Mr. Chartwell (21 page)

“No matter.” Churchill gave her a game nod. “We shall re-launch. Take that sheet and confound it to the floor.”

The act of throwing the crushed paper, littering Churchill’s carpet: Esther smiled at how much Dennis-John would purple. She visualised this purple Dennis-John as the paper became a ball. Over it went, now there on the floor. More paper was fed into the platen knobs, the paper bail reset. The mood between Churchill and Esther warmed from the difficult distance of strangers. They became two unenthusiastic and melancholy allies driven together to complete a duty. Churchill took in a breath, drove it out, took in another, started again. The psalm melody of his words tolled over the beams. It was a speech of compassion for his country, a farewell to his career.

Esther hunched to type, the alphabet printing through the ribbon. They fell into a rhythm of concentration. And then it happened.

Footsteps. Deviant steps. Esther gambled a look at the study door. In soaked the distinguished stink. Her eyes dealt an ill stare at Churchill. What should they do? Esther watched Churchill for clues. His frown had formed dour hooks. The intensity of Esther’s watching caught his attention and he repaired the gap in his dictation, moderating his frown, believing she was waiting for him to continue.

“Let us not be men of straw.” A grey smile from Churchill. “We should keep going if we are to finish this damned exercise.” And they carried on.

Awful, the door eased open. In he walked, that beast. He walked with a pantomime sneak, careful not to wake the children, this Santa Claus from the underworld. Black Pat was using a quavering voice, the voice of a very elderly woman, singing “Tiptoe Through the Tulips.”

Esther tried to focus as Churchill spoke. It was useless. Black
Pat performed his way across the room and bashed down like a sack in between them. A grin fought the seal of his lips.

Churchill noticed the direction of Esther’s gaze. No. No, she couldn’t see it.
Behave
, he told himself.
Behave logically, by Jehovah
.

Esther acted normally and was a terrible actor. The smiling secretary, she gave Churchill a smile and searched through the options. All options were poor: Churchill could see Black Pat—it was certain, Esther knowing this absolutely. But what of her ability to do the same? Esther wanted to shout it out and be bankrupt. She wanted to clench Churchill’s hand and tell him she knew, to grip his cuff in a hard twist and tell him.

Instead she did nothing. The noble action was no action, for to discuss the dog would violate a guarded privacy, exhuming the bones of a family of secrets. It would be grave robbery. The dog’s genius was to make orphans of hope and brotherhood, and she was united with Churchill in their isolation.

Esther feigned consummate ignorance. She swiped with the small clogged brush of correction fluid, making a job of it. She told herself briskly that no black dog was in the room, no black animal had discovered the ball of crushed paper and was toying with it, no giant nose sporting with a soggy paper ball.

Lying on his side Black Pat sent the ball tumbling. He bunted his body after it, claws driven into the carpet as he dragged on his stomach. Claiming the paper, his prize was to eat it. Noisy and disgusting, his happy jaws mashed the ball into a fibrous slop. Esther instructed herself to be completely unaware.

Churchill slowly worked the hinge of a spectacle arm, wondering. He was supremely talented at concealing his acknowledgement of the dog, suffering with the self-discipline of a
samurai. But this Esther Hammerhans was less experienced. The kicking glances she sent, those unintentional jumps of her hands, they were a log of revelations. Here was another one—Esther’s cemetery expression as that louche bastard tongued her shoe, drawn there by a fascinating scent. Another revelation came in her tight blast of annoyance as the beast knocked her with his huge head.

Impossible. But could it be possible? No, it was unquantifiable. Churchill reached a conclusion and tore it up. He came back to the same conclusion and sat with it. Might it be that she could see this living expletive, this gimcrack kraken, this … Churchill restrained his wrath, putting a stilling hand on it.
Keep studying, be sure
. A discreet slap as Esther threw Black Pat’s reeking paw from her shoulder, and she was found out.

Esther bobbed from the paw, begging between locked teeth, “Stop it.”

Black Pat said, “Don’t think I will,” the clowning paw going for her shoulder.

