Days Without Number

by Robert Goddard

  For some time, however, that need was to go unmentioned. They had assembled, after all, to celebrate Andrew’s fiftieth birthday. Pru had baked a cake, laid the dining table, prepared some vegetables and put a joint in the oven. All the family had to do was eat, drink and be as merry as they could contrive. The birthday boy himself had done little in the way of smartening up. Nor, come to that, had Basil. But their sisters had put on their contrasting party clothes—Irene one of her more elegant pairings of skirt and blouse, Anna alarmingly tight white trousers and a poppy-red off-the shoulder sweater, with one or other bra strap constantly on view.

  Conviviality prevailed before and during lunch, albeit conviviality of a brittle kind. Andrew put up a decent show of surprise at Nick’s presence, pleasure at the presents he was given and general appreciation of the efforts being made to mark his mid-life milestone. Anna talked and laughed too much, Basil too little. Irene steered the conversation between rocks and shallows with considerable finesse. And Nick kept subtle watch on their father, who, it seemed to him, was keeping still more subtle watch on all of them.

  But Michael Paleologus was also drinking at a pace somewhere between steady and stiff. Whisky had been taken before the birthday champagne. He had not stinted himself on the wine with lunch. And, as the meal drew to a close, he broke out the port. By then his subtlety had faded. And his reticence had begun to loosen.

  ‘We drank a toast to Andrew before lunch,’ he announced. ‘Now I’d like to propose another. Your mother was a good wife to me. I loved her dearly and miss her sorely.’

  ‘So do we, Dad,’ said Anna.

  ‘I know, my girl, I know. It’s to her memory I’d like to drink. She’d be pleased by this gathering. Pleased that the family’s still drawn together from time to time, back here at Trennor.’ If the last four words had been written down, Nick felt, they would undoubtedly have been italicized. ‘To your mother.’

  Glasses were clinked and port swallowed. Then Irene chimed in adroitly with a well-worn anecdote from her childhood. Andrew had taken her for a nerve-jangling spin on his motorbike one weekend, much to their father’s horror. ‘Good God, boy, what could you have been thinking of?’ he was recorded as spluttering. Their mother had falsely insisted that she had given them permission, thus defusing the situation, though later she had taken them both severely to task. It was a familiar story, expertly told. But the events had occurred in Oxford, Nick reflected. Irene had chosen her tale carefully, pointing up as it did their mother’s delicate management of the family and Andrew’s lovable irresponsibility, as well as reminding them of their other home in Oxford, which they had abandoned readily and willingly when the time had come.

  The moment passed, though not all of the tension. Irene had warned Nick that she meant to raise the subject of the Doom Window project over tea, when, according to her, everyone, especially their father, would be relaxed. But the old man was just as likely to be liverish and tetchy following an afternoon doze. Nick was not sure they should wait so long. Nor, however, did he wish to take the initiative himself. The next few hours promised to be anxious ones.

  Lunch ended. Their father retired to the drawing room for a snooze by the fire. Irene and Anna set to in the kitchen, assisted by Basil. Nick accompanied Andrew on a stroll down the lane. The weather was grey and smokily chill: a January afternoon of thin light on bare trees, a moist breeze blowing in fitfully from the east, bearing the tang of river mud and the desultory shriek of gulls.

  ‘Before you turned up,’ said Andrew, ‘Dad asked me if his grandson was likely to put in an appearance. Being my birthday and all.’

  ‘Everyone would have been pleased to see him.’

  ‘Yeah. I’m sure they would. Me especially. No such luck, though. Dad didn’t say it in so many words, but he blamed me for Tom’s absence. I could tell. Something in his eyes. It’s always been there for me. Contempt, that’s what it is.’

  ‘Come on, Andrew. That’s not true.’

  ‘Isn’t it?’

  ‘None of his grandchildren are here.’

  ‘No. But Laura’s a girl, and Zack’s illegitimate. They don’t count in Dad’s scheme of things. Tom, now, he’s different. Only son of his eldest son. Dad sees him as the torchbearer. Except that he doesn’t see him. Any more than I do. It might be different if you or Basil had ’ Andrew shrugged. ‘Well, you know.’

  ‘Married and had children?’

  ‘Yeah. Especially sons. To carry on the name.’

