Sadler's Birthday (22 page)

BIG NIGHT FUN WENT ON INTO THE SMALL HOURS
, so Madge's
Daily Mail
informed Sadler the next day. ‘Princes, Ambassadors, statesmen and courtiers toasted the Queen in champagne and then danced until dawn at the Savoy.

‘Beneath hundreds of yards of dove-grey material, which transformed the ballroom into a vast tent, set in an Elizabethan Garden laid out with camellias and box hedges, 1,200 of us feasted on foie gras, melon, sole, salmon and lamb.'

‘So unfair of me,' Sadler heard Madge say. ‘I'm always doing it, aren't I – telling you about things I've enjoyed. Very selfish of me, I suppose, but it was so wonderful. All those camelleias and little hedge sort of things and Noël Coward sang, all our favourites, you can't imagine, such a spirit of
Englishness
, so right, so moving, and of course that's what she said, wasn't it – “Let us cherish our own way of life.”'

Well, for Madge that life was gone. The garden that had been her solace, that spoke to her, lulled her, would tilt a great green face towards the rain, never aware that she had existed.

Poor old thing. Yes, Sadler could think of her like that now that he was fully awake and not sweating any more and the dream had gone. And yet minutes ago – that dance of the open carriage on the wet street, wheeling, turning . . .

‘Don't let her die, Ma,' he'd once said as
Little Dorrit
crept chillingly towards tragedy, and she'd only laughed. ‘Nothing I can do, softy! It's in the book.'

Sadler closed his eyes. He had no idea if he'd slept for minutes or hours. He felt very tired, so he supposed he couldn't have been asleep for long, but he thought, time doesn't have the dimensions it used to, the ones I'd grown accustomed to. Somewhere, I've fallen out of step with time. Only lately. Part of madness, no doubt. The beginning of the humiliating end. He'd met old people (quite funny, they were) who never knew what day it was, Christmas or Tuesday, or what time of day, called everybody the wrong names, spat out every minute some morsel of a confused past. Death, their relations murmured, would be a blessed release from such embarrassing, even obscene muddling. Couldn't wait to bury the old things and put up clean white sensible stones.

The bed was wet. I'm worse than the dog, Sadler thought. At least he does it on the floor, not on his blanket. And now he had all the foul, tiring business of taking off the sheets, finding clean ones and putting them on. Did all old people piss in their beds? ‘Never mind, Jacky,' his mother had said when he'd done it as a small child (too cold to get out of bed to use the pot, enjoyed doing it, feeling the heat creeping down his legs), ‘you couldn't help it, love. And little boys always have more trouble than girls.'

Well, he certainly had trouble now. But he was too old to feel ashamed, much too used to living inside what he called his ‘old wreck'. If it leaked, his feet got wet; too bad.

But then he thought, rather than tire myself out taking off the wet sheets, why not go and get that key and use my old room tonight? Up there, high above the orchard, he might sleep in the kind of healing, dreamless way he fancied he'd once slept. And seeing all the old things, the picture, the flowery curtains, the brass bed, might raise his spirits, help him to sort himself out. For of what importance to anyone or anything had been his last twenty years? Old already at fifty-three, tired already, so he'd believed, he'd been glad to shut himself away and let the world pass him by.

There had been Vera, of course, at first. Lonely, unlovable Vera, whom he'd told to stay on if she wanted to, live like a queen in one of the best rooms if she wanted to.

‘Lor! Don't seem right.'

‘Why not, Vera? Everyone deserves a little rest, and now your turn's come along. It's a question of getting used to the idea, that's all.'

But she couldn't, she said, not live like
that
. So she'd gone on much as usual, living in her old room, getting up early to cook breakfast for herself and Sadler, until one morning she didn't get up at all, just couldn't move, she said, only her arms and her top half, the rest of her stiff as a ramrod and inert.

‘Bleedin' 'eck, Mr Sadler, what's 'appened?'

She stared up at him from her pillow, her grey eyes popping with fear.

‘Oh, it can't be anything, Vera. Just some odd thing. Your muscles have seized up after all that gardening you did yesterday.'

