Hammond Innes - Campbell's Kingdom

I hesitated as I crossed the road and paused to gaze up at the familiar face of Number Thirty-two. There was a coping stone missing from the roof and one of the dirt-blackened panes of the fanlight was cracked. A light on in one of the upper rooms gave it a lop-sided look. For years I had been coming home from the office to this rather drab old Georgian-fronted house on the edge of Mecklenburgh Square, yet now I seemed to be looking at it for the first time. I had to remind myself that those windows on the first floor just to the right of the front door were my windows, that behind them were all my clothes and papers and books, all the things that made up my home.

But there was no reality about it now. It was as though I were living in a dream. I suppose I was still dazed by the news.

I wondered what they’d say at the office — or should I go on as though nothing had happened? I thought of all the years I’d been leaving this house at eight-thirty-five in the morning and returning to it shortly after six at night; lonely, wasted years. Men who had served with me during the war were now in good executive positions. But for me the Army had been the big chance. Once out of it I had drifted without the drive of an objective, without the competitive urge of a closeknit masculine world. I stared with sudden loathing at the lifeless facade of Thirty-two as though it symbolised all those wasted years.

A car hooted and I shook myself, conscious of the dreadful feeling of weariness that possessed my body; conscious, too, of a sudden urgency. I needed to make some sense out of my life, and I needed to do it quickly. As I crossed to the pavement, automatically getting out my keys, I suddenly decided I wasn’t going to tell the office anything. I wasn’t going to tell anybody. I’d just say I was taking a holiday and quietly disappear.

I went in and closed the door. Footsteps sounded in the darkness of the unlighted hall.

‘Is that you, Mr Wetheral?’

It was my landlady, a large, cheerful and very loquacious Scots lady who with their Lords of the Admiralty managed to support a drunken husband who had never done a stroke of work since his leg was blown off in the First World War.

‘Yes, Mrs Baird.’

‘Ye’re home early. Did they give ye the afternoon off?’

‘Yes,’ I said.

‘Och now, fancy that. Would it be some Sassenach holiday or was there nobody wishing to insure themselves against all those things, like arson and accident and annuity that you were talking about the other day?’

I smiled to myself, wondering what she would say if I told her the truth. As I started up the stairs she stopped me. ‘There’s two letters for you in your room — bills by the look of them. And I put some flowers there seeing that ye’d no been verra well lately.’

‘That’s very kind of you, Mrs Baird.’

‘Och, I nearly forgot. There was a gentleman to see you. He ha’na been gone for more than ten minutes. He said it was very important, so I told him to come back again at six. He said that was fine for he’d to go to the Law Courts about anither matter.’

‘The Law Courts?’ I stopped and stared down at her. ‘Did he look like a lawyer?’

‘Aye, he did that. He’d a black hat and a brief case and a rolled umbrella. Ye’ve no got yersel’ into any trouble, Mr Wetheral, have ye noo?’

‘Of course not,’ I answered, puzzled. ‘You’re sure he was a lawyer?’

‘Aye, he was a lawyer all right. Shall I bring him straight up when he comes? I told him you’d be back at six. If ye’re no in any trouble, perhaps it’s some good news — one o’ your relatives dead maybe?’

‘I’m making my will,’ I said and laughed as I went on up to my rooms.

The last red flicker of the sunset showed through the trees of the square. I switched on the light. The trees stood out in bare silhouette against the lurid sky. But across the street it was already getting dark. My reflection stared back at me from the long French windows leading to the balcony — a ghostly transfer of myself against the brick facade of the houses.

I pulled the curtains quickly and turned back into the room. I suddenly felt desperately alone, more alone than I had felt in all my life.

For a while I paced back and forth, wondering what the devil a lawyer could want with me. Then I turned abruptly and went through into the bedroom. God! I was tired. I took off my coat and lay down on my bed.and closed my eyes. And as I lay there sweating with fear and nervous exhaustion my life passed before my mind’s eye, mocking me with its emptiness. Thirty-six years, and what had I done with them — what had I achieved!

I must have dropped off to sleep for I woke with a start to hear Mrs Baird’s voice calling me from the sitting-room. ‘Here’s the lawyer man to see ye again, Mr Wetheral.’

I got up, feeling dazed and chilled, and went through into the other room. He was a lawyer all right; no mistaking the neat blue suit, the white collar, the dry, dusty air of authority. ‘Mr Wetheral?’ His hand was white and soft and the skin of his long, sad face looked as though it had been starched and ironed.

‘What do you want?’ The rudeness of my tone was unintentional.

‘My name is Fothergill,’ he replied carefully. ‘Of Anstey, Fothergill and Anstey, solicitors of Lincoln’s Inn Fields. Before I state my business it will be necessary for me to ask you a few personal questions. A matter of identity, that is all. May I sit down?’

‘Of course,’ I murmured. ‘A cigarette?’

‘I don’t smoke, thank you.’

I lit one and saw that my hand was shaking. I had had too many professional interviews in the last few days.

He waited until I was settled in an easy-chair and then he said. ‘Your Christian names please, Mr Wetheral?’

‘Bruce Campbell.’

‘Date of birth?’

‘July 20th, 1916.’

‘Parents alive?’

‘No. Both dead.’

‘Your father’s Christian names please.’

‘Look,’ I said, a trifle irritably. ‘Where’s all this leading to?’

‘Please,’ he murmured. ‘Just bear with me a moment longer.’ His voice was dry and disinterested. ‘Your father’s Christian names?’

‘John Henry.’

‘An engineer?’

I nodded. ‘He died on the Somme the year I was born.’

‘What were your mother’s names?’

‘Eleanor Rebecca.’

‘And her maiden name?’

‘Campbell.’

‘Did you know any of the Campbells, Mr Wetheral?’

‘Only my grandfather; I met him once.’

‘Do you remember his names?’

‘No, I don’t think I ever knew them. He called my mother Ella, if that’s any help.’

‘Where did you meet him?’

‘Coming out of prison.’

He stared at me, an expression of faint distaste on his face as though I had been guilty of some shocking joke.

‘He did five years in prison,’ I explained quickly. ‘He was a thief and a swindler. My mother and I met him when he came out. I was about nine at the time. We drove in a taxi straight from the prison to a boat train.’ After all these years I could not keep the bitterness out of my voice. I stubbed out my cigarette. Damn it, why did he have to come asking questions on this day of all days. ‘Why do you want to know all this?’ I demanded irritably.

‘Just one more question.’ He seemed unperturbed by my impatience. ‘You were in the Army during the war. In France?’

‘No, the Desert and then Sicily and Italy. I was in the R.A.C.’

‘Were you wounded at all?’

‘Yes.’

‘Where?’