by Edward Docx
The announcer comes on – too loud: ‘Our on-board store is now open. We offer substantial savings on high-street brand names – such as Kokorico, the new masculine body fragrance by Jean Paul Gaultier.’ And now I’m feeling extra nausea because I’ve forgotten to take my travel tablets and the problem is that some children have stopped on their way past and they are standing there staring at Dad like only kids can stare. But Dad keeps on going. And that’s when it suddenly occurs to me that he’s doing this walk for me; that I want him out there on deck; but that he’s not really up to it; and that this is precisely the kind of thing he wants not to have to undertake, to do, to be, for the next nine months or however long it is before his respiratory muscles become so weak that his body won’t breathe for itself. Whatever it is that I need from him is the exact same thing that humiliates him. More than this, I now see: he doesn’t want to get worse in front of me – specifically me. If it were someone else who had to witness his degeneration – Doug, for example – then he might go on.
I clench my jaw and run my tongue back and forth across my teeth. I’m hoping the children don’t start mimicking his walking. I don’t know what to do – whether to let him be his own man or go back myself and reach out and physically support him. So I just stand there, not knowing, with my heart somehow bobbing up in my throat like it’s trying to choke me. And that’s when I get that surge of feelings again. I don’t know how to describe it exactly, other than that it’s physical – like a kind of poisoning or the opposite of being in love – and that it swells up inside until there’s no part of me unaffected; and yet I can’t be sick, I can’t be rid of it, so that when it comes – I’m left taut, brim-full, feeling like I’m drowning – but from the inside out.
The kids run off. I make a big effort to relax my jaw and force myself to watch Dad; it is unbelievable how hard it has become for me to look at him. He is at the point of needing a wheelchair. At the MND clinic in Oxford, they describe four stages: onset, walking with sticks, wheelchair, bed. There is a fifth stage, of course, which they don’t mention.
We go past this half-doughnut of Belgian truckers slumped around a slot machine and thumbing in their coins like it’s still 1983 or something – but I could kiss their fat floury faces for how little they care. And, yes, I’m thinking, it will all be OK. We will take our time. And I know we’ll get out on deck because I never met anyone more determined than Dad – he says he’s going to do a thing, and he does it. I rearrange my coat over my arm and I’m glad I have remembered to bring Dad’s windcheater, too, because it’s always much colder on deck than you think it’s going to be.
And we’re so nearly there – almost through the lounge and within sight of the white door that takes us outside – when there’s an extra big roll and the ferry lurches a little and my dad grabs at a seat to steady himself and maybe knocks at the back of this guy’s head – though hardly at all – causing him to jerk forward and spill less than one sip of his coffee.
‘What the bloody hell?’ The guy twists around, all self-righteous, like we’ve just launched a drone strike on his e-reader. ‘What the hell are you doing?’
‘I’m so sorry.’
‘For Christ’s sake.’
There’s a smear of coffee on his screen. And he’s making a huge deal of flapping for a napkin, then turning round in his chair again and looking back over his shoulder at Dad. I can feel embarrassment tunnelling in the bones of my face.
‘What are you doing?’ The guy is fifty-five, I guess, and he’s got these expensive glasses that have the brand name on the stems like we’re all supposed to care. His wife is opposite, dressed in clothes too young for her, and she looks at Dad with these narrow eyes which are meant to burn with outrage on behalf of her husband but which I can tell are full of something she can’t quite disguise, some kind of glee that another bad thing has happened to the man with whom she has chosen to drain down her existence.
‘I’m sorry,’ Dad says, calmly. ‘It was an accident. Not got my sea legs yet.’ Dad is looking at the screen. I can tell he’s checking out what the guy is reading. ‘Is your device OK?’
‘I don’t know. I can’t tell. It’s misting up . . .’
‘I’m sorry,’ my father says again. ‘If it’s damaged, then I will gladly buy you a new one.’ Dad gives him one his of smiles of affirmation-despite.
