by Susan Sallis
‘He won’t get it.’
‘You don’t think he is actually working on something for them? It’s strange that he started work straight after Mack’s visit.’
‘Could be. But I doubt it.’
Conrad stood up and Ned said, ‘That was a great breakfast, thanks. Listen, let me clear up, get to know where everything is. Then I’ll swim, walk along the beach. Don’t want to get in your hair.’
Conrad was uncertain. Then he went to a drawer. ‘Here. This is his cellphone. I’ll call you if he surfaces.’
As Ned washed the plates and opened and closed cupboards and drawers, he wondered what Conrad did when his ‘boss’ slept or worked. What sort of life did the two of them have in this peculiarly old-fashioned house on the deserted beach? At first their relationship seemed simply man and master. But then Conrad’s concern would rear up protectively and become very much more than a servant’s would be. Although he was obviously keenly pro-Ned at the moment Ned had no illusions about his own position. If Victor was going to be ill because Ned had turned up then Ned would have to go.
The clearing-up finished more or less successfully, Ned went back to his room and picked up a towel and his swimming trunks. The cellphone was a boon. He intended to swim, then sunbathe and ring Gussie in France. Maybe Frank would appear and they could swim together.
He walked until the dunes hid the beach house from his view, therefore presumably, hid him from Conrad and Victor. Then he sat down and put his head on his crooked knees and closed his eyes. He felt truly alone for the first time in days. Since Rory had left that murky morning … which was actually less than a week ago. It was incredible.
He forced himself to recall the utter loneliness of Zion Cottage without Gussie. Old Beck came in with news from the Fishermen’s Lodge: a sighting of a tunny fish by the Coastal Watch people, weather upcountry coming down fast, plans passed for making Trewyn House into flats … Rory hadn’t mentioned that. Visitors were few since Gussie had gone to France. Ned could have got company in the Sloop, or just walking along the harbour and back through Fore Street. But his loneliness had little to do with company. It had lifted slightly when he had been with the McKinnons; it had descended again and wrapped him around when he’d arrived in California. He frowned, remembering the woman on the plane who had asked for his hand. That had been a chink. Just a chink in the coldness.
He had never thought of himself as a depressive; in fact, he realized now that he had never thought much about himself before. He was Ned Briscoe, member of the Briscoe family with tentacles here and there, none of which mattered much.
His work had mattered at first. The proposition he had put before the interviewing panel had been simple. At that time, a great deal of work and money was being spent in the medical research field endeavouring to ‘tag’ cancer cells within the body so that the chemicals attacked the damaged cells only. He suggested that alongside that work, they should look for ways of screening good cells, leaving damaged or suspect cells isolated and vulnerable to the deadly drug.
It had taken him a full-blown thesis to get that simple message across but that was it in a nutshell. And he had believed in his own hypothesis and worked hard to get his team organized and as committed as he was himself. It was called the Isolation Project. It had been running for two years, and the only people who still believed in it were Gussie and himself.
He lifted his head slightly and looked at the sea. He loved the sea, but not like Gussie loved it. Sometimes it terrified him. It was like watching evolution in progress. Evolution, in fact, going backwards. What was happening exactly? Was the sea some kind of monster designed to grind rock into sand so that it could be swallowed up? Was old man Gerald Scaife right after all and the sea was intent on gobbling up the land?
Ned squeezed his eyes tightly shut – God, he really was depressive. And this place wasn’t helping. But at least he knew he had done the right thing in resigning from the international drug company whether they believed in him or not. He had been back to the laboratory twice since Nine Eleven and recognized the sheer drudgery of most research work. He had resigned just before Christmas and told no one, not even Gussie.
He pulled out the rather large mobile phone from his pocket and stabbed out the series of numbers that would connect him to Gussie. The ring tone took ages to start, and when it did it was slightly fractured. He knew that meant he wasn’t going to be able to hear her. He rang off and immediately stood up and threw off his clothes. After visualizing the sea as a voracious entity he had to hurl himself into it, and then, quite suddenly, it was all right. The sun shone, the cold was more intense because of it, the free movement of arms and legs was a joy as always. He could be at home on one of the beaches. People long ago had named seas and oceans and made them sound separate and different, but the mass of water that covered the earth was all one. He floated on his back and narrowed his eyes against the intense blue of the sky. The unbroken waves lifted him, then lowered him carefully. He let them woo him away from his depression. Dad had been a great believer in hydrotherapy; he was always throwing himself into the water and glorying in stretching his stunted torso.
