The Corpse at the Haworth Tandoori

by Robert Barnard

  He had been in Haworth long enough to know where Stanbury was. He retraced his steps until town suddenly gave way to moorland and fields, then took the road down the hill and followed it when it turned upward again. Stanbury, when he gained it, was approved of. The boy liked villages, came from one and felt at home in them. He stopped to ask an old man toiling along the street past the church how he could get to Ashworth, and had the path silently pointed out to him. As he turned off the road, to his right, his heart rose again: a broad, green valley. A farm with a cottage and dogs—just what he was used to. He was traveling, adventuring, but he was carrying his history with him, and was conscious of the fact. A conviction grew in him that Ashworth, when it was gained, was going to be somewhere where he could feel at home.

  As he descended and rounded a corner he realized that he must be there. It was exactly as the woman in the post office had described it. Not just a farm, but a hamlet centered on a farm. That looked wonderfully promising. The boy knew he got on well with people, that his appearance predisposed them to like him, and that that didn’t change when they got to know him better. He came to a gate, swung it open, and found himself among the little knot of cottages.

  There was a woman bending over to weed in the front garden of one of the little cottages—a cottage in the middle of a little terrace of similar ones, with roses and gladioli in the garden and a JESUS LIVES sticker in the window looking out on the lane. The boy cleared his throat.

  “Excuse me.”

  The woman straightened. She was wearing an old cream blouse and an even older tweed skirt, once green and brown, now generally muddy. Her face, unmade up and not particularly clean, showed a similar disregard for the opinions of others. She smiled, but he got the impression that strangers here were not frequent, were not particularly wanted, and were evaluated.

  “I’m looking for Ashworth.”

  “Well, you could say this is all Ashworth. We take the name from the farm.”

  “Maybe it’s the farm I want. There was this advertisement in the post office in Haworth.”

  She nodded, obviously interested.

  “Oh, yes. You’re the first. It only went up Monday. . . . Well, you look sturdy enough.”

  “I can do most things.”

  “Mind you, it’s not just physical stuff you’d be doing, not with Ranulph. You need strong mental qualities as well—tact, cheerfulness, friendliness.”

  “Well, I think I’ve got those,” said the boy, with the confidence of his twenty or so years.

  “I hope you have. I’m Jenny Birdsell, by the way.” They shook hands, then she leaned forward to impart information. “It’s Ranulph you’ll have most to do with in the house, if you get the job. What I’ve said probably has given you the impression that Ranulph is difficult. That’s not really fair. He’s demanding. But then, as his physical powers fail he needs more attention, for his art’s sake. To get the vision onto canvas. He has to be helped, moved, have all his things to hand.”

  “He’s a painter?”

  “Ah, you didn’t know? I thought the name Ranulph might have alerted you. But then, you’re young. Ranulph Byatt is his full name, one of the country’s greatest living painters. If I were you I would say when you go to the house that you’ve heard of him.”

  “I will. Thanks for the suggestion.”

  She put her head to one side, considering.

  “Perhaps you’d better not pretend to know his work. You might be found out. It’s the womenfolk there who are in charge on a day-to-day basis, them you would be dealing with.”

  “Is that his wife?”

  “Wife and daughter. Melanie is younger than Ranulph, but she’s getting on herself, and she has her problems—arthritis, just like him. Lady Byatt we call her when we’re in an irreverent mood. She was desperate for Ranulph to accept the knighthood when it was offered to him. It’s Melanie who’s really in charge. Martha’s her daughter. Such a drab name she gave her. Almost . . .”

  She faded into silence, having made her point without actually voicing it. The boy looked at her, in no way put off.

  “So it’s them I have to deal with?”

  “That’s right. Satisfy them that you can do the job—all the jobs, rather—and you’ll be in. I’d put in a word for you, but Melanie wouldn’t take any notice of me.”

  “Who had the job before?”

