The Wrong Story

by James Ellis

  Did he share his mother’s love of fun, I wonder? Did he have fun as a child?

  ‘He loved his comics and books and going to the library, and playing with his soldiers in the garden. He had names for them all. I don’t think it mattered that he didn’t play with other children. He had the whole world in his head. He was very inventive. He wanted to invent a pill that would keep us all alive forever. I suppose all children want to protect their parents. You don’t often think of that, do you? Children protecting their parents. He used to imagine that he had a communication device and if he pressed the button he would see his future self. See how he turned out. Isn’t that a good idea?’

  I wasn’t so sure that I would like to be judged by my younger self.

  ‘It has helped him a lot in later life, being self-reliant. Tom took his father’s death very hard. A pity he never managed to invent that pill. Apart from the obvious emotional devastation, I think it was the sheer messiness of it that upset him. No one would want to see their father face down in crumble and custard. Tom is an orderly person.’

  An inherited trait?

  ‘From me, you mean? I suppose so. Joseph was less neat but, of course, his drawings were precise. He was an architect, after all. We were a defined family. Each of us in our own little compartment. And I think that sense of fitting in together was very important to Tom. It was his base. His anchor. Caroline has always been a free spirit. Tom needs a family.’

  Had Joseph wanted Tom to follow him into architecture?

  ‘He was a better draughtsman than his father, Joseph always said that. He has an engineer’s hand and an artist’s heart, he used to say. Joseph could never have drawn something like Scraps, although I think he may have liked to. But Tom was always more creative than technical. I can picture him now, sitting at the dining table drawing imaginary worlds. We used to say he spent more time inside his head than out.’

  I ask her if she feels that through Scraps Tom is continuing her eco-campaigning, her war on waste.

  ‘Tom feels the inequity of it all and he takes his social responsibilities seriously, but he’s more satirical than I am. I am very matter-of-fact, but Tom sees things that I don’t. He’s more imaginative. I feel sorry for the always-angry restaurant owner. She never seems to win and, after all, she’s only trying to run a business. But I suppose she’s the symbol of waste so she can’t really triumph, can she?’

  We return to the communal lounge where, in the far corner, there is a film on the television. It’s a musical in which people frequently jump on tables and sing and dance.

  ‘Don’t you wish that real life were like that?’ Barbara asks me. ‘Imagine how much fun it would be.’

  I wonder if, even if real life were like that, I would jump on a table and start dancing. I conclude that I am simply not as much fun as I ought to be.

  All too soon the time has come for me to leave. The wine, the conversation and the company have been wonderful and I feel sad that I have to go. I would like to stay longer. I ask Barbara if she is happy.

  ‘Of course, and I’m not done yet,’ she tells me.

  I am reminded of the time that I interviewed Tom, when he told me that the ‘now’ doesn’t exist, it is merely a moment between what was and what will be. I think Barbara lives very much in the here and now. I make this point and she says to me, ‘For some people there are only ever tomorrows and yesterdays. Poor Tom, no matter how much he wants to hide in the moment he can never relax. I wish he could.’

  On my way back to the station, the taxi-driver confides, in the way that taxi-drivers do, that in his opinion the Regency Palace must have its fair share of gossip, given all ‘those ex-celebrities and what-nots living there’.

  I’m tempted to tell him that he doesn’t know the half of it. And why shouldn’t there be gossip and intrigue? After all, what is life without a little fun?

  Editor ’ s note: Sadly, two weeks after this interview Barbara Hannah passed away. She was 80 years young. Our deepest condolences go out to her family, her daughter, Caroline, and her son, Tom.

  14

  Two weeks after leaving hospital, a weekday routine had developed in Tom’s home that accommodated but didn’t include him, much as a tide ebbs and flows around a pebble. Monday to Friday he seldom saw Karen or the children. She said he needed time and space to recover and their presence would disturb him. So she worked all day, came home late and slept in the spare room while Dan and Holly stayed with her sister.

