(5/20)Over the Gate Read online

  'But can't do you no good, say what you will, to go bathing when that sort of thing's goin' on. As well as dumpin' this atomic rubbish they don't know what to do with. The sea must be proper unhealthy these days. My heart bleeds for those poor fish, it do indeed!'

  She was now drying the spoons and setting them rapidly in rows. She counted them hissingly, stopped, scrabbled again in the cloudy water, drew blank, and turned to me. Her unlovely face was made even unlovelier by dark suspicion.

  "Ere!" said Mrs Pringle truculently. 'You bm featherin' your nest again?'

  This charitable remark referred to an unfortunate incident a few weeks earlier when Mrs Pringle had come across a school dessert-spoon in the kitchen drawer at the school house. I had not been allowed to forget this lapse. Mrs Pringle guards the school cutlery—as battered and dingy a collection of plate as one could find anywhere—as if it were the Crown Jewels.

  'I find that remark offensive,' I said coldly, moving off to ring the school bell.

  'So's stealing!' shouted Mrs Pringle after me, above the clatter. With what dignity I could muster, I pulled the school bed-rope to summon my depleted pupils to afternoon school.

  The outing on Saturday had started in brilliant sunshine. By ancient custom, Fairacre Sunday School and Church Choir Combined Outing takes place on the first Saturday in July. Evidently, many years ago, the schools in this area used to have a fortnight's holiday at the end of June to enable the children to pick the soft fruit crop. At the end of that time their wages were paid and there was money, as well as the longing, for a jollification. Somehow, the first Saturday in July still remains as the only acceptable day for the annual outing.

  Two coachloads set off at eight o'clock, packed with parents and friends as well as the vociferous children. It was a sparkling morning. Bright drops glittered on the fresh hedges, sunshine glinted on cottage windows, the village pond, and the glossy backs of Mr Roberts' herd of Friesians as they ambled back from being milked. It was most exhilarating.

  'Won't last,' said Mr Willet morosely, following his wife into the coach.

  He was dressed in his best blue suit, and his boots shone like jet. No gaudy beachwear for Mr Willet when he accompanies us to the sea! He is sexton of St Patrick's, a public figure, and he shows himself to the world as a man worthy of the dignity of his office. He now rammed a smad case containing their lunch upon the rack and then bent down to whisper conspiratorially in my ear.

  'Where's old misery sitting?'

  'Right at the front,' I whispered back, knowing at once to whom this referred.

  'Thanks, miss. I'll make for the back,' said Mr Willet, pulling the case from the rack, and departing. I heard him settle with a satisfied sigh, as Mrs Pringle entered, took her place in the front and intimated to the driver that it was now in order for him to proceed.

  'Old 'ard, ma,' said the driver irreverently. 'Just gotter check we're all 'ere.'

  He hoisted himself from the wheel and turned round to count us.

  'All aboard?' he cried at length.

  'All aboard!' we echoed cheerfully, and set off for Barnsford.

  ***

  Mr Willet, as a weather prophet, is usually right, and by the time we had driven through Caxley, the sky was overcast, and remained so for the most of the day. Not that this dimmed the spirits of the Fairacre children. They tore along the famous sands, rushed into the waves—but not too deeply, I noticed, for the sea is not really trusted by us landlubbers—and wielded buckets and spades energetically for most of the exciting day.

  Their elders enjoyed themselves more sedately, walking along the short pier, scanning the distant horizon through the penny-in-the-slot telescope, and studying the photographs outside the immature theatre at the very end of the pier. It was a pity, we told each other, that we had to set off for home so early, otherwise we could have seen the variety show. Twelve acts—and all spectacular—it said so!

  The air was wonderful, despite the lack of sunshine, tangy and salt upon our faces, and we all had prodigious appetites when we foregathered for high tea at Bunce's, the famous restaurant on die front.

  The vicar counted heads earnestly. Were we all assembled? Would someone else check the numbers with him?

  Thereupon half the company rose to count the other half, and confusion reigned. Order was eventually restored, but we were, it was agreed, one missing.

  'Joseph Coggs!' shouted Patrick. 'I saw him mucking about under the pier. Shall I run and fetch him?'

