by Dick Francis
Thomas looked at the damage he’d done to me for a long blank second, then he dropped the fearsome bottle and turned to stumble off blindly towards his front door. I took two strides and caught him by the arm.
‘Let me go …’ He struggled, and I held on.‘Let me go… I can’t do anything right… she’s right.’
‘She’s bloody wrong.’
I was stronger than he. I practically dragged him across the room and flung him into one of the armchairs.
‘I’ve cut you,’ he said.
‘Yes, well, never mind. You listen to me. You both listen to me. You’re over the edge. You’re going to have to face some straight facts.’
Berenice had finally realised how close she’d come to needing stitches. She looked with anger at the point of my left shoulder wherejersey and shirt had been ripped away, where a couple of cuts were bleeding. She turned to Thomas with a bitterly accusing face and opened her mouth.
‘Shut up,’ I said roughly.‘If you’re going to tell him he’s incompetent, don’t do it. If you’re going to complain that he could have cut you instead, yes he could, he was trying to. Sit down and shut up.’
‘Trying to?’ She couldn’t believe it. She sat down weakly, her hair awry, her body slack, eyes shocked.
‘You goaded him too far. Don’t you understand what you’ve been doing to him? Putting him down, picking him to pieces every time you open your mouth? You have now completely succeeded. He can’t function any more.’
‘Dear Thomas -’ she began.
‘Don’t say that. You don’t mean it.’
She stared.
‘If he were your dear Thomas,’ I said,‘you would help him and encourage him, not sneer.’
‘I’m not listening to this.’
‘You just think what you stirred up in Thomas today, and if I were you, I’d be careful.’ I turned to Thomas,‘And it’s not all her fault. You’ve let her do it, let her carp all this time. You should have stopped her years ago. You should have walked out. You’ve been loyal to her beyond reason and she’s driven you to want to kill her, because that’s what I saw in your face.’
Thomas put a hand over his eyes.
‘You were dead lucky you didn’t connect with her mouth or her throat or whatever you were going for. There would have been no going back. You just think what would have happened, both of you. The consequences to yourselves, and to your girls. Think!: I paused.
‘Well, it’s beyond facing.’
‘I didn’t mean it,’ Thomas mumbled.
‘I’m afraid you did,’ I said.
‘He couldn’t have done,’ Berenice said.
‘He did mean it,’ I said to her.‘It takes quite a force to tear away so much woollen jersey. Your only hope is to believe to the depths of your soul that he put all his goaded infuriated strength behind that blow. I’ll tell you, I was lucky too. I was moving away fast trying to avoid being cut, and it can have been only the points of the glass that reached my skin, but I’ll remember the speed of them …’ I broke off, not knowing how else to convince her. I didn’t want to say, ‘It bloody hurts,’ but it did.
Thomas put his head in his hands.
‘Come on,’ I said to him, ‘I’m taking you out of here. On your feet, brother.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ Berenice said.
‘If I leave him here, will you cuddle him?’
The negative answer filled her whole face. She wouldn’t have thought of it. She was aggrieved. It would have taken little time for her to stoke up the recriminations.
‘When the firemen have gone,’ I said, ‘fires often start again from the heat in the embers.’
I went over to Thomas. ‘Come on. There’s still life ahead.’
Without looking up, he said in a dull sort of agony, ‘You don’t know… It’s too late.’
I said ‘No’ without great conviction, and then the front door opened with a bang to let in the two girls.
‘Hello,’ they said noisily, bringing in swirls of outside air. ‘Granny turned us out early. What’s going on? What’s all this glass on the floor? What’s all the blood on your arm?’
‘A bottle got broken,’ I said, ‘and I fell on it.’
The young one looked at the bowed head of her father, and in a voice that was a devastating mimic of her mother’s, vibrating with venom and contempt, she said, ‘I’ll bet it was Dear Thomas who broke it.’
Berenice heard for herself what she’d been doing to her husband. Heard what she was implanting in her own children. The revelation seemed to overwhelm her, and she sought for excuses.
‘If we had more money… If only Malcolm… It’s not fair …’
But they had two cars, thanks to their trust fund, and a newly-built townhouse, and Thomas’s unemployment had brought no immediate financial disaster: money wasn’t their trouble, nor would it cure it.
