2008 - The Irresistible Inheritance of Wilberforce

by Paul Torday

  We made an early start and arrived at Caerlyon before lunch: it was intended that Catherine should go and lunch at Coalheugh and come back to Caerlyon later in the afternoon. We had managed to persuade Eck and Annabel Gazebee to come for supper that night. My job was to go and buy some more or less instant food from the shopping centre down in the valley, so that Catherine didn’t have to cook.

  When we arrived Catherine said, “It all looks a bit sad and lonely here, now.”

  Grass was growing amongst the cobbles in the courtyard and dead leaves had blown here and there. The paintwork on the shop door was peeling. Everything had an abandoned and desolate look. The agent was supposed to keep an eye on the place and there was meant to be someone coming in and weeding and sweeping up leaves, but if he had ever been, there was little evidence of it. We took our cases inside and then I called a taxi to come and collect Catherine. Within half an hour of her arrival Catherine was on her way to see her mother. Just before she left, she asked, “What are you going to do now?”

  “I must just check the undercroft is all right,” I said, “and then I’m going to drive into Newcastle to see Mary. I’ll do the food shopping on the way back.”

  “I should think I’ll be back about four,” said Catherine. Then she was gone.

  I watched her drive away, then let myself into the shop and unset the alarm on the undercroft. I had longed to see the place again. Sometimes I would wake up at night, in London, imagining that there might have been a break-in and that the cellar had been vandalised; or that an unknown pipe had burst and there had been a flood. I had sometimes tried to picture the undercroft in my mind, but as the weeks and months had gone by, the images of the stacked cases and bottles of wine had gone dim, had assumed the uncertain quality of a half-remembered dream. There was always a slight feeling of dread when I returned to the place, as if it might have changed, or diminished, in my absence.

  I went downstairs, flicking the lights on as I went past the switch. The undercroft sprang into being before me, in all its glittering mystery. It was as if it had been suspended in another dimension and had now reappeared, like some enormous craft coming from beyond space and time, with its miraculous cargo. I stood in awe as I saw again the thousands of cases in their columns and islands, the gleaming racks of bottles along the sides of the cellar.

  I walked along the gangways, from shadow to light and back to shadow again. Occasionally I stopped to examine the stencilled words on a case, or picked a bottle from a rack and examined the label. It was like coming home: it was being amongst my own friends; my own family. Château Trois Chardons; Château Sociando-Mallet; Château Vieux Robin; Château Ducru-Beaucaillou. I murmured the names softly to myself, and turned the labels this way and that.

  “Francis,” I said, “I have never drunk a bottle of your Canon La Gaffeliere. Isn’t that extraordinary? You never produced one for me ever, and yet I’m sure we’ve talked about it. I must have walked past this bottle twenty times without noticing it.”

  Francis was dead and did not reply, but the lights flickered for a moment and I knew that he approved my choice. I took the bottle back upstairs to drink before dinner. Then I decided that I would have a taste of it now, in case it disappointed later. I sat in the shop sipping the wine. Francis would have sat opposite me, in the old days, in the chair behind his desk. He would have told me stories about the wine we were drinking, the family that grew it, the place where it grew.

  “This is delicious,” I said aloud. “I wish you could taste it, Francis.”

  He was almost real to me. I could picture him in my memory: the black hair streaked with silver brushed straight back from his forehead, the arched eyebrows over deep-set brown eyes, the beak of a nose; the look of gentle irony he always wore. He would have sat in the chair, one long leg crossed over the other, in his faded corduroy trousers and battered old suede loafers, and he would have said, as he once had said, “Drink this, in remembrance of me.”

  I started, for the words had been spoken out loud, and for a moment I thought I did see Francis sitting in front of me. But it was my voice that had spoken.

  I refilled my glass and looked at my watch. I needed to get going, if I was to see my mother and give her the toaster and then buy the food for supper before Catherine returned. Then I looked at the label of the bottle again.

