The Long Shadow (12 page)

Ivor’s first and only failure. No wonder he had never spoken of it. No wonder, either, if he had chucked Minoan Crete for good and all, and had embarked on the Aristophanes translations by which he had first made his name. The only wonder was that he had ever kept such a memento of failure at all.

Probably he had forgotten all about it. It must have been buried deep, under layer after layer of the accumulations of his more successful years.

Who, then, had unearthed it now, and why? It must have been among those piles of papers that had been shoved first into Dot’s room and then up to the attic. If it had been here, in the study, all the time, she’d have come across it long ago.

Who, then, had brought it in here? Who could have wanted, late last night, to be messing about, all by themselves, with this ancient, yellowing, irrelevant pile of manuscript? And what, finally, could they have been doing with it that had resulted in the pages being scattered this morning all over the floor, as if a great wind had blown through the room?

N
OBODY, NATURALLY, KNEW
anything about it.

“Linear
what
?”
said Cynthia, reaching for the salad-cream; and Dot, with her eyes fixed reproachfully on her stepmother, remarked that if only people wouldn’t keep messing about with everything, then this sort of thing wouldn’t happen.

“But I
wasn’t
That’s the whole
point.
I’d never even
seen
the thing before,” Imogen protested; and Robin laid down his fork with a sigh and remarked that the excitement was killing him.

“
Manuscripts
?
In Dad’s
study
?
You’ll be finding soil in the garden next,” he observed: and, “Talking of the garden,” Cynthia prattled on brightly, “I noticed yesterday that that poor laburnum tree, which Ivor loved so much …”

When he wasn’t threatening to chop it down, that was, for being too near the house: a sort of love, perhaps, peculiar to gardeners? But before Imogen could decide whether Cynthia’s sentimental and somewhat unpredictable recollections were ever worth the contradicting, she was interrupted by Vernon, who burst suddenly and rather quietly into tears over his second helping of meat loaf.

“Minos!” he sobbed. “Where’s Minos? Why didn’t we bring Minos?”

Not Minos of Crete (though no doubt the discussion about his grandfather’s manuscript had reminded him of the name), but Minos of Twickenham. Minos the ginger Tom, who had been part of the Twickenham household since before Vernon was born—had, indeed, been taken over as part of the fittings when Dot and Herbert, newly married, had moved into the house, more than ten years ago.

Not that the partnership had been without its ups and downs.

“That cat should be doctored,” Dot had declared, approximately
once a week, throughout the first decade of the joint ménage, and then gradually, as Minos came up towards his middle teens, the complaint had begun almost imperceptibly to change into “That cat should be put away”. Often, Minos would rouse himself at this, and come stalking over for food, as if he had come to the conclusion that “Put Away” must be his name. He was a resourceful cat; he had managed to live out his life under Dot’s disapproving eye without (so far as one could judge by his torn ears and battle-scarred appearance) any loss of quality; and now, at nearly sixteen, he clearly had the whole thing taped, down to the last creak of the refrigerator door. Vernon and Timmie he still treated as the upstarts they were. He permitted no liberties, but now and again, on cold winter nights, he would condescend to sleep, heavy as dough, on one or other of their beds.

This was the somewhat restricted relationship which Vernon was now so desperately bewailing. Soon Timmie, who didn’t like meat loaf anyway, was joining in.

“We want Minos,” they sobbed, in heart-rending unison. “Where’s Minos? Can’t we go and fetch him
now
?”

The urgency of it was terrifying, coming as it did after three weeks of total indifference, during which neither of them had so much as referred to the cat’s existence. In vain did Dot raise her voice above the hubbub to explain how happy Minos was with kind Mrs Timmins coming in to feed him twice a day: in vain, too, did Imogen seek to take advantage of the situation by saying loudly, “You’ll be going home, anyway, in a few days”—glancing sharply at her stepdaughter as she did so. But Dot had her can’t-hear face on, and the potatoes were getting cold; and presently, what with syrup sponge for pudding, and Piggy putting her head round the door to say was all that water supposed to be dripping on to the front steps?—what with all this, the little drama died down for the time being.

It started up again, though, at bedtime, as these things do. The pleading, eager faces, rosy from a hot bath, were hard to resist, as were the pathetic, merciless little voices. It was Herbert,
finally, who cracked. He came slinking guiltily down from saying goodnight to them, and announced shamefacedly, that he had promised to fetch Minos tomorrow. He’d make a detour after work, going in by car specially for the purpose.

