The White Family

by Maggie Gee

  ‘My father was unfit for National Service –’ Or feigned unfitness, my mother had hinted.

  Darren’s thin furious mouth was working. ‘Don’t you remember what happened that time I borrowed his army knife without asking, when we went to scout camp, in Storrington? That bayonet thing we boys were so thrilled with? He was waiting on the doorstep when they brought us back. Half-crazed with rage. He boxed my ears, and kept on shouting it was dangerous. But he was dangerous, he was the dangerous one, living with Dad was fucking dangerous!! He even hit Shirley – He even hit Mum. Well once, I remember. At least once.’

  ‘I had no idea –’ A few memories came back of Alfred being crotchety when I went round. Exploding when we didn’t put back the lid on the dubbin tin, after doing our football boots. We were eleven or twelve. He had told us off. Then later on he walked me home. ‘Always finish a job,’ he said. ‘If a job’s worth doing, it’s worth doing properly.’ My father, of course, never finished a job. He would start the lawn, which was postage-stamp-size, shave a small strip of green, then collapse in a deckchair, sighing, despondent, a beer in his hand. ‘Maybe I idealize your dad.’

  ‘Everyone thinks he’s wonderful. It makes me puke.’

  His coffee came. He swigged it down in one. It was boiling hot. As he registered the pain he started blowing like a whale, then spreading his lips in a tragic mask. Very white teeth; I had neglected mine. ‘Aach! Ounnnhhh! Bloody burnt myself!’

  ‘I like your dad,’ I said, feebly. ‘I like your dad, I liked your wife.’

  ‘I feel like shit,’ he said. ‘Sorry. I am a shit. Life is shit.’

  Part of me wanted him to crawl a bit more, but another part needed him back on his feet. ‘Come on, Darren. You’re not a shit. Your dad being ill – it’s very upsetting. But I mean, you’re – great. You’re basically fine.’

  ‘I’m not bloody fine!’

  ‘You’ve made it, Darren. You’ve got money and fame and wives and kids and all the other things we should have by our age –’

  ‘Wives? Ex-wives. That isn’t such a triumph. I’ll probably soon have another ex-wife.’

  I tried to suppress a twinge of pleasure. ‘You only just got married, didn’t you? I did like Susie. The little bit we talked. She’s … attractive, obviously.’ (But less so than Melissa.) ‘She seemed, you know, well, very – direct.’

  ‘Oh she’s that all right. She’s fucking direct.’

  ‘Well that’s something, isn’t it. My wife was a liar. And she left me.’

  He looked at me astonished. (I saw the boy. A flash of his face when he was a boy.) ‘What do you mean? Rose and Katy both walked out.’

  ‘I thought – I assumed –’ And I had assumed. ‘I always thought it was you trading up.’

  He shook his head, three times, over-vehement. ‘No, I would never have left my kids. It hurts like hell. It’s a fucking disaster.’

  I avoided his eyes. His tie was expensive, but bore a trail of tomato seeds, drying. ‘Might you – will you – have kids with Susie?’

  ‘That bitch.’ A pause; he seemed to hear himself. ‘She’s not really a bitch. I’ve had too much to drink. But she says we’re not ready for them yet, as a couple. Whatever that’s fucking supposed to mean.’

  ‘What does it mean?’

  ‘We fight a lot. She thinks it wouldn’t be good for the child …’ There was a long pause. He stared at his nails, or the bare fingertips where his nails should have been. He had bitten the flesh, little blackened pink wounds. ‘She’s right in a way. It was hell for my kids … Do you know what it means to feel you’ve fucked up?’

  ‘Well can’t you stop?’

  ‘Look, it’s all handed down. They dole it out, we pass it on. The bloody therapists are right about that much. My fucking father’s got a lot to answer for –’ He broke off with a gesture of despair. ‘You don’t believe me. I can see it in your face. You’re so bloody English. Can’t you handle anger?’

  It was so American, ‘handling anger’. ‘Look, you’re my mate. My old mate. It’s just, I was sitting here, half-asleep – It’s a shock to see you. I’m just – catching up. And I am quite fond of your old man.’

