60

I sat in the kitchen, watching the clock. Half eleven.

I’d known countless men like Victor. Behaviour determined by their experience. I knew exactly how the evening would play out, down to the minute. I could have written it out in a script, like one of Bunny’s Elstree screen writers.

It went back to a domineering grandfather. A man whose intellect and sense of control over his surroundings had -allowed him to claw his way up through the hierarchy. From a slum in South London to a custom-built villa in Sussex. A solicitor. A man of means, recognised as such.

A daughter brought up to inhabit the new position. -Educated in the new fashion. Married well. As shrewd as her father.

Two sons, in a house without a father, shouldering a grandfather’s constant disappointment. A childhood of never living up to expectation. Never understanding the quips. Grandfather’s books in the library untouched. The end of the line. Great expectations unmet. The only consolation being bigger than the other boys in the playground. A sense of power.

An easy life after school, riding out the remains of grandfather’s money. Drinking away the inheritance every night. Cock of the walk amongst the old schoolmates who started their working lives at the bottom of a slippery ladder.

Watching those mates climb their ladders. No longer apprentices. No longer impressed by grandfather’s money, making their own way in life.

The grandson finds a woman he can dominate. He looks for a shortcut to money. It doesn’t go as he expects, and now he’s in the hole to people who don’t care about his grandfather’s name. The power he felt when dominating the weaker boys in the playground a distant memory.

The clock ticked on.

He’d spend the night in the pub, the place he felt safest, but surrounded by men he resented. Drinking more than usual. Working up the courage to take action. His gambit had failed. He’d scraped together money to pay a deserter to do his dirty work, but the work was left only two-thirds -complete. The man was still out there, the one who hurt him, who put his arm in a cast. The farmer who thought he was better than everyone else. The farmer who’d got above himself. Made money off everyone else’s misfortune, while honest hardworking men were sliding backwards.

Twenty to eleven, the bell for last orders, he’d get a couple more drinks. Dutch courage.

Closing time at eleven. The landlord going through the motions, turning the lights on, sweeping up the cigarette butts. He’d nurse his drink.

Twenty past, they’d kick him out, not bothering to hide the exasperation. Ten years of this, the camaraderie long gone.

Eighteen minutes’ walk from the pub to the farm. He’d take a wrong turn after The Rocks, that path that leads off towards the lake. He’d realise his mistake, the humiliation and rage building.

Twenty to twelve, crossing the field, the farm in his sights. Give it ’til midnight, he’d think to himself.

A siren started up, its long wind-up by now a familiar part of the night. A change to the script.

Hurried footsteps on the stairs heralded Frankie’s arrival, bursting into the kitchen, his hair tousled from sleep. -Elizabeth followed behind. Frankie reached for the shotgun but Elizabeth, the taller of the two, got to it first.

‘In the cellar,’ I said. ‘I’ll get Mum.’

Uncle Nob lay in his bed, eyes screwed up tight. Mum held his hand.

‘I’ll stay with him,’ she said.

Pom pom pom pom. The Bofors gun fired. It wasn’t a drill.