Estuary

by Graham Hurley

  Knowing that we somehow have to bring this scene to an end I suggest that we take the wheelchair out onto the patio. It’s sunny. It’s still warm. What better spot for a nice family chat?

  I seize the wheelchair and head for the double doors that open onto the patio. The moment I get one of the doors open, I trigger the fire alarm. As the youngest of the nurses hurries past me, my father lashes out at her, newly furious.

  “Six o’clock. You said six o’clock. You lied.”

  Angry now, I bend to my father, scolding him.

  “Don’t you dare do that. Ever. For God’s sake behave yourself.”

  Something in my voice stills him. Then he bursts into tears again.

  “I want to die” he says, “Leave me to die.”

  Twenty minutes later, out on the patio, I’m feeding my father slices of quiche, crumbled bits of cake, and big meaty chunks of pork pie. The food, cheerfully supplied by the nurses, has stilled his tears. His hand darts to and fro between the plate and his face. Between mouthfuls, he’s still banging on about the service. He’s paying a fortune. No one cares about him any more. Can’t I do something?

  Between us, Lin and I try and quieten his fears. It’s a fine hospital. It’s free. The nurses are doing their absolute best.

  “They’re not, they’re not. That’s it. They’re not. You don’t know.” He shakes his head then suddenly sits up straight, staring at my mother.

  “Where’s Peg?”

  My mother is beginning to look defeated.

  “I am Peg” she says very quietly. “It’s me. Peg.”

  “Is she alright?”

  This time my mother doesn’t answer. The last half hour has exhausted her reserves. She’s close to tears herself.

  My father’s head is back. He seems to be looking at something up on the roof.

  “What did they give you to eat at the last hospital?” he asks at last.

  Between us we muster some kind of reply. There’s a fine line between frustration and madness, between rage and insanity, and my father has just crossed it. He has no notion that we haven’t been around. When I mention Spain, he looks totally blank, and in the end I realise he doesn’t know what Spain is.

  “Would you like some more quiche?”

  My father ignores the question. His big hands are poking at the semi-circle of crisps around the plate. Suddenly lucid again, he wants to know when he can get out of this bloody place.

  “They’re here to make you better” I tell him. “It might take a while.”

  At the sound of my voice, his head comes down. He looks me in the eyes as if he’d never seen me before.

  “I want to die” he says again.

  The drive home passes in silence. Even now, my father’s long shadow still lies across our lives, dominating our thoughts, stencilling our dreams, dictating the shape of our waking hours. He wants to know that we’ll be back. Tomorrow. The next day. The day after that. He wants us to know how shocking he feels. And he wants us to know how he’s going to tackle the management about the service. It’s a scandal, charging this kind of money. Something has to be done.

  That night, asleep, I have the strangest experience. I’m lying in bed on the very top of a mountain. The slightest movement, the tiniest miscalculation, and I’ll tumble into the void. Twice I wake up, shaking with fear. Lin tries to calm me. When I tell her about the drop - about the dizzying depths of the valley below me - she says she understands. It’s a nightmare. She’s right.

  Sixteen

  The following evening, back at the hospital, my father is mercifully much calmer. Within ten minutes or so he’s stopped crying and for the next hour, in the hunt for conversation, we slip into a slowly-paced interrogation which proves oddly revealing.

  I’ve bought him new batteries for his portable radio. He’s lost the ability to turn the radio off and the old batteries are already dead. The new ones installed, I tape torn-off strips of address labels beneath the on/off switch and the volume control. For a quarter of an hour, we rehearse each action. On/off, on/off. Then louder/softer. After a while I think he’s getting the hang of it but every time we abandon one exercise and return to the other, he’s completely forgotten what to do.

  At length, almost amused, he shakes his head.

  “Useless” he confesses.

  I tell him it doesn’t matter. Batteries are easy to replace. Time to extend this little interlude.

  “Do you remember the war?”

  “The what, dear?”

  “The war.”

