The Everlasting Sunday

by Lukins, Robert;

  It occurred to Radford that, unlike all the others, Teddy never asked questions he knew the answers to. ‘Yes, a little.’

  ‘Not me, been inside for too long. Far too long without realising. Think I’ll go for a tramp out to the starlings’ roost. See if I can’t catch them flocking as the sun leaves.’

  ‘Where’s that?’

  Teddy stopped. ‘No-one has taken you to the starlings?’ He took Radford’s hand and called over his shoulder, ‘Manny, hurry along. We’re for the starlings.’

  It was indeed a proper old tramp, up several long hills and down into the seat of as many saddles. They kept to firm ground as much as was possible but were forced through drifts and soft pockets. Teddy grew in energy with each obstacle, huffing in a pleased way and digging on with a stick that he had picked up early in the journey. Manny had given up on his surreptitious distance, whatever its purpose had been, and walked with Radford.

  They reached a bare thicket and Teddy had them stop at its edge. He pointed ahead with the stick at a broad row of trees and Radford could now see the shapes that clung to their branches. The starlings appeared like black leaves. So many that numbers seemed not up to the job.

  ‘Friends,’ Teddy said.

  Radford stepped out to take in the full sight of the roost. It went on for what looked like a mile, though it couldn’t be that far. A great row of what Manny explained were maples. Straight as a good fence they grew between two fields, one flat and the other sloping down and away, and together the trees occupied a tremendous space of sky. Fifty feet high at least, they hung as the skeletons of clouds, just overlapping, the ends of their slender branches touching. The crunch of their walking having stopped, Radford heard the talk of infinite animals. It existed as a single note and though shrill as an alarm he found it a pleasant thing.

  ‘Can we go closer?’

  ‘Of course,’ Teddy said, looking flushed and fatigued. Manny kept a slow pace with him and a body’s length behind.

  ‘They won’t be startled?’ Radford asked.

  ‘Why would they be?’

  They went closer until everything above and before them was only stick and bird. The sound was incredible. Radford found himself beginning to laugh in the union of nerves and appreciation. He kept turning back to Teddy for permission, like a toddler approaching a beach’s waterline. Teddy swung his stick onwards.

  ‘They may treat us to a show,’ he said.

  The three of them stayed twenty yards from the first of the line. Every inch of branch was occupied with the hunched figure of a starling. They chatted and fidgeted, swapping place for place. One would jump off, flying in a livid arc, only to return to its launch site. The animals found topics for a million sermons while preparing to bed down. The humans found no reason to speak or grow tired, while behind its cloud the sun was dipping entirely out of use.

  They waited.

  ‘Been hearing things in the wash-up from Cass and his report,’ Teddy said. Radford couldn’t be sure whom the man was speaking to. ‘They’re having ideas,’ Teddy went on, looking to the birds. ‘They do this, come with their proposals. Always on the topic of severity, of discipline, can you believe it? We’re forever accused. Always too brutal or too coddling. That’s the question, isn’t it? What to do. Starve the cold or feed it. Anything less than total cure demands explanation.’

  Teddy went quiet and the amber of the sky drained away. The starlings’ show, whatever that was, never came.

  It was left to Manny to raise the idea of returning. Lowering his eyes from the maples’ heights Radford saw Teddy by the trunk of the near tree, poking into the snow with his stick.

  ‘The cold,’ Teddy said. ‘All too cold.’

  The bodies of dozens of starlings lay motionless in the powder. Teddy turned the ground over to reveal more buried beneath. Radford looked in the direction of the next trunk and saw that the dozens were actually hundreds. Corpses lay like dropped fruit beneath the canopies.

  ‘This winter,’ Teddy said. ‘This rude nature, it’s too great. I was taught to recognise the sublime – do you know about this? Ecstatic joy, they said. In the face of the unthinkable, the joy in knowing you’re in a place of safety. You recognise the sublime. Well, what if you’re not safe? What then, if you’re not safe?’

