The Bach Manuscript

Chapter 18

‘Slow down! You’re going to get us killed!’

The race was lost. The Porsche 928 had run out of acceleration, or the driver out of bottle, and it began to fall back as the nose of the cherry-red Lotus edged past. The overtaking manoeuvre had been just a little hairier than Ben had anticipated, what with the articulated lorry bearing down on him from the opposite direction. Foot hard against the floor, he ducked back into his lane just in time as the lorry blasted past with its driver’s fist jammed angrily on the horn.

The lorry driver wasn’t the only one annoyed with Ben’s road antics. ‘Ben! That was insane!’ Michaela had to shout to be heard over the yowl of the engine. Maybe she’d have been shouting anyway.

The classic 1972 Lotus Elan was Simeon Arundel’s. In those days few students had the luxury of possessing their own cars and the spiffy red two-seater had earned Simeon a dashing reputation at college, although in truth he was a very prudent driver and kept to strict limits. By contrast, in the two years since he’d passed his driving test the Lotus was the quickest car Ben had been able to have a go of — it could only do about 120 but handled with verve — and he was enjoying extracting every ounce of its performance. Enjoying it a little too much, from the look on Michaela’s face.

‘Did you have to get into a race with that bloody Porsche?’

‘The guy was asking for it,’ Ben laughed, glancing at his vanquished enemy shrinking to a dot in the rear-view mirror. ‘We taught him a lesson.’

‘Fabulous. Now you’ve got that out of your system, can we try and get there in one piece, please?’

He glanced at her. She really was fuming. ‘Come on. Where’s your sense of adventure?’

‘I really don’t know. It must have run off with your sense of self-preservation.’

Ben reached across and squeezed her hand. ‘Forgive me?’

‘I forgive you, but just be more careful in future.’ She rolled her eyes. ‘What am I saying? You’re Ben Hope.’

It was a glorious, sunny early October day in Noughth Week before the start of term, and he and Michaela were travelling the sixty miles from Oxford to her parents’ place near Caterham for a party. It would be the first time Ben had met her family. Things were getting serious. Simeon had been only too happy to lend them the car for the occasion.

Michaela’s father, Magnus Ward, was something in the stock market and her mother Lydia was the senior manager of a private clinic. The wealthy couple lived in a large mock-Tudor home on three acres of landscaped gardens. The semicircular driveway was shaded under a giant willow tree and, by the time Ben and Michaela rolled up, already filling up with cars as other guests began to arrive for the party. The Wards’ social events were legendary, according to Michaela.

‘See. I got us here, didn’t I?’ Ben said as he swung into the driveway and slithered to a halt just inches from someone’s Jaguar.

Michaela had softened a little since his road-racing escapade earlier, but now turned to him with a frown. ‘Promise me you’ll be on your best behaviour, all right?’

‘I always am.’

‘That’s what worries me.’

They got out of the car and walked up towards the big house. Lydia Ward was a prim, neat lady with pearls and Margaret Thatcher hair. She greeted her only daughter with a flurry of kisses, then held Michaela’s shoulders and stepped back to scrutinise her as though she hadn’t seen her in months. ‘Are you feeling all right, dear? You look a little off colour.’

‘I’m fine, Mother,’ Michaela said, wriggling out of her grip with embarrassment. ‘And this is—’

‘Of course. Hello, Benedict, how lovely to meet you at last. We’ve been hearing so much about you.’

‘Good to meet you too, Mrs Ward,’ said Ben, giving her his nicest smile. If being on his best behaviour included allowing people to call him Benedict, so be it. He looked down at the small Pekingese dog that had appeared at Mrs Ward’s feet. He was sandy-coloured with a black face and bulging eyes that were fixed upwards, checking Ben out.

‘Meet Hamlet,’ Michaela said. Ben crouched down to pet him. Hamlet licked his hand. Mrs Ward looked amazed. ‘He’s normally quite diffident towards strangers.’

It had been prearranged days earlier that Michaela and Ben would be staying the night. Mrs Ward snatched a moment away from greeting the guests to lead the young couple upstairs and show them their — pointedly plural — rooms. ‘You’ll be sleeping here, Benedict.’ Indicating up a long passage to a door as far away as possible from Michaela’s. ‘Cousin Eddie will be in the room next to yours, dear,’ she said to her daughter. Michaela looked pleased to hear that Cousin Eddie was coming. ‘He’s a golf pro, you know,’ Lydia Ward told Ben, as though Ben was supposed to be impressed. He smiled politely. Best behaviour.

Back downstairs, Michaela’s father had appeared, smelling of cigars and acting a little vague and distracted as he was expecting some business guests to arrive at any moment. He and Ben shook hands. ‘Good to meet you, Benedict. Heard a lot about you. Care for a drink?’

‘Whisky,’ Ben said, and caught Michaela’s warning look. Might have slipped a little there.

Magnus Ward was thrown for a second. ‘I — uh — I think there might be a bottle of scotch in the study. I’ll fetch it.’

