Middle England

by Jonathan Coe

  44.

  The Lenchford Inn stands on the western bank of the River Severn, just outside the village of Shrawley in Worcestershire. On a Tuesday evening in June 2018, Benjamin and Jennifer met there for a drink. Their last drink together, as it turned out. It was a fine summer evening, with the sun setting unhurriedly over the river and burnishing its surface with a deep, coppery sheen, as skylarks and sparrows skimmed back and forth across the water. After their drink, Jennifer and Benjamin strolled along the northbound path that followed the river’s diffident curve. They did not walk hand in hand, or arm in arm – this was not their style – but their bodies were in close proximity, and it gave them both a feeling of comfort when they occasionally touched, at the hip or the thigh or the shoulder. These gentle collisions were subtle, welcome reminders of their physical intimacy.

  Finally, with a sinking heart, Benjamin did what he could no longer put off: he told Jennifer that he was planning to move to France with his sister. She received the news with more equanimity than he had been expecting.

  ‘Well, that’s exciting,’ she said. ‘I mean, I shall miss you, of course, but … Well, congratulations. I’m sure you know what you’re doing.’

  ‘I hope you’ll come and see me.’

  ‘Of course I will.’ She glanced at him. ‘I’m sorry, were you expecting my reaction to be a bit more dramatic? You’ve dumped me once before, remember – forty years ago – and I didn’t really mind then, either.’ She could not bear to see him looking so crestfallen, all the same. ‘Anyway, this isn’t exactly a dumping, is it? We’ve only been seeing each other once a month or so. Less than that, recently.’

  ‘There’s someone else, isn’t there?’ Benjamin said.

  Jennifer slowed down, and drew in her breath, then looked him earnestly in the eye.

  ‘How long have you known about that?’ she asked.

  Benjamin walked on. ‘Quite a while,’ he said. ‘His name’s Robert, I think?’

  ‘Why didn’t you say anything, if you knew?’

  ‘I suppose because … because I realized I didn’t mind all that much.’

  This seemed to hurt Jennifer more than anything.

  ‘Well, there you are,’ she said, catching up with him. ‘That’s my point exactly. If you can’t even summon the strength to be jealous about it …’

  ‘I thought that what we had … I thought it suited both of us.’

  Jennifer sighed and shook her head.

  ‘You’re such an idiot. Really, you are. I was always waiting for it to become more. In the end I could see that it never would – that’s why I started seeing Robert, I suppose – but for ages I was willing you to make some sort of move. Take some sort of decision. Part of me kept clinging on to that hope, as well. That’s why I never said yes when Robert asked me to marry him.’

  ‘He’s asked you to marry him?’

  ‘Of course he has. About twenty times.’

  ‘And you said no, because of me?’

  ‘Oh, Benjamin! Don’t you understand anything? I would have done anything to get you closer to me. Started reading Flaubert. Rationed myself to films with subtitles. Learned to love the symphonies of Arthur Honecker.’

  ‘It’s Honegger,’ said Benjamin, before he could stop himself.

  ‘I told you that I loved you, for God’s sake. Surely you remember that?’

  ‘Yes, but I thought … I thought that was just one of those things people say.’

  ‘Yes, it is, Benjamin. That’s exactly what it is. It’s one of those things people say. Usually when they mean it.’

  Close to the edge of the water, at this point, they turned and faced each other, and for the first time Jennifer took both his hands in hers. Her eyes were filling up with tears.

  ‘I’m over it, Ben, don’t worry,’ she said. ‘Or rather, I’m beyond it now. In fact I saw Robert last week and he asked me to marry him again and I didn’t say no this time. I told him I’d think about it. It was worth it just to see how happy he looked.’

  Benjamin tried to smile, but made a poor show of it. So he tried to hug Jennifer instead, and she put her arms around him in return, but she would not relax into the embrace. He could feel her resistance.

  ‘I hurt you,’ he said. ‘I’m so sorry.’

  Wiping her eyes on his shoulder and pulling gently away, Jennifer said: ‘Don’t worry about it, Tiger. Like I said, I’m beyond it now. For a while I kidded myself that we might be soulmates, but … Well, you found your soulmate years ago, didn’t you, and nobody will ever quite replace her.’

