Last Friends (Old Filth Trilogy)

by Gardam, Jane

  ‘Now—I am paying for this,’ Dulcie said and blinked when she saw the bill, holding it up first one way and then the other. A deep breath—then, ‘Oh yes. I am, and I am leaving the tip.’ She put down a pound coin. ‘Henry, this is wonderful. We must do this again and I will pay the petrol. Are you doing the Edinburgh Festival in August?’

  It was already dark by the time they reached Yarm. Henry’s lecture was at eight o’ clock. ‘I’ll ring the hotel and say you’ll be late and to keep dinner for you and we’ll go up to Fiscal-Smith’s for a quick look now. I’ll make sure your room will be ready when I drop you back. Here we are, here’s The Fiscal turning. Hup we go to Wuthering Heights. God! There’s nothing!’

  The steep lane ran on and up, up and on, white with moon-light, black with wintry heather and, lying to either side of it and occasionally on it, the green lamp-eyes of sheep. A few (‘Oh, look,’ she cried) new lambs with bewildered faces. Henry honked and tooted and the sheep ambled aside. ‘I have never . . . ,’ she said.

  Down they went again into a village with a noisy stream, a small stone bridge, arched high. Up they went again, twist and twirl, and the stars were coming out.

  ‘Such stars!’ she said. ‘And I thought The Donheads were the country!’

  ‘You can see the Milky Way,’ he said. ‘They say it’s disappeared now over London. We’ve blotted it out.’

  ‘I don’t remember stars in Hong Kong,’ she said. ‘It’s such a competitive place.’

  ‘Aha!’ he said.

  A gate across a track.

  ‘Henry—turn! You’re going to be late. It’s seven o’ clock. We can come back tomorrow on the way home.’

  ‘Won’t be beaten,’ he shouted, getting out, opening the gate, dragging it wide for the return journey, jumping back in, splashing the car through another rattling torrent. Over a narrow bridge came a sharp bend upwards, a one-in-three corkscrew, and a shriek from Dulcie. The car made it with only a foot to spare along the edge of a dark brackeny precipice.

  ‘The man’s a mad-man,’ said Henry. ‘Living here. Oh—hullo?’

  Mist had been gathering but now, up here, moonlight broke through and in front of them stood another barred gate. A man stood behind it in silhouette carrying what looked like a pitch-fork or perhaps a rifle. To either side of his head behind the gate swayed the great horns of two wild beasts. Henry stopped the car once more and waited to see if it would roll back.

  ‘So what’s this then?’ asked the man.

  ‘Visitors.’

  ‘Visitors! This time of night. It’s past six o’ clock. Are you daft? Mek an appointment.’

  ‘Visitors. To Sir Frederick Fiscal-Smith.’

  ‘Fred’s out. I’m his ghillie. And these are two of his Highlanders.’

  ‘Out?’

  ‘Aye. An’ ’e’s not comin’ back. Hall’s for sale. He’s gone to Hong Kong.’

  Dulcie stepped carefully out of the car and went over to the gate. She held out her hand to the ghillie. The two wild beasts disappeared into the mist. ‘I am so sorry,’ she said, ‘to descend upon you in the dark, and we must go at once—there is a very important engagement. A poetry lecture in Middlesbrough. On The Cavalier Poets. But I just wanted to look in on my very old friend. I quite understand. We hadn’t realised that Sir—Fred’s house was so remote. Might I just come and take another look tomorrow? Could I just have a look in the letter-box? I have been trying to contact him.’

  ‘Letter-box? No letter-boxes. The letters get dropped down the bottom under a stone. I’ve been posting on yeller envelopes but I send them by the batch. Not straight off. You can’t catch the postman. You know, our Fred was always a mystery.’

  * * *

  ‘I’ll have to abandon you,’ said Henry at The Judges’ Lodging Hotel. ‘I’ll be back to take you home after breakfast. I’ll have to step on it now. Here’s someone.’

  An amiable-looking man in porter’s uniform was hanging about. He disappeared with Dulcie’s case and in a moment came a strong-looking woman down the hotel steps. She had the look of someone who had seen too many hotel guests from the south lately.

