A Temporary Life, page 20
The road dips down. Some distance further on the car turns off along a narrow lane. Immediately ahead, blocking the lane, appears a cottage. Its thatched roof with its two tall brick chimneys is surmounted by a painted metal sign, a large fist clenched around a bar of steel. The sign itself is painted red. Above it, in silver, is set the single letter L.
Two tunnels have been cut through the centre of the cottage; as we pass through the one on the left, following a large arrow, a man in a peaked cap leans out of a lattice window.
He ducks his head, glances in the car as it passes through the building, then salutes briefly as he glimpses the broad-chested figure sitting in the back.
A driveway sweeps up beyond, past a clump of rhododendron bushes and a line of trees.
It emerges at the front of a concrete mansion. A vast, pillared portico projects from its crumbled, blackened façade; much of the stone has been patched with cement. Cement too has been used to fill in the ruts and holes in the drive itself.
Across the lawns and terraces at the front of the house stand several massive shed-like structures. Bulldozers move across the edges of a lawn; the derricks of several large cranes project above a line of trees. From every direction, as the car pulls up, comes the dull, staccatic roar of engines.
The chauffeur gets out and opens the door: he opens it, deliberately or otherwise, on Fraser’s side. The large man douses his cigarette and clambers out.
The pale-faced, black-eyed man I’ve seen at Elizabeth’s appears on the steps at the front of the house.
‘I’m Groves,’ he says. He nods to Fraser. ‘I’ll take you over, if you’ll follow me.’
Fraser goes off towards the house, pausing on the steps and glancing back. The car, with the small-eyed chauffeur, has driven off.
Groves waits. ‘You came up with Fraser, then?’
‘That’s right.’
‘He’s jolly good company to have around.’
‘Very,’ I tell him. I nod my head. Fraser’s large figure has turned on the steps. When I look again he’s disappeared.
‘There’s Neville now, then,’ Groves has said.
As we emerge from the trees several large buildings, window-less factory structures, have appeared on either side. On the flank of each of them is mounted the letter L, surmounted by the device of the red-painted fist clenching the bar of steel. Several trucks and lorries, stamped with the same device, are parked beneath the trees. In the furthest distance, beyond a stretch of moorland, are visible the remains of the village we passed through in the car.
Walking across the open space between the nearest building and the line of trees is a small, slight figure who, on seeing us emerge from the trees, runs his hand across his long blond hair and turns casually in our direction.
Groves, I discover, glancing round, has disappeared.
‘Freestone?’
A pair of cool blue eyes examine mine.
‘My name’s Newman.’
He puts out his hand; the eyes glance past me now towards the house.
‘They told me you’d arrived.’
I hold out the parcel.
‘I was asked,’ I tell him, ‘if I’d give you this.’
‘That’s right.’
He doesn’t take it. Perhaps he’s wondering if Elizabeth has come.
‘Is there anything in it?’
He shakes his head.
‘We thought, if you had something to bring, there was more chance of you turning up.’ He smiles. ‘It was my secretary’s idea,’ he says. ‘Not mine.’
He turns, his hand in his pocket, and looks back towards the moor. Trees, uprooted and dismembered, lie strewn across what at one time might have been a park. Closer at hand a tractor is filling in a dried-up lake. A balustraded bridge stands, partly dismembered, at its narrowest end, and at the other, where it disappears beyond a belt of trees, stands a roofless stone pagoda.
‘What do you think?’
‘I like the fist.’
‘I thought you would.’
‘And the bar of steel.’
‘Symbolic.’ He glances up.
‘I suppose,’ I tell him, indicating the parcel, ‘I might throw this away.’
‘I’ll take it.’
‘Shouldn’t you look inside?’
He laughs. There’s a faint tinge of colour on either cheek. The eyes are hard. I can see the whiteness of his knuckles as he feels the paper. On the lapel of his jacket is pinned a tiny badge with a device, in relief, I can’t make out.
