Little Bits of Baby

by Patrick Gale

  ‘Sorry,’ he whimpered, now seeming lost for words.

  ‘Well? What is it?’ she demanded.

  ‘It’s Andrea Maitland but she doesn’t have the Holy Man with her.’

  By the time Candida had tried on and rejected a headscarf and come down to greet her, Andrea had already rung the bell and been let as far as the hall by Samantha.

  ‘What is it about this family,’ Candida wondered, ‘that they think they can just turn up and find me both in and available? Still, the parents once told me they regarded me as one of their own,’ she reminded herself, ‘and now I regard their son with an affection more than sisterly.’

  ‘Andrea!’ she exclaimed. ‘Sorry to keep you waiting.’ She made as if to kiss the older woman’s cheek but Andrea was already starting forward to the sitting-room.

  ‘Not at all,’ she said briskly, her face unusually frosty. ‘Sorry to turn up out of the blue. I’m afraid we have to talk. Shall we go in here?’

  She was already in there. Candida waited, trying to huff and puff a little, but all her will seemed to have gone the way of her hair. She followed and sat across the room from her visitor.

  ‘Has something awful happened?’ she asked.

  ‘Not recently,’ said Andrea, ‘But, yes.’

  ‘Tell me.’

  ‘You stole Dob’s lover. Jake and Robin were in love and you jealously worked on Jake’s weak nature to steal him.’

  Candida gasped.

  ‘I hardly think this is the … Really, Andrea, it was so long ago.’ She found a trace of indignation which enabled her to stand.

  ‘Sit down,’ Andrea told her. ‘I haven’t finished.

  Candida sat.

  ‘We all thought Robin ran away afterwards to be a monk,’ Andrea said. ‘I’ve just discovered that these last eight years he’s been having a complete mental breakdown, entirely due to your envious meddling.’

  ‘But … Poor Dob. I had no idea.’

  ‘Of course you didn’t.’

  ‘Is he better? I mean, he seems better. He must be as he wouldn’t be out. Home, I mean.’

  Andrea was staring at her in disbelief.

  ‘Is that honestly all you can think to say? Don’t you feel any remorse?’

  ‘Oh, for Christ’s sake, Andrea,’ she shouted, jumping up. ‘What do you think? I loved Dob. He was my childhood friend. Of course I feel bad. I feel awful. So will Jake when he hears. But you’ve misunderstood.’

  ‘Well, you’d better put me right.’

  ‘I hardly think it’s your business.’

  ‘Of course it’s my bloody business. You’ve broken my son. Thanks to you I lost him, we lost him, for eight whole years. And now he’s changed. You must have noticed.’

  ‘He’s just older. We’re all older.’

  ‘It’s more than that.’

  ‘Look, Perdita needs her feed and Jake’ll be home soon.’

  ‘They can keep a little.’ Andrea rubbed a hard hand across her forehead. Her wedding ring left a brief white line there. She changed her tone. ‘Look, please Candida. Tell me. Tell me everything. You never have.’

  Candida watched Jasper helping Samantha take clothes off the line. She turned back to Andrea and sat down. ‘It’s all so long ago,’ she complained.

  ‘Please.’

  ‘They weren’t lovers,’ Candida muttered. ‘None of us were. Of course Dob had an almighty crush on Jake but he never did anything about it. I know. I was there. I even urged him on. He was convinced that if he said anything, Jake would run a mile. I mean, Jake knew about the crush, but Dob made a joke of it as though it were all a pose. Eventually Jake proposed to me and I turned him down. The next thing I knew, Robin turned up in my house and attacked me.’

  ‘Physically?’

  Candida hesitated.

  ‘No. He threw a lot of things around. He shouted. He wept. He was obviously drunk and that was the last we saw of him. I rang you the next day. You remember.’

  ‘I remember.’

  ‘Where did you hear this story about them being lovers?’

  ‘Dob told me but I exaggerated. They weren’t lovers, not yet, but Jake had made, well, proposals to Robin and Robin says he panicked and pretended to be revolted. The next evening Jake was being mortified and apologetic, saying “Never mind, I’ve been to bed with Candida a couple of times and I see now it was all just confusion. It was her I wanted and we’re going to get married.’

  Candida froze.

