Alone

by Pip Granger

  On the wall above the table were large sheets of card with the signs of the zodiac. Each one was allocated a number: Aries was 1, Taurus was 2 and so on until number 12, Pisces. Each horoscope request was boldly marked with one of these numbers, so that the next link in the chain could pop the right reading into the right envelope, along with flyers for further products and, of course, the all-important return envelope to make further orders easier.

  I can’t honestly say that I enjoyed the work much. I found it boring and monotonous and, being the boss’s daughter, I was never quite accepted as a member of staff. Also, I felt that flogging horoscopes, lucky charms and assorted bits and pieces along the same lines was a dubious activity at best, and immoral at worst. Some of the letters we received were truly heartbreaking. It seemed to me that vulnerable and gullible people were being conned into buying a little bit of much-needed hope.

  The thing I enjoyed most about working with Father was the opportunity to spend time with interesting people that, in the normal run of things, I would never have met. There was lovely Ron, an old friend of Father, who had suffered so mightily in a Japanese POW camp that his health had been ruined for good. Ron never spoke of his suffering, or of his days working on the notorious Burma railway, but I knew that he woke screaming some nights and shaking uncontrollably on others, because his wife told me so.

  Ron was a gifted artist, but his large paintings were often so very disturbing that he rarely sold any: they were so difficult to live with. The poor man suffered bleak bouts of depression, but he relieved these with his own particular brand of humour. Each morning, when he arrived at work, he’d crack a whip he’d made from a broom handle and a bit of string and cry, ‘Work, work, work for the master!’ before settling down to the dreary business of stuffing envelopes or collating horoscopes.

  He also enjoyed teasing perfect strangers to relieve the monotony. ‘Form a queue, form a queue,’ he’d hiss out of the side of his mouth as we walked across the grass of Regent’s Park in our lunch break. Dutifully, we’d line up behind him right in the middle of a wide open space and, sure enough, if we waited for long enough, people would attach themselves to the end of our queue without even knowing what they were queuing for. The habit of queuing was still so engrained from those distant days of rationing and shortages in the 1940s and early ’50s, that people simply joined any old queue, no questions asked. It was amazing. Once we had a good few newcomers, Ron would signal and we’d stroll off, leaving our fellow queuers stranded and looking just a tad foolish.

  Another of Ron’s ruses was to stick one of those knobbly, rubber-thimble-shaped things that you put on your fingers for counting money, in the middle of his forehead, or on the end of his nose, before contorting himself like the hunchback of Notre Dame and strolling down Brewer Street, where he would approach any likely-looking man or woman and say, ‘If I give you a melon, would you roll in the hay with me, my dear?’

  This startled his poor victims somewhat, but had the rest of us laughing hysterically. What the people he approached thought, God only knew, but they mostly took it in good part. Ron was a truly gentle man and we all loved him for it.

  Long before it was fashionable or legally required, Father was an equal opportunities employer, and made a point of paying women the same wages as men for doing the same jobs. He also actively sought out Africans and Asians to work for him, because he was so incensed by job advertisements of the time stating that ‘no coloureds or Jews need apply’.

  He also objected to age discrimination, and over the years employed several people who were way past retiring age, but who needed the money. His only proviso was that they could do the job for which they were hired. One such person was an aristocratic lady who had fallen on very hard times when her husband died. Beatrice had never had to work in her life before, but Father liked her because she was ‘a game old bird’, who never missed a day through illness. She even staggered in once when she’d badly sprained her ankle and broken her arm over a weekend when, as she said, she had ‘too much gin taken’.

  Waiting for a bus with Beatrice was always a bit fraught, because she’d never really understood the first come, first on the bus, principle of public transport. She’d sail to the front of the queue waving her brolly and yelling airily, ‘Take no notice of this rabble, dahling’, and climb aboard, oblivious to the outraged folk behind her. On one occasion, she was fumbling in her purse in order to pay the conductor when she dropped it, scattering coins everywhere. ‘Oh shit, fuck, bugger,’ she roared in her plummy tones, much to the shock of the conductor and the other passengers.

