mind before his disappearance.
‘Did you think Bob was behaving funny?’
‘No, there was nothing unusual, though it was odd he didn’t turn
up Sunday morning. He’s usually pretty reliable.’
‘Did he talk to you about wanting to be a stable boy?’
‘Yes, I know all about him and horses. He did talk about it a lot,
to tell the truth, but I didn’t take an interest.’
‘Did he ever talk about going to work for some Hurst?’
‘Hurst? Nah, can’t remember. Doesn’t ring a bell. He talked about
Cheltenham, though. Thought it was the usual pie in the sky, if I’m honest. In one ear and out the other.’
‘Was he having second thoughts about getting married?’
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‘Yes, now you mention it, he did say he felt marriage was a bit like a noose around his neck. Have you thought of going to the police?’
He knew he must sit tight, ticking over the minutes and the hours
and the days and the weeks. After three weeks, he took a few days
off and, saying that he had to visit an aunt in Weston- super- Mare, took the long train journey to London and from there to Cheltenham. He found a boarding house, where he was on his most
charming behaviour and took a room for two nights, paying in
advance. Over breakfast he told the landlady that he was from Lon-
don and considering taking up an executive post with the local
council.
‘Would you object to receiving mail for me until I move up
permanently?’
‘No, Mr Mannion, not at all,’ she had said.
‘There’s no need to forward anything. I’ll be back regularly to
pick stuff up. There’ll be nothing urgent.’
He opened a new account at Lyons Bank in Cheltenham in the
name of Robert Mannion, giving his newly acquired address. He
showed the clerk Bob’s driving licence and chequebook as evidence
of identity, together with the letters and statements he had gathered from Bob’s room. At Martins Bank, just down the same street, using
the name Mannion again, he said that he was moving permanently
to Cheltenham to work with horses, and requested that his account
be transferred to the local branch.
Back in Essenham, there was still no word of Bob Mannion’s
whereabouts. When he saw Roy in the pub that weekend, Mr Man-
nion told him conspiratorially that his wife wept every evening.
Mr Mannion was spending much more time in the pub now than he
ever had.
‘At least we got a postcard this morning. From Cheltenham. It’s a
relief. At least he’s alive.’
‘I should still contact the police if I were you,’ said Roy.
‘No. He obviously doesn’t want to be here. The agony his
mother’s been through, though.’
Nearly four months after Bob’s death Roy was ready to make his
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move. Summer had arrived, days that seemed almost never- ending.
The skies across the Fens were unimaginably large and the high,
long clouds that dashed through did not threaten rain. He gave his
notice to Mr Cole in a low- key fashion and said he was going to try his luck in the Smoke, paid his landlady, packed his belongings in a small suitcase, newly purchased from Parke’s department store in
King’s Lynn, and took the evening train to Liverpool Street.
Having found lodgings in south London, he paid a brief final visit
to Cheltenham as Robert Mannion, to transfer his remaining funds
from Bob’s Martins Bank account to the new Lyons Bank account.
He left instructions to transfer that account and its funds to its Clapham branch. He relayed the bad news to his prospective landlady
with an expression of deep regret that the post, after all, had sadly fallen through.
Now he was able to start afresh.
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1
Bob Mannion. How odd that he should come to mind. Roy cannot
recall any particular sense of sadness. It was all utility, the requirement for immediate response and action. Even today he is impressed
by his ability to corral his thoughts and proceed logically. And that winter. The coldest for over two hundred years. No one had thought
it would ever come to an end. For Bob it hadn’t.
Roy now feels, if not sorrow, a kind of regret at Bob’s death,
mindful at the same time that in dying Bob had delivered him a
route out of his plight, stranded on the Fens, left behind by the
floods. Having moved back to London, he had become submerged
in the metropolis, after a short time cautiously able to dip into the bank account he had opened in the name Robert Mannion with
Bob’s money, even occasionally to be Mr R. Mannion, indeed Roy
Mannion, when it served his needs.
Over the years the natural accretion of identity had occurred,
that circular evidencing and self- referencing that came to prove
beyond doubt that he was Mannion. The availability of an alterna-
tive persona, backed by official documents, has been more than
useful. At times the challenge had been to maintain the flickering
self that was Roy Courtnay. It is possible, though unlikely, that
shortly he may need again to take the wraps off Mannion and give
him one last lap of the circuit. Depending, that is, on how things go with Betty and how assiduous and litigious her family choose to
become.
Regrets? He’s had a few, especially when he and Vincent had had
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to do over Martin, Bernie, Dave and Bryn. Especially Martin, the
poor sod. But not really. Live by the sword et cetera, et cetera.
But Bob Mannion. Really. What has triggered that thought? The
strange chemistry of the brain.
To his surprise, he is crying. His reflection in the mirror confirms this. He sees his long, tired face, those eyes once fierce and now
merely mournful, and the streaks of tears running down sagging
cheeks. He places his razor carefully on the basin and grips its sides with both hands to steady himself as he sobs.
Bob was like all those others left behind, he tells himself. Once in the past they might as well be dead. Thinking about them: to him,
it’s a waste of time and energy. For him, they are dead anyway.
Maureen, he knows, is in the public eye. Formerly a junior minis-
ter in the Department for Education, she now pronounces from on
high in the House of Lords, a vociferous and rather irritating sup-
porter of the deprived and sundry minorities. Easy from such a
privileged vantage point. Perhaps he should have backed that par-
ticular horse for a little longer. It had, though, just been a fork in the road. For him she too is as dead as Bob, and has been since that day he walked out of their dingy Clapham flat.
Those sisters, all those years ago. They had needed a lesson too.
