The Madness of Grief

by Panayotis Cacoyannis

  ‘But why, I think my dream was amazing. It’s like I knew that you were really someone else. It was only a coincidence, of course. I always have strange dreams when I’ve had too much cake.’

  Mia-Mia jolted forward, coughing back into her glass the sip of lemon squash that had almost made her choke. ‘Really you’re too much, and I mean that in a nice way. A young, teenage girl with a head full of books, but still only a young, teenage girl - and I also mean that in a nice way.’

  ‘You sound so different now. I mean the way you speak, not just the sound of your voice.’

  ‘Less brash, less trashy, altogether more classy?’

  ‘I never thought you were trashy.’

  ‘The way I see it, life is research. After I finished my degree…’

  ‘You have a degree?’

  ‘I have a very good degree in English,’ giggled the flat-chested Mia-Mia.

  ‘Oh my God, Mia-Mia!’

  ‘And I’m also a fully qualified hairdresser, as well as a very convincing dumb blonde.’

  ‘Was my dad research too?’

  ‘Oh no, no, no, your dad was life researching me.’

  I shook the half-melted ice in my glass until there was more liquid, but there wasn’t enough, and I ended up crushing the ice in my mouth.

  ‘You think auntie Ada knows you’re a boy? You think that’s why she’s funny with you?’

  ‘Ah yes, your auntie Ada. She really doesn’t like me, does she? Well, she’s not stupid, so it’s possible she’s guessed – she might even have noticed my crotch when I haven’t quite managed to hide it, which is an art form, believe me, and I’m sure I’ve not always got it right.’

  ‘I’m not stupid either, and I never noticed your crotch.’

  ‘You’re not stupid at all, but nor are you suspicious by nature, at least not as suspicious as your aunt. And if she’s guessed, she’s probably thinking, “How do I explain to this child that her father, who she thinks is responsible for killing her mother, is now having sex under our noses with a man?”’ Mia-Mia fell back in her chair, before returning to lean against the table on her elbows. Resting the side of her head in the palm of one hand, she looked piercingly into mine from a depth behind her eyes that had never before been revealed. Karl’s were a boy’s eyes. They had reminded me of hawks in a nest, preparing for their predatory journeys. But Mia-Mia’s had deceived me completely, the dimness of their delicate green an illusion of movement. ‘I hope one day you’ll both be able to forgive him, it’s the only chance he has of forgiving himself, even though he knows that it wasn’t his fault.’

  ‘Is that what he told you, that it wasn’t his fault?’

  ‘It was in all the papers at the time, he’s shown them to me, “one in a million freak accident” they called it, a strike of lightning at just that one moment.’

  ‘A strike of lightning… But doesn’t auntie Ada know this?’

  ‘It’s like he wants to be blamed, and Ada wants to blame him, so… And then there’s Little Magik Matchstick, which I don’t think he’ll ever be able to forgive himself for. He puts it down to a kind of madness, “a possession” he calls it, that took complete control over Mr Magikoo.’

  ‘If it hadn’t been for auntie Ada, and then you putting an end to the tours, I’d either still be doing it, or I’d be fatter and probably dead from stuffing down too many cakes.’

  ‘But you’re not, you’re neither fat nor dead, you’re a gorgeous, sensitive, intelligent girl about to fall in love with a bright and talented boy. And now you also know, more or less, what his penis is likely to look like.’

  ‘You think if he asks me I should agree to have sex?’

  ‘Do you want to have sex?’

  ‘I don’t want to get pregnant.’

  ‘And you won’t, if you’re both careful. But really, if you’re not sure, you should wait until you’re older.’

  I nodded, as though Mia-Mia had been reading my thoughts. And then returning to auntie Ada, ‘She thinks you won’t be around for very long. And if she doesn’t like you it’s because she doesn’t know you. I disliked you too at the beginning.’

  ‘And now we’re friends.’

  ‘Friends forever,’ I said.

  ‘I hope so.’ Her smile now was fainter, more tentative, as though suddenly it wasn’t all as simple as that. ‘Let’s just wait and see what your father says, now that there’s no more Mia-Mia. If I’m going to be staying, at least within these walls I’d like to go back to being Jack.’

