40
The video diary began to appear on the television screens of the nation within ten days of Gideon’s—and his companions’— departure.
Not a word had Gideon said to anyone (other than said companions) of this project—‘Alf is absolutely gobsmacked,’ Lizzie told Louisa, having seized the first opportunity to telephone her sister-in-law, on the day following the screening of the first episode. It was aired—in the first instance—immediately before Newsnight: one could hardly have missed it.
‘Serve him bloody right!’ said Louisa. ‘I always told him Gideon would come good, but of course he refused to listen to me.’
‘He’ll probably get a book out of it, too,’ said Lizzie. ‘Emma’s been on the phone to me already, wanting to know if he’s agented.’
The trip unwound its by turns weary, weird and hilarious length, from the Hook of Holland to Delhi, over several successive weeks, in the course of each one of which an enthralled nation was able to watch an edited version. The sales of camper vans rocketed, and young and less-young workers the length of the country prayed for redundancy—so long as adequate compensation was in that event due. Others, already free to do so, sold everything they possessed at the nearest car-boot sale, signed off, and left (in or on a variety of vehicles, depending) immediately. It was not as if no one had ever done this journey before—far from it; it was just that, as someone observed, this particular version put the overland-to-India journey on the map. Twelve-year-old Janey Beaufort of Hammersmith opened a savings account—having first compared the interest rates of all those on offer—into which she henceforth deposited all but a tiny fraction of the money she earned each Saturday morning doing household chores for her mother, strictly with a view to following in Gideon and party’s footsteps (so to speak) at her earliest opportunity, and a similar scheme was formed in the mind of eight-year-old Guy Dawlish of Clapham, who fretted at some length over the relative merits of National Savings Certificates vs. the more accessible Investment Account.
It should not be supposed that either of these children, or any others, viewed the diary in its pre-Newsnight slot: it was repeated (by popular demand: Auntie always listens) on Sundays, just before the joint comes out of the oven. Tapeheads everywhere pored over it at their leisure, and a bootleg edition was soon in circulation.
‘You must admit,’ said Louisa in due course to Alfred, ‘that our Gideon shows remarkable qualities of leadership, and organising and management abilities of no common order. I’ll bet ICI and BP and that lot can’t wait to get their hands on him.’
‘Humph,’ said Alfred.
‘To say nothing of his diplomatic skills. The FCO will probably want him to run courses for them.’
‘Sure to,’ said Alfred, in a tone of desperate irony.
‘And by the way,’ continued Louisa relentlessly, ‘you never told me he could speak Arabic!’
‘As far as I’m concerned,’ said Alfred, ‘he can’t.’
‘Well, it seems to get the job done,’ said Louisa.
‘Uncle Gideon,’ put in Fergus, ‘is one real cool dude.’ And the whole nation—or that very large part of it which watched the video diary, in one time slot or another where not both—would heartily have agreed to that. It was not often that Fergus spoke for everyone, but he was entirely aware of having done so now, and savoured the moment. Everyone, that is, excepting his Uncle Alfred. Fergus was entirely aware of this, too. He turned to the silent dissenter. ‘Don’t you think?’ said he.
‘In a pig’s ear,’ said Alfred.
41
It was all over. In the very last episode, the party having reached Delhi, ownership of the Espace was transferred to four Indians, recent graduates who—now headed for postgraduate courses in the UK—were to make the same journey in reverse. They, too, had a video diary contract, and all the essential equipment. ‘We, however, have—alas—no ladies in our party,’ their leader told Gideon. ‘But you know how it is, here.’ He sighed, and smiled. ‘Too bally idiotic for words, but there you are. We grin and bear it. I say, do you know Mark Tully, by the way?’
‘Only terribly slightly,’ said Gideon.
The chapess who was not Barbara now flitted immediately away to Goa, where she may still be; one of the chaps who was not Gideon soon went, thereafter, to check out an ashram he’d heard about, and having done this much, checked rather extensively in. The remaining chap, one Charles Wesley, undiverted by either of these particular extremes, remained of the party, which now made the first of many railway reservations, and began the truly serious business of travelling over the great and most marvellous land of India, and was not much heard of for many moons thereafter.
