Final Account

“He came in once or twice, did Mr. Rothwell. Local, like. Nobody objected.”

“How often?”

“Once a week, mebbe. Sometimes twice. Larry-?” And he asked the landlord the same question. Larry, who hardly had a charabanc full of thirsty customers to serve, came over and stood with them. He still treated Banks with a certain amount of disdain – after all, Banks was a southerner and a copper – but he showed respect, too.

Banks had never tried too hard to fit in, to pretend he was one of the crowd like some of the other incomers. He knew there was nothing a

“Just at lunch-times, like,” Larry said. “Never saw him of an evening. He’d come in for one of Elsie’s sandwiches and always drink half a pint. Just one half, mind you.”

“Did he talk much?”

Larry drifted off to dry some glasses and Pat picked up the threads. “Nay. He weren’t much of a chatterbox, weren’t Mr. Rothwell. Bit of a dry stick, if you ask me.”

“What do you mean? Was he stuck-up?”

“No-o. Just had nowt to talk abaht, that’s all.” He tapped the side of his nose. “If you listen as much as I do,” he said, “you soon find out what interests people. There’s not much when it comes down to it, tha knows.” He started counting on the stubby fingers that stuck out of his cut-off gloves. “Telly, that’s number one. Sport – number two. And sex. That’s number three. After that there’s nobbut money and weather left.”

Banks smiled. “What about politics?” he asked.

Pat pulled a face. “Only when them daft buggers in t’Common Market ’ave been up to summat with their Common Agricultural Policy.” Then he gri

“And what did Mr. Rothwell talk about when he was here?” Banks asked.

“Nowt. That’s what I’m telling thee, lad. Oh, I s’pose seeing as he was an accountant, he was interested in money, but he kept that to himself. He’d be standing there, all right, just where you are, munching on his sandwich, supping his half-pint, and nodding in all the right places, but he never had owt to say. It seemed to me as if he were really somewhere else. And he didn’t know ‘Neighbours’ from ‘ Coronation Street,’ if you ask me – or Leeds United from Northampton.”

“There’s not a lot of difference as far as their performances go over the last few weeks, if you ask me, Pat.”

Pat grunted.

“So you didn’t really know Keith Rothwell?” Banks asked.

“No. Nobody did.”

“That’s right, Mr. Banks,” added Larry as he stood by them to pull a pint. “He said he came for the company, what with working alone at home and all that, but I reckon as he came to get away from that there wife of his.” Then he was gone, bearing the pint.

Banks turned to Pat. “What did he mean?”

“Ah, take no notice of him,” Pat said with a dismissive wave in Grafton’s direction. “Mebbe he was a bit henpecked, at that. It must be hard working at home when the wife’s around all the time. Never get a minute’s peace, you wouldn’t. But Larry’s lass, Cathy, did for Mrs. Rothwell now and again, like, and she says she were a bit of an interfering mistress, if you know what I mean. Standing over young Cathy while she worked and saying that weren’t done right, or that needed a bit more elbow grease. I nobbut met Mrs. Rothwell once or twice, but my Grace speaks well of her, and that’s enough for me.”

Banks thought he might have a word with Larry’s lass, Cathy. He noticed Pat’s empty glass. “Another?”

“Oh, aye. Thank you very much.” Banks bought him a pint, but decided to forgo a second himself, much as the idea appealed. “There were one time, when I comes to think on it,” Pat said, “that Mr. Rothwell seemed a bit odd.”

“When was this?”

“Abaht two or three weeks ago. He came in one lunch-time, as usual, like, but he must have had a couple of pints, not ’alves. Anyroad, he got quite chatty, told a couple of jokes, and we all had a good chuckle, didn’t we, Larry?”

“Aye,” shouted Larry from down the bar.

That sounded odd to Banks. According to Mrs. Rothwell, her husband had been tense and edgy over the past three weeks. If he could chat and laugh at the Black Sheep, then maybe the problem had been at home. “Is that all?” he asked.

“All? Well, it were summat for us to see him enjoying himself for once. I’d say that were enough, wouldn’t you?”

“Did he say anything unusual?”

“No. He just acted like an ordinary person. An ordinary happy person.”

“As if he’d received some good news or something?”

“He didn’t say owt about that.”

Banks gave up and moved on. “I know there’s been a bit of ill feeling among the hill-farmers about incomers lately,” he said. “Did any of it spill over to Mr. Rothwell?”

Pat sniffed. “You wouldn’t understand, Mr. Banks,” he said softly, offering an unfiltered cigarette. Banks refused it and lit a Silk Cut. “It’s not that there’s any ill feeling, as such. We just don’t know where we stand, how to plan for the future. One day the government says this, the next day it’s something else. Agricultural Policy… Europe… grugh.” He spat on the floor to show his feelings. Either nobody noticed or the practice was perfectly welcome in the Black Sheep, another reason why people stayed away. “It needs years of experience to do it right, does hill-farming,” Pat went on. “Continuity, passed on from father to son. When too many farms fall to weekenders and holidaymakers, pasture gets abused, walls get neglected. Live and let live, that’s what I say. But we want some respect and some understanding. And right now we’re not getting any.”

“But what about the incomers?”

“Aye, hold thy horses, lad, I’m getting to them. We’re not bloody park-keepers, tha knows. We don’t graft for hours on end in all t’weather God sends keeping stone walls in good repair because we think they look picturesque, tha knows. They’re to keep old Harry Cobb’s sheep off my pasture and to make sure there’s no hanky-panky between his breed and mine.”

Banks nodded. “Fair enough, Pat. But how deep did the feeling go? Keith Rothwell bought that farm five years ago, or thereabouts. I’ve seen what he’s done to it, and it’s not a farm anymore.”

“Aye, well at least Mr. Rothwell’s a Swainsdale lad, even if he did come from Eastvale. Nay, there were no problems. He sold off his land – I got some of it, and so did Frank Rowbottom. If you’re thinking me or Frank did it, then… ”

“No, nothing like that,” Banks said. “I just wanted to get a sense of how Rothwell fitted in with the local scene, if he did.”

“Well, he did and he didn’t,” said Pat. “He was here and he wasn’t, and that’s all I can tell thee. He could tell a joke well enough when he put his mind to it, though.” Pat chuckled at the memory.

As puzzled as he was before, Banks said goodbye and went outside. On the way back, he slipped in a cassette of Busoni’s Bach transcriptions. The precise, ordered music had no influence on the chaos of his thoughts.