December 1962
Ralph
His father’s blatant displeasure at seeing him was matched only by his disapproval that Julia had so obviously been enjoying herself.
‘My wife might at least have made more of an effort to welcome me home properly after the awful journey I endured to be here,’ he complained, his temper simmering darkly in his eyes.
‘We had no idea what time to expect you,’ Ralph said.
‘And I had no idea that you would be here,’ his father snarled across the drawing room. ‘I don’t recall inviting you.’
‘I invited him,’ said Julia. In the dwindling light, and moving silently, almost invisibly, around the large drawing room, she was switching on lamps.
Arthur turned from where he was warming his enormous porcine backside in front of the fire. ‘You?’
‘Yes,’ she murmured, now absently straightening a cushion in one of the armchairs. ‘Christmas is a time for family, so I thought it would be nice for us all to be together.’
It was an audacious lie from Julia and impressed, Ralph went along with it. ‘I accepted the invitation in the hope it would give me the opportunity to apologise to you, Father,’ he said. ‘I was rude to you that evening at your club. I’m sorry.’
His father regarded him with disdain. ‘You can drop the act of contrition; I’m not taken in by it. I’ve seen it too many times before. You can leave first thing in the morning.’
‘But it’s Christmas Day tomorrow,’ said Julia, ‘you can’t make him go. And not in this weather.’
Arthur turned to look at her again. ‘Since when have you started telling me what I can and cannot do?’
‘I ... I’m not telling you what to do,’ she stammered.
‘Bloody well sounds like it. This is my house and if I say Ralph goes, he goes. And that’s an end to it. Do I make myself perfectly clear?’
‘Yes, Arthur,’ she said meekly.
Ralph could see Julia’s courage draining out of her. It was all he could do not to step in and remind her that she had to stay strong, that she mustn’t revert to the pathetically timid creature his father kept under his thumb.Remember the happy woman out in the garden on the sledge, he wanted to whisper in her ear,the woman who rolled in the snow and laughed with her son.
‘Now leave me to talk to Ralph,’ Arthur said with a dismissive wave of a hand. ‘Well, don’t just stand there, go and tidy yourself up. You look an embarrassing mess from all that cavorting in the snow. I don’t know what you were thinking. And later, and only if Charles has put on clean clothes as I asked, you can send him down to me.’
Her head lowered, Julia dutifully left the room, quietly closing the door behind her.
Adopting his most nonchalant tone, Ralph said, ‘You do realise, Dad, that it’s 1962 and not an era when wives were chattels and treated like servants.’
‘The way I treat my wife is my business. And don’t think for one minute I don’t know what you’re up to.’
‘What would that be precisely?’
‘Encouraging Julia to disobey me. I watched you while you were in the garden and without hearing a word that passed between you, I could see that you were filling her head with nonsense.’
‘Todisobeyyou?’ Ralph repeated. ‘From which Victorian novel do you take your views on marriage?’
Arthur jabbed a finger in the air at him. ‘You’re skating on very thin ice, I suggest you don’t say another word.’
‘Why?’ demanded Ralph, squaring up to his father. A good deal taller, he had the advantage and could easily look down on his grotesque blob of a father. ‘What will you do, beat me like you did when I was a child?’
‘Far worse than that,’ the old man sneered. ‘I shall cut off your allowance completely.’
‘Go ahead,’ retaliated Ralph. ‘I couldn’t give a damn about your money. It’s been nothing but a millstone round my neck anyway.’
‘Let’s see if you’re still saying that in however many weeks it takes for your funds to run dry. If they haven’t already. Which I expect is the real reason you’re here.’
‘You couldn’t be more wrong,’ said Ralph. Turning away from his father, he went over to the drinks table and helped himself to a glass of whisky. ‘I suppose this is still allowed, is it?’
