Tiger Men (73 page)

She introduced Hugh to Eunice. The two women had established a friendship over the years.

‘Sister Cartwright is in charge of Rupert’s wing,’ Caitie said. ‘Eunice, this is Rupert’s brother, Hugh Stanford.’

‘Mr Stanford, of course,’ Eunice said as they shook, ‘I recognise you from your photograph.’ Hugh assumed she meant the newspaper photographs, which Eunice had indeed seen, but Eunice was not referring to those at all. ‘Rupert shows his picture of you and the Sphinx to everyone he sees. We all feel that we know you. Do please come this way.’

Caitie followed them, but kept her distance, remaining in the background as they entered the lounge. A number of inmates were playing games or simply doing what they always did. Caitie knew every one of them. Betty, a woman of around thirty, was sitting in the particular corner that she’d made her own for the past decade, cradling the same rag doll in her arms and singing the same song to it. Walter was conducting the orchestra that lived in his head, rocking backwards and forwards on his heels and jabbing the air with his invisible baton. Ivy, still in her teens, was wandering around having an agitated conversation with herself. Ivy was restless: she never sat down. Two other inmates were arguing about a game of draughts as they always did, and seated at a table all on his own was Rupert, a jigsaw puzzle laid out before him.

Eunice and Caitie, after exchanging glances, remained by the door as Hugh approached his brother.

So focused was Rupert upon his jigsaw puzzle that he paid no attention to the figure that arrived to stand beside him. Even when the figure cast a shadow across the table he took no notice. He just bent closer to the puzzle, waving his hand over the top of it, his eyes seeking the spot where the piece he held in his fingers might fit, his tongue sticking out, his concentration total.

‘Hello, Rupert.’

Rupert’s hand stopped waving. He froze at the sound of the voice, hand poised above the board, eyes staring now unseeingly at the puzzle. This was the voice he heard in his head daily. This was the voice he talked to. But it sounded so close and so real. He didn’t dare move.

‘Aren’t you going to say hello?’

Still Rupert didn’t move. This is a trick, he thought. Someone was playing a game with him, trying to make him look stupid, but he wasn’t going to fall for it.

‘Stop pretending I’m not here, Rupert. It’s rude. You don’t want to hurt my feelings, do you?’

Rupert shifted the direction of his gaze to the floor and saw the army boots. Then very slowly he looked up, taking in the uniform piece by piece, and finally the face of his brother. His jaw dropped and he stared at Hugh in open-mouthed amazement.

‘Better shut your mouth before the flies get in,’ Hugh said.

It was a phrase commonly bandied about in their childhood, and Rupert laughed his silly laugh. He stood and threw out his arms for a cuddle, and Hugh gathered him in. If anything Rupert was the bigger of the two, but the cuddle as always was that of a child, Rupert’s arms around his brother’s waist, his head tucked into Hugh’s shoulder.

Hugh held him close, but Rupert sensed something a little different about this cuddle.

‘What’s the matter with your arm?’ he said as they parted.

‘I hurt it.’ Hugh could lift his left arm only halfway to shoulder height. ‘It doesn’t work as well as it used to.’

‘Oh, poor arm,’ Rupert said, gently stroking the injured limb, ‘poor, poor arm.’ He concentrated upon the healing process for a full ten seconds or so and then he stopped. ‘Hugh?’

‘Yes, Rupert?’

‘Can we go home now?’

‘Yes, mate. We can go home now.’

Caitie and Rupert waited in reception while Hugh talked with Eunice Cartwright in her office.

‘My father will be more than happy to sign all the necessary paperwork for Rupert’s discharge, Sister Cartwright,’ he said, ‘and I can assure you that the paperwork will be posted directly back to the hospital, but I must warn you that I intend to take my brother with me right now. Is there some way you can arrange to have him signed into my care?’

Hugh didn’t actually need to sound as forceful as he did. He had an ally in Eunice Cartwright.

‘I shall sign him into your care myself, Mr Stanford,’ she said.

Caitie insisted upon sitting in the back for the trip home so that Rupert could have the front passenger seat beside his brother. But as it turned out Rupert took little notice of his brother. He spent the entire time with his head out the open window, his hair blowing wildly, hooting a laugh at every sight that caught his fancy. It was cold with the window open, but the others didn’t have the heart to make him close it.

Hugh dropped Caitie home before going on to Stanford House. At her suggestion they pulled up a good block before the cottage in Hampden Road.

