by Tim Parks
House or no house, the advantage of the fire is that I would not need to be in the same room as her. I would not have to see her clawing for breath.
But what decides me in the end is Peggy’s abortion. We have been seeing Peggy and Charles regularly for a couple of years now. Really, they are our only visitors. Shirley did go through a period of trying to contact and make friends with other couples with handicapped children, and we would drive out to meet them some evenings or Saturday afternoons. One does these things, looking for reassurance, I suppose, others in the same boat. But it was too depressing. One’s own handicapped child is bad enough, but the deformities and spastic contortions of a stockbroker’s boy in Walthamstow, a railway worker’s teenage daughter in Hounslow are too appalling. And far, far from reassuring. Merely a reminder in fact of how lost and wave-tossed the shared boat is. Somehow the more these people insisted on the little progresses, the tiny achievements of their doomed offspring, the more obstinately cheerful they were, showing you family photos in fields of flowers, so the worse, at least for me, the whole scenario became. Until, with the reasonable excuse that we were only depressing ourselves, I managed to put an end to this interlude. Shirley offered no resistance. She is not quite at my mother’s level of martyrdom yet. In fact we will have these moments, sitting on the sofa for example, watching the box, when our fingers will meet, involuntarily it seems, and some kind of communication, of affection will pass between us.
We haven’t made love for more than five years.
Shirley has confiscated and burnt my euthanasia scrapbook. Though I don’t generally go in for hocus pocus, I find the fact that she burnt it excitingly symbolic. Anyway, I shan’t be collecting any more such articles now. I sense the need for them is over.
Although never exactly assiduous, all our old regular friends, Gregory and Jill and Shirley’s one-time school colleagues, have completely dropped off. They find it too hard to handle. Shirley has her church friends of course, but she generally sees them in the morning or afternoon when I’m at work, or at Wednesday evening choir practice or after Sunday Morning Service. So our paths don’t cross. Anyway I have no desire to see them. Their determined niceness grates on me, reminds me of Mother humming ‘Count your blessings’, under an umbrella on Park Royal Road with an empty purse in her threadbare pocket. There is a primal anguish behind it all for me, dating back I sometimes wonder, to some experience I can’t even remember. I dream my dreams of mutilation.
But we do see Charles and Peggy. They come over once, twice, even three times a week, eat with us, talk, argue. They always come together because they are sharing a house he has persuaded his buddies in Camden Council Housing Authority to let Peggy have, pending demolition. This is a wangle I’m sure. They’ve had the place more than a year now and there’s no sign of the bulldozers. Meanwhile, God knows in what investments Charles has sunk the hundred and fifty-odd grand he got from Daddy-oh. In British Airports, I wouldn’t be surprised. Nothing would surprise me.
I didn’t realise they were lovers at first. Why? Because Peggy has always enthused over her lovers, always pronounced herself everlastingly in love with them. Because, being our brother and sister, they have a good excuse for arriving together. Because Charles never shows a shred of fatherliness toward the exhaustingly exuberant Freddie. And because I always suspected he was queer.
‘Peggy mentioned it,’ Shirley tells me one day.
‘Mentioned it!’
‘She was very offhand.’
‘Wonders will never cease.’
‘I was thinking, probably that’s why he became so assiduous about visiting us in the first place. To see her.’
I reflect on this.
‘They don’t show any affection together. Why don’t they act like a couple?’
‘The amazing thing about you,’ Shirley says, ‘is that for all your super logic and supposed modernity, you’re so incredibly traditional.’
‘Sorry, I just thought it was common sense. You’re lovers, you live together, you may as well act like a couple.’
‘Why don’t you just accept that people are different. You got angry with her when she was naïve, now maybe she’s being less so.’
But although in some obscure way I disapprove of Charles and Peggy, I do enjoy their visits. Discussing things between four people they seem manageable, whereas on one’s own, or alone with Shirley, hysteria is always just around the corner.
‘Now the girl’s five,’ Charles tells us this evening, ‘you’re due for nappy relief, since a normal child would now be out of nappies.’