  'I think,' said Mr Partridge, the vicar, in his gentle voice, 'we'll wait for five minutes and then send out a search party if he hasn't arrived. No doubt he will be along.'

  At that moment, Joseph wandered through the brown and gold swing doors. He was excessively grubby and looked pale and bewildered. No adult from the Coggs' family was present so I took charge of him. He was remarkably quiet during tea, but ate his way steadily through a plate of ham and salad, three iced cakes, a butterscotch sundae and two cups of tea. I was not perturbed by his taciturnity, as I watched his eating prowess. He obviously had enough to engross him, at the rime, and was, in any case, a somewhat uncommunicative child.

  Just before six we said a sad farewell to lovely Barnsford for another year, and mounted the coach. Still the skies were sullen. At nine we were back in Fairacre, and at ten o'clock I, for one, was in bed.

  Now, on Monday afternoon, it all seemed a very long time ago. Confronting my depleted class I mentally rearranged the timetable. The song, which I had proposed to teach them, must wait until the others returned. A spelling test, and then some revived memories of Barrisford, in words and pictures, should fill our afternoon very usefully and happily.

  The spelling test was greeted with groans. Perhaps because they are unbookish children, as a whole, and do not see the printed word as often as I should like, spelling is a weak point at Fairacre. Even their names, when they are first in my class, at the age of seven or so, give some of diem trouble, and I silently curse the parents who saddle their poor spellers with 'Penelope', 'Francesca' or 'Reginald.' Perhaps the worst one is 'Ronald.' It has been my lot, for many years, to wrestle with 'Ronlads', 'Rondals' and even 'Ronslads' and very exhausting I have found it.

  This afternoon I bullied them through such necessary exercises as the days of the week—'Wednesday,' of course, is the stumbling-block—the months of the year-all, with the possible exception of 'March' and 'June,' fearfully hazardous-and a brisk revision of local place names which are invariably written awry. They tottered out to play, quite done up.

  Ten minutes in the boisterous air of the school playground soon restored them to their usual vivacity, however, and they settled down to write and draw their impressions of the day at Barrisford. I wandered round the busy classroom, admiring their efforts.

  They were much as I expected. Sand castles topped with flags, sailing boats, rowing boats—even a steamer, though I am positive no steamers come to Barrisford—and unflattering portraits of fellow puplis paddling in zig-zag waves. But Joseph Coggs' picture roused my curiosity.

  Beneath a framework of black-crayoned girders stood two figures. One, from the blue striped tee shirt, I recognised as a self-portrait. The other, about half the size, wore scarlet bathing trunks and a crown on its head. A certain amount of scrawling with a pale blue crayon indicated that water was nearby, and in the distance it looked as though there were a fairytale palace with the conventional spiky towers. I began to wonder if Joseph was remembering the pantomime rather than the trip to the sea.

  'Who's this little boy with you?' I asked.

  ''S'man!'said Joseph.

  'But he's only half your size,' I protested. Our art at Fairacre is pretty pedestrian. We make the sun circular, and grown-ups are usually twice the size of children in our pictures.

  'So he was!' persisted Joseph. 'But he were a man, aU the same.'

  I was about to pass on and let him enjoy his fantasy, when he pointed out one or two other features.

  'This 'ere's th
e pier, see. I met this man under there. He was only up to my shoulder.'

  'Sounds likely, don't it!' scoffed Ernest who had come to see the picture, and was rapidly joined by half a dozen others who felt like stretching their legs.

  'Bet you dreamt it, Joe! said John.

  Joseph's dusky face grew red with anger. His dark eyes smouldered.

  'He was a man,' he repreated mulishly. 'He told me. He said he was The old Man of the Sea and he lived in a palace. That's it there!'

  He thrust a black forefinger upon the spiky towers. There was a burst of derisive laughter from the onlookers which I hastily quelled. Joseph was very near to tears and I was not going to see him taunted, inexplicable though his garbled story sounded.

  'Ten minutes to finish!' I announced, 'and we'll have a quiet ten minutes, please. I'm looking for someone sensible to help me clear up at home time.'

