March 1928, Davenport House, London
Three things happened on That Day – which was how it would be referred to later, no qualifiers required. Firstly, Bettina went into labour. Bart heard the screams as he entered the house. ‘Jesus fucking …’ he began, covering his ears with his hands. It was coming from upstairs. He ran up the steps two at a time, almost missing his footing as another scream came at him with the force of a grenade blast.
‘If you think that’s bad,’ said Doris the cook, suddenly appearing in the hall alongside the cleaner, ‘then you should have been here an hour ago.’
He clutched the banister rail. ‘How is she?’
‘Couldn’t say, Mr Dawes. The doctor’ll tell you.’
‘But what stage is she at?’
Doris grinned, her eyes glittering behind her spectacles. ‘I imagine she’s at that stage where she’s wishing you were dead, Mr Dawes.’
‘Is everything going as it should?’
‘I’m not a doctor, last time I checked.’
‘But should she be making those noises?’
Another scream, this one morphing into a horrible donkey’s roar. ‘Holy bloody hell,’ said Bart. ‘I never imagined – have you got children, Doris?’
‘Aye. I’ve told you about them more times than I—’
‘How was – I mean – was it like this with you?’
‘Aye. Without doctors and central heating and with the husband at the pub with his mistress.’
God. Why did poor people have to bring their poverty into everything? ‘Did you make noises like that?’ He pointed up the stairs, his arm trembling.
She seemed to consider this. She took her glasses off and started polishing them on her apron. Put them back on. ‘I should say so. Shall I make you a sandwich, Mr Dawes?’
And then the doorbell rang. He gestured at Doris to go and answer it. It was the midwife, a stout, thin-lipped woman called Delores with a gruff, masculine voice, huge, cracked knuckles and teeth as yellow as cheddar cheese. She insisted upon being called Del. Bettina suspected she was a repressed lesbian and had made up a song about her: ‘Her name is Delores but call her Del or she’ll floor us. “I’m Del,” she implored us, and she’s bent, is Delores.’ Del strode business-like through the door and headed straight for the stairs.
‘What shall I do?’ Bart asked.
‘Go and make yourself comfortable somewhere.’
‘That’s it?’
‘That’s it, Mr Dawes.’
Doris and the cleaner were glancing at each other, trying not to laugh. ‘You,’ he said to the cleaner, ‘go and make yourself useful.’ And to Doris: ‘Ham and cheese. Extra chutney.’
Doris nodded. ‘Your friend is back, by the way,’ she said. ‘I told him to wait in the drawing room. I hope—’
‘What?’
‘Your wee French friend, the pretty artist. Should I have sent him away? Only I’m not a butler, Mr Dawes, and I’m certainly not paid like a butler …’
But Bart wasn’t listening, Bart was running, Bettina’s mammalian screams at his back propelling him like strong wind behind a sailing boat, and as he ran, no clear thoughts came to him, just a freeze-frame of an empty train station.
‘Would you like me to make a sandwich for your friend as well, Mr Dawes?’
Bart didn’t hear her words, registering only that a question had been asked, so he nodded as he passed her, and slowed down, because how strange it must look, this young husband sprinting away from his screaming wife towards a pretty French man waiting in the drawing room, and he yanked open the door onto the second memorable element of That Day, he opened the door onto his Étienne, his Étienne, who was lying on the sofa with his boots up on the armrest, reading a book, any book, it didn’t matter about the book, and he ran up to him – no time for dramatic pauses and lingering, penetrating gazes, no time for any of that nonsense – and he grabbed his face, his terribly thin face and kissed him, and it was the sweetest, most passionate, most heart-splitting kiss ever – ever.
A knock at the door.
‘Wait a minute – hang on a—’
They set about scrabbling for their clothes in a panic. Étienne got his legs caught in his trousers and fell back onto the sofa, and Bart buttoned up his shirt. ‘Shit, shit, shit.’
Another knock.
‘Wait!’ he roared.
‘It’s urgent,’ came a mouse squeak from the other side of the door – the cleaner (Nora? Nancy?).
He tucked his shirt into his trousers, yanked on his jacket, looked for his socks, couldn’t find them, shuffled his bare feet into his Oxfords and started stumbling towards the door. He knew how this looked. But there was no proof – and that’s all that mattered. He pushed the door open a wedge and slipped through, closing it behind him.
