Tales of Persuasion

by Philip Hensher

  ‘I know,’ Sam said. ‘I thought I’d write this one, though. I don’t know where it came from.’

  ‘You don’t know where it came from?’

  ‘Well, I just made it up, I suppose.’

  Helena looked again at the pages she had just read, suspiciously. She flipped back to the front of the story, then to the back, then to the title page of the magazine, as if there might be some acknowledgement or explanation she had missed.

  ‘You never make anything up,’ she said. ‘That’s the one thing you can’t do. It’s always something that Anish told you, or something that nearly happened to your aunty Sylvia, or something someone told you about in the news, like that girl who was kidnapped you put into The Twelfth Girl. You just don’t.’

  ‘Well, I might have heard something like it,’ Sam said.

  ‘If that’s all there is to it, I should write a novel,’ Helena said. ‘I see a lot more stuff than you ever hear about.’

  ‘Well, maybe you should,’ Sam said. ‘No one’s stopping you.’

  ‘But this one you just heard somewhere.’

  And then there was one of Helena’s awful silences. Sam remembered what Anish had said, how open he was when undertaking any kind of deception; he did not think that his own wife was any less likely than Anish to detect his behaviour when mounting a lie. So in the interests of marital sweetness, he told her the whole story: about the unused study and the pub; about the ritual cigarette at the end of every other paragraph and the smoking ban; about the Duke of Clarence and Ted’s story. He would have told her about the ecstasy of the writing, the paragraphs between the quiet cigarettes, if the words existed between them to explain it. Sam finished.

  ‘He should be prosecuted,’ Helena said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘He’s breaking the law, and he’s putting his staff and customers at risk. That’s the plain truth.’

  For Sam, it had been a story about how he had got his inspiration back; she had heard a different story altogether. ‘He doesn’t have any staff, as far as I know. There’s only ever Ted there and sometimes his brother, and he smokes as much as Ted does.’

  ‘It’s against the law. If you saw the effects of smoking as much as I do – not that you ever take much interest in my work – if you saw the effects, I tell you, you might take this a bit more seriously.’

  ‘The effects of smoking—’ Sam was about to go on to say that the effects of smoking, after all, had paid for the house they were living in, but he saw that wouldn’t do, and he hadn’t seen it like that at the time.

  ‘Somebody ought to say something,’ Helena said, a dangerous glint in her eye. ‘Somebody ought to tell the police. They can shut a pub down for breaking the law like that.’

  ‘Be reasonable, Helena,’ Sam said. ‘It’s not harming anyone. If people don’t like it, they can turn round and go out again. And I’m writing really well, these days. I’ve found somewhere I can write.’

  ‘Maybe you should find somewhere you can write in a healthier atmosphere,’ Helena said.

  ‘I can’t. I’ve tried.’

  ‘Well, it’s not the end of the world, is it? You’ve made enough money now. You don’t have to go on writing at all if it’s as hard as all that – if other people have to die of lung cancer just so that you can write another one of your little books. It seems quite a high price to pay. It‘s called the Duke of Clarence, is it? I know someone who would be really very interested to discover—’

  ‘I don’t think—’ Sam said, but just then the kitchen door opened, and it was Peter; he was wheezing horribly.

  ‘Mummy—’ he said, getting it out between heavy-laden breaths.

  ‘Oh, God, Peter – have you tried your inhaler? Come on, I’ll get it. You see,’ she said, bundling Peter off and giving Sam the evils as she left, ‘sometimes there are more important things, and I really think—’

  Sam sat and waited for the recrimination, which hardly needed to be voiced. He never smoked in the house; he had no idea where Peter’s asthma came from. In his pocket, the hard potentiality of a box of Marlboro Lights. In time, the dreadful wheezing from the next room, like the basso of a much-punctured vacuum cleaner, began to subside. He considered. He had never thought about the way in which their lives rested on something so small; how Helena’s sustaining contempt for him as well as his capacity to write relied on the habit, acquired in his late adolescence, of no more than seven cigarettes a day. He heard, from the now quiet sitting room next door, the tiny clatter of the telephone being picked up, and sat gazing out of the window at the bare trees and densely parked cars. It had been a cold, dry day, and in a few moments, soundlessly, snow began to fall on the street, empty of people.

