Ian Kennedy Williams RAW CUT Call Polly Longstockings

 

A View of the Mechanics Institute

In the morning, a rare cloudless sky. After breakfast Jenna packed a light picnic lunch and they went for a walk. They had found a way down to the shore from the rear of the cottage, a narrow rocky path almost overgrown with bramble. It meandered across the cliff-top for about a hundred metres and then dropped steeply away to a shingle beach. Before they began the descent Jenna paused and looked back at the cottage and, a little further distant, Mr Kedgwick's neat brick bungalow.
      'I can see Mr Kedgwick,' she said. She rested her fingers lightly on Russell's arm. 'He's watching us through a pair of binoculars.'
      Russell looked round. Mr Kedgwick was standing on his back porch. He continued observing them through his binoculars though he must have been aware he had been seen.
      'How rude,' Jenna said. 'And so open about it.'
      'He used to be a coastguard,' Russell reminded her. 'I expect he likes to keep his hand in.'
      Jenna waved, flapping her arms like a child trying to catch the attention of a watchful parent.
      'You'll fall if you're not careful,' he warned her.
      She lowered her arms. 'He hasn't moved,' she said. 'Why do you think he finds us so interesting?'
      Russell looked down at the shingle cove. The beach was deserted; infant waves were sucking at the shore. Outside the heads there was a light swell.
      'We're tourists,' he said. 'Perhaps we're doing something stupid.'
      Jenna laughed.
      'Of course! What could be more stupid in this country than going on a picnic in April!'


They left the small hamper on a rock and explored the shore for interesting stones and shells. The day grew warmer; the breeze dropped. Before lunch, Jenna wanted to swim.
      'You're mad,' Russell told her. 'The water's freezing.'
      She looked out to sea, only half-believing.
      'It'll be okay,' she said.
      She stripped off, dropping her clothes carelessly in a heap beside him. He watched her walk to the edge. She stood a moment, uncertain.
      'Go for it!' he cried.
      She plunged in and struck out at once towards the razor-backed headland across the bay. Some metres out she turned and waved. Without thinking, he looked behind, searching the cliff path and the grassy slopes above the cove for Mr Kedgwick with his binoculars.
      Watching her swim in the calm sea, he imagined her, for the moment, drowned. He considered the sequence of events: the search, the body, questioning by officials, the drive back to London and Godfrey's ponderous presence. Each step he carefully mapped out in his head with a cool detachment that kept the sequence safely aloof from reality. Not until he came to the part where the remains were returned to Australia did he feel his breath shorten.
      When he was small Russell used to imagine his parents had been killed in a car smash and he was sent off to live with some frightful relative that Hal had dug up. Years later, Jenna assured him that all children fantasised about being orphans. She didn't think he had been unusually morbid.
      He continued watching as she struck leisurely out across the bay again. He remembered how, when his father did die - in the autumn of 1985 - he had thought things would change. Not just Rachel's life and his relationship with her, but everything that touched him; marriage and parenthood, friendships, even the city he lived in - or at least his attitude to it. He had never lost anyone close before, just the dogs and white mice of childhood, and there was a girl he had taken out once who was killed some years after in a motorcycle accident. It seemed inconceivable that Hal could slip from his world and leave nothing but an empty space: the urge to reorder his life, to make things new, caught him by surprise.
      In the event he did nothing. He got used to Hal's absence, allowed for it rather than filled it with something else. If Russell missed him, it was on those rare mornings waking from uneasy dreams filled with his father's living presence.
      He was always careful to say nothing of these dreams to Jenna. She was suspicious of the way people sentimentalised their dead. She hated the way failings were indulged, excused as something cosily idiosyncratic.
      She believed it was dishonest.
      'It's how people cope,' he argued once.
      'It's how they forget,' she said.
      He thought it was a reaction to memories of her own father who had died when she was sixteen. She rarely talked of him, even in passing, though she sometimes mentioned her mother in desultory conversations about childhood experiences.
      She had a sister too who married an American student and went with him to live in San Francisco. They phoned each other occasionally but rarely had much to say. 'She's quite a bit older than me,' Jenna revealed early on. 'We've got nothing in common.' Her sister was less tactful. In a letter once, she wrote waspishly, 'I feel for that bloke of yours, you know, having to put up with your shitty moods.'


