They Came From SW19

by Nigel Williams

  Quigley ran towards me like a kid let out of primary school. ‘Can’t you see him? Can’t you see him?’

  ‘See who, Mr Quigley?’ I said, widening my eyes just a touch. ‘See who?’

  My dad was almost out into the street. I had the strong impression he might be tempted to come back and give us a bit more front-line colour from the other side of the grave. I leaned closer to Quigley, who, in a kind of transport of enthusiasm, grabbed me by both ears and squeezed my head hard. ‘Oh my God!’ he said. ‘Oh Jesus! Oh God!’

  You see how hard it is to get people to adapt? If he thought about it rationally, on the basis of the evidence presented to him, he had no basis for trusting Jesus Christ any further than he could throw him. But there he was, reaching for familiar things, as we all tend to do when scared out of our brains.

  After a while he let go of my head and started to cross himself furiously. He was doing quite a lot of this, I noted. And it wasn’t exactly the kind of thing endorsed by the First Spiritualist Church. Perhaps all this was going to push Quigley towards Catholicism – often, so my dad used to say, a good port of call for those on the way to a nervous breakdown.

  ‘I have been a bad person,’ he said.

  This was no more or less than the truth. I had been telling him so for the last few weeks. But would he listen to me? Would he hell!

  ‘I have done awful, awful things . . .’

  Yes, Quigley. I know.

  ‘. . . To you, li’l Simey, and to the church I love.’

  He pushed his face close to me. He smelt of garlic.

  ‘I have embezzled church funds!’ he said.

  Sure. We gathered. What we really wanted here was a tape recorder. I mean, where did he think I thought he got his new car and his loft extension and his fridge-freezer?

  ‘I masturbate,’ he said, in thrilling tones.

  I did not want to know this. Not at nearly seven o’clock, in the garden of the Ferret and Firkin. Not anywhere, actually. I mean, we all do it, Quiggers. We get down in the darkness and from time to time we pull the wire. But we don’t boast about it.

  ‘Your father,’ he said to me in a kind of sob, ‘has just appeared to me in this garden!’

  I tried to look impressed.

  ‘He has told me some very important things.’

  ‘Are you feeling OK, Mr Quigley?’ I said.

  ‘Oh Simey!’ he gasped.

  Then he did something really vile. He flung his arms around me and pushed his beard in my face. Something soft and dry touched my face. I realized, with some alarm, that these were the Quigley lips. The bastard was kissing me!

  ‘I think’, I said, trying to duck, ‘that you should go and lie down.’

  Preferably not on top of me! I knew nothing of Quigley’s sexual life, but it was entirely possible that Marjorie and Emily were not enough for him. He was a red-blooded assistant bank manager. Up at the pub window I could see Mr Mclvory, the owner. He’s a tolerant man, but I just wasn’t sure how he’d take me being frenched by a middle-aged man in the garden of his public house.

  ‘Look,’ I said eventually, ‘fuck off and leave me alone. OK?’

  ‘Fuck off and leave you alone!’ echoed Quigley, as if I had just taken pi to sixteen decimal places off the top of my head.

  ‘Yes,’ I said.

  ‘Yes,’ said Quigley.

  And then do you know what he did? He started to back away, just as he had when he saw my dad. He wound his way back over the leaf-strewn grass like a toy duck. His mouth gaped and his hands flapped. I held up my hand very much in the manner of Salvius the tribune greeting Glabriolix the slave and giving him news of the Emperor’s dog, Pertinax.

  ‘Quigley,’ I said, ‘wait!’

  He waited. He was in a suggestible mood.

  ‘Oh Simon!’ he said, looking at my face as if he was trying to memorize it for some exam. ‘Oh Jesus, young shaver! Oh me deario!’

  He put his hand to his mouth. ‘I must tell the world!’ he said.

  This might work better for me than his lying in a darkened room, which was what he really needed to do. We had to get him telling his story as soon as possible. Preferably to a tough-minded clinical psychiatrist.

  He turned on the balls of his feet and spread his arms wide. He was keen to tell everyone the Great News about my dad coming back to life to expose Christianity. With a man of Quigley’s energy and commitment behind him, I decided, it would not be long before Norman had a cult all of his own in south-west London.

