The White Family

by Maggie Gee

  ‘When are they operating?’ asked Darren.

  ‘He doesn’t know,’ said Mum disapprovingly, as if all this openness had gone too far. As if once they let death come into the room, it would stay with them always; no going back. No going back to their normal bickering.

  (But Mum was always so afraid of change. She was a coward, really, though Shirley adored her. Because just possibly, Shirley felt then, if we knew Dad was dying, if everything was spoken, we could find something different. An openness. A new way of being together. A new way of being with my dad. As if fear and lying could finally end –

  He might be sorry. We might be sorry. All of us might become less frightened.)

  ‘They’re not going to operate,’ Alfred said. He stared at them, defiant. ‘They say they can’t operate.’ This was his moment. He waited for what he had said to sink in.

  ‘OK,’ said Darren, stupidly smiling. Perhaps her brilliant brother was stupid. Susie had put her arm around him, her thin arm in its bright blue jacket, three gold cuff buttons, five red nails, but under it all she offered human comfort. Shirley wished that Elroy were here. She too needed an arm around her. Darren’s mouth opened, and closed again. Then Thomas was beside him too, bearing him up.

  ‘People are listening,’ said May, very quietly. ‘I don’t want everyone to know our business.’

  Shirley realized she meant the raddled red-head on the bed next door, who was listening avidly, not trying to pretend. She met Shirley’s eye, and did not look away, her veined eyes glittering with terrible hunger. Shirley felt a kind of senseless horror, as if it was death, lying waiting for them, and told herself, but she’s just lonely. No one ever seems to come to see her. She wriggled past Darren and Susie to her mother, and put her arm protectively around her shoulders (I’m sure I never used to be so much taller). ‘Doesn’t matter, Mum. Never mind …’

  Shirley needed comfort, but gave it, instead.

  ‘Do you have a prognosis, Mr White, Alfred?’ said Susie. They all turned and looked, surprised by her daring.

  ‘It’s cancer, I told you,’ said Alfred, but gently, more gently than he would have done if it was his children.

  ‘That’s not what prognosis means,’ said May, unable to hold back, as usual. ‘That’s diagnosis, what you’re talking about.’

  Shirley let go of her mother and moved forward to the bed, it was time to intercede to prevent an argument. She ought to work for the United Nations –

  But Thomas, bless him, stepped in to help. ‘Did they talk about the future, Alfred?’

  The future, she thought. Such a brilliant choice of words.

  And Dad turned towards him with a strange expression that Shirley slowly realized was gratitude. (Because sometimes families couldn’t talk on their own. Sometimes they needed outsiders to help them.) ‘They don’t think I’m going to get better,’ he said. ‘So we’d better face up to it. I’m on my way out. But I’m going out fighting. I’ve got things to do. Lots of loose ends to tidy up at the Park.’

  Somebody was sobbing. A woman, sobbing. The volume of noise became sensational, terrific …

  ‘He has to ask the doctors if he wants to go back to work,’ said May, to everyone and no one. ‘He hasn’t mentioned it. They might not agree. Dirk, dear, sorry, you’ve had a shock …’

  The shuddering roars came from Dirk, not May. Dirk had come in while Alfred was speaking. Dirk had come in, and no one had noticed. He was standing with Mum, his face buried in her shoulder. All Shirley could see was his leather jacket, the pattern of studs heaving and shaking.

  ‘You can’t all stand there bawling,’ said Alfred, with a hint of his old sardonic humour. Indeed he was back in control again, now he had seen his news take effect. ‘Making a spectacle of yourself. Now you older ones had better move aside and let me have a word with Dirk. Not you, May,’ (irritably). ‘You stay.’

  They wandered numbly back down the ward. ‘I don’t believe it,’ muttered Darren. ‘Of course we’ll seek a second opinion. We’ll find someone seriously good in the States.’

  ‘Are you still flying back?’ Shirley asked him.

  ‘We have to, don’t we,’ he said to Susie.

  ‘I don’t see why. We could just make a few phone calls.’

  His face had a spasm of irritation. ‘You’re a therapist,’ he said. ‘You can’t let your clients down –’

  ‘But you’re distressed. Your family’s distressed.’

  ‘Dad’s aiming to go back to work. You heard him –’

  ‘Your mother didn’t sound too sure.’