Jenna's silences (her shitty moods) rarely lasted more than a few hours, a day at the most, though after the night of the assault they became more frequent. Sometimes they made Russell bitter.
      One night, not long before they came away, he noted that she had hardly spoken over dinner. Earlier she had seemed quite calm, almost somnambulant as she set out the plates and cutlery. He asked, as was customary, what sort of day she'd had but afterwards couldn't remember what it was she had replied - if indeed she had replied at all.
      Perhaps it was Adrian's prattling that had distracted him. He had seen an expensive pair of runners he was keen to buy and was angling for paid work around the house to help him save the money. Russell wasn't really aware of Jenna's silence until after Adrian had left the room.
      'You're quiet,' he said. He had begun to clear the table. 'Something up?'
      'No,' She kept her eyes down, rinsing the plates under the running hot water with an almost finicky care. 'Just thinking.'
      'Well think aloud,' he said
      'It's nothing.'
      He began stacking the dishes on the benchtop beside the sink; plates first, then bowls, wine glasses, assorted cups and saucers, Adrian's colourful mug: a compact arrangement of domestic artefacts that Jenna once said reminded her of the cheap crockery store at the Saturday market.
      When he had finished, he said mildly:
      'How can nothing be so interesting it robs you of conversation at the dinner table?'


Russell didn't reflect on any of this. They'd had their spats before; they kept them private, no one noticed: not even Adrian.
      Adrian, of course, was younger then.
      In some ways he was still slow for his age. He wasn't backward; in fact he was quite bright, academically, but there was something perennially child-like about him. He reminded Russell, not of himself at his age, but a fellow he'd sat next to in class, a clever studious boy, despised for his cleverness.
      Adrian's school reports hinted at similar peer rejection: not popular in class; must join in more; lacks effective communication skills. Russell had spoken to him about it but the boy was difficult to draw out. He had his particular friends in class, Russell knew that, reserved types like himself. 'Your son is one of the non-aligned,' his school counsellor told Russell once soberly. Adrian was more direct. 'Those other guys,' he said, 'they're just hicks. They're boring.'
      He was closer to his mother than to Russell. When she began working full-time for the City Council Adrian used to wait out in the street for her after school. If it were raining he called in on a neighbour or sat under the bus shelter at the top of the street. He never liked being in the house on his own.
      When he was small they couldn't go out in the garden without him tagging along. Jenna called him her shadow for the way he clung to her skirts. They wondered at the time if it was something to do with the house. It was old by local standards, built towards the end of the last century for a prominent businessman. Rachel always said it gave her the spooks but it never stopped her calling. Jenna said she'd had her eye on the place since before they were married. It had lain empty for a year or so but was in sound repair. When they became aware of Adrian's phobia Rachel wanted to call in a psychic, a crony of hers, to see if the house was 'unfriendly'. Jenna (sensibly, in Russell's view) refused.
      Adrian had no problem with the house as long as there was someone else there. He simply didn't like being left on his own.
      The first time Jenna and Russell went on holiday without him he stayed with his grandmother. Rachel told Russell afterwards he didn't much like being on his own at her place either. She was cross with him because he'd stopped her from going to a soiree at the golf club one night.
      'He was sick,' she said, 'physically sick at the thought that I'd go out without him. I just didn't know what to do.'
      She waited until Jenna was out of hearing and then told Russell she thought it was time he took Adrian to see a specialist on child behaviour. 'It's not natural,' she said, 'afraid of being on his own at his age.' Russell told her he'd grow out of it.
      The night of the assault he'd left the boy asleep while he picked Jenna up from the police station. He hadn't intended to go. Jenna phoned about eleven-thirty, just when he was beginning to fear something had happened to her.
      She was a little facetious; she was 'helping the police with their inquiries', and was expecting a ride home later in a squad car. He waited about an hour and a half and then went to fetch her.
      Before he left he checked on Adrian: he was sound asleep. Russell didn't think he'd wake before they returned but he left the hall and kitchen lights on, and the radio tuned in to late night jazz with the volume turned down low. He scribbled a quick note: gone to pick up your mother, back shortly, and left it on the kitchen table.
      Jenna saw the lights as they drove up the side of the house. 'You left Adrian on his own,' she said accusingly.
      Russell was agitated and answered sharply.
      'What did you expect me to do? Call Rachel, at this hour?'
      'I told you I'd get a lift home.'
      'I might've waited all night.'
      She gave him a curious pitying look. Perhaps she thought he wouldn't see her in the dark, but the sky was clear and there was the pale light from the kitchen window. Despite the freezing air, his hands and cheeks felt as if they were ablaze. To point out that it was the first she had spoken of Adrian since he picked her up would have been cruel. He was still only partly aware of what she had been through that night. When they went inside she noted the message on the kitchen table and the radio switched on though the station had gone off the air. She didn't say anything but there was that look on her face still.


