The Flame of Life

CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

‘He’s broken my spirit,’ Richard said, turning the recorder off.

Handley scratched a match into flame, and relit his cigar. ‘You’re lucky. It’ll be soonest mended.’

A wine bottle tapped at a glass. Wind banged the house, and thunder rumbled over the chimneys. Richard unknowingly drew his head back in the attitude of Handley himself. ‘You can tell me that when you’ve had yours broken.’

‘It has been often enough,’ Handley said mildly, ‘and I expect it will be again.’

Cuthbert shaded his eyes from the light. John’s thoughts in some uncanny way accorded with his own. ‘I’d like to ask him a few questions, though,’ Richard called out.

‘Makes sense to me,’ Handley said sharply. ‘Slide the brandy along.’

‘That’s because he’s your brother,’ Adam said. ‘We’d still like to talk to him.’

‘Wouldn’t we all? But that’s his strength: we can’t. And never could. He had his language: we had ours. And he’s had the final say — at a price.’ He collected meat scraps and chicken bones, an overspilling platter which he set in front of the dog.

Having read aloud, and done his best to put expression into it, Dawley had missed some of the letter’s finer points. He would study it later, because the argument had seemed confused. For what its message of crack-pot God-love might be worth, he would try to sort it out. But first he’d copy it, and give the original to the museum upstairs.

‘I’m leaving in the morning,’ Maricarmen said, breaking the brief silence.

‘I’ll be going as well,’ Cuthbert told them.

Handley was on his way back to his chair. He was glad, but at the same time regretted it. ‘Where to?’

‘France. Spain, maybe. Where Maricarmen goes, I’ll go.’

Handley envied him — for a moment. ‘I’ll drive you to London. We’ll take the Rambler so’s there’ll be enough space for your luggage.’

‘I’ll need money,’ Cuthbert said.

‘There’s a tobacco tin on the table in my studio with a few hundred in it. No, don’t take that. That’s my secret reserve!’ He didn’t look at Dean while he said it, but knew his sharp ears took it in. I’ll trap him yet. ‘We’ll call at the bank in town, and get five hundred out. That’ll see you right. But don’t be too rash with it.’

Dawley was surprised that Cuthbert and Maricarmen had given in so easily, and wondered whether, with the main threat shifted, the community could go on. The shattered spirit did not need peace: with danger pressing like a stone on his veins, he had in fact worked better at his book.

‘What do you want to go to London for?’ Enid asked, the first words said directly to him that evening.

She hadn’t taken in that her eldest son was leaving home, which seemed strange to him. ‘To see Teddy Greensleaves about my next show,’ he said, though hoping to visit Daphne Ritmeester, after such a hard wearing day. He expected an argument, but she was unusually quiet, and he was glad, because even if he’d no valid excuse for the trip he’d have gone just the same.

She got up to make coffee. ‘Dean can help me carry it in.’

‘He is a jack-of-all-trades,’ Handley said, touching off laughter along the table.

Adam stood: ‘Father, may I say something?’

Handley poured more brandy. ‘I’m in a good mood. I’ll drink myself into a three-cornered pigpen if I’m not careful. John’s letter put me into a considerate frame of mind. Makes me realise that life is short. Perhaps I’ve lost my youth. If so, there’s hope I’ll paint something yet. It’s nice to think, though, that one’s sons can become inordinately polite when the occasion arises! Even Cuthbert’s getting that way. Maybe it’s because he’s in love. We all go under in the end. Love is the most extreme form of alienation I know. Or is it marriage?’

‘Stop it, Father,’ Cuthbert said mildly.

‘Don’t worry, old son, at what I say. I’m relieved and happy that the day’s ended well, and when I’m happy I tend to say the opposite of what I mean because my nerve-ends get a bit painful when they jump.’

Ralph, too easily disturbed by such moods in Handley, twitched his wrist and broke the delicate stem of a wine glass.

‘You’re not with us,’ Handley said. ‘You’re over the hills and far away.’

‘Leave him alone,’ Mandy cried, drawing the loose bits together, fearing he would send her unstable husband on another lone trail of mad zigzaggery. ‘You’re getting as pissed as a newt.’

‘You know I’m fond of Ralph,’ Handley said. ‘We understand each other at last. It’s just that so many pots have been getting smashed lately we’ll soon be eating off the backs of old envelopes.’

Adam sipped coffee. ‘We’re thinking of going to university.’

The cigar fell from Handley’s mouth and hissed in his coffee, ruining both. ‘What’s that?’

‘We’ve got our A levels. It should be easy.’

‘And if we don’t go now, we may be sorry one day,’ Richard said.

‘So you regret not going to university?’ Handley said. ‘They’re hankering to round off their state education by a final bout of conformity. Nobody with any self-respect has ever been to university, you couple of fat-necked moaners. Don’t you know that? You can regret you weren’t born to inherit a million acres, or that you haven’t won the pools, but for God’s sake don’t regret not having gone to university. Can’t you skive here just as well as there?’

When Handley carried on like this it was easy to score points against him. ‘I’m not an artist,’ Adam said, ‘so of course I’ll regret it. I can’t live on National Assistance, like you and Mother did, or hang on to your turn-ups forever.’

‘You see,’ said Richard, ‘we think we’re wasting our time studying the theory of revolution. As far as you’re concerned it’s only something that keeps us out of mischief. Yes, we’ve known that for a long time. But if we go to a university we can put our revolutionary and working-class contacts to good use in the student movement.’

Handley lit another cigar, and snapped his finger for Dean to bring more coffee. ‘You want me to fork out the money and help you through?’

‘It would be good if you could,’ said Adam.

‘My children’s wish is my command.’

‘Buy me a car, then,’ Mandy called out.

While Handley was concocting a suitable reply, which by the workings of his face promised not to take too long, Ralph said, in a reasoned and amiable voice: ‘It would be a big mistake, father-in-law, to buy her a car.’

‘There’s no danger of old tight-fist doing that,’ Mandy said, shocked at Ralph going so firmly against her, yet not angry because it seemed another mark of his newly found sanity.

Handley controlled his ire by waiting for Enid to stamp vociferously on Mandy’s dearest wish. But she merely looked before her in some embarrassed way that had nothing to do with the present issue. He wondered what great or secret even had taken her over in recent days. He’d go to London in the morning, but resolved to be more attentive to her when he got back. He knew it would be better if he squashed the idea of his trip, but when he was impelled to do something by the compass-pull of his loins, not all the persuading lodestone of both poles could draw him away from it.