A Game of Consequences

by Shelley Smith

  A GAME OF CONSEQUENCES

  SHELLEY SMITH

  © Shelley Smith 1978

  Shelley Smith has asserted her rights under the Copyright, Design and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.

  First published in 1978 by Macmillan London Limited.

  This edition published in 2017 by Endeavour Press Ltd.

  Table of Contents

  ONE

  In a fit of despondency following yet another fruitless interview Tom Ransome, chancing upon a Courage house off Curzon Street — and feeling courage to be the very quality he most needed at that moment — went in and ordered a pint of their draught bitter.

  The act could not have been more unpremeditated. He had never seen the pub before, it was just the brewery’s name which attracted his attention and decided him to cheer himself up, he being a chap not given to low spirits. Yet that simple act altered the whole course of his life.

  Tom had barely tasted the stuff when he was hailed with an air of royal affability by a tall languid-eyed debonair chap:

  ‘Hullo! I know you, don’t I? Aren’t you Ransome? I’m Jeremy Eskdale.’

  ‘Of course,’ Tom said cordially with his wide beaming smile, trying hard to recollect where they had met. The dark aristocratic face had a vague familiarity, opened some dusty cupboard deep in his brain, something far away and long ago. Jeremy Eskdale? … Yes, that was the name of a boy who had been in the same house as himself in the days of their youth at Rugby. Eighteen years ago, half his lifetime!

  He could not say they had been friends — differences of age and interests had kept them apart; though there had been a brief period of Tom’s adolescence when he had felt for the beautiful boy all the raptures and agonies of romantic love. Not that anything happened. It remained a silent undisclosed yearning. Except once, coming back from the Squash Courts together in the wintry dusk, Tom had suddenly brushed his lips against the other’s cheek.

  Odd to run into him again after all this time.

  But it was far odder than Tom dreamed. The consequences of this encounter were not to be imagined: enough to make a person wonder, with an icy grue at the back of the neck, whether there is such a thing as Chance at all.

  Eskdale said: ‘Drink up that muck and have a short. What’ll it be?’

  ‘A Scotch then.’

  ‘Double brandy, double Scotch, Archy, please,’ Eskdale said, indicating with a nod a table in the corner, and led the way. ‘This is extremely nice,’ he said, leaning back to look at Tom down his eyelids like a very old man who can only see things at a distance.

  ‘Is this your local?’

  ‘I use it. It’s convenient. Our flat is just around the corner, not five minutes away. Cheers!’

  Tom regarded him respectfully: one had to be extremely well-heeled to run a flat off Curzon Street.

  ‘What do you do these days?’ he inquired casually.

  ‘Me? Oh, I don’t know,’ the other vaguely replied. ‘I like a game of cards. We see friends. Travel. That sort of thing. Sometimes I run over to Newmarket or Doncaster to have a look at the gees. You know.’

  ‘I meant really, what is your job?’

  ‘Oh Christ! My role in the pantomime of Life,’ said the other with a gentle laugh, ‘is that of Idle Jack: irrevocably worthless, I’m afraid.’

  ‘Well, lucky old you. Most of us have no choice in the matter, we have to earn our living.’

  ‘There are other ways of making money.’

  ‘I wish I knew what they were.’

  ‘I did have a job once, just after I was sacked from Rugby. With a firm of stockbrokers. Stuck it for nearly three years, which I think was a pretty noble effort. Hellish sort of life. All that drudgery and having to get there so early in the morning. I believe that’s why they threw me out, because I never could arrive before ten or eleven; it made them quite peevish. And that was the end of my business career.’

  ‘It’s great to know someone’s keeping up the old school’s traditions,’ Tom grinned. ‘Were you really sacked?’

  ‘I’m proud to say I was; it must have been soon after you left. For a crime of such unspeakable depravity that Bodger’s poor old mind boggled and nearly became unhinged at the notion that it could have been perpetrated by one of his boys. The shame of it! The horror!’

  Ransome uttered a loud bray of mirth, as though he were still a boy himself.

  ‘What had you done? Seduced one of the maids? Raped matron?’

