No Enemy but Time (12 page)

‘Why the hell should I worry myself about money,' he would demand, glass full of whiskey in hand, warming his backside by the fire after a day's sport. ‘I've made provision for all I'm ever going to need!' And he'd join in his guests' laughter.

‘Does he really believe it, Daddy?' Claire asked her father one evening when they were back at Riverstown, after a long wet day and a huge hunting tea.

‘Believe what, darling?'

They were sitting in the study at home, toasting by the fire before going in to dinner. Frank was stretched out in an armchair, eyes closed, as if he were half-asleep. Claudia was still upstairs, resting after her bath. She'd led the field with Tom for a five-mile point at the end of the day.

‘Believe he'll turn into a fox when he dies,' Claire said.

Philip Arbuthnot smiled. He adored his daughter; he couldn't resist putting a hand on her head and ruffling the bright blonde hair. She reminded him so much of Claudia. ‘I think he does,' he answered. ‘He's spent enough money on the idea anyway. And if it makes him happy, what's the harm?'

‘But when he dies, we'll never be able to hunt in Meath again, in case it's
him,'
Claire pointed out.

Philip laughed at the simple practicality. She was such a natural, uncomplicated child, unlike his son. You never knew for sure what Frank was thinking. He'd loll in his chair as he was doing then, and suddenly come out with some remark that made everyone else uncomfortable. He was going to public school in England after the Christmas holidays were over. It was a late start because of the poor education he'd received at the local Protestant school. He should have gone away to prep school at eight, but Claudia didn't want him to feel rejected just because there was a baby half-sister, so he stayed at home. A tutor and a year's hard studying had just helped him catch up. Even so, without his father's family connection he wouldn't have scraped through the entrance exam. It might be difficult for the boy to go so late, but there was no other way of educating him properly. Philip hoped he would take advantage of the chance and do his best.

‘Dad.' He saw his son sit up, lean forward and look at him with the wary expression that irritated him so much. ‘Dad, I saw Mr Ross out today.'

‘Oh, did you?' The Reverend Hugh Ross was headmaster of the local boys' boarding school in Meath. A worthy churchman more addicted to hunting than to academics. Philip hardened in anticipation of what his son was leading up to.

‘We had a few minutes waiting around,' Frank said.

Claire saw his hands clench and thought, ‘Oh, poor Frank, he's trying to say something that will make Daddy cross.'

‘Did you?' his father repeated. ‘I didn't even see him to say good day to.'

‘He says there's a place at Barraclough, if you'd let me go next term.' He looked down at his hands and then back at his father. It had taken the last half-hour to muster the courage to mention the subject yet again. Listening to Claire chattering about that old lunatic Tom Reynard while he pretended to be dozing and was framing sentences in his mind. It wasn't going to work. He could see by the set of his father's mouth. Anxiety urged him into further risk.

‘I'd work very hard, Dad. I'd do just as well, I promise you!'

‘I'm sure you'd work,' Philip answered. ‘You've done very well to reach your present level. But it needed a full-time crammer to get you there and you're still below average. I've explained it often enough to you, Frank, and I wish you'd accept what I say. An Irish education isn't good enough for someone in your position. None of our family went to school over here. Even Claire will go to England to a decent finishing school, and she's a girl. There's no question of your going to Barraclough, and I shall have a word with Mr Ross!'

‘He's only trying' to help,' Frank protested. Everything about his father said the subject was closed. ‘I'm Irish,' he said, and it sounded aggressive because he didn't want his voice to quiver. ‘I don't want to go to England!'

Claire opened her eyes very wide and sat very still. It was the first time in her life she'd heard Frank say something bold to his father. Some kind of crisis had developed in the last few minutes, and she didn't know why she felt afraid.

Philip Arbuthnot's colour faded. ‘You're an Arbuthnot,' he said. ‘And you're not going to grow up an Irish yob! You go to school in England, and that's the end of it!'

