On the hottest of a stifling spell of summer days, Christopher Aldington lost something and found something. What he lost was gone for good but what he found was only a beginning.
Of course, he had known for weeks that Grandfather was dying. Grandfather himself had told him, when the nurse was out of the room, but Christopher had sat silent, embarrassed for the first time by the old man, his friend, and unwilling to believe.
Last night, unable to find a position in which he was cool enough to sleep, he had read his book until his eyes ached, then slipped silently out to the bathroom for a glass of water. He knew that it must be late, very late. Yet downstairs on the lower landing outside his grandfather’s room he saw his mother, Aunt Evelyn, Dr Matthews and a strange nurse he hadn’t seen before, in whispered consultation. He had gone quickly back to bed, unwilling to know what was going on, and fallen asleep immediately. This morning he had been reluctant to wake up, keeping his eyes tightly shut against the sunlight that spilled over his bed. He heard his mother open the door and by the tone of voice in which she said: ‘Christopher, wake up, dear!’ he knew that it was all over and that life would never be the same again.
In the stuffy, darkened, blind-drawn dining room he forced himself to eat a piece of toast. Aunt Evelyn was crying and his mother put her arms round her sister and said that it was a ‘blessed release’. Christopher looked at her scornfully, but she was too busy comforting Aunt Evelyn to notice. He took the large iron key from the mantelpiece. ‘I’m going into the Square,’ he said, but his mother didn’t even say
‘Don’t be late for lunch, Christopher’; she was busy with a tiny lace handkerchief.
Coming out of the gloomy hall, he had to stop for a moment on the top step to accustom his eyes to the brilliance. Being Sunday morning the Square was quiet, and the plane trees sheltering the gardens stood, black-green, majestically against a breathless blue sky.
The warm iron gate creaked as he opened it. The seats were occupied by the usual assortment of navy-blue or grey-hatted nannies, rocking their shiny prams or knitting. He walked on until he found one on which there was only a girl in a pink summer dress and white socks. She was sitting at the very end of the seat. Christopher walked to the other end and sat down.
He knew that he had come to say goodbye, that he would never again in the holidays sit in the garden. Everywhere he looked he saw Grandfather and the pain was too great for him to want to come again. Grandfather with his stick in the autumn crunching round the little paths, the red and yellow tight-rolled leaves like cornflakes crackling underfoot; Grandfather with his muffler and galoshes, stepping carefully in the snow, holding tightly to Christopher’s arm, fearful of slipping, the trees stark against a winter sky; Grandfather, a lighter step for spring, unearthing the first primrose with his stick, glad that the weather was warm enough to sit for a while. Grandfather, a few weeks ago, a red rose in his buttonhole, ashen-faced, sitting slumped upon the seat while Christopher ran frantically for help.
The girl in the summer dress was swinging her legs; Christopher could see the flash of white socks from the corner of his eye.
Now he was the only man in a household of women. His father had died in an air crash when he was nine, and in the holidays Christopher came home to the tall old house in the Square where he lived with his three small sisters, his mother, Aunt Evelyn and, until today, Grandfather who every holiday greeted him with the same words: ‘Thank goodness you’ve come, Christopher. I’m fed up with all these women.’
Every morning after breakfast he would go into the old man’s room and discuss the ailments of the world, or his own particular problems, until Grandfather wanted to get up. When it was time for him to go, Grandfather would let him get as far as the door, then say: ‘Christopher, would you like a piece of chocolate?’ And Christopher would say: ‘Yes please, Grandfather,’ and have to go back all the way across the room to get it. Two squares of the same make of chocolate every day that he had been at home since he was five, and now he was fifteen. It was always two squares only and never offered until he had his hand on the doorknob. Today, against his mother’s wishes, he had gone into the bedroom to say a last goodbye to his grandfather. The nurse, bustling starchily about, looked at him disapprovingly. Grandfather, it was true, was paler than usual, but looked only as if he were sleeping. There seemed nothing, as he had told his grandson, to be afraid of. At the door, Christopher had found himself hesitating and, meeting the nurse’s curious stare, realised that he was waiting, as he had always done, to be called back. ‘Christopher, would you like a piece of chocolate?’ But it was only in his own head. His grandfather lay peacefully silent, and the nurse said: ‘I think you’d better go now.’
