Swan River (14 page)

‘…and I often eat out with my old man…and he takes me to his club, late drinking and gambling.'

The only place in London where I had ever eaten out was the Kenco Coffee House in the King's Road. My mother and I had sometimes had lunch there with my grandmother and my aunt. I always had a brunchburger – a hamburger with a fried egg on top – while the three women had something unpleasant-looking and -sounding called
oeufs florentine
.

Pat and I left the tree, moved stealthily between some buildings and headed out across the huge expanse of grass that, at that time of the year, was divided into rugby pitches. We reached the western edge where there was a thin line of trees and a barbed wire fence separating the playing fields from farmland. With our coats buttoned against the cold, we walked side by side in the shelter of the trees until we reached a small sports pavilion; there we sat down, gazed out at the clouds running across the moon and shared another cigarette, cupping the glowing tip in our palms. The lights in the school buildings were at least half a mile away. We regularly made this seemingly senseless trek, probably because it was the closest we could get to freedom.

* * * * *

The judge in chambers announced that I was to spend half of my school holidays with each of my parents, but my father continued to insist that I should live with him – because my mother was mad and Uncle Godfrey was degenerate. At the end of term my mother was afraid that my father might ignore the court, meet the school train at Paddington and try to take me away somewhere. To pre-empt this, she collected me in the new Morris Minor Traveller that Uncle Godfrey had bought for her to drive him around in.

As we drove towards London, we debated whether to stay at Uncle Godfrey's that night or find a hotel; my mother was concerned that, if my father
did
go to Paddington, he might turn up at the flat and create a scene; there was Uncle Godfrey to consider as well as ourselves. I was keen to go to the flat to see my new home, and in the end my mother convinced herself that her fears were a little far-fetched. It was a small risk and we would take it.

We arrived after dark, in the late afternoon. Uncle Godfrey was out. It was an elegant old building, with marble steps to a front door flanked by pillars, and the flat was in fact a three-floor maisonette – though Uncle Godfrey didn't like that word.

We had the top floor to ourselves, two bedrooms and a bathroom. My room had been newly decorated in colours chosen by my mother, the walls light grey and some new wood furniture a darker grey. There were some bookshelves with no books on them – most of my possessions were in Somerset – but there was a small new record player and some familiar singles in a new wire rack; my mother had brought ten or twelve of my favourites in her suitcase from Taunton. The carpet and curtains were pastel blue; a new bedside lamp had a blue shade; and there was a print of Venice by Raoul Dufy with several blues in it. The room looked startlingly modern and co-ordinated – unlike anything I had ever known. My mother looked relieved when I showed that I liked it.

I put on ‘Jailhouse Rock' and began to unpack my school trunk. My mother was two floors below making tea. As the record stopped I heard the doorbell. I thought nothing of it and was putting on another record when my mother came in. She put her finger to her lips and switched the light off.

‘It could be Dad… I'm not expecting anybody.' She was whispering.

The bell rang again, a long blast followed by a short one.

‘Well, if it is him, he won't get through the door from the street. Do we
have
to turn the lights out?'

‘Someone from another flat might let him in on the buzzer. Then he'll be just outside the door downstairs.'

I remembered that the door to the maisonette contained panes of frosted glass with wire mesh embedded in them. The bell rang again and whoever was ringing it left their finger on the button for several seconds.

‘It
is
him. Anyone else would have gone away by now.' My mother took a deep breath as the ringing started again. ‘God, I hope he doesn't get through that outside door.'

‘Even if he does, he can't get through the inside one… can he?'

She looked at me, her eyes wide and her mouth hanging open. ‘Stay here. I'm going to double-lock the door and put the chain on. Don't make any noise.'

I went to the top of the stairs and watched as she disappeared soundlessly into the darkness. The bell cut into the silence again and stopped abruptly. I heard a click and a faint chink of metal. My mother reappeared. ‘Double-locked and chained.' We stood together in the gloom as the bell started once more. ‘If only we'd gone to a hotel. I'm such a fool.'

‘It isn't definitely him.'

‘It must be…who else would – '

‘He'll have to give up soon.'

