by Angus Wilson
At last, after dinner, Inge could not keep back her story any longer. She told him nearly all, only omitting the dreadful remarks about his relations with Larrie. She was too unsure of the new relationship that her knowledge would entail. Johnnie, she felt sure, would prefer her never to have heard and she set about convincing herself that she had not.
John's reaction even to her bowdlerized version was instant and fierce.
'Why the hell couldn't you wait until I got home?' he demanded. 'You knew Larrie had been in trouble for thieving before, you shouldn't have left the bloody jewellery lying about! Anyway, you never wore the damned stuff.' He had never used abusive language to his mother before, but now it flooded through the broken dam.
Inge tried to defend herself. 'What have I done? You should ask, "What has he done?" Threatened your mother and stolen. I wish I had gone to the police.'
John seized her wrist. 'Don't you dare, do you hear! Don't you dare,' he shouted. 'I asked you to look after him, and you promised. And this is what has happened. You knew how much it meant to me, but you didn't care. You've never cared for anyone but yourself in your life.'
'I have cared for you, Johnnie,' she said. She stood there, huge, flat-voiced, motionless; she was too unhappy to be hysterical.
John shouted at her more violently each minute. He had rehearsed this scene so often in his life when her possessiveness had threatened him that now the words poured out before his sense of shame could stop them. 'You'd better get wise to yourself, Thingy,' he said. 'You've never considered anyone else but yourself for a minute of your life. Your affection for me! You've tried to strangle me with your selfish love.' He laughed hysterically in her face. 'If you don't care for my friendships you can thank your own unhealthy, greedy love for them.' He was horrified to hear himself speak all these stock, case-book sentences.
Inge's great round mouth opened wide, but she only mumbled, 'It was not a good friendship, your friendship with Larrie, Johnnie.'
He stared at her for a moment. 'That bloody swine your husband's been talking to you,' he said.
'I have not seen your father,' she said.
'Don't call him my father,' he shouted. 'If you'd had any decency you'd have got rid of him long ago. It was filthy the way you both lived when we were children. Yes, and you wanted it both ways. To keep that man in the house and then come whining to us about him. Do you think it was nice for us to have an old lecher for a father and a ridiculous clown for a mother?'
Once again in twenty-four hours Inge sat down on a chair and began to weep. John turned away in horror. In all the scenes he had rehearsed in his imagination her tears had led him to a reconciliation. He was determined that it should not happen so in reality.
'Understand this,' he shouted, 'if I lose Larrie or if he gets into any trouble, I'll never speak to you again.' Slamming the door he left the house.
She heard his car start up in the drive and listened as its purr faded away into the distance. She walked over and looked at herself in the mirror. Her reflection seemed some monstrous, red-cheeked doll that was melting in great rolls of fat, white wax. She went upstairs to bed and cried herself to sleep.
Although it was after midnight when John got back to London, he went straight to Earl's Court Square. He rang and knocked loudly for some minutes before the door was opened by Frank in a heavy camel-coloured dressing-gown and lamb's-fleece bedroom slippers. Below his shining bald head, his little pink face scowled angrily. 'There's no need for that noise,' he said, 'whoever it is.'
'I've come to see Larrie Rourke,' John said.
'Well, you've come to the wrong house. He doesn't live here any more.'
'It's John Middleton,' John went on, peering into the dimly lit hall.
'Oh,' Frank snapped. 'Well, that'll be the same answer.' He was about to shut the door, when John put his foot on the threshold.
'He's run away,' he said desperately.
'I'm not surprised,' Frank answered. 'I wrote you that no good would come of his living like that, but you didn't have the courtesy to answer my letter. Good night.'
John put a hand on Frank's arm. It was roughly shaken off. 'If you're a friend of Larrie's, you'll try to help me find him. He went away in a hysterical state. He took a lot of mother's jewels and her car. Of course, I'm not thinking of that....'
'I daresay your mother is,' Frank interrupted.
'Yes, she's very upset, but she's not trying to prosecute or anything.'
'That's wise.'
'I'm only frightened of what trouble he'll get into,' John pleaded.
'He probably has already,' said Frank.
'Good God!' John cried. 'I understood you were fond of the boy. If you had a grain of my feelings of affection....'
