Fifty-Minute Hour (41 page)

‘Hallo. This is 246 2321. John-Paul is not available at present, but if you leave your name, address, phone number and a short message, after you hear the tone, he will get back to you as soon as possible.'

‘This is Nial, your son. I need you.'

‘Hallo. This is 246 2321. John-Paul is not available at present, but if you leave your name, address, phone number and a short message, after you hear the tone, he will get back to you as soon as possible.'

‘This is Nial. Remember Nial? The great big strapping clumsy one, with hulking hands and feet. I used to come on Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays, always at two-ten. Then you made it lunchtime, made me very special. I came today, at lunchtime, but you wouldn't let me in. Please ring me. Soon. I'm hungry – getting very small.'

‘Hallo. This is 246 2321. John-Paul is not available at present, but if you leave your name, address and …'

‘This is bloody Nial. I
hate
you! You're doing this to punish me. I know you're there – listening, but not answering. Jeering, aren't you, mocking, getting a real kick because you've made me cry again? You always tried to do that, tried to make me weak. Well, I'm
not
weak, not at all. I'm coming round, this minute. I know it's not my session-time, but I'll just break your stupid door down. You're with Beata, aren't you; gave her all my lunchtimes, span them out to nights? I'll kill her, I'll destroy her, I'll hack her into …'

‘Hallo. This is 246 2321. John-Paul is not available at present, but if …'

‘I'm sorry. Honestly. Just say you forgive me. Just say one short word. Anything at all. I've got to hear your voice – your real voice, not the answerphone – so I know you're still alive. Just one word can save me. Please save me. Please say “Nial”.'

‘Hallo. This is 246 2321. John-Paul is not …'

‘Okay. You want to kill me. No sweat. I'll kill myself. You'll be sorry then, won't you, ashamed you didn't answer, wouldn't say one footling word, didn't care a fig? I'm going to do it now – swallow all my sleeping pills, fifty of them – more. I've got the bottles here, and I'm shaking all the pills out on the table. Can you hear them rolling, some falling on the floor? They're so pretty, all the colours: red and blue and purple, happy singing yellow, cosy friendly pink.

‘I'm cramming in a handful – gulp and down – like sweeties. I've always loved sweet things. We're alike in that respect. If we'd only met as friends, we could have had so much in common. I'm eating sweets like you do – suck and swallow, suck and swallow – another handful gone.

‘No. Why should I take pills, let you off so lightly? They're far too quiet and peaceful, and I want you to be sickened when you see my mangled body. I'll hack myself to pieces, like I did with all the paintings, send you limbs and organs through the post – blood weeping through the wrappings onto your breakfast eggs and bacon; my cold heart like a kidney on your toast.

‘Don't imagine I'm just threatening. I mean every word I say. I know exactly how to die. I've studied it for years, like other people study art or music. It's an art itself, in one way, and I've always been artistic. Fuck! Your damn machine's just clicked and …'

‘Hallo. This is 246 23 …'

‘I'm scared. I'm really scared. If you're dead, I die as well, and I don't want to die, not really. Please come back. Please live. I'll do anything you say. I'll lick your shoes, I'll lick your bowel – the inside – I'll hang head-down from your steeple, like a murdered drooping weather-vane, naked in the wind. I'll climb the tower ten times a day, on my knees and weeping. I'll crush myself to mincemeat and let your wolfhounds eat me, then when you stroke and fondle them, you're really stroking me.

‘John-Paul, I'm dying –
answer
.'

‘Hallo. This is …'

‘Will you bloody fucking speak to me and turn that cruel machine off, or …'

‘Hallo. This is 246 2321. John-Paul is not available at present, but if you leave your name, address, phone number and a short message, after you hear the tone, he will get back to you as soon as possible.'

‘Goodbye.'

Help me.

Monday.

Non-day.

Bryan stood rooted in the middle of the crowded airport concourse, unable to move to right or left. Humans should have been created with more than just two hands, he thought, and preferably with wheels.
He
could do with a dozen hands, at least, so he could cope with all the luggage: the four huge bulging cases, the carrier bags of staple English groceries, which Lena feared they'd never get in Rome; the briefcase full of medicines (which covered every possible contingency from malaria to typhoid); the Wellingtons, hot-water bottles, packs of cards and board games (in case of rain, or boredom), the tea-making equipment with special adapter plug, so Lena could be sure of a decent (English) cup of tea, however far she strayed from Ivy Close.

