Merely Players

by J M Gregson

  Adam Cassidy stood motionless for a moment, looking up and down the deserted street, glancing up at the low clouds above, hating the place and what it meant to him. The scene should have reminded him of how far he had risen in the world, of how he had climbed to success from an unpromising environment like this, of everything he had achieved in his life. Instead, it depressed him. He wasn’t ashamed of his roots. Indeed, when he gave ‘in depth’ interviews for papers or magazines, he stressed his humble beginnings and how they encouraged him to keep his feet upon the ground and treat those twin impostors triumph and disaster just the same. But whenever he came back here he felt dejected, not uplifted.

  The door of the house opened straight on to the street. Some of the older women had still sand-stoned their doorsteps every week when Adam had been small, but no one did that any more. The brown paint on the panels of the door was flaking and needed attention, but it was opened before Adam could knock.

  Luke Cassidy looked more than three years older than his brother. At forty-five, his hair was receding a little but still plentiful; it was, however, already streaked with grey. His face was deeply lined. He looked past Adam for a moment to the gleaming Mercedes. Then he smiled at his brother and said, ‘It’s good that you could come. It will give Dad a lift; you’re still his favourite, you know.’

  ‘I doubt that. The old lad’s not daft. He knows how much you do for him.’

  But families weren’t like that; Luke knew it, if Adam didn’t. Feelings weren’t formed on the basis of logic, particularly those of parents towards children. Their dead mother had probably always marginally favoured her first-born son, though scrupulously fair in any material measure of things. Their father had always loved Adam most, had always indulged him as a child, had even tolerated his demand for drama training where he would certainly have refused anything so esoteric for his elder son.

  Harry Cassidy believed in education, in its power to lift his children beyond the skilled manual labour which had been the limit of his own development in the years after Hitler’s war. But he had been happy to see Luke get a degree and become a teacher. It was almost as if this conventional success had been a prerequisite for the more exciting and experimental development of his younger son. People from Alma Street in Brunton didn’t become actors; that was a ridiculous idea. When Adam Cassidy had defied the odds and done it, his father had been delighted, had revelled in telling his wife that he’d been right after all, hadn’t he?

  Harry struggled hard to get out of his chair when Adam came into the living room with his wide, infectious smile. Then he fell back and beat the arms briefly in frustration. Adam watched the giant of his childhood and felt a sharp stab of pain in the present frailty of the old man. He said with breezy cheerfulness, ‘Good to see you, Dad! Sorry it’s been so long, but you know how it is.’

  He proffered his hand. Harry, who didn’t know at all how it was in the world of his younger son, took it after a moment’s surprise and held it in both of his. ‘And it’s good to see you, son. Good of you to make the time for your old Dad.’

  Adam glanced at Luke. He knew it had been the wrong gesture to shake hands with his father. It was far too formal for father and son. It showed that it had been a long time since he had been here and it showed that he felt awkward in the family home. He turned back to the thin grey face with the welcoming smile and said, ‘How are you today, Dad? I believe you’ve not been too good.’

  ‘Better for seeing you, Adam! And I’m not that bad, really. The old pins aren’t what they were, but you have to expect that when you’re nearly eighty.’

  Luke Cassidy, who had brought a meal in each day for the last fortnight, thought wryly that the old man was behaving as he did with the doctor, minimizing the pain and the restrictions which his advancing arthritis visited upon him. That left it to others to make out his case for him, to try to get the help in the house which he now warranted and direly needed. He had lately acquired the old person’s urge to boast about his age. Harry was barely seventy-eight, but that had now become ‘nearly eighty’ whenever the opportunity arose. You noticed these things in those you loved, when you were with them for most of the time.

  But Luke was a generous man, and a loving as well as a dutiful son. It gave him pleasure to see the old man’s face light up with Adam’s presence in the house for the first time in many weeks. ‘Sit down and talk to Dad, Adam. Bring him up to date on the latest happenings in the world of show business. I’ve got to get off to work, but I’ll make you two a quick pot of tea first.’