  Manny had moved to his side. As Radford came around he saw that Teddy had broken, the three of them a hopeless triangle. Teddy took no care to hide his sickness and was limp against Manny’s arms. The old man was an abandoned nest.

  They waited.

  Light was truly failing and during a moment when Teddy seemed to be catching his breath Radford helped put him upright and they began their clumsy journey home. Radford took a final look at the great roost and at its fallen members beneath. They were entirely untroubled, not a feather displaced.

  The walk back was difficult and slow and Teddy stopped several times in desperation. At one interval he pulled Radford close. ‘You will hear so much advice. You will be told all the things you must do, that your character must develop. I say no. I say set those ideas into the fire. Stay blank if that’s what you are. Existing can be enough. They will tell you otherwise, but believe me. Simply live. I have known enough that could not do that.’

  The lights of the house glowed in the fog of the narrow horizon.

  It was late when West came to Radford’s room. He entered without knocking and it took Radford’s mind to his old bedroom, his old home. By the end he had come to propping a chair against the handle of the closed door, keeping his room his own and all else outside. Being trapped had been a comfort.

  West sat on the end of the bed and spoke as if the time of quiet between them had been unreal. It took Radford some minutes to wake fully but soon they were laughing over the memory of that morning’s porridge disaster and how it had befallen Lewis’s lap. Someone rapped angrily on a wall.

  ‘Should sleep,’ West said and went to leave.

  Radford followed, not ready for the easiness to end, feeling no guarantee that it would remain by morning. They were just through the doorway when Lillian shocked them both as she tripped on the stair at the hall’s end. A purple robe, the cause of her injury, flapped about her legs. She was already waving them away by the time they reached her.

  ‘Boys, no.’ She was distraught and trying to bury its display. ‘Back to sleep, go now.’ She spoke plainly and beautifully, having abandoned everything French.

  ‘What’s the matter?’

  ‘Back to your rooms, please. Please, my darlings.’

  ‘Lill—’

  ‘Darlings.’

  She gave up at the sound of Manny shambling up the stairs. ‘Lil?’ he asked, wanting direction. His face was blushed and stuck with hair.

  ‘Yes, all arranged. The car?’

  ‘Got the engine going now. It will need to warm up.’ He covered his mouth, seeing in Lillian’s reaction that he had been too loud.

  She got in a sudden panic and herded them all upstairs. ‘The house will wake. Come, quietly, the three of you.’

  They were soon at the top of the stairs and through into Teddy’s rooms. Lillian closed the door carefully and set about packing a small suitcase, Manny helping, both seeming oblivious to Teddy’s presence. He sat on the bare floor in his pyjamas, his back against the side of his desk, his face down and in his hands.

  Radford lingered at the door with West, neither understanding the situation. Teddy did not acknowledge them. He moved only when the suitcase was finished and Lillian said that he was required to dress, taking the bundle of clothes and shoes from her and going behind a screen to change.

  His face was the puzzle. It was a look of recent trouble, swollen and dusted with the salt of dried tears, yet showing no engagement of emotion, just its history. The man was somewhere beneath and its eyes had not turned to Radford or West. Teddy was a vapour and his bare feet pad
ded across the floorboards without generating a sound. The dressing screen was a wooden frame around printed fabric: white roses and coral blossoms. They rippled as Teddy finished with his shoes, how flowers would sway under a sweet, tropical breeze.

  ‘Come,’ Lillian said and took Teddy out, Manny following with the case. The two men began down the stairs and Lillian returned to the boys. ‘Teddy is not well,’ she said. ‘We have arranged for him to stay in London. You are not to worry. This is something that happens, from time to time, and Teddy will be with good people. Boys? It is not a thing to be concerned with. It will happen, from time to time. Though I will ask a favour of you. My darlings, will you go with Manny? It will make the journey easier for him. Will you dress quickly, now, and go with him?’

