The Realms of Gold (29 page)

‘I don't see
why
,' said Natasha. ‘If he really was a god, he might have liked it in the depths of Etna, mightn't he? He might have been tired of living amongst foolish mortals.'

‘He was some kind of philosopher, wasn't he?' said Frances. ‘Perhaps he was an early Schopenhauer.'

‘What was his philosophy?' asked Natasha.

Nobody knew. Stephen remembered that the other philosophers portrayed in the exhibition, or at least the ones that Rosa seemed to like, were Stoics. But jumping into Etna did not seem a Stoic act.

‘We could look him up,' said Natasha. ‘Stephen, find something to look him up in.'

Looking things up, grinding coffee beans, making rugs. Natasha had picked up her crochet: she was making a dress for her granddaughter. While Stephen looked through the shelf for information about Empedocles, Frances thought of the Rosa painting. Red and brown it had been, not unlike the colours of this comfortable interior, but not at all in any other ways comfortable: it had been on the contrary rocky and seething, an immense craterous romantic cavern, with Empedocles falling forwards perilously from one foot into the red depths. The rock had had a bubbling viscous volcanic look about it: the whole painting suggested violent motion, and the philosopher himself, clothed as she recalled in sandals and brown robes, seemed made of the same stuff, to be longing to be absorbed into the same stuff.

Stephen had found a copy of Brewer's
Dictionary of Phrase and Fable
. He read the extract about Empedocles. It didn't say what kind of philosopher he was. Matthew Arnold had written a play about him. There was a quotation from Milton: Stephen read it out:

 

‘He, who to be deemed

 A God, lept fondly into Etna's flames,

 Empedocles.'

 

‘And thereby proved he wasn't,' said Hugh.

‘Or
was
,' said Stephen. ‘Depending on one's view of godliness.'

‘How can one think it was a godly act, to jump into a volcano? He was just deluded.'

‘
He
can't have thought he was a god,' said Natasha. ‘
He
can't have been deluded.'

‘Why not?' said Hugh. ‘People are always deluding themselves about that kind of thing. Part of the human spirit. There was a silly bugger on the television only last week, threw himself off a church tower somewhere in Lincolnshire, he thought he could fly. And look at all those stupid fools who keep boring holes in their heads and jumping out of top floor windows.'

‘You're suggesting Empedocles was on a trip?' said Frances, rather provocatively. The subject of drugs was a dangerous one: Hugh himself had had a patch of smoking, which had thrilled him while it lasted, but the stuff had been too mild for him really, his constitution craved its daily pint of spirits, and he had luckily had too much sense to move onto anything harder. But he was ill-placed to criticize his son, or any other of the rising hordes of the vast young majority, on the grounds of their possible addictions; this didn't prevent him from doing so, but it made him remarkably angry in the process of doing so. Once he had thrown a teapot at Natasha, for suggesting that he mind his own business. She had to have stitches.

‘Delusions of immortality,' said Hugh. ‘Sounds like a trip, doesn't it?'

‘I wouldn't know,' said Frances. ‘I've never been on one. I only go on real trips, like to Adra. Anyway, I hate that kind of language. As bad as a “dig”, a “trip”.'

‘Why didn't his sandals get burned as well?' asked Natasha.

They all paused, and thought about Empedocles' sandals.

‘They were bronze, were they?' suggested Stephen. ‘Perhaps they were
real
bronze? Do you think? I'd always pictured them as being this kind of bronze vinyl stuff, but perhaps they were
real
bronze?'

‘Horribly uncomfortable,' said Hugh. ‘Metal shoes. Not at all the thing.'

