Cushing's Crusade (6 page)

The Cushings turned into the narrow drive; ahead of them,
sandwiched
awkwardly in a small triangle of grass between two
railway
lines, the school buildings rose up with all the imposing grandeur of a badly designed Victorian hospital. In front of the main block, a boy with a white arm-band directed Derek to the end of a line of parked cars.

Open Day for parents of boys at Linacre High, Wandsworth, took place on the last Friday of each summer term and was, according to the headmaster, ‘an opportunity for parents to see some of the extra-curricular activities of the boys’. Dotted around the grounds were a number of outdoor stands: Rowing Club appeal stand‚ Gliding Club, Archery Club and so on. Derek glanced at his wife and saw her sour and disapproving look. Diana’s educational views had been that if Giles could not go to one of the half-dozen academically orientated public schools, and Derek’s salary had ruled this out, the boy ought to have attended the local comprehensive. Giles had not done so because the science side had been so bad there. Instead he had been sent to Linacre, a direct-grant establishment with minor-public-school pretensions that made Diana cringe.

Giles’s contribution to Open Day was the Geology Exhibition, which he had set up with the help of two other boys. His parents found him in an almost deserted prefabricated classroom tacked onto the back of the main block. The contents of the exhibition were ranged on tables pushed back against the walls of the room. Giles handed Derek a typed description of the various displays. ‘TABLE 1 Devoted to hardness of rocks. TABLE 2 Streak,
specific
gravity and amber test. TABLE 3 Lustre and crystal systems.’
A table on mining, another on volcanoes with models, types of synthetic minerals, polishing, mounting and displaying of stones. Derek and Diana wandered from table to table, admiring their son’s professionalism. Giles was only thirteen and yet half the exhibits were incomprehensible to his parents; both pretended to find the exhibition exciting; Derek did better than Diana, partly because for the past two years he had tried to keep up with his son’s hobby, and partly because adrenalin was lapping in his stomach and he found enthusiasm relieved his inner tension.

They had arranged to meet later for tea in the school cafeteria. Arriving before Giles, Derek and Diana queued for a cup of tea and went and sat down at a table in the far corner of the room. No long oak tables and minstrel’s gallery in the Linacre dining hall. A modern cafeteria, self-service, strip lighting and tables with blue, pink and green formica tops. The Victorian
dining-hall
had long since been split up to make more classrooms. Derek’s hand shook as he lifted his cup. Diana was looking round glumly at other parents sitting with their sons. The atmosphere was hushed, as though nobody wished the people at the adjacent tables to overhear what they were saying. Derek’s nervousness had increased, but the time, he told himself, had undoubtedly come. He pushed back his chair. ‘Just going to get something from the car.’ Before Diana could object he was threading his way across the room towards the door.

When he returned, Derek was clutching a long cardboard box; from a distance he saw that Giles was now sitting beside his mother. Derek sat down and smiled at them both, then, without saying anything, he unwrapped the package and produced a large pair of green flippers and a matching face-mask and snorkel. A short silence and then Giles leaned across the table and grasped his father’s hand.

‘That’s fantastic’ The boy examined his mask more closely and fiddled with the adjustable strap. ‘I can’t wait to use them.’

‘You won’t have to,’ Derek replied, smiling at Diana, who was looking puzzled and put out. He breathed deeply and held onto the edge of the table. ‘We’re all going to Cornwall,’ he said, in a
tone that a man might have used in telling his family that he had won the pools or been made managing director of his company. Silence. Derek smiled nervously and gave a little cough. ‘Well, aren’t you pleased?’

Giles looked confused and embarrassed. ‘But I’m going to scout camp.’

Derek shook his head.

‘I’d rather you came with mummy and me,’ he replied gently. ‘I’ve written to the scout master.’

‘But your research,’ cut in Diana with unconcealed amazement.

Derek studied the formica table top and sighed.

‘There are more important things in life than research,’ he murmured, and then, with a slight tremor in his voice, ‘You said that yourself and you were right. Of course you both come first.’

