Trevor, William - Children Of Dynmouth

‘All right is she?’ Timothy asked again, not that he cared: it was his opinion that Mrs Dass was a load of rubbish the way she affected herself, lying there like a dead white slug when there was nothing the matter with her.

Mr Dass opened the hall door of Sweetlea and waited while Timothy zipped up his jacket again.

‘You didn’t mind me asking about her, sir? Only she looked a bit white in the face.’

‘My wife’s not strong.’

‘She misses what’s-his-name?’

‘If you mean our son, yes, she does.’

‘He hasn’t been back in a long time, Mr Dass.’

‘No. Good-bye now.’

Timothy nodded, not leaving the house. He’d known their son well, he said. He enquired about the work he was doing now and Mr Dass was vague in his reply, having no wish to discuss his son with a stranger, especially since his son had been at the centre of a domestic tragedy. The Dasses had two daughters, both of them now married and living in London. Their son, Nevil, born when Mrs Dass was forty-two, had taken them by surprise and as a result had been indulged in childhood, a state of affairs that the Dasses now bitterly regretted. Three years ago, when Nevil was nineteen, he had quite out of the blue turned most harshly on both of them and had not been back to Dynmouth since. He’d been particularly the apple of his mother’s eye: his rejection of her had gradually brought about her invalid state. The Dynmouth doctors had pronounced her condition to be a nervous one, but it was no less real for being that, as her husband in his affection for her realized. The whole unfortunate matter was never mentioned now, not even within the family, not even when the two daughters came at Christmas with their children and husbands. Every year a place was laid for Nevil on this festive occasion, a gesture more than anything else.

‘He was very fond of the Queen Victoria Hotel, sir. I’ll always remember him going in and coming out, sir.’

‘Yes, well –’

‘He’d always have the time of day for you.’

‘Look, I’d rather not discuss my son. If there’s anything else –’

‘I need special stuff with lights for the act I’ve got, Mr Dass. I need the stage in darkness and then the lights coming on. I need that four times, Mr Dass, the darkness and the light: I’ll give you the tip by winking. I need the curtains drawn over twice. That’s why I’m worried about them.’

‘Yes, well, I’m sure we can manage something.’

‘You’re out with a blonde, Mr Dass, you see the wife coming?’

Mr Dass frowned, imagining he had heard incorrectly. It was cold, standing in the hall with the door open. ‘I beg your pardon?’ he said.

‘What d’you do when you see the wife coming, sir?’

‘Now, look here –’

‘The four-minute mile, sir!’

Mr Dass said he had things to do. He said he’d be grateful if Timothy Gedge left his house.

‘I do jobs for the Abigails, Mr Dass, I’ll be round there tonight. If there’s anything you had here –’

‘It’s quite all right, thank you.’

‘I do the surrounds for Mrs Abigail, and stuff in the garden for the Commander. I’d clean your boots for you, sir. Mrs Dass’s as well.’

‘We don’t need help in the house. I really must ask you to go now.’

‘You didn’t mind me asking you? I’ll pop in again when I’m passing, sir. I’ll have a word with Mr Feather about the curtains.’

‘There’s no need to call here again,’ Mr Dass said quickly. ‘About curtains or anything else.’

‘I’m really looking forward to the Spot the Talent, sir.’

The door banged behind him. He walked down the short tiled path, leaving the garden gate open. It was too soon to go to the Abigails’. He wasn’t due at the Abigails’ bungalow in High Park Avenue until six o’clock, not that it mattered being on the early side, but it was only five past four now. He thought of going down to the Youth Centre, but all there’d be at the Youth Centre would be people playing ping-pong and smoking and talking about sex.

Slowly he walked through Dynmouth again, examining the goods in the shop windows, watching golf being played on various television sets. He bought a tube of Rowntree’s Fruit Gums. He thought about the act he’d devised for the Spot the Talent competition. He began to walk towards Cornerways, planning to dress himself up in his sister’s clothes.

