12

It was the forty-first wedding anniversary of my mother’s parents. (My father’s were dead.) The year before, we’d had a slap-up celebration at the Golden Hind but today would be a somewhat quieter affair: Nana and Gramps and my mother’s widowed sister and unmarried brother and our three selves. Also, it would be a daytime, not an evening, do. The anniversary this year fell on a Sunday.

In fact, it was to be no more than a glorified Sunday lunch, made special by having chicken in place of a joint and white wine instead of water. The chickens, two of them, were to be eaten cold, with salad and new potatoes, because it was July and for the past week the weather had been sultry. In a bucket in the bathroom—on a bed of melting ice beneath a deepening, gentle sea—the four bottles of wine clinked pleasantly.

That morning, while putting out the breakfast things, my mother was laughing but prepared to panic.

“Do you realize they’ll be here in three hours and I’ve hardly done a thing? Such an idiot! What could I have been thinking of, yesterday?”

“But yesterday you made the cakes and the trifle and you and Ethan enjoyed your picnic in the woods. You weren’t just standing idle.”

“Thank you. So I’ve now got half the pudding prepared and maybe half the tea. Oh, wonderful! What about all those potatoes which need to be scrubbed, the salad which needs to be washed, the chickens which need to be cooked, the nut roast which needs to be seen to? What about the table which needs to be laid, the eggs which need to be beaten, the chickens which need to be carved? Bethel, remind me, please, what have you done with that magic wand?”

“You know,” said my father solemnly, “I think they could have done with you ten years ago as Mr Churchill’s speech-writer. Have we ever heard such rhetoric?”

“There’s also the present to be wrapped, the card to be written. I’d also like to have a bath and wash my hair and spend a bit of time on getting myself ready. There are probably dozens of other little also’s that I’ve overlooked.”

“I don’t suppose his trifle would compare with yours, either.”

“I wish you’d be serious for a moment.”

“You know you’ll get through it all just fine.” He lightly smacked her bottom as she leant across the table to position the Post-Toasties. “You know you have a highly domesticated husband and at times a semi-domesticated son—”

“Yes, I do have a domesticated son, thank God.”

“I shall ignore that. And after all it’s only your mum and dad and brother and sister. It isn’t the King and Queen. Then you might have had reason to worry.”

“It isn’t funny,” said my mother. “I happen to believe I should try to treat my family as if it were the King and Queen. And if you hadn’t…” (she glanced in my direction) “kept us awake last night…reading…I’d have been up a couple of hours ago, possibly three, getting on as busily as I had meant to. It’s all very well for you to make jokes.” She herself was half joking. But only half.

Even at fourteen, even with the accumulated experience of—give or take—seventy years, I found it oddly disturbing to know my parents had a sex life. I ought to have been pleased, and in a way I was, and yet it was by no means as simple as seventy years should have made it. And I wondered if Dad saw a suggestion of this in my expression.

“You’re very quiet, my son.”

“Just thinking.”

“That’s my boy, and don’t I know what you’re thinking about! Why, about how you’re going to take over and solve all your mother’s little problems.” He pinched my cheek in imitation of Alec Guinness’s Fagin. “Jewel!” he said. “Treasure!” he said. “Angel!” he said. Three pinches in total, although I tried to duck away. “Now all you’ve got to do, young prince, is keep your reputation alive for just one more morning, earn yourself three bob into the bargain and let your mum retire to beautify herself, put on her regalia, practise her curtseys…and for a further two bob let me have my own bath in peace and read the News of the World in time to get that scandalized look off my face before our royal visitors arrive!”

Today, though, his humour was falling flat. Inwardly—and uncharacteristically—I railed at the awkwardness of life. I’d had literally years in which to remember the importance of this date and I had actually only remembered it while listening to the crystal set less than thirty minutes earlier. Listening to, of all things, the weather forecast!

“Dad, this is rotten. I was going to tell you both. I’ve got to go out.”

“Oh, Ethan!” cried my mother, and now the last sign of her being able to laugh had totally vanished. “Oh, no, but you can’t! I’ve been relying on you! Where have you got to go?”

“Aylesbury.”

“Aylesbury!”

