by John Lodwick
A flurry of movement, the framework of an argument. . . . “You go.” . . . “No, go yourself” . . . the pad of feet in bedroom slippers: his mother, white-haired, a smear of bacon fat across her cheek, a piece of marmalade toast in her hand.
“Eric!” Difficult, however, to embrace him because of the toast. He took it from her, and munched as the arms enfolded him.
“It’s been so long, boy.” She seemed to have grown smaller but perhaps this was an illusion caused by her slippers. The arms hugged his splaying ribs yet could not meet about the backbone. Tears followed. Meanwhile his father, forewarned by the scuffling in the passage, had made his appearance at the dining-room door. “Good God! Come in; have you had breakfast?” Already they seemed ill at ease in his presence.
An egg fried in frantic haste, still mucous, the bacon, on the contrary, overdone. He stirred his coffee, surveyed ironically the photograph of himself when eight.
“You staying long?” enquired Dad.
“Two days, if you’ll have me.”
“Your room’s still there. We’ve waited for you.” Dad was on his dignity but Mother, oblivious of her own and the long lapse in correspondence, fawned about the room. She was not unlike her son: he had her features and his father’s bulk, made more malleable in his case by years of exercise.
“Fellow called here the other day, asking for you,” said Dad. He scraped the last of the butter from its saucer, then remembering that he had left none for his son, replaced some.
“What kind of fellow?” said Rumbold.
“Little fellow. Brown shoes, umbrella. Didn’t give his name. Just said he’d like to see you.”
“He told me that he came on behalf of Colonel Cassell,” said Mum. She unplugged the electric kettle, refilled the coffee pot. “Oh, Eric . . . why did you never write?” she said.
“You should ask your friend Cassell that,” said Rumbold, unmoved. “I understand he’s kept you informed. He’s very good at it. He makes a speciality of bereaved relations.”
Dad ate his buttered toast. He had forgotten to add marmalade. “Four years without a word,” he said.
“Three of them knowing you were alive. Don’t you think that was a bit hard on your mother, lad?”
Rumbold grinned. “I don’t pretend to be a model son,” he said, and rising, he laid his arm about his mother’s shoulders. Her cheek touched his hand, rubbing against it. “Leave him be,” she said, at which Rumbold laughed. “It’s no use, Dad,” he said. “You’d better drop it. The charm still works.”
“Aye,” said his father grimly. “But bedazzling foolish women is one thing, and deceiving me another. I’ve heard tales about you, lad, and they don’t make pleasant hearing. For two pins I’d shut the front door on you . . . and that’s straight.”
“Leave him be,” repeated the old woman. She wept. “Five minutes here and already you’re quarreling.”
“A very ancient antagonism, isn’t it, Dad?” said Rumbold. He began to range the greasy plates upon the breakfast tray. “But never mind,” he said. “I’ll be a good boy while I’m here.”
The father rose, a Patriarch on his rococo hearth. “I don’t care what you’ve done, lad,” he said. “There’s still some things that make me proud of you. But don’t worry your Mum while you’re here. That’s all I ask, and you can’t say it’s very much.”
He passed outside into the hall, took his frayed coat from its peg, his bowler hat, his brief-case. Rumbold followed. “Listen, Dad . . .” he said. The old man surveyed him intently, then stepped forward. “Ah, God damn you for a wheedling swindler,” he said. He threw down his brief-case, put his arms about his son. “God damn you,” he kept saying. “God damn you. . . .”
“Why, you old ruffian,” said Rumbold, delighted. “Tears in your stupid old eyes too! Who’d have thought of such a thing.” He dropped back a step, assumed a boxing stance. “Remember when you used to teach me fighting with one hand?” he said. With his left fist he jabbed tentatively and hit a watch-chain. The old man seized his Sunday walking stick, mimed as if to strike, then recollected himself.
“That’s enough horse-play for now,” he said. “We’ll have a talk this evening. Some people have got to work even if others think it waste of time.”
“Why don’t you retire, you old hypocrite?” said Rumbold.
“I shall next year,” the old man said. “And what do you think we’re going to buy, your Mum and I?”
“A pub?” said Rumbold.
“No . . . a seed nursery. For twenty years I’ve grown every cabbage, every leek back there in my plot from Carters. I’ve nothing against Carters . . . I just want to have my own. You know me. I don’t follow the instructions, and for why? Because out there, by using my nut I’ve had Cocozelle marrows, aubergines, even Michaelmas daisies twice as big and twice as beautiful as any that spring up from a packet.”
“Well, don’t leave the business to me, I beg you,” said Rumbold. He escorted his father to the door. “Nice azaleas you have there,” he said pointing.
“Ah, get away with you. You don’t know a daisy from a daffodil.” Ten steps, the creaking of a gate latch, left turn, and father joined the happy throng now debouching from every house towards the station. Rumbold shut the door. His mother knelt, a brush in hand, gathering up the crumbs from father’s table.
A bed, a crucifix above it on the wall, a marble wash-stand with a china bowl upon which roses bloomed; a wicker chair, a wardrobe, a tripartite scent of Jeyes fluid, of furniture polish and of dust. The old people received few visitors: it was likely that the room had lain untenanted for many months.
