Sidney Chambers and The Persistence of Love

by James Runcie

  ‘That is always an alternative,’ said Sidney.

  Louis picked out the fattest chip. ‘I don’t think I’d fit in.’

  ‘The first followers of Jesus probably felt the same. But many of them believed they had nothing to lose.’

  ‘They took a risk, you mean.’

  ‘They did. And so you’re not so far away from them, Louis.’

  ‘Thank you for understanding. I suppose I’ll have to come home now. At least I didn’t kill myself.’

  ‘Did you think you might?’

  ‘I thought how easy it would be. But I’m not the type to do that.’

  ‘I don’t think you are either. But people can change. So you need to be aware and seek help if those feelings ever develop. You have to remember that your family loves you – although . . .’ and here Sidney gave his nephew a little nudge, ‘having said that, I can’t guarantee a completely loving welcome when you get home. But I will protect you from any fallout.’

  ‘Mum can be radioactive.’

  ‘I know. I’ve had over forty more years of her than you.’

  They drove up the A23 with all the windows open, past Hickstead and Handcross, Crawley, Horley and the turns to Gatwick Airport. After stopping to get lemonade and cheese and tomato rolls, they watched an over of cricket in the village of Outwood. Then it was back to the car. The continual pulse of the traffic marked a victory for the urban over the rural; tarmac across the fields, exhaust fumes in clean air, the sound of engines over birdsong. A woman in the back seat of the vehicle in front threw a dirty nappy onto the hard shoulder.

  ‘Louts,’ said Louis. ‘Thoughtless bastards.’

  ‘The driver might have refused to stop. Perhaps they’re in a hurry.’

  ‘There’s no point in impatience. You only get delayed further on. The whole country’s come to a standstill.’

  ‘At least we’re moving. I suppose if you stopped them they’d only claim that it was a free country.’

  ‘There has to be a difference between freedom and selfishness.’

  ‘I’ll have to ask you to start writing my sermons. Oh, bloody hell, what is it now?’

  There was a blare of a horn and Sidney was forced to switch to the inside lane even when he was already overtaking at speed. Louis asked if they could listen to Radio One, but after a straight run of Abba, Dr Hook and the Bay City Rollers he couldn’t stand it any more.

  ‘What a load of old crap.’

  Sidney smiled but kept his eyes on the road. ‘Jazz does have its advantages.’

  ‘But if we tune in to Radio Two we’ll get Perry Como and Cliff Richard.’

  ‘Well, we wouldn’t want that.’

  Sidney hoped that he hadn’t forced Louis to come home.

  ‘It’s all right. You gave me the illusion of choice. I know I’m still underage. My parents are responsible for me.’

  ‘Not for much longer.’

  ‘I suppose I’d better stick it out.’

  ‘You can always go back when you’re older.’

  ‘Do you think so?’

  ‘You just have to tell us next time.’

  ‘Sorry about that.’

  Sidney stared out at the hot road ahead and thought he should keep lightening the tone. ‘Your school could probably do with some anarchy. It might shake them up a bit.’

  ‘Do you think they’d notice?’ Louis asked.

  There was further traffic and a burst water main ahead, so the journey through London took longer than expected. As a result they had to stop at a garage for more petrol, where Sidney found a phone box to give his sister a revised ETA.

  ‘I’ve been so worried I think I’ll kill him,’ she said.

  ‘I wouldn’t advise that,’ said Sidney. ‘I’ve taken the trouble to bring him home safely. It’s important nobody blames Louis for what he’s done. Our overwhelming emotion must be one of gratitude and relief. Promise me you won’t go mad, Jennifer?’

  ‘I’ll do my best.’

  ‘I don’t think that’s a promise.’

  ‘I’ve said what I’ve said.’

  And, for about a minute and a half, she managed just that. She held her son close as soon as he walked through the door of the family home, telling him how frightened she had been and how anxious and that he was more precious than he ever knew, and Louis waited limply until it was over, embarrassed by all the fuss, unable to apologise, so that, at last, enraged by her son’s lack of reaction, Jennifer took a step back and slapped him across the face: ‘Don’t you bloody ever dare do that to me again.’

