Father of the Man (24 page)

Yet if Ephraim wanted to be told merely about jolly things he didn’t want to be told, immediately after Doris Day, about Renée and Jim. Apparently the disc jockey was reading out the whole of Renée’s letter: “…and please tell him to take care of himself because I don’t know what I’d do without him, and thank him for all the kindness and consideration and sheer fun and all the endless cups of tea he’s brought me over the past twenty-six years…As a matter of fact, if you play this record between a quarter-past- and half-past-seven, we’ll probably be sitting up in bed drinking yet another as we listen! Anyway, please give him all my love.”

The disc jockey said: “I will, Renée, I will, and I’ll also mention your two lovely daughters, Fiona and Geraldine—hi, girls!—but it seems to me you’re in a better position to give it to him yourself! Go on! Don’t be shy! Anyhow, here’s the song you’ve asked for—are you listening, Jim, and have a very happy birthday, you wonderful fellow—this song that just about sums it all up: ‘There’ll never be another you.’”

Ephraim swiftly crossed from the kitchen to the back room and turned off the radio. All that sentimental hogwash was bad enough—a wife with verbal diarrhoea and a disc jockey only too happy to lap it up and regurgitate it undigested; but to have it all commemorated by a record which Jean had once, about ten years ago, bought for
him
…well, that was more than flesh and blood could stand. Breathing hard—and aware of the band of heat which had again risen through his body like in the training room at Columbia—Ephraim riffled through their stack of 45s. When he found the disc in question he snapped it across. He did the same thing to another one she’d bought him: ‘Nobody does it better.’ Both records went into the pedal bin…where he knew that, later on, she’d be bound to see them. So much for hypocrisy. So much for sentimental hogwash.

He briefly visualized this very fat couple right now drinking their cups of tea in bed. He imagined them as pudgy and white and beady-eyed; perhaps a little smelly; it fairly made the stomach heave to think about their present smirks—the soft words, the smug caresses.

Sick.

But in a way, he realized, this was quite a turn-up for the book. Even a healthy one. Realistic. Usually when he thought of other couples making love, or being about to make love, he tended to romanticize. They were always young—or at least, if middle-aged, still wholly in their prime—and they always got it right, time after time after time; all other men were perfect lovers and their partners, as well as knowing every art of giving pleasure themselves, inevitably writhed and scratched and bit, and moaned in ecstasy. Where all these perfectly formed people were—perfectly formed for love—he seldom ever wondered…although, had he been asked, he wouldn’t have said he saw them often on the street.

And all these very suggestive or even very explicit love songs that you heard on the radio nowadays: he had to keep reminding himself that they weren’t necessarily records of experience, so much as records of mere wishful thinking. It wasn’t the way anybody actually found love. It was only the way they believed they ought to.

Because—let’s face it—if you wanted to spend the night inside your lover’s arms, heartbeat to heartbeat, and wake up, baby, with the world in your embrace; well, didn’t you ever stir during the night, or turn, or get cramps from lying for too long in one position? Didn’t you ever get pins and needles, for God’s sake, from having your arm lain upon even by an angel?

He switched the radio back on, hoping for an update: “We have just heard that Jim suffered a fatal heart attack and that Renée, unable to wriggle out from under him, not only couldn’t reach her cup of tea but unluckily was suffocated. Our warmest condolences go to Fiona and Geraldine, who very kindly let us know.” Ephraim’s hope, however, was disappointed, so this morning, as he walked to work, he looked for all those perfect people in Woodborough Road and on Huntingdon Street…these days, he was always thinking about sex. Sex, he thought, was unnaturally important to him; which was ironic—well, pathetic—for somebody who wasn’t really much good at it. (Because he didn’t get enough encouragement, he told himself, encouragement or practice.) And that was why, of course, he was always thinking about sex. Oh, the viciousness of circles!

Indeed, he could scarcely remember when he had last had proper sex. By that he meant sex with someone who was not simply willing to have it, but glad or—ideally—eager. (He had often wished that he could qualify as a Great Lover: a Lothario, Don Juan, Gary Cooper: some fellow who had a reputation both for doing the job well and for having a decent-sized tool, better than decent-sized, to do it with.) But at least if he didn’t have a lover—and even if he didn’t have the talent, or the equipment—there was still one major advantage to be derived from all of this: it left him free to fantasize. The lover, the tool, the talent could all become phenomenal.

