Hills End Page 15

  ‘So,’ said Paul, ‘you decided to look for Miss Godwin?’

  ‘Yeah. But the mist is getting bad. It’s hard to see. And it’s—hard to see.’

  ‘What about the bull?’

  ‘I heard the thing. Up on the hill, I heard it.’

  ‘Up where Miss Godwin might be?’

  Adrian nodded in despair.

  ‘I couldn’t face it, Paul. I couldn’t.’

  ‘Don’t worry. I wouldn’t have been able to, either.’

  ‘But you did face it.’

  ‘That was different. Golly, that was different altogether…What’s the time?’

  ‘About half-past ten.’ Adrian peered at his watch. ‘To be exact, twenty-five to eleven. Why?’

  ‘I’m thinking you’d better turn in. Forget the rest of your watch. Doesn’t matter much now, anyway, now that we know Butch is all right.’

  Adrian thought about it, but couldn’t look at Paul directly, didn’t want to meet his eyes, because he knew what Paul was thinking. Then he peeled off his coat and headed for his sleeping bag. From there he whispered hoarsely and lamely, ‘Don’t you go!’

  ‘I’m not that silly.’

  Adrian grunted and unlaced his shoes and squirmed into the warm security of his blankets. It was so wonderful to lie down, to be safe, to be cosy, and to escape from himself. He closed his eyes tightly and clenched his jaws and sobbed to himself so that no one could hear. In three minutes he was asleep.

  Paul still stood at the counter, wondering what he should do, really knowing what he should do, but every bit as aware of the dangers as Adrian had been. Wondering whether he should venture out, wondering whether the mist was as bad as Adrian said, even wondering whether Butch’s sketchy account was reliable. Butch could have been imagining things. Adrian could have been imagining things. Adrian so often did.

  Paul put on his shoes and the coat, took the rifle and the lamp, glared at Adrian for a moment or two, and departed through the window.

  He plodded up the street, feeling the bitter coldness of the air and the growing weight of his responsibilities. Adrian was too scared to do anything. Unless someone was beside him to hold his hand all his brave words meant nothing. Adrian was just a great balloon. Sometimes he was blowing himself up and other times he was flat. That’s what he was. A balloon. All puffed up until someone let the air out or stuck a pin in him.

  Paul came to the place where Adrian had lost his nerve, or near enough to it. This was where the mist seemed to be thicker, seemed to surround him and press upon him. Paul paused and listened carefully, because Adrian had said he had heard the bull, but the stillness was so intense it throbbed in his ears.

  He turned the lantern as high as he dared, and peered into the cold and wet little world that was about five yards square, because beyond it he could see nothing except the fog, tinted yellow by the flame of his lamp.

  He was scared. Couldn’t see far enough. Could so easily become lost. If Miss Godwin were out in this she’d be dead. It would kill her.

  He couldn’t go back. If he turned away he would be no better than Adrian. He would be a big balloon, like Adrian.

  He climbed a few more yards, along the path that he used every schoolday of his life, and suddenly his hair almost stood on end.

  He inhaled sharply, almost dropped the lamp, but it was Buzz, Buzz bounding out of the invisible world beyond the light.

  Paul’s nerves prickled up and down his spine and he panted, ‘Golly, Buzz! Golly, boy, you nearly killed me with fright.’

  Paul was very wary, tensed to dodge the snapping jaws of the beastly little animal, but Buzz wagged his tail brightly. The dog was as friendly as it could have been.

  ‘What’s come over you?’

  Paul deemed it wise to cement their friendship with a pat and he gingerly stroked the dog’s head, and froze.

  He didn’t know why a sheet of paper on the ground should startle him so, but perhaps it was that he recognized it before he reached for it. It was a quarto sheet, typewritten, and it bore the number 206.

  This was part of Miss Godwin’s manuscript, part of her dearly loved book, blown from its rightful place on her cottage desk by the howling and heartless wind.

  Paul felt suddenly desperate, suddenly frightened in a way he had never been frightened before. Homes might have crumbled, precious things might have been smashed, but this was something else. This sheet of paper was more than property; it was part of a person, almost a living thing.

  He looked again, carefully, and saw two more sheets, one numbered 207 and the other 219.

