A Test to Destruction (54 page)

“May I have a cup of coffee, please? And one of those cheese cakes?” He went on writing,

It had stopped snowing. He left the pull-up, thinking that it wasn’t just suburban fathers who could be tyrants, but all classes of men. There was the Marquess of Husborne, the Duke’s heir, who since the age of sixteen had been a pariah in his father’s eyes, forbidden the house, and later he had become a conscientious objector. And thinking that after all Father had not been too bad—after all, the old boy had had a lot to put up with—Phillip felt a lessening purpose to retrace his steps, as he had intended, to the site of the burnt hut; and arriving at the bridge felt reluctance to go through the wood, the thought of the unhappy war-wrecks made him feel uncertain of himself. Nor did he now want to see
the place where Ching had set fire to the hut, as he had intended. The thought of Ching was too much.

He went on up the road, and having left the Mental Home grounds behind, turned into a field which led through a marshy meadow to the edge of the site of the old woods. Once he had seen snipe there, birds of comfort in the old days when he had collected worn copies of
The
Field
for 2
d
.
each on Friday nights from the Free Library: when the sight of a snipe rising up with a cry like
sceap!
from that
hurt
country—the yellow houses stretching out across fields abandoned to desolation—had power to make him wildly happy and forget his home life, where he had been always naughty and disobedient: doing daring things like widdling against the lamp-post nearly outside Mr. Jenkins’s house halfway down Hillside Road, on foggy nights, to get a thrill, but he had been caught and caned on the bare bottom by Father—and after the thrashing he got a better thrill by walking past women on foggy winter nights to the Free Library with his limp little penis hanging out under his button’d overcoat. Why had he done it? There must have been a reason for it. Had he been driving himself beyond fear, to enter a world of so-called heroism?

Later, in the country he had never thought of doing anything like that: only when on pavements, and on foggy nights. Was then all poetry a spiritual escape from pavements, back to nature? No pavements, no poetry, but only happy action? Had any farmer ever written poetry? Richard Jefferies had written beautiful descriptions, the finest he had ever read—far finer even than Hardy—but he had been cut off from the place of his boyhood, to work in towns, in newspaper offices; and so he had pined for nature in passionate longing and homesickness.

No snipe left now; the place was a rubbish tip, the marshy meadow being overlaid for foundations of the houses to be.

Yes, Walter de la Mare had the balanced feeling, so different from Julian’s adopted lament of Swinburne.

He came to the little bricked cattle-arch and passed under the railway to enter the woods of an old manor of the Cator estate, lying north of what had once been a park and was now still, thank God, a golf course as when first he had known the woods, creeping through them with Desmond to fish for roach in the lake, hiding themselves and their rods in the reeds. Perhaps the golf course was to be sacrificed also, to the Jerry Bros.

By a roundabout way he came to the Seven Fields lying under a shroud of snow. Thin flakes were wandering down the wind, touching his brow and cheek. Fieldfares made their small police-rattle warnings in the woods of Whitefoot Lane, not yet cut down—the birds from Norway were resting on flight to the south. He heard the wild-flung notes of lapwing, high up under the grey sky; and walking up the gradual slope, he heard again the cries of redwings—
seek
seek
—
seek
seek
as they flitted before the storm from the N.E. Would they cross the Channel in time to find shelter and food among the seed-pods of the wild flowers which had bloomed unseen during the last silent summer shining so deathly quiet over the battlefields of Flanders, Loos, Arras, and Somme?

The Seven Fields were blotted out in whirls of driven sleet. Forward! Blind in the snow, blind as the boys on 9th April 1917, toiling up the long gradual slope to the Vimy Ridge, to the cauldron-bubbling of guns wheel-to-wheel, to endure light-bubbling nights of cold and terror. But he must not forget the occasional fun when out of the line; do not ever forget the fun. Or the love of man for man, of which the fun was an expression.

Love—unselfishness? Was he now not thinking only of himself? What about his mother? He stood still, eyes closed, trying to clear himself of ragged thoughts; then turned and hurried back along his tracks. He had passed through the barrage; Mother
was still in No-man’s-land. And Father, too. He was stronger than his parents; he had passed through; he must not, he would not permit his own weakness to destroy that which had been given to him, which he must pass on to those who had not had the chances he had had. Dear ‘Spectre’ West, was his spirit helping him now? He believed so.

