Men from the Boys

by Tony Parsons

  ‘Go on,’ Ken invited her. ‘Stick it in me. Right there, girl.’ He gestured at the crest on his blazer pocket. ‘Then you’ll all be happy.’

  The son held up his hands. ‘Come on now, let’s all calm down,’ he said, and I could see that it was the daughter who shared her father’s temper.

  Ken leaned against the television set for a breather. The woman was looking at me.

  ‘Tracey,’ her brother said, ‘this is Mr Silver, who brought Dad back from the hospital.’

  She was shaking her head. ‘Please don’t tell me this is for him,’ she said, snatching the 500-gram pack from my hand. ‘Don’t tell me that.’

  I felt a flare of resentment. ‘Well,’ I began.

  ‘He’s got cancer,’ she said, very slowly, as if English was not my first language. ‘Lung cancer. Caused by this stuff.’ She threw the pack back at me. It hit me on the chest but I caught it.

  ‘I know,’ I said.

  ‘What’s going on in there?’ Tracey Grimwood said. She tapped her temple with an impatient index finger. ‘Are you as stupid as he is? You give Old bloody Holborn to a man who is dying of lung cancer? What are you thinking?’

  I took a breath.

  ‘I was thinking that it wouldn’t make much difference,’ I said, more calmly than I felt. I remembered my own parents giving up their Bogart-and-Bacall smoking fantasy before they died. And a lot of good it did them.

  She threw up her hands and went into the kitchen, where I could see her putting the kettle on. Ken took the tobacco from me and winked.

  ‘Just go easy with it, Dad,’ Ian said, gazing anxiously at the kitchen.

  ‘A little of what you fancy does you good,’ Ken said, settling himself on the sofa. He expertly cracked open the 500-gram pack and began emptying the sachets into his battered tin, the kind you can only find on eBay. He turned towards the kitchen. ‘I deserve a few small pleasures.’

  Tracey’s head appeared from the kitchen.

  ‘If you wanted pleasure, then you could have been a real grandfather to your grandchildren,’ she said. Then she looked at me. ‘Do you see any photos of my kids? Or Ian’s children?’

  I looked up at the mantelpiece. There was the young boxer. And the three children in the faded colours of the sixties. And in the middle, the one of Ken Grimwood’s wedding day. I looked at it now. He wore his naval uniform and stood proudly in his bandy-legged gait, his shy bride almost covered by the waves of her white wedding dress.

  Tracey came into the living room. ‘Beautiful grandchildren, he has,’ she said. ‘Beautiful, they are. Or were – they’re grown-ups themselves now. But did he ever take them to the park or read them a story? Did he ever do all the normal granddad things? No, he was too wrapped up in himself. Horses. And greyhounds. And gambling.’

  Ken was frowning at his tobacco. ‘Punk rockers, they were,’ he said. ‘Punk rockers and skinheads.’

  Tracey exploded. ‘That was years ago!’

  ‘I’ll make the tea,’ Ian said, scuttling off to the kitchen.

  ‘And Suzy was a Goth, not a punk rocker,’ Tracey said. ‘Now she’s married with a kid of her own. And does he show a blind bit of interest?’ She watched him unloading the sachets into his tin and sighed – a lifetime of frustration in one long breath. ‘And why are you here, Mr Silver? Apart from encouraging this silly old goat to smoke himself to death.’

  I thought about it.

  I didn’t know how to explain it.

  ‘He – Ken – was with my father,’ I said, and he didn’t look at me but I thought he was listening. ‘In the war, I mean. They fought together.’ I looked at her. ‘My dad was a Royal Naval Commando too,’ I said.

  She nodded, calmer than I had seen her. She picked up the bread knife from where it was sitting on top of the TV.

  ‘And your father passed away, I presume?’

  I was watching that knife.

  ‘Ten years ago,’ I said. ‘From lung cancer, as it happens. And he had stopped smoking in the final years. Not that it did him any good.’

  ‘Paddy Silver,’ Ken chuckled. ‘Hard as teak, that boy. A very good boy, old Paddy.’

  ‘Then you are one of those,’ Tracey said, tapping the bread knife in her palm. ‘I’ve seen a few of your type over the years.’

  ‘And what’s my type?’ I asked. I didn’t want to argue with her. But I felt I was going to.

