Читать книгу Fen - Freya North - Страница 12

James Caulfield was woken by his lurcher, Barry, and, in turn, woke the labrador, Beryl, over whom he tripped on his way to the bathroom. He had a leisurely pee and then yawned at length, hanging on to the basin and staring vaguely at the mirror until the fog of reverie lifted and his reflection gawped back.

‘Christ,’ he groaned, stretching his chin to analyse bristle length, ‘reckon I can go another day?’ His dogs did not answer, merely observed him before glancing away in the approximate direction of the kitchen and their breakfast.

‘What’s today?’ James asked, this time not expecting an answer from his canine companions. ‘Thursday, I do believe. That means Mrs Brakespeare and as she’s rather short-sighted, the razor can wait until tomorrow.’ He stroked his chin thoughtfully, sprayed a long blast of deodorant under each armpit and went downstairs in his T-shirt and boxer shorts to feed the dogs. He stood over them, hands on hips, as he always did, while they slurped down their food before staring at him imploringly as if they could eat the same again. ‘Come on, out you go.’ He opened the arched oak door and the dogs bounded out into the morning.

Standing barefoot on the stone steps of his home, he watched the dogs race each other over the lawn. ‘In-digestion!’ he called after them in warning, stopping them momentarily in their tracks, before they resumed their intricate chase in and out of the cedars. James looked over to the great house, the gables of which he could see through the shrubs and trees. ‘Morning all,’ he said quietly, ‘apologies, as ever, should my dogs shit in your shrubs.’ He shut the front door and went to change. It was ten in the morning and he was running late.

James Caulfield is forty-nine years old. He lives at the Keeper’s Dwelling of Delvaux Hall, near Bakewell, Derbyshire. The Hall itself is no longer lived in by Lord Delvaux, or anyone of remotely aristocratic lineage, however tenuous. Fifteen years ago the Hall was converted into ten luxury apartments, the stables, the keeper’s dwelling and the forester’s lodge into self-contained residences. James is a landscape gardener for whom an address as seemly as Keeper’s Dwelling, Delvaux Hall, Near Bakewell, Derbyshire, is essential to his trade. His clientele would be strictly limited if his van and cards gave some cul-de-sac in Chesterfield as his abode. James bought the building as a forsaken shell fourteen years ago, taking on most of the interior renovations himself. Consequently, though his mortgage is relatively small, the upkeep of the place requires a monthly input of funds that his landscape gardening only just about provides for. It certainly does not stretch to fixing the temperamental heating system, or the extensive roof repairs.

While most men his age dress in suits for the office or casuals for tele-working, James’s work attire consists of old khakis, a black cotton polo-neck (the polo part becoming unstitched at the neck), a quilted checked lumberjack shirt, thick socks and hiking boots, an old battered wax jacket slung over his shoulder but worn only in utterly antisocial weather. The whole ensemble, clothing as it does a strong six-foot frame, makes James look much more Ralph Lauren than he does Percy Thrower and that’s why most of his clients are female. His Italian mother bequeathed him a head of tenacious, dark curls that he keeps cut close to his scalp. Though his hairline has receded a little, it has not drawn back further since he was twenty-six, nor have the silver flecks which pepper the sides increased. Because he scrutinized it daily until he was thirty, and it didn’t creep back even a millimetre, James rarely looks at it now – he is more concerned with his torso. When he looks in the mirror, he is always unnerved to see that it is not the body of a man in his mid-twenties that he still fully expects to see. But there again, when he goes for his thrice-weekly run, he is always unsettled that three miles feel much more of an effort than seven ever used to. He fears that age is playing havoc with his memory and powers of logic. Saying that, he is blessed by good looks; working out of doors affords his skin a year-round healthy bloom and his olive complexion accentuates the glint of his nut-brown eyes. His teeth are good. His humour is excellent. His hands are anomalously fine and clean for his job. His self-sufficiency, however, is wholly exasperating.

