Last Friends (Old Filth Trilogy)

by Gardam, Jane

  * * *

  She bundled Dulcie into the chaos of her own—once Veneering’s—abode above, where children’s clothes, toys, a thousand books and a thousand attic relics were scattered about the hall and her husband, Henry, was painting the walls bright yellow.

  ‘Hi, Dulcie,’ said he. ‘Did you know van Gogh called yellow “God’s colour”? Everything here was the colour of mud. Bitter chocolate. Well, they were farmers before Veneering. Fifty years. Well, you must have known them? Wanted the colour of the good earth inside as well as out. Hate farmers. Holes in the floor, no heating except a few rusty radiators that gurgled all night, electric fires just one red glow, worn light-fittings that blow up. And that’s after the farmers left. That was Veneering’s taste too, and he’d come direct from a sky-scraper in Hong Kong. Wasn’t a SOP—Spoiled Old Colonial—anyway, whatever he was. What was he, Dulcie? They say he was an ugly little old man bent over. With dyed hair. Dulcie, kiss me!’

  ‘He was my greatest friend,’ lied Dulcie, stern and angry. ‘To the end’ (another lie!) ‘he was one of the finest-looking men in the Colony’ (true). ‘Amazing white-gold, floppy hair’ (Henry’s was looking like mattress-stuffing tied back with string). ‘It wasn’t dyed. He could have been a Norwegian or one of those eastern-European people. Odessans? Slavs? He was a glorious man once. He was said to have had a mysterious father. But not dour—you know. No, no, never. He was noisy and funny and sweet to women, and he could read your thoughts. Could read your thoughts! And a constant friend. And—do you know—we none of us had a notion of how he got to England. Or about his past.’

  ‘Herman says he could play the drums. And the Blues. Wonderfully. We’re finding revelations in the attics. What do you think—five rocking horses! Come and see. Take anything Dulcie.’

  ‘And take a glass of sherry with you?’ said Anna. ‘There’s dozens of photographs up there. A lovely boy at Eton and The Guards. Film-star looks. Very fetching. A somewhat over-the-top boy I’d say.’

  Dulcie said, ‘That was the son, Harry. Killed in Northern Ireland. Doing something very mad and brave. It broke—.’ (But why tell them? All this is mine. And Betty’s.) ‘It broke his father’s heart.’

  ‘Yes, I thought there was something. This is a broken-hearted house,’ said the husband. ‘We’ll change it. No fears. I wish you would tell us what to do with all his jig-saws.’

  ‘Nobody could really get near Terry Veneering,’ said Dulcie. ‘Nobody but Betty—Elizabeth—Old Filth’s wife.’

  ‘Yes. We have heard about that,’ they said. ‘Just a little.’

  * * *

  After lunch Dulcie was put back in her car on the drive and, looking up at the house behind her, she saw that already it was losing Veneering. There was the same hideousness of shiny scarlet brick-work, the same chrome-yellow gravel and the view at the top of the drive over the miles of meadow was the same shimmering water-colour dream. But Veneering’s house was coming to life. Filth’s great stern, phallic chimney still broke the dream apart but from the inside of Veneering’s house—doors wide—now came the sound of hearty singing and the family man (Henry) with his pig-tail, exploded across the doorstep in overalls covered with paint and kicking the cat.

  ‘Get out!’

  The cat vanished into a thicket.

  ‘Goodbye Dulcie. Come back soon. Come for B and B. We’re going to make our fortunes when I’ve finished painting this place. Cat in the paint tins. Paws no doubt permanently damaged. Colour “Forsythia” like the bush. Horrible colour. Like urine, I always think, but the staircase seems happy with it. We are all going to be, like it tells us in the prayer Book, “in perpetual light”. I’m never sure about wanting that, are you? Tiring. “Perpetual light”.’

  ‘Goodbye,’ said Dulcie. (They are very self-confident, these people, for new-comers to the village.) ‘And thank you very much.’ (But you can discuss things with them and they’re not senile.) ‘By the way, I may not see you for a while. I am thinking of going on a cruise.’ (What? Am I?)