  “No one. They moved Ranulph round as best they could, and sometimes got in outside help for the garden and the handyman tasks around the house. Stephen helped, of course, when it suited him, or when he wanted something.”

  “Stephen?”

  “Martha’s son. Stephen Mates. But he’ll be flying the nest quite soon, and, anyway, he’s getting very Bolshie.”

  The boy almost smiled at the dated word, but he damped the smile down at its source. He didn’t get the impression that Jenny Birdsell had much of a sense of humor. Her way of talking about the job gave him the impression that he was wrong to regard this as only a summer job. It was meant to be permanent. Well, it didn’t have to be permanent for him. That was entirely up to him. He could take off whenever he liked.

  “I’d better be getting along,” he said. He turned around. “I suppose that’s the house, isn’t it?”

  “That’s right. The gate and the front door are just around the corner. . . . It’s a pity you don’t know more about art, you know.”

  “I don’t know much about a lot of things,” said the boy, but, optimistic by temperament, he added: “I expect I’ll learn.”

  “I hope you do. It will be such a waste otherwise. If you can learn you’ll understand the greatness of Ranulph’s contribution to contemporary art.” She smiled brightly. “Maybe you’ll come to worship him, as we all do.”

  The boy repressed the instinct to say “Maybe,” and instead delivered a cheerful “I’m sure I shall.”

  The farmhouse, on the other side of the lane, sprawled invitingly. It was a low, stone building with narrow windows upstairs, more generous ones on the ground floor. Leaving Mrs. Birdsell and rounding a corner in the lane the boy found a small front garden and, central to the block, an old oak front door with a genuine bell that, when the rope was pulled, gave out a fearsome baritonal ring. He had thought he heard, on the instant of ringing, the sound of raised voices from a distance. Now there was silence, and as he stood there in the sun, in the little garden of shrubs and border plants, he began to hear strong, young footsteps approaching the door inside the house.

  “Yes?”

  The door had been opened by a young man, about his own age, much darker in coloring, though, with beetling eyebrows and an angry manner. He was wearing jeans and a check shirt, but they set uneasily on him: they were the clothes of a farm boy, but he did not have a farm boy’s manner or speech.

  “I’ve come about the job.”

  It took a moment or two to sink in.

  “Oh, the job!” The boy was not quite sure what the intonation suggested: that only a hobo would consider a job like that? That it could hardly be considered a job at all? That it was some kind of cover for something else?

  “That’s right,” he said, with the determined good humor that he had always found got results. “The handyman’s job.”

  “OK, OK,” the young man said, as if temporizing. “What’s your name?”

  “Declan O’Hearn.”

  The young man gave him a tight smile.

  “Right you are, Declan. . . . Well, you’d better come in, hadn’t you?”

  He led the way down a wide hallway, over threadbare carpet, until at the far end he flung open a door.

  “Mother. Grandmama. This is Declan O’Hearn, come about the handyman’s job.”

  The young man, apparently feeling he had done more than enough, threw himself on an old sofa under the window, and prepared to watch the scene sardonically. Declan stood uncertainly by the door. The young man’s manner had unnerved him a little, made him socially uncertain. He had the impression he had interrupted s
omething—probably a routine family row, something with which he was familiar. Standing by the mantelpiece were two women, one old, one middle-aged. By a bookcase adjacent to the mantelpiece was a man, tweed-jacketed, with a pipe and a mustache. He looked like a solicitor or a bank manager, and certainly not like a painter.

  “Thank you, Stephen,” said the older woman, speaking distinctly and with immense condescension. “Come over here—Declan, is it? That’s an Irish name, isn’t it?”

  “It is that. I come from County Wicklow.”

  “A beautiful country, yours. Ranulph did some wonderful work there in the summer of sixty-seven—landscapes, of course.” She beckoned, and Declan moved somewhat hesitantly over to the fireplace. She looked him over like a cattle buyer. “Well, you appear capable enough. Farming stock?”

