Serenity House

by Christopher Hope

  ‘I painted my own,’ said Max.

  ‘So I see.’

  ‘It was the custom, back then.’

  ‘Back when?’

  ‘Back then.’

  ‘The NKs never come to reclaim them. But they’d be down on us if we lost them. They’d be round in a flash asking for Mummy’s Dior suitcase and Daddy’s leather trunk.’

  ‘NKs.’ Max puzzled over this. ‘Next of Kin?’

  ‘Dead right. “Never Keeps”, we call them. Never keep their promises – d’you see?’

  ‘Ingratitude,’ Max murmured. ‘Sharper than a serpent’s tooth.’

  ‘You can say that again. Shall we sling your case? Here let me do it.’

  ‘Might as well.’ Max watched her practised heave and his leather suitcase sailed on to the leather hill.

  ‘Good shot,’ said Max.

  ‘It’s a knack. Must come from the shoulder. Rather like using a scythe.’

  ‘What on earth do you do with them? The unclaimed baggage?’

  Matron raked the leather hill with her finger of light. ‘Sell them off from time to time – Serenity House luggage sale. Sad but there it is. We simply don’t have the space. And if the NKs don’t care, why should we? It’s usually the more modern stuff that goes in the sales. The old-fashioned bags and trunks won’t move.’

  Max nodded. ‘Space is always the problem in these places. Possessions take up more space than people.’

  ‘Things,’ said Night Matron with a touch of bitterness. ‘There is nothing harder to get rid of. You want to add that carpet bag to the pile, Mr Montfalcon?’

  Max shook his head and hugged his bag to his chest.

  Night Matron had often seen this fierce possessive attachment to some treasured object. You got it in children. You got it in the elderly moving house. Whatever he kept in the bag was very special. He looked like he’d kill for it.

  As they left the depository she asked: ‘You from these parts?’

  ‘Highgate, yes,’ said Max. ‘Briefly. Before that, Hampstead Garden Suburb and Harwich.’

  ‘I’m ex-Rhodesia,’ said Night Matron. ‘You know – that place that doesn’t exist any more. I was there, but they say it doesn’t exist.’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ said Max. ‘In my case they are prepared to believe that Harwich still exists. It is me they don’t believe in. It rather irks one.’

  ‘One can say that again,’ said Night Matron.

  Albert was studying the House Rules. ‘Why do you refer to your patients as “she”? Here, for instance, “ … she shall not be held responsible for damage in cases of certain mental infirmities, the definitions of which are given below … ”’

  ‘Statistics, Mr Turberville. If the male has his way in the morning and early afternoon of life, everything from teatime to the evening belongs to “her”. Over the age of seventy-five, most of the elderly in Britain are women. Around two-thirds. Over eighty the news is even worse for boys like us. Three-quarters of the over-eighties are women. And at ninety! Well, ninety is almost entirely a feminine number. How old’s your dad, then?’ asked Mr Fox.

  ‘Eighty-one,’ said Elizabeth.

  ‘Lucky,’ said Mr Fox. ‘If you’re not too partial about the meaning of luck. Welcome aboard, Mr Montfalcon. Would that be a bit of a French name, there?’

  ‘English!’ said Max in his pebbly voice from his brand-new wheelchair.

  Albert Turberville looked embarrassed and shuffled his shoes; he reached down and scratched the wrinkled knees of his trousers as he always did when asked a question for which, as an MP, he might have to answer one day in the House.

  ‘Born and bred,’ said Max. ‘I went to Churtseigh,’ he announced firmly, ‘in Surrey, you know. A fine, traditional public school, which I believe,’ he glared at his daughter, ‘continues to this day. The Headmaster took Holy Orders. He was an Australian. I was victor ludorum – and the competition was damn stiff I can tell you. Everyone thought that Collingwood had it in the bag. But I took him in the shooting. Churtseigh always had a very strong shooting tradition. They had no less than three shooting masters. Three! In the Great War. I seem to remember it led to the expression very popular around Churtseigh, “the shooter shot”! A kind of variation on “the biter bit… ”

  ‘I was at Oxford in the mid thirties.’ Max beamed. ‘With Binkie Beaumont and that crowd. Julian Trefoil, the historian, Sir Julian as he later became. I’m sure you’ve heard of him. Ralphie Treehouse. And, of course, Matthew Babish. The only man as far as I know to take a double-first in Classics, make a splash in the Security Services and then, at the outbreak of war, absconded to Moscow, before anyone else. Admittedly Oxford never had Cambridge’s record for breeding traitors. But what we did we did with style. And we did it first!’