Diana, who had been frowning to herself, suddenly took Derek’s hand and smiled.

‘It’s not that I’m not pleased; of course I am. But it is rather short notice. Have you told Charles yet?’

‘No,’ admitted Derek. ‘But he won’t mind. You heard him yourself the other day, telling us how disappointed he was that I wasn’t coming. He’ll be pleased too.’

Derek felt less nervous already; perhaps he had
underestimated
himself to imagine that there could be any difficulties. After all what possible objections could Diana have raised to his changing his mind? She had pretended to be disappointed when he had stuck to his research. She could hardly go back on that now. A moment of doubt recurred when he heard her ask Giles whether he would mind missing his scout camp, but it was over the moment he heard the boy say, ‘I can always go next year.’

‘So it’s all fixed,’ cried Derek, clapping his hands and smiling broadly. He sipped his tea thoughtfully and then put down the cup with a clatter. His father. So intent had he been on judging her reactions to the news that he himself would be coming, he had briefly forgotten the deadlier bit of information he had to impart. He toyed with and then dismissed the idea of telling his
father that it was all off. The problem was whether to tell her now while she was still shocked and surprised by his first revelation, or whether to wait till another occasion. Derek tried to think
logically
but without success. Better get it over with quickly.

‘I know the idea won’t immediately appeal to you‚’ he said to Diana, ‘so please don’t jump at me.’ He took a bite from a
chocolate
biscuit and chewed, giving himself time to think. ‘I saw my father the other day and I hinted, no more than hinted, mind you, that there was a faint chance that he might come to Cornwall with us.’ He smiled apologetically. Diana was looking at him as though he had just confessed to a particularly abhorrent
perversion
.

‘You mean you’ve asked him,’ said Diana in a chillingly level voice.

‘No, I don’t mean that,’ returned Derek, passing the back of his hand over his sweating forehead. ‘I simply told him that there was a possibility of his coming. I did go on to say that I couldn’t see any immediate reason why he shouldn’t come, but I left the matter open.’

‘You asked him,’ repeated Diana in the same flat cold voice.

‘All right. I asked him conditionally.’ Derek smiled and dabbed at his forehead again. Diana’s face was flushed and her eyes narrowed with anger.

‘You’d better un-ask him—’ she paused slightly—‘
unconditionally
.’

‘Isn’t that being a bit unfair? He won’t get in anyone’s way. There must be a good many pubs in the area. He can stay at one of them or at a bed and breakfast.’ He lowered his voice a little. ‘Quite honestly the only reason I suggested he might like a
holiday
is this whole Malayan business. I thought a few weeks away would give his obsession a rest; take him out of himself. You surely can’t disagree with that?’

‘You don’t suppose that when Charles realizes your father’s staying in the local pub he might feel obliged to ask him to stay at the house?’

The savage tone of sarcasm was worse than Derek had expected. With as much calmness as he could manage, he said,
‘I’ll tell Charles that my father’s a recluse and that he only wants to see us once or twice every couple of days. He’d honestly be happier in a pub.’

Diana looked him in the eye and said quietly, ‘If he comes, I don’t.’

‘You can’t begrudge an old man a chance to get away for a bit. You’ll hardly see him. How can it affect you?’

In any other circumstances Derek was certain that she would have thrown something at him, but the other people around them prevented her. He could see from the way she was breathing that the effort not to scream at him was almost unendurable. She twisted her mouth into a bright social smile.

‘Oh Charles, something I didn’t tell you; my father’s been a bit odd lately so I’ve brought him along. He’s at the local pub down the road. No, he’s not a lunatic, just rather unbalanced. I’m sure you wouldn’t mind having him to lunch every other day.’ She threw up her hands suddenly, and, abandoning any attempt to keep her voice down, went on, ‘Why not have a mad wife as well? Two for the price of one.’

Giles was looking around with acute embarrassment. He could see several members of his form sitting three tables away with their parents.

