Past Caring - Retail

by Robert Goddard

  “Adeus, Carlos.”

  I arranged my departure as swiftly as I could, but it was the following Monday before I boarded the flying boat for England. It was St. George’s Day, a fitting date for my first return home since the death of my mother 21 years before. Yet this visit was unheralded and – strictly speaking – unnecessary. I had given Ambrose no warning of it and, much as I was inclined to go at once to Barrowteign to see him, I knew I must first go to London and learn what I could there.

  The delay before leaving Madeira had given me time to lay my plans. My principal difficulty was that so many who might have told me so much were dead. I had observed from afar the demise of my former political colleagues, as recorded in The Times obituary columns. Before leaving the quinta, I had surveyed an old photograph I had of Asquith’s Cabinet, as it had been upon formation in 1908. Of the twenty men pictured, only two still lived. I was one. Winston Churchill was the other.

  To many, it might have seemed that only one remained. For Churchill was now Leader of the Opposition with every hope of becoming Prime Minister again at the next election, whereas I had lapsed into an obscurity from which there was no returning: not, at least, until now. For the part he might have played in silencing Palfrey, the private detective, I held Churchill still suspect. We had exchanged pleasantries and anecdotes during his visit to Madeira in 1950, but that was before Sellick opened my eyes to part of the truth. Now, others too would be made to look.

  The flying boat reached Southampton in cold, wet weather: colder and wetter than I remembered. Madeira had spoiled me in my dotage, prepared me not at all for the chill, grey curtness with which England seemed to receive me.

  I took a train to London, booked a room in a hotel I knew near Leicester Square (or thought I knew – it had, in fact, been rebuilt since the Blitz) and took stock of England, 1951. I read the newspapers voraciously and sat in on a debate in Parliament, stifling a tiring cough which made me feel as dull and grey as the weather. The government was Labour but the debate was about an arcane dispute with Persia which would have done justice to Palmerston. Plus ça change. Churchill was not in the chamber.

  He was my only lead. So I wrote him a letter asking if we could meet. His reply came at the end of the week, inviting me to visit him at Chartwell, his country house in Kent, on Sunday. The pallid English version of sunshine appeared, my cough abated and I recovered my momentum.

  A car was waiting for me at Westerham railway station and Churchill received me alone, in his library.

  He held out his hand. “Edwin, I know I broke a dinner engagement with you when I left Madeira last year, but I didn’t think you’d follow me all the way here.”

  “Neither did I, Winston. How are you?”

  “Looking forward to victory. This government is finished. Disraeli would have called them exhausted volcanoes. Now that Bevan’s resigned …”

  “Please, Winston. I’d love to sit here and gossip with you, but my business is pressing. I’ve lost too much time already.”

  He waved me into a leather armchair, beneath loaded bookshelves that reached to the ceiling. “What’s this, Edwin? You’re out of it now. What can be so pressing? I thought we’d chat here for a while, then join Clemmie for tea. And you’ve never been to Chartwell before, have you? I could show you round. I bought it with my advance for The World Crisis, you know. The pen is mightier than the sword.”

  “Very true.” I thought of the stroke of a pen on a South African marriage certificate. “You could say that penmanship has brought me here.”

  He lit a cigar and I declined the offer of one. “You’d better explain.”

  “Do you realize we’re the only original members of Asquith’s first Cabinet left alive?”

  “I suppose we must be. Lots to say then …”

  “Yes, Winston, lots. But it won’t necessarily be agreeable.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I don’t quite know what part you played in it all. I mean my resignation.”

  “Edwin, that was forty years ago. Harsh things were said. What can possibly be the point …”

  “The point is, I know now. I know what did for me. I never did before, you see. My incredulity was not for effect. It was genuine. But now I know why Asquith refused to have me in his Cabinet.”

  “It’s more than I do.”

  “Then I’ll tell you. I think it was represented to him that I was about to commit bigamy with a prominent Suffragette.”

  “Edwin, this is extraordinary. But what can I say? I simply did not – and do not – know the circumstances of your resignation.”

