by Edward Docx
I remember the feeling of shared excitement; when you know for sure that you’re in exactly the same happy space as someone you care about; and the additional connection and delight of that consonance.
In the changing conditions, some of the drivers simply came in too fast and lost control – ‘over-cooked it’, as Dad would say. Others made the first part of the corner but their trajectory took them wide and onto the grass as the gradient and increasing acuity caught them out. Others again lost it when they got a wheel up onto the grip-less smooth white kerbs. I remember the sound – the desperate whine of the brakes followed by the near-silent swish as they travelled across wet grass and then the thwack of the impact as they thumped into the wall of tyres right in front of where we stood together.
But every now and then a driver would somehow hold it together – slither down the outside, and with supreme skill, his front wheels the only part of the car following the contour of the track, somehow overtake his competitors. And Dad would say something like, ‘Number twenty-seven has really got “it”.’ And even though I couldn’t tell you what ‘it’ was – I knew exactly what my father meant.
And it is still with me, this idea – really deep: that some people have got ‘it’. And I’ve always wanted to be one of those people. I’ve always wanted to be like those drivers who can stay on the track in changing conditions when everyone else is crashing, retiring, out.
I remember that I wore khaki wellingtons that day and that I had a new cagoule with a hood and a string that drew up beneath my chin. My hands were cold and my father crouched down after the racing cars had passed, while we were waiting for them to go round the lap, so as to cup my hands inside the warmth of his own greater palms.
At lunchtime, we went to look around the pits. We walked together, eating hot doughnuts, which my mother would never have allowed – cinnamon and sugar. There were no safety restrictions in those days and so we wandered between the cars: some of them being prepared to go out; some of them covered in mud with torn bodywork. I remember the wide black racing tyres with tiny white stones embedded in the rubber. I remember the vegetal smell of the engine oil. I remember the growl and then the sudden bellow of the engines, which would start up at random here and there as the mechanics tested something. I remember seeing the drivers carrying their helmets with their arms hooked through their visors.
I remember that day most of all because I lost my father.
He was right there, holding my hand; and then he let go.
I remember precisely the moment of knowing that he was no longer standing beside me. I had my newly freed hand cupped to the window of a touring car so that I could see the dashboard inside. But when I stood back, I was alone. A six-year-old boy. I remember how panic came falling and roaring out of the sky. How the world changed – in that second – into a place full of strangers and fear and absence. I remember this sudden sense of myself – for the first time in my life – as separate to my father. As a person, a child, in the world. I remember how everything came at me all at once – how would I eat, stay warm, stay alive? I remember the physical surge of terror.
I ran up to a stranger, no more than waist-height. I told him my name and that I was lost. And the stranger took me somewhere – and I followed him – and we came to the place which must have been where the commentator worked. And someone made an announcement and I heard it on the tannoy – all around the circuit: ‘Will Laurence Lasker please come to Race Control, we have your son, Louis. Will Laurence Lasker please come to Race Control, we have your son, Louis.’
And I remember seeing my father again and only then – only then – did I start to cry. And I remember that my father let me sit in the front of the van when we drove home, even though I was too small for the seat belt; and I remember that I never wanted to be without him again.
THEN TRY FOR UNDERSTANDING
The Internet might be able to show you the whole world but it can’t tell you how you are going to feel when you get there. Château Chigny is one of those good-looking French minimansions – neither shabby nor smart, but creamy-yellow fronted and symmetrical, with pale-blue shutters thrown welcomingly open and tall thin chimneys rising elegantly from a steep-raked French roof flanked by two conical Norman-looking towers at the end of either wing. We sweep up the long curving plane-tree-flanked drive and my hopes rise a little. There’s one of those high n-shaped vine-tractors that we saw before on the road. There’s a rusty red Peugeot that collapsed years ago. There’s a friendly brown-and-white dog barking and a skew-whiff old child’s swing. The gravel crunches when I step down. The arrowed wooden sign says ‘bienvenue’.
I run round to Dad’s door to help him. I can smell honeysuckle and I can feel the faint heat from where the sun lately warmed the stone path that leads to the arched front door. I pick up Dad’s stick and he holds my shoulders and steps out.
‘Just the job,’ he says, looking all around.
Dad and I, we might fight but we try not to sulk.
‘Let’s hope they can come up with the goods,’ I chime in.
‘It’s a beautiful evening,’ he continues. ‘Hopefully we’ll catch the last rays.’ This is pure Dad-speak and I want to keep it going. Something eases in my spine. Another insane thing is that I spent about nine full days secretly researching everything about this journey. I wanted it to be the kind of trip my dad would plan for me – even though he wouldn’t plan, we’d simply all go, camping someplace near the next thing we were hoping to see – a prehistoric cave, or the birthplace of Beethoven, or some castle crazed out of nowhere by Mad Ludwig the Moon King. So I’ve booked us places and cancelled and rebooked and researched and got into a screwed-up state about everything – the size of the rooms, the views, the food, the wine. Dad loves his wine. He had this teacher at his school when he was sixteen who taught him some of the basics, which he’s trying to pass on to me. But I must have a palate like a squeegee mop or something because all I can ever taste is . . . well, wine.
