Out of This World (16 page)

Except that I know he doesn’t think that far, or that sharp. He’s made the concession. For my sake. Give her time. Bow to circumstances; accept it. Ten years of allowances. I could weep for him sometimes. Though I stopped loving him long ago. That’s the honest truth, my darlings. I think I stopped loving him that time he came and held my hand in the hospital. I think I stopped loving anyone then. Except you.

But I know that he still loves me. As much as he ever did. Loves me so much that he’d never guess, never imagine – How to smash someone’s world, my pets. He looks at me sometimes like a guilty character in a comedy, peering wistfully at a character in a tragedy. Still calls me ‘Goddess’. But don’t get ideas, Joe, there’s nothing noble or sublime about me. And I’d stick to comedy if I were you. It’s more fun. He looks at me as if he’s actually glad, like some willing penitent, to have this chance, this ten-year-long chance, to express his love by looking after me, by being truly considerate towards me.

It’s just that he doesn’t fuck me any more. Or he fucks me
gently, reverently, as if he’s fucking some fragile, precious china doll. As if he’s had this notion that I had this nasty shock which changed me back into an innocent little kid. Not a lady you can fuck.

But I’m not a little kid.

(Am I, Doctor K?)

The facts of life, my darlings. Your parents fuck. They don’t fuck. Your Mummy fucks around. Your Dad is good about things. Because he’s good, she fucks. Gets fucked. Is all fucked-up.

Once upon a time, my angels, there used to be this ritual when parents would take their children aside and tell them the facts of life. But nowadays it doesn’t happen so much. It’s not so necessary, because in this well-informed and hyper-communicative world, the facts of life float freely in the air (what do you hear when you walk down the street? – fuckfuckfuck). They just seep in.

I never went through this ritual. Because my mother – And my father – And I think Grandad gave up on the facts of life when he gave up his right arm. I learnt the facts of life from schoolfriends, and from guesswork. And then again from Joe. But even then I never learnt them properly.

Ha! If only the facts of life were like they sound. So essential, so vital, so all-inclusive. As if they were truly all you need to know. But there are other facts of life, besides those much-broadcast ones, my darlings, that your mother has to tell you.

So are you listening? Are you ready …?

You were there at the funeral, but you never knew it. Though without you your mother would never have got through that terrible day. Or those terrible weeks and months. You were there when I said goodbye for the last time to your grandfather, though you never saw him. You were inside your mother’s tummy (fact of life number one: all children come from their mother’s tummy). But your mother was inside her tummy with
you, imagining a world where you didn’t have to see or know. And if you’re smart and clued-up, the way kids are these days, you’ll say: Sure, we figured all that – but where were we, where did we come from before we were inside your tummy? That’s what your mother is trying to explain.

You have never seen your grandfather and he has never seen you. Though you have heard me mention from time to time this far-away person, like some character in a story-book, called Harry. But that’s how he always was for me too, a far-away person. Which is strange, because I think now that what he might say, in his own defence, is that he tried to get close to certain things. The things that most people don’t want to get close to. Once upon a time, or so people say, he was a distinguished man, a photographer.

You have never seen England, though that’s where your mother and father are from. But you have seen enough pictures of it in the brochures Joe brings home from work, which makes it look like some high-class Disneyland. And Joe has said from time to time, One day we will all go to England. And I’ve said, Yes. But not yet.

You never saw your great-grandfather, though you were there at the graveside when they buried what was left of him. He was a hero, you see. A real hero. His business was in – But that’s another story.

I haven’t seen Harry since that time I said goodbye to him ten years ago. And he hasn’t seen me. Out of sight, out of – But Doctor Klein (who you’ve never seen either) says that’s the oldest lie in the world. Come here, my darlings. Come close to your mother. He tried to get close to certain things. Certain facts of life. It’s just that he wasn’t much good at closeness. And I wouldn’t have to tell you these things. Why should I ever have to tell you these things? I really meant it, you see: Goodbye for ever. But now he writes me this letter, my angels, and in the letter he says –

Harry
 

She makes me feel – hell, she makes me feel that I’m half my age, that everything is possible. She makes me sing, un-apologetically (Michael and Peter give me tolerant looks) above the noise of the Cessna while we hang like a lark over Wiltshire, waiting for the dormant Bronze Age to emerge with the green flush of spring. She makes me feel that the world is never so black with memories, so grey with age, that it cannot be re-coloured with the magic paint-box of the heart.

In Switzerland, by the shores of Lake Lucerne (ducks scooting and clucking in the thin sunshine), I told Anna about Dad, spinning this tale of a life-long enemy, an implacable ogre who would bar the door against me should I so much as dare to seek shelter, with my new wife, under his roof again. I should have predicted – I should have learnt by then – that it would be otherwise. That when I summoned up the nerve to break the news and even to propose a visit, I would suddenly become the Prodigal Son, while to Anna he would be the model father-in-law.

