Creating a fairer Britain
A loud bellowing sent Captain Evan Pugh-Jones hurrying upstairs.
Left alone, the lady estate agent realised that the clothes strewn among the toys were adult-sized. A picture caught her eye, an open-mouthed red pillar-box awaiting a floating blue letter under a tree with yellow, zigzag leaves – a laburnum. She knew the scene.
She took out her tape measure.
"That's right, you carry on," called the Captain from the stairs, and vanished again.
Exotic ornaments lay on every flat surface. Upstairs, her eyes opened wide at over-spilling jewellery boxes.
She heard a chuckle behind her. "You look as though you've had a spell cast on you. Melville never puts anything away."
The Captain opened a wardrobe and beckoned. It was crammed with costumes and dresses. From its shelf he took a silk scarf with Chinese motifs, a pale green with graceful, dark dancers, and handed it to her.
"I was at sea," he said.
"I guessed."
Tossing the scarf over her shoulders, she saw it open like a graceful bird taking flight.
"Keep it.”
"I couldn't.”
"Please."
"I couldn't possibly, no." She was adamant.
"Then at least wear it for me to see, while you're here."
"Do you have to manage without help?" she asked.
"There’s Social Services, and my wife’s cousin calls on Sundays.”
The estate agent ended up in the overgrown garden, recording ‘mature fruit trees’.
Re-entering the house she encountered a man of about fifty, so similar to the other beside him that she found herself aghast at the resemblance.
"Melville, my son," introduced the Captain.
"I’m Julie."
Melville shook the hand she extended with deliberation.
She asked who had painted the picture in the other room.
"Me."
"Is it the post box near the cemetery gate?"
"Yes," said Melville, his face lighting up.
"When I was a little girl I lived opposite there."
Melville, beaming, picked up her hand and shook it again.
"Was that really you making that noise before?" she asked, curiously.
Melville hung his head.
"Melville does that too often," said the Captain, "and he must stop."
The words had a desperate ring.
Julie gave Melville a sympathetic grin and Melville rubbed the back of his hand against his newly shaven chin with a sly, pensive look.
Looking at her watch, Julie said regretfully that she had another appointment. As the Captain showed her out, Melville proffered the picture.
"Oh, really, no."
"You must accept," urged the Captain, perturbed. "He’ll be upset."
So she did and kissed Melville's cheek.
"It's been a privilege meeting you both," she said.
"Oh, get on with you," said the Captain. "Only promise you'll call again."
She said she would.
"No, promise," insisted the Captain. "For Melville. You needn't stay long."
So she promised.
She departed, unwittingly still wearing the scarf.
The Captain's face became that of a different man. Telling Melville to clear up the toys in the front room he trudged upstairs to make the beds. There was a list of chores. It was as though someone else had chatted light-heartedly with Julie.
* * * * * *
Some people, once cared for by the State, were homeless. The Captain knew this because Melville had the annoying habit of making friends with them – living proofs of newspaper reports exposing flaws in the government's ‘Care in the Community’ scheme. This knowledge had brought the Captain to form an ambitious plan.
The plan entailed a smaller house, investing the surplus cash, and a new address that had no contact with Social Services. A trust would manage Melville’s inheritance and friends were being sought who’d visit him when the captain was no longer alive (Julie now earmarked as a possibility). The problem was training Melville to look after himself. Giant strides had been made. Shopkeepers and others commented on his development. By now Melville could even operate a weekly budget, counting money in and out of different coloured mugs. But Melville couldn't bear having to do things, and the more the captain increased the pressure of Melville's daily routine, the more Melville bellowed. He now even bellowed at having to get up in the morning. It upset the Captain more than anything, because it attracted attention, which jeopardised the plan.
The plan occupied a card system and files. One file labelled ‘Disposals’ had a category, ‘Fabrics’, and a list showing ‘Scarves’, one item of which referred back to a card with ‘Julie’ on it, marked ‘Visiting Friend’. If Julie fulfilled her role, further gifts would be recorded, including any that might form part of the Captain’s ever changing will.
In the event, this was not to be. For Julie never called as promised.
* * * * * *
In the cemetery, the Captain would say: “When I am dead, I will be buried here with your mother. You must come alone, then, every week."
Megan, his wife's cousin, would shake her head and purse her lips. Explaining for the umpteenth time that such a habit would give Melville adult credibility, the captain would wonder if Megan were the ideal person to manage Melville’s inheritance.
