by Patrick Gale
‘Be brave,’ she said. ‘The Lord is with us. Take the strain.’
She steered them forwards, Lawrence still singing and with legs like untrustworthy rubber, Dora staggering under his weight, and she moved as stoutly as if the revolving doors before them were the mouth of Hell itself and they were come to liberate the souls of the lost.
Lawrence had indeed been concussed where he had struck his head on the windscreen. There might also be a touch of whiplash injury. The doctor in the casualty department wanted him kept in overnight while he sobered up and x-rays were taken.
When Hecate Murray drove Dora back to her car, she suggested they check all was well at the farmhouse. Inured by now to the curious woman’s intrusiveness, Dora agreed. They found the back door swinging open and the bantams, still perilously at large, making themselves messily at home. Lawrence had made a mound of possessions in the middle of the kitchen floor. Clothes, papers, shoes, photographs, bottles of scent, greying, second-best bras, trays of cuttings from the kitchen windowsill, vitamins, old calendars, even a bottle of Tia Maria.
‘What the– ?’
Dora regarded the chaos with horrified confusion for a few moments before she realized it was made up of things that were Bonnie’s. The exhaustive catalogue of the fragments that accumulated around a life, thrown together became mere stuff. Like Lawrence’s clothes, the pile was soaked in paraffin.
Shocked, Dora began to clear up, picking a few things off the floor, rinsing the liqueur bottle under the tap, vaguely sorting the wrecked from the salvageable. Then she gave up and slumped in a chair, beyond tears. Hecate Murray spoke with quiet authority behind her. She had forgotten the woman was still with her.
‘I think it’s time you involved your brother. Don’t you?’
CHAPTER EIGHT
Darius and Dora were twins but it was as though they had spent their lives compensating for the early compromise of sharing a womb by each unconsciously colonizing the territory the other had passed over. Yin and Yang, they were so entirely different as to be therefore a perfect fit. Open where she was secretive, he betrayed nothing where she laid bare. He thought nothing of driving two hours to lunch on a particular partridge and could grow misty-eyed at the mere memory of a wine while she could live quite happily off Cyprus sherry and cream crackers and owed her excellent figure to a habit of forgetting mealtimes if there was anything more interesting to occupy her. She thought herself all dithering feeling while he believed himself incapable of abandoning intellectual control. (In fact, she was the one whose spirit verged on spartan while his brittle exterior concealed a spirit of violet cream.) He was lamentably stout but dressed so well that few people noticed. Dark where his sister was all English rose wispy blondeness, he liked to joke that he was Goneril to her Cordelia. Picking up on this, Dora tended to speak to Lawrence of his ‘wicked uncle’ while Darius referred to Dora as ‘your poor mother’.
True to his ambitions, he had become rich but not from sitting in glamorous boardrooms or fighting to the top of some vast corporation. A born opportunist, he had played at business the way he had always played at Monopoly, acquiring cheap property and small businesses so that his capital was thinly invested across a broad base with minimal risk. He now owned dry-cleaning outlets, a few minicab firms, a chain of off-licences in Kent, and small hotels in Brighton, Deal and Eastbourne. He had indirectly acquired a cider factory near Taunton whose product had become unexpectedly fashionable and been handsomely bought out by a national drinks consortium. He was now taking tentative steps into the sheltered housing market. He delighted in answering enquiries with a vague,
‘Oh. I’m just a businessman.’
On the side he was a keen bridge player and wrote a column on the subject for a monthly magazine, whose circulation figures were reassuringly low.
Darius was appalled at his parents’ callous treatment of his twin and, liberated by his mother’s death and father’s foolish remarriage, had followed her to England with the intention of supporting her as they had not. He loved his nephew with an uncomplicated selflessness, loved him, low marks, unruliness and all, and was saddened when it became clear that Lawrence had neither the drive nor the inclination to go into business alongside him.
