Gently Floating

by Hunter Alan

  ‘Oh God,’ John French said, ‘I’d like to get out of this. I’d like to get out of it. I’d like to take a plane, fly to Australia. Anywhere would do if it was far enough.’

  ‘But nowhere is far enough,’ Gently said. ‘A plane wouldn’t take you where you want to go.’

  ‘Away from you,’ John French said, ‘that’s far enough.’

  ‘Away from your father,’ Gently said. ‘It’s too far.’

  John French turned his head away. Shakuntala drifted past Lidney’s. A little air came by the next bungalow and the sail rippled but didn’t fill. John French twitched the sheet, let it go slack. His chin was tilted down into his chest. The bridge was still so close behind them that they could hear a truck change gear to pass over it.

  ‘You think I hated him,’ John French said. ‘You can’t understand I didn’t hate him. But I didn’t want him dead, nothing like that, we just didn’t get on. That’s all.’

  ‘You hated him sometimes,’ Gently said.

  ‘I didn’t want him dead,’ John French said, ‘I may have thought about it. What it would be like. But that’s not the same. I didn’t hate him.’

  ‘Sometimes you’d have liked him dead,’ Gently said.

  ‘No,’ John French said. ‘No. No.’

  ‘It would have made everything so easy for you,’ Gently said. ‘You’d never had love from him. Him dying didn’t matter.’

  ‘He was my father,’ John French said.

  ‘He’d never acted like one,’ Gently said. ‘He’d tried to make a slave of you, that was his being a father. And you were ashamed of him. His character, his principles.’

  ‘But I didn’t hate him,’ John French said.

  ‘You only wished him dead,’ Gently said.

  ‘I did then, I did then,’ John French said. ‘I wished him dead, all right, but I didn’t make him dead. I didn’t kill him. I wasn’t serious. I didn’t hate him really, not hate him.’

  ‘You wished him dead, and he died,’ Gently said.

  John French closed his eyes. ‘What are you trying to do to me?’ he said. ‘I don’t know. What are you after?’

  ‘I’m after the truth,’ Gently said.

  ‘That’s the truth,’ John French said. ‘I didn’t make him dead. I wanted him dead. I didn’t make him dead. That’s the truth. But I didn’t want him dead either, that’s the truth. It’s all truth. I don’t know what the truth is. I don’t think there is any truth.’

  ‘I’ll call it truth when it’s evidence,’ Gently said.

  ‘It can’t be evidence,’ John French said. ‘It doesn’t mean anything, none of it means anything. I didn’t hate him, didn’t want him dead.’

  ‘Then what did you do?’ Gently said.

  ‘I,’ John French said. He stopped.

  ‘Trim the sail,’ Gently said, ‘you’re missing a puff. Perhaps you’ll be lucky and the wind’ll freshen.’

  John French shortened the sail without looking at it. Shakuntala dipped gently, began to travel. John French stared at nothing, eased the tiller aweather, steered, lee’d the tiller as the puff tailed off. Blind ripples from the bow faded out on the surface. The sail slacked, emptied, stilled.

  John French said: ‘I didn’t hate him. I may have thought I did but I didn’t. He was my father. I’m like him. He could be decent to me sometimes. He was a swine to me too. That’s just how it was. We didn’t understand each other. Now he’s gone. It’s all finished. It doesn’t mean anything to say I hated him. That’s just how it was, how we were, like that.’

  ‘Yes,’ Gently said.

  ‘I’m not blaming him,’ John French said. ‘Perhaps if I’d been different he’d have been different, I don’t know, I didn’t want it, I couldn’t go to him, we didn’t get on. He was a sort of enemy. I had to keep things from him. I didn’t want him to know about me. He’d have been against me but even if he wasn’t I didn’t want that either. And he knew that. He didn’t like it. He’d got plans for me. For his son. For his wife’s son. I wasn’t what he wanted and I didn’t want to be, I couldn’t help it. My mother was all that mattered to him and she didn’t love him, didn’t love anyone. I’m sorry he’s gone, I’m not sorry about her. I was a stranger to her. She didn’t want me.’

  ‘Yes,’ Gently said.