  “Perhaps not, but Lloyd George did, and you were his staunchest ally in Cabinet at that time.”

  His Majesty’s Leader of the Opposition did not care to be reminded of redundant allegiances. “Edwin, this is becoming tiresome.”

  “Bear with me, Winston. Remember how you forgot to contact a private detective called Palfrey for me during the Great War?”

  “Frankly, no.”

  “You don’t remember a note of acrimony creeping into a lunch we had at ftaurant in January 1919?”

  “No Edwin, I don’t.”

  “Or why Lloyd George offered me the consulate in Madeira so soon afterwards?”

  “Generosity, I presume.”

  “Or bribery?”

  “I hardly think so.”

  “Did you perhaps tell him what I’d said about Sir Gerald Couchman? Might that have led him to want me out of the country?”

  “I might have mentioned your … predicament. Isn’t that what friends are for?”

  “You tell me what friends are for, Winston. For hatching conspiracies? Cast your bread upon the waters and it will return to you after many days. I think I have the means to prove Sir Gerald Couchman, good friend to the party, to be a liar, a fraud and – a criminal. I suspect he gave Lloyd George the means to remove me from the government, which he needed to do because I had learned of his plot to form a coalition with Balfour behind Asquith’s back. I do not accuse you of complicity in my removal …”

  “That would be as well.”

  “But I do suggest you kept Lloyd George informed as to my state of mind and suggested I be offered congenial employment far from home rather than be allowed to harass Couchman into any form of confession.”

  “I think you’ve said enough.”

  “You’re probably right. But bear this in mind. If I do expose Couchman for what he is, the full story will do nothing for your reputation. With an election in the wind, it could prove acutely embarrassing.”

  That last was a stupid thing to have said. It was a poor imitation of Sellick and just as contemptible. But I had grown angry and spoken out of frustration at myriad injustices. Churchill looked hurt and angry. There was nothing for it but to leave at once.

  But, as I jumped up from my chair, my right leg gave way – since the Somme it had never been able to bear sudden strain – and I stumbled to the floor.

  The next moment, Churchill was panting from the effort of assisting me back into the chair and we were both laughing at our frailties.

  “For goodness’ sake, Edwin, calm down.”

  “I’m sorry, Winston. I didn’t want to offend you – or muff my exit.”

  “Then recover yourself and have some tea.”

  “I don’t think I can stay.”

  “As you wish. But it was you who said that we were the last ones left of Asquith’s Cabinet. We shouldn’t fall out.”

  “I suppose not. I was really only taking out on you what I can’t say to – or of – the dead.”

  “Well, no matter. I have a broad back. Since we’ve both reached an age when nothing matters as much as it once did, I’ll tell you something. I recall that my impression at the time you resigned was that L.G. had dished you good and proper. But I never knew how.

  “It may be that Couchman placed the means in his hands. Perhaps you know more about that than I do. It’s true that L.G. showered Couchman with munition
s contracts, not to mention his knighthood. You remember L.G.‘s attitude to service and reward. It had a certain Welsh simplicity.

  “As for Palfrey, I may have overlooked your request. I forget now if I forgot or not.” He winked. “Age does that, as you should know. They were hectic times and I was seeking to re-establish myself after the Dardanelles episode. I dare say I would have known better than to pursue it. I might even have let Palfrey know that we didn’t want him to do business with you. If so, I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t worry about it.” I had once, myself, worried a great deal. But Churchill was right. With hindsight, these were trifles, the necessary compromises of a political career.

  “I told L.G. about our little lunch time disagreement at Gaspard’s – the essentials, anyway. I’m sure that’s why he offered you Madeira. But it surprised me, I remember. He dropped everything to arrange it. It was a touch panicky – unlike him. To be honest, I thought it was the best thing for you.”

  “I think you were right.”

  “Then why come back?”

  “Because I’m drawn back. Once I would have demanded the truth. Now, the truth seems to demand me. And then, there’s a matter of the heart.”

