Not long afterwards, he left. From where I stood at the door, I watched him take a deep breath as he regained some composure from the wreckage of his inner life. Then he straightened himself and walked away, braving the indifferent street like a disgraced politician, head held high.
Less than half an hour later the telephone rang. I’d just stepped out of the shower and stood, wrapped in a towel, listening to an urgent voice on the answering machine saying, “Martin, will you pick this up please?”
It was Marina’s voice. I rushed to lift the receiver and said her name.
“I wasn’t going to do this,” she began. “I was just going to take off and never see you or talk to you again. But I decided I couldn’t do that. That it would be an act of cowardice. That I had to speak to you at least, and hear whatever hypocritical cant you came up with to justify yourself. I decided that I had to tell you exactly what I thought of you before writing you out of my life once and for all.”
“Marina,” I protested, astounded by her vehemence, “what is this? I don’t understand. I’ve been looking for you everywhere. Where have you been?”
“Where have I been? I’ll tell you where I’ve been. Like the deluded fool I am, I’ve been in Somerset, working on a painting for you. Then I came back today and went straight to your place, hoping that I might see you, that I might give it to you. So I was there, Martin. I saw.”
“Wait a minute,” I said. “This isn’t right. I don’t think you understand…
“What’s to understand?” she shouted down the line. “I saw it with my own eyes. I saw the two of you together. I saw her leave your flat. I saw the way you kissed her as she left. I mean, just what kind of rat are you these days? I know you’ve had lots of stupid affairs. You told me so yourself. But I can’t believe you could sink so low as to include your best friend’s wife among them.”
“Marina,” I said, “that wasn’t me.”
After a moment’s silence she said, “Is that the best you can come up with?”
“I’m telling you the truth.”
“The truth?” Her voice was harsh with sarcasm now. “Right. Okay. If it wasn’t you, who was it?”
I stood in silence with the receiver at my ear, thinking quickly, in confusion.
“Come on then,” she defied me. “Let’s hear it.”
“I can’t tell you,” I said.
“I see. You know who it is, but you can’t tell me.”
“Marina,” I said, “you’re going to have to trust me about this.”
“Trust you?” The words were an incredulous scoff. “Well, to hell with you, Martin! I learnt a long time ago that I can’t trust men in general, and now I know to my cost that I can’t trust you in particular. I’m a painter, for God’s sake! What I trust is my eyes, and I know what they’ve seen. And what they saw disgusted me. So get out of my life, do you hear? And stay out of it. Keep clear of me. Don’t try to see me or talk to me ever again. As far as I’m concerned, you don’t exist any more.”
She slammed down the phone. The receiver buzzed in my ear. I stood in the silent room, shaking.
22
Coup
I rang back at once, but heard only Marina’s voice on the answering machine. I spoke to it, believing her to be listening, but she didn’t pick up the receiver. I tried again. Again my recorded pleas elicited no response. I must have rung six or seven times without getting through. After putting down the phone for the last time, I decided to go straight over to Bloomsbury to confront her with the truth about what she had seen.
My knock went unanswered, and though it was getting dark I saw no lights at her windows. I scribbled a note asking her to meet me, telling her how important it was that we talk things through, but even as I pushed the scrap of paper through her letterbox I knew that she must have gone away. She had left London with the explicit purpose of avoiding contact with me, and I guessed she would not be back for some time. Adam might know where she’d gone, but I quailed at the prospect of talking to him now.
Each day that week I rang her several times and got no reply. I wrote draft after draft of a letter trying to explain what had happened, but I couldn’t bring myself to post even the one I detested least. I was too conscious of the impact it must have – on Marina first and then on the rest of the family as the shockwave of the truth passed on. Also, rightly or wrongly, I had given my word to Hal. Never in a million years, I’d said, contracting myself in perpetuity to protect him from the fallout of his folly. Even though it left me in torment, there were moments when I thought that promise was for the best. At other times I would happily have consigned Hal to whichever fiery hole in hell a vengeful fate might choose for him. But because Marina was out of reach, and because every cell in my body resisted the prospect of confronting Adam, I was unable to act.
