by David Nobbs
‘As you wish.’
James continued his tale of Deborah, her love of the art gallery where she had worked five half-days a week for more than ten years, of her eye for a picture, of the fact that she found some beautiful object that she just had to buy almost everywhere she went. ‘She could go to a car boot sale in Swindon and come back with something by Fabergé that some ignoramus was selling for fifty pee.’
‘Excellent, but I won’t use the word “ignoramus” if you don’t mind. In God’s eyes there are no ignoramuses, or should that be ignorami?’
‘Well, actually it was my word. She would never use it. She had in abundance what is sometimes called Christian charity although I think the adjective is often entirely inappropriate.’
As he continued to talk of Deborah’s many virtues, James again began to feel that he was on the verge of breaking into tears. Ever since she had died he had wanted to cry for her, he had been shamed by his inability to do so. Now he was having to fight his tears off.
There was no way he was going to break down in the presence of the Reverend Martin Vigar.
As he walked slowly up the stairs to Helen’s apartment, James’s heart was beating like a hummingbird’s.
The evening sun was no longer shining through the double doors that led in from the street. The dull stained glass and the dark purple carpet gave the stairway an ecclesiastical gloom which did nothing for his peace of mind.
He knocked thinly, reluctantly on her door, and then ran a hand through his rebellious hair. He caught himself doing so and hurriedly took the hand away, even though he had only been doing it out of habit and not because he really cared about his appearance at this dreadful moment. Deborah had once told him that this habit was the most futile of all his futile gestures. As soon as he had finished, his hair always went back to wherever it wanted to be at the time.
The door opened, and there she was, pale and perfectly formed. They kissed each other on both cheeks. They always began with this formality, so it won him a brief moment before their world crashed.
‘Drink?’
‘No, thank you.’
‘Did I hear correctly? Did James Hollinghurst actually refuse a drink?’
‘Yes, I … I …’
‘James! What’s wrong?’
‘I … I … I’m afraid this is the …’ His throat was parched. He could hardly get the words out. ‘I’m afraid I …’ To blurt it out like this seemed so insensitive, so cruel, so crass, but he felt that if he didn’t he might lose his nerve and wouldn’t be able to say it at all. ‘I’m afraid I … can’t carry on with this relationship any more, Helen. It’s over.’
‘What?’
There was no anger yet, just disbelief. She simply couldn’t take in what she was hearing.
‘What’s happened, James?’
‘Nothing’s happened. I …’ I just don’t love you any more. He couldn’t utter those words. They were too cruel. ‘I don’t know how to put it. I find that I just … can’t carry on. That’s all.’
‘All? All? You bastard!’
‘I don’t think I can argue with that description.’
‘It’s fucking Deborah, isn’t it, and your fucking guilt? That’s right. Frown. You don’t like women swearing, so unladylike. You’re pathetic, James. You’ve just climbed out of the primeval swamp.’
‘Helen, I can hardly protest about your swearing tonight. I don’t blame you.’
‘You don’t like my using the F-word in connection with the precious Deborah, though, do you?’
She came at him then, began raining blows on his chest with her fists. Then she reached towards his face and he turned his face away from her.
‘You’re frightened. No, you’re not. You’re turning away because you’re terrified I’ll mark your face, and everyone will see, and they’ll know we’ve been having a row, and then they’ll know that there’s an us to have a row, and it’ll all come out.’
She was still hitting him, and he was still cowering.
‘Two black eyes. That’d ruin the dignity of the memory of bloody Deborah’s death, wouldn’t it?’
She stopped hitting him then. She flung herself on the chaise longue and burst into tears.
‘All those cheap hotels in Bridgend and Kilmarnock. All those secrets. All those lies. And I never complained. Not once. And now this. Thrown over. Tossed aside. Why? Because you never loved me. You loved having a mistress. You loved having a secret. It made your grotty little life in packaging seem interesting.’
