Perfect Gallows

by Peter Dickinson

  Now Andrew could hear the news even in Samuel’s voice. Uncle Vole must be definitely dying. Any day now. No wonder they were all so jumpy, Charles especially. If Uncle Vole died without acknowledging him, that mightn’t be too bad. But if he were to repudiate him in these last few days.

  “It is such bad luck,” said Cousin May. “I do wish he had had a little longer to get to know dear Charles again.”

  “Will you be making your usual jaunt to the cinema, Andrew?” said Cousin Brown.

  “As far as I know. There’s not much on, though.”

  “I wonder whether that is wise in the circumstances. Perhaps if you were to …”

  “Oh, it hardly affects dear Andrew, does it, Charles?” said Cousin Blue.

  “Of course it does,” said Cousin Brown.

  “Perhaps we had better talk about something else,” said Charles, very firmly, for him.

  No, thought Andrew, it doesn’t affect me at all. I will not lift a finger or breathe a breath, one way or the, other. All that matters is that Uncle Vole shouldn’t go and muck up Sunday night for me by dying at the wrong moment.

  After supper, by a further exercise of her remarkably strong will, Cousin May made them all play cards, a nursery game called Dunces. Apparently the three Wragge children had been taught it by their mother, almost fifty years ago, and Cousin Blue said it might help bring things back to dear Charles, and besides, if Andrew was a proper Wragge he had to know how to play Dunces. Surprisingly Cousin Brown made only a token resistance to the idea, and then played the game with serious attention. Andrew was the dunce in all three games; cards meant nothing to him. Charles made more sense of the game than you’d have expected and had the odd small triumph. The battle for scholar was very close. Cousin Blue won the first game by a few marks. She started with a rush on the second, but Cousin Brown grimly whittled her lead away until they were level on the last hand.

  “There!” said Cousin Blue, laying down three nines. “Done you again!”

  “But I have honours,” said Cousin Brown, and showed her hand, which was all court cards.

  “You can’t do that,” said Cousin Blue. “I had already claimed.”

  “Of course I can, if it is honours,” said Cousin Brown.

  “No you can’t. Where are the rules?”

  “They are in the bottom right-hand drawer of the long-boy in the Library, of course,” said Cousin Brown. “I doubt if we can find them now, with all the Americans’ equipment in there.”

  “Really, I will be so happy when they have gone,” said Cousin Blue. “One cannot lay one’s hand on anything. Mother’s photograph album—do you remember, Andrew, I was showing you only the other day, with all those lovely pictures of South Africa—that has simply vanished. Colonel Ganz has taken it as a souvenir, no doubt. He is always picking up little things. He boasts about them quite openly, but I had supposed that at least he paid for them.”

  “Nonsense, May,” said Cousin Brown. “Mabel has simply tidied it. It will turn up.”

  “I have already asked Mabel.”

  “You know,” said Charles, “I think you can declare honours after someone’s claimed. Elspeth is right.”

  Cousin Blue stared, her mouth half open.

  “Thank you, Charles,” said Cousin Brown, and gathered up the cards.

  Perhaps it was his intervention on the wrong side that made the final game so tense. It was close enough, anyway, level-pegging all the way between the sisters, with the other two miles behind. Even Andrew became involved. He couldn’t share the interest in the cards, but the behaviour of the players was absorbing—you’d never get through a career without playing the occasional poker-shark or gambling dandy. Cousin Brown played her cards slowly and kept her voice even, but a muscle to the left of her jaw began to twitch as the finish neared. Cousin Blue sighed and giggled, double and triple bluffing, but it was actually harder to guess what sort of hand she might hold. Each accused the other of cheating several times. There were frequent squabbles about the rules, with appeals to Charles, but his memory appeared to have clouded again.

  Andrew picked up the last card, the five of clubs. He had two other fives, so he took the two of hearts out and put it on the dump. They’d said something about the two of hearts, but he couldn’t remember what. There was an instant of shock, then a slap as the sisters grabbed together. The dump scattered across the table.

