Muriel Spark - The Complete Short Stories

Between Sybil’s ninth year and her tenth Désirée’s family came to live in her square. The residents’ children were taken to the gardens of the square after school by mothers and nursemaids, and were bidden to play with each other nicely. Sybil regarded the intrusion of Désirée sulkily, and said she preferred her book. She cheered up, however, when a few weeks later the Dobell boys came to live in the square. The two Dobells had dusky-rose skins and fine dark eyes. It appeared the father was half Indian.

How Sybil adored the Dobells! They were a new type of playmate in her experience, so jumping and agile, and yet so gentle, so unusually courteous. Their dark skins were never dirty, a fact which Sybil obscurely approved. She did not then mind Désirée joining in their games; the Dobell boys were a kind of charm against despair, for they did not understand stupidity and so did not notice Désirée’s.

The girl lacked mental stamina, could not keep up an imaginative game for long, was shrill and apt to kick her playmates unaccountably and on the sly; the Dobells reacted to this with a simple resignation. Perhaps the lack of opposition was the reason that Désirée continually shot Sybil dead, contrary to the rules, whenever she felt like it.

Sybil resented with the utmost passion the repeated daily massacre of herself before the time was ripe. It was useless for Jon Dobell to explain, ‘Not yet, Désirée. Wait, wait, Désirée. She’s not to be shot down yet. She hasn’t crossed the bridge yet, and you can’t shoot her from there, anyway — there’s a big boulder between you and her. You have to creep round it, and Hugh has a shot at you first, and he thinks he’s got you, but only your hat. And …’

It was no use. Each day before the game started the four sat in conference on the short dry prickly grass. The proceedings were agreed. The game was on. ‘Got it all clear, Désirée?’

‘Yes,’ she said, every day. Désirée shouted and got herself excited, she made foolish sounds even when supposed to be stalking the bandits through the silent forest. A few high screams and then, ‘Bang-bang,’ she yelled, aiming at Sybil, ‘you’re dead.’ Sybil obediently rolled over, protesting none the less that the game had only begun, while the Dobells sighed, ‘Oh, Désirée!’

Sybil vowed to herself each night, I will do the same to her. Next time — tomorrow if it isn’t raining — I will bang-bang her before she has a chance to hang her panama on the bough as a decoy. I will say bang-bang on her out of turn, and I will do her dead before her time.

But on no succeeding tomorrow did Sybil bring herself to do this. Her pride before the Dobells was more valuable than the success of the game. Instead, with her cleverness, Sybil set herself to avoid Désirée’s range for as long as possible. She dodged behind the laurels and threw out a running commentary as if to a mental defective, such as, ‘I’m in disguise, all in green, and no one can see me among the trees.’ But still Désirée saw her. Désirée’s eyes insisted on penetrating solid mountains. ‘I’m half a mile away from everyone,’ Sybil cried as Désirée’s gun swivelled relentlessly upon her.

I shall refuse to be dead, Sybil promised herself. I’ll break the rule. If it doesn’t count with her why should it count with me? I won’t roll over any more when she bangs you’re dead to me. Next time, tomorrow if it isn’t raining …

But Sybil simply did roll over. When Join and Hugh Dobell called out to her that Désirée’s bang-bang did not count she started hopefully to resurrect herself; but ‘It does count, it does. That’s the rule,’ Désirée counter-screeched. And Sybil dropped back flat, knowing utterly that this was final.

And so the girl continued to deal premature death to Sybil, losing her head, but never so much that she aimed at one of the boys. For some reason which Sybil did not consider until she was years and years older, it was always herself who had to die.

One day, when Désirée was late in arriving for play, Sybil put it to the boys that Désirée should be left out of the game in future. ‘She only spoils it.’

‘But,’ said Jon, ‘you need four people for the game.’

‘You need four,’ said Hugh.

‘No, you can do it with three.’ As she spoke she was inventing the game with three. She explained to them what was in her mind’s eye. But neither boy could grasp the idea, having got used to Bandits and Riders with two on each side. ‘I am the lone Rider, you see,’ said Sybil. ‘Or,’ she wheedled, ‘the cherry tree can be a Rider.’ She was talking to stone, inoffensive but uncomprehending. All at once she realized, without articulating the idea, that her intelligence was superior to theirs, and she felt lonely.

‘Could we play rounders instead?’ ventured Jon.

Sybil brought a book every day after that, and sat reading beside her mother, who was glad, on the whole, that Sybil had grown tired of rowdy games.

‘They were preparing,’ said Sybil, ‘to go on a shoot.’ Sybil’s host was changing the reel.

‘I get quite a new vision of Sybil,’ said her hostess, ‘seeing her in such a … such a social environment. Were any of these people intellectuals, Sybil?’

‘No, but lots of poets.’

‘Oh, no. Did they all write poetry?’

‘Quite a lot of them,’ said Sybil, ‘did.’

‘Who were they all? Who was that blond fellow who was standing by the van with you?’

‘He was the manager of the estate. They grew passion-fruit and manufactured the juice.’

‘Passion-fruit — how killing. Did he write poetry?’

‘Oh, yes.

‘And who was the girl, the one I thought was you?’

‘Oh, I had known her as a child and we met again in the Colony. The short man was her husband.’

‘And were you all off on safari that morning? I simply can’t imagine you shooting anything, Sybil, somehow.’

‘On this occasion,’ said Sybil, ‘I didn’t go. I just held the gun for effect.’

Everyone laughed.

‘Do you still keep up with these people? I’ve heard that colonials are great letter-writers, it keeps them in touch with —’

‘No.’ And she added, ‘Three of them are dead. The girl and her husband, and the fair fellow.’

‘Really? What happened to them? Don’t tell me they were mixed up in shooting affairs.’

‘They were mixed up in shooting affairs,’ said Sybil.

‘Oh, these colonials,’ said the elderly woman, ‘and their shooting affairs!’

‘Number three,’ said Sybil’s host. ‘Ready? Lights out, please.’

‘Don’t get eaten by lions. I say, Sybil, don’t get mixed up in a shooting affair.’ The party at the railway station were unaware of the noise they were making for they were inside the noise. As the time of departure drew near Donald’s relatives tended to herd themselves apart while Sybil’s clustered round the couple.

‘Two years — it will be an interesting experience for them.’

‘Mind out for the shooting affairs. Don’t let Donald have a gun.’

There had been an outbreak of popular headlines about the shooting affairs in the Colony. Much had been blared forth about the effect, on the minds of young settlers, of the climate, the hard drinking, the shortage of white women. The Colony was a place where lovers shot husbands, or shot themselves, where husbands shot natives who spied through bedroom windows. Letters to The Times arrived belatedly from respectable colonists, refuting the scandals with sober statistics. The recent incidents, they said, did not represent the habits of the peaceable majority. The Governor told the press that everything had been highly exaggerated. By the time Sybil and Donald left for the Colony the music-hall comics had already exhausted the entertainment value of colonial shooting affairs.