Low Expectations (14 page)

‘I cannot eat.' Vitoria rubs Dad's hand and looks mournful, though I've rarely seen her eat much of anything. Mum snaps to attention at this and throws back her head, flaring her nostrils as if in challenge.

‘Nor can I, I feel absolutely dreadful. How could anyone after such an announcement? Really Edward, did we have to come to a restaurant for this kind of discussion?' Her voice is
cold, but there is a panic behind her eyes not evident to the casual observer.

‘Can we tempt you with something light, the radishes with mayonnaise are delicious, or a salad perhaps?'

‘Oh just fuck off, would you?'

This sort of behaviour makes me cringe. My mother has probably unknowingly ingested more bodily fluids from vengeful restaurant staff than most, but it's also a relief to see her start behaving with her normal awfulness again.

‘I'm sorry to spring it on you like this, but I thought it would be better to talk about this calmly and publicly, no scenes or tears,' Dad says, his words immediately causing tears to prick my eyes, as Mum works herself up for a scene. ‘But before you start up, we don't know anything for sure yet. Obviously the fear is testicular cancer. I have a lump, it is quite large, but it is a highly treatable cancer and Dr Chase is very capable and respected.'

‘Are you having a biopsy then? What happens?' I choke. I try to reassure myself desperately that he will be fine – everything will be fine – it will turn out to be benign, a foolish mistake, a fuss over nothing. But the evidence springing forth from my eyes seems difficult to contradict. He looks, as my mother had cruelly but truthfully stated, fat and ashen. Moreover, he appears so much older than when we saw each other last.

‘There's no need for that, yet. I have an ultrasound on
Monday. If it's likely to be cancerous, they will remove the testicle as soon as possible and do further checks to ensure it hasn't spread to the lymph nodes. That's the real fear, but I don't think it is very likely as I think it has only, er, formed recently. We'll find out soon enough. In the meantime, there's really no point worrying.'

‘But we will worry, Edward. We are your family. We've been a part of each other's lives for twenty-seven years. I want to go with you.' Mum's voice is quiet. Dad's eyes shine and he looks at her quite tenderly for a minute, before Vitoria draws him in for a kiss and whispers something in his ear. Mum finally looks up, sees them and knocks back half her glass.

‘Well at least nothing's certain; it could just be a lump, right? Do you want me to come with you, too? I'd be happy to,' I ask, though I'm fairly sure joining the crowd at an ultrasound of my Dad's testicles is crossing a line.

‘That's sweet of you, Georgie. I think you should just concentrate on your studies until we know anything further, it will probably be nothing. But, yes, I'd appreciate that, Polly, thank you. I probably shouldn't have told you girls about this. I should have waited until things are certain. I've just … not been feeling my best lately and I felt you ought to know. You are the most important people in my life.'

I reach over to hug him. Though it might appear odd to some – the ex-wife and current squeeze both at a cancer screening – boundaries have historically never been something
my parents have respected. Somehow we all manage to talk fairly pleasantly, in circuitous and empty pleasantries, until our plates arrive. It's clearly going to be a short meal, between my pathetically small bowl of soup and Mum and Vitoria's foodless grief-off. I thought I'd never feel hungry again, but misery has awoken my prodigious appetite with an embarrassing rumble, with no regard to the potential tragedy of the situation. If Dad dies, I will probably soon follow, choking to death over a bowl of crisps at the wake.

‘Someone's hungry I see! Don't you silly women wish you had got the steak tartare now?'

‘Yes, Dad.' I inhale what seems like half my soup while reaching for a bread roll. ‘I was in shock. I could barely see the menu.'

‘Oh, you're blind as a bat anyway,' Mum says, picking at her nails distractedly in a way that I know means she wants to escape outside for a cigarette. Dad thinks she quit ten years ago but she is able to keep up the pretence of being a social smoker by going to lots of alfresco lunches and boozy parties.

‘I cannot eat at times like this.' Vitoria is looking at me with a combination of pity and incomprehension, but she is not unkind. I would have wished more for my father than a partner who seems incapable of anything but the most superficial of remarks, but at least she has a good heart. I suppose he might have thought, as I did, that with the passage of
time and the improvement of her English, she would reveal a sparkling wit, or at least share some topics of interest with him. In moments of hardship and illness, however, qualities of character are more vital.

