A Tree on Fire (35 page)

His head was held back slightly, as if to see more of the road. He had dark curly hair, and a long rather sharp nose that gave a piercing distant gaze to his eyes. ‘I drank my coffee, and singled out the ringleader. When he left I followed him, and caught him up as he turned off the main street. I became all the working-class scholarship boys rolled into one, and had an idea that this young blood or whatever they call themselves shouldn't be allowed to get away with it. I'm a man of ideas, and sometimes they're so strong that I'm forced into action.' He laughed, reached a straight piece of road and overtook a lorry that had slowed him down for the last half-hour. ‘If I act from bravado or boredom and not out of an idea it's usually a fiasco. So I have to be careful.'

‘What kind of an idea?'

‘Well, while talking to you just now I was wondering whether man can benefit from having his soul laid bare. It makes him hate himself so much that he's going to destroy himself because he can't stand it. He'll lose all confidence, and that's bad. Nevertheless, he's got to learn to live with his own soul, with the depths of his own real and far-out soul, though sometimes I think he'd rather die than do it. That person who made the stupid remarks about scholarship boys didn't have the human vision to have a soul. I tried to talk to him and make him listen to me, but he didn't like it, so to defend myself I sunk my boots into him. His social hatred wasn't enough for him to do much about it when it came to the crunch. It was all very silly, really. I don't suppose for one minute it helped him to think next time before opening his trap. From then on, when I got a lift in a car or lorry I told them I was a student from Oxford. You've no idea how easy it made things. I did it as an experiment, and it worked so well I kept it up. I got so good at it I nearly vomited one day, and that ended it.'

‘You're almost as bad as your father.'

‘That would really worry me. Father has great talent, but he's ruthless, unscrupulous, over-generous when he feels like it, and being an artist his thoughts are totally disorganised. There are times when I actually have a great liking for him, even though he is my father. I nearly flattened him two years ago when he lifted his fist to my mother, but there were no ill-feelings about it. He wouldn't have forgiven me if I hadn't stopped him. Some silly quarrel or other.'

‘About money, I suppose,' she said, ‘in those days. You were all terribly poor, weren't you?'

‘That's true. But they never argued about money, never. It was always about the children, or about his ideas as an artist, or – well, anything. They loved each other so much that everything was important enough to quarrel about, bitterly and violently at times. They had their hell, we had ours, so there was nothing to reproach them with. It was all out of love, you see – and still is. Father was determined never to go out to work, and Mother was determined never to let him. That was the whole basis of their happiness, so how could they quarrel about money? Their mutual agreement about what they would never disagree about saw them through. I often marvelled at it, as soon as I began to understand. I suppose we had a perfect childhood, really, having Father at home all the time, like any sons of the idle rich, and we never actually went hungry, thanks to all his tricks. He used to write begging letters, and say that when he was famous he'd get them published, and call the book:
The Collected Begging Letters of Albert Handley, R.A.
But he won't, of course. Now he says he'll save them in case we ever get poor again.'

To Myra he was an intelligent young man who, being so young, was a complete mystery until he explained himself. It was one of her faults that she rarely understood or sympathised with, those whose ages differed from her own. She drew Mark up to show him the road. Passing cars were clocked on his senses by a wave of his arms. He was in a peaceful and interested mood as the car funnelled through green landscape. Now and again the colic struck, and but came the rose-hip syrup, but travelling usually soothed his blood, as if he were already setting his gypsy eyes at the open road and thinking to search the world for his father. It calmed her also to be on the move, disencumbered from the house and all petty thoughts.

They were well on into the flat fen zones, the holland drains of the country. The air was different from any other part of England, with its smell of sun and water. Seabirds hovered over green and yellow fields, slipped across loam and worried at the tractors. A red Mini stood by a gate, barely parked off the road, and a girl leaned on it looking blankly at any traffic that passed. The bonnet of her car was up, but she did not wave.

‘I know that attitude of troublesome despair that bodes ill for all and sundry,' Richard said. The car stopped smoothly, shot into reverse and drew up by the Mini's side. He wound down the window, shouting: ‘Are you back from running in the M1?'

