by Peter Rimmer
Uncle Cliff had finished extolling the many virtues of the new National Health scheme and had launched into the socialist dogma of looking after all the people from the cradle to the grave. As he put it, the vast majority of Britons would benefit from shorter hours, higher pay, guaranteed pensions and equal opportunities. He was clearly expounding for the benefit of the philosophy and political lecturer who was steadfastly refusing to be drawn into the conversation. Every time Uncle Cliff came to a halt, Josephine fired him up again. Adelaide was darning socks and not listening to her brother. The group captain was worrying about four lambs that had been born at the wrong time of the year, the ram having slipped his paddock a morning seven months earlier. Aunty Eve was periodically snorting at so much ‘rubbish’ being spoken, and Jasmine was trying to catch the German’s eye for the third time.
“So everything is going to be done for them?” said Granda ominously.
“The state will distribute the nation’s wealth,” said Uncle Cliff.
“No one has to think or provide for themselves?” said Granda. “How bloody boring. The only exciting thing in this life is doing things, not being given them. You’ll take away life’s only incentive, Clifford, my boy, you’ll create a nation of bored, dull and uninteresting people whose only interest in life will be shouting for more of where that came from. Having money is not nearly as exciting as making it. When you’ve spent all the money made by the few makers of this world, your welfare state will go bankrupt. Then you will have to start all over again from scratch, without the entrepreneurs. You’ll have dulled them into extermination.” Granda stood up and shook himself. “Tea at eleven o’clock is all very well. I’m going into Corfe Castle. Red, you coming?” he said to his son.
“Yes, I’ll join you, Dad.”
“Byron. Want to come?”
“Wow,” said Byron forgetting he was no longer a schoolboy. It was the very first time his grandfather had invited him to the Ship Inn.
The invitation was not extended to Uncle Cliff or the German and Hilary was still too young.
“One of these days your pub will be open to women,” said Josephine, “women are just as good as men.”
Granda went out shaking his head and said not a word. There were more ways than one to make a point.
Will ate the last muffin and followed the grown-ups out of the room. Something had been wrong which he did not understand. He put on a thick windcheater and went for a tramp despite the damp air. He could hear Granda’s car climbing the hill far away, the only sound on the wind away from the sea. Nearer the sea, he saw the gulls, dipping and turning, enjoying themselves. It was the first time he had gone out alone without Hilary: God could stay with Hilary while he walked the woods and the windswept cliffs.
The rabbits stayed deep in their warrens.
Byron was in the back of the car feeling guilty for leaving Jasmine on her own. The invitation to drink with his father and grandfather as a grown-up had been too much for him to think of Jasmine until he was in the car. Why she had accepted to come down to Dorset he did not understand, nor did he understand anything else about her except her insatiable need for sex, something impossible to fulfil at the manor. He knew his mother would never approve of him sleeping with a girl who was not his wife despite everybody saying that things had changed since the war, that people should do what they wanted, not what they were told. For the first time in his life, lying had become easy.
The one thing he was determined not to bring up was his national service. He was learning something of value at Logan, Smith and Marjoribanks. What could have been the point of square-bashing for ten weeks with a rifle on his shoulder? His father had received no reward for fighting the Germans, apart from ribbons and medals, both worthless. The Germans had gone home to a house of rubble. Johnny Pike was right. No one mattered except oneself. Rules and regulations were to be circumvented as the rich were doing to get their money out of England and the clutches of the Labour Party. Only fools were caught in the tax trap. When he made his own money it was going to be offshore, a new word he had learnt and understood to mean wealth that was not subject to the whims and legal theft of governments.
“Didn’t do us any good, Red,” said Granda. Red was sitting next to him in the front of the car.
“What, Dad?”
“Fighting other people’s wars. Even the Boers are now in control in South Africa so all the dead men didn’t make any difference. Maybe Byron’s smarter than both of us.”
“It’s either right or wrong.”
“Maybe so. But being right doesn’t always mean you win… You want to tell your father what you really did at that medical, Byron, and then we will all drop the subject. Lying to your family never did anyone any good.”
