‘Would Charlie let her do that?’
‘How do I know? Left to himself Charlie would probably just let Ben carry on there but who can say what anyone inside a marriage might do? I suspect that Ange would make his life very difficult.’
‘So why are you telling me now?’
‘Since the house was let after TDF died I’ve hardly seen Ange. Charlie has been down and stayed here with me but we haven’t talked about the Merchant’s House. Now they’ll both be down next weekend for regatta and I’m pretty certain that the subject will crop up. Ange is very unhappy about Ben being there. Perhaps she’s afraid it might give him tenant’s rights or something. It’s a bit pathetic but I wanted someone whom I can trust and is on my side to know the truth. I’m sorry to involve you, Claude, but I need some moral support. I know TDF would agree with what I’m doing.’
Claude is still taking it in. ‘No wonder you’ve been a bit odd about it. I guessed that you were trying to decide how it should be left – and I was slightly surprised that TDF didn’t leave it to Charlie – but I couldn’t have dreamed of the other complications.’
‘There’s a moral dilemma. If the truth had been known back in the eighteen seventies Charlie would have none of the things he has now. But, if we can believe the rumours from the past, nobody else would either because it would have all been gambled away. I suppose you could say that if Ben needs money, sells the Merchant’s House, loses it all, then so what? It doesn’t affect what Charlie still has. I hate the thought, though, of leaving it to Ben without Charlie knowing why. I love both those boys very much. I know I wouldn’t be around to see Charlie being hurt but I still can’t quite bring myself to take that decision. And I can’t tell him why without causing even more problems. How would Ben take it knowing his great-grandfather had been done out of a huge inheritance from which Charlie is benefiting? Of course, there was much more to the estate back then.’
‘I take your point,’ says Claude thoughtfully. ‘It would change the relationship between them completely.’
‘Of course it would. They’re not brothers so there’s none of that kind of sibling rivalry; they each respect what the other does without feeling the least bit envious. Charlie works very hard, has a lot of pressure and great rewards. Ben is very artistic, very laid-back and likes a quiet life. Charlie recognizes that Ben doesn’t have a business head and doesn’t panic when he comes unstuck. But he doesn’t patronize him either. They tease each other and bicker but there’s no ill will. I’d hate to spoil that.’
‘It would be very sad,’ agrees Claude. ‘To be honest, I simply cannot see a really good solution.’
‘No,’ says Evie sadly. ‘Neither can I. I love Ben being there. I can use the garden and the garage and it’s fun having him around. I’m very happy for it to stay that way. And if it’s left to them both and they sell up I suppose that’s OK too. At least Ben would have enough money out of it to buy a small property and nobody would be any wiser.’
Claude holds up a cartoon. ‘Except that you know the truth and, as you said, there’s a kind of moral dimension to it now.’
She nods. ‘And Ben utterly loves the Merchant’s House. He is so happy there.’
‘And Charlie has a house.’
‘Yes, but it’s the breaking with centuries of tradition. And Ben isn’t even his brother. He’s a fourth cousin. It’s a big break. I know Charlie is puzzled and even rather hurt that TDF left the house to me. I think he thinks that it’s a kind of protection for me and that it will be naturally left to him anyway, so it was just TDF making a generous gesture to me. Though normally it would have been put in trust for my use or something, wouldn’t it? Anyway, it’s a muddle. Luckily, Charlie and I have a very strong relationship and I have no intention of spoiling it.’
‘Quite,’ says Claude. He thinks of the coming regatta; the arrival of Charlie and Angela. ‘You know, I think I might have that drink after all. Anything else you want to tell me? Any more shocks? Don’t hold back.’
She stands up to fetch the wine and another glass. ‘Nothing I can think of. Oh, well, only a rather odd man watching me in the Castle last night.’
‘Watching?’
‘Sitting in a corner, just watching me.’
‘Well, you’re used to that. Was it a fan?’
She shook her head. ‘He didn’t speak. Just stared in a grim kind of way as if he didn’t like me. It was a bit unnerving, actually.’
Claude grins. ‘Probably a failed novelist. So what happened?’
‘Nothing. He got up and left.’