  ‘My dear fellow, nothing so banal. Far worse than that. Worse than buggery even, or smoking in the gym. I was caught, unfortunately by dear old Bodger himself, running ‘a book’ on the Lincoln. I suppose what really got up the old boy’s nose was that I’d have made over a hundred quid if some little shit hadn’t ratted on me.’

  ‘What hard luck.’

  ‘I should just think so.’ Eskdale signalled for fresh drinks.

  ‘It’s my turn,’ Tom protested.

  ‘You can buy the next round. Tell me about yourself. What about you?’

  This was a subject to be handled with discretion:

  ‘Oh well, I’m married, with two adorable little girls; and at the present moment I’m madly hunting for somewhere to live and simply can’t find anything suitable.’ By which he meant within the range of his pocket. ‘It’s a nightmare, honestly. We’ve sold our house and we have to be out by the end of the month. What will become of us I do not know. You may well see me trudging along in the gutter with all our possessions piled on Biddy’s old pram,’ he said, laughing. ‘So if you should see a disused hen-house or a vacant garden shed, do let us know, won’t you.’

  ‘Well, you’re lucky. We’ve had a house on the market for nearly two years, simply eating up money, and not one serious nibble or solid offer.’

  ‘It wouldn’t do for us, I suppose?’

  ‘Shouldn’t think so. Not unless you’re extremely rich. It’s a sodding great dump.’

  ‘No, I wouldn’t say we were extremely rich.’ He wanted to say, I’m out of a job, we’ve got about 9p in the bank, we’re living on what my wife earns, and we can’t possibly afford to buy even a two-up-and-downer. But he just smiled amiably. ‘It’s time I was going. It’s been great meeting you again. We must try and keep in touch.’

  ‘Hang on a minute,’ urged Eskdale in an absent manner.

  ‘I tell you what, you and your wife must come and have a drink with us and meet the family. Only it’ll have to be soon or we’ll have gone.’

  ‘I’m thinking. Sit down, there’s a good fellow. I’ve got an idea. A proposition that might be of use to you. In this house I mentioned — which actually belongs to my wife — there’s a sort of self-contained maisonette. Used to be the servants’ quarters in the days when those legendary beasts existed. It’s furnished but no one’s living there at the moment. If you don’t find anything more suitable meanwhile, it might serve as a temporary accommodation.’

  ‘That’s exceedingly good of you.’

  ‘Not at all. As I say, it’s my wife’s, but the old dear does like to feel there is someone there to keep an eye on things.’

  ‘Sure, sure. Where is it, may one ask?’

  ‘Little village called Nettlefold in Hampshire.’

  ‘Would it be feasible to commute from there, do you think?’

  ‘Why not? I’m sure people do. There’s a station only about five miles away.’

  ‘Sounds great.’

  ‘Look, you’d have to see it. It mightn’t suit you at all.’

  ‘Anything with a roof and four walls, man, would be the answer to a drowning sailor’s prayer, believe me. What about the rent though?’

  ‘Oh that … ‘ Jeremy waved it away. ‘You’d have to
discuss that with my wife or the agent or something. I don’t interfere. It’s not my business. Why don’t you come back with me and when my wife comes in you can put it to her yourself. Better if I don’t have anything to do with it. Last time we lent it to friends it became a hell of a drag. They used to give pot-parties, it turned out, and the police raided the place and there was a court case and pieces in the paper and fines all round. Rory was furious.’

  ‘I’m not surprised. But we don’t behave like that, cub’s honour. I’ve never smoked hash in my life. I don’t even know anyone who does. We’re fearfully dull and respectable. I can give your wife references to prove it — even if I have to forge them myself.’

  ‘Let’s toddle round then,’ Jeremy said, rising up.

  They ambled round in the pale sunshine and entered a handsome block, ascending silently in the lift to the fifth floor. ‘How about something to eat while we wait,’ Eskdale suggested, ushering him into a room as big as an hotel lounge with columns in unexpected places and sudden bewildering images of oneself that made Tom feel he was in the cabinet of Dr. Caligari, a devilish trick produced by one wall being lined with mirror-glass.

