September 1922
Southern England
A farmer gave Oskar a lift in his cart for part of the way. Autumn was drawing near, and there was rain in the air, but he would arrive dry. He walked the last stretch, as he did every fortnight, his boots on the firm path, a ditch on his left, fields on his right, and beyond them the first line of trees, always looking the same, whether it was summer or winter.
On the way he bought himself a newspaper. He did that every time. A small local paper, as thin as a slice of bread, full of advertisements, club notices, birthdays, a little politics, a lot of weather, and a great deal of talk between the lines. He folded it neatly, slipped it into his coat pocket, and thought of the evening at his sister’s. There would be stew, he already knew that, and a stove that was not as temperamental as the one at the estate. Above all, there was a room where one could sit without a window rattling somewhere, and a voice that asked how he was without wanting anything in return.
Oskar had become a fat man. Not the cheerful sort, more the sort who had spent too much time on staircases and in cellars, who leaned against walls when no one was looking. At the estate he was the man responsible for the buildings, for roof tiles coming loose, damp walls, the stable when the gutter overflowed, the chimney when it drew like a curse. He was no steward in the genteel sense, no man for figures and letters, others dealt with that. He was the man they called when the house groaned.
His sister lived on the edge of the little town, two streets behind the church, with a small garden, a low wall, and a wooden shed full of everything one might need again one day and then forget. Oskar did not really knock, he simply pressed down the latch, as always. Inside it smelt of leek and pepper, wood and wool. His sister turned, wiped her hands on her apron, and said only, ‘There you are.’
He nodded, took off his hat, hung it on the hook, shrugged off his coat, and felt the warmth creeping into his back. That was a feeling no one could buy.
‘You look tired,’ she said.
‘The house needed seeing to again,’ said Oskar. He said no more. She knew what that meant.
He sat down at the table, took out the newspaper and laid it beside his plate, as though it were something one might look at properly later on.
His sister set a cup in front of him, then a second one, though she knew he only ever drank one. That was how she was. For her, order was not something one created when it made sense, but something one kept so that the world did not come apart at the seams.
There came a knock, two short taps, not hesitant, not impudent, more like someone who knew he was allowed in and yet did not want to stumble over the threshold. His sister looked at the door, then Oskar looked at the door, and both of them already knew who it was.
The man came in, holding his hat in his hand as though he had forgotten to put it on, and stood there for a moment as if he first had to decide whether he wanted to enter. He was neither tall nor short, a body that had learned in the war to stand stiffly whenever in doubt. His face was angular, his eyes alert but not curious, cautious rather. A man who did not ask questions unless he had to.
‘You,’ said Oskar. Nothing more was needed.
The man nodded, a brief smile, then sat down as if he had never been away. He was Oskar’s brother-in-law, though Oskar sometimes caught himself thinking the word too soft. Brother-in-law sounded like family gatherings and cake, whereas this man felt more like family by three corners and long forgotten how, exactly.
His sister set a bowl before him as if she had expected him. Perhaps she had.
‘Work?’ she asked, as if she were asking about the weather.
The man lifted his shoulders. ‘You hear about bits and pieces here and there. Nothing that lasts.’
‘You could ask at the estate,’ she said, looking at Oskar.
Oskar gave a quiet snort. ‘At the estate one doesn’t ask. One is summoned.’
The man smiled briefly, without humour, more in agreement than amusement. ‘I don’t want to go back to the sort of place where men behave as though they own everything. I’ve had enough of men who snap their fingers.’
‘Then go to the railway,’ said Oskar. ‘No one snaps their fingers there, they shout.’
‘Railway,’ the man muttered. ‘I’ve seen trains. Too many.’
His sister set the pot on the table, the ladle rang against the metal, a beloved sound that drowned out everything else for a moment. Oskar noticed the man placing his hands around the bowl as though he had to remind himself that warmth existed.
‘And otherwise?’ asked Oskar, because he knew one did not go straight to the heart of things. That was not his way, and it was not the way of a man who had come back from war either.
‘Otherwise,’ said the man, ‘everything is as if it never happened. And then it is there again. In people’s eyes, in the way someone shuts a door, in the silence after a crash, even if it is only a plate.’
Oskar nodded. He understood less than he pretended to, but enough to keep quiet.
They ate. It was good. It was simple. It was what one needed in order not to think.
Only when the bowls were empty and his sister took the pot from the table did Oskar reach for the newspaper. He opened it without haste, more from habit than intention, and then his gaze caught.
