by K. M. Peyton
He put his arm round her and held her up as she limped desperately towards the inert figure sprawled on the ground. Clarence was crouched beside it, and two or three gawpers, perhaps from the aero club or from the fields, working in the dawn.
‘Cor blimey, ’e’s a goner for sure,’ Lily heard one of them say.
‘Antony!’ She dropped down beside him. She had braced herself for something terrible, but in fact, whatever his injuries might be, they were not obvious.
Blood was trickling from his mouth, his eyes were closed and his skin was blueish-white. He lay at a strange angle from the hips, but was so muffled up in flying clothes that it was hard to make out any details. It was plain that he was deeply unconscious, so anything she might say for comfort was not going to penetrate, but she said it all the same, muttering and sobbing, aware all the time that she was making a fool of herself.
The two Americans were now murmuring together: ‘Whatever possessed him? Did he do it on purpose?’
‘Perhaps he froze with fear.’
‘Well, he was frightened, that was for sure. But surely—’ Mart shrugged. ‘I just don’t get it.’
‘It can’t have been accidental. He must have meant it.’
‘Then changed his mind at the last moment.’
‘That’s what it looks like. The chute was working OK. It was checked and double-checked.’
They stood looking helpless, and Lily started to pull herself together. She was the one who knew Antony best, after all, but could see the awful possibilities. Perhaps it might be best if he died.
‘He’s got no family,’ she said to them. ‘No one, save a terrible aunt.’
‘Jesus, we met her! She booked in at our hotel last night. Miss Sylvester.’
‘Did he know?’
‘Yeah, we told him this morning.’
Lily was silent, stricken by the thought that she had told Mrs Goldbeater that Antony was at Brooklands. So of course Mrs Goldbeater had told Maud Sylvester. So it was her fault that Aunt Maud had discovered Antony. Is that why he didn’t pull the ripcord? She found it hard to credit. Life was so beautiful.
But then she thought: he has no home. He has nobody. He has no job. He has no money. He has me. He will always have me. But what good am I? She lay beside him and cried. She watched for his breath, so faint. They all left her alone.
Eventually an ambulance came bouncing across the field and two men got out with a stretcher. With help from Clarence and Mart they bundled the broken body onto the stretcher and loaded it in the ambulance. Mart said he would go with him. They would not let Lily go. The ambulance men forbid her, saying there was no room. Only for one, which was Mart.
She was left with Clarence, to gather the chutes and fly home. They did not speak. Clarence, his thoughts in complete disarray, was trying to concentrate on his flying, trying to recall the way back to Brooklands, terrified of not finding it and having to make a forced landing somewhere. (Thank God, he thought, he had now enrolled Rob to do all his future flying for him: he was not a natural.) His concentration on the present luckily kept his mind off the truly terrible thing that had happened. It would overwhelm him later, hovering now in his consciousness, but seeing poor Lily safe, not to mention himself, was crucial. All the light had gone out of Lily, her vital shining life. She was like a crushed shell.
He found Brooklands, more by good luck than good navigation, but could not bear to land where he would face Rob and the other enthusiasts, not yet. He needed space. He taxied to a far corner of the airstrip, closer to where the car enthusiasts hung out, turned off the engine and handed Lily carefully out onto the ground. He put his arm round her, steered her to the motorists’ clubhouse where there was no one around that he knew and ordered a taxi. While they were waiting he bought two brandies and more or less poured one down her unwilling throat.
‘It will blank it out, make it better,’ he said. ‘Just a bit.’
‘I want to be with him.’
‘I will take you, whenever it suits. But not now. Now you have to go home.’
The taxi came and they drove back to Lily’s home. The still, soft morning had blossomed into a perfect early summer’s day, cloudless, without a breath of wind and when Lily came down the track to the lake she saw it spread before her in the sunshine just as in the days when she had larked there with the boys and Antony had mocked her declarations of love, when they none of them had a care for the future or a thought for anything but the laughing present.