The plan to make me the new Africa correspondent was well advanced. The appointment would take me out of the country for months at a time, and I knew that I couldn’t bear the thought of leaving before I had spoken to Marina. So, doing the only thing I could think of, I rang High Sugden in the hope that Grace might know where she was.
“Marina? Oh goodness only knows!” Grace’s voice felt distracted and strained. “If she’s not in Bloomsbury, I’ve no idea where she is. It could be that place she goes to in Somerset. Or somewhere abroad even. Italy perhaps.”
“You wouldn’t have addresses for her in those places by any chance?”
“Oh dear, Martin, you know what she’s like. She’s been almost a stranger to us for years now. She never tells me anything. I live half in fear of a policeman turning up at the door some day saying something terrible has happened to her.”
“Marina knows how to look after herself.”
“Yes, but…” Grace sighed down the line. “Anyway, why did you want to see her? Was it something important?”
“Well… It’s just that I’ll be abroad for quite some time, and I thought it would be good to see her again before I leave.”
“I see. And will you be visiting your mother before you go?”
“I was planning to, yes.”
“Then you might look in on us too. Hal’s been gloomy since he came back from London last week. I can’t do a thing with him. But you’ve always been able to cheer him up. Do come and see us, won’t you?”
I heard the note of entreaty in her voice, but such a visit was the last thing I wanted. “I’m not sure, Grace.” I said. “I’ll try to come if I can.”
When I drove up to Calderbridge that Friday, I found my mother sitting alone in the house among her potted plants, staring at the television, elfin-thin and pale, with shadows round her eyes as though grief had permanently bruised her there. Her appetite for food and life had vanished.
“It never feels like there’s much point cooking just for one,” she said, “and if I do throw something together I can’t face it when it’s done.”
When I insisted on taking her out for a meal, she said that she hadn’t the heart for it, and that it would be just a waste of money, but I refused to hear her protests. “What do you think Dad would say if he saw you like this?” I challenged her. “He’d not be happy to see you letting yourself go. He’d tell you to get out and enjoy yourself while you have the chance, wouldn’t he? So come on. Go and put a nice frock on. We’re going out, you and me. All right?”
I took her to a restaurant of which I’d heard good reports and told her to ignore the prices on the menu. When a ginand-tonic had relaxed her a little, we talked about old times together, laughing over some of my impossible behaviour when I was a boy, and fondly remembering my dad. Eventually I said, “I’ve been thinking, mum. Maybe you should get a job. Not just house-cleaning once or twice a week. A proper job. One that will keep you occupied and interested and gives you the chance to be with people.”
“What could I do?” she asked. “I’m too old to be a barmaid these days. The only thing I know is cleaning. Who’d want me for anything else?”
“You nev
er know. We’ll have a look in the paper when we get back, and see what’s on offer. I bet we can fix you up with something.” After a pause I added: “And while we’re on the subject, there’s something else I wanted to tell you: I’ve been lined up for a new job as well.”
She listened in silence as I described the posting to Africa, nodding when I assured her that I would be given regular leave to come back home.
“It won’t be like Vietnam, will it?” she asked eventually.
“Not at all.” I made no mention of the war against Portuguese rule in Angola and the brutal conflict between Nigeria and the break-away state of Biafra. “In any case, I won’t take the job unless I’m sure you’re going to be all right back here.”
“You know I’ll not stand in your way,” she said at once.
“The point is I need to know you’re not just sitting at home on your own all day, grieving for Dad and worrying about me. You need a bit of new life. And you could do with some new friends. Now come on, let’s enjoy this meal. We’ll talk about it again in the morning.”
The next day I opened the curtains on the view of Gledhill Beacon looming over the town under a dour sky. A solitary patch of sunlight brightened the rim of the quarry, which was gradually, year on year, reshaping the contours of the hill. Nothing stayed the same, it seemed – nothing except the knowledge that, however far I travelled across the world, this landscape would always speak to my soul in my native tongue.
