by Peter Rimmer
“Maybe he should give it to the anti-apartheid movement? The money was made from Africa.”
“Interesting, why don’t you ask him before he emigrates to America and finds a hedonistic use for his money? Like getting married and having a wife spend it for him.”
“You can add cynic to your CV.”
“Why is it so often people find the truth cynical?”
“Your wife makes you money.”
“Ah, but I’m a banker. Remember, very soon we are going to be running the world and you politicians will be dancing to our tune. I think it was Cecil John Rhodes, of Rhodesia that was, who said that every man has his price. I seem to remember he was talking about Barney Barnato, a Jew, who sold out to Rhodes for money and membership of the Kimberley Club. Naturally Barnato was the only member who was a Jew and Rhodes was chairman of the club. Everyone is corruptible. You just have to find the way… You know this flat really is rather comfortable.”
Leaving the ‘comfort and the warmth’ hanging in the air, Byron sipped his whisky and waited.
“What kind of job would you offer me?” asked Josephine, forcing Byron to think of something else to stop himself smiling. “I mean, I just need something to do.”
“Bullshit, sis. You need the money. Remember I’m your twin brother; we cuddled up together in the womb. Your pension’s crap. You can’t afford this place much longer unless you find a job with a proper salary. The amount British politicians are paid, I’m surprised all of them are not on the take. Something in our schooling I suppose. Just isn’t done to be a corrupt civil servant. Business is another matter… Mind if I have another Scotch? Send you round a case tomorrow.”
“You did buy dinner.”
“Oh yes. I forgot. Well let’s see. Public relations would be your portfolio. Making twin brother and his companies politically correct.”
“Would I have any influence if I saw you doing something wrong?”
“But of course. Wouldn’t make any sense otherwise. The public want to see us as caring. The just side of capitalism. Creating wealth for the benefit of all mankind. The tabloid owner and the businessman on the side of the common man; you see, it’s the age of the common man. Politicians have to do the bidding of the average man whether it’s good for the country or not. Hence the size of the national debt. We have to be seen to be right, that’s all. The right smile on television is worth more to a public figure than the IQ of an Einstein. The image counts. The socialist statement. Making people feel comfortable. I thought sixty thousand pounds a year with a seat on the main board would be fair compensation… You see, sis, I don’t think your Labour Party are going to be in power for a very long time. Every time they get back for five years they give away what little progress the previous Tory government has managed to make for the country. You made a right bloody mess of it last time, despite all the good intentions. As I’ve said to you a thousand times, giving away other people’s money is easy. Making the bloody stuff is another story. You have to make a country rich not bone idle… You need a job, sis. I tried to get Will into the business to have some backup but his mind was always wandering around in Africa. You and I could have some very good arguments and both of us would benefit. You’ll have to give the Tory government over half your salary, so at least that should make you feel you are doing some personal good. Either that or you join some fancy NGO that spends eighty per cent of its donations on fundraising, salaries and Land Rovers.”
“And the anti-apartheid movement?”
“Marvellous. As a director of Langton Merchant Bank you would make us politically correct the day you started.”
“Will you subscribe to the AAM?”
“I already do, have done for years.”
“You give a lot of money to political organisations.”
“Politicians, like revolutionary movements, require money to gain power to gain control of the national exchequer. The seed money is small, the prize a whole country, whoever said you can get somewhere in this world without friends in high places was a bloody liar. Judicious spending on politicians’ ambitions is a key part of modern business. We are all really in the same pot, boiling away nicely at a comfortable temperature, scratching each other’s backs. Put more exactly, politicians would never become politicians without the business or trade union money that put them into power. The Trade Union Congress have the British Labour Party by the balls after every successful Labour election. When they have put you into power, they want their reward, and most times what they want is death to a competitive modern economy. Look at Britain. Gone from a lion to a pussycat in thirty-five years. And if Thatcher doesn’t break the power of the unions this time round, this ‘precious stone set in a silver sea’ will sink without trace.
