“No, it’s more than that! It’s a philosophy, it’s a life system!” The sudden vehemence with which Arnold spoke drew disturbed glances from people at adjacent tables. The serenity of Fethering Beach on a September afternoon was rarely broken by shouting.
But if the geriatric onlookers had been shocked by Arnold’s outburst, they were about to get more free entertainment. Before he could say more, the group at Carole’s table was joined by a fast-striding Bridget Locke, with an embarrassed Eithne in her wake.
“Rowley! What the hell have you been doing?”
He quailed visibly under his wife’s onslaught and asked feebly, “What are you talking about?”
“You know bloody well what I’m talking about! What you did to Nathan.”
“I did it for his own good. I was trying to protect him.”
“Rowley, that is so much crap! I can’t believe that you didn’t tell me what you’d done. I’ve spent the past three weeks worried sick about the boy, when you could have put my mind at rest at any moment by telling me where Nathan was.”
“But I thought if you knew, you’d have told the police.”
“Too bloody right I would.”
“Bridget, if the police had got hold of him, God knows what would have happened. Our fine boys in blue are not – ”
“Oh, shut up, Rowley! You sound like a record whose needle’s stuck. I’ve had enough of your right-on Guardian-reading claptrap to last me a lifetime!” (Carole was rather enjoying this conversation. What a very sensible woman Bridget Locke was. She thought exactly like Carole did.) “You weren’t thinking about Nathan at all! I wonder if you’ve ever thought about anyone else apart from yourself, except to see if you can make an anagram out of their name. As ever, with Nathan in trouble, your first thought was about you. A Locke family crisis? Someone’s got to take control here. And, because the rest of the family are so bloody pusillanimous, it had to be you, didn’t it? He’s only your nephew, not your son, but it’s still got to be you who comes to the rescue. Don’t worry, Rowley can sort everything out! Here comes the hero, galloping up on his white charger.”
“And then what did you do? What was your solution to the crisis? You made it all part of a game. Yes, the bloody Wheal Quest. And you took advantage of your vulnerable daughter Mopsa and made her play along with your stupid, sub-Tolkien fantasy. And you never for one moment thought of what you might be doing to Nathan!”
Bridget Locke paused for breath. Her geriatric audience settled in their seats, and took another sip of tea in anticipation of Act Two.
“How do you know all this?” Rowley managed to ask.
“I know because the police rang the house to tell me that they were questioning Nathan. Because he’s a juvenile, they wanted a family member there.” She turned the beam of her displeasure on the shrinking Eithne. “And apparently I was the one who he wanted to be there with him.”
“But surely you should be at work?”
“Yes, Rowley, it’s a Friday. I should be at work. But some things are more important than work. Listen, that call I had from the police was the first I knew that the poor boy was still alive. So, since I couldn’t get hold of you anywhere, after I’d been to the police station to see Nathan, I went straight round to Eithne’s, and made her tell me what the hell had been going on.”
Arnold’s wife appealed apologetically to the two brothers. “I’m sorry. You know what she’s like when she gets forceful.” She still looked to Carole like Mrs Bun the Baker’s Wife, but the game was no longer Happy Families.
“Anyway,” Bridget steamed on, “the police are extremely interested in talking to you, Rowley. I’m sure they won’t have any problem finding you, but you might make things easier by turning yourself in.”
“What do you mean, ‘turning myself in’?” he asked petulantly. “I haven’t committed any crime.”
“No? I think the police could probably think of a few. ‘Perverting the Course of Justice’…? I don’t know the proper terms, but I’m sure there’s one called ‘Abduction of a Juvenile’. And there’s certainly ‘Unlawful Imprisonment’.”
“For heaven’s sake, Bridget! These weren’t crimes. They were all in the family.”
“God, Rowley, that sums you up, doesn’t it? “All in the family.” Everything’s all right so long as it’s kept within the magic circle of the Lockes. That’s always been your escape. When you fail publicly, when you lose a job…never mind, because you’re still a little god within the family. And everyone in the family does as you say. I’ve even done it myself. Pretended to have a bad back, so that you can find out if some woman’s snooping on you. But that’s always been your approach. Never mind your inadequacies in the real world – in the Wheal Quest you are still a hero. Rowley, if you only knew how bloody pathetic you are!”
He rose from his chair with an attempt at dignity. “I’m not going to stay here to be insulted.”
“Fine. Go to the police. Let them start insulting you instead.”
“That kind of remark is not worth responding to. Come on, we’re going.”
Arnold rose obediently to his feet and crossed to his wife, who had yet to sit down. Rowley joined them, then looked back at Bridget. “Are you coming?”
“No. Certainly not now. And I’ll have to think about whether I ever come back.”
He did not respond to that, but led his acolytes back across the sand towards the front. The animated language of his back-view showed that he was telling Eithne off for her betrayal of Locke confidentiality. And Arnold was joining in the castigation.
Exhausted, Bridget dropped into a seat next to Carole. “Sorry about all that. I was just bloody furious. Letting off the steam of a good few years, I’m afraid.”
Realizing the climax of the play had passed, Fethering’s elderly matinee-goers returned once more to their tea and cakes.
“Yes.” Now the others had gone, Carole felt awkward. The dissection of the Lockes’ family life – and indeed marriage – had been rather public. She didn’t quite know where the conversation should move next. Jude, she knew, would instinctively have found the right direction.
Still, there was always one safe English fallback. “Would you like me to get you a cup of tea?”
The drained woman looked pathetically grateful for the offer and accepted.
By the time she returned with a fresh pot for both of them, Carole had decided which tack to take. “How did Nathan seem when you saw him?”
“Oh, fine. No physical harm, anyway. Though what effect it’s going to have on him emotionally, I hate to think.”
“What’s he doing now?”
“Asleep. He didn’t get much sleep last night. The detectives are being quite gentle with him.”
“Rowley would never believe that.”
“No.” She sighed. “I just feel so sorry for Nathan. I mean he’s still in deep shock about that poor girl’s death. He did love her, you know, with that intense adolescent passion of a first love. He must be so cut up. And I can’t think that being shut away for three weeks and ministered to by his loony cousin has made the grieving process any easier.”
“I’m surprised to hear you use the word ‘loony’.”
“Yes, very remiss of me, isn’t it? If I wasn’t in such an emotional state, I wouldn’t have been so politically incorrect. Mopsa is, after all, my stepdaughter. But it’s true. I’ve never managed to get through to her. I mean, she loathed me, because I replaced her beloved mother, but…there was always a problem there with Mopsa. Poor concentration, no grasp of reality. I’m sure there’s a name for it…Somebody-or-Other’s Syndrome, no doubt. But, of course, the Lockes never had her properly diagnosed. No, as ever, they reckoned they could sort everything out themselves.”