Past Caring - Retail

by Robert Goddard

  I found him in the saloon – larger but emptier than the public bar, drinking English beer and smoking French cigarettes in one of the corners by the wide chimneybreast. He smiled and nodded, but waited for me to join him with my drink.

  “I didn’t expect us to meet again so soon,” he said.

  “Neither did I.”

  “It was only a month ago.”

  “It seems longer. A lot’s happened in that time.”

  “Not to me. Except, of course, these two trips. Your letter came as something of a bombshell.”

  “I suppose it would.” We were fencing, probing conversationally to see if we could put any weight on a friendship we both knew to be bankrupt. “I’ve only done what Sellick asked.”

  “And then some.” Alec smiled uncertainly. “News of the Postscript took him aback.”

  “I’m glad something did.” I’d tired of the bluff. “Lately, I’ve had the impression Sellick knew more about what I was doing than I’ve told him.”

  “What do you mean?” He smiled, as if he knew all too well.

  “I mean he’s been checking up on me.” It was still only a guess, because Eve had suggested another explanation for my past being divulged to her, but Alec’s shiftiness supported my belief that that had only been a ruse.

  “In what way?”

  “In the way that he’s sent you here in advance. Why would that be but to find out what I’ve been up to?”

  Alec looked defensive. “Leo’s an old man not used to travelling. He wanted me to book a hotel and, yes, spy out the land here. But there’s nothing sinister in it.”

  “Alec, we’ve known each other for ten years now. Even if I’ve acted like a fool at times, don’t treat me like one. When we met in London, I told you about my hopes and plans involving Eve Randall. You agreed not to mention them to Leo.”

  “I remember.” His voice had sunk to a murmur.

  “Within days, I’d been discredited in Eve’s eyes. Somebody had told her all about the end of my teaching career – chapter and verse. I …”

  “It was me.” He looked straight at me, with a frankness in his eyes which had once been charm. “I told her. I encouraged you – with a few insignificant disclosures – to tell me exactly what you were thinking of. When I met her, it was easy to understand why you should throw Leo over for her sake. Ordinarily, I’d have wished you luck.”

  “But …”

  “But I’m not a free agent. I’m Leo’s errand boy. Let’s not dress it up – that’s how it is. He sent me to see what progress you were making and, because Eve seemed to be leading you astray – as far as he was concerned – he instructed me to end your association by whatever means I judged necessary. I couldn’t see any other way to do it.”

  I put the only question I could: “Why, Alec? Why sell yourself and me down the river?”

  He drew on a cigarette and gazed past me. “Money, old son. It’s as simple as that. I ran short of collateral in a cash-conscious age. That magazine I told you was my passport to fame and fortune in Fleet Street – a sick joke. A loss-maker from day one. Sellick let me run up debts with him as if they meant nothing – then, suddenly, called them in. At the same time, I discovered he was the faceless proprietor behind the casino where I’d salved my boredom with some mindless gambling – and lost heavily. I woke up one day in my banana paradise to find a South African capitalist had me by the short and curlies.”

  “So how did you pay him off?”

  “I didn’t – hadn’t a hope. But Leo offered to commute the debt. A well-qualified, footloose English intellectual in his pocket was just what he was looking for. I’d been set up.”

  “But why?”

  “Because of the Strafford thing – because of you. It was eating away at him for years before I obligingly walked into his web. I couldn’t fathom it and I certainly couldn’t afford to appear too curious, but what he wanted was some kind of entrée to English intellectual society. He thought I was it and I had to try to live up to that. When I mentioned you as an historian I knew, he was over the moon. I reckon he knew even then about your link with the Couchmans, though I admit it was me who told him why the link had been broken. That pleased him all the more. You were available and known to be antagonistic towards the Couchmans: two qualifications which made you the man for the job.”

  Now that Alec had said it, it seemed just what I might have expected. “So you didn’t invite me to Madeira for a friends’ reunion? Sellick’s offer wasn’t just a lucky windfall? It was part of the scheme.”