‘Drop dead,' Mandy called, tear-marks on her face. ‘It took you long enough to find me.'

‘I wasn't looking for you, love,' he said, ‘I'm sorry to say. Had a breakdown?'

She smiled, as if to give him canker. ‘No, I'm smelling petrol. It sends me.'

‘Maybe the good wold wind'll blow your bad mood away. This is Myra Bassingfield.' Myra recognised her, the terror of the motorway for the last three weeks, the angel at the wheel who had buzzed her and whom she had passed at seventy miles an hour. They didn't shake hands. ‘She's coming home,' Richard said, ‘to stay a while. A friend of father's.'

‘Another one to feed,' Mandy said. ‘That makes twelve of us.'

‘Thirteen,' Richard laughed. ‘There's a baby inside.'

‘Is it father's?' she asked. ‘I'll never know how many brothers and sisters I've really got. It's a horrible life.'

‘He's not your brother,' Myra said. ‘And don't be afraid for your food.'

‘You'll walk back if you're not careful,' Richard said. Myra offered a cigarette, and wrung a thanks from her. ‘I'm broke, flat broke. No fags and not even the price of a cup of tea, nor the money to phone a garage. There's enough petrol in my tank to get home, but that's about all, except that the bloody thing won't start. Nearly six hundred pounds of brand-new British rubbish.'

‘You've knocked it to death,' he said. She went sulkily into the Rambler, found some sandwiches in the glove-box and pulled them apart in a few seconds. Richard tried the Mini for ignition faults, fuel failure and mechanical defects, but could not start it. ‘We'll lift it on to my luggage-rack, and carry it home like that.'

‘You only want to humiliate me,' Mandy cried. Black rings of exhaustion made her eyes look bigger, big enough, Myra thought, to send any man mad. She had in fact hoped for a romantic rescue by some stranger, but much to her disgust no one had stopped. ‘We'd never get up the lane with it on your luggage rack because the tree branches are too low.'

‘Well,' said Richard, smiling at her show of dignity, ‘we'll just have to tow you. It's only forty miles, and we can leave it at Stopes's Garage.' He uncoiled a rope and attached it to both cars. ‘I'm frightened,' she said. ‘I don't know how to drive on tow.'

‘Just watch the brakes,' he said. ‘I won't go over thirty.'

‘Lend me some money and tell the next garage to send a breakdown truck. Then I'll see you as soon as it's fixed.' He caught the glint in her eyes. If he lent her ten pounds and the car was mended there was no telling where she would head for next. He was afraid to let her go without a week's rest, for there was a desperate look in her eyes as if, because of the breakdown, she couldn't wait to get back on the road and plough into it. If she came home the house would stop worrying.

Myra offered to drive. ‘You can stay in with Richard, and look after Mark.'

Mandy looked fiercely at her, then at Richard. ‘All right. But if anybody scratches it, I'll do my nut.'

‘I'll take care,' Myra smiled.

‘You didn't buy the bloody car,' Richard said, tired of her irrational stubbornness, ‘so shut up.' At a wave from Myra he cruised along the road.

The Rambler, having discarded the Mini, made its way up the muddy lane, lush branches and nettles as high as a man clawing its sides as if to welcome their black panther back. Handley came out in shirt-sleeves to greet them, glad of an excuse not to work for a few days. He hoped to go for walks with Myra, or take her by car to the coast, or to the various high-spots of the county so that they could talk about many things. Enid would come too, of course, and a gay party would be made up.

Myra admired the caravans, the compound, the house. ‘Did he look after you well?' Handley asked.

‘Perfectly,' she said, feeling tired. ‘We drove Mandy the last forty miles, which made it merrier. Her car had broken down.'

‘Where is she?' he snapped, then remembered that it wouldn't be polite to break the month's peace while Myra was here. ‘I've something to say to her.'

‘In the car,' Richard said. ‘The Mini's being fixed. Nothing serious.'

‘I hope not. That's our second car.' Handley looked thinner, browner, as if he were much of the day out of doors. But she also found him more open and nervous than during his time in London, as if gripped by continual worry and irritation. ‘Mandy! Come out of there.'