  Fox looked at the old man. Even at eighty plus he was a great big fellow. Well over six foot, very thin now with the bones smooth and clear beneath the skin. The assertive bone, the winning skeleton. Fox was reminded of the remains of unwrapped mummies in the British Museum, the skin lightly papering the bones. A kind of going to dust within, a saving dryness, a preserving desiccation, the desert inside that mimicked the likeness to life, though the life itself had long gone. He’d seen something like it in the remains of Bogmen, hauled from the peat looking curiously bony and yet so paradoxically supple. He noticed Max’s eyes, a touch pale and moist yet wide and striking blue. A fine head of strong grey hair, and he wore a suit. Max Montfalcon was a man who came from a time when they always wore suits for making calls.

  ‘That’s the chair for you, Mr Montfalcon,’ Fox said. ‘We have them all here. We have most of the good walking frames. Height adjustable. I can recommend the rather beautiful little alpha frame. They fold flat – adjustable in height. Very good if you need just a teeny bit of help in getting about.’

  ‘My father doesn’t get about much,’ said Lizzie.

  ‘I’m a great walker,’ said Max.

  Fox noted that his shoes had been trodden into the ground. Max had walked on their heels and he had walked on their sides and they didn’t so much as hold his feet now but gaped at his ankles, like two rather useless leather bandages.

  ‘Mind you,’ said Max, ‘I’m not as quick as I used to be. I was a runner in my time. I do believe I could run again. If the prize was worth it. They taught us at Churtseigh that the prize was always to the players. The prize was only as good as the game. Often the game was better. So you played for the game. A very English virtue. And why not? I’m old enough to honour the name – Englishman.’ Max looked defiantly at his daughter. ‘None of this affected “British” business for me.’

  ‘It’s a pretty well-established term by now,’ said Cledwyn Fox gently.

  ‘Nor any of this Euro-nonsense either.’ Max opened his lips and let loose a gleeful boyish chortle. ‘A German racket – that’s all it is!’

  ‘I’ve always thought of the term “British” as a capacious umbrella which we could all shelter under,’ Cledwyn Fox offered, with his attractive mixture of diffidence and clarity of utterance. ‘We Welsh and we Scottish and we English.’

  ‘“No Englishman ever called himself a Briton without a sneaking sense of the ludicrous.” Not my words,’ said Max, ‘but those of the great Fowler. Look ’em up, if you don’t believe me. And Fowler knew a thing or two about humbug, cant, affectation. Not to mention putting one over on your neighbour. Be proud of your Welshness. Trumpet it from the roof tops. Enough of this urge to merge. This desire to drown in a soupy unity. Euro-minestrone!’

  Fox lifted appealing eyes to Elizabeth. ‘Fowler?’

  Albert answered for her. ‘An old grammarian. Or language bod. Wrote a book about it decades ago and found in my father-in-law his most devoted fan.’

  Max said nothing to this though he was clearly taking it in. When Albert had finished speaking, he began dribbling. Elizabeth groaned and reached for her handkerchief.

  ‘When were you born?’ Max demanded of Mr Fox, when his chin was dry.
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br />   The abrupt change of tack took Fox by surprise. He had to think for a moment. ‘Nineteen forty-eight.’

  ‘Really, Daddy,’ Elizabeth implored. ‘I’m sure that Mr Fox doesn’t want a history lesson.’

  But a lesson he was going to get. You had only to look at Max’s bright, remorseless eyes as he echoed Fox’s reply. ‘Nineteen forty-eight! What a wonderful year. I remember it well. A great year for the country as we tried to pull ourselves up by our bootstraps after standing virtually alone against the Axis powers. A remarkable year. Remember the Berlin airlift. Who was it who broke the Soviet blockade of Berlin? Who saved the German bacon? We did! And what thanks did we have? No answer came the stern reply.’

  ‘Daddy! Mr Fox wasn’t responsible. He’s not a German!’

