Patricia and Malise (11 page)

Several months later Christian sent Ruggles's ignition key to Patricia. Registered. Malise sat silent and uninterested as his brother wrote the letter to accompany it. Christian had read Patricia's letter of dismissal and, with Malise's earlier confessions on his mind, felt, in his limited way, that he understood a little of what had taken place.

‘Here comes the key to my brother's Lagonda. I am sure that he would like to remind you that he always called it ‘Ruggles'. I have never known why he chose that name. The car is still parked (here he gave the particulars) and ready for your collection. I have power of attorney and am happy on his behalf to give you the car as a present to your unborn child in memory of my brother. I have reason to believe that I may well be the child's uncle.'

Christian sat quietly after writing the letter and fantasised that, one day, he might turn up in Lucca to claim the child. The last of his particular branch of Mc Hips. He, after all, with Malise's wits gone, was the head of the family and had rights.

Patricia, within weeks of giving birth to her second child, found the hard packet – key and letter within, on her door mat. Feeling clammy and hysterical she called a mechanic and asked him to join her beside Ruggles. Fortunately Antonio had never known that the car remained in Lucca and had asked no questions as to its whereabouts. The mechanic, with difficulty, managed to get Ruggles's engine running. At that point Patricia asked him if the car might be of any use to him. He was welcome to own it. The young man, mystified, accepted the offer and drove away in it. He sold it almost at once. It went to a buyer in Florence so was, no more, to be seen on the streets in or around the city of Lucca.

After some negotiations, one of the rooms at the farm house was reclaimed from the tenant. He was a nice but pernickety man and insisted on a reduced rent. Christian needed the extra room for he could no longer look after his brother single-handedly and a live-in helper was needed.

Malise had become irrational – buying more and more bananas; removing paintings from the walls, carrying them clumsily to the barn where he stacked them beside the spot, now sacred, on which, in his youth, he had rolled in the straw with Dawn.

Sometimes he disappeared altogether and had to be tracked down by the local policeman.

A live-in helper was finally found. Her name was Kathleen and, to begin with, Malise fell for her. She was sixty two years old and had been through rough patches in her life.

It had not been easy for Christian to persuade anyone to take the job. Two bachelors, one of them mad and both creepy, living in isolation, did not attract many candidates.

On the first day he was wary but on the second, Malise ran his hands over her face and mumbled the name ‘Patricia' through half-closed lips.

‘No dear. Kathleen. Not Patricia.'

That made him cross.

‘I call you Patricia. Trish. Pat. Tricia. Pat. Trish.'

‘Very well. Call me names. I am called Kathleen all the same.'

She liked the running of his hands over her face but when they descended to her body she felt compelled to object.

‘No dear. Nothing naughty.'

For the first few weeks he went quietly and enjoyed her attention. He followed her around wherever she went and continued to call her Patricia. Trish. Pat. Tricia or whatever related shortening came into his head.

Christian steered clear of them both and returned to his duties. Choir and Boy Scouts.

After some months, though, when it was clear that Kathleen was going to continue to reject any sexual advances, Malise began to get violent. One of his father's old walking sticks stood in a holder by the back door. He brandished it and brought it down on her shoulder leaving her with a nasty bruise.

When Christian returned from a choir meeting he was met by a bedraggled Kathleen who insisted on showing him black marks on her shoulder.

At first she had wanted to call the police but caution told her to control her instinct. She was not well paid but it was at least, a job and she did not lose touch with the fact that Christian was, after all, a bachelor. Malise was very handsome – if violent and abusive. But she could no longer manage him on her own. He started throwing things at her, kitchen utensils, china and tins of food, as he shouted ‘Patricia' at concert pitch. Then he was up half the night unhooking pictures from the walls – ready to remove to the barn when day broke.

The kitchen had to be declared out of bounds after an unnerving incident. Consequently it became the place where Malise most wanted to be.

