Growing Up for Beginners

by Claire Calman

  ‘Roger?’

  ‘Yes?’

  Eleanor delayed coming fully out of the wardrobe, thinking maybe it would be easier if she could at least start what she wanted to say from the safety of the cupboard.

  ‘Um, I wonder…’ she said over her shoulder, ‘would you mind very much if I gave the dinner a miss tomorrow evening?’

  ‘What?’ Roger laughed. ‘Nonsense, darling. Don’t be so silly. We can’t pull out now. It’s far too short notice.’

  She emerged from the wardrobe and kneeled back on her heels, looking up at him.

  ‘I’m not suggesting that you miss it. You could go without me.’

  ‘On my own? What on earth’s the point of being married if one has to turn up to parties alone, looking like some hopeless loser, Eleanor?’

  ‘No one thinks you’re a loser. It’s just that I’d really rather prefer not to go.’

  ‘Why ever not? It’s not ladies’ trouble? What reason can you possibly have for not wanting to go?’

  ‘I just don’t want to – that’s all.’

  ‘That’s not a proper reason, is it, darling?’ He laughed and shook his head at her funny little foibles. He removed his glasses and sucked at one stem as if he were a judge assessing the evidence.

  ‘It is to me.’ At last, she stood up. Straightened her shoulders. ‘I find them and their guests rather…’

  ‘Rather what, Eleanor? Spit it out.’

  ‘Rather boring, then, since you insist. Frankly, I’d far rather stay in and read or watch a film, if we’re not going to a proper party.’

  ‘It is a proper party.’

  ‘It’s ten people.’

  ‘Well, I’m sorry if the Harrises aren’t offering sufficient excitement for you.’ Roger sighed. ‘I must say, I tolerate your friends without complaint. It’s part of marriage. It’s called compromise.’

  Eleanor was speechless for a moment, then dug her fingernails into her palms and looked him in the eye.

  ‘Who do you have to tolerate then?’

  ‘Sarah and Mark, for a start. I have to endure entire weekends with them.’

  ‘But you said you liked Mark.’

  Roger sniffed.

  ‘He’s all right in a wishy-washy sort of way. But Sarah’s extremely aggravating – always with a bee in her bonnet about human rights or greedy bankers or women’s this, that and the other. It’s so tedious.’

  ‘I’m sorry you feel that way. You should have said. I’m always happy to see them on my own. I have no wish to make you spend time with them if you don’t want to. Look, why don’t you go tomorrow and have fun? I’m quite content here by myself.’

  ‘And what on earth am I supposed to say to Peter and Maggie about your absence? Really, darling, this last-minute messing about is very inconsiderate. It’s most unlike you. I wonder if there’s something wrong with you? Is it the change of life coming on?’

  It was all she could do to not clonk him over the head with the can of furniture polish in her hand. She clutched it tightly.

  ‘Very possibly. Say I’m not well, if you’d rather.’

  He sniffed again.

  ‘I might say you’re suffering from a temporary brainstorm.’

  ‘Whatever you like.’

  Roger turned to leave the room.

  ‘Oh, did you remember that my father is coming over at teatime tomorrow, by the way?’

  ‘Of course. You note that I am prepared to put up with your relations and associates, Eleanor, without complaint?’

  ‘It’s very good of you. Your patience knows no bounds.’ Surely even Roger must be able to clock such grinding sarcasm? ‘Anyway, he’ll only be here for an hour or so, so we can Skype Hannah in Thailand and Daniel in Bristol all together.’

  ‘I am wholly aware of the purpose of his visit.’

  ‘Fine. Hannah said she’ll spend the evening with her friends at this bar and internet café right on the beach everyone goes to. I thought it would be better if we use the big desktop computer rather than trying to huddle round a laptop.’

  ‘Yes, Eleanor, thank you. I do understand the advantages of a large monitor. I’m not an idiot.’ He sighed loudly. ‘And how is your father intending to get home afterwards, may I enquire?’

  ‘He was planning to walk or take the bus, but I can drive him as I won’t have to get ready for the Harrises.