‘I suppose Giles and I could go on our own,’ Derek said, ‘but it obviously wouldn’t be the same.’

‘Blame yourself,’ snarled Diana, pushing back her chair with a loud scraping sound.

Giles got up and blurted out imploringly, ‘Can’t you talk
somewhere
else?’

Diana looked at him coldly and said, ‘As far as I’m concerned there’s nothing more to talk about.’ Giles picked up his mask and flippers and fled. Diana stared furiously at Derek.

‘That was your fault,’ she forced out between clenched teeth.

Derek didn’t reply but started to eat a nasty-looking piece of pink cake.

‘Hadn’t you better sit down?’ he muttered.

Diana was fumbling in her bag.

‘Give me the car keys,’ she said, holding out a hand. Derek
shook his head. ‘All right; let me have some money for a taxi.’ She was swaying slightly as she held on to the back of the chair. It would not altogether have surprised Derek if she had started ripping off her clothes and throwing them at amazed parents.

‘Let’s go outside and talk,’ he said, taking her arm.

‘Will you give me some bloody money?’ she shouted.

‘Later.’

Heads all over the room had turned to look at them. For Giles’s sake it was just as well it was the end of term, reflected Derek. Observers might well imagine that he was a prostitute’s client who had just refused to pay. Diana turned on her heel and headed for the door. Derek followed at a distance.

When she reached the main entrance to the building, Derek was relieved to see that Diana started walking towards the cricket field and not towards the drive. He caught her up on the far side of the ground in front of the sight-screen. The Scoreboard opposite showed that the fathers had bowled out the boys for 137 and were now 36 for 4 in reply. A boundary was greeted with a thin round of clapping from the small pavilion. She stared straight ahead of her, ignoring him.

‘If you cared a damn about my coming,’ he said quietly, ‘my father wouldn’t bother you at all. He’ll go for walks on his own, look at plants; he used to collect butterflies.’ He suddenly saw his father blundering along a cliff path brandishing a large net. He hoped that Diana had not had the same vision. A boy using a loud-hailer was exhorting fathers to enter for a tug of war against the school’s rugger fifteen. Her silence was unnerving Derek. She
had
to come; he had not even guessed at the possibility that she might pull out altogether.

‘I really will go with Giles if you refuse to come. I won’t be blackmailed.’

She turned to him wearily and let her hands drop to her sides. Her anger had clearly burned out.

‘Not wanting your father to come may be selfish, but it isn’t blackmail. So stop being so melodramatic.’

Derek studied the grass and tried to think of what to say. A ragged shout from the distant cricketers announced the fall of a
wicket. The fathers were in danger of collapse. Diana lit a
cigarette
and tossed away the spent match.

‘All right; I’ll come,’ she said suddenly. ‘Now let’s go home.’

‘We’d better check up on Giles on the way.’

She nodded agreement. Derek’s relief was such that he slipped an arm round her waist. She didn’t disengage herself.

A little later she said, ‘You’ve been incredibly thoughtless even for you; but it still wouldn’t be fair if I refused to come.’ She stopped and took both Derek’s hands in hers. ‘I was so delighted when you told me you were coming. Then you sprang your father on me. Surely you can see why I was so upset?’

Derek’s confidence wavered for a moment but no longer. Her contrition was proof of her guilt. In any other circumstances an invitation to his father would not have been forgiven for several months. In silence they followed the boundary rope back towards the school.

During the two days remaining before their departure, Derek was fully occupied making arrangements, so he had little time to brood over the outcome of the next two weeks. The car had to be taken in for a service, its first in eight months; there were various items of clothing to be bought, including a new pair of
swimming-trunks
. He liked the idea of a striped pair in violently contrasting colours. There should be nothing drab on this particular holiday. Then Mr Cushing senior had to be accommodated. Derek spent the best part of a morning on the phone before finding his father a room in the
Three
Pilchards
,
a village pub five miles from Charles’s house.

