Kevin Barry - There Are Little Kingdoms

It was falling so quickly into the patterns of a marriage. Some wind got up and the old house groaned and trembled. If the house ever stopped groaning and trembling, it would be time to worry. There were presences in the house, he was sure, but mostly benign. His Uncle Jack for one. Poor Jack! Jack was always going to be a man for the unquiet grave.

‘So what colour’s this one? What colour’s Joe?’

‘Oh! You’re unbelievable! You realise, I suppose, that you can be arrested for that type of comment now? They won’t care if you’re eighty-five! Joe is an honest and kind and loving man, he’s…’

‘Relax, Angel, you’ll give yourself blood pressure. He’s Manchester, is he? Well, rough old spot, isn’t it? I remember it must have been… ’38? Yes, and I’m in a low bar in Ancoats. No, hang on, was it Huyton? Remember the rhyme? Huyton, Huyton, two dogs fightin’! No, Huyton’s Liverpool. It was Manchester, it was Ancoats. Myself, Alec Whittle, Charlie Bamber, all that crowd. I dare say we’ve had a few. Ambrose Poll walks in, he says …’

‘Dad,’ said Angelica. ‘The last thing I need now is pub stories. You’re stinking.’

‘No, actually,’ said Freddie. ‘I’ve only had a couple.’

‘You’re stinking,’ she said. ‘You were stinking when I got back at two o’clock today — two o’clock, Daddy! — and you’re stinking now.’

‘Three or four, darling,’ he said. ‘That’s all I’ve had.’

‘Stinking. At your age!’

‘Your mother was never a shrew. Your mother was a marvellous woman. Liked a drink. Wonderful with money. Knew her horses. And she ate very rarely.’

‘You’re a washed up old sot. I should put you in a facility.’

‘You come up here!’ he cried. ‘You come up here with your bloodshot eyes! You bed the jailbird!’

She leapt to her feet and took the bottle by its neck.

‘How dare you! You drove my mother to the grave and you won’t be happy till you’ve me in t’same place! You go out of your mind! You lose the fucking plot! I mean that business with the headstones, Dad! The police called in? Community orders? At your age? You have disgraced this family’s name! AGAIN! We are lower than muck now! People smirk, in the village, they do! When I pass? They smirk!’

‘Angelica,’ he said. ‘Really.’

Bliss family arguments boiled up quick and subsided as fast. They had a couple of sips, they took down a couple of breaths. They gathered themselves.

‘Hillwalkers?’ he said.

‘That’s our market.’

‘Enormous gasping Germans in boots. Well, they’re back, certainly. Like the swallows. They’re all over the shop. They turn up here, you know? Bang on the door at all hours. They get lost. They say this direction is west, please? This direction is east? I say no wonder you lost the war. Can’t find your way to Keswick? How do you expect to find Moscow? In the snow?’

‘I’m headachey,’ said Angelica.

‘Blonde chaps. Healthy, yes, but tremendously dull, Germans. Don’t you find? Headache, darling? Eat some pills.’

The drinks became more brandy than coffee. She drained hers and went to the window for air. It was an enormous, leaded window, like a church’s, and she pushed it open as wide as it’d go, and climbed out for a turn about the unkempt gardens. It was a clear night and the sky was jewelled and the Plough was precisely where it should be at this late hour, indicating Carlisle. She had plans for a meditation space by the froggy pond. There would be dawn ceremonies. She had a loose white frock in mind. Also, she would relay the croquet lawn. There would be cream teas, served by pleasant local girls in crisp linen uniforms — that is the sort of thing that gets the foreigners gushing and ensures repeat business.

She fished the phone from her trouser pocket and texted some filth to Joe. He liked his filth, Joe. Perhaps it would be best if she didn’t hire girls who were overly pleasant. As soon as he was untagged, Joe would move up, and they would set about building their new life together. She had at last found her soul mate. She had known from the very first moment, six weeks ago. She exhaled raw happiness into the night-time garden. She danced back to the dining room for another drink or two.

Freddie Bliss had gone into reminiscence.

‘Lucia! Oh, she hated a snob. Marvellous throat, so sleek, like a swan! You’ve taken after my lot, more’s the pity. Bad luck, darling! Nose of a Bliss, certainly. Bulgy. Like your Uncle Alex. He went mad, you know. Poor Alex. That was a terrible end for any man to suffer, not to say bizarre. The papers were full of it. But Lucia! What does she do? Drives off the bridge at Ennerdale! Thought she was taking a left for Moresby Parks. Half in the bag, of course.’

‘You can convince yourself of anything, can’t you?’ said Angelica, pouring.

‘It was an accident, Angel! Lucia was in tremendous form that morning. She was right as rain.’

‘Dad? I think it’s time you thought about beddie-byes, no?’

‘Oh no,’ said Freddie. ‘It’s only half past two, dear. And may I apologise, again, for dinner being a shade late to table? It’s the dratted oven. Again! I’ll have to have a man over. Must be the fan. But no, dear, really, I sleep very little these days.’

A night bird’s call, it carried sadness to the room, and also the silver of hypochondria.

‘I think I’ve a fever coming up,’ said Angelica, hand to brow. ‘It’s the stress of the business. We need to sort out bedding, cutlery, flowers! We need to think about the painting and the plastering. There’s the question of staff. There are slates on the roof want replacing. Are you quite sure about the bank?’

‘Afraid so, darling. Chap went so far as to say it was one of the worst credit ratings ever recorded in the Northwest. I said, how dare you!’

The night murmured on, regardless. The night went about its clammy business. He watched Angelica with great interest. There wasn’t so much fun in the old thing anymore. Ah but when she was tiny! Some days, Lucia would take to the bed with one of her spells — Lucia got weak and pale and ranted sometimes — and Freddie would be put in charge of the baby. Those days were tremendous. He’d wheel her down the village in the pram. He remembered autumn weather, equinoctal gales. Hold on to your hair! And pushing the pram along, whistling, and the pram was a shield against the world. He’d take her down The Beekeepers in the afternoons, have a couple of swift ones. A malty ale, lovely, a scan of the paper, and her baby fists jabbing at the dust motes. It was late in the fifties. He was calming.

‘I’ve got it!’ she cried. ‘What if we called it ‘The Old Rectory’?’

‘Of course!’ said Freddie. ‘Because it was a rectory! Brilliant, Angel. Funny how things work out, eh? The likes of us? In a house of God? Lucia found it a frightfully glum notion. Oh Freddie, she said, a rectory? How dour! Uncle Jack wangled something with the Church. Place hadn’t been used in years. Parishes amalgamate, don’t they? There seemed to be no objection to me getting the keys. The deeds were another trick but there was little beyond Lucia. So I do actually have the deeds, dear, yes.’

‘A little sleep, Dad, don’t you think? Just for a while? Before the crew gets in.’

The house’s ragged orchestra struck up. Freddie heard it always as a small-town ensemble. He heard the wounded strings. He saw the bald elbows of the violinist’s rented dress suit. He saw the shiny pate of the third-rate conductor, consigned to the provinces after some murky scandal.

‘I remember the first night here. We ran around opening windows. We lifted the covers off the furniture. The birds, Freddie, she said, all the birds! I said yes, darling, there are very many birds, and there were, they were flying all over the bloody house — holes in the roof, hadn’t we? — and I opened some more of the wine. We didn’t at that point have any idea about the presences. The guests will have to get used. Jack himself generally keeps to the back rooms. I have no great trouble with Jack.’