Dying to Tell (3 page)

Howard made a circling motion with his hand that I eventually realized meant something. The door wasn't latched. I turned the knob, paused to give him the thumbs-up and went in.

My first impression was that nothing had changed from how I remembered the place. A narrow hall led towards the stairs. A very large and very old barometer hung on one wall, opposite an ancient piece of furniture combining the roles of mirror, coat-hook and umbrella stand. The carpet and wallpaper were surely the same. Then the musty smell hit me. That was the point: nothing had changed. Except that decay is change. And that's what was going on in Penfrith: slowly accelerating decay.

I went into the sitting room and met more of the same. The hearth rug the three-piece suite; the bureau; the clock on the mantelpiece; the Constable print on the wall, wrinkling in its frame; the vintage television in the corner, tube a lot deeper than its screen was wide: they'd mouldered in their appointed places. And they'd gathered dust. Yes, one hell of a lot of dust. Mrs. Alder had kept a clean house if not a modern one, but her children were clearly of a different mind. I couldn't help wondering if Howard's hair was greyer than it needed to be.

He really was wearing pyjama bottoms, over checked slippers through which the toes had worn. He was still standing in the bay window, trying to smile, it seemed, though with

Howard you couldn't be sure. Next to him, on the table that had once supported an aspidistra (that had gone), was a slew of magazines. Stepping closer, I saw they were his most faithful and just about only reading material: Railway World. Not recent issues, of course, but dog-eared copies from Howard's train spotting days in the Sixties, before Seeching pulled the plug on the Somerset and Dorset line. According to Rupe (who must have had it from his sisters), Howard had never recovered from the closure of the S and D the ripping out of the tracks, the scrapping of the locomotives, the physical wrenching of the railway from his life. By the look of it, he was still trying to get back to that lost world of 2-6-2s and 0-6-Os chugging across the heath land from Glastonbury to the sea. Whether he understood a single word now of his childhood reading was a moot point, though. Because Howard hadn't actually said anything as far as I knew words, I mean, as distinct from vague noises since August 1977.

That was the summer of his crowning madness. He was still holding down some kind of a job at Clarks then. Rupe and I were thirteen-year-olds, cycling out across the moors on fishing expeditions. But Howard was ranging further afield on his moped. And in his mind ... Well, who knows where from (a letter in Railway World, maybe) Howard had got hold of the idea that there was a mysterious hole in the statistics of steam locomotives scrapped in the Sixties and that somewhere the Government was hiding a strategic reserve of them in case of an oil drought or some such emergency. (According to Rupe, there really was a hole in the statistics; but even as a thirteen-year-old he'd had conspiracy theorist tendencies.) Anyway, rumour in the railway world had it that these missing lo cos were concealed in a vast cavern under Box Hill, in Wiltshire, where the Bristol to London railway line passes deep below an R.A.F base. Howard took to staging nocturnal expeditions to the area in search of clues. One loco in search of a whole lot of lo cos you could say. In fact, I may have said precisely that at the time. But the joke turned sour when Howard fetched up in hospital seriously injured after somehow managing to fall down a ventilation shaft. He was lucky not to be killed, if you can bracket luck with permanent brain damage. How he got into the shaft we'll never know. Even if he could remember, which is unlikely, he couldn't tell anyone. His lips were sealed. (He'd also been bitten by a dog that night, apparently a nasty enough wound to be distinguishable from his other injuries, which naturally were numerous. A guard dog, Rupe reckoned. But he would reckon that, of course. Personally, I thought Howard was the sort any self-respecting dog would take a lump out of.)

"It's Lance, Howard," I said, smiling at him. "Remember me?"

He nodded vigorously and made a sucking noise. I think he remembered.

"Where are your sisters?"

He nodded some more and pointed towards the back of the house, then mimed digging and laughed through a good deal of spittle.

"In the garden? Thanks. I'll try there."

I left him to Railway World, went out into the hall and headed for the kitchen. Not a happy choice of route for anyone with a sensitive nose. Quite a few things seemed to be rotting in unwashed pots and grimy cupboards. Taking care to avoid glancing into the sink, I cut through to the scullery and out by the back door.

