by Jim Powell
‘I’ve had a few,’ I said. ‘But, then again, too few to mention.’
‘It’s not a very good idea to get tight when your boss is here.’
‘Why did you invite him, then? I didn’t want to see him.’
‘Matthew, I think you might make an effort. Tonight of all nights. Everyone’s come to see you.’
Everyone had not come to see me. Everyone would rather be sitting at home in their slippers, watching TV and eating beans on toast. Our children and their partners had come because Judy had applied a three-line whip. Everyone else had come because they had been invited six months ahead of time and were not bright enough to come up with an excuse.
‘Oh I see,’ I said. ‘I’m so sorry – I didn’t realize. Simply everyone has come to see me. Le tout Barnet has come to see Matthew Oxenhay. What a popular man I must be.’
‘Please, Matthew. Just tonight. For my sake.’
I sighed.
‘You never used to be like this.’
‘I’ll be down in a few minutes,’ I said.
‘Please won’t you come down with me now?’
‘Stop hassling me, Judy. I’ll be down in a few minutes.’ I think I may have seen a tear in her eye as she left the room.
I felt like a shit. I knew exactly what Judy meant, that her reproaches were mild in the circumstances. I hated myself for the way I behaved at times and, the more I hated myself, the more I behaved that way. I wondered sometimes whether I was trying to make Judy hate me, trying to provoke her into leaving me. If so, that would be a poor strategy. Judy is not the leaving type. Judy is the soldier-on-and-make-the-best-of-it type. We might as well come from different generations. In fact, we do.
Judy is four years older than me, born in 1944. You wouldn’t think that four years should make much of a difference, but when it is those four years, they do. She and most of her contemporaries grew up as conformists, and I and most of mine grew up as rebels. We wanted to change the world. They wanted to make it safe. One consequence is that Judy’s lot are now content with life, and mine are bloody furious.
When we met, Judy was a secretary. Of course she was; what else would she have been? That generation of women all became secretaries. Or at least the ones that didn’t become nurses or dentists’ receptionists or librarians. She stopped work, paid work I mean, when she first became pregnant, never to resume it. You could say that she sacrificed her own life to create a comfortable life for me and our children. That may be true, but it is too mundane a view. Judy’s life has been devoted to something more cosmic. Before marrying me, she was already betrothed to the idea of the nuclear family, to the security of the cocoon that could be woven around it. I was thought to be a suitable, if incidental, vehicle for the consummation, and for that reason I could be loved. Judy would not say that she had sacrificed her life. Judy would say that she had been fulfilled. No progressive social theorist could convince her otherwise.
You may wonder how Judy and I ever came to marry, or even got as far as a first date. I was twenty-three when we met. I had submitted to the compulsory experience of doomed romanticism. I was now surrounded by plenty of emancipated young women who thought it was cool to screw around. I’m not complaining, because I thought it was cool to screw around too, and I don’t want to be thought a hypocrite. But, just as I’m sure that there were plenty of cool young women secretly hoping for a man who would not screw around, so there were plenty of cool young men hoping for a woman ditto. There was some issue of supply and demand here, but we were all into Marxist economics at the time. No one was a supply-sider then.
Judy did not screw around. In fact, it took quite some time to get her to screw at all. Funnily enough, that was a large part of her attraction. I think I always knew that we were coming from different directions. For me that was refreshing, and perhaps it was for her too. Unfortunately, we also had different destinations in mind. When you are trying hard to be attractive to someone, you minimize the differences between you. Possibly that is the worst mistake humans habitually make. It might be better to exaggerate the differences and see if the relationship survives. The differences will surface sooner or later, and by then it may be too late.
If two people stand in the same place and set out on a shared journey, and if one starts walking at an angle that is one degree different from the other, after thirty-five years, which is how long we’ve been married, the two of them will be miles apart. If I were a mathematician, I could tell you how many miles after thirty-five years at 4 mph, which is what Baden-Powell determined to be the proper pace for a Boy Scout. Since I was looking at Angela Jones’s legs in Maths too, I can only say that it feels like thousands of miles, and very probably is.