  “That’s right. Peasants, I suppose you’d call us.”

  “Good. Call things by their honest name. Used to physical work, then?”

  “Sure, I’ve done plenty of that in my time. But I’ve an education as well.”

  “Splendid. Then you’ll have heard of Ranulph Byatt.”

  “I have.” The boy registered that he was telling nothing but the truth, though his intention had been to convey a lie.

  “My husband,” she said, sinking down into a chair. “Now, quite a lot of your work would be for and concerning him. Moving him, helping him to mix paint, moving his easel, stretching and setting up canvases, and so on. Being there, in short, while he paints, and assisting in every way.”

  “I’m sure I can manage that. It would be an honor.”

  She nodded complacently.

  “It would. But you see, Ranulph can only paint for limited periods. Two, two and a half hours at most. Sometimes he will have a little nap after lunch and then manage a little more, but mostly not. The rest of your job would be outdoor work—in the garden, the stable, doing shopping, some handyman jobs around the place when things go wrong.”

  “I could do all that.”

  She looked closely at him.

  “You seem to be very confident. What’s your situation? You look as if you’re traveling around. You don’t have a job at the moment?”

  “No, I’m traveling the country, as you say. Getting a bit of work where there’s anything on offer.” In a burst of confidence he added: “Singing for my supper sometimes, in the street. I have quite a nice voice.”

  “Just so long as you don’t irritate Ranulph with it,” said the old woman. “He has no ear for music.”

  “Tell him about Granddad” came the voice from the sofa. Stephen was still lounging there sardonically, looking at the little group around the fireplace.

  “I have told him about your grandfather,” insisted Mrs. Byatt. “I’ve made no secret it’s heavy, difficult work.”

  “Tell him what Granddad is like,” insisted Stephen. “Tell him about the rages, the sulks, the tetchiness. Tell him about the sheer bloody-mindedness.”

  “Declan said that he was educated, Stephen,” said his grandmother. “He will know that artists are . . . different.”

  “Oh, Granddad is different, all right. He lives by different rules to other people’s. But don’t blame it on his art. Plenty of artists have looked like bank managers and behaved perfectly decently. Art shouldn’t be used as some kind of excuse. That’s a nineteenth-century fallacy. And Granddad would have been a monster whatever his profession.”

  “Stephen!” The middle-aged woman spoke for the first time, her conventionality outraged.

  “Mother, Declan’s going to find out. Best tell him now so he can walk straight out of the door if he feels like it.”

  “To talk about your own grandfather like that—”

  “Tell it like it is. That was one of your generation’s mottoes, wasn’t it? Make it clear to Declan that he’ll be abused, harried, hectored—kicked, if there’s any strength in his legs.”

  “But you’ll have the satisfaction of knowing that, in a very small way, you are contributing to the work of one of this country’s great artists,” said Stephen’s mother, turning to Declan with a misty look in her eyes, an almost exaggerated devotion in her voice, which contrasted oddly with what seemed like personal uncertainty. “Surely that is something, isn’t it?”

  “It certainly would be,” said Declan, but more for something to say than because he had any such ambition.

  “You’d have a room to yourself,” said her mother, more practically, “and all your evenings free. You can eat with us or go off with your friends.”

  “He’ll have lots of friends round here, coming from County Wicklow,” said Stephen.

  “He’ll make friends, of course. A pleasant young man like Declan will always make friends.”

  “Unlike your grandson,” said Stephen.

  “Yes, unlike you, Stephen, who repel friendship.” Stephen remained irritatingly silent, as if disdaining self-defense. “At least this will have told you, Declan,” she went on, turning back to him, “that this is not an easy job.”

  “No, well, I’ll just have to see if I can cope,” said Declan. “I haven’t always had it easy so far.” In a sudden gush of honesty he added: “I like the idea of a room to myself. It’s something I’ve never had at home.”

  “Lots of brothers and sisters?”

  “That’s right. I can put up with a lot for a room of my own.”