The rear garden wasn't as neglected as the front. Although the boundary hedges were running riot and the grass in the orchard away to the side was waist-high, the vegetable plot was well tilled and tended. And there was Mildred Alder, lifting carrots and potatoes with tight-jawed vigour. She was remarkably similar to her sister, though not as erect. And there was a panicky look in her eyes when she caught sight of me and stopped digging that Win would never have been prey to. Mil was wearing a mud-stained navy-blue boiler suit and gum boots Her breath misted in the air as she leaned on the handle of the fork and stared at me. She said nothing, though I felt sure she recognized me. And my visit could hardly be a complete surprise.

"Hello, Mil," I said, walking towards her.

"Lance," she said with a frown, sparing me her sister's preference for Lancelot. "I didn't think you'd come."

"Well, here I am."

"What you got to tell us?"

"Nothing, really. I can't get hold of Rupe."

"Didn't think you would."

"No faith in me, Mil?"

"Didn't mean that." She looked quite flustered. There might even have been a blush on her weathered face. "Look, here's Win."

Win had emerged from the orchard, carrying a bucket filled with apples. Like Mil, she was wearing gum boots below the same skirt and sweater I'd seen her in the day before. (Wardrobes weren't exactly crucial items of furniture at Penfrith.) "What happened?" she called as she walked round the potato patch to join us.

"Nothing," I said. "I've drawn a blank."

"Only what I expected."

"I know, I know. You told me."

Win stopped at her sister's shoulder and plonked down the bucket, then gave me one of her penetrating stares. "Good of you to come and tell us, Lancelot."

"Least I could do."

"And is it all you mean to do?"

"No. I think I'd better go up to London and see what the trouble is if there is any."

"There's some."

"Well, let's find out. I'll go tomorrow."

"That's good of you. We're grateful, aren't we, Mil?"

"Oh yes," said Mil. "It is good of you, Lance."

"He hasn't moved, has he? The address I've got for him is Hardrada Road." (I'd last visited Rupe in London at a flat in Swiss Cottage. Since then, he'd gone south of the river.)

"Twelve Hardrada Road," said Win. That's right."

"And when exactly did you last hear from him?"

"Depends what you mean by "hear from him"."

"Well, a letter, I suppose."

"We don't get letters," said Mil.

"Not from Rupert," put in Win. "He doesn't write. There's just the ... money."

"And how does he send that?"

"Straight to the bank. But there hasn't been any ... since the end of August."

"Well, when did you last speak to him?"

"Speak to him?"

"Yes, Win. Speak."

"When Mother died," said Mil. "Not since."

A glance passed between the sisters at that moment. But their communications had been finely honed over many years. I hadn't a hope of working out what it meant. Besides, there was plenty else for me to try to work out. Rupe had called in to see me two or three times since his mother's death, on his way to or from a visit to Penfrith. At least, I'd assumed that was why he was in the area. He may even have said so, though I couldn't swear to it. If not, why had he come down? Not just to sink a few drinks with me, that was for sure. The thought led to another. When did whatever was going on start going on?

"Rupert's been so busy with his work," said Win, apparently feeling (correctly) that some kind of explanation was due. But what she offered wasn't much of one. "We don't expect to see a lot of him." But they did expect the money he sent them. Was that all this was about? Money to prop up their meagre lifestyle? Some meat to serve with the carrots and potatoes? "We're worried about him, Lancelot. Truly we are."

"Let's hope there's no need."

"Yesterday you seemed sure there wasn't."

"And tomorrow I'll do my best to find out." I looked from one to the other of them. "OK?"

It was only a fifteen-minute walk from Penfrith to my parents' house. But it was more like a hundred years in other ways. The Alders inhabited an overlooked corner of the nineteenth century. They were out of time as well as touch. Mum and Dad, on the other hand, lived in the picture-windowed little-box land of the late twentieth, where lawns were trimmed, cars washed, woodwork painted and appearances maintained. My father liked to read about the past. But he had no wish to live in it.

"Your mother's out," were his first words when he opened the door to me, somehow implying that I'd only called to see her. "Scrabble."

"Still keeping that up, is she?"