  Alec shrugged apologetically. “That’s about the size of it. Leo reckoned it was an offer you couldn’t refuse.”

  “He was right.”

  “He usually is.”

  “But why? What’s the point? Now you know about his connexion with Strafford, what do you reckon he really wants?”

  “I don’t know. He wanted you to act as his surrogate. He thought you’d share his motives. That’s why Eve was such a threat. What those motives are I can’t say. Your guess is as good as mine. It’s been like he knew what you’d find all along. None of your reports surprised him – until the last.”

  “He didn’t know about the Postscript then?”

  “Definitely not. That was a bolt from the blue. Not to mention the old lady’s invitation.”

  “Why has he accepted?”

  “Martin, I’m not paid to solve such riddles. I’m just kept happy with some hack writing and spurious local celebrity. I do his bidding, but I don’t have to understand it – or like it.”

  I looked at him: somehow shrunken in my mind, while I’d grown – however uncomfortably – in the trials of my task. I should have felt anger or contempt. Instead, I pitied him. “Alec, didn’t you ever hesitate to lead me on, knowing what you were getting me into?”

  He smiled wryly. “Once or twice. When we met in London, I tried to imply how things really were. But you failed to take the hint and I couldn’t risk making it explicit.”

  “It doesn’t say much – for our friendship.”

  “No. But then Leo enjoys making people face their own inadequacies. So he relished the fact that we were friends, revelled in forcing me to betray you – along the way, as it were, as a sideshow in his larger scheme. As for us, telling you I had no alternative won’t wash. I could say I thought the job would be good for you – but I had a bad feeling about it all along. The truth is that Leo’s promised to use his money and influence to get me a break in journalism – if I serve him well. After all the false starts and missed opportunities in my life, I just couldn’t resist, couldn’t let slip what might have been my last chance. For that, I was prepared to play my part in his plans. I didn’t realize what it would involve, of course, and, by the time I did, it was too late to back out. Blowing the gaff to Eve was the worst. If that ended something good, I’m truly sorry.”

  His admission was well-timed. Before discovering Eve with Timothy, I’d have been harder on him and easier on myself. “I’m not sure it did that – though it seemed like it at the time. It turns out Eve wasn’t on the level either.”

  Alec raised his eyebrows fatalistically. “Who is? It must be the age. After the Enlightenment, one day they’ll call this the Disillusionment.”

  “Maybe. But since we are now being … honest with each other, tell me why you’ve come.”

  “Like I said – to spy out the land.”

  “That’s all?”

  “What else would there be?” I challenged him with my eyes, but he wouldn’t meet my gaze. I couldn’t quite believe him, but his candour had defused my disbelief.

  “I don’t know, Alec. I didn’t know before. Tell me what Leo made of my letter.”

  “He summoned me to the Quinta yesterday morning, showed me the letter and told me to travel here by the first available flight and arrange for him to follow on Monday. We didn’t debate the matter – we never do. All that reasoned discussion was for your benefit. Leo prefers to give instructions and see them followed. O
bviously, he knew the letter would tell me things about him I didn’t know, but it didn’t seem to bother him. Still, something did. Perhaps the imprecision in your description of the Postscript. How much is there in it you didn’t mention?”

  As soon as he’d asked the question, I felt reluctant to answer it. Whatever we now admitted to each other, it could never be the same again between us. I’ve never demanded anything as crude as loyalty from him, but its loss was as keenly felt as its existence had been blandly assumed. “When the time comes, Leo will know.”

  “When is that time?”

  “When he meets Lady Couchman – and her son.”

  “Well, I’m to collect him from Gatwick Airport tomorrow afternoon. Do you want me to bring him straight here?”

