‘We’ll put her to bed and then we’ll have a cup of tea, shall we?’ said the old man. And between us we draped the Silver Ghost in her sheet, closed the garage doors and left her there in the dark.
He lived next to the garage. It was a dingy place, and there was an all-pervading stench of drink and cats. The cats, perhaps a dozen of them, came yowling round us. The room was strewn with scraps of paper, written on and discarded; and everywhere there were books, and bottles – empty whisky bottles.
He talked at me from the kitchen, suddenly full of questions. Who was I? What was I doing here? But I had the feeling either that he wasn’t interested in my answers or that he knew the answers already – how, I could not imagine.
It unnerved me, but I told him just the same, about how the family had left Nethercott a hundred years before to go sheep farming in Vermont, how we don’t keep sheep any more, just maple trees for syrup and Jersey cows for milk and how I’d always wanted to come back and find my English roots. I sat smothered in cats, sipping hot, sweet tea, and in the intermittent silences, thumbing through a much-used copy of Longfellow’s poems that I’d found on the table in front of me. As he sat down in the chair opposite me, I told him about the face I’d seen in the attic window. He didn’t seem to hear. So I asked again, louder. Still no answer. He stirred his tea slowly. I tried another question. ‘Who does Nethercott belong to now?’ I asked.
When he looked up at me his eyes had turned suddenly cold and hard. ‘You ask too many questions,’ he said, an edge to his voice. ‘But if you must know, the house belongs to me. Everything here belongs to me, the car, the house, everything. I worked for it, didn’t I? I’m not like your kind. I was born with nothing, nothing but a name. No roots to go looking for. No ancestors. No stones to mark where we are. When we’re alive no one cares. When we’re gone no one cares.’
He sat back in his chair, nursing his mug of tea in his lap. ‘I’ve got nothing to hide, nothing to be ashamed of. I’m over ninety. I was in the war, the Great War – 1914–18. Bengie was a young lieutenant, eighteen, hardly shaving. If you’re a Bickford, then he’d be a cousin of yours, I suppose. I was his batman, servant if you like. Same age as he was. Like brothers we were, looked out for each other. Somehow we lived through it all and he brought me back here to be his farm manager and to look after him. He bought the Silver Ghost new in 1921. “If I die,” he says, “the car’s yours.” He was always talking about dying. He had the gas in the war – weak lungs. He was never really well after that.
‘Thirty years near enough, we lived here, happy as you like. Bit of a poet he was, but his eyes weren’t too good, so I’d read to him and that way I became a bit of a poet myself – still am. We did everything together, him and me. We went fishing, hunting, played cards. Sometimes we’d just sit and talk for hours on end. He always told me, “I’ve got no one else to leave the place to, Percy, so I’m leaving it all to you.” And I believed him. I believed him!’
He shook his head and wiped his watery eyes. Then he went on. ‘If he ever wanted to go anywhere, and it wasn’t often, I’d drive him. He loved that car as much as I do. We looked after her together. No mechanics, just him and me. Then one day I goes to fetch him from the station in the car and he’s got this . . . woman with him. Helen May Lasky. He’s met her at the races and he’s gone and married her. He never asks me, mind you, just goes ahead and does it. And would I mind going and living in the stables? Would I mind! Oh, they made it nice enough for me – inside bathroom, electrics, and I had the Silver Ghost to talk to next door.’
As he talked now, the tears were running down his cheeks into the corners of his mouth. ‘I wouldn’t have minded, but she was always so high and mighty with me. I never hated anyone as much, not even the Germans I fought in the trenches, no one. She felt just the same about me too, and she didn’t trouble to hide it either. She said I wasn’t to call him Bengie, like I always had. I had to call him “Sir”, and I had to call her “Madam”. I could see Bengie hated it, but he would never argue with her, never. He was sick with love for her, bewitched he was. Can’t think why. She never looked after him like she should have. She was always letting him catch chills. I warned her. I warned her. I told her times he wasn’t to get cold and wet else he’d have his chest trouble again. She wouldn’t listen. She knew best.
