The Terrible Privacy of Maxwell Sim

by Jonathan Coe

  She was not especially pleased to see me. She was extremely sleepy. I was extremely drunk. Somehow we managed, none the less, to fall into an embrace. The lovemaking that followed was breathless, fumbled, and quickly finished. Neither of us, I believe, really knew what we were doing, or why we were doing it. They say that ‘You always remember the first time.’ I would have to take issue with that. The whole episode passed, for me, in a kind of haze. What I do remember is lying next to Barbara in bed for the next couple of hours. Neither of us slept, at first. I was staring at the ceiling, trying to make sense of the evening’s events through the alcoholic fog that clouded my brain. I do not know what Barbara was thinking. At one point I glanced across at her and saw tears glistening upon her cheeks. At four o’clock in the morning I sneaked out from beneath her bedclothes, left her flat without saying goodbye, and walked all the way back to Highgate through the silent London streets.

  I did not go into work that day. My hangover was too severe, for one thing, and for another, I shied away from the prospect of seeing Barbara again. The meeting would surely be too painful and awkward. And it turned out, of course, that she felt exactly the same way. Later that week she handed in her notice, and on the Friday afternoon she was given a small, subdued leaving party, which I did not attend. I was told by colleagues that she had decided to return home to Birmingham. I had no reason to think that I would ever see her again.

  Three months later, I received a letter from Barbara’s father. He told me that Barbara was pregnant, and that she believed me to be responsible. It was clear from the letter that he expected me to do what was still considered, in those days, to be the decent thing.

  And so, six weeks later, we were married.

  We lived for a few months in her parents’ house, near the Cadbury factory in Bournville, but it was not a satisfactory arrangement. I secured a post as assistant librarian at a local technical college, and before too long we had scraped together the money to rent a small flat in Northfield. Our first and only child, Max, was born in February 1961. It would be another five years before we could raise enough money to put down a deposit on a house of our own: at which point we moved to Rubery, to an anonymous, pebbledashed, three-bedroom house, in a characterless street of similar houses not far from the municipal golf course at the foot of the Lickey Hills.

  We would live here for most of the next two decades; and it was also here, in the spring of 1967, that I saw Roger Anstruther for the last time.

  How he found my address, I do not know. All I know is that he appeared on my doorstep, early one Sunday evening in May. In the City, Roger had always cut a distinctive figure. That evening, materializing without warning in the Birmingham suburbs, dressed as before in a long black cape but with the addition of a matching Fedora tipped stylishly on his head, he seemed positively outlandish. When I first saw him, I was too surprised to speak. I simply beckoned him inside.

  I led him into our back room, known to myself, Barbara and Max as the ‘dining room’, although we hardly ever took our meals there. There was no gin and tonic to offer Roger – he had to make do with sweet sherry instead. Barbara joined us for a while, but she had no idea who this exotic stranger was (I had never mentioned Roger to her) and it was clear that she was uneasy in his presence. After a while, she went next door to the living room, to watch television with Max. It was the day, I remember, of Francis Chichester’s return to Plymouth after his triumphant round-the-world voyage, and all three of us had been watching the live television coverage. Even while I was talking to Roger, I could hear the cheering of the crowds through the thin dividing wall, and the stentorian voice of the BBC commentator.

  There was some difficult small talk between us at first, but in his usual forthright manner, Roger wasted little time in announcing the point of his visit. He was leaving the country. England, he gave me to understand, no longer had anything to offer him. In the years since I had known him, he had converted to Buddhism, and now wished to travel in the Far East. He was going to start in Bangkok, where he had been offered a job teaching English to the local students. But before departing, he said, there were some ‘ghosts’ from his past, which he felt needed to be ‘laid to rest’.

  I took this to be a reference to myself; and told him, rather indignantly, that I did not consider myself to be a ghost, but a living being, composed of flesh and blood.

  ‘And this,’ said Roger, looking around at our dining room, with its neat array of ornaments, the ‘best’ china put out for display on the dresser, the cheap framed landscapes on the wall, ‘you consider this “living”, do you?’

