Charlotte found that her reading had undergone a seismic shift. She read now purely for distraction. She had had to scupper the plan to revisit familiar territory: The House of Mirth became hard going—goodness, surely not?; Howard’s End had no appeal whatsoever. As for Paradise Lost—forget it. But distraction took curious forms. High voltage thrillers did not work at all—but then, she had never much cared for crime. P. G. Wodehouse did the trick, but Rose’s shelves could only throw up two titles, quickly devoured. She read Gerry’s Telegraph from end to end, surprised to find herself visiting the arcane suburbs of Business and Sport, and it was a nice diversion to quarrel with the letter writers, and most of the columnists. Rose often brought back a Guardian, and Charlotte fell into that with relief. To know about the world beyond her own present discomfort was somehow deeply important, an antidote to self-absorption. Everything going on regardless, the helter-skelter of the historical process, and in the grand scheme of things you yourself are neither here nor there.
But while still here, hanging in, you wish to perform satisfactorily, and it annoyed Charlotte that the reading habits of a lifetime seemed to be compromised. She was not bolstered by books in the way that she always had been; they were no longer that essential solace, retreat, support system. She thought that she could identify the problem: angst. When everything is wrong—you are in the wrong place, and your body has betrayed you—then malfunction is total. The mind too is out of order.
The malfunctioning mind seemed to require light nourishment only, and of a curious kind—things that would never normally attract her attention. On a foray to the corner shop—essential crutch practice—she bought Good Housekeeping, and read with superficial interest about the age-defying tricks that really work and the secrets of stylish living. No—diversion, not interest. And there was the constant need for reassurance—the need to reach out and touch the world, to make sure it was all still going on, and that even if you were not normal yourself, everything else was. When Rose and Gerry were out, she had the radio on most of the time. The news, on the hour, every hour: ah, attention has shifted to Zimbabwe, to Brussels, to some home-grown political spat; there is a new disaster, a new crisis, someone else is grabbing the microphone.
Charlotte winces at the disasters. People picking their way through floods, on the other side of the globe; a dead soldier, someone’s son; children with stick limbs and swollen bellies. To have sampled distress yourself—in a minor, Western, cushioned way—is to become more sensitive to the distress of others. She flinches. What have I got to complain about?
Gerry was concerned about the cat, which continued to be off its food. Malingering, said Rose, dismissive.
The cat exchange took place at breakfast, on the day that Charlotte was to go to the hospital for her checkup. Rose was writing down the number of the minicab firm for her, in case it was late or did not turn up. Cats were not on her agenda.
“And you will have your mobile on you?”
Charlotte nodded. “Of course.”
Gerry had gone to fetch his raincoat. He came back, with briefcase, kitted out for the office. He hoped that the hospital would go well, to Charlotte; he laid a hand on Rose’s shoulder. “My choir night. Early supper?”
Charlotte was not quite as calm about the hospital trip as she pretended. It would be the first time that she had been farther than a few yards from Rose’s house; the move felt both adventurous and daunting. She was ready half an hour before the minicab was due, and then stood in the window waiting for it. A few minutes before the due time, she realized that she had not thought to look out some reading matter—there was bound to be a long wait, one knew hospital clinics all too well.
She looked around the room—have to find something quickly—the car would be here any moment. Gerry had taken his Telegraph with him. There was a small pile of books on the coffee table—current reading matter. Rose had the new Jane Gardam from the library, and a paperback Carol Shields, both of which Charlotte had read. And there was The Da Vinci Code. This had been sitting there for a while, ignored by Rose; Gerry had acquired it at a station, before a train journey. Whether or not he had read it was not known.
Outside a car hooted. Charlotte grabbed The Da Vinci Code, and hopped toward the front door.