James is a prime topic of analysis amongst the women he works for. Word of mouth passed him from client to client, and much conversation is devoted to hypothesizing on why such an eligible man is unattached. In their pursuit of the tiniest clue (they’ve given up on full-blown answers), they rarely allow James to garden uninterrupted. He is paid by the hour and if they choose to force him to spend lengthy periods at the kitchen table drinking tea, or juice, or sometimes, according to the season, Pimm’s or spiced cider, then that’s their prerogative. Most would love to object to the presence of his dogs, especially the lurcher with the lascivious glare and probing snout, especially the labrador who invariably digs up much of James’s work before he leaves; but none voice their concern. Whatever makes James happy. What is it that would make him happy? But is he unhappy? He can’t be happy all alone, surely. Do you know? No, do you? Any ideas? Any clues?

He’s an enigma. In Derbyshire, he is day-dream material, fodder for fantasy. He is Mellors. And Angel. He is Gossip. He’s the highlight of many a Matlock Mrs’s week. He knows it and he chuckles to himself amongst the hydrangeas. He plays up to it. He likes the attention. The company. And the control.

Once James had arrived at Mrs Brakespeare’s near Hassop, had been given a cup of tea, a bun and a run-down on her week, there was just time for him to do an hour’s work before lunch-time; a hearty affair of ham and eggs, orange barley water and the recounted ways, wiles and woes of Mrs Brakespeare’s daughters and granddaughters.

‘And you, James, what are we to do with you?’ Mrs Brakespeare declared quite brazenly, folding her arms in a motherly way, for emphasis and persuasion, while she observed him.

‘What do you mean, Mrs B?’ James asked, quietly enough to disguise his teasing tone.

‘Please, after all this time, and all my assurances, please call me Ruth.’

James nodded, though both knew he never would. All his clients begged him to be familiar but the closest he came was to abbreviate their surnames to the first letter. Mrs Woodgate, in Hathersage, one of his newest clients, longs for the day when she will finally be Mrs W.

‘James, James,’ Mrs B chided amicably, ‘we don’t like to think of you all on your own in Keeper’s Dwelling – it’s a grand place, perfect for a family. Well?’

‘Mrs B,’ James replied, clearing his throat and helping himself to an apple which he bit into and chewed for a tantalizing period before answering, ‘as far as I can see, the only way a family will live at Keeper’s is if I sell it on to one.’

‘But you can’t be happy, truly so, just you on your own?’

‘Oh, but I am,’ munched James. ‘Best to be with nowt, than with the wrong’un,’ he said in an accent that was a whole county north and not at all the Cheltenham-born, Cambridge-educated, Derbyshire-living gardener.

‘But you’re not getting any younger,’ Mrs B all but pleaded, ‘you don’t want to become too set in your ways. I mean, you really should shave regularly, too.’

‘Mrs B,’ James said in a voice that blended warning and flattery, ‘Lunch, as ever, was delicious.’ He kissed his fingers and threw them theatrically to the air, fluttering Ruth Brakespeare’s heart quite intentionally as he did so. Still she knew no more about him than she had six months ago. There’d be little to recount to Babs Chorlton, whom she’d promised to phone at tea-time.

‘James,’ Mrs B called from the back door. James looked up from the roses and cupped his hand to his ear. ‘James,’ said Mrs B, ‘promise me one thing – keep the door ajar, never let it close completely.’

James, who had understood her very well, nevertheless sauntered over to the garden shed, opened the door a little and gave Mrs B the thumbs up. Exasperated, she blinked skywards and then went in to phone Babs because it just couldn’t wait.

