A Temporary Life, page 24
‘I wouldn’t mind.’
‘We’ve had some already,’ he says. He adds, ‘You must help yourself.’
Leyland has taken a seat against the wall. His eyes seem almost luminous, brilliant beneath the redness of his hair, his skin, if anything, even paler now than that of Groves.
Fraser has one eye closed; maybe I’d been mistaken about his teeth; he doesn’t smile.
Groves, apart from a small bruise on his cheek, appears unmarked.
I pour out some coffee from a metal jug.
The two men by the door have moved over to the table. One of them, perhaps, I recognize; a vague impression of a face I’ve glimpsed in the unlit yard at the back of the college.
‘Elizabeth’s upstairs,’ I say.
‘That’s all right,’ he says. He nods his head.
‘There’s a car coming shortly. She’s taking me to the hospital.’ I hold up my hand. ‘My eye needs some attention, too,’ I add.
‘We wondered,’ he says, ‘if you wanted a job.’
‘What doing?’
‘We normally have an adviser to our architect,’ he says. He unfolds his hands. ‘Usually it’s an artist of some repute. Though it’s not essential, if we feel, for instance, that his temperament is right.’
‘I have a job,’ I say ‘at present.’
‘I think, when you get to work,’ he says, ‘you’ll find you haven’t.’
He’s begun to smile.
‘Do I get your wife as well?’ I ask.
The smile has faded.
‘I should just knock his teeth in,’ Leyland says.
He comes over from the wall; he sits down at the table.
Fraser, too, has come over to the bench, easing himself down at the opposite end.
‘My wife herself,’ he says, ‘will have to answer that.’
He looks to the banistered landing overhead.
Elizabeth, evidently, is standing there.
One hand on the banister, she comes slowly down the stairs.
‘I shouldn’t take his job,’ she says.
She comes over to the table.
‘He’s no intention of giving you one, in any case,’ she adds.
I begin to laugh.
I see her eyes, grey, hooded, almost invisible, the strands of hair: Neville has caught her arm; he gets up from the table, pushing her back.
‘Are you ready, Elizabeth?’ he says. ‘We’re about to leave.’
She doesn’t answer. Leyland has begun to laugh; Fraser smiles: one of his teeth, at the front, is missing.
‘Do you really want her?’ Neville says. He looks across. ‘Is she worth all the effort you’ve been putting in? She isn’t to me,’ he says. ‘I can tell you that.’
The others, it seems, have scarcely moved.
It’s like some familiar routine; Leyland, as if reassured, has begun to tap his fingers against the table.
Groves, expressionless, still stands against the wall. He has a bandage, I notice, on one of his hands.
The man with the flower in his button-hole has a broken nose; the other one, with the handkerchief, has cauliflower ears. His hands are bruised. There’s a recently healed cut above one eye.
Elizabeth turns back to the table; she begins to cry.
Neville, as if antagonized, with an almost boyish alarm, hits her suddenly on the side of the head.
As I get up from the bench I find, suddenly, I’m being held down.
I begin to shout.
He hits her with his fist. He hits her then with the back of his hand. She falls on her knees. He lifts her head and hits her once again. She begins to scream. Leyland and Fraser have begun to smile.
She lies on the floor. I get up from the bench.
‘Don’t move,’ someone says, ‘you’ll be all right.’
Elizabeth, swaying, has climbed back to her feet.
‘Get in the car,’ Neville says. She shakes her head. ‘Get in the car,’ he says. ‘I’ll be out in a minute.’
A moment later, moaning, she moves over to the door.
Groves, it seems, has opened it for her; his black eyes, briefly, glance towards the room.
He follows her out.
‘Do you want the job, then?’ Neville says.
‘No,’ I say. I shake my head.
He begins to smile.
‘That’s why I thought I’d take the precaution of removing you from the other one,’ he says. ‘You’ll not work round here,’ he adds, ‘again.’
He buttons his coat.