The day after the assault Adrian came to see Russell at work. Russell wasn't entirely surprised to see him though he was in fact a rare visitor, despite the high school being only a block away. His usual appearance would be in the afternoon on his way home, sometimes with a friend (more often on his own) just to kill time if he knew Jenna would be working late. He was never disruptive but his presence always made Russell feel uneasy. He was the sort of child who could seem intrusive simply by being there. All the same, Russell was reluctant to discourage him: the visits were so infrequent anyway, and there was always the thought that the boy might want to talk something over with him, something private, better discussed on neutral ground away from home.
      Russell didn't have to ask why he was there that day, slightly dishevelled, his face flushed with excitement. He could hear him already, telling his classmates, their heads pushed forward to catch every gruesome detail, 'My old girl saw some guy knifed last night...'
      It was midday. Adrian opened his lunchbox and perching himself on a corner of a desk, unpeeled a banana. Russell pushed his newspaper aside.
      'All right, mate?'
      'Sure.'
      'Your mother told you..?'
      He nodded. Russell saw he was mistaken about the boy's appearance. It had come on to rain and it was the run from the school gates that had brought the colour to his cheeks. Finishing his banana, he swept a hand carelessly through his hair and a few tiny drops of water splashed some papers behind him on the desk.
      'What did she say?' Russell asked presently.
      Adrian pursed his lips thoughtfully, an exaggerated gesture that made him look slightly ridiculous.
      'There was a fight.'
      'A fight?'
      'Yeah. These two guys were fighting and one of them had a knife. He stabbed the other guy and took off. Mum went to Roe's to call an ambulance. She saw everything.' He hesitated for a moment and then shot Russell a suspicious glance. 'Didn't she tell you?'
      'Of course she did, We talked about it last night when she got back from the police station.'
      'The cops got her to identify the guy with the knife.'
      For the first time there was an edge of genuine excitement to his voice but his eyes had begun to wander. He was looking hungrily at a piece of pie Russell had brought for lunch.
      'You can have it if you want.'
      He picked it up gingerly and started to eat with the kind of deliberation normally associated with the very old. A ragged line of crumbs began to appear down his shirt front.
      'The man she identified,' Russell asked, 'did she say who it was?'
      Adrian laughed suddenly, and then fell silent.
      'An abo.'
      'An Aborigine, a black. Don't call them abos, it isn't nice.'
      'The guys at school call them coons or boongs.'
      'If your mother heard you use words like that,' Russell said, 'she'd thump your ear.'
      'Yeah.' Adrian pushed the last of the pie into his mouth. Russell couldn't say he seemed particularly concerned.

