Growing Up for Beginners

by Claire Calman

  The place in Thailand where Hannah was now staying was seven hours ahead, so Eleanor had arranged to speak to her at around four thirty p.m. UK time to wish her a Happy New Year. Conrad arrived at three forty-five, on the dot as usual, and they ate smoked salmon sandwiches, tea and cake, accompanied by conversation in fits and starts. Roger had hunkered down into the Cloud, infuriated at his wife’s refusal to join him for festivities at the Harris’s, and was barely speaking other than the occasional offering of some sort of criticism – of her, the tea, the weather, the Government, people in general, the world. Conrad, in response to his daughter’s prompting, told them about the progress of the enormous new extension at the BM, still under construction. To be fair, although brevity was not his forte, he made his account very interesting, including amusing asides about the finances and the shenanigans and the key players involved.

  Shortly before four thirty, Roger said they should go through to the other room to gather round the computer, where he had arranged extra chairs, and Eleanor texted Hannah to see if she was ready. Roger made the Skype connection and, suddenly, there Hannah was on the screen.

  ‘Hey! Happy New Year!’ She looked brown and happy and relaxed, suddenly rather grown-up. Hannah turned away for a moment to call her friends over to come and say hello. It was difficult to hear because of the background music and it looked pretty packed, with young people talking and dancing behind her.

  ‘I’ve met so many cool people here, Mum, it’s amazing. Joe, Joe! Come over!’

  A young man dressed only in a tie-dye T-shirt and swimming trunks appeared and looped his arms around Hannah from behind.

  ‘Say hello to my parents and my granddad. This is Joe. He’s my – he’s a friend.’

  Joe waved at the webcam and said, ‘Hey, guys.’

  ‘Is there some reason he’s not wearing trousers?’ Conrad queried. ‘Or should I not ask?’

  ‘The place is right on the beach, Dad. Hannah, what’s the bar called?’

  ‘Benny’s Beach Bar – it’s like totally cool. It’s in all the budget travel guides so it’s always buzzing. That’s Benny over there.’ She waved towards the long bar down one side of the room. ‘Hey, Benny, have you got a sec?’ she called out. ‘Come say hi to my mum and dad?’

  The man waved towards the camera from a distance.

  ‘No, come over! Please, please, Benny? Come show them your cool beard.’

  Benny, blond, with a pronounced paunch that made him look heavily pregnant, and wearing a brightly coloured shirt covered in loud flowers, flip-flopped towards the webcam.

  ‘See, Mum, isn’t Benny’s beard like the most fab beard you’ve ever seen?’

  He was sporting a tiny goatee, secured into a miniature ponytail by being threaded through a large blue glass bead.

  ‘Hey, Hannah’s folks!’ He waved at the screen.

  And then Eleanor looked properly at his face. And he looked back.

  She heard a deep sort of moan from her father at her side and she reached for his hand.

  ‘El?’

  ‘Benedict? Is that really you?’

  ‘What?’ Hannah turned round towards him.

  ‘Hey, big sis! How’s tricks? This is awesome.’

  ‘Good God.’ Roger drew a little closer. ‘That’s not your brother, Benedict, surely?’

  ‘Oh, Roger. You’re still… there. Hi. And is that my father with you too? Shit. I mean, wow. This is amazing, man. It’s like totally doing my head in.’

  ‘You’re not my uncle Benedict?’ Hannah turned to him. ‘No way! Wow, we all thought you must be dead. But you look so different, I can’t believe it. You’re so…’ Her voice tailed off.

  ‘Benedict.’ Eleanor’s voice, suddenly clear and unusually loud. Her heart was hammering in her chest as if she’d plunged into icy water.

  ‘Sis. Good to see you. So, this is little Hannah! I can’t believe it. Hey, she’s all grown up and everything. She was just a scrap of a kiddo last time I saw her. Hold fire – you should see mine.’ He called to someone at the back and a tiny Thai woman and even tinier boy, aged only two or three, came towards the camera. ‘This is Arisa, my wife, and the little one is my son, Chatchai.’

  The diminutive duo waved and smiled, though it was clear they had absolutely no idea what was going on. Benedict turned and spoke to them briefly in Thai and they waved again and wandered off.

