Twenty seven
Not long after Annie had left there was a slight noise at Blake’s office door. Sylvester moved softly for a big man and now he came in hesitating slightly in case Blake was not there or had someone with him and when he saw that neither was the case he shut the door.
‘I understand that you had a visitor,’ he said.
Blake cursed Sylvester’s active mind and his way of knowing exactly what went on in the building.
‘Yes.’
‘A young woman.’
‘Yes.’
‘And she wanted?’
‘It’s personal, Sylvester.’
‘My dear boy, while you are married to my daughter nothing that you do with another young woman is beyond my curiosity. Enlighten me.’
‘She wanted to borrow some money,’ Blake said flatly.
‘She thought you cared sufficiently to loan her some?’
‘Yes, she did.’
‘And?’
‘I haven’t got any money, Sylvester.’
‘David, is this your polite way of asking for an increase in salary?’
Blake laughed.
‘No,’ he said, ‘it isn’t. You pay me very well, I know that. She needs a lot of capital.’
‘I keep on telling you that you can have what you want—’
‘No.’
‘One of these days,’ Sylvester said slowly, ‘your independence will be the undoing of you, lad.’
‘I’m hardly independent. I live in your house, drive your car and work at your shipyard.’
‘You don’t have to work at my shipyard. My rivals would be happy to filch you from me. As for the rest I don’t like living alone. You don’t want to deprive me of my grandson’s rather noisy company, do you? What did she want the money for?’
‘To buy a farm. Her father is the tenant. They’ve lived there for a long time. They have the chance to buy it. She’s frightened that if they don’t buy it somebody else will.’
‘Do you want to buy the farm for her?’
‘No, of course I don’t.’
‘For her family, then – these are the people who took you in?’
Blake looked straight at him.
‘I don’t owe them anything. I worked hard every day of my life while I was there and they treated me like a servant most of the time. I never had a single day off all the years that I was there. I don’t want to buy the farm for them, I don’t want anything more to do with them and as long as I live I don’t ever want to go back there.’
‘You wish perhaps to take revenge?’
‘What should I want to take revenge for, Sylvester?’
‘I don’t know. Passions take people that way. Perhaps you would like to buy the farm?’
‘Do you know Sylvester you remind me slightly of that bit in the Bible where the Devil showed Him all the kingdoms of the world—’
Sylvester laughed.
‘Let’s keep the Bible out of it, shall we? Is it good land?’
‘Yes, it has a river running through it.’
‘The Wear in fact? God love it. Where would we be? Land is always a good investment. I’ll buy it for your birthday.’
‘No!’
‘Tell me, if the owner is so pressed to sell and the tenants cannot afford it is it not the truth that someone else will very likely happen past and buy it at a very good price?’
Blake didn’t say anything.
‘I think we ought to buy it. I think it would be very sound.’
‘Sylvester, I don’t want the farm.’
His father-in-law was at the door by then.
‘David, you lie like a gentleman.’ He opened the door and hesitated. ‘Did she cry when she left the office?’
‘No.’
‘You mustn’t forget that money is just a commodity and such a useful one. I expect she cried a good deal when she got home,’ and Sylvester left the office.
* * *
Joseph Harlington came to Grayswell. It had been such a good day too. Tommy and her father were both at home and Alistair was coming home. He was due to leave the country again, he did not know where he was going but Annie had the feeling that once he was gone it would be a long time before she saw him again. Even so she was trying to make the best of what time they had. Her mother and Clara had made a big dinner, it was Sunday and they were all as happy as they could be considering that Madge was alone. She had not come to Sunday dinner but that afternoon she and Mr Harlington had come to the farm.
Annie was surprised to see him, he rarely ventured anywhere especially in the afternoons since after the Sunday meal he had usually drunk enough that he was not capable of walking further than his armchair by the fire. He looked to her too sober for comfort and when Rose had made tea they sat around the fire and he said what Annie most feared.
‘I’ve had an offer for the farm, Jack. I’m sorry.’
The blood drained from her father’s face and Annie knew how hard this was for him.
‘That’s not fair,’ Tommy said straight away and Jack put a hand on his arm.
‘You know the situation, Tommy, if we could have raised the money we would. We couldn’t so we have nothing to complain about. Try to behave like the man you think you are.’
