Frank was staring at the model now, lost in thought. He remembered Little Cloud standing on top of the tallest building.
‘Dad?’
He’d done a good job putting it all back together after his father’s death. The fine lines where he had glued the shards back in place were barely visible.
‘Dad?’
‘Yes?’
‘The town? What’s it called?’
Frank looked at Mo and realized he hadn’t been listening to her.
‘The town? It’s called San Francisco.’
44
Michael
October 2009
Elsie and Michael often saw Phil on television. They’d watch him sometimes on Saturday nights, surrounded by his glamorous assistants, his skin glowing, his teeth and eyes catching the light like glass, and he was the same old Phil to them. He was still the boy with too much oil in his hair who wanted to be Stewart Granger. Elsie would say, ‘You should drop him a line,’ and Michael would nod and agree that he should.
He remembers Phil’s wedding. Michael didn’t think he was right for best man. He thought Phil should pick someone better with people, better with words and speeches. Phil told him he didn’t care about any of that. What he wanted was a best man who would look after him on the scariest day of his life. He said that Michael had always looked after him, that he relied on him. Michael found that funny. He’d always thought it was the other way round.
He supposes now that the usual things happened to them: wives, jobs, house moves. They saw less of each other over time. They’d send a few scribbled lines in Christmas cards, but then a new address got missed and they drifted out of touch completely. It would have been easy for Michael to contact Phil through the television, but because Phil was in their living room so much he never really felt as if they’d lost touch.
Elsie sometimes worried that Michael was too self-contained, but Michael didn’t think that was true. She contained him; he had no need of anyone else.
He and Elsie walked a lot when they were courting. He had never been a great talker and she had never made him feel that he should be, but when they walked they talked. Nothing, they’d be the first to admit, of any great consequence, just the easy flow of observations, memories and thoughts possible only with each other. They always ended up in the park, under the tree they thought of as theirs, lying in the long grass, glimpsing the sky through the leaves and feeling the earth spin beneath them.
When she had the fourth miscarriage, he held her tightly all night, not letting her slip away. They cried and knew it was the last time. He promised her they’d be okay, just the two of them, told her they didn’t need anyone else. He knew it was harder for her, but for him it was true – he already had everything he wanted.
Even now, he’s never lonely. He stands at bus stops on busy streets and no one sees him. He sits in the lounge at night listening to the stairs creak. He spends his days in the unit crafting fine-precision tools that no one, as far as he can tell, wants. But he’s never lonely. He has no desire to attend the coffee mornings at the local community centre. He doesn’t want to talk to the limping young vicar who knocks at his door once a month. He doesn’t reply to the invitations that come from the school to their annual old-folks’ party.
He feels no connection to his hands and feet. He stares at them and wonders who they belong to. He watches with fascination as they put teabags in cups and shuffle to the post office. He isn’t lonely. He doesn’t want company. His Elsie has gone. His Elsie has gone.
45
Julia was off for the week. She’d said she was going away on holiday, but she told Frank in confidence that she just needed a week to sort her head out and work out what she wanted to do with her career and her life. Her disillusionment with the programme had reached breaking point recently. Sitting next to her on the little couch as the cameras rolled, Frank would feel something bubbling under the surface. Some days he thought it might dramatically break through and Julia might resign live on air with a blistering speech. He had an image of her as a bedraggled Peter Finch shouting at the camera: ‘I’m as mad as hell and I’m not going to take it any more.’ But he had to concede that was fanciful, perhaps even wishful, thinking on his part. It wasn’t really Julia’s style.
In Julia’s absence Frank was presenting with Suzy for the week. She breezed in each day in her immaculate knitwear, hair like a helmet with tales of marvellous engagements at the golf club or the local chamber of commerce. She had no interest at all in getting to the bottom of the stories or in discussing with reporters exactly what it was they were trying to say. She was a presenter and her job as she saw it was to be a reassuring presence to viewers. She might pick up on a grammatical error on the autocue, but she would never question the internal logic of a report or the worthiness of it. Frank had to admit that for that week, after Julia’s recent thunderous moods, she was a delight. Whilst he and Julia held more or less similar points of view about the programme, about the standards they should aspire to and about what made a decent story, he found keeping up with her constant level of outrage to be exhausting.
On their last day working together Frank asked Suzy if she fancied getting a drink after the programme.
‘No thanks, Frank. I need to get off.’
‘Oh, well, that’s a shame. I just wanted to say that it’s been nice working together this week.’
Suzy smiled to herself and shook her head.
Frank picked up on something. ‘What?’
‘It’s nothing.’
‘No, what is it?’
She looked at him. ‘You think I’m a bit of a joke, don’t you?’
Frank was taken aback. ‘No. Certainly not.’
She rolled her eyes. ‘You could at least be honest about it.’ Frank didn’t know what to say. ‘I’m seen as “old school”, aren’t I?’
Frank shrugged. ‘Well, that’s not an insult.’
Suzy laughed. ‘I think it is, Frank. I think we both know that.’ She carried on bustling with her handbag and coat and then stopped to look again at Frank. ‘Can I ask you, Frank, how old you are?’
