The Moon At Midnight

by Charlotte Bingham

‘You haven’t done a murder. You’ve had an accident, Tam. Accidents happen, that’s all there is to it. Besides, it looks like running away, and that’s no damn good.’

  ‘No, Granddad’s right, and so is Mum.’ Tam shook his head again. ‘Mum thinks the same as Granddad.’ He looked across at his father, suddenly feeling older than him. ‘Besides, as Mum says, we don’t want business affected. Remember when Dulcie Newton’s father got copped in the red light district in Brighton? Well, the Newtons, their trade went to nothing. They had to close all their local newsagents, and start up again somewhere else. And that wouldn’t be fair to Flavia, would it? We’ve got to think of her, haven’t we?’

  Peter sighed, knowing that everything that Tam was saying had to have come from Rusty. He might be able to fight his father-in-law, but he couldn’t fight Rusty, not once her mind was made up.

  ‘Where will you go, though, Tam? What about school? Where can we send you? You’ll have A-levels soon, you can’t just flee the place, start over. It’s ridiculous. What about school?’

  ‘Mum’s already asked Mr Astley.’

  Peter felt his mouth going dry. If Rusty had approached Waldo already it must mean that she meant business. She wouldn’t go to Waldo otherwise. It would be her last resort, but if she’d done that, then she really was set on getting Tam not just out of Bexham, but out of England.

  ‘And what did he say? What did Waldo say?’

  Peter had never felt more useless as he heard his son pronounce his own fate.

  ‘Mr Astley’s got friends in America. He told Mum he’s only got to pick up the telephone and he can find me somewhere where I can go and work in Texas. He has family there, and all.’

  ‘Texas is a long way away, Tam. You’re only seventeen.’

  ‘Old enough to harm, old enough to go abroad, my father used to say,’ Mr Todd chipped in bitterly.

  ‘Texas likes young people. Mr Astley told Mum.’ To placate his father’s ambitions for him, Tam added, ‘and I’ll take my driving test there. I can drive cars and work, Mr Astley says.’

  ‘Blasted cars.’ Mr Todd looked round at his son-in-law, a bitter look in his eyes. ‘That’s what I said. If you’d come in with our family business, you and Rusty, if you’d stuck by Mickey and myself, if you’d stuck to boats, stuck to the water, we’d have none of this come-over, would we? But no, you had to go in for fancy motor cars, and now look what’s happened. I’ll be dead before I see young Tam again, so I will be. Dead as a nail, I tell you. Lying in the churchyard alongside Grandma, poor soul.’

  He gave a great shuddering sigh and sat down suddenly, and although his walking stick crashed to the ground he paid no attention to it, leaving it lying on the floor and sinking his head in his hands in a sudden display of misery.

  ‘It had to be the Tates’ child that you injured, didn’t it, Tam? Couldn’t have been someone we never heard of, or who never heard of us, it had to be the Tates.’

  Tam sat down beside his grandfather and put a hand on his knee. He loved his grandfather so much, and now he’d disgraced him. His father’s despair, his grandfather’s misery, the Tates’ grief and anger, poor little Jenny suffering in hospital, everything, it was all his fault, everything was his fault, and he knew it. Never mind that it was the first accident that he’d ever had. Never mind that his hero, Max, had always said that he never felt nervous driving with Tam, not ever. Max always said he’d put his life in Tam’s hands, he was that good at driving, but never mind all that now, look where his driving had brought him.

  ‘Mr Astley’s right. I’ll have to go to America.’

  ‘It was an accident!’ The words burst out of Peter Sykes so forcibly he felt they were actually coming out of his chest rather than his mouth.

  ‘No, Dad.’ Tam looked up at his father. ‘It wasn’t an accident, it was a crime. We have to face it. What I did was criminal. I should never have been driving that fast.’

  ‘He should never have been driving that fast.’

  Hugh stared across the pub table at Waldo. They were seated in the Three Tuns pretending to eat lunch, while mine host, a retired butler, the now old and venerated Mr Richards, moved slowly round the dining room checking that everything was all right. Although he was still the landlord everyone knew that this was actually all that he did do nowadays.

