About Last Night . . .

by Catherine Alliott

  ‘Right,’ I said, surprised. ‘Traditional.’

  ‘Extremely. You like?’

  ‘Very much. They’re very me.’

  We strolled around some more, and I read with interest the captions beside the sculptures, learning he’d been out in Africa for years, but now moulded mostly from instinct and memory.

  ‘Any idea who this is?’

  Felix had stopped beside a life-sized head, not of an animal this time, and on a small table, not a plinth. I knew immediately.

  ‘Oh.’ I came up beside him. ‘It’s your father!’

  ‘Exactly. Daniel’s grandfather.’

  ‘How lovely.’ I reached out and stroked the Roman nose gently with my fingertip, admiring the crinkly eyes, the noble forehead. ‘He’s caught him just exactly.’

  Felix smiled. He stood back to admire, his head on one side. I joined him, realizing the perspective was better from a distance. We looked on in silence. At length I spoke.

  ‘Is he very fond of him?’

  ‘Daniel? Very. We all are. You know that special, solid person you were talking about, the one you need in a family and won’t miss until they’re gone? That’s Dad.’

  I nodded; moved on to the next piece, a lioness asleep with her neck stretched out. I gazed at it distractedly.

  ‘He’s eighty-six, right?’

  ‘Yes, this year.’

  ‘And apart from flu at the moment, he’s fit?’

  Felix turned and narrowed his eyes beyond me, out of the huge floor-to-ceiling windows that gave on to the river. ‘It’s not flu. He calls it that but he has emphysema. It comes and goes, but it’s debilitating.’

  ‘Emphysema. That’s serious, isn’t it?’

  ‘Can be.’

  I swallowed. ‘So he’s in his room a lot?’

  ‘A bit. He always gets dressed, though, no matter how rough he’s feeling.’

  ‘What do the doctors say?’

  ‘They say … that it could be months. Or it could be a few years. They just don’t know.’

  A few years. At most. Not many. I licked my lips. ‘Felix … this … compromise you were talking about.’ I turned to him properly, away from the sleeping lioness. ‘What did you have in mind?’

  He smiled. ‘Nothing. It was stupid. A delusion. Forget it, Molly. And I didn’t mention Dad to wear you down. Come on. Let’s stroll back down the river.’

  ‘No, I’m interested. Go on, what was it?’

  He took a deep breath. Hesitated. ‘Well, I just thought, in a crazy moment, and it really was a bonkers one, that you might let him stay. End his days there. In the house he’s lived in for twenty-odd years. Surrounded by the things he’s known and loved, surrounded by … Cuthbert.’ He paused. ‘But it was a madness. A fantasy.’ He glanced down at his shoes. ‘Come on, let’s go.’

  ‘No, wait.’ I stayed his arm. ‘You mean I’d still own it?’

  ‘Of course. You probably own it already.’

  ‘And your father would … lodge.’

  ‘And pay rent.’

  ‘Oh well, no, I couldn’t …’

  Suddenly I realized what I was considering. Letting an old man I didn’t know, while out his days in a house he’d once lived in: put on hold my own dreams for someone I’d only met the other day? I shook my head. Fell in step beside Felix as he’d moved towards the door.

  ‘No,’ I said in a low voice. ‘No, you’re right, it couldn’t happen.’

  We walked away.

  The fact that the afternoon stretched into the evening was purely through coincidence. Purely by dint of the fact that, as we were walking back along the river, me destined for Lucy’s flat in Earls Court, him to a tube to transport him to his studio – a converted town house in Docklands, he was telling me – a cyclist was knocked off his bike in front of us on the Embankment. We didn’t actually see the crash, just heard a horrid bang, and then there was this young lad, thrown, mercifully, on to the pavement and not in the path of the traffic, and wearing a helmet, but in a tangle, a heap, his bike on top of him. All the traffic stopped and car doors flew open, but we moved fast. We were the first to reach him, this lad of about nineteen, white-faced, staring up at us with huge grey eyes, his leg through the spokes of one wheel, the other wheel still spinning. Felix was brilliant. He knelt right down on the pavement beside him and kept him calm while I phoned for an ambulance. As I waited for the operator, I heard Felix’s low, soothing voice, telling the lad he was absolutely fine and that help was already on its way. He asked his name.