  ‘Jack. I like it.’

  ‘Jack with the enormous penis,’ said Jack, and the two of us, or perhaps even the three of us, stood up and hugged each other while we laughed.

  ‘Did you really think that Jackie Kennedy was president of the United States?’

  ‘And that Nixon had walked on the moon?’

  ‘I knew you were probably teasing.’

  ‘You talked a fair amount of gibberish yourself, I seem to remember.’ Jack pulled away and made me look at him by lifting up my chin with his finger. ‘I think someone was overexcited,’ he said. ‘What was all that nonsense about Communist babies and Nixon’s propaganda?’

  ‘It’s apparently a famous German saying. “To throw the baby out with the bathwater.” Dr Schmidt thinks that Nixon’s a crook, and the landing on the moon was a lie to fight Communist lies with. She’s convinced it didn’t actually happen.’

  Jack rolled his eyes and kept his eyebrows arched. ‘I know the saying,’ he said, ‘and I wasn’t aware it was German.’

  ‘Dr Schmidt said so, she was very insistent.’

  ‘Oh, was she indeed! Well, you can tell this Dr Schmidt that the Germans lost the war and it’s our saying now.’

  ‘I honestly don’t mind that you’re a boy, or a man,’ I said, when we had both stopped laughing. ‘And I’ll say so to auntie Ada.’

  All thoughts of an evening with Karl had disappeared. I was seeing him tomorrow for lunch, and there would be plenty of other evenings when I wouldn’t be reading more Kafka, or delving into Schopenhauer’s strictures, or reciting from my favourite Nietzsche, although now and again I might still have a flicker through Plato. All the events of this eventful afternoon – my dreams, the surprise of my new thoughts about Karl (I wouldn’t yet describe them as feelings), then the bigger surprise of the penis in the bathroom, and especially my conversations with Mia-Mia (who had now come out as Jack) – had united to make life, lived now in the present, infinitely more exciting than stories. “Stories” was the way auntie Ada and I had dealt with the past, but today had already belonged to the future. And it still wasn’t over.

  8

  Daddy

  It was far from over.

  At eighteen hundred hours precisely, when my father came in through the door, Mia-Mia was not there to greet him. Damp, bare-chested and with nothing but his towel wrapped around his waist, Jack was still in the kitchen with me, drinking a second glass of lemon squash with lots of ice. With only flimsy walls, and no door, separating the kitchen from the dining area where I did all my studying, and just the few pieces of furniture – a pouffe, my father’s chair, a glass-top coffee table - comprising the rest of the living room leading to the little hallway where Mia-Mia should have been waiting, I had heard the door open, and now I heard it shut.

  ‘I’d say it was time for Mr Magikoo’s well-earned aperitif, wouldn’t you?’

  ‘It’s not funny,’ I said. ‘He’ll know you’ve told me if he sees you like this.’

  Jack stood up from the table, and hesitated over me, squeezing my shoulders. ‘I want him to know,’ he said.

  ‘Mia-Mia?’

  ‘He’s still at the door,’ I said. ‘He doesn’t sound happy.’

  ‘Hello, George,’ said Jack in his new voice as he made his way through.

  For a few long moments there was silence.

  ‘What’s this?’ I heard my father ask. ‘Where’s Ada?’

  ‘Ada’s gone.’

  ‘And I suppo
se Jane’s with that German boy again. So what’s this all about, the voice and that towel, and you looking like the cat’s dragged you in?’

  ‘Your daughter’s in the kitchen.’

  ‘Okay, you’ve had your bit of fun now, so how about you put something on and make yourself normal.’

  ‘Really, she is. We’ve been drinking lemon squash.’

  For a few longer moments there was silence again.

  ‘She walked in on me in the bathroom, you see.’ And before there was time for more silence, ‘She’s seen me - all of me, George. So there we are. Cat’s out of the bag, as they say.’

  I heard it: the crack as something hit something else, my father striking harshly against the side of Jack’s face with his hand, Jack not making a sound. I got up from the table, held on to the back of the chair…

  ‘And while we sat at the table enjoying our lemon squash, your daughter and I both agreed that there’s more than one way to be normal. That this is normal, and that my way is the only way, at least for me. So there won’t be any more visits to my brother’s bed-and-breakfast in Torquay.’