  Benedict turned towards the webcam once more.

  ‘You’re looking well, er, Father. Um. Dad.’ There was a pause. ‘You know – I’m very sorry about everything.’ Benedict shrugged. ‘The past and all that. I guess I was a real pain in the arse. I know I didn’t make life easy for you and Mum.’

  Conrad’s eyes were shining and he tugged out his cloth handkerchief and briskly wiped his nose.

  ‘It doesn’t matter, my boy.’ Conrad stretched out a hand towards the screen, and touched it for the briefest of moments, then withdrew it. ‘I’m very relieved to see that you’re all right, really I am.’

  ‘FOR FUCK’S SAKE!’ Eleanor’s voice exploded out of her.

  ‘Eleanor! Language! Really, is that necessary?’ Roger clamped his hand tightly round her arm.

  ‘Mum!’ Hannah looked shocked.

  ‘Benedict! For over five years, Dad and I have been worried sick about you. You disappeared. We thought you must be lying dead in a gutter somewhere. But now, here you are and—’

  ‘But I’m fine, El. Look at me – lovely wife, great kid, my own business. Take a chill pill. You always were such a worrier. But there’s no need – I’m fine.’ He smiled and gave her a thumbs-up sign.

  ‘Exactly. You’re fine and fuck anyone else. All this time, you’ve been absolutely fine but you didn’t give a thought to letting us know that. How about a phone call, Benedict? Or a postcard? How dare you? How dare you be perfectly all right, you selfish, selfish bastard? It’s so completely typical of you. You could have made a thirty-second call but you didn’t. I don’t fucking believe it.’ Eleanor stood up suddenly, knocking her chair over.

  Roger clutched her arm again.

  ‘Eleanor,’ he hissed. ‘Calm down. You’re upsetting Hannah with this embarrassing display. Will you control yourself?’

  She yanked her arm away from him.

  ‘Control myself? Control myself! I’ve controlled myself since the day I was bloody born and what good has it ever done me? Has it made me happy? Is that what they’ll carve on my headstone – “At least she always controlled herself”? I’ve never won a fucking medal for it. I’m sick to the back teeth of controlling myself and doing the right thing and saying what I think other people want to hear. I’m sick of being told what to do and what to wear and what to read and how to read it. I’m sick of being told what to think and how to behave – sick of trying to second-guess how other people want me to be. For God’s sake, I have no idea what I want or what I even think any more. I’ve spent so long acting out some twisted idea of how I imagine I’m expected to be that I don’t have a bloody clue who I even am.’

  ‘You’re being over-emotional.’ Roger picked up the fallen chair and set it to rights. ‘You’re feeling tired, clearly.’

  ‘NO, I’m not. Don’t tell me how I feel. You have no idea how I feel.’

  ‘Now, now, Eleanor, you don’t mean that.’ Roger grasped her elbow, directing her towards the chair. ‘Come on, have a little sit-down here and then—’

  ‘Don’t patronise me. Fuck you.’ Eleanor suddenly grabbed the chair and hurled it across the room. There was a glorious splintering of wood as it broke, and a resounding crash like the triumphant clash of cymbals as it careered into a side-table, knocking off a horrible floral vase that had been a gift from Roger’s mother.

  ‘Eleanor!’

  She bolted from the room, grabbing her bag and a coat as she charged out of the house.

  Eleanor ran along the road, half-holding, half-dragging the coat behind her. No doubt Roger would regard her outburst as yet more evidence that she was mad
and menopausal. She slowed her steps for a minute to tug on the coat, realising after a moment that it was her father’s dark wool overcoat rather than her own. It came right down to her ankles, making her feel like a child again, small and powerless. She stamped along the pavement as if she could grind Benedict and his flowery shirt and his preposterous, creepy beard under her boots. God, but it had felt so good to break that chair! Roger must be seething – it was one of the set of eight from the dining room. Poncey repro bollocks that he had insisted on buying a few years ago. Eleanor had never liked them anyway.