‘I don’t suppose we’ll meet again.’
He nods his head towards the door.
I sit at the table. I don’t look up.
The man with the button-hole is the last to leave.
There’s the sound of car engines starting up in the drive outside.
The engines fade.
The woman in the white smock has appeared at one of the doors.
‘Will there be anything else?’ she says.
I lean on the table. I shake my head.
‘If there’s nothing else, then,’ she says, ‘I’ll clear the table.’
‘Did you hear all that?’ I ask her as she comes across.
‘No, sir,’ she says. ‘I was in the kitchen.’
I get out a cigarette; I begin to laugh.
‘I’ll call you when the car arrives,’ she adds.
I get up after she’s gone and wander round.
I look in the other rooms; there’s a library with other porcelain figures mounted on the shelves; a window, sheathed in curtains, looks out across hedged fields to a mansion on a hill.
In a field immediately below the house groups of figures are running to and fro: pitches have been marked out and posts set up.
Pettrie, when I turn round is standing in the door.
He folds back his hair, slowly; then, with two dogs at his heels, he steps inside the room.
‘I thought I’d come back,’ he says. He gestures behind him. ‘I saw them on the road. I dropped Beccie off,’ he adds, ‘at the college.’
He strokes the dogs.
‘Did anything happen?’
‘Elizabeth left.’
‘I thought she would.’
‘It’s a regular circus.’
‘They’re very odd.’
He crosses to the window.
‘I’ll drive you to the hospital. We needn’t wait for the car. ‘I’ll leave a message with Mrs Bowen.’
‘I’d appreciate a lift,’ I say.
‘Would you like a drink,’ he says, ‘before you go?’
‘I wouldn’t mind.’
‘I’ll get you one,’ he says. ‘I shan’t be a minute.’
The dogs stay in the room. They’re both retrievers, perhaps relatives of the ones the Newmans have.
He comes back in with a half-full glass.
‘I shouldn’t have more,’ he says.
I drink it off.
‘You might run out, you mean?’ I tell him.
He laughs.
‘I’m thinking of last night,’ he says.
He gestures to the window.
‘That’s the family house. Or was. It’s run now as a teacher’s college.’
He indicates the figures, running to and fro in the field below.
‘The one we’re in now’s the dower-house,’ he adds. ‘If you ever have time, I’ll show you round.’
He runs his hand across his head.
‘I suppose we better get off,’ he says.
A car with a folding hood is waiting in the drive outside. In its general proportions it’s not unlike Wilcox’s vintage Armstrong Siddeley.
He opens the door; as I climb inside he gestures at the house.
Low, one-storeyed, it stands in the shadow of several trees; dark branches are coiled above its broad-angled roof. It reminds me of the Newman’s house. Its yellow stone-work has begun to crumble. A single flight of steps runs up to the metal-studded door; white-painted sash-windows are arranged in pairs on either side.
The dogs have followed us to the car; Pettrie calls out as the white-overalled figure of his housekeeper appears at the door.
The dogs run back towards the house.
We turn to the drive; I can see the house more clearly as we reach the trees; it’s like a massive boulder, pale, symmetrical, a quaint facsimile of the larger mansion on the hill above.
The white figure at the porch, with the two dogs, has disappeared.
‘Did Neville say anything to you?’ Pettrie says.
I shake my head.
‘He offered me a job.’
He begins to laugh.
We reach a pair of gates; there’s a coat-of-arms mounted on a plinth on top of each of the posts: I catch a glimpse, in relief, of a bear, standing upright: to its left are grouped three feathers.
‘Did he say what it was?’
‘A consultant. In a wholly artistic capacity of course,’ I add.
He laughs again.
The car, having passed between the gates, turns into a walled lane the other side.
The walls, after a while, give way to hedges. I catch a distant view of the house on the hill, the glitter of its windows, a vague impression of jerseyed figures running to and fro in the field below.