  Tom disagreed. He missed them all. He missed waking up with Karen, their legs tangled up, her face close to his on the pillow, her breath mingling with his. He missed Dan’s hair-obscured face, his casual disregard for everything, his slouch, his directness. He missed Holly and her heavy movements from room to room, her personal micro-climate of resentment, the way she slammed doors hard enough to loosen plaster and vibrate the dying nerve in his broken tooth.

  He spent the weekdays in long periods of silence, during which he sat in his chair in his airy eyrie and seldom moved, seldom blinked, seldom did anything except watch the rise and fall of his chest, and listen to the passage of blood in his ears and the internal hissing and humming and growling that accompanied it.

  Sometimes he looked up at the twin skylights in the roof and watched rain fall against the windows and roll downwards, droplets that criss-crossed each other’s tracks when the wind blew and raced each other to reach the woodwork. And when he shut his eyes he could still see the window imprinted on his retina, with the black dots running downwards like insects. He listened to the hollow sound of the house’s central heating and wondered how long it would be before a pipe burst or an element failed or the ceiling caved in and the house fell in on him.

  Occasionally he checked his email, but seldom got beyond looking at his in-box with its pages of unread messages. He was tempted to delete them all. He had no social media accounts other than those administered by Borkmann’s creative team and so, after a few minutes of aimless clicking, he logged out and returned to his quiet contemplation of the passing weather.

  He wanted the chaos of family life: the loud voices and bruising movements, the kicking off of shoes and throwing down of bags, the thundering up and down stairs, the talking and shouting and eating and clattering of dishes. The only human contact he had, if you could call it that, was with Borkmann during their daily telephone calls; oases of terse information exchange.

  How are you?

  I’ m fine.

  Drawing yet?

  Not yet.

  Don ’ t leave it too long.

  The weekends were different. At least the house was populated at the weekends and, as promised, Lawrence had shown up on the first Saturday, inflicting his willowy, weaselly presence on Tom with Karen’s apparent endorsement.

  ‘Hello, Tom,’ he had said, standing in the kitchen and making tea, as if Tom were the guest. ‘Sit yourself down.’ He wore trainers and jeans and a T-shirt that was tucked in. His legs were longer than his body and the jeans rode curiously high. Tom was wearing baggy shorts and a pyjama top. He smelled like he was fresh from his bed. Which he was.

  ‘How’s the old memory box today?’ Lawrence boomed.

  ‘The old memory box is fine.’

  ‘But is it, Tom?’

  Escape was impossible.

  ‘You don’t have to do this, you know,’ Tom told him. ‘Seriously. You don’t.’

  But Karen had tutted and hissed that Lawrence had given up his day for Tom, and Lawrence had simply smiled. ‘It’s my pleasure, Tom. Anything to help the husband of a work colleague.’

  The techniques that Lawrence claimed to have learned seemed to Tom to have come from Christmas crackers. First, they played Word Association, which was a game in which Lawrence sat across the kitchen table from Tom and used what he called trigger words and phrases, such as ‘car park’, ‘falling’ and ‘aaahh’, and Tom had to say the first thing that came into his mind – such as ‘car’, ‘banana’ or ‘ouch’. When that fail
ed to yield any results, Lawrence shook his head sadly and smiled, and looked at Karen and said, ‘Never mind, it’s early days yet.’ He sat at the head of the table as if conducting a family get-together.

  ‘Are you married?’ said Tom.

  ‘Once. Not anymore.’ He held Tom’s gaze and Tom wondered what had happened to this man’s wife.

  ‘Divorced,’ said Lawrence after a long pause. ‘All very amicable.’

  They played Picture Association. This was the same as Word Association except Lawrence drew trigger diagrams such as a car park, a man falling and a man lying on the pavement. After Picture Association came Movement Association, in which Tom had to adopt trigger poses, such as looking down, looking up and lying on the carpet.

  Karen stood to one side throughout those memory-recovery sessions, as Lawrence liked to call them, watching carefully as if she were waiting for a sudden breakthrough. But the only association Tom managed to have during all of these games was the recurring image of Lawrence as a weaselly weasel, dressed in black with a revolver hanging from each hip. He wanted to capture that image very much. Perhaps even draw himself into the picture, firing bullets at the ground while Lawrence danced a jig to his tune. His thumb was more mobile now and he thought he might be able to manage it.

