Past Caring (28 page)

which Churchill had thirsted was nigh. He sped home by flying
boat as soon as the weather would permit.

It was this brief interruption to my obscurity that prompted me
to re-open these pages. We had not mentioned the name Couchman.

We had not spoken of the past that really mattered to me or
Churchill’s part in it, whatever that may have been. We had not
even touched on his reasons for wanting me to come to Madeira, assuming he had any or that it was not all Lloyd George’s idea. We
might conceivably have done so after several glasses of malmsey at
Quinta do Porto Novo—I shall never know. And that is why I felt
slightly cheated by his precipitate departure and why the idea re-curred to me of setting down on paper the perverse course of my life.

I harboured the notion that, in the process, I might divine the flaw in
my character rendering all that seemed so incomprehensible a just
fate for one such as I.

It is the autumn of the year now, and of my days, with winter in
the wings. And I was wrong, as so often before. There is no lesson in
any of it, unless it be that life can never be truly explicable. Injustice
remains as mute as ever.

Where are you now, Elizabeth? Do you still, sometimes, think
of me? If so, what is it that you think? What did it really mean , I
wonder? For I shall ever seek the truth that you denied me. My
tragedy is that I shall surely never find it.

E.G. Strafford

Quinta do Porto Novo,

Camacha,

Madeira,

October 1950.

The skies over Gatwick were an insipid grey. The platform where I waited for the London train smelt of railways and—distantly—of asphalt. Madeira was suddenly all of its two thousand miles away and England, on an April afternoon, was, for better or worse, home. With a job to go to now, I could confront its realities with some sort of equanimity.

I was back at the house in Greenwich, with dinner on the go, before Jerry returned from the office. I entertained him with anecdotes of Madeira in general and Alec in particular, but he was unable to disguise his relief when he heard about the job.

“It sounds just the thing for you, Martin.”

“I think it is, Jerry—an historian’s dream. But it means I’ll be dodging round the country exploring lines of research for—well, for as long as it takes. Which means you won’t see much of me here.”

“Do you want to use this as a base?” It was the question I was hoping for.

“If that’s all right by you. It’d be useful to keep my stuff here.”

“Certainly.” Jerry had drunk more than his usual from the bottle of Madeira I’d opened—my request was well-timed. “You don’t want to carry everything around with you.” Then, as if to reassure himself: “Where will you make a start?”

“I just need to make some notes on the Memoir. Then I’ll be off to see people mentioned in it who are still alive. And I’ll cer-

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tainly go up to Cambridge to use the libraries and pick some brains.”

It was exciting, even as I spoke of it, to think that the quest for Strafford’s secret was about to begin. The first step was never in doubt, it was straight back into my own past, to test at first hand the link which bound me to the Couchmans and the Couchmans to Elizabeth.

It was late, too late really, when, after a stiff drink I faced up to telephoning my ex-wife.

“Shaftesbury 4757.”

“Hello, Helen, it’s me.”

“Martin: how are you?” Her voice was flat and apprehensive.

“Fine. How’s Laura?”

“Nervous. Have you forgotten she starts school next week?”

“No, of course not.” Naturally I had, though her fifth birthday, in February, should have reminded me. Still, it was an opening. “That’s why I’ve called. Would it be okay for me to come down and see her before then?”

“When were you thinking of ?” The apprehension had frozen into a certainty: the one blot on her civilized social landscape—her ex-husband—was about to reappear.

“How about tomorrow?” I was eager to begin my investigation and this visit was a pretext to do just that.

After a lengthy pause and the rustling of what could have been a calendar: “All right. We’re not doing anything in the afternoon. You could look in about two.”

“Right. I’ll see you then.”

“Fine. I must dash now, Martin. See you tomorrow. ’Bye.”

The phone went down. I hadn’t expected the conversation to be as short as that, but it didn’t surprise me. Helen had never believed in making life easy for me, before or after our separation.

Little did she know that I’d just come across a way of making her own life unexpectedly difficult. How difficult even I had no idea.

