by Janet Davey
‘“Little White Bull”?’ As I say the words, I feel an urge to put a hand on Randal’s thigh. The impulse – it can no longer be called a habit – disconcerts me. Is it triggered by some verbal prompt, in which case, what? Bull? I stand up and go and sit in the armchair.
‘What’s the matter?’
‘Nothing.’
‘You’re jumpy.’ Randal leans back and locks his hands behind his head. ‘I could get into that stuff. I’ll spend my final years in Downton Abbey or The Forsyte Saga. I must buy a collared waistcoat.’ He unclasps his hands. ‘So is Jude coming round later?’
‘I honestly don’t know. You’ve already asked that.’ I pause. ‘Did your brother fancy me?’
‘Michael? What? Where’s that come from?’
‘Just answer.’
‘Well, I’d say absolutely not.’
‘Oh. OK. You’re probably right.’
‘Have you heard from him or something?’
I consider this and think back to the last time I heard from Mike Doig. I seem to remember that I sent a birthday card the year after Randal left. Mike used to pull up outside the house in a volley of hooting. He once ate twelve barbecued pork sausages. I do not think I ever had a serious conversation with him. It was nothing but jokes with Mike.
‘Lorna?’
‘No, of course not. I don’t mean now. I meant years ago. When we were young.’
‘Same. Same answer. You were never his type, Lorna.’
‘I wasn’t? What was his type?’ I feel faintly miffed.
‘Well, Marilyn, I suppose. Or Susie. What’s this about?’
‘Nothing. I was thinking of brothers and relationships and rivalry. In general, you know. I live with these boys but I don’t really grasp what goes on between them.’
‘Of course you do. This is just navel-gazing. You go in for these intellectual sideshows.’ Randal picks up his phone. His thumb slides and his face relaxes as he communes with a different world. ‘By the way, we’re still young,’ he says, without looking up.
He could never stand to be in the same room as his brother and mother. Individually, yes. Together, no. Ursula has dementia now so the situation might have eased. I consider asking after her but hold back. The conversation always ends up in the same place with Randal saying, ‘I’ve told Charmian to shoot me.’
‘Jude was here last weekend – but things were rocky,’ I say.
‘She’s cute.’ His hand still busy with the phone.
‘Cute?’
‘Yes, she is. She’s more mature than Ross, that’s perfectly—’
I cut in. ‘Yes, it was clear to me—’
‘Oh, calm down, Lorna.’ He sets the phone down.
I take a few deep breaths.
A slow smile spreads across Randal’s face.
‘What’s funny?’
‘I get it. Why didn’t you just tell me? That’s great, isn’t it? I’m really glad to hear he shows signs of life.’
I glance at the door to make sure that it is properly shut.
‘I always guessed a girl was at the bottom of his troubles. He’s come out of it. That’s good. I thought he looked brighter. I said so, didn’t I, last time I was here? You’re ridiculous, Lorna. This is fantastic news. Ewan fancies the girl. So what? For once he’s animated and you come down on him like a ton of bricks.’
I take a few breaths. ‘They are brothers. They’re meant to look out for each other.’
‘They’re young. These things happen. But has anything happened? Why are you being so bloody cagey? One minute it’s supposition and the next you’re hinting at wife stealing. In a way, he’s quite glamorous, our eldest son. He’s on the premises. It’s natural that a girl would be curious about him. At the same age, you would have been the same. He’s shagging her? I suppose that might be a bit awkward. On or off the premises?’
‘I don’t speculate,’ I hiss through bared teeth.
‘And Ross? What does he think’s going on?’
‘I’ve no idea.’
‘It’ll resolve itself.’
‘These things always do?’
‘Don’t look at me like that. Yes, sooner or later they do. Situations of high tension find release. Where are you in all this? You’ve been locked in this weird bonding thing with Ewan. You’re just pissed off he’s cutting loose.’
‘That’s the front door. Here he is.’ I get up. ‘I’m going to find out where he’s been.’
