by Patrick Gale
At the last chorus of Fa La La’s he took another gulp of wine and gazed about the room. Everyone was intent. No-one was at a loose end. He dropped his eyes to stare at his drained glass. He had never managed to drink wine without leaving an unappetizing scum on the rim. He wondered anew whether this crippling disability was something one grew out of, like nocturnal emissions. A firm hand tapped him on the shoulder and a young man said,
‘It’s not that bad. Let’s go outside and admire the view.’
Seth looked up. There was a hiss behind him. He turned and saw a blond stranger smiling in the open garden window. Seth returned the smile automatically and stood up.
‘Come on. It’s getting terribly hot in here, and there’s a marvellous sunset. My name’s Roly. Roly MacGuire.’
‘I’m Seth Peake.’
‘I know that. Bronwen told me.’
Anyone with whom Bronwen had spoken of such things could be trusted. Seth followed the good-looking man out into the dusk, while behind him Venetia squealed with delight and the Bevanses went Hey Dinga Dinga Ding.
Evelyn had recognized the temptation to lay a garden in the plot of land outside the main windows and had resisted it. Her grandparents had left the space untouched. Not only was the soil impossibly salty and the area buffeted by winds, but she also felt that beds of imported plants would look quite out of place. It was the sort of thing people did in Polperro. She had only done what was necessary to let the plot ‘speak’. There were only the flowers that nature had sown there. A lawn of sorts had been grown beside the windows, and carefully placed were pieces of sculpture in local stone and driftwood. The whole was stark but strong – exactly the effect that the mistress sought. Stepping outside, the young man exclaimed:
‘Now that’s good. Very good.’
Seth repressed the impulse to stare, and looked out to where the remarkable sunset was taking place.
‘Yes. Isn’t it,’ he said, ‘that’s one of the things I hate most about London – that one never sees the sun go down. Well, you do from bits of the heath, but never properly.’ The young man chuckled. Seth saw that he was laughing at him.
‘Actually, I was talking about the garden.’
‘Ah.’ Seth reddened in the softening light.
‘The sculptures are good. Whose are they?’
‘My mother bought them locally. I think those two tall thin ones are by Virginia Rawsthorne, that’s a Barbara Hepworth, that’s a Bronwen experiment Bron gave us last year, and that’s a Steiner she brought over from London. Not sure about the others.’ They began to walk towards one of the grey gloss benches on the perimeter, facing across the fields to the sea.
‘Bronwen’s quite incredible. She had me cornered just now.’
‘Are you a Professional, then?’
‘A what?’
‘A Professional. One of the pros in the orchestra. Bronwen tends to pounce on them, as they’re new.’
‘Oh. I see. No, I’m just a sort of artisan hanger-on. I’m renovating the church angels to pay for my keep.’
‘Who’s keeping you?’
‘My cousins at Trenellion.’
‘Really? Whereabouts do they live there?’
‘Sorry. I mean at Trenellion Hall.’ Seth faltered. ‘What’s the matter?’ Roly pursued.
‘That’s the second time I’ve made that mistake in forty-eight hours.’
‘I’m not really one of them. I’m the black sheep, thank God. We don’t see eye to eye so I’m sent to lodge in their lighthouse.’ They reached the bench and sat down. Roly looked at the view. ‘You’re quite right,’ he said, ‘the sunset’s good, too.’
Behind them someone shut the sliding glass panel with a click and the chatter of the party was replaced with the sounds of a distant harbour. The gulls had turned in. Roly looked at Seth and smiled with a gentle puff of breath through his nose. It was a wonderful nose, but Seth could think of nothing to say. He asked questions instead.
‘Do you play any instrument besides the chisel?’
‘Well. I used to play the trumpet.’
‘Why only used?’
‘I found the repertoire too limited, and I was better at art.’
‘Like me. They wouldn’t let me do German, because I sang in the choir and classes clashed.’
‘Du bist ein Tenor?’
‘Aber natürlich, Herr MacGuire.’
‘There. You still learnt some.’
‘Only from kantaten und lieder. What makes you the black sheep?’