  They went to their rooms and met again downstairs. They were both in coats when Lillian intercepted West and filled his pockets with wrapped sandwiches. He held two flasks, one tea, the other water. Lillian kissed their cheeks. They jogged out to the car where it waited at the top of the drive, its windows already fogged. They exchanged nods with Manny and the car started off.

  The air was free of snow and the road had been recently cleared. Radford took a handkerchief from his pocket and leant through the cabin, wiping the windshield, and he would repeat this motion a hundred times over the course of the drive. Teddy remained immobile in the front passenger seat, all of him covered by the worn red of a blanket.

  First light brought the city and with it a reunion more arousing than Radford had prepared for. This place, the only home he should have known, had perished from his memory in the journey with his uncle to the country – he had thought of the city only in fits, when its name was spoken by some newsreader or the other boys. Radford had not pined for London, not a bit, but now, as they entered its northern suburbs, he experienced a rush of pride and then sickness. All was still, disquietingly so. A battlefield dawn. The place had seized, with machines and relics pushed from their places of death to the roadsides, and through their car’s vents Radford smelt the exhausted industry.

  The sun came above the roofs and began its work on the gloom. Radford lightened and began to sing out street names, first to alert Manny, then because he gloried in this knowledge – in that car he was seer. The sombre mood of night-time lifted, with West sitting forward and Manny taking pleasure in ceding control of their navigation. He dug in his pocket and handed over the slip of paper that Lillian had sent with them. Radford kept them straight on.

  He wondered if it was normal to feel unattached to any particular place. He was enjoying this familiarity, but it was only as if he’d found a finger-painting in a box of keepsakes: in the end it would return to the box with the other antiques. They passed parks and an empty, drowned playing field. There was more traffic now and pedestrians strode the footpaths in both directions. They wore coats and hoods but walked with their backs straight, taking the sunlight on their faces. Rubbish was piled high at the street corners.

  ‘Straight on?’

  ‘Keep on.’ Radford began to again call street names and he soon had them in the heart of the city. ‘Finchley Road, straight on.’

  They watched churches and covered lakes slip by. More stern-spined citizens unafraid.

  ‘Will we pass the palace?’ West asked.

  ‘We can,’ Radford said in the tone of a beneficent father.

  West was pleased but Manny asked if they could carry on directly, whichever way would bring them fastest to their destination.

  ‘Of course,’ Radford said, at once low with guilt at having to be reminded of their mission.

  He allowed himself a glance down at the unflinching mound in the passenger seat. It had remained all the trip a woollen heap. No face or limbs and no sound of a sleeper’s heavy breathing to pardon Teddy’s absence.

  ‘Sorry, Manny.’ West patted his shoulder. ‘Of course, whichever way’s the quickest.’

  They found the place with ease, a numbered house in a quite grand street, a blue door bracketed by columns that stretched up to support the first floor’s balcony. Above that were two further storeys of tall, curtained windows.

  ‘This is it.’

  ‘Yes,’ Manny said, already unbuckled and getting his door open.

  Teddy left the cabin without a word or once turning his head. Radford and West silently queried each other while Manny walked Teddy down the footpath and rang the bell. The door was answered at once by a slight, white-bearded man in a charcoal suit and Teddy was received into the house. The beard stood speaking for only a minute before Manny came back to the car.

  ‘We’re leaving?’ West asked.

  ‘It’s all fine,’ Manny said. ‘All arranged.’

  West pushed forward. ‘Will he be okay? I mean, what’s happened?’

  Manny adjusted the mirror. ‘It’s all arranged.’ He breathed weakly, appealing not to be pushed on the subject.

  The boys nodded.

  ‘Shall we have a bit of an outing?’ Manny asked, starting the engine. ‘While we’re here?’

  They drove back to the main street and added to the swelling traffic. Radford gave a roll call of destinations, all of which were agreed upon. So a new journey began, the red blanket resting where it had fallen across the front seat.