“Granda,” said Byron in a small voice. “Can you read my mind?”
“Sometimes, lad. Twenty minutes of silence had you and your father chewing the same thoughts.”
“I took LSD,” said Byron and went on to explain what it was and what it did.
By the time they reached the Ship Inn they were all talking normally and Byron could have hugged his old grandfather. The lesson of wisdom with old age was a lesson he was never to forget and many times in the future of his business when he was making decisions without the experience of age, he would draw back and ask himself ‘what would Granda have done on this one?’
In the Ship they let him buy his round of drinks and for the first time he felt like a man.
“One word of advice, grandson,” said the old man when he had paid, “never go into a pub without the price of a round of drinks. If you haven’t got the money, don’t go in and that applies to everything else in life that costs money. And work hard. No one gets anything for nothing in this world. Anyone says anything else is a fool.”
The old-timer shuffled into the bar when Byron was halfway through his third half-pint of beer.
“’Appy Christmas, Squire.”
“Happy Christmas, Ted. This is my son the group captain and his son Byron… Ted and I fought in the Boer War together,” he said to explain.
“Better we ’adn’t, Squire, what with the Boers gettin’ British Natal and the Cape. Don’t make no sense of it.” He turned to the barman. “Mild and bitter pint. It’s Christmas and the Labour Party’s put up my pension. You got a pension, Group Captain?”
“No,” said Red, taken by surprise. “I was just in for the war. You don’t get a pension for fighting a war. I volunteered, anyway. Let me buy you that pint.”
“Thanks. Don’t mind if you do… You’ll be doing your national service,” he said, turning to Byron and taking a long pull at his pint.
“They failed me on medical grounds.”
The idea of his father fighting for nothing should have made him feel proud but something was sour and any guilt he might have felt avoiding his call-up evaporated. Somewhere, somehow, someone was being exploited but in the naïvety of his youth he was unable to comprehend.
“Lucky lad,” said Ted without any malice.
On Christmas Eve the weather was dull, the clouds low and grey over the Purbeck Hills. There was the threat of rain but Will had poached two Cox apples from the store in the attic where they had been laid out in rows on duckboards in September, no one apple touching the other, and gone off with his sandwiches wrapped in greaseproof paper. He had again slipped the leash of brothers and cousins to go to his cave. No one else knew the secret place where he could hug his shoulders and be alone in perfect harmony with life and all around.
The sea was angry, a dark bottle-green, thrashing the ledge and hurling the cold icicles of spray, grey-flecked and dirty, at the entrance. Fifty feet above on the cliff, Will looked down upon the fury of the spray. The dance upon the long rock ledge was one of anger, battle, the elements of rock and sea fighting each other, hurling water from the depths with cast-off kelp ripped up by the roots playing in the curling waves to smash upon the granite rocks that absorbed the power of the sea, trickling it back
in runnels in the rocks, mocked and tamed.
A monster wave rose up from the depths of the sea, reared up towards Will upon the cliff, up and up, a rising tongue of water, and then it crashed right across the ledge down below, smashing the mouth of his cave, pushing sea water up the funnel making an awful rumbling in the bowels of the cliff that Will could feel beneath his feet, and then the rumbling roar of water rushing back to join the sea.
Quietly, and with due respect, Will ate his sandwiches hunched down upon the cliff. Soon, it began to rain.
The sheep were huddled down together for warmth and watched him pass with fishy eyes, wet and bulging. Seagulls called above the crashing sea and out in the channel a small steamer, belching black smoke that streamed behind, fought the waves and wind for a Christmas port and comfort. Will began to run with joy, the last apple bouncing in his pocket. The sheep broke and ran away, their heads upright, a touch of panic in their flight, the lambs keeping pace with the flock. The rolling hills, short-cropped and emerald-green, dropped back from the guarding cliffs and on he ran down the jagged path. Will ran for five minutes till he could see the dell. High trees rose up and in their safety stood the ivy-clad house, with the small, piggy windows at the back, facing the winter winds. At three o’clock it had already begun to grow dark, fading the grey, low-hung sky above his head. The gulls had not followed him. Now he ran down between the hedgerows, onto the hard road, past the docile cows facing stoically into the wind and rain, tumbling towards the house and Christmas warmth.
