An Infinite Summer Read online

  The three frozen people were halted in their walk directly in front of the warden, who hobbled along the pavement towards them. As he reached them he showed no sign of awareness, and in a moment had passed right through them.

  Lloyd lowered his sunglasses, and the image of the three people became vague and ill-defined.

  June, 1903.

  When Waring’s prospects were compared with those of Thomas they seemed modest and unremarkable, but by ordinary standards they were nonetheless considerable. Accordingly, Mrs Carrington (who knew more about the distribution of the Lloyd wealth than anyone outside the immediate family circle) greeted Waring with civility.

  The two young men were offered a glass of cold lemon tea, and then asked for their opinion on some matter concerning an herbaceous border. Thomas, well used to Mrs Carrington’s small talk, couched his reply in a few words, but Waring anxious to please, set forth into a detailed response. He was still speaking knowledgeably about replanting and bedding when the girls appeared. They walked out through the French window and came towards them across the lawn.

  Seen together, it was obvious that the two were sisters, but to Thomas’s eager eye one girl’s beauty easily outshone the other’s. Charlotte’s expression was more earnest, and her bearing more practical. Sarah affected a modesty and timorousness (although Thomas knew it to be just an affection), and her smile when she approached him and shook his hand was enough to convince Thomas that from this moment his life would be an eternity of summer.

  Twenty minutes passed while the four young people and the girls’ mother walked about in the garden. Thomas, at first impatient to put his plan to the test, managed after a few minutes to control himself. He had noticed that both Mrs Carrington and Charlotte were amused by Waring’s conversation, and this was an unexpected bonus. After all, the whole afternoon lay ahead, and these minutes were being well spent!

  At last they were released from their courtesies, and the four set off on their planned stroll.

  The girls each carried a parasol: Charlotte’s was white, Sarah’s was pink. As they went through the grounds towards the riverside walk, the girls’ dresses rustled on the long grass, although Charlotte raised her skirt a little, saying that grass did stain cotton so.

  Approaching the river they heard the sounds of other people: children calling, a girl and a man from the town laughing together, and a rowing-eight striking in unison to the cox’s instructions. As they came to the riverside walk, and the two young men helped the girls over a stile, a mongrel dog leaped out of the water some twenty yards away and shook itself in a cascade of droplets.

  The path was not wide enough for them to walk abreast, and so Thomas and Sarah took the lead. Just once he was able to catch Waring’s eye, and the other gave the slightest of nods.

  A few minutes later, Waring detained Charlotte to show her a swan and some cygnets swimming by the reeds, and Thomas and Sarah walked slowly on ahead.

  By now they were some distance from the town, and meadows lay on either side of the river.

  August, 1940.

  The pub was set a short distance back from the road, with an area in front of it laid with paving-stones. On these, before the war, there had been some circular metal tables where one could drink in the open air, but they had been removed for scrap-iron during the last winter. Apart from this, and the fact that the windows had been criss-crossed with tape as a precaution against blast, there was no outward sign of the war’s austerities.

  Inside, Lloyd ordered a pint of bitter, and took it with him to one of the tables.

  He sipped the drink, then regarded the other occupants of the bar.

  Apart from himself and the barmaid there were four people present. Two men sat morosely together at one table, half-empty glasses of stout before them. Another man sat alone at a table by the door. He had a newspaper in front of him, and he was staring at the crossword.

  The fourth person, who stood against one of the walls, was a freezer. This one, Lloyd noted, was a woman. She, like the men freezers, wore a drab grey overall, and held one of the freeze instruments. This was shaped rather like a modern portable camera, and was carried on a lanyard strung around the neck, but it was much larger than a camera and was approximately cubical in shape. At the front, where on a camera would be a bellows and lens, there was a rectangular strip of white glass, apparently opaque or translucent, and it was through this that the freezing-beam was projected.

