The Chimney Sweeper's Boy (2 page)

Titus did the same and handed them to Sarah, saying with a glance at Gerald that he passed the scissors crossed.

“Wrong.” Sarah opened the scissors, held them by one blade, and passed them to her father. “I pass the scissors crossed, Dad.”

He closed them, turned them over twice clockwise, and passed them to Julia. “I pass the scissors uncrossed.”

Dawning comprehension, or what she thought was dawning comprehension, broke on Julia's face. She sat upright and turned the scissors over twice counterclockwise, handed them to Hope, and said she passed the scissors crossed.

“Well, well,” said Hope. “But do you know why?”

Julia didn't. She had guessed. “But they're crossed when they're closed, aren't they?”

“Are they? You have to pass them crossed and know why, and everyone has to see. Look, when you know, it's as clear as glass. I promise you.” Hope opened the scissors. “I pass the scissors crossed.”

So they continued for half an hour. Titus Romney asked if anyone ever got it, and Gerald said yes, of course, it was just that no one ever got it at once. Jonathan Arthur had gotten it the second time. Impressed by the name of the winner of both the John Llewellyn Rhys and the Somerset Maugham prizes, Titus said he was really going to concentrate from now on. Sarah said she wanted another brandy and what about everyone else.

“Another port, Dad?”

“I don't think so, darling. It gives me a headache. But you can give Titus one.”

Sarah replenished the drinks, then sat down again, this time on the arm of her father's chair. “I pass the scissors uncrossed.”

“But why?” Julia Romney was beginning to sound irritated. She had gone rather red. Signs of participants beginning to lose their tempers always amused the Candlesses, who now looked gleeful and expectant. “I mean, how can it be? The scissors are just the same as when you passed them crossed just now.”

“I told you it was unlikely you'd get it the first time,” said Hope, and she yawned. “I pass the scissors crossed.”

“You always pass them crossed!”

“Do I? Right, I'll pass them uncrossed next time.”

As Titus was receiving the scissors, opening them and turning them clockwise, Ursula came in through the French windows. Her hair, which was fair but graying, and very long and wispy, had begun flopping down out of its pins and she was holding it up with one hand. She smiled, and Titus thought she was going to say, “Still at it?” or “Have you found the secret yet?” but she said nothing, only passing on across the room and through the door that led into the hall.

Gerald looked around and said, “Shall we call it a day?”

The way the girls laughed, Sarah leaning over to look into her father's eyes, told Titus this must be the phrase, rather dramatically delivered, he always used to terminate a session of the Game. Probably the injunction that followed was also requisite at this point.

“Better luck next time.”

Gerald rose to his feet. Titus had the impression, founded on nothing that he was truly aware of, that the old man (the “Grand Old Man,” he almost was) had been disturbed by the return of his wife, deflected from his pleasure in the Game, and was displeased. His face, though not as gray as his hair, had lost its color and grown dull. The daughter, Sarah, the one who looked like her mother, saw it, too. She glanced at her sister, the one who looked like her father, and said, “Are you all right, Dad?”

“Of course I am.” He made a face at his glass but smiled at her. “I don't like port, never have. I should have had brandy.”

“I'll get you a brandy,” said Hope.

“Better not.” He did something Titus had never before seen a grown man do to a grown woman: He put out his hand and stroked her hair. “We stumped them again, my sweethearts. We boggled them.”

“We always do.”

“And now”—he turned to Titus—“before you go”—a bright gleam in his dark eye—“you said you wanted to see where I work.”

The study. Did he call it that? The room, anyway, where the books had been written, or most of them. It was stuffy in there and warm. You could see the sea from here, too, and more of the long, flat half-mile-wide beach, the water's edge almost invisible in the distance. Sky and sea met in a blurred dazzle. The closed window was large, stark, with black blinds rolled up, and the sun poured in. It flooded the desk and his chair and the books behind him and the book in front. Gerald Candless used a typewriter, not a word processor, quite an old-fashioned one, and had a bunch of pens and pencils in an onyx jar.

