Widows & Orphans (6 page)

Brandy’s jubilant lap of the churchyard alerted Duncan to Henry’s return. After leaving the unsuspecting dog at the vicarage, the two men drove to Ridgemount. As ever on approaching his family home, Duncan felt a pang more suited to one who made less frequent visits. From its fluted chimney stacks and pedimented gables to its mullioned windows and pillared porch, the large red-brick Victorian house exuded solidity. The distinctive fire escape slides on the three top floors had been added after the previous building, a sixteenth-century farmhouse, had been reduced to ashes, along with its occupants, when a lovelorn ploughman took revenge on the dairymaid who had jilted him. Forty years earlier, the mere mention of the man, whose ghost was reputed to haunt the grounds, had been enough to give Duncan nightmares. The ghosts who haunted him now, however, were both more benevolent and more insidious. There was his grandfather who had bought the house in the late 1920s and so skilfully assumed the style of a country gentleman that, shortly before his death, he had declared his greatest disappointment to be his grandson’s poor seat on a horse; and his grandmother, who was so cowed by her husband’s aspirations that she had withdrawn into herself, reluctant even to visit the nursery for fear of saying the wrong thing. There was his much-loved nanny who had vanished one day with no explanation, until
Alison revealed triumphantly that she had been caught ‘going to the toilet with Daddy’, leaving Duncan feeling disgusted, betrayed and, for a few months, intensely religious. Above all, there was his father himself, whose lavish bonhomie as he opened the house to friends, neighbours, business associates and vintage car enthusiasts had endeared him to everyone except his son.

His father’s presence remained so palpable that Duncan could still smell the citrus tang of his eau de cologne as he stepped out of the car and half-expected to see him standing at the door. Instead, they were greeted by Chris, the chubby, balding thirty-five-year-old, whose diverse roles as his mother’s carer, cleaner, cook and confidant led her to describe him as her general factotum, although Chris himself, with a degree of self-mockery that Duncan had yet to penetrate, favoured either ‘maid-of-all-work’ or ‘aide-de-camp’. He ushered them into the overheated drawing room where Adele was sitting with her feet on a beaded gout stool, reading a large-print library book. In Henry’s honour, she was wearing a new violet jersey dress and lavender cardigan, set off by an amber brooch and necklace. An ash-blonde plait lay curled on her shoulder like the fraying trim of an old armchair.

The faint whiff of decay emanating from his mother’s cheek made Duncan grateful that Henry merely shook her hand. After submitting meekly to her stock rebukes that he was neglecting himself, he sat down in his father’s wing chair and listened with amusement as she complimented Henry on his elegance. Although she addressed him with the same mixture of archness and condescension that she did any unattached man, Adele approved of Henry. In contrast to his predecessor, who had insisted on weighing the demands of his parish against those of his growing family, he had both the time and the temperament to minister to her needs. Even the mild high church tendencies that had initially aroused her suspicions turned out to be a blessing, since the clouds of incense that
irritated her chest gave her the perfect excuse to request Communion at home.

Adele had suffered from asthma ever since her father’s suicide. He was Stafford Lyttleton, whose renown as the composer of
The Sacred Knot
and
Agincourt
, and founder of the Early English Music Society had been eclipsed by his subsequent association with Mosley’s Blackshirts, for whom he wrote several marching songs. He had been interned along with other leading party members in 1940 and, although he renounced his fascist views on the revelation of the death camps, his reputation was irrevocably damaged and his music no longer played. In 1948 his wife divorced him, forcing the nine-year-old Adele to testify to his cruelty in court. Three years later, deserted by his friends, disowned by his colleagues and reviled by the public, he shot himself.

Her father’s blighted career and violent death imbued him with an air of tragedy in his teenage daughter’s eyes, which intensified over time. Confident that posterity would recognise his genius, she had welcomed the approach five years ago of a BBC director who professed to be a devotee of his music. Duncan blamed himself for the ensuing disaster, but he had been as blinded by his mother’s enthusiasm as she had by the director’s blandishments. Far from offering a reappraisal – let alone, rehabilitation – of his grandfather’s work, the programme was a rehash of the anti-Semitic controversy, fuelled by a newly discovered cache of wartime letters. Moreover, by imputing his politics to misplaced patriotism and his downfall to scheming rivals, Adele sounded less like a loving daughter than a fascist apologist. Convinced that she had disgraced both herself and her father’s memory, she became a virtual recluse, rarely leaving the house and seeing only those friends who bolstered her belief that she was the victim of a media plot rather than her own ill-founded loyalty.