The journey was seamless, the driver entirely helpful, escorting her right to the doors of the hospital. During the journey, Charlotte had established that he was from Eritrea, and that minicab driving was for him a secondary occupation that funded his main concern, which was the compilation of the first dictionary that would give three-way reference between English and the two main languages spoken in Eritrea. This conversation had been prompted by Charlotte’s having noticed that he had a copy of Samuel Johnson’s Rasselas lying on the passenger seat. She had not been able to resist remarking on this, to which he had replied that his interest in Johnson stemmed from the Dictionary, being himself a dictionary man. All this quite took Charlotte’s mind off the business of the day, and confirmed the impression she had had before now—that some of the most interesting people in London are plowing the city in minicabs.
The waiting-room for her clinic was full, as she had anticipated. The lame, the halt, the terminally bored. Charlotte settled herself down and took out The Da Vinci Code. She noted that few others had a book. People read magazines—their own, or the dog-eared ones supplied by the hospital—or they simply sat, staring at each other, or into space. One girl was immersed in a paperback with candy pink raised lettering on the cover. An elderly man had a battered hardback library book. She wanted to know what it was but could not see—unforgivable inquisitiveness, but the habit of a lifetime.
A few pages of The Da Vinci Code, and she knew that she could go no further with this. Moreover, she felt that her reading matter nailed her: the woman beside her had glanced at the book before Charlotte opened it, and given her a complicit smile and nod. I am seen as a Da Vinci Code person, thought Charlotte. Well, there would be a certain affectation in being someone who sat in a hospital waiting-room reading Dostoevsky.
Time passed. For some, the call came; for most, it did not. The waiting-room thinned out—a little. Those whose tolerance threshold was low made inquiries at the reception desk, and reported that the consultant was running late, the level of delay being unspecified. A certain camaraderie sprang up. The woman next to Charlotte was one of those whose hour came; rising, she said benignly to Charlotte, “At least you’ll get time to enjoy your book.”
Her other neighbor was restlessly impatient. She visited the reception desk several times, and came back shaking her head: “Is no good, wait so much. I have job this afternoon.” She was Turkish Cypriot, it emerged, and had broken her wrist tripping over her grandson’s toy fire engine. Complications had set in and there was talk of surgery, she told Charlotte. She patted her bag: “So I have here present for the doctor.”
Charlotte registered surprise.
The woman opened her bag, furtively, and revealed a bottle of Famous Grouse whisky. “I give to the doctor, and then he arrange I have surgery soon, not wait to go on the list.”
“Actually,” said Charlotte, “I don’t think it works like that.”
The woman smiled sweetly. “Oh yes, I think so.”
It seemed to Charlotte that the plot stemmed from a certain innocence rather than guile. She made no further comment, and they exchanged medical experiences until the woman was called. She emerged from the consulting room after a relatively short space of time; Charlotte longed to know if she still had the whisky.
By the time her own turn came she was so accustomed to the wait that a summons came as a surprise—an intrusion, almost. The consultant was not the person who had done the surgery. Of course not. The National Health Service likes to make sure that you achieve as wide an acquaintance as possible among its operatives.
He thought she was doing pretty well. Mobility not bad. Pain unfortunately is always a hazard. It will improve. Patience is essential therapy, I’m afr
aid, with an injury of this kind.
Pleasant man. At how many old women with bashed-up hips has he beamed in that reassuring way? Charlotte began to struggle to her feet, dropping her bag in the process. The doctor hurried round his desk to help her, picking up the bag, and The Da Vinci Code, which had fallen out.
“Ah,” he said, handing it to her. “Isn’t that a terrific read!”
What could one do but nod? Smile.
Anton was reading The Finn Family Moomintroll—in the Tube, back at the flat in the evenings. He had given up concealing what he read, and amiably endured merciless ribbing from his nephew and the other young men. All that mattered, to him, was that his mastery of the language improved by leaps and bounds. At his last session with Charlotte she had been astonished.
He laughed. “You see! That is because I must know how the story goes.”
“We’ll have you on Pride and Prejudice by the end of the month,” said Charlotte.
This increasing facility, this breakthrough, reminded him of childhood, of that extraordinary realization that all those black marks on a page could speak, that they were words, language, that they related to what came out of people’s mouths, out of his own mouth. This time round, the black marks of another language began at last to make sense, to leap from obscurity, to tell a story. It was as though you broke into a new world, were handed a passport to another country. He rode through the city staring at language; advertisements had begun to shout to him, newspapers to inform.