‘Lorna,’ Randal says in a warning voice.
Soft, regular steps, lighter than Ross’s, cross the hall. Through the gap at the door jamb, I see someone pass. The kettle is switched on. Then the toaster. The fridge door thuds as it is shut. I smell burnt crumbs.
There is a kink in the ground-floor layout of the Dairyman’s Road houses. The stairs stand in the way of a clear sightline from the front door to the kitchen. The passage lies offset to one side. I have no more than a tunnelled view when I step into the hall. I see one half of the back door, the end of the table that sticks out, and part of the dresser.
No one is visible – and then he is. He takes a mug and a plate from the dresser shelves. He is ordinary, lovable, nothing remarkable. He goes accompanied by a collection of sad shadows. His hair is at its longest. Ewan looks, whatever the weather, as if he has been left out in the rain.
54
THE THING IS, nothing beats family life. The three of us are sitting at the kitchen table on a Saturday afternoon. You do not need a fissure in the earth’s crust opening up under the Central line. Accident, medical emergency, death, betrayal, or news of any of these, they can all happen at home. My discovery of Charmian – source of delight, according to the Name Your Baby book – involved a phone in the bathroom, as did my second foray into spying, though on neither occasion did I act with intent. Like a master key, shock unlocks some barrier in perception. Time collapses. Can’t wait to see you Cx. There is always another world through the mirror, on the far side of the wardrobe, when the clock strikes thirteen. Over in that place, Frances Bennet is not with the horses.
Randal used to take Ewan out for a couple of hours on a Saturday afternoon to give me a break. He pushed the buggy to Grovelands Park and walked round the lake edged with willows and alders, or along Whappooles Bourne, the stream that flows down the steps of the dam and on through the wood, over gently sloping land. Sometimes he went further afield, pounding along suburban streets. Many of these too in their names recall the old streams, Wellfield, Cranbourne, Muswell. The land was once criss-crossed with water. Silent water, moving or still, that reflected the sky; gurgling, bubbling water in wells and sluices; stagnant ponds. Their courses are now built over and trapped in pipes and culverts. Traffic rolls over them. The Muswell stream that sprang from a mossy well and was believed to have healing properties emerges at Palmers Green bus garage and empties into Pymmes Brook.
Later when Ewan could walk and talk there was more to do, frogs to find, sticks to pick up, but it is the early stage I recall, man and child setting off. In the rain, buggy hood up, plastic cover on, baby shielded and Randal in his waterproofs.
I have tried to imagine what it might feel like if Ewan lived with his father. Not that he has ever offered. The room at the top of the house empty. The problem parked elsewhere. Ewan wandering by the River Stort instead of around North London. The images have merged: Randal with the buggy and Ewan on muddy footpaths. I have never held my loved ones in mind statically, as though trapped in still photographs. They set off. They are free to go. I am not a GPS tracking device.
Ewan has a mouthful of toast. He chews and swallows before replying to Randal’s question about what he has done today. He mutters that he went for a run and then has to repeat it because Randal does not catch what he says.
‘How many K?’
‘Five or six.’
‘Not bad. All on pavement?’
‘No. It’s a woodland trail. Part peat, part woodchip.’
‘Nice,’ Randal says approvingly. ‘
Where were you?’
Ewan chews again, wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. ‘Some of it was a bit slippery.’ He reaches for the butter. ‘Northaw Great Wood.’
‘Oh, out Cuffley way. You should try the Pacific Crest Trail. One of my colleagues does the PCT every year. Mexico to Canada. Two thousand, six hundred and fifty miles, in twenty-nine sections of doable lengths. I think he’s done seven.’
‘Cool.’
‘Do you record your data, mileage and so on?’
‘Not really.’
‘No?’
‘I can’t see the point.’
‘It’s not a bad idea. You can set yourself new challenges. I bought this for myself the other day.’ Randal hitches up the cuff of his shirt and reveals a band on his wrist. He slips it off and hands it across the table. ‘It does all the stuff the old pedometer used to do, plus tracks your sleep, logs your workouts and your food and water consumption. All comes straight up on your phone.’
