We went into the kitchen, which was sticky with a humid, wet heat. I opened the window over the sink to let some air flow through and had a look into the yard – or the concrete patch – which we shared with ten other tenants.
The cat from No.12 was sleeping, curled up on the trampoline, and Janice’s bike was gone. Had she stuck it in the boot of the car, or strapped it to the roof-rack, and if she had, who the hell was helping her?
My father sat at the table and held the pineapple in his lap.
‘Will you be wanting to change out of your uniform and put it in the wash?’
He was more like a woman with all his fussing.
‘No need, Dad. I’ve got plenty more.’
‘It’s fine weather,’ he said. ‘Another beautiful day.’
‘Too right,’ I said. ‘If you like being in an oven.’
‘Here,’ he said, ‘this pineapple’s yours. What a glorious country, eh? Fresh tropical fruit all year round.’
‘I don’t really like pineapples, Dad. Why don’t you give it to somebody at the surgery?’
‘Well, it won’t go to waste, that’s for sure.’
‘No. I’m sure you’ll find somebody to adopt it. Maybe take it to the pound. There aren’t many pineapples with such a happy wagging tail as that fine specimen.’
He laughed. ‘You forgot to mention that it won’t go pining for long. Get it?’
I smiled, as real a smile as I could manage.
‘Yes, I get it.’
‘But seriously, son. You should eat more fruit.’
‘I know.’
I wanted to sit, but I was so anxious my whole body vibrated and I didn’t want him to see me like this. And if I sat down, he’d stay longer.
‘What do you want to drink, Dad? Will a cup of tea do?’
‘That’d hit the spot nicely.’
There was no milk in the fridge.
‘Sorry, Dad. There’s only powdered milk.’
‘Then I’ll have water,’ he said. ‘Do you have ice?’
There was no ice in the freezer, but I went ahead and rummaged and the frost took some of the heat off my hands. I was burning up.
‘There’s no ice,’ I said.
‘Forget the water, then. I’ll suck on one of these.’
He took a packet of Fisherman’s Friends from the back pocket of his khaki shorts.
‘Do you want one?’
‘No, thanks. They make me cough.’
He got up from the table and I thought he was going to leave. I didn’t want him to stay and I didn’t want him to see me sweating, and yet, I didn’t want to be alone either.
But he didn’t leave: he went to the sink and put the pineapple on the draining board, tried to stand it upright, and when it toppled, he held its bottom and moved it round ’til he was sure it wouldn’t budge.
‘What time do you start work?’
‘There’s no mad rush, son. I’ve arranged for the locum to get things started.’
‘Thanks for the pineapple,’ I said. ‘Janice will love it.’
‘Is she still selling buttons?’
‘No, she . . . it wasn’t buttons, it’s a storage warehouse . . .’
I’d nearly let it slip that she’d been sacked.
‘I was only kidding, son. I know what she does.’
He went off to the loo, and as soon as he’d closed the door, he turned the portable radio on. He didn’t like the sound of a flushing toilet, which was a strange and squeamish thing for a doctor. Even the sound of somebody eating made him feel – what did he say? – ‘ . . . a bit embarrassed’.
As usual, he was in the bathroom a long time, even after he’d flushed, he stayed a while, and he was probably spraying air freshener.
While he was busy in the loo, I had time to check both my mobile and the landline. There was nothing from Janice, no message, not even a bitter or angry one. Nothing.
Then, the bedroom: Janice had cleared out most of her clothes, even the clothes in the laundry hamper, and there’d be no point checking the bedside drawers: I knew they’d be empty too. Though she’d threatened leaving a couple of times, I didn’t believe she would, not so suddenly: people didn’t end marriages without warning, without a second chance. But after the fight last night, and what she said about me being boring, I suppose I should’ve known this time was different.
When my father came back into the kitchen he smelt of Brut and this meant he’d been in the bathroom cupboards, and he’d probably seen that none of her stuff was there.
And so, I’d no choice but to sit at the table and wait for him to say what he’d come to say. But he said nothing and we faced each other, neither of us speaking – not a word.
‘So, how’ve you been?’ he said. ‘How are you keeping?’
‘Not too bad. The graveyards are hard, but I like the quiet hours when the patients are sleeping. And the walk home is good.’
More silence.
‘Is that broken?’
He was talking about the ceiling fan.
‘Yes. The landlord’s going to send somebody to fix it.’
He looked into the yard.
‘Didn’t Janice leave you a note or anything?’
‘Jesus Christ, Dad. I’m not her minder and she’s not my bloody secretary. Give it a rest, won’t you.’
‘Just wondering is all,’ he said. ‘No need to bite my head off.’
When I was fifteen, my mother ran away, packed her case and disappeared. I knew she wasn’t happy – I’d heard a lot of their fights late at night – but I didn’t think she’d leave, not in a million years, and I didn’t know she’d left until I came home from school and my father came to my bedroom, and sat on the end of my bed.