‘I’m forty-three.’
‘Well, I’m fifty. Not a huge difference, is there? And yet there you are on the main evening show and I’m tidily tucked away in the broom cupboard of the morning bulletins, where hopefully not too many people will notice me.’
‘Nobody tucked you away. You chose to move to the morning slots.’
‘Oh yes. I chose, but I was given a lot of helpful advice and guidance in making the decision when I was coming up to forty.’
‘By who?’
‘The powers that be. The same people who are giving me helpful advice now about perhaps retiring. You know, I’ve put in the years apparently, so why not take it easy and retire? Put my feet up? Take a well-earned break?’
‘Why do they want you to retire?’
‘Oh, come on, Frank. I’m fifty. I’m a woman. It’s fine for a man of that age to be presenting. It’s fine for a man of that age even to move to national television, to embark on a new phase of his career in front of a wider audience, to marry a woman half his age. But women? No, we’re supposed to fade away decorously sometime in our early forties. We may reappear in adverts for Saga holidays, or financial services aimed at the elderly, we may do the occasional voice-over on radio, but to be the face of the news? Who wants to see that?’
Frank realized that he was shocked not by what she was saying, but that she was saying it at all. He realized with some shame that he’d always assumed Suzy was somehow unaware of her own sidelining.
‘I’m sure Julia thinks that they replaced me with her because of her journalistic integrity, her rigour. Well, you might want to tell her one day that such things make no difference at all. There have been many female presenters before her on our programme and others – and they’ve run the gamut from brilliant journalists, to straightforward, professional presenters, but none of them makes it past fifty.’ She looked
quite closely at Frank. ‘You see, Frank, your wrinkles lend you gravitas, mine make me unemployable.’ With that she left the newsroom.
A reporter named Clive had been standing nearby and had evidently been eavesdropping. He looked over at Frank now and pointing at his temple made the universal ‘nutter’ gesture. ‘Menopause – sends ’em mental.’
Frank looked away and felt complicit in the whole shitty nature of things.
He was still thinking about Suzy when the phone in his pocket started to ring and made him jump. He answered without looking who was calling.
‘Aye, aye.’
‘Hello, Cyril.’
‘Nice show this evening, sir, nicely done.’
‘Oh, thanks.’ Frank couldn’t remember a thing about it.
‘Just thought I’d see what’s coming up tomorrow. I can get my thinking cap on tonight and come back to you fresh in the morning with some crackers.’
‘Okay … give me a second, Cyril. I’ll just have a look … Hmmm, I don’t know, it’s all quite serious stuff to be honest – job losses, arson court case, a cowboy builder who’s swindled thousands from pensioners, a parish refusing to accept a female vicar …’
‘Hold up, Frank. There could be something with the lady vicars. Always good for a giggle that. Did you hear about the female vicar who wanted to say “awomen” not “amen” at the end of the prayers, eh? She insisted the parishioners sang “hers” not “hymns”.’
‘Cyril, those were old jokes when I was a boy …’
‘Yes, I know, I know – I’m just saying there are plenty of possibilities – what you might call juice to be squeezed. And if there’s a drop of juice there Cyril’s the man to wring it out. Don’t fret, Frank, I’m onto it. I’ll have a think tonight and give you a choice of three tomorrow.’
Frank didn’t worry too much; he was fairly sure the story would be dropped before the following evening’s show.
‘All right, Cyril, I’ll talk to you tomorrow.’
‘Yes. Tomorrow.’ Cyril hesitated. ‘I was wondering … did you have a chance to think any more about what I said?’
Frank’s mind was blank. ‘Which bit of what you said?’
‘Remember, the other day when I met your lovely daughter and fiery wife. You’re a lucky man, Frank – she’s just the kind of woman I like. She reminded me of a tiger, a blazing tiger.’
Frank had to try and shake the image of a big cat on fire from his mind. ‘Oh yes?’
‘I said about us meeting up again, just the two of us. Just wanted to have a chat with you about a couple of things.’
Now Frank remembered. The new business opportunity. He wondered if it was possible to say he was busy before Cyril had even suggested a date. ‘Right. Yes.’
‘How about next Monday after the show? I’ll come down and meet you at the studio.’
Frank tried to think of an excuse. He had a suspicion that there was no new business opportunity, and whilst that was cause for relief it would mean the only reason Cyril wanted to meet up was to get maudlin about the old days and Big Johnny Jason.
The silence prompted Cyril to add: ‘Or any day, really. I’m free any time.’
Frank had a brief glimpse of Cyril’s solitary life. He thought of Michael Church. He realized that giving up one evening to spend with someone who clearly wanted a bit of company was hardly the greatest sacrifice.
‘Monday’s fine, Cyril. I’ll see you then.’
‘Aye, aye, Cap’n.’
46
They stood leaning against the car looking at the exterior of the Renwick Building.
‘So what number is it, Dad?’
‘What do you mean – what number? On the street?’
‘No, on the list. What number is it on the list?’
Andrea touched Mo’s arm. ‘Being listed doesn’t mean it’s on a list. Well, it does, but I mean not that kind of numbered list. It just means that it’s protected – for now anyway.’
