Mr. Chartwell

by Rebecca Hunt

  Black Pat cut her off with a bitchy slant of his eyes. He did it again, a very unsavoury dismissal. A few beats passed and he spoke, the voice patronising. “Are you going to take a bath now?”

  Esther fidgeted with her bundle of clothes, shifting them around. Black Pat wedged the spoon against his gums. She hadn’t answered, so he said the word “Okay” through shut lips. Through shut lips he said, “Fine.”

  He walked to the tub and manipulated the taps easily. The bath plug was fumbled into place and water began to collect. He squirted a string of shampoo into the rolling water and it foamed. Black Pat squashed himself in, lowered into a torpedo, and lunged at the ends of the bath, his front legs flattened, his face thrown over with soap. Colliding with one end, he struggled round and lunged at the other. Water came spilling over the bath sides and collected in lagoons on the floor. Esther refereed silently from above her clothes.

  Black Pat tried to clean his back. He overturned and flailed, mouth flooding, his head knocking against the sides. He stood up, looked round at his back, was unsatisfied, and overturned again. Then he flipped onto his front and made a few more lunges.

  The sight of him there was strangely endearing, working an odd little spell on her. “Do you need any help?” asked Esther.

  “No, just fine,” he replied tartly, eyes buried in soap.

  “I could help you.” Esther put her clothes on the wicker laundry basket and fetched a dustpan brush from the cabinet under the sink.

  “I don’t need any help, thank you,” he snapped, slipping over with a tidal splash.

  “This method of yours is ridiculous. You look ridiculous,” said Esther frankly. “Let me help, for Christ’s sake.”

  Black Pat didn’t answer but Esther noticed his lunging had slowed. Now he was floating around gently, paddling his paws. She moved over and started scrubbing his back. The water turned grey as she worked the dirt loose, the bath grey, the floor pooled grey. She scrubbed harder, pumping her shoulders, the brush gripped with both hands. She had to stop now and then to tug her dressing gown back into place.

  Black Pat let her rinse him using a plastic cup which she emptied over him in long sweeps. His face looked mournful as a waterfall ran from his great snout, the bristly hair beaten flat against his ribs. He lifted docile paws like a pony for Esther to clean the pads, then shook them neatly.

  The job was done. Esther hung a couple of towels over him, a nice finishing touch. Black Pat stood there, throbbing with the desire to shake his body dry. It was an irresistible urge. His head started turning slowly side to side, lips tight in anticipation.

  Recognising this compulsion, Esther took cover behind the door. There was a second’s pause before he began to shake, then a torrent began. Water flew from his coat and battered against the tiles, the towels hurled across the room. It went on until only a litter of specks. Black Pat wheezed with relief when it was over, his fur in tiny spikes.

  He stepped out of the bath and puddles grew around him. Black Pat didn’t care. He sat down, kneading a saturated ear.

  “You weren’t really supposed to come up here,” said Esther. “I thought we’d agreed that you would stay downstairs.”

  “I agreed to sleep down there.” He started kneading the other ear. “However, I’m renting a room up here so I can’t be banned.”

  “Of course not,” said Esther. “Not banned. I didn’t mean you were banned.” She did. She took in the bathroom: a sodden landscape, a slovenly mess. “I know you’re renting that room.”

  “And you pay for what you get,” said Black Pat. He put his weight on one foreleg.

  “I think it’s ‘You get what you pay for,’ ” said Esther.

  “Sure,” said Black Pat. “It can be that way too.” His smile was a slight one. “But not in my experience.”

  CHAPTER 16

  8.50 a.m.

  Corkbowl walked across Victoria Tower Gardens to Westminster Palace, the river to his right, the banks lined with large plane trees, boats in the water. The grass scratched at his shoes. Victoria Tower rose up. His route took him directly past the Buxton Memorial Fountain, a curious thing of garish coloured arches.

  A gate led to a private passage around the palace, with a flagstone path to the staff doorway. Corkbowl stopped and took a moment to smarten himself up, putting his brown jacket back on over his white shirt, tightening his slackened tie. Then, inside the building, to the library. The buffeting slip of the double doors took him to the reception area. Dennis-John was there speaking to Beth in moderated frustration; her elbow rested on the high reception desk.