  “Nineteen seventy-one,” I said to myself. “I wonder if he’s got any of this from 1987?” I thought I might just have a quick look downstairs in case. The best thing was, not to see my mother and just go and do the shopping. Then I would have plenty of time. We could always go and drop off the toaster tomorrow, before we went south.

  I was still sitting in the shop, finishing off a second bottle of La Gaffeliere that I had found, when Catherine came back.

  “I wondered if I’d find you here,” she said. She did not look especially angry, or disappointed. She was very pale.

  “How did it go?”

  Catherine sat down in Francis’s chair opposite me. I thought for a moment that I should tell her not to, but decided that, in the circumstances, it would not be tactful.

  “I don’t suppose you went and bought any food?” she asked.

  I shook my head.

  “Or saw your mother?”

  “No. I’m afraid I’ve been sitting here looking over the wine, trying to decide what to take back to London with us, and I simply forgot all about the time.”

  Catherine said nothing.

  “That’s what Francis always used to say, do you remember?” I asked her. “He used to say, “This place steals your time.””

  I laughed, but Catherine did not laugh with me. She did not even smile. Her chin was resting on the heel of her hand; her elbow was on the desk in front of me, and she was staring at me.

  “It’s true what Eck says about you, isn’t it?”

  I didn’t like the sound of this. “What does Eck say about me?”

  Catherine ignored my question. She said, “About quarter of an hour after I arrived at Coalheugh to see my parents, guess who suddenly turned up for a drink?”

  “Who? Eck?” I felt confused.

  “No, Ed. He turned up and said something like, “Oh, it’s you. I thought I’d just pop in to see if I could extract a gin and tonic from your parents. I had no idea you were going to be here.” We all know Ed has gone to live in France as a tax exile since his father died. He doesn’t ‘pop in’ anywhere in England. He might even have flown back especially just to ‘pop in’ at my parents’ house today. If they handed out Oscars for bad acting, Ed would win one every time.”

  “I don’t understand,” I said. “Why was Ed there?”

  “Keep quiet, and I’ll tell you. The whole thing was a set-up. Ed didn’t stay for long, of course. He was very nice, very sweet—asked how I was, asked about the flat. He even remembered to ask about you. He didn’t say much about himself—just gave a general impression of a man who was pining for his lost love, and then he went.”

  Catherine stopped talking for a moment, and I could see she was thinking about Ed. I began to feel a pulse beating in my neck. I didn’t speak.

  “Of course, as soon as Ed left, my father vanished out of the room and I was left with Mummy. I asked her what the hell was going on.”

  Suddenly I didn’t want to hear the end of this story. I looked at my watch and said, “Shouldn’t I be going to get the food for dinner?”

  “No one’s coming to dinner. I rang up Eck and Annabel and cancelled. Let me finish. You need to hear this. Mummy said, “Of course we know all about your husband’s drink problem from Eck. Eck said he came to see you once for dinner and your husband was as tight as a tick. He said you’d confessed to him that—what’s his name?—Wilberforce—he doesn’t even appear to have a Christian name—had a serious drink problem.””

  “Did you say that to Eck?” I asked.

  “Not that night, another time. He rings up, sometimes, just for a chat and to see how I am. I should have known be
tter than to say anything to Eck. You might as well go to the top of Durham Cathedral with a loud hailer and tell your secrets to the world.”

  The pulse in my neck was beating faster now. I said, “You’ve been talking to Eck about me on the phone?”

  “Well, Wilberforce, it can get quite lonely living with a man who gets drunk after breakfast and drunker still by dinner. Anyway, listen to the rest of it. You’ll love it. It’s so like Mummy.” Catherine paused, and laughed without pleasure.

  “Mummy said, “We’ve always thought there was something very odd about that man you married. We all make mistakes, you know. Ed’s still there for you. You could see that, couldn’t you? He’d take you back like a shot if the chance arose.””

  She stopped talking, and for a long time we sat quietly. I didn’t feel like finishing the wine in my glass.

  After a while I said, “Let me see if I’ve got this straight. You went to see your parents, Ed turned up, then when’d he’d gone your mother told you to dump me, because I’m a drunk—get divorced, I suppose, and then marry Ed after all. Is that about it?”

