On Chasing Brad Through Purgatory (14 page)

14

They took him to St Mary's in Paddington and he was pretty badly hurt; at first they wondered if he'd even last the night. I said I was his partner—that way they let me sit beside his bed and keep a vigil over him and make a deal with God. Save him—
please
—and if you do … It was absurd, I still scarcely knew the man and yet suddenly I felt I knew him well and only wanted to be allowed to get to know him better. I should have seen him as unstable and yet instinct told me he was reliable and rocklike and the linchpin that I badly needed. I'd felt contemptuous of the twenty-year start he had on me and how little he had to show for it in hard material terms. Now? Fuck hard material terms I said to God. If he'd been rich he wouldn't have been needy; and he almost certainly wouldn't have been in that particular place at that particular time. It was quite a reversal but this same instinct told me that unless I was prepared to go with it I was definitely about to miss out. Instinct or sentimentality? Instinct or guilty conscience? I couldn't give a tinker's cuss. All I wanted was for Brad Overton to survive and be happy. No; I also wanted to apologize and to tell him it would be fun walking by his side into the future. More than fun I said to God; an absolute requirement. Come on I said insistently towards the dawn. Please save him. Please. I realize it's for my own sake more than his but I promise I'll never ask for anything again—I mean never anything again that's just for me. Or very largely for me. And I'll try to make up for past sins; it won't be easy but I'll really do my very best. By then I hardly knew what I was saying and when Brad eventually opened his eyes sometime after six I felt as if for every actual minute since last night's encounter I had somehow lived through an entire day. In the best tradition of old Hollywood movies I was holding his hand at that important moment and he was practically at once in a state of full consciousness. I told him I loved him. It didn't feel at all premature or strange. On the contrary. It felt exactly right.

You should have seen his face.

You would have said he looked an altogether different man to the one I'd sat with earlier. You wouldn't have known
quite
what made you say it but you'd have held onto your opinion.

I stayed with him another hour or so. Then I half-walked, half-ran—in a spirited resurgence of the rain—all the way back to Cricklewood. After a brief stop-off for some dry clothes I was about fifteen minutes late arriving at the shop; but when I made it my excuse that I'd just met the man who was going to change my life—after he'd got himself a decent haircut of course—the manager put her head on one side and gazed at me consideringly. Then she laughed and said that okay—in her own view anyhow—this was probably worth being a little late for. But why was it only that he was going to change my life? Why wasn't I going to change his?

15

The day of our funerals had come; it was time for me to leave the Halfway House. Both Isabella and Hermione kissed me
au revoir
and Richard saw me off at the front door.

“Listen,” he said. “You'll be arriving far too early for the wake.”

He was speaking quite casually but I knew there was nothing at all accidental about what he was telling me, nor about the fact that the four of us had eaten lunch an hour ahead of time.

“You know that primary school just round the corner?” He meant just round the corner from our home. “Since you'll have an hour or so to spare why not drop in?”

He gave me a parting hug and I have to say—although perhaps I ought to be ashamed to—that being hugged by Richard successfully allayed the fears I'd more than once experienced: that my sexual orientation had been in any way tampered with or, practically as bad, had now become irrelevant.

Possibly because of this I descended Pack Hill whistling: the tune Hermione had been humming before lunch. It was driving me crazy though, because I couldn't quite place it. Not until just before I reached the school. At which point it would probably have stopped niggling at me anyway: Richard hadn't mentioned a single thing about a teaching practice.

Teaching practice?

Teaching practice!

As though faced with a whole classroom of kids I'd have even the faintest idea of where to begin!

“Well we thought you might begin Mr Casement by telling us all a little about the Seven Deadly Sins.” Miss Avery was a small cheerful-looking black woman in a bright yellow dress. She was about fifty. “Yes I think we'd all be interested to hear about those wouldn't we class? It's very kind of Mr Casement to spare the time to come and talk to us.” She smiled at me and went and took a seat by the door. There was a prolonged scraping of chairs as the boys and girls, some twenty of them, mainly white and all about seven, now followed her example and busily sat themselves down.