‘Hey! I have a joke; I made it up in preparation for Monday. What do you call an insect that you don't want to have picked up on a scan?'

We all stare at Dad blankly. He is grinning with awkward pride, trying to lighten the mood. There is nothing quite so poignantly square as a middle-aged businessman trying to turn his hand to comedy when confronted with his own mortality.

‘Edward, what on earth are you talking about? What insects would be picked up on a scan?' Mum has stopped worrying her nails to look at him incredulously.

‘Just – work with me, okay? My last request, let me tell a joke. Even if it is terrible, promise to laugh. Promise me.' They tentatively grin at each other and she finally laughs her assent. ‘Okay. Let me start again, I'll rephrase it. What do you call insects who have cancer?'

‘Creatures so short-lived they'll never see it manifested?' Mum says dryly, as Dad barks out a laugh.

‘No … Bee-nign and Malign-Ant!'

Whether it's because of Mum's promise, repressed hysteria or merely the image of my father inflicting this terrible pun on an oncologist who has doubtless suffered more than his
fair share of unfunny black humour, we fall about laughing, quite genuinely, while Vitoria and the nearby patrons look on, confused.

‘Oh God! Babe, I'm so sorry. He's not going to die is he?' Julian wraps me in a big bear hug. I am not usually very tactile with my friends, so this takes me by surprise and I get a bit choked up. I take a few gulps of my cocktail and blink rapidly. The pop-up establishment we are trying out is not the place to make a scene in public. It is one of those places where the bartenders are even more terrifyingly glamorous than the clientele.

‘God, I hope not. I'm trying not to think about worst-case scenarios at the moment. He's only in his early sixties, but that isn't a guarantee of anything,'

‘When does he get his results back?'

‘The day after tomorrow.'

‘It's so fucked up, reaching the age when people start to get ill and it's not a shock. Theo's dear Uncle Bunty died recently and one of Trigger's friends passed just a month ago – she had a heart attack while training for a marathon – it's so sad. I'd hate to die doing sports.'

‘Ugh, tell me about it. At least that's one thing I don't have to worry about.' With Christmas around the corner and mortality on the brain, it is easy to absolve myself of bingeing guilt and become cocooned in a comforting duvet of fat.

‘Death comes in threes, have you heard that? Everyone's been dropping like flies!'

I blanch.

‘God, sorry, that was insensitive, even for me,' Julian is genuinely chagrined. ‘Levity is my way of dealing with sadness, I promise! Please forgive me.'

‘It's fine, I really don't want to go on about it all night, it could very likely be a false alarm. Even if it is serious, it's treatable. Bring on the levity!'

It makes me uncomfortable to think that others are sanitizing their thoughts on my account. Just because my father is having a serious health scare doesn't mean that everything has to be doom and gloom from now on, does it? I'm not one to dwell on the painful possibilities of life, preferring to ignore them until they go away.

‘In that case, did I ever tell you about when I first met Uncle
Bunty? I wanted to tell the story at the wake but Theo told me not to.'

‘No, go on!'

‘Well, let me start by saying that Bunty is one of the most fantastically, fragrantly and flagrantly gay married men I have ever met. He lived a straight life till the day he died but I am pretty sure he was one of the closeted.'

‘Why do you say that?'

‘A ballroom-dancing, musical-loving, ballet obsessive? Come on; that's like the Holy Trinity for fags. His wife was the spit of Judy Garland in her youth and he named his first son Nijinsky.'

‘That is pretty damning.'

‘You have no idea. I'll never forget the first time I saw him. Theo and I had just started dating and had gone for a drink in West London. He had a spare set of keys to Bunty's place and thought the family was in the countryside. So, around 3 a.m., we came in through the garden. There was music on from the lower ground floor; we thought they must have left a record on. So, we walk downstairs and there is portly Bunty, in full regalia, dancing along to a recording of
Scheherazade
projected on to the wall.' Julian laughs fondly at the memory.

‘That's actually really sweet!'

‘I thought so, too!'

‘Was he weird about it?'

‘No, not at all. He was a man completely unembarrassed
by his passions. He just put a Chinese robe over his belly-baring costume, offered us some cognac and cooked us a brilliant three-course meal from scratch. We ate by candlelight, smoked a joint together and went to bed. He was a real character.'

