by Baker, John
It was then that he felt the cold. His father’s forehead was sticky and cold. Squashy on the surface and slabby like rubber underneath, and much colder than anyone William had ever touched before. And there was something else, that he’d noticed earlier, but that now he was sat on his father’s shoulders was nearly unbearable. And that was the smell.
William had never smelled something before that got inside your mouth as well as your nose. It was a vile and rank odour that clung to his tongue, crept down inside his throat so that he thought he might suffocate. He retched and his stomach moved inside him, his mouth filled with bile, and he spat it out, over his father’s head. The stench remained. The nearest he could get to it, it was like the time the freezer broke down and all the ice cream and meat melted, and when they came back from holiday the floor was covered in blood and maggots.
He was sitting on Daddy’s shoulder, hanging on to the rope, smelling the smell and trying to work it out in his mind when the men arrived in their uniforms. At first there was just one of them. He came through the house and out of the back door. He was dressed in black, with boots and a leather jacket, an enormous crash helmet, so you couldn’t see his face. He looked up at William, his hands on his hips, and he said, ‘Jesus fucking Christ,’ and he shook his head and walked back towards the house.
Then there was another man, and another two with a stretcher. And the new man came over and took hold of Daddy’s legs to stop them swinging, and he reached up towards William and said, ‘Come down, son. It’ll be all right. I’ll catch you.’
And William might have come down then, only the original man came back, the one in black with the crash helmet, and he said it again, ‘Jesus fucking Christ, d’you believe this?’ He picked up the stepladder and set it up, stood on the bottom rung. William was suddenly frightened and he stood on Daddy’s shoulders and caught hold of the upper branch of the tree and climbed up on to it.
‘No, not that way,’ the crash helmet said. Then to the other man: ‘For fuck sake, it’s bad enough without the kid. Stink’s worse than the wife’s breath.’
William kept climbing. He climbed to the very top of the tree, where the branches became thin, so that if he’d gone further they wouldn’t hold his weight. They tried to coax him down for a long time, but he wasn’t going to move, not as long as the one with the crash helmet was there. You couldn’t see his eyes under that thing.
William watched as the photographer arrived, and while he took photographs of Daddy. And then there was a much older man with a white beard and a briefcase who had one of those things they stick in their ears so they can listen to your heart. Crash helmet held the stepladder for him and the bearded man climbed up and listened to Daddy’s heart. ‘This is ludicrous,’ he said as he was climbing back down.
Eventually they concentrated on getting his father down. But they didn’t undo the knot, like William expected. They cut him down. One of them did the cutting and the other one tried to catch Daddy. He had him by the legs, and the first one said, ‘You right?’
‘Yeah. I’ve got him.’
So the first one cut the rope and William’s father plunged down on top of the second one. The stepladder slid away and it ended with Daddy and both of the policemen in a heap on the grass. The other two men with the stretcher laughed, but William didn’t think it was funny.
After they’d loaded Daddy on to the stretcher and taken him away, the policeman with the crash helmet left and the nice one asked William to come down from the tree. When he got down the policeman said he’d been very brave and he could cry now if he wanted to.
But he didn’t feel like crying.
Later, when he pushed his plate away, his mother said he should eat something. But he didn’t feel like eating.
And the next day, when Diana said she was going to the shop for some sweets and he could go with her, he didn’t feel like moving.
*
Seventeen years later, he remained inert, naked on the bed for an hour and a half, his mind working, his other bodily systems flickering uncertainly. He didn’t shiver once, though he gritted his teeth for the last twenty minutes as the morning air chilled him to the bone.
22
You gag with pain as an iron bar leaps through your body. Diana spins from the window and comes forward, fear in her eyes, and in her shaking hands. ‘Dora. What is it?’
‘Aghhhhh.’ The bar is cold and hot, with all the compassion of the industrial revolution. It drags your eyes from their sockets; sends a line of spittle dribbling along your jaw. It sticks, lodges in a thick crevice of muscle and nerve from the pit of your left arm to the dead inside of your right hip. It is an old axle, rusted and heavy, as taut as Arthur’s rope.