  Paul placed his rifle down and gathered them up gently and shivered in his sorrow for Miss Godwin. Not fully realizing why, he began to hunt for more, and in a few minutes had found thirty sheets of paper, all sodden, all muddied, and most of them unreadable.

  Then he found something else, or perhaps it would be fairer to say that Buzz found something else, because Paul certainly would not have found it at that stage. Buzz’s insistence was annoying because Paul had realized that he had mislaid the rifle, and he was anxious to get his hands on it again, but Buzz would not allow him. He barked and yelped and whined and did everything but talk.

  Paul gave way and followed the dog only a short distance and came upon a heap of humanity, more muddied than any piece of paper, huddled at the foot of a tree, a woman, with a hundred or more rescued pages of her manuscript still clutched in her hand.

  Paul’s legs weakened and he found himself sitting beside her, too afraid to touch her, too nervous to reach out his hand to determine whether she was dead or alive.

  12

  In Possession

  There was in the world an absolute stillness. That was how it seemed to Adrian. The earth had stopped revolving; moon, sun and stars had ceased to be; every living thing except himself had died. He was suspended in space, alone, and chilled to the marrow of his bones.

  For a while his thoughts wandered in a wilderness, because everything seemed to be wrong. His bed was wrong; his body seemed to be bruised; and he couldn’t break through to the reason for his confusion and anxiety.

  Everything seemed to be damp and bitter and he wasn’t breathing easily. Couldn’t breathe properly at all. The air was like a poisonous gas.

  He tried to sit up, but a pressure like a band of metal was bearing against his chest. He struggled against it and was suddenly wide awake and the mystery rolled back into the shadows of his mind.

  Yes, he knew where he was. He knew that the town was dead and that a new day had come, and that the band across his chest was the constriction of the sleeping bag, and that the air wasn’t poisonous, though it was certainly bitter, and that something truly was wrong.

  It was daylight, yet it wasn’t daylight. It felt very, very early in the morning, but he knew it wasn’t. He knew he had slept, but he wasn’t refreshed. It was a quarter to seven.

  The light was strange and grey and unearthly. It wasn’t an even light, but seemed to wander through the shop like a cloud, as though it were a cloud of pale light in a dark world.

  There were no sounds from the birds, no barking dogs, no crowing fowls. Nor could he hear the beating of the diesel in the power shed, or voices, or cattle, or anyone splitting wood for the morning fire.

  There never had been a day like this, never before in the history of Hills End. This wasn’t an ordinary day. This was the day of desolation, of empty streets, and empty houses.

  They were on their own. It was like waking up in a graveyard and then wondering how one came to be there. One never really heard sounds until they were not there to hear. One never recognized them until they ceased. One never knew how friendly they were—all those families, all those sounds—until they had gone.

  Adrian felt his courage withering. Could anything be worse than this? Was anything worse than a dead town?

  He wriggled out of his sleeping bag and apparently the others still had not wakened. Even Butch was sleeping peacefully, with an oddly dirty face.
That shouldn’t have been, because Frances had cleaned his face with a damp towel. Adrian peered at him closely. Chocolate!

  The last curtain in his mind was withdrawn. Of course there would be chocolate. There were the wrappers of two quarter-pound blocks near his pillow. And there was more, too—the inflooding of a deep depression, the memory of his failure on the hillside.

  ‘Is that you, Paul?’

  ‘No.’

  Gussie emerged from her sleeping bag, groaning a little and puffy round the eyes. ‘Morning! Thank heavens!’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What an awful night! I don’t think I slept a wink. I’m frozen stiff.’

  She’d slept all right. Adrian knew that, and Frances was stirring and Maisie opened her eyes.

  ‘Washing with that lemonade,’ said Gussie, ‘was a glum idea. My skin feels terrible.’

  Adrian didn’t hear her. He was on his feet looking for Paul, wondering where he had slept. Only two lamps were burning; the third, perhaps, had gone out, but where was it? And the trouble with the air in here was fog, a thick and nasty fog. It could not have been worse outside. It seemed as though the outside had come inside—as it had. The panel in the boarded-up window was down and the fog had drifted in, crept in, writhed in like something evil.

  Adrian already sensed what had happened, but he didn’t want to admit it, not even to himself, for many reasons.

  ‘What’s wrong, Adrian?’

  He glanced down and Frances was looking at him.

  ‘I don’t know,’ he said.

  ‘Where’s Paul?’

