by Peter Barry
‘These are the death throes of our culture, Hugh. This is the end. Things are changing, I know they are.’
He found it hard to believe her. Certainly the world was in chaos. There were wars everywhere you looked, an ever-widening gap between the rich and poor, corporations riding roughshod over governments and citizens in every corner of the globe, Africa going down the plughole at an alarming speed, a gung-ho idiot in the White House who couldn’t see further than his next barrel of oil, never-ending threats of terrorism, the rape and pillaging of the environment, and – always striking him more than anything else – the sheer amount of hatred in the world, of one neighbour for another, of one country for another, of one race for another, and one religion for another.
‘Do you know how our age will be remembered?’ she asked him. He shook his head. ‘As the Age of Self. It’s an age of self-involvement, self-indulgence, self-satisfaction, selfishness. It’s an age of narcissism. It takes absolutely no account of others, Hugh. That’s the legacy we’ll leave behind us.’
He hadn’t had a reply, any rebuttal to what she’d said to him. Probably, because he wasn’t sure that he disagreed with her. What he always felt when they spoke together was the inspiration and desire to disengage from the world, to step aside from reality, from the practicalities of work and money, and exist on some nebulous higher plane, above it all, in peace. Yet he never did. He lacked the courage or conviction to do so.
He couldn’t even do it now, when he was being hounded by Kate. She’d never mentioned the evening of the funeral, and couldn’t possibly know that he’d slept with Penny – although she might have guessed – but this must surely be the reason behind her announcing her departure from their home. It made him sick to think of her leaving, positively sick, yet it was maybe, as she suggested, what they both needed: some time apart. This didn’t prevent him wondering if he should have fought more, argued with her to stay; but it was as if a numbness had come over him, a feeling of no longer being in control, and he had sunk back into the lethargy of resignation. Everything was inevitable, and he found himself going along with whatever she arranged or suggested. He felt, although he’d resisted the temptation to say this to her, that she wasn’t the woman he had married.
There had been a time when she looked up to him, almost worshipped him. In those days, he could do no wrong. And he hadn’t disappointed her, at least not in any way that he could see. He’d loved her, cared for her, provided her with everything that anyone could possibly need – including a beautiful son. So how could she suddenly turn on him like this? Because that’s how it seemed to him: it was a betrayal. And no, it probably hadn’t been sudden. It had been more of a creeping thing, a slow, sluggish disintegration over the years, before they’d arrived at a stage when she was able to decide she could do without him. She’d cast off by herself, and it had been made clear to him, in many subtle and often not so subtle ways, that if he couldn’t keep up, then she would go on alone. Now that he’d served his purpose, she was off, she was out of there. He’d done everything for her, and this was his reward. No wonder he was angry.
As soon as he arrived at the office, he went to tell Russell he wasn’t happy about trying to get the research report off Dieter in order to reveal its contents to another car company. He walked into the managing director’s office armed with all the reasons he could think of for not doing so, ready for every argument, determined to explain why it was such a problem for him and why he didn’t feel he could morally cooperate. It was unethical business practice, plain and simple. He would also emphasise how he was more than happy to work every hour of the day, and more, to land the BMW account for The Alpha Agency. It was important he said that too.
Russell barely looked up from his computer. ‘Suit yourself, Hughsy. Wanted to have you on board, but not if that’s the way you feel. I’ll sort something out with Murray.’
He hovered near the desk, uncertain what to do or say, but wanting to explain or justify his non-cooperation. He needed to talk, but was ignored, so he left. And that, for the foreseeable future, seemed to be that.
11
It had been during the Christmas holidays. The month and year were engraved on his memory because of what happened at home, but etched even more deeply because of what happened on the other side of the world. The Americans managed to elevate his family life into the realm of History.
He was playing with friends, most likely Tom and Andy, in the local park. They were either cycling pell mell over the top of the steep bank that surrounded the municipal playing field and running track, launching themselves into the air over the brick hard ground, or they were on the field itself, kicking a soccer ball. It would have been one of those two activities, and it would have been Tom who decided which they were doing because he was the leader. It wasn’t a gang as such, more like the aimless, rootless leftovers who couldn’t find a place in the area’s only real gang, a bunch which called itself the Rats and which the headmaster of the local school referred to as ‘those hooligans.’
Before it became dark – which was early at that time of year – they pedalled the few streets, suburban and quiet, back to their homes. Puddles were iced over, and their breath puffed out behind them like steam from a train as they raced down the empty backstreets, his friends veering off at the last moment, shouting and whistling in farewell, onto the new housing estate. When he went through his own front door a few minutes later, clattering, banging and crashing like any twelve year old, he called out, ‘Hi mum!’ and went straight into the kitchen. ‘What can I eat?’
She came in from the sitting room. ‘Can’t you wait for your tea?’
He peered into the bread bin. ‘I’m starving.’
‘Have a couple of pieces of toast. You make it for yourself.’ This was unexpected. Normally she made his toast for him. Without it really registering – it was more of a hindsight thing – he saw that her eyes were red.
He sat at the kitchen table, talking and eating, both at the same time. ‘Do you think dad’ll fix my bike? The brakes are wonky.’
