LOOK, STRANGER Read online

  Vereker said, ‘How long before the next meeting?’

  Milo’s fingers moved along the base of the pillar, exploring the cracks where the valerian grew. ‘Five days.’

  ‘Then you have five days to pray about it.’

  Should I have suggested we should pray together? Vereker wondered. No, we are too unlike. I have learnt at last that there isn’t going to be one blinding moment when I meet God face to face: mine is the Emmaus road. For Milo, it may be different, but that is not my business.

  The next day, Zoe told Matthew that she had decided to let Carrick Farm to Meg Jacobs. ‘It will make a much better home than the house she has at present; they can keep that for people who need a room for a short stay.’

  Tudor had reacted angrily to the suggestion that he should establish a commune at the farm. Carrick Farm was a place which he could not incorporate in his professional life; ghosts would indeed have walked there had he tried to do this. He was even more angry when Zoe said she would let the house to Meg Jacobs.

  ‘You realize it may be difficult for you to get it back if you want it?’

  ‘But I shall never come back here.’

  ‘That’s how it seems to you now. But you won’t be able to live in this little hick town he’s taking you to. I can see you have to find that out for yourself; and, of course, I hope it’s going to work out for you. But I think that with your history you need to take precautions. You’re not the kind for whom a bad marriage is better than no marriage.’

  While he talked Zoe looked at his taut, anxious face and she thought, how could I have blamed him for all that happened between us? I was content with our relationship because it suited me to be the one who gave the most: as the giver, I could set limits and make sure I was not drawn out of my depth. It was a dark world that we shared but I felt safe in it. I clung to the darkness as a protection from joy. Joy is dangerous, one has to open oneself to joy.

  ‘You’re not the kind for whom a bad marriage is better than no marriage,’ Tudor repeated. ‘You’re not sufficiently robust to survive that kind of failure and if it happens you will need somewhere to run to.’

  ‘You are right, Tudor! You are right!’ she cried. ‘I have been talking about letting the house so that it will be there as a security for me. I shall give it to Meg!’

  Meg was shattered by the gift of Carrick Farm. ‘I couldn’t cope,’ she told Nancy and Miss Draisey. ‘It’s too much. The present set-up suits me.’ There had been times when she had lain awake at night worrying about the present set-up, but she forgot that now. ‘It’s grown up around me, it’s my size.’

  Nancy and Miss Draisey tried to prove to her that Carrick Farm would solve some of her problems rather than create new ones.

  ‘I like to be cramped and crowded,’ she insisted. ‘And I hate change. Change really bugs me.’

  Miss Draisey said, ‘I shall work out how this can be done with the minimum of change. The whole operation must be planned very carefully, and I promise you that a year from now you will be complaining that not enough has changed!’

  Meg shrivelled beneath the glare of Miss Draisey’s confidence. ‘You always hope for something really tremendous to happen, and when it does, it’s never quite what you wanted,’ she said later to Nancy. ‘it’s the wrong time, or the wrong place, or you’re the wrong person for it to happen to.’

  Nancy saw that the thing which troubled Meg the most was that there were now too many possibilities open to her. She remembered how frightened she herself was whenever she thought of all the freedom stretching ahead of her, vast and empty, with no small tracks in it for small people. ‘I guess if we didn’t have limitations, we’re the kind who’d have to construct them,’ she said to Meg.

  Meg was cheered. ‘Bless you, my dear. It’s so uplifting to know that other folk make a balls-up of life, too.’

  Vereker took little interest in the future of Carrick Farm. On the following Saturday he went to the priory to see what Milo would do. He realized that even if Milo wanted to turn back it would be a very difficult undertaking now.

  He was earlier than on previous occasions and found himself carried well to the front of the crowd. In spite of himself he was infected by the excitement of those around him. There were times during the week of the fair when he had felt that the island was coming alive at last. Now, on the priory grounds, the experience of the fair was being extended. Here, there was no longer the separation of performer and spectator, here all participated, donating their small amount of enthusiasm and energy to something that was bigger than themselves. They were no longer fragmented, uncoordinated, uncentred particles, they were one people and this cohesion gave them strength and power that was far beyond anything they could have achieved individually.

