All through three courses, white wine, red wine, port, he’d avoided referring to the dropped letter addressed to Philomena. He’d been silent for much of the time, as had Anthony, but that was normal when they were together. What was unusual was that Perceval had been running the story of Anthony’s life in his head, looking for clues.
He knew that his middle child—unlike his brothers—had never found his metier, but that wasn’t an explanation in itself. Plenty of men at all levels in society plodded dutifully through life without becoming criminals. He’d thought about the effects of being a middle child. It was axiomatic that they felt overlooked, or they disappeared, or hid; but again, none of these could possibly explain what Perceval feared to be true about his surviving son. Yes, Anthony had always been the least clearly drawn of the boys. His mother had even gone so far as to describe him once as “a stranger.” But strangerliness was also an unsatisfactory explanation for what Perceval had previously dismissed as impossible, become incredulous about, and was now bewildered by.
Next Perceval had dwelled on Anthony’s failure to attract fondness. Edward and Albert, the brothers who bracketed him, were awarded nicknames from an early age, but Anthony had remained known only by his given name. A soubriquet that told of affection bestowed on him or the esteem he was held in would have reassured but there had always been something about Anthony that stubbornly resisted love.
During port Perceval had looked very closely at Anthony whenever his son’s face was turned away, which was often, and had felt a deep anguish in himself. If his wife had been there he might have been able to begin to share all this with her, but as it was he was completely alone, agonizing over what to do. After the meal he’d needed to get away from the boy in order to be able to think about it all properly. To try and see clearly what must be done, given what seemed to be the case.
Anthony answered his door. His father brushed past him, into the room.
“I’ve turned a blind eye too often,” said Perceval. “About you failing to find a purpose, frittering your time away. So all that has got to stop. You are going to have to find some useful function in life and apply yourself wholeheartedly to it. But before all that, you have in your possession a letter that doesn’t belong to you. If you’re caught lying over that you’re susceptible to be disbelieved about everything else, so it has to be disposed of. Now. Burn it. Now.”
Anthony couldn’t help himself. He lied. “What letter?”
Perceval stared at him. Under his father’s intense scrutiny Anthony lied again, a new lie.
“I’ve already burned it.”
Perceval continued to stare.
Anthony’s eyes hurt with the effort he was having to make to stop them sliding to look at the chest of drawers that covered the point on the floor under which the letter had only just been hidden, in the box with his special things. He felt a disintegration of himself. His brain frantically twisted in its attempts to devise a way out.
“Get the letter, Anthony,” said Perceval.
Anthony lost control of his eyes for a moment. They slid to the spot. His father followed them and went there, to the set of drawers.
“Is it in here?”
Anthony began to shake uncontrollably.
“Is it in here?” repeated Perceval.
When Anthony still didn’t reply, his father pulled the top drawer right out of the chest and flipped it over in mid-air so the contents violently spilled out. Papers and pencils and odds and ends flew to the corners of the room.
“Is it amongst these? Is it? Answer me,” Perceval demanded, “before I tear your rooms apart. I’ve all night and all tomorrow to achieve this. My case has been postponed thanks to you and Priest.”
Perceval took a strong grip on the second drawer and tugged. It slid open then stuck. He tugged harder, his anger taking him over. The whole set of drawers shifted, caught on something. Perceval redoubled his efforts and with a shout, “YAAH!” yanked the chest of drawers with all his considerable might. The whole moved with a great crack! It shifted half a yard, leaving one of its feet behind, trapped by a slightly raised floorboard. Anthony gagged as if he was going to vomit. Perceval peered down at the raised floorboard, got down on his knees and grasped it.
“What’s this?” he asked, more to himself than Anthony.
The board wasn’t secured. Perceval looked at Anthony, his aghast offspring, and he decided that he had to know. He pulled at the floorboard until it was loose in his hands. Casting it aside he crouched and peered down into the exposed cavity. There was a tin box. He lifted it out and tried to open it. He stood up and placed it on the desk in front of Anthony.
