Rich and Mad

by William Nicholson

  “You are wanted.”

  “How many signatures did you get?”

  “I’d have got more if I’d gone on.”

  “Mr. Pico’s right, Rich,” said Maddy. “Most of our class don’t get you, sir. They think you’re strange.”

  “Is that a euphemism, Maddy?”

  “Sir?”

  “You’re telling me they think I’m gay.”

  Maddy hesitated. Then, “Yes, sir.”

  “Since you’ve taken the trouble to call on me to return my book”—he tapped the book on his lap—“the least I can do is satisfy your curiosity. Please prepare your young minds for a shock. You see before you a man with no sexual feelings of any kind whatsoever. Am I gay? I have no idea. Perhaps. I have felt strong affections in my life for young men. But sexual interest, no. I am as neuter as a spayed cat.”

  He smiled at them and ate another olive.

  “Right,” said Rich.

  There was a silence.

  “Yes, I know,” said Mr. Pico, “it is all very embarrassing. It contravenes something fundamental in human nature. But there it is. I’m sure you feel very sorry for me. My deformity does come with a cost, of course. I live alone. I am alone. But that apart, I must ask you to believe that in my own way I live a rich, varied, and rewarding life.”

  “I suppose,” said Maddy, “it lets you get on with other things.” She looked round the book-crowded room. “Like reading.”

  “Like reading indeed,” said Mr. Pico. “And reading, you know, is the greatest other thing there is. Reading is the whole world.”

  “But you should go on teaching, sir,” said Rich.

  “How many signatures, Rich?”

  “That doesn’t mean anything.”

  “I prefer to teach those that want to be taught. Why should I impose my eccentricities on those who don’t find any benefit in them? I shall find a square hole somewhere for my square peg.”

  “I want to be taught by you, sir.”

  “So do I,” said Maddy.

  “Well, then,” said Mr. Pico. “Here we are. Who needs a school?”

  He picked up the wine bottle and filled his glass. He was about to raise the glass to his lips when he recalled his guests.

  “What am I thinking of? There you see the force of solitary habit in action. It has made me impolite. Let me offer you both a drink. A glass of white wine?”

  “Yes, thanks,” said Maddy.

  “All right,” said Rich. “Thanks.”

  Mr. Pico left the room in search of glasses. Rich and Maddy spoke in whispers.

  “First teacher who ever offered me a drink,” said Maddy.

  “We’re not in school now.”

  “He’s sweet.”

  “And a bit sad,” said Rich.

  Mr. Pico returned and filled two more glasses. He raised his own glass in a toast.

  “Here’s to other things,” he said.

  After a few sips of wine all three of them loosened up. Rich got off his pile of magazines, which had started to make his back ache, and sat down on the floor leaning against the door. Maddy rearranged herself sitting cross-legged. Mr. Pico opened the book Rich had returned to him and turned the pages looking for a particular passage.

  “I hope you got a whiff of just how radical Fromm can be,” he said. He read aloud: “ ‘While one is consciously afraid of not being loved, the real though usually unconscious fear is that of loving.’ ”

  He lowered the book and peered at them.

  “Interesting, no?”

  “But I’m not afraid of loving,” said Maddy. “I’m just afraid of not being loved back.”

  “You don’t find that love generates love?”

  “No. Not at all.”

  “Nor do I,” said Rich. “I’d say it’s just the opposite. Loving someone makes them not want to love you.”

  “Oh, dear,” said Mr. Pico. “So how is this love business to be managed at all?”

  They talked of love and books until the bottle of wine was finished. Mr. Pico did not offer them any more.

  “In the light of the rumors about me,” he said, “perhaps you should not be seen to stay for too long.”

  They shook his offered hand and thanked him. He saw them to the front door.

  “I shall probably go south,” he said. “I feel the need of sunshine.”

  The bolt slid closed on the door behind them. They made their way back down the road in silence. As they turned into the lower end of the High Street Maddy looked back up the hillside to the little cottage.

