The Corpse at the Haworth Tandoori (5 page)

“You'd have a room to yourself,” said her mother, more practically, “and all your evenings free. You can eat with us or go off with your friends.”

“He'll have lots of friends round here, coming from County Wicklow,” said Stephen.

“He'll make friends, of course. A pleasant young man like Declan will always make friends.”

“Unlike your grandson,” said Stephen.

“Yes, unlike you, Stephen, who
repel
friendship.” Stephen remained irritatingly silent, as if disdaining self-defense. “At least this will have told you, Declan,” she went on, turning back to him, “that this is not an
easy
job.”

“No, well, I'll just have to see if I can cope,” said Declan. “I haven't always had it easy so far.” In a sudden gush of honesty he added: “I like the idea of a room to myself. It's something I've never had at home.”

“Lots of brothers and sisters?”

“That's right. I can put up with a lot for a room of my own.”

“Then you'll take the job?”

“I'll take it if you're offering it,” said Declan, with the mental proviso that they were “on liking” quite as much as he was, if not more so.

Suddenly the man with the pipe spoke for the first time.

“They've been exaggerating about Ranulph. His bark's worse than his bite. And he can be as meek as a lamb for weeks at a time.”

“Granddad is
never
meek as a lamb.”

“Comparatively. When he's not painting anything major.”

“When he's meditating a picture,” said Mrs. Byatt. “When the next painting is taking shape in his mind.”

“It's when he is trying to get that picture in his mind
onto the canvas that frustration sometimes turns into rage,” said his daughter. “The gap between vision and reality, you know, that's how he describes it. Every time he feels he has failed, because he can't match the painted pictures with the ideal conception. Can you, as a layman, understand that?”

“I think I can,” said Declan.

“We just have to hold our breaths and wait until it passes.”

“Till we can just be his doormats again, instead of the targets on his shooting range,” said Stephen. There was a moment's silence.

“Well, that's settled, then,” said Mrs. Byatt, with a forced naturalness. “Now, you'd better get to know us, since you're going to be part of the household. I'm Melanie—
please
try to call me that, it's so much more friendly. On the other hand it's perhaps best to call Ranulph Mr. Byatt, at least to start with. He'll make it clear what terms he wants to be on with you.”

“
Quite
clear,” said Stephen.

“And I'm Martha,” said Stephen's mother. “Martha Mates. I'm Ranulph and Melanie's daughter. Stephen is my son. And this is Arnold Mellors.”

The man with the pipe came over and shook Declan's hand.

“I live in the cottage built on to this house,” he said. “You must feel just as at home there as you are here.”

“Thank you,” said Declan, not quite feeling at home anywhere yet.

“Arnold took early retirement,” said Martha Mates.

“Before I was pushed. Nobody wants experience or mature judgment anymore in the business world. I paint
myself, in a small, amateur way. But living close to Ranulph is—well, a breath of life, artistically speaking.”

“I'm sure it is,” said Declan, who was undergoing a crash course in discretion.

“Well, I think the sensible thing would be to show Declan to his room,” said Melanie Byatt, getting up from her chair by the mantelpiece. Getting a good look at her for the first time Declan saw the remains of a very good-looking woman indeed—full of figure, erect of carriage in spite of what he took to be her arthritis, and beautifully dressed in a creamy-brown frock with a vivid rose-and-orange shawl. Why dress so well in a rather drab farmhouse on a weekday in midsummer? The answer was perhaps in the face: handsome, chiseled, with wide mouth and striking hazel eyes, the whole effect just touched with a suggestion of a bird of prey. The boy's diagnosis, with only an intuitive understanding of the world he was sliding into, was that Melanie had always been beautiful, and that she had used her beauty to exact homage or obedience.

Certainly beside her, her daughter looked drab—dressed sensibly, inclined to dumpiness, with a moon-shaped face innocent of makeup. It was as if she was making a statement that she was not in competition.

“I can show Declan to his room, Mother,” said Martha Mates.