A faint glow appeared from the landing below and moments later we could hear voices. ‘Someone's let him in.' My mother started to creep down the stairs. I followed.

As we reached the first floor landing, I heard my father's voice clearly. ‘This is Godfrey Miller's flat?… Thank you.'

A female voice answered, and then a different bell, louder, rang very close to us.

‘My wife and her uncle are in there. They've kidnapped my son. They're dangerous. I want him back.' His voice was raised.

Again, the female voice said something I couldn't hear.

The bell rang again. Then he knocked loudly with his fist. ‘Mary, Godfrey, David. I know you're there.' He was shouting angrily now. ‘I want to see David.'

The female voice became audible. ‘I don't think there is anyone in. There is no point in shouting like that.'

‘Oh yes there is! They've kidnapped my son. Left me standing on Paddington Station. No sign of him. Then a teacher tells me he was collected by his mother in a car.' The bell rang again and the letter box rattled. ‘They're in there. My wife who's deserted me after thirty years and her uncle who's seduced her away – seduced her with money, the bloody old rascal – '

‘Really! You shouldn't speak like that… You're causing a disturbance.'

‘Well go away and let me cause it by myself, you old trout!' The door rattled and the letterbox opened. ‘Mary! Godfrey! David! I know you're there. Come out. I'm not going to hurt you. I just want to see David and talk to him.' I stepped back, almost involuntarily. He was just a few feet away on the floor below. His voice was slow, clear and loud. ‘I'm not leaving until you come out. I'll stay all bloody night if I have to.'

My mother moved towards the doorway of Uncle Godfrey's bedroom – a faint light was coming from the window. She looked at her watch and put her mouth to my ear. ‘Stay here. I'm going to phone Aunt Susan.'

‘What can she do?' She was my mother's younger sister, a small, brusque woman who since her divorce years before had lived with my grandmother a few streets away.

‘I don't know – get the police or something.' She went into Uncle Godfrey's bedroom and silently closed the door.

My father went on shouting through the letterbox – and then there was another voice. ‘I do think you should stop that. There's no one – '

‘And who the hell are you?'

It was a cultured male voice. ‘I live just here and you are disturbing me.'

‘Well, I'm sorry about that, but my son has been kidnapped.'

‘Then you should call the police.'

My mother returned. ‘Susan's calling the police. Let's hope they come quickly.' She gripped my forearm. ‘Let's sit down.'

We sat on Uncle Godfrey's bed and heard my father tell the man outside that he would be quieter, but that he was going to stay where he was. ‘Even if they are not in there, they have to come back sometime.'

There was a luminous clock beside the bed. The minutes went slowly by. My mother sat beside me with her hand on my arm. I could see things in the room in dim outline: a chest of drawers, a mirror, paintings on the walls and an object that I found out later was a trouser press. Sporadically my father rang the bell and from time to time it sounded as if he was looking through the letterbox. The man with the posh voice seemed to have gone away. After fifteen minutes I stood up and tiptoed towards the window. My mother pulled me back. ‘Don't touch the curtains. He could be out in the street, watching… The police will be here soon.' We went on sitting in the dark; three or four times she apologised for getting us into such a crazy mess and each time I whispered that it wasn't her fault.

A policeman arrived just after half past seven – and, surprisingly, Aunt Susan arrived with him.

My father started shouting again. ‘Ah! At least one member of the family will speak to me. I suppose you know that Mary and Godfrey have kidnapped David. They have no right. He's my son and I want to see him.'

Aunt Susan pretended that she had been telephoned by one of Uncle Godfrey's neighbours. She spoke calmly. ‘Clifton, you really must leave. Mary and David are not here – and, if they were, they wouldn't want to see you in this mood.'

My father appealed to the policeman, who listened politely to his tale of kidnapping, seduction and incest and suggested he come to the station to make an official complaint. The policeman politely asked Aunt Susan to wait outside. Gradually, talking to my father almost like a friend, he calmed him down. And after a few minutes they left.

My mother hugged me; suddenly I was trembling. ‘It's all right. It's all over. It won't happen again. You were marvellous.' We waited a minute or two, then went down to the kitchen, taking the chain off the door on the way. We turned the light on and blinked at each other. She quickly poured some whisky into a glass, added water and handed it to me. ‘Sip a little of that.'

