R. Delderfield & R. F. Delderfield (84 page)

'What was the favour, Howarth?'

'An eccentric one and you'll have to bend rules to grant it. I'm not scared of dying but I'm scared to hell of dying here, among the sick, sorry and senile. I want to die where I belong, within scent and earshot of familiar smells and sounds. If I discharge myself, can I come back to my own quarters? I've plenty of money to pay for a day and a night nurse later on and I wouldn't be a bother. You and Barnaby would be handy for a chat, and all the latest scandal. Is that asking too much? Because if it is, say so and be damned to you.'

'I daresay it can be arranged, so long as you don't tell anyone else what you've just told me. If that got out we should all be in trouble.'

Howarth relaxed and said, 'I'm much obliged to you, P.J.,' and then, with a twitch of a smile, 'Wouldn't be the first rule we've bent, eh?'

He left him feeling absolutely desolate. Ever since that first exchange of conversation in the common room twenty years ago, he had leaned heavily on Howarth, more so since he had taken Alcock's place. The man's enormous experience, and his deep love of Bamfylde that he was always at such pains
to conceal, had proved rallying points time and again over the years. If it had been difficult to picture Bamfylde without Algy it was impossible to imagine it without Howarth. He never had believed that story of his about scuttling off to the Riviera the moment he was pensioned. 'You can't love bricks and mortar,' had been one of Howarth's favourite maxims but he had belied it every time a fresh crisis blew up, and here he was begging to be allowed to die on the premises. He drove back to Bamfylde very slowly, coming to terms not only with the fact but with his decision to confide in nobody, not even Chris.

3

Howarth installed himself in his old quarters, just before the summer term opened and seemed to rally, shuffling out and about on sunny days, and sometimes making his way as far as the nets, where he would sit on the roller, his rimless glasses flashing in the sun, as he drew carefully on a forbidden cigarette, holding it under his hand, like a Fourth Former in one or other of the smokers' hideouts about the place. David and Chris spent a good deal of time with him, and so did Barnaby, who probably guessed the truth, but he must have fooled most of the others, for every now and again the bursar, or one of the junior staff, would refer to his impending return to work with phrases like, 'When Howarth is fit…' or 'Just until Howarth is back on the job.'

But then, in the latest flare-up over the Sudetenland dispute, and the sordid scuttling to and from Bad Godesberg, Berchtesgaden and finally Munich, even Howarth was all but forgotten; and the writing on the wall became so stark and clear that sometimes, reading the latest headlines, he felt physically sick, as though he had eaten an indigestible meal. Possibly he had. It was not pleasant to see the sons and daughters of the men who had stormed Vimy Ridge squealing with glee over the human sacrifice of Czechoslovakia.

He was very glad then that Chris was so obsessed with her child that her approach to politics was muted, although, every now and again, she would curse Chamberlain as a fool and a coward. Like him, she winced at Chamberlain's brief triumph, when he arrived back from Munich, to be received with hysterical cheers as he waved his absurd bit of paper.

'It's the most terrifying spectacle I've ever seen,' she told David, when they watched a news-reel on a rare visit to the cinema. 'Nobody sane could believe in it and I don't think any informed person does. They'll be evacuating children and digging air-raid shelters in a week or so, and I hope to God somebody
somewhere profits by the time that idiot is supposed to have bought us. But I wouldn't bet on it, would you?'

No, he told her, he would not, and with the onset of the new school year a sombre mood settled on him, not improved by a surprise visit from Carter, with an even more surprising proposition in his briefcase.

Carter, it seemed, was someone else who wasn't taken in, and was making his dispositions well in advance. 'If it does come to a show-down they'll evacuate my beat on the coast,' he said. 'We'll qualify as bona fide evacuees, and I want to get in on the ground floor. I don't want them sending me and the left-overs to some Godforsaken place up north, where I've no local contacts. You have plenty of room here now. Could you accommodate, say, an extra fifty under fourteen, if you had to? It would let you out too. They're bound to regard you as a host school. The Luftwaffe isn't likely to bomb Middlemoor, is it?'

The scheme had a good deal to recommend it. Carter's venture had prospered, and he could pay a good rent. It would also mean that at least some of his youngsters would automatically qualify as Bamfeldians as soon as they passed their fourteenth birthday, so he gave Carter a promise that he would put the proposition before the Governors and ring back within a fortnight.

He carried out the first half of his promise and, as he had fully expected, the Governors approved. But then, like balanced buffets to the left and right of his head, two other events put everything else out of mind. In the second week of a new term Chris was rushed off to the nursing home, and he had barely settled her in, horribly anxious but outwardly bearing up, when Howarth died, a week or so short of the six months given him by the specialist in the spring.

They sent for him early in the morning and he found Howarth conscious and very restless. His blanched face was a parody of the man he remembered. It looked like the face of someone in the final stage of starvation, but the breakfast bell seemed to alert him, as though that same sound, repeated down three decades, at precisely the same hour of the day, was still able to recall him to duty. He opened his eyes, gestured feebly to the nurse, then fixed his gaze on David. The male nurse got up and left, obviously in response to some previous instruction and Howarth whispered, as the door closed. 'This is it, P.J. Wanted to see you… know you were still around…' and he moved his left hand in a way that impelled David to take it. They sat there for a minute or so, listening
to the clamour of boys hurrying down the long stone passage to Big Hall and breakfast. Then, after the hall door had banged on a prolonged bumping of forms and rattle of crockery, he said, 'Curtain… what kind of day?'

David got up and pulled the curtain of the window facing south east across ploughland and the blur of copses screening Bamfylde Bridge Halt.

'Very clear,' he said. 'No rain about. Can you see it from where you are?'