  ‘Suit yourself. Clearly, I have no say in anything in my household any more.’ He looked back at her. ‘I seriously think you need to buck up your ideas, Eleanor. If you’re really going to be this bolshie all the time, I rather regret spending so much of my hard-earned money on the deluxe cruise. I trust you’ll try to get yourself into a more amenable frame of mind before we depart. Well, you’ll have the house all to yourself for two days while I’m in Jersey. Did you remember that I have to pop over there to finish up the contracts for Alan?’ He paused, jingling the coins in his pocket, then sniffed. ‘Do a bit of thinking about your attitude, eh?’

  45

  After Marcia’s Funeral

  2007

  Afterwards, the mourners are invited back to the family home. Some sit in the large, elegant drawing room, while others drift out through the French windows onto the terrace, or down the steps onto the lawn. It is late spring, and a rather fine day, Conrad thinks. The guests stand around, awkward and uncomfortable in their dark, hot suits, commenting stiffly on how lovely the garden is at this time of year and how good the sandwiches are – the English, as always, desperate to avoid any mention of death at a funeral. Tea is brought round by motherly Irish women in white blouses and black skirts, overseen by Eleanor, who with her customary unshowy efficiency, is making sure that elderly guests are seated in comfort, that everyone has a drink, some food, someone to talk to. Conrad watches her gliding from person to person, dispensing kisses and – rarely – hugs, laying a gentle hand on an arm there, nodding and listening, saying the right thing, doing the right thing, as Eleanor always does. She proffers crustless sandwiches, slices of cake, tea, a small whisky perhaps? Until one of the Irish ladies puts an arm round her and guides her to a chair next to her father’s, and tells her not to worry herself, it’s all in hand. She sits for all of two minutes before spotting some wrinkle in the proceedings that demands her attention and she is up and off again.

  Conrad is aware that she is also keeping an eye on Benedict, but, like him, from a safe distance. No doubt Eleanor cannot help but assess just how many whiskies the boy is imbibing. It is an impossible challenge: not to let Benedict have too much, but not to get into an embarrassing confrontation with him either. The scene at the crematorium comes back to him. He knows he should feel something for his son – pity, perhaps? Regret? Compassion? Love, even? – but mostly all he feels is dislike. He shucks the thought away in shame and folds an egg sandwich whole into his mouth, tamping down the feeling.

  One of the waitresses comes up to him with the bottle of whisky and a small tumbler.

  ‘You’d have a small taste, wouldn’t you now?’ she says.

  ‘Well, perhaps then. Thank you.’ He sets down his half-drunk tea. He is not usually a lover of whisky, but now the thought of its peculiar tingling sensation and haunting aroma seems tempting. ‘Um,’ he says, gesturing for her to stop pouring. ‘The whisky?’

  ‘Sure, there’s another bottle,’ she says. ‘There’s no worries there. It’s grand.’

  ‘No. It’s… You see – I wonder if...’

  The woman waits.

  ‘My son.’ Conrad detests inarticulacy; he has always relished his own ability to express himself with great clarity and precision. He can talk about anything – anything! – well, anything he can understand. ‘Over there.’ He nods towards Benedict, who is pacing to and fro by the herbaceous border, taking deep drags on his cigarette as if trying to fill his entire body with smoke. Now he stomps over and hurls himself into the ancient net hammock, which sags between two apple trees. His weight sinks it almost down to the ground. He lies there, lookin
g up at the sky, smoking. ‘He – it would perhaps be the wiser course of action if he weren’t to be offered…’ Conrad nods at the bottle in the woman’s hand.

  ‘He’s just lost his ma so.’ She means well, he can see that, but she doesn’t understand, you see, not about Benedict. No one does, other than Eleanor.

  ‘Yes, of course. But it’s really not good for him, you see.’ Conrad straightens up in his seat. ‘He has a medical condition and so it’s really better not. I’d appreciate it greatly if you’d direct the others accordingly. Keep the strong stuff away from him.’

  She nods and gives a small, tight smile, then moves away.

