The Old Romantic Read online

  THE OLD ROMANTIC

  Louise Dean

  Contents

  THE OLD ROMANTIC

  Also By Louise Dean

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Discover More

  THE OLD ROMANTIC

  Louise Dean was born in Hastings in 1970 and studied History at Cambridge University. She is the author of three other novels. Her first novel Becoming Strangers was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize, The Guardian First Book Award and the International IMPAC Dublin Literary award and winner of The Betty Trask Prize and Le Prince Maurice Prize. The Old Romantic is Louise Dean’s fourth novel, chosen as an Oprah Book of The Week in the United States. ‘The more books an author writes the better she becomes at being herself. Louise Dean’s early acclaimed novels explored life in the Caribbean (Becoming Strangers), the Irish Troubles (This Human Season) and Africa’s pharmaceutical industry (The Idea of Love). With The Old Romantic, Dean is on more familiar turf.’ The Telegraph. 'Dean writes with beautifully controlled clarity about family ties, social class, the generation gap and the vanished England of the past. She’s extremely funny, but also humane and moving.' The Times. ‘Comic, clear-eyed and humane, this is the work of a gifted author.’ The Lady.

  Also By Louise Dean

  Becoming Strangers

  This Human Season

  The Idea of Love

  Published by The Novelry 2018.

  * * *

  Copyright © Louise Dean, 2010

  * * *

  The right of Louise Dean to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.

  * * *

  This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent publisher.

  * * *

  First published in Great Britain by Fig Tree and imprint of the Penguin Group, 2010

  * * *

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual people living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  For Beryl and Tim

  ‘The great thing in life is to make some sort of a refuge for oneself. At the end of one’s existence, as at the beginning, one’s got to be borne by a woman.’

  François Mauriac

  Chapter 1

  People seem to tumble down to Hastings and not get up to go home again. It’s where they turn up, every Jack and Jill that ever fell out with the family, lost a job, had half an idea, got a bad habit. The town is a huddle of administrative towers and down-at-heel shops with their backs turned on the sea views.

  Poor Hastings. The steam train once chuffed proudly into Warrior Square where the statue of the Empress of India stood with her hooded eyes on the sea. The minor royals played here for a season, the gentry’s carriages drew up at the West Hill lift, the bourgeois bought villas in St Leonards. But now the Olympic-sized bathing pool is gone, the model town vandalized and the pier closed. Lettered rock congeals in cellophane under blow heaters and steel udders drop soft whip in souvenir shops. In the tuppenny arcade, on any given day of the week, there’ll be an old man feeling for change in the trays.

  The seafront west to St Leonards is a parade of four-storeyed Regency guesthouses that display ‘For Sale’ or ‘To Let’ signs. In size and colour, they are as uniform as a pack of custard creams and nothing bothers the skyline until the end of the promenade where ‘Marine Court’ soars – a 1930s fantasy, a block of flats masquerading as a cruise liner.

  Where the seafront ends, the buildings kneel, going from three storeys to two, and the twentieth century bobs and jogs along in semis until it’s brought up short at the Bo Peep pub. On a blackboard tied to a lamp post, the pub has two bands chalked up for this weekend; Friday night’s ‘Shameless Behaviour’ will be followed on Saturday by ‘Dirty Shoes’. From here on is the road to Bexhill, a few miles of terraced houses, lining a corridor through which the traffic is relentless. This is the area known as Bulverhythe; it is where his father lives now.

  Nick’s shoulders round as he scans the house names. He ducks when they pass under a railway bridge, and slows the Range Rover to a crawl. Those obliged to go round him honk censoriously, all the heavier on the horn because of the car it is.

  ‘A bungalow,’ Dave said. ‘You’ll find it.’

  His father’s is the only house reduced to a single storey of meanness on this street and it’s the worst placed. Two lanes of traffic careen down the steep hill from the right and spill cars outside the old man’s place, branching left and right at his very front door. Ken lives slap bang on the junction, and in between the traffic lights.

  Nick pulls up on to the pavement without indicating, and the pair of them, he and Astrid, sit tight with the great car rattling and shuddering in the wake of the abuse and hooting of the passing cars.

  It is fifteen years since he last saw his father.

