The King's Shilling

by Fraser John Macnaught

  “What happened?”

  “Cracker backed down. So they say. It were one of them times where there were no witnesses but word got round fast, you know? Your Dad stood up to him, faced him down, and Cracker lost his bottle.”

  “One on one?”

  “I reckon… I’m not sure they even went at it. It were more a question of… what’s that word the younguns use now? ‘Respect’… Cracker saw summat in your Dad and that was it. He slunk off, and Alan were never bothered after that. Off limits.”

  “Fuck…”

  “Right… that was your Dad.”

  “I sometimes think I never even knew him.”

  “He were a hard lad, your Dad. He used to follow Town, you know… one of the Cowshed lads… away matches, the full bit. Back in the days when going to a match was more like a war than a family fuckin’ picnic.”

  “This is what, the early 70s?”

  “Around then, yeah… When Town got promoted to the First Division. They went to a Leeds game, Elland Road, and Alan got the shit kicked out of him. Bad… very nasty. Bloke took a hammer to his head and smashed it up…. Fuckin’ pulped it…. Alan learnt how to fight after that, took a few judo and karate lessons. Carried a knife for a while. He never got beat up again.”

  “Jesus…!”

  “Aye. But when he met your Mum he stopped all that. Gave up the footie and stopped scrappin’.

  Frank watched Paul as he dipped his finger in the cold tea and licked it, lost in thought.

  “But there were other sides to him too, you know. He had a lovely voice, Alan…”

  This was news to Paul.

  “Dad, a singing voice?”

  “Oh aye… I remember when they had that big concert, that Live Aid thing, and we’d organised a big do at the social and they had bingo and tombolas and jumble sales and raffles for people to give money… and they had a ginormous screen with a stereo hooked up, and people were dancin’, it were a grand do… And me and Alan were runnin’ the bar and chippin’ in with the food and whatnot and we were there all day preparin’ and cookin’ and stuff and your Dad was singin’ along to every song while he served tables and cleared stuff away… It were amazin’… He went down a treat… the singin’ waiter… I’d never seen anythin’ like it… a regular Robbie Williams he was… dawn till dusk… I don’t know what got into ‘im…”

  Paul tried to remember if he’d ever heard his father sing. Maybe a couple of times in church, when someone had got married or someone had died, but only half-heartedly, with no conviction. Never at home. The radio was often on in the kitchen, and Mum would hum along sometimes as she cooked or cleaned, but he couldn’t picture his father singing. Whistling in the garden… maybe… while he dug and hoed and planted and weeded, but only that vague sort of whistling with no specific tune…

  Frank interrupted his thoughts.

  “I’ll get onto the lawyers. You should go round.”

  “Yes, I suppose I should.”

  “Maybe I’ll come with you…”

  “Fine. Good idea. Oh, and was it you that put flowers on their grave? Recently?”

  Frank shook his head.

  “Not recently, no.”

  Something had changed. Perhaps something he had said himself or something that Frank had said had made him feel differently about what he was doing and why. But he felt something stir inside him… not quite definable, but on the edge of understanding.

  He also had a reason to stay, at least for a while longer.

  Frank accompanied him to the solicitors’ office, Pearson, Pearson and Shelby. None of the original partners was still alive and it now seemed to be a one-man operation, almost entirely devoted to the affairs of the Hartley family and their various companies and businesses, judging by the names on the filing cabinets in the office they were shown into. They met a man called Alistair Drake, a thin, pasty-faced man whose suit seemed to be too big for him, and who showed no interest at all in any explanations or excuses for not having shown up in his office before. He read various official papers and checked their identities and asked them to sign some forms, telling them there would be other formalities to meet later, and then he handed Paul a couple of envelopes and he bid them good day.

  They went to a bank and had to wait before seeing a well-built Jamaican lady who smiled frequently and who smelt of lavender. A safe was opened and a file was taken out and another envelope was handed over. More forms were signed and Paul opened an account in Frank’s name and put in half of the 63,490 pounds his parents’ life insurance policy had coughed up. The blood money.

  The sun broke through the cloud as they emerged from the bank and Frank led Paul into a quiet pub near the market hall. It was midday and the first lunchtime customers were arriving.

  “This calls for a wee celebration, son. And it’s my shout.”

  Frank’s hands were trembling and he seemed to be twitching all over with excitement.

  “I’m having a whisky, a double. What’s your poison?”

  Paul thought for a moment.

  “I’ll join you.”

  Another piece of history was going to be buried. Something had definitely changed.

  Paul drove Frank home from the pub. He stopped outside Frank’s house and he gave Frank his telephone number and his address. The two men shook hands and nodded at each other. Frank got out and went inside and closed the door.

  Paul called the gastro-pub and said he’d be staying for another few days. He checked his bags to see if he needed anything then did some shopping and made a few more telephone calls. Then he drove out of town and along the valley and up the hill towards Calderwood Hall and he pulled up in front of the Cottage. He sat in the car for a minute looking at it then opened the door and got out.

  He took the keys from one of the envelopes and slid one into the lock on the front door. Through the grimy panes in the top half of the door he could see vague shapes inside: a table and chairs, some cardboard boxes on the floor, a cupboard...

