The Secret Intensity of Everyday Life

by William Nicholson

  ‘He’s one hundred per cent wrong. And I shall tell him so.’

  ‘No. You can’t.’

  His father strokes his hair.

  ‘My dinner’s waiting.’

  His warm snuffly kiss.

  ‘Night, Daddy.’

  Henry is tired and drinks more wine than usual. It’s a good wine, a Rhone red. He reserves the best bottles for these ordinary evenings when it’s just the two of them. Guests talk too much to notice what they’re drinking.

  ‘This teacher of Jack’s. The one who thinks creative writing is all about punctuation. I can’t believe it. It makes me so cross I want to hit him.’

  ‘Poor Jack. He was disappointed.’

  ‘I’m appalled, Laura. I really am. Jack wrote something magical. And this little shit of a teacher tells him he forgot to put in full stops. That’s like a murder.’

  ‘Maybe I should have a word with him in the morning. Though I’m afraid it won’t make any difference.’

  ‘He shouldn’t be teaching. He should be sacked.’

  ‘I’m not sure we can manage that.’

  ‘He should be working in a local council office. He should be checking application forms for senior citizen bus passes.’

  Laura looks on as he refills his glass yet again. She understands the source of his anger.

  ‘How did it go with Aidan?’

  ‘Hell. He’s shameless. The man’s vanity is impregnable.’

  ‘Did you talk to Barry about the credit?’

  ‘Briefly.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘And nothing, of course.’

  ‘But that’s so unfair. Really, Henry, you shouldn’t let them do this to you.’

  ‘Well, they’re doing it.’

  ‘It’s your work. You deserve the credit. You have to put your foot down.’

  ‘What am I supposed to do?’ His voice peevish now, his irritation directed at Laura. ‘Walk out?’

  ‘I’m not saying that.’ Laura is hurt. She was only trying to be supportive. ‘They couldn’t do it without you.’

  ‘Of course they could. There’s dozens like me out there.’

  ‘That’s not true, Henry. And you know it.’

  ‘I can’t walk out.’

  Because he needs the work. Because he needs to earn money. Because however much he earns it isn’t enough.

  Maybe I should walk out. What am I trying to prove? Only that my existence is necessary. Scratch that little itch of the ego. A fantasy, of course. All of us are replaceable. All of us are in the process of being replaced.

  ‘I know you can’t walk out now. But I hate to see you so—’ She hesitates. So helpless? ‘So unhappy.’

  Henry shrugs.

  ‘I’ll get over it. It’s only a television programme.’

  He knows she’s only trying to help, but her sympathy inflames the bruise. Now he has guilt on his plate too. Some dinner.

  Not meeting her eyes, conscious of having behaved badly, he makes an attempt to escape his own ill humour.

  ‘So how’s your day been?’

  ‘Actually, I’ve had a little drama.’ She speaks in a manner that is almost off-hand, not wanting to imply that her day has been in competition with his. He’s so prickly these days. ‘I found some letters from Billy’s father. You’re not to tell anyone. He had an affair.’

  ‘Billy had an affair?’

  ‘No. Billy’s father, George. Billy was knocked sideways by it.’

  ‘Poor bastard,’ says Henry. ‘Oliver Handy was telling me the other day the estate is virtually bankrupt.’

  ‘And I called Nick Crocker. He wrote me that letter.’

  ‘Oh, yes. What’s up with him?’

  ‘I don’t know. He never says much on the phone. Anyway, I’ve asked him to supper on Friday.’

  ‘I’m shooting on Friday.’

  ‘Damn. So you are. I forgot.’

  ‘Christ knows when I’ll be home.’

  ‘I’ll change it.’

  ‘No, don’t bother. It’s you he wants to see, not me. I expect I’ll catch a sight of him before he goes.’

  ‘Well, if you don’t mind.’

  After they’ve eaten Henry loads the dishwasher and reaches a decision.

  ‘You know what I’m going to do? I’m going to take the children into school tomorrow and have a word with that teacher of Jack’s.’

  ‘Can you spare the time?’