  ‘He doesn’t seem to be here, and there’s a lamp missing.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ screeched Gussie. ‘Paul not here! Why isn’t Paul here?’

  Adrian didn’t know what to say, and they were all awake now, even Butch, and Butch seemed more refreshed than any of them. Butch was padded so well with fat that any bed was a soft bed. And no smell, even fog, worried him.

  ‘Hi, everyone,’ he said. ‘Miss Godwin here yet?’

  Adrian shook his head. ‘How do you feel, Butch?’

  ‘Goodo.’

  ‘What’s the chocolate doing all over your face?’ said Frances quietly.

  ‘Chocolate?’ squeaked Harvey. ‘Gee, I didn’t get any chocolate.’

  ‘No one had chocolate,’ said Frances, ‘except Butch. And why wasn’t I wakened at three o’clock? Paul was going to wake me then. It was your watch, Adrian, until midnight; Paul’s watch until three, and then mine until six. Something’s gone wrong.’

  ‘Don’t be silly,’ snapped Adrian. ‘Of course nothing’s gone wrong.’

  ‘Where’s Paul?’ demanded Gussie.

  Adrian groaned. ‘How should I know? Maybe he’s gone to bring the milk in.’ The moment he said it Adrian could have bitten his tongue, because he saw that flicker of a memory in Butch’s eyes, and heard Gussie’s ironic laugh.

  ‘Milk?’ declared Gussie. ‘What milk? There aren’t any cows. Do we all look that silly?’

  Butch, with a troubled frown, said, ‘Who’s silly? Adrian put the billy out. Last night he put it out. Who’s silly?’

  Maisie made her voice heard for the first time that morning, and she managed to hint at more than she said. ‘No, Butch. Adrian’s a bit of a loony, but he’s not that vacant. He didn’t put the billy out at all, did he?’

  ‘Like I said,’ stated Butch. ‘He put the billy out. I saw him go. You even put your coat on, didn’t you, Adrian?’

  Adrian didn’t know where to hide himself. It would have been so much wiser to have admitted the truth, but Adrian wasn’t a very wise person. He blushed and mumbled, and Frances turned to Butch with kindness and firmness.

  ‘You’re mistaken, Butch.’

  ‘Like I said.’ Butch was showing his distress. ‘Adrian put the billy out. Honest injun, I’m not lyin’. Tell ’em, Adrian!’

  ‘Of course he’s not lying,’ snapped Gussie with her usual intuition. ‘Adrian’s hiding something. Adrian knows something about Paul that he doesn’t want to tell us.’

  Adrian flared. ‘I don’t know anything about Paul.’

  ‘Well, what were you doing in bed?’ Maisie demanded. ‘You must know something because you had to wake Paul when you changed watch. Who was it that gave Butch the chocolate, anyway?’

  Butch pointed and he was looking at Adrian with bewilderment and hurt. ‘Adrian did—after I told him about Miss Godwin an’ all. Don’t you remember, Adrian? After that you went to put the billy out.’

  Adrian knew he was silly to deny it, but he couldn’t help himself. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

  Frances interrupted, ‘Exactly what did you tell Adrian, Butch? Perhaps you dreamt it, you know.’

  Butch was close to sobbing. ‘It wasn’t a dream, ’cos I didn’t steal the chocolate. Adrian gave it to me. I told him about Miss Godwin most likely bein’ up on the old log trail. Like I said, I thought we was together all the time. What are you all gettin’ cross with me for? I haven’t done nothin’. And then Adrian took the lamp and his coat and put the billy out!’

  Adrian was cornered and the situation was out of hand. He had been shamed as he had never been shamed and he didn’t know how to salvage his self-respect or restore Butch’s broken trust in him. He couldn’t look anyone in the eye, least of all Butch, and he knew now that his failure on the hillside, which could have remained a secret with Paul, was as good as being public property.

  He heard Gussie screeching at him. ‘You horrible beast, Adrian, what are you hiding from us?’

  Adrian wanted to run away, but he didn’t have the courage to do that either. ‘Paul’s all right,’ he mumbled. ‘Paul’s brave—’

  ‘Where is Paul?’ screeched Gussie.

  ‘I don’t know, but I suppose he’s looking for Miss Godwin. He said he wouldn’t go, but I guess he’s gone.’