* * *

He'd slept, he had no idea how long. He'd closed his eyes, just for a second, he thought, and then woken with a start. He had to think where he was.
      Jenna was coming up the beach. It was the sound of her feet crunching the shingle that had woken him. She knelt heavily beside her crumpled clothes and tugged a towel from the bag. Her bare shoulders were pinkish, freckled. There were tiny scars around her neck where a bad season's sun cancers had been removed.
      'How was it?'
      'Fine.'
      'Just fine?'
      He couldn't see her face, buried under the folds of the towel. She rubbed vigorously at her hair for a few seconds and then slipped the towel across her back, wrapping herself in it, her fingers deftly tucking a loose corner under her arm.
      Her eyes shone. 'Just fine.'
      'It looks cold.'
      'It's all right once you're in. You should try it.'
      He stood up and walked a short way down the beach. He had this image of Jenna coming out of the sea, quite unself-consciously naked as if she had just stepped out of the shower. He wished he'd kept his eyes open.
      Glancing quickly across the headlands, he said, 'Old Kedgwick might've been watching you. Through his binoculars.'
      She laughed as he looked round. 'I'd forgotten about that.'
      She was on her feet, tying her hair back with a rubber band. There was a trickle of water running down the inside of her leg. Russell was struck by its meandering course, like a slug's trail.
      Jenna was watching him closely.
      'What's the matter? Something on your mind?'
      'I was just wondering how long it was since we made love against the bathroom door.'
      She laughed, uncertainly.
      'The things you remember!'


During the weeks after the assault on Dr Christie Russell noticed a change in Adrian's behaviour. Jenna noticed it too; he became quieter, more reflective. They'd catch him sometimes observing them silently across the table during a meal. If Russell asked him what was up he'd simply shrug, lower his eyes and continue eating. Russell found it curious at first, then vaguely unsettling, finally irritating. He guessed it had something to do with Jenna's 'bad night', but he didn't know how to approach him about it.
      Then the boy came to him.
      He thought his mother was cracking up. 'She keeps getting these cranky moods,' he said.
      'It's a mother's prerogative to get cranky,' Russell told him. He said she'd probably be less cranky if he did more around the house, tidied his room, washed the dishes once in a while.
      'It's not like that,' Adrian said. He sucked hard on his gums, testy, a little impatient. 'It's since she saw that guy knifed. She's different.'
      'It upset her,' Russell said evenly, 'seeing something like that. What did you expect?'
      'She says things.'
      'It's just till the case comes up. Things'll be back to normal after that, you'll see.'
      Adrian looked away. A moth blundering around inside a lampshade had distracted him. 'But that won't be for ages yet.'
      Russell picked up a newspaper. The self-pitying whine made him blunt, unfeeling.
      'Well it's no good moaning about it.'
      Adrian flinched and swung round.
      'You don't see!' he said fiercely. 'You just don't see!'

* * *

'The last time we made love against the bathroom door,' Russell recalled, 'we were interrupted. It was Adrian, remember? He must've been about nine or ten, shaking the latch, yelling, "Let me in ! Let me in! I wanna pee!"'
      Jenna smiled. 'I remember.'
      'Something went out of our sex life after that,' Russell said.
      'What was that?'
      'Spontaneity.'
      They had settled down to a light lunch; buttered bread, tomatoes, spring onions, pieces of fruit. Jenna was buttoning her shirt.
      'Are you cold?'
      'A little. The sun's going in. The weather changes so quickly.'
      'Do you want my sweater?'
      She shook her head. She seemed preoccupied, eating with little appetite. Presently she said, 'Our sex life was never spontaneous. It was always calculated, even before we were married.'
      'Do you think so?'
      She gave him a curious look.
      'Don't you?'
      'Well what do you mean by calculated?' he asked.
      She didn't answer. She'd gone cold on the subject, or was afraid of it, knowing how the examined life could disappoint as much as illuminate.
      She stood up, brushed out her skirt.
      'I'm going for a walk.'
      'Do you want me to come?'
      'No.' She began moving away.
      'We might find a cave,' he called out. 'We could do something spontaneous!'
      She laughed without turning.
      'See! You're working it out already!'
      She walked to the water's edge and stood for a moment with her back to him. Out to sea, rolling and dipping in the swell, a fishing boat was returning with the night's catch, a ragged trail of gulls in its wake.
      Jenna returned a little way up the beach. She had her head down, her hands clasped in front of her, so like a penitent child he was afraid to look at her.
      'I wasn't criticising, particularly.'
      'I know,' he said.
      He thought she wanted to say something else but she walked off without speaking. He hadn't looked at her once.
      When she was out of sight he rifled through the bag for the heavy envelope he kept William's letters in. Jenna was annoyed that he'd brought them. Earlier, seeing him pack them in the side pocket, she complained, 'You're becoming a bore with those fucking letters.'

