The Everlasting Sunday

by Robert Lukins

  She gave Brass an excessive, doting smile. ‘I despise you.’

  At this she floated behind him, the tips of her shoes touching his heels, and reached around to bring her cigarette to his lips. She held it in place just long enough for him to take a lingering drag. All the while his hands remained plunged beneath the surface of dirty bubbles.

  Radford saw the sheen of Brass’s rough charm, lit as it was by Lillian’s affection. He was a twit, no doubt, but an arresting one. Radford stared into the bend of his neck, the way it welcomed the tufts of dark hair curling into its ears and the scratch of Lillian’s fingernails.

  It was a mother’s insatiable love, wanting to eat her baby up.

  By experiencing Brass as she did perhaps he could learn some of this power. He could develop a character. So he took Brass to be intoxicating, and saw him as beautiful.

  ‘Good to have you,’ Lillian said, stepping away and putting a hand to Radford’s shoulder.

  He nodded conspicuously and started at the breakfast bowls. As the three of them worked he listened to Lillian murmur and at times break into gentle song under her breath. She was all things. Her manner was that of one who had endured trials while her peach cheeks, her blonde bob, spoke of more bountiful times. She was, maybe, thirty-five. He imagined that she had once been softer or weaker and that something had tempered her, making her as he found her now, all strength and grace.

  Almost a week had turned over: each day had brought not a sense of understanding but an understanding not to search for sense. When he asked how things operated in the Manor – timetables, lessons, chores, responsibilities – he would be met with reluctant, ponderous answers or more often none at all. No rules, only customs. A conscious vagueness inhabited the place whereby time was a thing to be occupied: an enemy’s pillbox on a battlefield.

  He asked what people did.

  What do you mean?

  The question seemed reasonable, pressing even, and it was unsettling that he had to probe for a response.

  As in, what do we actually do, all day?

  Oh, I don’t know. There’re always things to do.

  This was the nearest to a solution he would find and he had accepted its certainty. There just were, always, things to do. Repairs, most often. The Manor was in a persistent state of decay and the boys worked against this, without hope of conclusion. In Radford’s first days there had been a concerted effort to correct a particularly sagging beam in the dining hall: the labourers had seemed proud of the result but Radford noted that all but a few avoided walking beneath it.

  There was no schooling, but things like lessons. Equivalents to teachers travelled out for the day, but others, Radford was warned, would stay for weeks or months at a time. He had come across some of this incohesive lot: a rose-skinned woman who taught the importance of accounting and the grim reality of ledgers; a bland young man in a hairy suit and bowtie who skipped about the Manor finding candidates for his dining-room tutorials on ancient and recent world history; and a stiff, brown farmer named Gall, who arrived from the neighbouring property, complaining on a tractor. With his shotgun over a shoulder, he took a reluctant troop out into the extremes to show them the right and only way to hog a hedge.

  Even this day, the resurrected New Year’s Eve, lessons were starting up about the house. Radford was preparing to return to his room when Teddy came through, slashing emphasis with his pipe and announcing that a Manny was to be giving thoughts on the art of electronics in the Long East Room. Radford reached the foot of the stairs exactly as Brass was likewise making an escape and they managed to wedge each other between the handrails. Brass was the first to break away, vaulting up three stairs at a time.

  Teddy leant into the newel post and shouted after him. ‘What brand of influence are you, child? One for greater or lesser?’ He turned immaterially to Radford, who waited to be encumbered with the idea of this Manny’s forum, but Teddy left, silent.

  Was he not worthy of Teddy’s guilt-giving?

  Radford would of course have to attend, burdened as he now was with spite. He arrived in the Long East Room, to a man and wires. Everything about this figure assembling equipment at the room’s head was wholly, unrepentantly Manny. Two inches shorter than average, his hair six inches longer. He was overweight but in an unremarkable way and his eyes were dark to a degree that robbed them of intrigue. Radford went around Teddy, who had swept ahead into the room, and took a chair against the wall.

  The instructor was speaking too softly to hear, addressing no-one in particular as he put together boxes, jars and cabled tools. Five other unfamiliar boys occupied the room. They looked towards Teddy as if their presence was the paying of some penance.