Rumbold unpacked, flung his sponge-bag in the washbowl, slid the folded pyjamas beneath the pillow. Then he opened the wardrobe: some clothes of his hung there garlanded with moth-balls . . . the pin-stripe for the bank, the dark grey flannel purchased by dint of saving seven shillings every week. Rumbold barely touched them. His thoughts flew, not to these almost adult levels, but to the drawers beneath, where lay the miscellania of a childhood more remote.
Tug . . . the drawer came easily, revealing first a football jersey, then a group of pipes, then a note-book. Ah! The scientific and intellectual period! So much scribbling, and to what end?
“In 1889, Nietsche was attacked by brain fever in Turin. He thought himself first God, then the Prince Eugene of Savoy, arrived in that city to attend his (Nietsche’s funeral.) Nietsche, however, did not die until 1900.”
Well, that was information at least, and here, on page twenty-three, was something better; a hint, almost, of futurity: “During the Great War captured spies were executed in many different ways. The French and Germans shot them. The British hung them. The Austrians strangled them on a post. . . .”
Rumbold rummaged further. He threw aside the note-books, the salacious postcards. The flotsam of adolescence does not seem funny once the thirties are approached. Rumbold rummaged further. Papers . . . Papers . . . here a bunch of letters from a girl and here financial jottings, largely on the debit; evidence of some long-forgotten attempt to float an interim budget.
Searching, Rumbold’s fingers encountered straw. He pulled the object forth. It was a doll; flat, painted, cotton-covered. Its name was “Puck” and, crumpled, unresponsive, increasingly discoloured, it had lain, first in his cradle, then in his cot, then in his grown boy’s bed throughout ten years of his life.
He held it up. The head dropped. The arms lay lax. “Puck,” he said, “Puck.” A quick glance round, but no one was watching. He stooped and kissed the painted face.
His mother never knocked on doors. She entered suddenly. “Do come and help me peel potatoes, there’s a dear boy,” she said. “I’ve so much work to do.”
She made no remark about the doll. Very likely, she had not noticed it at all.
In the chicken run the birds ra
n forward as they did every evening at this time; for food.
Oh, sad illusion!
“Take the one that limps,” his father said. “I meant to put her in the pot at Christmas.”
“Come, my little beauty,” murmured Rumbold. He extended his hand as if to offer grain. Can a chicken tell? This one could. With a shrill clamour and pageantry of outspread wings the bird made for the safety of its roosting place.
Too late! Already cruel fingers closed about the neck, tightened, twisted, wrenched. Thirty minutes later the trussed and empty carcase lay on the kitchen table.
“Believe me or not,” said Rumbold, “but I was once taught how to mesmerise these birds. It’s a great help, too, because it enables you to kill them without noise or fuss. You do it in the same way as with trout . . . by tickling . . . here, in the gullet.” He demonstrated with the severed head, then flung it to the family cat.
“I didn’t know you could cook,” said father. Mother, who stood by, said not a word; more used to treacle tart and vegetables boiled into a pulp than Poulet Ratatouille.
“I didn’t know myself until I tried,” said Rumbold.
He watched the fat spit in the saucepan, sliced up the onion and the salsify, added his bouillon, rosemary and thyme, tossed in four cubes of bacon lard, then legs, wings, rib system of the dismembered bird.
“Right,” he said. “Let her simmer for two hours. Remind me to strain the grease from the sauce. Grease in a sauce piquante is fatal.”
In the sitting-room, the fire burned cheerfully. Father sank into his Sunday chair, raised slippered feet towards a footstool. Mother, darning socks, watched the sole fruit of her womb uncork a bottle.
“Now, son,” said father when primed with Black and White, “it’s time to tell us something of your plans.”
“Plans,” said Rumbold turning. “I have no plans. I live upon my wits. You know that.” From his pocket he took an envelope and laid it on the mantelpiece. “Just a portion of the loot,” he said. “Your cut. . . .”
The mother swallowed and—unprecedented gesture—laid down her handiwork. “Two days,” she said. “It’s such a little time. Be kind. Be nice to us. Your father’s too obstinate to speak. He’ll let things go with a drink or two and a good dinner. And so I must speak to you myself.”
But Rumbold, busy with the preparation of his sauce, paid no attention, so that she was obliged to rise, to cross the room, to seize him by the shoulders.
They knelt together by the fireplace.
“Son,” she said. “Son . . . speak to me.”
But something closed inside his heart and he could not.
Twelve
The small local train puffed away along the culvert: bound God knew whither, but very probably towards Elgin, Nairn and other places in the bleak and unpopulated north. To the right the sea; shallow, yellow, dismal, non-stop to the Skager Rak. To the left the moors, the exclusive property of deer-shooting gentlemen from London.
“Oh, gie me the lass that has acres of charms.
“Oh, gie me the lass with the weel-stockit farms.”
Fiona let in the clutch, then laid her hand upon Rumbold’s as the car gained motion.
“Have a good journey?” she said, conversationally.
“Yes,” he said. “On the whole.”
“Did you stay long in London?”