* * *

June 1867 - You remember the tall gin we had in our care a while back, the one who caused us so much heartbreak. She was sighted recently by our neighbour, Mr Kingsley, who was visiting a relative at Timbarra Station on the Tableland. Mr Kingsley relates that, among the blacks there, he saw a very tall gin being measured by a pair of scoundrelly timber-getters. It was our Polly Longstockings, of that I am sure, though it is a pitiful state, by all accounts, to which she has fallen. According to Mr Kingsley, those two 'gentlemen', so free with the measuring tape, had an easy task - she was wearing not a stitch of clothing, not the flimsiest garment to interfere with the accuracy of their work...


(There was news too of Matthew Gunn. He had been speared by blacks in a fracas on the upper reaches of the river before Easter and had died of his wounds. William noted, it was inevitable his impetuousness would bring him to a sorry end. He learned afterwards that Gunn had kept a native wife who had since returned to her own people. His must have been a somewhat confused sensibility, William observed, a remark Jenna seized on with glee. 'Confused sensibility! Condescending little toad!')


December 1867 - I have heard further accounts of that gin who lived with us, the one called Polly Longstockings. She is cohabiting with an adventurer named Richard Canty. This Canty, I am told, has trained to be a school master, but does not practise his profession. I have heard nothing else of him save he likes to talk radical politics when he has the grog inside him. The couple have set up house at a place the natives call Mar-lin-gar-bar, on the upper reaches of the river. They seem a most unconventional match, apart from the mix of colour, though Mowbray says, in other respects, it is a marriage made in heaven, between a mute and a chatterbox...


May 1868 - Mowbray called yesterday with news of a libellous document that is being circulated locally. Its Author purports to be the gin Polly Longstockings, who was in our charge. The claim is preposterous as the girl is unquestionably illiterate. When she was with us Arabella often read to her, children's stories and such the like, but the girl herself I never once saw lift a book, save to stare goggle-eyed at the illustrations. This document, according to Mowbray (who has not yet had the opportunity to read the nonsense for himself), is supposedly an account of the killings carried out by Matthew Gunn three years ago. I need not remind you that this ungrateful gin owes her life to my unguarded intervention. Mowbray describes the Account as colourful, by which I take it to be somewhat loose with the truth. There is mention of Arabella and myself also in which - for all our kindnesses and good intentions - we are shown in the most uncharitable light. It is quite outrageous. Arabella, you can understand, is most distressed. Undoubtedly this fiction is the work of that charlatan Canty, who is trying to make a name for himself hereabouts as a champion of the much-abused Aboriginals. Mowbray says I should sue, but I will read the document for myself before I take legal advice. It is not for me to further this rogue's questionable career by acting in haste. The Account is so extraordinary I can't believe anyone of consequence is taking it seriously...