It was another twenty minutes and two whiskies later before I came downstairs. Judy looked crestfallen. Everyone was standing around waiting for me. There seemed to be an expectation that something significant was about to happen. I was issued with a Prosecco, and Adam and Rufus wheeled a small trolley through the French windows with a large cake upon it. It was one of those bespoke cakes made at home by women who don’t pay tax, for which they charge outrageous prices plus VAT, which they don’t pay either.
This one was an artist’s impression of the Bank of England, much as the Bank is itself these days. It had an iced inscription on the roof that read ‘60 YEARS OLD AND STILL KING OF THE FUTURES’. Rupert Loxley pretended to find this amusing. I lopped a large slice off the cake – the first of many slices to be lopped off the Bank this year, it now occurs to me – and everyone clapped and laughed as if it was the cleverest thing they had seen. Judy said a few words of breathtaking banality and then it was my turn.
I can’t say I wasn’t warned. As with any event that Judy organizes, every last element of it was predictable. I had no excuse not to be prepared to give a speech, not to have thought of a thesaurus of inanities to suit the occasion. If I had, I might have redeemed the rest of my behaviour that evening. At the very least, I might have expressed some gratitude to Judy.
But I hadn’t prepared anything. I had deliberated and procrastinated before copping out with a decision to be spontaneous for once in my life. I knew it was a mistake when I decided on it; even more so when I opened my mouth. On the spur of that moment, it seemed like a funny idea. I would, briefly, recapitulate the flaws and inadequacies of everyone present. Just as people were starting to become uneasy, I would proceed to catalogue my own flaws and inadequacies. Then I would conclude that it’s our failings that make us lovable, or some such crap, and aver my deepest love for all present.
It may not have been a good idea in the first place. Combining the sincere with the insincere seldom works: it’s best to stick to one or the other, in this case the latter. It is also true that I dwelt on everyone else’s flaws and inadequacies for longer than I had intended. I was approaching the bit about my own flaws when I felt my legs subsiding. I slipped, with some elegance I believe, into a nearby wicker chair and passed out.
When I awoke, it was the early hours of the morning. No lights were on in the house. The patio doors were locked. It was surprisingly warm, though, and several near-empty bottles of flat Prosecco still littered the lawn, so I poured them into one bottle and sat in my wicker chair, sipping from it and pondering the nature of existence. Shortly after seven, when I had disappeared into the shrubbery at the side of the house for a pee, Sarah and Adam walked out onto the patio. I stood around the corner and eavesdropped.
‘I wonder where he’s got to,’ said Sarah.
‘Fucked off, with any luck,’ said Adam.
‘Don’t be like that. He needs help.’
‘He’s not getting any from me. Not after last night.’
‘He didn’t mean it. You know that.’
‘Saz, I’m past caring whether he means it or not. If he doesn’t mean it, why does he keep doing it?’
‘Because he’s miserable.’
‘What’s he got to be miserable about?’
‘Work,’ said Sar
ah. ‘That’s what Mum thinks. It’s why she invited his boss to the party.’
‘If you ask me, things started to go wrong when he didn’t get the top job,’ said Adam. ‘That’s when the drinking started. How long ago was that?’
‘About three years. Exactly the time that Mum was ill.’
‘I hate to think how much booze has gone down the hatch since then. It’s about time he got a grip on it.’
‘It can’t have been easy for him,’ said Sarah. ‘He was brilliant with Mum, even if he was on the bottle. All that time he took off work to look after her. It must have been a really difficult time for him.’
‘Well, it was a bloody difficult time for Mum too. And she coped with it a lot better than Dad did. I don’t know how she puts up with him, Saz. And I don’t know why she puts up with him.’
‘He’s not himself, Adam. You can see that, can’t you?’
