Sunday Night

He got as far as the corner of Market Street before he stopped.

It was a quarter past nine and the street was empty, a narrow back street of loading bays and fire escapes behind the hotels on the Axis, lit by one streetlamp at the corner and the yellow light from the kitchen windows of the Concord, where somebody was washing up and singing. The air was cool. It had rained in the afternoon while he sat in the Chesapeake Room without knowing it, and the pavement was wet and smelt of it.

He stood under the streetlamp and took his telephone out of his pocket and looked at it. Oliver’s message from half past seven was still on the screen. Where are you. Rumour at the Ledger the five have written something down. Rumour says Lords. Call me.

He called him.

Oliver answered on the first ring, the way he answered when he was at his desk and had been waiting for a telephone to ring all day.

“Where are you?”

“Market Street. Behind the Concord.”

There was a pause on the line. Behind Oliver there was the noise of the bureau, keyboards and somebody’s television and a man shouting a number across a room.

“Whit,” said Oliver, in a different voice. “Behind the Concord.”

“Yes.”

“The five have been in the Concord since Friday.”

“Yes.”

Another pause, longer. Caleb heard Oliver get up from his chair and walk somewhere, away from the noise. A door closed. The bureau went quiet behind him.

“Tell me,” said Oliver.

“Not on the telephone.”

“Then don’t tell me. Just answer one thing.” Oliver’s voice was very level. “Is it you?”

Caleb looked down Market Street, at the loading bays and the fire escapes and the light from the kitchen, at the porter’s door he had come out of. He thought of Renwick saying nothing will be said to anybody by anybody before twenty to three, and Valdez saying tell your family, nobody else. Oliver was not family. Oliver was a political reporter on a New York daily with a first-edition deadline in two hours, standing in a room with the door shut, waiting.

“Can you come to the flat?” he said.

Oliver did not say anything for a long time.

“I’ve got a piece to file at eleven,” he said at last. “On the talks. Eight hundred words. It’s written. It says that people in three of the five parties have been discussing a Prime Minister from the Lords, and that the name being discussed is a young crossbench peer who sits on the Loreto committee, and that the five may have reached agreement tonight.” He stopped. “It doesn’t give a name. I didn’t have one. I’ve had one since Thursday, but I didn’t have one.”

“I’m not asking you anything, Oliver.”

“I know you’re not. You never would.” A breath. “I’m going to take the last two paragraphs out. The peer and the committee. The piece will say the five are close to agreement and nobody knows on what, which is true, and which is what everybody else will say, and my editor will be disappointed in me, and I’ll live.” Another breath. “Then I’m coming to the flat. It’ll be midnight. Don’t go to bed.”

“You don’t have to take it out.”

“Yes, I do,” said Oliver. “Have you rung your mother?”

“Not yet.”

“Ring your mother,” said Oliver, and rang off.

---

He walked home along the back of the Civic Triangle, the long way, so as not to cross the Axis in front of the Concord, where there were photographers on the steps who had been there since Friday and did not know what for.

The flat was dark. He did not turn on the main light. He turned on the lamp by the radio, and sat down in the chair by the window, in the grey jacket, and dialled Newport.

His mother answered on the third ring, as she always did, because she said a telephone that was answered on the first ring was answered by somebody with nothing to do.

“Caleb.”

“Mum.”

“It’s late for you.”

“I know. Is Sam there?”

“He’s watching something about bridges. Do you want him?”

“In a minute.” He looked at the window, at the dark roofs, at the left-hand end where you had to lean. “Mum. Something’s happened. I can’t tell you very much tonight, and I need you not to tell anybody else until tomorrow afternoon. At twenty to three.”

There was a short silence in Newport. He could hear the television in the other room, a man’s voice explaining a bridge.

“All right,” said his mother.

He told her.

He told her in about four sentences, the way she would have wanted it told, the facts in order with nothing added. The election. The paper. The five. Tomorrow at twenty to three, and Government House at four, and the date in the sixth paragraph. He did not tell her what it would be called, because he did not know yet what it would be called, and he did not tell her what he thought about it, because he did not know that either.