We walk together up the path and push the heavy front door, which opens easily into the friendly gloom and the smell of French-polished wood.
A woman emerges and circles neatly round behind her narrow desk at the foot of the stairs. I guess she is in her early fifties. She has this dark brown bob that she has to hook behind her ears as she leans forward to pass us the old-school signing-in slip and I can tell Dad finds her attractive in that French severe-chic kind of a way. But she has the manner of someone who has been left with too much to do and she has a habit of holding on to her lower lip with her teeth as though she expects at any second to be called away to deal with whatever it is that has been bothering her all her life.
She speaks in French, which I half understand. It’s no problem, she says. They are going to wait twenty minutes for us. The dinner can be delayed. Everything can be delayed. Dad thanks her. He says something about the wine. She smiles distractedly and her eyes move quickly as she takes our passports – I sense that she has had enough of her guests for this year. He says something more about when the chateau might date from. And, for a moment, I see Ralph in my father; were it not for his Catholic guilt, or his Northern contrariness, or his being an austerity baby, or whatever it is that so bedevils, drives, consumes him, Dad might have had many girlfriends, many wives, many friends except . . . Except that he does suffer from all of these things and except that he has not got Ralph’s easy and natural understanding of other people. Instead, Dad can’t tell that the French woman’s smile is indulgent and placatory. He has no sense of her independent reality as a person, as another human being with a million concerns nothing to do with us, him. He’s running his old twentieth-century software; he misreads her and thinks that she is in some way flirting with him; and so he begins to talk more about chateaux and the history of France. Even the way he adjusts his stance on his stick and dips his head to speak is faintly embarrassing and inappropriate; but I also feel sad for him since actually there’s a kind of innocence to his talk . .
. Because, in another way, he thinks that everyone is fascinated by architecture and history and he can’t imagine a world where this kind of chat is beside the point or of zero interest. He’s never been able to see that his slice of the world is not the whole cake. Nowhere near. And yet, still . . . still he wants urgently to share it because he thinks that everyone else must therefore be starving hungry.
We’re in a hurry so I change quickly in my room, fire Eva a text and then speed down the corridor to help my father. I’m wearing a jacket that Eva chose but it’s out of place here: too London, too something else. Wherever I am, I never look right.
The door is open in case something happens. So in I go. My dying father is lying on the bed semi-naked with his eyes shut; he’s napping but he looks like a tranquillized wild animal that they’ve taken for tagging because of the dwindling numbers. His skin is deathly pale save for the red sunburn on his forearms and forehead. The hair on his legs is thinning. Without his animation, without his life force, his limbs seem spindly and ungainly – subsided, collapsed – he’s a hide of bone and wasting muscle, no longer stalking, pouncing, roaring, no longer ferocious. He has managed to get most of his clothes off but not his socks or pants. I have the sense that he gave up.
‘Dad,’ I say. I feel nauseous.
He opens his eyes. And it is like a miracle to see their light, to watch them seek me. He starts to sit up. He’s moving. And now it is me who is stuck still, motionless. When he speaks, his voice is almost too much for me. Soon, I won’t be able to hear what he has to say – no matter what. I have to force myself to go around the bed and remove his socks. Then I help him to sit up. I can’t look at him.
‘Let me get the shower on,’ I say.
‘OK, standing by.’
I cut across to his bathroom and mess around with the shower taps to get the right temperature. And so . . . And so we’re back in life again. And I’m thinking that you would have hoped that after all this time someone might invent a shower where fixing the right temperature would be easy. But it seems like yet another thing humanity can’t figure out for itself. I need to speak to Jack or Ralph.
I come back in and Dad is leaning on the upright chair, drooling a little with his lopsided grin.
‘Walnut desk,’ he says. ‘Second Empire. Guess the date.’
All my life, he’s been teaching me this way.
‘1750,’ I say.
‘Nope. Second Empire is 1852 to 1870, Lou. Napoleon the Third.’
‘Napoleon’s grandson?’
‘Nephew.’
I scoot over and help him down with his underwear.
‘People would pay a lot for this privilege, Louis.’
‘I’m not saying I don’t feel lucky, Dad.’
‘Just don’t start taking it for granted.’
‘If ever there was a man who didn’t take things for granted, Dad, it’s me.’
‘And don’t waste your intelligence.’
We bind arms.
‘What is that supposed to mean?’
I can feel my phone buzzing in my pocket as we three-leg our way back towards the bathroom. I am thinking that this is the first time I’ve walked my naked father anywhere.
‘Don’t let yourself get bogged down by the admin, Lou.’
‘Dad, I’m a database manager; it’s all admin.’
‘A lot of people . . . a lot of people spend their entire lives on the admin. Take it from me: you’re not going to feel any kind of satisfaction if you get to my stage in life and all you’ve got to show for yourself is a lifetime of administrative proficiency.’
