Father of the Man

by Stephen Benatar

  “What else can I do?”

  “And in fact,” continued the conductor, “I’d strongly advise against it. If I see you on this train tomorrow night travelling without a ticket you won’t find me nearly so lenient.” He finished writing out the free one, tore it off and handed it to Roger. He stood there waiting for the card. There was a moment’s silence.

  Sheepishly, Roger took it from its folder and passed it over.

  “But the thing is…” He tried to retrieve some little dignity. The conductor began to look impatient.

  “Yes?”

  “I don’t want to be difficult or anything. But…Well, I reckon you will see me on this train tomorrow night; there’s no other way I can get home.”

  “In that case, sir, the police will be seeing you as well. Not a very pleasant experience, not one I’d really recommend. Also, it would involve a fair amount of delay. I don’t imagine that would win you a lot of popularity among your fellow commuters.” With which he turned away—quite sharply. “All tickets, please. Everybody have their tickets ready, please.”

  The train was slowing down for its approach to Wellingborough. Roger’s neighbour started putting his things back in his case. “Why don’t you contact Melanie Phillips at the Guardian?” he said. “If there’s an arrest in the offing it’s possible they’d want to send a reporter along. Might make good copy for them.”

  “Yes. Thanks. I will.” The words were surprised out of him, due solely to politeness. He didn’t suppose for one second that he’d follow such advice.

  But with so many people at this moment getting up from their seats, reaching for their overcoats and hurriedly shrugging their way into them, gathering together books and papers and Walkmans, it was difficult to tell what had been the overall reaction—and therefore doubly morale-boosting to have received this sign of solidarity from the perhaps not-so-stereotypical accountant, if that’s indeed what he was. Roger said a grateful goodnight and wondered if there might be any chance of sitting next to him tomorrow.

  Authorization from Derby? Worryingly, the conductor had paid scant attention to any such possibility, and now, when Roger returned to the station manager’s office, he not only found it closed, with no voucher for him pinned to either of its doors—which, anyway, he would hardly have expected—or left at the ticket office…although prior to the conductor’s words he had felt confident he would collect it there; almost as dismayingly, he was told that in the morning the manager certainly wouldn’t have arrived until Roger’s train was well on its way to London.

  Indirectly, as he was leaving the sitting room and heading for his bath, his mother made a speech acknowledging his problems. (Sadly his father appeared not to know about the situation and was still feeling depressed; it didn’t seem a good moment to tell him. Damn. He’d normally have been supportive. The timing was all wrong. How could he have thought, even fleetingly, that the whole thing could be meant?) She said, “Darling, remember a mother always loves you, no matter how foolishly—or quixotically—you behave. I hope you’ll have a good day tomorrow. I hope you’ll like your sandwiches.” This last bit made him think she’d probably gone out of her way—things being as they were—to get him something special.

  8

  Tuesday. Ephraim awoke from a dream in which he had been surfing in Southern California, hang-gliding in the Lake District and planning excitedly around an outdoor table with Jean and the children; he couldn’t remember for what they’d been planning but it was clearly something they’d all been feeling pretty good about…he awoke from this dimly recollected aura of sunshine, affection and peace, to the abrupt and plummeting awareness that nobody loved him and that life wasn’t worth the living. Also, it was raining.

  As usual he brought Jean her tea and cereal in bed; she didn’t have to open up the shop till ten and he was supposed to be in the office by half-past-nine. (“I thought I was classed as self-employed,” he’d grumbled once, upon a somewhat late arrival. “Well, I’ve discovered something: I’m an easygoing boss.” But all being self-employed meant at Columbia was that you weren’t given any salary and that your National Insurance contributions didn’t get paid for you. He’d thought of photocopying the definition of self-employed from the Shorter Oxford Dictionary, getting it blown up and tacked to the wall above his desk, in place of all the gilt-framed certificates and photographs of handshaking or boozy backslapping at the annual sales convention ‘held in exotic locations around the world’ that some of his more established colleagues, the sporters of tiepins, ‘enamel and silver and gold pins which become studded with diamonds and other gemstones as a recognition of your achievements’, considered the main essential of office décor. But in the end he just couldn’t be bothered.) Yet today again, instead of her customary cheerful greeting as he set down the tray and poured out her initial cup of tea, she only thanked him stiffly and they spoke no more than was necessary to observe minimal courtesies and maintain a feeble pretence that they were still communicating.

