‘You horrors, come,’ Teddy said, high.
‘He’s had one of his ideas.’ Brass rubbed his thumbs into his eyes. ‘I’m going back to bed.’
Rich stood. ‘Me too. Lewis, fetch me when grub’s up.’
‘No chance.’
Rich slapped his hands on the table. ‘You don’t appreciate me at all, do you?’
Teddy caught sight of Brass’s retreat and whistled for him; Brass spun and returned to his seat without breaking stride.
‘My poor brood.’ Teddy was in sermon and the room settled. ‘Are we not sick of ourselves? Are we not entirely ill with the sight of each other’s loathsome, ugly faces? I look in the mirror and I see something appalling. Seeing you all here today, I am likewise sickened.’ He tilted his face to the ceiling. ‘We need to stretch ourselves. Make some rushing air.’
He spoke as if expecting excitement, or at least agreement, but found only drawn, hungry faces.
‘An excursion.’ Teddy came down from the chair. ‘I was taken to holiday at Porthmadog as a boy. For one week we were there and for one week it rained without intermission. Lagooned in our rented room, my brothers and I fought with such ferocity that on the final day my mother took us to the shore. Despite the impossible weather she paid for the hire of a sailboat, half rate, for one hour. She perched on a large rock and watched as the shipman set our sails and pushed us into the bay. It was without question the loneliest hour of my childhood. Death, by fist or by squall, came remarkably close for us on that wretched dinghy and we begged for our return to land. However, what I remember most clearly was my mother’s face. The look of relief, oh, it was something heavenly.’
He was lost in the memory, his hands raised, eyes shut. He awakened and made commands for the household to move through to the front entrance and there he waited for the landing room to fill before opening the doors and leading them outside. Radford and his group had found themselves at the front and so as they pitched out onto the snow were among the first to see the ship.
The picture was absurd, even to imagine, but there it was, twenty feet up the drive with Manny bearing an expectant grin at its bow – an ancient, decaying but undeniable, boat. Great metal blades modelled on ice skates were attached at its front and beneath either end of a plank at the hull’s rear. The boys rushed to circle the beast and Manny grew ever more proud. He slapped the ship’s underside. Teddy was looked to for confirmation of the vision.
‘A marvel,’ he signalled.
Boys ran their hands down the pitted hull and inspected the support structures of the blades.
Teddy spoke low to West. ‘Best someone tell Cass that we’ll be out for the day. Find him, will you? He’s sulking. Tell him we’re off sailing.’
Hours were condemned to hauling the ship to its river. Manny had shod the blades with wide wooden slippers, the toes of which had been sanded to a curve in the hope of dissuading a downward trajectory, but it still took a lusty, constant effort to keep the vessel from diving for soil. Shifts were taken in groups of six, each member taking hold of a length of rope anchored to the hull. Others would run about the stern, pushing hard against it until either balance or endurance failed. It was slavish work, but was taken to with fevered relish. They fought to be next up dragging. Rope burnt their palms and shoulders and they fell into singing and the chanting of heave, ho. Manny marched ahead and directed around obstacles. When they became inevitably stuck there would be a general cry for all in and each would dash to get their hands beneath some part of the vessel. They would count to three, the ship would rise on their cries as if taking a wave’s crest, and the party would be moving once more. Teddy followed, the tug at the tail of the fleet.
They were being rewarded with a dream and Radford promised himself not to ruin it with judgement. He thought of Victoria, of her expulsion, and of what the rest of them deserved. Surely not this, but then, what comes to the bad? Because they were all surely bad.
At their destination the mainsail was raised and the tired, glorious cheer that followed split the sky. Lewis and another of the tall ones were called up to set the rigging. Cords were pulled and mechanisms engaged and on the captain’s command the ship was pushed to the centre of the river’s frozen surface. The boom was swung out to position. Though the breeze was slight and swirling, it took on a magic potency and the canvas went immediately taut and filled out to a splendid belly. Radford had his hands against the hull as it began to move under its own power. The crowd of bodies dispersed to allow the boat’s passage: without need of humans and their fussing, it cut its own future across the ice.