‘Hang on, Dora. I’ll get Sam.’
‘Dear God.’ Outside, a squall of wind whips the leaves along the avenue. A car speeds past, too fast. Ignore the pain. Try to ignore it. Short breaths. That’s better. Short, fast, tiny breaths. In out, in out, in out. There are still leaves on the tree.
Sam crosses the room in two strides, wiping his hands on the front of his T-shirt. His face is drawn. Your eyes leap towards him. ‘I’m going to carry you over to the bed,’ he
says.
In out, in out, in out. ‘No. Don’t touch me.’ Keep the breathing going. ‘It’s an iron bar, Sam. Right through me.’
He puts his arms under you. ‘You’ll rest better in the bed,’ he says. ‘Don’t worry. I’ll be gentle.’
You are flying, Dora. Flying through the air. You look back at the window, the leaves in the street, the solitary trees. A quick, last glimpse before you are lowered to the bed. The bar shifts inside you, settles, pushes your jaw and neck to the left, hard against the pillow.
‘How’s that?’
‘No.’ You shake your head.
Sam moves you over on your side and the bar passes out of focus. The bar does not go away, it lies with a degree of acceptable discomfort inside you.
In out, in out, in out. ‘OK.’ It’s OK if you don’t move. Keep up the breathing. ‘Get her out of here.’ Diana is hovering in the doorway. She shouldn’t see this. Sam should get her out of here.
‘No, Dora. I’m staying.’ She comes forward, places a hand on the quilt. ‘I’m not a baby. I want to be here.’
You try a deeper breath and let it whistle out through your teeth. There’s no point arguing with Diana. She’s going to stay.
Dear God, Dora. You have no strength now. Your eyes close. The room is silent. Sam and Diana recede. Smiling Smiley scowls down at you from the past. He has found another woman.
A woman? He has found a girl, one of his students, twenty years old. You are forty-one. No contest. Experience counts for nothing. Smiley is on a quest for innocence. He discards his cravats; buys a pair of suede shoes, slip-ons, without laces.
His girl is called Sally Bowles. She has never heard of Isherwood. She is a kid. She watches you with sharpened teeth. She smiles every minute of the day, maliciously. She has caught a big fat Smiley fly in her silken web. She is the happiest, the hungriest, the most popular girl on campus. A witch-woman, sick with her own power. Smiley tells you she carries contraceptives in her saddle bag. And you, Dora? You don’t even have a bike.
Smiley lasted for ever. He was always there. Part of the fixtures, until he was gone. And then there was you, Dora. You and Diana and Billy. And no one else.
Diana rampaged through the house like a wild thing. It was your fault, Dora. It was all your fault. You had lost him- Lost him for yourself, and lost him for Diana. It was the Arthur story all over again. You were not grasping enough. You should have pinned him down when you had the chance. Now it is too late. He has gone to Sally Bowles.
He has gone to Sally Bowles and you indulge yourself in a year or more of enforced domesticity. You spend time with your children, you take them out at the weekends, you read to them, you buy them new clothes and alter the old ones. You make dresses for Diana, sprawling over the carpet with paper patterns, cutting,
sewing, rainbow silks and satins. The three of you toddle off down the avenue to the theatre, a box of Cadbury’s Bourneville Selection passing to and fro in the dark. You try everything to make it feel like an ordinary family, a normal family. But there is no man there, only the ghost of one. The father of your children strung himself from the pear tree. You cannot alter it, Dora. You are different. Billy and Diana are different. They know what people say. They take the jibes from the other kids at school. Billy screams out in his sleep. Diana never speaks about it in words of more than one syllable.
You were all born a generation too early. What was acceptable in 1990, and what will be commonplace at the turn of the century (far too late for you), is still barely thinkable in 1980. You are a victim of history. You nudged too far ahead of your time, on to the spearhead ledge where saints and martyrs stand. The ledge where all personal magic is anachronistic; where the only possible redemption is grace.
You dared to think that Philip was grace, and that Philip’s world might hold a nook for you. You had courage, Dora, in those days. Or was it something else? Bravado? Madness?
