Pincher Martin Read online

  “She never said——”

  “I make out my own lists, old man.”

  “Of course, Pete, naturally.”

  “So you’re doubling a shepherd and one of the seven deadly sins, old man. Eh, George, don’t you think? Chris for one of the seven deadly sins?”

  “Definitely, old man, oh, definitely.”

  “Well, I do think, Pete, after the amount of work I’ve done for you, I shouldn’t be asked to——”

  “Double, old man? Everbody’s doubling. I’m doubling. So you’re wanted for the seven sins, Chris.”

  “Which one, Pete?”

  “Take your pick, old man Eh, George? We ought to let dear old Chris pick his favourite sin, don’t you, think?”

  “Definitely, old boy, definitely.”

  “Prue’s working on them in the crypt, come and look, Chris——”

  “But if we’ve finished until tonight’s house——”

  “Come along, Chris. The show must go on. Eh, George? You’d like to see which mask Chris thinks would suit him?”

  “Well—yes. Yes by God, Pete. I would. After you, Chris.”

  “I don’t think I——”

  “After you, Chris.”

  “Curious feeling to the feet this carpet over stone, George. Something thick and costly, just allowing your senses to feel the basic stuff beneath. There they are Chris, all in a row. What about it?”

  “Anything you say, old man.”

  “What about Pride, George? He could play that without a mask and just stylized make-up, couldn’t he?”

  “Look, Pete, if I’m doubling I’d sooner not make——”

  “Malice, George?”

  “Envy, Pete?”

  “I don’t mind playing Sloth, Pete.”

  “Not Sloth. Shall we ask Helen, Chris? I value my wife’s advice.”

  “Steady, Pete.”

  “What about a spot of Lechery?”

  “Pete! Stop it.”

  “Don’t mind me Chris, old, man. I’m just a bit wrought-up that’s all. Now here’s a fine piece of work, ladies and gentleman, guaranteed unworn. Any offers? Going to the smooth-looking gentleman with the wavy hair and profile. Going! Going——”

  “What’s it supposed to be, old man?”

  “Darling, it’s simply you! Don’t you think, George?”

  “Definitely, old man, definitely.”

  “Chris-Greed. Greed-Chris. Know each other.”

  “Anything to please you, Pete.”

  “Let me make you two better acquainted. This painted bastard here takes anything he can lay his hands on. Not food, Chris, that’s far too simple. He takes the best part, the best seat, the most money, the best notice, the best woman. He was born with his mouth and his flies open and both hands out to grab. He’s a cosmic case of the bugger who gets his penny and someone else’s bun. Isn’t that right, George?”

  “Come on, Pete. Come and lie down for a bit.”

  “Think you can play Martin, Greed?”

  “Come on, Pete. He doesn’t mean anything, Chris. Just wrought-up. A bit over-excited, eh, Pete?”

  “That’s all. Yes. Sure. That’s all.”

  *

  “I haven’t had a crap for a week.”

  The dusk came crowding in and the sea-gulls. One sat on the Dwarf and the silver head rocked so that the sea-gull muted and flapped away. He went down to the crevices blew up the lifebelt, tied the tapes and put it under his head. He got his hands tucked in. Then his head felt unprotected, although he was wearing the balaclava, so that he wriggled out and fetched his sou’wester from the Red Lion. He went through the business of insertion again.

  “Good God!”

  He hauled himself out.

  “Where the hell’s my oilskin?”

  He went scrambling over the rocks to the Red Lion, the water-hole, the Prospect Cliff——

  “It can’t be by the Dwarf because I never——”

  In and out of the trenches, stinking seaweed, clammy, is it underneath?

  He found his oilskin where he had left it by the Dwarf. There were white splashes on in. He put his oilskin over his duffle and inserted himself again.

  “That’s what they can never tell you, never give you any idea. Not the danger or the hardship but the niggling little idiocies, the damnable repetitions, the days dripping away in a scrammy-handed flurry of small mistakes you wouldn’t notice if you were at work or could drop into the Red Lion or see your popsie—Where’s my knife? Oh, Christ!”

