The Travellers

by Ann Swinfen

  ‘I wonder...’ said Kate, trying to concentrate on her driving but thinking furiously.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Sending Dad up to take charge of the northern half of the company – was it just to get him out of the way? Away from head office? He wouldn’t have gone along with this, you know. It mattered to him that Crossbow was a British company expanding its share of the world market. Could they really have been that underhand?’

  ‘Well, that’s just what Dad thinks. And of course that makes it worse – he thinks that he was a fool, not to have guessed what was happening And he thinks he never deserved the promotion. And all this on top of having saved the Manchester project by taking charge himself.’

  ‘But I do not understand,’ Sofia put in hesitantly. ‘Why should they make him redundant? Surely they will still need someone to do the job?’

  ‘They always make some managers redundant,’ said Kate. ‘Bring in their own people, you see.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Beccy. ‘Because of his known opposition, he was bound to be one of those to be axed. Some of his so-called “friends” have taken early retirement so they can go and spend their winnings in Antibes or on world cruises. Two or three have been retained in top management, to satisfy the fiction of a non-aggressive takeover.’

  Kate turned on to the left fork to Charlborough, and tried to focus her mind on Tom – Tom without Crossbow, which had been his life for twenty years, to which he had given loyal, unstinting service. Crossbow had consumed Tom, destroyed his personal and private life, and now it had spat him out. But despite the impact of Beccy’s news, she couldn’t fix Tom’s face in her mind. It was blurred, and this news made it even more difficult.

  ‘How is he taking it?’

  ‘It’s awful, Mum.’ Beccy suddenly sounded young and scared. ‘That’s why I came up to Edinburgh. Not just so you would know before you got home, but to warn you about Dad. I think he’s really cracking up. He just sits around all day, staring into space. He doesn’t shave, he doesn’t change his clothes – I think he even sleeps in them. He’s been drinking, too, only now I think he’s drunk everything there was in the house, and he won’t go outside, so at least he can’t buy any more.’

  She gave a gulp like a dry sob. ‘It’s been really frightening, Mum. During the daytime he sits in the same chair all the time, but at night he goes crashing around from room to room – swearing and muttering about Crossbow and... well, about you. Why aren’t you there, that kind of thing. I tried, I really did. I made him meals and put them down in front of him, but hours later they would still be there, cold and untouched. And I got so scared at night... well, I moved out.’

  She leaned forward against the back of Sofia’s seat. ‘I’m sorry, Sofia, but I’m afraid I moved into your cottage with Chris. I didn’t know where else to go. Linda offered me space on her floor, but you know how tiny the flat is for the three of them. We have separate bedrooms, Chris and me, in your cottage,’ she explained earnestly. ‘I wouldn’t want you to think there was anything going on that you wouldn’t approve of.’

  That, thought Kate, is the least of our worries.

  * * *

  That evening, exhausted, feeling remote and disorientated, Kate thought Beccy had, if anything, played down Tom’s state of mind. They had dropped Sofia off at her cottage, where Beccy collected a shoulder bag stuffed with belongings. Chris was going to stay for another night or two in Sofia’s spare room until he could find new digs in Dunmouth.

  ‘I’m really sorry about Mr Milburn,’ said Chris, as he opened the door of Kate’s car for her. ‘You know you can call on me for any help you need, if... if things get difficult.’

  Violent, he means, thought Kate. If things get violent. Can it really be that bad?

  ‘It does sometimes hit people very hard,’ said Chris awkwardly. ‘Redundancy. Men particularly, I suppose, because they see themselves as the breadwinner. And of course if you’re middle-aged it’s worse, because there’s almost no hope of getting another job.’

  ‘Thank you, Chris,’ said Kate, pulling the car door shut.

  Thank you very much, she thought, for those comforting remarks.

  ‘Are you still working for Linda?’ she asked Beccy as they drove slowly up the hill to Craigfast House, which they had passed without turning in as they came down into Dunmouth.

  ‘Yes, and I’ve got quite a bit of money saved up, if it will help.’