  ‘Madam,’ the conductor remonstrated, ‘a lady does not swear.’

  ‘On the contrary, young man,’ she informed him, as arch as a duchess – which she was, almost – ‘Only a lady can!’

  Those were mostly happy days for me, despite the dullness and dubious morality of the work. It enabled me to spend time with my adored father without my stepmother’s unsettling and unwelcome presence. I didn’t have to share his attention with my half-sisters either. The fact that we saw one another virtually every day also meant that I could cut down my visits to the house in Surrey, where the family had moved when Father began to make some serious money.

  Father always said that he was five foot eight, but I’m sure he was shorter than that. As a young man, he had been very slender indeed, but in middle age he was a little on the stocky side. I used to joke – but never in his hearing – that his height depended on which leg he was standing on: his left leg was somewhat shorter than the right, thanks to the polio he contracted in childhood.

  He always dressed well and he had a knack, which I envied and wished I could emulate, of being able to combine colours and patterns. I cannot imagine him ever wearing anything drip-dry, and I never saw him in either a cardigan or a sweater. It was smart jackets and a shirt and tie, even at home. He was immaculate in his grooming: his hair was well cut, his face closely shaved and his fingernails were spotless and neatly trimmed. In the days when most people bathed once a week, he bathed daily. Because of the polio, Father had his shoes made for him in Bond Street as soon as he could afford it. I suppose Father was still attractive to women, but I always thought this quality owed more to his charisma than his actual looks. The person who reminded me most of my father to look at was the comedian Tony Hancock, another man who was apparently very attractive to the opposite sex.

  The main problem with working with Father was his outbreaks of filthy temper, which once resulted in his slinging a five-drawer metal filing cabinet through his sixth-floor window. He managed, by an enormous dose of sheer luck, not to kill, or even maim, anyone in the crowded West End shopping street. Over the years he smashed so many recalcitrant telephones – his record was nine in one day – that the Post Office eventually refused point-blank to replace them. On another occasion, he tried to hurl me down the lift shaft because I’d organized the girls to demand an hour for a lunch break, instead of the piddling half-hour that they were allowed.

  The strangest thing was the loyalty that Father inspired in his workforce, and in his friends, even though his rages terrified one and all. Mavis, one of his office supervisors, summed it up. ‘We all know he’s as mad as a bleedin’ hatter, but when he ain’t smashing the place up, your dad’s the kindest bloke we know. And in his own peculiar fashion, he’s fair – when he ain’t ranting, that is.’ She flashed her beautiful smile. ‘And, of course, he pays well. But then he’d have to, with that temper of his.’ Despite his many failings, Father had a real gift for inspiring loyalty and deep affection in all who worked for him.

  The summer that I turned eighteen we went on the much-hated (by me) annual pilgrimage to the South of France, and we had reached the eve of our departure back to London. I’d flown there from Heathrow, Father had driven his sports car and Gaby had brought the girls down by train. The six weeks had, as usual, been punctuated by frequent furious fights between Father and Gaby, and I, for one, was heartily relieved to be
returning to England and my relatively peaceful flat.

  I awoke on the morning of departure so convinced that my plane was going to crash that I insisted on being seen off at the airport by Father, in case I never saw him again.

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ he snapped. ‘You’re not usually superstitious. What’s got into you?’

  ‘I just have this feeling there’s going to be an accident,’ I told him, unable to shake the doom and gloom that I felt so strongly. ‘And as I’m the only one flying …’ I didn’t finish my sentence.

  Father rolled his eyes in exasperation. ‘Gaby was going to drive you to the airport before she set off for the station. I suppose it won’t matter if I drive you, but you’re a bloody nuisance, all the same.’

  Just after breakfast, the weather broke. A huge electrical storm was still raging over the airport as we arrived, confirming my suspicion that I was about to cop it. My flight was delayed for so long that Father began to mutter and pace up and down, up and down, showing his habitual impatience in the face of adversity. He was itching to be gone, and off on his own journey back to England. In the end, he announced that if I didn’t get airborne in the next half-hour, I would be travelling with him.