  The key turned a little then stuck. He twisted it some more and felt a click. He pushed the door, but it only moved a couple of inches then jammed. He used his foot and the palm of his hand and pushed harder and the door squeaked and creaked open.

  Instinctively his hand reached for the light switch just to his right but there was no electricity.

  He stepped inside and smelt the stale air and the dust but no damp. That was good, he thought. He opened the windows, two at the front and two at the back and a small one at the side. He opened the back door and a sudden strong gust of air blew through the whole place. He’d forgotten about that... He remembered his father’s obsession with the doors... “Only one open at a time, or the doors slam and the glass might break”, he’d said many a time. He’d received a few cuffs around the head for forgetting. One time a whole sheaf of papers had blown up from the kitchen table and fluttered down onto the freshly-washed tiles and were all smudged and sodden. Dad had not been pleased.

  He found a rag and wedged the back door open. The front one was stuck anyway. The breeze settled into a faint draught.

  “The ghosts have just blown away”, he thought to himself.

  He looked around at what had been their kitchen and living-room, the space divided by a breakfast bar his father had built. There were three stools standing next to it, one bigger than the others. For some reason he thought of the Mary Celeste but there were no half-eaten plates on the table or unfinished drinks or any sign of life at all. Everything had been cleaned and cleared away and the only things out of place were three large boxes on the floor, sealed up with tape.

  He went upstairs and looked into his parents bedroom. There was a bed and a bedside table and a wardrobe and a small armchair, but no sheets or blankets or pillows and cushions. The walls were bare and the paint was peeling. He looked out of the window and over the back garden and wondered if it was part of the inheritance or whether it was still part of the Castle grounds.

  The bathroom was relativel
y clean but a dripping tap had left a crusted brown trail on the wash-basin and the toilet bowl was dried out and thick with lime scale.

  The small office was empty; just some bare boards and a pile of broken shelves and a plain, simple desk that looked as if it was going to fall over any minute.

  He climbed down the spiral staircase to his old room. It seemed tiny. The walls were covered in pale squares and rectangles where his pictures and posters had once hung. The thin carpet showed four dimples where the legs of his bed had stood. He opened the window and breathed in and out for a minute then turned round and went back to the kitchen. He looked under the sink and found the main water tap and turned it on. He tried the sink tap and after a few seconds it spluttered into life, spitting out brown water before settling into a clear stream. He could hear a cistern filling upstairs.

  He went out to the car and opened another envelope and looked at the deeds to the Cottage. He skimmed through a list, an inventory, and found the information he was looking for. One article specified the area covered by the property and this included the surface occupied by the building and half an acre to the front, outside the Castle walls. Paul had always assumed that this was public land, although he’d never really thought about it. It wasn’t marked off; there was no fence or perimeter line. He’d have to check it out.

  There was an asterisk with a reference to an addendum and Paul flicked through a couple of pages till he found it. The addendum defined a further area, covering the back garden, that had been added to the title. Paul looked at the date and the signature. The addendum had been signed two weeks after the main deed. Two weeks after Greville’s will had been read and the estate had been settled. The signature was illegible.

  It was two o’clock now and he realised he hadn’t eaten and that the whisky he’d drunk with Frank was eating at his stomach. He grabbed a couple of sandwiches he had bought and a can of Coke and walked through the house and out into the back garden. He looked at the weeds and the dead plants and tried to work out where the paths had been but they were all grown over and indistinct amongst the general tangle. He thought about the enormity of the task that lay ahead, clearing everything away and re-landscaping the whole area, but he didn’t feel daunted or dispirited. It felt like a challenge and he thought he could meet it.

  He ate the sandwiches and drank the Coke and put the litter in a bin-bag he tore from a roll he’d bought. He wandered off across the meadow, heading away from the Castle to the stretch of flat land leading to the woods in the north-east corner of the estate. He walked through the vegetable garden and past the orchard, both looking a little forlorn and neglected, and skirted round a broad swathe of rhododendron bushes beyond which lay the edge of the lake. It was maybe two hundred and fifty yards long and a hundred yards across, but it had appeared enormous to Paul as a child. When he had read the Swallows and Amazons books, he had recreated the tales on the banks of the lake and in the surrounding copses and on the island. And he and Sarah had made up their own stories and adventures, inventing treasure hunts, overcoming evil and invisible baddies…

  The opposite bank of the lake was lined by trees, willows and poplars, that backed up against the outer wall. The sun emerged from behind a cloud and the reflections of the trees on the water shimmered green and yellow on the still surface. To the left was a small jetty, where a couple of rowing-boats had once been tied up, but there was nothing there now and the jetty looked rotten and fragile. Just off to his right, toward the middle of the lake, was the island itself, not much bigger than a couple of tennis courts, and Paul felt an echo of the flutter in his stomach that had always preceded his visits here, as he looked forward to the adventures he and Sarah would create and act out in the place they had always felt safe and happy… or almost always…

  A thin finger of land jutted out from the bank close to where he stood now, a grassy peninsula, stretching out for thirty yards or so towards the island, and at the end was the Japanese bridge, a slender low arch, reaching across the water. The bridge had once been painted bright red – he himself had added a coat one summer – but it now resembled the jetty, a dull, faded brown colour, and he knew it was probably falling apart after years of neglect. Through the fronds of a tall weeping-willow he could just make out the summer-house. It was not much more than an octagonal garden shed, but to Paul and Sarah it had been their secret den, their own private castle, the scene of innumerable games and childhood fantasies…

  It had once had a domed roof, painted gold. Paul wondered if that too had fallen into a state of disrepair. The trees on the island were huge now. Paul could remember some of them being planted. He and Sarah had carved their names on them. And on warmer days they had lain and played in their shade… until the day the island was declared out of bounds.