I got to Shaftesbury two hours early, two trains and a bus having taken less time than I’d allowed. I’d only ever been there to visit my daughter, on sufferance, and the whole town seemed always to 158

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grudge my coming. For me, it didn’t sit mellowly on its hill above Cranborne Cross. It was always sunless and suspicious, Gold Hill and the green horizon conspiring behind a grim, grey mist.

That day, it was the same. With time to kill, I made for The Ship Inn in Bleke Street. Usually I’d called there after visits to Archdene, not before. Today, it didn’t seem to matter if Helen guessed I’d been drinking. And The Ship was a warm and welcoming place, so I sat by the bar and drank pint for pint with a talkative tractor salesman from Yeovil.

Elizabeth, I remembered somewhere around the third pint, had read a lot of Hardy’s poetry and, here I was, paying him the unintended compliment of opening my investigations in his very own Shaston. Not that I’d read any of his poems, only a couple of the novels, but the lines Strafford had quoted from one keep coming back to me. “Yes, I have re-entered your olden haunts at last.”

I hadn’t yet, but, already, it felt as if I had.

Haunts no, the trail yes. It led out of The Ship at two o’clock and down Tout Hill. Archdene was the smartest and last of four thatched cob cottages backing onto the hill Shaftesbury stood on—something of a well-kept antique, in fact, which was appropriate, considering that Helen’s new husband, Ralph Corbett, prowled the market towns of Wessex dealing in well-kept antiques. Even I had to admit that he had good taste and Archdene reflected it—an old cottage, yes, but expensively restored with a big garage dug out of view into the side of the hill so as not to spoil the olde worlde impression. It could have graced the cover of the county magazine and probably had. No father could object to his daughter being brought up in such surroundings, especially one with no alternatives to offer. But I did, of course.

There was no answer to the doorbell. I looked round the side and noted, with relief, that Ralph’s Range Rover wasn’t in the garage. Then I saw Helen, near the top of the sloping garden, stooping over a vegetable row. Her hair was tied back rather severely and she was wearing jumper, jeans and gumboots—very much the country lady. I didn’t call out—wouldn’t have known what to call—but walked up the path towards her. Crocuses and daffodils were in bloom on the rockeries around the lush, terraced lawn and the vegetable garden above looked well-turned

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and neatly plotted. All this was Ralph’s influence. Helen was no gardener—hadn’t been anyway. But she’d always been pliable and had slipped well into her new role.

She heard me coming and looked up with her tight little frown. She wasn’t surprised to see me but there wasn’t the hint of a smile.

“Hello,” I said, panting from the short climb.

“Hello, Martin. Laura’s not here, I’m afraid”—pre-empting any question from me. “When we agreed two o’clock yesterday, I’d forgotten that she’d be at playschool till three. They have a little group to prepare them for the real thing.”

“That’s all right. I’m late as it is.”

“How was the pub?” This was her way of telegraphing that it was obvious I’d been drinking.

“Fine—Shaftesbury’s well off in that line.”

“So I believe. But we hardly visit one.”

“Not much time, I suppose, with all this garden to keep up.”

“It’s certainly a busy time of the year. Come into the house and have some coffee,” she said after a pause. But there was no crack about sobering up, which was a minor victory for me.

We walked down to the back of the house, through the extension Ralph had built and into the kitchen—flagged floors and stripped pine furniture with an old-fashioned but brand-new range in the wide chimney breast, Sabatier knives and Le Creuset saucepans hung up like objets d’art, filtered coffee served in a Dunoon mug.

“I’ll have to go and collect Laura in half an hour,” Helen said.

“Do you want to come with me or wait here?”

“Is it far?”

“No. Just round the corner.”

“Let’s walk then.”

“I’m sorry she wasn’t here to meet you.” What she really meant was she was sorry to have been alone when I arrived.

Actually, it suited my purpose.

“Never mind. It gives us a chance to talk. How’s your family?”

“You mean Mummy and Daddy?”

