Natavallia in the Maldives

‘I don’t often talk about this. When I was ten, my brother was born. But my father had found out.’ ‘Sorry?’ ‘That he wasn’t the father. He changed then. Family life was hell. I was glad to leave.’ Judi was in an absolute quandary. Rarely if ever does anyone need to know, while wanting desperately not to, and yet having known all along. ‘I feel bad about it, now. I neglected him.’ She stared at her cider. ‘I told you my father was a Methodist lay preacher. He couldn’t forgive my mother. And he cold bloodedly punished her, “unto eternity” would have been his words. But he punished her by punishing Charlie. Oh, there was no physical chastisement.’ Once again the Public School vocabulary broke through. ‘It was cruel. So cruel. And I was a teenager, seeing this, day after day, powerless to act, to do… anything. Hating the man on whom I was totally dependent. Family life was hell,’ she repeated. There was a brief silence. But Jane had hardly started, the floodgates of memory were insufficient defence. ’It started at Primary School in Minchinhampton. Charlie was what…? Seven? Every night… it was shouting, recrimination, “Why wasn’t he doing better at Arithmetic?” et cetera. His end of term reports put him twenty-third in the class. Was it any wonder? Poor boy got no sleep. Charlie was scared stiff of parents’ evenings. It was hell at home. And my mother, standing downstairs, calling: “Harold, please come down, please come down!” But of course, he didn’t. He just went on and on. Shouting, stamping.’ Judi was staring at her wedding ring. A little boy in pyjamas, the bed too big for him, lying there under damp British 1950s post-wartime blankets. Jane continued, unabated, as was her wont. ‘That was only the beginning. It got worse.’ ‘Worse than that? The man was a monster… if you’ll forgive me?’ ‘Forgiven, and agreed.’ ‘Worse?’ ‘When it wasn’t him, it was Mummy. Screaming, ranting. He was so little, a small boy under the blankets. Cowering there. And her screaming: “I wish you’d never been born! I wish you’d never been…!” It was terrible. He’d finally broken her, my father I mean, destroyed her, like a snapped twig. He would shout at her night after night. Screaming that Charlie was “the bastard product of satanic, profane coital rites between a Jewish usurper and you, my serpent of a wife!” And there was I, hearing it all, and there was nothing I could do. But that wasn’t the end of it…’ ‘I’m not sure I do want to hear the end of “it”.’ ‘Sleep… I couldn’t. I used to lie there, looking at the stars, staring at the Aurora Borealis at night in winter, the curtains drawn back, and I wondered what it felt like to be a little boy of seven or eight, alone in his long, cold bed, and to be told even his mother wished he hadn’t been born. What must have been churning around in his mind? And then… In his last year at Primary School, I can only suppose my father had run out of ways to humiliate, to punish my mother. He found a new one. Charlie had climbed to third in the class. But that wasn’t enough for Doctor Baines! End of term reports, and where was he, my father? Back in Charlie’s bedroom, night after night. I was trying to drown it out on my transistor with the pirate sender Radio Caroline, but I still heard every angry word. “Why can’t you be more like Davenport, like Murphy… like Digby?” Always someone better, to copy, to emulate. Anything to punish the boy for being who he really was. Another man’s son. And worse, he would scream at her: “You have spawned the bastard son of a German, a Jewish refugee! Unholy progeny! Is that why you insist on him learning German? If I have my way, you can have yours! He will go to Germany, and you will never see him again!” It was sickening, it was my father. And he did it, he sent Charlie to German language courses every holiday, and my mother never saw him again.’ She paused. ‘He was eleven when he entered Euterpe School. After that none of us ever saw him again. And now it’s too late. Even if I could. To make amends, to start again. And even if I found him, I’d be too ashamed to tell him.’ Jane de Quincy stared at Judi, perplexed. ‘I’m really sorry, I should never have… you don’t need to know all this stuff. Please, forgive me! I don’t know how I got into talking about this… But I sometimes wonder where he is now, if he didn’t die, like I said. Whether he ever found out. My mother told me I was supposed to tell him. How could I? Luckily, I never had to. And, God willing, I’ll never have to face him, have to tell him.’ Judi looked in trepidation at her watch. Eleven thirty. Zav might arrive at any moment. ‘That’s dreadful,’ Judi observed. But she had already read the Tarot cards that Fate was dealing. There was nowhere left to go. And they couldn’t be reshuffled, dealt again. ‘I’m afraid God hasn’t been listening.’ she started. Jane stared at her. ‘I know a man from Minchinhampton. He went to a boarding school.’ Judi said conversationally. ‘Place called Euterpe, school of the Muse of Music.’ She continued rapidly, before Jane, showing consternation, could interrupt. ‘That was in 1962. His father was the village doctor, mother Austrian, psychologist. He spent every school holiday in Germany, or Austria. Never went home. His name’s Charles Baines. Charles Xavier Baines. And he knows that he wasn’t Doctor Baines’ son. And he’s not dead. He’s my husband. Are we in difficulties, or are we in real difficulties?’ She drained her Chartreuse in a single gulp.