  ‘Lovely,’ Tom agreed, gazing round at the low square Scandinavian furniture with its wide velvety expanses.

  ‘Fancy some duck pâté on toast? Or I could scramble you some eggs?’

  ‘Duck pâté would be fine.’

  ‘Help yourself to a drink while I make the fixings, if you can find your way about in the Hall of Mirrors. Madam has now been in residence at the hairdresser’s for two and a half hours,’ he relayed from a kitchenette the size of a large cardboard box. ‘Excruciating, isn’t it, the way women spend their time. But she’ll come panting along any minute now with her tongue hanging out,’ he went on, unintentionally creating in Tom’s mind the confusing impression of a good-natured lolloping spaniel with a hat over one ear.

  Madam, when at last she arrived, was not in the least like a cocker spaniel. Except perhaps for her rich red-gold hair. With her white skin and slanting green glance she far more resembled one of the fabulous Venetian beauties Veronese and Titian loved to paint, Tom thought, as she greeted him in a warm aside without pausing in her remarks to her husband, bestowing on him her white fleshy hand with its long lacquered nails. So different from Kate’s small capable brown paw.

  She cast down coat, silk scarf, gloves, and a huge low-slung ethnic leather bag and went straight to the blue cupboard, announcing that before anything else she had to have a very long, very cold, very strong drink — her tongue was positively hanging out.

  ‘What did I tell you,’ Jeremy murmured.

  ‘All very well for you two, but I’ve got a lot of drinking-time to make good,’ she commented, dropping down on to the turquoise velvet couch. She looked round on them with a smile of satisfaction. ‘And now tell me who is this nice man?’

  ‘This nice man is Tom Ransome and we were at Rugby together.’

  ‘Ah, then at last I’ve found someone who can tell me what he was like in his innocent youth.’

  ‘I never knew him when he was an innocent youth,’ Tom said slyly. At which Mrs. Eskdale threw back her head on its full white throat and laughed.

  People always liked Tom. He got on well with them, had a way with him, could make them laugh, and diffused an aura of warm good nature. For the fact was that he liked them which made people feel at ease with him. He was quite simply a thoroughly nice chap, a loving husband and adoring father.

  He was possibly as happy as a man can be in this imperfect world. Or he had been, until someone pulled the chair away and he found himself flat on the floor.

  Tom knew better than to hurry things. They sat around gobbling the rich toasts and licking their fingers, talking about this and that, until they reached the subject of houses. And then in no time at all Mrs. Eskdale was arranging everything in that wonderfully assured matriarchal way of middle-aged women.

  ‘There the place is,’ she cried, ‘empty. Furnished but empty. You’d be doing us a favour.’

  ‘Sweet of you to say so. Only — ‘

  ‘Go and have a look at it.’

  ‘Could I? Tomorrow?’

  ‘Any time you like. You only have to fix it up with the agents, Ellis & Hand.’

  ‘Great! Now about the rent; what would that be?’

  ‘My dear man, don’t worry your head about that. We pay you. It’s a wangle to get round that wicked Landlord & Tenant Act. We “employ” you to look after the place for us. You of course pay all your own outgoings. Ellis will explain. It just prevents you putting us in a hole by refusing to get out when the house is sold, that’s all.’

  *

  For once Tom did not feel his usual pang at sight of the SOLD board outside their pretty little Regency terraced house. Now he would be able to convince Kate that things were going to be all right, after all. The uncertainty and insecurity made them too easily at odds with each other. Poor Kate bore the heavier burden, which in a way made it worse for him. It shames a man not to be able to support his family, it undermines his self-confidence.

  ‘Anyone at home?’ he called out as was his way, opening the front door. ‘Kate!’ he said, putting his head into one room after another. But no one answered.

  He found her at the bottom of the garden tending a bonfire. Large flakes of burnt paper floated up. ‘I say, you are being busy!’ She smiled at him, dodging a cloud of smoke, a blue mammy-kerchief tied round her hair. A flame licked up a coloured page. ‘You’re not burning my Art books!’ he cried.

