If it is your life (11 page)

My daughter was sympathetic but finally had made her bed. I did not begrudge her this. This world offers limited potential; one takes where one can. She told me she loved him. I found it excruciating.

I dare say her chosen partner would have found me difficult. Outwith the presence of a third party we did not communicate. My grandson offered that possibility. He was a cheery boy; he and I seemed to hit it off.

On the whole I thought it better to skip a generation and make my peace with my children’s children. Christine and I found it too disagreeable for discussion. She lacked patience. In earlier times it was the root cause of our problems. Now she refused to discuss the situation which was ironic, given that the problems themselves had disappeared. Through age I imagine. Nevertheless, it was an unpleasant situation. Occasionally I yearned for earlier times, older times, when she and I fought like cat and dog, but later came together, as lovers often do. Nowadays her impatience overwhelmed me. Always it was directed against myself. Why was that? This morning I had seen the advertisement in the morning newspaper but when I read it out she would not listen. She refused to discuss ‘the matter’.

I replied, It is not ‘a matter’ it is a bicycle. I wish to acquire a bicycle for our grandson. What is wrong in that? Is there something wrong in that?

No.

Well then?

I refuse to discuss it with you.

On second thoughts thank God, thank God. It was heartfelt! I had nothing to discuss with her. The relationship between myself and my son-in-law was not a subject for discussion.

Anyway, I would not describe it as a relationship. Arrogant bugger. Astonishing, that he could have considered himself the equal

The bicycle cut into my shoulder. Perhaps it was not a good bicycle. Good ones were lightweight. Or used to be. Nowadays – well, nowadays. Statements that begin in such fashion denote age, and anti-social odours.

The atmosphere in the garden seemed to have altered. It was almost peculiar. Certainly it was chilly. Once again I had been fooled by weather forecasters. I was wearing only a tee-shirt, a thin tee-shirt at that. Of course all tee-shirts are thin. I was not foolish. Elderly yes foolish no, at least not by nature. Nor by inclination, through the nurturing process, part and parcel of ageing.

It is true that I was a grandfather and this bicycle had been purchased for my grandson, a boy that I liked. I could imagine a grandson whom I did not like. I had two granddaughters also, by my son. Of course I liked them. Obviously I loved them. But in like fashion? Perhaps, given that we saw them so rarely. Difficult terrain altogether, gender and one’s response. Absence makes the heart grow fonder. Perhaps, but proximity and habit bring greater rewards.

It was entirely possible, in fact probable, that my grandson would not want the bike. He held his own opinions, personal opinions. He was seven years of age but most independent. In this day and age such sensibility was crucial not simply for personal but for social development. The key to survival lay in communality. The present generation of adults neglected this.

Salutary, that my granddaughters would not have wanted the bicycle, had they been here to receive it. Nothing I acquired for them was treated seriously. They allowed me to tickle them and give them money. I occupied that typical elderly-male role; the ridiculous figure of fun, undiagnosed victim to early dementia. I only suffered the deteriorating condition: the rest of the family were its victims. Oh God.

But I needed to pause a moment. The damn bike. A certain discomfort, a certain – pain, I was experiencing pain, effected by the cycle frame, the crossbar itself, it seemed so heavy, or awkward somehow because how could it be so heavy, not so heavy. That was the stuff of delusion. Surely?

The path along towards the foot of the garden was steep, it became so. I had failed to notice this, that it was happening, that such a thing might conceivably happen at all. Until suddenly, suddenly. The unpredictable. What is ‘the unpredictable’? Can God move in unpredictable ways? Are the limits of thought bound by man’s own being? Could I be held responsible? Might I be considered

Nor had I noticed on the way up. I had not noticed on the way up! Oh well. My head was full. Full! he shrieked, full.

Foolish.

Dusk.

God rest ye merry gentlemen.

The path was hill-like. So damn awkward to negotiate because of the damn bushes, the general vegetation all overgrown, over growing, so-called shrubbery. One saw such bushes in the knowledge that as one looked the denser it became, their accursed life continuing unabated, fraction by fraction, oh yes they were growing, they would not stop growing.

