Armistice (28 page)

He was square on to Philomena as he said this, his soul bared again, as it had been in the public house following her first sighting of Anthony Dore. She was tempted to cross her arms, and he saw her impulse to do that, and he paused, in order that she could choose how to listen to him, open or closed. Fearing that if she gave in and closed she would be making the wrong decision at one of the key moments in her life, Philomena deliberately chose open, kept her arms unfolded, lifted her heart. He was offering himself—whoever he was, it was her human duty to meet him like for like, in the moment. Her behavior should be such that whenever she looked back it was without regret.

“I don't expect,” he went on, “that you will absolve, forgive, or pardon me for my complicity; you may not wish to, but also it's simply not in your gift. Living with the terrible consequences of my actions is going to be a life sentence, in a kinder jail now that I've confessed, but the tariff remains full-term with no parole.”

Philomena pursed her lips and nodded. Jonathan shifted his weight in his seat, struggled for the right words.

“Philomena, you are being merciful, sympathetic, understanding—yes!” he raised his arms in a victory salute. “At least
now you understand me. That's quite something, no? To feel that someone understands you?”

“We mustn't be self-pitying,” she said, coming in lower, “not that I'm saying that you are. You are being absolutely honest about yourself and the situation. Rigorously so. When someone else has said that they don't expect this or that from me I've felt manipulated, known that they do want exactly those things. But not you.”

Jonathan dipped his head to indicate his agreement and thanks.

She went on: “There are thousands like us, millions, trying to pick their way through the aftermath. My friend, she's lost someone, a German, a civilian, who went back, and was bombed to death by us. She could hate the aviators who killed her lover, or hate all our airmen, but I don't think she does.” More thoughts sprang up, jostled to be rendered into speech. She began to speed up: “Everyone must find a way of living without forgetting, or even forgiving, but you're right about poison spreading; it mustn't be allowed to—yours or mine or anyone else's—and I don't think that yours or mine is very strong poison, and we don't know for certain what's going to happen tomorrow. They might not ask you to resign, you might be surprised—”

Jonathan solemnly shook his head. Philomena reined in her unrealistic optimism.

“No,” said Philomena, reminded that she was a Saddleworth girl who sewed for her living. “Well, then we're in trouble, tomorrow, but we won't always be. We have to hope—we just have to.”

She looked down, unable to trust her voice to go on if she kept looking at Jonathan. They both had their hands on the table. She glanced up. They caught each other's eye then looked away, then down at their hands, almost touching. The slightest movement from either of them, and they would be touching. Philomena's hands behaved themselves, but she wouldn't have minded if they hadn't.

Following dinner and formal goodnights, Perceval Dore went to his son's apartment a little after midnight and knocked on the door.

All through three courses, white wine, red wine, port, he'd avoided referring to the dropped letter addressed to Philomena. He'd been silent for much of the time, as had Anthony, but that was normal when they were together. What was unusual was that Perceval had been running the story of Anthony's life in his head, looking for clues.

He knew that his middle child—unlike his brothers—had never found his metier, but that wasn't an explanation in itself. Plenty of men at all levels in society plodded dutifully through life without becoming criminals. He'd thought about the effects of being a middle child. It was axiomatic that they felt overlooked, or they disappeared, or hid; but again, none of these could possibly explain what Perceval feared to be true about his surviving son. Yes, Anthony had always been the least clearly drawn of the boys. His mother had even gone so far as to describe him once as “a stranger.” But strangerliness was also an unsatisfactory explanation for what Perceval
had previously dismissed as impossible, become incredulous about, and was now bewildered by.

Next Perceval had dwelled on Anthony's failure to attract fondness. Edward and Albert, the brothers who bracketed him, were awarded nicknames from an early age, but Anthony had remained known only by his given name. A soubriquet that told of affection bestowed on him or the esteem he was held in would have reassured but there had always been something about Anthony that stubbornly resisted love.

