by CL Skelton
Harry grunted, ‘Don’t know, old son, but I’ll tell you what should happen. We should bloody well go in there and take it back. Never should have let that upstart take over in the first place.’
‘I don’t think we had much choice, Harry,’ Sam said, reading bits of the truncated article.
‘Rubbish,’ said Harry. Sam smiled, and didn’t pursue it. The days of Empire, so inexorably gone, were real yet to Harry. Sam, who lived in today’s business world, and knew that Britain stumbled on as virtually a pensioner nation and would have no more empires, would not disillusion him. He looked again out of the window, to where evening had foreshortened the landscape to the gentle circle of lawns and gardens which had been tamed in Tudor times. His uncle’s reflection was cast across the darkening glass, like a ghost floating over the shadows of the beech wood. He could not blame him for clinging to a world where all was so beautifully ordered.
‘May I stay the night, Uncle Harry?’ he said, as he always did when he so wished. Harry shook his head, exasperated.
‘Why do you ask? It’s your home.’
‘It’s your home, Harry. I’ve got my own. I’ve two actually,’ he said, laughing. ‘That’s one up on you.’
‘You know what I mean,’ Harry grumbled. ‘Pour me another brandy,’ he said abruptly. ‘Damn leg’s so stiff.’
Sam crossed the room, took his glass and refilled it. Harry took it, grunted his thank you and stared at the floor. He said slowly, ‘I want you to regard it as your home. I want you to come here whenever you want, without asking my permission, or anybody’s. I want to think you’ll still come here,’ he paused, waving a hand in space, ‘in the future. You know.’
Sam did know and said, laughing, ‘I daresay Noel will chuck me out. I don’t think he particularly likes me.’ Harry grunted again.
‘Don’t think he dislikes you, actually. Not any more than he dislikes any of the rest of us, anyhow.’ He looked troubled, and Sam said, ‘You’re hard on him, Harry. We all joke, but he’s not a bad sort. He just doesn’t suffer fools gladly.’
Harry glowered into his glass. He said abruptly, ‘What I don’t understand is, why does he have to behave like such a boorish lout? He had a good education, good as any of you. He had all this. And yet, you watch, he’ll come clomping in here in a couple of minutes, in his tacky boots, smelling of bloody cattle, demanding his damned brown ale …’
‘He’s been working,’ Sam defended. He stood in front of Harry, and said, ‘Look at me. I’ve come in the same, in my working clothes. So, I left my boots at the door, maybe, and I prefer brandy. But what’s the real difference, Harry? It’s not a sin to like brown ale. I’ve seen you drink it occasionally,’
‘In the pub,’ Harry defended peevishly. ‘There’s a time and place for everything. This is my library. I don’t want a damned farm labourer in my library.’ Harry had long passed the age when one hid one’s snobberies.
Sam smiled, bewildered. He extended both his hands to Harry, palms upward. They were scarred and calloused. He said, ‘Look, Harry. He’s a farmer. I’m a salvage engineer, general labourer, scrap-merchant, and restaurateur. I think his profession has an older pedigree than any of mine. How’s he really any different from me? And yet you blame him for the very things for which you praise me.’
Harry was silent, absorbing that. It startled him, because there was truth in it that he had never seen. They both had that peculiar streak in them that actually desired and sought out physical labour by choice. They wanted to work with their hands. Now, of course, for Noel, it was essential, an economic necessity. But it wasn’t so when he began. He had had laid before him the life of a country squire, and he took by choice that of a farm hand. But what of Sam?
‘You’re different,’ Harry said stubbornly. And then he sighed. ‘You’re different because you love the place. And he hates it.’
‘I’m not tied to it, Harry.’
Harry looked up; he met Sam’s eyes and saw them suddenly guarded, even troubled, but he pursued. It would be his only chance. Noel would be here in minutes. ‘What if you were?’ he said quietly.
Sam shook his head. ‘It’s Noel’s by right,’ he said.
‘Rights be damned,’ Harry suddenly burst out with a vehemence that startled them both. ‘What has he done, ever, to deserve it? What has he done in all these years but worry it like a damned terrier?’