  “Mine!” shrieked Cousin Blue, but Cousin Brown kept her grip.

  The card tore in half.

  You’d have to tear the card first and paste it, Andrew thought, and rehearse and rehearse to get the timing right, and even then you mightn’t achieve the sudden tiny intensity. Both Cousins stared at their half cards.

  “It was mine,” said Cousin Blue.

  “Now we’ll have to throw the pack away,” said Cousin Brown, and tore her section in half again.

  “We have missed the news,” she said.

  “They won’t have said anything about the invasion,” said Cousin Blue. “Isn’t it fun, only us knowing? I won, didn’t I?”

  “Let’s go to bed,” said Charles.

  “I shall go and talk to Nurse first,” said Cousin Brown.

  “Oh, listen to the bombers!” said Cousin Blue. “Do you know what they remind me of? Lying in bed and listening to the sea on the rocks at Plettenburg Bay Hotel.”

  The dusk was still throbbing with engines as Andrew slid up the window of the linen-room, but then a gust of wind whipped through the woodland and drowned them.

  He was a bit later than he’d meant. He’d been lying on his bed, getting his homework done while he waited for the movements in the corridor to cease, when Cousin Brown had tapped on his door.

  “May has been deliberately attempting to prevent me from talking to you alone,” she said. “Father, you realize, is dying.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “I wish I could say I was, but unlike May I cannot act the part. My chief wish is that before he dies he should be persuaded to make some provision for you in his will.”

  “What about Charles?”

  “Father has said nothing to me about Charles, but I would not expect him to. As far as I know he has seen him only once.”

  “At supper three weeks ago?”

  “He should not have made the effort. It was that, I believe, that gave him this final push, though his decline in the past week has been rather rapid. He may even have forgotten that Charles is in the house.”

  “Won’t Cousin May …”

  “I think not. I have still not been able to make up my mind whether Charles is who he claims to be, but in any case the longer he stays without challenge the more May will be able to remind him about past events, and hence the more convincingly he will be able to play his part. It needs only one small thing to tip the balance either way.”

  “Would you mind?”

  “Should Charles inherit? No, I think not. As a man I rather like him. He has manners and style, and but for his unfortunate addiction … but oh, Andrew, it is you and your future that truly concern me!”

  “You needn’t worry.”

  “The stage is such a chancy career. What I have come to say is that whether or no Father makes provision for you, he will not leave me penniless, and I shall make it my business to look after you.”

  “Oh … I don’t know what to say … er … I hope I won’t need it, but thank you very much.”

  “Not at all, my dear boy. I am being thoroughly selfish. You, I believe, are going to have the stage career I should have had, so naturally I wish it to be a success. For me it will be my career too.”

  Adrian had continued to stammer gratitude, but inside him Andrew had sat cold and angry. A lot of people were going to try this, he thought. None of them was going to succeed, ever. If they looked like being useful he would use them. When they had ceased
to be useful he would let them drop. If that was what Cousin Brown wanted, he owed her nothing at all. It was better that way. No entanglements.

  He changed the subject.

  “If … I mean if Sir Arnold …”

  “Dies?”

  “Yes. What about the play?”

  “Oh, I shall continue with that, unless I am somehow prevented. We will have to cancel a few rehearsals, for decency’s sake, but I see no reason why we should not pick up the strands again in a week or two. My mind has been greatly eased by the improvement you have managed to effect in Jean’s performance …”

  He had had to let her talk on. She was, he realized, far more tense than she was trying to make out. An age was ending for her, a god dying. The muscle in her cheek still twitched when she fell silent. It had been another half-hour before she’d left.

  He climbed carefully down, reminding fingers and toes of the route. They knew it well already, but he was going to have to climb back up in the dark, which he’d never tried before. The mess on the pantry drainpipe was worse than ever. If General Odway was really leaving there’d soon be no guards on the front and back doors and he could take a key off Samuel’s board and go in and out the easy way—but he probably wouldn’t, he thought. Burgling made the whole adventure more private, more interesting.