I still see them, walking in the orchard. Him talking, her listening. November leaves on the grass. I had slipped in to
fetch Anna’s scarf. But I stood for a while at the window, twisting the scarf in my hands, and twisting something else inside me. I didn’t feel angry, not even wrong-footed. I didn’t feel I should have to protest to Anna: But this is all an act, you wait and see. I didn’t answer the voice that was whispering in my head: You see what he is doing, you see what the old bastard’s doing – he’s going to try to bring you round through her, he’s going to hope that now you will change your mind. (I even thought: And suppose – ? And supposing – ?)

That afternoon – after suffering all morning the worst anticipations – Anna had given me the first, fleeting glance she had ever given me of distrust. As if she had said: Do we share the same reality, you and I? But then her glance had flickered on, in happy credulity, to take in the weathered brick and old oak of Hyfield. And I didn’t feel a sting (I could bridge that gap of suspicion) at that look of reproach.

They paused under one of the apple trees. He was extolling, perhaps, like some benign old landowner, the virtues of the English pippin. Be careful, Anna. Just remember what really grows in that orchard. A moment when she laughed – laughter at Hyfield! – and the chime of her laughter, and the clatter of his, reached the house in the damp, melancholy air.

Hyfield. Autumn in England. A smoky stillness. A settledness.

And why didn’t I feel all those things? Why did I stand at that window, unwilling to break the glass of that little vision, the spell of that little scene. Because I could see – it wasn’t an act – that he was captivated.

A lover’s pride. But more than that.

They turned to walk slowly back towards the house. (Should I go out now – interrupt? – with the scarf?) The familiar, limp hang of his right arm seemed at that moment to accentuate rather than detract from the life in the rest of his body. What shall I say – he looked young? As if, right then, it wasn’t Anna
I loved, so much as him. As if for me too that picture I had drawn for Anna of my father, along with all the grievance and hate that had been etched into it, were an illusion.

Sophie
 

And you see, Doctor K, I don’t want to screw up that letter and throw it away. (Though I’ve hidden it from Joe.) And I don’t want to say: And screw you too, Harry, for an old fornicator. I don’t even feel – do you know what I mean? – cheated. Jilted. The truth is I want it to be wonderful. Wonderful. I want to go. Can you believe that? I want to write back to him and say, Yes, yes, I’m coming. I’m coming, for your wedding. I want to pack a suitcase and bundle the twins into a cab to JFK and tell them on the journey all about that little old country where I was born. I want him, and her, whoever she is (but I hope she’s as lovely as a princess), to be waiting at the airport. I want to throw my arms around him and feel his arms round mine. Harry Dad Father. Your grandchildren. And I want to hug her too and kiss her like a sister, a younger sister, and say, I hope you’ll be happy with him, because I never was. Shit, I know this is pure theatre, I know this is like a bad movie, like the way it isn’t. But what’s the point of life, and what’s the point of goddam movies, if now and then you can’t discover that the way you thought it isn’t, the way you thought it only ever is in movies, really is the way it is?

Joe
 

Well, if you ask me, I know there was never any big thing going for me, no plan, no special assignments. I was what you call an ‘accident’, or an almost-accident. A visitor, that’s all. An extra guest at the party.

And the truth is I’m happy when other people are happy round me. I’m glad when other people are happy. And there are plenty of people who can’t give that for an excuse.

People say to me, people I know and meet at work, ‘Hey, Joe, you know, you’re an easy-going kind of guy. Always good to be with. What’s the secret?’ And I say any number of things. Like: ‘It’s policy.’ Or: ‘It’s the new after-shave.’ Or: ‘It’s the influence of this fair city of yours, and your fresh American way.’ Or I want to say, But it’s the other way round: I’m looking at someone who’s smiling at
me
, and the reason why I’m smiling is because smiles are infectious. But the fact is I really don’t have an answer.

People like to be with me. They like to be with me! And I never knew how to explain it or exploit it. And maybe if I could do either, they wouldn’t like to be with me. Mr Nice. Mr No Threat. Mr No Complications. People like a regular dummy. One of the girls we once had here once said to me: ‘Mr Carmichael,
you’re kinda
good company
– you could take advantage of that.’ Crossing her legs and biting her pen. And I said: ‘But that might spoil all the innocent fun we’re going to have.’ When she left about a year later there was a little packet from her sneaked into my in-tray. A pair of pink panties appliquéd ‘Love from Arlene’, and a message: ‘Now you can’t say you never got them off me. Thanks for the innocent fun.’

But that was years ago (I put them in my desk drawer: what do you do with a pair of panties especially inscribed to you?), before Sophie got like she wasn’t interested any more. Nowadays, maybe …

And, come to think of it, it’s been a long time since anyone at the office has said to me, ‘Hey, Joe, you’re fun to be with.’

A couple of months ago Gary and Jack and Karen made a point of keeping me at Mario’s, the beers coming one after the other. I could see what the plan was. They were thinking: Our Mr C’s actually starting to look a little distant, to lose his smile. They were thinking maybe they could get me to talk, just a little. About Sophie. Maybe they could ask. But before we could get that far, I put down my beer and looked at them all, and just said, ‘You’re good people.’ There was this pause and they lowered their eyes. Then I told a joke about Reagan and zero options. Then we had a fun evening anyway. I called Sophie and got home half drunk. She didn’t mind. I wish she had.