‘So she goes fishing with him, early in the season, March it was and driving wind and rain. He comes back looking like death. He knew it was the finish of him. He told me I had to promise to look after her, so what else could I do? He was dead by the summer, twenty years ago last June. I sprinkled his ashes on the croquet lawn, and she watches from the window because it’s raining. We liked croquet, Bengie and me. Nothing better on a summer’s evening. But Bengie lied to me. He left everything to her. Oh, I had my cottage for my lifetime, but everything else – the car, the house, everything he’d promised me, he left to her. And that’s not the half of it. She calls me in the day after I’d spread his ashes. She wants to buy me off. She’ll pay me a thousand pounds if I leave the cottage tomorrow. I was tempted, I can tell you. But I didn’t want to live anywhere else. And besides, I’d promised Bengie, hadn’t I? So I stayed, and it was a good thing for her that I did.
‘She wouldn’t listen now any more than when Bengie was alive. She wasted all the money Bengie had left her on breeding horses that ran fast as the wind in her head but slow as carthorses on the racing tracks. The money was running out. The cook had to leave, then the housemaids, then the farm labourers. In the end there was just me – cook, butler, stable lad, chauffeur and shepherd, all in one. And never a kind word, never a smile in all those years. She’d sit in her chair in the Justice Room, talking to herself about her horses.
‘No one came near the place, and that was fine by me. If ever they did, she’d drive them off with a shotgun and I’d help her. Just about the only thing we ever agreed on. We liked the place to ourselves. And then, about three years ago now, I found her sitting there in her chair staring out of the window, but her eyes weren’t seeing. I closed them. I scattered her ashes on the croquet lawn where I had scattered Bengie.
‘I had hopes after she died, high hopes. After all, I’d done everything for her, everything, hadn’t I? She had no family, no friends. And I had a right to it. Didn’t I have a right to something? So what does she do? She’s got no one to leave it to, so she leaves it to everyone. She goes and leaves it all to the National Trust. All her life she hated people coming on to the place, and she knew I hated it too. She knew it! She did it to spite me. That’s why next week, if she has her way, there’ll be thousands of people trampling all over my place. And it is my place. Bengie promised me. I don’t want them here. I won’t have them! I won’t allow it! I won’t!’ And he slapped the arm of his chair, slopping the tea on to his trousers. He sat glaring at me, his lips trembling. I didn’t know what to say, so I said the first thing that came into my head.
‘About the man I saw?’ I asked him. ‘The face in the attic window.’
‘Just the plumber, I expect,’ he said, ‘come to put the tank in the attic. He’s been finishing off for weeks.’ He seemed to be struggling to compose himself. He went on. ‘He’ll be gone by now. He locks up, but I’ve got a secret key of my own. I expect you’ll be wanting to see over the place, will you?’ I thought he’d never ask.
I followed him down through the vegetable garden, a frail figure tottering ahead of me in the gloom, and talking as he went. ‘I used to grow the best leeks in all Devon in this garden,’ he said. ‘And I dug the earliest potatoes too. Beautiful.’
We came at last into a dark courtyard behind the house. ‘They don’t like me going in,’ he said. ‘But I go where and when I please. Like I told you, it’s my place.’ The door opened and a light came on inside. ‘You can find your own way round,’ he said over his shoulder. ‘I can’t manage the stairs anymore. I’ll wait for you in the Justice Room. That way.’ And he stabbed a crooked finger in the direction of a closed door at
the end of a dark corridor.
For half an hour maybe, I explored the house. I began in the huge kitchens and went down the stone steps into the vaulted cellars. In the dining-room I sat alone at the end of the long polished table gazing up at the portraits of my ancestors. None of them were smiling, and as I left the room I noticed that their eyes were following me out. I felt I was not at all welcome, that they were glad to see the back of me.
The drawing-room was sumptuous and grand – oriental carpets everywhere, veneered wood the colour of honey, landscape pictures on the walls and the most capacious armchairs I ever saw. I sank deep into one of them and stretched out my legs, my heels resting on the brass fenders. I had to imagine the log fire and the Wolfhounds at my feet, but it wasn’t difficult.
