Golden Hour (12 page)

“What if there was some crisis?”

“But there isn't.”

Henry takes two biscuits in a way that shows he thinks she can't see, and turns to head back to his study.

“Carrie won't tell me if she and Toby are going to be eating with us on Saturday night,” Laura says. “How on earth am I supposed to plan my menu?”

“Two more can't make that much difference,” says Henry.

This makes Laura even more cross.

“What utterly stupid things you say, Henry. If there are ten guests and I've bought eight fillet steaks, what are the other two supposed to eat?”

“Don't buy fillet steaks. Make a stew or something.”

“A stew! In July!”

“Well, I don't know, Laura.”

He retreats.

Alone in the kitchen she pulls out recipe books and spreads them across the table to begin the long process of deciding on a menu.

Maybe I'm neurotic, she thinks to herself. Maybe I'm a control freak. Too bad. That's just how I am.

She checks Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's suggestions for July in
The River Cottage Year
. Baby courgette salad. Beetroot salad. Not at all what she's looking for. She looks in Nigel Slater's
Kitchen Diaries
. Red mullet—far too much anxiety at the last minute. Lamb rolls—what on earth are lamb rolls? Vietnamese beef salad—which turns out to be Thai beef salad under another name—but grilling the beef would be such a last-minute worry. The barbecue is simply not reliable.

Why not do the obvious? July is the time for new-season lamb. Can I get enough for eight out of a leg of lamb?

Alan understands Cas doesn't want him hanging round watching him in the skateboard park, though he doesn't say so. He takes his skateboard through the gate and closes the gate behind him, not looking back. Alan lingers for a moment watching his son's lithe body twist and turn on the board, until he's lost to sight in the crowd of other boys. All boys here, on bikes and boards. A male environment, the concrete ramps bright with graffiti, jagged letters that spell out illegible tags.

He crosses the grass to the riverside path and follows it, walking slowly, killing time. On the far side of the river, glimpsed between trees, stands a line of abandoned industrial buildings, gray corrugated iron, fading signs. Ahead on the hillside a tall phone mast poking through the treetops. The tarmac of the path is uneven like the blankets on an unmade bed. He feels the ground with his feet as he walks, half-expecting it to respond to the pressure of his weight. He finds himself thinking about
ground
, how we presume it to be solid, sustaining, the base and foundation of all things. And yet it's only a layer on a layer on a layer. Much like blankets on a bed.

There are gulls on the grass of the little park, moving about, stabbing at the earth. Gulls are supposed to be seabirds, they're supposed to catch fish. Nowadays they live on garbage.

Above the park rises the whaleback hump of Malling Hill.
Further south, further east, and the Downs meet the sea in the ripple of cliffs called the Seven Sisters. Here above the meander of Cuckmere Haven the film unit is shooting the opening scene of
Rockefeller
. Everything about this project has caused Alan grief. It began as a gentle fable about a banker who abandons the high-stress world of the City to become a shepherd. Now it's a comedy about a talking sheepdog who becomes a successful City trader. The biggest joke in the screenplay comes when the dog, under pressure at the trading desk, starts shouting “Fuck!” This is supposedly Alan's creation.

My big moment. A dog that says “Fuck!”

He's ashamed and he's angry, without quite knowing where to direct his anger. At himself, obviously, for colluding in this nonsense. But also at his producer, and the studio above her, for having such a low estimate of their public. And maybe, if they turn out to be right, at the public, for living down to such cynical estimations.

Then again, the situation is more complicated than that. There are one or two moments, one or two lines, that he's proud of. And there's the dog.

Throughout the two years Alan has been working on
Rockefeller
, the eponymous dog has slowly become real to him. When the decision was made—not by him, though he didn't fight it—to give the dog the power of speech, some deep buried knowledge woke within Alan. He knew just how Rocky would speak. The lines flowed. The character was already there.