  The Whitsun Snoggings

  That Whitsun, they were nearly late getting away. It was Miles’s fault. Sally and Mum had drilled it into him that he had to be ready to leave the house by eight thirty. They had packed their suitcases, all three of them, the night before, and Sally and Miles had each had a bath before bedtime so they didn’t need to wash very much the next morning. Miles was always late for everything. Before last summer, when they were all together, Mum used to say, ‘He takes after his dad.’ But she didn’t say that any more, and his lateness was all his own, these days.

  It was their Whitsun treat, to go to London to stay with Mum’s friend Katy. ‘It’ll make a nice break for all of us,’ Mum said. She had known Katy for ever, since they were at college together. Going to London was a break from Sally’s new school, which was horrible, and also from the divorce, which was going on for ever, in Sally’s opinion. There were plenty of things to look forward to in London, and plenty of activities to keep them busy, Mum said.

  But on the morning when they were supposed to go to London, Sally was woken up by the sound of her brother unpacking his suitcase, next door. The thuds from his bedroom were huge boys’ noises. ‘Oh, no,’ her brother was saying to himself. ‘I can’t believe it.’ Sally got up and went next door. Miles was standing by an empty suitcase, the contents spread all over the floor – they had been carefully packed and folded last night.

  ‘Mum’s going to kill you if you don’t put it all back, right now,’ Sally said.

  ‘I thought I’d packed my red shorts and my blue cap from Whipsnade and my new best boots and I haven’t put any of them in.’

  ‘We’re only going for five days,’ Sally said. ‘You’ll just have to manage without.’

  ‘I can’t manage without my new best boots and my blue cap and – and – and my red shorts, I can’t.’

  Then Mum came upstairs, holding the phone. She was in her dressing-gown. ‘Miles,’ she said. ‘Oh, God’ – she was speaking to whoever it was on the telephone – ‘I’m going to have to call you back.’ She hung up.

  ‘You said I could take my shorts and my cap and my new best boots,’ Miles said. ‘And I know I put them in but they’re not there now.’

  ‘We went through this,’ Mum said. ‘Last night we talked about all of this and we agreed what you would put in and what you’d leave out. Oh, God, Miles, I really don’t want to deal with any of this now. Just put everything back into the suitcase just as it was, and we are going to leave the house, ready or not, at half past eight.’

  She walked downstairs, dialling the number again. ‘Katy?’ she said. ‘No, nothing. The kids being …’ and then the kitchen door closed behind her.

  Sally knew that the kind of threats that mums made had become serious in the last year or so. Since last summer. Before then, the sort of threats that mums made, and actually dads, too, were threats that never really happened. They would say, ‘If you don’t pipe down there isn’t going to be any supper,’ or ‘I’m only taking you to buy new shoes if you promise to behave yourself,’ and there would be no piping down, and no promise to behave, and yet the supper and the shoe-buying would somehow go ahead. But after last summer those threats had become strange and real. One day Mum had said, to Miles, ‘Honestly, Miles, if you don’t s
top whining about Sally breaking your things’ – and it wasn’t true, anyway, Miles had broken his Action Man Bungee Jump all on his own by trying to use it to hang the hamster – ‘then I’m not going to take you to Max’s birthday party.’ And Miles had carried on whining about her breaking the Bungee Jump, and quite soon Mum had picked up the phone and told Max’s mum that Miles couldn’t come because he couldn’t behave himself. Then she had gone to sit in the armchair and lit a cigarette. They had been astounded.

  So when she said, ‘We’re leaving the house, ready or not, at eight thirty,’ Sally knew that she meant it. Mum walked past their rooms, ignoring them, and went between the bathroom and her bedroom, getting herself ready, singing her cheerful-morning song. Somehow, Sally and Miles put everything back into the suitcase, and somehow found his blue cap and his red shorts. The boots would just have to be left behind.

  After breakfast, Mum sent them upstairs for their bags and to clean their teeth, and at eight thirty, Miles and Sally and Mum were just about to leave the house, exactly on time, when Miles said, ‘I know. I’m not going to pack my boots. I can wear them, can’t I?’

  ‘No, Miles,’ Mum said. ‘You’re going just as you are. You’ll have to manage.’