  When she spoke, however, all was well. ‘Hot water, hot-water bottles and your dinner’s ready in half an hour and you can have the same room as the others had. We seem to get more judges than we ever did when they were on Circuit. Poor old Feathers crying into his coffee after his wife died. Fiscal-Smith up the hill, he nearly died in the room you’re having not six weeks ago. Pneumonia. Well, second memorial service in a few months. He can’t resist a train-ride to London . . . ’

  Henry said, ‘He’s in Hong Kong now.’

  ‘Doesn’t surprise me. Now, you get off to your poetry and we’ll get this one installed.’

  Lying in the lights from the bed-side lamp Dulcie was put early to bed. She watched the gold-fish as they flicked and turned.

  * * *

  And at breakfast next morning she sat in the dining room looking up into the frowning hills and she was smiling. Susan—not any one of them knew where she was. There was no-one who would be screeching at her on a telephone to say that this journey had been foolish.

  ‘Sheer bravado!’ ‘Showing off.’ ‘At your age,’ and so on. Such an interesting visit up to the moors last night. Such a good hotel! Black-pudding for breakfast. Delicious. Here came the manageress. ‘Oh, yes, perfectly thank you. I slept perfectly. I wish I could stay here for a proper holiday.’

  ‘Well, it’s possible,’ said the lady—more coffee was being hustled to the table, unasked. ‘In fact I am afraid it is inevitable. There has been a message . . . ’

  ‘Yes?’ (Oh God! Oh God, it’s Susan!)

  ‘From the University, I’m afraid your friend—that poet—he’s in the Great North Eastern hospital with a broken ankle.’

  ‘He is what?’

  ‘He slipped as he came off the stage last night after his lecture. Shoe fell to pieces. Got caught up in the audio wires. Foot left hanging like a leaf. They’re hoping to operate this morning.’

  ‘I must go there at once. At once!’

  ‘Have some more coffee. They’ve informed his wife and she’s on the train. We’ll go to Darlington to meet her. She’ll drive you back home tomorrow but—something about arrangements for the school-run. I said that we’d see to you.’

  ‘Oh, but I must go to poor Henry!’

  ‘He won’t be round from his anaesthetic yet. They may not even operate today. He has high blood-pressure.’

  ‘That doesn’t surprise me. Could you get me a car? I haven’t got my actual driver’s licence with me. I haven’t driven for quite some time, except around the village. But someone might lend me a map. I do thoroughly enjoy driving. I could drive Anna home—or just go by myself.’

  ‘Michael will drive you to the hospital whenever you need to go.’

  ‘Is he the ghillie? I’m not sure . . . ’

  ‘No. He’s over there. The front-of-house receptionist standing by the portrait of Lord Justice MacPherson, drinking milk.’

  Michael gave a little wave.

  ‘The milk,’ she said, ‘is one of his harmless peculiarities but I suppose it’s a good fault in a driver. Yes, it’s hard to get insurance when you’re over eighty. I hope I don’t speak out of turn?’

  ‘Oh, I can easily take a taxi just to the hospital.’

  ‘I don’t think they’re going to want you at the hospital my lady. You’re not next of kin. But where would you like Michael to take you? Is there someone you can visit?’

  ‘Oh no. I don’t know a living soul. Oh—oh yes, I must ring my daughter Susan. In America. But perhaps, well—no. She is rather easily annoyed. Though a wonderful person. Quite wonderful. Do you think—would it be possible to visit Lone Hall again?’

  ‘There is a call for you.’

  ‘Yes—oh Anna! Anna, yes, I’m
very well.’

  ‘Dulcie. I’m on the train. The silly great fool.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Henry.’

  ‘Now don’t worry about me, Anna. I’m perfectly all right. I was often stuck in Ethiopia, you know (that road across the Blue Mountains), I do just wonder if I left the iron on. But we must think of Henry first.’

  ‘I’m coming. See you later. I’ll have to get Henry home. I’ll bring you back with him. I’m afraid he may be in rather a dreadful mood.’

  ‘All will be perfectly well Anna, and could you possibly ring Susan in Massachusetts in case she worries? You have the number. I’m going to drive about today with a splendid young man and we’ll leave some flowers for Henry though it’s still very wintry up here—bring a big coat—and there’s nothing but black heather. Oh, yes. Fiscal-Smith? I’d forgotten him. He’s not here. He’s gone to Hong Kong. I was mistaken ever to have worried about him.’

