William Boyd - Waiting for Sunrise

Lysander was very glad to be with his uncle again after a gap of two years. Though he had been something of a distant figure to him during his childhood — Hamo had spent many years with his regiment in India — Lysander had grown very fond of his uncle as he’d come to know him better after his father’s death. He was full of admiration for his absolute fearlessness, military and social. Hamo didn’t resemble his older brother — he was bald and naturally skinny with a small head — but, for Lysander, he was the only remaining blood link with his dead father. Hamo talked about him without need of prompting and would regularly repeat the fact that the only person he had ever, truly loved was his brother, Halifax.

“Halifax understood me completely, you see, from a very early age,” Hamo had once confided to Lysander. “When I told him — I must have been fourteen or so — that I thought I wasn’t interested in girls he said neither was Alexander the Great. Then he read me some of Shakespeare’s sonnets — and I never looked back.”

They ate a supper of cold mutton and boiled potatoes, Femi joining them at the table. Then Hamo brought out half a Stilton cheese and a plate of hard biscuits and decanted another bottle of claret in front of a candle, showing Femi how the light at the neck of the bottle ensured that you didn’t allow the sediment to flow into the decanter.

“I’m sorry I had to cancel my ‘Welcome Home’ dinner at Claverleigh,” he said. “I’ll write to your mother in a day or two and explain. I just couldn’t face it — d’you know what I mean?”

“I completely understand.”

“I simply didn’t want to meet the mayor of Lewes or Sir Humphrey Bumphrey and his lady wife, etcetera, etcetera. And I don’t think young Femi was quite ready for that ordeal by fire, either.”

“To be honest, I don’t think old Crickmay was bothered — gets easily tired these days. Neither was my mother. I think they thought you might like it — you know, kill the fatted calf, lay on a bit of opulence after your lean years in Africa.”

Hamo poured more wine.

“She’s a sensible, lovely woman. I appreciated the gesture. Anyway, I’ve got to give a lecture in London — I’ll invite everyone to that.” He turned to Femi and put his hand on his arm. “Are you all right, my dear boy?”

“Yes, sar. Very good.”

Hamo swung his gaze back to Lysander.

“So, what’s going on in the wicked world of the theatre? Did you know Ellen Terry used to have a cottage here in Winchelsea? Lived in sin with Henry Irving. Used to dance on her lawn in bare feet and her nightdress. We’re a very tolerant little village. Broad streets, broad minds.”

Femi went up to bed once the dishes were cleared away and Hamo and Lysander sat on in front of the small fire, smoking and chatting. As Lysander hoped, the conversation began to revolve around Halifax Rief.

“It’s a source of enormous regret. It keeps happening. I said to Femi without thinking — you must meet my brother, Halifax. And then I remembered he was dead and gone, all these years. I keep saying — I must tell this to Halifax. How he’ll laugh. Hopeless.”

“You see, I was too young,” Lysander said. “I never really saw enough of him to fix him in my head. He was just ‘Father’, you know. Always off to the theatre or on tour.”

Hamo pointed the stem of his pipe at Lysander. “They have great respect for actors, Femi’s people. In fact throughout Africa — actors, dancers, musicians, showmen. You should see some of these chaps in Femi’s tribe, how they can imitate animals — egrets, leopards, monkeys. Incredible. A few daubs of paint, some feathers and a stick. And then a few gestures, the way they hold themselves — uncanny. You think you’re watching a heron, say, picking its way through marshy water, stabbing at fish with its beak. Halifax would have been amazed.”

“What was the last thing you saw him in?” Lysander knew the answer to this question but he wanted to prompt reminiscences.

“It was his Lear. Yes…About a week before he died. I was on leave in London, going back to India and the regiment. Absolutely terrifying performance. He was a big man, your father, you know, but in that play you saw him shrink, with your own eyes, saw him diminish physically. You know that speech, ‘Blow, winds and crack your cheeks!’”

“The storm scene.” Lysander spread his arms and declaimed, “‘Rage! Blow! You cataracts and hurricanoes spout till you have drenched our steeples, drown’d the cocks!’”

“Exactly. Except he did it in a quiet voice. Stood very still, hardly moved — no bombast. Sent shivers up your spine. Do you want another whisky, old chap?”

“I will, actually — I’ve got some rather momentous news. And I want to ask your advice.”

Over two more glasses of whisky Lysander told Hamo the whole story about Hettie, the rape and assault charge, his arrest and flight from Vienna to Trieste. And the birth of Lothar.

“What’s the name? Say again.”

“Lothar. Lothar Rief.”

“But now you can’t go back to Austria, I suppose. Not even disguised?”

“I don’t think I can risk it.”

“Then why don’t I go in your place? Find this girl, Hettie, and make contact discreetly. No one’ll suspect an old fellow like me.”

“Would you?”

“Like a shot.” Lysander could see the excitement glitter in his pale blue eyes. “I could find the boy. Check out what this artist, Hoff, is like — pretend to buy a painting. See what the set-up is and report back to you.”

“It might work…” Lysander began to think himself, his own excitement building. “And I’ve a friend out there,” he added. “A lieutenant in the hussars. Could be useful.”

“I don’t speak the language of course.”

“Wolfram Rozman — he speaks excellent English.”

“We’ll make a plan, Lysander, we’ll sort it out. Get young Lothar back where he belongs. Maybe I’ll kidnap him…” He shot Lysander one of his rare lopsided smiles and winked.

♦

The next morning Lysander was up and left early to catch the train from Rye back to Claverleigh. Femi was in the kitchen wearing a crudely patterned cotton robe down to his ankles, with bare feet. Suddenly he looked very African in the small cottage kitchen, with the kettle boiling on the range, the stacked dishes on the wooden draining board. He shook Lysander’s hand.

“The Major, he talk of you, many, many,” Femi said.

Lysander was touched and left the house with a new sense of purpose and for the first time since he’d heard of Lothar’s birth he felt stirrings of hope. A plan was forming. He picked up a trap waiting outside the inn at Winchelsea and was at Rye station in time for the 7. 45 to Brighton, calling at Hastings and Lewes, with the rest of the Monday morning commuters, empty-faced men in their grey suits, stiff collars and bowler hats, reading their newspapers, counting down the hours until they could catch the train home again. Lysander stood amongst them, an incongruous figure with his baggy corduroy trousers and Panama hat, his rucksack slung over one shoulder, thinking of Hamo’s plan, his singing heart making him smile spontaneously.

Lysander’s head was still buzzing. He was experiencing that strange combination of huge mental fatigue with sheer, adrenalin-fuelled exhilaration that occurred whenever he came off stage after a first night — particularly if his role had been a sizeable one. It could last for an hour or more, he knew, as he felt his eyelids flicker and grow irresistibly heavy. Gilda was saying something to him but he couldn’t find the energy to listen. He was thinking back over his performance as Angelo, worrying that he’d rather gabbled his big speech in Act II. No doubt Rutherford would tell him in the morning…