  ‘Tell the world!’ he almost shouted, and ran, swiftly, out towards the street.

  After he had gone, I sat back at the pub table. My dad’s glass of beer, half-empty, was still there. But Quigley, if he’d noticed it, would have seen nothing unusual in a spirit getting outside of a pint of Young’s Special. If you were a ghost and you could choose who you could appear to, Quigley would be a good bet.

  I don’t know how long I was sitting there, but eventually my dad came back and sat down in his chair opposite me. He looked the way he looked when he had been telling jokes and there were no more jokes to tell. His face looked old and crumpled and sad, and, as he picked up his glass again, I had the strong sensation he was about to tell me something I didn’t want to hear.

  28

  ‘I’m in love with somebody else.’

  I didn’t say anything.

  ‘There’s another woman in my life. Has been for six years. I love her, you see? I just can’t . . .’

  He paused. I didn’t help him out.

  ‘I can’t live without her.’

  It was, I decided, a ridiculous cardigan. Had she bought it for him? He just didn’t look himself at all. He was sort of smirking as he said all this stuff. In a way I found very irritating. I tried not to listen. I thought that, if I didn’t listen, soon he would stop and then we would go home and life would start again, the way it had always been before. But he kept on talking, and I couldn’t stop myself from hearing.

  ‘She’s called Veronica,’ he said, ‘and your mother knows about her. Has known about her a long time. And it’s why she and you and . . . and why we . . .’

  He stopped.

  ‘I don’t love Mum any more, you see?’ he said. ‘I don’t love her.’

  I looked up at him. Straight in the eyes. ‘Is that where you’ve been? With this Veronica woman?’

  ‘That’s where I’ve been, and that’s where I want to stay.’

  He drank again. But this time as if he wanted to get the beer over and done. As if he suddenly didn’t want to be here at all.

  ‘I met Veronica at the Anglo-Catholic church in Putney – St Mark’s. When Mrs Danby took me there. The old bat led me astray in more ways than one. After I started with Veronica, Mrs D went back to the First Spiritualists.’

  ‘But you kept going to these Anglo-Catholic geezers?’

  A lot of things were becoming clearer. That smell of oil and candles and that light from a distant window and him on his knees, mumbling. He must have taken me there.

  ‘She seemed pretty keen to get me on the team,’ I said.

  Dad leaned forward and tapped me on the knee. ‘She felt guilty. She offered a covenant to the church if I came back or you were Confirmed in Faith. A lot of money. But I wasn’t going to go back . . .’

  He looked away. He had that look he used to get on Saturday mornings after he had come back from the shops. As if he was looking at his life and not enjoying what he saw. As if there was a whole load of things behind him and nothing in front but age. You know? As if the night was coming in and he couldn’t stop it.

  ‘In the end, Veronica and I packed in Christianity.’ He tapped me on the knee. ‘Make up your own mind,’ he said. ‘Look at the world and make up your own mind.’

  I kept my eyes on his face. ‘Do you believe there is a God?’

  I said. ‘Yes,’ he said, slowly.

  From the way he said it, he might have been talking about Krull of Varna. The thought didn’t seem to b
ring him any comfort. Or make the prospect of that long night any easier.

  ‘But I don’t know what I mean when I say that word. It’s just something I say . . . because I have to say it . . . Because it brings me some comfort.’

  ‘Like Veronica,’ I said. I had to say it, guys. I could not help myself. I just did not like the sound of this woman. She was young, probably. Younger than my mum. Nearer to my age than his, I felt sure. She sounded fat and self-important, I thought.

  ‘I know you’ll be OK, Simon,’ my dad was saying. ‘You’re very tough and very smart and you’re your own man. You always have been.’

  He put his hand on my hand again. I moved it a little way away.

  ‘Will this Quigley guy be finished now?’ he said. ‘Now they’ve rumbled him? He will, won’t he? I mean, if he causes trouble you can call on me, you know?’

  I just looked at him, blankly.

  ‘If I thought you couldn’t look after yourself, you see . . .’

  I wasn’t sure I cared for this ‘look after yourself’ stuff. I never like it when people say that to you. It was the same as this ‘make up your own mind’ line. I wasn’t sure I could make up my own mind. You know?