  ‘He’s a cunt,’ he said, but he didn’t sound convinced. I think his energy was wearing down. He’d eaten the bacon, fat and all; so much for his elaborate diets.

  ‘But he and your mum are happy. Aren’t they?’

  ‘She was always blind to Dad’s weak points. And he’s fond of her, I can’t deny it. Though he could be bloody rude to her as well. If the food was wrong. And she was not a great cook … I’ve never expected my wives to cook. I take them out, or we get food in, so I’ve managed to escape that part of the pattern.’ He seemed to sit up a bit straighter, briefly. ‘Look, as a father – Dad was, well, hell. Expected too much. Nothing was good enough. Why do you think I went halfway round the world? I still hear his voice, in the back of my head.’

  ‘But can’t you forget him, now you’re so far away?’

  He looked at me with a kind of desperation. ‘Will you listen to me? I have to tell someone. I hate my life. I hate my life. Never at home, no time at home. Which is partly why it took me so long to realize the problem with my father. My last wife tried to tell me, and I thought she was mad. Then Susie said it and it started to make sense.’

  Aha, I thought. So it was all still new. Darren is embracing hate like a convert.

  ‘My life might look good from the outside. But my wives walk out. Because of my temper. I can’t control it. Any more than Dad could.’

  ‘You’ve got a beautiful wife. You’re rich –’

  Darren reached across the table and took me by the shoulder, and when he spoke he was almost choking, he’d gone red in the face, and the words burst out – ‘Can you please stop telling me how lucky I am?’ Slowly his hand loosed its grip on my shoulder, and his colour faded back towards normal. ‘We had breakfast in Covent Garden today. We started going over the same old ground. It drives me crazy. Susie can’t leave things alone. She keeps on saying I should tell my father that he made us suffer. Then I’ll be less angry … Apparently. I don’t see why. He could never say sorry. Never. Never.’

  I myself had never managed to tell my father about the million ways he failed us. But one day, when he was getting weak but before they started on the morphine, he said to me, out of the blue, ‘I should have given you a wedding present. You and Jeanie. I’m sorry, Thomas. I’ve never been able to keep hold of money.’

  He’d made his speech absurdly late; Jean had left me a few months earlier. Maybe he wanted to say sorry for something more than the missing present. I muttered, stupidly, ‘It doesn’t matter.’

  It mattered, though, that he tried to say sorry.

  ‘I lost my temper in the restaurant,’ said Darren. ‘Shouted my head off. Which Susie hates. Everyone stared. I came over here … I don’t know why. I wanted to see you.’

  ‘I’m glad you did. I’m very glad –’ I cast around for something to say. ‘Look Susie might be right, you know. You could give your dad a chance to say sorry.’

  ‘Dad? You’re joking! He’s always right. And he is, about some things. He sticks to his guns. His opinions are shit, but he’s brave, by his lights. Maybe I’m afraid he’s a better man than me. I mean, I’m soft. I like the good –’

  ‘I knew there was a reason why you left Hillesden.’ We smiled at each other. The mood lightened.

  He boasted a bit. I encouraged him. The Ritz, the Plaza, trips to Tibet, regular slots for the Washington Post, Susie’s income, his children’s brilliance … Just when I was starting to flag a bit, he looked at me, with his reddened blue eyes.

  ‘But you know I always wanted to write a book. And a book is the one thing I have not written … I hate being tethered up with my thoughts.’

  ‘It’s hard,’ I said, though I like my own thoughts. Which were, in that instant, I’m happier than you. Less successful, but less unhappy.

  After a refill of cof
fee, he stood up to go. I wondered if he would pay his bill.

  ‘I’ll have to go back to the hotel and find Susie … I talked too much –’

  ‘Not at all. It was good.’

  He cleared his throat, and looked embarrassed. ‘Um, I do love Susie, actually. Although I give her a hard time. She’s – the best woman I’ve ever been with.’

  I looked at the table. This was new. Darren and I had never talked about love. Women, yes, but not about love. ‘Good,’ I said. It was all I could manage.

  ‘Will you come and stay in the flat in New York?’

  ‘Yes, if you like. If you really mean it.’

  ‘Don’t wait too long. We’re all getting older. That’s what Susie says; what if Dad dies?’