  ‘Do you think that’s going to help?’ her husband asked.

  As soon as Helena discovered that Louis was home she wanted an exclusive interview for her paper. ‘Don’t let him sell his story to anyone else, Sidney.’

  ‘His parents don’t want him to give it to anyone.’

  ‘I will help them with a bit of cash.’

  ‘That won’t be necessary.’

  ‘You’d be surprised. Most people take the money.’

  ‘What would be your angle?’

  ‘Anarchy as the new alternative in a dying Britain. The death of the old guard. I want to hear what your boy’s got to say. The people he met. “My Story”.’

  ‘I don’t think your readers are likely to sympathise with an anarchist. Anyway, I’m not sure he ran away for that particular cause. Although he did definitely run away. His mother thought it was a plea for attention. He’s certainly getting that now.’

  Helena already had her story sketched out. ‘People believe all sorts of things. Think of the Germans in the 1930s . . .’

  ‘Please don’t talk to Hildegard about this kind of thing . . .’

  ‘And now children of Nazis have joined the Baader-Meinhof. Each generation rebels against its predecessor. You can’t protect yourself from rejection. Then, if you’re not careful, violence ensues. It’s so hot, people are talking about riots . . .’

  ‘I don’t think the Baader-Meinhof is the same as Louis linking up with a few vegetarian anarchists in Brighton.’

  ‘I know you don’t have to give me this, Sidney, especially after all you’ve done for me already.’

  ‘All we’ve done for each other,’ he corrected.

  ‘I’m just doing my job. And if Louis doesn’t speak to me then I might have to talk to you.’

  ‘Oh, don’t do that, Helena. What if I refuse to speak?’

  ‘I think I know you well enough to make it up if you don’t.’

  ‘You wouldn’t, Helena . . .’

  ‘I’m teasing.’

  ‘I’m not sure you are.’

  ‘I like to keep you guessing.’

  ‘That’s not fair. But I should thank you for your help. You know I look upon you as a daughter.’

  ‘A daughter? I don’t think that’s right.’

  ‘It’s probably better than any alternative, don’t you think?’

  Johnny decided to close his club at the end of the year. ‘I know it’s a failure to keep pace with the times but if this is the country we have to live in, I’m not sure I can put up with it any longer.’

  ‘What will you do?’ Sidney asked.

  ‘We’re going abroad. Holland, probably. There’s a good jazz scene in Amsterdam; everyone’s at the Melkweg: Cab Kaye, Wilbur Little, Michael Moore . . .’

  ‘I’ve never heard of any of them.’

  ‘Then you should visit and find out. I think it will be good for us all. Certainly Louis.’

  ‘You’re going to move your entire family because of him? I’m not sure he’s into jazz.’ Later that week his nephew was going to hear The Clash with Siouxsie and the Banshees at the 100 Club Punk Special.

  ‘But it gives us alternatives,’ said Johnny. ‘You have to agree London’s a bit shit. You’ve walked around Kentish Town. Would you want to bring Anna up here?’

  ‘Probably not. But Ely is very sheltered.’

  ‘I want to be a better dad before it’s too late; a better husband, too.’ />
  ‘I think we both want that. Being aware of our failings is just the beginning.’

  ‘And then we have to do something about them, Sidney. I know people keep telling you to stop all that detective work, change your life, concentrate on your main job . . .’

  ‘People have been saying that for twenty years.’

  ‘But I’m glad you didn’t. Otherwise I might never have found my son again.’

  ‘I am sure he would have come home.’

  ‘Not without you.’

  ‘There’s no way of knowing that, Johnny. But fortunately we don’t have to put these things to the test.’

  It was yet another hot evening. Louis came downstairs to talk to his uncle. He was quite looking forward to Amsterdam, he said. It would be a change for all of them.

  ‘Sometimes you have to go away to come home,’ said Sidney.

