Mr. Chartwell (16 page)

“You play it, then.”

“I am,” he instantly replied.

She preferred to disregard it, preferring instead to continue with the notes. She immediately missed her eaten pen. Esther cast a silent indecent curse at the lost pen, at Black Pat.

A purposeful noise came from behind her and made her turn, curious. Black Pat’s concentration was intense, his posture now alert. With the stance of a working Alsatian, he received instruction.

“Black Pat?”

He pounded to the doorway, to the corridor. Esther called him and it caused a fleeting head shift and then indifference. This corridor would take him upstairs to the Royal Gallery.

“Where are you going?”

From upstairs came the summons. Black Pat was motionless, the silhouette of his body stiff-braced. Esther was forgotten and he broke into a hunting run.

1.00 p.m
.

T
he high ceilings had swimming-pool acoustics and resonated with conversation. Huge muddy paintings of battles covered the red-and-gold walls. This was the Royal Gallery, a grand chamber in the hive of Westminster Palace. It was filled with journalists from national and regional newspapers. Westminster Palace on a Saturday! The novelty of it created an ambiance of bonhomie. The journalists joshed around, gossiping. Then conversation stopped, heads bending to the entrance.

A swish of bodies drew back to create a path. The dark tugboat of Churchill cruised through to a table at the head of the room. He was joined by his friend and MP for Shrewsbury, Sir John Langford-Holt. At the table Langford-Holt coughed self-consciously into his palm, alerting the journalists. Churchill took a seat and scanned his notes, elbows resting on the papers.

The journalists craned nearer, staring at Churchill’s bowed head. They stared at his pink crown. He looked up from his notes and monitored them sternly.

“Good afternoon, gentlemen,” said Langford-Holt. “Welcome to Westminster. We are glad you could accommodate our slightly irregular schedule and attend this Saturday afternoon. As most of you know, today’s gathering is to announce that our esteemed ex–prime minister and MP for Woodford, Sir Winston Churchill, will be retiring from Parliament on Monday, the twenty-seventh of July. Naturally press will be covering that date, but we wanted to provide this smaller event as an opportunity to ask Sir Winston a few questions about his career before the more general affair of the twenty-seventh.”

There was a racing of pens on paper. Hands bolted into the air, ripe with questions. One of the journalists was invited to relay his enquiry.

He introduced himself. “Mr. David Fallow from
The Times
, sir. Sir Winston, could you tell us how you feel about coming to the end of your illustrious career?”

Churchill said, “I feel honoured to have been a part of the history of this great country and will remember my time in government with deep pride. I hope that I have served the people of Britain well.”

Another journalist was selected. “What will you do with your time on leaving?”

Churchill joked, “Delight my wife with my unabated company, whether she likes it or not.” There was laughter and Churchill smiled. “Clementine’s pretty quick on her feet, let me tell you, gentlemen. But I always track her down. And, as well as catching up with her, I also hope to catch up with my painting and reading.”

“What will you be reading, sir?”

“Hopefully the labels on vintage wine and menus in good restaurants.”

More laughter filled the room. A hand was chosen from the crop of raised arms.

“Is there anything you regret?”

Churchill thought briefly. “Oh, I don’t know. I think so. Isn’t there always? We make the choices we can with the information available to us at the time. I take solace in the knowledge that I always made the decision I felt right, and did it for noble reasons with the consequences in mind. But the passage of events will confound even the best-laid plans. I suppose this is what we all learn in life. I have certainly learnt this lesson well.”

“Mr. Jacob McKeith of the
Evening Standard
, sir. What do you feel has been your most valuable lesson learnt over the years?”

Churchill answered firmly. “There have been many. One is courage. Courage is rightly esteemed the first of human qualities because it is the quality which guarantees all others. I have also learnt love, and would say that my most brilliant achievement was my ability to persuade Clementine Hozier to marry me. She is my polestar and has been a source of exceptional strength for me throughout the years.”

Another question was sanctioned. “Is there anything you still want to do?”

“Vast amounts,” said Churchill. “I wouldn’t mind visiting 44 Avenue de Champagne, the world’s most drinkable address. This, the Pol-Rogers’ chateau in Epernay, is the maker of my favourite brand of champagne. It’s no secret that I wouldn’t mind a couple of sun-filled days over there, sampling a few bottles, treading the grapes with my feet.”

