‘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.’
‘To disobey you?’ 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?’
‘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 of iron-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.