‘How can that be?’ said Pearl. ‘We’ve only met today.’ Pearl was wearing a summer dress too, not a flowy flowery one like Hattie’s, but a straight yellow shift, like a sort of science fiction uniform, roped in at the waist to an increased narrowness. Her head too, with her straight profile, looked narrow as if it were trying to be two-dimensional. The sun had made her dark complexion a shade darker, raising a reddish-brown glow in her cheeks, and finding reddish lights in her dark hair, which she had had expertly cut much shorter.
‘I saw you several times at the Baths, at the Institute as they call it.’
‘Oh —?’ Pearl found Emma very odd. He was perspiring in his coat and waistcoat, and his pale face was burnt to an uncomfortable shiny pink. He peered at her sternly through his narrow oval glasses.
‘Yes. You interest me.’
‘It’s kind of you to be interested! You know I’m Miss Meynell’s maid?’
‘Yes, that’s picturesque but not important. It’s quaint for anybody to be anybody’s maid these days.’
‘You’re Irish, aren’t you?’
‘That too is picturesque but not important.’
‘Well, what is important?’
‘You are.’ Emma threw a stone into the pool but it did not sink, it rested upon a thick water-lily leaf. He threw another to hit the first but missed.
‘What can I do for you?’ said Pearl, rather curtly.
‘Ah, I don’t know that yet,’ said Emma. ‘Possibly nothing.’ He added, ‘I wanted to meet you before I knew who you were.’
‘But why did you want to meet me? I’m sorry, this is becoming a rather silly conversation.’
‘I don’t think so. A little laboured, but we make progress. Again, I don’t know. Why is one impressed by some people and not by others? That’s not a matter of logic.’
‘I think we should go back — ’
‘I don’t usually talk to girls like this. I don’t usually talk to girls at all.’
‘It may be better not to talk. You’ll find me very dull.’
‘Why do you think that?’
‘I know nothing.’
‘That’s all right, I know everything. If you want to know anything, I can tell you.’
‘You’re a historian —?’
‘Yes. Of course all I know is facts and a few tattered ideas I find adhering to them.’
‘We’d better go and join Miss Meynell and Mr McCaffrey.’
‘My friend is called Tom, your friend is called Hattie. Can’t you drop the Misses and Misters?’
‘No.’
‘As you please. I’ve thought of a reason why I wanted to meet you.’
‘Why?’
‘You look dry.’
‘Dry?’
‘Yes. Girls are seldom dry.’
‘What does it mean?’
‘Dry as in hard and dry. The opposite to soft and mushy.’
‘I thought men liked softness. Perhaps you think I’m like a boy.’
‘Tell me something about yourself.’
‘What?’
‘Anything.’
‘My mother was a prostitute.’
‘Am I supposed to be impressed?’
Meanwhile Gabriel was having a terrible experience. She had set off walking along the beach (as Brian had seen her do) but had soon climbed up on to the rocks on the landward side and begun to clamber along them. Was she looking for George? No. The idea of being alone with George in this intense wild region filled her with fear. Did she enjoy the fear? She went on and came at last to a place she knew, not far from the lighthouse, where the rocks became steep and the strip of sand between the seaward rocks and the landward rocks disappeared, and the rocks fell sheer into deep water. Here, lifting her head from a difficult scramble, she suddenly saw a man ahead of her, outlined against the sky. For a second she thought it was George. Then she saw that in fact it was not a man, but a tall teenage boy. As she advanced, she saw another boy. They were standing looking down into a shallow pool in the rocks where, above the high-tide mark, the winter storms had tossed some flying water. Gabriel knew the pool. As she came forward the boys saw her. ‘Hello.’ ‘Hello.’ Gabriel paused beside the pool and looked down too. Then she felt an instant spasm of pain and premonitory fear. There was a fish swimming to and fro in the pool, a large fish about eighteen inches long. Gabriel thought, that fish has no business in that pool, he must have been put there by the boys. Her identification with the fish was instantaneous. She thought, he will very soon suffocate if he is left here. The pool is foul anyway, the sea never reaches it at this time of year.
She said, ‘What a lovely fish. Did you catch him?’
‘Yes.’
‘Are you going to put him back in the sea?’
‘No. Not likely!’
‘You can’t leave him here — ’
‘Why not?’
‘He’ll suffocate in that small pool.’
‘We’re going to take him home,’ said the other boy. ‘We’ve got a bucket.’
‘To eat?’
‘Maybe. Or maybe just to keep.’
‘You wouldn’t be able to keep that fish alive.’
‘Why not?’
‘Won’t you please put him back in the sea? We could catch him and just drop him over the edge here into the deep water, and see him swim away. Wouldn’t that be a nice thing to do?’
The taller boy laughed. ‘I’m not going to put it back. It’s my fish!’
The boys were about fifteen, dressed in black leather jackets and jeans, their hair cut close to their heads. The spectacle of Gabriel’s distress clearly amused them.
‘Please,’ said Gabriel, ‘please.’ She squatted down beside the pool.
‘Hey, leave it alone!’
‘He’s so lovely, he’s so alive, and he may die — ’
‘I bet you eat fish and chips!’ said the other boy.
Gabriel said, with a sudden inspiration, ‘I’ll buy it from you!’
They laughed again. ‘Would you, how much?’
‘I’ll give you a pound.’
‘Two pounds.’
‘All right, two pounds.’
‘Ten pounds, twenty pounds, a hundred pounds.’
‘I’ll give you two pounds for the fish.’
‘Let’s see the two pounds.’
‘Oh dear — ’ Gabriel had no money with her. Her handbag was lying on the sand under a rug with the remains of lunch. ‘I haven’t got it here. I’ll get it from the beach. But can we let the fish go first, please let’s, and I promise I’ll give you the two pounds. You can come with me — ’
‘No,’ said the taller boy. ‘You bring the two pounds and we might, I just say might, let you have the fish.’
Tears came into Gabriel’s eyes. She stood up. ‘You will stay here, you won’t take the fish away?’
‘We won’t stay forever!’
Gabriel turned and began to scramble back across the rocks. She slipped and tore her stocking and grazed her leg and scarcely noticed and bundled on.
‘Oh there you are!’ It was Brian who had returned to the beach.
‘Oh Brian, darling!’ Gabriel slithered down to the sand, wrenching her skirt. ‘Could you give me two pounds, quick, please — ’
‘Two pounds?’ said Brian, whose relief had instantly evaporated as soon as it appeared. He was exhausted with running to and fro, and annoyed with Gabriel for vanishing. ‘What for?’
‘Some boys have got a fish, a live fish, I want to buy it to save it— ’
‘Two pounds, for a fish?’
‘I want to put it back in the sea.’
‘Oh don’t be silly.’ said Brian. ‘We’re not made of money. Certainly not.’
Gabriel turned from him and ran on laboriously, her feet sinking in the sand, her face red with tears.
‘And did those feet in ancient time
Walk upon England’s mountains green?
And was the holy Lamb of God
On England’s pleasant pastures seen?
And did the Countenance Divine