‘She looks all right!’ Lily said, from the little she could see as they pushed their way across to her. The crowd close to the edge were all peering over at her, talking, speculating and calling out to Cosmo.
Looking down over the barrier, Lily saw that the car was slewed sideways into it, and all they could see was the back of Cosmo’s head, encased in brown leather, as he sat, slumped unconscious, over the wheel.
Once the race was finished and the car could be dragged to safety from the track, Cosmo remained slumped over the wheel and did not surface until they had reached a place to stop at the side of the finishing straight.
Piers, Sam and Loz gathered round, then hurried beside the motor as it was trailed along. Lily and Susan went tearing down to them. There was another great to-do going on, as one car had smashed through the railings on the finishing straight and hit a spectator, but they were far too worried about Cosmo to take in fully what had happened or that a good number of people were staring at them.
Cosmo came round, fighting furiously.
‘Get off me, woman!’ he bawled at Susan. ‘Stop fussing over me! Oh, God in heaven . . .’
As he tried to get up and leave the car he seemed overcome by dizziness and sat quickly back down again, looking sick and drained.
Lily was frightened by the sight of Cosmo’s flushed face and glazed look. She realized, though, that she had seen him like this before, that perhaps there had been something terribly wrong for a long time and that he had not told them.
‘He looks terribly ill,’ Susan said, white with worry.
‘Just let me go to bed,’ Cosmo was saying, his voice full of aggression.
‘The doctor’ll come,’ Sam said, ‘but he’s seeing to the other smash . . .’
Eventually the doctor appeared, a serious-faced young man.
‘Get these people away from me!’ Cosmo roared.
‘Perhaps you could all stand back and let me examine Mr Fairford,’ the doctor said quietly. He measured Cosmo’s blood pressure, apparently asking questions. Lily could see Cosmo’s face, serious but mutinous. After some time the doctor stood up abruptly and walked over to them, his black bag in hand.
‘You’re his party?’ His voice was curt. ‘I should take him back to wherever you’re staying and let him rest. There’s no point in troubling the hospital.’
‘But what’s wrong?’ Susan asked.
‘Nothing that I can remedy,’ the doctor snapped. ‘You’d better ask him that yourself. Are you his . . . ?’
‘Mother.’ Susan’s brow was crinkled with dismay. ‘I don’t understand, Doctor. Is he seriously ill?’
‘No, he’s not. I can’t discuss a patient’s symptoms when he has expressly asked me not to. Just put him to bed and quiz him yourself. He’s a lucky man. That race could have been fatal for him or for several others.’
‘Oh yes,’ Cosmo shouted from where he was now sitting on the ground, his back against a front wheel of the Flyer. ‘Aren’t I always the lucky one?’
They all travelled back to the Pack Horse, the cosy public house where they had rooms once more, and Sam and Loz made sure Cosmo was put to bed. Lily’s room was next to his, and she told them she would keep a lookout to see that he was all right. Cosmo said he wanted to sleep, but when she looked into the room, she saw him moving restlessly, looking flushed and uncomfortable. His bed was positioned under a low, sloping roof and she was worried that he might hit his head on the beam.
Daring to go closer, she sat beside him, placing her cool palm on his forehead. He looked so young and helpless suddenly and she wanted to mother him as she had when he was tiny.
‘Darling Cozzy,’ she whispered. ‘What is the matter with you, my love?’
Cosmo opened his eyes, which filled with tears suddenly at the sight of her.
‘Oh, what is it, dear?’ Lily was really dismayed. It was so seldom that he showed any gentle emotions these days.
‘I’ve disgraced us all . . .’ He turned his head restlessly. ‘I feel so rotten . . . I can’t help it, Lily, believe me. I’ve tried . . . I’ve tried so hard . . .’
‘Tried to do what, darling?’ She took his hand, which felt very hot and dry, and leaned over to look down into his eyes.
Cosmo stared at her, and the tears began to run down his cheeks.
‘Oh, Lily, you’re the only one . . . You’re the only one I’ve ever been able to turn to. You’ve been so loyal, so patient with me . . . I’ve let everyone down.’
