Snow Angels (38 page)

He went to bed and his mind gave him the good times. It was
laughable. There hadn’t been any good times. His mind would not be stopped, it dredged itself. Sick sentiment gave him the light in his father’s eyes the day that the
Northumbria
was launched. He remembered how proud his father had been of him the day that John Marlowe had signed the contract for the
Northumbria.
He thought of drinking brandy with his father and how William had given up port because Gil didn’t like it, the hand on his shoulder and the way William had bragged to his friends about ‘my son, the genius’. He wished again and again it could be that night when his father had said casually to the butler that from now on there would be only brandy after dinner because that was what Gil preferred. And he wished that it could have been different. He wished more than anything that his father had even just once told him that he cared. He never had and he never would. William had gone to his grave without saying it and he wished that he had never been born. William had not loved him. He could have plucked the moon and the stars down from the sky; he could have prevented the sun from rising and the night from falling and William would not have loved him for it. The magic that he had made in ships was admirable and William had admired it and called upon other people to admire it, but it was not love. And yet he had given Gil so much, all the things which his own father had not given him: prosperity, security, education, high position and the chance to succeed in a business which his father had built so very high. Gil had destroyed that business and his father’s house and his father.

Gil did not go to the funeral. Abby could not help being relieved. She had had the feeling that if he went, there would be trouble of some kind and more trouble was beyond what he could bear. Besides, after all this time it would be an empty gesture and he could afford none of those. He had been unpredictable. She had thought he would go to some whore and stay there maybe for weeks, or that he would get drunk and go on being drunk, which was what Robert would have done, but he didn’t. He kept on going to work each day, he came back at teatime and he was silent. It was the silence which irked Abby. Gil had been silent for most of his life and quiet for the rest of it.

The funeral was very small. It seemed sad that a man who had helped to shape Tyneside’s future should be ignored now because he had failed. Failure was not allowed in this world of business and being poor was not to be thought of; indeed, people thought it was catching. They stayed away, all the people who had money and influence, they did not come to see Charlotte through her ordeal and, although for years Abby had thought Charlotte silly and trivial, she felt sorry for her that day. Money had meant everything to Charlotte because until she had met William she had so little of it. Now she had little of it again. Abby resolved to ask Charlotte how badly off she really was, or whether Edward would look after her. He was much in
evidence that day, putting his arm around her, supporting her in the almost empty church. No more than a dozen people had come to see William laid to rest. Abby was ashamed of the people of Newcastle that they could treat anybody in such a way.

Charlotte cried throughout the service. Abby sang as loudly as she could because Gil was not there and because her father was not there and because William was not there and she felt angry because Charlotte had been let down by other people.

Afterwards they went back to Charlotte’s horrid little house, where somebody had provided tea and cake. Abby couldn’t swallow a crumb. She thought of Gil at work. She had kept waiting for him to drop to pieces. Nothing had happened, or maybe it was just that people dropped to pieces each in his own way and Gil had done so without anybody noticing. You couldn’t watch somebody’s heart break. Abby scorned that as silly and she knew that it was not what she meant, it was just that people were silently desperate. That was what Gil was like and she didn’t think there was anything to be done about it. He had destroyed William, had wanted to destroy him, had wanted to take some measure of revenge, but William had died and there was no revenge as complete as someone’s death. He had seen his father as young, as able to fight him, as able to come back from his corner like the prizefighter he had always been. He had not known, or had not chosen to acknowledge, when his father was beaten. To Gil he was the same man he had been when Gil was a little boy and defenceless. He was mighty and powerful; he was not in a wooden coffin in the earth, finished and done for.

She came back to a silent house. Hannah had taken the children out for the day. The last thing Abby had wanted was for Matthew to demand to be taken to the funeral. Funerals were not the place for children, at least this one was not for him; but after he was told that his grandfather had died, Matthew reacted as Gil would have done and said nothing. He did not cry or ask questions and when she had suggested that Hannah should take them out for the day, he seemed eager to go. Abby didn’t blame
him. It was what she wanted to do, to pretend that none of it had happened, that they did not have the future to face.