During port Perceval had looked very closely at Anthony whenever his son's face was turned away, which was often, and had felt a deep anguish in himself. If his wife had been there he might have been able to begin to share all this with her, but as it was he was completely alone, agonizing over what to do. After the meal he'd needed to get away from the boy in order to be able to think about it all properly. To try and see clearly what must be done, given what seemed to be the case.

Anthony answered his door. His father brushed past him, into the room.

“I've turned a blind eye too often,” said Perceval. “About you failing to find a purpose, frittering your time away. So all that has got to stop. You are going to have to find some useful function in life and apply yourself wholeheartedly to it. But before all that, you have in your possession a letter that doesn't belong to you. If you're caught lying over that you're susceptible to be disbelieved about everything else, so it has to be disposed of. Now. Burn it. Now.”

Anthony couldn't help himself. He lied. “What letter?”

Perceval stared at him. Under his father's intense scrutiny Anthony lied again, a new lie.

“I've already burned it.”

Perceval continued to stare.

Anthony's eyes hurt with the effort he was having to make to stop them sliding to look at the chest of drawers that covered the point on the floor under which the letter had only just been hidden, in the box with his special things. He felt a disintegration of himself. His brain frantically twisted in its attempts to devise a way out.

“Get the letter, Anthony,” said Perceval.

Anthony lost control of his eyes for a moment. They slid to the spot. His father followed them and went there, to the set of drawers.

“Is it in here?”

Anthony began to shake uncontrollably.

“Is it in here?” repeated Perceval.

When Anthony still didn't reply, his father pulled the top drawer right out of the chest and flipped it over in mid-air so the contents violently spilled out. Papers and pencils and odds and ends flew to the corners of the room.

“Is it amongst these? Is it? Answer me,” Perceval demanded, “before I tear your rooms apart. I've all night and all tomorrow to achieve this. My case has been postponed thanks to you and Priest.”

Perceval took a strong grip on the second drawer and tugged. It slid open then stuck. He tugged harder, his anger
taking him over. The whole set of drawers shifted, caught on something. Perceval redoubled his efforts and with a shout, “YAAH!” yanked the chest of drawers with all his considerable might. The whole moved with a great
crack
! It shifted half a yard, leaving one of its feet behind, trapped by a slightly raised floorboard. Anthony gagged as if he was going to vomit. Perceval peered down at the raised floorboard, got down on his knees and grasped it.

“What's this?” he asked, more to himself than Anthony.

The board wasn't secured. Perceval looked at Anthony, his aghast offspring, and he decided that he had to know. He pulled at the floorboard until it was loose in his hands. Casting it aside he crouched and peered down into the exposed cavity. There was a tin box. He lifted it out and tried to open it. He stood up and placed it on the desk in front of Anthony.

“The key, please.”

Anthony nodded and rummaged in a pocket, held the key out in a trembling hand. Perceval took it, inserted it in the lock. With the lid open he could see oilcloth. He took it out and carefully unrolled it. He encountered a layer of tissue paper. When this was unfolded he found the photograph of his deceased wife, the letters between Anthony and his mother, the pressed flower, the French pornographic post cards, and lastly the letter to Philomena. Perceval took out a handkerchief, using it to prevent leaving any fingerprints on the envelope and letter, which he slid out to read.

“So then,” he said, eventually. “What a terrible mess.” He fell silent again, and the feeling was that the terrible mess could
refer to the present situation or the whole world. He replaced the crucial letter in its envelope. “Australia or Canada, you decide.”

For a few moments Anthony thought his father had taken leave of his senses. What on earth was this abrupt invitation to judge between colonies supposed to mean?

“Your choice: Canada or Australia. Both big enough to lose yourself in. You're going today. Canada or Australia.”

Anthony began to protest: “That item doesn't in itself prove that I—”

“Shut up, you coward,” snapped Perceval, stunning his son into silence. “You lose yourself in either of those vast places or I hand you over to the police. That's the best I can do. I'm not doing the right thing in giving you the chance to escape, but I'm prepared to try and live with my decision.”

