Father of the Man

by Stephen Benatar

  Ephraim told him.

  “And to be truthful that’s really why I phoned. You’re my last hope.”

  “Who else have you tried?”

  “Everyone. Half the population of Nottingham. Even the ones who are already out to sue. Like the bank, for example.” What a liar he was! (Anyway, in regard to the first part of that statement.) And how could lying possibly equate—he remembered that inscription he had copied out—with the best feelings of the heart? While he’d been writing those words, he had paused and thought he must do everything he could to be able to lay claim to them himself. One day.

  But that was before he’d grown depressed again.

  Yet lying worked. Nathan laughed. Miraculously—he laughed.

  “How would you pay us back then?”

  “I wouldn’t. Oscar would.”

  “Where’s he going to get the money?”

  “He’ll get a job as soon as he returns. And a well-paid one: at any rate an Oxbridge degree still counts for something. Even now.” He wasn’t quite certain that it did (anyhow, not Oscar’s disappointing two-two) but then neither of Nathan’s children had been to any university, let alone to Oxford. So there had to be a little that he, Ephraim, had managed to get right; perhaps he couldn’t on every count be called a loser; even if he had to give some of the credit—most of the credit—all of the credit?—to the ‘girl’.

  But at least he’d had the good sense, or the discrimination, or the sheer luck, to choose the right girl.

  Or had been guided towards doing so. He very much hoped that this had been the case.

  “And will he pay the interest?” As so often with Nathan—even after more than fifty years—Ephraim wasn’t wholly sure if he was joking.

  “Yes. Naturally. Of course. He would expect to.”

  “Well, I’ll have to ask Angie. She’s the moneylender.” Like Ephraim—like indeed practically everybody else in the family—Nathan had married ‘out’. Their own mother was just about the only one who hadn’t; and look what had become of that! Angie was a theatre sister. “Everything I earn,” added Nathan, “goes on insurances and things.”

  Ephraim didn’t believe this. He knew that a rough translation would have been: You’ve sprung this on me and I’ll have to think.

  “Listen. He’s no more than a boy—he’s just a boy, Nathan.”

  But he wasn’t really worried any more: he knew that even if it were truly a matter of conferring with Angie she would immediately be a lot more sympathetic than Nathan; or at least than Nathan sounded. (Bless you…you mothers of the world.)

  “Okay. You can spare the sob stuff. Where do you want me to send the money—supposing we can rake it up? To your place?”

  “No. No. I’ll find out details. Ring you back.”

  “Haven’t you a fax machine at that crummy dive of yours?”

  “Yes, certainly we have.” A touch of proprietorial pride in that: classy sort of office in which to be allowed to set up your own business; pay your own National Insurance contribution. (Not that he actually had, of course.)

  “Talking of which. Have you made any money at it yet?”

  “Spasmodically. In fact I did quite well my first month.”

  “How much?”

  “About eight hundred.”

  Nathan laughed.

  “Well, if you think that’s funny, you’d simply double up at what I made last month.”

  “Try me.”

  “Nothing at all.” Ephraim’s financial adventurings had always been something of a joking matter between Nathan and himself. “What’s more, I bet you thought I was exaggerating when I said the bank was going to sue.”

  “Weren’t you?”

  “And the building society probably about to foreclose?”

  Nathan had evidently thought he was exaggerating but that Ephraim’s version bore a close enough resemblance to the truth to be practically believable. It was this combination of sailing close to the wind and displaying chronic insouciance that seemed to appeal to Nathan. His laughter was starting to recur with every answer that his brother gave.

  “And this month?”

  “Looks like being the same.”

  Or perhaps Nathan realized there was no real exaggeration and was merely being more honest than most: people might not always laugh, or even want to laugh, at the cockups of others, but there was no doubt that the uprooted tree in your neighbour’s garden made you feel better about the snapped hollyhocks in yours. Nathan was at least receiving some reward for services rendered—for services about to be rendered. He actually admitted as much, without dissemblance.

