Looking Down Read online

  Wrong fucking word, but it was the friendship, the artless intimacy, the free-ranging sometimes daft conversation he had missed for so long, the bloody honesty which had been such a joy and which made him so lonely now he simply wanted to continue where they had left off. Why can’t men phone one another like girls do? He was angry with the women in his life who had persuaded him at various times that they were all he ever needed, when perhaps all he had needed was a man friend who talked with all the shamelessness he had always associated with women, but remained a man, without guile, for all that.

  Shamelessness: a fine, gothic word that echoed in his mind as he walked down a steep hill, faster than usual for all the frailty created by his headache, but energising with the dull thump of it, so that he had already walked further than usual in an unfamiliar piece of landscape before he let himself pause. The sun shone. He associated sunshine with headaches and welcomed the fact that the light hit so hard it went straight through his eyes, like a laser, towards the source of the pain. Loneliness was biodegradable into physical energy, he decided; it had a purpose in life. It brought him here to a different and deserted part of the cliff route where he rarely came, half looking for something that might be an answer, and lo and behold, to his left, he saw the common spotted orchid, beginning to mean business with its glossy, purple-spotted leaves, and then further on Brassica oleatracia, contrastingly tall and straggly, with grey-green leaves, the unconvincing ancestor of the cultured cabbage he never liked to eat. There were the tight-fisted buds of yellow flowers. The knapweed with its spiky red head, ready to flower later in the year, something to look forward to, and further along this route he remembered that the path dipped into another valley. Where the flowers that had once flourished on overgrazed land now gave way to small trees and shrubs. While he mourned the displaced flowers, the tree he loved best was the holm, a rare, evergreen oak which never grew tall, simply wide, and then hawthorn and blackberry, and the ones he called the friendly aliens, growing bravely from seeds and berries transported from distant, cultivated gardens, into which they might have arrived from the other side of the world. There were pathways and airways for every living thing.

  He was feeling physically better now, although not wholly so, and was planning to walk one more quarter mile and make himself go down to the water so that he could walk back up the broken chalk and then scramble upwards from the shallow slope he remembered from last year, and that would finally restore sanity through sheer physical effort. And besides, he had a sudden desire to be right by the sea and drowned by the sound of it, looking back at the cliff rather than always looking down. He found this a sympathetic place, where the cliff had obligingly shown itself to be vulnerable, crumbling clumsily and spreading outwards into a shallower outline. New life grew here: fresh creatures would find residence. He was scolding himself as he moved: why did he not come to this spot more often? Poor Edwin warned him off, but that did not explain why he always walked the same part of the route. Because that was where there were people. He hated himself for having to admit that he usually came to the cliffs not to be alone but for company, and it was probably he who had sought out Edwin, rather than the other way round. For company. Now that was a thought, such as who needed who in this world? He must make more effort with Edwin. No one else ever did, but then no one ever knew him. A shadow crossed his path, almost blinding him. Edwin, stepping out from behind a shrub where he must have sat to be so invisible, looming so close that in miles of open land they almost collided. His fists were clenched.

  ‘Are you following me?’ he asked, belligerently.

  For a small moment, John was frightened. His welcoming smile faded.

  ‘I’ve just seen Brassica oleatracia,’ he said. ‘It’s cabbage, you know. It’s really rather pointless.’

  Edwin unclenched his fists. He fingered the scarf round his neck, loosening it as if he was hot. There was the rare sight of perspiration on his brow. Edwin never broke sweat, even after the usual fourteen miles. Perhaps it was a disappearing hangover, like his own. He was thinking, briefly, of how little he had tried to know Edwin. Edwin didn’t drink, smoke; this Edwin was a stranger, in retrospect, another person he had failed. Perhaps the only people he did not fail were those who were bullies, demanding his attention.

  ‘And why should I be following you, Edwin? You know I’d never keep up.’

  Edwin relaxed further, unknotted the twisted scarf and used it, still twisted, to mop his brow. John gazed at him, fascinated by the tremor of his hand and the intimidating harshness of his voice.