“The key, please.”
Anthony nodded and rummaged in a pocket, held the key out in a trembling hand. Perceval took it, inserted it in the lock. With the lid open he could see oilcloth. He took it out and carefully unrolled it. He encountered a layer of tissue paper. When this was unfolded he found the photograph of his deceased wife, the letters between Anthony and his mother, the pressed flower, the French pornographic post cards, and lastly the letter to Philomena. Perceval took out a handkerchief, using it to prevent leaving any fingerprints on the envelope and letter, which he slid out to read.
“So then,” he said, eventually. “What a terrible mess.” He fell silent again, and the feeling was that the terrible mess could refer to the present situation or the whole world. He replaced the crucial letter in its envelope. “Australia or Canada, you decide.”
For a few moments Anthony thought his father had taken leave of his senses. What on earth was this abrupt invitation to judge between colonies supposed to mean?
“Your choice: Canada or Australia. Both big enough to lose yourself in. You’re going today. Canada or Australia.”
Anthony began to protest: “That item doesn’t in itself prove that I—”
“Shut up, you coward,” snapped Perceval, stunning his son into silence. “You lose yourself in either of those vast places or I hand you over to the police. That’s the best I can do. I’m not doing the right thing in giving you the chance to escape, but I’m prepared to try and live with my decision.”
“Nobody else knows!” pleaded Anthony.
“They shall do if you don’t leave.”
There was a pause while Anthony caught on to the fact that his father was threatening that if he did not go into exile he would be given up. In desperation Anthony made a grab for the letter. He laid fingertips on it. Perceval snatched it away with one hand, while with the other he swatted Anthony hard to the head.
“You leave today,” panted Perceval Dore. “It’s a chance. Take it.”
“I did it for you!” screamed Anthony, clutching his temple.
“You did what for me?” screamed back Perceval.
“I bet everything, I lost everything—I had to get it back!”
Anthony fell to his knees, begging, but all this served to do was further inflame his father, who bent down and pushed his distorted features close to Anthony’s own.
“You had to?! Hmm?”
Anthony flinched as his father’s spittle struck his face.
“I did one thing wrong!” he protested.
“Which is the one thing? You shot a German soldier after the Armistice and pretended it was he who’d shot your comrade? Was the German armed? Was he alert? Was he fighting? Did he think that the war was over? Mm? Or is the one thing the murder of the comrade, the shooting of a fellow warrior? Or is the one wrong thing your casting of a third comrade, the one who’d accused you, as a madman? That is three things, at least. You did one thing wrong? You can’t even count!”
Perceval turned away and took himself to the furthest portion of the room where he paced, snarling to himself, scared that he might give in to his rage and exterminate his son.
“You wouldn’t really give me up, would you? You wouldn’t, would you?” whined Anthony.
“Stop that sound, stop that wheedling! Stand up!”
Anthony swiftly obeyed. Perceval w
alked around his son, looking at him from every angle, like a sergeant-major inspecting a particularly repugnant specimen of a soldier. When he got to Anthony’s front he addressed him, gravely.
“Have you ever done anything like this before?”
“No!” squealed Anthony.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes!”
“How do I know that you’re telling the truth?”
Perceval subjected Anthony to the longest, deepest scrutiny, using all his years of experience defending, prosecuting and presiding over countless instances of human depravity and mendacity. The judge stared deep into his son’s eyes, searching through them, behind them.
Anthony felt that he was falling, shrinking and spinning; plummeting through nothingness, terrified it would never stop; the dark abyss was infinite. His father’s voice brought him back to the room but the terrifying place he had just been continued inside him.
“I believe,” said Perceval, “as far as I am able to discern that you’re telling the truth about that. However, you’ve committed an act abhorrent and unforgivable, Anthony; try and be a man about it. You’ve a choice: a new life far away or stay and face the music. Either way, I wish that I’d never spawned you, I wish that you had died while either of your brothers lived—if I could make some retrospective pact with the Devil to that effect, I would.”
