Little Bits of Baby

by Patrick Gale

  ‘Holá,’ said Paca.

  ‘Hi,’ said Andrea.

  She must have been betrayed by some expression on her face because at once their own crumpled in sympathy and they came to support her, stroking, tutting, sighing as over a mildly injured child.

  My son is not a monk, she thought. My son is mad. Was. I mean was.

  Wrapped around in fat, capable arms, pink nylon overall and the scents of cooking, she dissolved in tears of appalled gratitude.

  Twenty-Five

  As in all the most hackneyed television series, the death had come suddenly and been dramatically curt. Peter had driven to the hospital straight after school as usual. Some lilies had arrived in the Friends’ Flower Shop and he splashed out on one because he thought Marcus might appreciate its honeyed smell.

  His friend was beyond sniffing flowers when Peter arrived on the ward, being plunged in deep, drug-induced sleep. Peter went through the motions, as he had for the last three days. He opened the window, he exchanged yesterday’s flower for today’s and he bathed Marcus’s brow. Then he sat at the bedside for maybe twenty minutes, holding a dried old hand in his. He was about to leave when Marcus started to cry out. His moan was so even it was almost song; only the sudden fierce grip of his hand told Peter otherwise. Afraid to leave the room, Peter rang frantically on the emergency bell push and soon was unable to see Marcus for the activity of two nurses and a masked doctor who arrived and set about doing something with pipes and a syringe.

  Marcus’s ‘song’ rose in pitch and volume until Peter was tempted to laugh. It made him think of a clever short film he had once seen called ‘Dog’s Eye View’ in which the viewer came suddenly face to face with a vast, yelling baby as seen by an inquisitive poodle.

  ‘More This,’ said the doctor. ‘More That. Give him thirty mils.’

  ‘No use,’ said one nurse.

  ‘Pulse is getting weaker,’ said the other. Then they turned to leave and the nurse whom Peter recognised as the one who liked Marcus to finish her crossword patted his shoulder and said kindly,

  ‘We’ll leave him in your capable hands.’

  The lament was dying down, stilled by an injection, and soon Peter’s hand was held less tightly. He freed himself to fetch the cloth again and lowered it onto Marcus’s forehead. Marcus sighed, made a noise midway between cough and snigger then stopped. There was no light to stop flashing or heart monitor to go dead – the machinery had all been unplugged yesterday – but Peter knew Marcus was dead from his absolute stillness and a sense of sudden solitude.

  Peter tidied the sheets, brushed Marcus’s wet hair off his face then took an envelope from where Marcus had said it would be and left the room.

  The nurse at the reception desk looked at him with sympathy.

  Don’t, he thought. I’ll cry and then you’ll be sorry.

  ‘Has anyone called or visited him?’ he asked.

  ‘You mean Mr Mystery? No. It’s all over, then?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘All over.’

  ‘Are you going off straight away?’ she asked. ‘Don’t want a nice cup of something?’

  ‘No. I’m not off just yet. I need to call someone. Please?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Please don’t move him or anything yet. There’s someone coming who’ll want to see him. First.’

  Twenty-Six

  ‘Do that again,’ Robin told him. Faber did it again. ‘And here,’ Robin begged. He did it there. ‘And please, here.’ Pleased, he did it there. It was almost too much and Robin didn’t want it all to finish. Not yet. This was his new treat and, having heard ad nauseam how it lost its thrill through over-indulgence, he wanted to make it last. ‘Stop!’ he said. ‘Please stop.’ And he kissed Faber to make it stop. Faber kissed him back.

  ‘Why?’ Faber asked, flushed. ‘Don’t you like it?’

  ‘On the contrary,’ Robin said, ‘It’s quite extraordinary. Lie down.’ Faber lay beside him, his head on Robin’s armpit. His hair smelled faintly of coconut oil. They had recently run wild in a shop specialising in soaps, shampoos and essential oils and as a result were pampered to softness all over. They smelled rich, woody and edible. Faber had washed Robin’s hair with a walnut extract, which he said gave its colour depth. Then he had combed enough oil through his own to make it shine and fall into short ringlets. Robin ran his hand through it to release more good smell. He opened my mouth to speak.

