The Thief of Time (19 page)

‘I don't have a gracious drawing room.'

‘Well, then, go out and get one, for heaven's sake. Look one up in the Argos catalogue. Have one delivered and invite a photographer over to take a few shots of it. But if you want to make some money, then take advantage of your celebrity while it still exists.' I felt as if I had got off the point rather, as I had started with the photograph, moved on to Andrea, and was now giving out free financial advice. I relaxed in my chair and looked around. The place was mostly empty for it was the middle of the afternoon, too late for lunch, too early for dinner. Of those people who were present, I could make out a junior minister talking animatedly with his mistress at one table – the last time I had seen him was in a privately circulated photograph where he was playing the back end of a pantomime horse. Unfortunately the front end had forgotten to wear any clothes; there was talk of a scandal but no one was yet willing to publish. At another table there was a middle-aged couple eating cream cakes and drinking tea, looking right past each other in silence, as if they had already said every single thing that they had to say to each other in this lifetime and it was just a question of muddling through from now on. At another there was a teenage boy with his spotty girlfriend, both of whom were being loud. The boy's T-shirt said, ‘My name's Warren Rimbleton and I won eight million quid on the lottery in March. And you didn't!' He was so covered in awful gold jewellery that I suspected this statement was one of fact. I looked away quickly as their lips met and they began to kiss in a rather strange, inexperienced manner, chewing on each others' mouths like toffee. As I glanced back at my nephew, he was scratching his arm and his shirt was lifted slightly above his wrist. The marks caught my eye and I looked at him quickly.

‘What are those?' I asked him.

‘What?' he replied, immediately rebuttoning his shirt.

‘Those marks,' I said. ‘Those marks on your arm. What are they?'

He shrugged and went slightly red, cringing on his seat. ‘They're ... they're nothing. I'm sorting it out, all right?' he added, apropos of nothing.

I shook my head in amazement. ‘You were there, remember?' I said to him, leaning forward to whisper. ‘You saw what happened to James Hocknell, right? You saw how he just suddenly -'

‘He was some old fart shooting up to impress a teenage hooker who he picked up off the street. He didn't have a fucking clue what he was doing.'

‘Yes, and he died because of it.'

‘I'm not going to die, Uncle Matt.'

‘I bet he thought the same thing.'

‘Look, I don't do it that often anyway. I'm in a pressurised business. I need to blow off steam sometimes, that's all. I'm twenty-two years old and I know exactly how much of this stuff I can do without risking it all, OK? Trust me.'

I shook my head. ‘I'm just worried about you, Tommy,' I said, a rare moment of conciliation between us. T don't want to see anything bad happen to you, that's all. Can you understand that?'

‘Yeah, I can. And I appreciate it.'

‘This baby ... it means the worst.'

‘It's just a baby, Uncle -'

‘I've seen it all before. Too many times. Stop taking drugs, please. Can you do that? Don't live up to your ancestry. Pull yourself together, boy!'

Tommy stood up and threw some money on the table unnecessarily, as if to prove a point. ‘This is on me,' he said. ‘But I've got to go. I have to be back on set in about twenty minutes. Don't worry about me. I'll be fine.'

‘I wish I could believe that,' I said, watching the heads turn as he walked out, the sudden moments of recognition, the way they looked back at him when he was already gone, their lives a little brighter for having seen him, ready to tell their friends of the encounter later in the evening. And he was oblivious to how important he was to complete strangers, let alone to me.

I often tried to discover the derivation of the town name Cageley, but without much success. It remains, however, one of the most appropriately named places that I have ever come across, for I have rarely seen any town or city in 256 years which seemed so caged in, so soul-entrapping, as this small place was. Driving into Cageley, the first thing one saw was the set of large iron gates which had been constructed at its boundary, and through which all traffic passed. It was an unusual and strangely redundant sight, for both gates were simply placed solidly into the ground on either side of the road, and even if they were closed -which they never were – one could simply walk around them in order to gain access to what lay beyond.

It was primarily a self-sufficient town, with no more than five or six hundred inhabitants, each of whom appeared to contribute something to the common good. There were several all-purpose stores, a blacksmith, and a market in the centre of the town where the farmers' young children would generally position themselves from one end of the day to the next, selling their produce to each other's families. There was also a church, a schoolroom and a town hall, which saw annual productions from the local amateur dramatic group as well as the odd concert or solo performance.

Mr and Mrs Amberton brought us to their home on our first night in Cageley and we were all so tired that we went immediately to bed. They owned a relatively large house for two people living on their own and, to my disappointment, there was room enough for Tomas and me to share one room, and for Dominique to take the other. The next day, Mrs Amberton offered to show us around the town to help us make up our minds whether we wanted to stay there for the time being or continue on to London. As soon as I started walking around and seeing what I took to be an idyllic home setting before me, filled with families and relative prosperity and general satisfaction, I was keen to stay put and I could tell from Dominique's face that she was also being won over by the prospect of a stability that neither of us had ever known before.