‘Oh yes?’ Shirley asks chattily. ‘What do we have to do?’
Charles begins to describe the bureaucratic procedure. He obviously enjoys this. His voice is quick, incisive, very faintly patronising in a teacherly sort of way. As he speaks, lean and sinewy, I watch how his thin fingers twine and untwine around a tumbler. His Adam’s apple is also jerkily mobile.
‘A wonder they haven’t cut it,’ Peggy remarks. She is helping Frederick with a jigsaw puzzle of the Changing of the Guard.
‘No, there’s no actual means test per se,’ Charles reassures. ‘More to the point they need a letter from your GP to the effect that the child really is incontinent.’
‘Fair enough. After all, they’re eight quid a box,’ Shirley says, ‘and it’s only paper and a bit of plastic in the end.’
‘You know you can’t use them at all in Washington State,’ Peggy informs. ‘Anti-ecological.’
‘Then you present proof of purchase and you get the cash.’
I remark that eight quid, what, a week, isn’t going to change our lives in any major way, is it? It hardly seems worth the time in the queue. In fact – and I make the mistake of getting drawn into an old argument – the whole point about state help, or any such sops of this kind, is that they merely draw your attention away from the real issue while you waste your time picking up crumbs.
‘And what is the real issue?’ Charles asks sharply.
‘That this is our problem. Our huge problem, and we’re stuck with it. There is no imaginable help that could really amount to anything or significantly change our lives.’
‘Well, obviously it’s useful for the less well-off,’ Charles says, faintly offended by my lack of interest, ‘which is why the government’s no doubt trying to cut it.’
‘But we’re not less well off, we’re rich. I’m on forty-plus grand. If I don’t pick it up there’ll be more for someone else.’
‘No, if people don’t pick it up, the government’ll say they don’t need it and remove it all together.’
Looking away from me to inspect a ladder on dark tights, Shirley says: ‘George is just lamenting the absence of state assisted abortion post birth.’ She looks up with her little smile. ‘N’est-ce-pas?’
I shrug my shoulders. We’re old campaigners now. I don’t think either of us is capable of shocking the other any more. ‘Abortion certainly solves a problem in a way a few quid for nappies doesn’t.’
Then before Charles can stop her, Peggy says simply: ‘I’m going to have to have an abortion. Next week.’ And very matter of fact, she explains that she is pregnant by Charles (he fidgets fiercely, pushes thumb and forefinger around his teeth), but that he doesn’t want the child. Anyway, she already has Freddy and that’s quite enough for anyone the way men come and go. She doesn’t seem to be saying this as an attack on Charles, or even as an expression of reproach.
Why am I so stunned? It is the ease with which my sister handles these decisions, the lack of any hint of guilt.
‘She insisted,’ Charles says, ‘on using the Okino Knauss method.’
Peggy laughs: ‘Rhythm and blues! In that order. Still, I just can’t afford another.’
Later, when they have gone, I watch Shirley liquidising meat to store away in little tubs in the freezer for all Hilary’s meals for the week to come. She follows an intense routine now of keeping house and feeding Hilary. She is always doing something, loc
ked into some procedure.
‘What do you make of that?’
She shrugs her shoulders. ‘Probably they’re afraid it’ll be like Hilary.’
‘But we asked, on her behalf, don’t you remember. It was one of the first things I did. And the specialist said how unlikely it was and that anyway they can test for it now they know it’s a possibility.’
Shirley doesn’t seem interested.
‘The child is probably perfectly healthy,’ I insist.
‘So maybe it is.’
Obliquely I say: ‘Soon they’ll be able to keep foetuses alive as soon as the cells meet. Will they still let people abort them?’
As if she were another part of my own mind, she says: ‘No, at that point, they’ll tell you you can kill anybody who’s helpless and inconvenient.’
‘But why didn’t she use contraceptives, for heaven’s sake?’
Shirley’s working fast, slicing some stewing meat into manageable chunks. Her once finely tapered pale fingers are growing rough and red, like Mother’s.