This wasn’t just down the road; it was about fifteen miles from Amersham. And although the train service wasn’t bad, even on Sundays, there’d also be a lengthy bike ride at the other end. There was no way I could hope to get home before the arrival of our guests.

“Son, you can’t,” said my father. “That’s all there is to it. Who were you going with? Well, whoever it is, give them a ring and explain that your mother needs you.”

“I can’t.”

“Of course you can.”

“I mean, I’m not going with anybody and there’s no way I can put it off.”

“You aren’t making much sense.”

“Dad, I have to see someone.”

“Who?”

“I’m afraid I don’t know her name.”

My father looked at my mother.

“No, it isn’t like that,” I said. “It’s—”

“Ethan, frankly I don’t care what it’s like. Not now. The thing is—you’re not going.”

“I’ve got to.”

“Sorry.”

“But I shall have to, whether or not you allow me.” This was miserable. At fourteen I was already much taller than my father.

“Ethan, be careful. I feel tired. I’m not in any mood to mess about. Walk out of here this morning and you need never bother to return.”

“Bethel!” screamed my mother. “No, obviously he doesn’t mean that, Ethan. But all the same—”

“I’m sorry, Mum. Dad. I really am. But look, I’ll make a start on the potatoes. And I’ll be fast. They may not take much more than fifteen minutes.”

My mother looked as if she were about to cry. “No, you haven’t eaten any breakfast. Whatever happens, I want you to sit down again and eat your breakfast.”

“Yes, sit down again and eat your breakfast,” said my father. “And while you’re doing so, you can tell us what this is all about!”

But I didn’t sit down. Now that he was struggling to recover his temper I became aware of losing mine. I, too, was feeling tired; I, too, had been having orgasms. (I didn’t much like the thought of Zack knowing, nor indeed my Granny and Granddad, but the drive at times was just too strong.) I had lost my temper before, of course, by no means the saintly individual I had hoped and prayed to be, yet at least it hadn’t occurred often and at least I’d always done my best to make amends. Each time it happened, though, I hated it—hated it.

“No, I can’t tell you. You’ve simply got to accept my word that it’s important. I’d have thought by now you might have learnt to trust me.”

I could have said worse. I was relieved I didn’t actually say, “Sometimes I think you’re apt to take advantage,” because I knew my parents depended on me for dozens of things that fourteen-year-olds didn’t normally get asked to do (from mending fuses, replacing washers, cleaning windows, to wallpapering and painting, and digging the allotment) and I was really glad this was the case—in theory I wanted to be made use of, always, and as fully as possible—but nevertheless I wished I could sometimes get round things by resorting to a meaningless white lie, the sort that hurt nobody and simply eased away the complications.

“All right! Go off on your little jaunt,” said my father.

“It isn’t a little jaunt and I can’t see why there has to be this huge to-do about it, why you’re overreacting as you are. As you said, it’s only family for heaven’s sake, and all of them would be only too happy to pitch in if necessary. I know they would. Honestly, Dad! I know it!”

But by this time my mother was actually crying. On the one hand I was tempted to put my arms about her but on the other I felt it was all so unnecessary; and in any case my father was there to put his arms about her.

He called after me. “Next time someone says how wonderful you are, I think we may have to reconsider!”

“Yes, I’m sure,” I shouted back. “Why don’t you tell them how you always like to take advantage?” I had to have the last word.

Already, though, as I was cycling down to the station, teeth uncleaned, hair unbrushed (and this was a day we’d all been looking forward to), the tears were welling up in my own eyes; and would have been easier to hold back if only they’d been due to frustration. But they weren’t. Inevitably they’d been brought on by remorse and shame. I should have handled it far better—that whole silly scene which had sprung out of nowhere! If only I had been less tired! If only I had been more prepared! I would have liked to ride back right then and there and throw my arms around the two of them and confess I’d spoken wholly out of turn and without having meant a word of it. But I hadn’t got the time and, besides, what could I have offered that would have made the situation any more acceptable? I wished I could have spoken to Zack.

I often wished I could have spoken to Zack. Zack, whom I had seen only once since infancy. And even that had been four years ago.

I’d been wandering on my own round Woolworths, or, more precisely, standing at one of the long counters looking a little aimlessly at cigarette cards.

“I hope this isn’t how you normally spend your time,” he’d said. It was as though we saw each other every day; there was absolutely no need for formalities or catching up.

