Remedy is None (24 page)

‘Hullo, Charlie,’ his mother said quietly.

His hand dropped the jacket he was holding on to a chair and it slid unnoticed to the floor, assuming an attitude of anguish.

‘Hullo, Charlie,’ the man said nicely.

‘We’ve just been waiting for you coming in, Charlie,’ his mother went on. ‘We wanted to see you and get a chance to talk to you –’

‘Look,’ Charlie heard his own voice saying urgently. ‘You’d better go. Now, on ye go. Just go away. Please. Please go away.’

He heard his voice acting as intermediary between them and the feeling that was mounting inside him, trying to forewarn them, to keep them away from it. He was aware of a twin consciousness in himself, a strange duality in which a dark part of him, who seemed to welcome the presence of these people here and sought to come at them, existed in conflict with his customary self, that part of his nature which recognized the dangerous provocation of their presence and was concerned to evade the danger. He felt himself locked between these two forces, the latter of which held the upper hand for the moment, strengthened as it was by habit, but how long it could keep its hold he did not know.

‘Charlie, Charlie,’ his mother said. ‘Please don’t be like that. Please. I know how you must feel. But at least give us a chance to talk.’

‘Talk!’ Listening to her induced in him a series of minor irritations, against her strangeness, her complacence, her politeness of speech. They affected him like an acne and he wanted to scratch them, to counteract their annoyance, so that he spoke with deliberate broadness, interpolating swearwords.

‘Whit the hell dae we huv tae talk aboot? Whit the hell did
ye come here for, anyway? You’ve nae bloody right tae be in this room.’

‘All right, Charlie, all right. I’ll tell you why we came. We came to see you and Elizabeth. Oh, I know what you’re going to say. I should have thought of that a long time ago. Perhaps you’re right. But you know the way things were. What happened between your father and me’s in the past. And it’s better to leave it there. You think I was the villain. All right, maybe I was. But it wasn’t all as black and white as you seem to think. There were reasons for what I did. Reasons you can’t imagine. But I didn’t come here to talk about that. It’s over and done with. Long ago. Charlie, Peter and I want to help you. We’ve talked it over. Peter’s very kind about it and he understands how I feel. He wants to help as well. We could do an awful lot for you. I mean we could help you with the university. You could finish your studies. And we would see that you didn’t have any money worries. And then it’s not good for Elizabeth being herself in the house like this. I mean I don’t see why we should all go on living separate lives like this, as if we’d never heard of each other. You won’t know it, but I tried to send money and things for you before, only your father wouldn’t hear of it. I’m not blaming him. But it was hard for me not knowing how you were getting on, although I always tried to find out as much as I could about you. But after that – what happened – I could never get seeing you. But I don’t see why we can’t all try to understand each other a bit better now. Probably even your father would have wanted it that way. We just want to help you, Charlie. That’s all.’

She had started talking very quickly to prevent Charlie from interrupting her before she had a chance to explain things properly to him, and then when she had been given a hearing and Charlie surprisingly made no attempt to cut her short, she had continued in a desperate effort to break through his impassivity, casting around her for the phrase that would evoke the response she was hoping for. But when she had talked herself to silence, Charlie still stood silent too.
The unreality of the situation was too much for him. Too many strangenesses surrounded him, overgrew this familiar room like foliage, so that he could not see where he was nor what was happening. Here was Elizabeth sitting taking tea with his mother, in this room where she had not set foot for so many years. Here was this man who before this had only existed in his mind as a sort of expletive asterisk, now suddenly created in person for him, daring to appear in complacent flesh in this house. Here was his mother talking to him and explaining why they should all simply carry on together and forget the past. The whole situation was so incredible that he could not answer his mother directly, could not participate in it until he had slowed it all down to his pace, had pruned it to fit his comprehension. He ignored his mother and looked round the room.

‘This is very nice,’ he said, like giving a commentary, supplying his laggard understanding with the necessary intelligence. ‘Awfu’ nice. A tea-party. Just a nice wee family group. Daughter and boy friend. Mother and . . . husband. Ye’ve just been sittin’ here havin’ a cup of tea and a talk. Very sociable. An’ ye’ve been waitin’ for the son tae come in tae tell ’im the good news. We’re all tae become one big happy family again.’

He paused, as if waiting for the full realization of it to catch up with him.