  ‘At least,’ Andrea qualified, ‘That was the gist of it.’

  ‘My God,’ spat Candida. ‘The little jerk. The bastard.’

  There was a sound of high performance engine and crushed gravel from beside the house. ‘That’s him,’ Candida muttered, half oblivious of Andrea now. Andrea jumped up.

  ‘I must go,’ she said. ‘Oh. Oh dear.’ She wavered, then darted forward and patted Candida’s shoulder. ‘I didn’t realise and now I’ve gone and stirred things up. Candida, I didn’t mean … I only wanted the truth. Oh dear.’

  Andrea fled through the house. Candida heard her greetings fluttered at Jake in the porch and her trotting shoes on the pavement a few seconds later. There was the unmistakable thunder of a Volkswagen starting up then peace except for Jasper going for some sparrows with a plastic machine gun. Finally Jake popped his head around the door, said a chirpy hello and vanished.

  ‘Jake?’

  He came back.

  ‘Yup? Hey! I like the hair-do.’

  ‘Andrea Maitland’s just been here.’

  ‘Yes. We met on the steps. Any trouble with Jasper?’

  ‘No. Nothing like that.’

  He came in and flopped noisily onto the sofa beside her, clearly not listening.

  ‘You bastard!’ she hissed.

  Stung, he laughed,

  ‘What? What have I done now?’

  She lashed out, not to slap but to punch him hard, on the jaw. It hurt her more than she’d expected but she followed through with another punch, this time to his shoulder. Taken by surprise he had fallen off the sofa. She stood and kicked his shin fiercely. Twice. After an initial yelp he took the blows quietly, merely sucking in air through his teeth. She stood back and stared at him as he clambered onto the sofa, rubbing his leg.

  ‘Jasper’s outside the window,’ he muttered and touched his jaw.

  ‘I don’t fucking care,’ she said. ‘Think back, Jake. Think back eight long eventful happy years to a certain evening just before our finals.’

  ‘Yes?’ he frowned.

  ‘You told Robin we’d had sex. You told him we were going to get married. You little shit!’ She kicked his shin again. He struck back this time, setting the sole of his shoe firmly against her thigh and shoving so that she toppled back and sat down hard, striking her coccyx on a wooden chair arm as she went down.

  ‘Cunt!’ he shouted and hurled several large books at her in quick succession. He was making a strange coughing noise as he did so and she realised that he was crying. Jake never cried. Ever. They never fought. She sat up, rubbing her back and watched. He stopped throwing things and blew his nose.

  ‘You fancied him,’ she said. ‘You tried to get him into bed only he didn’t want you.’

  He stood and walked out. She heard him calling softly for Jasper in the garden, turned and saw him hugging the child to him. Milky white, Jasper stared over his father’s shoulder towards the window where she watched. There was a knock at the door.

  ‘Yes?’

  It was Samantha.

  ‘Sorry to butt in like, Candy, but Perdy-M’s crying fit to bust. Shall I give her another bottle or …’

  ‘I’ll feed her,’ said Candida, striding out past her, ‘And don’t call me Candy. Ever.’

  Perdita was roaring. Her fists wrenched at the cot sheet as she sucked in tiny lungfuls of air and with each fresh bellow her alarming shade of scarlet intensified. Strings of spit webbed her toothless mouth and her eyes had sunk into veined wrinkles of fury. Candida kneeled on the
carpet, rested her head on her arms and watched her daughter’s miniature despair.

  Twenty-Eight

  Faber spent all the cash in his wallet taking a taxi to the hospital. If Peter offered him a ride home he would feel duty-bound to refuse it; he would need the punishment of the walk home. Although he had telephoned the ward several times almost without thinking, he found he had repeated its name over and over in his head on the journey so that it was now quite meaningless. There was a large crowd waiting for the lift so he threw himself up the emergency stairs.

  ‘I’ve come to see Marcus Carling,’ he panted at the Briar Ward reception desk.

  ‘Ah, yes. If you follow the corridor,’ he was told, ‘it’s the last room on the right.’

  He expected a ward or at least a bed, with Marcus in a net of drips and monitor wires. In their stead he found a pink, bedless room with a spider plant, a view, a kettle, Peter and a box of tea-bags.