‘This is going to come as a big shock, son, but I’ve got some bad news.’
Maybe I’d been expelled from school, which would’ve made it a second time, but when I saw my father’s neck turn red, I knew it was much worse.
‘Your mother’s left us, and she won’t be coming back.’
‘Why?’
‘Just listen for a minute. Can you do that?’
I nodded.
‘She’s gone to London. She needs to be with your granny, who’s very sick, as you know.’
‘Why couldn’t we go with her?’
‘That wouldn’t be possible now, would it?’
‘Why not? Why couldn’t I go?’
‘Because she’ll be living with your granny in a one-bed maisonette in Tottenham Court Road, and you need to finish school, that’s why.’
‘Why didn’t she say goodbye?’
‘She was too upset. And she didn’t have much time.’
He stopped talking then and looked confused, as though he hadn’t expected questions, or didn’t know how to tell the story.
‘Your granny has taken a very bad turn and she hasn’t got long left. Your mother needs to be with her.’
‘So, she’ll come back then? After Granny’s died?’
‘No, James. That’s the thing. Your mother has made the difficult decision that she can’t live in Australia any more. Her nose bleeds, as you know, and she’s allergic to the heat and she has those cramps . . . ’
‘She didn’t tell me. Why didn’t she tell me?’
‘Listen, son. I know you’re hurting. I’m hurting too.’
‘Yeah?’ I said. ‘Doesn’t bloody look like it.’
He stared at me the same way he sometimes stared at her; as though he didn’t know who I was.
‘Well,’ he said, ‘maybe we should talk in the morning. Get some sleep. Alright?’
My father made himself some dinner that night and ate alone in his study – the room he called his ‘den’ and which, with a camper bed and a small bedside table, soon became his bedroom. A few hours
later he came back to my bedroom and, like before, sat on the end of my bed.
‘She didn’t leave because she doesn’t love you,’ he said. ‘She left because she felt she had no choice.’
He put his hand on my knee.
‘I’m not an idiot, Dad. You must’ve got rid of her. And I’m leaving. And you have to pay for my ticket and everything.’
‘You can’t leave in your final year of school.’
‘Then I’ll go when I’ve finished school.’
‘Let’s not make any rash decisions.’
‘You’re lying,’ I said. ‘Leave me alone.’
As he left my room, he turned off the light, and he also switched off the light in the hallway.
‘Turn the hall light back on,’ I shouted.
He came back and stood at the end of my bed, his arms folded.
‘You’re nearly sixteen, James, and you’re still afraid of the dark. She’s made you too soft. Maybe some time apart will be good for you.’
‘How would you know what I’m afraid of? And so what if I am?’
He tried to smile.
‘You’re right, son. We all have our peculiarities. I shouldn’t have said that.’
‘You made her leave, didn’t you?’
‘Please don’t do this, son. I’m very sorry she’s left us and it’s not my fault.’
‘Leave me alone. I’m going to sleep. And don’t close the bloody door.’
He looked at me, but with a softer face.
‘If you plan on taking this out on me, I hope you’ll reconsider. We need to get through this together. The alternative is disastrous.’
I felt like spewing and I had a nervous gut that felt almost the same as bad hunger, after a whole day without food. I wanted him to stay with me and I wanted to make peace with him but I went on accusing him and it wasn’t the last time I crucified and punished him when I’d stopped being angry and wanted to be nice with him.
About a year into our marriage, when Janice and I started to argue, mostly about petty things – like her habit of going to the shops to buy cigarettes and not telling me she was going, and not asking me if I needed anything – instead of letting it drop, I’d go at her, and made the sour mood worse, and even when she’d said sorry, and I wasn’t angry any more, I held to the anger, and it was never about the thing that had started it off.
Though it was only nine o’clock, the kitchen was stifling hot and the backs of my knees were sticky with sweat.
‘So, Dad. You said you wanted to talk about something.’
I straightened my shoulders, tried to give myself a bit more height, to hide my worry and fatigue.
‘Yes. I’ve been meaning to ask you whether you’ve given any more thought to taking the exam.’
He meant the mature-age medical school exam and he’d asked me about it the last time he came round, and the time before that.
‘Not yet.’ I said. ‘I’m not sure.’
‘Do you think you’ll work as a nurse for the rest of your life?’
‘I might, Dad. I like it. Plenty of people do. It’s weird that nobody seems to know the stats. All the research shows that people in lowly jobs are often happier than high-flyers. How come that’s so hard to believe?’
‘Alright. OK. Let’s drop it. But, what about –’
‘Dad, stop it. Please.’
But the way I must’ve looked to him that morning was more proof to him that I needed a better job, a better life.
‘How’s your blood pressure been of late?’
‘Normal, Dad. It’s normal.’
‘Do you still get those dizzy spells? Maybe while I’m here I could check your vitals?’
‘I can check my own bloody pulse. There’s no need.’
‘You look a bit flushed. A bit iffy around the gills.’