Proofs of a new novel lay to the left of the typewriter. A stack of manuscript about an inch deep sat to its right. Several thousand books filled the shelves ceiling to floor, dictionaries and thesauruses and encyclopedias and other reference works, and poetry and biography and novels, hundreds of novels, including Gerald Candless's own works. The sun bathed their leather and cloth and colored-paper spines in brilliant light.

“Do you feel all right?”

Titus had echoed Sarah's words, because the grayness was back in Gerald's face and his big gnarled right hand was gripping the upper part of his left arm. He made no answer to the question. Titus thought he was probably the sort of man who never said anything unless he had something to say, made no small talk, answered no polite questions as to his health.

“Are you really called Titus?”

The abrupt inquiry disconcerted him. “What?”

“I didn't know you were deaf. I said, Are you really called Titus?”

“Of course I am.”

“I thought it must be a pseudonym. Don't look so peevish. Not all of us are really called what we're called, you know, not by a long chalk. Now take a look around. Look your fill. Have a book. Help yourself, and I'll sign it. Not a first edition—I draw the line at that.”

One of the things Titus looked for was a copy of his own book. It wasn't there, or if it was, he couldn't see it. He stood in front of the row of Gerald Candlesses, wondering which one to pick, then finally chose
Hamadryad.

“Read Finnish, do you?”

Titus saw that he had chosen from the section of translations, so he made a second attempt, but was forestalled by being handed a book club edition of the same novel. Gerald signed it. Just his name, no good wishes or kind regards. Sunlight fell on his hands, which, if they didn't tremble, weren't quite steady.

“And now that you've had your lunch, seen my room, and gotten a book, you can do something for me. One good turn—or rather, three good turns—deserves another, wouldn't you agree?”

Assent was expected. Titus nodded. “Anything, of course, if it's in my power.”

“Oh, it's in your power. It would be in anybody's who happened to be here. You see that stuff?”

“The page proofs?”

“No, not the page proofs. The manuscript. I want you to take it with you. Just take it away. Will you do that for me?”

“What is it?”

Gerald Candless didn't answer. “I'm going away for a few days. I don't want it left here in the house while I'm away. But I don't want to destroy it, either. I may publish it one day—I mean, I may finish it and publish it. If I have the nerve.”

“What is it, your autobiography?”

The sarcastic reply came: “Of course. I haven't even changed the names.” Then he said, “It's a novel, the start of a novel, or the end—I don't know which. But he is not he and she is not she and they are not they. Right? I don't want it left here. You were coming, I'd met you in wherever it was …”

“Hay-on-Wye.”

“Right. You were coming, and it came to me that you'd do. Who else is there down here?”

“I wonder you didn't put it in a safe-deposit box somewhere.”

“Oh, you wonder that, do you? If you don't want to take it and look after it for me, just say. I'll give it to Miss Batty, or I'll burn it. Come to think of it, burning might be best.”

“For God's sake, don't burn it,” said Titus. “I'll take it. How do I get it back to you? And when do I?”

Gerald picked up the pages and held them in his hands. Underneath them, on the desk, was a padded bag already addressed to Gerald Candless, Lundy View House, Gaunton, North Devon, and stamped with £1.50 postage.

“Do you … Do you want me to … Do you mind if I read it?”

A gale of laughter greeted that, a strong, vigorous bellow, incompatible with those tremulous hands. “You'll have a job. I'm the world's lousiest typist. Here, you can put it in this.”

“This” was a cheap-looking plastic briefcase, the kind of thing that, containing the requisite brochures and agenda, is given to delegates at a conference. Titus Romney wouldn't have been seen dead with it normally. But he had only a short distance to carry it to the hotel. They found Julia in the drawing room, carrying on a stilted conversation with Gerald's wife. Titus had already forgotten her name, but he didn't have to remember it, because they were going. It was 3:30 and they were leaving. The daughters had disappeared.

“I'll walk with you to the hotel,” Gerald said. “I'm supposed to walk a bit every day. A few yards.”

Julia gushed, the way she did when she had had a horrid time. “Goodbye. Thank you so much. It's been lovely. A lovely lunch.”