‘‘Don’t drop me at the front door,’ she’d said, ‘not if you wish to remain incognito, anyway. My grandmother’s bound to be watching. She spends most of her days at the bay window studying what’s going on in the street.’

Hugh drew the car into the kerb. ‘I shall be motoring down to the Huon tomorrow,’ he said, ‘just a quick trip there and back. I’ve some business to attend to.’ He hauled on the hand brake, but kept the engine running as he turned around to face her. ‘Would you like to come for the drive?’

‘Of course I would.’

‘Me too, me too.’ Beside him, Rupert bounced up and down.

‘Would you mind?’ Hugh murmured to Caitie.

‘I positively insist that Rupert come with us,’ she said.

‘All right, Rupert, you can come on two conditions,’ he said sternly. ‘You sit in the back, and we don’t have the window down.’

‘Yes, yes. In the back, no window. Yes, yes.’

Hugh climbed out and opened the rear door for Caitie. ‘I’ll pick you up at nine o’clock. Oh no, that’s probably too early, isn’t it?’ he said realising that tomorrow was Sunday and that she probably went to church. ‘Would you prefer to make it later?’

‘No, no, nine o’clock is perfect.’ She’d be harangued by her grandmother for skipping Sunday morning mass, but she didn’t care.

‘Excellent, we’ll get to Franklin in time for morning tea. See you tomorrow then.’

‘I’ll be waiting right here on the corner,’ she said.

They shook hands. There were several people in the street, and another kiss in public would be more than her reputation could stand.

Reginald had been keeping a keen eye out for the Vauxhall’s return. He had decided there was only one course of action open to him. For appearances’ sake he must welcome Rupert home, and although he had no intention of humbling himself he must do all in his power to placate Hugh. Nothing must endanger their relationship. He had informed Iris and Clive that he had arranged for Rupert to be discharged from hospital. Both had been overjoyed by the news. He had further instructed them to keep the staff at bay while he personally welcomed his son home.

‘We must bear in mind Rupert’s delicate condition,’ he’d said caringly, although it was Hugh he was really worried about. Would there be a confrontation? If so, Reginald did not want the servants present.

Now, as the Vauxhall pulled up in the front drive, he stepped outside to greet it. The brothers alighted from the vehicle, Hugh with a folder of papers under his arm, and Reginald was deeply relieved to see that the girl wasn’t with them. He stood on the front porch, the benign lord of the manor, watching while Hugh lifted Rupert’s suitcase from the boot. Then painting a smile on his face he held his arms out in greeting.

‘Welcome home, Rupert,’ he said.

Rupert stopped right where he was. Father was smiling. That meant Father wasn’t cross, which was good. But open arms normally meant a cuddle and cuddles made Father very, very angry. Rupert was confused. What should he do? His face started to twitch, and his hands started to flap a little.

Hugh noticed the reaction. ‘Go on, Rupert,’ he gently urged, ‘say hello to Father.’

His brother’s voice had an immediate calming effect and, instead of giving in to panic as he’d been about to, Rupert suddenly came up with the right answer. Man-to-man, that was it. Father liked to say hello man-to-man.

He walked towards the porch and then up the several steps with his arm outstretched.

‘Hello, Father,’ he said.

They shook, Reginald taking Rupert’s hand in both of his, an unusually effusive gesture for a man like Reginald Stanford.

‘Goodness me, Rupert, don’t you look well? A great deal better than the last time I saw you, I must say. Your stay at the hospital has wrought wonders indeed.’

Hugh was not in the least impressed by the performance, which he knew was solely for his benefit. He could have confronted his father.
The last time you saw him, Father,
he could have said,
and when precisely was that? One month after Mother’s death, I believe.
He’d been appalled when Eunice Cartwright had told him Reginald Stanford had not once visited his son. Hugh, however, had no desire to confront his father. He did not wish to exchange one word upon the matter. What would be the point? His father’s actions had been unforgiveable.

He joined them on the porch.

‘These are Rupert’s discharge papers for your signature,’ he said handing the folder to his father. ‘I have told the hospital authorities they will be in this afternoon’s mail.’

‘Of course.’ Reginald took the folder. ‘Thank you for bringing him home, Hugh. You were quite right to do so. I am glad to see that he has made such a remarkable recovery, I had not thought it possible –’

‘I should like to borrow the car again tomorrow, Father, if you don’t mind.’

