‘So you think they ... her side of the family ...?’
‘... could – would – concoct a will to suit themselves? Yes.’
‘Even if he’s in a coma?’
‘Oh, they’re great ones for mobilizing corpses – not that your papa is a corpse yet, but ...’
While Keogh talked about the law’s intricacies, Adam looked around at cows and a muddy lake. Dry stone walls ran hither and yon, made, he remembered, more to clear the stony land than for any positive purpose. Ragged thorn trees leaned away from what must be the prevailing wind. A gate sagged. The land, he heard Keogh urge, needed attention.
‘And I need help with the co-operative creamery we’re planning. We need you, Adam. We are about to set up a cottage hospital too. It’d be great to have a landlord here pulling his weight, which he hasn’t been up to doing this long while, and Mrs Gould never would.’
Adam wondered who hadn’t been pulling his weight? Ah: his father. Mrs Gould of course was his father’s wife and the cousin of the man on the mail-boat. Keeping track of all this was like learning positions in cricket: short slip, silly mid-on ... All he remembered about this stepmother was that when he was small, she had been one of the Miss Blakes and reputed to have a face like a pike – the fish not the weapon. Some of the second meaning clung though: pugnacity, stealth. Pikes were the weapons favoured by moonlighters.
In a late gleam from the wintry sun, the house’s windows turned a fluid white. One thought of a pack of dogs with pearly cataracts.
‘This young woman,’ he persisted, ‘looked exactly ...’
‘Well, Cait wears your mama’s old riding clothes. She inherited them, so of course she wears them. For her the price of a new riding habit ... But never mind that now. Here we are. Listen.’ Keogh spoke fast and furtively. ‘If you’re asked where you’re staying, it’s with me. Yes? That’ll save embarrassment all round. You wouldn’t want to stay here.’
Jumping down from the trap, he produced a key, opened a side door and led Adam through familiar-unfamiliar spaces to a room with an enormous bed. Everything here was some shade of grey: the light, the sheets, the shine from the medicine bottles and even a bunch of papery, half-dry hydrangeas. In the middle of all this a supine figure lay breathing noisily through a hole in the middle of its face. The hole was mouse-sized, centripetal and black. The lips had been sucked inwards. No teeth, Adam realized. There was a sandy stubble on the cheeks. Nothing about the dying man looked like his memory of his father. As he watched, an unexpectedly live strip of grey-pink flesh slid from his father’s mouth, lolled a while, then withdrew. His tongue? Adam’s own tongue froze. How was he to talk to this unmanned near-corpse? Forcing himself, he picked up one of the hands, but it felt as limp as a package of liver.
‘Papa,’ he tried, ‘I’m Adam.’ Then stopped. His prepared speech about reconciliation had lost meaning, and other conventional words that came to mind seemed uncaring and bumptious. Indeed, his own grossly healthy presence felt like an affront, and he feared that saying goodbye might frighten this relic of a man. ‘Goodbye’ had a callous ring. He couldn’t say it. Instead he repeated, ‘I’m Adam,’ and, when he tried to let go of the dead-liver hand, felt ashamed.
A freckled girl wearing an apron had meanwhile risen from a chair and been presented as Keogh’s niece. She struck a match, lit the wick of an oil lamp and in its flare proved to have her uncle’s colouring in a fresher, red-cheeked version. Its vividness drew Conor Keogh’s boyhood self from the dusk of Adam’s mind so that he could hardly believe he had ever forgotten him. There he was in memory: as bright and speckled as a robin’s egg. Today’s Keogh took on some of that recovered gleam. His father who, of course, had also been the local doctor, was the very one with whom Adam had stayed for some days after his mother died. Conor, one year older than himself, must now be twenty-six.
‘No change,’ the girl was saying, ‘except that we got a little food into him.’
Keogh mouthed: ‘Mrs Gould?’
‘Upstairs,’ the girl whispered. ‘He was awake before. Raging at her. He’s full of rage. She had to leave.’
Keogh nodded. ‘Mr Gould,’ he addressed his patient, ‘your son has come to see you. Adam.’
