The Emperor Waltz. Philip Hensher
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obligation to do whatever I say. It was not for Duncan to do anything but to give way.
‘So,’ Duncan said. ‘Are you comfortable? Can I do anything for you, in your last hours? Or do you just want me to go away so that you can sit with Rebecca and Ruth and Rachel? I don’t really care.’
‘Oh, you think you’re so clever,’ Samuel said, breathing deeply, the air juddering within. He raised his thin hand to his hairy, bony chest in the gap in his pyjama jacket. ‘That’s what you were always like, showing off. Let me do my dance – I made it up, Mummy. Look, Aunty Rachel, look, Uncle Harold, look at the dolly I made, isn’t it pretty. Oh, yes. I can see you came back to show off and tell me to bugger off before I die. But I can show you one thing.’
There was a long pause; Samuel’s breath guttered and shuddered; he twisted in pain; he pulled at the bedsheets. Duncan waited. He did not want to help his father. He wanted to see how long it would take him to return to the point where he could speak again, or sleep. He watched with interest. In less than five minutes, his father had calmed. Outside the door, a chair scraped against the parquet. Sister Balls must have returned, and be sitting outside. He did not have a lot of time.
‘It hurts to talk,’ Samuel said. ‘There’s one thing I want you to see. In that box, there, on the dressing-table.’
Duncan went over and drew it out. It was a document; a pre-printed form filled in in Samuel’s wavering looping hand, a will. ‘I don’t want to see this,’ Duncan said.
‘Look at it,’ Samuel said.
Duncan did. There was what looked like a duplicate underneath. In a moment he read that his father was leaving his whole estate in equal parts to his two children, his three sisters, his five nephews and nieces, and seven named charities and educational institutions, including the Harrow rugby club, and Harrow School, which neither Duncan nor his father had attended. ‘I see,’ Duncan said. The will, which was to give him, what, a seventeenth part of this ugly house and the bank balance, was dated from two months ago. It was witnessed by a Corinna Balls, and another woman, whose handwriting made Duncan think she was another nurse.
‘You didn’t ask Aunt Rebecca or Aunt Ruth to witness it,’ he said.
‘No, you stupid boy,’ Samuel said. ‘You can’t get people to witness something they’re going to—’ He broke down in coughing.
‘Going to benefit from,’ Duncan said. ‘They’re not going to benefit very much, though, are they?’
‘I think,’ Samuel said. ‘I think – I’m going to cross Domenica out. She hasn’t been to see me. So you’ll get a little bit more. That’ll be nice, won’t it.’
‘And a lawyer’s drawn this up, has he?’ Duncan said. Samuel looked withdrawn and serene. ‘Oh, I see – it’s just something you’ve bought from the newsagent and filled in. Got Sister Balls to get from the newsagent. Something for everyone to discover after you die? I see. You just want people to know that they don’t deserve anything from you.’
Duncan looked at his father. He knew perfectly well that Duncan would take this document and destroy it. It could have no effect on what happened to Samuel’s estate. But before Samuel died, he wanted to make clear to Duncan what he thought of him.
‘The thing is,’ Duncan said, ‘I don’t think that Domenica would take your money anyway. I think she’d probably take however much it was, and hand it over to the NSPCC. Do you think she wants anything to do with you?’
‘I’m her father,’ Samuel said.
‘There was an afternoon, wasn’t there,’ Duncan said, ‘when you said, Let’s all go out swimming, the children and I. Which was odd, because you never suggested anything like that for the children’s pleasure. You know, don’t you, that because Dommie never had any parties after she was eight years old, no one ever thought to ask her to theirs? I don’t suppose you ever thought of that. You only ever wanted to do your own thing. And Dommie said that she couldn’t swim, she didn’t know how, and you said that didn’t matter. You’d gone to the effort of buying her a swimming costume. She didn’t have one. She was only six. And when we all got to the swimming pool, you said to her, This is the way to swim, you know, and you picked her up by her arms and legs and threw her into the deep end, with no floats or anything, and just stood there. The lifeguard jumped in and rescued her. He gave you what for, you horrible old man, asking you what you thought you were doing. Don’t you remember?’
Samuel shook his head demurely. He looked like such a small person, a small entrapped dwarf in a fairytale with a secret.
‘I remember. Even in the 1950s, you didn’t just throw small children into the deep end of swimming pools and wait to see if they drowned or not.’
‘Oh, once,’ Samuel said, shaking his head.
‘Every week,’ Duncan said. ‘Making her wait at the table to eat mutton fat. Making her walk all the way back to school in the dark in January to make her find a pencil case she had dropped. Do you know, you’ve never once given me any help or advice – you’ve never done anything for me, except once. Mummy made you explain to me how to shave. You couldn’t get out of that. That was it. I’m glad you’re dying. It won’t make the slightest difference to anyone. And what’s this rubbish?’ He held up the will. In the light it was a sad object: the handwritten parts were shaky and full of uneven gaps and holes. ‘No one’s going to pay any attention to that. I’m surprised Balls didn’t tell you not to be so stupid. Shall I burn it or shall I just tear it up?’
‘You do whatever you want to,’ Samuel said, crying. ‘The last wishes of a dying man. The last wishes of your dying father.’
‘The last wishes of my dying father are about as good as the wishes he had during his lifetime,’ Duncan said. ‘I’ll get rid of this, somehow. My conscience is going to deal with it. And it’s all going to come to me and Dommie, your money. You bet. A hundred quid to Balls and another to the other one. They won’t remember they’d ever signed anything. If you’ve told your sisters, do you think anyone’s ever going to believe them? And do you know what I’m going to do with my money? All that lovely money? Because you saved quite a lot from the insurance racket, Daddy. And this horrible house? Not enough to go round seventeen, but plenty for two. Me? I’m going to open a bookshop. I’m going to open the first gay bookshop in London. There are so many good books written by homosexuals. And lesbians. You know what they are. And there’s going to be a bookshop where you’ll be able to buy their books, if they’re dead or foreign or not available, and a place where you can come if you’re a homosexual or a lesbian and spend all day there, buying books and meeting people like you. That’s what your money’s going to do. That’s what you were working towards, all your life, without knowing it, Sam – you were working towards a bookshop celebrating sexual perversion. You know me – you know I’m a sexual pervert, too? My God, the men I’ve had in Sicily. It would make your eyes pop out of their sockets. Oh, I look forward to entertaining your ghost there, in my gay bookshop. We’re going to hang up a picture of you by the front door to say thank you, Sam, for making all of this possible. You thought you were buggering me up, and Dommie, too, and it made you laugh. But you were actually saving up, and giving us the chance to get out from under your stone. So thank you so much. And –’ Duncan took the two wills – ‘I’ll take care of these. Thanks. And ’bye. I won’t be seeing you again, Daddy.’
‘I’ll,’ Sam said. ‘I’ll. Write. It.’ His chest was torn open with coughing. Duncan waited and counted. He would not start caring now. He would not remember his father’s lifelong actions – he could not: most of it was neglect and a sneer. ‘Send. Nurse. Out.’
‘You stupid old man,’ Duncan said. ‘You can’t write it again. Don’t you know? You’re dying. You’re going to die tonight. You might last until tomorrow morning. You can’t write any more. But at least I saw you before you died. Remember that. Oh – I’m sorry. It’s us that will be remembering you, not the other way round. ’Bye then. I’ll send the nurse in.’
Duncan