  Manny coughed loudly, seeming to startle himself. ‘We are going to fix, that is, I’m going to show you the fixing of a radio.’ He patted the top of a blue leathered box and peeked up, giving a flash of stained teeth.

  ‘Keep the awful thing,’ Teddy said. ‘Stopped the week I bought it. Cost a packet. Bloody mess, actually.’

  ‘Was there a smell?’ Manny leant forward, inhaling, and Teddy took the opportunity to signal for the boys to move in closer. Chairs were dragged across the floor and drew Manny’s attention to the tight oval suddenly surrounding him.

  ‘Yes, a smell. Awful. Leave you to it.’ Teddy departed with an abstract lunge of his pipe.

  Manny unlatched the back of the radio and let it swing open, showing its insides of coloured strands intertwined to a maroon board. Metallic objects protruded in the shape of swollen safety pins, others like cotton reels or gleaming thimbles, and underlining this was a shaft sheathed in tightly wound copper.

  ‘Roberts RT1,’ he said, tapping the thing with a finger. ‘Made out in Surrey. Their first all-transistor. Not the first in Britain, of course, that was the PAM 710. RT1 was later, ’58. Then others. RT7, RT8. Yes, here’s the thing.’ Radford stretched to see the man unclip a blue and red block and drop it to the table. ‘Nine volts. Not good, certainly not right. Should be just the six.’ He put his finger to a label and read aloud. ‘Very important – do not attempt to reverse battery leads or use a battery of other than six volts as damage to the transistors may result.’

  One of the boys nodded as if into sleep in the exact moment that two others pushed away from their chairs and left the room. Radford just caught Manny’s intake of breath.

  ‘Ah … but that’s nine?’ Radford asked.

  ‘Yes.’ The man corrected his fringe. ‘Yes. Nine will blow a transistor. Less touchy than a valve, but they’ll still blow. A week or a year, but it will go.’

  One of the audience certainly yawned and another was absent in the view out the window, twisting knots into his shoulder-length hair. Manny began to rush through a canvas bag to produce another blue and red brick and a celebratory sigh.

  ‘Six volts,’ he said, gesturing with the battery at Radford. ‘Attach that.’

  With the slab in one hand Radford took hold of a stray wire and was about to push it against a protruding battery terminal when Manny barked. Radford checked the uninterested near faces and moved his wire towards the alternate terminal. He pushed the stud in, at which point Manny became animated and stole the works, beginning at the knobs. The radio gave a loud belch of static.

  ‘The blown transistor needs discovering,’ Manny said. ‘We take our screwdriver and we give each a little tap.’ He held the tip of the screwdriver to his nose and gave the gentlest of knocks, then exposed the box’s circuitry. ‘Just a tap.’

  Tap.

  Tap.

  Radford strained, listening for something useful through the harsh buzz.

  Tap.

  Tap.

  Tap – and a faraway human voice was given to life.

  ‘… the hot sticky weather has done nothing to deter enormous Melbourne crowds from witnessing the battle of attrition that is this tense second Tes
t …’

  Manny was all dusky smile, Radford too, until the newsreader’s voice sank back into the wash. In the time it took Manny to find the replacement transistor the other boys were back attending at their window or mining back-teeth with thumbnails. Radford watched the man’s movements with increasing consideration: the way he held the jars to the light and somehow gleaned enough identifying information of the components from the shapes and lengths and colours. They meant something, made contact. Manny extracted the broken part like a thoughtful dentist, remorsefully. Things were unscrewed, pliered, peered at and melted in place.

  This soldering was the real magic.

  Clouds blew out in explosive puffs as the point of the hot iron touched lead. The smell was sweet and potent and lingered as he twisted the radio’s top dial and the machine again found reason to speak. A song filled the room, loud and strange, smuggled to earth in the falling snow. It had flooded the room as effectively as water and Radford imagined himself suspended. What a creature Manny was, what an odd and gentle wizard: the barrier separating him from the admiration of the other boys now seemed something precious.