‘Yes, yes, my boy, feel free, most certainly. Would you care to avail yourself of Nelson’s services? He’s an excellent chauffeur and I’d be more than happy –’

‘No, thank you. I intend to take Rupert and Caitie for a drive in the country. I’ll be leaving shortly before nine.’

‘Oh. But surely you’ll be attending church with me in the morning?’

‘No, I’m afraid I shall not.’

‘Very well, as you wish.’ Reginald was thankful there was to be no confrontation, but he found his son’s distant manner extremely daunting.

They went inside and the moment they entered Rupert headed without a word straight for his mother’s drawing room.

Hugh put down the suitcase and was about to follow, but his father stopped him.

‘No, Hugh, please, give me just one moment.’ Hugh dutifully waited. ‘I sense you are standing in judgement upon me without knowing the true circumstances,’ Reginald went on. ‘Rupert was not the only one devastated by your mother’s death. I was under a great deal of strain, in fact I believe I had my own form of breakdown. I simply could not handle Rupert’s as well, can’t you understand that?’

‘No.’

‘I could no longer
care
for him, Hugh. Without your mother I could no longer be responsible for Rupert’s welfare. I didn’t know what to do. I was too distraught . . .’ In the face of his son’s coldness Reginald fought to justify himself, but he was making no headway at all.

‘You’re a wealthy man, Father, you have servants. You can employ others to take on the burden of care.’

Realising he was running out of options, Reginald decided after all to humble himself. ‘I do recognise now that I was wrong, Hugh. I was so distressed at the time that I wasn’t thinking like a sane person, but I acknowledge now that I made a terrible mistake.’ Dear God, he thought, why is the boy looking at me in that way. Am I supposed to beg? Very well then, he would if he must. ‘I am sorry, Hugh, believe me. I am deeply, deeply sorry. What can I possibly do to make amends?’

‘You can’t.’

Hugh walked off into the drawing room and Reginald was left in a state of emotional turmoil. He was angry. What right did the boy have to stand in judgement upon him? He was also frightened. Had he alienated his son forever?

Rupert was curled up ball-like in the armchair where Evelyn had always sat doing her petit point. Tears were running down his cheeks, but strangely enough he did not appear distressed.

Hugh knelt beside him. ‘Are you all right, Rupert?’

He nodded. ‘Mummy’s in Heaven with the angels.’

‘Yes, I know she is.’

‘God’s looking after her, isn’t He, Hugh?’

There had been some whose faith had helped them through the horrors of war. Hugh’s hadn’t. Hugh’s faith had died on the battlefield. He didn’t have time for God any more.

‘That’s right, God’s looking after her.’ He lied for Rupert’s sake.

They picked Caitie up on the dot of nine o’clock. She was waiting on the corner as she’d promised.

‘My, my,’ she said, looking him up and down as he opened the passenger door for her, ‘very handsome.’ Hugh was out of uniform and in a light sweater and blazer. She climbed into the car. ‘Hello, Rupert,’ she said, ‘you’re looking very handsome too.’

Rupert gave a happy guffaw. ‘Hello, Caitie,’ he said.

The day was clear and sunny and they drove with the rear window down after all; it kept Rupert happy.

‘I presume this means you’re not in the army any more,’ she said indicating the blazer.

‘That’s right. I am now officially a civilian,’ he announced. ‘As of today the army no longer owns me.’

‘I bet they wish they did.’ He looked a query. ‘Captain Hugh Stanford, recipient of the Victoria Cross?’ Caitie smiled. ‘I should imagine they were most reluctant to let you go.’

‘Yes, you’re right. In fact they did everything humanly possible to persuade me I was destined for a brilliant military career.’

He sounds cynical, she thought, which is unlike him. ‘And I take it you weren’t tempted?’

‘Not for one minute. I’m not a natural soldier, Caitie.’ His eyes remained fixed on the road. ‘There are others far braver than I could ever be. There are those born to lead. I am not one of them.’

She could have disagreed. She could have said that the army didn’t award VCs for nothing. But she didn’t. She didn’t say a word, because she knew that although he appeared to be speaking to her his mind was somewhere else entirely.

The road to the Huon was hilly and treacherous, winding its way along the side of Mount Wellington, but the countryside was dramatic and the native forest with its giant timber majestic. Then once in the valley and on the flat, the scenery changed radically. They were now in the lush orchard area where gentle slopes were lined with rows upon rows of trees, the majority of which were laden with fruit: apples for the most part, and pears, here and there cherries and plums.