Later that morning, I took my mother shopping in Calderbridge, and we bumped into Grace as she came away from the butcher’s shop in the Market Hall.
“I see we’ve both got sons at home this weekend,” she said to my mother. “How are you doing, my dear? You’re looking brighter than the last time I saw you.”
“It’s been a treat having our Martin back. He’s lifted my spirits no end.”
“I’m so glad. I wish I could say the same for Adam. He turned up late last night. We weren’t expecting him.”
“Isn’t Efwa with him?” I asked.
“No, she isn’t,” Grace said pensively. “I haven’t had a chance to talk to him yet, so I’m not sure what’s going on.” Standing outside the butcher’s stall in the smell of meat and sawdust, she fixed me with a meaningful stare. “It’s a shame you and Adam weren’t in touch. You could have travelled up together. Is there any chance you might come and visit us tomorrow? I’m sure Hal and Adam will be glad to see you.”
“I don’t know,” I prevaricated. “I think I should spend all the time I can with my mum. Especially with this new posting coming up.”
“Oh don’t you worry about me,” my mother volunteered. “I’m used to being on my own these days. You get on out to High Sugden, lad, and meet your friends.”
“Tomorrow then,” Grace said with a smile, before I could speak again, “round about tea time?”
The Sunday morning was spent doing a job my mother hadn’t been able to face alone – sorting out my father’s clothes and shoes. To the hollow sound of bells pealing across the town, I bagged up his charcoal-grey suit, his sports blazer and flannels, his cricket whites, a few shirts and ties and a reasonably new topcoat, all of which I would take to a charity shop when I got back to town. I had just finished putting the bags into the boot of my car when my mother came down from her bedroom holding a tin caddy.
“Will you deal with this for me?” she asked, averting her eyes from my puzzled frown. “While you’re out on the tops. He loved it up there. I think it’s best.”
She handed over the caddy. The label stuck to its side said: The Macerated Remains of Mr John Reginald Crowther, 48 Gladstone Terrace, Calderbridge.
I looked back at my mother. Her eyes were brimming with tears.
I drove out to High Sugden knowing that I would make up the fourth corner in a quadrangle of deceit. For if Grace had betrayed Hal, and Hal had betrayed both his wife and his son, while Adam alone had kept faith, hadn’t I, one way or another, betrayed them all? Not least myself? And however one interpreted that tangle of treacheries, it seemed impossible that so fraught an occasion could pass without disaster. For if the truth about Hal and Efwa was revealed, my own name might be cleared and a way opened back into Marina’s confidence – but who knew what degree of anguish must be endured before that could happen? How long could it be before Grace’s pain and rage drove her to throw in Hal’s face the fact that she had long since cuckolded him with one of his best friends? And once that secret was out, what hope could there ever be of winning Marina back? These bleak questions jarred in my brain as I sat at the wheel of my car that Sunday afternoon, barely conscious of the road around me.
Halfway up the lane from Sugden Foot to High Sugden, I pulled over by a field gate in a dry-stone wall and picked up the caddy. Getting out of the car, I saw how an old stone stile beside the gate gave onto a sloping pasture of rough grass, where a flock of sheep grazed on the tussocks. At the top of the field a rugged slab of rock shaped like the head of a giant saurian jutted from the outcrop.
The wind barged at my shoulders as I crossed the grass with the caddy gripped in my hand. Panting, I made the last steep ascent around the lower ridges of the rock face, up a narrow cleft onto its flattened topmost surfaces and out onto the slab. I stood there for a time, gazing down on the sheep and the wooded lower valley. To the east lay a more distant prospect of derelict mill buildings and chimney stacks, and the glint of water where the river poured its torrent into Sugden Clough.