At first there was no response. Then: ‘Adam,’ came a voice from the bed, ‘ruined my life. Did it from malice. He frightened away the girl I meant to marry, and when I wrote asking him to write and beg her to come back, he never answered. It might have made a difference if he had.’ In the reptilian face, two slits of eyes, grey as wet slate, had half opened. ‘She was a sweet girl.’
‘Now, now,’ Keogh put his head close to the dying man’s ear, ‘we’ve been through all that. That story can be told two ways. It all depends where you start it.’
‘He ruined Kate’s life too. Kate was the girl. Did you know that she became a nun?’
‘In Belgium. Yes. But her letters say she’s happy now. She found what she needed. And he’s your only son. Have you forgotten that you agreed to forgive him?’
‘Who?’
‘Adam.’
‘Adam?’ The grey face crumpled in disgust. Then it widened in a grin. ‘Adam and Eve and Pinch Me,’ said the mouth in a singsong, petulant voice, ‘went down to the river to bathe. Adam and Eve were drowned. So which of them was saved? Answer. Answer!’
‘Pinch Me,’ said Keogh. ‘That’s an old trick.’
‘Aha, it is old. It’s an old schoolboy trick. Schoolboys are vicious beasts. I was a beautiful child. That’s how I know. The beautiful are prey!’ Again the mad old mouth took up the schoolyard riddle: ‘Adam and Eve and Pinch Me ...’
Adam expected the hand he was holding to try to pinch him. But it did not. Perhaps the life force no longer reached it? The mouth though was still alive.
‘I shall pinch you,’ it threatened.
‘Do,’ Keogh challenged. ‘Let’s see your strength. Pinch me and say you forgive him.’
But the pleated lids, grey as cockleshells, had closed over the dim, angry eyes. A sound of intent, greedy breathing filled the room.
Adam, deprived of the excitement which had been sustaining him, felt that he might faint. He had not, it occurred to him, eaten all day. And back on the boat he had had two double whiskeys.
***
On their way out of the house – no point waiting any more for now was Keogh’s opinion – they were held up by a small group arguing at the front door. A manservant with his hand on the knob was keeping it half closed to prevent someone coming in.
‘Now Miss Cait,’ he was saying, ‘you know I’d not stop you if it was up to me, but I have my orders.’
A second man stood behind him, clearly ready to lend assistance. Adam was reminded of the maison de santé. From outside came a woman’s voice. ‘Brady, all I want is to come in for a tiny minute.’
‘He’s out of it, Miss. He won’t know you.’
‘Well, but you can let me see him. Just a quick look. I’ll be gone before – ah, Dr Keogh. You’ll let me in, won’t you?’
There, in the now open doorway stood the amazone. Cait. Though still in her riding habit, she was hatless and agitated: exactly as Adam’s mother had been the last time he saw her. ‘Psycho-physical?’ he wondered, unsure whether he had dreamed up the resemblance. Just now he distrusted his perceptions – but couldn’t let himself fail this woman. He pushed forward, bowed, claimed cousinship and begged her to return with him to the sickroom to view his father. Without knowing it, he had perhaps been thinking of paintings by Greuze with titles like ‘The Deathbed’, and ‘A Late Reconciliation’, for he found that, with old-time gallantry, he had offered her his arm. She took it without a word.
Keogh told the manservant, ‘Brady, this is Mr Gary’s son. He’s back from France.’
Brady threw up his hands. ‘I hope you’ll explain then, doctor, if there are ructions.’
‘Right you are, Brady. I’ll take the blame.’
So back they trailed to the sickroom where, although t
he patient was now comatose, the amazone seemed satisfied. Perhaps it had been a mere matter of pride with her to defy Mrs Gould?
As the three returned to the hall, Mrs Gould – who else could it be? – came down the stairs. She was small, wispily pewter-haired and clearly on edge. She paused meaningfully on the bottom step, stood her ground and let them come to her. Yet she looked, Adam saw with relief, in no way formidable – just a little long-nosed and probably unhappy. Her mouth was quivering, and if they had been in the maison de santé, he would have suggested she sit down. Here, that could seem intrusive, since an intruder, if not indeed a marauder, was clearly what she felt him to be. Her eyes fastened on the crook of his arm through which the amazone’s was still defiantly wound.
