‘It was me who stole the notebooks and put them in the caravan.’ But for all his calm speech Cuthbert knew he couldn’t say anything she’d believe. And he wanted to convince her at last.
‘You’re lying,’ she said, ‘as usual’ — and ran out of the studio with the gun.
She can’t kill Dawley, he told himself, because through his death Death will live. But he thought it still too early to get down on his knees and pray.
‘They’ve had time to take the place apart brick by brick,’ Mandy grumbled, as she lifted the lid of the Aga and set the kettle on. ‘If it was money I could understand it. If I saw a thousand quid lying about I’d grab it, but not some dead bloke’s notebooks.’ She opened a biscuit tin and took out a handful. ‘I could do with a lump sum to get a car with. I feel like a burn-up on the M1.’
‘Take mine,’ Myra suggested, knowing she couldn’t go fast in it. Mandy seemed helpless and vulnerable — the sort of young person she read about in the newspapers who was ‘in need of care and protection’. She was outspoken, kind, and pretty. She had a faintly split nose, but so subtle that you might not properly notice it for some time. It came down from the short bridge and gave an amiable charm to the rest of her face. Handley always referred to it as a ‘saucy little coal-tip nose’.
She smiled at Myra’s attempt to turn her from thoughts of a new car. ‘That old banger would split in two after ten miles.’
‘The Rambler, then.’
‘Dad would have a fit. I’d never hear the last of it. The trouble about artists is they’re dead men.’
‘What do you call being generous?’
‘Somebody who gives all he’s got, and doesn’t bat an eyelid, even when he goes broke over it.’
Myra poured her tea. ‘You always say “he” — why?’
‘Men are the ones with money. I don’t think it’s right, though. That’s what’s wrong with this set-up. Men run the place, even though we do let them play at keeping house. We voted for ’em to do it, but it only makes ’em think they’re more top-dog than ever. They’ll be thinking they’re as good as we are soon. Why the hell did we help to search for those crumby notebooks? Whatever’s in ’em’s bound to make things worse for us.’
‘I thought they ought to be found: Maricarmen was upset.’
‘Yes, she’s a fine-freedom-loving revolutionary, she is. I expect she can’t live unless she’s under somebody’s thumb. I know all about that, living in this house. I suppose her boyfriend Shelley kept her under his thumb right enough. And now that he’s kicked the bucket she’s missing it, and wants us to get under the influence of his papers — whatever’s in ’em.’
She was like a young mare knocking down the hurdles as she went over them. She lit a cigarette. ‘She gets upset about anything. I’ve never seen such a bloody neurotic. No wonder she’s a revolutionary.’
‘She’s spent time in prison.’
‘She’s not the only one. Some mope, some don’t.’
‘That’s not a very nice remark,’ Myra said.
‘I suppose not. You’re the only generous person in this roundabout. It’s your house, and you chip in plenty of money, as well as do a lot of work. It beats me why you do it, it does.’
Myra thought for a moment. ‘Maybe I’m an idealist — which is a way of saying I’ve found an outlet for my neuroses. I joined this experiment because I wondered if it were possible for a group of people to live together and kill the dead weight of the family.’
‘Is it, though?’ asked Mandy.
‘It’s too early to say.’
‘What if it got smashed?’
‘Why should it?’ She spoke guardedly, knowing Mandy was close to the truth. ‘We’ve done well so far. If it gets difficult it’s only because we haven’t made a bigger community out of it. It’s too small. We need more people, and another house. If we could get planning permission we’d build two more dwelling-places on the paddock. We’d have a real kibbutz.’
‘They’ll never give us planning permission,’ Mandy said. ‘They hate our guts at the council. Anyway, we’d have to get land as well, and farm it.’ She was fired with enthusiasm: ‘We ought to get lots of animals, have a real farm to live off. We’re too idle, really. What’s it like being Jewish?’
She coloured slightly as she asked her question. Having lived for a long time in such an un-Jewish atmosphere it was difficult for Myra to clear her thoughts for the serious answer that Mandy deserved. ‘If you’re Jewish you can never forget that you are Jewish — no matter where you live, or what you might become. It’s with you all the time.’
‘I suppose it is,’ Mandy said sadly. ‘You being the only Jewish person here.’
‘One can’t forget that the Germans killed six million of us just because we were Jewish. Several hundred thousand were children, just like Mark and the other children at this house.’
Mandy bent her head, and tears fell on to her knees. ‘I know,’ she said. ‘Dad told us years ago. But don’t tell Ralph, will you? He couldn’t stand it.’ Misery was a dragon, a great monster that fixed its teeth into her heart till the pain became unbearable. If Ralph went mad because a small animal of the field had died, what would happen if he heard about the Germans murdering so many children — not to mention all the others who’d done nothing to nobody either? ‘I expect he already knows about it though, and that’s why he can’t bear to see a hedgehog die.’
Myra smiled, sorry now to have upset her. ‘None of it’s your fault.’
‘It is,’ she sobbed, ‘or I wouldn’t be crying, would I?’
She comforted her, but one couldn’t cut it off in midstream: ‘Mark’s Jewish, because of the son of a Jewish mother is always Jewish, no matter what so-called race or religion the father is. So I’m not alone! Anyway, I feel that we’re all the same sort in this house.’
‘But don’t you ever want to go to synagogue?’
‘Sometimes. On the Day of Atonement. That’s when all good Jews fast for twenty-four hours — and hope their sins will be forgiven.’
‘That’s a fine idea,’ said Mandy, drying her eyes with the Kleenex Myra gave her. ‘But I don’t think I could go even for four hours without food. Still, it must be good to be Jewish if it makes you feel different.’
‘You think that’s good?’
‘I reckon so. It’s not dull, is it?’
‘I suppose it’s not when you come across people who are anti-Jewish,’ Myra said, hoping to change the topic.
‘If somebody got at me because I was Jewish,’ Mandy said, ‘I’d scratch their eyes out. They’d never do it again to anybody. And if I was a Catholic and somebody called me for it I’d kill them as well. That’s the way Dad brought us up. We used to go to school in rags, and when the kids mocked us we slaughtered ’em. Mam’s the same way.’
‘That’s why I call your parents generous,’ said Myra.
‘Dad’s not. He’s a mean old swine.’
Myra laughed.
‘If it hadn’t been for you,’ Mandy held her hand, ‘this community would never have got off the ground.’
Myra stood and put more water in the kettle. Any minute she expected the others to converge on the kitchen. Food was the one unalterable law of life, which she perfectly understood. Maybe they’d found the notebooks. Handley would avoid blaming anyone if it were possible, unless Cuthbert had had a hand in it. In that case there’d be a bit of a row, before calm wrapped them up once more.
As boiling water steamed into the pot, a clear brick-splitting crack of a noise sounded from somewhere outside, its echoes whipping along the belly of the clouds and throwing a final stab back at the windows. Eric Bloodaxe whined with fear, a chilling heart-cry that went on and on.