by L. C. Tyler
It was eleven o’clock in the evening – three minutes past eleven to be precise – when the knock came at my door. As soon as I opened it and saw the Warden, I didn’t need to check my watch to know that it was not a social call. His face was grey – actually grey. Even though I guessed in part what he had to say, it was him that I felt sorry for. It was a tough thing that he was going to have to explain.
There had been sixteen cars in the crash that morning. As each piled into the ones in front, the cars that had hit the lorry first were pounded again and again into strange and wonderful shapes, unlike anything their owners could have possibly imagined when they purchased them. The rescue services had thought at first that it was fifteen, but eventually, as they pulled the lorry upright, they found my parents’ car, crushed almost beyond recognition as a piece of machinery. After a while they also worked out that there had been three people in the car. There should by rights have been four, but as it happened there were just the three. That’s why it took a while to track me down: a whole day when my parents and my brother were still alive for me, walking the fells, telling each other silly jokes, eating dinner in that small overheated dining room in the guesthouse with the picture of Kendal Fair over the mantelpiece, complimenting the landlady on how cosy (hyggelig) it all was. A whole extra day’s life, in fact.
The university asked me if I wanted to delay taking my exams, but I just said: What’s the point? I got a First, but when I collected the degree later that year, there was nobody of any importance to see me receive it.
That was the day my childhood ended, and that was the day that I knew that I was not intended to die – because dying would have been so easy, but I wasn’t allowed to. That was also the day when I realized that families could not be trusted. However much you loved them, they could desert you suddenly and without warning, leaving nothing in their place. Later I realized that for ‘families’ you could just insert the word ‘people’. Have as little to do with them as possible. That’s my advice.
11
Great Portland Street Station, May Day Morn
It’s Friday and, as if to offer some symmetry to the past fortnight, Narinder taps me on the shoulder as I am leaving the station.
‘First day of the month.’ He beams.
‘Yes,’ I say. ‘Don’t your people dance round the maypole or something this morning?’
‘My people?’
‘The English,’ I say.
‘Not round Hackney,’ he says.
Appearances can be deceptive. Take me and Narinder. If you saw us together you’d say he was the immigrant and that my family had been around since King Ethelred’s time. Actually, he’s third-generation British, his grandfather having come over to study medicine and never quite got round to going back to India. I, on the other hand, wasn’t even born here. English is my second language, even if I have largely forgotten my first. I’m a genuine ethnic minority, albeit a very small one.
We walk along for a bit. Narinder is dressed in his usual office gear: a V-necked sweater, white shirt, grey trousers, cheap tie. It could be the uniform of a very downmarket school. He carries a briefcase, which I suspect has nothing in it except his sandwiches. I am dressed smartly but casually in a black T-shirt, with some wooden beads that I picked up in Goa last year. Black Levi’s. Hemp shoulder bag. No briefcase. Absolutely no socks.
‘Chris, can I take six weeks’ leave this summer?’ Narinder asks suddenly.
‘Have you got six weeks?’
‘I carried some over, remember?’
‘Amritsar?’
He looks embarrassed. ‘Yeah.’
‘They’ll marry you off to some nice Sikh girl while you’re there.’
This is the risk that we both know about. Nothing to do with the unavailability of hamburgers. He looks even more embarrassed and says: ‘Yeah.’
‘Fine,’ I say. ‘Let me have your leave card to sign.’
‘Do you ever think about getting married, Chris?’
‘I think about it all the time,’ I say. ‘But not in a good way.’
* * *
Today we have Ethics and Rights. Yesterday,
We had Media Board. And tomorrow morning,
We shall have Publications Sub-committee. But today,
Today we have Ethics and Rights. The sunshine
Gleams off ivy on the Regent’s Park railings
And today we have Ethics and Rights.
This is the UN Convention and this
Is the Society response to the Government statement
Which you will see the point of when the Government issue it,
Which they haven’t yet. The branches
Of the lilac trees issue beyond the railings
Hinting we are missing the point.
