Last Act of All (13 page)

*

Wrapped in a hazy cloud of well-being, Neville was enjoying his evening. Lilian appeared to have retired to her bedroom to brood on cost-effective revenge, while he lolled before the television in his study at the side of the house with a whisky decanter at his elbow, watching, with satisfied contempt, a rival drama series.

Lilian
’s sudden reappearance did not startle him. ‘Look at this — the man’s hopeless!’ he crowed, without turning as his wife entered the room.

She
went over and snapped off the set, ignoring his indignant protests. ‘Shut up, Neville. Something’s going on — saw it from the bedroom window. You’d better come.’

Her
heels skittering on the tiled floor, Lilian hurried to the dining-room, on the right of the front door, and did not switch on the lights. The noise was loud now, loud and menacing.

‘
What in hell—’

Neville
crossed to the window, shouldering Lilian aside, and thought for a confused moment that he had strayed on to a film set, with extras playing
sans
culottes
demanding aristo blood.

Men
were marching towards him — an indeterminate, but alarming number. They were hooded and faceless shapes, like Irish terrorists, and they howled a voiceless, bloodcurdling paean of hate. The drumming of wood on metal, which had been keeping march time, mounted to an erratic crescendo, until his head throbbed with the din. Lilian crouched in the opposite corner, hands over her ears.

The
brandished flares formed an aisle, and down it, from the back, moved a procession, carrying high the figure lashed to its chair which they set down in full view of the window.

Neville
drew back into the shadows, but the surge of sound from the mob told him they had seen him. He was sweating now, afraid to stay, afraid to move.

One
of the figures, bearing a torch, moved to the front, and at a violent gesture from him a hush fell, shocking after the din.

‘
You’ll be next, Fielding!’ His yell broke the silence, then he thrust the torch to the scarecrow figure which the cowering victim inside recognized as a caricature of himself.

In
a shower of sparks, the guy, composed mainly of dry hay, flared spectacularly, to renewed cheers from the crowd and even more frenzied drumming, as they advanced to circle it triumphantly.

‘
Oh god!’ Lilian whimpered. ‘What are they going to do now? Do something, Neville! Stop them!’

Fear
was almost expelled by rage at her stupidity. ‘What the hell do you expect me to do?’ he snarled in a savage undertone. ‘Reason with them, or attack them single-handed?’

But
even as they spoke, abruptly it was over. The noise died. The torches were extinguished. The black figures faded into the darkness. Within seconds, no sign of their ordeal remained except the collapsed, smouldering embers of the effigy, and the remnants of a tweed jacket and a trilby hat beside a scorched and broken chair.

With
the removal of immediate danger, he turned on Lilian, incandescent with rage. ‘Well, phone the sodding police, woman, why don’t you? Do they have to burn the house down first?’

Without
argument, Lilian fled.

*

The interview with the police did nothing to calm Neville’s rage. Having assured themselves that, despite Lilian’s incoherent distress, the mob had in fact dispersed, they took almost an hour to come from Limber, and then were less than sanguine.

‘
Not a lot we can do about it till morning, sir, when we can go round and ask some questions. Though we’re not likely to get much out of them — close-mouthed in Radnesfield, they are. Famous for it.’

Fielding
was starting to go white about the mouth. ‘Don’t you think you might just possibly try for a few arrests tonight? There were dozens of them involved, after all.’

The
sergeant, with a disapproving intake of breath, shook his head. ‘Not tonight, no, sir. We’d have them complaining about midnight raids and Gestapo tactics and such over what is just really a nasty prank, when all’s said and done. Unless you can think of anyone who might be harbouring a particular grudge?’

Lilian,
sipping a brandy, sneered. ‘Apart from the whole village, you mean, sergeant? He’s planning to turn it into Welwyn Garden City, and for some funny reason they’re not very pleased.’

‘
That’s still not exactly a lead, madam. If you were in a position to be more specific, now—’

She
shot a sidelong, vindictive look at her husband. ‘Oh, try Jack Daley,’ she said. ‘The bungalow up towards the Home Farm. He’s got such a common little slag for a wife; just Neville’s mark.’

‘
Bitch!’ The venomous exclamation was surprised out of him; the policemen exchanged significant glances.

‘
Perhaps we’ll pop round there before we go,’ the sergeant said pacifically. ‘Gives us something to go on. We’ll show ourselves out and take a look at the remains of the fire round the front.’

Fielding
followed them to lock up. When he returned, he poured himself another whisky, his hands shaking with fury. He had been made to look an impotent fool, and the world was going to pay for it. Lilian being the most immediate target, he turned on her.

But
bullying her was unrewarding, now she had nothing to lose. He discovered that, possibly to her surprise as much as his, she had lost none of her one-time command of pungent invective, and retired to the spare room, still raging. Smashing a pretty Chinese bowl afforded him only limited satisfaction.

*

When Jack Daley came to the door, he was in short sleeves and slippers. He looked relaxed, and artistically surprised to see the representatives of the law on his doorstep.

‘
Stone the crows, if it isn’t the Fuzz,’ he said humorously. ‘What can I do for you? Surely you’re not chasing stolen cars at this time of night?’

‘
Er — no. Sorry to trouble you so late, sir, but we saw your lights were on. Just a routine enquiry, really. Can you give me some idea of your movements this evening? There’s been a bit of a disturbance in the village, see, and we’re trying to find out if anyone saw anything unusual.’

‘
Disturbance? In Radnesfield? That’s a bit funky, isn’t it, lads?’ He was laughing at them, and the sergeant, who was not a stupid man, eyed him narrowly as he went on.

