The walled garden was a wilderness. “Two acres. Take some doing to get it all back into shape.”
They walked down to the water-meadows. “No trout in the Benbow ponds. Troops cleared them with hand grenades.”
Back to the house. Little trees growing among chimney stacks. Family portraits awry on faded dining and drawing room walls. Pallid empty patches where pictures had hung. Rows of empty whisky bottles along wainscotings.
“A London business man used to come down with fusil spirit, bartering ersatz whisky for china and plate. Told him to help himself. He did. He and his wife emptied the butler’s pantry. How my mother would have been upset. All her Jacobean, Caroline, and Georgian silver going into the back of an S.S. saloon to Whitechapel. Took all the china-ware too. Heard he sold some of it to an American dealer for ten thousand dollars. When I break a cup now I replace it from Woolworth’s. He must have made a small fortune—combines kerb-stone stock-broking with deals in the Black Market. He also bought most of the house for demolition, leaving the central rooms and walls of the original farmhouse barton. I can’t wait to see the house-breakers start.”
“Piers, I can only say that all of us now living have been ‘caught in the gale of the world’! Let’s keep in touch, old friend. I must now go on my way, for my father’s funeral.”
*
Phillip was prepared to tell Elizabeth that he would honour his promise made during the war to their sister Doris: when Father’s estate was wound up, each sister would receive in cash one third of the probate value. He would tell them after the cremation, before the will was read.
As soon as he arrived down the lane, his younger sister came out of the cottage. “Thank God you’ve come, Phil! Elizabeth is unbearable. I’ve been here since last night, and have had to put up with her. So I thought I’d come out and warn you what to expect.”
At the door Elizabeth said, “Isn’t it awful! I had to face it all alone! Here, in the hall! He died on the sofa two minutes after the ambulance brought him here! Aunt Viccy had refused to visit poor Dads in the nursing home. Her own brother! Aunt Viccy hates me because I’ve become a Roman Catholic. Why shouldn’t I, if I wanted to? Mumsie wanted to be one you know, but Father wouldn’t let her! Of course the Maddisons hate Catholics, they got it from their mother, a German Protestant!”
“Would you like some tea?” asked Doris.
“I would rather, I’ve driven rather fast after calling on an old friend near Colham.”
“Yes, the Maddisons hate Catholics,” went on Elizabeth. “Father said they’re all after other people’s money to build cathedrals while poor people starved.”
“The cathedrals were built to give employment to masons and craftsmen, surely?”
“I know!” cried Elizabeth, as though she had thought of it herself. “But Father could never see that. He said that novices in Ireland shadowed young couples, ready to pounce if they saw any spooning. And yet he himself hated to see couples lying on the grass on the Hill! He knew about your illegitimate son, you know that, don’t you?”
“I wonder who told him.”
“Aunt Viccy did. She says she won’t come to the funeral, if ‘the black sheep of the family’ is going to be there. That’s you!” She laughed hysterically. “Also they know all about you in the office. It’s not very nice for me, you know. After all, they know I’m your sister! But I shan’t go back there! No fear! They’ve agreed to give me my pension. I had a letter this morning! Anyway, I don’t think I can live here now, after these past few weeks. That awful Dr. Manassa! He turned out poor Dads as soon as he saw he was dying! And do you know what I think he died of? Penicillin poisoning! He broke out all over in a red rash after you’d left. It’s my belief he was dying when they carried him out on a stretcher. I was just about to leave here, to visit him, when there was a ring at the bell. I opened the door, and there he was, on the stretcher, his eyes staring past me! They just lifted him on to the sofa, waited for me to tip them, but when they saw he was dying they hurried out. I was left all alone with him! Then his mouth opened to say something, and his eyes looked up, and I knew he had recognised me. He stared and stared. He tried to say something. Then his head went back, and his eyes closed ever so slowly, as though he knew he would be forgiven for the way he treated us all. Well, don’t stand there without a word, looking at the floor! Don’t you care for anyone but yourself? Why don’t you say something? Don’t you realise that poor Dads is dead? No, don’t touch me!” as Phillip went to take her hand. “I know you only came here to see what you could get!” and she went out of the room.