  Around nine o’clock, in the very few minutes he had this morning between walking the dog and leaving for work, and as he was too roughly towelling her dry—poor Polly standing quite as patiently as ever—the telephone rang. He heard a faint feminine voice telling him, and it took several seconds to adjust to its accent, that there was a call for Mrs Mild from her son in Calcutta and would she please be prepared to accept the charges?

  Inwardly Ephraim cursed. He had no desire whatever to speak to Oscar at the moment and only wished that the call had come through two minutes later, even though Jean probably wouldn’t have heard it ring—indeed, partly because of that. But he didn’t go to the foot of the stairs and shout: by the time she arrived he could imagine those charges racing towards a positive frenzy of ticks and whirs and revolutions. This was the fourth time Oscar had rung—“Just wanted to say a big hello to my folks and tell them how my heart is pining!”—but such endearing messages would have meant more to Ephraim if they hadn’t always come collect and at the most expensive time of day. Added to which—no, thoroughly superseding which—he felt resentful that it was Mrs Mild who unmistakably had been the person asked for.

  “Yes, yes, we’ll pay for it. This is his father. Please put him through.”

  “Hello, Pop. How’s my pop?” Oscar’s voice sounded amazingly loud and clear, especially after the soft incomprehensibility of the operator. He might have been speaking from somewhere just a mile away. Ephraim would have preferred it if he had.

  “Worried about the cost of our next phone bill, my son.” But he struggled to keep his tone light—and truly believed he had managed it. He felt relief. It would now get easier. “How are things in our late lamented empire?”

  “Actually, not too good. That’s why I’m phoning. Is Mum there?”

  “What’s the matter, Oz? Mum’s in bed.” Despite the abbreviation, his answer had been sharper. Well, you could ascribe that—and with some legitimacy—to concern about the boy’s wellbeing. He also realized he might have given the impression that Jean was unwell; if so, let it stand.

  “I’ve had my wallet stolen,” said Oscar.

  “Oh, Christ.” Oscar was frequently having things stolen—or in any case mislaying them—because he was too forgetful, too trusting, too careless. Recent claims on their insurance had included a newish bicycle, which they’d had to pretend had been padlocked when taken, and an equally valuable camera. This wasn’t to count such sundries as a suede jacket, three Walkmans, a sweater, a pair of swimming trunks and even two long-playing records still in the carrier bag from HMV, for all of which Ephraim had refused to seek reparation, but each of them gone missing within the past couple of years. (On the other hand, Oscar was continually finding things, as well: five-and ten-pound notes, coins, a pair of good sunglasses; most importantly, a Rolex wristwatch, unclaimed after the statutory month it had needed to be left at the police station, but then, barely another month later—almost incredibly—lost again.) “Was all your money in it?” asked
Ephraim.

  “Yes. And traveller’s cheques. And credit cards.”

  “Oh, Oscar, I don’t believe this! Don’t say you kept them all together?”

  “Listen. Can I just speak to Mum?”

  “No, you can’t just speak to Mum. Does this mean you’ve been left without a thing?”

  “Yes.”

  A pause. A voice cried out in Ephraim: “For God’s sake…only connect! Only connect!” Maybe he hadn’t ever let the bathwater run over, or the bottom burn out of a saucepan, but he too in his time had been known to be casual about certain articles of clothing…although never about money. Perhaps in their different ways they were both adventurers, daredevils, possessing all the plusses and minuses that being such things entailed. “Only connect!” cried out this voice.

  “Some students I’ve fallen in with,” said Oscar, “have managed to lend me a bit.”

  “What about Rick? And, thank God, at least the living is cheap.”

  “Don’t be stupid! It’s not the living that matters. I haven’t got any way of getting home.”

