The Friendly Ones

by Philip Hensher

  ‘If I wrote my own biography,’ he said to the grandson holding his arm. Which one was it?

  ‘You should,’ the grandson said. ‘It would be very interesting.’

  ‘“Nothing matters very much, and most things don’t matter at all,”’ Hilary said. ‘Know who said that?’

  ‘Lord Salisbury,’ the grandson said. ‘I do know, as it happens. Before even your time, I would say.’

  His name was Josh, Hilary remembered. He was the one Blossom had taken in. There were others, too, and great-grandchildren. They’d overcome the Spinster curse: they were all at least five foot six, five foot seven. One of Blossom’s children had six children! He looked terrible, that grandson, with his hair all in a mess, a lot of dreadlocks, and blond. Ridiculous. And the wife! His children were wild but amusing. Did these grandchildren here now have any children? The one who was supporting him, now helping him back inside – Josh, the nicest of all of them, going a bit grey round the edges. And the one with a sour, disapproving expression reading the Radio Times in an armchair, Thomas. And the other one who was poor old Lavinia’s only contribution, still wearing his leather coat, looking like a mass murderer, whose name was Russell. Fat as a pig, too. None of them – not a single one – had ever become a doctor. What a shower. But look at Hilary! He was a hundred and he had forty people coming to his dinner tomorrow! There weren’t many people who remained as popular as him into three figures. Off the top of his head Hilary couldn’t think of any. The Queen would be glad to be sending him a telegram, if anyone had remembered to organize it. There weren’t many people left who were actually older than the old dear, these days.

  ‘I’ve lost a lot of people along the way,’ Hilary said to Josh, as he was depositing him in the armchair.

  ‘Do you want a cup of tea?’ Josh said. He didn’t seem to have heard what his grandfather had said. ‘I was just going to make one for everyone.’

  ‘I said, I’ve lost a lot of people along the way,’ Hilary said again.

  ‘Well, that’s true,’ Josh said. ‘But you don’t need to think about them today, or tomorrow. What’s done is done. You’ve nothing to regret, in the end.’

  It was true, what Josh had said in his calm and level-headed way. Hilary had organized all of that. When Josh’s father had disappeared in the way he had, Hilary had decided that Josh had to be taken care of. And he was taken care of. The mother wasn’t up to it. Was the mother coming today or tomorrow? For some reason Hilary thought she was. The father wasn’t. He hadn’t seen the father for many years now. He might be dead. The other son was dead, wasn’t he? That had been sad. Things had gone wrong. Perhaps some of those things had been caused by Hilary. He could admit that now. It was too late to do anything about any of that, and he could honestly say that if the possibility arose to share the truth with another, to clarify matters before it was too late, he would now take a long look at the situation and consider whether anything, in the end, was to be gained by making a frank statement of the truth. Sharif had lost a sister in the same way. Hilary forgot the details, how that happened, but he’d definitely lost a sister in the course of things. Sometimes people walked away, and sometimes you did not have the last word you had craved so. As Josh said, what was done was done. Nothing mattered very much: and most things didn’t matter at all.

  ‘Who’s coming today?’ Lavinia’s husband said, pulling up a stool. He was plump and grey-haired; his eyes were catlike, triangular, a little sad if you didn’t know how amused he was at things. Reminded you of someone. He was sixty himself, and his father-in-law’s encounter with old age was something he might be expected to share. ‘And who’s coming tomorrow? I know Blossom will have sorted out all the sleeping arrangements in a very expert way.’

  ‘Aisha came today, I know,’ Hilary said. ‘That’s Aisha next door. She was supposed to be coming today. Their boys are coming tomorrow. They’re coming from the ends of the earth! Sharif said he was going to bring the cake round this afternoon – I can hardly wait to see what they’ve decided on. He should be here by now, I would have thought.’

  ‘How thrilling!’ Jeremy said. ‘And the others – Blossom’s children? I know that it was too far for Tamara to come, all the way from Australia, alas. Russell, please stop doing that.’

  ‘Yes,’ Hilary said. ‘It was sad that she couldn’t come. But the boy’s coming, Tresco’s coming, with all his children. They’re sleeping in their campervan, I hear. And the little one, her youngest, the one who lives in Wales – Celia. Celia’s coming with her friend who she lives with.’

  ‘Celia?’

  ‘Yes, my granddaughter Celia,’ Hilary said. ‘Blossom, your youngest daughter’s coming, isn’t she? Celia?’

  But Blossom, who was just coming in for her cup of tea, looked at him, head cocked, a little touch of sadness in her eyes. ‘It’s not Celia, Daddy,’ she said. ‘You’re getting a bit mixed up. It’s Trevor. She’s coming with her friend Alison.’