  I did not answer. Fortunately it was the only remark Roger made, that evening, which implied a criticism of the life I had chosen for myself. For the most part, his mood appeared to be conciliatory. He stayed for little more than an hour, having to catch a train back to London Euston in time to pack for his departure the next day. He asked me if I forgave him for the way he had behaved towards me. I told him (not entirely truthfully) that I rarely thought about it, but that, when I did, it was not with any malice or reproach. He told me that he was glad to hear this, and asked if he could write to me, occasionally, from Bangkok. I told him that he could, if he so desired.

  The first postcard from Roger arrived about one month later. Over the years it was followed by many others, at wildly irregular intervals, from places as diverse as Hanoi, Beijing, Mandalay, Chittagong, Singapore, Seoul, Tokyo, Manila, T’ai-Pei, Bali, Jakarta, Tibet – anywhere you care to name. He never seemed to stay in the same place for more than a few months. Sometimes he appeared to be working, sometimes just travelling, driven on by that perpetual spirit of restless enquiry that seemed to be an essential part of his nature. Occasionally – very occasionally – I would reply, but I was wary of Roger, always, and careful never to reveal too much about myself or my life. I would simply write a few lines giving him the bare outline of recent events – that Max had passed five of his O-Levels, for instance, or that I’d had a poem accepted for publication in a small local magazine, or that Barbara had died of breast cancer at the age of forty-six.

  Last year, some months after Barbara died and Max left home for good, I moved back to my home city of Lichfield. On this occasion I sent out change-of-address cards to only a few select friends: but Roger was one of them, so I suppose that, at some level, I must have liked the feeling that we were still in touch with one another. But I wonder now whether it was the right thing to do. Whether there was any point.

  And now, in fact, I have reached a decision: no more.

  In a few days’ time I shall leave for Australia, and for the start – God willing – of a new life. And no, I will not tell Roger where I have gone, this time. It is time to forget all that, surely: to make a clean, and long overdue, break with the past. Writing all of this down, at long last, after so many years, has been a lengthy but also a refreshing and even purgative process. Max can read this, one day, if he so chooses, and learn the truth about his father and mother. I hope it will not upset him too much. Meanwhile, I must try to learn something from this protracted incursion to the past. I must take some inspiration, not from my memories of Roger, or of Crispin Lambert (whose jobbing firm, I notice from the newspapers, has just been acquired for a small fortune by a leading clearing bank), but from my visit to the Square Mile itself – that labyrinth of ancient, history-laden streets dedicated to the single-minded accumulation of money. Mired in the past for far too long, the City of London has recently been in the process of reinventing itself. It has proved that such a reinvention is possible, and for that I salute it. From now on, I shall endeavour to do the same thing, in a more modest way; and hope that I might even find some small measure of personal happiness as a result.

  20

  ‘So, tell me, Emma – how long have we known each other now?’

  – Proceed on the current road.

  ‘Can’t remember? Well, amazingly, it’s less than three days.’

  – In two hundred yards
, left turn.

  ‘I know, it feels longer than that, doesn’t it? I feel I’ve known you for years, now. Which is why I feel I can say something to you. Pay you a little compliment, if that’s all right. I mean, the last thing I want to do is to embarrass you …’

  – In one hundred yards, left turn.

  ‘… but what I wanted to say, really, was this. I just wanted to say that there’s one thing I really like about you. One thing about you that I’ve never encountered in any other woman. Can you guess what it is?’

  – Left turn coming up.

  ‘It’s the way … Well, it’s the way you never judge people. That’s a very rare quality, you know, in a woman. Or a man, for that matter. There’s nothing judgemental about you at all.’

  – Proceed for about three miles on the current road.

  ‘You see, I know I’m behaving badly. I know I shouldn’t have done what I did, and I shouldn’t be doing what I’m doing now. But you’re not going to give me a hard time about it, are you? You know that I’ve got my reasons. You know there are extenuating circumstances.’

