It couldn’t go on, but if they broke up, what would happen to her and to those boys? Wouldn’t all three of them be doomed?
Justin and Terry were in their playroom – or their personal room as Verity had taken to calling it, since they were too old now to have a playroom.
‘Why not the den?’ Richard had suggested mildly, and she had answered that it made them sound like wild animals.
She was as defensive as a lioness in relation to her young, he thought, but did not fault that, although in his view she was over-indulgent with them, set no store by consideration for others – him, for instance – and was no stickler for truth. But, though hostile to him, the boys were not too troublesome: they were rude and noisy sometimes, but what boy wasn’t? He did not think they were bad boys.
Now, he went into their room. If she followed, she might restrain her behaviour in front of them. Perhaps it was a craven action but he would do a lot to cut short one of Verity’s fits of histrionics.
‘What are you watching?’ he asked, and sat down in a spare chair beside Justin who was glued to some game show.
Verity came into the room behind him and stood in the doorway with tears rolling down her face. She sobbed audibly. Her husband and her sons kept their faces turned to the television screen until she crossed the room and switched it off. She stood glowering at them.
‘None of you cares,’ she told them, quivering, her thin hands clasped across the black knitted tunic she wore over a purple polo sweater. ‘I spend all day slaving here to keep the house decent and none of you gives me a word of thanks for all I do.’
At least she was not swearing at them, which often happened. But her sons ought not to see her in this state. A swift memory of Richard’s controlled parents came to him: one must keep up the facade of behaving well, even if the world was crashing round one’s ears.
He rose to his feet and took her by the elbow.
‘Come along, Verity,’ he said. ‘You’re tired. I’ll take you upstairs.’
He led her away, and she permitted it: she had got his attention now, and once upstairs, he helped her take off her clothes, bundling her into bed, touching her as little as he could. He felt no desire for that thin body with the prominent ribcage, the small drooping breasts, but she was vulnerable and he still pitied her. He fetched a glass of water and a Valium tablet; their own doctor rarely prescribed tranquillisers but during his absence she had persuaded a locum, an older man, to do so and she had been able to get more. Richard, unaware that this was not straightforward, blessed the pills because they brought peace – tranquillity, their very purpose, albeit intermittently.
She went to sleep. The storm was over for the evening. Tomorrow was another day.
3
On Sunday Terry had a guest to lunch. Richard had roasted a leg of lamb – it would last, cold, for a day or two, giving him and the boys something to eat even if Verity preferred to toy with bean shoots and lettuce.
‘There’s enough for Mark, isn’t there, Cat?’ asked Terry.
They wouldn’t call him Dad, or by his name, and Justin had bestowed this nickname on him after a visit years ago to a pantomime when at first he’d called him Whittington. Richard had regarded it as a sign of acceptance, but when the name was switched to Cat, uttered in a sneering tone, he realised that he was wrong. However, Justin knew his limits: he was offhand, graceless, but not overtly rude to Richard, testing him sometimes, trying to see how far he could go without incurring open wrath but not quite overstepping what Richard would tolerate.
‘You’re not my dad,’ he sometimes said, when told to tidy up his possessions, put his bike away, or finish his homework.
‘I pay the bills,’ Richard had started saying several months ago. On the whole, both of them avoided conflict. Terry, so far, was less difficult, but he could flare up into sudden rages. The brothers were very much alike, both dark, with heavy eyebrows and almost black eyes. Justin’s hair was longer than Richard thought it should be, but Terry had a bristle cut, each hair standing up about an inch, like a mop.
They seldom brought friends home, so Richard was pleased when Terry said that Mark Conway was coming over with a new computer game he’d got. The two boys had spent a contented morning before coming into the kitchen. Beside Terry, Mark was short and stocky, and his brown hair fell in a true pudding bowl cut around his chubby face.
‘You’d better ring your parents to ask if you may stay,’ said Richard.