  ‘I’ll walk with you to the underground.’

  He didn’t pay. Perhaps he hadn’t got much sterling. Mario was listening to opera very quietly, smiling and nodding at his radio, and he winked as I paid the bill for two, with a tiny nod in Darren’s direction that perhaps meant Mario thought he was a loony. ‘Nice to see you, John.’ He always called me John. After seven or eight years, it was too late to correct him.

  Darren and I said goodbye by the Catholic church with its grill of ornate painted iron-work, towering above us, the patterns repeating, up and up into the cold blue sky, then sunlit thunderheads, one above another … He turned to walk down the steps to the tube, then without a word came back and embraced me.

  It wasn’t comfortable. He had a briefcase, and I was clutching a newspaper. But we held each other, awkwardly. Sons, brothers.

  ‘See you at the hospital later, maybe.’

  ‘You’re good to visit him,’ said Darren.

  ‘It’s easy for me. I’m not his son.’

  28 • Alfred

  Alfred lay shivering slightly in bed. Sister had opened a lot of windows. Someone had died five beds down the ward. Bad news travelled fast, in hospitals …

  At least it’s not me. But is it coming closer?

  Alfred knew he was too young to die. Too young to be lying in hospital.

  I never expected to be here.

  And his arm moved restlessly towards his cupboard. Were his boots and greatcoat still safe in there?

  Funny, isn’t it, how life turns out. Hospitals were always for other people. Other people got ill and died. Other people took time off work. I never did. I never would. I suppose I despised people who got ill. Except for May when she had her babies. She was a good woman, and she nearly died.

  The courage women show in childbirth … there’s a lot of courage around, in life. They don’t put it in books or films any more, but I’m sure it’s still there. Ordinary courage.

  I never had to think about my body. It always did everything I asked of it. No problems in the romantic department, not right up until I was sixty-five. No problems with the waterworks. And on my feet, day after day, all day and every day, in all weathers. Yet I never got coughs or colds or flu.

  And my feet are pretty miraculous. No call for Dr Scholl’s or the chiropodist. May’s got corns and an ingrown toe-nail. Probably because they wear daft shoes. Women always wear daft shoes, bless them. I’ve always kept as close as I could to the boots I wore for National Service. They carried me through the deserts of Palestine, they’ll carry me through whatever life brings –

  I’ll put them on again, of course. My boots will carry me out of here. Shuffling about in slippers, well, it’s not my style, though I’m not complaining.

  I mustn’t complain. Life’s been good to me.

  But I’m only seventy-one. That’s not old, is it? Not old for nowadays, at least. And I’m still in harness. Still a hundred per cent. They’ve extended my contract because I deserve it. I’m over-age by my birth certificate, but they know I do the work of six men …

  I’m only seventy-one. Too young to die. I thought I could manage another ten.

  It doesn’t seem right, when I’ve always been fit, always eaten healthy, and kept on my feet. A drink or two, in the past a smoke –

  Nothing that could explain getting cancer. I thought unhealthy people got cancer. It can’t be cancer, they’ve made a mistake.

  But when the consultant had come round this morning, what he said seemed to leave no room for doubt. Except the great window of unbelief where Alfred knew he would live forever, patrol the Park forever more, tipping his cap to white-haired ladies who would always, somehow, be older than him. Of course he’d keep going. He always had, ever since he finished his National Service –

  But the doctor stood there, tall and thin, a gentleman with a thin kind voice, a bit of a weed, Alfred might have thought once. And as he spoke, the whole world shifted. A cold weight of fear Alfred hadn’t felt since he was first shot at in Palestine and suddenly knew he wasn’t immortal, landed on his belly, and he started praying. Please Lord no may it not be true oh please Lord no may it not be true –

  ‘Mr White? Do you understand me?’

  But Alfred hadn’t heard a word he said after the first few deadening sentences.

  ‘The results of the tests have come back now.’ He had paused, and looked up at Alfred over his glasses, seeing if Alfred was compos mentis; or just making sure he was listening.

  ‘Were they OK then?’ Alfred sounded too breezy, he knew it before the words had left his lips.

  ‘We-ell,’ said the consultant, carefully. ‘They were not entirely what we had expected.’