The doorbell rings. You are reading a first-year essay, poised above it with your red pen. It is an essay you have read a million times before, penned by different hands; it has no originality, no resonance, no life. It is Wednesday evening, the last time you looked at your watch it was after ten. You glance at it again. It is still after ten.
You open the door to a slim young man. Very young. You guess he is not much more than twenty. He is dark with quick, penetrating eyes. When he speaks you catch the rough edge in his voice, intimations of Arthur and an origin in the working class.
‘Are you Dora?’ he asks. ‘My name’s Philip. Smiley sent me.’
‘Smiley? Is something wrong?’
‘No. He gave me your name and address. I’m starting a campaign to free Rachel Lloyd. Smiley thought you might be interested in helping.’
You know about Rachel Lloyd, Dora. She has been arrested in Argentina. What does he mean, a campaign? Why should Smiley give your name to him?
Philip shivers on the doorstep. ‘Is it too late to come in?’ he asks.
You show him into the kitchen, offering coffee, still not sure if you want to be involved in this scheme.
‘Milk,’ he says.
‘Milk?’
‘Yeah, just a glass of cold milk. If that’s all right?’
You go to the refrigerator, asking him how he thinks you can help. When you turn back he has seated himself at the table and is unbuttoning his coat. He looks even younger in the artificial light. Perhaps he is not yet twenty. His eyes flash around the room.
He places a sheaf of papers on the table. ‘I’ve got together as many facts as I can,’ he says. ‘There’s something about her history in there, previous research, et cetera. It’s obvious they’ve got her on a trumped-up charge. They must need a scapegoat.’ He pauses to drink milk from his glass, leaving a white film on his upper lip. ‘Christ, that’s really good.
Smiley wants to help, but he’s tied up at the moment. We thought you could handle the university end of things. I’m working on the trade unions and trying to push it through my Labour Party branch, but it would be good if the university was involved.’
‘Do you have a petition?’
‘Yeah.’ He points to the sheaf of papers. ‘It’s all in there. We need to get some bread together to start a campaign fund. Smiley thought you could help with that.’
‘Money?’
He nods his head. ‘Bread, yeah. If you want to help you could have a party or something. Charge admission. The petition form has a section for donations to the campaign fund. We don’t need a lot. Something to cover expenses, and if we get more we can send it to Rachel. She’s probably being starved in prison.’
A party, Dora. Why not? It would bring people to the house. New contacts. As well as providing money, er, bread?, for the campaign fund.
‘You invite the university crowd,’ he says. ‘I’ll bring a group from the Labour Party, well, Young Socialists. We’ll ask everyone who comes to sign the petition and give a donation to the fund.’
‘OK.’ You laugh, and realize that you have not laughed like that for a long time. Not a real laugh.
Philip looks around the room as he prepares to leave. ‘It’s a nice place,’ he says. ‘A really nice place.’
And a fortnight later he is there again, together with his friends from the Young Socialists. Smiley is there with Sally Bowles. The University Socialist and Labour Societies, and the trappings of the party, wine, bottles and kegs of beer, and for you, Dora, a special treat and indulgence: a bottle of gin.
You drink far too much of the gin. Smiley’s fault, of course. You would not have drunk so much if he had stayed away, or at least left his Sally Bowles at home. But she js there, looking ravishing, and young, and clinging to Smiley’s arm, her eyes flashing.
The party works anyway, despite you, Dora. Someone takes over the record player and plays silly pop songs, which seem to be exactly what everyone wants. They drink, they mix, they dance, they talk and laugh together, and no one leaves until well after midnight. Then they come to you, singly, and in couples. They have to leave, but it has been wonderful. Really enjoyable. Their faces are shining, their eyes sparkling. They are not putting on an act, being merely polite. The best party for a long time. You must do it again, Dora. People should mix more. There is not enough social life in this town. It really has been wonderful. Everyone is pleased.
When they have gone there is only you and Philip. He makes coffee for you in the kitchen and brings it through to the living room. He drinks milk. He rubs his stomach thoughtfully, nursing his ulcer. You don’t believe in his ulcer. He is far too young to have an ulcer. But maybe you are wrong. Your head is difficult to hold. The coffee seems to help, but you have drunk a lot of gin.