‘You can’t sell it to anybody else,’ Tommy said, almost shouting at Joseph Harlington. ‘This is our home!’
‘You’ll still be living here. It probably won’t feel any different, Tommy. That’s all I can offer,’ Mr Harlington said.
‘Who’s bought it?’ Rose asked.
‘A man called Sylvester Richmond.’
‘No!’ Annie said, brought to her feet. Mr Harlington looked vaguely at her.
‘You know him?’ he said.
‘He’s Blake’s father-in-law.’
Tommy let out what was almost a howl.
‘That bastard!’ he said.
* * *
Tommy wouldn’t wait. Annie didn’t blame him. They got into the old truck and drove. It didn’t seem to take long because Tommy made the truck go faster than was good for it. It was the finding of Sylvester’s house that took the time and then Tommy halted the truck at the imposing building where the Richmonds lived.
‘Is this it?’ he said almost beneath his breath.
‘It must be.’
‘It’s bigger than the Hall.’
Tommy drove in at the gates and up to the front door where he parked the truck and then he got out and hammered on the door and Annie stood there with him. A middle-aged woman opened the door. Tommy pushed past her and he went into the great wide hall and there he shouted Blake’s name.
At first there didn’t seem to be anybody about and then she saw Blake coming down the stairs with a baby in his arms. He had the child held in against his shoulder as though it had been crying.
‘Please don’t shout like that,’ he said.
‘I’ll shout as much as I like,’ Tommy said. ‘How could you do that to us, after all my parents did for you? You’re a no-good bastard.’
‘I haven’t done anything,’ Blake said.
‘You’ve bought the farm, our farm!’
‘No, I haven’t.’
‘Don’t split hairs, Blake. Your father-in-law has bought it.’
‘I can’t help what Sylvester does with his money,’ Blake said, ‘it was nothing to do with me.’
From the depths of the house a very big man came into the hall.
‘What is going on?’ he said.
Blake’s wife came down the stairs at that point and took the baby from him.
‘You did it on purpose,’ Tommy accused Blake, ‘because Annie wouldn’t marry you.’
Annie looked into Irene’s eyes and wished herself anywhere else.
‘I think you ought to leave, Tommy,’ Blake said evenly.
‘Why, what are you going to do about it?’
Sylvster roared with laughter at this point.
‘You can tell the man’s a farmer,’ he said, ‘he’s like a little bantam cock.’
Tommy turned and glared at him.
‘That farm is my home.’
‘No one’s disputing the fact. Nothing will change, except the shape of your face, I dare to predict, if you persist in calling David names. You don’t look to me like you’re much good with your fists. I should go home if I were you,’ and Sylvester turned and walked back into the darkness of the hall.
‘Take the advice, Tommy,’ Blake said gently.
Tommy stood there for a few seconds as though he was going to hit Blake and then he turned and walked out.
* * *
‘What I don’t understand,’ Alistair said afterwards, ‘is how Blake knew the farm was for sale?’
Annie blushed.
They had gone back to Western Isle and were sitting by the fire. She hadn’t wanted to go. She hadn’t wanted to leave Grayswell as though Sylvester Richmond might suddenly appear and throw them out. She knew that Alistair wanted her to himself, to take her to bed but Annie couldn’t think about anything but what had happened.
‘You told him?’ Alistair said in wonder.
‘I went to see him. I thought he might help.’
‘Whatever gave you that idea?’
‘He’s rich,’ Annie said helplessly.
‘Annie, he was desperately in love with you, he wanted to marry you—’
‘He bought the farm anyway. How could he do that?’
‘Why shouldn’t he? You should be glad that somebody did—’
‘I just wish it had been anybody else.’
‘Why, what difference does it make now?’
‘He told me – I went to his office – he sat there and told me to my face that he had no money and couldn’t lend it to me or he would have.’
‘That’s the truth, surely. It isn’t his money. I don’t understand how Tommy could make such a fool of himself—’
‘It’s all right for you. You’ll have Western Isle. We’ll never have Grayswell now, not ever,’ and Annie got up and ran out. She ran upstairs and when he followed her into the bedroom she turned a wet face to him and said, ‘I’m sorry, Alistair, a fine homecoming this was.’
‘It’s all right. I know you’re upset.’