  ‘You should cover yourself up, if Jane’s really in the kitchen.’ My father’s voice had deepened too. It was hoarse, as though speaking implied an impossible effort. ‘Then you can pack up your things, and by the time I get back I want you gone. None of this is normal, but if you’re happy to be a pervert good for you.’

  ‘I can go and be a pervert somewhere else.’

  ‘Yes, somewhere else,’ my father repeated.

  ‘But not in this house, not in your bed.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘That was a mistake.’

  ‘Yes. A mistake.’

  ‘A mistake that went on for almost three years.’

  ‘And now it has to end.’

  ‘Nothing’s really changed, George.’

  ‘What’s changed is that I want you to go.’

  ‘Because I’m queer and you’re not.’

  ‘We’re not about to have a discussion.’

  ‘Because there’s nothing to discuss.’

  ‘Just make sure that you’re not here when I get back.’

  ‘Dad, don’t be stupid.’ I was standing with my back to my books, not hiding behind them. I had seen Jack pick up the towel from the floor and wrap it again around his waist. I had seen him stand upright, still within my father’s reach. And as though I were invisible, I had listened to their dull staccato voices as they exchanged a rapid volley of words.

  My father turned sharply towards me with his body.

  ‘Please, just go to your room,’ he said without looking at me.

  ‘Jack’s right, nothing’s changed.’

  ‘It’s Jack now, is it?’

  ‘It’s always been Jack,’ said Jack.

  ‘Then you’re both right, nothing’s changed, and it’s all been a mistake from the start.’

  ‘And so you’ve hit someone you love,’ I said.

  ‘Love? Don’t make me laugh.’ But as he turned back to face Jack, my father wasn’t laughing. ‘You did this,’ he said. ‘You planned for her to see you, and then for me to come and find you half naked with her, drinking lemon squash and telling her I’m queer and it’s normal. First I kill her mother and now this, something else she won’t be able to forgive me for. And I’m supposed to feel proud?’ The word “proud” had nearly choked him, his sharp intakes of breath no longer able to hold back the violence of his sobbing.

  When Jack touched the side of his arm he didn’t flinch, and when I fell on him and clasped myself around him, through his sobbing he kept muttering, ‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.’

  But it was still far from over.

  I led my father by the hand to the kitchen. Jack had motioned to me to go ahead, that he wasn’t leaving, that he would join us after putting on some clothes. Still unshowered in what I had fallen asleep in, after less than fifteen minutes I sat with them around the kitchen table, Jack barefoot in his faded blue jeans and plainest white T-shirt, a boy’s change of clothes I hadn’t seen him wearing before, my father in slacks and a navy short-sleeved shirt that he hadn’t tucked in.

  He was short and muscular, with small dark brown eyes surrounded by prominent features. But auntie Ada was wrong when she said he was ugly. The bony structure of his face made him primitively handsome. I had never examined my father so closely before. He looked like he had lived a hard life, but in spite of it looked younger than just under forty, and younger still when he was not wearing his toupee. His head had a shape that suited his face, and every second morning he would stand over the sink and run his barber’s clippers all around it, giving it a Zero crop that was always fastidiously even. If anything the Zero crop made the hard-edged coarseness of the toupee look even more fake (“like a hairy omelette”, according to auntie Ada), but evidently fakery wasn’t an issue. My father was so attached to his hairpiece that even Mia-Mia had failed to wean him off it. Once, in the days that had preceded Mia-Mia, he had tried to shave his head with a razor, in the hope, I suspected, that a Yul Brynner look might have taken the edge off his complex. Instead, he had taken the edge off his head, cutting into it so badly and in so many places that for two weeks he refused to step out of the house. A moonscape of infection made the toupee too painful to wear, and Mr Magikoo’s Magik Shoppe was given an extra vacation.

