Growing Up for Beginners

by Claire Calman

  He opened the drawer below. Inside was a pair of brand-new pyjamas, still in their crackly plastic packet, that she’d put on his bed weeks ago, before that date with Olivia when it had all started to go so horribly wrong. Brown and orange stripes, his two least favourite colours. They were the sort with buttons down the front, the sort his father wore, the sort, Andrew realises, he is inexplicably wearing now this minute, though these ones are a sort of drab olive-green check, unpleasant in a different way. Did he really go in to work dressed like this? It seems very unlikely now, not the sort of thing he would do at all. A sudden memory of Conrad’s putting his arm around him flitted into his vision and he shut his eyes and covered his face with his hands for a moment.

  Then he batted the thought away and focused back on the pyjamas, took them out and slumped on the bed holding the packet. When he was living with Vicki, he used to wear just a plain cotton T-shirt with pyjama bottoms, but somehow, since he moved back in with his parents – he corrected the thought – since temporarily coming here to stay for a brief period while he sorted himself out – he’d taken to wearing the old-fashioned sort that men under the age of sixty hardly wore any more. It was the great generation divide: never mind which TV programmes you watched or how you chose to vote – did you wear matching pyjamas with buttons or mismatched casual ones? Over sixty. Under sixty.

  He was a young man in old-man pyjamas, pyjamas that in every aspect of their being – colour, fabric, design, detail, buttons – were woman-repellent. What woman on earth would want to slip her hand inside there to reach for your cock? That’s what it came down to. These were not pyjamas in which you might feasibly have an erection. In fact, your cock wouldn’t even be a cock any more. It would be a willy, like a little boy or an old man has, good for weeing and nothing else. Say goodbye to your sex life, Andrew. There couldn’t be a woman on the planet who would fancy a man wearing these. What sex life, you sad tosser? He made a conscious effort not to count back how many months it had been since he’d last had sex, while being unable to stop himself working it out. Four… five months? No, because Vicki had suddenly fallen asleep unexpectedly when they were about to… So… six months? He leaned back against the wall and looked round the room, letting his mind roam onto something, anything else. Funny, really. Aside from a single row of books on the narrow desk in the corner – all the rest were in boxes up in the loft – his alarm clock, and his laptop, there wasn’t a single thing visible in this room that indicated that it was his. Of course, he’d only been here a month or so… five weeks, was it? He thought back, remembering the Saturday when Vicki had thrown him out. But that was early October and it was nearly Christmas now. No, that couldn’t possibly be right, could it? He suddenly covered his face with his hands. Over ten weeks ago. He lowered his head between his knees, feeling sick and faint.

  In five years, ten years’ time, he would still be here, living out his days in this small and sexless room, helping his mother with the shopping at the weekend, occasionally going out for a pint with his father to the pub two streets away – whoop-de-whoop! – doing little jobs around the house when his dad got too old to do them any more. God! Then his father would see his chance and seize the opportunity to die – peace at last – leaving Andrew with the short straw of looking after his mother.

  He would look in the Classifieds, go online, find a flatshare, a room to rent, anything – yes, at the weekend. He would take some time to find somewhere suitable and not too far out. There’d be time at the weekend. He would do it right this minute only he was so tired, so very tired, he just needed a little time to rest—

  A sudden, sharp knock at the door made him jump. Then his mother swept in before he could respond.

  ‘Oh, it is you! You gave me the fright of my life, Andrew. Whatever are you doing home at this hour of the day? I said to myself that’s a funny noise, is that Andrew I can hear creeping about upstairs, but I said no he’s not long gone to work and anyway he’d come say hello, of course he would, so then I’m wondering is that Dad back from the garden centre, but what would he be doing upstairs when he’s been that desperate to get out into the garden the second it stopped raining? Your father’s been back and forth to that garden centre I don’t know how many times he’d forget his head if it weren’t screwed on poor love. He’s never sat down for more than half an hour before he’s having to dash off on another errand, a five-inch pot for this or a reel of wire for that you’d think he’d rest up a bit since he retired but he’s never been so busy, what with his allotment and the bowls club and his computer and now he’s all of a sudden minded to take up fishing he’s barely home. But what are you doing home, Andrew, you’ve never gone and got the sack have you, love?’

