by Alison Clink
That first Christmas Adrian arrived home with an LP called Please Please Me by a new group called The Beatles tucked under his arm. In later years he returned wearing green desert boots and purple loons. Each term his clothes would be more colourful, his hair longer and his sideburns more bushy. At St Christopher the boys were allowed to grow their hair while all the boys at the state schools back in Kent still had short back and sides. For the first couple of hours after he got home I’d be too shy to even speak to him.
At my own school, however, I laid it on thick, boasting to my friends about weekends visiting St Chris. Listing the names of the best looking boys I’d met, I basked in my second-hand spotlight of fame and fortune. We made the drive to Hertfordshire three times each term and these visits began to shape my world. St Christopher School in Letchworth was without a doubt the most romantic and wonderful place I’d ever been.
At Bromley Technical High School for Girls the only males were the gardener and the gardener’s assistant. Most of the girls in my class half-heartedly lusted after the gardener’s assistant who looked to be about eighteen, even though we knew in our hearts he was short and covered in leaves. At Bromley Tech we wore a navy blue uniform with yellow and red piping on the blazers. We had different hats for winter and summer (felt and straw), a specified three-quarter inch stitching on our plimsolls spelling out our names in red cotton thread and our initials embroidered on our navy blue knickers.
At St Chris there was no uniform. The kids wore anything. Jeans and baggy jumpers mainly. At my school we arrived at each lesson on time in mortal fear of detention for lateness, whilst in Letchworth lessons were optional and the pupils showed up if they felt like it. The kids called the teachers by their Christian names.
St Christopher was a Quaker, vegetarian, progressive, co-educational, experimental boarding school which was home to the offspring of diplomats, television stars and other rich or famous people. Michael Winner went there. Kenneth Allsop’s children were all there. Rupert Davies, TV’s pipe-smoking Maigret, had a son in Adrian’s year. Even Doris Lessing briefly sent her daughter there. At sports days a well-known actor from Z Cars watched his children run their races. For his seventeenth birthday one of my brother’s friends received a Silver Cloud Rolls Royce as a present from his father. And at St Christopher School, Adrian flourished. By the time he was seventeen he was head boy.
I had no idea what the words Quaker (except for the oats), vegetarian (nobody I knew was), progressive (progressive rock hadn’t yet come into being) or co-educational meant. I would, however, have given the pink flowery wallpaper from my bedroom, my Karl Denver LP and the ownership of my Dansette record player to be a boarder at St Christopher School along with my brother. But no matter how many times I asked my father over the next six years, the answer was always the same. He couldn’t afford to send me there. My father sold brake linings for a living – he was no TV star or millionaire businessman. Ninety per cent of Adrian’s fees were met by Bromley Council. So Adrian was educated at a private school whilst I slummed it with the masses. However, in retrospect it’s interesting to note that the male equivalent of my school, Bromley Technical High School for Boys, produced the icon that is David Bowie. I don’t think St Chris could match that one.
*
Martin was one of the friends who always caught up with Adrian during the school holidays. His would be one of the many bikes parked outside our house at the end of each July.
‘Fucking hell,’ Martin says now when I tell him the prognosis we have been given for his friend. This, as I now remember, is what he always used to say – even before everyone else said ‘fuck’ all the time. But of course he’s upset. His emotion is contagious and I can’t carry on the conversation. We both gulp and I have to put the phone down on him. I realise it’s not only I who will be losing someone they love.
Friday 29th June 2007
I managed only four hours’ sleep last night. This morning, Margaret, who lives at the other end of the village, phones to see how things are. In 1992 when I had my premature twins Margaret came to my house to help me with them every week day except Fridays (when she volunteered at the local hospital). She got me through the impossible months the following year when I had six month old twins and the aftermath of a hysterectomy. She stood by me through the death of my mum and now she looks after our dog whenever we go away. I tell her the grim news about Adrian and the one year left to live.