'I don't go for affection,' Frank said. John thought, what a disgusting little hypocrite; but he said nothing for fear of causing offence. 'I go for compassion,' Frank added. He spoke as though it was a stock article of trade. 'Affection tends to muck up the works.'
'At least you'll help me find him,' John said.
'No!' said Frank shortly. 'I'll have a search for the lad myself, but I shan't tell you if I do find him.'
This time he did not say good night, but simply pushed John's leg out of the way and shut the door. John could hear his slippers slopping along the passage. He turned and made his way to the West End to continue his search in the all-night cafés.
It was about a week later on a morning towards the end of June that Gerald Middleton presented himself at Earl's Court Square. The promising early spring had turned to a wet summer, and the continuous rain seemed only an extension of the depression that had once more settled down upon him. His interview with Mrs Portway and the dismal close of his visit to Merano had made his Melpham quest seem not only fruitless but ludicrous. He felt suddenly that he was playing a childish game. On his return, he tried to resume his work on the History as though Melpham had never existed, but his concentration had gone. Disgusted at himself, he decided that this was only further proof that he was too old for serious work, fit only for dilettante hobbies. He resumed his visits to the dealers. But Melpham would not leave him. Despite his English ironic temperament, he had not got the usual English worship of the sense of the ridiculous. Perhaps marriage to Inge had taught him that the ludicrous was too often only a thin covering for the serious and the tragic. The fact, then, that his Melpham quest presented itself as ridiculous did not in the end deter him from resuming it.
Frank Rammage came to the door this time with a duster in his hand. A huge white apron covered his round little belly. 'If you've come about Larrie Rourke,' he said, 'I've nothing to say. I told your son so. If he's anxious, you can say I haven't found him. But that's all I'm saying.'
'I know nothing about Rourke,' said Gerald. 'I thought he was down at my wife's.'
'He was,' Frank said. 'But he's left. Taking her motor-car with him.' He chuckled.
'Good God!' Gerald cried, and then added, 'Oh well! I suppose it's a small price to pay for getting rid of him.'
'It's a small price to pay for ruining the lad's chances of making good. I've no doubt at all he'll get into worse company now.'
'Hm,' said Gerald shortly. 'Well, maybe. Anyhow, I haven't come to talk to you about Master Rourke. You don't remember, Mr Rammage, that we've met before - a long time ago. To be exact at Melpham in 1912 on the day Eorpwald's tomb was excavated. I sprained my ankle.'
Frank peered at him with his little piggy eyes. 'That's a long time ago,' he said, 'you've aged and so have I.'
'All the same,' Gerald smiled at the little man, 'it's about the Melpham tomb that I wanted to talk to you.'
'The Melpham tomb?' Frank's tone was amazed, but not, Gerald thought, anxious. 'I don't know anything about that. I haven't read a word of history for years.' He laughed. 'Fancy you coming to me about an Anglo-Saxon tomb.'
'I want to reconstruct the circumstances of its discovery if I can,' Gerald said. 'Do you think I could come inside and have a littl
e talk with you about it?'
'That'll have to be a very little talk, then,' Frank said, 'because I'm doing the housework. But come inside.' He led the way to his bed-sitting-room. 'Sit down,' he said.
'How is Mrs Salad?' Gerald asked.
'Complaining, poor old dear!' Frank answered, 'but you didn't come here to talk about her.'
Once more Gerald told his story, but this time he was careful to give no leads by particularizing his suspicions. He merely suggested that Gilbert Stokesay might have done it as a practical joke; and even this he put forward as a youthful folly rather than the trick of an embittered man. In fact, he made light of the whole episode.
Frank was in no way deceived; his turkey face gobbled as he listened. 'That'd be no joke if it were so,' he said. 'Scholarship means truth as you ought to know, Professor Middleton.' He looked reproachfully at Gerald. 'It might have been young Stokesay's way too,' he said. 'He was a bad type of man. I was a young lad then, hungry for knowledge, and he made mock of me.'
Gerald could not help smiling at the Victorian note of this. 'You're a very old-fashioned person, Mr Rammage,' he said.