As a child, Lawrence found his uncle bewildering, full of swift speeches he did not understand and jokes whose humour he failed to grasp. At the same time, since his life with his mother was quiet and countrified, his uncle brought with him a tantalizing waft of city life. He also brought chocolates, ingenious toys, and Marvel comics. Ever alert to market trends, he told the boy to collect the comics carefully as they would be worth something one day. A complete ten-year library of the things was now tied in bundles in the farmhouse loft. Extremely male – he smoked cigars and wore enormous, heavy brogues – he also seemed at times more feminine than his independent sister – curling up in an armchair rather than sitting on the thing foursquarely, sucking crystallized violets from a small silver tin to sweeten his breath when not smoking. As a father figure, he was consistent only in his ambivalence, at once alluring and alarming, pressingly attentive one week, then coolly absent for weeks at a stretch.
Occasionally he would whisk Lawrence up to London with him for a week at his anonymous house in Pimlico, taking him on day trips in the car to check up on his various business interests, buying him new clothes, feeding him in antiquated restaurants and dazzling him with theatre or incomprehensible trips to the opera. Since these rather tense little holidays were designed to enable Dora’s discreet love affairs, Lawrence always returned from them to find his mother in wistful good spirits and so came to appreciate his uncle’s value elliptically, from the effect his interventions took on her.
Darius foresaw the problems in Lawrence’s marriage as Dora did not. He had perceived in Lawrence a kindred, unweddable spirit. Where Lawrence became wordless and remote when cornered or overruled, Darius told the unadorned truth, which had just as devastating consequences within a relationship. He was not charmed by Bonnie; quite the contrary in fact, finding her spoiled, young for her age and, as he put it to a horrified Dora, ‘falsely winsome’. He hid his distaste well, but Lawrence could not fail to notice a withdrawal on his part and a faint air of disappointment. Bonnie misread Darius’ character entirely and made the fatal error of treating him with jovial disrespect, as an eccentric figure of fun, and reminding him on every occasion when he and Lucy coincided that he was now a great-uncle. He repaid her by misspelling her name or even calling her Georgie or Roberta. He did his duty by the young family, setting up a trust fund for Lucy and remembering her birthdays, did some business with Charlie Knights and even hired Bonnie to design some low-maintenance gardens for his proposed sheltered housing developments, while privately nicknaming her Capability Mauve.
If Dora had scant knowledge of Darius’ private life, it was because there was so little to be known. In truth, he was far more romantic, far less independent than she. While she could often not wait to have the house to herself again, he would frequently abandon the matrimonial divan in his bedroom to sleep on the narrow Biedermeier day bed in his study because it wounded him to feel so much of a former lover’s territory coldly unoccupied beside him. He hid his loneliness expertly, always buying theatre and concert tickets in pairs and entertaining couples and a string of ambiguous young men who tended to flirt, take his hospitality and opera tickets then turn up to long prepared seduction dinners with a previously undisclosed girlfriend in tow. Good, unattached bridge players were always in demand of an evening to make up fourths. Bridge was one significant level cooler than ordinary socializing and the hunger for play and the built-in formalities of the game overrode the usual etiquette whereby friendship evolved through fixed gradations of drinks for many, then dinners for eight, and on to intimate suppers for four. He often found himself cordially summoned to the houses of players he had encountered only once.
It was at one such occasion that he met the latest of the young men, a pianist called Rufus
Barbour, who toyed with him blatantly all evening and made up for his poor play by a flattering thirst to learn. He had since attended two of Darius’s dinners, three trips to the opera and two seduction dinners. There were two of the latter and would probably have to be a third because Rufus somehow slipped out of the first two unscathed, having soothed Darius’ amour propre with steamily flirtatious telephone calls which managed to suggest that he was at once persuadable and heart-warmingly scared. Before risking a third, Darius opted for one of the grander gestures in his arsenal – the free holiday. As a bridge correspondent, he had been invited on a Caribbean cruise and could bring a companion. Rufus was suitably impressed and accepted with alacrity. The thought of this sustained Darius on a tour of German fake fur factories with some rivals who wanted him to participate in an import deal. He trusted that good food and unseasonal sunshine and balmy Caribbean nights would succeed where a scandalous Meyerbeer revival and his most outré recipe for pigeon breasts had failed.
