by Tim Parks
But of the four of them, who is the most successful?
It’s a question neither Thomas nor Mary wants to ask. Success should unite the family, not divide it. Yet children these days seem to approach life in a more anxiously competitive and comparative spirit than in the past. There’s no stopping them. From a very young age Sally is calling Mark a klutz, he’s useless at this, useless at that. ‘How thick can you be?’ the firstborn asks. Mark suffers but has learned not to do the same things as his sister. Not to choose the same subjects at school. When their end-of-year exam results come in, it’s easy to say that this school is known to be easier than that, or that school tougher than this. Actually, Mark is doing pretty well at school these days. It’s Sally now who has to say her school is tougher. Mark has no idea, she says, how tough her school is.
Mark fights his father on the ping-pong table. Thomas doesn’t want to lose on purpose. That would be false. ‘When you beat me, you’ll really have beaten me,’ he tells his son. ‘You can really feel proud.’ And eventually his son does beat him. Thomas feels disorientated, even though this has been on the cards for a while, even though he wants his son to do well. Sally cheats at Battleships. Thomas is sure she does, but he lets it go. He doesn’t mind losing at Battleships; it’s mainly a game of luck. In general, he doesn’t mind losing if the other person cheats, just as he doesn’t mind other people in his profession being more successful than himself if they obviously had a head start or preferential treatment. It’s losing on an even playing field that’s unnerving for Thomas. Sally insists she doesn’t cheat. Perhaps she’s just really lucky. Or really good!
Mary doesn’t play games with the children. She doesn’t like playing cards or board games or ping-pong. And since she left work to concentrate on bringing up the children, she’s given up the idea of a career. So she’s not in competition with Thomas there. Or with anyone else, for that matter. She is a successful mother, bringing up healthy and generally successful children. She’s a great cook. Hard to beat her in that department.
Sally is good at the piano but wants to give it up. Thomas and Mary are disappointed, but not slave drivers. ‘If you still don’t like it when you’re fourteen, you can give it up then,’ they tell her. Sally gives up lessons on her fourteenth birthday. On that same day Mark starts taking the piano more seriously, more happily. In a few months he has become a pretty good pianist. Thomas thinks that if he had let Sally give up when she was twelve, Mark would have had a chance of becoming a virtuoso. But how could he have known this?
Sally is also good at skating, at karate, at basketball. Her instructors take Thomas and Mary aside and tell them to encourage the girl to invest more time in this sport, she could be a major success. Each time this happens, Sally drops the sport like a hot potato. She concentrates on making small pieces of jewellery. This was not something Thomas or Mary had foreseen. Mark’s piano teacher encourages him to go to the conservatory to study piano, but Mark decides against this. He starts to draw and make zany posters. Rather surprisingly, Sally compliments Mark on his posters and Mark compliments Sally on her jewellery creations. They are successful adolescents.
Thomas is a high-flying advertising executive. Sally opts to study pharmacology. She gets good grades and is happy. Her father can’t understand a thing when she starts to explain about dose–response complexities. Mark gets into computer graphics and design. Years later, both children will change direction. It turns out they don’t really like pharmacology or computer graphics. Separated from Mary now, it occurs to Thomas that perhaps they chose those fields because that way they could dream of career success without competing with other family members. Did we do things wrong? he wonders. Obviously, he wishes his children well in their new ventures. He hopes they will find paths they enjoy and jobs they can be happy in. He no longer feels the need to be proud of their achievements or to tell friends how well they are doing. His life is going better now, though never without an undertow of regret. Some hours after signing the separation papers, Mary texted:
The winner takes it all. Remember the song? Her destiny. Standing small. A loser.
Thomas cancelled the message quickly.
MISSING
‘I’m supposed to record your responses, is that okay?’
‘If they remain anonymous, sure.’
‘There should have been something about it in the email.’
‘Maybe there was. I just said yes when I saw it was a request from inside the group.’
‘Very generous of you. Anyway, the research is quantitative. There are no names or anything. They take people’s opinions on an issue, then they’re sorted into categories, statistics, and so on.’
‘Go ahead.’
‘Just some basic data to start with.’
‘Okay.’
‘Age?’
‘Fifty-nine.’
‘Occupation – Accounts Director, right?’
‘More or less.’
‘Nationality?’
‘Brit. What else?’
‘Sorry, it’s routine. Marital status?’
‘Do you really need all this?’
‘I guess they’re just categories they divide people up into.’
‘People could lie.’
‘They could.’
‘Married, then.’
‘Okay. Those are the formalities. Now the question under examination: Is it possible to miss someone, yet not want to see them?’
‘What?’
‘It’s a bit of a conundrum, isn’t it? Is it possible to miss someone, and still not want to see them? Meaning this someone.’
‘Why on earth would anyone want to ask a question like that?’
‘Don’t ask me. It’s not my brief to explain the point of the research, I just put the issue to people and record their responses.’
