It was at about this time that, with money running low, my father, while taking no risk himself, encouraged my mother and his son into a plan to replenish the coffers at no expense. He was not alone in thinking that Lloyd’s Insurance would solve the problem; or in being sucked under by the claims that almost immediately began to flood in from companies whose employees had suffered from the use of asbestos. Lloyd’s, as my family were now painfully taught, had not been joking when they asked, in return for a handsome annual yield, to have the promise of unlimited security. This meant, in plain language, that they would take everything, the House included, to recoup the required amount.
My mother was wiped out; my brother became temporarily vulnerable. It was at this point that my father decided to change his will. I might not have much money, but I was not threatened by Lloyd’s. I, at the stroke of a pen, became his heir; my clever, hardworking, conscientious brother, who had endured the brunt of my father’s demands and expectations for half his life, was casually informed, as he was stepping on to a train, of the altered plan.
These were the facts; nevertheless, I couldn’t help wondering if my father’s talent for mischief-making had also influenced this transformation in his children’s lives. My brother and I had always been close; our shared resentment of Robbie strengthened the bond. Was it possible, I wondered, that our father hoped by this radical action to drive us apart? If so, he was to be disappointed. My brother, conscious that I loved the House as passionately as he, told me that it was only fair that each of us should have our turn. Our affection for each other, although tested, remained undiminished.
I had not suspected, until I became my father’s heir, how much this would increase my passionate aversion to Robbie. Neither had I realised how meticulously my father was planning for his friend’s future. I, as a woman, was judged to be a softer touch than my brother, and, in my imagined gratitude, more susceptible to the request he now made.
My father still had no intention of yielding control of his estate; having risked nothing of his own with Lloyd’s, he had no reason to do so. The full horrors imposed by inheritance and capital gains tax would be avoided, he explained, by the fact that the House would pass, for a restricted period, through my mother’s hands. And what if she died before him? His answer – that this was most unlikely – didn’t do much to reassure me.
This discussion took place one summer afternoon in 1992 as he left Robbie to fish in the lake while he tutored me in the daily running of the estate. We strolled along the hilltop, backs tactfully turned to the looming chimney of the station. Smiling, my father pointed down to the lake where Robbie crouched in the rushes beside his rod. Invited to comment on his evident state of contentment, I prepared to speak my mind.
‘Don’t you think it’s time that Robbie got on with his own life?’
‘Away from here? When you can see how he loves it? I’ve always thought’, my father murmured, his hand resting like a pincer on my arm, ‘that it was one of the great privileges of owning a beautiful House like this, that one can offer it to people less fortunate than ourselves. Agreed?’
‘Within limits,’ I said. ‘Not all the time.’
Sighing, my father released his grasp. ‘To be honest, I don’t know what would happen to him now if he lost this.’
‘He could be with Della in London,’ I said. ‘She is his wife, isn’t she?’ I glanced at him. ‘I’m not going to promise to share the House with Robbie, if that’s what you mean. I won’t.’
‘Darling, we’re not talking about next year,’ my father said. ‘I’m not gone yet, however eagerly you might wish it.’ He paused again, softened his voice. All he was asking, and surely it wasn’t such a burden to add to my inheritance, was that I should never attempt to banish his friend from the House. Robbie, like some unloved heirloom, was to be a permanent fixture.
I don’t know whether it says more about my father’s force of personality, or my own weakness of character that I had, by the time we walked down the hillside, given up and given in. Beaming, my father gave the good news to his friend; Robbie, stretching his hand towards me and offering a cheery grin, said he expected that we’d rub along pretty well as co-habitants, so long as I learned to take my orders.
Christmas 1993 was approaching. Christmas was still one of the few occasions that had remained sacrosanct to the family. This year, however, my brother, lovingly married and with a young family of his own, sent apologies; my father promptly announced that he would be asking Robbie to come and fill the gap. Della, although still formally married, was in the process of seeking a separation; the poor chap couldn’t be expected to spend the holiday season on his own.