  ‘I expect Tom will manage that.’

  ‘But will I know about it?’

  ‘Of course. He’s just growing up. I wasn’t exactly a model citizen at his age.’

  ‘That’s a fact.’ Andrew cast him a knowing look.

  ‘I don’t suppose Dad was either,’ Nick said levelly.

  ‘Maybe not. But he’s unlikely to volunteer any details. And it’s not his past we have to worry about, is it? It’s his future. And ours.’ Andrew glanced back at the house. ‘I could do with this going well. I really could.’

  Michael Paleologus’s study looked out over the lawn from the side of the house. There was also a door by which he could step straight out on to the grass without going round by the front. As Nick and Andrew wandered back past the hedge flanking the lawn, Nick caught some movement out of the corner of his eye that he thought might be the study door opening or closing. It was a double surprise, since not only had he assumed their father was still asleep but also the exit was never used in winter, when it was as likely as not to be blocked by a pile of books.

  He could see no sign of anyone in the study, no stooped figure watching from the window. His father would surely need the light on if he was in there. His seated silhouette against the glare of the anglepoise desk lamp was a familiar sight from that side of the garden. But he was not at his desk, poring over an archaeological journal. He was not there at all, as far as Nick could tell.

  They went in by the front door, to be met by Basil emerging from the kitchen.

  ‘Ah, there you are,’ he intoned. ‘I’ve been sent to wake Dad. Irene seems to think he’ll be in need of coffee.’

  ‘We’ll do that,’ said Andrew. ‘I’d prefer tea, by the way.’

  ‘Coffee for me,’ said Nick.

  ‘I’ll report back.’ Basil grinned and beat a retreat with some alacrity.

  They pressed on into the drawing room. Michael was sitting where they had left him by the fire, but he was not asleep and Nick noticed his chest was heaving, like someone out of breath doing his poor best to disguise the fact.

  ‘Are you all right, Dad?’

  ‘As all right as I’ll ever be Where is everybody?’

  ‘They’re just finishing up in the kitchen.

  ‘Good.’ He coughed, taking a moment to recover himself. ‘Why don’t you two sit down.’

  They obeyed, perching together on one of the sofas. Half a minute or so passed, during which neither found anything to say. Michael took out his pipe and laboriously filled and lit it, studying them through the first puffs of smoke and seeming to smile faintly—unless it was merely the curl of his lips round the pipe stem.

  ‘Caught that big cat yet, Andrew?’

  ‘No, Dad.’

  ‘Think you ever will?’

  ‘On videotape, yes. Eventually.’

  ‘And that’ll be the proof you’re looking for?’

  ‘It’ll be the proof everyone’s looking for.’

  ‘I doubt it. A skeleton’s what you need. Tangible remains. Strange none have ever turned up. These creatures have to die if they live.’

  ‘They live.’

  ‘What do you think, Nicholas?’

  ‘The?’ Nick had been hoping not to be asked for his opinion. He wondered if his father had realized that. ‘Oh, I’ve got a pretty open mind on the subject.’

  ‘An open mind? Well, that’s an excellent thing to have in its way. Pity you’ve not put it to better use, but there’s still time, I suppose.’

  ‘Tell
us what you think, Dad,’ said Andrew, so abruptly that Nick suspected he had intervened for his sake. ‘About big cats.’

  ‘What I think, my boy, is that people want to believe in them. Perhaps they need to believe in them. Myth can be as powerful as reality. That was one of the first lessons I learned as an archaeologist. Your grandfather and I assisted Ralegh Radford with his excavations at Tintagel in the nineteen thirties.’ Nick and Andrew nodded in unison. This was, after all, a tale they had heard before.

  The first serious archaeological investigation of Tintagel, north Cornwall’s famous clifftop version of Camelot, had begun in 1933, under the supervision of the subsequently celebrated director of the British School at Rome, C. A. Ralegh Radford. Godfrey Paleologus and his teenage son Michael had been among his amateur helpers. There was a photograph in the study of the pair of them on site with Radford in the summer of 1935.