  ‘What are you telling me?’ I said, in a flat voice. ‘I don’t get you.’

  ‘I’m going away, Simon. I’m going away and I’m not coming back.’

  It’s funny. I knew he was going to say that. Just the way I knew my mum had bad news when she came in on me in Dad’s study all those weeks ago. The evening he died.

  ‘Where are you going?’ I said, evenly.

  ‘Veronica has a place. It’s a long way away from here. We can start all over again. You know?’

  ‘How can you start all over again?’ I said to him. ‘It doesn’t make sense. You only get one life, don’t you? How can you start it over again? It’s started already, hasn’t it?’

  ‘Darling . . .’

  I didn’t like him saying that. He sounded like Quigley. He reached for me again, and this time I moved even further away from him. I’d had enough middle-aged men slobbering all over me for one day.

  ‘I’m sorry, Simon,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry.’

  And they were all apologizing!

  ‘I didn’t realize that Quigley . . . I mean, if it’s that bad, of course I’ll. . .’

  ‘I can handle Quigley,’ I said in a steady voice.

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘If I can handle you, I can handle Quigley.’

  ‘Simon – sometimes I don’t know . . . I don’t . . .’

  ‘Look at life,’ I said, nastily, ‘and make up your own mind, guy!’

  He changed tack then. He gave up trying to grab me. He started going on about the life insurance. He knew just how much he was worth. He said that his not coming back was much the best option for all of us. He was insured with four different companies, he said, which was probably another reason Quiggers was hanging round. ‘Dying on your partner,’ he said, ‘is much fairer and more financially beneficial to them than divorcing them.’

  He put his head in his hands then. He was a bad man, he said – a weak, bad man.

  ‘You’re not bad,’ I said – ‘you’re really nice!’ It wasn’t true that he was bad.

  He cried a lot, but I didn’t cry. I didn’t see why I should. I’d done my crying for him the day they told me he was dead. Funnily enough, that hadn’t seemed at all real. It was only now it was like he was really dying.

  When he’d stopped feeling sorry for himself, he handed me a piece of paper with a number on it. ‘If this Quigley gets too much,’ he said, ‘write here. Give me a bit of time to get settled. It’s a box number.’

  ‘What’s wrong with your address?’ I said. ‘I won’t tell anyone. You can trust me, guy!’

  He looked at me. He looked all crumpled now. Those new clothes she’d bought him looked even more stupid than they had before. He said something – I forget what, but it was pretty clear he didn’t trust me. Or maybe Veronica had got to him on the subject. I thought about how I’d walked around all those weeks, and what I’d felt about him and the crazy things I had found myself believing. And I thought: Where were you when I needed you, Dad? Where were you when you died on me? You know? He had done nothing.

  There was a lot of stuff about his life too. About his novel and his business. That was in all sorts of trouble, apparently. If he did come back to life, he was in real problems with the bank. Although isn’t that what life is? Being in trouble with the bank? He went on about Mum. How she had always held him back. How he had never really been able to write because of her. I couldn’t figure this. What did she do? Start banging on the ceiling every time he took out his biro? I mean, she goes on – but what the hell? They all go on, don’t they?

  ‘When you’re my age,’ he said, ‘you’ll understand.’

  ‘I won’t,’ I said. ‘I understand now.’

  He pushed the glass along the table. ‘Come with us,’ he said. ‘You’d like Veronica. Come with us!’

  ‘To Box 29? You reckon?’

  As I said this, I realized it was too late for me and him. That I wasn’t going to leave. Ever. And that he didn’t really want me to. He had said that just to be polite. Oh, he was polite. He was polite and good fun and a hell of a laugh at parties. But, at the end of the day, you couldn’t trust him.

  ‘Your mum needs you,’ he said.

  I’d noticed. But I hadn’t noticed him clocking the fact until the day he decided to bugger off to Box 29 with Veronica. I was almost ready to tell him I couldn’t face Quigley on my own. But I couldn’t find the words. And they wouldn’t have had any effect.

  When it comes down to it, grown-ups think about themselves. After that they think about other grown-ups. And a long way after that they think about children. Children really are on another planet as far as they are concerned.

