Father of the Man (18 page)

His beloved Norwegian aunt…She came from Trondheim, from a handsome and well-to-do family of skiers and skaters. He could recall being surprised, on the rare occasions she’d gone back to Norway, that she could ever have brought herself to return to England—away from the fjords and the islands and the mountains and the pine forests; Amersham-on-the-Hill, even forty years ago, must have seemed a very poor substitute. And at this moment Ephraim recollected how he’d been there once, in Amersham, sunning himself in a deckchair in the garden at
Wildflowers
—yes, he must have been about twelve—when she’d returned from her shopping in a state of perturbation because she’d somehow lost a pound note and because, not being able to do without it, she would later have to tell his uncle. (Ephraim had gone to walk along Sycamore Road, on both sides, with his eyes scarcely leaving the ground…but to no avail…and if he himself had had a pound he would have lied to her; but she wouldn’t even accept his three-and-ninepence-ha’penny—“You can pay me back,” he’d cried, “you can pay me back!”, though that wasn’t at all what he had wanted—yet anything less than fifteen shillings simply wouldn’t do.) And part of the sadness here was that Uncle Jack, who had always flared up over the silliest and most trivial of occurrences—although, equally, he’d usually calmed down again very fast—had been essentially a decent and kindhearted man; just not the right kind of husband for any woman who wasn’t a lot more placid than Mona. Ephraim had gone to stay with them a lot. Mona had once said to him, in her charmingly accented English, “Perhaps one of the reasons you and I have such a soft spot for one another: we both came into the family at the same time.” He remembered how he had tasted real coffee for the first time in her kitchen—coffee black and rich and aromatic, out of a chunky Scandinavian mug—and
Geitost
, goat’s-milk cheese, slightly sweet, eaten in slices even thinner than a wafer and scraped off the main khaki-coloured lump with a special implement—and pistachio ice-cream—and homemade raspberry jam…these things had seldom tasted quite so good again. And she had taught him to say, “Tusen takk for maten,” and had many times taken him to the Regent, although only once allowed
him
to take
her
(“It doesn’t in the least matter who actually pays, we’re still out, you and I, on a really enjoyable date!”) to see such films as
Born Yesterday
and
Copper Canyon
and
Run for the Sun
…
The Happiest Days of Your Life
.

Mona had died of a brain tumour, in her middle fifties.

