The Herring Seller's Apprentice (15 page)
Read The Herring Seller's Apprentice Online
Authors: L. C. Tyler
‘Fairfax?’
‘Fairfax.’
‘That’s OK then,’ said Elsie.
In the summer of that year Fairfax worked in an office that looked across the river and the water meadows to the tree-capped hills beyond. The water in the river was brown and sluggish and there were cracks in the mud on each side where the level of the river had fallen. Cattle came down to the water to drink and churned up the mud with their hoofs, but the meadows were dry and the grass was scorched and dusty where the cattle passed on their way to the river.
Between the police station and the river was a road, and lorries went by and the dust that they raised powdered the leaves of the bushes. At night you could listen and hear the lorries rumble under the window and watch the way their headlamps lit up the bushes and shone off the dust on the leaves. The branches rose and fell as the lorries passed, and sometimes a warm breeze blew though Fairfax’s open window. But the breeze was cool only in the very early morning, when the grey-blue hills were just visible again and the river was a thin milky line across the dark meadows.
That summer Fairfax knew for the first time that he was old, a thing that is not a matter of having lived a certain number of years, but rather of having only a certain number of years still to live, and also a matter of knowing that there were people you had loved that you would never see again and that there were things that you had done that you would not do again.
Constable Rinaldi knocked respectfully on the door.
‘Coffee,
Brigadiere
?’ he asked.
‘I would rather have grappa,’ said Fairfax.
‘There is no grappa,’ said Rinaldi apologetically. ‘Only this coffee that I have made for you.’
‘I have grappa,’ said Fairfax. He opened a desk drawer and took out a bottle and two glasses.
‘I cannot drink grappa while on duty,’ said Rinaldi. ‘It is not permitted.’
‘It is permitted,’ said Fairfax. ‘I permit it.’
He poured two glasses and they touched them, first fingers extended. The grappa was very strong and very good.
‘Another?’ asked Fairfax.
‘I cannot drink another,’ said Rinaldi. ‘I have weakness of the head.’
‘Drink another,’ said Fairfax. ‘Your head will stand it.’
‘I cannot,’ said Rinaldi. ‘You should drink coffee,
Brigadiere
. Then your head will be clear.’
‘Clear for what?’
‘I do not know,
Brigadiere
,’ said Rinaldi.
‘You ask me not to drink grappa and do not know why you ask. I will tell you. There is nothing for my head to be clear for. Nothing. I am tired, Rinaldi. I am tired and I am old. There is nothing left for me here. Do you believe in God, Rinaldi?’
‘No,
Brigadiere
. I am an atheist. I do not believe in God and I do not trust the priests.’
‘I do not trust the priests either, but I do believe in God.’
‘What has God got to do with drinking grappa?’
‘I do not know, Rinaldi. Perhaps nothing to do with drinking grappa, but something to do with feeling old. I do not know.’ Fairfax made as if to put the bottle away in the drawer, but placed it carefully down again on the desk. There were two, perhaps three, fingers of spirit remaining in it.
‘You are tired,
Brigadiere
, just tired. You confuse God and grappa. They are not the same. I too believe in grappa. You should go home and get some rest. You should go home and leave that bottle here.’
‘There is another bottle at home, Rinaldi. I have discovered this thing. There is always another bottle somewhere. Sometimes it is grappa. Sometimes it is strega. But there is always another bottle if you wish strongly enough to find it. With God it is a little different, but that is how it is with bottles.’
‘I do not understand you,
Brigadiere
. You should go home and get some rest. It is not good that you are here
all day and all night. A man should go home to his family now and then. It is right.’
‘I have no family, Rinaldi.’
‘I am sorry,
Brigadiere
.’
‘Don’t worry, Rinaldi. It is not your fault.’
‘I will not worry about your not having a family, but I will worry about the grappa. Promise me that you will put the bottle away and go home.’