He must beg Father’s pardon; and then he would go far away into the country, perhaps to the woods above the Fal in Cornwall, and never again make human ties. Farewell, Seven Fields. May the songs of children arise where once the larks sang, and redwings sheltered from the storm.

Church bells were ringing; he went into St. Mary’s, passing the yews where once he had stood under the gas light of the lamp-post with Lily Cornford, and sat at the back of the pews, the tears running down his face hidden in his hands as he prayed to be a better man.

“Here comes your Father, dear, back from his walk. You will be most careful what you say, won’t you?”

Jingle of keys. One key, the Yale, in the lock. Crack of front door varnish unsticking from paint on door jamb. Rub-rub of boot sole; heel; welts, toe, on mat. Then the other boot. Walking stick hung by the newell post. Now——

Phillip felt throat and mouth go dry. He stood up as Father’s head came round the door.

“What are you doing here?”

Richard came in and closed the door behind him, an action from old habit when his son had been a small boy, caught in some misdemeanour.

“I am just about to go, Father. I’m leaving for Cornwall. I only called to collect some of my things. And to say that I am sorry for my behaviour.”

“I do not intend to accept any more of your apologies. And while you are here, I will say before your mother what has been in my mind for some considerable time. You know to what I am referring, I expect.”

Hetty saw in the eyes of her son, staring in a face pale and strained, a look that reminded her of Hugh just after Mamma had died, and he had come from the garden room, and there had been a terrible scene with Papa in the front room. Was it all to happen over again?

“Oh, what is it, Dickie? Please do not keep me in suspense!”

“Very well, since you ask it, I shall come direct to the point. I have consulted a certain doctor, who has confirmed my suspicions that that fire episode could well be a symptom of a state of mind which is one of the after-effects of a certain disease. You remember my sister Victoria’s husband, George Lemon, no doubt? He too showed ‘illusions of grandeur,’ which I believe is the correct medical term, before he ended as a pyromaniac in Australia!”

She nearly fainted. “Is it true, my son?” she managed to say.

“You mean that I’ve got syphilis, Father? Well, I haven’t got it, and I never had it!”

“How much trust can be put in your word? You never had a sense of honour!”

“That is true, Father,” he began tremulously. “I had not the slightest conception of the meaning of the word, as you say.” He drew a deep breath. “When I was small, Father, you once accused me of stealing your cigarette case. You told me that if I didn’t ‘produce’ it—your very word, Father!—you would cane me when you came home in the evening. I could not ‘produce’ it, for the simple reason that I had not taken it, or even seen it. I snivelled in my usual ‘creepy-crawly’ way all that day, and could not do my lessons at school, or eat any lunch. True to your promise, you thrashed me at night. Then, a week or two later, you found your case where you yourself had put it, locked up in your desk.”

He hid his face in his hands, then went on in a strangled voice, “Did you ever apologise to me for your forgetfulness? Did you ever say you were sorry, or even that you had made a mistake? No, Father, you didn’t. You had a wretched undersized boy entirely in your power—as powerless as that field-vole you enjoyed watching your cat play with.” He gulped, and said jerkily: “I did not criticise you then, even to myself, for you were my Father, and under all my unhappiness I thought of you as being much better than any other man. That is how a small boy looks up to his father, and when that regard is broken for any reason, that boy is like an old rudderless hulk in the Sargasso Sea, practically done for!”

“How dare you talk to me like that in my own house! Get out of here at once! And take your bauble with you!”

“I’ll kill myself!”

Gasping with sobs, Phillip ran to the side-table and struck the glass dome with the back of his hand and shattered it; then picking up the badge he hurled it into the fireplace, where it hit the white tiles with their fleur-de-lys pattern. Picking it up he dashed it against the tiles again and again until they were speckled and splashed with blood from his hand. Then he rushed from the room and up the stairs to his bedroom, where kneeling before the fireplace he took from the chimney the smaller of the two revolvers souvenir’d from the Dispersals Camp at Shorncliffe. With shaking hands he slipped a cartridge into one chamber.

While he was doing this, Richard was saying to Hetty, “Why does he bring up that bit about my cigarette case, after all these
years? He was only a bit of a boy at the time! I simply do not understand how his mind works!”

He went out of the room, and was taking off his coat when Phillip came thumping down the stairs three at a time, revolver in hand, crying out, “All that we learned in the war, all that men died for, is reduced to less than nothing in this house! I cannot bear it any longer! It is much better to be dead!” Pulling open the door, he ran out.

“Now do you see, Hetty? What did I tell you? The boy is insane!”