  “I must say that talking to you can sometimes brighten up even the bloody sort of morning I’m having. And it sounds as though your son is all set to follow in your footsteps…so if for any reason you yourself weren’t here, there’d always be somebody to maintain the family tradition and provide us with reminders of what might have been. If Angie were at home I’d be tempted to ring her right now to pass on the entertainment. Just the same, you can fax me rather than disturb my work a second time. What does Thingummy—you know—that girl of yours—what does Jean have to say about all this?”

  Ephraim had listened with mixed feelings to this relatively long speech. He didn’t object in the slightest to his brother’s family choosing to see him as a buffoon but he didn’t want them casting Oscar in the same role. He didn’t want Oscar at fifty-two to find himself in any situation analogous to his own. And yet, simultaneously, perhaps he did—deep down—but this was not the kind of thing that you could ever confess to; not if you were the natural sort of father who, on one level, wished wholeheartedly for his children’s success in as many spheres as possible that were compatible with decency.

  Also, he didn’t understand this affectation of never being able to remember Jean’s name. Nathan like Jean. So did Angie. (So did absolutely everyone, heaven help him.)

  (And heaven be praised for it, as well.)

  Still. At the moment, of course, he couldn’t afford to take issue.

  “What does Jean have to say about it? Well, she doesn’t know yet about Oscar but if I were to tell you fully about the rest of it you’d soon feel sorry you had asked. Basically she says we keep on repeating the same mistakes, not just ourselves but everyone—that subconsciously I must have chosen to live as I do—and so what the fuck do I intend to do about it? I paraphrase.”

  “Okay, I’m beginning to feel sorry already; and I think I’ve got a client.” Nathan supplied him with his fax number. “And if I don’t get back to you today you’ll know that we did in fact manage to come up with the five hundred. Under extreme pressure. Not to mention blackmail. And we’d better be getting a bloody good Christmas present this year…” He said a quick goodbye and rang off.

  After this Ephraim phoned the Indian High Commission and the Bank of India and the Foreign Office. He was starting to see there were advantages to having fallen out with Barney: despite the latter’s impassioned threat—“We shall talk!”—obviously the time for parley hadn’t yet arrived, however overdue, not even in regard to this protracted series of Ephraim’s plainly personal and (as must with every justification be suspected) long-distance phone calls. Ephraim should have asked Oscar for his number in Calcutta while he was about it.

  Well, perhaps he should give Abby a bell in Belgium (Columbia-speke). That would at least have been something; but unhappily his inconsiderate daughter was bound to be at work.

  In any case, within an hour of reaching the office, he had the Oscar situation sorted out, even down to reporting the theft of the traveller’s cheques and the credit cards; and he was feeling satisfied with his performance. Nathan’s bank would send cash to the Foreign Office by special messenger; the British Consulate in Calcutta would be instructed to release an equivalent sum to Oscar.

  Ephraim had discarded some options and picked up on others. Everyone had been wonderful but he still considered his own part in it no negligible achievement. Perhaps, afte
r all, he couldn’t be so very much of a loser.

  The word ‘achievement’ always reminded him of Neville—who had many years ago been married to Joan, and more latterly to Liz. He had died some eighteen months previously, at the age of seventy-eight. “Old boy, I have achieved nothing!” he would often say. “For a gifted man…I have achieved nothing!” It wasn’t true—not of Neville. But Ephraim suddenly had an intimation of his own approaching end and a desolate awareness of his being afraid to face it.

  11

  Tonight it was especially important he should get an inside seat. If anyone unauthorized was going to try to pull him off the train he wanted there to be as much of a barricade as possible. But maybe, too, it was as much of a psychological thing: the feeling of finding refuge in a corner, of being protected on all flanks.

  He wondered if by any chance the accountant from yesterday might sit beside him. Often it seemed to happen that way: you saw somebody two or three times in quick succession and then not again for several months—if, indeed, ever.

  But he got neither the accountant nor the girls. The seats across from him were taken by men in dark suits, one in his mid-thirties, the other ten years older. They chatted desultorily about the September trade figures, which showed a £1.64 billion deficit, and about the pros and cons of TV cameras being introduced into the House of Commons. Then they settled to their newspapers and there was only intermittent comment as something in particular struck one of them. The seat next to Roger was taken by a student as gangling as himself—they could have been brothers—with a personal stereo and a thick textbook concerning the geological timescale and rock formation and suchlike. Roger felt God had been kind to him; and no doubt because it had been such a very good day generally, believed He might continue to be.