‘
Well, being a public-spirited citizen, I’d have loved to be able to help you, but I’ve been at home, haven’t I, having a quiet evening with the old trouble and strife. So I’m not going to be much use to you, am I?’ The light brown eyes were hard and bright. ‘But of course, you don’t like taking anybody’s word, do you? Sandra!’ he called over his shoulder, ‘Come here, will you?’

Sandra
Daley, looking sullen, appeared from the lounge, and Daley put his arm round her.

‘
Oh there you are, pet. Tell the nice gentlemen where I was this evening. They’re afraid I might be telling naughty porkies when I say I didn’t go out.’

She
hesitated, but only for a second. ‘That’s right,’ she said tunelessly. ‘He was here with me all evening.’

‘
Very good, madam.’ The sergeant’s voice was expressionless, but he gave his subordinate a speaking look. ‘We may need a full statement later, but we won’t disturb you any more tonight.’

Daley
was still smiling as they drove away, but as he closed the door his smile faded.

‘
You didn’t need to hurt me.’ She was resentful. ‘I’ll have bruises on my arm tomorrow.’

‘
So?’ He swung away from her, back to the lounge and the late-night film.

‘
Where — where were you, anyway?’

Without
replying, he shut the door. She was left standing alone in the hall, rubbing her painful arm with a nervous movement.

*

Lilian stayed in bed on Saturday morning. Sharon, looking scared, had given Neville breakfast with the air of one putting meat into a lion’s cage, then scuttled about to light a fire in the study before withdrawing to the comparative safety of the kitchen.

Neville,
suffering the after-effects of whisky and bad-temper, settled himself once more in the study with the newspapers. He flicked through impatiently, scanning them for any mention of the Bradman furore; finding none, he threw them crumpled to the floor in annoyance, and went back to his unrewarding thoughts.

Exhilaration,
that was what he was entitled to feel. Freedom was so nearly within his grasp, freedom from those pettifogging restrictions that little men kept trying to impose on Harry.

It
almost made him laugh. Restrict Harry? Tie down a hurricane! Harry had grown too big for them, and Harry was taking Neville with him. In fact, these days it was pretty hard to be sure where he stopped and Harry began.

He
frowned thoughtfully. There had been differences, at one time, but when he looked back, all he could envisage was a blank canvas, waiting for Harry’s bold brushstrokes to give him identity.

He
had no doubt of his power now. He could do as he chose, and he had noticed that as his personal behaviour became more and more confidently outrageous, his victims became less and less able to use the polite barricade of assumed indifference.

It
was hugely pleasing. Sometimes he felt like one of the great film directors — Buñuel perhaps, or Godard — but greater than any, of course, since they dealt in celluloid and he in people’s lives. Helena, Jack Daley, Sandra, Lilian, George Wagstaff, Chris, even the vicar’s unspeakable wife — he had them all helplessly dancing to the tune he piped.

Last
night’s episode, however, was not part of his composition. He had pencilled in orchestration for opposition and hostility, and it had all been quite clear in his head. The angry peasantry, lumpish and inarticulate: he, suave, Olympian, turning them aside with mocking superiority.

But
that! He could blot out the memory of his private fear, but not of his public humiliation. He suspected mockery even in Sharon’s timid servility, and down in the village they would be sniggering. It was intolerable.

He
would have the last word, of course, when Harry’s hurricane of change blew their village apart, and there would be plenty who would come to beg him to alter his course. He would enjoy that, especially when he could tell them he didn’t give a monkey’s. That was another of Harry’s gifts.

So
it was the least he could do, to repay Harry, so to speak; take him away from the limitations imposed by small screens, small budgets, small minds.

Really,
they should all be grateful for the chance to lay their sacrifices on so glorious an altar. Instead, they made him their victim.

The
cloud descended on his brow again.

*

Dora Wagstaff, her arms full of dirty clothes, whisked down the kitchen passage to the utility room. She was keeping herself very busy this morning; it was the only response to trouble that she knew. If you were scrubbing collars caked with farm grime, you didn’t have a hand free for wiping away tears.

It
just wasn’t fair. After all, she’d never wanted much. There were so many discontented people in the world; you’d only to put on the telly to see them moaning about all the things they wanted that they hadn’t got.

She
’d always been a contented woman — and grateful, too. She’d never forgotten to say thank-you, in the prayers she said every night, kneeling like a child at the end of her bed; thank-you for George and the kids and this place where she’d lived all her married life. Oh, there had been day-to-day problems, of course, like Sally kicking up her heels a bit, and the longer-term worry about Jim, who was a born farmer if ever there was one, with no promise of a farm he could call his own.

But
she’d never expected life to be plain sailing. You couldn’t be married to a farmer for twenty-five years without getting used to ups and downs. What she’d never expected was this — this sudden catastrophe that had overtaken them.

They
weren’t the sort of people dramatic things happened to. They were ordinary folk; illness and sudden death were the only catastrophes they knew. They had no way of dealing with this, no words for talking about what it was doing to them. You couldn’t say, ‘My heart is breaking,’ even if that was true. It wasn’t the sort of thing they said.

She
and George had never really needed to talk much, except about the comfortable, everyday things. They had understood each other wordlessly for years, and now, when he had closed his mind against her, shut in with his own misery, there were no familiar habits of speech to provide a bridge. They were each alone with their demons, and she felt separate from him in a way she had never been since the day the vicar had pronounced them man and wife, one flesh.

There
was fear about the future, of course, but she was almost more frightened about what was going on in his darkened mind, fearful what unknown monsters might lurk in the depths she had never considered him to possess.