All My Enemies

by Barry Maitland

“Laura and the Captain. Kathy, give Vicky the line, from the top of the last page of act two. Come along!”

  It took her a moment to find it, during which Stafford drummed his fingers impatiently. “What do you mean by all this?”

  “I realize that one of us must go under in this struggle.” Edward picked up the cue.

  “Which?” Laura asked her husband defiantly.

  “The weaker, of course.”

  “And the stronger will be in the right?”

  “Naturally, since he has the power.”

  “Then,” she threw at him, “I am in the right!”

  Not for the first time, Kathy felt an odd and elusive resonance between the lines of the play and the events shaping up around it. Her eye moved down the page, following the actors’ words until they reached the end of the act, with Laura, backing towards the door at stage left, accusing her husband of insanity. At this point the Captain reached forward for a rolled newspaper, representing a lighted lamp according to Kathy’s script, and tossed it at Laura’s feet.

  “NO! NO! NO! NO!” Stafford stormed forward, his face livid. He snatched up the newspaper and advanced on Edward, waving it in his face. “This is a lighted paraffin lamp, you ninny! You are not throwing a bunch of daffodils at the woman! You are hurling a Molotov cocktail at her, for God’s sake! YOU ARE TRYING TO KILL HER!”

  He glared at Edward for a furious moment, then turned on his heel and hurled the newspaper at Vicky, missing her head by inches. He then marched back to his table. Edward looked shaken. He glanced over at Vicky, who shrugged and rolled her eyes.

  “Look, Stafford,” he tried, “this scene is impossible. I simply can’t see how that action is supposed to work. I know it’s meant to be some kind of mid-point climax, but it just seems totally bizarre and unconvincing to me.”

  “Nobody gives a turkey’s fart how it seems to you, Edward,” Stafford retorted brutally. “We’re not asking you to write a critique of the bloody play, only to portray one of the characters, and to do that as if you meant it. Not as if it were a way of filling in time until you can go downstairs for a glass of ale. My God, man! When are you going to start taking this seriously?”

  Everyone was staring in shock at Stafford. Edward looked as if he might crumple. Yet he still found the words to come back one more time. “If I do as you say, Stafford,” he said stiffly, with as much dignity as he could gather, “and throw it at the wall, it either will kill Vicky, or it’ll bring the set down.”

  “Well, hooray! At least we’ll get one performance where you’re not all half-dead.”

  “It’s extraordinary,” Ruth said afterwards. “I’ve never seen him like that before. Normally he’s the only one who keeps his head. I find it rather frightening. You’d think his life depended on it.”

  THE FOLLOWING EVENING, KATHY and her aunt were sitting in the flat, reading. Mary was studying illustrations of nineteenth-century costumes in the collection of the V and A, trying to decipher collar designs, while Kathy sat opposite her, reading collections of plays—Noël Coward, Neil Simon, Peter Shaffer, and August Strindberg.

  The phone rang, and when she lifted it Kathy heard the mid-Atlantic accent of her cousin, Mary’s daughter, on the line.

  “Hello, Di,” she said, watching the alarm appear on Mary’s face. She raised an eyebrow at her aunt, who shook her head vigorously.

  “Kathy, is my mother there with you?”

  “Yes. Do you want to speak to her?”

  “No. What I want you to do is put her on the next available train back to Sheffield. How long has she been there with you?”

  “I think it must be two weeks now.”

  “Two weeks! What has she told you she’s doing?”

  “I rather think she’s left your father, Di.”

  “That’s utterly crazy! Is she out of her mind?”

  “Actually, she’s a lot calmer than when she first arrived. She seems quite sane to me.”

  “But . . . there must be something wrong with her. They’ve been together for fifty years. She can’t walk out on him now. It’s just perfectly grotesque.”

  “She’s quite serious about it, Di.”

  “What about him? How is he going to survive?”

  “Perhaps it’ll be good for him.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous!”

  “How is he making out, do you know?”

  “The cousins have been doing their best to cope, I understand, with the help of a neighbour—someone called Effie—and the Social Services people have been round. But that’s no solution. You have to persuade her to go home, and make it up with Pop, and just stop being so . . . so absurd.”

