‘Marina!’
‘My dear,’ Marina said. ‘Liza. I’ve called – I’m so sorry, but I’ve called—’
Her voice sounded light and faint.
‘Marina,’ Liza said, alarmed. ‘What is it, what has happened?’
‘Forgive me. It’s a little difficult. One moment—’
There was a pause.
Then Marina said, ‘Liza. Dear, I’m afraid I have to tell you that Andrew is dead.’
Chapter Ten
Stuart Campbell, senior partner in the practice, was very delicate with Archie. He had met Sir Andrew himself a couple of times, and had felt admiration for him both professionally and privately. He also felt that Archie could have gone much further and faster in his own career if only he had chosen to, and had said to his wife, once or twice, that Sir Andrew’s fame inhibited his son. So, while he wished to condole most seriously with Archie, he also felt his junior partner’s life might now begin to blossom. Archie, after all, he repeatedly told colleagues exasperated by Archie’s impulsiveness or forgetfulness, had the human touch.
Dr Campbell’s habits were stately. He was in his late fifties and enjoyed the image of an old-fashioned rural general practitioner, invariably tweed suited, comfortable in farm kitchens, regarding the weather from the exclusive point of view of a fisherman. Grey summer days, to Stuart Campbell, were good days, because they cast no shadows on the water. When he spoke to his colleagues, he liked to summon them magisterially into his own room at the health centre and speak to them, very genially of course, from the far side of his desk. The other doctors sat the same side of their desks as their patients. They said it inspired confidence. Stuart Campbell said it did precisely the reverse.
He did not, however, summon Archie to him, but went instead to find him after surgery. Archie was scribbling notes in his immense black hand but stopped as Stuart came in, and instinctively rose, like a schoolboy. Stuart waved a hand.
‘My dear fellow—’
He put the hand on Archie’s shoulder.
‘You have all my sympathy. Betty’s, too. A great shock.’
Archie, though drawn, looked perfectly composed.
‘Thank you.’
‘Wonderful life,’ Stuart Campbell said, removing his hand. ‘Wonderful to know how much you’ve done in life, how much you’ve given. I feel very privileged to have met him.’
‘Thank you,’ Archie said. ‘Thank you for coming in.’
‘My dear boy. It’s the very least – And of course if there’s anything at all that any of us can do, here, you’ve only to say the word.’
Archie gave a small sigh.
‘There’s very little to do, actually. Being my father, everything is in apple-pie order.’
‘If you want more time off—’
‘No,’ Archie said quickly. ‘No thank you. I shan’t want that.’
‘I thought perhaps your stepmother might like—’
Archie looked down.
‘She’s a very independent woman.’ He looked up again and gave a little smile. ‘I’m sure she’ll make her own decisions.’
‘Yes. Yes, of course.’
He paused. Then he put his hands in his trouser pockets and said, ‘Coronary, I suppose?’
‘Complete occlusion. No previous symptoms beyond tiredness after a long flight the day before.’
‘Archie,’ Stuart Campbell said with more energy. ‘Archie, don’t hold out.’ He took his hands out of his trouser pockets and gripped Archie’s arm. ‘Sometimes, as you know as well as I do, it’s easier to let go in front of someone whom you do not have to protect, like your wife. And I’d understand, my dear fellow, heavens, I would.’
Archie gazed at him.
‘I’m a clumsy fool,’ Stuart said. ‘Spoken far too soon. Betty always says I’ve the tact of a rhino.’
‘No,’ Archie said. ‘You could not be kinder. Really. And I’m so grateful. But I’m all right. Very sad, of course, but perfectly all right.’
‘I don’t like it,’ Stuart Campbell said later to his wife. ‘I don’t like the look of him.’
Betty Campbell, who considered Archie a man oversized in every direction, said she thought it was a mercy he hadn’t broken down. It never helped for a man to weep, anyway. Stuart was about to protest, and then recollected that Betty and her partner had lost at their weekly bridge four, and refrained. When her next remark turned out to be, ‘And don’t you go meddling. There’s no-one like doctors for interfering,’ he was glad he had.