Here is the list of meetings of this committee,
For the rest of the year. And please do not tell me
You are already tied up. You were notified by email
Weeks ago. Spring is here but the rest of my life,
Is tied up in lists of committees and sub-committees
For today we have Ethics and Rights.
I wonder if ‘ivy’ is the right word. It sort of scans but actually I can’t see any from where I am sitting, though from this floor there is a good view. I can see holly, but that has the wrong connotations – Christmas and so on, though obviously there is holly all the year round, a bit like robins. ‘Tied up’ isn’t quite right either. ‘Engaged’? Hmm.
‘Did you get that last action point, Chris?’ asks the Chairman of the Ethics and Rights Committee.
‘Absolutely,’ I say, looking up and nodding reassuringly to the whole bearded gathering. Actually, Lucy is here and supposed to be minuting this, so I’ll find out from her afterwards what that was all about. Of course, there is every chance that Lucy’s mind will have been elsewhere too. Was I wise, I wonder, to appoint an assistant purely on the basis of the length of her skirt, without any regard to her committee or other experience?
Yes, of course I was.
* * *
It’s six thirty and time to go home if I am not to be late for Lucy. I open the DRAFTS box and see that my provisional girlfriend-dumping email is still there. But I won’t send it. I’ll delete it now. The next time Virginia phones I shall tell her and nothing she says will make any difference. I shall make a clean break.
The phone rings. I pick it up (as you do).
‘It’s my father,’ says Virginia. ‘He’s had a heart attack. I need you to drive me to Horsham.’
‘But . . .’ I begin. Can I respond by saying: ‘Certainly, and you’re dumped, by the way’? Possibly not.
‘I’ll explain when I see you,’ she says.
In the background I can hear somebody talking and then Virginia saying something that sounds like: ‘No, it’s better this way. Really, Harry.’ Then she’s speaking to me again. ‘Chris? Are you still there?’
‘Yes, I’m obviously still here. Three seconds isn’t long enough to go anywhere else. But where are you?’ I say.
‘A bar. I’ve been having a few drinks with friends. Quite a few. That’s why I can’t drive myself. Mum just rang me on my mobile. Chris, can you do it?’
‘OK, where is this bar?’
‘Clerkenwell, but it doesn’t matter. I’ll see you at my flat as soon as you can get there. We’ll take my car.’
I am already closing files, saving things, switching off my computer.
‘I’m coming right over,’ I say.
* * *
The roads are strangely empty under the yellow glare of the street lights, as if nothing dares impede our progress. Virginia stares straight ahead, willing her father to stay alive until she reaches Horsham. She didn’t say much at the flat and is saying even less now, but it does not sound good. Her mother is with her father at the hospital. Nobody is expecting he’ll last the night. But what do they know? What does anyone know? At least she’s not crying. Please, please, don’t let her cry yet.
> People pass by on the pavements of South London. They look real enough. Only René Descartes and I know they are not. A well-thought-out Indian family is standing outside Nancy Lam’s restaurant, mother, father, three children, smartly dressed, all talking to each other at once. How odd that they have been constructed just so that I can drive past them now; then, in a flash, their brief moment of existence will be over. I watch them receding in my rear-view mirror and they disappear for ever. Gone. They’ve had their ten seconds of fame.
‘What are you thinking about?’ asks Virginia suddenly.
It’s going to be a difficult one to answer, so I say: ‘I was just thinking how unreal this all is.’
‘I know,’ she says. ‘It was just so unexpected. I can’t quite believe what’s happened. In a strange way it’s reassuring you feel like that too.’
That wasn’t what I meant, but it’s not easy to explain what I did mean, so I let it go.
‘Your father has always been very good to me,’ I say. ‘Like a father . . .’
My voice tails off, leaving this strange oxymoron hanging in mid-air.
