Water Theatre (51 page)

I heard the note of entreaty in her voice, but such a visit was the last thing I wanted. “I'm not sure, Grace.” I said. “I'll try to come if I can.”

When I drove up to Calderbridge that Friday, I found my mother sitting alone in the house among her potted plants,
staring at the television, elfin-thin and pale, with shadows round her eyes as though grief had permanently bruised her there. Her appetite for food and life had vanished.

“It never feels like there's much point cooking just for one,” she said, “and if I do throw something together I can't face it when it's done.”

When I insisted on taking her out for a meal, she said that she hadn't the heart for it, and that it would be just a waste of money, but I refused to hear her protests. “What do you think Dad would say if he saw you like this?” I challenged her. “He'd not be happy to see you letting yourself go. He'd tell you to get out and enjoy yourself while you have the chance, wouldn't he? So come on. Go and put a nice frock on. We're going out, you and me. All right?”

I took her to a restaurant of which I'd heard good reports and told her to ignore the prices on the menu. When a ginand-tonic had relaxed her a little, we talked about old times together, laughing over some of my impossible behaviour when I was a boy, and fondly remembering my dad. Eventually I said, “I've been thinking, mum. Maybe you should get a job. Not just house-cleaning once or twice a week. A proper job. One that will keep you occupied and interested and gives you the chance to be with people.”

“What could I do?” she asked. “I'm too old to be a barmaid these days. The only thing I know is cleaning. Who'd want me for anything else?”

“You never know. We'll have a look in the paper when we get back, and see what's on offer. I bet we can fix you up with something.” After a pause I added: “And while we're on the subject, there's something else I wanted to tell you:
I've
been lined up for a new job as well.”

She listened in silence as I described the posting to Africa, nodding when I assured her that I would be given regular leave to come back home.

“It won't be like Vietnam, will it?” she asked eventually.

“Not at all.” I made no mention of the war against Portuguese rule in Angola and the brutal conflict between Nigeria and the break-away state of Biafra. “In any case, I won't take the job unless I'm sure you're going to be all right back here.”

“You know I'll not stand in your way,” she said at once.

“The point is I need to know you're not just sitting at home on your own all day, grieving for Dad and worrying about me. You need a bit of new life. And you could do with some new friends. Now come on, let's enjoy this meal. We'll talk about it again in the morning.”

The next day I opened the curtains on the view of Gledhill Beacon looming over the town under a dour sky. A solitary patch of sunlight brightened the rim of the quarry, which was gradually, year on year, reshaping the contours of the hill. Nothing stayed the same, it seemed – nothing except the knowledge that, however far I travelled across the world, this landscape would always speak to my soul in my native tongue.

Later that morning, I took my mother shopping in Calderbridge, and we bumped into Grace as she came away from the butcher's shop in the Market Hall.

“I see we've both got sons at home this weekend,” she said to my mother. “How are you doing, my dear? You're looking brighter than the last time I saw you.”

“It's been a treat having our Martin back. He's lifted my spirits no end.”

“I'm so glad. I wish I could say the same for Adam. He turned up late last night. We weren't expecting him.”

“Isn't Efwa with him?” I asked.

“No, she isn't,” Grace said pensively. “I haven't had a chance to talk to him yet, so I'm not sure what's going on.” Standing outside the butcher's stall in the smell of meat and sawdust, she fixed me with a meaningful stare. “It's a shame you and Adam weren't in touch. You could have travelled up together. Is there any chance you might come and visit us tomorrow? I'm sure Hal and Adam will be glad to see you.”

“I don't know,” I prevaricated. “I think I should spend all the time I can with my mum. Especially with this new posting coming up.”

“Oh don't you worry about me,” my mother volunteered. “I'm used to being on my own these days. You get on out to High Sugden, lad, and meet your friends.”

“Tomorrow then,” Grace said with a smile, before I could speak again, “round about tea time?”