‘I promise, Rinaldi. I promise about the bottle and I promise about home. Just leave me now and I will go home.’
‘You will go home?’
‘I promise. Scout’s honour.’
‘Shall I leave the coffee?’
‘No, take the coffee. I’ll be all right now.’
When Fairfax was absolutely sure that Rinaldi was not coming back, he uncorked the bottle and with a steady hand poured himself another large shot of grappa. After that, there was perhaps one more glassful left in the bottle. Then he would go home, he thought. Then he would go home.
So, it was happening again. Who on earth was this Constable Rinaldi? What was this business with the grappa, which Fairfax had never touched previously, as far as I knew? He drank beer and the more than occasional whisky. But not since the first novel had he actually taken drink into the office. What was Fairfax trying to tell me?
I rolled the mouse and clicked on ‘Edit’, then on ‘Select All’, and then I pressed ‘Delete’. The chapter vanished from my screen and a blank white page replaced it. I put on my Barbour and boots and set off in the rain up towards Cissbury Ring.
It would be unfair to suggest that my father was nothing more than a failed academic. Though he was able to devote less time to it, his failure in the field of politics was every bit as complete and infinitely more humiliating both for him and for his family.
My father’s main defect as a politician was that his views corresponded to those of no known political party. They centred on the idea of a semi-hereditary elected monarchy under which kings (there would be no necessity for queens regnant) would be chosen from amongst the bona fide descendants of King Cerdic of Wessex. The electors would consist of a Witan of wise men, of which my father, for some reason, saw himself as a leading member. Though the proposal was, on the face of it, neither more nor less ridiculous than primogeniture, my father experienced some difficulty in persuading the established political parties that the inclusion of an elected monarchy in their manifestos would sway any floating voters. This puzzled him, but he persevered to the extent of joining the local Conservative party and adopting all of their principles unquestioningly, other than loyalty to the House of Windsor.
My father’s progress within the party hierarchy was, to say the least, limited. His suggestions that he might be a suitable parliamentary candidate were met, in some circles, with embarrassed silence. Others assumed that he was making a little joke at his own expense, and reacted with guffaws and hearty slaps on the back. Neither response prevented him from continuing to press his claims. He was eventually allowed to stand as Conservative candidate in a local government election. The ward in question consisted of a large council estate on the edge of town with an outlying cluster of farms and country houses. In later years the residents of council estates were to flock to Margaret Thatcher, just as the middle classes were to rally to Tony Blair. My father however found himself largely ignored on the council estate and smugly patronized in the country houses. In neither location did he find the remotest interest in King Cerdic of Wessex or the creation of a Witan. He set himself the target, which I think he achieved, of personally visiting every house in the ward so that nobody might be unsure what he stood for. The margin of his defeat was the largest ever recorded in any ward in any election in that borough.
In theory my father’s political career could only go up from this point, but in fact it continued to bob along at much the same level. He was occasionally entrusted with making a vote of thanks to a visiting speaker or organizing a summer fête. He regularly stood outside polling stations, the rain trickling down the neck of his gabardine, taking the names of voters. He was permitted to do nothing that might offer a platform for advancing his Cerdician vision of a reformed monarchy. He occasionally wrote letters to
The Times
on the subject, for each of which he received a polite but regretful acknowledgement from the editor.
Towards the end of his life my father briefly became a failed theologian. He did not, as one might have expected, press for a revival of the worship of Thor and Woden, nor did he settle on the cult of one or other of the more obscure Saxon saints. It was in fact the Holy Ghost that my father decided to favour with his attentions – a much neglected member of the Trinity, as he pointed out to anyone who would listen.
My father had learned sufficiently from his experiences in the Conservative party not to attempt a root-and-branch reform of the Church of England. He limited himself to giving particular emphasis to any references to the Holy Ghost in the Prayer Book or in the selected hymns. Only on days when the church was almost empty was this peculiarity noticed. It was never commented on by anyone. My mother might have selected relevant hymns and readings for my father’s funeral, but, for whatever reasons, chose conventional ones that failed to mention the Holy Ghost at all. If the Holy Ghost was present at the service, it was not immediately apparent. The chairman of the local Conservative party also sent his apologies.
