Remembrance Day

For the Tebbutts, the telephone was a silent, baleful instrument. Certainly, they sometimes received calls from their daughter Jennifer or, even more infrequently, from Ruby’s sister Joyce. But by and large the instrument was used only for emergencies. For reasons of economy, it was rare for the Tebbutts to phone out. And to receive a call at this time of night could only mean bad news of some kind.

Ray crossed to the window where the phone lay on the windowsill. As he lifted the receiver to his ear, he looked out over the garden to the lane and beyond it to the forlorn façade of the cottage opposite, just visible in the light from the living-room.

‘It’s Jean here, Ray,’ said a female voice in his ear, continuing without pause, ‘and I have a little favour to ask you. Mike can’t – you know how he is. I’m sure you won’t mind, and it’s only a little thing, but it’s about the car …’ Her voice trailed away.

‘Has it gone wrong again?’ Ray asked, signalling with his left hand to Ruby, who stood anxiously by, that everything was all-right-ish. ‘Jean Linwood,’ he whispered, momentarily covering the mouthpiece.

‘It broke down on the A148 and it’s in Stanton’s garage – you know Joe Stanton, I expect.’ The Linwoods always assumed other people knew things.

‘No, I don’t. We always take the Hillman to the garage in Fakenham, where we—’

‘Anyhow, as I was saying, Stanton phoned a couple of hours ago to say the Chrysler’s repaired, and Michael was wondering if you’d kindly drive him over to Melton Constable in the morning on your way to work so that he can pick it up.’

‘Er – well, Jean … I mean, Melton isn’t really on my way to work. In fact it’s in the opposite direction.’

‘It’s not far.’

Silence on the line. Then he said, ‘Er, Jean, what about Mike’s father? Wouldn’t he drive him over?’

He heard the anger in her voice. ‘Noel? We never ask him for anything, not the slightest thing. We’d never hear the end of it. I thought you understood our situation, and how difficult it was.’

‘But in this case …’

‘Oh, OK, Ray, forget it, then. Never mind. We knew you lived near Melton. I just thought you might like to do a friend a favour, but please forget all about it. Poor Michael will just have to go on his bike and it’ll take all morning.’

Ray pulled a face at his wife as he said, ‘Yes, yes, I see that. It’s just that I’ve got to – well, never mind that, of course I’ll drive him over to Melton. Be glad to. You know I’m an early riser – in fact Ruby and I were just going to bed – but I’ll be over to pick Mike up, tell him, at seven thirty. Don’t worry.’

Jean’s voice, which a moment earlier had brimmed with indignation, sounded a note of dismay. ‘Couldn’t make it eight, could you? We aren’t early birds like you and Ruby. Eight or half-past would be better. More civilized.’ Tebbutt had heard her laying down the law on what was civilized before.

Another face to Ruby, who waved her hands in silent mime of caution. Ray scratched the back of his head. ‘Look, Jean, you see, I promised Yarker I’d be there early tomorrow. I want to get on with my work before it’s too bloody hot. I hope you understand?’

The tone of her voice told him she did not entirely understand. ‘There’s no point in leaving at seven thirty, Ray, dear, because Stanton doesn’t open up the garage till nine, if then.’

‘I’m a slow driver, as Mike knows of old.’

‘I wouldn’t have asked, Ray, if I’d thought it was going to be such a hassle.’ Her tone was that of a woman dealing with a difficult man. ‘He’d take a taxi but you know things are a bit tight at present. The boys need new school clothes. Mike’s Auntie April needs looking after. As for Noel – he’s not too well. He’s still looking for a house. Or so he says. Meanwhile we’re stuck with him. So make it eight o’clock then, all right?’

‘I’ll be there,’ Ray said, and put the phone down. ‘Manipulative female,’ he said. Then, ‘Still, I suppose we do owe them a favour.’

