Perfect Gallows (21 page)

He took the cutting back and stared at it, shaking his head.

“He still isn't Baas Charlie,” he said.

“I suppose it doesn't absolutely prove it. But it does show he's telling the truth about losing his memory and so on. He can't have started making his story up that long ago and not done anything about it till now.”

Samuel shook his head again and gave a grunting sigh. “Better be getting long back in,” he said.

“I'm going to wander round a bit longer.”

“Guards don't like it, not if you're after dark.”

“They don't know I'm out.”

Samuel nodded and grinned, though his brow stayed frowning.

“Baas Charlie, he used to climb all over the house, your age,” he said.

“Must run in the family. Good-night.”

“Good-night.”

Mrs Oliphant was snoring, louder than the bombers or the wind. Jean was waiting by the window, anxious and cross, and expecting to snuggle on the parlour settee, but he made her put on an extra jersey and walk with him in the roaring woods for an hour while he talked about roles he would one day play, and how he would tackle them. Her lips were rubbery cold when he kissed her good-night.

The climb back up went easily. The linen-room window was still open. It was just before midnight when he got to his room. On his pillow he found a note in Mrs Mkele's handwriting. “Please to see Sir Arnold 10 o'clock a.m. Respectfully, S.M.”

FIVE

There was no answer to his tap, but as he took hold of the handle it turned from the inside and the door opened. Uncle Vole's nurse blinked at him with an outraged look, as though someone had just pinched her bum.

“Sir Arnold asked to see me,” he explained.

She put a hand to her ear and pulled out a plug of cotton-wool. He explained again. She stood aside to let him through.

“Try not to tire him,” she snapped as she left.

Uncle Vole looked younger. Perhaps the angle of the head on the pillow smoothed out some of the wrinkles, or perhaps what he had been saying to the nurse had brought a flicker of blood into the parchment cheeks, but somehow his whole face spoke of what it might have been in years gone by, all the way back into the obscurities of childhood. The room was summer-warm. Arms and hands lay inert on the counterpane, framing the body, which was so slight that without them it would have been hard to know where it lay beneath the bedclothes. A finger fluttered, summoning Andrew closer. The rheumy eyes glared up, then closed.

“Stupid cow,” said Uncle Vole. “Stuffs muck in her ears so she can't hear what I'm telling her. Must have a good-looker, I told them. If that's the best they can do …”

“I suppose the young ones have been called up.”

“If I was Adolf Hitler I'd have all that sort put down. Waste of money keeping them alive. Watcher want?”

“You sent for me, sir.”

The eyes opened again, not glaring but peering, seeking for something in Andrew's eyes.

“I'm dying.”

“Bad luck, sir.”

“That all you can say?”

“If I said anything else you wouldn't believe me.” A long pause.

“Right. The bugger calls himself Charles. He's not my son. Spotted that soon as I saw him. Might've booted him out that very night. Thought I'd have a bit more fun with the pair of you. Wanted to see May's face when the coppers came for him.”

“Did Samuel show you …?”

“Bit from that paper? Don't prove a thing.”

“I thought …”

“Fuck that. I say he ain't my son, and Samuel says he ain't neither. None of the others is worth a bugger. That's why I've hung on to Samuel. There's a nigger-trick he can do—they can't all, but he can. I've seen him stare at a heap of lumps like a sick goose and say ‘Big stone in there, baas,' and I'd hammer the lump apart and half the time he'd be right. More'n once I had him tell me the Company Police were coming on a surprise visit and I've had time to get things straight for them. If he says the bugger's not Charlie, you can take it as read.”

“What are you going to do, sir?”

The eyes closed as the old man rested. Andrew studied the line of the blue lips, the nose pointed like a sail. You'd never be able to afford a pause this long, he thought. You'd have to make it seem like one.

“Brandy,” said Uncle Vole. “On the table here. Use the dropper.”

There was a bottle, a glass and a glass tube with a rubber bulb at the top. Andrew poured out some brandy, sucked a little into the tube and fed it in between the lips. Another immense pause.

“I'm going to tell you a story,” said Uncle Vole, still with his eyes closed. “I don't like you. Why should I? Nobody's ever liked me. But you're my sort—look out for Number One and bugger the universe. Might have told you anyway, one day. Want someone in the family to know. You're the one. Goes like this. When I was eleven I decided I was fed up. Fed up with my fool of a mother and my mouse of a brother and my God-spouting greasy father and everything else. Most of all fed up with Chapel. Came to me one morning, like Paul on the way to whatsit, that I was buggered if I was going to sit through that one more Sunday.”