“I didn’t stay in London. I stayed with my parents.”
“Your parents?” She turned towards him in surprise. “I didn’t know you had any.”
“They’re not very grand,” he said. “That’s why I’m obliged to neglect them for long periods.”
The first dinner had gone off well, with the bird cooked to a turn, the wine, the whisky; but for the second, and his last beneath the paternal roof, Mother had insisted upon her rights.
“You shall have meringues . . . meringues and Dover sole with chips.”
Useless to protest: in extreme youth he had liked meringues, therefore he must like them now. It was the same with lollipops, of which she had produced two on the first day after lunch. It was the same also with certain household tasks.
“Here’s the table polish. I always remember how you love to make it shine.”
—And polishing father’s shoes (once his first task of the day: now elevated to a rite, of which it seemed that he had been the initiator).
—And crossword puzzles! At the age of twelve he had spent much time in this pursuit. Now she presented him with a sheaf of them extracted from all the daily papers and from several weeklies.
“I know you like them, dear. I went specially to buy the papers.”
Invincible, not to be gainsaid . . . the Mother. Crafty, pertinacious, clinging, with a preference for those remote periods of which her child could have no memory.
“You were a dreadful wetter, Eric. Every night, two nappies. And such howls . . . Your father had to walk you up and down the room.”
The adult Rumbold (twelve stone ten; six foot two inches) had listened gloomily. He had heard it all before and knew better than to attempt a defence. Mother is no novelty in the world. Her family raised, her house in order, her daily shopping courses smoothly organised, she has no interest more empirical than the bedevilment of her children. And, the more these stray, the more unscrupulous her methods.
On that last evening, guests had been invited for a sherry. Rather silent . . . Rumbold; in fact, definitely morose. In face of which situation, Mother to the rescue:
“Do you remember, Eric darling?” Pause, and then adagio, “how when you first began to walk you emptied your pot into the flower vase?”
Recognising defeat, he had escaped in darkness, without waiting for breakfast, without saying goodbye.
Sometimes he wondered how much his mother knew.
And this other; at ease now in her tweeds, her brogues, who had contrived with him in crime?
“No,” he said, “I don’t often see my parents.”
Whirr—whirr, up the hill and past the Presbyterian church and the fried fish shop: the little car ran smoothly. “Yours?” he said.
“No, just one more family retainer. You’ll be meeting several by and by.”
“This marriage business,” he said. “To what extent have you committed me?”
“To the hilt, darling, I’m afraid, so far as Peterhead’s concerned. I warned you they were rather stuffy here.”
“I see,” said Rumbold. Then: “Do you intend to stay the entire winter in this dump?”
“Well,” she said. “I thought we might find it moderately amusing for two months. You don’t want to go abroad again immediately, do you?”
“No,” he said. “No, not immediately.”
“Meet me in the saloon bar across the street.” Thus the Third Secretary when Rumbold, telephoning, had expressed his disinclination to enter the Embassy openly.
A pale young man, a too hearty handshake, and, “Waiter, two double whiskies please.” Then, “Yes, Mr. Rumbold, we know all about you,” and “Yes, Mr. Rumbold, we have instructions to give you every facility should you wish to re-enter Spain.”
Dear old Aranjuez: like Cassell, always one to keep in touch.
“I might need the protection of a diplomatic passport and a Spanish plane.” He was cautious now, playing it deep and bold and tricky. But the Secretary had jumped immediately for the bait: “How so, Mr. Rumbold? You have a passport of your own. Surely you could leave quite normally with that?”
“I think not. You forget that I have certain old associates in this country. They might not be too pleased to see me depart again for foreign parts.”
“Ah!” the Secretary had said. “Ah yes, I see your point there. But I shall have to consult Madrid about it. Clandestine passengers with false papers are rather further than we
normally care to go.”
“Consult them, then,” said Rumbold. “For myself, I say quite bluntly that I regard the matter as a test of your good faith. If the reply is favourable I shall have no further qualms. Incidentally, you might do worse than quote my exact words to your boss.”
Two more double whiskies, a pause for half-time and five minutes of conversation with respect to Murcia, the young gentleman’s home town.
Then: “And when exactly would you propose to leave, Mr. Rumbold?”
“Let us say mid-March. I have a few affairs to settle first.”
The car climbed steadily on a gradient one in six. Beside a small pine wood Fiona slackened speed, stopped, applied the brake, lay back.
“I thought we might have our little chat here,” she said. “There is so much we have to say.”
“You live outside the town then?” said he.
“Yes. Just far enough to make life bearable.” She smoothed her hair, then looked at him. “Did he suffer much?” she said.
Rumbold considered. “At the end,” he said, “probably not at all. But before that I was foolish.”
“How?” she said.
“I told him.”
“Ah! That was not very nice of you, was it?”
“‘Niceness’ is a word which I find difficult to employ in this connection, though in a sense you’re right. I meant to do it swiftly, without fuss. I swear to God that that was in my mind. Unfortunately I’d forgotten my extreme moral cowardice. I was obliged to clinch the matter by talking out of turn. Once that was done I had to kill him. Every line of retreat was out.”
