The Moon At Midnight

by Charlotte Bingham

  ‘I feel doubly awful,’ Judy groaned. ‘She was so looking forward to seeing you – she said she hasn’t seen you in an age.’

  ‘I’ve been rather busy.’

  ‘You’ve been rather away. And it’s her birthday tomorrow, but she hates celebrating it on a Monday.’

  ‘Your head really is too bad?’

  Judy eyed him, this time catching his eyes in the glass.

  ‘What do you think?’ she said quietly, before lying on her side, icepack still pressed to her forehead.

  By the time Walter had finished speaking to Judy’s mother on the telephone he had agreed to go and have a lunchtime drink with her anyway, even though Judy was confined to her bed. It was actually no terrible hardship for Walter, because over the years he had grown more and more fond of Lady Melton.

  Besides, it would also mean he would be able to escape the house for a while, and the sense of claustrophobia Judy’s migraines induced in him.

  It was a crisp November day and he would enjoy the walk up through Bexham to the older part of the village, where no doubt there would be several other Bexhamites drinking Lady Melton’s birthday health, and if that was the case there would be little call for any taxing conversation. He was in no mood to talk about his career at the Bar, since like most people when they feel they’re failing he sensed that his recent poor performances were common knowledge to all his friends and neighbours. Sunday drinks and particularly birthday drinks at the Manor never degenerated into inquisitions. On the contrary they were gentle affairs dominated by the older generation who preferred to discuss their gardens, and ailments in rose and herbaceous border, rather than nose around in the affairs of the young.

  So as he approached the fine Georgian manor house, lit by a weak but welcome November midday sun, a few of the autumnal leaves of its great trees still fluttering pensively to earth, Walter’s mood was considerably better than when he’d first left Owl Cottage, and he was actually looking forward to one of Lady Melton’s famous long, strong gin and tonics.

  ‘Have I got the time wrong? Or even the day?’ Walter smiled as he looked round the empty drawing room, populated only by his mother-in-law in her favoured weekend rig of long, loose, dark blue cashmere sweater over a crisp white shirt, dark tartan skirt, flat shoes and a single strand of her very good pearls at her neck.

  ‘Not at all, Walter,’ she said affectionately, kissing him gently on one cheek before turning him towards the drinks tray. ‘You can mix for us both.’

  Again, somewhat taken by surprise by the change in routine, Walter looked at Lady Melton a few seconds longer.

  ‘It’s all right.’ She laughed. ‘I’m not going to give you Grim Tidings. Or suddenly collapse into a chair clutching my chest as I saw someone doing on television. No, actually, old Doctor Farnsbarns says I am in extremely good fettle. Much better fettle than a lot of his patients half my age, so he says, but then he would, the dear old thing, he does so love to flatter.’

  Lady Melton sat herself down by the roaring log fire, waving one long index finger at the chair opposite for Walter to follow suit while he placed a perfectly made drink beside her.

  ‘Happy birthday for tomorrow,’ he said, raising his glass before sitting. ‘Many happy returns.’

  ‘Thank you, Walter dear. Do you know, I’ve always rather enjoyed birthdays, even more as I’ve got older. A lot of one’s friends start forgetting to celebrate them, which I personally think is rather a shame. Or else they start telling fibs about when exactly they were born, which is so silly, really. Heavens above – can you imagine? The only person who is interested in their age is the person themselves. How’s poor Judy? I was sorry to hear about her migraines. I went through a spell of having migraines, so I know what they’re like. Perfectly beastly. Did you hear tell, by the by, that young Tam Sykes is back in England?’

  ‘No,’ Walter said, surprised that this piece of news hadn’t yet filtered through to Judy – or that, if it had, she had neglected to tell him. ‘When did that happen?’

  ‘Not sure. Not that it matters – the thing is he’s back in England, and by all accounts he’s been doing rather well for himself in America. Joined some sort of band, or pop group, would it be? Which the young tell me is hot stuff.’