The boy got up. He was tall and thin, his strength outgrown. For months he had lived with the fear of this exile to England, among boys a year younger than himself, separated from his home and his family for a reason he rejected. Fear of his father and fear of the strange environment fused into a passionate anger. At last his father had put into words what Frank had known instinctively lay between them.

‘If you say that about the Irish, why did you marry my mother?'

Claire burst into tears. She started to sob out loud. Philip had started out of his chair and half raised his hand to strike his son. Now he turned away.

‘Go to your room,' he said. ‘Don't you ever dare speak about your mother like that to me. Get out!'

Claudia opened the door. She was flushed and handsome after her rest, wearing something red, with ruffles round the neck. Claire saw her as a red blur through the tears.

‘Good Lord, what on earth …' she started to say as Claire wept, but Philip interrupted.

‘Frank's not having dinner tonight. And I think Claire's had a long day. Go upstairs with Mummy, darling, and you can have a light supper and early bed.'

Frank brushed passed his stepmother and went upstairs. He locked the door of his room. He didn't break down at once. He tried to keep the anger at its peak; he cursed his father, and slammed his fist on the chest by the window so that the photograph of his mother overbalanced and fell on its face. He turned it over. He couldn't flesh her out, however hard he studied the picture. She was just a girl with a sweet smile and a pretty face, her hair drawn back into some kind of fishnet behind. The fashion of fourteen years ago. She could have been any girl in any photograph.

Claudia was real. Claudia, with her made-up face and her bad language in the hunting field, a powerful image which overwhelmed the memory of the frail Irish girl who hadn't survived his birth. She was no mother to him because she'd taken his real mother's place. He didn't like her energy and her enthusiasm; she made too much noise in his life. She had stopped trying to make him like her; that was a relief. The one good thing she'd done was to give him Claire as a sister. If she hadn't started crying, what might not have happened between him and his father?

He slumped down on his bed and gave way to a brief and painful fit of crying. It was over and he was undressed when the knock came on his door. He thought it must be one of the maids with some food sent up by Claudia. It was the sort of thing she'd do, thinking it wrong to punish a boy by making him go hungry.

‘I don't want anything, thank you. I'm going to sleep.'

‘It's me,' Claire said. ‘Let me in, Frankie, please.' She was in her dressing gown and her face was pink and puffed from crying.

‘What are you doing,' he whispered. ‘You'll get into the hell of a row being out of your bed. Go back, like a good girl.' He couldn't push her out.

She shut the door and climbed on the bed. ‘What's the matter with your eyes? You've been howling!'

‘No, I haven't!' he denied it fiercely. ‘You're the bloody cry-baby, not me.'

‘He was going to hit you,' she said, and her mouth turned down at the corners. ‘Don't be cross with him. I'll ask him not to send you to school. But don't say anything more to make him cross!'

The big blue eyes were brimming over again and he sat beside her and put one arm around her. He should have known it was her, creeping out to comfort him.

‘I won't,' he promised. ‘I'll go to his bloody school, but they won't make an Englishman out of me.'

She leaned her head against his shoulder. ‘I don't want to go away either,' she said. ‘You heard him say I'd go to England too. What's a finishing school?'

‘I don't know,' Frank said. She should go back to her own bed and not risk either of them getting into more trouble, but he liked having the silly little thing cuddled up to him like a rabbit. It was warm and he didn't feel lonely when she was there. She'd cried because she thought he was going to be hit.

‘If he hits me,' he said, more to himself than to her, ‘Bejaysus, I'll hit him back.'

Claire lifted her head, catching the first word. ‘You mustn't say that,' she murmured. ‘Doyle says “Bejaysus”. Mummy told him off for saying it when I was there. Mummy says “Christ”, I've heard her. So does Daddy. What's wrong with what Doyle says?'

‘Doyle's the gardener, that's what.' And he's Irish, Frank added to himself. I'm not to say ‘Bejaysus'. I'm not to grow up an Irish yob. I'm to be like you. Whether I feel like you or not. I'm to forget that half of me is different.

‘What are you saying to yourself?' she asked him. She was feeling sleepy and reassured. She yawned.

