Authors: Jonathan Coe
Mark smiles. ‘Oh, I don’t think banking is for me, to be honest. I intend to be more in the thick of things. But thanks for giving me the opportunity, all the same. I certainly learned a thing or two.’
He turns and crosses the room, conscious that his mother’s eyes have never left him.
∗
Mortimer now approaches Dorothy Winshaw, the stolid, ruddy-faced daughter of Lawrence and Beatrice, who is standing alone in a corner of the room, her lips set in their usual petulant, ferocious pout.
‘Well, well,’ says Mortimer, straining to inject a note of cheerfulness into his voice. ‘And how’s my favourite niece?’ (Dorothy is, by the way, his only niece, so his use of this epithet is a touch disingenuous.) ‘Not long now before the happy event. A bit of excitement in the air, I dare say?’
‘I suppose so,’ says Dorothy, sounding anything but excited. Mortimer’s reference is to the fact that she will shortly, at the age of twenty-five, be married off to George Brunwin, one of the county’s most successful and well-liked farmers.
‘Oh, come on,’ says Mortimer. ‘Surely you must be feeling a little … well …’
‘I feel exactly what you would expect in any woman,’ Dorothy cuts in, ‘who knows that she is about to marry one of the biggest fools in the world.’
Mortimer looks around to see whether her fiancé, who has also been invited to the party, might have heard this remark. Dorothy doesn’t seem to care.
‘What on earth can you mean?’
‘I mean that if he doesn’t grow up, soon, and join the rest of us in the twentieth century, he and I aren’t going to have a penny between us in five years’ time.’
‘But Brunwin’s is one of the best-run farms for miles around. That’s common knowledge.’
Dorothy snorts. ‘Just because he went to agricultural college twenty years ago, that doesn’t mean that George has a clue what’s going on in the modern world. He doesn’t even know what a conversion rate is, for God’s sake.’
‘A conversion rate?’
‘The ratio,’ Dorothy explains patiently, as if to a dim-witted farmhand, ‘of how much food you put
in
to an animal, compared to what you get
out
of it in the end, by way of meat. Really, all you have to do is read a few issues of
Farming Express,
and it all becomes perfectly clear. You’ve heard of Henry Saglio, I suppose?’
‘Politician, isn’t he?’
‘Henry Saglio is an American chicken farmer who’s been promising great things for the British housewife. He’s managed to breed a new strain of broiler which grows to three and a half pounds in nine weeks, with a feed conversion rate of 2.3. He uses the most up-to-date and intensive methods.’ Dorothy is growing animated; more animated than Mortimer has ever seen her in his life. Her eyes are aglow. ‘And here’s George, the bloody simpleton, still letting his chickens scratch around in the open air as if they were household pets. Not to mention his veal calves, which are allowed to sleep on straw and get more exercise than his blasted dogs do, probably. And he wonders why he doesn’t get good white meat out of them!’
‘Well, I don’t know …’ says Mortimer. ‘Perhaps he has other things to think about. Other priorities.’
‘Other priorities?’
‘You know, the … welfare of the animals. The atmosphere of the farm.’
‘Atmosphere?’
‘Sometimes there can be more to life than making a profit, Dorothy.’
She stares at him. Perhaps it is her fury at finding herself addressed in a tone which she remembers from many years ago – the tone which an adult would adopt towards a trusting child – which provokes the insolence of her reply.
‘You know, Daddy always said that you and Aunt Tabitha were the odd ones of the family.’
She puts down her glass, pushes past her uncle and moves quickly to join in a conversation on the other side of the room.
∗
Meanwhile, up in the nursery, there are two more Winshaws with a part to play in the family’s history. Roddy and Hilary, aged nine and seven, have tired of the rocking-horse, the model railway, the table-tennis set, the dolls and the puppets. They have even tired of their attempts to rouse Nurse Gannet by tickling her softly under the nose with a feather. (The feather in question having previously belonged to a sparrow which Roddy shot down with his airgun earlier that afternoon.) They are on the point of abandoning the nursery altogether and going downstairs to eavesdrop on the party – although, to tell the truth, the thought of walking down those long, dimly lit corridors and staircases frightens them somewhat – when Roddy has a flash of inspiration.
‘I know!’ he says, seizing upon a little pedal car and squeezing himself with difficulty into the driver’s seat. ‘I’ll be Yuri Gagarin, and this is my space-car, and I’ve just landed on Mars.’