Churchill put a thumb to his lip. Esther was new to the four-legged poison, that much was obvious. It was clear in her anxiety, the shock of it still fresh. A few days at an estimate, a week, certainly the first time. Yet the dog was upon her. And he had done much already, his passion betrayed in those loving little looks. Churchill saw it as he had seen it in others. His father, his daughters, his son. Himself. And if given time the animal would thin her down in the same way, for what the dog captured it possessed and starved. So then what? A matter this sensitive required rare tactics.
Toe forwards
, Churchill thought.
Toe forth
. He said with extreme care, “Some days, such as this one, I find about as beguiling as a breakfast of death cap toadstools.”

He observed her. Was she with him? It seemed not, her
cheeks stewing with embarrassment as she ignored Black Pat. Difficult to ignore, the dog dived around on the floor, chasing her shoelaces and grunting.

“For some days seem to offer only the promise of spreading increasing discomfort to the days ahead.” Churchill made a purse of his mouth. “I thought I’d mention it; my suspicions told me you may understand what I mean.”

No, not quite. Esther waited for more. Black Pat also waited, the shoelaces forgotten.

“It’s during these unforgiving times,” said Churchill, “I can discover I’m permitting myself to lurch into a state of
nostalgie de la boue.
”

“Sorry, de-la-what? Nosta-what?”

“It literally translates,” Churchill told her, “as a longing for mud, a curious appetite for depravity. For me it’s caused by the occasions when I turn to the horizon and see advancing an army of storms. In the presence of overwhelming apprehension, thoughts can tempt towards surrender, towards accepting direct defeat.”

Esther’s finger bent and met a key on the typewriter, tapping there. If she understood correctly then this was a veiled reference to Black Pat. Here was an unusual dilemma.

“But”—above the tortoiseshell spectacles, Churchill studied Esther—“this
black
mental annotation is not to be viewed as truthful, it is only a kink in the link.” He stopped to gauge how far to push it. They were on tender ground. He urged her to meet his taciturn advances with her own.

Black Pat wasn’t playing anymore. He lay on the floor, quiet and dangerous.

She spoke at last. “I’ve heard that phrase before.”

“I’ll wager that you have.” Churchill let her watch him clip a
clear, patent glance at the dog. “And it’s not all you’ll have heard.”

So they were talking about their mutual companion. Esther absorbed this. In it went, this uniquely weird information. Then out it came, too weird to be retained. Black Pat’s sense of caution was tuned on all frequencies, a powerful attitude radiating from him.

Churchill added, “And to anyone who has listened to such falsehoods, I would advise this: Mendacity is bilge, mendacity through a bullhorn is merely loud bilge.”

“Loud bilge …” Esther sounded apologetic.

“I fancy I’m trying to express that what seizes our attention is not always what should hold our attention.” Very steadily Churchill’s gaze brewed. “For, Esther Hammerhans, the demands made on us by corruptive forces can sometimes be challenging to filter. We can believe we are making a choice based on the evidence placed before us, but it’s not a choice if the evidence comes from a goon community.”

Churchill paused, distracted by the surprising difficulty of the subject. Ah, a new angle.

“It should be stated that the blackest words deserve no more heed than intestinal wind.”

Should it be stated? Esther worked at this statement in a heroic effort not to laugh, moderately successful.

He said, “Do you follow?”

“I nearly follow. Maybe if …” The words tactfully died out.

“Har.” Churchill relayed his arguments back to himself, finding them comically obscure. A valiant attempt, yes, but at an abstract tilt. He gave it another shot.

“In every life’s landscape there are prairies and caverns …”—a hesitation dithered and then drove on—“… and a path cuts
into the recesses as well as the highland. Some paths cut far further than others, cutting into deep caves.” Churchill registered his name whispered from the floor. He snubbed it. “And so be it, if that’s the course. But I would never venture to the caves if other options were available to me, and should this be the solitary option, I would still exhaust all spirit resisting.” A scowl aimed quickly at the whispering, threatening it. “And more than that, above all else, I dearly hope I would perform no action which assisted these darker journeys. If it happens, then I strive to tolerate it; however, I will never consent to the descent.”

“Which can get tiresome.” Dry and flat, Black Pat’s voice came from the floor and got no attention.

Esther listened to Churchill.

“Stand firm. Offer no help, no hand to …”—Churchill broke off, setting his jaw in determination—“… to the hostile forces who would have you do otherwise.”