I sipped and swallowed and shuddered with the heat of the spirit in my throat. She took the glass, drank the rest and shook her head. There was a sound at the door, the light in the hall went on, and Uncle Godfrey walked in wearing a grey overcoat and an Anthony Eden hat. ‘I gather there's been a spot of bother in the Balkans.' He beamed and shook his head. ‘All over now, Susan tells me.' He seemed even more jovial than usual – alerted by Aunt Susan, he had spent the last hour in the pub around the corner. ‘Give the boy a drink, Mary. It sounds as if he's earned it.'

12

Free Will and the Rabbit

The siege of 81 Cadogan Gardens – as Uncle Godfrey would refer to it with a smile – was perhaps necessary in the sense that, if it hadn't happened, something else enabling a display of emotions – perhaps yet more alarming – would have happened instead. Later I came to think of it as a funerary ritual marking the end of a relationship. My father was chief mourner; my mother and I, secondary, less upset, silent ones; the old trout and the man with the posh voice were the congregation, present only to listen and make appropriate responses; Aunt Susan, who had short hair shaved at the back, sang solo treble in the choir; and at the end of the service the unknown policeman uttered the last rites. Uncle Godfrey may only have provided the premises and provisions for the ill-attended wake, but for a little while he seemed to be the benign godhead confirming that everything in the world was still all right.

The siege occurred on 15 December; on 20 December I was on a train heading for Taunton, looking forward to spending the days before Christmas with my father. After telephone conversations with my mother's lawyer and one with me, during which he was at his most warm and jocular, he proposed that we all accept the ruling of the judge in chambers: I was to spend half my holidays with him and half with my mother.

Pat was in Dorset until after Christmas, so I spent the days in London reading, playing records, shopping with my mother and visiting old ladies – of whom, within walking distance, there were five related to me, whose ages ranged from seventy-five to one hundred and four.

In the evenings we had drinks with Uncle Godfrey and helped him to do
The Times
crossword – he did it every day and found it hard to go to bed if he hadn't finished it. I didn't understand the clues, but I liked his calm way of doing things; he would read out a clue, push his glasses up to his forehead, lean his head against the back of his chair, close his eyes and throw out suggestions to me and my mother while sipping whisky and blowing smoke at the ceiling.

Dinner was timed to fit in with Uncle Godfrey's favourite television programmes –
Highway Patrol
,
Wagon Train
,
Rawhide
,
Bonanza
and
Seventy Seven Sunset Strip
– and was cooked earlier in the day by his daily woman, whom he called ‘the Jorkin'. He told me about her the first evening, not long after the siege. ‘The Jorkin, Mrs Jorkins, has been in the family a long, long time. All her life, in fact. I remember when she was born – not long before the war.' He looked at me over his glasses. ‘The first war, that is… Her mother, Dearnley, was my mother's lady's maid and her father, Plumridge, was the groom – then he was my brother Roland's batman all through the war.' He rubbed his eyebrows. ‘Marvellous couple. Still alive. Live in Hastings. I get a Christmas card from them every year.'

Later my mother told me that Uncle Godfrey regularly sent money, like a pension, to Mrs Jorkins' parents – and that he took a lot of interest in her many children.

The night before I left for Taunton we had to stay upstairs because Uncle Godfrey had a friend coming round. I asked who the friend was, and was amazed when my mother told me in a whisper that he had a girlfriend. I asked how old she was.

‘Young, somewhere in her twenties, I would think. I've only met her once, very briefly.'

‘
How
old is Uncle Godfrey?' I thought I knew the answer, but I had to check.

‘Eighty-two.' She smiled. ‘I think she might be what they call a gold-digger, after Uncle Godfrey's money, but never say I said that. It would upset him terribly.'

Later, standing motionless in the dark on the stairs, I glimpsed blonde hair, a red coat and a stocking with a seam at the back.