  Through the driving mirror as she went off towards the road to her own Privilege Hall she saw them standing side by side, non-plussed. She waved a hand at them out of the car window and laughed. With her back to them, they could not see the imprisoned girl in her.

  Oh, this is not such a bad little place, she thought. Donhead St. Ague. It hasn’t always been boring like now. It’s the cooling of the blood.

  The cat rushed out from somewhere and under the car and into the scrub behind the bed-and-breakfast crucifix, and then dashed across the lane. As Dulcie turned towards home she saw it watching her, haughty and yellow-pawed in the bushes.

  * * *

  But it’s true, she thought, nobody really knows a thing about another’s past. Why should we? Different worlds we all inhabit from the womb.

  CHAPTER 17

  Old Filth, Terry Veneering, Fred Fiscal-Smith. Two accounted for, life completed.

  And in the shadows, like a little enigmatic scarecrow, Fiscal-Smith, born to be a background figure.

  Fred Smith, has lived his life-time in the same lonely Yorkshire landscape—what happened to him? Each day, he saw to his mother, who was an invalid and almost always in bed, getting himself to and from school from a bus-stop down in Yarm. His father (its headmaster) left the house at six A.M. often to walk with his bike to the school along the shore. A splendid headmaster but a cold father.

  But Fred? After his success at secondary school and evening classes, and the deaths of both parents, silence.

  Fred Fiscal-Smith is a qualified lawyer living alone.

  * * *

  Scene I: Lone Hall, Yarm, North Yorkshire.

  Set: A room, upper floor of large tumbledown, scarcely furnished house where, at a window overlooking the sea a young man FRED sits upright at a desk, back to audience, writing a letter. The wide window he faces shows huge extent of racing sky.

  Hour: just before sunset.

  Month: October.

  Year: Say, 1955

  *

  Stretching below are the great Chemical Works of the North East, a thousand narrow chimneys each one crowned with an individual flame. They stretch from the estuary of the busy river Tees and include the remains of the old fishing village of Herringfleet.

  Pan to a dreary jerry-built town built over bomb damage of twenty years before. Trees that once marched along the ridge of the Cleveland Hills are limp and dying and stand out black and tattered, reminders of an ancient domain. Only the sea survives un-changed. It frames the shore of the flat and sorrowful landscape. It swings out. Swings in. For the letter-writer it is silent, and distant.

  Figure at desk (Fred Fiscal-Smith) is writing a letter with a fountain pen (ink, Swan. Blue-Black). As he writes light is slowly fading from the sky which by the end of the scene has left darkness outside and the windows a splash of black light. Lights have begun to show across the estuary. A little flat, waltzing blue flame tops each of the forest of chimneys.

  The smell of the chemicals rolls across the land and more disgustingly as night falls. Letter-writer holds handkerchief to his face. (Handkerchief white cotton. Large and clean. Marks & Spencer.)

  LetterLone Hall

  To Terence Veneering M.A. Oxon. Herringfleet

  Yarm

  North Yorkshire

  My dear Terry,

  This is a letter of congratulation on the news I see in today’s Times: that you have passed out top in the Bar Finals Examinations and are henceforth to be revered as the best-qualified lawyer in England and life member of the Inner Temple.

  But perhaps you don’t remember me? We haven’t met since our early school days. Nor have I heard of you since 1941 September 15th as I recall, 2 days after the air-raid when my father and Canon Greisepert came to collect you from some-where in the Lake District and took you to your new school, Ampleforth College: the da
y after you had so cleverly, providentially, jumped ship, The City of Benares, as she set sail to drown, or rather cause a German U-Boat to torpedo and drown, over a hundred people, most of them children in Mid-Atlantic and including your headmaster and his wife, the Fondles.

  I did not come with my father and Griesepert to find you, but stayed with mother who was ill. We lived inland from the bombing of the coast and here I still reside. I breed a few Highlanders.

  I have never set foot in Ampleforth College although it is nearby. I went to Middlesbrough Grammar School and then to Middlesbrough Tech a few miles from home. I too have become a Barrister, but on the despised Northern Circuit. It serves me well.