Frank looked most offended. He stared at his room, indicating the scarlet anchors, the Danish lampshades. 'I favour the contemporary,' he said simply. 'Young people find me very up to date.'
He sat down on a tubular chair and crossed his fat little hands over his large aproned stomach. 'That'd be a terrible thing if it were true,' he repeated, 'it's a mercy Canon Portway's dead. He hated a lie, and a lie in a scholarly thing like that would have about killed him after he'd given his name to it.' He sat motionless, his little mouth pursed in thought.
'Mrs Portway thinks her brother did know. Oh, after the event, of course,' Gerald added hastily, as he saw the little man's face twitch with anger. He told Frank of the letter from her brother-in-law that Lilian had quoted and of her belief that he had been blackmailed.
'Ah!' said Frank, smacking his fat little lips, 'she'd have put that on me - fraud, blackmail, and all.'
'She doesn't care for you, certainly.'
'No, no more than I care for her. I shan't speak ill of her, but I shouldn't wish to see her again.'
'I don't think you will,' Gerald observed, and he told Frank of the state in which he had left Lilian.
'She'll recover,' Frank said sharply. 'She's very tough.' He leaned forward, his little eyes popping lobster-like out of his red face. 'I said I'd say nothing against her. But I will. She's eaten up with jealousy - always has been - and she's got a vile tongue. I don't doubt she said unfitting things of her brother-in-law and me.'
Gerald gave no answer.
'Ah!' said Frank, 'I thought she would have done. Well, that wasn't true what she said and, if it had been, that'd have been no business of hers.'
Gerald hastened to leave this topic and return to the excavation. 'But you were with Gilbert Stokesay, Mr Rammage, when the coffin was first uncovered,' he cried.
Frank folded his arms and leaned back in his chair. 'No, I wasn't.' His little mouth snapped shut like a turtle's.
Gerald flushed slightly. 'Oh come!' he said, 'I distinctly remember what was said that day.'
'Oh, that was said,' Frank replied, 'but that wasn't true. Barker was with him. I didn't come up from the village until near ten o'clock. Alice Barker always said I was there, though what she knew of it, I don't know, except that she knew everyone's business.' He shook his head, then suddenly he jumped from his chair and stood over Gerald's chair, arms akimbo as though about to deliver him a 'talking to'.
'That'll be it,' he cried. 'Barker would have helped that Gilbert if help be needed. Most likely for a few pounds. There's nothing the Barkers wouldn't do for a few pounds, though they'd got plenty put away even in those days. They'd not understand the meaning of it, but if Gilbert Stokesay was fool enough to part with his money to play a joke, they'd not refuse it. Besides, Barker would welcome Mr Portway making a fool of himself. A joke on the gentry paid for by the gentry. That'd just appeal to them. And then, in case there was trouble, Alice'd make sure they weren't blamed. It'd be that Frank Rammage that Mr Portway was so soft on that'd have been there. Likely enough Gilbert Stokesay agreed to that; he didn't care for young chaps that went out for education.'
Frank became more and more excited as he put forward his theory. He began to trot round the room, dusting the ornaments, as he spoke. Gerald was forced to turn round in his chair to speak to him. 'Steady on,' he cried; 'you're as bad as Mrs Portway. She doesn't like you, so she pinned it on you. You're doing the same thing with the Barkers. You've said nothing to suggest that anyone was involved in a fake, nothing odd even, except for Alice Barker's insisting that you'd made the discovery when her father had.' That, he thought, could be read two ways, but he said no more.