  ‘That’s true enough. I’m a bit sorry about it all, though.’

  ‘No one’s blaming you for what you did.’

  ‘I bet they are when I’m not around.’

  ‘That doesn’t matter,’ said Sidney. ‘The secret is not to be too hard on yourself.’

  ‘I’ll try not to be.’

  ‘There is such a thing as too much thinking.’

  ‘Do you think so?’

  ‘I “think” there can be too much “thinking”?’ Sidney smiled. ‘Why, yes, I “think” I “think” I do.’ He gave his nephew a hug. ‘They say there’s going to be a storm tonight: a break in the weather.’

  ‘England can be itself again,’ said Louis. ‘Everyone goes mad in the sunshine.’

  The rains came and the newly appointed Minister for Drought became the Minister for Floods. The last of the summer butterflies hovered over ripening blackberries on the brambles. The telephone wires saw the first pre-migration gatherings of swallows and house martins. The Harvest Festival was near.

  People could still sit out of an evening and Sidney and Geordie switched back from their summer lager and enjoyed a couple of pints of bitter in the garden of the Prince Albert, thankful that this case, at least, had ended with such little harm done.

  Sidney took time to enjoy his pint. He wanted to savour the moment. (What was that play his mother had once wanted to see? Stop the World – I Want to Get Off .)

  ‘I’m grateful to you, Geordie.’

  ‘I didn’t do very much.’

  ‘You helped me to have confidence . . .’

  ‘. . . that your nephew hadn’t killed himself? We have to give people hope – even if that’s supposed to be your job. As long as you missed me . . .’

  ‘Whenever I work with anyone else, whether it’s Terry Allen in London or Dave Hills up here, it’s never the same. I’ve been very lucky to have known you.’

  ‘I’m not so sure about that. If you’d met Dave or Tel first you might never have got involved in crime. Think how peaceful your life would have been.’

  ‘I am aware of my good fortune.’

  ‘It’s not just that, though, is it? Do you know, Sidney, that ever since the war I’ve felt we’ve been on borrowed time? There were moments then when we could, and perhaps should, have been killed. We were lucky. And so we have a responsibility to make the most of being spared.’

  ‘I hope we have.’

  ‘Only sometimes, when I look at the younger generation, it gets to me. To think that we went through all that bloodshed so that layabouts like your nephew could run away to Brighton. Did our best mates really give their lives so that their children and grandchildren could sit around eating brown rice and smoking dope all day?’

  ‘That’s the thing about liberty, Geordie. You can’t dictate how others choose to use it. Otherwise, it isn’t freedom.’

  ‘You just have to know what to do with it, I suppose. But it doesn’t seem fair.’

  ‘They’re trying to find a better world too.’

  ‘I can’t see it.’

  ‘Just because they don’t have to fight, it doesn’t mean they don’t care. We’re too hard on the young.’

  ‘I don’t think we’re hard enough.’

  ‘We have to allow them to rebel and then let them come back. They’ll be old soon enough.’

  ‘And we’ll be dead. I suppose it’s my round?’

  ‘It’s always your round when you have to ask, Geordie.’

  Flocks of swallows and martins whirled in the sky. Soon the redwings, fieldfares and song thrushes would follow them. Sidney could never remember at this time of year if they were leaving or coming home or where they really belonged. What was their place in the world and how aware of it were they? In the great scheme of things, he wondered how much it mattered.

  All he knew was that sometimes a man had to be grateful for normality, that a story could end less dramatically, and not half as badly as it might have done; that there was merit in an averted crisis, and that in finding his nephew Sidney had, at last, done something quietly responsible, without fuss or fanfare. Perhaps the rest of his life should be like this? he thought. It would involve a concentration on things close to the heart; a dedicated care of friends and family; a quieter existence, one that depended on listening harder and loving better; never resting in complacency; acknowledging faults, doubts and insecurities; the balance between solitude and company, the wish to escape and the need to come home: a loving attention.

