by David Nobbs
They honeymooned in the Seychelles, and Kate had to pinch herself that she was really there, on those exquisite beaches, eating that delicious seafood. The only trouble with that kind of holiday is that there is nothing to talk about afterwards. Once you’d said, ‘It was perfect,’ and ‘It was bliss,’ you’d exhausted the conversational possibilities. Perhaps for this reason, as conversation was so important to Kate, the memory of the honeymoon didn’t linger with her as vividly as she would have wished. Now, lying in this fetid ward in the middle of the night, she tried to conjure up the full majesty of those tree-fringed beaches, but they hadn’t any more reality for her now than photographs in a brochure.
But the shrill noise of the phone in the house in Trevor Square as they walked in after the honeymoon rang in her head as if it was only yesterday. Of course at the time she hadn’t found it particularly shrill. In bad films, people anticipate events in an unrealistic way. If a destructive blob from outer space lumbers up the drive and rings the bell, they leap up, gaze at each other in horror and say, ‘My God! Who can that be?’ when they have no reason to think that it’s anything more dramatic than a neighbour asking if they have any self-raising flour. Kate didn’t think, ‘Oh my God, who’s phoning so dramatically at the very moment when I walk in from my honeymoon? It’s odds on that my bliss will be utterly destroyed in a trice.’ She lifted the phone extremely casually, and said, ‘Kate speaking,’ and Walter said, ‘Hello, Kate, it’s me,’ and her knees buckled beneath her and luckily there was a little chair handy to collapse into, and Graham raised an eyebrow and waited for her to speak to the caller by name, but she didn’t.
‘I got your number from Elizabeth,’ he said. ‘I hope you don’t mind.’
‘No, not at all. Why should I?’
‘Good. How are you?’
‘Very well. How are you?’
‘Yes, very well.’
‘Good.’
Graham was making ‘Who is it?’ gestures. She wasn’t going to tell him.
‘Kate, I’ve got some news.’
‘Oh?’
‘I’ve broken it off with Linda.’
‘Oh!’
Oh!!
Oh!!!
Oh!!!!
‘Well, is that all you can say – “Oh!”?’
‘Well, what am I supposed to say? I suppose I could say, though it’s none of my business, “Why?”’
‘It’s all of your business, and you know why.’
‘Do I?’
‘It was all the most dreadful mistake. I don’t agree with Maurice that she’s a shitty little gold-digger. I think she’s a sweet person. But shallow, Kate, and, because shallow, Kate, not remotely as beautiful as you.’
‘Walter . . .’
‘Don’t speak. Let me say what I have to say.’
Now Graham had to sit down as well.
‘Walter . . .’
‘No. I must say it. I was a fool to throw you out. It was just that . . . I worshipped you so much that it was an unbearable disappointment at the time.’
‘I never wanted to be worshipped.’
‘Kate, come back to me.’
‘Didn’t Elizabeth tell you?’
‘Tell me what? She didn’t tell me anything. I just asked for your number and she said, “She’s away” – typical Elizabeth – and I said, “That doesn’t stop you giving me her number. She won’t be away for ever,” and she said, “No, but it’s downstairs and I’m tidying the loft.” She did give it in the end but it was such a saga that there was no time for conversation, she wasn’t interested, she doesn’t speculate, she doesn’t even know about me and Linda being over. What is all this?’
‘This is Graham’s house, Walter.’
‘Who’s Graham when he’s at home?’
‘He’s at home now and he’s my husband.’
‘Oh no. Oh, Kate!’
‘We were just walking in from our honeymoon when you rang.’
‘I see. Well, that’s typical of you, isn’t it?’
‘What?’
‘This happening at the very moment you walk in from your honeymoon. You always were a drama queen.’
‘That’s the most monstrous thing I’ve ever heard, Walter. You’re phoning me!’
‘Oh, Kate! Kate! I love you.’
‘Walter, I’m really sorry if you only broke if off with Linda because of me, but I suspect you were right to do so anyway.’
‘I’d better go now,’ said Walter. ‘I hope you’ll both be very happy.’
Graham came over and kissed her very tenderly.
‘No regrets?’ he asked.