But the guy is looking up at Dad like his whole experience of the world has long been reduced to the single feeling of irritation and this is exactly why. For a moment, time refuses to move on and we are all of us bobbing about, seasick and desperate, on the empty black ocean of eternity because this guy can’t work out Dad’s problem or see Dad’s stick; and, of course, Dad looks pretty normal when he’s not moving and so why is he just standing there, holding on to the back of this guy’s seat, smiling slack-lipped, and why doesn’t he offer to get some more napkins or another coffee or something? Most of all why doesn’t he let go of the chair?
I can tell that actually Dad is afraid – not of the man, but of trying to walk any further – because the ship has really started rolling like one of those coin-slot hippos my nephews like to ride outside the newsagents.
The man’s wife looks at Dad, loyal now that there’s a chance to vent some hostility. ‘Is it working?’ she asks.
And suddenly, I’m there.
‘Let’s keep going, Dad,’ I say. ‘I want to ring Ralph before I lose the UK signal – tell him we’ve left.’
‘Seems to be,’ the man is saying.
‘Here’s my name and number,’ Dad says, taking out one of these old-style embossed business cards he carries with him for occasions such as this. ‘Get in touch this afternoon – straight away – if it packs up. We’ll order you another one.’ He pauses as if some new thought – or attitude – is declaring itself. ‘Let me recommend something I recently read.’
‘No. Don’t.’
Dad ignores him and starts to write on the card, leaning on the back of the guy’s chair.
‘Come on, Dad.’ I say, offering my arm. ‘Let’s get weaving.’
But Dad carries on writing and points in the direction of the e-reader. ‘The great thing about these devices is that nothing is ever going to be out of print again. Got to be good for humanity – right? There you go. Give it a chance and I promise you will enjoy it.’
The guy is now refusing to acknowledge my father is even alive so Dad comes out from behind the chair and leans down to pass his card to the man’s wife. Dad has moved into some new mode – not angry but somewhere between resolute and reproving – teacherly.
The woman looks up. She wants to be even more hostile but she’s unsure and Dad’s got this powerful front-of-the-class way of projecting himself.
‘Well,’ Dad straightens on his stick, ‘have a good holiday. And don’t stay together unless you really want to.’
‘I beg your pardon,’ she says.
But that’s it – off we go – and, for the first time since all this started, our arms are bound across each other’s shoulders like we’re two soldiers limping away from the front line with all the bombs and guns and explosions booming out behind us and cracking the sky apart. And I am thinking that it feels so strange and alien and intimate and close all at the same time – to have the fact of Dad’s real living body leaning on me, to feel his breath, his weight, his pulse and the pressure on my arm caused by the rhythm of his shuffle, which is both the rhythm of his disease and the rhythm of his being.
My mum’s real name was the Russian form, Yuliya, but everyone called her Julia. And probably another of the reasons that my father got into her so fast was that her parents were originally Russian, and she had this whole I-can-speak-the-language-Commie-chic going on. That, and because she was a famous poet for about ten minutes when she was young. And also because she had these turquoise eyes and this killer scruffy copper-coloured hair that you couldn’t fake and that pretty much wiped out all the other women. My dad always says that he read somewhere
that a good-looking woman who is happy without having to work at either being good-looking or happy drives everyone crazy – all the men, sure, but all the other women, too.
My mother died four years ago – predictably – from her cigarettes – after we both nursed her – mainly Dad. She was from New York. We went out there at least once a year because it was free – since we could always stay with my grandparents or my aunt Natasha – though later Natasha moved to Yonkers on account of a sandy-haired loss-adjuster called Andrew who didn’t work out, which I thought was pretty funny but couldn’t say. Anyway, yep, cancer aside – I was lucky with my mum and New York.
For a long time I even pretended to be flat-out American until Dad said – ‘Hey, Lou, you don’t need to pretend – you are half-American.’ So I guess you could say that America is my second home. Actually, I’m hoping it will be my first home soon. There’s not going to be much for me to stay in London for – except Jack and his children.