‘What do you think?' I asked her as we walked side by side along the street, Mrs Amberton moving a little ahead of us with my younger brother. ‘It seems so different to Dover.'

‘It does,' she agreed. ‘There'd be no chance you could continue your previous life here. Everyone appears to know everyone else and we'd be strung up if you stole from them.'

‘There are other ways to make a living. There have to be jobs here, don't you think?'

She didn't answer, but I could tell that she liked what she saw. Eventually we agreed that we would stay on for the time being, dependent on our abilities to find jobs, and that we would begin our search for those immediately. Both Mr and Mrs Amberton were delighted – I felt a little like some
naif being
recruited into a cult – and said that we could stay with them for now and pay them a portion of our wages once we were secure. Although I found them both a little repugnant in their behaviour and manners – for even then I was beginning to believe that there was going to be more to my life than I was currently experiencing – we had no choice but to agree. Their offer was, after all, extremely generous and there was no telling when we would begin to achieve an income of our own. On those first couple of evenings, the five of us would sit around the Ambertons' fireplace, Tomas snoozing, Dominique brooding, I listening, Mrs Amberton talking and Mr Amberton alternating between coughing and spitting in the fire and taking long, noisy swallows of whiskey, while our hosts told us more about themselves and how they had become husband and wife in the first place. I began to feel that the three of us were becoming their surrogate children – I could see from the way they looked at us, particularly at Tomas, how fond they were growing of each of us – and found to my astonishment that I enjoyed that feeling. I had never known a sturdy, happy family unit before and that all too brief time that we spent in Cageley probably represents the closest I have ever come to knowing one in all my extended life.

‘Mrs Amberton's father didn't want me to marry her,' Mr Amberton told us one evening. ‘He had ideas, you see, about himself that weren't always fulfilled.'

‘He were a good man, though, my father,' interjected his wife.

‘He may have been a good man, my dear, but he had very high opinions for a man who spent the majority of his life milking cows and was only fortunate to come into a little money when he reached his middle age, on account of a legacy that an old aunt from Cornwall left to him, you see.'

‘My great-aunt Mildred,' said Mrs Amberton. ‘She lived alone all her life and never changed her clothes. She wore a black dress with bright red shoes and always wore gloves when she had company. They say she was a little disturbed in the head, something to do with an early grief, but I always thought she just enjoyed being the centre of attention, for what it's worth.'

‘How and ever, she left her money to Mrs's father,' he continued. ‘And from then on you would have sworn he were one of the landed gentry. “How exactly,” he asked me the night that I came to ask him for Mrs Amberton's hand, “how exactly do you intend to keep my daughter in the style to which she has become accustomed, and you just starting out in life?” Well, of course I told him my plans and that I were going into the construction business in London – lot of money to be made in that back then, you know – and he just sort of sniffed the air as if I'd just let off a nasty smell, which I hadn't, and said that he didn't think it were a suitable match and maybe I should either look elsewhere or reapply when my prospects were a little higher.'

‘As if I was some sort of job that he was interviewing for!' cried Mrs Amberton, looking angry at what was probably an age-old grievance.

‘Well, in the end we just upped and went. Got ourselves married and went down to London and for a while her father wouldn't speak to either of us but then he just seemed to forget all about it and when we would come to visit he acted as if he couldn't remember there ever being a disagreement between us in the first place and even mentioned on one occasion the ham that he had eaten at our wedding dinner. Said it gave him stomach ache.'

‘He went a little ... at the end,' said Mrs Amberton in a whisper, making circular motions with her finger around her head as she left out the crucial word. ‘Believed himself to be everything from George II to Michelangelo. I always worry the same thing will happen to me one of these fine days.'

‘Don't even joke about it, my dear,' said Mr Amberton. ‘That's a terrible thought, it really is. I'd be obliged to leave you if that's what happened.'

‘So after he went,' continued his wife, ‘we came into a little money and moved here, to Cageley, where Mr Amberton started his school. My sister lives in the next town, you see, with her husband, and I liked the idea of being nearer to them. And Mr Amberton is very popular with the children too, aren't you, Mr Amberton?'

‘I like to think I am, yes,' he said with an air of self-satisfaction.

‘Right now he's got forty young ‘uns in his schoolroom and they're getting the best education they could possibly get with Mr Amberton as their master. What lives they'll get to lead, eh?'

And so they continued for our first evenings, filling us in on their history as if this would enable us to melt into their newly designed family life more easily. And as exhausting as their constant talking, coughing, farting and spitting became, I found myself becoming more and more comforted by them and would have gladly stayed in front of their fire night after night had not the inevitable finally happened. At the age of eighteen, I was suddenly thrust into the unwelcome world of legal employment when I finally got a job.