  The surge of volcanic rage started to boil up inside her again and, as she passed the end of an unlit alley, she struck a large wheelie bin hard with the flat of her hand. Her palm stung satisfyingly. God, how she wanted to punch someone, break something. She faced the bin and, clutching onto one of its handles, suddenly gave it a bloody good kicking, ramming her suede-clad foot into it again and again – bang, bang, bang! – until her foot hurt. Breathless, her heart racing, she looked around for something else on which to vent her anger. There – a stray lone beer bottle. Eleanor picked it up, weighed it in her hand for a moment, then she turned and chucked it as hard as she could down the alleyway. From the depths of the darkness beyond, there came a scintillating smash as it hit the stones.

  Her mobile rang, vibrating in the back pocket of her velvet jeans: ‘ROGER’. She ignored it and shoved it back in her pocket. Fuck Roger. Fuck everyone.

  Eleanor strode along the road at a cracking pace, thoughts shoving each other in her head. Benedict. Tears sprang to her eyes and she wiped them away roughly with the edge of her sleeve. He was all right. It was hard to believe. All those years of his being such a complete and utter fuck-up. Even before he’d done his disappearing act, he’d caused them all a lifetime of worry – and Eleanor had suffered too. Benedict was like some horrible black hole, hauling in everything, all the attention – both positive and negative – in the household, leaving almost none left for her. Christ, but wasn’t he the most selfish git on the entire planet? Why on earth hadn’t he picked up the phone for a minute, just to let them know he was OK? She exhaled loudly. Because… because he was Benedict, that’s why. It wasn’t in his nature to make that kind of empathic leap, to understand that his family deserved at least to know that he was all right. The thought struck her then that Hannah might be worrying, too. Eleanor never normally swore in front of her daughter; she’d barely even lost her temper in her presence before. She quickly sent Hannah a text to say she was very sorry and that she was OK and would call her tomorrow. She’d give Daniel a call later on this evening.

  And Daddy… She paused in the street for a moment, remembering, then walked on but more slowly than before, letting her thoughts and her footsteps slow down a little. It was surprising. Surely, he should be absolutely furious too? Benedict had always driven him up the wall, though he’d strived to contain his temper. But he didn’t seem to be faking it. He just seemed genuinely relieved.

  Her mobile rang again: ‘ROGER’. She ignored it; not in the mood to talk to him this minute. He wouldn’t leave for the Harris’s until six thirty. She texted her father to say sorry for taking his coat and to ask him to hold on so she could give him a lift, though he often had his phone switched off. A brief text came back immediately:

  Still here. Are u ok?

  She smiled. The ‘u’ was a silly joke for her – because they were the only two people they knew who never usually resorted to text-speak. Conrad would begin a text ‘Dear Madam’ if he could, and Eleanor hated homophonic abbreviations – ‘How R U?’, etc. She needed a bit more time by herself to walk it off, then she’d be calm enough to drive. She responded, saying she’d be back in twenty minutes. Her father would understand this need for time on her own. Roger would be puzzled, inevitably. Well, tough shit.

  Eleanor walked to the fish-and-chip shop on the high street, bought herself a portion of chips and slathered them in salt and vinegar. She hadn’t eaten chips on the street for an age. Roger didn’t really approve of eating on the street as he considered it ‘common’. The chips were delicious, all the more so because the air was bitingly cold; she dipped her nose into the bag to grab a whiff of heat and vinegar. Amazing how restored you could be by something so ordinary. Benedict. And that hilarious beard! She laughed briefly. And he was so fat. No wonder Hannah hadn’t recognised him. He looked like an old hippy, an entirely different species from the golden fallen angel he’d once resembled. She dug in for another chip and turned her steps towards home.

  On the way to her father’s flat, they talked about Benedict.

  ‘I do see why you were so angry,’ Conrad said. ‘Roger was distinctly… unsettled by it, however. I imagine he is unused to seeing you lose your temper?’

  ‘Well, I never do normally, as you know. I just bottle it up in the great English tradition, and walk around seething with rage and resentment. A shrink would have a field day with me.’

  ‘With all of us, no doubt.’

  ‘But were you really not cross, Daddy? I thought you would be. You worked so hard with him, you tried so hard – and he let you – and me – think he was dead.’

  ‘You know, I doubt if he gave it that much thought. It probably didn’t occur to him that we would worry so much. Benedict was – perhaps still is – a narcissist. He is not in the habit of putting himself in someone else’s shoes. I imagine he didn’t think about us much and so assumed it would be the same the other way round?’