“She’s been going on like that ever since I arrived,” said Doris, wearily. She sat down and held her head. “I feel quite worn out. It’s this goitre on my neck, you know—you can’t see it, it’s under my scarf. I’m having iodine injections for it. And they always make me feel funny.”
“Are you sure it’s a goitre?”
“Yes. My first doctor said it was, then when I was appointed to be headmistress of another school, I had to change my doctor. He said it wasn’t a goitre, but a cyst. He wanted me to have an operation, but I believe in homoeopathy, and iodine as you know comes from seaweed, which is natural. People live on certain kinds of seaweed, laver for example. Anyway, the doctor wouldn’t give me injections, so I found one who would.”
“Well, I hope it’s all right. Some commandos in the war lived on seaweed for days, on the coast of Italy. Congratulations on being a headmistress. By the way, what I said about sharing the estate with you and Elizabeth still stands.”
“Can you afford to, now that you’ve made over all you had from the farm sale into a trust?”
“Oh, I need very little for myself—food, clothes, and petrol. I’m going to write the novels I wanted to write a quarter of a century ago.”
“What’s that?” said Elizabeth, coming into the room with a bottle of gin. “Novels, eh? Aunt Viccy says your Donkin novels are rotten.”
“Oh.”
“She could have come and sat with Father, only she’s utterly selfish, living all alone in a seven-bedroom’d house. Even her daughter Adele won’t see her any more. I’ve visited her sometimes, and come away feeling quite ill. Viccy says horrible things about my poor little mother, and how Grandpa Turney was a Jew, and ruined Father’s life by coming to live next door at Wakenham. Well, why do you look like that?”
Phillip put down his untasted cup of tea. “I think I’ll go for a walk and get some fresh air. I may be the black sheep of the family, but I don’t want to hear what my aunt and godmother says about me or the Turneys, or anyone else. Even if Grandpa was a Jew—which he was not—the Turney’s have been Gaultshire yeomen for centuries—what does it matter? He was damned good to his family, perhaps that’s what made the Maddisons think he was Jewish? Do you remember how Grandpa, when Hugh developed locomotor attaxia from syphilis, kept him at home, and had a man to look after him for years, and only put him into a Nursing Home when his mind was gone, properly gone—not like Father’s mind, which was clear and reasonable. My protesting godmother got rid of her husband, George Lemon, when he got syphilis, and her brother Hilary shipped him off to Australia, to get him out of the way. There’s your Christian Protestant for you! Now I’m ranting, so I’ll shut up!” He seized the bottle. “Did you say help myself? You didn’t? Well, it’ll all be the same in a hundred years time, so I will!” He filled three-quarters of a tumbler, and drank half of it. “That’s better! Petrol for the old engine! That’ll put up my revs! Now come with me, dear sisters, and we’ll have dinner at a Bournemouth hotel.”
“What, and leave poor Dads all alone?” cried Elizabeth.
“We can take him with us if you like.”
“Isn’t he awful?” Elizabeth appealed to Doris.
“Well, perhaps you’re right. After all, this isn’t Ireland, and I don’t suppose they’d welcome a wake in a ‘respectable’ middle-class hotel. Sure, the sight of the ould gintleman, all stiffly formal, would liven up the compan
y, himsilf standin’ up in a corner, dressed in frock coat, top hat and holding a butterfly net! I could tell the company his last words—‘It isn’t so bad dying, the trouble is that one is so confoundedly stiff the next day!’” He refilled the tumbler. “All right, I’ll buy you another bottle! No, I haven’t had too much, I haven’t had enough! By the way, is the coffin screwed down? What a pity: we should drink a toast to your poor old Dads. No, I’m not sneering. He used to be your dearest Dads, I know, but he was never mine. He liked you, not me. And I let him down, you know, just as you have done. I asked him to come and live with us on the farm, but I never followed it up. For one thing, our accommodation was pretty awful. So was I. Worse than he ever was at his worst. He was only a nagger, he never struck Mother. I bashed Lucy. So I’d like to see him before he goes into the flames tomorrow. He had some tools here, I’ll find a screwdriver.”
