What positively cheered me was the pleasure of getting back to Upper Mayhem, even if it would only be safe to stay a few hours. I would warn Bill and Maria, and give them a comfortable lodging allowance from a packet of Moggerhanger’s fivers so that they could play mummies and daddies somewhere else. I’d get there about one in the morning, pull Bill from his uxurious embrace, and have a talk about the way things had turned out at Buckshot Farm, until I fell asleep though my lips went on moving, and they had to carry me up to bed.
My head nodded at the wheel, and I saw four rear lights in front instead of two. Often there was only one, on English roads. I began to weave without realising, and passed so close to the car which I overtook — though my focusing faculties seemed more or less normal — that I must have scared the shit out of the driver. Dismal nudged my leg as if warning me to take care. ‘Go back to sleep. I can look after myself.’
‘What did you say?’
I nearly hit the verge, but it was Clegg who had spoken.
‘I thought you were asleep.’
‘Maybe I was, but I heard you say something.’
‘I was talking to Dismal.’
‘Pull in for ten minutes.’
‘I don’t need to, Arthur.’
‘You remembered my first name?’
It pleased him. I imagined his smile. ‘It just came back to me.’
‘After all this time.’ Another half mile went by. ‘Do as I say. Pull in at the next layby.’
‘Don’t worry.’ I overtook a double dose of juggernaut. ‘I shan’t kill you.’
‘I don’t expect you will. Pull in, all the same.’
‘Getting nervous?’
‘Just pull in.’
‘We’ll be all right.’
‘Pull in.’
I had to. No sooner had I switched off than I was asleep.
I felt a hand on my shoulder. ‘Come on, Michael. Time to be going.’ Clegg held a cup of tea under my nose. ‘Get this down you first.’ There was nothing like that comforting Nottingham tone to stop me losing my temper.
‘How long have I been out?’
‘An hour. But it’s enough. You’ll be all right now.’
‘We won’t get there till two.’
‘What’s the hurry? Better than not getting there at all.’
I had another beaker of tea, then lit a smoke. It was eleven o’clock. Wayland also lit up, and seemed more cheerful. ‘I think the car ride was worth it, to have such good cigars.’
He would never appreciate my favour of getting him out of Peppercorn Cottage. Maybe Moggerhanger had already sent someone to cut his throat — after last night’s fiasco. I told him, but he said with a touch of bravado, ‘You think I can’t look after myself? I’ve been in some tight spots in my life, let me tell you.’
‘I hope you get out of this one.’
I lapped our way along, to make up for lost time. I felt wide awake, having gone so deep under in that hour of sleep that it seemed like eight. I tore past everyone, never at less than eighty. What was the hurry? The highway was endless. You never got there. But I couldn’t relax the chase. My blood was up, I didn’t care what for. There was only me on the road. Others were toy rabbits in their tins, my sport to overtake. I shall overtake. He shall pursue, it didn’t matter why. If God existed, He liked it that way.
I came back to life, my sight sharp and clear. At the yellow crossbars before an island when fellow motorists slowed down I pelted along in the outer lane and pulled up only when the white line was in sight. Sometimes I hardly braked but, keeping my eyes to the right and seeing no traffic on the island, shot almost straight across. The top speed of my faculties had come back, and driving to me was like water to a fish.
We made fair time down that wonderful Great North Road. I put Wayland out in the middle of Cambridge, asking him to deliver heartfelt greetings to my old college.
‘Which one is that?’
He tried to gibbet me with biting scorn, but I disdained to answer. Couldn’t he take a joke? Not Wayland. But now that the time had come he didn’t like having to leave our covered wagon, especially in the middle of the night, though it was only half past one. He knew the town from his student days, and could kip at the station till the milk train left for London. At least he wouldn’t be hungry because, apart from money, I gave him more cigars and the rest of the sandwiches, this latter being an action which Dismal took a very poor view of, for he tried to bite them out of Wayland’s hand before he walked off with never a thank you for our hospitality.
At two o’clock I went slowly along the lane towards the old railway station of Upper Mayhem, country residence belonging to Michael Cullen Esquire. The house was in darkness, as I had expected. I thought of sounding the hooter to give Bill and Maria fair warning, but couldn’t resist seeing their shock when pulling them out of bed. Clegg and Dismal came through the gate behind while I fumbled for the key. The smell of soil and vegetation from the garden, and the sweet night air, was a real tonic. It was the first house I had owned and I loved the place. I would bring Frances Malham here and she would love it, too. She would come and see me whenever it was possible to get time off from her studies, and even after she qualified as a doctor. By then my divorce would be through from Bridgitte. I decided to get one as from that moment. Frances and I would get married. I might even think well of Uncle Jeffrey and forgive him for what he had done to Maria. Or hadn’t done. I still couldn’t be sure. It wasn’t his fault that his vasectomy hadn’t worked. I would ask him and his family to stay the weekend. I’d even hang a car tyre from the footbridge for his kids to swing on. Frances would bloom in a place like this, lying back in a deckchair in the sunny garden, the two top buttons of her blouse undone. Maybe she’d even be pregnant. How could someone of my age think like that? I was twelve years older, so she probably looked on me as a dirty old man.
A radio was playing, but it was between about three stations. The noise came from the living room. Just like those irresponsible lovebirds to leave it on. At least it was a sign of life, and I felt quite affectionate towards them, as if carelessness made people human and mistakes made them — almost — divine. I switched on the light.
All I know is that I didn’t say anything. A catalogue of woes and curses would be needed to describe what I saw. The radio was going because it had been smashed open with an iron bar. The indestructibility of technology was a delight to see, but that was about all I could say for it at that moment. Half the time I had never been able to get that gimcrack Russian radio going, but Kenny Dukes seemed to have had no difficulty. He had simply laid the back open with the poker. Cupboard doors were hanging off. The dresser had been pulled over and Bridgitte’s heirloom Dutch pots smashed. Chairs were ripped and the table lay on its side. I shut the door and ran upstairs.
Perhaps they had given up by this time, or taken Bill at his word. Unless he and Maria had got out, before reaping the whirlwind on my behalf. The beds had merely been tipped up. As if domesticated to my fingertips, I went from room to room and put them right before going back downstairs.
‘Looks like the worst’s already happened,’ Clegg said.
There was no sign of the large buff envelope I was expecting from Matthew Coppice. Perhaps they had found that as well. I checked the letterbox and it was empty. I pulled the batteries out of the radio to stop it squawking, while Clegg righted the table, shut the cupboards and set the chairs upright. It didn’t look much worse than the shambles after one of my quarrels with Bridgitte in the early days. Dismal lay in front of the fireplace, in which the ashes were still warm from when Bill had kept a blaze permanently going to brew tea in case they cut off the gas and electricity. I put my hands in them. ‘They were here this evening.’