The Emperor Waltz (64 page)

But when they came out, the vicar was standing helplessly on his own in his white cassock in the bright sunlight, blinking like a rabbit. Beyond the church gates, the mother and her friend were getting into a red minicab with a sign on top reading 1AAA RICHMOND CABS, the mother almost pushing the friend in. She hustled round to the other side, her haste making no concession to the occasion, and the car pulled out.

‘Vera and Mrs Thompson had to make an early start back,’ the vicar said helplessly. ‘They came from Essex, and had a very early start. Were you friends of – of Freddie?’

‘Thank you for the service,’ Ronnie said smoothly. ‘I thought it went very well.’

‘I was sorry I had to call him Trevor all the way through,’ the vicar said. ‘It was what the family requested, you see. I know he didn’t like to be called Trevor. Have you met Sean? And Keith? They were Freddie’s friends up here. I’m sure they’d like to meet you.’

The vicar turned and went back into the church, perhaps hungry for his lunch. Sean turned out to be the fat, bald queen; Keith the squaddie, or he looked like a squaddie. He had a black earring in his left ear, which probably meant that he was another queen.

‘Friends of his, were you?’ Keith said. They agreed that they probably had been. ‘Funny, he never mentioned you. From London, are you? Freddie always said it was the best thing he’d ever done, leaving London.’

‘I only knew he’d moved when he died,’ Duncan said. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘I was the only friend he had at the end,’ the squaddie said.

‘That’s sad to hear,’ Nat said. ‘I’m sorry for that. But he had you, and Sean, isn’t it?’

‘Sean weren’t his friend,’ the squaddie said. ‘Sean were –’ he paused with scorn ‘– his
nurse
.’

They stood and watched the soldier-like figure disappear down the path.

‘Oh dear,’ Alan said. ‘People so often get cross at funerals. I never know why. But there it is.’

The nurse, whose name was Sean, stood with them. ‘That’s Keith,’ he said. ‘He was hoping to be left the house, I’ve been told. Sorry about that. I’m Sean.’

‘Rare Chinese bone disease?’ Duncan said.

‘Yes, well,’ Sean said. ‘That’s what he wanted people to say. I don’t know – I think he thought people might even believe it. I don’t think anyone did, mind. Has the mother gone?’

21.

As there was nothing arranged back at the house, they went with Sean to a pub. It was at his suggestion, made without any reference to the fact that there was a ten-year-old girl in the party. But Dommie quietly said to Duncan and Ronnie that she and Celia would much rather have a walk round the town and play at ladies having lunch in a tea shop anyway. It was a pub that, as it were, all of them knew, but none of them had been to for years. It had a solitary alcoholic patron with a huge cardigan and an Alsatian at his feet; there were comedy paragraphs from the local newspaper stuck to the walls, with a chained-up charity box for a military cause, photographs of regulars with jocular additions, and, outside, a handwritten notice in upper-case italics announcing a
Night With The Stars – Andy McRae, The Heartthrob With The Voice of Gold
. ‘I don’t much fancy a night with Andy McRae, the Heartthrob With The Voice of Gold,’ Arthur said, after inspecting the gruesome little photograph of a smile, being given by one unpractised in the art. Still, they trooped in and, in their black funeral suits and neat appearance, might have made a favourable impression on the landlord.

‘I’m honestly envious of Dommie and Celia,’ Alan was saying to Nat. ‘These country towns, they’re always full of treasures – you only have to know where to look. Those Staffordshire pugs on my mantelpiece, Mother and I found them in a strange little back-street in Taunton, twenty years ago. A house-clearer, really. Well, Mother always said to me, Alan, you’re a little magpie, and you’ve got an eye for a bargain, but she knew when to keep schtum, and she went off and bothered herself in the back of the shop while I did the necessary. We were so gleeful and relieved when they were wrapped up – in newspaper – and safely in our hands. I was certain the man was going to drop one. They were seventy new pence for the two, believe it or not. I wish I could excuse myself and go with Dommie and Celia round the town.’

‘It was always very important to Christopher,’ Simon was saying to Duncan about something or other. ‘Always, really, from day one.’

‘Oh, God,’ Stephen was saying to Ronnie, ‘it just wouldn’t work. It just wouldn’t work at all, not one bit.’

‘What are you two talking about?’ Clive said.

‘Shoes,’ Ronnie said.