Celebrations followed alongside while onboard Lewis looked panicked. The other boy stood and thrust out his arms to receive his adulation until losing his footing and falling back over the bench into Manny’s lap. They tangled in steering cables and while they argued and shouted the ship took a distinct turn to port. It ploughed at speed into the bank and sent the squad sprawling hard across the deck.
The greatness of the cheer that met this drew new fire from the shy daylight. The boat was pulled back to the river centre, readied, and two by two the boys took their turns aboard. Radford noticed Foster come from the riverside with a searching look. There seemed a brief gesture from him to West, in return West showed an approving hand, and it seemed that they would be next. There was something to this – Radford hesitated at the immature word, secret.
However, in the crowded moments that followed, a horde overtook the bank and West and Radford gripped the sleeves of each other’s coats, finalising a pairing. The view clearing, Foster seemed to accept this, pausing alone at another emergence of sunshine.
Lillian arrived with hessian bags of wrapped sandwiches and bottles of thinned juice. Cass came with her, though walking a meaningful distance behind and looking miserable. They all broke to eat and Teddy told the ship’s tale. Manny had come to him with the proposition a fortnight earlier, having been offered the wreck by Farmer Gall. The thing had been languishing beneath sheets against the back wall of a shearing shed for fifteen summers. It had been Gall’s son’s and it was a relief to reclaim the space. Snuffy had been assigned as assistant for the conversion and they had vowed silence on the project.
After the meal an impromptu gang formed to convince Lillian onto the boat. She accepted Manny’s hand and assurances as he sat her on the centre seat. The sail slapped against a fresh gust and they launched, Manny standing high as the assured skipper while Lillian laughed and the household ran alongside waving their scarves. Radford lost sight of the vessel as it drove into the low sun.
He imagined Manny telling Lillian of the finer elements of his design, pointing to the arrangement of wooden struts supporting the rear blades and the cable and pulley system he had deemed to provide angle to the steering edge at the bow. Manny had repeated these particulars for each successive pair as they took their duty as crew.
Radford eyed Cass. The man sat, silent and ignored, watching these voyages from the riverbank, keeping far from Teddy and seeming to grow more angered with each wasted minute. The indolence of it all.
There was no attempt to hoist Teddy aboard and he showed no inclination. He seemed happiest watching from the shore and his eyes sparkled with a clarity Radford hadn’t seen. This was, he understood, a gift both given and received.
Just a fragment of calm.
*
Brass addressed those gathered at the table. ‘Watch it, the pig’s got himself soaked,’ he said. Cass had just put the elbow of his suit jacket into the remains of his beef and gravy with no sign of removing it.
It was night, enough hours after the river for their puckered skin to have returned warm and scarlet. Enough time for their bellies to have been filled with steaming pasties and for all their day clothes to have been hung across lines of rope Teddy had commanded between the roof beams of the dining hall. The fire rampaged within its stone confines, fantastic at being ali
ve. The adults had come together and Teddy had insisted on rounds of sherry to combat the cold within.
Cass, who had remained sullen and soundless since the afternoon, took his first two glasses with blunt nods. On Lillian’s instructions – she had been disallowed from leaving the table by Teddy on the grounds that she was a blessed creature of Arcadia, being owed too much already from this undeserving lot – boys had retrieved the house meal from the ovens and delivered it on thin wooden platters. Cass had reached furiously for his and over the course of several pastry crescents the man poured and downed his third, fourth, fifth and sixth sherries.
It was in pouring the seventh that Cass reached the bottom of Teddy’s bottle and finally noticed his gravied elbow. He asked if there was more sherry – there was, and Teddy went to his rooms to retrieve it – and calmly dressed his jacket over the back of his seat, removing his tie and unclasping his top three shirt buttons.
‘Soaked.’ Brass brushed away a crumb and began to stroke a comb at his fringe.