Just outside the main town boundary in Cageley stood a large house wherein lived Sir Alfred Pepys and his wife, Lady Margaret. They were the local aristocracy, celebrities of a kind, and their family had lived there for more than 300 years. Their wealth was inherited but their business was banking and it generated enough money for them to run their 300-acre estate in Cageley as well as a townhouse in London and a holiday home in the Scottish Highlands not to mention who knew what other holdings around the country. A few years before we arrived there, Sir Alfred and his wife had retired to the ancestral home and left their business interests in London in the hands of their three sons, who visited them occasionally. The parents led a quiet life, with shooting and hunting their only real activities of any great extravagance, and neither lorded it over the locals nor encouraged any closer ties with them.

It was Mr Amberton who secured jobs for both Dominique and me on the estate, I as a stable boy and my so-called sister as a kitchen hand. He told us of our salaries, which were low but none the less the first we had ever received, and we were thrilled to be starting respectable working lives at last. The only disappointment to me was that Dominique's position required her to board in a small room in the servants' quarters of the house, while I had to continue living with the Ambertons. This devastated me almost as much as it thrilled her, who was suddenly achieving a level of independence to which she had been aspiring for some time. Tomas, on the other hand, began to attend Mr Amberton's school and showed a flair for reading and drama, which was of some consolation to me. His nightly accounts of what had taken place during the day, as well as his perfect mimicry of not only his schoolfriends but also his teacher and landlord, were always entertaining and perfectly drawn; he showed a gift for the dramatic which his father had sadly lacked.

My day began at 5 a.m. when I would rise and walk the twenty minute journey from the Ambertons' home to the stables at the back of Cageley House. Along with another stable boy of around my own age, Jack Holby, we would prepare a breakfast for the eight horses under our care before we had even eaten our own and, after they finished it, we would spend several hours cleaning and brushing the horses down until their coats shone as if they had just been polished. Sir Alfred liked to ride in the mornings and always demanded that his horses look immaculate. We never knew which particular steed he might choose, nor whether he would have guests with him that morning, so each one of them had to look their best at all times. While Jack and I worked there, they must have been the best cared for horses in England. By around eleven, we would be set free for an hour to eat something in the kitchens and we would follow this by sitting outside in the sun and smoking our pipes for twenty minutes, a new affectation that Jack had introduced me to.

‘One of these days,' Jack said, sitting with his back against a bale of hay as he drew on his pipe and drank intermittently from a cup of steaming hot tea, ‘I'm going to take a hold of one of them horses and I'm going to climb on its back and ride it all the way out of this place. And that's the last any of them will ever see of Jack Holby.' He was aged about nineteen and had bright blond hair which hung down over his face, forcing him to keep sweeping it away from his eyes in what became almost an instinctive gesture, a twitch of self-grooming. I wondered why he didn't just cut his fringe instead.

‘I like it here,' I confessed. ‘I've never been anywhere quite like it. I've never had to actually work before and it's a good sensation.' I was telling the truth; the constancy of each day, the knowledge that I had certain tasks to do and for which I would get paid, pleased me enormously, as did the envelope of money I received from the coffers every Friday afternoon.

‘That's because it's a novelty to you,' he said. ‘I've been doing this since I was twelve and I've got almost enough money saved up to get me away from here once and for all. My twentieth birthday, Mattie, that's when I'll be off'

Jack Holby's parents both worked in Cageley House, his father as an under-butler, his mother as a cook. They were pleasant enough people but I did not see them often. Jack, on the other hand, fascinated me. Although he was only about a year or eighteen months older than I was, and although he had in fact led a much more sheltered existence than my own, he seemed a lot more mature and far more aware of where he saw his life going than I was. The difference between us, I think, was that Jack had ambitions while I had none, ambitions which his unchanging existence throughout his youth had forced him to create. He had spent enough years at Cageley House to know that he did not want to be a stable boy for ever; I had spent enough time travelling around to appreciate a little stability for once. Our differences helped us to become friends quickly and I looked up to him with something approaching hero worship for he was the first male peer I had known whose life did not revolve around stealing from other people's pockets. Where we had greed and idleness, he had dreams.

‘The thing about this place', Jack told me, ‘is that there's about thirty different people all working their arses off to make sure that the house and the estate stay in proper order. And right now there's only two people who actually live there, Sir Alfred and his wife. Thirty people for two! I ask you! And every so often one of them swanky sons comes down here on a visit and they treat us all like horseshit and I won't have that.'

‘I haven't met any of them yet,' I confessed.

‘You don't want to, believe me. The oldest one, David, he's a beanpole who walks round here with his head in the clouds all day long, never so much as deigning to speak to anyone who works for a living. The next one down, Alfred Junior, is twice as bad only he's got religion which makes him even worse ‘cos I've never known anyone with the power to speak down to you as them who thinks they've got God's ear on their side. And the youngest one, Nat, well he's the pick of the litter. He's got a nasty side to him has Nat. I've seen it on more than one occasion. Tried it on with my Elsie once and wouldn't let it go till she caved in. Then he just threw her away and doesn't even speak to her any more. She hates him but what can she do? She can't quit because she has nowhere to go. I've come close a few times to wanting to kill him myself but I'm not sacrificing my life for his, no sir. I like her, but not that much. One of these days though – he'll get his.'