  ‘No, of course not.’ Andrew felt sick, his mother’s words pounding against his head like a sudden storm of hailstones. He was praying she wouldn’t look down and spot his pyjama-clad legs beneath the hem of his winter coat, but Mrs Tyler, while blind to many things in this world, could be relied upon to notice the one thing you most hoped she might miss.

  ‘Andrew! You never went to work in your pyjamas? Oh my Lord, no wonder they fired you!’

  ‘They haven’t fired me.’

  ‘Oh, but they will. They’re bound to! It’s a museum, Andrew. You can’t just turn up in jeans – or – or – pyjamas – or whatever you like, you know. Whatever were you thinking?’

  The idea that wearing pyjamas to work might be somehow equivalent to wearing jeans was suddenly amusing and Andrew covered his mouth and converted the emerging laugh into a small cough.

  ‘It’s dress-down Friday. We all came in like this.’

  ‘But it’s Tuesday.’ She hesitated for a moment. ‘I know it’s a Tuesday because Dad put the bins out last night for the dustmen this morning.’

  ‘It was for charity. Wear Your PJs to Work Day!’

  He could see confusion writ large across his mother’s face. She was struggling to fit the apparently conflicting pieces of the puzzle together.

  ‘Tell me you’ve not been fired, Andrew? I said to Dad last night something was up with you. A mother can always tell.’

  ‘Mum, I haven’t been fired, I promise. I just wasn’t feeling well. I had a terrible migraine all of a sudden. I came home to rest, and I’ve just now changed into my pyjamas this second, OK?’

  ‘But you said it was for charity. You said the others were doing it.’

  ‘I was joking, Mum. Sorry. It was just a joke. A pretty feeble one.’

  ‘A joke. Oh.’ Her face struggled to decide between smiling and frowning, and settled on a disconcerting combination of the two. ‘Oh, I see.’

  He saw her looking at his coat.

  ‘And I put my coat back on because I suddenly felt a bit shivery.’

  Mrs Tyler blinked several times, possibly trying to find some pattern of sense. She peered more closely at his face.

  ‘Will I pick you up a packet of new razors when I’m at the chemist?’ she said.

  Andrew removed his coat and his mother took it from him, eyeing him with suspicion as if he were a broken teacup that had been glued together but not quite well enough so you could still see the cracks. He wanted to say, ‘I can’t do this, any of it, not any more, I need to lie down and go to sleep and never wake up. Go away, leave me alone and let me be until I am either cured or dead, I don’t care which.’

  ‘Will you have a lay-down then? Will I bring you up a cup of tea? It’s no bother.’ She was being kind and there was nothing he could tell her that would make any sense, so what was the point?

  ‘I’ll have a lie-down, yes. No tea.’ His shoulders slumped. ‘Thank you, Mum. I just need a bit of a rest, that’s all. Think I’ve caught some sort of bug.’

  He got into bed, lay on his back and pulled the covers up to his chin. He wished he weren’t such a pathetic coward. A braver man than he would go and jump in front of a train or hurl himself off a cliff. He thought it would be a relief to die, now, if he could just slip away with no
pain and no worry that he would be traumatising the train driver or that some poor sod would have to clean up his splattered remains. If he could just sink into blackness and be no more, he would do it. A single tear crept out of the corner of his eye and made a cautious journey across his cheek. He closed his eyes, slowed his breathing, and waited for sleep to take him away.

  At some point, Mum came in and announced, ‘Tea’s on the table in five minutes. It’s gammon steak, Andrew, your favourite, with all the trimmings.’

