Mr. Chartwell (7 page)

9.30 p.m
.

“E
veryone’s downstairs, Mr. Pug,” Clementine said gently, trying to coax him into conversation. She stood in the doorway, silhouetted by the warm light of the landing.

The study was a cavern. Puncturing the gloom, a couple of standard lamps illuminated Churchill at his table, sitting with his back to her. The massive mahogany table with claw-and-ball feet had been inherited from his father, Lord Randolph Churchill, the third surviving son of the seventh duke of Marlborough. Heaped across it was a wreckage of photographs, papers, and books, all ignored. Churchill sat at this mess, a block of red velvet. He had changed into one of his siren suits, a comfortable man-sized romper with a zip running down the front. Now it was mostly unzipped, and a bright vein of white shirt showed through. His hands had abandoned the smouldering cigar
stub in favour of pressing firmly on his temples, their pressure causing ridges of skin to buckle.

He was preoccupied by something Clementine couldn’t hear, coming from an area near the fireplace. It was a truly disgusting sound, the sound of rocks being chewed so rampantly they would have slashed apart a normal mouth. At Clementine’s appearance the source of the noise drew closer to his ears, the chewing accelerating.

“Won’t you come down and see everybody?” said Clementine. “They’d love to see you. Mary and Christopher are here.”

Mary, their youngest daughter, and her husband were regular visitors and good company, but Churchill could hardly hear her now. The rocks ground together with such speed it seemed sparks would flare from them. They were so near it was obscene. Clementine began speaking again. The combination of noises was intolerable.

“I’ll be down in a minute, Mrs. Pussycat,” said Churchill, without the usual affection.

“We’ve saved you some supper. It’s chicken,” Clementine said, hopeful.

“It’s pointless,” Black Pat said instantly, his voice distorted by a mouthful of rocks. “We’ve got things to discuss, you know that.” The thud of a wet rock being tongued out was followed quickly by another. One rock hit the rug, a present from the shah of Persia, and made a soft noise. The second rock hit the wooden floorboards with a bang.

“I’ll be down in a minute,” Churchill repeated with more force. And after fifty-five years of marriage, Clementine knew when to leave him to the thorns of his solitude.

A hole of hushed voices replaced the lively chatter from the
floor below as she explained. There was a gap of sad disappointment before footsteps trailed off to another room.

“I know exactly what you’re thinking,” Black Pat said, louder now they were alone, his mouth baggy and elastic without a jawful of rocks. “I always do. We understand each other too well.”

With a grim look over the rims of his tortoiseshell glasses, Churchill began writing. Getting no reaction, Black Pat continued, “You can’t ignore me. We’ve got too much to do.” A cruel smirk pulled up his muzzle at Churchill’s refusal to engage. “Fine, take your time. I can wait.”

Black Pat moved with heavy, gunslinger steps to the large bookcase behind Churchill, one of many embedded in the walls of the room, and admired a selection of black-and-white photographs displayed there among the oxblood-and-gilt books. One photograph attracted him particularly: an image of Rota, the lion given to Churchill as a cub. The lion had been transferred to London Zoo, where it had matured a luxuriant dark mane. Black Pat studied the mane, feeling jealousy itch. Returning the picture, he went over to the aquarium balanced on a seventeenth-century oak chest. Inside were two black mollies.

One vanished behind the weeds. The other came to inspect, its swollen head guided by trailing gossamer fins. Black Pat pressed his tongue against the glass, very keen to eat it, the tongue flattening into a grey aubergine slice. The molly darted away and hid. Black Pat’s hot instinct to eat it withered, his tongue leaving a large smear. He slouched back to the fireplace and lay down, making a show of readjusting his giant forelegs several times, the big head propped against them.

Churchill watched this from the corner of an eye. He took
off his glasses, holding them in a fist. “I had expected you to attend the meeting in Westminster this afternoon.”

“I thought about it.”

“Yes.” Churchill massaged his forehead wearily. “Must we do this tonight? I’m exhausted.”

“I don’t negotiate.” Black Pat held his gaze level, cutting into Churchill’s tolerance.