  Fond as he was of old Richards, in view of the bad news about Jenny, Hugh had been hoping that the old chap would walk on past, not hover, but Richards, as was his custom when Hugh was in, came up to the table.

  ‘I’m very sorry to hear about your little granddaughter, Mr Tate. What a shocking thing to happen.’

  ‘Thank you, Richards, but in the event she is going to be all right, eventually.’ Hugh pushed his lamb cutlet to one side of his plate, half eaten. He was miserable, and they all knew it.

  ‘They can do wonders with plastic surgery now,’ Waldo said, for what seemed, even to him, to be perhaps the hundredth time.

  ‘Young Tam Sykes will never forgive himself.’ Richards spoke factually. ‘And his mother will never forgive his father for indulging him. The problem is Rusty’s never approved of his father’s ambitions for him. She never wanted the boy to be encouraged to become a racing driver.’

  ‘No, I dare say she didn’t.’ Hugh got up abruptly. ‘I say, Richards, I think I’ll have another gin and tonic, if you don’t mind?’

  Waldo watched the two older men making their way back to the bar with a feeling of relief. It gave him time to think out how exactly to phrase what he had to say to Hugh. It was not going to be easy to break the news to him that he was sending Tam to America. It would not be the kind of news that the older Tates would take well. Impossible for them to prevent themselves from seeing Waldo as taking sides, and while Jenny would be paying the price for the accident for years to come, it would appear to them that Tam was being not just let off without a punishment, but given his liberty to boot.

  ‘Hugh.’ Once Waldo could see that the older man was looking better for two gin and tonics and a glass of wine, not to mention his lunch, which he had eventually managed to eat, he felt brave enough to broach the subject. ‘You know how I feel about what has happened to Jenny, don’t you?’

  Hugh, whose eyes had been drifting towards the window of the Three Tuns, and from there out to the estuary beyond, to the waters that he had been sailing in now for half a century, turned his attention reluctantly back from the view to Waldo.

  ‘Yes, yes, of course,’ he said mechanically. ‘Of course I know how you feel about Jenny. This particular grandfather perhaps most of all; Sir Arthur – you know, Judy’s father – because of not really getting on with children, not as much as he would like, at any rate, I’ve been more of a grandfather to her. Doesn’t mean Arthur doesn’t love her, you know. Bit shy, that’s all.’

  ‘Exactly so.’ Waldo took out his cigar case and removed an expensive cigar from it, lighting the end, and sucking long and hard on the delicious Havana. ‘Exactly.’ He paused, thinking how best to continue, knowing that whatever happened he was going to be in hot water. ‘We all love Jenny.’ His brilliant dark eyes stared at Hugh through the cigar smoke as he puffed. ‘But some of us also love Tam. I’m actually his proxy, pretend godfather, you know,’ he added conversationally, while he too diplomatically fixed his gaze on the view of the sea beyond the window.

  ‘Tam Sykes? Your godson? Please don’t attempt to have a good word to say about that boy, not around me, Waldo. He’s obviously rotten. The Sykeses have always indulged him, fast cars and garish clothes – and now look at the result. It doesn’t bear thinking of, really it doesn’t.’

  Waldo put up his hand. ‘I’m sure everything you say is true, Hugh, and no doubt more than true, too, but Tam is still only seventeen. Very well he was showing off in front of Kim, because he’s got a crush on her. Young men do those sorts of things. I know I did those sorts of things. I just never had that kind of accident, but the fact that I didn’t, when I look back, the fact that I didn’t was ju
st luck. That’s all, just luck.’

  ‘Are you trying to tell me that Jenny’s accident was just bad luck, Waldo? Because if so, I’m afraid I can’t agree with you. What we are facing here is an indulged boy, indulgent parents, and now – disaster.’

  ‘No, what I’m trying to tell you is that I’m sending Tam to America, because I want to try to help him, and Jenny, of course. But I’ve known Tam since he was a little fellow living in the flat in my house just after the war, and Rusty was cleaning for me. I can’t desert him now. The reason I’m telling you about this is I don’t want to deceive you, Hugh. I know how dear Jenny is to you, and how much she means to us all, but Tam is Rusty and Peter’s son, and I am very fond of him too. I can see that while he has done wrong, to stay here would be suicidal for him. There’s only one way for him, and that’s out, and I’m helping him to take that way out, because not to help him, in my opinion, would be wrong.’