And they speculated for some time about the shoes of the ancients, and whether or not bronze would melt in molten lava, and how instant the death of Empedocles would have been, and the nature of the Delphic oracle. It was all very pleasant. Hugh was in a good, an exceptionally good mood: he liked having his family around him, under his control, trapped there in the surrounding rural darkness. He was rather proud of his sister. Frances's heart went out to him for his pride. He could so easily have resented her, by a hair's breadth he could have resented her, as dead Alice certainly had done, and yet for some reason he didn't, he liked her, he liked to have her around. He hadn't liked her so much when she was with Karel, it was true, but then it hadn't mattered, and his jealousy had been so obvious that it had been quite harmless. He was a good man, Hugh, he let everything flow from the depths in him up to the surface, and if he did it through increasing quantities of drink, who was to blame him? She knew enough about him to feel that he, like herself, suffered from periodic blacknesses, but instead of sweating them out, he drank them out. He had accepted himself as an incurable. What would Freud have said of his self-help? At least he had kept himself in touch, at least he did not stare like their father into empty space. An excess of motion was certainly preferable to that deadly calm. One felt reasonably alive, near Hugh, if only in the movement of proximity. No wonder he had to force himself, to stoke himself, to galvanize himself. He was telling them now (the Delphic oracle forgotten) of the Stock Market, oil shares, interest rates. They were all in a state of glorious flux, seething like Etna. Hugh loved it when the news was bad. He loved money with a crazy passion, he loved its fluctuations. Frances could not follow a word he was saying, but she listened with pleasure, watching his dark animated face, his jabbing pointing finger, his eyes flashing and dilating with delight at the downfall of yet another secondary bank, the unexpected collapse of yet more shares. Hugh never made any money: he was always making vast sums in theory, then losing them again. In fact, he had a steady income, the rest was all fun on the side. He dabbled, but he always knew when to get out. For years, Frances had pictures of him always on the verge of ruin, poised like Empedocles over a gulf of bankruptcy, for he did take risks, he borrowed and speculated, but for some reason things always calmed down, things remained much the same, the family continued undisrupted, Hugh kept the same position, Natasha continued to bake bread. He was telling Frances now that she ought to put all her money into something called Rosewood Investments, they were absolutely the thing, she ought to buy now.

‘If I bought
now
everything you told me,' said Frances, ‘I wouldn't have a penny to my name. You know you're always ringing me up and warning me not to do what you've said, and then thanking God when I say I haven't. And do you know why I never do what you say? It's not because I don't trust you, it's because I haven't any money.'

They both laughed comfortably at the joke.

‘I don't believe you haven't any money,' said Hugh. ‘A successful woman like you. You must have a few thousands stacked away somewhere.'

‘Nonsense. What I earn, I spend. Life's very expensive for a single woman, you know. Four children, food bills, mortgage, housekeeper, cleaners, trains, aeroplanes, all that kind of thing. No, if you want somebody to invest something for you, you should get onto my husband.'

‘I tried Anthony. I always try Anthony.'

‘Did he listen?'

‘Anthony once made ten thousand off a word of mine, you know.'

‘No, I didn't know. Did he really?'

She was mildly interested. If Anthony really had listened to Hugh, then Hugh couldn't be such a fool as he appeared, for Anthony, as far as money was concerned, was certainly very careful.

‘What are these Rosewood Investments?' she said.

Hugh started to explain. She tried to listen, but failed. He drew her pictures of percentages on a piece of paper, but she couldn't follow. All she understood of money was what she earned in salary and odd cheques for journalism or was given in grants, and what she paid out in cash, bills and income tax, and even that she had to have an accountant to explain. So she pretended to listen, and after a while she yawned and told him that his Rosewood Investments sounded immoral, and she couldn't possibly invest in something that was even connected with property companies.

‘You don't even know what a property company
is,'
said Hugh, ready to begin all over again.

‘No, and she doesn't want to,' said Natasha, equably.

‘There's
nothing
annoys me
more
,' yelled Hugh, leaping to his feet and looking agitated, ‘than the average cultured person's stupidity about money. Why don't you make an effort to understand? You behave as though it were a mystery beyond the powers of human understanding. Why don't you
listen
, for God's sake?'

‘It
is
a mystery beyond the powers of human understanding, that's why,' said Frances. ‘Don't you agree, Stephen?'

But Stephen wasn't listening. He was leafing through Brewer, smiling to himself.