‘Why didn’t you get a job?’ I said. ‘What did you ever expect of Thomas? That he’d set the world alight? He did the best he could.’
Quantum in me fuit…
I wanted a son,’ she said flatly. ‘Thomas got a vasectomy. He said two children were enough, we couldn’t afford any more. It wasn’t fair. Malcolm should have given us more money. always wanted a son.’
Dear God, I thought: flat simple words at the absolute heart of things, the suppurating disappointment that she had allowed to poison their lives. Just like Gervase, I thought. So much unhappiness from wanting the unobtainable, so much self-damage.
I could think of nothing to say. Nothing of help. It was too late.
I went across to Thomas and touched him on the shoulder. He stood up. He didn’t look at his family, or at me. I put my hand lightly under his elbow and steered him to the front door, and in unbroken silence we left the wasteland of his marriage.
Sixteen
I took Thomas to Lucy’s house.
It seemed to me, as I drove away from the pretentious Haciendas, that Lucy’s particular brand of peace might be just what Thomas needed. I couldn’t take him to Vivien, who would demolish him further, and Joyce, who was fond of him, would be insufferably bracing. I frankly didn’t want him with me in Cookham; and Donald, influenced by Berenice, tended to despise him.
Lucy was in, to my relief, and opened the front door of the farm cottage where she and Edwin led the simple life near Marlow.
She stared at us. At my red arm. At Thomas’s hanging head.
‘Sister, dear,‘ I said cheerfully. ‘Two brothers needing succour come knocking at thy gate. Any chance of hot sweet tea? Loving looks? A sticking plaster?’
Edwin appeared behind her, looking peevish. ‘What’s going on?’
To Lucy, I said, ‘We cracked a bottle of gin, and I fell on it.’
‘Are you drunk?’ she said.
‘Not really.’
‘You’d better come in.’
‘Ferdinand has been on the telephone,’ Edwin said without welcome, staring with distaste at my blood as we stepped over his threshold. ‘He warned us you’d be turning up some time. You might have had the courtesy to let us know in advance.’
‘Sorry,’ I said dryly.
Lucy glanced swiftly at my face. ‘This is trouble?’
‘Just a spot.’
She took Thomas by the arm and led him out of the tiny entrance hall into her book-filled sitting-room. Edwin’s and Lucy’s cottage consisted of two rooms downstairs, which had been partly knocked into one, with a modern bathroom tacked on at the back. The stairs, which were hidden behind a latched door, led up to three rooms where one had to inch round the beds, bending one’s head so as not to knock it on the eaves. Laura Ashley wallpaper everywhere covered uneven old plaster, and rag rugs provided warmth underfoot. Lucy’s books were stacked in columns on the floor along one wall in the sitting-room, having overflowed the bookcases, and in the kitchen there were wooden bowls, pestles and mortar, dried herbs hanging.
Lucy’s home was unselfconscious, not folksy. Lucy herself, large in d
ark trousers and thick handknitted sweater, sat Thomas in an armchair and in a very short time thrust a mug of hot liquid into his unwilling hand.
‘Drink it, Thomas,’ I said. ‘How about some gin in it?’ I asked Lucy.
‘It’s in.’
I smiled at her.
‘Do you want some yourself?’ she said.
‘Just with milk.’ I followed her into the kitchen. ‘Have you got any tissues I could put over this mess?’
She looked at my shoulder. ‘Are tissues enough?’
‘Aspirins?’
I don’t believe in them.’
‘Ah.’
I drank the hot tea. Better than nothing. She had precious few tissues, when it came to the point, and far too small for the job. I said I would leave it and go along to the hospital later to get it cleaned up. She didn’t argue.
She said, ‘What’s all this about?’ and dipped into a half-empty packet of raisins and then offered me some, which I ate.
‘Thomas has left Berenice. He’s in need of a bed.’
‘Not here,’ she protested. ‘Take him with you.’
I will if you won’t keep him, but he’d be better off here.’
She said her son, my nephew, was up in his bedroom doing his homework.
‘Thomas won’t disturb him,’ I said.
She looked at me doubtfully. ‘There’s something you’re not telling me.’
