A man of about fifty answered my knock. He was in his shirt and braces and had a crumpled sheet of the Sunday paper dangling from one hand.
I wished him good morning and asked if his wife were home. I knew I sounded polite and middle-class and stupid.
“No, what do you want her for?” His eyes appeared to narrow. “If you’re trying to sell her something, lad…?”
I shook my head. But instinct had told me not to deal with anyone other than the woman of the house, not to blunt my message by talking either to the husband or the son. In her absence, though, I wondered if maybe I should talk to the son.
“Not here, either. If you must know, they’ve gone to church, the pair of them. Another hour, round about.” Happily he didn’t again ask what I wanted, nor offer to take a message. I settled myself on the ground outside their gate and leant back against the low wall of the garden.
He’d been right about the timing but wrong about their coming back together, and because she was alone I wasn’t sure until the last moment that this was the woman whom I had to speak to.
Yet what was encouraging, she gave me a smile as she drew near. “Tired? You haven’t got a puncture?”
I scrambled to my feet.
“Could I ask you something?” I didn’t like not knowing what to call her. And ask sounded better than tell.
“A glass of water? Certainly, my love. Might even find a bit of squash to go in it. My goodness, it is hot, though.” With the screwed-up handkerchief already in her hand she wiped at her forehead. “Real close and muggy. Full of all these horrid gnats and midges.” She inspected her handkerchief and maybe saw that she’d put paid to one or two of them.
“There’s going to be a storm,” I said.
“Good thing. That’s what we need all right, something to clear the air.” She had now turned in at the gate. “Mind you, we expected one yesterday, and the day before that, too. Will you come in with me or would you prefer to wait out here?”
“No, I know there is. Going to be one. A storm. In an hour or so. That’s the reason why I’ve come.” I was conscious of not having started very well.
She looked at me uncertainly.
I didn’t hesitate.
“There’s going to be a storm and your cottage will be hit by lightning. And your son will be killed if he’s lying down.”
She didn’t say anything.
“I’m sorry if I put it bluntly. But I didn’t know how else to tell you.”
In a moment she recovered her composure. Or her power of speech.
“Listen, love, you can’t go about frightening folks like that—making up wild stories—I think you’d better be off without that glass of lemonade…as a bit of a punishment, you see. You didn’t look the type of boy who’d go in for silly pranks like that.”
She turned her back on me then and started up the path. I ran after her, caught her by the arm. The warmth and moisture of her flesh was disconcerting.
“You’ve got to believe what I’m telling you!”
“No, I think I’ve got to do nothing of the sort!” Angrily, she shook my hand away. “Now I don’t know if this is your idea or whether you’ve been put up to it but I’m not having it, do you hear, and so you’d better be off before I call my old man out here. Or before I telephone the police, which is more what you deserve. And if you ever dare to return…well…” She clearly couldn’t think what might make a sufficiently awful threat.
“Please listen. Please! I know what I’m talking about.”
“Oh, I haven’t got time for this. Already late and if lunch isn’t on the table by one I’ll have a sulky husband for the rest of the afternoon. I can’t be doing with that.”
“And if it is on the table by one,” I said, “you’ll have a dead son for the rest of your life. Would that please you better?”
“Colin!” she called.
“Listen. How do you think I know that your son always goes to lie on his bed immediately after Sunday lunch?”
“Colin!” And then for the first time since I’d revealed the purpose of my visit, she looked at me with more curiosity than annoyance. “How do you know?”
“But it’s right, isn’t it? He does always go upstairs to lie down after lunch?”
“Are you a friend of Billy’s? No, you couldn’t be, I’ve never seen you. Who have you been talking to?”
“Nobody. I promise. But your house is going to be struck by lightning shortly after two and Billy’s room is right beneath the point where it will strike. His bed—moments later—will be nothing but a mound of ashes. Whether or not he’s on it will be largely up to you.”
The front door opened.
“Oh, there you are,” the man said. “I thought I heard you call. I was on the lav.” I remembered—as I didn’t always—to offer up a thank-you. “That boy still here? What does he want, for God’s sake?”
“Nothing. Nothing. I’ll be in in half a jiffy.”
“Well, it’s getting late,” the man observed, with noticeable truculence. “Don’t give him any money, if that’s what he’s after.”
He returned inside but left the door open.
“How do you know?” she whispered, urgently.
“Just do.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“I mean, I have this… I sometimes know that things are going to happen.”
“Like what?”
“But that’s got nothing to—” Yet then I thought I would never see her again; could it really matter if I broke the rules for once? “Oh, like the King is going to die next February. Like on the same day Princess Elizabeth is crowned we’ll get the news they’ve conquered Everest. Like, in the year after the coronation, Roger Bannister is going to run the four-minute mile…” It was surely important I should try to impress her.
“And like someone who’ll never make the headlines is going to be struck by lightning in an unknown village at the back of nowhere. Why?” She added in the same near monotone: “You don’t even know our name, do you?”
I said: “It isn’t much I’m asking. Only that you delay your lunch a bit. What have you got to lose by it?”