With almost suffocating sadness in that fresh, wild air, I unscrewed the lid of the caddy and looked inside. It was perhaps three quarters full of a buff-coloured granular powder, not the grey ashes I’d expected. This was all that now remained of the body which had once filled out the clothes packed into the boot of my car. A body from which, some thirty years earlier, the seed of my own existence had been sown.
I looked up to check that the wind pushing at my back was not about to change. With a sweep of my arm I sent the remains of John Reginald Crowther blowing out across the steep slope of that Pennine hill. The swarm of grains lifted with the wind, hung for a moment as though seeking the right direction, and quickly dispersed on the bright air.
Then I turned back to the car, heavy-hearted, and drove to meet whatever wretchedness might be waiting for me at High Sugden.
Three other cars already stood in the yard. I parked close to where the water clattered into the trough, and saw Grace walking towards the house down the path that led up onto the tops. A little way ahead of her loped a single English setter which raised its head when it spotted me getting out of the car. Halting briefly to sniff the breeze, it barked and came bounding down the track.
“You’ve lost one of the dogs,” I called as Grace entered the yard.
“Hengist died a couple of months ago,” she answered. “We had to have him put down, poor old chap!” She knelt to tousle the ears of Horsa, who stood beside me, panting, with his tongue lolling from his flews. “We miss him dreadfully, don’t we, sweet boy?”
“I’m sorry to hear that. How’s Adam today?”
“Desperately miserable, I think. He’s been in bed most of the time since he arrived. And he won’t talk to me: you know how tight-lipped he can be when he’s in trouble. I’m sure things can’t be going well with Efwa. You haven’t heard anything, have you?”
“I haven’t seen him for ages,” I said.
“No? Well… I know how much your friendship has always mattered to him. Let’s see if you can’t open him up a little. Come on in. I’ll put the kettle on.”
As soon as we went through into the hall we heard the muffled sounds of raised voices coming from Hal’s study up the stairs. Grace stood with her hand gripping the carved owl on the newel post, looking up the wide oak treads at the gallery beyond. “That doesn’t sound good,” she said. We both strained to make out the words but could distinguish only the tone. On both sides it sounded heated and bitter.
A bang came from the study, as of a fist crashing down on
a desk. I felt Grace catch her breath beside me. Hal’s voice shouted something that might have been, “Just get out. Get out.” And then more clearly as the study door opened, “Just get out of my bloody study and leave me alone.”
“All right I’m going,” Adam shouted back. “God knows why I thought there was any point trying to talk to you in the first place! It’s hopeless! And you know what sickens me most? It’s the thought of how much I admired you once. When I think of the times I’ve tried to defend you against Marina! But she’s right. You’re just an egotistical bastard who cares about nothing but his own selfish interests. You’ve never been a father to me. You’ve never really listened to a word I’ve said. As for real feeling – I don’t think you’d know a real feeling if it exploded in your face.”
“Don’t you dare talk to me like that,” Hal shouted. “You know nothing about my feelings. Nothing.”
“So what does that tell you? That you’ve never known how to show them, right?”
“I don’t want to hear any more of this.”
“Of course you don’t – because you can’t bear to face up to the fact of what a fucking disaster you are. A disaster as a father. A disaster as a husband. A disaster as a politician. A complete fucking failure of a human being.”
“And what are you then?” Hal demanded. “A weakling who couldn’t stand a bit of intellectual pressure at Cambridge. Someone who’s thrown up every opportunity that’s been put his way for want of courage and moral fibre. No wonder you come snivelling to me with some sob story about your wife. If you were any sort of man you’d have taken better care of her.”
Then Grace’s voice rang out up the stairs. “Stop it.” she shouted. “Stop it at once. Both of you.”
The air of the house hung about our heads, still as dust.
Grace stood white-faced at the foot of the stairs, her eyes tightly closed as though against intense neuralgic pain. But Adam had turned on his heel and walked along the gallery to the top of the stairs where he stopped and shouted “Bastard! Bastard!” at the study door, which was slammed shut against him.
Water Theatre Page 39