The cleaner (Nellie? Did it even start with an N?) blinked nervously up at him, stray wisps of white-blonde hair worked loose from her bun. ‘I’m sorry, sir—’
‘No, no, it’s fine, don’t apolo— it’s just my friend in there was very upset about something, he – he was crying as a matter of fact, and I think – what’s your name by the way?’
‘Ethel.’
‘Ethel! Yes. Well, as I was saying, it would have been very uncomfortable for both him and you if you’d been privy to that – just imagine, a grown man crying …’ Fuck! The baby! How could he have forgotten about the baby! He grabbed her by the arms. ‘Is everything all right? Is it Bettina? Is it the – has the baby come?’
‘No, sir, it’s a telephone call, for you. Very urgent.’
She was wincing. For a moment he wondered if it was his breath – whisky and garlic and cum – before realising that he was still clutching her arms. ‘Sorry,’ he said, letting go.
‘Mrs Wyn Thomas, sir. She wanted to speak to Mrs Dawes but – she didn’t know the baby was coming, sir! She’s cross with you about that.’
He leaned against the door, squeezing the bridge of his nose with his fingers. ‘Thank you. See Mr Janvier is not disturbed.’ He made his way to the telephone. No screams from upstairs – hopefully she’d been given something for the pain. ‘Hello,’ he said into the phone.
‘Bartholomew! How could you neglect to inform me that my daughter is in the throes of childbirth? How could you be so bloody unthinking!’
Bart pressed his forehead against the wallpaper and stemmed the groan trying to come out. He’d always liked Venetia – she’d been a lot kinder to him than the father, Monty, and at times had even seemed like a second mother. Well, not quite a second mother but maybe something akin to a tolerable stepmother or a favourite aunt. She’d always thought him a brat and a mischief-maker – the woman, like her daughter, was terrible at concealing her feelings and, also like her daughter, was an exemplary eye-roller and artful mistress of the disdainful sneer. And yet she seemed to nurse a reluctant fondness for him, as if he was an annoying puppy who got under foot and pissed in places he shouldn’t, but come bedtime she’d be patting the bed and saying, ‘Oh come on up then, you little horror.’ He could even remember her cuddling him once, after he’d been punched in the face by one of Jonathan’s chums; he’d rested his cheek on her talc-dusted bosom, her hanky wedged up one bleeding nostril, and felt safe, really safe.
‘I’m sorry, Venetia,’ he said. ‘I’ve been in a blind panic this last hour. I was just about to ring you.’
Silence on her end. Then, in a sad, quiet voice that made her sound like a young girl, she imparted the third memorable arse-fuck of That Day: ‘My Monty is dying.’
‘What? How? What of?’
‘He had a heart attack this morning. A whopper. The doctors thought he might pull through but then he had another one. He’s unconscious now.’
‘I’m so sorry, Venetia! Jesus! I’m so very sorry. What can I do?’
An exhalation of breath made ragged by fought-back tears. ‘Don’t tell Betts until after she’s recovered from the birth.’
‘Of course, of course.’
‘And ring me as soon as the baby’s here.’
‘Yes, I’ll do that.’
‘And Bart?’
‘Yes?’
‘If it’s a boy, don’t you think – well, wouldn’t it be fitting if you named him Montgomery?’
What was he supposed to say to that? He couldn’t say no, could he? ‘Of course, Venetia.’
‘It would mean the world to him – I mean, if he were conscious and able to … do you think if I were to whisper it into his ear, he might hear me?’
‘It wouldn’t hurt to try.’
‘Montgomery Dawes. That’s a strong name, don’t you think?’
‘Certainly. It’s got a good – it’s got a nice ring to it. But – well – I was going to name him Jonathan. But if—’
‘Oh,’ she said, that ‘Oh’ appearing in Bart’s mind like a sad little smoke ring, moon-white and quick to disperse. She laughed. Horribly. ‘So many dead names to choose from … so many … There’s your father’s name too. I hadn’t even considered that.’
‘Oh, no – I wouldn’t name my child after him. I hated him.’
‘I know you did. I know.’ She blew her nose and sniffed. ‘I don’t know what I’m going to do, Bart.’
There was a vase of daffodils on the desk. He dimly realised that his eyes had been focused on them this whole time. One particular petal – crooked but fleshy.
‘Wouldn’t it be strange,’ she continued, ‘if the baby came and at the same time, Monty … imagine if his soul flew from here to – oh, I’m saying all sorts of ridiculous things now. I’ll let you go, Bart. Goodbye.’
‘Mr Dawes?’
He jumped. It was Doris.