  “Well summed up, Wilberforce,” replied Catherine.

  I stood up. I said, “I’m going to go and see your mother and have a word with her.”

  Catherine held up the car keys. “You left these in the ignition. I’m not going to let you drive anywhere. You’re drunk, again. We’re going to go back to London. I can’t stand this place: it gives me the creeps. There’s no reason to be here. Get our bags from the house and put them in the car. I’m going to drive us back. I don’t want to be within a hundred miles of my mother for a minute longer, if I can help it.”

  I said, “We can’t go yet.”

  “If you don’t do as I say,” said Catherine slowly, “then, you know what—disgusted as I was by my mother’s scheming, I might just drive back to Coalheugh instead and follow her advice. It’s very difficult to live with you, Wilberforce. I’m trying my best to keep us together, because that’s what I promised to do when we were married. It can be hard to remember that sometimes.”

  There was nothing more to say, after that. The pulse still beat in my neck. I felt anger rising inside me. I didn’t want to leave the undercroft so soon. I felt as if everyone I knew was turning against me, betraying me: even Eck; even Catherine.

  All the same, Catherine’s demeanour made me feel that it was better to do as she asked. I put the bags into the back of the Range Rover and set the alarms on the undercroft and on the flat. Then we got into the car; Catherine switched on the engine, flicked on the headlights, and we drove out of the courtyard into the lane.

  It was when we were going down the little, winding lane that led down the side of the hill to the valley below, that I remembered. “Stop,” I said to Catherine. “Turn back. I’ve forgotten something.”

  She slowed down for a moment, but did not stop. “What have you forgotten?”

  “I’ve got to go and choose some cases of wine to bring back. That was the whole point in my coming here.”

  Catherine did not stop. Instead she speeded up again and said, “There’s no way I’m going back to that place, Wilber-force. There’s no way you are going back to it. It’s destroying you, can’t you see? It’s destroying me.”

  “But you promised!” I shouted. The pulse in my neck was going like a hammer. They all did this to me in the end: all those who should have loved me betrayed me. Now Catherine was going to break her promise and prevent me bringing back my wine. I reached across for the wheel, to try to make her turn around.

  “Don’t,” said Catherine, pushing me away. “You’re drunk, Wilberforce; you’re behaving like a madman.”

  “I’m not a drunk,” I screamed, “I just like tasting wine.” I reached across her again and grabbed the steering wheel, to turn us around. The Range Rover veered across the road, across a wide grass verge and went over a small bank. I was conscious of the branches of trees brushing past. There was the sound of breaking glass, and a scream, suddenly cut off. Then I banged my head and everything went black.

  When I awoke, there was a throbbing in my head. I was lying on a stretcher on the grass by the roadside. Blue lights from two police cars flashed constantly, and I could hear the chirrup of police radios. I shut my eyes because the blue lights hurt, and groaned.

  Someone said, “This one’s coming round,” and another voice nearby said, “Can you hear me, sir?”

  “Yes,” I said. It hurt to talk. My ribs felt bruised and my head ached. My face was wet with the fine drizzle that was falling. I opened my eyes and saw, in the light of headlamps, a policeman was bending over to talk to me.

  “They’re taking the lady to the hospital,” he said.

  “Catherine? Is she all right?”

  I tried to sit up but an arm from behind me restrained me and the first voice said, “Just take it easy, sir; don’t try and move until we’ve had a chance to have a proper look at you. There’s an ambulance on its way.”

  There was a clatter of rotor blades above and a bright light shone down on us. I saw the giant black shape of a helicopter settling on to the grass, and then two paramedics scrambling up the bank with a stretcher: on it, a limp figure covered in blankets. The figure did not move. The stretcher was loaded on to the helicopter in an instant, and the machine took off again, almost before I had time to realise what had happened. Then I heard sirens from the valley below.

  The policeman said, “That’ll be the ambulance coming for you now, sir.”

  They took me to a different hospital from Catherine. There was nothing much wrong with me. I had suffered a couple of cracked ribs, a badly bruised knee and a few scratches and contusions. They took Catherine to another hospital in the city, which specialised in head injuries.

