She handed him a well-filled glass and raised her own.
‘Here’s to us. There’s few like us and them that are is dead.’
‘If you didn’t get Judy’s letter, you really won’t know why I’m here,’ Walter said, walking round the dimly lit room and peering at what paintings he could make out on walls that appeared to be covered in hessian. Meanwhile, the Widow suddenly dropped to her knees and crawling across to the fireplace began to build a fire.
‘I’ll light a few lamps up in a cat’s tail,’ she said from somewhere below him. ‘Soon as I have this lit. Bloody old Rufus was meant to do it but then the sea was meant to go backwards for Canute. Isn’t that right? You might as well call view hulloo in a fog.’
‘Are the lamps oil? If so, I can light them.’
‘Then light away, light away. I won’t stop you.’
Walter lit four large antique brass oil lamps and soon the elegant room was bathed in a soft warm glow, each lamp as it was lit revealing yet another remarkable painting or drawing on a wall somewhere. Once all the lamps were alight Walter could see there was hardly a free space left anywhere.
‘Good gracious,’ he said. ‘Are you a collector?’
‘Me? What of ? I can barely collect me own thoughts let alone anything of value. If you’re talking about the pitchers, now that’s nothing to do with my taste or not. I just get given them – and I just get to hang them. I take no credit. These is all the work of the family.’
‘Your children? These wonderful paintings and drawings are all done by your children?’
The Widow laughed, getting to her feet now the fire was alight and searching the fireplace for her box of cheroots.
‘My family aren’t my children, you dear man, gracious me, no,’ she said. ‘My family’s them that I have here. My family’s my guests.’
Walter looked at her, then back at the paintings. Above the fire was what he thought was a particularly fine painting of cliffs and sea, quite modern for Walter’s usual taste, and wonderful in its use of colour and light. Looking round the room he saw there were another three or possibly four paintings by the same artist.
‘I don’t know very much,’ Walter offered. ‘But I’d say these were quite remarkable.’
‘And wouldn’t you be right?’ the Widow approved. ‘Sure they have two of his in Dublin’s National Gallery now. Sweet man, he was. He was here for two years before he spoke a word, and God wasn’t he forever trying to throw himself off the cliffs or something daft. He’s fine now, in case you’re wondering. Lives up in Clare and often comes to see us all. Lost all his family in a fire when he was two. Two years old and straight into the orphanage. Sometimes I don’t think this world deserves us, that’s a fact. That’s how much we care. We take a nipper like that and put him in an orphanage – where I have to say they told him the most dreadful things. No wonder he never spoke. You can hardly stop him now. Another ball of malt?’
His hostess, having finished her first drink, took Walter’s only half empty glass and refilled it to the brim.
He turned away and looked at another picture on the wall, a lovely line drawing of a sea bird executed in what looked like charcoal.
‘You know who I am, don’t you?’ he said after a moment, when his replenished glass had been handed back to him.
‘You’re Mr Tate, Judy’s husband – sure I know that. Didn’t you tell me in the kitchen?’
‘No. No, I think you knew before that.’
‘Wasn’t I asleep before that? So how could I?’
‘It was as you woke up. There was a look in your eyes. I saw it. I’m very good at recognising looks in people’s eyes.’
‘So is your daughter. Of course I knew who you were. I knew it the moment I came to. I’m quite handy too at seeing what’s in people’s eyes – and I could see Kim there in yours.’
‘Did you get Judy’s letter?’
‘I did not. She telephoned me neither since the lines have been down in all the storms. Kim’s not here, you know that. She left here some time ago, but then you’ll know that too.’
Walter shook his head. ‘All I was told was that she was working here. So I assumed she was still at Loughnalaire.’
The Widow looked at him, veiling her surprise, and sat down on the sofa opposite the fire.
‘You may be in for a surprise, Mr Tate. I have to tell you that. You do know that trees are not the only things that change, and shed their leaves?’
‘I’m beginning to find that out,’ Walter replied. ‘And please call me Walter.’