Hannah and the children duly came home and they had something to eat and Abby put them to bed early and read them a story. Georgina fell asleep in the middle of the story, worn out from her day by the sea – Hannah had taken them to Tynemouth and Georgina had spent a considerable amount of time excitedly relating her day to Abby. William’s death did not touch her at all; Abby was glad of that. Matthew must not have mentioned William that day and Georgina did not know him. It had been a good day out to her. She had seen the gulls and been on the beach and been bought sweets. It was all she needed to make her happy. Abby wished that adults could be like that, needing so little to produce happiness. Matthew needed more. She sat down on the bed and cuddled him. He drew back slightly. Abby thought he would probably not forgive her for smacking him and she didn’t blame him.

‘Are you all right?’

‘What will happen to Grandmother?’

Abby would have been interested to know.

‘I expect she will go and live with your Uncle Edward.’

‘Couldn’t she come and live with us? I suppose Daddy wouldn’t let her.’

Matthew’s dislike for Gil over the past weeks was making things worse.

‘He would if she wanted to. She is his mother.’

‘I don’t know much about mothers and you certainly aren’t like one. You hit people who are smaller than you.’

‘I didn’t know what else to do. You were so bad.’

‘Was I? I’m like my father then, aren’t I?’ And Matthew drew away, turned over and pulled up the bedcovers.

Abby went wearily downstairs, the truth ringing in her ears. She asked Hannah for some wine. At least that was one thing that had improved since she came here. There was none of that thin vinegary stuff that Gil thought was wine. It was thick and
red and went down wonderfully. She had two glasses before Gil came back for dinner, and felt a lot better.

They ate. At least, he ate. Abby couldn’t manage a single mouthful. He didn’t ask her about the funeral; he didn’t drink any wine. He retreated to the office. Abby sat there, drinking wine until her hands shook. She didn’t hear the knocker. The first inclination she had of anybody was when Hannah came through into the sitting-room, saying, ‘Mr Edward Collingwood’s here.’

Abby stared, sobered immediately, said, ‘Bring him in here,’ and went across the hall into the office.

Gil didn’t look up, he was working.

‘Edward’s here,’ Abby said. He looked up then, stared at her, through her. ‘I’ve had Hannah put him into the sitting-room. Do you want me there?’

‘No, it’s all right,’ he said.

He went out. Abby stood leaning against the desk in the office, shaking.

*

Gil was used to what his brother looked like, had spent so many hours watching him covertly from across the billiard hall. That place had been a sanctuary at one time and, more than that, it was the place where his brother had shown him friendship. Gil knew very well that the best thing brothers could be to one another was friends. Those first days at the billiard hall he had loved Edward like never before, had been a new person in that he had thought his brother cared for him. In his best hours he could imagine them as old men, sitting around the fire talking about their lives, comparing the good times and the bad and speaking of people they had known, and having their grandchildren around them. He thought that they would grow more like one another as they became older. He had heard of brothers doing that, of them starting the same sentence in the same way, pausing at the same time, laughing together. It would seem a
nauseating similarity to the young, but he had for so long wanted something from his family that would show their regard, that he had loved Edward too much. Expectations of that kind were never fulfilled, yet he had believed it so. He knew now that he had been Edward’s alibi for the kind of love which was not acceptable. Edward could not go home and tell his parents that he loved another man. What kind of society, what frightened people would deny a love like that? And the struggle against it had been costly.

His stupid heart was hopeful, was ready to begin again, to draw near. He reminded himself that there was no place to go here, nowhere near his brother was there a space for him.

‘I thought you might have come to the funeral,’ Edward said.

‘Don’t you think that would have been a little hypocritical?’

‘Hypocrisy has its place at these affairs.’ He paused for a moment and then said, ‘I wanted to see you this once before I go. I’m leaving. Strange how it took my father’s death to liberate me. Before, somehow, I couldn’t go. Of course there was money. I’ve been keeping them for a long time.’