“Why? What should I be doing?” Then I put my arms around his legs for a moment and held my head against his stomach.

“Reading something improving, not gazing at pictures of Susan Hayward and Jean Kent.”

“I’m always reading something improving.” But my grumble was as counterfeit as the reproach it was in answer to.

“Like what, at the moment?”

“Confessions of St Augustine.”

“And before that?”

“Bertrand Russell.”

“Where do you find such things as Confessions of St Augustine and Bertrand Russell?”

“There’s a secondhand bookshop in—” But then I saw his face and realized he knew perfectly well.

“And I think if you were genuinely enterprising,” he said, “you might have learnt to hide those gentlemen behind dust jackets borrowed from The Famous Five or Just William.”

“Oh, you do, do you? William the Showman, actually, and Swallows and Amazons. But Mr Marshall in the bookshop believes I’ve got the best-read family in the whole of Bucks and that there’s always one of them celebrating a birthday. He feels sorry for me and lets me have things for practically nothing. Oh! I’ve suddenly got an idea you may know Mr Marshall! If you do, please tell him how his kindness unfailingly touches me. Tell him I shall never stop feeling enormously grateful to him.”

“Point taken. How are you enjoying your childhood in general?”

We were walking slowly round the various counters.

“Oh, it’s brilliant!”

“Tell me.”

“I don’t know how. Do you want a list of things?”

“Why not?”

“Well…” Where did I begin? A sense of wonder had gradually been restored to me, a boy’s-eye view of the world that noticed as if for the first time the patterning on a snail’s shell or the inside of a foxglove. It had been fun being pushed along in one’s buggy, having rides on shoulders, owning a tricycle, scooter, roller skates—electric train set—wind-up gramophone. It had been fun to stay again with grandparents, riding in an open car, eating honey from the comb, scattering grain for their Rhode Island Reds, going mushroom picking in the dawn. It had been fun being taken to children’s plays and circuses and pantomimes, and knowing that this time one had to hang onto everything one could, since it was all so transient and precious and unrepeatable. (Essentially unrepeatable.) But it wasn’t easy in a few minutes, and without warning, to pick out the thousand contributing ingredients. “I honestly can’t do it justice.”

“But if you’re not even going to try I shall think it very feeble. And feel truly disappointed.”

I needed no greater incentive. As well he knew.

“Okay, then. Completely at random. One’s first glimpse of the sea out of a train window. Birthday parties. The smell of a grocer’s shop. Tobogganing on a tin tray. Treasure hunts. Riding on a pram base. Running after car tyres. Playing rounders. Storming the enemy’s camp, or castle, on summer evenings in the dark. I think this all sounds very naff.”

Zack was riffling through some sheet music. “It’s 1947,” he said. “I don’t know the meaning of that word.”

“But naff or not…it’s been phenomenal!”

“And what about your looks?”

“My looks? Oh, fine. Yes.” But somehow they didn’t seem so important any longer. Maybe they would come to do so as I grew older and got interested in girls, or maybe it was the usual story of someone wanting what he hadn’t got and not reflecting too much on what he already had. But at least I liked to think of meat and fish and peanut butter slowly transforming themselves into muscle. (I hadn’t yet become a vegetarian. Why not, I was to wonder later.)

“I note you’ve made no mention of the poor, the maimed, the halt and the blind.”

“What about them?”

“Renewed opportunities for the helping thereof.”

“Don’t mock,” I said. “It may not amount to much but I do try.”

“I wasn’t really mocking.”

“I’m only a little boy of ten. Unfortunately there are limits to what people will accept from little boys of ten.”

“You could run errands. Read newspapers. Make lovely cups of tea.” He smiled, spread his hands, then added, “But never mind. You’ll get older. I give you my word on that.”

“Big-Hearted Arthur,” I said.

He turned from his desultory inspection of assorted loose biscuits and looked at me closely. “Why do you say that?”

I was cock-a-hoop.

“Oh, Zack, you surprise me. I thought you knew everything. And you haven’t even heard of Arthur Askey!”

“Ah, right. ‘Hello, playmates’… ‘Bzz, bzz, bzz, bzz, honey bee, honey bee…’”

“Too late,” I said complacently. “You can’t bear to think I caught you out, that’s your trouble.”