  ‘Those excavations revealed that the castle was constructed, probably in the twelve thirties, at the behest of Richard, Earl of Cornwall, brother of King Henry the Third. There wasn’t a trace of King Arthur. Not a splinter of the Round Table, nor a single shard of knightly lance. But do you think that stopped the Arthurian connection being peddled? Do you think that stopped people believing they beheld the ruins of Camelot? Of course not. They saw what they wanted to see. Well, much the same applies to your elusive big cats, I’m afraid. They—’

  ‘Beverages ahoy,’ announced Basil, propelling the door open with his foot and steering the tea trolley smartly through. ‘Plus birthday cake, of course. We’re all sybarites today.’

  Basil was hardly to know it from the response he received, but Nick for one was grateful for his arrival. Their father’s lecturing mode could easily segue into a rant, which would make even-tempered discussion of a delicate issue all but impossible.

  Oddly enough, however, Michael did not seem to mind breaking off from his disquisition. He puffed at his pipe and spectated placidly as seats were taken, cups of tea or coffee distributed, slices of cake handed round. He even mumbled an endorsement of the tribute Irene paid to the absent Pru. He laid his pipe aside, nibbled at his cake and drank his tea, then asked for a second cup.

  And then, after Andrew had given a vaguer answer to a vague question from Anna about how it felt to be fifty, he suddenly made his move.

  ‘Which of you has been nominated to tell me I’ve got to go, then?’ All eyes were suddenly upon him. He smiled, relishing the intentness of his audience. ‘Have you perhaps been brought down specially to do the deed, Nicholas?’

  Nick did not know how to respond. He felt his stomach tighten. ‘It’s not a question of ’ He looked round helplessly at his siblings. ‘I mean ’

  ‘I was going to raise the subject of Mr Tantris’s offer, Dad,’ said Irene. She set down her cup. ‘We didn’t draw straws to decide. It’s something we all agree has to be discussed.’

  ‘So, let’s discuss it.’ Michael finished his tea and beamed at them. ‘Tantris has offered me half a million pounds plus my fees at some de luxe old fogeys’ home in Tavistock to get his hands on Trennor. Correct?’

  ‘Well, it’s not—’

  ‘The full story? No, it isn’t, is it? About Tantris we know nothing, except that he has money and an interest in antique stained glass. Miss Hartley the ecclesiastical art historian theorizes that the Doom Window of St Neot lies hidden somewhere in this house. Tantris wants me out so that his minions can tap and scan and probe every square inch of wall and floor and ceiling in search of something that will tell them where to start in with the drills and pickaxes. To get me out, he proposes to pay me about fifty per cent more than the house is worth and to bribe you five with the cost of putting me up in conscience-salving comfort at Gorton Lodge. Since I won’t get the chance to spend my savings because I’ll die of sheer bloody boredom within a twelvemonth, that’ll leave you to share the loot between you, which I expect you’ve already calculated could be substantially more than half a million pounds if you negotiate hard enough with the fabled Tantris of the bottomless pockets.’

  ‘You’re painting this in the worst possible light, Dad,’ Irene protested.

  ‘I’m being accurate, my girl, that’s all. The time has come to be, I rather think.’

  ‘We’re genuinely concerned about you.’

  ‘You had a fall recently,’ put in Anna.

  ‘How considerate of me.’

  ‘What if Pru hadn’t found you?’

  ‘It had just happened when she arrived, for God’s sake. I’d have got back up without her help perfectly easily.’

  ‘That’s not what she said.’

  ‘She’s nearly as old as I am and about one twentieth as intelligent. You can’t seriously give her version of events any credence.’

  ‘You’re not getting any younger, Dad,’ said Andrew. ‘Sooner or later you’ll have to think about moving to more practical accommodation.’

  ‘Perhaps I’d prefer that to be later.’

  ‘So might we,’ said Irene, ‘if this offer hadn’t been made. But it has been. We can’t ignore it.’

  ‘I’d like to know why not.’

  ‘There’s surely a compelling reason that has nothing to do with money,’ said Nick, sensing his chance had come.

  ‘And what might that be?’ His father’s gaze focused on him narrowly.

  ‘The glass. The Doom Window. You said myth can be as powerful as reality. But this is both, isn’t it? A historical mystery. An artistic treasure. An archaeological quest. This should be meat and drink to you, Dad. You should be eager to lead the search, not trying to obstruct it. I don’t understand. I can’t believe sentiment is clouding your academic judgement. You’d condemn that in anyone else, wouldn’t you?’

