Five Legs Page 10

  “But the wheels. They’re turning.” Grim circles and she’s right, dear God, she is. The wind! And they’ve all gone away, sure. That’s it, they’ve left already. Frig the wheels and boy what a relief that was!

  “There’s somebody in the back seat.” Trust him for chrissakes, trust him! A figure? Nononono, couldn’t be, they’ve all. Accelerating, bastard Oswald, past the crippled hulk, brute black and turning in the snow, accelerating for we must get on; they’ll all be waiting! Sickness, I’m; nausea burns the throat and my threatening bowels. Couldn’t be dear God, bunch of blankets, yes cartons. Or something. My stomach! Sure that’s what it is. “Aren’t you going to stop?” Now don’t my boy, don’t get shrill with, what a! Couldn’t possibly be. “I said aren’t you.” Rising accusation, insubordination that I won’t forget if you keep it up. Chewing inside, but there would have been someone, someone else, there. Accusatory, don’t you raise your; now his hands are pulling at the seat! “You can’t just, just drive away for chrissakes, there was someone. There was somebody in the back seat.” Police. Police and ambulance, we’ll inform them and we’re almost there. “I saw, Doctor Crackell I saw, just as clearly as, as anything, a body! I’m sure there’s somebody . . .”

  “Now, now. Just a minute Oswald, don’t, don’t fly off the handle. Two things, there are two things. No three things.” Receding in the mirror, dark in the gusts and there’s a, he’ll stop and see! There’s another. Car. “Firstly. And I may be wrong here. I think you’re mistaken, I don’t.” He’ll stop and if. But Christ, there couldn’t be! “I don’t think there was anyone there.”

  “But, for heaven’s . . .”

  “Just a minute, just a. I know what you’re going to say. What if there is, eh? What if there is. Well.” Aha, he’s stopped, and that makes it easier, oh boy! “Well if there is, and anything can be done, then.” The coup de grâce, here’s the coup. “That car behind will do it.” In astonishment they turn as I explain in my thought-out voice hah! Reasonable man is the one who overcomes, the well-considered, thoughtful man. “And the best thing we can do is, well, you know. Get straight into town and report everything to the proper authorities; alert the police, the ambulance.”

  “What if the guy’s dying or something, what if he’s really in bad shape?” Unpleasant. A thought. Good Lord. Private dying noises; crying, crying out from his no-man’s land and we’d have to watch or wipe the blood from his broken mouth. Jesus arrgh! Terrible. “I dunno, I certainly think we should have.” Backwards staring, tentative and; expansive Lucan, I think you’ve won, you well-considered man but then he, don’t for, please my head! Slapping angrily the seat’s back, suddenly there’s spittle, his lousy spittle for chrissakes spewing on my ears! “Goddamnit! You can’t, you can’t just drive by a thing like that without a look, without even looking at him for chrissakes! May be bleeding, may be bleeding to death and all he needs is a tourniquet, or something; maybe he.” Jeez, what a sensationalist!

  “C’mon Oswald. Take hold of yourself, for heaven’s sake young man. Take hold. You’re blowing this, whey you’re. Blowing this out of all proportion.” Tried, exasperated Lucan for I’ve tried, God knows I’ve. “Explained it to you, very clearly I thought. And I’ll say it. Again. Best thing we can do. For speed.” Very patient, very clear and patient, that’s the thing. “Is drive on into town and. Notify the authorities.” Boy, doesn’t he know. Anything? Amateurs can’t just go dragging the gravely injured around, you know. Do great damage, irreparable internal damage, joggle and twist all sorts of things out of place you know, so even if there were someone. Which I seriously doubt. “We couldn’t have moved him anyway, could we?” That’s perfectly clear, and. Crawling in there to pull him out, God knows what harm we might have done. “If it’s just a matter of. First Aid. Well, well the car behind will.”

  “I’m sorry. I’m sorry Doctor Crackell but that doesn’t.” Interrupting, he’s continually interrupting and we’ll have to have a. Talk. “It doesn’t satisfy me. We should have . . .”

  “Doesn’t what? Doesn’t satisfy? Look Oswald, I don’t care if it satisfies you or not!” Jeez the nerve, the! We’ll straighten this out once and for all, yes we. “I’m not one of your, your.” Scathing. My best and biting scathing voice, arrogant punk, he has to learn. “Friends. You forget who you’re talking to, I’m . . .”