‘They find it rather awkward because every girl they push at me becomes a good friend. On the whole, I prefer men.’
Surprised, Seth’s cheeks burned. Involuntarily he made a startled sound. Roland had quite clearly expected no reaction and looked concerned.
‘Sorry. Does that shock you?’
‘No. I don’t think it does really, it’s just that no-one’s ever blurted it like that to me before.’
‘You just took it for granted?’
‘Yes. Either that – I knew instinctively – or they beat around the bush for so long that I guessed what they were driving at and put them out of their misery.’
‘How?’
‘Kissed them. Usually.’
‘Seth, you’re absolutely puce! Would you like some water or something?’
‘Don’t talk about it. People always talk about it and that only makes it worse.’
Roland laughed. ‘You really haven’t had a conversation like this before, have you?’
‘No.’
Someone had just been using the bathroom lavatory and opened the window to clear the smell. There was a gentle sound of gushing water and a retreating whistle. La ci darem la mano. Seth glanced over his shoulder. Half the guests had left, to sort out who was going to sleep where and to save Mother from thinking she had to provide food on a grander scale. He turned back and stared at the vanishing rim of the sun. The shadows cast by the sculptures lay long across the grass. He couldn’t look at Roly. He wished no-one had left. Roly sighed and ran a hand through his hair. The movement caught Seth’s attention and their eyes met. They smiled. Seth flexed his muscles to stand but Roly broke the silence and he relaxed again.
‘This is an extraordinary house. You’re very lucky.’
‘Yes. I suppose it is. I couldn’t bear not to have it to come away to every summer. Imagine having to work all year in some office off Oxford Street then blow your year’s savings on a fortnight in Mykonos! I think if I woke up tomorrow and found myself in Pinner or Tring or one of those places where they have to live, I’d slash my wrists.’
Then there was a pause. A ghastly pause that made the boy’s heart freeze in its dock. It was like the silence when Mother had chanced on an obscene doodle once. Roly took a breath and began to speak so unexpectedly that Seth actually jumped.
‘That’s just the sort of thing I’ve grown to expect from a privileged Hampstead kid like you. You lounge here on your exclusive designer bench, in your little man suit, with your glass of supermarket plonk, because isn’t it fun once in a while, and you languidly dismiss half the population!’
‘No, I don’t. Not normally. I was only being funny.’
‘Oh, whoopee. I suppose in your other life you’re a fully paid-up member of the Socialist Workers’ Party.’
‘No. You know I’m not. But I do what I can.’ Seth grew frantic. Arguments weren’t meant to happen this quickly. They’d barely been introduced.
“‘I do what I can” – like some Victorian matron bewailing the inefficacy of her charity. What precisely do you do?’
‘I’m a member of the CND and I went on one of their marches last year. And … and I’m a member of the Anti-Nazi League.’
Roly clapped. Slowly. Seth wanted to run across the fields wailing. The whole situation was so thoroughly unpleasant and pointless. Politics got so personal. He felt as if Roly had punched him in the stomach when he’d expected him to shake hands. His blood rose. Pinko prat.
‘Well you
’re not so sound yourself.’
‘What do you mean by that?’
‘Well … living off your rich relations who let you stay in lighthouses and …’ Seth rapidly ran dry of venom. He stared at his hands, glad that it was almost dark now.
‘You know that’s got nothing to do with it at all. As I was …’
‘Well, what’s …’
‘Will you let me finish?’
Seth loathed him. A prefect.
‘No. I won’t,’ he said. ‘It’s got nothing to do with you anyway. I can say and think what I like without having to toe your pinko line,’ he muttered.
Roly was standing now. He placed his glass on the bench beside Seth.
‘I won’t apologize,’ he announced, ‘because I mean everything that I’ve said.’
‘No. No. I …’ Seth looked up in the gloom.
‘I think … we seem to have progressed rather fast and you’re unnerved. I think you’ll realize why I said what I said, should you give it a little thought.’ He was inexorable. ‘Now I think I’d better shut up and go away, I can tell I’ve hurt your sense of hospitality. Thank your mother for me, will you – I think I’d rather go home this way. Night-night.’ He walked over to the wall and jumped into the field. Then he turned and called out, ‘You must come and play me your violin some time. I’d like that,’ before walking into the night.