  ‘Ssh.’ Faber said and laid a finger on Robin’s lips. Robin kissed it.

  ‘Do I talk very much?’ he asked.

  ‘You do rather.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘Don’t be.’

  ‘It’s only because you make me so secure.’

  ‘Liar.’

  ‘You do.’

  ‘I know that,’ Faber admitted, ‘but you were a talker long before you met me.’

  ‘Oh, talk. Talk is talk but with you to talk to I tell the truth. Always.’

  ‘All the more reason to hold your tongue and weigh your words.’

  ‘But I’m happy,’ Robin insisted. ‘And when I’m happy I talk.’

  ‘I noticed.’

  ‘You’ll miss me when I’m gone.’

  ‘Don’t say things like that,’ said Faber. Robin felt him tense, so he knew he meant it.

  ‘Well, you talk then,’ Robin said. ‘Tell me how you got your gold tooth.’

  Faber touched his cheek.

  ‘I just got it,’ he said, offhand.

  ‘You don’t “just get” gold teeth,’ Robin pursued. ‘How did you lose the real one? Did it rot? You never eat sweets.’

  ‘It was a fight. I got in a fight and someone punched the tooth out.’

  ‘My god! Who were you fighting? A jealous lover? Or was it that poor Ellen Mae you told me about?’

  ‘No, it wasn’t that poor Ellen Mae,’ Faber scoffed. ‘If you must know,’ he muttered, ‘it was my father. He was sorry straight away, of course, and he paid for the gold one.’

  ‘Let me see.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Open your mouth, Faber.’ Faber grinned then opened his mouth. Robin slipped his forefinger in and rubbed it against the tooth. ‘I thought you never saw your father after your eleventh birthday,’ he said. ‘This is a grown-up tooth.’ Faber bit his finger hard. ‘Ow! Bastard! Yes. All right!’ Robin begged. ‘I believe you. No more tooth-talk. Promise.’ Faber loosened his bite. Robin pulled his finger out and nursed it briefly in his own mouth. ‘So,’ he went on, talking with his mouth full, ‘where were you when I got here?’

  ‘I’m sorry. Did you wait long?’

  ‘Half an hour. Maybe more. I opened a can of creamed corn. It’s very good if you stir in an egg and throw the whole lot into a really hot frying pan.’

  ‘Is that what the smell is?’

  ‘I can only smell your wonderful hair.’

  ‘I was visiting your mother. I felt guilty about her. Before you came back we used to see each other, or talk at least, almost every day, and since then I’ve neglected her.’ He tapped Robin’s chin. ‘Cruelly.’

  ‘How did you find her?’

  ‘Well, you’ve obviously done her a power of good.’

  ‘You think so? I’ve hardly seen her either.’

  ‘She was glowing. I told her about us.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘Robin, you are a monster of insensitivity, you know.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘She had no idea why you spent so long at Whelm.’

  ‘She could have asked.’

  ‘People don’t ask that sort of thing.’

  ‘Well, I thought the Abbot would have told her. They talked enough on the phone. Poor Ma,’ Robin added but he knew he failed to convince.

  ‘Promise you’ll find time to talk to her.’

  ‘I promise. Now, do it again.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Here.’ Faber did it again. There. ‘Where does one learn things like that? They’re far too sophisticated to come natura
lly.’

  ‘Let’s pretend I read it in an unsuitable novel and leave it at that.’

  Robin threw him off and sat on his stomach.

  ‘But I want to know everything,’ he told him. ‘All your dark, variegated past.’

  ‘Such a glutton for suffering,’ Faber said. ‘We’ve barely met. You can’t be needing to feel jealous already.’

  ‘Tell me,’ Robin said and tried to do it to him. Faber winced then yelped so Robin knew he had it wrong. ‘Was it a he or a she?’ he pursued.

  ‘One day,’ Faber said, ‘When you’re bored with my body and tired of my mind, I’ll entertain you with my past.’

  His words were flippant but he was frowning with an irritation he’d only shown once before, when Robin had pressed him for details of his adoption by the citizens of Barrowcester. Robin fell silent therefore and let him change the subject. The lust had drained out of them completely. Robin was finding that too much talking in media res had that effect; he thought that perhaps it had something to do with the oxygen intake.

