by Adam Thorpe
That was it. That was the first manifestation of the Problem.
Because, the day before he fell off (or fell over, as he was always correcting his mum to her dotage), he remembered being aware, for the first time, of how happy he was to have this special moment in his life; it was like a gift, a gift from God. (He was still religious at this time, singing in the church choir and helping at Communion.) Probably owing to the presence of the pretty girls of Broad Hill Lane – one, in particular, who was only about fifteen with very dark eyes and a shy smile, from Latham High, but whose name he never got to know – this moment of jumping off the moving bus gave him a glow in his life that was almost, well, sexual. That’s how he judged it now, over forty years on: sexual. Love, love me do, I’ll always be true . . . It was all about letting go, wasn’t it? Your hand slipping from the pole with its white, slightly roughened surface for a better grip, slipping away and into danger and freedom.
He had no memory, in fact, of the fall itself. He woke up in hospital just a second or two, it seemed, after the bus crossed Bodwell Road by Latham Town Library to go up the hill and he was still sitting down at that point. It was a damp day in March and the windows were fogged up with everyone’s breath and damp coats. He was seventeen, in his last year at Dr Malliner’s. Because he’d shot up, the inside of the bus seemed smaller. Cramped, even. His back rolled against the hand-rail if he leant back. He had no girl for the moment – but that was OK because he had to study. He wanted to be a sound engineer and work in radio or television. He fancied, if that wasn’t too strong a word, commuting from Latham to London, as Latham was one of the last stops on the Tube, thanks to the Metropolitan Line – that weird phenomenon that swaps darkness and sooty brick for daylight and fresh air, like a fantasy journey.
When he woke up in hospital he thought he was on the Met Line at Paddington, funnily enough, just pulling out. He tried to get up but nothing happened. There was his mum, asleep in the chair. There were lights flashing, and bleeps. There was a nurse and voices that were echoes. The nurse wasn’t looking at him, but dealing with someone in a bed with bandages around his head. This turned out to be himself.
‘Can – you – hear – me? I think he’s coming round, Mrs Rainer. His eyes are beginning to open.’
They’re fully open, you twerp.
Love, love me do.
Hop it.
‘Mrs Rainer, your son’s coming round. I’ll see if the doctor’s here.’
‘Ted, dear? Ted?’
He hated this name, frankly. It was old-fashioned. Geoff would’ve been ideal. But lovely Uncle Ted had been killed in the last month of the war and as the nephew arrived a few years later all but on the same date, Ted it was. Ted it always will be.
‘Mum, what happened?’
‘Ted, can you hear me? It’s your mum.’
‘What happened, Mum?’
‘It’s your mum, Ted. Ted?’
‘I know it’s my mum, you pranny. What happened? What the heck am I doing here? Mum?’
‘I don’t think he can hear me, Doctor. He’s not saying anything. Oh dear.’
Eventually, of course, he recovered, but it was touch and go. His brain had been bruised by the impact of the pavement kerb on his skull and it was only his youth and his desire to live that had pulled him out of an irreversible coma. But all this, he thought (some four decades on), is irrelevant: the point is, I was definitely conscious, just before, of – I know, the word is appreciation. I appreciated it. So it was taken away from me. The gods took it away from me.
Aha, they said: Ted Rainer (Edward to you, please) is appreciating something.
Yes, he thought, so very long away from it in time: that was the first occasion on which their bleepers bleeped.
‘You fell off the bus, dear,’ said his mum, once he was talking coherently.
‘I didn’t.’
‘You did. You fell off because they didn’t stop.’
‘It was wet, Mum. I slipped.’
‘We’ve been advised to take them to court, because you definitely rang the bell.’
‘Signalled the request to stop,’ said his dad, who had taken time off work at the depot to support Mum.
‘At any rate, you shouldn’t have tried to jump off,’ said his mum. ‘You should have told the conductor.’
Phyllis. Love, love me do.
‘They don’t stop if it’s too delayed,’ said his dad. ‘The request signal. There has to be fair warning, for deceleration purposes.’
‘Listen, they ought to know by now, he’s been taking that bus for – how many years?’
‘Twenty-three,’ said Ted.
His mum laughed. ‘You’re not even eighteen yet, dear.’
‘I’m eighty-eight.’
‘Stop ticking him off all the time,’ said his dad. ‘Let him be.’
That was the first time. The second time, of course, blurred into the third and fourth because he wasn’t yet recognisant of the Problem. And everyone has trivial disappointments. But his early life, following the accident, was definitely spotted with like incidents of a lighter nature. There was a glow of appreciation, and the gods were always listening. No, their bleepers warned them. It was probably done by some electromagnetic impulse on a plane we know nothing about. Undetectable to the human ear.
What was clear as day was that, even back then, he had the power of destruction. That is to say, it wasn’t just personal disappointment or disaster. He could affect the lives of millions.