“No, no. You know I like to do the honors of the house, as long as it is mine. . . . You'll eat with us, Declan?” she asked, turning to him and widening her painted lips.

“Thank you very much.”

“Ranulph eats in his room. He's very tired today so I think, you know, the best thing will be to prepare him
tonight, and for you to meet him for the first time tomorrow.”

“‘Sufficient unto the day . . .'” came from the sofa.

“Stephen, if you were not about to go up to Oxford I would seriously consider forbidding you this house,” said Melanie Byatt. “Come, Declan.”

She went slowly, painfully through the hall and up the dark stairs, leaning on a stick with an ivory knob on top, then along an almost equally dark landing, at the end of which she threw open a door.

“Here we are.”

It was a small room with a single bed, a chest of drawers, a tiny wardrobe, and a desk. It had not been decorated for many years, though the wallpaper had originally been unusual. Declan went over to the window. It looked out over a long field at the back of the house, with stables at the far end.

“It's heaven,” he said.

“Hardly that. But I hope you can make it your own. The bathroom is there and your lavatory over there. There's another one at the other end. We eat at half past seven. Make free of the house until then, and the grounds too, but best not to come upon Ranulph before he's been prepared. I do hope you'll be happy here.”

And sitting on his bed, Declan looked around him oozing contentment. This was
his
room. Not his and Patrick's, or his and Stephen's and John Paul's, but
his
. He felt sure in his mind he could cope with the people in the house, their oddities, their animosities, their passions. He sat there for all of twenty minutes, savoring his luck, then he got up and looked out the window again: a long field, horses in the distance, high hills beyond them. This was
good, this was natural, this was like home. He could have sung out one of those deceptively simple Irish ballads he had charmed the paying customers with in Haworth. More than the people in the house, this room, the field outside his window and the hills beyond, made him feel immensely contented, at peace, secure.

Breakfast next morning was a slightly uneasy affair, as dinner the previous evening had been as well. Declan sensed that it was nothing to do with his own relationship with the people around the table, only apprehension about how things would go when he encountered the only member of the household he had thus far been kept away from. He reserved judgment on the situation at Ashworth, but his initial impression was that they were all terrified of that unseen presence—and that included
Stephen, the only one who was willing to formulate anti-Ranulph sentiments.

Was he the only one, he wondered, to feel them?

It was made clear to him that, today at least, he would be wanted only when Ranulph Byatt was ready to paint.

“Daddy paints when he
needs
to paint,” said Martha Mates, with a metallic brightness in her voice. “Of course we don't know when that will be, but probably around mid-morning. I'm sure you can find things to do until then.”

Declan decided it would be impolitic to just mooch around, and still more so to practice his guitar. Still, he needed something to calm his nerves. Nervousness was not usually a problem with him, and he concluded it was something he had caught, as one might catch the flu, in this house. When he had had his last piece of toast and marmalade he told Melanie (as he had studiously been calling her) that he would be in the front garden weeding when they needed him.

He enjoyed working in a garden: it was something he was very used to, it was conducive to thought—he had always been accustomed to think through any situation he found himself in—and he had considerable expertise at it, never for a moment being in doubt as to what should be torn out, what left to flower. He had been at it for nearly an hour and a half, and had come to the conclusion that if Ranulph Byatt was at all tolerable he could well stop at Ashworth for quite a while, when Melanie came to the front door and beckoned him. He went to the kitchen and washed his hands, and then together they proceeded again slowly up the dingy staircase. Declan felt a bit like a minor functionary accompanying the Queen.

“He's quite excited, you know,” said Melanie, unable to keep the surprise out of her voice, or a sort of nannyish condescension. “I think it's the prospect of seeing a new face.”

At the top they turned left instead of right, and progressed nearly the whole length of the landing. Eventually Melanie stopped at a door, gave Declan an encouraging smile, then tapped on it and opened it.

