A Very Persistent Illusion

by L. C. Tyler

  Virginia shakes her head. ‘I don’t remember anyone leaving us anything, except the grandfather clock and a very old family Bible that my mother placed straight in the dustbin as being dirty and unhygienic.’

  ‘Hmm. Well, I wouldn’t want to call your father a liar . . .’

  ‘Hugh wasn’t my father.’

  ‘All the same . . .’

  ‘Hugh wasn’t my father. If Malcolm knew something about Hugh it would explain how he could have been blackmailing him.’

  ‘Was he?’

  ‘Maybe,’ says Virginia, biting her lip. ‘I’d hoped to find letters from Malcolm, but they’ve all been recycled. Soon somebody will be opening a carton made from recycled paper and will wonder why the orange juice inside it tastes of wormwood and gall.’

  ‘I always squeeze my own orange juice – most of the carton stuff tastes a bit like that anyway. Still, even a hint of blackmail is promising. But I guess with Hugh and Malcolm both dead and me just a doddering old pensioner with an increasingly unreliable memory, we’ll never know for sure. Even so, I’m 98 per cent sure that Hugh was ripping us off (as you young people say) and I’m 97 per cent sure that Malcolm was his loyal accomplice, even if Hugh did sacrifice him to save his own skin.’

  ‘What,’ I say, ‘makes people commit fraud?’

  Colin hesitates, as if he might be about to give away important information, then smiles and says: ‘Opportunity.’

  And that seems to be that.

  Colin apologizes for the fact that he seems to have eaten all of the jammy dodgers and for the fact that they were the last he has. He does not seem very sorry. He declines Virginia’s suggestion that he should attend the funeral on the grounds that there will just be a lot of old people there. He does not like the company of old people. ‘But you two can come back and visit any time you wish,’ he says brightly as we leave. ‘My best wishes to your mother, Virginia. I always had a lot of time for her in the days when she worked for us.’

  ‘Your mother seems to have had plenty of admirers,’ I say to Virginia as we thread our way down the path, through the rose bushes.

  ‘Runs in the family,’ she says.

  I raise an eyebrow.

  ‘Only a joke,’ she says. She kisses me on the cheek in reassurance and we return to the MG.

  * * *

  We are back in Hugh’s study, staring at the empty shelves where Hugh’s old correspondence may have been. All that is left are a few boxes, spared by Daphne, labelled with the names and numbers of regiments. I scan them quickly – ‘The Buffs’, ‘The Royal Welch Fusiliers’, ‘The Suffolk Regiment’, ‘KRRC’, ‘150th Foot’, ‘44th and 56th Foot’, ‘A&S Highlanders’, ‘Gurkhas’. One or two relate to battles and battlefields. Lots of interesting stuff there all right, but not what we want.

  That really is that then.

  22

  A Man of Letters

  Or then again, maybe it isn’t.

  I awake (and therefore Virginia awakes) suddenly in the early hours of the morning. The room is dark. Only the illuminated dial of the bedside clock gives any clue as to precisely how ridiculous it is to be up and about. Nevertheless I am sitting up in bed and saying: ‘There’s no such regiment!’ Virginia is replying: ‘Why the hell did you wake me up at one o’clock in the morning for a lesson in military history?’

  ‘There is,’ I say, ‘no 150th Foot, nor was there ever. So why did Hugh have a file on them?’

  ‘How am I meant to know that? I’m going back to sleep. I’ll deal with you in the morning, you moron.’

  ‘Wait – where would you hide a tree?’

  ‘Is this the arboreal Bishop Berkeley again? Because, if it is, you can tell him to sod off.’

  ‘You would hide a tree in a forest,’ I explain patiently.

  ‘That would be really stupid. Trees are big. It would cost a fortune to transport a tree even a short distance. Anyway, who on earth would want to hide a tree?’

  ‘Where would you hide a file of letters you didn’t want anyone to read?’

  ‘In a forest?’

  ‘You’re not really awake, are you?’

  ‘I am just a bit awake, but that’s just a bit more than I want to be. I’d like to be almost entirely asleep. In two minutes I shall be.’

  ‘I bet there’s something interesting in that box.’

  ‘So do I, but it’s nothing that is going to stop me going back to sleep.’

  I am already out of bed and pulling on my (Hugh’s old red tartan) dressing gown. Once in the study I quickly locate the red box file on the shelf and open it. By the time I have absorbed the first letter Virginia has crept in silently and is standing behind me, reading over my shoulder.

  * * *

  2 May

  Dear Hugh,

  This is to let you know where I am, as we agreed I would (see address above). It’s just a B&B place until I can work out something more permanent. Let me add I’ve kept my side of the bargain and now I expect you to keep yours. A couple of thousand would be a good start. Enough said for the moment. Verb Sap, eh? Are you sure you always get to the post before Daphne does? I’d set up a PO Box so that you can collect mail from the post office if we are to continue this correspondence. Give Daphne my love anyway. She has to know at least that I did not leave by choice. I don’t want her to think badly of me.