And received one. The elder ones had laughed at his gaucheness.
The younger one had humiliated him. They had all learned.
Lord Stanbrook’s son, Rupert, whom he once dandled on his
knee, is now the ailing fifth earl, with the scandal- beset feckless playboy son. Rupert’s own father, Charles, is long departed.
He hasn’t kept tabs on them. He’s picked bits up in the media and
the rest he’s just invented. It doesn’t matter. Dead. All dead. To him, leastways. And none to be grieved, save perhaps Bob. Bob was a
good lad, like Vincent is but in a different way, impressionable in the right way, malleable. And who could argue that Bob, in his death,
had not been extraordinarily helpful?
‘Fuck!’ he shouts loudly. There is yet fire in his belly. ‘Fuck.’
What is he doing? Rambling away like some muttering old pen-
sioner. Get a grip, man. At least now he knows when he’s drifting.
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The time may come when he doesn’t even realize it. Better dead
than gaga. But he knows he isn’t. He doesn’t forget. He remembers
everything. Dementia isn’t his problem; fixity of purpose is. Losing the will to strive is what he fears.
‘Fuck,’ he says again, more quietly as he regards the face in the mirror with a cold dispassion. He does not particularly like what he sees.
‘Roy?’ calls Betty from downstairs.
‘Yes?’ he replies.
‘I heard you shouting. Is everything all right? Are you OK?’
‘I’m fine, my dear,’ he replies evenly. ‘I thought I’d cut myself
shaving. Not so nimble as I once was. But it’s all right. Sorry. ’Scuse my French.’
2
He has begun recently to call her ‘my dear’ more often. Too often,
really. At first it was occasional and hesitant; now it is close to automatic, especially when he chooses to be patronizing. Which is not
infrequently.
She is not sure whether this is a considered process of establish-
ing himself yet more prominently in her life, or whether it is entirely unconscious. Need she fear a proposal? The thought of his attempting to go down on one knee is almost enough for her to dial 999.
Finally, she supposes it is harmless and quite sweet in its way, if sweet were ever a term one might use in connection with him. And
she remains glad that he is still here.
They have had their sandwich lunch and she has lit the gas fire.
They sit together in the living room, she with her book and he with his hands in his lap, bored and irritable.
‘What do you really think of women?’ she asks, for want of some-
thing better to say.
Roy’s heart sinks. Not one of those interminable discussions that
come from nowhere, head in no direction that he can distinguish
and seem calculated to humiliate him. He’d had enough of that
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to last a lifetime from Maureen. But better not turn this into an
argument.
Men and women, he thinks. Two completely different species.
‘What do you mean, my dear?’ he asks civilly, but glaring.
It appears she is not going to be put off. ‘I suppose our genera-
tion’s accustomed to a different relationship between the sexes.’
Give me strength, he thinks. But he retains his composure.
‘Oh, I don’t know,’ he says, treating the question as though it
were reasonable enough. ‘I’m not an expert on these things.’
‘You don’t have to be an expert, surely?’
‘Well, no. I didn’t mean that. I’ve known a few women in my life.’
He hopes the arch smile might do the trick.
‘Yes?’ says Betty.
‘And. And, well, I’ve always found that I get on with women. See
eye to eye with them. Lots of men don’t, you know. I like women.
Especially you.’
‘I understand that. But in general? The differences between men
and women?’
He thinks: they do like to talk, don’t they?
‘Well, I could ask the same question of you. What do you think
of men?’
‘Fair enough. I find men these days more insecure than they
were. There are plenty who seem utterly secure in themselves.
Rather more secure than they should be, in reality. But . . .’
He looks and listens.
‘ . . . overall men seem less . . . solid . . . than they were. And more full of spite. I suppose it’s only natural. As we’ve become “liberated”. Though I can’t say I feel especially liberated,’ she continues.
‘Before, our roles were clearly defined. But two wars have seen all of that change.’
History, he thinks. More history. She’s bloody lecturing me. Good
God. But he beams polite attention at her.
‘I suppose it’s only to be expected that men should feel unset-
tled and threatened. Not that women seem to be the winners,
particularly.’
‘Hmm,’ he says.
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‘One sees more extremes. Lack of confidence, but also aggres-
sion. Expressions of insecurity, both of them.’
‘I suppose so,’ he says. ‘I’ve never lacked confidence.’
‘No, but that’s you, isn’t it? You were taught to be in charge.
Simply because you’re a male. You were conditioned not to think of
things any differently.’
Saved a lot of bloody time too, he thinks.
She continues. ‘What I’m saying is that men no longer quite
know what they’re supposed to be.’
‘Weak, a lot of them. We’re pretty straightforward when it comes
down to it. No complications, no hidden emotions. Don’t think I’m
against women’s rights. But men who are unsure of their quote
unquote identity are drama queens. I just think we are who we are
and getting on with things is all we can do. Thinking too much can
get you into all kinds of grief.’
And talking.
‘So, women. What are we like?’
‘Where do I begin?’ he says, smiling. ‘Marvellous. Wonderful.
Confusing. Frustrating. Illogical.’
She says nothing. He knows he is striking the wrong note but
cannot find the right one.
‘What I mean is,’ he ventures, ‘I’m all for a bit of mystery between men and women. If I had it all worked out I’d be a much unhappier man.’
‘I thought you did have it all worked out,’ she says, smiling.
Good. We may be making our way back to terra firma.
‘Oh no,’ he says. ‘Certainly not. Everyone has to have an answer
for everything these days. Not me. If we just lived a little, did what we were good at, toned down the thinking, we might all be a bit