Perfect Gallows (16 page)

Two figures stood in the foreground. Their stunted shadows showed it must be almost noon. One was a white boy, about six, the other a black adult. The darkie was wearing the servants' clothes Andrew had seen in earlier photographs, bare feet, white trousers, a thigh-length white jacket. The white child was wearing nothing except a solar topi. “Master and Man!” said the caption.

The exclamation mark was justified. The picture was startling, only partly because in all the other pictures the children had been rather over-dressed. The standard throughout the album was high (“Mother used to throw hundreds away,” Cousin Blue had said) but this one was special. It had energy, presence. It was a whole play stilled into an instant. The black man stared at the camera with a clear, calm gaze. The white boy's face was invisible in the shadow of his hat with the result that the focal point of his figure became the little dangling penis. The background was out of focus but the figures were sharp, with every wrinkle of flesh and fold of cloth exact.

“That's Charlie and Samuel, of course,” said Cousin Blue. “That's the one I'm longing to show him. Isn't it quaint? It was a bit naughty of Mother to take him like that—we were never let run around without any clothes, like children used to after the war. But Mother said it was Art, so it didn't count. I do wish he would come!”

She rose with a sigh and left the room. Cousin Brown at once looked up from her diary.

“Of course,” she said, “what happened was that May decided she would rather be with Charles in the evenings. They are like young lovers, Ferdinand and Miranda, almost, too ridiculous. Be that as may be, she chose to take umbrage at one of General Odway's jocularities—his style of badinage is decidedly heavy-handed. I have no doubt that May is a better player than he, but she took the opportunity to suggest to him in front of his officers that that was the case, and the upshot, among other things is that she can no longer gorge herself on tinned American butter. The arrangement has caused endless friction below stairs, and everyone but May is delighted that it should cease. She is far from unintelligent, but she has never been able to imagine that an action may have other results, besides the one she is set on. Tell me quickly, what do you make of Charles?”

“He good as let on he'd been an actor.”

“Did he now?”

“But he might have been thinking about your plays here. You said he did a good Aguecheek.”

“And an excellent Lucius O'Trigger Do you know …”

She paused. A mischievous look, a sudden likeness to her sister, came into her face.

“Antonio has dropped out,” she said. “I had guessed she might.”

“It's quite a big part.”

“Ah, but Alonso—Mrs Ferris, you know—has come along out of all recognition. I was regretting that I had not given her more. Suppose she were to take Sebastian, then I might persuade Charles to attempt Antonio, which is only some thirty lines.”

“And all ‘Prithee, peace' until that last scene.”

“May will not like it, of course, but … Well, dear, are the gentlemen still enjoying themselves?”

Cousin Blue ignored the sprightly malice of the question, sighed, and put the album away. Andrew had risen as she came in and was waiting for her to sit down, but she did not return to the sofa. Instead she drew a chair up to a three-legged table, cleared the knick-knacks to one side and started to lay out a game of patience. After a couple of minutes she looked up.

“Andrew, dear, I'm afraid I must ask you to help Samuel put my brother to bed. You know, Father can be a brute, a real brute. No, not yet—they are still talking. It is enough to make one weep.”

Charles sat slumped with his head on his arms across the Schoolroom table, snorting.

“I think I can manage the shoulders,” said Andrew. “He can't weigh much.”

“Easier each take one arm,” said Samuel. “Like this, look. He won't feel nothing.”

“What about Sir Arnold?”

“I just walked him to bed. Tomorrow he'll feel pretty bad. Stay in bed, maybe. He's not been too well. Just made the effort for tonight. Wanted to see the pair of you together.”

“I'm afraid I refused to play.”

“You did right. He'll respect you better for that.”

Moving as though they had rehearsed the routine for days they eased the inert torso up and twisted the body sideways on the chair. Andrew supported the shoulders while Samuel knelt and removed the shoes. With an elbow under each armpit they hauled the body out into the corridor. The heels slithered, made a ghostly thumping on the half-flight of stairs up to the family bedrooms, then returned to their slither along the soft carpet. In what thirty years ago had been Charles's bedroom they sat the body on an upright chair.

