The Green Flash

by Winston Graham

  ‘Takes after you, I suppose.’

  She didn’t smile. ‘ I was going to say, but has no head for schooling. Perhaps she’s like me in that too.’

  ‘And me,’ I said.

  ‘Oh, you’ve a good head, David; always have had. The trouble was you wouldn’t use it. Least, not in the – the ways you should have …’

  I patted Sandy, who had followed us. ‘ Thanks for the letters when I was in jail. Did I reply? I don’t remember.’

  She seemed shocked that I could mention it so casually. ‘No.’

  ‘Sorry. It was just the feeling from what you wrote that you’d given me up as a bad job.’

  ‘There was no reason to think that! But Kenneth felt it was such a pity, with all your advantages …’

  ‘Yes, I was never one you could make up a hard-luck story about. The judge thought the same.’

  She said: ‘This perfumery firm you’re working for. Shona Ltd. Are you doing well?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I’m glad. I’ve read about this Mme Shona. What is she like?’

  ‘All right.’

  ‘I expect she’s like Coco Chanel, isn’t she? I once read a book about Coco Chanel. She was always philandering with some titled person or other.’

  ‘Well, it can happen.’

  ‘What’s your position in the firm?’

  ‘Sales manager.’

  ‘So you see something of her?’

  ‘From time to time.’ I said: ‘ Look, you want to finish those sandwiches, so how about me going upstairs and seeing if I can find what I want while you fix them. You don’t need to show me the way –’

  ‘Oh, but I do,’ she said with a defensive look. ‘The – the girls often have people here, so we decided to turn your bedroom into a second guest room. We’ve – had it redecorated and refurnished. We didn’t think it likely you’d want to come back …’

  I said lightly: ‘And the bits and pieces? Were they thrown out?’

  ‘Of course not! At least, nothing of any value. You know the loft?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Up there there’s a tin box. It belonged to Kenneth’s father. It’s got JKK on the outside. Everything of yours, was put in there. Probably any of your books –’

  ‘I’ll go up and see while you’re organizing the feast. Coming, boy?’ I said to the dog, who was looking expectant.

  ‘Don’t forget,’ she called. ‘The ladder pulls down, you know. Perhaps I’d better show you –’

  ‘Nonsense. I remember it.’

  ‘I can make you coffee if you want. The kettle’s always hot on the Aga. Or a drink …’

  ‘Coffee I’ll have. In ten minutes.’

  The house had a peculiar smell; houses do; this one was reminiscent of those last years at home; Mansion polish, new chintz, vacuumed dust, central heating; not at all like my first home in Leeds. Only the Aga was the same. Mother was a great believer in them. God knows, you’d think she might have changed her preferences. The ladder pulled down and I went up. Sandy whined at the bottom so I went back and carried him up with me. He scrabbled at the edge and then launched himself into the roof; more happily after I had found the light.

  The metal trunk was a big one, and you wondered how many trees had been cut down to provide all the wills, the deeds and the rest of the legal wastepaper that had once been in there. The three books were at the top; I fished them out and put them on one side to carry down, fingered through the rest of my stuff. Mostly useless: a cricket bat, a tennis racquet now warped, a certificate I’d won for – of all things – fencing, some other books, gym shoes, motoring gloves. I took the gloves.

  There were things in it not mine – a photograph album which must have belonged to the Kingsley family. A thin folder with a flap – inside some newspaper cuttings. I began to read them, at first not realizing.

  The inquest was resumed yesterday on the death of Mr Stewart Kilclair Abden, aged 43, of 121 Avenue Road, Horsforth, who died at his house on the third inst. Mrs Rachel Abden (31), in describing the quarrel which had developed on the evening of that day, said her husband had been drinking before he came home and was worried about money. Their eleven-year-old son, David, was present, and Abden began to threaten him. A struggle ensued, in the course of which Abden fell backwards, turning as he did so, and injured himself fatally by striking his head on the bar of the kitchen stove …

  Fold the news cutting and slide it back into the folder. ‘Death by Misadventure’, that’s what they’d said. He’d fallen forward against the damned Aga and cracked his damned skull. Nothing peculiar about that, was there? For Christ’s sake, that was the way it had happened.