Radford relaxed into the thought that he had worked this doctor out. He could be reduced to a cool and useful conclusion: Cass was a remnant of the time before the war. He was all the worst of his kind without any of the sweet eccentricity – and what was the purpose of a charmless cartoon? The years had left Cass living in a single dimension and all his moves were predictable ones, so it was no wonder that he was scared and without humour, for everything he understood was no longer wanted. There was little hope for the doctor and Radford thought it a sad thing.
Exactly like overtired children the house left its retirement too late; when its members submitted to fatigue they did so malevolently. They kept their shoulders down and eyelids at half-mast, as if hoping the journey to rooms would be forgotten with sleep’s arrival.
The mantle clock showed just nine when West, Radford and Rich were the last of the boys in the room. Lillian had them draw the centre tables together and so the three of them faced the elders. Teddy was packing his pipe and had lost only a little of his serenity from the day. Manny was tired but sat straight with satisfaction while Lillian lay across three chairs with her head in his lap, her bare feet crossed and balanced on the table corner. In a low, throaty whisper she had been singing the same old-seeming song for twenty minutes. Cass had continued pouring sherry, scraping the bottle across the table.
‘Quite a craft,’ Cass said with surprising lucidity, to no-one in particular.
Lillian stopped her singing and it was Teddy who responded. ‘What’s that, Doctor?’
Cass fluttered and his lips began to pucker and smack like a newborn’s. ‘Quite a craft,’ he said again, bringing his eyes to focus and offering his hands in a tumble.
‘The ship?’
‘Can’t say I’ve seen a girl like her.’
‘Quite a genius,’ Lillian said.
This threw Manny into a flight of embarrassment. His body sank as was typical and he brought a fist over his mouth, but Lillian took the fist, opened it and kissed the meaty flesh of its palm. Radford looked about the table and treasured the sharing of pride. In the weak firelight these boys could have been brothers, Teddy their contented grandfather. Lillian could have been in some real way French.
‘Curious, isn’t it?’ Cass refilled his glass, bringing the liquid to and beyond its rim. ‘How skill, capability, finds itself in different ways in different types.’
He left this sentiment to hang with the laundry, seeming to fancy that his audience might regard it as a fine one. Teddy stiffened.
‘So often,’ Cass went on, ‘a capability will find itself in a man to the exclusion of other sorts of intelligence. That is true, isn’t it? That certain types, good or bad, attract certain competencies and repel their opposites.’ He took a drink, nodding as if on the threshold of profundity. ‘Those of the mind are so often useless in the hands. Am I mistaken, Doctor?’
‘Do call me Teddy.’ Radford could see the sharp edge of teeth holding down his lower lip. ‘And yes, Dr Cass, you are mistaken.’
‘Come now, Doctor. Don’t you go limp on me, for goodness’ sake. I include myself in this description. I am a man of cerebration, like you. This is fact. I have no trouble admitting that I would struggle to know how one might tighten a leaking join or make repairs to a broken step. It is not our way.’ He swung his hand as if dismissing a mosquito. ‘I wish you would admit to what you are. There is no shame in knowing one’s self, indeed, there should be pride in it. We are men of the mind and as such we can surely admit to being dolts when it comes to basic labour. It is a question of types. You will admit there are types?’
‘Cass, that is enough.’
The man took a drink, slowing, digging in. ‘Doctor.’
‘Doctor, of course.’ Teddy stood, stowing his pipe. ‘And that, as I said, is enough.’
Cass studied Teddy’s face before guzzling more and coughing up a toady grin. ‘There is a disease in this place,’ he said finally. ‘Smelt it the day I arrived and felt sure the rogue appendage would be found. It is now clear to me, however, that this disease runs right to the core. As such it is hopeless. You can cut away a blighted segment of apple but when you break the thing open and find it black and noxious at its centre, well, there is nothing to be done. There is a weakness in this institution. It is a weakness of will and there is nothing to be done.’
‘How dare you,’ Lillian said, standing. ‘Pig.’ She turned to Teddy, her eyes bared.
He gestured for calm. ‘As I said, enough.’