  He could hear his own voice saying thanks, no, he wasn’t hungry, but she said he must keep his strength up, she’d sooner die than see her men go hungry, and Andrew suspected she meant this literally rather than as a figure of speech. He pulled on his dressing gown and the effort felt as if he were hefting sacks of coal. He tottered downstairs on wobbly legs, watching himself from the outside as if he were weak and disembodied with flu. On the table were two oval platters for him and his dad, each piled high with a mound of chips and a shovel-load of peas alongside a great slab of pink meat, topped with a grilled tinned pineapple ring, quite the thing in 1973 – his mother had no time for the vagaries of fashion when it came to cooking – and a plate of white bread and butter on the side. All of Andrew’s trousers were getting tight. Now, when he took them off at night, they left a red ring incised into his belly. Maybe he should get some of those slacks his father always wore, with an adjustable fastening to allow him to breathe after ingesting one of Mrs Tyler’s considerable portions? Even these pyjamas were feeling very snug.

  ‘See, love, your favourite.’

  It wasn’t his favourite, not even in his top one hundred, but once his mother had made her mind up about something, it was hard to disappoint her by introducing reality into the proceedings. It was better just to nod and say, ‘Mmm, delicious.’ He felt queasy. His dad shuffled in and asked if he were feeling any better.

  Andrew looked down at his plate. The pineapple stared back at him, a yellow-ringed pink eye. ‘Sorry, I don’t feel so good.’ He pushed back from the table and rushed to the downstairs toilet, opened the door and fell to his knees to vomit into the bowl, his body lurching in deep spasms. He flushed the loo, then stayed like that for a few minutes, waiting in case there was more, wanting to purge himself of this horrible, deadly weight that had lodged inside him. Then he stretched over and slid the bolt across and let himself slump sideways onto the floor, feeling the comforting softness of the peach fluffy pedestal mat around the base of the loo. Slowly, he lowered his head to the floor and lay there, stroking the bathmat gently as if it were a trusty old pet that was too tired to go for walkies any more, letting his tears trickle down his face.

  When his dad tapped on the door, Andrew said he must be coming down with something, a stomach bug, a virus, that’s all it was, he’d be out in a minute. He kneeled back by the loo and stayed there a little longer, clinging on to the cold ceramic like a lifebelt.

  He flushed the loo once more and sprayed the Fruits of the Forest air freshener all around the room. Then he trudged back upstairs, brushed his teeth, and slid beneath the covers again.

  Andrew lay in bed, an undrunk cup of cold tea beside him on the bedside table. He had no idea how long it had been there. Although his mother did not usually permit food or drinks in the upstairs rooms, she had definitely brought it to him and set it down on a coaster, saying, ‘I’ve popped a tea there for you, love.’ She had paused with her hand on the door handle. ‘Should you call your boss to let him know you’re… that you’re… um… still not well?’

  ‘He’s a she, but I can do it. Thanks, Mum.’ He reached for his mobile by the bed and waited for her to leave.

  ‘Or maybe Dad could call, if you’d rather? He’s just popped out for a lightbulb but he’ll not be long, he said, though why he didn’t get it when he went out for the paper first thing I don’t know. I hope he’s not getting that Alzheimer’s what-have-you that everyone’s getting these days. My friend Yvonne says it’s the government putting fluoride in the water that’s doing it.’

  Andrew nodded and agreed that yes, indeed, it certainly was quite common.

  ‘Give me a shout if you need anything, love.’ She bent down and kissed his forehead.