‘No, darling, of course you haven’t!’ She caressed his hand, as if trying to warm him and thaw the icy coldness of his self-loathing. ‘You did marvellously this morning. I know Sam and Piers were absolutely delighted with the time you made. It can’t always go right. You know you can do it, and no one’s angry with you – you were just taken poorly. It’ll be all right next time. Here, love, you look so hot – have a drink of water.’
He lifted his head to accept the glass of water, and she wiped his eyes with her handkerchief, feeling such great tenderness for him.
‘You sleep a bit more, dear. I expect you’ll wake feeling calmer.’
Once more she stroked his head and he stared up at her. Afterwards, she always blamed herself for not recognizing the utter desperation in his eyes.
‘How is he? Shall I go up?’ Susan half got to her feet when Lily went downstairs to find her. ‘I looked in earlier but he seemed to be asleep. I could take him up his food.’
It was almost time for the evening meal and the smell of roasting beef filled the lower rooms and corridors.
Lily was touched by the way Susan deferred to her over Cosmo, as if she still felt that Lily had a better understanding of how to deal with him.
‘He’s upset,’ she said, sitting beside Susan at a table. ‘About the race, I mean. He feels in the doghouse.’
‘Well, it was a shame, but if you’re ill, you’re ill.’ Susan put away her leather writing case. Lily couldn’t help wondering who she could be writing to. Susan had few people left in the world now, but for her elderly mother and her sister. ‘Does he want food?’ she asked.
‘Perhaps a bit later,’ Lily suggested. She did not think it a good moment for Susan to go up there and talk to Cosmo.
The men soon came down and they all ate a good dinner of roast beef. Though there was a subdued atmosphere round the table, Piers rallied them.
‘Come along now, do cheer up. We had a marvellous result this morning – quite a cause for celebration! Let’s raise a glass to our Flyer and to many more successes! Don’t you agree, Ironside?
Sam raised his glass. ‘The Heath Flyer. Onwards and upwards.’
Lily wondered what he thought, but he seemed surprisingly calm, almost detached from the situation, and she suddenly realized he was a man of great patience, whereas Loz was sitting at the table with a thunderous expression. Lily’s eyes met Sam’s. Both of them knew what Loz thought of Cosmo, and how angry and resentful he was about this afternoon’s race.
‘Well, I’m with you for as long as it takes,’ Piers Larstonbury said happily. ‘This has been a great adventure for me, thanks to your skill, the two of you.’ And he raised his glass again, face breaking into a boyish smile. ‘There’ll be setbacks, of course, but it’s all part of the process – eh, Marks?’
Looking at Piers, sitting there drinking beer with them all in his well-cut clothing, and seeing his kind, courteous way of trying to cheer them all, Lily felt a burst of great gratitude and affection for him. He was a good man, she thought. Such a good man, and she knew he would leave his wife for her in a moment, so devoted was he to her, if she ever showed any inclination to ask. She longed, in that moment, for his goodness to be enough.
‘We’d better organize some food for Cozzy,’ Susan said as the meal ended. ‘I’m sure they’ll do a tray or something. Lily, perhaps you’d better take it to him.’
Sam leaned gently towards her. ‘Perhaps I should go up as well. I haven’t had a chance for a chat with him and I’d like to stop him tearing himself up about it. I know what he’s like.’
‘All right,’ Susan said gratefully.
Sam followed Lily up the stairs with the tray of beef and delicious treacle tart and she was conscious of his presence behind her all the way up. Despite these occasional meetings in the company of others they were still very awkward with each other, as if the air between them vibrated with unspoken emotions that they could not seem to begin on.
‘I think it will help if you to talk to him,’ she whispered outside Cosmo’s room. ‘He looks up to you a lot. And he was feeling very wretched about what happened today.’
‘He shouldn’t,’ Sam said. ‘It’s all part of it. He was taken bad, that’s all there is to it.’
Lily gave him a faint smile and went into her own room, whispering, ‘Good luck!’