“Oh, you haven’t met my husband!” Yet at least she was now smiling faintly. “The name,” she said, “is Cooper.”
“Thank you, Mrs Cooper.”
“And you? What’s yours?”
There came the initial clap of thunder. We instantly looked up.
“So will you make lunch late?”
She nodded. “I may be as touched as you. But whether you’re touched or not I can see you believe in what you’re saying.”
“Yes, absolutely. So if it’s the only way, you’ll have to turn the clocks back, won’t you? I can assure you, even if he twigs, the sulks won’t last for very long.” I smiled, then picked up my bike from the grass verge. It occurred to me I should have been a recognized authority on that—on turning the clocks back.
“You haven’t told me your name,” she said.
“But remember. You’ve promised. And you’ll soon thank God you did.”
I waved as I cycled off. Turned my head just once and she was still standing there. I felt the first big drop of rain.
By the time I got home I was soaked. Nana and Gramps, Aunt Gwen and Uncle Max were all sipping sherry in the front room.
“Ah, there you are, you bad lad,” said Nana—invariably more stern than Granny used to be. “You must go immediately and make your peace with your mother. She’s highly displeased with you.”
“And so’s your father,” said Gramps, cheerfully.
“And so’s your venerated uncle,” said Max, “who’s absolutely starving. And so’s your sadly disreputable aunt—who always kowtows to the winning team. All-round disgrace. I wouldn’t be in your shoes, not for anything.”
Gwen hugged me like he had, however. (“My goodness, how wet you are!” It could have been a bad moment.) “But I’ll come with you into the kitchen and see if I can’t cushion the blows to some extent
. Max, why don’t you come, too, and lend us a bit of moral support?”
“And bear in mind,” said Gramps, “that none of this will matter a hundred years hence! In the meantime, we’ll try to save you a glass of sherry.”
The only deeply distressing thing about it all—I could so vividly recall the last occasion. My mother had certainly got up late, just as she had this morning, but she’d been singing as the two of us scraped the potatoes and set the dining-room table, as we polished the glasses and shone up the silverware and made the napkins into little hats (although I couldn’t remember that I’d done much more than that—nor, I think, had Dad). And when everybody had turned up early in Uncle Max’s car, we’d all stood merrily about the kitchen, sherry glasses in hand, my mum laughing as much as anyone at the signs of chaos in the sink. Nana and Max, anyway, had briskly disposed of most of it, with dishcloth and tea towel respectively. Gramps had endeavoured to whisk the cream; but been told he hadn’t got the wrist for it. And Gwen had been separating the eggs for the mayonnaise instead of pushing protectively in front of me as we went into the kitchen and declaring as she did so, “The return of the Prodigal Son! We’ve all been telling him off! You should just have heard Mother, even the grownups paled! She made him promise—”
But her sister—Gwen’s—hardly appeared to be listening. “Look at you, Ethan! Oh, for heaven’s sake! Go and get out of those wet things! Dry your hair! And I’d like to know what time you happen to call this.”
I glanced at my watch. It was shortly after two.
Yet although the action had been almost automatic she thought I was being facetious. “Oh, I’ve a good mind to send you straight to bed, or get your father to. You’ve thoroughly ruined my day. I hope you realize that. You’ve thoroughly ruined my whole day—and I was so much looking forward to it!”
“Yes, the goodness of the Lord!” said Major Shipman the next morning, stroking meringue crumbs from his white moustache and gazing reflectively into his teacup. “Yes, indeed!… Don’t know why he’d concern himself with Billy Cooper, mind, who’s always been a bit of a ne’er-do-well, besides at times not seeming altogether there. Still, might mend. Might mend. The ways of Providence are often somewhat strange. (And, poor lad, one’s only too happy, of course, for his deliverance.) But makes you think, doesn’t it? Miracles and all that.”
“Who was the boy on the bike?”
“No idea. Vanished into thin air. Could have been a ghost—all sorts of stories going around. Mavis Cooper said she asked him twice but never got an answer.”
He paused.
“Apparently the poor old King’s going to die next year. And Everest is going to be climbed on the same day as the coronation. And somebody called something is going to run a mile in…well, she wasn’t quite certain. Still, have to see, won’t we? You been thinking of running the mile, young-fellow-me-lad?”
Before, it had been all long faces, and condolences by proxy. Today it was mystified speculation, and shaken heads, and gaiety and laughter.
13
“I suppose you feel proud of yourself?”
I thought he meant smug. I had smugness on the brain. I knew I showed a tendency towards it, even though I also knew I had no reason to. It made a perennial and insidious enemy. “Rid me of it, then.” Not that I thought he would—or even at heart wanted him to. I wasn’t a puppet. I had autonomy. I realized it was a battle I should have to fight alone. I didn’t even say it.
He’d just got on. There was always a long wait at Rickmansworth while they replaced the engine—the electric engine which had brought us out from Baker Street. For the rest of the way we should be steam-driven.
I was aware there was little point in asking him why he’d been at Rickmansworth.