Pettrie’s hands are long and thin, the knuckles crested white as he grips the wheel.
‘Will you be seeing Elizabeth again?’ he says.
‘I’ve no idea.’
‘Did he beat her up?’
‘Has he done it before?’ I say.
‘It’s the one thing, it seems, that keeps them going. That and the provocation necessary, preceding it,’ he says.
He concentrates for a moment on the road ahead.
It runs along the bed of a shallow valley. Low, pine-covered hills have appeared on either side; we pass through a village of low, stone, terraced houses: a larger house stands back from the road amidst a clump of trees; an asphalt drive leads up towards it.
The road dips down; it crosses a stream.
Further on we reach a junction.
A lorry lies on its side; one of its wheels is still revolving; men with shovels and a hosepipe signal us past. There’s a van with a flashing light. The front of the lorry has embedded itself in the trunk of a tree. Pieces of glass are strewn across the road.
Further on, parked in a lay-by, is the Newmans’ Bentley. The upper half of it has disappeared. We’re almost past it before Pettrie, seeing it, calls out.
He turns into the side of the road and stops the engine.
‘My God: I believe that’s Neville’s car,’ he says.
He doesn’t look back.
‘I came the other way,’ he adds. ‘It’s quicker. If I’d come back this way I might have seen it.’
He seems more concerned with this than anything else.
I open the door, climb out, make sure that he’s no intention of following, then walk back along the verge towards the wreck.
The seat at the front is spattered with blood; blood runs, too, in a great gash across the bonnet.
A policeman comes across from the direction of the lorry.
‘Would you mind,’ he tells me, ‘moving on.’
‘Was anyone injured? They were friends of mine.’ I indicate the car.
‘The driver of the lorry’s been killed. And one occupant of the car,’ he says, ‘is seriously injured.’
‘Which one was it?’
‘Do you mind giving me your name?’ he says.
He writes it down.
Pettrie, when I glance back, is still sitting in the car, his gaze still fixed on the road ahead.
‘It was a gentleman, sir,’ the policeman says.
‘Do you have his name?’
‘I’m afraid I haven’t. You could get it at the station,’ he tells me, ‘when I send in my report.’
I glance back down the road.
‘What happened to the rest of them?’ I ask.
‘They drove on to town, sir, in another car.’
He waits.
I look down at his pad.
‘Between ourselves, it’s the chauffeur in the car who’s injured. The rest of the occupants, I’m glad to say, appear to be unhurt.’
I go back down to Pettrie.
‘Is anybody hurt?’ he says.
‘The driver of the lorry,’ I tell him.
‘Seriously?’
‘Dead,’ I tell him.
He nods his head.
He adds nothing further.
I get back in the car.
We drive in silence.
The traffic, after a while, begins to thicken. The first buildings of the town appear.
‘It’s always the innocent with them,’ he says, ‘who suffer. That’s why, in the past, I’ve been so keen on protecting Bec.’
‘Is she innocent?’ I ask.
‘I think she is,’ he says.
He adds nothing further.
On the far horizon the cathedral spire appears; the road dips down towards the valley: the town, like a mound of rock, rears up, strangely inhospitable, on the opposite side.
We cross the river.
He drops me off at the hospital gates.
‘If there’s anything I can do,’ he says, ‘you must let me know,’ but seems in no mood to wait for any answer.
I watch the car move off, then, scarcely aware of anything any longer, I turn up the drive to the hospital door.
3
‘They were very lucky,’ Wilcox says. ‘They might, very easily, have all been killed.’
His fingers, short, stubby, drum unrhythmically on the surface of his desk.
‘They’d drunk far too much, for one thing, to be driving around in cars. Newman himself, in my opinion, wasn’t fit to be outside the door.’
‘I’ve had a letter,’ I tell him, ‘informing me that my services will no longer be required after the end of the Easter term.’
‘That’s right. Three months’ notice either side. It’s the normal procedure in a case like this.’
