Three Brothers (21 page)

“He has made his bed,” Lady Flaxman was saying when Harry re-entered the dining room. “And now he must eat it.”

“Sleep in it,” Harry said.

“I will sleep where I choose. And that does not include the bed of my husband. If I do, I will have to wear riot gear.”

Guinevere was restless. “I agree with Mummy. I do think Daddy is unwell,” she said to no one in particular. “He has a strained look. And he has lost weight. I can tell. Something is worrying him. Is there anything going on at work, Harry?”

“Nothing out of the ordinary.” But then Harry remembered an occasion, the week before, when Flaxman had flinched and stepped back when the editor mentioned Asher Ruppta’s name in connection with London criminal gangs. “No, no,” Flaxman had said. “We don’t want to follow that line. Not at all. Stay clear of it.”

Harry went to work on the following morning with a sore head; he had drunk too much brandy with Lady Flaxman. When he entered his outer office his secretary was waiting for him. “There is a woman,” she said, “claiming to be your mother. I put her in the board room.”

“Oh. Good.” He did not know what else to say. “I’ll go and see her.” He felt himself blushing with shame and anger at her sudden appearance. He walked into the board room, where Sally was looking out of the large window over the rooftops
of Fleet Street and Ludgate Hill. He stood there without saying anything.

“Good morning, Harry.”

“Why are you here?”

“I wanted to see you. Now that your father’s gone—”

“—you wanted to come back?”

“No. Not exactly.” She still had her back turned to him. “I was hoping that we might talk.”

“Talk? Talk about what?”

“Why are you so hard, Harry?”

“I have had to survive, haven’t I?”

“No. You always were hard. When you were a small boy, you were tough. You were determined. Nothing like your father.”

“How can you call
me
hard? You were the one who left. Sam took it worst.”

“Don’t.”

“I used to hear him sobbing in his room.”

“I’m sorry—”

“Is that all you can say? We never really had a proper life. A normal life. We just grew older. Dan hid away in his books. That’s what he always did. He would go into a book, if he could.”

“And what about you?”

“I’m tough, as you say. You could slam a ten-ton truck into me and I’d survive.”

“And I hear you’re married now.”

“I don’t want to go into that.”

“Are you happy with her?”

“I don’t know. What is it to be happy?” He was silent for a moment. “Haven’t you got a business to run, Mother?”

She turned around to face him. “You know about that, do you? Did Sam tell you?”

“No. I never see Sam. I found out for myself. I looked up the court records.”

“That was clever of you. I told Sam that your father sent me away after that, but he was too weak to have done that. I left him of my own accord after I came out of prison.”

“You left
us
.”

“What else was I supposed to do? All the shame. All the guilt of it. I could cope with that by myself, hidden away somewhere, but not with you boys. Would you like to have seen your mother weeping? And the neighbours whispering behind my back? I thought it was better to clear out altogether. To let you all make a fresh start.”

Harry was not interested in his mother’s explanation. “I saw you in the street.” He scratched the side of his face. “You have some interesting clients.”

“Have I?”

“Asher Ruppta.”

Suddenly she looked fierce. “What do you know about him?”

“He interests me.”

“Stay away from him.”

“Oh?”

“He is not safe. He is dangerous.”

“So why did you visit him?”

“He looked after me once. He’s a rich man, you know.”

“Yes I do know. What are you trying to say?”

“I have a son by him.”

One night, after the three brothers had gone to bed, there had been a bitter quarrel between Sally and Philip Hanway. She had left the house in a rage, and had walked without knowing where she was going. She found herself outside King’s Cross Station, in the dirty and dismal forecourt where people loiter before making their way into the main hall of the station. She had some vague intention of catching a train—to anywhere,
to nowhere—and so she pushed open one of the glass doors of the entrance.

She thought better of leaving on a train so late in the evening, and instead she went into a cafeteria and ordered a cup of coffee. She sat over it, her head bowed, inhaling its scent, her hands trembling slightly. She hardly noticed that someone had sat down at the next table.

“Where have you been all your life?” The strange question had been addressed to her. She looked up and saw a foreign gentleman, as she put it to Harry, with large hazel eyes that seemed to be oriental.