Margaret’s reaction is amazing. She’s so positive. She tells me about her friend, Edwin, who is still going strong even though he’s had cancer for some years and is over eighty.
‘At least they’re going to treat him. And he’s up and about. And he’s going home.’ To my dear friend Margaret this is all very good news.
I feel compelled to pass Margaret’s positivity on to Martin in the email I send him later, hoping it will cheer him too.
*
While out with Billy I receive a text message from Adrian which he’s sent me by mistake since it’s clearly meant for his business partner, Phil. The text thanks Phil for visiting him last night, mentions the latest abortive terrorist attack in London, and ends, Told prob going home 2 day – get the champs out. A.
Adrian would never say this to me. Surely champagne is the last thing he needs. I immediately go into tutting mother mode.
Saturday 30th June 2007
I wake this morning refreshed, thinking about Margaret’s words. They’re still like medicine. After listening to her I’m prepared to believe everything is fine. To believe the proverbial glass is now half full. Adrian’s glass.
But what happens if he starts drinking again? Will he last a whole year?
*
Today is the annual Winchester Writers’ Conference. I’ve been to this for the past five years. I remember the first time I went to Winchester clutching my newly finished manuscript of the first novel I’d written for my Master’s degree, savouring the early summer sunshine and the break from domesticity.
Now I dare to call myself a writer. I’m a mother, a wife, an un-domestic goddess, gardener, taxi driver, nurse, worrier. All those things. But when asked what I do when introduced to new people, I say I’m a writer.
When the girls were eighteen-month-old toddlers and I was a frazzled mess I saw an ad in the local paper promoting a new evening class in Radstock. The article had the tempting heading, ‘Do you want to be an author?’
Did I? I’d always thought I might.
I’d graduated in English and European Literature from Essex University when I was twenty-one, subsequently had lots of odd jobs, then worked on a magazine called Practical Householder which was part of the IPC group. A year later I made a career U-turn and became an Education Welfare Officer in Peckham. After I had Jack I changed jobs and became a Student Services Officer in Hammersmith and West London College. My career had been chequered, but even in my twenties and thirties I could foresee that my smattering of different experiences might come in handy one day if I wanted to write.
In 1986 when Jack and Ed were little I started my own business. Housemaids Domestic Cleaning Services consisted of me juggling a gang of cleaning women against a list of clients who wanted their houses cleaned, either because they were working, were rich, had enormous houses, or suffered from obsessive-compulsive disorder. Six years down the line, when I was an in-patient in the Royal United Hospital Bath waiting to have my twins, I had all my work folders with me. I’m embarrassed to admit I even interviewed a prospective cleaner from my hospital bed.
When I travelled to Radstock on that October evening for the first week of the class – Writing For Profit And Pleasure – I felt less than presentable. I hadn’t had time to feed everyone by half-six and wash my hair. I didn’t have anything decent to wear – but I knew if I didn’t go to the first class then I probably wouldn’t go at all.
For years I’d felt incomplete. As if I didn’t have a career of any substance. Nothing I’d achieved work-wise matched up to what I could
have done, given my education and the hopes of my parents. But whenever I thought about writing I decided there were already too many writers. Thousands of books in libraries. Millions of words written in massive chunks of newspapers. More than anyone could ever read. How could there be room for me?
I soon dismissed those worthy and self-deprecating thoughts and arrived ten minutes late to the writing class. The early evening autumnal sun streamed through the plate glass windows of the college and for the first time in my life I felt I’d discovered a hobby I loved. The tutor set homework and I remember sitting on the sofa at home after I’d put the girls to bed, writing a short piece about them when they’d woken up that morning. I wrote less than three-quarters of a page, but even those few lines seemed a mammoth task. I described the girls’ ‘pyjama clad arms’ as they stretched towards me, begging to be the first to be lifted out of their cot.