The journalists visualised this.

Churchill added, “Don’t worry, gentlemen. I’ll make sure those specific Churchill-pressed bottles don’t go into circulation.”

“What else do you enjoy?” asked a journalist.

“A great many things. Along with a glass of Pol Roger, a cigar is always welcome, namely Romeo y Julieta. That’s a premium smoke, a cigar of great craftsmanship.”

All the journalists knew this. They wrote it down anyway. At the back of the room behind them a black totem rose from the floor. No big fan of press conferences, Black Pat had been dozing against the wall. Now he was on his feet. Churchill watched the dog indirectly, letting his peripheral vision monitor the massive head hanging above the unaware audience. A bad sign. Usually he stayed lying in the corridors outside like a shot elephant, totally uninterested.

A journalist with flat blond hair asked, “So, Sir Winston, with all your interests and hobbies, especially after such a long and periodically testing political career, it sounds as though you are thoroughly looking forward to Monday’s retirement. At your age it must be quite a relief to have the prospect of, ah, uncomplicated diversions.”

Churchill exhaled. “Uncomplicated?” He dropped back, pushed into the chair. “I should dearly …” Over his face passed a shadow of discomposure. The lusting Black Pat knew what was coming.

“There are two answers to your question,” Churchill said. “The first is an uncomplicated text, full of easiness and simplicity. But study it and there are footnotes. And as footnotes do, they lead us to an original source, the source of influence. The second answer is in these footnotes, which bear witness to an alternate forecast.” When Churchill spoke again his tone was
introspective. “Gentlemen, may I suggest to you that the entitlement to immortality felt so noisily in youth is not always relinquished in our dotage. We are not all of us blessed in this way.” He looked at the blond man. “At my age, as you put it to me … sir, I wish there was such a thing, for I find the internal self remains stoutly resistant to time’s seasons.” His lips shrugged. “Because here’s the truth: While the mind is a transcendental pilgrim, the body is an animal. And this animal will carry you as far as it can. Glad of the burden, it will struggle on its knees to serve, fighting out the inches in dust and desert. But do never forget where it is migrating to, for it will bear you there. It is a migration into the dusk.”

Churchill cast a glance at the dog. Still on his feet, Black Pat seemed fascinated.

Churchill addressed the journalists. “So when you ask me if I look forward to retirement, for these reasons I cannot say I leap to it. I am driven to it and I have dug in my heels, let me tell you, because work is a holy distraction from these morbidities. Yet as retirement comes despite my efforts, I prepare for these approaching years with the reserve I would feel if I were dressing my neck with a gaboon viper as opposed to … say …”—he thought of an opposite—“… being seated to dine on minute steak.”

The journalists were writing this down, feeling squeamishly aware of their animal bodies. A few checked their watches, brooding for the pub. The blond journalist would definitely never ask this question again.

Black Pat chomped his jaws in a small bark, the atmosphere a lullaby to him. Churchill crumpled a piece of paper in his fist. He toughed out a smile. The crowd of journalists turned back up at him, dreading it.

“Pah, aren’t we the gang of whelps and jugginses. Forgive me. I didn’t intend to waft in such a miasma of spiritual famine. Anyway”—he surveyed them, these men decades younger—“you needn’t much concern yourselves, you’re all just ducklings.” Churchill smiled, this smile coming freely. “Have gumption, my dear ducklings.”

Black Pat’s tail lifted, wary of the change in Churchill’s tone, then dropped at the next comment.

“And should you remember this fear, remember courage equally,” said Churchill. “Beard the fear with courage.”

Beard the fear
, wrote the journalists, some with question marks.

“For,” said Churchill, speaking to the faces and the canine face above, fastening his hard eyes on that canine face, “you can’t stop fear snaring you with a headstall, and you can’t stop it landing a buss on your headstone, but you can damn well try.”

A long staid period, fiercely awkward. A hand lifted. No one welcomed it, desperate for the easy release of the pub.

“Yes, your question please,” said Langford-Holt.

“Sir Winston.” The journalist cleared his throat. “In 1929 you caught a one-hundred-and-eighty-eight-pound marlin.” He coached himself. Out came the ridiculous question: “Do you have any fishing tips for readers?”