For like every other boy of his age, Roddy worships the young cosmonaut. Earlier in the year he was even taken to see him when he visited the Earl’s Court exhibition, and Mortimer had held him aloft so that he could actually shake hands with the man who had voyaged among the stars. Now, crammed awkwardly into the undersized car, he starts to pedal with all his might while making guttural engine noises. ‘Gagarin to Mission Control. Gagarin to Mission Control. Are you reading me?’
‘Well who am I supposed to be then?’ says Hilary.
‘You can be Laika, the Russian space dog.’
‘But she’s dead. She died in her rocket. Uncle Henry told me.’
‘Well just pretend.’
So Hilary starts scampering around on all fours, barking madly, sniffing at the Martian rocks and scratching in the dust. She keeps it up for about two minutes.
‘This is really boring.’
‘Shut up. This is Major Gagarin to Mission Control. I have safely landed on Mars and am now looking for signs of intelligent life. All I can see so far are some – hey, what’s that?’
A bright object on the nursery floor has caught his eye, and he pedals towards it as fast as he can: but Hilary gets there first.
‘A half-crown!’
She covers the coin with her hand and her eyes shine with triumph. Then Major Gagarin steps out of his space-car and stands over her.
‘I saw it first. Give me that.’
‘Not on your life.’
Slowly but purposefully, Roddy places his right foot over Hilary’s hand and begins to press down.
‘Give it to me!’
‘No!’
Her voice rises to a scream as Roddy increases the pressure, until there is a sudden crack: the sound of bones crushing and splintering. Hilary howls as her brother lifts his foot and picks up the coin with calm satisfaction. There is blood on the nursery floor. Hilary sees this and her screams get shriller and wilder until they are loud enough to wake even Nurse Gannet from her cocoa-induced stupor.
∗
Downstairs, the dinner party is by now well advanced. The guests have whetted their appetite with a light soup (stilton and steamed pumpkin) and have made short work of their trout (poached in dry Martini with a nettle sauce). While waiting for the third course to arrive, Lawrence, who is seated at the head of the table, excuses himself and leaves the room; on his return, he stops to have a few words with Mortimer, the guest of honour, who is seated at the centre. Lawrence’s intention is to make a discreet inquiry into the condition of their sister.
‘How d’you reckon the old loony’s bearing up?’ he whispers.
Mortimer winces, and his reply has a reproving tone: ‘If you’re referring to Tabitha, then you’ll find that she’s behaving herself perfectly. Just as I said she would.’
‘I saw you both having a bit of a chinwag this afternoon on the croquet lawn. You looked rather serious, that’s all. There wasn’t anything up, was there?’
‘Of course not. We’d just been for a walk together.’ Mortimer sees an opportunity to change the subject at this point. ‘The gardens are looking magnificent, by the way. Especially your jasmine: the scent was quite overpowering. Wouldn’t mind learning your secret, one of these days.’
Lawrence laughs cruelly. ‘Sometimes I think you’re as bats as she is, old boy. There’s no jasmine in our garden, I can vouch for it. Not even a sprig!’ He glances up and notices a huge silver tureen being carried in at the far end of the dining room. ‘Hello, here comes the next course.’
∗
Midway through her saddle of curried hare, Rebecca hears a diffident cough at her side.
‘What is it, Pyles?’
‘A word in private, if I may, Mrs Winshaw. It’s a matter of some urgency.’
They withdraw into the transverse corridor and when Rebecca returns, a minute later, her face is pale.
‘It’s the children,’ she tells her husband. ‘There’s been some silly accident in the nursery. Hilary’s hurt her hand. I’m going to have to take her to the hospital.’
Mortimer half-rises from his seat in panic.
‘Is it serious?’
‘I don’t think so. She’s just a bit upset.’
‘I’ll come with you.’
‘No, you’ll have to stay here. I doubt if I’ll be much more than an hour. You stay and enjoy your party.’