  Lloyd, still wearing his dark glasses, could only just see the woman. She did seem to be looking in his direction, but after a few seconds she stepped back through the wall and disappeared from his sight.

  He noticed that the barmaid was watching him, and as soon as she saw him looking at her she spoke to him.

  “D’you think they’re coming this time?”

  “I shouldn’t care to speculate,” Lloyd said, not wishing to be drawn into conversation. He took several mouthfuls of the beer, wanting to finish it and be on his way.

  “These sirens have ruined the trade,” the barmaid said. “One after the other, all day and sometimes in the evenings too. And it’s always a false alarm.”

  “Yes,” Lloyd said.

  She continued for a few more seconds, but then someone called her from the other bar and she went to serve. Lloyd was greatly relieved, for he disliked speaking to people here. He had felt isolated for too long, and had never mastered the modem way with conversation. Quite often he was misunderstood, for it was his way to speak in the more formal manner of his own contemporaries.

  He was regretting having come in for a drink. This would have been a good time to go to the meadows, because while the air-raid alert was on there would be only a few people there. He wanted to be alone whenever he walked by the river.

  He drank the rest of his beer, then stood up and walked towards the door.

  As he did so he noticed for the first time that there was a recent tableau by the door. He did not search for the tableaux, for he found them disturbing, but new ones were nevertheless of interest.

  It seemed that there were two men and a woman sitting at the table; the image of them was indistinct, and so Lloyd took off his sunglasses. At once the brilliance of the tableau surprised him; it had been caught in sunlight, and was so bright that it overshadowed the real man, who still sat regarding his crossword at the far end of the same table.

  One of the two frozen men was younger than the other two people, and he sat slightly apart. He was smoking, for a cigarette lay on the edge of the table, the end overhanging the wooden surface by half an inch. The older man and the woman were together, because they were holding hands and he was bending forward to kiss her wrist. His lips rested on her arm, and his eyes were closed. The woman, still slim and attractive, although apparently well into her forties, was amused by this because she was smiling, but she was not watching her friend. Instead, she was looking across the table at the younger man, who, beer-glass raised to his mouth, was watching the kiss with interest. On the table between them was the man’s untouched glass of bitter, and the woman’s glass of port. The smoke from the young man’s cigarette, grey and curling, was sunlit and motionless in the air, and a piece of ash, falling towards the floor, hovered a few inches above the carpet.

  “Do you want something, mate?” It was the man with the crossword.

  Lloyd put on his sunglasses again in haste, realizing that for the last few seconds he had been seeming to stare at the man.

  “I beg your pardon,” he said, and fell back on the excuse he often used. “I thought for a moment I recognized you.”

  The man peered myopically up at him. “Never seen you before in my life.”

  Lloyd affected a preoccupied nod, and passed on towards the door. For a moment he caught a glimpse again of the three frozen victims. The young man with the beer-glass, watching coolly; the man kissing, bent over so that his upper body was almost horizontal; the woman smiling, glancing towards the young man and enjoying all the attention that was be
ing paid her; the sunlit, sinuous smoke.

  Lloyd went out of the pub, and into the warm sunshine.

  June, 1903.

  “Your mama wishes me to marry your sister,” Thomas said.

  “I know. It is not what Charlotte desires.”

  “Nor I. May I enquire as to your feelings on the matter?”

  “I am in accord, Thomas.”

  They were walking along slowly, a little way apart from each other. Both stared at the gravel of the path as they walked, not meeting the other’s eyes. Sarah was turning her parasol in her fingers, causing the tassels to swirl and tangle. Now they were in the riverside meadows they were almost alone, although Waring and Charlotte were following about two hundred yards behind.

  “Would you say that we were strangers, Sarah?”

  “By what standards do you mean?” She had paused a little before answering.

  “Well, for instance, this is the first occasion on which we have been allowed any degree of intimacy together.”

  “And that by a contrivance,” Sarah said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I saw you signal to your cousin.”