  ‘Well,’ Walter mused. ‘I don’t suppose he’ll be coming down here, will he? That might be a bit awkward, even now.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t see why not, Walter,’ Lady Melton replied. ‘I’ve never thought Tam Sykes was wholly to blame, and I don’t think anyone else does, not now. There was even some rumour about some wretched youth boasting about how he’d doctored young Sykes’s car in revenge for his taking five pounds off him at darts, or some such nonsense.’

  ‘I’m sure,’ Walter replied curtly. ‘But that doesn’t take anything away from what he did to Jenny.’

  ‘Oh, but I don’t think he did do anything, Walter.’ Lady Melton reached into a worn crocodile handbag, and lit a cigarette with a small slim gold lighter. ‘Even if no one had doctored the car, and even if he did make an error of judgement, we have to learn to look on accidents as just that – as accidents. Things happen, either of their own volition, or maybe because we want them to, or perhaps they simply just happen.’

  ‘I don’t doubt it, but it’s still difficult for those nearest to Jenny. After all she’s been through, it would be difficult to take Tam back into the bosom of Bexham, as it were, as if nothing had happened. I know it’s not right, but it is only human.’

  He swallowed the rest of his strong drink gratefully if somewhat too quickly and held up his glass.

  ‘May I?’

  ‘But of course, Walter. You don’t have to ask. You know that. How are your young?’ she asked, turning round to watch him as he went past her to the drinks tray. ‘According to John, if Hubert goes to Oxford and gets his Blue then he’s going to become a cricketer.’

  ‘Yes – but an amateur. There is a very big difference between the Gentlemen and the Players. As we all know.’

  ‘Well of course – understood – quite. I do know what you mean, Walter dear.’ Lady Melton laughed. ‘I’ve been married to your father-in-law for long enough. Come summer, like every old cricketer he hardly ever has his head out of Wisden.’

  ‘I’m sure what John means is that if Hubie gets a Blue—’

  ‘Which given his talent they say he well might.’

  ‘He’ll play for Sussex as an amateur. If they’ll have him. Young men like Hubert don’t turn professional. I know they’re getting up to all sorts of things nowadays, but cricket’s quite different. One of the last bastions of the true amateur, and a particularly good one, too, because amateurs can play alongside the professionals which is as it should be. Just like horse racing – where a good amateur is perfectly entitled to take his place in the field, but you don’t see them turn pro, however good they may be.’

  ‘Hmm. Well, we’ll see. By the way, your papa-in-law sent his apologies for not being present. He’s dreadfully tied up with this Save Bexham business, rarely leaves the committee rooms, even for my birthday.’

  Lady Melton glanced at Walter, then threw a couple of small logs on to the fire, before prodding the latter into greater life with a long brass-handled poker.

  ‘I heard a song on the wireless the other day – I always have the wireless on now. Jolly good company, too, and much better than the television which is inclined to shout at you. It was rather a good song actually – a lot of these new songs are really rather good, you know.’

  ‘I’ve yet to hear one.’

  Walter stared moodily into the fire. He had really rather hoped that at least his father-in-law was going to put in an appearance.

  ‘The times they are a-changing was the song, though don’t ask me who was singing it. Rather a miserable-sounding fellow actually. And of course they are. The times they are a-changing.’

  ‘Always have. Always will.’

  ‘Yes, but not at such a breakneck pace, Walter. And not for the re
asons they are nowadays. We do live in pretty stern times, you know.’

  ‘You mean we didn’t? Good Lord – I can’t think of sterner times than the ones we lived through in the last war.’

  ‘Yes, quite, and I’ve lived through two of them, Walter dear.’

  ‘Precisely. Two world wars, and their quite awful aftermaths – the austerity, the strikes, the unrest. Those were stern times. The way they go on about the Bomb you would honestly think the atom bomb was the end of the world.’

  ‘Which it might well be.’

  ‘They’re making the atom bomb an excuse for – terrible clothes and worse music.’ He shook his head. ‘Honestly, I look at them and I think were we all ready to die to make a world for the likes of you? When you think of what we did, how much we sacrificed, quite frankly, I don’t think they were worth it, I don’t really. In fact I find most of them, for me, are a crashing disappointment, and that’s when I’m not finding them crashing bores.’

  ‘They’re young, Walter.’ Lady Melton laughed. ‘Gracious heavens, you were young once. Even I was!’