‘There’s only Mum, and she’s away,’ said Mark. ‘It’s OK.’ Then, seeing Richard’s expression, he added, ‘It’s just for the day. She’s on a course. She’s got a mega important job. Ivy knows I’m here.’
‘Who’s Ivy?’
Mark explained about her.
Steve had made the plan, because he did not want to be stuck with Mark as he wanted to go off with some friends in a car. They’d run into Terry in the park the day before and Steve had proposed that Mark should take his computer game over to show Terry. The idea had caught hold, and Steve was highly delighted with himself.
Mark hadn’t minded. Terry was all right, and afterwards he could go round to The Willows and see Tom. He wondered if the angry man would still be there, Tom’s son.
Justin had loafed off somewhere and he was late for lunch, but he did turn up. Richard’s cooking made the effort of coming home worthwhile. Verity was still in bed, and, cravenly, Richard sent Terry up with a bowl of soup, a warm roll and two bananas, some of which she might decide to consume. He returned without the tray. Even martyrs needed food.
Mark did not know when he had eaten a more delicious meal. It knocked spots off even Ivy’s stews and pies. The pudding had a kind of meringue on top and was all lemony underneath. Mark had never had it before.
Richard was pleased when he accepted a second helping. It was nice to be appreciated.
‘You ought to run a hotel,’ Mark told him. He was unsure of Richard’s name: he wasn’t Terry or Justin’s father so it might not be the same, and he couldn’t really be called Cat. As uttered by Justin, it hadn’t sounded respectful. Mark was interested in respect because Steve was always on about it. ‘My Mum works in a hotel,’ he added.
‘Which one?’ asked Richard, thinking it might be The Red Lion or one of Haverscot’s several pubs.
‘The Golden Accord. It’s on the way to Swindon,’ Mark replied.
Richard knew it. He and Verity had even spent a night there once, when the boys were visiting their grandparents.
‘It’s a very good hotel,’ he said truthfully.
The weather improved after lunch, and Richard decided that the boys should play outside, but first they must help clear away and load the dishwasher.
‘Ivy could do with one of those,’ Mark said. ‘She’s got a big family.’
‘I expect she could,’ said Richard. ‘Now, why don’t you take your football out, Terry, and kick it around?’
‘It’s too wet in the garden,’ Terry said. ‘Can we go to the park?’
Before agreeing, Richard made sure that Mark, who was younger than Terry, was allowed there unsupervised. It was true that recent rain had flooded the river below the garden and made his lawn very soggy; they’d damage it if they played out there for long. The park was on higher ground, though much of its turf was sour and dog-fouled. Children had to be independent and streetwise these days. At Mark’s age, Richard had already been a pupil for two years at a boarding-school housed in a mansion amid twenty acres of grounds, some of them woodland, where there was freedom to play both organised games and the other kind. Contrary to popular belief about such places, he had not been abused, nor bullied, but during his first weeks he had felt utterly forsaken, unable to understand why he had been sent away from home. He had concluded that this withdrawal of love, as it had seemed to him, had made him the more anxious to seek it in his adult life. He had certainly been eager to give affection, liable to fall seriously in love rather than indulge in passing fancies.
You had
your whole childhood in which to grow used to your family; even so, there were quarrels and misunderstandings. Yet people frequently chose a partner with whom they intended to share the greater part of their life on a very brief acquaintance. It worked sometimes; there were couples who fell in love and married within weeks, and remained content after forty or more years together.
It was pointless to think like this; it made him feel too sad. He blamed himself for being bad husband material, although he had tried, both times, to be reliable and kind. He was dull, he supposed; that was the main problem. He wanted a quiet life, absence of strife even if romance had withered away. He still didn’t know where he had failed Karen; her farmer, also, seemed rather dull, but perhaps she liked the country existence he provided. Verity, he now understood, could not deal with life except through confrontation; she was like a panther, poised ready to pounce, except when she had swallowed a pill and lapsed into an exhausted torpor.
‘Is your mother coming home tonight, Mark?’ he asked.