  – Proceed for about two miles on the current road.

  ‘It doesn’t look good, I realize that. I walk out of Alison’s house at five o’clock in the morning, without saying thank you, without saying goodbye. Not only do I walk out, but I raid her drinks cabinet while I’m at it. Now, I know that Alison and her husband are stinking rich, and they’re not going to miss a couple of bottles of whisky. Not just any old whisky, admittedly, but two very expensive single malts. Well, that isn’t my fault, I don’t care what the bloody stuff tastes like, if they’d had Bell’s or Johnnie Walker in the cupboard I would have been just as happy to take those. Still, as a matter of principle – even leaving aside the cost – I can see that I shouldn’t have done it. As I said, none of this looks particularly good. So there I am, dragging my suitcase along the street at five o’clock in the morning, a stolen bottle of whisky bulging out of a jacket pocket on either side, two coppers in a parked police car glaring at me suspiciously as I walk by, and somehow … somehow I make it back into the centre of town, where I manage to find you again. What time would that have been? I lose track of time. Can you remember?’

  – Proceed for about one mile on the current road.

  ‘I mean, there were other things that happened in between. I’m pretty sure of that. There was a lot of walking around. There was that homeless guy in the doorway who followed me down the street and kept asking “Are you all right, pal?” And I sat on a bench for a while. Quite a long while, actually. It was high up somewhere, near a park, looking down over Princes Street and Princes Street Gardens and the whole city. The classic tourist view. It was still dark when I sat on that bench, and light when I got up and left. The snow was falling again, by that stage. Not settling, though. Just falling. Still hasn’t started to settle.’

  – Heading right at the roundabout, take third exit.

  ‘It was a relief to get back to you again, I must say. I was pretty cold by then. Took a few sips of the Laphroaig to warm myself up before we got going, which I know is really a bad –’

  – Exit coming up.

  ‘Whoa! Thank you – nearly missed that one. Wasn’t concentrating, sorry. And don’t pip your horn at me, you rude, impatient bastard, just because there’s someone who doesn’t know his way around here as well as you do. We’re not all bloody natives, you know. Now, where was I?’

  – Proceed on the current road.

  ‘Oh, never mind, I can’t remember. Let’s just enjoy the scenery. D’you know, I don’t think I’ve ever driven over the Forth Bridge before. This must be the furthest north I’ve ever been. That’s a bit stupid, isn’t it? Forty-eight years old and never been north of Edinburgh. I should make a list. I should make a list of all the things I ought to do before I get to fifty. Bungee-jumping. Hang-gliding. Reading one of those godawful books that Caroline always said would be good for me. Anna Karenina. The Mill on the Floss. Finding someone else to marry, going to bed with them, learning not to be scared of intimacy again, not being lonely any more (shut up shut up shut up), sailing single-handed round the world in a trimaran …’

  – Proceed on the current road.

  ‘Ah, Donald, you never stood a chance, really, did you? You stood no more chance of sailing round the world than I do of getting to Unst tomorrow and turning up at that shop with a box full of toothbrushes. Who are we trying to fool, eh? Who are we trying to kid? Ourselves, probably. Yes, that’s right. We have to fool the rest of the world at some point as well but that’s not the difficult part – the difficult part is convincing ourselves, isn’t it? Isn’t that right, Donald, me old mucker? Me old shipmate? Eh?’

  – Proceed on the current road.

  ‘Sorry, Emma, it’s you I should be talking to, isn’t it? Were you beginning to feel left out? Or perhaps you’re beginning to get worried, hearing me chat away to someone who died forty years ago, someone I’ve never even met. That’s not right, is it? That’s not healthy. Anyone would think I’d been drinking too much whisky before getting behind the wheel of this lovely car. I don’t believe in ghosts, and neither do you. Of course you don’t. You’re nothing if not rational, are you? A pure reasoning machine, you are. You don’t have a body, or a soul, just a mind, a beautiful mind, and that’s how I like it. What use would I have for someone with a body and a soul? What use would someone with a body and a soul have for someone like me? No, we’re made for each other, Emma, you and me. We’re like those “cosmic beings” that Crowhurst thought everyone was going to turn into. Disembodied. Too good for the physical world. In fact we’re so well suited that there’s something I have to ask you. Will you marry me? Go on – I’m serious. Gays and lesbians can get married nowadays so why shouldn’t a man marry his SatNav? Where’s the harm in that? I thought we were supposed to be all liberal and tolerant and inclusive in this country. Go on, what do you say? Marry me. Come live with me and be my wife. What’s your answer?’