‘What sort of age?’
Evie thinks about it. ‘Mid-forties.’
‘Not an old lover, then?’
‘Hardly,’ she says – but suddenly some memory stirs; just a flicker then it’s gone.
Claude sees the tremor cross her face but decides to leave the subject alone. There has been enough drama for one morning. He talks about Ben’s work and whilst Evie prepares some lunch he moves out on to the balcony to watch the river-life; to think about all that has been said about the Merchant’s House. About Evie’s watcher he doesn’t think at all.
The tiny flat is hidden away in one of the narrow alleys behind St Saviour’s. He lets himself into the vestibule, which leads directly up the flight of stairs to the front door. The sitting-dining room looks across the alley at the house opposite but there’s a glimpse of St Saviour’s tower from the small kitchen. Upstairs, two bedrooms and a shower-room and loo.
‘It’s a bolt hole, Jay,’ his sister-in-law said. ‘Somewhere you go out from. It’s not luxurious or anything, but it’s big enough for you and Mikey. Go down for regatta week. It’ll take your mind off things and give Mikey a break. It’s not just you that’s lost Helena. He’s lost his mum.’
Jason drops his rucksack on the sitting-room floor. Mikey’s still out in the town; he’s loving it.
‘It’s great here, Dad,’ he said. ‘Really cool.’ He stared round at the river, the boats and the preparation for regatta, and his eyes shone. He looked like any twelve-year-old on holiday; for that moment he’d forgotten his mother died six months ago.
Jason sits down on the neat little sofa and buries his head in his hands. He wants to howl like a dog; to scream and rage against the world, against life, against the unfairness of it all. Helena was his lodestar, his linchpin; she grounded him, kept him centred. How can he possibly manage without her?
‘Stay calm, Jay-bird,’ she’d say. ‘You can do it. Breathe. Keep those demons at bay. No, you don’t need a drink …’
He draws up his knees, wraps his arms about them, trying not to think about the bottle of water he keeps at hand now, ever since she died, with its shot of vodka; just a little shot, hardly anything, just enough to keep him balanced. At least it would be if he hadn’t seen that bloody woman Evelyn Drake in the Royal Castle last evening. He shouldn’t have been there really. He’d popped in for a quick glass of wine – no harm in one small glass – on his way to pick up fish and chips while Mikey was unpacking and there she was, the bitch. He recognized her from newspaper reviews, from television interviews; she was like a burr under the skin. How his mother hated Evelyn Drake. She and his father were colleagues: History was their subject: Cromwell his father’s special interest. That’s where it started: her affair with his father, his mother’s distress, his own problems. Everything started back there when he was seven and Evelyn Drake came into their lives. And here she is in bloody Dartmouth just when he was hoping to have a break, a little holiday with Mikey. In a town this small, she’ll be popping up everywhere. He’ll be watching, waiting, continually reminded of the past, instead of feeling free and relaxed. It’s the story of his life: always something to make him angry, depressed, unable to cope. Just lately it’s become even more difficult to control unexpected bursts of violence: smashing a mug, punching a door. That’s why he lost his job in the bookshop; small things get under his skin, and now there’s no Helena to listen to him, to talk him down, to kee
p him balanced.
The door below opens and he hears Mikey’s feet on the stairs. Time for a quick swig, just the one; a very quick one to help him. There, that’s much better. He’ll be fine now. He puts the bottle in the front pocket of the rucksack, stands up, and carries it into the kitchen.
‘Hi, Mikey,’ he calls. ‘Great timing. Just unpacking the shopping. Cake for tea. So how was it?’
‘It’s epic,’ Mikey replies.
For the first time since Mum died Mikey feels peaceful. All the cruel knots that tangle like barbed wire so painfully around his heart, squeezing and dragging at his insides, are smoothing out just a bit. Not that he isn’t still missing her, or doesn’t feel he might suddenly burst into tears or anything, it’s just that here in this place the pain has dulled a bit.
‘I wish we could live here,’ he says.
Dad comes out of the kitchen, which is so small it’s like a galley on a boat.
‘Wouldn’t get all your stuff in here,’ he says jokingly.
