“Unless you volunteer what we’re going to find out in the end anyway.”
“Which is?”
“The part you played in Strafford’s supposedly accidental death in 1951.”
Henry smirked disconcertingly. “Boy, you just don’t understand, do you? Do you really think it’s as simple as that? Perhaps you and Strafford have more in common than I thought. My father once told me that fools are dangerous, because they don’t understand what’s in their own interests. You must be a case in point. To think I let you marry my daughter.”
“You weren’t doing me any favours. I was impressed – yes, God help me, actually impressed – by your family: wealth, political connexions, a knighthood behind you. But what does it all come down to? A coward who got lucky, a bigamous marriage, an inflated, bombastic life built on a lie. And you – Henry Couchman, industrial baron, government minister, pillar of the establishment – what does that make you? Nothing but the bastard son of a …”
He swung his chair round, flanked the desk and grabbed my shirt collar. His face, flushed, contorted and angry, was close to mine. His arm shook with the force of his grip. “Shut your mouth, Radford. You haven’t the right to speak to me like that. I don’t know why I don’t …”
“Push me under a train? Help me into a river? Why don’t you try something like that? It seems to be your speciality.”
He wrenched his arm away from me, seemed for a moment shocked by the implications of his action. “So that’s it,” he muttered. “Christ, you really don’t understand.”
“Why don’t you explain then?”
He walked slowly to the window and spoke with his back turned. “Tell me what my mother wants.”
“She wants to know the truth from you about Strafford before she meets Sellick.”
“Then she’s a fool. Like you, she doesn’t understand.”
“If you wait until Sellick arrives, it’ll be too late. Believe me, I know the man.”
Suddenly he seemed to cave in, looking at me with a distress that was almost pitiful. “You know already, don’t you? You’re just dragging it out to punish me for ruining you.”
“That’s right.” I pushed my luck. “Sellick has proof that Strafford’s death wasn’t an accident. He’ll be coming soon to nail you.”
“But it was. That’s all it was. A horrible bloody accident.” He put his hand to his forehead.
“If you can be that sure … you must have been there.”
He slid his hand down to his mouth. “He was just an old drunk.” An old drunk? I’d meant Edwin Strafford, but Henry’s admission surely concerned Ambrose. Events slid out of joint. What did his misunderstanding tell me about either death? Everything or nothing? I didn’t have time to think while Henry blurted it all out. “Don’t you understand? What does it matter that he drowned a few years before he drank himself to death? About as much as the fact that it really was an accident.” His look was full of pleading, pleading for me to understand that an obscure death didn’t justify his public ruin, pleading for my tacit consent to the logic of his judgement – which I would never give.
“Tell me about the accident, then.”
“It was like all accidents – sudden, unexpected, unpredictable: over before I could control it.”
“The day we met in Miston, you travelled to Torquay on the pretext of a trade conference.”
“It was genuine, but I only decided to go at the last moment, because it meant I could slip up to Dewford without anybody knowing and take a look around. You’d worried me, with your talk about Strafford’s accusations of foul play.”
“You found Ambrose at the pub in Dewford?”
“I spotted him there, yes – and remembered him from our previous meeting in 1951. I took care he didn’t see me, though.”
“Not enough care, as it happens. He noticed you.”
Henry nodded. “Makes sense, in view of what happened when I went back that night.”
“Why did you go back?”
“Because Timothy phoned me in Torquay and told me about Ambrose’s letter to you. I’d sent him to buy you off. That sort of thing’s his speciality – God knows he must have his uses. We knew you’d been involved with the Randall bitch: Timothy considers he has droit de seigneur over the better-looking incumbents of the Fellowship, but that didn’t mean I trusted her, or him. With Strafford mouthing off, it seemed best just to pay up and have done.”
“But that didn’t work.”
“No, and the letter changed everything, because it meant there was evidence to worry about, not just hearsay. I think Timothy actually enjoyed dropping me in the shit where that was concerned.”
“So what did you do?”