  Kate was touched. ‘That’s very kind, darling, but I’m sure we’ll sort things out. I suppose Dad hasn’t done anything about signing on or looking for another job? No, of course not.’

  ‘I think signing on would be the ultimate humiliation. After all, he’s always had a good job, hasn’t he? Ever since he graduated. And your generation didn’t expect to be unemployed, not like mine. I’m afraid Chris is right, you know. He probably won’t find another job now.’

  ‘He’s only fifty-one!’

  ‘That’s what I mean. Nowadays, if you’re over forty, or even thirty-five, they won’t consider you for most things.’

  Kate resolutely ignored this piece of wisdom from Beccy, but when she saw Tom, she could not imagine anyone wanting to employ him, ever again. How could someone change so much in little more than three weeks? Though she remembered how tired he had been looking before she went away. Now he was gaunt and hollow-eyed, with a dirty-looking growth of beard and his hair lank and greasy. No employer would look at him. She had seen more prepossessing tramps.

  ‘Well, thank goodness you’ve seen fit to turn up at last,’ he said. His eyes were cold. ‘It was fine for you, wasn’t it, buggering off on holiday? God knows how much money you’ve spent that we can’t afford. You’ve really landed us in the shit, haven’t you?’

  Kate felt as though she had been struck. Tom had never sworn at her in his life before. She had intended to put her arms around him and say that they would soon sort things out, but she could not bring herself to touch this alien man, angry and ugly. She stepped back.

  With fragile self-control she coped all evening. She persuaded him to take a shower and shave, and whipped his clothes away into the washing-machine. Then she prepared home-made carrot soup – one of his favourites – and they sat down on either side of the kitchen table to eat it. Beccy, seeing that Kate did not need physical protection, made some excuse and took her soup up to her bedroom.

  Tom was subdued after he had eaten, no longer abusive but looking white and drawn. He would not speak to her, so Kate decided to leave matters for the moment, washing the dishes, laying the table for breakfast, transferring the washing to the tumble-drier. Doing all the routine tasks as some kind of assurance that life would continue as normal.

  Now at last she was in the bathroom, having showered and washed her hair, staring at her face in the steamy mirror over the basin. The face, under the familiar twist of towel, looked the same and yet not the same. It was fuller, younger-looking, the reverse of Tom’s, which looked thinner and older.

  Sighing, she rubbed her hair. It sprang up, as it always did when it was wet, in tight curls, to relax into softer waves as it dried. In their bedroom Tom was already in bed, the lamp on his table switched off. She walked across to the window and opened it softly. As she went out on to the balcony the low rays of a waning moon fell across her. There were street lamps in Dunmouth. That was different from Szentmargit, which was dark after sundown. A few lights showed also from houses, and at the harbour mouth she could see the bobbing lights – red, white and green – as the fishing fleet put to sea.

  She pulled the window almost closed as she stepped back into the bedroom, for it was colder here than in Hungary. She ran her fingers through her hair. Dry enough. As she climbed into bed she thought that Tom was too still, too rigid, to be asleep. She reached out and switched off her own lamp.

  His arm came across her and clamped her to him. For a moment she was afraid, remembering what Beccy had said of the wandering and swearing at night. She held her breath, fear rising like
sickness in the back of her throat. Then she realised he was crying – dry rasping sobs. It is terrifying to hear a man cry, she thought. Tom, self-confident, self-assured Tom, crying. His arms holding her were like a vice. She wanted to say, I can’t breathe, but did not dare speak. Then he was tearing at her nightdress.

  ‘God, I’ve needed you, Kate.’

  They were the first words he had addressed to her since the shouting that had greeted her when she arrived.

  She put her arms around him. She wanted to say, I am no longer the same. I am in love with another man. But how could she do that to him?

  When at last she was able to curl on her side like an injured animal, she cried silently into her pillow. She was bruised, humiliated and in pain.