  Radford knew the feebleness of all this symbolism, yet as the solder fumes fell away his eyes met Manny’s and something as secret and real as electricity was uncovered. The radio announcer took over.

  ‘… and that was The Shadows with their single, “Wonderful Land” …’

  ‘Fixed,’ Manny announced, switching the radio dumb.

  ‘Five minutes.’

  Radford hid his arms from the wind. ‘You’ve said that.’

  ‘Just be ready.’ West pointed a finger. ‘I’ll come get you. Where’s your better coat?’

  ‘Under my bed. Why do I need another coat?’

  West put a hand to Radford’s shoulder and gave a squeeze that provided no reassurance, then turned straight into Teddy, knocking them both halfway to the ground. After a deal of huffing and slapping away of hands they were upright again and West resumed his run towards the house.

  ‘I am a frail old man,’ Teddy insisted.

  ‘He’s gone,’ Radford said after a time and pointed to the dirty expanse of snow between them and the kitchen door.

  Pink with exertion, Teddy brushed again at his sleeves and pulled down on his jacket, assessing its straightness. He checked the knot of his tie.

  ‘What is happening in five minutes?’

  ‘No idea,’ Radford replied truthfully, realising that they were now walking.

  Teddy was perpetually walking, always to some place, never from, pulling whoever was near into the task.

  ‘How are you finding things?’

  ‘Fine,’ Radford said.

  ‘No, you’re not.’

  They continued past the far corner, by the coop. Through the gap between its doors Radford glimpsed Rich on his hay-bale bed wrapped to the chin in blankets and puffing gleefully on a cigarette.

  ‘No,’ Radford agreed.

  ‘I’d worry if you were. Frankly, I’m surprised each morning when I head down for breakfast to discover that none of you have been murdered in your sleep. No need to look at me like that. I can’t control what some profoundly disturbed child does with every minute of its day. I’ve toyed with the thought of putting locks on the doors but it might give the impression of a philosophy.’

  ‘I don’t know what you mean.’

  ‘Guiding principles. The funders are forever pushing for them. It would make life easier for them in their meetings but I will tell you what I tell them all, that I endeavour only to keep you alive.’

  ‘That’s all?’

  ‘That’s a lot.’

  Radford felt the back of his collar pulled and they came to a halt.

  ‘Look,’ Teddy commanded.

  They had reached the far end of the grounds, where the dark wall marking the property’s boundary had in places deteriorated to nothing. Neglect had punched through the stones. Through these great uneven gaps the view of endless, diamond fields rolled away.

  The storm had kept the household bound indoors. The coop and the firewood stack were the furthest Radford had ventured and that had been in a bowed rush against the frightful cold. He was acquainted with the walls of the dining hall, the ceiling of his bedroom and that sooty infinity above the belfry. He knew the brown slush circling the entrance to the kitchen.

  This view was of a novel world, crushing in its brilliance.

  Country glistened and the pair stepped into a V-shaped space made by the wall’s absent stone, Teddy gesturing. ‘Our plot stops at the second hedgerow.’ Zigzags drew territories into the distance. ‘All would have been part of the Manor, once.’ He found his pipe. ‘The family owned well beyond what we can see. Neighbour Gall has the surrounding fields now and we let him put his sheep in to graze. Good man, from good people. Been farming here since well before I arrived.’

  Radford lounged in the sunlight falling on his cheek. ‘When was that?’

  ‘The winter of ’31. A real mess. The house had been left for twenty years and wasn’t fit for its rats. That helped a little, I’m sure, when the Manor was put forward as a place to send lads. Particular lads. Couldn’t be too agreeable an alternative.’ He smiled from a mouth of pleasantly bankrupt teeth. ‘We paused during the war, of course. Place was taken back as a convalescence hospital. Kept a few boys on, as many as I could squirrel away. Did them good to see men in that state.’ Teddy examined the stem of his pipe and squinted back into the faraway. ‘They sent me the file on you,’ he said. ‘Before you arrived. Everything. Everything that’s happened.’