When he was in his twenties and training at the BBC as a studio engineer (on Dr Who, just then, perfecting the Cybermen’s terrifying beeps), he went for a long walk one weekend. He was already a keen bird-watcher, by this stage, recording their songs on a reel-to-reel. He looked out on Grailsham Valley, a few miles from Latham, and experienced an intense appreciation of its natural beauty. He was with Gale, but not married, and they got down to it in the woods there and then (the one and only time outside – al fresco as it were). The very next day, he read in the local paper about the plans for a major chalk-pit in Grailsham Valley, which naturally went ahead despite local opposition.
Not long afterwards, there was the building of the office block with concrete cladding like a lot of kitchen sponges, just days after he had stood with Gale one golden autumn evening and admired the view of Latham there.
‘Fancy having such a nice view just five minutes from your doorstep,’ she’d said.
‘I’m a bit of a lucky bloke,’ he’d replied, and for the first time in his life he’d looked out on Latham, bathed in evening sunlight with the golden woods beyond, and thought it the most beautiful view possible. He’d felt this glow inside him. Mind you, he was still head over heels with Gale, back then.
And on the Tuesday after, the cranes had moved in, the concrete walls like sponges had gone up.
They had a boy, Simon. God, he’d looked at him one day and thought he was amazing. Simon was five, five and a half. Gale couldn’t have any more, for some reason.
Ted had thought, playing sandcastles with his little lad in the homemade sandpit (they were in Chorley Avenue, by then, and Gale was working part-time as a receptionist at the dental surgery), that Simon was the most beautiful, perfect creation possible. The bleepers had bleeped. The bastards up there had cocked their heads, they had stirred in their pool loungers and said, Oho, Ted Rainer’s appreciating something.
Hit the ground running.
OK, it wasn’t death or mutilation, but the glass door that the gust slammed on Simon the following day sorted that perfection out. Simon’s a session musician, these days, and one of the reasons he keeps to the shadows instead of being out there on stage is no doubt due to the scars, faded though they’ve become with time.
It was around then that the father started to realise his powers. Or his curse. He’d slogged up the hill (for the exercise) to visit his mum and dad, and realised how his dissatisfaction with life might well stem from the angle of the road in front of his childhood home. Everyt
hing on a slope. Kinking his head, he saw the house as raised up on one side. Earthquake effect. But dissatisfaction was safe. When he found himself appreciating Gale, he knew her time was up. He was still head over heels with her, that was the trouble. She was even prettier, to him, than that pretty, dark-eyed girl on the 361. After the trauma with Simon, it was bound to happen. He felt the glow when they were cuddling on the sofa in front of Tomorrow’s World: I’m a lucky bastard, he thought, having Gale to myself. I’m born with the sun in my mouth.
‘I don’t understand it,’ his mum said, three days later. ‘Except I never quite trusted her. I said to your dad, she’s not—’
‘Shut up, Mum.’
‘It’s never the fault of the man, is it?’ said his dad, unexpectedly. They were watching Mastermind, if he remembered rightly.
‘What are you talking about, dear?’
‘Never trust a dentist, I say. Nasty taste, they have.’
It was almost a joke, to his dad.
‘Nebuchadnezzar,’ he added. Because that was the answer to the question on the TV. ‘Though I couldn’t spell it for love nor money.’
Ted, looking at his dad, had glowed inside. Even through his grief and anger. His dad had always been there, solid, a little cack-handed with emotional matters, but solid. Never getting in a strop. Not ever. Watching forklift trucks all day at the depot, and reading his Time-Life encyclopaedias for education, and never getting in a strop. His war limp. His admiration for his son, working at the BBC, meeting famous people like Dick Emery, knowing all about bafflers and birds.
And the bleepers went and they took his dad off. Stomach cancer. Within three weeks, not even leaving him alone for the grand final of Mastermind – won by the bloke who couldn’t get Nebuchadnezzar. It was a bad year and Ted started slipping at work, coming in late, splicing the wrong bits of tape. He had to go freelance, mostly applying his sound skills on stuff like Inspector Morse at Carlton TV.
He was careful, after that. People would say he was a bit glum, try to find him a new partner. He found Sandra himself, but never glowed inside, looking at her. He was careful about that. Once, one time, he did slip up. He appreciated the birds. Trying to drop off to sleep one night over the teenage yobbos’ sozzled shouts (Latham had lost most of its old shops to the chains – and it was no longer all that safe at night, so Latham itself wasn’t in danger of being appreciated, of being destroyed by a nuke strike, say), he thought how lucky he was to be in England, to be able to listen to the birds through his portable hi-tech audio equipment (more sensitive than the naked ear), to rejoice in the lark, in the movement of swifts, in the swish and sway of crows over a ploughed field seen from on high.
It was Mike who showed him the article in the Telegraph, at work, the next morning. The latest shock-survey, the figures, the catastrophic decline in numbers. The imminent end of the British songbird: pesticides and all that.
The gods had done a major job, that time.
Oh, he was very careful, these days. And that’s why he was so cross and upset with himself, now. Simon had come over for Christmas Day in his latest (a flash Toyota with a stitched-leather gearstick), Sandra had gone all out with the goose, Mum had been picked up from the Home and sat there in the corner, ticking everyone off. And he’d settled onto the sofa, a bit sloshed on the lager (he never drank wine, though Simon had brought along some Aussie plonk), and Simon had said, ‘You know where we’re going to go next year, for Christmas?’