  ‘Perhaps. I’ll call Hannah tomorrow and no doubt she’ll have found out more. Hannah has the gift of managing to be nosy yet charming at the same time.’

  She parked near the entrance to his block and turned off the engine.

  ‘Won’t you come in for some hippy tea?’ He laid his hand on hers briefly.

  ‘Thank you, yes, I’d like that.’

  Upstairs, she curled up on the green chaise longue and let her father make the tea, for once. He came in with two mugs and set hers down on the side table next to her, then paused for a moment and left the room again. When he came back, he had a blanket in his hands. Without speaking, he draped it round her like a shawl, and tried to tuck the two ends together rather ineffectually. This rare gesture of tenderness brought tears to her eyes. Conrad took his seat by his desk as usual. Silence filled the room, stretching into the space and the corners, waiting.

  ‘It is not, of course, any of my business, Eleanor, but are you… dare I ask… are you… happy?’

  Eleanor waved a hand as if shooing away a small insect.

  ‘I’m fine.’

  ‘That’s not what I asked.’

  ‘No one expects to be happy all the time. I’m a grown-up. Well. Of sorts. How many people skip about delirious with joy all day long?’

  ‘Again. That’s not what I asked.’

  ‘Stop being so Conrad-ish all the time.’

  ‘Mea culpa.’ He held up his hands.

  ‘Well then, I suppose it depends on what you mean by happiness…’

  Conrad sighed. ‘Do not lead us down the diverting path of philosophical discussion, daughter-dear, when we both know exactly what I mean. A spade is a spade is a spade. I repeat – are you happy?’

  ‘Yes, of course I am.’ Eleanor looked down at her hands, then tugged the blanket around herself more tightly. ‘Well,’ she added, ‘not every minute of the day, of course not.’

  Her father said nothing.

  After almost an entire minute of silence, she looked up and met his eye. Her father, the most dismissive, judgemental person she had ever come across, apotheosis of reason and logic, who usually had no time for emotions other than as a curious topic one might occasionally dissect with the keen scalpel of derision, was looking at her, his own eyes oddly shining as if he might be on the verge of tears himself, an unfamiliar look of – what? Yes… compassion softening those determined features.

  ‘No,’ she said at last, looking down again. ‘I’m not.’

  Tears leaked fr
om her eyes and coursed down her face. At first, she emitted a funny little sound, like a hiccup, and began to weep, her eyes clamped shut, as if to barricade out the wave of pain. But it was too big now, vast and overwhelming, and, at last, at last, the dam could hold no longer. Eleanor released a wail of despair, a raw sound of absolute desolation as of a tree being wrenched apart in the fury of a thunderstorm. She sobbed, her body convulsing in spasms. Quietly then, her father came to her, sank onto the chaise, let her subside against him. He held her trembling form close, speaking softly.

  ‘My dearest girl, my dear, dear Eleanor…’

  At last, she sniffed herself to a halt. He handed her the crumpled cloth handkerchief from his pocket – who used cloth hankies these days? – and she laughed a little and wiped her face.

  ‘I don’t know what to do,’ she said.

  ‘Perhaps you could talk to someone who might help you?’

  She turned to look at him. ‘You mean a therapist? Or a divorce lawyer?’

  Conrad shrugged. ‘Either? Both?’

  They shared a smile.

  ‘He’s not really a bad person, you know. Despite dropping your picture.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘And it’s not as if he beats me or anything awful. I don’t have a proper reason.’

  ‘One might argue that being unhappy is very much a proper reason.’

  ‘But what if it’s all me – that I’m incapable of being happy, no matter how perfect the other person might be?’

  He sighed.

  ‘Well, by that logic, all the more reason for you to consider living on your own, perhaps. One could say that you’re being selfish, a dog in the manger, hoarding Roger for yourself when you don’t really want him, whereas there might well be another woman out there who would be completely happy with him. Perhaps it would be kinder to free him to be with someone else?’

  This was a typical line of argument from Conrad, and Eleanor knew it wasn’t what he thought, not really, but that it was a reasonable premise. You could never win an argument with her father, but you could enjoy the journey, the hills and troughs and unexpected switchbacks.