‘And you’re to call me Atlanta. Although I don’t object to “darling” once we’re on to the wine!’ She gave a great throaty laugh and lit up a cheroot. ‘Your daughter’s very direct, you know. Probably more so now – but then she has been doing remarkable things.’
‘She always was pretty direct,’ Walter replied, remembering how whenever he had been vexed with her even as a little girl she had stood up to him and fought her corner.
‘She told me I was an old fraud,’ the Widow continued, giving another laugh. ‘We were having words one day, and she said I was a lot of hot air and a fraud. I axed her why she thought so, and she said I was nothing but one great act – a bit of typical Irish baloney was what she said. Imagine that, a bit of typical Irish baloney. And I told her she was absolutely right, so she was. That I wasn’t always as I am now, do you see. That this has all grown as this place grew about me, but then I said to her well sure, but then it had to, didn’t it? Because how could a bit of non-baloney run a place like this? A place like this had to have someone like me at its – you know.’
‘Its helm.’
‘Its helm. But then I’d never have bought ordinary. I doubt if I’d even recognise it. And your daughter has certainly not bought it either. She’s doing great things, you know. Good things. Good things is better. I think you’ll see quite a girl in your daughter. I hope so anyway, or else I’ll have failed you – and more importantly I’ll have failed her. Now for God’s sake get into your drink, man, so as we can get an evening going. Or are you too exhausted for a bit of craic?’
‘Craic?’ Walter wondered. ‘Craic?’
‘My, my,’ the Widow sighed. ‘We don’t have to guess who’s never taken the ferry before.’
Max had left Jenny and Tam in London and driven down to Bexham for the weekend. He sang all the way down in the car, looking forward to seeing his mother and stepfather, to having a pint at the Three Tuns, perhaps taking a boat out for some freezing cold fishing, or going for an equally cold walk on the Downs.
As he turned into the road that led down to the harbour his heart rose, as it always did when he saw the inlet with all the fishing boats bobbing, the cottages and houses set about the estuary, the seagulls circling, the rush of water lapping up the sides of the old walls. Somehow, for him, always and ever, Bexham would be his England. It was his grandfather, now lying at rest in the churchyard, it was his mother who had played with him on the green, it was all his friends, old and young, who would even now, like him, be thinking of their Saturday beer, and all those other dear things that seem to make up the ideal country weekend.
The first person he bumped into in the Three Tuns was Waldo.
‘Young Max, back to see the old folk no doubt?’ Waldo asked delightedly. He put both arms round Max and hugged him. Max was quite happy to hug his grandfather’s best friend back, not caring what anyone thought.
‘A pint, Richards, for the prodigal son come back to the fold!’
‘I’m too old to pull pints, Mr Astley,’ Richards grumbled, but he pulled one for Max, and pushed it across the bar. ‘Lovely to see you back, young Max. Going to stay down and help rescue Bexham, I hope?’
‘Of course,’ Max agreed, hastily remembering the Cause. ‘Yes, of course. How is it all?’ he asked, turning to Waldo, who was paying for his beer.
‘I have to say that I think that it is not going at all well, Max.’ Waldo looked momentarily gloomy, and started to dri
nk his gin and tonic a little too quickly. ‘It is David against Goliath, and at the moment all the weight is on Goliath’s side, so we may have to rewrite the Bible.’ He lit a cigar and breathed out. ‘I have no idea how we’re going to win, but we do at least have to try. Vested interest, you know, vested interest is so real, I sometimes think it is more real than war. They want to build Lego houses around the harbour, and put a bistro where the boatyard is, and don’t let’s even contemplate to whom they’re going to lease the Yacht Club site. Rumour is that it will be Donald Short, and as you know the design for Short Marinas is usually done by a man who is more used to drawing up factories on the outskirts of industrial towns. It is such an uphill battle, the fight for beauty against business interests, for nature against monied interests, for health against everything. But fight we must, and we will. Whether we will win is quite another thing.’