  She looked at her father.

  ‘Men who think the old medal he’s got stuck at the back of some drawer holds the meaning of the universe.’ She smiled with vicious amusement. ‘Well, thanks for stopping by, Mr Silver, and thank you for your inappropriate gift, which I am sure is given with the best intentions. But let me tell you something about my dad, so that you do not leave here under any illusions.’

  ‘Ian!’ Ken barked. ‘That bleeding tea ready yet?’

  A plaintive voice from the kitchen. ‘Coming, Dad,’ the son said.

  Tracey took a step closer to me, the bread knife hanging by her side. I wanted to step back but I stood my ground.

  ‘He’s not a hero,’ said the old man’s daughter. ‘And he’s not your father. So if you are here looking for a hero, or you’re here looking for your father, then you have come to the wrong place. He’s just a stupid, selfish old man who is waiting for death.’ She pointed at me with the bread knife. ‘And you can have him.’

  I stood in the doorway of my son’s bedroom and I didn’t turn on the light. Everything was Star Wars. Everything was still Star Wars. Shouldn’t it be something else by now?

  But grey plastic X-wing fighters and a big Millennium Falcon hung from the ceiling. The classic poster was above his single bed. Luke aiming his gun at the camera, flanked by Han Solo wielding a pink-beamed light sabre – when did Han Solo ever use a light sabre? I didn’t remember that – and Princess Leia blasting away. And the glorious bit players – Obi-Wan Kenobi, and the two droids, and Chewbacca. And looming above them all, the patron saint of lousy fathers – Darth Vader, gazing blankly at the Death Star.

  Something had been arrested in this room. A clock had stopped. It was as if time had stood still at the point in my son’s childhood when things had still been uncomplicated.

  He had started sleeping over at Gina’s. On a school night, it was just about do-able, the run from Soho to Islington. If he skipped breakfast, or stuffed down an almond croissant on the tube, then he could make it to school on time. There were no lifts to school from his mother. Gina did not own a car. As far as I could tell, there were multiple reasons for the lack of a car – because you could walk most places if you lived in Soho, because she had a bit of a phobia about driving, and an even bigger phobia about parking. And so I kept my mouth shut. And he started to make himself at home at Gina’s place.

  Cyd appeared at my side and put her arm around me. A moment later, Joni squirmed between us, wearing her pyjamas and brushing her teeth.

  ‘You should do that in the bathroom,’ Cyd said.

  Joni looked at her brother’s Star Wars bedroom, still brushing her teeth. Then she lifted her face. There was toothpaste all around her mouth. It looked like ice cream.

  ‘But why can’t Pat’s mummy come and see him here?’ she said. And we didn’t have an answer. Joni wandered back to the bathroom. Soon we could hear her elaborately spitting into the sink as she rinsed out her mouth.

  ‘He’s fine,’ Cyd told me. ‘You know he’s fine, you good man. And you are a good man. And you are a loving father. And that beautiful boy will be all right. And it’s good that he knows his mother, Harry. And it is very necessary.’

  I swallowed.

  I should have done something, I know. Or said something. Showed her that I was happy and grateful she was on my side. But I just kept staring at Luke Skywalker pointing his gun at me. I could feel my wife’s patience being tested.

  ‘Is it going to be like this every time he sees her?’ Cyd said. ‘Don’t you want her to know him? She didn’t leave him, you know.’ I knew what was
coming next. ‘She left you.’

  That was true.

  But there were times when it felt like she had left both of us.

  And sometimes they lasted for years.

  Eight

  We were at a Lee Marvin double bill at the NFT when he told me.

  The Dirty Dozen and Hell in the Pacific. Lee Marvin in Nazioccupied France on a suicide mission with a bunch of doomed misfits and psychopaths. And then, after a twenty-minute break, Lee Marvin stranded on a desert island with a fanatical Japanese soldier. A perfect Saturday afternoon for a father and son. We could spend hours together without hardly ever being required to actually talk.

  ‘We got enough here to blow up the whole world!’ I quoted as we came out of The Dirty Dozen, and Pat smiled shyly.