Lena herself had vanished to the ladies' room – a dazed and dazzled Lena, still marvelling at the limousine which had whisked them from Upminster to Heathrow in greater ease and comfort than she'd ever known in her sixty, years of life. They should have been going to Gatwick by common tube and train, not Heathrow by chauffeured Peugeot, but just last night everything had changed. The travel agent had phoned to say that unfortunately the airline they were booked on had suffered a grave crisis and been forced into liquidation a mere three days ago, so they'd be flying on another line from a different airport at a later time of day. He'd been totally distraught. He'd spent ninety-seven hours working out the journey plan to Gatwick, entering all the details in his new shiny scarlet notebook (which he'd dared at last, in Mary's honour – red for passion, danger, ardour, heat and lust), and then to have it overturned, with just one paltry night to change not just his schedule, but half the jammed compartments in his mind – a night he'd spent in anguish, pacing round and round his room, trying to cope with new arrangements, not daring to tell his Mother, finally calling up a car-hire firm as a bribe to stop her nagging.

It also seemed a most unlucky omen – chaos striking once again, proving the general Chaos of the Universe. If airlines could go bust, then why not Heathrow, also? He'd insisted on arriving with at least eight hours to spare, so if his hunch was right and he found the airport collapsed into a black hole, or just a pile of smouldering rubble, at least he'd have the time to make a third set of new plans.

They were not, in fact, required. The airport seemed all too vast and solid, almost overwhelming in its sheer size and scale and frenzy, jammed with traffic, tetchy jostling crowds. He was still wilting on the ground floor by the rows and rows of check-in desks, dwarfed by trendy jet-setters with their skis and winter tans; shamed by boyish yuppies still doing frantic business via cellular phones and dictating machines, as if their high-powered firms could hardly bear their absence for an hour. He doubted BRB would even notice he was gone.

Everybody else was checking in their luggage, striding off freehanded, or with just a stylish night-bag looped across one shoulder, or a power-zoomed video camera slung around their necks. Only he was loaded down with castor oil and Heinz tomato ketchup, paralysed by the sheer weight of canned baked beans. The airline had refused to take his baggage yet, told him check-in time was two hours before the flight, so would he please return at half past three –
p.m.
He'd checked his watch – still only nine and morning.

‘But … But I can't move,' he'd faltered. ‘Not with all these cases.'

‘We
do
have luggage trolleys, sir, and even a left-luggage office. Just grab yourself a trolley and wheel your cases over there.' The desk clerk gestured (vaguely) to the left, then turned briskly to the next man in the queue, a dark hirsute Adonis with one streamlined case so small and neatly compact it probably contained nothing but a few silk handkerchiefs.

Bryan peered up and down the seething hall. He couldn't see a luggage trolley – not one without an owner – and he dared not leave the cases to go and seek one out. Deadlock – as so often in his life.

‘Bryan!'

He swung round, saw his Mother, exultant with a trolley, weaving through the jostling hordes towards him. He'd still not quite recovered from the shock of her appearance when she'd emerged at dawn, fully dressed, wearing a colour for the first time in his life, instead of the black or grey or beige of semi-mourning. He'd never seen the outfit, had no idea she owned it – an old-fashioned matching dress and coat in a vibrant cornflower blue, which seemed to transport him to another age. She looked like a character from some now dated film, in a dress too young (and short) for her, and in Mary's shade of blue. He had found it most unnerving, especially as she'd added a sparkling flower-spray brooch. He'd never seen his Mother wearing jewellery, nor any shoes but lace-ups. Yet there she was, lolloping towards him now in some low-slung laceless casuals, which only drew attention to her gammy foot, disfigured veiny leg.

He felt a wave of pity,, curdled with embarrassment. Her leg was clearly hurting, yet she refused to sit and rest, seemed to have been galvanised this whole last week by the sheer peril and high drama of a trip to Foreign Parts; had even compared it to the war, which she'd also seen as a chance to live more dangerously, to espouse a Cause, pump excitement and adrenalin into her usual stagnant life.