  Chapter 15

  Tuesday August 17th 1993

  It’s August 1993 and I’m nearly 13 and Sarah’s 11.

  It’s a lovely hot sunny day and we’re having a picnic on the island.

  We’re sort of hiding, because we got caught once swimming in the lake without swimming costumes when I was 10 and Sarah was 9 and Sarah’s Dad got angry so we’ve come to the other side of the island where Greville can’t see us because there’s no place he could see us from except the lake and he doesn’t like water. He can’t swim. Which is very odd for a grown man like Greville Hartley. Everybody else I know can swim. I can’t swim very well, not like for a sponsored swim or a half-mile certificate, but I can do a hundred yards of breaststroke and a length of crawl.

  We sit on a blanket and Sarah tries to teach me how to play a game of cards called cribbage. But I keep tickling her feet with bits of grass until she throws the cards in the air and says “You’re hopeless!” So then we turn all the cards face down on the blanket and we play pelmanism and I win and I say “Who’s hopeless now?”.

  Then we put some sun cream on each other’s arms and faces because it’s very hot and I go all pink if I get too much sun, but Sarah doesn’t, she goes nice and brown. And she’s already quite brown now.

  She flicks a finger at the shilling around my neck on the chain and says: “Don’t you ever take it off, then?”

  And I say “No. It doesn’t go rusty, like Mum said. It must be solid silver”.

  “Actually, silver does go a bit rusty,”, she says. “Well, not really rusty, but a bit dirty and black, like the knives and forks in the old dresser in the scullery.’

  “Stainless steel then, or tin… or platinum or zinc…”

  “I think it’s aluminium, cos it’s very light. I found the chain in the attic. It’s not valuable or anything.”

  “It is to me.”

  “I know”, she says. “And to me too, cos I know you think about me when you wear it.”

  And then I feel a bit sad because I haven’t given her something to make her think of me and I’m just going to say this to her but it’s as if she can read my mind because she says “And I think about you wearing it all the time.”

  We eat some crisps and some ham sandwiches and I read a chapter from The House at Pooh Corner to Sarah. It’s a book for children, but we both like it and I do funny voices and it makes us laugh.

  Then we drink some lemonade but it’s still hot so we decide to have a swim.

  We take our clothes off, one thing at a time. Me first, then Sarah, then me again and then Sarah again.

  We walk down to the edge of the lake and put our toes in the water. It’s cold and we shiver but we hold hands and say ‘let’s go’ and we step into the water and wade in and then Sarah dives off head first into the water and all I can see is her bottom peeping out above the surface with the sun shining on it.

  Then I dive in too and the water’s very cold and I’m almost out of breath but it’s clean and its refreshing and it’s fun and Sarah’s there splashing me, and she’s smiling and she looks like a beautiful mermaid but with legs.

  After that we get dried and sit on some towels and huddle together for a bit because we�
��re shivering then Sarah teases me because my willy has shrunk from the cold water and then she remembers something and she goes over to her bag and takes something out and sits down next to me again.

  She has a tube of lipstick.

  “Where did you get that?”

  “Melanie Metcalfe from school gave it to me.”

  “I thought you might have stolen it from your Mum.”

  “I don’t steal things.”

  “I know. Neither do I. And you don’t tell lies either. Or swear. You’re perfect.”

  She knows I’m joking but she doesn’t laugh or even smile.

  “No, I don’t lie… but I might not tell all the truth sometimes…”

  “That’s different…”

  “Yes it is.”

  She takes the top off the lipstick and the red bit comes up when she turns the bottom and she puts some on her mouth and I laugh.

  “You look like a clown”, I say, “You need a mirror.”

  “I have one in my bag”, she says, pointing.

  I take a small mirror from her bag and it catches the sun and flashes in her face so I play with it some more and she giggles and then I give her the mirror and I watch as she puts the lipstick on. She licks her lips.

  “It tastes nice”, she says. “Do you want to taste it?”

  And it does taste nice. It tastes nicer than anything I’ve ever tasted before. And I want more.

  After that we lie on our backs on the grass and close our eyes. Her hand finds mine and she squeezes it.

  “We’re growing up”, she says.

  “Yes, we are.”

  “Are we still children?”

  “I suppose so. You’ve only just left junior school and I don’t have any real man hair yet.”

  “Yes, but I’ve had my first period and your voice is breaking.”