‘Seeing as you’re sixty next month,’ Hazel said, ‘here’s a gift from Alex to start the celebrations. Go on, Alex, give it to Grandmamma.’
Shyly the child placed the gift in Eva’s hands and stepped back, wanting to share in the delight of opening it.
‘It’s to show that dreams are worth pursuing and that you must never give up on your dream of writing a book,’ Hazel said. ‘This is just published. I remember Mr MacManus talking non-stop about plans to write it when I was barely older than Alex and he used to bring his aunt over for dinner. It’s hardly my cup of tea, but I ordered a copy from London. I daresay it barely made a dent there but it’s probably the talk of Mayo.’
Eva asked Alex to open it and the child tore at the paper as excitedly as if the gift were for her. Inside was a book entitled The Middle Kingdom: a study of supernatural occurrences in Mayo, which Eva’s old neighbour from Killeaden House, Dermot MacManus, had indeed talked about writing for decades. Eva had a vivid recollection of Dermot and his aunt Lottie coming to dinner in Glanmire House and Freddie cautioning Dermot with a laugh against putting the story of the ghost in the basement at Glanmire into it. Who could have imagined that this gentle old man, gassed in the First World War and regarded by some neighbours as slightly touched, would finally produce his small magnum opus? Eva scanned the two sections of black-and-white photographs sewn into the book. Here was Killeaden House, with the fairy thorn outside it that Dermot’s grandfather had risked moving a hundred years ago. And here was the demon bush that Dermot once showed her in a low-lying field beyond Kiltimagh – two thorn trees and a bourtree mixed inextricably together, which he had claimed was guarded by malevolent spirits who waylaid travellers at night on that desolate road. Here too was a photo of his Aunt Lottie, exactly as Eva remembered her, looking Victorian and stern in her donkey cart. Dermot had surely risked ridicule by putting his name to these stories about ghostly black dogs and hostile spirits, but Eva admired him for having the courage to stand by his beliefs.
‘He loaned me a horse when I was young, after my own horse went lame and I was desperate to ride in a show,’ Hazel said, as if this equine gesture outweighed any eccentricity. ‘I’ve never forgotten that. Or the midsummer eves when he’d light fires to appease the spirits in the woods. Everything in his book is tommyrot of course, but I’m delighted he finally has it in print. So you see, Mummy: you’re never too late or too old.’
‘Isn’t it exciting?’ Eva exclaimed. ‘I’m so happy to have a copy.’
‘Happiness is a rare gift,’ Hazel replied quietly. ‘Grasp it when you can.’ Eva glanced up, but her daughter’s cryptic smile was as close an answer as she was going to get to her earlier question. The cook called Hazel into the kitchen and Eva momentarily forgot about Alex as she turned the pages, absorbed in an account of the malignant spirit rumoured to haunt the stables at Killeaden House. After a few moments she was surprised to feel tiny fingers tentatively touching her hand. Eva looked down.
‘Show me the pictures,’ Alex said. ‘Show me Ireland.’
The child clambered carefully onto Eva’s knee and settled down, eager to glimpse her mother’s childhood country. If Kenya was exotic for Eva, then these black-and-white photographs of roads winding across bogs were equally mysterious to the child. Alex asked questions but Eva barely heard her own replies. Because of all the sights and sensations Eva had experienced on this trip, none could compare with the balm of feeling her granddaughter nestle on her lap, the fragrance of Alex’s hair as Eva’s face brushed against it and Alex’s excited breath when she laughed. In two weeks’ time Eva would return to London, but for now simply cradling Alex in her lap felt like being made complete again, as if Eva were being cured of an ache she had borne for so long that she had ceased to notice it. Outside in the sudden darkness that descended there were bird cries she recognised and others she had never heard before. But they came from a faraway different world. Nothing else existed beyond this wicker chair where Eva cradled this gift who had come unbidden to her. The kitchen door opened and she sensed Hazel watching them. A moment later Eva felt her daughter’s hand touch her shoulder, leaning over as if to glance at the pictures, but really just wanting to be part of this moment: three generations finally at ease with each other, all so utterly still that they seemed transfixed into precious stone.