  He frowns for a moment, trying to locate the word. My mother’s plucking at his arm.

  “The war” she says, “You know, the war.”

  At last he nods. The radio is tuned to Classic FM, a Tchaikowsky symphony. I lower the volume and ease it to one side.

  “So who were we fighting?”

  “The enemy.” This time, he’s smiling. It’s a big, soft, genuine grin. He’s made a joke.

  “That’s cheating” I protest, “I want to know the name of the enemy. Who were they? Which nationality?”

  He frowns again, trying hard to come up with a name, but it eludes him.

  “Don’t know” he says.

  “OK. So which squadron were you with?”

  The frown again. Then another smile, this time of recognition.

  “29.”

  “And?”

  “255”

  For once, there’s no hesitation, no slow hauling-in of the memories. When it comes to his own wartime service, he seems totally certain of the facts. I return his smile, thinking of the two young men under the cedar tree. Should I mention Clark Gable? Would he ever understand? I decide he wouldn’t.

  “Do you know what year it is?”

  “When?”

  “Now.”

  He thinks about the question. Then shakes his head.

  “I don’t know.”

  “The month?”

  “No.”

  “Your father’s Christian name?”

  The smile fades. He’s staring into the middle distance, lines of uncertainty etched deep into his face. Finally, with a rueful shrug, he says he can’t remember.

  “Your mother?”

  “No.”

  “Your birthday?”

  “No idea.”

  We go back to the war, the memories sharper again, each little sortie kindling a fresh smile of recognition. He’d done his training in Florida. He’d been billetted at the University of Miami. He’d met lots of rich Americans who’d been kind of him. The food had been wonderful. They’d done lots of trips in flying boats. Posted to North Africa, he’d flown as a navigator in Beaufighters. His pilot’s name had been Ginger. They’d done umpteen hours together. Then Ginger Lewis had been killed.

  Killed? How?

  “It was a landing accident.”

  “And what about you?”

  “Me?” He’s looking blank again.

  “Weren’t you injured too?”

  “I was in hospital.”

  “Afterwards?”

  “Before. He was flying with another nav.”

  There’s a long silence. More questions would be unkind. His buddy had been killed. The man he’d flown all those hours with, shared all those dangers with, had gone. Another relationship suddenly wrenched away.

  Lin stirs.

  “It must have been terrible” she says softly.

  “What?”

  “Losing him like that.”

  My father is still thinking about the memory. You can tell by the angle of his head, the chin tipped slightly up, the eyes unfocussed.

  At length, he sighs.

  “I had to buy flowers for the funeral,” he shakes his head, “They cost two and thruppence. No one ever paid me back.”

  A while later, I step outside to talk to the nurses. Last night’s episode over the fairy cake still haunts me and I want to know how they’re coping with him. My inquiry prompts a wary exchange of glances. The woman in charge, a cheerful West
Indian, appraises me with a cool smile. According to the badge on her lapel, her name is Anne-Marie.

  “He’s very difficult” she confirms, “He’s a big man. He can get very aggressive. In fact he can be a nightmare.”

  Nightmare? This is strong language. One of the other nurses, a small bird-like woman in glasses, is looking pointedly at her hands. I sense embarrassment. She looks up.

  “He can be sweet, too.” she says, “It must be very frustrating.”

  “For you?”

  “For him.”

  The other nurses nod.

  “He’s good as gold usually” one murmurs, “It’s just sometimes.”

  Anne-Marie is still looking at me.

  “Four of my nurses are pregnant” she points out, “I can’t just ignore that.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “He’s very strong. He gets physical sometimes.”

  “You mean he hits them?”

  “Tries to, yes. He lashes out.”

  I nod. I have no choice. I was here yesterday evening. I saw him do it, lunging at the nurse as she hurried by to silence the fire alarm. Fairy cakes have a lot to answer for. And so does my dad.

  On the way home that night I suddenly remember the last conversation I’ve had with Tom. I can see my mother’s face in the rear-view mirror. For once, she’s not looking quite so upset.