  Thomas felt himself flush, but he considered that in the brightness and warmth of the afternoon it would go unnoticed. On the river the rowing-eight had turned, and were passing them again.

  After a few moments, Sarah said: “I am not avoiding your question, Thomas. I am considering whether or not we are strangers.”

  “Then what do you say?”

  “I think we know each other a little.”

  “I should be glad to see you again, Sarah. Without the need for contrivance, that is.”

  “Charlotte and I will speak to Mama. You have already been much discussed, Thomas, although not as yet with Mama. You need not fear for hurting my sister’s feelings, for although she is fond of you she does not yet feel ready for marriage.”

  Thomas, his pulse racing, felt a rush of confidence within him.

  “And you, Sarah?” he said. “May I continue to court you?”

  She turned away from him then, and stepped through the long grass beside the edge of the path. He saw the long sweep of her skirt, and the shining pink circle of her parasol. Her left hand dangled at her side, brushing lightly against her skirt.

  She said: “I find your advances most welcome, Thomas.”

  Her voice was faint, but the words reached his ears as if she had pronounced them clearly in a silent room.

  Thomas’s response was immediate. He swept his boater from his head, and opened his arms wide.

  “My dearest Sarah,” he cried. “Will you marry me?”

  She turned to face him and for a moment she was still, regarding him seriously. Her parasol rested on her shoulder, no longer turning. Then, seeing that he was in earnest, she smiled, and Thomas saw that she too had a blush of pink colouring her cheeks.

  “Yes, of course I will,” Sarah said.

  Happiness shone in her eyes. She stepped towards him extending her left hand, and Thomas, his straw hat still held high, reached forward with his right hand to take hers.

  Neither Thomas nor Sarah could have seen that in that moment a man had stepped forward from beside the water’s edge, and was levelling at them a small black instrument.

  August, 1940.

  The all-clear had not sounded, but the town seemed to be returning to life. Traffic was crossing Richmond Bridge, and a short distance down the road towards Isleworth a queue was forming outside a grocer’s shop while a delivery-van was parked alongside the kerb. Now that he was at last setting off on his daily walk, Thomas Lloyd felt more at ease with the tableaux, and he took off his glasses for the last time and returned them to their case.

  In the centre of the bridge was the overturning carriage. The driver, a gaunt middle-aged man in green livery and a shiny black top hat, had his left arm raised. In his hand he was holding the whip, and the lash snaked up over the bridge in a graceful curve. His right hand was already releasing the reins, and was reaching out towards the hard road-surface in a desperate attempt to soften the impact of his fall. In the open compartment at the rear was an elderly lady, much powdered and veiled, wearing a black velvet coat. She had been thrown sideways in her seat as the wheel-axle broke, and was holding up her hands in fright. Of the two horses in harness, one was apparently unaware of the accident, and had been frozen in mid-stride. The other, though, had tossed back its head and raised both its forelegs. Its nostrils were flaring, and behind the blinkers its eyes were rolled back.

  As Lloyd crossed the road a red G.P.O. van drove through the tableau, the driver quite unaware of its presence.

  Two of the freezers were waiting at the top of the shallow ramp which led down to the riverside walk, and as Lloyd turned to follow the path towards the distant meadows, the two men walked a short distance behind him.

  June, 1903, to January, 1935.

  The summer’s day, with its two young lovers imprisoned, became a moment extended.

  Thomas James Lloyd, straw hat raised in his left hand, his other hand reaching out. His right knee was slightly bent, as if he were about to kneel, and his face was full of happiness and expectation. A breeze seemed to be ruffling his hair, because three strands stood on end, but these had been dislodged when he removed his hat. A tiny winged insect, which had settled on his lapel, was frozen in its moment of flight, an instinct to escape too late.