  Harry watched his elder son disappear into the kitchen, then said conspiratorially to Adam, ‘He fusses about as much as ever, you know. Brings me in a meal Hazel makes for me most days, when I could easily manage for myself. He’s nipped down here in a free period at his school so that he could be here when you came. But he’s a good lad really.’

  Adam felt guilty that his elder brother’s necessary ministrations should be minimized in this way. He said rather feebly, ‘He’s more than a good lad, Dad. He really cares about you and he does his best to get you help when you need it.’ And he takes the weight off me and allows me to neglect you for weeks on end; it was better not to voice that thought.

  ‘Tell me what you’ve been doing, lad.’ Harry leant forward eagerly in his chair.

  ‘Oh, we’ve been very busy filming the new Call Alec Dawson series. Each episode takes only an hour on the screen, but it takes weeks to make, you know.’

  ‘Oh, it must do.’ The old man knew nothing at all about it, but if his son said it was so, then he wanted it to be so. ‘It must really take it out of all the cast – and particularly you.’

  Adam was about to enlarge on the hardships when Luke came back with a pot of tea, two china mugs, and a plate of shortbread on a tray. ‘Hazel made you the shortbread, Dad. I’ve put the rest of it away in the tin.’

  It wasn’t meant as a rebuke, but it seemed like one to Adam. He should have thought to bring something from home, or at least picked up something on the way here. He was left smiling awkwardly at Luke. ‘How is Hazel? And how are the kids? Still doing well at school, I expect.’ The last bit sounded resentful, when he hadn’t meant it to be so.

  ‘Young Harry’s holding his own at the comprehensive. Rather more than that, I think. Ruth should join him there next year.’

  ‘Good. That’s very good, isn’t it, Dad? But they have an advantage with you, Luke. I expect you can give them a helping hand whenever it’s needed. I wish I had the time to do the same with mine. Or the ability, for that matter. You were always the bright one of the family.’

  And much good it’s done me, thought Luke. Living in a nineteen sixties semi half a mile away from where I was born and teaching at the local comprehensive. With a reputation as a good teacher, in a calling which Adam despises and most people think of as dull. With a routine marriage and two kids who are quite bright and are about to visit upon me all the joys of their adolescence. Looking after a homophobic and racist old father whose prejudices I understand but can’t share. Watching him move a little further away from me each year as age takes him over. Yet needing more of my time and my care – and yes, even my love – as each year passes. Luke watched Adam’s perfect teeth bite into the shortbread and said, ‘You were bright enough, kiddo, and you always knew exactly where you wanted to go.’

  Adam grinned at the old appendage. He couldn’t remember Luke using it for years. Not since the days when the world had been smaller and simpler, and the frail figure who now sat with a blanket over his legs in the armchair had ruled this house with a rod of iron. A tiny part of him whispered insistently that he had been happier then, in that world he had understood and controlled. But it could not possibly be so. The feeling must be mere nostalgia for youth, for the cosiness of family, for the dead mother who had sat every evening in the chair where he was sitting at this moment.

  He went with Luke to the door and said quietly, ‘He seems worse since I last saw him. Is he getting ever
ything he needs?’

  ‘He’s getting every help I can get and every help he will accept. He’s growing old fast, Adam. He’s better than usual today, because he perked up as soon as he knew that you were coming. Stay here as long as you can and talk to him. Tell him when you go that I’ll pop in on my way home from school as usual.’

  ‘I’ll pay, you know. If you get someone in to give this place a face-lift, I can pay. If you want someone to come in every day, I’ll—’

  ‘He won’t take it. You know that. It’s us he needs. If you can just make the time to come in more often, that would be the greatest help. You can see what a lift it gives him. If you’d seen him yesterday, you’d know what I mean.’

  ‘All right. Don’t go on about it. I do what I can. We don’t all live on the doorstep. We don’t all have the kind of life which lets us pop in whenever we feel like it. I’ll make sure I get here more often. It should be easier in the next few months.’ But each of them knew in that moment that he wouldn’t come, that Luke would have to be on the phone to him before he drove here again.