My take is that Mum saved Dad from what he used to be.
And now that she’s gone, Dad is . . . reverting, re-emerging.
One time, when I was twelve or so, I read the note Dad had written in the front of the copy of his book on the sonnets, which he must have given to Mum back in the early days: ‘When something is missing in love, you know neither its nature nor its exact shape until you meet it – and then you will know it for ever.’
It is a massive relief to be out on deck. The wind is gusting and the clouds are hurrying by like a parade of crazy haircuts for much older men. We’re at the back of the boat and straight away I can see the foam and churn of the wake that stretches out behind us towards England: thick and white, then stringy, then soapy, then streaked, then disappearing until there’s nothing but the same grey-green swell of the sea all around and it’s like the whole ferry was never there. I don’t know why, but it starts to be important to me that the wake doesn’t disappear and so I’m straining my eyes to see if I can make out a slight difference in the waves beyond after all – something that endures a while longer.
Dad and I head towards one of the plastic tables that they bolt down onto the deck. We’re still locked together. Dad is taking big deep breaths, like he’s counting them, and I’m still staring at the sea when these hippy students come out and sit down at the end of the table. They’re smoking roll-ups and making like they grew up in some Brazilian favela, where they only narrowly escaped being shot by writing really meaningful songs, before they hitchhiked across two continents to get here. I hear one of the boys saying that he’s ‘open to totally any kind of experience’ and I figure that enough is enough. And so that’s how come Dad and I start off down the side of the ferry and end up where there is this white chain saying ‘private’ with all these lifeboats hung above our heads.
The wind tugs a little harder down here. I put on my coat and hand Dad his. I’m trying not to look up and think about lifeboats and that maybe there will be a cure that can rescue Dad and what if it is discovered next year – or next fucking week?
So then I just come right out with it: ‘If Mum was alive would we still be doing this?’
My dad looks over at me from zipping up his windcheater. ‘No,’ he says. ‘No we wouldn’t.’
‘I thought not.’
‘But you know why?’
‘I’m not sure I do.’
‘Lou.’
He has these steady blue eyes like quartz beneath the grey crag of his brow. And he’s looking at me as if to ask – do I want to go through it all again? And I know if I say I do, he will. The problem is I want to go through it all for ever.
So instead I say: ‘I’ve started this new reading group at work.’
Which is a massive lie. And straight away, I feel terrible. But of course he’s not going to know. And this makes me feel worse.
But then he says: ‘Can I have one of your cigarettes?’
And if fifteen dolphins had leapt out of the sea with harmonicas and guitars and all started singing ‘Mr Fucking Tambourine Man’ I wouldn’t have been more surprised.
‘You don’t smoke, Dad.’
‘I’m taking it up again, Lou. Been waiting nearly thirty-five years to get stuck back in.’
I hesitate. I didn’t know that he was aware that I smoked. We’re such hypocrites, the pair of us – and Mum and Ralph and Jack. My whole family might as well carry round a big sign saying: ‘Everything we do and say, we mean the total opposite.’
‘It’s OK,’ he smiles. ‘You have to do what your dad tells you, remember.’
I fumble in my coat for where I’ve hidden them. ‘Why?’
‘I used to hate that question, Lou.’
‘Not as much as I used to hate your answer.’ I pull out a cigarette from my battered packet. For all the obvious reasons, I loathe smoking; I only do it to piss myself off even more. I hand one over.
Dad holds it cocked at arm’s length and asks: ‘What answer did I give you?’
‘Just because. That’s all you ever used to say to me, Dad. Just because. Just because. Not particularly helpful. And not particularly clever.’
‘If ever you have children of your own, you’ll come round to it.’ He raises a hand to stop me interrupting. ‘You will. Believe me – you will. We have to do things for our fathers – and our mothers – just because. I can’t light this with my teeth, Lou.’
I pass my Zippo across. I’m not going to actually do it for him. There are limits.