  Not being sure where other GI sentries might be posted he started on the long way round below the terraces, moving casually as if out for an evening stroll, but as he crossed the path leading down into the woodland garden he stopped. A movement had caught his eye under the trees, an echo of his own, not furtive, not particularly wishing to be seen. He stood, half-hidden by a shrub, pretending to look at his watch, but peering sidelong down the slope.

  The man beckoned. The energy and clarity of the gesture told him at once who it was—Samuel, but not the gentle quiet-moving old man who served the Wragges. No, it was that other Samuel, the embodiment of earth, Prospero’s slave. Hell, thought Andrew. He’s het up about something. Can’t be helped. She’ll just have to wait a bit longer. He strolled down the woodland path as though his check on his watch had told him he had time for a detour. As he approached Samuel darted towards him and with another Caliban gesture thrust a piece of paper under his nose.

  “You read this for me.”

  It was a sheet torn from a note-book with a short newspaper cutting pinned to the top left corner. Beneath the cutting, in a slant American script, was written “Hull Advertiser, Jan 12, 1943.”

  “Do you know this man?” Andrew read. “The authorities are attempting to trace the identity of a man currently in the Royal Infirmary. He is aged about sixty, 5ft 4in, slim build, grey hair, blue eyes, clean shaven. He appears to have lost his memory following recent enemy action, and does not know his own name. At times he believes he may be called Charles Arnold Wragge. If you can help identify him, please contact Hull Royal Infirmary.”

  Andrew folded the cutting back. There was a bit of photograph on the other side, typical local-paper stuff, part of a man’s leg, a silver trophy-­cup, the blimp-like end of a monster marrow.

  “Well,” he said. “That looks as if it’s that.”

  Samuel shook his head, dazed with disappointment.

  “Where did you get it?”

  “Phil just sent it. Sergeant Stephens, he rung during supper.”

  “When you said it was a wrong number?”

  “Didn’t want to tell anyone till I seen it. Any case, I got to show Baas Wragge first. Just been to fetch it off of the sergeant.”

  “Is that all right? I mean, you remember what the sergeant said about …”

  “Sure I remember. Bit after you told me that, I was going up the drive—sergeant had got me some butter for Miss May—when I run into a couple of Yanks. Started asking me questions—where was I going?—and then calling me names. I didn’t say nothing, and it looked like they might get to knocking me around when the sergeant happened down and they run off.”

  “You didn’t tell anyone?”

  “Didn’t want Mary Jane worriting. Sergeant said me being a nigger he’d not get the officers to take it serious. After that we fixed a place—that old fell tree top of Five-acre—so he can leave Miss May’s butter when it’s easy for him to get down there, and I fetch it and leave the money in the morning, when they’re all busy soldiering. I only come out now cause he rung me, saying he’d got something from Phil. I’d asked him, couple of days back, telling him it’s getting urgent—can’t tell him why. Thought he might’ve found something the other way.”

  He took the cutting back and stared at it, shaking his head.

  “He still isn’t Baas Charlie,” he said.

  “I suppose it doesn’t absolutely prove it. But it does show he’s telling the truth about losing his memory and so on. He can’t have started making his story up that long ago and not done anything about it till now.”

  Samuel shook his head again and gave a grunting sigh. “Better be getting long back in,” he said.

  “I’m going to wander round a bit longer.”

  “Guards don’t like it, not if you’re after dark.”

  “They don’t know I’m out.”

  Samuel nodded and grinned, though his brow stayed frowning.

  “Baas Charlie, he used to climb all over the house, your age,” he said.

  “Must run in the family. Good-night.”

  “Good-night.”

  Mrs Oliphant was snoring, louder than the bombers or the wind. Jean was waiting by the window, anxious and cross, and expecting to snuggle on the parlour settee, but he made her put on an extra jersey and walk with him in the roaring woods for an hour while he talked about roles he would one day play, and how he would tackle them. Her lips were rubbery cold when he kissed her good-night.

  The climb back up went easily. The linen-room window was still open. It was just before midnight when he got to his room. On his pillow he found a note in Mrs Mkele’s handwriting. “Please to see Sir Arnold 10 o’clock a.m. Respectfully, S.M.”