There were only two messages on his answering machine when he returned. One was from Rufus, dryly announcing that he was unable to come cruising after all because his ‘sort-of fiancée’ had been summoned to a psychiatry conference in Oslo and wanted him to come with. The other was one of Dora’s. Dora tended to talk to the machine at length, much as though Darius were listening but somehow unable to respond. Her tone was confidential. She was worried about being overheard.
‘I’m going quietly out of my tiny mind,’ she announced. ‘First he crashed the van. Blind drunk. Almost killed Hecate Murray. Then he was so hopeless I brought him back here and now he’s become a sort of cuckoo and refuses to go home or start work again. I talk to him. I try to make him talk. But we don’t seem to connect.’ She sighed and Darius heard her gulp from a drink. There was a sound of machinery in the background as though someone were ploughing up her garden with a tractor. ‘It’s as though I’m having one conversation and he’s having another. In another room. A day later. Oh God. Darius, I think he’s having a sort of breakdown.’ She broke off again and, after another clink of ice in her glass, she added, in a brighter tone, ‘Come down when you can. It would be lovely.’
He found Lawrence in the garden, digging a new border in the middle of Dora’s lawn.
‘Darius!’ The boy greeted him cheerfully enough. ‘Can’t shake, sorry.’ He indicated the mud that caked his fingers and forearms.
‘I stopped by your place to look at the van,’ Darius told him. ‘Christ what a mess! What have your insurers said?’
It was as though his question had bounced off glass.
‘I thought with a new border here we could have some peonies. She’s always hankered after peonies. Then I can move that rose, which should never have been put over there, it’s far too big, and divide up some of the delphiniums to re-establish some here at the back. What do you think?’
‘Great,’ said Darius uncertainly. He saw that the garden was one great scene of transformation. There were heaps of earth everywhere on old fertilizer bags. Every tool in Dora’s small armoury seemed to be in use and Lawrence had even hired a bright orange diesel-powered rotovator. A bonfire crackled threateningly in one corner and the hedges and fruit trees had been cut back so heavily that they were stumpy shadows of their former selves. ‘Shouldn’t you be watching that fire?’ Darius asked. Lawrence glanced over his shoulder at the smoking blaze.
‘Oh no,’ he said carelessly. ‘It’s fine as it is,’ and he turned back to cut away more of Dora’s precious turf. Backing off, Darius was startled by some bantams which appeared to be running wild. He nearly tripped over one and thought he heard Lawrence laugh.
Dora tapped on the window and threw him a wan smile. Darius hurried inside. She was in her study, a small nest of tapestried cushions, ticking clocks and glittering bibelots. A formal photograph of their parents stood on the desk. It was taken in carefree youth yet even then the couple emanated a scornful indignation, ripe for outrage. Dora saw it catch his eye and turned to look at it too for a moment before she walked into his embrace and held on.
‘Thank God you’ve come.’
‘He doesn’t seem so bad.’
‘Darius, I’ll have no garden left if he stays much longer. Sorry. Sit down. You must be tired after the drive. Tea? Gin?’
‘Stop it,’ he checked her and made her sit too. ‘What about the van?’
‘They’re dragging their feet. I’m sure it’s a write-off – the engine seems to be stoved in – but they’re havering. He’ll lose his no-claims bonus and, from what I can make out, he barely has enough in his account to pay his excess on the repair bill much less put down the deposit on a new pick-up.’
‘But when that’s sorted out, can’t he go back to work?’
‘That bastard John Docherty stitched him up. He got Lawrence to sign some document which effectively surrendered the clients with the partnership. Anyway, he needs to get away from Barrowcester. People are still gossiping. So horrible. If he went somewhere new he could start afresh maybe.’
‘What about therapy?’
