Chapman's Odyssey (10 page)

— Does he show you the offending weapon, and do you laugh?

— He does, and I don’t. So I’m not his final victim, after all. He spares me. I leave the room and call the criminal psychiatrist who has been on Colin’s trail and the wretch is found guilty and carted off to prison.
Fire in the Groin
will be transmitted at ten in the evening, when it is assumed that the nation’s kiddies will be tucked up in bed dreaming the sweet dreams of the blissfully innocent. Heigh-ho!

— Do you have many lines to learn?

— A few, most of them risible. To think that I was trained to act in Shakespeare, Ibsen and Chekhov – not to mention Greek tragedy – and here I am in my dotage looking at a distraught assassin’s apology for a willy with sympathetic understanding. Beggars belief, doesn’t it?

— I’m too cynical to be surprised any more.

Much as he loved Pamela, Harry Chapman wished she would leave him. He wanted to be with her in normal, healthy circumstances, not in this dismal place, this anteroom of nowhere.

— You seem very tired, he heard her say, with relief.

— I am.

— I’ll be off then, to perfect my performance. Have you the strength to read today’s paper?

— I think I have.

— It contains the usual stuff – suicide bombings, starving millions in Africa, Aids on the increase. Just the kind of news to put a smile on your lovely old face.

They kissed goodbye, awkwardly, Continental fashion, and Harry Chapman had cause to wonder if this was to be their very last shared moment. She blew him another kiss as she left what he now knew to be the Zoffany Ward. He closed his eyes and slept.

On waking, the first thing he noticed was the crumpled newspaper Pamela had left behind for him.

— I need reading glasses, he said to Sister, or Nurse, Veronica, who was passing by.

— Why’s that?

— I’m blind to words in the evening. It is evening, isn’t it?

— Yes, Mr Chapman. It is.

— I want to read this paper my dear friend left for me.

— I’ll see what we have in the treasure trove.

The ‘treasure trove’? What the hell was she talking about? She had disappeared before he could ask for an explanation.

— I think these will do the trick, she said on her return. Veronica handed him a pair of glasses framed in tortoiseshell.

— From the ‘treasure trove’?

— Exactly.

— And what is that, Veronica?

— It’s odds and ends. Recent acquisitions from our patients. Neither they nor their relatives have bothered to reclaim them yet. There are spectacles and a couple of rings and a gold necklace and one of those old-fashioned watches men used to carry in their top pocket.

The kind, he did not say, his father depended upon when he was running late on long-ago Sundays.

— Try them on, Mr Chapman.

— Pass me the paper, would you, Veronica?

She did so, and to his sudden, immeasurable delight he found the print positively leaping out at him.

— Oh my, oh my, he heard himself exclaim.

— Enjoy your reading.

— I shall.

It had been his habit, for at least a decade, to turn to the obituary pages first. He needed to know who was in and who was out. Those who were out today were a siren of silent movies – a dipsomaniac with a vampiric sexual appetite – whose struggle with booze and gigolos kept her alive for 106 years, and a Spitfire pilot from the Second World War who had been captured by the Japanese and forced to endure indignities, both physical and mental, that his cheerful equilibrium prevented him from revealing to his wife and children. And then, and there, was a name he recognised, alongside a blurred snapshot of a bald man in what could just be discerned as a velvet suit.

— No, Leo, no.

Yes, it was Leo Duggan, the dapper Leo, his first of many Jewish friends. Leo had died in Holland, his wife of twenty-seven years beside him, the willing party to an assisted suicide. The obituarist recorded that Leo contracted motor neurone disease in his early sixties and had steadily wasted away. It was a skeletal figure, a shadow of the once substantial Leo who took his last flight to Amsterdam. Leo’s long career in classical music was celebrated, in particular his generosity towards young composers. Eleanor Duggan, Harry read, faced the possibility of being charged with murder.

He would write her a letter of condolence and support as soon as he was free again.

— What are you doing this Sunday, Harry?

— Nothing special.

— My ma and pa (Leo, uniquely, called his parents Ma and Pa, whereas the other boys at school referred to Mum and Dad) would like my best friend to join us for lunch.

— Thanks, Leo.

— Pa says he’ll pick you up at noon. I’ll give him your address.

Leo and his parents lived in a district named Golders Green, which Harry Chapman had never visited in any of his long walks around London.

— Golders Green, eh? Little Israel, you mean, remarked his mother. — His family won’t be short of a penny or two, if that’s where he lives.

Leo’s father’s car drew up outside the Chapman residence shortly before twelve. Harry couldn’t remember what make it was, but it was the grandest motor the street had ever seen. It was a gleaming dark blue.

— Allow me to introduce myself, Mrs Chapman. I am Bernard Duggan, Leo’s father.

— I’m pleased to meet you.

— The pleasure’s mutual.

— I hope my son behaves himself and watches his table manners.

— I’m sure he will. I’ve no worries on that score. You must be very proud of him. Such a fine actor at such a young age.

Alice Chapman smiled and nodded by way of reply. She watched as Bernard Duggan drove off with her son beside him on the front seat. She waved as the car glided smoothly along and turned right at the corner.

— Charming woman, your mother, Harry.

— Yes.

— I believe you have a sister.

— She’s called Jessie, Mr Duggan.

— Is she as clever as you?

— To be honest, no.

Ashamed at this response, he added:

— But then, she doesn’t pretend to be.

He was fifteen, soon to be sixteen, now, and Jack, the ship-boy, had entered the world of his imagination. Jack hadn’t alerted Harry to the moral trap he had fallen in – the trap of pride, of arrogance.

— I didn’t intend to sound arrogant, Mr Duggan.