“Now, more important to our lives, what are we going to do about Father? He’s gone from depression to manic depression. The horrors of war live for a long time afterwards. Each and every war, however righteous, like the war Father waged against Nazi Germany, leaves scars on every soldier, sailor or airman.”
“It was the bomb on Japan. There are new drugs in America to help Father’s depression.”
“Well, I’m afraid to say his religion hasn’t saved his mind in this life.”
“Maybe we should go down more often. Why don’t we drive down tomorrow? You can sleep here and on the way to get your car you can go up to your flat for some clothes.”
“Good idea. Let’s stop drinking and get some sleep… Maybe we should all spend more time together. When was the family last all together?”
“A long time ago, Byron, in more ways than one.”
3
One of the few joys for old people was seeing their children and Adelaide Langton’s joys were few and far between. She was about to turn seventy and her husband in earlier society would have been sent to a lunatic asylum; her eldest son and daughter-in-law, childless and living in their own house on the opposite side of the farm, rarely visited Langton Manor for fear of being verbally attacked by her husband, Group Captain Red Langton, and farming, being what it was, there was always a financial problem with two families trying to live off the proceeds of one farm. At times she even thought of her one-time socialist brother Clifford with fondness, the Uncle Cliff who had made such an impression on the youthful Josephine and driven her towards a life in politics. Even her brother had died, leaving the remnants of Great-Aunt Eve’s fortune to his not so young, any longer, mistress. To add to Adelaide’s distress, she rarely saw her grandchildren and Gregory, Byron’s eldest, was back at Stanmore in the spring and soon he would be a grown man and all of his childhood, when a grandmother could really play a part, would have passed her by. The girls, Penelope and Morag, were now little girls of nine and eleven.
The car that crunched the old, weed-choked gravel outside the front door of Langton Manor was unfamiliar and the portent of bad news. Strange cars visiting two old people just before lunchtime on a Saturday morning were either lost tourists, which never happened in the winter, or more bad news. She had not seen Red that morning; they slept apart in separate bedrooms as the gnashing of what was left of his old teeth stopped her from sleeping, and with his terrible swings of depression, she was never sure of the mood he would wake up in each morning. Despite all their fifty-one, nearly fifty-two years together, she could no longer bear the tirade of agony that spilled from his mouth without fearing she herself would take the same road to insanity.
The car was rather big and expensive, of a type she had never seen before.
Christmas had been a bigger disaster than usual with only Randolph and her daughter-in-law, Anna, sitting round the big table looking at the roast chicken as a turkey would have been far too big for the four of them. Three of her children, four if she included Hilary lost somewhere in Africa, and all her three grandchildren had stayed away, their only brief presence the ‘expected’ phone calls that had left her feeling hollow. Christmas was the time when she felt the disintegration of her family most. She blocked o
ut of her mind the years when the house had been full of Red’s Langton family and her Critchley family for a whole week of boisterous noise, overeating and the marvellous spirit of family. Red said the two wars had destroyed the very soul of England. Maybe he was right. Peering through the small leaden pane in the corner of the drawing room window, afraid to show herself, she watched a man and a woman in heavy coats get out of the expensive car and only when they turned to look up at the old, ivy-clad house did she recognise her own twins, Josephine and Byron, both of them, and the sudden joy lifted the taste of bile that had risen in her throat.
“Red,” she called out to an echoing house. “The children are here. Red, can you hear me? It’s Josephine and Byron and I haven’t had my hair done in a month.”
“Shit,” said Byron, looking up at the ancestral home. “Bloody old pile is falling down. There are more weeds than gravel and the box trees on either side of the front door haven’t been cut for years.”
“You could spend some of your money fixing it up,” said Josephine. “Wasn’t that Mother at the window? After Randolph, Langton Manor will be yours or Gregory’s.”
“No one wants to bury themselves in the country anymore. I’d sell the place.”