She sat up on the back seat, winding down the window. ‘I'm not. Tell Mam to throw me some sheets in. I want to sleep here.'

‘Don't be daft,' Handley said. ‘It's nothing to be ashamed of. We all have breakdowns some time or other.'

But they could not persuade her, and went into the house, Handley carrying Myra's case, while Richard followed with the baby. Enid had set out a cold lunch in the kitchen, of ham and cheese, cold fried fish and chicken, wine, beer and tea, and many kinds of bread. She met them at the door, wearing a beige woollen jersey-dress in which to shake hands. She was fair and tall, and Myra was impressed by her broad eyes and narrow smooth-skinned face, and an expression of passion and intelligence marking the curve of her lips. Here, she thought, is a woman who says yes to everything because there is nothing left to say no to. ‘I had a very good trip,' she answered, ‘in such a superb car.'

Albert smiled with pleasure. ‘Yes, it's not a bad old bus,' and took her coat.

‘It's his favourite toy,' Enid said. ‘He'd be lost without it.' Myra imagined so. They were immediately like two sisters trying to put the only man present in his place. He should have expected it, rather than bank on a society of equals, all pally and sexless until he made his grab, then appallingly and deliriously willing. He poured four tots of brandy: ‘Here's to a peaceful and pleasant stay. We'll have a bite now, and leave the banquet till tonight.'

‘I'll have to see to Mark soon,' Myra said.

Handley downed his brandy. ‘Don't think about him. Helen will do that. She's capable – be fourteen next birthday. I wouldn't mind a pint of muscatel and a t-bone steak.'

Enid lifted a thick sheet of sweet ham on to a slice of bread: ‘London's ruined you, I think.'

‘My imagination ruined me before ever I got to London.'

Enid watched Myra watching him and told herself that thay had been to bed together. When, she did not know, but surmised there must have been some opportunity between tragedies. Yet it couldn't have been serious if Albert invited her to stay in the house. He had done it on her once or twice, she suspected, but had been painstakingly discreet. She didn't really mind what he did, as long as he didn't commit the ultimate foolishness of leaving her. She was convinced he would never do that, yet had to guard against it nevertheless. If he had brought this Myra to the house with any idea of fornication she would make a public announcement of her pregnancy – which the doctor had told her about only that morning. That would put a stop to it. And if he hadn't, he would go into raptures at the news, as all men should, and as Albert had often enough for it to become a reflex action of cheer and jollity that led to a total blackout of drunkenness when the terrible truth went finally into his middle.

He poured tumblers of Bordeaux claret, little sensing what he was in for. Myra, who had a headache, preferred tea, while Richard, with a ton of dust in his throat, downed the glass and asked for more. ‘I don't lag behind when there's wine flowing like water – which is rare enough.'

‘It may be rare,' Handley said wryly, ‘but I owe the wine-merchant three hundred pounds, which makes about five hundred bottles of steam in the last few months. I drink beer much of the time, so if we aren't careful this family will be wiped out by cirrhosis of the liver.'

‘I found an empty crate in the caravan yesterday,' said Enid, ‘which I suppose Maria and Catalina scoffed.'

‘I'll put a stop to it,' Handley said, corking the bottles.

‘What about Mandy?' Richard said. ‘She'll die of hunger.'

Enid pulled a tray from beside the sink, set down food and a cup of tea, then walked across the yard in the thin showering of rain. When she slid it through the car-window Mandy pulled it in greedily and began to eat. ‘Thanks, Ma. I'll come to the kitchen as soon as they've finished at the trough.'

‘If you don't,' Enid said, ‘I'll pull you out and give you a good hiding. We can't have you upsetting everything with your tantrums.'

She showed Myra her room, next to Uncle John's. It was carpeted from wall to wall, and in the middle was a low three-quarter divan with a white cotton bedspread touching the ash-blue carpet on all sides. A small chest of drawers painted yellow stood under the curtainless window. The walls were white, and facing the bed hung an early picture of Handley's. It lacked the quality of his present work yet was easily recognisable. A small shed stood in the middle of a wood, with a slanting wall of red fire drawing towards it. She thought it might be rather terrifying to wake up from a nightmare and have it as the first sight of the real world.