Running to Paradise (2 page)

He
looked doubtful. ‘We provide our own furnishings,’ he said austerely, ‘and of course there’s always the risk of theft...’ In the end, however, he relented, albeit reluctantly, and took the bag I was holding out as a sort of limp offering.

‘
I’ll see what I can do,’ he said.

‘
Thank you again,’ I said and shook him by the hand. Not at all, Mr...er, er...at your service any time. Always remember, life must go on.’

The
door slammed behind me in the empty street. It had started to rain again.

2

4th April

St Hilda
’s Home for the Elderly, Belton

Hell — Friday, after coffee
and before horrible lunch

Dear Guy,

Can you go through my papers, darling, after I’m dead? I know it’s a bore, but I should like you to. You have such an orderly mind! If I ask any of the children, they won’t, you know what they are. There’s an awful lot, I’m afraid, but some of it’s quite funny. You never know, you might make something of it. Do you remember that old green cabin trunk? We had it in the back kitchen at Maple as a table for the cats to eat off? Well, it’s entirely full of my ‘past’. Letters, newspaper cuttings, old diaries and God knows what. I haven’t gone through it for years. You’ve kept (I hope) those stories of my childhood at Renton I wrote some years ago, and the piece about my meeting with H. A. Elliott for his centenary. My copies have completely disappeared, pinched by one of the girls no doubt. Apropos of the piece on H. A. Elliott: Dr Weil was quite fascinated. ‘My dear Mrs S,’ he said, ‘you’ll be telling me next that Wordsworth dandled you on his knee, or you’d walked in the garden with Tennyson.’ Damned cheek! Of course, none of the freaks here have ever heard of Elliott, but then the only public figures who evoke even the faintest interest in this benighted place are the Royal Family and, possibly, Hughie Green. Where was I?

I think Georgy put the trunk up in the attic when we moved; he said it was much too big to have in my bedroom, moaning away as usual about all my belongings.

I’ve left my jewellery and furniture to the bloody children. I had to really, darling, didn’t I? They were always so jealous of you — did you know? But I do want you to have my dear little red lacquer cabinet. It’s eighteenth century, and I know you always loved it. It’s been knocked off its stand a few times and I’ve always kept my medicines in it, but never mind, you’ll be able to mend it. You’re so good with your hands. Don’t let Georgy have anything. I don’t want my lovely things going to that Welsh tart.

I
’m sending this letter sealed, to my Solicitor, to be opened by my dear Warrior after my death. Something to look forward to, darling, after I’ve gone!

Your loving, as always,

Char

I replaced the letter carefully back in its envelope and wandered over to the window. A batch of scavenging gulls suddenly took flight across the river, disturbed by something I couldn’t see. It was early evening and a month since Char’s death. Summer was still around, but there were signs of autumn. The trees along the Embankment already held a touch of yellow in their depths: soon it would be real autumn, the Chelsea streets would smell of dank leaves and in the mornings the river would have disappeared behind a cottonwool blanket of mist. I shut my eyes and heard the distant roar of traffic and the cry of gulls, suddenly feeling very alone. It was still hard to believe Char wasn’t there any more.

The
funeral was an oddly jolly affair. All Char’s surviving children turned up. Ann and Sophia, the fruits of her first marriage to Algy Charterhouse — ‘my first litter’ as she always referred to them — looking rather distinguished, and in the case of Ann and her husband, Andrew McFee, rather aloof. There had been a third child of this marriage — Evelyn. I never met the latter: she and her husband, David Holloway, had gone to Australia in the early 1950s soon after they were married, where some years later she had died of a breast cancer too long untreated. Then there was Beth, my Beth, the child of Char’s second marriage to Dave Brent, pale and tense, with her new husband in tow. We kissed; it somehow seemed the right thing to do. ‘Poor Guy,’ she said, ‘you’ll miss her.’

The
church was full of flowers and elderly gentlemen, most of the latter in tears. George, very much the bereaved widower, handkerchief in hand, shambled about doing his duty. ‘Damned good value,’ he hissed at me in the hotel foyer afterwards, waving an arm in the direction of the funeral tea. ‘Twenty quid cheaper than any other caterers.’ He looked triumphant.

