They both turned as Thomas entered the doorway.
‘This is entirely Art’s fault,’ he announced.
Brendan shook his head. ‘You’re obsessed by Art, Thomas. Maybe it comes from being next in line. Being the last born means that I can simply be my own man.’
‘You’re the one obsessed by him,’ Thomas retorted. ‘Idolising him since you were a baby and you’re hardly more than a baby now. A pet hamster has more chance of surviving in the wild than you have of finding a job in London at your age.’
‘I’m old enough.’
‘I’ll give you a fortnight before Father has to pull strings to get you re-admitted to your warm school dormitory. Don’t be stupid, Brendan. You don’t need to renounce wealth because you and I won’t inherit anything to give up anyway.’
Thomas went silent as footsteps ascended the rough steps. Father had to duck his head to enter.
‘Is this a meeting of the Verschoyle Party Congress?’ His mild humour disguised his obvious distress.
‘It will break Mother’s heart if Brendan doesn’t return to school,’ Thomas said bitterly. ‘Though, even then, she won’t bring herself to criticise her golden boy Art.’
‘I’ve never heard her criticise any of her children,’ Father replied. ‘No matter how hard you all hurt her. Cousin George is about to leave. He says he won’t stay to be insulted by the names Art has called him.’
‘Art means no harm,’ Eva pleaded.
‘That doesn’t mean he won’t cause it.’ Father looked around. ‘I heard what you said about inheritance, Thomas. I will try to leave you all something. But it cannot be this house which I only hold in trust for Art and which is legally entailed to his son after him.’
‘You know that weeds will grow through broken windows here before Art will accept it,’ Thomas replied sharply.
‘I know he is young. I know that you see life differently at twenty-two and thirty-two.’
‘Art will never change.’
‘Why should he?’ Brendan asked. ‘I don’t want inherited wealth either. I want to establish my own worth.’
‘You will return to Marlborough and stay there until your sixteenth birthday.’ Father’s voice was quiet but firm. ‘After that you’ll be a child no longer. Hopefully you will finish your education and make something of yourself. That will be your decision. All I request is that you obey me for the next eighteen months.’
‘Why should I?’ Brendan’s voice was not aggressive. It contained an innocent openness that Father also possessed.
‘Because you are a gentleman, it will please your mother and because I will never ask anything of you again. I shall never walk away from any of my children, no matter what you do. Should you choose to walk away from me I will not stop you. But take something with you while I’m alive and you still can. Take jewellery or the family silver if you wish before Art gives it away to a beggar.’
‘I won’t steal from my brother,’ Thomas replied.
‘Art doesn’t own this house yet. Steal from me.’
Thomas looked down awkwardly. ‘I’ll see George,’ he said ‘Maybe I can twist his arm and persuade him to stay for Eva’s party.’
He walked out. Brendan fingered the hat he had removed when Father entered. ‘I give you my word to return to Marlborough until my sixteenth birthday,’ he said. ‘I make no promises beyond that, but you know it is not in my character to break my word.’
‘Define character,’ Father asked.
Brendan pondered. ‘Character is what you are, what you do every day.’ He blushed slightly. ‘I’d better see Cousin George too in case he leaves.’
Father watched his youngest son descend the steps and shook his head in wonder. ‘Character is what you are, what you do every day. If only dictionaries were as clear and noble. He’s a noble boy, you are all noble, but I worry about whether I’ve prepared any of you for life out there.’
‘We’ll be fine,’ Eva assured him. ‘I just hate seeing you look so frightfully upset.’
‘Do I? Maybe I don’t understand what’s happening any more. I’ve never harmed anybody in my life. I’ve given my services freely to defend neighbours in court and gave them land behind our house to hold a market every Tuesday. I address every man equally – Catholic, Protestant or dissenter – yet my eldest son thinks I should feel guilty for simply existing.’ He looked at Eva. ‘What terrible crime does Art feel I’ve committed? I’ve only ever wanted to mind your mother and for you all to be happy. We were happy once, weren’t we?’
‘We still are,’ Eva insisted. ‘Let’s go on a picnic tomorrow, all day. It would be lovely.’