James had no more jobs that day and, after an arduous trawl through Safeways, and a demoralizing visit to the petrol pump (he was constantly bemused by the fuel gauge in his Land Rover always hovering at empty), he told the dogs he had spent over half the cash he had earned that day, that it was therefore Safeways’ own brand rather than Winalot Supreme for the next few days. After a run which hurt his legs, his lungs and his pride, he sat down to a bowl of Heinz tomato soup followed by a bowl of cereal: Cornflakes, Alpen and Coco Pops, all mixed together and saturated with full cream milk. The combination was delicious and satisfying – and eaten, as often it was, in gleeful defiance of Dawn.

Dawn, with whom James had spent most of his mid-twenties in a gracious apartment in Bath when he was working as a highly paid surveyor, had insisted on providing three courses at seven thirty sharp. With her predilection for well-cooked meat, overcooked veg and stodgy puddings, along with her need to have everything washed and dried just as soon as it was finished with, she made the evening repast about as enjoyable as the taking of cod liver oil as a child. James rebounded into a relationship with an American model so faddish about food that often supper was little more than herbal tea gulped down with air, egg whites blended in the Magimix or, as a rare luxury, liquidized frozen bananas. It was then, in his early thirties, that James decided all potential bed-mates must be dined on the very first date; their choice from the menu and the amount left on their plates determining the level of involvement he was willing to invest.

Ultimately, it cost him a fortune in restaurant bills and redundancy between the sheets. Aged thirty-five, James turned to dogs, Derbyshire and delphiniums for respite. He liked dogs. Dogs ate anything at any time and licked the bowls clean themselves. And Derbyshire was down to earth, with folk whose humour was as dry as their stone walls. And delphiniums? Ah! Delphiniums. The season would arrive soon enough.

And are the Derbyshire dames gems to rival those of the Blue John Caverns? Or are they Bakewell Tarts? Come on, James, don’t tell us you’ve been celibate for fourteen years.

Lord above, no! But you know what they say about discretion …

Do we?

Exercise it and you’re rewarded – lay after lay.

No one has scratched a little deeper?

No. If I’d been an idiot, I’d have married my childhood sweetheart at twenty-one. Anyway, my father had two wives, several mistresses and innumerable dalliances. I look on him as an example – albeit, one not to follow. Women are complicated. And they are expensive too. And noisy.

And you’re forty-nine now.

Yup. Stuck in my ways with my heart shared equally between two dogs and a draughty house. Not much more room in there. Anyway, I’m not that inviting a proposition. I had a couple of women last year, one in Glossop, one in Crookes, for whom I was the height of glamour on account of my age (I was at least twice theirs) and accent. Folk round here would love to see me set up in the Dwelling with a wife and the proverbial 2.4 – but they’ll be keeping their ripe daughters well away.

Why?

Because I think they feel if I’m unmarried and with sperm awaiting at forty-nine, there must be some reason for it, something wrong.

OK, what about their older daughters?

It’s a truth universally acknowledged that an unmarried man, at forty-nine, is far more attractive a proposition than an unmarried woman of that age.

But are you happy like this?

I’m used to it. Familiarity breeds content.

With a huge mug of tea and a clutch of digestive biscuits, James goes to the room he calls the study to divide his attention between three days of unopened mail and today’s Guardian. Bill. Bill. Bill. Bill Clinton. James does some hasty mental arithmetic and reckons that the amounts owing will swallow nicely both the amount earned last month and to be earned this.

Swallow nicely – hey, Mr Clinton?

Barry and Beryl look at him with expressions bordering on pity. James studiously ignores them and the pile of red bills, and tries to ignore the fact that he is verging on broke. He turns the page of the newspaper and reads that an anonymous bidder at Calthrop’s paid £3 million for a Matisse.

‘Shame we don’t have a Matisse or two knocking about,’ James says, regarding a pair of oil sketches above the fireplace. ‘My bank manager hates me.’ He looked at the numbers under the Matisse painting. He thought about his bank manager. He looked at the pile of red bills. He thought about the Fetherstones. ‘Compared to a Matisse, we’d probably need to subtract most of the noughts if we put the Fetherstones up for auction.’ He ventures over and unhooks one of the paintings from the wall. It is about the size of a coffee-table book.