  But Max ignored his daughter’s protest. ‘There was a great fog in nineteen forty-eight, Mr Fox. It blotted out sun and moon for one hundred and forty-four consecutive hours. I sometimes think it must have been a cousin, in fog terms, of the mist that clouds good thinking today on the matter of European unity. Yes, quite a fog that was in nineteen forty-eight. The only other blot on the landscape was the arrival, on our shores, of the first coloured immigrants from Jamaica and such-like places. I understand the thinking behind it, but I thought then that it was a bad idea. They’d never really settle here. Never join. Never adapt. Never become truly English. Or Welsh.’ This was a concession to Fox who was staring at Max in astonishment. But in his amazement there was a trace of admiration. Mad he might be, but the old boy did not mince his words.

  ‘Praise to heaven there were other blessings in nineteen forty-eight! We saw the birth of the heir to the throne. Did you know that you were born in the same year as Prince Charles? The Prince of Wales.’ (This was another sop to Fox.) ‘For the moment. A baby destined to be the next King of England. Charles Philip Arthur George, known in the papers and announcements of the time as “His Royal Highness, the Baby.” On the palace gates there appeared, for those of her loyal subjects gathered on that cold November night, but complaining not, Mr Fox, awaiting the good news, the announcement that Her Majesty was safely delivered of a Prince. Note the language. No mere “infant”. And the time, I hear you ask? As far as I recall, correct me if I’m wrong – it was nine fourteen a.m. If my memory holds up.’

  On the word ‘memory’ in came the boy, butter-yellow hair and neat white coat.

  ‘Jack’s just joined the team. He’ll be one of our key helpers in a few months’ time. All being well. We’re very pleased with Jack. Quick as a tick. And American to boot. From Florida. Jack – meet Mr and Mrs Turberville. Jack meet Max Montfalcon. Mr Montfalcon’s been telling us all about Prince Charles.’

  Jack touched the tip of his finger to his nose. Like he sometimes did when he wanted to start thinking. Jump-start his brain. Hitting the mind-button, he called it. Something was needed here. Jack knew that. He hit his mind-button a couple more times and it came to him. ‘Wow!’ said Jack.

  Lizzie watched the boy tapping his nose. It was as if he thought this word illumined and explained everything. His delight at getting it out was plain. The eyes stopped blinking furiously and reverted to their blank dangerous gleam. It was impossible, surely, that someone could have eyes of different colours? But the boy’s eyes were very strange. Unless she was going mad. One jungle green and the other aquamarine, in some lights, perhaps. But now more blue than green. Square, chunky body. Jack’s good looks did not mask another look, something, well, cretinous. Twenty perhaps? Shorter than her by at least a head. A shapely midget.

  ‘Wow, indeed,’ said Lizzie.

  Jack took her hand and shook it. ‘From Florida.’

  ‘Florida?’ Max looked hard at Jack. ‘Where the sun shines?’

  ‘Day and night.’ Jack’s grin was pure gold.

  ‘I had a friend in Florida,’ Max said.

  ‘Everyone’s got a friend in Florida. Pen-pal perhaps?’

  ‘I don’t remember.’ Max’s jaws clamped shut.

  ‘My father’s memory is not what it was,’ Elizabeth said.

  ‘Dear Mrs Turberville – show me the memory that is,’ declared Mr Fox. ‘The cells go, after forty. Take care to avoid too much alcohol and you can slow the process. But they slip away, all the same. Sad but true.’

  ‘True but sad,’ piped up Jack who looked delighted. Astonished. He’d done that without touching his nose. He felt real good. He was gonna help all he could. This poor old guy had lost a lot of cells, he could see that. He’d seen that all along, he guessed. Now Jack, helpful Jack, happy Jack, Jack who was really like, well, caring about Max – sprang forward. Beaming bellhop in Serenity House.

  ‘Check your bag, sir?’

  ‘No!’ Max’s refusal was hoarse, angry. He swung the bag away from Jack as if he held in his arms a threatened child.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  An Inspector Calls

  Cledwyn Fox brought to his survey of Max Montfalcon the eye of an expert in the months that followed. Serenity House revealed the ways and faces of human decrepitude, the visible, sometimes beautiful, weatherings of flesh on frame, little scars and contusions, seams and ridges spreading across the human canvas. He recognised the colours and daubings by which, eventually, we come to be painted into place. But he also knew that what Max showed of himself was never the whole picture. The old man was shaky on his legs, yes. But there were times he straightened and walked almost freely. That Max Montfalcon suffered a touch of paranoia was clear. His complaints that he was being pursued. His constant references to ‘my young friend’. Cledwyn Fox had thought at first that the ‘friend’ might be Jack who was remarkable in the devoted way he kept an eye on Max Montfalcon. But the old man certainly did not have Jack in mind as his mysterious missing young friend. His attitude to Jack, when he deigned to see him at all, was really rather scornful.

