The Lime Twig: Novel Read online

  Knowing how much she feared his dreams: knowing that her own worst dream was one day to find him gone, overdue minute by minute some late afternoon until the inexplicable absence of him became a certainty; knowing that his own worst dream, and best, was of a horse which was itself the flesh of all violent dreams; knowing this dream, that the horse was in their sitting room—he had left the flat door open as if he meant to return in a moment or meant never to return—seeing the room empty except for moonlight bright as day and, in the middle of the floor, the tall upright shape of the horse draped from head to tail in an enormous sheet that falls over the eyes and hangs down stiffly from the silver jaw; knowing the horse on sight and listening while it raises one shadowed hoof on the end of a silver thread of foreleg and drives down the hoof to splinter in a single crash one plank of that empty Dreary Station floor; knowing his own impurity and Hencher’s guile; and knowing that Margaret’s hand has nothing in the palm but a short life span (finding one of her hairpins in his pocket that Wednesday dawn when he walked out into the sunlight with nothing cupped in the lip of his knowledge except thoughts of the night and pleasure he was about to find) —knowing all this, he heard in Hencher’s first question the sound of a dirty wind, a secret thought, the sudden crashing in of the plank and the crashing shut of that door.

  “How’s the missus, Mr. Banks? Got off to her marketing all right?”

  Then: “No offense. No offense,” said Hencher after Banks’ pause and answer.

  The Artemis—a small excursion boat—shivered and rolled now and again ever so slightly though it was moored fast to the quay. Banks heard the cries of dock hands who were fixing a boom’s hook to a cargo net, the sound of a pump, and the sound, from the top deck, of a child shouting through cupped hands in the direction of the river’s distant traffic of puffing tugs and barges. And also overhead there were the quick uncontrollable running footfalls of smaller children and, on the gangway, hidden beyond the white bulkhead of the refreshment saloon, there was the steady tramp of still more boarding passengers.

  A bar, a dance floor—everyone was dancing—a row of salt-sealed windows, a small skylight drawn over with the shadow of a fat gull: here was Hencher’s fun, and Banks could feel the crowd mounting the sides of the ship, feel the dance rhythm tingling through the greasy wood of the table top beneath his hand. For a moment and in a clear space past the open sea doors held back by small brass hooks, he saw hatless members of the crew dragging a mountain of battered life preservers forward in a great tar-stained shroud of canvas.

  “No offense, eh, Mr. Banks? Too good a day for that. And tell me now, how’s this for a bit of a good trip?”

  The lodger’s hand was putty round the bottom of the beer glass, the black-and-cream checkered cap was tight on the head—surely the fat man would sail away with the mothers and children and smart young girls when the whistle blew.

  “No offense, Hencher. But you can leave off mentioning her, if you don’t mind.”

  Perhaps he would sail away himself. That would be the laugh, he and Hencher, stowaways both, elbowing room at the ship’s rail between lovers and old ladies, looking out themselves—the two of them—for a glimpse of the water or a great furnace burning far-off at the river’s edge. Sail away out of the river’s mouth and into the afternoons of an excursion life. Hear the laughter, feel the ship’s beam wallow in the deep seas and lie down at night beneath a lifeboat’s white spongy prow still hot to the hand. No luggage, no destination, helmsman tying the wheel—on any course—to have a smoke with a girl. This would be the laugh, with only the pimply barkeep who had never been to sea before drawing beer the night long. But there was better than this in wait for him, something much better than this.

  In the crowd at the foot of the gangplank an officer had asked for their tickets, and Hencher had spoken to the man: “My old woman’s on that boat, Captain, and me and my friend here will just see that she’s got a proper deck chair and a robe round her legs.”

  And now the dawn was gone, the morning hours too were gone. He had found the crabbed address and come upon the doorway in which Hencher waited; had walked with him down all those streets until the squat ship, unseaworthy, just for pleasure, lay ahead of them in a berth between two tankers; had already seen the rigging, the smokestacks, the flesh-colored masts and rusty sirens and whistles in a blue sky above the rotting roof of the cargo sheds; had boarded the Artemis, which smelled of coke and rank canvas and sea animals and beer and boys looking for sport.