Rocky is smart and cynical. He is permanently amused by the way those round him underestimate him. He rarely troubles himself to correct them, because he has no interest in their approval. He finds the antics of most humans absurd, in particular their infantile pursuit of immediate gratification. When introduced to the trading desks of a City bank he can see at
once how to win at the game they play there, but he has no interest in becoming rich. He loves his master, Hector, but he can't help treating him, as he treats everyone, as he treats the sheep at the start of the film, as foolish creatures incapable of knowing what's good for them.

Alan loves Rocky. This is another reason why he doesn't want to visit the set. The Rocky in his head and in his heart can never be matched by any performing-dog reality.

Finally, truth to tell, he knows he's not wanted. Jane Langridge, the producer, extended a half-hearted invitation. Come any time, Alan, it's always chaos on set, don't mind if I don't stop for a chat. Gorgeous Flora actually took the trouble to warn him off. Don't bother, Alan. You'll hate it.

He hasn't told Liz this. A man is entitled to keep one small corner of the world where he gets respect.

At the end of the path he turns round and walks back. Now he has the Tesco clocktower ahead. A crowd of boys on bikes comes clattering past him, making for the skateboard park. He follows them with his eyes, searching to pick out his own son in the melée.

Odd to think that his screenplay is actually being shot. He has come of age as a screenwriter. Now when people say, “Oh, what would I have seen of yours?” he'll have an answer. Even if it's an answer given with a shrug that says, Yes, I know, it's not exactly great art. That won't stop people being impressed. It stars Colin Firth. It's a real movie. No one cares if movies are good any more. All they'll want to know is what it was like meeting Colin Firth. How to explain that he's never actually met him?

He can see Cas now, in the middle of a cluster of bigger boys on bikes. Good to see him talking with other boys, he doesn't get out enough with his friends. That's one of the disadvantages
of sending him to a posh little school like Underhill. There's no neighborhood. His classmates all live in country houses scattered round an area twenty miles wide, and all social contacts have to be fixed up in advance. So much driving!

Cas, who loves animals, knows all about Rocky. “Put on your Rocky voice,” he says. So Alan makes his voice gruff. “Baa! Baa! That's all I hear all day! Where's a fellow to go to get a decent conversation?” But Cas has never asked to be taken to the filming. It's as if he senses his father's fear and doesn't want to expose him to pain. Or is that ridiculous? Cas is only eight.

He's watching Cas as he approaches, seeing his skinny frame and his innocent serious face listening to the big boys.

For this child I would do anything in the world.

Alan loves his son so much it scares him. He knows Cas believes in him, with that baseless admiration small children have for their fathers, and it hurts him deeply to think how little he deserves to be admired. But even in the time to come, even after his son has learned to see his littleness, Alan knows he won't be able to stop loving him.

Something's not right about the group of boys. They're pushing closer to Cas, and he's moving back against the railings. Alan increases his speed, walking fast now toward them. He senses that Cas is frightened. He can hear voices, but he can't make out words. One of the boys has his hand out, gesturing at Cas. Cas is looking from side to side, as if seeking escape. What are the big boys doing? They're not so big, maybe eleven, twelve years old. There's four of them.

“Cas!” Alan calls. “You okay?”

The boys turn to look.

“What's going on?” says Alan, coming up on the far side of the railings.

“Nothing,” says one of the boys.

“It's okay, Dad,” says Cas.

“Your dad, is he?” says the boy. He's quite tall, with black short-cropped hair and a narrow face. He wears a navy-blue T-shirt and jeans. Cas gives a nod.

“You can ask him, then, can't you?”

The other boys grin at this.

“Ask me what?” says Alan.

“Nothing,” says Cas.

“You play, you pay. Pound a go. That's right, an't it, boys?”

“Right,” they say, nodding and grinning. “You tell him, Chipper.”

“Of course he doesn't have to pay,” says Alan angrily. “This is a council park. It's free.”

“Not any more it's not,” says Chipper. “It's a quid a go. So who's going to pay, you or him?”

The other boys look from their leader to Alan and back, ecstatic at his boldness.

“No one's paying anything,” says Alan. “Come on, Cas. Let's go.”

