The Immaculate (20 page)

He shivered a little, jiggling his shoulders as though shucking off the memory like a coating of snow. He looked around again, working out how to best impose his personality on the place. He was pleased to see his father had replaced the decrepit black-and-white TV with a colour one; pity there wasn't a DVD player, too. He would set up his laptop on the dining table, together with his various other writing accoutrements, and would plug in his CD player to fill the place with music and noise.

He circled the settee, knelt in front of the soot-blackened grate and began to build a fire. He was surprised by how quickly he recollected the process; he hadn't done this in fifteen years, yet his movements were swift and automatic. When his aunt entered with a tea tray he was carefully laying coal on top of his construction. He lit a match and touched it to the paper underneath. He felt absurdly proud when the fire quickly began to blaze.

“Soon be warm now,” Georgina said, pouring the tea. Jack sat beside her on the settee, facing the fire, and she handed him a cup. The china service looked delicate, a little cracked and stained, but despite its obvious age Jack didn't recognise it. Probably packed away when his mother died, he thought, and felt a twinge of sadness. Just like his father's love had been packed away and left to wither and turn bad.

The fire danced for him, flames weaving sinuously as though in a desperate attempt to sustain its meagre life. Occasionally it popped and crackled, black sparks fleeing up the chimney like inverted fireworks. Like the sea, Jack had always found fire awesome and beautiful. He still felt tense, but gradually the heat of the flames seeped into his skin, lapping at his muscles, relaxing his body. He was aware that at some stage he and his aunt would have to talk about his father. How about now? He shifted on the settee, turning to face her. “Aunt,” he said tentatively, “how was my father . . . I mean, how had he been since I . . . since I left?”

Georgina put down her cup, which rattled in its saucer, and leaned back with a sigh. She looked not at Jack but into the fire. Flames flickered in her eyes, making them oddly feral.

“How was he after you left?” she repeated, and pulled a face as if the question was too large for her to answer. She was silent a few moments longer, then said, “You never used to want me to talk about him when we spoke on the telephone.”

“I know, I know,” Jack said, feeling guilty in spite of himself. “But I do now. Now that he's . . . no longer here, now that I'm back in Beckford. . . .” He scowled, confused. “I don't know . . . I feel an urge, a need, to fill in the gaps.”

His aunt didn't question this. Instead, after a slight pause, she said, “When he came out of the hospital after the two of you had had your fight, he wouldn't speak to anyone. Even I couldn't get through to him. He just stared into space and grunted when I tried to make conversation. Even when I became angry he failed to respond, and that frightened me because it seemed as if he didn't care any more. He was very subdued, very listless. He sat around the house all day, which admittedly was nothing unusual, but he wasn't even drinking or smoking very much; it was as if even that was too much of an effort. He . . . ,” she screwed up her face, searching for the right expression, “I don't know. It seemed like all his spirit, bitter though it was, had gone right out of him.”

“There was no one left to hate any more,” said Jack.

She shook her head. “No, I don't think that was it. I remember once, I came here unannounced to see how he was, and I found him crying. He tried to cover it up at first, said he had a cold, but I kept on at him, asking him what was the matter. I felt as though he desperately wanted someone to talk to, although he wouldn't have admitted it. That was the closest your father ever came to pouring his heart out. He said to me, ‘I've messed it all up, Georgina, haven't I?' ‘Messed what up, Terry?' I asked him. ‘Everything,' he said. ‘My whole life. Everything I ever wanted has just gone down the drain and I've done nothing to stop it. I've lost everything in this world that I've ever loved and it serves me bloody well right.' ‘Do you mean Jack?' I asked him, but he wouldn't say any more. He jumped up, suddenly angry, and said, ‘I don't want to talk about it, I'm going out.' I tried to stop him, but there wasn't much I could do. I tried to get him to discuss it on a few occasions after that, but he just clammed up or got angry and stormed out. When he died he was a virtual recluse. He just used to sit around the house all day, brooding.”