  “We’ll just have some drink and a little talk on this ship before she sails, Mr. Banks. …”

  He leaned toward Hencher. His elbows were on the table and his wet glass was touching Hencher’s frothy glass in the center of the table. Someone had dropped a mustard pot and beneath his shoe he felt the fragments of smashed china, the shape of a wooden spoon, the slick of the mustard on the dirty spoon. A woman with lunch packed in a box pushed through the crowd and bumped against him, paused and rested the box upon their table. Protruding from the top of the box and sealed with a string and paper was a tall jar filled with black bottled tea. The woman carried her own folding chair.

  “Bloody slow in putting to sea, mates,” she said, and laughed. She wore an old sweater, a man’s muffler was knotted round her throat. “I could do with a breath of that sea air right now, I could.”

  Hencher lifted his glass. “Go on,” he said, “have a sip. Been on the Artemis before?”

  “Not me.”

  “I’ll tell you then. Find a place for yourself in the bows. You get the breeze there, you see everything best from there.”

  She put her mouth to the foam, drank long, and when she took the glass away she was breathing quickly and a canker at the edge of her lip was wet. “Join me,” she said. “Why don’t you join me, mates?”

  “We’ll see you in the bows,” said Hencher.

  “Really?”

  “Good as my word.”

  It was all noise of people wanting a look at the world and a smell of the sea, and the woman was midships with her basket; soon in the shadow of the bow anchor she would be trying to find a safe spot for her folding chair. Hencher was winking. A boy in a black suit danced by their table, and in his arms was a girl of about fourteen. Banks watched the way she held him and watched her hands in the white gloves shrunk small and tight below the girl’s thin wrists. Music, laughter, smells of deck paint and tide and mustard, sight of the boy pulled along by the fierce white childish hands. And he himself was listening, touching his tongue to the beer, leaning close as he dared to Hencher, beginning to think of the black water widening between the sides of the holiday ship and the quay.

  “What’s that, Hencher? What’s that you say?”

  Hencher was looking him full in the face: “… to Rock Castle, here’s to Rock Castle, Mr. Banks!”

  He heard his own voice beneath the whistles and plash of bilge coming out of a pipe, “To Rock Castle, then. …”

  The glasses touched, were empty, and the girl’s leg was only the leg of a child and the woman would drink her black tea alone. He stood, moved his chair so that he sat not across from Hencher. but beside him.

  “He’s old, Mr. Banks. Rock Castle has his age, he has. And what’s his age? Why, it’s the evolution of his bloody name, that’s what it is. Just the evolution of a name— Apprentice out of Lithograph by Cobbler, Emperor’s Hand by Apprentice out of Hand Maiden by Lord of the Land, Draftsman by Emperor’s Hand out of Shallow Draft by Amulet, Castle Churl by Draftsman out of Likely Castle by Cold Masonry, Rock Castle by Castle Churl out of Words on Rock by Plebeian—and what’s this name if not the very evolution of his life? You want to think of the life, Mr. Banks, think of the breeding. Consider the fiver bets, the cheers, the wreaths. Then forgotten, because he’s taken off the turf and turned out into the gorse, far from the paddock, the swirl of tom ticket stubs, the soothing nights after a good win, far from the serpentine eyes and bowler hats. Do you see it, Mr. Banks? Do you see how it was for R
ock Castle?”

  He could only nod, but once again—the Artemis was rolling—once again he saw the silver jaw, the enormous sheet, the upright body of the horse that was crashing in the floor of the Dreary Station flat. And he could only keep his eyes down, clasp his hands.