Though they would never admit it to each other, the Tebbutts felt disadvantaged by the Linwoods. Michael and Jean Linwood behaved as if they were slightly above everyone else; yet their situation was similar to that of the Tebbutts. Both couples had met with financial misfortune in a cold economic climate; both were struggling to make ends meet; both had an elderly parent living with them. Whereas the Tebbutts had only one daughter, currently working as a public relations officer with a technical development company in Slough, the Linwoods had three youngsters still at home.

‘Trust them to use a garage so far away from their place,’ said Ruby, feelingly. She was well aware of Ray’s warmth for Jean.

There was one considerable difference between the two families, thought Ray Tebbutt at seven fifty-five the next morning, as he drove to Hartisham and turned cautiously into the drive of St Giles House: the Linwoods, for all their poverty, lived in a grand if tumbledown home.

He drew up neatly in front of the substantial brick building, hearing, as he switched off the engine, the Linwood dog bark somewhere at the rear of the house. Then silence fell. Curtains were drawn across the windows of the upper front rooms, where lived Mike Linwood’s rather terrifying father, Noel.

St Giles House had once belonged to Pippet Hall, the manor house of Hartisham. In the difficult days following the Second World War, the Squire family of Pippet Hall had sold it off in dilapidated condition. Successive private owners had patched things up as best they could, but the value of the property had declined. By the early eighties, the house had deteriorated to a point where Michael Linwood was able to afford it – probably with a grudging loan from his father. Tebbutt knew that he was hoping to make a profit by selling off a parcel of land at the rear, thus enabling him to repair the leaky roof, and was engaged in lengthy and so far unsuccessful negotiations to that end with the local council.

When his watch read eight o’clock, Tebbutt got out of the car. The driver’s door needed a good slam to make it shut properly; he left it hanging open in order not to wake anyone. He walked about, biting his lip. He was dressed in what he called his Working-Class Gear, with a denim jacket, bought at a car boot sale, worn over a dark blue shirt. His trousers were of thick donkey-coloured corduroy. As he often remarked to Ruby, he was ‘got up to look like a character from Hardy – one of his minor novels’.

At five past eight, he went round to the Linwoods’ back door. Various pieces of junk Mike had collected lay about in long grass. Washing had remained hanging on a line overnight in their weed-choked garden. In Mike’s old Toyota truck, long defunct, were stored his paints and other necessities of an occasional decorator’s trade.

Both Tebbutt and Linwood, after their displacement to Norfolk, had been forced to take up odd-jobbing. Tebbutt had some small success, and was hoping to save enough to buy into Yarker’s garden business. Linwood was less able to adapt to reduced circumstances; he barely scratched a living working for Sir Thomas and Lady Teresa Squire, the owners of Pippet Hall, or doing part-time jobs for the religious community in Little Walsingham.

Tebbutt knocked quietly, starting the dog barking again. After an interval, the battered door was opened by Alf, smallest of the three Linwood boys. He let Tebbutt in without a word.

The scent of the house hit Tebbutt. He had tried to analyse it before when he and Ruby had been here. Damp dishrags, watercress, and woodlice, with perhaps a hint of the cheap perfume Jean used. Not unexciting.

The house, standing in an exposed position, had for years withstood the cold winds blowing in from the coast. About its interior was a feel of erosion; the draughts of winter, even when copper strips had been tacked round all the doors, had licked at corners, scoured floors, and whistled into every last nook with a flavour of salt.

The six-year-old had been sitting alone in the dark, antiquated kitchen, into which Tebbutt now followed him, looking round hopefully as he did so. The room, as previously, was in utter disarray. He spared a second glance only for a pair of panties hung up to dry on a line. Jean’s, no doubt of it. He thought of what they usually contained.

A heavy black retriever came bounding up, thrusting its blunt nose into Tebbutt’s crotch. ‘Down, Felonious,’ Tebbutt said, pushing the brute away. He refused to pronounce the animal’s real name, which was Thelonius. Too pretentious to be spoken.