  ‘It’ll only add half an hour.’

  ‘Well, if you’re sure, that would really help me. You know we’ve got Glyndebourne on Saturday?’

  ‘Oh, Christ. I’d forgotten all about that.’

  ‘I was thinking of buying myself something to wear. If you don’t mind.’

  ‘Why should I mind?’

  ‘Oh, you know. Money.’

  ‘No, I don’t mind.’

  ‘If you take the children in, I could get an early train. Be back in time to pick them up.’

  Henry’s scanning the television listings in the paper.

  ‘There’s a big match on. Do you mind if I catch the end? It’s the kind of thing film crews talk about. I should at least know the score. Can you bear it?’

  He turns on the television. A wall of howling spectators banked up behind a goal. Patrick Vieira is preparing to take a penalty kick for Arsenal. The commentator is shrieking with excitement, the Turkish fans are baying and drumming, the game has gone through extra time, the score is nil-nil, but Arsenal are losing on penalties. If Vieira misses this kick the match is lost. By pure chance Henry has joined the game at its decisive moment.

  On this May night in Copenhagen, in the heart of the Parken Stadium, a man in a yellow shirt pauses for an instant of concentrated stillness. Then he starts to run. No one else moves. He runs, and kicks, and the ball sails through the air, and slams against a goalpost, and bounds away to one side. The Turkish supporters go wild. The man in the yellow shirt bows his head. The Arsenal coach looks aside. Galatasaray has won.

  ‘So much for Arsenal.’

  Henry switches off the television and begins the process of shutting down the house. Outside lights. Back door lock. Front door lock. Downstairs lights, room by room. Preparation for sleep so like preparation for death: one by one the lights go out, and then the darkness.

  As always, he’s in bed first. He hears the bathroom lavatory flush. The click of the bathroom light switch. Then Laura joins him, turning out the bedroom light as she gets into bed, letting in cold air as she lifts up the duvet.

  For a few moments they lie there, side by side, motionless. Then her hand feels for his, and holds it lightly.

  ‘So you’ll take the children in the morning.’

  Her voice soft in the night, meditative.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I’ll go right after breakfast. Catch the 8.20. That would be perfect.’

  She’s talking to herself. Telling herself the story of the next day. He’s waiting for her silence.

  Her fingers stroke his fingers. He squeezes her hand in response, very lightly. He yawns, and changes position, stretching his body. His foot brushes her foot. She makes her toes wiggle against his foot, a friendly greeting. He turns on his side, letting his arm reach further as he turns, so that his hand falls against her side. He makes a small patting movement with his fingers against the cotton of her nightdress, feeling her warm body beneath.

  ‘Mmmm,’ she says.

  If she now lets her right hand slide across the space between them to touch his flank, as he is touching hers, then he will roll nearer and his arm will reach across her. If she makes no answering move, his hand will pat her one more time, as if to settle them both down for the night, and he will murmur, ‘Sleep well, darling’, and will withdraw. In this way, by deploying a certain ambiguity, overtures may be made and not accepted without loss of pride.

  ‘Mmmm,’ murmurs Laura, her right hand heavy by her side.

  She feels a little guilty, particularly after their testy exchange at dinner,
but she is truly tired, and the one small move would be the prelude to much more effort. It’s not that she dislikes sex with Henry. There are certain times of the month when she actively solicits it. But as a rule she doesn’t feel the urge in the abstract. Her sexual appetite, like a clockwork motor, runs on a relaxed spring, and must be well wound up before it will go. She knows men work differently. Men can be switched on like electric lights, and on the whole, it’s the woman who has control of the switch. Hence her mild guilt on the nights when she does not respond. However she also knows that if Henry is in great need he will persist, and in persisting will wake her body even as it prepares to sleep. So you could say the decision is his after all.

  How complex it all is. She likes it that he still desires her. She likes it when he lets her feel the urgency of his desire. The truth is she needs that pressure, that imperious sense of demand, to activate her own excitement. And once begun she needs time, and patience, and careful touching. Then, little by little, her defended body will melt, and she will feel as power what before was vulnerability. Then she will reach out to him of her own accord, hungry for the passionate embrace.