  Inevitably, there were some who were less than enthusiastic. On Vereker’s right, an old woman grumbled to her middle-aged companion, ‘I don’t want to live for ever. You wouldn’t if you were my age.’ She sounded aggrieved, as though a privilege had been withdrawn.

  Then, there were the police; a new element, moving in the crowd in quite large numbers. There were new faces among the trolls, while on the perimeter of the site a group of people with shaved heads hopped about ringing handbells. Vereker was reminded of the strange creatures which framed the prisoners in Zoe’s drawings.

  Mrs. Peters was prowling round, shouting, ‘You’re a lot of slops!’ and she had brought a reeking slop bucket to give pungency to her account of the insanitary nature of the accommodation provided for the homeless.

  Jeremy Jarman and his group had arrived and Barbara was with them. The group began to play “I like that old-time religion”. The crowd sang, full-hearted, faces alive with wonder. The old woman looked around her unimpressed. During the prayer that followed the singing she said to her companion, “Arry Plumb! Fancy ’Arry Plumb being ’ere, then. ‘As ’e given up the drink?’

  The prayer was followed by the testimony of a severe teenage girl who had brought her worldly parents to God. The prodigal parents stood looking awkward and out-of-place in well-tailored suits while the girl said that now they brought everything to God each morning at breakfast. This family was followed by a husband and wife who vied with each other for the major share in what had been a bad marriage, she had been a shrew, he had been unfaithful, she was mean, he was spendthrift; but now they had found the Lord Jesus Christ and love and order had come into their home.

  The old woman said sceptically, ‘If ’Arry Plumb’s given up the drink, I’ll live for ever!’ and Mrs. Peters screamed ‘Shit!’ and waved her bucket to prove it.

  When the husband and wife had departed, Milo came forward to hold out a helping hand to a young girl whose appearance caused a thrill of excitement to run through the crowd. Vereker heard the name “Betty Arnold” repeated in tones of amazement.

  The girl, who looked very frail, remained at the foot of the pillar supported by friends, while Milo climbed to the top of the pillar to recount how, early one morning, this girl who was paralysed had awoken greatly moved by the beauty of the world. She had looked out of the window. There was a lake in the garden of the house where she lived and a heron was standing motionless by the lake. She watched the heron until it flew away and after that she remained by the window for a long time thinking about the heron. It was only when her mother came into the room and cried out that the girl realized she had walked to the window. Milo spoke of the power of the Holy Spirit as a divine madness, making nonsense of man’s limited ideas of reason and order.

  Vereker, feeling a movement beside him, turned his head and saw the girl from Alabama. She said, ‘Say, can you tell me if this is true. This old planet Earth revolves on its axis because there are two currents way out in space. . . .’ She had a can on a string in each hand and she swung them as she talked as though they were the currents and she was the earth. People told her to be quiet, but she went on, ‘If God decided He didn’t like what He’d done here on this old planet Earth, if He thought it wa
s all a’ Goddam cock-up, do you think He might blast those currents apart, just like Samson pulled down the pillars? Do you think He might do that?’ A man nearby shouted, ‘Praise the Lord!’ and the cry was taken up all around the field. The girl raised her voice several notches. ‘Don’t you think God sometimes feels the whole thing’s got so bad it doesn’t even make Him laugh any more? Don’t you think He wants to cancel it, blast those currents apart. . . .’ As she spoke, she swung her arm and let go of the can she carried in her right hand. It sailed over the heads of the people in front and landed in the small area of open space at the feet of Betty Arnold. Immediately she had done this, the girl turned and disappeared into the crowd. Someone screamed, ‘It’s a bomb!’