Melodrama was a tendency of mine. Christine saw it in me and despised it. Rightly. I agreed with her. She said she did not despise it, but she did, obviously she did. Such tendencies are despicable, in this day and age, and occasionally I appeared powerless to halt that one. Things do crowd in on one; emotionally, intellectually, and in the outside world actual substances, material matter, it impinges. One cannot be separate.

Some branches were brambles and shooting out in my face. Bramble shoots. And I was having to dodge them, stepping from the path on to the earth where clumps of massive rhubarb grew in a row. Gigantic rhubarb. Onto the earth. Others could have said ‘into’. To step into the earth. Ghastly thought.

Does dusk fall?

Dusk falling.

But if we insist on precision; for those of us who do. But why bother. Christine ridiculed precision, in
me at any rate. Nowadays she did. In the early years it was that selfsame precision, my ability to prise out the truth. Wheedling the truth, she said. Wheedling. It was meant unkindly. In her opinion I only made matters worse. Obscurum per obscurius. I was guilty.

And would be dead soon enough, thank God.

A younger man might have jumped onto the bicycle and pedalled to freedom. A boy would have done so. A boy sees no risks. One places the bicycle on the ground, one jumps aboard, one pedals. Girl or boy. My daughter and my granddaughters. Or girls.

I wondered if the owners of the house watched me from the window. Who in heaven’s name were they anyway. I wanted nothing to do with such people and resented that the purchase of this bicycle had forced the acquaintance. Economics is a loathsome matter. The man had been pleasant enough; although perfunctory is a more apposite term. The woman was downright hostile. I tried speaking their language. She interrupted at once with a carefully nuanced sigh. If she had been my wife ‘good cause’ would have been mine, for annoyance of a reasonable nature.

I recognized her sigh: only women are capable of such – such – emissions. Downright bad manners I called it. Rudeness is rudeness.

And the language of these people I found demanding. And when they do not help! The man was all right but she was not, she was scornful. Luckily for her Christine had not been present.

My wife’s patience was limited, very limited. Neither was she fond of strangers. It caused friction between us when I so charged her. Life is difficult enough.

Yes, she said.

It is us; we are the strangers.

Thank you for the explanation. I can rely on you.

Sarcasm and Christine he sighed, wearily, wearily.

Damn weight. A dead weight. Bikes nowadays. It certainly was not light and yes, it was very awkward because of the chain and its protective metal guard, getting in my way, they just kept getting in my way thus having to carry the damn thing slightly out from my shoulder, I had to, thus unable to put all my strength behind it, I could not, so that too, my God, this was causing the problem and that tweaking tweaking, as though a tautness, as of a tendon coming to snap: that was the tweaking.

The thought of the trek home.

He sighed, sighed.

Of course the pedals were in the old design, which my grandson no doubt, no doubt, would find off putting. Only a fool expected gratitude.

Nothing was ever easy, arrived easily.

I could hardly walk here. But who could? The path was beyond discussion.

The gate at last. I saw it. Why not? Gates exist. The one entity whose existence one can rely upon safely. Where humankind existeth so too doth the gate, the gate.

But so relieved to find it! I was. Not until then did I realize the extent of that relief. Oh Christine. Almost I had been lost, lost! He who is lost now art found, along
the garden path, up the garden path and down the garden path, and from the garden path. I had passed along the garden path.

Without having admitted the awful truth. I had not admitted the truth, that somewhere inside myself I had worried about being lost, perhaps even that I had been lost, and failed to admit it.

The place was a warren. The entire town. They called it a town. It was a large village. What was odd about human behaviour was its divergence from culture to culture, even community to community. It was species-like. Such basics as gardens, how we humans plant and design our gardens. I refer here to Christine. She would have been startled by a mention of my name in reference to gardens. I have no interest in gardens, except insofar as one may escape them. I confess it readily.

One thing she did not do was carry heavyweight bicycles for other people; nephews, grandsons, granddaughters, nieces. The purchase of said bike would not have occurred to her. Had she known this was my intention she would have taken pains to stop me, and would have succeeded (generally a shake of the head was sufficient).