  “Then follow the heart, Edwin, not the head. Old men are free to do that.”

  So we went and had our tea and strolled round the garden as evening drew in. He told me how he had paced those lawns during the 1930’s brooding on the Nazi menace and I told him about Madeira’s little local difficulty in 1931. I stayed for dinner and then for the night. When I returned to London the following morning, Churchill and I had made our peace – a separate peace in my war with history.

  But now the time had come which I had foreseen the moment Sellick had appeared at the quinta, brandishing his proofs of marriage and paternity, the time to confront him with whom a truce was inconceivable.

  Who’s Who gave two addresses for Sir Gerald Couchman: one in Sussex, the other the house in Hampstead where I had last seen Elizabeth. I started with neither. Instead, I went to the armament works in Woolwich, or, rather, the site of the armament works. It had been removed – bombed or demolished, who knew? – and in its place houses were being erected. A board proclaimed: “Homes for Londoners by Couchman Estates.” As befits an opportunist, Sir Gerald had diversified.

  Churchill had told me over dinner the night before that Couch’s son, Henry, was a prominent Conservative and the party’s prospective candidate for a suburban constituency. There was every likelihood of his being elected. So there could be no doubt that Couch had founded a prosperous dynasty to whom my reminder of less glorious passages was unlikely to be welcome.

  The headquarters of the Couchman business empire was now a modern office in Finsbury Square. In response to my enquiry, the receptionist told me that both “Sir Gerald” and “Mr Henry” were engaged at a board meeting. So I left quietly.

  But I did not stray far. I stationed myself on a bench, shabbily dressed and inconspicuous, and waited. Shortly after four o’clock, a knot of well-dressed and opulent figures emerged. At a distance of twenty yards, I could distinguish Couch from the rest. He had grown fat and rather puffy round the face. He wore a mohair overcoat against the cool afternoon, smoked a cigar with the flourish of affluence, but seemed withal frail and unsteady. He was helped into a waiting car by a man whose looks betrayed him as Henry – young and thick-set with a malevolent cast to his features. I heard him say “Hampstead” to the chauffeur. As the car drew away past me, I could see Henry leaning forward intently in the back seat, energetically making a point. Couch was gazing out of the window, straight past me with an unfocussed, dissipated blankness.

  I hastened to Hampstead by taxi. Yet once there, once standing in front of the gates of the Couchman residence – the house screened from the road by undergrowth – I hesitated. The sun had come out and The Bishop’s Drive on a spring evening seemed altogether too sedate and tranquil to permit of any outrage.

  Now it had come to the point, I was nervous and uncertain.

  A housekeeper answered my knock, which was more tentative than I had meant.

  “Is Sir Gerald Couchman in?”

  “Yes, but …”

  “I must see him … at once.”

  “He’s only just finished dinner. This is hardly …”

  “I must see him. I think he’ll agree if you give him my card.” I had written on a blank postcard: “Couch: remember September 1900? Edwin Strafford.” She took it away, then, a few minutes later, returned and showed me into a back room. There were french windows giving onto the darkened garden – the curtains had not yet been drawn. The room was surprisingly untidy; in other circumstances it would have been charmingly so. There was an open music box, some knitting behind a cushion on the settee, a child’s playing brick on the carpet. I felt like an intruder in a family home – as I was.

  The door opened and Sir Gerald Couchman stood before me. He was an ashen-faced septuagenarian in carpet slippers and a patched cardigan, trembling slightly as he looked at me.

  “What do you want?” he said in a thick voice.

  Of a sudden, I did not know what I wanted. Did I really want to ruin an old man if I could? Did I really think I could win back Elizabeth? I felt a sense of futility sap my spirits. In the end, all I did was hand him the certificate.

  He stared at it for some moments. “What do you want?” he repeated.

  “I want an explanation.” He handed it back without a word. “Do you recognize this certificate?”

  “No.”

  “I believe you do.”

  “No.”