  Perhaps, even, it wouldn’t be last night’s conductor on this train. Rosters got changed, didn’t they? People bluffed. (His dad said he was coming to think you couldn’t take anybody’s word for anything these days.) Was it really too much to hope?

  He discovered that it was.

  “And so you still haven’t got a ticket? Well, I warned you, didn’t I? Last night I told you what would happen.”

  The two men lowered their newspapers. The student removed his earphones.

  “Yes, you did.” Roger noticed the faded blueness of his eyes again almost more than he did the strawberry mark.

  “I don’t get you. This means the police will have to be called out to meet the train at Leicester and all these people will find themselves inconvenienced by a delay of maybe half an hour or more. Have you thought of that?”

  “I’m sorry.”

  The man stood there and gave a sigh—really a deep one. Then he shook his head and shrugged. It took at least fifteen seconds; possibly even thirty. Eventually he moved off. All without a further word.

  Yet almost at once he turned back. “And you’re definitely saying you don’t intend to pay the single fare to Nottingham tonight?”

  “I don’t have the money.”

  He departed again. “Well, what’s all that about?” asked the older of the two men. Roger had guessed that he’d be sympathetic as soon as he’d heard him reading something from his newspaper: “The Prime Minister made clear that she was totally unconcerned that she had been outnumbered by forty-eight to one on the dominating issue of South Africa. ‘If it’s one against forty-eight, I feel very sorry for the forty-eight,’ she remarked.” The man had grinned. “Well, so do I. And that’s what worries me. I used to believe I had a natural affinity for the underdog.”

  The other man had answered: “Seems to me you’ve just displayed it.” Despite their city suits and their veneer of belonging to the Establishment, Roger had surmised that he was blest to have them.

  He related what had happened. He spoke principally to the two men but didn’t exclude the student.

  “Well, I think we should get up a petition for him—fast,” declared the younger…what…actuary, stockbroker?

  “But haven’t they covered themselves? Somewhere in the small print? I’m sure, Greg, there’ll be a line to the effect that they aren’t responsible for any days lost owing to strike action.”

  “Yes, could be. Yet the fact that they’re willing to extend a season ticket suggests they must consider themselves liable.”

  The older one nodded. “In any case, whatever the situation legally, you’d suppose that morally and for the sake of good relations they wouldn’t want to push it.”

  Roger said: “Yes, that’s what I was hoping. Wouldn’t it put them in a bad light having the police come on board to arrest me?” He added, because he found himself in such supportive company and derived a measure of courage from it, something that would have surprised him only two days previously. “And I definitely won’t go out to meet them on the platform.”

  “Would you resist arrest?” asked the student.

  “Oh, no. No. But what I mean is…if anyone who wasn’t a policeman…tried…tried to pull me off the train…”

  The younger man—the one called Greg—was sucking, or gently biting at, the pad of one thumb. “Looks like you’ll become a test case.”

  This statement, too, in its way, was mildly intoxicating. Between the three of them they managed to distract his thoughts as far as Leicester, since, although the two men soon returned to their newspapers (each of them from time to time throwing up some new comment on Roger’s predicament; or merely repeating an old one), the student began a conversation which was by far the pleasantest Roger had ever had with a stranger on a train journey. It was ironic that it should take this kind of incident to promote it, and a coincidence it should occur on the same day that he’d met Jenny. He felt astonished when people started getting up and donning their outdoor things.

  Greg, who was sitting directly opposite Roger, had the ball of his thumb between his teeth once more. He removed it abruptly. “I can see two policemen talking to our friend on the platform.”

  Roger said, “Well, this is it then, isn’t it?”

  Nothing happened. The time and the suspense stretched themselves out: a full five minutes of buttock muscles clenching, bladder-control feeling chancy, feet unable to remain still. Finally it was the student who put an end to this. When he spoke his voice was scarcely louder than a whisper.