  This, as usual, worked like magic, and peace descended while they finished dieir scribbling. Partly to keep Joseph from being teased on the way home, and partly because I was intrigued with what lav behind his account of the stranger, I chose him to remain behind after school.

  The rest of the children ran off, their voices dying away in the distance.

  The classroom seemed unnaturally quiet. We could hear the birds cheeping on the guttering, and the whispering of the leaves outside die Gothic window.

  Joseph stacked the papers carefully. His own, I noticed, was placed lovingly on top. He brought them to my desk, put them down, and remained gazing at me.

  'I ain't lying,' he said abruptly.

  'I know you're not,' I answered.

  There was silence for a moment, a silence which I did not intend to break first.

  'I really did see him under the pier,' said Joseph slowly. 'That's why I was late for tea. That's why—'

  He faltered, took a deep breath, and began again. In bits and pieces, fits and starts, the astonishing story came out. To an adult it was both pathetic and comic. To a small boy, it was quite apparent, the encounter had been terrifying and miraculous.

  As far as I can gather, Joseph stayed with his younger twin sisters, as he had been bidden to do by his mother, until they had eaten their sandwiches at midday.

  The three children had played blissfully with the sand and the sheds for which Barrisford is famous, but in the afternoon Joseph began to get restless. The two little girls had started a mammoth earthworks, with which they were entranced. Joseph found the business of digging remarkably boring. After all he could dig any time in Fairacre. What Joseph wanted to do was to explore.

  Mr and Mrs Wilier, propped comfortably in the shelter of a breakwater nearby, saw his predicament.

  'You go and 'ave a look round, Joe,' said Mr Willet. 'We'd be 'ere for a bit, reading the paper. We'd keep an eye on your sisters.'

  Joseph scrambled eagerly to his feet, his dark eyes sparkling, and set off in the direction of the pier.

  'Don't forget tea's at half past four,' bellowed Mr Willet, in the voice that carries across the mighty winds of Fairacre. 'Keep your eye on your gold wrist-watch!'

  Mr Willet gave a mighty chuckle at his own wit. Mrs Willet smiled wanly, and die two little girls looked at him open-mouthed.

  ''E ain't gotter wrist-watch!' explained one slowly.

  'Tch! Tch!' said Mr Willet testily, and shook out the newspaper.

  Joseph made his way diagonally across the sand towards the sea. His feet were bare, and he gloried in the feel of the wet ribs of sand under his insteps. The tide was out, leaving pools of every imaginable shape. Here and there were outcrops of slaty black rock. These Joseph found particularly fascinating. Slimy bladder-wrack covered many of them, and he squatted happdy on the rubbery mounds popping the salty blisters one after another. There were limpets too, grey, ribbed and conical that he tried in vain to prise from the rock. He was intrigued by the way he could move them a trifle, and then no more, as they put out their defences.

  He wandered nearer and nearer to the pier. Here the pools were deeper, and he discovered, for the first time, the brown jelly-like anemones that waved their tentacles and sucked at his ringer.

  There were a number of people walking along the pier, or hanging over the railings, gazing at the sea. Joseph recognised some of the Fairacre party among them. But he was not particularly interested in what went on aloft. It was the great sub-structure of criss-crossed iron girders which Joseph intended to explore.

  They were very cold, wet and rusty, he discovered. Brown streaks and green slime coloured their gaunt shapes, and where the water lapped the legs, green fringes swayed to and fro rhythmically.

  Joseph made an attempt to climb up one of the girders, but the iron-work was cruelly hard to hands and feet. Little flakes of metal came off at a touch, and the salty roughness made his finger-tips sore. He abandoned the attempt and stood listening to the strange noises around him.

  Above his head came the thudding of people's feet as they walked the planks of the pier. Around him came the constant sound of trickling water as it ran down the girders, or dripped into the rock pools. The wind made a little whistling sound in the iron lattice-work, and always, as a bass accompaniment, there was the rushing and booming of the swirling sea.