“I went up to Dewford again. I made for the pub, to see if the old man was there. If he was, I was intending to go back to the cottage and see if I could find that blasted Postscript.”
“And was he?”
“Oh yes. The worst of it was he was just coming out and met me in the glare of the porch light. He stank of cider. But he wasn’t too addled to recognize me. He remembered me from the pub earlier. And then he remembered me from 1951. Started shouting and swearing – and laughing madly.
“I panicked, the last thing I needed was a row in the street. So I took off, legged it away from the old fool. He followed, but soon appeared to give up. I kept on down the lanes. Inky black they were. Pretty soon I was lost. I came to a bridge over a river and stopped to get my breath back.
“I leant against the parapet, facing downstream, breathing deeply, wondering what the hell I’d got myself into. Then I heard him, panting and cursing.
“‘Welcome back, Couchman,’ he snarled. ‘I’ve waited a long time to see you again.’
“I protested that I didn’t know him, but it did no good.
“‘Yes you do,’ he said. ‘We’ve met before. I didn’t know then that you’d kill my uncle and blight my house.’
“I’d had enough. I tried to break away. But he pushed me back until I was bent over the parapet. He seemed to be forcing me back still further. I summoned the strength to push him off, and somehow, in that scramble in the dark, he fell from the bridge, but whether I pushed him or he simply rolled over the edge I don’t know. Whichever it was, I was just relieved to put him safely out of reach. I strained over the parapet for a sight of him but was only too glad that the river and the night had swallowed him. For me, that was enough. I turned and ran. I traced my way by the lights of the village back to where I’d left my car – there was nobody about. So I drove straight back to Torquay. I had one night in a strange hotel to collect my thoughts and put behind me the memory of that mad, frightful moment. It wasn’t enough, of course, but, when I got back here on the Monday, I felt able to carry on much as normal.”
“Letty doesn’t think so.”
“Well, maybe she’s right. But I’ve tried to put it behind me. When I read about his death in the papers, they called it an accident – and that’s all it was. What good would it do to publicize my part in it? Unless, like you, Sellick is just seeking some petty vengeance.”
I controlled my anger at his denial of responsibility, for the sake of leading him on. “Sellick’s got nothing to do with it.”
He looked up sharply. “But you said …”
“I said he had proof that Strafford’s death wasn’t an accident. But I meant Edwin, not Ambrose.”
“You bastard,” he muttered. He set his jaw and inhaled deeply and stood up, brushing himself down as if to wipe away the stain of his recent humiliation. When he spoke again, his voice had more the strength of the Henry I knew. “You unnerved me for a while, but not anymore. Now I know I was right. You really don’t understand – you or this mystery man Sellick: if he exists.”
I stepped back. “Oh, he exists. You’d better believe it.”
Henry summoned a superior smile. “But he has no proof – not about Edwin Strafford. You know about Ambrose now, but it’ll do you no good. I’ll deny everything.”<
br />
I tried to retrench. “Hold on, Henry. Not so fast. Deny it if you like, but what happens if your fingerprints are found in Ambrose’s cottage, which you searched for the Postscript after his death?”
He looked genuinely puzzled. “You’re stupider than I thought, Radford. Do you suppose I’d be so foolhardy as ever to go near Dewford again after that madness?”
“You were prepared to go back there after a similar madness 26 years ago.”
“In 1951 things were different, quite different, though I don’t expect your niggling little brain to appreciate the significance of the issues involved. National issues.”
“And personal ones?”
“Well, of course, Edwin Strafford frightened me. I had a lot to lose with Attlee’s government tottering and a winnable seat there for the taking. I couldn’t afford to have Strafford blackening my name – nor could others. When he threatened me, he threatened my party – because of Churchill’s involvement in what he was alleging. He threatened the conventions and collusions which politics is built on. It was a threat we couldn’t ignore. Even I didn’t realize how emphatically that threat had to be negated.
“I panicked when my warning to the leadership about a mad old political maverick seemed to fall on deaf ears. That’s why I tried my hand at removing the certificate by force. Strafford thwarted me there. But I needn’t have worried, as my father had told me. He always did know how many beans make nine.” His voice drifted away into a murmur.
