Authors: Jonathan Coe
Then the noises started. Crashes and banging and the unmistakable sounds of a fight. Two men fighting, using all their strength on each other, grabbing whatever weapons came to hand. Grunting with the exertion, shouting and calling each other names. She barely had time to slip into her dressing-gown and turn on the bedroom light when she heard a long and terrible cry, far louder than the rest. Lights were going on all over Winshaw Towers by now and she could hear people running in the direction of the disturbance. But Rebecca stayed where she was, paralysed with fear. She had recognized that cry, even though she had never heard anything like it before. It was the sound of a man dying.
∗
Two days later, the following story appeared in the local newspaper:
Attempted Burglary at Winshaw Towers
Lawrence Winshaw in fight to the death with intruder
THERE WERE dramatic scenes at Winshaw Towers on Saturday night when a family celebration was tragically disrupted.
Fourteen guests had gathered to mark the fiftieth birthday of Mortimer Winshaw, younger brother of Lawrence – who is now the owner of the 300-year-old mansion. But soon after they had gone to bed, a man broke into the house in a daring burglary attempt which was shortly to cost him his life.
The intruder seems to have entered the house through the library window, which is normally kept securely locked. He then forced his way into Lawrence Winshaw’s bedroom, where a violent altercation ensued. Finally, acting entirely in his own defence, Mr Winshaw got the better of his assailant and dealt him a fatal blow to the skull with the copper-headed backscratcher which he always keeps by his bedside. Death was instantaneous.
Police have not yet been able to identify the attacker, who does not appear to have been a local man, but they are satisfied that burglary was the motive behind the break-in. There is no question, a spokesman added, of charges being preferred against Mr Winshaw, who is said to be in a state of deep shock following the incident.
The investigation will continue and readers of this newspaper can expect to be brought up to date with every development.
∗
On Sunday morning, the day after his birthday party, Mortimer found his loyalties divided. Family sentiment, or what little residue of it continued to lurk inside him, insisted that he should stay with his brother and help him to recover from his ordeal; but at the same time, Rebecca’s anxiety to leave Winshaw Towers and return to their Mayfair apartment as soon as possible could not be disguised. It was not, in the end, a difficult decision to make. He could never deny his wife anything; and besides, there remained a whole army of relatives who could safely be trusted with the task of helping Lawrence to recuperate. By eleven o’clock their cases were gathered in the hall waiting to be carried out to the silver Bentley, and Mortimer was preparing to pay his final respects to Tabitha, who had yet to emerge from her room after learning of last night’s shocking events.
Mortimer caught sight of Pyles at the far end of the hallway, and beckoned him over.
‘Has Dr Quince been in to see Miss Tabitha this morning?’ he asked.
‘Yes, sir. He visited her quite early, at about nine o’clock.’
‘I see. I don’t suppose … I hope nobody in the servants’ quarters is thinking that she might be in any way connected with … what happened.’
‘I wouldn’t know what the other servants are thinking, sir.’
‘No, of course not. Well, if you’ll see to it that our cases are taken out, Pyles, I think I’ll go and have a quick word with her myself.’
‘Very good, sir. Except that – I think she has another visitor with her at the moment.’
‘Another visitor?’
‘A gentleman called about ten minutes ago, sir, inquiring after Miss Tabitha. Burrows dealt with the matter and I’m afraid to say that he showed him up to her room.’
‘I see. I think I’d better go and investigate this.’
Mortimer rapidly climbed the several sets of stairs leading to his sister’s chambers, then paused outside her door. He could hear no voices issuing from within: not until he knocked and, after a substantial pause, heard Tabitha’s cracked, expressionless cry of ‘Enter’.
‘I just came to say goodbye,’ he explained, finding that she was alone after all.
‘Goodbye,’ said Tabitha. She was knitting something large, purple and shapeless, and a copy of
Spitfire!
magazine was propped open on the desk beside her.
‘We must see more of each other in future,’ he went on, nervously. ‘You’ll come to visit us in London, perhaps?’