“You jumped-up specimen! Don’t break a lance with me!” He smiled as he ruffled my hair.

I’d never met that expression. “Is it derived from jousting?”

“Which in turn derives from jouster, Old French. To fight on horseback.”

“That’s something I’d like to take up as soon as I can.”

“Jousting?”

“Ha-ha! Yes, and fencing—why not? But what I really meant, as I think you must have known, was horse-riding.”

“I agree. It’s an imperative. It’s also great fun.”

“Along with polo and squash and boxing and…” I laughed. “Zack? Do you ever get the feeling I’ve a lot to make up for?”

When I’d said that, I had been talking only in terms of wasted time, but ever since then the phrase had intermittently reverberated, and taken on a different connotation.

“I’ve got a lot to make up for,” I thought now, as I cycled down the hill towards the station.

Once more, when he had gone, it struck me that I had spoken largely of inanities (no doubt carried away by the sheer exhilaration of seeing him again—very schoolboyish) and still hadn’t alluded to the thing which really cut to the heart of my being: my unshakable guilt over Brian Douglas. It seemed there might be a basic malfunction in that part of my memory, self-regulating as soon as Zack had gone. But it also seemed, whether I alluded to it or not, that he must surely know. Yet why in that case didn’t he help? God surely knew, as well—why didn’t he help? The prayer for Brian Douglas—and for myself—was constantly in my thoughts and yet my burden remained intact (the cross I had to bear, as Miss Evers at the library would have phrased it, an expression I abominated with a force that simply wasn’t rational and could sometimes make me shudder). The nightmare continued as before, though not so frequently—only seven times during this past year. It was enough. I didn’t have to be asleep to remember its content.

I got to Aylesbury at half-past-ten and then cycled to the village where Major Shipman lived. The Major was one of my father’s bosses. He and Mr King owned not only the Regent but, in Chesham, the Embassy and the Astoria, as well as other cinemas in nearby towns. I had met him and his wife on several occasions, received good presents from them over each of the past six Christmases, as well as from Mr and Mrs King—Dad had come back from the war in September 1945 and had almost at once been taken on as the Regent’s manager—but I’d never visited the Shipmans at their home, and indeed it wasn’t them I’d come to see today. (As a matter of fact, I knew that on the following morning the Major would be calling on us and bringing a tinful of his wife’s meringues.) Luckily, though, the way to the village had been decently signposted.

I hoped to heaven that the Shipmans had only one set of neighbours nearby, for if there were houses all about, then my job would be a lot more difficult, as well as considerably more embarrassing. I began to sweat as I cycled and this wasn’t entirely due to the humidity.

It was fortunate, however, that the land wasn’t hilly. If it had been, my Aertex shirt would have felt still damper than it already did.

It was also fortunate that, yes, Apple Tree House was the only dwelling in any direction that could have been called close to Shipman’s Farm. But my heart was showing no signs of slowing down in gratitude as I pushed open the front gate and walked along the narrow path between rows of neatly planted vegetables, rows prettily interspersed with pinks and marigolds and lavender. Perhaps the apple trees—or at least apple tree—were in the back garden. The house itself was unpretentious: redbrick, small and functional: and looked more in keeping with its vegetables than with the high-sounding name picked out for it.

A man of about fifty answered my knock. He was in his shirt and braces and had a crumpled sheet of the Sunday paper dangling from one hand.

I wished him good morning and asked if his wife were home. I knew I sounded polite and middle-class and stupid.

“No, what do you want her for?” His eyes appeared to narrow. “If you’re trying to sell her something, lad…?”

I shook my head. But instinct had told me not to deal with anyone other than the woman of the house, not to blunt my message by talking either to the husband or the son. In her absence, though, I wondered if maybe I should talk to the son.

“Not here, either. If you must know, they’ve gone to church, the pair of them. Another hour, round about.” Happily he didn’t again ask what I wanted, nor offer to take a message. I settled myself on the ground outside their gate and leant back against the low wall of the garden.

He’d been right about the timing but wrong about their coming back together, and because she was alone I wasn’t sure until the last moment that this was the woman whom I had to speak to.

Yet what was encouraging, she gave me a smile as she drew near. “Tired? You haven’t got a puncture?”

