The Flame of Life

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

Burning Shelley’s notebooks made up for the hedgehog’s death, though tears still plunged from Ralph’s eyes, and his heart broke all over again, when he thought about it. But there was some consolation in those final black fumes that cleansed the world of paper and ink. Madness is a song that you cannot control.

When life was bearable, it wrought such change in him that people took notice. His timeless self-contained floating filled Handley with suspicion. An unhappy face suddenly at peace with the world threatened the equilibrium of Cuthbert’s stomach. The pleasant alteration in her husband gave Mandy some happiness back, for she soon took such contentment in him as his normal behaviour.

But she never knew when he wasn’t going to find a dead snail and flip his soul about that, and it was more painful expecting him to go off again than it had been waiting for him to recover from previous devastations. Yet at the moment of getting his reason back she was grateful at the unknowing goodness of the world.

Ralph latched the hose to the kitchen tap and, clad in Wellington boots, with the spurting nozzle in one hand and a huge sponge in the other, began swilling the Ford Rambler. Dean, by way of reinforcing Eric Bloodaxe as guardian of the gate, slept on the back seat as water combed its way up and down the closed windows. After its washing Ralph would dry and polish it, a pleasant task that would take him as far as lunch.

Because nobody yet knew of his atrocious deed in burning the notebooks his fingers were itching for another kleptomaniac performance, but at the moment there was no significant item to send him purloining by back door or bedroom window. The stasis was intolerable, as if the earth were softening under his feet.

He leaned against the tailgate, pressing on his sponge. Water ran down the shining metal. The only final pleasure to Ralph would be a mind in which no mental sensations could make any mark. He had noticed that when on the point of attaining this difficult state one of the Handley mob was bound to sense it, and maliciously smash the oncoming mood of bliss before he could even taste it. From far back he had put up with something similar from his parents. Life was so constructed that you could never escape. It had sharp teeth, and all-round vision. Sanity was in being left alone, but Ralph also knew, though he rarely admitted it, that this was impossible. It confused and worried him that no one had yet discovered the burning of the notebooks. Such a vacuum brewed up a feeling of moral uncertainty which, if it were left too long, would make him feel guilty. And the guilt of an undiscovered crime was worse than that which came after being condemned for one.

Not that guilt of any sort was close enough to worry him. When Handley smiled from the kitchen door he was not put out, but faced it, as he always did, and as he had been brought up to do. Still, smiles and a pleasant word from Handley were not the best things for his peace of mind. Sharp words and insults steeled him, and those he could usually resist.

Handley switched off the tap and, when the hose dried up, took Ralph firmly by the elbow: ‘Let’s go for a stroll before lunch. It’ll give us an appetite. The rain can swill the car down later.’

Ralph agreed, so as not to appear intimidated. They walked on to the road, father and son-in-law of equal height, though Ralph was bulkier, an unusual sight of them together. Ralph had a sick feeling that Handley might be forcing him out for a walk so as to question him about the notebooks. He was well aware that Handley may have discovered the loss but kept it quiet while trying to trace them.

‘How do you feel these days?’ Handley asked.

‘I had a headache this morning.’

‘Regarding the community, I mean?’

‘All right,’ Ralph answered guardedly.

‘I suppose it bothers you, not having much work to do?’

‘Not really.’

‘It would me,’ Handley said. ‘But then, I’m working-class — to use a common middle-class expression — while your parents are rich Lincolnshire farmers who made so much money they spent a lot of it training you how to be idle without going mad.’

Ralph stopped worrying, since Handley was insulting his father and mother instead of him. They passed the shop, where dumpy Mrs Harrod, Myra’s char when her husband was alive, gave Handley a baleful stare as she walked by with a basket of cornflakes and tinned carrots. Handley and his clan had not only spoiled Myra and ruined her house, they had also given the village a bad name. He was a well-known painter who had been on TV — once — and had his photo in the papers, but he didn’t act like a gentleman. When he’d first come to the village the local publican thought him an ex-poacher who had won a fortune on the pools.

‘Idle people get into mischief,’ he went on. ‘Their feet itch. They can’t sleep at night.’