  Radford looked to the near meadow, where some unconvincing goalposts set a football pitch apart. So it was all written, all put into words that would never leave him.

  ‘I didn’t read it,’ Teddy said, rubbing his neck as if sore. ‘Fed the fire with it like the others.’

  Beyond them were a series of overlapping hills, iced smooth and diminishing into a haze. Radford felt his fibres slacken, his heart ease. A natural colonnade formed a line behind the small dot of a farmhouse.

  ‘Do you know of the Royal Oak?’ Teddy extended a finger towards a tall tree standing alone at the crest of a mound. ‘The Oak? Charles II and the great escape?’

  Radford shook his head.

  ‘Oh, ready yourself. It is a time before now – I know the year but I won’t tell you – and King Charles has just been defeated at the Battle of Worcester. He’s on the run, Cromwell’s armies chasing across England, and the promise of death hangs over anyone found to have given Charles protection. The King and his company travel by night. A royalist – by the name of Will Careless, if you can believe it – gives them shelter, but as the troops close in he knows the family house is unsafe and has Charles hide in the field’s great oak. Later, Commonwealth troops stand directly beneath, sheltering, discussing their search – the King silently listening in. The coast clears and Charles continues his escape, smuggled to France and returning years later to retake the throne. For two centuries – I read this, so it could be true – Charles’s birthday was celebrated by the wearing of a sprig of oak on the lapel. The tree that hid the King became the Royal Oak.’

  Radford stared at the tree. It truly was remarkable, full and so strong. Limbs outstretched like a protector’s arms though now holding only ice and birds. A small fleet of the creatures launched from its branches in an act that was indecently picturesque and suspiciously timed.

  ‘Wonderful,’ he said.

  ‘Isn’t it?’

  He remained, allowing himself to be enthralled by the spidery silhouette.

  ‘Of course, that isn’t it,’ Teddy said, still pointing. ‘Not the Royal Oak. No, that’s just a tree in a field.’

  Radford considered a show of bright anger but found ultimately against it. It could do nothing but make certain that all was as untrustworthy as it promised. He expanded
his chest to allow room for the fury while, ahead, the birds returned to their resting place. It was obvious they had solved all the riddles of life. They had evolved in a direction away from these crippling piffles. They had only the moment-to-moment brawl for existence, the cheats.

  ‘The Royal Oak’s fifty miles away,’ Teddy continued. ‘Rochester. Though even that’s not the real thing. That was ruined by tourists, damn shame. Lopped off the branches as souvenirs. The one on show is the Son of Royal Oak, or some such thing. Shame. Proper mess.’

  Radford turned away from their distant, ordinary tree. ‘I don’t understand you at all.’

  Teddy looked indiscreetly pleased.

  On cue West arrived at their side. ‘Christ, found you,’ he said breathlessly.

  ‘Trouble?’ Teddy asked.

  ‘Just bringing Radford his fleece. Absurd him being out here single-coated.’

  ‘I have nothing to fear?’

  West shouted benign satire after Teddy, who had about-faced and was already ten yards away. West waited until the man was out of sight before unveiling two bottles of bronze liquor. ‘We’ve got somewhere to be.’

  He cast the coat over Radford’s face and ran them through the wall’s gap as the sun eased around an expanse of cloud. The world beyond the Manor grew several shades brighter. Rich moved in front of them, hunched and running like a man under fire. Then Brass. They were sniggering and running in criss-crossed lines as Lewis loped through the snow with a blanket over his head, clutching another bottle.

  Radford tired and asked of the destination.

  ‘A wake.’

  ‘Whose?’

  West clinked the bottles together dangerously. ‘Not sure, yet.’

  They took the hills, falling into a military rhythm as they went. West kept himself at the front as if he were leading and Radford gave up on thought and followed, knowing he could at least apprehend the route of footprints. Confusing the way, Rich’s trail writhed ahead, running side to side as he and Lewis made snowballs. They slackened but still found amusement in lobbing the occasional bomb of hail ahead, nailing West at least twice in the back of the head. The air, beyond chill, made short work of cutting through Radford’s trousers and long johns. His socks became wet and winter made house in his bones.