  “I suppose so. There’s nothing to be gained from delay. I’m sure we all have questions we want answered.” We did, but, equally, delay had its appeal. I’d not seen Sellick for two months, not yet spoken to him with the advantage of the knowledge I’d since come by. Before, he’d had the upper hand. Now, I might wrest it from him. But, drinking beer that evening with Alec, 24 hours away from the opportunity, I felt only a sapping inadequacy for the occasion. There were no grounds for any other feeling. “I have a question: why tell me now? You could have kept me guessing about your motives a little longer.”

  “Could I? You were bound to work out who’d blabbed to Eve. That was a trick we could only play once. Effectively, it blew my cover. But Leo didn’t seem to care. You were bound to confront me with it when we next met, which is why I made such a quick getaway at the time. Of course, I could have held out longer, but there are limits even to my obedience. Leo can do without this particular secret – I’m glad it’s out in the open.” So that was Alec’s act of minor heroism – to tell me before he had to. It wasn’t enough.

  “How do I know the timing of this disclosure isn’t Sellick’s choice – like everything else?”

  “You won’t.” He drained his glass. “If I were you, I wouldn’t trust me. That’s the measure of Leo’s gift for corruption.”

  I left him to drink away the evening. It was unlike me not to stay, but I had not wish to, after what he’d said, and there was much to be arranged. I hastened back to Quarterleigh through the velvet darkness and found Elizabeth waiting for me, eager to hear my news.

  “Sellick will fly in to Gatwick tomorrow afternoon,” I said. “Alec will collect him and bring him here. I hope I was right to assume that’s what you’d want.”

  “You were, Martin. Now that I’ve taken the step of inviting him, I’d like to see him as soon as possible. And I’d like Henry to be here as well.”

  “I don’t think he’ll come. He was hoping you’d withdraw the invitation.”

  Elizabeth smiled. “I’m sure he didn’t seriously expect me to. I shall speak to him now and instruct him to be here.”

  She went to the telephone and dialled the number.

  I listened to her half of the telephone conversation while foreboding gathered in my mind and moved towards a stark conclusion: if I’d been set up in the first place to take the job Sellick had offered, had this invitation and the meeting it was about to lead to been foreseen as well? If so, its purpose was already planned – and it wasn’t ours.

  Elizabeth had been speaking to Letty, but a change of tone told me Henry had come on the line. “Mr Sellick will be here tomorrow evening. I’d like you to come and meet him over dinner … I realize that … Possibly – let’s just wait and see … Yes, he will be … Very well then, dear, I’ll look forward to seeing you about seven o’clock … Bye bye.”

  She came and sat down. “That was easier than I’d expected. He agreed to come.”

  “Just like that?” I was puzzled.

  “No. He said he was busy and didn’t see why you had to be here. But he said he’d come. He didn’t sound pleased – in fact, rather low generally – but he consented and that’s the main thing. Still, the lack of argument was unlike him. He sounded tired. Perhaps he’s sickening for something.” She looked thoughtful for a moment. “Once he’s here, I can make sure he doesn’t take it too badly.”

  It was wrong and I knew it. Henry should have raged at his mother, refused to have anything to do with Sellick, raced down and tried to prize the Postscript out of our keeping. Why this meek compliance? Why this lack of fire from the arch-fulminator? I was too slow to make the connexions, still too busy forming the questions to guess the answers. Elizabeth was content to wait and see and I, though not content, had to do the same.

  I went out at dawn the following morning and walked myself into a physical fatigue with which to face the day. Then I sat with Elizabeth in the conservatory and talked about suffragism to pass the afternoon, though our thoughts were far more on the present, for once, than on the past. Dora began to fuss around in preparation for a grander dinner than she’d served at Quarterleigh in a long time and we knew the evening – with all its uncertain events – would soon arrive.