How awful that something as prosaic as a leaking roof and irate bank manager would make me think of selling my Fetherstones. There again, pruning rhodos does not a rich man make.

‘Anyway, my lot are probably not even worth half of a pencil smudge by Monsieur Matisse.’ He looks at the back of the board he has just taken down. ‘Adam, 1895. Eve,’ he murmurs, taking down the other, ‘1894. Biblically impossible – but artists are gods of a type – creating and destroying and having tomes of nonsense written about them.’ He looks at the wall and cringes at the two light rectangles edged by dusty outlines. He places the two paintings side by side. He feels ashamed that he’s trying to read price tags on them. He feels irritated that, at forty-nine years of age, his finances are in disarray and his bank manager is rude to him. He looks at the oil sketches, butting up against each other. Without the width of the extravagant stone mantelpiece separating them, he suddenly appreciates how they were conceived as much more than a pair. He feels ashamed for having kept them apart.

‘Dirty bugger!’ he chortles under his breath with deference to the artist. He sees how, if he was to cut the figures from the board, they would entwine together in copulatory ecstasy. ‘Hang on,’ James says, leaving the room and disappearing out into the garden followed by his dogs. He returns without them, but with a small sculpture of two figures. ‘I forgot about you two, pumping away privately under the boughs of the weeping willow. I’ll bet you anything – yes! You see!’ He brandished the statue as if it was an Oscar, glancing only cursorily at the woodlice clinging haplessly to its base. ‘Put the two figures in the paintings together, cast the lot in bronze and this is what you get.’ He read the base. Eden, 1892.

‘That can’t be right. Surely he’d have done the sketches first? More to the point, if this is not a culmination piece, is it worth less?’

What am I doing? Am I really thinking of selling them? Just because I’m broke?

He scrutinized the dates on the boards and the bronze and knew he read them correctly. ‘I might ring Calthrop’s tomorrow. Just out of interest. Or for insurance purposes.’

Clipped tones in the Nineteenth Century department at Calthrop’s assured James that they’d be frightfully interested in any works by Fetherstone and, whilst they could estimate nowhere near the number of noughts of the Matisse league, they said they were confident of a sum far more princely than James had ever imagined.

‘I say, you wouldn’t like to bring them down to Bond Street, would you? Let us have a good old snoop? Valuations are free.’

‘I may,’ said James cautiously.

‘And you say the sculpture is just over a foot high?’

‘That’s right.’

‘That’s a bugger.’

‘Sorry?’

‘We live in hope of the marble Abandon being brought in unannounced one day. Now that would earn you a bob or two and a place in the history books.’

‘Really. Well, sorry to disappoint. But perhaps I will bring the others – I don’t know if I want to sell them, though my bank manager would. Do I need to make an appointment? Ask for who?’

‘A triple-barrelled surname,’ James exclaimed to his dogs, before filling a bowl with cornflakes and two crushed Weetabix. Eden, now free of woodlice and soil, stood at the foot of the stove; Adam and Eve were propped against the knife block and the washing-powder box. It was nearly eleven in the morning. Mrs G’s at noon, just for a prune, then Mrs M all afternoon, hopefully till tea-time and a good feed. So, no rush then. James perused the Guardian. He started the crossword, but without a pen it soon became a little trying. Then the name Julius Fetherstone leapt out at him from the small print of the galleries listings.

‘“Julius Fetherstone: Art and Erotica”. F. McCabe. Tate Britain. Thursday Lunch-time Lecture. Millbank, SW1,’ he murmured. ‘Flavour of the month, Fethers old boy?’ He put down his spoon and looked hard at the paintings. ‘Doesn’t fashion dictate an inflated value?’ He rummaged around in a kitchen drawer, found a rail timetable that was surprisingly not out of date, and consulted it for a train for the day after next that would bring him into London in good time.

‘Looks like we have a date.’