Long Time Coming (2 page)

My mother must have been looking out for me. The front door opened as I approached and she appeared, pinnied and permed as ever, smiling her wide, toothy smile at the sight of her only child. ‘There you are, dear,’ she called. ‘Come along in.’

We hugged in the hallway, the lingering fragrance of her lily-of-the-valley soap summoning the past with instant ease. How had the journey been? Was I hungry? What could she get me? It was the usual home-coming litany, recited with no reference to the news she’d broken over the phone. I opted for tea and a slice of Dundee cake and followed her into the kitchen, which Bramble, the waste-of-space cat she’d acquired since my father’s death, vacated as we entered, with the hint of a glare in my direction.

‘Where is he, then?’ I asked as she switched the kettle on, sensing she might launch blithely off into a series of questions about my career and the former fiancée she’d never met (and now never would) if I didn’t set the agenda.

‘You mean Eldritch?’

‘No, Mum. I mean the other ex-con you’ve taken in.’

‘There’s no need to be sarcastic.’ She spooned tea into the pot. ‘And don’t call him an ex-con.’

‘But that’s what he is, isn’t it?’

‘He’s not here at the moment. He goes to Torquay most days. I think he finds it more … sophisticated … than Paignton.’

‘I suppose he has a lot of sophistication to catch up on.’

Mum sighed. ‘I’m sorry it had to come out of the blue, Stephen. I really am. It’s not my fault. Your father was adamant. So was your grandfather. They were ashamed of Eldritch. And what was I to do? I’d never even met him. I had no idea what it was all about.’ The kettle had come to the boil as she spoke. She poured water into the teapot and rattled the lid back into place. ‘They said he’d never be let out. So, it was better to pretend he was dead.’

‘But now he
has
been let out. Unless you’re going to tell me he’s on the run.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous, dear. He’s an old man.’

‘How did he wind up here?’

‘He had nowhere else to go. I wrote to the Irish Prison Service when your father passed away, asking them to let Eldritch know. That’s how he was able to contact me. He wrote just before Christmas, saying they were going to release him and could he come and stay here until he’d found his feet. Well, I couldn’t turn him down, could I?’

‘That depends.’

‘What on?’

‘What he was in for, to start with.’

‘Well, I really don’t know.’ She spoke airily, as if the nature of Eldritch’s offence was a trivial matter. But I’d mulled it over on the train and couldn’t see him serving such a long stretch for anything short of murder. ‘Your father never said. I’m not sure he knew either.’

‘He must have done.’

‘You’d think so, I agree. But …’

‘But what, Mum? Tell me you’re sure you haven’t got a mass murderer living under the same roof.’

‘Oh, he didn’t murder anyone, dear. I can set your mind at rest on that. Now, cut yourself a slice of cake and bring it into the sitting-room.’ And at that she set off with the tea tray.

The gas fire was wheezing into action when I caught up with her, the tea already poured. I took a sip and swallowed a mouthful of cake.

‘What kind of food do they have in Texas, dear?’ Mum casually enquired as she stroked Bramble, who’d plonked himself on the sofa and showed no sign of moving on this time.

‘Don’t try to change the subject, Mum. How do you know Eldritch didn’t murder anyone?’

‘He told me so.’

‘Just like that?’

‘Well, he obviously thought I might worry about it, so he made the point in his letter. “I didn’t kill or injure anyone.”
His exact words. You can read the letter if you want. I kept it.’

‘I’d like to see it, yes. But how can you be sure he’s telling the truth, since apparently he didn’t go on to say what he
had
done?’

‘Well, they censor prisoners’ correspondence, don’t they? They wouldn’t have let him lie to me.’

My mother knew as much as I did about the Irish Prison Service’s censorship policy, of course: precisely nothing. But there was nothing to be gained by pointing that out. I tried an appeal to reason. ‘Doesn’t it seem odd to you that he won’t say what he did to land himself behind bars for … however many years it was?’

‘Thirty-six, dear. Well, nearly. July 1940 until this January. A long, long time.’

‘Exactly.’

‘Your father and grandfather were never informed of the particulars, you see. Only that Eldritch had been imprisoned indefinitely for … offences against the state. Your father thought … well, he was afraid … his brother might have been … spying for the Germans.’

‘What put that in his mind?’

‘I don’t know. He never said.’

And my mother, with her undentable insouciance, had evidently never asked. ‘Ireland was neutral in the war, Mum. What would Eldritch have been spying on?’

‘I can’t imagine.’

I couldn’t suppress a sigh of exasperation. ‘For all you know he could be a member of the IRA.’ I didn’t really believe that, but I reckoned the suggestion might snap Mum out of her complacency. The papers I’d read on the train had been full of IRA bombings and shootings. I’d forgotten while I’d been away just how murderous their campaign was.

She shook her head. ‘Nonsense.’

‘How can you be so sure?’

‘I’m not quite as naïve as you seem to think, Stephen,’ she replied. ‘I was actually intending to press him on the question of his offence once he’d settled in, but he … dealt with the subject before I could raise it.’

‘How, exactly?’

‘He explained it was a condition of his release that he say nothing about the circumstances leading to his imprisonment.’

‘
What?
’

‘He explained it was a condition of—’

‘I know. I heard you. I just … don’t believe it.’

‘Really?’ Mum frowned at me in puzzlement. ‘Why on earth not?’

‘Because …’ I broke off and raised two hands in mock surrender. ‘I’m only thinking of you, Mum. How can you trust this man? You know nothing about him.’

‘I know he’s your father’s brother and needs a helping hand. I’ve given him the use of the attic room until Easter. He’s promised to move on by then. I think he’s looking for a flat in Torquay. Meanwhile, he keeps himself to himself and causes me no problem. So, I hope you’re not going to
create
a problem, dear.’ She gave me a stern look. ‘I really do.’