  Somewhere on that teetering journey between the front door and the kitchen, the toupee must have either fallen off or been discarded, and in the bare vulnerability of my father’s expression I saw a reflection of Jack’s. The two men – it had only just struck me that I now thought of Jack as definitively a man, not a boy – really couldn’t have been physically more different. But my father, stocky and stern in his baldness, and Jack, a wisp in his Mia-Mia Farrow short haircut, seemed at last to share a more essential sameness that went beyond appearances and lies. Yes, Jack could make my father happy, much happier than Mia-Mia could have made him if Jack had been forced out of her completely. But perhaps it was all wishful thinking; what did I know, a child between two adults? Even if I didn’t know enough, it was worth it to pretend I knew something.

  ‘Daddy,’ I said, ‘you’re throwing out the baby with the bathwater.’ It was the first time I had called him “daddy” since that night long ago when daddy had come home and sat me on his knee to put on a musical voice and say to me that mummy had flown off to heaven to be with the rest of the angels. ‘Daddy, what does that mean? Does it mean mummy’s dead?’ To which my father had replied with a single rapid nod of his head; that was the only other time I had felt his body shiver as he sobbed. As though that had in fact been his sign of contrition, I felt retrospectively the warmth of his shiver. Perhaps my father’s “possession”, as Mia-Mia had described it, had been an outlet for the guilt that had consumed him. Tonight seemed like the right time to tell him I forgave him. Even if he hadn’t been to blame, which would counter any need for forgiveness, I thought we both needed to hear it.

  I felt stupid as soon as “the baby” had slipped out of my mouth with “the bathwater”. In spite (or perhaps because) of all the heartbreak unfolding at home, I was still finding roundabout ways to fill my mind with Karl, and no sooner had I imagined his smile, not unusually ironic in the circumstances, than I felt a rush of blood wetting my face as it worked its way up to the top of my head. Sweaty and red, but invisible again; my father and Jack, sitting opposite each other either side of me, both clutching at the glasses of iced lemon squash they had waited for me to prepare, were cooling their hands but not drinking, their gazes averted to separate corners of space far apart. It was as if I hadn’t spoken, and my stupidity had gone unnoticed even by Jack, who had earlier claimed the baby and the bathwater for England. And in that empty silence, just for a few seconds I allowed my young mind to drift all the way to the moon.

  But now it was time to put babies and blushes and Karl and the moon to one side.

  ‘Auntie Ada said it didn’t matter what she thoug
ht of Mia-Mia, because her sort never stayed around for very long.’ Looking down at my hands, neatly intertwined on the table beside my glass of iced lemon squash, I had just become aware I might be leading up to more than just asking my father a question.

  ‘What would Ada know about my “sort”?’ When I snapped him a glance, Jack raised both his hands, as though to take back his words in order to let me go on.

  ‘What would Ada know?’ my father said differently, his tone as sad as Jack’s but more strident.

  ‘She said not liking her had something to do with who Mia-Mia wasn’t, or maybe what she wasn’t, but that I was too young to understand what that meant.’ I paused, as much to reconsider where all this might be going as to wait for my father to speak. And when he didn’t, I prompted him by letting him know that the unfamiliar word I had already spoken had not been a slip of the tongue: ‘Daddy?’

  ‘Are you asking me a question?’ my father replied, and I felt the gravity of his features as he turned his head slowly to face me, his eyes like liquid stars that barely gleamed far away.

  ‘Something else I’d not be able to forgive you for. Is that what auntie Ada told you? Did she think Jack wouldn’t stay because she knew that in the end you’d make him go?’

  ‘Ada loved your mother like a sister. And she’s been like a mother to you, she’s always known how to love you much better than I have.’

  ‘But that isn’t what I’m asking you, daddy.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter what anyone knew.’ My father stood up from his chair as though he were about to leave the room, but then he bent forward to lean against the table with his fists. He stayed in that position for only a matter of seconds, and when I touched his elbow, he drew back his fists and sat down.

  ‘He’s right,’ said Jack. ‘It might have mattered before, but no one has to guess how you feel any more.’

  I shook my head from side to side, but slowly, to give myself time to think what I wanted to say, and how I should say it. And then I spoke the words exactly as I had thought them. ‘No. I think you’re both wrong. For things not to matter they need to be spoken, they can’t just stay hidden forever. And, daddy, I think you need to hear how I feel.’