* * *

A month or so before they left Australia Russell sent Godfrey a postcard. Jenna selected one at a newsagent, a view of the recently restored Mechanics Institute. Russell had been thinking of a more popular view of the city square with the flame trees in bloom but Jenna reminded him that the terrace which housed the Mechanics Institute was called Dyson Mansions. The name could still be read quite clearly on the restored facade, just to the right of the Institute entrance.
      Russell hadn't a clue which particular Dyson the building was named after - or even if it was, in fact, named after one of his Dysons. Hal would have known though Russell couldn't recall that he had ever drawn his attention to the place. Why should he? Russell had never shown much interest in his father's studies; conversely, Hal had never cared much to share them.
With anyone.
      Even the dry, carefully researched monograph of his great-grandfather, which might have found a readership among the more historically-minded denizens of the city, he refused to publish. He did, however, lodge a photocopy with the municipal library.
      Reading William's letters, Russell kept thinking how much more lively Hal's monograph would have been if he had known about Polly Longstockings.
      Jenna was curious to know why he hadn't.

* * *

November 1868 - Forgive the delay in answering your letter. This wretched business of the gin's Account preoccupies me. I have enclosed a copy so that you might see for yourself that it is filled with lies and misunderstanding. I cannot believe that it is the work of the gin, though it is cunningly written in simple child-like prose, realistic enough to confound the unwary. The document, you can see, is a rough job, hand-printed - anonymously, you can be sure - and privately distributed by Canty's sympathisers. It is estimated that there are several dozen copies in circulation. It has not had the effect locally its Author would have sought, but the contents - in particular, the deceitful references to Arabella and myself - have caused us both much pain. Mowbray says we should ignore it; he says it was News for a Day in town - for its novelty rather than its intelligence - and is now largely forgotten about. He assures me no one hereabouts is taking it seriously. On his advice, however, I have written a letter to the Sydney Morning Herald, as he understands some copies of the document have been sent to influential members of the Colonial Administration. To my knowledge there has been as yet no official response. Mowbray thinks it unlikely the matter will be taken further as an investigation would be costly, and at this late stage of little value. The killing of blacks is unfortunate but necessary where the protection of property is concerned. Such incidents are reckoned to be on the decline anyway, so it would seem punitive measures, for all their brutality, have had the desired effect. As for this mischievous document, its lies must be refuted, its misunderstandings set right, hence my letter to the Sydney Morning Herald. It is unfortunate Matthew Gunn is no longer with us to make his own defence, but Mowbray says his reputation was such that there is little in this so-called Account that could further blacken it. If I protest then it is for my own sake, and Arabella's, lest future generations, who might stumble across this damning document and know nothing of its origins, misconstrue our good intentions as exploitation...

* * *

Russell remembered Hal showing him the monograph. It was a Sunday afternoon, Jenna was with Rachel in the garden. Hal beckoned him into his study. There was an odd look on his face which Russell described later to Jenna as a sort of sheepish pride. 'Bit of a dull boy, our William, I'm afraid,' Hal said, sounding neither surprised nor particularly sorry. 'No skeletons rattling in the closet here.'
      It was a spare work, a dozen or so spaciously typed pages, the bare life of a man who had selected and farmed two or three hundred scrubby acres of river country from the mid 1860s till his death in 1901, the year of Federation.
      Russell read the work more out of a sense of duty than of any particular interest. Had the spirit of Polly Longstockings haunted the pages, or that of the troublesome Richard Canty, he might have been more enthused. Instead he noted dates, names, tables of figures, references to Crown Land Acts: a terrain as arid as the land that William had striven to cultivate. He made a success of it of sorts, dying contentedly in his own bed at the age of eighty, owing - as Hal put - not a sou to a soul. His sons, alas (theirs, curiously, was a bloodline dominated by males) were built of less sturdy stuff. When the property was finally sold - to a pastoral company after the First World War - the Dysons had already begun to drift away. Some settled the slopes and valleys to the west: others discovered new lives as hoteliers, clerks, motor mechanics in the coastal towns and cities to the east.
      'The ubiquitous Dysons,' Hal used to say with a dry cough. 'There are none so famous as the common-named.' During the thirties, one Dyson, a distant cousin of Hal's father, achieved rare prominence by serving a short term as city mayor: his portrait hung in the civic chambers along side those of other city fathers. To Hal, he was always 'the rogue'.
      Reading William's letters, Russell warmed to this man, his ancestor: he was grateful for the flesh those yellowing pages put around Hal's dry archival bones. He read them as Marcus in London might have read them, with some amusement, a little sadness and anger, lingering disquiet at the uncertainties. Of course, he had Hal's monograph and the judgement of history to attest to William's survival.
      For Marcus, there was one last letter.