  * * *

  For the next two days Kate was very cautious. When Tom sat around slumped in an armchair, she would manoeuvre him outside into the garden in the general belief that the fresh air and wider horizons must surely do him some good. The garden was rampant with neglect and demanded her attention. She was no gardener by Sofia’s and Magdolna’s standards, but the care of the tiny yard behind the London house had fallen to her responsibility, and she had done her best, with a climbing rose and pots of geraniums and small shrubs. The garden of Craigfast House was quite another matter, and even before she had gone away she knew she was losing the battle. While she had been in Hungary, Tom and Beccy had done nothing, not even cut the grass. Luckily the weather had been dry here too, so it had not quite become a hayfield yet. With Tom ensconced in a garden chair on the terrace she mowed the grass and dug dandelions out of the flower beds and dead-headed the roses. Tom looked a little less pale, sitting and watching her, but his eyes still had that blank dead look, which would be replaced from time to time with a glint of baffled fury.

  She had made no attempt yet to discuss the situation with him. Apart from his first outburst as she walked through the door, neither of them had made even the most oblique reference to Crossbow or his present state of unemployment. Tom hardly spoke at all. Kate made one cautious phone call on her second day home to the benefit office in Charlborough, fixing an appointment for him the following week. She was doubtful whether she would be able to persuade him to keep it.

  Unnervingly, he seemed to want to follow her everywhere. When he wasn’t staring into space his eyes were fixed on her, but slid away whenever she looked at him. Kate began to feel a sort of claustrophobic panic. He would not even let her go out to walk Toby, who had greeted her return with relief.

  ‘I’ll just take Toby down to the beach for an hour,’ she pleaded, on the second morning. A wave of fury washed over his face.

  ‘Why can’t he just run about in the garden?’

  ‘He needs the exercise – he’s a big sporting dog. It isn’t good for him to be cooped up. Come with me if you like,’ she added, though she would have preferred to go alone.

  ‘Let’s leave it for a bit, Kate,’ he said abruptly.

  Beccy had to do the shopping, assisted by Chris who came gravely up the hill with her and surveyed Tom out of the corner of his eye.

  ‘Sofia has offered me lodgings with her for the moment,’ he said, as they unpacked the carrier bags in the kitchen.

  ‘That’s good,’ said Kate, thinking that the trip to Hungary had changed Sofia too. She was hungry for company now. ‘It will be much more comfortable for you there. And it will be a help to have you around, in case she needs a hand with any heavy jobs. Tell her,’ she added, ‘that I’ll be down to see her as soon as... as soon as it’s possible.’

  ‘Of course.’ He nodded.

  This narrow existence, shut up in the house and garden with a husband who looked as though he might as any moment break down entirely, set Kate’s teeth on edge. At times his intense stare, fixed on her, was frightening. Even the views from the house only served to mock her. She was reminded of István as a child, dreaming of escape down the Danube on a boat to the sea, away from his imprisoned country. For the first time in her life even the nearness of the sea could not comfort her.

  Roz was due back on the Sunday after Kate’s return, Stephen on the following Friday. Every time Kate passed the telephone table in the hall, her eyes were drawn to two official-looking envelopes – the GCSE and A-Level results. She would not open them, of course, but she was tempted to hold Stephen’s letter up to a strong light, to see if she could make anything out. Suppose he hadn’t gained the necessary grades? It would be yet another complication in what was becoming the tangle of confusion in their lives. She didn’t even know what redundancy payment Tom would receive for twenty years’ service. Nothing had been paid into the bank account yet, apart from his final salary at the end of August. Presumably these things took time.

  Kate’s virtual imprisonment in the house meant, however, that she could postpone confronting her parents about the events of the past. She kept them at bay with phone calls, listening to Millicent’s brisk advice and Howard’s sympathy with equal meekness. She arranged for Angie’s mother to collect Roz from the coach which would bring the music students back from camp and deliver them to the school playground in Charlborough.

  ‘My husband isn’t very well,’ she said down the phone, truthfully enough. ‘Could you possibly drop Roz off here? I’d be really grateful.’

  But she was growing angry with Tom, demanding all her attention like a spoilt child. And there was his physical violence towards her at night. Every evening she postponed going to bed, filled with a sick dread. Now Roz was coming home in triumph, and they should both be there to meet her. It would be an anticlimax to be ferried home by Angie’s mother.