  “She won’t do it, Di. I’ll tell you what. Maybe I could take her down to Heathrow tomorrow and put her on a plane to Toronto. I’m sure the airline would look after her for the transfer to Calgary.”

  There was silence on the line. Aunt Mary’s eyes widened in consternation.

  “Or would a Vancouver flight be better? It probably would, wouldn’t it?”

  “Kathy . . . that wouldn’t do any good at all. I mean it isn’t going to help her think any straighter. And besides . . . Don and I are going through a difficult time right now. I don’t think having Mom around the place would be a good idea at all.”

  “Ah.”

  “Look, I’ll give this some more thought. Please do what you can to make her see sense, Kathy. I mean, it’s just all so . . . embarrassing.”

  Kathy replaced the receiver. “Di sends her love. She and Don are going through a difficult time right now, otherwise they’d love to have you over there.”

  Mary said nothing, returning her attention to her book, although Kathy noticed that the pages didn’t turn. After several minutes the old lady said, “I’ve been imposing on you, Kathy. I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be daft. I’ve been eating better than I have for years. And Ruth and her friends would have been lost without you.”

  “Ruth thinks we’ll have finished the costumes by Thursday,” Mary said cautiously. “I would have liked to stay to see the play . . .”

  “Of course you must.”

  “Do you mean that? Well, but when the play is over . . . I’ll have to decide what to do.”

  “Do you miss him?”

  “I feel numb, Kathy. I try not to think.”

  THE INDIAN SUMMER REFUSED to die. At the end of each hot, dusty day, after knocking at the doors of empty houses or interviewing women keen for a good chat, Kathy would look forward to her evenings at the Three Crowns. She would step thankfully into the cool of the saloon, order her half of lager among the last of the hot, homecoming commuters and the first of the freshly showered evening crowd, and then climb the stairs to the rehearsal room.

  A change had come over the whole company since Stafford’s outburst over the lamp-throwing scene. The earlier casual good humour was replaced by a mood of tense purpose. Edward had abandoned his temperamental games with Vicky along with his book. They were now having a full run-through every night, and since the Captain was on stage for about three-quarters of the whole play, the extent of Edward’s lack of mastery of his lines was painfully clear, putting everyone else in a state of acute anxiety. Kathy, however, enjoyed it. She found she could pick up the hint of hesitation just before he was going to dry, and was learning to give him the minimum prompt necessary to get him started again.

  A change had come over Stafford too. He seemed to have withdrawn from the company, standing apart from their conversations and gossip. Leaning forward over his table like a brooding vulture, he would rap out instructions and harry them until they complied precisely.

  Kathy could see that Ruth was concerned for him, but he ignored her attempts to help him. Strangely, he was polite, almost excessively so, to just one person, Aunt Mary. Several times, during the breaks, Kathy noticed them in conversation, and the radiant expression on Mary’s face as they talked.

  “He’s so caring,” the old lady said as they drove home on the Tuesday
night. “He thinks about every detail. Tomorrow he’ll be coming round to Ruth’s to help us make the strait-jacket.”

  “Is the battle of the bustle resolved?”

  “Oh yes. Stafford won. He is the producer, after all. He explained that sometimes you have to sacrifice an attractive detail for the sake of the big idea.”

  Her euphoria evaporated when they reached home and discovered that she had lost her keys, including the key which Kathy had given her, to the flat. “I had them at the rehearsal,” she moaned, as she emptied her bag on to the kitchen table. “I remember they were tangled up in the tape measure.”

  Kathy frowned. She had noticed the tape measure beside Mary’s chair, but there had been no keys. There seemed no point in making a big thing of it, and she said lightly, “They probably fell out of your bag in the rehearsal room. We’ll get them tomorrow.”

  BREN CALLED IN TO the rehearsal on his way home the following evening. It was late, and they were already well into the third and final act when he slipped quietly into the room. Kathy grinned at him, and he winked back and took the seat beside her, then frowned as he tried to make sense of the scene in the room.