At Dynmouth Comprehensive Timothy Gedge found no subject interesting. Questioned some years ago by the headmaster, a Mr Stringer, he had confessed to this and Mr Stringer had stirred his coffee and said it was a bad thing. He’d asked Timothy what he found interesting outside the Comprehensive and Timothy had said television shows. Prompted further by Mr Stringer, he’d confessed that as soon as he walked into the empty flat on his return from school he turned on the television and was always pleased to watch whatever there was. Sitting in a room with the curtains drawn, he delighted in hospital dramas and life at the Crossroads Motel and horse-racing and cookery demonstrations. In the holidays there were the morning programmes as well: Bagpuss, Camp Runamuck, Nai Zindagi Naya Jeevan, Funky Phantom, Randall and Hopkirk (deceased), Junior Police Five, Car Body Maintenance, Solids, Liquids and Gases, Play a Tune with Ulf Goran, Sheep Production. Mr Stringer said it was a bad thing to watch so much television. ‘I suppose you’ll go into the sandpaper factory?’ he’d suggested and Timothy had replied that it seemed the best bet. On the school notice-board a sign permanently requested recruits for a variety of departments in the sandpaper factory. He’d been eleven or twelve when he’d first assumed that that was where his future lay.

But then, not long after this conversation with Mr Stringer, an extraordinary thing happened. A student teacher called O’Hennessy arrived at the Comprehensive and talked to his pupils about a void when he was scheduled to be teaching them English. ‘The void can be filled,’ he said.

Nobody paid much attention to O’Hennessy, who liked to be known by his Christian name, which was Brehon. Nobody understood a word he was talking about. ‘The landscape is the void,’ he said. ‘Escape from the drear landscape. Fill the void with beauty.’ All during his English classes Brehon O’Hennessy talked about the void, and the drear landscape, and beauty. In every kid, he pronounced, looking from one face to another, there was an avenue to a fuller life. He had a short tangled beard and tangled black hair. He had a way of gesturing in the air with his right hand, towards the windows of the classroom. ‘There,’ he said when he did this. ‘Out there. The souls of the adult people have shrivelled away: they are as last year’s rhubarb walking the streets. Only the void is left. Get up in the morning, take food, go to work, take food, work, go home, take food, look at the television, go to bed, have sex, go to sleep, get up.’ Now and again during his lessons he smoked cigarettes containing the drug cannabis and didn’t mind if his pupils smoked also, cannabis or tobacco, who could care? ‘Your soul is your property,’ he said.

Timothy Gedge, like all the others, had considered O’Hennessy to be touched in the head, but then O’Hennessy said something that made him less certain about that. Everyone was good at something, he said, nobody was without talent: it was a question of discovering yourself. O’Hennessy was at the Comprehensive for only half a term, and was then replaced by Miss Wilkinson.

It seemed to Timothy that he was good at nothing, but he also was increasingly beginning to wonder if he wished to spend a lifetime making sandpaper. He thought about himself, as Brehon O’Hennessy had said he should. He closed his eyes and saw himself, again following Brehon O’Hennessy’s injunction. He saw himself as an adult, getting up in the morning and taking food, and then reporting to the cutting room of the sandpaper factory. Seeking to discover an absorbing interest, which might even become an avenue to a fuller life, he bought a model-aeroplane kit, but unfortunately he found the construction work difficult. The balsa wood kept splitting and the recommended glue didn’t seem to stick the pieces together properly. He lost some of them, and after a couple of days he gave the whole thing up. It was a great disappointment to him. He’d imagined flying the clever little plane on the beach, getting the engine going and showing people how it was done. He’d imagined making other aircraft, building up quite a collection of them, using dope like it said in the instructions, covering the wings with tissue paper. It would all have taken hours, sitting contentedly in the kitchen with the radio on while his mother and sister were out in the evenings, as they generally were. But it was not to be.