Foreigners, Drunks and Babies

by Peter Robinson

  ‘It’s been a bad year for them,’ Tim said from nowhere. ‘Many of the farmers have sons who work in the English motor towns. The children hereabouts move away young.’

  But now Sarah’s boyfriend was approaching one of those buyers, a rep from some firm, as he settled on a price. He was neat and trim, wore office clothes, conspicuous green Wellington boots with his trousers tucked inside. The farmer with whom he was dealing looked more of a piece. He was leaning upon a gnarled stick, smoking and spitting on the tarmac. The buyer had nodded an affirmative to Tim’s hesitant request. Sarah turned and bid farewell to the generous American couple. They had brought those sweet English people as far as they were going down that road. The buyer was opening the doors of his car, gesturing to the young hitchhikers, his purchase being loaded on a truck nearby.

  Arthur had his picture, Freddie her memories. Carried away in that mud-bespattered transport, Sarah looked behind to see Freddie and Arthur standing side by side: her cream raincoat and headscarf, his bright checks amongst the brown and grey of the country people. Freddie was pointing at a man on horseback. Arthur raised the small black box to his eye. Then they were lost forever.

  Sarah sighed and took another sip of her quickly cooling tea.

  ‘Terrible over there, I was saying,’ said the nurse.

  ‘Yes,’ said Sarah. ‘I’m sorry.’

  Then to make up for her inattention, Sarah recalled how on their way to Donegal they’d been picked up in heavy rain by a man who took pity on them right near the border. He said he wouldn’t normally give lifts to people, and especially so close to the North, because the Provos had been hijacking cars, forcing drivers to cross over, then abandoning the vehicles packed with explosives.

  ‘Yes, I heard so,’ the nurse said. ‘I know some people who were born, brought up, and lived all their lives right near the border. But they were so frightened about what could happen they decided to up sticks and flit to Dublin. And do you know, the day they moved was the very one some faction or other chose for their outrage in O’Connell Street. They had only that minute stepped off the bus and were blown to smithereens.’

  ‘How terrible,’ Sarah said.

  ‘It is that,’ said the nurse, ‘but, then, everyone over there has a story like that they can tell.’

  Lunch with M

  There was a chilly breeze blowing across the London Transport bus station, gusting its flurries of drizzle. The bus to Harrow was empty. I dumped my luggage on the seat beside me, sitting towards the back above a wheel. Through suburbs under flight paths the bus route led, the jumbos descending to disappear behind roofs of semis. House doors and windows were still the traditional inter-war green, allotments visible between them. I settled down into the slightly reverberating seat to savour my return as the bus came trundling to a halt. It was home time, just after four: we’d pulled up before a comprehensive school’s gates. Out poured a swarm of school kids in bits of uniform. Shouting and laughing, they pushed through the door by the driver, piling up the stairs, or into what remaining seats there were. Their bags and satchels were covered in the names of latest groups, boy- and girlfriends’ linked nicknames. They were calling out in-jokes, making sarcastic comments, crowding into their small cabals.

  ‘Move along the bus, please,’ the driver called.

  Two girls on the seat in front began singing snatches of a new hit song. An old man sat near me glanced round as if to say, ‘Young people!’ I recognized his look and smiled. The younger generation had ruffled his earned composure. The younger generation … ah, when do you realize you’re no longer part of it? The man’s brief frown and my smile of agreement had forged a bond about the young. Almost old enough to be their father, here it was again: the anxiety that would grip me as the bus home from school stopped outside the local comp.

  It was all a long time ago, though, and those present waves of children were pushing and shoving each other in fun, upsetting the pensioner with their loud and competitive talk: ‘Oh, did he?’ ‘Disgusting!’ ‘Well, you know, she told me so.’ ‘I’d tell him where to stuff it if he did that to me.’

  So this was home. Its English tones were only too intelligibly moving something in me once again. They penetrated there and recalled old quarrels, other distant violence done. The girls at school would fight like this, form groups to isolate one or another of their number, trying to recruit the boys into their conspiracies.