His thoughts were jumbled now. He remembered the night he’d had his first wet dream; or, rather, he remembered the morning after. Luckily he’d been staying with one of his mother’s younger brothers at Hastings, where he and his wife ran a workman’s caff; Lionel had been able to enlighten his ignorance, assuage his apprehensions. He remembered—though was this before or after?—his first full, unrestrained erection, when his little naked willie had suddenly reared up, disconcertingly weighty against the pale thinness of his unformed body; he and the boy he’d been sharing a room with at the time—again, he’d been away from home—had been getting ready for bed, changing into pyjamas, and they’d both giggled with embarrassment at the sight of this protuberance; yet Ephraim had already secretly felt proud…why?…what had it then meant to him? And now—what wouldn’t he have given now: to be back at the time of his first full-blown erection, his first wet dream?

Once, it had been a cheerful occupation, sex, something to laugh at and treat lightly. Once, he had sometimes used to sing and hum ‘The Galloping Major’ during intercourse, and an occasion he now remembered as being fairly typical was that on which he’d put one bare foot around the bedroom door, in the manner of a great tease, and then entered the room stark naked twirling Jean’s pink umbrella behind one shoulder and pirouetting like a chorus girl. “Unlucky, unlucky,” she had cried, “and totally obscene!” But she had laughed a lot—of course they both had—and if an opened umbrella in the house was regarded as unlucky it had proved so only in the long run; in
those
days, there had been many an evening which had reached its climax with the frenzied, toe-clenching proclamation:
Here comes the galloping major
…!

Where had it all gone wrong?

There was no single moment he could bring to mind. No reason why it should have.

But he had hardly developed into the great lover.

He reached the office.

The great lover manqué phoned Mrs Barks, at Beeston.

He explained about his Royal Doulton figurines. Yes, Mrs Barks would certainly be interested. Ephraim inquired about the interest rates on a loan of five hundred pounds. He estimated that he’d be able to pay back such a sum after a period of six months.

Maybe ‘hoped’ was a slightly more accurate word.

The monthly interest rate was fifteen percent. Seventy-five pounds. Multiply that by six and it came to four hundred and fifty pounds. To redeem the figurines after just six months he would have to pay back almost twice as much as he had borrowed.

Ephraim said goodbye to Mrs Barks.

He bit his lip.

Shortly afterwards Barney came into the office. Ephraim let him settle—after all his buoyant salutations to everybody else and breezy reassurances that he had never felt better in his life: “Oh, fit as a fiddle and ready for love! My God, when aren’t I, though? What a lad,
what
a lad!”—and then swivelled slowly to address him.

“Oh, by the way, I called on Mr Harrison last night. I’m going to drop the hamper round this afternoon. He’s out of work right now but as soon as he finds another job he’ll certainly consider taking out insurance…”

He did his very damnedest to sound nonchalant. It was ridiculous but he’d felt his heartbeat accelerating ever since the moment of Barney’s arrival; had felt his armpits growing moist. (One of his customary neuroses was the imagined inefficiency of his deodorant; and because he imagined it inefficient, during the course of the day it would speedily become so. But that was only
one
of his customary neuroses. Those others dominant in his life at present had to do with nervous indigestion; with the fear that he was losing his eyesight; that he was losing his hair; would soon need a hip replacement; was acquiring a paunch; was acquiring varicose veins; was acquiring a slack and stringy throat; with the fear that his bottom might be spreading…There were others, though, besides these.)

Barney stared at him.

Sean, Jerzy and Lucy also gave him their attention.

“Would you believe it?” asked Jerzy. But he said it with a laugh. He had got over his disappointment of yesterday; it wouldn’t be alluded to again.

“Yes. Unfortunately I would.” Barney, on his side, spoke without any trace of amusement. “Just too easily I would.”

“Fucking unemployed…,” murmured Sean, jovially. “Got to hand it to you, matey. Certainly know how to pick ’em!”

“Well, it wasn’t your fault, Eff,” said Lucy. “Besides, think how it’s going to make his Christmas! Barney, we’re
glad
that someone unemployed won our prize fifty-pound hamper. Aren’t we, guys? Aren’t we noble? Aren’t we nice?”

Barney gave an exclamation of annoyance. “You lot can laugh about it as much as you like. Me, personally, I think it’s pathetic!”

He chewed the end of his pencil and then took a shred of something off his tongue and viewed it with as much disfavour as he viewed the rest of the proceedings.