Because she had (and it wasn't like her) gone out that morning to do some weeding. The border was in a shocking state, she said, so she'd sallied forth, her stringy hair tied in a dishcloth turban, and with such a passion did her hands dig and root that by lunchtime the earth at the dahlias' feet was as clean as a hoovered rug, and Vera's cheeks were an undreamed-of pink.

‘Blimey!'

Coming into the kitchen, wisps of hair escaping from the dishcloth, she looked, very briefly, quite young, younger than Sadler had ever seen her look.

‘It suits you, Vera.'

‘What does, duck?'

‘Gardening.'

So it must have been that, he told her. She'd done too much, strained her back and legs with all that bending and kneeling. Whatever it was, she mustn't worry. He'd telephone the doctor and in the meantime, while they waited for him, Sadler would make breakfast and bring it to her.

‘No. Nothing for me, Mr Sadler. Couldn't eat a thing.'

‘You ought to, Vera.'

‘No. No, I can't.'

And tears began to slide down her yellowy cheeks. She made no sound at all, no sobbing, no catching of breath, just lay there staring up at him while her tears rolled down her face.

The doctor came and went and came back when the ambulance arrived and Vera's matchstick body was carried downstairs wrapped in a red blanket. Because she would need proper nursing, the doctor said. It was too early to tell yet whether she'd ever get back the use . . . much too early . . . and the stroke was a very severe one . . . she must have absolute rest and quiet . . .

‘Come an' see me, Mr Sadler, won't you? They forget about you in 'ospitals, don't they?'

The doctor smiled.

‘Of course they don't, Mrs Prinz, they—'

‘Vera. You've got to tell everybody they must call me Vera.'

So. On his own after that. In his fifty-fifth year, still with a thick head of hair, grown rather long now that the Colonel wasn't there to remind him to have it cut. And with nothing to do but observe the little empty kingdom he ruled.

He often wondered how the Colonel would have filled his time, left on his own. But he found that he couldn't say, because it seemed that he'd never really known the Colonel, not as he'd known Madge, through all her little reminiscences. There had only been one occasion, one evening as Sadler was clearing the silver from the dining room table, leaving just the port decanter and one glass, when the Colonel had suddenly turned to him and said, ‘I expect you think we lead jolly boring lives, don't you, Sadler?'

Madge had gone to bed. She hadn't been sleeping at all well, so she'd gone to bed early and taken a pill.

‘Jolly dull lives, eh?'

‘It's not for me to say, Sir.'

‘Quite right, not for you to say. That's the kind of answer we expect from you, Sadler.'

There was a little wooden tray and a soft brush Sadler used to sweep the crumbs off the table. He began to walk round with it.

‘Like port, Sadler?'

‘I haven't often tried it, Sir.'

The Colonel lifted the decanter.

‘Fetch a glass!'

‘Are you sure, Sir?'

‘Quite sure. Wouldn't have said that, otherwise. You get a glass and you can help me finish this lot.'

Sadler brought a glass and stood at the Colonel's elbow.

‘Sit down. Go on.'

Sadler pulled out a chair, noticing, half ashamed, that his response to this odd invitation was a kind of dull tiredness. The room constrained him and made his body ache.

‘Taylors '38.'

Sadler nodded.

‘Go on then. Sniff a bit, then sip. Never gulp.'

‘It's very nice, Sir.'

‘Thought you'd like it. Trouble is, no one to drink it with these days. That's what happens when you get old, no friends – all gone. Much better to kick the bucket at sixty, let them all come to your funeral. Good health, then, Sadler!'

The Colonel raised his glass, drained it and filled it again. Sadler took another sip at his, found that the more he drank, the warmer the taste became.

‘Cheers, Sir.'

‘That's it. Thought you'd like it.'

It was 31 May 1953, two days before the Colonel died, and for once in his life he decided to say a few words about himself.

‘. . . put it all down to loneliness, Sadler. I'm a stickler for convention, can't bear to live a day without keeping to the rules. If old Colonel Jarman I used to serve under walked in now, he'd say: “You're breaking a cardinal rule, Bassett, a cardinal rule.” Know what that rule is?'

‘No, Sir.'