His mother listened all the way through without interrupting, which she had done only twice before in his life that he could remember: when he told her about the peers who wanted him to stand, and when the doctor told them about his father.

When he had finished there was a long silence.

“Is it in writing?” she said.

“Yes.”

“All of it? The terms? The date?”

“All of it. Six paragraphs. One page. It’s going to be published tomorrow, in full, with the announcement.”

“Did you read it?”

“Twice.”

“Good,” said his mother.

That was all. That was the one question. He sat in the chair by the window with the telephone against his ear and waited for her to ask him another one, about what he would do, or whether he was ready, or whether he had thought about it, and she did not ask any of them. She had never asked him what he was going to do, and she was not going to start now, when it had stopped being a question.

“We’ll watch it on the television,” she said. “Samuel and I. Tomorrow. I’ll take the afternoon off.” She paused. “I’ll have to take the afternoon off. I’ll have to tell Henry Lindqvist something. He’ll want to know why I’m leaving a conveyance at half past two.”

“Tell him your son’s got a new job.”

“I’ll tell him I’ve got a dental appointment,” said his mother. “It’s what I always tell him. He’s never once asked why I have so many.” Another pause. “Caleb.”

“Yes.”

“Your father,” she began, and stopped.

He waited.

“No,” she said. “I’m not going to say that. You know what I’d say, and he’d have been mortified if I said it.” He heard her breathe out, a long breath, on the other end of the line in the grey clapboard house at the top of the narrow street. “I’ll get Samuel.”

---

Samuel came on, slightly out of breath, with the bridge programme still going behind him.

“What’s happened? Mum’s sitting on the stairs.”

Caleb told him, more shortly.

Samuel did not say anything at all for so long that Caleb thought the line had gone.

“Sam?”

“I’m here.” His brother’s voice had gone very quiet. “It was you. The lord. On the night. On the television. That was you.”

“Yes.”

“You said nobody knew.”

“I didn’t know then. Not that night. I found out in August.”

“You knew on the boat.”

“Yes.”

“You said nobody knew. You gave me a Dad answer.” Samuel was quiet again. “That’s all right. I knew it was a Dad answer. I told you it was.” Something moved behind him; the television went off. “Whit.”

“Yes.”

“They’ll want a photograph.”

Caleb looked across the room at the place in front of the window where he had stood in their father’s jumper with his hands in his pockets and his head down, in the rain, three weeks ago.

“Don’t send it to anybody,” he said.

“I wasn’t going to. I wasn’t going to send it to anybody ever. I just thought you should know that it’s the only one there is. I looked, after Mum came and sat on the stairs. There aren’t any others. Not one. You’ve spent your whole life walking out of the edge of other people’s pictures.” Samuel stopped. “I just thought you should know.”

“Thank you.”

“Can I tell anybody?”

“Not until twenty to three.”

“Can I tell Mum’s dog?”

“Mum hasn’t got a dog.”

“I’ll tell Aunt Jo’s dog,” said Samuel. “It’s the safest dog I know.” His voice wobbled, very slightly, and steadied. “I’m going to go and sit on the stairs with Mum. Ring us tomorrow. Before. If you can.”

“I will.”

“Whit,” said Samuel. “Dad would have,” and stopped, exactly where their mother had stopped, and laughed, a short shaky laugh. “No. She’s right. He’d have been mortified.” And rang off.

---

He sat in the chair by the window with the telephone in his lap for a long time.

He did not turn on the radio. He did not do anything. He sat in the lamplight and looked at the room, which was the same as it had been that morning when he put on the grey jacket, and the same as it had been for two years: the sofa, the bookshelves, the radio from the boathouse, the evidence file on the floor by the chair, and the kitchen table where the notes had lain on Saturday night and did not tonight, because they were in a brown folder in Signe Halvorsen’s hands in a room at the Concord, being read, perhaps, by somebody, under a lamp.

At ten past eleven, on the stroke of a first-edition deadline he could not see, he thought of Oliver at his desk in the bureau deleting two paragraphs.

At a quarter to twelve he got up and went to the kitchen and opened the fridge.