The unnerving incident took place as Kathleen watched an early evening programme on a newly installed black and white television set. Malise had wandered into the kitchen where a fearsome animation overtook him and he pulled a large pudding basin from a sagging shelf. Then he investigated the store cupboard. Methodically but with shaky hands, he collected together an assortment of food stuffs and emptied samples into the bowl. First a can of brightly coloured soup, then corn flakes, chocolate powder – stiff and stinking with mouse droppings, condensed milk, golden syrup, marmite, and crumbled digestive biscuits. All he could lay his trembling hands on. After a while the bowl was full and the mixture slopped over its sides. Malise stirred awkwardly with a wooden spoon and spoke (to himself) ‘Patricia. Patricia is coming to supper. Up seventy-nine steps.' He said that in his head over and over again. Then, drawing himself tall, he took the bowl and its swilling contents and hurled it at the window – cracking the glass and leaving trails of glutinous slime over table, sink and window sill.

Christian was adamant that he could not afford another pair of hands. His brother would have to go into a home of sorts.

Malise did nothing but try to batter down the door leading to the kitchen.

New arrangements took time to sort out and caused much anxiety but were finally arrived at. Malise went but Kathleen refused to do so. She now had her eye firmly on Christian and, after a prolonged and difficult courtship, caught him and forced him to the altar. He was involved in the local church and refused to have the marriage conducted anywhere but there. Using a ring once worn by Christian's devout late mother, he made promises to the older woman – never for an instant suspecting that the union was bigamous.

The pair rather enjoyed each other's company and alternated between visiting the very old couple at The Grid and Malise at the nearby home for those suffering from conditions of the mind.

Christian and Kathleen bought a dog and, for the first year of their non-consummated and illegal marriage, when not visiting the old or the mad, enjoyed walking Patricia, as the dog was called (they both felt that the absent Patricia had brought them together) and bringing back belongings from the barn where Malise had built a shrine to the memory of his youthful pleasures.

The old father and Alyson died within three weeks of each other and Kathleen much enjoyed the power of being in charge of funeral arrangements and of reclaiming objects from the Grid – including the portrait of Malise as a beautiful child. She had hoped that there might be a stirring of interest among aristocratic relations after she paid to have a notification of the funeral printed in
The Times
newspaper but none, if there were any left, showed interest.

Christian was now in charge of all family money and, before long, he and Kathleen gave notice to the nice RAF tenant and took over the old rooms. Christian was insistent that they move back into his childhood bedroom and that Kathleen should occupy the bed once slept in by Malise. No mention was made of the activities that took place on the floor of that room during the brothers' early years.

At the nearby home for demented patients, Malise lingered on, doped and querulous, never uttering more than the word ‘Patricia'. His hair went white and his eyes watered constantly. He was not old and still remarkably handsome, although his back teeth showed decay, and liked to look at himself in the vast, gold-framed glass that hung outside his cubicle door.

One evening, as Christian and Kathleen, ate toasted cheese in the kitchen (once banned to Malise) Christian suddenly said ‘He must be fwee by now'.

‘Free? Oh dear no. They'll never let him out. Not in his condition.'

‘Fwee. Fwee years old. The child.'

‘Oh no. Not that dear. Don't even think about it.'

The last thing Kathleen wanted was a little Mc Hip to gather what would, eventually, be left. Christian, although younger by far than her, might expire first and leave her in full charge of everything – Malise's portrait included.

‘It would be interwesting to find out.'

‘No dear. We've nothing to go on and to let sleeping dogs lie is always the best policy.'

The subject was dropped for a while but Christian continued to brood.

Visits to Malise had to be paid – not that the visitors or the visited gained any pleasure from them. On one occasion Christian, in a hearty mood, addressed his brother who sat, sedated and goofy, in a dirty armchair.

‘So Malise. How are they tweating you?'

No reply. Not even a tweet.

Kathleen chipped in ‘they say this is a nice place Malise. Of course we wish you were back with us at the farm but we are happy there and never forget that you now have me as a sister.'

No reply.

Christian always had a book of jokes and riddles by him. He sifted through the book after looking at his Half Hunter watch – once the property of Malise but now appropriated, and said, ‘Midday Malise. Talking of time, did you know what the Leaning tower of Pisa said to Big Ben?'

A mention of Pisa, near to Lucca after all, might spark something off in the poor, lapsed memory.

No reply.

‘If you've got the time I've got the inclination.' He doubled with loud laughter as the pair made their getaway.