‘We’ll see.’
‘I want him to do it tonight. Tom and Andy and me, we’re going cycling along the canal tomorrow.’
He prattled on. There was no other word for it. Much of what he said was to do with his dad and what he could do for Hugh, or what they could do together, and he never realised that his mother was neither responding to his comments, nor answering his few questions. She sniffed a couple of times, dabbed at her eyes and smiled in a hopeless manner, and he never truly noticed. Instead, he went into the front room to see what was on television.
He flicked through the channels. They were all showing – and replaying again and again – the same footage: a rocket lifting off the launch pad, slowly, ponderously, flames streaming out beneath it. He watched these flames, brilliant against the cobalt blue sky, turn into two ropes of white smoke looping and twisting, as if attempting to plait themselves behind the head of the rocket. And then there was an explosion – an unheard explosion thousands of metres up – and the separate strands flew apart, in different directions, before seemingly changing their minds and heading back together again. They could have been in the process of tying themselves into a knot. Even to the young boy, slight smears of Marmite capping his open mouth, it was obvious the rocket was out of control. The two plumes of smoke, with a lazy, deadly twisting motion, were spiralling and plummeting earthwards in a low orbit towards the distant horizon. The announcers on every channel were saying that there were seven astronauts on board, one of whom was a schoolteacher. That’s what brought it home to him – a schoolteacher, the kind of person he saw every day. What was a schoolteacher doing up there, way beyond the realm of ordinary people, heading for outer space, then careening earthwards to immortality?
He called his mother. ‘Look at this, mum. Look at this.’
She came into the room, clutching a tea towel, and stared at the screen. ‘They’d be better off staying put. Down here with t
he rest of us.’ She spoke in a disinterested voice, and went back into the kitchen. He called out to her departing back, ‘There’s a schoolteacher up there, mum,’ but she did not answer him. He wondered at her indifference, at the puzzle that was grown-ups.
Later, having become tired of watching the replays, he went into the kitchen. ‘Shouldn’t he be home by now?’ He was looking at his watch, the one he’d been given just a few weeks earlier, for Christmas.
His mother was at the sink stacking dishes. She stopped stacking dishes, tensing for a second or two as if exasperated by his interruption, and said, without turning round, ‘Your father won’t be home for tea.’
It was possibly the moment he stopped rushing headlong, stopped cruising into the future, the moment his youthful rockets turned from belching affirmative flames to belching abortive smoke, and he started on his long, slow, spiralling descent into adulthood. He was being dragged earthwards, down, down, down, away from the stars, away from the heavens, away from his dreams, back to an adult reality where everything was tied down and impossible, where everything was knotted, knotted because everyone else had the control, the whip hand. From that moment on it was a struggle to take back control, to find his feet in spinning space, to soar free even momentarily. He considered more carefully what he said and what his mother said, and he weighed up every single word that was spoken in the stifling closeness of that kitchen, and interpreted more intently those all-important voids, the silence of the black holes that took shape in between.
‘Why not?’
‘Don’t concern yourself with what doesn’t concern you, young man. He just won’t.’ He watched her hand reach into the sudsy water and withdraw the plug. Bubbles of foam clung to her forearm. ‘Now, go up to your room and clean it. I’ve been on at you all week to clean it. I’ll call you when your tea’s ready.’
He left the room in silence. His tummy felt like it had been when Challenger fell through the sky. It hurt, and every now and again it lurched. He sat on his bed until tea time. Thoughts raced through his head, but he was unable to make sense of them. When he went downstairs to eat, his mother didn’t speak to him, nor did she eat. She drank a cup of tea, taking deep breaths and dabbing at her eyes between sips. He was pretty certain it wasn’t because of the astronauts that she was upset.
He whispered, finally, ‘What’s up, mum?’
‘Your dad has gone away, that’s what’s up. He’s gone away. That’s it. I don’t wish to talk about the subject again. Do I make myself clear?’
He nodded. She never mentioned his father again, not once in the six or seven years before he left home, nor after that. The nearest she ever came to referring to him, the slightest of allusions, was when she said (which was not infrequently), ‘Thank goodness I only have the one of you to look after.’ He was never sure if this meant she was grateful his dad was no longer around, or that she only had the one child. He didn’t like to ask.
In the days that followed, he discovered what had happened. It was revealed piecemeal to him by other boys, in much the same way that he found out about the facts of life. His dad, he was told as matter of factly as if they’d been discussing the whereabouts of a missing computer game, had run off with a woman from work. According to Tom, ‘She’s a right tart my mum says.’ None of them were quite sure what a tart was, but believed it to be someone who was particularly evil, possibly witch-like. Not even Tom, the eager conveyor of this news, knew what the word meant, but he certainly wasn’t going to confess his ignorance to those who looked up to him as the leader. Hugh was also informed that the woman was much younger, and that she and his dad had been ‘carrying on’ – whatever that might mean – ‘for ages.’ According to the local gossip, they’d fled to London, a destination that added insult to injury in the opinion of almost everyone locally, because it was in ‘the south.’ Someone else informed him that the woman’s name was Jane and that she worked with his dad. ‘In computers she is, high up.’ Hugh wondered if it had been the woman who’d gone to see ET with them, years earlier. If it was the same woman, what did that mean …? Could his father have kept such a secret from him all that time?
