The Flame of Life

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

It seemed strange to Handley that Cuthbert should volunteer to wash the kitchen floor when he could selfishly leave it for the next day’s shift, but he was out of the door and half-way across the yard to look for a bucket in the garage before he could call him back.

The rain had spent itself — after laying pools of water which Cuthbert jumped across so as not to get his slippers soaked. Myra’s dead husband George, a man of high standards and much dexterity, had spent a few Saturdays excavating a repair pit in the garage floor, giving the rectangular hole a lid of two neat doors which closed it off completely.

Cuthbert blessed him for it, got into the Morris Traveller parked above, and let down the handbrake. He’d planned on doing it in a leisurely fashion, but also with desperate hurry if necessary. The floor was on a faint slope, and he sweated as the car rolled clear of the trap doors. Half-way out of the garage, he noisily yanked up the handbrake ratchet. They were still too busy in the dining-room, deciding who would search where, to hear him. Minor decisions were swamped in such time-wasting debate that three hundred years would be needed to live a full life under such conditions. Only a guiding brain to give firm orders — even if occasionally the wrong ones — would get any good out of such an organisation.

He pulled up the doors and leapt into the pit, where Shelley’s notebooks in a plastic sack had lain since he switched them for a false lot which his brother-in-law had incinerated in the paddock. Poor Ralph, he thought, had lived with the triumph and guilt of having burned them, while still leaving him the means by which to destroy Dawley and the community for good.

The bag seemed heavier than when he’d first dragged it from the garage and let it drop there. He pulled and sweated before it eased up the side. Time was not with him. The discussions in the house might end, and a search party wonder what he was up to. Not that he didn’t have a good reason for tidying the garage and ‘accessory spaces’ — a good phrase, appealing to any community heart — on his duty-day.

His luck held, and the bag was by his feet. He got back into the car, and let it roll right out of the garage. For a full minute it had been unobserved in its suspicious position, and now he pulled on the brake and went back to use more strength on the bag. He didn’t fancy himself as a toter of bales and humper of sacks, but had enough muscle in his arms to perform all that was called for.

Using the Morris to cover him from the house, he went across to the caravan, where Dawley had his quarters, and began stuffing the notebooks under the bed. It was difficult to stop them slipping out, there were so many, but soon they stayed hidden — yet not hard to find.

He dropped the sack in a corner of the garage. Picking up the bucket he was supposed to have come for, he ambled to the house, expecting to be met by people setting off in all directions. They hadn’t yet finished coffee.

‘We were waiting for you,’ Handley said. ‘You can cast your eyes over my studio. As for the rest of us — the details are all worked out. Maricarmen and Dean don’t search anywhere because they don’t know the ins and outs like the rest of us.’

She stood by the window, pale, but smiling now, convinced at last that her loss was being taken seriously. Cuthbert wanted to go and hold her, but preferred to be cool till his plans had worked themselves out. Walking back to his accustomed place at the table he folded his arms truculently: ‘I’m not rummaging anywhere. Who’ll clear up the squalid mess from lunch?’

‘What’s the matter?’ Handley demanded. ‘Gone conscientious about your duty-day all of a sudden? Are you trying to hide something?’

His face reddened. ‘Why should I join this farce? It’s nothing to do with me. I’ve never known anything so stupid.’

‘Listen, you emotional juggernaut,’ Handley cried, ‘those notebooks have got to be found, not to mention the gun. I expect you to realise that. I suppose you’re playing awkward because you think it’s a black mark on the community, and that makes your rabbit-heart jump with joy. But Maricarmen is a guest, and she’s been robbed, and it’s bad for the family if they’re not found. Don’t you see that?’

Cuthbert sat down, afraid to go on standing for fear his knees would shake. His father seemed absolutely sincere in what he said — as usual. Maricarmen picked up a tray from the dresser and stacked cups and saucers on it: ‘I’ll stay behind and clear up lunch.’

‘All our problems can be tackled and solved,’ Handley smiled, ‘with a bit of goodwill.’

Cuthbert was becoming uneasy at what he had set going, a feeling of exhilaration and potent terror — held well down for the moment. His father was right. The family honour was at stake, though being his father, and unscrupulous to the end, he touched exactly the nerve to put uncertainties into Cuthbert’s scheme of things. His father was rotten, but was nevertheless right. The damned community had blasted them all, and Cuthbert had been trying to destroy it from the beginning because the sort of family he had been born into had set him against it. He might accidentally end by destroying the family as well. Had that been his intention all along? His head spun. Who was to know how deep and far back this terrible corkscrew went?