  ‘I told you not to come here, and I don’t want you going any further. Where’s that friend of yours? That fucking artist? Only it looks as if he might have been at it again, the bastard. Don’t go any further down this path.’

  The path was fitter for a dog or goat than a man. Some of it was covered with bramble.

  ‘All right, I won’t. But why not? You don’t own the pathways, Edwin, and you shouldn’t spit at people, like you did yesterday.’

  ‘Why? You want to know why you shouldn’t go down? Well I don’t want to shock you, Doc, but there just might be another body down on those rocks, and it just might be something to do with your friend. He’s a fucking jinx on this place. Anyway, there’s something wedged in the rocks, came in with the tide. Something nasty.’

  He looked at John’s white face, appeared to relent, stopped fiddling with the scarf. ‘Only kidding, Doc. But I tell you what there is. There’s a raven’s nest under the cliff, over there.’ He flung out his arm. ‘Ravens with babies. It’s the first I’ve ever seen here, first ever, the darlings. Took ’em weeks to build. They nest early. Fucking wonderful. I can’t have them scared, and I can’t have anyone knowing, see? Not yet, not till the little ones can manage on their own. Soon. Anyone sees, anyone disturbs, they’ll never come back. I’ll kill anyone who scares them. Come on, Doc, come away, and don’t come back.’

  He paused for breath and began to reknot the scarf.

  The intensity of his voice was as sinister as the movements of his fingers. John kept quiet for the beat of a whole half minute, while Edwin finished with his malodorous piece of cloth. He fancied he could smell the perspiration of months of wear on Edwin’s scarf. There was no one else in sight. Why had he never noticed this aspect of neglect in him? Or was it new? Edwin had his good clothes. Or had he never cared enough to notice? Edwin put his hands on his hips.

  ‘All right. That fucking artist never came this far. Wouldn’t know the fucking way, I suppose, little short legs on him, anyway. And if it is a body down there, I reckon it came in with the tide, from somewhere else. Likely it’s a sheep, I don’t give a fuck about it.’ He hesitated, and John got the impression he wished he had never spoken.

  ‘But the ravens, that’s another matter. They’re a fucking miracle. Get out of here, Doc, before I throw you out.’

  Edwin did not care for human beings; he only cared about birds. John knew this already, but it was uncomfortable to have it confirmed, as well as his wilful ignorance of the man, and he had the fleeting thought that if he himself had not appeared, with the look of a person aiming for the rocks on this calm day, Edwin would never have mentioned the existence of a body. If there was a corpse, Edwin would have preferred it to remain as it was, out of common sight, a possible feast for a family of ravens. Ravens would be rarer than hen’s teeth on this part of the coast. They would draw crowds and destruction; Edwin was keeping them secret. Maybe even keeping them fed. Ravens ate rodents, birds, fish, carrion. John was dredging back remnants of knowledge about Corvus corax, forgotten knowledge surprising him as it had last night. There was a slight memory of a newspaper article about dozens of ravens, roosting in the next county and flying away. About how they were cautious and shy but incessantly curious, took away meat and hid it, were drawn, like magpies, to bright things. Another, appalling image came to mind.

  ‘So what do we do, Edwin? You’ll have to call the police and etcetera, even for a sh
eep. It’ll have an owner and its own infections. We can do it now. I’ve got a phone.’

  ‘You would, wouldn’t you?’ Edwin said bitterly. ‘I’ve got one, too, only I don’t know how they work.’ He tapped at a phone in his breast pocket. John was surprised. Edwin and a mobile phone simply did not go together.

  ‘Why did you have to come this way today? All right, I was kidding about the body.’

  ‘Does anyone else know about the ravens, Edwin?’

  ‘No. The botanists maybe, but they know fuck all and I saw them off before they went. Told them the cliff here’s still likely to crumble. Told them it was dangerous, and it is.’

  John took his phone out of his own pocket, levelling Edwin’s stare.

  ‘Well, why do the ravens have to be mentioned if I call the police?’

  ‘Oh God, you’re a fool, you really are. As soon as anyone comes the news would spread like wildfire. They’d fly and maybe die. What would it cost you to say nothing at all?’