“If you'll hold his shoulders again, please,” said. Samuel. He went to the mahogany wash-stand and fetched a face-towel and a large piss pot, decorated with Chinese figures. “Now pull him up, high as you can. Let go when I say.

“Higher …”

Holding the piss-pot in his left hand he swung his clenched fist into the extended diaphragm. Andrew let go as the vomit came, then helped guide the body forward and down until it was on its knees in front of the chair, retching into the pot. Samuel caught the whole mess, put the pot to one side, rolled the body over and wiped the grey and sweating face with the towel.

“Learnt that trick from an English footman way back,” he said. “Saves a lot of mess in the night. Baas Wragge always liked to get 'em drunk—‘See what you're made of,' he'd say.”

He did Uncle Vole's voice spot on.

Florrie had already turned the bed-clothes back, going round the rooms during family supper. They heaved the body on to the mattress and covered it with the blankets. Samuel stood gazing at the life-worn face, strangely blank, emptied of character, like a saint in ecstasy.

“What do you think?” said Andrew.

“Tisn't him. Baas Charlie could hold his liquor. Weren't good for much else, but he could do that.”

“He's had a rough life … What will Sir Arnold do?”

“Let him stay, I reckon.”

“Because he thinks he might be his son?”

“Don't matter. Provided there's a fight between Miss May and Miss Elspeth. Course, he'd like it to be Baas Charlie come back. Don't like to think of himself going off into the dark leaving nothing behind. So I reckon he isn't going to make up his mind for a while. 'Nother thing—suppose he goes and decides it is Baas Charlie. Always hated doing anything about changing his will, because of it reminding him of dying. Last will he made was after he lost his case to make Master Nicholas—that's Baas Charlie's son—a ward of court. He went raging along to the lawyers about it.”

“What does it say?”

“Don't know. All I know is Mr Oyler didn't like it—said it wasn't right law somehow—but Baas Wragge he put his foot down and made 'em say what he wanted. Mr Oyler, he's been at him time and again to change it, but Baas Wragge he wouldn't listen, not till he suddenly went and sent for you. I reckon till this fellow turned up, he was still thinking about putting you in …”

He gazed at the figure on the bed, shaking his head slowly from side to side in one of his strange half-trances. His fingers felt in a pocket of his striped waistcoat. He turned and showed Andrew on the palm of his hand a disc of lightish-coloured wood with a knob the size of a hazel nut in the middle. Andrew picked it up and looked at the image of himself.

“I guessed from my bit of marge that you must have finished,” he said. (The tours Cousin Blue had arranged had meant the cancelling of three
Nada
readings, so he hadn't got right through the book in the hols. Week-ends were no good: Saturday afternoon was spent at the flicks with Jean, Sunday afternoon most of the servants went out.)

“Third one I made,” said Samuel. “First two not right. Not going to bother making one for this feller.”

The sudden side-slip into nigger-talk was extraordinarily contemptuous.

Andrew peered at the tiny head. It was very odd. Just a knob. Knife-pecks for eyes and mouth, a ridge for a nose. It could have been anyone, but it was him. Not Adrian, Andrew. He was glad to hand it back.

“It's going to be tricky to prove he isn't Charles,” he said. “I suppose you could go to Hull and try and find out if a shelter was bombed, see if anyone remembers him at the hospital. Even if you found out what he was calling himself before that it mightn't help. I mean the real Charles would have had to call himself something. You'd have to find the name and then trace it back to before 1917, wouldn't you?”

“Just have to do best we can,” said Samuel. “Listen to everything he does and says. Maybe we'll catch him out. All I know is, if he isn't Baas Charlie then it isn't right he should inherit.”

On Saturdays Andrew rose at seven, breakfasted in the kitchen and walked across to the farm to help Jean get through her morning's work. Mrs Althorp couldn't object as Cousin Brown had arranged this specifically to release Jean by eleven. Jean would then bicycle round, bringing a packed lunch, while Andrew walked back. They would rehearse for an hour, and after that bicycle off to the flicks at Petersfield.

“You are being admirably patient,” said Cousin Brown, “but I am afraid it is the only way with a child like Jean. I have to drill her and drill her. With only one rehearsal a week and then six days to forget …”

“It's interesting,” said Andrew. “Specially the love scenes. Like coaxing a bird to eat out of your hand.”