  ‘I certainly didn’t behave as they do.’

  ‘And you certainly did, Walter, or at least your version of it. When you were young, you did what you thought was right, and you thought your papa-in-law and I were the most awful old stick-in-the-muds. And we thought you were the bottom. Gracious heavens, you rode motor bikes and wore Oxford bags, and went round everywhere with your hands in your pockets and cigarettes in your mouths, and you danced the most extraordinary dances to the most extraordinary music, when we all wanted you to dance waltzes, and quadrilles. No, we thought you were quite ghastly, if that’s any comfort.’

  She laughed again, but Walter only shook his head, not wanting to admit to remembering his younger self, concentrating only on his grievances.

  ‘It was different then, life was more innocent. The young today seem to think they have some God-given right to do whatever they choose – to think whichever way they want, to talk how they like, say what they like, and to do what they like. All they do is criticise their elders – blaming us for the Bomb, saying we’re going to blow the world up – or poison it. They don’t know what they’re talking about. If they’d had to go through what we had to go through, I might be able to show them a little respect. But no, all they seem to see fit to do is to sit on pavements and hold up placards and expect us to change a world all our friends gave their lives to save.’

  ‘They’re only doing what they think is right, Walter,’ Lady Melton told him, more gently, wondering at his quite visible misery. ‘Just as we when we were young did what we thought was right. That’s what they’re doing.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Walter said, putting down his drink, and taking out a cigarette. ‘But for once I can’t agree with you. I think for once we shall have to beg to differ.’

  ‘May I have one of those? I haven’t tried one of those for ages.’ Lady Melton leaned forward, her elegant hand stretched out for a cigarette. Walter promptly offered her one, then got out of his chair to light it for her. ‘I gave them up years ago, as you know. But now I am of a certain age, I think oh blow it. Mmm.’ She inhaled, enjoying the sensation. ‘Lovely choice. Thank you. Which brings me to Kim.’

  Walter, back in his chair, looked sharply back at her.

  ‘What about Kim?’

  Lady Melton carefully tapped her cigarette on the edge of an adjacent silver ashtray before replying.

  ‘I went to see her, you know. In Ireland.’

  Walter stared at her.

  ‘Did – did Judy know?’

  ‘I don’t know. I don’t know whether Kim told her or not, but go I did. I went, all on my own.’

  ‘If Judy did know, she never mentioned it.’

  ‘Afraid you’d go off the deep end, probably. You yourself haven’t seen Kim since – when?’

  ‘Does it matter?’ Walter got up from his chair decidedly rattled by this latest revelation.

  Mentally he cursed women and the way they always just went ahead and did things without any reference to anyone else. Certainly to his way of thinking not even his mother-in-law – grandmother though she might be – had any right at all to take herself off and go and visit his daughter without a say-so. And as for Judy – ever since she had proposed sending Kim to Ireland she had quietly but very positively taken control of their daughter’s future, to the extent that now anyone and everyone could go and visit Kim without as much as a by his leave, or even his knowledge.

  His head began to swim and he felt a cold sweat breaking out down the middle of his back, even though he was nowhere near the fire. He began to shake from head to foot as if he had run from a steam room into an ice house. Nothing made sense any more, nothing – and least of all this. Everyone was ranged against him.

  He collapsed back on to the sofa with a groan, wiping his forehead with a handkerchief, trying to ease from his neck a tie that now seemed to be strangling him, before leaning forward and sticking his head between his knees.

  In a second Lady Melton was beside him, taking one of his hands.

  ‘Walter?’ she was saying. ‘Walter, are you all right?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said slowly. ‘Yes, thank you.’ He looked up and smiled a short smile at her, seeing at once her concern. ‘It’s all right, I promise you. Nothing to worry about. It’s just that I’ve been working very hard. Too hard really, far too hard.’

  He wanted to add ‘and not very well either – or successfully’ but with an inward sigh he assumed that his mother-in-law already knew, which was why she was being so kind to him. It really was all so pointless, all of it. Everything they had done. Everything he had done in his life.

  He put his forehead back in the palm of one of his hands, resting the elbow on his knee, and stared at the floor.