  Conrad takes a sip of the whisky – Christ, who’d drink this stuff because they liked it? – and watches Benedict, now swinging manically in the hammock like a child. God, he remembers: the boy playing pirates, up in his crow’s nest of the upper branches of the apple tree there, spying through his treasured antique telescope, the only present his father had ever given him that he’d truly loved. He used to leap from way up in the tree into the hammock – once he missed completely and broke his arm. Or he’d spring out at anyone who happened to be passing by and lunge at them with his wooden sword, playing, yes, but always in the end pushing it too far, so you’d be winded by the blow or thanking your lucky stars that he’d just missed taking out your eye.

  Suddenly, Benedict lurches out of the hammock once more, tipping himself out onto the ground. His suit is covered in green marks, lichen from the hammock, and cobwebs. Still, it’s not as if he needs it to go to work in. Presumably, it’s his only suit; it seems unlikely that he would need one to do the odd jobs that float his way from time to time: weeding people’s gardens, clearing out their garages, short stints as a motorcycle courier, a hospital cleaner, a waiter, a gravedigger until, inevitably, he pushes it too far and is hours late once too often, or tells the boss to go fuck himself and is fired. Who knows what he does these days? Conrad is pretty sure that Eleanor must give him money now and then, otherwise no doubt the golden boy sponges off whomever he’s living with. Benedict no longer asks his father for cash but whether it’s because he hates Conrad too much even to stand that brief contact with him or because even he – insensitive oaf that he is – knows that he is certain to be refused, Conrad doesn’t know.

  Benedict looks absolutely awful today – an angel fallen from grace: scrawny and scruffy, his face unshaven. His eyes, though the same intense blue as his father’s, are bloodshot and puffy; his hair, though a rare golden blonde like his mother’s, is greasy and in need of a cut. There is little sign of just how devastatingly handsome he is on a good day. Conrad watches him head off around the corner of the house, where the whisky-bearing waitress has just gone. Eleanor is flitting round the garden, attentive to the guests once more, like a keen gardener tending her plants, and he strives to catch her eye, motions towards the empty hammock with a nod.

  There is no need for explanations. They are as one in this regard. At once she comes over to her father.

  ‘I can’t see him,’ she says.

  ‘I suspect he’s gone to waylay the waitress with the—’

  ‘Of course.’ They approach the corner of the house and peer round as if playing a game. No sign of him. ‘Maybe down where the old shed used to be?’

  Benedict used to smoke down there, of course, at the far end of the enormous garden. Conrad can’t face it.

  ‘Perhaps you could check there? I’ll start in the house.’

  He ventures into his own house with a degree of caution, as if he fears a prowler might be hiding behind a door ready to leap out.

  ‘Benedict.’ He does not raise his voice, does not want to cause a scene. He wants just to separate his son from the whisky bottle and persuade him to go and sleep it off, that is all. He hopes to God Eleanor finds him instead; she is much better at this sort of thing, and with that thought shuffling awkwardly at the back of his mind, he ambles rather than quests about the house, taking cursory checks into the spare bedrooms, ignoring the cellar, the laundry room and other more likely, out-of-the-way spots. Finally, with a sigh, he slinks into his study, craving just a few moments alone in his sacred space, where he can look at her image and let it soothe him, as it always does.

  He opens the door. It is as if a whirlwind has spun through the room. The floor is covered in his papers. Books lie scattered and spread-eagled everywhere. And there is Benedict, sitting in his father’s old captain’s chair, with his earth-smeared shoes up on the desk, resting on the freshly printed-out latest draft of Conrad’s book, which he’d been planning to proofread the following day. Benedict is swigging whisky straight from the bottle. He looks at his father.

  ‘I’ve rearranged your study for you,’ he says, his voice blurred at the edges.

  ‘So I see.’

  Conrad is not a man of violence, always preferring the pen to the sword, but the urge to grab the whisky bottle and smash it over his own son’s head is frighteningly strong. He clasps his hands behind his back and breathes deeply.

  ‘Get out.’

  ‘Really?’ Benedict smiles, that long, lazy smile that seems to send everyone else to their knees in helpless adoration. ‘Not in the mood for a cosy father-son chat, Pa?’