On the desk was a cuboid glass paperweight, a miniature cloth poodle set on the top. Churchill put his hand around it, testing the weight. A bronze cast of his daughter-in-law’s hand was on the windowsill. He remembered the weight of it, and thought about reaching over. But using this ornament as a missile would probably damage the delicate bronze fingers, maybe smashing them off, and Churchill, fond of the ornament, abandoned the idea. Instead he spoke solemnly, so drained he shut his eyes to draw strength. The dog’s ears twitched from the base at his voice.

“You don’t negotiate, yes, but perhaps on this occasion you could extend a measure of compassion. I understand that we share a wicked union, and I know the goblin bell which summons you comes from a tomb in my heart. And I will honour my principles, labouring against the shadows you herald. I don’t blench from this burden, but”—here he let out a deep breath, laying the glasses down gently—“it’s so demanding; it leaves me so very tired. It would be some small comfort to me if I could ask how long I must endure this visit. Please, when do you leave?”

Black Pat chose not to answer.

With less conviction, Churchill asked, “Do you leave?”

“Pffft”
came the reply. “You know I can’t tell you that. And now we’ve exchanged pleasantries, let’s begin.”

12.00 a.m
.

E
sther lay on her bed, watching nothing. She commanded herself to drop into a deep restful sleep and didn’t. Hours had passed since she’d made the sensible decision to go to sleep fully clothed. Now the decision seemed wildly misjudged, staying on the sheets impossible.

Out of bed in a bounce. She reached for the tattered dressing gown, an unattractive thing, yellow-and-brown paisley flannel and absurdly oversized. But it had been Michael’s, so was classified as a treasure. Esther put the dressing gown over her clothes, knotting the belt. Then she shambled around her room looking for a reason to leave, a scratching hand roaming from a shoulder to an ear. It occurred to Esther that food was a good excuse. Eating was as good an excuse as anything. She made her
way downstairs to the kitchen, holding the banister through a billowing flannel sleeve.

The bread bin contained the hard heel of a loaf. Esther inspected the heel for mould and then decorated it with a gourmet slop of salad cream. Mud was dried in paw smears on the floor, and some shed fur. Wiping salad-creamed fingers off on the dressing gown, she took a bite. Seasoning might help. The lid fell from the pepper pot when shaken over the mangled crust, pepper coming down in a handful. The emptied pot escaped to the floor, spinning in a curve towards the front room. The bread heel was left to overbalance on the draining board, dropping into the sink.

Not discouraged, Esther remembered an orange and also remembered sherry. Hacked open, the orange was abandoned after a couple of old dry segments. Knowing sherry should be served in a small vessel, and without one, Esther studied an eggcup. She made an undiscerning horseshoe with her mouth. Sipping from her eggcup, she looked around at the kitchen and found nothing else to occupy her there.

But the boxroom was deeply occupying.

Michael’s study was enchanting with its new occupation as a rented room, and it called to her morbid curiosity in an alluring song. Black Pat would be late, he had said as much. And he had agreed to stay downstairs that night. So it wasn’t technically his room yet. A verdict was made. Esther refilled her fortifying eggcup.

The door opened to reveal the familiar room. Finding the brown Bakelite switch brought a tent of yellow light from the wicker shade. She looked about her from a place near the skirting board. The single bed was as it had been, neatly made, pillows still fat after their flat-handed beating. Esther reassured
herself. It was exactly the same. But as she stared at the bed, the reality of her decision to let this animal stay in the house threw off its covers of eccentric romance and was revealed as grotesque and naïve. Black Pat under the sheets, his elephantine body on the mattress. The dimensions weren’t compatible. Measuring the little bed with her eyes, Esther calculated that the dog would overhang from all edges, a black bonfire of wiry fur and massive limbs, the elbows bent out with hanging paws. His tail, that thick stump, would have to lie in the trajectory of the door.

There on the desk was Black Pat’s box. The curtains weren’t drawn. Her fuzzy reflection moved across the black window. The box was sealed with tape. She peeled it off, prising up the lid.

Black Pat’s possessions were fantastically odd: a clump of brown fur, one side crusted with blood; a rotting log; a hoof from a large deer; a thigh bone, possibly from the same deer, possibly not, its hip sockets licked soap-smooth; a tennis ball foxing with use; a couple of rocks. The wire bin near Michael’s desk had been vandalised, the edges crimped with giant fangs.