  Don’t be stupid! Ephraim bit his lip and dug his fingernails into the palm of his free hand. Why did this have to be happening now? Only a few weeks back, during his manic period, he could have coped brilliantly with such a crisis, might even have welcomed it, seen it as a test, as something that would inevitably—and forever—reestablish their closeness. (When had that closeness slipped away? Why had it? How?) “Pop,” Oscar would have said, in years to come, “do you remember the scrape I got myself into in India? And how calmly and effectively you rescued me! Never one word of recrimination! Did anybody ever have a dad like you?” But already it was too late, it was blemished, his exasperation manifest, irretrievable. No, you can’t just speak to Mum.

  “And didn’t you receive my last letter? Rick and I split up six weeks ago.”

  Ephraim remembered it now: information tossed off in a single sentence and driven from his mind by one that closely followed it, involving love and prayers and the particular way in which these and all his thoughts had been apportioned…“Have you still got your passport?” he asked. Yet that was merely something to say, to cover the fact he’d failed to pay due regard to a casual remark—ostensibly casual—masking a matter of concern. (But why the fuck hadn’t Jean made more of it?)

  “Yes, Dad, I’ve still got my passport. I’ve never kept my passport in my wallet. Do passports even fit in wallets? One day let’s carry out a survey.”

  But then this air of strained tolerance abruptly turned into something else. There was a sudden break in Oscar’s voice that quivered audibly along five thousand miles of telephone line. “Don’t you understand? I haven’t got any way of getting home! I don’t know what to do.” In the space of only a few seconds, Ephraim saw the little boy who used to grip his hand so tightly whenever they had to pass a large dog or a bearded old man; who at the age of four—standing, straining, with both arms fully stretched—had stopped a tall and badly balanced cupboard from falling on a baby cousin; and who more than anything had nearly always borne him extremely good company. He saw the two of them moving like quarries along an empty moonlit street, arms linked, glances swinging from side to side—“Lions and tigers and bears, oh my, lions and tigers and bears, oh my!”; he saw them, with Roger, skipping down a hilly path winding amongst trees, himself in the centre and holding his sons’ hands: “We’re busy doing nothing, working the whole day through, trying to find lots of things not to do…” He saw them playing Little House on the Prairie. (“Paw, I surely appreciate how you can spit tobacco juice further than any other man in Kansas; I feel plum tuckered out with only thinking how much you and Maw jus’ love me and with hoping she’ll be waiting for us with some of those li’l old corncakes covered in molasses; shucks, I sometimes figure I must be the luckiest critter that ever was born, because the good Lord’s been so kind in giving me a maw and paw like you…” He could carry on in this way for hours.) It was like what happens to somebody drowning, supposedly. Ephraim saw the youth who had provided a bottle of champagne for each of his parents’ last four wedding anniversaries; who once—eight years ago?—when he, Ephraim, hadn’t known where to find the money to renew their television licence, had simply disappeared and paid for it himself, out of the fund he’d been amassing from his paper round to buy a music centre. (And how completely out of character for Oscar ever to have saved!) He remembered how bereft the boy had been at the death of Rick’s father. Those drowning seconds had made him feel ashamed.

  “Well, look, Oz, somehow we’ll get the cash. How much do you think you’re going to need?”

  “I want to come home. Enough to fly me home.”

  Fifteen thousand, four hundred and ninety rupees. Divide that by thirty-five. Nearly four hundred and fifty pounds. Dear God.

  “Anyhow, don’t worry. Truly. We’ll manage something.”

  But only two weeks ago he’d tried in vain to raise some money for the mortgage…no, remortgage, this time they daren’t get too much in arrears, he was frightened by the thought of repossession. He had realized, of course, that the bank wouldn’t help but he’d been disappointed by the few friends and relatives—some of Jean’s, too, though none of this was known to her—whom he’d then determined to approach. Yet today it would be different: no longer a matter of just the mortgage but now of a twenty-two-year-old boy practically destitute in a strange place literally thousands of miles from home. (But thank God for those students; thank God, thank God for those students.)

  “Phone back tomorrow,” he said. “I’ll let you know what I’ve arranged.” A sudden thought occurred to him. “There’s none of your friends I could try to borrow from?” After all, the lad had been to Oxford.

  “No!” All the vehemence voiced in one syllable suggested that Oscar, who subscribed to The Gentlemen’s Quarterly and had his street cred to consider, would rather have starved in foreign lands than be exposed to such embarrassment.