It was only after the funeral that the realization came upon me that I had loved my father. But that is perhaps too common a phenomenon to be worth dwelling on here.
The phone rang. Inevitably it was Elsie.
‘When are we going to see Dennis the Menace then?’
‘He’s out of the country. His secretary says he’ll get back to me next week.’
‘You’re useless. I give you one thing to do and you foul it up. I bet he’s around. We should have just gone there.’
‘Well, we didn’t. And don’t try it.’
‘How’s the book going?’
‘Serious concern or polite interest?’
‘Eighty-seven and a half per cent polite interest. Twelve and a half per cent serious concern.’
‘Badly.’
‘Writer’s block?’
‘Writer’s diarrhoea. It flows well, but it’s crap. I think that Fairfax is making a bid to be literature.’
‘A mistake.’
‘I think he’s telling me that I either make him literature or he’s going to quit. Something like that anyway. He no longer seems to approve of me.’
‘Ethelred, you have left your brain in neutral again.
You
write the Fairfax novels. Fairfax is just a figment of your imagination. He has no views other than the views you give him. You can make him do anything you want.’
‘Maybe I’m trying to tell myself something then. Anyway, why shouldn’t I write the occasional literary novel? I’ve never quite given up hope of winning the Booker Prize, you know.’
‘Ethelred, you are so like your father.’
‘I don’t see how you can say that. You never met my father.’
‘All men grow to be like their fathers. It’s the biggest single problem women have.’
Gentle sunshine pierced the haze that enveloped Buckford. It strolled past Buckford Cathedral, pausing only to gild the more repulsive of the two gargoyles with its honeyed rays, then turned sharp left down Market Street. It passed through Mucklegate and, following the one-way system, arrived in front of that dread and august building, Buckford Police HQ. A weaker, less determined ray of sunshine might have left it at that and legged it along the bypass to the Rose and Crown, but this one was made of sterner stuff. Entering through a first-floor window it alighted on the desk of one Sergeant Fairfax, who, up to that point, had been staring pensively out of the window. The view that had been manfully meeting his gaze was a tranquil one of water meadows, contented cows and blue distant hills. It was a view that seemed to say that the lark was on the wing, the snail was in all likelihood on the thorn and that all was right with the world. Sergeant Fairfax was willing to take the lark and snail intelligence on trust, but begged to differ about the world.
Something gnawed at his heart, and a man with a well-gnawed heart has difficulty in taking a balanced view of life in general.
As if fate had capriciously chosen to demonstrate that things could still get worse, at that moment he heard the footsteps of his superior officer advancing down the corridor. The footsteps paused for a moment just short of Fairfax’s door, suggesting that their owner had temporarily forgotten the reason why he had wandered into this relatively remote part of his empire. This was probably the case, because there was a hesitant shuffle before the door finally swung open and Chief Superintendent Emsworth drifted amiably into the room.
Emsworth was dressed in a pair of trousers that a charity shop would have been embarrassed to display, if charity shops had been permitted to sell items of discarded police uniform. His jacket was buttoned in a haphazard fashion that indicated that his mind had been elsewhere, possibly some miles from Buckford, when he fastened it. There still had to be some doubt as to which part of police headquarters his mind was currently in.
‘Not disturbing you, am I, Fairfax?’ he enquired, quickly adding, ‘Quite. Quite. Capital, capital.’ He sat down opposite Fairfax and began absent-mindedly taking out the pens that Fairfax kept in a pot on his desk and replacing them one by one.
‘Can I help you, sir?’