But there’s a petulant wind now that won’t let up. So next thing, we’re hunkering down, our two heads right close together, with these two cigarettes sticking out that we’re trying to get lit. And he unzips again and makes a tent with his windcheater but it’s not enough until I do the same with mine and we’ve got both sides covered. And so now there’s only the two of us in there, and I can sense the movement of his lashes, and the blood in his ears and feel the warmth of his breath.
The smoke gets in his eyes and so when we stand up and turn back to the rail it looks like he’s crying so I say: ‘You used to smoke? When was that?’
He’s blinking and squinting and embarrassed but it does the trick because he says, ‘I used to smoke when I was your age. I gave it up in 1978 before your brothers were born. Believe it or not, I was hoping to set an example.’ He gives this low laugh that he’s got – like the universe is such an immense mystery that all we can do is stand back in amusement and awe. ‘And look what happened. You’ve been smoking like a rent boy for the last few days.’
‘It’s been quite stressful, Dad.’
‘Imagine the stress of watching your son doing the exact same thing that killed his mother.’
‘I’m going to stop.’
‘Well . . . maybe if I start again, you will.’ He glances over. ‘Reverse psychology – it works on your brothers, Lou. Not sure what works on you. Bribery? Or – what’s the opposite of reverse psychology?’
‘That would be encouragement, I think, Dad.’
‘Right. Well, I encourage you to stop smoking even though I am taking it up again as of today. Will you promise me?’
‘I will,’ I say. ‘I will. I hate it.’
The ferry does one of these big structural shudders that ferries do.
‘What reading group – what did you start?’
‘Actually, it’s a Slow Reading group.’
‘No.’ Dad looks across at me like he wants to believe. ‘Really?’
It’s such a lie that I have to be totally serious: ‘Yes – first Monday of every month. There’s about ten of us so far. We all read the same thing – a poem – or a few pages from a serious novel – and then we talk about it. The idea is we concentrate – on the writing.’ I can feel my soul turning to ash so I say the only thing that I know will divert us into something else. ‘I started it with Eva – we get people from her office to come, too.’
This time Dad has to stop himself looking across. We never ever talk about girlfriends. I know for sure that he wants to have som
e kind of a man-to-man conversation but I’m pretty skilled at never letting the subject get started because he’s so old-fashioned and clumsy about ‘women’ that it makes me cringe – so just by saying her name I’m opening the door. Which he knows. Which is why he doesn’t want to look over – in case I see him edging through and close it fast. But, of course, now I have to leave it open all the way to punish myself for being such a liar, which I feel terrible about – on top of everything else I feel terrible about, which is everything.
‘Remind me,’ Dad says, sideways, ‘is Eva the one who is pushing you forward or the one who is holding you back?’
‘Dad.’
‘I got the impression last year was fairly . . . hectic.’
‘Don’t say “hectic”.’
‘Busy. Engaging.’
‘That was before.’
‘Where is she from?’
‘Tufnell Park.’
‘Ah, a Londoner.’
‘Her dad is from Yeovil. Her mum is Eritrean.’
‘How does she feel about going out with someone from Stockwell?’
‘She has an airport security scanner outside her room.’
‘Must be awkward.’
I am about to make a joke about body searches and already having my belt off when I get through the door – but it feels wrong, so I say: ‘Her dad used to run this stubbornly unsuccessful late-night tapas bar and her mum part-owns an Ethiopian restaurant in Tufnell Park. That’s how they met. Eva says it was the worst marriage of all time.’
‘That’s a busy category, Lou.’
‘No – they’re definitely contenders. Eva says that one Christmas her mum dressed up as Santa and snuck into her room when she was pretending to be asleep and left her a bunch of presents. But then, five minutes later, her dad came in and took them all out again – also dressed as Santa.’
‘Interesting.’
‘And then her dad came back in again, ten minutes after that, and put all the presents back – but with these little white labels stuck over where her mum had written.’