‘He’s made it work, Harry.’
‘You’ve made it work.’
Sam was silent, looking into the fire, his hand on the mantel, and the line of his arm and shoulder tense.
Harry said quietly, ‘As far as I’ve noticed primogeniture’s rather had its day. It’s mine, Sam. I can give it tot’ bluidy dustman if I fancy. I can give it to whoever I please.’
Sam looked up. Their eyes met, and he shook his head, almost imperceptibly, perhaps quite unconsciously. He said nothing but his eyes, dark and elusive, spoke for him, begging Harry not to lay upon him the intolerable burden of words.
Harry opened his mouth, and then closed it, chewing his thoughts over, like cud. He knew Sam would refuse him nothing, should he ask. He put his glass down and took up his stick. In the hallway he heard the clump of Noel’s boots, and the boom of his intruding voice cursing at his dog, the only way he ever conversed with it. Sam turned instinctively to the sound, and Harry struggled to his feet. Sam offered his hand but Harry shrugged it off. He limped towards the door. Sam watched, his eyes questioning.
‘You entertain the lout,’ Harry grumbled. ‘I’m going for a walk.’
It was cold outside, but he did not care. He wanted to be away from human company and, once out in the dark gardens he felt better. He limped down the long lawn, stumbling occasionally in the dark of the October evening, as far as the ornamental pond, the summer-house, and the beech wood, from which the deer had fled. He stopped there, leaning on his stick and looking back at the house. The lights of the library shone out on to the lawn, making a green-gold patch, broken by the shadows of the two men, who stood by the window, talking. He had been wrong, he realized. He had been twice wrong. Sam was not reachable. There were so many layers to the man. One could go just so far with him, and then be warned away. He was the same unfathomable will-o’-the-wisp he had always been. Harry had been wrong. He had no heir.
Chapter Twenty-one
She came to him unexpectedly one late winter night, at his flat in Bridlington. He was surprised, thinking her in London, and delighted, until she turned, shrugging awkwardly from his embrace. Still, he released her gently, without displeasure. She was edgy. He was used to that. It often happened. Her responses to him covered the whole range, from passionate sensuality to outright frigidity, sometimes all within the same day. Sometimes when she shrank from him he had to leave her alone; sometimes, conversely, she needed loving. It was a tightrope he was accustomed to walk.
She stepped away from him, walked to the other end of the room, and stood with arms folded, leaning resentfully against the bookcase, staring at the floor. When she looked up her eyes betrayed her with an odd mixture of desire and annoyance.
‘I need to talk to you,’ she said.
‘Lovely. Let’s talk in bed.’ She shook her head with abrupt vehemence which seemed directed more to herself than to him.
‘No,’ she said. ‘You’re too damn good in bed. That’s half the problem.’
Sam laughed with bemused delight. ‘I’ve never heard that held against a man before,’ he said.
But she was not amused. Nor did she come closer, and when he took a step, still laughing, towards her, she turned her back. She said, ‘Sam, I’m going to say something, and you’re not going to like it. But I’m right, and I know I’m right. So let me just finish.’ He was silent. ‘All right?’ she said, her voice thick. He suddenly realized she was crying, and it shook him.
‘All right,’ he said softly, sitting down. He knew already, before she began to speak, what she was going to say. He listened, in silence. She never turned
to face him, but spoke quickly, in a tired, unhappy voice, a speech she had long prepared. She did not present it well. None of the actress was working in her; love between them was long free of that. At the end, she turned slowly to face him, her face miserable and tear-stained, and the tears, he knew, were not for herself, but for him.
‘Is that all?’ he said.
‘Sam, please try to understand.’
‘I do understand. You love him. I know that. I’ve known it a long time.’