Reaching the wooden gate that opened into the orchard, stark and leafless trees well pruned, Will hesitated. Happy to be alive, Will took the last apple from his pocket and crunched it open with his teeth, letting loose the sweet juice of summer.
Will walked round the old house instead of his usual duck through the kitchen and the maid’s sitting room. The big oak to the right of the house was all of ten feet across at its base, the home of owls; the family legend had it said the first Langton planted the acorn with the first dwelling in the dell.
The wet path led to the gravel in front of the house where a later Langton had removed the small windows in the family wing, replacing them with the tall sash windows that rattled with the wind.
Turning the corner, with his back now to the great English oak, the wind stopped pulling at his hat and he threw the apple core across the shaggy lawn. The core hit one of the cypress trees, a good distance. Satisfied, Will turned to the house and as he hoped, the curtains had yet to be drawn across the drawing room where the one fire away from the Christmas tree beckoned him inside. The tree took up the whole corner of the sixty-foot room, right to the high corniced ceiling, twinkling with coloured lights and tinsel, piled below the bottom branches with presents, wrapped and ribboned, some with bows; a big star flopped forward on the prickly top; glass balls, reds and golds and sparkling silver, cascading down the tree, clinging by tiny threads of cotton, light as moonbeams. Will stood, looking in on the house with its aunts, uncles and cousins seated on the floor around the open fire, Byron as usual sitting back, Hilary in earnest conversation with Will’s father, Will’s mother sewing, glasses at the end of her nose. Uncle Cliff looked asleep in his chair, long legs stretched to the fire. Christmas decorations hung from the ceiling, centring upon the chandelier. The big mantelpiece was crammed with Christmas cards. Granda was smoking his foul pipe, content to look; Josephine for once was silent and the lady who was afraid of dead rabbits was talking to the tall stranger, Josephine’s friend.
Will stood outside unnoticed in the gathering dark, smiling at everything he loved, safe in the family to which he had been born. Very importantly Will Langton reached up and rang the bell at the big front door and waited. Josephine opened the panelled door.
“What are you doing out here, silly?”
“Waiting to come into my house.” Quickly, Will gave her a kiss on the cheek before running down the hall to change his clothes.
Josephine stood with her back to the closed door for a moment, still feeling the wet, cold kiss on her fire-warmed cheek. Wiping away the moisture with a gentle smile she walked back to the drawing room. Even little brothers could be nice, sometimes.
Early on Christmas morning Josephine was sick three times in half an hour. Across the corridor from her bedroom, her great-aunt Eve read the story as if it were her own. Lying awake for half an hour she decided that interfering in other people’s lives, even with the best intentions, led to more problems than they solved. Cliff was a socialist who despised his class and there was nothing she could say, despite her trying, that could change his mind. She even thought her few words had strengthened his determination.
She went down to breakfast and said not a word when she found Josephine drinking tea alone in a corner of the dining room, looking out of the window at the winter’s scene. The girl turned and their eyes locked for a full second.
“Has the tea just been made?” said the great-aunt.
“Yes. It’s very nice. Can I pour you some, Aunty?”
“Thank you. That would be very nice… Are you going back to London before your lectures commence?”
“Yes. Wolfgang has a lot of prelim work. Sort of getting ready. Reading.”
“Could you give me a lift? I came down by train but it’s tedious alone.”
“I didn’t know you lived in London?”
“There are a lot of things you don’t know about the old spinster aunt.” She took the cup of proffered tea and placed it back on the tea trolley. “You didn’t know I was married. Briefly. He was killed in the Great War. I was just eighteen when he died.”
“I’m so sorry. Mother never said.”