  As Barbara Jarman had once noted, Milo’s reactions were very quick. He had leapt from the pillar and picked up the can before most of the people realized what was happening; the crowd to the rear of the pillar was thin and he turned and ran that way. He was out into open space, and people had let their breath out to cheer, when the bomb went off. It had been an effortless, elegant performance and it seemed at first that he had got away with it. Undoubtedly the bomb had left his hand before it exploded; his limbs were intact when they got to him, although there was blood on his face. He was not conscious, but breathing quite easily. He came to in the ambulance and said, ‘I can’t see.’

  ‘That’s shock,’ they soothed him. ‘You’ll be all right. You’ve been very lucky.’

  He was not lucky. When Vereker took Mrs. Anguilo to the hospital to see him, the registrar would say very little. Ten days later, when Vereker saw the consultant, he learnt that the most Milo could ever hope for would be that he would ‘see a blur which he will know is a person.’

  ‘Does he know this?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Milo was in one of the amenity rooms off the main ward. There were several vases of chrysanthemums and other winter flowers which did not give off a strong smell. Milo was sitting up in bed, humped against pillows. He turned his head when Vereker came in and said, ‘Hullo. I recognized your footsteps.’ He went on, without giving Vereker time for a greeting, ‘Will you look through the cards and letters on my table? I need to thank people who have written and sent flowers.’

  ‘Would a tape recorder help?’ Vereker asked. ‘You can have mine and I could arrange for people to hear the messages.’

  ‘A tape recorder would be marvellous. But as for the thank-you letters, my sisters will write them for me. It passes the time for them untearfully when they come to see me.’

  Vereker began to sort through the pile of cards and letters. Milo folded his hands on his knees and Vereker was painfully conscious that the boy was restraining himself from talking with some difficulty; the temptation to build a wall of words around himself must have been very strong. In the corridor a trolley squeaked and rattled on its way to the ward and a cheerful voice shouted, ‘Oh, very natty, Mr. J. I like that. But don’t overdo it, dear.’

  ‘I wonder what Mr. J. has been up to,’ Vereker murmured, and then wished he had not said it because this was how things would be from now on for Milo, listening to the passing show off-stage.

  Milo said, as though to demonstrate how acute were his other senses, ‘You mustn’t feel sorry for me. That won’t help me.’

  ‘Of course I feel sorry for you. Don’t be silly.’

  ‘I shall manage, though. You believe that, don’t you?’

  ‘Yes. You will have to manage. Others do.’

  ‘You cut me down to size so nicely. You always have.’ He settled into a more relaxed silence.

  When he had finished sorting the correspondence, Vereker said, ‘Do you want me to read the more recent ones to you?’

  ‘No. Someone else can do that. It’s very necessary to keep visitors occupied otherwise it’s a great strain on them. . . and on me, too. How do you overcome this business of people talking to you in a special way, as though you had lost your wits as well as your sight?’

  ‘I suppose you have to impose your will on theirs. That was something you were always rather good at.’

  ‘Too good, do you mean?’ Milo was composed now. ‘I think you are right about that. I can see myself more clearly now than ever before. It will be good for me to have to depend on other people, to use their gifts instead of always being at the centre of everything myself.’ If he was afraid his followers might drift away, he did not show it.

  Vereker said quietly, ‘Do you really believe this is good for you, Milo?’

  Milo laughed. ‘Oh, I shall miss you so much when you leave Helmsley!’ He turned his head in Vereker’s direction. It was no longer possible, now that the brilliant eyes were dulled, to catch a glimpse of the mischievous sprite which had once dwelt in Milo. Vereker switched off the table lamp and concentrated on listening. ‘Did they tell you how I spent the first three days here after I knew that I had lost my sight? You must listen to this; it’s a very inspiring story. I refused to see anyone, or to eat anything, and when they came in the room they found me in an attitude of meditation. They were terribly impressed, I heard them talking in the corridor (they think I am deaf now, too); they thought that I was committing myself into the hands of God, praying for courage and strength. It pleased me that they thought this, it pleased me that what they thought sacred was in fact profane. I spent my time hurling every abuse and obscenity I could think of at God, spewing out everything beastly that I had stored up inside me waiting for just such a day, and not only girls and drugs and the sailor who got at me in the subway in Portsmouth, the sort of thing that happens to everyone; but the things I could throw in the face of Christ about what His life was really like, with women washing His feet with their hair, and the disciple whom He loved resting on His breast.

