Radford’s group was next. Into the silence the piano seat creaked a high note. West gave Radford an elbow, then Teddy a nod, who in reply completed his onstage bow and went to the boys and darkness at the back of the stage. Their song began and Radford rose again to the timber of the ceiling. The smell of sawdust, of the wood’s ancient construction. The saw’s teeth marks like mountains across the grain.
West had taught him a trio of chords, so it was Radford who began by banging three fingers against three white keys while West did the rest. Lewis drew the first laughter, centre stage, a blonde starlet on a cushioned chair. He pursed his lips, he checked the springs of his wig. He exposed a pale neck to boys who ran around in a series of imprecise but gutsy mimes. Teddy sang from the rear of stage, of the window cleaner and his spying.
Radford felt West’s ribs meshing against his own as they leant into each other. As the fourth verse came to its end, he realised that no concrete plan had been reached as to how and when the song would cease, and turned to West. It was then that the first of the apples struck: it hit West at the base of his neck and exploded in a pathetic way across the keys. Lewis took one in the chest and let out a hurt sigh. Brass ducked as a green-red blur shot by his ear but stepped into the path of one flying low and flat and he barked as it broke apart on his knee.
Foster, by the front row, was taking apples from a box at his feet. The piano took another hit, square on, making it ring as a funeral bell, and West put his hands up in defence of Radford. Foster’s face was warped with anger while dumbly he continued the attack. Adult voices called for him to be stopped and some seated close moved towards him but then away in uncertainty. Foster’s size menaced them, the hulk. House boys came running, dragging him into the darkness of the side wall. The apple box turned over and its remaining munitions rolled away between ankles. Radford saw the dimly lit swinging of punches.
Teddy’s voice rose louder than the rest. He had his arms around the actors, keeping them from the affray and directing them back to the stage. He cried again, ‘No!’, making it clear that they were not to stop, that it could not stop. ‘It goes on.’ His finger thrust in the piano’s direction.
West looked in pain at what was being done to Foster. Radford could imagine nothing to bring either peace so he started again at his chords. He thought of his first evening at the Manor and its humiliation, of standing alone in the belfry later that night. What had it all been for? He went on striking his small family of notes and urged West to stand and to play, speaking only for his partner’s ear.
Slowly, West rose with him and continued, the tune scoring Foster’s bundling outside and the closing of the door. A man leant hard against it as the audience resumed their places. Lewis too reclaimed his seat and straightened his wig as Teddy hid again.
The tune played, Radford anchored now to his role, and so some small triumph was declared. The story began again of this window cleaner. Lewis re-puckered his lips. Stiff with nerves the mime recommenced. Some whistles joined the clapping of the woman in the front row and it went on. West, now in tears, played his part.
*
Their bodies warmed around hot orange barleys. The dining-room fire was in absurd spirits as talk rioted among the dancing and re-enactments. Music came loud from the radio. Teddy stood on a table mimicking the jugglers, the comedians, Lewis with his hands pinched round his swaying hips. They cheered the memory and Teddy leapt to the floor to deliver more slaps on backs, more congratulations.
He had seen nothing like it, and he had seen Olivier’s Richard III. He had seen Gielgud at the Haymarket, and still, nothing like it.
‘As angels would be in heaven. As the stars must shine to make themselves seen to the night.’ He was up again. ‘As it must have been to stand inside the universe in the flames of its creation.’
It went on for hours, well after all had been returned from the village. Foster had been in the last bunch, surprising all – according to Lewis he had escaped upstairs. Radford wished he had seen what state he’d been left in, how hurt. Who was attending to Foster, and where had it all come from? West too was missing. The house celebrated and Radford was ashamed.
*
Much later, with the excitement dissipated, Radford went to his room with the desire for dreamless slumber. He had begun to undress when the tapping came to his door. It was Lewis and Brass, the two of them peering down the hallway before letting themselves in.
‘We’re getting Foster,’ Brass said in a sharp whisper.
‘What do you mean?’
‘Getting.’
Radford saw the rolling pin in Brass’s hand and another in Lewis’s.
‘He’s a pig, I am sick of it,’ Brass said, twisting the pin fondly. ‘That liar has made this place hell. You know he’s due.’
‘I don’t know a thing,’ Radford said. ‘And if you’re right, he’ll get his in time. Leave it.’
‘If we don’t step up, nothing will be done. Teddy isn’t going to lift a finger.’
‘You can’t. You’ll be sent down for starters.’ He saw Lewis’s nervous resolve. ‘Please. Please, leave him.’
‘You’re a part of this.’
‘You’ll be locked up.’ Radford scanned hopelessly between them. ‘Lewis? Locked up, properly.’
‘We’ll be sweet,’ Brass said. ‘You just get him out to the coop, Radford, that’s all. No-one will know.’
‘That’s mad for a start, what’s getting him outside?’
‘Booze, fags – you go to him … it’s a peace offering. You’ve got whisky and smokes stashed in the coop. He’ll follow, you know he will.’
Something true and dark was behind this. Brass wanted to hurt Foster in a way that frightened Radford in its scale and familiarity.