  Yours

  Malcolm

  12 May

  Hugh,

  Thanks for the cheque, but I did say a couple of thousand. It’s all very well for you, sitting comfortably in Horsham with your family around you, but things look very different alone in Hartlepool, I can tell you. I’ve moved on to another B&B, so please note the change of address. I’m not doing much, so I’ve had plenty of time to think. I know we agreed to do things the way we have because of Daphne and Virginia, and I do want the best for both of them, but I can’t help wondering why either of us had to take the rap. You could have told Hume that you’d looked into it all and found nothing. Or you could have stitched up Jim or Stan – Stan probably. Frankly, I thought we had covered our tracks pretty well and . . . [subsequent pages missing]

  2 January

  Hugh, you bastard, don’t you dare keep throwing Virginia at me. Yes, I do understand that bringing up a child costs money and, yes, I do realize she is mine, but Margaret and I have got a kid of our own on the way now. We need more cash. You must have a way of raising some – mortgage that expensive bloody house of yours. I wish you had any idea how difficult it is to get a proper job without references. We’ve moved again as you will see – a bit of a rough area but a lot more space for us when the baby arrives . . . [subsequent pages missing]

  [UNDATED DRAFT IN HUGH’S HANDWRITING]

  Malcolm, old boy

  My dear Malcolm

  Dear Malcolm

  Your last letter frankly just made me cross. I think you need to get a grip on yourself. I have dealt fairly with you from beginning to end. There is little point in trying to blackmail me and still less point in your moving to Horsham. What good would that serve except to worry Daphne? And no, I haven’t let her know where you are. We agreed that your job was to lie low and that mine was to make money. Well, you can scarcely complain at the last cheque that I sent. Bear in mind that there is little you can do to harm me at this stage, but (trust me) I could destroy you just like that. You say you’ve finally got a job driving lorries. Well, that must be bringing in some cash? Just be patient.

  Yours as ever

  Hugh

  10 April

  Dear Hugh,

  Thanks for the latest cheque. I do understand what you say – that you are now taking all the risk and all I have to do is pocket the bunce, but it is still not exactly what I would have chosen. Your suggestion that I might assist your ‘friends’ and pick up a bit more (or maybe a lot more) is obviously interesting, though it would help to know a little about them. I suspect the game you’re playing now has rather higher stakes than I would be comfortable with. Just make
sure you’re not in deeper than you realize.

  It worries me sometimes what would become of Margaret and Martin if anything happened to me. We get by, but there’s not a lot to spare. I’m going to be in Sussex shortly. Maybe we should meet up and you can tell me a bit more about your Italian friends?

  Yours

  Malcolm

  19 May

  Dear Hugh,

  Very firmly, NO. I agreed to do that one job for you and that scared the life out of me. The money was good, but, no, really, never again. I’m planning to stick to lorry driving from now on – I’ll just have to do a few more shifts. It’s legal and it’s safe.

  I hope you are continuing to destroy these letters as agreed?

  Yours ever

  Malcolm

  [UNDATED DRAFT IN HUGH’S HANDWRITING]

  Dear Margaret,

  Both Daphne and I were deeply saddened to hear of Malcolm’s death. It is a terrible thing for you and Martin. I will do what I can for you, but you must understand (whatever Malcolm may have told you) that all debts were more than repaid a long time ago. I simply cannot help you financially as you ask, much though I would like to. I certainly would not recommend moving to Horsham. House prices here are going through the roof, and Martin must be getting settled at his school where you are. I’ll write again soon. In the meantime I regret that neither Daphne nor I will be able to attend the funeral.

  Deepest condolences

  Hugh

  3 August

  Dear Mr Dewey,

  This is just to let you know that we have completed on our purchase and will shortly be moving to Horsham. We’ll virtually be neighbours. Won’t that be fun? You fobbed poor Malcolm off with excuses, but you’ll find me rather different. Malcolm left some papers that your employers and the police might find interesting. He must have spent hours at that photocopier the evening before he left. I doubt that you will want me dropping in to say hello to you and your lovely family, so could I suggest that we have tea one day at a discreet little cafe? You’ll know Horsham better than I do, so I’ll leave you to name the place and I’ll let you know when you should be there.

  You won’t find me unreasonable. You might have to take your daughter (or should I say my husband’s love child?) away from that posh school of hers, but that will be a small sacrifice, I’m sure, in helping to ease your guilty conscience.

  Write to me at our new address. By the time you read this we shall already be packing. Exciting, eh?

  Yours sincerely,

  Margaret Biggenhalgh

  10 September

  Dear Mr Dewey,

  I assume you were responsible for that unpleasant incident last night? Well, it takes more than that to frighten me. You have only strengthened my determination to get what is mine and Martin’s. I want to see you again at the same place at 11.00 on Saturday.

  Margaret Biggenhalgh

  14 September

  Dear Mr Dewey,

  This is to let you know, as you will have guessed, that I found our meeting entirely unsatisfactory. I am willing to give you one last chance, but no more than that, Mr Dewey. Then I think your employers might be prepared to pay me for the information I have.