‘I hear Fraser came up in the car as well.’
‘That’s right.’
‘Did he tell you much about it?’ He gestures round.
‘Nothing.’
‘It’s a new industrial estate. Where that old house is now there’ll be a skyscraper block accommodating, in a centralized office, over thirty or forty firms. There’s even a new church if you want to look. In ten years time there’ll be twenty or thirty thousand people working here. In fifteen years it might have trebled.’
‘What’s your job here?’
‘I supervise it all,’ he says.
He looks round him, sees the bridge, then, further off, the stone pagoda.
‘It was quite a mess when we first arrived. In a couple of months you’ll see a difference. It’s all bits and pieces I’m afraid at present.’
He turns away from the trees and indicates we might walk down between the buildings immediately below us.
A tractor lumbers past; he steps aside. We follow a moment later in the tracks left by its massive tyres.
‘I wondered,’ he says, ‘if you’d any ideas.’
He gestures round.
‘We have an artist. A sociologist. An architect. An environmental psychologist. They’ve been with the scheme since it first began.’
I get out a cigarette. He shakes his head.
I think it might be too much to get out the lighter.
I say, ‘What category do I come into, then?’
‘None whatsoever.’ He looks across. ‘That’s why I asked.’
I get out the lighter.
As far as I can tell he doesn’t notice. I light the cigarette, snap the lighter shut and put it away.
He walks with his hands in his trouser pockets. His cheek, on one side, is drawn in, as if he’s biting the skin inside. In profile he reminds me of those intellectual athletes, common in England before the First World War: the face is lean and slim, the eyes are calm and almost dreamy. He might, in some earlier life, have climbed the Himalayas, run the mile, high-jumped, rowed, boxed, cricketed, footballed to an almost professional level.
‘I wanted the view,’ he tells me, ‘of someone who didn’t care.’
‘About what?’
‘Anything at all.’
‘Is that the impression your detective gives?’
He smiles. The faint touch of colour on his cheeks has gone.
‘It’s an impression I get from everyone,’ he says.
He looks across.
‘The detective’s there,’ he adds, ‘for my own protection.’
‘I thought it was for your wife’s.’
He shakes his head.
‘We’re not together,’ he says, ‘at present. I need to know what’s going on.’
‘Aren’t you getting divorced?’
He bows his head. He looks at his feet as he walks along.
We’ve reached the door of the nearest building; we don’t go in. The track turns off towards the moor.
‘Even my daughter’s caught up in it,’ he says.
‘You could always take her away,’ I tell him.
‘From the college? She’d never allow it. She’s as much aware of motives,’ he says, ‘as anyone else.’
We’ve turned up the track; behind us I can see Groves come out from beneath the trees. He looks over, waves, gazes over a little longer, then, with a shrug, turns back towards the house.
‘Elizabeth, you see, is not unlike you in some respects. You may have found that out yourself. She couldn’t give a damn about anything at times. It’s almost suicidal, this impulse, in the end, to disown almost everything,’ he says.
‘She’s got more to disown, I suppose, than me.’
‘I’m not so sure.’
He kicks at the clay in front of his feet.
‘I gather your wife’s in hospital,’ he adds.
‘She is at present.’
‘Is she seriously ill?’
‘I’ve no idea.’
‘Suppose she found out.’
‘She wouldn’t mind.’
‘Do you mean,’ he says, ‘she doesn’t care?’
‘She’s got past caring about anything,’ I tell him.
He lifts his wrist, abstracted, then glances at his watch.
‘In a way,’ he says, ‘I don’t care much myself.’ He gestures round. ‘It’s an act of faith, like everything else.’
‘Wilcox cares.’
He shakes his head: he’s not certain, perhaps, for a moment, who Wilcox is.
‘He’s hoping,’ I tell him, ‘when things materialize, you’ll rejuvenate the college.’