‘It’s how he’s been for three years. How much longer do we give him?’
Sarah sighed.
‘Come on,’ said Adam. ‘I’ve got to go in a few minutes. Let’s get some coffee.’
They went back inside, and I manoeuvred my way back to the wicker chair and the remains of the Prosecco. I would like to say I felt chastened, but I didn’t. There was nothing I had heard I didn’t already know, or couldn’t have guessed. Actually, that’s not quite true. I hadn’t realized Judy was sniffing into my situation at work. That would have to be watched. Otherwise, I still appeared to have one child a little on my side. The problem was that I was more inclined to agree with the other. I was beyond redemption.
Was that when it started, with Judy’s illness and my being passed over? It was a difficult time, certainly. I remember a feeling of utter impotence. There was nothing I could do, except be there. At least I did that. Adam was right. That was when the drinking started. No: that was when the drinking got out of control. And Adam was also right to say that Judy was a coper. It was her illness, but she coped with it much better than I did. I nearly went to pieces. Not the best time to be under the microscope for promotion. But I don’t know that it started then. I think it may have started way earlier, before Judy even. I think it may have started when I lost my brother, when I lost faith in the indissoluble goodness of life. I don’t think I’ve ever expected things to go right since then.
Sarah must have seen me from the kitchen. A little while later, she came into the garden with two mugs of coffee and sat in the chair next to mine.
‘How are you feeling, Dad?’
‘Dreadful.’ Neither of us said anything for several minutes. ‘Come on, Saz,’ I said. ‘You’d better tell me. How bad was it?’
‘It was pretty bad.’
‘Really bad?’
‘Really, really bad.’
I paused before the big question. ‘How’s your mother?’
‘Not good. She’s very upset.’
‘And what about you, Saz?’
‘I’m all right. You let me off quite lightly. I don’t think Rufus is very amused, though. And Adam certainly isn’t. Why did you pick on him like that?’
‘Because he’s my son.’
‘So?’
‘It wasn’t what I intended,’ I said. ‘It came out wrong.’ I tried to explain to her what I had meant to say, what I hadn’t got round to saying before I passed out.
‘Perhaps you decided to collapse when you’d said everything you really wanted to say.’
‘Saz. No.’
‘That was how it sounded. In vino veritas. Payback time.’
‘For what?’
‘How should I know?’ Another long pause. ‘Why are you so unhappy, Dad?’
‘Am I?’
‘Aren’t you?’
‘I suppose I must be, Saz. On the one hand, I’m unhappy about nothing. On the other, I’m unhappy about everything. Does that make sense?’
‘No.’
‘No. Perhaps it doesn’t.’
‘Is that why you’re drinking so much?’
‘I’ve always liked a drink.’
‘Not like this.’
‘Last night was exceptional,’ I said. ‘You’ve got to admit that.’
‘You’ve been building up to it.’
‘How do you know, Saz? You hardly ever see me.’
‘There are telephones, Dad. Those strange devices you think live only in offices. I talk to Mum quite a lot. She’s been worried about your drinking for months.’
‘So that’s what you do, is it? Gossip about me behind my back?’
‘Would it be better if we weren’t concerned for you?’
‘No. I know. I’m sorry.’
‘Why did you keep referring to Mum as Eva Braun?’
‘Did I?’
‘Yes. At least half a dozen times. It wasn’t funny the first time.’
‘What else did I say about her?’
‘I don’t think I’m going to tell you. It would make your apology even more impossible. Your best defence is drunkenness and amnesia.’
‘What did I say about Rupert Loxley?’
‘You said his was an extraordinary achievement. Not only promoted one rung above his level of competence, but an entire ladder.’
‘I didn’t say that.’
‘You did.’
‘Did he laugh?’
‘No.’
‘No, he wouldn’t. He doesn’t have a sense of humour.’
‘It’s none of my business, Dad,’ she said, ‘but is everything all right at work?’
No. Everything was not all right at work.
