The Portobello Road

(abridged)

One day in my young youth at high summer, lolling with my lovely companions upon a haystack I found a needle. Already and privately for some years I have been guessing that I was set apart form the common run, but it was the needle which attested the fact to my whole public, George, Kathleen and Skinny. I sucked my thumb, for when I had thrust my idle hand deep into the hay, the thumb was where the needle had stuck.

When everyone had recovered George said, “She put in her thumb and pulled out a plum.” Then away we were into our merciless hacking-hecking laughter again.

Then hac-hec-hoo, we shrieked into the hot Borderland afternoon. Really I should not care to be so young of heart again. That is my thought every time I turn over my old papers and come across the photograph. Skinny, Kathleen and myself are in the photo atop the haystack.

Everyone agreed that the needle betokened extraordinary luck. George said, “I’ll take a photo.” We look lovely and it was a great day at the time, but I would not care for it all over again. From that day I was known as Needle.

One Saturday in recent years I was mooching down the Portobello Road, threading among the crowds of marketers on the narrow pavement when I saw a woman. She had a haggard careworn wealthy look. I had not seen her for five years. How changed she was! But I recognized Kathleen, my friend. I took a good look at the man accompanying her. The beard was unfamiliar but I recognized beneath it his enormous mouth, his bright sensuous lips.

It was not for me to speak to Kathleen, but I had a sudden inspiration which caused me to say quietly,

“Hallo, George.”

The giant of a man turned round to face the direction of my voice. There were so many people – but at length he saw me.

“My God!” he said.

“What’s the matter?” said Kathleen.

“It’s Needle,” he said. “She said ‘Hallo, George’.”

“ Needle,” said Kathleen. “Who do you mean? You don’t mean our old friend Needle who –“

“Yes. There she is. My God!”

“I don’t see anyone faintly resembling poor Needle,” said Kathleen looking at him. She was worried.

George pointed straight at me. “Look there. I tell you that is Needle.”

“You’re ill, George. Heavens, you must be seeing things. Come on home. Needle isn’t there. You know as well as I do, Needle is dead.”

I must explain that I departed this life nearly five years ago. But I did not altogether depart this world. There were odd things still to be done which one’s executors can never do properly. Papers to be looked over, even after the executors have torn them up. Lots of business, except, of course on Sundays and holidays of Obligation. When Saturdays are fine I go to the Portobello Road where formerly I jaunted with Kathleen in our grown-up days. Sometimes as occasion arises on a Saturday morning, my friend Kathleen, who is a Catholic, has a Mass said for my soul, and then I am in attendance as it were at the church.

I remember the day five years ago when I met George in the Portobello Road. He was fetching milk for his cousin. When we were crossing the field George saw the haystack and said, “See that haystack? Let’s sit there and talk.”

“Will your cousin worry?”

“My old cousin is terribly vague, poor soul. A bit hazy in her head. She hasn’t the least sense of time. If I tell her I’ve only gone ten minutes she’ll believe it.”

I giggled and looked at him. His face had grown much larger, his lips full, wide, and with a ripe colour that is strange in a man. He pulled me back. “I’ve got something to tell you.”

“OK, George, tell me.”

“First promise not to tell Kathleen. She wants it kept a secret so that she can tell you herself.”

“All right. Promise.”

“I’m going to marry Kathleen.”

“But you are already married.”

“I married Matilda in Congo.”

“But it'll still be bigamy. You can’t do a thing like that.”

“I need Kathleen, She’s been decent to me. I think we were always meant for each other, me and Kathleen.”

“I’ll have to be going,” I said.

But he put his knee over my ankles, so that I couldn’t move.

“No one knows about my marriage to Matilda except you and me.”

“And Matilda,” I said.

“She’ll hold her tongue so long as she gets her payments.”

“Let me go, George.”

“You promised to keep it a secret,” he said, “you promised.”

“If Kathleen intends to marry you I’ll tell her you are already married.”

“You wouldn’t do a dirty trick like that, Needle?”

“I must. Kathleen’s my best friend,” I said swiftly.

He looked as if he would murder me and he did, he stuffed hay into my mouth until it could hold no more, kneeling on my body to keep it still. Then he concealed my body in the hay, took his bottle of milk and went away.

The Haystack Murder was one of the notorious crimes of that year. George was above suspicion as his cousin swore that he hadn’t been gone more than ten minutes in all, and she believed it to the day of her death a few months later. There was the microscopic evidence of hay on George’s jacket, of course, but the same evidence was on every man’s jacket in the district that fine harvest year. Kathleen, to prove that George had absolutely no motive, told the police that she was engaged to him. George thought this a little foolish. They checked up on his life in Africa, right back to his living with Matilda. But the marriage didn’t come out – who would think of looking up registers in the Congo? George was relieved when the inquiries were over without the marriage to Matilda being disclosed. He was able to have his nervous breakdown at the same time as Kathleen had hers, and they recovered together and got married, long after the police had shifted their inquiries to an Air Force camp five miles from Kathleen’s aunt’s home. Only a lot of excitement and drinks came of those investigations. The Haystack Murder was one of the unsolved crimes that year.

After seeing George taken away home by Kathleen that Saturday in the Portobello Road, I thought that perhaps I might be seeing more of him in similar circumstances.

By Muriel Spark