But then a pause in the conversation came, and over the pints of bitter, and lemonades for Alan and Nat, the man who had been Freddie Sempill’s friend was suddenly talking over silence; he had been talking to Clive. ‘I don’t remember him mentioning you,’ the man – his name was Sean – was saying. ‘I don’t remember your name at all. It’s nice of you to come. There could have been more of a turn-out. His brother couldn’t come, of course.’

‘Freddie Sempill had a brother?’ Duncan said. Sean gave him a hostile look, difficult to account for.

‘Yes, Freddie had a brother,’ Sean said. ‘Didn’t you know? He’s in Kuwait at the moment, very hush-hush. He’s a brigadier. Didn’t you know?’

‘No,’ Duncan said. ‘I had no idea. I don’t remember him ever mentioning a brother.’

‘Perhaps you weren’t listening,’ Sean said. He turned back to Clive. ‘It’s nice of you to come, though I don’t remember him mentioning you. None of you ever came up to visit him when he was alive, I notice.’

‘Probably because none of us knew he was living here,’ Ronnie said drily.

‘You could have found out,’ Sean said, pulling savagely at his pint.

Nat and Arthur exchanged a glance in which amusement was not quite successfully concealed.

‘How did you meet him?’ Simon said.

‘Oh, everyone knows everyone in this place,’ Sean said. ‘I looked after him, too, when he had a health crisis. Because of the way he looked – you know, with the growth on his face – everyone noticed him when he arrived. I think he’d got the wrong idea about Richmond. He used to say that he could have bought a mansion here for the price of his flat in London, and there might be some truth in that. He bought a nice house, a terrace, one of those in Almond Street, but not one worth the same as his place before. He said he’d come up here to splash it around a bit, have as much fun as he could. He used to say that to me a lot, even at the end. He liked soldiers, didn’t he?’

‘Rather known for it,’ Ronnie said.

‘Rather known for it,’ Sean said, sneering in imitation. ‘Yes, he was rather known for it. He’d go round the Fox and Hounds, because of the custom they get there, and he’d sit there, quite quietly with a pint, then another pint, then another one, then he’d go up to someone and buy them a drink, buy them another one, and then in half an hour he would say that he’d give them fifty pounds if they’d let him suck them off. He didn’t have much luck, poor Freddie. He looked like that, you see. No one was going to put their doings in that face. You’d be afraid of catching something. You couldn’t help it.

‘Everyone knew him, to look at, but not many people passed the time of day with him. There was only Keith. You know Keith – he was the one who came just now.’

‘The squaddie,’ Duncan said.

Sean turned to Duncan in rage. ‘Keith’s not a squaddie,’ he said. ‘Course he’s not a squaddie. He’s like Freddie was. He’d moved here for the sake of the squaddies, and he cut his hair to look like one, and he dressed like one in civvies – in a white polo shirt and tight white trousers with a little belt on. And the first time Freddie saw him in the same pub, he went and offered him fifty quid if he’d come and wank off in his sitting room. “You don’t have to look at me if you don’t want to,” Freddie said. He’d got humble like that. He’d taken to asking me if I’d wank off when I came to change his sheets. I were a nurse, though, I wasn’t a squaddie, so he didn’t ask me every time, only when he wasn’t having such a good day. I don’t suppose anyone had ever offered Keith money for sex before, or mistaken him for a serving soldier in Her Majesty’s Forces. So he took the money and he went home with Freddie and he did what Freddie asked him to do. After that he’d go over to Freddie’s once a week and take the money and do whatever Freddie wanted him to do. That’s why he was crying at the funeral. End of his income stream. I think Keith thought he was going to be left the house and Freddie’s money, what was left of it after pouring most of it down his throat, Keith’s throat. It’s a nice street, Almond Street, I always think. But the mother’s got it. There wasn’t a will. I don’t suppose he could think of who he wanted to leave anything to.

‘I said to him once – this would have been after he went blind, and Keith had taken to coming over dressed any old how, not even pretending any more – I said to Freddie once, you do know Keith’s not a soldier, he’s nothing to do with the armed forces? And Freddie said, Course he is, he’s on manoeuvres right now as we speak. I said to him, Some people call it manoeuvres, some people call it going to Cinderella’s Nite Spot in Leeds of a Friday night. He said, Don’t be daft, he can talk you through everything he’s done, he could put a rifle together in front of you in thirty seconds. So I said, Fantasy, Freddie. Sheer fantasy. And he sort of smiled a little bit. I don’t think he were under any illusions. I don’t think he ever met anyone else up here, apart from me and Keith, who got paid fifty pounds a go.’

‘That’s a bit sad,’ Duncan said.