“I don’t know,” she said. She was, surprisingly, not at all apprehensive. She noticed the refinement of his voice, and the paleness of his skin.

“It is not usual for a lady to drink coffee by herself in the evening. It is not ‘the done thing.’ ” He put quotation marks around the phrase.

“I was making up my mind what train to catch.” It was the easiest excuse.

“You have a husband and children, do you not?”

“How do you know that?”

“You have a ring. And you look tired. You want to escape for an hour or so. Is that not right?”

She was drawn to this stranger with the precise, careful voice. Then, with an elation she could not explain even to herself, she joined him at his table.

She told Harry that she saw Asher Ruppta from time to time after that first meeting. “Your father,” she said, “knew nothing about it. He didn’t know about a lot of things.”

“Such as?”

“I had been on the game before I met him. In Soho. Just for the extra cash, you see. So when we needed the money, after you three boys were born—” She grew silent, fearful that in
her desire to tell her son everything she had in fact said too much.

“And when you were put in prison?”

“After I got out, I went to Asher Ruppta. I lived with him for a while.”

“That’s when you had a son.”

“Yes.”

“What happened to him?”

“Nothing happened. He’s at a good school. A boarding school.” She paused for a moment. “Life had been hard, Harry. I always wanted to have money. To be free. But then I met your father.”

“I think you ought to go now.”

So she walked past him and went out into the corridor. The story soon spread around the office that Harry was not a Barnardo’s boy after all.

Don’t stick it out like that

“H
OW ARE
you feeling?” Daniel asked Sparkler one morning.

“All right. What’s the weather like?”

“Well, it’s winter.”

“I know. The sun is low in the sky. Like me.” Daniel looked down at his friend’s pale face bathed in sweat, and at his trembling limbs; he heard his rasping persistent cough. “Is that window open?”

“No.”

“I feel a cold breeze. Could you close the window?” Daniel pretended to close it. “I won’t go to no hospital. The nun is here, isn’t she? The doctor says he has given up on me. He can’t find nothing wrong, he says. No cause, he says. What is that supposed to mean? The nun says that there’s no earthly cause. She has a funny way of talking. Meanwhile I am burning to death.” He seemed to lose consciousness for a moment, and his fingers played listlessly against the sheets. It was as if he were plucking a string. “Well,” he said, after a while, “at least I won’t grow old.” His face was thinner; his eyes were brighter and more protuberant; his voice was higher. Then there was a flash of his old self. “I told the nun that I needed strength to
steal again,” he said. “So she went down on her knees to pray for me. ‘Oh Lord, let him be a thief once more.’ ”

When Daniel had arrived that morning, he had found a small phial of water outside the door to Sparkler’s flat. It had a piece of paper taped to it, with the words “Holy Water” scribbled in biro. One of the inhabitants of the house must have left it there. Daniel put the phial in his pocket, deciding at once that he would not let Sparkler know about it.

When Daniel left the flat that evening, he almost walked into the nun. “Have you been to see your friend?” she asked him.

“Yes. I have.” He did not know how to address her, and he could not focus upon her face. It floated in front of him like some bright moon.

“You are anxious, I know,” she went on to say. “But there is no need to worry. He won’t die. He is being purged.”

Daniel was so surprised by this that he took a step back. “Is that so? Are you sure?”

She nodded. “I have come across this sickness before. It is suffering with a purpose.” She smiled and walked past him towards the door of Sparkler’s flat.

Daniel returned by train to Cambridge in a state of relief close to euphoria but, as soon as he got back to his familiar college rooms, his exhilaration vanished. He had had no dealings with nuns before, but he suspected that they were superstitious to a dangerous degree. There was something about her, too, which had seemed to him to be elusive; she had possessed no strong presence.

He looked from the windows of his rooms, and saw Paul Wilkin walking across the quad; from this height he noticed how bald he had become. To his annoyance he then heard footsteps slowly mounting the staircase to his rooms. He closed his eyes briefly at the knock on his door. “Oh, Daniel, I’m glad I caught you. I thought you might be here.”

“And here I am. Won’t you come in, Paul?”