A century ago. Even the brandy could not take the edge off this overwhelming feeling of loss, and she started to cry again. She heard Clarence groan. He was not practised in consolation and was obviously wishing he had taken Mart’s probably less exacting role.
‘I’ll be all right,’ she sniffed. ‘You can leave me now.’
‘I’ll just see you into your house. Will there be anyone there?’
‘No. I don’t want anyone.’
‘We’ll keep in touch, let you know—’
When he dies, Lily added to herself. They went into the empty cottage.
‘Shall I make you a cup of tea? I will – it’s what you take for shock. Sit here, rest that ankle. You really need to go to bed.’
At that Lily laughed. ‘In the middle of the day?’
Laughing and crying: she supposed that was what life was all about. It hadn’t been all roses, after all. But nothing as bad as this. Clarence sat on the table, waiting for the kettle to boil. It was going to take a long time; the fire was low. Lily put some wood on to hurry it up while Clarence’s eyes rested on the amazing pictures scattered over the walls. A glorious thought came suddenly into his head.
‘Will you sell me the Van Gogh?’
‘It’s Antony’s.’
‘You said he wants to sell them.’
‘Yes, he does.’
‘If I give you the money you can give it to him later.’
‘If he dies—?’
‘Then you can keep it.’
Lily thought her mind was too frazzled to make a sensible decision. What did the picture matter to her any more? She had never particularly liked it. If he wanted it, it would go to a good home. It was true that Antony had shown little interest in the pictures, stashing them in their cottage just to suit himself.
‘You can have it if you like.’
‘I can give you all the money I have on me, for now. Then if – when – Antony gets better and wants a bit more we can talk about it. Would that suit you?’
‘Yes, I think so.’
She wanted him to go, kind as he was. But he made her the tea, very strong, with about a week’s worth of sugar in it, and she forced it down to please him, while he unhooked the picture from the wall. The taxi was waiting for him on the road.
‘We’ll let you know the news of Antony, don’t worry. I’ll find out what hospital they’ve taken him to, then if we go to visit we’ll take you with us. We won’t let you down. It was all our fault, going into this, after all. Here, take this for the picture. If you change your mind you’ve only to say. Otherwise I shall take it back to the States with me.’ He groped in an inside pocket and brought out a roll of notes secured by a rubber band. ‘I’ll just keep one for the taxi. Here you are. Take it.’ He pulled one note out for himself, and thrust the rest into Lily’s hand. ‘Go and rest now. He’ll be all right. I’ll come back to see you shortly.’
He picked up the painting again, tucked it under his arm and left the cottage.
Lily looked down at the roll of notes in her hand. There were too many to count. They seemed to be in notes she had never seen before, with the figure fifty written on them. Later, when her father counted them, he said there was a thousand pounds there.
Enough to live on for ever!
APRIL, 1926
26
The Lockwood estate, including the house and the workers’ cottages was finally put up for sale nearly three years later. By then the whole place had run wild, and the beautiful lawns round the house h
ad been cut by Mr Butterworth for hay every summer. But there were no eager buyers, only a handful of developers who soon realized that the cost of demolishing the fortress-like house would far outweigh the profit from building new. There was anxious talk of it being used for a lunatic asylum or even a prison, but the affluent house-owners in the surrounding area made a strong and successful stand against that idea, and even a man who wanted to start a private boarding school soon saw that the architecture was not given to inspiring youngsters, so dark and forbidding. But one day a gang of demolition workers moved in with their impressive machinery and word came that the site was to be cleared, and the workers in the cottages were given a year’s notice to quit. Nobody knew who had bought it.
With Clarence’s roll of banknotes still sitting in a vase on top of the kitchen cupboard, Lily was not worried by the notice. She had been looking for a convenient cottage to buy ever since she had received the money, but there had been no hurry and she was loath to leave the only home she had ever known. Amazingly, Squashy got himself a job with the demolition firm, trundling stone and bricks in a wheelbarrow to the waiting lorries, the first time in his life that he had found anything so satisfying to his simple brain which he actually got paid for doing. Barky and Ludo followed and became the mascots of the workforce, getting fat on titbits from the men’s bait at lunch time.