  But on this May night in Sussex, Laura’s hand makes no answering move. Henry’s hand returns to his side. He rolls into his sleep posture, on his right side, his forearms crossed against his chest, his knees slightly bent.

  ‘Good night, darling. Sleep well.’

  He hears the sound of her breathing slide quickly and easily into the rhythms of sleep. He himself will not sleep for a long time. He knows the signs. There’s too much unfinished business waiting for his attention.

  Finitum non est capax infiniti. And yet we try, we try. We make pictures all the time, our imagination in overdrive. The sin of idolatry a betrayal of God, a kind of adultery, spiritual fornication, they called it. Lusting after what is false but visible, near and desirable. Nowadays every city street a house of pictures, walled with images of desire. We torment our gaze, condemn ourselves to permanent dissatisfaction, the consumer as the modern idolater. This was his new idea, the basis of a new intro to his film. Piccadilly Circus, perhaps, with its electric hoardings. What do they sell these days? Coca-Cola? McDonald’s? There’s a candidate for defacement, the leering painted paedophile Ronald McDonald.

  And all this will gush from the motormouth of Aidan Massey. Ad maiorem Massey gloriam. Who am I but the anonymous craftsman at work high on the cathedral scaffold? Thine be the glory.

  What was it Laura said she wanted to do? Buy a dress for Glyndebourne.

  If you don’t mind. Why should I mind? Oh, you know. Money.

  She hides it from me, her only deception, the extent to which her parents subsidise our lives. Hides it out of love, to give me pride, knowing I work for money to save my pride. A man must work. Must provide for his children. If not, what am I? A kept man. A walker. A eunuch.

  Ah, sex. The right to demand sexual pleasure has to be earned. You have to put your foot down.

  Some thoughts once expressed in words can’t be unthought. Some frontiers once passed admit no return. My life that has seemed so substantial is in fact an act of faith. No, not faith, magic. An illusion that convinces from a distance. The quickness of the hand deceives the eye. Never ask to know how the trick is done. The magic, once lost, will not return.

  My life is slipping out of my control. Tell me what lies to tell myself, to feel again as I felt yesterday. Tell me what hopes to bury, what dreams to dash. I’m well-trained in the habits of compromise. I know how to accept the inevitable. I know how to live with reality.

  But what if I should cease to believe?

  Let’s go somewhere together, Laura and Jack and Carrie and me. Down into the secret valley, to the monument to the lost traveller.

  I thought if I fell off the wall the clouds would be soft but I didn’t fall

  Have I done enough?

  Not enough never enough no never enough

  22

  As Laura’s twentieth birthday approached, her friends wanted to know how she planned to celebrate it. She told them she had not yet made up her mind. The truth was she had not been able to get Nick to focus on the question, and so did not know what sort of celebration he would like. Of course it was her birthday and she should be able to do whatever she wanted, but without Nick there, without Nick enjoying himself, there would be no pleasure in it for her. She was learning that he had moods. One minute they would be happy together doing nothing in particular; the next minute he would fall silent, or even disappear. He never went anywhere far, just into the next room, or out into the street. The place that he went to he called On My Own. She called it Away From Me. At such times, when she discovered his absence, she stopped breathing.

  ‘So what shall we do for my birthday?’ she asked him one lunch time, spreading out food on the table in her room.

  ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘What do you want to do?’

  ‘Whatever it is, I want to do it with you.’

  ‘Of course.’

  Bread, pâté, tomatoes, proper plates, not paper. This was one of Nick’s rules, like wine must be drunk out of proper glasses.

  ‘What would be nicest? A big party with all our friends, or just you and me somewhere special alone together?’

  He laughed to see her earnest face.

  ‘Laura darling, it’s your birthday.’

  ‘Yes, but if you don’t like it then I won’t like it.’

  ‘But if you like it I’m bound to like it. You being happy makes me happy.’

  ‘Really?’