  – Proceed on the current motorway.

  ‘Oh, we’re on a motorway now, are we? When did that happen? I hadn’t even noticed. So which motorway would that be, exactly? The M90. I see. And where are we heading towards, on the M90? Perth, apparently. Perth, followed by Dundee, followed by Forfar. Forfar! Now there’s a name. There’s a name to conjure with. Makes me think of football results. Didn’t the guy who used to read the football results on the BBC say that was the most difficult one to get right? East Fife 4, Forfar 5, or something like that. In fact everywhere around here makes me think of football results. Cowdenbeath. Dunfermline. Arbroath. I’d no idea where any of these places were before today but God, those names take me back. Saturday-afternoon telly. Final Score. What time was that on? 4.40, I think. Yes, that would be about right. Kick-off at three o’clock, game over at 4.45. Then the results would start coming up on that little automatic typewriter thing. What did they call it? The teleprinter, or something. God, 1960s technology! We’ve come a long way since then. How old would I have been when I started watching that – seven, eight? I bet every eight-year-old boy in the country was doing the same thing, sitting in their front room at teatime on a Saturday afternoon, glued to the telly. I wonder how many of them had their fathers with them at the time? Did my father sit down and watch it with me? Well, come on, Emma, what do you think? Take a wild guess. Of course he didn’t, the miserable fucking bastard. He was too busy sitting next door in the dining room reading T. S. Eliot and his String Quartets. Or planning when he was going to have his next wank.’

  – Come on, Max, have a bit of sympathy for your father.

  ‘What the – … ? Did you just answer me back?’

  – Proceed on the current motorway.

  ‘OK, I’m turning you off for a bit now. I think you’re getting too big for your boots.’

  ‘Better off without her, for the time being. Till I need her again, anyway. Not much chance of getting lost at the moment. What do I want to go to Aberdeen for, anyway? Th
ere’s no way I’m getting on a ferry this afternoon. Look at this weather, for one thing. What I should really do is go back to Alison. Turn round at the next junction, go straight back to her house, apologize. Poor woman. Pig of a husband cheating on her. What would she say, if I turned up looking like this? She’d understand. Trained psychotherapist, after all. Shoulder to cry on. That’s what I need, really. Someone to talk to about … all this. All this stuff. Everything that’s come out, in the last couple of weeks. Bit too much to cope with, really. Bit much to take in all at once. We all need somebody to talk to. How did you think you were ever going to manage it, Donald? Nine months at sea, was it? – ten, something like that? With no human company at all, just a radio transmitter that barely worked. Unimaginable. And, of course, you didn’t manage it in the end. Was that what tipped you over the edge, finally – the loneliness? The terrible privacy, as Clive called it? I’m not surprised. Nobody could be expected to handle solitude like that, and why should you be any different? You’re human like the rest of them. But you should have turned back when you had the chance. When you first realized that the boat was never going to make it. I don’t know, though, maybe things were already too far gone by then. Perhaps what you should have done, that day, when you realized the mess you’d got yourself into, instead of putting it all down on paper and trying to work out the way forward yourself … perhaps you should have used the radio, made contact with your wife, somehow. I bet she would have told you to turn round and come back.

  ‘Would’ve, should’ve, could’ve.

  ‘Still, you know – for me, it isn’t too late. I should phone someone now, shouldn’t I, while I still have the chance? I need to talk this stuff over. Who shall I phone? Lindsay, Caroline, Alison? What do you think? Poppy, even?