He was anxious to demonstrate his progress to Rose, when they met up for the purchase of the scarf for his mother. He bought a Guardian; solution of the crossword was beyond him, but he could have a stab at the clues, and show her.
He sometimes felt, these days, a sort of exhilaration, and was surprised. Each day on the building site felled him, physically; each evening was spent recovering, but at the same time he could have these periods of uplift, of pleasure, of well-being. They came and went. But when they came, he knew that they signaled a development of some kind. Glimpses of a future. They told him that perhaps he could have a life in this place. A new and different life. That perhaps he could be happy.
He had known happiness. Much happiness. He was a person with a natural capacity for joy, and just for contentment. And then his marriage had turned sour, he had known that his wife no longer loved him. When, in time, she went, he entered a long period of emptiness, of moving from day to day without any expectation, any enjoyment. He was living, but hardly noticed life. He worked, ate and slept—or did not sleep—and there seemed no point to it. And then he lost his job, could not find another, and that, in some strange way, was the prompt, the kick-start. You have to do something, he told himself. Act.
And so here he was. Laboring and recuperating. Reading children’s books. Sniffing the air, perhaps.
Gerry liked to sing. He was a founding member of the local choir. To Charlotte, this was always an unexpected aspect of Gerry; he was not otherwise given to collaborative pursuits, and he was never heard to sing at home—in the bath, or while planing away at that table in his shed—but he had apparently a good tenor voice. He would thus disappear for the evening once a fortnight, and twice a year Charlotte and Rose would hear a Messiah or a Requiem in the big Victorian church a few miles away. Charlotte—and perhaps Rose also—would observe with slight surprise that familiar face lined up amid strangers, singing. It seems such an assertive, expressive, uncharacteristic thing for Gerry to do. But he did, and one respected him for it. The passion and exuberance of sacred choral music seemed so alien to Gerry’s personality; perhaps that was the whole point. Whatever, it was clear that the choir was important to Gerry, and that he enjoyed it.
So, on choir nights, Rose served an early meal, and Gerry would vanish, in noticeably good spirits. They were rehearsing Elijah at the moment; Charlotte had inquired.
She was relieved to be done with the hospital visit, and glad now to have time with Rose, once Gerry had left.
“The consultant was most encouraging. I do feel I can soon get back home.”
Rose eyed her. “Told you to abandon the crutches, did he?”
“Well, no, but . . .”
“I rest my case,” said Rose.
“You’ve had your hair cut. Infirmity has made me so self-absorbed I’ve only just noticed. Nice. Youthful.”
“Aha . . .” Rose glanced in the kitchen mirror. “That was the general idea, I suppose.”
“Tell me,” said Charlotte. “Has Gerry always sung?”
“Intermittently. When there was something to sing with. Why?”
“Just wondered.”
“I know,” said Rose. “It seems a bit un-Gerry. Fine. We all need to act out of character in some way. Maybe I should take up athletics.”
“I don’t think so. Sport was never your strong point.”
“Exactly. Needlework, then. But I don’t deviate, do I? Entirely predictable.”
Charlotte considered her. What is this? And edge to her. Something up? Or down? “On the contrary, you’re confusing me right now.”
Rose laughed. “Far as I’m concerned, Gerry’s choir is essential therapy. Gets him out and about. Company. He never was a pub man, was he?”
“You used to walk a lot, you and Gerry.”
“Mmn. We seem to have given that up.”
There was a silence. Charlotte thought about the mutation of relationships, the shifts and balances. Sometimes Tom had needed her; at others, he could drift away. Mostly they were close; sometimes they quarreled. Alone, you most miss that abiding interaction, the to and fro of it.
“Pity,” said Rose. “I could do with some exercise. I’m getting fat.” She became distant, reflective. Thinking, it would seem.
“Not fat. Just . . . more rounded.”