All the time Waldo was talking Max’s mind was dipping in and out of the problems that Bexham was facing. The most serious was obviously money. However much money they scrounged from each other the residents would be hard put to reach up to the knees of the people moving in on their village, unless something spectacular was organised.
‘I have an idea, Waldo. I won’t tell you, in case I can’t bring it off, but if I could it would make thousands and thousands for the Fighting Fund.’
‘I have an idea too, Max, and it too will make thousands and thousands.’
‘Good man.’
Max punched Waldo lightly on the shoulder and then turned his attentions once more to his favourite beer, but as he did so he couldn’t help wondering why it was that the look in Waldo’s eyes was so sad. He suddenly seemed older, less Waldo-like, less ebullient, thinner.
Mattie was waiting anxiously by the window overlooking the green, watching for Max.
John watched her from afar feeling that particular mixture of impatience and jealousy he always felt when Max was expected home, feelings that were only natural since Max was not his son. God knows he tried hard with him, but somehow Max never could live up to Sholto, who was such a straightforward sort of chap, more of a man’s man, less complicated than Max, less peppery, if you like. John had never asked Mattie much about Max’s father, but he knew from what he had seen of Max as the boy was growing up that the father, an American apparently, must have been quite a character, and good-looking, because Max was good-looking, but not easy like Sholto.
‘Ah, there he is.’ Mattie’s worried mother’s frown was replaced by a look of relief and she hurried off to the front door.
‘Darling.’ She embraced Max at the door, and as she did so she smelt the familiar aroma of the well-brewed beer from the Three Tuns, not to mention nicotine.
‘Sorry I’m late, Ma. Stopped off to have a pint with Waldo at the Three Tuns and discuss the Bexham Fighting Fund.’
Max made it sound as if he’d driven down especially to have a pint with Waldo and discuss the Fund. He thought it quite a cunning ruse, until he saw his stepfather’s face.
‘We’ve been waiting lunch for you, Max. Your mother’s been worried.’ He looked pointedly at the sitting room clock.
‘I say, I am sorry, John.’ Max always found himself playing the part of a ‘jolly good chap’ when he was confronted with his stepfather, the kind of young man who could always, even nowadays, be found in a Terence Rattigan play, the kind of fellow who would never stray very far from his tennis racket. ‘But you know how it is, I got held up on the way down, late for Waldo, couldn’t get to the pub phone, such a queue for it on Saturdays, et cetera, et cetera.’
Max smiled disarmingly at his stepfather, but John turned away.
‘It’s always something with you, Max, always something.’ He looked back at him. ‘And can’t you afford to go to a barber, old chap?’
Max stared after him, half closing his eyes, his suitcase still by his side. He felt like driving straight back to London. His mother came back into the room.
‘Lunch isn’t ruined, love, really. Leave your case right there, and come straight through to the dining room. I’ve done a new Robert Carrier recipe for you. Don’t know what it tastes like, but it smells simply delicious. although I say so myself.’
John followed Max into the dining room. It was never a new recipe for him when he came back from the pub on Saturdays, it was always quiche and salad.
Late that night, after trying to toe the line with his stepfather, Max retired to bed exhausted. He never could get it right with John, although he knew his stepfather did love him, but just lately he was getting it even less right. His mother on the other hand was sympathetic to the point of indulgence, rarely criticising him, but on the other hand seemingly not very interested either. It was at these times that Max missed his grandfather, to whom he had been so close. Lionel had such a sense of humour. He could always jolly Max along, dig him out of the black holes into which he sometimes disappeared. Lionel it was who had encouraged him to play golf, to take an interest in politics, all the things that, Max felt, his own father would have done, should he have known him.
It was a subject that Max had raised on the walk around the estuary with Mattie. Should he get in touch with his own father? Should he be told who his father was? Would it be of any interest to him? Mattie had immediately become agitated, begging Max to do no such thing.
‘It wouldn’t be fair on either of you, especially not him. Leave in peace what should stay in peace.’
Max had accepted this and they had both returned to the house for tea in the kind of spirits that should lead to a pleasant evening and a good night’s sleep.