‘It would. But then unfortunately we’d have to come home again.’
Down in the yard Maud’s voice called up to them both.
‘Dinner shall be in half an hour,’ she announced, ‘and we shall be sitting down together in peace.’
‘Has George left?’ Eva asked, going to the doorway.
‘I confiscated his bag in the hall and ordered him to give up his nonsense,’ Maud said. ‘I raided the wine cellar and shall have Art and George playing chess peaceably before the evening is out.’
‘You’re a marvel,’ Eva said. ‘Is there any chance of a picnic tomorrow?’
‘We’ll sail out to the island where I shall personally drown every annoying male in the family.’
Father laughed as Maud marched back to the kitchens. ‘Your sister is a marvel,’ he said quietly, ‘but you are one too.’
‘I’m not.’
‘You’re a marvellous shape still emerging with slow wingbeats into the light. Too far away for me to judge the outline of what you will become, but I know it will be truly wondrous.’ His hand strayed into his pocket where a small edition of Walt Whitman was kept. ‘We’ve half an hour before being summoned to the next congress on world affairs. What about a walk?’
Eva smiled and closed the studio door behind them. ‘Just you and me.’ She took his hand and squeezed it.
‘A quick bid for freedom.’
Eva released his hand as they entered the lane. Demonstrative shows of affection were not in their character. Passing the village pump, they took the lane to the Bunlacky shore, saying little because little needed to be said between such soul mates and friends.
NINE
Not a Penny off the Pay
London, 1926
Brendan intended being utterly true to his word. Mother would be upset but Father would respect how he honoured his vow. In recent months he had been careful to make no reference to his decision when talking with the other chaps. Eighteen months ago he was vocal about his plans and was ragged because of them. Now he had not even mentioned that his sixteenth birthday occurred this week. Naturally, his two best schoolchums knew his intentions and envied him, but both had too much to lose to follow his example. Being eldest sons, they needed to think about more than just themselves.
Brendan knew that his family loved him, but if he had not been born, little would be different in their world. The last born was always counted as a blessing, but generally counted as little else.
Still Brendan would not wish to swap places with Art or Thomas. Older teachers at Marlborough still paused in the corridors to ask about Art and shake their heads, almost as if sympathising with a bereavement. They recalled Art with affection, even if he had constantly queried every issue with them but they also spoke as if he had perpetually borne a heavy weight on his back. Brendan was not as clever as Art but he sensed their relief at Brendan’s cheerful spirit. He had actually enjoyed his time at Marlborough, making friends and being generally respected as a good sort. Therefore this morning when he made an excuse before assembly and requested permission to see the nurse in sickbay, he felt no resentment towards any person in the school. They were simply misguided, unaware that they belonged to a world shortly about to be eclipsed.
Packing his small suitcase while the other boys and the staff were in assembly, he calmly walked down the deserted driveway.
He did not run because he was not running away: he was simply leaving to start his own life. It felt somewhat dishonourable to fabricate a lie about feeling ill, but Art had once said that a degree of subterfuge was occasionally justified if oppressive forces were ranked against you. If Brendan was spotted he would be dragged back and probably receive the cane. The school would only release him if Father wrote to give his consent, but that would mean the decision being Father’s and not his, and it was unfair to place Father in such a bind.
This was his choice alone, to start a new life at the very moment when Art’s predictions of class warfare were coming true. For the past six days a general strike had gripped Britain, to the consternation of his teachers. Five years ago the coal miners had stood alone and been defeated. But this time the other unions were striking in solidarity with those miners locked out after refusing to accept a savage pay cut and the imposition of another hour onto their working day. Events had escalated at midnight last Friday when printers in the Daily Mail refused to print an editorial entitled For King and Country denouncing the Trades Union Congress’s plans as a revolutionary act of treason. Brendan’s housemaster had gathered the pupils to hear a message on the BBC from the Prime Minister urging the nation to keep steady and remember the maxim that peace on earth came to all men of good will. Brendan had wanted to stand up and shout a truer maxim: the workers united would never be defeated. But his teachers and classmates would not have understood because Marlborough taught only Latin, Greek and complacency.