Kate felt stifled by regret. Her legs ached with regret. When she tried to walk she felt that her feet were stuck in a morass of regret. The Welsh chapel girl who had once promised never to tell a lie smiled a radiant, loving smile and revealed to her new husband a secret talent that until that moment she’d kept from everyone except her sister Enid. She did an extremely good impression of Edith Piaf. She sang the song right through, brilliantly, smiling outside, aching inside. When she’d finished Graham gave her a round of applause.
For more than a year, Kate and Graham led what was to all intents and purposes a happy married life. From the moment she began her Edith Piaf impression, Kate allowed herself not the tiniest flicker of self-pity. She set out to make a success, both public and private, of her marriage. Early in the marriage, she had a dream in which she discovered Graham dead in bed and she cried, ‘I’m free. I’m free.’ She woke up bathed in sweat and there was Graham alive beside her and as caring as ever.
‘What is it, my darling?’
‘I had a dream.’
‘A nightmare?’
She couldn’t tell him that it had not been a nightmare.
‘I dreamt you were dead.’
‘Oh, my darling. My poor poor darling.’
‘Yes.’
‘How did I die?’
‘Peacefully, in bed. I found you here.’
‘Well, I’m here, and I’m not dead. In fact, Kate, I’m very much alive.’
And he began . . . oh Lord, he began . . . and it wasn’t a very common event and it wasn’t always a great success, but on this occasion . . . oh Lord . . . he was fervent and eager and he came with a great spurt of joy while Kate faked, faked, faked, and hoped that she was doing it more convincingly than she had with Heinz.
It was not the last time Kate had the dream, and it wasn’t the first time that she became frightened to go to sleep because of a dream, but even now she felt no guilt about the dream, she couldn’t control her subconscious but by God she would control her conscious self, and she did. The dream soon ceased. Kate no longer needed to fake her orgasms and her only regret was that they were not more frequent. She willed herself to be happy with Graham, and to forget Walter, and she did. For the last three years of their married life, after the sad day of her mother’s funeral, she hardly thought about Walter at all. She had come to love, truly and fully, a man who was a complete fake. Irony again, she thought, looking back on it from her hospital bed. Oh, Kate, what ironies you have endured.
Happy times, gentle reader, are like that honeymoon in the Seychelles. There’s not much to say about them. But, since I have made no attempt to hide how the marriage will end, I think I must assure you that, apart from her visits to Swansea, the rest of Kate’s marriage to Graham was truly happy. More good meals, a splendid weekend in Amsterdam, a motoring holiday on the glorious west coast of Scotland, with a bit of work thrown in – an elaborate hoax involving a diesel-powered Loch Ness Monster constructed by ingenious French students and financed by local hoteliers.
‘Apart from her visits to Swansea’. Sadly, these were mainly for funerals during this period. Oh, those Welsh funerals. The sky was the colour of slate, a cold wind blew straight from the subconscious, and old men who had once been dapper stood unaware that there were dewdrops on the ends of their noses.
The first to go was Bronwen. They came in their black finery, o
n a black day, to send off this old lady who had never in her life had an evil or an ungenerous thought. From Sketty and the Mumbles, from the valleys and the hills, from Cockett and Tycoch and Pontardulais and Ystradgynlais, from Carmarthen and Cardigan they came in their best black. Relatives and friends emerged from all the nooks and crannies of south and mid-Wales. Men in the streets of Swansea took off their hats for the cortege. Bronwen Thomas would have been amazed to have seen how much the world had loved her. The sermon was in Welsh and English, and there were two hymns in each language. There were little men with big voices. There were ugly men with beautiful voices. There were dark, handsome men with dark, handsome voices. How they all sang their farewell to Bronwen Thomas, who had never in her life had an evil or an ungenerous thought, a fact so extraordinary that it is worth saying twice. What an incredible noise is the sound of Welsh voices singing from the heart. Trying hard not to give way to her tears, Kate reflected on the similarity of south Wales to Italy. Dark men. Dark, vibrant, self-satisfied singing. Beautiful girls. Endless talk. Devious politicians. Subjugated women. Less than in the past, of course, but it would still be a long time before Wales became the land of our mothers. But these thoughts couldn’t keep the tears at bay for long. Kate’s tears flowed and she became at one with all the women who were sniffling all over the bursting chapel. Kate looked round, and saw, through her tears, rows of red eyes. Rows of tonsils. Enid weeping. Annie weeping. Bernard singing and weeping. Oliver trying hard not to weep. Herbert Herbert Cricket singing, Herbert Herbert Politics singing, Mrs Herbert Herbert Cricket weeping, Mrs Herbert Herbert Politics weeping. Bunny with a set face, perhaps wondering how many people there would be at her funeral. John Thomas Thomas, white-haired, staring at his God with a resolute face and dry eyes.