‘We all have our fixations. She’s into Buddhism, natural foods, natural body functions, no contraceptives. Charles is into politics, his career, he doesn’t want a kid he would have to feel responsible for. Probably he’s quite right.’
‘And you?’ I ask with the husky tenderness that will sometimes spring up unexpected as a wild flower on the roughest terrain. ‘Don’t you think life should have a certain grace, Shirley?’
‘Leave be, George,’ she says. ‘Please, please, please leave be.’
Foul Medicine
I’m not a pig. In an attempt to recapture something of my relationship with Shirley I decide on a vasectomy, let’s see if we can’t get back to lovemaking. She says: ‘I’ll have forgotten how to do it. I can’t quite see why we ever bothered, it’s so much more hygienic without it.’ Though a week or so before the op she hugs me from behind, squeezes my crotch, and murmurs: ‘I can’t wait, if you knew how much I want you and want you.’
Since I’m determined no one at the office should know about the whole thing, I take a fortnight’s holiday during which time I arrange for the operation to be done privately in the London Clinic in Harley Street. Typically, Shirley informs my mother without first conferring with me, hence the day after the op, there she is at my bedside in her ancient black coat with the fake once-white fur inside the collar. The strap of her blue handbag, doubtless full of used paper handkerchiefs, is held on by a heavy duty safety pin.
My mother. She sold Gorst Road to the first buyer and then instead of getting a smaller place for herself and keeping the remaining cash for Grandfather’s expenses, she went and put the whole lot in Barclays for him with a standing order to pay the home (’it’s his money, love,’), renting herself the most miserable terraced house in derelict black Irish Cricklewood. Apparently through friends! It was a show of independence that took me by surprise, since I’d imagined she’d leave the whole property side of things to me. As it was she didn’t even ask my advice. We have scarcely seen each other since Shirley’s ‘conversion’.
Shirley said: ‘Why didn’t she stay in Park Royal. She’s been there all her life. She’ll be lost in a new neighbourhood at her age.’ But although she knew no one in Cricklewood on arrival, Mother very quickly gathered the regular army of walking wounded about her. Indeed her ‘ministry’ is obviously flourishing now Grandfather is at last out of the way. People don’t have to pass his scornful cerberian gaze to reach the prayerfulness of her bedroom. So perhaps all things do work together for good for those that love God: my beating him up promoted her ministry, saved souls even.
She stands over my hospital bed the morning after my vasectomy, plastic shopping bag under her arm. We are embarrassed, but she tries to jolly her way over this.
‘How are you, love? Everything all right?’
Actually I’ve got quite a lot of pain. It was a more serious business than I expected.
She has brought grapes. Her face, though shiny and lumpy, radiates unshakeable kindness. We chat. She has been up to see Shirley. In my absence obviously. Over sixty now, she travels free on the buses. It’s quite a boon. She feels free to travel in a way she didn’t just a year ago. And isn’t Hilary coming on, certainly sitting up a lot straighter.
I say: ‘You don’t notice when you’re with her all the time.’
I ask her if she knew about Peggy. And immediately regret it. But I don’t want to be the only one who’s let her down.
‘She told me.’
Peggy would of course. Without thinking probably.
For a moment we are both silent in this tiny private bedroom I have paid through the nose for. The fittings don’t look much better than National Health frankly.
Why did I bother trying to hurt her? Surely some resolution, some accommodation can be reached at some point.
She must be thinking the same thing, because she suddenly says, lower lip trembling like a child’s: ‘Can’t we put all that nasty business behind us, George? Can’t we?’
The direct appeal catches me by surprise.
She says: ‘It was unfortunate Shirley confessed to me of all people, and in front of you, but I could hardly refuse to hear her, poor girl, could I, the state she was in.’
How clever my mother is. She has brought me to tears. We are embracing.
‘At least we can be good friends,’ she murmurs, with a catch in her voice.
Then she sits down and tells me how awkward Grandfather’s being, refusing to obey any of the rules in the home and even biting one of the nurses. It’s his ninetieth birthday next week. The inmates will be having a little party. Perhaps I’d like to come. And then the Lord has been so good to her because her next door neighbour but one commutes regularly to Kilburn where the home is and so frequently gives her a lift back in the evening. Also there is a delightful girl from the church who may be going to rent her spare bedroom, which would be so nice.