She shook her head sadly; Jack heard the slight strain in her voice as she tried to contain her emotion. “Such a waste,” she said, “such a waste of a life. He wasn't a bad man, Jack. I think he wanted to love you, but the poison just built up in him and he couldn't ever get rid of it. When he died I felt almost relieved for him because I knew he was finally at peace. . . .” Her voice had become a whisper and now it tailed off completely. Jack had been staring into the fire, a lump in his throat, a knot in his belly. He looked at his aunt and saw she was wiping tears from her wrinkled face with a tissue. “I'm sorry,” she said. “Just ignore me. I'll be all right in a minute.”

Jack didn't know what to think. Despite the obvious tragedy of his father's life he couldn't reconcile the tortured, lovelorn image his aunt had portrayed with the drunken, vindictive slob he had known. He felt sympathy for his father's circumstances but not for the man himself. He supposed, as usual, that his aunt was looking at the situation through rose-tinted spectacles; it was not that she didn't recognise Terry Stone's considerable faults, but simply that she had so badly wanted Jack and his father to be friends that she had something of a blind spot where Terry's treatment of him was concerned. Oh, she had berated Terry about Jack's cuts and bruises, but she had always allowed him to go back to his father, hadn't she? Jack thought he had a right to hate her a little bit for that but he didn't; he knew her intentions, though misguided, had been well-meaning.

“Look . . . don't cry,” he said awkwardly. “You did all you could for him. Nobody could have done any more. He didn't have to live like that, did he? He didn't have to grieve and hate all his life.”

His aunt blew her nose. “I know,” she said, “but I don't think he could help it. It just took him over. I don't think there was anything he could do.”

Bollocks, Jack wanted to say, but didn't. He wanted to point out to his aunt that plenty of other people get the same bum deal from life, but they don't all crumble as his father did. And they certainly don't take it out on their kids. Jack felt that if the same thing happened to him, he would give his child twice as much love, would work doubly hard to create a bond that would never be broken.

He voiced none of this. It felt too much like speaking ill of the dead. Instead he leaned forward and placed his hand on the pot to ensure it was still warm, then he poured his Aunt another cup of tea.

“Here,” he said, “drink this.” Georgina took the cup, sipped it once, then put it aside.

“He was very proud of you, you know,” she told Jack.

“Proud,” he repeated, unable to keep the scorn from his voice.

“He was proud of your success. It was the only time after you left that he showed any sort of enthusiasm. He used to tell people about his famous son.”

Jack snorted. The disclosure made him angry but he wasn't sure why. Perhaps because of his father's strange duality: he had hated Jack to his face, boasted about him behind his back.

Abruptly his aunt pushed herself up from the settee, tottering for a moment before stabilising. “Well, I'd better be off,” she said. “Leave you to get settled in.”

“You're going already?” he said, surprised. The prospect of being left alone here was not appealing. He tried to make light of it. “Was it something I said?”

“No, of course not,” said Georgina, patting his arm. She looked momentarily uncomfortable, as if she wanted to tell him something but was not sure how to go about it. Eventually she said, “To be truthful, the house upsets me a little bit, seeing all his things and knowing he won't ever be coming back. And seeing you again, it's all been a bit too much for me. . . .” Her voice choked off and tears sparkled in her eyes once more. Embarrassed, she waved a hand. “I've told you before, just ignore me. I'm nothing but a silly old woman.”

Jack stood up, slipped his arm around her back and gave her a brief hug. “You're not silly at all,” he said. “I think you're brilliant. Come on, I'll take you home.”

She insisted on walking, and although Jack thought at first she was either joking or simply being polite, she stuck to her guns until finally he had to concede.

“You may think I'm on my last legs, Jack,” she said defiantly, “but I've walked two miles a day ever since I can remember and I don't intend to stop now. It's what keeps me alive and breathing. It may take me a while to get from A to B but I always get there in the end. Besides, it's too lovely a day to be stuck in a car. You'd be doing yourself a favour by getting some fresh air into your own lungs instead of all that London muck.” She struggled into her coat. “Now, the pantry's well-stocked and you know where I am if you need anything. Perhaps if you're not too busy tomorrow you can pop down for lunch.”

Jack said he would certainly do that. He walked his aunt to the door and kissed her good-bye.