If he spoke out now, that he had put the notebooks in Dawley’s caravan, that he had already given the gun and ammunition to Maricarmen, then peace would return and let them go back to living again. He was strong enough to set the machine in action, but too weak to stop it. Vanity wouldn’t let him tell what he had done. He would appear a fool, and be scorned for the rest of his life. He would lose what love Maricarmen had for him if he didn’t give everything up. In her, with both strength and weakness, he could live and find himself, something which mattered to him at last. All he had to do was get the gun back before she killed Dawley. ‘When do we begin?’ he asked.

‘That’s my son!’ Handley called, really happy now that this petty issue of Shelley’s lost notebooks was turning out as he wanted it to. Cuthbert waited till no one was in the room except Maricarmen, who stayed to clear up the pots and debris. ‘I want that gun back.’

‘Be quiet,’ she said, ‘Mandy will hear you.’

He went into the hall. Mandy was searching the cupboards with a bored air. He went back to the dining-room: ‘I want that gun.’

Her mouth was set hard. ‘What do you mean?’

‘Go and get it for me.’

She set the tray down, and stood before him. ‘Why don’t you look for the notebooks?’

‘I want the gun back.’

She smiled, and kissed him lightly, without an embrace, a mockery of whatever feeling he wanted her to have for him: ‘You think they’ll find the gun as well? Don’t worry. I’ve put it where nobody can.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Of course.’

His manner alerted her when he demanded: ‘Where?’

His expression was tense, his voice about to break — she thought — into hysteria or tears. His pale face was not quite clean, as if he had been sweating. ‘It’s safe,’ she said.

‘Where is it?’

She had no intention of telling him — stacking plates and cutlery on her tray. He grabbed her arms: ‘I want that gun.’

‘You’re hurting me.’

He knew he was. ‘I’ll twist your arm off if you don’t hand it over.’

‘You gave it to me.’

‘I want it back.’

She snatched herself from his grip. ‘You don’t need to be afraid. I told you what it was for.’ Her voice was breaking, too.

‘I know what you want to do,’ he whispered, but not daring to say it. He went silently to the hall and looked into the lounge. Mandy was sitting in an armchair reading a copy of Nova, so engrossed that she obviously had no intention of going on with her search. They wouldn’t be overheard.

‘Why did you give it to me, then?’ Maricarmen asked in a normal voice.

‘I didn’t know till afterwards what you wanted it for.’

She looked at him, her face as he’d seen it in the railway carriage after their meeting at Dover. ‘I can’t trust you,’ she said quietly. ‘And you won’t trust me. If you loved me you’d trust me.’

‘You don’t give me the feeling that I can,’ he said, knowing it was useless to hide anything from her. ‘But I still love you. I always shall. But I must know where the gun is. Give it back to me. I’ll let you have it when you go to Spain.’

‘Search your father’s studio. Who knows what you’ll find there?’

‘Nothing,’ he snapped, ‘and you know it.’

‘Who do you think has stolen the notebooks?’

He laughed, and forced out words he’d no intention of saying: ‘I expect Ralph burned them on his bonfire.’

‘You’re lying,’ she cried. ‘Ralph would never steal anything.’

He hid his smile. ‘You think not?’

Her eyes were half closed: ‘You know where they are. If you didn’t you’d already be searching your father’s studio.’

‘I don’t,’ he said. ‘But I’m lazy, and don’t believe in wasted effort. My father hasn’t had anything to do with taking them. He’s not that sort of man — whatever else he is. I stayed behind to ask for the gun back.’

‘I’m not giving it up.’

The door clicked. ‘You two sound as if you’re having a lovers’ tiff,’ Mandy said scornfully. ‘Why don’t you get married so that you can really fight?’

Maricarmen walked into the kitchen and Cuthbert followed. ‘Brew me some coffee while you’re at it,’ Mandy called. ‘Looking for them notebooks has made me as thirsty as a dying camel.’

‘Get off your fat arse,’ Cuthbert said, ‘and make it yourself.’

She came into the kitchen and sat on a stool, saying venomously: ‘I’d love to see you get married. Why don’t you?’

‘Shut up,’ he shouted, standing over her with his fist lifted, a terrifying and pleasurable desire to batter her to the end of his strength. But his cowardice got the better of him. There were some things which were too open to do.

Her face looked as if a bottle of crimson ink had been poured into her head. ‘Something’s burning you,’ she sneered, a smile following. ‘What have you been up to?’

‘Leave her alone,’ Maricarmen said. ‘Go and search the studio, and leave us together.’