  “Then you’ll take the job?”

  “I’ll take it if you’re offering it,” said Declan, with the mental proviso that they were “on liking” quite as much as he was, if not more so.

  Suddenly the man with the pipe spoke for the first time.

  “They’ve been exaggerating about Ranulph. His bark’s worse than his bite. And he can be as meek as a lamb for weeks at a time.”

  “Granddad is never meek as a lamb.”

  “Comparatively. When he’s not painting anything major.”

  “When he’s meditating a picture,” said Mrs. Byatt. “When the next painting is taking shape in his mind.”

  “It’s when he is trying to get that picture in his mind onto the canvas that frustration sometimes turns into rage,” said his daughter. “The gap between vision and reality, you know, that’s how he describes it. Every time he feels he has failed, because he can’t match the painted pictures with the ideal conception. Can you, as a layman, understand that?”

  “I think I can,” said Declan.

  “We just have to hold our breaths and wait until it passes.”

  “Till we can just be his doormats again, instead of the targets on his shooting range,” said Stephen. There was a moment’s silence.

  “Well, that’s settled, then,” said Mrs. Byatt, with a forced naturalness. “Now, you’d better get to know us, since you’re going to be part of the household. I’m Melanie—please try to call me that, it’s so much more friendly. On the other hand it’s perhaps best to call Ranulph Mr. Byatt, at least to start with. He’ll make it clear what terms he wants to be on with you.”

  “Quite clear,” said Stephen.

  “And I’m Martha,” said Stephen’s mother. “Martha Mates. I’m Ranulph and Melanie’s daughter. Stephen is my son. And this is Arnold Mellors.”

  The man with the pipe came over and shook Declan’s hand.

  “I live in the cottage built on to this house,” he said. “You must feel just as at home there as you are here.”

  “Thank you,” said Declan, not quite feeling at home anywhere yet.

  “Arnold took early retirement,” said Martha Mates.

  “Before I was pushed. Nobody wants experience or mature judgment anymore in the business world. I paint myself, in a small, amateur way. But living close to Ranulph is—well, a breath of life, artistically speaking.”

  “I’m sure it is,” said Declan, who was undergoing a crash course in discretion.

  “Well, I think the sensible thing would be to show Declan to his room,” said Melanie Byatt, getting up from her chair by the mantelpiece. Getting a good l
ook at her for the first time Declan saw the remains of a very good-looking woman indeed—full of figure, erect of carriage in spite of what he took to be her arthritis, and beautifully dressed in a creamy-brown frock with a vivid rose-and-orange shawl. Why dress so well in a rather drab farmhouse on a weekday in midsummer? The answer was perhaps in the face: handsome, chiseled, with wide mouth and striking hazel eyes, the whole effect just touched with a suggestion of a bird of prey. The boy’s diagnosis, with only an intuitive understanding of the world he was sliding into, was that Melanie had always been beautiful, and that she had used her beauty to exact homage or obedience.

  Certainly beside her, her daughter looked drab—dressed sensibly, inclined to dumpiness, with a moon-shaped face innocent of makeup. It was as if she was making a statement that she was not in competition.

  “I can show Declan to his room, Mother,” said Martha Mates.

  “No, no. You know I like to do the honors of the house, as long as it is mine. . . . You’ll eat with us, Declan?” she asked, turning to him and widening her painted lips.

  “Thank you very much.”

  “Ranulph eats in his room. He’s very tired today so I think, you know, the best thing will be to prepare him tonight, and for you to meet him for the first time tomorrow.”

  “‘Sufficient unto the day . . .’” came from the sofa.

  “Stephen, if you were not about to go up to Oxford I would seriously consider forbidding you this house,” said Melanie Byatt. “Come, Declan.”

  She went slowly, painfully through the hall and up the dark stairs, leaning on a stick with an ivory knob on top, then along an almost equally dark landing, at the end of which she threw open a door.