  He didn’t want to talk to anyone, didn’t know what he could possibly say that wouldn’t sound pathetic or as if he were skiving. He emailed the Head of Conservation, saying he seemed to have come down with gastric flu and was likely to be off work for a day or two. He remembered Conrad at the BM. Being so kind. It seemed unlikely now. Conrad was many things: scarily clever and articulate, keenly observant, with astonishing powers of recall, but he wasn’t the first person you would turn to if you were looking for kindness. And yet he had been kind. Unquestionably. Andrew ought to – to – acknowledge it, at least. And he was sort of in charge of P and D while the Keeper was away; not officially perhaps, but certainly he was the person everyone went to if there was a problem. He half sat up and emailed Conrad, thanking him for his concern and for paying for his taxi home, which he would reimburse him for when he next saw him.

  The hours rolled by in a blur of dozing and murmurings from below, the periodic clinking of crockery and, oddly comforting for a change, the whine of the hoover, the small thuds as it bumped against the skirting board on the landing. A couple of times, Dad tapped on the door, then hovered in the doorway and asked him how he was feeling. His mother came in often, to take away the old tea and replace it with a new one. She’d even allowed a biscuit upstairs as she was worried he was wasting away – a garibaldi, presumably because it might produce fewer crumbs than most biscuits. The squashed raisins stuck to his teeth like tar, the dry biscuit clinging to the roof of his mouth. He swilled it down with cold tea.

  He slid further down beneath the covers and rested his chin over the top edge of the duvet, the way he used to when he was little and thought the Dust Men would slide under the door to come and get him. He’d once overheard his dad talking about the dustmen but he’d pictured them as the Dust Men. He imagined the horrible way they could slip beneath doors, a creeping, silent layer of dust, then would reshape themselves into men once they were on the other side, to come and take him away to their horrible dusty lair. He was warm and safe now, here in this little room. There were no Dust Men, no horrors. Being a grown-up was an overrated pastime, he considered. Now, back at home, he was like a kid again. Plenty of men would love to live back at home, he was sure – having your washing done, hot meals every night, big fry-up on a Sunday morning, the loose button on your shirt re-stitched as if by magic. He didn’t have to remember to buy more loo paper or pay the electricity bill or have the boiler serviced or keep a beady eye on his bank balance. And, if he helped out with any small household task – mowing the lawn, say, or helping his dad sort out the shed, or shifting the sofa so his mum could hoover behind it – they were so appreciative. He was valued here. He mattered.

  He’d thought briefly – with Olivia – that maybe something might come of it… that he liked her and she seemed to like him, hadn’t she? Well, it wasn’t to be. Again, her face swam into his vision, and he forced himself to think of something else. No matter. And anyway, clearly he had no judgement when it came to women because he’d thought he’d be with Vicki, hadn’t he? And look how that turned out. Relationships were too tiring. He was always trying to second-guess what the other person wanted, running in circles to keep someone else happy the whole time. What he wanted was a woman who would try to make him happy. Yes! And he had that now. His mum was being a real treasure, making him a packed lunch most days now, hoovering his room, bringing him tea, looking after him. Yes, he was a very lucky boy really. He rolled over and let himself doze off again.

  There was a light tap-tap at the door. Perhaps he could pretend to be asleep? So tired, so very, very tired. Even his bones felt tired. If he lay here long enough, maybe he’d somehow become part of the bed, the bed part of him, conjoined twins, alike in their deep love of being horizontal and immobile.
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  ‘Mmm?’ he murmured.

  ‘It’s me.’ His dad opened the door a little way and stuck his head round. ‘Mum sent me up. How are you feeling?’

  Andrew shrugged.

  ‘It’s early to be in bed, son.’

  ‘Is it? What time is it?’

  ‘Not yet half nine. You could come down and watch News at Ten, if you like?’

  ‘What’s the point?’

  ‘See what’s occurring in the world, like.’ Ron looked down at the carpet.

  ‘Maybe.’

  The door closed again and Andrew listened for the muffled tread of his dad’s slippered feet padding down the stairs, but there was no sound. After a minute, there was another light knock and his head reappeared round the edge of the door.

  ‘We don’t have to watch the news. Why not come down, eh?’

  ‘I’ll only have to come back up again. I’m tired.’