He puts two mugs of tea on the low table by the sofa. Mikey likes that Dad makes him tea. Though he doesn’t much care for the taste of it, it makes him feel grown up. And now without Mum he has to feel grown up; he has to watch out for Dad’s funny moods the way Mum used to. Sometimes Dad’s hands shake and sometimes he has this really weird spaced-out look and when he goes off on one it can be really scary.
Not that he often loses it with me, Mikey reminds himself, taking a cake. Quite the contrary; most of the time he’s very loving, lots of hugs and assurances that he’ll make up for Mum not being there, that he’ll find another job soon, that things will be great. He cries a lot, too, which makes it difficult for Mikey to hold back his own tears.
‘It’s OK,’ Dad says. ‘We can mourn together. It’s good.’
Mikey doesn’t argue but sometimes it doesn’t feel right just to cry and cry, like they’re egging each other on; he doesn’t feel comfortable with it. But he doesn’t like to make a fuss either.
‘Where would you keep your bike, for a start?’ Dad’s saying.
‘Down in the hall,’ says Mikey. ‘There’s just room.’
Dad smiles at him. ‘I’m sure your aunt Liz will let us use it quite often out of season.’
‘I’d be here all the time if it was mine,’ says Mikey enviously.
‘They’ve bought it as an investment. To let it out and make some money from it. Lucky they haven’t started yet or we wouldn’t be here now. Liz says she’ll reserve a few weeks for us out of season in future. We could come down for half term. Anyway, you’re back to school straight after the regatta.’
Mikey groans, finishes his tea, licks his fingers. He wants to go into the town again, to watch the stalls being set up, the rowing gigs out on the river, to be part of all the excitement. He assesses his father; looking for familiar signs that might lead to depression or an outburst against something or somebody, but Dad looks OK, not too twitchy. Mikey gives an inward sigh of relief.
‘Can I go out?’ he asks. He can hardly bear to sit still knowing all that is happening just beyond the door.
‘We’ll go together,’ Dad says, which is a bit disappointing; Mikey really liked being in the town by himself but he doesn’t argue.
Dad goes into the kitchen to fetch his rucksack. These days he never goes anywhere without his rucksack and his bottle of water tucked in its front pocket. The rucksack and the bottle are new; since Mikey got back from school for the summer holidays. Dad says he has this problem with a dry mouth and throat and needs frequent little sips, but he’ll never let Mikey touch the bottle.
‘Don’t want you catching anything,’ he says. ‘You can never tell with throats.’
Mikey can hear water running, so he’s probably topping it up, and then Dad comes out and grins at him and it’s such a relief that he’s OK that Mikey feels a happiness that he’s almost forgotten about. He feels guilty, too, because it seems terrible to be happy with Mum dead, but just this minute he can’t help it.
‘Ready?’ Dad asks, and Mikey nods and leads the way downstairs.
Evie sees them walking towards her as she makes her way home. Instinctively she hesitates, recognizing her watcher, and then stares curiously at the striking-looking boy beside him. He looks up at the thin fair man beside him and then turns away, laughing, and pointing at something out on the river. That little streak of memory she experienced with Claude shifts slightly and she is thrust back thirty years or more to a crowded study in a different town and Russell Dean laughing and gesticulating at something beyond the window.
Russ: how she loved Russ. He was one of the first of the ‘history men’; those forerunners of Schama and his like, striding across our television screens, talking on hilltops, expounding at gravesides, theorizing on cliffs. Russ had won hearts and minds. He was exciting, amusing, intelligent and he put sex into dull old history. The nation loved him.
He and Evie worked together at the university, sharing their passion for that particular period of English history: the Civil War. They’d talk for hours, laugh together, as Russ put forward ideas to encourage the great British public to love Cromwell, warts and all.
Half hidden behind a newly erected stall, Evie stares at the boy, seeing Russ in the shape of his brow and the set of his eyes. Then she looks at the man. There is another tug of memory, a twinge of guilt, reminding her of Russ’s wife, suffering from MS, already confined to a wheelchair. Pat was a pretty, pale woman; slightly whiny, her suffering so nobly borne that it was rather like another person in the room. She adored the boy, her hand always reaching to smooth his head where he stood beside her chair; a small, watchful, wary boy of seven or eight. What was his name? James? Jake? Jason, that was it. She called him Jay and he’d nestle into her, his pale eyes – his mother’s eyes – fixed mistrustfully on Evie.