On the second page, not large, a black-and-white photograph, a little grainy, but clear enough. A woman, slender, wearing a hat too fine for such a paper, with an expression that did not know whether it wished to be friendly. Beside her, suitably enough, her husband. A kind of correctness that came not from vanity but from discipline. He stood half a step too close to her, not intrusively, more as if he had always been there.
Beneath it ran a piece pretending that this was no more than a notice, like a new roof for the school or a donated tree for the park.
‘Small gathering at the Lady’s estate,’ Oskar read quietly. ‘Donation to the veterans’ association, invitation, the usual names. And he …’ He broke off.
‘Who?’ asked the man, leaning forward. He was not curious, he was attentive. That was something else.
Oskar read on, then said the name printed there as though it were the most ordinary thing in the world: ‘Adam Baker, now …’ He stopped, because the paper had given a title Oskar did not care to carry in his mouth. It sounded of lineage and dignity, not of this man. ‘Now master of the estate at … you know where.’
The man looked at the photograph, at first only briefly, then longer. Oskar saw something working in his face, not fear, not anger, more memory trying to find its way out.
‘I’ve seen him before,’ said the man.
Oskar gave a soft snort, not dismissive, more astonished. ‘You know Adam Baker? The master of the estate?’
The man said nothing. He kept looking at the photograph as if he might touch it, if only he looked long enough.
‘That’s our master,’ Oskar said at last, because he noticed his sister staring at him. It was the sort of look that said, don’t talk nonsense, you’re bringing unrest into the kitchen.
‘Master,’ the man repeated. He spoke the word as though it were a stone.
Oskar folded the newspaper partway, as if it were rude to stare at it for too long. ‘He’s married to the Lady. A widow. Not rich, not as rich as people think, but the estate brings in money, and the name opens doors. And he brings …’ Oskar stopped, because he realised he was already saying too much.
‘How did he manage that?’ the man asked. ‘He’s no …’ He let the sentence hang.
Oskar understood. ‘At first we thought he’d been an officer,’ he said. ‘He carried himself like one. Quiet, upright, no jokes, no raised voice. And he had money. At least it looked that way. He helped her, people say. She was weary of mourning, of the gossip, of the estate, of her husband’s brothers, of everything.’
His sister cleared her throat. ‘You talk as though you’d held her in your arms.’
Oskar glanced at her, then back at the man. ‘I only see what happens in the house. And what happens in the house still happens even when you’d like to shut the door on it.’
The man nodded slowly. ‘It happened quickly,’ he said, as though he had read the piece without reading it.
Oskar nodded. ‘The mourning year had ended by a single day. One day. And there they were at the altar. The church was full, not with joy, with curiosity. You know how it is.’
‘And then?’ asked the man.
Oskar drew the newspaper back towards him, as though he needed something to anchor his hands to. ‘After that it changed,’ he said.
He heard himself speaking and thought that he sounded the way one spoke at the estate when one did not wish to accuse anyone and yet had to say something all the same.
‘There was a quarrel over the inheritance,’ he went on. ‘Not over hers, over his, from the late Earl. Two brothers. One of them a solicitor, a notary, a man with paper hands. The other loud, red in the face the moment he steps into the corridor. The loud one wants to sue, they say. The one with the papers comes more often. And spends a great deal of time in the hunting lodge.’
His sister made a sound hovering between disapproval and habit. ‘Oskar.’
‘People are talking … about the gamekeeper,’ said Oskar, raising a hand as though to stop himself. ‘But that’s nothing new. People always talk. Only in the past no one said it aloud, because everyone knew how dangerous such things could become. Ever since the master ordered that the family were not to be disturbed during the hunt, hardly anyone in the house speaks openly any more. He does not tolerate gossip.’
The man looked at him. ‘And the will?’
Oskar swallowed. ‘A will was found. That’s what they call it. All at once it was there. And now the widow, the Lady, is the sole beneficiary. Everything goes to her. That’s how it stands now, that’s how the story goes.’
‘Found,’ the man repeated. He said it more quietly, as though he understood what the word really meant.
Oskar nodded. ‘Found.’
He noticed his hands were sweating, though it was warm. He noticed as well that he was suddenly very tired, as if he had spent the whole day carrying roof tiles again.
‘And the Lady?’ asked the man.
Oskar hesitated, then said it the way one says such things when one does not want them written down in a book. ‘She hardly leaves her bed now. Weak. Pale. She eats little. Says little. Sometimes one hears her coughing at night, or saying something no one can make out. The doctor has been there, twice, three times. He says rest, fresh air, strengthening broth. He always says the same thing, because he can’t say anything else without burning his fingers.’