‘It wasn’t for Tommy, it was for my father. He’s worked so hard and he wanted to own the farm. I was only trying to help. Tommy was so angry when he realised I’d gone to Blake. I made things worse.’
‘No, you didn’t,’ Alistair soothed and she went into his arms and hid there. ‘I don’t suppose Blake cares about the farm anyhow, why should he?’
‘Why not?’
‘He has other things now. He has a wife and a son and a good living. He’ll have the shipyard after Sylvester. He got out of here.’
‘You sound envious.’
‘I am. It took the army to get me out.’
Annie laughed through the tears and then she kissed him.
‘We won’t talk about it any more, I promise,’ and she kissed him again. ‘Let me show you how much I’ve missed you,’ she said.
Twenty eight
Blake could not help feeling guilty about the buying of Grayswell. He had tried several times to talk Sylvester out of it and then had given up. Sylvester had decided that they would own the farm and own the farm they soon did. Blake felt betrayed somehow and that he had in his turn betrayed the Lowe family. He also felt threatened. He kept dreaming that he was at the farm or going to the farm and he spent time brooding about it. He had wanted to get away from the dale, thought he had managed and now it was as if the connection could not be severed. He had wanted to shut the past out of his life and it intruded over and over again. There was also a less than nice part of him that said there was no reason he should not own Grayswell since Alistair and Annie had owned Sunniside. He argued with himself that it was not the same thing but the wounds had not healed from childhood. He doubted that they ever would.
Sylvester did not make it easier. He had the deeds made out in Blake’s name and presented them to him on the morning of his birthday. Irene was not impressed.
‘Father, you are a meddler,’ she said, presenting Sylvester with his ration of bacon and egg.
Sylvester picked up knife and fork and began to demolish the food with speed.
‘You don’t want me to die of boredom now do you, child?’ he said.
Irene said nothing more. Blake said nothing at all. It was not until they were alone in her bedroom that night when she was sitting at the dressing table brushing her hair and watching him through the mirror that she was able to talk to him. He was lying on her bed, fully dressed, totally silent and apparently absorbed in his thoughts.
‘Are you upset about the farm?’ she said to him.
‘I just wanted to pretend that it had all gone away.’
‘The past doesn’t go away,’ Irene said, ‘especially the nasty bits. Maybe facing it will help.’
‘Tommy never liked me.’
‘I hate to be rude but I can’t say that I took to Tommy very much . . . or your farm girl either. I wanted to go over and pull her hair.’
Blake smiled.
‘I’m glad you didn’t,’ he said.
‘Sometimes dignity is all there is left.’
Blake said nothing to that. Irene got up and went to him.
‘Don’t worry about it. It wasn’t your doing.’
‘It’s got my name on it, Irene.’
‘Oh damn and blast them,’ Irene said, ‘they didn’t appreciate you when they had you and I don’t see why we should care about it now. I know my father is an interfering old bugger but there’s not much we can do about that.’
‘Irene, your language is awful.’
Irene laughed.
‘There speaks the farm boy. If I were you I’d try to get used to owning things. You’re going to own a great deal more than a farm one day.’
‘What do you mean by that?’
‘Davy, my father isn’t going to live forever even though he thinks he is, and you are married to me. He owns a great many things. In time we’ll inherit the shipyard, a chain of shops, a part-share in half a dozen ships, several houses and a fish and chip restaurant.’
‘A fish and chip place?’
‘It’s the most valued thing he has. He was born there. His mother ran it.’
Blake laughed.
‘I thought his parents had the shipyard.’
‘They did but my grandmother liked having her own business. She had a pub too and a shop but they started out with the fish and chips. Such giddy heights as you have come to, a family who made their way frying fish. So you see a farm is nothing. Besides, your farm girl deserved it.’
‘That’s not very nice, Irene.’
‘I don’t much care. I should think she’s very sorry now.’
‘Alistair Vane’s all right,’ Blake said grudgingly.
‘He seems the best of the lot, not that that’s saying much.’
‘I always sort of liked him. I did go through a time when I thought Charles Vane might be my father.’
‘Did you?’ Irene said. ‘Why?’
‘Just talk.’
‘But you don’t think so now?’
‘I don’t know. I didn’t want to think that a man like that could have been my father but he’s Alistair’s and Alistair isn’t like him at all. He’s rather nice really.’