— Don’t worry. You were speaking the truth. Leo tells me you love music as much as he does.

— I do.

— In that case, I have a wonderful surprise for you. I am not exaggerating. I think you will be impressed. Let’s wait and see.

Harry waited, and saw, and heard, and marvelled, after previously marvelling at the palatial house the Duggans occupied – room upon spacious room, with ceilings as high up, he fancied, as the sky. He thought of his own poky home and was sick with envy.

— Your eyes are out on stalks, said Leo’s mother, Sarah.

— This place is fabulous, Mrs Duggan. It’s enormous. I could easily get lost in it.

— You sweet boy. We’re privileged, that’s all. Leo assures me you are rich where it really matters. In your soul, Harry.

Then, to his consternation, the red-headed Sarah Duggan kissed him.

— Stay rich in spirit, Harry Chapman dear. Regardless.

That word ‘regardless’, what did she mean by it? Regardless of any dire human circumstance – was that, in 1952, what she was implying?

— Come and eat. Boys, in my experience, are always hungry.

Harry Chapman was accustomed to eating his meals at the wobbly table in the tiny kitchen where his mother slaved – her expression – at the gas cooker. On special occasions, such as Christmas, the front-room door was unlocked, and lunch or dinner was served at the dining table bequeathed to Alice Bartrip by one of her aristocratic employers. That circular table was in Harry’s possession still, with a memento of Christopher’s worst drunken rage running across it. He had scarred the wood with a freshly sharpened carving knife, saying as he did so:

— This is meant for you, Harry Chapman, you piece of shit.

Twenty years of polishing with beeswax had made the mark less obvious, more integrated with the stains and smears bestowed upon it for nearly two centuries.

In 1952, on that memorable afternoon, Harry Chapman was ushered into a dining room that was wider and longer than any room he had ever seen, other than those in the National Gallery and the British Museum. The vast oak table, at which twenty people, he calculated, could eat in comfort, was set for four. He was told where to sit by Mrs Duggan, who remarked that he had pride of place today.

— Thank you.

The first course was on the plate in front of him. He had no idea what it was. Did he have to use a knife and fork? A spoon?

He waited to see which piece of cutlery the Duggans would pick up.

— Do start, Harry. Don’t stand on ceremony.

He was terrified now, and ashamed of his ignorance. Then Leo took hold of a spoon, and he did likewise.

— I hope you are fond of avocado pear, Harry.

— I’ve never had one, Mrs Duggan.

— Well, there’s a first time for everything. The secret is to scoop out the flesh. That’s a mild vinaigrette on top.

He was slightly more familiar with the second dish, which was chicken, not roasted à la Alice Chapman, but flavoured with an unrecognisable herb.

— It’s tarragon, Harry, Leo said.

— We grow it in the garden, along with mint and thyme and rosemary.

— This is delicious, Mrs Duggan.

Chicken was a rare luxury in the Chapman household. His father had a seasonal joke, which he cracked at Easter, at Christmas, at a birthday celebration:

— Not chicken again, woman.

The object of his gentle taunt invariably responded with a fit of pique:

— You haven’t had it for six months. I’ve a good mind to throw it in the dustbin.

— Daddy was joking, Jessie intervened. — He was poking fun at you.

— Was he now? He’s got no right to.

The lunch at the Duggans’ ended with vanilla ice cream topped with chocolate sauce. He was offered coffee and
petits fours
.

— Are you ready for your surprise, Harry? Bernard Duggan asked as he lit a cigar.

— Yes, please.

— Follow me. Leo, help Sarah to clear the dishes.

— Let me help too.

— Definitely not, Harry. You’re our honoured guest.

Leo’s father led Harry Chapman along a tiled passage into another vast room, behind which was a conservatory with strange tropical plants in terracotta pots.

— Can you see the surprise? Take a look around.

He looked. He saw comfortable armchairs, a sofa, occasional tables, a vase of chrysanthemums, a fireplace filled with logs.

— Come on, Harry, Bernard Duggan urged.

— It’s
that
, isn’t it?

He pointed at a glistening object he couldn’t give a name to.

— That is a radiogram. A radiogram is a radio and a gramophone combined. I had it sent over from New York.

Leo and his mother joined them.

— Harry is lost for words, Leo.

— That makes a change.

— Shall we put on a long-playing record?

— Yes, Pa.

— Do you like Beethoven, Harry?

— I worship him.

— How does the Seventh Symphony appeal to the worshipper?

— Very much.

— Let’s hear it then.

Oh, the bliss of listening to a gramophone record that didn’t have to be turned over or changed every few minutes. Arturo Toscanini was the conductor, Harry Chapman recalled, and the performance by the New York Philharmonic was by turns sombre, majestic and dynamically exciting. Once or twice he swore that he heard Toscanini singing along faintly with the divine music.

They sat in silence when the symphony came to an end. Leo was the first to speak.

— Come and see my room, Harry.

— Is it tidy, Leo?

— It could be tidier, Ma.

— Tell me something I don’t know.

Leo’s room was not the one in which he slept, but a study adjacent to it. Harry’s admiring and envious gaze took in all manner of marvellous things – a music stand, with the open score of a sonata for violin and piano by Brahms perched on top; reproductions of paintings by Van Gogh and Gauguin; an imposing desk, complete with reading lamp; the scores of symphonies, concertos and operas, and what seemed to be hundreds of books in French and English.

On the desk, to the right of the lamp, was a framed photograph of a dark-haired woman with lustrous eyes.

— She’s beautiful, Leo. Who is she?

— My Aunt Elsa. She was Pa’s elder sister.