Coming Home (60 page)

‘Why was that?’

‘Panic. War nerves. All the little British families holidaying in Brittany and Belgium suddenly deciding to cut short their stay and scuttle for home.’

‘What did they think was going to happen?’

‘I don't know. I suppose the German Army suddenly bursting through the Maginot Line and invading France. Or something. Bad luck on the hoteliers. You could imagine the long faces of Monsieur and Madame de Pont of the Hôtel du Plage, watching their bread and butter drive away down the road and back to England.’

‘Are things
really
as bad as that, Edward?’

‘Pretty bad, I reckon. Poor old Pops is racked with apprehension.’

‘I know. I think that's why your mother ran away to London.’

‘She's never been much use at facing up to cruel facts. Brilliant at keeping them at bay but not much use at facing up to them. She telephoned last night, just to make sure we were all surviving without her, and to give us the London news. Athena's got a new boyfriend. He's called Rupert Rycroft and he's in the Royal Dragoon Guards.’

‘Goodness, how smart.’

‘Pops and I have got bets on how long it will last. A fiver each way. I'm going to get another beer. How about you?’

‘I'm all right. I've not finished this yet.’

‘Don't let anyone sneak my seat.’

‘I won't.’

He left her to fight his way once more back to the bar, and Judith was alone. Which didn't matter because there was so much, and so many people, to look at. A mixed bunch, she decided. Two or three old men, clearly locals, sat, firmly established, on the wooden benches which flanked the fireplace. They nursed tankards in work-worn hands, and talked amongst themselves with smouldering cigarette stubs glued to their lower lips. They looked, she decided, as though they had been sitting there since opening time, which they probably had.

And then there was a rather grand group of people, probably staying at one of the big hotels up on the hill, but making this foray Downalong, to visit the Sliding Tackle, and see how the natives lived. They had upper-class, hooting voices, and looked thoroughly out of place, but even as she observed them, appeared to decide that they had had enough, for they were finishing their drinks, laying down the empty glasses and preparing to depart.

Their going created a gap, not instantly filled, and Judith was left with a clear view across the room to the bench which stood at the far end. A man sat there alone, a half-filled tumbler on the table before him. He was watching her. Staring. She saw the unblinking eyes, the drooping, nicotine-stained moustache, the tweed cap pulled low on his brow. Beneath bristling brows his pale gaze was unblinking. She reached for her shandy and took a mouthful, and then quickly laid the glass down again because her hand had started to shake. She could feel her heart pumping in her breast, and the blood drain, like water through a sieve, from her cheeks.

Billy Fawcett.

She had neither seen him nor heard of him since the day of Aunt Louise's funeral. As the years had passed — and now being fourteen seemed a lifetime away — the trauma of her girlhood had gradually faded. But never totally disappeared. Lately, older and better informed, she had even tried to find some sympathy for his pathetic sexual aberrations, but it was almost impossible and helped not at all. On the contrary, the memory of him had almost destroyed her relationship with Edward, and he, of course, was the reason that she had never wanted to return to Penmarron.

During her first few visits to the Warrens, while still a schoolgirl, she had lived in terror of meeting Billy Fawcett by chance; in the street perhaps, or walking out of the bank or the barber's shop. But the dreaded scenario never took place and gradually, as the years went by, her fears abated and she took heart. Perhaps he had moved from Penmarron, left his bungalow and the golf club, and gone to live up-country. Perhaps, happy thought, he was dead.

But he wasn't dead. He was here. In the Sliding Tackle. Sitting at the other end of the room and staring at her, his eyes burning like two bright pebbles in his florid face. She looked for Edward, but Edward was jammed in at the bar, buying his beer, and she could scarcely scream for help.
Oh, Edward, come back,
she begged silently.
Come back quickly.

But Edward loitered, exchanging a few friendly remarks with the man who stood next to him. And now Billy Fawcett was pulling himself to his feet, picking up his tumbler and making his way across the flagged floor to where Judith sat petrified, mesmerised as a rabbit by a snake. She watched him come, and he looked the same, but a bit more decrepit, down-at-heel, and shabby. His cheeks were flushed and netted with purple veins.

‘Judith.’ He was there, steadying himself with his knotted old hand on the back of a chair.

She said nothing.

‘Mind if I join you? Take a seat?’ He pulled the chair from the table and cautiously lowered his bottom onto the seat. ‘Saw you,’ he told her. ‘Recognised you the moment you came through the door.’ His breath stank of old tobacco and whisky. ‘You've grown up.’

‘Yes.’

Edward was on his way. She looked up, her eyes a mute appeal for help, and Edward, in some confusion, visibly bucked at finding the broken-down old stranger sitting at their table. He said politely, ‘Hello there,’ but there was not much friendliness in his voice and his expression was wary.

‘My dear boy. I apologise…’ The word took a bit of saying, so Billy Fawcett tried again. ‘ — apologise for interrupting, but Judith and I are old friends. Had to have a word. Fawcett's the name. Billy Fawcett. Ex-Colonel, Indian Army.’ He eyed Edward. ‘I don't think we've had the pleasure —?’ His voice trailed away.

‘Edward Carey-Lewis,’ said Edward, but did not put out his hand.

‘Delighted to meet you.’ Fumbling around for something to occupy his hands, Billy Fawcett caught sight of his whisky, took a great slug and then slapped the glass back on the table. ‘And where are you from, Edward?’

‘Rosemullion. Nancherrow.’

‘Not familiar, dear boy. Don't get around much these days. What do you do for a living?’

‘I'm at Cambridge.’