“So what did happen to Strafford?”
He turned and looked at me, as if surprised that I still needed to ask. “Oh, somebody expert in such matters arranged for him to fall under a train. The powers that be ran out of patience and called him in – his time was up. I didn’t ask for the hows and whys of it. I didn’t want to know them. It was enough that my father and I had brought sufficient pressure to bear in the appropriate quarters. It was enough that Strafford was erased before he could make a nuisance of himself. When the election came in October of that year, I won my seat and the Conservative party won the right to govern. There was no scandal.”
“So the conspiracy of silence continued?”
“Yes. But the knowledge is worth nothing to you. It’s too big for you to tackle. If my mother’s been so stupid as to invite this disinherit South African over, I suggest you persuade her to withdraw the invitation. I suggest you persuade her that politics is more than just banner-waving and hunger-striking.”
“She won’t stop now.”
He walked forward a few paces, turned and faced me. “How about you then, Martin? Will you stop? Let’s forget the crap about you dishonouring my daughter. You know that was a sham. I just wanted rid of your pampered, liberal conscience. Perhaps you reminded me of Strafford. But now we’re not pretending to like each other – or hate each other – any more.” His political nerve was regaining strength all the time, his last-gasp, bareknuckle brawler’s instinct for playing on a weakness. “My party’s going to win the next election – you can bet on it. This spineless government is is own worst enemy. I’m on a promise of a seat in the Cabinet. That buys a lot of influence, a lot of power.”
“What are you saying?”
“I’m saying see reason. For once in your grubbed-together life, stop being a bloody fool, stop being a nothing. It wouldn’t involve our seeing anything of each other – you know how repugnant that is. But it would involve your stopping the slide. Why let everybody else snaffle the good things in life?
“We dislike each other – so what? I’ve learned to live with disliking lots of people. Some of them are my best friends. So Strafford had a raw deal. Why emulate him? I’ll donate something to a memorial down at his blasted Barrowteign, if you like. I’m sorry about his nephew. Maybe you were fond of him. Maybe you think I should have gone over that bridge with him. But think carefully – think more carefully than you’ve ever thought in your life – before you risk going over the bridge along with me.”
He looked straight at me in a strangely impersonal way. “If the possibilities interest you, let me know.” Then he turned his back on me and resumed his study of a bulky file on his desk. I left without disturbing Letty.
On the drive south, I thought, inevitably, of Eve and Timothy. How much did they know? If Henry hadn’t broken into Lodge Cottage, it must have been Timothy – perhaps at Eve’s bidding. Did they realize that Henry had been involved in Ambrose’s death? Presumably not. So what was their game? Whatever it was, it gave me something to cling to. So long as they and Sellick were exerting their differing influences, Henry’s offer lacked the simplicity to impose itself upon me. So long as there were other people and problems to think about, I could avoid confronting my own susceptibility to what he’d said.
Elizabeth was waiting for me at Quarterleigh, eager to know what had happened. I’d rather have delayed telling her, but her manner brooked no postponement. Even so, mine was an edited version. No mention of Henry’s contempt for her and the world in general. No mention of his powerful inducements for me to keep silent. No mention of mechanistic rationale of how to live a life. Such things weren’t for a mother to hear. Denials that he’d had a direct hand in Edwin Strafford’s death, confession and remorse where Ambrose Strafford was concerned – they were different matters and, for Elizabeth’s sake, I couldn’t help letting them cast Henry in a sympathetic light.
It still wasn’t a good enough light to relieve Elizabeth’s distress. Henry had been a party to his father’s deceit of her. He’d allowed (if not encouraged) officialdom to eliminate Strafford. He’d tried to cover up his part in Ambrose’s death. He had lots of excuses but none of them gave him any esteem in her eyes. It was breakfast-time the following day before she articulated a response. By then, I’d spent a largely sleepless night reproaching myself for what I’d found myself hoping: that Elizabeth would call a halt, would destroy the Postscript, would say that enough was enough. With Henry’s offer still eating secretly into my resolution, I no longer felt ready for us to take the irrevocable step which Sellick’s arrival was bound to represent. Yet with the Postscript in Elizabeth’s keeping, matters were now literally in her hands. If she decided to take the step, I’d have to go with her. And decide she did.
