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Authors: Tim Jeal

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BOOK: For Love or Money
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D
AVID
went back to school two days after his fifteenth birthday on January 20th. Steven had already left for Oxford.

George was glad when the holidays were over. The last week had been particularly trying. Steven and Robert had waged an unceasing war on the rabbits, who in spite of myxomatosis were returning in ever-increasing numbers. George thought David distinctly cissy for his years and had persuaded him to come on one of these onslaughts. Quite often the rabbits were shot and only injured. This
happened
on this particular occasion. Steven had picked up a wounded animal by its back legs and had broken its head against the top of a fence-post with as little feeling as one might break an egg on the edge of a cup. The rabbit’s front legs went on moving first quickly and then more and more slowly as though trying to escape. Only after the fifth blow when its head was no more than a mass of bloody pulp did its legs finally stop. David watched apparently unmoved and then walked off in the direction of the house. George followed his dwindling figure as he moved away slowly up the drive that rose towards Trelawn with its
pseudo-gothic
battlements framed by trees. The rest of them said nothing, killed a few more rabbits and went back to lunch.

George remembered that Steven had enjoyed shooting rabbits when he was as young as eleven. Then with a
penknife
he would slit open the envelope of the stomach and, holding the rabbit up, watch the still-palpitating intestines fall out and lie quivering on the ground. His interest might have been purely scientific, George felt. But David had
always been revolted. An event which George remembered with especial distaste had been when David found a small bird a few summers back, caught in a patch of melted tar on the tennis court. He had tried to wash it off with paraffin but without success. Why the hell he hadn’t killed it then George couldn’t guess; the bird’s breathing had grown
difficult
as the tar slowly dried on its warm body. George had put the shotgun into David’s hand. At six inches there was very little left.

The day after the rabbit episode the cook elected to give them a meal that they rarely had in spite of their
opportunities
—rabbit pie. A dish which George secretly admitted was not one of his favourites. But David’s blunt refusal to eat it seemed to be little less than sentimental.

‘For heaven’s sake, boy, if everybody behaved like that we’d all be vegetarians. We’d be eaten out of the country by animals.’

‘I don’t like rabbit pie and I won’t eat it,’ had been the answer.

Ruth, who had also found the pie unpleasant, further aggravated George by mentioning the forced breeding of animals.

‘I suppose that goes for rabbits?’ said George sarcastically.

‘Anyway darling, if he doesn’t like eating meat why should he? I don’t see what’s so funny about being
vegetarian
. I once knew several …’

‘Well, what’d they say to him at school I’d like to know?’

Ruth really was far too soft with the boys, always had been. If she’d been a bit firmer with Steven earlier on, he wouldn’t be as impossible as he was, reflected George
bitterly
. And as for those food cranks … George remembered one called Rathbone, whom Ruth had known in London shortly after the war. Such a jolly fellow with his tiny
sparkling
eyes and boyish humour. Cold showers every morning, never had a cold in his life. His toothlessness he had sworn was nothing to do with his diet: a gum infection when young, or so he said. A fine sense of humour too when it really came to it. They’d had a corgi puppy that piddled in the brim of his hat when it fell off the hat stand in the hall.
He didn’t come so often then. Probably thought flowers grew in detergent. George smiled and said:

‘An uncle of mine once had a pig called Betty; fed it sugar and sweets every day. He doted on the animal. But in the end he killed her. Used to say, “I never knew how much I loved her till I tasted how good she was”.’

Nobody seemed amused. George went over to the
sideboard
and poured himself a drink in the disapproving silence that followed. Of course it wasn’t the boy’s fault he was so sensitive. After all the war blunted most of us, George reflected dully. Used to be pretty sensitive myself. Cried when our pet cat was run over. Dreadful really … you take something for granted and suddenly it isn’t there any longer. His father had buried it with its collar and label on. That was the worst bit, it was so useless somehow that collar. What use was an address now, any more than the bits of cat’s fish in the fridge. Still once you’ve seen more dead men than you’re ever likely to see dead cats, you don’t think like that any more.