  Benjamin nodded. ‘Cicely, you mean.’

  ‘No, not her,’ said Jennifer, scornfully. ‘I mean your sister, of course.’

  ‘You mean Lois?’

  ‘Looking back,’ said Jennifer, ‘it’s obvious really. Even at school, we could all see how much you meant to each other. It’s lovely when you see that between a brother and sister. That loyalty. That support. That’s why we had a joint nickname for you. Benjamin and Lois Trotter: the Rotters. Bent Rotter, and Lowest Rotter. That was it, wasn’t it?’

  ‘Yes, but I never thought – I mean, I never saw it like that before …’

  ‘It makes perfect sense for you to go away together. Much more sense than you hanging around Middle England trying to make things work out with me.’

  Benjamin leaned towards her and kissed her on the mouth. She responded, but again the response was wary, reluctant.

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ he repeated.

  Jennifer turned back towards the pub, walked on and shifted the conversation briskly towards practicalities.

  ‘Is now a good time to be moving to Europe?’ she asked. ‘With Brexit and everything?’

  ‘We’ve looked into that,’ said Benjamin. ‘As long as you move before 29 March next year, nothing changes.’

  ‘You’ve probably chosen a good time to get out.’

  ‘I don’t know … I feel very torn about it. I’m going to miss this country. I’m going to miss my house. I’m going to miss living by the river. This river …’ He looked wistfully at the friendly, meandering Severn, now turning a deep crimson in the dying sunlight as it wandered past the pub on its slow, endless journey down from his mill house forty miles away. ‘All my life I’d wanted to live by a river.’

  ‘They’ve got them in France, now,’ Jennifer said. ‘I was reading about it in the paper just the other day.’

  Benjamin was pleased to hear her making a joke again. She smiled at him and took his hand. They walked like this along the path for a few minutes. Then he put his arm around her shoulder, and she rested against him. That was even better. It was enough to give him the courage he needed.

  ‘There was one other thing I wanted to say to you,’ he began.

  She looked up at him questioningly. Her eyes glistened. ‘Yes?’

  ‘I wanted to say thank you.’

  ‘Thank you? What for?’

  ‘For … Well, for all the sex.’

  The questioning look mutated into an expression of disbelief. It seemed that, even now, Benjamin still had the capacity to astonish her.

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘It’s just that I never thought … At my age, I’d sort of given up hope. I mean, I’m not exactly Colin Firth, and I’m not very good in bed.’

  Jennifer laughed now, silently but for quite a long time. When she turned to Benjamin again, her lips were still twitching with amusement as she said: ‘I suppose I could punish you for that, just by agreeing with you. But the fact is – you did have your moments.’

  ‘Really?’ He pulled her closely towards him, kissed her and whispered in her ear: ‘Robert’s a lucky man. You have the loveliest body. Thank you for sharing it with me.’

  And there they stood, cheek to cheek, pressed tightly against each other, the embrace lasting for so long that the fisherman sitting a few yards away might easily have mistaken them for a married couple rediscovering their youthful passion, rather than what they really were: a pair o
f rueful lovers saying goodbye for the last time.

  45.

  September 2018

  ‘Well,’ said Lois, ‘I got you a river.’

  Indeed she had. The house stood on the banks of the Sorgue: and even if this particular stretch of water didn’t carry, for Benjamin, quite the symbolic weight that he invested in his beloved Severn, or hold the same repository of memories for him, it certainly had charms of its own. Theirs was a mill house, once again. For as long as anyone could remember it had been known simply as ‘Le Vieux Moulin’, and it nestled in a curve of the river not far from its source in Fontaine-de-Vaucluse, clasped so snugly in the water’s embrace that it might almost have been planted rather than built there, to grow alongside the willow and magnolia trees that surrounded it. Benjamin and Lois had taken possession in the middle of August, and, while the house was in good condition, the last three weeks had been busy and stressful, with workmen coming and going every day, receiving their often approximate instructions from the new owners in broken French. Things had been easier after the first week, when Grete and Lukas had arrived. Grete spoke good French, and had agreed to take on the role of housekeeper. Lukas intended to look for work in nearby Avignon, and in the meantime was on hand to help Benjamin with the many practicalities that he found so daunting. Together with their little girl, Justina, they would be living in a small, two-bedroomed cottage which lay within the grounds of the house, just a few yards from the main building.