“Now, are you sure you're going to be all right here?” she asked.

“I'll be fine,” he said, “don't worry. I'll see you tomorrow.”

They said good-bye again and she left. When Jack closed the door he couldn't help thinking he was sealing himself in. Immediately, he began to hum to allay the silence that pressed in around him. He took out his mobile to ring Gail, but there was no signal, not a single bar. “Typical,” he said, and picked up the telephone receiver in the hall. He dialed Gail's mobile number, but her phone rang several times and then cut the connection with a trio of beeps without diverting him to her voice mail. Irritated, he dialed her home number. He knew she'd be out, but at least he could leave her a message. However, her phone rang fifteen, twenty times without reply. “What is this, a fucking conspiracy?” he muttered before reluctantly replacing the receiver. The fading
ching
of the phone was gulped by the silence. He glanced up the stairs, where the light through the window seemed to be curling like smoke, trying to find form. “No way, Jose,” he said loudly and stomped back to the sitting room. He whistled as he jabbed at the fire with a poker, but it seemed a thin, somehow lonely sound, and quickly became lost in the stillness of the house.

He spent the next two hours “settling in.” The first thing he did was to open the front door again as an invitation to the light; the second was to fish his CD player from his suitcase and set it up in the sitting room. He was soon singing along to The Clash's “London Calling,” aggressively, raucously, to counter the stillness of his surroundings. He fetched his laptop from the car and then parked the car on the grass verge, still singing.

He put off the moment of going upstairs for as long as possible. Despite himself, he kept stealing glances at the afternoon light angling in through the landing window. It did not seem so strong now, for which he felt curiously grateful. It zigzagged partway down the stairs, clarifying the roughness of the grain beneath its layer of polish. Jack took his time setting up his writing space on the dining table. Notepads, reference books, his Filofax, a mug shaped like a skull containing pens and pencils—all these were arranged and rearranged around his keyboard as though their positioning were an intrinsic part of the creative process. When the music finished, he switched on the television and found only children's programmes—
Blue Peter
was still on? The format seemed the same as ever, but he didn't recognise any of the presenters. He looked around; was there anything more he could do down here? Perhaps a cup of tea? He stood up, suddenly decisive. No, it was time to lay a few ghosts. Nevertheless, he felt nervous as he ascended the stairs. His suitcase bumped against the back of his knee like a cumbersome weapon he was dragging in his wake.

He stepped into the shaft of sunlight, squinting, the topmost stairs creaking as he put his weight on them. The view from the landing window was of undulating hills separated by the hard black lines of dry-stone walls. The Butterworths' farm sat in the midst of this, a chunk of grey stone beside the salmon-coloured thread that was Daisy Lane. On the horizon trees were clumped darkly, as if the boundaries of a dry-stone wall had blurred and seeped into the exquisite blue sky. Jack stared at all this, thinking it should be making him feel restful, not isolated. He sighed and turned back to face the landing. After the brightness outside the window, the shadows in the house seemed darker than ever, as if they had been gathering behind him.

He blinked to rid his eyes of the swarming brightness of the sunlight, and eventually the landing's muted tones rose up through the murk: the wooden doors, the white wallpaper whose blue pattern had faded almost to grey, the beige landing carpet, the landscapes on the walls like smears of green and khaki. There were four doors on this landing—two to his right, one at the far end, and one to his left just beyond the stairwell. The door nearest to him, on his right, was his old bedroom, with a view of the cobbled backyard and the woods beyond. Next to that was a bathroom, whose most abiding memory for Jack was the brown scummy ring in the bath, his father's slimy hairs in the plugholes. The door at the far end, which overlooked the front lawn, was his father's bedroom; Jack wondered whether Aunt Georgina had had to fumigate it after his death. And the fourth door, the one on the left, was simply a storeroom. That was where all his mother's things had been put after she died. Jack remembered the smell that drifted over him whenever he opened that door as a child; a dry fragrance, like parchment imbued with lavender. It was a smell that never failed to both soothe and sadden him. He used to open that door purely for the smell itself, closing his eyes and breathing deeply like the cartoon kids in the Bisto advert.