Now Max was lying in his old bed, staring up at the whitewashed ceiling of his boyhood room, and letting the whole evening pass through his mind, as if it was a piece of film. His stepfather had nearly had a coronary over dinner, and it was all Max’s fault.
Poor John, he just couldn’t see it, that was all. And not just ‘it’ – he couldn’t see anything. He couldn’t see why Max thought bullfighting was cruel, or hare coursing, and worst of all – and it was here that John nearly keeled over with suppressed indignation – he couldn’t see why nuclear weapons were wrong. Just couldn’t see why Max wanted to join an anti-nuclear weapons organisation, or why the horrific results of dropping the bomb on Hiroshima just had to lead to pacifism. For heaven’s sake he couldn’t even see why pacifism was right.
There was no arguing with the man, and no centre of real discussion. John had just kept shaking his head, wordlessly, as if he couldn’t believe that Max was in his house, seated at his table, eating his food and expressing such views.
If only John would just try to understand, but like so many of the middle-aged he didn’t seem to want to even attempt to see another point of view. He clung to his daily newspaper, and its views, as if it were a cliff, and he a barnacle.
‘I am actually trying to see your point of view, John,’ Max had told him, as gently as he could. ‘Really I am, I just can’t follow it. I can’t follow why making more and more nuclear weapons is going to bring about a peaceful world.’
‘If you are strong, you keep the peace. If you are weak, you are attacked. Look at what happened in the last war. Europe collapsed because we were weak.’
‘I know, that’s what Granddad used to say, but he also said that it was to the shame of the Conservative party that they had sat about not listening to the warnings. He said Cynthia Asquith was warning Churchill as long ago as the nineteen twenties about the rise of the Nazis, but that no one would pay attention to her. Because she was a woman. Granddad used to say that if you are strong in a non-nuclear way, if you are prosperous and trade well, you won’t need to drop bombs on people. You can buy them with trade agreements, share your prosperity, and that way everyone stops hating each other. He also used to say that it would be better if people fought each other on the sports field, in games, took out their aggression that way.’
‘Your grandfather was a very clever man, I’m sure.’ John had breathed in and out, very s
lowly. He was a mild-mannered man, but if his beliefs were in any way criticised he became cold and unapproachable. ‘Shall I get the pudding, darling?’
While he was out of the room Mattie had stared down at her place, as if it was the only thing of which she could be quite sure.
‘Sorry, Mum. I really didn’t want to upset John. I keep thinking he’s Granddad,’ Max whispered.
Mattie stared grimly down the table, this time to Max.
‘Well, don’t.’
The following morning, to Mattie’s consternation, Max decided to go to church. It was the last thing she really wanted, all her friends staring at Max’s long hair – it came down a good eighth of an inch over the top of his ears – not to mention his sideboards. Very well his sideboards were not long, but even so the short back and sides ‘army haircuts are best’ brigade would curl up when they saw him, thinking that she’d brought some sort of long-haired hippy to worship.
‘Do you really want to come?’ she found herself asking anxiously. ‘Wouldn’t you rather go golfing, or something?’
Max shook his head, and then he smiled and touched her on the arm. ‘It’s all right, Mum, I’ve brought a suit down. And I’ll wear a tie.’
Mattie and Max walked to church together, their heads bent against the icy wind. It was just like when he was a little boy, and Mattie, despite not being married, still went on attending church with her father and young son, in defiance of the disapproval of her non-marital state that she knew was rife in the village.
‘I always liked coming to church with you when I was little, snuggling up to you and Granddad to keep warm, and then going to put flowers on the graves and all that.’
Mattie relaxed at last. Of course, that was why he’d really wanted to come to church, not to worship so much as to touch the past. By accompanying her to church Max was putting out his hand, as he had put out his hand for the flowers that he’d brought down to place on his grandfather’s grave, and taking them from the water in the scullery had carefully wrapped them around with string and ribbon again.
The Moon At Midnight Page 30