Seth found his tongue but lost his heart, so said nothing. He sat dazed in semi-darkness, the light from the house pouring on to his back.
He was not politically unaware but he found that the gulf between ethic and practice posed too great a quandary to be worth contemplating. He thought of Socialism as he thought of organized Christianity – a moral caliper to support a halting conscience and on occasion to cause it a salutary twinge. He had long ago decided that he could not be an active Socialist, whatever ‘an active Socialist’ might be, without an unlovely measure of hypocrisy. He believed in equality as he believed in God, but he could no more deny that he enjoyed his privileges and would enjoy them all over again given the chance, than he could deny that he gleaned intense pleasure from things that any strict Christian would eschew. He would say that he felt trapped and conditioned, if only he bore his captors and programmers more of a grudge.
He sought loop-holes in Roly’s harangue, miserable as he did so at the extraordinary turn taken after so promising an introduction. He grew indignant as he thought of the suggestion that young MacGuire, though obviously more privileged, had made his position the sounder of the two simply by saying the right things. By taking the aggressive initiative, the parasite and producer of useless (and doubtless ideologically suspect) sculptures, brushed over his own tracks, then stood pointing cruelly at Seth’s. Bronwen’s hearty laugh broke into his thoughts.
‘So. This is where you’re hiding. I thought perhaps you’d got bored together and gone off for a walk. It was rather appalling. Shouldn’t be saying that, of course, or you’ll go telling that mother of yours!’ She laughed her laugh and dropped on to the bench beside him. ‘I really came out to say good-night.’
A lie; she was trying to escape.
‘God! What time is it?’ Seth looked around and saw that the room was empty except for Mother and Venetia who were clearing up.
‘Oh yes. They’ve all gone. It’s safe to go back in now. Ha! I’d stay longer only she might try to cook something and she looks a mite too tired to produce anything edible.’ Bronwen stood, her hair aflame in the light from indoors.
‘Bronwen, where’s the lighthouse? I’ve been here all this time and never seen it. Can we walk to it one day, or is it beyond bounds?’
‘Oh Lord, no. We can walk to it. Crumbly path, mind. Takes about three-quarters of an hour along the cliff-tops from the church. Much quicker by road. Why?’
‘Oh. Nothing important. Just wondered.’
‘Read any Virginia Woolf?’
‘No.’
Bronwen chuckled like a tiddly guardsman and ruffled his hair.
‘You will/she said. ‘You will. Funny little thing.’
She strode across the fields. Seth heard her growling out some of the Bach they were to rehearse the next day. Quoniam tu solus; a bass aria.
SATURDAY four
When Mo arrived back home on Saturday night she paused with her key in the door to call out for Andy. He usually waited under a parked car nearby. He didn’t appear. She called once more.
‘Here, Andy?’ Still nothing. ‘Please yourself, you dirty bugger,’ she muttered and let herself in. He ran out of the kitchen to greet her in the hall. ‘How the …?’
She was about to switch on the hall light when she noticed a glow under the bathroom door at the top of the stairs. There was a torch on the hall table, the heavy-duty kind encased in rubber. Taking this to protect herself, she silently climbed the stairs. She waited at the top, just outside the bathroom door and listened. There was a splash and a tap was turned on into what sounded like a very full bath.
‘OK. Who’s in there?’ she asked gruffly. There was a gasp of youthful surprise then a giggling reply.
‘Oh Christ, you made me jump! It’s me, Hope. I’ve come for my hot bath.’
‘How did you get in?’
‘I slipped a Swiss Army knife under your kitchen window. Hope you don’t mind.’
‘No. ’Sfine.’
As the improbability of the situation washed over her, Mo found herself dithering on the landing, still clutching a large rubber torch and searching for her second move.
‘I’ll be down in a second,’ said Hope.
‘Oh. Right. I’ll … er … be downstairs, then.’