‘Have you?’ she said, surprised. ‘I don’t know how. I haven’t known myself …’ she paused. ‘It was when he talked of going back to Israel. The war there. I couldn’t bear it, Sam. I knew I couldn’t live without him,’ she shrugged, annoyed at the eternal cliché that was love. ‘Or I didn’t want to. Sam, I never felt that way about you. I’m sorry, but I never did. When I was with you, you were everything. When we were apart, I half-forgot you. It’s not like that with Jan.’ She started again to cry, and turned her face away. ‘I wish I could make you understand what it is like.’
‘I know what it’s like,’ he said.
‘Oh, goddamn it,’ she said. ‘What a shittin’ awful mess. I’m sorry,’ she added, at once. ‘I didn’t mean it.’ She looked at him like a tearful, morose child. ‘I don’t know how I got into this. You know,’ she said with a dry, unhappy laugh, reaching into her handbag for cigarettes. ‘I used to think I was helping you. I thought I was doing you good, at the beginning. You were so lost when it all started.’
‘You did do me good,’ he said. He tossed her his own cigarettes, and she took one and stopped fumbling for hers. He reached to light it for her, but she shook her head, as if afraid to let him within some private line of defence.
‘Sam, come on, get angry. I can’t stand this.’ He shook his head. He took a cigarette from the pack and lit it, and got up and wandered about the room. He settled at last, leaning on the edge of his desk, smoking.
‘I can’t, Janet,’ he shrugged, and smiled whimsically. ‘I wish I could. We’d end up in bed, like we always do, and I might change your mind.’ He realized suddenly then why he couldn’t feel anger. He couldn’t fight with her because now there was no longer the chance to cure the hurts inflicted, with passion. Their fighting had always been a kind of loveplay anyhow. ‘I think you’d better go,’ he said with wisdom, rather than unkindness.
‘Sam, don’t make it end like this.’
‘Like how?’ he said. ‘This is civilized enough, surely. There’s no way you can finish with me and walk away from here feeling like you do when we’ve just made love. What you’re saying, really, is don’t make it end.’ He paused and said softly, ‘You just can’t have everything. Love and freedom, both.’
‘But I do love you, Sam.’
‘I know, like a brother,’ he said with a small smile.
‘Yes,’ she shouted suddenly. ‘That’s exactly what it’s like. That’s what it’s always been like. You’re the goddamned brother I wanted all my life.’ She looked quite amazed at her own revelation.
‘My dear,’ he said, ‘you don’t sleep with your brother.’
She smiled very knowingly, and said, ‘We would have done, no matter what.’ She drew on the cigarette, assessing him through the smoke, her eyes growing hungry even as she did. ‘I was right, you know, that’s really half the trouble. More than half. Sex is just fine, but between the two of us there’s more than either of us can handle. We can’t live like this. We’ll kill each other, between the fighting and the lovemaking, and the fighting again. Come on, Sam, how could we marry? Can you really see us in wedded bliss, with children? The whole bit? We can’t have children, Sam, we’re two damned Peter Pans, whenever we’re together we can’t grow up. We’ll be children ourselves all our lives.’
‘Children have a lot of fun,’ he said.
‘And so we have,’ Janet returned. ‘So we have. Look, do you know when I knew I was in love with Jan?’
He shook his head and said, ‘I don’t want to hear all this.’
‘Just a moment. It wasn’t anything passionate, or moonlight and roses, pal. It was when I realized that for the first time in my life I wasn’t acting like a twelve-year-old kid. When he was busy, or troubled or something, I understood. When you’re busy, I throw a tantrum. Look, I’m not proud of it, it’s my fault, I know that, but I can’t change. Not around you, anyhow. And I don’t think you can change around me,’ she added shrewdly. ‘Sam, we’ve never been in love, you and I. We’ve never had a love affair. We’ve just had the best damned fencing match in the world. So damned good that there isn’t anyone, ever, going to win.’
He straightened up from the desk, crossed the room slowly and deliberately, against her half-mouthed protest, invaded her sequestered corner of the room. He put his arms lightly around her, without touching, and then drew both hands together so that they cupped the back of her blonde head in that beautifully controlled way he had, so that his considerable strength supported and protected her and never threatened. She stared at him, pleading silently to be released.