‘It wasn’t like that.’ He wanted to say, I loved you, but he couldn’t bring himself to use the word in the past tense, it sounded so bare.
‘It was exciting when I was the forbidden fruit, but when there was the prospect of my being in a bowl in the centre of the dining-room table every day, it was a different matter.’
He reached out to touch her, to show a sign of affection, to show that he cared, but he didn’t dare. He knew how hollow she would think it.
Had she really had no inkling, on Sunday, no premonition about why he had failed in bed? I don’t fancy you any more. Couldn’t say that. I suddenly found, to my astonishment, that the prospect of making love to you was completely unappealing. Couldn’t say that.
There was so little that he could say.
‘I had no idea that this was going to happen,’ he said. ‘I’m as shocked as you are.’
‘Oh, big deal. Shocked, are you?’ she wailed. ‘Poor you. My heart goes out to you.’
‘I didn’t mean it like that. Clearly, some of the things you’re accusing me of must have some truth in them, or this wouldn’t be happening, but I would never have set out to do this. And I actually never promised you anything.’
‘What bollocks. I accepted that you’d never leave Deborah. I didn’t want to be a marriage breaker. We neither of us thought she would ever die. She was the nearest thing I’ve ever come across to somebody being immortal. But when she did die, well, I think I had a right to assume …’
Her indignation tailed off into silence. She was sitting up straighter now, and her tears had almost stopped. James perched himself on the end of the chaise longue.
She turned to him and slapped him, just once, a stinging blow on the cheek.
‘I hate you,’ she said.
‘I actually don’t blame you.’
‘And please, please, don’t say that you sometimes hate yourself.’
He had just been going to.
‘I don’t hate you,’ she said in a much softer voice. ‘I wish I did, but I don’t. I love you, fuck it, and I probably always will.’
‘Oh, no. No. Please. I’d rather you hated me than that.’
‘Perhaps I’ll kill myself. I’d get some pleasure out of thinking how ashamed and guilty you’d feel.’
‘Please don’t do that.’
‘I won’t. I’m not brave enough.’
He reached out again and this time he did touch her on the shoulder, but he didn’t dare do any more than leave his hand there. She didn’t respond but she didn’t remove his hand.
‘You men and your consciences, oh, God, you’re a menace. If you have a conscience, for God’s sake why didn’t you stick to the straight and narrow. I wish I’d never met you.’ She paused. ‘That isn’t true. God, I wish it was.’ She turned and looked him straight in the face, and said, much more quietly, ‘I still can’t believe this conversation is happening.’
‘If it’s any consolation,’ he said, ‘neither can I.’
‘The men I’ve not gone out with because of you. Damien from the flat upstairs. Padraig from Accounts. Gunter that I met in Ulm who was oh so charming and Continental and sophisticated and so good in bed.’
He felt a bit shocked at that. But what right had he got to feel shocked? Sometimes he hated himself. No!
‘We didn’t go to bed. I was just trying to shock you. And I succeeded. Though what right you’ve got to be shocked I do not know. We didn’t go to bed not because he didn’t want to b
ut because I refused. What a stupid woman. I refused because I wanted to be faithful to you. I was never unfaithful, James.’
‘Well, nor was I.’
‘You went to bed with Deborah.’
‘She was my wife.’
‘And I thought it was women who were supposed to be illogical.’
She blew her nose fiercely, then stood up and went to the mirror.
‘Oh, God,’ she said. ‘I look terrible.’
‘You couldn’t.’
‘Please.’
‘Sorry.’
‘So, Sunday was our last supper. No disciples except for Judas. Now just go, will you?’
She was standing by the window now, looking out on London with eyes that saw nothing. He walked towards her. He wanted to touch her, kiss her, hug her, even just run his hand along her arm. He wanted to console her, apologise silently, anything, something.
‘Don’t touch me,’ she growled, in a desperate low voice that chilled him to the marrow.