  Chapter 2

  This is not his town; this is his father’s town. This is not coming home. He did that when he moved back to the Weald, where two counties meet in hills and valleys, in a hinterland of hop bine and tractor track, white weatherboard cottage and oast house, fruit field and orchard. That morning when he walked the dog, with woodsmoke forming halos above the dwellings, the countryside of his childhood seemed primitive to him – with no tarmac, no pylon, no telephone mast visible at all. Walking brings back memories. He likes to potter into the past and nip into the future, the way the dog moves, a waggy-tailed waverer on the scent of something good and aware too of other pleasures all about.

  When they went over the stile on to the newly ploughed field, the dog ran at its centre and rooks took to the skies vexed and carping and cawing, circling in a posse. It was March, but winter presided despite the farmer’s efforts to kick-start spring. The field reeked of manure, and Nick had a flashback of his brother
Dave squatting on the white seat of Nick’s new Raleigh bicycle, bought for him for getting the scholarship to private school, as he wheeled him home.

  ‘Don’t tell Mum, right? You won’t tell Mum, will you?’

  And the first thing he’d said, bursting through the kitchen door: ‘Dave’s shat himself, Mum! He’s got it all down his legs!’ All sorts of betrayals, he’d thought sadly, remembering his brother’s face, all sorts of betrayals to get ahead. An elder brother is always on the make. His little brother was dismayed, on the other hand, if he got anything at Nick’s expense. Whether it was merely a good stout stick or a brand-new toy, Dave would look at it, then look at Nick. ‘We could share it,’ he’d say, ‘or you could just have it.’

  Before Christmas, his only contact at all with his mother and father was through his brother.

  ‘They’ve not spoken in ages. Donkey’s years,’ Astrid says in company and he lets it pass, nods it on its way, this shorthand, this convenience, and gets in the next round. But there is no nonchalance, never mind the number of years. Poor put-upon Dave has been duty-bound to all parties to pass unkindness back and forth; and he’s done so, too good-natured to be good. The hurt is thus still keen.

  ‘God almighty,’ Nick says to Astrid now, peeping at his father’s house, humorous and rueful, ‘I did mention to you that my father was a touch working class, didn’t I?’

  ‘Perchance’ is the name painted on to a cross section of a log, varnished and tacked to the guttering over the front door of the bungalow. The front garden is concrete. The other houses have two-foot-high walls for decency’s sake but his has been demolished. Weeds have sprung up in the cracks of the forecourt. There’s a lean-to shelter outside the bungalow with a corrugated yellow plastic roof and under it is a tall set of shelves stacked with various plastic bottles, some with their heads cut off: cooking oil, window cleaner, plant food. There is a decrepit Christmas tree in a pot, and an old Queen Anne wing-backed chair bearing a large string bag of onions.

  They sit there with the engine running. She turns the bracelets on her wrist. ‘Grim,’ she says lightly.

  Chapter 3

  The net curtains drop back into place in the window and out of the front door comes the couple: a short woman, no more than five foot, rotund and orange-coated, something like a Russian doll, followed by an old man who is tall and angular. She is red-faced and merry; he is pale and disdainful.

  ‘Oh, shit me, it’s the Krankies!’ says Astrid, looking at the small stout woman in her mac, support socks and rain bonnet, twisting a plastic carrier bag.

  Ken pushes the front door to test that it’s locked shut. When he turns round, he does not so much as raise his head. He walks bowed and solemn in stark contrast with his wife, who is waddling ahead eager and open-mouthed. The stubble on his jaw glitters. He bears the weight of a navy-blue raincoat as if it’s a tarpaulin. He has the translucent hair of a toddler: a floss in a soft white quiff. There’s something about it that begs for a small Cadbury’s Flake, Astrid thinks, one side of her mouth curling into a smile.

  Nick opens his door, lets in the sea air and the seagulls’

  screams.

  The first phone calls from the old man were silent, but Nick could hear the gulls in the background, just as he can hear them now; a chorus of outrage, remorseless and repetitive, stirring up an age-old ache.

  ‘Love you,’ says Astrid.

  He turns his collar up and gives her a wink, but his face is dismal when he goes to face his father again.

  It would not be your traditional family roast lunch, she thinks, but then it hadn’t been your traditional Christmas call that got this particular ball rolling. She’d amused their friends with it all on Boxing Day in the pub.

