This outpost-compound had its armoury of Sten-guns, rifles and shotguns. Handley had seen to that, stowed them under the garage floor from where they were taken out for a ritual pull-through and polish every week. There were stores of food, petrol, and John’s radio transceivers which Richard and Adam knew how to work. Even while poor they had been prepared, though no one knew precisely for what, with the possible exception of Richard. Certainly no one could accuse Handley of thinking himself to death, since he considered he needed no philosophical justification for what he thought and did. They had left the atavistic age of being content merely to live for the moment, and had entered the era of wanting to survive, which no one else seemed to have done, apart from the government and all its offices, which was only to be expected. Handley couldn’t work unless such supplies and equipments were close by. His spirit would be paralysed, hands crippled, brain sedated, eyes bandaged. They meant freedom to him, expansion, gave stature and a final sense of self-respect in face of the impending bourgeois atomic juggernaut. On their side they had the Bomb, and if he didn’t have a gun or two on his he would curl up and die at the vast injustice of it. He could only marvel at the fact that he’d fallen in with such a talented and bandit crew, franc-tireurs of the atomic and conformist age. Yet Frank considered that one had to be careful not to get rounded up in the incipient disorder of their lives, and to avoid this the community would have to be worked on, given security and direction in both social and military spheres. Handley was happy to let it run itself, to stagger from debt to debt and scandal to broiling set-to, but Frank and Adam talked of forming a permanent council to guide things in a more organised way. Frank thought they should begin immediately, but Adam, being a Handley, knew the ways of the family somewhat better, and so suggested that the present way of life went on until social and moral disintegration set in, at which point a permanent council would almost form itself with everyone’s automatic and grateful consent. There matters stood. And there, Frank saw, they might stay for a long time yet.
The door opened, and Handley came in. ‘I knew I’d find you here.’ He opened a cupboard and poured brandy. ‘I don’t suppose you had much of this among the Moslems.’
‘I didn’t need it, somehow. Where’s Myra?’
‘Feeding Mark. She’ll be in in a bit, as soon as he’s hit the sweet pillow. How do you like the community now? You’ve been here a fortnight.’
‘I’m part of it, it seems.’
‘You are.’ They smoked cigars, ash falling unnoticed. Handley was recovering from the shock and emptiness of his brother’s death, his mental landscape no longer swamped and intolerably burdened by it. He had breathed it fully in and knew that he had to work and live without John for the rest of his life. There had been no black sign on the house, for it was never one of the Handley colours. ‘I’m opposed to it,’ he had said, ‘in clothes, flags, food, excrement and paintings.’ But his love was too brotherly for him to forget his grief at this futile unnecessary suicide. Yet no spark had gone out of him, no lustre drained from his eyes. He seemed as energetic, abusive and lively as ever. He had worn his cap and topcoat to get from the house to the studio, always considerate of his health where the weather was concerned, and when he felt particularly well.
‘Am I stopping you from working?’ Frank asked.
‘Nobody ever did that. I can slap paint on, whoever’s around, as long as they don’t mind a blob now and again in the left eye. Did you talk to Myra about bringing Nancy and kids here?’
‘She agreed. I must go to Nottingham soon and collect them. They’ll take a bit of persuading, but I think I can manage it.’
‘We’ll fit in,’ Handley said. ‘It’ll make twenty of us, including Eric Bloodaxe. Twenty-one souls if Cuthbert comes back. I’ll have a few things to say to him though when he does. He’s bound to. Getting thrown out of that cushy theological college and about to be ordained. To think a son of mine could have been criminal enough to be so stupid! Still, if we get a bit overcrowded we’ll put up tents. Do a few of ’em good, a life under canvas. Or we can build a bungalow between here and the house, and a few can sleep in the Rambler. We could get hundreds in our little community, come to think of it. We’ll call it the Villa Back-to-Back if we want to give it a continental flourish. It’ll be so small and high, the whole packed lot, that if we sling a wall around it we’ll have a genuine medieval city on our hands. As for transport we could turn into a mobile column at a pinch, with three cars and two caravans. Send the Mini and four people ahead as a spearheading scout car with the quick-firing pulverine mounted on top, then the Rambler pulling the heavy caravan with five in each, and us poring over the map-tables, then the last eight in the light caravan, and the rest in the Morris as a rearguard. At night we’d form a laager in some lay-by and pitch tents. Still, I don’t see that being necessary for a while, though it’s as well to bear it in mind. Might be a way to have a continental holiday. Let my lot loose at the heart of Germany and they’d surrender in two minutes, though don’t ask me who.’
‘You’re the only one of us all who never seems to change,’ said Frank light-heartedly.
Handley slung his cigar into the bin: ‘I did my altering while you were in crappy-nappies. My first deep breath took me to the age of thirty or so, then I changed into the low dumps till I was thirty-six, when I switched gear into mainstream. Now I keep the black ship going to hell, all sails flapping, panache and spinnakers taut as drums and pointing across my cold uncharted sea. It’s not that simple, but it’s way of putting it, Frank, my old lad. We’ll be having the big reunion dinner tonight, so I’ll go and see how the organisation’s going on. Don’t get too drunk on my three-star plonk.’
He went out, coughing through the icy mist. The compound seemed unnaturally quiet as soon as the door fell to, an unnerving impossible silence as he sat in the dim light listening to it. He didn’t know at the moment for how long he would be able to immerse himself in the Handley round-about. But the stillness matched the temporary peace of his life long enough for him to make decisions out of the deeper quietness of his heart.
He stopped thinking while the noise stayed far away, switched off all lights but one and sat in his own dusk, smoking ruminatively. He had the nagging uncomfortable feeling of being a member of society once more, even though it was composed solely of Handleys. But the thought that perhaps he had only exchanged one form of guerrilla band for another made him feel more optimistic.
Myra came in. ‘Mark’s asleep at last. His teeth give him a lot of trouble.’
‘He’ll know how to bite on life, then!’