  ‘It didn’t work. I used to think of God as someone “out there” who intervened when necessary. But when I had spewed out all that anger and resentment, I knew that He wasn’t outside at all. He is in me. I have all that I shall ever need in me. That is my light. Some people will laugh when they hear it, some will be embarrassed, some will be sceptical, but some will believe.’

  Vereker was aware of the pressure being put on him to say ‘I believe.’ He wanted to give way to it; he was a priest and surely this was the least he could do for Milo who needed comfort so much at this moment. But while he wanted to respond to Milo’s need, he could not say, ‘I believe’ to a personal god who knows nothing of the God of the thunderbolt, of earthquake, fire and flood; the God who created the lion as well as its prey, who cares as much about the bomb thrower as the victim. He said, ‘That’s fine, just so long as you don’t ever lose your sense of something beyond your reach. Hang on to your unease.’

  Milo said sadly, ‘You have very little faith.’

  It was after eight o’clock when Vereker left Milo and he was surprised to see a dark figure standing in the window alcove at the end of the corridor.

  The next time that he visited Milo he told him about his grandparents. He thought that Milo had a right to this information. Milo thought it was a very funny story. Although he had shown such surprising ability to sway a crowd, his understanding of individual relationships was limited.

  ‘You find me unfeeling?’ Milo asked. ‘But you must know that the time when I needed a family was when I was a child. It’s nothing to me now.’

  There was a brightness about Milo, in spite of his blindness. Vereker, looking at him, wondered how long this inner light would burn. Would it last until he came out of hospital and tried to come to terms with his blindness, until interest in him died down, as it well might? Or would it burn, as Vereker believed it could, for all eternity? He was not sure, as he had never been sure of anything about Milo.

  When he left Milo, Vereker saw that once more there was someone waiting in the corridor. There was a row of chairs against the wall where visitors could sit while they waited to be admitted to the main ward and a woman was seated on the furthest chair. It was late in the evening, well after visi
ting hours, but if a patient was on the danger list relatives were sometimes allowed to spend the night at the hospital. Vereker was surprised that a more comfortable place had not been found for this woman. He hesitated, wondering whether to speak to her. She was a sombre figure, draped in a dun-coloured cloak which looked as if it had been inexpertly made of a blanket. Her face was turned away from him, but something about the way she sat, quite still, legs apart, hands resting on the knees, gave him such an impression of rock-like durability that he could not imagine she had any need of conventional consolation. In fact, there was something intimidating about the way she kept her lonely vigil. ‘I’d be rather frightened to inspire such devotion,’ he thought, looking at the unyielding mass of the body and the hands, thin and strong, the splayed fingers like the roots of a tree. He had seen those hands before. He walked down the corridor and looked at the woman’s face and saw that it was Mrs. Peters.

  ‘There’s a woman waiting in the corridor,’ he said when he managed to find the night nurse. ‘I didn’t speak to her because she seemed . . . well, rather absorbed. . . .’

  ‘Now how did she get in this time!’ the nurse exclaimed crossly. ‘She gets on my wick, sitting outside his room all the time like that. If I had my way, I’d hand her over to the police!’

  Vereker left her to deal with Mrs. Peters as best she could and sneaked down the back stairs.

  Nancy was really in on the caring business now, ferrying Mrs. Anguilo to and from the hospital, helping to look after the Anguilo girls, bolstering up Meg Jacobs, rejoicing with her father and Zoe. She even had to act as confidante to Barbara Jarman.

  Barbara had been to see Milo once. ‘All I got out of that was to be told I should be studying for my A-levels!’ she said to Nancy. ‘So, that’s that. It’ll have to be medicine after all.’ She said it just as some people say. ‘There’s always teaching.’