  The bus had arrived in Hanworth shopping centre. Young mothers burdened with folded pushchairs, children and loaded carrier bags were taking the place of those kids who had got off. A child on the seat in front stood facing over the rest gripping its metal rim, smiling into my face. I smiled back. The mother, noticing, glanced round suspiciously. Never talk to strangers: mum warmed us over and over. I was carrying the present in my luggage. How old would May be now? Just over three and a half, I guessed.

  Beyond Hanworth, approaching Hampden, the avenues grew more thickly tree-lined, the houses larger, set back from the road. The bus swung by a community hall, a tennis club, and then came the side roads bearing names of poets. Here was Wordsworth Grove. Not far ahead would be Hampden station, its level crossing gates beside the road. My stop was the one before it. I glimpsed it in the distance, said, ‘Excuse me,’ and started to clamber out with my luggage, the items still tagged with labels and stickers from security checks and baggage reclaim. I rang the bell. The bus came to a halt. There I was alone among the rows of large Edwardian houses. No, this wasn’t right. I’d got off a stop too early.

  Mike’s was a townhouse in a close. No fence divided the pavement from its little lawn, a tiny patch of garden leading to a maroon front door. The garage door was lifted beside it. Sally’s white Metro had been parked in front, Mike’s grey Renault at the kerb. I was well over three hours late. Missing the nearest bus stop meant I had walked the last quarter of a mile.

  Only a few steps from my brother’s front door, I saw, almost reaching out to ring the bell, Mike appearing in the entrance hall. He was visible behind the stippled glass: slightly taller than me, with a pointed red beard and thick wavy hair where mine’s blond. He opened the door.

  ‘What time do you call this? Where’ve you been? We were expecting you for lunch. We decided we couldn’t wait any longer. It’s all been eaten. Where have you been?’

  ‘You’ll never guess what happened …’

  ‘What?’ said Mike without a smile.

  ‘The plane was delayed,’ I said, disliking the sound of my own voice. ‘They thought there might have been a bomb on board at Pisa.’

  ‘You should have rung us from the airport. We’ve been worried sick. I was just about to contact the police. Why can’t you be a bit more considerate? You must have known we’d be worried to death.’

  Only the family would talk to me like this.

  ‘Well, you should have guessed the plane was late. I mean, it does happen quite frequently, doesn’t it?’

  Mike stared blankly. I glanced away thinking that he wouldn’t let me into the house.

  ‘Come in. Come in, then, seeing as you’re here,’ he said.

  Sally was wiping some food from May’s face.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. I didn’t know what for.

  ‘You’ll have to make do with a bacon sandwich,’ Mike said, attempting to alter his tone. ‘We don’t have anything planned for supper.’

  Were they apologizing for eating the lunch without me?

  ‘Anything’s fine. I’m not very hungry,’ I lied. ‘A bacon sandwich is fine.’

  ‘We’ve put you downstairs in the garden room,’ said Sally. ‘May is in the spare room now. May, say “Hello” to your Uncle George.’

  May shrank back towards her mother’s calves. She looked up at me. Perhaps she was trying to remember if she’d seen me before.

  ‘Hello, May,’ I said. ‘Haven’t you grown! How old are you now?’

  ‘I’m nearly four, aren’t I, Daddy?’

  ‘You’re three and
a half,’ said Mike. ‘Your birthday’s not till next September.’

  May seemed about to countermand the facts of her birth.

  ‘I’ve brought you a present from Italy,’ I said. ‘Do you want to see what it is?’

  May looked up towards her father.

  ‘I think perhaps you’d better have your bath and get ready for bed, then Uncle George can show you his present.’

  ‘Fair enough,’ I said, supporting Mike. ‘If you’re a good girl and be quick then we can see what it is.’

  ‘You know what it is, Uncle George.’

  I was about to reply that I knew I did, but it was a figure of speech, when Sally took hold of May’s hand and began to lead her up the stairs.

  ‘Shall I take my bags down?’ I asked. ‘It’ll get them out of the way.’

  ‘Why not,’ Mike called as he disappeared into the kitchen.