One visit to Margate on Bank Holiday’s the next best thing. All those raw meat shoulders and loose white fleshy stomachs should be enough to make the most sentimental man doubt the sanctity of human life, let alone that of the animal creation. George sat down at the table again, wise in his detachment. Perhaps he’d tell David about the cat some day. He’d already told him about the men.

 *

That evening Ruth talked to George about David. He was so unlike Steven, much darker with a high forehead not unlike George’s, and eyes the same dark brown as Ruth’s.

‘I don’t think he’s happy at school. We used to know him so well and now he’s so quiet and withdrawn,’ she looked at a small photograph of him taken in London holding a toy steam-roller, and then back at George. ‘Perhaps he ought to have gone to a local school and come home at the week-ends. I thought he might have made a pianist but it wasn’t to be.’

She sighed deeply and looked at George sitting opposite in his usual chair. He was working on a small tapestry made up of intricate if uninspired floral patterns. He had learned about needlework while he was at the Yorkshire
nursing-home
. Ruth smiled at him; his concentration was so
endearing
, he looked like he used to in the old days, slightly
ridiculous
in his seriousness, but that was part of his charm.

‘You’ve got awfully big hands for those tiny stitches,’ she said softly, half to herself.

Just having George opposite was a kind of security. This evening she was particularly aware of his presence; his physical solidity, those large brown shoes, his woolly socks and broad rough flannel trousers.

‘I suppose he’ll have to go back to school, but really George I’m not happy. He doesn’t seem like other little boys now, does he?’

‘I wouldn’t say that, in a couple of years he’ll be out of all this. I read in some book recently that the early years of puberty are always the hardest.’

He was so reassuring, she looked at him tenderly.

‘George, darling, do put that stuff away, I feel awfully like bed.’

He looked up. She’d put on a new shade of lipstick and was wearing a dress he hadn’t seen for several years. They say things like that make all the difference. Perhaps Lifton hadn’t been a bad chooser really.

He got up, putting his work on the sofa. Arm in arm they went upstairs. ‘Of course he’ll be all right,’ he said again.

‘Sometimes, darling, I wonder why we ever quarrel,’ she said, opening the bedroom door.

 *

Two days later George was driving David between the high hedges towards Truro and his train.

David sat looking out of the window at the rain as it slanted across the glass, gathering speed as drop joined drop.

‘It always seems to rain going back to school‚’ said David,
breaking a long silence and pulling his macintosh around him more tightly.

‘Yes, it does, doesn’t it. Do you remember that awful day when Mummy and I came down to see you and that fool of a waiter gave us treacle tart instead of crème caramel? It was raining then,’ George ended weakly.

The rain drummed down, almost making an unbroken sound on the roof. The windscreen wipers flicked back and forth indifferently.

‘Mine works better than yours,’ David said gloomily as they drove into the outskirts of Truro. The clouds were
getting
lower.

 *

On the platfrom George said, ‘Do you want anything to read?’

‘No thank you.’

‘You’re sure.’

‘Yes.’

David appeared lost in thought. This is hopeless, thought George. The train hadn’t arrived. The station smelt of
disinfectant
and bad milk; further up the platform, exposed to the weather, a couple of baskets of homing pigeons were getting soaked. George thought it better not to mention them.

‘Nothing bothering you, is there?’ George said breezily in a voice that produced the inevitable rejection.

Funny really, he might be mine and I know nothing about him. George watched the train coming in; David didn’t lean out of the window in the train to wave good-bye, but found a seat and sat down.

‘Good luck,’ George yelled, but he couldn’t have heard, wedged in his steaming compartment, between a large cherry-faced woman in Salvation Army uniform and a bony young man with watery eyes.

 *

Driving back, George turned on the radio … the music
sounded familiar: Schumann, he couldn’t think which number … wasn’t it the one they’d heard the year she was pregnant just after the war? She had the record at home. Ruth hadn’t taken him to many concerts; he hadn’t been much of a music-lover, still wasn’t. He left the music on though.