He felt something warm and damp on his knees and, looking down, saw to his horror that great teardrops were soaking through his trousers and making dark patches on the grey flannel. He reached for his handkerchief but found nothing except a Victorian half-crown, his talisman, and a piece of string. The feet in the white socks shuffled nearer and soon a fold of pink cotton lay across his knee.
Nothing was said but he had to look up. There was no choice but to accept the proffered handkerchief. Accustomed to the continual baiting of his sisters, he waited for the caustic comment. After all, tears in a fifteen-year-old boy could provide the material for a whole afternoon’s entertainment. There was no comment. Christopher dabbed at his eyes and his trousers and then handed back the little white square. The eyes above the pink cotton were large and black. He felt a strange, drowning sensation and it was a few minutes before he was able to look away.
‘I’ve seen you here lots of times,’ she said.
‘I’ve never seen you.’
‘I know, you were always talking to your grandfather.’
‘I shan’t be any more.’
‘Is that why you were crying?’
Christopher nodded.
‘It’s very sad,’ the girl said, ‘but beautiful. I know because of my granny. He was a nice old man, wasn’t he?’
‘He was my friend,’ Christopher said. ‘I told him everything.’
‘What was that pink newspaper you were always reading?’
‘The Financial Times. Grandfather taught me all about shares and used to ask my advice. Sometimes he even took it.’
‘What else did he teach you?’
Christopher considered. It was a difficult question. They had discussed together everything from Horace’s Odes, Grandfather disagreeing with his pronunciation, to modern youth, which Grandfather, contrary to most of his generation, considered no worse than his own, only different. Sometimes they didn’t talk at all. The old man would bury his nose in The Times leaders, and Christopher would think about whatever happened to be on his mind. At times they both just sat, silent. But it was always a restful, amicable silence, a silence of perfect understanding.
On wet days they stayed at home and played Scrabble. Christopher had been ten points in the lead in their fierce contest, which carried on from one holiday to the next, when Grandfather had played his last game. He’d never again find such a keen opponent. He let his mind slip back over the years but could think of not one thing his grandfather had actually taught him.
He only knew that because of Grandfather he would always be tolerant and true to himself. ‘He taught me to be a man,’ Christopher said, and waited for the girl to ask him what he meant. They always did. It was irritating.
She said: ‘You’re going to miss him.’
Christopher sighed. He felt a hand, cool and firm, close over his.
‘It’s always worse at first,’ she said, ‘like when you fall over.’
He thought her awfully sensible for a girl and liked the feel of her hand on his.
They talked. About television, books, their families and finally, at first shyly, themselves. Each laid out for the other to see, what they thought lay before them, sure that in the sunlight of the garden their dreams would not be trodden upon. Several times Christopher glanced quickly at the dainty profile, the gently tilted nose, the inky lashes, the pale soft lips. He liked it best when she turned right round to face him and he was caught in the level stare of her enormous eyes. He was unaware that the morning had passed. When he looked round the garden there was not a nannie or a pram to be seen. The sun was high in the sky. Guiltily, he thought that, for the past little while, Grandfather had been out of his thoughts.
‘I’d better go back for lunch,’ he said.
‘Me too.’ She stood up and shook out the folds of the pink dress. Side by side they walked along the path. At the gate he held it open so that she could go first. She lived at the other side of the Square. ‘I go back to school next week,’ she said.
‘So do I.’
‘I shall probably be in the garden in the mornings until then.’
Christopher remembered his promise to himself never to sit in the Square again. He looked at the girl, almost as tall as himself, graceful, with one foot on the first step, her long hair shading her face, a watercolour, black and pink, except for the face, pale.
‘I shall probably be there myself,’ he said and, turning, walked back across the shimmering, silent Square to the waiting house where the blinds were drawn, but not against the sun.