  ‘I didn’t sleep last night.’

  ‘Would you like me to call the doctor? I know it’s Sunday, but he is only round the corner after all.’

  ‘No,’ Walter said suddenly over-brightly, at the same time getting to his feet. ‘No thanks. I’m fine now. Really absolutely A1. Really. See? I think I was sitting too close to the fire. It did get awfully hot in here suddenly.’

  ‘My fault. It’s my age. I do feel the cold dreadfully. I never used to, you know. My blood’s thinner than it was.’

  Walter smiled, a smile he hoped would reassure his mother-in-law while secretly praying she couldn’t hear the pounding palpitations of his heart.

  ‘Tell me about Kim,’ he said, walking to the French windows and staring out at the garden where in turn a blackbird was staring at the frostbitten grass. ‘I’m interested, I really am. And you’re right – I should go and see her.’

  ‘She’s not the same,’ Walter.’ Lady Melton paused. ‘She’s gone a bit – well, what my generation would call feral.’

  ‘Feral? Feral?’

  ‘A bit native – but then that’s only to be expected. She’s been in Ireland for how long now? She’s been there for over four years, hasn’t she? So she’s bound to have changed a bit.’

  ‘She hadn’t changed much when I saw her. A bit less neurotic perhaps, a bit tongue-tied, but otherwise back to her old self, really.’

  ‘That was nearly two years ago.’

  ‘She hadn’t gone feral then.’

  ‘You’ll be quite surprised at the change that has come over her.’

  ‘Tell me about it. Save me a trip.’

  ‘No, Walter, I’m not going to, I’m afraid. Because I really think you should go and see her.’

  Lady Melton was quite insistent, and remained surprisingly so. And the reason she was so insistent was not that she thought Kim ought to see her father, but that she thought her father ought to see Kim. Nor did she imagine the meeting would be an immediate success. What she hoped for was something quite different. What she hoped was that Kim could help her father, because he was certainly in need of it.

  Chapter Ten

  In her imagination, but only in he
r imagination, once he’d made up his mind to go to Ireland, Judy drove Walter to Fishguard to catch the ferry to Rosslare. What actually happened was that Walter drove himself, and they said goodbye in the hall of the cottage.

  They embraced first, and then for a second clung to each other.

  ‘Don’t forget your pills are in your sponge bag, and the socks in the white plastic bag haven’t been aired, Walter. They’re still damp.’

  Walter nodded, feeling sad, and lonely, and somehow completely unnecessary to everyone, most of all his beloved Judy.

  ‘I’ll phone you when I get there.’

  Judy shook her head. ‘No, don’t, Walter. That’s just what you mustn’t do. You must forget all about here, just go. Forget about work, about me, about Hubie, about Bexham, about everything, just be on your own. It’s best. Truly. Believe me, I know.’

  She kissed him again with sudden passion, and then opened the front door and held it open until he very slowly walked through it, and down the path to his car.

  When Walter arrived at the harbourside he found a winter sea blowing a force six that drove needle-sharp rain off the water and into the faces and the innards of anyone foolhardy enough to try to brave it out on deck. Being an old salt, the conditions were meat and drink to Walter, who, well wrapped up in his grandfather’s old doeskin Navy sea-coat, sat up on deck facing fore, letting the weather do its worst. His pipe was still stuck in his mouth although the prevailing conditions had long since put paid to the tobacco fire in the bowl, but still he sucked at it as he thought about the journey he had been on over the last few years, realising more and more that he had, for some reason, ended up in a cul-de-sac.

  He’d suffered a miserable time recently, losing two cases that he knew he should have won, and losing all belief in himself. It was not a loss that could be reversed easily either. It was not a profit and loss sort of loss, you couldn’t turn the page and find ‘loss of confidence’ and transfer it to another column. This was a transforming loss. It was as if he had lost his ability to join in anything, even earning his own living. It was as if he could see right through everything and everyone, and none of it, or them, was worthwhile. Perhaps years of living in London during the week, or being away for sometimes months at a time on some case or other, had taken its inevitable toll on him. It certainly made it heartbreakingly difficult for two people, no matter how much they loved each other, to maintain the same level of intimacy.