Jason and his son are coming closer. Abruptly Evie turns and walks away, but the past goes with her. She remembers Russ’s study, the piles and shelves of books, half-folded maps, the smell of his Gauloise cigarettes and the scent of his aftershave. Their shared passion drove the relationship forward. He loved Pat, made sure she was looked after, watched over Jason – but his vitality, his energy, was always seeking after something new and exciting. For a short while Evie fitted into that space. They snatched opportunities to be alone together, precious moments to make love in her small room, and now, as she walks quickly through the streets, she feels guilt that she allowed it to happen; that back then she didn’t think much about Pat, confined and hedged about, but simply accepted everything Russ had to give – the love, the sharing, the passion – before they moved apart.
Thinking about it now, it seems that Pat hardly entered into that scholarly part of Russ’s life. It was as if she had her own private, separate, inviolable existence – Russ’s wife and the mother of his son – that was never discussed, certainly never to be questioned or threatened. It didn’t occur to Evie that she might be a threat to Pat. In her late twenties, ten years Russ’s junior, sharing ideas, research, Evie knew very well that she was just one in a line of young women that Russ attracted. She began to write novels in her spare time, he encouraged her, and, after her early success, she left the university. He pursued his television career but at some point it lost that first impact, was crowded out by the competition. Then, nearly ten years after their affair, she had the letter from him.
Evie stops to lean on the wall opposite the Merchant’s House where she first met Tommy. It was Tommy who told her to have nothing to do with it. They were still in the early stages of their relationship and she’d told him about Russ. There were similarities between the two men: Tommy was nearly ten years older than she was; he had the same ability to inspire enthusiasm, to enter into the world of her imagination.
‘My darling girl,’ he said, ‘you can’t possibly commit to something like that. Five years’ public school fees? It’s madness. OK, so you’ve done well, but you’ve invested nearly all your money in your house and you’ve
still got a mortgage, which you’re relying on the sales of future books to pay. It’s much too risky and he has no right to ask, no matter how much help he gave you with your research.’ He paused. ‘Did he help you that much?’
Evie considered the question. ‘It’s impossible to answer that truthfully,’ she said at last. ‘Who can actually define what has informed someone’s work? We are all inspired by the great artists in our field; we read books, or listen to music, or look at great art. We absorb it, digest it, live with it. Who can accurately say what is directly attributable? Russ never gave me specific ideas or information but he inspired me with his love of his work. How can I evaluate that?’
‘It’s your decision,’ Tommy said gently, ‘but you asked me for my opinion and I’m telling you what I think. It’s too risky and not fair on the boy. If you had to stop halfway through it would be a disaster.’
So she’d written back to Russ, explaining, saying how sorry she was, and a few weeks later she had another letter, beseeching her, telling her that Jason had set his heart on Winchester, that it would mean so much to Pat, who was now very ill, and then a stronger hint this time about how much Evie owed him for his help in her research.
In this letter she recognized another voice – Pat’s? – and her reply this time was more forceful and after that there was silence. Evie stares across the roof-tops: no wonder Jason had been watching her with such dislike. Clearly he recognized her and he was remembering her refusal to help. Perhaps he blamed her for his missed opportunity, though it was possible that his parents had found the money from another source. Perhaps he guessed at her relationship with his father and was resentful on his mother’s behalf. It certainly explained that sense of hostility.
Nevertheless, she would like to speak to the boy: Jason’s son; Russ’s grandson. She feels sad that her relationship with Russ was spoiled at the end; that she must have seemed so uncaring – selfish, even – in refusing to help. Looking back, she wonders how much she was influenced by Tommy; whether left to herself she might have agreed to pay out, though she knows in her heart that Tommy was right and the request was out of order. Still, she wonders how hurt Russ must have been and she feels an odd, foolish desire to reconnect with him, to make up in some way for that earlier decision.
Summer on the River Page 5