  Hugh looked at Waldo. ‘You must do as you wish, Waldo.’

  ‘Hugh . . .’

  Hugh stood up. ‘No, Waldo. There’s no more to be said. You must do as you wish, but frankly if you could see Jenny as I’ve just seen her I dare say you might not feel quite so generous towards Tam Sykes.’

  After which he took out his wallet and, placing some money for his lunch on the table, left abruptly.

  Hardly a minute had gone by when Richards returned. ‘Not a good time for all the Tates, then?’

  Waldo shook his head miserably, and indicated for Richards to sit down in the vacated seat. ‘Not a good time for the Sykeses either.’

  ‘Tam will recover. Will Jenny though?’

  ‘After plastic surgery, yes.’

  ‘Don’t expect Mr Tate to be comforted by that, Mr Astley, will you? Jenny is his precious little flower, always has been.’

  ‘I will help Jenny in every way I can, but I have to help Tam too, Richards.’

  Richards looked across at Waldo and sighed. ‘Aren’t you ever going to give up trying to help people, Mr Astley?’

  ‘No, at least not if I can help it!’

  They both laughed, and the moment having lightened Richards returned to his usual seat behind the bar, and Waldo went to meet Rusty and Tam who were waiting for him to drive them to London Airport.

  As he drove to the Sykeses house in Churchester, Waldo became more and more aware that this newest calamity that had hit Bexham would probably divide it, because he’d seen it happen in his home town when he was growing up. It was always the same with the aftermath of accidents that involved young people: everyone took sides, families were set against each other, nothing was ever the same again.

  The Tates’ favourite grandchild had been horribly injured. As far as the rest of Bexham was concerned, blame would be duly apportioned, sides taken, and no one would condone Waldo’s helping to find Tam a safe haven. It would be seen as being partial. It would not be understood.

  In going to the aid of Tam Sykes, Waldo must be seen, not just by the Tates but possibly by Lionel Eastcott too, as being utterly wrong. Nevertheless he continued on his journey, driving to the Sykeses’ house in Churchester. After all he had his conscience, other people had theirs, and if it left him friendless there was nothing else that he could do.

  Had Waldo been standing by Jenny’s hospital bed at that moment he might have felt less sure of his position, and been even more sympathetic to Hugh’s private grief.

  Had he felt the pain that Jenny was feeling at that moment, been conscious of it, he might have been as anguished as her grandfather. For the fact was that no matter how kind the nurses, how caring the surgeons and doctors, how often they filled her with painkillers, Jenny was now knowing pain as she had never imagined it to be. There was, after all, a limit to the painkillers she could have administered to her, and in between there was nothing but agony, an agony which she felt could never ever be relieved, until the next life-saving injection.

  Ever afterwards, if anyone asked her, Jenny would always tell them that she could not remember much about the accident, when the truth was she could remember far too much. She could remember turning and smiling back at Kim as she settled in the car. She could remember Tam whistling and shouting above the sound of the revving engine. She could hear his laughter and see the daredevil light in his eye as he boasted that he was going to drive faster than sound, and she could remember her hand going over the brake, ready to pull it up, if necessary, and how frightened she felt. Then she remembered the car going forward, the mown grass on the rough track flattening in front of the old banger, Tam laughing while the car was going faster and faster. Finally had come the sound of her screaming, and then, darkness.

  It was the waking time that was the agony. The being awake and not wanting to be, because being awake meant enduring the terrible pain. The anxious faces of her parents, vaguely appearing in front of her, the sound of everyone’s voices. The kindness in the eyes of the doctors and nurses, the endless injections, while all the time knowing, as she could not help doing, that it was not just now that the pain was going to be there. It must be going to go on and on. She knew this because everyone kept telling her that she mustn’t worry about her face, that it would not be long before they would be able to repair it. They were going to make it like new.

  ‘As soon as they can they’ll be sending you to Bristol or London, and they will start to make good the damage. You’d be amazed what they will be able to do, really you will.’