‘Oh, for god’s sake man, will you not agree with what you know to be true? I have said nothing that has not been proven true by countless generations. By civilisation itself. There are types. The world around us proves this. There are types of the mind, of the intellect, such as you and me – and I am happy to admit this generally precludes us from the realms of hammers and saws and such. Pots and pans,’ he added, turning his thumb at Lillian.
‘You can stay well clear of my realm of pots and pans.’ She kept Manny’s hand tight into her chest.
‘You know this,’ Cass continued at Teddy with a flattened timbre. ‘You are just too far gone with disease to admit it. You have gone soft and that is why these boys will continue to be poor and uncured. You cannot admit to even a fundamental truth. That there are types like me, strong in the mind and unskilled in the hands. And there are types like our Manny, sacred Manny, who are strong with their hands—’
‘Enough!’ Teddy brought his fist down. ‘I will not say it again.’
Radford rose and lunged. ‘You lousy sod.’ He groaned as West caught him by the arm and Rich stood to keep him back.
‘Shut your mouth,’ West said at Cass while trying to settle Radford.
‘Boys.’ Teddy raised his hands. ‘Please.’
‘Animals,’ Cass said, having not moved from his place or lowered his glass. ‘You have untrained animals here, Doctor. You cannot continue to be so unnerved. Though as I have said, I fear it is too late. This house is with plague.’
Silence came. Manny had his hands now crossed and holding his shoulders. The fire had become a small, red smouldering and the humidity that had all evening seemed balmy was now only the stinking fog of ruined coats. Teddy flared as he pushed out a slow lungful.
‘Dr Cass. You will agree that your visit has come to the end of its usefulness. You have spent some decent time with us and I am sure you have secured all that you came for. I will take you to the village in the morning. Prepare for us to depart at seven. Please see that you are ready.’ He lowered into his chair and retrieved his pipe. ‘Boys, it is late. Get yourselves upstairs. Thank you, lads. Immediately, without debate.’
They did not turn back, though West gave Radford a nudge to his ribs and smiled when, as they reached the base of the stairs, they heard from the dining room the roar of Cass’s tantrum, a log crack, and the splendid cry of one of Teddy’s matches bein
g struck to life.
SIX
In the lane beside the pub they waited, as Snuffy had instructed. From the darkness they watched figures scuttle down the high street and disappear into the beckoning glow of The Black Bear, where Snuffy had promised he would find a way for adventure. Some of the boys had borne the wait with greater resolve than others. Radford and West had spent the half-hour devising conversation to distract from the cold. Brass had stood impassive while Rich and Lewis had with increasing impatience resorted to argument and games written in the snow with sticks.
Snuffy appeared at the window. ‘Come on then,’ he called.
They formed a crouching line and kept behind like ducklings and when they made the pub’s door Snuffy wailed at them to stand and be natural. Brass went ahead, accepting the challenge as the rest were less able, Rich and Lewis wrestling after their shoulders collided in the doorway. They drew the attention of every last patron in the pub’s front room, but the bar itself was momentarily untended and so they made the distance to a cramped corner table. They were isolated from the rest of the place by a helpful accident of pillars and a heap of stacked chairs.
‘Don’t dare complain,’ Snuffy said. ‘I’ve talked Dawn into rolling out a new keg. So keep it together.’
‘And you don’t start up all strict,’ Rich answered across the table.
Lewis flapped his elbows in something like the Twist. ‘Yeah, what’s the point if we can’t make a little merry?’
Snuffy showed his hands as they all silently jigged in place. ‘Okay, right, but can we give ourselves a chance of getting mildly leathered before we’re chucked?’
Brass saluted, the rest copied, and Snuffy called for cash. They grumbled but ultimately formed a decent kitty. Snuffy went for the bar, taking the notes and instructing that the coins be left unmolested. The atmosphere grew strong with smoke and chatter. Radford breathed in the history of the room, ancient beer resurrected by the heat and movement of feet. He thought of the centuries of bad opinion enmeshed in the wood beams. The many who had rested and cursed time in this place. He thought it the most delicious climate – he thought of growing old.
The Everlasting Sunday Page 11