The Secret Intensity of Everyday Life (42 page)

It makes it easier that his father cried. It feels like they’re both in it together.

‘So you’d better tell me.’

Jack tells about the Dogman letter, and with every word he speaks he feels the fear retreat into the distance.

‘So it was blackmail really.’

‘Yes,’ says Jack.

He can tell from his father’s voice that he doesn’t think it’s all a silly fuss over nothing.

‘You could go to prison.’

‘Or worse,’ says Jack. ‘The Dogman has a gun. He’s mad, Daddy. Seriously.’

‘He could shoot you.’

‘Yes.’

‘Right. This is serious.’

Oh the bliss of having someone else to talk to about it. Jack clings to his father, nuzzling his cheek against his arm.

‘What can we do, Daddy?’

‘Well, the first thing is this. I’m not letting him shoot you, okay?’

‘Okay.’

‘He’ll have to shoot me first.’

Thank you for believing me. Thank you for understanding it could really happen. The Dogman might really shoot me. But he won’t shoot you, Daddy. So now I’m safe.

‘As for the police, that’s another matter. But I don’t think you’d be sent away for this. You might have to do community service. Or pay a fine.’

‘They wouldn’t take me away from home?’

‘No. Not for a first offence.’

Everything he says is so specific, so sensible. Of course: not for a first offence. Daddy Daddy Daddy I love you so much.

‘I’ll tell you what I think we should do, Jack. I think we should go round to his house, you and me together, and talk to him.’

‘What if he doesn’t know it was me who sent the letter?’

‘We tell him.’

‘Then he’ll know for certain!’

‘And so will you. Then there’ll be no more worrying about what might happen. Because it will have happened.’

‘Will you tell him? I don’t dare.’

‘If you like I’ll say everything. You don’t have to talk at all if you don’t want to.’

‘I’ll have to say sorry.’

‘No. All you have to do is come with me. Nothing else.’

‘All right.’

They both get up and brush the straw off their clothes. Jack takes his father’s hand in his. They cross the lawn back to the house.

‘Do you mind if I tell Mummy what this has all been about?’

‘Okay. But not Carrie.’

‘I’ll have a quiet word. Then we’ll go straight into the village.’

49

The cottage door is open. Billy Holland knocks but gets no response. He knocks again and calls.

‘Mrs Willis?’

He goes in. The door opens directly into the living room. A barrage of smells: burning firewood, sour milk, urine. The room is dark and dirty, the curtains drawn against the daylight, polystyrene containers of half-eaten food on the floor. Two cats come forward as he enters and rub themselves against his legs. A budgie chirrups in a cage. In the unseen kitchen a tap is dripping.

‘Mrs Willis?’

She is sitting asleep in an armchair facing the television. The television is on: motor racing from the Nurburgring in Germany. On the screen a crowd waiting in the rain for the race to start. The voice of the commentator. ‘Coulthard has pole position but Michael Schumacher is always happy in the wet, and he’s driving in front of a home crowd.’

One of the cats leaves Billy and jumps up onto the old lady’s lap. She is dozing with her mouth open, a cup of tea still gripped in one bony hand. Her hair has become thin, her yellowing scalp shows through. Two walking sticks lean against the chair, on either side.

A sudden roar of sound from the television signals the start of the race. Mrs Willis jerks awake. Her watery eyes take in the big man standing uncertainly near the door. She puts down the cold cup of tea.

‘So you’ve come,’ she says.

Billy nods, unsure what she means by this.

‘I hope I’m not disturbing you.’

‘Sit down, then,’ says the old lady. ‘So you’ve come.’

‘Did the rector tell you I was coming?’

‘The rector? Nonsense. She told me.’

‘She?’

Mrs Willis wags her head, as if to say they both know the answer to this question. Billy Holland settles down cautiously on one end of a sofa. Now he too is partly facing the television. The racing cars are screaming round the circuit in pouring rain, throwing up blizzards of spray. Mika Hakkinen has the lead.

‘I hope you don’t mind me calling on you.’

‘Why would I mind? You’ve been sent.’

‘Do you know who I am, Mrs Willis? I’m George Holland’s son. Lord Edenfield’s son.’

The old lady stares at him in surprise.

‘Are you sure?’

‘Yes. I’m sure.’

‘And you’ve come about the whirlwind?’

‘No. I’ve come to ask you about my father. If you don’t mind talking about him.’

‘Your father?’

‘George Holland.’

‘Oh, George.’ The old lady wags her head again, this time to aid her memory. ‘That was long ago. What does any of that matter now?’

The crowd at the Nurburgring have their umbrellas up. Cars are skidding on the wet track, spinning into each other. Coulthard is in trouble.

‘I found some letters my father wrote to you.’

‘Letters?’

‘He says you made him very happy.’

‘George says that?’

‘If you’d rather not talk about it, I do understand.’

‘There’s not much to talk about, dear. I don’t really remember. George, you say?’

‘At the big house.’

Comprehension begins to dawn. The deep wrinkles on her face expand. Her eyes look far away.

‘Yes, George,’ she murmurs. ‘My Georgy.’

‘You knew him well.’

‘No,’ she says, ‘no, not well. We suited each other for a while.’

‘I think he loved you. He says so in the letters.’

‘He gave me a ring.’ This comes out quite suddenly, like the click of an opening catch. The discovery pleases her. ‘He gave me a ring.’

She starts the long struggle to rise from her chair.

‘Can I help?’

‘Why don’t you look for me, dear? The right-hand drawer of the dresser. A ring with a green stone.’

Billy Holland opens the dresser drawer. Inside is a jumble of small items, a hairbrush, necklaces, a christening spoon. He finds the ring, and gives it to her. A pretty ring, not of any great value.