Frank stopped short in his little trot. 'There's a little more to it than that,' he said. 'I left Mr Portway - Canon he was by then - because he wouldn't get rid of those Barkers. So you'd better consider all I say in the light of that.' He paused to let Gerald make his allowance for bias, then, coming close to him, he shook a fat forefinger in his face. 'Mrs Portway was nearer right than she thought; for the old man was blackmailed, and by the Barkers, I'm sure of it. When I got back from the war, they'd got such a hold on him I wouldn't believe my eyes. Well, we all settled down together. It didn't take me long to see how they treated him. Bullying the poor man. He couldn't even have what he liked to eat. Alice took a real pleasure in feeding the man on eggs although she knew he couldn't abide them. And cheating him of his money, not large sums, but a bit here and a bit there. He was scared of them all the time, scared out of his life. He was still the same fine man in public, but at home he was an old man even before he left for Norwich. After I came there it was quarrels all the day, for I couldn't stand for their goings on. In the end it came to it that life wasn't worth living. I was sick of it, duckie' - in his excitement, Frank dropped into his usual endearments even with Gerald - 'so I told the old man it was them or me. He cried and begged me to stay. But it was no good. I reckoned the choice had to come, and even if he chose them, at least life would be quieter for him. All the same, I didn't believe he'd let me go until it happened. In some ways I was glad, for I couldn't go on taking from him and in any case I had work to do, my dear. I couldn't let my life pass in Norwich, though there's misery enough there too, and crime. But when that man chose to keep the Barkers and to let me go, I knew there was something badly wrong. He loved me as much as he could love anyone and he was a loving man by and large. Oh, not as Mrs Portway chose to think and as the Barkers were quick to tell anyone. But he did love me. The Barkers must have had a hold on him for him to do a thing like that even though he cried to ask me to stay. I often puzzled what that could have been. None of the ordinary things, that I knew, for the Canon was a good man - a bit too good, perhaps. Oh yes! they took a lot off him, that I know. You see, duckie, when he died he left me all his money. A nice little bit it was, and I felt very bad about it, though I've tried to spend it in ways that would do him justice. All the same, it wasn't what he'd once had. The Barkers had had a good cut, you mark my words.' He snapped his mouth shut and began to dust the lamps vigorously.
Gerald got up from his chair and began walking up and down. 'That's all very well,' he said. 'I'm sure you've given me a true picture of what happened, but there's nothing to connect it with Melpham. It was Portway's duty as a scholar to speak out at once if he found out that there had been a fraud. As it was, you suggest this man, who yoù say was a very good man, submitted to blackmail in order to hide up what it was his duty to reveal.'
Frank turned on Gerald irritably. 'Goodness isn't all of a piece,' he said, 'any more than badness. Canon Portway was a very good man. He'd never admit he was wrong. Not even in little things. If he was faced with it he just walked out of the room. And this, which was a public thing, that touched his scholarship. No, duckie, you don't understand people very well. Besides, he had to think of old Professor Stokesay. That'd
have been a terrible thing for him when he loved his son so. No, Canon Portway would have done anything rather than that.'
Gerald went to the window and stared at the trees of Earl's Court Square. 'There's nothing to connect it with Melpham, nothing,' he said, and turned round sharply to face Frank.
'There's a thing I do remember,' said the little fat man. 'He wouldn't talk of Melpham. I asked him once. In Norwich it was, I remember. He was getting old then long before his time. He'd come in from his sermons complaining of rheumatism and the cold. There'd have been no fire either if I hadn't made one and given him crumpets as he liked them. He'd talk then, a bit rambling but always clever. I asked him about Eorpwald once, how that pagan god fitted in with the Church in those days and so on. I gave up all my book-learning when I went into the Navy and I never went back to it. I found more important things to do, but I always liked to learn things. He snapped me up then. He said the whole thing was a mystery and he hoped it'd remain so. It wasn't a thing he saw any good in discussing, be said. And then he asked me a strange thing. Never to talk about the Melpham burial to the Barkers. I didn't make conversation with them anyway and I'd no more have mentioned a learned thing to them than flown. I thought he was wandering. But perhaps he wasn't, duckie, after all. Anyway, you'd best go and see the Barkers. Mrs Cressett she is now. I should see the old man on his own. He's a hard man, but he's old, and the old wander in their talk. You'll get nothing out of her, nor out of him if she's by.'
Gerald sighed. 'I suppose I must,' he said. 'Well, thank you, Mr Rammage, for all...'
Frank cut him short. 'If you've no more to ask, I'll say good day to you. The cleaning and polishing there is to do!' He showed Gerald out.
As Gerald was getting into his car, a voice came from the front steps behind him. 'Can I have a word with you, please, Professor Middleton?' He saw Larwood's eyebrows rise slightly and turned to find Vin Salad standing on the steps in black crêpe-de-chine pyjamas, a jade-green silk dressing-gown, held tightly, draped round him. His face was covered in vanishing cream.