I took a long, hot bath that I badly needed and would have found relaxing in normal circumstances. I debated with myself whether I was overreacting and concluded that, even if I was, my mother was certainly
under
reacting. I’d refrained from asking her whether she thought Dad, if he’d still been alive, would have taken Eldritch in. Pretending he was dead as he had, I seriously doubted it. But maybe Dad had had the advantage of knowing what those mysterious ‘
offences against the state
’ were. Maybe he’d feigned ignorance on the point because he couldn’t bear to admit to his wife what his own brother had actually done.

While I was soaking in the tub my mother had dug out the letter Eldritch had sent her from prison. It was waiting for me on the bedside cabinet in my room. I read it as I dressed.

It was written in copperplate ballpoint on lined paper, under the printed address
Portlaoise Prison
.

The old fellow had a nice line in self-pitying ingratiation. There was no doubt about that. Though he had never met my mother, he had pitched his appeal to her softer instincts perfectly.

I caught my first sight of him while I was unpacking. I passed the window and glimpsed a figure in the street. I knew it was him before I’d even stopped to look down. There was something in his build and posture that reminded me of my father. And surely, yes, the raincoat he was wearing had belonged to my father. Mum must have kept it, though hardly with this contingency in mind. It was
another reason to dislike the man, to add to all the other reasons to distrust him.

He was walking slowly towards Zanzibar, one hand thrust into a pocket of the raincoat, the other busy with a cigarette. I couldn’t see much of his face beneath the brim of his hat – a jauntily angled fedora that certainly wasn’t my father’s. He was thin and slightly stooped. He stopped at the pavement’s edge as I watched to take a last drag on the cigarette before tossing it into the gutter. My mother abhorred smoking and used to banish Dad to the back garden to indulge the vice. It looked as if she’d made no concessions to Eldritch on that point at least.

He stood where he was for a moment, apparently lost in thought. Then he raised his head and looked straight up at me. His face was grey and lined, the tendons of his neck stretched like cords beneath the skin. His eyes remained in shadow, but I sensed them meeting mine. There was the faintest of acknowledging nods. Then he pressed on towards the house.

I heard the front door close down in the hall. My mother was in the kitchen. Whether she was aware of his arrival I couldn’t tell. He started up the stairs, climbing slowly, but treading lightly. I wondered if he meant to carry straight on up to his room and decided to leave him no choice in the matter. I stepped out on to the landing and watched him as he reached the top of the first flight of stairs, his hand grasping the acorn cap on the head post for support. He was breathing heavily and wheezily.

‘Hi,’ I said expressionlessly as he turned and saw me.

He didn’t reply at first, either because he didn’t have the breath or because he wanted me to understand he wasn’t about to let me intimidate him. I could see his eyes now, the same washed-out hazel as my father’s. His face was even greyer than I’d first thought. He looked as weary as he was wary, an old man with an extra decade or so loaded on to him by long-term imprisonment, a ghost in more ways than one on account of his eerie resemblance to my father and his recent return from the supposedly dead.

‘You must be Stephen,’ he said at last, in a low, cultured
voice that somehow sounded as if it had spoken from the past.

‘That’s right.’

He took off his hat, revealing a sparse covering of oil-darkened hair and a deeply furrowed forehead. Then he stepped towards me and extended a hand. ‘Eldritch Swan. Your uncle. Pleased to meet you.’

There seemed nothing for it but to shake his hand. His grip was surprisingly strong, though dismayingly cold. ‘They told me you were dead,’ I said, aware that he couldn’t have judged from my tone whether I regarded the news that he wasn’t as either good or bad.

‘I might as well have been.’ He released my hand. ‘I never thought they’d let me out.’

‘Why did they?’

He shaped a crooked little half-smile. ‘Bit of a shock for you, was it, son? Finding out I was still in the land of the living.’

‘Don’t call me son.’

‘Fair enough.’ He nodded a restrained apology. ‘I don’t want to upset anyone.’

‘Mum says you’re here till Easter.’

‘Unless she asks me to leave sooner.’

‘I doubt she will. She has a soft heart.’

‘I expect you could talk her into it, though, Stephen.’

‘Why would I do that?’

‘I don’t know. How long are you here for, yourself ?’

‘A few weeks at least.’

‘Right. So, we’ll have to … rub along, won’t we?’

‘Apparently.’

A brief, heavy silence. Then he said, ‘Come up to my room. There’s something I want to show you.’

‘What is it?’

‘Nothing really. But you should see it even so.’

The attic room had the lowest ceiling but the finest view in the house. From the dormer window you could see the whole expanse of the bay towards Berry Head. It was furnished simply, with its own tiny en-suite bathroom. At first glance, it would have been
hard to tell anyone was staying in it, apart from the fact that the bed was made up and my father’s old dressing-gown was hanging on the hook behind the door. Eldritch hadn’t exactly stamped his personality on the room. I wondered if that was what he wanted me to see: visible proof that he wasn’t trying to put down roots.

But no. As it transpired, that wasn’t quite the point he was anxious to make.

Breathless again from the climb, he took off his raincoat and opened the rickety wardrobe. The only item of clothing already hung up was an old brown and gold pinstripe suit. The jacket had wide lapels and there were turn-ups on the trousers. He hung the raincoat beside it and slid his hat on to the shelf above. Then, leaving the door open, he moved away and sat down on the chair by the dressing-table.

I recognized the tweed jacket he was wearing as another handout from Mum’s hoard of my father’s clothes. The shirt and trousers looked new, though I couldn’t be sure. The tie was a narrow, striped number, possibly contemporary with the suit. Likewise the ancient brogues. It was more obvious now how thin he was, little more than skin and bone, driven falteringly on by some stubbornly functioning mechanism.