  Darren stopped on the stairs under an unshaded bulb and leaned against the wall, suddenly. He looked terrible; at least twenty years older. ‘Are you all right, baby?’ Susie asked. There was sweat on his forehead, and on his upper lip. ‘Cancer. It can’t be. Can it?’ he muttered.

  Shirley began to cry, quietly.

  They were still standing frozen in the stairwell when Dirk came running down from above them.

  ‘My God, what have you done to your face?’ Shirley asked. He had great red bruises down his left cheek, and a small dark cut underneath his eye.

  ‘Football match. Christ, it doesn’t fucking matter.’

  ‘Are you all right? Come to the café with us.’ She was still his older sister. She always would be.

  ‘Nah. Come down the pub with me.’ Dirk gestured loosely at all of them. His eyes were not quite moving together.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Susie, sounding suddenly American, ‘we have to go to a dinner party. And then, you see, we don’t really drink.’

  It was the first Shirley had heard of Darren not drinking. Dirk swayed towards her. Her back was to the wall. His blond stubble, she saw, had a thinning patch, and his face (so much coarser than when he was a boy) was red with grief and something else, for as he bent close, she could smell the beer. It was like walking into a brewery. ‘Darling Shirl,’ he said, and sprayed her with spittle. ‘Come for a jar, go on, why not? Come for a drink with your little brother.’

  ‘I think you’ve had a few already,’ she said. ‘Maybe we should go to Casualty. Your poor face. It looks awful.’

  ‘Bollocks,’ he said, but without malice, then ‘Come on, Shirley, come on, Darren, when was the last time we were all together?’

  There was a silence. They were never together. The White family found it hard to be together. The silence extended wretchedly.

  ‘Too good for me, aren’t you,’ he flung at them all, ‘Too bloody good for me, so you think. I lose my job and Dad is dying and my fucking family just don’t want to know. That stupid fucking woman’ (gesturing back towards the ward, presumably in May’s direction) ‘has the fucking cheek to tell me to go home and sober up. My dad’s the only one I care about. My dad’s the only one who cared about me. He wasn’t too proud to drink with me –’

  ‘I’m not too proud to drink with you.’ Shirley tried to reach her arm out and touch him, but he wrenched away so strongly that he stumbled off the step. ‘But I just have to stay and see Mum’s all right. And then Elroy –’ she realized her mistake. Mentioning Elroy wouldn’t help matters. ‘And then I’m being picked up and taken home.’ (But what was that he’d said about losing his job? Surely George and Ruby would never sack him?)

  ‘Fucking Elroy,’ he yelled, half-mad by now, in a frenzy of grief and booze and pain, his face a mess, battered red and shiny. ‘Fucking nigger,’ he yelled. ‘And you. You … nigger-lover … Dirty slag … Can’t believe you’re my sister … Dad made a stand about things like that. People like Dad –’ (and now he was sobbing) – ‘men like Dad –’ (exploding with grief, snot bursting out of his nostrils in bubbles, reddened blue eyes streaming with tears) –

  But he couldn’t finish. He turned and ran. The light caught the studs on the back of his jacket, and they heard him blundering through the swing-doors, then clumsy feet pounding off into the darkness.

  38 • Dirk

  It isn’t true Of course it isn’t Can’t be
true No, no.

  Anyone could see Dad was fit as a fiddle

  He isn’t old, is he? Not old old Not bleeding old enough to die –

  Dirk ran down the road in the stupid moonlight, the stupid moon was laughing at him, its great round stupid gob, smiling. The cruel thoughts came with the beats of his feet, with each panting breath, he couldn’t escape them.

  I lost my job

  I’m losing my dad

  I lose everything I ever had

  Dad was the only thing I cared about

  And Mum, a bit, when she isn’t gabbing. When she isn’t going on at me.

  That’s why she got all weepy on Thursday.

  She wasn’t making sense, so I didn’t get it. Didn’t bother to explain, the stupid cow. Nobody thought that I was worth telling. They think I’m a nothing. A moron. A punk.

  Everybody hates me

  They always did

  They always thought I was stupid and ugly

  They can’t even bear to have a drink with me.

  So fucking what. I don’t fucking need them.

  I’ll fucking show them. I will. They’ll see.