  “I know exactly who I’m talking to, and I’m sorry, but.” Thunderstruck and God there’s going to be. “But it bloody well makes me sick; driving away, away from.” Don’t want a. Scene. Good Lord! I’m just not up to that, my head and my poor sad nerves are not. I’ve got enough. Lucan’s icy voice in the driving snow and Stratford now below that hill.

  “We won’t discuss this any more at the moment Oswald.” Sternly, quickly, for I must strike fear, I must! Or. “When we return to the university, this whole matter will deserve, deserve a thorough examination.” Ominously said, that’s the thing, cow him into. Silence. “However. I don’t wish to discuss it any further here. It’s not appropriate.”

  “We didn’t know there was another car, we had no way.” Stop him! Raising hand, abruptly from the wheel.

  “That’s enough, I said! I refuse to listen or discuss.” Girls’ silence, awkwardness and Christ. This memory haunted landscape! And I didn’t handle that well.

  Rushing the crest of this last small hill and there, there! Burning wind, shrouded water tower; clumsy gate on the town’s near edge. You’re such a fraud Lucan, such a pompous fraud! Under the tree-top eaves, laughter and her body thick, fullskirted with my child; biting laughter and the sun. Hot on the shabby trunks. You talk about the book, but you’re afraid! Come with me. Wooing. Come away, oh Lucan why don’t you come with me! And I can’t, I. Can’t. Bewildered and frightened, his back to the room he stares on the street below. Why won’t she? Marry me, even now, why won’t she marry me and come to London, good job. I have a position waiting there. Folding behind me, stripping our rooms and folding. Packing, she’s packing one by one the. Can’t just! Oh God, she mustn’t just go sailing off alone, pregnant and alone to have my baby in a strange town. She. Goddamnit Vera, turning desperately, you can’t go off alone like this, you simply can’t! In a strange town.

  Then you’ll have to come with me, won’t you? Smiling, her voice and gentle. Or else I’ll have to find someone else. What kind of? This, at a time like. Facetiousness is out of place and a tiny life is at stake. Helpless in her eyes; I must be. Firm. She’s so frigging unrealistic! Wow! Can’t go, go running off to England after her, so. Firmness, masculine prerogative. To assert the. But she went anyway, she just. Scattered redbrick boxes, ugly in the grimy snow and makeshift factories’ concrete blocks; not a full grown tree, the builders root them all up and she went without phoning or anything. Just a letter and I. Terrible bloody position to be in. Christ! I did everything I. Could have, if she wanted to she could have married! Me. Moisture on these palms, handrubbing energetically; one and then the other. Wrote her too, I tried to help. Twice she. Blown mound, the service station there with shadowed pumps and lonely swinging washed-out lights; houses, of course the town has grown we all, wellhaveallhavealland I’m not anymore. Good Lord, that boy! Snow wild night, crisp underfoot with burning circles round my legs; young man a foolish, acid in my throat, I walked all night and self-afraid. Harsh weight upon me while dark birds drift and swayed; under eyes I’ve run, impatient voices crying in my ears like bees, suck, suck as the hands reached out and I. HAVE WANTED SO MUCH! Are you happy here? Rampant snowy road, obscured the view and trembling Lucan staring cry-filled, plump and hopeless at that boy who, panicking, vanished under this bridge and down the never ending hill. Reaching hands to the cross; reaching to smoothe, on the hill, read the reluctant paper crackling on its chest. Cavernous lie! Unhealthy minds, for. Wilful obscenity, a vulgar prank and it’s clear that. That each day breaks newly born or. At least. At least the possibility, there has to be that, the possibility! For once,
singing I. Danced around. These streets! A dancer. Gloomy on fire these stores, the tannery they’ve all come home in reflected light and Lucan’s falling, falling in the long hall, precipitously falling and he peels away like pages blowing in the wind. Lousy lie, it’s all a lousy lie! This trip and all, this fuckingawful drive and on and on I’ll go forever hopeless down this filthy road. And as to, to what is anguish in me. Boy! She hasn’t a, not a fucking clue as on and on. Have wanted so. But sickness, always wanting is the constant now and always, God! What am I to do, what hope for years or my life? What is there to do in fact (and the words in isolation clearly sound), what is there for me to do between the funeral and. The other? Not a prayer! Surrounding, the silence; and the answer’s too well known, dear. Blessed. Heaven. Alone, sometimes and inescapable the answer that sickening, drags a question through my life. Nothing. Nothing. Can with the rest of. Happy? The hill and phoney. Nothing. To do and it doesn’t. “There’s the police station.” Matter. What? Christ I hate that voice, I hate. Groping for, Lucan searching for the implication of. Yes, yes. The wreck and I mustn’t, the wreck dear God and I mustn’t let him see it slipped my. Mind.

