Fred saw his mistake, too late to right it, but told himself: never apologize. The more battered his dignity the straighter his back became, though it was hidden somewhere in his short and corpulent body. And one for myself, he decided, on such a night, and with this bloody mob around my neck. ‘Just sit in the lounge while I sort things out. How was I to know? You’d be surprised at the sorts we get in here.’
Nothing had ever been enough for Alfred, and such driving had unthreaded his self-control. ‘He’s my father, and he hasn’t been drunk in his life. So get that into your aspirin brain.’ His height and weight were something to thank his father for at least. If he didn’t hit out he would lose all self-respect. A man works his guts to pieces running a transport business, and this whisky-nosed pugdog takes his father for a drunkard. The stance was of a panther ready for the leap: ‘I’ll rip you to pieces if you don’t show him some respect. I’ll break your china-pot head.’
Aaron stood up. Everybody existed on such a short fuse these days, ever ready to curse or lash out with boot and fist. In Bexhill, on opening his door in the parking place, he had accidentally touched the next car, and the sort of woman who in olden times might have welcomed the troops back from Dunkirk with cups of tea and a cream cracker, harangued him for not having respect for other people’s property, so bloated with rage — and still ranting as he walked away — that if she’d had a gun he felt sure she would have killed him. ‘That wouldn’t be wise, because who would look after us if you did?’
The low tone, not unpleasant, dispelled Alfred’s fit of wrath, though Aaron added: ‘I’ll give you a hand with him, if you like.’
Percy stood as straight as a soldier. ‘I don’t want any help, thank you very much. It’s a shame though that a chap can’t have forty winks without everybody thinking he’s gone senile.’
‘They said you was drunk, Dad.’
‘I wish to God I was.’ At the counter he took a Biro from his inside pocket, head hovering over the book as he asked: ‘Where do I sign?’
‘You don’t need to,’ Fred said nervously, sensing he wasn’t yet free of peril. ‘It’ll be all right.’
He’ll pocket the takings, Aaron thought, or it’s a tax dodge. Everybody’s on the fiddle in Mrs Thatcher’s Britain. But then, they always were. It probably started when they fleeced the Normans. Or the Danes. Or even the Romans. They’d practised on each other since the Flood. He felt it in himself.
Percy’s hand slewed over the counter. As he was coaxed into the lounge by his son, Aaron caught them up and put the pen in the old man’s lapel pocket.
ELEVEN
A bleak sea going through the motions of stormforce, then the underwater cables broke, lines down in the wilderness. The thin-faced, rather fanatic-looking man had had the final word with the world beyond the snow. She might try later, in case a miracle-working company of weatherproof mechanics with fine hands and unassailable expertise had righted the poles and scuffed icy fluff off the wires to make them sing again.
Stanley, in the meantime, would stay bereft, the little-boy vacancy willed all too easily into his eyes. It was hard not to laugh at the distinctly faxed picture, yet she was undeniably grateful for this heaven-sent separation. He would park himself, providing the aircraft had been able to get down, and had not been rearranged to Paris or Frankfurt (and then what would he be doing?) in some neon-lit airport, putting away wash after wash of dismal coffee, gloomily mulling on the postponement of her sexy reception when, after bolting all doors, they hurried to the bedroom for that quick, yet usually satisfying, wrestle of reunion.
In her dreams she had always wanted to find, behind the false door of a bookcase as in old movies, a hall of people dancing under the glare of white lights, inebriated by delicious wine as they circled through the smell of their own warm sweat, half-naked men and women carried beyond fine talk into manic licentiousness, as unreachable by everyday domestic worries as they in this ghastly gimcrack hotel were from their destinies beyond surrounding snow.
Strange hands stroked her adequate breasts, subtle fingers finding every orifice, till her voice joined others in orgasmic chorus, an orgy she had never partaken of but would have run into had such heady music sounded from the neighbouring room. She would disgrace herself, alone in the corridor by the dead telephone, but didn’t want to release the too vivid scene, unearthed from parts of her that must always have existed, their whereabouts unknown to her and certainly to Stanley, though perhaps he had sensed it and was unwilling to touch it off, to let her go body and soul on her own into that very special country, which struggle accounted for his little-boy look of all-round defence.
Shrugging — the thrilling vision sucked away, as all such visions must be — she went into the lounge, to see who might be interesting to know. A girl preceding her with a tray of drinks set a pint by that same middle-aged, middle-sized befuddled man staring at the flames as if he had lost something. The man who had been talking on the telephone took his whisky and went to gaze through the window with an expression that might have been on Sally’s face if she had looked out, focusing on the monkey-puzzle of Fate. She found him interesting, though knew as she sat down that she must not look too obviously, since he seemed the type who might be easily offended.
A tall man with large features and longish greying hair was reading a book like the Bible, a bottle of wine on his table, calm face suggesting he would sit out the isolation no matter how long it went on. The serving girl put a pot of water and two large whiskies between an old and impeccably attired gent in a suit and tie, while the younger man who was obviously his keeper poured so much water into his glass as to lose the alcohol entirely.
A woman of about thirty, short mousy hair, wearing baggy trousers and sensible-type shoes, slept in an armchair, more wantonly displayed than she could be aware of, feet out and an arm above the back of her head, a breast lifting into an attractive curve in spite of the thickness of her sweater.
A raddled fortyish man was talking to a girl whose look turned close to adoration after she stopped laughing, and Keith lifted his drink to say: ‘Here’s to you, then.’
‘You’re trying to get me sozzled,’ Eileen said. ‘But I don’t care. I like to get a bit tiddly now and again.’
‘You’ve certainly earned a drink.’ Glasses touched, and were drained. ‘Let’s go and see our room. You can tell me whether you like it or not.’
The true exit was the window not the door, Daniel decided, to watch and see yet not to go, a picture of the outside which would torment but not elucidate, rather than a door which, inviting him to action, would surely kill. His courage was exposed, determination found lacking, sight battened on snow flocking down, nothing to do except wait and hope. To open a door and run into the elemental trap would release him from civilized anxiety. He liked the window because he could see and not act, and his attachment to duty gave way to an acceptance of the unusual peace, nothing to be done but enjoy comfort and be calmed by the falling curtain of snow, like the weeks prior to a marriage that promised everlasting protection and ease, before the wagons of doom as in grand opera rumbled over the cobbles.
He would be killed for failure, but deserved to be whitened as utterly as the window for the butcheries he had helped to bring about — not much to take credit for, if credit he wanted, knowing well enough what he had done. You couldn’t pay for the sins of your father, though his mother had set him on a course of thinking he ought to, so that he had committed sufficient to bleach his father’s crime sheet white.