  It was the right answer but she didn’t believe it. Nick had such definite ideas about things. For example he didn’t really like her friend Katie O’Keefe. He never said so, but Laura could tell. Not that it mattered, because Laura saw much less of her old friends since getting together with Nick. There seemed to be so much less time.

  ‘I’ve got your present already,’ he told her.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Wait and see. It’s a surprise.’

  This was wonderful. He had anticipated her birthday. He had thought about what she might like. He had gone out to a shop somewhere and picked it out. He had it hidden away even now. At every stage he had been thinking about her and she had not known it. This, more than the waiting package, was his gift to her.

  But Katie, of course, expected a party.

  ‘You have to see your friends some time, Laura. You can’t spend the rest of your life just with Nick.’

  ‘It’s just that he’s working so hard right now. After his finals are over we’ll be more sociable.’

  ‘He’s got finals. You haven’t.’

  ‘Anyway, I’ve not decided about my birthday. May’s a terrible month. Everyone’s revising.’

  ‘So we need a break. We’ll all pitch in with the booze. Paulie can play his old rock’n’roll records.’

  ‘Nick’s not a great dancer.’

  ‘So what? Nick’s not everything.’

  But Nick was everything. Without Nick in her arms Laura had no wish to dance. Katie wouldn’t understand. By her own admission she had never been in love. It was impossible to explain to her what it felt like, how it was as if she was half a person and only became whole when she was with him.

  In the end they decided on a picnic lunch. They invited half a dozen friends, they were all to contribute food and wine, and they were to go up river by punt. This was Laura’s plan. Nick had spent part of the summer before he met her punting tourists for tips and had become very skilled.

  The day turned out sunny. Nick wore his shirt unbuttoned. He stood tall and at ease on the rear platform plying the long heavy pole with grace, while the punts that followed lurched from bank to bank of the river and became entangled with low-hanging branches.

  The drinking began as they set out, and soon the zigzag convoy was loud with ironic cheers and laughter.

  ‘Oh fuck, fuck, fuck!’ cried Richard Clements as he drove his punt into the bank.

  ‘Richard you
arsehole! You made me spill my wine!’

  Lesley Draycott laughed so much she got hiccups, and every time she hiccupped she jumped, and every time she jumped her short skirt rode higher up her legs. Hal Ashburnham kept hold of his pole too long and fell into the river. Franco Souza sang ‘Old Man River’ in a high piping voice. The day grew warm.

  They laid out their picnic on a random spread of tartan rugs and discarded jackets, and more bottles of wine were opened. Felix’s contribution was a loaf of sliced white sandwich bread, for which he was universally mocked.

  ‘Mein Gott!’ cried Hal. ‘What would Manet say?’

  ‘Where was I supposed to find a baguette?’ complained Felix.

  ‘Not a baguette.’ Nick with his eyes closed mentally reconstructed the Manet painting. ‘A round loaf, I think.’

  ‘And the woman’s naked!’ Richard turned to Laura. ‘Laura! We need a naked woman!’

  ‘In your dreams, Richard.’

  ‘I didn’t know you knew.’

  ‘Anyway,’ said Katie, ‘it’s all sexist bullshit. Why don’t the men strip off too?’

  ‘I’m stripping off!’

  Hal Ashburnham, soaking from his tumble in the river, peeled off his shirt and jeans to reveal a lissom white body. Not quite naked, he struck a pose, one arm akimbo, head looking down.

  ‘Culture quiz. Who am I?’

  ‘A prat in pants!’

  ‘The Mona Lisa!’

  ‘Michelangelo’s David.’

  ‘Thank you, Nick.’

  Laura watched Nick and saw that he was happy and so she was happy. When at last the wine ran out four of her friends knelt before her and serenaded her with a song that was topping the charts when she was two years old.

  ‘Tell Laura I love her

  Tell Laura I need her

  Tell Laura not to cry

  My love for her will never die…’

  Laura clapped and clapped and saw Nick smiling and thought how strange it was to be twenty years old.

  ‘Nick’s a great singer,’ said Franco.