‘But if there was a list.’
‘What kind of list?’
‘Like … the hundred best buildings in Birmingham. What number do you think it would be, Dad?’
‘I don’t know, Mo. Ninety-nine maybe.’
Mo shook her head fervently. ‘No way, man.’ She’d started saying that a lot recently. ‘It’d be in the top twenty – definitely. I think it would be number seventeen at least.’
Frank nodded. ‘Hmm, the seventeenth-best building in Birmingham – that has a ring to it.’
‘Will there be a sign to say that it’s listed with your dad’s name on?’
‘I don’t think so. Lots of buildings are listed; they don’t have plaques.’
‘I can’t believe there won’t be a sign. What’s the point in being listed?’
‘It just protects the building.’
‘So no one can ever demolish it? Ever?’
Frank hesitated. ‘Well, you can’t say forever and ever. But it means it’s very difficult to get rid of it.’
Mo looked at the top of the building. ‘I think in four hundred years people will be coming here for day trips. They’ll have question sheets to fill in about the name of the man who built it and the shapes of the windows like we had to do at Aston Hall. Maybe they’ll have to colour in a picture of your dad! I bet loads of them will look at the building and say, “Wow! What a great building. I wonder if he had any grandchildren.” And they’ll try and imagine me, but they won’t be able to because I’ll be so long ago and mysterious.’
Andrea nodded. ‘Mo the Mysterious, that’s what they’ll call you.’
Mo liked that. She walked up and down the street in front of the building, inspecting the block as if it was her ancestral home. Frank was glad it was a Sunday and none of the office workers were around. He worried that Mo might have tried to charge them admission.
Andrea turned to Frank. ‘Do you think your father would have been happy?’
‘I don’t think he’d have been too thrilled about the seven that were razed to the ground.’
‘But at least this one will remain.’
‘I’m not sure even that would mean that much to him. I think he lost interest in individual buildings towards the end of his life. He didn’t seem to think they counted for much.’
‘I suppose everyone becomes disenchanted.’
‘No, he wasn’t disenchanted. The opposite, really – he was more fervent than ever, but his ambitions had moved on. He was obsessed with the new town he was planning. He felt he’d always been limited by his environment, by history, by other people’s ideas and mistakes. With the new town, he was going to start from scratch. It’s all he thought about.’
‘We should take Mo. She’d love that. She’d think she was the Lady Mayoress.’
‘Take her where?’
‘To the new town. You’ve never shown me, either. Darnley’s only in Worcestershire, isn’t it?’
Frank said nothing.
‘I mean I’ve seen the model; it’d be good to see the disappointing reality.’
Frank was silent for a few moments. ‘The reality is more disappointing than you imagine. We can go and visit Darnley New Town any time you want, but it has nothing to do with my father.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘He never got the contract. It went to the Langdon partnership.’
Andrea stared at Frank. ‘But … you’ve spoken about it so much, his obsession, his endless work on it.’
‘It feels like he did build it. It dominated our lives for so long, dragging on and on. Endless public meetings and consultations and planning applications. He seemed to be perpetually presenting his plans. It was a long drawn-out beauty contest and they eventually narrowed it down to my father’s company and the Langdon partnership. They had to go away and develop the plans further before the decision was finally made. It had been a huge investment of time and energy for him. I mean he’d never been around much, but he seemed to leave us completely. Even when he was physically there at the dinne
r table his eyes never seemed to fix on us. It’s hard to believe that it all came to nothing.’
Andrea was quiet for a while and then said, ‘But I suppose he was used to that kind of thing, I mean for a practice like his that must have happened all the time – losing out to competitors.’
Frank shook his head. ‘Not to my father it didn’t – not often, anyway. In Birmingham he was the golden boy; he seemed to get everything he tendered for. I think he’d started to take it for granted that he always would.’
‘He took it badly, then?’
Frank could see quite vividly his toy town lying in pieces on the floor of his father’s study. ‘Yes, I think he did.’
‘Did he say much about it?’
‘He didn’t have much opportunity. He died a month later.’
Andrea looked at Frank: ‘God, Frank – I never realized.’
He shrugged: ‘Maybe they weren’t connected.’
‘But you obviously think they were.’
Frank looked over at Mo who was now poking the pond in front of the building with a twig.
‘I’m not sure that in the wake of losing his next big thing it might have occurred to my father that he had anything left to live for.’
Andrea reached out and squeezed Frank’s hand.
‘I’ve been wondering recently why I wanted to try and save this building. What would it matter if all his buildings disappeared? I mean lots of people die and seem to leave no trace – like Michael Church. But when you go back and scratch at the surface you find the people who knew him and who he’d meant something to or who he impacted in some way. He left traces. Then at the other extreme there are people like my father who leave behind this very tangible, physical legacy. Concrete proof that he existed, but if all his buildings went, what traces of him would remain?’
Andrea frowned. ‘Well, you remain.’
‘Yes I do, but he looked straight past me … and Mom. He’d grown bored of us long before. He was focused on the future; he was never really there with us in the house, in our lives. When you take away his works and all his talk about his works, he just slips through the fingers.’
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