Father of the Man (5 page)

“Yours sincerely.”

Nobody had signed it.

There was a second item of mail. This was a Notice of Proceedings, “…to effect the recovery of total amount owing—£4,275—which sum is due to Swan International…” They had hoped to buy a share in a flat on the Costa Brava.

The timing, once again, was laughable.

And on any other morning of the past three months he could possibly have laughed. For the past three months—since a week before he’d started at Columbia—he had sworn that, from now on, he would be not only depression-free but positive and cheerful and thankful; and for those past three months, more or less, he had managed it. Had maybe been a little manic to begin with, but that was all right; actually it was great; caused the aridness of the few preceding days to seem nearly worthwhile. Yet disappointingly—as had happened on every single occasion—his whole new secret formula for life, which he was so sure that this time would nourish him for ever and ever, soon became too tiring to maintain, lost its potency after barely a week. Its aftermath, admittedly, was a relatively long period of stability: long enough, anyway, to make him believe he had finally outgrown the malady. But this morning—yesterday afternoon—such optimism had again proved premature…‘from now on’ a hurtful joke, a mockery. ‘From now on’ there was nothing.

Nothing.

Quite certainly little in the way of laughter.

And when he arrived at the office things speedily grew worse, simply on account of this very absence of laughter.

Columbia Life Assurance was located near the Lace Market; it was good to have the tower of St Mary’s parish church so plainly visible from where he sat. It was a spacious, well-appointed office. You might quarrel with the pillar-box red of the window frames and skirting boards, but nearly everything else was either white or grey, and the effect was pleasing.

Fifteen desks and fifteen telephones; thirty swivelling chairs; a computer and a fax machine. A typewriter. A great brass bell to clang whenever a new customer had been secured.

His development manager was already seated and about to make a call.

“Eff, good morning!” he said. “Nice to see you.
And
almost punctual, for a change! Be even nicer, though, if you could put a smile on that mournful old face.”

Ephraim was able to turn his back whilst taking off his gabardine and hanging it on a coatstand. “I think it may be sometime,” he muttered, not actually intending to be heard, “before
that’s
likely to happen.”

“Oh dear. Do I get the feeling your own weekend can’t have been as entirely fabulous as mine?”

Barney Watson was twenty-seven. He had been with Columbia since he was eighteen and reputedly now earned more than thirty thousand a year. At first Ephraim had thought he might make a good husband for Abby: warm, dynamic, good-looking—in an Italian sort of way—by no means unintelligent. Plus, his suits and shoes, even his shirts, were handmade; his cufflinks were of gold…Oscar’d have approved. But that had been before Barney had started to irritate him; irritate him by his insistence on certain selling procedures and telephone scripts (“The trouble with you, Ephraim: you can’t ever be told!”), by his repetition of eager platitudes and favourite catchphrases, by his constant promotion of books like
How to Win Friends and Influence People
, by his unvarying style of response when asked how he was:
Brilliant, Fantastic, Never Felt Better
: above all by his physical arrogance, shown in the way he moved and the way he boasted about his weight-training, even about his body hair. “Oh, I’ve got a great big penis!” was also one of his catchphrases. What had been forgivable—even endearing—during their short-lived honeymoon period now appeared considerably less so: indeed, now appeared more like the mannerisms of a complete dickhead…to employ an epithet for which Barney himself seemed to show a predilection. It was a pity that such initial liking should have turned, for both of them, into disillusion.

Twice more within the next fifteen minutes was Ephraim exhorted to get rid of his frown and replace it with something that told the world he was glad to be a part of it.

It happened for the fourth time shortly afterwards. They were in the training room, which opened out of the main office, a room where such things as application forms and promotional literature were kept, along with the television set—used chiefly for the screening of inspirational videos—and the photo-copier; and Barney and half a dozen of Ephraim’s fellow workers were supposed to be holding a meeting there to do with target-setting and prospect-finding and appointment-making: in other words, the usual load of bullshit; Ephraim’s own terminology had deteriorated—or grown robust—since his arrival at Columbia. Barney suddenly said: “And talking of goals, my own most pressing goal at the moment is to bring back the smile to Eff’s face.” Everyone turned to look at Ephraim and in that instant he felt a searing burst of body heat rush to the surface.

“Oh, for God’s sake! Can’t you shut up about my smile! I happen to have personal problems. Okay? Whether I choose to smile or not has nothing to do with you!”

There was silence. Barney rose to his feet.

“I think the rest of you had better leave. Ephraim and I should maybe have a talk.”