‘The last straw,’ I said, ‘has just broken Thomas. If someone doesn’t treat him kindly, he’ll end up in the nut house or the suicide statistics and I am not, repeat not, joking.’
‘Well…’
‘That’s my girl.’
‘I’m not your girl,’ she said tartly. ‘Perhaps I’m Thomas’s.’ Her face softened slightly. ‘All right, he can stay.’
She ate another handful of raisins and went back to the sitting-room, and I again followed. Edwin had taken the second armchair. Lucy lowered her bulk onto a leather stool beside Thomas, which left me on my feet looking around. There were no other seats. Resignedly I sat on the floor and rested my back against a wall. Neither Lucy nor Edwin commented. Neither had invited me to sit.
‘As I’m here,’ I said, ‘I may as well ask the questions I was going to come and ask tomorrow.’
‘We don’t want to answer,’ Edwin said. ‘And if you get blood on the wallpaper you can pay for redecorating.’
‘The police will come,’ I said, twisting slightly out of harm’s way. ‘Why not practise on me? They’ll ask about the timing device that set off the bomb at Quantum.’
Thomas stirred. ‘I made it, you know. The Mickey Mouse dock.’
It was the first time he’d spoken since we’d left his house. Lucy looked as if she thought him delirious, then raised her eyebrows and started to concentrate.
‘Not that,’ she said, troubled.
‘Do you remember those docks?’ I asked.
‘Of course I do. We’ve got one upstairs, that Thomas made for our son.’
‘What sort of face has it got?’
‘A sailing ship. Did the Mickey Mouse clock explode …?’
‘No,’ I said. ‘The one actually used had a grey plastic dial with white numbers. The Mickey Mouse clock was intact, in the playroom.’
Thomas said dully, ‘I haven’t made one for years.’
‘When did you make the Mickey Mouse for Robin and Peter?’ I asked.
‘I didn’t make it for them. I made it a long time ago for Serena. She must have given it to them. It made her laugh, when I made it.’
‘You were a nice boy, Thomas,’ Lucy said. ‘Funny and kind.’
Edwin said restlessly, ‘I would have thought any timing device would have been blown to unrecognisable fragments by such a big bomb.’
‘It seems they often find pieces,’ I said.
‘Do you mean,’ he demanded, ‘that they’ve actually sifted through all those tons of rubbish?’
‘More or less. They know it was a battery clock. They found part of the motor.’
‘It serves Malcolm right the house was blown up,’ Edwin said with barely suppressed violence. ‘Flinging money about on ridiculous scholarships. Keeping us poor. I suppose you’re all right, aren’t you?’ There was a sneer there for me, openly. ‘He’s never been fair to Lucy. You’ve always been in the way, smarming him up, taking the lion’s share. He gives you whatever you ask for while we have to struggle along on a pittance.’
‘Is that the authentic voice of Vivien?’ I asked.
It’s the truth!’
‘No,’ I said, If’s what you have been told over and over again, but it’s not the truth. Most people believe a lie if they’re told it often enough. It’s easy enough after all to believe a lie if you’ve heard it only once. Especially if you want to believe it.’
Lucy looked at me intently. ‘You care about this, don’t you?’
‘About being cast perpetually as the family villain? Yes, I dare say I do. But I was thinking also of Thomas. He’s been told ad infinitum that he’s useless, and now he believes it. I’m going now, Lucy.’ I stood up without haste. ‘You tell Thomas over and over that he’s a worthwhile person, and maybe he’ll begin to believe that instead. You have to believe in yourself to get anywhere.’
‘Oh yes,’ she said quietly. ‘You do.’
‘What you’ve written,’ I said, ‘is for ever.’
Her eyes widened. ‘How do you know… that I’ve lost…’
I guessed.’ I bent and kissed her cheek, to her surprise. ‘Are you seriously in need?’
‘Financially?’ She was startled. ‘No worse than usual.’
‘Of course we are,’ Edwin said to her waspishly. ‘You’re earning almost nothing now and you still spend a fortune on books.’
Lucy looked only mildly embarrassed, as if she’d heard that often before.
‘If I held the purse-strings,’ Edwin complained, ‘you’d use the public library, as I do.’
‘Why don’t you work, Edwin?’ I asked.