‘Oh yes,’ said Mark airily. ‘She won’t be late.’
‘You must go back before it gets dark,’ Richard said. ‘I don’t want either of you out there then. Understood, Terry?’
Terry nodded. He had suggested the park because he had wanted to demonstrate to Mark how he could manipulate his stepfather; in fact, there was plenty to do in the garden here. Cat had built a tree house, quite a high one up a large beech tree, and he would have liked to show that to Mark, but it would do for another time.
The two boys set off together. Mark skipped along. It had been a good day so far, and it would end with a visit to Tom.
He said nothing to Terry about the old man, and the visitor who had turned out to be Tom’s son. His visits to The Willows were a secret. Terry’s stepfather was nice, but so inquisitive. Mum had said it was rude to ask questions, yet adults always did it – wanting to know what you’d done at school, where you were going, who with and such, and had you done your homework. Even Mum did that. In the park, they’d be on their own.
Rare calm settled on Merrifields when the boys had gone out. Verity was still in her room, but might not remain there if she had revived and felt like creating fresh drama. Richard snatched some time with the Sunday paper; then he went out to his workshop, where he was carving a figure from a piece of old yew he had found in the churchyard. It had seemed to him that there was a gnarled old man with grizzled hair and a beard trapped inside the timber, waiting for release. He always worked like this with his wood sculptures, seeking form within the branch or log he had picked up either in the garden or when walking in the countryside. He worked slowly, enjoying the sensation of the wood beneath his fingers, watching the gradual realisation of his original idea.
He had given Caroline a pale, galloping horse he had made from a length of ash; she had exclaimed with pleasure, surprised that such power of observation, even artistry, could exist within what seemed to be a grey, conventional exterior. She didn’t ask him what his wife thought about his skill; she was not interested in his family life.
Failing light reminded him of the time. He glanced towards the house and saw that it was in darkness, apart from Verity’s studio window. So she was up and slopping paint about; that was something. Perhaps it would relieve her anger. But it looked as though the boys had not returned. The playroom showed no light.
Of course, when you were out of doors at dusk, you did not realise how dark it was until you went inside. They’d be home soon. He locked his shed and walked slowly up the garden towards the house.
Half an hour later, when there was still no sign of the boys, Richard, with a feeling of responsibility for Mark, if not his stepsons, set off towards the park to look for them. He’d probably meet Terry; Mark, who had disclosed at lunch that he lived in Grasmere Street, would be on his way home. He’d no idea where Justin was.
He reached the park without encountering the two younger boys or Justin. There were various figures running about in the gloaming. A few children were still on the swings with two young fathers watching them. A tall woman walked a dog around the perimeter, a Dalmatian which gleamed in the dusk. He could not see Terry or Mark among the boys scuffling together in mock combat; no one was kicking a football.
Perhaps Terry had gone home with Mark. Richard thought of going to see, but he did not know which was his house in Grasmere Street. Conway – that was the boy’s surname; during lunch they’d joked about the castle because Mark had not heard of it and Richard had treated them all to a brief discourse on the subject of thirteenth-century fortifications.
He did not hurry back. Terry might catch him up, or perhaps had taken the path through the churchyard and across the fields, though with the water flowing fast so far beyond the river, that was not a good idea.
Not for the first time, Richard wished that he could have afforded to send Verity’s boys away to boarding-school. It might have given their marriage more of a chance, and the unemotional, steady framework might have benefited Justin and Terry. Richard, thinking like this, disregarded the memory of his own isolation when he was sent away; he had grown used to the life and had settled down. So would they, and for those months of their absence, he would cease to feel like an intruder in his own house.
He sighed. Not long now till Monday morning. He wondered if Caroline had had a good weekend – perhaps they could meet on Monday evening, for a drink and a chat, if nothing else; a touch of kindness, just to keep him going.