  ‘I couldn’t believe it! I mean, call me old-fashioned but in our family we have turkey and stuffing on Christmas Day and a call from Auntie Jan in Portsmouth. So there we are, paper hats on, about to pour the gravy and the phone goes, and Laura’s like, Mum, who’s Nick on the phone to? And I’m like, It’s his dad, darling, he’s just wishing him a merry Christmas. And the next thing you hear from the conservatory is Nick screaming, And you’re nothing to me either, you old bastard!’

  Nick had stood his ground there at the bar, pint in hand, and smiled with his mouth, attempting a comedic sangfroid, but when they left just before midnight, in the cold night of the car park, he caught hold of Astrid and said, ‘You tell me. What kind of a man speaks to his son that way?’

  And when she looked into his eyes in the lamplight and heard his breath catch, she saw what he wanted and gave it to him.

  ‘I know,’ she’d said. She kissed him on the mouth and held his face and stroked his hair. ‘I know. It’s terrible.’

  Chapter 4

  There was no contact there on the forecourt under the low grey sky. They were two men pulling their coats to, in the wind. They held their faces sideways on to each other. Each seemed to find something in the distance to dismay him. When Nick stuffed his hands into his pockets, his father did the same. When he spoke, he jerked his head. When his father spoke, he jerked his head too. June, Ken’s wife, stood between them, gleeful, looking from one to the other. Her mouth was moving and she was nodding at Nick and nodding at Ken, commending one to the other.

  When the windows fogged, Astrid used the button to lower the driver’s window. She leant across to peer into his wing mirror and observe them. The car seemed suddenly to become part of the scene – huge, black and looming – and she was embarrassed.

  Nick’s father was wearing pointed shiny shoes. His raincoat was immaculate. His trousers sharp of crease. There was something of the 1950s about him. He was scowling. ‘How long does it take from where you live? We’ve been waiting since midday.’

  ‘Is it Tenterden where you are?’ June asked. ‘Did you come through Hawkhurst? Is that bus station still there? It’s an hour on the bus if you get a good change-over at Hawkhurst.’

  ‘It takes about half an hour in the car,’ said Nick.

  ‘You must of drove like a nutter if it took you half an hour.’

  ‘It’s only twenty miles, Ken,’ put in June, affably. ‘And the traffic on a Sunday isn’t like on the weekdays.’

  ‘How do you know? You never drove it.’

  ‘And look at this!’ said June, bringing the Range Rover into the conversation with her arm. ‘It’s bigger than our house! I say, Kenneth, did you see the car your son’s driving now?’

  Astrid sat up in her seat and checked the traffic over her shoulder. It was time to be taken account of. The lights changed and she dropped down out of the car and slid along the side to arrive at the rear in front of them all.

  The men had their hands in their pockets. She put her hands in her pockets too. The father sucked in his cheeks and raised his eyebrows, his expression of disapproval of both her and the car as plain as if Nick had produced a hooker from a stretch limousine.

  ‘Hi,’ she said.

  ‘All right,’ said the old man, more speaking for himself than enquiring after her.

  She greeted June with cheek kisses, and it was as if the woman was turned to stone by such a display. In her throat, June made the gurgling noise of a chicken brooding.

  ‘Well, I never did. Well, Ken? You didn’t expect to see your own son turn up like this, did you now? With this posh lady too.’

  The old man indicated the car to her with an impatient wagging finger. ‘Come on, or else we’ll be late.’

  Nick took June’s arm to help her into the rear. There was a small step up and her hard skirt, her bad joints and stout legs conspired with her easily triggered sense of humour to make getting her into the car quite a palaver. She was straining and whooping, in contrition and amusement. Once in, and shifted across to the right side, she sat holding her handbag, panting, a lock of hair over one eye. ‘I’m all out of puff, the man said!’

  Nick went to take his father’s arm. He was shaken off. His father put a hand on the seat and a hand on its he
adrest and pulled himself inside. Sitting sideways, the old man’s legs hung in the door well and, as an afterthought, he at last drew them in.

  When Nick pulled out on to the main road, Astrid saw his face was set with concentration as if it were really a difficult thing, this driving business.

  ‘I like to keep my mind active,’ June prattled pleasantly. ‘Now, I know from the milometer on David’s car that it’s nine miles to Fairlight. Harley Shute, Hollington. Up Blackman Avenue on to Old Harrow Road, then Sedlescombe Road North past the Tesco’s.’

  ‘Oh, she knows where all the shops are. She knows the shops all right,’ said Ken.