‘He’s been with you all this month,’ I said. ‘Hasn’t he got any other friends he might want to see? There must be someone.’
‘You do sound desperate to be rid of him,’ my father said. ‘Poor Robbie. And he’s always so full of inquiries about you, and how you’re doing. It’d thrill him to think you actually wanted him here, you know. It’s so little to ask.’
Telephones are a useful medium for communicating silence as displeasure. I waited.
‘You do remember that Robbie’s father killed himself at Christmas,’ my father said in a voice of hushed reproach for my insensitivity. ‘It’s a sad, sad time for him to be alone. But if that’s what you want, of course, I’ll tell him. I’ll say you couldn’t bear to spend even two of your precious days showing a little kindness that wouldn’t have cost you anything to offer . . .’
The technique was too familiar to be wholly effective, but a compromise was negotiated. I would bring my family for Christmas Eve and stay on for two days; Robbie, after spending most of December at the House, would depart, returning there on Boxing Day to remain through January. Our stays would overlap, but only for only two meals. Honour, on both sides, had been satisfied.
My father liked to map things out in advance; these plans were hatched and resolved in October. At the end of that month, he invited himself to supper at my home in London. This in itself was unusual. So was the fact that the meal was consumed without protest. No objection was made to a soufflé that had sunk, or even to the shocking absence of new potatoes to accompany the poached salmon: my father took second helpings of everything, praised my appearance and spoke kindly of the wine my husband had bought for the occasion.
‘Although a Gewürztraminer might have been even more delicious,’ he said, lounging elegantly back in his chair as he mentioned the wine I most detested. ‘You like German wines, don’t you, darling?’
I don’t and was about to say so, when my father cut across me. His smile, I noticed, had become tight-lipped, a sure sign that he was feeling uneasy.
‘Speaking of that,’ he said rapidly, ‘I’ve been laying down some rather good Alsatian wines at the House.’ My father examined the well-buffed tips of his nails. ‘For Robbie.’
‘How thoughtful,’ I said. ‘I thought he preferred beer.’
‘I can hear that note in your voice,’ he said softly. ‘Do try not to be quite so unpleasant. He’s so fond of you.’
I turned my back. ‘I’ll get the coffee.’
The subject had been delayed, but not dismissed.
‘The thing is,’ my father sighed as he set down his cup, ‘that Robbie’s a bit short of money at present. He’s frightfully proud. No point in my trying to give him anything. But if you were to buy some wine from him, at a good price . . .’
Then and now, the scheme seemed baffling in its convolutions. I was to pay my father twelve pounds a bottle, for a case of wine that I didn’t want. This would apparently show Robbie that I entertained friendly feelings towards him, while allowing his pride to remain intact. Wearily, I offered to write a cheque to Robbie on the spot; my father shook his head. Robbie and Della shared a bank account; better by far if I made out a cheque to George Seymour and let him complete the transaction, in cash.
Too tired to argue, I did as he asked. Rosy with satisfaction, my father
pocketed the cheque, kissed my cheek, shook my husband’s hand, mounted his bike and shot away down the street.
I made no effort to collect the wine. Having listened to my father’s explanation, I assumed that he had immediately banked the cheque and given the cash, so badly needed, to his friend. Robbie, I supposed, had been told of my love of Gewürztraminer and my eagerness to help him by purchasing it. As always, I was astonished at the lengths to which my father was willing to go, for Robbie’s sake.
On this occasion, however, he did not go far enough. He did not hand the money over to poor, desperate Robbie; instead, savouring the pleasure of his own solicitude, he put seven twenty-pound notes into an envelope, and laid it, inscribed to Tigger from Christopher Robin, to one side. I gather that he planned to bestow this handsome surprise just before I arrived for Christmas; Robbie would, so he fondly fancied, thus be persuaded of my friendly feelings and feel less mournful at being dismissed from the House on Christmas Eve. He told me this afterwards, blaming himself for his folly. But by then, it was too late.