“Enjoy the rest of your stay,” Gerald's wife said.

They set off across the garden, Titus carrying the briefcase, at which Julia cast curious glances. The garden extended to about ten yards from the cliff edge, where there was a gate to the cliff path. From this path, all the beach could be seen, and the car park, full of cars and trailers. The beach was crowded and there were a lot of people in the sea. Somewhere Julia had read this described as the finest beach on the English coast, the longest, seven
miles of it, with the best sand. The safest beach, for the tide went out half a mile and flowed in gently over the flat, scarcely sloping sand, a shallow, limpid sea. It was blue as a jewel, calm, waveless.

“You must love living here,” Julia said politely.

He didn't answer. Titus asked him if he didn't like walking. The way he talked about it implied he didn't like it.

“I don't like any physical exercise. Only cranks like walking. That's why a sensible man invented the car.”

A gate in the path bore a sign:
THE DUNES HOTEL. STRICTLY PRIVATE. HOTEL GUESTS ONLY
. Gerald opened it, then stood aside to let Julia pass through. The hotel, Edwardian red brick with white facings, multigabled, stood up above them, its striped awnings unfurled across the terrace. People sat at tables having tea. Children splashed about in a swimming pool that was barely concealed by privet hedges.

“Your children enjoying themselves?”

“We haven't any children,” said Julia.

“Really? Why not?”

“I don't know.” She was very taken aback. That should be a question people didn't ask. “I … I don't necessarily want any.”

Another gate to pass through and they were on the turf of the big lawn.

“You don't want any children?” Gerald said. “How unnatural. You must change your mind. Not afraid to have a baby, are you? Some women are. Children are the crown of existence. Children are the source of all happiness. The great reward. Believe me. I know. Here we are, then, back among the throng.”

Julia was so angry, she was nearly rude to him. She looked at her husband, but he refused to meet her eyes. She turned to Gerald Candless, resolved on silently shaking hands with him, turning her back on him, and marching quickly up to her room. Her hand went out reluctantly. He failed to take it, though this omission wasn't rudeness. He was staring up at the hotel, at the terrace, with an expression of astonishment and, more than that, amazement. His eyes were fixed and so unblinking that she followed his gaze.

Nothing to see, no one to look at, nothing to cause this rigid, fixed stare. It was the elderly people who congregated there on the terrace, she had noticed from the previous afternoon, those who didn't swim or walk far or
venture down the cliff, knowing they would have to climb up again. The old ones sat there under the umbrellas and the blue-and-white-striped awning, golden-wedding couples, grandparents, the sedate, the inactive.

“Have you seen someone you know?” Titus asked.

It was as if he were in a dream, as if he were a sleepwalker arrested in his blind progress and lost, his orientation gone. Titus's question broke the spell or the dream and he passed a hand across his high wrinkled forehead, pushing the fingers through that bush of hair.

“I was mistaken,” he said; then the hand came down, and farewells were made. He was smiling the way he did, with his red wolfish mouth and not his eyes. His eyes not at all.

They didn't watch him go back. They didn't look back or wave. As she crossed the terrace to enter the hotel by way of the open glass doors into the lounge and bar, Julia paused briefly to take in the people who sat at the terrace tables, those grandparents. Old people smoked so much. They all sat with cigarettes, overflowing ashtrays, pots of tea and cups of tea, pastries on cake stands, packs of cards, but no sun lotion or sunglasses. They never went into the sun. A woman was making up her face in the mirror of a powder compact, drawing crimson lips onto an old pursed mouth.

There was no one to interest him, no one who could so have caught his rapt gaze. More affectation, she thought, more games to impress us, and she followed Titus into the cool shadowy interior.

Sarah and Hope were going out. Hope had already made her plans, a barbecue on some beach farther up the coast. Almost before the guests were out of earshot, Sarah was on the phone, arranging to meet the usual crowd in a Barnstaple pub. Not even the prospect of their father's company would keep them in on a Saturday night. To go out with those old companions, school friends and friends' friends, was an obligation, almost a duty.