Remember Why You Fear Me (29 page)

His Daddy sat by the computer, completely naked. Ben didn’t think he’d ever seen his Daddy naked before, he wasn’t sure.

It took a moment for Daddy to realize his son was standing there, and then his face flushed. “Ben! Can’t you knock?”

“I can’t sleep . . .”

“Go to bed!”

“I can’t sleep!”

“Go to bed, I’ll be upstairs in a moment! Go to bed this instant!”

And Ben ran back to his room. By the time Daddy joined him, he’d found time to put some trousers on. Daddy was still a bit angry, but he’d calmed down. “You can’t just go opening doors,” he said. “It’s just not on, is it? What’s the matter?”

“I can’t sleep,” said Ben. “I’m frightened.”

Daddy sighed. “Well, think of something happy.”

“I can’t.”

“Of course you can. Don’t be ridiculous.”

Ben nodded. “Okay, I’ll try.”

“Good boy.”

“Daddy, on Christmas Eve . . .” And it was hard to tell in the darkened room, but Daddy seemed to stiffen at that. “I’m sorry,” said Ben. “I’m sorry about . . . I’m sorry.”

Daddy didn’t say anything for a long while. And Ben wanted to go on. He wanted to say he’d betrayed his father, that was why he’d lost him. And he wanted him back. And he wished Daddy would call him ‘old chap’ again; he did it once in a while, but only without thinking, and then Daddy would look guilty as if he’d been caught in a lie.

But Ben had said too much as it was, he knew it, far too much. Daddy said at last, “Go to sleep.” And so Ben did.

It was wholly a coincidence that only two weeks later Daddy told Ben he had something serious to discuss with him. He sat stern behind the kitchen table, and Ben wished he’d invite him on to his knee, he could take anything he said if it were knee-given. “You like Uncle Richard, don’t you?” Daddy and Mummy had been talking, and it seemed only fair that Mummy got to live with Ben for a while. Instead, even. And the schools were better in Mummy’s area, it was more practical. So.

Ben was confused, he couldn’t work out who’d betrayed whom anymore. “You still love me, don’t you?” asked Ben. “Of course I love you, you’re my son,” said Daddy. And he could have left it like that, but he didn’t, he
didn’t
, he said, “But I just can’t reach you anymore.”

Ben still visited his Dad most Sundays. One day Daddy said, “I’ve found a girlfriend. Her name’s Rachel.” Ben asked if he had to meet Rachel, and Daddy looked a bit awkward, and said not yet, Rachel didn’t like children very much. And Ben was glad. “But I’ve got a picture of her on the computer, would you like to see?” Daddy was posing with his arms around a woman, and they were both smiling, but it seemed to Ben Daddy was smiling too wide, the way he smiled whenever he saw Mum on the doorstep. Rachel looked very young. Daddy looked old. Ben had never thought of his Daddy being old before.

“Let’s get those stabilizers off!” laughed Richard. “You’re not a baby anymore!” He took Ben to the park, and there they practised balancing on the bike. “It’s all a question of not wobbling,” said Richard. Richard held the back of his saddle for a while, and then it took Ben a few seconds to realize he’d let go, that Ben was riding the bike, he was doing it all by himself. “Yeah!” said Ben. “Yeah, you did it!” said Richard. Richard said he’d taught his own son to ride a bike a few years ago; Ben had met him now, but he didn’t have anything to say to him, Justin was fourteen, what was there to say to someone so old? “We did it!” said Richard. “Didn’t we? Give me a hug.” So Ben did. “You’ll be able to ride that bike everywhere now!” said Richard. Ben agreed. But he didn’t ride the bike much after that, it’d been more fun with the stabilizers.

Richard and his Mum never got around to marrying. Which meant it was much smoother altogether when Richard dumped her for someone else. Ben listened to his Mum cry over the phone at his university halls. “I’ve tried so hard, Ben,” she said. “But he just didn’t try at all.” “He just didn’t love you enough,” said Ben. He played with the phone wires. He hated these phone calls with his mother, he never knew what to say. “You’ll find someone else,” Ben went on, “you deserve someone better, Lisa.” “I don’t want anyone else,” said Lisa. “Okay.” “I want Richard, don’t I?” “Okay. Well, then.” “You’re a good boy, Ben.” “Okay. I’ve got to get off the phone soon, there’s a queue.” “I wish you would call me Mum.”