  “… Back sways a little, you see, the color of the coat hardens and the legs grow stiff. Months, years, it’s only the blue sky for him, occasionally put to stud and then back he goes to his shelter under an old oak at the edge of a field. Useless, you see. Do you see it? Until tonight when he’s ours—yours—until tonight when we get our hands on him and tie him up in the van and drive him to stables I know of in Highland Green. Yours, you see, and he’s got no recollection of the wreaths or seconds of speed, no knowledge at all of the prime younger horses sprung from his blood. But he’ll run all right, on a long track he’ll run better than the young ones good for nothing except a sprint. Power, endurance, a forgotten name—do you see it, Mr. Banks? He’s ancient, Rock Castle is, an ancient horse and he’s bloody well run beyond memory itself. …”

  Flimsy frocks, dancing children, a boy with the face of a man, a girl whose body was still awkward; they were all about him and taking their pleasure while the feet tramped and the whistle tooted. But Hencher was talking, holding him by the brown coat just beneath the ribs, then fumbling and cupping in front of his eyes a tiny photograph and saying, “Go on, go on, take a gander at this lovely horse.”

  Then the pause, the voice less friendly and the question, and the sound of his own voice answering: “I’m game, Hencher. Naturally, I’m still game. …”

  “Ah, like me you are. Good as your word. Well, come then, let’s have a turn round the deck of this little tub. We’ve time yet for a turn at the rail.”

  He stood, trying to scrape the shards of the smashed mustard pot from his shoe, followed Hencher toward the white sea doors. The back of Hencher’s neck was red, the checked cap was at an angle, they made their slow way together through the excursion crowd and the smells of soap and cotton underwear and scent behind the ears.

  “We’re going to do a polka,” somebody called, “come dance with us. …”

  “A bit of business first,” Hencher said, and grinned over the heads at the woman. “A little business first— then we’ll be the boys for you, never fear.”

  A broken bench with the name Annie carved into it, a bucket half-filled with sand, something made of brass and swinging, a discarded man’s shirt snagged on the horn of a big cleat bolted to the deck and, overhead, high in a box on the wall of the pilot house, the running light flickering through the sea gloom. He felt the desertion, the wind, the coming of darkness as soon as he stepped from the saloon.

  She’s home now, she’s thinking about her hubby now, she’s asking the cat where’s Michael off to, where’s my Michael gone to?

  He spat sharply over the rail, turned his jacket collar up, breathed on the dry bones of his hands.

  Together, heads averted, going round the deck, coming abreast of the saloon and once more sheltered by a flapping canvas: Hencher lit a cigar while he himself stood grinning in through the lighted window at the crowd. He watched them kicking, twirling, holding hands, fitting their legs and feet to the steps of the dance; he grinned at the back of the girl too young to have a girdle to pull down, grinned at the boy in the black suit. He smelled the hot tobacco smell and Hencher was with him, Hencher who was fat and blowing smoke on the glass.

  “You say you have a van, Hencher, a horse van. …”

  “That’s the ticket. Two streets over from this quay, parked in an alley by the ship-fitter’s, as good a van as you’d want and with a full tank. And it’s a van won’t be recognized, I can tell you that. A little oil and sand over the name, you see. Like they did in the war. And we drive it wherever we please—you see—and no one’s the wiser.”

  He nodded and for a moment, across the raven-blue and gold of the water, he saw the spires and smokestacks and tiny bridges of the city black as a row of needles burned and tipped with red. The tide had risen to its high mark and the gangway was nearly vertical; going down he burned his palm on the tarred rope, twice lost his footing. The engines were loud now. Except for Hencher and himself, except for the officer posted at the foot of the gangway and a seaman standing by each of the hawsers fore and aft, the quay was deserted, and when the sudden blasting of the ship’s whistle commenced the timbers shook, the air was filled with steam, the noise of the whistle sounded through the quay’s dark cargo shed. Then it stopped, except for the echoes in the shed and out on the water, and the man gave his head a shake as if he could not rid it of the whistling. He held up an unlighted cigarette and Hencher handed him the cigar.

  “Oh,” said the officer, “it’s you two again. Find the lady in question all right?”

  “We found her, Captain. She’s comfy, thanks, good and comfy.”

  “Well, according to schedule we tie up here tomorrow morning at twenty past eight.”