  ‘I’ll only be a moment,’ Miles said, and he darted upstairs.

  ‘Oh, for Heaven’s sake,’ Mum said. ‘We’ll miss the train.’

  ‘He’ll only be a moment,’ Sally said.

  ‘Miles,’ mum called. ‘We’re going. NOW. We’re leaving you behind. There’s some food in the fridge. Have fun. You can call Dad if you run out of everything. Go and stay with him. He’ll look after you. Him and Joanna. Bye, then.’

  And then Mum actually opened the door, her suitcase in one hand, Sally’s hand in the other, and started down the garden path. She hadn’t checked that they had everything; hadn’t asked them if they’d brought a book to read; hadn’t made sure that they both had their mobiles because London was a big place and it would be horrible to get lost in it. She had said none of that as she opened the door and started down the garden path. Miles, too, knew that these terrible threats could turn into promises these days, that those promised punishments could materialize. He hurled himself down the stairs behind them. He had his butter-yellow Timberland boots on, but they were unlaced; he could easily have tripped over them. ‘Ready?’ Mum said, unconcerned. ‘Let’s go.’

  Dad had been coming and going for months on end, before the ‘going’ finally turned into ‘went’. He first went straight after Christmas. Mum afterwards told them that he would be spending some time on his own. But they’d heard her telling him on Christmas Day to go and live somewhere else. He’d come back after New Year, but then the same thing had happened in February, and then in April. And then in the summer, after he’d come back for three months and they’d all tried to make everything work and had made everything worse, Mum had found some messages between him and Joanna on Facebook where everyone could see them and she’d told him to leave and not come back. Mum wasn’t on Facebook. She said it was stupid when you could see your real friends or pick up the phone and talk to them.

  They had heard of Joanna, and glimpsed her once, at the very beginning, when she had come to their house for dinner. But they didn’t meet her until the summer, after the awful holiday in Wales where everyone was crying or shouting or alternatively taking them on canoeing trips to cheer everyone up. Sally knew that she was someone Dad worked with. For six weeks after Dad had moved out for what turned out to be the last time, he didn’t come to see them or phone them. That was though both Sally and Miles now had their own mobiles, in case of being abducted or lost, and he needn’t have had to speak to Mum first if that was what he was worried about.

  But then after six weeks he did phone, on the landline, and spoke to Sally, then Miles. He said he’d like to take them out for a day, because there was someone he’d like them to meet. He sounded very cheerful; there was somebody shouting and laughing in the background, a woman’s voice. From time to time, Dad said ‘For Pete’s sake,’ and Sally realized he wasn’t talking to her. At that time, Mum was crying a lot, even in the mornings, and Miles afterwards said that he didn’t want to go. Mum told him not to be stupid, that of course he wanted to see his dad. Miles said that he didn’t want to see either of them, and Mum told him that wasn’t very polite.

  There was a lot of telephoning to arrange the outing, which was for a week on Saturday. In the end, it was to a stately home nearby, one that Sally had gone to loads of times with the school and with the Guides and with Granny Hopkins, too. ‘It was Joanna’s idea,’ Mum said quite firmly. ‘Apparently she wants to see as many stately homes as she possibly can, while she’s in this country. That’s nice, don’t you think? That she’s taking an interest?’

  It was the end of August, and because of the end-of-summer rains, there was some talk about it being put off. But in the end the forecast was good. They met Dad and Joanna at the car park outside the Bovey Tracey crafts centre. It was on the way to the stately home, and near where Joanna lived, in a small village with one pub and a post office. When they arrived, there was only one car in the car park, and Dad stepped out of the driving seat. He was wearing a new suit in a strange colour, a vivid, shiny green, and some very pointed black and shiny shoes. They could see that there was someone else in the car, facing front. Mum asked them if they’d like to have a cup of coffee before setting off, but Dad said it was better to get on, because there was plenty to see. Mum said goodbye, and Sally and Miles got into the back of the unfamiliar car.

  ‘Hello,’ Joanna said. ‘You must be—’

  ‘Hello,’ Miles said.

  ‘Hello,’ Sally said.

  ‘These are the kids,’ Dad said. ‘Miles and Sally.’