Ben invited his father to his graduation ceremony, but he wasn’t able to make it. Four years later, when he married Sophie, he invited him to the wedding. Daddy did make that one. But Ben didn’t put him up on top table with his mother, he put him on table twelve with some of the minor guests. If his father were offended, he didn’t show it. After the reception, before Daddy drove home alone, he found Ben. He shook Ben by the hand. “Well done,” he said. “Thanks for coming,” said Ben.

Right from the beginning Ben and Sophie had discussed children. “I don’t want any,” said Sophie. “Nor do I,” said Ben. “I’m not sure what I’d say to one!” Sophie laughed, and agreed—better to get a cat instead. When Sophie turned forty, she told Ben she was leaving him. She’d found someone else, someone she thought she could mother babies for. “It’s not you,” she said, “it’s my biological clock ticking.” Ben had thought for some time that maybe the cats weren’t enough, that maybe cracking out a baby or two wouldn’t be such a bad idea after all. But he really hadn’t wanted to pressure Sophie with his doubts, he’d kept them to himself. He told her at last how he felt. She looked torn, genuinely torn. “But I’ve already found a new boyfriend and everything,” she said, and left.

He and his father sent Christmas cards to each other, and on Christmas Day itself Ben would always phone. One year he forgot to send the card, and apologized for that during the annual call. “Oh, don’t worry,” said Daddy, “I don’t like Christmas cards anyway!” Ben laughed; nor did he; they agreed they were a waste of money; they never bothered sending any to one another ever again. Pretty soon after that the phone calls dried up as well. “I love you, Dad,” said Ben, quite unexpectedly that last year. There was a baffled silence on the other end, and then Daddy said, “And I love you too.” But still, the phone calls dried up.

His mother died first, and Ben thought that was wrong, it should have been his Dad, it should have been the other way round. He knew it was a cruel thing to think, but that didn’t stop it from being just what he felt.

The weather reports said there was going to be a cold snap. But Ben was prepared. The snow began to fall, and the experts said it wouldn’t settle, but it did settle; then they said it wouldn’t last, and it did. People began to talk about the possibility of a white Christmas. London hadn’t had a white Christmas in over forty years. Probably global warming was to blame.

Christmas Eve. When Ben looked out of his window, he saw the usual view, a building site and Budgen’s. If he opened the front door, he saw a forest. He went to the kitchen. He took out some mince pies. He took out some soup, too. Then he went to the living room, sat on the sofa, and waited for midnight.

Midnight came, and midnight went. Ben got bored. He turned on his television.
White Christmas
was playing. A part of the TV schedules for a hundred years, and still going strong. Ben couldn’t concentrate on it, switched it off. He let himself doze for a bit. He found he could doze quite easily, now he had no one to talk to.

One in the morning. Then two.

Ben sighed heavily.

He put on all his warmest clothes. Sweater, gloves. Not a scarf, though. Scarves made his neck get scratchy, and he’d long ago realized the joy of being an adult is that no one can make you wear scarves if you don’t want to.

He went out into the cold. He walked through those animal trees, down that winding path, crunching through the snow. Half a mile along he realized he’d forgotten to bring sunglasses, he’d forgotten how bright the white was. He considered going back to fetch them. Then, “Oh sod it,” he said out loud, and marched onwards.

Eventually he found Santa Claus. Santa was leaning, winded, against a tree. “I’ve been waiting for ages,” said Ben.

“Yes. Sorry. I’m a bit . . . oof . . . I’m a bit out of puff.” Santa Claus looked old and cold. “It’s so hard to keep going, Ben,” he said. “They don’t believe anymore. They don’t believe in
anything
.”

“Come on,” said Ben. “Rest on me.” And he took Santa by the arm, and gratefully Santa leaned into him. And together they hobbled onwards down the path, back the way Santa had come.

They didn’t talk for all those hours. Except for just the once. When Ben asked, “How much further?” and Santa replied, “I don’t know. I’ve never known.” And then added, as an afterthought, and it didn’t seem connected at all, “I tried so hard. I tried so hard.”

At last they reached the sleigh and the reindeer.

“Well, then,” said Santa.

“Well.”

And then nothing. “Oh, for God’s sake,” said Ben impatiently. And he began to strip.

He made a pile of clothes on the forest floor. He took off his socks last, and his feet burned against the ice. He liked that. He wanted them to burn.

“And now you,” he said to Santa.

For a moment Santa looked surprised. And then there was the flutter of a smile, gone in an instant; it might have been nothing more than a grimace against the falling snow. Santa took off his big red coat, his great black boots. He took off his beard. The beard was fake, it had always been fake.