"Oh yes. Every Wednesday afternoon." He plodded off towards the kitchen and I followed. The stoop was getting worse, I noticed. All those years of bending over account books at Clarks had taken their toll. "I was going to make some tea. Do you want a cup?"

"Why not?"

"Perhaps because you just don't want one."

"Good to know you still take everything I say literally."

"How else should I take it?"

"I would like a cup of tea, Dad. Thanks."

"As long as you're sure." He flicked the switch on the kettle and it came instantly to the boil, as if he'd already boiled it and only turned it off when the doorbell rang. "Put an extra bag in the pot, would you? The caddy's behind you."

"Oh, bags, is it?" (I've always had an aversion to the wretched things. More to do with Mum's fondness for packing them around her flower borders as fertilizer than the actual taste of the tea, to be honest.)

"See what I mean?" Dad cocked an eyebrow at me. "I knew we'd have this carry-on."

"Forget it. I'll have it as it comes." I plucked a bag from the caddy and tossed it into the pot. Dad poured in the water and squinted at me through the plume of steam.

"Diane phoned last night."

"Oh yes?"

"Brian's been promoted."

"That's good news." (And horribly predictable into the bargain. Brian was the sort of model son-in-law who came flat-packed by mail order.)

"It is, isn't it?"

"Didn't I just say so?" (God, this sparring we were always reduced to was pitiful.)

"Have you got any? Good news, I mean."

"Not exactly. I wanted to ask you a favour."

"What might that be?"

"I need to catch an early train to London."

"And you're looking for a lift."

I smiled. "Yen."

This for a job interview by any chance?"

"No."

"Thought not. I mean, there'd be no time to have your hair cut, would there?"

"Good point, Dad. Well spotted."

"How early?"

"Just early. I thought you could look up some times for me on the Net."

"I suppose I could." He smiled at some irony he detected in this. "I'll do that while you pour the tea. I'll have two digestives."

So off he swarmed to his study while I fiddled about with mugs and milk and opened six cupboards in search of the biscuit tin before I found it in the seventh.

I took the tea through to the lounge and found the Daily Telegraph lying on the coffee-table, folded to display the crossword. Dad had nearly finished it, but it looked like the last few clues were frustrating him. I'd just begun to give them my attention when he walked in. There's a train from Castle Gary at ten to eight. That'll get you to Paddington at half-past nine. Early enough?"

"Sounds fine."

"I'll pick you up at seven-fifteen."

Thanks."

"Well, the car needs a run. And I tend to wake up even before the crack of dawn these days. So .. ." He sat down and drank some tea. This isn't about a job, you say?"

"No."

"Pity."

"I'm doing someone a favour myself, as it happens. The Alders. You remember them?"

"How could I forget them?"

"They're worried about Rupe. They can't contact him. He seems to have, well, disappeared."

"And you're going to find him?"

That's the idea."

"Really?" Dad looked distinctly sceptical about my qualifications for the task. "Have you considered the possibility that Rupert may simply have washed his hands of his family? You could hardly blame him if he had. They're a sorry bunch. Sorrier still when you take their pedigree into account."

"What is their pedigree?"

"Oh, nothing at all noble. But there were Alders farming at Penfrith as early as the seventeenth century."

"You've been researching the Alders?"

"Of course not." Dad's expression suggested a more idiotic question would be hard to imagine. "They merely cropped up in something I was reading recently. There was a skirmish at the start of the Civil War just the other side of Ivythorn Hill. The Affray at Marshall's Elm, it's known as. A Parliamentary force was routed by Royalist dragoons. Among the dead was one Josiah Alder of Penfrith. Historically, the event's something of a curiosity, since the usual date given for the start of the Civil War is the twenty-second of August sixteen forty-two, when the King raised his standard at Nottingham. But the Marshall's Elm Affray took place nearly three weeks earlier, on the He broke off and looked sharply at me. "Are you listening?"

"Yeh, Dad, yeh. I'm all ears. There were Alders at Penfrith in sixteen forty-two. But I'm not sure there'll be any there come twenty forty-two."

That'll be because they didn't go on farming the land they were born on. If they had a destiny, that was it. And they abandoned it."