However, there simply wasn't anybody else.
Megan would arrive around ten on Sunday and help Melville prepare the vegetables while the Captain enjoyed some time alone studying his plan. After lunch she rested with a cup of tea under a golden man on a winged bicycle, a picture replacing that given to Julie. A quiet countrywoman, granted no more than she'd expected, she wondered how long she could continue coming, with her arthritis so bad.
One freezing day when the Captain was ill in bed, she and Melville spent less than a minute at the graveside, their breath rising like ghosts. Megan, however, was not to get back to the warm house as quickly as she wished. Arriving at the bus terminus, Melville pulled her towards the arches of the railway bridge.
There were five of them around a fire. Without ceremony, Melville put all his money into the possession of a sandy haired man in a rotting overcoat. A gaunt man with a face like a ruined abbey gave Megan a look to convey what words could not. Another, in a cowpat cap, said: "God bless him." A fourth, wrapped in a blanket, muttered, "God bless us all," and gave Melville a carving of a butterfly.
Megan, shivering, said: "We have to get back."
"Come and put my new butterfly in my treasure chest," insisted Melville, pulling her in the direction of his room. He opened a Victorian sewing-box, full of whistles, pen-knives, crucifixes, Saint Christophers, old coins, a rabbit's foot, folding scissors, a pocket New Testament . . . Megan picked up a worn photograph of a family group. "There," Melville said, pointing at a pleasant-looking man in his thirties, standing with a child in each arm next to a pretty woman holding a baby. "He didn't look much like that, though. After he gave me the picture I didn't see him again." He looked hard at Megan. "The others told me he was dead. So I didn't see him."
"That's the way with death," she said. "Yes, that's just about the long and the short of it."
She gave him a hug. He was the only person she knew who received gifts from beggars.
* * * * * *
In her cottage, the pain of her arthritis made her grunt as she bent to light the fire. "I'll go just one more time," she vowed, aloud, "and that'll be the last time till summer."
The following Sunday she struggled through freezing, wind-blown rain to the bus-station café, where the proprietor called her a taxi.
Wet and cold, she fumbled for her purse.
" Melville's Auntie, are you?" asked the young driver.
"Yes," she replied. "I visit on Sundays."
"I know,” he said. He got out to open her door for her. "Tell Melville you got a free ride with Dennis."
She sat warming herself with a cup of hot chocolate in a centrally heated room whose silence was devoured by three chattering clocks of different nationalities, above which cycled a golden man. Melville and the Captain stared at her with horrified dismay. She had just told them she would not be able to continue with her visits till summer.
Eventually, the Captain stammered: “Megan, I don’t suppose you’d consider coming to live with us, would you?"
Megan said nothing.
The Captain and Melville looked at each other hopefully.
"That damp cottage is no place for you, Megan. Come and help look after us here."
"And we'll look after you," added Melville.
It wasn't as if such an arrangement had never occurred to Megan. She could have got to this point any time she wanted. She just wasn't sure she could live under the same roof as Captain Evan Pugh-Jones.
"None of us is what we once were," said the Captain, as if reading her mind.
"Melville is," replied Megan.
At least one of those clocks would have to go. The whole place needed seeing to.
"You shouldn't try to change him, Evan," she scolded. “He’s a gift to you. I keep telling you, but you don’t seem to realise.”
"You'd be a good influence, Megan," he replied, craftily.
Again she shook her head.
"I don't know," she said.
"Try it for a month."
"Otherwise this house will be sold," put in Melville, plaintively.
"Yes, what about your grand plan, Evan?" asked Megan.
"I'll modify it."
"You can't take Melville away from this house, Evan.”
There was a long pause. Finally, the Captain said: "If you come and live here, we'll stay.” He felt an unexpected release. “It would be a relief,” he confessed.
Megan had no difficulty imagining how it would be. He'd spend more time in his study with some new plan, some new purpose, and his infernal will. Best place for him, his study. All she wanted was to avoid the worst and make the best of things. Living was hard enough without inventing purposes. They only diverted you from enjoying what you ought to feel grateful for. If she was alive and well, she and Melville could make a start on the garden next Spring.
Melville gave a short, wild chuckle of anticipation.
But Megan still said nothing.
"Please say yes," blurted Melville. "Please, Megan, please."
And so, under the delighted gaze of an air-borne cyclist, she did.