‘Well then, Elizabeth,’ he went on quietly. ‘You seem tae be easily won over, don’t ye, hen? Whit did they promise
you
? Nice frocks and drives in their big car?’ Elizabeth was near to tears, and Harry was looking down at his hands in embarrassment. Elizabeth’s reaction to her mother’s coming here had developed from a simple incompetence to deal with the situation. The tea and the talk had merely been improvisations on an awkward circumstance, delaying tactics until things should resolve themselves into some established form or other. She always tried to act according to the dictates of a straightforward social ethos. But no clause in these ethics covered this eventuality, the arrival of a divorced mother
with her second husband. ‘Very nice. That’s more than yer feyther could ever give ye, isn’t it? All he ever did for ye was keep ye alive when yer mither ran away an’ left ye. All he ever did was work an’ scrimp an’ save till they dug ’im under, just tae see that we didny miss onything. But that’s easy tae forget, isn’t it? Ye can forget aboot that when Mother comes back with her car and a brand new man. Ye’ve really got tae be nice tae her. So ye sit them doon an’ give them their tea. Ah hope ye attended tae them with proper care.’

Inevitably, Mr Whitmore cut Charlie short. If Charlie had been allowed to talk on to himself, it might have given the anger in him a safety-valve. But Mr Whitmore couldn’t listen any longer to his ludicrous monologue.

‘All right. Right.’ He almost shouted, on the point of rising. ‘I didn’t come here to listen to your stupid insolence. Now, listen to me –’

His anger touched off Charlie’s own like igniting gas.

‘Naw. You listen, stud bull. You listen to me, fancy man. An’ you, “Mother”. An’ you, Elizabeth. Dae ye no’ see whit they want, Elizabeth? Dae ye no’ see? Oh, they wid like it right enough. They wid like tae help us, all right. That wid make everything fine. Because we wid be condoning whit they did. There wid be naebody left tae say whit they had done, or whit they are. They wid be makin’ up for it. But ye canny make up for it. Ye canny hide whit ye did tae ma feyther. Ye destroyed a man that wis worth baith o’ ye put thegither. Ye destroyed him.’

‘Charlie!’ His mother was crying. ‘How can ye talk like that? How can ye?’

‘Because Ah see you. Whit ye are. Ah ken why ye come here. An’ it’s no’ wi’ the divine spirit of giving. You’re here tae take. That’s why ye’re here. You want tae get back whit ye lost when ye left us.’

‘I don’t see anything here that Jane would miss,’ Mr Whitmore said angrily. ‘Not a thing.’

‘Naw, you widny. You don’t see anythin’ unless it’s got a price on it. Ah don’t mean the place. Ah don’t mean us. Ah’m
quite sure your good woman managed tae overcome her maternal instincts without too big a struggle. But even she must’ve felt since just whit she did. Have ye no’? You’ve had a long time tae think noo. An’ ye don’t have tae be a deep thinker tae understand you, tae see whit ye did or arrive at why ye did it. You just milked a man until he had nothin’ and then ye left him. With nothin’! Ye waited until he had used himself up and then you turned round and told him it was worth nothin’. An’ ye went tae this! Whit is he? Look at ’im. My God, how could ye dae it? Ah hope ye think it’s worth it. Ah hope the fancy clothes an’ the bungalow an’ the car make up for it. For don’t kid yerself. Ye as good as killed a man tae get them.’

‘Charlie, how can you talk like this? It wasn’t like that at all. And I don’t believe what you’re saying. I don’t believe it.’

‘You’d better no’! For if you ever turn round by mistake an’ catch yerself when ye’re not lookin’, if you ever really see whit ye are . . . you’ll bloody well vomit. You’d better go back among yer cars an’ yer bank balance. An’ never look back. Never even think o’ whit ye left ahint ye in this hoose. Don’t think o’ it. For that’s the only way you could live wi’ yerself. An’ never come back here. Never come back expectin’ tae get told it’s all right. A few bloody pennies for the poor. Did ye think that wis all it took? Ah hell. Ye’re known fur whit ye are here. It’s written all over this hoose. An’ whit you are Ah don’t even want tae put ma tongue on. It’s too dirty! Jist take yer boy friend an’ go away. The two of ye jist go away somewhere else an’ play at bein’ human beings there. Just go away. Go away.’