  ‘Where is he?’ he asked.

  ‘Faber.’ Peter stood. ‘I’m afraid it’s too late. I said not to rush on the phone.’

  ‘Where is he?’

  ‘I’ll show you.’

  Peter opened the door, then held another open across the corridor. Faber walked across and heard the door shut behind him.

  The window faced the street and the noise of traffic from below was a surprise after the cushioned quiet elsewhere. He stopped at the foot of the bed.

  I haven’t laid eyes on you for eight whole years, he thought.

  The man before him looked old enough to be his grandfather. Faber saw thin white hair, loose skin and liver spots; a bag of chicken bones with ostrich legs. He pulled up a chair and sat close to the corpse.

  Why don’t I feel anything? he wondered. This is a grand reunion.

  He took one of the hands and pressed it to his lips then, clawlike, hard against his cheek. Feeling came now, sliding into the back of his throat and up behind his eyes. Faber wept briefly and without tears. The cruel wrenching at his lungs and face made his nose run. He had no handkerchief and someone had cleared the bedside table. He had to use the sheet. As he blew, the linen twitched off Marcus’s shoulders and revealed an emaciated torso and a recent surgical scar like a long zip pattern branded on with a sizzling iron. Disgusted, Faber finished blowing his nose and pulled the sheet right up over Marcus’s head. He stood, hesitated, then pulled back the sheet to kiss the old man once on the lips. Then he went to find Peter.

  ‘Cup of tea?’ Peter offered. ‘It’s all they’ve got.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  Faber accepted the mug then sat heavily on one of the grey plastic armchairs. It sighed beneath him as it subsided.

  ‘How did you know to ring me?’ he asked.

  ‘Marcus told me. At least, he left a note for me to open if no one had been to see him before the er … end. I found your name and number. It was a bit of a shock.’

  ‘What? Finding my name on the note?’

  ‘Well. That was, of course, but I was thinking more of Robin answering your phone, actually.’

  ‘Oh, that. You haven’t talked with Andrea since this afternoon, then?’

  ‘Not really. She seemed a bit down after you’d gone. What had you told her?’

  ‘About Robin and me.’

  ‘Oh. That he was coming round?’

  ‘That he and I are lovers.’

  ‘Oh. Oh God, sorry,’ Peter spluttered. ‘You must think me so stupid. I hadn’t … Oh.’

  ‘Look,’ Faber raised a hand. ‘Could we talk about that some other time? I’m not really …’

  ‘Oh yes. Of course. Sorry.’

  Each sipped his tea.

  ‘Miss Birch,’ said Peter suddenly.

  ‘Who’s she?’

  ‘His assistant. I clean forgot to ring her.’ Peter stood. ‘Back in a sec.’

  Alone, Faber poured his tea into a small corner sink and rinsed out the mug. He walked to the window and stood with his forehead pressing against the cool glass.

  ‘God,’ he whispered. ‘God, God, God.’

  The bad day he had been expecting for so many months was incalculably worse than he had imagined, chiefly because he was finding it so hard to react. He was still Faber, father of Iras, painter of pictures. He was still falling in love with Robin. In the core of his being he was the happy man he had been this morning and yet, from the moment he had heard Peter on the phone saying ‘It’s Marcus’ he had known he was now a briefly tragic figure; one to be pitied, cosseted, given cushions and stiff drinks. It was this prospect of sympathy more than the stark vision of Marcus Carling, recently ill, now deceased, that caused the sadness which he could already feel spreading down from his surface thoughts like so much ink in water. I must talk now, he thought, now while I’m in this room. As soon as I step outside, I become a bereaved person.

  He heard Peter come back in. He heard a chair subside. He turned and found himself sitting on the floor where he could relax.

  ‘I’m sorry I snapped just now,’ he said.

  ‘Don’t be,’ said Peter. ‘I feel such a fool.’

  ‘I need to talk,’ Faber went on. ‘Ask me things. Ask anything you like. Or don’t like.’

  ‘How long have you known him?’

  ‘Just since the baptism.’

  ‘I meant Marcus.’

  Needing to, they laughed out of all proportion.

  ‘Years and years,’ said Faber at last. ‘I can’t think of the date. Longer than I’ve known you and Andrea.’

  ‘And when did you split up?’