Ephraim, however, stood up too. “No, thank you. There’s nothing I want to talk about. My problems aren’t the business of this office.”

“It isn’t your problems we need to discuss. It’s your appearance. And your attitude.”

By now the others were starting to file past. Ephraim pushed in front of one and headed for the door.

“You—get back here! I forbid you to leave!”

Ephraim left. He walked over to his desk, sat down and picked up the telephone receiver. He had a prospect he meant to call.

But he hadn’t had time to press the seven necessary digits before Barney was standing over him, leaning forward, his own face close to Ephraim’s. “Get back in that room! Do you hear? Get back in that room before I count to ten!”

Ephraim remained silent; looking towards the window.

“This second! This very second! Get your bottom off that chair and back through that door!
Now
!”

Ephraim slowly swivelled round to face him. Until this moment he had never seen anybody literally shake with anger. He had thought it was just a metaphor.

“Put down that phone at once or I’ll pull it off the wall and shove it up your arse!”

Ephraim said sullenly: “Then go ahead and do it.” As an ex-teacher he recognized the foolishness of making threats you couldn’t fulfil.

Barney merely stood and stared at him. Gradually he straightened up. “We
shall
talk,” he said. “Before this day is out! And when we do we shall talk about a lot more than just a smile.”

Then, after a pause, he turned and stalked off. Before long, Ephraim heard him making loud and jovial conversation in another part of the office. The volume wasn’t especially significant, Barney often spoke as though he were conferring Maundy alms in letting everybody listen to his
bons mots
. But there were two schools of thought, reflected Ephraim, sourly. If you wanted to, you could describe such a comeback as being admirable.

On the other hand you could say it was pathetic.

At lunchtime he walked around the churchyard of St Mary’s. Did he do it, he wondered, simply to torment himself? There was one particular inscription which he had looked at very often.

“If anyone ever fulfilled the Christian duties of husband, parent and friend, it was Alexander Gordon Donaldson. Late of Kirkcudbrightshire. He died at Nottingham on the 30
^th
of August 1824, aged 33 years.

“As a testimony of her esteem for his memory and of her deep regret for her loss, this monument was erected by his mourning and afflicted widow Sophia Donaldson.

“The memory of the just is blessed.”

Ephraim probably knew it by heart.

Far from having any talk before the day was out, they didn’t exchanged a single word; even avoided looking at one another to the extent that Ephraim became aware of eyestrain—the same which he experienced when he and Jean were being mutually aloof. (Eyestrain at home; eyestrain now at work.) Fortunately, though, he had to spend the latter part of the afternoon out of the office: had a pair of potential clients to interview.
Potential
, however, was the key word. The first was Wendy Cooper, who had ticked the ‘yes’ box on the questionnaire she’d filled in when Ephraim had been manning a stand at Texas—“Would you like more information about the services Columbia has to offer?”—thinking no doubt she’d then have a better chance of winning the prize draw, a luxury hamper worth upward of fifty pounds. But she had twice failed to turn up for an appointment at the office, although on both occasions Ephraim had confirmed it just an hour or so beforehand. Wendy now turned out to be a single parent living in a squalid maisonette, its back entrance boarded up by rotting planks—heaven help her, Ephraim had thought at first it was the front entrance. Her child was a stolid two-year-old: Amber Jade: at present repeatedly clambering over and tumbling off the possibly sperm-stained sofa, and wearing only a grubby vest that exposed an unsavoury, brown-streaked bottom. Sometimes she stumbled across to scrutinize Ephraim more closely, unsmiling, unblinking—“For heaven’s sake, Amber Jade, just show the world you’re glad to be a part of it!”—her fat little hands implanted stickily on the knees of Ephraim’s best dark suit,
only
dark suit…he was petrified she might be wanting him to take her on his lap and that the mother would dispassionately expect him to comply. But Amber Jade at least displayed some curiosity. Wendy on the other hand was not simply husbandless and unmadeup and uncombed…she seemed apathetic. She was also unemployed. Nor had she much prospect of finding employment, perhaps didn’t even want it; my God, he sounded like a Tory—or like Abby and Oscar when they were trying to wind him up! She was so evidently unable to afford even the smallest savings or protection plan that Ephraim didn’t bother to fill in the fact-finding sheet. He reasoned she wouldn’t know about fact-finding sheets, therefore wouldn’t feel herself slighted. But she did ask—twice—when the results of the prize draw were due to be announced; and Ephraim determined secretly that if the draw could possibly be rigged then he would truly do his damnedest. In fact merely being with Wendy and her stolid, smeary-bummed daughter made him suddenly more positive. Sod everything, he thought. Sod Barney, sod the bank, sod Swan International. Come to that—why not?—sod Oscar and Abby too. Even Jean? (But domestic troubles would soon drop into place. He could already feel it happening.) And sod Shane as well—yes, that, most definitely. Shane worked at Kentucky Fried Chicken and was supposed to be doing business with him today, i.e. handing him a cheque. But Shane, who had told him that this time there was really no need to reconfirm—yes, honest to God, cross my heart!—and who had seemed like a decent, serious lad the one time Ephraim had actually managed to run him to earth; Shane, of course, had changed onto a different shift and had forgotten—forgotten?—to let Ephraim know. “Tell him, then, I’ll telephone on Thursday,” he said to the woman who had gone to check the duty roster. He smiled at her and tried to keep his disappointment, his
anxiety
, from appearing obvious. Was the boy actually serious or did he just not have the bottle to say no? It was demoralizing, demeaning, to have to pursue and pander to these types of people. Generic term…all those who proved themselves so unreliable: the ones who surprised you as much as the ones who didn’t: the middle-aged school teachers or borough engineers or community workers; the woman who had sounded so very pleasant on the telephone, advising him assiduously on which bus to take, or rather which
combination
of buses, and where to change from one onto the other, and yet, scarcely ninety minutes after that, had just refused to open the front door, although he’d rung and knocked viciously for a full half-hour—well, at any rate knocked viciously, you couldn’t be all that vicious with chimes which merely informed you repeatedly that there was no place like home—refused to open, pretending she wasn’t in, although a young male neighbour, drily sympathetic, had assured Ephraim that they were there all right, her and her hubby, you could tell it for certain by the two flash cars parked in the driveway—and when Ephraim had seen
those
how his hopes had risen!—but not to take any of it too personal, mate: it happens all the time; in some way it must give ’em both a buzz.