  ‘How did you spend your day?’ Faber asked. ‘I didn’t expect you back so soon. I thought you were going to see that Swiss film.’

  ‘I’d meant to but then I started job-hunting.’

  ‘But why?’

  ‘That’s what the woman in the Job Shop asked me. I wanted to have a go at being a laundry assistant or working in a chocolate shop – they had vacancies for both of those (can’t you see me in those little cotton gloves they wear in that place in Bond Street?) – but she got quite cross. I had to write down where I’d been to school and so on, what exams I’d passed or failed and what experience I’d had. Well, first of all she was highly suspicious that I wasn’t on the dole. She wanted to know if I had private means. I told her that no I was just confused and that seemed to bring out her motherly instinct. I was far too well qualified to be a chocolate-shop assistant, she told me, and much too clever – I’d be bored. I asked her how she knew. “It stands to reason,” she said. “But I want to sell chocolates,” I told her. I didn’t, but it was fast becoming a matter of principle. “With your brain, then,” she said, “you must go to a bank, borrow the money and start your own chocolate business.” And when I said that that sounded rather frightening and permanent all the motherliness evaporated. She said that my reaction proved her worst suspicions correct. I was clearly a parasite and timewaster, she said and told me that if I was truly keen for gainful employment I would find something more high powered in a sits vac column.’

  ‘So you want a job?’

  ‘Not much, but since I went away to be mad it seems to have become obligatory. Anyway I’m going to need a job soon. I couldn’t possibly live off you. And living off pocket money is out of the question – Maitland père is too careful to give me just enough to keep me amused but not enough to make me satisfied. What can I do, Faber?’

  ‘What do you want to do?’

  ‘I told you, nothing. I want to be, to think, to go for walks, take bus rides, observe.’

  ‘Become a novelist.’

  ‘I can’t write.’

  ‘So? Have you tried?’

  ‘No. But I can’t. Anyway, novelists work hard nowadays, they’ve been given shark-faces like everyone else. I’ve read some interviews with them. There’s one in Capital today.’

  ‘How about money? Does money interest you?’

  ‘Earning it?’

  ‘Partly that but mainly how it’s made, how it reproduces, the sex life of the pound. Surely your father could use his old contacts to get you into the City?’

  ‘Would you still love me if I worked in the City?’

  ‘Only if you left it for my sake so we could set up a kindergarten.’ Guilt made them giggle.

  The phone rang. Robin reached towards it, being the closest.

  ‘No,’ said Faber. Robin stopped and they lay with it jangling beside them. The shrilling stopped. Robin turned back to Faber, who kissed him but then the phone started up again as though whoever it was were checking that he hadn’t mis-dialled.

  ‘Sorry,’ Robin said, ‘I can’t stand it.’

  ‘Pull out the plug,’ Faber suggested but it was too late and Robin had answered.

  ‘Hello?’ he said.

  ‘Robin?’

  ‘Dad?’

  ‘Sorry. I must have dialled home without thinking.’

  ‘No, you didn’t. Did you want to talk to Faber?’

  ‘Er … Oh. Well, yes I did.’

  ‘Passing you over,’ Robin said. ‘It’s Dad,’ he told Faber.

  ‘Hello?’ said Faber. ‘Peter. How are you?… Good.… What?… When?’ Robin had started doing it to Faber again but Faber shoved him away quite hard then grasped his wrist as he concentrated on whatever Dad was telling him. Robin sat up and watched. Faber’s eyes had narrowed slightly with fear and he was breathing fast. He hung up.

  ‘What is it?’ Robin asked.

  ‘Someone’s ill. Very ill. An old friend.’ He let go of Robin’s wrist, jumped up and started tugging on clothes. ‘I’ve got to go. I’ll just fix up Iras.’

  ‘I’ll pick her up,’ Robin offered.

  ‘No, honestly. She’s happy going to Dodie’s,’ Faber promised him. ‘But, look, stay as long as you like. Stay till I get back. I should be home in a couple of hours but I’ll call from the hospital if I’m going to be later.’

  ‘OK.’

