Boys and Girls (27 page)

Black just stood there, his heels sunk into the sand, hands on his hips, gazing about him as if at the world's eighth wonder, newly fallen from the sky.

‘Superb … what can I say? Never seen anything like it. It's perfect.'

‘Really? You really think so? Oh … I'm … pleased. Very pleased you, um – I say, how about this? Would you like an ice cream?'

Black was looking at him roguishly.

‘What – cornet, you mean? Proper thing?'

‘Oh God yes – absolutely. Vanilla or raspberry thing? Flake, if you want. I've got wafers as well …'

‘Sit well on top of the Scotch, do you think?'

‘Oh no trouble there, Blackie old man. Tried and tested. Many's the time I've been up here, you know – sipping the one, slurping on the other. It's a, well – marriage made in heaven, you might say. Sit down, Blackie, and I'll do all the doings.'

‘Sit down? Ah. That, I fear, would be a bridge too far. If I attempted a deckchair, I swear we'd need a crane to winch me back out again. And I shan't even pass comment on the hammock. Tell you what, Alan my lad – at the new house, when we get the Richmond house up and running, yes? We'll have a bench on the promenade. How about that? Little brass plaque on it. Dedicated to Blackie, who always loved to sit here drinking and smoking and wolfing down a cornet – watching the sea and the world go by. Sound all right?'

Alan compressed his lips, the emotion he was feeling was just that great.

‘You mean … we could do it again? Recreate it, so to speak? You wouldn't mind?'

‘Mind? Bloody insist on it. Far better than anything that fool of a bloody architect has come up with. Wants me to have a sunken leisure space with a plunge fucking pool, whatever on God's earth that might be. This is
far
more the thing. We could really push the boat out – literally, if you like. Couple of paddleboats on a pond? Canoe? What do you think? Christ, there's so much garden there – I could build us a
pier
 …!'

Alan laughed, and touched his eyelid. He placed a hand on Blackie's shoulder.

‘A couple of donkeys, I do assure you, would easily be adequate.'

Yes – I said that. And he laughed then. Well I can't tell you what a huge relief this was – what a weight off my mind. It was maybe, selfishly, from that moment on that I became quite absolutely determined to make this whole damn thing
work
 – this crazed invention of Susan's (who sometimes, these days, quite slips my mind, there's so much else to attend to). We continued the evening, Blackie and me, on a further slick of
Scotch and an admittedly injudicious gorging of ice cream cones, jammed with crumbly chocolate, and wound it all up soon after we had sifted through a fair deal of my collection of Donald McGill postcards (because they never fail, do they? To raise a smile).