  But the knife was present, had swung round and was a rock-like projection under his left ribs. He worked it free and cursed.

  “I’d better do my thinking now. I was wrong to do it when I could have worked. If I’d thought last night instead I could have treated the day methodically and done everything.

  Now: problems. First I must finish that line of weed. Then I must have a place for clothes so that I never get into a panic again. I’d better stow them here so that I never forget. Second. No third. Clothes were second. First clothes in the crevice, then more weed until the line is finished. Third, water. Can’t dig for it. Must catch it when it comes. Choose a trench below guano level and above spray. Make a catchment area.”

  He worked his lower jaw sideways. His bristles were very uncomfortable in the wool of the balaclava. He could feel the slight freezing, prickling sensation of sunburn on his arms and legs. The unevennesses of the rock were penetrating again.

  “It’ll soon rain. Then I’ll have too much water. What shall I do about this crack? Musn’t get my clothes wet. I must rig a tent. Perhaps to-morrow I’ll be rescued.”

  He remembered that he had been certain of rescue in the morning and that made his heart sink unaccountably as though someone had broken his sworn word. He lay, looking up into the stars and wondering if he could find a scrap of wood to touch. But there was no wood on the rock, not even the stub of a pencil. No salt to throw over the left shoulder. Perhaps a splash of sea-water would be just as effective.

  He worked his hand down to his right thigh. The old scar must have caught the sun too, for he could feel the raised place burning gently—a not unpleasant feeling but one that took the attention. The bristles in the balaclava made a scratching sound when he grimaced.

  “Four. Make the knife sharp enough to shave with. Five. Make sure I’m not egg-bound to-morrow.”

  The sunburn pricked.

  “I am suffering from reaction. I went through hell in the sea and in the funnel, and then I was so pleased to be safe that I went right over the top. And that is followed by a set-back. I must sleep, must keep quite still and concentrate on the business of sleeping.”

  The sunburn went on pricking, the bristles scratched and scraped and the unevennesses of the rock lit their slow, smouldering fires. They stayed there like the sea. Even when consciousness was modified they insisted. They became a luminous landscape, they became a universe and he oscillated between moments of hanging in space, observing them and of being extended to every excruciating corner.

  *

  He opened his eyes and looked up. He shut them again and muttered to himself.

  “I am dreaming.”

  He opened his eyes and the sunlight stayed there. The light lulled the fires to a certain extent because the mind could at last look away from them. He lay, looking at the daylight sky and trying to remember the quality of this time that had suddenly foreshortened itself.

  “I wasn’t asleep at all!”

  And the mind was very disinclined to hutch out of the crevice and face what must be done. He spoke toneless words into the height of air over him.

  “I shall be rescued today.”

  He hauled himself out of the crevice and the air was warm so that he undressed to trousers and sweater. He folded his clothes carefully and put them in the crevice. When he hutched forward in the water-hole the red deposit made a mark across his chest. He drank a great deal of water and when he stopped drinking he could see that there was a wider sp
ace of darkness between the water and the window.

  “I must get more water.”

  He lay still and tried to decide whether it was more important to arrange for catching water or to finish the line of weed. That reminded him how quickly time could pass if you let it out of your sight so he scrambled back to the Look-out. This was a day of colour. The sun burned and the water was deep blue and sparkled gaily. There was colour spilt over the rocks, shadows that were deep purple until you looked straight at them. He peered down the High Street and it was a picture. He shut his eyes and then opened them again but the rock and the sea seemed no more real. They were a pattern of colour that filled the three lights of his window.

  “I am still asleep. I am shut inside my body.”

  He went to the Red Lion and sat by the sea.

  “What did I do that for?”

  He frowned at the water.

  “I mean to get food. But I’m not hungry. I must get weed.”

  He fetched the lifebelt and knife from the crevice and went to Prospect Cliff. He had to climb farther along the ledges for weed because the nearer part of the cliff was stripped already. He came to a ledge that was vaguely familiar and had to think.

  “I came here to get stones for the Dwarf. I tried to shift that stone there but it wouldn’t move although it was cracked.”