“You’re tipsy,” said Elizabeth, seizing the bottle. “And if you dare to take off the lid, I shall telephone for the police. I warn you, now!”
“You sound just like Father in the old days, dear sister. But I must not be rude to a guest in my house.”
“Your house? I like that!”
“Well, I must tell you that, during the war, when Lucy and I, with her brother Tim Copleston and his wife, called here one day, he told me that I was his sole heir. I wrote to Doris shortly afterwards, saying that I intended, when he died, to share everything with you two. And so I’ll keep my promise.”
“Well,” replied Elizabeth, “you’re a bit behind the times! Father made a new will while he was in the nursing home, leaving all to me! And there’s a clause in the will saying that if anyone tries to contest it, he or she will automatically be excluded from any benefit from the will.”
“I’m not a lawyer, but I should say that if there be only one beneficiary from a will, that clause is invalid. Any crook could force someone to make a will under duress, and there would be no appeal against such an act, if your clause were legal!”
“So you’re thinking of going to law, are you? Haven’t you got enough already? Anyway, if you’re going to threaten me, I’ll call the police, as I warned you!” And with that she left the room.
“No, of course I’d never go to law, Doris. I spoke too hastily. She must think me pretty awful.”
“She’s the awful one, Phil. I’ve had her going on like this ever since I arrived.” She looked at her brother intently. “Now I know what cousin Maude meant when she told me that Elizabeth had asked her to live with her here and look after Father! She said she’d pay for her services, but when Maude told her she couldn’t come, as she was nursing at the London Hospital, Elizabeth said that she’d have ‘to stall’, because she couldn’t look after him all by herself, or get anyone else. You see what I mean? She must have promised Father to take him home, if he made a will in her favour, for if she left her office before a pension was due, she would have nothing to live on.”
Elizabeth, coming back into the room, cried, “Well, now you two conspirators know that this cottage, and all its contents, are mine. Father’s last will leaves everything to me. Including the family plate! So if you try to take it away Phil, I’ll telephone the police!”
“I’m afraid I was tactless and stupid in saying what I did say, Elizabeth. Of course I won’t think of contesting Father’s will. But the family plate should go on down, you know, to the heir. There’s Peter, now that Billy’s gone. And I hope you won’t mind my saying it, but you might like to consider leaving the set of books I gave Mother, to Peter—or sell them to me—”
“They’re not worth much, anyway! They’re in the sitting room. Come and see for yourself.”
There stood the mahogany bookcase remembered from faraway Hillside Road. Along the top shelves were the volumes, each in its dust cover, all in what collectors would call mint condition.
“They’ll be valuable one day, Elizabeth.”
“That’s what you say. I had a second-hand bookseller in yesterday, and all he offered me was ten bob for the lot.”
“I’ll give you fifty pounds for them. I’d like Peter to have them.”
“I may want to read them myself. But why do you talk of money at this time? That’s all you think about, isn’t it? And our Father lying in his coffin!” she cried with rising hysteria. “Is that all you came for, to try and get what belongs to me? You’ve got everything that matters—children—what have I got? No-one cares whether I live or die! You’ve had two wives! What have I had? The boy I loved, Alfred Hawkins, what happened to him? Yes, you may well look guilty! You got your friend Peter Wallace to thrash him, didn’t you? Poor little Alfie, who could not defend himself, who loved poetry, and watching butterflies, and looking up into the blue sky, while lying on his back among the grasses, in the Backfield! What happened to him? Do you remember? I do, if you don’t! You told Father I’d been lying in the long grass with him, meaning we were spooning, when we weren’t! Father turned against me from that moment! Alfie was killed in the war, and you came back. Alfie was ready to go, he was a pure spirit. You weren’t, and you know it!”
“Yes, I know it. I assure you I’ve thought about that, many many times.”