  When I arrived at the hospital I was X-rayed and then checked over by a doctor. I kept asking, “Where’s Catherine? What’s happened to Catherine? Is she going to be all right?”

  Nobody could, or would, tell me anything. They put me in a room on my own and I lay on the bed remembering trying to take the wheel, remembering the car swerving and then the terrible sensation of falling through the air, whilst the branches of trees brushed past. But I couldn’t remember what had happened to Catherine. If only she hadn’t been so stubborn. If only she had turned around, as I had asked, none of this would have happened.

  “Mr Wilberforce?”

  I looked up. The policeman I had seen when I was lying by the road had come into the room, together with a nurse.

  “Might I ask you a few questions?”

  “Where’s Catherine?” I said.

  “Is Catherine your partner?” asked the policeman.

  “She’s my wife.”

  “Ah,” he said, and made a note. “So you are her next of kin, then?”

  “Of course.”

  He closed his notebook and assumed a serious expression. “I’m sorry to have to tell you, Mr Wilberforce: Mrs Wilberforce was dead on arrival at the Royal Victoria Infirmary, about an hour ago. I’m afraid Mrs Wilberforce doesn’t appear to have been wearing a seat belt. She went through the windscreen when the car crashed, and she suffered serious head injuries. I’ve only just been informed. They had some trouble in tracing you to this hospital; the paperwork hadn’t caught up with you.”

  I lay back on the bed, tears welling up in my eyes. “Oh, Catherine,” I said out loud. If only you had let me go back for the wine, I said to myself. If only you hadn’t broken your promise. Then none of this would have happened. “I know this is probably not a good time to talk,” said the policeman, “but I need to have a few details of the accident.”

  I wiped my eyes and sat up on the bed. “Let’s get it over with,” I said, “and then I want to be left alone.”

  “Of course,” said the policeman. “Nurse, could you possibly get them to bring us both a nice cup of tea, and we’ll fill in these forms as quickly as we can. Now, sir, just tell me in your own words exactly what happened.”

  “Cat
herine,” I said. “Catherine was driving.”

  THREE

  I was discharged from hospital the following morning and given a set of crutches to use until the swelling on my knee went down. The police had been to see me several times during my brief stay. A more senior officer had joined the first policeman, bringing photographs of tyre marks, showing where the Range Rover had suddenly turned at almost right angles to the direction of the road, before swerving across the grass verge and plunging down the bank. This officer wanted to understand why the Range Rover had veered across the road so suddenly, but I couldn’t help him.

  “Catherine was upset after going to see her parents,” I told them. “She was probably driving a bit faster than usual.”

  “And you were driving all the way back down to London the same day you had driven up. Was that wise?”

  “Like I said, Catherine was quite upset after going to see her parents. She wanted us to go back home to London, instead of staying the night at Caerlyon as we had planned.”

  “So why didn’t you offer to drive?” the policeman asked me.

  “I’d had a couple of glasses of wine. I wasn’t expecting that we would return to London so soon. It was a sudden decision of my wife’s.”

  He laid some photographs of tyre marks beside me on the bedside table. They meant nothing to me. My head ached. I could remember the car falling through trees. I wanted to see Catherine and find out how she was. Then I remembered they had told me she was dead.

  “It’s very noticeable when a vehicle changes direction as abruptly as that. It wasn’t icy that night. The roads were a bit damp and we can see where the turn became a skid. But what started the turn? We really need to know before we can close the file for the coroner.”

  “All I know is that we were on our way to London. I said I’d had a couple of glasses of wine. I was probably dozing. I don’t know. The last thing I remember is branches brushing against the window, and then I banged my head.”

  For a while I really couldn’t recollect any more of what had taken place. It hadn’t been my fault—I knew that much. Catherine had promised that, if we came up North together, I would be able to bring back a few cases of wine. Then she had gone back on her promise, and then whatever had happened had happened. Now, my poor Catherine was dead. It just showed how quickly things could go wrong if you didn’t stick to a plan.