The next day, in the post office, he met Liza. She was looking pretty but subdued and the elder boy was with her. Stuart waited until they had bought the stamps and writing paper they had come in for – Mrs Betts, heavy with genteel condolence, served Liza as if she were an invalid – and then he ushered her back into the lane to say, ‘I do hope you’ll let me know if there’s anything we can do. We can fill in for Archie between us, you know. And there’s always such a mountain of paperwork at such times.’
Liza turned to him gratefully. Large, easy, unthreatening men like Stuart Campbell brought out all that was sweetest and most female in her.
‘You are so kind. But I don’t think he wants anything to be different. It’s his way of coping. And his stepmother is amazing: so brave, so competent.’ She looked up at Stuart. ‘They had only been married three weeks. A month ago on Friday. I can’t bear it.’
Thomas, beside her, was again apprehensive, and then certain, that he would cry. He shuffled sideways and glared into the bare twigs of the hedge, where litter had blown and hung like grimy rags. The tears rose and the rags blurred and quivered.
‘You must ring me,’ Stuart said, ‘if you’re at all worried. About anything. It wasn’t – a usual relationship.’
‘No.
‘So very close. Most fathers and sons get on, all right. But not like that.’
‘Perhaps,’ Liza began and then glanced at Thomas’s shaking back, and stopped. She went over and put her arms round him. ‘Darling.’
‘Perhaps,’ Stuart said, understanding her.
She looked at him over Thomas’s head.
‘It’s this quiet, quiet sadness. So out of character.’
Whose quiet sadness? Thomas thought, calming down a little. And what was out of character? Characters were people in plays. Cartoon ones were Mickey Mouse. He snuffled a bit against Liza’s shoulder and felt descend upon him the terrible weariness that followed the bouts of weeping.
‘The one thing I’ve learned from doctoring,’ Stuart said, ‘is that the exceptions exceed the rules. A hundredfold. And trauma invariably creates exceptions.’
‘I’m keeping a close watch—’
‘I’ve no doubt of it, my dear. Just let me know if you notice anything disturbing.’
Thomas disengaged himself and rubbed his face vigorously with his anorak sleeve. Stuart put a brief hand on his head.
‘Well, your father has plenty of people to comfort him, that’s for sure.’
‘But the trouble is,’ Thomas said, ‘that we’re the ones who need comforting. And Marina.’
Marina. At any mention of her name, they felt filled with awe and pity and love. At least, Liza and Thomas did, and so, in his unformed gawky way, did Mikey. She had wanted them all to come to London; she had wanted them all to be as close to Sir Andrew – the last living second of Sir Andrew – as she could get them. So Liza had left Imogen with Sally for the day – ‘Come too!’ Imogen had bellowed, but not for long, with Sally there – and they had driven up to London on New Year’s Eve and found Marina in the Victoria mansion flat, alone in the sitting room full of towering Edwardian furniture brought down from Scotland.
She did not weep although she had plainly wept earlier. She held each one of them hard, and then Archie and Liza had gone into the big, gaunt bedroom where Sir Andrew lay, in new blue pyjamas, wearing an inscrutable expression, neither happy nor sad, merely absent. Liza had never seen anyone dead before and was a little afraid of that, but very muc
h more afraid of what the sight of his dead father might do to Archie. But it seemed to do very little. He was, after all, more than accustomed to it. He simply stooped and kissed his father’s forehead, and so Liza thought she had better do so, too. The flesh was soft and cool; remote but not particularly dead. She took Archie’s hand, but he did not grip hers, merely let their palms lie together. He longed for Liza to cry. She did not because it did not seem necessary; there was no reality for her at that actual, real moment of standing by the body, looking down into that familiar, dead face.
When they came out, Marina and the boys were sitting on the sofa close together.
‘Would you like to see Grandpa?’ Archie said.
Mikey flung himself back into the sofa cushions.
‘No.’
‘Thomas?’
‘A bit,’ Thomas said.
Marina took his hand.
‘From the doorway?’
