The Chalk Giants by Keith Roberts Read Free Book Online Page B

strain. She surely knew, then . . .
    She’s lovely. I used to think she had Spanish blood, but I changed my mind. Now I think she’s pure long-headed Celt. She fits here. Belongs. A Goddess, in a mini and an amber shirt.
    Something moving in the notion. But this is a moving country. The past isn’t dead. Least, not till today. Till today, they remembered the Bloody Assize. Now, we’ve all been tried.
    Trying to find a place for sorrow. But it’s all too much to take in. Maybe I’m still in shock.
    Wonder if that bloody fog’s still there? I’d give a lot to see the sun. The wind’s been rising anyway. That should clear it. Wonder if he was right, about the fall-out. Trying not to think . . .
    He was the worst thing that could have happened. From my point of view at least. Heard he’d got a wife in Poole anyway. Teacher. I kept my mouth shut. It would have looked like preaching morals. And I’m hardly the one to start that. Too many cheap answers available.
    Wouldn’t have liked him anyway. Walking, talking Image, new-style bourgeois. All the fine emotions of a rattlesnake. But that’s done with now. That and a lot more things.
    Wonder if the pub’s still there . . .
    Silly thought. Of course it’s there. It’s all there, in the mist. Those ... epicentres were miles away. Up in the Midlands maybe.
    Wonder if it’s all over . . .
     
    I remember those trips down to the beach. The Ledges. Thought they were a mistake, at the time. Silly, but I just didn’t think she’d show so much. Must be getting old-fashioned. This is - this was - the seventies.
    I oiled her once. She was brown. Never saw a girl get so brown. Then when she stripped for the shower, the little white band across her behind . . .
    I thought it was over for me. Dead. I wasn’t to know.
    The afternoons were always the worst. When Richard had gone into Bournemouth. Or when he was down on the beach. Those beach scenes of his were starting to be something else...
    He went up to London once. To set the big exhibition up. I could have gone with him. But I couldn’t leave, I couldn’t stand being that far from her. It had hit me, by then. Nothing like I’d ever known before.
    There’s a spinney down the road. Half a mile on from the pub. I used to walk to it sometimes, sit where I could see the roofs over a swell of land and the tall chimneys, the stone slates orange-patched with lichen. I’d wonder what she was doing; if she was lying down, or changing, or stocking the bars maybe for the evening. Or if she wasn’t there at all, she’d gone into the village or across to Poole. It seemed I should be able to tell. I used to try to see through slates and walls, into her room; or send my thought out, over the grass in the sunlight. Sometimes I’d get drowsy. Then the guns would start, behind the hills, I’d wake and hear the insect noise, hum of cars maybe a long way off; and the big iron doors slamming in the sky. It was a total experience, something Nash might have understood. I think Richard was brought up on his painting . . .
    Odd thing happened once. The Stan Potts man turned up, came and parked that great lorry of his just off the road, sat and looked back as well. He was there an hour or more; but he didn’t see me.
    Wonder if he had a thing about her too? I wouldn’t be surprised. Queer man. Comes from the Midlands somewhere, I think. Never talked to him. Didn’t really feel much inclination. I don’t think I’d have got through. One thing I’m sure of, though. If ever there was an unhappy soul, it’s he. . .
    I used to get dreams about her. Always the same sort of thing. I found her in a brook once. Just lying there, among the golden reeds. A bit like Ophelia. Her dress was open; her skin was still brown, her bra looked very white by contrast. Salt-white. No mark on her; and her eyes were closed, as if she was asleep. But I knew she was dead.
    Another time it was worse. Much worse. She was lying in the road. Not much of her left;