Chapter Nine
A View from the Rooftops
London, 1st September 1966
There were times afterwards when, in her most bitter thoughts, Eva suspected that Jonathan might have initially phoned the police himself that night. Of course this was inconceivable: no Harley Street orthopaedic surgeon wanted to draw attention to his secret life, led away from the gaze of respectable patients. Jonathan’s practice could be destroyed if his name was dragged through the newspapers. The British upper classes never could abide fuss and therefore he would have wanted no kerfuffle. Unfortunately it was becoming increasingly clear that Jonathan also no longer wanted her son.
Before the phone call to her came that night, Eva had kept trying to persuade herself to attempt to get some sleep or at least drape a coat over her shoulders for warmth if she intended to keep agitatedly pacing about in her tiny attic flat in Notting Hill. September in London felt cold after Morocco, where she had survived for most of the past year by finding occasional work in her old haunts and living in cheap hostels – a sixty-two-year-old curio happily mixing with hordes of young Westerners obsessed with travelling to Marrakech, as if enlightenment was a parcel they could collect poste restante if they finally arrived at the right post office queue in a crowded bazaar there.
But two months ago, she spent almost all her savings on returning home to London because she sensed – from words left unsaid in Francis’s letters – that her son was in distress. Not that London actually was her home: Eva had no sense of having any particular home anymore. But London was where she belonged because someone here whom she loved needed her help.
Eva paused beside the attic window to peer down at the street where a young couple passed in the dark, indistinguishable from each other in their Afghan coats and long hair. Music came from the partitioned rooms beneath her: a jarring racket of zithers, Indian bells, harmonicas and mindless percussion. London throbbed with youthful anthems. At two a.m. this musical din was invariably replaced by faint sounds of slightly drugged young voices teasing and cajoling each other and then intimate whispers as bodies conjoined. Eva felt no envy towards the young neighbours in the flats below her, but their carefree vitality increased her sense of dread: not because their sexual freedom made Eva feel old, but because they made Francis – at thirty-eight – appear old in comparison.
More importantly she also knew that Francis appeared old to his rich older lover. Jonathan had recently celebrated his fiftieth birthday and the new fad being discussed in magazines – the midlife crisis – was not solely confined to heterosexual men. Not that Jonathan went out of his way to look young – what had first attracted Francis to him was his distinguished air. While the young people in these bedsits exuded youthfulness, Jonathan had looked older than his years from the first night Eva glimpsed him, eight years ago, at a small dinner party thrown by Francis in his flat during one of Eva’s returns from her travels.
Eva still remembered the joy Francis had taken in preparing that elaborate, unstinting meal, growing ever more animated when he confided in her how someone posh and special was coming to dinner; someone whom, Francis hoped, also regarded him as special. Eight years ago she had felt joy for her son, but also anxiety lest he got hurt again. When Eva kissed him for luck, saying that she hoped he had finally found the right man, Francis only laughed, claiming that she made him sound like a scarlet woman.
These days perhaps it was the young occupants of the flats beneath her who thought that Eva was a scarlet woman, because just now she was roused from her thoughts by another late-night knock on her door. The Liverpool girl who lived in a ground-floor flat stood there, saying that once aga
in a man wanted her on the phone. Eva followed this girl, dressed in hipster pants and low-heeled shoes, down the long flights of stairs, trying not to run. This was why she hadn’t gone to bed. Subconsciously she’d been waiting for the communal pay phone in the hall to ring, awaiting yet another summons – she never visited Jonathan’s house uninvited anymore. The tension between Francis and Jonathan had reached such a pitch that Eva was terrified in case one night soon the call to rescue her son might come too late.
‘It’s simply impossible,’ Jonathan said as soon as Eva picked up the receiver. ‘Your son is acting impossible; this whole situation is impossible. It’s half eleven at night and he’s up on my rooftop, threatening to throw himself off. I live in a respectable district. He listens to you, Eva. You simply must talk sense into him.’