  “I think he’s amazing,” she said. “I wish I’d paid more attention in his classes.”

  “He’s the only real teacher I’ve ever had.”

  The shared experience of Mr. Pico’s eccentric room and his wine and his conversation made them feel oddly intimate.

  “He was funny about love,” said Maddy. “About people being afraid of loving.”

  “I agree with you!” said Rich. “I’m more afraid of not being loved back.”

  “Do you still think about Grace?”

  “Sometimes.”

  “Do you hate her?”

  “No.”

  “Do you still love her?”

  “In a way.” He sounded sheepish. “I know that’s pathetic.”

  “No. I understand. Exactly.”

  Maddy was thinking how in spite of everything she still thought of Joe, and he still seemed to her to be perfect.

  “I had a crush on someone and it didn’t work out. But I can’t stop myself thinking about him.”

  “Who was it?”

  “Joe Finnigan.”

  “Oh, well. I’m not surprised you went for him. He’s cool but he’s sunny, if you know what I mean.”

  “Yes. I know what you mean.”

  Maddy felt grateful to Rich for understanding about Joe. Of course he knew nothing about the terrible way Joe had treated her, or that his own beloved Grace was Joe’s secret girlfriend. But even so, he was generous about Joe where he could have been spiteful.

  “It wasn’t much of anything,” she said.

  “I never really got beyond the wishful thinking stage.”

  “Me neither,” said Maddy. “Oh, God. Why does it all have to be so difficult?”

  They came to the parting of the ways.

  “Listen, Mad,” said Rich. “You remember my gran’s party, that I wrote those stupid letters to Grace about?”

  “I remember the pope bit.”

  “My mum wants me to get someone to help hand round the food and drinks. I was wondering if you’d do it.”

  “I don’t see why not. When is it?”

  “Lunchtime Saturday.”

  “Yes, okay.”

  “Great.”

  Then, as she was walking away, “Don’t I get a letter from the pope too?”

  22

  Maddy has monster thoughts

  Maddy’s father’s return from China was not a success. Perhaps Maddy had expected too much. She came home from school to find him in the carver chair with the broken arm, his legs stretched out and his eyes closed. He looked thinner and paler than she had remembered. Her first thought was: I don’t know this man. He had been away two months, not long really. But this time his return home felt incomplete.

  “Dad! You’re back!”

  He heaved himself upright and opened his eyes.

  “Maddy. How’s my little Madkin?”

  She kissed him and pulled a chair round so she could sit facing him.

  “You must be so jet-lagged. Do you feel awful?”

  “Almost as bad as I look. Can’t seem to stay awake.”

  “It’s good you’re back, Dad. It doesn’t feel right here without you.”

  He had always looked young to her before, young for a father, but now he looked old. Maybe it had never been his looks so much as his manner, his easygoing way of making light of life’s troubles. His smiling shrug alone somehow made Maddy feel nothing could ever go badly wrong. But the bounce
had left him now.

  Imo was away with friends. Maddy did her best to make the evening into a celebration, but her father was tired and her mother out of spirits.

  “Jen has passed on the joyful news,” he said. “It seems that we’re broke.”

  “I didn’t say that,” said Maddy’s mother. “I said we’re almost broke. As far as I can tell.”

  “In the words of the Buddha,” he smiled at Maddy, his eyelids drooping with fatigue, “this too shall pass.”

  “All I know about the Buddha,” said his wife, “is that you bought two stone Buddhas which cost over a thousand pounds in freight charges alone and they’ve still not sold.”

  “Take it easy, Mum,” said Maddy. “He’s only just got back.”

  “Things have a way of sorting themselves out,” said her father.

  With that he rose from the table and gave an ironic salute.

  “Over and out. See everyone in the morning. Tomorrow is another day.”

  Maddy was left alone with her mother.