  My parents are dead. I still live (alone) in the old house that looks across to Herringfleet and the sea, and its only disadvantage is that it is far from the railway. I am less prosperous than you people in the South but I am still in touch with those at the Bar, and I go to stay with them as often as possible. I very much hope that you and I might meet again? Trains from York are frequent and I can get to York with the aid of a series of buses.

  It has taken me a little time to realise that Terence Veneering MA (Oxon) is the Terry Venetski (or Varenski? How insular we were!) of my school days. You made a wise move, to my mind. There are some very dubiously-named members of the Bar at present, many of them dusky.

  You would not recognise Herringfleet. Nothing is left of what we knew. No slum terraces, no cooking on the fire-backs. Muriel Street? Ada Street? Who were they? Muriel and Ada? No weekly animal-sacrifice for the Sunday joint takes place in the slippery back alleys. You may well remember, just before the War, some of us coming with bowls to buy the blood? A salt-black—a black salt smell?

  There followed after the war the smell of the chemical works. It was very toxic, but we sat it out. It rolled down the coast and up here into the hills. I wish some artist might paint the chemical chimneys. There will be no record left soon. The poisons here are now quite muted, though still released at night.

  Some sort of phantom of the smell rolls yet along the coast and up here into the hills at nightfall when they hope we are asleep. And all the trees along the Cleveland ridge—Captain Cook’s statue you will remember?—are dying.

  If you do think of returning for a visit however, there is an excellent hotel in Yarm. It was once the Judges’ Lodging, where they all stayed on Circuit—maybe for Assizes—I don’t know. Sometimes, even now, you can come upon nostalgic members of the Judiciary drowsing there on vacation and hoping for some decent conversation. Rather terrible vermilion and ermine, portraits grace the staircase. It is a place where, if you visited, I should be delighted to come if you thought of inviting me to dinner?

  But, first of course, it would be pleasant to come and stay with you in London in your hour of glory.

  Sincerely yours, Fred Smith

  PS: You will see from the Law Lists that I am now known as Fiscal-Smith. Fiscal is my own invention, as (perhaps) Veneering is yours?

  * * *

  Scene IIFade to a dark place under the rafters of a brothel and a dodgy dentist on Piccadilly Circus, London.

  The room is unfurnished except for books and a canvas bed with a metal frame. Coloured lights swing past its dirty window all night long; a released rainbow after years of war-time blackout. Noise of traffic and shouting continuous. The noise of post-war, but still threadbare, London trying hard for joy.

  Figure (Terry Veneering) is lying on bed fully clothed. It has long blond hair. It is very drunk. The room is carpetless. The wash basin is blocked.

  A bashing on the door. The figure on the bed, Terence Veneering, top of the lists of the International Bar Examinations of Great Britain and the Commonwealth, puts a cardboard box over his head and shouts that he is not in.

  Girl’s voice: It’s not the rent. I’ve got a letter for you.

  Terry

  Veneering: Money in it?

  Girl: How should I know? Come on, I’ll cook you a dinner.

  Silence falls. At last footsteps retreat. Outside, the crowds are screaming in Piccadilly Circus, the ugliest piazza in Europe, for the return of the statue of Eros the god of love, removed for safety during the Blitz. The lights revolve upwards and in the rafters it is like a light-house. Round and round.

  Slowly light fades away and noise of crowds, too. From this tall and narrow old house behind the hoardings you hear only the odd occasional street-fight, tarts shouting, students singing. Lights, lights, lights, after the years of darkness still seem a daring extravagance. The blond man on the canvas bed groans.

  The letter from Fiscal-Smith has been pushed under the door. Terry Veneering has no shilling for the meter and it is cold. He staggers about. Finds a cigarette. Takes letter to window in case they’ve cut off the electrics. Reads the letter.

  It is from a lonelier man than he is. This shows in the reader’s face, which softens slightly. (Voice-over of letter here perhaps?)

  Then he moves, finds paper to reply. There is only a defunct and grubby Brief long-settled out of court.