*

Hetty was sitting in her chair, calm beyond despair, all tears run out, when Elizabeth arrived home. The girl saw her mother’s face, the broken glass, the blood, and her concern and sympathy for her mother took the form, now second nature to her, of querulous indignation against Phillip.

“Of course he’s mad! He ought to be locked up again! He doesn’t care a bit about you, Mother! Why do you bother with him? He knows you love him better than you love me or Doris, and so he always takes advantage of it”—an attitude that Phillip had described in his notebook as a robin fighting itself in a looking glass.

*

Phillip meanwhile was in further trouble. Mr. Jenkins, standing in his front garden, had seen him running down the road while putting a revolver in his coat-pocket. At once he followed at a safe distance. He watched Phillip go across the road and shout out something to Mrs. Neville, who opened her window to speak to him. At that moment Sprat sidled up to Phillip, who stooped to pick up the dog, and held it against his neck with the hand holding the revolver.

“Phillip, what are you going to do?”

“Goodbye, Mrs. Neville! As Desmond told me once, I am too complicated a person to live! How right he was! Goodbye!”

“What are you going to do?” she shrieked. “You’re not going to shoot Sprat, are you? Oh my God! Mr. Jenkins, do something!”

“Now, Phillip, be sensible——” began Mr. Jenkins from the opposite pavement. Phillip turned and gave him a steady look. The hysterical mood had passed, and was succeeded by a feeling, not far removed from that of Richard’s when watching Zippy
with the mouse, to quell and dominate with contempt those who were attaching themselves to his unclear emotions. He crossed the road, one hand in jacket pocket, and slowly walked towards Mr. Jenkins, who began to back away from him, saying, “Now, Phillip! Don’t do anything silly! Keep calm, Phillip! Keep a cool head! If you’re hard up, I may be able to help you!”

“Help me to another bit of porridge, perhaps?” The arrogant mood had passed, and Phillip was now playing. “Take cover, Mr. Jenkins! Air raid warning has gone! You have the same chance as this dog!”

Thinking he had gone too far, he slipped the cartridge out of the barrel, and threw it over the railings into the grass, before putting the unloaded pistol into his pocket. “It’s a lovely day, isn’t it?” And re-crossing the road, he walked up to his house, the dog still in his arms.

The door was open. Before his father could speak he said, “I can’t go away without apologising for my bad behaviour. And would you like this revolver—it’s unloaded—for a souvenir?” He held it out, butt first.

“Come in,” said Richard. “How is little Sprat? I often see him, he is a dear little fellow.” He held open the door of the front room. “Now, Phillip, I am prepared to let bygones be bygones. I realise that you have had a difficult time. Your Mother tells me that someone else set fire to that shed. I am asking for no names, but I shall be glad if you will help me. Is it true that you shielded someone else?”

“Will you accept what I say in confidence, Father?”

“Of course.”

“I tried to stop Ching, in fact I had already left him, with his rather boring ways. He wouldn’t even run away, but pretended to have a fit or something. I offered to pay for the damage, and was on my way home to get my cheque book, which I had in my drawer, when the two men suddenly frog-marched me into Randiswell Police Station.”

“But why did you not say that at the time? Why shield somebody else, at the expense of yourself?”

“It would have been three against one, Father, and I thought it would look as though I were trying to put it on the other fellow.”

“But you had a duty towards your family. Did you not think of us?”

“Of course, Father.”

“You really did?”

“Yes, of course, Father,” he said, breaking into tears.

“Now now, old chap,” said Richard. “I’m not so unsympathetic as I seem sometimes, you know. How about striking a bargain with me? I’ll swap my air-gun for your revolver! You always had a soft spot for that air-gun, didn’t you?”

“Yes, Father. I used to fire it off, although you asked me not to. I’m sorry!”

“But you were only a bit of a boy at the time, Phillip! It was only cussedness! However, we don’t want to bring up the past.” When he had washed his hands he said, “I’ll have a word with Hilary, and see if he can’t fit you in somewhere in his farming schemes. You are fond of the country, and farming is a wonderful life. You’ll have to stick at it, of course. Farming is pretty hard work, but once one has settled down to country life, with time off now and again for sporting, why, there’s no life like it! What’s happening now?”

Cries came from outside. Mrs. Neville, her immense bulk collapsed against Mrs. Bigge’s gate, was being attended to by Mr. Bigge, in the frock coat and top hat he had worn at St. Mary’s church that morning. Mrs. Neville was hysterical.