The dog moved one of his hind legs and made a flabby sound. Esther wasn’t interested in him. Inside her a tiny but voracious optimism sent out its horns. She looked at Churchill and looked away. She looked at Black Pat and speculated. She looked at the past few days and saw the coming days differently. Black Pat goofed about, keen to divert her. Hard to divert; he leant his head and took a clump of Esther’s skirt. Delicious; he gave it a tug. The skirt pulled taut to the point of ripping.

Churchill mourned that she didn’t have the spice to thrash the dog.
Thrash him
, he silently commanded, as Esther wrestled her skirt with dainty fury.
That retaliation
, thought Churchill,
has the spice of white bread
.

“May I proffer some immediate advice?” he said to her, watching from his chair. “Take immediate action.”

How to do this … a complex task when in company, the
rules of the situation prohibiting an overt action. Esther took an indecisive swig from her cup of tea. The skirt fell from Black Pat’s teeth as he became suspicious, the speed at which she drank needing inspection. He leapt up to crane at the cup.
Perhaps
, thought Black Pat,
the tea is laced
. An explanation, a good one. His nostrils sent a report from the rim of the mug and declared him a romantic fool. Black Pat went sullenly back to the floor.

Although it was an action of sorts, it was totally, bonelessly spiceless. Churchill popped his knuckles, widely unconvinced it would endure. Before him on the desk was a photograph of Clementine taken when she launched the aircraft carrier H.M.S.
Indomitable
. The monochrome photograph showed her from the waist, face turned high, a white smile, the brimless hat worn at an angle. Here she was, his Clementine, the beautiful shadow of her jawline leading to an elegant earring as she smiled at the H.M.S.
Indomitable
twenty-four years ago. It was aptly a favourite photograph, a crucible image which seared off all but the sense of rushing, rooted love and the word
indomitable
. An exceptional pairing, Churchill thought, steeling in times when the stomach was unhorsed.

Remembering Clementine, Churchill also remembered the speech. That cursed thing still needed to be hacked out. And Clementine, she would want him down for dinner. “Clementine,” he said, “will be expecting an opus, the time we’ve spent here. How much have we got?”

Left to form her own trance, Esther snapped out of it. “About a paragraph. But if I scratch off the correction fluid we could stretch it to a page.”

“That’s a plan B,” answered Churchill. “B for ‘bumptiously bad.’ ”

“Right,” said Esther. “Let’s start again.”

Yes, Churchill agreed, it called for a new sheet. “Otherwise your team at home will be gathering reinforcements, about to begin a search.”

“Sadly not.” Esther gave him the breezy non-smile. “There’s not much of a team since I now live there alone.” Here came an admission: “Practically alone.” Here came another one: “There used to be two of us with my husband, Michael.” The final admission was a clue, her eyes underlining it. “Although Michael would have perhaps argued that there were three.”

Churchill translated the hieroglyphics of this statement. The tone she used was a rich description and the picture expanded swiftly. “Presumably he had a guest?”

Esther said yes and then changed it. “In the way that guests stay in a home which is not theirs. In that way, yes. Not in the typical way of necessarily being invited.”

“That’s the thorny issue with unbidden guests,” said Churchill. “They can be sweetness itself, refreshing company and a radiant surprise, or they can prove to be …”—he allowed himself a ginger grin—“… a
bête noire.
”

Black Pat preened at this, basking.
“C’est vrai.”

Esther was folding a piece of paper, creating an origami nothing. “But what—” she said and lost her thread. He hesitated for her to find it. Instead she said, pleasing Black Pat, “Should we continue with the dictation?” Too hard to talk of; her nerve had failed. “Otherwise,” she tried to make light of it, “we’ll be typing and dictating all night.”

“Shepherd’s delight,” said Black Pat.

Fair enough, Churchill agreed. And the valedictions commenced.

Black Pat schemed from his carpet position. This transference
of notes between Churchill and Esther, this delicately coded support … he sensed a delinquency in her, in both of them.

“I wanted to let you know …”—Esther’s typing slowed and ended. She spoke quietly to Churchill—“that it’s been very provoking to meet with you today, despite whatever else today has been.”