He waves his arm: ‘The whole town’ll be affected by what goes on round here.’ He looks across. ‘I told him the college, for instance, might be expanded.’
We’ve reached the edge of the moor; tractors move to and fro, dragging back the turf; in every direction trenches have been dug; there are stacks of pipes standing up amongst the bracken, mounds of bricks and from further down the slope comes the clatter of a giant cement machine.
‘There’ll be houses right across this slope.’ He waves his arm. ‘Over there,’ he adds, pointing in the direction of the ruined village, ‘there’ll be a community centre, a sports field and a running-track. There’s no telling what the effect might be: colleges, schools, libraries, they’ll all be needed.’
‘It doesn’t seem worth it.’
‘Improving people’s lives?’
‘Hanging on to your wife,’ I tell him.
‘There’ve been men like you before,’ he says.
‘Have you made the same appeals?’ I ask.
‘It’s never been necessary, in the end,’ he says.
He looks across.
‘I see nothing to be afraid of here,’ I tell him.
‘Nor anything to respect,’ he says.
I shake my head.
‘Then we’ve nothing more to say.’
He gestures back the way we’ve come.
‘The car’ll take you back,’ he says. ‘Just ask at the house. They’ll bring it round.’
He starts off down the slope.
He doesn’t look back.
By the time I reach the house it’s begun to rain.
When the car comes round and I step inside, I see Fraser waiting in the porch above me, waving, his massive features lit up, despite the weather, with something of a smile.
Part Five
1
‘It might be less disturbing if she didn’t see anyone for a while,’ he says.
He begins to pick his nose. His hand, after lying for some time on the edge of his desk, is slowly raised. The head, as if recoiling, drifts slowly to one side.
His eyes are tired; large pouches hang beneath them, each one encircled by a dark blue line.
‘Does that apply to everyone?’ I ask him.
‘I shan’t insist,’ he says. ‘Though with her mother,’ he adds, ‘I suppose I might.’
‘Could I see her now?’ I ask.
He’s reading the papers on his desk, turning one loose sheet and then another; he tries, as he reads, to give the impression that the papers themselves have to do with her. I can see the name, however, printed on the file: ‘P. D. Collins.’
‘She’s probably sleeping,’ he says. ‘You could ask the nurse.’
He’s on the point, it seems, of seeing me to the door.
‘I’d like to see her before I go,’ I tell him.
‘Okay,’ he says. ‘I suppose you might. It’s not a prison, you know.’ He begins to laugh. The sound is harsh; it raises an echo in the corridor outside.
I get up from the chair; his original intention to see me to the door has gone.
‘If you’d kept her at home she’d have been all right.’
‘She prefers being with her mother, on the whole,’ I tell him.
‘Is it something to do with you?’ he says.
‘I think I’m a sort of token attempt,’ I tell him.
‘At what?’
‘To live some sort of life,’ I say.
‘The demands you make, in the end, might prove too much.’
‘If she asks me to go I’ll go,’ I tell him.
‘Is there anyone else?’
I shake my head.
‘I’ve had a strange letter,’ he says, ‘from a Mr Newman. He wonders if the relationship you’re having with his wife might not be having a debilitating effect upon your own.’
‘Have you told him I’ll sue him if he writes again.’
‘Perhaps you ought to have a talk with him,’ he says.
‘I’ve had a talk with him,’ I tell him.
‘It’s nothing to do with me.’ He shakes his head. ‘I just thought I ought to mention it,’ he says.
He gets up, briefly, from behind the desk.
‘Have you written to the college yet?’ I ask.
‘I’ve sent a note to your Principal. Setting his mind at rest. Though I can’t see what he’s objecting to,’ he says.
He sits down once more behind the desk.
‘Will you write to Newman, too?’
‘I’ll send him a note.’ He looks across. ‘Saying it’s no concern of mine,’ he says.
I open the door.
