by David Nobbs
The silence of the house became peaceful. It was extraordinarily pleasant to telephone the Lewthwaites, from a really rather delightfully proportioned telephone box, and ask for Hilary. It was delightful to listen to her warm, semi-northern voice, to wish her a happy Christmas, and arrange to meet her in the Pigeon and Two Cushions on the 28th. It was singularly stimulating to crunch the snow in the Alderman Chandler Memorial Park, to say ‘Happy Christmas’ to the ocelot and the marmot and the three mangy barn owls, to sit in Cousin Hilda’s stifling basement and drink Camp Coffee and two glasses of sweet sherry, what a momentous concession to the season, delivered with just two mild sniffs, one for each glass. What could be nicer than dry turkey, black gravy, undercooked streaky bacon and burnt chipolatas, with bullet-like roast potatoes, watery sprouts, soft red carrots, and stuffing from two different packets? What did it matter if Liam O’Reilly didn’t have the conversational sparkle of a Wilde or Shaw? His pleasure at this feast was Henry’s pleasure. Cousin Hilda’s pleasure at Henry’s pleasure was Henry’s additional pleasure. What did it matter if Norman Pettifer’s heroic efforts to conquer his jaundiced view of life for the sake of the party were only intermittently successful? Liam had a green hat with two crowns, in his cracker. Norman Pettifer had a clockwork frog. He watched it, with his bemused, disappointed grocer’s face, as it hopped across the table. Liam got the threepenny bit in the pudding. Cousin Hilda smiled at Henry because he wasn’t disappointed.
It would be untrue to suggest that the day was entirely free from tedium. The most lively game of Snap loses some of its sparkle after the first two hours. A purist might complain that the switch to Happy Families came too late. But this was a small price to pay for seeing Cousin Hilda happy.
And then he went to Troutwick and saw Auntie Doris happy. The train was an hour late, due to snow. The great hills shone white all around. They ate roast pheasant with game chips, and not even Geoffrey Porringer’s blackheads could spoil the perfection of the day. Henry was staying in a cottage owned by a Mr Cadge, a man of few words and fewer blankets.
When the last exhausted resident had staggered to bed, Henry sat between Auntie Doris and Geoffrey Porringer on stools at the empty bar. Auntie Doris leant across Henry’s back and whispered something. Geoffrey Porringer said ‘Yes’ and turned to Henry. He smiled with a not totally successful attempt at avuncularity. It was unsuccessful, partly because he was drunk and partly because he had no feel for the avuncular even when sober. ‘Son,’ he said, ‘you’re a little belter. Where are my children this Yuletide? Eh? But you. You’re a horse of a very different kettle.’ He breathed whisky over Henry. ‘Doris, your auntie, my beloved, my little … chickadee …’ He tried to resemble W. C. Fields. Only the nose succeeded. ‘My little angel wishes you to come on holiday with us. We’ve hired a villa. They call it a villa. Bungalow, I expect. View of the sea. In February. And Doris said, “I want Henry to come. He’s the son I never had.” Those were her very thingummies. “Ask him yourself,” she said. “Otherwise he may think you don’t want him.” I mean, it’s not a honeymoon or anything. You won’t be in the way.’ Geoffrey Porringer winked. ‘February. Can you make it?’
‘Where?’ said Henry.
‘Cap Ferrat,’ said Geoffrey Porringer. ‘Very attached to Cap Ferrat, my little chickadee. Been there a lot. Knows it well.’
‘Shut up about all that, Geoffrey. You don’t want to remind Henry of all the good times he and I had with Teddy, do you?’ said Auntie Doris, who always made things worse by protesting about them. She kissed Henry, enveloping him in scent and powder and lipstick and brandy. ‘Please come, darling,’ she said.
‘For you, Auntie Doris, I’ll even tolerate the rigours of the Côte d’Azur,’ said Henry.
He wriggled free, wished them good night and went across the cobbled square to sleep, in his duffel-coat, in Mr Cadge’s cottage.
She kissed him as before. No more. No less. Again, she was wearing flat shoes. She had a tiny blood blemish on her chin. They discussed their Christmasses. Oscar arrived, smiled, pointed at his backside and gave a thumbs-up. A table of strangers stared at him in astonishment. Henry felt very close to Hilary, as they fought together against hysteria.