You never get to know Philip. He reveals himself all the time. He is naive, even endearing, but there is no substance to him. He is a leader. People follow his lead because he is open-ended, vacant. It is possible to make of him whatever you will, to project on to him qualities that you wish were there. But there is nothing. In reality he is a simple soul: he fucks (will you ever be completely comfortable with that word?), he coins platitudes, he takes. You can never resist him.
You could talk to him all night and still not find his core, because he has never found it himself. When he leaves your bed he leaves nothing behind, not even a memory. The sheet is cold next to you. It is as if he has never been there. He is an escapologist like Houdini and Dylan Thomas. His kisses fade on contact. You make him real by discussions about with a third person; everyone wants to talk about him. But when everything has been said he has slipped away into the mists of Argentina, or Rachel Lloyd, or marriage, or, finally, he has disappeared, gone, vanished.
For some weeks (was it months?) he used your bed like a urinal. He comes to it on impulse, relieves himself, and goes away. Eventually he comes no longer, marries his Jude, and leaves an epitaph tacked to your soul: Christ, Dora, I like old women. They’re so grateful.
But the parties go on. The parties go on for ever. And the gin bottle becomes a fixture. It leads you from one Saturday night to the next. You experiment with marijuana, taking small drags and aping the reactions of the rest of the group. It does not do anything for you. The young men hover around like flies, and you do not brush them away.
They are all Philips in different shapes and sizes, young bucks eager to flex their new-found sexual muscle. They bring a kind of warmth with them, even a kind of meaning. But they do not stay. They never stay for long. You do not have what it is they seek. You only have the semblance of it, the remains of it. You are a teacher, a practice ramp. They always take their proficiency elsewhere.
Even Cecil did not stay for long. And you could have loved her, Dora; she was different enough, odd, even ugly enough. You could have loved her if she had not been jealous of your past.
You slept thr
ough the eighties, Dora. You slept with everyone. You were unconscious, dreaming. Life was a nightmare, a succession of unfulfilled promises.
That day.
Diana comes home from school early, refusing to return, ever. The other kids say her mother is a cow. She stands and screams until you slap her face. There is a fire in the York Minster and an abducted Nigerian exile is found in a crate at Stansted. You need a drink.
Remember. An ex-sailor draping a black cape on the carpet. His friend called Scottie. You lie naked on the bed The sailor and Scottie sit on either side of you. Scottie has a full day’s growth of beard, and earlier in the evening y0ll fed him figs and asked him to kiss you on the cheek. Things have progressed since then. Terry Waite has been kidnapped in Beirut. The sailor watches you and Scottie undress each other; he sits like Buddha at the end of your bed, waiting for his turn. Now they are both saying thank you. They have to go. They have never met anyone like you.
When was it? A stuttering revolutionary called David. What the hell, Dora, you might be able to cure him. Of stuttering? Of spots? Of impotence? He’s got everything. He curses you, having read somewhere that language turns women on. His cock lies in the palm of your hand like a dead mouse. You are the ugliest woman he has ever slept with. He cannot believe you are that old. He must have been out of his mind to come here, to your room. You are a filthy wrinkled cow. He couldn’t; he just couldn’t. If you are desperate he will help you out with the neck of the gin bottle. The Internationale unites the human race. In the morning. The Guardian tells you: All-day opening in English and Welsh pubs.
Television pictures. The Berlin wall is pulled down. You return home to find a long black cape on the living-room floor. Diana is in bed with the sailor. You scream. You pull him out of bed by his leg, drag him across the carpet, along the corridor, down the stairs. You scream and tear your hair. You stand and scream until Diana slaps your face. She is only having fun. ‘You don’t have a monopoly on it, Dora. You have no right to interfere.’ She stands at her bedroom window and watches the sailor limp along the avenue. She is naked apart from a T-shirt. She turns adult eyes on you. Eyes you have never seen her wear before. ‘You... you... God.’ She stamps her foot in frustration. ‘We hadn’t even finished.’
