Books and papers had been pulled from shelves, broken and torn. An orang-utan gone mad. Tables and chairs upturned, smashed, ripped, thrown, kicked, whirled about and trampled as if a fragmentation grenade had done its work. Not one piece belonged to any other.
He walked over paper and glass and set a chair on its legs, put the mahogany table back in place, awestruck at the damage yet lightheaded with satisfaction that in old age his father had shown there to be more than one part to himself. At the same time as immersing himself in this wilful mayhem he had stacked maps and notebooks in a corner and left them — for me, Herbert knew.
He smiled, as if within the one seam that mattered he knew the old man almost as well as he knew himself, and in some quirky way even better. In his fight to the death Hugh had been influenced by a barbarous dignity at the iniquity of having to die, but within it had left a final message saying that he also had lived his life as two people. Unable to give in to it he had waited till the last moment to make the gesture.
Maud stood behind. ‘Now you know. But it wasn’t like his true self to do such a thing. He was never like that. Not in a million years. A week ago he told me about a pain at the top of his head. Only lasted a few minutes, while he was in the garden. He said it was like a small plate of steel pressing into his skull. Then it went away. I wanted him to get a check up, and he said he would if it came back.’
When everyone had gone from the funeral, a deadly calm set over the house. Lord of the manor — though his mother might dispute that — Herbert sat in the lounge. Two bottles of the best Languedoc had been finished at dinner, and he felt more than half drunk, while noting that his mother could soak it in like a trooper. ‘He couldn’t have had a better send-off,’ she said ruefully.
Some of the mourners had looked curiously at him because he wasn’t in the army, thinking what a pity he wasn’t made of the same stuff as his father. It was good that the old world stayed with us a bit to be written about. ‘Yes, it was quite impressive.’
Such a verdict confused her, though maybe there was more of Hugh in him than she had supposed. ‘That novel of yours, Herbert, it’s very skilful, and I was amused by some of it, but I can’t really feel people live like that, these days.’
An uncompromising retort was squashed. ‘Father knew they did. They were his soldiers in both wars.’
She was happy at the mention of Hugh. ‘I suppose they were. He was glad to know you had the decency not to use your real name. He appreciated that.’
The unceremonious attack needed no response. Maybe calling himself Bert Gedling had been nothing more than a long march towards finding a pseudonym — all that his deception and exile had been for. If so, what a waste. ‘Did he like the book?’
‘Yes, said it was first rate.’
‘I’m sorry he didn’t tell me.’
‘He knew I would. Probably didn’t think you needed to be told. On one level he was disappointed in you, but on another he was proud.’
You can’t have everything, nor did he expect it. ‘Are you going to stay on here, Mother?’ He pulled another cork and filled both glasses, to dull his pain but most of all hers. ‘Let’s drink to Father. He’d like that.’
She laughed, whinnying and tearful. ‘We’ve drunk to him already, but if we do it again I know he won’t mind.’
‘You could get a flat in Chelsea,’ he said, lighting a cigar of his father’s. ‘We’d be able to meet nearly every day.’
‘I belong here.’ She looked around to confirm that the furnishings would support her. ‘It’s only a few miles from where I first set eyes on your father.’
‘The house is rather large, though.’ A bloody mausoleum that should go under the hammer.
The swig she took was enormous. ‘I’m a soldier’s widow. We know how to manage. But what are your plans for the future?’
A widow could meddle more openly. He didn’t care about the future. Living a few days ahead had always been good enough, the only way possible. ‘I’ll go on as I am, and come and see you when I can. You’re only a couple of hours or so from Town.’
‘And if it were five or six?’ she smiled. ‘Don’t feel obliged. I wouldn’t put up with that.’
The cat used his stretched-out legs as a ramp to get on to his lap. Stroking its silky fur, he wanted to go on talking, as if his father’s death made him more voluble. ‘I see myself earning a living as a writer. But I can’t be bothered to think about the future, which has a way of looking after itself.’
‘It’s a healthy attitude,’ she said. ‘That’s how Hugh looked at life, and why he was so happy — or at least never unhappy.’
‘I may get married, though. Deborah’s her name.’
This interested her enough to pick up the glass again. ‘Is that who you were on the phone to yesterday? You were talking in a rather strange voice.’
‘I’m in love with her.’ He wanted, as Archie would say, to go in raw. A new dimension was needed in his life, deepening attachments to give fresh limits to his nerve ends. ‘She works at my publisher’s.’
‘Is she from a good family?’
‘Good enough. You’ll like her.’
‘I’m sure I shall.’
‘And she’ll like you.’
‘Do you know, darling, you really do remind me of your father.’ She giggled, stood up, swayed and, just as he was beginning to think she’d got a bit too light-headed, sat down again: ‘Got to surround Blue Force by morning!’
‘What does that mean?’
‘Oh, it’s what your father said when I first met him, and he wasn’t able to stay when my father asked him to tea.’
He poured more wine. ‘I can just imagine him saying it.’
‘You fill your glass too near to the brim, dear.’
‘Sorry.’ He was amazed at getting so drunk with his mother. ‘I’ll check it next time.’ Back in Town he would disown Bert Gedling and become entirely his Herbert Thurgarton-Strang self, give out who he was, and see how they — whoever they were — liked it. They may not be so interested to know, though his next book would still be pseudonymed Bert Gedling, since there was no point in losing the advantage of that. Maybe he would walk into Humphries’ office with a bottle of smelling salts and tell him straight out. Or he would get him to arrange a set-piece press conference and, performing a languorous recitation in the voice of his birthright, relate the real story of his life, so that, forced to believe, they would bray for his soul with howls of execration. Such a confrontation would be quite unnecessary, but he spun out the fantasy for his mother’s enjoyment.
‘I’d want to be there. Hugh would have, I’m sure of it. He would have been proud of you.’
‘Never mind, Mother. Don’t cry.’
‘Why not, I should like to know?’
‘Because we’ve got to surround Blue Force by morning!’
Life was good when they could laugh in the midst of death. He was crying at last, drunk, maudlin, the handkerchief from his lapel pocket in time to stop tears spoiling his waistcoat. He told himself not to be so damned weak. ‘I’ll stay on a few more days. Deborah will come up for the weekend.’
‘I’d like to meet her. It’ll give me time to get sober, sober enough to drive you both to the station anyway. She can have the room next to Hugh’s study.’
‘I thought you were a woman of the world, Mother.’ He looked into her grey eyes, lines around them lost in the dimmed light. ‘We don’t bother about such things as separate rooms these days.’
‘I want her to have her own room, and feel like a proper guest. What you would do in the night would be your own business.’