So, then…Nothing from Wendy and nothing from Shane. But he almost didn’t care. Despite these letdowns he was returning to his house feeling a lot more cheerful than when he had walked out of it some nine hours earlier.

Jean, however, didn’t come to greet him and when they did say hello her voice lacked any suggestion of warmth. Before he could tell her he was sorry for his behaviour, he was discovering that perhaps he wasn’t so sorry for it after all—and indeed was already starting to behave that way again.

At first he struggled against this. He could accept that Jean’s spirits should have been affected by his own; depression was contagious. What he couldn’t accept was that, when one of the children’s friends rang up, she should sound as lively and as ready to laugh as ever. People always marvelled at how wonderful Jean was: what a wife for any man to have; nothing ever seemed to get her down. And when towards nine o’clock Roger returned home you should have heard her wanting to learn about his day. Had there been any interesting customers, good sales, gossipy conversations, where had he strolled at lunchtime, where had he eaten his sandwiches, had it been sunny enough to sit out? In other words, virtually every last detail except for the changeless monotony of his two railway journeys—at least they were spared that.

But you wouldn’t have recognized her as the same person. Ephraim felt excluded.

6

Jean had gone to see the Harrison Ford film on her own, mainly to demonstrate that she wasn’t, nor ever would be, dependent upon anyone else. She didn’t enjoy it much. She would have done better opting for the costume museum, or the display of china at the castle. She and Ephraim had lived in Nottingham for two years now but
still
they hadn’t been to either of these things. It was useless waiting for other people. If only she’d had some close woman friend, someone she could wander round the Lace Hall with, or the inside of an old church, without having to worry lest the experience might have been undertaken only out of kindness or a sense of obligation. With Ephraim, it was even difficult to get him to sit down in front of the foreign films she occasionally taped, and then most keenly looked forward to, without her suspecting that in all likelihood he’d very soon be dozing (“No, I swear I’m enjoying it, I’ve missed hardly anything, it’s been a busy day!”), when he always managed to stay alert throughout the most escapist rubbish, Bette Davis, Joan Crawford, Alice Faye,
their
films were sacrosanct. Oh, sometimes it was fun to watch rubbish—she admitted that, willingly—but if your whole diet was composed of nothing else…Nor would Roger have been the right person with whom to watch these more serious films, even if, most mornings, he hadn’t had to get up so very early. Abby was the only one who genuinely shared an enthusiasm for Satyajit Ray or Kurosawa or even—heaven help us—Ingmar Bergman. And it would have been wrong somehow to watch a video in daytime, would certainly have lessened her enjoyment in it…although her puritanical upbringing plainly didn’t dictate against an afternoon spent in the cinema!