  ‘Tim.’

  ‘Tim. Just keep holding my hand. Keep looking at me. You’re going to be absolutely fine.’

  He didn’t try to move him, but draped his jacket over him for warmth. The boy shook violently but kept his eyes firmly on Felix’s face, drinking in his eyes, his voice, until the ambulance arrived, which, thank goodness – we heard the siren blaring – was relatively soon.

  ‘He’s fine,’ the paramedic assured us as they lifted him carefully on to a stretcher and covered him with a blanket. ‘Just gone into shock. And the leg’s not broken, neither is anything else as far as we can see. Well done, mate.’

  ‘You’ll let us know?’ asked Felix.

  ‘We’ll take him to Thomas’s. You can ring A&E.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  The doors closed and they were off, lights flashing. Moments later a police car arrived amid more sirens. Two policemen got out with notebooks and asked us if we’d seen the accident, which we hadn’t, so they spoke to a driver who had, and who’d also seen a lorry trundle away, oblivious to the fact he’d clipped a bicycle. We were told we could go. As I stood there hugging myself, I realized I was shivering. It had all happened so quickly.

  ‘Come on.’ Felix threw his jacket round my shoulders and gave them a quick squeeze. ‘Let’s have a drink at the Savoy. We deserve it.’

  He took my arm and at the next lights we crossed the main road and walked around the back of the hotel, then up a side road to the front. The familiar art deco exterior, backdrop to so many films and Poirot episodes, with top-hatted, long-coated doormen and black cabs drawing up, was a comfort. Inside, we made our way down the steps to the piano bar and the banquette seating in the corner. A large, strong cocktail, cold and sweet, worked its magic. I could feel it pumping into my veins. As I leaned my head back on the plush, buttoned velvet, I took stock of the day. I realized it had been rather a special one. Not the last bit, of course, the cyclist – although mercifully he was fine, we’d checked – but this bit. It was such a far cry from my life. Next week, when I was hosing down the stable walls, or turning sheep upside down with Nico to clip their toenails, I’d remember this day, and this man – I felt Felix’s smile rest on me – for a long time to come.

  Back at Lucy’s flat that night, I cooked for her and Robin, her boyfriend, to give them a night off, before getting my train back home in the morning.

  ‘This is nice of you, Ma.’ Lucy came into the galley kitchen to peer into the pan I was stirring. ‘What is it, some kind of ethnic concoction?’ She ate a forkful then passed another one to Robin, who’d followed her.

  ‘Oh, yum. Delicious, Mrs Faulkner.’

  ‘Molly,’ I corrected, as ever, with a smile.

  He’d recently been caught in a compromising position with one of Lucy’s more attractive friends and was desperate for a toe back in the door. Robin adored my daughter, but Lucy, never one to commit, often pushed him away. I’d seen her do it: heard her being foul to him at the farm when they came down for weekends, bossing him about, picking on him. Everyone has their saturation point and when he finally reached his, he split up with her. Lucy pouted and flounced and claimed to be unmoved, but a few weeks later, he’d been seen kissing her friend in a nightclub. I’d thought it was inspired and had even wondered if he’d done it deliberately. It had certainly had the desired effect. She was incandescent with rage, but also grief-stricken. Minna even whispered, awestruck, to me when Lucy was upstairs, that she’d
seen her crying, which was unheard of. More recently the two of them had got back together, which pleased me, because personally I liked the boy, but the scales, bizarrely, still seemed to be tipped in her favour. Why? Surely she either forgave him, or she didn’t? I held my tongue on this, though, as wary as Robin was of hers.

  I looked at her now, carrying plates of stir-fry to the coffee table while Robin brought the glasses and a bottle of wine. In one elegant motion, she settled, cross-legged, on a sofa, like a ballet dancer, slim and lithe in an assortment of grey and white vests, skinny black jeans ripped at the knees. As she forked up her supper her silky blonde hair draped around her angelic face with those high cheekbones and almond-shaped, pale blue eyes. She tucked her hair behind one ear and I saw Robin looking at her. She’d always looked like that, like an angel, and when she was little David and I would stare at her in her sleep, wondering if it was because she was our firstborn that we found her so lovely, but realizing, as she grew, that others thought so too. Her brush with Robin’s so-called infidelity – They were on a break! Minna would shriek indignantly – was the first time a boy had ever given her trouble. Personally I thought it had been terribly good for her but I wouldn’t have dreamed of voicing it. Any more than I could quite believe what I was about to say next.