‘Nothing for you to know,' her brother said. ‘Come on, Clarry, go to your bed.'

‘All right. Kiss goodnight?' It was their ritual, ever since she'd been able to string words together.

‘Kiss goodnight,' he said, wanting her to go. He felt hurt and angry and older than he'd ever felt in his life before. The child belonged back in her nursery.

Claire offered her cheek and then planted a hard kiss on his. Both arms were round his neck in a stranglehold.

‘I love you,' she said. ‘You're my best brother.'

‘Philip, you'll have to talk to him,' Claudia said. ‘You can't leave it and have this thing festering about his mother.' She lit a cigarette. They'd finished dinner and were sitting in the study together. For some reason she remembered how awful it was when she first moved in after their marriage. Pink and flowery – in terrible taste. It was a full year before she felt able to suggest redecoration.

‘There's nothing festering,' he said irritably. ‘He just said the first impertinent thing that came into his head. He's scared stiff of going away to school and all this “Irish” nonsense is just an excuse to get out of it. He's going to Rowden and that's final!'

‘I expect he is scared,' she said reasonably. ‘Weren't you, at his age?'

‘I'd already been away since I was nine,' Philip retorted. ‘We kept him at home and mollycoddled him, that's the trouble. Oh, no, darling, I'm not blaming you. You wanted him to settle down and accept you, and then Claire came along – I was furious with him for upsetting her like that – and he was allowed to slack and play the fool at that damned school till he was right behind. That's all there is to it.'

‘It's not,' she said, ‘and you know it. He feels alienated.'

‘Claudia, don't go quoting those bloody child psychology books at me! Alienated, my foot!' He reached forward and rattled the poker in the fire.

‘You should talk to him about Eileen,' she insisted. ‘I tried once, but he just clammed up completely. I felt he resented it. He's looking for an identity and he hasn't found it with you.'

‘I told him about his identity tonight,' he snapped. ‘I told him he was an Arbuthnot. If he doesn't like it, he can lump it.' He attacked the fire again, breaking up the turf.

Claudia didn't say anything. She was full of words, but she was too wise a woman to speak them. He didn't love the boy, that was the real trouble. And the boy knew it. Was it because in some way he blamed Francis for his mother's death – or was the reason less dramatic? What he'd found acceptable in a girl because he loved her aroused antagonism in a son. It was the mixed blood he didn't like, the native Irish in Francis that lived uneasily with all that dour Scots ancestry. But he would never admit such a thing.

She loved Philip and their life was happy in all respects. But he had hardened after Eileen died. He had broken the rules and the punishment had warped him. For years Claudia had tried to reconcile him to his mother. It was hopeless. He said flatly that she had upset Eileen and brought on premature labour. He had never seen or spoken to her since.

At last she said, ‘Philip, does Frank know how much you loved Eileen?'

‘I don't understand you.'

‘Yes you do. Have you
ever
talked to him about her? It might help if he realized how much you did love her.'

He sighed and reached to take her hand. ‘You're an amazing woman, you know. How many stepmothers would think of that? No, my darling, I haven't discussed Eileen with Frank, and I don't intend to. He's my son and I love him, just as I love Claire. I shall do my very best for him and, if anything you say is true, getting away to a different atmosphere with other boys will be the answer. Rowden is a fine school and it'll give him plenty of sports and develop a side of him which could never see the light of day in Ireland. He'll learn there's more to being a man than hunting and lolling about the place. Now, give me a whiskey before we go to bed. And stop worrying about the boy. He'll be fine in the morning.'

The morning came, and they breakfasted together. Nothing was said. Frank didn't apologize and Philip behaved as if nothing had happened. At the beginning of January Frank travelled to England with his father to start his first term at Rowden. He got long, ill-spelt letters from Claire every week, telling him what Doyle had done, and how Mary the cook was going into hospital, and the Labrador had taken first prize at the Eadstown Field Day. His father wrote a regular monthly letter and, after Frank had been at Rowden for two years, one of the letters told him that his grandmother Blanche Arbuthnot had died, and left him all her money and her house in Meath.