Neil flushed hotly and was about to retort when his grandmother said slyly, ‘Neil said today that he did not really know who he was. The right fellow in the wrong skin or the wrong fellow in the right skin. . . .’
Edward leaned forward excitedly to his son. ‘But that’s quite extraordinary. That you should be thinking in that way at this time. Really, I’m beginning to have some hope for you yet.’
‘Why?’ asked Neil, glumly. ‘If you had to become an automaton at everybody’s beck and call, obeying everyone’s voice but your own you’d begin to wonder who you were.’
‘Edward’s never heard any other voice but his own,’ said his mother. Her son ignored this and turned again to Neil. ‘But I do, my dear boy. That’s just it. I do. Now, I think that I am Edward Collins. Why? Because my mother there, Jane Mary Collins, says that I’m her son.’
‘And so you are, more’s the pity,’ sighed his mother. ‘This liver’s tough, Nonie. Where’d you get it?’
‘At the corner shop.’
‘Well, it’s tough. And the peas are old. I wish I could go shopping again.’
‘I wish you could,’ said Nona. ‘I loathe it.’
‘As I was saying,’ continued her son, inexorably determined to talk, ‘I have been brought up to believe that I am Edward Collins—but am I? If I were to have a sham drowning accident tomorrow, leaving all my clothes and personal belongings on some beach and disappear—what’s to stop me from becoming someone else? Jeremiah Jobson . . . for instance.’
‘If you go on in that way you’ll be locked up—and they’ll soon tell you who you are,’ said his mother, drily. ‘There are people in lunatic asylums who think they are Queen Victoria or Napoleon. I don’t care for this wine, Edward. It’s sour.’
‘It’s fine. I like it,’ said Charlie.
‘Have mine then, I’ve only sipped this side.’ She held out the glass. Nonie took it and tipped the wine into Charlie’s. He raised the now brimming glass mockingly to her. ‘Here’s to your bright eyes,’ he said, giving her one of the intimate looks she normally loved but which at this moment she resented. She raised her own. ‘To those which are brighter!’ she said calmly. Charlie looked at her, puzzled. ‘Here, what are you getting at? Trying to be funny like your Pa?’
‘Not funny,’ she said, looking straight at him, ‘Thinking of Jackie.’
Charlie gulped his wine, choked, put down the glass. ‘Just what do you mean by that?’
‘Don’t you understand plain English? Thinking of Jackie.’
Charlie’s face was ugly. ‘You’ve been looking in my pockets. I should have thought it was beneath you—with all your ideas of culture.’
‘I did not go looking in your pockets!’ Nonie sprang up from the table, her lips set, her eyes blazing.
‘Here. What’s all this? Surely you two can keep your quarrels for the bedroom.’ Edward was angry at having the limelight diverted from him like this.
‘That’s just it. Which bedroom—hers or mine?’
‘Nonie . . . Nonie . . . Be careful, child . . . think what you’re saying. You’ll regret it later.’
‘No. I know what I’m saying.’
‘Well, stop it now. Get on with it later. Let’s eat now. You and Charlie can finish this in private.’
‘We’d eat in private if I had my way,’ said Charlie, furiously. ‘All this walking about with cook-pots and trays—it’s too much for anyone to stand.’
Nona sat down again. ‘Sorry, everybody,’ she said, briefly.
Neil, his face taut with anxiety, put a hand on his twin’s arm. ‘Don’t take on so, Nonie,’ he pleaded.
‘And you shut up,’ said Charlie, even more angrily. ‘You don’t make it any easier for any of us . . . coming back like this. It’s Nonie who gets all the worry of you. I’d be ashamed to skulk in my sister’s clothes. . . .’
‘Neil’s got nothing whatsoever to do with what is riling you,’ said Nona. ‘What’s mine is Neil’s. What’s Neil’s is mine. It’s always been so.’
‘Then I suppose you’re 01278650 too?’ said Charlie sarcastically.
‘Yes,’ her answer was calm, ‘I am. And it’s not only Neil who’s going to get away—it’s me too.’
‘Listen! Are you starting this dreary nonsense like your father? If so I’m not listening. I’m sane. But I soon won’t be if I have to listen to any more of this moonshine. . . .’