  He made to grab the phone but John, for once, was quicker, putting it behind his back and behaving as if Edwin had never lunged for it. This close, it was not only Edwin’s scarf that smelled: he reeked. The lined face was runnelled with sweat. For a split second John thought Edwin would hit him. He spoke quickly.

  ‘No rush, then, is there? I’ll just go, shall I, Ed? Would that be better? I haven’t seen you, haven’t seen ravens, haven’t seen a body, OK? And when you get to the other end of the line, you report whatever it was you’ve seen. In your own time. But you must report it, OK?’

  Edwin nodded.

  John looked once at the sea, and retraced his steps. The path was slippery, as if it too sweated anxiety, and suddenly he hated it all. The sun, the sea, the sky, prissy plants and flowers, everything. Loathed it. He tramped back up the headland without looking back, and once on the path broke into a shambling, energy-wasting run that was short-lived and left him breathless. Ravens, bright things, carrion, shameless. The cliffs were no longer a solace. Edwin was not a friend, nor he a friend to Edwin: he was just another failure of the dry years, and he longed for the presence of giggling crowds. He wanted faces and voices and he was glad he had brought the phone.

  Two hours later he was sitting in a train opposite Richard Beaumont, both on their way to London, watching Richard bite into a sandwich. The man was uncanny.

  ‘I don’t know why,’ Richard was saying, ‘but I knew you’d phone. Perhaps I was just missing you. I’d already made arrangements. Easily cancellable arrangements, but arrangements. Presumptuous of me, I daresay, but that’s what I’d done.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Why’ seemed be John’s favourite word. The story of his life. Always ‘why’, never ‘how’.

  ‘I’d been thinking of you and your wife problems. Believe I know all about those. And I thought, what John needs is a break away from everything and a day or two with crowds. And I told you, I wanted you to meet this friend of mine. She’s very good at straightening out men’s heads. And we did say soon.’

  ‘I don’t want my head straightening out. It sounds painful.’

  ‘You want different scenery.’

  ‘Yes, I do.’

  He was calmly forceful and John could see how the man could have manipulated both people and money.

  ‘And you knew that if there was a second body that might have meant the police coming round to see me? Not that there’s any connection, but they might make one. Was I up there, sketching when this one came ashore? Is it me brings them in? Something like that. So it’s best we’re both out of the way.’

  John nodded, took the other half of the proffered sandwich and put it down. The colour of the tomato was horribly vivid against the dead white of the bread.

  ‘Yes, that did occur to me. It was an excuse to phone. And there was something else . . . I wanted to see that painting.’

  ‘Don’t make excuses, John. You’re allowed to be spontaneous. Otherwise, I would have had to phone you. You were on the edge of a breakdown last week. Run away, why don’t you? I know what you need. Female company and sex works a treat. Forget everything else.’

  Such a cold, kind man. John Armstrong sat back and wondered if either of them was mad, or both. The body of the girl haunted him, Edwin haunted him, new life haunted him. He wanted to go with the flow.

  Lilian rarely telephoned before deciding to visit Sarah. It was always a spur-of-the-moment thing, frequently because she was early for whatever she planned to do and killing twenty minutes with Sarah was as good a way as any. And besides, although Sarah was not always in residence, she was more often than not in the mornings, and it was mornings that Lilian was anxious to fill. Quite apart from that, this morning she was full of guilt of an unusual kind, and Sarah had a natural knack for assuaging pangs of conscience. Oh Lord, what had she done the night before? Was it a nightmare or a good dream? Anyway, Sarah had nothing better to do and always seemed pleased to see her, although, oddly enough, this morning there seemed to be a deal of hesitation. Maybe Sarah felt as weird, and wired as she did, although Lilian could not imagine why. She had nothing to do, poor old thing, but she looked as if she had not had enough sleep, and Lilian could empathise with that. Along with the guilt, she was suffering from a strange excitement. The place smelled pleasantly of coffee. Tidier than usual, Lilian noticed. A pity Sarah could not afford more nice things. Told to wait in the living room and not follow her into the kitchen since that was too messy for words, Lilian waited, tapping her foot, and avoided looking at the cow on the wall. Then she remembered her other resolution to try and appreciate painting, and looked at it more closely. Nothing flickered. It seemed to be inviting her to leave. She really did not like it.