  Soon after Max arrived in Serenity House he began getting calls on the payphone. Mr Fox had had payphones installed on each floor after Lady Divina’s attempt to throttle Edgar the chiropodist with a telephone wire. Max pressed the phone to one ear, pushed a finger into the other, and shouted: ‘You want to make me an offer? But you couldn’t afford my price, my young friend!’ Yet all the same he listened closely to the voice in his ear.

  When Night Matron helped him to his room half an hour later he told her he’d been enjoying story-time from America. Night Matron said she thought Americans had given up stories and watched TV instead.

  ‘They like stories as long as somebody is killed,’ said Max.

  ‘Fair enough,’ said Night Matron. ‘What’s the story?’

  ‘Once upon a time,’ said Max, ‘there was a merchant who met a boy selling stolen goods. Because the boy wouldn’t sell all his stolen loot the merchant devised a cunning plan. He encouraged the boy to steal yet more. At the same time he warned the interested party of the boy’s intention. That way, if the boy got away with his thievery, he might be willing to part with more goods. On the other hand, if the boy was caught in the act, the merchant would benefit from the goodwill felt by the injured party.’

  ‘Sounds pretty grim,’ said Matron.

  ‘Lethal,’ Max nodded. ‘Because the boy proceeds on the assumption that people deserve to be robbed blind by young hoodlums. His culture teaches him this. In fact, this isn’t always so. Among monkeys in the wild, violent young males are often despatched soon after puberty. By older members of the tribe.’

  ‘Glad to hear it,’ said Night Matron.

  ‘One need have no more compunction than spearing a rat.’

  ‘We have an infestation of rats’, said Night Matron, ‘from time to time. Serenity House is feeling its age.’

  ‘I’ve seen the mildew.’ Max smiled. ‘A rich green mould. Climbing the walls like cheese.’

  Indeed, Max had an eye for crumbling corners, cobwebs, rising damp, curtains that sagged on their rails. He would stop and stare at a patch of split carpet which had been tacked to the floor boards with two-inch nai
ls.

  ‘You ought to put a work party on to this.’

  ‘Wear and tear,’ Mr Fox had said apologetically. ‘Serenity House carries quite a load.’

  ‘It’s always the same in collection camps.’ Max began counting the nails in the carpet.

  Now that, thought Mr Fox, was an odd way of referring to Serenity House.

  But then the elders all had their distinctive little weaknesses. Their neuroses, their small and great dementias; their problems with sadness and hygiene. They were like aliens or space explorers: the Manchester Brewing Twins, the Five Incontinents, even Lady Divina, now increasingly in a world of her own; even the ‘sleepers’, those like the Reverend Alistair and Margaret and snoring Sandra who sat all day long in their chairs staring into space and never said a word to anyone, just stared and dozed. They practised a form of strange ventriloquy, their bodies drifting, disabled spaceships in impossibly distant reaches of the universe. Like the remnants of infinitely far away stars, sending coded messages into the emptiness, on voyages so lengthy that by the time they were picked up on earth the worlds from which they had come had been dead for millennia. Body music. Max Montfalcon heard voices. The voices talked to him of the war.

  So in time Max came to settle into Serenity House.

  Albert and Elizabeth had arrived one evening with what Max called, ‘a few sticks from my old quarters. They’ll probably fumigate it and board it up now I’ve gone,’ he told Lady Divina as they watched Albert struggling to lift a heavy oak cupboard he’d roped to the roofrack of the silver Jag. Night Matron sprang to his aid.

  ‘A willing Sherpa,’ Mr Fox told an embarrassed Albert as they watched Matron manhandle the cupboard upstairs to Max’s room, aided in the final stages by Jack.

  ‘I’ve been robbed,’ Max said bitterly.

  ‘Come on, Daddy,’ Lizzie said. ‘It’s not as bad as all that.’