Andrew Taylor - Bleeding Heart Square

The walk took longer than she had expected, and she was footsore by the time she turned up from the river towards Sloane Square. Alvanley Mansions was a large block of flats perhaps thirty years old. It was a solid, dull place of red brick, with gleaming brass letter boxes and scrubbed steps.

She enquired for the Alfordes at the desk, and the porter directed her to the lift.

A middle-aged maid showed her into a drawing room at the front of the flat. The room was so full of things that for a moment Lydia failed to notice the people. You could hardly see the wallpaper because there were so many pictures, hung seemingly at random in order to squeeze as many as possible onto the wall. Then Mrs Alforde rose from a desk tucked into the corner beside an immense glass-fronted display cabinet crammed with china. And Colonel Alforde tottered out from the shelter of a high-backed sofa, his left arm outstretched, and his right arm hanging awkwardly by his side.

‘My dear Lydia. Very glad you could come.’ His left hand shook her right.

Mrs Alforde was short and plump, whereas her husband was long and thin. She shook hands vigorously, as though operating a pump handle. ‘You’ve got quite a colour in your cheeks, dear,’ she said in a tone which made it hard to distinguish whether it was intended as a compliment or a criticism.

‘I walked up from the Embankment.’

‘A nice afternoon for it.’ Colonel Alforde settled her in a chair. ‘Hermione tells me you’re staying at Bleeding Heart Square. Can’t say I can place it. Where is it precisely?’

‘Near Holborn.’

‘I don’t think I’ve ever known anybody who actually lives in that part of the world.’ Alforde chewed the ends of his long, grey moustache. ‘Still, it must be very … very central. And your father? How’s he keeping?’

‘Very well, thank you,’ Lydia said, and added another lie: ‘He sends his regards, of course.’

Both Alfordes looked disconcerted by this news. ‘Not seen him for a while,’ the Colonel said at last. ‘Used to run into each other a good deal before the war.’ The muscles around his mouth trembled. ‘Things were different then. Everything was very different.’

The maid brought the tea. Alforde’s good hand trembled so much that he spilled his over his waistcoat. Mrs Alforde dabbed at him with a napkin; her passionless efficiency suggested that this was a regular occurrence. He ate nothing, but pressed cake on Lydia as though she were a hungry child.

‘And how’s that husband of yours?’ he asked. ‘Nice young fellow.’

‘He’s very well, I believe.’

‘I hear he’s joined the Fascists. They seem a pretty sound outfit. A lot of ex-servicemen so they understand discipline. And they realize the importance of avoiding another war and the importance of the Empire. This Mosley chap has the right idea. Of course he knows first hand what war was like. I met him once in France, you know. Quite a young firebrand in those days, a little too reckless, but he’s settled down since then. No more war, that’s the important thing. No more war.’ He began to speak more slowly, like a clockwork motor running down. ‘No more war.’

Mrs Alforde patted his shoulder. ‘There, there, dear. It’s all right. Nobody is going to be silly enough to have another war.’

He looked at his wife with wide, panic-stricken eyes. ‘You can’t be sure of that. And the next time nowhere will be safe. They’ll bomb all our cities.’

‘Of course they won’t, dear. Now, isn’t it time you had your medicine and a little lie-down? I’m sure Lydia will excuse you.’

Mrs Alforde rang the bell. She and the maid helped the old man out of the room. When Mrs Alforde came back alone, Lydia was on her feet.

‘I think perhaps I ought to be going. Thank you so much for asking me.’

‘Do sit down, and in a moment we’ll ring for more tea. I’m sorry you had to see Gerry like that.’

‘Is he all right?’

‘Not really. He was too long in France. They kept sending him back to the front, and he felt so responsible for his men. He can keep up appearances for a little but you can never quite tell what’s going to set him off. Sometimes it’s a motorbike backfiring on the street. Or seeing a soldier in uniform. Or a headline in the paper. Even the mention of war can do it.’

‘I’m so sorry.’

‘Yes, well we have to make the best of it.’ Mrs Alforde folded her hands on her lap and looked at Lydia with bright little eyes. ‘We all have our crosses to bear.’ She went on, without any change of tone: ‘I had lunch with your mother on Tuesday.’

Lydia said nothing.

‘She is very worried about you, you know. I gather you and Marcus have been having a difficult time.’

‘That’s one way of describing it.’

‘You mustn’t mind my talking about it, dear,’ Mrs Alforde said. ‘After all, Gerry’s your godfather, and if his health permitted, I’m sure he would be saying exactly the same things as I am.’

‘My mother asked you to talk to me, I suppose.’

‘Yes.’

‘I don’t want to go back to Marcus.’

‘That’s as maybe, dear. But it doesn’t follow that it’s suitable for you to be with your father.’

Lydia frowned. ‘I don’t understand. I know he’s not well off but at least he is my father.’

‘I’m not disputing that. But I don’t think you fully understand about his little weaknesses. Your mother has always tried to spare you. She thinks now however that you ought to know. And she asked me to talk to you because she wasn’t sure you’d believe her.’ Mrs Alforde looked sternly at Lydia over the top of her glasses. ‘Which is in itself a very sad state of affairs.’

Lydia looked around the overcrowded room. She heard movement elsewhere in the flat, a door closing, raised voices. Was the maid some sort of nurse as well? She wondered what it was like to live with someone poised on the brink of a mental breakdown, someone who occasionally fell over the brink. She said, ‘If you want to tell me something about him, you’d better go ahead and get it over with.’

Mrs Alforde nodded. ‘Very wise. It’s always more sensible to know these things. Now, let me see: you were born in 1905, weren’t you? It all came to a head the previous winter. Gerry and I had been married in July and it was our first Christmas together. We were down at his uncle’s place. Rawling Hall, near Saffron Walden. Your father was there too. He was Aunt Connie’s nephew. Gerry knew him quite well — he’d met him out in India once or twice when his battalion was there. But your father had resigned his commission since then. It had all been rather sudden, I’m afraid, and in the circumstances Gerry was quite surprised to see him at Rawling.’ Mrs Alforde paused. ‘To be perfectly frank, my dear, he left the army under a cloud. In fact, if his CO hadn’t wanted to avoid the scandal, he would have been cashiered.’

‘What had he done?’

‘Forged several cheques, falsified the accounts and embezzled the mess funds,’ Mrs Alforde said crisply, abandoning finesse. ‘No doubt about it. One of the NCOs was involved as well, a mess sergeant. I believe the sergeant went to jail. And there was your father, as bold as brass, at Rawling Hall. But Aunt Connie always had a soft spot for him. She’d given him a little job to do — he was making pen-and-ink sketches of the chimney pieces that Gerry’s uncle had put in the drawing room and the library. Can’t think why — horrible pseudo-Jacobean things; best forgotten. The maids hated dusting them.’

‘I’m glad someone had a soft spot for him.’

Mrs Alforde glanced at her. ‘I’m sorry to have to say that he was cold-shouldered by the men down there and by most of the women too. And then he seduced your mother under our very noses. Do you know, she was only just sixteen? She wasn’t even out. He was after her money, of course. Not that she wasn’t very lovely too. And the very final straw was that he didn’t even trouble to take precautions. He made the poor girl pregnant. With you, in fact. Of course she had no choice but to marry him. We all rallied round, for your mother’s sake. But no one was surprised that the marriage didn’t last.’