  ‘I want you to look after her,’ he said.

  ‘Well,’ I said, ‘you don’t seem to be intending to do it, do you?’

  Then I looked back at the table. I was giving that table a lot of attention. Suddenly I felt I was talking to my mum. Because it was feelings and stuff. Me and Dad never talked about that much before. She did all that. But, now we were talking about it, I felt this great weight on me. As if we would never have the time to say all the things we needed to say to each other. As if we just didn’t have the words for them. You know?

  ‘Well,’ I said, in the end, ‘you’d better bugger off. You’re taking a risk being here really, aren’t you? Someone from the Mutual Life Provident might drop in . . .’

  ‘Veronica’s got the car . . .’ he said.

  She had a car and everything! He was made up!

  ‘Look, Simon . . .’ he muttered, as he got up, ‘I’m sorry. I am so sorry!’

  ‘Don’t be,’ I said.

  He came at me again and I could tell he was going to make another stab at a heavy masculine embrace. I just sat very still, waiting for him to go.

  ‘You’re very angry with me now,’ he said, ‘but one day . . .’ ‘I’m not angry. I’m fine. Just fine! OK?’

  There was a pause.

  ‘What’s she like?’

  ‘Veronica?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘She’s . . .’ Another long silence. ‘She’s funny.’

  He looked at me. His eyes seemed to be coming from a long way away.

  ‘Like you, Simon.’

  He was wearing jeans. That was my dad – always trying to keep up with things. But I figured the jeans wouldn’t last long. Veronica would be working on something to go with the brown shoes and the cardigan. She would reshape his whole wardrobe. And when she’d finished that, she’d start on him. He wouldn’t be allowed to fart or pick his nose or put his feet on the table. After a while he wouldn’t be my dad at all. He’d be Veronica’s husband.

  ‘Write,’ he said, ‘won’t you? Because I can’t. Write. OK?’

  ‘Sure,’ I said.

  Then, at last, I
looked him straight in the eyes. ‘I won’t give you away,’ I said. ‘I promise you that. I won’t tell anyone anything about any of this as long as I live. I swear it.’

  ‘I know, Simon,’ he said.

  He made a half-hearted move towards me, but I gave him no encouragement. I didn’t even look up as he went up the ramp into the street, so I’m still not sure when he passed out of the garden and into the rest of the world. Sometimes I picture him walking out with his head held high and his step straight. Other times I see him sort of shuffling, as if the world had finally got to him. As if he was suddenly old and tired and defeated.

  But mostly I try not to think about him at all.

  Quigley never recovered from that evening. He told quite a lot of people what he’d seen. He even told the people at work, who were most impressed. He went through a brief period of chatting to the customers down at the bank about how he had seen someone come back from the dead. In a garden at twilight. But, although they were amused at first, I don’t think they liked it and, after a while, he was sent for treatment. He told the doctors all about how my dad had come back to life in his grey cardigan and had told him the secrets of the universe.

  Nobody’s bothered about Pike or how or why he went through Mr Marr’s pockets, cleaned out his ID, took his keys and squatted in the house to acquaint himself with the principles of ufology. It is as if Marr, Pike, my dad and Quigley had never been. As if they were all part of some troubled dream I was having.

  Quigley’s in a mental hospital near Tooting. He went in just before Christmas last year. Mum and I go to see him sometimes, and we agree that he is a much nicer person than he used to be. He tells us about Old Mother Walsh and how the snake is coming for him. It has five heads, apparently, and is from the planet Tellenor. Lewis set it on him. It has a number on it, but not the number of the second millennium. It is marked with a 24, the number of our house. He’s worked Argol in there too. Argol is on his way in a kind of steel tub, apparently, and when he gets here we are for it. The only thing you have to be careful not to mention is the First Church of Christ the Spiritualist. I don’t understand the details, but apparently Mrs Danby got her lawyer on to him about some financial thing. She herself left the church, and is going to leave all her money to the Battersea Dogs’ Home. She wrote my mum a long letter saying that I was a Devil Child, and the best thing my mum could do with me was have me exorcized. My mum wrote back and said that she didn’t have that kind of money.