The lane was long. In his dream he seemed to have been walking for ever. He did not recognise the curiously distorted trees that grew on either side of the way.
Yet the ruin ahead was familiar. It had been an ecclesiastical building in time gone by and now bore a crown of grass and ferns growing from the remains of the roof and the broken window-sockets. The evening sunlight bathed it in a ruddy glow.
Two people stood in the middle of the road, waiting for him. He felt hostility in the air, before realising that it was his hostility towards them.
The strangers escorted him round to the back of the ruin. There, in contrast to the general decay, stood a modest dwelling built from fallen masonry. He recognised that he was in exotic country; yet the occasion held a haunting sense of home-coming.
Washing hung in a small courtyard, strung between old and new walls. They walked under its damp folds in order to enter by the front door, which stood invitingly open. The elderly couple moved aside to allow him to go in first, their hands extended in a gesture of welcome.
He hesitated for a moment, looking round uncertainly, seeing for the first time how wild the country was all about. The setting sun filled it with mist and shadows. He turned. This time he entered the dwelling.
Restorations
‘I shall never be able to look back on the funeral with any pleasure,’ Rose said, gloomily. ‘This just about ruins the day.’
She had been standing beside the car, the poor defunct car, with her arms akimbo; now she climbed into the back seat and closed the door firmly, not slamming it but shutting it loudly enough to express a finite but not negligible amount of disgust.
Billing made no answer. He stood where he was, hands in pockets in front of the car, regarding the scenery.
The stretch of road was deserted, apart from an occasional lorry growling by. They were stuck somewhere north of London. No building was in sight. Trees lined the road, with fields beyond. They were waiting on the northbound side of the road, in a lay-by into which they had pushed the Austin. Tall trees, firs and ruinous pines a century old, formed themselves up into untidy woodland beside them. It was almost dark. Minute by minute the air thickened.
The breakdown people should arrive at any time. Hugh did not permit himself to say the words, knowing that he had spoken the sentence aloud before. It would only annoy further the woman he wanted to console. But the garage was being a long while coming. He had had to walk three miles to a phone box to summon them.
He made an effort now to stay in touch with Rose, strolling over to her window and saying, in firmly cheerful tones, ‘I’m sorry, I’m no good at dealing with car engines. I expect it’s the armature again.’
Rose remained looking down. ‘I know, Hugh. You’re the dreamer.’ She had flattened all nuances from the remark, so that only the words remained, spiritless between them.
Billing turned his back, resuming a contemplation of the roadside copse. It was a chilly February day and the sun had already set behind the trees. While the man and woman waited by the car, the hectic colours of day’s end had died from the sky. Now only muted tones remained: shades of oyster, lemon, pearl and then, nearer the horizon, a series of greys and tones neither grey nor blue. The rough trunks of the trees presented themselves in silhouette against this backdrop, providing an avenue towards the distance.
It seemed to Billing that from this arrangement of colours and space something spoke to him, addressed him gravely yet comfortingly. He felt an answer arising in himself. Outwardly he was mute, his usual unkempt self contained within the dark suit he had bought especially for Gladys Lee’s funeral.
He thought, I’m a funny fellow. I wonder if Rose feels all the sensations I do? He was too shy to ask her directly, suspecting that the answer could be deduced – the answer he had found throughout life, that no one felt things as he did. Of course, old Gladys had done, no denying that. But she had become quite gaga towards the end.
It grew darker yet. He watched the great drama through the trees as if it would never happen again. Rose climbed out of the car and begged him to get in, in tones the over-strained patience of which suggested a mother’s tact with a wayward child.