We both go silent, musing over Bunty's late-night passions. I knew Julian would be just the man to take my mind off the test results tomorrow afternoon.

‘God, remembering that makes me sad. I need another stiff drink, I think,' Julian says with a rueful smile.

We order more cocktails from a woman who looks like Shalom Harlow. It is hard to concentrate on speech when admiring such fantastic cheekbones.

‘God, what must it be like to go through life so beautiful?' I muse.

‘She is stunning. I wonder if she'd surrogate.'

‘What?!' I sputter. I am of an age where I have to accept my parent's mortality, but the thought of my friends having babies still has the power to shock. ‘Are you and Theo talking about having kids already?'

‘On occasion,' Julian smiles. ‘We want to be more established before we start hiring wombs.'

‘And you'd definitely want a surrogate then? What about adoption?'

‘Obviously that's a possibility, but I'd prefer not to. I mean, one of the reasons you choose a life partner is because they
have qualities you admire that you would like to see passed down to your kids. Even if we don't know whose sperm took hold, at least it will be one of ours. Frankly, with adoption … well. There are a lot of stupid people in the world. You don't know what you're getting.'

‘Julian!'

‘What! I was adopted myself! But I recognize that my parents were extremely lucky.'

‘I see your point, but that's pretty un-P.C.'

‘Come on, wouldn't it be one of your concerns? Anyway, one of the benefits of being marginalized by society is that you get to take liberties with the freedom of expression without any fallout,' Julian laughs.

‘I bet you're making brilliant new friends everywhere you go. No wonder you and Theo are such a gruesome twosome. You've scared off everyone else!'

Whether he has always been blasé or it is the result of being in a long-term relationship with Julian, Theo is the most unshockable person I have ever met. Which isn't to say that he is without humour or empathy, but simply that he takes life in with a measured calm, not unlike Mr Miyagi. If Mr Miyagi was a posh, blond interior decorator from Somerset.

‘Ah, whatever, I took a gap year darling, I've travelled, I work in fashion, I know people from all over. The more people you meet, the more you realize that wherever in the world
you go there is exactly the same proportion of kindness, gormlessness and arseholery as here, there or anywhere.' The humorous twitch to Julian's mouth has disappeared. His face shuttered, he says with unusual gravity, ‘I used to think that most people were basically good, but the older I get the more I wonder if it isn't in a descending triangle. That if you scratch the surface, most of us are just shits.'

‘Julian, what's going on with you? You sound even more bitter than normal. More bitter than me, even. That's a terrible, terrible low to reach.'

‘Ah, babes, I'm not sure I want to talk about it. Even before we met and you told me about your Dad's poor diseased testicles I thought “No, don't mention it, don't rain on her parade” and now that I find that life's already not just rained but shat all over it, I don't want to add to it, you know?'

I am starting to seriously worry about Julian's wellbeing now. This self-restraint is very uncharacteristic.

‘Come on, you can hardly start a speech like that and leave me in the lurch!' I go full Nancy Mitford on him. ‘I'll positively die of curiosity! You promised that you would distract me and nothing makes me feel better about my own circumstances than talking about other people's problems, yours included. You know that. It's why we're friends.'

‘I certainly can't argue with that logic. Oh, Georgie, I'm such a terrible shit. I feel like the lowest of the lowest of the low at the moment, I've done something really terrible.'

‘Hey, it can't possibly be as bad as all that! What's going on?' I am torn between dread and anticipation.

Julian hesitates, holding his head in his hands in silence before launching into a low-voiced confessional.

‘Things have got a bit strange at work. Between me and Trigger's assistant, Marco. I've always felt – and I know you think that I think everyone wants a piece of me, but that's only because it's true – that there was a bit of a frisson between us. Just a tiny bit. I mean things are great with Theo. First and last love 4eva, totes—'

‘Wait, wait, whoa! Are you having an affair? Who is his new assistant? This Marco is the new guy that replaced Churchill?'

Churchill, real name Gaz, bore no physical resemblance to the former prime minister: jowls, fat and baldness being three characteristics Trigger could not have borne in his right-hand man. He was so called because of his propensity to wear bowler hats and dramatically chew on cigars that he never lit, a strange affectation I could never understand.

