‘I’ll have the soup,’ John said, calm and forceful again, ‘But I’ll go on working for a while.’
The morse-key was rattling feverishly as they went quietly out. ‘At one time,’ Handley said when Jones came back from the lavatory, ‘I thought we’d have to have him certified, but he’s quietened down a bit since then. He went through such unimaginable horrors in those prison-camps that it almost finished him off. But he came to live with me, and bought that wireless stuff with his gratuity. Gets a pension still. The rest of the family wouldn’t have him, he was so much off his head. But I never thought so. He’s on some search, you know, Johnny is. He’s doing some of it for me, maybe for all of us — in this house. We believe in him. He’s the man in the boat whose spirit’s kept this place afloat for years.’
‘But that anecdote about the prison-camp,’ Jones said, ‘is it true?’
They went upstairs, back to the studio, and Handley turned at the top step: ‘Is that the only question you’ve got? You were privileged to see your John just now, though I don’t imagine it means much to you. There’s only one story in John’s life, and that’s it.’
Handley moved to the other side of the studio table and lit a cigar. He offered one, but Russell Jones took out a large curved pipe, so Albert pushed a tin of tobacco towards him. ‘Try this Spanish stuff. Teddy Greensleaves brought it back from the Canary Islands.’
It was dry and flaky, and Handley had put two cuts of apple in to keep it moist. One of these small pieces was inadvertently packed into the huge space of Russell’s pipe bowl, and before Handley could tell him, it was being lit, and a fragrant smell of burning fruit filled the room. Russell glanced uneasily, but continued puffing.
‘I think you took a chunk of my apple,’ Handley said, ‘moistener, you know.’ Russell looked as if he’d been poisoned, but didn’t know which of them had done it, then apologised and picked it out, dropping it like a dead black-clock in the ash-tray.
Handley put it back in his tin. ‘How do I know,’ he said, ‘what sort of an article you’re going to write?’ He prised up a skylight window and ledged it. Clean air rushed in, cold and ruthless, though sweet to Handley once the scarf was back round his neck.
‘You don’t, really,’ Russell smiled.
‘I have to take it on trust?’ Handley yawned, and at the sight and sound of it Russell felt an impulse to do the same, but fought it off in order not to appear imitative or weak. ‘I’m afraid you do, really.’
‘Really?’ He slammed the window, frame dropping as if to smash. ‘Fresh air’s the bane of my baleful life. Shakes the cobwebs. Makes me hate people. But listen: no lies. Do you hear? No lies, or I’ll come down to London and pull the tripes out of you.’
Russell smiled. That sort is ruthless, Handley thought, born and bred to it. But I’m ruthless as well. The trouble is that my ruthlessness makes me suffer. Nevertheless, mine wins in the end because it has a soul burning somewhere inside it. ‘You can smile,’ he said, ‘but I’ve seen the way you scumpots and editors treat people who are trying to do real work. Not that you can really do them harm, but by God you do your best. The toffee-nosed posh papers are the worst of all, because those who write for them once fancied themselves a bit as well.’
‘You’re quite wrong,’ Russell said, standing up to fasten his overcoat. ‘Your work is much better than it was, so why do you have to make these unnecessary and insulting statements? Your personality isn’t that bad.’
‘I’m so bad that even breeding couldn’t make me perfect. But don’t patronise me. Just try and get close to the truth if you must scribble your impressions.’
‘I use a typewriter. I wanted to invite you down to the pub for lunch.’
‘If you don’t get out I’ll set the dog on you. I’ve nothing against you, personally. It’s just that everything you stand for sticks in my craw. Still, I’ll show you out. I suppose we must part on reasonable terms.’
The village clock struck eleven, a distant booming carried on the wind as they stood by the front door and shook hands.
Chapter Five
The mellow and subtle mood of many days had broken. He was poisoned but not dead, half-way between ashes and honey. What man could stand up to it? They hit you with vilification, thumped you with praise, and any day you might die of heart bruise. He could add nothing to the canvas, threw down his brush. Treat them civilly and you felt like a collaborator with the Germans who deserved to be shot or have your hair shorn. If you insulted them you betrayed your own easy and generous nature. It was no easy matter. Perhaps there was some clever and not unnatural balance between the two which his psyche had not yet struck (or was that merely the final proof that he wanted to cooperate with them?) which would put them in their place while leaving his self-respect unsoiled. Fortunately such questions were an aberration on the endless world of his work that he was king of and could walk across at will, that dominated all waking and sleeping hours as if life and sanity depended on it. Reaching beyond the end of what he had never seen any other artist do, he was out in the wilderness, crawling through fire with an unquiet soul.
He walked down, along the corridor to Richard’s room. It seemed amiable and light compared to his own cave hemmed in by cloud and canvases. A large space was taken up by a table covered by conjoined sheets of the Ordnance Survey quarter-inch map of England and Wales. On the walls were maps in enlarged detail, special tracings of atomic establishments and bomber bases drawn up by some draughtsman who knew his business well. ‘What’s the situation in our civil war?’ Handley wanted to know, lighting a cigar.
Richard’s fingers went over the intricate formation of coloured pins and labels, as if he were blind and the battle situation were set out in braille. Above an opposite notice board hung a huge Algerian FLN banner which Mandy had been pressed into painting during the long nights of last snowbound winter. ‘It’s confused,’ he said, ‘but at the moment, on balance, we seem to be losing.’
He was tall and swart, with black curly hair and a Roman nose, high cheek-bones, sallow below the eyes — which were quick to see through the hugely complex patterns that led to the main chance, a skill developed during twenty years learning how to deal with a father like Handley who never had one thought or action similar to any that had gone before. In that sense, Richard was dominated by his father, yet it had trained him to dominate everyone else. He wore a camel-hair sweater and smoked a home-rolled cigarette.
‘You’d better stop losing,’ Handley said.
‘After the A-flash over London and Liverpool, government troops are hounding all guerrillas into the Midlands. I don’t like the look of it.’
‘Break it off then,’ Handley said. ‘Melt ’em away and pull back through the Marches. Re-form in Wales. The Black Mountains’ll make a good base — plenty of blokes to draw on from the valleys. Good lads, them Taffies. Promise ’em self-government when it’s all over.’
Richard began to argue, the only way to find out what was on his father’s mind. ‘I’d thought of that, but …’
‘Got a better plan?’
‘What about some in the Lakes and Devon?’
‘No good. Keep ’em together at the moment. Wales is big enough. They’ll be too busy cleaning up to bother with us for a while. Then, but all in good time, we can come back, take Shrewsbury, and make for the Black Country. Like fish in water. Move in with the spring tides, with the people. They’ll rise for the bait, don’t worry. If not, we’ll suck our rings and drop dead.’