  * * *

  Dear old Fred,

  Well I never! Thanks old chum for the congrats. Often wondered what became of you. I went up to Oxford for five minutes before the War. After school—R.C. Ampleforth College, fees paid in full by the school itself, thanks to old Greasepaint (remember?). Then Oxford again. Followed by National Service, showing the flag around the Med. In white and gold and proud salutes. Nothing nearer heaven than then! The girls at all the ports, all waving us in! Malta—oh Malta! The priests shook holy water over us. And the processions and the flowers! Mind you, the mothers made the girls get home by nine o’ clock for Mass next morning. Every morning! Hard to leave behind, Fred. Hard to leave. I’ll go back one day. Place to die in. (I’m a bit drunk.)

  I waved goodbye to the ship off Point and waited for passage home, when, bugger me, Royal Navy sends me off again to parade ourselves around the Far East to show that England is England Yet (pah!). Married there. Yes. Chinese girl—very rich. Boy born rather soon. Harry. I am not of The Orient and I guess a weird son-in-law.

  My wife Elsie (yes!) is said to be the most beautiful woman in Hong Kong. She has a bracelet round her wrist of transparent jade. There since birth and will be all her life. It was the transparency of the seamless jade did it for me. God, I am drunk, Fred Smith!

  By the way—look again. I was not top of the Bar Finals. I share the silly honour with one Edward Feathers. I expect you’ve heard of him? Or know of him? We were at Oxford together on return visit—cramming—after the War. We hardly spoke. He was the Olde Worlde star of the Oxford Union and I was never called upon to open my mouth there in debate because I am louche, Fred, louche. Feathers is one of those born to the Establishment. Cut in bronze, unfading. Big connections I’ve no doubt. He dominated his Year. Hates the Arts. Does not drink or wench. Bloody clever. We hate each other—God knows why—we pass each other now in the Inns of Court without a word. He of course has got Chambers already. I am still cap in hand—wig in hand—but I can’t afford a wig. Nor a cap, come to that.

  I can think of nobody I would have preferred NOT to share an honour with than Eddie Feathers. Remember Harold Fondle? No—he’s not as bad as that: but he has the fatal APLOMB.

  Feathers is Prometheus. He is thoroughly, wonderfully good. The idea of sharing an honour with him is almost as terrible as that of sharing a woman with him. I cannot however think that this could ever, possibly, happen.

  Also—how I run on!—he was ahead of me at the Prep School I would have given almost anything to go to. Where your father taught once, Fred. Man in charge called ‘Sir’. Met him when your Dad came and rescued me when I ran away from being an evacuee (and a corpse) on The City of Benares. Feathers was Sir’s star student. Sir clearly in love with him. Well, well, ‘this little Orb’. In-it amazing?

  Why am I so full of hate for this
man Feathers? ‘He hath a certain beauty in his life/That makes mine ugly’. We’ll go to a Shakespeare together shall we Fred? When you do come down to London? If I can afford a ticket. There’s Olivier being something or other in St. Martin’s Lane. Sorry. I’m drunk. Did I say that before?

  Oh yes—don’t expect to stay with me. I’m sleeping on the floor at present. There’s no respectable accommodation to be had in London unless you have Oxford ‘connections’. No doubt Les Plumes of this ghastly world have. By the way, how interesting that you are ‘breeding Highlanders’. Do they wear the kilt? Do you know Bobbie Grampian?

  London’s a bomb-site Fred-boy. Stay among your stinking chimneys.

  Love from

  Terry

  * * *

  Curtain to some solemn music.

  CHAPTER 18

  One week later

  Terry sat in the Law Library of the Inns of Court looking at the envelope addressed to Fred Smith he had found in his pocket. It had been there for some days. Letter to the dreaded Fred of yester-year, the meanest boy in the school. He wondered about putting a penny or a penny-halfpenny stamp on it. Penny would do. He had few enough. F. Fiscal-Smith, Lone Hall, Near Yarm, North Yorkshire. A really merry-sounding address.

  Think of swatty little Fred turning up! Well, well. And a lawyer. Post it when I go out. On the way to the interview. Why ever did I write so much to him? Terrible bore when he was eight. Will be worse now. Lawyer. Of course a lawyer! Well, he can’t come and land down here with me. I’m on the pavement.

  Tonight would be the first Terry Veneering had no bed to go to. The landlady, so called, in Piccadilly Circus had said as he left the house that morning, ‘Oh, yes. There’ll be another man here tonight. I told him I thought you wouldn’t mind sharing’.