‘Would anyone like to try a lichee?’ said Mrs. Collins, soothingly. ‘They’re most misleading. . . .’ She held the bag out invitingly but as there was no response she continued to eat them herself.
‘I think it’s time we behaved like civilised people,’ said Edward. ‘All this brawling is so out of date. Everything is settled nowadays by arbitration.’
‘You mean your genius for inciting strikes is of no further use?’
‘I never thought that strikes were of any use—but they have served a purpose . . . the result is arbitration.’
‘There are five strikes on at the moment,’ said Charlie, flatly. ‘How do you account for them? Lack of arbitration, I suppose?’
‘Edward’s very clever. He’s created himself a second job. First to incite the strike—then be called in to assist with the arbitration. . . .’ said his mother acidly.
‘Now, Mother . . . that’s not quite fair. It’s true that I have been employed by both sides after insistent demand . . . but it’s a position requiring considerable tact . . . considerable courage . . . and the gift of words. . . .’
Suddenly Neil could stand this no longer. Jumping up, he flung his arms dramatically above his head. . . . ‘You’re all quarrelling and talking . . . talking. . . . Why don’t you do something about me? I sit here waiting for the cops. Why can’t you help me? Why? Why?’ he almost screamed in excitement.
‘Don’t be theatrical,’ said his father. ‘It won’t bring the cops any quicker or keep them away any longer. I think I’ll have a lichee after all, Mother. Now, Nonie, can you tell me on what sort of a bush a lichee grows?’
‘It grows on a tree,’ said Charlie, sourly. ‘I saw them in Korea—plenty of them.’
If Neil collapsed like a bubble at his father’s words, Edward was disconcerted by Charlie. He always forgot that his son-in-law had travelled widely during his Army service. It was this which had given him the desire to emigrate, to make for the other side of the world. Edward, beyond a few trips with labour rebels to France and Belgium, knew nothing of the world outside his own country.
‘Neil’s right. What are we going to do? He’s got to get away,’ said Nonie, urgently. She was rapidly becoming as frantic as her twin.
‘Have a cigarette, it’s said to be calming.’ Her father held out a packet of an American brand.
Charlie was surprised. ‘I thought you wouldn’t have anything to do with American goods or Americans? Too capitalist for your taste.’
‘That was so,’ said Edward, portentously. ‘That was so. But for a long time I’ve had doubts. Serious doubts. And now this new friend—the one who gave me these cigarettes, has made me see differently. She has shown me the way to the truth. . . .’
‘She?’ His mother looked up sharply, remembering what he had said before the meal.
‘Yes. She. Through her I have been led to discover great truths and philosophies of which I have never even dreamed. Great things are possible . . . are going to happen. The future holds out its golden path and all I have to do is to tread it to such heights, such dizzying heights of fame and power as this simple man has never even visualised.’
‘You’ve never been simple,’ said his mother. ‘Sounds like religion. I had an inkling that it would be.’
‘It’s a woman,’ said Nona, and she looked at Charlie.
‘Yes, a woman. But what a woman! A pearl, Mother. A pearl.
‘You don’t know how to appreciate a pearl. You had one before . . . I knew you had some new “ism” when you came here tonight. Are you thinking of marrying this pearl?’
; ‘She comes from across the Atlantic . . . she’s a cultured travelled lady . . . I have not yet summoned the temerity to ask her. I want you to meet her, Mother. I want her to come here and see you. . . .’
‘She can’t come here, Gran. Tell him she can’t come!’ Neil shouted.
‘She’s not coming,’ said his grandmother quietly. ‘Don’t get so excited, boy.’
‘Now you, Neil, are the very one who could most benefit by the marvellous truths which have been revealed to me through this lady from across the Atlantic. To you, young, disorientated and mixed up, everything will straighten out and become possible. Her theory is that everything is possible if you will make it possible. You can’t afford to miss this chance of talking to her. It may change your whole life. . . .’
‘Father, you won’t see. I’ve got to get away. I must. Oh, God! Why do I have to come home just as you choose this new craze? Why?’
‘No one asked you to come here,’ said Charlie, angrily.