“He said he was going to shoot my darling little Sprat! Oh, there you are, Phillip! How dare you! I’ll
never
speak to you again as long as I live!” Turning to Mrs. Bigge she said, “I thought I had suffered from the biggest cad on earth, my husband, but anyone who threatens to shoot a dog like Sprat is far, far worse!”

“Hear hear, Mrs. Neville! But I didn’t say I’d shoot Sprat.”

“Mr. Jenkins said you did, Phillip!”

“With all due respect to a Special Constable, as a finger of the law, Mr. Jenkins is a bloody liar! Tell him I said so! Also tell him I’ll put a pellet of my new air-gun through his hedge-clipping yachting cap,” he laughed. Then he remembered that he had starred Mr. Bigge’s glass-house with pellet-holes in the past, and added, “I’m not serious, of course, Mrs. Bigge.”

“You can joke, Phillip,” went on Mrs. Neville, “but I shall never, never forgive you for the shock you have given me!”

“I apologise, Mrs. Neville.”

“So I should think, Phillip! Don’t you ever dare to behave like that again!”

Mrs. Neville went down the road, the little dog frisking around her, enjoying the fun of an unusually interesting Sunday in the suburbs.

*

After tea Phillip went into GARTENFESTE, and played his gramophone with a soft needle. Hetty had warned him not to let Grandpa know that Aunt Marian had died, for he was still very shaky.

He went up to London the following Saturday morning, to call on Eugene. At the corset factory he had a feeling that he was not exactly welcome; Gene seemed to have nothing to say to him. They caught a bus to Charing Cross, and walked towards Piccadilly, lingering in Leicester Square, each waiting for the other to give direction.

“I’m taking a bird to Brighton on the five o’clock train,” said Gene, at last. “So I’ve got till about half-past three.”

“Have you had lunch?” asked Phillip.

“No,” replied Gene. “Have you?”

“I’ve got no money.”

“You know, Phil, I feel disappointed in you. I used to admire you quite a lot, and tell my friends you were a D.S.O. colonel——”

“Yes, you told me that, when I turned up at the Pop a mere loot!”

“It’s not so much that, but when they read in the
Mirror
that you were—well, in Wormwood Scrubs—I just didn’t know what to say. You were a sort of hero to me before, you see.”

“Ah, heroes, my dear Eugene! Now there’s a real one over there! My God! If it isn’t Bill Kidd!!” He ran across the street to where Bill Kidd stood outside a picture palace, dressed as an Arab sheik, sunburn paste, sword and all, but wearing his own extravagant moustaches.

“Blow me down if it isn’t my Mad Son! Well, sink me sideways! Once seen, never forgotten! You old crab wallah, you! Got me pinched by Jerry, you double-crossing son of a lamp-post! By God, I’m glad to see you, old boy! You got blinded by mustard gas, I heard. Poor old ‘Spectre’ gone, dammit. You’ll never guess who’s my assistant, or
trainee,
as the bastards who run this place call him. Your old batman, O’Gorman! Remember him? We often have a jaw about you, and the old days. I got him a job, from the Regimental Association employment register.”

“May I present a friend of mine, Mr. Eugene Goulart. Major Kidd. He’s got the Military Cross, you see, Gene—and none deserved it more. A real hero!”

“Gar’n!” said Kidd. “You did bloody well yourself, and don’t you forget it! O’Gorman tells a different yarn to yours, old boy. He says you saved him from a court martial, by refusing to give evidence about his cork-belt.”

“I don’t understand!”

“O’Gorman didn’t bother to put one on, and ‘Spectre’ made him put on his, when the mine had sunk the ship. Don’t pretend you didn’t know that!”

“But before that, I told O’Gorman to take his off, Bill! Together with all his equipment—when I sent him to find ‘Spectre’!”

“Well, that isn’t what O’Gorman told me, old boy. He said he never had a bloody belt in the first place, and never wore one all the time he was on the ship. And furthermore, my Mad Son, he says it was through you that the enquiry was stopped! He knew you were at the Duke’s hospital by the way. He was at the Command Depôt across the park, and pissed himself nightly in case you sent for him to ask him questions.”

“My God, and I’ve been thinking the exact opposite for nearly a year now, Bill!”

“Ger’t’y’r!” retorted Bill Kid, preening his moustaches. “Who’r’y’r kiddin’?”

“You! You King of the Crab Wallahs!”