He nodded. He stood up and Archie took his hand and led him along the passage to the bedroom. Thomas halted in the passage and looked through the open door into the bedroom, and saw his grandfather lying very neatly, with bare feet. The bareness of his feet shocked Thomas deeply. It was improper, rude to leave his feet bare.
He said roughly, ‘He ought to have his slippers on.’
‘Yes,’ Archie said. ‘Of course he should.’
Thomas pointed.
‘They’re there.’
Archie went across to the chest of drawers, which bore exactly the boxes and brushes he remembered from boyhood, and picked up the slippers. Thomas did not move. Then Archie went over to the bed and fitted the slippers on to his father’s feet.
‘There,’ he said. ‘Do you think that is more suitable?’
He turned. Thomas had gone. He was back in the sitting room, saying to Mikey in a voice harsh with boasting and bafflement, ‘He only looks asleep.’
Mikey hid his face in the sofa cushions.
Thomas said to Liza in an incompetent whisper, ‘Let’s go home. I want to go home.’
‘Of course you should,’ Marina said. ‘Of course. But you’ll be glad you came.’
Liza began to pick up her handbag and look for Mikey’s jacket.
Marina said to Archie, ‘We’ll talk tomorrow. It’s all under control today.’
‘Yes,’ he said. He went out of the sitting room and back to his father. Marina, after a moment, followed him.
‘I rang Maurice Crawford. He came at once. He is doing the certificate.’
Archie was stooping over his father.
‘I’ll go,’ Marina said. She craved his questions.
‘You don’t have to.’
‘But you might want to be alone—’
‘Too late,’ he said.
‘He died in my arms,’ she said. ‘Literally. He wasn’t alone for a split second at the end. Maurice says he will have known nothing, just a stab of pain and then—’ She stopped and put her hand to her face. ‘I’m so sorry. I forgot you were a doctor.’
‘Not at all,’ Archie said. He straightened up.
‘I said we could talk tomorrow. But of course we could now, if that’s what you want—’
‘No,’ Archie said. ‘No, thank you.’
‘I don’t want to do anything except the way you want it.’
‘Thank you.’
He came up to her and gestured that she should precede him back to the sitting room. She hesitated, briefly overwhelmed with a longing to be comforted, on the very edge of flinging herself into his arms. But nothing whatever in his face or manner invited that.
So she simply said again, ‘I’ll do things just the way you want,’ and walked ahead of him.
Liza could see they had not communicated. Archie went across to Mikey and lifted him into his arms.
‘Could I have a hamburger?’ Mikey whispered urgently. ‘A London one?’
Liza put her arms around Marina.
‘Would you like me to come up and stay? It would be so easy, with the holidays, and Sally. And I’d love to be with you. If you’d like it.’
‘Dear,’ Marina said, shaking her head. ‘Dear Liza. I’ll tell you the minute I need anyone. There’s no-one I’d rather have than you. But there’s so much to do just now and I’m best alone for a bit. I’m used to being alone. More used – more used than not.’
They drove home almost in silence, pausing only to buy the boys two monsterburgers in white cardboard boxes, and two drinks in lidded cups as big as buckets. Once or twice, Liza put her hand on Archie’s, on the steering wheel, and he gave a cursory pat with his other one, but apart from that she gazed out of the window at the charmless suburbs and then at the lifeless winter landscape that edged the motorway. In the back seat, heartened by food, the boys tussled mildly together and forgot the morning.
Colin Jenkins paid a pastoral visit. He had done this once before, on arrival in place of his mild, scholarly predecessor who had been an honorary canon of the cathedral and had retired into the heart of the city. On that first visit, Liza had made coffee and talked to him a little awkwardly in the sitting room round the bump that was to be Imogen. He had not met Archie until they had coincided at a hospital bed and he had known, with a small resentment, that Archie had had the upper hand at that meeting. Now, emboldened by the passing of time, Colin rather imagined that the ball, at this interview, would be in his court. It was not supremacy over Archie that he wanted, he told himself, but a chance to fulfil his proper role. He, the unbereaved, would be the stronger, the one able to give.