Soon the event was getting into full swing. The day was so fine that the party spilled out into the gardens behind the house, whose striped lawns stretched for acres to the woodlands in the distance. Thirty or more guests gathered on the poolside terrace, where the caterers had set up a lavish buffet and barbecue. Magnus Ward kept a pretty good wine cellar, too, but Ben was content with his whisky. He carried the bottle with him, in the likelihood of his wanting a refill. After being introduced to about a thousand people whose names he forgot the moment he heard them, he drifted over to the barbecue and helped himself to a chicken drumstick. Michaela homed in on him through the crowd, touched his arm and kissed his cheek and cautioned, ‘Don’t drink too much.’

‘Have I misbehaved?’

‘No, you’re being perfectly sweet. Mother likes you.’

Ben was relieved he’d managed to earn the Ward stamp of approval, thus far. But Hamlet was the family member who seemed to have taken the biggest shine to him. The Peke was trotting around everywhere behind him, gazing up adoringly. ‘You haven’t been feeding him chicken, have you?’ Michaela said with a frown. ‘It upsets him.’

‘No, he just follows me. He and I are getting along great.’ Ben waggled his half-eaten chicken drumstick at Michaela. ‘You tried any of this?’

‘Ugh, no.’ She pulled a face and her hands went to her stomach.

‘It’s good.’

‘I’m feeling a bit queasy. Think I must have a tummy bug or something.’

Ben was sorry to hear she wasn’t feeling well. The real significance of her queasiness, however, would not be revealed to him for more than twenty years.

Soon afterwards Michaela got accosted in conversation by some family friends, while her father singled Ben out to regale him with tales of the stock market and political affairs chat. ‘What do you think about this Saddam Hussein fellow, Benedict?’ The Iraqi Army had recently invaded Kuwait, causing chaos to oil prices. Magnus Ward was concerned about the effect it was having on his investments, but expressed certainty that Hussein would soon back down in the face of US military threats and market stability would return. He blustered on about it until Ben offered his view that, ‘No, Saddam won’t back down. That’s not his way. Then the Americans will launch everything they’ve got at him, and there’ll be full-scale war in the Gulf. It’s going to get ugly. I wouldn’t bet on oil prices recovering any time soon.’

Suddenly Magnus Ward didn’t want to talk politics any more, leaving Ben alone and wondering if he’d said the wrong thing. He sat at a garden table to one side of the patio, drank some more of his scotch (thinking the bottle must have a leak because it was going down strangely fast) and ate more chicken, content to be on his own with Hamlet who, it had to be said, was the most interesting new acquaintance Ben had met so far.

Ben’s moment of solitude didn’t last long. He was happy to see Michaela coming back, but not so happy to see the red-faced loudmouth who came swaggering through the party calling ‘Ciao’ left and right and plonked himself down beside them soon afterwards. ‘This is Eddie Carver,’ Michaela said. Ben was in the middle of introducing himself when Eddie rudely cut him off by braying, ‘So how’s my favourite little cousin, then?’ and insisted on giving her a big expansive hug that almost knocked the drinks off the table.

Ben sensed he wasn’t the only one to have taken a dislike to Eddie. Hamlet must have been feeling that way for a long time, and was eyeing him with hostility from where he sat between Ben’s feet. Ben reached down and stroked the dog’s little head. You and me, pal.

As Eddie began prattling on about the celebrities he’d been teaching to play golf, none of whom Ben had ever heard of, Michaela’s mother wafted across from the house and asked Michaela if she’d be a dear and come and help prepare the strawberries.

‘Take the dog with you,’ Eddie said. He added under his breath, ‘The horrible little mutt,’ but only Ben heard it over the buzz of the party.

‘I think he’d rather stay here with his new best friend,’ Michaela said with a smile. Then she was gone, and Ben was stuck with Eddie.

‘So Michaela tells me you’re one of the god squad,’ Eddie said to Ben.

‘I’m sure she didn’t put it that way.’

Eddie shrugged. ‘Whatever. Said you’re set on getting ordained, and all that crap.’

‘All that crap,’ Ben repeated. Funnily, he’d been thinking the same way about it himself, the last few months. The more he’d become focused on a future in the church, the more he’d begun to realise that it was not the right one for him. The trouble was that he’d wanted it so long, with no room in his heart for any other dream or goal, that the future he now envisaged seemed blank and empty.

‘They ought to scrap all that religion nonsense,’ Eddie declared on behalf of all Mankind. ‘Do you play golf, Benjamin?’

‘No, I don’t play golf, Eddie. And the name’s Ben.’

Hamlet growled at Eddie from under the table.

‘You watch it,’ Eddie warned him, pointing.

‘You shouldn’t point at him,’ Ben said. ‘He senses it as a threat.’

‘That’s exactly what it is. I swear, if he bites me—’

‘You don’t like dogs?’