“Yes, sir. You told me.”

“Shut up and listen. My brother held me down while my father laid into me with his belt on my bare arse and I swore at them the foulest I knew. My father must've gone off his rocker—he kept at it till I passed out, and I was five days in bed after, lying on my belly. Got the marks still. Feel 'em each time I go to the shit-house. But it didn't change my mind—all it did was make me promise myself by every oath I knew I'd get the best of 'em in the end, and I'd do it in a way so they'd think about it every day they lived, all the rest of their lives. Brandy.”

Andrew dribbled another dose between the lips and waited.

“It wasn't my father I swore I'd do for so much as my swine of a brother. I knew I'd have to wait my time. Four years I sat through Chapel, foul-mouthing under my breath, thinking about it. First I knew I'd need money. When I was twelve my father put me into a ship-chandler's. I worked at that job like a good 'un. Stole what I could, but only when I knew it was safe. Spent a bit on whores—balls dropped afore I was thirteen—saved the rest …”

His voice was a scrape, barely loud enough to hear, with in-dragged wheezing every few words. When he rested Andrew gave him more brandy, imagining in his own throat the voice that would sound like that and yet be heard in the furthest seats.

“Didn't tell yer. Brother seven years older than me. Been others between, but they'd died. Got engaged. Older than he was. Chapel, of course. Plain as a boot. Father put him up to it. She'd a part share in a coal-yard coming to her. Father wouldn't let 'em marry till my brother was twenty-five. Three more years. I was fifteen.”

Now the voice strengthened slightly, as if with remembered energies.

“Summer Sundays they'd go for a row on the river. Not alone, of course. Chapel. If her cow of a mother was stuck they'd take me. Only a kid, so that counted. He never touched her. I can see us now, him with his oily pink neck and his little bowler and his stiff white collar and his waistcoat with the watch-chain like Father wore, sweating at the oars, and her lolling under her sun-brolly at the tiller and looking at him and thinking how she was stuck with him cause it was her last chance, and me hunkered up in the bows, watching her past his head, thinking too. Brandy.”

Revenge, Andrew thought. You get it a lot as a motive. Reading the lines you wonder what the point is. But here is this old man, dying, sending for me so he can have his revenge on my family one more time … The blue lips moved again.

“August nineteenth was her birthday. Tuesday, with a big party. Her Mum had to bake all Sunday, Sabbath or no Sabbath. A week before, on the Saturday, I took the twelve quid I'd saved and put it on a horse called Breaker. Came in at six to one. Then I knew it was my hour. There ain't no God up among the stars, that's all horse shit, but there's a little god inside you and when he tells you Go you must go, or he'll be sour on you the rest of your days. I bought myself a passage to the Cape, ship sailing Monday. Not my own name. Booked another for Boston, sailing Liverpool, Tuesday, just the deposit. Used my own name for that. Bought a padlock, bottle of bubbly, pie, peaches, glasses, napkins, all the trimmings. Made sure of my boat.”

A long pause, different somehow in nature. He wasn't simply resting but remembering, savouring.

“Sunday. Chapel in the morning, then dinner. Amy used to have dinner with her lot, then we'd go by and pick her up and on down to the boat-house. Between us and her we went close by the chandler's where I worked. Told Ozzie I'd a present for Amy's birthday I wanted him to have a look at. I'd a key to the shop, cause of being first in to sweep out. The old man had a store-room at the back, kept it padlocked, but I'd made myself a key. Saturday night I'd been down and changed the padlocks. Took him into the shop, opened the store-room. After you, Ozzie, booted his back and shut the door. Locked it, picked up my basket I'd hid under the counter, on down to Amy's, told 'em Ozzie'd be meeting us at the boat-house. Soon as we were out of the house I told Amy fact was Ozzie'd come over queer at dinner, but if I'd let on to her Mum she'd have been kept home to help with the baking. Sin to waste an afternoon like that, and the boat all booked. She didn't like baking. I was only a kid, wasn't I?'

More brandy and another rest, the lips pursing and falling back.