  ‘She wouldn’t have any more after me,’ John French said. ‘I was an accident. I spoiled her figure. They used to sleep in separate bedrooms. We were beneath her, so was all this, but it was good enough to pay her bills. She really did hate my father, she left her money to me because she hated him. I think she had fancy blokes. He never said anything, she never did wrong in my hearing. I haven’t been at home much, Beattie told me things, I saw enough to get the idea. She used to ignore me, didn’t want me around. I don’t think she fooled him. He was weak, couldn’t help it. I’m weak too, I can’t help it either. I’m like my father in that. He’d have been all right if he’d had a real wife, if he’d kicked her out, stood alone. She was poison, she was like spilt acid, she made him what he was. He’d have been all right.’

  ‘Yes,’ Gently said.

  ‘That was a lot of the trouble, he had to find money for her,’ John French said. ‘He might have been a craftsman. The Old Man taught him. We had the trade. He could have done what he liked. But he went after the money because he had to because it was the only way to keep her. He never was a craftsman. He was a speculator. He didn’t make things. He took money. That’s what she did to him, how he was spoiled. Why he’d got a temper. Why he made enemies. Why I was an enemy. Why I hate the business. Why I admire the Speltons. Why I don’t care. You’re right, damned right, I’ve wished him dead, I’m one of the reasons why he is dead. Perhaps I’m the real reason why he’s dead. Perhaps I killed him. You’re damned right.’

  ‘You don’t kill by wishing,’ Gently said.

  ‘Don’t you, don’t you?’ John French said. ‘I wished my mother was dead and she died. Now he’s gone too. I killed both of them.’

  ‘You know who killed one of them,’ Gently said.

  ‘I, I killed him,’ John French said. ‘Blame me. Just blame me. I’m the reason he’s dead. I don’t care.’

  Gently didn’t say anything. John French was sobbing his breaths. A steadier air was in the sail. Shakuntala was quietly treading easterly. The scalloped borders of green reeds were showing at the end of the reach beyond the bungalows and above the flat marsh distances on a sea-paled sky the bleached waves of the sand dunes. The breeze was a sea-breeze. It was coming true. John French was sailing the breeze but not attending to it. John French’s eyes were fixed on the water his lips were dry they were dragged at the corners. Gently watched the bungalows, didn’t watch John French. Shakuntala lisped at her curved forefoot. They passed the pumpmill. They came to the reeds. The reeds were moving swaying rustling. Dragonflies winnowed above the reeds. Small brown birds flickered among the tall stalks. The brown birds chittered. The reeds weaved about them. High over the reeds sailed a round-winged kestrel. On both hands of the river stood the reeds and the river went between and among them.

  ‘You’re being lucky with the wind,’ Gently said.

  John French didn’t look at him, didn’t say anything. Full-sailed thrusting Shakuntala went by the reeds that shivered under the sun. John French’s mouth made a tight drooped line. The tiller was loose between his arm and his body. He sailed a line as straight as a crease but never looked where he was sailing. They fetched the turn into Candle Dyke. Into Candle Dyke was a tack. John French began to tack into Candle Dyke but he didn’t change sides or glance at his sail. Shakuntala tacked. She turned tacks like a dancer. She twisted off tacks, shrugged them away. She climbed the wind in an effortless spiral of darting banks on a flat plane. She came out of Candle into the Sounds. The wind for the Sounds was a close haul. Shakuntala fell into the close haul pointing straight and powerful and tight and sheer. John French raised his head to look up the Sounds. The Sounds were a wildness of reeds and water. As John French rais
ed his head the wind faltered, rattled the sail, backed, fell. John French’s mouth quivered.

  ‘One hour out,’ Gently said.

  Shakuntala slowed, lay rocking a moment. The tide was at slack on the Sounds. Shakuntala stopped.

  ‘A nice breeze,’ Gently said. ‘It gave you a lift while it lasted.’

  John French licked his lips, swallowed, looked at the burgee, looked at nothing. At the top of the Sounds a yacht was moored. The yacht was small in the distance. A pair of swans rowed across the Shakuntala. Nothing else moved except the swans. John French said:

  ‘I could have done what I told you.’

  ‘Your lawyer isn’t here,’ Gently said.

  ‘Yes I could have done it,’ John French said. ‘It didn’t need a lot of wind, a few puffs like that one. You couldn’t prove different. Nobody could. Nobody could swear they didn’t see me. Especially after dark they couldn’t swear it. All you could do was to tell me I was lying.’