  ‘How did he get in? Has he got a key?’ Tom said to Karen after Lawrence had gone.

  ‘Of course not,’ she said. ‘Why would he?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Why are you being like this?’

  ‘Like what.’

  ‘You know like what.’

  On the second Sunday, two weeks after Tom’s fall, Lawrence arrived with a new game. Tom was lying on the sofa and staring out of the front window, stroking his moustache. Since returning from hospital he hadn’t trimmed it, in fact he seldom shaved at all, and it was now so bushy it extended beyond his face on either side and outwards to the tip of his nose. Lawrence came in and sat on the chair opposite him. He wore a tan leather jacket and hiking boots.

  ‘I’m quite tired today, Lawrence. I should have phoned. Do I have your number? Where do you live?’

  But all Lawrence said was, ‘Location Association.’

  Karen had come into the room too and stood by the door in her smoker’s stance, arms folded, hunched forwards as if she were huddled against the cold, wearing her usual watching and waiting expression. Tom shook his head. Had he died and gone to hell?

  ‘Let me guess,’ he said. ‘You say a location and I tell you what comes into my mind?’

  ‘Wrong. We go to a location. We get up and we go out, and we go to a location. The location. Why not? It’s better than sitting around here all day.’ Lawrence looked up at Karen.

  ‘It’s a great idea,’ she said.

  Tom thought about it. He lay on the sofa and stroked his moustache while Karen and Lawrence seemed to float on either side. It hadn’t occurred to him to go back to the car park and he felt unexpectedly excited by the thought. He might see the market stall and the crates of bananas, or new ones at least. He might find his missing tooth.

  ‘I do like that idea,’ he said.

  Karen was peering at him closely. ‘Will you go to the top?’ she said.

  ‘We could,’ said Lawrence. ‘Why not?’ He looked down at Tom with his amused eyes. ‘Up for a stroll down Memory Lane?’

  They set off almost immediately. Lawrence and Tom together. It was a 20-minute walk to the car park. Lawrence had no car, at least no car that Tom could see.

  ‘Where did you say you lived?’ he said as they walked.

  ‘Over there.’ Lawrence pointed towards the horizon beyond the houses. ‘East.’

  They left the cul-de-sac and walked along cracked and uneven pavements that had been punished over the years by tree roots and frosts and wind and rain, and cars driven by people such as Borkmann. They walked through an underpass that magnified their footsteps and stank of urine, and cut through an empty children’s park with motionless swings.

  Tom said, ‘Do you know, today is exactly two weeks since I fell off the roof. Perhaps I was walking along this path then, doing what I’m doing now, unaware of what was to come. Doing the exact same thing at this exact same moment.’

  Lawrence glanced at him. ‘What do you mean, the exact same thing?’

  ‘I mean this.’

  ‘Do you mean walking along with me?’

  ‘Well no, not walking along with you. But perhaps walking along here at about this time.’

  Away from Karen, Lawrence seemed a little less affable. His urbane and amused expression had altered slightly, much as a ringmaster’s gaze might narrow when a lion-tamer brings on his lions. He kept his head down as he walked, watching the ground rather than his surroundings. The wind was lifting his dry, sandy hair backwards, revealing more scalp that he probably would have liked. He was a good six inches shorter than Tom, probably two stone lighter, too. And ten years older if he was a day. Too old for Karen, Tom found himself thinking.

  ‘I have an outpatient appointment tomorrow,’ he said.

  ‘Are you going?’

  ‘I think so.’

  For once Tom found himself in a talkative mood with Lawrence and, ‘I went to the top of Vesuvius once, on holiday. This is going back a few years, before it became a national park. We walked up. It was quite a climb. When you get to the top you can walk around the rim. It’s pretty steep when you look down into the crater. There’s a shallow slope on the inside and then a steeper drop into the crater.