  Only you’d think Mother would have been put off Agas forever, not shoving another in her new house.

  Of course it hadn’t ended there. Some of the cess press, as Shona called them, had had more to say. One here: ‘Baronet’s brother dies in kitchen brawl.’ That was ingenious – brought to mind in a single headline a picture of aristocrats in a saturnalia of debauchery between the fridge and the cooker.

  Pictures too. Somebody’d been around buying up old snapshots.

  When I got down the sandwiches were done. I helped her bear them in and cover them with Cleanfoil, flip the card table up. In spite of becoming fatter she still had wonderful legs.

  She said: ‘You used to play bridge, David.’

  ‘Still do when I’ve the time.’

  ‘You were only nine when you began. Remember? With those neighbours. What was –’

  ‘Waters. It was family bridge but a grounding. I made good use of it the last two years I was in school.’

  ‘You shouldn’t have, you know. That’s been the trouble all along …’

  ‘I’ve been a write-off for you, haven’t I, Mother dear. But you always used to stand up for me in the old days.’

  Faint beads of sweat showing through the powder on her forehead. Hair still as black as ever; quite hard to see the touching up.

  I said: ‘Death by Misadventure. That was the verdict.’

  ‘Don’t, David,’ she said, frowning, glancing out of the window as if someone might hear.

  ‘After all if a man gets pissed and falls and bangs his damned head, what else can it be?’

  ‘You’ve never mentioned it before,’ she said. ‘All these years! I was hoping you’d forgotten. The only sane, sensible way is to forget.’

  ‘I’ve been reading the newspaper clippings in the trunk.’

  She put her hand to her mouth and drew in a breath. ‘Oh, I didn’t know! I didn’t know anything like that had been kept –’

  ‘Perhaps Kenneth kept them. After all, it’s a lawyer’s job to hang on to all the bumf. Might come in handy some day.’

  We listened to the tap-tap of Sandy’s tail as it polished the parquet floor.

  She said: ‘I’m sorry, David, I expect seeing something like that upsets you. If I’d dreamed there was anything like that lying about I should never have let you go up.’

  ‘It refreshes the memory.’

  ‘Oh dear, oh dear.’ She bit her knuckles. ‘ I shall never be able to concentrate this afternoon.’

  ‘Are they good, these ladies?’

  ‘Not by your standards.’

  ‘Is my coffee ready?’

  ‘Oh, my God, yes! I made it and forgot about it.’

  I fetched it from the kitchen and we almost bumped into each other in the door.

  ‘David,’ she said indignantly.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘As we have never spoken about this ever since, I just want to say, to tell you, before we stop speaking of it, that I did try to protect you, both that night, and in court!’

  ‘Did I need your protection?’

  She moved away from me, as if she thought I might be going to touch her again, went back into the lounge.

  I said: ‘ I suppose I’ve become a bit of a bogeyman, haven’t I? It would be pretty grim for you if I kept turning up unexpectedly like this.’

>   She said: ‘Stewart wasn’t very drunk that night, you know.’

  ‘What are you trying to say?’

  ‘Nothing, David. Except that it was a tragedy all round. I can’t say more. And best forgotten. Best utterly forgotten.’

  I sipped the coffee. ‘Eleven’s a middling age, isn’t it. It’s not quite the age of responsibility and yet it’s past the age of irresponsibility.’

  ‘I don’t want to talk about it any more! I won’t listen to you, David, I won’t listen! It upsets me too much even to think of that time. Dr Meiss said we must both put it all behind us …’

  ‘Old Meiss wasn’t much use about that, was he. But I’ll hand it to him, he straightened me out on a few points. You were very patient, all that year. It was all voluntary, wasn’t it?’