  “When you see her, instruct her that she must report to me. I need to talk to her about an important task.” He added, “Esther can’t spend all her days hiding in corners. It’s time she actually earned her salary.”

  Impulsive reflexes overrode the menace of Dennis-John. Beth couldn’t help herself. “That shouldn’t be hard, being as we all earn monkey nuts.”

  “And do you know what’s worse than earning monkey nuts?” Dennis-John held himself together. Here it came: “Earning monkey nothing.” The genius of this devastated him.

  Dennis-John spoke over an invisible Beth. “Ah, you’re here, Corkbowl.” His voice whipped to Beth, Beth again the object of absolute focus. “Take him, will you? Give him to the Reference Room.”

  Beth pushed off the reception desk, a red grin in a sleeveless shirtwaist dress. On her wrist were blue rattling bangles, an insult to the ears of Dennis-John.

  “Loud jewellery,” Dennis-John shot after her, making her halt, “is indecent in the House of Commons Library and will not be tolerated.”

  He paused, watching Beth tug off the bangles, putting them obediently in a pocket. Dennis-John made his eyebrows supernaturally judgemental, staring at something. Beth’s head swivelled to look at her bare arms, finding nothing. Dennis-John’s eyes were on a higher place, drilling at a shoulder. Beth saw a fragment of bra strap. Waiting for her to amend it, Dennis-John said, “Dressing like the whore of Babylon is indecent in the House of Commons Library and will not be tolerated.”

  “There,” said Beth, presenting herself, “I’m completely tolerable.”

  “Barely tolerable,” Dennis-John answered. Here came his sly dig at her. “And this is why it’s crucial you work, as it shields your infant son from having to endure the sight of his mother cavorting in her underwear.”

  Beth made her standard argument. “Women can do a lot of jobs, you know, including raising a child.”

  “Jack of all trades, mother of none,” replied Dennis-John, a disapprover of these women. “Just ask your boy, he’ll say the same thing.”

  Beth turned from Dennis-John and rolled her eyes, used to his insults. They came in such a salad of venom and mad exaggeration that she had to work not to laugh openly. Corkbowl was taken by an arm and led away, much taller than his guide.

  Glad to be dragged with her, Corkbowl said, “You’re going to give me to the Reference Room?”

  “Yep.” Beth nodded. “You belong to Dennis-John now.”

  “Do I?”

  “Don’t ever forget it.”

  A bit stiff around new people, Corkbowl stared at his walking legs.

  Beth looked at him, noticing his straight nose, his strong jawline. Corkbowl had a lean long-distance athleticism and an interesting mouth which was small when shut, as it was here. If Big Oliver weren’t around, thought Beth, and smirked. Then she ended the silence. “You don’t say much, do you?”

  Corkbowl touched his dark curly hair, the curls springing up under his fingers. The irony of his silence nearly made him comment on it, which he thought would be a snappy debut, except that the moment was missed. No, today he was still only an urbane wisecracking man trapped in the shadow of a man without comic timing.

  “Don’t worry,” said Beth, catching him with a happy elbow, “I don’t talk much either. I hardly ever say anything, anything ever. I’m known around here as the Mute.”

  A joke came from
Corkbowl, nearly taking too long to be connected. His soft delivery wrecked any punch. Oh God, he said it anyway. “Not the whore of Babylon?”

  “The mute Babylonian whore!” Out blared a donkey laugh, Beth delighted by this idea. “Yeah, that’s my full title, that’s on my payslips. It’s what my parents call me.”

  They met Esther outside the entrance of room C, a large reading room. She was tying a shoelace, knelt over it next to the heavy wooden door. Hearing their footsteps, she stood up. Corkbowl loafed on the spot, listening to Beth run through her encounter with Dennis-John. Esther had buttoned her cardigan up wrong, two wrong buttons making it pleat on one side. Beth redid the cardigan as she spoke. “Es, the way you’re dressed! What happened to you this morning?”