‘Your sandwiches are ready when you want them. And I’ve done you a malted milk for your nerves.’
‘Thank you,’ he said softly. And then his face crumpled and he was crying.
‘It’s a trying time for a husband,’ said Doris, touching his arm gingerly, as if she were a dog trainer unsure of the hound’s temperament.
A pinched, yellowish, mewling she-critter with tiny grasping hands tipped with the thinnest, most delicate slices of fingernail, arms and legs marbled blue, red and yellow as her circulation clashed with the cold air, a puffy vulva, goose-pimpled and already dribbling out urine, the dark eyes rolling around their sockets, unseeing, tiny mouth opening and closing, opening and closing. Absolutely beautiful.
Why couldn’t he stop crying?
Bettina gazed at him through opium-sunk eyes. She reached out and patted his thigh. ‘Let Del get a blanket on her, Meow. She’s getting cold.’
He nodded, sniffing, and passed the baby to Delores, who promptly swaddled her in a woollen blanket before passing her back to him, smiling with all the gums showing around her huge yellow teeth.
‘I could do with a cigarette,’ said Bettina.
‘Now, Bettina—’ began Del.
‘If I want a cigarette, I shall have a cigarette. Meow, darling, give me a cigarette, will you?’
Bart carefully balanced the baby on his thighs and took out his cigarettes, lighting two. ‘It should be a cigar, really,’ he said.
‘I don’t like cigars,’ she said. ‘I don’t think anyone does. I think men just pretend to.’
‘How do you feel?’ he said.
She propped herself up on the pillow and began to smoke, eyes closed. ‘Euphoric,’ she said, tonelessly.
‘Are you – is that sarcasm?’
‘No, I meant it. I’m just so exhausted. How do I look?’
It was strange – she looked terrible: haggard, crusty-lipped and squinty-eyed, her complexion ruddy. Yet beautiful. The most beautiful she’d ever looked. And it was the same with the baby – a little troll thing, said his eyes. But his heart saw perfection. It was a kind of drunkenness of perception. ‘Delicious,’ he said.
‘Bart – it was awful. I’m never doing it again.’
‘That’s what they all say,’ chipped in Delores, who was pulling the curtains open at the other end of the room.
Bart cradled the baby in one arm, smoking with the other. The sun had gone down outside and it was getting dark. Bettina looked tiny in the huge bed. He imagined Monty in his own huge bed, which he could well remember; as a boy he’d often sneaked into the grown-up world of the Wyn Thomases’ master bedroom to nose through their alien artefacts – stiff underwear with odd clasps and ribs of whalebone shooting off in incomprehensible directions, strange metal contraptions for cleaning the ears or draining the sinuses, jars of haemorrhoid ointment, potted orchids everywhere, their soil peppered with fingernail shavings and what looked like pubic hair, a toffee tin filled with war medals and cufflinks. Monty’s Boer War medal was the newest and shiniest. He’d imagine a younger, leaner Monty in khakis, wiping sweat and blood from his brow with a rag while smoking a cheroot.
He’d once masturbated over Monty.
Twice, actually.
Well, a handful of times. But not to excess. Not with any regularity.
In the fantasy, Monty saved Bart from drowning in the sea. He clutched Bart to his chest to keep him from thrashing, calmly treading water and whispering reassurances – ‘I’ve got you, boy, I’ve got you.’ His chest was solid and warm. He swam him back to shore. They threw themselves onto the sand, panting, and Bart noticed Monty’s stiffy (huge, of course), and Monty noticed Bart noticing it, and there was a pause, a beat, and Monty grabbed Bart and shoved his tongue into his mouth.
Monty was not an attractive man. He certainly wasn’t a nice man. So why these fantasies?
Too easy.
Delores was looming over the bed, still smiling, but glancing at Bart with an air of expectation. His cue to leave. They had business to discuss – there was the matter of feeding (Bettina unequivocally wished to use bottled milk to save her breasts from sagging) – and then rest for the mother. And then some horrible fucking news for the mother. He lifted the baby up to his face and sniffed her head. Creamy, slightly earthy. Lovely.
‘Are we still set on Tabitha?’ he said. ‘I can see her as a little Tabby.’
‘I think it’s perfect,’ said Bettina.
He nodded. ‘The next one can be Jonathan.’ Or Montgomery. ‘We’ll accrue the complete dead set.’
‘I told you, I’m never doing this again.’
He handed her the baby and kissed her head. ‘You did wonderfully. I’m so proud of you.’ And he quickly left before the tears could start again.