  He frowned at the stone. Then he worked his way down until he was hanging on the cliff by it with both hands and the crack was only a foot from his face. Like all the rest of the cliff where the water could reach it was cemented with layers of barnacles and enigmatic growths. But the crack was wider. The whole stone had moved and skewed perhaps an eighth of an inch. Inside the crack was a terrible darkness.

  He stayed there, looking at the loose rock until he forgot what he was thinking. He was envisaging the whole rock as a thing in the water, and he was turning his head from side to side.

  “How the hell is it that this rock is so familiar? I’ve never been here before——”

  Familiar, not as a wartime acquaintance whom one knows so quickly because one is forced to live close to him for interminable stretches of hours but familiar as a relative, seldom seen, but to be reckoned with, year after year, familiar as a childhood friend, a nurse, some acquaintance with a touch of eternity behind him; familiar now, as the rocks of childhood, examined and reapprized holiday after holiday, remembered in the darkness of bed, in winter, imagined as a shape one’s fingers can feel in the air——

  There came a loud plop from the three rocks. He scrambled quickly to the Red Lion but saw nothing.

  “I ought to fish.”

  The seaweed in the trenches stank. There came another plop from the sea and he was in time to see the ripples spreading. He put his hands on either cheek to think but the touch of hair distracted him.

  “I must have a beard pretty well. Bristles, anyway. Strange that bristles go on growing even when the rest of you is——”

  He went quickly to Prospect Cliff and got a load of weed and dumped it in the nearest trench. He went slowly up the High Street to the Look-out and sat down, his opened hands on either side of him. His head sank between his knees. The lap lap of water round Safety Rock was very quieting and a gull stood on the Look-out like an image.

  The sounds of the inside body spread. The vast darkness was full of them as a factory is full of the sound of machinery. His head made a tiny bobbing motion each time his heart beat.

  He was jerked out of this state by a harsh scream. The gull had advanced across the rock, its wings half-open, head lowered.

  “What do you want?”

  The feathered reptile took two steps sideways then shuffled its wings shut. The beak preened under the wing.

  “If I had a crap I’d feel better.”

  He heaved himself round and looked at the Dwarf who winked at him with a silver eye. The line of the horizon was hard and near. Again he thought he could see indentations in the curve.

  The trouble was there were no cushions on the rock, no tussocks. He thought for a moment of fetching his duffle and folding the skirt as a seat but the effort seemed too great.

  “My flesh aches inside as though it were bruised. The hardness of the rock is wearing out my flesh. I will think about water.”

  Water was insinuating, soft and yielding.

  “I must arrange some kind of shelter. I must arrange to catch water.”

  He came to a little, felt stronger and worried. He frowned at the tumbled rocks that were so maddeningly and evasively familiar and followed with his eye the thin line of weed. It shone in places. Perhaps the weed would appear from the air as a shining strip.

  “I could catch water in my oilskin. I could make the wall of a trench into a catchment area.”

  He stopped talking and lay back until the unevenness of the Dwarf as a chair-back made him lean forward again. He sat, hunched up and frowning.

  “I am aware of——”

  He looked up.

  “I am aware of a weight. A ponderous squeezing. Agoraphobia or anyway the opposite of claustrophobia. A pressure.”

  Water catchment.

  He got to his feet and climbed back down the High Street. He examined the next trench to his sleeping crevice.

  “Prevailing wind. I must catch water from an area facing south west.”

  He took his knife and drew a line sloping down across the leaning wall. It ended in a hollow, set back to the depth of his fist where the wall met the bottom of the trench. He went to the Dwarf, carefully extracted a white potato and brought it back. On the end of the clasp knife was a projection about a quarter of an inch long which was intended as a screwdriver. He placed this against the rock about an inch above the slanting line and tapped the other end of his knife with the stone. The rock came away in thin flakes. He put the screwdriver in the slanting line and tapped till the line sank in. Soon he had made a line perhaps an eighth of an inch deep and a foot long. He went to the bottom end of the line.

  “Begin at the most important end of the line. Then no matter how soon the rain comes I can catch some of it.”