Those Wednesday night classes became the focal point of my week in terms of intellectual stimulation. I lived from Wednesday to Wednesday and struggled through the holidays when the classes weren’t running.
Eventually Woman’s Weekly magazine bought one of my stories about a woman who makes a New Year’s resolution to be more friendly to the people she sees every day on her way to work. The fiction editor rang to tell me they wanted to buy it and I danced around the room after I’d put the phone down. I was officially a writer. Someone wanted to pay me for something I’d written. Something I’d made up was going to be read by thousands of people. Before long I was the one teaching the evening class with the late summer sun streaming through the plate glass windows onto a group of people, several of whom were just like I’d been years before.
Meanwhile I’d sold Housemaids Domestic Cleaning Services and used some of the money to enrol on the MA Creative Writing course at Bath Spa University. As part of this course we had to write the beginning of a novel. My novel was about a woman who was in love with two brothers. It was this manuscript I took to Winchester in search of a publisher in 2002.
*
Now, instead of driving to Winchester to listen to people talking about books and publishing, I’ve opted to drive to Westbury (again) and I’m boarding the Paddington train. I have with me my twin daughters, Emily and Frances, some yellow plastic gloves and a packet of J cloths. We’re on a mission to clean my brother’s flat in preparation for his discharge from hospital. If only I could bottle Housemaids Domestic Cleaning Services and put them in my bag too.
Once on board the train I choose a window seat, and settle in. The girls, now fourteen, sit together in front of me. Not long ago they would have fought to take turns to sit beside me. I miss those times but enjoy the peace of being alone, gazing out of the window as the Wiltshire fields turn into sparsely built up areas and eventually into towns.
At this point I still don’t know where Adrian is. He might be back in his flat if he was discharged from hospital yesterday, or he might be in St George’s still, although I suspect the former. There’s no answer from either his mobile or his land line and I don’t have the hospital number with me.
On Paddington station we stop for lunch in a mock wooden Traditional Cornish Pasty Shoppe. An hour later, full of traditional Cornish pasty, we take the tube to East Putney arriving at Adrian’s flat around three. I feel we should knock on the front door just in case he’s there. When no one answers I open the door with the key I still have, and so begins our detective work.
Although Adrian is not here, the evidence points to the fact that he has been. Three NHS hospital carrier bags and some food in a Somerfield bag lie abandoned on the floor in the living room. Ham, eggs, milk, bread, wine and a tin of evaporated milk. All the components of what I know to be my brother’s staple diet. Some of these things should be in the fridge. I feel uneasy about this, but decide to leave them where they are, like a policeman leaves evidence well alone, and sit down for a rest before starting on cleaning the kitchen. When I’ve recharged, I clean the outsides of the unit doors, wipe the radiator and the skirting boards. I’m enjoying myself. It’s satisfying cleaning something that really needs a good clean, but all the time at the back of my mind I’m wondering where the hell Adrian is and, the more time passes, the more I have an increasingly unsettling feeling that something isn’t right. The blood spots on the walls are disconcerting reminders of just how worrying things had become before he was admitted to hospital. I find three blood soaked towels and a T-shirt also caked with dried blood in the laundry basket. This is a lot of blood.
I’m quite happy to leave the girls chilling in front of the TV but I persevere with the cleaning, all the while worrying about Adrian. He knew we were coming today, yet he’s not here and hasn’t contacted me. When has my brother ever let me down in the past? He hasn’t. This is so unlike him. He is one of the most reliable men I have ever known. He’s the most reliable man I have ever known.
I carry on scrubbing.
*
At two a phone rings. It’s Adrian’s mobile in the pocket of his black leather jacket which is hanging on the back of a chair. The girls are still lounging on the sofas. All three of us look at the jacket, wide-eyed, as if we hadn’t noticed it there before – which we hadn’t – and yet none of us moves to answer the phone. Wherever Adrian is he obviously doesn’t have his mobile. The land line then rings and I pick up. On the other end is Bryony who proceeds to tell me what’s happened.