  * * *

  ‘And now,’ she said, ‘young man, come along. They say you’ll get me to the hospital.’

  ‘I’ll get you there,’ he said, ‘but I can’t say what we’ll do next. It’s like a city. They made it out of the old chemical works. They were the steel works before that and the iron works before that and before that they were the Big Wilderness. Kept thousands working for a hundred years. Always work. Dirt and clatter. All gone now. Most folks have no jobs. They just stay in bed most days unless they have a profession like me.’

  ‘But this hospital’s enormous! There must be plenty of jobs here?’

  ‘Oh, aye. Mind, how many does any work in it?’ D’you want a bit of Cadbury’s fruit and nut?’

  ‘So very different from Dorset. And from Hong Kong. We’ll never find poor Henry here,’ she said.

  But a car-park appeared and someone to take them to the right ward where the family man-poet lay with eyes closed and mind elsewhere. She felt affection for him and stroked his face.

  ‘He didn’t speak,’ she said when she came back. ‘I left him a packet of smarties.’

  ‘Hey ho,’ said Michael. ‘So where now?’

  ‘Well. I suppose back to the hotel.’

  ‘No—come on. I’ll show you Herringfleet. First we’ll go to Whitby for its fish and chips and I can get blue-top. Then there’s the museum with the preserved mermaid, mind she’s not that well preserved, being dead. We’ll take the old trunk road through the skeletal chimneys. They’re not that old,’ he said. ‘Younger than me! Mind not much. Can’t think of the place without them now.’

  ‘You were born here then, Michael?’

  ‘Oh, aye. Michael Watkins. Me great auntie was Nurse Watkins. Lived to be a hundred. Gypsy stock. Black eyes. Delivered us all here and laid us all out. She delivered your great man, Judge Vanetski or whatever . . . ’

  ‘I’m afraid I don’t know . . . ?’

  ‘Changed his name and went south. Something you could spell more easier. Me Auntie Watkins knew ’em all. His mother worked the coal-cart round the streets. His dad were a Russian spy. Common knowledge.’

  ‘You can’t,’ she said, ‘mean Judge Veneering?’

  ‘It could be,’ said Michael, ‘they’re all dead now. Here then—Whitby. Home of Dracula and a load a’ saints. And, see them choppers ont’ cliff-top? Visiting whale. Made Jaws look like a minner. And here’s a human hand of some lass hanged somewhere. Stick a candle in it and you’ll never be frightened of ghosts.’

  ‘There’s nothing like this in Hong Kong,’ she said. ‘Though I wouldn’t answer for Java. In Java they keep the bodies of the dead for years. They take them food.’

  ‘Well there you are then,’ said Michael, ‘It’s a funny old world. What you think of this? Look up, now.’

  Hanging on wires from the museum’s roof glimmered a painted wooden banner, pale green and gold. Trailing squirls and tendrils of delicate foreign flowers surrounded lettering she couldn’t decipher.

  ‘It’s wonderful. What is it? What does it say?’

  ‘Nobody can make out. But it’s not that old.’

  ‘It looks almost Classical.’

  ‘No. It was something from Muriel Street. The street was flattened with a bomb and this thing somehow survived.’

  ‘It looks as old as The Odyssey.’

  ‘Aye, it’s odd all right. Kind of sadness in it too. Horrible back-alley it hung in. They used to slaughter cattle there on a Thursday.’

  She looked at him. ‘I’m not a complete ingénue, Michael.’

  ‘The guy painted that,’ said Michael, ‘wasn’t no jane-you neither. He was like a god. But he was broken up. He was that Vanetski’s dad. The Russian spy.’

  ‘I’m out of my depth, Michael.’ She took his arm.

  ‘Who isn’t?’ said Michael.

  * * *

  ‘And,’ she said back in the car, ‘you’ve lived here all your life? How very interesting.’

  ‘I’ve had some foreign holidays. Now, before we set off back, tek a look down there. Look around.’

  ‘Sea?’ she said. ‘It’s rather pale—if you saw the Caribbean, Michael . . . ’

  ‘Look along the coast-line. Right? All ripped off in the war. The big raid took the heart out of it. See that yellow house with the black holes for windows? Never re-built. Streets of little dwellings down the old high street. All gone. I never seed ‘em. Ripped away like the flounce on a skirt, me auntie says. Bessie. She’s still alive. D’you want to meet her?’