  After that, although she was coming and going so much, lapsing into unconsciousness, while still for some reason able to hear, Jenny remembered the distant sound of her poor mother’s crying and her father’s comforting words to her, usually followed by one of the doctors talking to them, or the nurses offering tea.

  Sholto’s voice was always the best. Sholto who was always so four square, full of the kind of marvellous energy with which boys who can’t stand to be indoors always seem to be brimming over.

  ‘I’ve come to tell you about my sailing lesson today. I went out with Grandpa’s friend Captain Bettington. We took a picnic. Captain Bettington took a leather case with gin in it, and we sailed Chummy to the point, and round the lighthouse, and back again, and I did it, all by myself.’

  As he finished his account of his day on this particular afternoon Sholto saw his sister’s lips moving. He leaned forward to try to hear what she was saying.

  ‘Don’t you mean “by my own”?’

  As soon as he realised what Jenny was saying Sholto’s own lips started to tremble, which he jolly well didn’t want them to do, so he quickly swiped his arm across his eyes to stop the tears coming, hoping against hope that no one would come into Jenny’s room, and see him.

  When he was little he had never said ‘by myself’, he’d always said ‘by my own’. He knew Jenny was making a jokey reference to this. She must be in agony, but she was trying to make him laugh in the old way.

  ‘Hurry up and get better soon, Jenny!’ he told her, having thought he had successfully swallowed the lump in his throat away. He tried to say something else, but failed. Finally giving in to his grief, Sholto shoved his head under the counterpane on his sister’s bed, and sobbed his heart out.

  ‘I don’t think you’d better go again. Not for the moment.’

  ‘I want to.’

  Waldo shook his head firmly. He had asked Lionel to meet him in the Three Tuns to have an early lunch, knowing that the poor old chap, as he himself had just put it, had been ‘a little untidy medically’ over the past days.

  ‘No, Lionel, it’s bad enough for you imagining what young Jenny’s going through, but at your age, to drive there every day, it’s too much of a strain. No wonder you’ve had a bad turn.’

  ‘It wasn’t a bad turn. It was a small turn – nothing to speak of.’

  ‘It was not nothing, and it was not something – but it was a bit of a warning. You must take care of yourself, really you must. It won’t help Jenny, if you’re taken ill. Besides, I need you for bridge at the we
ekend. We need to put in some practice for the challenge match in the spring. We shall be right up against it, I’m telling you.’

  Lionel sighed, staring into Waldo’s handsome, tanned, middle-aged face with its still brilliant eyes. He knew only too well that Waldo had been going through torture about the accident that Tam Sykes had caused, and not least because he was so fond of Lionel’s granddaughter. Lionel also knew that his fellow grandparents, Hugh and Loopy, were finding it well nigh impossible to socialise with him at the moment, for the simple reason that Waldo had refused to take sides over the accident.

  Much as Lionel appreciated the intensity of the Tates’ feelings, and despite the fact that they shared two grandchildren, in all honesty he simply couldn’t sympathise with them, and this despite knowing what Jenny was going through.

  Lionel’s point of view was that they had all known Tam since he was a nipper, and that he had always been a bit of a goer, but there was no knowing now what Tam too was suffering, and would always suffer, on account of his foolhardiness that afternoon. No one could take back the moment, that was certain; on the other hand, to Lionel’s way of thinking, no good was going to come from apportioning blame.

  ‘I don’t want the poor child to think I’ve forgotten her. I don’t want Jenny missing my coming to see her. I don’t want to leave her lying there all alone in that great big hospital.’ Lionel turned his head and looked out of the inn window towards the estuary. ‘Her face, you know. The surgeon told me that to begin with, when the bandages come off, we mustn’t be too shocked. She’ll look a bit like a cracked cup.’ He stopped, and sighed again. ‘She’s had everything in life you could want, has young Jenny. Her parents loved her from the moment she arrived in this world. She has a golden nature, gets on with everyone, loves music and books, is good at sailing, and then one moment, one stupid, stupid moment, and bang – everything’s ruined for her. Not her fault, not necessarily anyone’s fault, young people do these things; they do stupid things without thinking.’

  ‘Apparently, in America, it’s called the it won’t happen to me syndrome. It’s a whole subject in psychology. People even take degrees in it—’