The Sunday morning was spent doing a job my mother hadn't been able to face alone – sorting out my father's clothes and shoes. To the hollow sound of bells pealing across the town, I bagged up his charcoal-grey suit, his sports blazer and flannels, his cricket whites, a few shirts and ties and a reasonably new topcoat, all of which I would take to a charity shop when I got back to town. I had just finished putting the bags into the boot of my car when my mother came down from her bedroom holding a tin caddy.

“Will you deal with this for me?” she asked, averting her eyes from my puzzled frown. “While you're out on the tops. He loved it up there. I think it's best.”

She handed over the caddy. The label stuck to its side said:
The Macerated Remains of Mr John Reginald Crowther, 48 Gladstone Terrace, Calderbridge
.

I looked back at my mother. Her eyes were brimming with tears.

I drove out to High Sugden knowing that I would make up the fourth corner in a quadrangle of deceit. For if Grace had betrayed Hal, and Hal had betrayed both his wife and his son, while Adam alone had kept faith, hadn't I, one way or another, betrayed them all? Not least myself? And however one interpreted that tangle of treacheries, it seemed impossible that so fraught an occasion could pass without disaster. For if the truth about Hal and Efwa was revealed, my own name might be
cleared and a way opened back into Marina's confidence – but who knew what degree of anguish must be endured before that could happen? How long could it be before Grace's pain and rage drove her to throw in Hal's face the fact that she had long since cuckolded him with one of his best friends? And once that secret was out, what hope could there ever be of winning Marina back? These bleak questions jarred in my brain as I sat at the wheel of my car that Sunday afternoon, barely conscious of the road around me.

Halfway up the lane from Sugden Foot to High Sugden, I pulled over by a field gate in a dry-stone wall and picked up the caddy. Getting out of the car, I saw how an old stone stile beside the gate gave onto a sloping pasture of rough grass, where a flock of sheep grazed on the tussocks. At the top of the field a rugged slab of rock shaped like the head of a giant saurian jutted from the outcrop.

The wind barged at my shoulders as I crossed the grass with the caddy gripped in my hand. Panting, I made the last steep ascent around the lower ridges of the rock face, up a narrow cleft onto its flattened topmost surfaces and out onto the slab. I stood there for a time, gazing down on the sheep and the wooded lower valley. To the east lay a more distant prospect of derelict mill buildings and chimney stacks, and the glint of water where the river poured its torrent into Sugden Clough.

With almost suffocating sadness in that fresh, wild air, I unscrewed the lid of the caddy and looked inside. It was perhaps three quarters full of a buff-coloured granular powder, not the grey ashes I'd expected. This was all that now remained of the body which had once filled out the clothes packed into the boot of my car. A body from which, some thirty years earlier, the seed of my own existence had been sown.

I looked up to check that the wind pushing at my back was not about to change. With a sweep of my arm I sent the remains of John Reginald Crowther blowing out across the steep slope of that Pennine hill. The swarm of grains lifted with the wind,
hung for a moment as though seeking the right direction, and quickly dispersed on the bright air.

Then I turned back to the car, heavy-hearted, and drove to meet whatever wretchedness might be waiting for me at High Sugden.

Three other cars already stood in the yard. I parked close to where the water clattered into the trough, and saw Grace walking towards the house down the path that led up onto the tops. A little way ahead of her loped a single English setter which raised its head when it spotted me getting out of the car. Halting briefly to sniff the breeze, it barked and came bounding down the track.

“You've lost one of the dogs,” I called as Grace entered the yard.

“Hengist died a couple of months ago,” she answered. “We had to have him put down, poor old chap!” She knelt to tousle the ears of Horsa, who stood beside me, panting, with his tongue lolling from his flews. “We miss him dreadfully, don't we, sweet boy?”

“I'm sorry to hear that. How's Adam today?”

“Desperately miserable, I think. He's been in bed most of the time since he arrived. And he won't talk to me: you know how tight-lipped he can be when he's in trouble. I'm sure things can't be going well with Efwa. You haven't heard anything, have you?”

“I haven't seen him for ages,” I said.