  A short distance away stood Sarah Carrington. The sun fell across her face, highlighting the locks of auburn hair that fell from beneath her bonnet. One foot, stepping towards Thomas, showed itself beneath the lace-sewn hem of her skirt, shod in a buttoned boot. Her right hand was lifting a pink parasol away from her shoulder, as if she were about to wave it in joy. She was laughing, and her eyes, soft and brown, gazed with affection at the young man before her.

  Their hands were extended towards each other. Sarah’s left hand was an inch away from his, her fingers already curling in anticipation of clasping him.

  Thomas’s fingers, reaching out, revealed by irregular white patches that until an instant before his fists had been clenched in anxious tension.

  The whole: the long grass moist after a shower a few hours before, the pale brown gravel of the path, the wild flowers that grew in the meadow, the adder that basked not four feet from the couple, the clothes, their skin…all were rendered in colours bleached and saturated with preternatural brilliance.

  August, 1940.

  There was a sound of aircraft engines.

  Although aircraft were unknown in his time, Thomas Lloyd had now grown accustomed to them. He understood that before the war there had been civilian craft—great flying-boats that went to India, Africa, the Far East—but he had never seen any of these, and since the outbreak of war the only ones he had seen were military. Like everyone else of the time he was familiar with the sight of the high, black shapes, and with the curious droning, throbbing sound of the enemy bombers. Each day air-battles were being fought over south-east England; sometimes the bombers got through, sometimes not.

  He glanced up at the sky. While he had been inside the pub, the vapour-trails he had seen earlier had disappeared, but a new pattern of white had appeared, further to the north.

  Lloyd walked down the Middlesex side of the river. Looking directly across the water he saw how the town had grown since his day: on the Surrey side, the trees which once had concealed the houses were mostly gone, and in their place were shops and offices. On this side, where houses had been set back from the river, more had been built close by the bank. Only the wooden boathouse was unchanged from his time, and that was badly in need of a coat of paint.

  He was at the focus of past, present and future: only the boathouse and the river itself were as clearly defined as he. The freezers, from some unknown period of the future, as ethereal to ordinary men as their wishful dreams, moved like shadows through light, stealing sudden moments with their instruments. The tableaux themselves, frozen, isolated, insubstantial
, waiting in an eternity of silence for those people of the future generation to see them.

  Encompassing all was a turbulent present, obsessed with war.

  Thomas Lloyd, of neither the past nor the present, saw himself as a product of both, and as a victim of the future.

  Then, from high above the town, there came the sound of an explosion and a roar of engines, and the present impinged on Lloyd’s consciousness. A British fighter-plane banked away towards the south, and a German bomber fell burning towards the ground. After a few seconds, two men escaped from the aircraft, and their parachutes opened.

  January, 1935.

  As if waking from a dream, Thomas experienced a moment of recall and recognition, but in an instant it was gone.

  He saw Sarah before him, reaching towards him; he saw the bright garishness of the heightened colours; he saw the stillness of the frozen day. Sarah’s laugh, her happy face, her acceptance of his proposal; they came from a moment before.

  But they faded as he looked, and he cried out her name. She made no move or reply, stayed immobile, and the light around her darkened.

  Thomas pitched forward, a great weakness overcoming his limbs, and he fell to the ground.

  It was night, and snow lay thickly on the meadows beside the Thames.

  August, 1940.

  Until the moment of its final impact, the bomber fell in virtual silence. Both engines had stopped, although only one was on fire, and flame and smoke poured from the fuselage, leaving a thick black trail across the sky. The ’plane crashed by the bend in the river, and there was a huge explosion.

  Meanwhile, the two German pilots who had escaped from the aircraft drifted down across Richmond Hill, swaying beneath their parachutes.

  Lloyd shaded his eyes with his hand, and watched to see where they would land. One had been carried further by the aircraft before jumping, and he was much nearer, falling slowly towards the river.

  The Civil Defence authorities in the town were evidently alert, because within a few moments of the parachutes appearing, Lloyd heard the sound of police- and fire-bells.