  ‘It was all voluntary. And very expensive. You don’t get on with your stepfather, but if you only knew how much you owe him … He helped us both so much at that time.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘I don’t want to explain any more! Only to say I couldn’t have done without him!’

  It occurred to me to say, well, you haven’t had to do without him; but she was breathless and flushed.

  ‘Look,’ I said, ‘I didn’t come here to cangle, as Father used to say; I came for three books; and I’ve got ’em. As soon as the first of your dames shows over the horizon I’ll slip out of the back door. Then you won’t have to introduce the grey sheep of the family.’

  ‘I never wanted you to be that’, she said. ‘ You had no reason to be! I do hope now that you will – will –’

  ‘Go straight?’

  ‘I was going to say live a happy normal life. Why don’t you get married? Most men are married at your age. Having a wife and a family, that helps to give one stability. Do you have a girlfriend?’

  ‘One or two.’

  ‘I suppose these days marriage is becoming unfashionable. People just live together … But I assure you, David, nothing is better than marriage. It makes for a stable relationship. Do you intend to stay with this perfumery firm?’

  ‘For the time being.’

  ‘So you have settled in London?’

  ‘More or less.’

  She bit her lip in vexation as if she thought I was being vague just to annoy her. ‘I’m only trying to think what’s best for you.’

  ‘I’m trying to do the same thing, Mother dear.’ I finished the coffee and put the mug down; then picked it up again, knowing she wouldn’t want it left here. ‘I met a cousin of mine last year. Malcolm Abden, the future baronet.’

  ‘Oh, those people! You know they never have communicated with me at all. Not even when your father died. Nor ever since. I hope you showed him what you felt about them.’

  ‘I don’t go big for poseurs, but somehow he got through as rather entertaining. I could meet him again without too much pain. Anyway I was able to put the meeting to some use.’

  She looked at me. ‘ Not – that sort of use?’

  I said: ‘Oh, Mother, you do give a dog a bad name. I wonder, Sandy here, can stick it … Is that a car?’

  It was. A Ford Escort Sport in blue was just crunching to a stop in front of the door; not far behind was a Hillman Hunter, both with L registrations. Her friends were spot on.

  ‘So I’ll go now,’ I said, gathering up the books. ‘You can let me out before you let them in, and then I can scuttle round the front while they’re taking their coats off.’

  ‘You’ve no need to do that at all, David,’ she said, nevertheless leading the way for me to do it. ‘They’d be pleased to meet you! I don’t think it’s right for you to sneak away like a – like a –’

  ‘A thief?’ I said. ‘Never mind, that’s just what I will do.’ I kissed her on the cheek. I squeezed her arm and winked at her as she let me out, carefully not allowing Sandy to follow.

  After standing admiring the chrysanthemums for a couple of minutes, I walked round to the front. I got in my car and drove away as the third car turned in at the gate.

  She hadn’t noticed my new car, and I hadn’t given her the Shona perfumes I had brought.

  III

  I did a hundred and forty a good part of the way home on the M1.

  It’s interesting, that speed on a public highway. A pedestrian bridge in the distance arrives very quickly on your scene. The church of a bypassed village rears its spire over the hill and is gone. The contours of the land change while you watch. Decisions, like points ahead, have to be arrived at sharply. Interesting also is the fact that the cars you are overtaking in the middle lane are in fact approaching you at about seventy mph.

  For a Tuesday afternoon the motorway was not busy, and I probably did the trip in good time.

  Chapter Nine

  I

  That night I went fencing again with Shona and Erica and the rest. Though I hadn’t so much as opened the three books, I found myself doing better.

  After all, fencing is an aggressive sport. It has become more so with the development of the épée and, so Erica said, under the recent influence of the Hungarians and the Russians. At school it had been pretty well controlled to the scoring of technical points by the foil; footwork, style, stroke and counterstroke, observing the rules and conventions of right of way. With épée there are no restrictions as to target: it’s more like a duel than a dance.