‘I must get away tonight. Soon. Are you going to help me, Charlie? Are you?’
Neil, in his mind the picture of Mike hiding over there watching the house, was becoming more and more strung up as time went on and his family appeared to him to be indulging in a normal evening scrap such as they often had. He simply couldn’t understand why they refused to see the peril he was in. The last times he had come home they had been the tense strung-up ones—he had been calm. He had been calm because it had been such heaven just to get home—to get away from the chivvying and hustling of the camp. He looked at his brother-in-law now with desperation. Charlie was about to reply in an abrupt negative when he caught a look on Nonie’s face. It was an expression he had never seen there before. A threat? Or a warning? Which? Or was it both? He hesitated. ‘We’ll have to talk it out,’ he said, roughly. ‘I can’t take you tonight—it’s impossible. If you want to go tonight you’ll have to get off by yourself. . . .’ His tone indicated his scorn that Neil was not doing this but relying on others to assist his getaway. ‘If you lay quiet until tomorrow night I might be able to make Southampton.’
‘You’ll take Neil tonight—or not at all,’ interposed Nona carefully. ‘Tomorrow will be too late.’
‘Then why is he dressed in your clothes? Why is he hanging about here at all? Why didn’t the young fool get straight off to Ireland?’
‘He had to have clothes,’ said Nonie.
‘But not yours!’ shouted Charlie. ‘I loathe seeing him masquerading as you! I hate to see a double—a weak double of my wife. . . . Go and take those things off and I might do something.’
‘He has to go tonight,’ said Nonie, inexorably.
‘Do you approve of this business? Aiding and abetting a deserter?’ demanded Charlie of his father-in-law.
‘Of course he does. Hasn’t he been advocating it for years?’ said Nona, contemptuously.
‘And you, Gran. Do you approve?’
The old woman was silent.
‘I persuaded her,’ said Nona, defiantly. ‘Of course she didn’t want to help. She wanted to send him back—as she did before—as she does now.’
‘If you take my advice that’s what you’ll do now.’ Charlie got up from the table noisily. ‘You won’t persuade me. I’m not so easy.’
‘If you won’t help Neil to get away tonight I intend to go with him.’
The old woman looked up sharply. ‘Careful . . . Nonie. . . .’
‘You don’t understand. Charlie’s got a woman. He’s keeping another woman.’
‘Oh, for Chrissake!’ shouted Charlie.
‘You can’t deny it.’
‘So what? Yes. I’ve got a girl up there. What d’you expect me to do three nights of the week? Lie on old Ma Tanner’s hard bed and dream of you and your twin brother?’
‘You admit it then?’
‘Of course. It doesn’t mean anything. If you’d let me explain.’
‘Charlie’s right,’ said Edward. ‘I’m surprised at your attitude, Nona. You’re back in the dark ages.’
Nona went up to Charlie and said urgently. ‘Does she know about me? Does she?’
‘Of course,’ said Charlie, disinterestedly. He seemed almost bored by the subject.
Nona began clearing up the plates and dishes and stacking them on a tray. ‘That’s enough. I’m going with Neil.’
‘What about Gran?’ demanded Neil, nervously. ‘No one cares about her but me. She can’t be left.’
‘Then stay and look after her yourself—in your sister’s clothes,’ snapped Charlie. ‘Come in our room, Nonie.’
‘No. I’m washing up in here.’ She carried the laden tray through to the kitchenette. Charlie followed her and shut the door. The sound of their angry voices rose above the clatter of crockery.
‘I don’t think I’ll offer to dry,’ said Edward.
‘I will.’ Neil got up. His face was contorted.
‘Leave them alone. . . .’
‘But it’s horrible . . . Charlie having a girl like that. . . .’
‘Oh wake up, Neil. There are always other girls—the sooner Nonie learns that the better. Hasn’t it occurred to you that you’re the main cause of the trouble?’
‘Me?’ Neil was startled.
‘Yes. You. Nonie’s always worrying and fidgeting about you . . . no man likes that. He likes to be first. . . .’ his grandmother said quietly. ‘It was just beginning to get easier when you came home, Neil.’
‘How could it have been easier if he has this other girl?’ Neil asked, angrily.