* * * * *

I had a compartment to myself and sat by the window with a picnic provided by Mrs Jorkins – smoked-salmon sandwiches, crisps and a fat slice of her home-made chocolate cake. As the train crossed the Thames at Maidenhead and shot on through the Berkshire countryside, I thought about my friends, not far away in Marlow. It would soon be a year since I had seen them, and Deborah was the only one who had written. At school, Pat Chandler, Pete Connolly and Dave Hunt were good new friends – I had known them for more than eighteen months – but Richard and Adam, Dennis and Deborah were still somehow my real friends. How would it be, if we met now? Would they have grown up and somehow be different?

I was unsure even about Deborah. I shut my eyes and imagined her face. She was sitting on the bed in her white room. The vision of walking with her by the Thames came to me again; she was beside me to my left and the swan was across the river to my right. I could smell the grass and the mud, and hear children shouting and the plop of a fisherman's float. I longed to be there – by the river, at the lock, in the woods, in the town where I had grown up.

I had owed Deborah a letter for a few months now; I decided that I would write to her from my father's new home.

* * * * *

It was dark when the train reached Taunton. A cold drizzle blew into my face as I walked along the platform. I could see my father standing under a dim, yellow light by the exit; he was wearing an off-white, belted raincoat which I hadn't seen before. I smiled at him as I queued to hand in my ticket. He grinned back at me, gave me two thumbs up and raised his hat.

I held his shoulder and he took my bag as we kissed. ‘You're on time. Well done! I've left dinner in the oven, so we'd better be quick.' I could see his breath in the night air; his lips were cold and his shoulder damp. Perhaps he had been standing there a long time. The A35 was parked on a slope outside and hadn't changed: I felt oddly reassured by the indentations in the cracked plastic of the passenger seat, the twisted red strap that pulled the door shut, the small stones and the ash on the floor and the smell of stale tobacco smoke.

‘It's twenty minutes from here. I hope you'll like it, but it looks best in daylight.' He pushed his hat back and let off the hand-brake.

‘When did you move in?' I knew the answer, but couldn't think of anything else to say.

He told me it had been two weeks ago; the place still needed some sorting out, but he liked it because there was plenty of space and beautiful surroundings. He had got the furniture out of store and said that he had done his best with my room; he had hung up the big map of the British Isles and my posters of Elvis and the Beatles. But it was my room; I should move things around, do whatever I liked. He wanted me to see his new flat as my home.

I still liked Elvis, but I wasn't sure that I wanted the poster of him any more; it had been on my wall in the old house for so long that I had stopped noticing it. Jean Shrimpton and Leslie Caron were my pin-ups now; I had pictures of them on a pinboard at Uncle Godfrey's.

My father drove quickly and neither of us said much. We turned through a white-painted five-bar gate on to a tarmac drive that wound among rhododendrons before becoming gravel as it crossed a broad stretch of mown grass. An old-fashioned street-light shone down on some cars and cast its glow on a wide pink-painted building with gables and a stone portico with steps and pillars.

‘Looks pretty posh!'

He turned and smiled. ‘Well, it is. The front part is divided in two. Nice families. One of them's got a son about your age. Our flat's at the back.' He drove along the side of the house and into a cobbled courtyard lit by an old lamp fixed high on a wall, and parked beside two other cars. The walls here were old red brick. ‘There are four flats. Ours is on the ground floor, just there.' He leaned across me and pointed.

He unlocked a white-painted, tongue-and-groove door which stuck a little as he opened it. There was a smell of something cooking. He opened another door, and we were in a long room with tall windows.

A fire glowed and a yellowish light came from a standard lamp that I recognised. The walls were hung with familiar pictures and the furniture and rugs came from our old house, but there were long red curtains that I hadn't seen before. The old sofa and my father's big, upholstered armchair were in front of the fire, and the television, which he had acquired when he worked as a TV repairman, was on the small table with castors that it had always been on. He explained that, when the house had belonged to the lord of the manor and been home to just one family and their servants, which wasn't very long ago, this room had been the kitchen. My room had been what they called the still room, his had been the laundry, and our kitchen had been their scullery.

He took me to my room and stood by the door while I walked around. It had a low sloping ceiling and was larger than any room in our old house, but not overwhelming. ‘I don't know if you still like those curtains. Perhaps they're just for children. We could soon get something else.'