Howarth nodded briefly and said, 'Wife all right?'

'Any minute now,' but Howarth seemed not to be listening. With his free hand he made an attempt to reach under the pillow, finally succeeding in exposing a stiff folded document that David recognised as his will. In response to Howarth's nod he opened it out. It was a very simple will. Everything Howarth possessed had been left to the school. There was a brief codicil, dated two days before, naming Chris as the beneficiary of two hundred pounds, and meeting David's questioning glance, Howarth said, with a grimace that might have been one of his wry smiles, 'Not for her really. For that boy… if you get one.'

'I'm going out there this afternoon. This is very good of you, Howarth. Chris will be touched,' and Howarth, husbanding each syllable, said, 'Never… touched… anyone… Never… wanted… to…' Then, framing the words clearly, 'Bureau. Top drawer,' and David knew what he sought. He crossed to the bureau and opened the drawer. The portrait of Amy Crispin still lay on top of a pile of neatly laundered shirts and he took it out, holding it so that Howarth could see it. Perhaps a minute passed before he said, just audibly, 'Wish I'd been able to believe. Leave it when you go.'

He put the photograph on the cluttered night table and tried to think of something comforting to say, something that Howarth would not find embarrassing. It was not easy. All his life Howarth had been trying to increase the thickness of the shell that encased his emotions. He took his hand again and said, carefully, 'Can you hear me? Don't talk, just nod,' and Howarth nodded, so obediently that the gesture seemed grossly out of character. 'You've done a thundering good job here. That's something to believe in. I won't ever forget you. Neither will any of the old stagers, or any of the boys you taught. As for me, I'd like to say thank you, from the bottom of my heart. But for you I wouldn't be here. Since I am, I'd like you to know nothing is going to shake me loose now, Howarth. Did you get that?'

Howarth nodded twice and closed his eyes, lying so still that David thought he had slipped away, but he hadn't. Presently he began to cough, and half sat up, his eyes blazing with fury, so that for a moment he looked his old self as
he spluttered,
'Bloody
cough – fetch him…' and David called the nurse, who sidled in and picked up a beaker half-full of barley water.

He left then, his thoughts in a whirl, and it was not until he reached the sanctuary of his study that he realised he was still holding Howarth's will. He glanced at it again, realising that Bamfylde was richer by something like eleven thousand pounds.

The nursing home matron rang soon after lunch and he almost choked on the words identifying himself. She said, coolly, 'No panic, Mr Powlett-Jones. Dr Willoughby thought you'd like to know it's started. He seems very pleased with her. Will you be coming over?'

'Now?'

'Whenever it's convenient.'

He wanted to shout, 'Of course I'll come! Get back to her, you idiot!' but then he remembered Willoughby and the specialist would be with her, for the Bristol man had promised to make a special trip down that day and had phoned mid-morning to say she was in excellent shape. He said, hoarsely, 'I'll come within the hour,' and she said, impersonally, 'Good… good…' and rang off.

He stood there holding the receiver, his mouth parched and dry, his knees trembling so violently that he had to brace them against the door of the cupboard supports of the desk. The bell rang for the first period. 'It would,' he thought, savagely, 'it always does somehow…' but then he got hold of himself and went in search of Barnaby, catching him crossing the quad on his way to the Sixth.

'Chris is having her baby,' he said, breathlessly, 'Can you take the Sixth for Howarth?' and as he said it he realised that, like everybody else, he was assuming Howarth would be back on the job in a day or so. Barnaby said, gently, 'Don't worry about a thing, P.J. I've got a free period myself mid-afternoon. You're driving over now?'

'Right away. Thanks, Barnaby. Have you looked in on Howarth today?'

'No, the night nurse told me he was having a bad spell…'

'He won't last the day but keep it to yourself. Sorry to put so much on you. I'll ring if I'm delayed.' He left Barnaby looking very startled and went round to the cycle sheds where Bamfylde's few cars were parked. Chris's silvery bumble bee stood there under a tarpaulin and his mind, conjuring
with possibilities as it always did when he was seeking escape from unpleasant thoughts, toyed with the idea of pulling down the ratty old sheds and building a garage block here. In the years ahead, he supposed, almost every adult at Bamfylde would own a car or motorcycle, and they wouldn't want them kept under tarpaulins.

He headed west into a golden afternoon, thinking of Chris, of all the high hopes she had pinned on this moment, and of poor old Howarth, gasping his life away in those bachelor quarters, off Nicolson's landing. It would take him a long time to get accustomed to life up here without Howarth. Algy had gone, but Algy was still available when he was needed. With Howarth gone he and Barnaby would be the only survivors of the First World War rump, and it would seem lonely, just the two of them. Staff were not much different from boys in that way. They came, stayed a little longer than the average boy, and then left, either by way of Bat Ferguson and Judy Cordwainer, or by way of Carter and Irvine. The same thing had happened with two of the three women in his life, Beth and Julia Darbyshire. One day they were there, the next they were gone, and it was of Beth he thought as he dropped into second gear to tackle Quarry Hill, remembering passing this way in a more carefree mood one sunny May afternoon in 1920, when he had driven over to take his first peep at the twins. Howarth's enigmatic remark returned to him – 'Wish I could have believed…' Believed in what exactly? In God? In marriages made in heaven? In Amy Crispin's lasting affection for him? Probably the first, for Howarth, although a born cynic, had never professed himself an atheist. Just one of the bewildered majority facing the fact that they had no way of knowing whether life was a planned process or a cosmic accident. It was strange, he thought, that in all their discussions, talk that had ranged over almost every conceivable topic, they had so rarely touched on faith.