Snow and ice covered 80% of main roads. In Hungary there was a wary truce as the nation awaited reforms. There were as many stories about the Suez Canal as there were spokesmen. It would be open in seven weeks/ten weeks/fourteen weeks. British salvage ships would/would not be allowed to work with British crews. The clearance was going well/badly/not at all.
On December 29th, Henry and Hilary sat in the Pigeon and Two Cushions and talked about life. On the 30th, they sat in the Pigeon and Two Cushions and talked about life. Talk. Desire. Kisses. A few seconds longer each night. On the 30th, in Perkin Warbeck Drive, her tongue was briefly, luxuriantly, inside his mouth. Like a snake. Then she was gone. Like a snake.
On New Year’s Eve, in Paris, a Bolivian tourist wrote a postscript to the year. He threw a stone at the Mona Lisa. He explained, ‘I had a stone in my pocket and was seized with a desire to throw it.’ He didn’t explain why he had a stone in his pocket.
The rain and the petrol rationing made it the quietest New Year’s Eve in London for many years.
In Thurmarsh there was rain also, and Henry was invited to two parties. A bottle party at Ted and Helen’s. A small gathering of family and friends at the Lewthwaites’.
Ted and Helen’s party would be fun. Three women for whom he had felt great stirrings would be there. Helen, playful with him whenever she felt she had a rival. Ginny, relieved and ashamed because Gordon had come back to her. Jill, scornful. Ben would sit beside his shy, petite Cynthia all evening. Colin was said to be bringing Glenda. That would be an event. There’d be lots of drinking and lots of laughter.
The Lewthwaites’ party would be quite dull, Hilary said, and fairly embarrassing. The only other person under forty would be her obnoxious fifteen-year-old brother, Sam.
It was no contest.
‘Are you my sister’s new lover?’ said Sam.
There was uneasy laughter.
‘Shut up, pest,’ said Hilary.
Peter Matheson was there, with his tall, rather stiff wife Olivia. Well, that was to be expected. Less expected was the balding man with the catastrophic suit, who’d been discussing ‘a personal matter’ in the Winstanley with Mr Matheson.
Four middle-aged people were crammed into a large floral sofa. There were also three large floral armchairs, six Windsor chairs from the dining-room and a wheelchair. In the wheelchair was a pale woman whose face shone with the serenity of suffering accepted with dignity.
‘Meet my mother,’ said Hilary. ‘Mummy, this is Henry.’
Mrs Lewthwaite smiled gravely.
‘Hello, Henry,’ she said.
‘Hello, Mrs Lewthwaite,’ he said.
‘My name’s Nadežda,’ she said. ‘I’m Yugoslavian. Everyone in England ignores my beautiful name, and calls me Naddy.’
‘Then I’ll call you Nadežda,’ he said.
Hilary gave him a look as if to say, ‘Come on: There’s no need to put on too perfect an act.’ She didn’t explain why her mother was in a wheelchair.
Everybody praised his article on Peter Matheson, although Olivia seemed a little dry, saying, ‘I don’t know anybody whose opinion of himself needs bolstering less than Peter.’ She was trying to look relaxed, but maintained something of the air, among all these socialists, of a Victorian missionary looking for good qualities among cannibals.
‘Have you heard from Anna, Hilary?’ said Mr Matheson.
‘Yes,’ said Hilary. ‘She’s … er … in Toulouse, with this pen-friend.’
Henry was terrified that he was going to blush.
‘That’s what she told me,’ he said. ‘Apparently she’s going to become a nun. The pen-friend, not Anna. I can’t see Anna becoming a nun!’ He remembered that the Mathesons thought Anna led a sheltered life, and did blush.
‘We had a lette
r. Not very informative,’ said Olivia.
‘Eloquent with evasion,’ said Peter Matheson. He seemed as pleased with his phrase as he was worried about Anna.
‘And now you’re going out with Hilary,’ said Olivia drily.
‘Yes! I seem to be going through them in alphabetical order!’ Henry went scarlet as he realized the possible implications of his phrase. ‘I don’t mean … er …’
‘We didn’t think you did,’ said Olivia Matheson coolly. ‘I think we know Anna better than that.’
‘And Hilary too,’ said Peter Matheson, slightly too hastily, after slightly too long a pause.