  ‘And of course you were lying,’ Gently said.

  ‘You couldn’t have touched me,’ John French said. ‘If it had come to a trial, something like that, they’d have let me off, whatever they thought. It’s an alibi. Why shouldn’t I stick to it?’

  ‘Keep sailing,’ Gently said.

  ‘An alibi,’ John French said. ‘All I have to do is stick to it.’

  He licked his lips with a dry tongue.

  ‘I was at Sid’s from about half past six,’ he said.

  After that John French didn’t say anything but sat still and flushed, his mouth trembling. The swans came close and looked at the men and made nasal hisses and dipped their beaks towards the water. Gently looked at John French a long time. One of the swans bit at Shakuntala’s rubbing straik. The swans had steady black eyes and mobile heads and continued to make nasal hisses. Gently said:

  ‘So we won’t sail down to Hickstead. Perhaps we’d better moor for lunch.’

  ‘I, I don’t want lunch,’ John French said. ‘I can’t eat it. I feel sick.’

  ‘Still, you might like some coffee,’ Gently said. ‘Can we get the boat out of the fairway?’

  ‘There’s the boathook,’ John French said. ‘You can shove on the mud. It’s all shallow. We can drop the weight.’

  Gently took the boathook, shoved on the mud. Shakuntala sheered towards the reed-beds. The swans followed. They dipped their beaks at the boathook. John French dropped the weight. The swans backed, hissed. John French touched the halyard, shrugged, sat down again. Gently poured coffee from the flask. John French drank some of the coffee. Gently unpacked the lunchbasket, began to eat. The swans watched Gently. Gently fed the swans. John French said:

  ‘I didn’t have the money for Sid.’

  Gently said: ‘I shall want this taken down and it may be used as evidence. I don’t mind waiting till your lawyer’s present.’

  John French drank coffee. ‘I should have had it,’ he said. ‘I should have had a banker’s order from Laskey that morning. About twenty-five hundred. I was going to Starmouth to bank it. It didn’t turn up. There was a letter.’

  ‘What sort of letter?’ Gently said.

  ‘Oh just a letter,’ John French said. ‘I’ve still got it. They referred me to my father. Why I wasn’t going to have my twenty-five hundred. So I showed him the letter. And he told me why. That’s one of the times I wished him dead.’

  ‘What was his reason?’ Gently said.

  ‘He knew about the Lidneys,’ John French said. ‘He didn’t like me being friends with them. He thought they were going to steal the money from me or something. I used to play him up about the Lidneys, he was a snob, I got back at him through them. It was my own fault what happened. That’s why I was so mad at him.’

  ‘Yes,’ Gently said. ‘But what was the truth about Sid and the money?’

  John French looked at the coffee beaker. ‘It would have been all right,’ he said. ‘It was a business deal, that’s all. Sid and me were going to be partners. He’d got an option on Jimpson’s dance hall across the bridge. Peewee Jimpson was his uncle. We’d have made a go of it.’

  ‘Did your father know this?’ Gently said.

  ‘No,’ John French said, ‘not then. He’d just got hold of the idea that I was in something with Sid, I don’t know how, we kept it quiet. But it would have been all the same if he did know, he’d have just put a stop to it. He couldn’t bear me having to do with Sid. Or Mrs Sid. I told him about that. On Tuesday morning I told him anything, I told him he was a cuckold ten times over.’

  ‘He was seeking an injunction was he?’ Gently said.

  ‘Yes,’ John French said. ‘That’s what his game was. I could have fought it, but it would have taken time. The Jimpsons were pushing Sid about the option.’

  ‘So your business deal was done for,’ Gently said.

  John French hunched himself, twisted the beaker.

  ‘You didn’t have the money for Sid,’ Gently said. ‘And you found Sid wasn’t quite such an affable bloke as you’d reckoned.’

  John French didn’t say anything. He squeezed the beaker till his knuckles blanched. The sun by the reed-bed was blister-hot and heat floated up from the inside of the half-decker. The Sounds were olive glass reflecting sky reflecting reeds reflecting heat. When the swans chukkered the water and lifted their beaks they spilled drops like melted steel drops. John French kept his head down, said:

  ‘There’s a lot of things you don’t know, can’t know. All of a sudden you find that out. You’re kidding yourself, you don’t know anything. Something happens. Then you find out. Everything’s going on round you and it doesn’t mean anything only you think it does, you give it a meaning.’