At the beginning of December, just as my father and he had planned, Robbie arrived at the House. As usual, the two of them went out on the bike each night after dinner. Dire weather never kept them from making these expeditions; the diaries show that they rode, through heavy fog and rain, to Folkestone, to Cardiff, and to Lyme Regis. Robbie was unusually subdued; my father’s references to the unstoppable cheeriness of Tiggers failed to elicit the usual grin. Apparently, he complained on several occasions of a headache, and, a further curious symptom that was giving him trouble, of a dizzying blackness behind his eyes.
It’s possible that he was anxious about his state of dependence on my father. It’s certain that he was worried about money. Problems with Della can’t have helped; neither can the knowledge that he was approaching the age at which his father had killed himself. The mention of headaches and dizziness also suggest that Robbie may have suffered from severe mental depression, and that this condition was worsening. Later, all these possibilities were subjected to intense and painful speculation.
My mother’s memory, although clear on all the preceding stages of the relationship, wavers at this point. The details that follow are based on her recollections, combined with those provided by my father to me, at three in the morning, on 12 December.
On the afternoon of the preceding day, Robbie went alone to the cupboard where the shotguns were kept, at the back of the House. He put one of the guns into the boot of the beaten-up old car that had been bought for him sometime earlier; he then went to find my father, and to let him know that he had decided to go back to London early. He offered no reason, and made no apology. My father hated his plans to be upset; he had been looking forward to a further two weeks of biking, and of Robbie’s company. There was a scene.
Petulance, I imagine, prevented my father from going up to his room to fetch the cash-filled envelope, inscribed to Tigger. He may have wished to punish him; he may, in his distress, have let the envelope go out of his mind. It isn’t known. No third party was present at the conversation that took place between them, before Robbie climbed into his car and drove away. My mother remembers that she heard them quarrelling; she was unaware until the end of the day that Robbie had left the House.
Towards ten o’clock that evening, when my parents sat watching the news, my father became intensely anxious. He telephoned Robbie’s flat; Della answered. She confirmed that her husband had arrived safely and added that he was in a funny mood. My father asked her to bring him to the phone; Robbie, apparently, said he wasn’t talking. Della, now sounding anxious, said she’d only meant to drop in to pick up a coat, but that Robbie seemed so low that she had decided to stay. She’d seen him in bad spirits before, but never like this.
At two in the morning, my father was woken by a ringing phone. It was Della once more, and she had bad news. Shortly after midnight, while she was sleeping, Robbie had gone into the kitchen, shut the door, and written a brief note to say that he couldn’t see any other way out. Then he had sat down at the table, stuck the barrel of a shotgun into his mouth and blown his head off. The police had just left. The mess was terrible.
An hour later, my own phone rang. At first, I couldn’t recognise my father’s voice or understand the news that was delivered, between gasps, in hoarse cries, like those of a tortured animal. I heard the word: ‘Dead’; after that, nothing but deep, protracted sobs. Robbie was dead? Silenced by shock, I stared at the ghost of myself that wavered in the mirror opposite the bed. This was, in a sense, all I had wished for; I had never expected my wish to be granted in such a fashion. ‘I’m sorry; I’m so sorry,’ I heard a voice whisper out of the receiver. I’m not sure whether it was from shock or pity that I began to tremble as I realised that, for the first time – it was not to be the last – my father was apologising to me. My poor father: he was apologising for his tears.
Ten years earlier, my father had made the arrangements for Robbie’s wedding to Della. She, gone all to pieces, showed no will to fight him now, when he offered to organise and pay for the funeral. Della was not especially fond of my father – he had, after all, been her rival – but she had neither the heart nor the funds to sort things out herself. She may even have understood how much this last ceremony would mean to him.
It was a cold day, but fine. The service at the South London crematorium was scantily attended; behind us, the long brown ranks of pews stood empty. I hadn’t, until now, understood how isolated Robbie had been, how entirely dependent he had been upon my father’s friendship.