Wednesday
Airports always made James edgy, and Heathrow was the worst of them. It wasn’t just the possibility of terrorist attacks, though that was always there, just below the surface. It wasn’t just his own concerns, his worry over whether Max’s plane would be delayed. It certainly wasn’t the fear that the plane would crash, his brother was a statistician, after all, and he knew how unlikely a crash was, statistically. It was more that the air crackled with tension, with the fear of some, the bewilderment of others, the excitement of many, the joy of reunion, the sorrow of parting, the disobedience of trolleys, the weight of suitcases, the length of queues, the drabness of cafés, the blankness of officials, the constant appeals over the public address system for latecomers to join their flights so that you ended up worrying about people you would never meet, the capricious progress of time, so slow when you wanted it to move quickly, so fast when you wanted it to dawdle.
He had got there too early. He always did. The drive had been horrible, even though there had been little on the roads at that early hour. His head had felt as if a band had been tied round his forehead and just above his ears. His sleeping pill (the last but one) was still affecting him. He shouldn’t have been driving.
He’d gone to bed the moment he got home, suddenly revolted by the thought of drinking on his own, suddenly repelled by the possibility of alcohol. He’d felt utterly exhausted, but he’d known that without the pill he wouldn’t have slept a wink.
At twenty-five past six the arrivals board notified him that Max’s plane had landed. A brief thrill suffused his body. Soon he would see the reassuring bulk of his son, his splendid, beloved son.
But still there, beneath the thrill, was the throbbing tension of the airport, and beneath that tension were the more personal worries that afflicted him this sunny Wednesday morning. His fear of the funeral and of the eulogy that he had committed himself to make. His pride and fear over the speech that he would be making in a few hours’ time at the lunch to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the foundation of Globpack UK. He’d arranged for Max to attend. He didn’t know if this was a mistake, if Max would be interested. He was a little ashamed because he knew that he was motivated by pride, the pride he hoped he would be able to feel in his son, the pride that he hoped Max would feel in him when he saw how successful he was, how popular, what a good speech he was making. And beneath that slight shame was the deeper shame, his shame over Helen, his horrified replaying of the final scene last night. And lurking there, in the depths, was the ever-present thought of Charlotte, the agony of her loss in part assuaged but in part deepened by the knowledge that she was there, in South London, at the end of a phone line, so near and yet so far. And in those murky depths now, after yesterday, was the growing suspicion that a man he knew well had plunged a knife into the stomach of another man he knew well, last week of all weeks. Didn’t he have enough to respond to without having to think about that?
He stood there, among the crowds, surrounded by chauffeurs of private hire firms holding up boards with names on them that were probably misspelt. They couldn’t possibly deduce, from his appearance, what he was going through, and he wondered if, beneath their passive, bored exteriors similar maelstroms of fear, guilt and loss were whirling.
He tried to calm himself down by running through the speech that he would be making later that day. ‘Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. What a great privilege it is to be able to talk to you on this great occasion, the fiftieth anniversary of Globpack UK.’ He was aware that his lips were moving, people would think he was slightly cracked, well, he was, so it really didn’t matter. ‘When I was asked what I did by people at cocktail parties …’ No. Not cocktail parties. Too period. Made him sound eighty years old. ‘When I was asked what I did by people at parties …’
It was no use. He couldn’t concentrate.
Where was he? Come on, Max.