  Stafford had stopped them, and was standing clutching his forehead as if suffering some private agony. The Captain was lying across the seats which represented the sofa, his arms bound in the strait-jacket which his old Nurse had tricked him into putting on—another highly improbable action in Edward’s opinion over which he and Stafford had almost come to blows. His wife stood over him.

  “Go back to the ‘all my enemies’ speech, Edward,” Stafford sighed. “It’s coming apart at that point. It’s not shocking enough. You should be raging against the world, and instead you’re merely whining. Shock us, Edward! Chant the lines, the way I told you, for God’s sake. This is your credo, your Nicene Creed. Do it like that. Kathy, give us Laura’s line.”

  “Do you believe that I’m your enemy?” she said.

  “Yes, I do!” Edward replied. “I believe that you’re all my enemies. My mother, who didn’t want to bring me into the world because my birth would bring her pain, she was my enemy: she starved my unborn life of its nourishment, till I was nearly deformed. My sister was my enemy, when she taught me to be her vassal. The first woman I took in my arms was my enemy, for she gave me ten years’ illness in return for the love I gave her. My daughter became my enemy, when she had to choose between me and you. And you, my wife, you were my mortal enemy, for you never let me be till you had me lying dead.”

  Stafford stopped them again, moving Vicky further away from the sofa, so that Edward would appear more isolated at centre stage, an almost devotional figure in the crossed arms of the strait-jacket.

  “I know how that bloke feels,” Bren whispered.

  “It’s not that bad, surely?” Kathy said, trying to sound as if she thought he was making a joke.

  “And I’ll tell you what, I’ll bet that’s exactly the way our killer sees it too.”

  Aunt Mary’s keys were lying beneath the seat she had used on the previous night, just as Kathy had predicted. Overcome with relief, Mary babbled away on the drive home about their experiences that day with Stafford.

  “He’s a difficult man, Kathy. I didn’t like the way he spoke to Ruth today. Quite rude, I thought.”

  “Yesterday you said he was very caring.” Kathy immediately regretted the comment, remembering the last time she’d tried to argue with her aunt after a long day.

  “Well, he is that too. You’d be surprised.”

  “Would I?”

  “Yes, you would. He cares about you, as a matter of fact. We had a long chat about you. He wanted to know all about how we were related, and about your mum and dad. He was particularly interested in them.”

  “What? Why on earth would he want to know about them?” Kathy felt a flash of resentment.

  “Because he’s interested in people. He said that a theatre producer has to study people, so he can make characters come to life on the stage. Ruth had to go out to buy some material, and Stafford and I had a good long yarn over a cup of tea. I told him all about us, and how you coped with your mum after your pa died.”

  “Did you tell him how Dad died?”

  “I may have mentioned something.”

  “That’s none of his business, Mary!” Kathy exploded. “I don’t like you talking to him about our private lives.”

  “Oh nonsense! That’s all in the past. You sound like a right southerner. There’s nothing wrong with people being interested in each other’s stories. That’s what it’s all about.”

  Kathy clenched her teeth, knowing what the answer to that was, knowing she should leave it alone, but unable to stop. “And did you tell him all about you and Tom splitting up?”

  Mary was shocked. “I couldn’t do that, Kathy!”

  “No, well, maybe you should. Maybe it’s time you started talking about it. Maybe it’s time you started facing up to it.”

  Kathy saw the look on Mary’s face, and her anger faded away.

  “Anyway,” she said, wanting to move the conversation away from dangerous ground, “he must be pleased with what you’ve done with the costumes.”

  “Oh yes.” Aunt Mary was tight-lipped.

  “Will you finish tomorrow, as you planned?”

  The old lady nodded, accepting the truce. “Ruth can’t wait to get them out of her flat. There’s no room left. Stafford’s taking everything over to his place tomorrow morning.” She sounded desperately weary, her voice dropping to a monotone. “He stores all their costumes in his attic. He’ll keep them there till next week.” She sighed, then added in a barely audible whisper, “Ruth says he’s got such a big spooky old house.”

  “Why was he being rude to her today?”