Now that he was committed to going to Cornwall, Derek felt a sense of relief so great that, in spite of continuing fears for the future, he was still able to enjoy the immediate preparations and was even capable of relishing their hidden ironies. He had
discovered
from a book called
Cornish
Rivers
and
Estuaries
that they would be staying barely two miles from a famous prawn breeding-ground. Prawning would be an excellent family
activity
, so he bought three large nets. In the same shop he also acquired some mackerel spinners. Since Diana had attacked him for failing to provide a real family holiday the year before, Derek was determined that this time she should not be disappointed: there would be bags of fun for all the family with prawning, fishing, beach cricket, picnics and numerous outings to places of interest. Derek made his preparations with the hearty bonhomie he felt sure a good-natured and happily married paterfamilias ought to display on such occasions. Giles, who had evidently forgiven his mother for her outburst on Open Day, was equally
enthusiastic, and Diana, Derek noted with ironic pleasure, also felt obliged to enter into the holiday spirit.

It was not until the eve of their departure that Derek
remembered
the cat. When Derek and Diana went away, their black cat, Kalulu, was usually looked after by the couple in the flat above, but unfortunately on this occasion their holiday coincided with the Cushings’. Derek suggested that rather than spend hours the following morning trying to get the animal into a cat’s
boarding-house
, they should take him with them. Diana remonstrated briefly but then gave in. Derek was not really surprised at her uncharacteristic surrender. After all, if you tell your lover you’ll come alone and then turn up with your husband, son and
father-in
-law, the addition of a cat doesn’t make much difference.

By half-past eight the following morning they were passing through that no man’s land between city and country; the
tree-lined
avenues of semis and the palatial factories lay behind them; now houses gave way to scarred open spaces, car dumps,
reservoirs
, shunting-yards and gasometers. A sunny day, and ahead of them the holiday traffic thick on the roads. For a while country, but not for long: the green belt, followed by the stockbroker belt, followed by cummuter-belt Camberley and after the belts the M3 and overspill Basingstoke. A long way to the real country and all the way Kalulu in his basket howling with fear and indignation. The car’s service had not cured the steering-wheel judder, nor the curious whine that came from the region of the back axle. So many new cars on the road, their paintwork shining, bumpers undented, engines energetic and responsive, their owners all better paid than archivists. Diana was driving; in the back Giles was reading a thriller. Derek sat beside his wife with the cat basket on his knee; above him the shrimping-nets beat out a regular tattoo on the roof. Derek smiled to himself.

Take the average holiday-maker speeding towards the sands in his metal box, is his life, happiness and security not at risk? Apart from the fear of a fatal crash, what economic, social and moral pressures act upon him unawares as he rushes so blithely upon his way? What lewd memories of infant sexuality shape his
subconscious
mind and afflict his wife with lascivious dreams? A
horrifying thought, and yet in one family car, one family man is aware of all the snares and hazards faced by married couples in a competitive and commercially distorted society, and furthermore this man has pledged himself, within the limited ambit of his own family, to do battle with these disruptive forces.
Cushing
’
s
Crusade,
a modern morality play, with Charles epitomizing the power of wealth and lust, and Diana representing human
weakness
in the face of avarice and envy. The archivist himself is reason, moderation and decency. It had been some time, Derek reflected, since he had allowed himself the pleasant fatuity of such idly self-indulgent fantasies.

The heat in the car was increasing. In front of them the road floated in the rising waves of warm air; patches of melting tar made dark smudges. Kalulu was panting. The windscreen was now splattered with insect corpses, their body secretions smeared dribbles of yellow, red and brown. They intended to have lunch just outside Shaftesbury and already Derek was thinking with pleasure of liver sausage sandwiches, apples, plums and a cup of coffee from the thermos. Cold consommé would have been nice, followed perhaps by a light salmon soufflé. He must have started to doze because by the time he realized that Kalulu was retching it was too late to take evasive action. The cat had eaten half a tin of reddish-coloured meat early that morning, and now a thin greasy mess of roughly that colour was seeping into the fabric of Derek’s trousers. Several delicate strands of vomit and saliva hung from the corners of Kalulu’s mouth. Gone were all thoughts of food; Derek swallowed hard to banish the spasms of nausea he felt at the back of his throat.