  “Is it really that bad, Mum?”

  “Oh, I suppose not. It’s just that these things that have a way of sorting themselves out, it’s me who has to sort them out. And I don’t see how I’m going to do it anymore.”

  “Won’t it be easier now Dad’s home?”

  Maddy’s mother gazed at her in silence for a moment.

  “Let’s hope so,” she said.

  Maddy retreated to her room early. Alone in her room her thoughts strayed from her father to Joe. The trouble with men, it seemed to her, is that they were lazy. They did whatever they felt like at the time. Joe had a problem with Gemma and he thought he’d found a neat way out of it so he just went ahead. It was only a game, nothing serious, except he never took the trouble to think what it might be like from her end. No, it just suited him to assume she’d take it lightheartedly too. Not the worst crime in the world, just thoughtless, careless.

  Loveless.

  Boys don’t do love.

  The simple truth struck Maddy with the force of revelation. Boys aren’t equipped to love. That’s why we can never get it right with boys. We think they have the ability to love and mostly choose not to. But what if they just can’t?

  That would explain why they go on and on about sex. Sex is the only kind of love they know. They can touch sex. They can feel it. It’s something that happens to them without them having to take the trouble to know anything about the other person. She can be Amy-the-bunny for all they care. They don’t need names or faces. Sex is love without the complication of other people. Sex is love without the love.

  She phoned Cath.

  “Hey, sweetie. I’m having monster thoughts. I think quite possibly I’m having a breakdown.”

  “Wow! That’s so cool! Do you think you’ll have to check in to the Priory?”

  “Why have I always been so prejudiced against hard drugs?”

  “Mad, this is so wild! Shall we both turn into smack heads and become addicted and die in a toilet?”

  “That’s it, Cath. That’s so it. Self-destruction. I can relate to that.”

  “Or we could go shoplifting and get caught. It’s a well-known cry for help.”

  “Or we could just cry for help.”

  “Oh, Mad. I’ll hear your cry. What happened?”

  “I don’t know. Dad came home. I suppose I thought he’d be able to make everything be all right, but he can’t.”

  “Don’t go relying on men, Mads.”

  “But it’s not because men are bad. They’re not bad. They just don’t really care. That’s my monster thought. That’s why love never works. Boys don’t care.”

  “What, all boys?”

  “All of them.”

  “You don’t think some of them might be okay?”

  “I don’t know a single one who’s even remotely okay.”

  “How about Rich?”

  “Rich is different. He’s a friend. Like you’re a friend. Friends are basically female.”

  “So Rich is female.”

  “Sort of. You know what I mean.”

  “Except he’s actually male.”

  “Yes, but you don’t think of having sex with Rich.”

  “No. I suppose not.”

  “So anyway, if boys don’t really care then I don’t see why I should care either. So I can have sex with anyone I want and never even see their face.”

  “Really?” Cath sounded intrigued but incredulous. “With a total stranger?”

  “The stranger the better. That way it’s just for the sex. That way him not caring won’t matter because I won’t care either.”

  The ideas came as the words formed in her mouth. What was so liberating about talking with Cath was that she could say things she maybe didn’t really mean just to see how it felt saying them.

  “If it’s just for the sex, the sex had better be worth it,” said Cath. “If all you want is to get fucked it’d better be a good fuck.”

  Trust Cath to get down and dirty.

  “Maybe all I want is to get fucked.” It was fun saying the words, but even as she said them Maddy knew it wasn’t true. “Damn Joe Finnigan. This is all his fault.”

  “And Grace’s.”

  “I could become a nun instead.”

  “Or a lesbian.”

  “What’s the point of being a lesbian? I never did get that one. Girls are friends. The whole point of friends is you don’t mess things up with sex.”

  “You know what, Mad? All these things you’re saying, these are things I think all the time.”

  “Are they?”

  “Being me is different to being you.”