“Why should she? There are happier things to talk about. My flat’s in Chelsea. Maybe Mr Baumann would be kind enough to drop me off and you’ll come back later for some tea? It’s not far from Notting Hill Gate on the Tube. Sometimes I get lonely, Josephine. Like most old people, I prefer the company of the young. Old people are inclined to be negative. Not all of them…” She left the question in the air and picked up her cup of tea as Byron came in for breakfast.
“Morning, Jo. Happy Christmas,” he said, full of Christmas cheer.
“I almost forgot,” said Aunt Eve. “Happy Christmas. And me the master, or should it be the mistress, of ceremonies for the present opening. Sharp at eleven o’clock! I’ll ring the gong as usual. I’ve heard that gong every year for over sixty Christmases. We Critchleys have known you Langtons for longer than just your mother and father. There’s Langton blood in the Critchleys and Critchley blood in the Langtons further back than any of us know. You see, my husband was a Langton and if he had lived, this house would be his house. Well, not really. Fact is, it belongs to all of us.”
Byron was looking at Josephine with genuine surprise.
Clifford Critchley caught up with Wolfgang Baumann after breakfast when Wolfgang tried to take a walk on his own. Wolfgang had heard his student in the bathroom for the second day in a row and he had absolutely no idea what to do. Never before had he considered money so important. He had nothing but his salary and that was barely enough to allow him a whisky every second night. The wealth of Langton Manor, despite Josephine’s talk of family poverty, had overwhelmed him not by its ostentation but by the family’s acceptance of the normality of it all. The history. The past, present and the future. He was an outsider, a foreigner, entertained politely but forgotten.
He had reached the lane that led up to the Downs and the cliffs when he heard footsteps and turned from his heart-searching, almost glad for a distraction until he saw who it was walking towards him with intent.
“You mind if I join you?” said Clifford.
“Of course not,” Wolfgang lied.
“I’ve been wanting to talk with you ever since we met. You are a member of the Communist Party?”
Wolfgang carried on walking. Cliff ignored the silence and carried on talking. “The left wing of the Labour Party is very close to you. If it wasn’t party
political suicide in England, we would join you outright. Fact is, we can do more to further the cause from within the Labour Party. We are mounting an anti-nuclear campaign to force Western Europe to give up their weapons. But you would know about that?”
“No, I don’t.”
They had climbed out of the lane where they could turn and look back on the dell and the manor house among the trees. They both gazed down in silence.
“Old families like that are an anachronism,” said Clifford. “You could house thirty families where there’s one. Just because they inherited. Makes you sick. Our new death duty tax will separate them from their land without a whimper. Democracy is a wonderful thing. You can legislate whatever you like against a minority provided the minority are privileged.”
Wolfgang felt a cold shudder go through his body as if a ghost had walked over his grave. For a brief moment he had forgotten that Josephine was pregnant.
Will woke gripped by the excitement of Christmas. At the window he looked down from the second floor at the winter: leafless trees and a white frost but no snow. Standing barefoot in his pyjamas he pulled up the sash window and shivered. The sea was distant, the rough sea gone with the storm. Over towards Poole the sky was clear in the early morning; peaceful. Two of the dogs had followed him up to bed and both were scratching their fleas. The fire was laid in the small grate, with the wood he had collected in a wicker basket. There was no sound from the outside fields. The house was silent and Will pulled down the sash window and ran across to the fireplace and lit one of the big, red-tipped Swan matches which he put to the cold paper in three places, getting down on his hands and knees to blow on the meagre flames, watched by the dogs. When the fire took he jumped back under the bedclothes, ice-cold from his toes to the tip of his nose. The dogs settled down in front of the gathering fire with patient hope, leaving their fleas alone. A door banged from somewhere in the house and Will wondered if his feet would ever get warm again. All he could think about was the bicycle he wanted so much. He had checked every parcel under the tree but none were big enough for a bicycle. By the time the house began to wake, the fire was strong and the painful feeling had gone from his feet. It was Christmas Day, the best day in the whole wide world.