* * *

March 1869 - In town last week I was brought face to face, through a mutual acquaintance, with Richard Canty, Author of the so-called gin's Account. He is a striking fellow, about 30 years, tall and ginger-haired with a full beard. He was surprisingly courteous, and listened quietly while I gave him my mind about that fraudulent document, full of lies and concoctions enough to damage a man's reputation, if ever it had been taken half seriously. He made no apology, but insisted that it was the gin's Own Story, and that he for one had been persuaded of the truth of it. Her Own Story, I echoed (permit me, brother, a little dramatisation), and how did she convey this interesting tale? In Sign Language? For it is well known that the gin can neither write nor speak for herself. He agreed that she could not write, and then made the curious charge that her command of the English language was as good, if not better, than any Irishman's, and that if I had never heard her make use of it, it was because for all the months she was in my care I had forbidden her to do so. I confess I was so taken aback by this extraordinary statement I was quite unable to answer it. Mr Crozier, our mutual acquaintance, gave a little embarrassed cough, and Canty made his escape. I reflected afterwards that it was odd, given my inhumanity, that this particular outrage - as monstrous as all the others of which I had been accused - had not been mentioned in the gin's Own Story. Mr Crozier, laughing, agreed that it was indeed strange. I asked if he knew for certain whether Canty and the gin were still cohabiting, and he replied that he did not. Needless to say, I have said nothing of this latest charge to Arabella, for though it is easily laughed at, I fear the injustice of the earlier accusations has severely affected her sense of humour...

* * *

The afternoon had begun to draw in. Russell lay on the shingle, drowsy, his eyes closed. Listening for Jenna's return, he heard only the sea, and the gulls' cries, and the stiffening breeze whistling through fissures in the cliff face.
      Earlier, he had watched Jenna climb the grassy knoll of the headland to the north. There was a cairn or obelisk of some sort at the summit where she paused and looked around. He waited for a moment and then raised his arm, gesturing to catch her attention, but already she was looking away. Returning to William's letters, he glanced up again a minute or so later, expecting to see her striking out along the ridge towards the point. She was nowhere to be seen.
      Later he grew restless. Finding a stick, he probed some rock pools for crabs and molluscs. Tiring of that, he started to follow the track Jenna had taken up to the headland, but, thinking he might miss her if she came back by a different path, he returned to the beach. He poured a cup of tepid coffee from the flask, and waited.
      Again he slept, waking to feel the chill of the surrendering day. Looking up at the headland, he saw a movement. Jenna, he thought, at last! Jumping to his feet, he limbered up a little. The figure on the headland was still there. He looked again, more closely. It was the obelisk, shimmering in the late afternoon light.
      At first he was angry. He thought back to the conversation they'd had earlier and tried to remember what had been said that might have upset her. He was certain by now that she'd gone back to the cottage without him. He waited a moment longer and then packed the bag and hamper. The light was fading.
      Picking his way up the cliff path, he grew anxious. The cottage was in darkness. He emptied the bag and the hamper, and turned on the radio. He occupied himself with small matters. Along the lane, Mr Kedgwick had set a fire in the grate: thick smoke rose from the chimney, there was the smell of paraffin.
      How long should he wait before moving? He was sure if he waited she would soon come. He kept his head. He cut sandwiches for tea, listening for her tired tread on the path. Night fell, and he was listening still.


The Lizard | Panatellas | A View of the Mechanics Institute | Disinterested Bystanders | The Finding of Solitude | Unfinished Business | Table of Contents