They were from my room in Marlow – little coloured houses on a grey background; my mother had made them when I was about seven. They hung down too far and didn't quite meet in the middle – the window was long and low – but they looked all right. It was strange, but good, to see them again, and I told him that I still liked them.

The Beatles laughing in grey round-necked suits were next to the big framed map of the British Isles facing the bed, and Elvis in white T-shirt and black leather was on the wall facing the window. I walked around touching furniture that I had known all my life, but hadn't seen for a year: a wardrobe that my father had made from hardboard and two-by-one; a chest of drawers that my mother had painted primrose yellow; a pottery lamp with ‘David' written on it that had been given to me as a small child.

On the dark-stained floorboards he had laid an old Persian rug that had been in the dining room at our old house – its colours faded by years of sunlight. Its complex geometric patterns had fascinated me probably for longer than I could remember, and I had used its outer border as a road for my Dinky toys. He had taken trouble to arrange everything as he thought I'd like it. The bed was made, with blankets, eiderdown and pillow neatly in place, and there was a small armchair with a cushion precisely placed to make a diamond shape.

‘It's great.' I waved my arms in the air and smiled. I liked it and was grateful.

He put his hand round my shoulder and I could sense him swallowing his emotions. ‘Good. Well, you can change it, however you like.'

We ate at one end of the living room,
coq au vin
with potatoes, peas and carrots. It was hot and delicious and I told him so. He smiled and told me he could follow a recipe as competently as anyone. He offered me a glass of the Spanish red wine that he had bought for cooking and surprisingly had one himself. He asked about school and what it was like in London, and I told him, without mentioning my mother or Uncle Godfrey. He listened as he ate and made none of the derisory comments that I expected. We spooned out more chicken and shared the remaining wine, half a glass each.

He told me to stay where I was while he fetched the next course; he was holding back a smile. He returned carrying an oval plate and with mock ceremony placed it in the middle of the table. On it was an Arctic Roll, something I often ordered when we ate in cheap restaurants on days out from school. He knew I liked it and grinned as he cut us each a thick slice.

‘I didn't know you could buy this in a shop. Fantastic – ' He had gone before I finished speaking.

Still grinning, he came back with a bottle of cherry brandy, tore the paper seal, pulled out the cork, plonked it on the table and suggested I pour some on. For a moment I thought that he was joking, but he laughed and said, ‘Go on. It'll taste good.'

Throughout my childhood there had always been a bottle of cherry brandy in a cupboard in the kitchen – possibly the same bottle – and my father had allowed himself a small glass at Christmas and New Year. The only other alcohol in the house had been a bottle of sherry which was occasionally offered to visitors and from which my mother had a glass about once a month before lunch on a Sunday.

This was a new bottle of cherry brandy. He splashed some on to his Arctic Roll and passed me the bottle. ‘Go on.'

I watched the red liquid running over his ice cream and seeping into the surrounding sponge cake. I poured a little on to my slice and then a little more. It
was
good and I told him so.

‘I may not have any capital – your mother owned the house, you probably know – but I've got a salary, lots of commission and I don't have to support her any more – so we can spend a bit and enjoy ourselves.' He started to cut two more slices of Arctic Roll.

‘But you don't want to go on working for ever.' He had recently had his seventy-second birthday.

‘I'm all right. I enjoy it… But I'll stop one day.'

Later we sat by the fire with cups of instant coffee. He turned the television on, and off again – there was a party political broadcast on behalf of the Conservative party on both channels.

He smiled at me as he rolled a cigarette and said, ‘So how do you feel now about free will and determinism?'

I sipped my coffee and wondered what was on television next. It was a subject he brought up from time to time. I had once made him very angry by suggesting that it wasn't worth discussing; whatever the answer, people just went on living. He had shouted then – about freedom and responsibility. Did I not care whether the likes of Hitler and Mussolini, and Heath, ‘the acid bath murderer', were accountable for their crimes – because they
weren't
, if everything was determined? Since then I had tried to take the matter more seriously, but I hoped this was going to be a chat rather than a lecture with readings from the
Encylopaedia Britannica
.

‘I don't suppose you've thought about it lately?'

I smiled and shook my head. ‘No. No time for that kind of thing, Dad.'