  The booksellers were packing up their stalls. It was getting dark early now and the lights were coming on all along the Thames. The dome of St Paul’s shone dully in the last light of the day. Ancient brown barges drifted down the river. I bought hot chocolate for Pat and a tea for me. The giddiness from the film started to wear off. We looked at the river rolling towards the night.

  Pat sipped his drink and stared back at the cinema, a white moustache of cream on his upper lip.

  ‘We’ve got a break before Hell in the Pacific,’ I said, and he nodded. There were a few blond hairs on the side of his face, like the fuzzy fluff you get on a new tennis ball. He would have to start shaving one day. Give it a year, I thought. He wiped the foam from his lip and looked at me.

  I saw him draw a breath.

  ‘I’ve been thinking,’ he said.

  ‘You’ve been thinking?’ I said, all startled.

  Pat nodded. ‘I might move in with Gina for a while,’ he said, giving a little nod as if the idea had just occurred to him. ‘See how that goes.’

  I stared at him for a bit and then I looked away. ‘What about school?’ I said. ‘You going to make that journey every day?’

  ‘I’ve done it already,’ he said quickly. He had thought this out, anticipated my questions.

  ‘But not every day of the week,’ I said, aware that I was somehow getting this all wrong. My son, who would clearly carry the weight of his parents’ divorce to his dying day, was telling me that he wanted to live with his mother.

  And I was talking about bus timetables.

  ‘The thing is,’ he said, ‘I want to know her, properly know her. Not just the bits and pieces of her that I’ve had over the years. But properly know her. Like normal people.’

  ‘If it makes you happy,’ I said, and all those wasted years made my heart feel like lead. I never felt more like holding him. But I didn’t touch him. ‘Of course you should know each other. And she loves you. Of course she does. I just worry, that’s all.’

  His face furrowed in a sort of babyish scowl. ‘What do you worry about?’

  I shook my head. ‘Exams,’ I said, feebly. ‘School. Just – all the disruption, Pat.’

  ‘I don’t want disruption,’ he said. ‘I want the opposite of disruption. Whatever the opposite of disruption is, that’s what I want.’

  The opposite of disruption, I thought. Stability? Normality? Happiness? A quiet life.

  ‘When’s all this going to happen?’ I said.

  He looked hopeful. ‘Next weekend?’ he suggested.

  Then I exploded. ‘But that’s our weekend for the Clint Eastwood double bill! Where Eagles Dare and Kelly’s Heroes!’

  ‘To be honest,’ he said, ‘I’m not really that crazy about war films.’

  I was dumbfounded. ‘You don’t like war films?’

  ‘Not really. I mean, they’re okay. From Here to Eternity was all right.’

  ‘All right? All right? From Here to Eternity was all right?’

  He shrugged. He drained his hot chocolate. ‘Pretty good, then. The bits with Frank Sinatra in his Hawaiian shirt. And the bits with James Dean when he refuses to join the boxing team.’

  ‘That’s not James Dean,’ I shuddered. ‘That’s Montgomery Clift. Then what are we doing here, if you don’t like war films?’

  ‘We go because you like them,’ he said. ‘And because it’s a way for us to – you know – do stuff. We can’t just kick a ball around forever, can we?’

  We stared at the river in silence.

  Pat cleared his throat. ‘Lee Marvin starts in a bit,’ he said.

  ‘Bugger Lee Marvin,’ I said. But he was right. Faces that I recognised from the audience of The Dirty Dozen were necking their skinny lattes and going back inside. But still I watched the river flow.

  ‘I’m sorry it wasn’t more settled,’ I said, and I meant it, and I could feel it sticking at the back of my throat. ‘I wish – I don’t know. I wish it had all been more settled for you when you were growing up.’ I felt a quick sting in the eyes and then it was gone. So I looked at him. ‘I’m sorry, Pat. I really am.’

  He laughed. ‘That’s okay,’ he said. ‘I’m fine. It’s just…I don’t remember that much. Of me and Gina, I mean. I think a lot of what I remember is just photographs I’ve seen. Sitting on a horse when I was four. Climbing over the back of a brown sofa with a light sabre. On a trampoline in the back garden. But I don’t think I really remember that stuff. I’ve just seen the photographs.’ Then he touched my arm lightly. ‘Come on,’ he said, his ludicrously blue eyes under his dirty blond fringe, his slow, all-knowing smile creeping across his face. ‘Let’s go and see Lee Marvin. You know you want to.’