  “Did you get pregnant again?” I ask her, “After having me?”

  She leans forward, cupping her ear. I repeat the question. She smiles, then shakes her head.

  “Not really” she says.

  “You didn’t?”

  “No. I’d liked to have done. I’d liked to have had lots. But no.”

  “So why not?”

  “Dad didn’t want to. In fact he didn’t want children at all.”

  “So how come I turned up?”

  “You were an accident” she smiles at me in the rear view mirror, “It was nothing personal. He just didn’t think that children were something we could afford.”

  I nod, thinking again about Ginger, the dead pilot. My father appears to have shed few tears at his passing but the price of a bunch of flowers had survived 55 years and half a dozen strokes. How come he’d got his priorities in such a tangle? How come shillings and pence were more important than flesh and blood?

  My mother is gazing out of the window at the soft green hump of Butser Hill.

  “He had a terrible time when his father died” she says vaguely, “Did I ever tell you that?”

  Seventeen

  That night, when my mum is over with us watching television, I steal across the road and fetch out the Clarks shoe box again. Under the photographs I find my father’s wartime log book. It’s stiff-backed and falling apart. On the front it says Royal Canadian Air Force - Observers and Air Gunner’s Flying Log Book, and inside - in his exquisitely neat hand - my father has listed the bare details of every sortie he’s ever flown. I weigh this book in my hand. It’s obviously been in some kind of accident because the bottom corner is charred and burned but that somehow adds to the fascination. Each of these careful entries maps my father’s war. It speaks to me more directly than he ever has.

  I begin to leaf through it. Towards the front, glued to a left-hand page, is the certificate recording his progress on the Air Observer’s Navigation Course. His marks on all four subjects were way above 90%, and at the bottom an examiner has given him the thumbs-up. Exceptional in theory, goes the comment. Good in flight.

  From March 1942 to April 1943, 1004994 Pilot Officer Stanley Hurley was UK-based. After that, he staged down to North Africa and from June onwards he was operational with 255 squadron at La Sabala, in Tunisia. On the night of 9/10th July, aloft in Beaufighter VIF 8589, he was vectored onto a suspect bogey 26 miles north east of Bizerte at 14,000 ft.

  The typed combat report is glued into the logbook. Contact with the enemy aircraft was made at 03.12, The Beaufighter lost height and tucked in behind. At a range of one hundred yards, according to the combat report, “fire was opened with all guns”. Small pieces of burning wreckage sailed past my father’s aircraft without causing any damage. Another two-second burst put the starboard engine on fire. The enemy aircraft (“e/a”) lost height in a diving turn to port. From 5,000 ft my dad and his pilot watched the bogey hit the sea and burn for a few minutes. There was no return fire. There were no parachutes. At the bottom of the report, in smudgy capitals, my father had typed CLAIM: ONE CANT. Z.1007BIS (MOD) DESTROYED.

  I look up a moment, making a mental note to check out these bare abbreviations. What on earth was a Cant? How many men did it carry? How many scalps did my dad hang from his belt? His war went on. Five months later, in December ‘43, he was on patrol in the Naples area when the port engine failed. Minutes later, the propeller fell off and the reduction gear disintegrated. Undaunted, the pilot nursed the twin-engined night-fighter back to base. My father’s immaculate copperplate doesn’t waver. Marvellous effort by P/O Lewis, he wrote.

  I pause again. Lewis. This was the man who was killed when my father was in hospital. This was Ginger. I return to the log book. The last mention of P/O Lewis was in January 1944. By then, he and my dad had flown together for nearly 250 operational hours. They’d shot down an enemy aircraft. They’d narrowly survived an engine failure. How odd, once again, that my father’s one overpowering memory is the price of a bunch of flowers.