I scrambled to my feet.

“Could I ask you something?” I didn’t like not knowing what to call her. And ask sounded better than tell.

“A glass of water? Certainly, my love. Might even find a bit of squash to go in it. My goodness, it is hot, though.” With the screwed-up handkerchief already in her hand she wiped at her forehead. “Real close and muggy. Full of all these horrid gnats and midges.” She inspected her handkerchief and maybe saw that she’d put paid to one or two of them.

“There’s going to be a storm,” I said.

“Good thing. That’s what we need all right, something to clear the air.” She had now turned in at the gate. “Mind you, we expected one yesterday, and the day before that, too. Will you come in with me or would you prefer to wait out here?”

“No, I know there is. Going to be one. A storm. In an hour or so. That’s the reason why I’ve come.” I was conscious of not having started very well.

She looked at me uncertainly.

I didn’t hesitate.

“There’s going to be a storm and your cottage will be hit by lightning. And your son will be killed if he’s lying down.”

She didn’t say anything.

“I’m sorry if I put it bluntly. But I didn’t know how else to tell you.”

In a moment she recovered her composure. Or her power of speech.

“Listen, love, you can’t go about frightening folks like that—making up wild stories—I think you’d better be off without that glass of lemonade…as a bit of a punishment, you see. You didn’t look the type of boy who’d go in for silly pranks like that.”

She turned her back on me then and started up the path. I ran after her, caught her by the arm. The warmth and moisture of her flesh was disconcerting.

“You’ve got to believe what I’m telling you!”

“No, I think I’ve got to do nothing of the sort!” Angrily, she shook my hand away. “Now I don’t know if this is your idea or whether you’ve been put up to it but I’m not having it, do you hear, and so you’d better be off before I call my old man out here. Or before I telephone the police, which is more what you deserve. And if you ever dare to return…well…” She clearly couldn’t think what might make a sufficiently awful threat.

“Please listen. Please! I know what I’m talking about.”

“Oh, I haven’t got time for this. Already late and if lunch isn’t on the table by one I’ll have a sulky husband for the rest of the afternoon. I can’t be doing with that.”

“And if it is on the table by one,” I said, “you’ll have a dead son for the rest of your life. Would that please you better?”

“Colin!” she called.

“Listen. How do you think I know that your son always goes to lie on his bed immediately after Sunday lunch?”

“Colin!” And then for the first time since I’d revealed the purpose of my visit, she looked at me with more curiosity than annoyance. “How do you know?”

“But it’s right, isn’t it? He does always go upstairs to lie down after lunch?”

“Are you a friend of Billy’s? No, you couldn’t be, I’ve never seen you. Who have you been talking to?”

“Nobody. I promise. But your house is going to be struck by lightning shortly after two and Billy’s room is right beneath the point where it will strike. His bed—moments later—will be nothing but a mound of ashes. Whether or not he’s on it will be largely up to you.”

The front door opened.

“Oh, there you are,” the man said. “I thought I heard you call. I was on the lav.” I remembered—as I didn’t always—to offer up a thank-you. “That boy still here? What does he want, for God’s sake?”

“Nothing. Nothing. I’ll be in in half a jiffy.”

“Well, it’s getting late,” the man observed, with noticeable truculence. “Don’t give him any money, if that’s what he’s after.”

He returned inside but left the door open.

“How do you know?” she whispered, urgently.

“Just do.”

“That’s not an answer.”

“I mean, I have this… I sometimes know that things are going to happen.”

“Like what?”

“But that’s got nothing to—” Yet then I thought I would never see her again; could it really matter if I broke the rules for once? “Oh, like the King is going to die next February. Like on the same day Princess Elizabeth is crowned we’ll get the news they’ve conquered Everest. Like, in the year after the coronation, Roger Bannister is going to run the four-minute mile…” It was surely important I should try to impress her.

“And like someone who’ll never make the headlines is going to be struck by lightning in an unknown village at the back of nowhere. Why?” She added in the same near monotone: “You don’t even know our name, do you?”

I said: “It isn’t much I’m asking. Only that you delay your lunch a bit. What have you got to lose by it?”

“Oh, you haven’t met my husband!” Yet at least she was now smiling faintly. “The name,” she said, “is Cooper.”