Brendan paused at the end of the avenue to look back at the imposing buildings which gave the impression that nothing would ever change. But in Ireland he had seen how quickly change could come – with a new flag, a new state and a sense of not quite belonging.
The disadvantage of starting a new life on the cusp of revolution was that Brendan could not be sure how far he would get. The railway workers were striking, but a crew of middle-class scab volunteers was maintaining a skeleton timetable. It would be difficult to evade capture if forced to spend hours waiting on the platform. But, when he reached Marlborough Station, a Special Constable sworn in to protect the strike-breakers said that a London train was due in twenty minutes.
Brendan had decided to still wear his school uniform for now because he looked less suspicious in it. A scab volunteer with the look of a merchant banker staffed the ticket office. He possessed the same eagerness as the other volunteers operating the station – oversized schoolboys being allowed to play with a life-sized train set. This quality was most apparent in the driver and the engineer when the train finally arrived from Bristol and they cheerily greeted the passengers of their own caste boarding the first class carriages. Brendan might have found something comic about these little Englanders clinging onto their rotten class structures if they were not blacklegs. He purchased a first class ticket because he would seem less conspicuous among people who spoke like him. Two businessmen occupied the compartment he entered. One nodded jovially.
‘What’s this, young man? Skipping term?’
‘Called home. A family illness.’
The man nodded with practised sympathy. ‘Bad show. Still at least you will get home. Three days ago the blackguards had closed down the whole rail network. But their grip is weakening. They’ve misjudged the resolve of the British people. I’ll give them another two days at most, then I hope they lock up the ringleaders.’
Brendan did not argue because he was not yet free to do so. The train was taking for ever to leave, with some fat scab making an elaborate show of waving his flag as if seeing off an ocean liner. The boy watched the platform, expecting teachers and prefects to rush after him. But the train was moving now, the wheels seeming to chant, ‘free-dom, free-dom’. The businessmen both read the government propaganda ragsheet and paid him no heed. The print unions were refusing to print any newspaper except The British Worker, produced by the strikers themselves. Yesterday Brendan’s form master had confiscated a copy of The British Worker which Art had managed to get to him, saying that if Brendan wished to know the truth he could read the government-printed British Gazette in the library. Brendan had not argued, because by then he already felt that his school days were over.
His class would be doing French now. He should be past Reading Station by the time they realised he was not in the sickbay. Then it would be on to Maidenhead, Slough and Ealing. As a communist he felt guilty at being on a train driven by a scab, but speed was essential. This was the greatest adventure of his life. He felt like Toad of Toad Hall escaping from prison. The chaos of the strike would aid his chances, the police being too busy to look for a schoolboy.
He would not be dragged back to face the cane. They would wire Father who would release Brendan from the school’s care. The headmaster might be disgruntled but teachers would simply shake their heads and dismiss him as being as mad as his brother.
The businessmen in his carriage glanced uneasily out as the train entered Hungerford, as if expecting strikers to storm the platform. But only a handful of well-dressed passengers waited there with Special Constables visible at the exits. It was impossible to see if rail workers protested outside the station. This was the thing about boarding school, the outside world could end and you might never be told. He knew that the army had been called out in South Wales and Yorkshire and that in Glasgow, mobs had forced public vehicles off the road. Brendan strained his eyes as the train moved away, yearning to glimpse his first striker and feel part of this momentous occurrence. An elderly couple had entered the compartment, the old lady smiling at him. The four adults began to discuss the strike, the mayhem in the country loosening the usual reserve between strangers. The lady’s daughter had volunteered her services to help sort mail in the post office. Her grandson, an Oxford undergraduate who had abandoned his studies to enlist with the hastily established Organisation for the Maintenance of Supplies, considered the whole affair to be a grand lark.