  Eighteen

  The weeks begin to blur. My father’s been out at Petersfield for a month now and each time we visit he seems to be a different man. Sometimes he’s calm, even placid. Other times he’s ranting, tortured by frustration and a kind of intermittent paranoia. The day room, with its cast of silent, hunched figures, looks out on a tiny strip of lawn. Beyond the thick laurel hedge is a belt of trees and amongst these trees - says my father - are the men. Quite what they’re doing he never specifies but he’s taken to worrying about their work-rate. They’re not putting in the hours. No one’s out there to supervise them. Left to their own devices, they’re just lying around, wasting time, wasting money.

  The latter has been a lifelong obsession of my father’s, dwarfing almost every other consideration, and it’s no surprise when I quietly check with one of the nurses. Are there really men over the hedge? Has dad got a point?

  The nurse looks startled.

  “It’s the back of a block of flats” she says, “We never see a soul.”

  Shortly after this, I have to go away for a four day research trip. I’ve done nothing on the air show book for nearly a month and with the Tattoo only seven weeks away I have a lot of ground to make up. On top of getting the book finished, there are moves to enlist me in an ambitious plan to feed video pictures to a series of giant screens throughout the public days of the show and my years in television have taught me that this little enterprise will be far from straightforward. It’s time, in short, to get back to work.

  On the Saturday evening, I return to Southsea. To my shame, I’ve been far too busy to spare my father much more than a passing thought. The following day, in the afternoon, I take my mother up to Petersfield. She hasn’t been to the hospital since Wednesday. Dad’s sitting in a wheelchair in the corridor. He’s facing the wall and once again he’s howling his eyes out. My father does nothing by halves and his verdict on the nurses is probably audible back in Southsea. No one’s been to see him for half an hour. No one cares. The place is full of bloody women. He’s had enough.

  We gather behind him, not knowing quite what to say, what to do. It’s like being around some dangerous animal. What’s safe to touch? What can we say that won’t trigger a volley of abuse? In the end, I murmur hallo and wheel him into the four-bedded ward where he sleeps. His current room mate, a cadaverous umpteen year old with watery blue eyes, sits crouched over the television. He must be deaf because I’ve never heard Songs of Praise quite so loud. A church choir are belting out There Is A Green Hill Far Away. My dad is ranting about the fairy cakes. My mum and I should have stayed
at home.

  In desperation I wheel him outside, into the sunshine. It’s a glorious day, bubbly white clouds in a blue, blue sky, and a strong south-easterly wind. After the hospital, I have plans to drive down to Hayling Island for a spot of windsurfing. My old Mistral Kalua is strapped to the top of the van and I’m really looking forward to this first expedition of the year. The tides are right, the wind is perfect, and launching at six’o’clock will avoid the worst of the weekend traffic..

  “I want to be left to die” my father yells, “I want to left to die in peace.”

  We’re sitting around a wrought iron table in a little suntrap, protected on three sides by various bits of the hospital. There’s no one else out here, which is probably just as well because my father’s having a bit of trouble with his catheter and keeps plucking at his pyjama bottoms in a bid to ease the discomfort.

  “It’s so tight” he keeps complaining.

  Conversation with him in this mood - indeed in most moods - is a wildly optimistic exercise. He’s not interested in anything we have to say. He’s beyond any kind of meaningful dialogue. The only thing that matters is his own sorry fate.

  In a bid to pin him down, I ask him what hurts, and where. He turns towards me. His big face is contorted with grief.

  “Everything” he says, “Every bloody thing. Here. And here. And my hands. And here. And the table. Everything.”

  My mother tries to calm him but nothing seems to get through. Ignoring her ministrations, he throws back his head and his mouth gapes open in a strange rictus. His big yellow teeth. His cheeks pinked with effort. The anger in his eyes.

  “I’m very unhappy” he informs us gravely, “I’m very, very sad.”

  Defeated, I retreat indoors to the nurses’ station. Has he been this way for very long? Is there something wrong with the catheter? The nurse weighs me up. Truth is an awkward commodity. You never know how much people really want.