He closed the door quietly. There was no reason to lock it anymore. Back in his room he dressed rapidly: underwear, a pair of corduroys, an old white shirt without the collar, waistcoat. Hunger would consume his chest-wall unless he got a mouthful soon.
Dawley had been up since seven to give Paul and Rachel their breakfasts and send them to school. He was glad of a day off from his Algerian travels, waiting in any case to read Shelley’s notebooks and get a few quotations to light up his reasons for going there in the first place. The abortive attack on Laghouat, and his encounter with the snake-eaters, had no time scale joining them together. The days were bruised and broken from each other, so what better way of poulticing the narrative than by a few earnest observations from Shelley’s truly revolutionary soul?
Handley was stubbled around his chin: ‘It’s flown. Where is he?’
‘He got up to do some gardening.’
‘Gardening? Cuthbert?’
He put a plate of scrambled eggs before him. ‘With Dean. They’re planting pot in a corner of the paddock, clearing the virgin lands for home consumption. It’s a dirty business, really.’
Handley sat with head bowed, then looked up and began eating: ‘A drug-crazed maniac with a gun! I should never have let him into the community.’
‘You couldn’t keep your own son out. Maybe he didn’t take it. There are plenty of others. Ralph, for instance. Who knows?’
Handley poured more coffee. ‘I bloody well do. A father knows more about his son than he does about himself. I may be a mystery to myself, but I brought Cuthbert up from unconsciousness. I watched every gesture as it came out. He’s got a wayward and villainous nature — though God knows where he gets it, because it’s not from Enid, and it ain’t me. It’s something totally different. But he was always delighted to exaggerate my bad traits, mimicking me behind my back in the hope I’d fall into a pit and get swallowed whole. What have I done to make him like that? I was so taken up by my painting that I had no time except to clout him when he cheeked his mother. It’s his way of getting his own back, I suppose. What a curse the family is. Where’s the bread and butter?’
‘We’re trying to solve that problem by this community,’ said Frank, passing it, ‘though we won’t feel the effect for twenty years.’
‘It’s just an idea for middle-aged people,’ Handley said, ‘this community. The young ones don’t want it, and won’t see the need of it till their own kids are grown up — by which time it’s too late, like it is with me. Cuthbert’s trying his best to ruin it. Ralph and Mandy want a nice little cottage thatched with daisies and buttercups so’s they can be all lovey-dovey in their pervy way. Adam and Richard are just a couple of lazy bastards pounding out revolutionary ideas in a permanently non-revolutionary society in order to avoid working. That’s not hearsay, it’s realistic. It’s costing me three hundred pounds a month to run this community, apart from what Myra puts in, so you can see what a bargain it is. It’s not that I’m worried about being ruined, but at least a man might expect peace at such a price. I want to get on with my work. That’s a natural desire, ain’t it? Domestic life is society’s secret weapon to stifle the artist. I’ve never had peace in my life, not with seven kids, but at least I don’t want a disaster with that bloody gun on the loose. The idea of killing never appealed to me, especially when it comes too close to my own skin.’
Dawley always knew that Handley only let his sons play at revolution so that he could get on with his painting. If revolution ever became so real that he had no electric light or couldn’t get razor-blades he’d be the first to turn against it. He wanted to paint just as most people wanted to work and live in peace, and as an artist he really did represent mankind in that respect. Volatile and unpredictable as he was, he still loved his family and tried to look after them, and if there was injustice on a larger scale he was the sort who would get up and do something about it. There was no doubt about that.
‘I must have that gun back,’ he said, ‘and put it in a safe place where nobody can find it.’
Dawley set plates and cups in racks of the dish-washing machine: ‘Ask Cuthbert point-blank what he’s done with it.’
‘He’d laugh in my face.’
Frank thought for a while. ‘Why don’t we call a meeting and read Shelley’s notebooks? It’ll break the ice, and might throw a hint on where the gun is. I don’t like the thought of it being on the loose, either.’
Handley was puzzled. ‘It’s a zany idea, though I suppose it can’t harm anybody.’
‘The indirect approach,’ Frank said. ‘Uproar in the East, strike in the West. Everyone will be at their ease, lulled by interest in the notebooks. That’ll be the time to pop the question.’
‘It’s too subtle,’ Handley said, ‘though it’s better than nothing. I’d almost forgotten about the notebooks. It is time we had a look. Do you think there’ll be much good in them?’
‘You never know.’
Handley went to his studio, and Frank cleaned the kitchen. Not only would he use the material of Shelley’s notebooks to pad out his narrative, but he needed to shore up his revolutionary enthusiasm, to point the difference between the true fighter for the freedom of the underprivileged, and that of a simple mercenary soldier who was paid for his actions by the excitement he got from it.
He was beginning to wonder whether it had been no more than a great screen to conceal his real feelings from himself and others. Only peace brought out the truth — which led him to see that Handley’s attitude might easily be the right one.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Dean would follow Enid anywhere, beat down thistles even with his hands in order to be alone and out of the house with her at the same time.
But he wasn’t making a trail, as in the picture painted by his self-esteem. He was walking behind, and letting her scythe the high thistles with a piece of stick, and tread them flat with her shoes. His own first version was still agreeable, as he watched her straight back, strong confident hips, and long hair only a few feet in front. He was never at ease in the house, even at meal-times. The family either did not like him, or thought him worthless because he was young and had no money.
Being among enemies he hated the house, and detested anyone who thought he did not matter. It was impossible to brush off such insults. By showing he didn’t matter they were trying to get at him. He regarded himself as the most important person in the world, so they were wrong to think him insignificant, and insulting to let him know that they felt it.
The person who didn’t treat him like a maggot was the one who mattered most in the community. Enid led him deeper into the paddock, wading through thistles, beyond the iris of any roving eye, trying to find the football that Paul had kicked this way — the second lost in a month. She wanted a stroll, and used it as an excuse. She’d seen Dean already wandering, and when he spied her, he followed. It was like having a dog, especially since he didn’t say much. It was strange to be with someone so silent, a young man younger than her eldest son. What did he want to follow her for? The question led her to wonder why she allowed him to. She supposed he needed to be near someone, even if only a few paces behind like a dog. He was so young he had the harmlessness of another woman.
‘You wain’t find anything,’ he said. ‘I expect the birds eat the footballs in half an hour. They love rubber.’
‘It was leather.’
The hot sun’s warmth was pleasant on top of her head and against her bare arms. She sat on the tree trunk felled across the corner, Dean a few feet away looked at her. She wondered sadly what he saw, while quite clear what she saw herself. The open weather of summer released the vitality of her soul. It was her time of well-being, so she was pleased when Dean said: ‘You look good in the sun. It suits you.’