Brendan only half listened to their nonsense about the strike crumbling. They were leaving Wiltshire behind. He took down his suitcase from the rack, not opening it until he was alone in the corridor. Choosing another jacket to wear, he held the Marlborough College blazer in his hands for a moment, staring at the crest. Then he lowered the window to lean out. He loved trains, loved their freedom and the exhilaration of the wind against his face as he let his school blazer billow behind him for a moment before releasing it. He laughed, imagining the shock of passengers in the carriages behind when they saw it sail through the air. Glancing back he saw it land in a bush and gave a yell of delight, knowing that nobody would hear above the noise of the engine. Stepping away from the window, he closed it and patted down his hair, then retook his seat. The lady smiled at him again, having obviously been told his white lie about a family illness.
The mood in the compartment grew apprehensive as the train reached Paddington Station. The platform was clear but pickets jostled against a line of police outside the entrance at Eastbourne Terrace, abusing emerging passengers. A crude hand-painted banner proclaimed the coal miners’ demands: ‘Not a Penny off the Pay, Not a Minute on the Day.’ Brendan tried to tell one of the protesters that his own brother was among the strikers and he had come to support them.
‘Is he now? And so what does he do then, this brother?’ the man demanded, and Brendan realised that he didn’t properly know the answer himself. A Special Constable hurriedly moved him along as the protester called him ‘a lying bloody toff’. The crowd carried Brendan out on the London streets, a Dick Whittington wandering towards Regent’s Park, savouring every glimpse of life around him. He didn’t mind getting lost because this seemed the best way to encounter his new home, to learn his bearings from scratch and gradually implant each alley and side street into his brain. He had visited London before but never alone. Brendan was too excited to be scared. Here were the names he had studied on maps in the school library: Primrose Hill to the north, St John’s Wood to his west, to the southeast, Russell Square and beyond it Hol
born.
Art’s address was in Camden Town, on a lane so small that no map in school showed it. Brendan would get there in his own time, not needing to take any of the scab buses that occasionally passed because nobody could chase him now. Crossing Regent’s Park he emerged at Gloucester Gate humming Bye Bye Blackbird. Many shops were closed with pickets standing outside them, but he was shocked to see creeping signs of normality elsewhere. The British Gazette had trumpeted about Grenadier Guards in armoured cars forcing through a convoy of a hundred lorries from the docks to the Hyde Park depot, claiming that this had broken the strikers’ will and assured London’s vital supplies. But Art’s scribbled note on the confiscated copy of The British Worker had insisted that the strikers would not let this breach re-occur.
Brendan studied the faces of picketing comrades, wanting to speak to them. Yet he knew that his clothes and accent would be a barrier. How had Art overcome this? Since graduating from university his eldest brother had shown no inclination for any profession, but – according to a relation who sometimes encountered him – spent his nights mixing with earnest young men selling socialist newspapers around public houses. Art’s letters hinted at various manual jobs – the more backbreaking the better – but employers were suspicious of his accent and invariably found a reason to sack him, normally claiming that he was attempting to ferment dissent.
When Brendan reached the end of Parkway he sought directions to Art’s flat. Yet it was Art himself that he found first. A crowd had gathered at the corner of Camden Road where a blackleg bus was being blocked to prevent it moving off. Some people were encouraging the nine strikers who sat on the cobbles. More, however, shouted abuse at them. Here at last was a revolutionary act, thought Brendan, but his attention was taken by a small girl on the pavement who looked frozen in her short skirt even though the afternoon was warm. Hunger lines and shadows under the eyes made her look old as if she had already seen more of life than he ever would. She stared with palpable terror at one of the strikers, probably her father, linking arms on the cobbles as if expecting the bus to drive over him, leaving her alone to starve among strangers. Brendan saw the strain on every face now, including the passengers – some of whom slipped off the bus while others sat tight-lipped and defiant. A whistle heralded the arrival of a police squad. These were no Special Constables but seasoned Bobbies who did not wait to ask the protesters to move. Batons came out and they struck the first striker before he had time to rise. He fell back among his comrades, blood coming from his forehead. The small girl screamed and Brendan reached out to touch her shoulder reassuringly. A woman among the crowd pulled the child away, claiming that he had tried to snatch her. For a moment both the protesters and police glared at him, each man becoming a protective father. Then he was forgotten as the strikers rose and tried to defend themselves. Women screamed and the volunteer bus driver raised his hands to his face as a stone crashed through his windscreen.
The Family on Paradise Pier Page 12