The phone went dead at the same moment as the timer-switch on the light plopped out, leaving Eva standing alone in the dark hallway. She suspected that the Liverpool girl was listening behind her door. All the young tenants were curious about what someone old enough to be their grandmother was doing dwelling among them. What she was doing was trying to live her life and give Francis enough space to live his without him feeling abandoned. What she was doing now was running down the front steps, unsure if she had even remembered to lock her attic flat. Eva frantically ran towards the Tube station, not caring what passers-by thought. She was too anxious to wait for the slow lift when the train reached the old-fashioned small station near Jonathan’s house, but climbed the steep emergency stairs instead, where an icy wind blew around every bend. She had to lean against the postbox at the corner of Jonathan’s street to catch her breath, not wanting to look panicked when she arrived.
This became especially important when she saw a panda car pull up outside Jonathan’s house. For a moment she thought that Jonathan had risked his cover by calling the police. This would have been so out of character that Eva quickly guessed that a neighbour must have witnessed a confrontation or heard voices raised. Jonathan’s flat roof was overlooked by several houses. The prying resident who had summoned the police was probably watching this scene unfold as two police officers climbed the steep steps to knock at Jonathan’s imposing oak door.
Taking a deep breath Eva approached the house. Part of her wondered if it might be prudent to hold back for fear of creating a further scene. But her overriding instinct was to rush forward, knowing that her son was in danger. Since returning from Morocco to witness this growing estrangement, she had been waiting for such a crisis to occur. Jonathan opened his front door as she reached the house. He looked so flustered by the presence of the policemen that initially he didn’t notice her loitering at the base of the steps.
‘We’ve had a complaint, sir.’ The older policeman carefully placed one foot in the doorway. ‘A public order disturbance. Reports of a gentleman threatening to throw himself off a roof.’
‘My elderly neighbours have a propensity for exaggeration. I assure you, Constable, there is nothing to be concerned about.’
Jonathan possessed the clipped accent of someone who might be related to a figure high up in the police force, or maybe even a government minister. The older officer withdrew his foot, with the servility many English people of his generation displayed when confronted by an accent oozing authority. However, having knocked at the door, he would need to log a report back at the station and so a token investigation was required. The policeman glanced down at Eva, convinced she was merely an inquisitive passer-by: nobody in threadbare clothes could possibly have business in such a house. ‘Still and all, sir,’ he said politely, ‘it might be wiser if we stepped inside, away from prying eyes.’
Jonathan had sufficiently composed himself to adopt an air of weary nonchalance. ‘Like I say, there’s no need, but if you insist.’ He glanced at Eva, possibly regretting having phoned her. ‘It would be better if you come inside so. All three of you.’
The younger policeman had not yet uttered a word. At first Eva thought he was cowed by such obvious wealth and was taking his cue from his older colleague. But when they entered the hallway and he coldly surveyed the modernist paintings and exotic vases on display, she sensed there was nothing servile about him.
‘Now what exactly do you wish to see?’ Jonathan inquired.
‘There is, I believe, another gentleman in the house,’ the older policeman said.
‘That is correct.’ Jonathan nodded. ‘An Irish gentleman.’
‘Might we speak to him, sir?’
‘If you insist. But listen here, the poor chap is on medication. I’m a doctor. I know about these things. The chap has mood swings, a history of depression. It’s such a long story that I wouldn’t know where to start.’
The younger policeman finally spoke. ‘If this poor geezer is so unhinged, governor, you might start by taking us up onto the roof to ensure that he hasn’t topped himself already.’
His deliberately insolent tone reminded Eva of friends of Art whom she had met years ago: dogmatists who analytically categorized everyone they met in ideological terms. Art’s comrades had never engaged in class warfare from behind a police uniform but – unlike his older colleague – this policeman came from an England with no intention of ever again being told to know its place.
‘I hardly consider that necessary,’ Jonathan protested, but the dismissive use of the term ‘governor’ obviously rattled him. One single word had changed the dynamic in the hallway.