Tomorrow
?
Had he gone quite crazy? How many times did Dot have to remind him that Tuesday was her Bridge afternoon, when she
had
to have the car. Did Herbert really not want her to have any social life
at
all
in this place? Did he really intend to deprive her of her only pleasure in the whole week, and all for the sake of a miserable smelly old cat who ought to have been put away years ago?

“Talking of being put away years ago—” Cynthia was beginning conversationally, when a sharp little gasp from Dot stopped her in her tracks. Herbert, too, had gone quite white; but of course that might have been the Bridge party, and all that it portended for him of guilt and recrimination.

Cynthia stared from one to the other of them, bewildered, and slightly affronted.

“I was only going to ask, if anyone should come across my 1958 cheque-stubs among Ivor’s things … I mean, they must have been put away
somewhere
all these years … I don’t see why you all have to look so shocked!”

She pouted, and seemed about to flounce from the room; but Dot had by this time recovered herself, and hastened, with
unwonted
cordiality, to smooth things over. Yes, of course the cheque-stubs must be somewhere, no one would have thrown them away. She’d make a point of looking out for them….

On this note of unwonted amiability the conversation came to an end. Cynthia took up her embroidery, Dot her magazine; and Imogen, looking on, wondered what on earth could be the matter. Normally, Dot and Herbert would have gone on and on for hours over such an issue as the Cat and the Bridge Party, with Herbert giving in about everything, and Dot (who could never take yes for an answer) loudly countering, point by point, all the arguments that he could have mustered in support of his point of view, if he’d still had a point of view.

As the evening went on, tranquil and unruffled, with never a cross word from anyone, Imogen grew more and more uneasy. Marital harmony was all very well, but what about the cat? Herbert had promised the children he would fetch it, and now he was going to break his promise. Well, of course he was; to expect otherwise was like expecting the butterfly to lay out the entomologist with a well-directed swipe of its gauzy wing.

It was a shame, especially with Vernon only barely recovered—if he was recovered—from last night’s mysterious alarms.
Perhaps
this sudden fuss about Minos was an instinctive response to shock; perhaps he really did need the familiar, cross-grained old creature.

Then and there, Imogen decided to go tomorrow and fetch the cat herself. It would save a lot of argument: the children would be happy; and it wouldn’t be Herbert’s fault. And as for herself, a surreptitious visit to Twickenham was an idea she had been toying with for some time. A chat with Mrs Timmins, and perhaps the people next door as well, would surely provide some clues as to Dot’s intentions? You can’t leave people looking after your cat indefinitely, without a word about the date of your return.

*

It was strange to be getting out at Twickenham station and walking through the streets on foot, just like someone who wasn’t Ivor’s wife at all. Always before, she and Ivor had come by car, flashing past the neat suburban gardens, taking the quiet Sunday morning corners with an irritable squeal of tyres, just to show the world how much Ivor disliked and disapproved of this convention of family visits.

“I hate that house,” he’d say, as if this provided a solid and irrefutable excuse for exceeding the thirty-mile limit and
screeching
to ostentatious and insulting stops for pedestrians on crossings. “I’ve always hated it,
you
know
I have”—just as if the house and its inhabitants were all Imogen’s fault and not his at all. And on Sunday, too, and the whole tiresome business of being a grandfather … why couldn’t she
do
something about
it, instead of just sitting there with her hair nicely back-combed?

And then, disembarking at Dot’s front gate, he’d slam the car doors with punishing violence, and turn to glare balefully up at the stucco and the lace curtains.

“I was divorced from there,” he’d mutter darkly; and on this festive note would proceed, like a prisoner to the gallows, up the path towards Sunday lunch with his family.

Depressing memories were what he complained of; but of course it was boredom really. Vernon and Timmie being made to tell him how they were getting on at school, than which there was nothing he wanted to know less. Dot and Herbert in an anxious huddle, hissing to one another about how much sherry there was left. Apple pie with too many cloves, and smothered in hot yellow custard. It simply wasn’t Ivor’s scene.

“I have a boring daughter,” he’d once said, wonderingly, to Imogen, as if this was an aspect of his personality that he’d never really come to grips with; and Imogen hadn’t quite known how to reply for the best. She’d wondered, sometimes, why he
consented
to come on these expeditions at all—and, indeed, why Dot continued to invite him. It must, she concluded, be some kind of reciprocal family image they were keeping up: she the devoted daughter, he the revered patriarch. Being revered is never cheap, and if, in Ivor’s case, the price was sitting in front of the television waiting grimly for it to be teatime—well, in other ages it would have been some other price, and this, too, Ivor would undoubtedly have paid.