‘Dreaming spires, eh? Blue remembered hills. Much have I travelled in the realms of gold.’ His eyes narrowed, as though hatching some plan. ‘I suppose, Edward, you wouldn't have such a thing as a cigarette on you? Seem to have run out.’

Silently, Edward reached for his packet of Players and offered it to Billy Fawcett. With some difficulty he extricated one, and then dug in a sagging pocket to produce a lethal-looking metal lighter. It took some concentration to turn the wheel and produce a flame, and then to apply the flame to the end of the cigarette — by now looking a bit bent — but he finally achieved this, took a long drag, coughed appallingly, slurped down another mouthful of whisky, and then settled his elbows on the table, looking as though he intended to stay forever.

He became confidential. ‘Judith used to live next door to me,’ he told Edward. ‘With her Aunt Louise. Penmarron. Great times we had. Wonderful woman, Louise. My best friend. My only friend, come to that. You know, Judith, if you hadn't turned up, I'd have probably married Louise. She had a lot of time for me before you turned up. Good friends. Missed her like hell when she killed herself in that car of hers. Missed her like hell. Never felt so alone. Abandoned.’

His voice shook. He raised a mottled hand and wiped away a dribbling tear. He had reached the maudlin stage of drunkenness, inviting sympathy and wallowing in his own self-pity. Judith stared into her shandy. She did not want to look at Billy Fawcett and was too appalled and ashamed to look at Edward.

Billy Fawcett rambled on. ‘Different for you though, eh, Judith? You didn't do too badly, did you? Scooped the lot. Knew which side your bread was buttered on. Didn't matter about me. Buggering everything up for me. Didn't even speak to me at Louise's funeral. Ignored me. And got the lot. Louise always said she'd look after me, but she didn't leave me a bloody thing. Not even one of Jack's bloody golf trophies.’ He brooded on this injustice for a bit, and then fired his broadside. ‘Conniving little bitch.’ A bit of spit flew through the air and landed on the table, too close to Judith's hand.

A long silence ensued, and then Edward shifted slightly in his chair. He spoke quietly. ‘You don't want to listen to any more of this shit, do you, Judith?’

She shook her head. ‘No.’

Edward rose unhurriedly to his feet, towering over the old drunk. ‘I think you'd better go,’ he told him politely.

Billy Fawcett's apoplectic face, wearing an expression of confused disbelief, stared up. ‘Go? Young whipper-snapper, I'll go when I'm ready, and I've not done yet.’

‘Yes, you are. You're finished. Finished with drinking and finished with insulting Judith…now, go.’

‘Fuck off,’ said Billy Fawcett.

Edward's response to this was to take hold of the collar of Billy Fawcett's sagging jacket and yank him to his feet. By the time he had done his protesting…‘don't you dare lay your hands on me…don't you dare…treating a feller like a common felon…I'll have the law on you…’ Edward had propelled him neatly away from the table, across the threshold, and out of the open door. There he dumped him on the cobbled pavement where Billy Fawcett, shocked and legless, collapsed into the gutter. There were a good many people around, and all of them witnessed his humiliation.

‘Don't you come back here,’ Edward told him. ‘Don't you ever show your bloody face in this place again.’

But, even flat on his back in the gutter, Billy Fawcett still retained a spark of fight. ‘You damned bastard,’ he yelled. ‘I never finished my drink.’ So Edward strode back into the bar, picked up the remains of the whisky, carried it out into the street, and flung its contents into Billy Fawcett's face.

‘It's finished now,’ he said, ‘so go home.’

Whereupon Billy Fawcett passed out.

Joe Warren, ambling homewards down Fish Street after an evening spent in the company of his mate, Rob Padlow, stepped out on the harbour road by the Sliding Tackle just in time to witness a riveting scene. A lot of people standing about, in various attitudes of shock and horror, an old geezer lying supine in the gutter, and a tall, fair young man in shirtsleeves dousing his head in whisky, before striding back into the pub again.

Joe had not intended calling in at the Sliding Tackle, but such dramatic doings called for investigation. The old geezer appeared to have passed out, so he stepped over his legs and followed his assailant into the pub, where he was further astonished to find him sitting at the table under the window, and in the company of Judith.

Judith looked white as a sheet. Joe said, ‘What was all that about?’ and she raised her head and saw him standing there, but all she could do was shake her head. Joe's eyes turned to her companion. ‘You're Loveday's brother?’

‘That's right. Edward.’

‘I'm Joe Warren.’ He pulled out the chair from which Billy Fawcett had been so forcibly removed and sat down. ‘What did you do that for?’ he asked Edward mildly.

‘He's an offensive old drunk, so I helped him out into the fresh air, and then he swore at me and said he wanted to finish his drink, so I helped him finish it. Simple as that.’

‘Well, he's out for the count now. Did he upset Judith?’ He frowned at her. ‘You're some pale. Are you all right?’

Judith took a deep breath and let it all out again. She was determined not to shake, nor cry, nor behave like an idiot in any sort of way.

‘Yes, I'm all right. Thank you, Joe.’

‘You know the old geezer?’

‘Yes. It's Billy Fawcett.’

‘Do
you?
’ Edward asked Joe.

‘Only by sight, because he spends his time in here two or three evenings a week. Usually pretty docile, though. Nobody's had call to throw him out before. Bother you, did he, Judith?’

‘Oh, Joe, it's all over.’

‘Well, you look like you're going to faint away.’ Joe got to his feet. ‘I'm going to get you a drink. Won't be a moment.’

And was gone before Judith could stop him. She turned to Edward. ‘I haven't finished this drink yet,’ she pointed out miserably.

‘I think Joe has something a little stronger in mind. Tell me, was that old toad really a friend of your aunt's?’

‘Yes.’

‘She must have been mad.’