It was as unfocussed and dense as a nightmare, but far worse because he never woke up. His father never contacted him. There was no letter, no attempt at an explanation, no present at Christmas, no card for his birthday, no phone call to ask how he was doing at school or how he rated Aston Villa’s chances this season. The silence was absolute. To all intents and purposes, his father had died.
Hugh thought of him often, although he tried not to. He remembered their visits to the cinema, kicking a soccer ball together, the holidays in Sandyhills on the Solway Firth, and riding in the car when he was small, in the front seat, sometimes being allowed to lean across and hold the steering wheel. These memories made him too sad or too angry, and so he would then do his best not to think about such things any more. Sometimes he imagined what had happened to his dad since he left home. Did he have a new family, with another twelve year old who worshipped him and believed every word he uttered, who waited on a street corner for him to return from work, and did his father say, ‘Fancy seeing you here’ to him too? He never knew, he never found out, and he was left to wonder what he had done wrong to drive his own dad away.
The neighbours took to patting him on the head and saying, ‘You’re the man of the house now, Hugh.’ They weren’t friends, just what his mother would call, ‘nosey parkers’. Looking back, he didn’t think his parents really had friends. Maybe his father did at work, but there was no one who lived nearby who struck him as a friend.
His mother shrank into herself. He tried to jolly her along, to encourage her towards some semblance of happiness, but it was hard work. There were small things he did, like making her a cup of tea after they’d eaten in the evening, or bigger things, like staying at home when he was older, instead of going out with his friends. He didn’t like to leave her alone. He could cope, but his mother couldn’t, so he looked after her. When he returned from school, his first impression was that the house was empty. Only by going from room to room would he be able to find her, often slumped in a chair, usually staring into space. ‘Oh hello, love, did you have a good day?’ And although he knew she wasn’t genuinely interested in his day, he made an effort to be cheerful and to recall some event from the classroom or his journey home that might appeal to her.
For long stretches, she rarely moved from her armchair. The house became so much of a mess even Hugh started to notice, so he tried to do his bit by tidying things up at the weekend. Slowly – he didn’t know over how long a period of time, how many years – his mother rejoined the world, and started to cook again and do the housework. But she never got back her old spirit, nor did either of them ever again enjoy the comforts that had once been an unquestioned part of their lives. Looking back on those days, he could remember a chronic shortage of money. His clothes were patched, they didn’t go away on holidays any more, and even their meals became less fancy, more utilitarian. He did a paper round and gave most of what he earned to his mother. His father never sent any money to help them out. That was just another of Hugh’s responsibilities now.
* * *
At least Kate wasn’t skulking off without saying goodbye. At least she wasn’t going off with someone else – or not so far as he’d heard. He wondered if he was expected to be grateful for these little mercies.
She asked him to bring their suitcases downstairs, and it occurred to him that he obviously still had his uses. She’d packed the evening before, while he was at work. The amount of stuff he had to carry out to the car spoke of an absence longer than a few days. It made him feel as if he was assisting at his own execution, helping to raise the platform on which he was to be publicly hanged.
She told him that she and Tim were to have breakfast with her parents, pick up the keys, then go on to the beach house. That’s why she was keen to get away early. As he carried the last things downstairs he asked, ‘How long are
you going to stay in the beach house for?’
‘That depends.’
‘On whether I behave myself or not?’ He couldn’t help himself.
‘That’s not what I’m saying. We’ve already discussed this, Hugh. We need some time apart, I don’t know how long. We’ll see how it goes.’
‘Can you give me an idea?’
‘I don’t have any idea myself.’ She patted him absent-mindedly on the arm as she walked away. ‘Don’t worry about it.’
When he stooped to pick up Tim, he tried hard just to hold him, not to clutch him. He remembered his French teacher at school telling the class that au revoir meant a temporary goodbye, a goodbye until we see each other again, possibly later the same day; whereas adieu meant goodbye forever. He did his best to make his goodbye to his son sound like an au revoir. It wasn’t easy. Standing in the driveway, he clung to Tim for as long as possible, burying his face in the top of his head, trying to hold back the tears. Kate, exasperated, standing by the open car, said, ‘Hugh, we have to go.’ And she moved forward to pull, almost yank Tim out of his arms. She strapped him into the car seat. Tim shouted through the half open window, ‘Bye bye, daddy’ as the car drove off, as if he expected to see his father again in an hour or so.
When they’d gone, he cried. He wasn’t sure who he was crying for, but thought it was likely to be for both his wife and his son, which it possibly was. But the tears had the effect of making him feel like a decent human being, one who’d been wronged, so perhaps, almost certainly, he was also crying for himself.
He called Sarah and left a message saying he was running late. It was too early for her to be in the office, and he was glad he didn’t have to speak to anyone. It turned out that he was only an hour late, but there was already a message for him at Reception asking him to call Russell. That’s typical, he thought. On the one occasion I’m not at my desk.