Ann
McFee smiled vaguely at me as if she wasn’t quite sure who I was — we hadn’t met, I don’t think, since Beth’s and my wedding — and said it must be years, mustn’t it, but living in the wilds of Scotland she seldom came south, and one did tend to lose touch. I believe Andrew actually owns a castle; I’m not certain. That may have been one of Char’s exaggerations. I mumbled something suitable and she drifted away.

Her
husband, however, took me to one side. ‘I gather my ma-in-law made you her “literary” executor.’ He smiled and suddenly looked almost human. ‘You’re not going to write her up, are you? Some of her life would make pretty lurid reading.’

‘
I think,’ I said carefully, ‘that she wanted me to, but at the moment I have no plans in that direction. There’s an awful lot of stuff to be gone through.’

‘
You’d let us all know before you, er, did anything?’

‘
Of course,’ I said.

Sophia
I found distinctly intriguing. She’d kept her looks; indeed, in her late forties seemed much more attractive than I remembered her. She’d never married, perhaps that was the reason. She came over and stood beside me in the churchyard. The burial over, everyone was standing about in the long grass, loth, it seemed, to leave Char’s body in its final resting place. Old ladies teetered on spindly legs over the rough, uneven ground and clutched their funeral hats, grandchildren and great-grandchildren chased one another in and out of the worn headstones and the undertaker’s man looked at his watch.

‘
Hullo Guy,’ she said. ‘I think we’d better lead the way. At this rate we’ll never reach the cold collation. I understand there’s a room booked at the local pub.’ She put her arm through mine and we set off at a brisk pace down the rutted path leading to the lychgate. Char had insisted on being buried in the graveyard of a forgotten parish church somewhere in the wilds of Dorset. She claimed it was the home of medieval Osborns. When pressed for supporting evidence, she became rather cross and said it was a lovely place anyway and that’s where she wished to be buried. Surely to God Georgy could manage to siphon a few measly pence away from the Welsh woman for his unfortunate wife’s earthly remains to be buried where she wished them to be buried; he was rolling now, wasn’t he, now his dreary old parents were dead.

It
was indeed a lovely place. Sophia and I stood together on the crumbling, grey stone steps that led down into the steep, narrow lane off which the graveyard lay and looked out towards the Downs. Shadows were playing on the lower slopes and you could see the marks in the grass where once the Celtic fields had been. The hedge bordering the lane was scattered in sloes and soft, pink, blackberry flowers; somewhere a blackbird was calling. Suddenly there was a whirr of wings, a flash of black and white, and a magpie flew over our heads.

‘
Good morning, My Lord,’ we said simultaneously, then looked at one another and laughed. ‘No prizes for where you learned that one,’ Sophia said. ‘For someone so small, so frequently silly and always so maddening, Mum managed to spread her influence over a hell of a wide area. When did we last meet, Guy?’

‘
Wasn’t it about ten years ago — that horrendous weekend at Maple when the pipes burst? It thawed in the night, or something, and the water came pouring down through the sitting-room ceiling.’

‘
Crumbs, not since then! D’you remember, you and I were laughing so much we were completely useless. There was poor old George in his dressing gown battling with buckets, Mum yelling instructions, and no one could find the stopcock.’

‘
Yes,’ I said, ‘who couldn’t?’ We both laughed again and it felt surprisingly good. By now the chattering mourners, led by a phalanx of Osborn cousins, had almost reached us.

‘
I’d better pull myself together and retrieve Aunty Phyllis,’ Sophia said. ‘I’m chauffeur for today, and although she’s a pretty sprightly ninety-year-old, she does tend to tire quickly.’ She put her hand on my arm. ‘Look, Guy, I’m back in London now: five years in the States was enough. Come to dinner one evening. I’ve taken over the lease of a friend’s flat in Hampstead. I’ll give you a ring when I’ve settled in — that is if you would like me to.’ It was then I noticed her eyes, surprised I never had before. They were large, green, like a cat’s, with little flecks of brown in them, the brows above, thick and slanting; they held no devils in them, but a hint of something, I wasn’t quite sure what.

‘
I’d like to very much,’ I said.