“Oh, it was perfect weather. It had to be—my little god was working. Bloody stiff pull in a boat that size, but I needed the room in the bottom. Ran in among some reeds I'd spotted earlier trips. ‘What are you doing?' Got the bubbly out. Winked. ‘Going to America Tuesday, so you've got to drink my health. Sorry old Ozzie ain't here too.' She was a stupid cow. Catch Ozzie drinking bubbly, on a Sunday too, even with the reeds to hide him. He'd have rowed straight home to tell Father. She didn't think about any of that, only the romance of me going to America and her being in the secret, and trying her first champagne. She might be Chapel, but I'd been watching her, Sunday by Sunday. She said it tasted like lemonade. Never knew you were supposed to get it chilled, so we drank it warm while I told her about America and how I was going to make my fortune and bring her back a necklace of real pearls. Best afternoon of my life. Brandy.”

The rest was shorter this time.

“We had some pie and more bubbly. ‘Now I want you to kiss me good-bye. I've never kissed a woman before and I want to know what it's like. Least you can do for a brother-in-law.' Didn't give her a chance to say no, just slid my arm round her waist and started in. ‘That was nice, let's do it again.' She was waiting-ripe. Didn't take long to work her up. We tried drinking out of the same glass, and then we ate a peach together, juice running over our faces, down on to our clothes. Gave me an excuse to start taking 'em off—I'd paid a whore to show me how everything fastened—clothes women wore those days. Don't, she kept telling me, but I'd kiss her quiet while I undid the stupid little hooks and she never moved a finger to stop me. She was clay in my hands. I could've done anything I wanted with her, anything at all. Clay in my hands.”

Rest.

“Didn't let her go till it was getting on dark. Four times I did her, each go better 'n the last, and each time I went in I put up a prayer. ‘Give us a kid, little god. Make it a son.' Nobody came by. There was only us, and the reeds, and the boat-cushions in the bottom of the boat. Then I told her to get herself dressed and I pulled back to the boat-house, whistling under the stars, and her sighing and blubbing in the stern. You'll be all right, my girl, I thought. First you'll think you can get away not telling anyone, and then you'll find what's happening inside you and you'll think you're shamed for ever, but Ozzie'll marry you all the same, cause of the coal-yard. Father will see he does. Nothing to blub about. Walking up from the river I kept my arm round her waist and talked lovey-dovey about her coming out with me to Boston. Took her up past her house till we came to the chandler's. ‘Got a present for you.' Pulled out the keys and told her where to look. There was a street lamp shone in through the shop window, so she could see. She was a stupid cow—she still didn't twig. Soon as she was in the shop I went whistling off to where I'd stowed my gear. Slept on a bench that night. Next afternoon I was leaning on the stern rail, looking back up the river where we'd been.”

He stopped, exhausted, but a flutter of his fingers showed he had something more to say. Andrew waited, interested but still disappointed. It was too obvious. A scene like this should have something jarring in it, something almost wrong but still dead right … The story, he knew, had been told before, often. It had the same feel of being shaped by performance as Mrs Oliphant's account of her husband's death. Uncle Vole had brooded it into that shape over the years, told it round diggers' fires on the veldt, in the pauses of poker sessions on
Diamond
, and then only in the private theatre of his skull. Now, for the last time, aloud. When he started to speak again rhythm and tone were different. This time he was telling Andrew something new.

“Soon as I started to make my pile I wrote and hired a nark back home, find out what had happened. Answer, Father hadn't made 'em wait after all. They'd married that November and they'd had a kid in May. A boy. My son.”

The eyes shot open, glaring up with all their old malice. “Your grandad.”

Andrew simply nodded to show he'd understood. The eyes closed.

“Never had another and I know why. Amy expected Ozzie to do for her same as I'd done in the reeds, and Ozzie wasn't up to it. In the end she scared him, so he couldn't do it at all. Still wasn't enough for me. I'd got to rub it in, so that they woke up mornings thinking about it and went to bed nights with it still buzzing in their brains. Took me a while to think how. Then it came to me. Something Samuel said, if you want to know. I decided when I'd made my pile I'd come back to England and build myself a house, no expense spared, close as I could get to Southampton, make a splash in all the papers so they'd know it was there, go on doing things, charities, all that, so my name would always be in front of 'em. Sir Arnold Wragge of The Mimms. Then on they'd never walk into their grubby little two up two down without their guts twisting inside them, thinking of me. That's why I built this home. That's what it means. That's why I've sent for the lawyer, to change my will. I'm leaving it to you.”