“Thank you, Mrs Cooper.”

“And you? What’s yours?”

There came the initial clap of thunder. We instantly looked up.

“So will you make lunch late?”

She nodded. “I may be as touched as you. But whether you’re touched or not I can see you believe in what you’re saying.”

“Yes, absolutely. So if it’s the only way, you’ll have to turn the clocks back, won’t you? I can assure you, even if he twigs, the sulks won’t last for very long.” I smiled, then picked up my bike from the grass verge. It occurred to me I should have been a recognized authority on that—on turning the clocks back.

“You haven’t told me your name,” she said.

“But remember. You’ve promised. And you’ll soon thank God you did.”

I waved as I cycled off. Turned my head just once and she was still standing there. I felt the first big drop of rain.

By the time I got home I was soaked. Nana and Gramps, Aunt Gwen and Uncle Max were all sipping sherry in the front room.

“Ah, there you are, you bad lad,” said Nana—invariably more stern than Granny used to be. “You must go immediately and make your peace with your mother. She’s highly displeased with you.”

“And so’s your father,” said Gramps, cheerfully.

“And so’s your venerated uncle,” said Max, “who’s absolutely starving. And so’s your sadly disreputable aunt—who always kowtows to the winning team. All-round disgrace. I wouldn’t be in your shoes, not for anything.”

Gwen hugged me like he had, however. (“My goodness, how wet you are!” It could have been a bad moment.) “But I’ll come with you into the kitchen and see if I can’t cushion the blows to some extent. Max, why don’t you come, too, and lend us a bit of moral support?”

“And bear in mind,” said Gramps, “that none of this will matter a hundred years hence! In the meantime, we’ll try to save you a glass of sherry.”

The only deeply distressing thing about it all—I could so vividly recall the last occasion. My mother had certainly got up late, just as she had this morning, but she’d been singing as the two of us scraped the potatoes and set the dining-room table, as we polished the glasses and shone up the silverware and made the napkins into little hats (although I couldn’t remember that I’d done much more than that—nor, I think, had Dad). And when everybody had turned up early in Uncle Max’s car, we’d all stood merrily about the kitchen, sherry glasses in hand, my mum laughing as much as anyone at the signs of chaos in the sink. Nana and Max, anyway, had briskly disposed of most of it, with dishcloth and tea towel respectively. Gramps had endeavoured to whisk the cream; but been told he hadn’t got the wrist for it. And Gwen had been separating the eggs for the mayonnaise instead of pushing protectively in front of me as we went into the kitchen and declaring as she did so, “The return of the Prodigal Son! We’ve all been telling him off! You should just have heard Mother, even the grownups paled! She made him promise—”

But her sister—Gwen’s—hardly appeared to be listening. “Look at you, Ethan! Oh, for heaven’s sake! Go and get out of those wet things! Dry your hair! And I’d like to know what time you happen to call this.”

I glanced at my watch. It was shortly after two.

Yet although the action had been almost automatic she thought I was being facetious. “Oh, I’ve a good mind to send you straight to bed, or get your father to. You’ve thoroughly ruined my day. I hope you realize that. You’ve thoroughly ruined my whole day—and I was so much looking forward to it!”

“Yes, the goodness of the Lord!” said Major Shipman the next morning, stroking meringue crumbs from his white moustache and gazing reflectively into his teacup. “Yes, indeed!… Don’t know why he’d concern himself with Billy Cooper, mind, who’s always been a bit of a ne’er-do-well, besides at times not seeming altogether there. Still, might mend. Might mend. The ways of Providence are often somewhat strange. (And, poor lad, one’s only too happy, of course, for his deliverance.) But makes you think, doesn’t it? Miracles and all that.”

“Who was the boy on the bike?”

“No idea. Vanished into thin air. Could have been a ghost—all sorts of stories going around. Mavis Cooper said she asked him twice but never got an answer.”

He paused.

“Apparently the poor old King’s going to die next year. And Everest is going to be climbed on the same day as the coronation. And somebody called something is going to run a mile in…well, she wasn’t quite certain. Still, have to see, won’t we? You been thinking of running the mile, young-fellow-me-lad?”

Before, it had been all long faces, and condolences by proxy. Today it was mystified speculation, and shaken heads, and gaiety and laughter.