‘All rise,’ said the vicar. Heads bent, we stood, Della in a tight purple dress with a hatband that almost matched, my mother in a dark green tweed suit that didn’t quite acknowledge the gravity of the occasion. I, my husband, and my son had, after consultation, gone to the opposite extreme, showing up like a trio of ravens; my father, eyes averted from the altar, stood a little apart from us, draped in a heavy black coat that weighed down his shoulders.
‘All kneel,’ said the vicar. Dully, I stared at the row of large Victorian windows that overlooked the chapel’s car-park, willing myself to feel grief that Robbie was dead. The sense of relief was stronger, to my shame. Della was sobbing noisily; I couldn’t produce a single tear.
Beyond the windows, a group of teenage boys were shouting at each other as they kicked a ball around the car park. Frowning at the interruption, the vicar rose once more to offer words of comfort to the bereaved. A small, exhausted-looking man who had evidently given little attention to my father’s descriptions of the deceased, he spoke warmly of Ronnie’s love of horses (my father winced at this misconstruction of his account of Robbie’s bike-riding); back on familiar territory, the vicar spoke with sonorous authority of the enduring peace that Ronnie could now enjoy. And now, he went on, by the special request of Ronnie’s family, we were to hear a piece of music that would remind us all of his love of laughter, his innocent sense of fun. (My father, sobbing, buried his head in his hands as the red curtains drew apart and the casket – it looked disconcertingly small – began, with a dignified hiss of moving steel, to be received.)
I should have guessed what was coming from the portable gramophone I had seen my father carrying into the chapel; unprepared for what we were about to hear, I shrank from the sudden crackle of vinyl as if it had been a gunshot. The turntable continued to spin, the record to emit a loud and tuneless crackle; nobody budged. My father was on his knees, white knuckles squeezed against his eyes as though he meant to gouge them out. My son, who loved him, slid along the pew to wrap a warm arm around his grandfather’s hunched back. The coffin continued to move gradually away from us. And then, into the gloom, there burst the sound of a relentlessly jolly children’s song:
The most wonderful thing about Tiggers
Is Tiggers are wonderful things! . . .
wonderful things! . . . wonderful things! . . .
The needle, clicking gently, stayed trapped in the groove. Grim-face
d, the vicar leaned forward to pull the lever up. Now, all that could be heard were the stifled cries from behind my father’s clenched fists.
Afterwards, gathered together in the gloom of Robbie’s basement flat, we made polite conversation to Della and a woman friend of hers who had come along to help pour out cups of tea. My mother’s face was stony as she sipped the cup and declined Della’s offer of a room in which to freshen up. I, shaken by the bleakness of Robbie’s London home, tried not to wonder which of the walls, covered by a cream woodchip paper, had been spattered, and how difficult blood might be to remove. I couldn’t see any stains. I watched my father as he circled the room, holding out a plate of elegantly cut sandwiches – he had prepared them himself – that nobody wanted to eat. Now that he had taken off his winter coat, I saw his age revealed, in a body that appeared thin as paper, and in the tremor of that tentative, gracefully extended hand. Even death couldn’t make me feel fond of Robbie, the usurper to whom I had been expected to offer a home for life. But no daughter could take pleasure in the sight of a parent who was so evidently suffering from a broken heart. I saw that he was willing himself to stay in control, struggling to mask the extremity of his grief. I felt, like a stab of pain, something for him at that moment that was close to love.
My father drew some comfort, I think, from designing the handsome stone tablet on which, with no sense of parody, Tigger was recorded as the beloved friend of Christopher Robin, and of Owl. He knew the memorial could not be placed where it would invite ridicule; he chose a secluded portion of the courtyard at the back of the House, making of it a kind of shrine where, so I heard later, he would sit for hours at a time, his face turned towards the wall, his hands pressed to the side of his stomach in which, as it came to seem, his grief lay stored. On other occasions, as I later gathered, he would take a chair down to the bank of the lake, placing it in the spot where Robbie had liked to fish and where, on summer days, the two of them had spent long, languid hours of perfect ease.
In My Father's House Page 24