I
had not heard from her since and wondered whether I would. I looked helplessly across my sitting room at the battered green trunk as it reposed up-ended by the door. It had arrived that day, transported by Pickfords. I hadn’t fancied the idea of going through it with George peering over my shoulder. I decided to drag it into the spare room and open it there. The thing was covered in labels dating back to God knows when: one showed the Rock Hotel, Gibraltar against a background of improbably green trees, and there was a splendid view of Raffles Hotel, Singapore. The keys were rusty and battered, like most of Char’s belongings, but I got the wretched thing open in the end, after a struggle, then rather wished I hadn’t. Had she ever thrown anything away? I picked up a large, faded pink drawing book, on which was inscribed in a bold, childish hand: ‘Charlotte Mary Osborn, her book. Cursed be he who touches it. 20th June 1909. Renton House, Bedfordshire, England, The World, The Universe.’ The drawings inside were striking, but I don’t think Char would ever have made it as an artist. I threw the book back in the trunk and pulled out a wedding group: obviously Char’s first marriage in the twenties. She looked unbelievably young and rather aggressive, peering through a luxuriant wreath of orange blossom, a diminutive figure in her waistless, satin wedding dress, flanked by a beaming Algy, looking like the juvenile lead from a production of
No
No
Nanette
and a posse of bridesmaids in dresses of surpassing hideosity. That too I tossed back into the trunk: I felt oppressed by the sheer weight of Char’s past. Wouldn’t it be easier to throw the stuff away? It would take me years to work through this lot. ‘You are a historian, darling,’ she said. ‘People like that sort of thing nowadays.’

‘
What sort of thing? Anyway, it’s not my period,’ I’d said, feeling put upon.

‘
Well, how the servants used to live,’ she’d said vaguely, ‘and things like that. And I’ve met quite a few of the famous in my time—’

‘
Who?’ I’d said sarcastically. ‘Just tell me who.’ We used to have these silly arguments from time to time, one somehow did with Char. ‘Who else, apart from H. A. Elliott, and you were only five.’

‘
Aneurin Bevan,’ she said defiantly, ‘and I once trod on Evelyn Waugh’s toe.’

The
sounds of Battersea drifted through the open window; a jet roared overhead, and from somewhere came the whine of a police siren. I poured myself a drink and put on some Mozart, then wandered back to the spare room and sat down on the bed.

I
’d have to have a go, wouldn’t I? I owed her that at least. Perhaps, after all, there was something, somewhere, buried in all that mass of paper she’d wanted me to know; something she couldn’t explain, something important. Yes, I’d have a go, and I’d do it in the way she’d wanted, as a totally objective exercise in historical research. ‘Changing Social Patterns in the First Three Quarters of the Twentieth Century’ . How about that? It might even merit an article in
History
Today
. Char would love that. There I was again thinking of her in the present. But you couldn’t really make a woman you’d loved a footnote to history, could you, it just wasn’t possible.

Perhaps I should have mentioned, I’m not really a historian, I simply dabble in it as a hobby. Actually, I’m in the business of insurance. I’ve done quite well in it too: people call me Mr Horton, and I have my own secretary. I’ve worked hard, I suppose, and I’ve got the right sort of face. It’s not a bad job, actually, a lot more interesting than most people think.

‘
Isn’t insurance a bit of a bore, darling? I mean just paying money to people who’ve lost things,’ Char said.

‘
It’s much more than that,’ I said. ‘Have you ever heard of invisible assets?’

‘
No,’ she said, ‘and I don’t wish to. They sound rather rude to me.’

In
the end, having made my decision to go through the contents of the green trunk, I didn’t actually get down to it until the leaves on the trees along Chelsea Embankment had fallen and already there were ominous signs the Christmas bonanza was about to erupt. Work had been hectic and anyway, I somehow wasn’t ready. Then one Sunday evening in early December, I started. I decided initially I’d sort everything with a date on it chronologically into bundles, each individual bundle representing a year in Char’s life: a mammoth task in itself, but by the time it was completed about a fortnight later, I was well and truly hooked. Nothing could have stopped me now. I even found myself leaving the office at the same time as everyone else. I usually stayed on until six thirty p.m., when the traffic was better and I could work in peace. Now, however, all I wanted to do was to get home, make myself a quick snack, pour myself a drink and dive head first once again into that other world, Char’s world, a world so alien to mine it might have been another planet.