These are difficult times. The financial sector is in meltdown. It was in turmoil even in May. Futures were hard to predict. The price of some commodities was going through the roof; the price of others was tumbling. Who could say where any of them would be in a few months’ time? Less business was being transacted and, since we earned our income from commissions, less income was being earned. Bonuses had been cut. At the previous board meeting, there had been a long discussion on how much routine work might be delegated to unpaid interns. Rupert Loxley had talked about the possible need to downsize; the imperative need to make the company fit for purpose. I was doodling on a piece of paper, filling in my Bingo card of clichés. No one understood when I shouted, ‘House!’
We’d had similar debates over the years, at other moments of crisis, using other jargon, whatever was fashionable at the time. I used to participate with enthusiasm, but not now. Then, it would have been unthinkable that I might be one of the casualties. Now, it had become not unthinkable. It was probably being thought.
I suspected that, one morning soon, in the coming weeks or months, Rupert Loxley would ask to see me. He would not take me out to lunch: that would expend too much valuable time on a spent asset. If I were lucky, I would get a cup of coffee in his office. He would not fire me, or sack me, or even make me redundant. Those words aren’t used any more. He would let me go, or say I had been selected for early retirement. Something positive; something that would make me sound wildly free to have been so released, immeasurably privileged to have been so selected. He would not discuss the vulgar minutiae of money. That would be left to the Finance Director. Then the Inhuman Resources Director would administer empathy and I would go home. It would be in the morning, I was sure. A Friday morning. Early enough for me to be forgotten by the end of the day; early enough for it not to spoil their weekends. I knew how these things worked.
‘Of course everything’s all right, Saz. Why shouldn’t it be?’
‘You’re so bloody stubborn,’ she said. ‘How can anybody help you when you won’t let them?’
‘If I need help, I’ll ask for it.’
‘We won’t hear you if you’re dead.’
‘All right,’ I said. ‘All right. I screwed up. I apologize. I will perform any obeisance required of me at the altar of decorum. I will try not to do it again.’
It turned out that a great deal of obeisance was required over the following days. I made my peace with J
udy, who is a kind and understanding and forgiving woman, and a woman who loves me, none of which facts I may have mentioned previously. I allowed Judy to dictate the terms of the armistice on behalf of the other injured parties, to determine the reparations that needed to be made. I had to deal with the idiot Rupert Loxley myself. I don’t think my jibe about him had any bearing on what proved to be about to happen. Really not. It would have happened anyway. My only regret on that front was that I failed to say in public that he was the biggest arsehole I had ever met. But I never got to the section on his good points.
It would be easy to say that my birthday party was the beginning of the road that has led me to here, but it wasn’t. That evening was itself the accumulation of months and years and decades. My speech, spectacular though it may have been, was less important in the scheme of things than my reflections standing at the bedroom window. Even so, as my history teacher used to say, for events to happen there needs to be both fertile ground and a specific seed. Angela Jones didn’t take History, so I remember that. I think we can agree that the ground was highly fertile. I can hardly conceive of a greater quantity of shit. Something else was required to seed it and to spark the methane.
3
As forecast, one Friday morning, two or three weeks after the party, Rupert Loxley poked his head round my door and asked if we could have a quick word in his office.
‘I’m not quite sure how to put this, Matthew,’ he began.
‘In that case, shall I go away until you are?’
‘No. Don’t do that. What I mean is, these are difficult times. Well, aren’t they?’ I said nothing. ‘Yes, well they are. You know that. The Chairman and I have been talking. We are agreed that the company needs to be more flexible going forward. If we don’t do it ourselves, it will be forced upon us, so we need to be proactive. We don’t want to lay anybody off. That’s the last thing we want to do. We thought – that is to say, the Chairman thought, and I think there’s a lot to be said for it – that we should consider moving some of our staff on to a freelance basis, to make us lighter on our feet. We would like to offer you the position of senior consultant with the firm.’