  ‘Oh, Trevor, of course,’ Hilary said. How had he made such a silly mistake? Called her Celia? He had promised himself he would not mention his wife. She had been dead for so long now, and it had been the cause of such trouble afterwards. It was really best not to bring her name up, as he had for the last twenty-five years. It was better not to talk about any of the people who couldn’t be here, and there was such happiness all around Hilary today and tomorrow, he promised himself again that he would not.

  It was lucky, then, that the doorbell rang. It was the same chime that had always been there; Blossom had arrived not long before, and it shocked her with its vital reminiscence. But for her father it was not a shock. He heard it all the time, and had been hearing it for the last fifty or sixty years, all the time he had been in this house. He leant forward in his armchair. Below him another animal made the same forward gesture with the same long wrinkled neck, the same disapproving expression that was always used to conceal pleasure. It was a visitor, asking for admittance in a polite musical clangour.

  ‘There you are, Gertrude,’ Hilary said, but really for everyone else’s benefit. ‘There’s Sharif from next door. He’s bringing the cake.’

  ‘Is there a cake?’ Lavinia said. ‘Oh, my God. I knew I should have thought of it. I just assumed …’

  ‘There is no need to punish yourself,’ Jeremy said. ‘There is no need whatsoever. There is a cake, you see. And that is wonderful Sharif from next door, bringing it for us to admire, but perhaps not eat, not just yet.’

  ‘But I should have thought of it!’ Lavinia said. ‘Or brought a cake for eating purposes? Heavens – isn’t anyone going to get the door?’

  Of course it was Josh who got up, in his trim and elegant weekend garb. He made himself useful. He walked to the door full of his certainty that he had made himself useful without being thanked most of his life, and now he would carry on. He looked forward to seeing this new stage in the celebrations of his grandfather’s birthday. But he opened the door and it was not Sharif there, and nobody with a cake. There was a small round woman, perhaps Filipina in appearance. Her hair was brushed down firmly into a neat black helmet; she wore a bright pink suit with black brocade around the lapels. She might be going to a wedding, and the tiny boy by her side might be a page boy. Josh’s heart went out to him, dark and big-eyed in his suit; they did not fit him, his best clothes, and the brilliant white shirt and red bow-tie hung loosely about his neck. The little boy looked up at Josh and, judging from his expression, he did not know yet that there was nothing here to be frightened of. The lady started to explain. She had come ahead because it was so difficult to park. Their drive – the Spinsters’ drive – it was quite full! It had even been hard to find a space in the street. Leo had thought it best to drop Rubilynn and Sandy at the gate. They hadn’t met. This was Sandy. As for the lady – ‘I am Rubilynn,’ she said. Leo, she explained, was parking the car. He would be here in a minute or two, no more than that.

  Champel, 9 May 2016

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS


  Some details of Rafiq’s story and experiences are taken, with humility and honour, from a great memoir of the Bangladeshi war of independence, Jahanara Imam’s Days of 1971, and from Anisul Haque’s beautiful novel about her, Ma (Mother). A poem that Sharif recites is a national favourite by Rabindranath Tagore; his favourite novelist, Shahidullah Kaiser, is also one of mine. Kaiser was murdered by Pakistanis in the closing days of the war of independence in 1971, as part of a concerted project to kill as many writers, thinkers and creative spirits of the Bengal nation before it could be founded. No Pakistani has ever faced justice for the genocide they planned and individually carried out between March and December 1971. The name of the officer who took Jahanara Imam’s son away to torture him to death was, as here, Captain Qayyum. Captain Qayyum may still live in protected retirement, untroubled by his deeds during the Bengal monsoon of 1971. I would not shield him with a change of name.

  Many thanks go to my first readers, who made very useful suggestions: Tessa Hadley, Nicola Barr, Delwar Hussein, my agent Georgia Garrett, my editor Nicholas Pearson and, above all, Zaved Mahmood.

  The plot of the novel has been quite consciously taken from The Winter’s Tale and from Eugene Onegin.

  Also by Philip Hensher

  FICTION

  Other Lulus

  Kitchen Venom

  Pleasured

  The Bedroom of the Mister’s Wife

  The Mulberry Empire

  The Fit

  The Northern Clemency

  King of the Badgers

  Scenes from Early Life

  The Emperor Waltz

  Tales of Persuasion

  NON-FICTION

  The Missing Ink: The Lost Art of Handwriting

  About the Author

  PHILIP HENSHER has written ten novels, including The Mulberry Empire, the Booker-shortlisted The Northern Clemency, King of the Badgers and Scenes from Early Life, which won the Ondaatje Prize in 2012. He is Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Bath Spa and lives in south London and Geneva.

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