With Henry ready to administer Communion, Duncan slipped out of the room as discreetly as possible. He wandered
into the kitchen, taking the opportunity for a few words with Chris, who he realised with a pang had a more accurate picture of his mother’s state of mind than he did himself. Both gentler and more proficient than her long string of female carers, Chris was an effeminate man whose voice and manner suggested that he deplored the disappearance of old stereotypes. At his interview he had allayed Duncan’s doubts about his fitness for the job, explaining that he had been brought up by his grandmother and had always preferred the company of older people, whom he found ‘restful’. He had worked as a catering manager, most recently at the Princess Royal, but gave it up when his grandmother suffered a stroke, caring for her until her behaviour grew so bizarre that she was admitted to Castlemaine, where she had already crossed swords with Sheila’s mother.

‘All quiet on the home front?’ Duncan asked.

‘The food’s in the oven. Just waiting for them to finish their hocus-pocus. You’re having baked halibut.’

‘Sounds delicious.’

‘I’d planned on monkfish, but then I thought his reverence might take offence,’ Chris said harshly, his customary warmth deserting him when it came to Henry.

‘You must admit it’s kind of him to come here in the middle of a busy day when my mother is perfectly capable of going to tomorrow’s service,’ Duncan said, never sure whether Chris’s antagonism were directed at Henry personally or at his Church.

‘Why? He gets a free lunch.’

Duncan gazed around the room, eager to change the subject. ‘I approve of your choice of reading matter,’ he said, spotting the
Mercury
spread out on the table.

‘Sorry to disappoint you, but I’ve been polishing the silver before your sister arrives.’

‘Ah, well,’ Duncan replied, smiling thinly. ‘At least it has its uses.’ With nothing more to say but reluctant to leave on a
negative note, he drifted into the pantry, casually inspecting the shelves until Henry appeared at the door.

‘You’re safe to come back and join us,’ he said. ‘Now that she’s taken communion, your mother’s treating herself to a small sherry. She says whenever you’re ready, Chris.’

‘Oh, I’m ready. Ever-ready, that’s me. Like the battery, on and off in a flash.’

Although he had twice caught Adele sharing a television supper with Chris, thereby breaking two of her strictest rules (always eat at the table and never with the staff), Duncan thought it wiser not to press him to join them with Henry present. Besides, Chris seemed to relish the mixture of deference and control that came from serving. Having tempted Adele to three spoonfuls of lemon cream sauce, he left the room with a fluting ‘Bon appétit!’

‘My spies tell me that you’re making big changes to the church hall,’ Adele said to Henry, with a teasing allusion to the gossipy friends who were her eyes and ears in the outside world.

‘We’re having a mural painted, if that’s what they mean.’

‘What for?’ Adele asked bluntly.

‘Mother!’

‘No, it’s a fair question,’ Henry said. ‘The hall as it stands is dreadfully dull. This is the perfect opportunity to jazz it up a bit. At the same time we’re helping a young offender.’

‘Who? How?’ Adele asked.

‘The painter. He was convicted of spraying graffiti on the promenade shelters. The new ones near the fishermen’s memorial.’

‘We campaigned against them for months,’ Duncan said. ‘Not only are they quite out of keeping with the existing architecture, they offer little or no protection against the elements.’

‘Don’t try to tell me he was objecting to the design,’ Adele said severely.

‘In essence, yes,’ Henry replied. ‘The graffiti were highly sophisticated. His defence was that he was an artist.’

‘Isn’t everyone these days? Some of us have had the privilege of knowing a true artist.’

‘Yes, of course,’ Henry said smoothly. ‘The magistrates showed leniency. Instead of sending him to jail, they ordered him to pay compensation and do a hundred and fifty hours of community service, which turned out to be the redecoration of the church hall. Joel Lincoln, one of our churchwardens, knew Jordan’s story. He proposed that, rather than just filling in cracks and painting walls, he design a mural.’

‘Making the punishment fit the crime,’ Duncan said.

‘In effect,’ Henry said. ‘The PCC saw some of his work.’

‘In the shelters?’ Adele asked.

