Richard and Adam sat side by side with mutual expressions of misery and betrayal. ‘Why did you do it?’ said Richard. ‘You must be on a secret mission for Uncle John, who wants you to join them and find out about their strength and organisation. What else could it be?’ He didn’t look at him, but spoke straight in front at the wavering candle-flame.
Handley stood with his glass high: ‘We’ll have a toast from Mandy before she passes out.’
‘Get crocked,’ she said. ‘I can swamp down as much as anybody.’ She pushed away her plate of meatscraps and cigarette-ends, and lifted her empty glass for Handley to fill. Adam fetched in another armful of bottles and began to uncork them. ‘Here’s my toast,’ said Mandy, ‘to the racing-car my good sweet father is going to get me as soon as the Mini’s worn out. Then I can go to Germany for a run on the autobahns. They’re hundreds of miles long.’ Her eyes moistened as she looked around, then slid back all her wine.
‘I have bad news for you,’ he said thickly. ‘That Mini you twisted my arm for hasn’t had a penny paid on it, apart from the deposit. They’ll be here in a few weeks to pull it from under you.’
‘If I get a sports car in part-exchange, it won’t cost all that much.’
‘You’d better enjoy that Mini while you can,’ he said. Their two voices were joined in a deadly duel, as if the loser would be shot dead and vanquished, pushed unsung into the earth.
‘I’m going to sell it,’ she said, ‘and put the money as down-payment on a sports.’
‘You’ll end up in jail,’ he said.
‘You will. You signed the guarantee.’
There was silence, while they stared at each other. Then Handley smiled and sat down, calling that those who wanted second helpings should push their plates along. While waiting for his to be filled Ralph made a toast, hands trembling and eyes averted, wanting to say: ‘A curse on this house.’ But it would stamp him as melodramatic, and they would roll his sanity in the mud. He had been their football for too long, but would get his revenge when he married Mandy, when they’d think twice about sending a son-in-law to prison. He looked at Handley whose eyebeams blazed across waiting for him to speak. Or would they? They might see it as a neat way of unloading him and at the same time striking a blow at his parents, who had not answered his invitation so as to injure their own son. You couldn’t jump off that spinning family roundabout without spilling your jelly brains in the dust. He held up his glass: ‘In all sincerity, I drink to Mandy.’
She was on her feet. ‘Oh no, you don’t. Why do you want to show me up? Can’t anybody leave me in peace?’
‘It’s a perfectly acceptable toast,’ said her father. ‘A bit wet, maybe. But here’s to the happy couple, the gentleman-farmer and his lady wife, Ralph and Mandy. I know they’re going to be very happy because they came into the world at the right time.’
Mandy resumed her chain-smoking. Even with a box of matches nearby she lit a fresh cigarette from the tiny end of the one just used. Handley swallowed and spoke: ‘I’d like to drink to this house, this Jerusalem-on-the-Wolds where I’ve spent twenty years. But I’m thinking of leaving it soon, packing us all off down south.’
‘That’s the first I knew,’ Enid said, flushed. ‘It’s my house, anyway, and I’ve no intention of moving. You were born in Leicester, but I belong to Lincolnshire.’
He took a scrap of newspaper from his pocket. ‘How’s this for a good buy? Listen: “Converted Thames dredger moored off Gravesend. A lovely home. Vast. On two floors. Seven bedrooms, three reception rooms, L-shaped bridge, cloaks, hall and two bathrooms” — not counting the rather large spare one outside! “Running water and gas central heating. Garden on shore. A snip at eight thousand pounds.” That’s for me, captain of a boat that never sailed and never will. My beautiful family squatting in the bilges. Garbage disposal through the portholes. If life gets too hard you scuttle it and swim away like a rat.’
Enid fetched a huge cartwheel of cherry-dotted cake, carved out portions and sent them around the table. ‘So you’re getting into that sort of mood are you? Wanderlust and family hate? Well, it won’t do you much good tonight, because I’m not going to put up with it. I’ve a little announcement, but it can wait until I do a little toasting of my own.’
He poured liberal glasses of muscatel. Myra wondered when they would get up and murder each other, but considered they were too open and violent for that. Anything so quick and merciful would be against the rules. A warm white flash swept across the room, and Richard lowered his camera. ‘Yes,’ Handley said, ‘it is a historic occasion. Pin us down forever so that we can look back on it as a great gathering. Make an album and call it The Family. It’s bound to sell well.’ He held Myra’s hand and kissed it. A score of bottles had been emptied. ‘The cake’s good,’ he said. He took Mandy’s hand also, but she dragged it away: ‘Not until I get my sports car.’
Pots of coffee were set out, sweets, brandy, cigars, bowls of fruit, cheese and more salad. The candles were burning low, flames shaking into cups of fat. John fetched fresh ones, walked along the table fixing them in.
‘What are you going to drink to?’ Handley said.
Myra hadn’t thought about it, but stood up. He filled her brandy glass. Should it be Mark first, and then Frank? Or because Frank was in danger maybe the toast would do him more good, for Mark was safely asleep in the caravan. ‘To Frank Dawley,’ she said, ‘and to his son. To Albert’s painting, Mandy’s happiness, Enid’s marvellous supper. To John’s liberation, Richard’s dedication, and Adam’s vacillation. All one can do here is drink to everyone.’ The camera drenched her in white phosphorous. All light blinded you, never showed the way. Only in the dark were you able to see, by keeping daylight as a far-off memory to guide you at the utmost pitch of blackness.
‘Put that camera away,’ Albert said. She sat down, but could not see. The candles wouldn’t emerge from the flashing shadows and refocus. She felt tired and dejected because she did not know what she was doing here. She felt part of them, a mute appendage of their mad society, yet as if she had no right to accept it. Yet her reason for being here was that in their noise and violence and madness they seemed nearer to Frank Dawley than she ever was, even though she’d lived with him and had his child. It helped in the sacred act of recollection, for it was hard to pull him back from the haze and fire of the desert, see his eyes and body in the specific action of walking, eating, drinking, talking to friends. This was difficult not through lack of imagination but because he was still alive. If he had died she would see him with greater clarity. George was complete in every nuance whenever he came to mind because he was no longer on this earth, while Frank was indistinct because he didn’t so much want her to remember him as be with him.
‘Toasts are meaningless,’ Richard said, ‘so here’s to all things of meaning. You have to persuade yourself that life has some significance otherwise you sink into the morass of the living dead. When you’ve persuaded yourself that your life has meaning it is your duty to help the living dead.’
‘Well put,’ Handley said. ‘I couldn’t have said fairer than that myself.’
‘I wouldn’t have wanted to.’ Adam stood up. Since announcing his conversion, and predilection for Wendy Bonser, he appeared more urbane, effete and supercilious. ‘Here’s to true love, and England, and, oh, all right then, Father, I drink also to the war against imperialism and the established order etcetera-etcetera.’ In view of this addendum there seemed little hope of winning him back to the more robust ways of the family. His pale blue tie had a nonchalant wave in it. He sipped his brandy, rather than threw it back in the good old Handley style that he’d followed till now. They drank with him nevertheless, for he was still their son and brother. In the world of the family it was sin now, pay later, whenever you have time, because we can wait, and your dying breath will smudge the mirror that the last member of it holds in front of your mouth. He sat down, uneasy at such a thought, and reached for the cigar-box.