The Moon At Midnight

by Charlotte Bingham

  ‘Oh, I understand you can take a degree in anything nowadays,’ Lionel put in, interrupting him. ‘The flight of birds, drawing insects, Egyptian art, anything you like. In my day it was called hobbies – now you take a degree in it.’

  Waldo laughed. This was better, this was more like the old Lionel, sitting in his favourite Windsor oak chair by the window of the Three Tuns, sipping a gin and tonic, and making cracks about modern life.

  ‘So you’ll come Saturday night, then. To Gloria’s?’

  Lionel nodded. ‘Rather. Who’s hosting the challenge match, by the way?’

  ‘Philip Basnett – remember I told you about him? He plays for very high stakes at the Clarendon – oh, and Mrs Marcia Farrow.’

  ‘Not Marcia Farrow? She’s the tops.’ Lionel looked impressed. ‘I remember my friend, you remember, Mrs Van?’ As Waldo nodded he went on, ‘I remember her telling me about Marcia Farrow, and that was years ago now. Marcia Farrow could only have been young then, but by George she could play.’

  ‘Well, she’s certainly older, and apparently she’s also dead keen on coming, so Gloria says.’

  ‘Dear old Gloria.’ Lionel’s gaze drifted towards the window, and he was silent for a while. ‘I was in love with her, once, you know, when I was a young man.’ Waldo, who had heard this fact quite a few times before, smiled, and encouraged by this Lionel went on, ‘Thought the sun shone when she smiled, and the rain fell when she frowned, and now look at her.’

  ‘She’s fantastic for her age.’

  ‘We’re all fantastic for our age, old boy. What we certainly are not any more is young.’ He paused, his thoughts suddenly returning once more to his granddaughter in Churchester General. ‘Speaking of which I really must order my lunch, and then go and see young Jenny.’

  ‘Tomorrow perhaps, but not today. Jenny won’t miss you not visiting her today. Quite apart from anything else, the weather’s too bad.’ Waldo nodded towards the window. ‘It’s sheeting down. You really shouldn’t go to Churchester today. Go tomorrow.’ He didn’t add because you look worn out.

  Lionel stared out of the window. It was true. It was pouring with rain, heavy rain, coming down in stair-rods in fact. Perhaps he would leave visiting Jenny until tomorrow, after all.

  ‘Tell me, what do you know of Mrs Farrow’s game?’

  Inwardly Waldo sighed with relief as he realised that he had succeeded in distracting Lionel’s attention away from Jenny.

  ‘She’s bold, a bit of a gambler, not like a woman, no caution, but she has a phenomenal memory for cards played, and can hold a game in her head for years. Never forgets everyone else’s game, and as a consequence she manages to scare the life out of most of them, but she is also the greatest gas.’

  ‘Fancy our chances?’

  ‘Not for a second,’ Waldo smiled at his old bridge-playing partner. ‘But at least we can have a bit of joy out of it. Try and squeeze her game until the pips squeak.’

  ‘Yes, we can, can’t we?’

  ‘Another gin and tonic?’

  ‘Of course, dear boy, of course.’

  As Waldo strode off towards the bar, Lionel stared out of the window. The rain was stopping and a bit of light was showing between the clouds. He’d visit Jenny tomorrow. Waldo was right. His thoughts turned back to the bridge match in the spring. It promised to be quite something.

  ‘Cheers!’

  ‘Cheers.’

  They touched glasses, and Waldo was able to note with some satisfaction that there was a bit of colour in Lionel’s old cheeks and what was more the look in his eyes was less tired.

  ‘By the way, Lionel, I do appreciate you being here with me, you know that, don’t you?’

  They both knew what Waldo was saying, without his having to say it. They both knew that with the whole of Bexham taking sides about the accident, the fact that Lionel was refusing to do so, having lunch at the Three Tuns with Waldo, in the usual way, was doubly appreciated.

  Lionel never said as much, and never would, but in his opinion Hugh Tate was making an ass of himself, getting on his high horse. Tam Sykes had always been a bit of a scamp, but good-hearted to a degree, and not a bad bone in his body.

  ‘I’ve always liked being with you, dear boy, and always will.’ Lionel touched his thin, white moustache briefly, and smiled.