After that I went upstairs and along the dark corridors. I looked in on each and every one of the bedrooms – I must have tried out a dozen beds. I was lying on the four-poster bed in the biggest bedroom, dreaming my grand illusions, when I heard footsteps above me. Someone was moving about up in the attic. I remembered the plumber, and thought no more of it.
It was some time before I could find my way back to the hallway where I had begun my tour. I opened the door at the end of the corridor and found the old man standing by the fireplace in a magnificent room with ornate plaster ceilings and chandeliers – by far the biggest and grandest room in the house.
‘There you are,’ he said. ‘I was wondering where you’d got to. The Justice Room they used to call this. But there is no justice, is there, not in this world? There’s only revenge. An eye for an eye. Bengie and me, we read poetry in here. We wrote a bit too. We’d play cards at that table over there. He shouldn’t have treated me the way he did, he shouldn’t have done it.’ He leaned heavily on the back of a chair and looked around him. ‘And that’s where she sat in her chair looking out over the park. That’s where I found her the day she died.’ He was looking straight at me now, almost into me. ‘I’ve been thinking – the soldier in the picture up there above the fire, he was a Bickford. He looks just like you, the spitting image, I’d say. Come to think of it, you and Bengie, you’re just like he was when we came back here after the war. You seen all you want, have you?’
‘The plumber’s still here,’ I said. ‘I heard him up in the attic. I thought he’d gone.’
‘Finishing off, always finishing off.’ The old man turned away. ‘I’ll show you the croquet lawn if you like. Bengie always beat me at croquet. He cheated and I let him. He cheated at cards too, and I let him. But he cheated me once too often. They both did.’
We went outside and stood in front of the house on the croquet lawn. Amist was shrouding the valley and a white screecher owl flew low and silent over the fields. ‘Not many of they owls left,’ said Percy Glanville. ‘You’d best be going. It’s getting dark.’
And so I thanked him and left him standing on the lawn. I jumped the open ditch and walked down across the field towards the road. When I turned to wave, he was gone. I noticed too that the plumber’s pick-up truck was gone. The last glint of red sun set fire to the attic window, the same window where I’d seen the face earlier that afternoon. I stopped only to collect a handful of red oak acorns to take home with me, souvenirs, so I wouldn’t forget. Not that I’m likely to. My last sight of the house was from the bridge over the stream. It glowered at me through the mist and I was suddenly very relieved my family had decided to move to Vermont when they did. I was glad I hadn’t been born there.
Has it been worth it, worth coming all this way just to see an old house? I think so. At least I know now where I come from and maybe, just maybe, that’ll help to show me where I’m going – you never know. Then there’s that old man and his story. You could write a whole book about that. I won’t sleep tonight, that’s for sure, thinking about him and that face in the window, and the plumber I heard but I never saw – unless he was the face in the window. I guess I’ll never know.
I’m suddenly hungry. So I’ll have a quick shower and grab a sandwich downstairs and a glass or two of their warm beer. I know I shouldn’t, but like Oscar Wilde says, ‘I can resist just about everything except temptation,’ or something like that.
Then I’ll have an early night. London tomorrow, then home. I’ll be back in Vermont the day after. Two days Devon to Vermont – that’s a whole lot quicker than it was for my ancestors.
A fire engine just went wailing by. A little toy of a thing compared to ours at home. I saw a house burning once back in Woodstock when I was a kid. It was a lovely starlit night, I remember, just like tonight. That fire was the most beautiful sight I ever saw and the most terrible too.
There was only one suspect and his trail was easy enough to follow. The plumber had seen a young man with a rucksack come walking up the drive towards the house. The landlord at the Nethercott Cross pub had served a young American a beer and listened to his tale of how he’d been visiting Nethercott House, searching for his roots. He’d even told him his name. And then at The George, Nathaniel Bickford had signed his name in the visitors’ book; and everyone remembered the rainbow scarf. The farmer in the Land Rover who gave him a lift back to Hatherleigh remembered the stench of petrol on the young man. That was why he rang the police when it came on the television about the fire and about how the police were looking for a young American with a rucksack and wearing a rainbow-coloured scarf. Nathaniel Bickford had left so many clues behind him, it was almost as if he wanted to be caught.