But Chipper and the boys on bikes are blocking Cas's exit.

“He's had his go,” says Chipper. “He has to pay.”

Alan jumps the railing and storms forward.

“You get out of the way or else!”

“Or else what, Mister? You going to hit me? You going to assault me?” But he and the others are backing away. “You a paedo? You a dirty old man?”

“Yes, I'll hit you, you little fuckers!”

He raises a threatening fist. He wants to hit the boy called Chipper. He wants to smash his grinning face in.

They back off, but not very far. They know he won't hurt them.

“He's a paedo,” says Chipper. “Watch out, Darren. He'll have your trousers down.”

The other boys are squirming with laughter.

Alan takes Cas's hand and marches him out of the railed area. Cas carries his skateboard under his other arm. As they pass the boy called Chipper they can hear his mocking sing-song.

“Paedo! Paedo! Paedo!”

Cas tugs his hand away, but he keeps pace by his father's side. He says nothing. They walk rapidly from the recreation ground to the Tesco car park where Alan's car is waiting.

“Little bastards!” says Alan. “I'm sorry, Cas. Did they threaten you?”

Cas says nothing. They put the skateboard in the boot and they get into the car. Alan glances toward Cas as he starts up the engine. He's got his face down.

Once they're out of the car park and crossing the Phoenix Causeway Alan reaches out a hand to touch Cas's arm. All he means to do is show his love and concern.

“You okay?”

Cas nods dumbly.

“They scared you, didn't they?”

Cas shakes his head.

“Some of those kids are bloody little savages,” says Alan. But he can feel that Cas is not with him. Maybe he's misread the situation.

“You didn't mind me chasing them off, did you?”

Cas says nothing. Now Alan is filled with doubt. He had acted instinctively, in defense of his son. Without quite putting it to himself this way, he had assumed Cas would be proud of him. No one messes with my dad. That sort of thing.

“Cas?”

Still nothing. He has his head turned away now, looking out
of the window. Nothing to see except the gray-brick terraced houses of Lancaster Street.

“That was mugging, what they were doing. Demanding money. I should report them.”

“No!”

It comes out low and fierce. He's clutching his hands into fists.

“Okay. I won't.”

They drive on in silence. Alan struggles with a wave of dismay. He can feel it now. Cas's resentment is not against the bullies, it's against him.

“I had to do something, Cas.”

“I would have been okay,” says Cas.

“They would have made you pay. They weren't going to let you go.”

“I'd have been okay,” mumbles Cas again.

Alan knows then he's lost. He meant to be strong, he meant to be a hero to his son, but instead he made himself ridiculous. Those boys had no fear of him, they knew his threats were empty. Kids have to sort these things out among themselves. He shouldn't have intervened.

“Sorry,” he says.

He'd like to say so much more, how he's not really an aggressive man, nor even very courageous. How he'd attack anyone and anything if he thought his son was in danger. He wants Cas to know this and to feel safer because of it, but he can't say it now. They were only kids having fun. He made himself ridiculous, and now his son is ashamed of him.

It's what dads do, Cas. They fight for their sons. Don't punish me for that.

They're driving up the Offham Road, heading out of town to the little hamlet of Hamsey where they now live. On either
side the trees close out the sky, forming a green tunnel that flickers with trapped sunlight. One sunny day has followed another, for weeks now. They say the fine weather will break soon.

As they make the steep turn onto the lane called the Drove, there before them lies the river valley, with the square tower of Hamsey Church on its knoll rising up out of the river. The quieter slower life of the lanes brings with it a change of mood. Cas lifts his head up, straightens his back.

“You know your dog film,” he says.

“Yes.”

“Maybe we could go and watch them doing it.”

Alan feels a wave of love pass through him. This is Cas's equivalent of the reached-out hand. He won't say he's sorry the way Alan said he was sorry, his pride won't allow it. So this is how he makes amends. This is how he gives me back love.

“Okay,” Alan says. “I'd like that. But I warn you, filming is ultra-boring.”