  “Ah yes, I know, I know but.” Surely. There couldn’t have been! Surely, surely they’re. “Since we’re behind schedule, I’ve decided to, to phone.” Pretty lame, that’s hardly good, but. What’s that, a groan, did he? Bastard, the. Forcefully, take control for pity’s sake, assert. “We’ll phone from the restaurant!” What else can I? Can’t let him see. Terrible fool if we went in there and the, the crash was old or something, feel a terrible. “No need is there, to get involved or. When a phone call’s good. Enough.” I’m flushing, again, I’m, angry for why am I? Here I am again. “There’d be questions, signing papers maybe.” Bloody inquisition and I swallow, every bloody time I. Useless argument and I’m so defensive with this miserable, this prick. Jeez!

  “Let me out!” Startled Lucan turning, swerving startled on the road. “Stop the car and let me out.” Staring, his eyes and angry into mine. Despising me. And reflexively back to see in this lousy town, breaking, to the roadside carefully. And icy wind through the door.

  “Be a pleasure. If you feel.” This way, oh God! So sick and overwhelmed, so helpless a bloody pawn, I am. Slamming cold behind me as he goes. For I’m defensive, bound about by. Forcing me, that’s it, they’re always. Putting me on the frigging spot and it’s all a hoax, a stinking fraud! Accelerating from the curb and I see it so clearly, so inescapably; how could I? On his side, they’re loathing, despising me too. No, no! “Don’t know why he’s so upset.” Ease their awkwardness and I must. “A phone call would have done the trick just as easily.” Embarrassment at these grasping hopes, my poor life’s futility, for all along they’ve simply. USED CARS. USED CARS. Above and reaching alone through the tearing sky an iron pole bedecked; torn plastic pennants gusting down to the lot’s four corners there. SAVE! Huge clumsy lettered on this vastly wasted, broken carousel. DIFFERENT. DIFFERENT. DIFFERENT. In price . . . in trade-in . . . How could I have. Believed, how could I? SAVE oh save me for I do. NOBODY EVER WALKS AWAY FROM HERE!!! Repent, I do dear God oh. SAVE! SAVE! Suddenly, violently. Horribly sick all over the floor oh. Terrible, the shameful scene, this growing stain of my youth and I did I sent her money, twice I sent. But she returned it. Everytime she. Have to get someone. Private, her life alone, gone with her own life somewhere and the child. Why did she, that’s what I want to; why did she send it? Back. Why? Dirtworn above chrome and bright stores, this winter-landscaped mainstreet town: clumsy figures bundling lonely in the snow, burning the sound and sight of this past and underworld terrain. Almost nine, boy or girl of almost nine what kind of a life for a boy. Or girl. What kind of a life for her? Young, my figure walking still and driven the snow-filled streets: alone and away all walking dark and huddled here. Howling the night’s white noise.

  Delicate vertebrae, and her heart beating with ease in the stirring grass. Will you cry for me? Waiting aloof and gentle there for there’s no one else, not a soul . . . Please will?

  Formal in the mind’s blank eye she stoops through spirals of silence, she bends to tidy the room with tendons dark in her hands: pale her image, incredibly clear, as slowly she forces the paper back, stuffing and stuffing until I’m full. And mirrored their features; breathing their breath as she un-masks them.

  Crying with their silence watching, pity clotting from their stifled breath. What can I do for chrissakes, what else. To be done? Searching eyes unhappy in the street’s familiar hill: abandoned lives, uncertain stumbling in the snow-filtered underworld and somewhere, blindly, Lucan Crackell lost his life and love. Sad man, adapting to the world’s disgrace. THERE IS NO EASTER.

  Forget it, forget the bone’s obscenity, their clutching hands, forget my past!

  But I guess, beneath indifferent eyes, I guess it doesn’t matter, comes the saddest voice and rodent feet of hope’s despair. There’s nothing to be done.

  Susan!