  FIVE

  There was no answer to his tap, but as he took hold of the handle it turned from the inside and the door opened. Uncle Vole’s nurse blinked at him with an outraged look, as though someone had just pinched her bum.

  “Sir Arnold asked to see me,” he explained.

  She put a hand to her ear and pulled out a plug of cotton-wool. He explained again. She stood aside to let him through.

  “Try not to tire him,” she snapped as she left.

  Uncle Vole looked younger. Perhaps the angle of the head on the pillow smoothed out some of the wrinkles, or perhaps what he had been saying to the nurse had brought a flicker of blood into the parchment cheeks, but somehow his whole face spoke of what it might have been in years gone by, all the way back into the obscurities of childhood. The room was summer-warm. Arms and hands lay inert on the counterpane, framing the body, which was so slight that without them it would have been hard to know where it lay beneath the bedclothes. A finger fluttered, summoning Andrew closer. The rheumy eyes glared up, then closed.

  “Stupid cow,” said Uncle Vole. “Stuffs muck in her ears so she can’t hear what I’m telling her. Must have a good-looker, I told them. If that’s the best they can do …”

  “I suppose the young ones have been called up.”

  “If I was Adolf Hitler I’d have all that sort put down. Waste of money keeping them alive. Watcher want?”

  “You sent for me, sir.”

  The eyes opened again, not glaring but peering, seeking for something in Andrew’s eyes.

  “I’m dying.”

  “Bad luck, sir.”

  “That all you can say?”

  “If I said anything else you wouldn’t believe me.” A long pause.

  “Right. The bugger calls himself Charles. He’s not my son. Spotted that soon as I saw him. Might�
�ve booted him out that very night. Thought I’d have a bit more fun with the pair of you. Wanted to see May’s face when the coppers came for him.”

  “Did Samuel show you …?”

  “Bit from that paper? Don’t prove a thing.”

  “I thought …”

  “Fuck that. I say he ain’t my son, and Samuel says he ain’t neither. None of the others is worth a bugger. That’s why I’ve hung on to Samuel. There’s a nigger-trick he can do—they can’t all, but he can. I’ve seen him stare at a heap of lumps like a sick goose and say ‘Big stone in there, baas,’ and I’d hammer the lump apart and half the time he’d be right. More’n once I had him tell me the Company Police were coming on a surprise visit and I’ve had time to get things straight for them. If he says the bugger’s not Charlie, you can take it as read.”

  “What are you going to do, sir?”

  The eyes closed as the old man rested. Andrew studied the line of the blue lips, the nose pointed like a sail. You’d never be able to afford a pause this long, he thought. You’d have to make it seem like one.

  “Brandy,” said Uncle Vole. “On the table here. Use the dropper.”

  There was a bottle, a glass and a glass tube with a rubber bulb at the top. Andrew poured out some brandy, sucked a little into the tube and fed it in between the lips. Another immense pause.

  “I’m going to tell you a story,” said Uncle Vole, still with his eyes closed. “I don’t like you. Why should I? Nobody’s ever liked me. But you’re my sort—look out for Number One and bugger the universe. Might have told you anyway, one day. Want someone in the family to know. You’re the one. Goes like this. When I was eleven I decided I was fed up. Fed up with my fool of a mother and my mouse of a brother and my God-spouting greasy father and everything else. Most of all fed up with Chapel. Came to me one morning, like Paul on the way to whatsit, that I was buggered if I was going to sit through that one more Sunday.”

  “Yes, sir. You told me.”

  “Shut up and listen. My brother held me down while my father laid into me with his belt on my bare arse and I swore at them the foulest I knew. My father must’ve gone off his rocker—he kept at it till I passed out, and I was five days in bed after, lying on my belly. Got the marks still. Feel ’em each time I go to the shit-house. But it didn’t change my mind—all it did was make me promise myself by every oath I knew I’d get the best of ’em in the end, and I’d do it in a way so they’d think about it every day they lived, all the rest of their lives. Brandy.”