“You can’t sell a house that’s been in the family for hundreds of years.”
“Why ever not? Being impressed with a man’s pedigree went out of the window years ago. When I saw the headmaster about Gregory, he took me round my old house with the new housemaster and most of the boys I spoke to talked with a regional accent like everyone else in England. They want a classless society with the old plum knocked out of the accent. Come on, let’s go up and face Mother and Father. I’m freezing out here and it wouldn’t surprise me, looking over towards Poole, if it snowed. Often snowed at the end of January when we were growing up… Why didn’t you come down for Christmas?”
“My career was over, I was depressed. Didn’t want Father looking at me with that look. He hates the socialists. Says they were the ones who took the Great out of Britain. Nonsense of course. You can’t go on living in the past that doesn’t exist anymore.”
They were standing in the porch, looking back over the farm, down along the row of leafless poplar trees standing sentinel on either side of the drive; the great oak to their right, stark in its winter bareness, the tree the first Langton had planted with an acorn hundreds of years ago. A crow was cawing from the rookery but the rest of the Dorset countryside was still and quiet, the clouds above tinged with the yellow threat of snow. The temperature was a few degrees above freezing.
“You think the old toboggans are still in the stables?” asked Byron.
“Probably… You’re right. It’s going to snow. Pity your kids aren’t here.” The front door opened. “Hello, Mother! Surprise. The twins have come to visit. Sorry about Christmas.”
Adelaide was crying and her throat was choked. Hugging each of her children in turn, she pulled them inside and pushed shut the big door.
“We’ve made a cosy room by putting a folding door across the middle of the morning room,” said Adelaide, drawing her children into the house while she found her composure. “There’s a fire. I’ll make some tea.”
“Where’s Dad?” asked Byron.
“Somewhere in the house,” said Adelaide. “He lives in the past. The bad parts of the past. Your father is not very well, children, I’m afraid… Byron, where’s Fiona and the children?”
“In East Horsley. Sis and I had dinner together last night and had the urge to come and see our parents.”
“Wish you’d had the urge more often.” The look of reproach was in her eyes. “Red! Red! Where are you? The twins are here… Are you all right, Jo, after the election? What are you going to do?”
“Byron’s offered me a job.”
“How extraordinary. Red!… Byron, please go and look for your father while we go into the kitchen and make some tea. Better keep on that overcoat. I wear mittens even indoors. The old house is so cold. Do you remember those old days before the war when there was a fire in every room, including the bedrooms? Fires burnt all winter, and the house was never cold or damp; there were so many people. You do remember those days, don’t you, Josephine?”
“Yes, Mother… Matter of fact, the older I get the more I remember.”
“I do hope Byron finds his father. I worry about your father all the time. It was the bombing, you know. He never got over the bombing. He has nightmares about all those children down below when the whole of Dresden was on fire. And the children in Japan. I’m afraid to say it but your father’s going off his head. Nobody comes to visit anymore. Why do people have to change? So worrying. If it hadn’t been for the war, we would have lived happily ever after. Your father is a very good man, but the war damaged his brain. He thinks he’s going to hell, you see. That part of religion he does believe. Not the part about redemption. He thinks man is doomed to extinction on this earth and we’ll all end in the blinding fire of hell for the way we have behaved since Adam and Eve. The devil lives in his tortured mind and tells him the devil has won. Man is doomed. The world is evil. He raves that man under his veneer of civilisation and apparent concern for righteousness is evil to the core, man’s very being… Well, it’s not easy to listen to that kind of conversation morning, noon and night. But it’s my duty to look after him, Josephine, and I will. The good and the bad. There was plenty of good before the war. You see, we’ll even drive you children back to London as it’s all so depressing. Maybe we humans live too long these days. Dead by forty of physical hard work in the very old days. No time to let the mind deteriorate. Sad thing is, it ruins all those good memories… We’ll have some roast beef for supper. Off the farm. Byron likes roast beef. No point in doing a great piece of roast beef for the two of us so I turn it into mince. There are lots of recipes for mince, Jo. I have a special book. Without the freezer and our own beef I don’t think we’d eat at all. Have you seen the prices in the shops? I do hope Byron finds your father. Red wanders all over the place but never feels the cold. Says the Lancaster was always cold despite the wool-lined flying gear. Sometimes I think he is still up in that damn aeroplane. Lately, he’s been having long conversations on the intercom with Hilary’s father, the poor man who came back dead in the tail gunner’s turret or whatever they had at the back of those damn planes. We did do our best for Hilary, didn’t we, Jo? I worry about Hilary. After his boy died his letters have been so terrible, and he’s not a strong man after all those attacks of malaria. He really has given his life to God and helping his fellow man. Malcolm, he called him. Poor Malcolm. Never even saw England. I don’t think all those colonies were worth the pain. Better off without them.”