  On this hot, breathless afternoon, Lois found her brother leaning up against the rusty iron fence that formed a boundary between their terrace and the idling, grey-green river. He had a beer glass in his hand, and gave every impression of idling himself.

  ‘Were you having a rest?’ she asked, with a slight undertone of impatience. It was Friday. Le Vieux Moulin was due to open for guests on Sunday evening.

  ‘Just a quick beer, that’s all.’

  ‘There’s still a lot to do.’

  ‘I know. Just give me twenty minutes.’

  ‘There’s still no electricity in any of the rooms on the top floor.’

  ‘It’s probably a fuse. I’ll sort it.’

  ‘Well, I’m going to finish putting sheets on the beds.’

  ‘OK. Don’t worry. I’m just going to be twenty minutes.’

  Once his sister had disappeared inside, Benjamin sat down at the old wrought-iron table: the table he had brought all the way from Shropshire, the table which had borne witness to so many conversations with family and friends over the years, and so many solitary hours of writing and contemplation. He could not have left it behind in England. He took a sip from his glass and gave a quiet sigh of satisfaction. Tilting his face, he felt the full heat of the mid-afternoon sun. Wonderful. You didn’t get that in the Midlands. He closed his eyes and listened to the river as it continued to drift placidly by. He had just succeeded in losing himself in its gentle music when another, less soothing sound reached his ears, and grew louder and louder: the sound of a car approaching down the long, cool, poplar-lined lane. Soon the car had entered the house’s main courtyard, pulled to a halt and a familiar voice could be heard calling from the hallway: ‘Anyone home?’

  It was Sophie. She quickly found her uncle out on the terrace and, after they had kissed, she walked across to the fence and leaned against it, looking over the river, and said: ‘Well, isn’t this lovely?’

  ‘I’ll give you the tour in a minute. Have a drink first. You look hot. Good flight? Long drive from Marseille?’

  ‘Not too bad. About an hour and a half. Motorway mainly.’

  ‘I’ll get you a beer.’

  Benjamin and Sophie sat in the sunshine for a few minutes, savouring their drinks and exchanging news. He forgot that his sister was upstairs working.

  ‘So you’re all ready for the first students?’ she asked.

  ‘Not quite. There’s still a few things to be done. Anyway, there’s only one.’

  ‘Only one?’

  ‘Bookings have been a bit slow, to be honest. I suppose that was bound to happen at the beginning. I’m sure it will pick up. Of course, it would have helped if Lionel Hampshire could have been here for the opening. Thanks for contacting him, by the way.’

  ‘He’s not coming? When he emailed me he sounded quite keen.’

  ‘Oh, he was keen all right. I’ll show you the letter he sent us.’

  Benjamin fetched a sheet of paper from the kitchen and handed it to Sophie. She took off her sunglasses and started to read.

  Dear Mr Trotter,

  Mr Hampshire is in receipt of your kind invitation to be the guest of honour at the opening ceremony of your new writing school, forwarded to him by your niece.

  He would like to convey his sincere thanks for the invitation, and in principle would be delighted to attend. As a keen European, who deplores the political direction his country has taken in the last two years, he applauds the gesture of Anglo-French cooperation represented by your school.

  Mr Hampshire would be willing to visit Le Vieux Moulin for three or four days on and around the evening of Sunday 16 September, as specified. He would be prepared to give one reading from his works (duration 45 minutes) and his terms are as follows.

  – First-class travel by train from London to Avignon for himself and his assistant (myself).

  – Transfer by car from Avignon to Le Vieux Moulin.

  – Double room with river view, and the same for his assistant.

  – All meals to be provided, including unlimited visits to local restaurants.

  – Copies of all of Mr Hampshire’s books to be on sale to students, in French- and English-language editions. He will be happy to sign them.