‘We’d better stop,’ he murmured faintly.

‘Christ what a pong,’ Giles exclaimed, putting down his thriller for the first time on the journey. ‘Only another two hundred miles,’ he added considerately.

*

By late afternoon they had left the main road, and were threading their way through a network of Cornish lanes; tall hedges rose up on each side and long grass and cow-parsley brushed the sides of the car. For several hundred yards at a time the interlacing
boughs of low stunted oaks formed a canopy overhead and shut out the sky. Through the open windows of the car Derek could smell the honeysuckle in the banks and hedges. A few more miles and the road dipped down from the plateau of hedged fields into dense woods of hazel, oak and holly.

A few miles farther on Derek, who had taken over the driving, stopped on a small stone bridge spanning a narrow creek. Away to their left they could see the main arm of the river winding in a deep, twisting channel through shimmering banks of mud. In the distance a group of gulls rose from the mud and wheeled high above the river: tiny white specks against the sombre green woods on the opposite shore. Beyond the bridge the road curved upwards into the woods, leaving the river for a while.

Nearer the sea, the mudflats and the narrow channel of
brown-green
water had vanished. A very different river now, and the woods had given way to fields once more. Between the granite pillars flanking farm gates they glimpsed shimmering blue water in V-shaped clefts where steeply sloping hills met. Across the wide estuary the evening sun caught the windows of a group of grey stone cottages and warmed the ochre lichen on the squat tower of a nearby church. A patchwork of cornfields and stony grassland sloped down to small shingle beaches and rocky inlets. Away to their right between two bracken-covered headlands was the sea, throwing a thin white ribbon along the rocks. Near the horizon a long bar of darker blue faded imperceptibly into grey where sea and sky met.

Charles’s directions for locating the house had been precise: ‘At the crossroads just before you get to Tregeare village, turn left; go on past the Wesleyan chapel and a white farmhouse and the drive is another 200 yards on the right just beyond a group of firs.’ There were no gates, just two stone piers surmounted by carved pineapples. Ahead of them, at the end of a short drive, flanked by rhododendrons, stood the house. Derek had expected something more imposing: Tudor, Carolean or Georgian, but what he saw was a rambling late Victorian house built around three sides of a slate-paved courtyard. To the right across rough grass was an overgrown tennis court and dilapidated summer
house and beyond that a thicket of giant bamboos. Derek pulled up opposite the front door and switched off the engine. He smiled experimentally. Not a bad journey, traffic could have been worse. The cat was sick but apart from that we managed very well. I’m told that the prawning in these parts is quite exceptional…. Charles had appeared in the doorway. Derek threw open the door and jumped out energetically.

‘Dear God, it’s good to feel the ground under one’s feet after a long voyage,’ he shouted, as he leapt round to the other side of the car and opened Diana’s door with an excess of gallantry. ‘Step ashore, my lovely.’ Diana smiled wanly as Charles came up to them.

‘Come in and have a drink, or for Derek’s nautical benefit we might splice the mainbrace.’

‘The sun’s got to be below the yardarm,’ returned Derek in the gruff tone of a ham actor auditioning for the part of Long John Silver or Captain Hook. His opening line had been a joke that couldn’t be sustained and now almost in spite of himself he was bludgeoning it to death. ‘No drinks until the ship’s cat’s been watered. Giles, un-hatch the hold and fetch his tray and litter.’

A few sentences and already Diana was embarrassed by his heartiness. She always disparaged people who allowed pets to dictate routines. She hadn’t wanted the animal to come and would therefore hate him underlining the cat’s presence
immediately
on arriving. Better forget Kalulu and have a drink straight away, Derek told himself. Stupid to begin with such obvious wrecking; greater subtlety was required. But Giles had already extricated the tray and cat litter from the boot.