‘Do you think I’m idle?’ Ralph asked, mildly.

‘Not bone-idle.’ They passed the church. ‘You’re willing but, like most members of the community, except me, you don’t have enough to do. That’ll be its undoing, I fear.’

‘We work more now on domestic chores,’ Ralph said.

‘Getting you down? Well, it is me, as well, but don’t worry: the more it does the sooner you reach bottom and shoot up again. If it goes on much longer though I think I’ll get flu.’

Ralph’s dislike of his father-in-law was so intense that it gave him the alarming feeling that Handley was almost human after all. Sensing it now, he had more reason than ever to beware of these little confidences which could lead to an onslaught impossible to resist.

After the watercress beds Handley took a path going left, where the stream widened and turned into a long shallow lake whose northern bank was reedily indistinct. Hills rose on either side. In front was a wood, and to the right, a little beyond it, was Gould House, whose tall chimney-stacks were just visible above the dark green. He paused by a wooden gate through which they were not supposed to go. The lake was blue, as if the clear sky had fallen in it, and a pair of swans floated placidly at the far end. ‘England’s a beautiful country,’ he said, ‘when you don’t think about it.’

Ralph nodded, following through and closing the gate. ‘I need fresh air now and again,’ Handley said, ‘to stop that paint scarring my lungs. When I was a kid my mother thought I was going consumptive, but my natural talent for life soon scotched that one. I was bone-fit when I joined the army, not like some of the knock-kneed pigeon-chested boss-eyed flat-footed blokes straight out of the dole queue. God knows what they thought they were going to fight for, but a lot of ’em went willingly enough, bless ’em!’

They passed a wooden jetty and boat house, a rowing boat moored inside. ‘I’ll have his trout one day. Good for breakfast. Plus a couple of rabbits for lunch, and a few pheasants for supper.’

Ralph walked by his side when the path allowed, and wondered what he was getting at with his irrelevant chatter.

‘They were called up to fight for land-owning bastards like Gould.’ He spat a green shoot of grass. ‘But I suppose they had to fight because the Germans would have been worse if they’d got here. Not that I believe in violence any more,’ he said, taking a flat stone from his pocket and idly skimming it — but with swift force — at a rabbit that bolted from behind a tussock of grass and made for the bushes.

The rabbit ran right into it, and was stunned. Handley took it by the legs, slamming the blade of his hand against the back of its neck. ‘I wasn’t a gunner in the artillery for fuck-nothing,’ he gloated, pushing the dead animal inside his coat. ‘We all learn a bit in life, even if it’s only how to get meat for the pot now and again.’

Ralph was enraged, blood swamping his temples. The vile act had only taken a few seconds. Its sheer unthinking speed made it impossible to interrupt and tell Handley not to do it.

‘What’s the matter?’ he demanded, seeing him pale, immobile and furious.

‘You shouldn’t have done that,’ he stammered.

‘It was too good to miss.’

There were tears on his cheeks. ‘We aren’t so poor that we have to come poaching.’

‘You don’t like seeing animals killed,’ Handley scoffed, ‘is that it? They all are, you know. I’ve seen you clearing your plateful of meat three times a day for months on end, and you don’t blubber about it then.’

Ralph’s look of bewilderment and pity for all human and animal kind changed to one of horror at the justice of the argument. Handley softened at his distress: ‘Don’t worry. It didn’t know what got it. If we all die as quick there’ll be nothing to complain about. And to tell you the truth, I didn’t think I had a chance in hell of hitting it.’

‘But you threw the stone.

‘By instinct. I didn’t mean to kill.’

They walked back the way they had come. ‘I hate violence.’

Handley stopped, gripped Ralph’s arm, and stared directly into his yellowy-brown eyes. He eats so much he’s turning liverish. ‘Do you? Are you sure you do?’

‘I do,’ Ralph said, so that anyone but Handley would believe him.

‘What have you done with that Smith and Wesson peashooter that you took from the cigar box in John’s room?’

Ralph did not know whether to feel relieved that he wasn’t being questioned about Shelley’s paper, or shocked at being accused not only of what he hadn’t stolen but of something that he might have laid hands on had he known about it. The resulting fusion of expressions puzzled Handley, who nevertheless repeated his question in blunter terms: ‘Where’s that gun, you thieving magpie?’