  For no reason he could think Waldo’s heart sank. It was Lionel’s smile. He knew it was telling Waldo something that he really didn’t want to know, but they walked along by the estuary in companionable silence nevertheless.

  ‘Apparently, according to Richards, there are some very strange rumours flying about the place. Have you heard anything?’ Lionel drew hard on his pipe and at the same time glanced down the estuary.

  ‘Yes, I have heard as much from Gloria, of course. London friends tell of orgies in high places – but when weren’t there orgies in high places?’

  Lionel puffed hard to keep his pipe alight. ‘Perhaps it’s Jenny’s accident, perhaps it’s just my age, but I keep having the feeling that the house of cards is just about to come tumbling around our ears, everything’s going to fall apart. Don’t need the A bomb or the H bomb, nothing like that, for our destruction, got it here already, beneath us – something insidious, something rotten in the foundations.’

  ‘I know what you mean.’ To distract Lionel from such gloomy thoughts Waldo nodded towards the horizon. ‘That liner out there,’ he nodded towards it. ‘I always think when they pass in the distance they look as though they’re being drawn along by a piece of string.’

  He turned to Lionel for corroboration, only to see him staggering and seconds later falling forward on to the grass to the side of the path.

  Chapter Three

  Kim looked cautiously round the newel post of the staircase at Owl Cottage hoping against hope that her father had left for London and the station, which he should have done ages ago, but not quite trusting that he had, which meant that she was now waiting for Hubert to give her the signal.

  ‘All clear!’ Hubert hissed up the stairs. ‘All clear! You can come down now.’

  Kim walked slowly down the stairs to the hall, not quite trusting that brother and sister were really alone.

  ‘Where’s Mummy? She’s not here, is she?’ she asked, anxiety etched on every inch of her tense young face, while at the same time she pulled down her cardigan sleeves to cover the wretched eczema on her arms.

  ‘It’s all right, Kim, she’s gone off to Churchester. Left ages ago. She’s having lunch with someone or another.’

  Kim nodded. ‘Thank God. I thought she might be going to be in all day.’

  She looked across at Hubert, suddenly at a loss as to what to do, where to go.

  ‘Kim.’

  Hubert stared at her. Despite being a year younger than his sister, he had always been taller, and since the accident he felt not just taller, but somehow much older.

  When the accident had first happened and they’d brought Kim home and sent her to her room, Hubert had thought he’d never heard anyone crying so loudly, or so long. Kim’s crying had been the kind of crying that had a sort of despairing hollow sound to it, which was perfectly horrible to hear, and made Hubert want to run out of the house and down to the other end of the village rather than listen to it, although even there it seemed to him he might still not be out of earshot.

  It was when their parents had driven Kim back to school in funereal silence that Hubert had come to realise exactly what was going to happen to his sister when Walter and Judy left her at school.

  The headmistress would know all about Jenny’s accident so Kim would be made to feel even worse by all Jenny’s school friends, and her teachers, and all that. So now he knew why she’d become such a frightened person, always pretending to be in her room studying, anything rather than see yet another person who would stare at her as if she’d tried to kill Jenny. He knew his sister’s life was going to be one long hell, and that was before he’d seen the insides of her arms and the backs
of her legs, all of which were now covered in nervous eczema.

  Hubert knew of course when the eczema had started. It was the day Kim had visited Jenny in hospital. Seeing her much loved cousin there, covered in bandages, in dreadful agony, had actually turned Kim’s mind; he really thought it had. She hadn’t been the same since that day. Hubert had said as much – not to their father, of course, but to their mother, but for once in her life it seemed to Hubert that Judy – who was usually pretty good – hadn’t seemed to understand at all.

  ‘I’m sorry, Hubert, but it was so important that Kim saw what had happened to Jenny on account of Tam’s and Kim’s stupidity. It’s no good, I know it was terrible for her, but it was important, it was something that Kim had to go through,’ she kept insisting, whenever Hubert dared to bring the subject up.

  Hubert hadn’t seen it like that, and as a matter of fact he still didn’t. He only saw that, from that day to this moment, his beloved sister had seemed to be disintegrating, little by little in front of his eyes, and it was frightening, most of all because he seemed to be the only person who could see it.