Gil’s insides suddenly had a pair of iron grips around them, the pain was so bad that he could hardly speak.

‘Where are you going?’

‘France.’ Edward smiled faintly. ‘We always did intend to. Toby has found us a house not far from Bordeaux. A few acres, a big garden.’

Gil could not believe this.

‘Toby?’

‘Are you like everyone else and deceived? How could you be with what you know?’

‘But he has children, sons, and a wife.’

‘It’s no good,’ Edward said. ‘No matter how hard you try, it doesn’t work.’

‘He’ll lose his family, his parents and … everybody.’

‘That’s what passion does, isn’t it? We have tried so hard and now we can’t try any longer.’

Gil couldn’t think of anything to say.

‘Wine, decent bread, a few flowers and Tobe’s happy. The rest was just from wanting to please other people and there’s never any good in that. I won’t be back. I just wanted to see Matthew one last time.’

You could be jealous of a child, Gil discovered, even if that child was your son and you loved him. Somewhere inside he was shouting, ‘Me, me!’ but no words came out. Words were weapons that he didn’t know how to use. He was afraid of them, they could undo you in seconds.

‘I haven’t forgiven you.’ Edward said this with a smile and Gil was only glad that he had no heart left to break, there were so many pieces by now that the damage was limited. Sometimes he thought comfortably that middle age would find him smug because there would be nothing left.

‘I didn’t expect you to,’ he said.

‘I know that you’ll look after Matthew. Can I see him?’

Gil took him upstairs to where the child was sleeping, but a strange feeling began to gnaw at his insides. It was a familiar, sick feeling as when something was about to go wrong. When it happened you felt as though you should have known, as though you should have looked around you, located it before it got that far. Edward spent a little time upstairs, seeing Matthew at his best. Then they came back down again and stood in the sitting-room. Edward looked at him and the gladness that Gil had felt when Edward had arrived evaporated.

‘I did love Helen,’ Edward said. ‘I know you think I didn’t, that I used her like some kind of shield because of Toby, but I didn’t. We were just friends then, at least I liked to think so, wanted to. I think he cared for me differently than I cared for him. There are many different kinds of love. I did love her. I didn’t really marry her because our parents wanted it, I craved her. And she was pleased enough with me until I brought her to Bamburgh House and she saw you.’

Gil looked into the darkness beyond the windows and
remembered how Helen had looked when he had first seen her.

‘After she saw you, my love affair was over,’ Edward said.

‘No.’

‘It was an instant thing, wasn’t it? I couldn’t have been deceived about what you felt for one another. You loved her from the moment you set eyes on her.’

‘Yes, but it wasn’t—’ Gil said and stopped.

‘Wasn’t what?’

‘I can’t explain. It wasn’t the first time we’d met, or it seemed not to be.’

‘Where had you seen her before?’

‘I don’t know.’ He couldn’t tell Edward about the house in Spain, or how he thought of their past that way.

‘That’s ridiculous, Gil.’

He sounded so normal, so natural, as though they had not been estranged for years and Gil’s mind stored up the remark in case his brother should not be civil to him again this side of the grave.

‘Are we talking about other lives here?’ Edward said sceptically.

‘No, of course not.’

‘Then what?’

‘I don’t know. It ruined my life too!’

Edward pondered for a moment or two until Gil regretted the outburst.

‘On our wedding night she wouldn’t have me and all the nights that followed I wasn’t you. I longed to be you.’

‘She said you didn’t want her, that you wanted to be away from her.’

‘I had no choice. I shouldn’t have gone through with the marriage, but I thought it was one of those passing fancies that women have and the settlements were all sorted out by then.’

‘She loved you!’

‘But she went to bed with you. Yes? My wife was a virgin when you had her, was she not?’

‘God help me. I was second best.’

‘You were never second in anything,’ Edward said flatly. ‘You don’t believe in being second, you’ve proved that again and again. Don’t you see yourself as you are? You’re totally without principles. You will do whatever is required to reach what you choose. Your mind is with your – your reckless ambition and your taste for revenge. Even Abby. Look at her. You could have married her.’