  ‘Well, I think we should get back.’

  ‘You’ve to see Grangetown. Ugliest place, it’s said, in Europe. Covered in red dust off the old ironstone works. It crosses the sea on the wind. They say Denmark’s covered in it too. It’s on a level with Ayres Rock Australia. D’you know, they used these beaches for filming D-Day? In that film. Nowhere in France poor enough. No. 326 Palm Tree Road, here’s auntie’s. She’s near a hundred, too. I’ll get her.’

  Dulcie sat alone in the car. The long, long street of red houses was by no means derelict or poor but it was lifeless. Re-built since the war, dozen after dozen, all alike. Well-kept, anonymous, identical. Curtains were pasted against the windows. No-one to be seen. Concrete and weeds in the long, long vista of tiny front gardens. Silence. No people. Then a boy with small eyes came up beside the car and spat at it.

  After a while a shuffling old man with a dog appeared, stopping and looking, looking and stopping. He put his face near hers at the passenger window and said through the glass, ‘Is it Lilian?’

  ‘No, I’m Dulcie.’

  ‘I’m looking out for our Lilian. She’s seldom coming by.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘I’d say the Germans have her.’

  ‘That was a very long time ago.’

  ‘Behind that Iron Curtain.’

  ‘That was a long time ago, too.’

  ‘No, it were yesterday. Not even the blacks come here, you know. Too dismal for ’em. Our Lilian was a grand girl.’

  Michael came down his aunt’s concrete path, ignored the old man and said Dulcie was to come in. ‘And you get on with your walk,’ he said to the man.

  ‘Michael, this old man is crying. For his sister.’

  ‘Oh aye. Lilian. Half a century on. Killed in Middlesbrough. Shut up now, George. There was worse going on than Lilian. What about the Concentration Camps?’

  ‘It’s all stood still,’ said the old man.

  ‘Aye, and that’s the trouble,’ said Michael.

  As Dulcie pulled on her little mohair gloves as she walked up the path the old man shouted, ‘It was wireless won us t’war. If it had been only bloody television we’d have lost it and mebbe got some soul back in us. It went out, did soul, with Churchill. We was all listening to him when the Dorniers come that night.’

  A woman was watching them from the door-step.

 
‘Are you comin’ in then?’

  * * *

  She didn’t look a hundred, she looked fifty and very alert.

  ‘Friends o’ Terry’s? Terry Vanetski? Cup o’ tea?’

  ‘I’m afraid Terry is gone,’ said Dulcie, drawing off her gloves, Bessie watching, stretching over and taking one and stroking it. ‘I went to his memorial service. He died in Malta.’

  ‘What in heck was he doing there? He was that restless. Is’t true he married a Chinese?’

  ‘Yes. Elsie. I hardly knew her . . . ’

  ‘Now then tell us. One thing we can still do here is talk. I wonder if she was like his mother, Florrie. Now she was a fine woman, like a man. With a back-to-front man’s cap. Here’s your tea and a fancy. It’s only shop.’

  ‘They—didn’t exactly get on. Terry and Elsie.’

  ‘Then there’d be someone else. Terry was born to love women. Serviette? You can’t see where he lived. Nowt left. Nowt much left of Florrie neither nor the Russian. Eighty-seven killed that night. Terry was out of it you know because they’d put him on some getaway-train that afternoon. He left without a tear. I helped get his mother home where she’d been waving at the train from the fence. Oh, she was a fine woman. She never knew if he’d seen her waving.’

  ‘And you’ve never moved away?’

  ‘Well, bus-trips with Michael, in a club, to foreign parts but I can’t recommend them. Up here’s better, even with the drugs and the knives—even in Turner Street! Turner Street where the doctors used to live and the manager of the Co-op. Even now it’s better than the Costa del Sol where you can’t understand a word they say. All those fat English women, they’re a disgrace. I was maid at a posh school here once you know. That was a nasty place, but interesting and you never saw anything like that Mrs. Fondle in her purples and satins. She fancied young Terry. Yes she did. Just as well she got drowned. There was tensions all right, what with Mrs. Fondle and circus performers and spies and coal-carts—bit of Dundee? I mek me own Dundee.’