‘The shortest way up is the stairs, I suppose.’
The older policeman went to speak but his colleague was already ascending the staircase. Jonathan followed, still protesting against the intrusion on his privacy. The older policeman made way for Eva, confused by her presence. Eva prayed that the master bedroom door was closed. If this door was ajar, revealing the vast double bed and explicit homoerotic prints on the wall, a court appearance and scandal might be one step closer. It was a room she never liked to enter. Thankfully this door was closed and the décor on the landing merely suggested the discreet respectability of old money. Eva kept hoping that Francis would appear from another room, convinced that Jonathan would not leave him alone on the roof. However, not only was there no sign of Francis, but no sense of his existence in this house. She was perturbed to spy two empty picture hooks where Mayo landscapes owned by Francis previously hung.
Eva hurried on after the three men who were climbing the remaining steps up to a French door that opened out onto the small roof garden. At first she thought Francis was gone: there seemed to be no sign of anyone. But then she saw him hunched up near the chimney stacks. His gaze reminded Eva of a hare hunted by hounds who had found a last den to crouch in but knew it offered no protection from the baying dogs closing in. She wanted to run to him, but for his sake she need to remain calm.
‘You see, Constable,’ Jonathan said, ‘the gentleman is safe and sound. Mr Fitzgerald, can you assure my callers that there is no problem here.’
‘Are you the geezer disturbing the peace by threatening to jump?’ the younger officer asked.
‘Listen here, Constable, I’m not sure I like your tone,’ Jonathan intervened.
‘I wasn’t addressing you, governor.’ The officer glanced back at Jonathan. ‘Then again, I’m not sure who I’m addressing. What exactly is your relationship to this man and what is he doing here?’
‘That strikes me as a deeply impertinent question.’
‘It strikes me as deeply pertinent.’
‘Look here, this is a private house.’
‘And I’m investigating a public disturbance. Two telephone callers claimed they heard a man threatening to jump. Telling us that this man is mentally deranged doesn’t explain who he is and exactly what’s going on.’
‘Tell him who I am, Jonathan.’ Francis’s voice was so faint that Eva could barely hear him. ‘I bet he was a schoolyard bully and his uniform has given him an excuse to never stop being one. I’m sick of being scared of bullies and hiding behind lies. I’ve crossed paths with
this policeman a hundred times before.’
‘I hardly think so.’ The young officer bristled. ‘I’m particular about the company I keep.’
‘Then how come I know your eyes so well?’
‘Because you’ve been drinking, sir. I can smell it from here.’
Eva noticed how he now addressed Francis as ‘sir’. Like most bullies, he felt disconcerted when challenged.
‘All bullies share the same eyes,’ Francis said. ‘You want me to be scared of you, but I’m not scared anymore. I’ve nothing left to lose. I know who I am and I’m not ashamed of it.’
‘Be careful what you say, sir.’ This time the older policeman addressed Francis in a gentle, almost conspiratorial tone. He turned to his companion. ‘What’s happening here isn’t really our concern, Fred. We came to investigate a disturbance and any disturbance is obviously over.’
The younger man ignored his colleague and Eva sensed the animosity between the two policemen. ‘You still haven’t explained what a drunken Paddy is doing in your house,’ he told Jonathan coldly, ‘or your relationship with him.’
Jonathan glanced at Francis, whose eyes contained a defiant plea. Eva wanted to hold Francis in her arms, but the time had passed when she could shield him from the world. Jonathan stared at the ground. When he looked up, Eva saw how fearful and tired he was. The newspapers were full of speculation about homosexuality being decriminalised soon and in discreet but influential circles Jonathan was actively campaigning for this. But until the legal change happened, Jonathan was scared of losing his status, of no longer being able to exist in two distinct worlds and fearful too of tabloid newspapers spitefully creating a scandal out of just such a public row as this, which might set back the campaign for decriminalisation. However it wasn’t the fear in his eyes that perturbed Eva, it was the tiredness: what he had grown most tired of was her son.
An Ark of Light Page 20