In those days everyone had taken him on treats. These treats mainly involved visits to the cinema. Sometimes to the theatre. His mother—well, with Nan it didn’t really come into the category of treat, mothers were expected to do that kind of thing—nearly every Sunday when they weren’t due to have tea, or lunch and tea, with Gran, at Marlborough Mansions, his mother took him to the first performance at the Classic (and now he had only to hear ‘The Skater’s Waltz’ by Waldteufel to be instantly back in that four-to-four-thirty rosy dusk which was snug and slightly scented—boring, too—but full of pleasurable anticipation, the promise of new worlds to come, new dreams, new revelations: the nourishment you needed to get you through the drudgery of school, the ropes you couldn’t climb, vaulting horse you couldn’t clear, neuroses you found difficult to cope with, even before you knew of such a word). Gran, too, had often taken him to the cinema—as had another first cousin to Nan, Maggie, a dozen years his senior, in her case to the cinema and then always to a meal; and Great-Aunt Madge had also made ‘assignations’, bringing large packets of sandwiches to many cheery lunchtime performances. Aunt Madge, effervescent, disrespectful, had often been at Sunday tea as well; Gran and her sisters were very close and several of them had congregated in West Hampstead—Madge, for instance, the mother of Neville, lived right across the road, would drop in nearly every day; whether she did or not, would spend at least an hour on the phone with Gran (all the sisters shared everything: gossip, hats, dressmakers, even prescribed medicines: would beguile many a happy minute rooting through each other’s bathroom cabinets to see if there was anything they might enjoy a speedy sample of). Sunday teatimes were a focal point for the entire family, being noisy and chaotic, full of laughter and good food and unity, although they also had their
longueurs
: their sometimes forced, almost frenetic, high spirits: their irritations, emptiness. One of Nan’s younger brothers was usually there, with his wife and small children (he had married late); sometimes both her younger brothers; and sometimes Jack and Mona came from Amersham, for lunch as well as tea. Often there was good conversation in place of simple noise: Gran was interested in metaphysics, attended Rudolf Steiner lectures and—as she said of herself—could have been the cleverest woman she knew, taken her seat in parliament, reformed the whole world…if only she’d had an education. In her youth she’d been a tearing beauty (“Full many a flower is born to blush unseen,” she’d sigh, “and waste its sweetness near the Finchley Road!”) and at seventy—eighty—eighty-five—this was still readily apparent; but she claimed now she would have chosen university over almost anything: “I could have been another Nancy Astor…or Vera Brittain…or Isobel Barnet…instead of just a supremely stylish charming Jewish matriarch.” Stylish—charming—and benignly domineering; she liked to be consulted, to be kept informed, to influence her children’s lives. But right, okay, Ephraim knew only that she’d been wonderfully kind and well-intentioned and full of energy; had really put herself out to love her neighbour in a way that he, Ephraim, hadn’t done now for years, not since his idealistic twenties; and that he’d been immensely fond of her, basking in her generosity and wit and warm approval. (Normally, that was, her warm approval: it was true, you had to toe the line.) Some of his most fondly cherished moments were of Sunday evenings, when the rest of the family had departed, just the three of them still sitting at that solid refectory table, Gran at its head, he and his mother often holding hands—even when he was eighteen, twenty, twenty-two—contentedly watching Perry Mason, or Rowan and Martin, or Doctors Finlay and Cameron. (Mary, the German au pair, after she’d seen to all the clearing up, would have gone to her bedroom to write letters or listen to her records or read the magazines her parents sent her.) An evening of good viewing—particularly he remembered a series called
The Defenders
, a father-and-son courtroom duo—would always leave him with a bubbly glow of wellbeing, God’s in his heaven, all’s right with the world.

But all wasn’t right with the world any longer. The last time he had seen his grandmother, in the nursing home, her jaw had been slack and there’d been dribble running down her chin…of course she hadn’t known him. The last time he had seen his mother had been a week before her heart attack on her way to the lavatory, when his sister-in-law had found her, this once-so-pretty woman, lying face-down on the lino, in a spreading pool of urine, in a seeping pool of shit. The last time he had seen Joan was when she’d had a breast removed and laughing a little too gaily had cried, “Well, life or beauty? I think I’ve been sentenced to life!” And the last time he’d seen Mona she had said privately to Nan, “No, they may not have let on yet, but just the same I’ll bet you she
is
pregnant.” (Jean.) “Oh, and what wouldn’t I give to be in her shoes, young and pregnant and having such a husband!…You know, I’m not too sure I’ll be able to go through
another
twenty-five years with Jack…”

And the last time he’d seen Neville, Neville had said, “Oh, my dear boy, when you think of all I
might
have achieved…and then of what I actually delivered. The trouble is, I had so little encouragement. If Joan had only been a bit supportive! But Joan, as you know, never had a single moment for anybody other than herself…”

Madge too, like Gran, had sunk into senility—although, in her case, it had been a gentle going down;
she
hadn’t suffered any stroke.

So, of the treaters, only Maggie survived (and Nathan)…and the man whom Maggie had loved had finally married somebody else; and he’d done it—as he’d even confessed to her, possibly believing this might somehow make things better—solely because of the other woman’s money.

And the last time he’d seen Jean, merely an hour or so before, she had given one of her increasingly typical sighs. “Oh dear, just another tedious day, I suppose; another non-day in which nothing will be accomplished, apart from our growing older and drawing that much closer to death. Heigh-ho. If I only thought there could sometimes be a little variety in my life! Some excitement! Something vaguely memorable for more than just a day or two.” She smiled: her twisted, brave, self-sacrificing smile.

“Oh, don’t whine,” he’d said—though only
sotto voce
—as he had descended the stairs and walked out of the house. “I’m damned if I know what
you’ve
got to be so miserable about! Damned,” he’d repeated—shouting it—whilst slamming the front door.