  ‘Hello,’ Joanna said. ‘You’re right – they do look like you. Right.’

  She had a loud, accented voice. Afterwards, they found out that she came from New Zealand. She had black, cropped hair around a big bony skull. Her nails were painted black, and her lipstick, which she immediately started to renew, was purple.

  ‘My God,’ she went on, ‘I thought those friends of yours would never leave.’

  ‘Who’s that?’ Miles said; he’d thought she might be speaking to him.

  ‘Those friends last night, Tom, sweety,’ Joanna said, not exactly ignoring Miles, but sweeping over him. ‘My God. They just sat there and sat there, and there was not one thing to be done but get slaughtered on whisky. Jeeze, I feel fucking rough this morning. You’ve got some fucking dull friends, Tom, I’ll tell you that for nothing.’

  ‘All right, kids?’ Dad said.

  ‘They’re at school, still, right?’ Joanna said.

  ‘Yes, of course they’re at school,’ Dad said, trying to laugh. ‘One’s nine, and the other’s twelve.’

  ‘Wow,’ Joanna said. ‘You really take education fucking seriously in this country. Still learning at twelve. Which is which? No, don’t tell me. I’ll only forget. Just not a children person, that’s me. So, what about this stately home, then? I’ll tell you – it’s got to be something to be as great as Blenheim. Wow, that was what I call a house. What’s this fucking place called?’

  ‘Chorley Bagwood,’ Dad said. ‘It’s not like Blenheim.’

  ‘Oh, I get it,’ Joanna said. ‘It’ll do for an outing with the kids. Divorced-dad type place. Social awkwardness, a herb garden and some fucking linenfold panelling.’

  ‘I’m not going to comment,’ Dad said, chuckling. Joanna reached across, put her arm round his neck, and whispered something in his ear. It went on for some time. When she had finished, as she slid back into her position in the front passenger seat, she turned her head, and for the first time assessed Sally with her gaze, assessed Miles in the same thorough way, head to foot, glaring.

  Later, Mum put down the phone and said, earnestly to them, ‘Dad wants you to know that he’s sorry it didn’t go that well today. Joanna’s a nice person, he says, but some people, they’re ju
st not a children person, that’s what he says.’ Sally could see that Mum was doing her best.

  ‘I never want to go to that place ever again,’ Miles said. ‘I hate that Chorley Bagwood. It’s really fucking shit.’

  ‘That’s what that Joanna said,’ Sally said, making an excuse. ‘She said fucking all the time. Like literally every sentence.’

  ‘Did you get to go down to the end of the garden?’ Mum said.

  ‘It was really muddy,’ Sally said.

  ‘Well, it would be after all that rain,’ Mum said. ‘Was Dad all right in his new clothes?’

  ‘He said his trousers were completely ruined,’ Sally said. ‘It was because he was messing about at the top of a slope and then he fell and slid right down. All up one leg there was mud. And that lady said it was his own fault for wanting to come to a stupid – a stupid stately home.’

  ‘Oh dear,’ Mum said, but she seemed quite cheerful about it. ‘Don’t say fucking, Miles. No one wants to hear it.’

  Plenty of people had never been to London. Even at Sally’s last school, there were people who hadn’t been. At her new school, she wouldn’t want to raise it. Everyone was friends at her last school, and if you had done something different from everyone else, or hadn’t done something that everyone else had done, that was all right. You could say, ‘We’re going to London,’ or ‘I sent a poem to the newspaper and they gave it a prize.’ Or you could have said, ‘My mum and dad are getting divorced,’ probably. And no one would have thought anything of it, because you had all known each other for ever. But something went wrong in the last year of small school and probably Dad forgot to send in the form in time, and Sally ended up going to Treetops School, where no one she knew would have wanted to go. It had been her fourth choice on the form. She didn’t know anyone there, and now she was there, she certainly wasn’t going to say, ‘We’re going to London,’ or ‘I sent a poem to the newspaper and they gave it a prize.’ She started to think that maybe she wouldn’t send any more poems to anyone now, because if you said it, or Jack Ballard or Sophie Okonwe or Chloe Macdonald or any of that tough lot found out, that would basically be the end of your life. Anything quite small, anything that made you a bit more obvious, that would do it for you.