Anthony rocked back on his heels and had to take a step to avoid falling.
“There. I’ve said it.” Perceval turned away and leaned on the desk, panting in distress.
Still Anthony had one last plea: “Mother wouldn’t want you to—”
“Don’t you dare bring your mother’s name into this!” exploded Perceval, turning on Anthony. “Don’t you dare! I’m giving you a chance to get away because you’re my son and I must be in some part to blame for you. Why did you steal this girl’s letter?”
“She was trying to trick me!”
“Trick you into what?”
Anthony didn’t want to say.
“She was trying to trick you into telling the truth, wasn’t she?” Something snapped in Perceval. He grasped Anthony’s head with both hands and pushed hard, squeezed ferociously, tried to compress his son’s skull, force his amoral mind out through his eye sockets. He heard a terrifying noise, like the death-wail of a hedgehog being slain by a fox. That shrieking, pleading. It was Anthony screaming from the back of his throat. That hedgehog noise had never stopped a fox, but Perceval, even at the height of his turmoil could calculate the consequences if he killed his son. He’d have to go down to his study, take out his old revolver and end himself. He let his hands drop to his sides, stared down at his son writhing on the floor. How could it be that he was his? Get away from him! He must get away. He went to the door.
“Start packing,” he ordered. “You take only what you can carry.”
“If I disappear, people are going to think the allegations are true!” Anthony called after his father.
He heard the door to his apartment slam shut.
In the night Philomena dreamed that Jonathan and she had cornered Judge Dore, Anthony Dore, and Major James in a busy restaurant, where they were eating. She looked on while Jonathan sat down uninvited at their table and started to shuffle the pack of cards. Judge Dore told everyone to remain calm. Priest had dug his own grave earlier that day and now he was about to bury himself. Jonathan invited Anthony to declare in public that there was no card game, no betting, no IOUs, and that he hadn’t killed Dan. Anthony didn’t respond.
With the room watching Jonathan said he’d crack Anthony’s defense. First; the proposition that there was no card game. Jonathan dealt two hands of three-card brag blind, one to himself and the other to Anthony, telling the latter that if he won, his version was the truth. Anthony didn’t move. Jonathan asked him if he’d forgotten how to play, and turned the cards. He won. He dealt another two hands, saying to Anthony, if you win this one there was no bet. Again Anthony didn’t move, apart from his mouth when he said that he was sorry for Priest—his mind had been broken on the wheel of war. Jonathan ignored Anthony and won the hand, saying the cards never lie. Anthony said, loud enough for the room to hear, that he was prepared to help Jonathan by getting him the best medical help, reminding him that they were comrades once, however briefly. It was beginning to look like Jonathan was unable to shake Anthony.
Philomena stepped up to the table and greeted Anthony and presented him with a covered platter. When she had everyone’s attention, like a conjuror she whisked off the lid to reveal the two IOUs; Dan’s to Anthony and Anthony’s to Dan. Anthony turned ghostly pale and there were gasps from all around and Jonathan said yes, very quietly, and Philomena felt exalted. Avenged! But while Jonathan looked into her eyes Anthony Dore snatched up a steak knife from the table and plunged it into Jonathan’s body, not once but several times, punching it in, then embraced Jonathan, pulling his heart onto the serrated steel.
Jonathan was acutely aware that Philomena was sleeping in the spare bedroom, next door, just the other side of one thin wall. After he eventually dropped off he imagined that in the night she was hunched on the edge of his bed, rocking, sobbing: “Don’t die, please don’t die, please don’t die.”
Waking from her nightmare she’d stumbled into Jonathan’s room and indeed begged him not to die. Having delivered this entreaty she’d returned to her own bed and fallen into an exhausted sleep. When she opened her eyes it was barely dawn. Jonathan was hissing her short name through her door.
“Phil! Phil!”
“Hang on!” she called. She got up off the bed and threw on the outer layers of her clothing and opened the door. Jonathan was white-faced.