She started downstairs then remembered that she was still in her bike boots, turned and hurried into her room. For the first time in years she worried about her appearance. She wished it were midwinter so she could pull on a baggy sweater and not feel fat. She pulled off her blouse and changed it for a battered white shirt she used for doing jobs around the house. The boots she pushed under the bed and exchanged for a pair of plimsolls before these too were rejected in favour of bare socks. There was nothing to dab behind her ears, because it tended to give her a rash, but as she wandered downstairs, running her fingers through her short hair, she wished she had an ‘extra something’. She glanced into the lounge. It was far too tidy. She switched on the telly for some background noise and pushed a few cushions around. Her eye came to rest on the Klimt book, alone on the coffee table. She opened it and laid it on the sofa then, unable to find a page without some naked bird in a load of gold leaf, she flung it shut and took it into the kitchen where she left it on a worksurface. She opened the envelope that had come that morning. A blue kitten on a toadstool.
‘Happy Birthday, lovie. Love and kisses, Mumsy. See you Tuesday tea-time. XXX.’
Andy mewed. She looked down at him as he paced at her feet and came to her senses with a self-mocking snort.
‘You want your grub, don’t you? And the barmy old tart’s thinking about her hair,’ she said under her breath. She recalled her drive home. ‘Bought you a treat, didn’t I? Stopped off at your friends and mine in the Pakki shop.’ She walked out to the hall and found the bag where she had left it. ‘Look at that!’ she said, lifting a package from inside for Andy’s inspection, ‘Turina Reddy-Meel Deluxe – your favourite as it’s the old tart’s birthday. Cor!’
She cut a corner off the packet and emptied the pinkish contents into his bowl. He ran to it with a rumble and she gave his broad back a rub.
‘What’s he called?’ Hope was leaning in the doorway smiling.
‘Andy.’
‘Great. He’s a real character.’
‘Give you a lovely welcome, did he?’
‘Telling me. Never make a guard dog. I borrowed this, is that all right?’ She was wearing Mo’s old towelling dressing-gown.
‘Fine.’
‘I’ve always wanted one of these – I hate getting dressed straight after a bath. I like walking around feeling all clea
n.’ There was a pause as Mo stood up and rubbed an ache from her back. ‘D’you want some rum?’
‘Rum?’
‘Yeah. My dole cheque’s come so I just splashed out.’ Smiling she brought a bottle from behind her back.
‘Oh … er … great,’ Mo said, quite out of her depth. ‘Come through.’
‘Cor. Amazing telly,’ said Hope. ‘No. Don’t put the light on – I like the glow from the screen.’
‘Bad for your eyes, isn’t it?’
‘Please? Go on?’
‘OK.’ Mo laughed and sat on the sofa.
Glad she had left off her shoes, she seized the opportunity and swung her feet up beside her. There was a cowboy film on. She expected Hope to sit in one of the chairs but she just pulled a cushion out of one and lay on the floor on her side, propped up with one elbow on it. Her hair was spikier than the night before, from the lingering water. She ran a hand through it and sighed happily.
‘Mmm. Clean again. ’Sgreat.’ She unscrewed the cap of the bottle and took a swig. She shuddered as the spirit went down then passed the bottle across to her hostess.
‘Thanks,’ said Mo with conviction, and followed suit. Twice.
‘Are you pissed off because I broke into your house?’
‘No. Well, I wasn’t expecting you, so I guess it was a bit of a surprise, but I’m not pissed off. Why should I be? Nice surprise.’
‘What made you think I wouldn’t come?’
‘Well … I didn’t see why you should want to, really.’
‘I wouldn’t have bothered to say if I didn’t want to.’ She grinned. Mo noticed in the light from the telly that her ears were slightly pointed. ‘You rich, then?’
‘Not very, no.’
‘Well you’re not on the bloody dole. What d’you do?’ Her tone was curious, but unaggressively so.
‘I work for the Council. Housing offices,’ Mo lied. She took some more rum. She didn’t have a weak head, but she was unused to drinking spirits neat like this. She could feel herself loosening up and enjoyed the feel. They watched the screen in silence for some minutes then she asked her caller,