England Underway
MR. FOX WAS, he realized afterward, with a shudder of sudden recognition like that of the man who gives a cup of water to a stranger and finds out hours, or even years later, that it was Napoleon, perhaps the first to notice. Perhaps. At least no one else in Brighton seemed to be looking at the sea that day. He was taking his constitutional on the Boardwalk, thinking of Lizzie Eustace and her diamonds, the people in novels becoming increasingly more real to him as the people in the everyday (or “real”) world grew more remote, when he noticed that the waves seemed funny.
“Look,” he said to Anthony, who accompanied him everywhere, which was not far, his customary world being circumscribed by the Boardwalk to the south, Mrs. Oldenshield’s to the east, the cricket grounds to the north, and the Pig & Thistle, where he kept a room—or more precisely, a room kept him, and had since 1956—to the west.
“Woof?” said Anthony, in what might have been a quizzical tone.
“The waves,” said Mr. Fox. “They seem—well, odd, don’t they? Closer together?”
“Woof.”
“Well, perhaps not. Could be just my imagination.”
Fact is, waves had always looked odd to Mr. Fox. Odd and tiresome and sinister. He enjoyed the Boardwalk but he never walked on the beach proper, not only because he disliked the shifty quality of the sand but because of the waves with their ceaseless back-and-forth. He didn’t understand why the sea had to toss about so. Rivers didn’t make all that fuss, and they were actually going somewhere. The movement of the waves seemed to suggest that something was stirring things up, just beyond the horizon. Which was what Mr. Fox had always suspected in his heart; which was why he had never visited his sister in America.
“Perhaps the waves have always looked funny and I have just never noticed,” said Mr. Fox. If indeed “funny” was the word for something so odd.
At any rate, it was almost half past four. Mr. Fox went to Mrs. Oldenshield’s, and with a pot of tea and a plate of shortbread biscuits placed in front of him, read his daily Trollope—he had long ago decided to read all forty-seven novels in exactly the order, and at about the rate, in which they had been written—then fell asleep for twenty minutes. When he awoke (and no one but he knew he was sleeping) and closed the book, Mrs. Oldenshield put it away for him, on the high shelf where the complete set, bound in morocco, resided in state. Then Mr. Fox walked to the cricket ground, so that Anthony might run with the boys and their kites until dinner was served at the Pig & Thistle. A whiskey at nine with Harrison ended what seemed at the time to be an ordinary day.
The next day it all began in earnest.
Mr. Fox awoke to a hubbub of traffic, footsteps, and unintelligible shouts. There was, as usual, no one but himself and Anthony (and of course, the Finn, who cooked) at breakfast; but outside, he found the streets remarkably lively for the time of year. He saw more and more people as he headed downtown, until he was immersed in a virtual sea of humanity. People of all sorts, even Pakistanis and foreigners, not ordinarily much in evidence in Brighton off season.
“What in the world can it be?” Mr. Fox wondered aloud. “I simply can’t imagine.”
“Woof,” said Anthony, who couldn’t imagine either, but who was never called upon to do so.
With Anthony in his arms, Mr. Fox picked his way through the crowd along the King’s Esplanade until he came to the entrance to the Boardwalk. He mounted the twelve steps briskly. It was irritating to have one’s customary way blocked by strangers. The Boardwalk was half filled with strollers who, instead of strolling, were holding onto the rail and looking out to sea. It was mysterious; but then the habits of everyday people had always been mysterious to Mr. Fox; they were so much less likely to stay in character than the people in novels.
The waves were even closer together than they had been the day before; they were piling up as if pulled toward the shore by a magnet. The surf where it broke had the odd appearance of a single continuous wave about one and a half feet high. Though it no longer seemed to be rising, the water had risen during the night: it covered half the beach, coming almost up to the seawall just below the Boardwalk.
The wind was quite stout for the season. Off to the left (the east) a dark line was seen on the horizon. It might have been clouds but it looked more solid, like land. Mr. Fox could not remember ever having seen it before, even though he had walked here daily for the past forty-two years.
“Dog?”
Mr. Fox looked to his left. Standing beside him at the rail of the Boardwalk was a large, one might even say portly, African man with an alarming hairdo. He was wearing a tweed coat. An English girl clinging to his arm had asked the question. She was pale with dark, stringy hair, and she wore an oilskin cape that looked wet even though it wasn’t raining.
“Beg your pardon?” said Mr. Fox.
“That’s a dog?” The girl was pointing toward Anthony.
“Woof.”
“Well, of course it’s a dog.”
“Can’t he walk?”
“Of course he can walk. He just doesn’t always choose to.”
“You bloody wish,” said the girl, snorting unattractively and looking away. She wasn’t exactly a girl. She could have been twenty.
“Don’t mind her,” said the African. “Look at that chop, would you.”
“Indeed,” Mr. Fox said. He didn’t know what to make of the girl but he was grateful to the African for starting a conversation. It was often difficult these days; it had become increasingly difficult over the years. “A storm offshore, perhaps?” he ventured.
“A storm?” the African said. “I guess you haven’t heard. It was on the telly hours ago. We’re making close to two knots now, south and east. Heading around Ireland and out to sea.”
“Out to sea?” Mr. Fox looked over his shoulder at the King’s Esplanade and the buildings beyond, which seemed as stationary as ever. “Brighton is heading out to sea?”
“You bloody wish,” the girl said.
“Not just Brighton, man,” the African said. For the first time, Mr. Fox could hear a faint Caribbean lilt in his voice. “England herself is underway.”
England underway? How extraordinary. Mr. Fox could see what he supposed was excitement in the faces of the other strollers on the Boardwalk all that day. The wind smelled somehow saltier as he went to take his tea. He almost told Mrs. Oldenshield the news when she brought him his pot and platter; but the affairs of the day, which had never intruded far into her tearoom, receded entirely when he took down his book and began to read. This was (as it turned out) the very day that Lizzie finally read the letter from Mr. Camperdown, the Eustace family lawyer, which she had carried unopened for three days. As Mr. Fox had expected, it demanded that the diamonds be returned to her late husband’s family. In response, Lizzie bought a strongbox. That evening, England’s peregrinations were all the news on the BBC. The kingdom was heading south into the Atlantic at 1.8 knots, according to the newsmen on the telly over the bar at the Pig & Thistle, where Mr. Fox was accustomed to taking a glass of whiskey with Harrison, the barkeep, before retiring. In the sixteen hours since the phenomenon had first been detected, England had gone some thirty-five miles, beginning a long turn around Ireland that would carry it into the open sea.
“Ireland is not going?” asked Mr. Fox.
“Ireland has been independent since 19 and 21,” said Harrison, who often hinted darkly at having relatives with the IRA. “Ireland is hardly about to be chasing England around the seven seas.”
“Well, what about, you know . . . ?”
“The Six Counties? The Six Counties have always been a part of Ireland and always will be,” said Harrison. Mr. Fox nodded politely and finished his whiskey. It was not his custom to argue politics, particularly not with barkeeps, and certainly not with the Irish.
“So I suppose you’ll be going home?”
“And lose me job?”
* * *
END OF SAMPLE
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