  He went to the pub, where his mates would be, but they weren’t, the pub was full of strangers, full of women, in the first place, which looked all wrong, all over their boyfriends on Saturday night, giggling and shrieking and nuzzling and slurping. He watched them, gagging. Dirk hated women. They hated him, and he hated them. And foreigners. There were a lot of foreigners. Not actual blacks, of course, no, actual blacks didn’t dare show their mugs in here, but Spanish or French or whatever they were, fucking Europeans, fucking dagos, shooting their mouths off in foreign languages, hooting and tooting loud as lords –

  And soon they’d be ruling over these isles. There wouldn’t be a government, it wouldn’t be Britain, they’d just be some piddling little county of Europe, Englandshire, or Englandstein, or whatever disgusting bit of lingo they chose, and everyone would lord it over us … They’ll come to Londonburg for their hols!

  Londonburg! He laughed aloud. It was a fucking good joke against the Krauts, but there was no one here to share it, and they looked at him funny, when he laughed on his own.

  ‘Another pint, mate,’ he called down the counter. The barman was deaf, he didn’t hear what Dirk was saying, standing there chatting to someone else. ‘Oi! Dosser! I’m dying of thirst!’

  Everything’s going. Everything’s gone. There’s nothing left for me round here. Nothing left of what I had. Even Dad won’t be in the Park any more. No one will know us. We won’t exist.

  Darren’s jetting off as though he doesn’t give a sod.

  Darren doesn’t give a fuck about us.

  When Dad is – dead, actually dead, Darren won’t show his face again (he wouldn’t bother, just for Mum. He’ll send me one of his printed Christmas cards, with some smart joke about America, and that’s all I’ll hear from him till next Christmas. Not that I care. Couldn’t care less –)

  ‘Dosser! Whasser matter, have you gone deaf? Can I get some service round here, or what?’

  ‘I think it’s you that’s gone blind, mate,’ said the barman. ‘Dosser’s not working here any more. My name is Paolo. What’ll you have?’

  Cool as anything. Snotty little git. Dosser was my mate, we could have a laugh.

  ‘Pow-lo,’ said Dirk with elaborate irony. ‘Pow-lo. Now that’s a funny name.’

  ‘What’s your name then?’ the barman asked.

  There was a pause before he said, sulkily, ‘Dirk.’ He had never been happy about his name. Some of his mates called him Dick, or Dicky. He wasn’t going to tell this wanker that.

  ‘Well some people might say that’s a funny name. Not me, mind. I’m not a comedian. I never laugh at people’s names.’

  So what was he on about, laughing at mine? Dirk stared at him amazed. He was fucking cheeky. He would have to get the lads to give him a kicking. (But he found it hard to concentrate. The words weren’t coming out as clear as he wanted.) ‘You’re foreign, aren’t you? Pow-lo.’ He belched. ‘We used to have an English barman in here.’

  ‘Born just round the corner, mate,’ the barman said. ‘Now what’ll you have? I’ve got to get on.’

  ‘Heineken,’ said Dirk, confused, disgusted. ‘No, I’ll have two bottles of Holsten Pils.’

  He drank them on his own, musing, brooding. The pub was getting hotter, wilder, noisier, and everything was slurring, jumping, shifting. Perhaps he didn’t feel quite well. He put his head in his hands for a second, but his elbow wasn’t properly fixed on the table or else some joker had pulled it away because the next thing he knew he was on the floor, he had toppled sideways on to someone’s lap and down to the floor. It felt very greasy. He lay there, among the dog-ends and the crisp packets. He felt very sick. He wanted to die. But he wanted to kill the arsehole who’d done it. His leg felt cold. He looked at it. He had spilled his Holsten Pils on his trousers.

  The next moment people were helping him up and he felt very happy, though still rather sick. He felt good, he had friends, he would buy them all drinks. He staggered across to the bar again.

  ‘Pow-lo,’ he called, rather fuzzily, and then tried again, at the top of his voice. ‘POW-LO! OI!’ This time everyone heard him. In fact, they all seemed to be looking at him. It was a good feeling. He was here among friends, he had all their attention, new friends, good friends. He wished he could think of things to say to them. They were waiting for a speech, but no words came. He reached out his hands towards them all, but in the distance he heard the crash of glass, and someone screamed, a bint was screaming. ‘They shouldn’t let them into pubs,’ he said, smiling, smiling at them all, for they all understood him, he could say whatever he wanted to, he could speak freely, they were on his side. ‘Fuckin’ foreigners. Eh? An’ fuckin’ women.’ He nodded at them; his head felt heavy.

