When he had slowly begun to come back to life in the hospital, he had found flowers everywhere and cards from practically every member of the Taste of Honey company. Now there was nothing — no cards, no flowers, no letters — only two abusive scrawls which had been sent from the theater: “You fucking pervert scum,” and “He who causes the faithful to stray from the true path shall be destroyed by God.” Shirley whisked them away and put them in the new shredder she had bought to get rid of all Alan’s letters to her over the years.
After a week, a note came.
Joseph,
You’ve been having some pretty awful reviews! So sorry, amigo. I’m still distraught about the Shirley situation. Thank you for listening to me. How can someone be so unforgiving and uncompromising?
I feel awful, Joseph: that silly musical of Pollyanna has run into problems out of town — surprise, surprise — and they’ve asked me to do some new songs. I really wanted to say no but I need to do something to keep myself sane. Please don’t be upset. I want us to get back to work as soon as you feel able.
Keep well, and talk soon.
Alan
Joseph did not know what else was going to be thrown at him. It was as if he was playing that card game, Hearts, and had picked up too many of the bad cards. But if you played skillfully enough you could do the most difficult thing of all and Shoot the Moon — it meant turning the game on its head and winning by making sure you got all the bad cards. Maybe he could do that.
A few days later another bad card arrived: a phone call. Shirley brought the phone into his room and practically threw it at him. “It’s Kevin,” she snarled. “Well, his assistant, anyway. He’s too frightened to talk to me.”
“Yes?” Joseph said.
“I’ve got Mr. Lever for you.”
Kevin took over. “Joseph, mate — how are you?”
“Not great, Kevin.”
“Well. No. We’re all thinking of you. Everyone. All the boys and girls.”
“So how is the show going?” Joseph asked wearily.
“Houses haven’t been so great since…well, I didn’t think I’d ever say you could have too much publicity. Don’t think I’m blaming you.”
“No.”
“But listen — good news: I’m putting the finance together for New York.”
“The show’s a bit English, isn’t it?”
“Well, that’s the thing. We’ve got to make it more American. It’ll work over there. Honey’s a universal story. Race relations, gay rights. It’s got it all.”
“That’s not really what it’s about, Kevin. It’s about the girl. It’s not a political statement.”
“We’ve got to get under the surface, scratch a bit deeper.”
“So what do you want me to do?”
“That’s the good thing. Absolutely nothing.”
“What do you mean?”
“We’ve got to get an American writer in.”
Joseph closed his eyes. “Oh.”
“Someone who understands that world.”
“What world? Bolton in the sixties?”
“No, Baltimore in the sixties. Or maybe Chicago. When they did The Full Monty on Broadway, they set it in Buffalo or somewhere. And we might move it up to the seventies, give it a bit of sparkle.”
Joseph did not say anything.
“It’ll be expensive to get someone. What do you think about David Mamet?”
“I’m not sure it’s his kind of thing, Kevin. Perhaps you should try Arthur Miller,” Joseph said sarcastically. “If he’s still alive.”
“What did he write again? Apart from the play about the witches. And we’ll have to think about credit. You won’t want your name on it if someone else comes in. Shared credit doesn’t look good. And royalties. We’ll have to think about a little reduction. Not much, maybe one percent. Let’s not talk about it now. I’ll touch base with your agent.”
Before Kevin could go on, Joseph hung up.
Days went by. Everything was a blur. Sometimes drink helped, but not always. In fact, he would have liked to have some coke as well, but he knew that had happened in a different world, one that was lost to him — like Gav. Could you miss the things that destroyed you? Joseph had an uneasy feeling that you could.
Shirley had been uncharacteristically tactful. In the taxi home after the trial, after people had fired questions at him on the steps of the court, after photographers put cameras up against the glass of the car, all she had said was, “That boy…” and then shook her head. She had not asked him any questions, not that there were many questions left to ask after what had been revealed in court. She did not even say it was so unfair. He was grateful for that.
But finally, as he knew she would eventually, she reverted to the Shirley he knew. In a way he was relieved: it was time.
In the kitchen, she suddenly slammed the dinner plates into the sink.
“Joseph — you’ve got to stop doing this. You’ve got to stop hiding. Stop feeling sorry for yourself. Where’s your fight?”
“I’m not sure I ever had much fight.”
“Never apologize, never explain.”
“But, Shirley — I was made to explain. In court. That didn’t go so well.”
“Everybody has a secret life. You think other people’s secret lives are any better than yours?”
“No, but their advantage is that their secret lives still are secret.”
She waved her hands in the air. “Let’s…I don’t know…we could go to the show! Why not? It’ll be good for both of us. Hold our heads up high. We’ve got nothing to be ashamed about. My husband left me for someone he met on the internet. Please! That’s humiliating.”
“I don’t think I’m up to that yet.”
“Joseph — I know people say you’re not meant to compartmentalize your life, but I think it makes things easier. You must feel so much anger about that boy and what he did. I don’t blame you. You’ve just got to find somewhere to put it. I mean, I did with Sally — I don’t lead my life full of bitterness and rage.”
