Mr. Chartwell

by Rebecca Hunt

  “Hah, obnoxious clown,” Churchill said, turning to look at him, a defiant smile twitching. “In that case your eyes are a derelict staircase leading to a barren landing.” He drank from the glass, lip pushed whitely to the rim, draining the whisky. The glass went down with a firm clunk on the side.

  “I remind myself continually not to perform autopsies on the future, but I admit I cannot prevent myself. It is an irremediable flaw.”

  “You should treat yourself kindly,” Black Pat said from the sheets. “You should let yourself listen to the compulsions that drive you to do it.”

  “Gammon!” Churchill reached behind his head to tug a pillow higher against the headboard. “I can’t bear the sound of my own voice, it won’t quiet. And it talks with such gloom, wanting to pauperise me. No, I won’t listen. As Oscar Wilde said, ‘Don’t squander the gold of your days listening to the tedious.’ ”

  He said this with an underlying sense of futility, looking at a vase of oxeye daisies Clementine had placed on his windowsill, put there with love and springing with life. He thought of Clementine’s hands picking them, dear hands among the leaves.

  “Do you know what my wife says to me during these periods when you are around? She calls me a poor old thing.” A ripple of air caught the petals and they fluttered their tips with the draught. “Although sometimes I wonder which of us is really the poor old thing …” Churchill frowned. “It’s an enduring bruise on my conscience that our vile alliance has had such impact upon her. I worry about the sacrifices she has made for me, aware that I can’t hope to repay them, and the gratitude terrifies me. It devours me.”

  The empty glass smoked with fumes, the scent of whisky drawing Black Pat to the bedside table, sidling there. His craving snout came within inches then ducked inside, wet against the deep glass base.

  Churchill noticed. “That is Johnnie Walker Red Label, an exemplary blended Scotch. And not a drink I would offer to you.” He added, “I’d rather use it to kill my plants.”

  Black Pat made a smooch of his mouth, amused. The glass was released, banged across the tabletop and then left perilously on the edge. That hog from the quag! Churchill nudged the glass to safety with a finger.

  Footsteps outside the door paused, a knuckle rapping before the handle bent and his nurse and factotum, Roy Howells, entered with a pot of fresh coffee.

  Howells moved busily, the carpet an invisible network of circuits he had travelled every day for years: to the bedside table; to the wardrobe; to the bathroom; to the window.

  “It’s nearly time for your afternoon bath, sir. Should I set the taps running?”

  “Very good, Howes,” said Churchill, using the customary nickname. “Thank you.”

  Howells disappeared into the adjoining bathroom, the taps blasting into the tub.

  Jock had strolled in behind Howells. With a graceful bounce the cat landed on the bed, rubbing its head on Churchill’s arm. Catching sight of Black Pat, it jacked up its back and spat.

  “Quite right, Jock.” Churchill smiled. “My sentiments exactly.”

  The cat was vicious, a small orange warrior. Caught by surprise, Black Pat whickered, his heavy head dodging the threshing claws.

  “Keep buggering on,” Churchill said encouragingly.

  “Me?”

  “Not you, you poltroon, I was talking to Jock. I would much rather you keep buggering off.” Churchill let out a sigh, adding, “But I know how empty that statement is.”

  Black Pat’s expression was entertained and then broke, a deeper feeling in him lit across his face in a ghost. “I will be accompanying you tomorrow.”

  “Yes.” The cat wound under Churchill’s hand and then twisted back. “It would trouble me if you didn’t.”

  CHAPTER 36

  4.50 p.m.

  On either side of Chartwell’s front door was an elaborate eighteenth-century doorcase, carved wooden pillars decorated with overlapping leaves, two carved horns sending up a spray of wooden vines. It was a subtle introduction to the artistic investment made in the house by the owners. There on the doorstep were Corkbowl and Esther.

  “You can do it, champ.” Corkbowl gave her a gentle smile.

  She nodded at him, an anxious champ.

  Howells invited them in and they stood in the narrow hall, quietly examining the giant visitors’ book placed on the walnut dresser. The book was guarded by a bronze of a Thoroughbred horse. A mahogany umbrella stand held a collection of walking sticks.