  “It’s dated 8th September 1900. The names on it are Strafford and van der Merwe. In September 1900, I was due to visit the van der Merwe family in Durban, but never did. You went in my place. That’s what I want you to explain.”

  “It was a long time ago.”

  “Is that your explanation? Did you or did you not go to Durban in September 1900?”

  “No. I don’t know the name van der Merwe. I never agreed to take your place on any mission to Durban.”

  In so saying, he erred tactically. For to lie at that stage revived my dormant anger. I stepped torwards him and he, in retreating, half-fell, half-slumped into an armchair. I looked at him in surpise. He was physically frightened of me. In his eyes there was a look of helplessness, a helplessness that had driven him to a pointless lie.

  “Sir Gerald, I can prove I wasn’t in Port Edward on the date quoted on this certificate. Can you?”

  “No. But it was fifty years ago. Who can prove anything?”

  “Is that what you’re relying on? You must know what this means. It means I’ve found out. I’ve found out how Elizabeth was turned against me. This is how, isn’t it? Not content with amusing yourself with some absurd marriage in South Africa, using my name, you then employed the evidence of it to steal Elizabeth from me.”

  “No.”

  “Sir Gerald, it’s my belief that, if I took this to Elizabeth, she’d recognize it and admit it was how she was persuaded that I’d deceived her. If I then proved to her that I couldn’t have married Caroline van der Merwe in Port Edward on 8th September 1900 because I wasn’t there, how do you think she would feel about the man who was?”

  He said nothing, so I continued.

  “It’s not my signature, Sir Gerald. I think that can be proven. Even if it can’t, I can prove I was on the boat to England on that date.” This was a lie: I could prove no such thing. I could not recollect the date of sailing, but I suspected that it was after the 8th. “And if all that only convinces her that you are the innocent beneficiary of my impersonation, I can, if necessary, arrange for your real wife to identify you as the Lieutenant Strafford she married.”

  He covered his face with his hand and pronounced one word: “Caroline.”

  I was angry then, not for myself, but for Elizabeth. I took the gun and harness from my bag and dropped it onto the cushion next to him. “On her behalf, I’m returning some lost p
roperty.”

  He parted his fingers and stared at it. He lifted it with one hand and flexed the leather. Then he looked at me solemnly.

  “What took you so long, Edwin? Since Colenso – perhaps even since Cambridge – I’ve sensed you would do for me in the end. I backed a winning streak so long I thought it would carry me through. God damn you for leaving it so late.”

  I sat down opposite him. “Tell me about your winning streak.”

  “First, tell me about Caroline.”

  “She’s dead. Died last year in a lunatic asylum.” Further pretence on that score seemed pointless.

  “But you said …”

  “That was to draw you out.”

  “You bastard. Without her, what can you prove against me?”

  “I don’t need to prove anything. I can make Elizabeth doubt you enough to believe you married her bigamously, I can …”

  “After forty years? You wouldn’t do that to a woman you once loved.”

  “Maybe I wouldn’t – if you told me the whole truth, here and now.”

  “Here and now. Do you know what that means? This is my son’s house. He lives here with his wife and two children. Some old man from nowhere can’t just walk up the path one evening and demolish all that. Henry’s likely to be elected to Parliament …”

  “The truth is all I want. About that gun, this certificate, about Elizabeth and me.”

  “All right. But I can’t tell you here. It makes me feel … unclean. We’ll drive somewhere in my car. Then I’ll tell you.”

  “Anywhere you like.”

  “Wait here.” He left the room and I heard muttering elsewhere in the house. A few minutes later, he returned, dressed to go out. “Come on.” He led the way by a communicating door to the garage and his Bentley. “Usually, my chauffeur drives me,” he murmured. “But not tonight.”

  We set off in silence, by some route he knew that took us to Parliament Hill. He pulled up at the side of the road and wound his window down. The lights of London sparkled below us in the night. He lit a cigarette and smoked it through, then took a nip from a hip flask and began to tell me. Once he had commenced, he required no prompting. There was a quality almost of relief in his confession.