He glances at the door behind my head.
All the bottles on the wall have been removed; but for a teacup standing in a saucer all the shelves are bare.
Even the door to his washroom is standing open.
‘It gives no reason,’ I tell him, ‘for my dismissal.’
‘You don’t have to give reasons, you know,’ he says.
Some unreasonable demand is being made.
‘Is anyone else included in this clearing-out?’ I say.
‘I’ve told Mathews there’ll no longer be a place for him when the Easter term commences,’ he says.
‘What about Kendal?’
He glances at his desk. As if preparing for a battle its entire surface has been cleared; the ink-wells, pen racks, blotters, diaries and miscellaneous bric-à-brac have been removed.
‘I don’t see what concern one teacher’s professional life should be to another. Mr Kendal’s work here is a matter of concern only to Mr Kendal and myself,’ he says.
‘All I want to know,’ I tell him, ‘is whether Mr Kendal is staying or leaving. For some better post, perhaps.’
‘Mr Kendal is staying at the present,’ he says. ‘If a better opportunity happens to come his way I shan’t stand in his path,’ he adds.
‘I’m prepared,’ I tell him, ‘to do a deal.’
‘We don’t have bargains here, you know.’ He rubs his head; the wreath of greying hair appears to have turned appreciably whiter over the past few days. The skin at the top of his head has slowly reddened.
‘I don’t mind leaving here myself,’ I tell him, ‘providing, that is, that Mathews stays.’
‘The enrolment, or otherwise, of students,’ he tells me, ‘is my affair. That’s why I’ve got the job; it’s one of the responsibilities I have in running the place.’
‘I want you to ensure that Mathews stays in the college until another place is found for him elsewhere, or he leaves,’ I tell him, ‘of his own volition.’
‘I’m not quite sure what you’re getting at,’ he says.
‘To put it another way: if you want to stay in the job you’ve got to make sure that Mathews doesn’t leave and that I,’ I tell him, ‘leave only when I find it convenient to do so.’
His eyes have widened. The redness from the top of his head spreads slowly downwards across his face.
I glance behind him to the open door.
‘I’ve applied, on Mathews’ behalf, to a college in London. With a bit of luck, next year, he’ll be going there.’
‘London? There’s nothing that goes on in London that we can’t do just as well up here.’
‘I just want your assurance that he’ll go on doing it,’ I tell him, ‘until he leaves.’
‘I’ll not stand in his way,’ he says. ‘If you’ve applied, you see, to a school already.’
‘What happened to all the refuse, then?’
I gesture to the door.
‘There were one or two pieces of bric-à-brac,’ he says, that Mr Kendal offered to remove. They’ve accumulated there, you know, over a number of years. These things mount up if you don’t keep watch.’
‘I’ll be leaving,’ I tell him, ‘at the end of the week.’
‘I thought you said next term.’
‘You can tell the Governors,’ I say, ‘I’m indisposed.’
I get up from the chair.
‘For all effective purposes,’ I go on, ‘I’ve left already.’
‘I shouldn’t let this Newman business overwhelm you, you know,’ he says, ‘too much. I know he’s a powerful man. But powerful men can have their limits.’
‘It’s more my limits I’m thinking of,’ I say.
I go over to the door.
I light a cigarette.
‘I gather that smoking in the staff-room has recently been allowed.’
‘Well, as long as it’s kept within limits, I suppose it can be allowed.’
‘And that Mathews has acquired representation on the Governors’ Board.’
‘I haven’t heard about that,’ he says.
‘Nevertheless, it’s something you’ll have to pursue,’ I say.
I blow out a cloud of smoke.
I wait.
‘I’ll always listen to reason,’ he says. ‘It’s these wild emotional forays I take exception to.’
‘I’ll keep in touch,’ I tell him.
‘I’ll always look forward to hearing how you’ve got on,’ he says.
‘Are the plans for a bigger college still under way?’ I ask.