42
‘Heard anything from young Gideon lately?’ said Alex to Louisa one evening early in the spring.
‘Not really lately. But you know what the Indian posts are like.’
I wish I did. Oh, God, if you knew how I wish I did.
‘The last letter I had—it was just a scrawl, really, on an aerogram—must have been about six weeks ago,’ Louisa went on. ‘Everything seems to be going well. Fallen utterly in love with the place, and so on.’
‘Is he going about on his own now, then?’
‘Oh, no. Still with the others. Barbara, that is, and Charles. I suppose it’s a lot more amusing that way.’
‘As long as they get on.’
‘I imagine they must do. Anyway, I don’t expect they’ll stay too much longer, what with the hot weather arriving.’
‘They could go up to the far north, of course. Dar-jeeling, Simla, that sort of thing.’
‘Yes,’ said Louisa vaguely, ‘that’s true. Well, bully for them. I mean, it’s quite marvellous, don’t you think? I wish I’d done it. But I will, too, one of these days.’
‘Yes,’ said Alex, ‘yes, I dare say you will.’
‘Dear Barbara, though,’ said Louisa, ‘I’m so glad she’s still with Gideon. A really excellent girl, don’t you think? Even Alf had to admit Gideon’d shown good judgment there.’
‘Yes,’ said Alex, ‘yes, I suppose he did.’
‘Perhaps he’s fallen in love with her by now,’ said Louisa brightly. ‘I do hope so.’
‘Or perhaps the other chap has.’
‘Charles? No, I’d really much rather Gideon did. And Gideon is better looking.’
‘Perhaps they both have.’
‘Yes, that’s more than likely. How could they not? She’s certainly rather lovely, in that old-fashioned sort of way. I thought she looked quite wonderful on the telly.’
‘Yes, I suppose she did.’
‘Well, then.’
‘Well—yes—well, we’ll see.’ Wait, and see. Oh, God, spare me this.
‘Yes, indeed! Let’s hope some more post gets through soon.’
‘Absolutely.’
Oh, God. Oh God oh God oh God. And even this is not the worst possible suffering. Alex consoled himself with this reflection; he became almost cheerful. This, now, is not the very worst. She is still—for all I know—waiting. And so am I. Mad, but hopeful. By the grace of God.
43
Alex and Andrew had taken to playing squash together, regularly every Tuesday night.
‘We must be mad,’ said Alex, flopping on to a bench and wiping the sweat off his face. ‘Whose bloody ridiculous idea was this?’
‘Yours, as a matter of fact.’
‘Ah. Well, then, it can’t be as bloody ridiculous as it seemed, after all. Come on, back to work.’
They played on until their time ran out, and then repaired to the nearest pub.
‘This is what it’s all about,’ said Alex, drinking cold beer.
Andrew drank silently. ‘Yes,’ said he after a while. ‘It all basically comes down to this.’
‘My round,’ said Alex, and he got up and went to the bar.
After he had returned and begun on his second pint, Andrew reached into a pocket and pulled out a preter naturally flimsy-looking sheet of paper. �
��Got a letter from young Barbara in the week,’ he said. He was staring steadily ahead, the hand holding the letter resting uncertainly on the table in front of him.
‘Oh, yes.’
‘Yes.’
‘Everything all right?’
‘Seems to be. Like to read it?’
‘Oh—no—none of my business, after all. As long as she’s all right. And the rest of them. Gideon, and whatsisname.’
‘Charles.’
‘Whoever. Still together, then?’
‘Not for much longer. Hot weather. Party’s pretty well over. Barbara’s going on to Australia.’
‘Oh, really?’
‘Yes. She met some people from Sydney who’ve asked her to stay as long as she likes—you know what these Australians are like.’
‘Open-hearted. Open-handed. Generous and hospitable.’
‘To a fault.’
‘Can one be?’