James had wondered if Max, supremely practical Max, who was cool in a way that was distinctly uncool, would have come with hand luggage alone, and would have been through ages ago. Now he began to wonder if he had been detained, if his bag was at this very moment being searched, if they would find substances – he couldn’t articulate the word ‘drugs’ even in his thoughts – in his luggage. Maybe Max had changed in his months in Canada, got in with the wrong set, told him a load of lies in their phone conversations and in his emails. It was unlikely, but in his present state anything seemed possible to James. Maybe there’s something rotten in me, he thought, well, I know there is, but maybe that something rotten has infected Max as well as Charlotte. Maybe he would lose the Max he loved as he had seemed to lose the Charlotte he loved. Maybe Max would have a ring in his nose now and a tattoo visible on his chest, and a face pinched and poisoned by substances, maybe he’d be swaying slightly, perhaps just from drink, good Lord, he of all people could hardly blame his son if he’d turned to drink in the long Canadian winter, oh, where was he, look at that clock, it’s whizzing round, he should be here by now, he’s missed the plane, no, he’d have phoned, he can’t phone, he’s lying in a drunken stupor in a cubicle in a Gents in Montreal Airport, he’s yet another troubled young person in this troubled world. This is ridiculous, control yourself, man, get a grip.
Standing there in that crowded airport, people charging around on all sides of him, James felt more alone than he had ever done in his life. No Deborah, no Helen, no Jane, Charlotte only accessible through Chuck, now he was losing Max. Something had happened. Come on. Materialise through that door. Oh, God, look at all those people, pushing their absurdly laden trolleys. Tired, weary, frightened, confused, happy, excited, ugly, pretty, united only by their Maxlessness.
Where are you?
He had definitely missed the plane. There was no doubt of that now.
And then there he was, as solid as ever, as solid as a tree, his lumberjack son, his pride and joy. Immediately all his doubts seemed ridiculous. They hugged, long and hard. Max’s body felt as firm as … yes, an oak. He had filled out. He was tough. He was the most treelike man James had ever met. It was impossible to imagine any career for him, except in forestry.
The words they spoke to each other were the words of cliché. So sad the reason, yet so wonderful to see you. But the feeling of paternal and filial affection that passed between them, that was no cliché, that was rare.
The phone was ringing as they entered the house, and there was no reason to think that he shouldn’t answer it.
‘I hate you. I hate you.’
He recoiled. Max heard Helen’s loud, screeching, ugly voice, looked at him questioningly, worried, amazed. There were no screeching, ugly voices in his young world.
He signalled to Max to go, to go upstairs. ‘Your old room,’ he muttered. Max gave him another questioning look, James gave a pathetic shrug as if he didn’t understand who was ringing, Max left the room, and all the while Helen was screeching, and it was he, James, who had done this, he who had reduced a lovely thirty-five-year-old woman t
o a child in a tantrum.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said wearily, ‘I didn’t hear any of that, we’ve just got back from the airport.’
‘We?’
‘Max and me.’
‘Oh, the wonderful Max. Such a lovely son to his dad. Such a bore to his dad’s friends. Max this, Max that, Max the other.’
‘I am not that sort of father, Helen, and you are doing yourself no favours with this approach.’
‘Oh, belt up, you pompous bastard.’
‘I see no point in continuing this conversation.’
‘Listening, is he, on the other phone, your precious wonder?’
‘He isn’t that sort of person.’
But maybe he is?
‘I’ve said I’m sorry, Helen, and I can really say no more. There’s no point in this call.’
‘There is. I thought it only fair to warn you.’
‘Warn me? Of what?’
‘That I’m coming to the service tomorrow.’
His heart sank.
‘Helen!’
‘When the vicar gets to that bit where he asks if there are any objections, I’m going to object.’
‘Helen! That’s weddings. You can’t object at a funeral. It’s a done deal.’
There was a brief silence, and then her tone changed abruptly.
‘Oh, God, sorry, you’ll think I’ve lost my mind. I haven’t slept.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘I suppose you slept like a log.’
‘Only with the aid of a sleeping pill. I was very upset too.’
‘Then why do it?’
‘Because I had to. You can’t feign love.’ That was, almost, I don’t love you any more. But she was forcing him to say it. The silly bi— no, he couldn’t think of her as that, she wasn’t, oh, God, he was horrified to hear her like this.
But she was calmer now.
‘There’s no point in talking, is there?’
‘No.’
‘Sorry I was hysterical.’
‘That’s all right.’
‘I am coming tomorrow, though.’