‘Tahiti?’
‘Almost. Thailand. The band are booked for one of those posh hotels on the beach.’
Simon’s band played New Orleans-style jazz, electro-acoustic. Ted liked it.
‘We’ll come along,’ Ted had said, and Sandra had laughed, her chins wobbling.
Hit the ground running.
And he’d leant back in the sofa and imagined the beach, the palms, the blue sea, the warmth. And he’d thought, We’ll book a package early. I’ll surprise her. We’ll all be out there. Mum, too. Maybe not Mum. Just us three. And Mum if at all possible. It’ll be paradise.
And he’d felt it: that glow, that warm glow. Thailand, Christmas 2005. That’s us.
And then, the very next day – Boxing Day – they were listening to the radio over breakfast, planning a bird walk up in Ashley Woods, when the news came through. It didn’t even sound that serious, at first. But by the end of the day, he knew. He knew the gods had truly carved the joint, this time, gravy and bones and all.
Ted’s glowing again, they’d said. I think he needs to be taught a strong lesson.
And he would never make amends for it. For moving the earth itself, the earth’s crust, for shifting its spin. For all that death and suffering. It was beyond him to make amends. All he could do was crouch and stay alert, very very alert. Their bleepers would never go off again, he’d sworn that, watching the TV news: the wailing people, the drowned corpses, the little bloke running in front of the wave, the destruction. That was so very careless, Ted.
Never again.
He’d stay glum. He’d watch, as it were, the Request Stop pass by from the driver-only single-decker (about three a day, if you were lucky), and he’d get off at Broad Hill Farm (now the Tech), though it was a walk down. He’d button up his cardie and stay glum, walking down, as it were. Or the next thing you know, he’ll be appreciating the universe. All its lovely stars and symmetry and silence.
THE SILENCE
The robbery went badly. At least, it went badly for us. This was in 1959, in Calcutta. The thieves took my mum’s engagement ring along with the rest of her jewellery which was in a box on a shelf above her bed. She was fast asleep. They took it without disturbing her. That’s what she said.
She woke up in the morning and found the rest of the bed empty. She called out for my father because she thought he was in the loo. Then she went in search of my father in the big living room and noticed the door to the spare bedroom was open. It was too early for the servants: even the sweeper, who had a long white beard and was an untouchable, hadn’t yet turned up. She thought my father was in the spare bedroom having a smoke because she didn’t like him smoking in bed. She pushed the door open, but it stopped halfway, blocked by something which turned out to be my father’s legs.
What I remember is waking up to my mother’s screams over the rumble of my air-conditioner.
Westinghouse, it said, in silvery letters.
My next memory is of my ayah, with very red eyes, taking me out into the garden. Our garden was one huge lawn with thick shrubs growing all round it, and the grass was almost soft. You couldn’t sit on the grass without getting bitten. I wanted to sit on the steps; they were as wide as the house and that’s the way you went in. I would sit on the steps for hours playing with my Dinky toys, the stone cool on my bottom.
My ayah said I couldn’t sit on the steps today. I noticed there were men coming in and out of the house. They had white trousers and white helmets like the policemen who waved at the traffic with sticks.
‘You stay here, Andrew,’ she said. ‘With me, please. At the bottom of the garden.’
She threw a shuttlecock at me and I tried to hit it back with my plastic tennis racquet, over and over. She had never played with me like this before and so it was a special day. The heat made me sweat more than usual because I was concentrating and running about. The grass made my feet sting a bit through my rubber sandals, but I didn’t care. My ayah had shiny black hair and a missing tooth at the side which you could only see when she smiled. Her sari smelt of perfume and of her underarms. She sat on her heels with her sari tucked between her knees and chucked the shuttlecock with a little twist of her wrist, again and again, putting a fold of her sari over her face sometimes so I’d have to wait. Ramji the untouchable sweeper came out and watched us, leaning on his broom and not laughing. He was my favourite and would ruffle my hair and I’d have to guess where he was hiding behind the bamboo curtain in the living room. No one else was allowed to be touched by him but he was alw
ays laughing.
Then I was walking on my own into the huge empty living room with the fans turning round and round. The shutters were closed but the sun had found its way in through the slats, making stripes. The big grandfather clock ticked and ticked and ticked and I thought: This is death.
This seems a ridiculous thought for a boy of five, but my father had died and I knew that by now, although I didn’t yet know he had been killed in the spare bedroom.
At some point later, in England, I learnt how it must have happened: my father was crossing the living room and saw the spare-bedroom door wide open and went to close it. The robber was waiting behind the door with a long curved sword in his hands. We had bought it on a trip to Katmandu and it was used to slice heads off special cows in one go. It was called a kukri. My father had hung our kukri on the living-room wall. ‘Our kukri, who art in heaven,’ he joked. I remember that. Our kukri was very sharp and the robber showed no mercy.