  Twenty minutes later, the storm blew itself out, and five minutes after that, my flight was called. I kissed him goodbye and gave him a huge hug for good measure.

  ‘Yes, yes, all right,’ he harrumphed, secretly pleased at such an unusual display of affection. ‘Off you go now. I’ve got to start driving, I want to get home too, you know.’

  I arrived safely at Heathrow and travelled back to the flat in Finsbury Park to be met by a worried-looking Reg. ‘You’d better phone your mum,’ he told me, even before we’d said hello.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Just phone your mum.’

  I did as I was told. Mother’s voice was strained as she answered. ‘Your father’s had a terrible accident. They thought he was dead,’ she told me. I could hear the tears in her voice. ‘A gendarme threw his cape over him, but then someone saw him twitch. He’s in hospital. He’s cracked his neck in three places, and his typewriter flew forward from the back of the car and whacked him in the head. It’s touch and go. Stay by the phone and I’ll let you know what’s going on. I was just about to call the hospital in France.’

  Nobody ever knew for sure what had happened. No other car was involved, and there was no mechanical failure of Father’s Maserati, but for some reason he had skidded at well over a hundred miles an hour. The car had flipped over and over and Father had been thrown clear before it finally came to rest on the opposite verge of the autoroute. Father was found some distance from the wreck. Some people thought he’d blacked out, or had had some kind of seizure. Others thought he might have swerved to miss an animal that had long gone by the time he was found. Had I been with him, I would certainly have died, because the roof above the passenger seat of the car was crushed virtually flat.

  Father did live, although he sustained an injury to the temporal lobe of his brain from the flying typewriter. For quite a while, he showed no real symptoms. Then he began to suffer from petit mal, or mild bouts of epilepsy without the fits. It manifested itself as brief ‘absences’. They lasted seconds, maybe a minute or two, and they left him looking grey in the face and disorientated. His temper tantrums grew more irrational, more violent and more unpredictable as time went on, and in the end the doctors decided that his brain was very slowly atrophying. The prognosis was that his condition would progressively worsen over the years until, as Gaby put it, ‘He will end up a vegetable.’

  Father, who had been such a huge presence in my life, would slowly change over the last decade and a half of his life from a larger than life and frightening character, to a pitiful shadow of his former self. Sadly, his behaviour became weird, as well as tempestuous, and that was even more frightening in a way. The change from being in awe of him, to feeling profound pity for him, was one of the hardest transitions I have ever had to make. It was, I think now, the beginning of the real pain of my growing up into adulthood.

  PART THREE

  The World Outside

  20

  Valerie

  A year had passed since Father’s accident, and he hadn’t yet begun to show any obvious signs of his brain injury, so we had all made the summer trek to the Côte d’Azure as usual. What was not usual was that Valerie, despite some gruelling treatment involving a drug made from the periwinkle plant, which made her face swell like a balloon and caused some of her hair to fall out, was still not at all well. She was listless and depressed, and every movement was an effort for her.

  I looked over at her and noticed silent tears slipping steadily down her poor, pale, yellow-tinged, swollen little face, but I knew better than to try to comfort her. She had never liked to be cuddled much, and since her last treatment, she positively hated it. I think that physical contact had begun to hurt her.

  I passed her a clean tissue and gave her a small smile, which, try as she might, she could not return. Her effort looked what it was: a sickly twitch of the lips that didn’t reach her dull and mildly yellow eyes. I turned my gaze to her pink, plump, blond little sister. The contrast between them was startling – and frightening.

  Father and Gaby were arguing again, but Nicci looked utterly unconcerned at the turn events were taking, and continued to munch on her banana in silence. The poor lamb was used to the storms, and had learned to switch off from them early in her young life. Neither of her older sisters ever learned that trick, sadly.