Why had I bought the damn thing. He would not even want it. Youngsters have their own ideas. He would simply look at it, he would look at it.

Where was I? The gate.

Gates cannot disappear.

How strange. There it had been. But now where?

But the sense of fun does not desert us. It is the sense of fun that distinguishes the species. Who ever heard of humorous cats?

Gates do not disappear but of cats there were plenty, in this vicinity. They prowled every corner, beneath table and chair, by the town sewers, sniffing out discarded seafood, jumping onto the table tops with contaminated paws. Half the town populace had contracted kidney diseases which, in a more hysterical society, might have caused fundamental misunderstandings and proven a blight on the tourist trade. Tourist incomers congregated in particular beach restaurants and lounge bars, hoping to gain the respect of the locals. To that unlikely end they fed the local cats. But woe to them, they had misjudged the situation. They would have been as well feeding late-night snacks to a flock of capon chickens the week before xmas. The locals had a saying about cats, and dogs. It was derogatory. I cannot recollect why precisely. Nor the actual saying itself, whatever it was, to do with mouths: excess! They were excess mouths? Perhaps that was it. What else was an animal but a mouth. An excess mouth requires food. Never feed an excess mouth. No animal was worth it. Thus say the locals.

Now the gate; a mere break in the wall, but it was there, truly, an iron gate. And I recognized this from my point of entry.

Vines vines vines. Vines had concealed the gate.

Why conceal a gate? Reminiscent of the Borgias.

I moved to open the damn thing but it would not budge, it would not budge. No, it would not open. Why would it not open? It had clanged shut behind me.
I remembered this. Thus I had opened it, only an open thing can close.

What on earth was wrong with the damn thing. It would not open. The damn gate would not open, it would not open.

Gates gates. Absolute tyrants. That was the Borgias. A blemish on humanity.

The snib. I saw it. More of a bolt. A strange foreign contraption with a peculiar release-knob, circular in design. Certainly a spot of oil would have done it no harm. I grasped it with my fingers, my right hand, twisting at it. No luck. I would have to put down the bicycle. But if so having to resume the burden, for it was a burden; oh bring me to the silent shore, one might lay down one’s burden, evermore evermore. The weight was proving too much. It was a ton weight on me, but at the same time, the same time

I could not release the damn snib thing with its bolt and circular damn knob thing what a peculiar design it was, completely foreign and stupidly nonfunctional, my God, in all my born days.

I did let down the bicycle, onto the damn ground, against a tree, propping it there and such relief, if shoulders had heads mine would have been light-headed and my legs rubberized stalks.

Had circumstances been more conducive I would have rested. However, I had come to distrust the owner-occupiers, given they had sold me the bicycle openly and honestly. For so it appeared. They had not shown me the exit. Thus they had not led me down the
garden path. I pulled open the gate. The height of absurdity but most unfunny, I did not find it otherwise, not in the slightest. I pulled open the gate.

This matter had a serious dimension. It was not too much to ask of people that they behaved in a proper fashion to strangers, for tourists were also strangers. This pair had chosen not to show me the exit. A sad commentary on the culture.

I made to lift the bicycle. Firstly I had to free the rear wheel from a clump of weeds already taking root between the spokes; a scene from
The Day of the Triffids
, it was ludicrous.

My left shoulder had a groove from before and the bicycle frame fitted snugly. This was a literal truth. The frame fitted so snugly! I tried to insert my fingers to feel the groove along my shoulder but could not. I thought to let down the bicycle once more. I should have enjoyed a rest and should have been allowed to my God had I so desired. To sit for a moment or two. None could deny me such a thing. Least of all my grandson who would reap the benefit of the enterprise. I was not his favourite but he was mine.

No, his grandmother, he was his grandmother’s boy. I did not grudge Christine this. On the contrary, it was a source of pleasure to me, that she should have experienced such love.

My granddaughters would not have wanted the bicycle, but it was not a bicycle for the girls, they were older. Nor hurt, that he was my favourite. They would have laughed. The girls still laughed at me. Likewise Christine, she used to, although we fought, often we fought.