‘I’ve had a phone call from a friend called James…’ she says. Bryony is a quietly spoken, calm person who is another of Adrian’s ex-girlfriends. ‘…James had a phone call from Carole telling him Adrian collapsed in the pub last night and is back in St George’s.’
Bryony gives me Carole’s number, so I ring her. Carole says she’s in a shopping mall nearby but will come to the flat as soon as she can.
She arrives within the hour, small but forthright she sits opposite me on one of Adrian’s sofas. In her strong cockney accent (I love hearing a real London accent again) she explains what happened.
‘I was in the pub last night, you know, The Gardener’s Arms, with Adrian when suddenly he couldn’t breathe. The landlord and all the regulars rallied round. They wanted to call an ambulance but Adrian – being Adrian – was adamant they didn’t and asked me to come with him in a taxi back here. So we got here, and I managed to get him up the stairs and sat him down – where you’re sitting now – but he wasn’t getting better. I was quite scared, to tell the truth. I rang the ambulance even though he told me not to. He was having trouble breathing. I thought, oh my God, he’s going to die if I don’t do something. I’d only bumped into him by chance in the pub in the evening. He’d been there all day.’
So, he must have been discharged from St George’s, bought the food – presumably asking the taxi driver to wait while he went in the shop – dumped his bags in the lounge, and walked out again. At first I’m outraged because he went straight to the pub after being discharged from hospital. But then I think about his life coming to an end. Does it matter what he does now?
‘I went with him in the ambulance,’ Carole continues. ‘He was in such a bad way the paramedics had to give him electric shock treatment more than once to re-boot his heart. One of them said something about all his organs shutting down. I said to the ambulance men, “He’s got a sister in Somerset. Don’t you think someone should contact her?”…’
‘Nobody did contact me, though,’ I say and we bemoan the shortcomings of the National Health Service.
After Carole has left, the girls and I abandon our cleaning schedule, cancel the dinner date we’d arranged with Jeannette, and head for St George’s.
*
Irrationally, I decide to save the twelve pound taxi fare and take the tube to make use of the free tube travel that comes with the tickets I bought this morning. Not a good plan, since, although St George’s is not far from Putney as the crow flies, by Underground it’s a long circuitous journey with at least twenty stops. Our ticket also covers the buses but, because the Lon
don bus routes are a mystery to me, I absurdly plump for the Underground route. We’ve already been on the tube for a good half-hour when we rattle along on the Northern Line and arrive at Kennington. While we are stationary an announcement tells us Tooting Broadway station is closed due to ‘an incident’. Another incident. The world seems to have gone mad with incidents and terrorists. I feel uneasy, although I try not to reveal my unease to Emily and Fran. I keep smiling and chatting before making a snap decision to get off the train at Kennington and exit the London Underground system. We emerge from the tube into the dull sunshine and afternoon heat of Kennington Road where we board a bus which seems to be heading in the general direction of Tooting.
The bus journey is horrendously hot, packed with sweaty bodies swaying and bumping together. We pass through Brixton where the rows of shops make me feel as if I’m in a different continent, hairdressers showing pictures of exotic hair styles and plaiting, African markets glittering with gaudy trinkets.
I feel sticky, anxious and uncertain that we’re on the right bus. I’m so used to Frome, inner cities feel alien to me. Nevertheless, I’ve noticed Londoners are very friendly and polite. People who serve in shops, for example, are affable and tend to smile a lot more than they do in Frome. Is this because they are afraid? Are they smiling in case I’ve got a bomb in my handbag?
I tell the girls we should get off the bus as we seem to be quite close to Tooting, but two boys, who must have heard what I was saying and realised we are en route to St George’s, put us right and tell us to stay on until the next stop. London is suddenly more genial, even if the bus drivers don’t give you a chance to ask where the bus is going before snapping the doors shut on your heels and driving off.