‘I never met your father,’ says Virginia.
Obviously, I know this. ‘No,’ I say.
‘You’ve never told me much about the accident your parents died in.’
‘No,’ I say.
Her hand stretches out and touches my arm briefly, in a gesture that says that she sympathizes, respects my privacy and hopes my pain will go away. Only girls can pack all of that into a single gesture, in my experience. Of course, it is a gesture only in respect of my parents. She doesn’t know about Niels. I’ve never told her about Niels. I am not going to start thinking about Niels now.
I rub my hand across my eyes and accelerate away from Dorking, curving off the big roundabout and onto the dual carriageway. For Virginia’s sake I want to get to the hospital while Hugh is still alive; on the other hand, I suddenly realize, I don’t particularly want to be there to watch him die. I’ve done the whole death thing in triplicate, and it’s no fun at all. Honestly. Suddenly I am terrified that I shall have to sit there and watch him die. I feel my foot ease off on the accelerator again.
‘Sixty speed limit,’ says Virginia, automatically, staring once again into the night and the unfathomable future.
No, it’s time for me to do the grown-up thing. I push the accelerator to the floor and make police siren noises. ‘Stuff the speed limit,’ I say. ‘This is the express service to Horsham.’
* * *
In the end, Hugh died as considerately as he lived. I dropped Virginia at the hospital entrance and she was there with him at the end. By the time I had found somewhere to park the car, it was all over. He’d granted both of us our wishes. He was good like that.
A strange thought occurred to me as we left the hospital: if Hugh did have another Woman, then he’d taken that particular secret to the grave. Of course, at this precise point in the story, I’d still no idea that there were plenty of other secrets where that one came from. That was being saved up for later.
It was almost midnight as I drove Virginia and her mother the few miles back to their house. It seemed wrong to be driving away from the hospital leaving Hugh there, but all logic pointed to a good night’s sleep before we started to focus on the telephoning, form filling and miscellaneous bureaucracy that is such an important part of dying in the twenty-first century.
* * *
A good night’s sleep is not, however, immediately on offer.
‘I think we all need a drink,’ says Virginia, as she closes the front door with its little stained-glass window and locks it (how many times did Hugh do that?) ‘I could do with one anyway.’
She goes to Hugh’s drinks cupboard, takes out a heavy cut-glass tumbler and pours a large measure of brandy into it. She looks at the two of us. I shrug. Maybe Daphne just wants to go to bed.
‘I’ll have a Bailey’s,’ says Daphne, with a sudden and fierce determination. ‘A very large one.’
‘I’ll do it,’ I say. I pour her quite a lot of the creamy brown liquid, but she just passes the glass back to me and says: ‘No, a large one.’ I figure it will help her sleep, so I empty the bottle. I fetch Hugh’s malt whisky from the back of the cupboard. I can almost hear Hugh’s voice saying: ‘Drink it, Chris. For God’s sake, drink it. Daphne will only use it for cooking or something.’ OK. Let’s all get drunk then.
I’ve never seen Daphne drink alcohol before and I suspect that, like others who are unused to it, she will badly misjudge its effect. I keep my eye on the fine lead crystal in her hand, ready to catch it when she drops off to sleep and it starts to slip from her fingers. You don’t want to spill Bailey’s on the Axminster or spend the following day trying to locate the last of the needle-like shards of broken glass. She shows no sign of falling asleep however. Quite the reverse. Though she is talking to me about mundane things, a steely glint is appearing in her eye, a determination to do something. But what? Virginia too seems to be silently building up to making some announcement. It’s just a question of which of them gets to it first.
Virginia’s opening line is low key. ‘It’s funny not having Dad here,’ she says. ‘But I can almost feel him looking down on us. I sort of wonder where he is now.’