They crowded into the parlour afterwards, and Kate and Enid and Annie and Elizabeth dispensed sandwiches and scones and Welsh cakes and bara brith. Elizabeth and her rather dull husband Don were good at funerals, they might have been made for them. Maurice and his pretty fiancée Clare were doing sterling work, they were always good mixers. Nigel and Timothy were doing their best, but Kate thought they looked rather forlorn, as if feeling the need of a good woman to console them in their grief. Both had come on their own. Nigel always seemed to be on his own, and Timothy was still in shock after Milly’s departure. And Graham? He struck, as always, exactly the right note. Kate stood and watched him for a moment. How could you suspect a man for always doing the right thing? Graham did the right thing because he was a good man. Every day, since Walter’s phone call, she had tried to love him. Now, in deep grief for her mother, watching him working the room so diligently, she felt that, yes, at last she did truly love him ‘till death us do part’, which was not very far away, as we know and they didn’t.
A tide of talk warmed the cold, unused room. Oh, the price of fish is something shocking, and we should have beaten the French, oh what a summer, what’s happening to the climate, we shan’t see her like again, do you think cockles have the taste they had when we were young, don’t talk to me about the younger generation, mind you, fair play, there’s good ones too, have some more bara brith, she always hated waste, how’s your hernia, Herbert Herbert?
Kate found it good to be so busy, serving cups of tea and coffee and slicing more bara brith. ‘It’s going like hot cakes,’ said Annie with wonder. ‘Grief makes people hungry,’ said Kate.
John Thomas Thomas sat in a hard chair, better for his back and more dignified for his grief, and was spoken to by everyone in turn. He showed no sign of emotion. His appetite was excellent. He had three pieces of bara brith. Not a tear came to mist his clear eyes. Not a moment of weakness did he show.
In fact, John Thomas Thomas only ever gave one indication of grief, but it was a powerful one. He died a fortnight later, in order to join his Bronwen.
The same people all came again. It was all very dignified and heartfelt but not quite as emotional. He wouldn’t have wanted it to be. He’s happy to be with her. The price of kippers is something shocking, isn’t it? It’s the end of an era. This bara brith is lovely, where did you get it? What’ll you do with the house? Too soon, quite right. They don’t make them like John Thomas Thomas any more. How’s your prostate, Herbert Herbert?
Now Bernard was free to give up the unequal struggle. It would have broken his parents’ hearts if he’d died before them. Dilys, Myfanwy, awful, but to have lost one of the boys would have been unbearable.
Kate went back to Swansea to be at his bedside. He had the master bedroom now, so as to be spared the second flight of stairs. It was a large, airy room with a bay window and a huge shining mahogany wardrobe. It rustled with memories of Bronwen’s knickers and John Thomas Thomas’s long coms. Kate took it in turns with Enid. Annie refused to sit with him. ‘He wants his true family now,’ she said. ‘I’ve been privileged to be part of the family, but when you’re dying you want your true family with you.’ Was she sincere, or was it that she couldn’t cope? Kate didn’t know, didn’t care. It served. It was appropriate. By their actions judge them, not their motives.
‘Comfy?’ Kate asked, one long grey afternoon. ‘Anything I can do to make you comfier?’
Bernard’s reply was completely unexpected. ‘I expect you think of me as a sad man,’ he said.
‘Why, what a thing to say!’