  He went back into the room which he knew so well and yet knew now not at all. The old man and he made a few stabs at conversation, searching desperately for topics, where once they would not have needed to search. ‘You won’t be able to get to see the Rovers now,’ said Adam.

  ‘Haven’t been for two years. Luke took me with the boys. We had seats in the stand. It’s all seats now, you know. Not like when you were a lad and I used to take you.’

  Adam had been very keen, until he’d left the town and never gone back. He still played up his Brunton Rovers allegiance in interviews, when he was being his man of the people. But he didn’t know many of the players, so that the father and son’s discussion of the latest struggle to stay in the Premier League soon foundered. He tried to tell his dad about the making of the Alec Dawson series, and the old man seemed interested for a moment or two. Then he said suddenly, ‘You go careful when you’re on location, our Adam. They tell me there’s puffs and fairies round every corner in your business.’

  ‘There’s a few. But gay people really aren’t a problem, Dad. They don’t bother you, when they see you’re not interested. They’re quite easy to work with, most of them. Well, as easy as anyone else in our business!’

  He meant it as a joke, but the old man told him not to turn his back on them and not to trust them. He reverted to a familiar theme. ‘Our lads would never have won the war if they’d had shirtlifters around.’

  Only when Adam talked about his new family did Harry Cassidy show any interest. Adam found a small snap of the kids taken a year earlier in his wallet and watched the wizened fingers take it with immense care. He promised to bring a bigger and more up-to-date selection when he came again. Harry seemed to have got the children from his son’s previous marriage mixed up with the present ones. Not surprising, really, since he hadn’t seen either pair for at least a year.

  It made Adam feel guilty once again when he realized that. But he didn’t want to bring Damon and Kate here, even though Jane told him they’d like to see where he’d grown up. There was nothing for them in this dim terraced house with its fusty old carpets and his fusty old Dad. That sounded harsh, but it was a fact of life, wasn’t it? He said, ‘You must come and see us, Dad. You’d like our new house. It’s almost in the Trough of Bowland, where you used to walk as a lad.’

  ‘Ay. I’d like that. Happen Luke’ll bring me, and let his bairns see their cousins.’

  ‘That’s a good idea! I’ll arrange it, as soon as this series is in the can and we have a bit more time to ourselves. You’ll be surprised to see how they’re growing, Dad.’

  ‘Ay, that I will. It’s been a while.’

  ‘It has, hasn’t it? Life’s so hectic, nowadays. Speaking of which, Dad, I’ve got to be on my way, I’m afraid. Can’t leave a lot of actors waiting for their leading man, can I?’

  Harry Cassidy levered himself from his chair with an immense effort and used his stick to hobble to the door with his younger son. There he put his hand suddenly upon Adam’s forearm, panting hard with the effort he had expended to move those few yards. ‘Those lasses they surround you with in these things. You keep your hands off them, lad.’

  ‘Oh, you get used to pretty women, Dad. It’s a fact of life in the business. Don’t you worry, you get so that it’s water off a duck’s back.’

  The father looked up into his son’s face with a grim little smile. ‘Not for thee it’s not, lad. You’ve never been able to resist a nice bit of skirt, especially if you got the chance to put your hand up it. Just think on, you’ve got that nice lass Jane and a family to look to. Don’t go pissing in thee own nest lad.’

  The old man had never spoken to him so crudely before. It must be something to do with his advancing age. Adam put the warning out of his mind as he eased the big maroon Mercedes away from the grimy kerb, but it would return to his mind several times in the days to come.

  Later that day, Detective Chief Inspector Percy Peach climbed the stairs towards the top storey of the impressive new Brunton police station with a sinking heart. It wasn’t the weather that caused his depression. The clouds of the morning had lifted and this was a pleasant late-October afternoon. The view over the old cotton town to the autumn colours of the trees and hills beyond it became more extensive with each passing floor.