Now of course, if it had been left up to Blackie and myself (and face it – when was there ever a chance of that?) then the show, the sham – the demonstration of a marriage having been piously enacted (in the eyes of You Know Who) – all that would have been indefinitely deferred, and why not actually? Because all of us now, for a growing variety of reasons, were very much committed to the thing, so why the need for so very hasty a formalisation? Well – I say all of us … there was always Amanda, of course. To be considered. The main reason, really – and I put it to Blackie and he completely agreed – not to forge ahead into a headlong rush (quite apart from the fact, important in itself, that the planned and proposed venue for the touching ceremony, not to say the selfsame place where we were all eventually to be living, was still just a promise of hopes and dreams – or, more prosaically, walls, and so much rubble). Is there really any point in telling you that Susan would brook no objection? Does it come as a great surprise? The sooner, she said, 'twere done (I know) then the sooner Amanda would come to accept it; when it ceased to be a
notion
(Susan was insistent), an airy cooked-up concept – when it became an actuality, a state, a full-blown ménage, then Amanda would not just buckle down into, Jesus – seeing
sense
, for God's sake, but so too would she come to cooperate, get wise, and extract all the benefits that were dangled before her. Yes well – fair enough theory, I suppose, not beyond the bounds of reason … but still, I thought, just to gallop full
tilt at it – and Blackie was behind me on this one – it was not only unnecessary, but it threatened revolt and an untimely sabotage of what I think at least the three of us, anyway, now believed (no – in fact I was sure of it) could actually grow, develop – burgeon up into a maybe splendid thing. The only real reason for rushing it that I could see was to make sure of securing the good offices of, oh dear me, ex-Father Johnnie Flynn, before said man of God was thoroughly overtaken or even more ruined by the bends, or else just collapsed and died of rebellion of the liver, whatever came soonest. I tell you, I have never before seen a man so constantly in danger of keeling right over and flat on his face – so incoherent in his demeanour, nor – and let us please face the facts when they very unmistakably confront us – so very
aubergine
in his appearance. Livid is the word – or, at least, from the neck up anyway: the neck, the swell of neck, bulbous over that stained and plastic clerical collar, which seems to cut right into it, his ill-shaved chin, deckled with spittle. His hands, however, are another matter entirely: as white as the dead, and I am sure as cold, though never could I contemplate, oh God no – touching them. Is this, do you think, I gently suggested to Susan, truly the best we can do …? He is, she said, at base, a good and true man. Father Flynn, he has not lost sight of his calling, his vocation, but has simply been denied the I should have said
God
-given right to celebrate the Mass and praise the Lord in the sight of a congregation; it is a gift to us that he yearns to bestow. Mm, yes – so that's Susan's skew-whiff take on it, anyway: our gift (although you should see what he's charging) and the Vatican is doomed to struggling along as best they may without him. One of Susan's many paradoxes – so very fastidious in the normal run of things … and yet: this. Well.
In every other way, though, I really must say, she appears to be blooming. New lease of life is barely overstating it – and even more so when Blackie stepped in like the hero he is to resolve the problem of her and Amanda's freshly unearthed and unshakable devotion to the Chelsea house that we're still all living in. He'd talked it over, the scheme, his solution – he'd talked it over with me beforehand.

‘You see, Alan – way I see it, it's barely a problem at all. Godsend, in some ways. There's no need, you see. No reason at all for you to sell. Your house. Is there? No financial need. None whatever. Keep it. Rent it out. Fetch a fortune in rent, daresay, place like this. These days. And this solves the other little, um – matter. Delicate this, Alan – so please bear with me if my, ah – exposition is less than perfect. If I offend your sensibilities. But you see – the fact is, you don't have an income. No no, dear boy – not a criticism, believe me. Not a judgement. The merest observation. Now Susie – she won't have one either, of course.'

‘No? Oh no. I suppose not.'

‘Yes. You see, what with the takeover and everything … well I'm sure the set-up concerned would offer her a position. She's really very good, you know …'

‘Mm. I've no doubt.'

‘Mm. And once the trade gets wind of it all … still all hush-hush at the moment. Something to do with share prices, they tell me: perceived values. I wouldn't know. But once it's all out in the open, as it were, well – plenty of other houses would be pleased to take her on. She wouldn't be short of offers, is what I'm saying to you.'

‘Mm. And so …?'

‘Well. Well the truth of the matter, Alan – and I'm telling
you frankly now, you see. Won't put it like this to Susie, no, but I'm putting it so to you. The fact is … I don't
want
her to, you know – work for another publisher. Just not happy with it. Petty jealousy on my part, it could easily just be. Probably is, actually. But you see – I've got to persuade her, Susie, that she is far too valuable to me – us, to us – for her to be out at work all day. See?'

‘I don't think you'll have any problem at all on that score, Blackie. She doesn't want to. Work. Fed up with it. That's the whole point of all this.'

‘Ah …'

‘Well no. Not. Not the whole point – not
now
, it isn't. Obviously. Now she knows you. Loves you. Does she, Blackie? Do you think? Love you …?'

‘Couldn't tell you. Shouldn't have thought so. Bit, maybe. Hard to say …'

‘Mm. I feel the same way. About me, I mean. Me and her. Well. Anyway – at the time, her whole idea – yeah, was to find a way to stop. To cease to be the breadwinner. And give her her due – she perceived at once that there was no way on earth that I was going to come to star in any such a role, and so …'

‘Aha. Yes I see. Well that's good, then. That's excellent. But still, you see – she'll want an independent income. She will.'