  A taxi crunched up the drive shortly after seven o’clock, true to Alec’s phoned estimate. I watched from the lounge as Alec paid off the driver while Sellick climbed – a little stiffly – from the back seat. Immaculately dressed in crested blazer and grey trousers, groomed and slightly self-conscious, but ever inch in command. He surveyed the house with his sharp, discriminating eye and betrayed no hint of a reaction. He was the same man who’d charmed and won me in Madeira with his knowing, connoisseur’s intellect, but there he’d shone in his proper firmament. Damp-wooded, parochial Sussex didn’t quite fit. It viewed him as an outsider while, in his penetrating gaze, he seemed to view it as a conquest – or perhaps an inheritance.

  Elizabeth went out to meet him, while I lingered indoors and watched the long-destined moment. I saw her smile and say a word, then extend a hand in greeting. I saw Sellick incline his head and shake her hand. But I also saw that he didn’t smile. His lips beneath the pencil-straight moustache didn’t even play with the idea. In that moment, my heart sank.

  The group filed into the house and joined me in the lounge. Leo’s eyes shot across to me as he entered the room and his tongue passed along his lower lip in a sole concession to nervousness. “Why, Martin,” he said, “what a pleasure to see you again. I cannot fault your industry over the past two months.” He shook my hand before I could avoid it. “I hope you’ve enjoyed yourself in that time.” His look defied me to acknowledge the sarcasm.

  “I think I’ve done what you asked, Leo.”

  “That and more.” He turned to Elizabeth. She looked solemn and dignified in a full-length, dark blue dress with a simple pearl necklace. In her easy grace there was no hint of the inner turmoil she must have felt. “I’m sure, Lady Couchman, you would agree that we owe Martin a great debt for making this meeting possible.”

  “There is much that I owe Martin,” she replied in measured tones. “But I feel sure he would be the first to acknowledge that thanks on this occasion are due to you for accepting my invitation and coming such a long way in the interests of … reconciliation.”

  “It was I assure you, no hardship.” There was too much electricity in the atmosphere for my liking. I poured sherry as a distraction and suggested we all sit down. We did, but it made little difference. Elizabeth was trying for something Sellick clearly had no intention of giving. As for Alec, he looked uncomfortable and carefully avoided my eye.

  “My son will be arriving later,” said Elizabeth. “I hope you’ll bear with him in what he’s bound to find a difficult encounter.”

  “It’s difficult for all of us, Lady Couchman. After all, few men have to wait until they reach my age to meet their family.”

  Bravely, Elizabeth persevered. “It has been a long time, it’s true, but I hope you accepted my invitation in the spirit in which I issued it, namely that it’s never too late to put right old wrongs.”

  “Oh, I agree wholeheartedly. After all, in English law there is no statute of limitations.”

  I intervened
in an attempt to wrong-foot Sellick. “Tell me, Leo, why did you let me discover your part in Strafford’s life rather than volunteer the information? It would, after all, have made my task a good deal easier.”

  He smiled with patronizing indulgence. “In the first place, Martin, you accepted the terms of my offer and can hardly complain if you had to work for your money. In the second place, I doubt myself if the information would have aided you, quite the reverse. And lastly, of course, I had no idea that you would come upon this … Postscript.” So measured and so cool, but so careful to avoid mentioning what I’d witheld from him. “When am I to be allowed to see it?” In that last remark, a hint of impatience that was unlike him.

  “I think that should await Henry’s arrival,” Elizabeth said. “You both have an interest in it.” I understood her reluctance to reveal the extent of her son’s involvement in her husband’s fraud to so unyielding a guest, but Sellick seemed to interpret the remark differently.

  “I should have thought,” he said slowly, “that, as Martin’s employer, I had first call on the fruits of his research.”

  I couldn’t let him get away with that. “The Postscript is nobody’s property – but Strafford’s.”

  “True. But since Strafford is dead, I own his house and other … written work … and he has no surviving family, I would contend that it devolves upon me.”

  Now it was Elizabeth who tried to defuse the situation. “Speaking of Edwin’s house, Mr Sellick, why did you buy it all those years ago?”

  The reply was sharp. “Because, at the time, it was the only link to any kind of family left open to me. Of course, when I found the Memoir there, even that link was called into question.”