There is always that faint persuasion in her voice, she can never let go, pleading with her son to believe that the Lord has indeed been involved in the daily itinerary of her neighbour, the housing needs of the Methodist girl; pleading with me to accept my martyrdom and join her on the way to heaven.
Shortly after she goes, Marilyn phones. ‘Can’t wait to have you without your sou’wester on,’ she says.
But I know I won’t be going to see Marilyn again. My strategy is complete at last. I was always a monogamist at heart.
For the second week of my fortnight’s break we’ve lined up a cottage in Suffolk, for holiday and, hopefully, celebratory hanky panky, if not actually lovemaking. Our first real holiday, as it happens, since Hilary’s conception nearly six years (centuries?) before. But when I come out of hospital, feeling pretty damn cool and relaxed actually, after four whole days on my back, the child has fallen ill again.
She has an acute kidney infection (perhaps like the George of Three Men in a Boat, the only thing she’ll never have is housemaid’s knee). And of course she always suffers severe side effects from whatever drug we give her. Shirley meets me sleepless and speechless at our rather fine old wistaria-framed door as I return in a cab. The doctor wanted to put the girl in hospital, but Shirley has refused. I know there is no point in commenting on this, just as there is no point in remarking on the fact that we could easily afford to have a nurse in to do a few nights. Shirley must look after the girl herself. Because I think in a curious way she is embarrassed for Hilary with strangers. She doesn’t want to sense other people’s objective eyes coldly weighing up the truth of the situation. On her own she can nurse her illusions – or perhaps that is ungenerous, perhaps what I should say is, the choices she has made. She doesn’t want to hear them challenged by some kind, efficient girl. For my own part, of course, there is nothing more frustrating than having so much money at last after years of work and not being allowed to buy a little pleasure with it.
Hilary is in severe pain. Naturally, through the long nights and days that f
ollow my return there will be no question of trying out my vasectomy. Though one evening Shirley does cling tight to me a moment in bed. She murmurs: ‘You know what I can’t believe about you, George.’ ‘What?’ ‘That deep down, after all your huffing and puffing and playing tough, you’re really a good man.’
I make no comment.
‘I’m glad you made up with your mother. I’ll have her over tomorrow to help if she’s free.’
Obviously everything gets chatted about behind my back. Fair enough I suppose. I never really imagined otherwise.
‘I don’t even really mind about this woman you’ve got at work. I understand the pressure you must have been under.’
‘What?’
A desperate half hour then trying to persuade her that all that’s over, that I only saw her once or twice, that I never really cared for her, etc., etc. And how did she find out, anyway? How, how, how? Shirley insists she doesn’t care. After all, she’s been unfaithful in her time. I insist that she should, she must care, it was a terrible thing for me to do, I want her to care, and I’m sorry, truly I am; that was the whole reasoning behind the vasectomy after all, to get back to her and to family life after this second derailment. Which would never have happened had it not been for Hilary.
In the end, after maybe an hour’s persuasion I actually manage to get her involved in something resembling foreplay, kissing, fondling, albeit somewhat listlessly, when Hilary’s harsh cries interrupt us from the next room.
I offer to go since I’m on holiday. Anyway, there’s guilt to assuage. I pad down the landing.
The baby’s room has a red nightlight. It’s full of cuddly toys which Hilary has at last learnt to hold to herself and presumably draw some comfort from. The little girl is twisting and turning in her cot, buckled up with stomach pains. I pick her up. Not without some effort given the size she is now. She recognises me at once and whimpers. I push my cheek against hers on the side where the head lolls. Her skin, poor girl, is dry and burning. She relaxes a little, then doubles up with pain again. Her eyes screw tight. Since it’s impossible to sit her on one’s knee – she just collapses – I put her into a little tipped-back bucketseat kind of thing that we had cut for her from a huge cube of rigid foam rubber. This more or less immobilises her while keeping her sufficiently upright to take a few spoonfuls of medicine.