  Which meant death.

  But Alfred had dismissed the thought as quickly as it fell through the air.

  ‘We had assumed your problems were circulatory – That is to say, we thought you’d had a stroke.’

  ‘Didn’t I, then? Is that good news?’ But he already knew it was not good news.

  There was a pause. The thin man had looked at the nurse, as if her face would give him strength. ‘I’m afraid we have discovered some obstructions in the tissues of the brain. We shall therefore pursue a different course of treatment.’

  That sounded all right; but it wasn’t all right. Alfred waited, but nothing was forthcoming.

  ‘Do you have any questions you’d like to ask, Mr … Er?’ He had already forgotten Alfred’s name.

  ‘Well I’m not going to die, am I?’ Alfred laughed, making a joke of it, as you must. It was serious, yes, but as long as it wasn’t fatal –

  ‘We shall do our very best for you,’ the doctor replied, not meeting his eyes.

  ‘I don’t mind being operated on,’ said Alfred, hearing his voice sounding hoarse, desperate, not his voice at all, a frightened voice.

  (But he refused to be frightened. Even of the knife. He had had his appendix out after the war. Nothing to it, really. He had woken up singing an army song, which was the effect of the gas. He’d been good as new, after that. And the surgeons were wonderful, nowadays.)

  ‘We don’t think an operation would be helpful.’

  Another punch of cold ice in his stomach.

  ‘You’d better tell me what’s going on. The full whack. Go on, I can take it.’

  And the thin cold voice, perhaps trying to be kind, awkward, scientific, reluctant, told him what was the matter with him. But Alfred couldn’t listen. After ‘a number of small tumours’ he heard no more.

  Until the consultant talked himself to a standstill.

  Then Alfred swallowed, and fixed him with his eye. The doctor was looking at the lino. ‘So it’s cancer, you’re saying. And you can’t operate.’

  ‘We don’t think an operation would be helpful.’ He repeated himself, politely, firmly. Alfred said nothing. ‘At your age, you see …’

  ‘So I’m a goner because of my age. You’re going to throw me on the scrap-heap, are you?’ A brief spurt of temper made Alfred feel better.

  The doctor and nurse both looked embarrassed. ‘Not at all, Mr White, I do assure you. We’ll do everything we can to make you comfortable.’

  ‘So it’s hemlock, is it?’ Alfred crowed at them. At least he was in con
trol of them now.

  ‘I don’t quite follow,’ said the doctor, wearily.

  ‘I know about history. I went to school. I think you understand me, doctor.’

  But suddenly all his energy left him, and the cold fluid began to leak through him, filling his veins with icy fear, and he had to lie back on the pillow, exhausted, which the doctor took as a sign to depart, saying ‘I’ll be back before long if you have any more questions.’

  He’ll be back before long my arse, thought Alfred. He’ll be back if we’re lucky in two days’ time, and then he’ll be telling some other poor sod they’re not worth saving, same as me.

  Shirley had brought him flowers, yesterday. A huge great boatful of snowy-white flowers. The only thing was, they stood on the table between him and Pamela, so he couldn’t see her properly without straining round. It had been quite pleasant, having a chat, just now and then, when he felt like it, or when she felt like it, because she was chatty. Bit forward, maybe, though that hadn’t struck him till May came in and started looking daggers. (But May was just jealous, of course. Why shouldn’t a woman try to look her best?)

  Women always liked me, he thought to himself. I always had a bit of charm.

  All in the past, the cold voice said, the chilly liquid that coursed through his veins.

  White as snow; white as clouds. They were a beautiful bunch. Must have cost a packet. No one could ever say his daughter was mean. She was a good girl in lots of respects, though they hadn’t always seen eye to eye …

  It’ll break May’s heart. How shall I tell her? Perhaps I’ll ask the doctor to have a word.

  They do their best. They’re professional men. I don’t suppose it’s an easy job. Perhaps I was a bit short with him. Lucky no one was listening. I didn’t really show myself to advantage. That’s what my mother always used to say: ‘Try and show yourself to advantage, Alfred.’ And she was right. That’s what we’re put here for. I always said to the kids: ‘Just do your best. Fear no man, and do your best.’