‘Excuse us,’ said Hilary. ‘I must introduce Henry to everybody.’
She led him away.
‘For God’s sake,’ she said. ‘What made you say that?’
‘Embarrassment,’ he said. ‘I find embarrassment incredibly embarrassing.’ He remembered Diana Pilkington-Brick, née Hargreaves, saying that, years ago, on another embarrassing occasion.
She introduced him to the balding man in the disastrous suit, who on this occasion was wearing a disastrous sports jacket. He was Herbert Wilkinson, Chief Planning Officer. Henry’s spine tingled.
‘We met before,’ he said. ‘You were busy with a personal matter.’
‘No mystery about it,’ said Herbert Wilkinson. ‘Peter Matheson’s nephew is marrying our daughter.’
Henry felt a lurch of doubt at discovering that the two men really had been discussing a personal matter. Then he encouraged himself with the realization that he had uncovered opportunities for nepotism.
There were too many people to constitute a group, but not enough to make a successful party. It was all slightly dull, and Henry was so glad that he was there. Little pieces of party food were handed round. There was too much food for snacks, and not enough for a meal, and the food was rather uninspired, and Henry was so glad that he was there. The drink flowed just fast enough to make him wish that it was flowing faster. At midnight they listened to the chimes of Big Ben. They all stood up, except for Nadežda. They linked hands, and formed a large circle among the chairs. Hilary and Howard Lewthwaite were at the side of Nadežda’s chair, leaning down to bring her into the circle. They sang ‘Auld Lang Syne’ without quite enough conviction, as if they thought it absurd, when life is so short, to welcome the end of an old year and naïve, when life is so brutish, to welcome the beginning of a new one. Not all of them knew the words, and it was all vaguely embarrassing, and Henry was so glad that he was there. Then, rather absurdly, they clapped, and stopped clapping too soon, as if they realized that it was absurd. There were no silly hats, no squeakers. They moved around, in slow rotation, and kissed each other, rather formally, wishing each other a happy 1957. Olivia Matheson presented her cheek as if it were a rare privilege. Henry said, ‘Happy New Year, Mrs Matheson,’ and added, silently, ‘in which your husband will be ruined.’ Henry and Hilary hugged each other, and he said, ‘Happy New Year, my love.’ My love! It was the first time he’d used the word ‘love’. He gasped at the revelation. He bent down and kissed crippled Yugoslavian Mrs Lewthwaite. How cold her cheek was. She said, ‘Be careful with Hilary.’ His eyes filled with tears and oh no here was Sam approaching. If Sam saw his tears! He fought the flood back and said, ‘Hello, pest.’ Sam nodded his approval curtly and said, ‘You’re better than any of the last eight. Maybe you’ll last.’ Howard Lewthwaite clasped Henry’s hands in his, and said nothing. Henry told Hilary that he must talk to her.
‘That sounds ominous,’ she said. ‘I know the perfect place. But it’ll be cold.’
‘I don’t mind,’ he said.
They put their coats on and wandered out, away from that anti-climactic gathering of middle-aged people who didn’t quite know what to do now that it was 1957. The rain had almost stopped. They walked off, away from the faint light filtering through the cosy, curtained windows, into the vast black universe beyond. Hilary guided him across the squelching lawn to a rustic wooden summer house. It was milder than of late, but still cold. And there, sitting on a circular bench that ran round the inside of the summer house, on that winter night, they talked.
At first it was difficult. He wanted to ask her about those remarks that people kept making, about her mental illness, about her being a problem. But he didn’t know how to begin.
She shivered.
‘You’re cold,’ he said, putting his arm round her.
‘Not really. More frightened,’ she said.
‘Frightened? Of me?’
‘Of me. Of me and you and the world.’
‘Are you having sexual intercourse in there?’ called out Sam.
‘Shove off, object,’ said Hilary.
‘You’ll get splinters,’ warned Sam.
‘Belt up, monster,’ said Hilary.
Sam belted up and shoved off.
‘He likes me to be rude to him,’ said Hilary. ‘It’s the only kind of affection he can deal with at the moment.’
‘I know.’
‘You know a lot.’
‘Not enough. Not nearly enough.’
‘You want to, don’t you? Make love.’
‘Very much.’