‘I suppose not. In any event, they’ve apparently got a large house, in a place called—let me see—’ he looked at the letter— ‘Balmain. She’s given me the address. She’ll be getting there round about now, actually. Then she means to find work of some sort. Waitressing, or whatever turns up.’
‘Jolly enterprising.’
‘Playing it by ear.’
‘She’ll—yes. She—what about the others? They going to Australia too?’
‘Oh, no. Charles is going to America. Gideon’s coming back here, to write his book.’
‘Ah.’
‘While he’s still hot.’
‘Yes, I see.’
‘Of course,’ said Andrew—and Alex, once again, glimpsed for a moment his friend’s predicament—‘Barbara will probably come back too, fairly soon. I mean, I imagine she’ll start to miss the old place sooner or later.’
‘You only stayed away for ten years, after all.’
‘That was different.’
‘Yes. Well—’
‘Mimi comes here quite soon. Summer hols. My turn to parent.’
‘Ah.’
‘Strange old world, isn’t it?’
‘Crazy.’
‘Yeah. Have another?’
‘No thanks, mate. I’m due at the chez about now.’
‘Right you are. Shall we?’
They got up and left the pub, and Andrew gave Alex a ride home: it was not far, but at even five times its length the journey might have been as silent, preoccupied as each was with his own thoughts. He’s a good sort, old Andrew, thought Alex as he walked up to his front door and let himself into the house. He’s all right, is the old Alex, thought Andrew, as he drove away. Poor bastard.
44
Mimi arrived at Heathrow in the care of a BA stewardess, with three juvenile-sized pieces of matching luggage, the smallest of which she was able to carry herself, and wearing a Radcliffe sweatshirt. Andrew fought back tears, and swept her up in his arms.
‘It’s good to cry,’ said Mimi.
After five days in London he took her to a rented cottage in Herefordshire, near his parents and—less near—his sister; catering became less of a problem. There was a walk every morning, without fail. ‘That’s an elm,’ he told her. ‘Now rare. And that chap’s a beech.’ And so it went on.
On Sunday morning he took her to church: she made a fist of singing the hymns. Not that he’d have dreamed of such an outing, left to himself. But he wanted the child to receive an indelible impression of everything—anything—one could call English—so long as there should still remain anything one could call indelibly English. (The liturgy had been vandalised, of course, but they hadn’t done anything so barbarous to the building itself, and they were still using Hymns Ancient and Modern.) ‘How do you do,Vicar. Yes, just visiting—down from London. Yes, yes indeed, thank you.’ And on to the next punter.
‘Dad? I’m real hungry.’
‘Well, isn’t it a good thing we’ve got a roast dinner waiting for us at Grandma’s?’
‘What’s a roast dinner?’
‘You’re about to find out!’
And yorkshire pudding, and gravy. As only the English can, or would. And raspberries, afterwards, that his father had grown, and that Mimi had helped to pick. Well, he did his absolute best; so did they all.
‘So, Mimi, what do you think of England?’
‘England’s cool!’
But at night she got homesick, and cried for her mother. Andrew cuddled her, and brought her hot milk—which she didn’t like, until sugar was added to it—and read her a story, until she at last fell asleep. Then he went and sat in the low-ceilinged cottage parlour, and looked out into the darkening country night, and thought: crazy. Will it—can it—ever come right—really right— now?
45
Zoë and the Bazza didn’t seem to mind how long Barbara stayed— ‘Feel free!’ they said. She found a waitressing job in a restaurant ten minutes’ walk away: she earned the most stupendous tips. She started saving money, so as to go around Australia on a bus, and she gave Zoë a suitable sum each Friday to cover rent and board. ‘Well, if it makes you feel better,’ said Zoë.
There were lots of people coming in and out, even staying for a few days or so, in this household. It was that sort of as-yet-childless menage. ‘Hey there, Barbie,’ they said. ‘How are you doin’?’ Offers of sightseeing drives, of weekends in houses in the Blue Mountains and up the north coast and down the south coast came in a steady flow: people couldn’t have been kinder. And the food was superb, and the weather, of course; and the scenery.