  Esther received instructions from Howells: He would take her to Churchill’s study presently. She was not to stay too long, as Churchill would need rest later. Corkbowl had his own instructions; he would be quarantined in Clementine’s study until required to drive Esther home. Both would receive tea if they wanted. Did they want tea? Then this would be arranged.

  Up the stairs went Howells, Esther following. The staircase was a series of sharp corners, framed political cartoons over the walls, and photographs, Lord Kitchener in one of them, which seemed appropriate. On the landing, Howells cruised in front, his steps snatching lengths of precious carpet as he led Esther to the study. Esther tried to dawdle, to drag back some seconds. It was hopeless, Howells too efficient, already knocking on the study door. An inquisitive noise bid them enter, Churchill in his chair. He was the man she knew from newspapers and television, older than she had imagined him although she knew his age. That famous voice was still mostly unchanged and it would address her personally. Being starstruck was a flighty feeling, Esther a bit giddy with it.

  “Esther Hammerhans, sir.” Howells heeled neatly and was gone.

  Esther held her bag in a white fist.

  “Ah, excellent.” Churchill indicated a small table set up near his desk. On it was a typewriter, made to be silent, and a ream of stacked paper. A straight-backed chair was ready for her.

  Esther crept to the table. About to ask a question to ease the silence, she remembered Dennis-John’s instructions and didn’t. Instead she prepared the typewriter, a long procedure.

  The arm of Churchill’s spectacles was in his mouth. Out it came. “You have completed your preparations?” He was keen to start. This was a difficult afternoon, pleasureless. He tasted the apprehension like chemical smoke in his throat, knowing they would probably be joined by that maddening numbfish. It was more than probable. “Should we begin?”

  She was ready, yes, smiling and pleasant. But something about Esther disturbed him. Hello, what’s this? There was a quality to her, a recognisable … Hmmm. His radar identified the property and monitored it. Yes, a strange energy about her, a dying star in the sky of her face.

  Unaware, Esther sat at her small table. She privately toured the room from her chair. Above the door to the stairs hung a painting by John Lewis Brown titled Two Cavalry Officers. One officer in a cream jacket raised a strict arm at the officer in red, the red officer with his back to the viewer. Studying the painting, Esther emoted with the faceless red officer, seeing him there on his slovenly horse. A quick glance at Churchill saw he was looking at the gardens, looking away from her. Reassured, she started the tour of his study again.

  Churchill was evaluating his thoughts. Unusual thoughts; Churchill dismissed them. Pox-rot, he chastised himself. Bunkum.

  His mental focus returned to the speech, this abomination of a chore. The speech had to be aggressively approached; a task to throw over by the ankle. Bah, start the thing, he lectured his reluctant mood, and shuffled papers on his desk.

  For a few silent moments Churchill thumbed through the card catalogue of his past, resolving an introduction. Esther poised at the typewriter and then he had it, the words found. A sentence was dictated.

  Useless with nerves she typed out a string of nonsense. “Oh I’m so sorry, I’ve …” Perhaps if she used the correction fluid. She reached for it and was stopped.

  “No matter.” Churchill gave her a game nod. “We shall re-launch. Take that sheet and confound it to the floor.”

  The act of throwin
g the crushed paper, littering Churchill’s carpet: Esther smiled at how much Dennis-John would purple. She visualised this purple Dennis-John as the paper became a ball. Over it went, now there on the floor. More paper was fed into the platen knobs, the paper bail reset. The mood between Churchill and Esther warmed from the difficult distance of strangers. They became two unenthusiastic and melancholy allies driven together to complete a duty. Churchill took in a breath, drove it out, took in another, started again. The psalm melody of his words tolled over the beams. It was a speech of compassion for his country, a farewell to his career.

  Esther hunched to type, the alphabet printing through the ribbon. They fell into a rhythm of concentration. And then it happened.

  Footsteps. Deviant steps. Esther gambled a look at the study door. In soaked the distinguished stink. Her eyes dealt an ill stare at Churchill. What should they do? Esther watched Churchill for clues. His frown had formed dour hooks. The intensity of Esther’s watching caught his attention and he repaired the gap in his dictation, moderating his frown, believing she was waiting for him to continue.