Emsworth ceased his pen-arranging for a moment and looked thoughtful. ‘Yes, there was something. Deuced if I can remember what, though. Have you ever done that,
Fairfax – gone into a room and then forgotten why you had gone there?’
‘No, sir.’
‘Happens to me all the time.’ Emsworth hummed for a bit, and seemed likely to turn his attention to paper clips. ‘I suppose it doesn’t happen to you because you’ve got a razor-sharp mind, eat plenty of fish and have been a teetotaller from birth.’ Suddenly the light began to dawn on Emsworth’s kindly face. ‘Of course, that’s what I came to talk to you about! Booze!’
‘Sir?’
‘I understand that you’ve been hitting the old sauce a bit, Fairfax. Can’t reveal the name of my informant. Wouldn’t want to get Constable Rinaldi into trouble, eh, what?’ Emsworth tapped the side of his nose sagaciously. ‘Got nothing against the occasional drink of course. Nothing wrong with a chap getting blotto now and then. My brother Gally was blotto for the greater part of his youth and he’s as fit a fifty-seven-year-old as you’re likely to meet. But my sources are worried that you are overdoing it, even by Gally’s exacting standards.’
Fairfax drew himself up to his full height, a useful preliminary whether it is a falsehood or a truth one is about to deny. ‘Do you have any complaints about my work, sir?’
‘Work? Work?’ asked Emsworth as if considering a novel idea. ‘My dear fellow, certainly not. I was most impressed by the way you pulled in Ginger McVitie.’
‘Perhaps it’s as well you dropped by. I’m thinking of quitting anyway,’ said Fairfax.
‘Quitting the demon drink? Excellent, my dear fellow.’
‘Quitting the Police Force. I’m getting too old.’
‘Surely not? How old are you?’
‘Fifty-eight and a half.’
‘There you are then. Gally’s only a year younger and has no intention of giving up. Of course, he’s never actually
done
anything,’ Emsworth conceded, ‘so it would not be entirely clear what it was that he was giving up. Look, Fairfax, you’re sure that it’s not just the weather? The weather does affect people oddly. I had a gardener once who gave his notice every time a thunderstorm was on its way. Regular as clockwork – we thought of lending him to the Met Office.’
‘It’s not the weather, sir.’
Emsworth racked his brain for other possible causes of distress. In his experience the usual front runners were parental objections to one’s plans for marrying a chorus girl (33-1), the threat of the theft of a prize pig (10-1) or an impending interview with his sister Connie (2-1 on). None of these was, on the face of it, likely to apply to Fairfax.
‘Perhaps I’m not making much sense, sir,’ said Fairfax.
‘Not much, but don’t worry, my dear fellow. Perfectly normal. Connie often says the same thing about me.’
‘You see, sir—’
The conversation was interrupted by a polite knock on the door and a gentle cough.
‘What is it, Beach?’ asked Emsworth irritably. ‘One of
my sisters on the phone again? Well, you can jolly well tell them I’m busy.’
Constable Beach coughed again apologetically. ‘Chief Superintendent Parsloe-Parsloe from Matchingham has been waiting in your office for the past ten minutes.’
‘Why on earth should he do a thing like that? Doesn’t he have an office of his own in Matchingham?’
‘He says he has an appointment to see you, sir. Something, I believe, about a stolen manuscript that will embarrass half Shropshire if its contents are ever revealed to the public’
‘Ah,’ said Emsworth, the light dawning. ‘An appointment, you say. Very well. We’ll have to continue our chat about your chorus-girl trouble some other time, Fairfax. But my advice is to put her into a two-seater and drive rapidly in the direction of Gretna Green. Now, lead on, Beach. Let us have Parsloe-Parsloe, and let there be tea.’
The footsteps receded down the corridor and Fairfax was left to his contemplation of the Buckfordshire countryside. The sun had given up Buckford as a bad job and was taking a short breather behind a cloud. The meadows now looked dull and listless. Somewhere out there a cow with a secret sorrow lowed plaintively.