And there both men stood shivering in the snow. Ben looked Santa over, and Santa gave an apologetic smile, acknowledging the poor figure he cut. He wasn’t fat anymore. He looked as if he hadn’t been fed in weeks. Ben could see Santa’s ribs pushing underneath his skin, and that in the cold the ribs were turning blue.

Ben put on Santa’s suit. He put on the beard.

Santa licked his lips. “Are you going to break my neck?” he asked. But Ben told him to get dressed. Into all the warmest clothes Ben had, Santa was too thin for them, they hung baggy, he looked as if he were drowning in them.

“Go home,” said Ben. “There’s mince pies waiting. And hot soup. Go home, into the warm.” And the man who had been Santa Claus nodded, and without saying another word, turned and went.

Ben inspected his reindeer. One of them nuzzled at his hand, turned to him with those all too human eyes. And Ben didn’t know for sure, but he
believed
. That his father had been with Santa all the time. That he’d once betrayed him, but now he’d won him back. That they’d been lost, both of them—but were now found.

And the snow continued to fall.

When he came home from work he found her sitting at the kitchen table. Smiling sadly, she tapped the chair next to her and indicated he should sit down. So he did.

“We need to talk,” she said, and, of course, he knew straight away something was wrong. They didn’t ever need to talk, they never
needed
to talk. If one of them ever wanted to say something, it was easy, they’d just come out and say it, it didn’t need to be prefaced by anything, it didn’t need an
announcement
. One talking, one listening, that was the way it worked, and then back into that companionable silence they both enjoyed.

“It’s my heart,” she said. “It’s been giving me, I don’t know. Pangs.”

“Pangs?”

“Pangs, yes. I think that’s the best way to describe it.”

He didn’t know what to say. He knew something was probably expected of him, but God only knew what. One of her hands, the one that wasn’t gripping a mug of cold and forgotten coffee, lay on the table. She didn’t seem to be inviting him to touch it or hold it or do anything in particular to it, but he could reach it without it looking contrived, so he did so. He gave it a sympathetic squeeze. It was cool with sweat.

“There,” he said. And “There,” he said again. And then, in what he hoped sounded helpful, “Well, it’s something we’ll sort out. Isn’t it? We’ll just have to jolly well sort it out. Take care of you. You’re not going anywhere!”

“Darling . . .”

“You’ll have to take it easy. We’ll go on a holiday, somewhere restful, wherever you like. I’ve got holiday due, I expect, in August, can you hold on ’til then? And I can do more work round the house, get you off your feet a bit . . .”

“Darling, I’ve been to the doctor’s.”

“And that’s a start too. Yes, good.”

“They’ve done lots of tests. And I’m fine. Really, fine. There’s nothing physically wrong with me whatsoever.”

“But that’s. Well. That’s great. Well!” And he gave the hand another squeeze.

And that sad smile she’d been wearing throughout the whole wretched conversation got a little sadder. “But I’ve still got the pangs,” she said. “It can only mean one thing, I think. I think I don’t love you anymore.”

Absurdly he didn’t know what to do with her hand any longer. It seemed ridiculous he was still holding it. He shouldn’t be, surely, not like this, not now? He didn’t want to let go, though, just like that, it might make her think he was being angry, or cruel, or wanting an argument. But he knew he couldn’t cling on to the hand indefinitely, she’d be the one to take it away if he left it too long, and he didn’t want that extra rejection. He came to a decision. He gave it another squeeze, as friendly as anything, and then swung his own hand upwards, very deliberately, to scratch his nose.

And there was silence. Just that sad smile from her, and the nose scratching from him, working at an itch that hadn’t even been there in the first place.

“Is it something I’ve . . . ?” And she was shaking her head. “Or something I’ve not . . . ?” And still the head shook. “Well, what?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “Maybe love, it just stops sometimes. Do you think? It just stops.”

“Maybe it hasn’t really stopped,” he said. “I mean, if it were just a pang, a pang doesn’t sound so bad.”

She frowned, gave it a little thought. “No, I’m pretty sure it’s stopped.”

“But you can’t, one day, after fifteen years . . .”

“Seventeen years.”

“Seventeen. Good God, is it really?”

“Oh yes.”

“Seventeen. God. Well. Even more reason.”

“You must feel the same way,” she said. “Just a little. Don’t tell me I’m not the only one.”