  “That was something to do with you too. Something that Ruth had told you, and when she mentioned it to him he was upset with her. I don’t know what it was though, do you?”

  “No,” Kathy lied, slowly. “I can’t think.” His ancient passion for an actress who had borne his child. She couldn’t imagine why it hadn’t struck her before.

  When they got back to the flat, Kathy rang Ruth. “Sorry to bother you so late, Ruth. I was afraid you might be asleep.”

  “No, no. I’m tucked up with my Horlicks, Kathy, reading the latest Mary Wesley. What can I do for you?”

  “My aunt just mentioned that I got you into trouble with Stafford over that story you told me about his lost child.”

  “Oh, don’t worry. He’s a bit prickly sometimes. But he’s got too much else to worry about at the moment to bother with that.”

  “Did you ever meet the lady—an actress, didn’t you say?”

  “That’s right. No, I never met her. It was before I knew Stafford.”

  “So you don’t know what she was like? Physically, I mean?”

  “No . . . What are you after, Kathy? Why are you asking?”

  “Just curious. Is Stafford religious, Ruth?”

  “No, not in the least.”

  “He doesn’t go to church? Ever?”

  “I’ve never heard of him doing so. What odd questions.”

  “Sorry. One more. You said he was a schoolteacher before he retired. Which school was that?”

  “Sundridge Grammar. Not far from Elmstead Woods station. He retired after his wife, Marjory, died, five or six years ago. It was understandable, of course, that he would feel depressed when she passed away, but it wasn’t just grief. He’s a perfectionist, an obsessive personality, I suppose, and he drives himself and everyone else mad with his single-mindedness. Marjory tempered that, kept him on an even keel, and when she was gone he had nothing to keep him in check. He just wound himself up until he snapped. He started having fights with the other staff at his school, bullying the children, outraging their parents. Then he had his breakdown, and took early retirement.

  “It was a shame, because he used to get wonderful results for his kids. Sundridge used to regularly top the area A-level results i
n English because of him. He was always immensely thorough, and inspiring too. But then it all turned bad.”

  FOURTEEN

  THE FOLLOWING MORNING KATHY rang the Hannafords. Basil Hannaford answered. He seemed startled to hear from her, then reverted to monosyllables in an uncomfortable, one-sided conversation. At the end of it Kathy was struck by the fact that he hadn’t even bothered to ask her if there had been any progress. He did confirm, however, that Angela had been a pupil at Sundridge Grammar for eight years, finishing in the year following Stafford Nesbit’s departure.

  She rang to make an appointment at the school, then phoned Brock in London. “He claimed he didn’t recognize her, but he’d been a teacher at her school. The point is, if he knew her, if he knew where she lived, he could have got off the train at Grove Park that night and driven straight to Petts Wood, to wait for her. I’m going to find out now if he actually taught her.”

  “And if he did, you’ll bring him in?”

  “Yes.”

  “Give me a ring.”

  Kathy put down the phone. The other staff, the children, their parents—all my enemies.

  She met the headmistress an hour later, a determined-looking woman in a power suit, who winced at the mention of Stafford’s name.

  “Yes, I remember him very well. I hadn’t been here long when he lost his wife, so that must have been, what, eighty-four or eighty-five? He had a reputation as an outstanding teacher of English literature and drama at senior levels. His A-level results were superb. Unfortunately the loss of his wife affected him very badly, to such an extent that eventually he was unable to continue here.”

  “In what way did his behaviour change?”

  “He had always been meticulous, set high standards, both for himself and for his pupils. But he now became unreasonably demanding, and was extremely distressed when his goals weren’t met. With his colleagues he saw any discussion of the course he taught as a personal attack upon himself. And with parents . . .” She shuddered.

  “By the time I discovered how bad it had become he had alienated all of his close colleagues and driven a number of sixth-form pupils to a state of near-hysteria. I had a very painful interview with him, and we finally agreed that he should take a few weeks’ leave and seek professional help. He never returned to school. After a week I received a brief note from his doctor saying that Stafford had asked him to advise us that he had been admitted to hospital as an in-patient. After about six months he requested early retirement on medical grounds.”