‘If you’ll see the nurse. And tell her you’ve got my permission. Though if Mrs Freestone’s sleeping,’ he says, ‘she mustn’t be disturbed.’
I go down to the ward. There’s no one in the matron’s office; when I go through to the ward itself I find all the beds are empty.
I go back to the dining-room. A nurse, working in the kitchen, has raised the window.
‘Your wife isn’t down here any more,’ she says. She jerks her thumb towards the ceiling. ‘It’s the Flora Bundy Ward.’ The name itself has raised a smile. ‘Straight up the stairs, on the second floor.’
I go back down the corridor to the hall, climb the stairs, past Lennox’s office and the corridor with the waiting patients, and go on up to the floor above.
All the windows are barred. The ward, superficially, looks like a conventional hospital interior, austere, unpretentious. Two women without teeth are playing cards in an ante-room; a third woman, in a long dressing-gown, is standing at an open window, gazing out between the bars.
A nurse comes out of an office beside the door; presumably she’s been talking to Lennox on the phone: when she sees me there she comes across.
‘Your wife is awake,’ she says, ‘if you’d like to see her.’
She gestures off, vaguely, towards the ward itself.
‘At the far end,’ she says. ‘We’ve told her you were coming.’
Whether this is true or not I’ve no idea; Yvonne, when I get to the bed, shows no expression at all.
She’s sitting up, her back supported by pillows, gazing vacantly before her. She seems, suddenly, to have acquired more weight; her cheeks are fatter, her face is red. There’s some sort of magazine lying on the bed, open, as though it’s being read by someone else.
I call her name; she seems unconcerned, nodding slightly as if at the end of some hour-long conversation.
‘More open up here.’ I point to the windows. ‘A better view.’
‘Have you brought some flowers?’
Her hands hang down, limply, on the cover of the bed.
‘I haven’t,’ I tell her.
‘I thought they said you’d brought some, then.’
‘How’re you feeling, then?’ I say.
‘I feel all right.’
‘You’re looking much better,’ I say, ‘already.’
‘They give you good food,’ she says, ‘I’ll grant you that.’ She looks along the ward; one or two other figures are lying in the beds, a woman with white hair, a woman without any teeth, and a woman with bright red lipstick and brightly rouged cheeks who’s smiling now in my direction.
The nurse I’ve spoken to at the door comes down the ward.
‘And how are you today, Yvonne?’ she says.
‘All right.’ She glances at the nurse, then looks away.
‘She’s just woken up from a good night’s sleep.’ The nurse consults a watch pinned to her tunic. ‘That’s thirteen hours,’ she says. ‘She’ll be setting a record if she keeps it up.’
‘What’s the record?’ Yvonne has said.
‘I’ll have to look it up,’ she says.
She moves on, calling to the women as she passes by the beds.
‘Are you allowed to smoke in here?’
‘I don’t know,’ she says. She shakes her head.
‘Do you know any of the other patients here?’ I say.
She shakes her head.
The woman with the make-up on has left her bed. She’s halfway down the ward already: ‘How are you feeling today?’ she says.
‘All right,’ I tell her. I nod my head.
‘I saw you yesterday, you know,’ she says.
‘I wasn’t here yesterday,’ I tell her.
‘I saw you,’ she says. She begins to laugh.
She has on a pink dressing-gown, pinned at the neck.
Yvonne, stiff-backed, upright, has fixed her gaze on the opposite bed.
‘I have a boy-friend,’ she adds, ‘like you.’
‘Does he come here every day?’ I ask.
‘He’s always here.’ She gestures round. ‘He’s up here now, as a matter of fact.’
We both look round.
‘He’s just talking to the doctors. He’ll be coming back.’
The nurse, at the far end of the ward, has turned.
‘He’s bigger than you. You should see his chest.’
She pushes out her own and hits it soundly with either fist.
‘I’d better keep out of his way,’ I tell her.
‘He’ll find you,’ she says. She laughs again.