By three o’clock it was snowing outside and Byron knew his father had lost his mind. He had found him before lunch in the big greenhouse that his older brother Randolph heated to grow tomatoes in mid-winter for the London hotels. The plants were grown in sand on waist-high benches with liquid nutrients fed to them by drip irrigation. Under the tables were cucumbers that liked the dark and the humidity. The group captain had been sitting on an upturned wooden box.
“Are we going up tonight?” his father asked without the slightest sign of having recognised his son. “The runway will be snowed in. They won’t make us take off in the snow. It’s going to snow, Adjutant. What do ops say? If I lose another bloody aircraft through bad weather, I’ll go up there myself. Would you like a tomato? Come on, we’ll go up to the mess. Why they let WAAFs into the mess, I don’t know. Women in an officers’ mess! We’ll win this war but the country will go to the dogs. Mark my word. Did you have a word with the CO about my leave? Four kids at home. You’d love my Adelaide. Best looking gal you’ve ever seen. Well, you don’t have to answer. We’re short of pilots. We’re always short of bloody pilots and it’s going to snow.”
With tears in his eyes, Byron had led his father back to the house where the group captain had eaten a large plate of bacon and eggs, four pieces of toast and d
runk two cups of coffee.
“There’s nothing wrong with his appetite,” Adelaide had said.
“Can’t fly on an empty stomach,” Red had answered. “What happens if we have to bail out? Running around in Jerry country, might not get food for days and their civilians don’t like us bomber pilots. Excuse me, I have to visit the bog.”
The silence when he left the kitchen table hung in the air for minutes.
“Sometimes he remembers where he is,” Adelaide had said.
“How long’s it been?” asked Josephine.
“Been coming?” replied her mother. “Five years, I suppose.”
“Has he been to a good doctor?” said Byron.
“Oh, we know what it is. Mania. Brought on by manic depression.”
“Isn’t that dangerous?”
“Some of them are not dangerous.”
“Why didn’t you tell us?” asked Jo.
“You all have your lives to lead. What was the point? There’s nothing you can do.”
“I can employ a live-in nurse to help you, Mother,” said Byron. “You’re the one to worry about. You’re the one carrying the burden. From what I’ve seen, he doesn’t know what the hell is going on.”
“We’ll see,” Adelaide said while she moved the dishes across to the double sink where she began to do the washing up.
“He was right about the snow,” Byron said at three o’clock. “It’s going to be heavy. No flying tonight.”
“Don’t you make a joke about it, Byron,” said his mother.
“Sorry.” He was standing next to the fire in the cosy room, looking out of the window at the long terrace and the east side of the old oak tree. The terrace had not been swept of autumn leaves. Byron was wondering if he could put the staff he was going to employ to run Langton Manor on his company’s payroll to make their wages deductible against tax. Maybe a storage facility at Langton Manor would constitute a need for staff. After all, storage space in London for old files was prohibitively expensive. By law he had to keep the old files and none of them were ever looked at again. The whole thing had become a financial problem to Byron, like everything else in his life where all problems were solved with money.