  ‘I rather think we’re past that point, don’t you?’ Conrad looks round the room at the sea of academic essays, articles, notes and print-outs now strewn across the floor. It will take an age to sort out. He takes a covert glance at the painting. Unharmed, still on the wall. He breathes out. ‘And I do not sanction the presence of vermin in my study, so I would welcome your imminent departure. It will be aided by the toe of my boot, if necessary, believe me.’

  At the word ‘vermin’, Benedict’s face contorts into a sneer.

  ‘Get out. I’m not kidding.’ Conrad stands firm.

  ‘Really, that stern patriarch posturing is a fucking joke. You don’t give a fuck about anyone or anything other than your fucking tedious prints and books – that pile of dusty crap you spend your life wanking over in the British Museum. You make out you’re some pillar of the Establishment because you strut about in your jacket boring everyone shitless about eighteenth-century chiaroscuro or the heyday of copper engraving, but you don’t give a toss about people – not me, not El, not even your dead wife, you absolute bastard. You only mind about Mum dying because it’s dragged you away from obsessing over your great work for a day.’

  He grinds his muddy heels into the manuscript, then kicks it off the desk as he swings his legs down and staggers to his feet.

  ‘You’re a cold-blooded, unfeeling prick and as far as I’m concerned you could drop dead tomorrow and I for one would smile and sod off to the pub and toast your demise. Fuck you, you desiccated old git.’

  So, Benedict could be articulate enough when he chose. He steps closer and lifts the whisky bottle as if in a toast.

  ‘Here’s to your extremely sad and lonely old age, Pa. Christ knows, you deserve it.’ He takes a slug from the bottle then pushes past his father and leaves.

  Conrad stands there trembling, white and rigid with shock. He seems quite unable to move and so he is still there when Eleanor finds him several minutes later, standing in the doorway like a resident of Pompeii caught in a moment of horror.

  They have not seen or heard from Benedict since.

  46

  A Spade is a Spade is a Spade

  New Year’s Eve. Eleanor made a rich ginger cake to serve for tea, enjoying the simple, predictable process, the heady smell as she poured the molten butter and sugar onto the ginger and mixed spice, stirring the batter with a wooden spoon, enjoying the feel of it, the sense of being in charge of at least this one small thing.

  While the cake was baking, she popped up to her studio. She’d barely been up here for weeks. If she went up while Roger was at home, he usually came harrumphing up the stairs to find her or kept bellowing questions from downstairs – Where was his newspaper? Had she moved the coffee? Why wasn’t the remote in its prope
r place? – until she gave up and came down. His presence in her room never failed to set her on edge, like a cat whose fur has been stroked the wrong way. It was such a lovely, peaceful space, the only room in the house that was entirely to her own taste. It was painted a soft grey-blue, with Roman blinds of grey tweed and a faded, well-worn blue rug on the bare floorboards. There were proofs of her best prints pinned up on a board, and, in a plan chest, a modest number of each print she’d ever made. She kept the original woodblocks themselves in a glass-fronted cabinet. The most recent print, of the woman stretched out in the park, was in the centre of the pinboard. As she passed it, she automatically reached out and tapped the corner with her fingertip, as if it were a good-luck talisman. She had made two prints to have framed so that she could give one each to Sarah and to her father as Christmas presents, and been almost moved to tears by their response, although they exhibited their enthusiasm in such different ways. Sarah told her she intended to march her round to some galleries to show her portfolio of engravings as this one was ‘the best, best – definitely the best you’ve ever done – I completely love it!’, while Conrad had nodded and looked at her with one raised eyebrow, then pronounced: ‘This, daughter-dear, is in another league. I rather think you have come of age.’

  Eleanor plucked out the sketchbook she had used the last time she was in Suffolk. There had been that intriguing view she had made a start on – the way those trees leaned out like arms reaching for something. She’d love to work on it some more. She leafed through, looking for it. Hmm, the sketch was a bit scrappy – she’d only been drawing for a few minutes when Roger had interrupted her, saying, ‘Come on, my little da Vinci! Can you possibly stop doodling for a few minutes as the table at the pub is booked for one o’clock.’

  And she had stopped at once, mid-line, and tucked the sketchbook away, hoping she’d have a chance to return to it later, but then inevitably there hadn’t been time.