‘I tried not to argue with her. All it did was turn her against me. I said I had a couple of misgivings, that’s all. I didn’t like the idea of her being a housekeeper. I thought she was better than that. And I remember warning her that, once we were there, we’d be trapped. It would be like he owned us. But the thing was, you see, we didn’t really have any choice. We didn’t have any savings. It was the best offer we were going to get.
‘And at first it was fine. Pye Hall was nice enough and I got on well enough with Stanley Brent who was the groundsman there with his son. We weren’t paying any rent and in some ways it was better to be on our own as a family, without my mum and dad around all the time. But there was something about the Lodge House that rubbed us up the wrong way. It was dark all the year round and it never really felt like home. We all started getting on each other’s nerves, even the boys. Mary and I seemed to be sniping at each other all the time. I hated the way she looked up to Sir Magnus, just because he had a title and so much money. He was no better than me. He’d never done a proper day’s work in his life. He only had Pye Hall because he’d inherited it. But she couldn’t see that. She thought it made her special in some way. What she didn’t understand was that when you’re cleaning a toilet, you’re still cleaning a toilet and what difference does it make if some aristocratic bum is going to sit on it? I said that to her once and she was furious. But the way she saw herself she wasn’t a cleaner or a housekeeper. She was the lady of the manor.
‘Magnus had one son of his own – Freddy – but he was still very young and he was quite surly. There was no real love there. So his lordship started interesting himself in my boys instead. He used to encourage them to play on his land and spoil them with little gifts – three pence here, sixpence there. And he’d get them to play practical jokes on Neville Brent. His parents were dead by then. They’d been killed in a car accident and Neville had taken over, working on the estate. If you ask me, there was something queer about him. I don’t think he was quite right in the head. But that didn’t stop them spying on him, teasing him, throwing snowballs, that sort of thing. It was cruel. I wish they hadn’t done it.’
‘You couldn’t stop them?’
‘I couldn’t do anything, Mr Pünd. How can I make you understand? They never listened to me. I wasn’t their father any more. Almost from the day we moved into that place, I found myself being pushed to one side. Magnus, Magnus … that was all anyone ever talked about. When the boys got their school reports, nobody cared what I thought. You know what? Mary would get the boys to take them up to the main house and show them to him. As if his opinion mattered more than mine.
‘It got worse and worse over time, Mr Pünd. I began to loathe that man. He always had a way of making me feel small, reminding me that I was living in his house, on his land … as if I’d ever wanted to be there in the first place. And it was his fault, what happened. I swear to you. He killed my son as if he did it with his own hands and at that same moment he ruined me. Tom was the light of my life and when he went there was nothing left for me.’ He fell silent and wiped his eye with the back of his hand. ‘Look at me! Look a this place! I often ask myself what I did to deserve it. I never hurt anyone and I end up here. I sometimes think I’ve been punished for something I didn’t do.’
‘I am sure you are blameless.’
‘I am blameless. I did nothing wrong. What happened had nothing to do with me.’ He stopped, fixing his eyes on Pünd and Fraser, daring them to disagree. ‘It was Magnus Pye. Bloody Magnus Pye.’
He took a breath, then went on.
‘The war had started and I’d been sent off to Boscombe Down, working mainly on Hawker Hurricanes. I was away from home and I didn’t really know what was going on and when I came back occasional weekends, it was like I was a stranger. Mary had changed so much. She was never pleased to see me. She was secretive … like she was hiding something. It was hard to believe she was the same girl I’d met and married and been with at Sheppard’s Farm. Robert didn’t want to have too much to do with me either. He was his mother’s child. If it hadn’t been for Tom, it would hardly have been worth showing up.
‘Anyway, Sir Magnus was there in my place. I told you about games. There was this game he played with the boys – with my boys. They were obsessed with buried treasure. Well, all boys like that sort of thing but I’m sure you know the Pyes had dug up a whole load of stuff – Roman coins and the rest of it in Dingle Dell. He had them on display in his house. And so it was easy for him to turn the two of them into treasure hunters. He’d take chocolate bars wrapped in foil or, sometimes, sixpenny pieces or half crowns and he’d hide them all over the estate. Then he’d give them clues and set them off. They might spend the whole day doing that and you couldn’t really complain because it got them out in the open air. It was good for them, wasn’t it? It was fun.
‘But he wasn’t their father. He didn’t know what he was doing and one day he took it too far. He had a piece of gold. Not real gold. Iron pyrite – what they call fool’s gold. He had a big lump of it and he decided to make that the prize. Of course Tom and Robert didn’t know the difference. They thought it was the real thing and they were desperate to get their hands on it. And do you know where he put it, the bloody fool? He hid it in a clump of bulrushes, right on the edge of the lake. He led them to the water’s edge. Fourteen years old and twelve years old. He led them there as surely as if he’d put up a sign.
‘This is what happened. The two boys had separated. Robert was in Dingle Dell, searching in the trees. Tom went down to the water. Maybe he saw the gold glinting in the sun or maybe he’d worked out one of the clues. He didn’t even need to get his feet wet but he was so excited, he decided to wade in. And what then? Maybe he stumbled. There are a lot of weeds and they could have wrapped themselves around his legs. Here’s what I know. Just after three o’clock in the afternoon, Brent comes along with the lawnmower and he sees my boy lying face down in the water.’ Matthew Blakiston’s voice cracked. ‘Tom had drowned.
‘Brent did what he could. Tom was only a few feet out from the shore and Brent dragged him back to dry land. Then Robert came out of the wood and saw what was happening. He plunged into the water. He was screaming. He waded over to them and shouted at Brent to get help. Brent didn’t know what to do but Robert had learned basic first aid at school and tried to save his brother with mouth-to-mouth. It was too late. Tom was dead. I only heard about all this later, from the police. They’d talked to everyone involved: Sir Magnus, Brent, Mary and Robert. Can you imagine how I felt, Mr Pünd? I was their father. But I hadn’t been there.’
Matthew Blakiston bowed his head. His fist, with the cigarette, was clenched against his head and smoke curled upwards as he sat there, silent. At that moment, Fraser was utterly aware of the smallness of the room, the hopelessness of a life broken. It occurred to him that Blakiston was an outcast. He was in exile from himself.
‘Do you want some more tea?’ Blakiston asked suddenly.