Anthony and Hugh, in the old days, had talked about money sometimes. But their styles had been so different that even though they talked about the same thing, they still seemed to be talking across a culture gap. For whereas Hugh was agitated and confidential in manner, Anthony had been conspiratorial and discreet. She didn't often think about Anthony these days. Remarkable, how completely he had dropped out of her memory, as though he had been a pure accident, a meaningless aberration. And yet he'd filled some seven years of her life, and together they had produced four children.

Natasha was remarking that it was time for bed, or at least time for her to go to bed. She yawned, and stretched, and put her feet down, feeling for her shoes, hooking them up elegantly with the ends of her stockinged toes. ‘Tidy up the fire a little, love,' she said to Hugh. ‘I'm always afraid bits will roll out onto the hearth rug in the middle of the night and set it on fire. And have a look at the Aga for me, will you?'

‘Good night, Frances, good night, Stephen,' she said, as she rose to her feet, picking up her picture book. But as she spoke, Stephen leapt to his feet, and started off up the stairs. ‘The baby,' he muttered in explanation, as he went. And it was true, if one listened hard one could hear the faintest cry, through three shut doors. He must have been tuned in, listening like a mother. Frances and Natasha smiled at one another, at the sight of his immediate fatherly concern, but Frances was disturbed by it, not amused. Natasha went upstairs, leaving Frances and Hugh alone together. Frances had thought she would have a tête-à-tête with Stephen. Guiltily, she was glad to have been spared it. She did not feel up to dealing with his problems. Hugh's problems were so old, so seasoned, that they neither bored nor bothered her. She watched him tidying up the embers, as he had been instructed. Would he speak to her, would he not? He did not. But he sat down in silence when he had finished, and stared into the ash, and waited for her.

‘I went to Eel Cottage this summer,' she said, after a while.

He was silent, then he said ‘Why ever did you do that?'

‘I don't know. I just wanted to have a look. Have you ever been back?'

‘No. Never. What was it like?'

‘Not too different. It's been kind of—slightly—smartened up a bit. I can't explain.'

He laughed. ‘It was a gloomy dump in some ways, wasn't it.'

She thought. Her grandfather, her grandmother, the potted plants, the old books, the plates with faded pansies, the ditch, the yellow dog. Yes, it had been a gloomy dump. Compared with this warm, cosy, attractive interior, it had been both cramped and draughty, cluttered yet bare, ugly and tasteless, full of cheap mementoes and meaningless souvenirs. A Day at Hunstanton, a Day at Mablethorpe. A pottery crab from Cromer, a salt cellar shaped like a thatched cottage. Peg rugs, tastelessly multicolour, not pleasantly monochrome like Natasha's. Plastic lampshades had replaced paraffin lamps when electricity was brought to the village. Yes, it had been a gloomy dump. But it had been the real thing. Her grandmother had baked bread. It had been square, white, and heavy, it had stood in large yellow panchions, with a brown earthenware glaze, it had stood there to rise, and it had not risen much. Natasha's bread was infinitely better. Her grandmother had stewed mince without flavouring, wet, in an enamel dog dish, with half an unchopped onion. On her draining board (a wooden board, slimy with age) had stood at any point two dozen items, rusting, spotty, dull. Yet her kitchen had been the real thing. There was no escape.

‘What do you think, Hugh,' she said, ‘about escaping from the past? It's so nice here, I like it here so much.'

‘Oh yes, it's
nice
enough,' he said, as though he knew what she meant.

‘I've got this terrible stone in my chest,' she said. ‘It's like some kind of gravity, I can't do anything about it.'

‘Perhaps you'll feel better in Adra.'

‘Perhaps. I just keep moving, to get away, but one never gets anywhere.'

‘You've had a hard time, Fran.' He meant with Anthony, and Karel, and her operation.

‘Not specially. I've had a good time, in many ways. Sometimes I feel fine. But I've had this long patch now, feeling not too good. It can't go on like this, can it? Is this middle age, do you think?'

‘Nonsense. Of course not. You're young, still. You should get married again. Why didn't you marry Karel?'

‘He was married to somebody else.'

She was beginning to feel painfully sorry for herself: luxurious tears were forming in the wells of her eyes, they would easily spill over. Should she let them? Perhaps not.