‘Oh she will. No argument there.'

‘And you – you must have one too. No no – hear me out, Alan. I fear you must misunderstand me. Now you see, at the new house, I shall of course be happy to meet all the day-today expenses. Naturally. But I'm not sure that, um –
allowances
would be quite the thing. Clear, is it? What I'm driving at?'

‘No, I wouldn't say so, Blackie. But press on, hey?'

‘Well you see by renting out your house, this house – well
bingo. Private income for both of you, you see? And all the pain of losing the house – well: vanished. And of course it can only go up in value. And I hate it, you know – the thought of Amanda being dragged away from the house she loves … but if you still
own
it, well … Better, surely?'

‘Indeed. That is … this is all very –
generous
of you, Blackie …'

‘Not a bit of it, my dear boy. You're doing me a great favour, all of you are. Can't you see that? Bought this bloody great white elephant of a house – largely for the garden, really. Well who's going to plan it? The garden. Susie would be prime at that. She'd love it. And who's going to fill all the rooms? Go mad, wouldn't I? Rattling around in a place like that. And once I've sold the company – well, buckets of money all round, not to put too fine a point on it. And what am I expected to do with
that
then, in my declining years?
Count
it? So you see – you've helped me out enormously, you and Susie. Maybe unwittingly, but there you are.'

‘What, um – what do your children make of all this? Told them?'

‘Oh them. They can fuck off, quite frankly. Never given a damn what I do – why should they start now? Oh I'll give them some money, I expect. Settle something on them, ungrateful little bastards. Tie it up somehow so they can't get their hands on it until they're broken and old. Like me. But talking of children, Alan … one of the things I
do
find rather disturbing in this whole, ah – well. Amanda. I mean – I've never even
met
her. Have I? Don't you think that's rather … odd? Deliberate, is it? Keeping her away? That the idea?'

‘God
no
, Blackie – quite the reverse. Oh no – I hope you don't go thinking that. No – Susan and I, well – it's about the
only thing we've always agreed about, really. She's
got
to meet you, Amanda – get to know you, sort of thing. Course she has. Because how else is she ever going to …? But you see … well – all rather hard on her, I expect. All this. A lot for her to take in. Not straightforward, you see. Children, they like things cut and dried. Or maybe they do. Truth is, I haven't a clue in blue blazes what children like or don't like. It's just a guess. And I couldn't tell you, Blackie, what it is that's going on in Amanda's mind. I only wish I knew. But I don't. Not at all. Susan – she might be a bit more clued in, but I somehow doubt it. So there we have it, I'm afraid old chap. Time, really. Just give it a bit of time, and see how it all turns out.'

Rare for me, very – allaying the fears in another, seeming sagacious, being a sympathetic party to mutual bemusement, the string of knotted misgivings: understanding, oh but how completely, the fraying nature of a rope's loose ends, the need for neatness and a true conclusion. It is maybe not then children at all, you know, who like it cut and dried. We do, though – it's a virtual requirement.

‘So there, if you want it Doctor Atherby, was the beginning of my new-found … vigour, if you like. Not power, though. That's for others. But the coming of strength, a rebirth of confidence … All that you should have done for me, really. Isn't it, Doctor Atherby? Over the months and years. Instead of just plunging me back into the stale and fetid water, again and again and again … and all I could do was wallow and smell it. So yes – as I say, here was the beginning. But the moment when it became absolute – that was at the wedding of my wife. Then it was, well – official, I suppose.'

Doctor Atherby was tapping his pen in a different way altogether – more casually and abandoned, the customary
strictness of the drumbeat now hurled aside in favour of something a good deal more wild, impromptu, and involving syncopation: in the new and final circumstance, how could there any longer be a need for rigour?

‘Official. Interesting word, Alan. Official, do you mean, in the eyes of …?'

‘No. No no. Not His. My eyes. Mine.'

‘Uh-huh. Well now, Alan – one minute to go. By my watch. Shall we use it up with a cheery farewell? Hug? Or would you care to squeeze in a tiny bit more? Parting shot? The final rude and derisive outburst?'