Needing to organise her thoughts, Esther pulled out the chair and sat. The cushion was a hard lump, her dressing gown in folded bunches around her. Her mind filled with pictures: It was after midnight, this room the last in the house to be decorated and still only halfway painted, Michael in shorts and in disgrace for horsing around, failing to paint more on his wall than a stickman. It was their game and she had laughed at him.

Esther ran her hands over the desktop, feeling the grain. It spoke in Braille of Michael. Different memories; Michael in this room at this desk, long hours in this room with the door shut.

She took a chewed pencil from a ceramic pot to brood on
the marks of Michael’s teeth. The pencil inspection led to a chance inspection of the carpet along one side of the desk, the area between the desk and the window.

Esther leant into one arm of the chair to puzzle at it. The carpet in the rest of the room was still good, but the weft in this large patch was worn and pilled. She stretched out a foot to examine, scrubbing the crushed fibres with her sole. It wasn’t so interesting. She sat up. The pale shape of the absent photograph and its naked nail came into focus.

Staring there, she knew where the photograph was and wanted to see it.

She opened the top drawer on the right side of the desk. The drawer made a soundless passage, the photograph sliding into the light on a nest of paper. She cleaned the glass with a flannelled elbow although it was already clean.

It was a picture of their wedding day.

Esther’s black-and-white mouth was open in an upturned laugh at falling confetti. Michael, an arm around her waist, was bending to get into the car, head turned back to grin at someone catcalling from the crowd. The unfastened car door showed a slice of the rear seat, a toppled bouquet of flowers resting on a bottle of champagne lying sidelong in the crease. Behind them the church was visible in pieces, also the gravestones in the cemetery and beds of roses, all mirrored at a different angle in the car window. Flagstones and steps in front of the church were specked with confetti, blown in drifts against the seams of the stone. Surrounding Esther and Michael, the wedding guests were captured in fragments, an arm thrown out here, the top of a balding head. A baby held against a decapitated woman identified Beth, Little Oliver only a few weeks old and in a white cap. The hazy man standing next to her, his cheering face
mostly disguised by hands in a funnel, was therefore Big Oliver. A gust of sunny spring wind tossed forwards the bobbed hair of an aunt. Leather gloves caught raised midclap concealed a female chin and cheeks. And a polished brogue from an anonymous leg was lit with a streak from the chalky, chilly sky.

Esther wedged a knee against the desk edge, rocking the chair on its rear legs. The creaks made a rhythm. The rhythm paused briefly, Esther reaching for her eggcup and finishing the sherry in a throbbing swallow. Standing, she hooked the photograph to its nail, the pale square reclaimed. Admiring it there, Esther wondered why Michael had taken it down and found it troubling. And she wondered why she hadn’t asked him, and found this unfathomable.

2.10 a.m
.

C
hurchill’s legs were weighed down intolerably, Black Pat draped over his knees and thighs. The hot, bristly torso was contorted in a way that wasn’t comfortable for either of them, the animal stench almost physical at such close range.

Black Pat would not be roused. He wasn’t asleep; he was in a state of sullen hypnosis, silently waiting. Churchill couldn’t shake him off, the dog heavier than he could bodily move. He was trapped underneath, imprisoned in a maroon armchair. They were in the library. Small and high, the room was lined with bookcases which stretched to the beamed ceiling, lit with a lamp on the desk. Deep angular shadows made caves of the corners of the room. Cooling in the stone fireplace, the blackened remains of a fire were testament to how long they had been there. A brown ceramic walrus guarded the embers from the hearth.

Churchill cut the dog across the back of the neck with the blade of his hand. “Get off me, you pythonid.” Black Pat didn’t move. Churchill struck again, harder. The monstrous canine head twisted round to look at him.

“It’s been a hell of a day,” said Churchill.

“You are aware that this day,” Black Pat said, his voice slow and antagonizing, “is one of several streams bleeding into one of several rivers which bleed into me.”

“Rivers of toxic sediment,” snapped Churchill.

“Perhaps, but the sediment is yours.”

This was ignored by Churchill. He pulled the zip of his siren suit down a few centimetres, as much as the obstruction of the dog would allow. He zipped it up again sharply, creating a small buzzing sound.