“Delicately put,” said Rose, suddenly brisk. “Actually, middle-aged spread. Mid-life. Crisis time. I’d better be careful, hadn’t I?” She reached for the paper. “Absolutely zilch on the telly tonight. There’s nothing for it but a good book. By the way, I saw you had The Da Vinci Code in your bag, Mum. How are you getting on with it?”
“Suppose we weren’t who we are,” said Rose to her friend Sarah, “Who would we want to be? We haven’t had children—so we haven’t spent all that time and energy. Maybe we don’t have husbands. What are we doing?”
Sarah looked at her watch. “Fifteen minutes left of my lunch hour probably isn’t enough to deal with that. And what’s this, anyway? You’re the one who said she never wanted a career.”
“This may not be about careers. And that was before I’d not had one.”
“If it’s not about careers, what is it about?”
“Accidents, I suppose,” said Rose. “The things that didn’t happen. Alternatives.”
“Ah. Then I blossomed in the under-tens ballet class, instead of being completely duff, and I’ve been a prima ballerina, and am now a national treasure. You?”
“That is a career. Or are you calling it talent?”
“All right, then. You can have a talent, if you like.”
“No, I think I’m interested in alternatives. But I can’t think of one. Is that lack of imagination? Or is it that once you are what you are you can’t conceive of anything else?”
“Oh, come on,” said Sarah. “You got a job with a film mogul instead of his lordship, and now you’re in Hollywood, and you’re married to Hugh Grant. Sorry Gerry.”
“No, thanks. I don’t like Hugh Grant. And I wouldn’t like the California climate—the weather’s always the same.”
Sarah sighed. “Then I’m afraid you’re stuck with Enfield.” She glanced at her watch. “I told you we’d run out of time—I’ve got to pick up some milk on the way back.” She got up. “Tuesday again next week?”
“Unless I’ve left for California,” said Rose.
Rose and Anton were in Hyde Park; a scarf had been bought—in Selfridges, eventually. Rose had decided that the local Marks & Spencer wou
ld not come up to scratch, and had proposed meeting in Oxford Street. Now, they walked—on a late spring afternoon, when sun and shadow chased over the grass, the trees were in leaf, when things start afresh.
“This is a good place,” said Anton. “It is where the city can . . . breathe.”
“Actually, I hardly ever come here. I haven’t walked here for years. I’d forgotten how much space there is.”
“And all for buy the scarf. So it is a good scarf—it bring us here.”
“I’ll confess,” said Rose. “When I suggested Oxford Street I thought too—I bet Anton’s never seen the park.”
“Ah,” he smiled. “But it is still the scarf that bring us. When I see my mother wear it I shall remember.” He was looking round, intently. “So many dogs. English people are very proud of dogs. You have a dog?”
“No, we’re cat people. At least, my husband is.”
“Big dog, small dog. And then dog chase other dog, like over there, and that woman think the big dog will hurt her small dog, and she is shouting at the man . . .”
“Whoops! Stand-off between dog owners. Ah—he’s grabbed it.” They laughed.
“And now he talk to her,” said Anton. “Perhaps they make friend.”
“And live happily ever after. Like in fairy stories.”
“I hope. Perhaps. But perhaps it is just he ask where she get her nice little dog, he want one like that.”
“Let’s stay with the fairy story,” said Rose. “Shall we sit down for a minute?”
They found an unoccupied bench. “And so many people who run,” said Anton. “If people are not take dog out, they run. We are only people here do nothing.”
“We are recovering from a shopping experience. At least, you are. Men hate shopping.”
He nodded. “And you are be kind to foreigner.”
She thought about this. Is that what I’m doing? Not quite what it feels like, actually.
“I learn these new words,” said Anton. “Foreigner. Migrant. Asylum seeker. But I am not an asylum seeker, I am economic migrant. I learn this from the radio. Economic migrant is better than asylum seeker.” A wry smile. “Asylum seeker is big problem. Economic migrant is perhaps good thing for UK—pick fruit, and work on building site.”
How It All Began Page 13