‘As you know dear, I'm happy to see to bits and bobs for you.' Kathleen's teeth were enormous and her hair very dark excepting the roots.

She was content to be running the house and felt more or less safe from her past. No one, now that she had become a Mc Hip, was likely to track her down. Her troublesome ‘first' husband had, she had learnt many years before, also indulged in a bigamous marriage so was unlikely to wish to upset any apple carts.

‘Yes Kathleen. You are a gweat help here.'

‘It's Malise and that dentist that are bothering me.'

‘What dentist is that?'

‘The one who visits patients at the Olive Branch. Where they look after your brother.' She added the last words in case he had forgotten what The Olive Branch was, for Christian, too, was becoming forgetful.

‘What has a dentist to do with it?'

‘There's one, a foreigner, I don't like to call him a darkie, who does the rounds there. He inspects the teeth of dwellers; patients I should say. Matron wanted a word with me when I went on Saturday.'

‘What did she say?'

‘It seems that the dentist thinks money ought to be spent on his back teeth. The front ones are doing all the chewing. He says bacteria may form and cause cancer. Scaremongering I call it.'

‘We'd better go ahead. I'll pay with Malise's money and he's still got stacks.'

‘How shall I put it? Is it worth it? They say he won't last forever you know.'

Christian made no reply.

Kathleen, slightly tipsy, enlarged on the topic of unnecessary extravagance. She wasn't exactly drunk but had arrived at the stage when she knew, if she took another sip, she was certain to be. She took another sip and was.

‘Christian. When I consented to be your wife, I expected a little more from you. Our bedroom, for a start. Does it hold some guilty secret? Why can't we move ourselves into more comfortable quarters? Why not the large room with the pretty curtains?'

Christian was dumb as she filled her glass with more wine.

‘Then, when it comes to Malise's money. You have power of attorney. Why can't we help ourselves and have the larger bedroom done over?'

No longer dumb, Christian answered ‘I shall use Malise's money to go in search of his child. There may yet be Mc Hips living here one day.'

The odd couple scoured an attic where, in a cedar wood chest, Christian found an old coat, possibly once worn by his grandfather. It was long and dark – the darkness tinged with green from age; made of Melton cloth and with a squirrel lining. It had long deep pockets and, having been packed in moth balls, had survived well.

Kathleen was pleased too. She unearthed an Astrakhan coat, once the property of Alyson, and sent it to the cleaners. The lining to one of the pockets was ripped but she clipped the two torn bits together with safety pins. They took a slow train to Dover. It was cold and smoky but Kathleen rejoiced that the money for Malise's back teeth had at least been spent on a trip. Not that she approved of the trip either but considered it preferable to Malise's back teeth. She was bored rigid by visiting her brother-in-law in his demented state and by sharing that grim room with Christian and his warped but unspoken memories of childhood. She had been happy, though, to find a wad of
lires
in a drawer, left over from Malise's emotionally charged visit to Italy.

The crossing was rough and Kathleen, a poor sailor, vomited as Christian showed his true boy scout spirit and watched the White cliffs fade from sight. Between violent bouts of retching, she asked ‘Didn't you once tell me that you used to have a pen friend in France? Something to do with the Scouts?'

‘I did but Malise said it was babyish and tore the letters up. I let it go after that.'

It was a struggle – getting off the boat and getting onto the train bound for Paris. Cigarette fumes changed from Craven A to Gauloise. Kathleen had been to Paris before but denied it when speaking to Christian for fear of revealing anything connected with her past. She was glad of the Astrakhan coat, although it was rather heavy and one of the ripped pockets still contained an old shopping list left over from one of Alyson and Christian's outings to the Coop.

They spent a terrible night on the train from Paris to Pisa. Their couchette compartment was designed for six horizontal travellers and the slats on which they slept were made up of dark green, formica. Very slippery. The four slats not occupied by Christian and Kathleen were taken over by loud, male students who smoked and spoke all through the night. It was early when the train passed through a customs check. Much shouting of ‘
Dogana
' but nobody came near them. Kathleen was relieved for fear of carrying too much contraband cash. Later, at a station, men with packed breakfasts in pink paper boxes strolled the platform yelling ‘Café,
panini,
banani
,' and the night was over.