∗
But Mortimer does not enjoy his party. The only aspect of it which he was enjoying in the first place was the company of Rebecca, upon whom he has come to depend more and more in the last few years as a means of shielding himself from his hated family. Now, in her absence, he is forced to spend most of the evening in conversation with his sister Olivia; dry, sour-faced Olivia, who is so implacably loyal to the Winshaw pedigree that she even married one of her own cousins, and who now drones on remorselessly about the management of her estate and her husband’s impending knighthood for services to industry and the political future of her son Henry who has at least been clever enough to see that it’s the Labour Party which offers him the best prospect of a cabinet position by the age of forty. Mortimer nods tiredly throughout her monologue, and takes an occasional glance at the other faces around the table: Dorothy shovelling food into her mouth; her sheep-faced fiancé sitting morosely beside her; Mark’s ratty, calculating eyes maintaining their restless vigil; sweet, bewildered Mildred telling some shy anecdote to Thomas, who listens with all the frosty indifference of a merchant banker about to withhold a loan from a small businessman. And there, of course, is Tabitha, sitting erect at the table and not saying a word to anyone. He notices that she consults her pocket watch every few minutes, and that more than once she asks one of the footmen to check the time on the grandfather clock in the hallway. Otherwise, she sits perfectly still and keeps her eyes fixed upon Lawrence. It’s almost as if she is waiting for something to happen.
∗
Rebecca returns from the hospital just as coffee is about to be served. She slips in beside her husband and squeezes his hand.
‘She’ll be fine,’ she says. ‘Nurse Gannet is just putting her to bed.’
Lawrence stands up, raps on the table with his dessertspoon and proposes a toast.
‘To Mortimer!’ he says. ‘Health and happiness on his fiftieth birthday.’
Muted echoes of ‘Mortimer’ and ‘Health and happiness’ resound throughout the room as the guests drain off whatever is left in their glasses. Then there is a loud and contented sigh, and somebody says:
‘Well! It
has
been a most pleasant evening.’
All heads turn. Tabitha has spoken.
‘It’s so nice to get out and about. You’ve no idea. Only – ’ Tabitha frowns, and her face assumes a lost, downcast expression. ‘Only … I was just thinking how nice it would have been, if Godfrey could have been here tonight.’
There is a long pause; broken eventually by Lawrence, who says, with an attempt at jovial sincerity: ‘Quite so. Quite so.’
‘He was
so
fond of Mortimer. Morty was most definitely his favourite brother. He told me so, many times. He much preferred Mortimer to Lawrence. He was quite decided about it.’ She frowns again, and looks around the table: ‘I wonder why?’
Nobody answers. Nobody meets her eye.
‘I suppose it’s because … I
suppose
it’s because he knew – that Mortimer had no intention of killing him.’
She watches her relatives’ faces, as if looking for confirmation. Their silence is horror-struck and absolute.
Tabitha lays her napkin down on the table, pushes her chair back and rises painfully to her feet.
‘Well, it’s time I was getting to bed. Up Wood Hill to Blanket Fair, as Nanny used to say to me.’ She walks towards the dining-room door, and it becomes hard to tell whether she is still talking to the guests or merely to herself. ‘Up the long and winding stairs; up the stairs, to say my prayers.’ She turns, and there can be no doubt that her next question is addressed to her brother.
‘Do you still say your prayers, Lawrence?’
He doesn’t answer.
‘I should say them tonight, if I were you.’
∗
Drained of feeling, Rebecca lay back against the thick bank of pillows. Slowly she stretched her legs apart and massaged her thigh, easing the soreness. Beside her, his head weighing heavy upon her shoulder, Mortimer was already sinking into sleep. It had taken him almost forty minutes to reach his climax. It took longer every time; and although he was on the whole a gentle and considerate lover, Rebecca was beginning to find these marathon sessions something of a trial. Her back ached and her mouth was dry, but she did not reach out for the bedside glass of water in case she disturbed her husband.
He started to mumble something drowsy and incoherent. She stroked his thinning hair.
‘… what I’d do without you … so lovely … make everything all right … bearable …’
‘There, there,’ she whispered. ‘We’ll be going home tomorrow. It’s over.’
‘… hate them all … what I’d do if you weren’t here to … make things better … feel like killing them sometimes … kill them all …’
Rebecca hoped that Hilary was managing to get some sleep. Three of her fingers had been broken. She didn’t believe that story about it being an accident, didn’t believe it for a moment. There was nothing she wouldn’t put past Roddy, these days. Like those photographs she’d caught him with: which had turned out to be a present from Thomas, damn him …
Half an hour later, at a quarter to two in the morning, Mortimer was snoring rhythmically and Rebecca was still wide awake. That was when she thought she heard the footsteps in the corridor, stealing past their bedroom door.