  Robin dressed too, feeling in the way for the first time since setting foot on Faber’s territory. While Faber made rapid calls to Iras’s special school and to Dodie, Robin walked slowly downstairs. Faber had given him a set of keys days ago but suddenly he felt uncomfortable about remaining alone in the building. Faber clattered down the stairs, swore because he had forgotten his wallet, clattered up to find it, clattered down again, kissed Robin and ran out. He slammed the door and Robin noticed, as if for the first time, the pride of place he had given to a wonderful charcoal sketch for the portrait of Candida and her first-born. He followed the gentle curve of her supporting arm beneath the baby and the answering outline of her proffered breast. Then he felt an attack coming on.

  He called his mind’s trouble madness not illness, because it had neither cause nor rational treatment. At its centre was a terrible void, an area of which he either knew or recalled nothing. Around the void was a kind of trumpet mouth of depression and uncontrol and around that were tendrils of disorder that reached into his conscious mind. He saw nothing untoward, no black serpents coiling through brickwork, no putrescent eruptions of the floor; the attacks came through his ears. Even the slightest sounds, no, particularly the slightest sounds, such as the rustle of his shirt sleeve, the breath leaving his nose or a fly at a distant window, became charged with hostility. He had had these attacks often as a child, in isolation and with no ill after-effects. His mother called them his ‘feelings’ and so tidied them away along with bad dreams and his dislike of the space under the bath. She thought they were growing pains and he didn’t like to alarm her. She was easily alarmed.

  Robin’s ‘feelings’ made reading impossible, for the most harmless words – elderflower, toothbrush, looking-glass – were vocalised in his head to mock him. Occasionally he tried to interrupt the sounds, beating them down with the sound of his voice, but his voice no longer sounded like his own. On Whelm, Luke, instructed by the Abbot, had followed a similar course to that proscribed for men convinced they are possessed by evil spirits. He would seek to calm Robin with music, unambiguous poetry or simple words of love; either his own or Christ’s.

  Robin forced himself to the record-player. He couldn’t choose a record of his own as this would have involved too many words and too much rustling. Inevitably, since no one had played anything since Iras’s exercise session last night, the record on the turntable was Nina Simone’s. He jumped the tone arm to the third track: ‘He’s got the whole world in his hands.’

  Robin crouched with his back safely to the wall and met Nina’s gaze from the record sleev
e. Suddenly he could see what Iras meant, but he saw more than her. Nina was telling him that God and Death were the same.

  Twenty-Seven

  Candida’s day had tried her sorely. One of her breakfast guests had been run down by a lorry the night before. Ordinarily she could have filled his untimely vacancy with an obituary hastily cobbled together from ‘Death Row’, the video and clippings archive kept for the purpose, but he had been only a minor unrecorded playwright. Out to publicise his latest glum offering, he had found a slot on the show solely by virtue of his former relation to one of the producers. The only self-publicists consistently available to appear at dawn after seven hours’ notice were politicians, so Candida had found herself saddled with a spontaneous debate on the free market which lost half her usual audience and over-ran disastrously. The more antagonistic of the two MPs, a man she used to admire, kept interrupting her summary with, ‘Ah-ha! You see? That bears out my point exactly!’ which meant that the all-important weather bulletin spilled over in turn into a crass but equally important location report from outside a royal labour ward. Her autocue had gone awry no less than three times after that. The pathetic excuse for this being that the usual operator had also enjoyed some involvement with the deceased playwright and had only learnt the sad news when Candida announced it on air. The newsprint summarist had gaily passed her a tabloid where an unrecognisably hideous photograph of her in her puppy-fat teens had been printed with the caption ‘GUESS WHO??!!’ This less than perfect morning had been rounded off by a dressing-down from the studio boss on the subject of tumbling viewing figures which he somehow related to her dress sense. He had snapped his fingers at her most offensively and told her to ‘run along and fix her hair or something’.

  Candida’s coiffure had admittedly gone slightly to seed since Robin’s return. She had paid an amount even she found painful to have it ‘fixed’ on the way home, and was regarding the treacherous result in her bathroom mirror when Jasper ran in.

  ‘Mummy, Mummy!’

  ‘I’ve told you before not to come racing in here when the door’s shut without knocking,’ she snapped. ‘My bathroom is not a playground.’