  – Excursions to Aix-en-Provence and Manosque to be arranged, at Le Vieux Moulin’s expense.

  – Honorarium of 10,000 euros, to be paid by bank transfer before arrival.

  Assuming these terms are agreeable, Mr Hampshire looks forward to his visit, and to your prompt reply.

  Sincerely

  Ella Buchanan

  Sophie let out a low whistle and handed the letter back.

  ‘What, and you’re telling me the terms weren’t agreeable?’

  ‘Sadly not. Lois didn’t seem to think it would be a good idea to blow our entire annual budget on one celebrity guest.’

  ‘I can see her point. Talking of Mum, I’d better go and say hello. Is she around?’

  ‘She’s upstairs. Tell her I’ll be up in a few minutes to do the electricity.’

  ‘OK.’

  Sophie was just about to leave on this errand when Grete emerged from the kitchen carrying a mop and a bucket. They greeted each other warmly, like old friends.

  ‘Ah, you’re looking well!’ Grete said, holding her at arm’s length. ‘Better than I’ve ever seen you.’

  ‘I agree,’ said Benjamin. And when they both turned to look at him, he added: ‘You’ve put on a bit of weight. It suits you.’

  Sophie chose to ignore this remark, and Grete asked her: ‘You’re not tired after your journey?’

  ‘Not really. And how are you? And Lukas and Justina?’

  ‘Very well, all very well. I think we’re going to like it here very much. They’ve just gone into the town, into Avignon, to buy some things. Paint and so on. He’s about to start painting the barn.’

  With all this activity around him – Grete washing down the terrace, Lukas and Justina on their shopping expedition, Lois fitting the sheets, Sophie unpacking – it was a wonder that Benjamin could get any relaxing done at all. But after pouring himself another beer, and allowing the sun to beat down for a few more minutes on his closed eyelids, he began to sink into an agreeable state of calm. He was on the point of falling asleep, in fact, when he heard the noise of another car approaching down the lane.

  Two minutes later, Charlie and Aneeqa appeared on the terrace.

  ‘Ah!’ said Benjamin, getting up. ‘You found it, then.’

  ‘Hello, mate.’ Charlie gave him a hug. ‘Ye
ah, no problem. Long drive from Calais, though. Bloody long. What a place, though, eh? This is absolutely gorgeous.’

  Aneeqa was lingering in the background. Benjamin shook her hand, feeling a sudden shyness. He had only met her once before, more than two years earlier. She looked much more mature now, and had grown very beautiful.

  ‘Well, welcome to Le Vieux Moulin,’ he said to both of them. ‘We’re happy to have you here. Stay as long as you like.’

  ‘She has to be in Segovia on Tuesday,’ said Charlie. ‘It’ll take us a couple of days from here, I reckon. But we’ll stay till Monday, if that’s all right.’

  ‘Perfectly all right. Come on – let me get you both something to drink.’

  He poured Charlie some beer and Aneeqa a citron pressé. It was a great stroke of good fortune, he thought, that he was able to offer them somewhere to break their long journey: she was on her way to begin a year’s course of study in Spain, and Charlie had offered to drive her all the way there – for the sheer pleasure, it seemed, of being in her company for five or six days. They looked tired from their long day’s travelling, all the same, so before long Benjamin directed them upstairs to their rooms.

  ‘My sister’s up there somewhere,’ he said. ‘I’m not sure where she’s decided to put you – you’ll just have to ask.’

  He contemplated going down to the cellar to check the fuse box at this point: but really, he hadn’t had his twenty minutes’ break yet. With those two interruptions, he’d barely been able to rest for five minutes. Oddly, however, his beer glass did seem to be empty, so he poured himself another drink and sat down again at the wrought-iron table. The sun was losing some of its intensity now, and the shade from the biggest willow on the riverbank was starting to steal over the terrace. The temperature was perfect, at this hour of day. If he couldn’t get inspiration for a new book in these conditions, it was never going to happen. Thankfully Grete had finished cleaning the terrace and there was nothing to impede his train of thought, or disturb his tranquillity. Not, at least, until he heard another car approaching from the distance down the poplar-lined lane.