  First her voice. Nowadays it always seemed to have a kind of dulled quality so that she sounded to Hubert as if she had a permanent headache. Next her eyes, which had always been quite pretty, but nowadays never seemed to be looking directly at anything, just always looking down. And after that her appetite, which had always been so healthy – it was now completely gone; and no one but Hubert seemed to notice that she was always pushing her food under lettuce leaves to hide it, never settling to anything, not even things she used to like before the accident. And now, here they were on holiday again, and she was still the same, and he hated it.

  ‘What shall we do now, Hubert?’

  Before it had always been Kim who thought things up during the holidays, now it was Hubert she turned to for ideas. It was as if, by being treated like an outcast, all her imagination and zest had left her.

  ‘We could go to the shop and buy some pies and then take them up the Downs for a picnic, with a bottle of pop, couldn’t we?’

  ‘It’s too cold for a picnic, Hubert.’

  ‘We could eat it walking along and try and see things, you know, hares and things.’

  ‘Oh, all right. But you go to the shop. Here’s some of my Christmas present money – OK?’ Kim turned to go back upstairs for her coat and gloves. ‘I’ll meet you up by the beech trees.’

  Hubert ran off to the village shop watched by Kim from the upper window. He was tall for his age, which made him look awkward when he ran, because he still ran like a boy, his tie flapping in the breeze, his fair hair flopping into his frowning eyes.

  They both knew without having to say anything to each other exactly why it was that Hubert had to go to the shop on his own. It was because Kim was afraid that if she went with him Mrs Salter who sat behind the counter would make unkind remarks, because that was how much the village blamed Kim for Jenny’s terrible accident, they still made remarks in her hearing, even when they were coming out of church.

  They were walking up the Downs, the chalky soil showing bare under the tufts of grass, a little out of breath, but feeling better for being in the air, away from the oppressive atmosphere of the house, when Kim made her announcement.

  ‘I’m going to do something so that no one need be bothered with me again, Hubert.’

  Hubert, who was leaning against a tree, and just beginning to feel better about everything, meat pie in one hand, tomato in the other, swallowed hard and stared at her mid-mouthful.

  ‘Please, Kim, don’t do anything silly.’

  ‘Nothing could be much worse than this, Hubie.’ Kim looked across at Hubert. She was in the process of unwrapping her meat pie, which was difficult when you were wearing woollen gloves. ‘Nothing could be much worse than now, with Jenny still in hospital. I heard Daddy saying last night that Christmas is ruined for all of us, that because of the accident we can’t visit each other in our houses.’

  Kim stared out to the wide horizon in front of them. When they were children they used to call the place where they were now standing and eating their pies ‘the top of the world’, probably because they always felt so on top of the world once they’d managed to climb up there. At that moment it seemed to her that she was standing beside the child she’d once been, wearing her navy blue coat with the tartan tam o’shanter, hearing everyone around her laughing and talking, and thinking she was the luckiest girl alive to be growing up in Bexham. Now she found herself longing to be that other Kim, happy, carefree Kim, whom her parents had loved so, so much, and yet at the same time knowing, without any doubt at all, that the happy, carefree child inside her was gone for ever.

  ‘It’s all so stupid everyone trying to blame you!’ Hubert shouted suddenly, his voice losing power against the wind. ‘It wasn’t your fault. Oh, all right you were there, but if you ask me they’re only all blaming you because Tam’s not here to blame. He’s got off scot free, gone to Texas to be a cowboy, Sholto told me. But if you ask me that’s why they’re all being so beastly to you, Kim, because Tam Sykes’s not here, because he’s gone, and there’s no one else to blame.’

  ‘But don’t you see, that’s just it? If I’m not here, everyone else would be better off too? Daddy and Mummy, and Uncle John and Aunt Mattie, and Sholto, and Grandpa and Grandma, they’d all be better for me not being here.’

  ‘That’s not true, Kim.’ Hubert bit into another pie, and chewed hard on it to stop himself getting too upset.

  ‘You’re the only one, Hubert, that still talks to me same as always, do you know that? You’re the only one that doesn’t pretend I’m not there when I come into a room, you and Mummy, but even she – I can see she feels awkward. She doesn’t know what to say to me any more, and we used to talk. A lot. We really did. We talked. A lot.’

  Kim frowned hard. They had used to talk. A lot.