He couldn’t think what to do about this.
Keogh introduced him.
‘Well, Mr Gould,’ his stepmother sighed wearily, ‘I suppose you are all set to take over.’
He shook his head and would have condoled, but feared that condoling could be construed as an insult. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, leaving the cause of his sorrow vague.
‘Ah, but to say that,’ she said, ‘can mean “I shall do as I like, but mustn’t be blamed.” It is – was – one of your father’s tricks.’
‘I don’t think you have had time to know that we play the same tricks.’
Mrs Gould glanced again at the linked arms. This time Adam tried to disentangle his, but gave up when his companion tightened her grip. He hoped Mrs Gould hadn’t seen this, but rather thought she had. ‘Miss Lydon,’ she observed, ‘has wasted no time getting in with the new master. New masters and mistresses do sniff each other out fast, don’t they?’ Her slightly prominent front teeth gnashed the words, as though she would have liked to bite.
Unsure why he was being scolded, Adam’s instinct was to smooth things over. How could he judge the rights and wrongs of quarrels raging here? Besides, if his father’s will was worrying his stepmother, then he, as the intended beneficiary of Keogh’s conspiring, might seem to blame. But he was reluctant to snub his new-old friend by a parade of scruple – especially as Keogh could be telling the truth when he claimed to be preventing, rather than mounting, a conspiracy.
‘All I meant,’ he told Mrs Gould firmly, ‘is that I never intended to barge in. But, as you weren’t here, and we feared that there mightn’t be much time, we ...’
‘So you are already “we”?’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘No?’
This was a quicksand. Bowing, he turned away. Best let Keogh take over. He, after all, was the sick man’s doctor and here as such.
Cait Lydon now slipped out of the front door. By the time Adam had collected his coat and hat and gone after her, she had vanished. Staring about, he saw that the landscape had improved. Low, bleached light softened its lines and, where shafts of this caught the damp, broke into prisms. He had forgotten how totally – and fleetingly – such effects could transform this dour country. The thought revived memories of chill, shadowy air and of how eager this had often made him to get indoors to fires and light and any company at all, even that of animals. To be alone here was peculiarly mournful. A spasm of pity reached him for the prone figure he had left lying between life and death. Poor Papa! How unfortunate that they had failed to make any connection, and that Keogh held out little hope of their making one now! Might it have been different if Adam had come earlier? Perhaps he should come back soon and try to make peace with the difficult Mrs Gould? She was clearly in a bad way and it would be a kindness to his papa to soothe her anxieties.
***
He had already written twice to Danièle when an envelope with a French stamp arrived. It was from Dr Blanche, who was still in Normandy, and explained that Adam would find enclosed herewith the letters which he had sent to Madame d’Armaillé. They had happily just missed her.
Happily? Why happily? Adam had trouble with Blanche’s handwriting, which had begun to blur. He seemed to have something in his eye.
She left here almost immediately after our arrival, in response to news that her husband is on his way to Belgium, where an aunt has put a house at their disposal. He has been wounded, but we don’t know how badly. His letter was vague, and one must deduce that he plans to break things to her gradually. This strikes me as a mistake.
The house where they are to live needs renovating, so she left at once to see to this – and also with the idea of making a quick, clean break. This, my dear Adam, is why I have not forwarded your letters.
Before leaving, she asked me to tell you that she begs you to refrain from corresponding with her behind her husband’s back. It is now her duty to try to rebuild their marriage, so she wants neither to hurt his feelings nor to add to other hurts with which he may have to contend. Clearly, your duty is to keep away. I am sorry to be the bearer of such news.
The rest of the letter was about recent public events, pessimism, the new broom in Passy, news of Adam’s uncle who was suddenly quite ill and being cared for by nuns, and of Maupassant, who no longer recognized anyone. Blanche, now that his own prospects were poor, had begun to see shadows everywhere.
This [he added] is of course poor Guy’s native stretch of coast, so we keep being reminded of him. How sensitive he was to the way things were going.
Adam tried not to brood on how they might or might not go.