I take this to mean, Do good souls go straight to heaven or do they hang around for a bit, checking out who’s making off with their gold watch or stamp collection? It’s the strange sort of thought that is comfortingly appropriate for this hour of the morning. Daphne’s reply, however, alerts me to the fact that we may be heading for wacky, uncharted territory.
‘Yes, I’ve often wondered where your father was,’ she says. She gives a long sigh and then a sort of hiccup.
Daphne looks at both of us with the apologetic smile of somebody who does not yet realize they have had too much to drink but is going to very soon. I turn to look at Virginia and notice that she is already looking at me, so we both turn to look at Daphne, who isn’t looking at either of us any more.
‘Well,’ says Daphne, when we have finished looking. ‘I suppose we could all do with some sleep.’ She puts down her glass, trying to conceal the fact that it is still half full of Bailey’s. She attempts to stand up but has forgotten how she used to do it.
‘What do you mean?’ asks Virginia very slowly. ‘You’ve often wondered where my father was?’
‘Just sometimes,’ says Daphne. ‘Not all the time.’ She clearly feels this explanation is sufficient, because she tries to stand up again. This time she almost makes it.
People sometimes say that I am unperceptive, but it has already occurred to me that this is a conversation I should stay well out of.
‘What do you mean?’ asks Virginia again. Something tells me that she is going to get to the bottom of this. ‘Dad’s hardly been out of your sight since you married him, except to go to work.’
Daphne is frowning, trying to figure out how to explain it. ‘You see,’ she says, after a long pause, ‘the thing is this: your dad’s not your father.’
In one sense it’s a bit like saying two plus two does not equal four, but in all other respects, it cuts straight to the chase.
As you will have noticed, it is the sort of statement that requires clarification only if you can’t or don’t want to believe what you’ve just heard. ‘Dad’s not my father?’ asks Virginia, seeking clarification.
‘Hugh is not your real dad,’ says Daphne. I wonder if she could have said that sober, but she looks relieved to have said it at all.
‘Then . . .’ says Virginia.
‘Who is?’ Daphne nods to herself. ‘Malcolm Biggenhalgh. What a bastard. What a total bastard. But I loved him, so there it is.’ Daphne turns to me as if I might be able to back up her story. I nod reassuringly to confirm Malcolm Biggenhalgh is the biggest bastard in the Home Counties. It’s the polite thing to do. Strangely, I’m pretty certain that I do know somebody called something like that, though, if I’m right, it’s unlikely to be the same guy. There
is now a tear (for somebody) forming at the corner of one eye, which Daphne makes no attempt to wipe away. She successfully locates her glass and consumes her recommended intake of alcohol for the next seven days in a single swallow. She looks thoughtful, then gives a small burp, and for the first time this evening appears slightly embarrassed at her conduct.
‘So, where is he now?’ I say.
Daphne looks at me as though I have just asked a very interesting question. ‘Do you know,’ she says, ‘I’ve often wondered that.’
* * *
I am in bed with Virginia. For the first time we are lying side by side under the white crocheted bedspread in Hugh and Daphne’s (now just Daphne’s) guest bedroom, though neither of us is doing anything special to celebrate the fact. Virginia is already asleep, snoring softly (though she claims that I alone snore). Daphne too is in bed and almost certainly in a Bailey’s-induced slumber, dreaming of . . . whom? Only I am alert, with the events of the day going through my mind.
I am sleeping with the girl that I am supposed to have dumped. In the meantime, I remember with a stab of guilt, Lucy will have been waiting for me at my flat for about six hours – unless she has given up by now and gone home, which is (on reflection) probable, though she looks like the sort of girl who might hang around for six hours to make her point. It is thus quite possible that on Monday I shall experience girl-rage from a new source, girl-rage that may not be measurable under the Sorensen-Birtwistle Revised Classification and for which an entirely new scale may have to be constructed. She’ll cut off my head (or some other convenient part of my anatomy) and staple it to Passmore’s Staff Suggestions Box. Also, she probably won’t tell me the names of Jon’s children.