“I trust you agree, Martin, that we should still despatch the letter to Mr Sellick tomorrow,” she said, pouring coffee into my cup. “Henry’s testimony is in some ways better than I’d feared, in others worse than I’d hoped. It at least gives me the advantage of knowing what wrongs have been done by members of my family. Some of them concern Mr Sellick, some do not. Of those that don’t, I think you should advise me what to do about Edwin’s nephew.” She’d spoken calmly, but I’d watched the stream of coffee waver with her trembling.
“Reluctantly, nothing. The inquest concluded it was an accident. Henry’s evidence supports that – though it alters the circumstances. If we believe him, why try to re-open the case?”
“But do we believe him?”
“I think so.” A couple of weeks before, I could have rammed the words down my own throat. Now I just gulped coffee to drown the taste of treachery. “It had the ring of truth.”
“And what about the letter? Are you happy for it to go?”
“Of course – if you think it can do any good.” The implication that it couldn’t, dropped delicately between us.
She leant back in her chair. “To do good is perhaps to ask rather a lot – though I have hopes. For the moment, I only propose to see that some form of justice is done to a wronged man.” So virtuous, so laudable, so misconceived. How can you wrong the chameleon, for whom mistake and delusion are forms of camouflage? Sellick had already mobilized a chameleon’s justice, but we weren’t capable of recognizing it.
When we walked, Elizabeth and I together, to the post office in Miston that unremarkable Wednesday morning, to despatch the letter to Sellick, I myself could have asked Strafford’s question: which was the dream and which the reality? It had a dreamlike quality, that early
stroll in the patchy sunshine, but its consequences were harsher than any reality. When we stopped to put flowers on Couch’s grave on the way back, there was in the action as much appeasement as irony. Which was as well, since later there was indeed much to appease. I didn’t expect a reply that week, so reconciled myself to a wait that was bound to be hard on the nerves. Strangely, the days became easier as they passed. Elizabeth and I kept each other supportive company, became comfortable in a routine of spending time harmlessly together, insulated for a while from all the problems certain to beset us.
In fact, we became too comfortable, to the point where I wished I could stay at Quarterleigh forever with Elizabeth in her restful old age, mature and rounded in her judgements and reflections, slowly adjusting to our new-found knowledge, absorbing it as part of her wisdom. I came to understand – in strolls or drives along the Downs – why she felt it important, at the close of her life, to re-open – as some would see it – an old wound. “Because,” she said once, “it can’t be re-opened if it’s never closed. This is a necessary act of healing.” Only the very old or the very young could be so hopeful.
As it turned out, we didn’t have as long to wait as I’d thought. On Sunday evening, the telephone rang. Elizabeth answered.
“It’s for you, Martin – a gentleman named Fowler.”
I grabbed the receiver. “Hello – Alec?”
“Yes Martin, it’s me.” His voice had a gloomy tone, as if he didn’t expect me to be pleased to hear him. Perhaps for that reason, he didn’t waste his words. “Leo got your letter yesterday. He’s flying over tomorrow. But he sent me to make some arrangements in advance.”
“Where are you?”
“Here, in Miston. I’m at The Royal Oak. I expected to see you in the bar.” The joke fell flat. “Could we meet to talk?”
“Okay. I’ll come over straightaway.”
I put the phone down, explained to Elizabeth and headed off without delay. The village and the Downs above were huddling in preparation for darkness as a still evening succeeded a breezy day. The lane was quiet, but, in the trees around the church, birds were roosting noisily. The flowers we’d placed on Couch’s grave on Wednesday were still fresh, in mind and bloom, but something intangible had changed in the ordered environs of Miston. Alec was waiting for me in the homely bar of The Royal Oak and nothing would ever be the same again.
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