  “My friend and me will come fetch her on the dot, Captain, good as my word. …”

  Again the smothering whistle, again the sound of chain, and someone shouted through a megaphone and the gangway rose up on a cable; the seamen hoisted free the ropes, the bow of the Artemis began to swing, the officer stepped over the widening space between quay and ship and was gone.

  “Come,” said Hencher, and took hold of his arm, “we can watch from the shed.”

  They leaned against a crate under the low roof and there were rats and piles of dried shells and long dark empty spaces in the cargo shed. There were holes in the flooring: if he moved the toe of his shoe his foot would drop off into the water; if he moved his hand there would be the soft pinch of fur or the sudden burning of dirty teeth. Only Hencher and himself and the rats. Only scum, the greasy water and a punctured and sodden dory beneath them—filth for a man to fall into.

  “There … she’s got the current now. …”

  He stared with Hencher toward the lights, small gallery of decks and silhouetted stacks that was the Artemis a quarter mile off on the river.

  “They’ll have their fun on that little ship tonight and with a moon, too, or I miss my guess. Another quarter hour,” Hencher was twisting, trying for a look at his watch in the dark, “and I’ll bring the lorry round.”

  Side by side, rigid against the packing crate, listening to the rats plop down, waiting, and all the while marking the disappearance of the excursion boat. Only the quay’s single boom creaking in the wind and a view of the river across the now empty berth was left to them, while ahead of the Artemis lay a peaceful sea worn smooth by night and flotillas of landing boats forever beached. With beer and music in her saloon she was off there making for the short sea cliffs, for the moonlit coast and desolate windy promontories into which the batteries had once been built. At 3 A.M. her navigator discovering the cliffs, fixing location by sighting a flat tin helmet nailed to a stump on the tallest cliff’s windy lip, and the Artemis would approach the shore, and all of them—boy, girl, lonely woman—would have a glimpse of ten miles of coast with an iron fleet half-sunk in the mud, a moonlit vision of windlasses, torpedo tubes, skein of rusted masts and the stripped hull of a destroyer rising stem first from that muddied coast under the cliffs. Beside the rail the lonely woman at least, and perhaps the rest of them, would see the ten white coastal miles, the wreckage safe from tides and storms and snowy nights, the destroyer’s superstructure rising respectable as a lighthouse keeper’s station. All won, all lost, all over, and for half a crown they could have it now, this seawreck and abandon and breeze of the ocean surrounding them. And the boy at least would hear the moist unjoyful voice of his girl while the Artemis remained off shore, would feel the claspknife in the pocket of her skirt and, down on the excursion boat’s hard deck, would know the comfort to be taken with a young girl worn to thinness and wiry and tough as the titlings above the cliffs.

  Michael stood rigid against the packing crate, alone. He waited deep within the sh
ed and watched, sniffed something that was not of rats or cargo at all. Then he saw it drifting along the edges of the quay, rising up through the rat holes round his shoes: fog, the inevitable white hair strands which every night looped out across the river as if once each night the river must grow old, clammy, and in its age and during these late hours only, produce the thick miles of old woman’s hair within whose heaps and strands it might then hide all bodies, tankers, or fat iron shapes nodding to themselves out there.

  Fog of course and he should have expected it, should have carried a torch. Yet, whatever was to come his way would come, he knew, like this—slowly and out of a thick fog. Accidents, meetings unexpected, a figure emerging to put its arms about him: where to discover everything he dreamed of except in a fog. And, thinking of slippery corners, skin suddenly bruised, grappling hooks going blindly through the water: where to lose it all if not in the same white fog.

  Alone he waited until the great wooden shed was filled with the fog that caused the rotting along the water’s edge. His shirt was flat, wet against his chest. The forked iron boom on the quay was gone, and as for the two tankers that marked the vacated berth of the excursion boat, he knew they were there only by the dead sounds they made. All about him was the visible texture and density of the expanding fog. He was listening for the lorry’s engine, with the back of a hand kept trying to wipe his cheek.