14

He arrived at St Pancras a little late this evening. The train was already in. There were no guards at the barrier but there were three sauntering separately along the platform. He didn’t believe that they would bother him, yet he still felt like a fugitive, a latter-day Richard Hannay. (This thought faintly pleased him; at one time Richard Hannay had been a hero of his.) With a mixture of boldness and stealth, therefore—not looking to see if any of the guards had spotted him—he made swiftly for the door closest to him. It was the First-Class end of the train. Still feeling furtive he hurried through the interior, fearful as he crossed from one compartment to another, passing doorways, that from the platform supple arms might suddenly reach out for him—the ghostly remnants of a dream he’d had the night before. As always this week, he searched for a seat in the most crowded section, a window seat where somebody would screen him, fence him in, and until he’d found one—settled into it—he didn’t feel properly safe from these double-jointed, elongating arms, sinuous and surrealistic pursuers.

But it was surprising all the same how you got used to things.

For the third night in succession it was the conductor with the strawberry mark.

“It’s all right,” Roger told him. “I saw the Revenue Protection Manager this morning and he says that if I’m travelling illegally tomorrow the police will meet me at St Pancras.”

“He said that, did he? But what about tonight?”

“He left it vague about tonight.”

“Well, you can’t expect to travel free again. I gave you a free ticket on Monday.”

“I know you did.”

“No one could have been more amiable than me.”

“You’ve all been amiable. I wouldn’t deny that for a moment.”

“You wouldn’t? I just don’t get you.”

“So you said last night—and the previous night, as well. I don’t get why you don’t get me.”

“Do you realize that last night the police were waiting for you at Leicester? They must have missed you.”

“Last night I changed at Loughborough. Sometimes I change at Leicester; sometimes I change at Loughborough.”

“And tonight? Where will you be changing tonight?”

“I don’t know. You see, it all depends upon my mood.”

When they were approaching Leicester the conductor returned, busily, businesslike. “I’ve arranged for the police to be waiting for us here at Leicester.”

“Sorry to be a nuisance. But I’ve decided tonight to change at Loughborough.”

“Right. Then I’ll have them there at Loughborough.”

But he didn’t have them there at Loughborough; or perhaps it was just that the police didn’t wish to be had there at Loughborough. It seemed less like cloak-and-dagger now, despite the bare, windswept platform, the chill drizzle slanting across the station lamps, the shiny pools of light at your feet, the feeling of film noir; less like cloak-and-dagger, more like cat-and-mouse. But still a kind of game, maybe. You
played
at cat-and-mouse. And, incredibly, it had occurred to Roger this evening that although he didn’t look forward to them he was practically
enjoying
these confrontations whilst they were in progress; that he no longer felt so shy before an audience (some way from this, indeed, he actually welcomed the presence of one); and that even with threats of the police being bandied about so publicly he no longer felt any great embarrassment. He was changing. At St Pancras, it was true, he’d averted his head and slouched into himself as he was getting on the train, but now he remembered to square his shoulders again, as he had done on several occasions during the course of the day. He liked the thought of change.

Nonetheless, it came as a relief not to find any policemen standing on the almost empty platform; and he walked right down to the end of it—wanting to put whatever distance he could between himself and their still-possible arrival. Acting on the same instinct he found he was keeping well to the back of it, as though a mere wire fence overlooking a car park could furnish him with cover.

Yet when he understood what he was doing he quickly moved away from the perimeter. The next thing, he thought, half in humour, half disgust, the next step in degradation, will be to hide out in the Gents.

Even so, he was glad when out of the greyness of the rain and mist the local train could eventually be heard, seen taking shape; glad there should still have been no scream of tyres upon the asphalt.

And as the comparatively short conveyance pulled in, a smiling black face looked out from the window of one of the carriages.

This, too, could tie in with the image of film noir.

“Hope you’ve got a ticket tonight!” The conductor was youthful-looking yet there was a sprinkling of grey in both the frizzy sideburns.

“No! Sorry!” Roger returned the grin, shut and shook his umbrella, stepped aboard the train.

Like the platform, there was hardly anyone on it—not, certainly, in this half.

“I better pretend I didn’t notice you was here.”

“Won’t you get into trouble for that?” Roger asked. “I ought at least to write down my name again. Oughtn’t I?”