‘Lucy doesn’t like bustle.’ He seemed to think it explanation enough. ‘We’d be perfectly happy if Malcolm trebled Lucy’s trust fund, as he ought to. He has millions, we live in a hovel. It’s not fair.’
‘Doesn’t Lucy despise money?’ I asked. ‘And people who have it? Do you want her to become what she despises?’
Edwin glared.
Lucy looked at me blandly. ‘There’s no such state as perfection,’ she said.
I drove back to Reading, to the hospital that had an emergency room open all evening, and there got my shoulder and upper arm cleaned and stitched. There were three cuts, it seemed, variously deep but nothing frightful, and they had long stopped bleeding: with the stitches, they would heal almost instantly. The staff advised painkillers pro tern. I thanked them and eventually drove to Cookham feeling more than slightly tired but chiefly hungry, and having remedied both conditions satisfactorily, set off again next morning to ride. There was no problem there with the stitches: they were tender to the touch and stiff when I lifted my arm, but that was all.
Restored yet again in spirit by the dose of fresh air, I took a lazy day off from the emotional battering of the family and went to London to get my American and Australian visas. It was only a week since I’d ridden Park Railings at Cheltenham and it felt like eternity. I bought a new sweater and had my hair cut and thought about Ursula ‘wandering about’ through days of escape. One could wander for hours in London, thinking one’s thoughts.
On an impulse, I telephoned Joyce, not expecting her to be in.
‘Darling,’ she yelled. ‘I’m going out. Bridge. Where are you?’
‘In a phone box.’
‘Where’s your father?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Darling, you’re infuriating. What did you ring for?’
‘I suppose… just to hear your voice.’
It seemed to stump her entirely. ‘Are you out of your head? You tell that old bugger… tell him…’ She choked
on it.
‘That you’re glad he’s alive?’ I suggested.
‘Don’t let the old sod get blown up.’
‘No,’ I said.
‘Must rush, darling. Don’t break your neck. ‘Bye…’
‘ ‘Bye now,’ I said.
I wondered if she ever talked on the telephone except at the top of her voice. The decibels were comforting, somehow. At least she never sounded bored. I would rather infuriate her than bore her, I thought.
I went unhurriedly back to Cookham and in the evening bent again to Norman West’s notes.,
Of Edwin, he had said:
Mr Edwin Pembroke (53) né Bugg, lives with his wife Lucy in No 3 Wrothsay Farm Cottages, near Marlow. One son (15), attends state school, bicycles to school, has latchkey, gets his own tea, goes upstairs, does homework, working for exams, conscientious, doesn’t know if his parents were around on the Friday or Tuesday at specified hours, doesn’t expect so. He comes downstairs about 8 or 9 pm, they all eat vegetarian meal then. (No TV!) Mrs L. cooks in a wok. Mr E. washes up.
Mr E. does the housework (not much) and shopping, mostly vegetables. He spends hours reading in public library (librarians agree). Goes to pub, spends more hours over one beer (barman indignant). Takes laundry to laundromat. Listens to radio. Spends hours doing crossword puzzles. (The garden’s untidy. Mr E. doesn’t like gardening. They grow only runner beans, they’re easy.)
Mr E. and Mrs L. share an old Hillman, which Mr E. mostly drives. (Mrs L. has licence.) Car dusty and rusty, no dents.
Mr E. good-looking man, complete drone (my opinion). Idle life suits him. Mr E’s idle life seems to suit Mrs L. also-no accounting for people. She does less than he does, come to think. Mr E. has sharp sarcastic manner on occasions. Detests Mr Ian, curses Mr Pembroke but at same time wants money from him (!). Definitely thinks of Mr Pembroke’s money too much, broods on it, talked about it all the time.
End of enquiry.
Of Lucy, among other things, he had written:
Mrs L. spends large parts of the day unaware of what’s going on around her (my opinion). I had to repeat several questions. It seemed she didn’t hear me, but nothing wrong with her ears. She listens to things going on in her own head (can’t put it very well). Has no alibis for Friday or Tuesday. Can’t remember where she was. (I believe it.) Goes for rambling walks. Mrs L. very troubled over something, but wouldn’t say what. She ate a tinful of peanuts while I was there, looked surprised when they’d gone.