  That evening I felt aggressive enough to take anyone on, and did in fact have two bouts with men normally much better than I was, in one of which I floored my opponent with what Erica afterwards sarcastically called ‘a right hook’. The chap took it very well, but he called off the bout, saying he thought a couple of his teeth were loose. The other man beat me 9 to 7.

  Afterwards Shona said: ‘John wants you to take him to Bristol tomorrow.’

  ‘Whatever for?’

  ‘To see TBM Ltd. Pray do not ask me to tell you what the initials mean. You have heard of them, of course.’

  ‘German, aren’t they?’

  ‘Their head office is in Hamburg. But they’ve been expanding in England for some time. Now they are offering us special services and discounts. Naturally it is only a way of trying to break into the market, but I do not think competition will be a bad thing, and ICI and Lawson’s have been a little less than obliging sometimes. They still do not quite see us as competitors in the mass market.’

  ‘Did John ask that I should take him?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘He doesn’t like me, Shona.’

  ‘That is true.’

  ‘Of course he knows about us.’

  ‘He has learned to live with such a situation before. He has not been faultless. Usually we are civilized about such things. Perhaps if you come to know him better you will like each other more.’

  ‘Why don’t you come along? It would be much easier with you there.’

  ‘Do you think so? I doubt it. Anyway, I understand they use animals for some of their tests, and, while I recognize the value of such tests, I do not wish to witness them.’

  I said contentiously: ‘Why don’t you follow Yardley’s practice of not employing any animal-derived scents at all?’

  ‘It is too restricting. Maybe all right for them. Too restricting for us.’

  I thought to tell her of my visit to Quemby this afternoon. I did not – though some day I might. It was bloody all right when you were Russian and passionately attached to your father and brother, and a sort of great welling-up of unspoken-of – unnecessary-to-be-spoken-of – affection blossomed like a lotus whenever you met. How did it operate – or did it operate at all – when your mother greeted you as if you might just possibly be a carrier of typhoid – social typhoid anyhow – and was plainly thinking ‘thank God for the Marines’ when you thundered away in your Aston Martin out of her life for – hopefully – another seven years?

  I wasn’t any sort of a lover that night. I just made an excuse and drove her straight home. Then I dreamed a lot. The ghouls were queuing up all through the hours of darkness.<
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  II

  The first thing John Carreros said when we were on our way was that he thought my new car was noisy.

  ‘So it is,’ I said. ‘You don’t buy Astons for silent travel.’

  ‘It is like a traction engine.’

  ‘Wait a bit. You’ll find that over seventy the engine will get progressively smoother.’

  ‘Shona warned me that you were unhinged where motor cars were concerned. Remember I am an old man and do not relish to be jolted about. Also, as you get older you will find that a shorter life expectancy makes you more, not less, careful for what is left.’

  Unlike the day before I kept to a more normal speed, seldom going over ninety, at which rate the engine purred as contentedly as a stroked cat. John was looking older, I thought. Maybe it was just that on this sunny autumn day he was wrapped in a tweed overcoat, and a brown wide-brimmed trilby hat was dragged down over his heavyweight glasses.

  TBM Ltd were five miles out of Bristol, a typical oblong box of white concrete and glass, with the serried cars in front, a bloke at the lowered barrier to screw his eyes up at your entry. The general manager was waiting for us, a Mr Schmidt, with fair hair, a broad Teutonic face and a Yorkshire voice.

  The factory had been put up for them only two years ago, so everything was of the latest. We did the boring old drag around the place, through the laboratories, where the perfumes were blended, to the manufacturing floors, where the recipes and the formulas were made up. Metal drums like beer casks ranged the shelves, while men in white coats wheeled trolleys around (which were really metal casks on wheels) and turned a tap here and a tap there, allowing the essences to run down into a funnel and into the wheeled cask. In one hand the men carried a small board with the formula pinned to it, telling them how much of each ingredient to put in; and an electronic reading on the trolley measured the stuff. Mr Schmidt said the supplies they had available varied from an essence rare enough for them to have only a single medicine bottle of it to one so much in general use that it was kept in a 6000-litre drum.