‘So how are you liking Sydney?’ the affable new acquaintances asked her.
‘Oh, it’s paradise,’ she assured them.
And what should I do in Elysium, she asked herself: my lover, he is in Illyria. Well, at any rate, Albion. She was wrenched by homesickness; and by the further qualification, that Alex, after all, was not, precisely speaking, her lover, and at last, having sufficiently considered all this under the relentless antipodean light, she was devastated by the realisation that it was, after all, beyond all likelihood that Alex and she would ever now be lovers again: that the notion of his waiting so long for her, if not also she for him, was entirely exorbitant, and could no longer, truly, be entertained. Blinking in the unforgiving glare, she stumbled through the awful sunlit days.
She ought in any event to write to Andrew—she’d even bought an aerogram for the purpose. She’d bought it some weeks ago. Here was a pen. She sat at the table in her bedroom, contemplating once again the impossible task, defeated by an encompassing sense of the futility of her existence, looking out through the window at the fabulous ultramarine of the harbour where the white-sailed boats merrily tacked in the prevailing wind. What should she do in Elysium, or anywhere? Overwhelmed all at once by a despair which was entirely new to her, Barbara began suddenly, silently and uncontrollably, to weep. She was discovered thus by Zoë who, having knocked perfunctorily on her door, had entered the room immediately; concealment was impossible.
‘Oh, God, Barbie—is it something I’ve done?’
‘No—oh, no—no of course not—it’s nothing—’
‘Or Baz? He’s a tactless blighter, the Bazza. Just tell me.’
‘No, no, really—you couldn’t be kinder, either of you—I’m so lucky to—’
‘Oh, God, poor old Barbie.’ Zoë crouched awkwardly by Barbara’s chair, an arm around the girl’s shoulders. ‘I know,’ she said. ‘It’s probably just culture shock, that’s all. It’s a killer, isn’t it?’
Barbara said nothing; she was still crying too much to speak more than a few words at a time. Zoë continued to crouch beside her, looking upwards, her large dark eyes full of apprehension.
At last Barbara’s tears abated and she sat, looking down at her hands, while she folded a fresh Kleenex tissue into ever-tinier squares.
‘It’s nothing,’ she said. ‘Really.’
‘Nothing?’
‘No, really. It’s just—I suppose it’s just, that I don’t really know what to do.�
�
‘To do?’
Barbara shrugged helplessly. ‘I don’t know what I’m doing,’ she said miserably. ‘With my life.’
‘Oh—no one knows that! Join the gang!’
‘No, but—I mean—I just—I don’t actually belong anywhere. All I do is drift along—I’ve never even had a proper job—’
‘And you’re complaining?’
Barbara managed a very pale smile. ‘I can’t go on in this way,’ she said. ‘But I—really—I don’t know what else to do.’
‘This is so sudden,’ said Zoë. ‘I mean, I thought you were so free—you and Gideon and Charles—the ’90s dropouts—great—I thought—’
‘Oh, that was then. Now—’
‘I suppose you’re missing Gideon, eh? I mean, he’s quite a guy.’
She gave Barbara a questioning sideways glance.
‘Oh,’ said Barbara, shrugging, ‘yes, well, a bit, I suppose. I mean, Gideon—I mean, we’re not—’ and she began to cry again: two large tears ran down her cheeks and then she began to weep in earnest. She’d never meant to tell, and never previously had told, anyone, anywhere, about Alex: but now, since it was the only possible release from an unendurable sorrow, she related, very briefly, her tale.
46
‘Oh dear oh dear,’ said Zoë. ‘Oh, God. Well, there’ll always be an England.’
‘How do you mean?’
‘Well, for God’s sake. I mean—no, look, forget I said that. But it all sounds so mid-Victorian. Poor Barbie. I mean, this guy, this Alex, for a start. What’s all this staying-together-for-the-sake-of-the-kids stuff about, when we’re at home? Are you sure he isn’t just fobbing you off?’
‘Of course not!’
A Stairway to Paradise Page 10