As for Antony …
‘Far better that he had killed himself properly,’ Simon said. ‘Instead of only half killing himself.’
‘No!’
‘Well, I wouldn’t want you to see him, that’s for sure. I shan’t take you, Lily, however much you scream and shout.’
Lily had begged and pleaded, to no avail. Antony had been in a London hospital for nearly three years now. Lily, who had never been to London in her life, had set off one day the previous year to visit him with one of Clarence’s notes in her purse, got hopelessly lost as soon as she got off the train at Waterloo, asked for help, was manhandled, robbed of her money and only saved from being seriously assaulted by the fortuitous arrival of a bowler-hatted gentleman with a ferocious boxing talent. He had rescued her, comforted her, taken her back to Waterloo and put her on a train for home with a cheese sandwich and a couple of half-crowns. Gabriel, hearing the story, thrashed her, locked her up until he was tired of cooking his own meals and, when he let her out, forbade her ever to give another thought to the good-for-nothing Antony Sylvester, or else he would send her to live with his old aunt Enid in farthest Wales.
Lily, sobbing, had never heard of Aunt Enid – was he making her up? She knew he wouldn’t do it. But her brief experience of London and its ways did not encourage her to try again, although she never gave up thinking of Antony: the habit was too deeply engrained.
Keeping friendly with the Goldbeaters was her only way of keeping in touch. Simon had followed a good honours degree from Oxford with further study at a university in London and could visit Antony without too much inconvenience. He only went when hounded by his mother, for hospital visiting was not on his list of pleasurable pursuits, in no way to be compared with driving fast cars, playing golf, drinking, gambling and visiting nightclubs. But he was able to report back.
Mrs Goldbeater relayed the news to Lily. ‘Poor lad! I would go myself, Lily, sometimes, but that dreadful aunt of his is nearly always there, and I really cannot stand her. Of course, without her he would be doomed, wouldn’t he? She pays for all his treatment, the very best of care. He’d be dead without her, abandoned with the paupers, Eton boy or no Eton boy. Mr Goldbeater has been in a few times, but it depresses him so, and he says the poor boy never really knows who is there or not.’
He would know me! Lily always thought fiercely. His face would light up! When she said this to Simon, Simon said simply, ‘Yes, Lily, I think it would.’
The two Americans, in spite of promises, had never taken her to see Antony, and only been to visit him themselves once or twice before packing up and going back to America. The escapade had shaken them badly and they felt, perhaps correctly, that they were under a cloud in Brooklands and that it would be much simpler to forget the whole thing back at home.
But the next time Lily saw Mrs Goldbeater she was told that Antony was being moved in May to a hospital in the country, a convalescent home near Richmond.
‘He has made some progress at last. They think that in a year or two he might be able to go home.’
‘He has no home.’
‘He has his Aunt Maud. She is his home now.’
‘I think he would rather die.’
‘The instinct to live is very strong, Lily, even when faced with the likes of Aunt Maud. The point is, there is no alternative for him.’
‘I would look after him!’
‘Talk sense, Lily! He will need nursing all his life. And that is very expensive. But perhaps you could visit, now that he is closer. Simon can take you the next time he goes. I will arrange it. But bear in mind, Lily, he’s probably not the Antony you used to know, not after all this long time.’
She spoke kindly, gently. She had visited Antony herself once, unfortunately at the same time as Aunt Maud, and the visit had been so painful she had no wish to repeat it. But Aunt Maud was paying the unending hospital bills without demur and would take her nephew home with her when the time came, so how could any of them criticize her?
‘Do you ever hear from those American boys these days? They did visit Antony at first, didn’t they?’
‘Yes, they promised to collect me when they went again, but they never did. They said it would upset me.’