  “Let us not be men of straw.” A grey smile from Churchill. “We should keep going if we are to finish this damned exercise.” And they carried on.

  Awful, the door eased open. In he walked, that beast. He walked with a pantomime sneak, careful not to wake the children, this Santa Claus from the underworld. Black Pat was using a quavering voice, the voice of a very elderly woman, singing “Tiptoe Through the Tulips.”

  Esther tried to focus as Churchill spoke. It was useless. Black Pat performed his way across the room and bashed down like a sack in between them. A grin fought the seal of his lips.

  Churchill noticed the direction of Esther’s gaze. No. No, she couldn’t see it. Behave, he told himself. Behave logically, by Jehovah.

  Esther acted normally and was a terrible actor. The smiling secretary, she gave Churchill a smile and searched through the options. All options were poor: Churchill could see Black Pat—it was certain, Esther knowing this absolutely. But what of her ability to do the same? Esther wanted to shout it out and be bankrupt. She wanted to clench Churchill’s hand and tell him she knew, to grip his cuff in a hard twist and tell him.

  Instead she did nothing. The noble action was no action, for to discuss the dog would violate a guarded privacy, exhuming the bones of a family of secrets. It would be grave robbery. The dog’s genius was to make orphans of hope and brotherhood, and she was united with Churchill in their isolation.

  Esther feigned consummate ignorance. She swiped with the small clogged brush of correction fluid, making a job of it. She told herself briskly that no black dog was in the room, no black animal had discovered the ball of crushed paper and was toying with it, no giant nose sporting with a soggy paper ball.

  Lying on his side Black Pat sent the ball tumbling. He bunted his body after it, claws driven into the carpet as he dragged on his stomach. Claiming the paper, his prize was to eat it. Noisy and disgusting, his happy jaws mashed the ball into a fibrous slop. Esther instructed herself to be completely unaware.

  Churchill slowly worked the hinge of a spectacle arm, wondering. He was supremely talented at concealing his acknowledgement of the dog, suffering with the self-discipline of a samurai. But this Esther Hammerhans was less experienced. The kicking glances she sent, those unintentional jumps of her hands, they were a log of revelations. Here was another one—Esther’s cemetery expression as that louche bastard tongued her shoe, drawn there by a fascinating scent. Another revelation came in her tight blast of annoyance as the beast knocked her with his huge head.

  Impossible. But could it be possible? No, it was unquantifiable. Churchill reached a conclusion and tore it up. He came back to the same conclusion and sat with it. Might it be that she could see this living expletive, this gimcrack kraken, this … Churchill restrained his wrath, putting a stilling hand on it. Keep studying, be sure. A discreet slap as Esther threw Black Pat’s reeking paw from her shoulder, and she was found out.

  Esther bobbed from the paw, begging between locked teeth, “Stop it.”

  Black Pat said, “Don’t think I will,” the clowning paw going for her shoulder.

  Churchill put a thumb to his lip. Esther was new to the four-legged poison, that much was obvious. It was clear in her anxiety, the shock of it still fresh. A few days at an estimate, a week, certainly the first time. Yet the dog was upon her. And he had done much already, his passion betrayed in those loving little looks. Churchill saw it as he had seen it in others. His father, his daughters, his son. Himself. And if given time the animal would thin her down in the same way, for what the dog captured it possessed and starved. So then what? A matter this sensitive required rare tactics. Toe forwards, Churchill thought. Toe forth. He said with extreme care, “Some days, such as this one, I find about as beguiling as a breakfast of death cap toadstools.”

  He observed her. Was she with him? It seemed not, her cheeks stewing with embarrassment as she ignored Black Pat. Difficult to ignore, the dog dived around on the floor, chasing her shoelaces and grunting.

  “For some days seem to offer only the promise of spreading increasing discomfort to the days ahead.” Churchill made a purse of his mouth. “I thought I’d mention it; my suspicions told me you may understand what I mean.”

  No, not quite. Esther waited for more. Black Pat also waited, the shoelaces forgotten.