‘I doubt it,’ said Tabitha. ‘The doctor was here again this morning, and I know what that means. They’re going to try to blame me for what happened last night, and have me put away again.’ She laughed, and shrugged her bony shoulders. ‘Well, what if they do. I’ve missed my chance, now.’
‘Missed your …?’ Mortimer began, but checked himself. Instead he walked to the window, and tried to adopt a casual tone as he said: ‘Well, of course, there are some … circumstances which take some accounting for. The library window, for instance. Pyles swears that he locked it as usual, and yet this man, this burglar, whoever he was, doesn’t seem to have forced it in any way. I don’t suppose you’d happen to know anything …’
He tailed off.
‘Now look what you’ve made me do with your chatter,’ said Tabitha. ‘I’ve dropped a stitch.’
Mortimer could see that he was wasting his time.
‘Well, I’ll be off,’ he said.
‘Have a nice journey,’ Tabitha answered, without looking up.
Mortimer paused in the doorway.
‘By the way,’ he said, ‘who was your visitor?’
She stared at him blankly.
‘Visitor?’
‘Pyles said that someone had called on you a few minutes ago.’
‘No, he was mistaken. Quite mistaken.’
‘I see.’ Mortimer took a deep breath and was about to leave, when something detained him; he turned back with a frown. ‘Am I just imagining this,’ he said, ‘or is there a peculiar smell in here?’
‘It’s jasmine,’ said Tabitha, beaming at him for the first time. ‘Isn’t it lovely?’
3
Yuri was my one and only hero at this time. My parents would save every photograph from the magazines and newspapers, and I fixed them to the wall of my bedroom with drawing-pins. That wall has been re-papered now, but for many years after the pictures came down you could still see the pin marks, dotted into a random and fantastic pattern like so many stars. I knew that he had visited London recently: I had watched the scenes on television as he drove through streets lined with welcoming crowds. I had heard of his appearance at the Earl’s Court exhibition, and the knowledge that he had shaken hands with hundreds of lucky children turned me hot with envy. Yet it had never occurred to me to ask my parents to take me there. A trip to London for my family would have been as bold and far-fetched a proposition as a trip to the moon itself.
For my ninth birthday, however, my father proposed, if not a trip to the moon, then at least a tentative shot into the stratosphere in the form of a day’s outing to Weston-super-Mare. I was promised a visit to the newly opened model railway and aquarium, and, if the weather was fine, a swim in the open-air pool. It was mid September: September 17th 1961, to be precise. My grandparents were invited on this trip, as well – by which I mean my mother’s parents, because we had nothing to do with my father’s; had not even heard from them, in fact, for as long as I could remember, although I knew they were still alive. Perhaps my father himself secretly kept in contact; but I doubt it. It was never easy to know what he was feeling, and I couldn’t say, even now, whether or not he missed them very much. He got on passably well with Grandma and Grandpa, in any case, and over the years had built up a quiet defensive wall against Grandpa’s genial but consistent teasing. I think it was my mother who invited them along with us that day, probably without consulting him. All the same, there was no hint of a quarrel. My parents never quarrelled. He simply muttered something to the effect that he hoped they would sit in the back.
But it was the women who sat in the back, of course, with me sandwiched in between. Grandpa sat in the passenger seat with a road atlas open on his knees and that distant, facetious smile which clearly announced that my father was in for a hard time. They had already been arguing about which car they should take. My grandparents’ Volkswagen was old and unreliable but Grandpa never missed an opportunity to pour scorn on the British models which my father, who worked for a local engineering firm, had a small hand in designing and bought out of loyalty both to his employers and to his country.
‘Fingers crossed,’ said Grandpa, as my father reached for the ignition key. And when the car started first time: ‘Wonders will never cease.’
I had been given a travelling chess set for my birthday, so Grandma and I played a few games to while away the journey. Neither of us understood the rules at all, but we didn’t like to admit this to each other and managed to get by with an improvisation that was something like a cross between draughts and table football. My mother, withdrawn and reflective as ever, merely stared out of the window: or perhaps she was listening to the conversation from the front of the car.