  ‘They’re just stupid,’ Hubert said helplessly, still furious with everyone, their family, the village, everyone. ‘Really, they’re just stupid.’ He turned to Kim, a desperate, pleading look in his eyes. ‘Promise me, whatever you do, promise me you’ll tell me before you do anything, Kim?’

  ‘Look, look, Hubie! – a hare, over there—’

  Kim distracted him. She didn’t want to talk about what she was going to do, she was just going to do it.

  Waldo was staring into the fire, memories crowding his mind, bumping into each other, seeming to him to be kaleidoscoping one long life into a few short moments, as they often did now he was older, and all the moments were centred around Meggie. Meggie sailing, Meggie wearing a wonderful red dress, Meggie dancing. Seated in front of his fire, staring into the flames, he could conjure up a thousand Meggies at will, and love every one of them. It was a winter pastime, and a fine and splendid one when you were seated in your own home in front of a roaring log fire.

  ‘There’s someone to see you, Mr Astley – a Meester Tate.’

  His Spanish housekeeper interrupted his reveries, at the same time placing a tea tray on the sofa table. Without meaning to Waldo found his face breaking into a relieved smile.

  ‘Please show him in, Maria, whichever Meester Tate it is!’

  Waldo stood up, straightening his tie in anticipation of greeting his guest. He was just about to say ‘Hugh, just in time for a toasted crumpet’ when in place of Hugh Tate his housekeeper ushered in a tall young man with a shock of dark hair, in grey flannels and a sports jacket, the sleeves of which already threatened to become far too short for him.

  ‘Hubie.’

  ‘Hallo, sir.’

  ‘How – unexpected.’

  They both stared at each other, knowing that strictly speaking, because of the rift caused by Jenny’s accident, Hubert shouldn’t really be at Cucklington House, although Waldo was too much the gentleman to say so.

  ‘Would you like a cup of tea?’

  ‘Not really, sir. If you don’t mind.’

  ‘Crumpet?’ Waldo lifted
the lid of the muffin dish.

  ‘No, thank you, sir.’

  ‘You don’t mind if I do, then?’

  ‘Course not, sir.’

  Hubert stood staring round the room as he waited for Waldo to pour himself a cup of tea and butter a crumpet, and remained standing until Waldo nodded for him to sit down. He tried not to look at Mr Astley eating his crumpet and sipping his tea, letting his eyes continue to rove round the room, taking in the beautiful silk curtains which seemed to have been sculpted rather than sewn, the faded chintz cloths on the tables, the photographs in silver frames. As he did so it occurred to him that the room was strangely feminine. He puzzled over this until his eyes rested on the portrait over the chimneypiece and he took in the beautiful blonde with her hand resting on a model of a racing yacht, her slender figure in a pale blue chiffon dress, the look in her eyes one of amusement, as if she had seen quite a bit of life, but still found it delightful. Whoever she was, it was obviously her room.

  ‘So, Hubert, how can I help you?’

  On arrival Hubert had looked so nervous, his eyes so large in his face, that Waldo had deliberately cooled the atmosphere by eating his tea with slow relish, for he had quickly realised that whatever was making young Hubert so anxious must be something pretty serious for him to come calling on Waldo.

  ‘Well, sir, you know about the accident? You know that my cousin Jenny is hurt so badly she’ll need lots of operations on her face, and all that? You know about that?’

  ‘Yes, I do, Hubie. As you may guess it has been on everyone’s minds.’

  Feeling that nothing more could or indeed should be said on the subject, Waldo stood up and went back to Maria’s carefully laid tea tray.

  ‘Are you sure that you don’t want anything, Hubie?’

  ‘Yes, thank you, sir.’ A pause and then, ‘Well, perhaps a muffin.’

  ‘Good man – jam or honey?’

  ‘Honey, thank you, sir.’

  Following this small but effective exchange Waldo sat back opposite his young visitor and once again sipped his tea, and ate yet another honeyed crumpet, buying time as he did so. He was not just buying time, however, he was also remembering the pain and anguish of what it was like to be thirteen years of age, and trying to put behind him his father’s furies, his mother’s permanent absence, his feelings of loss and bewilderment. Looking across the short space between them he knew that in reality he could only imagine everything that Hubert was going through, but of one thing he thought he could be quite sure, and that was that young Hubert would be seeing, quite clearly, everything that everyone was doing to each other, and yet knowing he was helpless to do anything, too young to be of any account.