Suddenly, in the whole house, the brass balls of the barometric perpetual clock were the only thing that had retained their energy. Pym ran to the kitchen. No Cookie and no Mr. Roley the gardener, whose children stole his toys but couldn’t be blamed because they hadn’t his advantages. He ran upstairs again and feeling very cold made an urgent reconnaissance of the long corridors, calling “Lippsie, Lippsie,” but no one answered. From the arched landing window of stained glass, he glared into the garden and made out black cars in the drive. Not Bentleys but two police Wolseleys. And police drivers with peaked caps sitting at the wheel. And men in brown mackintoshes standing round them talking to Mr. Roley while Cookie twisted her handkerchief and wrung her hands like the dame in the Crazy Gang pantomime that Rick had taken the court to see only a week before. People under siege go upwards, I now know, which may explain why Pym’s reaction was to race up the narrow staircase to the attic. There he found Rick in a great flurry, with files and papers on the floor all round him, and he was loading them by the armful into an old chipped green filing cabinet that Pym in all his explorations had never seen before.
“The electricity’s broken and Lippsie’s scared and the police have come and they’re in the garden arresting Mr. Roley,” Pym told Rick in one breath.
He said this several times, louder each time, because of the great moment of his message. But Rick wouldn’t hear him. He was rushing between the papers and the cabinet, loading up the drawers. So Pym went to him and punched him hard on the upper arm, as hard as he could on the soft bit just above the steel spring he wore to keep his silk shirt sleeve straight, and Rick flung round on him and his hand went back to strike him, and his face looked like Mr. Roley’s when he was about to make a huge last heave at a log to split it: red and strained and damp. Then he dropped into a crouch and seized Pym by each shoulder with his thick cupped hands. And his face worried Pym much more than the axe-heave, because his eyes were scared and crying without the rest of his face knowing it and his voice was smooth and holy.
“Don’t ever hit me again, son. When I’m judged, as judged we shall all be, God will judge me on how I treated you, make no bones about it.”
“Why are the police here?” said Pym.
“Your old man’s got a temporary problem of liquidity. Now clear a way to that cupboard and open the door for us like a good chap. Quick.”
The cupboard was in a corner behind a pile of old clothes and attic junk. Somehow Pym fought his way to the door and hauled it open. With a series of crashes Rick was slamming shut the drawers of the filing cabinet. He turned the lock, grabbed Pym by the arm and poked the key deep into his trouser pocket, which was small and woolly and only big enough for a key and a small bag of sweets.
“You give that to Mr. Muspole, do you hear, son? Nobody but Muspole. Then you show him where this cabinet is. You bring him here and you show him. No one else. Do you love your old man?”
“Yes.”
“Well then.”
Proud as a sentry, Pym held back the door while Rick swivelled and rolled the cabinet past him on its castors into the cupboard, then into the dark wainscotting beyond. Then he threw in a lot of junk after it, which hid it completely.
“See where it went, son?”
“Yes.”
“Close the door.”
Pym did so, then stomped downstairs with his chest out because he wanted to take another look at the police cars. Dorothy was in the kitchen dressed in her new fur coat and her new fluffy bedroom slippers, stirring a tin of tomato soup. She had one of those bubbles over her mouth that people get when they are too choked to speak. Pym loathed tomato soup, so did Rick.
“Rick’s mending the water-pipes,” he announced grandly, in order to keep his secret intact. This was the only meaning he could place on Rick’s reference to liquidity. Yelling even louder for Lippsie he charged into the corridor, straight into the path of two policemen labouring under the weight of a great desk that was Rick’s office when he was at home.
“That’s my dad’s,” he said aggressively, putting a hand over the pocket where he had the key.
The first policeman is the only one I remember. He was kindly and had a white moustache like TP’s, and he was taller than God.
“Yes, well, I’m afraid it’s ours now, lad. Hold open that door for us, will you, and mind your toes.”
Pym the official door-holder obliged.
“Your dad got any more desks, has he?” the tall policeman asked.
“No.”
“Cupboards? Anywhere he keeps his papers?”
“They’re all in there,” said Pym, pointing firmly at the desk while he kept his other hand over the pocket.
“Do you want a wee then?”
“No.”
“Where’s some rope?”
“I don’t know.”
“Yes you do.”
“It’s in the stable. On a big saddle hook next to the new mower. It’s a halter.”
“What’s your name?”
“Magnus. Where’s Lippsie?”
“Who’s Lippsie?”
“She’s a lady.”
“She work for your dad?”
“No.”
“Slip and fetch the rope for us, will you, Magnus, there’s a lad. Me and my friends here we’re going to take your dad on a working holiday for a bit and we need his papers or nobody can work.”
Pym raced off to the shed which was across the other side of the grounds between the pony paddock and Mr. Roley’s cottage. On the shelf stood a green tea-tin where Mr. Roley kept his nails. Pym put the key into it, thinking: green tin, green filing cabinet. By the time he returned with the halter Rick was standing between two men in brown raincoats. And I picture it still exactly: Rick so pale that not all the holidays in the world would see him right, commanding loyalty of me with his eyes. And the tall policeman letting Pym try his flat cap on and push the button that made the silver bell ring under the hood of the black Wolseley. And Dorothy looking as though she needed a holiday even more than Rick did, not choking any more, but standing still as an effigy with her white hands folded across her fur coat.
Memory is a great temptress, Tom. Paint the tragic tableau. The little group, the winter’s day, Christmas in the air. The convoy of Wolseleys bumping away down the lane that Pym has spent so long patrolling with his new Harrods six-shooter. Rick’s desk lashed to the last car with the aid of the halter from the stable. Motionless they stare after the cortège as it vanishes into the tunnel of the trees, taking our one Provider to Lord knows where. Mrs. Roley weeping. Cookie howling in Irish. Pym’s little head pressed against his mother’s bosom. A thousand violins playing “Will Ye No Come Back Again?”—there is no limit to the pathos I could squeeze out of that lemon if I worked on it. Yet the truth, when I make the effort to recall it, is different. With the departure of Rick a great calm descended over Pym. He felt refreshed and freed of an intolerable burden. He watched the cars leave, Rick’s desk last. And he continued to stare anxiously after them, but only for fear that Rick would talk them into turning back. As he watched, Lippsie stepped out of the woods wearing her headscarf and struggled towards him weighed down by the cardboard suitcase that contained her life’s possessions. The sight of her made Pym even more furious than he’d been when he’d found Dorothy making soup. You hid, he accused her in the secret dialogue he constantly conducted with her. You were so scared you hid in the woods and missed the fun. I realise now, of course, but could not at the time, that Lippsie had seen people taken away before: her brother Aaron and the architect her father, to mention only two. But Pym in common with the rest of the world cared little about pogroms in those days and all he could feel was a deep resentment that his life’s love had failed to rise to a historic moment.