‘Can’t the cat wait?’ asked Diana.

‘He’s waited for nine hours,’ Giles countered. ‘You wouldn’t like to hold on that long. He must be bursting.’

Derek turned to Charles.

‘Is there a box-room or somewhere he can go for the time being?’

They followed Charles into the house; Giles lugging the sack of cat litter and Derek carrying the frenzied cat. Charles led them
into a small unused conservatory tacked onto the side of the house.

‘This do?’ asked Charles.

‘It’ll need sweeping out and he’ll have to have a carpet and a bed…. No, it’s fine, perfect. He was sick all over me on the way so maybe food wouldn’t be a good idea.’

As soon as Giles had closed the door, Derek bent down and gingerly undid the leather straps of the basket. He had opened the lid barely six inches when Kalulu sprang out like a jack-in-
a-box
and backed away spitting defiantly.

‘Friendly little soul,’ Charles remarked with a forced smile.

‘He’ll be all right in the morning,’ replied Derek. The best thing would be to fill the tray at once and leave the room as quickly as possible. To delay would merely irritate Diana more. Derek’s plan had been to disarm through charm, to be so friendly, so likeable and good-natured that they would both feel ashamed to be deceiving such a good and pleasant man, and yet little flickers of anger like acid in the stomach wrecked his
intentions
. Why had he been fool enough to presume that he could muster sufficient self-control to play such a game? Better to have gone to Scotland and let them fuck freely until boredom brought an inevitable end. As he started to shake cat litter into the plastic tray he saw Diana’s disapproving expression, the slight puckering of her brow. As though his little sin in bringing the animal could compare remotely with her guilt. How dared she condemn
anything
he did, when his offences were so trivial? He pushed the tray over into a corner. Kalulu sidled up to it and started
scratching
at the litter sending handfuls onto the floor. Diana had moved towards the door. What delicacy. She was eager to leave before the animal urinated, before a dark stain formed in the tray. Derek began a monologue to detain her.

‘His name’s Kalulu which is a bit ironic really; the first Kalulu, you see, being a born traveller and our Kalulu hating journeys as he does. Kalulu was a young African boy adopted by Henry Stanley: not adopted as a child but as a pet: a delightful piccaninny to produce as an exhibit on lecture tours, all kitted out
in Eton jacket, starched shirt and shiny black shoes. He was drowned in the end when Stanley was tracing the Congo to the sea; attempted to shoot some rapids and disappeared for good. He’s called Kalulu because of his black fur, not that there’s
anything
racist about it.’

Kalulu, who had produced two turds as well as a bladderful of urine, was covering up his doings with showers of litter. Derek smiled at everyone.

‘Shall we have that drink now?’ he asked.

Charles ushered them out into a short corridor that led into the hall and from there into the sitting-room, which overlooked the garden and the estuary. Derek had supposed that Charles would have transformed the interior of the house with hidden lighting, whitewashed rough brick walls and modern pictures and
furniture
, but his guess had been entirely wrong. Charles had
evidently
bought the house and its contents with the intention of keeping the place as it was. The sitting-room, like the hall and the main staircase, was panelled in oak and only saved from
gloominess
by wide french windows. Charles described it as Jacobean with a touch of Hollywood baronial. He was planning to get some antlers, a few Gothic armchairs and several highland scenes by Landseer. Diana laughed and suggested an Etty nude as well; Charles promised to get one when the opportunity arose. Derek imagined himself coming home from work and calling to Diana: Got your Etty, darling. Only a couple of thousand.

When Charles had poured drinks for all of them, he led the way out onto the lawn, which was bordered on both sides by a fuchsia hedge. At the end of the lawn a large rockery dropped away towards a tangle of shrubs and bushes which skirted a strip of woodland. Through a gap in the trees Derek could see the estuary.