‘What is it between you?’ he asked. ‘It’s not just tonight. You’ve always wanted him done in.’
‘He ruins everything. You know he does.’
‘He doesn’t ruin a thing, he’s never given the chance. And when has he been a liar?’
Brass flinched, and disguised it so quickly it almost ceased to be. Radford, though, saw the shadow of an injury.
‘What has he done – has he lied about you?’
‘You don’t know what you’re talking about.’
Lewis stood by through this, as if hearing nothing. He was victim to Brass’s charm and convinced by it: Radford had been in that place.
‘He’s lied to you. Is that it?’
‘Just do your part.’
Whatever crime Brass felt casualty to, it was something primitive, and Radford accepted that he would never know what shape it took.
‘No,’ Radford said and stood fast.
Brass grabbed at Lewis and left, sheathing his club as they travelled the hall.
Radford tried for sleep, door shut, light out, but could only watch the static grey canvas of the ceiling and the meagre contentment it offered.
‘Pigs,’ he said aloud.
He reached for the lamp and went to his hiding place to retrieve the flattened bag of tobacco and papers. He took matches from the drawer, pulled on an outfit and made the journey up the hall. He said West’s name and gave several muted knocks before his friend’s door opened beyond its permanent gap. He shook his bag at the darkness. West dressed and they went towards the belfry, not speaking until they reached its door, when West’s eyes ripened into consciousness.
‘I didn’t know you were stashing,’ he said.
‘Enough for a couple.’ Radford began to push against the thin wood. ‘That dumb Brass. Damn him, he can’t be helped. He’s rotten-minded. Lewis too. Jesus.’
‘Why?’
‘Boiled my blood. This bloody door – Christ.’
‘Here.’ West added his weight to the effort. ‘What did they do?’
‘They’ve got some idea they going to batter Foster. Do him in
with rolling pins. After everything, that’s what they settle on.’
West took Radford by the wrist. ‘What do you mean?’
‘What it sounds like.’ He saw a flash of temper in his friend’s face. ‘It’s just talk. They wanted me to bait him outside. After everything. It’s just talk.’
West’s grip became painful. ‘Bait him where?’ he demanded.
‘The coop. The coop – get off.’ Radford thrust him away. ‘What’s this? It’s just Brass and his talk, Lewis is only being dragged along. West.’
He spoke this last bleak syllable as near to shouting as he dared but West was already at the hall’s end, throwing himself at the first of the stairs.
If that night’s joy could be extinguished there was no hope for any other. Radford stood atop the two feet of snow hiding the belfry’s floor, taking advantage of this uncommon height to view the scene. All this that summer must replace with a wide unbroken lawn. Trees that were no more than silver blades threatening against the blazing moon. Floodlit nothing beyond.
Foster had done a share of ruining that night. He had spoilt with his assault, but it was in the song’s conquering of him that the dirty engine of the night had been fired. They had resisted and excluded, they had kept hungry, and so they had gone on. And now this mess intended by Brass. They could all be damned. Radford had his two smokes’ worth of tobacco and they could not rob him of that. He pressed against the chalky stonework, breathed the deadly air and thought of the night that had slipped away. The smoke alone loved him and understood.
He was thinking already of the second stick when Foster, wrapped in a chequerboard quilt held tight at the neck, came trudging below with an unhealthy gait. Radford felt no anger, no impulse of aggression. He wanted to send Foster inside to the safety of the fire but no shouting came to his lips, just the sodden remains of an exhalation.
West appeared to the extreme left, pausing as he came into Radford’s view. Now the world beneath seemed exactly as if it were a stage, West having taken his cue and come from the wings. Foster hadn’t yet seen him. West hesitated twice and then – with not a scratch of misgiving – screamed out Foster’s name in a voice made crazy by the wind. West followed towards Foster, who had stopped in fright before calling back for West to go to hell. West tried the name again, this time adding a softened plea, but Foster already had a blanketed fist raised when he faced West and began to run.
‘No! No!’ West shouted.
This cry was not for Foster, but for the two greyed figures by the Manor’s west corner. Brass and Lewis were steaming in with clubs raised, just as they said they would. Radford’s cigarette smouldered between his fingers and he flung the glowing stub into the air as the battle reached Foster. Brass stung him on the chest as Lewis followed with a pin to his knee. The hooded aggressors made no sound and Foster groaned as the wood struck his body, the blanket falling around his feet. It was West who wailed, no, over and over, until he could get himself between Foster and the violence.
‘Move,’ Brass commanded.
West lowered his hands to his side. ‘No.’
‘Move!’
Brass jabbed him hard in the stomach and West gave a whine as he fell. Lewis came all at once forward and delivered a gross blow to Foster’s jaw. It was the noise of leather on willow, the divine and English sound, and Foster went down holding his head.
West stood again and thrust out his hands, making Lewis look to Brass for direction. Brass, shaking and heaving, lowered his club and directed the pair of them back to the house with a snap of his hair. He spat on Foster as they went by. They ran on and vanished.
West dropped to a knee and put his hand to Foster’s still face.