She told him why she was frightened. She told him of the man she had loved, who had left her for another. She told him how she had fought her despair, and sought consolation, after a few drinks, after a party, with a man she hardly knew. And how the man had gone too fast, and she had tried to draw back. She couldn’t look at Henry as she told him how the man had raped her. She told him how the man had got away with it, because if a woman had a few drinks, was pleasant to a man, flirted a bit with him, the world said she was asking for it. She told him what it was like to wake up in a hospital ward, among total strangers, not knowing where you were, and to realize, gradually, that this was the same old you, the same old earth, the fight had to go on, you hadn’t taken a large enough dose, you’d been found too soon, by people who would always wonder whether you’d meant to be found, when you’d yearned for the peace of eternal blackness. She told him what it was like to face the distress of those you loved and realize that you had almost killed your crippled mother. She told him what it was like to realize that you had no alternative but to try not to do it again. ‘I’m permanently diminished by the disgust I feel,’ she said. ‘I think you ought to go.’
‘I’ll never go,’ he whispered.
She kissed him gently, on the lips.
‘I don’t know if it can work,’ she said.
‘Of course it can,’ he said. ‘You know it can. You’ve known these last few days.’
‘I’ve known I hope it can,’ she said. ‘You’re the first man I’ve felt even remotely safe with since it happened.’
‘I’m not sure if that’s a compliment,’ he said.
‘It’s meant to be the greatest compliment I’ve ever paid to anyone.’
They clutched each other, and sat motionless and silent.
‘Anna said …’he said at last.
‘Anna said what?’
Could he? Should he? ‘Anna said … you were mentally ill.’
‘I’ve had a lot of depression,’ she said. ‘And I tried to kill myself. And I went very inward. If that’s mental illness, I’m mentally ill.’
He clasped her left hand. It was icy. He had to fight the temptation to tell her that her tiny hand was frozen.
‘Every day I hear the screams of the world,’ she said.
‘What?’
‘My parents taught me how to care, and now I can’t stop. I hear the agony of people imprisoned without trial. I hear the repression of minorities. I hear the knock on the door in the middle of the night. I hear the screams of the wounded in obscure border wars between countries whose names I can’t pronounce. Not all the time. But every day … somewhere … some time … If that’s mental illness, I’m mentally ill.’
He laid his cheek upon her cold cheek. Mother Nature, that old softie, sent a shaft of moonlight across the trim suburban lawn.
Hilary shuddered.
‘I love you,’ she said.
He couldn’t speak.
‘I never thought I’d hear myself say that again,’ she said.
He couldn’t speak.
‘What a responsibility,’ he sobbed at last. His tears streamed. She massaged his hands gently. ‘I’m so happy,’ he moaned absurdly.
She lent him a small white handkerchief. He felt brutish, violating it.
‘You’re a complete fool, you know,’ he said. ‘I’m clumsy, insensitive, thoughtless, hopeless. I’m a case.’
How they talked, as the clouds drifted back across the moon, as if to say that they shouldn’t expect too much from 1957. He told her about his childhood, all his schools, all his humiliations. He told her about Denzil and Lampo, in Siena. She laughed.
Suddenly she gave a screech of laughter. ‘You did think I’d been in a straight-jacket,’ she said. ‘Poor Henry. How brave you’ve been, waiting for the eruption of madness every second of every day.’ She laughed till the tears ran. He joined in sheepishly. She talked again about what a mistake her holiday with Anna had been. And yet something had been achieved, something of the spirit of Italy had entered her soul. She’d begun, slowly, to enjoy life again, in Durham. She’d begun to hope, to her surprise, that she would see, in Thurmarsh, the funny little journalist she’d met in Siena. She talked about her girlfriends in Durham. She talked about going to London, with Clare and Siobhan, to protest about Suez. Oh god, he wished he’d been there. What did you do in the Great War, Daddy? I admired biscuit tins, son.
She talked about the dreadful days of her mother’s polio attack, two years after Sam was born. She talked about the bronchial days, towards the end of winter, when each year grew more dangerous for her mother. Then they put their tongues in each other’s mouths and kissed and kissed and kissed. The saliva grew cold on their slurpy faces, and their tongues grew slow and gentle, slower and gentler, and more sensitive, and then they removed their tongues and hugged each other.