It was the atmosphere of the room that struck Declan first—or more accurately, the smell. It was an invalid's room, and an old-fashioned invalid's room at that. It breathed sickness and decrepitude. Embrocation, herbal inhalers, all manner of ancient remedies that some would call natural, others would call quack, gave the room a close, sickly feel.

“We air it as soon as he goes out,” whispered Melanie.

The next thing that Declan registered was the invalid. He was dressed—shirt, waistcoat, trousers—and sitting in an armchair, his daughter, Martha, standing beside him. He was the remains of an impressive, even intimidating man. Now he was long, very skinny, and his gaunt face was fallen in, only the intensely living eyes bearing witness to the force his personality had once had. But the glow that came from them was a burning, not a warming one, and Declan, educated by priests and nuns, immediately thought of hellfire.

“Hello, sir,” he said.

Ranulph Byatt harrumphed, and even that sound showed Declan that there was force in the voice as well as the eyes. It was a voice that he would have associated with a general more readily than with an artist.

“Come and help me up,” the voice said, after regarding
Declan intensely for a second or two. “They've dressed me, you notice, my womenfolk. Why, you ask? Because they don't want you to be revolted on your first morning by the sight of my ancient flesh.”

“I wouldn't be that, sir,” said Declan, going over. When Martha Mates made to take her father's other side, he said: “I think it'll be easier if I do it on my own. I learned the technique with me old gran.”

He put his arm around the stooped shoulders and gently but deftly raised the old man to his feet. Once standing, Ranulph Byatt needed to pause to get his breath.

“So, I'm the successor to your old gran, am I?” he asked with the first trace of bitterness in his voice. “Well, you seem to have learned a thing or two. Forward now.”

Together they walked slowly to the door, then turned right. Martha and Melanie lingered in the background. The next door down, at the end of the landing, was open, and light was flooding out of it. Step by step they approached the light, then turned and entered the long room. Declan was astonished at its size. Two bedrooms had been made into one large studio by the removal of a wall, and also of the ceiling. The windows had been enlarged by making them into one long one, and part of the roof had been turned into a massive skylight. All this Declan registered only subconsciously, because he was helping Byatt slowly forward to a high-backed padded chair in front of an easel. Finally he positioned the old man directly in front of the chair, then eased him down into it.

“Well done, boy. You'll do,” said Byatt.

Declan registered a glance passing between mother and daughter, one that mingled gratification and surprise.

“Sure, you're no problem at all, sir,” he said.

Ranulph Byatt was again out of breath, and it was some time before he spoke.

“Now,” he said, “I want you to watch this carefully. We'll only show you this once, mind. It may look difficult but it's not. Martha!”

Martha Mates came over and took up a palette that stood on a stand beside Ranulph's chair. There followed a process, which Declan followed intently, in which the artist gave instructions and Martha obeyed expertly.

“More of the blue—too much—a dash of the green. A little more. I'll need some of the yellow.”

The process took ten minutes or more, and Declan registered carefully the paints that were currently in use. Martha was good at the job, but Declan had an odd sense that she was doing it without understanding and that this irritated Byatt. Yet her words always suggested that she loved and admired her father. Perhaps she was jealous of his art? Loved the man, hated the distraction of his genius? And perhaps it was because she did it without the devotion of the artistic acolyte that the job was now to be taken over by himself. If so there was a real danger that he would be found to be inadequate.

“Sometimes you have to sit in front of him and hold the palette close,” whispered Melanie. “Often for quite a long time.”

Declan nodded.

“
Right
,” said Ranulph Byatt. “Did you get that, boy?”

“I think so, sir, most of it,” Declan said. Then he added modestly: “I expect I'll get things wrong at first.”

“I expect you will. Well, let's get on with it. Shoo!” Byatt turned his neck painfully to look at his womenfolk. “Don't
come back unless you're sent for.” Then he turned to the easel, as if he had put his wife and daughter entirely out of his mind, and was glad to have done so. He took a broad brush from a jar beside the easel and sat considering.