“Then don’t try and take those books away from me! I know you don’t like me, you never did like me! And you didn’t really like Father, either. Do you know what he said to me once while he was lying in the nursing home? ‘Do you think Phillip is ashamed of me, he has never invited me to stay with his family.’ Then he said, ‘I suppose that must be it, for I am not allowed to see my grandchildren.’ That’s what Father said, and that’s why Aunt Viccy called you the black sheep of the family! You heard her say that Phillip was the black sheep of the family, didn’t you Doris?”
“If you don’t mind, I prefer to remain out of it. And I must remind you that I haven’t yet seen the will.”
“I’ve told you, Father left everything to me!”
“Look here,” said Phillip, “we’re all over-wrought. Let’s go into Bournemouth, and have dinner. I don’t think Father would mind. In fact, I don’t believe he’s here. I remember my great friend in the army, ‘Spectre’ West, telling me how it felt when he was unconscious after being hit. He saw himself from the air, in clear azure space, looking down at his body lying there—it was on Passchendaele Ridge—and he was clear thought or an idea, only that, just looking down, the idea being, That isn’t me, it’s poor little body. I’m not adding to his words, I give you my word of honour. He told me that after he’d recovered in hospital.” He gave a shout. “Oh God! That’s where I got that from, in my dream of seeing Billy lying dead, among the Alps! That’s the source of what I believed was a vision the night before we heard he was killed!”
“There you are, you see!” cried Elizabeth, who had only half listened. “That’s what I felt about poor Dads—his eyes looked up as though hearing a voice from above—then he looked amazed. That was when his soul left the body!”
“Yes,” said Phillip, taking her hand. “I believe that is truth.” He put his other arm round Doris. “Now that we are clear, dear sisters, let us look after what Hamlet called ‘this machine’. Put on your coats, and we’ll dine together! I’ll drive carefully, I’m not tight, alcohol is a pure form of food.”
They went to the Wrangaton Towers, and sat among pallid elderly people. There was whale meat or jugged hare for the main dish. The jugged hare looked remarkably like a cat, he thought, after a double whisky and soda, laughing to himself.
*
Phillip, staring through closed lids, legs crossed at ankles, arms folded—crusader in stone upon a tomb of lost hopes. Father in the early ’nineties bicycling to see mother on his Starley Rover, up the Rise to Sydenham Hill and down past the Crystal Palace. Stolen meetings in the summerhouse of the garden at Cross Aulton; the shuttered light of the lantern. Father and his butterflies, the rare Camberwell Beauty seen on his rum-impregnated cloth strips pinned to one of the elms on the Hill, in the circular light of his beloved dark lan
tern. The secret register-office marriage; Grandpa Turney finding out, knocking down Mother; departure to Wakenham and the little house above the railway cutting, once the Sydenham Canal. My birthplace. Father’s life one long grind in the City. Office shadow’d in summer, befogged in winter. Slow wilting of butterfly-dreaming youth to bitter parenthood and final aloneness. Always the Faustian dream of ideal love. Myra walking slowly away, after putting down her bunch of Michaelmas daisies. He felt a sudden desperate need to go to her. I want to be loved by you, Myra, I want to love you.
Coffin going down in the lift to the furnace, parson’s conventional words over. Yes, I’d like the ashes in an urn, please. Father’s holiday at Lynmouth towards the end of the nineteenth century, so happy with his elder brother John, and Jenny his wife. You were only a baby, Phillip, we were all so happy, Aunt Dora was with us, it was her cottage, before she moved lower down the hill to be by the river. She loved the song of the river on its way to the sea. I stayed in Ionian cottage just before the war. I must scatter Father’s ashes on The Chains of the high moor—
Grey shreds of calcined bone swept from one side of the oven —handful of Heraclitan grey ashes—mixed with coffin nails oxidised umber-red in furnace flames. German ashes in the suburbs of industrial towns, after Churchills’ bombings; Jewish ashes at Belsen and Ravensbruck after Hitler’s retaliation—phosphate and potash for wheat and potato fertiliser. Better that than the common sewer. Wheatfields on the Somme uplands, after one million German-British-French casualties, gave heavy yields of corn between the two wars. Dust to dust, ashes to ashes—great Jacobean poetry, the Bible.
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