  ‘What about Elizabeth Montgomery?’ I said, playing my trump card. ‘You’ll be living further away from Elizabeth Montgomery. I mean, I know you’ll still see her at school, but you’ll be living in different parts of town.’

  I didn’t want him to get hurt. It was just that, wasn’t it? That’s what I was worried about.

  But now he really laughed.

  ‘Elizabeth Montgomery?’ he said. ‘She’s not interested in me, Dad.’

  Sid’s neighbour did not lose his eye and we did not lose our jobs.

  Marty and I sat across from Blunt, but the tension was gone. There were papers on the desk but they contained think pieces and leaders hailing Sid from Surbiton as a defender of decency, an honest man pushed too far by the feckless, a lonely dissident voice armed with nothing but a starting pistol, standing against the yob values of mangled Britain.

  ‘We could get Sid into the studio,’ Marty said. ‘He’s a have-a-go hero. Let him choose his top ten tracks from the eighties and talk about what’s wrong with the lousy modern world.’

  Blunt laughed. ‘Let’s not push our luck,’ he said, and he smiled at us. It looked like a real smile. ‘I wanted to invite the pair of you to the conference in Glasgow this weekend,’ he said. ‘It’s the largest digital media industry event in the country.’ We looked blank. ‘I’ll be making a speech about the next generation of video and audio content across multiple platforms,’ Blunt said.

  But still we looked blank.

  Then Marty leaned forward, straining to decipher what Blunt was saying. Was it something to do with telly? And I thought of my son’s bedroom. Would he take everything – just clean it out? Would he want me to help him move? Why hadn’t he told me that he didn’t like war films?

  My phone began to vibrate and I looked at it. UNKNOWN NUMBER, it said, and I rose from my chair.

  ‘I have to take this,’ I said.

  ‘This is Singe Rana,’ he said, and it took me a long moment to connect the old Gurkha with the voice on the phone. ‘You have to come. I can’t talk to him today. You have to come. They have taken everything.’

  When I hung up, Blunt was looking at me.

  ‘This weekend?’ he said, waiting.

  ‘What about it?’ I said. This weekend was when it all happened. This weekend was when my son moved from my life to his mother’s life.

  ‘Will you come?’ Blunt said, testier now. ‘It’s the world’s largest digital media industry event, attended by leading media, entertainment and communications professionals.�
� He visibly preened. ‘I’m giving the keynote speech.’

  ‘This weekend?’ I said, shaking my head. ‘Can’t make it. Sorry.’

  The BBC man looked at Marty. He shrugged and laughed. ‘I can’t make it either,’ he said. ‘I don’t know why. But I’ll think of something.’

  When we were out of his office, Marty took my arm and snarled. ‘They want you to open up a vein these days,’ he said. ‘They want to own your life. We do the show and then we go home. That’s enough, isn’t it?’

  The phone in my pocket began to vibrate again.

  ‘That’s more than enough,’ I said.

  I called his daughter on the way over.

  ‘What does he expect?’ she said. The phone was removed from her mouth and I could hear her encouraging a grandchild to take just one more bite. Then she came back. ‘He should have moved out of that dump and into a home years ago.’

  The door was open when I arrived.

  Not so much open as shattered.

  Hanging off its hinges at a sick angle, the smashed wood below the frosted glass bearing the imprint of a large trainer. US size 12. It looked like a pitifully inadequate door to keep out the wicked world. I could see figures moving about inside. Singe Rana. A young policewoman with a notepad. I rang the doorbell. Nobody responded so I went inside.

  They had made a mess of the place.

  Everything was spilling out of itself. The guts of the slashed sofa where Ken was slumped, small and unmoving, staring off into nothing. The contents of the drawers, their ancient gas and electricity bills and postcards from Australia covering the carpet like propaganda leaflets. And the life that had been lived here. That felt as though it had been dragged out into some harsher light, and smashed to pieces.

  Singe Rana acknowledged me with a nod of his head.

  There was a rolled-up Racing Post in his hand, and he held it like a sword. The policewoman carried on taking her notes. I picked up the photo of his wedding day, the glass a broken spider’s web, and as I replaced it on the mantelpiece I saw the TV set.