‘Never socialize except with equals. Never go up, never go down – cardinal rule. “Both lead to trouble, Bassett,” old Jarman used to say. Bound to lead to trouble. But loneliness, old age – same thing – means you have to start breaking rules.'

‘Are you lonely, Sir?'

‘What? Lonely? Yes, I suppose I am. Bloody stupid of me to admit it to you. All round the kitchen, anything I say, what? That's why I'm so damn careful. That and old Jarman. Never talk to anyone. Never say a thing. Always been a cardinal rule.'

‘Very wise, Sir, I should think.'

‘You know what they say – Prudence is the better part of . . . something or other. Valour, that's it, isn't it? Funny. Always used to think the wrong thing when anyone said that, used to think of a girl I once met called Prudence, used to imagine she'd gone off and married a chap called Valour or whatever it was. Better part – better half – you know? Damn silly. Can't think what made me think of that. Something to laugh about, I daresay. Don't find laughing too easy. Never did. I remember my school reports right back to prep school. “Takes himself very seriously” they used to say. “Takes himself very seriously” – damnfool thing to say about a boy.'

‘Did you like school, Sir?'

‘School? Enjoyed Eton. Eton was the making of me, you know that, Sadler? Not that there was a great deal to make, eh? But it taught me the cardinal rules – Eton and the Army. You get a lot of people these days saying they don't like rules, all panting to do what they like, any old way. But that's not right, not in my view, old-fashioned and all that. No fun shooting tame ducks, eh?'

The Colonel smiled. He didn't often.

‘Talking too much, aren't I? But I don't suppose you mind. I expect you've often said to yourself, I wonder what goes on in the old fool's head? I wonder what he thinks about with all that time on his hands? Haven't you?'

‘I always wonder about people, Sir. It's part of my job to try to find out how people think, then I know what pleases them.'

‘Damn good answer, Sadler. You're a bright chap, Madge always said so. I daresay you'd have done all right in business.'

‘Oh I never had that kind of brain.'

‘But you're quick, Sadler. That's what I looked for in my men, quickness.'

‘Oh it's just some knack I've learnt. I once worked for a butler called Mr Knightley. He made me learn the importance of quick answers.'

‘Lot of mumbo-jumbo most of the time, I suppose? Yes Sir, no Sir, three bags full Sir. Get on your nerves, does it?

‘No.'

‘It's quite right, of course. The guardians of graciousness, people like you; that's a phrase I thought up years ago at a house party and I thought it was so apt, I kept on using it. Even wrote it down, I think. Have to write everything down. Always did. Even wrote a memo to meself to ask my wife to marry me! Damn silly, eh? Especially when she was so bloody pretty. Margaret Kenyon. Prettiest thing I'd ever seen.'

He paused, took a long sip of his port.

‘Never forget it. Met her at a house party someone had given. Spent the whole weekend trussed up in my lieutenant's uniform. Far too hot, should have been wearing white flannels, but she said she loved the army, said she thought uniforms were whizzo, or whatever it was we used to say then. So I kept it on, just for the pleasure of having her look at me. And then do you know what she said when I left? Said she'd changed her mind about uniforms, thought they were horrid things if they made people so hot and uncomfortable! Serve me bloody right, eh? Conceited young dog. “Takes himself very seriously” – quite right, what?'

Sadler smiled.

‘Can't imagine why I should tell you that, Sadler, except that it's damn nice to remember things out loud for a change. That's what old age brings y'know, memory. Curse it sometimes, wish I couldn't remember a damn thing. Give anything just to have a blank. Not possible, though. Just not possible. That's all you are when you get old, Sadler, an old windbag stuffed with the past. Jolly good past, though. No regrets. That's what a contented man ought to say, isn't it? Come on Sadler, never let the glass get more than half empty – cardinal rule.'

Sadler held out his glass and the Colonel filled it.

‘Tell you what, though. I married a wonderful woman and I've never tolerated a word said against her, not in my presence, but I used to do a bit of rampaging – a man's right in my view – and I broke a rule, Sadler, only once, mind, but nevertheless I did. I broke a cardinal rule and let everything get out of hand, just that once, couldn't help meself, fell head over heels.