Strange to think of Ruth with David inside her; he’d felt quite protective, almost like a father. They’d gone for walks in the park arm in arm and he’d known what people were thinking: that’s his baby in there … another married couple.

Could have been his too, but he never felt married. He wondered why. Rather like dressing up and pretending to be a parson when you’re not. Among several other parents on that platform ten minutes ago he hadn’t felt even the vestiges of parenthood; nor did he feel like Ruth’s husband. By putting salt on pepper you can’t make everything salt. He’d joined half-way and couldn’t get rid of the feeling that she’d got on to the same train five stations back. Given my circumstances nobody else would feel any different, he thought pressing his back against the driving-seat and cornering carefully. As in the parable, you can’t expect much from the seed on barren ground.

He tried humming to the radio but couldn’t get the tune.

It wasn’t a matter of easy come easy go, it was the barren ground; that was it. Plant a grape pip and don’t expect an apple-tree. Of course the arrangement hadn’t been
unsatisfactory
; money, no strings attached, no legal ones anyway, and a comfortable life too. But it hadn’t been all take either, he’d given too. Could’ve done something else, might be a company director by now, the best years had gone and they’d got them. If you make the game you make the rules and he thought he’d played more or less fair. There
was
the flat in London. But only once in a while … the odd
week-end.
He always told Ruth he’d been seeing his mother on these occasions. Just like a great big guilty schoolboy. After all he usually did see her as well. It was clearly ridiculous to feel guilty. Any man of his age stuck to an older woman would have done the same. Really it was better for Ruth
that he saw Sally every now and then. He felt better
afterwards
and was better to Ruth as a result. If anybody ought to complain it was Sally: she was his servicing station. Drive in for a complete wash, mental and physical. And then back home for more reliable testing and use. If Ruth paid for it, it was still for the best; she benefited indirectly.

The rain hadn’t stopped. George drove on with
methodical
care. A signpost told him he had twelve miles to go.

He hadn’t gone out to find Sally, he’d met her three years ago on the Cornish Riviera Express. He’d been on his way home and she’d been going to stay with an aunt near
Falmouth;
they’d had the compartment to themselves most of the way. They’d heard each other’s life stories, and she had been moved by the vision of a young army officer seduced by the lustre of an aristocratic affluent older woman. She saw chandeliers and sparkling wine in cut-glass goblets, dim rooms and full-length portraits on velvet walls. He looked at her opposite him: lively, fresh and elegant, untainted by easy luxury, and above all, young and firm, small breasts, small buttocks. The pathos of George’s tale had grown as he saw what might have been.

Sally was ten years his junior and had broken off her
engagement
, having found she didn’t like the man at the last moment. George asked for her address and promised that he would call when next in town. He called and that was that. Ruth seemed so much older now. Sally sympathised … how he must have suffered in the past. He was so well dressed and so well spoken and probably had money of his own. He told her about Ruth but not the money. Honesty was not always necessary. She was old enough to look after herself he felt. Somebody who backs out of an engagement with days to spare must have some initiative. That was partly what he’d taken to, but initiative or not, he couldn’t help feeling with pride that she still hoped he’d leave Ruth. Perhaps he would have done if things had been different, he thought with some bitterness. Money, the dumb god. Where did that come from? He tried to place it but couldn’t … probably Shakespeare. He had his fun every now and then but the dumb god saw that he didn’t have too much.

Once, years back, he had tried to leave, but at the crucial moment the car hadn’t worked. He’d made a triumphant exit, sweeping out of the house like an abdicating king, leaving Ruth and David crying. Then the damned car … he’d thought of walking to the nearest hotel to spend the night but it was four miles away and the nearest telephone outside Trelawn was not much closer, so there was no hope of a taxi. like most of George’s unthinking actions it was doomed to failure. His clothes, everything he had was in that house. One can’t take back the moves one’s already played.

No, things just happened and have to be accepted. He’d gone to Yorkshire, he’d met Ruth, he’d been poor,
everything
had been inevitable. George felt the mantle of
resignation
securely on his shoulders as he turned into the drive of Trelawn.

BOOK: For Love or Money
10.69Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
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