  Yours in deadly earnest,

  M. J. Biggenhalgh

  16 September

  All right. All right. You have proved your point. Please just stop. I can’t take any more of this. I’m not frightened for myself but Martin was really upset this morning, even though I kept him out of the sitting room until I could get it more or less straight again. Let’s try to resolve this without anyone getting hurt, please. You at least owe me that.

  If possible I should also like the framed pictures of Malcolm returned to me. The silver frame is valuable but that’s not the point, obviously. I have very few photos of any sort and Martin will certainly notice that the pictures of his daddy have gone. Still, Malcolm always said you were a bastard, so why am I surprised at what you have got your people to do?

  Usual place, usual time.

  MJB

  [undated]

  I, Margaret Biggenhalgh, acknowledge that there is no basis to the accusations that I have lately made against Hugh Dewey regarding a fraud perpetrated entirely by my late husband, Malcolm Biggenhalgh. I wish to make it clear that these accusations were occasioned by spite and malice. I undertake never to repeat them. I authorize Mr Hugh Dewey to make any use he wishes of this statement, should I repeat these or similar falsehoods, or should he feel that it is otherwise justified. I sign this freely and willingly in an attempt to make amends.

  Margaret Biggenhalgh

  * * *

  ‘Wow!’ I say.

  Virginia, though I can feel her presence behind me, says nothing.

  ‘It looks,’ I say, ‘as though he kept the early stuff for the addresses. That’s why we have only the first page in each case. Still, the story is pretty clear. It fits in with what Martin was saying about break-ins when they first moved to Horsham. It would also seem to explain why they stopped suddenly, if Martin’s mother basically caved in like that. I’m glad I never crossed Hugh. Fraud. Intimidation. Shady Italian friends. Not to mention lying to your mother (brave man) about Malcolm’s whereabouts. I also doubt that he broke into houses himself. So I suspect that he did have “people” to do that sort of thing. In which case, I wonder what else he got them to do? He’s beginning to come across as the Al Capone of Horsham. Malcolm was wise to get out while he could.’

  From behind me there is a sudden sob, and I am once again comforting Virginia as best I can.

  There you are. What was it I said about grief? It isn’t one of these everyday things. One moment you think you’re fine – the next, you’re sobbing about something that happened twenty years ago, and which you thought you’d forgotten.

  ‘When I was little, he was my daddy,’ she eventually says with difficulty, and mainly to my shoulder. ‘He did my shoes up, he read to me, he plaited my hair, he helped me with my homework, he taught me to play chess.’

  ‘I know,’ I say, because my father did all that sort of stuff too, other than plaiting my hair, which would have been a bit weird, even in the remote part of Denmark he came from.

  ‘There’s a sense of loss . . .’ she begins, but she doesn’t end. It’s a tricky sentence for her at the moment and even starting it is quite an achievement.

  ‘I know,’ I say. ‘After all, I lost three members of my family.’

  ‘Three?’ she says, puzzled.

  Then I remember I have never told her about Niels.

  ‘Yes, three,’ I begin.

  23

  Niels

  Niels was my younger brother. He was brilliant, really brilliant. In all his time at our school there wasn’t one occasion when he didn’t get the best exam results in the whole year group. And he wasn’t just a swot. He was always in the football team. He was always somewhere in the cricket team – usually opening the batting, because nobody else much wanted to. He set a record time in the school cross-country, which I think still hasn’t been broken. And all of this without ever seeming to try that hard or to suggest that he thought any of it mattered. He was pretty quiet but had a few very good friends. He never got angry. If a fight with somebody looked likely, he just joked his way out of it.

  He died before he had a proper girlfriend (though he had plenty of friends who were girls) but I am sure that he would have known all about commitment, without having to have it explained to him in simple terms. He would have left the loo seat down. He would have bought flowers on occasions when he did not need to apologize for anything at all. He would have thought the Sorensen-Birtwistle Revised was a bit childish, but would probably have been too polite to say so. He might have given me useful advice. Who knows? Had he lived, my life would have been utterly different.

  But he died.

  I think that I wasn’t supposed to know, but somebody who was there let it slip that Niels was still breathing, still conscious, when they eventually got him out of
the wreckage. I don’t know how many hours after the crash it was, but he had been trapped in there, alive, with our dead parents. There was, I was told, no chance he could have lived, even if they had got to him faster. Pretty well every organ was damaged one way or another. Pretty well every bone was broken at least once. They said they had no idea how he could have hung on that long, or what sort of determination kept a body going when it was, really, just bloody mush and splintered bone. When we found that kitten in the road, Niels was the first thing that I thought of. Of course there was nobody to do for Niels what Hugh did for the kitten. They got him into the ambulance and attached all sorts of lines to him, because that was what they did rather than because there was any point in it. It was there, still at the crash scene, that he died. My own theory is that, so long as he was imprisoned in the dark, he clung to life. He didn’t want to die like that. Once they got him out, and once he knew there was no hope, he chose to die there and then in the light of day. That’s what I think anyway.