And who had named the dog Thelonius? The same person who, on the insubstantial grounds that it would provide them with a good start in life, had insisted on the three boys being christened Alaric, Aldred, and Alfric, overwhelming the boys’ parents, presenting them with such a puzzle of nomenclature that they addressed their own sons as Aye, Bee and Alf respectively: none other than Mike’s father, Noel Roderick Linwood, retired arms dealer with connections in the Middle East.

The scantiness of the kitchen furnishing was emphasized by an oil painting of a younger Noel Roderick Linwood, hanging above the unlit grate. Bearded he stood, stern and bushy of eyebrow, in a double-breasted suit, regarding a palm tree and a much smaller mosque. He clutched a diagram of a fighter plane, an emblem of his profession. A heavy gold frame surrounded him.

This was the presiding spirit of St Giles House, old Noel – at once the saviour and ruination of his son Michael and Michael’s wife and their three boys. Battening on to his progeny, he had more than once saved them from destitution by selling off a painting or a Persian miniature.

Alf observed Tebbutt’s gaze on the portrait. ‘Wanna buy it? That’s Gramps.’

‘I know. I’ve met him.’

The lad snorted. ‘He’s mad. So’s Auntie April. Barking mad. Madness runs in our family. I expect to be round the twist myself before next term.’

‘You shouldn’t think things like that.’

The boy hauled his right leg up on his chair and bit his knee. ‘Do you think loonies are generally religious? Was Christ bonkers, for instance?’

Shortly after the Linwoods had acquired the old house, Noel Roderick Linwood had descended upon them. He was in transit, he said, seeking a house of his own. He would not be staying. He regretted the inconvenience. But if he could borrow the top floor for his treasures, that would be splendid. Couldn’t the boys sleep all together in the breakfast room? Two years later, old Noel, well into his cantankerous seventies, was still searching the county for a house for himself, still burdening Mike and Jean with his presence, his conversation, his complaints.

Ray had heard Jean’s monologues on this subject. Noel had gradually spread like a cancer through the house, taking over attics as well as top floor, and then, in a coup, a little study on the ground floor. He had even entertained old colleagues for days on end in his quarters. Jean had raged. Mike had withdrawn into his shell. Noel had sailed on, untroubled.

In an endeavour to persuade the old man to move, Mike and Jean had arranged a dinner for him the previous month; Ray and Ruby had been invited, together with a local estate agent. Jean had opened up the unused dining-room. Although the ploy had not worked and Noel stayed put in St Giles House, plenty of Bulgarian wine had been served.

Before the meal, Jean had taken Ray’s hand and whispered to him aside, ‘Do be charming to the old blighter. He can be so difficult.’

The old blighter had set himself out to enthral. Tucked into the open neck of Noel’s white flannel shirt was a cerise cravat. That and his untidy white hair gave him a theatrical air. He kissed the hands of the women guests.

With calculating eye, he surveyed the other people gathered round the oak table (since sold). He splashed his soup and grumbled about the beef and discountenanced Jean. But what he did mainly, in a rather argumentative way, frequently resting his left elbow on the table and waving his fork accusingly at Ruby, who sat next to him, or Ray who sat opposite him, was to dilate on his successful career as a military advisor to the Shah of Persia – a fine man by his account – before the disastrous turn of events which had ended in the expulsion of the Shah, leaving him to wander homeless on the face of the earth, while his country was taken over by a bunch of religious Muslim maniacs.

Noel swallowed down wine before repeating the last phrase in case someone had missed it. ‘Religious Muslim maniacs.

‘Not much fun for estate agents,’ he said, braying with laughter, gesturing at the local specimen of the breed.

Ray’s unease during this long discourse, which drove all other conversation from the table, was considerable. He knew little of Iran, and did not greatly like what he knew, but he understood that Noel Roderick Linwood was presenting a prejudiced view of events – the view in fact of a parasite, who had self-confessedly made a fortune selling arms to a despotic leader, at the expense of the leader’s people. That there had been a violent reaction against the Shah’s materialism was hardly surprising.