  ‘Lucy.’ I put my fork down. ‘I’ve been thinking about this house.’

  ‘Which house?’

  ‘Lastow Mews.’

  ‘Oh?’ She glanced up.

  ‘And I think I might rent it out. Just to begin with.’

  She continued to eat silently. Took a cool sip of wine and replaced her glass on the table. ‘Sudden change of heart, Ma? How come?’

  ‘Well, I just think,’ I felt a bit sweaty under the arms, ‘it would make sense. Just for a few years.’

  ‘A few years?’

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘Right. And where would you live?’

  ‘Well, that’s just it,’ I said eagerly. ‘I’ve practically sold the farm, Peter’s seen to that, to a lovely couple, so I thought I could buy something smaller up here with what I get for it.’

  She raised one perfectly groomed eyebrow. ‘Two houses in London. Quite the property magnate.’

  ‘Oh no, just – you know. A little flat.’

  ‘Which would cost?’ She turned coolly to Robin who was a property lawyer, so knew. He cleared his throat.

  ‘In what area?’

  ‘Oh, anywhere really, I—’

  ‘Mum wants to be in South Ken. She said so.’ She turned to me firmly. ‘Didn’t you?’

  ‘Well, I—’

  ‘Three bedrooms,’ she added. ‘So we all have a base.’

  Robin glanced up at the ceiling to consider, then mentioned a sum of money so huge I thought for a moment he must be talking in drachmas.

  ‘Right,’ I said faintly. ‘Well no, obviously the farm won’t cover that. What about two bedrooms?’

  Lucy’s eyebrow went up again. ‘Two?’

  ‘Well – Minna and Nico won’t mind sharing—’

  ‘I think there’s a law against that, at their age.’

  ‘Or – or a sofa bed, in the sitting room, for Nico. And you’ve got this, so …’ I felt myself reddening.

  ‘My, he must be attractive,’ she murmured as Robin suggested something a bit lower for two bedrooms, but not much.

  ‘Or maybe around here?’ I suggested.

  ‘Yes,’ he agreed, ‘around here would be cheaper.’

  ‘I know, perhaps we could all crowd into my basement flat and Felix and his father could come and feed us bowls of gruel? Poke them through the bars?’ She nodded at the window.

  ‘Lucy, don’t be like that.’

  ‘Like what? Reasonable? You’re honestly suggesting we put on hold Dad’s rightful inheritance to accommodate some family we don’t even know – I imagine that’s what this is all about? Letting them stay there or something? Tell her, Robin.’

  Robin flushed, horrified to be called on thus. ‘Well – heavens – I don’t know. Um, it does seem a little rash, Mrs – Molly.’ I was clearly going to be Mrs Molly for ever. I narrowed my eyes at him. ‘O-on the other hand I can see,’ he groped about for what he could see, caught as he was between a rock and a very hard place, ‘I can see that – well, if you do just rent it out, as you suggest—’

  ‘How much would that set them back?’ demanded Lucy. ‘This remote, bizarre family we’ve never heard of.’

  ‘Well … a three-bedroom house in South Ken – about a thousand pounds.’

  ‘A month?’ I hazarded.

  ‘Um, no. A week.’

  ‘A week! Good God. Oh, I’m quite sure he hasn’t got that,’ I said faintly. ‘Cuthbert was the one with the money.’

  ‘Exactly,’ said Lucy grimly.

  ‘I was thinking more like … well, I don’t know—’

  ‘No, you don’t,’ Lucy broke in. ‘You don’t have any idea. Taking pity on an old man is one thing, Mum, but being taken for a fool is another. Isn’t that right, Robin?’

  ‘Well – gosh – um, I wouldn’t say a fool, exactly.’ Lucy glared. ‘I mean – yes, in a manner of speaking …’ My turn to raise an eyebrow. ‘But – as a – a figure of speech, only. But Mrs – Molly, why not – why not get a buy-to-let? One bedroom, bought with the farm, and rent it out to him, at a reasonable rate?’

  ‘Yes, why not?’ demanded Lucy. ‘Good idea.’