  ‘When?’ demanded Frances.

  ‘I dunno. I dunno.’

  ‘Why did Paul go,’ accused Maisie, ‘when it was you that Butch told?’

  Suddenly Adrian shouted at them. ‘Yes, I did go, and I told Butch I was putting the billy out. I tried, while all you lot were sound asleep, snoring your rotten heads off. I went up that mountain, in the fog, in the dark, by myself. I did try!’

  He turned then, and ran. He stumbled along the counter and out through the hole in the window into the fog.

  ‘Let him go,’ said Frances quietly. ‘I think we’d better leave him alone.’

  Frances might have been calm on the outside, but Gussie was becoming hysterical.

  ‘What’s happened to Paul? How long has he been gone? He might be lost. He might be dead. We’ve got to go and look for him.’

  ‘Please, Gussie,’ appealed Frances. ‘Paul knows how to look after himself.’

  ‘You can see the fog’—Gussie’s voice was quivering—‘you can see the window has been open for hours or the shop wouldn’t be full of it. He’s probably been up on that mountain nearly all night. He might be miles away, drowned, or anything.’

  ‘You don’t get drowned on a mountain,’ grumbled Harvey. ‘Girls are silly.’

  ‘Yes, Gussie,’ said Frances, ‘do be sensible. He might have got up at daylight and gone then.’

  ‘And taken a lamp with him? In daylight? You know as well as I do he’s been gone all night. It’s Adrian’s fault. I hate him.’

  ‘It’s my fault,’ mumbled Butch. ‘That’s whose fault it is. If I hadn’t lost Miss Godwin no one would have had to go and look for her at all. And now everyone’s in trouble. Now we’re all fightin’ and arguin’, all because of me.’

  ‘Oh, Butch!’ Gussie suddenly felt awful, because they all regarded Butch as a little boy, and not as a big boy. ‘Oh, Butch, you know we don’t mean that.’

  ‘Adrian’s my friend,’ said Butch with a sniff. ‘You don’t mean it about Adrian, either, do you?’

  Gussie sighed deeply, couldn’t find the right words, so shook her head.
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br />   ‘Good,’ said Frances, ‘that’s better. I think we can all learn a lot from Butch.’ Frances seemed to pull herself together. ‘This won’t do at all. I must put the breakfast on. After we’ve had breakfast—well, the fog might have cleared by then, anyway.’

  ‘I’ll help you,’ said Gussie.

  ‘No, no, no. I—I’d rather have no one near me.’

  ‘All right. We’ll go outside and have a look round. Coming, Maisie?’

  ‘All go outside,’ said Frances. ‘Please. All except Butch. He can open the tins for me.’

  ‘I’m not goin’ anywhere with those silly girls,’ said Harvey. ‘I haven’t had me wash yet.’

  ‘What?’ shrieked Maisie. ‘You wash? Since when?’

  Harvey drew himself to his full height, which wasn’t much, tossed his head haughtily as he had seen the film stars do, and stalked into the storeroom.

  ‘Goodness!’ said Gussie. ‘Perhaps we’ve misjudged him.’

  ‘Boys are impossible.’ Maisie sniffed. ‘You don’t know where you are with them. They’re all the same. If they’re not strutting like peacocks they’re blubbing their eyes out.’

  ‘Eh?’ said Butch.

  ‘That’s what my mum says,’ declared Maisie, ‘and my mum knows. Coming, Gussie?’

  Gussie shrugged. ‘That’s what I asked you.’

  Butch stared after them and thought about Maisie, and looked at Frances. ‘Is that true?’ he asked.

  Frances smiled and thrust the tin-opener into his hands. ‘Baked beans, Butch.’

  Outside, Maisie and Gussie took a few paces and halted. They couldn’t see very far—the fog was like soup—and it did something to them, immediately subdued them, and Gussie couldn’t carry her thoughts beyond Paul. ‘This fog isn’t good, Maisie. This fog is like the wet season. It’s like the fog we get that lasts for days.’

  Maisie found herself nodding.

  ‘And that means,’ said Gussie, ‘that the aeroplane won’t be able to find us again, and that no one will be able to come along the road, and that we won’t be able to get out again, either?’

  Maisie knew what Gussie was thinking and she said, ‘I suppose so, unless our families are almost here now. It’s two days. They must be nearly back.’