Mark could not get rid of Terry. They had kicked the ball about for a while, and then some bigger boys had come and snatched it from them, kicking it themselves with so much force and strength that the smaller boys had no chance of retrieving it. Terry, whose ball it was, began to snivel, and in the end the older boys, having succeeded in upsetting him, grew bored with their teasing and kicked it out of sight, over the railings and into the road where it bounced off the windscreen of a passing Renault, causing the driver to swerve and crash into a stationary car. He missed a slowly-pedalling cyclist by two inches.
Brakes screamed, horns blew, and the bigger boys disappeared in the opposite direction. Terry and Mark were still standing on the rough grass, no great distance from the fence, when the irate Renault driver and the owner of the parked car, who had rushed out of his own house at the sound of the disturbance, appeared in the park. One of them carried the offending football.
Terry turned to flee, but Mark stood his ground.
‘It wasn’t us,’ he said staunchly when the two angry men drew near. ‘It was our ball but those other boys took it.’
He gestured in the direction of the far entrance to the park.
Tears on Terry’s face were signs of guilt. The two motorists were not eager to accept Mark’s explanation and one of them had raised his arm, ready to burst into a torrent of speech if not to rain blows on the nearest boy, when a voice came from behind him. The speaker was an elderly woman with a checked tweed hat worn low down over her eyebrows, and wearing a Burberry raincoat. She was accompanied by a golden cocker spaniel on a lead.
‘It wasn’t these two boys,’ she said. ‘I saw it all. There were three of them, all much bigger than these boys. I should think they were fourteen or fifteen.’
‘Is that so?’ The angrier of the two men was still glowering.
‘They were teasing these two, snatching their ball,’ said the woman. ‘I don’t suppose they thought about the consequences when they pitched it into the road.’
‘Maybe not,’ said the calmer man, only marginally placated. ‘Well, we must take your word for it. Would you give us your name and address as a witness? For the insurance.’
‘I’ll write it down for you if you have some paper and a pencil,’ said the woman.
The man produced a gold ball-point and a card on which she wrote, resting it against the fence to get some purchase. Then he asked the boys for their names.
‘That’s not necessary,’ said the woman firmly. ‘The older boys, yes, if known, but not
this pair.’
The second man agreed.
‘No one was hurt,’ he said. ‘It could have been worse.’ He turned to the other man. ‘Let’s sort out the details in my house. It must have shaken you up. I wasn’t in my car when it happened.’ He began walking back towards the road, and the second man followed.
Terry, still sniffing, was standing beside the old woman. Mark glanced at him and then trotted after the men.
‘Please, could Terry have his ball back?’ he asked.
‘Oh, I suppose so,’ said the angrier man, who was holding it. He threw it to Mark, quite viciously, but Mark caught it.
‘Thanks,’ he said, and added, ‘I’m sorry.’
‘Don’t push your luck,’ said the man ungraciously. ‘You and your friend get off home, and don’t bother the lady.’
Mark hurried back to Terry, who was being told by their saviour to blow his nose and brace up.
‘You know those boys, don’t you?’ she asked Mark.
‘They go to the upper school,’ said Mark cautiously.
He did know them; one was a friend of Steve’s.
‘Hm. Well, if someone had been hurt, you’d have had to tell the police all about it and there would have been a great deal of trouble,’ she said.
‘It wasn’t our fault,’ said Terry. ‘You said so,’ he added.
‘No, it wasn’t,’ she agreed. ‘And those boys were very thoughtless. Let it be a lesson to you two. Think about the consequences of your actions.’ She’d used that word to the men. Mark had heard her. He knew what consequences were; he’d played the game with old Tom and Steve and he’d enjoyed it, but Steve found it boring. He was no good at thinking of the names, and kept writing down football players and Madonna, or Sylvester Stallone. Even Tom and Mark tired of them.
‘Get on home, then,’ the woman instructed. ‘Terry, isn’t it? And what’s your name?’ She peered at Mark, eyes screwed up under the brim of her hat. He thought she was very ugly.
Serious Intent Page 3