---

Oliver came up the stairs at four minutes past midnight, all three flights, two at a time, and was out of breath at the top, and stood on the landing in the doorway with his jacket over his shoulder and no laptop and no beer, and looked at Caleb.

Caleb held out an open bottle.

Oliver looked at it.

“You bought beer,” he said.

“You told me to.”

“I told you to buy it for when things happened.” Oliver took the bottle. He did not drink from it. He stood on the landing holding it and looking at his friend, and for once in the eight years Caleb had known him he did not seem to have anything to say.

“Come in,” said Caleb.

Oliver came in. He sat down on the sofa, heavily, and put the bottle on the floor at his feet, and put his face in his hands for a moment, and took it out again.

“I took it out,” he said.

“I know. Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me. My editor read the piece at ten past eleven and rang me and asked me where the last two paragraphs had gone, because I’d told him at six there’d be something, and I said I’d been wrong, there was nothing, I’d been chasing a rumour, and he said I’d never been wrong about anything in my life before and it was a strange night to start.” Oliver picked up the bottle and drank, at last, a long drink. “He’s very disappointed in me. He’ll be more disappointed at twenty to three tomorrow, when he works out what I had.”

“What will you tell him?”

“That I had it and didn’t run it.” Oliver put the bottle down. “And that I’m resigning.”

Caleb looked at him.

“Oliver.”

“Don’t. I’ve thought about it. I thought about it all the way here, three flights of stairs and the whole of the Civic Triangle.” He leaned back on the sofa. “You’ll need somebody. Not from the five. They’ll all send you people, every one of them, and every one of those people will be working for the person who sent them. You’ll need one person in the building who’s working for you. Who’ll tell you when you’ve got chalk on your elbow.” He looked at the grey jacket. “Which you haven’t, I notice.”

“Mrs Pell told me to change it.”

“Of course she did.” Oliver almost laughed. “That’s the other thing you’ll need. Somebody who tells you what Mrs Pell would tell you, when Mrs Pell’s not there.” He picked the bottle up again and looked at the label. “I’m not asking you tonight. You’ll have to ask me. Tomorrow, or Tuesday, or whenever the five have finished sending you people. And I’ll say yes. I’m just telling you now so that you know I will, and don’t spend tomorrow wondering whether it’s fair to ask.”

Caleb sat down in the chair by the window, opposite him.

“Will you?” he said.

“I said not tonight.”

“I’m asking tonight.”

Oliver looked at him across the room, in the lamplight, with the bottle in his hand. Then he looked away, at the window, at the dark roofs, at the place at the left-hand end.

“Yes,” he said. “Obviously. Yes.”

---

They did not talk about it after that. They talked about everything else, until three in the morning, the way they had talked in the first term at King’s College, sitting up in somebody’s room with nothing to do in the morning. They talked about the college eight, and the captain of boats who had put them on a sandbank, and the wedding in Connecticut in June, and the girl Samuel had met who was reading geography. They talked about Mrs Pell, and Quarles, and the old man from Ensenada with the map inside his shirt, and the girl who had done the five seats in five colours for school.

They drank four of the six bottles, which was more than either of them usually drank, and left two in the fridge.

At three Oliver fell asleep on the sofa in the middle of a sentence about the ABC’s election-night graphics, with his shoes on, and Caleb took his shoes off for him and put a blanket over him, the one from the back of the chair, and turned off the lamp.

He stood at the window in the dark.

The city was quiet. The dome of Parliament House was there at the left-hand end, where you had to lean to see it, white against the dark, lit as it was every night, for nobody. In less than twelve hours a man on the radio would say his name. In about thirteen he would walk from this room to Government House, alone, because there was nobody he could ask to come with him who would not make it into something it was not.

He did not think about any of that.

He thought about the shop. About opening up at nine, and the blinds, the inch down and then all the way, and Mrs Pell coming in at ten because she said Mondays did not begin until ten whatever the clock said, and the man who would come back with the wrong Adirondacks, and what he would say to her, and how.

He had not thought of anything at all to say to Mrs Pell.

He went to bed at a quarter past three and lay awake, and listened to Oliver breathing on the sofa through the open door, and the first bird at about five, and did not sleep at all.