  In the event there was a last-minute change of plan. Beccy and Chris took Kate’s car and went to meet Roz, so they could forewarn her about Tom. At half-past eight on Sunday evening the Peugeot drew up in the drive and Kate ran out and hugged Roz as she tumbled out of the car.

  ‘Here you are!’ she cried. ‘Isn’t it marvellous! I want to hear everything about the music college offer, and how the concert went in Aberystwyth. Were you the sensation of the evening?’

  ‘Of course!’ Roz giggled. ‘Everyone queuing up for my autograph!’ She was fizzing with excitement and swung Kate around on the gravel. ‘Seriously, Mum, I can’t wait. This is just going to be so marvellous – to get real, intensive teaching from the very best people. And not have to wait another two years before I can go.’

  Kate suddenly remembered the matter of fees and living expenses. She would have to talk to Mr Elliot, now that he was back from Wales, and find out about scholarships. But she wouldn’t say anything to dampen Roz’s exultation. Time enough to worry later. As they all processed into the house with Roz’s luggage – which seemed to have expanded while she was away – she realised that Beccy too was a problem. She had been receiving her fees at university, but no maintenance grant because Tom’s income had been too high. Kate would have to do something about that quickly. And for Stephen too. Somehow the whole family was going to have to plan, and it was impossible to do that until they knew where they stood financially. Tom must have been told something by Crossbow. He must have something in writing. He would have to be made to confront matters soon.

  Supper that evening was the least dismal meal since Kate had come home. Chris stayed to eat with them, so five of them sat down at the kitchen table to Beccy’s omelettes and Kate’s salads and a rather squashed cheesecake Roz had bought at a wonderful place in Wales and carried all the way home on the bus. Tom did not speak throughout the meal, but Kate hardly noticed, because everyone else was talking so much. It was as though Roz’s return had burst a membrane of tension which had been stretched around them.

  Later, after Chris had gone and Roz was unpacking in her room to the sound of Holst’s ‘Hymn of Jesus’ played at full blast, Kate and Beccy tackled the washing-up together.

  ‘We’ve got to think about the coming academic year,’ said Kate, squirting washing-up liquid into the bowl and dumping in a handful of cutlery.

/>   ‘Have a heart, Mum – I haven’t even had a holiday yet!’

  ‘Sorry, darling, I know. You’ve been marvellous this summer. But I was wondering how we go about reapplying for a grant. Surely you’ll be entitled to some maintenance now that Dad’s unemployed?’

  ‘You’re right,’ said Beccy, stacking dirty dishes on the draining board. ‘I’m sure there was something in the notes with the grant form. You were to let them know if your parents’ financial circumstances changed. I’ll look out my file tonight and ring from the bookshop tomorrow, after the grant office opens.’

  ‘Wonderful. You are a tower of strength these days.’

  ‘Well, some of us have to be, don’t we? Just how bad is the financial situation?’

  ‘I haven’t dared ask. What I do know is that buying this house and doing it up cleaned us out of any savings. We’ve nothing to fall back on.’

  There was a noise behind them, from the open door of the kitchen. As they turned, they saw Tom, with his shoulders hunched and his hands in his pockets, turning away.

  ‘Oh, dear,’ said Beccy, letting out her breath in a gasp. ‘How much of that did he hear?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ Kate was partly sorry, but perhaps it would galvanise Tom into some sort of action.

  The following day, the atmosphere in the house did seem to have changed, but Kate was not sure that it had improved. Roz banged about, rearranging all the furniture in her room and putting in four hours’ violin practice, so it was not as quiet as it had been. She had not bothered to open her GCSE results until that morning. They were satisfactory, but not exceptional.

  Tom, instead of following Kate about, now seemed to be avoiding her, and when she did speak to him he looked away and would not meet her eyes.

  That evening Beccy said she had phoned the grant office, who would send a form so they could set out the change in the family’s finances. Kate wondered with dread whether Tom would have to fill it in, and if so whether he could be persuaded to do it. Writing the facts down on paper would give the whole nightmare episode a reality which he seemed to be trying to avoid. Well, he was going to have to face it sooner or later.