  “It’s during these unforgiving times,” said Churchill, “I can discover I’m permitting myself to lurch into a state of nostalgie de la boue.”

  “Sorry, de-la-what? Nosta-what?”

  “It literally translates,” Churchill told her, “as a longing for mud, a curious appetite for depravity. For me it’s caused by the occasions when I turn to the horizon and see advancing an army of storms. In the presence of overwhelming apprehension, thoughts can tempt towards surrender, towards accepting direct defeat.”

  Esther’s finger bent and met a key on the typewriter, tapping there. If she understood correctly then this was a veiled reference to Black Pat. Here was an unusual dilemma.

  “But”—above the tortoiseshell spectacles, Churchill studied Esther—“this black mental annotation is not to be viewed as truthful, it is only a kink in the link.” He stopped to gauge how far to push it. They were on tender ground. He urged her to meet his taciturn advances with her own.

  Black Pat wasn’t playing anymore. He lay on the floor, quiet and dangerous.

  She spoke at last. “I’ve heard that phrase before.”

  “I’ll wager that you have.” Churchill let her watch him clip a clear, patent glance at the dog. “And it’s not all you’ll have heard.”

  So they were talking about their mutual companion. Esther absorbed this. In it went, this uniquely weird information. Then out it came, too weird to be retained. Black Pat’s sense of caution was tuned on all frequencies, a powerful attitude radiating from him.

  Churchill added, “And to anyone who has listened to such falsehoods, I would advise this: Mendacity is bilge, mendacity through a bullhorn is merely loud bilge.”

  “Loud bilge …” Esther sounded apologetic.

  “I fancy I’m trying to express that what seizes our attention is not always what should hold our attention.” Very steadily Churchill’s gaze brewed. “For, Esther Hammerhans, the demands made on us by corruptive forces can sometimes be challenging to filter. We can believe we are making a choice based on the evidence placed before us, but it’s not a choice if the evidence comes from a goon community.”

  Churchill paused, distracted by the surprising difficulty of the subject. Ah, a new angle.

  “It should be stated that the blackest words deserve no more heed than intestinal wind.”

  Should it be stated? Esther worked at this statement in a heroic effort not to laugh, moderately successful.

  He said, “Do you follow?”

  “I nearly follow. Maybe if …” The words tactfully died out.

  “Har.” Churc
hill relayed his arguments back to himself, finding them comically obscure. A valiant attempt, yes, but at an abstract tilt. He gave it another shot.

  “In every life’s landscape there are prairies and caverns …”—a hesitation dithered and then drove on—“… and a path cuts into the recesses as well as the highland. Some paths cut far further than others, cutting into deep caves.” Churchill registered his name whispered from the floor. He snubbed it. “And so be it, if that’s the course. But I would never venture to the caves if other options were available to me, and should this be the solitary option, I would still exhaust all spirit resisting.” A scowl aimed quickly at the whispering, threatening it. “And more than that, above all else, I dearly hope I would perform no action which assisted these darker journeys. If it happens, then I strive to tolerate it; however, I will never consent to the descent.”

  “Which can get tiresome.” Dry and flat, Black Pat’s voice came from the floor and got no attention.

  Esther listened to Churchill.

  “Stand firm. Offer no help, no hand to …”—Churchill broke off, setting his jaw in determination—“… to the hostile forces who would have you do otherwise.”

  The dog moved one of his hind legs and made a flabby sound. Esther wasn’t interested in him. Inside her a tiny but voracious optimism sent out its horns. She looked at Churchill and looked away. She looked at Black Pat and speculated. She looked at the past few days and saw the coming days differently. Black Pat goofed about, keen to divert her. Hard to divert; he leant his head and took a clump of Esther’s skirt. Delicious; he gave it a tug. The skirt pulled taut to the point of ripping.

  Churchill mourned that she didn’t have the spice to thrash the dog. Thrash him, he silently commanded, as Esther wrestled her skirt with dainty fury. That retaliation, thought Churchill, has the spice of white bread.

  “May I proffer some immediate advice?” he said to her, watching from his chair. “Take immediate action.”