  ‘I haven’t … hadn’t seen him. Just now was the first time I’d seen him for ten years.’

  ‘And you’d been together long before then?’

  Faber grinned, despite the heaviness that was seeping through him.

  ‘Er, Peter … I think you’ve crossed wires again.’

  ‘I don’t quite see.’

  ‘Marcus was my father. My adoptive father. How well did you know him, for Chrissakes?’

  ‘Oh, me? I’ve only know him since he fell ill. I was sent to him by the hospital because … He had no visitors.’

  ‘Well,’ Faber smiled wryly. ‘I’m glad I was instrumental in a beautiful friendship.’ Peter looked hurt.

  ‘I have to go on. I don’t care,’ Faber thought.

  ‘He was an Old Barrowcesterian,’ he told Peter. ‘A group of them clubbed together to adopt and educate a poor African from their overseas diocese and I was the “little Piccanniny”, bright enough and oh so photogenic. So I was uprooted from the family and sent to the heart of provincial England. To a fourteenth century school with its own goddamn language.’ He sighed with the effort of saying so much so fast. Peter paused, digesting facts.

  ‘Andrea never told me,’ he said, at last.

  ‘I never told Andrea. She’s never asked and it’s not the sort of thing I talk about. That’s why I’m telling you now.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘Marcus and the others would take it in turns to have me to stay for holidays but the other two got married, and their wives disapproved or their own children made trouble so Marcus took me on completely.’

  ‘What about your family?’

  ‘Marcus became my family. We got on. I adored him. He loved educating me. He took me on wildly exciting trips. He took me to Florence, to Rome, to Venice, to Athens, to Cairo, to Madrid. Then he suggested I go on to the Slade. Great idea I thought, as I was keen on painting already and I wanted to stay at home in London with Marcus. But he never even paid my first term’s bill.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘I left home. He tried. He … Well, he thought the time had come for him to be more to me than family and I couldn’t cope.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘He was my fucking father, that’s why not.’

  ‘Sorry.’

  ‘So we didn’t meet for ten years. I got myself a scholarship and hid from him all the time I was at the Slade. He was a creature of habit so it was easy enough. I lived in
bits of London he never went to, with people he wouldn’t like, then, as soon as that was done, I ran away to America. Lots of painting, lots of uncomplicated sex and no “family”.’

  ‘Where you found Iras.’

  ‘Where I found Iras.’

  ‘You didn’t need to hide, you know. He was in America all that time. He ran away too.’

  ‘Where in America exactly?’

  ‘He lived in San Francisco.’

  ‘Like father, like son.’

  ‘He went to the opera a lot.’

  ‘I bet that wasn’t his only entertainment. Jesus! He might have started picking me up in a bar.’

  ‘Surely he would have recognised you.’

  ‘Of course he’d have fucking recognised me!’ Faber snapped, incredulous. ‘I was joking, you jerk. Sorry.’ He snatched some tissues and blew his nose. He continued more quietly. ‘Why am I telling you all this?’

  ‘You seem to want to.’

  ‘Sorry, Peter. Yes. I “seem to want to”.’

  A nurse laughed loudly in the corridor. There was a lull. Peter stood.

  ‘More tea?’ he asked with all the nervous deference of an aide at a grand masters’ tournament.

  ‘No, thanks.’ Faber watched him make himself another cup of tea. ‘So, tell me truthfully,’ he asked him. ‘Since we’re in the sort of place where we can be frank. How do you feel about Robin?’

  Peter frowned then turned back to the kettle to speak.

  ‘Generally, you mean?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Guilty.’

  ‘Why? What could you do?’

  Peter abandoned his tea and paced.

  ‘I could have been around more,’ he said. ‘And had more influence, not been so bloody non-committal. Confronted him, even.’

  ‘You think that would have stopped him going to Whelm?’

  ‘I think it might have stopped him being homosexual.’

  The scientific term dangled in the anaesthetic air between them. Challenged, Faber spoke up after a moment’s thought.

  ‘I had no idea you felt that way,’ he said.

  ‘You did ask for the truth,’ said Peter as though by way of apology.

  An orderly opened the door abruptly, apologised and tiptoed away again.

  ‘I think we’ve sat here long enough,’ Peter said.