“Nobody else knows!” pleaded Anthony.

“They shall do if you don't leave.”

There was a pause while Anthony caught on to the fact that his father was threatening that if he did not go into exile he would be given up. In desperation Anthony made a grab for the letter. He laid fingertips on it. Perceval snatched it away with one hand, while with the other he swatted Anthony hard to the head.

“You leave today,” panted Perceval Dore. “It's a chance. Take it.”

“I did it for you!” screamed Anthony, clutching his temple.

“You did what for me?” screamed back Perceval.

“I bet everything, I lost everything—I had to get it back!”

Anthony fell to his knees, begging, but all this served to do was further inflame his father, who bent down and pushed his distorted features close to Anthony's own.

“You had to?! Hmm?”

Anthony flinched as his father's spittle struck his face.

“I did one thing wrong!” he protested.

“
Which
is the one thing? You shot a German soldier
after
the Armistice and pretended it was he who'd shot your comrade? Was the German armed? Was he alert? Was he fighting? Did he think that the war was over? Mm? Or is the
one thing
the murder of the comrade, the shooting of a fellow warrior? Or is the one wrong thing your casting of a
third
comrade, the one who'd accused you, as a madman? That is three things, at least. You did one thing wrong? You can't even count!”

Perceval turned away and took himself to the furthest portion of the room where he paced, snarling to himself, scared that he might give in to his rage and exterminate his son.

“You wouldn't really give me up, would you? You wouldn't, would you?” whined Anthony.

“Stop that sound, stop that wheedling! Stand up!”

Anthony swiftly obeyed. Perceval walked around his son, looking at him from every angle, like a sergeant-major inspecting a particularly repugnant specimen of a soldier. When he got to Anthony's front he addressed him, gravely.

“Have you ever done anything like this before?”

“No!” squealed Anthony.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes!”

“How do I know that you're telling the truth?”

Perceval subjected Anthony to the longest, deepest scrutiny, using all his years of experience defending, prosecuting and presiding over countless instances of human depravity and mendacity. The judge stared deep into his son's eyes, searching through them, behind them.

Anthony felt that he was falling, shrinking and spinning; plummeting through nothingness, terrified it would never stop; the dark abyss was infinite. His father's voice brought him back to the room but the terrifying place he had just been continued inside him.

“I believe,” said Perceval, “as far as I am able to discern that you're telling the truth about that. However, you've committed an act abhorrent and unforgivable, Anthony; try and be a man about it. You've a choice: a new life far away or stay and face the music. Either way, I wish that I'd never spawned you, I wish that you had died while either of your brothers lived—if I could make some retrospective pact with the Devil to that effect, I would.”

Anthony rocked back on his heels and had to take a step to avoid falling.

“There. I've said it.” Perceval turned away and leaned on the desk, panting in distress.

Still Anthony had one last plea: “Mother wouldn't want you to—”

“Don't you dare bring your mother's name into this!”
exploded Perceval, turning on Anthony. “Don't you dare! I'm giving you a chance to get away because you're my son and I must be in some part to blame for you. Why did you steal this girl's letter?”

“She was trying to trick me!”

“Trick you into what?”

Anthony didn't want to say.

“She was trying to trick you into telling the truth, wasn't she?” Something snapped in Perceval. He grasped Anthony's head with both hands and pushed hard, squeezed ferociously, tried to compress his son's skull, force his amoral mind out through his eye sockets. He heard a terrifying noise, like the death-wail of a hedgehog being slain by a fox. That shrieking, pleading. It was Anthony screaming from the back of his throat. That hedgehog noise had never stopped a fox, but Perceval, even at the height of his turmoil could calculate the consequences if he killed his son. He'd have to go down to his study, take out his old revolver and end himself. He let his hands drop to his sides, stared down at his son writhing on the floor. How could it be that he was his? Get away from him! He must get away. He went to the door.