Jane Gardam - Old Filth

Filth’s first thought — now — was: Well, thank God Betty’s gone. His second thought was that he would have to move.

However, the next-door house was as invisible as Filth’s, its garden secret behind the long band of firs that curved between their joint drives. These trees grew broader, taller, all the time, and even when the leaves of other trees fell and it became winter, there was neither sight nor sound of the new neighbour.

“He’s a widower, living alone,” said the cleaning lady. “His wife used to be a Chinese.”

Old Filth remembered then that Veneering had married a Chinese woman. Strange to have forgotten. Why did it stir up in him such a mixture of hatred and smugness — almost of relief? He remembered the wife now, her downward-looking eyes, the curious chandelier earrings she wore. He remembered her at the racecourse in a bright yellow silk dress, Veneering alongside — great coarse golden fellow, six foot two; his strangled voice trying to sound English public school.

Old Filth dozed off then with this picture before him, wondering at the clarity of an image thirty years old when what happened yesterday had receded into darkness. He was nearly eighty now. Veneering was a bit younger. Well, they could each keep their own corner. They need never meet.

Nor did they. The year went by and the next one. A friend from Hong Kong — young chap of sixty — called and said, “I believe old Terry Veneering lives somewhere down here, too. Do you ever come across him?”

“He’s next door. No. Never.”

“Next door ? My dear fellow—!”

“I’d have been wise to move away.”

“But you mean you’ve never—?”

“No.”

“And he’s made no. . gesture?”

“Christopher, your memory is short.”

“Well, I knew of course you were. . You were both irrational in that direction, but. .”

Old Filth walked his friend down to the gate. Beside it stood Veneering’s gate, overhung by ragged yews. A short length of drainpipe, to take a morning newspaper, was attached to Veneering’s gate. It was identical to the one that had lain by Old Filth’s gate for many years. “He copied my drainpipe,” said Old Filth. “He never had an original notion.”

“I’ve half a mind to call,” said Christopher.

“Well, you needn’t come and see me again if you do,” said courteous Old Filth.

Seated in his car in the road the friend considered the mystery of what convictions survive into dotage and how wise he had been to stay on in Hong Kong.

“You don’t feel like a visit, Eddie?” he asked out of the car window. “Why not come out for Christmas? It’s not so much changed that there’ll ever be anywhere in the world like it.”

But Filth said he never stirred at Christmas. Just a taxi to the White Hart at Salisbury, for luncheon. Good place. No paper hats. No streamers.

“I remember Betty with streamers tangled up in her hair and her pearls and gold chains. In Hong Kong.”

But Filth thanked him and declined and waved him off.

On Christmas morning, Filth thought again of Christopher, as he was waiting for the taxi to the White Hart, watching from a window whose panes were almost blocked with snow, snow that had been falling when he’d opened his bedroom curtains five hours ago at seven o’clock. Big, fast, determined flakes. They fell and fell. They danced. They mesmerised. After a few moments you couldn’t tell if they were going up or down. Thinking of the road at the end of his drive, the deep hollow there, he wondered if the taxi would make it. At twelve-fifteen he thought he might ring and ask, but waited until twelve-thirty as it seemed tetchy to fuss. He discovered the telephone was dead.

“Ah,” he said. “Ha.”

There were mince pies and a ham shank. A good bottle somewhere. He’d be all right. A pity though. Break with tradition.

He stood staring at the Christmas cards. Fewer again this year. As for presents, nothing except one from his cousin Claire. Always the same. Two handkerchiefs. More than he ever sent her, but she had had the pearls. He must send her some flowers. He picked up one large glossy card and read A Merry Christmas from The Ideal Tailor, Century Arcade, Star Building, Hong Kong to an old and esteemed client . Every year. Never failed. Still had his suits. Twenty years old. He wore them sometimes in summer. Snowflakes danced around a Chinese house on stilts. Red Chinese characters. A rosy Father Christmas waving from a corner. Stilts. Houses on stilts.

Suddenly he missed Betty. Longed for her. Felt that if he turned round now, quickly, there she would be.

But she was not.

Outside there was a strange sound, a long, sliding noise and a thump. A heavy thump. It might well be the taxi skidding on the drive and hitting the side of the house. Filth opened the front door but saw nothing but snow. He stepped quickly out upon his doorstep to look down the drive, and behind him the front door swung to, fastening with a solid, pre-War click.

He was in his bedroom slippers. Otherwise he was dressed in trousers, a singlet — which he always wore, being a gentleman, thank God — shirt and tie and the thin cashmere cardigan Betty had bought him years ago. Already it was sopped through.

Filth walked delicately along the side of the house in his slippers, bent forward, screwing his old eyes against the snow, to see if by any chance. . but he knew that the back door was locked, and the French windows. He turned off towards the tool shed over the invisible slippery grass. Locked. He thought of the car in the garage. He hadn’t driven now for some time, not since the days of terror. Mrs. Thing did the shopping now. It was scarcely used. But perhaps the garage—?

The garage was locked.

Nothing for it but to get down the drive somehow and wait for the taxi under Veneering’s yews.

In his tiptoe way he passed the heap of snow that had fallen off the roof and had sounded like a slithering car. “I’m a bloody old fool,” he said.

From the gate he looked out upon the road. It was a gleaming sheet of snow in both directions. Nothing had disturbed it for many hours. All was silent, as death. Filth turned and looked up Veneering’s drive.

That too was pristine silk, unmarked by birds, unpocked by fallen berries. Snow and snow. Falling and falling. Thick, wet, ice cold. His thinning hair ice cold. Snow had gathered inside his collar, his cardigan, his slippers. All ice cold. His knobbly hands were freezing as he grasped first one yew branch and then the next. Hand over hand he made his way up Veneering’s drive.

He’ll be with the son, thought Old Filth. That or there’ll be some ghastly house party going on. Golfers. Old cobwebs from the Temple. Smart solicitors. Gin.

But the house when it came in view was dark and seemed empty. Abandoned for years.

Old Filth rang the bell and stood on the porch. The bell tinkled somewhere far away inside, like Betty’s at the rosewood dining-table in the Mid Levels.

And what the hell do I do now? He’s probably gone to that oaf Christopher and they are carousing in the Peninsular Hotel. It’ll be — what? Late night now. They’ll have reached the brandy and cigars — the cigars presented in a huge shallow box, the maître d’ bowing like a priest before the sacrament. The vulgarity. Probably kill the pair of them. Hullo?

A light had been switched on inside the house and a face peered from behind a curtain in a side window. Then the front door was opened slightly by a bent old man with a strand or two of blond hair.

“Filth? Come in.”

“Thank you.”

“No coat?”

“I just stepped across. I was looking out for my taxi. For the White Hart. Christmas luncheon. Just hanging about. I thought I’d call and. .”