She heard Sam’s voice speaking quietly from next door as she folded her clothes away on to the chair and looked for her night things, and she hoped Sam would be able to make a difference to Cosmo’s state of mind. Poor Cozzy, he did get so cast down. So often he still seemed like a little boy to her, except that the saddest thing was that he had somehow seemed more happy and complete when he was four than ever he did now.
She was about to undress when she heard a tapping on the door, soft but insistent. Sam was outside, his face very grave. For a second he hesitated, then, inclining his head towards the next-door room, he said, ‘I think you’d better come.’
To her astonishment he took her hand, leading her into Cosmo’s room where he carefully closed the door.
‘Prepare yourself, dear,’ he said to her tenderly, and his face was terribly concerned.
‘Cozzy?’ Wild with dread, she ran to the bed. He was lying just as she had left him, eyes closed, seemingly asleep. The only thing she saw as different was the glass of water which he had somehow tipped over. Then she saw other things: the paper crumpled in one hand, the white dusting of powder on his upper lip, the blueness of both his lips and the stillness of him that was beyond waking. All these things she took in during those seconds which shook inside her like an earthquake invisible to anyone else.
She reached out, trembling, to touch Cosmo’s neck, feeling for a pulse of life and hope, but there was nothing. Looking up, her fingertips still pressed to his lifeless flesh, her eyes met Sam’s.
‘What’s happened? Oh my God, Sam, what’s he done?’
Sam looked to Cosmo, then helplessly back at her again. There seemed nothing to say.
‘Cocaine hydrochloride?’ You mean to say that my son has been . . . inhaling this . . . this powder like some sort of
poet
?’
They were gathered with the doctor and a policeman in the back room of the Pack Horse. Susan, in her shock and grief, had retreated back into the glassy, commanding woman Sam remembered so disliking in Ambala. She sat up very straight, hands clasped in her lap, giving off an air of superior frostiness. Loz and Piers stood tactfully nearby, as did the owner of the public house, who kept repeating that there had never been a death at the Pack Horse before, not while he was landlord.
‘I’m afraid to say, Mrs Fairford,’ the doctor said, ‘that your son appears to have quite a lengthy history of drug addiction, judging by the condition of him.’
They were all frozen with shock and as yet Susan was too forbidding to accept comfort. Lily stood next to Sam, who seemed suddenly to be always at her side. She was also too shocked yet to weep. The doctor said that Cosmo must have known that he was taking a huge overdose of cocaine, that he had taken his own life, and she knew that she must have been the last person to speak to him. The memory of Cosmo’s face suddenly made her tremble so that she thought her legs might give way. She groped for a chair and found Sam’s arm holding her up.
‘Thank you,’ she whispered, sinking down on to a wooden bench. She looked up at him and then her eyes filled with tears.
Cosmo’s funeral was held ten days later at the church at Lapsley, the village closest to the Cranbourne estate. There had been an inquest, which confirmed that Cosmo had died by his own hand.
There were not many at the funeral. Susan’s mother and sister came, as well as Uncle William and some of the estate workers. Lily saw Bernard and Tim there, in their best Sunday suits. Piers Larstonbury drove up with Lily, and Sam came on his own. Loz, he said, regretted that he could not be there: he was needed in Birmingham with his family. Uncle William, no doubt through the prompting of Mrs Rainbow, had invited all who needed to, to sleep overnight at Cranbourne House.
They all stood in the village church amid the smells of old hymn books and candlewax and sang ‘Abide with Me’ and ‘Lead Us, Heavenly Father, Lead Us’. Lily wept, unable to help herself as she thought of Cosmo’s life, of his little face as she knew him in India, the eager, loving little boy he had been and all that he had become. Piers stood beside her, gently touching her arm at times when her tearfulness overwhelmed her. He understood that her loss of Cosmo in this tragic way was like losing her own son.
Susan, between her mother and sister, was dry-eyed and brittle, determined, as she said, not to ‘lay all my emotions out in public’. She stood very straight, in her black coat and a wide-brimmed hat with a feather trailing gracefully down to the side, and elegant, high-heeled shoes. No one could get close to her: she had closed off from them all.