  ‘Nice to see you,’ Sarah said. ‘You’re looking, how can I put it?, slightly academic this morning. Are you meeting a professor for lunch? Or is it the new look?’

  ‘This? Oh no, but since Richard won’t deign to be back until much later I may as well be casual today.’

  ‘Casual’ to Sarah meant old clothes for the housework that had subsumed her energies and driven her mad with dislike of it for the last two hours. It was a reaction to events. Domestic chores should be done by men to quell their aggression. It was difficult to feel anything much after polishing wooden floors and scrubbing the floor in the kitchen, but it had improved her mood, ultimately, which was all it was for, and why men should try it. You could take the girl out of the small-town terraced house, but you could not take the clean-doorstep mentality out of the girl, even if she was more naturally a bit of a slut. This was Lilian’s thought about Sarah this morning. Otherwise, she was rehearsing a story, and she needed to tell it out loud.

  The casual look, in her case, was an immaculate trouser suit with slender-heeled boots, a blouse buttoned almost to the chin, and somewhat severe, half-moon spectacles perched on her nose. As far as Sarah knew, Lilian had no problems with eyesight. How mean of her to hope that she did: would be useful, especially now, if it made it difficult for her recognise people. The painting, hidden in a kitchen cupboard, felt like a hot coin burning a hole in her pocket. It was only the spectacles that made Lilian’s appearance relatively severe, and the trousers, since she usually wore short skirts, and with legs like that who wouldn’t.

  ‘I didn’t mean academic, now I look at you,’ Sarah said. ‘I think businesslike would be more appropriate.’ It was obvious that Lilian had not arrived in a hysterical state about being burgled in the night, so Sarah was beginning to relax. She had feared otherwise.

  ‘Look, darling, I took your advice. Something had to be done.’

  ‘What advice was that?’

  ‘The other day, darling. You said I made Richard too comfortable. Something like that. Anyway, I took your advice about it. And now I feel bad. Tell me I was right, will you? Pretty please?’

  She was sounding very little girlish, which Sarah had come to interpret as a bad sign, at least as far as Richard was concerned. It meant she was denying responsi
bility, looking for something to blame, mimicking childhood behaviour. Not a luxury she had ever had, although there were men who loved this stuff. Never mind.

  ‘My advice, was it? Making him uncomfortable. You’ll have to tell me what you did to reduce the comfort level. I wouldn’t approve of ripping up his clothes, for instance.’

  ‘Oh, I’d never do that and he doesn’t care about clothes anyway, but I’m afraid I got one of his paintings, messed it up and stuck it out with the rubbish. The rubbish has gone, hasn’t it?’

  ‘Yes, early this morning.’ She had met them, down at the bins. ‘Was it a recent painting?’

  ‘Yes. I hated it. So I didn’t do much, did I? Just enough to make him see it isn’t always safe to leave his rubbish lying all over the flat.’

  ‘Yes,’ Sarah said faintly. ‘I suppose that might do the trick. Only it might be wise to see what the reaction is before you do anything else.’

  ‘And then he rang,’ Lilian went on, ‘from where he is, this morning. Told me he’d been out for dinner with a man he’d met in the hotel where he stays on the coast. Lovely man, he said. I can’t tell you how relieved I am, Sarah.’

  ‘Because it’s a man? Well, you knew there was no question he was having a relationship with a woman, didn’t you? Not his style.’

  ‘Yes, of course I knew that, but it’s always nice to know that if he’s away and lonely . . . well, you know. Anyway, then I started to feel guilty. And I thought of the other part of your advice.’

  Sarah felt faint with relief, ready to hug this silly bitch. So that was the story, then. No man, particularly no brother of hers, had climbed up a series of drainpipes and burgled the rich wife upstairs. Lilian had not thrust a picture of a corpse at a Lycraclad burglar, and even if she had, was never going to admit it. Steven was safe. The rich wife was telling a story which completely excluded him. Sarah felt vaguely hysterical.