They were silent for a moment, and then Shirley said, “You know I’m not one to look on the bright side, Joseph…”
“No,” he said.
“There’s something I didn’t tell you. Your sister, Rose — that day in court. She was there. I only caught a glimpse, but it was definitely her.”
Joseph sighed. “Is that the bright side, Shirley?”
“She cared enough to come. That’s something, isn’t it?”
“A girl who happens to be my sister — half sister — who doesn’t know anything about me suddenly has a crash course and knows everything about me in the space of an hour? Is that good?”
“That stuff’s not everything. It’s nothing really. You’re not defined by it, Joseph.”
“She doesn’t know me. What else does she have to go on?”
“But she wants to know you. Why else would she have been there?”
“Then why didn’t she talk to me afterwards?”
Shirley looked away. “Because I was there and I don’t think she likes me very much. I’m too…intense for her. Anyway, it’s not me she wants, it’s you. She’s been to see you twice now. She came to the hospital, too, didn’t she?”
“Have you heard from her since?”
“Well, no.”
When Shirley had left him, he thought about his sister. He knew so little about families. Maybe there were strange bonds between siblings, maybe they could get inside each other’s heads. But surely that was because they had lived together, they knew their likes and dislikes, they knew what they were going to say before they said it because they had heard them say it before. It was just familiarity. There could be none of that between him and the girl called Rose. There was nothing she could want from him. There was nothing he could give her. They shared Isaac Herzl’s blood, but that would be too thin to forge a bond between them.
Rose
SOMETIMES, IN BOOKS or newspapers, you read stories about
a particular day that changes somebody’s life. These days always seem to be very ordinary: the school run or the coffee morning or the Monday trip to the supermarket. Then, on this very ordinary day, the teenager takes out a gun at Burger King, the wife finds images of underage girls on her husband’s computer, the father who’s lent his child the car sees the outline of the policemen’s helmets through the frosted glass in the door.
A few weeks after Joseph’s appearance in court there was a day like that for me and what happened conformed to some of the constants of those kinds of days: someone at the door for one thing; the bringing of bad news for another. But that was later, far into the evening of that day.
Although it was the holidays, I always did some schoolwork in the mornings. I had moved into Huddie’s room, and had brought all my books and work and pens there. His wheelchair still was in the corner.
As usual, at about 9:00, I heard the lock in the front door turn. As usual, it was Lally. “How’s Rosie this morning?” she said cheerfully.
“Rosie’s okay this morning. How’s Lally this morning?”
“Oh, very good. Super walk up the hill. It’s going to be hot,” she said. “This is just the kind of day we would have taken Huddie out into the garden, isn’t it? He did enjoy that.” Tears came into her eyes and she put her hand on my arm. “Our lovely, lovely boy.”
Lally wiped her eyes and then said briskly, “Well, I must get on. The clippings are already up to 1973.”
I could hear her going up the stairs and knocking on Iz’s door. Then Lally called out, “Carla! Is Iz up with you?”
Why would he be up with Carla and Joan? He did not cope well with stairs. He never even came downstairs much.
I went out into the hall. Carla and Joan were standing with Lally outside Iz’s study. “What do you mean he isn’t there?” Carla said.
“I mean he isn’t there!”
“Perhaps he’s gone out for a walk,” Joan said.
“You know he hasn’t been out for a long time,” Lally said sharply. “Where would he go?”
They came downstairs. “Have you seen him, Rose?” Carla asked.
“No, I’ve been in here with the door shut.”
“This is terrible,” Lally said. “He never goes out. I’d worry about him crossing the road!”
“He may not be great on his legs, Lally, but he’s not blind,” I said.
“This isn’t helping anything,” Carla said. As usual, she was going to be the calm one. “Let’s sit down and think about what could have happened. What was he like yesterday, Lally?”
“Well, he seemed distracted. Actually he seemed a bit upset yesterday, but you know what he’s like: not one to share the secrets of his soul.”
“No,” Carla said.
“I think I need a cup of tea,” Joan said. “Is there any of that Red Zinger? Or the Chrysanthemum? You have some, too, Carla. It’s very calming.” Actually, it was Lally who needed calming: she was shaking.
“Rose…” Joan said imperiously. I knew that Joan was going to ask me to make the tea so I quickly said, “I’ll go upstairs and see if he’s taken his stick.”
In the corner of his room there was an umbrella stand where he kept his stick. It wasn’t there. I called out, “No, it’s gone,” and Lally let out a great wail from downstairs. Actually, I thought it was quite good news: it would have been much worse if he had gone out without his stick.
I stayed in Iz’s room for a while. I did not want to have to be with the others. The room was south facing and sun was streaming in. It showed up the dust that floated in the air and lay on the surfaces. Lally did everything for Iz, but it would be unreasonable to expect her to clean his room as well. Despite Joan’s belief that Carla had been reluctantly forced into being a housewife, she certainly didn’t do it either. Still, it didn’t matter — Iz did not care about that kind of thing.