  ‘Of course not, darling,’ his wife said quickly, kicking the object further into the fire, ‘only rubbish. We’ve got to make a start at getting rid of things.’

  ‘I know, but I like to be here when you’re chucking things away, you’re so ruthless.’

  ‘I thought you would be here. I was beginning to wonder what on earth could have happened to you.’

  ‘I met a man I knew,’ Tom said, throwing the line away as if it was of no importance. ‘Where are the children? They ought to be home by now.’

  ‘It’s all right. They’re having tea with Fiona and Vanessa.’

  ‘Wouldn’t it be better to wait till they’re here? You may be throwing out things they want.’

  ‘No thank you, darling. Quite bad enough having to fight with you over every scrap of useless junk, without Dinah and Biddy pleading broken-heartedly for some long discarded toys, egged-on by their dear old Dad. We’d be buried alive under our own trash if it wasn’t for me.’

  ‘Heartless wretch!’ he said, tilting her smudged face to his and kissing her.

  ‘You’ve been boozing!’

  ‘Yes, I downed a few with this chap I was at school with.’

  ‘Well, good for you!’ Kate thrust an album of old snapshots into the flames without him noticing. She said with studied casualness: ‘Any other news?’

  ‘As a matter of fact, I have.’

  ‘What!’ She looked up eagerly. ‘About the job? Why didn’t you say at once?’

  ‘Not the job. Better than that.’

  ‘Better! Oh tell me, tell me quickly.’

  ‘I think I’ve found us somewhere to go when we leave here. In the country, Hampshire to be precise, but within the commuting-belt. It’s part of a big house but quite self-contained. Two good-size reception rooms, two double bedrooms, bathroom and kitchen; all fully furnished, and we can move in as soon as we like.’

  ‘You can’t have seen it already,’ Kate said wonderingly, leaning on her fork.

  ‘Well, hardly. But I’m to ring the estate agent’s and make an appointment to look over it as soon as possible. What do you think?’

  ‘It sounds marvellous. How did you come to hear about it?’

  ‘From Jeremy, this chap I met. The estate belongs to his wife, and it is an estate. She showed me some photographs of it. Jeremy took me round to meet her and be approved as a potential tenant. It was the family home. Her brother inherited it, and then he died and i
t passed to her. But it’s one of those places no one can afford to run nowadays. They don’t even live there. It’s up for sale, and meanwhile uninhabited and probably full of beautiful stuff. And therefore always the possibility of hooligans or burglars or squatters breaking in; so I think she’d be quite pleased to have someone reliable and trustworthy there to keep an eye on things.’

  ‘Sort of caretakers.’

  ‘That’s more or less the idea. But isn’t it an incredible piece of luck, Kate? I always told you something would turn up, didn’t I?’

  ‘You did, Mr. Micawber, you did. And now tell me the bad part.’

  ‘The bad part?’

  ‘Can we afford it?’ she said with a touch of impatience.

  ‘Actually, we can. It’ll cost us no more than living here. Less, in fact, because it’s always cheaper in the country. And they are paying us to look after it, which should more or less cover the quarterly bills for fuel and phone and so on.’

  Kate said incredulously:

  ‘They pay us?’

  ‘It’s because of the Rent Act, so that there won’t be any difficulty in getting us to leave if the place is sold. For all they know, we might turn nasty and dig our heels in and refuse to come out. After all, they don’t know anything about us. And they’re such nice people. The only possible problem may be finding a school. The agent will be able to tell me about that. Come in while I phone him.’ He put an arm round her waist as they walked across the shaggy grass: ‘And then I think we should have a little celebration before the kids come back, mm?’ he murmured.

  She smiled at him:

  ‘Isn’t it a little early to celebrate?’

  ‘Not a bit. Always thank the gods instantly for favours to come and you’re more likely to receive them. That’s my theory.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘The relief from the tension of these last months, darling, you’ve no idea.’

  ‘I have some idea.’

  ‘Not knowing what was to become of us all.’

  ‘Paul and Sue were putting us up — ‘