“He’s here, you must go!”
He turned. She watched him walk the landing, enter the kitchen.
Who was there? Who would Jonathan refer to only as “he”? Anthony! Anthony was here? In the kitchen with Jonathan?! Jonathan was warning her, telling her to get out, save herself? She craned to hear what was happening down there, fearing the sounds of an argument, or even violence. Had Anthony brought his lawyers or was he alone? Philomena slid along the wall of the corridor, stopping just short of the kitchen. The door was open. She edged closer, ready to peer around the jamb. Jonathan’s wild face appeared, expecting to see her much further away. They both jumped.
“I said go!” he hissed.
“I’m not leaving you on your own with him—is he alone?”
“Yes.”
“What does he want?”
“To talk to me.”
“I dreamed he killed you!”
A figure emerged behind Jonathan, much larger than she was expecting. It wasn’t Anthony Dore; it was his father. For a moment he looked startled but recovered quickly. “Oh,” he said, glowering. “The other one. Good.” Judge Dore stepped back into the kitchen.
“I thought it was Anthony,” mouthed Philomena.
“No,” mouthed Jonathan.
“Shall we talk?” called the judge.
Jonathan nodded fatalistically to Philomena. They entered the kitchen, a condemned pair. Philomena instinctively folded her arms protectively across her heart. Judge Dore was standing one side of the table, they the other.
“I wanted us to have a chance to sort this out, man to man—and man to woman,” nodding to include her. “There have been some serious allegations, wild allegations some might say, made. One of you has accused my son of murder, the other of possessing a letter of hers.”
The judge looked at her and something detonated in Philomena’s brain. While the judge paused, as if giving them room to accept his invitation to withdraw their accusations, she searched for it.
“Needless to say my son denies both charges. Neither of you have any proof. Not a shred. Have you? My son, on his part, has accused you, Mr. Priest, of being mentally unstable. Now I would rather not believe that, but your behavior yesterday could be taken as an indication that you are that way, given that there is no evidence to back your allegati
on. So.”
Judge Dore paused. Philomena looked to Jonathan. She could see he was waiting, as she was, for the judge to reveal his precise purpose, or for it to become detectable. She became conscious of her rapid heartbeat. The image of Dore’s huge house, a home for giants, returned to her, and the weight of the Old Bailey, where the judge was an insider and they were definitely not. She made herself look at the judge and try to see beyond his title, office, to see him as a man, a father, but his power inundated the room, threatening to suffocate her. But what had been that look in his eye when he’d mentioned her letter?
“Learning of the conflict between you and my son,” Judge Dore directed to Jonathan, “has led me to understand, to reinterpret your abrupt departure from chambers and your subsequent behavior toward me when I’ve offered you the hand of friendship.”
Jonathan nodded, affirming that the judge’s interpretation of his behavior was the correct one. The judge made a show of sitting down, inviting them to parley. Jonathan joined him. Philomena remained on her feet. The judge almost issued an order for her to sit, but decided it probably wasn’t worth the effort. A tussle over that would distract.
“I’m prepared to negotiate a truce between you all,” he continued, “with no admissions or further action on any side, without prejudice, and I am offering to take steps to ensure that no consequences flow from your actions in my court last afternoon. I know that your head of chambers has summoned you, but with your agreement that this affair is over—that you will never again make any threat or accusation or insinuation against my son, I will intervene on your behalf. And my actions here must not be construed as anything other than those of a man who desires an end to conflict, conflict between my son and a young man I hold in some esteem. And you, miss, you are also impressive, for your doggedness and determination, misguided though you be.”
Jonathan pursed his lips. Philomena looked away, reviewing Judge Dore’s presentation. Disbelieving that he could be entirely genuine, she made herself look at him again—an act of will, requiring courage consciously summoned. She felt a sudden surge of confidence when, on meeting the judge’s gaze she saw his eyes flicker, and his hands, flat and calm on Jonathan’s kitchen table, twitched.
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