  This morning: Black Pat, the bathroom, the bath with Black Pat in it, his black wet fur. Esther kept silent, squirming from the nannying fingers under her chin. Beth wouldn’t be put off, gripping Esther’s waist, forcing her back in place with firm re-adjustments. Over Beth’s hands Esther gave Corkbowl a wordless greeting, an upward shuck of her chin. It said, Oh, hello again. Corkbowl did a similar thing but with more panache.

  Beth brushed the cardigan straight. “Corkbowl was telling me all about himself.”

  “Was I?” asked Corkbowl.

  “No, but you were just about to,” Beth ordered him, enjoying it. “So go ahead.”

  “Umm …”

  “Let’s start with what you do with yourself.”

  “I don’t know, really. Ah, I like the normal things.” Anticipating Beth’s response, Corkbowl added, “Normal things like music.”

  “You play an instrument?” This was from Esther, interested. A shape caught her attention at the end of the corridor. She looked. It was gone. She checked again. Nothing.

  Beth said, “Esther used to play the trumpet.”

  “I used to play the cornet,” Esther corrected. “Ages ago when I was at school.”

  “Right, yes.” Corkbowl moved his spectacles, thick eyebrows behind them. “I used to play the violin, if that counts.”

  “And do you have a secret talent?” asked Beth.

  “Not even an overt talent, I’m afraid.”

  “What a liar he is.” Beth narrowed her eyes at Esther, a pantomime conspiracy. “I bet you do, I know you do. I can tell by the look of you.”

  “I suppose I cook sometimes. I can cook a few things.”

  “A secret chef!” Beth clapped her thigh, the case solved.

  “No, ha, not a chef. I can only cook some things, and only very averagely. Only semi-dishes. I’m a sort of semi-chef.”

  “A taste of the average with semi-food.” Beth laughed again. “Magical!”

  Yes, and he was a magical man, he told them, having fun. Corkbowl watched Esther’s cheeks light with a nunnish smile. He looked at her hair, hair that had never been lavished with attention. A plaster wrapped around the end of her index finger was found to be mystically stylish. Corkbowl’s heart rang like a tuning fork.

  There was a noise from the reception area, a loud slam of falling books, a female gasp. A vocal assassination from Dennis-John rang off the ceilings, his words a blur through the walkways.

  “Whoops. Dennis-John’s at high tide.” Beth looked in the direction of the commotion. Her arm pointed in the opposite direction. “Better give yourself to the Reference Room, Corkbowl.”

  “That way?” Corkbowl pointed with Beth.

  She nodded. “Stay clear of Dennis-John. If you see him, duck.”

  Corkbowl was fast, striding off.

  “Yes, you can hide but you can’t run. If you run you’ll trigger Dennis-John’s instinct to chase,” Esther called after him. Corkbowl turned as he marched, marching backwards.

  Beth had some better advice: “Just think of him as a peptic ulcer which attacks from the outside. That’s what we all do.”

  CHAPTER 17

  1.15 p.m.

  Churchill stood at the window of his parliamentary office and took in the view which would soon belong to someone else. Behind him his son, Randolph, was inspecting the various photographs dotted across the high walls. “I’m excited about writing your biography, Dad,” he said, one photograph holding his attention, then moving to the next.

  “Harrumph,” Churchill answered.

  Randolph said something sarcastic under his breath, smiling.

  Churchill continued looking out the window. There was nothing there that interested him particularly. He stared at the branches of a large plane tree which spread into the sky.

  Randolph was holding a small ivory elephant, turning it in his hands. “I don’t remember this, is it yours?”

  Churchill gave a cursory glance at the elephant. No, it wasn’t. Or maybe it was.

  Randolph put it back on the cabinet. “So why are we both in here? I didn’t think you had any engagements today.”

  Churchill said, “I don’t. My schedule is free. The reason we are here this afternoon is because you are generously humouring your father. It’s rather foolish but I felt a strong desire to come to my office, to be here quietly for a while.”

  “You’ll be here again,” Randolph said gently.

  “I don’t think I will. And not in this capacity.” Churchill remained at the window, still gazing at the branches. “No, not in this way again. If there is a next time it will be different. It’ll be different because I will be over the wall, if you follow my meaning.”

  Randolph asked, addressing the back of his father’s suit, “Does it hurt you to think of it?”