The scene had disintegrated completely. The centrifugal force of Charlie’s anger had thrown the others to the edge of what was happening and held them pinned there helplessly. He raged in the room, a fanatic hurricane, leaving them bereft of their social composure, isolated in their own emotions. Elizabeth was crying quietly to herself and Harry was attempting to console her from his position of non-involvement in the whole thing. Charlie’s mother was weeping
terribly, shaking her head in disbelief, and at the same time holding out her hand to Mr Whitmore to restrain him, coiled as he was with fury.

‘No, Peter, no.’ She shouted as if he was a long way away from her. ‘Please don’t do anything. Please don’t.’

In the centre stood Charlie. He leant on the sideboard, his left hand covering his eyes. Conflicting emotions harangued for a hearing in his head. He was aware that this was his mother he had spoken to in this way. He was aware of how pleasant the scene had seemed when he entered. He was aware of Elizabeth crying. He hoped that it was finished, that somehow enough had happened to appease the anger in him. He wanted them to leave before he lost control of himself completely.

Mr Whitmore stood up, staring at Charlie, gathering his bile. As he made towards him, Charlie’s mother moved to intervene. She attempted to compose herself so that she would lessen her husband’s motive for anger.

‘Peter,’ she said. ‘Let’s just leave. Please come on out now. Please.’

But she was too late. Mr Whitmore was already standing over Charlie. And the realization of what was going to happen suddenly flashed on her like lightning and she could only wait helplessly for the physical confirmation that would follow as inevitably as thunder.

‘No,’ Mr Whitmore said. ‘We’ll leave when I’ve told this upstart one or two home-truths. You scum!’

Charlie gestured with his hand, not looking round.

‘You’d better go away,’ he said.

‘You filthy, rotten scum!’

‘For God’s sake now,’ Charlie said. ‘You’d better go away.’

‘You know what your trouble is?’ Mr Whitmore was sneering. ‘You’re the same as your father was. I’ve heard enough about him to know. You just can’t bear to see somebody successful and making a go of things, can you? You just can’t face up to reality. All this talk about your father. What
happened to your father was his own fault. He failed just because he was a failure. That was all.’ Having found his range, Mr Whitmore regained his composure. ‘He didn’t deserve to have your mother. He wasn’t good enough. Do you understand? He just wasn’t good enough.’

The face seemed to enlarge before Charlie’s eyes, to bloat until it filled the room, like the huge head of some malign idol. It was not like a human face at all, capable of change. It was fixed impacable as stone in that dual expression of rejection and complacency, complacency in itself, rejection of everything but itself. No matter how much suffering it was shown, it couldn’t be moved. It was the face that everyone showed to the world. It was the mask that everyone wore, the frozen gesture behind which each one hid from the truth, the deceit that became grafted on the living flesh until it was the only identity they had. There was no hope for any of them, Charlie saw, for people do not learn, cannot be taught what they have done, become inured to themselves. Failure only serves to redefine the limits of success, so that what is becomes all that might have been, and standards are corrupted by the partial realization of themselves. This mask could never change its expression, could not be moved with words. It could only be broken.

One moment Mr Whitmore was mouthing bitterly at Charlie and the next Charlie had struck him, and that one blow seemed to fuse him to the action so that he couldn’t pull himself off. The restraint that had been on him snapped. Mr Whitmore fell, toppling a chair, and Charlie dropped on his knees astride him. still striking, Mrs Whitmore screamed. Harry dived at Charlie in an effort to stop him, gripping his arm. But he was thrown off violently as if by an electric current. Charlie’s arm seemed to function independently. It rose and fell tirelessly and relentlessly, seemed galvanized to the act of striking, moved by more than muscle. Through Mrs Whitmore’s screams and the cries of Elizabeth and Harry, it beat on, pumping blood from Mr Whitmore’s face, decreasing gradually in momentum until at last it was still. Mrs
Whitmore was saying over and over again, ‘That’s enough, that’s enough, that’s enough.’

‘Yes,’ Charlie said dazedly. ‘That’s enough now. That’s enough.’

And suddenly it was as if a wind had dropped in the room. The dark force that had possessed this place a moment ago, that had taken an ordinary scene and forged it into something terrible, that had swept these people into its fierce centre, surrendered them without warning, gave up the room again to quietness, and left its victims stranded derelict in their pathetic humanity. Elizabeth sat huddled in her chair, hiding her eyes. Harry lay transfixed where he had fallen, one leg buckled under him. Charlie’s mother knelt on the floor, her face upraised, made into a ludicrous mask by tears. Charlie was slumped almost protectively across the dead body of Mr Whitmore. Mr Whitmore’s face was wet with Charlie’s tears.