‘Should I tweet that?’
‘Would anyone notice?’
‘Does anyone notice anything?’
‘You do, Lou.’
‘And look where it’s got me.’
The water is tepid. Dad climbs in anyway.
‘Bloody hell, Lou. This is freezing. What are you trying to do to me?’
‘OK, let’s see if there’s a little more hot in the tank.’
I ease the tap a millimetre at a time because I am scared it’s going to scald him. But we get to something warmer that seems to hold. So I hand Dad the soap and he gets busy with one hand while he grips the soap tray with the other – the same way, I notice, that he holds the table when he is eating.
‘It’s expensive – to watch,’ he says.
‘Jesus, Dad.’
‘Sorry. It’s the disease.’ He taps his head. ‘Makes me free.’
I dive back into the room. I booked the biggest and the most beautiful for him. I don’t really know about decor but maybe it’s all Second Empire or belle époque or something – there’s azure wallpaper striped with pale gold and dried flowers and a brass bedstead and dark wardrobes and everything you could want if you were like my father. My jacket is wet from the spray. I take it off and hang it on the back of the upright desk chair. I need to make the call and I’m thinking about lying down on the chaise longue but then I remember the balcony and so I open the windows and step out. Which immediately feels like the right move. The vines stretch away, rising and falling, in straight and serried files; there’s a pale track leading to an ochre-roofed house in the distance – another farm; and a field of something blue on a hillside that might be lavender.
‘Jack.’
‘Lou, thank God. Where are you?’
‘We’re at this chateau in the middle of nowhere. Sorry, I couldn’t call before. I was driving.’
‘I’m coming.’
I’ve got my phone clamped to my face. But I’m watching some kind of hawk turn in the widening gyre.
‘I’m coming,’ he says again.
Relief is flooding my spirit like metaphysical morphine.
‘I’ve told work that Dad is ill.’
‘Understatement of the year.’
‘I’m getting a flight. Where shall I fly? Where are you going to be?’
‘Tomorrow, we’re heading to this place near the Swiss border. It’s a spa. Maybe fly to Basel.’
‘Who flies to Basel?’
‘Someone must. Try one of the expensive cheap airlines. Or try flying to Strasbourg.’
‘OK, keep your phone on.’
I’m scared I might actually start to cry so I say nothing and watch the damn hawk.
Jack says: ‘I don’t know what I was thinking, bro. I’m sorry.’
I can’t speak.
‘I’ve been going mental all day, Lou,’ he says.
‘Not as mental as me.’
‘What time did you set off?’
‘Way too early this morning.’
‘Are you OK?’
‘Can’t take another minute of my own existence.’
‘Well, hang on a day. I’m coming. I’ll talk to the bastard and then we’ll . . . we’ll all go home. This is so insane. Is Ralph coming?’
‘Supposed to be.’
‘I’ve been calling him. His phones are all on voicemail,’ Jack sighs. ‘He’s such a penis.’
‘He said he would meet us. Tomorrow night – that’s what he said. He knows all the places we’re staying.’
‘Is Dad being OK or is he being mad?’
‘When he’s OK, it’s too weird. When he’s being mad, it’s even weirder. But you know – we’re in Madsville pretty much all the time right now. Centre Ville.’
Now Jack falls silent.
‘What should I say?’ I ask.
‘About what?’
‘About you coming. He’ll know. I mean, he’ll know you’re coming to stop him.’
‘I don’t care.’
‘He’ll think you’re angry.’
‘I’m way past angry. I’m something I don’t even know what I am.’
‘Welcome to my world.’
‘What are you doing this evening?’
‘Champagne-tasting.’
‘Jesus.’
‘What are we supposed to be doing?’
‘I don’t know. I don’t know. OK: listen, definitely text m
e tomorrow so I know where you are.’
‘Of course I will.’
‘Don’t leave France.’
‘I won’t.’
‘Don’t go anywhere near Switzerland.’
‘I’m driving. We go where I want.’
‘I’ll try Ralph again. He’s probably out of credit.’
‘Shouldn’t you phone Dad?’
‘What’s the point?’
‘I don’t know . . . You’re his son?’
‘I need to speak to him face to face.’
‘I better go. He’s in the shower.’
‘OK. OK, I’m going to sort out a flight. I’ll see you soon. Hang in there, Lou. Sorry I’ve been such a dick.’
‘Don’t worry about it. Runs in the family.’
Now the fields are golden and the sun is sinking like one of those Viking burial ships set aflame on the sea and the clouds are all under-lit in their evening colours of peach and rose and pale vermilion. I have this sudden feeling that making champagne – something the world definitely wants, treasures, celebrates and is willing to pay for – that must be a happy life; out in these French fields in all seasons, the science of viticulture, the art of wine-making, the history of it all, and the whole planet excited to visit. Or maybe two generations in, all you want to do is go to New York, rent some scratchy little hutch and pretend to be a filmmaker like every other bastard. I don’t know.