Ewan fiddles with the gadget. ‘Neat,’ he says. He passes it back to his father, tucks a stray lock of hair behind his ear and smears butter on another slice of toast.
‘And does it talk to you, Randal, and give you bits of well-meaning advice?’ I ask.
‘It does, actually. Don’t mock. It analyses the data and makes recommendations.’
‘“Less meat, fish, bird, egg, cheese, beans, nuts and sitting,”’ I intone.
‘These little information cards pop up in my UP news stream. I find them useful.’ Randal slips the band over his wrist.
‘Don’t you remember Stanley Green and his sandwich boards in Oxford Street? I miss him. And the Hari Krishna people. Are they still there?’
I do not know why I am trying to insinuate myself into this conversation.
‘Nutter, wasn’t he?’ Randal says.
‘He wanted us all to be better, kinder, happier people. I suppose that is a type of madness. He wrote piles of letters to the government, and a novel that was never published. He lived in the house he was born in until his parents died.’
‘There you go then. Classic indicators of derangement.’
‘His book was called Behind the Veil.’ I glance at Ewan but he is not listening. He has absented himself mentally as he and his brothers do when Randal and I are talking. Ewan will not live at home for ever, as the late Stanley Green did. It will not have occurred to him that this might be his future. It is a fear of mine because I see no way out unless through some kind of disaster that might already have happened. Two brothers live at 10 Dairyman’s Road until one Cains the Abel. I, like Jean Lupton, Deborah’s mother-in-law, take the role of nervous lodger.
We were never a family that did everything together – each of us was inclined to wander off – but we functioned. Day-to-day life – meals and so on – bound us. Growing up is a stop-start process that allows all parties to adjust, though there are also decisive partings, giant steps away from home and, in Ewan’s case, back again. He was calm when he returned, having abandoned university – a lifeless calm.
He was an anxious little boy. Oliver and Ross were more placid. Often at bedtime Ewan asked me questions about a person or creature we had encountered – the man who trundled a bicycle laden with bags full of rubbish or a bird that would not stop cheeping. I had to rack my brain to think what he referred to. ‘Is that man/bird all right?’ With him, worry and vitality came roped together. A house further down Dairyman’s Road he insisted was a prison. He would single out a particular black puddle, a charity volunteer dressed up in a panda suit; one winter, it was snow falling. It’s snow, I said. You’ll love it once we’re outside. Or, It’s a house like ours. The windows are metal. Their name is Crittall – and never added the phrase, Nothing to be frightened of, because words have power to make anything real. When Oliver came along he seemed to grow out of the trouble. Babies stop the world from slipping about. Day and night are alike to them, as are objects in their field of vision.
I guessed a girlfriend was the reason for his sudden retreat – or a boyfriend, or his father, or despair. I asked questions and got no answers. I was still finding my way after Randal’s departure. I don’t remember much about that time.
Ewan had lighter days. His face cleared. He talked with normal inflections. He went out with friends. Once, he asked to borrow money to pay for a trip to Berlin. He left his bag on the shuttle bus from Luton airport and in the hassle to retrieve it I lost the moment to find out if he had enjoyed himself. There was often – looking back – a glitch of that kind to break a good spell. That was his one trip and the only night he spent away from home until yesterday. I went up to his room before I went to bed. The roof window was open, letting in a draught of cool air. It was the same in the morning – but daylight.
55
THERE IS A competitiveness thing going on with his son and a bit of boasting but nothing too aggressive. Randal is still sermonising about apps. I suppose his home appliances are all Web connected and he spends spare moments in his working day switching lights on or off, regulating the central heating and testing the burglar alarm. Tiresome for the nanny. If I have a complaint against new technology it is that it plays straight into the fantasies of men. Machines, a need to control, fiddling. These are my three waymarks to world meltdown. The first time I heard the words ‘search engine’ I knew what we were in for.