The man looked back at the photograph in the paper. ‘And him?’
‘He’s there,’ said Oskar. ‘Always. He smiles when someone comes, he speaks politely, he is pleasant, he is correct. He shows people round, lets them see what they want to see. And when they leave, he stands at the window until the carriage is out of sight. Then he goes back upstairs.’
His sister set the cups down. She did it more loudly than necessary, as though she wanted to feed the conversation with noise so that it would not come too close.
‘We’ll probably need another maid soon,’ said Oskar, because it had just occurred to him and because it was exactly the kind of thing that made such conversations bearable if one did not want to sit in the dark. ‘One of them is pregnant.’
His sister shot him a sharp look, as though he had opened a door on purpose.
The man raised his eyes. ‘Pregnant.’
Oskar shrugged, as uninvolved as one can be when one lives in a house where everyone watches everyone else. ‘It happens. It’s not the first time. Only this time it comes badly, because the Lady …’ He broke off.
‘Because the Lady is in bed,’ said the man.
Oskar nodded.
For a while there was nothing but the ticking of the clock. Oskar could feel the man holding on to something that was not on the table. He knew that way of falling silent, because otherwise one might say something that would not fit back into one’s mouth.
‘The brother with the papers,’ said the man at last. ‘The one who spends so much time in the hunting lodge. Why does he come so often if he ought really to be on the other side?’
Oskar looked at him. ‘I don’t know. I only know that he comes. I see his shoes in the corridor. Clean shoes, always. And I can see that Adam does not treat him like an enemy. More like someone he keeps at arm’s length, but does not throw out.’
‘And the other brother?’ asked the man.
Oskar twisted his mouth. ‘He rages. He bellows outside in the yard whenever he is there. Talks about court, about right, about disgrace. But he’s alone. And when you’re alone, you can bellow as much as you like, wood stays wood.’
The man leaned back. ‘In the war,’ he said, ‘the one who shouts is the one who is afraid. And the one who says nothing at all is usually planning more.’
Oskar looked at him for a long moment. ‘You speak as though you really know him.’
The man shook his head, slowly. ‘I have known many men. And many I never knew, though I stood beside them.’
Oskar folded the newspaper shut, as if that settled it. But it did not settle it. It was in the room like smoke one cannot air out.
‘What did you see?’ asked Oskar quietly.
The man looked at him, then at Oskar’s sister, then back at Oskar. He suddenly seemed older, though he was not old. ‘I saw him,’ he said. ‘Not dressed up like this. Not wearing a hat. Not bearing a title. I saw him in the rain, in the mud, among men who were never meant to come home. And he was always there. Always.’
Oskar felt the cold in him, though the stove was burning. ‘He was with you?’
The man nodded. ‘Not with me. Beside me. That is something else. He was strange. Brave. Not like an officer, not like an ordinary man. Not someone you pick a fight with. Not because he was loud. Because he was …’ The man searched for the word and did not find it, because the word did not belong in kitchens.
Oskar waited.
‘Because he had no boundaries,’ the man said at last.
His sister put the spoon into the washing-up bowl, as though she had suddenly found something to do, and remained standing there, her back to them, because that too was a sort of decency.
‘And how does a man like that end up marrying a Lady?’ Oskar asked, and heard how banal the question sounded after what had just been said about boundaries.
The man looked back at the photograph. ‘Perhaps because he knows how to wait quietly,’ he said. ‘Because he knows how to make himself useful. Because he knows how to find something that somebody needs.’
Oskar swallowed. ‘He helped her,’ he said, more to himself than to the others. ‘With the dispute. With the will. With everything.’
‘Yes,’ said the man. ‘He helps.’
His sister turned round. ‘You talk as though he were …’ She broke off, because she did not know which word was allowed in her kitchen.
Oskar got up, went to the window, and looked out into the little street. It had grown dark. Light was burning in two houses, otherwise there was silence. Oskar thought of the estate, of the long corridors, of the room upstairs where the Lady lay, pale and weak, and of the man standing below, waiting.
He took the newspaper and looked once more at the photograph. The name beneath it suddenly seemed like a mask one took off when no one was watching.
‘Adam Baker,’ said Oskar softly. ‘That’s how it’s printed here.’
His brother-in-law made a sound, almost a laugh, but without any joy in it. Then he was silent for a long while.
Just when Oskar thought he would say nothing more, it came, very calmly, very unspectacularly, like a sentence one only understands afterwards.
‘Now I remember,’ said the man. ‘No one ever called him Adam or Baker. I knew him as Skinner.’