‘What would you know about it?’ Sean said. His rage had been passing – most of his story he had been telling in the direction of Alan, who had been nodding and saying, ‘I see,’ and ‘Really,’ and ‘Oh dear,’ in encouragement. ‘What would you know about it? You never made any effort with Freddie. He told me all about you. He was in at the beginning of your bookshop, doing all the hard work, the painting and the carpentry and everything, all the electricals, and doing it for nothing. Then he moves up to Richmond and you never try to reach him. There’s not much gratitude there for everything Freddie did for you.’

‘I see,’ Duncan said. He wasn’t going to say that it hadn’t been quite like that.

‘It’s good to know that he had some gay friends,’ Alan said peaceably. ‘I always think that helps enormously. Just to have two people to talk things over with, who’ll understand what it’s like, to be like this, all the little pleasures and the pains and everything, really. It’s nice to have lots of gay friends, so that when you fall out and bicker, you’ve got someone else to rely on.’ Nat started to giggle quietly: there was nobody less able to fall out and bicker with anyone than Alan, and Nat’s giggle proved infectious. ‘But even if you don’t have a large social circle, if there’s always two nice gay friends—’

‘What are you talking about?’ Sean said. ‘I’m not gay. I’m not one of your gays. When he said to me, Sean, I want you to strip off and have a wank, I’ll give you thirty pounds, I said, No, Freddie. I said no every time. I’ve got a wife at home. We’re trying for a child. I’m very happy as I am, thank you very much. I’ve got to go now. I thought I’d be friendly to Freddie’s friends, but I can see that he was right after all. You’re none of you worth it.’

‘Oh dear,’ Nat said, as the man departed, slamming the door of the pub behind him. ‘That was a bit unfortunate.’

‘Closet case,’ Arthur said.

‘You are terrible,’ Duncan said. ‘Not everyone’s gay, you know.’

‘No, but he knew all about Cinderella’s Nite Spot in Leeds, didn’t he?’ Arthur said. ‘And Friday night there? Happens to be its only gay night. Very well informed, that Sean, I would say. Did you notice, too, he thought we knew everything he knew, what the best pub for picking up squaddies in Richmond were and what Almond Terrace were like? No idea about other people, that Sean.’

‘You ought to be a novelist,’ Simon said, drinking away – he was breaking his and Christopher’s no-alcohol Monday to Friday regime, with some enjoyment. ‘You’ve got excellent observational skills, as they say on the office away days.’

‘Oh dear,’ Alan said. ‘Did we say something to offend that charming man?’

‘Never you mind,’ Nat said. ‘I remember the day that Freddie Sempill went over and tried to paint the bookshop. It all had to be done again. He never did anything for anyone else, it was always for himself and because he might get a shag out of it with someone he’d never see again. He was trying to impress the electricians, as I remember. Honestly.’

‘It’s true,’ Duncan said. ‘I don’t think he ever did anything. I don’t know why I’m the villain of the piece. Oh, God.’

‘Oh, we all feel like that sometimes,’ Ronnie said. ‘Don’t you worry about it. Only an idiot would believe anything Freddie Sempill ever said to them about anything, or a mad old closet case.’

‘They’ll be reduced to each other now,’ Stephen said cheerfully. ‘One of them saying I’ve got to get back to wife and kids, and the other saying I’ve got to get back to barracks before sergeant major locks up for night, and then doing it with their eyes closed, thinking about someone else entirely. Poor old them.’

‘Your Yorkshire accent is terrible,’ Arthur said. ‘I’ve never heard worse.’

22.

Hours and hours later – it took five hours to drive to Richmond in Yorkshire to witness the last rites of Trevor (Freddie) Sempill, deceased of a rare Chinese bone disease, and five hours back – Ronnie and Duncan were sitting in the kitchen of Ronnie’s house, in the basement. Just for once, Duncan would quite have liked to phone out for a pizza, like a student, or something even worse. But Annunziata had left a delicious light supper with grapes at the end.

‘What’s up, honey?’ Ronnie said, in an American accent.

‘Oh, nothing,’ Duncan said. ‘Just tired. I don’t want to go to any more funerals, that’s all. I didn’t even end up getting any books out of it for the second-hand corner.’

‘Well, you won’t have to tomorrow or the day after,’ Ronnie said. ‘But you’ll probably have to some time. They won’t be as awful as that one, though.’

‘It was just …’ Duncan paused. He didn’t know if he should say what he wanted to say. ‘It was just – he didn’t do anything with his life. There was just nothing there. Not even old books.’