  The Persistence of Love

  If ever Sidney had a normal day ahead of him, Monday 18 October 1976 was most likely to be it. He was due to celebrate the early-morning communion to commemorate the life of St Luke; there was a Chapter meeting with the dean at nine o’clock and a reception for a visiting missionary at midday. Then there would be soup for lunch with some of Hildegard’s home-made German bread. In the afternoon he had to take a trip out to Upwell to discuss a vacancy in the parish of St Peter’s, with its fine thirteenth-century church, angel roof and Georgian galleries, and then he would be back in time for evensong, the supervision of Anna’s homework, an early supper and a night of television: Some Mothers Do ’Ave ’Em, Dave Allen and I, Claudius (although he would probably have to fight Hildegard about the latter, as there was a documentary on the 1956 Hungarian uprising which he was sure she would prefer).

  He had set his alarm for 6.15 a.m. but rose before it went off and took care to go about his ablutions as quietly as possible. Hildegard had seemed very tired over the last few weeks and he wanted her to get as much sleep as she could. It was still dark as he moved about the house, made a pot of tea, showered, shaved and got dressed. He didn’t drink the tea himself, believing the old rule that the first food and drink to touch his lips should be the bread and wine of communion, but left a cup by his sleeping wife, hoping its aroma would gently wake her.

  He let Byron out for his morning constitutional and left home just as the Today programme was starting. There had been a revaluation of the German mark, the prime minister was calling for a national discussion of the country’s education system and there were demonstrations in Shanghai denouncing Chairman Mao’s wife for nagging her husband to death. He would look forward to telling the family about that when he got home. He smiled as he imagined Hildegard’s face and her lifted eyebrow.

  There were some twenty people in the congregation, most of them regulars, and his doctor, Michael Robinson, was amongst them, together with a couple of newcomers who, he hoped, did not have troublesome issues that he was expected to solve. As his career in crime had developed, Sidney had become increasingly wary of strangers.

  ‘Almighty God,’ he began, ‘you called Luke the physician, whose praise is in the gospel, to be an evangelist and physician of the soul: by the grace of the Spirit and through the wholesome medicine of the gospel, give your Church the same love and power to heal; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord, who is alive and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.’

  They were in the Lady Chapel, his favourite part of the cathedral, and the sun rose as the service progressed.
There was something particularly purifying, he thought, about this place and that light. It was humbling to witness the quiet faith of the Christians in his care, sitting with grace and in silence, spending time away from the troubles of the world in order to contemplate them all the more.

  Having shared the peace and given his blessing, Sidney returned to Canonry House at a quarter to eight. There he found that neither his wife nor his daughter were up. He called to tell Anna the time and received a grumpily mumbled ‘I know’, and then climbed up the stairs and returned to his bedroom. The lights were still off.

  ‘Are you all right, darling?’ he asked.

  ‘Terrible headache,’ said Hildegard.

  ‘Have you had your tea? Can I get you anything? Have you had an aspirin?’

  ‘I think it’s a migraine. Very bad. Can you take Anna?’

  ‘Of course. Would you like more tea? When is your first lesson?’

  ‘Eleven.’

  ‘Do you want me to cancel it for you?’

  ‘It’ll be all right.’

  ‘I’ll look after Anna.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  Sidney went downstairs and sorted out the orange juice, the toast and the cornflakes. He called his daughter once more and received an even grumpier answer. Was he going to have to drag her out of her room himself? He couldn’t understand why it was like this every day. Hildegard had stuck a To Do list on the fridge: ‘Anna’s Grade V pieces, dry-cleaning, Boots, Cutlacks, Edis, Sugar Puffs, peanut butter, travel agent, Trudi letter.’

  Sidney wondered what she wanted to see a travel agent about. Had her sister asked her to return to Germany? Was their mother not well? Had he been told everything he needed to know?

  Anna entered the kitchen. She hadn’t brushed her hair or put on her school tie. Sidney asked where her satchel and blazer were. She couldn’t say.

  ‘Do you want me to look for them?’

  ‘Where’s Mum?’

  ‘She’s not feeling very well.’