  ‘I felt all right and then I saw a boy sliding down the slope and skidding to a stop just before the drop. It looked so dangerous and I think it did something to my mind. I think in some way my mind was traumatised by what I was seeing. There was nothing to stop him falling and I was suddenly aware of how precarious it was up there. I imagined myself doing the same thing, sliding down the slope but this time not stopping.

  ‘I thought to myself, I’ve got to get out of here before I panic and do something stupid. And thinking about panicking made me start to panic and I thought I might actually do it. I might actually run down that slope and not stop and fall over the edge – deliberately, because my mind wouldn’t be able to stop me.

  ‘To get down I had to walk all the way around the rim because there was an official entrance to the pathway, and I felt trapped. I thought at any minute I’d do something stupid and die. I think that’s the essence of my height phobia: it’s about being trapped up high and having no fast way of being safe, and then panicking and doing something stupid.’

  Lawrence said nothing.

  ‘What do you think of that?’

  Lawrence shrugged. ‘I’ve been abroad hundreds of times,’ he said.

  They walked on.

  Tom thought about Lawrence. He was conscious of himself striding along with his hair and moustache and jacket flying in the wind, unshaven, a missing tooth, which he was growing to like, presenting himself to the world as a huge, unconventional and extravagant creature. The artist Tom Hannah. While Lawrence, slim and effete, had to lope alongside to keep up.

  Knock him up in the air.

  Tom frowned. That was a thought that hadn’t entered his head for many years, not since his student days. About the time he had seen his first red fox in the student-artists’ garden, he had known a group of animators whose approach to life was to do everything with the safety-catch off, or so it seemed to Tom. One of their favourite sayings was ‘knock him up in the air’, which referred to a cartoon uppercut that sent victims sailing towards the ceiling. Anyone they didn’t like or who made a crass statement or overstepped the mark, warranted being knocked up in the air. For three years the pubs and bars around the college reverberated to the hooting of ‘knock him up in the air’. How would they have treated Lawrence? Tom wondered. Would they have shouted ‘knock him up in the air’ as soon as they saw him? Imagining that made Tom feel guilty because, after all, Lawrence was giving up his Sunday morning to help him.

  Hardies Lane
car park was attached to a shopping mall behind the high street. The first thing Tom saw was the market. He walked along it looking for the greengrocer’s stall that had saved his life, but it wasn’t there. That week’s market seemed to be devoted to household items, gardening tools and car parts.

  ‘They’re not here,’ Tom said.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘The banana people. The fruit and vegetable stall. I must have scared them off.’ He laughed and a shopper looked at him carefully before walking away. Tom was used to that and took no notice.

  ‘Do you know people here?’ Lawrence said.

  ‘No – why?’

  ‘I just wondered. That man’s looking at you.’

  Across the road, Tom saw a council worker with a hoe along the edge of a patch of grass that bordered the pavement. He was young and scruffy and wore grey coveralls with high-visibility stripes on the trouser-cuffs. He’d stopped his work and was staring at Tom.

  ‘You don’t remember me, do you?’ he called out.

  ‘Who is that?’ said Lawrence.

  ‘I don’t know.’

  The man put down his hoe, looked quickly up and down the road and ran across to where Tom was standing. ‘You’re the one that fell off the roof, aren’t you? I was there.’ He held out his hand. ‘Peter Hobbes. I waited with you until the ambulance came. I’d recognise you anywhere. How you doing?’

  ‘You saw me fall?’

  ‘Absolutely. You scared the life out of me. Seriously. Pow!’ He punched his hand with his fist. ‘I thought the stall had blown up. Stuff everywhere. I didn’t actually see you come off the top but I saw you land. Right through everything – tarpaulin, crates, the lot. You were like a bomb. It’s lucky I’d turned the earth the day before or you would have been dead.’

  Tom stared at him. ‘Did you see me before I fell?’

  ‘What, up top? No.’

  Lawrence tugged Tom’s sleeve. ‘No point in dawdling, let’s get to where we’re going,’ he said.