There was that word again. Glory. The gates of glory.
Ned grinned ruefully. And from the shoreline there came a bark. It was Frank. They swam to meet each other. Then Frank licked Ned’s face and Ned actually laughed. They swam back to the beach and Ned towelled them both and then they left the pile of clothes and ran until they were dry. He had just shrugged into his jacket when the phone rang. He whipped it out; if it was Gussie he would know that everything was all right and the world was settling about him again.
It was Conrad.
‘Tried to get you, man. You’ve been gone eight hours. I sent Frank to find you.’
‘He found me.’ Ned grinned down at the dog, whose tongue was lolling from between those efficient-looking jaws. Why on earth didn’t dogs sometimes bite off their tongues? ‘We had a swim, then a run. Sorry, Conrad, must have been away from the phone longer than I thought.’
‘Victor is up. Walking to meet you. He’ll need an arm on the way back. You OK, man?’
‘Yes. Yes, I am. Thanks.’
‘See you. Lobster for supper.’
The phone went dead. Ned grinned down at Frank. ‘This must be man talk – no frills attached. I’m used to babble, Frank. Dad sitting there, grinning appreciatively too. But this is OK. Conrad is OK. And Victor … an elderly has-been?’ Unexpectedly, Frank growled deep in his throat. ‘Sorry, old chap. I forgot he rescued you. Come on, he’s on his way to meet us and it’s hard going on this sand.’
Victor had a home-made walking pole and looked like someone from the Old Testament. He did not spurn Ned’s offer of an arm, and with the double support they made good headway along the beach. Frank walked ahead of them as if testing out the ground.
‘Conrad can’t get used to living with the sea, sky and sand,’ Victor commented, stopping to stare out at the horizon. ‘He was a professional boxer, you know. Did some wrestling, too. But there was some hanky-panky with the organizers and he tried to make a run for it.’
‘Hanky-panky?’ Ned laughed; the old-fashioned slang did not suit Conrad in any way at all.
‘Dirty dealings? Yes, very much dirty dealings. But I’ve played it down for years – don’t want to make too much of it. He used to get nightmares and scream the place down.’ He sighed and coughed slightly. ‘He didn’t lose a fight he was meant to lose and they dropped him off a boat out there.’ Victor nodded at the sea. ‘Can’t swim, of course, but he had a friend aboard who threw him a life belt. He hung on to it and was washed up a couple of miles along the beach. He wasn’t conscious. I had to put him back in and float him down to the cabin. He acts like I rescued him. He would have been spotted anyway. Helicopters do a regular sweep along the coast.’
‘Even so … time was of the essence.’
‘He’s learned to live with it. But some day he’ll have to go and find the guy who g
ave him that life belt. He can sell the house and set up in the village.’ Victor resumed walking and glanced at Ned. ‘You don’t mind, do you, old man?’
‘Mind?’
‘Me leaving the house to Conrad. I knew you’d be well provided for.’
Ned said gloomily, ‘Jointly, I think we’re millionaires.’
‘Don’t scorn it, Ned. You can do a lot with it. Have they got you on the board of Trustees yet?’
‘What – The Spirit of America? No. But if they ask … Gussie will want to do it.’
‘Quite a girl. Not surprising, with Mark Briscoe for a father and Gerry Scaife’s daughter for a mother.’ He smiled at Ned’s face. ‘I did some research twenty years ago when Kate and Mark hooked up and I’ve done a lot more since Nine Eleven, Ned. Should have done it before. Should have done it for Kate’s sake and for yours. Grief makes you selfish, Ned. You look in instead of out.’
Ned thought about it and said huskily, ‘Yes.’
They walked up a steep dune and the house appeared below them. They stood, getting breath into their lungs. Frank lolloped down to the veranda steps and crouched, waiting.