Apart from myself, the carriage had been empty. It was supposedly a non-smoker and yet it still smelled of tobacco—the smell of tobacco and the dust of ages would live on forever in its patterned green upholstery. My initial exclamation of delight had instantly subsided, along with my grin of welcome. He was angry and I hadn’t yet seen him angry. His mood was symbolized, and nearly given shape to, by the darkness of his overcoat. Although it was the same period of spring as the one in which I’d met him nineteen years previously—even a day or two later—the weather continued wintry, with reports of snow still falling in the Highlands. It was true I’d seen him all in black before but it hadn’t been a reflection of the way he felt. His uncovered blond hair again made me think of a flame, yet this time he put me in mind not of a beacon but of a black candle at a witches’ sabbath.
“Don’t be cute,” he snarled. ‘Snarled’ is clearly an exaggeration, even if in spirit it didn’t seem like one. There’d been no smile, no form of greeting, just the staccato delivery of that first question. Or statement. I suppose you feel proud of yourself?
He sat huddled in a corner—as far from me, it felt, as he could possibly get—for I had been sitting in the one diagonally opposite when he got on, and he had probably assumed that I would stay there.
So in the end I did, suddenly too proud to move in closer when I knew I wasn’t wanted.
“Why have I made you so angry? What is it I’ve done?”
“I’d prefer it, please, if you would tell me!”
I held onto the broad leather window strap—gripped it tightly—without even realizing I did so.
“I’ve been getting a bit above myself. I know I can hide it from others but that isn’t quite the point, is it?”
“Don’t be dense. I’m well aware that you’ve been doing your utmost to get on top of that.”
His acknowledgement of this—under such circumstances—was worth more than he realized. (Except, of course, it wasn’t.)
I faltered.
“Is it sex?”
“No, damn it, it is not sex.”
I searched my memory for a sin I hadn’t recognized as big enough to provoke this present outburst.
“Zack, I don’t know. I’m sorry. Is it lack of charity? Lack of tolerance? Lack of understanding? Is it laziness? Self-absorption? I’d hoped I was improving.”
“What about basic dishonesty?”
I stared at him.
“And you don’t even know!” he sneered. “To be dishonest and know it is one thing. But when a person’s principles are so non-existent that he doesn’t even realize…! Oh, yes, go on, cry,” he said. “That’s bound to answer everything!”
Yet for once they were indeed tears of anger, in no way of remorse or shame. And I thought that his referring to them like this (they hadn’t even overflowed) seemed not merely unnecessary, but shabby and contemptible.
“All right, Zack. I don’t know what I’ve done. I suppose I’ve been kidding myself but everybody kids himself about something. That isn’t such a crime.”
His look became sardonic.
“And if you want to talk about basic dishonesty,” I continued, “in fact you could say my whole life is basically dishonest.”
“Interesting,” he said.
“But that’s your fault as much as mine. I even think you could be more dishonest than me. It was never part of our agreement that I shouldn’t just go my own way, lie, cheat, steal, waste my time—exploit my situation—do whatever I felt like. It was never a condition I’d behave.”
“You wouldn’t consider that great gifts carry their own conditions? Their own responsibilities?”
“If they do, it was a bit deceitful not to point that out at the beginning.”
“Nonsense. You should have been aware of it.”
“No. Any honest businessman shows his customer the small print.”
“Unless he prefers him to write his own.”
“What! Write his own small print? My goodness! Optimism!”
“Yes,” he said.
“What does yes mean?”
“That then he’ll always choose his customer with extra special care, won’t he? Or at least—will do his best to!” He emphasized those last few words in such a way a
s to denote, presumably, his own abysmal failure.
“My God,” I murmured, “you’re such a bastard!” I could only think about how hard I’d tried—how very, very hard—over the whole of the past nineteen years.
I received an icy stare.
“It seems another birthday,” he said, “hasn’t brought any very marked advance in wisdom.”
“That’s rich. I don’t know how old you are—or should I perhaps say ancient?—but you’re obviously feeling it wasn’t all that wise to have picked on me in the first place. I’m sorry I’ve proved such a disappointment. I’m sorry I’ve buggered up all your lovely, fine, do-it-yourself small print.”
I turned my head towards the window, let go of the leather strap almost before I’d become aware of holding it; saw the harsh red marks it had made upon my palm and fingers. I stared across the track at a poster for Ovaltine—the healthy country life it represented, the rewards of a good day’s honest toil, the peaceful rosy future. The tears spilled from my eyes and now I let them run.
Idiot! And you had thought your worst problem had been complacency: complacency freshly engendered by two days spent in London distributing largesse—almost the very shirt off your back, why don’t you say, although in fact it had only been your new padded mackintosh. But at the bottom of Villiers Street there was an all-night coffee stand where I had met a tramp whose teeth had actually been chattering. I hadn’t meant to give away my clothes but the relevant shops had all been shut and if I’d simply handed him the money…
I’d been able to buy him some food, however, plus a bottle of beer and a packet of cigarettes. Afterwards I’d done this for several others I’d found stretched out along the Embankment and sheltering under doorways in the Strand, although it was mainly money I’d been planning to distribute. At the start of the evening I’d had nearly five hundred pounds tucked into various pockets.
Recovery and the Return of Ethan Hart Page 23