‘There’s nothing wrong with me. It’s just stuffy in here. I feel like I’m wearing a bear suit.’
‘I see,’ he said. ‘You never did warm to the heat.’
He laughed at his own joke, a right schoolboy.
‘Good one,’ I said. ‘That’s a good one.’
We both tried to smile, and then, more silence.
The only sound came from the traffic in Ormond Road – the delivery trucks beeping as they reversed out of the Mornflake warehouse.
He wasn’t troubled by the silence, or the lack of something to do with his hands. He was tidy and ambitious and he liked his own company and even a stranger could see it; the way he sat with his hands on the knees of his khaki shorts, the creases just as they were when he pulled them, brand new, from the box.
After my mother left, my father and I lived together for five years and, for most of those years, when he got home from the surgery, I’d be stuck with him, trapped in the kitchen or lounge-room, with all his talking, his always-right views on life, and when I went into my bedroom, and he wanted to check on my homework, he’d just barge in, and I’d have to yawn my head right off its hinges to get rid of him.
Most weekends I’d pretend to be going into the city to see a film with friends and instead I’d catch the bus to an internet café three suburbs away and drink Coke and play games online and I sometimes tried to find my mother.
When I was in my second year at uni, he asked me to have a drink with him.
‘It’s time we had a proper man-to-man chat,’ he said. ‘Make sure you can spare me at least an hour or so.’
We met on a perfect spring day, a gentle day, and we sat in the corner of a dark pub, near a television perched on beer kegs.
After a bit of small-talk, he said, ‘It’s time I told you a few home-truths. About your mother.’
‘OK,’ I said. ‘Go ahead.’
‘Well, for starters, I knew your mother was up to no good years before she left us.’
As far as I was concerned, she hadn’t left us – she’d left him. She’d got sick of him and found somebody else. I was only fifteen, but I wasn’t stupid. I’d heard her yelling at him, and I’d heard her say ‘Men shouldn’t talk as much as you do, Richard’ and I’d heard her accuse him of killing the cat.
My father sipped his beer slowly and looked at the TV for a while. There was a cricket match on, which he loved, and I didn’t.
‘She was a very good actress, your mother,’ he said. ‘A very good liar.’
I was too angry to speak. What he’d said got me in the gut, a weird kind of wetness low in my stomach and when he came back to the table after ordering another round, he put the drinks down and sat closer and, after a moment, as though he was a different person, he put his hand on my knee.
‘I’ll tell you something now,’ he said. ‘Even pretty eyes commit crimes. You should bear that in mind when you start making lady friends.’
‘Right,’ I said.
‘You prefer ladies, don’t you?’
‘Of course I do,’ I said. ‘Jesus Christ!’
I moved my leg.
‘Well then,’ he said. ‘You’ve been warned. You thought your mother was an angel because she looked like one, but you were completely wrong about that.’
‘Right,’ I said. ‘So she didn’t go home to England to look after Granny.’
‘No.’
‘I’m going to the loo,’ I said.
I’d had enough of him. I took the long way round to the door, past the toilets, and behind the dining area.
‘Where are you going?’ he said.
He’d followed me, was standing right behind me as I tugged at the door.
‘Sorry, Dad. I need to go back to uni. I have to meet my tutor.’
He followed me out to the street. ‘Did you hear what I said before? Were you listening?’
‘Yes, but I have to go to a lecture.’
‘You need to wake up to the facts,’ he said. ‘Do you fo
llow me?’
‘Yes,’ I said.
The bus stop was a few feet away and a bus was pulling in.
‘I have to go,’ I said.
‘James,’ he said. ‘Wait a minute.’
I turned back.
‘I’ve made things worse, haven’t I?’
He moved to me and I suppose he wanted to give me a fatherly pat, maybe a hug, and he never found that kind of thing easy, neither of us did.
‘Wait a minute, James. Just hear me out.’
The bus was gone.
‘I know I’ve made things worse. I shouldn’t have told you the truth. I only want the best for you.’
Though I wanted the same as he did – no more being at war, some affection – I was too hurt, too angry, and all I did was shrug.
‘Whatever you say, Dad.’
‘Are you alright?’ he said.
‘Yeah. Alright,’ I said.
‘You missed your bus. Here . . . ’
He took a few notes from his wallet.
‘Catch a taxi. I don’t want you to be late.’
‘No need,’ I said. ‘I’ll walk.’
We saw very little of each other after that spring afternoon; maybe once or twice a year, my birthday and Christmas, but that changed when I married Janice.
On our wedding day, at a small outdoor gathering by the lake, he gave me our wedding gift, which had been wrapped by his favourite department store, David Jones. He gave us a tartan picnic flask, a picnic basket with six matching cups and plates, and a tartan rug. ‘You’ll have a family of your own, soon,’ he said. ‘And I want to help you along. I can help you get on with things. I can help you sort things out.’
And here he was at the flat again, another visit, and I think he probably knew how bad things had become.
The Best British Short Stories 2013 Page 15