“Yes.”

“They’re fine. What makes you ask?”

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“Just curiosity. I never wished them any harm.”

“They’d be pleased to know that.”

I ignored the edge to her remark and got in again before she could sharpen it. “What about your grandmother?”

“Thriving.”

“Good. I liked the old girl.”

“You only met her once.” Another edge to blunt.

“That’s true.” I dodged the issue of where. This wasn’t the time to remind Helen of our wedding. “But she was very . . . impressive.”

“Still is.”

“How old is she now?”

“87, 88. Something like that.”

“And still keeping well?”

“Very, when I last saw her.”

“Where does she live now?”

“Still at the house in Miston. Why do you ask?”

“Where exactly is that?”

“West Sussex. But why do you want to know?”

“Just curiosity.”

“Come on. When have you ever been curious about my family? Hostile, indifferent, yes. But curious?”

“Historians are always curious about the past.” This impersonal half-truth was my way round the acerbity that was creeping in. Whatever else, I didn’t want a slanging match.

Helen put down her coffee with a crash. “You’re getting a bit pompous, aren’t you, Martin?” Then she noticed she’d spilt some of the coffee on the table, swore demurely and fetched a cloth.

“You’re practising history now, are you?”

“Sort of.” It was true, in a sense. But Helen wouldn’t understand that sense. She’d talked about history as if it were a profession like medicine or the law, but sarcastically, knowing it wasn’t.

“I’m researching the history of the Suffragette movement.” I grabbed at a convenient lie to explain my interest without it seeming sinister. “Your grandmother is the only person I know who was around at the time, who could give a first-hand opinion.”

“You don’t know my grandmother.” She wanted to deny me that. “And I can’t believe you’re researching anything.”

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“Why? It’s an interesting subject.”

“Maybe. But when I say I can’t believe you’re researching it, what I mean is that I think you’re lying.”

“Why should I be?”

“I don’t know. But I don’t trust you.” I couldn’t blame her for that—she had good reason not to. “And I don’t want you bothering Nan.”

“I’ll try not to do that.” I wasn’t going to try very hard.

The polished brass antique clock on the wall chimed the quarter. “It’s time to collect Laura.” She began piling the cups in the sink, making enough noise for me to tell she was angry, a reaction I’d hoped to avoid.

She put on an anorak and made for the door, so I followed. We walked quickly and silently along the lane, following the curve of the hill round to where a small Victorian school stood in a playground behind mesh fencing. In an annexe of the building, we found Laura in a babbling little group of children waiting to be collected.

Laura looked surprised and greeted me with childishly deliberate formality, deterring me from kissing or embracing her. I was reduced to a meek hello. To be honest, I’d never been at ease with her or she with me. Our exchanges were always stilted. They made me feel like a least favourite uncle. So we walked mournfully back to Archdene, talking about playschool (which she liked) and “proper” school (which she thought she was looking forward to), while Helen walked slightly ahead, chatting to a neighbour and her red-headed son and avoiding any explanation of who I was. They stood at the gate for a few minutes, finishing their conversation, while Laura and I went in. Laura sat on a stool in the hall and began unbuckling her sandals. My eye was caught by the large index book standing next to the telephone. It was a record I could rely on Helen to keep accurately, so I riffled through it and, sure enough, came to N for Nan: Quarterleigh, Miston, West Sussex. Telephone: Midhurst 5376. I made a note of it.

Only then did I notice that Laura’s saucer eyes had followed every move, so much more interesting than some stiff new sandal buckles. “What are you writing down, Martin?” she asked.

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(Helen had weaned her off “Daddy” years before and I couldn’t complain.)

“Just an address.”

“Whose address?”

“Your great-grandmother’s.” She wrinkled her nose. “Nanny Couchman.”

“I like Nanny Couchman,” she said, smiling at the thought. It was the first time she’d smiled since we’d collected her. That, and the buttercups on her dress, suddenly moved me. Why was my own daughter a stranger to me? I knew the reason and it didn’t help.