‘What’s the matter?’ Grandpa was saying. ‘Are you trying to save petrol or something?’
My father took no notice of this.
‘You can do fifty miles along here, you know,’ he went on. ‘It’s a fifty-mile limit.’
‘We don’t want to get there too early. We’re in no hurry.’
‘Mind you, I suppose this old crock soon starts to rattle if you try going above forty-five. We want to get there in one piece, after all. Hang on, though, I think that bicycle behind us wants to overtake.’
‘Look, Michael, cows!’ said my mother, by way of diversion.
‘Where?’
‘In the field.’
‘The boy’s seen cows before,’ said Grandpa. ‘Leave him be. Can anybody hear a rattle?’
Nobody could hear a rattle.
‘I’m sure I can hear a rattle. Sounds like one of the fittings or something, coming loose.’ He turned to my father. ‘Which bit of this car was it that you designed, Ted? The ashtrays, wasn’t it?’
‘The steering column,’ said my father.
‘Look, Michael, sheep!’
We parked at the sea front. The wisps of cloud streaking the sky made me think of candy floss, setting in motion a train of thought which led inevitably to a booth by the pier, where my grandparents bought me a huge pink ball of the glutinous ambrosia, and a stick of rock which I put by for later. Normally my father would have said something about the adverse effects – dental and psychological – of granting me such favours, but because it was my birthday he let it pass. I sat on a low wall overlooking the sea and gobbled the candy floss down, savouring the delicious tension between its unthinkable sweetness and the slightly prickly texture, until I got about three quarters of the way through and started to feel sick. It was quiet on the sea front. Cocooned in my own happiness, I wasn’t paying much attention to the passers-by, but I have a hazy impression of respectful couples walking arm in arm, and of a few older people striding past more purposefully, dressed for church.
‘I hope it wasn’t a mistake,’ whispered my mother, ‘coming on a Sunday. It would be awful if nothing was open.’
Grandpa treated my father to one of his more eloquent winks: in a moment it combined malicious sympathy with the amused recognition of a familiar situation.
‘Looks like she’s dropped you in it again,’ he said.
‘Well, birthday boy,’ said my mother, wiping my lips with a tissue. ‘Where do you want to start?’
We went to the aquarium first. It was probably a very good aquarium, but I have only the palest recollection: strange to think that my family schemed so hard to provide these entertainments, and yet it’s their own unplanned words, their own thoughtless gestures and inflections, which have clung to my memory like flies caught on flypaper. I do know, anyway, that the sky was already starting to cloud over as we came out, and that a vigorous sea breeze made it difficult for my mother to enjoy the picnic which we shared on the Beach Lawns, our deck-chairs clustered in a semi-circle: I can still see her bounding off in pursuit of stray paper bags, struggling to distribute the sandwiches amid the wilful flap of their greaseproof wrapping. There were plenty left over, and she ended up offering them to the man who came to ask for money for our deck-chairs. (In common with all of their generation, my parents had the gift of getting into conversation with strangers without apparent difficulty. It was a gift I assumed I would one day grow into – once the shynesses of childhood and adolescence were behind me, perhaps – but it never happened, and I realize now that the easy sociability which they seemed to enjoy wherever they went had more to do with the times than with any special maturity of temperament.)
‘Good bit of ham, this,’ said the man, after taking an experimental bite. ‘Mind you, I like a bit of mustard on it myself.’
‘So do we,’ said Grandpa. ‘But his nibs won’t have it.’
‘She spoils him,’ said Grandma, smiling in my direction. ‘Spoils him something rotten.’
I pretended not to hear, and stared so hard at the last piece of my mother’s chocolate cake that she handed it to me without a word, putting a warning finger to her mouth in a mock display of conspiracy. It was my third piece. She never used ordinary cake-making chocolate: only real Dairy Milk.