‘You’re rather nice too,’ Irene said and hugged him.
* * *
Afterwards there was not a way in all the rest of his life in which Blake could think about what happened that summer without pain. Not once in all the time that followed did his life ever quite recover. It was too much to absorb. To an extent he could accept that his grandparents had died because they were older, he could accept his mother’s death because he had not known her and his father’s absence but when Irene died the whole world stopped.
He always remembered every detail, every second about that day. The way that Irene was upstairs with the baby when he left so instead of kissing her goodbye he only shouted up to her, the way that he had not seen her, the silly quarrel they had had the night before because they were both tired. He remembered leaving the house, going to work, how he spent the morning. There had still been no bombing to Richmond’s yard.
That morning when Blake and Sylvester were at work and the nanny was out with the baby in his pram because it was a fine day a single German aeroplane came in over the coast just above the town and a minute before the sirens sounded dropped three bombs.
There was nothing left of Sylvester Richmond’s fine house and it was hours before they dug the bodies out of the rubble, amongst them two people Irene had taken in the week before when they had lost their own home, and Irene herself.
When Blake was summoned and went home it made no impression on him that other houses were ruined, that other premises were nothing but rubble, that other people had been killed. He could not believe that what was left had been a place where he and Irene had lived together with their child and Sylvester. He could not believe that anything had stood there other than what remained and he could not believe that Irene was dead.
Some friends of Sylvester took them in, Marjorie Philips and her husband, Neville. He was a ship owner. Sylvester had known them a long time. Blake remembered Marjorie from Sylvester’s Sunday get-togethers when she was always sidling up to him, smiling sweetly because her husband was away.
She didn’t sidle up to him now, she was white-faced with concern and shock. She made sure that Hetty Forster, the nanny, was comfortable and could manage with the baby. She prepared rooms for them, she made food which they didn’t eat and gave them brandy which Sylvester drank but Blake didn’t.
He dragged himself to work day after day because there was so much to do and Sylvester was no help. Sylvester didn’t go to work, he stayed at home and there Blake presumed Marjorie tried to entertain him with gossip. Blake even went to work on the morning of Irene’s funeral. He didn’t sleep so there seemed little point in staying in bed, he couldn’t eat and after the funeral the house was full of people making kind remarks. It seemed to him that things had to get better after the funeral but they didn’t because he kept on having to get up after a sleepless night and carry on. He tried to find reasons for getting up.
With Sylvester not at work there was more to do. Blake didn’t seem to get tired. He could be awake all night, eat nothing and work eighteen hours a day and not feel any worse. There was no way that he could feel any worse. The nights got longer and longer even though he was only in bed four or five hours. Lying there awake thinking of Irene was the worst torture that had ever been devised. He was frightened of how he felt as though he would never want to do anything again, as though he would never want anything or anyone again. He hated the sound of the baby crying because it reminded him of how happy they had been, he couldn’t bear to have the child around him. Sylvester did nothing now, all day. He slept in the afternoons. Blake didn’t know whether he slept at night, they didn’t talk.
Even walking around the streets of the town reminded him of her all the time. The parks they had gone to, the shops she had liked. Everywhere was the sound of her laughter and her voice and she was nowhere.
One night about three months later when Neville was away from home and Sylvester had gone to bed he went to his room to find Marjorie there. She was not a bad-looking woman for her age, she had kept her figure but there was something almost pathetic about the way she wore the seductive nightwear which was much too young for her. Her face was covered with make-up, subtle so that she looked younger than she was but the clinging material hinted that her body had long since given away its secrets and was starting to feel tired. He told himself that he must try not to offend her but he was so surprised that he stood back against the door inadvertently shutting it behind him, and himself and Marjorie inside.
‘I thought you might be lonely,’ she said.
‘Marjorie . . . I don’t want to be rude but . . .’
‘Men are no good at being on their own,’ she said, ‘I know if anything happened to me Neville would marry again straight away. I just thought you might like a little bit of comfort,’ and she began to take off the top layer of whatever it was she had on. Blake’s first reaction was that he wanted to go and tell Irene because it would make her laugh. Instead he managed to get the door open and walk out.