‘I don’t know what you mean,’ he protested, to the jutting face smelling of aftershave and strong cigars.

‘You’d better get it back, or it’ll come up at the next meeting, and you’ll be thrown out of the community. You’ll starve then.’

‘I haven’t got it,’ Ralph shouted, so that Handley began to think he really hadn’t, though he knew better than to trust his cries of innocence. Neither of them noticed Mr Gould, the owner of the land on which they were trespassing, come up till he was barely a hundred yards away. He was a tall spare fair-haired man of sixty with a small mouth, narrow watery blue eyes, and a long chin. Ralph was embarrassed and wanted to walk away, but couldn’t because he didn’t care to be impolite.

‘Good morning, Handley,’ Gould said sharply.

‘Morning, Gould,’ Handley said.

He knocked a briar aside with his stick. ‘Out for a stroll on such a fine day?’

Handley looked him in the eye. ‘Who can say it’ll last?’

‘Still painting pictures?’ Gould had heard about him from his butler, but hadn’t met him before, though he’d seen him several times from a distance. It was good to have an artist in the village.

‘They keep rolling off,’ Handley said amiably. ‘Do you want to buy one? It’s a good hedge against inflation, though I can see you wouldn’t want one for that reason with such a nice slice of good old England under your heels.’

Gould laughed in a relaxed manner. ‘I’ll call in one day to have a look.’

‘Any time,’ Handley said. ‘You might see something you like. Drop by. No formality — really.’

‘I see you have one of my rabbits?’

‘Knocked it down with a stone. It tried to eat my bootlaces, and I couldn’t have that.’

‘They’re vermin. Impossible to get rid of. The farmers complain and try to exterminate them.’

‘Rabbits are a multiplication table.’ Handley turned to Ralph: ‘This is my son-in-law. I was showing him the landscape. Very pretty around here.’

Gould nodded to Ralph, as if thinking he was hardly worth it. ‘Still, must get back,’ Handley said.

‘Close the gate then, there’s a good man.’

Handley and Ralph went on. ‘Not a bad stick,’ Handley said. ‘He did well in the War, so I hear. Lost his whole battalion at Cassino. There were only sixty of ’em, though. The other five hundred went sick the day before the attack.’

Ralph spoke bitterly, and the serious tone of it surprised Handley. ‘You’ve no respect for anybody.’

‘That’s as maybe,’ Handley snapped back, ‘but you can tell me where that gun is. Remember?’

‘I don’t know,’ Ralph wailed, and before he could dodge it Handley felt a hard blow on the shoulder which almost pushed him down.

I should have known better, he thought later, than trust a man who has the doctrine of non-violence festering away in his heart. Timid and mild, he had a gorilla lurking inside, and not very deep in at that.

Ralph came up for a second lunge, but Handley had steadied himself, and dodged it easily, so that his large form lumbered by. In self-defence, though he wasn’t hurt, Handley thought he’d better do something, so put his foot in a sort of kick, and caused him to trip in his clumsy Wellingtons. Ralph didn’t fall at once, only ran more quickly because of it, which took him towards the bank of the lake. Handley saw what would happen and, with swift and compassionate energy, leapt at his flailing arm, and pulled him round, so that he fell into the grass only a foot short of the water.

Ralph brushed mud and grass from his trousers. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said morosely.

‘So you didn’t take that gun?’

‘No.’

‘That leaves only one person.’

‘I expect it’s Cuthbert,’ Ralph said when they reached the gate. He held it, and closed it after they had passed.

‘What makes you say so?’ If Ralph didn’t claim the credit for a robbery, his suspicions as to who had done it could be worth something.

‘I’m not sure. I’ll find out, if you like.’

‘Can I trust you?’ Handley said, feeling a new respect for his erring son-in-law because he wasn’t shy of a fight if driven too far.

‘I won’t mention it to the others. I’ll see what I can do.’

Handley, though uneasy, would take on any ally to help him find that wandering firearm. When danger threatened he was a man who still had the ability to trust his senses.