“Oh, come off it, Barney, it wasn’t Eff’s fault,” said Lucy. “It could have happened to any of us.”

“Unemployed…,” repeated Sean, chuckling.

“That’s what we’ll all be soon,” confided Jerzy, with bleak humour, “if things go on like this. Oh—but I forgot: we can’t get the sack, can we? That’s a good thing. I keep forgetting we’re each of us our own boss.” He said to Ephraim: “So don’t worry, lad. You’re not accountable to anyone but yourself. And the Missus!” Jerzy, it seemed, frequently had his own share of problems at home.

“Fucking unemployed,” said Sean, shaking his head.

The subject dropped.

Soon after lunch Barney went out to see a client, so Ephraim reckoned this would be the right time to deliver the hamper: the fewer acerbic comments he had to put up with on departure, the better. The flaps dovetailed neatly into place but the carton was heavy. Lucy wasn’t there. Sean and Jerzy watched him carry it towards the door with expressions of slightly ironic solidarity. Then suddenly, as though he’d been having an inner struggle and wanted to commit himself before the struggle started up again, Jerzy sprang to his feet. He picked up a ring of keys from his desk.

“Come on, lad, I’ll give you a lift.”

“No, that’s good of you, but—but I’m okay, I can manage.”

“West Bridgford isn’t all that far, not when you’ve got transport. But if you’re having to haul that thing on and off buses it’ll be sheer unadulterated bloody murder.”

Ephraim began to panic. “Honestly, Jerzy, I appreciate it a lot, I really do, especially in view of everything. You’re very kind. But…but I’d rather do it myself, in a way…It’s difficult to put it into words.”

“Then don’t try. Just shut up. But I can’t stand by and watch you rupture yourself for someone who isn’t even going to give you any business.”

“I have my own reasons.”

“So do I. I think maybe some of the things I said yesterday…I shouldn’t have said them. I want to make amends.” Jerzy was holding the door open onto the staircase.

“See you, mateys,” said Sean. “Who knows, Eff, he may have gone out and got a job since you spoke to him last night? Stop looking worried. You’ve got to think positive in this world. Look for the silver lining.”

Ephraim and Jerzy walked down the stairs in silence. Already the unwieldy box was beginning to make Ephraim’s biceps ache…although in fact he was only dimly aware of it. He had other things to compete for his attention. People were often out when they’d said they’d be at home—that in itself wouldn’t have been a problem—but in West Bridgford there was no address to drive to. On the other hand, maybe Jerzy hadn’t heard the name of the road. Ephraim couldn’t remember the names of any roads in West Bridgford but perhaps that wasn’t insoluble—“Left here, next on the right, it’s that turning over there.” He could leave Jerzy sitting in the car and if someone answered the door of whichever house he chose to ring at, Jerzy mightn’t be able to hear the conversation. (Though he’d be interested; would probably be leaning out to have a look.) “That was his mum/dad/brother/sister; he’d left a message saying he’d thought about it and didn’t want to take the hamper after all; says there’s bound to be a catch in it. Poor fucker.” But it struck him as being fraught with all possible kinds of foul-up.

What alternative?
Oh, hell, I’ve just remembered something—what time is it?—he said he might be at his girlfriend’s till about four. I think we’d better leave it
.

No, he couldn’t do that. It was too unconvincing. And it would only postpone the reckoning; not avert it.

Oh,
God
.

They came to the entrance; went through the glass doors onto the pavement. “You’d better wait here,” said Jerzy. During the day he kept his car parked in the Broadmarsh Centre. It was less than a five-minute walk but that didn’t take into account lugging a sodding great hamper. He grinned broadly. “See you before you can say ‘Fuck Barney!’ more than a thousand times.”

Jerzy was hardly out of sight before the notion had occurred to Ephraim:
Do a bunk
. All he had to do was turn a corner, mingle with the crowds, he’d be screened within seconds. It was a narrow precinct barred to all but pedestrians. In a minute he’d be well away, totally beyond being found. Jerzy would be furious; hurt, bewildered; perhaps he’d never speak to him in friendship ever again (Ephraim thought about the coffee mug, primrose-coloured with a design of strawberries and green leaves); but it was easier, altogether easier, and Ephraim would then have until tomorrow morning to think up some sort of story. Perhaps he could take in a box of chocolates or a tin of biscuits as a peace-offering.