‘Help yourself while you still can. Because after tomorrow I don’t want to see you here ever again. You’re to leave Julia alone, too. And my son, Charles. I don’t want you having any kind of influence over him.’
Ralph drank half the glass in one go, refilled it, then turned to look at the man before him. ‘I wonder what made you the repellent monster you are?’ he said. ‘The psychologists would have a field day figuring you out. As for Charles, I can only fear what you’ll turn him into.’
‘In my opinion, so long as he doesn’t turn out like you, he’ll be fine.’
‘You believe that, do you?’ Ralph shook his head. ‘The poor little sod doesn’t stand a chance.’
He contemplated telling his father that he knew who was to blame for Hope being in hospital, but decided against it. He needed more ammunition up his sleeve before he was prepared to reveal that particular trump card. Moreover, to bring up the accident now would only leave Julia vulnerable to more punishment. She was probably going to be punished tonight anyway. Unless Ralph could intervene in some way.
He drained his glass of whisky. ‘Well, it seems we’ve said all we need to say to each other. So I shall go and change out of these wet clothes. If that meets with your approval?’
Arthur tutted and went to pour himself a drink.
Upstairs, and going in search of Julia, before his father got to her first, he went to warn her to be on her guard.
‘Will you really leave in the morning?’ she asked.
He heard the despair in her voice. ‘If I have to, I will.’
‘Where will you go? Back to London?’
‘No, I shall try my luck at Island House. Romily’s a good sort, she’ll take me in with a bit of luck. You should come with me. Charlie too.’
Julia visibly trembled.
It was then that he reminded her of what they’d discussed in the garden, that she had to stay strong.
‘You can do this,’ he said. ‘Because you’re doing it for your son’s sake.’
‘You’re right,’ she murmured. ‘I must keep reminding myself of that.’
He left her and went to run himself a hot bath. His father being too tight with his money to install central heating, the house was bloody freezing, apart from the few rooms where fires were lit.
Lying in the bath with the water as hot as he could bear, Ralph thought of Julia asking him why he wanted to help her, and his answer about him having had a Road to Damascus change of heart. And who would have ever thought that would happen? But he was determined to do better with his life. He’d frittered away too much of it already. It was partly because he had devoted the last ten years or more to provoking his father. His every action had been calculated with revenge in mind, to get his own back on the bastard for the way he had treated Ralph as a child. And how he still enjoyed humiliating him.
The beatings began when his father discovered that Ralph had been secretly receiving letters from his mother in France. He had always known his father had a temper and a streak of cruelty running through him, but overnight it was transformed into something far more dangerous. A straightforward punishment of being whacked with a cane or shoe, like they were at school, wasn’t enough for Arthur Devereux. For him it had to be more of a sadistic performance, a show of his strength and power. To this day, Ralph could still see the sick gleam in his father’s eye when he summoned Ralph to his study, and then when he locked the door and opened the drawer of his desk where he kept the cat o’ nine tails. The ordeal would last as long as it took for his father to satiate his appetite for violence. The look on his face afterwards would be one ofiron-cold indifference.
Not a word did Ralph say to anyone about the punishments. Instead he vowed that one day he would pay his father back. And with what Julia had now told him, he was pretty sure he was close to doing just that.
But he wasn’t doing it only for himself, to honour the promise he’d made. He now had a better cause: he wanted to save youngCharlie-Boy from experiencing what he had. It made him feel physically ill to think of the boy going through what he had suffered.
Out of the bath now, he dried himself as quickly as he could and dressed even faster. Pulling on his warmest sweater, a black polo neck, he thought how much he’d enjoyed being around his little brother. In the past he had not wanted anything to do with him, which seemed petty now. But then nor had he been interested in getting to know Julia. He hadn’t seen any point in doing so. But he could honestly say he enjoyed being around the kid; he was fun and full of childish innocence. Had Ralph been like that once upon a time? Before his father had crushed and poisoned him?
Miss Casey, her brooding presence casting a gloom over the proceedings and adding to the chill of the room, served dinner. The joyless atmosphere could not have been worse, and given how many excruciating meals Ralph had eaten with his father, that was saying something.
From the moment they sat down, Arthur kept up a steady barrage of reprimands for Charles, criticising him for eating too noisily or too quickly, or for putting his elbows on the table.
‘Charles,’ he said now, ‘how many times do I have to tell you not to scrape your knife and fork against your plate?’
‘Sorry Father.’
‘If you can’t behave like a gentleman, you’ll have to eat in the kitchen with the servants. Is that what you want?’
‘No Father.’
‘Julia,’ he snapped, turning his attention to her, ‘what on earth is the matter with you? Why aren’t you eating?’
‘Sorry, Arthur, I don’t seem to be very hungry.’