(Before the war there used to be an old one-eyed sailor who did that with sparrows—first the darting snatch and flurry to safety; then, still trembling with the terror of nearness, perching on a finger to peck at crumbs in the palm; fear shading into trust, the spread fingers imperceptibly rising at each visit, upright round the cupped palm, the bird in the middle, got you! Usually the old boy held the sparrow a few seconds, peering with his short-sighted eye at the pattern of head-feathers; but sometimes, if the right child was watching, he would gape with broken orange fangs and pretend to bite the head off.)

That Saturday was sheeting wet. They both had capes, but on their way back from the flicks the rain densened till it was like a waterfall and they were forced to stop for shelter under a railway bridge. The downpour made pearly curtains over both arches. They talked about the film, a silly thriller, and the trailer for next week's war-film. Jean didn't care for war-films. The rain drenched on. Chill breathed from the slimy bricks. She shivered.

“Practise a bit?” he suggested.

She blushed—she knew at once what he meant.

“Might warm us up,” he said.

“Oh, all right.”

He undid the buttons of his cape. When he moved to do hers she edged back.

“We don't want to squelch,” he said. “Now, for Pose A—this is the one right at the end of the flick. You know, sunset, palms, two dozen violins. It's in profile. I ought to have something to stand on so you can tilt your head up—I'll have to do it tip-toe and you bend your knees. Fine. Arm there and arm there. Don't giggle …”

He clowned it lightly, helping her do the same. As soon as he felt her hand moving on his shoulder-blade he broke off, laughing. A train crossed the bridge, filling the cave below with its dull thunder.

“Pose B is your sort of thing—costume, duels, elopements. Let's say your guardian's taking you to the brutal viscount he's making you marry, and I'm the highwayman who's held you up. Your dowry's in the coach, but I've been a gallant idiot and said I'll let you go in exchange for a kiss. You're dead against it, but your guardian says what about the dowry? So down you come from your coach. Long sweeping dress, high heels, utter disdain. This is my cloak, OK? I'll lead, you follow. Just think about your guardian peering out of the coach, getting more and more pop-eyed. OK, off we go.”

She was heavy enough to make Pose B a strain in its later stages. Beyond the blurred curve of her cheek he could see the crinkled stream of water slithering over the road-surface towards its drain. The guardian's eyes would be popping all right, he thought. Promising. The slosh of falling water drowned the noise of the approaching motor almost until it reached the arch. He lugged her upright with a second to spare.

“Lorry coming,” he gasped.

A bulging khaki bonnet barged through the curtain. They pressed against the wall to let it pass, but before it reached the further arch it braked. A head, unrecognizable in silhouette, craned out.

“Want a ride, Mr Wragge?” called Sergeant Stephens.

Andrew glanced at Jean. Discontent? Yes. But the bridge was no use for anything beyond clowning, and anyway his strategy demanded that he should override her wishes, the way a parent might a child's.

“Thanks,” he called.

Sergeant Stephens climbed down, lowered the tailgate and lifted the bikes for Andrew to stow in the lorry, which was empty except for a pile of loose boots in the far right corner.

“Room for the young lady up front,” he said.

“We'll be OK in the back, thanks,” said Andrew, letting the eyelid Jean couldn't see droop for an instant.

“You're welcome,” said the sergeant, and before Jean could move he took her under the arms and heaved her bodily up. She produced a curious sound, between a squeak of surprise and a shriek of outrage. He didn't even smile. The tailgate banged up.

“It'll be a bumpy ride,” said Andrew. “You know how Yanks drive.”

They settled next door to the pile of boots with their backs to the cab.

“It smells like a pub,” said Jean.

It did, too, and as the lorry lurched off Andrew put his palm on the floor to steady himself. The floor was wet—not surprising in this weather, but when he sniffed his hand he smelt whisky. Spilt not long back, either. A broken bottle—but no glass splinters. A whole case then, one bottle broken, taken into Southampton hidden under the pile of boots. The rest of the stores unloaded, but the boots brought back for next time. Mr Trinder? He'd been driving out to meet the sergeant back in March …