  The garden room, as its name suggested, let out into the back. My brother and his wife had made some changes since last I visited. Hung on the walls above the divan were some of my brother’s old pictures. At school he had been a keen painter. Scientific research had pushed that to the back of his mind. Instead of deep-shadowed portraits and still lifes in which family members figured in images reminiscent of Caravaggio-like music parties or Dutch interiors, he had made holograms. The return to public display of these pictures from his school days suggested some changes of mood or attitude. But what?

  Back in the hallway, picking up my travelling bags, I noticed another addition to the decorations. Mike had taken, or been given, a selection of photographs from Mother’s collection. He had mounted them together inside a large frame. It was a collage of our shared childhood. I stared into a past of black and white or faded colour. There was my brother buried up to his neck in sand on Blackpool beach. Here were the two of us kneeling by a fishpond in a park somewhere, Mum above us pointing into the water at a fish, perhaps, Mike with a model plane, me holding a little yacht. Here we were in our cub uniforms. Mike’s class photograph from primary school was next to it: he was the painfully thin one, with the mop of hair, sticking up at the crown, sitting cross-legged on a mat at one end of the front row.

  ‘Remember this?’ my brother asked. He was pointing towards an old photo of the two of us on the observation balcony at Manchester airport. Mike had a small black Kodak Brownie camera round his neck. I was carrying a reference book on civil aviation.

  ‘How old do you think we were back then?’ I wondered.

  ‘Eight or nine, I suppose,’ said Mike.

  It will have been about then I asked myself why we’d been born English. A South East Asian family had moved into the neighbourhood. One of their children was in the same class as me. Perhaps it was because of the Sunday school visits from missionaries in Africa, their photographs of the poor black kids. Why was I not one of them? Why was I born English? That question was not far from asking why I was born at all. Mike said he could recall asking where we came from, and remembered being puzzled by the vague biological reply. He said he remembered sitting on the side of the bed wondering how it was he got out of Mummy’s tummy. There would have to be some kind of a door. Despite his beliefs, Dad would never have told us that we were born, and born English, because God willed it. Why were we born English? It is, of course, a provincial question, one of an infinite series of other childish ‘whys’ and replies, supposing a will beyond the human, a will that also informed the creation of Englishness, England, and a destiny to go with it. Yes, but the creation of England and Englishness can be explained by recourse to history and geography – but why we happened to belong to that story could not.

  ‘Look, here’s Uncle George. He’s got your present,’ Sally was saying to May as they came down the stairs. ‘Why don’t you ask him if you can see your present now?’

  ‘Uncle George, can I see my present now?’

  I made to go and bring it from the garden room. But before I could take a step, my big brother had spoken out sharply.

  ‘Is that any way to ask, May? You won’t get anything if you don’t ask properly. Ask your Uncle George, only this time nicely. Now say “please” properly.’

  ‘Can I have my present now, Uncle George, please?’

  ‘Yes, of course you can, May,’ and I went to find it from downstairs.

  ‘Here it is,’ I said. ‘It’s come all the way from Italy.’

  From behind my back I revealed a basket made of woven reeds and lacquered to form a stiff case. It had small handles on the top, and a simple bamboo fastener. I gave it to May.

  ‘This is to take your things on holiday,’ I said. ‘Why don’t you see if there’s anything inside?’

  May was having some trouble with the fastener. Sally helped her. Out of the bag fell a small white T-shirt. May looked bemused and unimpressed as Sally held up the garment to see what was written on it in bright red letters.

  ‘Say “thank you” to Uncle George,’ said Sally.

  ‘Thank you, Uncle George,’ my little niece said, rather woodenly.

  ‘What does the writing say?’ asked Mike, as Sally turned the T-shirt front towards him. ‘Avanti popolo! What does it mean? Is it a Ferrari advert?’

  ‘It means: “Forward the people”,’ I said. ‘It’s a slogan, a socialist rallying cry.’

  ‘Oh, is it, indeed,’ said Mike. ‘And you think it’s a good idea for May to go round Hampden wearing a piece of Bolshie propaganda?’

  I wasn’t quite sure if my brother was joking.

  ‘No one hereabouts will know what it means,’ said Sally, placating her husband. ‘I don’t suppose it’s going to cause a political storm at the play group.’