“No? Well… I know how much your friendship has always mattered to him. Let's see if you can't open him up a little. Come on in. I'll put the kettle on.”

As soon as we went through into the hall we heard the muffled sounds of raised voices coming from Hal's study up the stairs. Grace stood with her hand gripping the carved owl on the newel post, looking up the wide oak treads at the gallery beyond. “That doesn't sound good,” she said. We both strained
to make out the words but could distinguish only the tone. On both sides it sounded heated and bitter.

A bang came from the study, as of a fist crashing down on a desk. I felt Grace catch her breath beside me. Hal's voice shouted something that might have been, “Just get out. Get out.” And then more clearly as the study door opened, “Just get out of my bloody study and leave me alone.”

“All right I'm going,” Adam shouted back. “God knows why I thought there was any point trying to talk to you in the first place! It's hopeless! And you know what sickens me most? It's the thought of how much I admired you once. When I think of the times I've tried to defend you against Marina! But she's right. You're just an egotistical bastard who cares about nothing but his own selfish interests. You've never been a father to me. You've never really listened to a word I've said. As for real feeling – I don't think you'd know a real feeling if it exploded in your face.”

“Don't you dare talk to me like that,” Hal shouted. “You know nothing about my feelings. Nothing.”

“So what does that tell you? That you've never known how to show them, right?”

“I don't want to hear any more of this.”

“Of course you don't – because you can't bear to face up to the fact of what a fucking disaster you are. A disaster as a father. A disaster as a husband. A disaster as a politician. A complete fucking failure of a human being.”

“And what are you then?” Hal demanded. “A weakling who couldn't stand a bit of intellectual pressure at Cambridge. Someone who's thrown up every opportunity that's been put his way for want of courage and moral fibre. No wonder you come snivelling to me with some sob story about your wife. If you were any sort of man you'd have taken better care of her.”

Then Grace's voice rang out up the stairs. “Stop it.” she shouted. “Stop it at once. Both of you.”

The air of the house hung about our heads, still as dust.

Grace stood white-faced at the foot of the stairs, her eyes tightly closed as though against intense neuralgic pain. But Adam had turned on his heel and walked along the gallery to the top of the stairs where he stopped and shouted “Bastard! Bastard!” at the study door, which was slammed shut against him.

He got halfway down the stairs, staring at us, amazed to find us standing in the hall as witnesses to his rage and humiliation. Then he stopped, sagged down on one of the bare oak treads and sat, still trembling with rage, holding his head between his hands.

“My darling,” Grace gasped. “My poor, poor darling.”

“Leave me alone,” he snapped, fending her off with a flap of his arm. “Just leave me alone, will you?”

“You mustn't take any notice of him,” Grace said. “Your father's been terribly depressed lately. He doesn't know what he's saying.”

“He knows exactly what he's saying,” Adam snapped back at her. “He knows exactly how to undermine what little confidence I have. The man's a monster. I don't know how you can bear to live with him. You should have left him years ago.” When his mother failed to answer, he stared down at me, his face filled with hostility. “What the hell are you doing here?”

“Grace asked me to come and see you. Both of you. You and Hal, I mean.”

“Oh yes? I suppose you're going to tell me you agree with him – that I was a fool to marry Efwa in the first place? That I've thrown my life away? Unlike you, of course, who's turned out to be just the sort of son that bastard always wanted? Well, as far as I'm concerned, you're welcome to one another. He's never been a father to me. I'd sooner die than be the kind of son he wants.”

“Adam” – Grace reached out to him – “you mustn't think that way. It can only hurt you. What's been happening? What's happening between you and Efwa? You have to talk to me.”
But Adam merely sat on the stairs with his head in his hands, staring down at his feet.

Grace glanced helplessly at me. I had no idea what to say or what to do. My strongest desire was to be out of that wretched house and running through the clean, wild air of the tops, running till my breath gave out or the blood burst in my ears. “Could you get us something to drink, Grace?” I said instead. Then I looked back at my friend. “Come away from there, Adam. Let's go through into the sitting room. Let's try and talk.”