*

The winter sun struck straight into Imogen’s face as she turned sharp left out of the High Street and into Dot’s road. So bright it was, and so near the winter solstice, that it seemed to shine horizontally right into her eyes out of the blue, freezing sky. It dazzled her, making it hard for her to read the numbers on the gates, or to recognise one leafless lilac from another as they leaned motionless over identical gravel paths.

Thus it was that when she first saw the FOR SALE board,
she quite thought she had mistaken the house. It must be No. 32, or No. 36, into which she was inadvertently turning.

But no. It was No. 34 all right. For a moment she stood staring stupidly.

“It
can’t
be …” was her first thought; and then, “But surely Herbert would never leave his greenfly?”

His roses, of course, really; but since it was always the greenfly that one was hearing about, it was difficult not to think of them as the central attraction. She stared again at the board.

Why?
Why
?
Where were they moving to, and what for? And why hadn’t they said anything to anyone? Not a word … not a hint…. Almost in a state of shock, Imogen walked slowly up the gravel path, took out the key that had been in Ivor’s possession all those years, and opened the front door.

More than half the furniture was already gone. What was left was covered with dust-sheets. Even the carpets were gone, or were rolled up, stiff as mummies, against the walls, and in the silence the floorboards creaked horribly under her feet.

How
could
Dot do such a thing! And so secretive, too, so sly, without a word to anyone, not even her own children! Herbert, no doubt, had been told—must, indeed, have had his consent wrested from him for whatever it was that Dot had in mind—but it would have been the merest formality. Darling, we’re emigrating to New Zealand on the 18th. That job in
Wolverhampton
, dear, I’ve just drafted your application. You see, dear, it’s Vernon’s catarrh we need to think about. I’ve told you over and over again that he needs the sea air, and now the doctor says … Or—here it comes!—Listen, Herbert, dear, why don’t we sell up and go and live with poor Imogen? That big house … no mortgage to pay … a resident baby-sitter always on tap….

The nerve of it! Imogen felt anger rising to replace the stunned bewilderment that had been her first reaction. Furiously, she stumped back down the ghostly, uncarpeted stairs, across the hall which echoed like an underground cavern to her noisy
footsteps
, and found herself in the kitchen.

Here, at last, in all this dead house, there were signs of
habitation. Dirty crockery in the sink. A frying-pan with a fish-slice in it stood on the cooker, and beside it a kettle that still seemed slightly warm … and at this same moment she felt a stir of living air against her shin, a warm weight pushing, vibrating … Yes, it was Minos, all cupboard-love and purrs of welcome.

Just to show goodwill, she opened one of his tins of Kat-o-Meal and emptied it into his dish, though in fact it was obvious that he was getting plenty to eat. Mrs Timmins was doing well by him, that was plain. His coat, which had been looking very mangy and faded when Imogen had last seen him, was now quite glossy again, and he looked much younger than his phenomenal sixteen years. Friendly, too, and much less censorious and crotchety. In fact, after he’d finished his meal, and Imogen had made herself a cup of tea (rather to her surprise, there was fresh milk in the fridge—Mrs Timmins was certainly doing Minos proud)—after all this, the cat allowed himself to be picked up, and actually sat purring in her lap for several minutes—an honour so rare and unusual that Imogen allowed her tea to get cold rather than risk disturbing him.

He must have been really lonely, she decided, to be showing such unwonted affection, and she began to consider seriously how to get him home. He was a big, determined cat, and might spring from her arms in panic if she tried simply to carry him. A
cardboard
box, then? Or a basket? She decided to go across the road and discuss the problem with Mrs Timmins—who in any case must be told that she was being relieved of her charge. And Imogen would ask her, also, about this extraordinary business of selling the house. She could hardly help knowing something about it, even if Dot had attempted to keep it secret from her own family.

*

I’m sorry, Mrs Timmins is away. No, I’m sorry, I’ve no idea … No, she never said nothing about any cat, not to me she didn’t. Why don’t you ask them at Number 36 …?

No, they didn’t know anything at Number 36, either. Well, if
the cat’s all right, that’s the main thing, isn’t it? Well, why don’t you leave a note, then? Whoever comes in, they can read it.