‘Watch out!' he called – too late. Lena was engulfed in a tide of foreigners – not just Europeans, but West Indians with dreadlocks, turbaned Pakistanis, pan-faced Japanese. Tarbooshes and yashmaks assailed her oh all sides. What on earth were they all doing in this European terminal? They must have come specifically to goad her, brought their swarms of hypermanic children, to drive her back full-pelt to Ivy Close. His Mother hated children, felt they should be born with fully-trained bowels and bladders, good manners and good salaries, and preferably dumb. If children were bad news, then foreign children would be red rag to a bull. He could no longer see the bull, who was completely swamped in aliens; closed his eyes helplessly as he waited for her angry snort, her nostril-flaring charge. A sudden exhalation of Yardley's English Lavender and menthol linament wafted in his face. His Mother was beside him, not bellowing or charging, but triumphant with her trolley.

‘I stole it from a darky, dear. That deserves a kiss.'

He pecked her cheek, embarrassed. She was almost flirting with him, clinging to his arm like a loving bashful bride – not the faintest whimper about kids or crowds or foreigners, let alone the storm of protest he was ready braced to hear. He'd never seen her like this in his life before, almost longed for her to nag again, so at least things would be familiar. He couldn't cope with change.

‘Careful, Bryan. You'll trip, dear.'

He
did
trip, cannoned off the escalator and landed on his bottom. He couldn't even remember going up an escalator. And where were all the cases? He leapt up in pain and panic.

‘We've lost the luggage, Mother. Quick! Call a guard or something.'

‘But we've just left it in that office.'

‘What office?'

‘The left-luggage place. They gave you seven tickets.'

He fumbled in his pocket, found the crumpled tickets, fought new and daunting worries. Would the suitcases be safe? Should he ever have abandoned them to careless cowardly staff, who might muddle up the tickets, or dash for safety if burglars smashed the doors down? He was still clutching the most vital things – his toy snake, Anne, which he'd hidden in a pillowcase, so that nobody would mock, and his large supply of notebooks labelled ‘Rome', ‘Mary', ‘Check-list', ‘Accounts', ‘Expenses', ‘Problems', ‘General', ‘Miscellaneous' and ‘Emergency'. He should have brought a dozen for Emergency, the way that things were going, and a far bigger one for Expenses. That car had all but ruined him, and he'd taken out a dozen different insurances which had cost almost half as much again as the holiday itself.

‘Oh, look, dear, all those shops!'

He looked. Not just shops, but banks and business centres, bars and restaurants, telephones and toilets, counters, kiosks, booths – endless signs shouting all around him. The signs were quite bewildering, required instant clear decisions, yet the very sight of all those choices reduced him to a vacillating shuttlecock. Wouldn't it be simpler just to bolt back home, unpack the brandy-butter and the Sennakot, fill the four hot-water bottles and put himself to bed?

‘And what a huge great Christmas tree! Fancy Christmas decorations in an airport.'

His Mother seemed impressed, turning in amazement from shops to tree to baubles to flashing fairy lights. She was more used to Victoria Coach Station with its dreary concrete bays, its total lack of glamour, lack of all diversion save one shabby wilting cafe selling cardboard sausage rolls. Her eyes tracked from gift-wrapped chocolates adorned with flowers and bows, to a gigantic smiling Santa swinging from the ceiling on his sleigh. His own eyes followed hers, so he didn't see the real-life Father Christmas scurrying towards him – or rather
Mother
Christmas. His body registered soft flesh as he collided with her ample jutting breasts.

‘
Mary
!' he thought instantly, as he glimpsed fair curls, blue eyes, though the face itself was swallowed up in a froth of fake white whiskers.

‘We've got a very special offer, sir, in duty-free today. Just buy two hundred Rothman's and …'

He crumpled up the leaflet she pressed into his hand. He'd been lusting for a billet-doux from Mary-in-disguise, and all he'd got instead was a page of panting prose about the smooth rich satisfaction not of his sweet mistress, but of filthy tar and nicotine. Yet at least his mood had changed. How dare he even contemplate bolting feebly home, when in just three days his Love would be arriving to share the Eternal City with him, reignite his faith and his devotion? It was Christmas Eve, a time for hope – and giving. He put down his bags (and snake), rifled through his pockets for his wallet, withdrew a wad of fivers, handed them theatrically to Lena.