Wilkin entered the room and accepted a glass of sherry. The lines were evident upon his face, and strands of hair had turned greyish-white. “I wanted to talk to you,” he said. Already Daniel feared the worst, and said nothing. “My editor has left Aylesford & Bunting. Well, retired, actually. And the bastards there don’t want to publish my new book.”

“Of poems?”

“Of course.” For a moment he seemed offended. “Written over the last ten years. Some of them are bloody marvellous. So I wonder if you could put in a word for me with Aubrey Rackham.”

“Hanky Panky? I thought you despised him.”

“Well, my personal feelings are neither here nor there.” Wilkin was blustering. “It’s important just to get the work published. Connaught & Douglas is a good firm. I have always said so.” No you have not, Daniel thought. “It would be an honour to be published by them again. They were once my mentors. You can tell them that from me.” No I will not, Daniel thought.

“You had better give me the typescript then,” he said quietly.

“I think it would be better, actually,” Wilkin replied, “if Rackham wrote to me.”

“You would then avoid the humiliation of seeming to plead.”

Wilkin gave Daniel an angry glance. “Something like that. Yes.”

“I will certainly mention it to him. I’m having lunch with him on Friday.”

“Oh yes?”

“He wants a progress report on my book.”

“How
is
the book?” He had obviously decided to treat Daniel with more deference than he had done in the past.

“I’m going to concentrate on the city’s popular culture. Music hall. Penny dreadfuls. That sort of thing.”

“Barn-storming?”

“Yes indeed.”

“Good for you.” He did not sound particularly enthusiastic, and he took a large gulp from his glass of sherry. “I might as well tell you, Daniel. I’m having a spot of bother with Phyllis.”

“Oh?”

“She found out somehow that I was having a fling with one of the students. She started shouting. And I walked out of the house. Haven’t been back.”

“I see.”

“I suppose it could end in divorce. But how much is that going to cost me?”

Daniel was early for his lunch with Hanky Panky, at the usual restaurant, so he took a walk down Regent Street. He had gone only a few yards when he was suddenly astounded to see Stanley Askisson walking towards him. He had not encountered him since their undergraduate days; they had made no attempt to contact one another. As they met and passed, their eyes swerved away from each other. Daniel quickened his pace.

Aubrey Rackham was already in the restaurant when he arrived; he had his hand on the arm of one of the Italian waiters. “No more than a drop of vermouth. All the rest is gin.” He caught sight of Daniel at once. “I always think of Hogarth when I order gin. Gin Lane is in my neighbourhood.” He had a surprisingly deep laugh. “What have you been up to? I mean, more precisely, how is
it
going?”

“By next month
it
will be finished.”

“You astonish me. You are one of my most remarkable daughters.”

“I have become, you know, by bits and pieces, really interested in the London music hall.”

“The Crazy Gang?”

“No. Further back. Dan Leno. Harry Champion. Charles Coborn. They are the real heroes of London.”

“I really don’t know—”

“Do you not? That’s a good reason to write about them. Their songs are rather wonderful. ‘Why Can’t We Have the Sea in London?’ ”

“Good question.”

“ ‘Young Men Taken in and Done For.’ ”

“Landladies?”

“Yes.”

“Hussies.”

“ ‘Don’t Stick It Out Like That.’ That was sung by Bessie Bellwood.”

“Lucky Bessie.”

“The sad songs are the greatest. ‘When These Old Clothes Were New.’ ‘My Shadow Is My Only Pal.’ Far better than the poetry of the period. And then their routines—”

“I suppose their language was
choice
.”

“Beg your pardon?”

“Blue.”

“Oh yes. Very. Indigo.”

Towards the end of the meal Daniel asked, “Do you remember a poet by the name of Paul Wilkin?”

“Of course. I never thought much of him. Dora Dreary. Rather spermy.”

Daniel did not know what he meant, but he was reassured by his disdain. “He has a new collection he wants to show you.”

“Oh dear. Isn’t he a little bit dated?”

“I would have thought so. But I promised him that I would mention it to you.”

“You have done. He may have been good at the time. But fashions change. Now what about pudding?”