‘Hecate found us someone and he went two or three times but he retreated into stony silence and it was all a waste of money. The therapist spoke to me in the end and said she felt he had “unfinished business” with Bonnie and couldn’t begin to progress until he’d spoken with her. Strange woman. Oh Darius he’s so hopeless! Why did he have to be so hopeless? And I miss Bonnie. And Lucy. And I can’t even mention them in front of him and– Oh God.’
She had been walking fretfully about the room as she talked, fingering paperweights, minutely adjusting lampshades.
‘Never mind him. You need a break. This has all been too much for you.’
‘Oh don’t pay any attention to me. I’m just rabbiting because I haven’t seen you for weeks. Anyway, Hecate’s been a huge help.’
‘Who’s this woman?’
‘Hecate Murray. She lives near him. She’s quite peculiar, very religious. You’d probably hate her.’
‘I probably should. Listen. There’s a cruise I’ve been asked to go on. You know. As a bridge coach. It’s the SS Paulina. They’d pay for me plus a companion. Three weeks. Southampton to Miami then down to the Bahamas and the Virgin Islands and back to Miami to fly home. Quite fun. Probably hideous people, Americans mainly, but– ’
‘But that would be perfect.’
‘You think so? I’m so glad.’
‘It would take him right out of himself. No one on board would know about, well, his being arrested and everything.’
‘But I meant it for you. You and me. You never go on holiday.’
‘Oh. But I couldn’t possibly leave him alone, even if Hecate offered to help. No, darling, take Lawrence. You haven’t spent time with him for such ages. You’d be helping him and giving me a rest. If he grants me power of attorney, I can deal with the insurance claim and have things a little more organized by the time he gets back. Yes that’s such a good idea. How kind of you. Now. Let me fix us both a nice drink and call Lawrence in to tell him.’
She kissed his cheek with a gratitude that bordered on triumph and crossed the hall to the kitchen. Darius looked through the window to where Lawrence, a roughly handsome version of his mother in the low autumn sunlight, broke off from heaving earth back into a fertilized trench to stretch his straining back. In his wistful mind’s eye, Darius saw Rufus in neat white shorts and deck shoes and a suggestive smirk.
‘Well you had better teach him the fundamentals at least. Lend him that book on basic bridge bidding I gave you …’ He tried to picture Lawrence with a fistful of cards, grimacing with the effort of assessing the hand dealt him. ‘Are you sure you couldn’t get away?’ he asked, plaintively. ‘Only three weeks. It might be fun. I was looking forward to spending time with you.’
Dora came into the kitchen doorway, listening at the mouth of a half-used bottle of tonic water to see if the stuff were undrinkably flat or merely a little tired.
‘I get seasick,’ she remind
ed him. ‘Lawrence will be much better company.’
CHAPTER NINE
Seating plans for dinner on the Paulina were rigorously fixed so as to avoid anarchy and, presumably, the hideous embarrassment of unseemly scrambles to avoid dining with the unattractive or disadvantaged. Darius and Lawrence had a good table in the second sitting, as befitted the resident bridge expert and companion, but not too good a one, because they were travelling gratis and already had corner cabins with balconies and bathrooms that actually contained baths. (Rejecting the first, poky cabins they were shown to, Darius had snorted that a second glance at the shipping line’s brochure would probably reveal an admission in tiny print that the photographs of accommodation were printed ‘actual size’.)
Lawrence’s nerves had been rattled since an ugly scene at Southampton. As they passed through passport control, an immigration officer recognized his name, took one look at his baseball cap and dark glasses and hauled him out of the queue, taking him for a fugitive from justice. Darius protested, had a police officer summoned and a telephone call made and Lawrence was released, with apologies, but not before several of the passengers had been led to recognize him. He had already glanced at the dining room as Darius dragged him on a quick tour of the Paulina’s public areas, so he knew the room was reached by descending a theatrical glass and chrome staircase in full view of the assembled company and he was dreading further exposure.