‘They were probably right. They must have felt responsible too, although of course it wasn’t their fault.’
‘They gave me some money. They were very rich.’
Lily knew that now she was going to buy a cottage, the whole village would wonder where she had got the money from, so best to set the gossips at rest in good time. Mrs Goldbeater would spread the news. No need to say they had taken a picture.
‘That was kind. We worry about how you are managing, Lily, now that your father is failing. If there’s anything—’
‘No, we’re all right. Squashy’s earning and I get plenty of jobs. We grow a lot of our own stuff and Mrs Butterworth sends things.’
‘Ah, poor Mrs Butterworth, she’s failing too these days, you know. Her husband is very worried about her. Of course, it’s not been the same at the farm since Sylvester went. It’s been very hard for them, Mrs Butterworth getting ill …’
She chuntered on and Lily excused herself, having extracted all she wanted and not bothered with village gossip. Simon might take her to visit Antony when he next came home: that was the news she wanted. She would make quite sure that this time he wouldn’t be given a chance to opt out.
Of course he didn’t want to take her. He didn’t want to go at all, but was not without a sense of decency, given his public school upbringing.
‘I’ll take Melanie with me,’ he said to his mother. ‘Females don’t mind hospital visiting.’
‘You’ve got to take Lily. I promised her you would.’
‘Oh, Ma, honestly! You know what she’s like – she’s so wild! She’ll probably throw herself on him and cry and carry on—’
‘Just this once, Simon. She’s eighteen now, not a child any more. She’ll behave herself, I’m sure. It’s not asking too much. Then your duty is done.’
Simon knew when he was beaten. He hated seeing old Ant in the state he had come to, and had to try hard on his visits not to reveal the fantastic life he was living and arouse envy in poor Ant, which was almost impossible. What else was there to talk about now? He had considered, but never succumbed to the idea of taking Lily, but now his mother was adamant. If she was coming though, he doubted whether Melanie, his girlfriend now, would come too. Antony had always said he was going to marry Melanie – fat chance of that now. What an idiot he had been to half kill himself: the way he was now he would be better off dead. But he had rarely put his mind to doing anythi
ng properly, even committing suicide. Even the magical party in the grotto, he had only ordered things to be done, not done them himself. What a night that had been! Simon had to admit that without Antony the days of his youth at home would have been incredibly dull. Oh yes, and he had learned to fly … give him that much.
When he saw Lily again he was thrown by her appearance. Melanie Marsden was milk and water beside this tough, gorgeous eighteen-year-old with her wild, unbobbed golden hair and confident, fierce blue gaze. She was no longer the gangly kid, but a tall, slender and striking young woman and – to Simon’s now adult, discerning eye – very sexually attractive. But he wasn’t going down that road.
‘I can come with you?’ Not a plea, but a command.
He laughed. ‘Yes. My ma insists I take you.’
Simon had been right; Melanie had decided not to come when she heard Lily was coming. So he drove Lily to the hospital, just the two of them, in his little sports car, enjoying showing it off to someone as admiring as Lily. Lily had scarcely slept since she knew that the date of the visit was planned and, now the time was so near, tried hard to keep herself calm and grown-up in Simon’s presence. But the excitement was a fire bubbling inside her, very hard to contain.
‘He’s starting to walk again, Ma says,’ Simon told her, ‘so that’s something.’
‘It’s been so long!’
‘Lucky he survived. At least, I suppose so, although sometimes I wonder – when I first saw him I assumed he would die. Broken spine, pelvis, legs – just about everything – what a mess, you can’t imagine! What an idiot!’
Lily made no reply. She found she was beginning to sweat with the anticipation of seeing Antony again after all this time, unable to imagine what he might look like, broken and ridden with pain for such a long period of time. Their childhood now seemed a century ago. Simon sensed from her pale silence what she was going through and took her arm kindly as they drew up outside the hospital door. Trees and lawns surrounded the place and there was a happy riot of birdsong ringing in their ears as they went up the steps and through the swing doors.