Water Theatre by Lindsay Clarke Page B

local directory, thinking that it was all very well for Hal to pontificate about not being ashamed – he did so from the accomplished heights of a civilized life in this Elizabethan grange; he had a good-looking upper-class wife; he sent his children to expensive schools. If he had ever known the humiliations of circumstance, they were far behind him.
    Martin found the number and dialled it. He waited through many rings, imagining the crowded Saturday lunchtime bar of the Golden Lion, and Ted Ledbetter, the lame publican,swearing as the phone called him away from the pumps. He dreaded that his father would be in the pub, that he would have to speak to him. He stared out of a narrow window where there was now nothing to be seen but driving snow. When at last the phone was answered, he stumbled into speech.
    As he came back into the dining room they turned to look at him. “My dad wasn’t there,” he said. “He’ll probably drop in later. Someone will tell him.”
    â€œThat’s all right then,” Hal said, and tapped Emmanuel on his shoulder. “We’d better think what this snow does to
our
plans.” The two men got up, but Hal stopped at the door and turned to look at Martin again. “About you and your father – things are difficult between you, right?” When Martin nodded uncertainly, Hal went on: “Well, for what it’s worth, I bloodied my nose against my own dad time and again before I worked out something that proved vital for me.” He paused for a moment, perhaps for effect, perhaps deliberating, then drew in his breath. “The thing is, if a man wants to widen his horizons and make something new for life, he’ll do well to make sure he has at least two fathers – the one he’s born with, and the one he chooses for himself.”
    For a moment Martin seemed to be standing at the centre of a huge silence in the room. It was as if he and the big man with the knocked-askew nose were alone together. But it was Adam who spoke: “Are you volunteering?”
    Hal studied his son a moment, sounding out that louche, elusive smile for jealousy and rancour. “Don’t think it doesn’t apply to you too,” he said quietly, and winked at Martin. “In fact,” Hal added, “I might just be daring you both to start making your own big choices.”
    â€œWhat about me?” Marina said as she began gathering the plates. “Or don’t girls count?”
    â€œYou, my darling, don’t need daring,” Hal said. “You’ve never done anything else. I don’t suppose you ever will.” And he planted a kiss on her head. For the moment at least she seemedacquiescent in the philosophical silence of snow that was settling across the house.
    â€œOne day,” said Emmanuel, “I think Marina will have something to teach us all about freedom.”
    â€œGod help us when that day comes,” her father laughed, shaking his head. “As for you, Emmanuel my friend, I’m afraid that history will have to wait a while longer. We’d better make some calls.”
    â€œIt’s been a century since Sir Elgin Rokesby deprived us of our liberty,” Emmanuel smiled. “I dare say we can endure a few more hours of servitude.”
    â€œIn the meantime,” Grace frowned out into the gusting white whirl, “it looks like we’re all in jail.”
    Once Hal was gone, Adam seemed to relax back into friendship with his guest. When they returned to the attic, he became more talkative, less barbed with sarcasm. Their conversation moved onto the safe ground of their common interests – music, films, books – and this led to the question of whether or not writers should be politically engaged, and whether their writing could ever amount to more than bourgeois self-indulgence if they were not. Which brought them back to Hal and the question at the back of Martin’s mind.
    â€œSo