  ‘Yes,’ Gently said.

  ‘I’m not going to run Sid down,’ John French said. ‘I know I was wrong about him. That’s nothing. I could be wrong about him again. He’s what he is, that’s all, nobody can be any different.’

  ‘What is he?’ Gently said.

  ‘He’s,’ John French said, ‘I don’t know. He’s had a lot to put up with, Sid has. Both of them have. He’s all right.’

  ‘But he got angry,’ Gently said.

  John French opened his mouth, checked himself. He finished the coffee left in the beaker, set down the beaker on the side-deck. Gently poured some more coffee into the beaker. John French took the beaker in his hand again. He said:

  ‘I didn’t tell Sid right away. I was trying to plan something out. I told Sid I’d be round that evening about the business. I didn’t see my father all day. It all made me feel ill. I wanted to get away from them all. I nearly went home and packed a bag. I wish I had. That would have been best.’

  ‘Yes,’ Gently said.

  ‘So after tea I went to Sid’s place,’ John French said. ‘They were both there, him and his wife, I think he’d got the idea that something was up. I told them. Sid kept looking at me. He didn’t say much at first. Mrs Sid was swearing about my father, saying I could have the law on him for that. Then Sid started on me. It must have been a big disappointment for him. He had to take it out of me at first. He told me he’d trusted me, held me responsible, that it was too late now to back out. He made it seem like I was trying to pull a fast one. I’d never known him like that before. I think it took him a long while to believe that I was telling him the truth. Then he went and stood staring at the wall with his fists doubled, not saying anything. I thought he was going to attack me. His wife, she was scared too.’

  John French drank coffee. He said:

  ‘It was Mrs Sid who talked him round. She’s got her head screwed on right, they both have in the ordinary way. She said it was no use blinding at me, I wasn’t the sort who would welsh on them, we’d better be thinking what we could do rather than calling each other names. She kept on talking to him like that. At last she cooled him off a bit. He came and sat down though he didn’t say anything. She made a pot of tea and kept talking. Then he told her to shut up, he was trying to think, and Mrs Sid shut up. She started m
aking up to me a bit instead, told me I couldn’t help whose son I was. I didn’t like it but she’d calmed Sid down, I just kept quiet, let her carry on. I don’t know how long all this took. It was like a dream. It was getting dark. We could hear Reuben’s. Then Sid said, well if that was the way it was, I would have to raise a loan on my expectations, he’d told the Jimpsons he’d got the money and the money he’d have to have. I said I’d do anything, I didn’t care. Mrs Sid said she knew I’d stand by my word. Sid said yes, that was the way out, and he knew a loan office in Starmouth who might do the job for me. So I said I’d go there the next day, I’d get the money for him if it killed me, and he said no, I wasn’t to take it like that, I’d got to remember it had been a bit of a shock to him. Then he was nice as pie again and Mrs Sid kept coming round me and Sid said he’d better see a man about a dog and Mrs Sid laughed and said we could perhaps manage without him and Sid said he liked his sheets aired. It was just after that we heard the knock.’

  John French drank coffee. He said into the beaker:

  ‘We all guessed who it was. I was scared. I think they were. She kept looking at him, he was screwing his eyes up. Then he said my old man better hadn’t find me on the premises, they’d put me in the bedroom and lock the door, I’d have to keep right quiet. So I went in the bedroom and they locked the door. I think Mrs Sid went back in the sitting room. Then Sid opened the outside door and it was smashed wide open and there was a scuffle of feet and my father’s voice. He was after me, he knew I was there. He was in a terrible sort of passion. At first Sid tried to soothe him a bit but my father was crazy, wouldn’t listen. I don’t remember much what they said. I don’t want to remember. He sacked Sid, called him every name, called his wife names. He was mad. In the end they were fighting. I think my father was getting the best of it. Then Mrs Sid was at the window, told me to get out, I’d have to hide outside, and my father was trying to smash the door down and I jumped out of the window and crawled under the floorboards. They were still fighting. Something hit the floorboards. Mrs Sid must have gone in again. I heard her voice. They unlocked the bedroom. I think my father searched it, looked out of the window. Then they were talking and at last Sid went out and Mrs Sid took my father into the sitting room.’