‘Well, never married, never had . . . conjugal relations. Lived in a dark, dirty flat. Worked for one firm all my life. Never even learnt to boil an egg. Deserted by his only close friend. Funny, though, it doesn’t seem sad to me. I’ve loved my life, Kate. I’ve loved accountancy, my car, my games of bridge, my rugby, my Wales, my mother, my father, my dear brothers and sisters. I’ve seen Vienna and Verona and Venice. Read Shakespeare and P. G. Wodehouse. Heard Brahms. Eaten lobster and crabs and pheasant and sewin and roast beef and Welsh cakes and bara brith. I’ve had the best family a man could have. I regard myself as very fortunate. I’ve loved you as much as anything or anyone, Kate dear. I’ve lived your life with you. It’s been quite exciting.’
He slept then. He slept most of the day now.
The next day, he said, ‘Mother and Father never realised quite how ill I was, did they, Kate?’
‘No, darling, they didn’t.’
‘I was brave at the end, wasn’t I?’
‘You were very brave.’
The next day Bernard was weaker still. Kate and Enid were with him together all day. At half past four he tried to speak. Kate and Enid leant forward to hear his feeble voice.
You read about famous last words. Kate had read about many. She had invented some at parties, and people had laughed. She only, in her long life, heard one person’s last words, and he wasn’t famous at all. His words moved her almost beyond endurance.
‘I don’t believe there is an afterlife, I beg your pardon?’ said Bernard.
And so they all came again, except for Nigel. He was in Germany, at a vital meeting, and simply couldn’t get away. But he wrote his mother a wonderful letter.
Dear Mother,
I was so sorry not to be able to be at Uncle Bernard’s funeral. I went to work in black, and I left the meeting for half an hour. I sat in my laboratory, motionless. I closed my eyes and I pictured Uncle Bernard as he was before his illness got him. I told him that I loved him, and I cried. I don’t often cry, I don’t find it easy to cry, but, Mother, I cried.
In the months that followed, Graham and Kate went down to Swansea several times to help sort through her parents’ and Bernard’s effects. There was sadness, yes, but there were rich consolations in the closeness of their companionship as they did these things together and read out loud happy extracts from her father’s diaries – his steadfast faith, the simple pleasure that he took from his holidays in Llandrindrod Wells and Llandudno and Eastbourne. Every bus ride he’d ever taken had been a voyage of discovery for John Thomas Thomas. Every animal and bird that he had seen had been a little adventure. There was joy, too, in the closeness of her re
lationship with Enid. Enid had retired now, and had been ready for it. She had begun to find the children hard work.
The house had been left to Enid, but on condition that Annie could stay as long as she wanted. Annie had been left a small annuity. These arrangements seemed to Kate unwise. They could lead to trouble. But, for the moment, nothing was said, and Annie and Enid were left to clatter around the old house and breathe such life into it as they could.
Life in Trevor Square, meanwhile, was happy. Good food, good wine, rewarding work, heart-warming letters from the victims of confidence tricks. It was very pleasant to be part of the London scene as the nation climbed towards prosperity. It was pleasant to walk in the parks, to see the films of Fellini and Antonioni, to sit in the Albert Hall listening to the subtleties of her beloved Enigma Variations, and being thrilled to her patriotic core by the music of Vaughan Williams. They had seen several plays together, most of which she had forgotten, but she still recalled the excitement of seeing Look Back in Anger at the Royal Court theatre, and suddenly realising that plays could be about real life.
They had an extremely enjoyable visit to Copenhagen, to investigate the mysterious little-known Danish island of Sudsø. The whole island was a nature reserve, which was said to care for injured seals and whales. An advertisement in the Daily Telegraph had helped the scheme enormously through a misprint which seemed too inspired to be accidental. Instead of the phrase, ‘Please give generously for a very special purpose,’ the paper had printed, ‘Please give generously for a very special porpoise.’ It turned out that the island of Sudsø was little known for a very good reason. It didn’t exist. But money had poured into an address in Copenhagen, much of it sent by children to feed the very special porpoise. The scheme was run with flair. There was a box to tick if you didn’t want them to spend money on an acknowledgement. Most people ticked this box, but those who didn’t always got a reply. Kate liked the Danes, and had a good time in Copenhagen, so she was quite pleased when the perpetrator of the scheme turned out to come from Spalding.