It all happened too, too quickly.
Foster brought his own hand across to cover West’s and like this Radford saw them as a bronze statue. For this shortest time their union was at peace. Their history. Love. Foster broke them free of it, pulling West into the ground and standing over him. He kicked West in the side, twice, three times. He wheezed with each blow and West raised a palm, seeming to beg.
It happened too quickly – faster than Radford could appreciate.
Foster took West’s hand, yanked him to his feet and twisted his arm behind his back. West made no sound and Foster ran the two of them in a stumbling heap away from the house and against the trunk of one of the great, bare trees. Foster had him by the hair and pushed his face against the bark. They stood in a fishnet of sickly light and Radford saw Foster struggle against his clothes and West’s limp, unfighting body.
Trees bore witness to so much. The passing of kings and centuries of wordless battles. They saw whole lives, their beginnings and vicious ends. And yet they did nothing. Said nothing.
Foster had ripped away West’s belt and pulled down on the back of his trousers. He unbuttoned his own and they inched down his thighs as he began his savage thrusts. West made no calls at this frenzy against his body, no more pleas. Foster made babyish grunts and his pants continued to shake downwards until his movements ended. Until he was done, depleted.
Radford lost sight of the two boys and saw instead versions of himself. The half of him as he could be, hurt and so violent and destined for catastrophe; and the other, all frail light so easily eclipsed. One couldn’t be both, surely, and yet it seemed beyond the realm of choice. One might have to win out against the other. One might have to kill.
Foster stood tall and released his grip on West’s hair. He pulled up his trousers and walked towards the house at a canter that suggested nothing, exiting as West held himself in a hug around the tree.
West found his belt and replaced it, slowly fixing his clothes. He followed the others’ path back to the house, leaving the stage bare. Just fake snow and a painted background. What remained with Radford must then be merely prop.
The thought rushing through him couldn’t have been genuine because it wasn’t anger or distress. It was the wrong thought. Radford was envious, of West and Foster having shared this thing. They had stepped ahead of him, and away.
Radford waited to be corrected. He slid his unlit cigarette into his pocket.
These creatures Winter saw, these loveless things.
They were so wretched and so familiar. How could they not see the common colour of their centres? All they did was hurt.
The following morning neither Teddy nor Foster would come to the dining room for breakfast. West came and ate as normal, somewhat quietly but otherwise as usual. Lewis and Brass continued unaltered; the attacks were not discussed. Teddy would not be seen at the Manor for three full days. Foster was gone too, but his vanishing was complete, his few possessions cleared from his room.
SEVEN
The storms had departed but left a cold all the mightier. It came with no battering and fewer screams, and the impression formed that this might just be the new way of things.
Foster’s disappearance was not lingered upon. Boys had fled before, Radford was assured. It was to be expected. That was what children did; they ran.
West continued to announce the newspapers. The last of the blizzards had persisted for a day and a half and left parts of the country in drifts reaching twenty feet. More regular deaths, more strandings. Hitting harder for many, football fixtures had ground to a near stop. The third round of the FA Cup seemed like it might never be allowed to end, with its games postponed again and again. The pitches were either buried or had turned to mud and the boys knelt at the radio for results that would not come. Radford stood by West for his readings but recognised fatigue in these same old words. Like West he was numb to the talk of the Freeze and its supposed power.
He took to spending time in the sparse garden at the rear of the house, with the unvisited coop in sight and the belfry keeping watch from high above. As he wandered the ground he made paths between trunks, inspecting the bends of roots as they dived under the earth for shelter, taki
ng his hands from his gloves and exposing them to the stone of the trees’ flesh. It was too much inside the house. Too much chatter on football and rock-and-roll and everything else a thousand miles away, other people’s lives. Too much silence on anything that mattered, not that he knew what that might be. Inside seemed to hold nothing but excuses. The trees, at least, offered none of these.
He went out in the snow because he wanted to understand. He returned each day to the exact tree that had stood victim to West’s hug and the shoving of his face against its bark. Radford pushed his own cheek against the surface, wondering if he might be told some secret. He heard nothing of consequence, just a quiet beach’s shore, a more distant one than those trapped in seashells.
In this new spirit of honesty he admitted that he hoped West would find him out there and bring answers. It would be so neat: West would spill on the matter and he would be no longer left behind. In the regular world, Radford had in fact seen much less of his friend. Partly for all the hours he was spending under the trees, partly for West’s distance. He was keeping alone, at times planting himself in an armchair close to the fire for all of a day. A few times Radford had seen Lillian instructing him to pull further away from the heat. When West and he spoke it was not strained: it was disastrously usual.
That day Radford had spent all the time since dinner outside and it was late afternoon when Teddy came into view, his hands clasped behind his back, eyes up.
‘Radford, child.’
He nodded, having pushed himself away from a tree to standing. ‘Teddy, afternoon.’
‘Not much of it left, not much.’
Teddy continued strolling and Radford jogged until he was level, noticing that Manny was twenty yards behind doing a bad job as a trailing spy.
‘Have you been out a little?’ Teddy asked.
The Everlasting Sunday Page 13