  “So do you spend your whole time feeling angry and miserable and like your whole life’s meaningless and the world’s going wronger every day?”

  “My whole time.”

  “Jesus, Cath. I didn’t know. I thought it was all, like, a joke.”

  “No. Not really.”

  “You’re supposed to be my best friend and I didn’t know. That’s terrible. That’s what Joe did to me. He thought it was just a bit of fun. I’ve been behaving like a boy. Maybe I’m a boy.”

  “So. It’s complicated.”

  Preparing to go to bed that evening, Maddy found that her period had started. Every month it took her by surprise. Other people had cramps or mood swings or just felt it in their bodies, but Maddy never felt a thing. She was grateful for that, but she still felt somehow wrong-footed by her body, as if it had its own plans and saw no need to consult her about them.

  Now she had a decision to make. If she was going to take the pill, now was the time to start.

  She took the white and green box out of its hiding place and gazed at it, as if the sight of it would somehow focus her thoughts. Back then, in that long-lost age in which she had visited the health center and obtained the prescription, it had all been for the sake of Joe Finnigan. She blushed, even though she was alone in her room. Back then the white and green box had promised the ultimate closeness with Joe. But it turned out they never even had so much as a kiss.

  No point in starting taking the pills, then. Leave it till there looked like some chance of action. In some unimaginable future, with some unimaginable boy.

  On the other hand, should that opportunity arise, it would be awkward to have to wait for weeks before acting on it. Sometimes you just had to hold your nose and jump. Plus, taking the pill would clear up her complexion and regulate her periods. What was there to worry about other than mood swings, weight gain, breast tenderness, nausea, and headaches?

  As Cath would say, it’s complicated.

  Maddy took out a green card of pills. Twenty-one little yellow pills in twenty-one day-named bubbles. Then seven pill-free days. In the land of contraception every month was twenty-eight days long, like living in a perpetual February. Once you start you have to keep on taking them or it doesn’t work. Imagine taking a pill every night for a year and then forgetting, and next morning you’re pregnant. That is so bru
tal. That is so unforgiving. You’d think all those pills piled up inside you, getting more and more effective; but no, forget one and all the pills you’ve taken in all your life are a waste of time. You’d think they’d have come up with a system that let you mess up from time to time. So now there was something else to worry about for the foreseeable future, along with boyfriends, exams, financial crises, global warming, and the meaninglessness of life.

  Anyway, the whole idea made her feel like a fraud. Worse, like a joke. Look at Maddy, all ready to rock’n’roll, but no one’s playing the music. Seriously, what’s the point?

  And yet all the time she knew deep down she was going to do it. It was her small act of faith in the future. Some unexamined superstition whispered that just taking the pill would change her. Her body would know it could go all the way without consequences and would behave differently. She might even become sexy. The boys would sense it. Like a taxi with its light on. And who knew? Maybe one day Joe would send her another email.

  She popped the first pill out of its bubble and swallowed it down with water from her tooth mug.

  There. She’d started.

  Life would be different from now on.

  23

  Gran’s eightieth birthday party

  “You’re looking very well, Richard,” said Great-Uncle Freddy, standing straight as a ramrod in the small living room. “I can see you’re admiring my suit. I expect you’re asking yourself how much it cost. Tailoring like this, £2,000 at least, eh? Guess again!”

  “I don’t really know how much suits cost,” said Rich.

  “£350! How about that? Took the wind out of your sails, eh?” He dropped his voice to a whisper. “Hong Kong. Do it all over the Internet. There, I’ve told you now.”

  Great-Uncle Freddy smoothed his white hands down over the lapels of his pale gray suit and nodded his head at Rich. He was in his late seventies, tall, slender, distinguished.

  “I’m going to pass on the secret of my success, Richard. You’re a young man now. You need to know these things. You may want to write it down. Three little words. Posture. Tailoring. And silence.”

  He raised his chin and widened his eyes, fixing Rich with a keen unblinking gaze.