  “Only intimately,” Churchill replied.

  Randolph continued watching for a moment, then, wanting to lift the mood, inspected a dishevelled potted plant. “And what about this wasted thing?” he said to his father. “Was it always here?”

  “I rather think it was,” said Churchill. He grinned at its unhealthy yellowed stem, its straggling foliage. “I’m not convinced it’s supposed to droop like that at the stem. And where are the rest of the leaves?”

  “Should we take it with us?”

  “My God, no,” said Churchill.

  He put a finger underneath his bow tie and stretched it out. The knot was bad and the bow tie came away in a tangled mass. “Bah,” said Churchill. He tossed the bow tie to a nearby table. It missed. There was a wet smacking noise. Black Pat tongued the bow tie up from the carpet.

  “Damnation …” Churchill rucked his forehead.

  Black Pat chewed the bow tie to the front of his jaws, letting it bunch there. Then he let it hang out, one end flapping wetly. Seconds later it spooled back to the floor, Black Pat finished with it.

  “Who are you talking to?” Randolph had turned from the plant. “Where’s your bow tie?”

  “It’s over there,” Churchill lied; he knew Randolph wouldn’t look. He didn’t, wandering over to the bookcase and lifting out a large volume, opening it at random and scanning the page.

  “Get out, you pill,” Churchill fizzed at the dog. “I’m here with my son.”

  “You’re here with your what?” Randolph asked absently from across the room, head bowed to the book.

  “I’m here with my thoughts,” said Churchill. “And my memories.”

  “Yes, me too,” Randolph said fondly.

  Black Pat was looking at Randolph, studying him with languid eyes. Churchill knew that his son also suffered from depressive periods, seeing the same dark reservoirs in Randolph as were quarried in him. Randolph was free from it at this time, but the sight of Black Pat’s expression released a billowing cloud of dread in Churchill, knowing the ebbing and flowing methodology of the dog, knowing also how the spores of his influence could work into your core.

  Churchill took up the aluminium shooting stick he used to aid his walking and moved towards the door.

  “You should stay here for a while.” Black Pat’s voice was damp. “Let Randolph go.”

  Randolph shut the book with a dull clap of paper. “Shall we leave now?”

  “Let hi
m go,” said Black Pat.

  “Yes,” Churchill said to Randolph, and then, “No, not quite.”

  “I’ll stay with you,” Black Pat said in a hush.

  Churchill strained a note from his chest at what he was about to say. “Randolph, do you mind waiting outside? I’ll be there shortly.”

  Randolph left, the door closing with a click. Churchill went to his desk, resting the tips of his fingers on the surface and leaning on them. The desk was well polished, his fingers making small moons of condensation.

  He said to the dog, “I have spent years in this building.” His face turned away. “I feel my past in the walls and in the rooms. I hear the tide of my existence, the years swelling and then replaced. And the decades draw patterns in foam on the sandstone.”

  Churchill moved the position of his hands, ten more condensation moons appearing. The ivory elephant shone white on its cabinet among the gilt-framed photographs. The room was peaceful, its surfaces lustrous in the diffused afternoon light. A wood pigeon called in its passive voice from somewhere close.

  The dog was next to him, a black dune. Churchill coughed, making a rough, brisk sound to gather himself, needing to harden up. Head raised, he cast a concluding glance around the office, making a record, eyes finishing at an anonymous spot on the carpet before him. He gave it a few affectionate taps with the end of the shooting stick, the aluminium giving off a ringing twang. “So then, this is it.”

  CHAPTER 18

  1.35 p.m.

  Esther was busy putting books away, the library trolley at her side stacked high.

  A mild Beth appeared. “I’ve got a confession to make.”

  Around the room were a few politicians, reading and writing at the tables near the windows, none in earshot.

  Beth said again, “I’ve got to make a confession.”

  “Could you make it later? I’ve got to work. All these books …”—Esther pointed a thumb at the trolley—“There’s a mountain of them.”

  She gave Beth an apologetic smile. The trolley wheels resisted as she pushed. As a strategy to make her stay, Beth grabbed the book Esther had just returned, tossing it back with the others.