He called in the evening. Archie opened the door wearing jeans and a dark-blue fisherman’s jersey. He had no shoes on, only thick white seaman’s socks, and the absence of shoes was, for some reason, disconcerting. He led Colin into the sitting room where there was a fire in front of which Nelson lay on his side. Liza was watching television, but, when Colin came in, she got up and switched it off, and there was the sudden extreme silence that the banishment of television leaves.
‘I’ve called to offer you both my very great sympathy. And to tell you that I shall pray for you. And your father.’
Archie said nothing. Liza guided Colin to a chair.
‘We opened some wine. Will you have some?’
‘Oh no. No, thank you.’
‘Coffee?’
‘I couldn’t put you to the trouble,’ Colin said. ‘I only came for a moment or two. I thought . . .’ He looked at them both, Liza back on the sofa, Archie still standing up. ‘I thought we might say a prayer together.’
‘Good God,’ Archie said.
‘It is,’ Colin said firmly, as if proffering an unwanted indigestion tablet, ‘very comforting.’
‘I’m sure,’ Liza began, ‘for some people—’
‘But you are Christians. You are churchgoers. You are part of the Christian family.’
Liza looked at Archie.
After a pause he said, without much grace, ‘I may be a religious man – I may have a deep religious sense – but I am not at all sure there is a God. Not your God, in any case.’
Colin smiled. It was his smile of patient understanding.
‘But if you are religious, then surely that implies belief in God?’
Archie sat down on the arm of the sofa and put his head in his hands.
‘I don’t think—’ Liza said.
‘Christ,’ Archie shouted across at her, raising his head. ‘Christ! Don’t you even know what religion means? Are you so hidebound by your colourless bureaucratic orthodoxy that religion only means to you this frightful modern Church with its doggerel hymns and playschool prayers?’ He got up. ‘Religion, Colin, is an awakened sense of some great controlling force, an awareness that above or beyond there is not just a freedom but a fulfilment. And this awareness of power and possibility makes us strive ever onwards, morally, emotionally, spiritually. What on earth has such a concept to do with the dreary pen-pushing second-rate God you want to offer me?’
And he left the room.
Liza sai
d, ‘Oh, Colin, I’m so sorry, you must forgive him. He’s terribly upset, he—’
‘Of course,’ Colin said, all indulgence. ‘It’s only to be expected. Quite understandable. And I gather they were particularly close. It’s a hard blow.’
Liza nodded. She was torn between pity for Archie and fury with him, while at the same time realizing that his speech to Colin was the longest and most eloquent he had made since Andrew died.
‘Perhaps,’ Colin said, ‘you and I might pray together now. For Archie, as well as for his father?’
Liza looked at him helplessly. What alternative, but to agree, had Archie left her? Colin Jenkins, victorious, smiled and closed his eyes.
‘Oh, God, our Father—’
‘How could you?’ Liza cried. ‘How could you be so rude to him?’
Archie shrugged.
‘It was absolutely gratuitous! He’s an annoying little man but he meant well, and he was only doing his job!’
‘It was insulting,’ Archie said, rolling away from her in bed. ‘It was insulting to be spoken to like that.’
Liza took a deep breath. She was sitting up against the pillows. She folded her hands in front of her on the duvet. The thing to do was to keep very, very calm.
‘I see. So your grief is special and more awful than anyone else’s. Just as your love for your father was special and greater than anyone else’s. No-one is fit to help you because you are in this special category. Diana Jago comes to see you and you just stare at her. Richard Prior, of all people, comes to see you and you look at him like a dog that’s been kicked and will never trust people again.’
Archie lay listening, his eyes open.
‘It’s the same old thing, isn’t it? It’s the same old arrogance. It doesn’t occur to you, does it, what hell Marina is going through or what a nightmare she had? You won’t lift a finger to comfort her. Oh no. She took away Archie’s daddy so she must be punished. How long are you going to keep this up? How long? Because people will get sick of your self-indulgence, and the first of them will be me.’
Archie did not stir. She looked across at his exposed shoulder and the back of his head.
She said in her most Mrs Logan-of-Bradley-Hall-School voice, ‘And the children are not going to the funeral.’
A Passionate Man Page 15