Victor said, ‘Is there anything I can do, Ned? Did you have anything in mind when you contacted me – anything at all?’
‘No. Not then. It was a desperate move, in a way. I could see that Gussie had to contact her mother. And in that case, I thought …’ His voice petered out and he could think of nothing more to say.
Victor rattled a sigh. ‘You probably realized that you still had a father. It was one of those “stages of grief” they’re always on about.’
Still Ned said nothing, and they stood on the dunes in the sunshine watching the dog, who had now put his head on his paws.
‘You would not be looking for consolation,’ Victor said. Ned made a sound and Victor added quickly, ‘That was not a question, Ned. When you sent me that first letter via McKinnon, I knew how angry you were. And why wouldn’t you be angry? I have never done anything about being a father, and I am old and a recluse, and I am still alive. The man who was your true father, who was probably your best friend, was young, disabled and never grumbled – am I right?’ He glanced round into Ned’s face and nodded. ‘I am right. He was a good father. And he is dead. I wondered – especially after we got the phone message announcing your arrival – I wondered then if your sheer tenacity meant that you intended to kill me.’
Ned made a sound then. An astonished shout. He raised his hands in protest and Victor stumbled a little as the support on his left disappeared. He steadied himself with his pole. Below them the dog barked and Conrad appeared on the veranda and looked up.
Ned opened his eyes wide and then turned and looked his father full in the face. ‘I might have had a job on my hands,’ he said, inclining his head towards man and dog below them.
They both laughed. When they looked again, Conrad was wheeling a trolley of food from the kitchen and the dog was up and wagging his tail. Victor put a hand in the crook of Ned’s elbow and they long-strode down through the sand.
The lobster was delicious. Ned surveyed the wreckage of shells on the plates and insisted on clearing up. When he emerged from the kitchen the other two had retreated into the living room and were listening to a news programme on the radio. Frank was dozing in front of an ancient two-bar electric fire that smelled of burning dust. Ned watched them for a moment, recognizing their unlikely companionship. He knew so little about either of them. How long had it been since Victor had towed Conrad through the shallows? And what about Dennis Wakefield, who had fled to America with Victor back in the eighties? Had they been one of the first legal gay couples? Had Dennis been an Aids victim?
Frank got up and prowled to the screen door, and Ned went inside and the small domestic scene broke up. Conrad announced he was going to the village tomorrow and would check the deep freeze before going to bed. Victor asked him to go to the hardware store and get some torch batteries.
‘Oh, and the drug store, too. Soap. Lavatory paper.’
Ned grinned at that. It dated Victor inexorably. Even Old Beck asked for a toilet roll.
‘Come and sit with me for a bit, old man.’ Victor indicated a chair. ‘I’ll switch off this rubbish and we can hear the sea. High tide tonight. I feel stronger at high tide.’
Ned nodded as he settled into a deep leather armchair. ‘Strange to think we both live by the tides. Dad always said his stumps stopped hurting at high tide.’ There was a pause and he said quickly, ‘I didn’t mean anything by that. It was just that he had these small … beliefs. They made him very human. In a way.’
It was almost dark now but he saw Victor smile. ‘For me, too. I like to hear that sort of thing. I want evidence that Kate was happy. I left suddenly. I never knew your father personally and he hadn’t made his reputation by then.’
Ned felt the old revulsion in the pit of his stomach and tackled it at source.
‘Why did you go? Was it me? Mum was always telling me to be quiet because you were working but I never ever saw you work. So … maybe I wasn’t quiet?’
Victor turned in his chair and stared through the dusk. ‘Christ. Of course it wasn’t you. God, Ned. When you were born I thought it might work. You were so great. Sturdy. Real. Practical – like your mother. And then … it didn’t work. I poisoned everything I touched. That was the trouble. I couldn’t paint. Dammit, I couldn’t see what was around me. I had lost my gift of seeing through things – they made no impression on my mind.’ Ned vividly recalled Gussie standing on the edge of the sea, absorbing what was before her.
There was a pause then Victor spoke slowly, very clearly. ‘And I had been unfaithful. That’s why I went. Infidelity. It’s a terrible thing, Ned. Believe me, it’s the worst thing.’