  “Isn’t the train moving?”

  Greg said: “Yes…yes, I think it is. My God, it certainly is.” He smiled his relief at Roger. “Looks like you’ve been granted a reprieve.”

  His companion also looked more than merely pleased. “Well,” he said. “Well.” He wiped his forehead on the handkerchief from his breast pocket and laughed. “Another day, another dollar. In this case another mighty battle won.”

  “Or anyhow a skirmish,” suggested Roger.

  “Battle—skirmish—rout…who cares? All I know is: it cries out to be celebrated. What will you lads have to drink?”

  It could have grown into a party. The sad thing was that the party had to be curtailed. Roger needed to change at Loughborough.

  An even sadder thing was that neither of the men was a regular traveller. Far from being stockbrokers or actuaries they were ear-nose-and-throat specialists who’d been attending a day’s conference in town. And equally as disappointing, it was a one-off for the student, too. On the other hand this was hardly a time for sadness. Although he’d had to finish his gin in a hurry Roger shook hands with all three of them. In the entire course of his life he would probably never set eyes again on either Greg or…Anthony…or James; but at any rate they had been there for him this evening, just as the accountant, who was possibly an undertaker, had been there for him last night. If it weren’t for this bolshiness of British Rail he wouldn’t have got to know any of them, even thus briefly, and he felt in that case he would definitely have missed out. So, standing on the platform at Loughborough, it came to him suddenly that he was glad this dispute had arisen. It might be just a question of ships that passed in the night but the more ships he cou
ld at least wave to—if they were friendly and well-meaning craft—then the more varied and worthwhile, surely, would be his own voyage. It was a dictum worthy of his father.

  His only regret at the moment was that he hadn’t asked for phone numbers. It threatened to be a big regret, one which might nag at him indefinitely, and he couldn’t think why he had not done it.

  In the end he had to ascribe it to conditioning. His mother’s influence rather than his dad’s. Could you ever break away from your conditioning?

  He had meant to get some mileage out of Henry’s choice of song; out of the purchase of his birthday card. He had meant to tell his parents a little about his lunch-hour encounter. (He wondered if she had started reading yet—or was perhaps reading at this very minute—Captain Blood; he wanted her to enjoy it nearly as much as though he’d written it himself.) And if his dad were feeling better, and the chance arrived to speak to him on his own, he’d been hoping at last to share his major preoccupation of the week; or joint-major one…now that he’d met Jenny. He would have told him not simply about the bad things but about all the camaraderie as well, his aim being not to worry him but just to find another sympathetic ear, another bit of backup; damn it, it felt unnatural not to be talking in his own home about something so terribly important to him.

  But almost as soon as he had washed his hands and sat down to table his mother exclaimed, “Ah, darling—such exciting news! We heard today from Oscar. He should be home by the weekend.” And even if she again sounded a little cool as she added, “I didn’t learn about it till tonight; your father sorted the whole thing out with Uncle Nathan, which was very kind of him…,” her vivacity quickly returned when she cried, “Oh, shall we throw a party? What a shame your sister’s timing was so poor! I wonder if she’d consider coming back, though, for a killing of the fatted calf…well, at least we can ring her and find out. Paul-Michel might like it, too—he gets on very well with Oscar.”

  The fatted calf! Although he naturally did his best to sound pleased Roger thought the metaphor more fitting than she realized. In fact he exactly understood how the Prodigal Son’s poor boring older brother must have felt. Already he could imagine the grins and the whoops and the hugs, and the interminable tales of exoticism and adventure, and the photographs, and the buccaneering suntan, and the demands for everyone’s attention and for masses of home-cooked food. Oh God! That miserable bloody pickpocket five thousand miles away! Whatever age he was, this rotten sodding thief, wherever he’d been born, the fact that the date of his parents’ coupling should have stirred up such emotions in the stomach of a complete bastard in Nottingham on the 24th of October 1989—such emotions that he could barely lift his fork to try to eat his dinner—was…it was…“I’m sorry but I don’t feel hungry,” he said. “I think I’ll go upstairs.”