  It was particularly rocky under the pier. Great flat plateaus of rock overlapped, forming wide irregular steps. At their edge were deep pools, almost black in the dim light beneath the pier. Joseph, stepping into one caught his breath as the water came high above his knees. He scrambled out of the slippery hole, and walked in a more gingerly fashion, peering at this strange and frightening element.

  He was now almost at the end of the pier. Above him he could hear people walking round the little theatre. There was a distant sound of tea cups, for a smaU refreshment room adjoined the theatre. Sometimes a child called. Sometimes a gull wheeled and cried. It was difficult to ted which was the human voice. Joseph found it aU wonderful and strange.

  At length he came to a large pool. It was overhung by an outcrop of rock and was as dark as ink. Something large, coloured red and white seemed to be floating in it. Cautiously, Joseph approached, knelt upon the slippery rock and peered over.

  To his horror he saw that it was the motionless body of a boy. Surely, he must be dead! His eyes were closed. His legs and arms floated gently away from the body and his hair moved as rhythnucady in the water as the tentacles of the anemones had done.

  Fearfully, his throat aching with suppressed screams, Joseph put out a shaking finger and prodded the body.

  'Give over!' said the corpse, opening its eyes suddenly.

  Joseph flinched away, startled, scraping his knee painfully on the sharp rock. There was a wild thrashing in the pool, the red trunks and legs were submerged and only the top half of the body confronted Joseph.

  'Whatcher think you're up to?' demanded the bather. 'Poking people about like that?'

  Joseph, never very voluble, found communication more difficult than usual. For one thing, he was in a state of shock. And for another thing, he was extremely puzzled. The stranger was very small. He had believed him to be a boy, possibly two or three years younger than himself, but as soon as he spoke he realised that, despite his small stature, the bather was a grown man.

  Somehow it all seemed part of the fantastic world immediately around Joseph. Anything could happen here, among the family menacing shapes of the girders and rocks. The cold, salty air was as far removed as it could be from the pollenladen winds that blew around Joseph's native village. The music of birdsong and rustling trees was exchanged for the queer atonal sound of dripping water and surging sea. He felt as though he had strayed into an unknown world, where colours, shapes, sounds, and now people themselves, were strange and sinister.

  Despite his aching throat he managed to swallow and find his voice.

  'I'm sorry, sir,' he said tremulously.

  Immediately he was glad that he had added that last word to his aplogy. The little man's face softened. A look of gratification passe
d over the pudgy countenance, and he wiped the wet hair away from his forehead.

  'That's all right, boy,' he said grandly. 'Now you're here you can give me a hand out.'

  He presented a cold wet hand to Joseph. It was as small as those of Joseph's little sisters', but on the back were the hairs of a grown man. Joseph tugged with all his strength. There was a good deal of puffing and blowing and then the little man bounced from the pool on to the rocks.

  'Get my towel, boy, will you?' asked the stranger, waving towards the direction of a nearby girder at the outside edge of the pier. Joseph saw a bundle propped between the angle of two girders, out of the wet, and made his way carefully across the slimy rocks to do as he was bidden. There was something imperious about the man which awed Joseph. He was glad to be of service to him.

  When he came to withdraw the rolled-up towel from its resting place, Joseph was surprised to see that a few yards of rope ladder were tucked in with it. One end was obviously fixed aloft, and Joseph stepped out beyond the pier to see where it went. He could see it lashed securely to the bottom stay of the pier railings. From there it hung down against the girders, flapping gently in the breeze. Joseph guessed that at its full length it would easily reach the sand. Tucked up as it was, a little higher than his head, it was unnoticeable at a cursory glance.

  'Come on! I'm near freezing!' shouted the man.

  Joseph hurried back with the towel. The stranger, jumping up and down with remarkable agility, was covered with goose-pimples. He snatched the towel from Joseph's arms and began to rub himself energetically. Joseph surveyed him with interest.

  Now that the water had drained from his hair, Joseph could see that the man was fair. He was thickset and very muscular. His chest and legs were faintly hairy and he had the suspicion of a moustache. His eyes were very blue, his ears very red. Joseph wondered how old he was. It seemed strange to think that he might be as old as his father, and yet he was no bigger than one of his twin sisters!