Part 28 (2/2)

I went over to Thomas. 'Come on. There's still life ahead.'

Without looking up, he said in a dull sort of agony, 'You don't know... It's too late.'

I said 'No' without great conviction, and then the front door opened with a bang to let in the two girls.

'h.e.l.lo,' they said noisily, bringing in swirls of outside air. 'Granny turned us out early. What's going on? What's all this gla.s.s on the floor? What's all the blood on your arm?'

'A bottle got broken,' I said, 'and I fell on it.'

The young one looked at the bowed head of her father, and in a voice that was a devastating mimic of her mother's, vibrating with venom and contempt, she said, 'I'll bet it was Dear Thomas who broke it.'

Berenice heard for herself what she'd been doing to her husband. Heard what she was implanting in her own children. The revelation seemed to overwhelm her, and she sought for excuses.

'If we had more money... If only Malcolm... It's not fair ...'

But they had two cars, thanks to their trust fund, and a newly-built townhouse, and Thomas's unemployment had brought no immediate financial disaster: money wasn't their trouble, nor would it cure it.

'Why didn't you get a job?' I said. 'What did you ever expect of Thomas? That he'd set the world alight? He did the best he could.'

Quantum in me fuit...

I wanted a son,' she said flatly. 'Thomas got a vasectomy. He said two children were enough, we couldn't afford any more. It wasn't fair. Malcolm should have given us more money. always wanted a son always wanted a son.'

Dear G.o.d, I thought: flat simple words at the absolute heart of things, the suppurating disappointment that she had allowed to poison their lives. Just like Gervase, I thought. So much unhappiness from wanting the un.o.btainable, so much self-damage.

I could think of nothing to say. Nothing of help. It was too late.

I went across to Thomas and touched him on the shoulder. He stood up. He didn't look at his family, or at me. I put my hand lightly under his elbow and steered him to the front door, and in unbroken silence we left the wasteland of his marriage.

Sixteen.

I took Thomas to Lucy's house.

It seemed to me, as I drove away from the pretentious Haciendas, that Lucy's particular brand of peace might be just what Thomas needed. I couldn't take him to Vivien, who would demolish him further, and Joyce, who was fond of him, would be insufferably bracing. I frankly didn't want him with me in Cookham; and Donald, influenced by Berenice, tended to despise him.

Lucy was in, to my relief, and opened the front door of the farm cottage where she and Edwin led the simple life near Marlow.

She stared at us. At my red arm. At Thomas's hanging head.

'Sister, dear,' I said cheerfully. 'Two brothers needing succour come knocking at thy gate. Any chance of hot sweet tea? Loving looks? A sticking plaster?'

Edwin appeared behind her, looking peevish. 'What's going on?'

To Lucy, I said, 'We cracked a bottle of gin, and I fell on it.'

'Are you drunk?' she said.

'Not really.'

'You'd better come in.'

'Ferdinand has been on the telephone,' Edwin said without welcome, staring with distaste at my blood as we stepped over his threshold. 'He warned us you'd be turning up some time. You might have had the courtesy to let us know in advance.'

'Sorry,' I said dryly.

Lucy glanced swiftly at my face. 'This is trouble?'

'Just a spot.'

She took Thomas by the arm and led him out of the tiny entrance hall into her book-filled sitting-room. Edwin's and Lucy's cottage consisted of two rooms downstairs, which had been partly knocked into one, with a modern bathroom tacked on at the back. The stairs, which were hidden behind a latched door, led up to three rooms where one had to inch round the beds, bending one's head so as not to knock it on the eaves. Laura Ashley wallpaper everywhere covered uneven old plaster, and rag rugs provided warmth underfoot. Lucy's books were stacked in columns on the floor along one wall in the sitting-room, having overflowed the bookcases, and in the kitchen there were wooden bowls, pestles and mortar, dried herbs hanging.

Lucy's home was unselfconscious, not folksy. Lucy herself, large in dark trousers and thick handknitted sweater, sat Thomas in an armchair and in a very short time thrust a mug of hot liquid into his unwilling hand.

'Drink it, Thomas,' I said. 'How about some gin in it?' I asked Lucy.

'It's in.'

I smiled at her.

'Do you want some yourself?' she said.

'Just with milk.' I followed her into the kitchen. 'Have you got any tissues I could put over this mess?'

She looked at my shoulder. 'Are tissues enough?'

'Aspirins?'

I don't believe in them.'

'Ah.'

I drank the hot tea. Better than nothing. She had precious few tissues, when it came to the point, and far too small for the job. I said I would leave it and go along to the hospital later to get it cleaned up. She didn't argue.

She said, 'What's all this about?' and dipped into a half-empty packet of raisins and then offered me some, which I ate.

'Thomas has left Berenice. He's in need of a bed.'

'Not here,' she protested. 'Take him with you.'

I will if you won't keep him, but he'd be better off here.'

She said her son, my nephew, was up in his bedroom doing his homework.

'Thomas won't disturb him,' I said.

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