“Quietly,” she said reproachfully from the back. “Quietly now.”

I stared briefly at the blackboard hoping for inspiration. She had already written down the title.

One of the boys put up his hand. “Please Miss—I mean sir—” there were giggles—“what
are
the Seven Deadly Sins?”

Impatient little beast; clearly couldn't wait! The pity was—he'd have to. Until someone came along who could actually tell him.

I mean I'd heard of them of course but hadn't got much notion of what in fact they were. Murder, rape, suicide, dictatorship? Dictatorship didn't sound precisely the kind of word you'd come across in the Bible, any more than terrorism did, either of the political or inner-city housing-estate variety; and how the heck was I going to explain rape? This wasn't fair I thought rebelliously. Even when someone was meant to be undergoing a test of some sort he should've been given a
small
amount of preparation. Surely?

“And what are sins?” asked another of my pupils, this time a girl.

Thank heaven for little girls as my sisters had once gone through a phase of telling me. I said: “Sins are the bad things we do which we all try not to. But which somehow we all carry on doing even when we're old and should by then know better.”

“Why? Are they fun?”

“Yes. On the whole. I suppose.” I sought for an example. “Like … like if we're rude to people. To our parents perhaps or to people in shops …” But no it hadn't been fun being rude to my parents—except in a cheeky humorous sort of way; otherwise it had simply been the result of bad temper. And as for people in shops—why should I have been rude to people in shops? I felt as if I'd backed myself into a dead end from which there wasn't going to be any chance of escape. “Or rude to teachers,” I added desperately—maybe hoping to ingratiate myself. But I remembered all too clearly playing up some of the more ineffectual teachers at my own school. One in particular. (“Casement why haven't you handed in your homework?” “Yes sir I'm very glad you happened to bring that up; I was quite hoping to have a word with you about that, actually.” The sort of craftily refined insubordination that won shamelessly easy acclaim from my classmates.) I supposed it had been fun; I'd obviously enjoyed the laughter—and the popularity; naturally I hadn't known that Mr Tibbotson was going to have a nervous breakdown. Hadn't known that he was going to put his head inside a gas oven. Christ! Why had I had to think about that? I once again hurriedly changed my example; hoped no one would realize it hadn't provided me with any good place to go. “Or like if we steal money out of our mums' purses,” I said. “We think it's going to lead to fun.”

“That's why we don't stop doing them even when we're old.” We might have sort of covered that point already but really here was one bright class. At this rate these children might soon tell
me
the nature and composition of the Seven Deadly Sins.

“Why do we even try to stop doing them?” asked two others at virtually the same instant.

“Because I think that deep down we'd all like to be good. Like Jesus wanted us to be.” I glanced at two Asian girls. “And Buddha and Mohammed too …” I floundered; I'd never taken a keen interest in comparative religion. “But of course it's harder to be good than to be selfish and mean and concerned only with the things that'll make
us
happy sod everybody else … Oh excuse me, I'm sorry, not a polite thing to say.”

“My mummy sometimes says sod it.”

“My daddy says fuck.”

I held up both arms. “Hey—hey—hey!” But at least at this point if at no other so far every child was looking interested. I didn't dare glance even for a second towards the door.

“Sir? Are you good sir?”

“No I'm afraid not. I'd be a very poor example.”

“But do you want to be?”

“Yes I'd like to have been, more than anything.” I faintly surprised myself since it struck me I hadn't just said that because it was the sort of thing one ought to say.

Then I thought: More than anything? More for instance than having been allowed to get to the Quebec at the very moment when Brad was coming out? (“Oh hell. It's raining anyhow. There's just got to be time for another drink.”) So in fact it wasn't even true was it? Just one of those things that was remarkably easy to say, and even felt sincere, but—

Brad I wonder what you were like at school. I really can't imagine you'd ever have behaved as I did. To Tibbotson I mean, old Tibbotson. (Youngish Tibbotson—still in his thirties?) I wish I'd known you when you were at school. No. When
I
was at school. Just think what a restraining influence you might have been.