  “All right. It was only an idea.”

  “May I speak to Mum now?”

  “Yes, I’ll go to call her. And keep your pecker up. Remember Meursault.”

  This was a longstanding joke between them: Oscar had often compared himself to Camus’ hero in regard to the fact that nothing fazed him; he was cool to the nth degree. (In an early letter from India, for instance: “You may have noticed a certain vagueness in our plans. In Budapest, unfortunately, we weren’t able to buy any sort of practical guide to Asia, so we’ve been catapulted onto this continent without much sound idea of whys or whats or hows or wherefores. Walk the tightrope, Pop! Live on the edge! Meursault would quake with approval.”)

  About to shout for Jean, Ephraim changed his mind. He returned to the telephone. “No, Oz, speak to her tomorrow—not now. She’d only be thrown into a panic. You wouldn’t want that.”

  “Okay. Do what you can, then. Thanks. Well done, Dad. And when you do reveal all, just give her my love. Tell her I’m fine.”

  His son’s spirit might be reviving but still, Ephraim thought churlishly—and was aware of being churlish—it was Jean who received the love and ‘Dad’ was not changed back to ‘Pop’. “Right…well, I’ll give her your love but you’d better give me your credit card numbers,” he answered drily.

  Oscar told him where to find them—also the numbers of his traveller’s cheques (what organization!)—and reiterated his gratitude. But when Ephraim replaced the receiver he realized that although the greater part of him felt thankful, after all, that the phone had rung just when it did, the other part felt thoroughly hard-done-by. As well as thoroughly worried.

  The trouble was, the more hurt you showed you were, the less affection you received.

  It was a vicious circle.

  Yet what was the good of recognizing this, if you knew you couldn’t break free?

  He picked up the towel and finished drying Polly. She, too, seemed a little worried. But he stood stroking her after he’d done, and then she tentatively wagged
her tail.

  Walking down Woodborough Road in the fine rain, this long and boring road that was dreary even when the sun shone, he first worried about Oz and how on earth he was going to raise the money for him. But then a van passed advertizing Delia’s Gourmet Meals Delivered To Your Door and he was unexpectedly distracted. Delia was the name Jean had chosen for the heroine of a series of bedtime stories about fifteen years earlier. Jean and Ephraim had taken turns telling their stories but Ephraim always read his out of books; and on the nights when Delia’s adventures were related he had sat on one of the children’s beds listening just as eagerly as they did. “Jeannie, you really ought to write these stories down. Remember what we always said!” It was what they had said for the first time that evening they went to see Pickwick at the Saville Theatre, in 1964, the evening he had asked her to marry him. (He hadn’t realized when he booked the tickets that she didn’t care that much for musicals. But he thought she had enjoyed this one.) He remembered her telling him over supper, after they’d been talking for a bit about Dickens, that one of the things she had always wanted was to be a writer. But until then, it seemed, she’d received little but discouragement…all the way down from the nuns who had never praised you for anything, perhaps on the grounds that praise would make you prideful; from them to her stepmother, who, unpermitted, had read the opening pages of an exercise book which Jean had thought safely hidden in a drawer; on to a boyfriend who had considered novels were a waste of time, politics and sociology were all that mattered; finally to the girls in the office where she’d first worked, to whom she’d made the mistake of reading out a love poem she had stayed up half the night composing. She had laughed as she told him. It was her own fault; she should have known they’d only tease her, make facetious comments. But the net result was that she’d lost her confidence, become inhibited, far too critical of anything she did write.

  All this, however, she had said with such humour that he had loved her for it. It was he who’d felt the bitterness—against unbending nuns and prying stepmothers; earnest radicals and giggling office girls—“a curse on all their tribe!”…he had drunk a toast to that. And this great surge of sympathy, and love, was what had suddenly confirmed him in his purpose to propose. “Sweetheart, you’ll get your confidence back! I promise! You’re interested in everyone, curious about everything, you express yourself so vigorously. You’ll always have plenty of encouragement from me. I’d be so very proud.” And he’d had visions—they both had—of Jean’s making up for all those wasted years and of her having her own small study, inviolable to everyone, except on invitation. Preferably it would lead out to a garden or at least be overlooking one.