  It was people rather than the world outside which made Peach gloomy. And one person in particular: the one who occupied the penthouse office whence he was bound. He paused for a moment before the familiar bold lettering on the door which informed him that behind it there dwelt the head of CID. Then he took a deep breath, pressed the button on the right of the door, and watched the light which lit up the ENTER slot with a sinking heart.

  Chief Superintendent Thomas Bulstrode Tucker sat behind the biggest desk in the station, in the same model of round-backed leather chair as that afforded to the Chief Constable. He was better fitted for the trappings of power than the exercise of it, in Peach’s view. But even Percy would have had to admit that he was hardly an unbiased witness. Tucker now glared at his junior over the rimless glasses he had recently adopted and said, ‘What is it now, Peach? I’m very busy.’

  It was a Pavlovian reaction to his arrival, thought Percy, sourly surveying the vast yardage of empty desk surface. Tommy Bloody Tucker was always very busy. A cynic would have said that his busyness had accelerated alongside his inefficiency over the years, as he had become ever more remote from the crime-face. But Peach wasn’t a cynic: ‘realist’ he would have accepted, but not cynic. He said with immense patience, ‘It wasn’t my idea to come up here, sir. You sent for me.’

  ‘Did I? Ah, yes, Percy. Things to discuss, you see. I like to keep my right-hand man fully in the picture, don’t I?’

  Percy took this as a rhetorical question and afforded it a guarded smile. He didn’t like it when Tucker used his forename; it usually meant some particularly tedious or tricky assignment was coming his way. ‘Trouble in the offing, is there, sir?’

  ‘Trouble? Why no, not at all. On the contrary, I’m always glad when we reach this date in the year. You should try to present a more cheerful face to the world yourself, Percy. Gives the public confidence in the service we offer them, a cheerful face does.’

  ‘Yes, sir. What is the significance of the date, then?’

  Tucker leaned forward confidentially. ‘Well, Percy, it marks another landmark in my service. I now have less than two years to go to retirement.’

  ‘I’m very pleased for you, sir.’

  ‘I don’t mind admitting to you that it will be a happy day when it comes.’

  ‘I’m sure everyone in the CID section will rejoice with you,’ said Peach inscrutably.

  Tucker looked at him keenly for a moment, then belatedly remembered why he had called him to enter the rarefied air of this sanctum. ‘Meanwhile, we have things to do, Percy.’

  ‘Indeed we have, sir. Crime never sleeps, as your per
petual vigilance reminds us.’

  ‘That is so. You and I, though, have to take a wider view of things, as senior men. We must never be sanguine, but I think it is fair to say that at the moment we have no really serious cases on our patch.’

  ‘But we know not the time or the place, sir,’ Peach reminded him gnomically.

  ‘And in the absence of complicated investigations—’

  ‘We are involved in a complex search for the roots of terrorism. The Home Secretary thinks that is about as serious as it can get,’ said Percy desperately. He sensed from long experience that Tommy Bloody Tucker was lining up some tricky assignment for him.

  ‘And are you personally involved in this search?’ The question showed an unusual perspicacity; it thus took Peach by surprise.

  ‘Well, no, sir. Not directly. A specialist unit has been set up to investigate the militant Muslim element in our Asian population. I have a tenuous connection, in that DS Peach has been drafted into that unit.’

  ‘DS Peach?’

  ‘My wife, sir. The former DS Lucy Blake, whom you assigned to me as my detective sergeant some years ago.’

  ‘Ah, yes. I trust the married state is everything you expected it to be?’

  ‘Everything and more, sir.’ Percy cast his eyes ecstatically to the ceiling for a moment, hoping thus to suggest the bedroom bliss which was surely denied to his chief with the formidable partner Percy had christened Brunhilde Barbara. ‘I miss her at my side during the daily grind, but we can of course no longer work together.’

  Tucker had allocated a female sergeant to this most masculine of men as a punishment. The move had gone spectacularly amiss. He said tetchily, ‘This is all very well, but I’m afraid I haven’t time for gossip. It is time to think of the community and our part in it. The modern police force does not exist in a vacuum.’