He left the house. In the streets there were people. They were determined to have a good time in case there was no tomorrow. The men and many of the women were wearing uniform. They were laughing loudly, singing. There was singing coming from the pubs and music from the dance halls. There were cinemas and clubs and it seemed like the whole world was out. Blake was comforted there because it was only the present. There was no past and no future here, there couldn’t be.
He went into the nearest pub and had a drink. It felt so good, the first one always did. The second beer slipped down easily too and after the third things didn’t seem so bad. There were lots of girls in the pub, some of them fair and one with red hair but nobody had the particular shade that Irene’s hair had been. They were all young, not like Marjorie. He shuddered thinking of Marjorie, her body starting to give in to life, not firm any longer, tired. He was tired too. The other people in the pub didn’t seem tired, they were making the best of things, the air was blue with cigarette smoke and the people behind the bar never stopped serving.
He lit a cigarette and thanked God for alcohol and nicotine and the fuggy warmth of the pub. He drank until he couldn’t think any more and then he walked home and went to bed and slept.
* * *
He tried to persuade Sylvester to go to work with him but the older man had no enthusiasm.
‘Sylvester, I need you there. I can’t manage without you.’
‘Liar,’ Sylvester said mildly.
‘I’m getting it all wrong, Sylvester. I’m incompetent, I’m ruining your company.’
‘You can’t, the whole thing is too well insulated for any one person to ruin it. Besides, you have more ability in your little finger than most men have in their whole bodies.’
They never talked about Irene. They couldn’t talk about her in the past, she would be dead then. Nobody else talked about her either. Their friends never mentioned her.
After six months Blake was invited to a dinner party. He didn’t want to go but he knew that his friends were trying hard and a dinner party was a rarity in these days of rationing. It meant that people had made sacrifices.
He thought of saying that he couldn’t spare the time and it was true that he was working very hard but the idea of actually going to someone’s house for food and conversation was too inviting so in the end he agreed.
He didn’t have far to go, it was just along the road. Even in the blackout it was no real trouble. He was glad he had gone when he got there. The hostess, Phyllis, greeted him with a warm smile, her husband, Clive, provided him with a glass of beer. Several people there were known to him but after a while it became clear to Blake that Pauline Kington who had been Irene’s good friend, had been asked for his benefit. She was seated next to him at dinner. Her perfume wafted under his nose. Her dress showed off her pretty arms and neck.
Blake tried to eat and couldn’t, he tried not to drink too much and that was nearly impossible too. Pauline talked. He didn’t know what she was talking about because he felt sick. No one mentioned Irene. It was as if she had never been.
Blake excused himself and went to the bathroom. He felt faint. The big black and white room swayed and then he was sick. The dinner and the beer went down the toilet bowl and after that he washed his face and hands, swallowed some cold water thankfully and stood outside the front door in the darkness, taking big breaths of fresh air.
When he went back into the drawing-room Pauline looked up and smiled. Blake knew that if he stayed at the other side of the room it might seem offensive so he went over and sat beside her, declined coffee, smoked a cigarette and listened to Pauline talking about books and films and politics. Around him the others discussed the war and business.
‘The war was the saving of the shipyards, wasn’t it, David?’ Clive said.
‘Was it?’
‘Oh, come. Since 1935 you’ve been coining it in. I daresay Richmond and Dixon has never made as much money in all of its existence. Some people have done very nicely out of the war and you’re one of them. A great many people have work now. Before the war many of them had nothing.’
Luckily Pauline was staying so Blake didn’t have to be polite and offer to walk her home. He didn’t think he could bear another second of her smiling sympathetic beautiful face or her intelligent remarks. It was not long before midnight that he reached his bedroom. There was no sign of Marjorie, no sound of any kind, just the thankful silence.
It was a long time since he had gone to bed sober and after the first few minutes he stopped being thankful for the black silence, began to resent his wakefulness and to wish to be drunk enough so that he could sleep.
He looked at the shadows in the room. He thought about the evening. He thought of how dinner parties used to be fun, going out with Irene, having her somewhere near all evening, coming home to talk everybody over. And then the best bit. Bed. Not necessarily sex but just being there, the joy of Irene’s sweet body, to be able to turn over and know that she was there, the warmth, the comfort, the silky feel of her nightdress when she wore one, the smoothness of her body when she didn’t.