  The noise of the taps was satisfactorily repeated in the trench and he felt enclosed as though he were working in a room.

  “I could spread my duffle or oilskin over this trench and then I should have a roof. That ponderous feeling is not so noticeable here. That’s partly because I am in a room and partly because I am working.”

  His arms ached but the line rose away from the floor and he could work in an easier position. He made a dreamy calculation to see whether increasing ease would overtake tiredness and found that it would not. He sat on the floor. with his face a few inches from the rock. He leaned his forehead on stone. His hand fell open.

  “I could go to the crevice and lie down for a bit. Or I could roll up in my duffle by the Dwarf.”

  He jerked his head away from the rock and set to work again. The cut part of the line lengthened. This part met the part he had cut first and he sat back to examine it.

  “I should have cut it back at a slant. Damn.”

  He grimaced at the rock and went back over the cut so that the bottom of the groove trended inward.

  “Make it deeper near the end.”

  Because the amount of water in the cut—but he changed his mind and did the calculation out loud.

  “The amount of water in any given length of the cut will consist of all the water collected higher up, and also will be proportional to the area of rock above.”

  He tapped at the rock and the flakes fell. His hands gave out and he sat on the floor of the trench, looking at his work.

  “After this I shall do a real engineering job. I shall find a complex area round a possible basin and cut a network of lines that will guide the water to it. That will be rather interesting. Like sand-castles.”

  Or like Roman emperors, bringing water to the city from the hills.

  “This is an aqueduct. I call it the Claudian.”

  He began to flake again, imposing p
urpose on the senseless rock.

  “I wonder how long I’ve been doing that?”

  He lay down in the trench and felt his back bruise. The Claudian was a long, whitish scar.

  “There is something venomous about the hardness of this rock. It is harder than rock should be. And—familiar.”

  The ponderous weight squeezed down. He struggled up to a sitting position.

  “I should have dried seaweed and lined the crevice. But there are too many things to do. I need another hand on this job of living and being rescued. Perhaps I could find another place to sleep. In the open? I feel warm enough.”

  Too warm.

  “My flesh is perceptible inside—as though it were bruised everywhere to the bone. And big. Tumescent.”

  The globe of darkness turned a complicated window towards the sky. The voice evaporated at the gate like escaping steam on a dry day.

  “I’m working too hard. If I don’t watch out I shall exhaust myself. Anyway I’ll hand it to you, Chris. I don’t think many people would——”

  He stopped suddenly, then began again.

  “Chris. Christopher! Christopher Hadley Martin——”

  The words dried up.

  There was an instrument of examination, a point that knew it existed. There were sounds that came out of the lower part of a face. They had no meaning attached to them. They were useless as tins thrown out with the lids buckled back.

  “Christopher. Christopher!”

  He reached out with both arms as though to grab the words before they dried away. The arms appeared before the window and in complete unreason they filled him with terror.

  “Oh, my God.”

  He wrapped his arms round him, hugged himself close, rocked from side to side. He began to mutter.

  “Steady. Steady. Keep calm.”

  9

  He got up and sat gingerly on the side of the trench. He could feel the separate leaves of rock and their edges through his trousers and pants. He shifted farther down the trench to a place where the leaves were smoothly cut but his backside seemed to fare no better.

  “I am who I was.”

  He examined the shape of his window and the window-box of hair that was flourishing between his two noses. He turned the window down and surveyed all that he could see of himself. The sweater was dragged out into tatters and wisps of wool. It lay in folds beneath his chest and the sleeves were concertina’d. The trousers beneath the sweater were shiny and grey instead of black and beneath them the seaboot stockings drooped like the wads of waste that a stoker wipes his hands on. There was no body to be seen, only a conjunction of worn materials. He eyed the peculiar shapes that lay across the trousers indifferently for a while until at last it occurred to him how strange it was that lobsters should sit there. Then he was suddenly seized with a terrible loathing for lobsters and flung them away so that they cracked on the rock. The dull pain of the blow extended him into them again and they became his hands, lying discarded where he had tossed them.