He had been caught six months ago racking up lines in Trigger's office. A solid gold kit that contained a razor, a spoon, a snuffer in the shape of a hoover and a glass bullet, all monogrammed with a little TH, were spread out neatly on the desk.

This was a normal part of his job description rather than a punishable offence, but this time he was caught by a journalist and photographer who were being given a tour for an
interview with the
Sunday Times
. He had dramatically taken all the blame, expecting to be reprieved after the article had gone to press. Evidently, Trigger had been looking for an out and used the opportunity to sack him.

Churchill complained bitterly afterwards that drug prep was probably the least humiliating of the many menial tasks assigned to him and that if he wanted to he could bring down a shit-storm with the salacious gossip he was privy to. He did not voice this so loudly as to earn the wrath of Trigger Hunt and Never Work In Fashion Again. His replacement was, I'd heard, Trigger's usual type: a tall, lithe Mediterranean with a face like a gangster slash altar-boy.

‘Yes, that's him, but no, there is no affair! Affair is a terrible word for what this is; it's far too romantic and exciting. This is just an indiscretion! An indiscretion that's gone horribly awry and is making me rip my hair out.' Julian strokes his perfect hair in annoyance. He is far too proud of his thick locks to endanger them in the throes of grief, but the fact that he has even alluded to the possibility is a sign of deep emotional disturbance.

‘Oh Julian, what the hell is an indiscretion? Is this one drunken snog or have you gone as far as seeing each other naked?' I ask.

‘We've seen each other naked but we've never even kissed, I swear.'

My eyes lock on his in an Oprah-style gaze; hard but engaging.

‘What? How does that work? Are you … cyber-sexing? That's not so bad. I mean, obviously it's not great, but nothing to freak out about.'

Obviously Oprah never says that, she's too spiritual, but it's what she means.

‘No one calls it that these days, you're so noughties. No, at first we just were flirting in the office a bit, very discreetly. I thought it would be kept to that, nothing more, but two weeks ago Theo was at a furniture convention thing in Milano and I was enjoying a rare evening in with
Downton Abbey
and a box of Chianti—'

‘A box of wine? Julian, I think maybe you have bigger problems than this indiscretion.'

‘It was from Waitrose, what do you take me for!'

‘Ah, that's all right then. Sorry, carry on.'

‘As I was saying, I was enjoying yelling at that idiot Lady Sybil for falling for the chauffeur who will lower her into Bolshevik poverty – in twentieth-century Ireland of all places – I had drunk a fair amount of wine and I was rather horny. Raging at the telly always enflames my libido. And then just at that moment Marco texted me something suggestive, things got flirty and then pictures were sent. It was just harmless posing, it's not like I taped myself wanking or anything. I ended up passing out about thirty minutes in. To be honest,
I was shattered and when one is too drunk to write “cock”, even with predictive text, one knows one should call it a night.'

‘Did one find that in
Debrett's Guide to Sexual Etiquette in Modern Times
?' I tease, relieved that things weren't nearly as bad as I'd feared. Really, in this day and age, given the advanced technology available and the myriad temptations to cheat, sexting is almost sweetly old-fashioned.

‘These elegant social touches are just a small part of the homosexual élan, my dear. Dating one's own sex is so very much more civil. Except, of course, when your beauty and dare-I-say magnificent penis incite such torrid lust that it endangers your relationship,' Julian says with a deep sigh.

Although deeply concerned about the potential repercussions of his actions, I can tell Julian also enjoys having a personal drama for once. His usual input in relationship discussions is limited to something along the lines of ‘No news is good news', or more colourfully, ‘We tried to spice things up in the bedroom by renting fetish porn but everyone was so ugly and poorly dressed we just ended up mocking them all.'

It must be killing him not to be able to talk about this at work.

‘Have you carried on exchanging pictures?'

‘No, of course not. I woke up the next morning with my Helmut jeans around my ankles cradling the empty wine box
and totally forgot it even happened. I thought I'd passed out mid-wank. It was only as I was taking a bath an hour later that I had a hideous flashback. I jumped out and charged my iPhone and I had, like, three extra messages from him. Not a freakishly abnormal amount, you know? Just make a joke of it on Monday and I'm in the clear—'