  The three of them endured an entirely pleasant morning, as if the excursion had been planned. They circled as near to the palace as they were able and ditched the car by a bakery, going in for pies, and the baker told them of the Thames freezing over and the trouble with the rubbish and having no salt. Milk was going solid on doorsteps. They took their breakfast in paper bags with buns for later and walked shoulder to shoulder, following the concrete of the river and strolling like honeymooners.

  It began to snow, softly, the embers of the lost empire.

  They turned inwards for the Square and kept on, starting on their buns as they reached the foot of Nelson’s Column. His lions’ noses were dressed with snow, which made the three laugh. Buses struggled by with ruthless faces floating behind sheets of glass.

  It was growing dark as they approached St James’s Park, the temperature plummeting. The palace rose from the edge of the frozen lake: all at its feet was dead and bloodless but a family on skates, cruising and turning at the centre of the ice. The boys rested on a bench and listened to the laughter sailing across the lake. The dimming sunlight recast the dancing as a shadow puppet show.

  They watched and Manny told them a story of having to rescue his dog from a lake when he was young. It had followed some ducks across the frozen surface and broken through, clinging on only by its front paws. Manny had laid himself flat and crept along the ice on his toes and fingertips until reaching the dog and dragging it onto his back. It had bitten him hard on the leg and run away for four days.

  Manny talked of his time in the war. He then explained that Teddy had, from time to time, difficulties. The beard at the grand house with the blue door was a friend of Teddy’s and a doctor. Teddy simply needed a rest, just as anyone, from time to time, needed a rest. He would be back soon and the Manor would continue as before. Manny asked if they could, nevertheless, keep this to themselves and they agreed.

  The family skated to the lake’s edge, changed into shoes and scurried away. Radford led West and Manny to the far end of the park. Not a single living creature remained in the palace’s shadow. The trio took their cue and headed away to find the car as the wind turned ugly and the sky dimmed further still.

  *

  Lillian’s accent failed to return in the days that followed and Teddy’s truancy was explained as administrative duty. This inspired precisely the absence of interest desired. Any matters that would usually find their way to Teddy’s spire could instead find Lillian in her kitchen.

  West had returned to the group but kept at its fringe; they drifted from breakfast to whichever part of the house offered diversion. They ended up in honey-
eating piles by the fire or idling an upstairs hall. There were no lessons for the time being – no guests, no new treats. The house erupted into fights more often, which provided flashes of curiosity but nothing sustained. Radford had volunteered as the group’s emissary one afternoon to scrounge whatever he was able from the pantries. In the kitchen was Lillian, as he’d hoped.

  ‘No, you will grow fat,’ she said. ‘It will do you good to grow a little weaker.’

  ‘An orange?’

  ‘Not even a grape.’

  ‘If I go back empty-handed I’ll be mangled.’

  She went to a drawer and pulled out a short knife, handing it to Radford. ‘Here then,’ she said. ‘Protection.’

  He leant into the wall, managing to switch the light off and then on with his shoulder.

  ‘Oh grief, will you leave me be?’ She threw him an apple. ‘And you’ve got the knife to cut it so don’t any come begging for more.’

  He would have returned a grateful smile if he had not in that instant seen Victoria through one of the clouded rear windows. It was her, unmistakably, pacing outside the Manor along a far wall. He looked away from the window too quickly, just as Lillian turned to address West and Brass arriving behind him.

  ‘Out!’ She walked at Radford, pushing him into the others and directing them away. ‘No more. I have given this one all of your banquet. I do not wish to see you, I do not want to hear you.’

  In the hall Radford handed over the fruit and knife. ‘I’ve got to go,’ he said, breaking away at the stairs.

  ‘Go where?’

  ‘I don’t feel well.’

  Radford clutched his stomach and didn’t wait for sympathy, leaping to the next floor and waiting with held breath against the top step. When he was sure the others had gone he returned to the kitchen and blurted firewood to Lillian as he ran out the back door. He went the opposite direction to where he had sighted Victoria, sure that Lillian would watch through the kitchen glass, then travelled the long way back, ducking between trees. He found Victoria behind the door to the coop, her green coat showing through the knot holes.