‘Quite, but …’
‘It’s cognitive psychology. Some research your group is sponsoring.’
‘Which makes you a psychology student, I suppose?’
‘Well, I’m an undergraduate, yes. But this is just a way of paying the bills. I’m not actually involved in the research in any serious way.’
‘But why was I selected for interview?’
‘I don’t think anyone was selected. As I understand it, they were starting with people in the group in the hope they would be more amenable, given that the group is sponsoring it all. Then because they have your company emails to fix appointments. It’s quite difficult getting people to stop on the street. Everyone’s busy. Then for this project we’re supposed to encourage in-depth responses.’
‘I haven’t got oceans of time myself. Talking about depth …’
‘Of course. Let’s say five minutes. Just a couple of quick reflections. Is it possible to miss someone, yet not want to see them?’
‘Hmm. Okay. I think so, yes.’
‘In what circumstances?’
‘God. Hang on. Well, you could take the case of someone who is dead.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘Take my mother. She died last year.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘For heaven’s sake. She was in her nineties. But the fact is, I’m still not used to it. I still think, Oh, I’ll call Mum about that. Automatically. Then realise she isn’t there. Or I think, Mum would have given me good advice about that, knowing of course that she’ll never give anyone any advice again. In particular, when I go to London – she lived on the outskirts, near Twickenham – it seems strange not to touch base with her first thing on arrival, not to spend one of my London days with her.’
‘So, you would say you miss her.’
‘The term seems to have been invented, yes, to describe these emotions.’
‘How much?’
‘Sorry?’
‘How much would you say you missed her? On a scale of one to ten, say.’
‘Oh, I really can’t do the one-to-ten thing. I mean, you can’t put feelings in relation to each other with numbers. It’s
not like volume on the radio.’
‘I know what you mean. I said that myself when they asked me to put that question. What about something more subjective: intensely, occasionally, mildly?’
‘Intensely occasionally. Mildly more often.’
‘I’ll leave them to figure that out.’
‘Give the shrinks some work to do.’
‘Right. So. Where were we? You miss your mother. With occasional intensity. But you don’t want to see her. Right? Why not?’
‘Well, what would it mean to see her?’
‘Sorry? It would mean seeing her, surely.’
‘Precisely. But seeing what, exactly? Where is Mum now? If I want to see my son, I know where he is. He’s at college. He’s nineteen. Four or five years younger than you, I guess.’
‘Six, actually. I was a slow starter.’
‘I find that hard to believe.’
‘It’s true.’
‘Anyway, I can imagine meeting my son. I can visualise his smile, or perhaps frown, when he finds me on the doorstep. We would grab a coffee together, no doubt. Or a beer, perhaps. Depending on the time of day. He would tell me what he’s up to. It would be fun. Or maybe he would tell me about some problem with an exam and I would sympathise and give advice. Or he might even be upset over a girlfriend and I would have to offer the proverbial shoulder, perhaps worry for him, but in the end that is fine too. It is always lovely to see one’s children.’
‘Yes, I like to see my father too. But how does that fit in?’
‘You’re not playing dumb now, are you? Do they ask you to do this?’
‘No, not at all. Did I miss something? You miss your mother, with varying degrees of intensity, but you don’t want to see her. That’s the particular combination that’s being researched. I just didn’t quite get the connection with your son, who you miss but do want to see.’
‘My mother’s dead. She’s a corpse, isn’t she? Or rather, not even. She’s ashes. How could I want to see her? She won’t be smiling when I show up on her doorstep.’
‘You could see her ghost.’
‘It’s a charming idea, but I don’t want to see her ghost. Seeing ghosts would upset my entire belief structure. I’d wonder if I wasn’t going crazy. I prefer missing Mum and leaving it at that.’
‘You could see her in a dream.’
‘I could. I have. I have seen her in many dreams. But I don’t actively want to. I mean, seeing her in dreams isn’t seeing her in reality. I just wake up reminded she’s dead. It’s sad.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘Please don’t be. As I said, it came in the fullness of time.’
‘You wouldn’t like to put the not wanting on a scale of one to ten?’
‘No. Actually, I don’t see how an absent emotion – not wanting something – can be put on a scale.’
‘Well, people do say: I really don’t want that to happen. Using an intensifier.’
‘I don’t want to see her, and that’s that. No intensity.’
‘Okay.’
‘So, case closed; it is possible to miss someone and not want to see them. Are we done?’
‘Well, someone might object that those are rather special circumstances; the person’s being dead.’
‘Nothing special about being dead. It happens to all of us.’
‘Of course, but in this case it is a particular category, isn’t it? We don’t spend all day missing the dead.’
‘I try not to.’
‘So what if the person you miss isn’t dead? Is it still possible not to want to see them?’
‘You said five minutes.’
‘I did. I’m sorry. You’re free to end the interview whenever you want, of course.’
‘Hmm. Is it still possible …? Yes, yes it is.’
