Archibald Cronin - The Stars Look Down

“Eh, yor coddin’ now, Uncle Davey?” But Sammy liked the codding even better than the answers.

David and Sammy had many such wonderful excursions together. Annie seemed to feel that they enjoyed being together and kept herself a good deal in the background. She was naturally self-effacing and she usually had something to do when David and Sammy wanted her to come out — the shopping, or some darning, or she had promised to take a cup of tea with Mrs. Leslie! Annie in collaboration with Mrs. Leslie was always devising some fresh turn on the menu and trying to find out what David liked. Annie’s gratitude was enormous, but her fear of obtruding herself on David was more enormous still, and at last David had it out with her. On the Thursday afternoon he came in out of the sunshine and found Annie going upstairs with his grey flannel trousers folded over her arm — she had been pressing them in the kitchen with an iron borrowed from Mrs. Leslie. He saw this and a sudden exasperation took hold of him.

“Good Lord, Annie,” he cried. “What do you want to do ironing for! Stopping indoors a fine day like this. Why aren’t you down on the beach with Sammy and me?”

Her eyes dropped; she was furious with herself for letting herself be caught. She said, as in excuse:

“I’ll be down later, David.”

“Later!” he raged. “It’s always later, or in a minute, or when I’ve had a word with Mrs. Leslie. Good heavens, woman, don’t you want to get any good of your holiday; what do you think I brought you for?”

“Well,” she said, “I thought to look after you and Sammy.”

“What nonsense! I want you to have a good time, to come out and enjoy yourself, to give us your company, Annie.”

“Well,” smiling again faintly, “if I’ll not be a nuisance to you, but I thought you wouldn’t want to be bothered.”

She put on her hat and came down to the beach with him and they sat with Sammy on the soft sand and were happy. From time to time he glanced at her as she leaned back, her head with her eyes closed towards the bright sun. She puzzled him. She was a great girl, Annie, had always been a great girl — plucky, competent, quiet, modest. There was no flaunting of sex with Annie. Yet she was a fine strapping figure of a woman, with fine limbs and fine firm breasts and a fine smooth curve to her throat. Her calm face now upturned to the sun had a regular, composed, slightly sad beauty. Yes, though she took no care of herself whatever she had an almost classic beauty of which any woman might have been proud. And yet Annie had no pride, that was the queer thing, she had a sturdy independence, but neither vanity nor conceit. She had so little conceit of herself she was afraid of being a nuisance to him, of being in the way, a “bother.” What infernally exalted notion had Annie got hold of now, he wondered; she used not to be like that at all. But now, if only from the increasing respect of Mrs. Leslie — that plain reflection of Annie’s awe — he, could almost feel that Annie was afraid of him. And suddenly, as he lay on his elbow on the sand — Sammy was playing with his bucket at the water’s edge — he said:

“What’s come between you and me, lately, Annie? We used to be the best of friends.”

Still keeping her eyes closed towards the sun she answered:

“You are the best friend I have, David.”

He frowned at her, streaming soft sand between his fingers.

“I’d like to know what’s going on inside that head of yours. I’d like to shake you, Annie. I’d like to knock a real opinion out of you. You’ve become a kind of Mona Lisa, Annie. Heavens alive, I believe I’d like to beat you.”

“I wouldn’t try that if I were you,” she said, with her faint smile. “I’m pretty strong.”

“Listen,” he answered after a minute. “I know what I’m going to do with you!” He looked at her shut eyes with a comic grimness. “When Sammy’s in bed to-night I’m going to take you to the Fun Fair. I’m going to push you into every mad, wild, atrocious side-show that exists. I’m going to jam you on to the cake-walk, the electric motors and the scenic railway. And when you’re whirling through the air at eighty miles an hour I’m going to take a good close look at you and find out if the old Annie is still there.”

“I’d like to go on the scenic railway,” she said with that smiling, that baffling imperturbability. “But it’s pretty expensive, isn’t it?”

He lay back and roared with laughter.

“Annie, Annie, you’re unbeatable. We’ll go on that scenic railway if it costs a million and kills us both!”

They went. After the unsuspecting Sammy had been decoyed with peppermint rock and put early to bed, David and Annie strolled over to the Fun Fair at Tynemouth. The wind had fallen and it was a calm, sweet evening. For no reason he could explain David was reminded suddenly and vividly of the evenings he had spent here with Jenny on their honeymoon at Cullercoats. And as they strolled past Cullercoats he was induced to speak of Jenny. He remarked to Annie:

“You knew I came here once with Jenny?”

“Well, yes, I did know,” Annie said, giving him a queer, involuntary glance.

“It seems a long time ago.”

“It’s not so very long.”

There was a pause, then immersed in his own thoughts, overtaken by a sudden tenderness towards Jenny, David continued:

“I miss Jenny a lot, Annie. Sometimes I miss her terribly. I haven’t stopped hoping she’ll come back to me.”

There was another silence, quite a long silence, then Annie said:

“I hope so, too, David. I’ve always known you were set on her.”

They walked on without speaking after that, and when they entered the Fun Fair it looked almost as if the Fun Fair was not going to be a success, for Annie was not only silent but strangely subdued as well. But David was determined to shake Annie out of her perfectly causeless melancholy. Throwing off his own mood, he really exerted himself. He took Annie everywhere, beginning in the Hall of Mirrors, then passing on to the Helter Skelter. As they came tearing down the Helter Skelter on the same mat, Annie gave a palpitating smile.

“That’s better,” he said approvingly and dragged her to the Scenic Railway.

The Scenic Railway was better still. They switchbacked and bored through Stygian tunnels on the Scenic Railway and Annie simply could not get her breath. But the Giant Racer was the best of any. They found the Giant Racer about nine o’clock and they swooped and soared and dived from giddy heights on the Giant Racer until the whole glittering Fun Fair spun around them in one glorious daze. There was nothing like the Giant Racer, nothing in heaven, hell, limbo, purgatory or all the dimensions of this present universe. Upon the Giant Racer you climbed to an impossible altitude while all the panorama of the fair-ground lights lay beautiful and glittering and remote beneath. You climbed slowly with a wickedly deceptive slowness, enjoying the cool tranquillity, securely admiring the view. You crawled, simply, to the top. And then, while you still sedately admired the view, the car poised itself upon the brink and without warning hurled into the depths below. Down, down, down you fell into an unknown, shrieking darkness. Your stomach left you, your being dissolved, you died and were reborn again in that terrible ecstatic flight. But one flight was nothing; the car leaped to another summit and fell with you again, down, down, down; you had to die and be reborn all over again.

David helped Annie from the car. She stood uncertainly, holding his arm, with her cheeks flushed and her hat awry and a look in her eyes as if she was glad to be holding his arm.

“Oh, Davey,” she gasped, “never take me on that thing again.” Then she began to laugh. She laughed and laughed very quietly into herself. And again she gasped: “But it was wonderful.”