She said softly, ‘There’s never been anything like that between Jan and me, Sam. I want you to understand that. I want you to know I came here, first.’ He did not doubt her. She would never lie to him about anything. Honesty was the deadliest of her virtues. He yearned to kiss her, not out of any desire to possess, or even change her mind, but just because he loved her. He let his hands drop from behind her head, and smiled.
‘Shall I make coffee?’ he said. ‘We can talk.’
He let her go then, without argument. He could have won her physically, he knew, and staved off the hour for weeks, or months. But he did not. It was not honourable, and he was essentially a man of honour. Nor would it have been a loving act, and he did indeed love her, always, as he had always known, more than she had loved him. From the beginning to the end, nothing had ever changed. She was reaching out for security, as she had always done, and now she was reaching out to Jan for that security she needed simply to survive. A security he could not give her. He could not deny it her, and so he let her go.
She left an hour later, and not a word of anger had passed between them. After she had gone, he sat alone, listening to good music until morning. For the first time in his life he had suppressed, totally, his own volatile nature, and let all that emotion go utterly underground.
A day later, he drove to London to see Jan.
He actually drove right by the gate of Hardacres, on his way. He had intended to stop, having promised his mother he would come that day to see Harry, who had not been well. He slowed the van but then kept going. He could not face them, or anyone until he had settled, and finished with Jan.
Still, when he reached London, he stopped at a telephone kiosk in Tottenham Court Road, and telephoned the house. He was surprised to hear Jane’s voice on the line, having thought her to be in Scotland.
‘Are you coming?’ she said without preamble.
‘I’m in London.’ There was a silence. He added, ‘I’ll try to be there tomorrow,’ and, when she still said nothing, he added, ‘I didn’t expect to find you there.’
‘No,’ she said slowly, dragging the word out over a thought. ‘Sam, are you all right, you sound odd.’
‘I’m fine. A bad line.’ He paused, and said, ‘There’s something I have to attend to. Business. I’ll come up as soon as I can. How is Harry?’
‘Not very well, Sam.’
He paused, struggling with conflicting emotions and said quickly, ‘Jane, should I be there?’
‘Your mother would like you here.’
‘My mother would always like me there,’ he snapped, losing control of that anger he had carried for a night and a day. ‘I’m asking you.’
‘Use your judgement, Sam,’ she said, with her voice, as always, beautifully restrained. He hung up the phone.
He got back into the van and drove quickly to Soho, to Dean Street, where Jan stayed when down from his permanent base at Hull. He was angry wi
th himself for being short with Jane, and worried about Harry, but neither thought held much strength against the wave of pent-up anger now rising towards Jan. That none of it was in any way Jan’s fault was a thought as useless as it was obvious. The anger had to go somewhere, and he would not allow it near its true target. Jan was his friend, but Jan was also his rival and, essentially, Jan was a man.
Still, he kept in remarkable control as he climbed the stairs to the flat. It had not even occurred to him that Jan might not be there. He was so single-minded that Jan’s presence, for the confrontation he must have, was inferred by its simple necessity. As it was, he was right. Jan was there, on the telephone, to some unfortunate shipowner in Cornwall. Sam entered the room without knocking, crossed the floor without speaking, and took the receiver from Jan’s hand and set it down on its cradle with a rude bang.
‘What you do that for?’ Jan said looking up, amazed. ‘That man, he is an important client. What will he think?’ Jan reached for the receiver but Sam caught his wrist and ground it down on to the desk top. Jan looked up astonished.
‘My client, anyhow,’ he said. ‘Not yours.’
‘What is this?’ Jan protested, freeing his hand with a small gesture of annoyance, rather than anger. ‘What are you doing?’ Sam, with one sweep of his hand, cleared everything off the desk ‒ books, papers, the telephone even, which landed with a jingling clang on to the floor. ‘You going crazy?’ Jan shouted, jumping to his feet. He bent instinctively to reunite the two bits of telephone, which were protesting with a loud dialling tone. Sam watched, saying nothing. Jan set the telephone on the desk and looked at the mess of papers on the floor. ‘You would maybe explain?’ he said.