  ‘Oh, but that’s not what he wants. He wants to be surrounded by the things he knows and loves, by the man he loved, his memories.’ I realized I was echoing somebody. ‘To end his days there. And it may not be long,’ I said eagerly. ‘Felix says it could be months, weeks. He has emphysema.’

  ‘Well golly, let’s hope it’s hours, eh?’ Lucy looked at her watch. ‘Let’s hope he’s expiring as we jolly well speak. I could rustle up the flowers. I love a coffin top. Lots of work space. All that mahogany. It could be our gesture, then everyone will be happy. If you don’t mind me saying so, Mum, it’s pretty unseemly sitting around twiddling our thumbs waiting for an old man to die.’

  ‘I am not sitting around waiting for him to die and I am not unseemly,’ I said hotly. ‘I’m just trying to think of a fair and practical solution.’

  Lucy seized the pepper pot and ground it on to her stir-fry as if grinding her foot on someone’s face. Robin looked fearful.

  ‘Firstly,’ she spat, ‘there is no solution needed, because there is no problem. Secondly, had there been a problem, which there isn’t, nothing you’ve suggested has been either fair or practical. Isn’t that right, Robin?’

  Robin seemed to have got his tongue wrapped indefinitely around his tonsils, so puce was he becoming. ‘Well, I must say … I certainly think … what I mean is—’

  ‘Oh shut up,’ she said, banging the pepper pot down hard on the table and making us both jump. ‘If you can’t say anything constructive, don’t say anything at all. Sometimes I think I’m just surrounded by idiots.’

  And with that she picked up her plate and barged into her bedroom with it. She turned and kicked the door shut and then a few moments later, we heard the television.

  Robin and I raised our eyebrows at each other, bonded by our common fear. He didn’t go after her, though, which impressed me. We ate silently and companionably – and, it has to be said, rather thankfully – for some minutes, and then I initiated a conversation about the theatre, which I knew he was keen on. We actually had a rather pleasant meal as he told me about the latest David Spence production at the Haymarket, the unusual stage setting, and the spectacular performance of a young actor friend he’d been at Cambridge with, in an amusing cameo role. Nice boy, Robin. Shame about his girlfriend.

  13

  Back at the farm the following day it was as if the previous one had never happened. It was as if London didn’t exist at all, had been a figment of my outlandish imagination: a ridiculous, phantasmagorical dream that had taken place only in my head as I temporarily inhabited cloud cuckoo
land, whilst in reality Herefordshire, or more specifically my ninety acres of it, was the only place on earth. In other words, it was business as usual. Water was dripping from the kitchen ceiling via a damp patch where Minna had let a bath overflow and under which she’d placed a bucket which was now also overflowing. The tap water had tasted so vile that Nico, stirred from his habitual inertia, had gone up to the attic to investigate and found a dead rat in the tank: he’d thoughtfully left it there for me to deal with and bought bottled water instead. The septic tank in the paddock had backed up and overflowed because I’d forgotten to have it emptied and, consequently, effluent of the most repulsive nature was oozing, even now, into the back garden en route to the house. All this Nico informed me of, in a laconic, detached voice, in semi-darkness, horizontal in his dressing gown on a sofa, eyes never leaving a repeat of Top Gear. Although to be fair, the overflowing bucket I’d already encountered in the kitchen.

  ‘And have you even bothered to do anything about it?’ I screamed, flinging off my jacket, throwing my bag on a chair and lurching to the window to yank apart the curtains with one hand while simultaneously scrolling down my phone for Stuart the Septic Tank Man’s number with the other. ‘Can’t you even make a phone call?’ Nico clearly considered this a rhetorical question and, anyway, I’d run back to the kitchen to empty the slopping bucket into the loo, phone wedged between shoulder and ear, replaced the bucket and run back again.

  ‘Stuart! God, Stuart, I need you!’ I plunged a frenzied hand through my hair.

  ‘Like I said,’ Nico said flatly, in response to my earlier question when I’d finally talked Stuart into coming, ‘I went up into the attic. Took me ages. Had to find a ladder and everything. It’s a real mess up there, Mum, needs sorting.’ He wrapped his dressing gown around his skinny torso in disgust. ‘There’s, like, crap everywhere.’