The police tracked him down at Exeter St David’s station. He was sitting on his rucksack waiting for the London train. Back at the police station, he told them everything just as it happened. He’d recorded it in his diary, he said. He handed it over willingly enough. He’d done nothing wrong. He’d help all he could. All he wanted was to get it over with, he said. He had a plane to catch. The detective read the diary carefully, making notes as he did so. When he’d finished he sucked on his pencil and looked across the table at Nat.
‘There’s just a few little things wrong with your story,’ he said.
‘What do you mean “wrong”?’ said Nat, unable any longer to hide his impatience.
‘This old man you mention, this Mr Glanville. He lived up there all right, in the cottage, like you say. We know that. But he doesn’t any longer. He died two days ago in Barnstaple, in hospital. Heart failure. So it’s hardly likely you were talking to him yesterday afternoon, is it? And that car, the Silver Ghost? We know about the car too. But it was never there yesterday, any more than Percy Glanville was. It was sold when the old lady died and that was three years ago. Made a fortune in the salerooms up in London. That’s where they found the money to do the place up. But it broke his heart, poor old boy. Everyone around knows how much he loved that car. That was when he took to the drink.’ Nat could feel his heart pounding. ‘You’re in deep trouble, young man, and what’s worse, you’re cocky with it, aren’t you? You were so sure you were going to get away with it, you didn’t even bother to wash your trousers, did you? You stink of petrol, you know that? What d’you think we are over here, stupid?’ He waved the diary in Nat’s face. ‘And as for this. Fantasy! Storytime! But unfortunately for you there’s a dead giveaway in it, right at the end, the bit about how you think a big fire’s the most beautiful thing in the world. You wrote it, son. It’s all in here.’
No matter how vociferously Nat insisted and argued, he could feel the incriminating evidence building up against him and around him like a wall. It was a nightmare he longed to wake from, but could not.
The police were convinced by now that they had enough evidence to hold Nathaniel Bickford on suspicion of arson. Then the report came in from the Fire Officer. The police expected it to confirm their suspicions. It did not. It said the fire had definitely not been started by petrol. The evidence was quite clear. It was started by a blow-torch left on in the attic. They had found it there, fused in the heat to the gas cylinder and the water tank. There was no question about it. The plumber must have left
his blow-torch on and that was how the fire had begun. Probably an accident. There was certainly no evidence of arson. They had to let him go.
Nathaniel Bickford went home to Vermont the next day. Nearly thirty years later and he’s never been back to England. As he always says when he tells the story, ‘Once was quite enough.’
And on Spring Farm near Woodstock in Vermont, if you look in amongst the maple trees down by the Sugar House, you’ll find a single young oak tree growing straight and strong, the only survivor of the acorns he brought back all those years ago from England. In the autumn its leaves are a flicker of red flame in amongst the glowing gold of the maples. Nathaniel Bickford never passes it without remembering.
Letter from Kalymnos
I was on holiday in Greece with my young family some years ago. We went diving off a boat. There was an Italian couple with us, young, newly married, happy. He went diving, and just never came up. We found his body later. It all happened on such a beautiful day.
August 24th, 1995
Dear Zo,
I’ve been trying to write to you for some time, but until now I haven’t known what to say or how to say it. But I must write it now.
I expect you hate me after what I’ve done. I certainly couldn’t blame you if you did. I just hope that, when you’ve read this letter, you’ll understand why I did what I did, and then maybe you won’t hate me quite so much.
All my life, the part of it I can remember, you’ve been my best friend, ever since St John The Baptist Junior School, class one – Miss Parmenter’s class. Who could forget Miss Parmenter, with her spectacles cut in half so that she could look daggers at you over the top? She caught me writing ‘bum’ on the back of my hand, and then she caught you giggling at it. I was always getting you into trouble. We noth had to write ‘bum’ a hundred times and take it to the head teacher so we wouldn’t think it was funny any more. It didn’t work, did it? Every class we were in, we always managed to sit next to each other, and you let me copy you whenever I needed to, which was often. Once we got to Pretoria Street Comp we still stuck together. We engineered it so that we both did French and English and archaeology right through to the sixth form. Silly really, because I was always hopeless at French. I still am.
From Hereabout Hill Page 8