It was a time of waiting. The sundial in Keogh’s garden rarely received enough sun to tell the time. Adam’s comatose papa’s stamina defied medical expectancy, and a rumour got about that a bookie was taking bets – not for the first time – on the former gentleman-jockey’s staying power.
Adam, who had settled in with Keogh, took his advice and put off calling on Mrs Gould ‘until things were resolved’.
‘You mean his death?’
‘Death and property, Adam. No point being mealy-mouthed.’
No, since nobody else was, there was indeed no point. Local people peeped at him from beneath shawls and hat brims.
A Mrs Ross, who said she had known him as a boy, called by to ask after his father and find out whether Adam planned to hunt. Not now, perhaps, but later on? She was a vigorous lady with a florid face who spoke wistfully about the splendid refreshments which, when the Goulds’ racing stable was doing well, used to be brought to the meet and served on their fine but sturdy hunt table.
‘Not recently though,’ she admitted. ‘Thin times, I’m afraid. I was wondering if you would lend us that table while you’re in mourning. You’ll not be needing it. By the way, best have an inventory made of the furniture just as soon as you get the chance. Things disappear at a time like this. That hunt table did not belong to your stepmother. Remember that. A lone man is easily preyed upon. I suppose,’ she admitted, as she rose to leave, ‘all this is a little premature.’
He agreed that it was.
‘Well, adiós.’ Self-mockingly. In the last century, her family had made their money by settling some of its members in Spain to export wines.
Twice Adam glimpsed Blake – the man from the mail-boat – in the village ‘main’ street, a straggle of snail-grey houses. They hailed each other, with jovial caution, and promised to get together quite soon for a chat. That, Adam supposed, would be after ‘things’ had resolved themselves. For now, the word from Keogh, who was in daily attendance at the sickbed, was, ‘Your old man’s dying hard. Living on his will. All spirit when spirit is no use to him.’
Bishop John Joseph – ‘JJ’ – Tobin came, administered the last rites, dined with Keogh and Adam, drank to the dying man’s safe passage to the right place and spent the night. He relayed gossip and inquired fondly about France. Death, having no lasting dominion, need not spoil a convivial evening. Sitting up into the small hours, the three stared into the turf smoulder, riddled away powdery ash when it choked the flame, drank port and brandy and corrected each other’s reminiscences. Adam’s mother’s death was duly lamented. An accident, of course. He, the bishop assured, said mass re
gularly for her soul, God rest it. As for Gary Gould, he was no longer making sense. Indeed, most of what he said now was the opposite of what he meant.
‘Ludicrous,’ was Tobin’s response to reports of the old man’s paternal curse. ‘You had nothing to do with the heiress leaving. How could you have? You were only twelve! No, the match was doomed once her mama heard the news about your neighbour, Captain Boycott. Till then she had never looked long enough from her carriage window to note the difference between Connaught and Kent. House parties in both were no doubt alike, so imagine her shock when she learned what the Land Leaguers could do to a genteel household! Invasion by the mob! Servants refusing to serve! What worse upsets to the social order could be devised? The captain, his good lady and one or two hangers-on had to do their own milking! And everything else! It seems that the thought of emptying her own slops upsets a wellborn Englishwoman as nothing else can, and that Kate’s mama would have faced the French Revolution with more sangfroid! Spilled blood can be commemorated, spilled urine never. And the Orangemen who came to defend the Boycotts were said to be a case of the cure being worse than the disease. That sort of rumour could make a regiment of match-making mamas turn tail. You weren’t to blame, Adam. She needed delicate handling and who was to do it? Your papa was too taken up with politics to pay attention to his courting. And who’s to say he wasn’t half-hearted about it anyway?’
‘What happened to Kate?’
‘Kate,’ said his Grace, ‘took against the secular world. A blessing, perhaps? In the long run. But let’s talk about now. Tell me about France – not the tin-pot republic! Tell me how His Holiness’s policies are being received by the French people. Did you read where he said that they have a keen mind? “Keen and generous, vif et généreux?” I think that’s true. Especially now that French Catholics are grown wiser and milder! They’re burying the old malice, aren’t they? Burying their hatchets while we sharpen ours!’
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