‘That’s a rat monkey, not a dog. He stinks, and I don’t like the way he’s looking at me.’

‘Dogs understand everything you’re thinking,’ Ben said. ‘If he doesn’t like you, it’s because he knows you don’t like him.’

‘Is that a fact?’

Ben decided he wanted another chicken drumstick. Maybe he would give a bit to Hamlet, after all. ‘Stay,’ he said softly to the dog, then got up and made his way over to the barbecue where they were just taking a fresh load of chicken off the grill. As Ben was helping himself, he glanced back and noticed Eddie aim a sly kick at Hamlet’s head under the table. The little dog yelped and slunk away with his tail coiled tightly up between his hind legs.

Ben laid down his plate. He stalked back towards the table. Eddie saw him approaching, saw the look on his face, and his eyes opened wide with sudden panic as he realised that Ben was coming right for him. Eddie started getting up, but it was too late.

Ben grabbed him by the neck, pulled him close and said, ‘How about you try kicking someone your own size?’

Eddie struggled, but Ben wouldn’t let him go. The table toppled on its side, sending Eddie’s wine glass splashing over the back of a woman’s dress nearby. A less refined crowd might have started chanting, ‘FIGHT! FIGHT!’, but not this one. Some people started crying out in alarm, including Eddie himself who was squealing like a piglet as Ben gripped him by the collar and the belt and dragged him towards the swimming pool. A few of the male party guests stepped up to stop the fight, but saw the expression on Ben’s face and halted in their tracks.

The next moment, Eddie was airborne. He hit the water with a tremendous splash that soaked the guests who failed to get out of the way in time. Floundering wildly in the water, Eddie just had time to gurgle, ‘You bastard!’ before he began to sink.

That was when Ben realised Eddie might be able to golf, but he sure as heck couldn’t swim.

The party dissolved into total mayhem. Hamlet stood at the edge of the pool, barking. Almost everyone else was screaming and yelling, dozens of accusing fingers and horrified looks directed Ben’s way. Magnus Ward pushed through the panicked throng crowding the poolside, roaring, ‘What the devil is going on here?’ Eddie was now just a thrashing blur at the bottom of the pool, and not about to come up for air any time soon. Ben would have jumped in to rescue him, but Magnus beat him to it, stripping off his jacket and diving into the pool with a splash. Two more brave souls followed his example, and moments later the bedraggled, spluttering Eddie was being hauled out of the water like a big fat trout.

Someone shouted at Ben, ‘You bloody psychopathic maniac!’ Next Michaela was running over from the house, with Lydia Ward in her wake. Hearing the yells of, ‘He tried to drown Eddie!’, she stared at Ben with so much disappointment and hurt in her eyes that he almost regretted what he’d done.

Almost.

The party never recovered from the drama. Magnus Ward had to be physically restrained from attacking Ben, which probably would have resulted in an even worse situation. Lydia Ward was having hysterical fits and screeching at Ben, in a voice that could be heard in the next county, to get out of her house. Michaela was so furious she could barely speak to Ben except to say tersely, ‘We’re going. Give me the keys to Simeon’s car.’

‘I haven’t had that much to drink,’ Ben protested. ‘I can drive us back.’

‘No, Ben. We’re not going back together.’

He found out what she meant soon afterwards, when she pulled the Lotus up outside Caterham railway station and told him to get out of the car. He couldn’t understand why she was so upset. He kept trying to tell her what Eddie had done, but she wouldn’t listen. With tears streaming down her face she sobbed, ‘I don’t know what’s wrong with you, Ben. I don’t. I can’t take this any more. Go!’

Ben took the train back to Oxford, returned to Christ Church and kept a low profile in Old Library 7 for a couple of days. It wasn’t until the third day that he spoke to Michaela. After returning the car to Simeon, she had spent some time with him talking things over, opening her heart to him as only the closest of friends can. Simeon was someone you could turn to. By the time she and Ben met again, she had made up her mind.

‘It’s over between us, Ben,’ she told him. ‘That was the last straw. You’re too wild. It’s in your blood. You’ll never change.’

‘Did your parents put you up to this?’ he demanded, bewildered and hurt. But nothing he said could bring her back, and after a lot of tears and pain he said nothing more.

Soon after that, the young Ben Hope would quit his studies and leave Oxford, not to set eyes on the place again for a long, long time.

He knew then, and he still knew many years later, that Michaela had been right to dump him. The wildness in his blood was something he had not yet learned to control. But she was wrong to believe that he couldn’t change. That missing element was what his military trainers would begin to instil in their young recruit when, some time afterwards, he turned up at the Armed Forces Careers Office in Reading and signed up as an infantry soldier.

The army instructors could see the untamed force in him too. But they could use that. They knew how to model it, hone it, channel it, cool his blood, give him purpose. In time, they would turn him into one of the most dangerous and effective fighting men their most elite regiment had ever produced.

And in many ways, in retrospect, the wiser, calmer Ben would have Cousin Eddie to thank for what he had become.