But I'd forgotten. School. It made nonsense of the notion I'd sometimes had, that because I was raised to be considerate, I had always been considerate.

“And sir what does deadly mean?”

“Well …” I pondered. “In this case not so much something that will cause death as something that is very very serious.” Oh help I thought. Apart from the meaning of seven there was nothing else left to ask. Well here we go then.

“Would it be a good idea if Mr Casement were to write down all the Deadly Sins?”

I had practically forgotten the presence of the headmistress.

No! Thank you Miss Avery. Not at all a good idea.

“Yes Miss,” agreed the whole class instantly in unison. That bunch of little creeps.

Albeit that likable bunch of little creeps.

“He could just say a few words about each of them and then it will be time for break. I think that would be best Mr Casement; children like to see things written down.” Bless their tiny hearts. She smiled at me encouragingly but the only bit of true encouragement had been contained in just three words.
Time for break
. Perhaps by the skin of my soul—and with the further aid of a no doubt quizzical but well-intentioned providence—I might manage to hold on.

I took up the stick of chalk, stood before the blackboard and considered.

Then plunged in.

Murder. Rape. Suicide. Oppression. Terrorism. Dishonesty. Hooliganism. Theft.

Not bad.

Not bad.

And let's face it these kids were never going to know. I could write down anything: spitting, blowing your nose without using a handkerchief, sticking your chewing gum beneath the seat. Filing your nails in public. And Miss Avery—I relied on it—wouldn't think of correcting me. Not in front of that sweet receptive audience. For the moment I was safe.

“Please sir that's eight!”

So it was. Well anyway a fault on the right side. I immediately looked about me for the duster; decided that perhaps I didn't need it.

“In Biblical times hooliganism wasn't always such a problem.” Why wasn't it? “Football hooliganism that is. Nor was vandalism: you didn't get vandals ripping up train carriages or peeing in telephone boxes or standing on motorway bridges and dropping off lumps of concrete. Obviously we've got to keep up to date and modify a little whenever it becomes necessary.
Strictly
necessary,” I added in an attempt to show I didn't take such alterations lightly. “In fact since the
seven
were first handed down to us,” (Moses? Jesus? St Paul?) “we've been allowed to turn it into
eight
or even
nine
. Given a special dispensation, that's known as.”

So for good measure I now added drunkenness to my list along with drug taking—changed that to pushing—though with a nod towards economy I did at least bracket them together. “In view of modern pressures and present-day social conditions … like for instance high unemployment,” I told them vaguely, being extra careful, now that the seven had turned into the nine—with subdivisions—not to risk even the most fleeting of sideways glances in the direction of Miss Avery. I decided not to ask how many of their own dads were currently out of work but it seemed to me at least as relevant to try to warn them off becoming drug addicts as it did to try to warn them off becoming dictators.

However I also decided to do a little tidying up: crossed out rape, oppression and terrorism—substituted ‘lust for power'. That reduced us by two; brought us back indeed to the recommended level. But I had already told them there were at least eight and they were clearly pretty hot at their arithmetic; I didn't want them beginning to think I had but a shaky grasp on my subject. I wrote down ‘dishonour'; lengthened it into ‘dishonourableness'; hoped to heaven it was a proper word.

(“And if it wasn't before I don't know how the world ever got on without it!”)

I pronounced it for them. “It means you can't be trusted. It means you say you'll do things … but then you just don't. It also means …” I hesitated. “Listen. Shall I tell you about a time when I myself was dishonourable?” I hadn't realized I was going to say this but I'd thought I heard Miss Avery stir and suddenly the words were practically dictating themselves. “When you're a bit older,” I began, “you'll all start having boyfriends and girlfriends.”