‘You don’t seem quite so sure of yourself now. I’m supposed to ask you about levels of certainty. You seemed very clear before.’
‘No, I am sure of myself. But the point is, now it gets more personal, doesn’t it?’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘Well, the fact of my mother’s being dead is hardly anyone’s fault. It doesn’t require a particular narrative.’
‘No.’
‘Everyone loses a mother. Unless you die first yourself, of course.’
‘Right.’
‘Well.’
‘Well?’
‘I’m surprised you can’t see what I’m driving at. You said that the dead were a special category. But in regard to the question you’re asking, is it possible to miss someone and not want to see them? – which means, I suppose, to live in a conflicted state, to feel the impulse that normally makes you want something, and yet not want it – well, in regard to this question, the dead person is a special category only in so far as the conflicted state – missing, not wanting – seems natural, forgivable, no blame or disappointment need be attached.’
‘I’m afraid you’ve lost me.’
‘I don’t believe that.’
‘This is my fourth interview this afternoon. Could you maybe explain in a different way?’
‘Damn. Can I invent, rather than giving a personal example?’
‘By all means. Nothing was said about personal or impersonal. My brief is just to get as many in-depth responses as possible.’
‘Okay, imagine a father happy with a son, enjoying his childhood and adolescence. Then the son turns nasty. Who knows why? Perhaps he gets into drugs and bad company. He despises his father’s way of life. He becomes offensive. He leaves home. Now you might miss him. But you don’t want to see him. You just know that any meeting would be unpleasant. In fact, you’re almost afraid to see him because the meeting would confirm your worst suspicions.’
‘Intensities? The missing, the not wanting.’
‘No, sorry, I refuse to get into that. Though I can imagine that in this case both feelings would be quite intense. You miss the boy, you really don’t want to see the man.’
‘Okay. So, the dead mother, the prodigal son. Actually, you’ve created another situation where someone misses a person as they were in the past and then doesn’t want to see them because they are either dead or otherwise changed. Really, it’s the same thing.’
‘That’s it. That’s how I think the situation you describe becomes possible. Are we done?’
‘Would you mind if I pushed it just one question further? What if I ask: is it possible to miss someone, yet not want to see them, even when that person has not changed in this dramatic way? Death, drugs, downfall, whatever. I mean when it’s the same person you always knew.’
‘I must say the nature of this study is pretty perplexing. I mean, how can they do a quantitative analysis with these kinds of questions and answers?’
‘That’s not my job, unfortunately. I’d love to know that myself.’
‘I’ve heard that psycho researchers often have goals quite different from those the interviewee imagines. I mean, for all I know, this might actually be about how an older man reacts to a younger woman interviewer.’
‘Oh, I don’t think so, because in that case I would be a kind of bait, wouldn’t I? Anyway, you’ve behaved like a perfect gentleman.’
‘I left the door open!’
‘I noticed.’
‘One feels obliged to these days. But do they really not tell you what the exact object of the research is?’
‘Honestly, no. My official brief is to explore the question they’ve given me, put it in as many ways as possible, ask about intensity and circumstances and take back the recordings. They give us a few hours’ training, a long list of follow-up questions, and send us out.’
‘And how do most people respond?’
‘People contacted by email through the group usually give us a few minutes. But not everyone.’
‘I meant, what kind of answers do they give?’
‘All kinds, really. Some people are pretty inventive. Others are surprisingly sentimental. Somebody was talking to me about a pet rabbit
. But if you’re in a hurry, maybe we could clear up this last category: missing someone, who hasn’t changed, but still not wanting to see them. Is that possible, as you see it?’
‘It is possible, yes.’
‘Ah. You sound very sure this time. And the circumstances?’
‘I suppose if the person hasn’t changed, other things will have changed. I mean, in order for the missing/not-wanting-to-see combination to hold there has to be a narrative, otherwise you’d be happy to see someone you missed, all things being as they were at the time when it was a pleasure to be with this person, and presumably at some point it was a pleasure, otherwise you wouldn’t miss them.’
‘So what are the other things that have changed?’
‘The purpose of this research is to collect people’s stories, isn’t it? It’s not quantitative research at all. They want to see how willing people are to confide their personal life.’
‘What can I say? My brief is just to collect in-depth answers to this question for further analysis. If you’d just like to finish that reflection we could call it a day. You’ve been very generous with your time, Mr Paige.’
‘But why would I want to go on, now I feel fairly certain I’m being misled? I wonder how ethical this is.’
‘It’s your call. Actually you seem to me a person who rather enjoys sorting things out. Maybe they’re testing how willing people are to take on complex emotional conundrums.’
‘But I don’t like to be manipulated. I think they should tell us what the goal of the research is.’
…
‘You’re not going to tell me?’
‘I’m as much in the dark as you are, honestly.’
‘What if I don’t believe that?’
‘I can’t make you believe me.’
‘You seem too astute an interviewer not to be in on what the nature of the research is. I mean, you’re not just ticking boxes.’