then?’
‘A year or so,’ I replied. He nodded. Information, not good or bad; just useful. ‘I loved him,’ I said. My father didn’t blink.
A pause, as pregnant as any I have ever experienced.
‘It’s different,’ he finally said. ‘Than what you expect.’
‘What is?’
‘Where you’re going.’ He moved to stare out of the window, pushing his face to the glass so that he could see along the track as we followed a bend.
‘Did you have this?’
‘Everybody has this.’
‘So who was at yours?’ I felt petulant. As if, if I kept him talking, maybe I could stay alive for longer. Maybe I could prolong the inevitable; the succumbing.
‘Oh, you know. Your Uncle Jackie, he was there. My friends. Some of the boys from the Rose.’ He took his hat off. His hair a fine dusting. ‘Your grandfather.’
‘What did he say to you?’
He examined the insides of his hat. All the secrets of life, in there. ‘He said that he didn’t care what we’d never spoken about. He said that it didn’t matter, in the end.’ He stood up. I distinctly remember it: his standing as punctuation, perfectly timed with the train’s arrival; the slowing, the coasting, towards the airport’s station. ‘That’s what I would say, Gregory. I’ve read your books. I like to think that I know the measure of you.’ The train stopped in a tunnel, briefly. In the dark, waiting for a platform; for an ending. Good to know that some things never change. ‘We should go,’ he said.
‘I don’t know how I feel,’ I told him.
‘I don’t think you should know.’
I followed him, off the train, and to the platform. Through the windows, I could see something ill-defined: a person, a man, left on the train. Sitting very still in his seat, waiting to be found. And when that body was found, it would cause a delay. I felt guilty then, in that British way that we feel guilt for our actions altering the lives of those we don’t know; but then the trains would run to schedule again, and all would be well.
Alex would be called to identify, because there was only really one number in the body’s telephone that mattered; and he would stand back, hand over mouth. Surprised, but not surprised. He would say that I was a friend of his, I’m sure.
It didn’t matter.
One day, he would die: and he would have his own parade. His own things left unsaid; his own regrets.
I wondered if I would be called upon to visit him; and if I would, then, refuse.
My father’s stride, through the station, towards the exit. I watched him, slightly behind. I felt myself younger, then; in my twenties. Scared, afraid. My hands in my pockets.
He turned to look at me. ‘There he is,’ he said, nodding. His thin mouth a satisfied smile. ‘There he is.’ He reached his hand out for me, and, ‘Come with me.’
I slipped mine – so young again, the knuckles smooth, taut – into his; and I succumbed, to a mutual whatever.
4 January 1892
The president arrived in the lobby at a brisk pace, his boot heels clacking down the marble staircase. He was exactly as he’d been described: tall and uncommonly thin, about sixty years old, with a broad forehead and a silvery, scrupulously neat beard. His suit was black, cut close and worn with a frilled dress shirt, an eccentric touch that somehow increased the severity of the overall effect. The clerk at the desk – who’d been eyeing Merrill from time to time, as if suspecting that he might try to pocket an inkwell – was off his stool immediately, retrieving coats and hats from a small chamber beside the doors. Merrill rose to his feet, doing his best to appear alert and useful. Uncle Bob, descending a few feet behind the president, gave him a weary look.
‘This is James Merrill, Mr Leyland,’ he said. ‘My nephew.’
The clerk helped the president into a black overcoat, which was buttoned up to the neck, and then handed over a spotless black topper. After fitting this carefully on his head, the president turned towards Merrill for a momentary appraisal. There was an odd blankness about his eyes, and when he spoke his voice was devoid of interest.
‘He dresses well.’
Uncle Bob accepted his own coat and shrugged it on. ‘Dressing,’ he replied, ‘Merrill can do.’
Before joining the National Telephone Company Uncle Bob had been an officer of infantry, ranking somewhere in the middle, and you could see it in him now – that deep-dyed regard for hierarchy that soldiers were prone to have. Attending on this Mr Leyland, he was every inch the loyal lieutenant, moving aside smartly as the president made for the doors. Only then did Merrill realize that someone else had come down with them, another junior like himself; this man was older, though, thirty-five at least, blond-whiskered and bordering upon portliness.
‘I am Mr Carlens,’ he said, skirting the desk to fetch a grey coat and bowler. ‘Mr Leyland’s private secretary.’
Was that condescension in Mr Carlens’ expression – a shade of scorn, even? Merrill could hardly blame him if it was. His situation was plain enough, there for anyone to divine: that stale story of hapless youth, surrendered to an upstanding family elder for correction and supplied with an unearned career in business for which he was proving markedly ill-suited. Merrill wasn’t at all proud of this. There were days, in truth, when he could scarcely bear the sight of his own reflection.
The two juniors went out into the dull January evening. Uncle Bob had been summoned to Leyland’s office in the City only an hour or so before, to escort him back to the telephone company’s premises on Temple Lane. No cab was being called, however, nor was there any sign of the grand private carriage that the president was said to keep on hand both day and night. Merrill saw that Leyland and Uncle Bob had turned to the left, and were following the crowds that tramped down towards Cannon Street.
‘Are we not—’ he began. ‘Forgive me, Mr Carlens, but isn’t there a—’
‘Mr Leyland wishes to take the underground.’
Merrill managed to contain his disbelief – merely to nod, as an unquestioning subordinate should do. Frederick Richards Leyland was, without doubt or exception, the richest man in England. Some at the telephone company claimed that by the end of that year he would be the richest man alive. He had millions in the bank. Carriages and country houses. A Kensington mansion in which the finest modern paintings were displayed like stamps in an album.
‘This surprises you,’ Carlens observed.
They started out in pursuit of their employers. Merrill watched the