There was a lot of stuff in the study, books in piles on the floor as well as in bookcases, and mountains of yellowing newspapers and magazines all over the place. Iz had been in this house for fifty years and had not thrown much away. Lally had lived in it with him, then our mother, then Carla. Lally would have taken her things with her when she left, but what had happened to our mother’s? You would have thought Iz might have saved something for me, like a ring or a necklace, but there was nothing.
By the wall, there was a big trestle table with pairs of scissors and pots of glue. The current scrapbook was lying open, waiting for Lally to go on filling it up with the events of 1973 and beyond. There was only one chair at the table. I had always thought that it was only Lally who was doing the clipping. Iz would be sitting in the chair looking out onto the garden, and while he stayed silent she would be keeping up a chatty commentary on this article or that old concert review.
What I wished was that one of the scrapbooks could be a photo album like other people had, not just pictures of Iz holding rifles in Israel or speaking in Trafalgar Square but ones of him with me and Huddie. The trouble was, Iz thought that kind of thing was frivolous.
I ran my fingers along the books in the bookcases until I came to Iz’s ones. I had not actually read them but I was going to at some point. Maybe I would start with From Bondage to Freedom — The Legacy of Huddie Ledbetter. I was less interested in The Diaspora in Song because I did not like folk music. And there were his records on the bottom shelf — Anthems of the Jewish Partisans and Send for the Fiddle: The Songs of West Virginia. I was certainly not planning to listen to those.
Iz’s bed was at the other end of the room. The blankets were on the floor. Lally tidied it all up for him when she arrived in the morning. I sat down on the bed and looked on the little table next to it. His reading glasses were on it and a water glass. On top of a pile of books there was a tattered old hardback with no dust jacket. I opened it to see what it was: Fruchte des Zorns by John Steinbeck. I did German at school so I knew what it was: The Grapes of Wrath, the book in which Iz had found my name: Rose of Sharon.
At the back of the book, there were two things: an old faded photograph of a little boy in a sailor suit playing the violin with “Gabriel Herzl” written on the back and an envelope on which Iz’s name and address were written in neat handwriting postmarked a couple of days ago. I pulled the letter out.
Dear Friend,
I address you thus because it is my hope that we are still friends, despite not having met for more than 60 years. More than that I do not know what I should call you — what Christian name, that is. I would feel awkward calling you Isaac Herzl, but you obviously do not wish to be called Maurice Gifford, your name when I knew you, before you vanished so suddenly from all our lives when we were 17.
I quickly folded up the letter. I did not want to read on. I had a sudden instinct that something awful was about to happen.
When I got downstairs, they were all arguing. I was shaking.
“I don’t think Iz would like us to call the police,” Lally said.
“What do you suggest?” Carla said.
“You know what he feels about them.”
“Oh, Lally — we’re not in Chile. He’s not going to become one of the Disappeared.”
“He’s disappeared already! But he couldn’t have got too far. He walks slowly.”
“He might have gone somewhere in a taxi,” Joan said.
“Iz only uses public transport,” Lally said sternly.
I could not bear to be with them. I got up. “Has anyone thought of just walking around and seeing if we can find him?”
They all looked at one another as if that was a surprising notion. “I’ll go,” I said. I could not get out of the room fast enough.
It was hot outside. The letter made me feel sick. I tried not to think about what it meant. I had it with me now, pushed deep into the back pocket of my jeans. I just wanted to keep moving. I decided that Iz would not have just gone out for an aimless walk. He had not done that for years, and even then Lally always went with him. No, he would have had a pur
pose: he would be going somewhere specific. There was nothing he could possibly want in Muswell Hill so he would need the tube or bus. I began walking towards Highgate tube, which was the closest. At Highgate, there were only a few people around. I put my head into the ticket office and tried to describe Iz. I mentioned things that would make him stand out: his age, the beard, the stick, maybe his cap. The man first said “No,” then “I don’t know,” then “Maybe.”
When I got back, the women were still sitting round the kitchen table bickering. I had had enough. “Just call the police,” I said angrily. “I know Iz is always saying they’re a totalitarian organization, but once in a while they get cats out of trees or look for missing persons. Do you have any other ideas? You’ve just been sitting here faffing about.”
“Well,” Joan said huffily. “Miss Bossy.”
“No,” I said, “Miss Logical,” and went into my room — Huddie’s room — and slammed the door. I took the letter from my back pocket and sat down in Huddie’s wheelchair.
The reason I write to you now is really a selfish one. I have been ill — esophageal cancer — and I do not have much time left. There are a small number of people in my life that I wish to make amends to. Along with my son, whom I have not seen for many years, you are one of them.
I know that you will soon be 80 because your birthday is the week after mine, which you may remember because you came to so many of those carefree parties. Treasure hunts and rowing races! What a different era it was.
We have both lived a long time, and I hope it has been the life you wanted. Mine — more or less — has been, although it was a much more conventional one than yours. I studied medicine at Oxford and joined my father’s — and your father’s — medical practice until I retired. Now I live a solitary life in the north of Scotland.
The Songs Page 24