Mrs Willis sees if it will go on her finger, but her knuckles are swollen with arthritis.

‘You knew him well,’ Billy Holland says again.

The old lady stares at the television. Hakkinen has pulled in for a pit stop. The crowd is howling in the rain.

‘We suited each other,’ she says. ‘For a while.’ She looks at Billy and gives a coquettish smile. ‘But that’s our secret.’

‘What was he like?’ says Billy. ‘With you, I mean.’

‘Georgy? He was soft. He was sweet. So you must be little Billy.’

She sounds surprised.

‘Yes. I am.’

‘You were just a little boy. Your mother was away. She was poorly. Then she died.’

‘I know.’

‘My guide told me you’d come. None of this matters, you know. All will be destroyed in the coming whirlwind.’

‘Mrs Willis, you must tell me if this is none of my business. But I would so much like to know more about my father in those days. I like to think that he had a time of happiness.’

‘My guide is a Red Indian, you know. She’s the daughter of Sitting Bull. Her name is Standing Holy.’

‘Could you tell me a little about those days?’

‘She comes to me to warn me. There’s going to be a terrible whirlwind. I’ve told the rector.’

Another roar from the television. Schumacher is overtaking Hakkinen on the inside, down the back straight into the last chicane. ‘Schumacher takes the lead!’ screams the commentator. ‘Could this man be Ferrari’s first world champion in twenty-one years?’

Billy reaches out a hand and turns the television off. Mrs Willis frowns, aware that something has changed, without quite identifying what.

‘Did you love George?’ says Billy.

‘Love Georgy?’ she replies. ‘Oh, yes. He gave me a ring, you know. My Eddie died just after the war. There were the boys. I don’t see much of them any more. Gary usually comes round on a Sunday, but he’s having trouble with his hip.’

Billy Holland gazes at her in silence. She’s ninety years old, it’s not fair of him to expect her to have retained the memories he longs to share. He wants to hear tales of his father before he became frozen into the distant figure he himself had known. Billy wants to find out how much happiness his father permitted himself.

His silence, the television’s silence, enables the old lady to follow a track of her own.

‘I must be true to my heart,’ she says. She starts to chuckle, the warm laugh of a girl passed through the dry throat of an old woman. ‘Oh, yes, I did love Georgy. We had good times for a while. We did so love to roll about.’ She laughs again, far away in her memories of fifty years ago, her visitor forgotten. ‘We did so love to tumble. I’ve not forgotten that. Slow down, Georgy, I told him. Yes, we had good times for a while.’

Her eyes close. She’s tired by so much talking. Billy Holland sits in silence. He has learned what he came for. All those years ago, before his mother died, before the monument was erected to her in the chapel, his father had a lover.

I will not burn what remains of the greatest happiness I have ever known.

He rises from the sofa.

‘I’ll go now, Mrs Willis.’

She does not reply. He wonders whether he should turn the television back on, and decides against it. The cats rub against his legs once more. The old lady’s mouth drops open. She seems to be asleep.

Billy Holland departs quietly, leaving the door ajar as he found it. The light of day dazzles him after the shadowed room. He blinks and covers his eyes with one hand.

Driving home, passing through the ornate lodge gates and up the long winding drive, he realizes he’s paying no attention to his way. Each bend in the drive, each tree that lines it, is familiar to him. This is where he was born, this is where his father died, and his grandfather before him. As the big house itself comes into view it’s framed by a fine pale blue sky across which high clouds are sailing. The house itself, so proud and prickly, so well guarded by mature trees, has such a commanding air that it seems to belong to this crease of Downs by right. But there was a time when another smaller house stood here, and before that a time when only shepherds came by this valley with their flocks. And before that, no Downs, no valley, and England’s chalky southern coast ran dry all the way to Normandy. Things are not as established as they seem.

He drives round the back and enters by the estate workers’ door. On his way down the passage to his room he passes the pantry, which does service as the kitchen these days. The house’s original kitchen is to be restored to its high Victorian glory for the planned guided tours.

Pat Kelly is sitting at the table reading the
News of the World
and drinking a cup of tea.

‘All well, Pat?’

‘Well enough,’ she says. ‘I have a pot just made if you’d like some.’

‘Maybe I will.’

He waits in the doorway while she fetches a cup down from the neat dresser.

‘Did you see Cherie had her baby? There’s a picture of a policeman with a teddy bear. Poor little mite, I feel sorry for him.’

Billy comes into the kitchen to see the policeman with the teddy bear.

‘Why do you feel sorry for him, Pat?’

‘Oh, they’ll never let him alone. Now it’s teddy bears, but you wait. It’ll be Leo on the booze, Leo on the drugs, Leo with the girls. And will you be having a biscuit with it?’

‘What do you have?’

‘For your lordship, the plain chocolate digestives.’

She produces the packet with a flourish. Billy smiles with pleasure: his favourite. The cup of tea and the biscuits are on the table, and it seems natural to sit down.

‘You know, Pat,’ he says, ‘I’m over sixty now.’

‘What of it?’ says Pat scornfully. ‘I’m over fifty myself, but I tell you straight, I have a much younger soul. I have a twenty-one-year-old soul.’

‘Oh, well, if you’re talking souls. Mine must be about seven.’

‘Now that is on the youthful side, seven.’

‘That’s when I went away to boarding school.’

Pat pulls a face. She doesn’t approve.

‘That’s how everyone did it in those days, Pat.’

‘Everyone who had too much money to raise their little ones themselves.’

‘Yes.’ He sighs, remembering his own desolation. ‘I expect you’re right.’

‘Not that I’ve got any right to go telling others how to live their lives. Look at me, the pride of the clan.’