Muffled sarcastic laughter. Jackals near the stricken journalist made trumpeting sounds.

Langford-Holt gave him a brisk stare. “Are you representing a legitimate newspaper?”

The journalist lifted his shoulders. “I also freelance for a fishing journal. Thought I might …”

Churchill cut in. “An excellent query. Yes, by God, let’s refresh the mood.” He grinned broadly as Black Pat huffed. Black
Pat made a teenage flop with one arm, a thwarted move, absolutely bored. It was the move of a gambler flinging his tickets to the floor, hating his losing horse.

Churchill said, “I’d advise your fishing readers who aspire to other than a brown trout that the waters of California are certainly a more glamorous affair.”

Relief spread through the room, even Langford-Holt slacking into his chair. The spectre of mortality lost its teeth, replaced by an unexpected interest in angling.

“And for those game readers who harbour a pash to land one of Neptune’s giants, I’d urge them to make ready for battle,” said Churchill. The memory of that day in California was vivid, a triumph of sporting happiness. “It was a dramatic experience, wrestling that marlin. We would meet, that much was certain, the marlin and I. The problem was on whose terms. I tried to haul him in, and he tried to haul me over, warring like a typhoon. I eventually drew him to me, raging and punching his head against the line. More than once he nearly succeeded in hurling me from the bow. Ho!” Churchill knocked down an amused fist. “I would have gone off behind him like a bottle rocket.”

6.30 p.m
.

L
ight made a pair of tennis shorts over the bedroom wall. A shirt dropped on the floor had developed a modest beauty, cultivating the painterly creases of a restaurant napkin. On the windowsill was a small balding plant. The magic of the late light made it gorgeous and exotic.

Esther stared from her bed, blind to these things. She lay on her side of the mattress. A hand explored the other side and it was a dictionary of loss. Up came the hand, disturbed by something disgusting. A tuft of collected fur. Over the bed, over everything, were long black hairs, a smell in the room. Black Pat had been in here? But he had been everywhere. Forget it, there were other things to think about. The bed made an angry twang. That was new. So he had crashed around on her bed and damaged the springs. She found the energy to work up a docile grunt.

A moment of decadent self-pity ensued. She wallowed. Then she quickly sat up.

“Y’ello?” It was Black Pat’s voice from downstairs. Paws made a whacking ascent. Sniffs came at the stairhead and sucked at the edges of the bedroom door, the shiny bulb of his nose against the paintwork. “Esther?”

“I’m reading.”

This was a tart and clear instruction to leave her alone. Shoving the door open, Black Pat burst through like a bowling ball smashing into fresh pins.

“Hello,” he said coolly, registering the scene on the bed. “So you were reading, were you?”

An old but unread copy of
Moby-Dick
lay peacefully by her knee, a bowl of oxidizing fruit salad on top. A bar of Dairy Milk was not completely eaten. Black Pat’s eyes veered to the book, took a scornful holiday there, and then travelled back to hers.

“It must be a riveting read.”

“It’s quite brilliant. At least that’s what it says on the dust jacket.” Esther took off a block of chocolate with her teeth.

Black Pat was moving around her, now at the foot of the bed, obscuring the wardrobe. Now blocking the window.

“But I am about to read,” Esther said. She opened the book at random. “ ‘Drink, ye harpooners! Drink and swear.…’ ” This was recited aloud, proof of how absorbed she was in the text. “So if you don’t mind, I’d like to be left alone.”

Uncooperative, Black Pat set his front legs on the sheets, lingering for her objections. She did nothing, eating more chocolate and pretending to read. This was all she did, and it was therefore an act of compliance.

The hind legs bent to jump and jumped. Entirely on the bed,
Black Pat was cartoonishly too large and heavy for it, furious twangs coming from the springs.

“Hey!” she cried in a shout. His trundling rotations trampled near her, driving great ruts in the mattress.
“Black Pat!”
she shouted again, and he didn’t hear her over his nasal humming, a tune in the spirit of housework as he obeyed the canine instinct to circle. His paws caught in the quilt and dragged it up into a nest. He dug at the nest with his claws and there was the rip of tearing fabric. A mighty ricochet went through the structure of the injured bed as he hurled himself down with an animal rumble of comfort:
“Mrrrt.”