I have never been party to the father-son conversations up in the loft room. I assume they both made some kind of effort. I guessed from what Randal said and did not say and from the look on his face when he came back down that the encounters were tolerable but not easy. The strangeness of Randal calling on our eldest son in his room as though he were in a private hospital unnerved me. Summoning Ewan down to see his father would have been equally odd – and would he have appeared?
The men slouch, round-shouldered. Randal leans on his elbows and Ewan puts weight on his forearms but it is basically the same posture. They take sneaky looks at each other with a deflected, checking-up kind of appraisal without making steady eye contact. Their eyes are similar, the same changeable, tarnished colour. Both of them, for the time being, tolerate the constraints of the kitchen table, their legs out of sight underneath, crammed between the table legs, their feet placed awkwardly against various heavy items, the food processor and the largest of the cast-iron casserole dishes, the toolbox and a ten-litre bag of compost that has a hole in it. Everything is wedged in like big toys in a small box.
Then Ross walks across his bedroom floor and there is a hush that lasts a couple of seconds as we remember he is up there on the other side of the ceiling, not that any of us will have forgotten him. He turns his defiant regret against himself. We all have reason to feel bruised by his presence.
Randal says he will go and talk to him again in a moment. Ewan, who has finished eating, gets up. He leaves the used plate where it is, gives a half-nod and walks towards the doorway. We hear his feet on the stairs and the click of the door at the top of the house.
‘He looks pretty fresh for someone who’s been running all morning,’ Randal says.
‘He’ll have had a shower,’ I say.
‘Will he? Where?’
‘At Jude’s?’
‘Really?’
‘Well, yes.’
Randal clasps his hands together and rubs his thumb knuckles against his lower teeth.
‘What shall I say to him?’
‘To Ross?’
Randal continues with the tooth rubbing.
‘Say anything. Say what you said before.’
‘I’m conscious that I’m leaving you with this problem.’ He pushes down on the table and stands up. He leans towards me, his hands splayed out. The stance is what I would call aggressive. I don’t know what has brought this on: Ewan’s abrupt departure, without the niceties; the prospect of making no impression on Ross. These are aspects of life I live with every day. I shift my chair back a fraction and look at him. I touch one of the earrings. The cheap feel of the faceted e
dge seems to give me strength.
‘You’ve made my job much harder, Lorna, by being soft with them.’
‘Which job?’
He straightens up. ‘It’s firefighting now.’
‘Oh, OK.’
‘This is not where I want to be.’
‘Well, we all have to live together here. I do what I can.’
He is silent, then, ‘The garden’s very tidy.’
‘Yes, I’ve been clearing up out there.’
‘On your own?’
‘Strangely enough, Randal, I don’t have a gardener.’
‘I’m not talking about a gardener. Get the boys to help. You shouldn’t be doing all the work. This is why you have trouble. Don’t give them money until they’ve earned it. Good behaviour equals reward.’
‘Ah, like lab rats.’
‘Better than queen bees. Wish me luck.’
‘I do.’
Randal turns and walks purposefully across the room. He moves like a mechanical toy. I pick up Ewan’s used plate and put it in the dishwasher. I return the butter to the fridge. A packet of butter can get into a disgusting state. It starts off a nice neat brick enclosed in its wrapper and becomes deformed; an unappetising, smeared mess, infested with specks. Through the ceiling I hear Randal talking. I turn the radio on. The presenter’s voice is soothing.
Miles Davis up next on Jazz Record Requests – and then the trumpet; a long desolate cry that prises day from night. I stretch my arms high above my head.
56
I WALK TO Winchmore Hill to visit my father. It is an anchor.
‘Ground floor. Doors opening … sixth floor. Doors opening,’ the female voice intones. The lift doors close behind me. I go along the corridor and let myself into the apartment.
‘You enjoyed the walk, I expect?’ my father says. He is alone.
The day is dull. The sun has not broken through. It drizzled at one point and I put up my umbrella. I do not know why I should have enjoyed the walk – and then I remember.