  ‘OK, OK,’ said Mike. ‘Let’s make May a bedtime drink. And I suppose you’re ready for that bacon sandwich now.’

  Those visits to my brother’s house were always like walking on eggshells.

  ‘Just put the croissants on now and bring them in here when they’re ready!’

  It was Mike’s voice, abrupt and dismissive from behind that morning’s Sunday Times. I looked up to see Sally’s face freeze into a mask of disbelief. She turned and disappeared round the wall into the kitchen.

  ‘I only asked where we should eat breakfast,’ she muttered.

  No, there doesn’t ever seem to have been a time when we weren’t competing, when we somehow didn’t quite get on. But that was only to be expected. Sibling rivalry, Mum would say, and leave it at that. Yet even if I didn’t exactly like Mike, I did love him, and he would always be my brother.

  There was no conversation for a while as we sat together in the living room, munching the croissants Sally had brought through, and studying the Sunday papers. They were all still full of it: ‘Pub incident that exposed a spymaster’ … ‘How MI5 forged bank accounts in bid to smear MPs’ …

  Behind his paper Mike was engrossed in the leader. I was glancing down the columns and over at the photo of the spymaster’s gravestone in a Derbyshire churchyard. The Sunday Times had a close up of his face. It was the photograph published in the mid-1970s, the one that revealed M’s identity as head of MI6.

  Beside the blurry image were clearer ones of Guy Burgess and Anthony Blunt. The Observer had ‘The Secrets Spread by Smiley’s People’. Beside it was a picture of M with his mother and sister after receiving a CMB at Buckingham Palace in 1964. There were smaller snaps of Sir Robert Armstrong and Lord Rothschild. The paragraph heads stood out like sore thumbs: ‘“My Dear Boy”’, ‘Defamatory’, ‘Spanish Waiters’. It was the same in The Sunday Telegraph – a photo of M in mid-conversation, his eyes twinkling behind the horn-rimmed glasses, mouth lifting into a smile, right hand index finger raised perhaps to emphasize a point. ‘Spymaster’s fall from grace’ read the headline.

  ‘Amazing to think we had lunch with him,’ said Mike, resting the newspaper flat across his knees.

  ‘I know,’ I said, remembering.

  Mike had suggested we meet up beforehand at the entrance to the Pimlico Tube. He wa
s waiting in diffused sunlight, there as I arrived, his then shoulder-length red hair and pointed beard in need of a trim. We set off to cover the short distance to the address Dad had given on the phone. It was only a five-minute walk. There was an intercom above its doorbell where we were to identify ourselves. Mike had asked if we needed our passports.

  ‘It’s not an Ealing comedy,’ Dad replied, ‘more a spy coming in from the cold.’

  Now Mike was leaning his ear towards the intercom, fretting that he wouldn’t catch the voice within, the voice behind the pale stone façade of buildings in such a posh part of London. At least there wasn’t any traffic in this residential street just a minute or two after eleven o’clock, a Saturday morning in springtime, more than a decade back now.

  ‘I felt completely overawed,’ Mike said, ‘at the thought of meeting such a very important person.’

  There was a clicking sound in the door. It opened to allow us through that front entrance into a vestibule with another locked door before us. Once it was opened from within, we found ourselves facing a steep flight of stairs that made a sharp turn to the right at the top. There, at the head of the stairwell, stood M himself. He was short, on the plump side, a nondescript man in a pair of grey flannel trousers and brown suede Hush Puppies. His round, puffy face was as expressionless as you could wish for, but with bright eyes enlarged behind the lenses of his spectacles.

  He welcomed us into the living room of his oddly small flat, gesturing towards the sofa. M asked if we’d like something to drink. Neither one of us had the slightest idea about how to behave back then, but Mike asked for coffee, which seemed like the right thing to say. M disappeared down the narrow corridor into his kitchenette, coming back after a while with two cups on a tray, a little jug of milk and some sugar in paper sachets. I’d been scanning his leather-bound volumes of local history from the Peak District, wedged into the bookshelf beside his collection of recent hardback literary fiction.