‘It’s because Charlie’s jealous of you that he fools with this girl.’
‘Of me? But I’m her twin . . . how can he be jealous of me?’ Neil was bewildered.
‘Oh don’t be dumb,’ said his grandmother. ‘Husbands are often jealous of anyone who takes their wife’s attention and affection.’
‘Neil, my boy, I seldom give you advice but I give you this piece of advice now. Go back. Now. Quickly. You’re causing more havoc than you think.’
‘You tell me that? You? Why, you’ve always raved at Len and me for accepting our National Service at all. Why, what’s come over you? The one person I thought would approve was you, Father.’ The boy’s bewilderment at his father’s attitude was obvious.
‘Neil’s right. You’re a nice one to tell him to go back,’ said his mother, sarcastically.
‘I’ve changed. I’m beginning to see that we are put here to work out a destiny and that we must accept it whatever it may be.’ Edward was pompous, sickeningly so.
‘But just now you said that anything is possible if we make it possible. I want to get away. I want to be free. Free. I tell you.’
‘There’s no such thing. It’s just a lovely word—and the sooner you realise that the better,’ said his grandmother. ‘As for you, Edward, I suppose your changed views are due to this pearl beyond price with whom you’ve taken up. What is she? One of these Rock ’n Roll hot-gospellers?’
‘Not exactly,’ said her son, laughing. ‘But you’re not so far off the mark. You’ve an uncanny way of sensing things, Mother. She is the founder of a new faith.’
‘Is she a friend of that great negro, Josh?’
‘Yes. He introduced her to me.’
‘Now he’s got something. He’s genuine. You can’t tell me he’s a Rock ’n Roll preacher. . . .’
‘No. He plays jazz in some club and uses the money he earns for helping down-and-outs.’
Above the clatter in the kitchen they could hear Charlie and Nona arguing. Neil began walking up and down between the door and the bed.
‘Sit down, do. You make me nervous.’
‘Why do they have to tear each other’s guts the night I’m home?’
‘It’s because you’re home that they’re tearing each other. Can’t you see that?’
‘Yes. I’ve had it rubbed into me enough. I’m going. I’ll find some old clothes and clear off.’
‘You’ll walk straight into the cops,’ said his grandmother.
‘You’re the sort who never gets away with anything. Just sit down and relax, can’t you?’
‘I don’t think you should dissuade him from doing what he knows to be right,’ said Edward, unctuously.
‘Don’t you say things of that sort in my presence, Edward. I’ve got a good memory and I can think of too many occasions when you have deliberately been blind to right and wrong.’
Neil sat down. He was shivering and his face still had small beads of perspiration on it.
‘Have you got a fever?’ asked his grandmother. ‘It’s warm enough for it.’
A violent crash brought Neil to his feet as he was about to reply in the negative to this. They heard Nona screaming. Something was thrown and hit the door with a thud—then there was silence.
‘Sit down,’ repeated his grandmother. ‘They’re almost through.’
‘Pleasant evening’s entertainment,’ remarked Edward, smiling.
Almost immediately they came through the door, Charlie hot and furious-looking, Nona white and tense.
‘Well, well,’ said Edward, looking from one angry face to another. ‘You make a lot of noise settling your problems.’
‘At least we settle them ourselves,’ said Charlie, pointedly. ‘We don’t expect other people to do it for us.’ He turned angrily to Neil. ‘This is all your fault. Just because you’re yellow and can’t stand on your own miserable feet.’
‘I’m going now. I’ve just said so,’ said Neil, getting up. He was still shivering and his eyes were desperate.
‘Charlie. Are you going to help him? It’s your last chance. Are you?’
‘No. What’s wrong with the train? Take off your sister’s clobber and put on your own—and go and buy a ticket like a man. I’ll give you the money—anything to get rid of you.’
‘I’m coming with you, Neil. Charlie and I are washed up.’
‘Think what you’re doing. You’re a married woman, Nona. Your husband comes first—your brother afterwards.’
‘I’m going with Neil. I’ll go right over with him on the boat and come back on the return one. I’ll get Mrs. Danvers to see to you. It won’t be long.’
The Fledgeling Page 15