  Michael stuck out his lower lip and glowered at Nick for half a minute of suspended silence, then growled, ‘Not in these circumstances.’

  ‘What makes them so different?’

  ‘Judgement is the key to it, boy. I don’t happen to think tearing this house apart—the house your mother died in—on the say-so of a dubiously qualified chit of a girl—’

  ‘Oh God, Dad,’ Anna interrupted. This isn’t about being upstaged by a woman, is it?’

  ‘Is there something amiss with Ms Hartley’s qualifications?’ Basil mildly enquired.

  ‘They’re not on a par with mine, since you ask. Not remotely.’

  The Bawden letter is the link between Trennor and the St Neot glass,’ said Nick. ‘Ms Hartley explained that quite clearly. Are you questioning her interpretation of the evidence?’

  ‘You’ve seen the evidence, have you, boy?’

  ‘Well, no, but—’

  ‘Exactly. You’ve accepted her word for it. You all have, because it suited you to do so. Trust nothing except primary sources in this game. And not always those. That’s my motto.’

  ‘I’m sure Ms Hartley would be delighted to show you the letter.’

  ‘Maybe so. But why hasn’t it come to light before? That’s what I’d like to know.’

  ‘Ask her.’

  ‘I have. Unnoticed until she cast her eye over the archive it was part of. That was her answer.’

  ‘But you don’t believe her.’

  Michael looked down, his confidence ebbing marginally. I’m not saying that.’

  Irene sighed. ‘Then what are you saying, Dad?’

  The question seemed to give the old man pause for considerable thought. He picked up his pipe, then put it down again, then said, I’m saying I’m the only unbiased judge of what’s best to do.’

  ‘We’re biased,’ said Anna, ‘but you’re not?’

  ‘I can put my bias to one side, Anna.’

  ‘And we can’t?’

  ‘Apparently not.’

  ‘That’s ridiculous. And arrogant to boot.’

  ‘Arrogant? Depends on your point of view. And if you want to think me ridiculous, fine. I’ve reached an age where that’s more or less taken as read anyway.’

  ‘What!�
�� Anna sunk her head in her hands.

  ‘I won’t be selling Trennor to a faceless millionaire to facilitate a wild glass chase or to rescue any of you from the financial consequences of your own fecklessness and there’s an end to it.’

  They were words uttered in anger. His children knew that. He probably knew so himself. But since he had always maintained that a man should stand by his words as well as his principles, he was unlikely to withdraw the remarks. They were on the record. And they told a truth that comforted no-one. He believed they had mismanaged their lives and thereby forfeited the right to prevent him mismanaging his own.

  A silence had fallen. Basil’s clearance of his throat broke it, but Andrew was first to speak. ‘An end of it? Yeah, Dad, it certainly sounds like it to me.’ He stood up. ‘Reckon I’ll be on my way. Before I say something I might regret.’

  ‘If you think I’ll regret a single—’

  ‘No, Dad, I don’t. Regrets, you haven’t had a few, right? In fact, not one. Vous ne regrette rien. That’s wonderful. That’s a real achievement.’

  ‘Andrew,’ said Irene, ‘don’t go like—’

  But he was already making for the door. ‘Let him go if he wants to,’ said Michael, shaking his head in apparent denial of responsibility for his son’s reaction.

  ‘It’s his birthday, Dad,’ said Anna. ‘Can’t you lighten up just a little?’

  ‘I remember his real birthday, my girl. The day he was born. Fifty years ago almost to the hour. I remember the hopes I had for him. And for the brothers and sisters we planned he would have. Those hopes haven’t been fulfilled, let me tell you, not nearly. So, don’t ask me to “lighten up”.’

  Andrew was in the kitchen by now. So was Irene. The others could hear her trying to dissuade him from leaving. Nick knew she was wasting her time. Andrew was almost as stubborn as their father. Irene had never quite grasped that simple truth. He could remember her pleading with Andrew to come out of his bedroom and rejoin the family in the living room at their house in Oxford after some row with the old man. The memory was a collation of innumerable similar incidents, in which Irene was always the mediator and always in vain. Nothing had changed. And nothing, he realized now, was going to.