  ‘Two pints of Holshdepizh – thass for me,’ he told Paolo, pointing at his chest, and it seemed very funny, this pointing at his chest, his hand got away, he was crossing himself, he’d be a fucking Christian, next, at this rate, which made him burst out laughing again, ‘an –’ Then he was stuck. His brain stalled, grinding. He knew he was buying for someone else, or everyone else, but what were they having?

  ‘No more for you, mate. Sorry,’ said Paolo.

  From then on, his memory of things was uncertain. Someone was pushing him. He pushed them back. He didn’t know why, but everything had changed, they were against him now, they had turned against him, and before he knew it he was out on the pavement, crouched on the pavement, throwing up.

  He sat there a long time, his head spinning, telling himself to get a grip.

  It got colder. Perhaps he slept …

  Then he saw them coming. (When? He didn’t know. He would never be able to answer that question. Someone had bitten great holes in his memory. But he saw them coming, like a happy ending.)

  He saw them coming towards him at the double, running, shouting, his own true mates, Ozzie, Belter, Moke and Westy and all the lads, running like an army, hard and lean, tall and strong, and his spirits surged, they had come to save him, to back him up, for he’d lost a battle, though he couldn’t remember where or why. But when he waved at them, they didn’t seem to know him, then Ozzie spotted him and skidded to a halt shouting, ‘D’ya see them, Dicky? Where did they go?’

  Dirk didn’t know who they were talking about. But then he got it. They were after someone. Chasing the enemy.

  The hunt was on.

  Dirk would never be able to explain the details.

  Wasn’t me that started it, so don’t blame me. I only joined in because they were my mates. Once you have mates, you have to stick by them. Things just happen, then they blame it on you.

  Someone yelled from the front, and we were off again. Usually I’m hard, I’m fast and hard, but I couldn’t keep up, I was all over the place, I kept bumping into parked cars and lamp-posts, the lads were way ahead of me, and the animals we were chasing
were only in view as they turned the corner, and I caught a glimpse –

  They were black as night. Not Pakis, darkies. So black they must have thought they were safe, at night. But they’re not, see. Not round our way they’re not. Not when the lads are out, in force, together.

  It didn’t seem to hurt, when I bumped into things.

  It didn’t stop me. I kept on after them. I thought of my dad; he never gave up. Somehow we chased them down near the Park. They looked a lot bigger, when we got close.

  Why did they decide to climb over the wall? That was disgusting. Showed no respect. My father’s the Park Keeper, remember. The man who actually locks up, at nights. It was a personal insult, like, to Dad.

  Dad would have killed them. But he couldn’t, could he? He was in hospital, flat on his back. Dad couldn’t stop them. It was down to me.

  Who was it decided to go in after them?

  Over the wall, all ten of the lads, shinning over, swarming over, Dirk was the last, and he nearly didn’t make it, fool, failure, out of breath, arms aching …

  But he thought about what happened at the football match.

  No way would he let that happen again. And will-power hauled him up over that wall.

  After that there was another gap in his memory.

  Fucking weird to be in the Park at night, he had never been in the Park at night. It seemed a whole lot bigger. Wilder. Blacker. He couldn’t see a fucking thing, though the moon was out, and the sky was all silver, like the stupid fucking picture Mum had got in the kitchen, always staring at it instead of drying up … by Atkinson Grimshaw. (That must be made up! Dirk was bad enough, but Atkinson Grimshaw!)

  He remembered worrying about Mum and Dad. Once he’d got into the Park, it just didn’t feel right, he wasn’t sure any more it was a good idea, he didn’t feel happy they were all in there, in his father’s place, in the middle of the night, not knowing what would happen, or where it would stop. In the darkness he couldn’t even tell who was who …

  They all looked the same, who was us, who was them?

  They were quite near the edge, he knew that, at any rate, because you could see the lights of the houses. Then someone – he didn’t even recognize the voice, it could have been Moke, it could have been Belter – started yelling blue murder, so the blacks were attacking him, the lads all charged towards the sound of his voice, but Dirk tripped over a bush, went flat on his face, and by the time he managed to get over there it was like everyone on earth was fighting and yelling.