‘No,’ Henry replied, laughing. ‘On paper. It showed real talent. He – Jordan – was the best artist in his school. His teachers wanted him to go to college, but there was some family crisis and he left at sixteen to work in a garden centre. This is his chance to express and redeem himself at the same time. Everyone’s happy.’

‘Are we?’ Adele asked. ‘I mean
are they
? Does this mural have a subject, or is it modern?’

‘The Garden of Eden.’

‘That can hide a multitude of sins. How far has he got with it?’

‘It’s hard to tell. He’s put dustsheets up to stop people peeking. It’s only fair to respect an artist’s privacy.’ Adele harrumphed. ‘The one person he appears to have taken into his confidence is Mary.’

‘Which Mary?’ Adele asked.

‘My Mary,’ Duncan said. ‘The cleaner at Mercury House. I had to cut back her hours and knew that Henry was looking for someone for the church.’

‘I hope you haven’t cut them too much. I’ve yet to meet a tidy journalist.’

‘No matter what I do, I can’t seem to persuade my mother of the need to economise,’ Duncan said to Henry, his mock exasperation masking genuine concern.

‘The truth is that my darling son is ruining himself to provide for a woman who deserted him.’

‘You know very well, Mother,’ Duncan said sharply, ‘I stopped paying Linda alimony when she married Derek. All I give her now is maintenance for Jamie.’

‘But why, when Derek is so much better off?’

‘Because he’s my son.’

‘So you’ll indulge your son but you’re happy to deprive your mother?’ She turned to Henry. ‘I have nothing except my widow’s pension – my widow’s mite – and the tiny dividends from the paper.’

‘All I’ve asked is that you keep a close watch on expenditure. This house is a money pit.’

‘Which is your excuse for putting me in a home?’

‘Who mentioned a home? I simply said that it might be time to look for somewhere more manageable.’ At their father’s death, Duncan and Alison had agreed that it would be cruel to ask their mother to leave her home of twenty-five years. Now, as he gazed around the large dining room, where an air of neglect confirmed the general impracticality, he feared that the cruelty might be forced upon him. ‘Look at me!’ he said, in a bid to distract himself as well as Adele. ‘I’ve been reduced to living above the shop.’

‘Don’t say that!’ she said, her face crumpling. ‘I’ve asked you never to say that.’ She turned to Henry. ‘He only says it to annoy me. It’s a charming flat. Your father never complained, even though he sometimes had to sleep there for nights on end.’ Duncan blanched, wondering if she were genuinely ignorant of his father’s affairs or feigned judicious blindness. ‘I used to tell him that he had printer’s ink for blood. But he was always a gentleman. He had standards.’

‘Yes, Mother, standards that almost bankrupted the company: standards I’ve been paying for ever since.’

‘No, not living standards,’ Adele said fiercely. ‘Moral standards. There were certain subjects he would never permit to be mentioned in the paper.’

‘You mean like “Local Businessmen in Crooked Deal” or “Council Chief Accepts Backhander”? And why? Because they all played golf together or hobnobbed at the races.’

‘No, like “Café Owner Fined for Asking Woman to Breastfeed in Toilet”.’

‘It’s the law, Mother. The woman had a perfect right.’

‘There were children present. And Muslims. You’re the one who’s always telling us we should be sensitive to other cultures.’

‘Now you’re being ridiculous. We simply reported the story; we didn’t print a photograph of the breasts.’

‘First you embarrass your readers; now you’re embarrassing our guest.’

‘Hardly,’ Duncan said, although a glimpse of Henry staring at his empty glass unsettled him. ‘What’s the Synod line, Vicar? And has it changed with women priests?’

‘I was just wondering,’ Henry said, ‘whether being banished to the café loo might be the modern equivalent of “No room at the inn”.’

‘No, it might not,’ Adele retorted. ‘It takes five minutes to prepare a bottle. But these women are out to shock. They’re as bad as the nudists at Salter Cove. No wonder there’s all this sexual perversion in the woods – forgive me, Henry,’ she said, mistaking the nature of her offence.

‘Now you’ve lost me,’ Duncan said.

‘It’s easy enough to blame the men and it’s true that they lack self-control, but are they entirely at fault? Time was when women maintained an air of mystery. Now everywhere you look there’s flesh. And not only flesh but bodily functions. Breastfeeding. Childbirth. Of course the men are so put off that they turn to one another.’