  LUCAN 3

  “GEE. I DON’T KNOW. But I’m sure you’re right.” Turning she watches me. “I can’t imagine, I simply can’t imagine that there could have been.” Susan you look so nice and that’s what I wanted to hear. A young woman, so much. The others just. Lucan Crackell sitting in his first warm face today and there’s coffee, a cup of coffee being poured. Yes there is and even in grief you’re a warm and a beautiful. Person. Hah! Drawn back, your hair’s severe. Yes. Appropriate. And vulnerable there I can see as you turn to this group, I can see. “Can you Nancy? I mean, you’d certainly think that on a busy road, you know. As busy as that London road, well, you’d expect a crowd wouldn’t you? You’d certainly have thought.” Where you’ve combed it in tracks. And Lucan is pleased for it’s not so bad, certainly. Low ceiling beneath the gusting street, these booths I know and fear: certainly they remind but. Not a window, not a frigging window, nowhere can I see the day. But! Dismiss! Forget the memory of that slippered walk and the silence he brings. Coffee steaming, circles upon circles and it’s just the thing. For hope. His shining eyes. Small and shining, he looks so old dear God, the lines and careful feet. Leaning to serve, is he the same? Cigarette blue-smoking on the counter’s edge and other cups bitter in my throat. “Would you like anything else Doctor Crackell? Toast or anything?” Voice concerned out of friendship, and Lucan easing for it’s really not that bad.

  “No. No Susan, thank you, I.” Really isn’t. Looking around; growing confidence expanding in the room. Another world actually. Oswald’s gone (if only they’d lock him up. Or something) and Susan with watching eyes you’re very nice. And helpful. Sympathetic, that’s the thing for she knows. Lifting the coffee and my smile. “This will be fine.” Intimate smile for I know your white shoulders, your. Breasts. “Thanks anyway.”

  “Anyone else want to eat?” Lovely girl, really a lovely girl and. Certainly an unpleasant thought but. She’s better off without him. Really. “I mean. I think there’s time before we, we have to go.”

  “Oh Susan, no! I couldn’t think of.” Reproval in her whine. “How could you think of eating on a day like this?” They phoned my mother, and asked why he didn’t have a better coffin they said we’d have lent you the money if we’d thought you didn’t have enough.

  “Miss Haden I think that’s beside the point.” Firm voice to the rescue here. “Life goes on and that’s the real thing.” Lucan’s strength and maturity, my growing certainty for she’s better off without him.

  “Well I didn’t, I didn’t mean. All I meant was that I don’t want.” Averted eyes, hah! She’s left herself. “I’m not hungry, that’s all.” Wide open.

  “So long as you.” My knowing smile, Susan’s eyes. “So long as you don’t make a general principle from your own preoccupations, eh? Ha!” Feel better, honestly do and what a strange strange thing she said when we left the car. From her coffee, glancing: thin-faced with brutal glasses, winterwhite and sipping as she looks away. In the terribl
e frigging cold as we picked our way in the wind, dreading that sign and descending stairs and I should have worn my galoshes. Or rubbers or. But it spoils the silhouette. You know, Doctor Crackell, that I’m one of her very best friends. And Susan waiting gently here. Really one of her best. I can’t think of anyone. Anyone who is as close, but you know. Conspiratorially, for the others have gone downstairs. She’s a funny girl sometimes. I even have to admit it, her best friend. Go on, get in there for chrissakes! Get in, it’s too fucking cold out here! But she stands with the skirts of her coat blown apart by the wind. And she blinks stick-thighed in the swirling snow; staring as I hold the door, stupidly, and. What in hell am I supposed to? She made me promise not to see him.

  What?

  Martin, not see Martin in London. Enlarged eyes and pleading. She was jealous you see. Wool mitten on my arm, restraining hand as I try to push past her down the stairs. I didn’t, wait a minute! I didn’t even want him very much. Oh! He was a nice boy alright. A really nice boy even though. Moving inside her coat and her teeth are like claws. But I couldn’t have, don’t you see? Lucan ducks his head and shifts from foot to foot. You understand, don’t you? This vestibule is too bloody cold. You do, I know you do because. Turning resigned, she removes her hand. Because you have sad eyes came her voice and Jesus! What a strange. Conversation. Drinking coffee and I feel better now, yes I. Sad eyes for chrissakes. The sadly eyes of Lucan Crackell. Shit! Now, blinking she waits, she sips her long lip deeply there and adjusting the glasses on her nose:

  “Felix was his best friend, wasn’t he?” Nakedly searching face. “His best boyfriend, I mean.” Cafeteria sitting with their coffee, laughing, Jesus laughing with a stupid mocking racket! “Living together like that and everything, it must have been a terrible shock.” Hmmn, a yesyes, they mutter yes while Susan’s still, she stares at her cup.