  Eventually it was decided that Father and I would return to London with Valerie to have her checked out at the hospital, while Gaby and Nicci would continue with their holiday as planned. We would rejoin them as soon as Valerie felt better and the hospital gave the OK.

  Gaby drove us to Nice airport in the hired car the next morning, still maintaining that as Valerie had been given treatment before we left, it was likely she would feel better in a few days.

  Father clamped his jaws together and said nothing, but it was obviously a massive effort; a vein beat steadily in his forehead and his eyes bulged dangerously. I thought that he’d have a stroke if Gaby didn’t simply shut up. At last we arrived, and after a flurry of goodbyes the three of us were safely in the departure lounge and there was no more opportunity for a last-minute fight in public. Once we were on board the aircraft, the pilot and cabin crew, who knew she was sick, made much of Valerie, and she was photographed in the cockpit wearing the pilot’s cap. She tried to look thrilled, but it was such an effort for her. Everyone was so kind.

  Father’s Rolls-Royce Silver Cloud, the car he had bought to replace the destroyed Maserati, was waiting for us. After his accident, Father had briefly employed a chauffeur, Harry, but it hadn’t taken him long to get fed up with being driven, so he’d let Harry go. However, the kindly chauffeur brought the Rolls to the airport and drove us straight to the hospital. Once there, he gave Valerie a small present and a sympathetic smile, and left us. Father would drive us back to the house in Surrey, once Valerie’s tests were completed.

  It was a long day. Throughout her years of hospital visits, treatment, remissions and relapses, Valerie had shown remarkable fortitude, patience and bravery, but she had had enough. She was tired of it all, and said so in no uncertain terms. It took Father and me ages to get her to agree to the tests, and when finally a sample of her blood was taken and whisked off to the lab, we were wrung out and emotionally exhausted. After another long wait, the test results came through. Valerie’s blood cell count was dangerously low. She needed yet another transfusion, and quickly. When the news was broken to her, Valerie promptly had hysterics. She refused to undergo any more treatment; and frankly, we couldn’t blame the poor child. Father was tender and oh, so gentle, as he persuaded her to allow this one last blood transfusion.

  ‘I don’t want to stay here,’ Valerie begged. ‘I want to go home.’

  ‘How about you have the transfusion, and Daddy and I w
ill promise you that we will take you home with us when it’s all over? How about that?’ I asked, as Father took a rest from his patient pleading.

  ‘Cross your heart and hope to die?’ Valerie demanded.

  Father and I glanced at the doctor, who nodded slightly. ‘Yes, the doctor says that will be OK.’

  ‘Do it,’ Valerie instructed. ‘Cross your hearts and hope to die. Promise me that I can go home tonight.’

  Solemnly, the doctor, Father and I crossed our hearts, ‘and hope to die,’ we intoned, in unison. Father and I added, ‘We swear to you that, as soon as it’s over, we will all go home.’

  It was late – gone midnight – when we finally left the hospital with Valerie wrapped snugly in a blanket. Father carried her to the car and gently placed her in the back seat and I climbed in after her. I put a pillow on my lap and Valerie lay down with her head on it as we drove through the quiet, wet streets towards Surrey.

  ‘Don’t go too fast, Daddy,’ said Valerie in her best, bossy voice. She was a kid who knew when she had the upper hand, and she obviously intended to make the most of it. Father and I smiled tiredly at each other. This was better, this was the Valerie we knew and loved, and who was showing a spark of her old spirit. The new blood had done its work.

  Once back at the house, Valerie woke up as Father lifted her gently out of the car. To my horror, I noticed that her eyes were all wrong. They were rolled back in her head, so that all we could see was the whites. Valerie began to cry, terrified that she was so suddenly blind. We hurried into the house and put her to bed as instructed by the hospital.

  ‘Watch her for a minute while I call the hospital and find out what the hell is going on,’ said Father. I nodded. My attention was on Valerie, and, though I was terrified too, I attempted to soothe her by talking to her quietly and assuring her that we would do our very best to make it better.