Ned stared back, astounded. Infidelity had never been mentioned. And then he remembered Dennis Wakefield. Dennis Wakefield the artist from America who had … taken Victor away?
He cleared his throat. He was determined to continue to tackle this head-on. ‘Were you always gay, then? I didn’t know. Mum never said …’
He could no longer see Victor’s face but the sudden explosion of laughter told him he was wrong.
‘Dear Ned. You are very much like your mother, you know. She was impulsive in her way. She saw a problem, identified it, did something about it. As quickly as that, almost.’ Victor got to his feet with some difficulty; Frank did too and led the way to various light switches. The living room glowed around them, shabby, comfortable. Victor settled himself again, slightly askew so that he could look at his son. He said, ‘I was not gay, Ned. Dennis wanted to help me back to some kind of artistic life. I knew it was the right way to go. Better than walking into the sea and giving Kate a few more burdens to shoulder.’ He dropped one arm and fondled Frank’s ears. ‘He owned this place – sold it to me three years later when he went to Ireland. He’s married now but he keeps in touch – checks that I’m still working at least two hours a day. Swim every other day. Food … sleep. He – he dragooned me back to life, Ned. It was the only way.’
Ned found he could no longer meet his father’s eyes. They saw too much. He too put down a hand and touched Frank’s sable coat. ‘Mum did not speak about it. Neither of us did. I – I labelled you as a deserter.’
‘Well, you were right about that. I could see only the infidelity.’ As Ned’s gaze swept up with surprise, he caught a slight grin on Victor’s face as he carried on. ‘Though if I hadn’t been unfaithful, you would not have been born, Ned. And I would have missed out on something. I’m not sure yet, but I suspect I would have missed something glorious.’
That word again. Ned felt sudden exasperation. He said flatly, ‘Sorry. I don’t get it. This infidelity thing. Are you talking about your work – your talent?’
There was a silence in the room; it was tangible, like soup. Thick with … something.
Victor said at last, ‘Do you not know about Davie? Didn’t Kate tell you?’
‘Sorry. Never h
eard of him.’
‘Not him. Her. My wife. Davina.’
Ned put his hand back on to the arm of the chair; it was heavy as if the thickness of the silence held it down. Ned knew now that the silence had gathered itself into a soup of memory. He thought suddenly: This is why I came, this is the reason for my existence …
He spoke through the same thickness now in his throat. ‘You must understand that I know nothing about my mother’s life before me. She wanted everything to begin with her marriage into the Briscoe family. I see now that she saw it as giving me an instant family. Normality. Happiness.’
‘Then I will stop talking, Ned,’ Victor said. ‘She saw that there would be a problem for you, she identified it and she did something about it.’ His smile was wide. ‘Dear, dear Kate. I’m not about to ruin your wonderful solution.’ He tipped his head to the ceiling as if he could see his ex-wife on the lime-washed rafters. ‘It worked. And now I have met our son it is still working.’
He began to heave himself up again and Ned almost did the same. Frank stayed exactly where he was between the two armchairs, and Ned sat down again. He said loudly, ‘This is why I came, Victor. I didn’t know – now I do. I have to understand this. You have to tell me. I can’t leave Mum and Dad in the wreckage of Ground Zero until I know. Perhaps they can’t even go through the gates of glory until I know.’
Victor collapsed back into his chair. He sounded mildly surprised. ‘Gates of glory?’
Ned explained quickly. ‘We thought – the three of us – that we could bring them down to our level again by imagining the kissing gate along the cliff. It was always such a performance to get Dad through. The wheelchair wouldn’t go along the footpath so he had to be on his legs. So he went first – he didn’t like doing that – and closed the gate and leaned on it and she sort of squatted down and kissed him through the bars. The legs made him too short to reach to the top.’
Victor said, ‘Did he mind?’
‘I don’t know. But Mum made sure he knew that she didn’t mind. They were quite embarrassing at times.’ Ned smiled. ‘The guys I brought home from school and college and work – they didn’t know who to fall for first: Mum, Dad or Gussie. I suppose I can add Jannie to that list now.’
